Windows 365

wilts747

Well-known member
N3V are not the only ones who are keen on the subscription software model, Microsoft with its Office 365, Adobe, many drawing packages, anti-virus providers and so forth also prefer such an approach understandably to finance future developments. While Trainz and the likes of MS Office are still available to be purchase outright over the past few years I'm of the impression purchasing software directly is in decline, being replaced by the subscription model or the frequently adequate but perhaps less functional free software.

With this in mind it perhaps comes as no surprise that over the past six months much has been predicted about Windows 365, and whether or not, now we are all hooked on Windows 10, with Windows 11 in the coming months is the intended future of Windows to follow the subscription trend. Currently Windows 365 is clearly intended for industry but subject to its success who would be willing to predict tomorrow. Details below: Peter

https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/windows-365-is-now-live-heres-how-much-it-will-cost-you
 
I was thinking the same when I read about that, Peter. The subscription model, aka SaaS, or software as a service, has been the way things have been going for sometime. SaaS started out in the corporate world by companies such as Oracle, Sales Force, SAP, and other big companies. Then the smaller developers caught on to the idea and have been pushing the trend at the consumer level now. Last year, I ran into a hybrid model. I purchased NotePerformer from Wallender Software AG. This plug-in for Sibelius notation software, was offered as a rent-to-own at $10.00 per month for 10 months. It actually cost me $11.53 due to taxes, but at the end I now own the program outright.

If you think about it, we've gone in full circle again. Back in the olden days, there were mainframes that people shared access to run their applications. They were in big rooms and everyone connected via terminals all centralized and local to the operation. In the late 1980s, this world ended, and so did a company I worked for because of this reason, and mainframes became old-fashioned and tossed into the landfills as they were replaced by work group setups and smaller machines running net-operating systems such as Netware and Windows NT server. As time went on, diskless PCs were developed where people connected to the servers to run their applications still locally much like the mainframe operations except with smarter local machines.

As the WANs and internet got faster, companies outsourced their data centers to outside locations, and users used local PCs to attach to these systems located sometimes across the country or offshore. Eventually, data was moved from local storage to the "cloud" so now there's nothing local any longer even on local machines in some cases.

So in a sense, we've gone full circle from a centralized, controlled data and software environment, to a free sort of unrestricted shared environment, back to a centralized and controlled environment except the difference is the terminology has changed and the data centers are located elsewhere in the world.
 
If Microsoft can't secure their cloud what chance anyone else, I'm staying well away from putting anything important in the cloud.

Exclusive-Microsoft warns thousands of cloud customers of exposed databases

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/tec...sed-databases/ar-AANMWbX?ocid=winp2octtaskbar

Yup. I read that as well. I have a One Drive account, but only use that for pictures and for sharing routes with friends. In general, I've never put anything personal or important up on any cloud drive, ever.
 
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If you go back some years to when the idea of the 'cloud' as we know it today was first being talked about there was basically two concepts. One, what it has developed into, a number of discrete storage hubs, and the other which was Microsofts original idea of all our personal computers forming the cloud. Now while that may seem a daft idea and none of us would buy into it, here in the UK a number of ISP have done just that but with our internet connections where a portion or a subscribers internet bandwidth can be effectively ring-fenced to provide greater Wi-Fi coverage to others.

My personal view is that the cloud is OK while it works but when it goes wrong particularly if that's your only storage its a disaster, I've seen far to many corporate networks go down over the years and places of work come to a standstill. More importantly their security aspects. Why hold a PC to ransom when you can hold a server and with the cloud the connection to it has already been provided. Google with its ChromeOS has achieved the half way solution with full functionality on-line and limited functionality off, and I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft, late as always, is thinking likewise. Once I might have said I'm to old to care but I'm not so sure today things change so quickly. Trainz on a telephone, Humbug. Peter
 
I've been curious why Microsoft has been supplying free updates to Windows 10 for some years now. But I've no real reason to complain other than MS sneaking in new "apps" now and then. I've had Office 365 ever since I retired and prior to that my employer had a deal with MS so that employees got it free or discounted. Mostly I just use Outlook but its nice to have Word and Excel available.

If Windows 365 becomes a subscription model for ordinary users then I think that would be a huge mistake by Microsoft.

I have several subscription solutions in addition to Trainz. They include some software dev editors, CG Cookie, Office 365, and the Adobe Substance tools. I did have Autodesk's Maya Lite for a couple of years but it was too expensive, had less features than Blender, and you couldn't develop addons for it. So I gave up on that and returned to Blender.

The only time I get some angst with subscriptions is when I get a renewal reminder and I make a mental note I should be making more use of the service. And, of course I don't. :eek:

Recently I did get a renewal notice for a Windows utilities product that I swear hasn't been updated in years. After renewing, there was a hiccup where I couldn't get a new registration code and attempts to resolve it just got me more requests to renew. They took my money though. That subscription is now cancelled. I'm sure what the product did was stuff you can do with existing Windows utilities anyway.
 
Oh, I forget to mention One Drive. Basically I have nothing on it and don't need it anyway. I have 10 Terabytes of mirrored NAS storage locally so that works for me.
 
Interesting discussion. From what I have gleaned from many other sources, Microsoft's main revenue stream is now from Enterprise (corporate) products and Office 365, not from the Windows OS, which is a complete reversal from several decades ago. Windows OS upgrades from earlier versions (e.g. Windows 7 to Windows 10 to, eventually, Windows 11, etc) are provided free to maintain the user base. They cost Microsoft very little in the scheme of things. I have always noted that they have never, to my knowledge, offered similar free upgrades from earlier versions of Office to the latest releases.

Windows OS as a subscription service would work, as others have noted here, in the corporate world because of the support that it will offer. I am not convinced that it would work in the home user market. Like pcas1986 above, I also have a few subscription annual services - my AV program is the main one but more recently Trainz Plus (something that I thought I would never do).

When I was working my employer had an enterprise subscription to all of Microsoft's products which all employees were allowed to install on their home computers. But since retirement I have had to remove the Office suite and found that a subscription to Office 365 or an outright purchase was not justifiable and I no longer had a pressing need for it anyway. I have found that the free LibreOffice more than meets my very modest requirements in that area. This is where Microsoft must weigh the risks. If they go to an all subscription model then users who do not have corporate privileges will go to free alternatives, including for their OS.

Incidentally, I just checked and Office 2019 can still be purchased as a stand-alone full purchase (no subscription) product from Microsoft. I suspect that there will always be a market for non-subscription MS Office.

PS: I use One Drive for all my Trainz stuff as it allows me to quickly transfer data between different computers. I have no personal info on One Drive and I keep backups of everything on attached storage devices.
 
I have migrated every bit of my writing software from any form of Windows to Linux. Open Office is ideal for my writing needs. In fact, I wrote both my novels on OO. MS Word 2019 has been languishing on my WIn10 machine, but hardly used. The one other writing aid I use has both a home computer version for Windows (which I have) and a web-based version (which I use from my Linux machines). So, until N3V realizes that Linux is a viable and market supported OS, and creates a Trainz for Linux, I'll have to keep my Win10/11 machine. BTW: There is a very clever app that, when run, will tell you your WIndows 10 computer can or can't run Windows 11. It's called WhyNotWin11 and is available at GitHub.

As John says, we have indeed gone full circle from mainframes and terminals, through individual workstations, and back to "Cloud" subscriptions and storage. I don't trust the Cloud at all and only keep a few things up there I wish to share with others. Same goes for Google Drive.

The latest glitch by N3v that rendered TMR17 useless after they turned off the verification server only points out the vulnerability everyone has to DRM-controlled software. Luckily, the "dead" TMR17 can be brought back to life.

Bill
 
I have migrated every bit of my writing software from any form of Windows to Linux. Open Office is ideal for my writing needs. In fact, I wrote both my novels on OO. MS Word 2019 has been languishing on my WIn10 machine, but hardly used. The one other writing aid I use has both a home computer version for Windows (which I have) and a web-based version (which I use from my Linux machines). So, until N3V realizes that Linux is a viable and market supported OS, and creates a Trainz for Linux, I'll have to keep my Win10/11 machine. BTW: There is a very clever app that, when run, will tell you your WIndows 10 computer can or can't run Windows 11. It's called WhyNotWin11 and is available at GitHub.

As John says, we have indeed gone full circle from mainframes and terminals, through individual workstations, and back to "Cloud" subscriptions and storage. I don't trust the Cloud at all and only keep a few things up there I wish to share with others. Same goes for Google Drive.

The latest glitch by N3v that rendered TMR17 useless after they turned off the verification server only points out the vulnerability everyone has to DRM-controlled software. Luckily, the "dead" TMR17 can be brought back to life.

Bill


Windows 11 , WhyNotWin11 only get it from Github there are some earlier buggy versions still floating about and have a read of the Note from Programmer re old hardware, looks hopeful and more reasonable than some of the speculative rubbish that's circulating on the net started unsurprisingly by the Verge with one of their unverifiable Microsoft says tabloid type articles.

Microsoft have also fixed thier PC Health Check app for Win 11 and released it intially to Insiders for testing, this time it works properly and provides an explanation if a fail result.
 
Even though my one Windows computer will run Win11, I do not intend to upgrade. By all accounts, Win11 is a subscription OS--you must have a MS account and be logged in for the OS to run fully other than a simple start-up condition. If I have to, I'll shut my Win10 machine off from the Internet except for my Trainz to verify itself before cutting it off again. My antimalware suite has a great feature right on it's user interface: a button that slams the Internet door closed. Click it again, and it opens back up. Been using Emsisoft for years.

Bill
 
Even though my one Windows computer will run Win11, I do not intend to upgrade. By all accounts, Win11 is a subscription OS--you must have a MS account and be logged in for the OS to run fully other than a simple start-up condition. If I have to, I'll shut my Win10 machine off from the Internet except for my Trainz to verify itself before cutting it off again. My antimalware suite has a great feature right on it's user interface: a button that slams the Internet door closed. Click it again, and it opens back up. Been using Emsisoft for years.

Bill

[h=1]"Windows 11 Pro will let you install Windows 11 with a local account"[/h]
 
By all accounts, Win11 is a subscription OS--you must have a MS account and be logged in for the OS to run fully other than a simple start-up condition.

Really? By whose account?

I did a search of Win 11 reviews from various PC magazines, Microsoft and others and none of them mentioned the word "subscription". Here is a "Flash" from Forbes Magazine at https://www.forbes.com/sites/barryc...11-will-it-be-a-free-upgrade/?sh=640280d3658d -

Update: Microsoft has now confirmed Windows 11 will be a free update for Windows 10 users

The only requirement is that your PC must meet certain hardware specs. Three of the four PCs here meet those specs.
 
It sounds like maybe the same as Windows 10. It defaults to using your Windows Live account for login, but you can jump a few hoops to use a non-Microsoft login, I believe.
 
Release date for Win11 is October the 5th.

It is not subscription, there is no money involved, you are only Initially "forced" to use a Microsoft account when installing Home. Pro you can set up a local account and avoid all the Windows Hello Crap. With Home if you unplug the internet when installing Home, when it tries to get you to setup a Microsoft account, it gives up and offers a local account option anyway, doubtful that will change.

Microsoft accounts are only actually required for the Microsoft stuff, such as the Store, which IMO is full of a lot of useless junk and wants to charge for software that is often free from the actual creators, the new Widget thing that is basically Bing / Edge, the News App again Edge / Bing, Microsoft Teams all of which can be removed in fact most of the unwanted junk can be removed, I was not impressed by MS preinstalling Twitter Telegram and other Social Media Garbage, easily got rid of. Cortana has been made less of an nuisance and has had some of it's features culled. Haven't seen it once on my Insider PCs.

Main issues causing annoyance with Firefox Edge Opera etc is that Edge is overiding Default the default Browser, can be sorted by manually re assigning the protocols to your browser of choice, hopefully they will fix that before release.
And then there is the Taskbar whic is now apparently a separate function and can not be unlocked or moved from the bottom, officially that is, seems to be required for Widgets and News things.


If you don't want a Win 11 compliant PC to upgrade just make sure TPM is not enabled and will not be compatible. Note TPM and Secure boot will enabled on new PCs now by default, for self builders up to the builder.

Anyone who really wants to know what is actually going on the good and the bad as it's not all good at present, there is lot of info tutorials workrounds and so on on Windows Eleven Forum https://www.elevenforum.com/
 
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