“The definition of insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.”
Yes, that famous quote. You might think that you know the author of that statement. Some might like to call out the erudite Albert Einstein as the famous oracle here.
Yet, through various searches and queries, no official record exists of him stating these words.
Go check out the excellent Quote Investigator article about this. No credible link between Einstein and this quote exists.
Which brings us to Windows 11.
Windows 11 is here. Windows 11 is awesome.
Windows 11 is…. Windows 10.
I know… insane, right?
The official announcement from Microsoft is three days away as I type this.
While it hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, the image leaks of the Win11 builds are enough confirmation to start seeing what is going on.
No, this isn’t poised as a Windows Vista debacle. It could end up there, but right now it looks to be much more tame.
From the previews, Windows10 to Windows11 looks much more like Windows 98 to Windows 98 Second Edition, or Windows 8 to Windows 8.1.
They aren’t messing with the whole formula here. The problem is, don’t fix what isn’t broken. What is insane about Microsoft is that they have always seemed to have quite a bit of trouble sorting the broken bits from the working ones.
There are two interesting things to note here.
First, way back in 2015, a developer evangelist by the name of Jerry Nixon made a bold statement.
“…Windows 10 is the last version of Windows…“
Yeah right. No matter what some of the developers think, no company is ever going to fully move away from something that generates north of 15% of total revenue for the company.
That’s right, in 2020 the venerable Windows OS generated approximately $22.3 billion (source: link) out of the total estimated $143 billion that the company made overall (source: link).
On top of this, in April of this yea,r Microsoft claimed 1.3 billion users on the Windows 10 OS (source: link).
If each “user” is a person that would put total users of the Windows 10 OS at 16.5% of all people on earth since the UN as of June 2021 estimates that there are approximately 7.9 billion humans alive right now.
These are staggering numbers.
So why isn’t Microsoft following through on the prediction that Windows 10 is the last Windows? With these numbers and revenue why not just keep riding this wave for a while?
If it isn’t clear above, the fast and easy answer is money.
Microsoft did two things when announcing Windows 11.
First, they announced that a new Windows O was coming. Second, they announced an end of life for Windows 10.
If previous iterations of the OS are any indication, then this EOL date will get pushed back a few times.
However, there is nothing more pleasing to the ears of bean counters as the sound of planned obsolescence and upgrades making the cash registers go “cha-ching!“
There are more in-depth answers here.
There are some things that Microsoft has tried and failed at many times over, almost to the point of insanity.
How about a store inside windows?
Microsoft must be floored at how well the app stores do on the mobile iPhone and Android platforms. They have never been able to build an app distribution system that nets them a tidy profit that is simple and easy to use.
Others have done it on Windows. Game stores like Steam and the Epic store have made purchasing directly on an app on a Windows PC a quick and easy experience.
The rumor is that Windows is targeting these same stores by dropping their cut of revenue and building in deeper hooks for their marketplace.
The second big item of note here is that while Windows 11 is upon us, long live Windows 10.
Seriously – Windows 11 is just a re-skinned Windows 10.
Sure, there are some new visual goodies. The Start Menu looks to be in a different spot. Yet the underpinnings and bones are those of Windows 10 with a new marketing name.
This is no different than the twice-yearly Win10 versions that have been rolling out like clockwork over the past 6 years. There were some big changes here and there. All this hype does is get attention and rolls a few of the bigger changes together into a new package.
It will be really interesting to see if Microsoft even bothers to update the build numbering for Windows 11.
The fact is – everything is software as a service now. In a way, Jerry Nixon was right. The overall codebase will remain mostly intact over time no matter how the marketing team chooses to re-brand or re-skin things.
This will work up to the point that it doesn’t anymore. What this statement means is that we don’t know what technology will be ubiquitous and pervasive in 10 years’ time, let alone 25 or 50 years.
Microsoft could very well ride this train until the wheels fall off on personal PCs while the rest of us migrate to biological implants and wireless headsets and true virtual reality.
Heck, we could all end up plugged into the Microsoft-Apple hPod – a self-sufficient human hibernation pod like they have in the Matrix movies here in a few years.
However, if that happens, I will happily enjoy the last remaining vestiges of Windows 10 core code lurking about in the nutrient-dense water that I am floating around in all day.
So what will happen at the big Windows 11 announcement on June 24?
Here are my predictions.
- Some visual goodies, focusing on rounded windows. This feels really underwhelming, even if it took quite a bit of effort to get there.
- more moveable and configurable start menu. Again, not very exciting
- A revamped windows store. I have to admit – I avoid the thing now because it looks and feels cheesy. I just don’t trust it. It will be very interesting to see if they can re-design it in a way that makes it a destination for people like me
What I would like to see:
- Making multiple monitors work better. Windows controls how things are rendered. I am tired of unplugging monitors and having windows opened in orphaned, now non-existent windows offscreen. Come on Microsoft. You know all the window handles here. Give me more control.
- Make mapped drives work after reboots. Having to click on the mapped drive to get Windows to “remember” the pathing is a huge pain and makes me dread power outages. My family needs access to their plex videos!
- Hire someone who knows how to index and build search algorithms away from someone else…. I dunno… like Google? Seriously, the search in Windows has been as bad as the search in Bing for far too long.
- Make it free. Seriously, for home and personal users just make it free already. You want more market share? You want more traffic to your new store? Make. It. Free. Let me go download and install it. Don’t bug me about activations. Sure, you might lose a little money but you don’t have to make it free for businesses and OEMs. Besides, you really don’t care about personal users anyways since I can use a version of Win10 with the “Activate Windows” overlay in the bottom right corner for as long as I want to with no repercussions right now anyways!
And there you have it. We are three days out from the next version of Windows 10… erm, I mean Windows 11. Let’s all buckle up for the ride and see what fun stuff Microsoft has for us on Thursday!
Thanks for reading!
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