I think for the average consumer, the system is fine but for power users or developers, it just sucks having that control taken away.
From what I understand, there have been a lot of cases where prompts are easy to overlook and time out, restarting a users computer for updates while in the middle of working.
That said, it looks like the upcoming creators update will allow you to choose the time of restarts but not what updates you receive. If you could choose your updates, this file explorer thing wouldn't probably be as big of an issue since you could just opt not to install whichever update adds it.
Of course, future updates might/probably would require it and eventually you might have to but it just feels shittier than paying for the OS outright and having control to accept or deny whatever you like.
This was true back when companies distinguished between bug-fixes and new features. The current fad of forcing a mixture of fixes and random changes (e.g. ads in the file browser) down users' throats is repugnant. It's like a flu shot bundled with a new nose ring.
No, it isn't. It's normally in everyone's best interests to have any relevant security vulnerabilities patched, but that's an entirely different thing, as anyone who suffered the GWX fiasco can testify.
In the past, Windows has been pretty dodgy sometimes with how it springs updates and reboots on you
How so? There is plenty to criticise about the way Microsoft has screwed up Windows Update for Windows 7, and plenty of suspicion about possible ulterior motives they might have for doing so years before the end of the promised support period and not fixing it already. Maintaining a properly security-patched Windows 7 system is now next to impossible if you don't have enterprise-level admin tools, and subjectively I seem to be hearing about increasing numbers of people who are just giving up and turning off Windows Update altogether. However, at least you can do that, and in any case our Windows 7 machines never install any updates we don't want them to, nor reboot out of the blue when left unattended.
The difference is that sticking needles in people requires their explicit consent.
I've seen/had it happen too many times that I go to use a classroom or lectern or meeting room PC which someone clicked shut-down instead of log-off and now the PC is indisposed for half an hour or more.
It's also pretty annoying when configuring Windows-guest virtual machines or rather, trying to get a class of students to do it in the allotted time.
The numbers don't seem to be so positive so far, though, and the effects of reputational damage particularly among techies and other influencers could take years to fully manifest.
Windows 10 has also improved dramatically over the past 18 months. Under the previous system, you'd have been using worse code for 3-5 years, then been faced with an expensive and possibly traumatic "big bang" upgrade.
Yes, but the balance of where the money is coming from seems to have been shifting, at least going by the public briefings. As I read them, it's not that Windows 10 has been successful: only 400 million people is quite a poor performance given everything 10 should have had going for it, and market share seems to have flattened dramatically since the end of the giveaway period. It's just that other parts of Microsoft are currently doing well enough to make up for it.
Windows 10 has also improved dramatically over the past 18 months.
When you start with as many problems as Windows 10 had, it would be hard not to!
Still, I'm not convinced the things that originally put off the people who haven't upgraded already have really changed much at all. Potential deal-breakers like forced updates/reboots, privacy/telemetry concerns, driver/hardware problems, and ads all still seem to be there. Edge and Cortana are still mostly gimmicks. It still doesn't have as much support for playing media as previous versions.
> It still doesn't have as much support for playing media as previous versions.
Download a media player that plays DVDs. It's not hard.
Fair enough, the opinion that 400 million is not particularly impressive under the circumstances is subjective. However, the relative flattening of Windows 10 market share and the shift in the distribution of where Microsoft is making its money seem to be widely corroborated including by Microsoft's own public statements.
Download a media player that plays DVDs. It's not hard.
I think you may have picked up on the tiniest possible detail to dispute there, while missing the multiple elephants in the room that I had mentioned just before...
That was the only simple way to be helpful, if you actually needed it.
The rest is just your opinion.
Really? There's been some nice tweaks and a minority of us can now use WSL, but it's essentially no different than it was 18 months ago.
How exactly are they "shooting themselves in the foot"?
They're making more money with these moves. Ads bring in money, and forced updates force more people to see ads, which brings in more money. How is this a bad thing for them?
And what are users going to do? Look at you: you're singing the praises of Win10. Are you going to switch to another platform because of the ads and forced updates/restarts? Of course not. Almost all their users are just like this. So tell me, exactly what incentive do they have to not subject you to these things that you complain about? It's simple: they have 2 choices: 1) not annoy the users, and make less money, maintain marketshare at present level, or 2) annoy the users, make more money, and still maintain marketshare at present level with probably a statistically-insignificant number of people abandoning Win10. Obviously, #2 is the correct choice for a profit-seeking entity.