Ask Paul: August 5 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Here’s another great set of reader questions to kick off the weekend a bit early. Not surprised that many are wondering about Windows 12.
Windows 12
Ianceicys asks:

Paul, with Windows 12, what if for consumers Windows 12 wasn’t a free upgrade from Windows 11? What if to upgrade existing PCs Microsoft went back to the model of say $100 a license upgrade from the Microsoft Store for Microsoft 365 consumer. How would such a model make you change your view of future Windows 12 consumer upgrades on existing PCs?

I think this is one of the unbottle the genie moments, meaning that once you make such a change, you can’t go back, and I don’t see Microsoft ever charging consumers for a Windows upgrade again. Nor would be this met by anything other than derision and disinterest.

But you may be onto something: what Microsoft has probably learned from Windows 11 is that it’s possible to artificially “obsolete” hardware, as Apple does when it puts products on its so-called “vintage” list, and stop supporting them. And that doing so could force consumers to upgrade to a new PC. Maybe it will be more aggressive going forward. Certainly, its “you’re supported for the lifecycle of the device” policy was vague and made no sense.

But whether the new policy is successful is debatable. I’ve heard from multiple sources that businesses are not upgrading to Windows 11 at all, despite Microsoft’s claims. And it’s pretty clear that the consumer upgrade cycle has concluded, meaning that those who can upgrade already have. This may explain the need for a Windows 12: perhaps Microsoft will orient that release more for businesses.

Speaking of which…

justme also asks:

What is driving the development of Windows 12 (assuming all the rumors are true)? Windows 11 doesnt yet seem fully baked - why would Microsoft divert resources to the next version (unless this was the plan all along...?) I can understand TPM requirements tempering enthusiasm for 11, but without them, perhaps PC sales dont quite have the jump they did?

There’s so much going on here.

First, and as noted above, businesses have shown no interest at all in Windows 11. We can speculate about the whys of that, but I bet the biggest reasons are the more aggressive hardware requirements (i.e that businesses have a lot of unsupported hardware out there and their own ideas about upgrade timeframes) and support costs because the simplified new user interface will trigger lots of help desk calls. Whatever the reason, if Microsoft does move to a Windows 12, it will be because of businesses because this customer base is so lucrative to them.

The end of the pandemic isn’t helping, either. But I always questioned the timing of Windows 11 anyway: why would Microsoft kneejerk release this thing right as the pandemic was winding down (I know, not really) and PC sales were strong? It seems to me that you give this thing a year of public testing, g...