Microsoft Expects the “Majority of Customers” to Use Windows 10’s S Mode

Megalith

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Joe Belfiore, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows, is apparently very confident of Windows 10’s S Mode, which was officially revealed this week: in a “stunning endorsement,” Belfiore suggests that S Mode will be the most popular way to run the OS. It is expected to debut alongside the Redstone 4 update in April.

Belfiore characterized Windows 10’s S mode as the “‘low-hassle’/ guaranteed performance version” of Windows. Belfiore called out the security, faster boot time, better battery life and consistent performance that Windows 10’s S mode produces. Windows 10's S mode blocks the operating system from using traditional Win32 apps, allowing only apps from the Windows Store instead.
 
Microsoft Wants the “Majority of Customers” to Use Windows 10’s S Mode

...and be trapped in the Window store.

Here comes the 3rd failure of Windows SRT.

It will be pretty sad when Linux runs more Windows software than Windows does.
 
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Microsoft Wants the “Majority of Customers” to Use Windows 10’s S Mode

...and be trapped in the Window store.

Here comes the 3rd failure of Windows SRT.

It will be pretty sad when Linux runs more Windows software than Windows does.

Heh, Linux already runs almost all the applications I currently use. The only reason I keep a Windows 10 partition around is for games, Linus only runs about a third of my Steam games.
 
It is possible. Sell it cheap/free tooem and they will install it on all their cheap computers. Which is a huge part of their sales.
 
Must be time for another round of garbage hardware to debut again as everyone has forgotten abut the netbook by now. lol

The only was the majority of people will use S mode is because they'll be intentionally kept in the dark that they don't have to and can get it upgraded.
 
Must be time for another round of garbage hardware to debut again as everyone has forgotten abut the netbook by now. lol

The only was the majority of people will use S mode is because they'll be intentionally kept in the dark that they don't have to and can get it upgraded.

"Works great on S, non-S is too slow on my computer"
 
Heh, S mode. Say, how well is ReactOS doing these days?
Poorly. It's been twenty years since the project started back in 1996 and it still very much feels like an early Alpha version. Not at all ready for release, not even close.

UWP Apps or Universal Windows Platform Apps are going to be the future, there's no doubt about that in my mind. Win32 as it stands today is a garbage heap of crap that's been added and hacked on for the last few decades. I wouldn't be at all surprised that even today Windows 10 has code that dates back to Windows 95 or even Windows 3.11. That's a lot of old, buggy, security hole ridden crap that I doubt anyone these days really knows how it works. UWP Apps are going to be the future because for the most part you can write the application once and be able to make it run on just about any device including Android, iOS, and yes... even Linux. Write-once, run-anywhere; that's the future! Not only that but UWP apps are written in the .NET Framework which is a much newer API that has far less garbage under the hood than Win32 has and is far easier to program for than the archaic Win32 API. I can do things in .NET with just a few lines of code that if I were to be forced to use the old Win32 stuff I would have to write out pages of code.

UWP are apps also much cleaner (they run in a virtualized environment complete with a virtualized file system and Registry) than Win32 apps. Uninstalling a UWP app is far easier and doesn't leave pieces and parts all over the place like their older Win32 cousins do. The Universal Windows Platform is the future, it's going to be better in every way when compared to the old Win32 platform. Does it have to mature more? Sure. But eventually Win32 will be the done away with and at the same time much of the malware issues that plague Windows today will be a thing of the past due to the virtualized environment in which UWP apps run.
 
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Might be ok for my 85 year old step dad, since all he uses is a browser and email.
Also might stop him from getting infected with viruses all the time.

As for my personal systems or work, not a chance. Don't have a single windows store app in use anywhere.
Windows S is as useless to me as an iPad.
 
UWP Apps or Universal Windows Platform Apps are going to be the future, there's no doubt about that in my mind. UWP are apps also much cleaner (they run in a virtualized environment complete with a virtualized file system and Registry) than Win32 apps. Uninstalling a UWP app is far easier and doesn't leave pieces and parts all over the place like their older Win32 cousins do. The Universal Windows Platform is the future, it's going to be better in every way when compared to the old Win32 platform.

And 20 years from now people will be using their old unsupported version of Windows, since the new version no longer supports Win32, and they still have some critical legacy app they need to run.
 
Here we go again...

Look, I play all the games I want on Linux. TODAY. Yes, there are games that aren't native on Linux, but I play those too. And then there's the few that you really can't play on Linux. Well that doesn't bother me, because the first two categories give me all the gaming I really want.

So, yeah, gaming on Linux is actually good. And in my experience, can be better than Windows 10.

So don't feed me that crap, you're not the first.

Plenty of reasons to hate on Windows 10 but gaming just isn't one of them especially compared to Linux.
 
So, yeah, gaming on Linux is actually good. And in my experience, can be better than Windows 10.

This is basically the same logic that Microsoft is putting out about Windows 10 S mode. The biggest problem with S mode is that it breaks compatibility with the overwhelming majority of existing Windows software. Yet somehow desktop Linux, which lacks native compatibility with overwhelming majority of games, is good for gaming?

Linux gaming works for you. You can't make begin to make that guarantee for 100+ million Windows gamers.
 
Microsoft Expects the “Majority of Customers” to Use Windows 10’s S Mode

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Poorly. It's been twenty years since the project started back in 1996 and it still very much feels like an early Alpha version. Not at all ready for release, not even close.

UWP Apps or Universal Windows Platform Apps are going to be the future, there's no doubt about that in my mind. Win32 as it stands today is a garbage heap of crap that's been added and hacked on for the last few decades. I wouldn't be at all surprised that even today Windows 10 has code that dates back to Windows 95 or even Windows 3.11. That's a lot of old, buggy, security hole ridden crap that I doubt anyone these days really knows how it works. UWP Apps are going to be the future because for the most part you can write the application once and be able to make it run on just about any device including Android, iOS, and yes... even Linux. Write-once, run-anywhere; that's the future! Not only that but UWP apps are written in the .NET Framework which is a much newer API that has far less garbage under the hood than Win32 has and is far easier to program for than the archaic Win32 API. I can do things in .NET with just a few lines of code that if I were to be forced to use the old Win32 stuff I would have to write out pages of code.

UWP are apps also much cleaner (they run in a virtualized environment complete with a virtualized file system and Registry) than Win32 apps. Uninstalling a UWP app is far easier and doesn't leave pieces and parts all over the place like their older Win32 cousins do. The Universal Windows Platform is the future, it's going to be better in every way when compared to the old Win32 platform. Does it have to mature more? Sure. But eventually Win32 will be the done away with and at the same time much of the malware issues that plague Windows today will be a thing of the past due to the virtualized environment in which UWP apps run.
Fine fine, as long as I don't have to go through the windows store.
 
In and of itself, Windows 10 S mode is actually a good idea. However, MS had 6 years to prepare the Windows Store for this option and would you not know, they failed at that. How can UWP apps be the future when they do not even bother with their own programs with UWP and they killed their own mobile platform, which would have been a good place to have UWP apps.
 
They were also convinced that everyone wanted tiles on their desktop OS..we all know how well that shit went down.

I think the biggest problem with the Windows 8.x UI was the always full screen nature of the modern UI stuff. I agree that the design of Windows 8 was in part to promote Windows phones but it also was to promote Windows convertibles, tablets and touch enabled devices that have clearly outlasted Windows phones and are now a large portion of new Windows machines being sold.

Microsoft gets slammed for dropping support for things, imagine the backlash that Microsoft would get if all the Windows 7 folks got their way and people with Windows 10 touch devices had to deal with the Windows 7 UI on those kinds of devices. Windows 10 is far superior to 7 with that kind of hardware.
 
Windows convertibles, tablets and touch enabled devices that have clearly outlasted Windows phones and are now a large portion of new Windows machines being sold.

"Large portion" - on what planet? The world doesn't care about touch-anything on windows.
 
In and of itself, Windows 10 S mode is actually a good idea. However, MS had 6 years to prepare the Windows Store for this option and would you not know, they failed at that. How can UWP apps be the future when they do not even bother with their own programs with UWP and they killed their own mobile platform, which would have been a good place to have UWP apps.

At this point UWPs are at best an addition to the Windows ecosystem, not a replacement. But there are plenty of folks with basic needs that could easily like within the Microsoft Store. It's a complicated situation for Windows. On what other client OS, desktop or mobile, do people run 5, 10 possibly 20 year old binaries?
 
Look, I understand that there's a lot of old software that is going to be left in the dust but this is years away from going away permanently. Keeping the old stuff around is why Windows is such a malware magnet, it's like the wild west out there. There's no safe guards in place to prevent Win32 programs from doing harm to the System. Oh sure, we have made firewalls, sandboxes, and other various ways to try and contain them but in the end they all fail. We need to go back to the drawing board and that is what UWP is, a clean slate on which new safer programs can be developed so that eventually computers will be a whole lot safer to use.

And what's wrong with the idea of the Windows Store? Apple has a store for the iPhone and Google has one for Android devices and they are accepted. Why not on Windows?
 
Look, I understand that there's a lot of old software that is going to be left in the dust but this is years away from going away permanently. Keeping the old stuff around is why Windows is such a malware magnet, it's like the wild west out there. There's no safe guards in place to prevent Win32 programs from doing harm to the System. Oh sure, we have made firewalls, sandboxes, and other various ways to try and contain them but in the end they all fail. We need to go back to the drawing board and that is what UWP is, a clean slate on which new safer programs can be developed so that eventually computers will be a whole lot safer to use.

And what's wrong with the idea of the Windows Store? Apple has a store for the iPhone and Google has one for Android devices and they are accepted. Why not on Windows?

There is no right or wrong answer here. In the tech world Windows is Methuselah. An OS that was designed to work on disconnected desktop computers should be completely irrelevant today. Except it's not. But the world has moved well past disconnected desktop computing and that's a huge challenge for something that was created a generation ago.

Honestly I'd love to see Windows die off just to take Microsoft out of the equation. But have I no desire to see thousands of dollars of hardware and software I spent my money on become inoperable. And I'm not going to pretend nonsense like Linux gaming is good when two years after VR became practical on Windows, hell even the Store now has VR games, VR is still a disaster on Linux.
 
Poorly. It's been twenty years since the project started back in 1996 and it still very much feels like an early Alpha version. Not at all ready for release, not even close.

UWP Apps or Universal Windows Platform Apps are going to be the future, there's no doubt about that in my mind. Win32 as it stands today is a garbage heap of crap that's been added and hacked on for the last few decades. I wouldn't be at all surprised that even today Windows 10 has code that dates back to Windows 95 or even Windows 3.11. That's a lot of old, buggy, security hole ridden crap that I doubt anyone these days really knows how it works. UWP Apps are going to be the future because for the most part you can write the application once and be able to make it run on just about any device including Android, iOS, and yes... even Linux. Write-once, run-anywhere; that's the future! Not only that but UWP apps are written in the .NET Framework which is a much newer API that has far less garbage under the hood than Win32 has and is far easier to program for than the archaic Win32 API. I can do things in .NET with just a few lines of code that if I were to be forced to use the old Win32 stuff I would have to write out pages of code.

UWP are apps also much cleaner (they run in a virtualized environment complete with a virtualized file system and Registry) than Win32 apps. Uninstalling a UWP app is far easier and doesn't leave pieces and parts all over the place like their older Win32 cousins do. The Universal Windows Platform is the future, it's going to be better in every way when compared to the old Win32 platform. Does it have to mature more? Sure. But eventually Win32 will be the done away with and at the same time much of the malware issues that plague Windows today will be a thing of the past due to the virtualized environment in which UWP apps run.
(y)

So between S-mode and MSIX installer, how long before, ahem.. Chrome hits Store?:whistle:
 
(y)

So between S-mode and MSIX installer, how long before, ahem.. Chrome hits Store?:whistle:

Probably a long time. S mode is clearly has an element of failure to it like Windows RT. Win32 is by far the best supported desktop ecosystem there is currently and there's just no way to cut off Windows entirely from it. But S mode does make sense if you're Microsoft trying to sell devices without Win32's legacy. I'll be the first to admit that where Microsoft stands with Windows is much about it's failure in phones. That's clear and obvious. But a lot of what Microsoft was doing with Windows 10 and it's tablet capabilities came well before smartphones.

Folks do remember Windows XP Tablet PC Edition from 2002? Windows 10 has been influenced by that failed attempt as well. But this time it didn't fail.
 
Probably a long time. S mode is clearly has an element of failure to it like Windows RT. Win32 is by far the best supported desktop ecosystem there is currently and there's just no way to cut off Windows entirely from it. But S mode does make sense if you're Microsoft trying to sell devices without Win32's legacy. I'll be the first to admit that where Microsoft stands with Windows is much about it's failure in phones. That's clear and obvious. But a lot of what Microsoft was doing with Windows 10 and it's tablet capabilities came well before smartphones.

Folks do remember Windows XP Tablet PC Edition from 2002? Windows 10 has been influenced by that failed attempt as well. But this time it didn't fail.

I'm actually replying on a Windows 8.1RT Surface RT tablet. I own other Windows/Surface and Android devices, but Windows 8.1 RT is actually by far my favorite tablet experience. Very much looking forward to the post-Win32 future of consumer Windows. For me Windows RT/on ARM were not failures, but clearly ahead of their time. Can't wait for Windows on ARM Surfaces except this time totally free of bloated Win32 legacy crap.
 
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