Instead of Super Windows, it s more like Chrome OS. Windows 10X turned out to be too ambitious for Microsoft
The ambitious plans to create a completely new generation of Windows have exceeded the capabilities of Microsoft. Windows 10X will hit the market as much as possible. However, it will be a specialized system for companies and education - not a new opening for the Microsoft system.
It was a nice fantasy. Windows 10X was to be what Windows RT and Windows 10 S failed to achieve. For the first time, Windows was to be a truly modern system, whose stability, security, performance and responsiveness were not dependent on decades-old libraries and technologies, serviced and maintained due to the desire to maintain compatibility with old hardware and software.
Windows 10X, unlike previous failures, was not supposed to break compatibility with Windows applications. Relying on new software only is a tactic that Microsoft has tried many times without success. The new system was to use container technology to run applications that use legacy solutions. The libraries and environments necessary to run them would be loaded into memory only on request in a sandbox isolated from the rest of the system.
However, this will not happen. Microsoft changes its vision to Windows 10X for the fourth time (sic!).
Windows 10X started out as Microsoft Lite - a simple, light, fast and secure operating system designed to be the answer to Chrome OS. Lite was to run only web applications and the UWP family (Universal Windows Platform).
With time, however, it was decided that Windows 10X will be a system for tablets with two displays - then the mechanism for launching older applications was added to the system. It was later announced that Windows 10X, however, would appear on all kinds of devices, including classic laptops.
What now? We come back to the vision of Microsoft Lite . Windows 10X is being built again as a competitor to Chrome OS .
According to information obtained by Zac Bowden from Windows Central , the mechanism for virtualization and containerization of classic applications has been removed from the latest Windows 10X builds. Apparently, Microsoft is not able to achieve a reasonable quality on it (including in terms of integration with the system, performance and stability) in a reasonable time. If Windows 10X is to be released on the market at all, before it is too late for it, it has to do without the support of classic Windows applications.
This, of course, raises a problem: Windows that cannot run Windows applications would probably fail again. Therefore, the new vision for Windows 10X probably does not include this system as a tool for end users. It would be pre-installed on cheap computers intended for the corporate and educational market. It is possible that the name will also change so as not to mislead users, as Windows RT and Windows 10 S did.
The advantages of Windows 10X, invariably devoid of the archaic mechanisms of ordinary Windows, would still be speed, security, ease of use and ease of management. Although its compatibility only with web applications and UWP significantly reduces its versatility, as a result, this platform is to end up as a specialized offer for a specialized client.
Detriment. But that's not the end of the story. In the future, Windows 10X is expected to be backwards compatible with older applications thanks to cloud computing. These classic applications would be streamed from the cloud using Windows Virtual Desktop - thus being even more isolated from the system, but in return requiring internet connectivity to run.
Windows 10X for devices with one display intended for the corporate and educational market, according to Mary Jo Foley on ZDNet , is expected to appear in spring 2021. A change for devices with two displays and for other markets is to appear a year later. However, work on the containerization technique for Windows 10X is to be continued - in 2022 a decision is to be made to include it in the new system.
Problems with Windows 10X are a fate for sysadmins and people pissed off by frequent Windows 10 updates.
Microsoft is seriously considering shifting more human resources from Windows 10 to Windows 10X, according to Foley sources. The possibility of completely abandoning the spring development update for Windows 10 is seriously considered - both systems would be updated to the new version once a year, Windows 10X in spring, Windows 10 in autumn.
That would be good news. Microsoft is astonishing in its persistence with releasing two development updates for Windows 10 a year, despite being criticized by nearly everyone for it. The ambitious and insane pace of introducing changes and improvements to the system means that almost every update is associated with failures for some users, because something has not been tested properly.
The revolution may come from a different side, however. The problem of incompatibility of Windows 10X with Windows applications is to disappear. Same as the problem of incompatibility of macOS, Android, iPadOS or Ubuntu with Microsoft programs.
Meet Microsoft Cloud PC.
On the same day, the irreplaceable Foley published a material about the Microsoft Cloud PC service , which is likely to be launched next spring. It is to be part of Microsoft 365 and is to provide the Windows runtime as a service. In other words, users of any device could run applications hosted in the Microsoft cloud - even if they are currently using a Linux workstation, MacBook, Chromebook or iPad. Or Windows 10X.
Cloud PC undoubtedly sounds relatively exciting. The technology itself is not new - virtualized work desktops have been successfully used in large companies for years, and Microsoft is one of the leading providers of such solutions. Cloud PC, however, would be available to anyone who wants to pay a subscription for its use - as a result, they only need a network connection to be able to work on any Windows application.
Windows 10X sounds like a hood today.
It will undoubtedly find its niche as Chrome OS has found it - as a thin client in schools and in some businesses. This system was one of Microsoft's most exciting projects and a brilliant compromise between the need to look to the future and support the most mature of applications. Now we find out that it is an Edge OS with an addition in the form of UWP application support and perhaps sometime in a few years with container technology.
A pity, a great pity. It remains, therefore, to look more closely at the path that will be followed by ordinary Windows 10, invariably the most profitable Microsoft product, despite its diminishing role in the company's development strategy.
Instead of Super Windows, it's more like Chrome OS. Windows 10X turned out to be too ambitious for Microsoft
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