Posted on 05/01/2018 2:47:01 PM PDT by dayglored
Or dance on their graves, whatever flips your pancake
The Windows 10 April Update has begun seeping out from beneath the Redmond bathroom door. As an antidote to the excitement of the new, let us take a moment to mourn the passing of the old.
First on Microsoft's roll of honour was Groove Music Pass. The music service, which was loved by a niche of users, got a Spotify-shaped knife through the heart back in 2017. With the April 2018 Update, Microsoft has formalised the arrangement. The Groove app will now only play music on a PC or stream from OneDrive. If users want to source music elsewhere, well, there's an app for that.
Another victim of April's cull was HomeGroup, arguably the last vestige of Microsoft's PC-based home media and network strategy. Introduced in Windows 7, HomeGroup was intended to allow a group of PCs on a home network to share files and printers without recourse to servers or complicated authentication rules.
Unfortunately, HomeGroup came just as Microsoft began a long retreat from its attempt to fill the home with PCs. The latest release saw the networking solution that nobody used totter off into the sunset, following Windows Home Server and the much-missed Windows Media Center.
The final notable absentee from Windows 10 1803 onward was the venerable XPS viewer. Built into Windows Vista, the technology was intended as an alternative to PDF. With the April 2018 Update, users desperate to use the unloved format will have to manually download a viewer when using a fresh copy of Windows 10. Upgrading users should be able to ignore the viewer as before.
Other features not quite dead, but not receiving any further love from Microsoft, include the little-used Phone Companion and the Windows Help Viewer. With roots going back to the Windows 3.0 helpfiles of 1990, users could be forgiven for being surprised to learn that WinHlp32.exe was still a thing. With all Windows documentation now online, Microsoft has been determined to kill it once and for all.
So pause a moment while tearing off the wrapping paper from today's new Windows 10 toys and ponder which will survive the test of time. ®
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You mean the Spring Creator’s Update is finally out?!?!
That's the rumor. El Reg's "has begun seeping out from beneath the Redmond bathroom door" might be a bit graphic, but after all the delays, I might say something like, "it finally broke loose from the Redmond chokehold and has been sighted lurching towards its freedom".
So SO SOOOOOO...... Sick of HOURLY “We’ve got an update for you” Pop-ups!!
It wasn't bad. I miss it already.
I’ll think about Windows 10 when they bring back Microsoft Bob. :-)
This downloaded and installed yesterday and it took awhile.
With that said, not much has changed based on what I do and I certainly don’t use MSFT Edge.
It just seems so bloated with stuff I never use.
Installed this last night on my 2012 sony laptop and also brand new Dell XPS Desktop(Old one died) installed fine but yes, spybot search and destroy was removed from my laptop had to reinstall it..funny thing on the desktop it was not removed
Does Jane Goodall know about this?
Microsoft Bob, was that the idiotic animated paperclip from Win 95?
I wonder how long until MS has an update that will kill Office.
Thanks for the update dayglored. As a firm user of Windows 7 Pro, MSFT seems to be doing more and more to discourage my even thinking about switching to 10.
Long live a good, stable, reasonable, easy to use operating system, Win 7 Pro. Does everything I need and then some. Just sits there and runs.
Windows as a standalone operating system is on its deathbed, the huge installed base notwithstanding.
MS-Office (actually Office365, of course) is Microsoft's future, along with the Azure cloud services. Windows will continue as a platform for accessing the Microsoft office services from the cloud, sort of like how Google Chrome OS is a platform for running Google Apps from the cloud.
Windows updates will calm down once Win10 gets as tight as Google Chrome OS. There won't be any need for regular updates, just different tiles for accessing cloud services.
MacOS and Linux will continue as real operating systems -- MacOS because that's how Apple sells their fancy computer hardware, and Linux because -somebody- has to provide an actual operating system you can develop software on.
Ah, Microsoft BOB.
My daughter was about 3 when she first saw Microsoft BOB. She played with it for about 15 minutes, and then pronounced it "Dumb". That was the end of that.
As I recall Gates was pretty good-humored about it all.
You mean the "Office Assistant", a.k.a. "Clippy".
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