Free commercial software means that I'll have to pay through other means, typically means that I'll have less control over.
Your interest is to keep an OS supported. Microsoft's interest is to release Browser and DirectX updates only for the latest-and-greatest, so that you'd updgrade.
Your interest is an open ecosystem. Microsoft's interest is to have a closed garden. (They haven't been successful with that one, but they're trying).
Your interest might be a usable Desktop OS like Win7. Microsoft's interest is to ram their touch interface down your throat so that you'd get used to it, and your next phone may possibly run Windows - regardless of what's good for you.
Your interest is a usable system that just works. Microsoft's interest is providing a "Protected Media Path" that would degrade your experience if your equipment is not xIAA certified.
You already have NO control. You're already paying through other means. You might have had an illusion of control taken away from you - but that's a good thing.
I might get some heat for this but I must say Windows is still the OS with the least closed garden or heck even a garden. To get even the legitimate and popular x86 applications you still have to manually browse to websites and download it. You can install whatever you want whether it has a digital signature or not and yes it also includes the plentitude of crapwares and spywares.
>Your interest might be a usable Desktop OS like Win7. Microsoft's interest is to ram their touch interface down your throat so that you'd get used to it.
Or maybe some people like a touch OS with their touchscreen laptop and its just MS thinking forward? I don't know what other OS can you recommend that is touch friendly for my Surface pro?
>You already have NO control. You're already paying through other means. You might have had an illusion of control taken away from you - but that's a good thing.
No sure what you mean by this. I don't see MS cloud apps and ads preinstalled on my OS. I don't see it being sponsored by Amazon shopping experience either. The only crap that comes pre installed is done by the manufactures but MS can't even do anything about it, thanks to the anti-trust decisions.
The Windows App Store is as closed as Apple's, just not as successful - and I was comparing interests, not achievements.
> To get even the legitimate and popular x86 applications you still have to manually browse to websites and download it. You can install whatever you want whether it has a digital signature or not and yes it also includes the plentitude of crapwares and spywares.
It's not as open as Linux, or Android, and about as open as OSX. You can't load unsigned drivers anymore without much work. I have no idea why you'd think Windows is "least closed garden" - unless you've never used any of the others.
> Or maybe some people like a touch OS with their touchscreen laptop and its just MS thinking forward? I don't know what other OS can you recommend that is touch friendly for my Surface pro?
Stockholm syndrome? How can it be "forward looking" to force you to use a touch interface when you don't want to? You want it? fine, use it. I don't. But if I use Win8, I still have to use it. Forward looking? Bullying is the only description I can give it.
> No sure what you mean by this.
Then read skrebbel's post I was replying to. He is under the mistaken assumption that because he was paying for Windows, he had any control over the direction it went in the last 10 years.
You sure like putting words into people's mouths.
Surely you meant "OS with a significant market share" or something, because there's no way Windows is more "open" in any way than Linux!
Quite a lot of the core tools (shellutils) are 20+ years old with only minor updates.
Look, I'm not saying there is no Linux software that doesn't keep working, it's the overall time you spend over the lifetime of your software to keep up with updates in its dependencies. I don't see how anyone can reasonably argue that Windows isn't a whole lot better than Linux at that.
(I've been using Linux since 1998, I'm not new to this game)
My colleague is wondering how can he install latest copies of Office and Visual Studio Express on Windows XP SP2 for quite some time, without success.
Reliable platform means, that new versions of OS do not break your old program. Which is true for windows.
Of course, as OS becomes more capable, it's possible to write programs that can't work on less capable older versions. But even then, windows tries to add fallbacks so that most new programs still work on old versions.
The secret to being able to do this properly is to keep a curated development environment that has the old tools/libs in their proper form -- which I suspect is why you don't have a problem (20 years ago you had VC5/VB5 - do you compile the same program with VS2013?).
YMMV, but my experience is that the Microsoft environment is worse than Linux in this regard.
Didn't Win 8 jetisson most of the compatibility?
The parent to you is correct in that you can compile really really really old software on Windows with ease and very few changes. This is not possible on Linux.
Of course, that's because the libraries in fashion change on Linux very quickly and nobody cares about backwards compatibility that much. They say "just grab the latest version!" or "why are you trying to compile such OLD software?!", particularly if written in C or C++. I don't know about Python or scripting language support.
But a rubbish installer written by a company that has much of its UI written in Java (last time I checked years ago) doesn't really compare to the excellent backwards-compatibility of the Windows API and surrounding libraries.
This isn't even an anti-Linux rant; the same problem is found on Mac OSX. That runs into both problems - impossible to run old software (Rosetta support please?!) and impossible to compile it because the system has changed so much.
Which funnily enough was done to aid them in creating enough demand for their app store to become a player in the closed garden model. If it had worked I bet Win 9 would have been closed garden by default, with a special edition for enterprises.
That's not true. It's in your interest to benefit from improvements in software quality. (Certain "upgrades" from Microsoft have been anything but that, but we've certainly come a long way since Windows ME.) A product encumbered by technical debt is going to be weaker.
There are certain well-defined, self-contained systems where never changing makes sense - things that will run for decades, like lab instruments and life-critical industrial automation. General purpose computing isn't one of them.
The limitation was definitely not technical - Chrome and Firefox supported 2000 and XP years after Microsoft stopped.
> > Your interest is to keep an OS supported.
> That's not true.
That's basically always true (even if you quoted me out of context) - it is always your interest to upgrade at your leisure. Unless you are of the general belief that you should be forced to do things that are considered good for you (e.g. forced physical exercise, forced removal of sugar or salt from dishes, etc)
Chrome and Firefox are largely self-contained. Being multi-platform, they have to be. It makes sense that they can be modified without touching their underlying operating systems.
You keep calling IE "Browser" but it's more than that - it is (or at least used to be) a core component of Windows, and very tightly coupled with parts of the operating system that have nothing to do with web browsing. (Navigating local files, for one thing.) Consequently, overhauling IE without overhauling Windows is (or at least was) a hairy proposition and Microsoft decided it wasn't worth it.
I don't know about DirectX, but I suspect it's also tightly coupled with the operating system such that it's not technically feasible to make current versions run on differently engineered operating systems.
That's the company line, they even stated this in court. It might be true today, but I seriously doubt it -- it was definitely NOT true at the time they stated this in court. It was put into the OS with duct tape, definitely not anything at any "core".
I saw a demo of 98 or ME or XP (don't remember which one - the first one that came with integrated IE4) with the web control disabled; some "web folder" views and "active desktop" did not work but the older win95/2000 "folder view" did. If you did not use ActiveX, you didn't feel anything amiss.
In the default setup, if you browsed a local directory through "iexplore.exe", it would fork "explorer.exe" opening another window unexpectedly, although "explorer.exe" would not fork one for a web view (but folder view->web view->folder view did again). Definitely felt like the work of someone who had no access to the "core" to integrate it properly.
If you believe that NOT supporting a newer Trident engine and IE shell on older OS is anything but a political decision, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn you might be interested in. Sure, it costs more to support - but it's a rounding error in Microsoft's development budget.
Finally, even if the "core" issue is true, which (as I stated) I have issues with, the architecture lets them easily keep the old "web component" in the core, and only use the newer one from the IE container. The decision is political in every possible way.
The idea that a browser shouldn't be integrated into an OS makes no sense to me, and apparently to everybody else shipping an OS anyone cares about. OS X has an integrated webview, too, and you can't pitch Safari out the window.
s/Microsoft/Canonical/
s/Windows/Ubuntu/Except ... I'm not paying Ubuntu for my desktop OS; and I would for my server, except they're taking it where I don't want it to go, so I don't.
And ... if you don't like Ubuntu's Unity (many people don't), Gnome, KDE, Enlightenment and ten other desktop environments are basically an apt-get away.
Remind me, what was the command to get rid of The-UI-formerly-known-as-Metro and use the desktop instead?
wget http://torrents.linuxmint.com/torrents/linuxmint-16-cinnamon-dvd-64bit.iso.torrentIn Windows 8.1 you check Boot To Desktop, in Windows 8 you either have to install a small utility or remember to click the big Desktop button in the top left corner every time you reboot. If you want the old style start menu back there are at least 3 different third party options to chose from.
This one thing you should never do. I once tried to apt-get shift to KDE from GNOME and then could never get Network to work ever again.
After searching the internet the only feasible option seemed to be to back up all data and reinstall the OS.
I'm not sure what you did, but all it SHOULD do (and in fact, did, for me) was add another session to the login manager. I didn't remove anything, and I can still choose my desktop environment from the list on every log-in.
Moving to an advertising based pricing model doesn't change any alignment. They still need to fulfill your need or you won't use their software which means they won't get paid by advertisers. They still don't have your interests at heart, but will not do anything to directly lose you as a 'customer' if they believe there are methods of extracting revenue from you.
Microsoft's main customer base has never been the end user anyway, you were merely collateral to getting them inroads into the lucrative enterprise markets which requires that employees coming into enterprise positions are already familiar with Microsoft's technology.
You can say the same thing for every business then. I don't think you see it in the proper light. A business is a for profit organization. It does not mean it does not strive to provide valuable services. Actually, you'll see that when companies actually evolve in a relatively free market (i.e. which is not the case of Windows since it's installed by default on most PCs), companies actually compete to provide better service to their customers in order to maximize their profits. There are many cases where consumers interests and companies interests CAN be aligned.
That's exactly what I am saying. It might appear that a businesses interests align with yours - and the business will certainly scream it to the heavens that they're aligned. But they are never really aligned. You will feel much less betrayed on a daily basis when you understand that. Oil companies destroying the reefs, mining companies contaminating water supplies, manufacturing companies off-shoring labor to ghettos, small mom&pop shops installing wifi trackers, Software companies adding adverts, etc.
It's part of the generational shift and the radical change to ownership and thereby control that is underway. Gates and Ballmer are divesting their shares and that means that the new Microsoft has to make Wall Street analysts happy in a way that a company whose CEO and Chairman are the two largest shareholders doesn't.
The writing was on the wall with Windows 8. It wanted persistent login to Microsoft servers and to produce tailored content via persistent tracking. Whatever doubt I had was gone when Windows 8.1 rolled back my choice of local login without asking and buried the means of changing deeper than before. Topping it off was that 8.1 ignored the fact that the login name I entered as default was the valid local login I had used to start installation.
I've been using MS operating systems since DOS 3.3. The first version of Windows I worked with was 2.0 [only for a customized workflow on an Amiga 2000 with bridgeboard, though]. It's been Windows full time since 3.0 because I've never felt that Microsoft's approach was caveat emptor.
Now I can't say that. I fear they are becoming like everyone else.
So unfortunately, I hate to break it to you that as an end user the money you're giving Microsoft for their products never gave you control.
But on the bright side, pissing off the end users that provide sustenance and influx for their volume-licenses cash cows doesn't serve Microsoft's bottom line either. So even if you pay nothing, your usage of Microsoft's products is very much something Microsoft would prefer to continue.
If ~$20b in revenue last year isn't a big business... http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earn...
65% of that $20b comes from OEMs, which is 100% consumer.
edit: the exact quote from the earnings statement I linked:
"Excluding the impact of the Windows Upgrade Offer, OEM revenue decreased 15%, and was approximately 65% of total Windows Division revenue."
Windows Enterprise licenses are managed separately - even if Wells Fargo orders 12,000 new laptops from Dell, Windows licensing is not factored into the price; WF manages that separately through its enterprise relationship directly with Microsoft.
No, OEM is not 100% consumer. It's not even half.
A large number of OEM machines are sold with Pro preloaded. These go to businesses. (Some consumers buy Pro, but some small businesses buy Home. Assume it more or less averages out.)
Last quarter, Windows OEM revenues overall decreased by just 3%, despite the fact that non-Pro OEM revenues decreased by 20%. Why? Because Pro revenues increased by 12%!
In fact, the slides even said: "Windows OEM Pro revenue up 12%, driven by higher Windows Pro mix in large enterprises and developed markets." So they explicitly acknowledge that enterprise customers are included in OEM revenue.
If you do the algebra, Pro now accounts for 61% of OEM revenues. That means that Home accounts for 39%.
$20 billion * 0.97 * 0.65 * 0.39 = $4.92 billion.
$4.92 billion in a company that took in $73.7 billion of revenues in fiscal year 2013. For comparison, Bing had revenues of $3.2 billion in fiscal year 2013.