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Microsoft Windows Operating Systems Software Build

Microsoft To Release Two Major Windows 10 Updates Next Year (arstechnica.com) 150

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: With the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, aka Windows 10 version 1607, released earlier this week, it's time to look forward to what's next. Windows 10 has multiple release tracks to address the needs of its various customer types. The mainstream consumer release, the one that received the Anniversary Update on Tuesday, is dubbed the Current Branch (CB). The Current Branch for Business (CBB) trails the CB by several months, giving it greater time to bed in and receive another few rounds of bug fixing. Currently the CBB is using last year's November Update, version 1511. In about four months, Microsoft plans to bump CBB up to version 1607, putting both CB and CBB on the same major version. [The Long Term Servicing Branch, an Enterprise-only version that will receive security and critical issue support for 10 years, will also be updated.] Going forward, however, the differences between both current branch variants (CB and CBB) and LTSB will become more marked. Microsoft is not planning another major update this year. There will be no equivalent to last year's 1511 release, but Microsoft will have two next year. These are believed to be codenamed Redstone 2 (rs2) and Redstone 3 (rs3), with this week's 1607 release being Redstone 1 (rs1). Current expectation is that rs2 will have a heavy mobile focus and be shipped simultaneously with new Surface branded hardware.
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Microsoft To Release Two Major Windows 10 Updates Next Year

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  • it might be with you
  • anniversary update (Score:1, Interesting)

    by quonsar ( 61695 )
    is it still wiping random partitions during update?
    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05, 2016 @09:14PM (#52654215)

      I dunno but I suspect we might have further GPO settings removed, further cortana/bing/onedrive/azure/xbox integration (and whatever other rent-seeking crap they can think of), more 2D flat grey uglyness, more forced appy apps (less relevant/useful Win32 stuff), more ads, more telemetry and lots more stuff no one wants of. But hey, they might also give you a couple extra emojis or something! A few shills a.k.a. reviewers will manage to find 4 or 5 irrelevant points to discuss for 2 pages, touting them as upgrades.

      I wish all useful software got ported to Linux... Windows is very quickly turning into a huge turd!

    • by Anonymous Coward
      It didn't wipe anything. It was FOSSHUB, a repository of OPEN SOURCE applications, which had been hacked. People installed malware from it and then blamed Windows 10. http://news.softpedia.com/news... [softpedia.com]
  • by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Friday August 05, 2016 @08:53PM (#52654147)
    I thought, based upon what I read about Windows 10, that Microsoft's new Windows As A Service model would have continuous improvement model, moving away from the major chunks of product upgrades.

    .
    Now I'm reading that there will be two updates in 2017.

    What other Windows 10 disappointments are on the horizon?

    And Microsoft plans to charge a monthly fee for this?

    • by bondsbw ( 888959 )

      And Microsoft plans to charge a monthly fee for this?

      Nope.

      • And Microsoft plans to charge a monthly fee for this?

        Not yet.

        TFTFY.

      • No fee, they just take your soul :)

        • In all seriousness though they won't need to. What may end up happening is Windows remains free but to do anything on it requires software from the windows store
          or hosted on Azure. Kinda like CoreOS - Windows could slowly end up being a vehicle for docker like containers of software or services. Subscription based etc. I would assume
          that they would allow third party or open source but take a cut for delivery or for disabling advertising through the delivery method.
          Everything will be a gateway to Azure and W

      • And Microsoft plans to charge a monthly fee for this?

        Nope.

        You are sure of that are you? Reference ? I don't have a reference that they will introduce rental, but I don't see how else they will get an income from consumer Wiindows. I suspect that users will fall behind and/or get drowned in ads if they don't move to rental when it is offered. Think 2-3 years from now.

        • OEM licenses and Office 365 services.

        • Reference?

          Show me where MS is planning a fee rather than proving a negative which is what conservative Christians use to prove evolution is not a fact? The enterprise edition is the only service I can see which has always been.

          Also I do not get ads on either of my 10 systems. I swear slashdot is turning more into the crazy Mac forums where misinformation and ignorance based on fear is king.

    • by aberglas ( 991072 ) on Friday August 05, 2016 @09:12PM (#52654211)

      Indeed, when I installed Windows 10 it downloaded many gigabytes of updates immediately.

      We no longer have the concept of different patch sets, or having any control of what and when our computer changes its software. It is continuously changing. Which is why sometimes things mysteriously stop working, only to start again a few weeks later.

      The brave new world of not having any control at all over your own computers. There are no "major updates", just continuous change without warning.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        I moved on to Linux. Very much disappointed in Windows 10 and Microsoft these days. I think I have used Windows since 3.11 and never thought I would experience such disregard for users from Microsoft. They have totally taken over your device and decide everything for it. I cannot be treated so poorly any more just because you offered a free upgrade Microsoft. I won't become your PC bitch.

      • The brave new world of not having any control at all over your own computers. There are no "major updates", just continuous change without warning.

        It has been creeping towards this for quite some time as various things that would seem to be user configurable are not. I have already seen the future and it will be "to do that, simply call your system administrator and have them make those changes in your Active Directory domain". I hear they are even going to put out an Enterprise version where the AD is configurable by the user later this year for those few people that want/need that but don't have volume licenses.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      What other Windows 10 disappointments are on the horizon?

      They'll probably remove more group policies from the Professional version so they can gouge people into paying for the Enterprise edition. I fully expect Windows 10 Pro to slowly devolve into the equivalent of a "Home Premium." A more optimistic outlook though is that ReactOS [reactos.org] has made major progress the past couple years.

      • Group Policy is pretty much just an interface to registry settings. I'm sure most changes can still be made by amending the right keys. You could even push down those key changes with group policy on AD or use DSC or other methods like auto hotkey or a deployed powershell script running as system on a scheduled task etc.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          No, they explicity stated that registry settings won't work either. You have absolutely no control over the disabled settings.

      • The barrier for ReactOS as much as for Linux is software from vendors that they will only support on MS Windows. It may work but if you hit a problem and they won't help because of an unsupported platform, that can be scary for some organisations. Esp with legacy software and closed source so called "industry standard" stuff. The sea of change can be slow sadly.

        For home users this is a different situation, they can find workarounds etc. Third party apps grow around annoyances etc. Enterprises are already pa

      • As much as I like ReactOS it's still very far from being a viable replacement for Windows. Still lots of software doesn't work, not stable enough, many features missing...
        They're really doing a great job given the few programmers they have but something the size of Windows needs hundreds of people working on it
    • by Nemyst ( 1383049 )
      You mean you've never seen software as a service batch up their improvements into larger updates they can use to muster more press attention? It's simple marketing logic, it doesn't "disappoint". You can get the updates as they're being built up by subscribing to the Insider builds, if you so desire.

      I also still haven't seen anything about monthly fees, so stop with the FUD.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    That summary said absolutely nothing! What the fuck is the matter with you people?! This is just so sad! Garbage garbage garbage! Nothing but garbage. Not a single technical detail anywhere to be seen. Just advertising. What shit!

  • by ndykman ( 659315 ) on Friday August 05, 2016 @09:14PM (#52654213)

    It's still marked as a beta right now. Hope they push hard and get into general availability this year. It's useful. Running unmodified console mode apps from the Ubuntu user space is a useful thing.

    • > It's still marked as a beta right now. Hope they push hard and get
      > into general availability this year. It's useful. Running unmodified
      > console mode apps from the Ubuntu user space is a useful thing.

      Have a look at Cygwin. http://cygwin.com/ [cygwin.com] It's a free linux environment running under Windows. It's published by Redhat, who know a thing or two about linux. And not just console apps, it's got X and the associated graphical appslications.

      • by ndykman ( 659315 )

        Already use it, have for years, but the number of the ports varies and often lag behind in versioning. Certain tools work better than others overall. Not Cygwin's fault, they have to try and emulate certain semantics via Win32 in user space, and some calls, permissions, etc. just don't work quite right. (fork is an excellent example). But, this is because it is exceptionally hard to do. I am extremely grateful to Corinna Vinschen and her team for the tireless work she has done for countless years to bring a

      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot&worf,net> on Saturday August 06, 2016 @04:05AM (#52654967)

        Have a look at Cygwin. http://cygwin.com/ [cygwin.com] It's a free linux environment running under Windows. It's published by Redhat, who know a thing or two about linux. And not just console apps, it's got X and the associated graphical appslications.

        Cygwin and the Linux Subsystem are completely different entities. Cygwin is an attempt to implement the POSIX API on the Win32 API set. Most applications will compile just fine under this emulated environment, and the applications are regular Win32 applications as far as Windows is concerned. The shell has been modified so it will append ".exe" when launching an image if it wasn't specified (because you can't do "ls" as it will fail (file not found), but "ls.exe" will succeed) These binaries are stnadard WinPE style binaries.

        The Linux Subsystem is more akin to the FreeBSD Linux API layer - it runs Linux binaries unmodified, so the NTOSKRNL will natively load an ELF image, emulates the LInux syscall interface and provides all the necessary calls to make it appear you're running on Linux.

        It's why Windows 10 can load Ubuntu 14.04 userspace - it's not a recompiled for Windows set of binaries, but everything that ships in Ubuntu 14.04 minus the Linux kernel.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Windows 10 has multiple release tracks to address the needs of its various customer types

    My needs are A) be stable (bzzzt!); and B) don't spy on me (bzzzt! bzzzt! bzzzt!)

  • trying to understand that summary, can we complain about fragmentation with the various distros of windows yet?

  • by blind biker ( 1066130 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @01:46AM (#52654771) Journal

    Aside the privacy-invading features of Windows 10, what positively peeves me off and is actually the main reason I will never use Windows 10, is that it reboots immediately as an update is installed/about to be installed, without any possibility for the user to control this event. Sorry, but I actually do some productive work with my computer, I cannot risk a reboot in the middle of my work.
    Hence I have a host of Windows 7 laptops and desktops stashed away.

  • 'Blue Pill' empowers your life with the power of Azure. Microsoft agents like Clip...er, Cortana now use technologies like UEFI Secure Boot and the Microsoft Store to guide you and protect you from hacking. You can purchase the ID 'Master chief john 117' as your local PC username (additional fee applies). You can also partake of selected offers from select Microsoft partners presented at select times in your daily workflow (for instance, when Cortana detects you starting blankly at the primary screen. After

    • This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill -- the story ends, you will keep Windows and and believe whatever they want you to believe. You take the red pill -- you will format your HD and I show you how to install Linux.

  • by Kelerei ( 2619511 ) on Saturday August 06, 2016 @02:47AM (#52654841)
    TFA mentions Current Branch and Current Branch for Business, without explaining them too much. I doubt that many folks here are aware of them and the differences, so...

    If you're on CB, you get major feature updates (e.g. the Anniversary Edition) pushed to you as soon as it's made generally available. Folks on CBB will still get those updates pushed to them, but a while later (MS says around four months delay), and with all the fixes made in that time.

    Now, if you have the Pro or Enterprise editions (sorry Home users, you guys are stuck on CB only), you can quite easily switch between the two by means of checking (or unchecking) the "Defer upgrades" option that's somewhere in the Windows Update options. Want to live on MS's cutting edge? Leave it off. Want to use those Home peasants as your beta testers? Switch it on.

    Then, there's the LTSB edition of Enterprise, which is basically RTM that just receives security patches and the like (MS will make newer versions available -- I believe there's a 2016 update to LTSB coming later this year -- but, as far as I'm aware, there's no obligation to upgrade to a newer LTSB version, and MS claims that they'll support each version for ~10 years anyway). Because MS doesn't want too many things in this edition to change, things like Edge, Cortana and the Windows Store are stripped out of it. MS's intended usage scenarios for this edition are things like POS machines and the like.

    You can actually compare this to Ubuntu upgrades. If you're on CB, you're like the Ubuntu user who upgrades between point releases as soon as the new one becomes available. If you're on CBB, you're like the Ubuntu user who upgrades between point releases as soon as the old one is about to become unsupported. If you're on LTSB, then you're the Ubuntu user who only ever uses the LTS releases.
    • by swb ( 14022 )

      How the hell do you get LTSB edition for Enterprise? Is it a unique SKU or some configuration preference applied to vanilla Enterprise?

      LTSB Enterprise actually seems to be the desirable edition for any business, not just POS terminals. I know of no business customer I work with that has any interest in Cortana and the Windows store or its "apps". I guess I wouldn't put Edge quite in those same categories, since it seems to be just a replacement for IE, which, if MS has managed to kill some of the glaring

      • How the hell do you get LTSB edition for Enterprise? Is it a unique SKU or some configuration preference applied to vanilla Enterprise?

        Volume licensing channels or MSDN. Enterprise and Enterprise LTSB have different SKUs -- you can't reconfigure vanilla Enterprise to act as LTSB (not that I'm aware of, anyway).

    • If you upgrade to the pro version you can use the stable CBB business branch and can control when updates are installed aka Windows 7 style. Since many of us slashdotters are IT professionals I HIGHLY recommend the professional edition because of Hyper-V as well. No IT professional doesn't use virtualization these days.

      If your pc came with the HOME OEM you can go system properties and upgrade it to the pro for like $60 which I think is worth it. I use defer updates, but turned it off so I could get annivers

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