Peering into the Windows tea leaves

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WOODY’S WINDOWS WATCH By Woody Leonhard You can expect some significant changes — existential changes — to Windows in the very near future. Based on s
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a, abbodi86

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I’m eternally grateful for Woody’s regular newsletters and for Susan Bradley’s essential contributions (though sometimes you’re well over my poor head!), but but but when I follow the link you provide to the Windows Update MiniTool (under ‘Alternative patch-management tools’) I find a page that was last updated on September 26, 2016 — that’s fully three years ago, and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then! So the crucial question is: how reliable can this tool be in November 2019?

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woody

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Windows Update Mini Tool is a tremendous product, but…..

Susan recommends it in her article this week, but I’ve always been leery of it. WUMT does what it’s supposed to do, and does it well, but I don’t know the people behind the product. I’m ultra-cautious about its pedigree because it sits in a very vulnerable position, between Windows and its updates. See my take on it, from Jan. 2017. (By the way, if anybody reading this has an update on Mr X or shewolf, I’d sure like to hear about it!)

Best I can tell, WUMT hasn’t been updated since Dec. 2016. It’s available on oldergeeks.com here:

https://www.oldergeeks.com/downloads/file.php?id=1366

There’s a wrapper for WUMT called Sledgehammer that’s drawn very good reviews (see Martin Brinkmann’s on ghacks, for example). You should consider using that, if you trust WUMT.

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Microfix

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Another option, and also more recently updated for W10, is WUMgr that during my curiousity/testing on v1809 worked flawlessly.

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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Yes, the diabolical Windows by the Month plan has been moving forward for at least 5 years. They’ve only been impatiently waiting for Windows 7 to die. Expect to start paying for your “free” Windows 10 next year or your existing version will expire in a matter of months.

Only the domains are safe (for now), because they’re already paying by the year, but expect those to go up, too. And they really, REALLY want them all on Azure, that’s why it’s every other word out of their mouths, so that will be the next compulsion.

It’s a shame Linux isn’t more standardized …

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PerthMike, Kranium

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“Windows is boring”

Well, when it comes to an O/S, I’m okay with that.  What is likely keeping Windows in the doldrums is its … unpredictability.  I just want to sit down and get my work done.  I don’t want to update and find that my bluetooth mouse no longer works.

In what business model (either Microsoft’s or my own) is this okay?  Most of the time I’m afraid to update for fear of being sidetracked with troubleshooting.

Thank goodness for Woody’s Lounge and everyone who contributes their level-headed, practical, very good advice!

Kim

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JLamede, rontpxz81, Tom-R, phaolo, Spiral, Average-Jane

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kdock wrote:

“Windows is boring”

Well, when it comes to an O/S, I’m okay with that. What is likely keeping Windows in the doldrums is its … unpredictability.

Exactly. Windows isn’t boring enough.

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PerthMike, wavy, Average-Jane

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What is wrong with an OS being boring, most especially in business or serious consumer settings?  The OS is supposed to let you invoke and use applications along with their related hardware requirements, i.e., mice, keyboards, printers.  OS reliability and stability trump any type of flashy graphics, sizzle, and needless complexity.

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PerthMike

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OS “upgrades”, incremental or otherwise, always make my skin crawl. I shudder in anticipation of all the things that will no longer function well or at all once I finally decide to “upgrade”, but are working just fine now, maybe after long and tedious attempts to figure out how to overcome the bugs and kinks of the current version and get finally over and done with them.

This has always been the case when upgrading from one OS to another, or even to the same OS, just a new, improved, all-electric version. But Windows has been exceptionally  good at giving me conniption fits: from 95 to 98, from 98 to XP, from XP to 7… always, without exception.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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JLamede, rontpxz81

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Looking forward to purchasing my extended Windows-7 support when it becomes available.  WIndows-10 is still way too unstable for routine tasks that Windows-7 remains unexcelled.

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rontpxz81, PerthMike

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Woody writes in the latest Newsletter: “…Microsoft broke Windows into two major groups. On the one hand we have Windows Core, which has been assimilated into Scott Guthrie’s Azure team. On the other hand, Joe Belfiore’s Windows Client Experience team…”

What does each group do? Which one is developing the Windows X.etc operating system? Or is this development now split between two groups?

What is the main problem caused by this split, as far as  the quality of the resulting OS goes? (And separate from the effect of replacing the old quality control group with mainly AI and beta-tester users — some voluntary, some not). Thanks for any not too technical, but clarifying answers.

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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The Windows team has always had a separate “core” development group. Before the breakup 18 months ago, the “core” devs and the other devs all reported to the same person, Terry, who was an Executive VP – very high up in the corporate food chain. After the breakup, they’re in two entirely separate pieces of the organization.

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That launcher looks like a nightmare, typical Microsoft thinking. “We know what everyone wants and this is how you’ll use Windows from now on.”

Problem is, there’s no single true interface that suits everyone.

Our office, for example, a small government agency where users use the core Office apps (Word and Excel), CRM and RM (HP doc mgt) every user deals with their own clients/customers, and there is no “collaboration” and nor would it work for our environment. Our clients call us for one on one consulting, and every staff member deals with their own clients pretty much exclusively. Staff use desktops with dual-screens, nobody has a laptop or tablet, and people stay at their desks. We don’t hot desk, we don’t leave the office. When someone should have to go to a meeting room to meet with a client or give a presentation, they will borrow one of three laptops we have.

So for us, collaboration tools simply do not work. We need a stable Windows that each user can make comfortable for their use (yes, we even have users that have every single spot on their dual-screen desktops filled with document or folder shortcuts), for them a launcher would not work at all, it would disrupt their work far more than it would enhance it.

Of course, with Microsoft forcing these changes down our throat at a breakneck 18-month cycle with Windows 10, we will be forced to look at using at least the LTSB (or whatever it will be called next month) to at least keep some sort of stability until even that can’t be supported any more, at which point we’ll likely have to find a Windows alternative.

Microsoft needs to listen to users, corporations (and govt agencies like ours) as to what WE want.

No matter where you go, there you are.

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Nice article! What caught my eye, though, was Woody’s thought (fantasy?  ) that MS might actually test it for 3 months before releasing it. Gad! I wish!!! Yes, they could give it to the insider group(and probably will). Yes, they could pretend that’s a test. No, I wouldn’t expect it to be any better than it is now when released to prime time.  But, as usual, we get what they give us… and try to cope.

Dividing it into core and etc might be a good idea if this somehow simplifies it. Linux’s fall is lack of support drivers. Windows fall is trying to do everything. Unfortunately they went over the waterfall a while ago and are hurtling (in some direction ) but they seem to be caught in the fix-it phase. (Twilight Zone?) (Forever?) And since they aren’t making the $ from it? Lost the motivation to truly develop a viable product; or perhaps a set of viable products? I suppose that could come from the “core” base idea, but I clapped hard and Tinkerbell still ain’t moving. And if the $ aren’t there, then Win 11 won’t ever happen.

So how will it die? and dragging a lot of people with it…

Nope, forget all that! focus on the present. The reality of the future is , well, IBM’s FUD.

But again, nice article!!!

– ThinkPad T530-2394-3J8, i5-3380M 2.9GHz, Win8.1 Pro x64 (with OpenShell), 8GB(15GB/s), Sammy 250GB SSD. –

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