It's like going back to the terminal days - Windows 10 Cloud PC in possible development

[williamcll]

Windows Azure has been offering remote Windows instances or remote desktop for awhile, but those are mainland for enterprise/business use. It was also said that Windows 10X would also be using cloud processing to run Win32 programs. 

Quote

Cloud PC is a service that is built on top of Windows Virtual Desktop to deliver ‘Windows as a Service’. Cloud PC is essentially aimed at businesses and Microsoft says it will manage the service for the companies so that they don’t have to look after the Windows Updates and apps. As the name suggests, Cloud PC brings your personal desktop to Microsoft Azure Cloud Service and allows you to remotely access the service from anywhere using any device, including your Android or iPhone. In a new support document, Microsoft has accidentally confirmed that it’s working on “Cloud PC”.

 

The is the first time we’ve seen Microsoft refer to the ‘Cloud PC’ publicly on its own platform and it simply states “Cloud PC security baseline template”. The document has been online since last week, and Microsoft references to this mysterious software have gone unnoticed until now.

 

We have been hearing about Microsoft Cloud PC service for quite a few months and it’s due to drop sometime in early 2021. Windows 10X, the modular operating system, is also expected to drop sometime in early 2021.

Source: https://www.windowslatest.com/2020/11/25/microsoft-leaks-windows-10s-new-mysterious-cloud-pc-service/

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/resources/intune-deviceintent-devicemanagementtemplatetype?view=graph-rest-beta

Thoughts: Honestly this sounds like a horrible idea considering how poor cloud gaming the past year has been. Adding the fact that a lot of people to this day still run unlicensed copies of Windows I doubt this CloudPC service will catch on. Better for windows to figure out how to optimize windows 10 ARM emulation instead.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

microsoft once again focussing on things nobody wants instead of fixing the horrible broken mess that is Windows 10's UI. 

[Arika]

7 hours ago, Ashley said:

microsoft once again focussing on things nobody wants instead of fixing the horrible broken mess that is Windows 10's UI. 

Yep, because the people working over in the Azure department are the same people that work in the art/UI department. 

[j.son19]

9 hours ago, Ashley said:

instead of fixing the horrible broken mess that is Windows 10's

Never been a fan of the stupid tiles which have been on windows 8 up

 

9 hours ago, williamcll said:

Cloud PC brings your personal desktop to Microsoft Azure Cloud Service and allows you to remotely access the service from anywhere using any device, including your Android or iPhone

Just because you can do something doesn't make it a good idea

[StDragon]

7 hours ago, Arika S said:

Yep, because the people working over in the Azure department are the same people that work in the art/UI department. 

Pretty much. The UI is based on the lowest common denominator that can also be replicated in a web browser. And that is HTML5. So the bare metal OS gets gimped. That's why the look and feel is so flat.

[Spindel]

Because of the world situation being what it is I’ve been working from home a lot since April. During this autum an close by infrastructure project has dug off the fiber for my area 4 times. To me it’s obvious why this and all ”in the cloud”, along with on demand streaming services are a bad thing.

[Taf the Ghost]

Microsoft in a big 90s Retro swing, I guess.

[Orangeator]

16 hours ago, Ashley said:

microsoft once again focussing on things nobody wants instead of fixing the horrible broken mess that is Windows 10's UI. 

What do you mean by this? I actually think Windows 10 is the best looking OS I have ever used. I don't like the tiles so I just get rid of all of them and just have a normal scrolling list of apps...

[Spindel]

35 minutes ago, Orangeator said:

What do you mean by this? I actually think Windows 10 is the best looking OS I have ever used. I don't like the tiles so I just get rid of all of them and just have a normal scrolling list of apps...

If we mainly go by how the UI looks it is wildly inconsistent.

 

I would understand if this was manly centered around 3rd party applications looking different, but just browsing through Windows 10s own preferences is an insane inconsistency. 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

13 hours ago, Arika S said:

Yep, because the people working over in the Azure department are the same people that work in the art/UI department. 

my point was that maybe Microsoft should put more resources into fixing Windows 10. 

 

12 hours ago, j.son19 said:

Never been a fan of the stupid tiles which have been on windows 8 up

i'm mainly referring to having 2 half broken control panels and a complete mix of UI styles. in Windows 8 you could basically ignore the modern UI. in Windows 10 you can't. 

 

4 hours ago, Orangeator said:

What do you mean by this? I actually think Windows 10 is the best looking OS I have ever used. I don't like the tiles so I just get rid of all of them and just have a normal scrolling list of apps...

you sitll have to use the settings app. and search. and the "action center". also there are 3 ui's in Windows 10. you have Windows 95 style, aka the old control panels like Mouse. you have the windows 7 era UI, aka the old control panel itself and a bunch of the dated built in programs, and you have the Metro UI. 

 

it's been 5 years since Windows 10 was launched, they should have fixed this by now. 

[Arika]

4 minutes ago, Ashley said:

my point was that maybe Microsoft should put more resources into fixing Windows 10. 

Who's to say they're not?

 

they have over 150,000 employees and a LOT of money to go around.

 

in fact, they have already announced they are working on a major UI update

https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-sun-valley-ui-october-2021-update

 

Just because they made an announcement about them doing stuff with Azure, doesn't mean everything else has all funding and employees removed off it

[Bananasplit_00]

Ah yes, desktop as service. Must be great when you wake up one morning to see the service terminated and your entire PC gone.

[Doobeedoo]

Not too surprised, I guess they see category of users for it. Though cloud and PC don't really go together in that sense. 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

Who's to say they're not?

anyone who uses windows 10... 

[Drama Lama]

On 11/26/2020 at 2:41 PM, Ashley said:

microsoft once again focussing on things nobody wants instead of fixing the horrible broken mess that is Windows 10's UI. 

it has cloud in the name it must be good

[Drama Lama]

3 hours ago, Ashley said:

you sitll have to use the settings app. and search. and the "action center". also there are 3 ui's in Windows 10. you have Windows 95 style, aka the old control panels like Mouse. you have the windows 7 era UI, aka the old control panel itself and a bunch of the dated built in programs, and you have the Metro UI. 

 

it's been 5 years since Windows 10 was launched, they should have fixed this by now. 

yea it's a mess

You have still Internet Explorer then you have Microsoft Edge and the new Edge Chromium browser.

when I'm using my Lenovo pen the cursor symbol that indicates that something is loading ( the little spinning symbol ) is in Win7 style, when using a mouse the normal Win10

[Master Delta Chief]

3 hours ago, Arika S said:

Who's to say they're not?

 

they have over 150,000 employees and a LOT of money to go around.

 

in fact, they have already announced they are working on a major UI update

https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-sun-valley-ui-october-2021-update

 

Just because they made an announcement about them doing stuff with Azure, doesn't mean everything else has all funding and employees removed off it

That's a rather naïve take when it comes to MS. They've had plenty of time to sort of the problems of Windows 10 that still persists today in terms of performance and of course the Settings app which I and a lot of others complain about (and ofc the Store which is a huge mess as well). Just because a company has the money for it, doesn't mean they'll spend it on that which is very unfortunate, because they should. 

[charlie_root]

I've been expecting this sort of thing for years, though I thought Apple would do it first. In the future I predict that the OS is stored on "The cloud" and your average PC will be a thin client that simply accesses it on a subscription basis. The marketing pitch to the average person is that they don't have to worry about updates, security, maintenance, etc.

 

The benefit for the PC hardware vendor is that they can cheapen the product  considerably because it does not have to do as much. The benefit for the OS vendor is that they have iron grip control over the user and their data. They can push ads at will, mine or sell user data at will, charge more for subscriptions with each release, etc. The user literally will belong to them. 

 

Of course, this would be a horrific dystopia as far as I'm concerned, and I'll continue running my OS on bare metal in my possession, even if I'm the only one in the world doing it. 

[Pickles von Brine]

On 11/26/2020 at 8:41 AM, Ashley said:

microsoft once again focussing on things nobody wants instead of fixing the horrible broken mess that is Windows 10's UI. 

2 different teams and Microsoft is a MASSIVE company. For business who are trying to move away from expensive hardware, it could be a great way to cut costs. Plus, if things are in the cloud, it allows for more control, expandability and flexibility. 

[j.son19]

19 hours ago, Drama Lama said:

You have still Internet Explorer

I thought that is not there if you update to the latest version of windows 10 ?

[AndreiArgeanu]

On 11/26/2020 at 10:59 PM, j.son19 said:

Never been a fan of the stupid tiles which have been on windows 8 up

What tiles lmao

[Mark Kaine]

On 11/28/2020 at 11:48 AM, AndreiArgeanu said:

What tiles lmao

that is still a horrible way to go through apps and settings.... also this conveniently stopped working on my laptop recently, without me doing anything - I think you can't even reset "settings" to default, only your whole "pc" which likely would break things even further. 

 

sorting and finding things on a windows pc is one of the worst experiences I ever had, it's the opposite of what I want, simplicity. 

 

 

[wamred]

I really hope this works. I would be interested in it

[NinJake]

We need a poll.

1) Those who complain about windows 10

2) Those who still use windows 10

 

Either way, I can see this being largely beneficial to those who don't really need much out of a pc besides browsing facebook or writing down a recipe in wordpad.

[StDragon]

On 11/27/2020 at 5:39 AM, Bananasplit_00 said:

Ah yes, desktop as service. Must be great when you wake up one morning to see the service terminated and your entire PC gone.

On-boarding, off-boarding is part of the overall security calculus with regards to data retention and exfiltration woes. I'm sure it will tie into MS Workplace Analytics too at some point.