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Comment by bigbinary | Hacker News Reader

It’s clear that Microsoft’s iterations on Windows aren’t working, and their management of windows needs to be reworked. At a certain point the constant “stop improving existing version and start the next one” has to be seen as silly by upper management, right? Is there any business benefit to constantly updating major Windows versions that I’m not seeing?

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I'm still confused why Windows 11 is even a thing, as Windows 10 was advertised as "the last version of Windows": https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/what-h...

Actually the source I linked lays it out pretty clearly:

> That (in)famous statement was actually spoken by Jerry Nixon, a developer evangelist at Microsoft, whose job is to get developers excited about developing for Microsoft Store, at the 2015 Microsoft Ignite. Nevertheless, the technology media blew it up, and soon everyone was accepting it as gospel. But it never was.

But still, I just want stability. Also the lack of support for older hardware - I just built a PC four years ago and am being told its not good enough for 11? No thanks.

Windows 11 started as what was left from Windows 10X project, but going forward with Win32/COM instead of WinRT/UWP.

"How Windows 10X runs UWP and Win32 apps"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztrmrIlgbIc

> any business benefit

Ahh, but does that mean benefit to corporate entity, or does it mean benefits to managers/executives that are seeking promotions/compensation? :p

They're stuck trying to figure out how to monetize a product that people don't want a subscription for. Their only choice is to keep releasing new versions with different features (or sneak in advertising) and hope people keep buying in. Unfortunately, people haven't really wanted a new version of Windows since it switched to the NT kernel. So it seems like every new version is a lose lose scenario.

> Is there any business benefit to constantly updating major Windows versions that I’m not seeing?

Well sure! Remember that whole kerfuffle over Windows 11 requiring TPM? A new major version means new hardware requirements and new hardware requirements mean new vendor obligations. It's their silver-bullet solution for whenever hardware vendors get uppity.

> Is there any business benefit to constantly updating major Windows versions that I’m not seeing?

Uhm, yes, they are making people pay for a new copy?

Not too many people "buy" a retail copy of Windows; you either pay for it as part of your computer, or it's included as part of an enterprise plan. They'd get all that revenue without pushing a new major version.

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