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Re: Windows 9 is now Windows 10

Posted: Fri 04 Jan, 2019 16.44
by Philip
Still a diehard Firefox user here after all these years. Even when I switched from Windows to Mac I couldn't get used to Safari.

It's a shame Edge is going because it had a nice UI, fitting into the Windows 10 style, and some useful features not available on other browsers.

Re: Windows 9 is now Windows 10

Posted: Fri 04 Jan, 2019 21.26
by Martin Phillp
It really does seem too little, too late for MS and their browsers. Chrome can be slow and clunky, but it's everything I want in a browser which is easy to go between all of the Google services I use and easy to swap between the desktop and mobile versions.

However, I use Firefox as a back-up and also have Firefox Focus on my phone and tablet.

Re: Windows 9 is now Windows 10

Posted: Thu 23 Jan, 2020 08.31
by thegeek
How's everyone's Windows 7 migrations going?
Nicht so gut:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/22/2107 ... cost-price

We still have a bunch of Win7 machines at work, largely due to corporate indecision about whether to buy individual licences or buy in to the licensing server model. (Previously it was cost-effective to buy blanket licences but apparently it's not any more).

I ran Windows Update a for a final time on a few machines, and found they were last done in 2017. Oops.

Re: Windows 9 is now Windows 10

Posted: Thu 23 Jan, 2020 11.02
by james2001
thegeek wrote: Thu 23 Jan, 2020 08.31I ran Windows Update a for a final time on a few machines, and found they were last done in 2017. Oops.
I'd argue it's probably a good time to give those machines clean installs, god knows what crap's got on there missing 3 years of security patches.

Re: Windows 9 is now Windows 10

Posted: Sat 25 Jan, 2020 10.58
by cwathen
How's everyone's Windows 7 migrations going?
Done and dusted 3 years ago for everyone I support, same with my own machines.

I do wonder though just how much of an issue Windows 7 holdouts might be - based on some metrics there are more people using Windows 7 in January 2020 than were using Windows XP in April 2014.

That the number is so high is surprising - there were reasons to hold onto XP - anything requiring IE6 or routine Administrator-level access to the operating system was difficult to run on anything else. It was also the last version of Windows which could credibly be used to run DOS software and there were more than a few DOS-based IT platforms still running businesses back then. Then of course there was the question of what to migrate XP to - the latest & greatest at the time was Windows 8 which never gained any market acceptance whilst moving to Windows 7 would be moving to something already not current.

Whilst with 7 there are very few dependencies not catered for in 10, Windows 10 is now mature, stable and proven so you would imagine the migration would have been further along than it is.

Perhaps it is the updates method forced on the retail SKUs (something they're very slowly improving on but still have a long way to go to get back to the level of control there was pre-10) or perhaps it is experience learned from XP's retirement, that despite the obvious risks in continuing to run it, for many people as long as you were careful you survived just fine continuing to run it.

Re: Windows 9 is now Windows 10

Posted: Sat 25 Jan, 2020 11.25
by Pete
So here's an example of why Win 7 hold-outs can happen.

My employer, as part of a project to remove the legacy NetWare login servers, only just finished upgrading everyone from the 32 bit Win 7 desktop with netware login, to the 64bit Win 7 desktop with normal active directory login servers last year. Since then, the majority of ITs bandwidth has been taken up with a full replacement of the entire network, wired and wireless, upgrading and consolidating the data centres, the mandatory "cyber essentials certification" for scottish public sector, and having resources pulled away to support a full replacement of several key business systems.

Upgrading the student facing machines (which are essentially quite dumb and locked down) was done over the summer two years ago in one big go, because nobody uses the machines over the summer and you can just blitz an entire floor of the library / whole floors of teaching rooms at once.

However staff machines are a vastly more complex affair with endless upgrades of business systems to newer versions, "unmanaged devices" vendors coming up with ill-advised changes to licensing rules (o hai adobe) and being able to support business as usual whilst also experiencing a hardware shortage because the HP 830s don't support Win7, so there was a complex dance of recycling the 820s around to keep things running.

The more machines you have, and the more complex the estate, the harder it is. And staffing levels to do it are often not taken into consideration. Current thinking is rather than taking away your machine to upgrade, you just get handed a new one and then the older laptops get updated and swapped out for the remaining desktop machines.

Re: Windows 9 is now Windows 10

Posted: Wed 16 Jun, 2021 11.53
by cwathen
...is now Windows 11.

Unless Microsoft is orchestrating the biggest hoax ever, it turns out Windows 10 is not 'the last version of Windows' after all. 10 now has an end of support date in 2025, giving it exactly the same 10 years of support as has been the standard for some time, and a leaked test build branded 'Windows 11' has appeared, along with quite a few subtle '11' hints coming from Microsoft. Reportedly launching before the end of the year.

From what I can see, it's evolution not revolution, but there are quite a few UI changes to make it markedly different from 10.

I would imagine though the delivery strategy will be no different to a Windows 10 update, I can't see them actually charging for the upgrade and I would imagine all the retail SKUs will just be rapidly moved onto it through automatic updates and you will have to jump through quite a few hoops to actually get to keep 10 until 2025.

Not what I saw them doing, I thought they would eventually just drop the '10' and brand the OS as simply 'Windows' with no suffix. I'm sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with Apple finally incrementing the primary version number of MacOS to 11 and Microsoft not wanting to appear to be a version behind...

Re: Windows 9 is now Windows 10

Posted: Wed 16 Jun, 2021 19.51
by Dr Lobster*
cwathen wrote: Wed 16 Jun, 2021 11.53 I'm sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with Apple finally incrementing the primary version number of MacOS to 11 and Microsoft not wanting to appear to be a version behind...
Indeed, and I think a few things going on over on the Apple side of the fence has got more than a few of the big Wintel OEMs rattled.

Apple's developer conferences are always polished and they revealed some nice features which only Apple can do (like 'Universal' control) which gets people hyped up, but the other thing, Apple Silcon really does have the big Intel OEMs worried - most 1K-ish Windows laptops are just shite, horrible plastic build quality, and first boot you have to spend 3 hours removing all the crapware they bundle with it.

I purchased a M1 MBP a few months ago, I have an Intel I7 something or other as my work laptop - and the first thing you notice is how the fan is on all the time with an Intel machine, whilst with my M1, I never hear it, and I really do get all day battery life and some... to the point that I'm now using my personal laptop in the place of my work laptop as I'm more productive.

The other thing, is that Microsoft are clearly having issues servicing Windows, there are some big quality problems with recent updates - and even just this week, my machine rebooted and when came it back up, I've got this dog shit weather icon in the taskbar which is all blurry compared to all the other text on the screen... I mean, why release it until it's ready? (or at the very least turn it off by default)... it's hardly a must have feature (I'm sure it's just for advert clicks as it it opens an MSN page which is full of crap)

Re: Windows 9 is now Windows 10

Posted: Thu 17 Jun, 2021 12.07
by cwathen
The test build requires TPM 2.0 and SecureBoot in order to install. I know neither technology is exactly new but there hasn't really been a significant change in hardware requirements needed to run Windows well since Vista, and as such there are an awful lot of businesses propped up with HP/Dell Core2Duo SFF boreboxes that are over a decade old but running Windows 10 perfectly well but as it stands a lot of this hardware cannot run 11. Potentially cutting support for older kit which could otherwise run 11 may not be a good move for a speedy upgrade. Hopefully that 'feature' doesn't make it into the final release. It does appear to be entirely arbitrary given that a simple hack of replacing a couple of files with those from Windows 10 to get around it has already been found.
The other thing, is that Microsoft are clearly having issues servicing Windows, there are some big quality problems with recent updates - and even just this week, my machine rebooted and when came it back up, I've got this dog shit weather icon in the taskbar which is all blurry compared to all the other text on the screen... I mean, why release it until it's ready? (or at the very least turn it off by default)... it's hardly a must have feature (I'm sure it's just for advert clicks as it it opens an MSN page which is full of crap)
One thing I'm hoping (although admittedly not holding out much hope) is that Microsoft moves away from their programme of constant updates with limited options for controlling them and the slightly floating feature set which has marred Windows 10 a bit for me when it is otherwise a pretty decent OS. When they moved to this with 10 it was partly out of a vision for 10 becoming a multi platform OS used on all sorts of devices. Clearly this has flopped and Windows remains the de facto desktop OS, but that's all. I'm fed up with dealing with Windows essentially wanting to reinstall itself every 6 months and whether anything will be deprecated this time. The process has got smoother and quicker over time, but it's still an annoyance we never used to have to deal with so often and it's one I could do without. Given Windows is going to remain in it's traditional territory, this time I would like to see something a bit more akin to that with maybe one or two big updates during the lifetime of the OS but otherwise it remaining pretty static with other updates limited to patches and optional features, similar to how things were previously.

And whilst we're on it, if a feature is in the OS how about they let users decide whether or not to use said feature rather than try and force the user down Microsoft's preferred path? You know what, I really do want to set up a local account when building a simple non-domain joined workstation, I don't want to pretend that I don't have internet in order to not have a Microsoft account for login and I don't then want to get a full screen add to switch to a Microsoft account every time an update installs. And yes, I know IE11 is an ancient web browser., but it's part of the OS and is supported for the lifetime of Windows 10. So at work although we certainly don't use it for day to day browsing we do still need to use it for a couple of line of business systems provided by third parties that still run on some crusty old ActiveX platform and won't work with anything else. This might become a problem in Windows 11 (which has an IE executable but it doesn't load) but right now it's supposed to be a valid and supported thing to do in Windows 10. So how about if the user runs IE then just let them use it? I've lost count of how many calls I've got because such and such system won't load and then I find out that the OS has 'helped' the user by opening links in Edge for them.

Re: Windows 9 is now Windows 10

Posted: Thu 17 Jun, 2021 13.06
by Charlie Wells
Hopefully Windows 11 will finally see all the remaining control panel options merged into the settings menu. Whilst the number of items in the Control Panel has reduced in the past few years / redirects to a setting option there's still quite a few items that still haven't been migrated across after all this time.

Re: Windows 9 is now Windows 10

Posted: Thu 17 Jun, 2021 16.43
by allwillbewell
I'm always amazed at how similar the control panel still looks with each version. I hope they manage to re-design the whole thing.