After years of waiting, it looks like Microsoft now has a true answer to Chrome OS. A new and near-final version of Windows 10X has leaked, and it offers a first look at the changes Microsoft has made to the upcoming operating system to get it ready for laptops. Windows 10X first started off life as a variant of Windows 10 designed for dual-screen devices. It was supposed to launch alongside Microsoft’s Surface Neo, a tablet-like device with two separate nine-inch displays that fold out to a full 13-inch workspace.
Microsoft revealed last year that Windows 10X is now being reworked for “single-screen” devices like laptops, and Surface Neo has been delayed. While the company has spent years differentiating Windows 10X for foldable and dual-screen hardware, it now looks and feels more like Chrome OS than ever before.
This is literally Chrome OS. It looks, feels, and tastes like Chrome OS – and of course, that’s the point. It also points to what we can expect from regular Windows over the coming years.
Oh god…. The horrors of what I see, when looking at the screenshots.
What is it? A childrens toy?
Where’s the Linux VM? Keeping my Chromebook! LOL
https://apsaraofindia.com/
Really informative and inoperative, Thanks for the post and effort! Please keep sharing more such blog.
It’s called “minimal design” now.
I think you’re old enough that misusing ‘literally’ like that is beneath you, Thom 🙂
Under-phil,
It’s literally not beneath me though 🙂
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
Thom this is how your post in the current color scheme looks on my system. It is literally unreadable: https://imgur.com/a/2HXZAwv
I literally had to highlight the text to read it. You need to fix this.
I don’t have a custom theme, its a garden variety iMac. It is actively hostile to people with visual disabilities
Same here. The OSNews comments section is basically unusable on Firefox mobile too.
You can fire dictionary stuff at me all day, but in the modern world it is *so* misused that it makes you sound like a 12 year old Californian when you use it. It may have adopted a new meaning but it’s a really stupid one that should be stamped out.
Yeah I’ll take Mark Twain, Charlotte Brontë and James Joyce over you, if you don’t mind!
Thom Holwerda,
Everyone is making valid points. As a literary device or slang it doesn’t much matter and people can say things for ironic effect. But still you should take into account that improper use can come across as unprofessional. For example I don’t think many people would appreciate their lawyer, doctor, banker, etc misusing “literally”, haha.
I like how you will address that and not the usability issue I brought up.
OMG… That looks like it’s designed for five year olds. Does it have a clockwork winding knob and play a jingle?
Isn’t that exactly what Win 10X is for, entry level mass market student type devices?
So it sort of makes sense that is has a tablet type interface like Android or iPadOS.
Like eReaders, designed for consuming data, not producing it, there are companies for that.
> OMG… That looks like it’s designed for five year olds.
They have revived XP again? That’s what everyone I knew thought of XP at the time. (Yes it looks horrible, I also hate that these days “simplification” means removing all options and forcing you to do shit our way!)
@Carrot007
There is saying in the film industry that a film is made three times: once in the script, the second in the filming, and the third in the editing. I’m sure you appreciate simplifying well can be very hard.
Microsoft went a bit funny in the head after the era of Windows 200o, Visual Studio 6, and Office 97 but they also have problems with design such as Microsoft Bob, Clippy, and XP and now this – Windows 10X. I’m scratching my head a bit over this but have a suspicion corporate sausage factory with MBA types, “bosses favourite” careerists, and inexperienced staff with NIH reinventing the wheel are part and parcel of the making of this, um, product.
I also don’t get the product naming. Windows 10X conveys nothing good at worst and nothing at best. Which “punch the air” hit the ground running corporate edgelord signed this off?
Windows 10X² Alpha Super Edition ?
@Kochise
Don’t give them ideas! lol
The difference is that while Windows is removing the ability to run apps, ChromeOS is adding it with it’s linux container and steam.
In other words Windows X doesn’t run windows apps while ChromeOS runs them with wine.
ChromeOS can successfully run some Windows Apps with WINE.
Isn’t Windows 10X just is a clickbait upgrade away from running full desktop Apps, do I have that wrong?
cpcf,
I don’t know the details, but I recall someone saying all win32 processes would be run in a legacy VM. Native apps will be UWP only (with the usual exceptions for microsoft themselves).
My opinion of this will depend entirely on how many restrictions microsoft forces on owners, which I have yet to see or read about. I don’t want to assume the worst, but the news so far hasn’t closed that door. The mention of Microsoft Edge could be significant…I don’t know if this is still true, but in the past with Windows 10 S microsoft’s intention was to block competing browser technology.
https://www.onmsft.com/news/desktop-browsers-like-chrome-and-firefox-wont-be-allowed-in-the-windows-store
Will competing app stores (like steam) be allowed to run natively? I don’t know…but if competitors are blocked then that rings anticompetitive alarm bells IMHO.
@Alfman
Reading the quotes I’m mostly concerned that Microsoft are trying to hit a reset switch on Windows while carrying over their historical monopoly. Why portability layers and abstraction and publishing of cross-platform apps isn’t standard practice among developers I don’t know. It’s not hard…
I was looking into moving to a fully containerized OS (something like Qubes, but I am open to suggestions).
I am a bit lazy, so it will take a while. And I believe the world is going in the same direction. So Windows running everything inside containers would not be far off.
The only concern is security updates. With a traditional OS, you just “apt update” once, but with containers, you might need to go into each and every one separately.
Running legacy apps in a container sounds a lot like Linux/ChromeOS where you can run such apps within a hypervisor or through wine, both of which provide some level of containment.
If you can’t run native windows apps there is little point using windows, might as well use linux/chromeos.
bert64,
Windows kernel still has advantages. Specifically stable binary ABI, just a more stable desktop (I have worked with Gnome and KDE since their 1.0 days) among others.
There is no shame in having Windows as the hypervisor, and the other OSes on top of it. However their hypervisor (hyper-V) is kinda terrible.
My ideal environment would be:
Qubes like setup.
Xen as the hypervisor
Windows in DOM-0 for handling GUI and drivers.
Linux as productivity tools / browser / etc.
Windows again for games.
I just need to find 10s of millions and hire some developers to get working on it 🙂
>The difference is that while Windows is removing the ability to run apps, ChromeOS is adding it with it’s linux container and steam.
I would not run either.
Chrome laptops are overpriced for what they are. I’m sure these will be too.
While my current laptop(s) are win 10, looking at it next time I will probably just go linux. Not sure why I have not yet to be honest. Gaming was the only thing keeping me on windows, and since I refuse to pay gaming laptop prices linux will do for anything I might want to run, even windows stuff! And I’m sure the windows MMORPG I occasionally run on the laptop will also work just as fine (ie anything that is not combat 😉 ).
(My current laptop requirements were a proper 4 core cpu, that came best priced with a shitty 128gb ssd that I upgraded to 512gb (and can we bring back proper screws for laptops, prying them open like phone is a pain(also same for phones), this combined was cheaper than any laptop meeting my requrement specs (the cheap ones always crap out somewhere, make it something upgradable like drive or ram, cpu is a no no!)
The idea of running win32 apps in a container (aka a minimal-overhead VM) is a good one IMO. I absolutely abhor how win32 apps demand admin privileges just to install themselves (that’s what the UAC prompt is btw). Sure, every user expects them to only use these privileges to install themselves to Program Files, but will they stick to the promise?
Of course, if Windows 10X ships without win32 support for non-developers, it will go down as yet another failed attempt by Microsoft to sell Windows without win32 compatibility (see Windows CE/Handheld PC and Windows RT), but if it ships with win32 support, it could actually be good (visuals notwithstanding).
kurkosdr,
I agree. Sandboxing is something that has been notably absent from mainstream desktop operating systems, and I’ve expressed my disappointment about this many, many years ago. However there is a thin line between using sandboxing mechanisms to control the applications themselves, versus using it to control the owner. Some vendors are guilty of using application sandboxes as an excuse to eliminate owner rights when sandboxes can and should be used to compliment owner rights.
While there is a lot that they can do (and could have done decades ago frankly) to improve sandboxing of win32 processes, I believe they’re just going to clump all win32 processes into the same VM, which does not do enough to empower owners. Ultimately I remain very concerned about microsoft’s motives and I think it could be yet another subtle ploy to take owner rights away.
Between apple and microsoft, the future of open computing with owners in control of what their computers can run is in the cross hairs. It would be wise for us to proceed down this path with great caution because once we loose control, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to get it back.
I am waiting for how this plays out. Providing a container for non-containerized apps is a feat in itself (on every platform), let’s see how it plays out.
@Kukosdr
Microft have done “sandboxed” stuff before with guest access rolling back and Linux on Windows, and they have the management and sourcecode and technical skills to make something serious happen. The problems I see are more political. Do they want to produce a good product or one which is compromised by internal corporate agendas such as turf wars or maximising profit or simply doing another u-turn or change of direction when the next passing fancy catches the eye of the next careerist passing through on the way to their golden retirement, or meddling by external agencies?
kurkosdr,
It doesn’t require much imagination to come up with a solution. A user could define new application containers and run applications inside them instead of with full user privileges. One could then grant/take away more permissions for each container with allow/deny/ask settings. Also you could view what permissions are actually being used in each container. Android has this, but a user on windows is mostly observing behind blinds.
I’ve felt this was lacking for decades. If microsoft were to finally add it (while keeping owners in control of course!!), it would be a positive feature. It would provide owners with useful security abstractions to manage both UWP and win32 processes. However I suspect microsoft is not go this direction and will instead run all win32 applications in a single VM in order to turn them into second class citizens on windows, something I believe they were going for with windows 8 before all the pushback.
Yes we’ll see how it plays out, but I’m extremely concerned about both microsoft and apple gradually yet continually pushing IOS security model into the desktop sphere.
@Alfman
Microsoft published a white paper on designing an internet with permissions down to the bit level. They have the brains in Microsoft Research to do this. If Microsoft goof this up that’s on them.
ChromeOS: most parts are OpenSource. The standard of this kind and flavor of devices,
Windows 10X: Closed Source. The newcommer for that devices.
So why Windows 10X?
If Microsoft makes Windows 10X OpenSource it could be an alternative. But otherwise, I don’t think so.
Stop pretending people care about open-source. Sent from my closed-source, heavily locked-down but absolutely gorgeous HTC U11+, which however is based on open-source code.
I chose Windows for my netbook (where you don’t expect to run games and proprietary apps) because I don’t want to deal with package managers and because I don’t want to deal with Desktop Linux’s poor power management and iffy hardware support. Got key from Kinguin for the equivalent of two pizzas etc Availability of source didn’t cross my mind a single moment.
@kurkosdr
I think most people get why they use stuff and also generally get the closed versus open source issues. The problem is where people get political either because of ideology or vested interest and you see similar polarisation as with politics. Polarisation is of course a load of bunk.
kurkosdr,
Only because they’re naive though. Most people who actually take the time to think about the correlation between openness and rights really do care about it, but obviously most people don’t think about it. This is not to say they aren’t affected by it though. Our tech companies are censoring applications, some people are against that yet lack the wit to make the connection between their proprietary purchases and the ability for corporations to take away their rights.
@Alfman
US regulation and consumer protection law is fairly weak. There are more protections in the UK and most of Europe. The reason I say this is it’s important to seperate the technical issues from the legal issues and actually tackle the right problem which may be one or both or neither, depending. There’s questions like what is open source and what is closed source and what benefits and pitfalls are involved with both, and does it matter. Any educated public should be able to manage this complexity. Insofar as the publci are concerned this discussion is alrgely opaque and not helped by polarisation and elitism and greed where it exists.
Politics is similar. The UK FOI Act isn’t as strong as it could or should be. Government has had a nasty habit of outsourcing to the private sector and hiding behind “comercial confidentiality” even where that company is responsible for delivering things which may have human rights or other public concerns. Another sneaky one is hadnign grant money to charities with strings attached like an NDA in which they sign a gagging order so they cannot actually publicly criticise the government about the funded area or they are held in breach of contract and lose their funding. In other words it’s starve and watch human rights erode or take the bribe and shut up about human rights eroding. How is this in the public interest? So yes closed systems can be bad but then there are other things like systems which may be too open might suffer from excessive meddling from the outside or badly informed commentary can pressure in inappropriate ways. It’s not always an either or thing.
Personally, I think business and tech can be a bit too brains on rails with things and the quality of discussion which could be had is lacking. i’d rather take a more nuanced position than get sucked in by these various tribes.
My edit didn’t make it, so I’m continuing here…
kurkosdr,
That’s a separate issue. Everyone has their own platform preferences I don’t judge you for yours. I personally was in the windows camp and made a deliberate effort to change. It made sense for me. It does not mean it makes sense for everyone and most just want to stick with what they know, which I completely understand. However the truth is that their platforms are changing under their feet whether they like it or not. A lot of normal windows users genuinely hate windows and office changes (don’t try to convince me otherwise because I see it all the time). Do most of these people want to switch to a foreign OS? No they don’t. But does it imply they agree with the direction of their preferred platforms? No it does not.
Perhaps it should. Open source helps optimize innovation by pushing it out into the public whereas with proprietary software innovation tends to get locked down and twisted to fit corporate agendas including vendor locking.
Soooo….. Looks like Fisher-Price is designing the Windows UI now.
friedchicken,
Yeah well they were ahead of their time! 🙂