Windows 10, the Future?

Microsoft is not known as a customer friendly company. That is an understatement. Just try to find help on the Microsoft site. You end up using Google to search Microsoft. One would think that they would have caught on by now. But why bemoan something you cannot do anything about? Simple, Windows 10.

The Microsoft Windows 10 strategy is to get everyone onto this new OS, from Windows 7 and 8, and then to change it to a subscription service, having each customer paying a monthly fee, like Cable! Yes, Microsoft has seen how people love Cable so much they want their products to be just like them. One wonders what is in the water in Seattle.

They should get a hint from all the folks still holding on to XP! In fact we still have a bunch of XP systems sitting there. Frankly they were XP because Vista was a disaster. Now Windows 7 is just fine. For our desk tops, those systems on which people do real things, not the walk around thumbing messages needlessly to each other, but real production devices, 7 is perfect.

The Inquirer notes:

WINDOWS 7 continues to dominate the battle of the operating systems with a rise of 0.35 percent to 58.39, while XP use takes the biggest dip to 15.93, down just over one percent. That's according to the latest figures from Net Applications. These show an almost flat line from last month, but we thought it would be more interesting to look at the year-on-year stats. We’ve included month-on-month at the bottom for your reference. So, one year after Windows XP reached its end of life its share of the market has dropped, but any hope Microsoft had of killing it stone dead has been quashed. It stands at 15.93, which is down 10.36 percent on its end-of-life standing, but shows that well under half of the holdouts have quit.

 Imagine, if you will, what would happen if you "upgraded" your 7 system to Windows 10, and as expected it crashed. You are dead in the water. Microsoft believes that 1 billion users of will "upgrade". Are they out of their minds! If it is not broken then do play with it! Any computer users knows that.

In PC World they note:


Microsoft is setting a lofty goal for Windows 10 adoption as it tries to get app developers on board. Terry Myerson, Microsoft’s executive vice president of operating systems, said at the company’s Build conference that the goal is to get Windows 10 on 1 billion devices within the next two or three years. “”Our goal for Windows 10 is to build the most attractive developer platform ever,” Myerson said. Microsoft is counting on a mass upgrade of its existing base of 1.5 million (sic, I think he meant 1 billion) users to Windows 10. Unlike the separate app stores that currently exist for Windows 8 for PCs and tablet and Windows 8 for phone, Windows 10 will run across phones, tablets, PCs, and Xbox consoles, with a single storefront where developers can sell their apps. Myerson demonstrated how developers can tweak their apps to work with various screen sizes. For instance, USA Today will offer an Xbox One app, filtering its existing mobile news app to only show video feeds.

I get the point but  one must be careful. The kernel of an OS may be quite different on a mobile device and on a workhorse PC. Trying to capture the world is a risky strategy, especially for a company and product that is often unstable.

Anyone who wants to see the weakness of a Microsoft OS just need look at the Registry. As a system is used the Registry becomes a patch quilt mess. That is a Microsoft OS. This may become a gift to Apple, if they ever want to address this users base again.