Microsoft: Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows

Microsoft executive Jerry Nixon confirmed at the company’s Ignite conference last week that the upcoming Windows 10 update will be the company’s last version of Windows. That doesn’t mean Windows is going away — far from it, in fact. Microsoft plans to update the OS in a more incremental manner going forward, and that could mean a much more dynamic platform.

For the last few decades, Microsoft would sit down and build a new version of Windows every three years or so. This new version would start shipping on new PCs, but by and large, consumers didn’t run out and buy the new version to upgrade their computers. They simply got the new Windows when they got a new computer. With Windows 10, Microsoft isn’t even getting cash from those who do want to buy the latest and greatest version. Following the furor over Windows 8 and it’s tablet-centric design, Microsoft has announced Windows 10 will be a free update for one year from release.

You currently get plenty of updates on Windows, but they aren’t really the same kind of updates that Microsoft is planning for Windows 10. Windows Update has thus far been a hub for security patches and bug fixes, which is a necessary evil when you’re running the most popular desktop operating system in the world. Windows 10 would get “real” updates that add functionality and change the way the OS works over time.

This would be more like the Chrome model for software updates, where new versions are pushed out frequently. Sometimes you open Chrome and it looks a little different or does something new. Almost no one knows what version of Chrome they are running because it changes so frequently. This experience might be the future of Windows. It makes you wonder how long they’ll bother with the “Windows 10” branding. One day it might simply be “Windows.”

It sounds like making Windows 10 free isn’t just a mea culpa from Redmond. This “final” version of Windows has the core changes necessary to be updated incrementally, so Microsoft wants as many people as possible to be running it. Built-in apps like Xbox and Mail have been designed to be designed in Windows 10 to be updated independently of the OS, and even Office for Windows 10 will get incremental feature updates rather than a big launch every 3-4 years.

Most of Microsoft’s income from Windows is based on new PC sales, so it’s not likely to take a hit from using this ongoing update model. This is Windows as a service, which is something Microsoft has been wanting to do for years. A few years ago Microsoft might have had the clout to charge an additional subscription fee for Windows as a service, but now? It’s not clear if Microsoft will go down that road, or if the new PC license fees will be enough to satiate investors. We’ll see what happens after the free update period for Windows 10 is over.

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They will double back in a few years when a new medium of computing opens and windows 10 is completely unsuitable. We have gone from massive supercomputers to personal computers to laptops to phones and tablets. Even before laptop exists everyone knew the process would continue. They just so happened to think it would evolve into personal assistant devices running watered down windows. Whatever happened to palm anyway?

People are touting watches as the next big thing, however if it does come to fruition it will be nothing like we think at the moment. A complete redesign is needed. Windows will likely be unsuitable, however they won’t make the android mistake again and come to market far to late.

Nah, they are basically embracing what the Linux community has managed for a very long time. The kernel is cross-platform and contains all core functionality. Everything else is hardware drivers, UI Candy, and applications.

They already use the same kernel for all 8 series devices. The majority of changes occur in the user interface, not the underlying software. If anything, this will make it easier to port Windows to new device paradigms, which is the goal of Win 10 anyways.

That’s a mighty nice crystal ball you have there. :)

Snark aside, what exactly about Windows 10 prevents it from adapting to changing form factors? Windows XP and 7 were straight desktop. Windows 8.x went from straight desktop to tablet (upsetting a whole bunch of people in the process), showing that Windows could and did adapt. Windows 10 is a further refinement of Windows 8.x’s ideals, with better desktop and slightly worse tablet (IMNSHO :P) support. If Windows has gone from Desktop to Tablet to hybrid, what’s to say it can’t go to other form factors later?

The problems with crystal balls is that you’re so focused on the future you don’t look at the past. ;)

“The problem with crystal balls” is that they’re still running on Windows XP

Lol, and promptly get pwn3d by a virus that more modern systems have long since been patched by? :D

everything stops at 2-in-1. icrap pads will die, android tablets will die. windows tablet/laptop will replace the current tablet, laptop structure.

phones will remain android / ios

2 in 1 devices are useful for some people, but they’re not for everyone. iPads will continue on, Android tablets (and, by extension, Kindle tablets) will continue on, though not in the high-end market (anything above $300). All three will fill their respective niche rolls just fine, just like they do today.

I wonder how corporate IT managers will take all these incremental updates. I can’t see them very happy if simple updates can switch core modules like a new file system overnight.

I’m pretty sure they will force Microsoft to set a delay system, so only security updates are passed instantly and new features are frozen and only installed every couple of years in something akin to Linux LTS versions.

Big Corporation will only have to be running WSUS server to have complete control over what updates get pushed to their clients.

SCCM would be the tool for this. Allows me to say who gets what updates and allows very in-depth control of patches. I’ve never seen a security patch break a thing but when it comes to custom software made by the lowest bidder…you never know -_-

Well I suppose either way would be equally effective. A large enough organization might want the added benefit of a localized update repository, so all their clients aren’t hitting the internet for the exact same data. WSUS has that same level of control over updates as SCCM.

Stacey Bright is right. WSUS server is the way it will be handled. I don’t have time to test every update so in my environment all the users will get all the updates and I will deal with any issues at that point. I find there are very few issues with updates anyway.

thats a huge gamble right there.. i had to do several system restores a few month ago due to those updates..

I disabled all automatic update until i say so.

security updates are mostly non-issue since i have a firewall to block most /all of the loopholes.

I haven’t had any issues and I have done a lot of testing in sandbox and real world. It isn’t any more of a gamble as it is NOT doing the updates.

Wasn’t the delay system already there and more user controlled ?

Moreover, I don’t know if it is a good thing, but their business model is passed from “pay once, use forever” to “pay a subscription, use for a limited time”.

I wonder how this will affect Windows 10 concerning updates.

I’m not sure it’s ‘pay subscription, use for a limited time’. Every time this claim is ran out, there’s always a serious lack of supporting info with it. It sounds as much like FUD today as it did when the notions were first run out. Will you be the first to actually post links to proof that Windows is going subscription based?

Enterprise and I think Pro will let companies patch on their own schedule Home will just update itself w/o user knowledge. All those home users beta testing for the enterprise :)

I prefer the old way this isnt going to work out well

Worked for Mac OSX

It’s a different business model. Apple really makes the money selling the hardware.

Same business model. MS makes very little money with retail Windows compared to OEM Windows (ie., from Dell, HP, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, etc.). MS doesn’t build it (cept for Surface), but from selling its OS to those who do. Apple’s exception is that only Apple makes Apple computers.

Look at it their way. They will be able to charge subscriptions to the corporate market, so they’ll get money every month instead of once every 5 years.

I wonder if they will ever have the guts of demanding subscriptions to personal users. Obviously not now, but the possibility in the future is not very reassuring :-(

Actually, the subscription service could be quite good if the[y] roll it together with Office 365 and OneDrive

Yes, it will be quite good for them :-). As the article says Office is also going to an incremental updates model, so I’m sure you can count in that pack (with also OneDrive and other cloud services).

Microsoft obviously is going toward the subscription model, to ensure steady monthly incomes. But I personally hate to be subjected to subscriptions, I want to buy something and pay it once, but Microsoft is moving to just offering you to rent it. :-(

RTS version for me then.

RTS as in Return to Sender ? :)

Real Time Strategy

*places hand on forehead* arh

I use libreoffice its free and works just as good as office 365

I stopped using office after they keep saying I don’t have a good key when in fact I paid for office and switch computers every year

and all ms said I was a crook and keep deactivating it when in fact I paid for it

That would be the straw that finally pushes me to Linux. I don’t like giving Microsoft my money more than once or twice a decade. I’m sure as hell not going to give them a portion of my budget every month.

Chances are that you give money to oil companies, ISPs and cell phone companies on a monthly basis, and most of those companies are big monopolistic conglomerations of evil. Many people pay less for one WIndows license every 5 years than they do for their data plan every month. Just out of curiosity, why do you feel that $100 once every 5+ years is barely acceptable? Is it because you are a big fan of open source and believe that all software should be free, or do you just dislike Microsoft?

Some people feel that software should be free as in beer. They also remember the old days of Microsoft, back when they were jerks screwing over consumers and other computer companies. Maybe he remembers Stac Electronics and how Microsoft stole Stacker whole-cloth. Maybe he remembers how IBM’s OS/2 got killed off by Microsoft just randomly changing API names so that OS/2 Win32s support just broke. Maybe he remembers the horrible days of Internet Explorer 6.

There are plenty of reasons not to desire to shell out another $100 (minimum — you don’t know if he was using Pro!) to a company you don’t care for.

I prefer software as a product, not a service.

If I buy a computer to run certain programs, it should continue to run those programs until the day it dies. If I chose to upgrade to a newer, flashier machine later to run new programs, fine.

But I don’t like the idea of buying the hardware and then being charged a monthly service fee in order to continue use it.

Works for Android, too (sort of). As long as device manufacturers don’t heavily manipulate the OS and delay updates because their bloatware isn’t compatible.

Those sound like separate points. You prefer the old way, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work out.

get ready for the new name of windows. “doors 1.0”

IBM would probably have something to say about them using “DOORS.” If we’re sticking with the building metaphorisms, I’d prefer “Microsoft Soil Stack” myself.

Either way, you’ll still feel like you’re hitting a wall with the upgrade.

“Following the furor over Windows 8 and it’s tablet-centric design” ->

“Following the furor over Windows 8 and its tablet-centric design”

I guess they want to get rid of a bad name and start over.

A free Windows is going to be a dead Windows. It will be more profitable to target the web and other OS’s with their fee based software.

Open source Windows is the end game, and if it doesn’t pan out, Windows going away won’t hurt Microsoft at all.

This has been in the works for awhile at MS. It is a necessary move to stay competitive in the ever increasing speed of technical changes and innovation.

I sure hope Microsoft releases regular updates to installation media. It’s already bad enough to install Windows and have to run through a few years of updates. That problem could get even worse.

No one complained when Adobe went from a perpetual license to a subscription license. In fact, they were able to recover 100s of millions of dollar in revenue by the reduced effect of privacy and delivering more a-la cart options to their customers. I am one of those customers that went from using pirated photoshop to becoming a licensed user.

I have no problems paying a monthly fee for a high quality OS if I am getting sufficient value for my money, and that is were MS have a lot of work to do convincing its user base that their OS is worthy of a monthly fee,…if they go down this path (which is not confirmed).

Oh and btw, you Linux for home desktop dudes can go suck a lemon. Linux lost the war for the home computer, just like MS lost the enterprise mission critical server to Linux. Both have their user base, strengths and weaknesses and their rightful place. Live with it.

That’s because you produce money when using adobe, where when in home most user just use windows for playing game, browsing and maybe doing lightweight work.

That aside I think MS should just hunt company instead of using monthly subscription, there’s a lot of company in my country still using pirated windows and some of them have 1000++ employees imagine if all of them paying…

You weren’t at the photography sites (dpreview.com etc) when it happened. The incredible amount of whining is still present today: Whenever Adobe announces updates or a new product the top-rated comment usually has someone whining “I won’t pay subscriptions for my software!”, even if it has nothing to do with the news at hand.

Pretty sure the majority of the whiners had never dished out $500 for a software license in their lives. I am sure because I know a lot of those whiners and they were frequent torrent users.

“Built-in apps like Xbox and Mail have been designed to be designed in Windows 10 to be updated independently of the OS”

Wary of this.. I smell tremendous nickle and diming to come.

Everything will go swell until, during an update, they’ll discover an expired cert. As they did with Azure last year, and wham global rolling botchball.

Windows 10 should be great for the desktop. But I don’t see any practical use for it on a mobile device. If its anything like Windows 8, the mobile division will continue to suffer.

If they can get rid of the restarts when updating, that would be an “improvement”. How can you run a server or media editor if every time there is an update, it either:

1) counts down and automatically restarts the computer or,

2) Allows you to delay the restart for a period of time, but continuously make the comp sluggish and unstable until you are forced to restart, Soft or Hard.

I can always tell when an update was applied by how my computer acted. And it isn’t one of those mid-range comps either.

so let me get this I buy a dell computer then I have to pay Microsoft a monthly fee to use it and if I have 5 computers I have to pay 5x even if its 10 dollars a month x5 50 dollars then what do you think I am going to pay tax on this I will switch to mac get lost ms

It will be the last version of Windows? Superb. :) :P

Very good news, after halting IE, it’s another really good move from M$

Here’s the problem:

Microsoft claimed the same thing with Window 7 that they are claiming for Windows 10. They’re saying that this will be their last big version of Windows; that they will not make a big new version and just roll out changes to everyone who has Windows like the do with service packs. I think this is another “line.”

Also, Window 8 & 8.1 are full of back-doors for the “Naturally Secure America.” While I really like Windows 10, and enjoy it more and more as I play with it, I am bothered by “built-in” security holes.

Oh, yea, Windows 7 will run on a touchscreen or a tablet; I have two tablets that are entirely touch that run windows 7.

Here’s what I see happening: they continually push new updates built for increasingly higher performance machines until it makes your machine run so sluggishly that you’re forced to buy a new machine, and they get their next payday from the OS they sell the PC manufacturer for your new PC. I think I’ll stick to 7. That way the computer will last until the hardware actually wears out.

I’ve used Windows since around 1989 can’t remember all the versions, believe 3.1 may have been the current edition when I began… anyway, having now tried W10 TWICE and reverted to W7 both times, I’ve decided Microsoft simply isn’t good enough anymore, maybe just old and stuck in my ways; NOT into phones so stuck in primitive world of laptops, guess will finally go back to Apple, which is where I got my first “good” experience with computers. Too bad Microsoft lost its identity along the way :(

If you are going to upgrade to windows 10, you can get help from http://www.lightonthekey.com when you meet with problems.

Linux/Unix/Mac has already slaughtered MS … spell kiss of death

…until windows 11.

Despite of critics about windows 10 and its others predecessors operative systems, l love microsoft operative systems, and it is the only world wide system that open the door with its friendly interface to those ones who could not afford a mac. Still mac is a myth to those ones who can no longer afford it, Stive and bill are 2 differents icons that represent diferent innovative giants in computer, just that steve was a selfish business man, that only care about its money, and bill thought a little bit more, not just about money but to give access to those ones who could not afford its operative system, just look way far behind and see who could afford a mac and you’ll see that less than a quarter of the worldwide population barely could, and in the other hand more than 3 quarters of the populations can afford a windows, if the world would have just depended on a apple mac and steve to innovate technology due to the limitations of this corparation to open the door of technology we would have been in underwear. Thanks to microsoft technology has its expansion because of its open door to different vendors, so i don’t give a F.. WHAT SOME ungateful say about THIS operative system, very ungrateful because l bet that the mayority of those who criticize windows and microsoft learned to read with windows..

This is very silly idea, but to me Win 8.1 is better as I have no issue with it. Windows 10 still after 2 updates is having major bugs issues, lots of things don’t work and I found restarting and shutting down in Win 10 very slow. This operating system requires huge work with UI lots of work and design as well including that silly start menu with apps which nobody wants and privacy is the biggest issues there. Until they don’t do proper work which I would be happy with I am staying with Win 8.1. This new Microsoft CEO is worst than the previous one without real ideas of OS..

yes … windows 10 is good, i use it. succes for windows

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