News Microsoft reportedly killing off Windows 10 S

Someone high up in Microsoft seems to have some sort of attention-span issue, because they keep pulling this trick. Less than a year is not enough time to see whether something will succeed or not when you're talking on the scale of a major multi-national corporation with millions of customers...

Not that I'm sorry to see 10 S go down in a smoldering heap, but the whole Windows 10 product cycle seems to be revolving around driving every user insane with the constant flow of large-scale updates containing endless tweaks and "improvements".

 

From what i gather all OEM system will come with Windows 10 S mode by default and it will be up to the customer if they want to upgrade, it's a win-win for Microsoft, the *reportedly 60% of customers will stick with Windows 10 in S mode and buy apps from the Windows store while the other 40% will be forced to setup a Microsoft account linked to their CC details so they can pay for the upgrade and then the chance of them later using the Microsoft store probably increases.

*based on what Thurrot says.

 

As far as I can tell, "Windows 10 S" and "Windows 10 S mode" are identical apart from the name. They probably should have just called it that in the first place rather than play silly pretend-to-be-fragmented games: Windows 10 s was never a separate OS from Windows 10, it was just Windows 10 with some extra policies applied.

 

Kind of. 10 home/pro has larger differences like Bitlocker, ability to be part of a Domain, Hyper V, etc. Between Windows 10 S and the 'full' version all the gubbins are already present, just not user accessible.
It'd be like setting windows to boot to XBMC instead of Explorer and declaring it a new OS: the OS is the same, you just can't see it by default.

 

Wow, Gareth, what'd you do to piss off Microsoft?

Edit: Uh oh, now I'm in the crosshairs

 

Wasn't there a workaround or something to enable running programs not from the Windows store on the old Windows 10 S?

I wonder where people will stand legally if they workaround the restriction of Windows 10 S "mode" only running Windows store programs without paying the extra money to unlock that ability, i guess Microsoft won't like it but would it still be classed as piracy and illegal?

 

The difference is that 'under the hood' Windows 10 S/S mode can run Win32 applications just fine. Under the hood, Home does not have the ability to run HyperV. Home -> Pro requires additional features to be added, while S -> Pro requires a function to be disabled to access features already in place.

 

It literally lacks the component, it;s not even there under the hood. As far as I am aware, nobody has 'unlocked' the ability to join Windows 10 to a domain, or even 'hacked in' the ability. That's why I'd class Windows 10 Home and Pro as different OSes, but Windows 10 S as merely an option within an OS.

My point entirely. Merely not running some Win32 applications (Windows 10 S will still run packaged Win32 applications from the Windows Store, and allow built-in Win32 applications to run) does not make Windows 10 S a different OS.

Home to Pro upgrade: Needs both the license key, AND to download the components that are literally missing from the install.
Windows S to Pro: Flip a switch, do it offline, nothing extra needed.