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> Chromebooks are instant on, and your profile/data is 100% cloud based. You can grab any Chromebook from the rack in the back of the classroom, open it up, log

> Chromebooks are instant on, and your profile/data is 100% cloud based. You can grab any Chromebook from the rack in the back of the classroom, open it up, log in and immediately get to work on your report or whatever. First of of all that's not entirely true. Nothing is instant. It wakes up fast, but not instantly. Login is fast, but not instant. First time login is fastish but not fast or instant. Windows has had Roaming User Profiles since NT, Google calling the feature "cloud based" is just another way of saying remote. Since Windows 8 you could have a Microsoft Account which was a "cloud based" user profile and use Sky/One Drive which is a "cloud based" data repository. My guess is you didn't watch the webcast? They made special mention of the fact that with Windows 10 S they had improved the login and first login times to be much faster than your typical Windows experience. > I got an original Chromebook from Google I/O years ago based on an ancient ARM chip, and it's still perfectly usable for when my kid's friend comes over to do homework and they need an extra box. That was what they advertised here. In Windows 10 prior to this announcement you could grant any other Microsoft Account access to login to your machine and it would download their profile and provide them access to their One Drive. The experience isn't as fast as on a Chromebook but it's less than a minute. The emphasis in this announcement was that with Windows 10 S they got it down to under 20 seconds which is Chromebook speed. > Windows and Mac computers will never be that easy to setup, use or maintain. I would disagree. With what they announced today, Windows 10 S is pretty damn close.

zht 10y ago
isn't this just being pedantic? for most people "fast enough" equates to instant. if you asked most people if anything was "instant", they'd say yes and point to a number of things that feel "instant" to them. It doesn't feel useful to nit on use of the word instant by using a definition that differs from most people.
- jodrellblank 10y ago
  if the claim is that Chromebooks are instant and Windows is slow, and the counterclaim is that Windows 10 S is down to 20s which is "Chromebook speeds" because they're not actually instant, then it seems very useful to point out. (I haven't used either)
currysausage 10y ago
> Windows has had Roaming User Profiles since NT And Windows XP had a Tablet Edition long before Apple even dreamt about bringing something like the iPad to market.
- 72deluxe 10y ago
  Ah the joy of roaming profiles where a user has a giant file on his desktop, gets bored waiting for his laptop to sync on shutdown or his battery runs out, and then turns the machine off. What happens to the profile in this situation? I say this because I have had numerous times this happened to a colleague that I had to fix - the desktop would break. Broken user profiles were a real pain. Thankfully I don't do this anymore but the thought of roaming profiles and broken syncs brought back a harrowing memory.

zht 10y ago

isn't this just being pedantic? for most people "fast enough" equates to instant. if you asked most people if anything was "instant", they'd say yes and point to a number of things that feel "instant" to them. It doesn't feel useful to nit on use of the word instant by using a definition that differs from most people.

jodrellblank 10y ago
if the claim is that Chromebooks are instant and Windows is slow, and the counterclaim is that Windows 10 S is down to 20s which is "Chromebook speeds" because they're not actually instant, then it seems very useful to point out. (I haven't used either)

currysausage 10y ago

> Windows has had Roaming User Profiles since NT And Windows XP had a Tablet Edition long before Apple even dreamt about bringing something like the iPad to market.

72deluxe 10y ago
Ah the joy of roaming profiles where a user has a giant file on his desktop, gets bored waiting for his laptop to sync on shutdown or his battery runs out, and then turns the machine off. What happens to the profile in this situation? I say this because I have had numerous times this happened to a colleague that I had to fix - the desktop would break. Broken user profiles were a real pain. Thankfully I don't do this anymore but the thought of roaming profiles and broken syncs brought back a harrowing memory.