An S Mode Free-for-All is Just the Start (Premium)

You can almost see the light coming on up in Redmond. Windows 10 S is a disaster. And they’re finally making changes.

And not just changes, but the right changes.

The first step was to stop pretending that Windows 10 S was yet another Windows 10 product edition and reassign it to its true purpose as a mode. Now, S mode will be something that a PC maker can provide with any mainstream Windows 10 product edition, not just Pro.

The second step was something that I called on Microsoft to do just yesterday on Windows Weekly. Just hours before the software giant, in a bizarre late-night missive, announced that it would do the right thing: Switching out of S mode will no longer incur a fee. You can free yourself from the hell that is S mode for free. On any Windows 10 product edition.

Bravo to that.

But as you probably know, I’m no fan of applauding when Microsoft, or any other company, fixes a problem of its own making. And Windows 10 S—sorry, S mode—is very much a problem. One that Microsoft invented itself.

So it may be instructive to remember why Microsoft invented S mode. Because every time it takes a step back from the cliff that was Windows 10 S, I get a little bit excited. That maybe, just maybe, the software giant will keep making the right decisions. And what we’ll arrive at is the thing that S mode should have been to begin with.

A quick refresh.

Over the 2017 New Year holiday, I learned about what was then called Windows 10 Cloud, and I held back on this information until tidbits about this product started leaking and the ill-informed began speculating about its intent. Windows 10 Cloud was never positioned internally at Microsoft as a “Chrome OS alternative.” Instead, this new Windows 10 product edition was a renewed attempt to bring Windows more fully into the streamlined, mobile-oriented personal computing future … for all customers. It was designed to be Windows RT done right.

I’ve described Windows RT as a “one-way dead-end street,” which is a riff on favorite Steven Wright joke. But the point is correct: Windows RT only ran on ARM (not Intel/x86), it looked and worked like Windows 8 but came with major limitations, and there was no escape hatch: There was no way to upgrade from RT to a full-featured Windows version.

But the point behind Windows RT—which I once opined could be seen as the “next Windows NT” had Microsoft just gotten it right—was solid. The point was to modernize Windows and lay the foundation for a new decade of computing that was not bogged down by the performance, reliability, and security issues of its legacy past.

This is a dream that Microsoft—or perhaps I should say “Terry Myerson’s Windows organization”—has not given up on. And that makes me very happy.

So in 2016, the firm began plotting a new RT. One that would come with the benefits of that system but remove some of the more egregious limitations. Windows 10 Cloud, as it was originally called, was that new RT.

The name, of course, was terrible, and Microsoft knew this. By the time I had heard about it, the firm was already looking at other names, and of course it was eventually branded as Windows 10 S, with the “S” standing for “streamlined.” It’s actually not a horrible brand in the context of previous Windows brands like 98 SE, NT, and XP. At least it means something.

Windows 10 S would work on both Intel-type (x86, x64, AMD, etc.) chipsets and on ARM. Based initially on Windows 10 Pro, it would provide an upgrade path to that more full-featured version, so it was no longer a “one-way dead-end street.” I cautioned Microsoft at the time that its proposed $50 upgrade fee would feel like trickery to its customers, a bald-faced “gotcha” moment when they discovered that they would need to pay to run real Windows applications. So the firm devised a time-limit during which the upgrade would be free. I didn’t find out about that bit until Windows 10 S was formally announced in May 2017.

I have a lengthier and more complete explanation of this system in Windows 10 Cloud, Explained. For now, just understand that Windows 10 S is a good idea. But it’s one that is a victim of timing. The ability to run only Store apps in 2017, or 2018, or whatever year for the foreseeable future is problematic. That ecosystem simply isn’t mature enough.

And it may never be. But that’s OK, because Microsoft has also been working, off to the side of Windows 10 S, on other initiatives that will bolster this system’s ability to run apps. They’ve brought desktop applications to the Store with Desktop Bridge, for example. And they’ve pioneered the inclusion of Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) into the platform. Both will lead to a dramatic rise in both app numbers and app quality.

In many ways, this is the key difference between Windows 10 S and Windows RT: Windows 10 S really is just a mode of real Windows 10. And what the mode does is artificially block the system from installing applications that are downloaded from the Internet. Windows RT, which was based on ARM, technically could not run those applications, because they were based on another processor architecture. The limitation was very real, not artificial. (Technological advancements in both hardware and software since 2012 have enabled Windows 10 on ARM to emulate x86 and thus run these applications.)

A mode, by nature, is something you can turn on and off, like a switch. In fact, you can find this switch right now in Windows 10 Home or Pro: Open Settings and navigate to Apps > Apps & features and look at the top item, called Installing apps. If you change this option from its default (“Allow apps from anywhere”) to “Allow apps from the Store only,” you can experience what Windows 10 S users go through. Desktop applications you download from the Internet will no longer work.

Of course, in Windows 10 Home or Pro, this mode is a real mode: You can also switch it off on the fly. You can toggle it. That’s how a mode is supposed to work.

In Windows 10 S today, switching off S mode is a one-way trip. So you could make the argument that it is a “one-way street,” but not a “dead-end street.” You’re not stuck with S mode, because you can get out of it. But once you do, you can’t go back. At least not easily.

But that means that Windows 10 S is not a “true” mode, and, yeah, OK, that’s a bit pedantic. But this isn’t about being pedantic. It’s about making Windows 10 S make sense. In other words, the idea behind S mode—a more streamlined Windows that is safer, more reliable, and performs better—is good. It’s just that the real world gets in the way. We need to run Google Chrome or whatever other desktop application. We need that driver for our mouse or printer. Whatever.

So what I’m hoping to see in the future is Microsoft take the next baby step of making Windows 10 S/S mode less awful, less unusable, and just make it a real mode. Make it possible for a user to say, “Microsoft, yes. I really do want all the benefits of S mode. But what I want to do is just toggle the mode off, install Chrome (or whatever), and then toggle S mode back on.” This should be up to the user, not Microsoft. And the ability to do this right now in Windows 10 Home and Pro proves that doing so is both possible and desirable.

Is Microsoft going to do this? Does the switch from a Windows 10 product edition called Windows 10 S to an S mode for all mainstream Windows 10 product editions mean that S mode is a “real” mode?

No. Not in Windows 10 version 1803, which will be finalized and released in the next 30 days. In this first Windows 10 version to formally support an S mode across all mainstream product editions, the switch will still be a one-way street. It will still work like it does in Windows 10 S today.

There will be some differences, of course. You will be offered S mode during Setup, which is not the case today. And that means that you can more easily reinstall Windows in S mode at a later date, which is a bit of a concern for anyone that wishes to go back today with Windows 10 S. So there’s another baby step.

I’m hoping for more baby steps as Microsoft stumbles down the path to doing the right thing. It will have to arrive there eventually because Windows 10 S, or S mode, is still a great idea, albeit one that is a little ahead of schedule to meet the realities of user needs.

So cross your fingers, folks. It’s taken a lot of complaining, a lot real-world usage telemetry, and a lot of soul-searching on Microsoft’s part. But the software giant is finally waking up to reality. Let’s help them get the rest of the way.