back to article Microsoft goes into Windows lockdown for builds from May, citing 'public health situation' (yes, the coronavirus spread)

Microsoft on Tuesday said it has decided to halt Windows preview releases in May due to health concerns arising from the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis. "We have been evaluating the public health situation, and we understand this is impacting our customers," the Redmond software giant said. "In response to these challenges we are …

  1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Trollface

    "preview releases [..C and D..] will be suspended"

    And that will not delay anything because they'll just be folded into the B release. No problem, right ?

    1. robidy

      Re: "preview releases [..C and D..] will be suspended"

      Joking aside, this is a smart move right now, slowing down the release cycle will protect business later in the back to work phase, when users who have not been put on un paid leave return to work and turn their devices back on.

      1. Wellyboot Silver badge

        Re: "preview releases [..C and D..] will be suspended"

        Not causing the great internet crash of 2020 will be a good thing!

        Win-10 could also become stable enough (gasp) to be considered almost usable for serious business activities.

        My work machine has a current reboot cadence similar to win95

  2. redpawn

    Devistating

    In this time of crisis I need the daily distraction of evolving features, incompatibilities and random crashes.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Devistating

      and those 6 hour long "your system is updating" interruptions to cat videos, blogging, commenting on El Reg, and generally surfing the web...

      reminds me of the time I saw a client's computer shut down for about that long because windows just HAD to update when he logged on at ~7:30 AM only to NOT be able to use his computer at ALL until ~2PM! And then it was really sluggish because of all of those "background" tasks... [so not really 'usable' for another half hour or so]

    2. Someone Else Silver badge

      @ redpawn -- Re: Devistating

      n this time of crisis I need the daily distraction of evolving features, incompatibilities and random crashes.

      Some folks are easily entertained, I guess....

    3. ITMA Silver badge

      Re: Devistating

      "In this time of crisis I need the daily distraction of evolving features..."

      This is Windows 10 we're talking about - you mean DEvolving features, surely?

      Rounds of stupid crap features nobody asked for, nobody wants, and the vast majority of posts after they have been pushed out are usually "how do I turn the bloody thing off?"

  3. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    This is good

    I can show this article and the one about Chrome to my PM and say "your release schedules that were crazy even before the pandemic need slowing down". Or something along those lines.

  4. OssianScotland

    So basically Microsoft are Self Isolating?

    no text

    1. Ramis101
      Angel

      Re: So basically Microsoft are Self Isolating?

      Only because MS teams is so shonkey.

      Ill get my coat

  5. karlkarl Silver badge

    Might bring back the same phenomenon as Windows NT 3.51. They had so much time to work on bug fixes (waiting for IBM's PowerPC port) that it was really solid!

    Gonna get myself a snapshot of that for the next 2 years :)

  6. Ramis101

    If MS want to do something for the world

    They could re-enable W7 security updates.

    But we just know that's not going to happen.

    1. veti Silver badge

      Re: If MS want to do something for the world

      You should have stopped using W7 before January, when "coronavirus" was a footnote in the news about how China was covering something up. That was the deadline that you were informed of at least nine years ago. If you missed it and you're only just getting around to thinking about it now - well, tough, but I don't think you can blame anyone but yourself for that.

      1. PeterM42
        FAIL

        Re: If MS want to do something for the world

        "You should have stopped using W7 ...."

        WHY???? it's a fuck sight better than ANYTHING MicroCRAP have produced since.

      2. Ramis101

        Re: If MS want to do something for the world

        " If you missed it and you're only just getting around to thinking about it now - well, tough"

        No Fuck Knuckle.

        For exactly the reasons stated below by PeterM42. W8 was a joke and W10 seriously blurs the difference between OS & Malware.

  7. Someone Else Silver badge
    Coat

    So...

    Microsoft is shutting down Windows development to keep Windows from catching a ... virus?

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