Suddenly, Windows 10 Doesn’t Suck (Premium)

There has always been a lot to like about Windows 10. But the nagging issues we’ve had are all suddenly falling by the wayside.

I have my theories about why these changes are happening, and why they are happening almost all at once.

They involve a change of regime, the pending Windows 7 upgrade apocalypse, and the surprisingly overwhelmingly negative feedback that Microsoft has gotten regularly about Windows 10 since 2015 but, shocker, never thought to share publicly. But for those of us, like me, who always needed to add an asterisk to our love of a system that, quite frankly, should have always been a no-brainer, this all collectively very good news indeed.

Before getting to the key changes we’re now seeing in the final build of Windows 10 version 1903, let’s step back in a time a bit and reflect on how important it was that Microsoft get Windows 10 right from the get-go, and how easy doing so was. Mirroring the move from Windows Vista (reviled) to Windows 7 (beloved), Windows 10 had to right the wrongs of Windows 8, a release that was so disastrous and so poorly-timed that it undermined the Windows platform, setting up several years of decline.

Windows 10, as envisioned and then shipped in mid-2015, was not perfect. But as I noted in my review, that initial version of Windows 10 was superior to its predecessors and combined the best of Windows 7 with the best of Windows 8.1.

Windows 10 marked the welcome return to PC-centricity in Windows. Yes, Microsoft has been trying to replace the term “PC” with “devices” for years—in fact, the firm still uses this term—despite the fact that 100 percent of Windows 10 devices used worldwide are PCs. But there are no non-PC Windows 10 devices. (And no, Xbox One, HoloLens, Surface Hub, various IoT devices, and phones do not count, as they run platforms that are derived from, but are not the same as, Windows 10.) And Windows 10 has respected that fact from the beginning, by pivoting away from the terrible “touch-first” nonsense in Windows 8 that benefitted nobody and alienated everybody.

PC-centricity comes with its complexities, for sure. But the trade-off with complexity is power and functionality, and Windows 10 introduced power user features like virtual desktops, advanced new command line capabilities, Linux compatibility, and more.

But again, it was not perfect. And was not made to be more perfect over the intervening years as Microsoft tried to excite a moribund user base into believing that a legacy desktop platform could in some way, in any way, be as exciting and interesting as a smartphone. Windows 10 included a slightly evolved and rebranded version of the mobile apps platform and store that first debuted, largely unnoticed, in Windows 8. It introduced other mobile features, like a notifications system, a voice-activated digital personal assistant, and a controversial upgrade schedule called Windows as a Service (WaaS), most of which were subsequently ignored or, in the case of WaaS, broadly hated with a burning passion.

Windows 10 also introduced forced telemetry, which some see as a privacy concern. In-box advertising has accelerated or even exploded since it was first introduced in Store apps in Windows 8. It included a new web browser that most people used only once, to install Google Chrome. And worst of all, Windows 10, inexplicably and inexcusably, has shipped with crapware in the form of preinstalled and unwanted games and apps that are provided not by Microsoft but by third-parties.

Those issues—those caveats, or asterisks—have always sat as a cloud, of sorts, over what should have been a celebratory success story. Here we are in 2019, almost 35 years into the Windows era, and Microsoft, for all its experience and understanding of the market, has been cluelessly unable to treat its most cherished platform or, worse, those who use and rely on it every day, with any respect at all.

But that is all changing.

Finally, and wonderfully, that is changing. And you can see the edifice of stupidity that has almost ruined Windows 10 being chipped away in real time in a way that, frankly, is reminiscent of the Berlin wall coming down in 1989.

Microsoft is quietly revving down its failed consumer pushes, which many are unhappy about. But looked at correctly, doing so allows Microsoft to focus Windows on its core strength, productivity, and not be distracted by keeping up with companies like Amazon, Apple, Spotify, and Netflix that already serve consumers well. We don’t need a Microsoft e-book store any more than we need a Microsoft music or video store, or a My People feature that no one ever used. But what we’re getting instead are phone integration features, improvements to core productivity experiences, Windows Sandbox, password-less sign-ins, and other useful improvements.

Microsoft has given up on its terrible, infrequently-updated, and even less-frequently-used web browser and will replace it with a new browser, confusingly called Microsoft Edge, that is based on the web standards-based and open source-based Google Chromium code base. Maybe this time, it will actually find an audience. I think it will.

Microsoft has likewise given up on Cortana, its voice-activated assistant, and has “decoupled” this annoyance from Windows Search so that users can continue using Start-based search and not worry about Cortana.

Microsoft has been stepping back from the Universal Windows Platform for a year or more by expanding the definition of “Store app” to include desktop applications and Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) and other web apps. It has likewise dramatically increased the number of in-box UWP apps that users can uninstall because, let’s face it, almost all of them are terrible.

Microsoft is stepping back from the WaaS cliff by finally allowing even the peons—sorry, “guinea pigs”—using Windows 10 Home to actually defer/delay updates. Yes, the new system is not perfect, and it requires a lot of manual labor. And yes, this was almost assuredly done to appease would-be upgraders coming from Windows 7. Who cares? We’ll take it. (And Windows 10 will now automatically roll back problematic Windows Updates, a feature that should have been added years ago.)

Microsoft Paint, an in-box app for the entire 35-year run of Windows, was taken off of life support and will no longer be replaced by the childish, touch-first Paint 3D app. Instead, Paint will ship in the next version of Windows 10 and the company will include this app in Windows 10 updates going forward.

And best of all, early reports from those who have clean-installed Windows 10 version 1903 note that this version, finally, does not include crapware games like Candy Crush Saga for the first time. There are still some crapware apps, like Netflix, but most of those appear to be entertainment based and of reasonable quality.

I’m probably missing a few improvements, but you get the idea. There’s a lot of good happening in Windows these days.

No. It’s still not perfect. There are still some important changes that Microsoft needs to make, including chopping its twice-annual feature update (nee major version upgrade) down to once per year. That Windows 10 Home update deferral feature is nice, but it should let you do so for 35 days in one whack. And there are still tons of inconsistencies all over the system too; an obvious example is the decades-worth of icon styles that litter the system from the Aero glass-flavored Notepad icon (from 2005) to the new-style Office icons that in no way look like any of the other in-box app icons.

But Windows 10 will never be perfect, I get that. Perfect is an ideal, a moving goal. What I do see in today’s Windows, in Windows 10 version 1903, is a version of the platform that I use and love most of all that is finally, belatedly, getting some respect from its makers. I see a version of Windows 10 with fewer and smaller asterisks. Fewer embarrassments. Fewer inexcusable slaps to the face.

And I am grateful. We should all be grateful.

And then we should pick up our spades and continue the fight. We’re not done, yet, folks. But we’re getting there. And boy does that feel good.