I'm on ltsb for my business laptop and it stinks. Id rather have random issues with a few upgrades than be stuck without new features and get almost no bug fixes. New features I get for my home machine are missing on my job laptop. New dpi handling improvements coming Nope, not in ltsb.
It appears to get security fixes only - few bug fixes.
For example, the LTSB start menu is completely broken - there is no search on it and it takes 3-4 seconds to show. Presumably related to the lack of Cortana, but who knows. In any case, it's been a widely reported bug in ltsb for a long time and it's a pretty fundamental feature in windows.
I could see the point in being on the LTSB branch of windows 7 because that OS is done. But windows 10 isn't nearly finished yet and very rough around the edges. Being on LTSB of such an old Win10 release is like being on the release day version of a AAA game while everyone else runs the fixed version that came out 3 months later.
But that's precisely the problem. This article even calls it "Windows 10 without the cruft", and there's this misinformed view everywhere that you can "strip down" and accordingly "make faster" Windows by using the LTSB. And before you know it, everyone wants to.
There are forum threads with people buying home desktops and being upset that they didn't get LTSB because "Cortana uses RAM I want for gaming".
LTSB is a victim of poor marketing. It should be called "kiosk edition" or something to make some of these things really clear to people.
Ok, I want a machine to do nothing but run office. I have given up on the portion of my Steam library that doesn't run on Linux, but running Steam would be a bonus.
I have no interest in the app store, or any of Microsoft's cloud services, and sending my data to Microsoft (or leaving open a remote diagnostics backdoor) is a complete deal breaker for me. Since my Win 8 box downloaded backports of the Win 10 spyware without my authorization, I have physically unplugged it.
Is there some reason LTSB will not meet my requirements? I can afford $7/month.
It seems like the best choice at the moment, but I'd rather not waste time if it can't run office (or has hardware issues, etc).
Just run Windows in a VM and cut off internet access. Use the windows offline updater periodically (not nearly as important since you don't have internet; still useful if you are going to import foreign files into the vm). http://www.wsusoffline.net/. You'll need a different windows scapegoat machine to use wsusoffline though. I don't think there is a linux version. Also, office 2010 on wine/crossover is perfectly usable for light work. Office 2013 is also somewhat supported these days.
Regarding Steam, I imagine changes to DirectX (even small one)s, and games that update with requirements to use the new version (because why not try to make your users be less likely to complain to you about that bug?), will lead to some small but growing percentage of Steam titles over time not working, or trying to force a DirectX upgrade.
As someone who has in the past run CentOS for my main work desktop, there are benefits and detriments to a stable platform like that for a desktop. Right after it comes out it's fairly heavily weighted on the benefits side. A couple years down the line? Not so much (and CentOS 6 took a long time to release).
Are Wine and LibreOffice missing the mark by so much that you'd have an entire operating system for an office suite?
I know those who heavily use Excel have good reason to use it over alternatives, but I would thick for home users, that'd be rare and that Wine could suffice.
As the article notes, "there’s no legitimate way for the average Windows user to get it." These are people who are going out of their way to shoot themselves in the foot. Marketing has nothing to do with it, whatever misinformation they're getting is coming from third parties.
They're not shooting themselves in the foot, they're being shot at by Microsoft and are desperate for that to stop, they make mistakes and trip in the process.
I have two PCs: My main workstation is Arch Linux, my gaming PC is Windows 10. The difference is radical, W10 is absolute garbage for gaming. Every time I turn it on, it takes a solid 10+ minutes (sometimes way longer) updating itself. When I launch a game, sometimes out of nowhere it's going to start using all my bandwidth to download updates and I have no way to stop it other than kill the process using the task manager (it does come back a few minutes later though).
It's nonsense. I have no control over what it's doing.
This windows behavior is bullshit, yes, but you actually do have control over it. The controls you need to customize Windows update are in Windows group policy.
And yeah, if you're like me you'll find that first few links describing how to apply group policy changes don't work very well. If your reaction to that is to skip it and instead install some version of Windows that Microsoft won't even let you purchase because somebody's blog is positioning it as the cure to all that ails the world...
I've been using computer for 20 years, programming for the better part of that, and I feel completely powerless. I googled, I spent more time than I cared to, and I know that I could probably prevent this behaviour if I spend more time and do more research and so on but the point is, what on earth is a random guy who doesn't carry the experience of the average HN user going to do?
Put yourself in these peoples' skins. You're paying a pretty penny for devices that don't obey you.
Of course people have control over it. Wading through a little blogspam to get to a page explaining how to configure Windows Update is fairly simple compared to the struggles one used to face to make either a Windows or Mac system function well. (when was the last time you had to use regedit?)
We have a Windows today where blue screens are extremely rare, PCs can be made secure, name brand stuff generally just works when you plug it in, and basic setup doesn't require much thought (Windows update notwithstanding). People are looking at the past with rose colored glasses and would get just as mad today if they had to install a NIC or internal modem or something in Windows 95 as they did back then. That doesn't excuse all the blatant stupidity of Windows 10's design, but still.
I feel like you're mistaking my dislike of the lack of control in the current system for an "it was better before!".
We had more control before, but I'm not dismissing that the same "before" carried less features, less security etc. I don't disagree with you there. But you're making it sound like disabling problematic behaviour is as easy as "wading through a little blogspam"; it's not. I've waded through a lot of blogspam and still haven't been able to fully disable unattended upgrades on my W10 box. I have a "Compatibility telemetry" program which is supposedly disabled systemwide yet regularly caps out my bandwidth.
This PC is just a gaming PC and it's barely usable as one. I certainly wouldn't be able to make it my workstation. I'm not complaining because, hey, I got a good alternative in Linux but I think you shouldn't be dismissing what is causing people to seek out things like this Kiosk edition.
I was trying to make sense of your comment "I've been using computer for 20 years, programming for the better part of that, and I feel completely powerless." I regret that I don't have the pages I used to figure out the group policy settings for this at hand, of course I'd be happy to share them.
> you shouldn't be dismissing what is causing people to seek out things like this Kiosk edition.
That's fair, seeking out various solutions to the problem makes sense.
I'm not sure what point this supports: that the process was easy because all this stuff was in one place (with a nice index); or that all OSs suck and Windows 10 (while an improvement) isn't an exception.
Well, it's also a matter of poor OS design decisions. People wouldn't be so desperate for a "streamlined" version of Windows if the default version wasn't so Godawful crufty.
Put another way, LTSB is like free marketing research handed to MS on a platter. It tells them that there is a demand for an LTS OS, which is how all LTS linux distros are. i.e., No bullshit, stable, and user has all the control. I don't know what the differences between Home, Pro and Enterprise editions are, but one of them ought to be what the users expect LTSB to be, which currently isn't the case.
In previous versions (XP-8.1?) there was Windows Embedded which is designed to be used in kiosks, POS systems, ATMs, etc. However that has now been renamed Windows IoT Enterprise which is apparently based on LTSB.
The ltsb version is used as the only Win10 version for ordinary desktop use in a large US organization. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. And I never saw any documentation indicating this isn't the intended use - so I suspect a massive marketing and documentation error by Microsoft. It's basically used as "Win10 Enterprise".
Some IT people fetishize an unchanging OS. Sometimes it is out of necessity, when they're starved of resources.
One of my coworkers got excited when he heard about LTSB for a particular use-case. But it didn't take me long to find Microsoft documentation that suggested it would not be a good fit [0]:
"Specialized systems—such as PCs that control medical equipment, point-of-sale systems, and ATMs—often require a longer servicing option because of their purpose."
"LTSB is not intended for deployment on most or all the PCs in an organization; it should be used only for special-purpose devices. As a general guideline, a PC with Microsoft Office installed is a general-purpose device, typically used by an information worker, and therefore it is better suited for the CB or CBB servicing branch."
what's wrong with Windows 10 Enterprise?
I mean in the normal CBB branch you get updates pretty fast and you can remove/lock the store Apps via GPO. I think you can even disable Cortana. And it's mostly way more "stable" than only getting backports of fixes.
Enterprise is the channel it is sold to, as in, large business / enterprise.
Windows is deployed by "Servicing Branches", there's the dev branch that's internal to Microsoft, there's the Preview Fast and Preview Slow branch builds that Windows Insiders get access to, giving them new Windows builds every week or two. There's the Consumer branch that pushes new features and bug fixes to consumer PCs after they've been tested. There's the Business branch that Enterprise and Pro customers get who've elected that option, then there's the LTSB, "Long Term Servicing Branch" for businesses that insist on using a desktop OS to run things like ATMs and kiosks.
Many ATMs are still running Windows XP because banks don't like paying for software. Microsoft identified this need, and have deployed Windows 10 for this type of market. Under no circumstance has Microsoft intended for any desktop user to boot this and run Office and surf the web. You may be able to do it, but that is absolutely not their intention. They want their userbase to keep up with the latest features when their organizations don't slow that process down.
What type of computer are you running Windows 10 on? I've had multiple computers running Windows 10 (even a low end tablet) and I've never seen this start menu issue. I've also not seen it on any computers in a retail shop.
Not saying it doesn't happen or you're lying but I've never seen it and I've used many low and high end Windows 10 computers so I'm curious what the cause could be.
I'm on a custom build for gaming (ryzen 1600, 16gb ram, ssd) and routinely I will click the start menu and it will flash open, only to close and the computer will churn before it opens again. I think it's crashing periodically and restarting itself.
Pretty bare install. Chrome and Steam are the only programs running most of the time. I disabled cortana and one drive, though.
I have a similar build as you: 16gb ram, ssd, intel onboard graphics and I have the same issue (Cortana is also disabled for me as well as OneDrive). I didn't start noticing it until a few months ago at most, the menu used to be much more responsive. Perhaps a recent(ish) update broke it?
Acer intel i7 2.50ghz ddr 8gb here, no ssd; the menu opens in about 0.02 seconds. OneDrive uninstalled (not disabled); I don't know about Cortana (haven't seen it anywhere so it doesn't bother me)
High end laptops, desktops and servers, both physical and VM (I also get the same experience with Windows Server 2016).
The only thing I can think of is that I disable all telemetry / cortana / web search / one drive features (through registry settings, not DNS). It is possible that Microsoft doesn't test properly their OS with all the features mentioned in the article switched off and that the Start menu blocks on something. But I consistently observe this on multiple machines.
Cortana is explorer to some extent, they are breakingly integrated. If you are killing cortana + all cortana services/backend via regedit or another method it will certainly crash continuously.
In your setup you would need to be using a start menu replacement.
From what I read it might be a Cortana issue because for some unfathomable reason their normal app search on the start menu is now "Cortana", but if I understood correctly Cortana isn't even available in all regions? I don't know how this is supposed to work - is there a cut down search service that is called Cortana but isn't Cortana? I have no idea and Microsoft docs on this are terrible.
My new Dell laptop often lags when opening the start menu. My previous lenovo stuttered from time to time. My HP before that would block for 200-700 ms every 30 seconds, causing lost keystrokes, until I uninstalled HP power manager.
I guess signature editions and Surface are better.
When I have the start menu lag, it's because the search service isn't working. If the start menu takes 3 seconds to show that correlates 100% of the time with the search function not working either.
I don't have a general solution but for older versions of windows there was latency mon or something (similar exists for Windows 10 but I have forgotten the name). This might help you identify the culprit.
The way I use it is I start latencymon (or similar), Running that I'll then stop applications one by one and see if the latency spikes disappears.
If that doesn't help next I'll stop services one by one.
If it is software related you should find it this way - usually Windows is quite stable in itself and it is "just" a misbehaving driver.
Same. About 50% of the time, I am only allowed to enter 1 character in the search, but no more. Sometimes 2. A reboot is the only thing that fixes it for me.
And sometimes it doesn't return search results with apps that I know are installed.
Windows is an operating system, not a game. Many of us don't necessarily want the latest bells, whistles, unlockable achievements, and optional DLC, and we resent having them shoved down our throats with no input in the matter.
And as for bug fixes, many of us were perfectly satisfied with the stability and even the security of Windows 7.
Here's the problem. Windows is for everyone, the vast majority of people will run Windows on their desktop and laptop PCs. The vast majority of people also know nothing about computing and OS security. The vast majority of people will rely on someone that is "computer savvy". If Microsoft had an OS that met the needs of what probably amounts to < 1% of the total market; that is people that want to, and know how to manage updates; it would be abused by those "computer savvy" people and by extension ultimately wind up in the hands of people that have no business running it as an OS. Then we end up with a whole bunch of computers that will fall victim to the next "Wanna Cry" and you know who people will blame, Microsoft for not keeping their device patched and secure.
Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft as part of the Windows org, but generally do not work much on the OS or its applications and the opinions I put forward are mine and mine alone.
Standard counter-argument: Then be respectful of the trust people (voluntarily or not) place in you and don't abuse the update channel.
The problem is that Windows updates have gotten a bad reputation which is partially justified by the tracking and nagware during the Windows 10 transition. If the reputation gets too bad, then even non-computer-savy people will start to turn off updates - with even worse consequences for security.
Microsoft started by doing what every other OS maker was already doing by collecting telemetry (note: they weren't selling it). A minor community of users caused a massive uproar about the telemetry coming off the device despite the fact that you could always turn it down to basic level which was essentially crash dumps and the info we need to not push you a bad update. But MSFT listened and provided additional privacy controls AND they made it so that you have to go through them on upgrade and install.
If you continue to bash on a company even as it makes attempts to listen and respond to its users, then there is no reason for the company to continue to listen.
> Microsoft started by doing what every other OS maker was already doing by collecting telemetry
Unrelated to my sibling comment, but the parent was talking about tracking and nagware during the Windows 10 TRANSITION, which you conveniently ignored. You're talking about Windows 10 itself.
Windows 10 was forcefully shoved down so many people's throats who were desperately trying to avoid it, with misleading "confirmation" triggers to install Windows 10. Don't try to pretend Microsoft was innocent.
Just an anecdote, but I think it was a good thing in some cases to "shove the update down people's throats". I help my in-laws with their PC, and they were struggling with windows 8. I told them to update (before the free offer expired), but wasn't there in person to do it, and they didn't manage. A few weeks later, they asked why the PC now looks different... They accidentally did update :-) and they liked it now better, the only complaint was that you have to click once before logging in. So I guess different people, different needs.
Myself, I just clicked "don't remind me again" on the windows 10 reminder screen, and was not bothered anymore, until I decided to upgrade manually. But maybe the program was differently aggressive in different countries (I live in Germany)?
Which MSFT has been collecting since Win XP SP2. There are plenty of other OS's that do the same thing and plenty more than don't. If you are that paranoid, you are more than welcome to not use Windows/not work at a place that uses Windows/not use your passwords and usernames when using Windows.
Didn't they let you disable it though? Unlike what you just claimed is the case in Win10?
> you are more than welcome to not use Windows
Yes, and people would avoid upgrading to Windows 10 because of this, if you didn't shove it down their throats. Which is of course why you had to do that in the first place.
No, not to my knowledge. In fact, most people didn't even know that MSFT lit this feature up and they beefed it up for Vista.
I didn't shove anything down anyone's throat. Also, let's not pretend that everyone at MSFT was happy about this approach. But you have to think about it from MSFT's perspective. We are promising that if you move to Win10 you will always be up-to-date for the rest of the lifetime of Windows. You'll never pay for another upgrade/update. The benefit to MSFT is that if they get everyone over to 10, they only have to support a single core OS instead of backporting every single bug and security fix.
And no, MSFT isn't perfect, and it has made mistakes, just like every person and company on the planet. But it isn't doing this out of some malicious intent. The company is learning as it goes and genuinely trying to do right by its customers, but it doesn't matter what I say or what MSFT does, people like you will always find a reason to complain.
> No, not to my knowledge. In fact, most people didn't even know that MSFT lit this feature up and they beefed it up for Vista.
So you're saying you're unaware of the information on e.g. this page [1]? Which notably does not include Windows 10?
Notable quote (but not the only relevant one): "By default, error reporting is enabled. However, additional configuration steps are needed to configure error reporting, and no reports are sent unless these steps are completed."
> I didn't shove anything down anyone's throat.
I don't know about you personally, but so explain WTF was this crap they started doing after people were turning down the initial offers? [2]
"The redesigned GWX pop-up now treats EXITING the window as CONSENT for the Windows 10 upgrade."
> But you have to think about it from MSFT's perspective.
I never said what MS is doing is not beneficial to itself, did I?
> people like you will always find a reason to complain.
This is so wrong. I was pretty darn happy and not complaining about Windows XP, 7, or 8 (with the exception of 8's Metro UI). I've been complaining about Vista and 10. So it really does matter what MS does.
> Microsoft started by doing what every other OS maker was already doing
I don't think "but everyone else is doing" is a good argument, but I'm not aware of e.g. any popular Linux doing this. (There are some that do collect telemetry, but there is always an option to turn it off, if nothing else uninstalling the telemetry service)
> But MSFT listened and provided additional privacy controls
Yes, they used to provide 15 different options to configure the telemetry and none to turn it off. Now they offer 20 different options and still none to turn it off.
But those things aren't actually relevant to my main point. The technical details don't matter that much, because at the current time, Microsoft's reputation concerning updates has gotten bad enough that completely non-savy users are downloading dubious 3rd-party tools to disable updates for completely irrational reasons. This is a PR damage that Microsoft should be intereststed in fixing (for example by making the update process less forceful, more transparent and giving meaningful choice)
The actions during the transition and the current strategy seem to go in the exact opposite direction.
(Replying to this from another post[1] to simplify threading)
> But you have to think about it from MSFT's perspective. We are promising that if you move to Win10 you will always be up-to-date for the rest of the lifetime of Windows. You'll never pay for another upgrade/update. The benefit to MSFT is that if they get everyone over to 10, they only have to support a single core OS instead of backporting every single bug and security fix.
Actually, no, I don't have to think of it from Microsoft's perspective. I can think of all kinds of reasons why this strategy is beneficial to Microsoft - but this misses a lot of ways where it csn be absolutely not beneficial to the users:
First, this implies that "being up to date" is something users always want - an assumption that e.g. users of legacy software that doesn't work on Windows 10 can savely reject.
Then there is the scope of updates that seem to not just include bug fixes and adjustments to standards but new features, deprecation of old features, UI changes and even new applications. (E.g., I think the Creator's update installed some kind if 3D paint thing on my machine that I never requested).
This is demanding constant energy from users to manage and gives the impression of a system that is in constant flux and that cannot be trusted. You can manage functionality X by setting Y? Who knows, maybe it's all different after the next update...
No it isn't. It's just another OS. My wife (who no-one would ever describe as a nerd) uses Arch Linux on her laptop. She doesn't really know that and does not care - it simply works. My support burden dramatically reduced when I removed the pre-installed OS.
At the risk of sounding like a complete wanker: I will almost certainly know more about Windows than you will ever want to know (but I have never had source code access). I used to be able to get around 620Kb free RAM available on DOS 6 (nee Quick and Dirty OS) without resorting to QEMM and have dealt with all the weird shit that your employers have chucked out since then.
At some time in the early nineties I discovered there was choice. Your employer was no longer the only game in town. Ok there was Acorn and Apple and stuff.
Nowadays, I see your employer as a bit of an inconsequential (with history) hindrance to progress - soz
That argument held water until you consider that Windows 7 exists, and had Microsoft invested in building that platform in a sane way at any point in the last upgrade instead of going off the rails (again) with Windows 8 and making Windows 10 something that looks like legacy windows, life would be simpler.
For my employer the solution to this problem for higher end users is easy -- Apple.
The number of people I've met that are happy about new Windows 10 features outnumber the ones that would rather stick with win7 + security updates (without the privacy invading stuff).
The ratio is 5:1 if I ignore "computer savvy" people. (Actually, it is 5:0, but I'll be generous to MS on this).
If I include tech savvy people, the ratio goes up. I don't know any "normal" users that voluntarily upgraded to Win 10, though I don't know any that successfully blocked the upgrade either.
From what the article says, and based on their comments to me, the normal users I know would all prefer LTSB to consumer Win10.
> The number of people I've met that are happy about new Windows 10 features outnumber the ones that would rather stick with win7 + security updates (without the privacy invading stuff).
And what about Windows 8.1 (with classic shell, not Metro)?
As a side note, I should mention that Win10 1507 support has been extended an extra month at the time of this writing (Pro editions has the CBB option, Home don't). That June update has its own known bugs which MS will have to fix too.
The thing is - you like Win7 because is basically Vista with years of polish! It's done. I'll be perfectly happy with an LTSB version of Win10 but right now Win10 is where Vista or Win8.0 was. If you run Win10 now you will want that first year of polish.
I'm forced to run Win10 and my home machine (which is on the fast insider ring) is so much better than my ltsb machine.
If I were risk averse or preferred stability then I wouldn't run Win10 at all, I'd do Win7 for another year, until there is an LTSB version of what Win10 is now at the most recent builds.
I don't have a high-DPI screen, so that's neither here nor there.
And nobody running Classic Shell is complaining about not having a working Start menu. Those complaints are all coming from people with a stock Windows installation.
It might be here or there to some of us, I think that's the original poster's point. It's great that LTSB works for you, but even then you are applying third party software to get it to basic functionality. I'm curious why you don't run Windows 7? It doesn't EOL for 2 1/2 more years.
> It appears to get security fixes only - few bug fixes. For example, the LTSB start menu is completely broken - there is no search on it and it takes 3-4 seconds to show
Install Classic Shell. Practically mandatory to run Windows since 8.
Seconding this. I was reluctant since I prefer vanilla installations if at all possible. But my concerns vanished immediately after install - it just works and the start button actually becomes useful again. I used ninite.com. Of course.
But here's my experience using LTSB. I need an OS which has almost no bugs and fast performance. Neither I need new features nor the windows apps and store. I just need an OS for running office, certain software in my low end laptop. And imo LTSB is best option for me.
I was previously on Windows 7. It was very fast with no problems. Then I updated to Win 10 and my old laptop was not compatible with it. I ran into lots of issue e.g. over heating, display problem, drivers problem, hang sometimes etc.
But then I give LTSB a try and it works very well till now. Regarding start menu, I would say mine is faster(1-2 sec) in search operation than my friend's who has regular Win 10.
I think part of my problem is that I develop Windows desktop software and my customers will have more features than I in their Win10. I absolutely need every last new feature.
I wonder if there is some policy group settings that are configured wonky? I have ltsb and I wouldn't trade it for any other version of windows, ever. If I couldn't use LTSB I would use linux. Im usually a few years behind on games so it might not affect me as bad.
A lot of IT people missed the boat on that, as the guidance from Microsoft is garbage. The whole Windows 10 thing is a real shitshow. They solved a problem ("Gee, I wish I could update Windows features quarterly!") that nobody had and created yet more complexity.
2. Turning off most of the visual effects under "Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows." (I left "Smooth edges of screen fonts" and "Enable Peek" checked)
The combination of these two change feels like a whole new computer.
Reading posts like this, I get the distinct impression that the common "I don't want to spend ages messing around with my operating system, I want something that just works" argument against Linux is becoming more and more irrelevant. I've jumped back and forth since the early 2000s but even I scrapped my Windows partition around 6 months ago and haven't looked back (to be fair, I still have Win10 in VirtualBox for PhotoShop and Office, but even that hasn't been booted in weeks).
Yes. Also take the time and clean up the default tiles on the start menu.
If you drank the anti-av kool-aid also exclude C:/ (or where you have installed Windows 10) from Defender - a nice speed bumb and USB drivers are checked anyway.
There is also uBlock Origin for Edge that works pretty well. I find the battery savings when using Edge worthwile.
There are plenty of prosumers who don't want to serve as a functional IT department in addition to everything else they have to do, who want features like Bash on Windows, and who are generally fine with Pro.
There is a whole Eco-system of tech-bloggers and tool-smiths, whos whole working-life consists of ripping out the "improvements" Microsoft has shoveled towards the users - riding binary rodeo with every update.
My assumption is that this Eco-system will rather soon bring the clumsy Microsoft attempt to become google one stack-layer closer to the user to a horrific end.
This has been going on since I got into the "Windows scene" 15 years ago with Windows XP, slipstreaming and custom install INI's. It's no longer the area I work in, but something tells me your prediction is probably as wrong as it was when people were saying this exact same thing 15 years ago.
Now that's useful. I have a Windows 7 machine for the few things that don't run on Linux. Windows 10 LTSB would be great for that.
I wonder if I can get Windows 10 LTSB preloaded by Central Computer, the retailer. They installed Windows 7 with no bloatware for me. (I asked for that, and the invoice actually reads "no bloatware")
> And Windows 10 Enterprise is only available to an organization with a volume licensing agreement, or through a new $7 per month subscription program
Given that it's basically free to register as a commercial entity (in Germany it costs 40-50€, and iirc a British LLC can be formed for less), can one do so, and then apply for said subscription program?
I have a business entity registered, and $7/mo sounded like a good price, so I went to look up for a form where I can sign up, set up a subscription, pay the invoice and get a product key.
I found this link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsforbusiness/buy that mentions Windows 10 Enterprise E3 and E5 ("coming Oct 2016" says something about how the page's up to date) but after clicking "find a license solution provider" I'm basically lost. Filters helped a little, but everyone there still wants to sell me all sorts of most enterprise cloud solutions (Azure stuff, SharePoint, telephony, whatever), but not those $7/mo licenses. (Or maybe I've just looked at all the wrong partners, I don't know). And of course they're still all-enterprise "call our sales for any details".
No surprise probably no one uses that for personal desktop.
Cheapest way to do it AFAIK is to setup a LTD as a software or tech type company and then apply for an Action Pack subscription at £250 per annum. You get pretty much every single Microsoft server product in a nicely bound binder as well as 10x Windows 10 Enterprise licenses.
There are a lot of caveats on the licensing terms but it's good value if you're a small tech company.
in the UK it takes 10 minutes online to open a company and if you don't do anything with it the only thing you need to do is add it on your annual tax return, with all fields as zero since you are not actually trading. It's almost zero effort.
Then it's just a matter for finding a CSP(Cloud Solution Provider) that will sell(and bill) to you personally. There's not much profit on the this at low volume, so you might have to ask nicely.
The main problem is the volume in volume licensing agreement. You need to buy a lot of windows licenses. Not sure what the number is now, but it used to me mid double digits.
>Windows 10 LTSB omits a lot of the new stuff in Windows 10. It doesn’t come with the Windows Store, Cortana, or Microsoft Edge browser. It also omits other Microsoft apps like Calendar, Camera, Clock, Mail, Money, Music, News, OneNote, Sports, and Weather.
>In fact, the default Start menu on Windows 10 LTSB doesn’t even include a single tile. You won’t find any of those new Windows 10 apps installed, aside from the Settings app.
That sounds fantastic. I use absolutely none of those "features" and would love to be able to remove them from my copy of windows 10.
In my opinion, good thing about Store apps is that they're are isolated.
I'm not sure how robust this isolation is, but it seems that apps can't just access random files, etc, without a specifically granted permission.
The permission model seems to be immature (no prompts at all, not even at install time - not sure how upgrades work; and everything requested is granted by default but can be revoked later), but the very idea of app sandboxes sounds right. A random document-editing app shouldn't be able to do mess with any parts of user profile, except for the files it was explicitly provided access to.
(I wonder if there's a way to somehow hack things and re-use this sandboxing with non-Store apps...)
It is both. There are install-time capabilities for certain known folders (e.g., music and videos libraries), and then access to arbitrary folders has to be granted by the user via the file picker. The shell provides the file picker UI so it's dependent on what edition of Windows you're using.
I have a local account and while store is there, I can't use it without signing in with ms account. I'm not going to, so it's basically just wasting space. I would rather it wasn't there completely.
Does that break Skype and parts of Azure portal and online Office suite?
Most of such scripts break things. And I see the usual suspects, like DNS blocking client-s.gateway.messenger.live.com etc, so I think this one isn't an exception.
Better is really the wrong word. It's certainly cheaper to only support IE11 than IE11 and Edge.
IE11 is my employer's officially supported browser. We have some dusty decks ahem legacy websites that require it. The legal industry is generally behind the times - there are still many court and government websites that require Java.
We have two types of end users. People who care use Chrome and people who don't use IE.
Here is some of the additional work that Edge required.
Testing all of the internal web applications with Edge.
Testing hundreds of business critical websites with Edge.
Testing our intranet with Edge.
We use Enterprise Mode to redirect sites that are not compatible with Edge.
The results of all of this work is a browsing experience that is more confusing than IE on our Windows 7 image. It is easy for users to confuse Edge for IE and I expect that to cause support tickets for the foreseeable future.
It's not Edge or IE11. It's Edge or Chrome or Firefox.
I don't mind Edge, not because I like just, just because once I switch the default browser to chrome it doesn't bug me. Just some dead bytes on a large SSD. I mind a lot more the other features that bug me all the time.
I saw nothing in the article that implied LTSB lacked the ability to run binary installers. The same capability to install your company's application to the machine can surely be used to install Firefox.
For which you'll ordinarily use the pre-installed browser to grab the installer. It's not clear to me why using IE11 to do that versus using Edge is an actual win.
How about endless nags from the OS about how you're wasting battery power running that boring old Firefox, and how you really should upgrade to the latest Edge experience for whiter teeth, better gas mileage, and more bedroom endurance?
Microsoft brought every last bit of this criticism on themselves.
Endless? I think I saw it only once. Said "nope" and it was gone.
The whole marketing mess still sucks (they sure try their chances every once in a while), but it's not that bad - and at least it's different every time (not sure if this is good or bad, though).
I think the only repeated warnings I even saw with W10 were from Windows Defender discontent with me telling that I don't want automated uploads of whatever it thinks it should.
I love also how the settings amnesia sets in with every update- if this "forgetfulness" sets in on something that Microsoft could benefit from.
Throwing away User Works- wasn't that as the Ultimate Insult to the User in some legendary book?
Same goes for the registry rip, you have to redo to undo- "repairs" on the Cortana...
The point made is that the parent commenters don't care about having Edge over IE11, because they're just gonna use the default browser ONCE to install Chrome or Firefox anyway -- not that IE11 is better than Edge to download Chrome/FF...
Edge comes along with other crap, not because it needs to, but because that's the way MS arranges it. If it were just Edge-versus-IE, it wouldn't matter at all if a single use to grab another browser is the end game anyway. But if getting Edge means getting all of the other unwanted stuff, then, yes, IE is a win.
I have deployed LTSB in a few schools I look after, it's far easier because of the minimal feature set especially in smaller environments where full enterprise management tools like System Centre and WSUS are not installed.
Go old school and customise the default profile in the build for best results!
The best part is that if you have education volume License You get both EDU and Ent LTSB editions!
I was about to switch to this about a month ago but realized WSL does not work with LTSB. So no BASH for Windows. It will probably be more than a year too...
I had a Lenovo S500 dektop that I just reinstalled. Non-SSd. I was getting a '100% disk usage' issue right of the bat. I installed 'windows10startfresh' and now it's pretty sweet - pc is not slow, and such. The 'windows10startfresh' installs windows without all the lenovo crud apparently.
I should have emphasized the machine is like a dream right now - without the Lenovo cruft that is usually installed.
Runs like a charm - where as the base Lenovo install was slow - i mean really slow. and this is an i7 16gb machine.
I'm both amused and angry that Windows 10 adopted the same model as the big commercial Linux distributions: a fast-cycle OS that upgrades every 6 months (but might have bugs), and a slow-moving version that they support for a long time but won't suddenly change behavior or stop working with your hardware.
It is a proven model in the Linux world. The unpleasant thing is that Microsoft shunted millions of users on to the equivalent of Fedora or non-LTS Ubuntu without bothering to explain this.
It's the precise opposite of the Extend and Embrace strategy which has worked for them forever. I'm surprised they have it as a named product instead of a set of bizarre Registry tweaks.
I would be okay with a pay-as-you-go Windows 10 Enteprise subscription for this LTSB. My use of Windows is very sporadic. If I could log in and pay $7 for the next 30 days official access then let it expire till I need it again, I would be giving MSFT more money than I do now but would consider a fair exchange for ongoing security updates.
It appears to get security fixes only - few bug fixes. For example, the LTSB start menu is completely broken - there is no search on it and it takes 3-4 seconds to show. Presumably related to the lack of Cortana, but who knows. In any case, it's been a widely reported bug in ltsb for a long time and it's a pretty fundamental feature in windows.
I could see the point in being on the LTSB branch of windows 7 because that OS is done. But windows 10 isn't nearly finished yet and very rough around the edges. Being on LTSB of such an old Win10 release is like being on the release day version of a AAA game while everyone else runs the fixed version that came out 3 months later.