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Google enables OS upgrades for older PCs post-Windows 10 support cutoff
- oefrha 3y agoWhat a weird title and article. I was entirely confused until the very last paragraph: > Google said that ChromeOS would allow users to stream legacy Windows and productivity applications, which will help deliver them to devices by running the apps on a data center. So if I understand this correctly, Google won’t enable “OS upgrades”, they’re offering a version of ChromeOS where some Windows apps can be streamed, Stadia-style. (Guess how long before it’s canned?)
- stuartd 3y agoVery odd. And will businesses be OK with their data being in Google's cloud?
- JonChesterfield 3y agoThey're totally happy with it being in Microsoft's cloud so I expect that'll be fine too
- oefrha 3y agoGiven there are already lots of B2B cloud PC offerings (including from both Microsoft and Google), probably.
- danpalmer 3y agoGoogle Cloud, and Google Workspace, are subject to different terms of service than the consumer offerings. For example: "Google does not collect, scan, or use your content in Google Workspace services for advertising purposes". Same for model training etc it seems. https://support.google.com/a/answer/13881138 https://support.google.com/a/answer/13881138
- soco 3y agoWhich leaves it open to using your content for anything else than advertising, whatever that is. And even "advertising" can be called another name, if they decide so.
- danpalmer 3y agoWhen I was selecting a cloud provider at a previous company there wasn't any concern with using GCP or Azure. There was a minor concern (from some clients in retail) about using Amazon, but even that was overblown in my opinion. These businesses live or die on being trustworthy with infrastructure. I think the view that cloud providers are screwing over their customers behind their backs is just not grounded in reality, experience, evidence, or how business contracts work.
- felsokning 3y ago> Guess how long before it’s canned? I'm thinking how long is it before the latest/greatest subscription service is born from it? Edit: Forgot a space.
- HWR_14 3y agoBoth can be true. In 18 months it could be the greatest new product and then shut down in 24 months.
- supermatt 3y agoThey probably mean Microsofts "Windows App" (https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9N1F85V9T8BN?hl=en-gb&gl=US https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9N1F85V9T8BN?hl=en-gb&gl=U...) which will stream through the browser (or as a ChromeOS PWA/web-app).
- eitally 3y agoThink about it this way: Google is offering enterprises an alternative to 1) thin clients (big investment), 2) PC refreshes (big investment), and 3) Microsoft endpoint licensing (big investment). They've done this by creating a fully managed version of ChromeOS that can be installed on any x86 PC, and by adding software on top of it that allows ChromeOS to run remote Windows apps (just like a traditional thin client). It's very appealing in some industries (like manufacturing), which has already been doing very well with ChromeOS.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoHuh? What manufacturing industries do you know on ChromeOS? In Germany, 90% of manufacturing industry is knees deep windows.
- Dalewyn 3y agoI can't be bothered to read the trainwreck of an article, but I am assuming this is basically an RDP terminal to a Windows mainframe.
- LeifCarrotson 3y agoKnee deep? In the US, 90% of manufacturing is up to their earlobes in Windows. The most popular HMI is an Allen Bradley Panelview which runs Windows CE 6.0. The most popular PLC is an AB CompactLogix/ControlLogix, which can only be edited using an IDE that runs on Windows. Ignition is making significant inroads with Linux servers on the SCADA side, and I have heard of people building machines with Beckhoff TwinCAT BSD, but Windows is everywhere.
- eitally 3y agoI spent 15 years in high tech manufacturing IT, the latter half running test engineering and end user computing. Manufacturing processes will likely NEVER move off Windows and there are plenty of airgapped NT4 machines out there still, and millions of unsupported homegrown apps running on top of old versions of MSSQL or even Access. This is besides the fact that there are machine connectors for Windows that don't exist for anything else -- it's a no brainer. But, that doesn't mean ChromeOS hasn't been making inroads in manufacturing. Sales of ChromeOS Kiosks for Digital Signage are strong, and so is the adoption of cheap Chromeboxes & ChromeOS laptops for things like digital work instructions, check-in/out, and all sorts of manufacturing-adjacent processes/controls that don't require a full Windows PC. 10-15 years ago there was a trend to move a lot of this to traditional VDI, and that's the market that Google has been targeting. This is just a small fraction of the overall manufacturing IT market, but for Google -- starting from $0 -- it's meaningful.
- ChrisArchitect 3y agoAgreed, ridiculous title. And this will be syndicated around the global reuters network making everyone think that Google has something to do with Microsoft/Windows OS operations.
- aredox 3y agoConfused by this article. Is Google extending hardware support for ChromeOS to cover all older PC?
- snoxy 3y agoChromeOS Flex is ChromeOS but can be installed on most commodity PC hardware. It’s not new, Reuters seems to have picked up a PR push in the wake of Microsoft’s Win10 announcement. https://chromeenterprise.google/intl/en_au/os/chromeosflex/ https://chromeenterprise.google/intl/en_au/os/chromeosflex/
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago>Reuters seems to have picked up a PR push in the wake of Microsoft’s Win10 announcement. And then HN picked it up and upvoted it to front :SMH:
- sergeykish 3y agoChromeOS Flex https://chromeos.google/products/chromeos-flex/ https://chromeos.google/products/chromeos-flex/ Nearly 600 devices certified https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11513094 https://support.google.com/chromeosflex/answer/11513094
- dade_ 3y agoThis seems less like an announcement of anything new, and more of a reminder of what is already possible. That said, training, reimaging and refurbishing devices to be redeployed is no small amount of work. Also, it is likely organization would use the device as a thin client to Windows 365, or Azure Virtual Desktop assuming they don't already have a VDI, so I am not sure what is in this for Google, unless they think organization are going to migrate to Google docs as well. Oh Google, they are good at keeping me guessing.
- bradfa 3y agoThe long game here seems to be that if you can get new customers to deploy ChromeOS Flex on existing hardware and use cloud based solutions for their software, then when the customers go to refresh the hardware or renew their cloud software contracts they're more likely to choose Chromebooks and Google's cloud software offerings. If you can test out moving to ChromeOS on hardware you already have, it'll make it clear if you can switch to a Chromebook when hardware refresh time comes. That could likely gain them some market share as then the risk of moving to Chromebooks would be very small.
- lakomen 3y agoI would've switched to W11 if not for the godawful new taskbar which doesn't have a list of drives and locations, aka you can't pin "this computer" and its children on the taskbar as a clickable list. Why, oh why would they do a version bump and then REMOVE features. Everything gets enshittified. Why remove such a good feature? To look more like Apple does? Fail fail fail Microsoft. Now Goliath imitates David. Windows' UX was always way better than any other OS'. Why copy a worse product and get rid of decades of progress smh
- gruturo 3y ago> Why remove such a good feature? To look more like Apple does? Fail fail fail Microsoft Imitating Apple, not understanding why Apple does some of these things (not that they're always right eh, far from it), thus fumbling really badly. My Apple Fan Card is long expired, I'm not even paying my dues (just a phone in the last 3 years) but Jobs was absolutely right already back in 1995: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiOzGI4MqSU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiOzGI4MqSU
- dist-epoch 3y agoImprovise, adapt, overcome. Don't get ossified in your current way of doing things.
- HWR_14 3y agoWhy should I have to adapt to UI changes for the sake of UI changes?
- dist-epoch 3y agoBecause there is a cost in not moving to a supported platform. Windows 11 has various improvements and some inconveniences. Of course, you have the option of remaining on Windows 10 since possibly for you that menu is much more important than the rest. I assume Linux/Mac are not options because the UI changes they bring are massive compared to Windows 10 -> Windows 11 and you mentioned that you don't want to adapt to UI changes. But if Linux/Mac are options, it means that the real problem is not that the UI changed, but that you were not asked and didn't gave your consent to the change. So basically that you feel offended by Microsoft changing the UI without your approval.
- i_am_proteus 3y ago>Google will allow businesses to install an auto-updating version of the Chrome operating system to Windows devices, potentially preventing millions of PCs from hitting landfills after Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab ends support for Windows 10 next year, parent company Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab said on Wednesday. If only there were another, open source, non-Google operating system that could be installed on these computers. If only Microsoft had web-app versions of their Office "productivity applications" that worked perfectly well on that other operating system. Perhaps 2024 will be the year of the ChromeOS Desktop, after all.
- _mlbt 3y agoI'm under the impression that most large organizations are on a 3-5 year hardware replacement cycle anyway. I suspect most of the affected PCs reside in consumers' hands and small government offices, not in large corporations.
- zokier 3y agoThe original blog post this "news" is based on: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/chrome-enterprise/11-ways-you-win-with-chromeos-flex https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/chrome-enterprise/11-... Maybe the article link should be changed to this?
- thrownaway561 3y agoIf they want people to try it out that current have Windows 10, then they should follow the lead of WSL and have some sort of options that allows you to download it from the Microsoft Store and run it on Hyper-V. I don't want to boot off a USB drive to play with this thing.
- dartharva 3y agoIs there an adjacent OS to ChromeOS Flex (not other Linux distros) that is independent of Google, like there are custom ROMs against Android? I came across FydeOS (https://fydeos.io/ https://fydeos.io/) but it doesn't look like a community effort, rather a commercial product based out of Beijing.
- xnx 3y agohttps://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/ https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/
- prmoustache 3y agoWhat would be the incentive compared to say, run any linux distro? The only time I tried chromeOS, I didn't find anything outstanding and the UI wasn't particularly ergonomic.
- afavour 3y agoProbably fair to say you're not the target market for ChromeOS. Neither am I. But I put it on an old laptop for my mother in law and she loves it. It never breaks, it updates automatically without her knowing and if the hardware ever does fail we can install ChromeOS on a different machine and she'll pick up right where she left off, because all user stuff is mirrored in the cloud.
- prmoustache 3y ago
- DrNosferatu 3y agoWhat’s the simplest way of running Wine on ChromeOS?
- wishfish 3y agoInstall a Linux container. Can do this via Settings > Advanced > Developers > "Linux Development Environment". By default, you'll get Debian. You can then do your usual apt install to get Wine. Or, you can enable Flatpak and use an app like Bottles. There are tutorials for installing Flatpak on ChromeOS. It's fairly simple if you want to go that route. I personally used Flatpak and Bottles to run Photoshop CS2 on my rather underpowered Chromebook. Seemed to work well. Should give Steam a try too. Others seem to have good luck with it.
- Delumine 3y agoExcuse my ignorance, but isn't upgrading to Windows 11... well free? Or is it different for enterprise licensing
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ryukafalz 3y agoSure, if your PC is eligible for the upgrade. Which very many are not.
- niutech 3y agoYou can very easily bypass it, so it is a non-issue: https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/bypass-windows-11-tpm-requirement https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/bypass-windows-11-tpm-re...
- ryukafalz 3y agoExcept if you do that, a future update might make your PC unbootable: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/windows-11-24h2-goes-from-unsupported-to-unbootable-on-some-older-pcs/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/windows-11-24h2-goes...
- niutech 3y agoIt's a non-issue for all CPUs >2008: > In modern x86 CPUs, POPCNT is implemented as part of the SSE4 instruction set. For Intel's chips, it was added as part of SSE4.2 in the original first-generation Core architecture, codenamed Nehalem. In AMD's processors, it's included in SSE4a, first used in Phenom, Athlon, and Sempron CPUs based on the K10 architecture. These architectures date back to 2008 and 2007, respectively.
- tomkaos 3y agoWindows 11 block installation on old generation of computer.
- giantg2 3y agoWin10 support might end in 2025, but I hear the security updates support won't end until 28/29 or something. Most probably won't care about regular support ending, but would be more concerned about security updates ending. I can't see this ChromeOS workaround being very enticing.
- jerlam 3y agoNo, alas Microsoft means that (free) security updates will end in 2025. Windows 10 22H2 was the last feature update and that released in October 2022. https://www.computerworld.com/article/3695068/for-windows-10-22h2-is-the-end-of-the-road.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3695068/for-windows-10... You can pay for security updates, but it's unlikely individuals will: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/12/windows-10-gets-three-more-years-of-security-updates-if-you-can-afford-them/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/12/windows-10-gets-thre...
- giantg2 3y agoYeah, I was talking about organizations (seems like most of this thread was). They're more likely to just pay for security updates than to switch to a different OS or hardware. Most individuals will upgrade to Win11 or not know/care and stay Win10. They probably aren't going to switch OS just to use MS products over the network.
- niutech 3y ago> A report from Canalys Research suggests that the termination of Windows 10 support could send about 240 million PCs to landfills, as demand for devices without security updates could be low. Why would anybody throw away their Windows 10 computer instead of upgrading it to Windows 11 using a simple registry bypass (https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/bypass-windows-11-tpm-requirement https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/bypass-windows-11-tpm-re...)? That's stupidity!
- pcdoodle 3y agoeven second gen i5 desktops/laptops are fantastic machines w/8GB+ and SSD. I'm on a 2012 macbook RN 16GB / 4TB SSD with open core legacy patcher.
- AndrewDucker 3y agoEven that is starting to fail: https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/microsoft_might_have_just_pulled/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/microsoft_might_have_...
- niutech 3y agoThis is for CPUs older than 2008 and Windows 10 ends support in 2025, it means it'll concern >17 years old PCs!
- nytesky 3y agoSo ACTUAL Chromebooks have an 8 year expiration date, but PCs over 10 years have continuous ChromeOS support? I am truly baffled.
- ehutch79 3y agoBut will it run this mission critical foxpro db last updated in 2003? That loads data off a windows share...