7 ms·

Do you feel as though Windows as a SaaS would be better? At least as a consumer I have a choice to say “I’d rather not upgrade to Windows 11 and get the worse

Do you feel as though Windows as a SaaS would be better? At least as a consumer I have a choice to say “I’d rather not upgrade to Windows 11 and get the worse experience” and not just login and see that those changes that I wouldn’t have upgraded for have just been pushed down as it happens with a SaaS. Windows, as an example, is an interesting one in that you’re paying once for a license and it’s good more or less indefinitely (or until things stop working and are no longer supported), but Microsoft does still have an obligation to be pushing out updates, whether security or QoL, so I’m not sure that it being worse over time has any reflection on the license model.

TingPing 4y ago
You don't have a choice not to upgrade Windows, not practically, it will go out of support and you can't do anything about it other than hope Windows Next will be more to your liking.
- krater23 4y ago
  Hello from the past. I'm typing this on a Windows 7, without the most of the updates. Most works fine, just can't install the newest Office or Games. But who wants that? p.s.: Nope, no viruses or things like that. Windows 7 is so old that it's not supported by botnets anymore.
  - SteveNuts 4y ago
    This is like bragging about not wearing a seatbelt because "I haven't flown through the windshield yet"
    - thot_experiment 4y ago
      I've flown through the windshield a couple times in my life WRT malware. I've lost so much more time to work computers where I'm forced to use retail Win 10/11 and have to deal with intrusive update policies than I have due to malware. Having to nuke a few computers from orbit once a decade is a small price to pay for having systems that I can trust to work the same as they did yesterday, systems that never interrupt my flow. EDIT: to expand on this a little bit, I think a lot of cybersecurity concerns are basically forced upon us by SaaS as a model. Attack surfaces become much smaller if you can just block things from communicating with the outside entirely. Not to mention the wonderful technology known as a "hardware power switch" good luck remotely turning on my SSD full of tax documents and embarrassing photos.
    - pigsty 4y ago
      Or it’s like driving a reliable Toyota with a proven safety record vs not wanting to pay for some new vehicle with a seatbelt subscription and updates that brick your car randomly or blare ads at max volume while driving down the interstate. I’ve lost more work to forced updates resetting my computer randomly and making operation less stable than I ever have to malware (the latter being never in my adult life).
- phrom 4y ago
  True, because of how necessary OS updates / security fixes are, sooner or later you're forced to upgrade, even on a "buy once" model. But in that model, at least there was still a chance of an effective user boycott. When Windows Vista and Windows 8 released, people got mad, and enough of them stuck to Windows XP and Windows 7 that Microsoft had to address it, for example by going back on the Windows 8 start menu. Now that they're switching to this permanent license, free upgrade, model, that is going away. Thankfully Windows 11 is very boring, but if they pulled off another 8 start menu, there'll be no real way for people to avoid it or have their voice heard now.
  - winternett 4y ago
    The key is to also keep your old hardware conveniently offline until they drop pushing forced updates to it... It works surprisingly well when no patches are applied, and documentation is usually quite thorough.
- themacguffinman 4y ago
  It may not be advisable, but tell that to the XP-for-life or 7-for-life people. It won't actually stop working, it just means you're much more vulnerable to malware.
  - Silhouette 4y ago
    It won't actually stop working, it just means you're much more vulnerable to malware. The biggest threats haven't come from direct external assaults on the OS for years. I expect a typical consumer device is more at risk from an out of date browser than any other type of vulnerability now. The biggest risk for most of us as personal users is someone stealing our data via a hack, which often doesn't require root/administrator access to the host system anyway if you can compromise something already Internet-connected like a browser or messaging app. Of course old versions of Windows not getting updates from Microsoft any more is a concern on some level but it's probably a long way down the list for anyone who actually has a good reason to still be using the old versions. I know quite a few people with quite a few different and entirely rational reasons for doing so, though many of those reasons involve some other form of predatory business model by some other big company that makes hardware and/or software. (Hardware that was declared EOL and doesn't have drivers for newer Windows versions, software with some sort of DRM that ties it to running on a specific system, that kind of thing.)
    - i_am_proteus 4y ago
      It has been several years since WannaCry, but absolutely nothing guarantees that another such vulnerability does not surface.
      - Silhouette 4y ago
        Ransomware, like the old data trashing viruses of the past, is trivially defeated by having backups.
        i_am_proteus 4y ago
        Read up on the mechanism by which WannaCry spread and report back.
- everyone 4y ago
  Windows 10 LTSB will be supported for about 10 years from now. (with 0 feature changes)
  - thot_experiment 4y ago
    A cracked version of W10LTSB with most of the cruft stripped out and updates/AV disabled is genuinely the best base computing experience. My WWAN card even works properly. Linux is happy inside a VM, and the host computer works properly without spending a billion hours recompiling drivers with every kind of weird lab hardware, GPUs, FPGAs, and it's own internals etc. If something is better supported on Linux I just pipe it into the VM.
    - everyone 4y ago
      Why not update it though? They promise 0 feature changes. Only security updates and bugfixes.
  - iggldiggl 4y ago
    Although one possible problem could be if your hardware breaks down in five years and you want to take that as an opportunity to upgrade instead of doing a simple like-for-like replacement – drivers for then current hardware might not necessarily support old LTSB versions.
    - everyone 4y ago
      Well I think windows 11 has same kernal as 10? So probably drivers will be fine for a good few years also.
      - iggldiggl 4y ago
        I think that's mainly backwards compatibility from the OS with regards to existing drivers, but Windows might still introduce some new APIs that hardware vendors might make use of, thereby rendering new drivers incompatible with older OSs. Likewise, new CPU and/or chipset generations might require not just new drivers, but dedicated OS support, which in all likelihood won't be backported to the LTSB versions, either.
- stanleydrew 4y ago
  Wait doesn't this just make the point that SaaS is the proper model for Windows? Do you expect that Microsoft should "support" everything, for free, forever? If you want bugs to be fixed, or for things to improve generally, then you should pay something I think.
Spooky23 4y ago
In enterprise, Windows and Office are subscriptions in most cases. I wouldn’t say they have gotten better.
usrusr 4y ago
I'm convinced that it would be better: the reason for worse every version is that they try to cram every major full of "revolutionary new features" nobody asked for. Because back in the day updates were a major revenue stream but only with headline features. I'd gladly pay for a 64 bit w2k

TingPing 4y ago

You don't have a choice not to upgrade Windows, not practically, it will go out of support and you can't do anything about it other than hope Windows Next will be more to your liking.

krater23 4y ago
Hello from the past. I'm typing this on a Windows 7, without the most of the updates. Most works fine, just can't install the newest Office or Games. But who wants that? p.s.: Nope, no viruses or things like that. Windows 7 is so old that it's not supported by botnets anymore.
- SteveNuts 4y ago
  This is like bragging about not wearing a seatbelt because "I haven't flown through the windshield yet"
  - thot_experiment 4y ago
    I've flown through the windshield a couple times in my life WRT malware. I've lost so much more time to work computers where I'm forced to use retail Win 10/11 and have to deal with intrusive update policies than I have due to malware. Having to nuke a few computers from orbit once a decade is a small price to pay for having systems that I can trust to work the same as they did yesterday, systems that never interrupt my flow. EDIT: to expand on this a little bit, I think a lot of cybersecurity concerns are basically forced upon us by SaaS as a model. Attack surfaces become much smaller if you can just block things from communicating with the outside entirely. Not to mention the wonderful technology known as a "hardware power switch" good luck remotely turning on my SSD full of tax documents and embarrassing photos.
  - pigsty 4y ago
    Or it’s like driving a reliable Toyota with a proven safety record vs not wanting to pay for some new vehicle with a seatbelt subscription and updates that brick your car randomly or blare ads at max volume while driving down the interstate. I’ve lost more work to forced updates resetting my computer randomly and making operation less stable than I ever have to malware (the latter being never in my adult life).
phrom 4y ago
True, because of how necessary OS updates / security fixes are, sooner or later you're forced to upgrade, even on a "buy once" model. But in that model, at least there was still a chance of an effective user boycott. When Windows Vista and Windows 8 released, people got mad, and enough of them stuck to Windows XP and Windows 7 that Microsoft had to address it, for example by going back on the Windows 8 start menu. Now that they're switching to this permanent license, free upgrade, model, that is going away. Thankfully Windows 11 is very boring, but if they pulled off another 8 start menu, there'll be no real way for people to avoid it or have their voice heard now.
- winternett 4y ago
  The key is to also keep your old hardware conveniently offline until they drop pushing forced updates to it... It works surprisingly well when no patches are applied, and documentation is usually quite thorough.
themacguffinman 4y ago
It may not be advisable, but tell that to the XP-for-life or 7-for-life people. It won't actually stop working, it just means you're much more vulnerable to malware.
- Silhouette 4y ago
  It won't actually stop working, it just means you're much more vulnerable to malware. The biggest threats haven't come from direct external assaults on the OS for years. I expect a typical consumer device is more at risk from an out of date browser than any other type of vulnerability now. The biggest risk for most of us as personal users is someone stealing our data via a hack, which often doesn't require root/administrator access to the host system anyway if you can compromise something already Internet-connected like a browser or messaging app. Of course old versions of Windows not getting updates from Microsoft any more is a concern on some level but it's probably a long way down the list for anyone who actually has a good reason to still be using the old versions. I know quite a few people with quite a few different and entirely rational reasons for doing so, though many of those reasons involve some other form of predatory business model by some other big company that makes hardware and/or software. (Hardware that was declared EOL and doesn't have drivers for newer Windows versions, software with some sort of DRM that ties it to running on a specific system, that kind of thing.)
  - i_am_proteus 4y ago
    It has been several years since WannaCry, but absolutely nothing guarantees that another such vulnerability does not surface.
    - Silhouette 4y ago
      Ransomware, like the old data trashing viruses of the past, is trivially defeated by having backups.
      - i_am_proteus 4y ago
        Read up on the mechanism by which WannaCry spread and report back.
everyone 4y ago
Windows 10 LTSB will be supported for about 10 years from now. (with 0 feature changes)
- thot_experiment 4y ago
  A cracked version of W10LTSB with most of the cruft stripped out and updates/AV disabled is genuinely the best base computing experience. My WWAN card even works properly. Linux is happy inside a VM, and the host computer works properly without spending a billion hours recompiling drivers with every kind of weird lab hardware, GPUs, FPGAs, and it's own internals etc. If something is better supported on Linux I just pipe it into the VM.
  - everyone 4y ago
    Why not update it though? They promise 0 feature changes. Only security updates and bugfixes.
- iggldiggl 4y ago
  Although one possible problem could be if your hardware breaks down in five years and you want to take that as an opportunity to upgrade instead of doing a simple like-for-like replacement – drivers for then current hardware might not necessarily support old LTSB versions.
  - everyone 4y ago
    Well I think windows 11 has same kernal as 10? So probably drivers will be fine for a good few years also.
    - iggldiggl 4y ago
      I think that's mainly backwards compatibility from the OS with regards to existing drivers, but Windows might still introduce some new APIs that hardware vendors might make use of, thereby rendering new drivers incompatible with older OSs. Likewise, new CPU and/or chipset generations might require not just new drivers, but dedicated OS support, which in all likelihood won't be backported to the LTSB versions, either.
stanleydrew 4y ago
Wait doesn't this just make the point that SaaS is the proper model for Windows? Do you expect that Microsoft should "support" everything, for free, forever? If you want bugs to be fixed, or for things to improve generally, then you should pay something I think.

Spooky23 4y ago

In enterprise, Windows and Office are subscriptions in most cases. I wouldn’t say they have gotten better.

usrusr 4y ago

I'm convinced that it would be better: the reason for worse every version is that they try to cram every major full of "revolutionary new features" nobody asked for. Because back in the day updates were a major revenue stream but only with headline features. I'd gladly pay for a 64 bit w2k