You only need that luck if you get your software from people who think coupling security updates and UI updates is a good thing. Fortunately, not everyone does.
Obviously Microsoft itself realises this, because Windows 10 Enterprise is essentially a different product. In the spirit of sharing good luck, I wish you luck in finding any large corporate IT department that will adopt an OS as their standard platform without the ability to control exactly what gets updated and when.
The trick Microsoft seems to be trying to pull with Windows 10 is getting everyone else to be the beta testers for its enterprise customers. Commercially, I imagine that makes a lot of sense if you can do it, since surely those enterprise customers are far more valuable to you.
Other customers, who can choose from ever more alternatives for activities that used to use a Windows PC by default, might not be so keen. Casual home users rely more on alternative devices like phones, tablets, and consoles these days. "Prosumers" and small businesses can work with Apple gear or Linux, either on their own merits or simply because if a lot of the services you use are available online then it doesn't much matter what OS you're running locally anyway. With Windows 10 Pro being such an odd beast, I wonder how much longevity Microsoft's apparent strategy actually has.
Every website you use -- especially every Google and Facebook site -- is doing data-driven development where security and UI updates are made on a continuous basis. So are a lot of other programs, including browsers.
Welcome to the modern world.
> Windows 10 Enterprise is essentially a different product.
Windows 10 Enterprise is essentially the same product. The timing is slightly different.
> I wish you luck in finding any large corporate IT department that will adopt an OS as their standard platform without the ability to control exactly what gets updated and when.
Try the US Defense Department, Accenture, and Bank of America.
Every website you use -- especially every Google and Facebook site -- is doing data-driven development where security and UI updates are made on a continuous basis.
That doesn't make it a good thing, though. Getting to our usual dashboard now takes about half a minute on Google Analytics instead of about two seconds, thanks to their latest UI update. Facebook have lost a small fortune in advertising revenue from my businesses because of all the times that they've changed their management pages so they simply didn't work when we were going to run ads.
So are a lot of other programs, including browsers.
And with my professional web development hat on, "evergreen" browsers that update every six weeks are among the worst things that have ever happened to the industry. It's the same culture that also brings us a new JS framework every five minutes and a new half-baked, non-standardised CSS feature every ten. None of this is good unless it actually helps people to do more online, and all too often the reverse is true.
Welcome to the modern world.
Thanks, but I'll keep my old school systems where things like stability and reliability matter more than this week's shiny new UI chrome. That's why we still run Win7, we run Linux servers, our web sites and apps only rely on standardised, well-established features, and so on.
Try the US Defense Department, Accenture, and Bank of America.
Are you seriously claiming that the US DOD and major financial institutions let Microsoft install arbitrary updates and reboot their systems whenever they feel like it? I find that impossible to believe.
As I said, Windows 10 Enterprise is essentially a different product.
> Are you seriously claiming that the US DOD and major financial institutions let Microsoft install arbitrary updates and reboot their systems whenever they feel like it? I find that impossible to believe.
They are among the organizations moving to Windows 10. In fact, most organizations are moving to Windows 10.
But the question under discussion wasn't who was moving to Windows 10, it was whether bundling of security and UI updates was the way things were going and whether giving up control over the update process is acceptable to everyone. My argument throughout has been that not everyone is willing to hand over that level of external control of their systems, and that Microsoft recognises this by having a very different upgrade regime for Windows 10 Enterprise.
It isn't clear at all that bundling security and UI updates is the way things are going. That may be true if you look at very narrow parts of the market, but for example all of our servers and pretty much every piece of software we run on them get separate, individually installable security updates that very deliberately don't change any other functionality (and with extremely high reliability, don't break anything in the process either).
But the adoption rates for Windows 10 show that it's acceptable to the vast majority of people.
That's still a stretch. Nearly two years after release, even with very aggressive promotion including literally giving it away to home users for one of those years, it looks like Windows 10 still has far less market share than Windows 7. I don't know see you can get to "vast majority of people" from there.
As for businesses, large enterprises may be moving towards 10, though I note that the citations you gave earlier were invariably future predictions by analysts rather than actual adoption numbers. However, as I keep saying, large enterprises are getting a version that is very different, because it doesn't suffer from problems like having mandatory updates (or telemetry etc.) that have been widely criticised in other editions.
In contrast, and in complete opposition to your earlier claim that most organisations are moving to Windows 10, I mostly work with smaller tech businesses, where approximately none are currently moving to Windows 10 as their standard platform and several are actively looking into alternatives. If that experience is even remotely representative of the wider customer base, the nerfing of the Pro edition is going to hurt Microsoft if they don't fix it before the 2020 deadline. These companies don't have "IT departments" and they don't want "enterprise licensing deals". They want to buy new PCs that they can use to do their work, and for the less technical businesses, they usually want those PCs to be something Bob from Customer Support can set up because he knows a bit about how the office network works and has a list of which software they usually install for new starters. Getting away from all the other hassle is a big part of why cloud-based services are so popular.
> it looks like Windows 10 still has far less market share than Windows 7.
On Statcounter numbers, Windows 10 has more usage than Windows 7 in the USA and the UK. That's unheard of for a new Microsoft OS, where most people don't update until they buy a new PC.
> I note that the citations you gave earlier were invariably future predictions by analysts rather than actual adoption numbers.
Some are already doing roll-outs and pilots are at an all-time high. It normally takes corporates much longer to get to this stage.
> by having a very different upgrade regime for Windows 10 Enterprise
On Statcounter numbers, Windows 10 has more usage than Windows 7 in the USA and the UK.
Here are a few more sources for you to consider:
StatCounter global[1]: Win7 47%, Win10 34% (of Windows desktops)
Wikimedia[2]: Win7 22%, Win10 9% (of all platforms)
USA government analytics[3]: Win7 25%, Win10 17% (of all platforms)
The only serious source I know that has consistently shown Win10 coming out ahead for a while is Steam, which is obviously looking specifically at the gaming market:
Steam survey[4]: Win10 49%, Win7 37% (of all platforms)
That's unheard of for a new Microsoft OS, where most people don't update until they buy a new PC.
It's also unheard of for a new Microsoft OS to be not just given away to home users for a year but promoted through a campaign that was widely accused of trying to trick people into upgrading even if they didn't want to.
Some are already doing roll-outs and pilots are at an all-time high.
There seem to be a lot more pilots than roll-outs, though, even in enterprise land. That in itself is quite telling.
Really? How is it "very different".
Enterprise users have full control over which updates to install and when. Home/prosumer/small business users do not.
Welcome to data-driven software development. Good luck turning back that tide....