Windows S can run anything from the Windows store......Except Linux

[Sokol1an]

23 hours ago, ComputerFrenzy said:

Windows 10 S(iri) edition is stupid. My uni just bought laptops of Windows 10 S and everybody just uses linux bootables.

 

How did your teachers in the university react to it?

[SCHISCHKA]

9 hours ago, leadeater said:

Not sure if I can be bothered talking about Windows 10, on this forum it's like pissing in to the wind .

try talking about windows licensing, its like diarrhoea in the wind.

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Every school has Azure AD though just so you're aware, or well every school using Office 365 which is rather common. When you setup Office 365 you have to sync your local AD to Azure AD if you have a local AD (of course you do).

they get charged by the number of school staff not the number of students so its comparatively dirt cheap. Its even cheaper if your school is connected to a church or charity and not the state, they get server licenses for $1.

 

[mr moose]

17 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

try talking about windows licensing, its like diarrhoea in the wind.

 

 

These days you can't have a discussion about anything MS related.  

[SCHISCHKA]

6 minutes ago, mr moose said:

These days you can't have a discussion about anything MS related.  

How do you think Microsoft feels?

[leadeater]

54 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

they get charged by the number of school staff not the number of students so its comparatively dirt cheap. Its even cheaper if your school is connected to a church or charity and not the state, they get server licenses for $1.

Under the current Microsoft Education Agreement Office 365 Pro Plus, Enterprise Mobility Suite, Windows 10, Office 2016, Sharepoint 2016, Exchange 2016, Server 2016, Skype for Business are free. As a school there isn't really anything to buy, if you are paying for anything then it's for something not listed like RDS CALs.

 

Quote

Eligibility: State & state-integrated schools are fully-funded. Independent schools
can purchase products at a discount. 

 

• Continued unlimited licensing for Windows servers and networks for onpremise, remote and hosted environments.

There is no cost for the licensed products for participating state or state-integrated schools, and independent schools continue to get discounted pricing. 

https://education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/School/Running-a-school/Technology-in-schools/Microsoft-School-Software-Agreement-Fact-Sheet.pdf

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

How do you think Microsoft feels?

Oh, they definitely take it to heart. I mean what does being the worlds biggest software company even mean when people on forums know better?

 

One day they will realise the sheer awesomeness of Linux and just give up pretending to be a software company.

[SCHISCHKA]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Under the current Microsoft Education Agreement Office 365 Pro Plus, Enterprise Mobility Suite, Windows 10, Office 2016, Sharepoint 2016, Exchange 2016, Server 2016, Skype for Business are free. As a school there isn't really anything to buy, if you are paying for anything then it's for something not listed like RDS CALs.

 

https://education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/School/Running-a-school/Technology-in-schools/Microsoft-School-Software-Agreement-Fact-Sheet.pdf

you are missing the cost of the agreement that this comes under. Obviously this is a contract the NZ government has signed with Microsoft. You would have to be an executive in the ministry to get the finer details of how much is being paid here. NZ is special in that it is a single state, every school is under the state thumb, even religious schools in NZ get state funding.

Microsoft's school agreements normally get charged per staff; MS calls it FTE (full time equivalent).

Have a google for "microsoft school enrolment licensing guide" for north america; this is usually what applies to the rest of the world not covered by NZ's education ministry contract. There is one for high school level and another for university level. I usually find it my looking up "microsoft school 3 agreement", it was called school3 when I use to deal with the MS sales database a few years ago.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, SCHISCHKA said:

you are missing the cost of the agreement that this comes under. Obviously this is a contract the NZ government has signed with Microsoft. You would have to be an executive in the ministry to get the finer details of how much is being paid here. NZ is special in that it is a single state, every school is under the state thumb, even religious schools in NZ get state funding.

Microsoft's school agreements normally get charged per staff; MS calls it FTE (full time equivalent).

Have a google for "microsoft school enrolment licensing guide" for north america; this is usually what applies to the rest of the world not covered by NZ's education ministry contract. There is one for high school level and another for university level. I usually find it my looking up "microsoft school 3 agreement", it was called school3 when I use to deal with the MS sales database a few years ago.

Yes I am aware of that, I use to work for a company that only did support in the education sector. My point was schools don't pay for it through their Operations Grant funding. Schools used to have to pay for a lot of the server licenses many years ago but now it's fully funded. You said they could only have to pay $1, with conditions meaning it's more if not, which for anything covered under the agreement isn't the case it's free, which is a heck of a lot of software.

[SCHISCHKA]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yes I am aware of that, I use to work for a company that only did support in the education sector. My point was schools don't pay for it through their Operations Grant funding. Schools used to have to pay for a lot of the server licenses many years ago but now it's fully funded. You said they could only have to pay $1, with conditions meaning it's more if not, which for anything covered under the agreement isn't the case it's free, which is a heck of a lot of software.

I meant charities and churches pay $1 and Schools pay relative to their size. Overseas churches run schools independent from the state.

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

I meant charities and churches pay $1 and Schools pay relative to their size. Overseas churches run schools independent from the state.

Schools do report their staff FTE count when they submit their signed agreement but they still don't pay any actual money from their Ops Grant or Capex Grant, the agreement goes off to datacom who is the licensing provider and they process the agreements and get the Office 365 Pro Plus licenses assigned to the schools based on those FTE's, often incorrectly and you have to email them to get it correct usually more than once >.<.

 

From the point of view of the school they pay nothing for covered software which is a huge bonus. Before that change in the agreement in 2012 schools would often have very limited resources allocated to IT and Microsoft licenses even though it was cheap, $180 (ish) for Server Standard per year, was too much so would often pile everything possible on to a single server which would inevitably fail and cause a huge panic.

 

The above reason was also why SNUP covered a replacement server for schools that required it.

 

N4L is also based on student FTE and do actually pay money for that.

[SCHISCHKA]

14 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Schools do report their staff FTE count when they submit their signed agreement but they still don't pay any actual money from their Ops Grant or Capex Grant, the agreement goes off to datacom who is the licensing provider and they process the agreements and get the Office 365 Pro Plus licenses assigned to the schools based on those FTE's, often incorrectly and you have to email them to get it correct usually more than once >.<.

 

From the point of view of the school they pay nothing for covered software which is a huge bonus. Before that change in the agreement in 2012 schools would often have very limited resources allocated to IT and Microsoft licenses even though it was cheap, $180 (ish) for Server Standard per year, was too much so would often pile everything possible on to a single server which would inevitably fail and cause a huge panic.

 

The above reason was also why SNUP covered a replacement server for schools that required it.

 

N4L is also based on student FTE and do actually pay money for that.

From the point of view of Microsoft they just want that FTE number. They don't care where the money comes from or how the software is deployed. That is why we often ask how do you think Microsoft feels?

[LAwLz]

6 hours ago, leadeater said:

Every school has Azure AD though just so you're aware, or well every school using Office 365 which is rather common. When you setup Office 365 you have to sync your local AD to Azure AD if you have a local AD (of course you do).

Speaking of Office. It does not appear like you can run Office on Windows 10 S either. I tried searching for it in the store and could not find it.

I found OneNote and OneDrive, but no Word, Excel, PowerPoint or any of the other core Office programs.

So yeah...

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Speaking of Office. It does not appear like you can run Office on Windows 10 S either. I tried searching for it in the store and could not find it.

I found OneNote and OneDrive, but no Word, Excel, PowerPoint or any of the other core Office programs.

So yeah...

Correct, Microsoft hasn't actually put it on the store yet but the have said they will.....

[Misanthrope]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Correct, Microsoft hasn't actually put it on the store yet but the have said they will.....

But no idea of which version, could be an online version, some other new gimped version, etc. That would be kind of a big deal since I don't care what you're studying any job that ever involves an office requires you have a few basic skills and that includes at least passing familiarity with the office suit.

[Lazmarr]

On 2017-5-20 at 2:57 PM, Windspeed36 said:

Spoiler

 

I think a lot of people are failing to see what the real intention with Windows 10 S is. 

 

At the moment, Microsoft offer Azure alongside Office 365 to serve as IaaS (infrastructure as a service). Through this, most business & enterprise environments are catered to: Office 365 oversees user management through Azure Active Directory, mail through Exchange Online, file through SharePoint Online & OneDrive for Business and so on. Specialist requirements can be met through Azure deployments which include Linux OS support - they've even gone as far as to offer an MCSA for Linux on Azure. (An MCSA is the equivalent of a Cisco CCNP). Microsoft's IaaS platform also caters to communication through Skype for Business (formerly Lync), covering both your conventional video/audio calls & broadcasts (think Cisco WebEx) but also the role as a virtual PBX - Skype for Business is essentially a complete VoIP system for businesses. They also offer complete device management through InTune.

 

However, where they are let down at the moment is the integration of applications on devices. Through InTune, it's very difficult to deploy applications that aren't native to the Windows Store and thus can only really be deployed by an on premise domain controller via group policy. If you've got 99% of your environment in the cloud, you don't really want to keep a DC on prem purely to publish apps to devices. Sure, if it's a brand new device you could use SCCM & image the device but if it's already deployed, it's a pain.

 

By creating Windows 10 S and launching it with the Surface brand backing, Microsoft are no doubt aiming to have a large number of devices in the marketplace using Windows 10 S - and if Windows 10 S can only use devices form the app store, developers will develop for that platform. Think of it like the boom of iOS & the app store a few years back - if you didn't have an app, for the most part, you didn't matter and your product wouldn't succeed with the masses. From where I see it and to those I've spoken to who hold similar views, Microsoft are hoping to create this pool of users to force developers onboard UWP. 

 

Back to the concept of IaaS & the Microsoft world, if UWP now has a huge number of applications that you can deploy, there is no need for a business to have on-premise equipment. Their core infrastructure needs (user management, email, file & communication) are all handled by Microsoft's subscription services and device management is all done via InTune - you can have a staff member take a brand new device out of the box, select that it belongs to a company and that you want to sign into the domain with your Azure Active Directory credentials. From there Azure AD takes over, installing InTune onto the device which then loads the profile and pulls the appropriate apps out of the UWP store. - This entire process happens without the need for the IT department to get their hands on the device. Furthermore, if a businesses IT needs are all met through this service, there is no need for on-premise equipment, instead forcing the business into a per seat per month billing arrangement with Microsoft - one that is very difficult to migrate out of.

 

This is very much evident through the huge push from Microsoft at their technical events, constantly putting the emphasis on the UWP integration with InTune & Azure to the point where there are several certifications for this process now offered by MS.

 

@leadeater - Thoughts?

 

 

On 2017-5-20 at 1:36 PM, vorticalbox said:

hang on isn't S meant to be for education? that is exactly the sort of thing education needs

A lot of people seem to think this is the case when in fact it isn't. The Surface book isn't aimed at students, when the perfect device for them is the Surface/Surface Pro; ultra-portable devices that have great performance, offer great note taking and have good mics and cameras for recording lectures, as well as being able to run any desktop application; Adobe software, prism, SPSS, MatLab, Endnote etc are all commonly used by students and would likely never come to the Microsoft Store. @Windspeed36 summed it up pretty well for who the Surface/Windows S laptop is aimed at.

[Misanthrope]

34 minutes ago, Lazmarr said:

A lot of people seem to think this is the case when in fact it isn't. The Surface book isn't aimed at students, when the perfect device for them is the Surface/Surface Pro; ultra-portable devices that have great performance, offer great note taking and have good mics and cameras for recording lectures, as well as being able to run any desktop application; Adobe software, prism, SPSS, MatLab, Endnote etc are all commonly used by students and would likely never come to the Microsoft Store. @Windspeed36 summed it up pretty well for who the Surface/Windows S laptop is aimed at.

Regardless when you have this much confusion about your product, your marketing failed.

[Sauron]

51 minutes ago, Lazmarr said:

A lot of people seem to think this is the case when in fact it isn't. The Surface book isn't aimed at students, when the perfect device for them is the Surface/Surface Pro; ultra-portable devices that have great performance, offer great note taking and have good mics and cameras for recording lectures, as well as being able to run any desktop application; Adobe software, prism, SPSS, MatLab, Endnote etc are all commonly used by students and would likely never come to the Microsoft Store. @Windspeed36 summed it up pretty well for who the Surface/Windows S laptop is aimed at.

Regardless of who it's aimed at, it's useless. There is no reason to use WS instead of the normal version if you have the choice. In fact, there's no reason to use it over android, gnu/linux, or pretty much anything else that you can get running on the laptop.

[pipnina]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

Regardless of who it's aimed at, it's useless. There is no reason to use WS instead of the normal version if you have the choice. In fact, there's no reason to use it over android, gnu/linux, or pretty much anything else that you can get running on the laptop.

Presumably, it would be cheaper. It will also probably be shipped by default on low-end laptops and PCs (e.g. the 200-300£ range). If Microsoft wants to push W10s, they will probably make it even cheaper for OEMs. Considering that the kind of person who buys a 200-300£ laptop probably won't need anything that isn't on the windows store... They might not be willing to pay the extra $50.

[Misanthrope]

4 minutes ago, pipnina said:

Presumably, it would be cheaper. It will also probably be shipped by default on low-end laptops and PCs (e.g. the 200-300£ range). If Microsoft wants to push W10s, they will probably make it even cheaper for OEMs. Considering that the kind of person who buys a 200-300£ laptop probably won't need anything that isn't on the windows store... They might not be willing to pay the extra $50.

Then again for most people there isn't really much issue in just running Windows 10 home without activating it. I know they might eventually decide to kill those copies but it doesn't looks like they will.

[Sauron]

17 minutes ago, pipnina said:

Presumably, it would be cheaper. It will also probably be shipped by default on low-end laptops and PCs (e.g. the 200-300£ range). If Microsoft wants to push W10s, they will probably make it even cheaper for OEMs. Considering that the kind of person who buys a 200-300£ laptop probably won't need anything that isn't on the windows store... They might not be willing to pay the extra $50.

Well, GNU/linux is free. So is RemixOS, which is basically android with tweaks to work better on a pc, and android itself which comes preinstalled on many cheap convertibles. Why on Earth would I use WS over one of those? Of course, people may not know how to install a different OS, but that's not an excuse for the existence of WS. Besides, MS offers a free upgrade to W10PRO for the first year, which goes to show how completely irrelevant it is to them which OS you get in terms of profit. I have also seen some extremely cheap devices which come with full blown W10 (granted, most of those come straight from china, but still) with decent enough hardware for it - OEMs already get very low prices on Windows and they mitigate that even more through preinstalled crapware.

[Sauron]

17 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

Then again for most people there isn't really much issue in just running Windows 10 home without activating it. I know they might eventually decide to kill those copies but it doesn't looks like they will.

After all, why would they? They've been pushing so hard for windows 10 adoption, even free riders end up benefitting them. It's just like the old days when MS would crack their own software and put it online just so people would use it.

[Drak3]

17 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Why on Earth would I use WS over one of those?

Because you're not a target audience member, and you can't see far past your needs/wants of a computing system. Few people can.

 

Windows S can easily fit into the role of district supplied machines for more basic tasks, without allowing the users to run questionable executables from outside the store. That's something that can be circumvented with every other version of Windows, which becomes more of a problem as students become more knowledgeable. It'll also play more nicely with most schools existing systems than things like Chromebooks.

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, Sauron said:

Regardless of who it's aimed at, it's useless. There is no reason to use WS instead of the normal version if you have the choice. In fact, there's no reason to use it over android, gnu/linux, or pretty much anything else that you can get running on the laptop.

 

39 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Well, GNU/linux is free. So is RemixOS, which is basically android with tweaks to work better on a pc, and android itself which comes preinstalled on many cheap convertibles. Why on Earth would I use WS over one of those? Of course, people may not know how to install a different OS, but that's not an excuse for the existence of WS. Besides, MS offers a free upgrade to W10PRO for the first year, which goes to show how completely irrelevant it is to them which OS you get in terms of profit. I have also seen some extremely cheap devices which come with full blown W10 (granted, most of those come straight from china, but still) with decent enough hardware for it - OEMs already get very low prices on Windows and they mitigate that even more through preinstalled crapware.

 

5 hours ago, Lazmarr said:

A lot of people seem to think this is the case when in fact it isn't. The Surface book isn't aimed at students, when the perfect device for them is the Surface/Surface Pro; ultra-portable devices that have great performance, offer great note taking and have good mics and cameras for recording lectures, as well as being able to run any desktop application; Adobe software, prism, SPSS, MatLab, Endnote etc are all commonly used by students and would likely never come to the Microsoft Store. 

Your forgetting that a lot of high schools will likely be buying devices that will likely have Windows 10 S on them and would like to be able to manage them in much the same way as they already do for their other Windows devices in the school. Free isn't no cost, there is a difference. TCO is an actual thing and includes more than just software licenses.

 

Laptop devices aren't just used as personal devices or personally owned so the requirements are different depending on who you are and how the device will be used. Many schools over hear have multiple class sets of laptops that can be booked so when you're buying them in the 100+ quantities saving $50 per device isn't something to write off as insignificant.

 

As the most common usage of computers in high school is browsing the internet and using a document editor fully featured Windows isn't really required, higher education requires the more advanced applications. Typically schools will also have dedicated labs of higher spec computers for Adobe Suite etc.

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Because you're not a target audience member, and you can't see far past your needs/wants of a computing system. Few people can.

 

Windows S can easily fit into the role of district supplied machines for more basic tasks, without allowing the users to run questionable executables from outside the store. That's something that can be circumvented with every other version of Windows, which becomes more of a problem as students become more knowledgeable. It'll also play more nicely with most schools existing systems than things like Chromebooks.

Now I just need to find a way to agree to your comment 99 more times .

 

It is hard to see the benefits that Windows brings if you've never been in a role managing networks for over a thousand people, across multiple clients, and you have a level 1 desktop support team of over 100 people. If I were to choose something not Windows in similar case it would be Mac OS and not Linux.

[Sauron]

6 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Because you're not a target audience member, and you can't see far past your needs/wants of a computing system. Few people can.

 

Windows S can easily fit into the role of district supplied machines for more basic tasks, without allowing the users to run questionable executables from outside the store. That's something that can be circumvented with every other version of Windows, which becomes more of a problem as students become more knowledgeable. It'll also play more nicely with most schools existing systems than things like Chromebooks.

You can't even use a proper office suite on WS. That's an instant disqualification from any school use, at least for now. No user benefits from using WS over normal windows. They may simply not suffer as much. What "questionable" executables could you possibly run to compromise the whole school? Even stuff like WannaCry isn't a problem if the computers are up to date. The worst that can happen is a dead windows install, which can be restored by a technician in 20 minutes.

9 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Your forgetting that a lot of high schools will likely be buying devices that will likely have Windows 10 S on them and would like to be able to manage them in much the same way as they already do for their other Windows devices in the school. Free isn't no cost, there is a difference. TCO is an actual thing and includes more than just software licenses.

 

Laptop devices aren't just used as personal devices or personally owned so the requirements are different depending on who you are and how the device will be used. Many schools over hear have multiple class sets of laptops that can be book so when you're buying them in the 100+ quantities saving $50 per device isn't something to write off as insignificant.

 

As the most common usage of computers in high school is browsing the internet and use a document editor, higher education requires the more advanced applications. Typically schools will also have dedicated labs of higher spec computers for Adobe Suite etc.

My point is not that schools should go and use linux everywhere, but rather that WS is a direct downgrade from literally anything including many free (to install) systems. It makes no sense to seek it out over regular windows. And once again, the two things you mentioned (browsing the internet and using a document editor) are both gimped on WS.