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Thanks to Responsibility2nd for the ping!
Posted on 11/29/2023 6:42:03 PM PST by Responsibility2nd
Microsoft has announced the launch of what they are calling “Windows app,” a new service designed to stream the full Windows desktop operating system from the cloud to various devices, including Chromebooks. This new offering from Microsoft signifies a major shift in how the company thinks users will be using Windows in the future and is clearly a response to the “Chromebook threat.”
Let’s first dive into what this new service entails exactly. The Windows App is essentially a new remote desktop hub that enables users to stream Windows Cloud PC and remote desktop services on a range of devices. This includes not only other Windows machines but also iPhones, iPads, Macs, and any device equipped with a desktop browser, i.e. Chromebooks. Android devices are currently not supported. You can view a preview version of the app here.
Microsoft describes the Windows App as a “gateway” to several key services: Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365, Microsoft Dev Box, and Remote Desktop Services.
You can use Windows App on many different types of devices on different platforms and form factors, such as desktops and laptops, tablets, smartphones, and through a web browser. When using a web browser on a desktop or laptop, you can connect without having to download and install any software.
Interestingly, the service officially supports ChromeOS, allowing Chromebook users to stream Windows 11. The technical requirements for this are minimal, needing only ChromeOS version 57 or newer. But before you try to use the Windows App on your Chromebook, it’s important to know that Microsoft is currently only allowing business and school accounts to use the app.
As reported by The Verge, this initiative is part of a broader strategy by Microsoft to move Windows to the cloud, as revealed in an internal “state of the business” presentation from June 2022. Discussed during the ongoing FTC v. Microsoft hearing, this strategy includes a focus on building upon “Windows 365 to enable a full Windows operating system streamed from the cloud to any device.” Microsoft states things a little more clearly in another part of the presentation saying that they need to “shore up Windows commercial value and respond to Chromebook threat.”
I think Microsoft is clearly trying to figure out what Windows will look like in the new cloud-computing era and this new app is part of that. But here’s the difference: ChromeOS was built for the web, Windows was not. I am all for Microsoft improving their products and allowing users who depend on their services to access them through the web but throwing an old-school OS in the cloud isn’t the same as an OS that was built for the cloud. ChromeOS is a threat and for good reason – it is a modern OS built for what Microsoft calls “modern work.”
ping
The minute Microsoft makes it so that you can only use their OS at home from a cloud account is the day I stop having Windows OS on one of my computers. Most now have Linux, but there are a few applications that won’t run on Linux (tax preparation software being one example).
Too bad, I’m already using Zorin OS.
So is this to create ready alternatives to surface?
Not just great, but superduper!
Now when Microsoft releases a new version of Windows, it will be the only version available because “your” computer will automatically switch to the latest version in the cloud.
You can’t hold off until the second service pack to update.
No more of this silly letting other unwitting customers do the beta testing.
What’s not to love?
Since I’m not always hooked up to the Internet, I’ll pass on Microsoft’s latest and greatest...
Linux rulz...
Your most honorable Nullness, no comment. My post is devoid of any reasonable attempt to write anything meaningful. May the void be devoid....
Not interested at all
Bad enough that office 365 is subscriber based 🤮
Why would you not just run the tax software under Wine in Linux?
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Thanks to Responsibility2nd for the ping!
“Chrome threat” was in the headline so I assumed the article was satire. Neither linux (the basis for Google’s handheld-centric open-source android OS) nor Chrome OS (Google’s open-source android for Intel-based desktops) were ever considered a threat to Microsofts hold on the desktop nor the enterprise server markets because that was never the linux market anyway.
Most of the Internet’s servers ran on unix until the end of the last century ran on Unix before some Scandinavians discovered that the original creators vanished and no copyright owner existed;t7 nobody had updated it until the 1990s because it was sufficient for 1970s Internet protocols.
In the early 1990s, Linus Torvalds led a team to update Unix to current (for the time) hardware and software capabilities. It was renamed linux in Torvalds’ honour.
In the meantime, others future-proofed linux by creating the Open Source Licence: Anyone can download and/or change any of the source code, but if they use it in any product for resale they have to publish the code that they’ve modified. Thanks to Google, android phones are the equal to, and less expensive, than iOS which is proprietary to Apple.
Right now on the internet server market, last time I checked Red Hat dominated while the Desktop market IIRC has been Ubunto for more than a decade. The beauty of linux is that new PC hardware players can develop their own version of the latest linux far more cheaply that doing their own OS from scratch. Why reinvent the wheel and rediscover fire?
Microsoft still keeps Internet Information, out of the box for Windows Server and downloadable for free for desktop for any Windows pro Desktop (I played with it on a machine running Windows 2010 Professional) and concluded that it was useful at home for anyone with a static IP and low inbound traffic. Windows Pro also supports FTP out of the box where one can integrate an FTP server into File Explorer, log into it just once, map available folders on the remote FTP site to a drive or mount the folder in the file system. After that, FTP transfers are like moving any file between folders. The only limiting factors are speed and reliability of the Internet connection; cable is the worst option at any speed because of dropped packets. DSL is slower in bits per second but faster for files of any size bigger than a few megabytes.
But I’ve only spent 30 years in the industry so what do I know. You’re obviously the expert because you found something written by someone who hates Microsoft and Bill Gates. You must be right because what do I know? Your knowledge came from the Internet so it must be true.
John LeBlanc
curtana Media
curtana,ca
That will never happen. Microsoft 365 personal (1 user, 5 devices, 1TB cloud storage that can be set up as a real-time backup or the easiest way to copy local files to all other devices) CAD $7.99/month + tax. For a family it’s just CAD $9.99/month (same package for up to 5 or 6 users, can’t remember). Additionally you get all of Microsoft Office Professional (including every new version upgrade) for every device and user. Last time I checked Office Home was $200 outright (before Microsoft 365) while Pro was $400 with upgrade pricing quite a bit cheaper. Both are still available but if you run the numbers you’ll find that the subscription is cheaper and pays off in less than two years.
Using the 365 model, Windows will continue to be both cheap and user-owned because the hardware vendor pays Microsoft <$ 100 and builds in into the price with Windows pre-installed. As a bonus, I paid nothing for my version since I got a copy of Windows 8 for cheap from an Amazon vendor; I’ve used the same licence every time I rebuilt my desktop because there’s a simple way to move Windows to a new device to a different PC with a simple search of the official Windows website.
Using the Microsoft 365 model, I suspect that Microsofts long-term goal is to continue selling it cheap but not free, because giving it away for free would become a threat to Apple, linux, Google and whatever comes next. Bill Gates doesn’t want any of them to go away because he understands that a rising tide lifts every boat in the water, IOW everyone gets richer including the consumer who gets more value for his money.
Never heard of it but if it works for you it’s all good.
I really don’t care about the cost. I care about securing my user accounts. I will not succumb to a cloud-based OS like Microsoft 365. You may like it, maybe even love it, but I don’t. I would switch to whatever OS platform that allows me local control.
You can control Automatic Updates and/or disable them but you probably never bothered to read the screen on the Windows Settings because it’s too complicated for you. Did you know that you never have to pay for an upgrade if you have to a Windows 7 licence, now unsupported for three years because it was released in 2010 and obsolete within 5 years but still supported & updated until 2020? The only reason my desktop is still running Windows 10 is because at < $100 it was obsolete when I bought it but used my Windows 8 licence. Windows 11 doesn’t support my hardware. MS policy since XP has been to support each new release for ten years for ten years from release date. That means by the time Windows 12 is my only MS-supported option, I can use the same deskto I acquire next, either built myself or bought as a prebuilt “Barebones” (no OS at all) either locally in Toronto or online.
“IOW everyone gets richer including the consumer who gets more >heartache< for his money.”
Everything they do creates heartache. Has since Win 7.
On the Internet server side I couldn’t agree more.
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