Ask Paul: September 23 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Let’s kick off the weekend a bit earlier after this tiring week with some great reader questions.

EOL

andybarzyk asks:

So 22H2 is out for Windows 11 but I don’t see anything about Windows 10. We need to rebuild our image at work as the image has the oldest supported version of 10 and once this new one is released, does the end of life clock start ticking on that (i.e. dose the oldest supported version move to a newer build) or is that already a set 2-year thing?

Windows 10 will be supported until October 14, 2025. Windows 10 Home and Pro versions are supported for 18 months, and Windows 10 Enterprise and Education are supported for 30 months. Until last year, there were two versions released every year, so there’s a wrinkle. So EOL for 22H2 depends on which versions you’re using for starters.

But if you go back to Microsoft’s original announcement about moving to an annual feature update schedule, you’ll find this bit from John Cable: “We will continue to support at least one version of Windows 10 through Oct. 14, 2025.” At least one version. This suggests that Microsoft might stop releasing new Windows 10 versions when it gets close enough to the EOL date because why bother? It can meet the letter of its agreement at that point. (It could do so even earlier with Enterprise and Education, I suppose.)

Anyway, Windows 10 version 22H2 will not be the final version of Windows 10, because it will be supported until mid-May 2023 (Home and Pro) or mid-October 2024 (Enterprise and Education). So there will at least be a 23H2 release. Or will there? Microsoft could also meet the letter of its agreement by simply extending the support lifecycle for any version of Windows 10 to October 2025. It could do so for 22H2. Or 23H2. I guess we’ll see.

The issue here, of course, is that Microsoft isn’t communicating what it is doing clearly. And it may not even be sure what it will do, schedule-wise. But it has been very cagey about Windows 10 version 22H2 features. And I don’t understand this.

This isn’t 100 percent related to your question, but I’m bothered by how this has played out. I don’t understand why Microsoft can’t tell its customers what it’s doing with Windows 10 version 22H2 and what its plans are beyond that. It’s just common sense.

Instead, this is what happened.

On July 28, 2022, Microsoft PR emailed me to tell me that it was releasing the first build of Windows 10 version 2H22 to the Release Preview channel of the Windows Insider Program. (Here’s the Microsoft blog post that resulted.) And that was the extent of the information. And so I asked them, as did others, “Thanks, are there any new features in this release?” And I was told that Microsoft would update the blog post, which was also devoid of information, with this addition: “This build is focused on validating the servicing technology. Windows 10, version 22H2 has a scoped set of features and Microsoft will share more details on this update later this year.” And that was it.

Flash forward to last week, when I had two briefings with Microsoft, one on the record (with Aaron Woodman and John Cable) and one on background, for the coming release of Windows 11 version 22H2. Cable noted that Microsoft was (according to my notes) “committed to Windows 10, would service it through October 2025. There are no changes there, just the ongoing transparency about updating.” But when asked about what would be in Windows 10 version 22H2, we were told “no comment.” That would come later, as today is about Windows 11.

Flash forward again, this time to Tuesday, when Microsoft announced the release of Windows 11 version 22H2, and there is one brief mention of Windows 10 version 22H2 in a Microsoft blog post, which notes that “the next feature update to Windows 10, version 22H2, is coming next month [October], continuing to offer you both support and choice with Windows.” Again, there is no mention at all of new features.

Looking at the Windows Insider Blog (which is always frustrating), the most recent post about Windows 10 version 22H2 is from September 15, when Microsoft released a new build to the Release Preview channel. You can see a few new features in there, nothing major of course. There was only one other build since the first one, on August 15. Same thing, two minor features. That, collectively, is all we know about this release.

Which is next to nothing.

Credibility

jchampeau asks:

This is sort of a “curiosity question,” but are people you know who work at Microsoft as off-put by the cheapening of Windows and the consumer Microsoft experience as you (and me and probably most of us here) are?

I’m going to take this one a bit sideways, similar to what I did to the question above (sorry).

Last week, we had those two briefings with Microsoft. Mary Jo did as well, and afterward, I had a conversation with her that we’ve had more and more in the past few years, where I basically asked “who the F are these people?” in response to the Microsoft representatives that were on the background call. Which means I can’t identify them to you, only tell you that it was a group of mostly young people, none of whom I know or recognize. (I had the same reaction with that terrible Windows 11 Start menu video that I complained about back in April. Who the F are these people?)

Perhaps more distressingly, I also had an experience, on that same call, that I’ve only had a few times over the years with Microsoft: I know more about this product than the person giving the presentation. The worst example of this was the time Andy Lees hosted the Windows Phone 8 launch in New York City; I came out of that flabbergasted that this guy was running Windows Phone, as he clearly had no idea what he was talking about. The Windows 11 call wasn’t that bad, but the presenter kept referring to things by the wrong names, which I found odd.

This is a roundabout way of saying that I feel sometimes that I just woke up and don’t recognize this company anymore. Most of the greats from the past, the really credible people, long gone, recently departed (like Don Box and Jeffrey Snover), or are in other parts of the company (Mark Russinovich, who left Windows for Azure because Steven Sinofsky was such a clusterf#$k.) I still have good friends at Microsoft, but there are much fewer of them now, and none of them are in Windows anymore. None.

This isn’t an agism thing: I’m at least mature and self-aware enough to know that I can learn from anyone and that, while age does impart experience, it’s not exclusive to older people. And I have many younger friends, people I respect very much. But I also know this (and I do mean “know” and not “believe”): Windows isn’t hiring experienced developers now (regardless of the recent hiring issues). And anyone with experience and desire inside of Microsoft isn’t choosing Windows regardless. They’re going where the opportunities are. Where the future may be. There is a reason Rafael Rivera went to Stardock and not Microsoft, for example. This guy is the next Mark Russinovich from a Windows internals perspective, but there’s no place in Windows for a person with that kind of expertise.

So, to sort-of answer your question: yes, there are people in Microsoft who are freaked out by what’s happening with Windows. (If you didn’t see this forum post about a former employee commenting on Windows 11, please do check it out as he lays out the issues perfectly.) But it’s different now, and there is an understanding that all Windows has to do is coast, and the company has certainly mastered doing that. It’s not like when Sinofsky almost killed Windows with Windows 8, that was the last stab of the era in which Windows really mattered to Microsoft. That was a disaster. This is just … meh. Who cares?

I mean, I do. And others, too, of course. You, I’m sure. But the world has moved on. Microsoft, and those who work there, have seen Google become almost as big solely on the basis of advertising. They’ve seen Amazon, an online retailer for crying out loud, beat them again and again in cloud computing. And they’ve seen Apple, the only company on earth that can make money selling hardware, become the biggest company on earth and just keep growing regardless. And Microsoft has collectively settled on a strategy where it can be—and is—quite successful. And keeping Windows coasting along is just a small part of that, one that requires small acts of terribleness. Microsoft does not care which devices you use to consume its services. It will milk you harder if one of them is Windows. Why not? But it doesn’t care.

Coping with this is difficult for me. I’m working on it.

Surface event

helix2301 asks:

Paul what do you expect from the surface event besides obvious? I was hopeful for new earbuds maybe some kind of xcloud handheld. What you think?

We know there will be updates to Surface Laptop, Surface Studio, and Surface Pro. But I am most curious about whether we’ll see new peripherals: earbuds, headphones, keyboards, and mice, but perhaps most intriguingly the long-hoped-for display. I don’t understand why this hasn’t happened yet.

I would like to see an Xbox-branded gaming handheld, but I feel like the just-announced Logitech device makes that unlikely. That said, it is very interesting that Microsoft has never mentioned “Surface” for this event. Perhaps it is more than Surface.

I don’t expect to see any updates to Duo or a Neo-style dual-screen device. I didn’t understand why Microsoft went in that direction to begin with, but with folding devices finally edging into the mainstream, I do expect to see folding Surface-branded PCs and perhaps other devices in the future. But not this year.

But I am happy to be surprised.

Ahead of its time

helix2301 also asks:

I was having a chat on twitter about Microsoft being to soon with tech like the band if it was around now it might have done well. Or subscription music. Subscription music on Zune was just to soon at that time subscriptions services were not a thing now it might have done better. I know you can always look back at things and say that but like Cortana was right place right time and did not take off.

Coincidentally, I was boring the crap out of my wife this morning with a discussion about Microsoft Band. This came up because I’m testing the Apple Watch, she writes professionally about health and fitness, and I can’t help myself. But the point I was making was that Microsoft was first to market with a wearable, the Microsoft Band that had multiple sensors that, today, are common but were unheard of back then. And that it failed, in part because the first version had endemic hardware issues related to the strap connection, and in part because it’s Microsoft and it never sticks with anything that isn’t a runaway success. I still feel like the Band could have been a contender.

Microsoft wasn’t first with music subscriptions or digital assistants, but it was in both markets before some of the bigger players: Apple didn’t get into subscription music until several years later, and Cortana actually beat Google Assistant to market, which is crazy.

Less cynically, I guess we might explain Microsoft’s defeats in these areas by remembering that none of these products/services are core to Microsoft’s business model. Google won in the assistant market because it couldn’t afford to lose. And Apple is doing well (but not “winning,” I guess) in music subscriptions because music and subscription services are both core to its business. (Apple ignited the digital music era with iTunes and it was late to subscriptions, but services are now its second-biggest business and Apple Music is a big chunk of that.)

It is also perhaps notable that health and fitness wearables, music subscription services, and digital personal assistants are all consumer offerings, and that Microsoft has just never done well with consumers. (I realize Cortana could/can be used for work-related tasks, but think about Alexa, Google Assistant, and even Samsung Bixby and how they’re used. It’s all consumers.) Being first to market and failing is common enough that everyone has heard the phrase “the innovator’s dilemma,” but I’m not even sure that applies to Microsoft in any of these cases: it was never really first anyway, and it never did everything right.

We should add Skype to this conversation. Oh, wait …

Future of Skype?

helix2301 asks:

I have one more question I have friends in Europe who use Skype to call us I have heard 0 news about Skype recently is it coming to an end. Skype was an example of product Microsoft bought that they should have just left alone like GitHub lol 😉

Of all the Microsoft products you mention, this is in many ways the hardest failure: Skype dominated this market and then … it didn’t. And then the pandemic happened, and Skype was barely even mentioned as a way for people to connect. Microsoft really bungled this. And while there are probably good reasons why, whatever, the real reason that Skype will end is Teams. Which is the kind of product I alluded to above: something that was immediately successful and, more important from Microsoft’s perspective, one that has become a platform that, like Windows, can lead to growth in other, more indirect areas. Teams is a monster. So Skype has to go.

That said, Teams for consumers (the thing that is bundled with Windows 11) has gone absolutely nowhere too. See my comment above about Microsoft and consumers for what I assume is the reason.

By way love the content so glad to be an Alpha member.

Thank you so much. And thanks for the questions: I look forward to Fridays because of this kind of conversation.