The Windows 10 Review: The Old & New Face of Windows

Windows as a Service

Windows as a Service is the new theme from Microsoft. With every major release of Windows, there are always people who get left on the old version which eventually gets out of date. In the meantime, Microsoft has to create software and security updates for the people stuck on the older versions. The same could happen with Service Packs too, where there are going to be people that never update.

This has certainly put Windows at a disadvantage for developers. Microsoft is constantly updating their APIs and frameworks to add new features for developers to take advantage of, but with people being on such varied versions of the operating system, it is very difficult to target the latest APIs and features since there will always be a large group of people which cannot use these features.

The idea behind Windows as a Service is that as soon as you upgrade to Windows 10, your system will automatically be kept up to date with new features and of course security updates. This should improve the experience over time, and in fact in the couple of weeks since release we have already seen some new features added to the operating system which were not ready for July 29^th.

It’s a new model, and some people may be apprehensive about losing some control over their updates. It’s a valid argument too, since as recently as August of last year, there was some Windows Updates rolled out which caused a lot of issues for a lot of people. Microsoft is going to have to earn their user’s trust in order for this model to work.

Windows 10 could very well be the last version of Windows ever released. There is nothing on the horizon yet for a Windows 11, but we shall see how this new Windows as a Service model works out over the next couple of years.

Windows Update Changes

I’ve already mentioned that Windows Update is no longer able to be disabled or deferred at all on Windows 10 Home, and only feature updates can be delayed on Pro. This is a pretty big change over Windows in the past, which offered plenty of options in regards to updates, including the ability to disable them completely.

The one exception to this rule is if your computer is on a metered connection. Wi-Fi and cellular network connections can be set to be metered connections which will limit background data usage on those networks. Ethernet connections cannot be set to be metered at this time.

But Windows Update has also changed in its delivery mechanism. Windows 10 now includes the ability to obtain updates from devices that have already downloaded them. This includes devices on the internet as well by default on all versions except Enterprise and Education. What this means is that if your LAN has several devices, only the first has to get the updates from the internet, and all other devices on the LAN can get them from the first device, which should not only noticeably increase the download speed, but also save a lot of bandwidth as well in the event that you are on a capped network. This mechanism can also be used for Windows Store apps.

The computer downloads the updates and then keeps them in a cache for a short amount of time, and the downloads are subject to the same security measures as Windows Update would be meaning the updates should be signed which should prevent someone seeding bad updates. If you want to stop your computer from uploading data, be sure to set this to LAN only in the advanced options of Windows Update.

These changes are likely the biggest changes to Windows 10 overall as a platform. Disabling security updates is generally not a good idea anyway, but Microsoft is going to have to ensure that they deliver solid updates. I think the Windows as a Service idea has a lot of upsides, but a couple of bad updates will sour people for good, so it is pretty important that their testing is solid. They also need to be careful not too deliver too many updates in too short a time, and force a lot of reboots. Right now, it seems to be about one per week, and that is too often. We've gotten used to Patch Tuesday once per month and accelerating that right after launch is likely accepatble but it is a bit much to ask people to have to deal with this many updates for a long period.

It is also somewhat surprising that after the Windows 10 testing through the Insider Program that the updates that have come so far have been very non-descript. I don't think it's too much to ask that there were some sort of a list of changes that are being implemented, even if it is just on the web rather than in the description. If Microsoft wants buy-in on the new Windows as a Service, it needs to be an open relationship with the end user and not one of "take this update and like it" which is unfortunately how it has started out.