Microsoft Unveils Windows 10 S, an Education Edition Limited To Windows Store Apps (venturebeat.com) 127
On Tuesday, Microsoft announced a new edition of its latest operating system: Windows 10 S. Available on first-party and third-party hardware -- Microsoft will be releasing its own Windows 10 S device and will also let manufacturers sell their own -- Windows 10 S is a streamlined edition of Windows 10 aimed at the education market. From a report: "We really are working hard to deliver the best platform for education, for students of all ages and school districts of all devices," said Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president in Microsoft's operating systems group, about the new Windows 10 S release. The main way that Windows 10 S differs from the other editions is that it can only run apps from the Windows Store. That includes Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps and Win32 apps that Microsoft has approved into its app store. The goal is to avoid the problems of traditional Win32 apps that often run in the background and push their own updates. Microsoft wants to stop apps from hooking into the boot and sign-in process to handle all their own updates, which in turn slows down startup time. Windows Store can take care of this today, but Windows 10 S makes it the only way to install and update apps. As a result, Microsoft hopes Windows 10 S will be able to offer faster sign-in times and better battery life. This is still a full version of Windows 10. It's just locked down to only work with apps that Microsoft has approved, similar to how Apple and Google lock down iOS and Android to their respective app stores. The operating system follows the company's Intune for Education announcement back in January. Those systems created by third-party hardware partners like Acer, Asus, HP, Dell and Toshiba, start at $189.
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I think Windows RT was actually a different version of Windows, the "mobile" version of Windows 8 - even if you could install other software on it, it wouldn't run. Windows S is supposedly a full version of Windows 10 where installs are locked to the Windows Store. I would bet it'll be broken soon enough, and people will be able to install from other sources (or "side load"). I guess if it's like a Chromebook version of Windows where you can actually get a laptop with decent enough specs (for a student)
Re:Locked down... (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as you don't buy new. Easily done.
I paid $175 2 years ago for a used HP Elitebook with great specs. Got my wife a used HP Stream 11 for $100 a year ago, which is probably not too different from the specs of one of these Windows S boxes, except that it isn't locked down.
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I paid $175 2 years ago for a used HP Elitebook with great specs.
Wow you're brave. The other day I played Russian roulette, but I'd never do something as risky as buying second hand HP gear. Hell my 5 month old Elitebook has been replaced twice now, and yesterday I narrowed down the connectivity issues I had in the office not to the WiFi hotspot, but to the 5G portion of the wifi on the laptop which just drops off every 3 min like clockwork.
Time to send it back again.
Hey .... want to buy a 5 month old Elitebook for $175?
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Right. Windows RT on Surface was on ARM processor, so it did have issue running traditional x86 programs.
The community however did an amazing job in creating some compatibility layer (emu? apps?) to Windows RT in order to run some traditional programs.
Windows 10 S would probably be easier to do that as it already has to be compatible to some x86 apps in the store.
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....just like Windows RT was? I believe someone opened that up if I'm not mistaken.
Windows RT was Windows 8 for ARMv7 processors. So opening it up was a bit useless since it wouldn't run regular Windows apps anyway.
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By 'regular' apps you mean x86.
Sure but someone "jailbroke" the restrictions and had certain FOSS applications compiled for ARM in no time. One might complain there's no software for Win32/ARM but it's a chicken and egg scenario.
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By 'regular' apps you mean x86.
How do you know I didn't mean x64 apps? Stop trying to tell people what they mean, you obviously understood. No one needs your help explaining what they mean.
...but not quite like RT (Score:2)
....just like Windows RT was?
Apparently not quite - it seems that it is a full version of Windows, unlike RT, just with a restriction to only run MS store apps. The article says it will be free for students and educators to upgrade it to Windows 10 Pro and $49 (I presume US) for everyone else. So there is not much motivation for someone to hack around the restriction since the vast majority of those it is aimed at can remove the restriction for free.
I suspect they are really aiming Windows 10S at an institute's machines which they
Someone will buy it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure someone with decision making power will buy this and force implementation on some unfortunate soul.
Why have the opportunity to get applications from multiple sources when you can restrict everyone to only purchasing from Microsoft! Who cares if they have made available the actual programs we would like to use, when there are others with half as much functionality (and the added benefit of Microsoft getting a cut of the sales from) they can force you to use?
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Not that I'm advocating for this nonsense, but don't act like it's the end of the world. As long as I can run native x86 apps sideloaded it's not a huge deal.
When's ReactOS gonna be ready for prime time? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why aren't we dumping large amounts of money into ReactOS and WINE? It seems like it's high time to put together a real alternative to a Windows that can still run a Windows software.
Mark my words, this version of W10 has nothing to do with the education markets. Microsoft is just using them as a lab rat to get people used to the notion of having everything locked down to their app store. Soon enough, Secure Boot will become mandatory, and you'll find yourself having to jailbreak a fucking PC just to make it useful again.
Blame Apple and Google (Score:1)
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And yes, I use an Android phone but I also hate being limited in what I can do with my hardware. I'd pay money to get a clean version of Android (free of Google apps) where I could be officially be root withou
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But those walled gardens are not lockedup tight. The OSX store is most certainly optional, and that is the competition. Android and iOS are for phones, whereas Widnows 10 is for computers. If Microsoft can't see the difference and can't figure out why it's losing market share, then it deserves to fade away. Android at least allows you to break open the walled garden as well.
I agree that Microsoft's goal is to get a piece of the pie that they see other companies getting, but those other companies were smar
Re:When's ReactOS gonna be ready for prime time? (Score:4, Insightful)
OTOH, ReactOS is a cool idea, and I think the team is doing a great job given the limited resources they have, but it would need a huge amount of work and hence, money to be a real replacement to Windows. Who will give such money?. Also, I'm completely sure that if would ever become a threat to Windows Microsoft would sue ReactOS out of existence.
but only 1 app store that has censorship that is n (Score:2)
but only 1 app store that has censorship that is not even if you can't have adult games then why is ok to have HBO / MAX in the app store?
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It seems that MS got the idea in its head that the walled garden is the reason people use these things. I don't think it is, people use them despite it.
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It seems like it's high time to put together a real alternative to a Windows that can still run a Windows software.
Or you could just buy a licence for Windows. But fuck them for providing something cheap.
Why not Windows WE (Score:2, Interesting)
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Windows WEE.
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Are there any defaults that I cannot change on my Windows 10 S PC?
Yes, Microsoft Edge is the default web browser on Microsoft 10 S. You are able to download another browser that might be available from the Windows Store, but Microsoft Edge will remain the default if, for example, you open an .htm file. Additionally, the default search provider in Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer cannot be changed.
Um... what the shit Microsoft. This is what going FULL RETARD looks like.
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> .htm file
Thanks for reminding me about that particular bit of idiocy. I had almost forgotten.
Sign on things to come (Score:3, Insightful)
and when the sandbox does not work to well? (Score:2)
Can that sandbox work with system wide app data and not sandboxes user only data?
In the past not all systems in the edu market had per student logins.
Locked as Android, really? (Score:1)
Humph. I hope there is a "install app from unknown sources" checkbox as Android have.
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games in the windows store will need full moding (Score:2)
games in the windows store will need full modding and be able to have more then 1 exe say a game exe and an map edit exe.
In game mod workshop systems / manual mod installing. civ 6 has workshop and manual install with an in game mod manager.
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steam to is big to lock out and if you do nvidia / amd can cut windows off from the good video drivers and do most of there dev time on the Linux drivers.
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I have a feeling we will be seeing a renaissance in portable executables, be it the PortableApps.com site, stuff like ThinApp, Evalaze being updated, or programs just being shipped in a single executable with instructions of throwing somewhere and running it. Will this be a good thing? It may make life easier to update programs.
"Education Edition" (Score:2)
They want to "educate" you to believe that Windows Store apps are all that there is.
For those who might have already learned otherwise, Microsoft will eventually offer special summer camps for a more "intensive education" to allow students "relearn" what they've learned incorrectly. These will be called Windows Reeducation Camps.
education market some times in house apps / couste (Score:2)
education market some times in house apps / customized software just for that school district.
Also what about java / flash / other plug in / activex web sites that may be needed?
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Also what about java / flash / other plug in / activex web sites that may be needed?
You're right! Just like little kids should be allowed to get a scraped knee from time to time while playing, they should also be get their computers infected from time to time.
It's a learning process.
How cute... (Score:5, Interesting)
MS is trying to copy Apples walled garden approach... and it's a BAD idea.
I got news for you, assholes... NOBODY buys windows to get locked into using only certain apps... they buy it to have a more CHOICES...
There's a reason Apple has lost market share in schools in recent years, and it's not just the cost of hardware.
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You're only speaking about a niche and that doesn't really apply to students. Windows is being geared towards end users the same way all other popular devices are these days.
The few power users and content creators will buy a more expensive version of Windows or simply use other OSes, but that last part is unlikely. Windows users are easy to push around and will put up with annoying moving targets like blocking Windows 10 updates and fiddling with the registry and command line, they also put up with crap li
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No doubt MS would love to "get young at a young age to not use ", but they have had limited and diminishing success at this.
Why would they change course?
That's like asking, why wouldn't they go from offering a product with 1 positive feature to a product with 0 positive features.
The only reason people like and use windows is because it is a convenient vessel through which they can easily run the programs they want to run. Take that away, and there is literally no more reason to use it at all.
If I can't pla
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You're looking at it from your perspective for what you want, most Windows users are not like you, they're businesses that pay for expensive apps which will have no problems being available through Windows store, or home users that just use it for school and web browsing. Now for the users who are like you, they're still jumping through hoops to bend Windows to their will or stay on Windows 7, you guys are willing to put up with a lot, so they don't have to care about you. You'll always be there.
You're alre
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For me it's not about jumping ship. I already use linux everyday for work. I only have 2 machines that still use windows. My home desktop for gaming, and one work computer that is only used for outlook, and our IT department is already looking into ways to get rid of exchange.
They might very well do what you are saying and restrict users even further, I don't think it's a good idea or a bad idea, because I don't think it really matters what they do anymore.
I'm not some linux zealot. I don't think that t
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Well I totally agree, but they have always had this mindset and it seems baked into their vision, they seem to want to get there no matter how slowly. They've gotten this far and nobody's jumping. I imagine they'll try to cut a deal to allow other stores... Either that or some government/group is going to be upset that a store is tied into an OS... But that is why they're starting to ship it tied to a device, like the iTunes app store and Google Play store. It would probably be a long court battle and by th
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You are right, that perspective is more single sided (not everything is like game software). But it probably isn't going to move toward your direction in the same way. (dev moving from x86 to UWP)
You see, app store takes a 30% off from the developers. (This IS Microsoft real goal) That's a lot. However, consider the promotion and ads you get from the app store (for the apps), it became a plus for the developers.
Windows on the other hand works differently as it is already matured. Small developers already
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MS is trying to copy Apples walled garden approach... and it's a BAD idea.
I got news for you, assholes... NOBODY buys windows to get locked into using only certain apps... they buy it to have a more CHOICES...
There's a reason Apple has lost market share in schools in recent years, and it's not just the cost of hardware.
Then why do Chromebooks do so well in that market? People aren't installing Crouton on them.
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MS is trying to copy Apples walled garden approach
Since when has Apple ever offered a $49 (or free for students/educators) upgrade to remove the wall around the garden? For that price they will upgrade 10 S to 10 Pro without any restrictions.
English Speakers (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess English speakers know what the 'S' stands for :)
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I asked what the S in Windows 10 S stands for, and "student" was not the correct answer.
"It's not literally any particular word. It's about Windows being streamlined, secure, having superior performance. You've seen us use this with Xbox One S;
So it starts (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's pretty obvious to everyone that MS eventually wants a cut of every application sold.
They haven't been able to make an OS that anyone would want to pay for in a long time, so the obvious solution is to make money from someone else's work instead.
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They really want to try Windows RT again. Good luck.
RT was a failure of its time. It came at a time of desktop computing and at a time of an empty windows store because no one wanted to code for ARM. Not at a time of ChromeOS, Office 365, iOS, Android, hell the windows store even has a full featured version of Office now. OfficeRT didn't even come with an email client.
We're not as sensitive to lockin as we used to be. /Note: Posted online, using a web browser like most people seem to use their computers nowadays.
What educational apps? (Score:3)
So on a lark I went to the Microsoft store web site and tried to find a few applications I knew would be useful in education - R, yEd and QGIS.
I gave up. I couldn't even find a friggin' search box.
What the hell, Microsoft? Why are they making it hard to search their own online store?!?
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What the hell are you doing on the Microsoft store website? They pretty much only sell office and a bit of hardware there.
What you're looking for is the Windows Store app which features a prominent search box on the top of the screen where you'd expect it.
Just searching for "education" resulted in translators, office tools, homework managers, math tools, apps for the khan academy, daily planners, note taking tools, actual education tools like duolingo, and soon to feature a complete version of Office for yo
Because the best way to educate people... (Score:3)
...is to severely lock down what they can do!
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...is to severely lock down what they can do!
If it gets kids away from iPads and gives them a device with an actual keyboard and an actual Office suite it can't really be a step back.
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Tyranny (Score:3)
Yet another brick on the road to absolute tyranny.
Another vendor wants to control everything.. in pursuit keep churning out nonsensical justifications... oh...it's more secure... uh huh.. can't even prevent their own software from being unintentionally compromised when they fully control source code and all aspects of development...I'm sure they have the power to properly vet all the shitware CAUSED by race to the bottom app store environments... jails and hypervisors keep users safe not preventing unblessed execution... oh and the ever priceless when everyone implements the same shit we do THEY suck at it... Particularly rich argument given how resource intensive windows update is. If they wanted to they could create a useful vendor independent interface for managing updates the same way software installation interfaces are standardized and widely used because they provide a useful path of least resistance and value to users and vendors alike.
No this is nothing more than a selfish power grab. Many are clamoring to bring about a "future" in which unclean hands are forbidden from owning general purpose computers where all software is locked down for approval by state/megacorp. Centralized control, centralized extraction of value from the market, monopolistic dominance and pervasive monitoring. As we have seen demonstrated with iPhone's denying rights/censorship using technical measures divorced from anything resembling representative governance.
A more likely outcome is sufficient number of people abandon Windows forever allocating more resources for development of alternatives hastening a future in which MS is no longer relevant. I fully expect Microsoft will "die trying" to turn Windows into the next Apple iPhone.
MS management couldn't even understand desktop users didn't want crummy watered down interfaces.. or locked down windows that couldn't run their software (RT) when they started down their path to madness starting with Windows 8 "metro" shell... Now after fully embracing the same business practices as malware vendors they have become incapable of performing the basic function of provisioning more value to their customers. Inevitably someone else will fill the vacuum.
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Exactly.
What The S Really Means (Score:2)
Microsoft Paranoia (Score:4, Informative)
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> Microsoft Paranoia still reigns, and with some good reason, but I think the walled garden approach here is mainly about Chromebooks.
I'd believe you if they hadn't literally just announced a $1000 Surface book that comes with Windows 10 S preinstalled - with the option to upgrade to full Windows "for a limited time".
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/05/microsoft-makes-a-regular-old-laptop-the-surface-laptop/
"The Surface Laptop ships with Windows 10 S, the new cut-down Windows 10 SKU Microsoft also an
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They also slowly "boil the frog," getting the public more and more used to not having control of their (alleged) property.
Get 'em while they're young.. and dumb.. (Score:3)
In defense of Microsoft: (Score:5, Insightful)
The goal is to avoid the problems of traditional Win32 apps that often run in the background and push their own updates. Microsoft wants to stop apps from hooking into the boot and sign-in process to handle all their own updates, which in turn slows down startup time.
In defense of Microsoft's decision I think this is a good idea (partially).
As a system's administrator I do what I can to shut-down scheduled jobs and launch on startup from apps that don't need it. I especially try to prevent apps that annoy the user by begging for updates from having their beg service run. Everything Adobe has touched in the past 20+ years, Java, even browsers do this. I use a Kace K1000 system to push updates to users, and I handle updates to those apps. I don't need users calling me for updates within an hour of Adobe releasing a new point revision on Acrobat reader. I'll have it pushed to the users within a couple of days depending on my work load.
That's what I do at work. I'm a Linux user at home. I've been saying for years using the Apt Package manager is easier than maintaining software on Windows. It's also easier than keeping up with software on a Mac. I've got both stand-alone software and software manager software both at work and at home - gamers - tell me Steam isn't 100x's better than the old fashioned keep up with the boxes, the disks and every single patch from a different website as well as the drivers in the days of yore.
I realize Microsoft is evil.
Apple I can chose between the store or manual installs - though it does progressively harass you more about unsigned stuff with each OS release.
Linux - I can use an apt repository like I do for nearly everything, or I can download/install it separately like I do for Calibre and MakeMKV.
For students the lock-down thing may not be a bad idea. For corporations on the full-blown MS bandwagon it may not be a bad idea. That being said I've never worked for any company that didn't have one piece of poorly written software that doesn't comply to normal or modern conventions the whole place nearly runs on. That shitty software is going to have to run on something other than one of these - I see up uptick in Citrix use in the future...
I would jailbreak and replace the OS on this like I do nearly everything else for my own personal use, no surprise there, I haven't used Windows at home since 2000 was now. For handing out to users that don't have the good sense not to download stupid shit and cause problems for me, I could get behind something like this at a corporation.
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That K1000 system I mentioned is a package manager. I have to get my "packages" from the people who make them, I have little to no power to influence them. An app store isn't all that different from a package manager, indeed I get apps on my work Mac and even occasionally from the Windows store for free that I used to download free.
It's not a good setup for deploying to users at this time, but there isn't a huge difference between a package manager and an app-store. Ubuntu's failed store proved that. I
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It's like a package manager but without the ability to choose repos, limiting software library or forcing you to side load or simply accepting risk of running unverified software. It also binds you to a single vendor. So it's a worse solution even for those who want it as there will be little competition for pricing.
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With a lot of work from I.T. staff, as we battle bullshit like the way GoTo meeting likes to run in AppData with randomized directory names....
bah.... (Score:1)
So, we will now be "educated" by Microsoft (Score:1)
Edu Verison? (Score:2)
PAE in Windows (Score:2)
Has anything been said about PAE or are the rumors wrong? (I remember it mentioning 4GB of RAM but also a 32-bit version for only 32GB of storage for example.)
Precursor for what's to come (Score:1)
Next major version: App Store Only. No upgrades.
You heard it here, first.
Should be BS (Score:2)
The full version of windows 10 is not limited to store apps. That is a huge limitation when their store has had little success with developers and users. This BS is not full windows 10 and that should be clear to everyone. The motivation is obviously to try to save their failing store by leaving users no alternative.
Android is not 'locked down' (Score:2)
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"Windows 9" can't exist because Microsoft of Microsoft's previous idiotic naming decisions. There's tons of existing software with string-based version detection that wouldn't be able to tell "Windows 9" apart from "Windows 95" or "Windows 98."