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Microsoft Is Killing Windows 11 SE, Its Chrome OS Rival (windowscentral.com) 31

Posted by msmash from the closing-windows dept.
Microsoft has discontinued Windows 11 SE, its education-focused operating system designed for low-cost school PCs. The company confirmed that Windows 11 SE will not receive the upcoming version 25H2 update and support will end in October 2026, including security updates and technical assistance.

Launched in 2021 as a Chrome OS competitor, Windows 11 SE featured artificial limitations like reduced multitasking capabilities and restricted app installation to create a simplified experience for students. The discontinuation leaves Microsoft without a dedicated lightweight Windows edition for the education market, where Chromebooks have gained significant popularity over the past decade.

Microsoft Is Killing Windows 11 SE, Its Chrome OS Rival More | Reply

Microsoft Is Killing Windows 11 SE, Its Chrome OS Rival

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  • The important thing is the ChromeOS itself is much lighter weight in terms of internal components causing it to be much more expensive to run.

    In order to compete with them Microsoft would have to actually eliminate the bloat from Windows; not just artificially add restrictions to Windows to make the environment less functional. Basically throw away all the DLLs and EXEs outside the kernel itself and start from scratch with a lighter weight design.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      And among the things they'd have to remove would be the spyware and adware, which would defeat the entire purpose of Windows.

      • Exactly! They have to create a professional operating system first, and then they could strip it out, add a focused GUI (which IMO they're terrible at), and once that's all done, they'd have made a worse version of Linux, that's not Linux. What were they trying to do? Not to mention, if anyone adopted that platform, they've screwed them. Which is really the theme of Windows 11, it's a marketing and analytic platform, which can't be adopted into the embedded world.
      • I am sorry would you like to try again? In a showdown with Google, Microsoft is the one with the ad tracking problem? I think you hit your head getting out of bed this morning.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        I'm not sure why you'd think that.. If they were willing to rebuild the OS to be lightweight; telemetry is a feature they could still have. ChromeOS certainly has detailed telemetry - it's not a privacy-centric OS. And an efficient implementation of telemetry is not fundamentally at odds with the concept of a lightweight OS that can run with minimal resources.

        What causes bloat is 35 years worth of baggage. A fresh new take on the NT kernel with no attempt at compatibility or the ability to use an

    • Nobody understands either Windoes SE OR ChromeOS. A whole OS dedicated around the old idea of the "falling away of the App" and making everything online is just dumb on its face.

      Thirty years ago they told us that OLE would remove the difference between one application and another - that the line of where one ended and another began was a thing of the past, one big super-application that could do anything. That never materialized.

      Twenty-five years ago OLE lead to OCX, which was going to change the way appli

      • I gave my parents a Chromebook. It works fine because all they need is a browser.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        Ironically, ChromeOS is succeeding in select niches precisely because it is built around that "only web apps" use case. An utterly disposable client device because all applications and data are internet hosted. Windows 11SE fails in those niches because it goes too far into apps and the device actually mattering a bit more.

        Of course, ChromeOS is a platform that institutions like schools love inflicting on people, but not really a choice people choose for themselves, and so not a lot of growth beyond that.

    • They already have that, it's used to run windows-based services on Azure, in the form of Cloud Host OS and the equivalent running as guest VMs.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        I know that Windows server core exists.

        The problem I believe the challenge of building back up a desktop environment and keeping it lightweight is basically impossible for Microsoft, because they are not likely to build an entire GUI environment following from scratch following the Unix philosophy.

        The second they saw you want a Desktop experience; they'd probably bring add back in the whole .NET Framework; the Explorer.exe shell; All the telemetry services, and the rest of those legacy bloated compone

  • Not surprising... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bert64 ( 520050 ) <bert@@@slashdot...firenzee...com> on Friday August 01, 2025 @11:11AM (#65560080) Homepage

    ChromeOS is a distinct brand, people expect a particular experience.
    Windows is a distinct brand, people expect a particular experience. Giving users a restricted experience while using the same branding leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
    Thats why all the windows-ce laptops failed miserably too, as did windows mobile. People bought it expecting the normal windows desktop experience, got something inferior and incompatible, and word soon spread.

  • anybody remember Win ME?

    • Yeah, but it's not the same thing. Windows ME was an attempt to add more "friendly" features to Windows 98. It got its fair share of ridicule. In this case, however, Windows CE is more similar... a restricted version of the OS for low-powered devices that couldn't do what you expected it to do.

    • Yes. I even still remember that the name was actually Windows Me [wikipedia.org], not Windows ME.

  • A Windows that doesn't run Windows software (Score:3)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Friday August 01, 2025 @11:22AM (#65560106)
    While ChromeOS has its own issues, I really don't know why anyone would want a version of Windows that can't run the majority of Windows software. Basically there are about 80 pieces of software it runs and that's yer lot. I'm not surprised it failed hard.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      I think it's an excellent case study in a company thinking of what sounds good for *them* rather than for the customer and the sort of failure that can happen after smelling your own farts that much.

  • SE did not really simplify much. It was just Windows but they intentionally crippled / broke some stuff.

    Much of the bloat, none of the value; does not a product make. Meanwhile by '21 Microsoft was all on o365 as the future anyway. If that is vision what is needed is well ChromeOS essentially a web browser with a bundled HAL.

    This is the same problem with that version of Win2k8 server where you could chose not to install the desktop experience...Reality is that did not mean much more than setting the shel

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      Yeah, Windows core was ridiculous. They championed how they had a GUI-free experience, and then you boot it up and... GUI.

      It was such a pointless exercise, and missing the point of why so many of the Linux systems didn't run a GUI. They thought the server admins just didn't want a start menu/taskbar. But they needed to actually still be GUI because applications still needed GUI to do some things. Linux servers not running GUI was mostly because the ecosystem doesn''t really need it, and that sort of ecos

  • They're not allowed to spy on children (Score:3)

    by ebunga ( 95613 ) on Friday August 01, 2025 @12:27PM (#65560266)

    So they're killing the product.

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