<story><title>The End of Windows</title><url>https://stratechery.com/2018/the-end-of-windows/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>asveikau</author><text>I still can&amp;#x27;t wrap my head around everything that was wrongheaded about Windows 8, and I was working there for most of its dev cycle.&lt;p&gt;One wonders what would have happened if they just sort of let Windows be Windows. I.e. if they had continued iterating on core stuff but left UI and general philosophy resembling Win7&amp;#x27;s trajectory and not tried to force people into WinRT&amp;#x2F;UWP&amp;#x2F;store.&lt;p&gt;Even though Win10 attempted corrective action it always struck me that it was still accepting the fundamental thesis of Win8. They still kept with the Orwellian redefinition of phrases like &amp;quot;Windows app&amp;quot; to mean very recent, immature and unproven technology. They were still talking about ARM devices that don&amp;#x27;t let you do a straightforward recompile of old code. They were still pushing the Store as the only means to distribute software, where even Apple has not succeeded in changing people&amp;#x27;s habits on the desktop.&lt;p&gt;I hope that with a weaker organization, people keeping the lights on for Windows will know to not shake things up too severely and ease up on pushing some of these silly ideas. I somehow doubt it. I&amp;#x27;ve been hoping for that for... 7 years?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cptskippy</author><text>&amp;gt; One wonders what would have happened if they just sort of let Windows be Windows. I.e. if they had continued iterating on core stuff but left UI and general philosophy resembling Win7&amp;#x27;s trajectory and not tried to force people into WinRT&amp;#x2F;UWP&amp;#x2F;store.&lt;p&gt;With Windows 8 they tried to do too much too quickly and not well, however their motivations and intention were spot on in my opinion.  Security has always been a pain point for Windows and it&amp;#x27;s only been getting worse, the Store introduced a sandbox like that found on iOS and Android.  ARM, iOS, and Android showed that modern hardware and software can produce power efficiencies that put x86 and Windows to shame.  UWP introduced hardware independence and a modern development framework that would put Windows Apps on a level playing field with iOS and Android.&lt;p&gt;The problem was that Microsoft thought that merely by virtue of their existence, developers would adopt UWP&amp;#x2F;Store despite the path forward being a huge pain in the ass.  We see how that played out.  With Windows 10 we&amp;#x27;ve seen a course correction and a change in strategy.  You can have traditional Applications sandboxed in the Store, and you can have UWP Apps outside the Store.  Microsoft bought Xamarin and is folding it into UWP, the intent is to not just have hardware independence with UWP but also OS independence.</text></comment>
<story><title>The End of Windows</title><url>https://stratechery.com/2018/the-end-of-windows/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>asveikau</author><text>I still can&amp;#x27;t wrap my head around everything that was wrongheaded about Windows 8, and I was working there for most of its dev cycle.&lt;p&gt;One wonders what would have happened if they just sort of let Windows be Windows. I.e. if they had continued iterating on core stuff but left UI and general philosophy resembling Win7&amp;#x27;s trajectory and not tried to force people into WinRT&amp;#x2F;UWP&amp;#x2F;store.&lt;p&gt;Even though Win10 attempted corrective action it always struck me that it was still accepting the fundamental thesis of Win8. They still kept with the Orwellian redefinition of phrases like &amp;quot;Windows app&amp;quot; to mean very recent, immature and unproven technology. They were still talking about ARM devices that don&amp;#x27;t let you do a straightforward recompile of old code. They were still pushing the Store as the only means to distribute software, where even Apple has not succeeded in changing people&amp;#x27;s habits on the desktop.&lt;p&gt;I hope that with a weaker organization, people keeping the lights on for Windows will know to not shake things up too severely and ease up on pushing some of these silly ideas. I somehow doubt it. I&amp;#x27;ve been hoping for that for... 7 years?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>simonh</author><text>It would have helped if they hadn’t done everything they could possibly imagine to fragment windows as much as possible. Six SKUs of Windows desktop, then on top of those two entire desktop UI environments in desktop and Metro, then Windows on ARM, then shifting from one new development stack to another, then another. Then mandating store apps. This was foot shooting on full automatic, clip after clip. I switched to a Mac desktops in 2007 before Vista so I watched all of this with stunned bemusement and to be honest have little idea how it affected users and Devs reliant on the platform, except from reading the occasional article by Paul Thurrott.</text></comment>