by Shaun | Jul 8, 2015 | Microsoft, Windows 10
About a month ago, Microsoft announced that they were releasing Windows 10 on July 29th. At the time I wrote that the Windows 10 release date was optimistic, given the work that I felt was still to be done on the product, and Microsoft’s own history of delaying releases.
From my perspective, it was the little things.. like the start menu that still doesn’t work and the ctrl – alt delete to unlock the screen that is hit and miss. It’s just not ready for mass consumption.
However, for good or for bad, Microsoft announced the release date. Now it appears they are backtracking on the date, although not officially.
Allow me to explain how a release can still be officially happening without being released to most people. People like myself, who get a thrill out of working with new technology, even though it isn’t mature, will get the first opportunity to download the product. Then, once all of the bugs have been ironed out, the rest of world will get a chance. How long that takes is anyone’s guess.
What this smacks of is corporate sleight of hand. I need to briefly explain how the rollout process of new software works. It starts with an alpha release. This is a really rough copy of the software, with lots of bugs. Bit by bit the the bugs are ironed out, to progress to a beta release. The beta release is usually pretty good, but still hasn’t got all the bugs out and isn’t quite as polished as the end product. Finally there are release candidates. These are effectively full production versions of software, but the company wants to limit the release to a select few people just to make sure that all is good.
Once that is explained it can be clearly seen that a release date that is only being released to those that are already on the Windows insider technical preview list isn’t a general release, it’s a beta test, or a release candidate at best. The general release is available at an undetermined date at some time in the future.
I understand and accept that a general rollout to a billion desktops world wide is going to be a challenge. I can accept that it may have to be staggered. What I can’t understand is why they committed to such an unrealistic date in the first place. And their explanation of the situation is about as credible as some of the explanations politicians give for their backflips.
For more about this read this article at Forbes – Windows release delayed and here, Microsoft’s own blog announcing the details of the rollout.
by Shaun | Jun 2, 2015 | Windows 10
The big tech news of the last week is that Microsoft have announced that Windows 10 will be released on July 29.
My opinion on this is good luck with that. I have been playing with Windows 10 for a couple of months now. I think there are still plenty of things to fix up before they are ready for this and that release date is not far away.
Be that as it may, that is the day they have announced. In case you weren’t aware, they are providing it as a free update to Windows 7 and above.
Why are they doing this? Market share is the obvious thing. I have written before about how the rise of the tablet and internet browsing on phones has really hit Microsoft’s market share as far as devices with their operating systems installed.
Tablets and phones are largely running Android or Apple’s IOS. Microsoft needs to make inroads into that market. Windows tablets are a distant third. Whether they can improve that share remains to be seen.
But why is market share of an effectively free product important? One word. Apps. The rise of Microsoft can be tracked back to the dominance of their apps, primarily their office suite of apps. When you are sending a document via email the standard directive is “Can you send that in Microsoft Word Format?”
Yes there are other office suite offerings, but there is no doubt that Microsoft Office is the de facto standard.
But back to Windows 10. Is it worth upgrading to? I think the jury is still out on that. I am currently on the bleeding edge of technology by using a pre release version of the product. I know that’s not ready, without a doubt. But the finished product? Yeah I guess it will be ok. It will look pretty. For a tech geek it’s always fun to refresh the look of your PC.
Mind you, these days, I think Google got it spot on with their Chromebook. A Chromebook is Google’s low price, stripped down laptop offering. It’s largely just a platform for a web browser. I don’t think they got the market’s desire for the product right, but you can’t fault their logic.
Think about it. Eighty percent of the time I spend on the computer these days is spent using the browser. It is almost completely irrelevant what the operating system behind the browser looks like, because Chrome still looks the same. It is for this reason why Windows XP, a product that Microsoft retired a year ago still has more market share than Windows 8 and 8.1 combined.
Anyway when it comes out, Google “Windows 10 download and take it from there. As always, if you need technical help, get in touch.
by admin | Feb 27, 2015 | Microsoft, Windows 10
I’m a geek when it comes to technical stuff. So when I found out I could have a look at the Windows 10 technical preview, I was excited.
I downloaded the preview and decided to install it (after backing up all of my important files that is).
Here’s how it went.
Firstly expect to wait a LONG time. This update is going to see your computer out of action for several hours (several meaning at least 4 probably more).
Unfortunately so far I have found at the other end, things aren’t quite ready yet. Which is a shame, because I am really impatient. I want Windows 10 on my system badly.
The interface is fantastic.
I’m a web designer, I love computer interfaces. And of course new interfaces make everything seem special. Your tired looking old computer gets a new lease of life.
But… There are too many bugs at the moment.
This is to be expected of course. This is not a production version. Software companies release these things in this way to iron out the bugs.
My experience was that the product at the moment is quite unstable. After installing it and starting it, it took me three attempts at logging in before it didn’t crash on me within the first five minutes. I repeatedly got the message “you don’t have permission to run this” when attempting to open a program.
I needed to update my mouse driver, but when I tried to, the installation didn’t work. But worst of all from my perspective was when I tried to work on WordPress website I am creating, I got the message “Error establishing a database connection”. I’m sure I could have troubleshot this if I had the inclination but to be honest it’s just not ready.
Time to roll back, put up with Windows 7 for a little bit longer. A beautiful interface is a nice thing but not at the cost of error free running. Apparently it’s slated for release later this year. Of course having been in the industry for a while I know that what they say and what ends up happening are two different things.
On the plus side the rollback to Windows 7 was fast (about 15 minutes) and trouble free.
by Shaun | Jan 22, 2015 | Microsoft, Windows 10
The big technical/geek story of the week has to be the impending release of Windows 10.
First thing to ask is why Windows 10? Whatever happened to 9? Well apparently this is something to do with the fact that they don’t write Windows from scratch. There is a huge codebase that travels from one release to another.
This is quite understandable, given that these type of products have millions of lines of code in them; It is simply not feasible to rewrite the next release from scratch.
Anyway, the old codebase has references left over from Windows 95/98, and so that there is no confusion with the operating system version, they decided to sidestep the problem by simply naming their newest version Windows 10.
The really great news for people who have Windows 7 or 8 installed is that it is a free upgrade.
No, that is not a misprint. Free. For anyone who knows Microsoft they will realise that this is almost unheard of. Microsoft is one of the most profit oriented companies in the world.
However, Windows 8 was not well received. Well to be honest it was just about completely rejected. So in the past few iterations of Windows, we have gone from XP (a very well received operating system) to Vista (almost universally despised) to the back on track Windows 7, to the disliked Windows 8.
Clearly, Windows only gets it right every second time. Apparently the word in technical circles is that this is the one they have got right.
What is at stake for Microsoft?
Good question. I really don’t know for sure. Microsoft is still a very profitable company despite the changing computing trends – 22 billion dollars profit in 2014 – but it’s profit is coming from different things these days.
Xbox is the division that is on the rise, with a 120% rise in income for that division from 2012 to 2013. Microsoft is also moving into the cloud computing space in a big way, so services like this will keep it going strong for a time.
Add to this the fact that good or bad, most PCs come bundled with Windows, so whether it’s a dog or not you’re stuck with it.
But.. computer operating systems have been at the core of Microsoft since the company’s very beginning, starting with good old DOS. It would be a great humiliation for a company such as Microsoft to see Windows decline to be just a bit player in the computing world then eventually disappear .
So humiliating defeat is a risk if they don’t get it right.
There is a also massive potential upside. Microsoft recently bought Nokia. From memory the deal was worth 7 or 8 billion dollars.
Windows 10 is a cross platform product. That means that it can be installed on PCs, tablets and phones.
At the moment there is a great deal of consumer resistance to Windows phones. The choice of phones is generally considered to be either iPhone or and Android phone. No one wants to be caught with a product that is on the nose.
However, if Microsoft get it right, their phone division could take right off and these days phones and phablets are where it’s at.
I for one am a sucker for snazzy interfaces. The first screen shots look pretty enticing. Perhaps I could be persuaded to buy a Windows phone if it looked cool enough. Perhaps a lot of other people could too.
When can I have it?
According Microsoft “later this year”. Microsoft have form on this. “Later this year” means any time between now and 2024 in Microsoft speak.
Microsoft are in the process of releasing a technical preview. When I can get it, I’m downloading it. May as well live dangerously. Will let you know how I go.
