Living with S Mode: The Series (Premium)

With Microsoft set to rev a new version of Windows 10 and formally implement S mode as an option, it's time to take another peek at the software giant's well-intentioned attempt to push us all into the future.

My goal, of course, is to give Windows 10 S---sorry, Windows 10 Pro in S mode---a fair shake. But then, I've actually used this system more than most already. In addition to the various series I've written about Windows 10 S, I've been updating the Windows 10 Field Guide for the past several months, largely to ensure that everything is accurate for Windows 10 S.

But those updates address the current version of Windows 10, version 1709, or the Fall Creators Update. This new effort to examine what is now called S mode involves the next Windows 10 version, version 1803, or what we believe will be called the Spring Creators Update.

Yes, it's a treadmill. But every six months, Microsoft revs up a new version of Windows 10, and this always triggers a new examination of the changes, key among them Microsoft Edge. Edge, of course, weighs heavily in any discussion about Windows 10 in S mode because this is the only browser you can use. And like most people, I spend a ton of time using web apps.

In the past, that has been problematic, and I already know going into this that Microsoft has not addressed some of my key issues in version 1803. But I will keep an open mind, and I hope that the addition of Progressive Web Apps (PWA) support in this release will also help.

S mode's lack of desktop application support has also been problematic in the past. Here, we've seen small improvements since last Fall, including a slightly broader access to the Office 2016 applications through the Store. But again, more is needed, and PWAs might help.

Anyway, hope springs eternal. So I keep trying.

The first step was to blow away all my favorites in Microsoft Edge on a Windows 10 Pro PC and then re-import my carefully curated (and recently updated) bookmarks from Chrome, so I'd be working with the same links.

Then, I blew away the Windows 10 Pro install on the Surface Laptop, paved it over with the Windows 10 S-based recovery drive, and then upgraded that to the latest, near-final Windows 10 Insider Preview build for Redstone 4. I'll keep that up-to-date as more builds are released, of course.

I would like to get this release on my desktop PC as well. But I need to ensure I have access to key desktop applications, too. So maybe I'll try a dual-boot install once Microsoft releases a more current Windows 10 Insider Preview ISO. For now, I can just use Surface Laptop with Windows 10 S and see how that goes.

If I'm being honest here, my expectations are low. I do have key desktop applications that I rely on---MarkdownPad, Visual Studio Code, and a few others---but the bigger issue for me personally is web apps. I use Google Inbox and Calendar, plus Twitter Lite, using Chrome-based web apps, and I'm not super-interested in the S mode alt...