Microsoft is making a bigger push to keep students and teachers using Windows this week. At the annual Bett education show in London, Microsoft is revealing new Windows 10 and Windows 10 S devices that are priced from just $189. The software giant is also partnering with the BBC, LEGO, NASA, PBS, and Pearson to bring a variety of Mixed Reality and video curricula to schools.
Lenovo has created a $189 100e laptop. It’s based on Intel’s Celeron Apollo Lake chips, so it’s a low-cost netbook essentially, designed for schools. Lenovo is also introducing its 300e, a 2-in-1 laptop with pen support, priced at $279. The new Lenovo devices are joined by two from JP, with a Windows Hello laptop priced at $199 and a pen and touch device at $299. All four laptops will be targeted towards education, designed to convince schools not to switch to Chromebooks.
I’m not sure if these wil persuade schools away from Chromebooks, but assuming non-education customers can get them as well, they may be great little machines for running secondary operating systems on.
Why on earth would I pay $189 with a low CPU + chunked OS when, for such price, I can buy a second-hand *real* laptop with the full CPU + OS?
This’ also applies to Chromebooks.
I paid £200 for a second-hand Lenovo X240, Core i5 4200U 1.6-2.3GHz. This is by and far away more powerful than the trash you could buy new for the same price.
*Never* buy the cheapest Windows laptop. It’ll perform badly and within two years won’t be fast enough to even function (All those Atom netbooks that couldn’t even play YouTube videos fast enough…)
I got my parents a used T420 for christmas.
For 130€ there is no new laptop that could even come close to it.
The lovely aspects of buying corporate off-lease equipment, I have to agree.
If only every corporate let you buy the old laptop. Would have snapped up that Macbook Air quick smart!
I have an old Toshiba 405B, with Windows 7 it is very slow but works fine playing videos with the latest Haiku-OS installed on a small SSD.
The thing to remember is even the lowest power laptop is way more powerful than the original hardware that we use to run BeOS on.
Edited 2018-01-24 02:03 UTC
Sorry, it was a Toshiba NB205.
Lock-in ,lock-in, and lock-in
Get them young and used to $10/month subscriptions and they are hooked for life.
Simple really.
While individuals can usually find great deals on used laptops it is a lot harder for a school. Not that we can’t find the deals, just that it is hard to find them in the volume you need without having to buy dozens of different models which can add additional problems. I buy ~140 laptops every year, and we are a medium sized private school. I used to work for a district that bought around 5000 laptops per year. But, I still would never buy this. My experience with any laptop that cost less than $500 brand new has always been horrible, at least as far as having them in the hands of middle school kids they are.
Did you ever try buying laptops off lease?
I used to help source pcs for my school friends from various online off lease resellers.
They worked out pretty well. Would recommend to any school that wants Windows for some reason. Now, obviously no warentee or service plan existed. So that’s not so great, but otherwise they worked out well as expected for windows pcs.
The first question to ask is does laptops actually help with education?
Research says not really.
The reality of the modern work place means that familiarity with working on computers is probably more important than handwriting (which is taught directly).
From simple note taking to any form of document writing. A computer is the go-to device. Yet, we don’t teach kids effective typing techniques. In part, this is why RSI is so prevalent in the workplace.
It depends if you consider the role of education is (at least in part) to also prepare you for the workplace or not. Personally, I do.
I would be interested to see the research you are referring to that says it doesn’t help though. Always willing to learn after all!
See my reply to avgalen.
There have been many studies that have shown that having computers in the classroom do not help in basic skills learning like math, science, reading comprehension, social studies, etc.
Not disputing that part of it.
However, the rest of your argument is just chock full of personal anecdotes of your learning experience. Some of which is just plainly wrong. As to how to prepare students for the modern workforce that will make heavy use of computers, leave that part up to educators in the field.
You mean the same educators that are working from anecdotes you hate so much, and implement systems that, I keep quoting: “show no appreciable difference”?
“You’re wrong, so we should put our trust in the people who are paid for being wrong instead because that worked out so well”.
No, there is actually research in education where they do pilot projects and try to compare the outcomes based on differences in standardized tests.
Even if there wasn’t, I’d trust the opinions of practitioners of a craft much more than those that have less experience in the field.
What happens in school systems is not random. Now, in the US at least the quality varies greatly from one state to another and one school district to another and one school to another. But the reasons for that are complex and unfit for osnews style discussion
Citation needed!
It is obvious that computers (laptops/tablets/my-first-sony) can help with education. My son is raised Japanese+Dutch an will go to a Dutch+English kindergarten. At that kindergarten there are also children that use computers to learn Dutch while my son is learning English with most other children from the teacher.
The computer cannot replace the teacher for everything all the time, but it can surely help with education. A computer is also far cheaper (1000 Euro for hardware+software+maintenance per year) than a teacher (60000 Euro per year).
Completely irrelevant. One good teacher can do more than however many laptops you can put in front of a student. A teacher can/should adapt to the student (if only they weren’t being forced to teach to the test). Properly training and paying for teachers is much more cost efficient than dumping technology on people.
Edited 2018-01-23 11:20 UTC
Strawman argument
No it’s not. It’s the big picture argument. I’m looking at the bigger picture. Your argument of comparing the “sticker price” of a computer versus a teacher was the strawman argument. What were you even thinking trying to make that ridiculous argument?
I thought I would do a bit of my own reading (benefits of working with academic publishers), and the headlines of the article don’t particularly match with the academically peer reviewed research;
Technology as a Change Agent in the Classroom
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-0-387-09667-4_9
“Further, the combination of the student “owned†laptops and the transformed classroom environment resulted in sustained gains in writing and problem-solving relative to comparison students. ”
Its a modern habit to reference the article which summarises the research (BBC and Co) rather than the actual research and its findings. Have a read, but it doesn’t look like the actual research matches your (quite ardent) assertions.
Thanks, but I, like many others, don’t have access to the actual research (unless I pay 35-85 Euro) so we rely on summaries and other sources. Research is difficult enough to draw unbiased conclusions from. Almost all research will conclude that “children with access to computers have a better education than children without access to computers” which is logical because of the hidden factor of money.
The above mentioned article came from an interview as direct from a reliable source as I could expect. I drew an interesting conclusion from it: “no computers normal, some computer-time better, lots of computer-time worse”.
As you could read from the discussion that followed (that I stepped out of because it was getting too heated and doesn’t have much to do with the original topic anymore) this conclusion was already debatable.
So I did what most humans will do, I looked at this from personal experience and confirmed my own bias while adjusting it slightly.
(Old me thought lots of computer-time would still be better than no computer time, but some-computer-time is best in both my personal experience and the article)
Long story short: battery life and well.. fresh look.
Because it isn’t FOR you, its for schools and businesses?
This is why I HATE the “ZOMG Windows S means we won’t get a full OS anymore OMG!” FUD because all Windows S is for is to give schools and business users an easy to control option where they don’t have to worry about the users infecting the PCs because all the programs are vetted through the Windows Store. this lets them use normal business software (which is nearly all Windows only) and education titles (ditto) without having to worry about malware.
The big difference between Windows S and ChromeOS is you have the option to make it a full OS without losing your programs, something that simply is not possible for ChromeOS which requires you to wipe the drive (no dual boot allowed last I checked) and install one of a handful of Linux distros (can’t just install any OS you want) onto its locked down hardware. That means in a couple of years when these units are sent back after their leases are up they can be sold cheaply on the used market and if you want to make it a full Windows 10 laptop? You can change it to full Windows 10 for $50 which is a lot cheaper than the cost of a retail copy.
bassbeast,
MS simply shouldn’t have a say at all what the school does with 3rd party software. This is wrong. I shouldn’t have to pay my car manufacturer a single cent for the right to use a 3rd party mechanic, and in the same vein I shouldn’t have to pay microsoft for the right to go use 3rd party software!
What would you do if the federal government were forcing the schools to run only government approved software? Or if they imposed a computer use fee for the government to unlock your computer to 3rd party software? You don’t have to answer because I know you all to well, you’d be up in arms over it, and rightfully so! But why oh why do you think it’s ok for private corporations (microsoft, google, apple) to do the very same thing? Handing corporations this control sets an extremely dangerous precedent. If you cannot be convinced that corporate control over schools/students/teachers/users is bad in it’s own right, then at least admit to yourself that as corporations keep building computer jails, these jails have the potential to be regulated by governments seeking to impose control too. Repressive government regimes and dictators must love where microsoft and others are going with this, but even in the US it won’t be long before politicians start pushing bills that take advantage of this centralized control that private companies have over our computers. When that day comes, you’ll have no right to complain about it…as much as you will hate it, because the truth will be that you were complicit in supporting the developments that led to us being locked down.
And sure, I already know you are going to respond saying this is all all big exaggeration. But if we don’t stand up when rights and control are taken away from us gradually, then those changes set the new norms, which become accepted, and over time this is how all of our rights erode.
Edited 2018-01-23 08:08 UTC
So you went from “Microsoft is adding a locked down version of Windows as an option” to “Dictators will force you to run only the software that they allow you to run”….yes, everyone would be correct to say that you exagerate!
Just because somebody is now making low-fat peanut-butter doesn’t mean that the government is going to prevent anyone from eating chocolate-spread. It just means people that would like to buy low-fat peanut-butter now have to choice to do so. More choice is more freedom, not less!
* You do know that you can sideload?
* You do know that Microsoft also makes software that they would love schools to run, but doesn’t run on these locked down devices?
* You do know that Microsoft is also making non locked down versions?
* You do know that Microsoft is not the only one making an OS?
* You do know that Microsoft is essentially a tool provider for developers that wants developers to make software instead of limit the development of software?
^^You are not only exagerating, you are paranoid.
Isn’t it just sad? These same ones who sang the praises of the DRMED TO THE 100TH POWER Chromebook (again no dual boot, only a limited number of “approved OSes” can be run) start just slinging FUD and screaming the sky is falling when MSFT sees that some schools and businesses would like an OOTB easy to lock down solution and gives them what they want.
News Flash…Nobody is forcing you to buy this, you can buy a laptop with plain Jane Windows 10 or Linux or BSD if that strikes your fancy, so why all this FUD? Are you REALLY so scared of MSFT that you wet yourself at the thought of them offering an OPTION that Google has offered for how many years now?
That is how a free market works folks, if enough people want a product then multiple companies will try to create that product. Do you think Google created Chromebooks out of the goodness of their little hearts? They did it to get users using their services young, just as Apple did for years with the Macs in schools program.
bassbeast,
Sure, there is a need for products, nobody says that’s bad in an of itself. What is bad is that these products are being designed to shift the balance of control away from owners and to corporations, that’s the whole point here.
So in other words you are jumping through crazy logic hops because there are some people that WANT this? Are YOU gonna cut an extra 20% of your pay to schools so they can all afford an IT staff to write GPOs and enforce policies that these do OOTB?
This is the free market, news flash NOT EVERY ONE IS AN ADVANCED USER so they don’t have the skills to lock down dozens and even hundreds of systems to insure they aren’t infected with malware, you know this right? Hell I spent a decade in IT but if I had kids in school age? I’d be seriously tempted to buy one because I wouldn’t have to spend half a day writing GPOs to lock the thing down.
The moral of the story? If you do not like it DO NOT BUY IT, we have more choices now that ever! You can buy new systems with Windows, OSX, Linux, BSD, hell you can even buy eComstation and run OS/2 Warp if that suits your fancy, so stop having a heart attack because some people want to actually have a system that isn’t at constant risk for malware!
And sorry for the caps, apparently the latest update to Comodo Dragon has pretty much borked the Italic and Bold buttons so I can only use caps to highlight.
bassbeast,
You know what, today I was fighting with a safari rendering issue on a client’s iphone. He was getting frustrated the page was working everywhere except his iphone. Neither firefox nor chrome had the problem (nor safari on ipad oddly enough). But of course, much like our discussion, apple has taken away the owner’s choice to install competing browsers on IOS… it sucks where tech is headed. You may not care about corporations taking control, but will you respect that people like me do?
Edited 2018-01-24 00:54 UTC
The owners of these devices will be schools that specifically want to run Windows 10 S so their users don’t break their devices.
If schools want to run software that doesn’t run on Windows 10 S they can simply buy another machine or another piece of software which are still available
This has nothing to do with a website not running in Safari on iOS which is indeed a problem
avgalen,
You either didn’t make the connection or chose to ignore it, but microsoft bans competing browsers on win10s as well. So the same sort of situation could arise where the owners are prohibited from installing 3rd party browsers as needed.
Edited 2018-01-24 15:04 UTC
Technically they are only banning other HTML and JavaScript engines (including their own Internet Explorer ones), but I get your point. On iOS devices that would mean that you are stuck, on 10S devices that just means you need to sidegrade to 10Pro or another OS (see above).
Maybe you should start seeing 10S as people that go to a library to learn. You have to be quiet but so do others and as a result you will be studying in an environment where you know you will be productive. If you are wanting to have a meeting you shouldn’t be going to a library. If you want to have a party…no library. But just because there is a library available doesn’t mean you cannot have a meeting or party somewhere else anymore!
avgalen,
Yea, a developer actually submitted chrome for inclusion in the windows store so that users could install it. Of course microsoft rejected it on the grounds that competing browsers weren’t allowed. Only wrappers for microsoft’s browser.
Edited 2018-01-25 10:08 UTC
No, a developer submitted an app that only opened a link to google.com/chrome where the user would have to start the download+install himself. This wouldn’t have worked on 10S (cannot run setup.exe) and also isn’t allowed by the store-rules (something about no apps allowed that require external downloads or are pure advertising). Basically this developer was just trolling and it seems to have worked because his publicity stunt gets repeated by you here.
Personally I see the demand for 10S in education but I would just use a regular Windows 10 that you lock down with the “Allow apps from the Store only” setting in All Settings -> Apps -> Apps & features. This way you can simply install Windows the way you want (including some non-store-programs) and you can also still run things like a cmd.exe while still benefitting from the locked down environment. I did exactly this for some friends and family and support-questions simply stopped coming after that.
avgalen,
Remember the early 2000s when MS was sued for it’s heavy-handed promotion of it’s browser? Boy what a stark contrast to today, it’s worked out just brilliantly for the corporations! By working collectively they’ve changed the norms and now the defense for blocking owner rights (even above in this thread) is “well look, we’re just doing what the others are doing, it would be unfair advantage if we couldn’t do it too”. Regardless of the reasoning though, it just proves my point that ownership norms are changing and we’ve taken a path whereby owners loose rights or must pay fees to unlock them as time goes on.
You know, I do realize all my complaints against corporate control are quite futile. There’d be a huge uproar if all these changes happened at once, but by implementing them gradually the resistance fails to become mainstream. Unfortunately the longer we let it go on, the harder it will be to claw back our computer freedoms in the future – things we used to be able to take for granted
Edited 2018-01-25 15:15 UTC
I just checked a few things and the option to sideload indeed comes from our back-and-forth to Pro. So normally you cannot sideload on 10S.
I haven’t tried to sideload with dism on an online or offline 10S but I am assuming that would install them, not sure about execution later though
I also discovered that 10S cannot actually connect to a regular domain (AD), only the “new” Azure AD (which is how we use it for education now)
I hadn’t heard about anyone actually trying to submit a Chromium based browser to the store and cannot find someone that actually did that. All I find is articles from around May 10, like the one from the very thrustworthy Ed Bott, that mention this happened. As expected those got rejected! Because you mentioned Chrome I immediately though about this incident that you hadn’t heard about: https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/19/16797358/microsoft-google-chrome…
I was also wrong about another thing: Internet Explorer is included with 10S. We run a script that removes all features and IE always is removed so I missed this part. I have no idea how IE got accepted to run on 10S because not only does it run a seperate HTML and JavaScript engine compared to Edge…it basically shows a certain finger to anything related to “modern and secure”.
And finally a bit of a shocker…I tried executing a bunch of non-store .exe files because I know that 10S allows those to run (OneDrive.exe, notepad.exe, etc). Almost all .exe’s got blocked, but some actually just executed, like StarV2V.exe and UserBenchmark.exe.
So I don’t know what to think of 10S anymore from a technical point of view. In reality it is working out pretty well, but technically it seems quite a mess. Time for some bugreports I guess
avgalen,
As an aside, does your school disable the default admin account before giving them to students? In my enterprise experience, local passwords almost never change and get reused across numerous computers. The thing is, they are generally vulnerable to “john the ripper” style attacks especially if the passwords aren’t very long.
Edited 2018-01-26 01:08 UTC
Wouldn’t this steps outside the license of 10S, making the copy essentially unlicensed?
zima,
Of course, real life is complex and lawyers routinely get paid lots of money to sway cases one way or the other.
Personally I don’t favor the jailbreaking “solution” on the grounds that it shouldn’t have been necessary for owners to do in the first place, and it only works so long as the OS has vulnerabilities, which isn’t a good thing. What’s needed is that the software jails remain secure, but owners themselves have a way to get out whenever they need to do so.
Why would you bother with all that hacking if you are already an administrator? Administrators can simply restart the system in recovery mode and do whatever they want with the system.
Or you could simply install the “sidegrade to 10 Pro” app from the store that does exactly what you want. It won’t ask you for a license fee for a while
Running Windows 10 “for free” is easy, just join the insider program or buy some hardware that includes Windows 10. There isn’t really a need to pirate anymore
? O_o
avgalen,
I’m not entirely clear on what I said that would have prompted you to ask this, did you respond to the correct post? But hypothetically, an administrator would have to hack the computer just to install 3rd party software, be it for the students or teachers.
The financial incentives to avoid software distribution through the microsoft store are pretty big too, because it is effectively a 30% tax on any software the school wants to buy.
Edited 2018-01-26 18:54 UTC
I don’t work at the school, I just get hired for my knowledge.
I cannot discuss password policies, but of course you should never leave a local admin account with an empty or easy password if security is a factor. Disk encryption is also a necessity if you want to protect a system from tampering (by thieves or curious students)
avgalen,
Do you know if these laptops have a TPM chip? If not, then the disk encryption isn’t going to be highly effective against an attacker who is a student. Obviously they already have a valid login and by extension the decryption keys. Local passwords can’t really be encrypted, only hashed (logically if they were encrypted the system would not be able to decrypt them in order to authenticate the user).
TPM helps keep keys secret from the rest of the OS and user, but alas I’ve never owned a computer with this feature and I think it’s mostly used in enterprise systems.
Edited 2018-01-26 08:03 UTC
I have no idea if these laptops have a TPM chip, but all the pc’s that we use BitLocker on do have a TPM chip. Everything that is aimed at the professional/bulk market should have a TPM otherwise you are only protecting the system against thieves, not against users.
I suppose that can be also seen as Apple still paying back the favour to Microsoft, for ~saving them with that cash injection in the late 90s…
But I suppose that blocks “sideloaded” apps from updating / you have to switch it off every time you want them to update? :/
Uhm, sideloaded apps would normally not update anyway because updates come from the store and sideloaded apps don’t come from the store.
But yes, you would have to switch this setting on/off whenever you want to install a non-store app, think of it as “UAC on steroids”
avgalen,
Plenty of apps were updating themselves long before microsoft’s app store existed, I think zima was questioning what happens to them when the “Allow apps from the Store only” is enabled? Does windows actively prevent them from updating?
I don’t know of any app that you would sideload that would auto-update itself later. Apps that you sideload don’t have auto-update functions build-in, otherwise you wouldn’t package them like a store app.
(If you would package Chrome like a store app you would not include the auto-update processes would would create a Centenial-package or App-V/Med-V “capture”
avgalen,
I don’t really see the point given microsoft’s policy explicitly bans competing browsers.
The situation seems rather murky with derivative software. Consider thunderbird: the email, calendar, rss clients are built using the firebox code base. It seems whether or not these would be banned would depend on whether or not microsoft’s gatekeepers were aware of how they were built.
This brings me back to a decade ago when I was criticizing apple over this kind of flagrantly anti-competitive crap. I just hate the position it puts software developers in. The power imbalance becomes insanely skewed when a handfull of corporations have this much control over user rights.
http://almerica.blogspot.com/2008/09/podcaster-rejeceted-because-it…
https://angelo.dinardi.name/2008/09/20/mailwrangler-and-the-apple-ap…
Of course I know lots of software that auto-updates but you wouldn’t sideload those apps, you would just install them. If you would package them for the store/sideloading you are supposed to remove update features. I would have no idea what happens when you build/convert/package a store app with its own updater and I am not going to try.
My example wasn’t about Chrome-the-browser but about Chrome-the-program-that-auto-updates.
avgalen,
This made sense to me: sideloading was necessary because microsoft prohibits owners from installing 3rd party software directly, but now I’m having trouble reconciling what I thought you meant with what you are saying now. I believe I’m misunderstanding you somewhere.
Me similarly confused…
Like Alfman suggested just above, I was thinking about applications which have built-in autoupdate (which are plenty, since for a long time Windows didn’t have package management; the version which I most use, 7, doesn’t)
Switching this “UAC on steroids” on and off might itself lead to bad habits (like with “UAC overload” of Vista), I imagine…
avgalen,
No, but I knew some of you would accuse me of that
I’m just aware of what technology is capable of in the hands of corporate-governmental institutions that never stop wanting more power. I know it’s far more convenient to call me paranoid than to take a good look at how the changes taking shape and our inaction today will affect computer freedoms for our children and grandchildren.
Some Linux Distros have completely free Ed editions optimized for remote managed.
Kids would have to learn actual computing; Difficult.
Teachers would have to learn a bit of actual remote management (
)!
So many subtleties inducting lock-in. But Windows S is about Service. Cheap units are not worth the average geek pulling of hairs, an per-hour tariff.
As long as damage delimited to the stack, worst case amount to reinstall everything (even the BIOS) from the Store and pulling back the users’ profiles from the profiles’ “cloud”. User initiated, Microsoft Managed…
Though I agree, buying something like a Thinkpad X240 for around $350, with an i7, 16GB RAM, 240GB SSD and external battery slice would be the better buy for a lot more people.
I still wouldn’t give up my new Samsung ChromeBook Pro that I bought opened-box from BestBuy for $480. It’s running, ChromeOS, Android and Linux, even Windows 10 when I bring it up though the just awesome Citrix client. The Android apps that I use with it like; Word, VLC, Pinterest, Flipboard, Bamboo, Adobe apps (all of them), SketchBook, etc. Under Linux I’m running the full version of Office using the new version of Wine(awesome), as well as programming, Apache, PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl, MySQL, TomCAT, Java, C+, Android, etc.
I love everything about it, it’s size, it’s speed, it’s display, it’s battery life (which is longer than any other tablet I have ever owned), etc. Anyway who say’s ChromeOS is useless has zero idea what they are talking about, period. There is absolutely nothing I can’t do on this thing that a similar spec’d Windows or OSX machine could do. The input or the way you do something may be different, the desired output or outcome will be one hundred percent identical.
It would probably depend on what your needs are from a computer. Whether it’s just something for general use or a need for specific Windows applications and games.
The existence of Chromebooks would seem to work to Microsoft’s advantage, considering they’ve previously been accused of having a monopoly.
Didn’t they try this a few years back? Those blue underpowered hp laptops right?
HP Stream
http://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/laptops/stream-notebook-348017–1#!&t…
Those seem to start at $199. So these are slightly cheaper.
Not sure the price difference will change things much. I do have friends administering chromebooks in schools. They absolutely love them. They’ve replaced both ipads and windows computers in many applications. I don’t think they’d be willing to go back to either.
My kids all use chromebooks at school. I have 2 chromebooks at home and they get tons of use, my wife and kids use them exclusively.
There is also a major shift in the applications used for school work.
I have two kids who have been four grades apart going through middle school and high school.
For the oldest, using MS Office was pretty much the expectation for the production of home work.
For the youngest, using Google “Office Equivalent” is pretty much mandatory for the production of home work. Given the amount of typing involved, the notebook form factor is preferable over the tablet form factor.
This is for less than five years difference…..
While end-users may look at the cost per device, schools also have to look at the cost of the supporting infrastructure and its management. Without looking at that aspect, it is difficult to say if Schools which switched to a ChromeOS based infrastructure will consider switching back to a Windows based one.
Head start almost lost at USA and Parts of Europa. Microsoft better hurry up with rest of the world. The longer the chain of peoples’ WORKS, the higher on inertia.
That’s why Spectre & Meltdown are Not the end of x86, in spite of them being so grave.
Ah, and about “score” UI. Not here for scores. Enjoying your comments, in whatever path
What are they using the Chromebooks for ?
When I was studying engineering I would be running compilers, Matlab, SolidEdge which I think are not yet available on ChromeOS ?
Before that I didn’t really need a laptop for studies in high school.
I use my chromebook for software development when out of office. Typically, I log into my desktop machine but if you really want to, it is possible to run “traditional” software directly – ChromeOS is a Linux with Chrome as its UI. When you turn on the developer mode, you gain access to a full terminal (ctrl+alt+t). With a script you may install Debian or Ubuntu userland, including the X server and run compilers, engineering tools etc.
So what happens when Google Alphabet decides ChromeOS is a failure, and changes their cloud to only support Fuscia?
What you’re really saying is “My kids use Google Data Centers at school, via a cheap terminal”– and implied, but not stated, is that Google uses your kids for market research and advertising opportunities.
That functionality will only exist as long as it makes Google money.
It isn’t just the hardware. Microsoft has also improved the management and support with things like inTune, AutoPilot, OS-Refresh/OS-Reset, better online software, OS-licenses, etc.
Basically Microsoft is doing everything that they can not to loose the education market. In the US it might be too late because ChromeBooks have gained too much mindshare and marketshare. In the rest of the world ChromeBooks are a rarity that is slowly picking up steam.
ChromeBooks just make a lot of sense for the education market with the best balance of “dumb-terminal” and “local smarts and processing power”.
Due to the cost of the OS alone, Microsoft has released a new tier for Windows 10 called the “Cardboard Shack” which costs less than that of “Home”.
It’s rumored to be similar to Home, but without a browser and the notepad app. However calc is still included as a reminder of your “Cardboard Shack” status.
“With our ongoing support of eliminating classes, we are ensuring lower tier people stay put. If we can’t force higher tier people to distribute their wealth, we’ll just bring them all down.”
A friend of mine pointed out that in Windows 10S, the “S” might stand for Shanty. Food for thought.
Or “shitty”
Ehhh, or “school”…
If that is the kind of foood that you feed your brain your brain is not receiving the nutrition that it needs
“a song sung by sailors in rhythm with their work.”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shanty
Then why can’t stop the interminable publicity? If I’m working? Why they constantly INTERRUPT my rhythm?
Sure it’s $189 with Win10S; but Win10S is extremely limited so you’re basically forced to either move to Linux (yeah!) or shell out more money for an upgrade to Windows which will likely require more resources than the device can support.
Reviewers will tell the real story here…whether or not they recommend upgrading the OS (highly likely unless paid off by Microsoft to say otherwise). SO in this vein, a good review by Thom or someone else here would be awesome to get.
But these aspects will make or break the devices.
No, there effectiveness for schools will make or break these devices (and Windows S).
Saying that “the success of a Windows S device is depending on how well it can be changed into a non-Windows S device” is silly
These devices are not effective for schools; their target audience won’t be educational markets – it’ll be home users ultimately, and may be small businesses.
Sure, they’ll talk it up to education, but educators won’t take ’em.
I work for several educators that are taking them, both on their current devices and on new devices. It is too early to tell if they are going to be effective for schools but at least the (some?) educators seem to agree that Windows 10 S is a better fit for education than Windows 10 Pro
Most likely a bunch of managers look at the price and what it says on paper about Win10 S and go “oh, that looks good”. But wait until they actually get the systems and they feel slow and unresponsive to their users and the features that are actually needed to make it work as desired and integrate into the district’s networks just aren’t there b/c that’ll most likely be the reality.
Stores will not fire up at rest of the world until micro-payments conundrum resolved. (That won’t come from financing world).
Bought at the corner’s drugstore XBox Cards, Maybe? As working DEBIT?
From That point of view, Microsoft is already a Giant on CREATING plastic money.
Why do you even think “full” Windows would require more resources? Under the hood it’s exactly the same OS…
Thom Holwerda,
Edited 2018-01-22 22:32 UTC
“but they’ll need to be specially packaged and listed in the Windows Store. ”
Specially, buy not hardly: My favorite quick image manger at Windows Land:
http://irfanview.info/
Having to go through the freebies section of the Store is about CHEAP oversight on security (not even evolving compliance as in Apple and to some point in Android). Has to be this way because Microsoft is about Works’ Paths (and habits).
” I wouldn’t make the assumption that you can run a secondary operating system on it either without confirmation first.”
If well understanding the philosophy here, truth is the opposite: On Windows S you’re always running applications from a sand-boxed secondary OS.
Alf, got your idea, your concept: Ownership.
I own my documents, even if I doubt about any of them digital being private.
Even Stallman is having problems with privacy, for sure. He and his Chinese CPU.
We have a path. But not for everyone. Not for my oldies specially. Neither my impatient Daughter.
Lots of problems at Microsoft land. But as long as providing trustful and useful OPEN product documents, open output, will keep considering them, as SOLUTION providers.
I’ve always heard the saying “cannibalize your own market before someone else does it for you”. Seems like MS insists on protecting it’s primary cash cow OS by releasing artificial crippleware. I’m not seeing how this is going to be some smashing success, especially if there is no alternative to the ease of management that chromebooks bring.
Edited 2018-01-22 22:29 UTC
Windows 10 is an utter failiure. Vulkan titles are cropping up and DX is losing their hold. Noone wants windows 10, it is a forced upgrade.
Which games I wonder, if you care about Vulkan, better switch to GNU/Linux for them.
Vulkan is never going to be supported on Apple platforms, other than via a translation layer.
On Windows, Vulkan is only available via the legacy OpenGL ICD drivers for desktop apps. Sandboxed apps from the store can only use DirectX.
On Android it is an optional 3D API for devices having Android 7.0 or newer. So given the way updates work, very few studios care about it.
XBox and PS4, it won’t happen given DirectX 12 and LibGCNM.
Leaves Switch, but Nintendo isn’t also fully sure, hence why the main 3D API is actually NVN and not Vulkan.
Hi, I am noone. I far prefer Windows 10 to Windows 7/8/8.1 and for most purposes I also prefer it to Linux or OSX. So does almost everyone I know
2% of my company prefers Windows 7, the rest prefers OSX, Linux or Windows 10. Nobody prefers 10S over 10 at my company, but a lot of people love the option of “Install regular Windows 10, add drivers and a few programs, turn-on the ‘only install apps from the store'”
Yeah– 600 million installed devices. Microsoft should be so ashamed of their failure.
I hope folks have better luck putting Linux on a Lenovo 100e than I have had on a Lenovo 100s.
All I wanted was a super light writing machine – the little Lenovo totally fit the need, and for $170 Canadian was priced right. I wanted something with more utility than an Alphasmart, and more portable than an off-lease laptop.
I’m making due with the included Windows 10 but would rather be running Ubuntu…
Edited 2018-01-23 00:34 UTC
The 100S was the spawn of Satan. I bought one to run Linux. Then I discovered to locked bootloader. So no possibility to run Linux.
Just after the warranty expired it shat itself during an upgrade and got stuck in an an infinite loop during boot up.
Refresh UEFI. From here Rescue disk: check memory, check disk health. If problem on the stack, all should go smooth from here (on Windows, of course).
These things are intended to be Windows locked! Quite a bet, yours.
I spent two hours at the Doc’s office, while 4 nurses tried to get a machine to work, when Windows wouldn’t recognize it while plugged in (two different machines, two different devices). It reminded me of when I move my printer cable from one USB port on my Windows machine, to another. IT REINSTALL THE DRIVERS! Slowly. Linux and OSX on the same machine never have a problem like that (not saying it would be better with this medical device – but anecdotally, it’s easy to believe it would).
$200 is too much for a Windows device.
Considering the hardware in question, you’re not really paying for Windows, just for the hardware, and it is essentially 200 USD of hardware. The machines would likely retail for closer to 300 USD in normal circumstances when accounting for the markup from the OEM and the cost of Windows.
Technically, it’s not reinstalling the device, it’s mapping that device driver to that USB port. Yes, it’s a bit silly, but that’s how Microsoft implemented their idea of Plug-n-Play.
Medical devices in general are some of the worst written device drivers and poorest software I have ever encountered.
The user experience is the same. It takes ages – and the feed back you get from Windows is identical to installing drivers, just from moving the damned wire from one port to another (and often I end up with multiple copies of the printer in my preferences – what even is that?!!)
The real sad part of all this – is that it has actually gotten WORSE in more recent versions of Windows. Don’t get me started on Windows networking…
I disagree. I’ve been doing Windows desktop management since Windows 3.10, and I assure you– it’s never been this good.
The days of requiring a pretty savvy admin to repair the damage done by plugging an unknown USB device into a computer *before* the drivers were installed are largely gone.
Similarly, networking is mostly plug in play– NDIS stacks, real mode drivers, and the pesky 3Com 3C905 driver that would only work the *second* time you installed it– Those are in the distant past.
I honestly don’t remember the last time I had a networking problem with windows that wasn’t due to a hardware failure.
Outside of UI design, Windows has gone from strength to strength since Windows 7.
The caveat, here though, is the medical and scientific device community that still thinks it’s writing code for Windows XP. Their drivers tend to be insecure piles of crap that require ludicrous rights, and obey none of the Windows standards.
I just plugged a new printer into a usb-port. I didn’t do anything and it was installed and had printed a testpage in under 30 seconds.
I moved the printer to another usb-port, it did indeed do the silly “setting up device” but it didn’t do any driver installation and it printed a testpage within 15 seconds.
Now compare that to installing the driver + 10 unneeded programs from the manufacturer CD-Rom that took more than 30 minutes in the past and installed an old broken Windows 98 driver on XP.
Networking and network-printers have also greatly improved with every Windows version and since Windows 10 I can now add-and-remove 3rd party VPN software without being afraid it will break my networking.
This is an ages stupidity on Windows. Ask the nurses their nail paint, and mark both male&female connectors at the back of the damn printer/scanner/device.
Next time won’t be 2 hours.
-“Who’s kid you said had the admin pswd?
Edited 2018-01-23 18:56 UTC
They didn’t do anything wrong. The system just doesn’t work well. One of the problems was that Windows had been updated the night before. They had restarted the machine, but they are unaware that with Windows, you have restart multiple times to silently finish the updates, and that it takes forever to run those updates. No user should be expected to understand the silent workings of Windows.
IT certainly deserves some blame – they tried two machines, and they were running two different versions of Windows. One was running Windows 7. None of this is the fault of the nurses, and it’s entirely inappropriate to blame any of it on them.