Pssssst… I still don’t believe the part about Microsoft testing 20H1, then jumping back to 19H2

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I’ve read the reviews, seen the posts, and I still don’t believe it. Dona Sarkar said yesterday: Today we are releasing a new build to Insiders who hav
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Elly

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Perhaps they should take a page from Intel’s processor architecture book.  They could adopt a “tick-tock” methodology where major changes only get released in the H1 releases, and the H2 releases only contain minor tweaks to the code base from the previous H1 release.  That way, if they insist upon adhering to a 6 month delivery timeline for new releases, they could still do that.  It would allow major architectural changes, that are at a high risk for introducing OS breaking bugs, to get almost a year’s worth of testing before release.

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I thought that was the whole point with their current release cadence. 1 release (the September/09) is for new features, the 2nd release (the March/03) is primarily for bugfixes and stability. If they’re going to do twice yearly updates, that’s the way they should do it, but they can’t even do that right.

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Great Lake Bunyip, woody

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You’re both right. That’s the intent, signaled by the extended servicing windows for the every-other update.

If we do get a 19H2, I bet it’s a half-hearted “tock.”

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WildBill, rc primak

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I can’t think of a single downside to that.

19H2 is a 30-month release, so if it’s a “steady as she goes” stabilization release, then businesses can focus on getting updated to that version, ahead of whatever bigger changes are coming in 2020.

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rc primak

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I would hope they take a page from Canonical’s Ubuntu release schedule. Every 6 months a new version is released. But every 2 years an LTS version is released with 5 years of support. If you want the last version, you can always install it but if you want stability you realistic get about 4 years out of an LTS release.

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Cybertooth

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woody wrote:

and I still don’t believe it.

One question, do I need to buy a new super-duper double extra wide screen monitor so that I can display Susan Bradley’s next Pinocchio ‘simple, transparent, truth’ indicator ?

 

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Great Lake Bunyip, rc primak, woody

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HARRRR!

She made need to re-draw the graphic.

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WildBill

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Most say there really isn’t any great new features anymore, so why put users through a every six month pace of updates? Couldn’t some of this new stuff just get done in monthly updates? I get Microsoft is trying to make this a exciting thing every six months, but it really isn’t.

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radosuaf, lurks about, Cybertooth

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One of the questions I had with the new change to eliminate the selector for SAC (aka CBB) release in the Advanced Options settings UI – is how does a stand-alone Windows 10 Pro machine opt into that during a fresh new install on future builds?

Some answers:

If you have an existing machine already on SAC that gets the update, your feature deferral will be changed to add 60 days (unless you are maxed at 365?).   The SAC/CBB selector will disappear.  This will happen ONE time only, during the transition.  I think we need to pay attention to this, as it may or may not work, may change without warning, etc.

If you install a brand new W10-Pro machine in the future using the future released ISO, then getting your machine into Business Deferral Mode is going to be LESS transparent.  Simply put, the non-obvious solution for stand-alone machines is to go into the Advanced Settings for WU and change the feature update deferral to at least 90 days.  You can also do this with GP local to the machine.  For workstations joined to a domain (local or via Azure) you can and should be doing this with AD/GPO all the way.

Much more information here, updated yesterday:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-configure-wufb

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I think that they are not actually ”jumping back”. Skip Ahead and regular Fast ring are two different things, so Skip Ahead gets 20H1 and Fast will get 19H2. So both versions are tested at the same time.

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That’s correct.

But those who entered Skip Ahead thinking they would get beta builds of 1909 will have to re-install Win10 entirely in order to move back to the 1909 Fast Ring.

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To be honest I think it’s not exactly a nice thing as long as most of this option are exclusive to the enterprise folks

and as long as Home stays the same, then its as if nothing is happening…

Just someone who don't want Windows to mess with its computer.

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If Microsoft’s smart, they’ll move to 20H1 and dump this absurd every-six-month release rate. I know the arguments. I know that Office gets new versions every six months. But Windows ain’t Office. And it shouldn’t be hobbled with the same release cycle.

From an enterprise point of view, it’s not the twice a year update we have a problem with. It’s the short 18 month of support we get with each version. We could always skip an upgrade if the support period would allow for it. At least now Microsoft has decided for enterprise versions that they will support the fall release for 30 months. So we don’t want to see the fall release disappear. But now with the latest fall release (1809), it still seems extremely buggy in February 2019, many months after its release. So we sit on 1803 and wait for them to fix 1809 as our support timeline gets shorter and shorter. And we plan to skip 1903 since it will only have an 18 month support timeline.

Edit: HTML removal – Please use the ‘Text’ tab in the post entry box when you copy/paste

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AlexEiffel, WildBill, Ascaris, NetDef, Elly, woody

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I will never get the rush to get new versions ready each 6-7 months.

Just someone who don't want Windows to mess with its computer.

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Alternative Windows 10 Update

Release Windows 10 system update July 1, just after the close of Microsoft fiscal year. This will insure no impact on Microsoft’s financials. This will also allow for fixes to the release before the ‘back to school’ rush. Additionally manufactures would have time test and release new computers for both the new school year and Christmas.

Additionally, most manufactures close for one (or two) weeks in July and December for plant maintenance. This would allow them to do computer system updates in July during non-production time.

Release Windows 10 features update in early January, (first full working week). The new features can also be presented at CES and provide some excitement to a rather dull month. Also, the features update could be optionally postponed until they are fully incorporated into the next system update in July. This allows the new features to be fully vetted and makes the July system update to be inherently more stable for business.

Don’t see any features you need, wait for the next system update in July.

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Frequent upgrades to software is nonsense. There haven’t been any incredible improvements in years, making new versions an incredibly boring thing, and just a headache for not much in return. They need to go back to concentrating on fixing what they have, save the real improvements and new features up, and then release a new version – which is what they used to do before and in the earlier days of the internet. Kind of like cars are handled – new model, refinement and minor changes, and then after a few years do a fresh updated design with new features. Currently they ship garbage at (or close to) a deadline, fix it later, and say that’s progress.

Make software exciting again!

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WildBill, Zaphyrus

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By the by…

I had a little discussion on Twitter about Wilcox’s claim:

 we will add an additional 60 days to the configured deferral. This will simulate the delay previously experienced when Microsoft declared the SAC milestone.

The implication is that Microsoft usually took 60 days to go from SAC-T to SAC.

That isn’t true. It isn’t even close to true.

Here are the actual beta testing delays:

• Win10 1511 (Nov. 10, 2015 to Apr. 8, 2016) = 150 days
• Win10 1607 (Aug. 2, 2016 to Nov. 29, 2016) = 119 days
• Win10 1703 (Apr. 11, 2017 to July 11, 2017) = 91 days
• Win10 1709 (Oct. 17, 2017 to Jan. 18, 2018) = 93 days
• Win10 1803 (Apr. 30, 2018 to June 14, 2018) = 45 days
• Win10 1809 (Oct. 2, 2018 and it’s not yet at SAC) > 136 days

The 60 day delay is a fallacy.

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AlexEiffel, PhotM, Elly, NetDef

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I had wondered what the historical delays between SAC/CBB and SAC-T/CB had been, thanks Woody!

90 days “feels” like a reasonable delay, but as your records show this new plan does not substitute for the original method – which was less guesswork assuming one trusted the quality level of a newly designated release for business.

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Kirsty

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Hi everyone,

Alrighty. So perhaps Microsoft, after four years of update debacles, might be trying to steer a better course? This sounds as incredulous as nearly everything which is uttered by [EDITED].

Seriously folks, what is your take on whether or not MS might now be working on a new version of W10 which I might be able to actually live with, once Win7 hits EOL? Supposedly Live Tiles are hitting the dust bin since MS had a [nil chance] in belatedly jumping into and succeeding in the mobile market? There are rumors of Office being integrated into a new version of W10? I don’t know. It still seems to me that MS is still trying to figure out what to do with W10 since their pipe dreams of advertising revenue which would be generated by OS advertising, based on deep telemetry which everyone hates, just isn’t panning out to be the path for MS to usurp Google.

Many companies have belatedly realized that targeted advertising is actually generating less revenue for them in comparison to shotgun advertising. Many companies are switching back to shotgun advertising instead of paying for expensive targeted advertising. This makes sense if a company wants new customers who do not know who they are. In fact, I have clicked on many ads which are presented here on AskWoody, simply because the ads were interesting and because I was not familiar with the company. Doing so put that company on my radar as an interesting company — especially if that company had a really good web site. One day and if that company offers something which I am interested in, that company has the benefit that I am already familiar with them. The upshot of all advertising is that you “have to plant the seed” in the minds of all potential new customers. This is exactly where targeted advertising can fail in the long run, if the targeted advertising doesn’t reach potential new customers.

The real question remains. Just what can MS do with W10 which is an OS which they chose to give away for free, on the absurd presumption that its deep telemetry and targeted advertising revenue would allow MS to usurp Google? Oh really? I ask this since this is a core issue which underlies MS’s ongoing Windows Update train wreck, and since MS has sworn that W10 is the last Windows OS. That is like Ford swearing that their current car models are the last cars which Ford will ever produce. I really wonder just who at MS dreamed up the idea to forever shoot the Windows cash cow. I really do wonder. At the end of the day, I think that a really good and stable W10 is a pipe dream since everyone should have read the writing on the wall when MS announced that W10 would be their last Windows OS — MS really no longer wants to do Windows, period. That decision basically carved in stone that Windows was dead. MS killed their Windows cash cow because they could not bring themselves to admit to their mistakes with W8 (Sinofsky), because they could not acknowledge that W8 was DEAD for mobile, and because they inexplicably delayed creating W8.1 due to wishful dreams that, somehow, W8 would eventually gain traction in the mobile market. The upshot is that MS totally underestimated the solidly entrenched traction and power of the mobile ecosystem. MS’s efforts at trying to sell W10 to cell phone manufactures must have been like trying to sell snake oil.

Needless to say, MS will never admit that W8 and their incredibly delayed release of W8.1 significantly exacerbated the decline of PC sales. Yet MS repeatedly touted the decline of PC sales as one of their reasons for announcing that W10 would be their last Windows OS! On this one, I still am trying to figure out which is smarter — MS or a box of pet rocks.

It is what it is. So again, the real question remains. A lot of you all have high hopes for W10. Personally, I do not. I have absolutely ZERO hope that W10 will ever transform into any form of a basic and reliable OS.

Best regards,

–GTP

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GoneToPlaid wrote:

I really wonder just who at MS dreamed up the idea to forever shoot the Windows cash cow. I really do wonder.

I think that’s just the problem.  The cow just hasn’t been giving as much milk as she used to!  I read a few years ago (I haven’t confirmed this) that Windows only represented 10% of Microsoft’s profit, while the ongoing development of Windows uses more than a quarter of their workforce, making Windows a poor performer per man-hour invested.

With PC sales in decline and with no end in sight, and with development costs that are more or less fixed, there would no doubt be a date circled on a calendar somewhere in Redmond that would indicate the projected date where Windows no longer turns a profit at all if the current trends continue.  A strategy of monetizing Windows to the greatest extent possible in the short term, crossing all the lines they never would have crossed in the days when Microsoft lived and died by Windows, while slowly killing it off in the long term seems quite rational, as long as you think that people will still be willing to use MS cloud services in a world without Windows (and where the perception that Windows=Microsoft still exists).

At the end of the day, I think that a really good and stable W10 is a pipe dream since everyone should have read the writing on the wall when MS announced that W10 would be their last Windows OS — MS really no longer wants to do Windows, period.

I can think of no other explanation for their remarkable aggression towards their own users that makes any sense.  It’s an exit strategy that liquidates an asset of considerable value that could otherwise wither away, which would be a tremendous waste, from Microsoft’s perspective.

Simply cancelling Windows, open-sourcing it, or just going merrily forward while the platform slides into irrelevance (which I don’t think will happen, but a lot of analysts do, and Microsoft’s own actions demonstrate a profound lack of faith in the PC platform) would be letting their Windows monopoly evaporate into nothingness, kind of like how AOL’s dominance in the dialup internet market did when dialup itself became irrelevant.  Best to cash in while it’s still worth something!

 

 

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WildBill

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That’s why they’ve been getting all their customers transitioned over to subscription-based enterprise plans that come with a lot of extra corporate security features.  They’re also pushing Azure Active Directory for companies, especially smaller ones, that don’t want to have a server room.  One company, paying for one month of AAD, makes Microsoft just as much money as 10 copies of Windows 10 Home.

Retail PC sales are slowing because people are holding on to their hardware for about a year longer than they used to.  Why?  It’s super simple…. computer speed hasn’t increased at the pace that it used to, and Windows system requirements aren’t going up — except for memory for browser tabs, of course.  A mid-range computer from 2012 is still going to serve you just fine in 2019.  What’s the advice we’ve all been giving our friends?  “Just slam an SSD and another 8 GB RAM in there and keep going!”  …. yeah, guess what, that negatively affects new PC sales.

It also helps to remember that PC sales peaked around 2010-2011, largely because of the delayed effects of the market crash a couple of years earlier.

You take all those things into account, and the overall PC market is actually pretty steady.

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GoneToPlaid

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warrenrumak wrote:

That’s why they’ve been getting all their customers transitioned over to subscription-based enterprise plans that come with a lot of extra corporate security features.

(emphasis added)

All their customers– because consumers, who aren’t eligible for enterprise plans, aren’t customers.  

I share your optimism regarding the future of the PC form factor, but it doesn’t seem that Microsoft management shares the vision.  To be willing to forsake everything they’ve worked for over 25 years to establish themselves as king of the desktop to launch a second Hail Mary, ultimately ill-fated attempt to try to gain some ground on Google and Apple in the mobile market doesn’t exactly fill one with confidence that MS is committed to the platform.  They’ve told us mobile first, cloud first (and then cancelled mobile), and they’ve gotten rid of the Windows division. Windows hardly gets a mention at their dog and pony shows anymore.

Microsoft in the Nadella era has crossed a lot of lines that Gates or Ballmer (though this began to falter in the Win 8 years at the end of Ballmer’s time) never would have as far as making money with Windows, and it wasn’t because “Micro$oft” didn’t like money as much then as they do now. We never saw Windows Update deliver adware (early GWX) or even outright malware (late GWX, update breaking future security updates on 7/8.x on Kaby or later) as it has at least three times during the Nadella era.

When Vista failed in the marketplace, there was no effort to force anyone to accept it anyway.  There was no FUDding of XP, no ban on XP supporting newer architectures, no warnings that Vista was the last Windows ever, so don’t bother waiting for another one.  MS licked its wounds and turned Vista into something great, something that people actually wanted.  That was when they didn’t want to harm the Windows platform by using their monopoly to force the issue as they had when they forced Netscape out of business and achieved 90% market share with IE.  Look at where IE is now! Its successor has failed as well, slated to be replaced by yet another rebadged Chrome (probably smart on Microsoft’s part, as it offloads the hard part of browser development to Google at Google’s expense, but equally interesting as a reminder of what weaponizing a monopoly against your customers does to the product long-term).

Gates and Ballmer didn’t want to do anything that would harm the Windows platform (back when Windows was the crown jewel of the MS empire), even if it made more money in the short term.  If they could have monetized Windows in the ways we’ve seen in the WaaS era, I have not an iota of doubt that they would have done it, had they not thought it would harm the Windows platform in the future.

It’s been opposite of that under Nadella, where it seems that only things that cause short term revenue boosts and cause long-term harm to the platform are considered.  Either he’s pathologically short-sighted (to the point of incompetence) or else he’s not concerned about whether the Windows platform remains robust into the future.  I don’t know whether the destruction of Windows is part of the plan or merely an acceptable outcome, but it really doesn’t make any difference.  I can’t see any other possibilities… you simply do not treat your customers as MS has if they want to keep them.  (There’s that word again, “customers.”  The enterprise customers, the ones they actually consider customers, are not subjected to all the abuses that consumers are.)

I don’t think Nadella got to where he is now by being pathologically short-sighted, FWIW.

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Ascaris wrote:

With PC sales in decline and with no end in sight, and with development costs that are more or less fixed, there would no doubt be a date circled on a calendar somewhere in Redmond that would indicate the projected date where Windows no longer turns a profit at all if the current trends continue. A strategy of monetizing Windows to the greatest extent possible in the short term, crossing all the lines they never would have crossed in the days when Microsoft lived and died by Windows, while slowly killing it off in the long term seems quite rational, as long as you think that people will still be willing to use MS cloud services in a world without Windows (and where the perception that Windows=Microsoft still exists).

I can think of no other explanation for their remarkable aggression towards their own users that makes any sense. It’s an exit strategy that liquidates an asset of considerable value that could otherwise wither away, which would be a tremendous waste, from Microsoft’s perspective.

Simply cancelling Windows, open-sourcing it, or just going merrily forward while the platform slides into irrelevance (which I don’t think will happen, but a lot of analysts do, and Microsoft’s own actions demonstrate a profound lack of faith in the PC platform) would be letting their Windows monopoly evaporate into nothingness, kind of like how AOL’s dominance in the dialup internet market did when dialup itself became irrelevant. Best to cash in while it’s still worth something!

When do you anticipate a world without Windows arriving?

How will the asset by then have been liquidated for cash?

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b wrote:

When do you anticipate a world without Windows arriving?

No idea.  Years, probably.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

If you’d asked the same thing during the browser wars about when I anticipated a world without a MS browser arriving, I would have told you the same thing back then.  I’m a lot closer to having an answer on that one now, though there’s still a little waiting and seeing yet to go.  Such is the predictable pattern of weaponizing a monopoly against your own customers, as MS is doing once again now.

For the record, when I write of Windows going away, if it’s not already self-evident, I meant Windows as we’ve known it, which is to say as a general-purpose operating system.  They can call anything they want “Windows,” but if it’s not a general-purpose, full-featured OS that is suitable/sold to consumers and enterprises alike, it’s not Windows as we’ve known it.  It’s some other, lesser thing with the name “Windows” tacked on.

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GoneToPlaid said:

The real question remains. Just what can MS do with W10 which is an OS which they chose to give away for free, on the absurd presumption that its deep telemetry and targeted advertising revenue would allow MS to usurp Google?

Actually, M$ gave away Win 10 Home & Pro to Win 7/8.1 users for free from July 2015 onward, mainly to recruit free beta-testers so that her VIP Win 10 Ent cash-cows would have smooth auto-updates/upgrades.

Remember, in April 2014, M$ had saved a bundle of ca$h by shutting-down her Windows Testing Division = to be replaced by free beta-testers. Hence M$’s aggressive GWX KB3035583 campaign against uncooperative or unbrainwashed Win 7/8.1 users.

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GoneToPlaid: ” That is like Ford swearing that their current car models are the last cars which Ford will ever produce. ”

You surely must mean the Ford Edsel.

I am not sure about what those who really matter here: those in charge of those in charge at MS (i.e., the big shareholders in charge of Mr. Nadella and his Happy Band of Board Members) will make of how well Windows 10 is doing — or not, being so focused instead on the business’ promises of the Cloud, AI and Quantum Computers. These, after all, are the same folks, or their children, or even grandchildren, all formed in the same school of thought and sharing their elders’ mentality. People whose mentality brought us the 1989 S&L Debacle, the Internet 2000 Debacle, the 2008 Commodification of Funny Mortgages Debacle, and are now looking forward to more and bigger debacles, including the Great 20xx MS Debacle. Because they can, and the Cloud, AI and Quantum Computers are, magically at the same time, sooo COOL! And sooo HOT!

 

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.
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warrenrumak wrote:

…Retail PC sales are slowing because people are holding on to their hardware for about a year longer than they used to. Why? It’s super simple…. computer speed hasn’t increased at the pace that it used to, and Windows system requirements aren’t going up — except for memory for browser tabs, of course. A mid-range computer from 2012 is still going to serve you just fine in 2019…

I do not agree, since it was in October 2012 that the horrible Windows 8 became generally available to the masses — who quickly and decidedly rejected Sinofsky’s delusional vision for Windows 8. I say “delusional” because there already was not only a ton of strong negative feedback from beta testers, but also because there was very strong negative feedback from within MS itself. It didn’t matter since Sinofsky had been given cart blanch to rule the house, and since MS considered whatever Sinofsky “envisioned” to be the best path for Windows. This rejection quickly resulted in an even further decline of PC sales. Again, I will point out that MS not only stubbornly refused to acknowledge that Windows 8 significantly exacerbated the decline in PC sales since Win8.0 was an inherently unusable mess on a desktop PC, but also that MS has subsequently and continually quoted declines in PC sales as “excuses” for the demise of Windows. And of course, Sinofsky “left” (actually was fired by) MS within a couple of weeks after the release of Windows 8.

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What I remember because I found it both remarkably and rather dodgy at the time, was all the “fanboys” who used to show up in the middle of discussions on the Web, where everybody was dumping on Win 8 for being so awful and turning their machines into something less useful, and they would then admonish and mock everyone there as being incapable of keeping up with “real progress” (Win 8) because they were just a bunch of uncool old guys without a clue. I wondered then, as I wonder now, when I read that kind of comments (not here of course!) on all the alleged Win 10’s blessings, whether those were real fanboys (or fangirls… ), or plain and simple nasty trolls? Sent in by MS to enliven proceedings and win by wearing out the rabble-rousers into silence, perchance? And, if that was really so (which I doubt, but… ), then how well did that work out for MS? But I digress…

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.
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Win 8 got a bad rap. As it turned out Win 8(.1) has it where it counts, and is the last OS to carry forward the real Windows philosophy.

My Windows 8.1 system right now… Note the uptime. It’s a workhorse all day, all week, all month, all year. Perpetual license, good desktop (with suitable tweaking), no Apps. Not much not to like.

-Noel

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Noel Carboni wrote:

Win 8 got a bad rap. As it turned out Win 8(.1) has it where it counts, and is the last OS to carry forward the real Windows philosophy.

Someone has to ask: What’s the real Windows philosophy (in your opinion)?

 

Noel Carboni wrote:

My Windows 8.1 system right now… Note the uptime.

What’s the advantage of no restarts for 77 days? Not being up-to-date with security patches?

 

Noel Carboni wrote:

Perpetual license,

All Windows systems have a perpetual license.

 

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I do wonder why Microsoft would not accept that Win 8 was disaster when they could accept Vista was bad? They went back and fix Vista but yet half-heartily fix 8? Only things I could think off hand are combination of pride and buying their own kool-aid about it being the road to future.  That and too many people got invested into the idea. Do you have any idea as why they would not and seemingly could not accept that Win 8 Meteo was disaster and especially that Win 10 is not wonderful?

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anonymous wrote:

I do wonder why Microsoft would not accept that Win 8 was disaster when they could accept Vista was bad? They went back and fix Vista but yet half-heartily fix 8?

Windows 8.x was well on its way to being made into a reasonable OS when Satya Nadella took the reins.  The original “Threshold” update was to be Windows 8.2, reoptimized for the desktop, with a return to the real start menu and a separate desktop SKU optimized for traditional desktops.  While Windows 8.1 was a good step in the right direction, 8.2 would have been more of a leap, and it could have been great.

And then Satya Nadella came on board, and plans changed.  “Threshold” became the first release of Windows 10, a vehicle for “monetizing” Windows, and Windows 8.x never saw another feature update (despite being years away from going out of mainstream support at that point).

Do you have any idea as why they would not and seemingly could not accept that Win 8 Meteo was disaster and especially that Win 10 is not wonderful?

It’s wonderful for Microsoft.  They’re not looking to make the users of Windows happy… they’re looking to make Microsoft happy, and for that, its real purpose in life, it is wonderful.

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and then came the “Redstone” versions of Windows 10 which started in mid-2016, one year after Windows 10 RTM was first released

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I kinda late on this but check out this article from Paul Thurrott titled “Slow Down Windows 10 Development, You Say?”
https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/199575/slow-down-windows-10-development-you-say

need to be either a basic or premium member to fully read that article but it’s very good.

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