Is Windows 10 the Best Windows OS Ever?
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Looking at Windows desktop releases from a purely development chain perspective, Windows 10 has some real potential to be the best desktop OS from Microsoft, ever.
Looking at the NT family, NT 3 was really release number 1 (if you don't include the preceding OS/2 releases.) NT 4 was the first really major release and was very solid. The NT 4 family never had a second release although it did have the advantage of having seven service packs and a mid-life huge upgrade pack (the final service pack was not SP7, but SP6a, confusingly.)
The NT 4 family was followed by the NT 5 family which consisted of Windows 2000 (NT 5), Windows XP (NT 5.1) and Windows XP SP3 (NT 5.2.) The final release was an odd one as the mainline system name was not updated and the point release was probably the most minor ever but technically the kernel was updated and SP3 was a semi-unique OS in the tree. To be fair, maybe we will call it NT 5.1 and a half
The NT 6 family led off with Vista (and Server 2008.) While it garnered a lot of criticism, Vista, like 2000 before it, struggled with being the proving grounds of a fresh major kernel family release and in all fairness was a very strong operating system and far better in its day than Windows 2000 was in its. Vista came on the heals of XP SP3's long time in the market which allowed it to become very polished and stable. Vista had an uphill battle to make the NT 6 family take its place.
The NT 6 family has the obvious advantage of being the most mature code base being a generation newer, and about eight years newer, than its NT 5 predecessor family. With the release of Windows 7 we saw NT 6.1 and it was heralded as incredibly stable and for the first time new OS releases were seeing stability and performance improvements. Until NT 6.1, new OS releases always needed more system resources than the OS that they replaces. Microsoft changed this in the NT 6 family. Now, more like many UNIX systems, Windows was improving at a kernel level with each release rather than becoming more bloated.
Windows NT 6 kept up the trend with the release of NT 6.2 (Windows 8.) While Windows 8 had a negative feedback loop due to poor user interface design, the underlying kernel and OS were a small improvement over NT 6.1. Faster and more stable than its predecessor! And as a full second point release, Windows 8 was the most mature intra-family release ever made by Microsoft.
Windows 8 was not to be the last of the NT 6 family, though. Windows 8.1 followed (NT 6.3) pushing Windows to all new maturity levels (and fixing many of the user level shortcomings of Window 8.) NT 6.3 continued the trends of not making significant kernel changes but instead focusing on stability, performance and security. Probably the best kernel Microsoft ever made.
Where does that leave us today? Windows 10 aka Windows NT 6.4. A fourth point release, fifth release in the NT 6 family. This takes us to roughly twice the release maturity of the NT 5 family! This is wholly unprecedented in the Windows world. Windows 10 appears to be following its family tradition and simply polishing the preceding code base to be faster, smoother and more solid than ever.
What this means to me is that there is every likelihood that we are looking at the strongest Windows product every considered. Not only is this the most mature member of a very old family (starting from OS/2 in the 1980s) but the most mature intra-version release of all time. Windows 10 has a staggering amount of potential for the Windows family.
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Too early to tell if it's going to be the best product MS has put out in years, but things are looking good. The fact that it's running just as fast as Win7 on 6 year old hardware is impressive to me. It's also very responsive.
The situation I'm looking forward to is running it on a Pi 2
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A question I'm more interested in: is it the last Windows OS ever?
Short answer: no
I kinda wish they would've rounded up to NT 7, I mean why not, we're skipping major versions of the product itself, why not the kernel, and while we're at it, why not make the file system NTFS 4.0
I'm not one of those weirdos that gets all upset about version numbers (like the whole PHP 7 fiasco), but I'm just saying hey, since we're doing it, right?
For an actual point to this post: I'm not certain the higher release maturity means much yet, until we get an actual view of it, certainly all of the actual OS stuff is likely more mature (as that tends to be how it works) but most people judge it on UX not on memory management, I/O, and whatever else.
Furthermore, for the first time I'm not sure if this will help Windows in the long run. If Apple were smart (they're not) they'd broaden their hardware support (bad idea anyway) to get more people to switch from Windows. I mean, it's a hypothetical thing that won't really happen, but it's an interesting thought. Now there's the whole thing about easy-to-use Linux, everything on the web, all that.
So maybe the strongest Windows yet but the least relevant ever? Not saying irrelevant, but it could be the beginning of a significant backslide.
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I dunno...kinda hard to one-up windows ce
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@Bill-Kindle said:
Too early to tell if it's going to be the best product MS has put out in years, but things are looking good. The fact that it's running just as fast as Win7 on 6 year old hardware is impressive to me. It's also very responsive.
Should be running "even faster" by a bit. And in my limited testing, it is. Did a Windows 7 to Windows 10 update on a ProBook 6555b just two days ago. Windows 10 sings on there.
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Windows 1o is really looking like it is going to be amazing. They seem to be doing great things with it.
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Excellent comments...what excites me is the "One Windows" (Universal Apps) aspect...excited to see where that goes, especially since that "kernel" seems to going to be on PC, Phone, Tablet, XBOX One and other Windows Powered device...
I actually "dig" Windows 8.1 despite the Frankenstein aspect of it...using Windows 10 a little, I think it has a ways to go to make both the people who actually liked the METRO apps and those who want the desktop more refined...
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Getting a single kernel to RT, full, Phone, etc. would help a lot. It is by doing that that Apple is able to keep up with all of their products.
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I think this will be a very strong Windows point release. Playing with the technical preview has been a pleasure and there have been very few bugs and issues that I've encountered...
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I have heard no one say anything negative about Win 10. It is doing really well.
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My concern is that Microsoft seems to be hoping for a resurgence in users. With this platform, and a way to use it to sell mobile devices (and apps). I doubt there are many consumers anymore who really care that their device is running Windows.... just that it can get on the internet and to their social media.
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@coliver that is certainly going to be the biggest challenge. The exodus from the Windows 8 fiasco will be hard to repair.
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@coliver said:
My concern is that Microsoft seems to be hoping for a resurgence in users. With this platform, and a way to use it to sell mobile devices (and apps). I doubt there are many consumers anymore who really care that their device is running Windows.... just that it can get on the internet and to their social media.
Agreed...this isn't going to immediately fix the Vista/Windows 8 bad taste people had...plus, the average user almost seems content with mobile OSes...
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Just remember that Microsoft is moving to an "as a Service" mentality. Someone recently uncovered a sku for "Windows as a Service" starting discussions about Microsoft eventually following a similar model for Windows that they're doing with Office (and Office 365).
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@David.Scammell said:
Just remember that Microsoft is moving to an "as a Service" mentality. Someone recently uncovered a sku for "Windows as a Service" starting discussions about Microsoft eventually following a similar model for Windows that they're doing with Office (and Office 365).
As a service only works for devices that they, MS, can for updates upon the devices. Think phones. Currently short of iPhones, the carrier controls almost all mobile device updates. We, and by we I mean Microsoft, need to get away from the the carrier deciding when updates happen, and move it back to the manufacture of the devices and the software creators. i.e. Microsoft and say Nokia (OK one in the same now) and Samsung, LG, Motorola, etc.
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Windows 8 suffered from the "we know what's best for you and we don't care what you want" mentality, otherwise known as hubris. With Windows 10, I feel like MS listened to customer demands - for example, bringing back the start menu button, and shrinking the Windows 8 start screen down to a less annoying, and user-friendly size, cause let's face it, everything popping up full screen is frustrating, especially when it's not what you're used to - and delivered, at least in the tech preview, a snappy, intuitive, just plain nice to use OS.
