Microsoft Wants To Move Windows Fully To the Cloud

[Etern4l]

Microsoft Wants To Move Windows Fully To the Cloud - Internal Presentation

 

Microsoft has been increasingly moving Windows to the cloud on the commercial side with Windows 365, but the software giant also wants to do the same for consumers. From a report:In an internal "state of the business" Microsoft presentation from June 2022, Microsoft discuses building on "Windows 365 to enable a full Windows operating system streamed from the cloud to any device." The presentation has been revealed as part of the ongoing FTC v. Microsoft hearing, as it includes Microsoft's overall gaming strategy and how that relates to other parts of the company's businesses.

Moving "Windows 11 increasingly to the cloud" is identified as a long-term opportunity in Microsoft's "Modern Life" consumer space, including using "the power of the cloud and client to enable improved AI-powered services and full roaming of people's digital experience." Windows 365 is a service that streams a full version of Windows to devices. So far, it's been limited to just commercial customers, but Microsoft has been deeply integrating it into Windows 11 already. A future update will include Windows 365 Boot, which will enable Windows 11 devices to log directly in to a Cloud PC instance at boot instead of the local version of Windows. Windows 365 Switch is also built into Windows 11 to integrate Cloud PCs into the Task View (virtual desktops) feature.

 

Oh yes, Satya's wet dream: all of people's data in the Microslop cloud, no need to support PC hardware - just stream off the cloud.

 

What a time to move to Linux, or at least macOS.

 

@Mr. Fox @Papusan @Aaron44126

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[Aaron44126]

I saw this and I don’t see them taking away the option to boot local Windows, but rather adding another option to boot cloud Windows. Though, maybe some devices will ship with that as the only option someday. And obviously they are doing work to integrate cloud offerings into normal desktop Windows more and more, and monetizing whatever they can get away with. None of this is a direction that I really care for, which is why I am out.

 

Funny how we have come full circle. You used to have dumb clients that connected to powerful mainframes because you couldn’t put much compute power into user terminals, for both physical space and cost reasons. That changed over time as things shrunk and got cheaper, and ordinary end user devices became more capable. Now we have powerful end user devices and companies are pushing to turn them back into dumb terminals. (I’d say cloud gaming is also trying to follow this trend somewhat.)

[Papusan]

2 hours ago, Etern4l said:

What a time to move to Linux, or at least macOS.

 

@Mr. Fox @Papusan @Aaron44126

When and if Microsoft going this way. MacOS will be the same. Whats left is Linux. 

[Sandy Bridge]

I saw this today, not surprised there's a thread on it.

 

As someone who still uses a local Windows account, I have no interest in this... what's my CPU for if not running an OS?  And of course, minimizing monthly subscriptions is a good thing.

 

That said, Microsoft will still sell you a perpetual license for Office, it's just not advertised as much as Office 365.  So I suspect Aaron44126 is correct, it would be another option.

 

Why you'd want it... I'm not sure?  Especially as a boot drive.  And considering that Windows is shipped with most PCs at a per-license cost that's considerably lower than retail, I have a hard time seeing where this would produce any potential cost savings for the customer.

[Etern4l]

9 hours ago, Papusan said:

When and if Microsoft going this way. MacOS will be the same. Whats left is Linux. 

 

I don't believe that's the case. Remember Apple is a leading hardware, as well as software, company. 

Moreover, Tim Cook is more of a switched on CEO, and he is quite aware that Apple's USP is being an alternative to Google and Microsoft. They don't want to be like them. That said they have a whole host of their own problems, which is why Linux running on an open PC hardware platform is appealing.

 

BTW I really despise Nadella, it's disappointing that's the best person Microsoft managed to find to run the company. For instance, in a recent interview he said things like "for some reason, the society has assigned more value to engineering jobs than to say social care work" (implying that's about to change because ChatGPT will be replacing engineering jobs). The statement alone proves he is a multi-level idiot.

 

 

[Aaron44126]

12 hours ago, Papusan said:

When and if Microsoft going this way. MacOS will be the same. Whats left is Linux. 

4 hours ago, Etern4l said:

I don't believe that's the case. Remember Apple is a leading hardware, as well as software, company. 

Moreover, Tim Cook is more of a switched on CEO, and he is quite aware that Apple's USP is being an alternative to Google and Microsoft. They don't want to be like them.

 

Yeah, while Apple certainly does have issues, they are mostly a different class of issues.  They value their top-to-bottom hardware/software integration so I do not think that they would allow their OS to be streamed to "any device".  They have been a champion for the consumer in some cases (going up against the FBI over creating an "easy unlock" version of their OS, and winning; mandating user opt-in to tracking, causing a notable disruption to Facebook's revenue stream; deploying a mechanism to fully encrypt cloud data so that only users can access it) so I am giving them a chance.  I do not expect that they won't change over time (possibly for the worse); they are a business after all and will follow the money.  Right now, they know that they are financially benefiting from being the "end user privacy advocate" choice.

 

4 hours ago, Etern4l said:

BTW I really despise Nadella, it's disappointing that's the best person Microsoft managed to find to run the company.

 

Conflicted feelings.  I don't like him either.  But I was glad when he took over because I liked Steve Ballmer even less (at the time).  I was initially pleased to see some initiatives start that never would have happened under Ballmer — WSL, and open sourcing .NET Framework, for example.  But as time goes on it is increasingly clear that he's a key driving force in the direction that Windows has taken that I do not like.

 

There will always be businesses and governments and use cases in general which won't tolerate this junk.  This is why, for example, we have Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC, which has a lot of the junk stripped out as well as the aggressive upgrade pushing; it is just really hard for "ordinary users" to get their hands on it.  The same sort of crap is coming to more basic consumer devices, like TVs, which now have cloud services integrated, tracking what you watch, showing ads in the UI in some cases, and so forth.  I'm still using a "dumb TV" which I got in 2012 (right before streaming services started being built-in to every TV) with a separate streaming box attached (.......Apple TV, actually).  If I ever buy a new TV, I will go out of my way to buy a "commercial display" (which is what they use in hotels, airports, restaurants, etc.) which would have the same panel used in an ordinary consumer TV, but lacking the aggressive "smart TV" software features that all consumer TVs include now.

 

...All this to say, for now there are options available for users who want to avoid the direction that tech is going, you just have to bend over backwards and go through business channels to access it, and most consumers don't bother.

 

[Edit]

It might be the same for the iPhone/Siri issues that you were complaining about in another thread.  Maybe the "cleanest" (but not "easiest") way to get around that is to put your phone under MDM management and turn the stuff that you don't like off from that side.