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Windows Microsoft Operating Systems

Microsoft Says Windows 10X Isn't Happening (zdnet.com) 48

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-not-to-come dept.
Microsoft today acknowledged that the company isn't going to release its Windows 10X operating system variant, as reported more than a week ago. Mary Jo Foley, writing at ZDNet: Don't be surprised if you missed the acknowledgement, as Microsoft buried it in its blog post about the rollout of the Windows 10 21H1 feature update -- which it published at the start of the Google I/O keynote. Toward the end of the post, under the "Our customer first focus" subheading, officials said Windows 10X wouldn't be coming to market in 2021, after all. Instead, Microsoft will be integrating some of the 10X "foundational" technologies into other parts of Windows and other products. Windows 10X was supposed to be Microsoft's answer to Chrome OS -- a simpler Windows 10 variant that was slated to debut first on PCs for education and the first line-worker market.
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Microsoft Says Windows 10X Isn't Happening More

Microsoft Says Windows 10X Isn't Happening

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  • Another Variant Of Concern (Score:5, Funny)

    by SST-206 ( 699646 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @04:07PM (#61397640) Homepage
    Thank goddess the world is spared this one!

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 )
      But Windows as SAAS would herald the year of the Linux desktop...

      • People will quit using desktops before they switch from MS to Linux. I say this using Linux as my main OS for 20+ years waiting for the rest of the world to catch on. Maybe I'm a cynic in my old age, but I really don't think this is going to happen.

        Year of the Linux mobile device though? Yeah, that's been every year for quite some time now.

        • Well, hordes are using Linux in the form of Android. It's not like they're at a Unix command line, but it's definitely under the hood. Add in MacOS the you've got another large set using Unix (Unix on destop is far more important than Linux on desktop).

          The average user however is not going to be on the command line, not in the past, now, or in the future. That should be obvious I hope. Thus the idea of getting Linux on the the desktop doesn't add the same value to the person who clicks and icon and uses

        • Re:Another Variant Of Concern (Score:4, Interesting)

          by rahvin112 ( 446269 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @06:23PM (#61398086)

          ChromeOS IS Linux on the desktop and it already has a significant share of laptop numbers and practically controls education along with comprising a significant number of sold laptops per quarter.

          The former announcements about WinX we all about trying to counter ChromeOS's gains, particularly in education. But MS is simply not capable of spinning and maintaining such an OS at reasonable rates with Windows as the backend.

          Google can afford chromeOS because it's almost entirely OSS and is Linux on the Desktop leveraging all the work that's been done and continues to be done.

          • ChromeOS IS Linux on the desktop

            Technically correct is the best kind of correct. But this is in no way a rebuttal to the GP's actual point. After all the open source community just loves Google don't they.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      The History-Lesson vaccination didn't appear to make MS immune to attempting yet more Windows mutations.

      Thank goddess

      Side note: if you ever want to piss evangelicals off to no end, refer to God as female. If they quote to the Bible to say he's male, say he's probably non-binary since he's omnipotent and omnipresent according to the Bible, which also means he's/she's omnigender by implication since somebody omnipresent will possess all vaginas and all penises. The Bible authors simply didn't have a word for

    • Let's just hope this counted as "every second release"

  • I miss Visual Basic for DOS. Sort of.
    • No you don't. ... or.. do you?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        I thought VB for DOS was cool! You could make non-GUI GUI's using console characters. It could be handy for prototypes or tech interfaces to configgy stuff so that it's intuitive & familiar but doesn't have to look pretty. That's how you keep PHB's from poking around.

        It might even be a way to prototype the state-ful GUI markup standard I keep asking the industry to invent so we don't have to keep living with crappy convoluted JS/DOM/CSS to get rich GUI's that don't fark up.

        GUI's wouldn't be hard-wired t

        • (Part of a complex application involving Excel)

          Long live Visual Basic!

          (And it actually has an important language feature missing from trendy languages like JavaScript and Python, namely static typing. Really very useful.)

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Tablizer ( 95088 )

            Using VBA to control Excel was (is?) a PITA. It was a very un-intuitive API.

            • Actually, it is one of the best APIs that I have used, impressive given how old it is. Apparently Gates himself was involved in its design. The idea that a Range could be a set of cells or a set of just one single cell takes some getting used to, but actually works quite well.

              The new JavaScript API is a different matter, needing futures for everything etc.

          • I was eventually compelled to make the shift to VSTO plugins... working with external files in VB isn't my favorite thing, and security policies make macros a bit of a chore. While it is very nice to be able to do my logic in C#, the highly Office-specific interface and features (particularly things like object browsers) ensure that it remains a part of the development process (and I still use it for my own personal tools, both VBA and VB6). I feel like VB.Net lost a lot by wasting people's familiarity with

            • I use .Net for an advanced UI component, but still today keep most of the logic in VBA because it is so much easier to use with Excel, and to deploy.

              VSTO itself was a disaster when first released, requiring different versions for different versions of Excel and a complex deployment process. I use Excel DNA which is simple and good.

        • Very, very much nicer than trying to wrangle text displays with conio.h or other stuff more reminiscent of curses.

          Despite my snarky comment, I enjoy a lot of RAD tools, and they've saved me immense amounts of time.

    • I could look up and there it is on the shelf.

    • I miss WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. The greatest word processor ever.

    • And the ISAM database features it offered :-)
  • Too much fragmentation just causes confusion. I think now that Windows 10X is cancelled Microsoft should consolidate it’s product line. Get rid of stuff like S mode and niche versions like Pro for Workstations. Also with home working now mainstream they should merge Home/Pro/Enterprise as well.

    I would unify it all as a single Windows, and streamline the update system to be rebootless (Which was a positive feature from Windows 10X). Then Windows will be just Windows and the version number would be i
    • I would be happy if the next Windows Update did not have a high chance of screwing up my system. The last patch really messed up a few applications like VLC and all my browsers.

  • If only they had decided the same thing (Score:3)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @04:13PM (#61397664)

    about windows 8 and 10.

  • What's next for an MS "ChromeOS" killer? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mykepredko ( 40154 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @04:21PM (#61397700) Homepage

    I'm actually surprised that Microsoft has cancelled Win10X because the need to have something to compete against ChromeOS isn't going away and it's only going to become more sophisticated.

    If they're not going to use the Win10 code base, then could there be an Edge based OS in the wings? Maybe a reworked Linux/Unix kernel with Windows APIs? I don't see Microsoft leaving this market space to Google.

    • But they do have a way to compete against ChromeOS; predatory license pricing aimed at educational institutions. "We'll practically give away these Windows 'education' licenses providing you agree to lock in with us until the end of time." Microsoft doesn't need a boiled down OS for that, just armies of salesmen and lawyers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      I think the Apple M1 rattled them and they are going to run off and try to focus more resources on Win10 for ARM.

      • I think the Apple M1 rattled them and they are going to run off and try to focus more resources on Win10 for ARM.

        Why should this be so complicated to do? Apple seems to execute a successful jump to a new architecture every decade.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by EvilSS ( 557649 )
          Apple has more control over their platform, and a lot less technical debt thanks to all of those architecture changes. Hell you can still run a ton of MS DOS apps on Windows 10 (you might have to use 32 bit win10 but still). It's like Apple does regular spring cleaning, but MS has waited so long their house is filled to the rafters and looks like an episode of hoarders. There is so much to get rid of now it's going to be hard to do it without bringing the whole thing down with it. I also think MS is a lit

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      At this point, they don't need any technical changes from what they have to compete with ChromeOS. They have to rework the way they engage with the education systems mostly to compete, but they aren't hurting for technical assets to do it with.

      Windows can access browser hosted content just fine. Further Office 365 with the applications and onedrive further enable online and application access to content that still treats the device using it as utterly disposable.

      ChromeOS has a reputation of 'you can't have

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I'm actually surprised that Microsoft has cancelled Win10X because the need to have something to compete against ChromeOS isn't going away and it's only going to become more sophisticated.

      I think the bigger issue is the other side of it - Chromebooks and ChromeOS are basically this decade's idea of the 'dumb terminal' of decades past - just enough stuff to get access to the mainframe. The Google ecosystem is, functionally speaking, that mainframe.

      This is where Microsoft has issues competing with Google. O365 is fine as far as e-mail goes, and the online versions of Word and Excel and Powerpoint are close-enough to Google Docs that I don't think that's the problem. I submit that there are three areas where Microsoft still has issues against Google...

      --Bing is no Google in terms of search, and with the decades-long head start Microsoft has *and* its integration into Windows *and* its data it can sniff through...it's only got twice the amount of search traffic as DuckDuckGo...so, MS isn't exactly winning the search war.

      --Youtube, despite its problems balancing between "enabling freedom of speech" and "consistently enabling freedom of speech" (as well as the respective inverses), is still a massive drive of traffic. Microsoft has nothing even close to it.

      --Integration. I avoid the Google Ecosystem at all costs, but I can at least acknowledge the fact that those who opt in to the Google ecosystem do end up with integration - An appointment in Gmail can turn into a Calendar entry, which turns into a notification compete with a Google Assistant warning with respect to traffic conditions to ensure that you get there on time with Google Maps navigating, and picking up the check is possible with Google Pay. That's a workflow that simply isn't possible within the MS ecosystem.

      So, I'd agree with you that having a browser-only OS is easy enough to do. Having a browser-only OS that's useful relies on a 'mainframe' of some kind to leverage that OS. MS has some of these things, but MS is too busy trying to ruin their desktop OS and confuse people into uploading their data to OneDrive, and their too busy trying to drum up developer interest in their Appy-app store, and their too busy trying to pressure on-premise stalwarts into moving to Azure, to put enough focus on making a Microsoft account worth using.

      The whole point of the Chromebook success story is that all of the infrastructure and services and desirable browser-based things were in place and working and usable long before anyone slapped a stripped down Linux distro onto $250 hardware. MS *could* do this if they were willing to let Windows be Windows and let this sort of thing be a completely separate product line, powered by enough consumer services to even loosely give the impression of competing...but until that's in place, a stripped down OS running Edge is pointless.

  • I'll wait for 11X (Score:5, Funny)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @04:31PM (#61397728)
    It's one X louder.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      They'll come out with Windows++ instead. Or will it be Windows.Qbit? Windows.Node? Microwindows? Windows.Edge? Cryptowindows? Hyperwindows? I lost track of hype fads, buffer overflow.

      How about call it "Windows Bob" since Gates is out of the picture thanks to him trying to reformat interns.

  • From 2019 - World's second richest person Bill Gates took to Twitter on Tuesday with well wishes for his wife Melinda Gates on their 25th wedding anniversary. "I can't wait to spend 25 more years laughing together," wrote Bill. The only ones laughing now are the lawyers
  • If they're determined to release a gimped version of Windows (insert "how could you tell?" joke here) , call it something else. They've already gone down this path, and it's confusing as hell for people when their games and software that "runs on Windows" won't run.

    Something short and simple....

    • Something short and simple....

      The small version of Windows shall be called "Pane". Insert into your posterior for the maximal Microsoft effect.

    • Seems to me these alternate windows are always more than simply being gimped (reduced compatibility,) as they are actively intrusive such as requiring that all binaries to be signed by a microsoft approved certificate authority, and there is intentionally no good way to disable this behavior.

      Its dumbshittery at best. In this most favorable light I mean to be as derogatory as possible. If its just stupidity then its epic fucking stupidity.
  • If only Microsoft could have figured out that their customers have always wanted one thing, and one thing only: a stable, reliable OS.
  • I guess if you do remove enough features, mouth breathers will complain.
    Wonder what the last straw was?

  • When I buy Windows, I expect Windows. No limitations to "apps", and no having to get by with ARM with maybe dog slow x86 emulation.

    x86 and traditional Windows. Nothing more, nothing less.

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