Don't call it a comeback...

Do you remember when actual, physical books were dead, ebooks were the future of print, and ebook readers seemed like they might become a necessity for lovers of the printed word? Well, here's the thing about that... funny story... that turns out to have been not at all true. Not only are books not going anywhere, ebooks are actually in decline.

From CNN:

New data suggest that the reading public is ditching e-books and returning to the old fashioned printed word.

Sales of consumer e-books plunged 17% in the U.K. in 2016, according to the Publishers Association. Sales of physical books and journals went up by 7% over the same period, while children's books surged 16%.

The same trend is on display in the U.S., where e-book sales declined 18.7% over the first nine months of 2016, according to the Association of American Publishers. Paperback sales were up 7.5% over the same period, and hardback sales increased 4.1%.

"The print format is appealing to many and publishers are finding that some genres lend themselves more to print than others and are using them to drive sales of print books," said Phil Stokes, head of PwC's entertainment and media division in the U.K.

It's been pretty clear for years now that physical books were going to survive the ebook onslaught, but the convenience of ebooks seemed like it should be enough to at least sustain the ebook ecosystem. Apparently that's not the case; ebooks now appear to have been something of a fad, lacking the staying power of the simple printed word.

"E-readers, which was once a promising category, saw its sales peak in 2011. Its success was short-lived, as it spiraled downwards within a year with the entry of tablets," Euromonitor said in a research note.

According to the Pew Research Center, 65% of Americans reported reading a printed book in the past year, compared to only 28% who read an e-book.

As a lover of old-fashioned, printed books, and a hater of corporate hype, I have to say that I'm thrilled by this development on both fronts.

I own an ebook reader, but never use it; I prefer the experience of holding an actual book, turning its pages, losing myself in its text and its textures. Ebooks might be great for travelling, allowing you to bring several books with you at a fraction of the weight of a single printed work, but I do most of my reading at home, and in bed, where the last thing I want is another damn screen.

Also, books never need recharging, and touch interfaces generally kinda suck.

I'm starting to think that Microsoft really burned their OneDrive bridges...

Spotted on MSPowerUser:

Windows 10 users finally have a cloud storage option which offers actual privacy

[...]

Cloud storage is great and increasingly essential, as we move to PCs with small SSD storage and multiple mobile devices with even less.

Unfortunately, these usually come with very stringent terms of service which mean companies are free to snoop on the content of these online drives and explicitly forbid uploading items which may raise copyright or obscenity concerns.

Fortunately for Windows users, there is one company which has always thumbed their nose at both of those community standards, and they have now released a UWP app for Windows 10 users on phone and PC to try out.

Currently, in alpha, the MEGA Privacy app is a secure cloud storage service that gives you 50 GB free storage space. Unlike other cloud storage providers, your data is encrypted and decrypted by your client devices only and never by the company itself, which means they never know what your online archive contains.

Yes, you're reading that correctly: that's Kim Dotcom's MEGA, being touted as a better option than OneDrive, because privacy. That's the same Kim Dotcom who's been fighting extradition from New Zealand to the U.S. for years, and who founded MEGA because his previous cloud storage venture, MegaUpload, is totally frozen on dead servers, preventing data from being accessed by those who legally own it; that's the legal legacy of the man who founded MEGA, which is now being touted as a preferred alternative to OneDrive, because Microsoft has fucked up the privacy file that badly in Windows 10.

Ouch.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Creators Update, which was supposed to help jump-start Windows 10's stalled adoption among consumers and businesses alike, is still garnering headlines exclusively for its bugs and rollout delays, making it only slightly less of a disaster than the Anniversary Update... by which I mean that it took over a week for the issues to become the exclusive public focus of all the coverage, rather than being the focus from day one. All this is happening with only one more day to go before we get to see what sort of an impact the CU is actually having on those aforementioned adoption rates. 

Ouch, again.

Oh, and Microsoft's bid to take over Apple's position as a consumer electronics juggernaut, selling not only the software but also the hardware to consumers who would then become captives to its walled garden Windows 10 ecosystem? That's hit a snag, too, with sales of Surface tablets dropping as better, cheaper alternatives start to take over the marketplace, and Microsoft trying to handwave off dropping sales numbers as the result of "product end-of-lifecycle dynamics." Yes, having neglected the mobile market until after iOS and Android had divvied up all the territory, and having then neglected Windows Phone to death, they're now apparently neglecting their Surface division. The Surface line was the one thing Microsoft had going that looked last year like an unqualified success, but even Surface is now also starting to decline, as nimbler competitors push Microsoft out of the hardware market without selling enough units to really bolster Windows 10's adoption rates, more broadly.

Triple ouch, I guess?

There's no particular mystery about the Windows 10 strategy; it's pretty obvious what Microsoft need to happen, here, for their long-term plans to continue being viable. I do have to wonder, though, if anyone's actually assessing their progress towards those strategic goals, and starting to wonder if maybe their current tactics were unwisely chosen. Because they seem to be all over the fucking place, tactically, unable to maintain any kind of focus or messaging tone for any length of time at all. Every time they take a baby step in a positive direction, they follow it with a month of fuck-ups and missed opportunities, blindly sticking to a play-book that doesn't seem to be working, really. 

Microsoft are big enough, and have a large enough lead in the desktop OS market, that they can afford to absorb the associated costs of these missteps for a while yet, but I have to wonder how much longer they can keep it up before their shareholders start to catch on? It's one thing for Satya Nadella to want to take Microsoft in a bold, new direction, but it's another thing entirely for them to alienate their customers, to the point where Kim fucking Dotcom looks like better option, by insisting on an array of consumer-unfriendly practices that keep coming back to bite them over and over and over again. All of these lingering issues, these unforced errors, seem to be keeping them off-balance, unable to talk and their chew gum simultaneously, while consumers (and, thus far, enterprises) continue using what we know works, rather than becoming part of Windows 10's highly experimental way of doing things.

Is Windows-as-a-Service even viable, given Windows' complexity and the range of hardware that it's already running on? I'm not the only person who's asking that question, and the evidence in favour is far from conclusive. So far, Microsoft has rolled out exactly two major updates to Windows 10, both disastrously, but they're still committed to rolling out two such updates a year, every year, for the rest of time. How is that going to work? And if they can't even deliver on that part of the Window 10 package reliably, how in hell are they planning to win back the hearts and minds of consumers who are choosing MEGA over OneDrive because they don't trust Microsoft anymore?

We're just hours away from NetMarketShare's end-of-April snapshot of the PC OS market place; I'm not expecting Windows 10 to have made any significant gains at all (significant, remember, meaning greater then the margin of error of the report itself, which I've been guesstimating at +/- 0.05%). So, my question is, exactly how long does Windows 10's adoption have to stay flatlined before Mr. Nadella will admit that his chosen strategy, or at least his chosen tactics, were chosen unwisely? Or, failing that, how long can he retain the confidence of Microsoft's shareholders, while the glorious Windows 10 future remains maddenly out of reach?

The Nintendo Switch's fast start may not be fast enough

When it comes to Nintendo's Switch, everyone seems to agree that it's off to a good start, with Nintendo hyping its first month sales results at every opportunity. And there's no two ways about it, those numbers are pretty good:

In the 12-month period ended March 31, Nintendo earned ‎¥‎489 billion ($4.4 billion) in revenue, slightly down on the ‎¥‎504 billion it earned in the previous year. However, net profit increased from ‎¥‎17 billion in FY2016 to ‎¥‎103 billion ($925 million), beating Nintendo's own forecast by 14%.

The company said that the difference was down to better than expected shipments of the Switch, which sold 2.74 million units in March alone. That figure was attained by Reuters, which attended a press conference with Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima in Japan. Kimishima said that the company expects to sell a further 10 million units in the current financial year.

So far, so good. Where I start to have issues with the hype, though, is when Nintendo start trying to draw parallels between the Switch's launch and that of their previous console success, the Wii:

According to Reuters, Kimishima said he was "relieved" by the console's early performance. "If the 10 million target is achieved ... that means the sales momentum would be close to the Wii," he said.

There's a problem with that comparison, though: the Switch is not the Wii, and the market that it's launching into is not the same as one that the Wii launched into.

Nintendo's Wii was a pop-culture phenomenon. Launching in 2006, at the start of its console generation alongside Microsoft's XBox360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, and prior to PC gaming renaissance, which didn't really get going until 2010, the Wii didn't have to vie for market share with established competitors. Everyone was starting from zero; no platform was coming into the year with tens of millions of customers who already owned huge libraries of compatible games.

The Wii had a couple of other features that gave it a competitive edge. One was its price point; the Wii was cheaper than its competitors. Its control scheme was also unique, and intuitively easy to use; children too young to read, and whose hands couldn't really wrap themselves around the standard XBox or PS3 gamepad, could still grasp and wave around the Wii's baton, as could older players who might suffer from, say, arthritis.

The elegance and simplicity of that interface also made it easy for non-gamers to use. You didn't have to know from experience which buttons normally did things in games, or work through a lot of tutorials to learn how to control the games. The result was a platform that could connect players from three to ninety-three; children could play with their grand-parents, allowing multiple generations of families to all equally access and enjoy gaming, really for the very first time in the history of video games.

The result was lightning in a bottle; people who Microsoft and Sony hadn't bothered to design for and market to were suddenly interested in gaming, connecting to and with the Wii in a way that they simply couldn't for the XB360 or PS3. Nintendo really couldn't make enough of them to keep pace with that early demand; stores couldn't keep the Wii on shelves. The only similar example of a game console success was Sony's PlayStation 2, which flew off shelves, in part, because it was also the cheapest DVD player on the market, in addition to being a game console.

None of that is really true of the Nintendo Switch, though. Gamers who'd previously discovered gaming thanks to the Wii have now outgrown it, and are demanding more variety and sophistication in their games, along with better performance. The gimmicky control scheme of the Switch isn't really a selling point, either, with many Switch owners ditching their Joy-Cons for the Switch's Pro controller's better ergonomics. 

Unlike the Wii, where the quality of the unit was at least comparable to that of its competitors, the Switch looks and feels cheap, with a plastic screen that gets scratched by its own included dock, controllers that need extra insulating foam installed in order to work properly, and inadequate storage that make it essentially incompatible with the digital distribution that is taking over the industry... the issues just keep coming.

And while none of these might have been crippling if the Switch were launching onto a level playing field, the market that it's launching into isn't a level playing field. Thanks to Steam's 125 million users, PC (which wasn't a factor when the Wii was launched) is dominant in the current market, and Sony's PlayStation 4 isn't just outselling the XBox One, it's also still outselling the Nintendo Switch:

Sony Interactive Entertainment sold 20 million units of its PlayStation 4 console in the last fiscal year, boosting revenue by 6% and operating income by more than 50%.

[...] 

Across the entire year, 20 million units of the PS4 were shipped, 13% more than the 17.7 million units in the previous fiscal year. Given that the PS4 had 40 million confirmed sales in May 2016, that puts the total PS4 installed base somewhere around 60 million - possibly just below, but certainly not very far away.

[...] 

Looking ahead, Sony expects PS4 shipments to decline to 18 million next year. However, it expects the GNS division to improve in general, with a 14.6% increase in revenue and a 34% increase in operating income.

Remember, Nintendo are saying that they'll be thrilled to sell 10M units in 9 months, a pace of roughly a million units a month on average; Sony, on the other hand, are forecasting sales of 1.5 million units per month for the same period, and that's down slightly from the PS4's sales performance of the previous year. Sony are starting with a 60 million lead in player base, and will probably increase that lead even if Nintendo's Switch performs as well as Nintendo is hoping.

At this point, it's worth remembering that the WiiU had a player base of 13 million when it was discontinued, because developers couldn't be bothered to make games for its different OS and weird control scheme when it didn't have even half as many users as the XBox One... which itself still has only half as many users as the PS4. And the only game of note that the Switch has going for it right now is Zelda; yes, ports of Skyrim and Shovel Knight will probably sell reasonably well to Switch owners who have nothing else to play and a desire to justify their Switch purchases, but ports of games that most interested gamers already own on other platforms aren't going to sell Switches to the skeptical.

And when it comes to Nintendo's own new-game releases for the Switch... is the obligatory new Mario game going to be a better system seller than Breath of the Wild? Will anyone care about the new Mario game that doesn't already own the Switch? Are gamers really desperate enough for gimmicky tech demos like Arms to drop hundreds of dollars on a new console just to get them?

I know that Nintendo fans (and shareholders) have a lot of hopes pinned on the Switch changing Nintendo's fortunes in the highly competitive gaming market, but... how does that happen, exactly? Unless the Switch suddenly starts selling faster than the PS4, fast enough to regain some of the ground that Nintendo lost with the failure of the WiiU, I just don't think that the Switch can ever have anything like the momentum of the original Wii.

And, failing that, I don't see how the Switch does anything but follow the WiiU into irrelevance and eventual obscurity.

[Quotes from gamesindustry.biz.]

"Using VR to its highest potential"

In case you ever had a doubt, having Conan O'Brien "promote" your game on a Clueless Gamer segment is very much a double-edged sword:

Holy sales pitch, Batman! I don't know that anyone's ever been so visibly and publicly disappointed with VR.

Polygon did a pretty good write up:

Conan O’Brien took a trip into virtual reality on this week’s new Clueless Gamer segment for the first time, and he’s never been so disappointed.

“My theory, and I’ve said this before, is that all VR is going to take us one place: virtual reality sex,” O’Brien said, just prior to learning that the game he’d be playing is pretty much the opposite of sexy.

[...] O’Brien’s snark feels especially pointed this time around. Disappointed by the lack of totally immersive, sexy action, the late night host struggles to find pleasure from Wilson’s Heart darker, slower paced adventures. It’s pretty adorable to see him get excited about figuring out the Oculus Touch controllers well enough to pick something up in-game without immediately dropping it, at least.

Have I mentioned yet, that VR is a long, long way from becoming a thing? Because, OMG, does this technology ever have a long way to go before it starts looking like something the average consumer will want to start dropping hundreds of dollars on.

I almost can't wait for Monday

We're nearing the end of April, which means that Monday will bring NetMarketShare's end-of-April snapshot of the PC OS marketplace. Normally, I'm not a big fan of Mondays, but this week, Monday can't come soon enough, because I'm really curious to see if there's any actual data that backs up this assertion by CSO:

Windows 10 Adoption is Quickly Accelerating, but Plagued with Concerns, Reports New Ivanti State of Windows 10 Adoption Survey

The vast majority of IT organisations (91%) have installed Windows 10, but there is still great variation in the current level of Windows 10 adoption. Although a third of IT organisations (34%) have Windows 10 in production to some extent, only 10% are in full production while the majority (56%) are in the early stages, using Windows 10 in IT trial or other limited environments. These are among the findings of the 2017 State of Windows 10 Adoption Survey conducted by Dimensional Research for Ivanti, a leader in integrating and automating critical IT tasks such as Windows desktop migrations.

"Vast majority?" Really? Well,then I guess the new OS Market Share numbers should show a huge upswing in Windows 10's adoption rate, shouldn't it?

For what it's worth, Dimensional Research for Ivanti isn't the only IT pollster that's suddenly bullish on Windows 10's near-term adoption prospects, with Gartner claiming that most businesses will move to Windows 10 by the end of this year... although even Gartner found that "Windows 10 is not perceived as an immediate business-critical project; it is not surprising that one in four respondents expect issues with budgeting." Again, though, if "46% had already begun the move (or completed migration) as of the end of last year," then logically, at least some of that should already be showing up in the market share data. Shouldn't it?

Of course, analysts like Gartner aren't without their critics...

Suddenly, I can't wait for Monday; I really want to see if the PC market has suddenly decided to migrate to Windows 10 en masse.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the nintendo Switch outsold the Switch itself.

Yes, Nintendo Switch has put up some impressive sales numbers in its first month on the market. No, that doesn't mean that the Switch will continue to perform at this same pace indefinitely. Because right now, the Nintendo Switch is still a Zelda machine, with very little else to recommend it to gamers who will want a variety of high-quality games to play on the platform, and only die-hard Nintendo and Zelda fans are buying.

From Kotaku:

In Japan, Nintendo sold 600,000 Switch units between March 3, when the hardware launched, and March 31, when the financial quarter ended. In the Americas, during that same period, 1.2 million Switch units were sold, while another 940,000 Switch units were sold in the region Nintendo calls “Other” (Europe, Australia, and beyond).

In total, Nintendo has sold 2.74 million Switch consoles worldwide in less than a month.

[...] Globally, Nintendo sold 2.76 million copies of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the Switch (including the Wii U version, the total is 3.84 million copies). That’s 390,000 copies of Breath of the Wild Switch for Japan (120,000 copies for the Wii U version), and 2.37 Switch copies overseas (960,000 Wii U copies).

Yes, you read that right. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the Switch actually outsold the Switch.

I don't have a horse in this race; I don't care whether the Switch succeeds or fails. I do, however, hate corporate hype on principle, and the Nintendo Switch hype machine has been running on overdrive for too long already. The unit looks interesting, but it isn't all that and a bag of chips; considering that the only game of any worth on the console is Zelda, I really don't understand why people are lining up to buy this thing, unless it's because they see other people lining up to buy this thing. 

Get a fucking grip, people. Wait for some more games to come out for the Switch, and for Switch stock levels to reach something like stable availability, and then decide if you want one of these. If you do, then great, enjoy it, but make an informed decision, rather than letting the hype overstimulate you into spending a few hundred dollars on a neat-looking brick that you'll barely use.

And this is why Microsoft's Windows 10 update regime is a bad thing...

Spotted on The Reg:

Don't install our buggy Windows 10 Creators Update, begs Microsoft
We'll give it to you when it's ready – and it is not

Aside: Ouch.

Microsoft has urged non-tech-savvy people – or anyone who just wants a stable computer – to not download and install this year's biggest revision to Windows by hand. And that's because it may well bork your machine.

It's been two weeks since Microsoft made its Creators Update available, and we were previously warned it will be a trickle-out rather than a massive rollout. Now, Redmond has urged users to stop manually fetching and installing the code, and instead wait for it to be automatically offered to your computer when it's ready.

The problem is that some systems – particularly older ones – may not be able to handle the Creators Update, Microsoft said. The US giant has been focusing on updating newer kit first, since it feels that hardware is less likely to run into difficulties, and has thus stopped offering the latest Windows 10 upgrade to computers it suspects may suffer from breakdowns.

And here I was, thinking that the Creators Update rollout was going pretty well... at least, when compared to the Anniversary Update. I guess there are more issues than I knew about, though, which is an excellent example of why users want to be able to control whether or not their systems update at all, rather than just how soon they restart afterwards. Oh, and they'd like Microsoft to have properly tested and bug-fixed the fucking things before releasing them, too, rather than using their Home users as a glorified beta-testing pool.

This may be an especially bad time for the Creators Update to have rollout issues, too, since Microsoft was hoping that the CU would inspire Windows 7 holdouts to make the switch to 10. Well, it's been a few weeks since the CU came out, and the end-of-April market share numbers are only days away, so we'll know soon enough to what extent that happened, but this kind of headline can't be helpful.

As a final aside, I'd also like to say that I love The Reg's tag line: "Biting the hand that feeds IT." I don't know how long they've been using that, having just noticed it now, but it's genius. Seriously, don't ever change.

This is why I'd like to see Cortana become an optional thing.

From PC Gamer:

Windows 10's search is a constant source of frustration

Small, unsolved issues with finding files and settings menus persist while Cortana hogs the spotlight.

Two years and two major updates later, Windows 10 is mostly the OS I want it to be. It's fast, stable, and the recent Creators Update included a lot of small changes we liked. But search—a feature I use every day—still annoys the hell out of me. The Windows 10 Creators Update did nothing to improve Windows 10's basic file system search results, which will on occasion omit program results for no obvious reason, bury its own menus, and default to searching the internet with a browser I don't use instead of surfacing one of my own files. These failings are a daily reminder that Microsoft's search priorities and my search priorities are not identical.

[...] When I want to set up a task to complete, I use Asana. When I want to send an email, I use Gmail in my browser. I think the real problem is less being old fashioned, and more that I already have specialized tools or preferences for doing the kinds of tasks Cortana can handle, and I don't solve most of those problem with Microsoft services.

When I hit the Windows key and start typing, there's one thing I want Microsoft's help with: getting to my files as quickly as possible. Windows 10 has some problems with that.

This, in a nutshell, is why half of PC users, and over half of Windows users, are still using Windows 7.  

Microsoft wants to be in control of every aspect of your PC use, from your choice of OS, to updating your OS, to buying the software, to accessing your own damn data. They want to be Apple, serving apps to a captive marketplace with them taking a cut of every single program installation; and they want to be Google, replacing your browser of choice with their own, and using Bing for fucking everything, even though nobody uses Bing outside of Microsoft's employees; and they want to be Amazon, skimming a little more off the top by storing your data on their cloud-based OneDrive service, and selling you extra storage space when your OneDrive is full, in spite of the fact that your Terabyte-sized hard drive almost certainly isn't. 

And, you know what? I understand that. I understand why Microsoft would love to leverage their dominance on desktop and laptop PCs into market share dominance of the cloud-based businesses that they hadn't cared about until companies like Google, and Apple, and Amazon all started challenging (or surpassing) their market cap. I get it. I really, really do Get It. I just don't care.

Here's the thing: Microsoft having missed the boat on web search, or mobile computing, or cloud-based server and storage services? Those are Microsoft's problems. They're not our problems, and I personally don't give a flying fuck about any of them. Microsoft keep trying to make their problems into our problems, and I hate that. Seriously, there are very few things that will piss me off faster, almost none of which are things that I come across on regular basis. 

And Microsoft just keep doing this, shoving all things Windows 10 under users' noses at every opportunity, over and over again as if we haven't been refusing Windows 10, by which I mean actively avoiding the fucking thing, for nearly two years now. We can't ignore their shit, and we can't forget their shit, because they won't let us.

Seriously, Microsoft, how can we ever start to miss you, if you never fucking leave us alone?

Microsoft re-issues "zombie" patch KB3150513... for the tenth time!

I love InfoWorld's tagline for this article:

It won't die! Microsoft is pushing its 10th refresh of the hated 'upgrade enabling' patch to every version of Windows

That's right, it's baaaack!

Microsoft has issued the KB 3150513 patch 10 times in the past year. Each time it appears without notification or warning: There’s no entry on the Windows Update list or Windows 10 Update list, but it pushed out the Automatic Update chute nonetheless.

It's being pushed onto Windows 7, 8, 8.1, Windows 10 1511, and now 1607 systems. You don’t want it.

[...] I discussed this topic last month, and as best I can tell, nothing has changed. As AskWoody Lounger abbodi86 summarized:

Both KB 2952664 and KB 3150513 are only needed for upgrading to Windows 10; they have nothing useful for current Windows 7 users (well, except providing Microsoft with Appraiser statistics)

If you want to upgrade your current system to Windows 10 Creators Update, you might want to consider installing the patch. If you don’t, there are better ways to waste your time.

Don’t bother hiding it. History has shown that it’ll only appear again. Ignore it and maybe it’ll go away.

They just won't take an effing hint, will they?

Here's the thing; people that haven't switched yet aren't just procrastinating. It's not like we don't know that Windows 10 is available, or that we can still upgrade for free if we want to, or that Microsoft would really, really like us to switch. We've chosen to stay with our existing operating systems; in fact, given how hard Microsoft were pushing Windows 10 during the latter part of the official GWX campaign, most of us had to take active steps to avoid being switched in spite of our clearly and repeatedly expressed preference on the matter.

We don't want Windows 10. We don't care that you're still giving it away; we already know, for a fact, that the shit ain't really free. And every time you "helpfully" re-add an update that we've already refused multiple times to our Update queues, disregarding our clearly and repeatedly expressed choices in the process, it just makes us even less likely to switch... ever. It further erodes the little trust and goodwill that we might still be harbouring; after all, how do you trust somebody, or feel good about somebody, when they clearly refuse to respect anything that you tell them?

Look, I get it. Microsoft's strategic plans don't work unless they can push Windows 10 adoption to a tipping point, a share of the market large enough that the adoption rate inspires others to also adopt their new OS, and inspires developers to develop natively for the Universal Windows Platform as a result. Microsoft need that, badly. I get it. I just don't give a shit.

Allow me to turn the data collection off completely, allow me to turn Cortana off completely, allow me to (simply & easily) turn the advertising off completely, and for fuck's sake, stop pushing me. Start showing some respect, and maybe, maybe, we can talk. Short of that, though, Microsoft are out of luck... until 2020 at the very least, unless my current PC literally melts down in the meantime, something which shows no sign of being anywhere near happening.

In the meantime, I'm leaving Never10 installed, and if you're wanting Microsoft's "helpful" upgrading app to stop pestering you to change operating systems, then so should you.

How to keep Windows 7 (or 8)

We've all been seeing those "helpful" reminders that Windows 10 is still basically free (in spite of the GWX campaign having officially ended nine months ago) on tech blogs of all kinds for months, but I think that this may be the first article I've seen which helpfully reminds people that staying with Windows 7 or 8.1 is still an option, too.

From PC Advisor:

Windows 10 was a free upgrade for Windows 7 and 8 users, but not a mandatory one. In case you're still struggling, here's how to stop the Windows 10 upgrade notifications and run Windows 7 or 8 forever.

Microsoft's free Windows 10 upgrade offer is now over. This should mean an end to those annoying uprade notifications. Or does it? We suspect the nagging won't cease one bit: Microsoft will simply want to you pay to upgrade to Windows 10 - Windows 10 home costs £99.99 and Windows 10 Pro costs £189.99.

Fear not, though as there are a few ways you can disable the upgrade and stay on Windows 7 or 8 forever. We won't go into all the reasons why you might not want to upgrade: those are covered in our Should I upgrade to Windows 10? feature.

Hmmm.... almost sounds like the GWX campaign left a seriously bad taste in consumers' mouths, doesn't it? 

PC Advisor then go on to discuss some familiar options, like Never10 (which I've used and highly recommend) or GWX Control Panel (which I'm less familiar with, but which looks to be more in-depth). They also have this helpful reminder:

Recently there has been a lot of confusion about when Windows 7 will cease to be supported. The table below clears this up: Windows 7 will be supported until 2020, and Windows 8 until 2023. You must have the specified updates or service packs installed, though. On Microsoft's Windows Lifecycle page, you'll also find the updated table showing that Windows 7 and 8.1 sales (to OEMs) ceased on 31 October 2016.

They also, however, include one bit of information which isn't quite accurate:

Do note that Windows 10 is now the only option for new PCs, as Microsoft has stopped OEM sales of Windows 7 Pro and Windows 8.1 to PC makers on 31 October. OEMs can still sell any licences they may have in stock, but once they run out it will be Windows 10 or Windows 10. Retail sales of Windows 7 ceased years back, and until now the only way to get a new PC with Windows 7 was from a manufacturer such as HP and Dell. Now, you won't find any PCs or laptops which offer a choice of Windows version when you first turn them on.

While there's no doubt that Microsoft intends for this to be the sitch, they haven't quite succeeded at taking Win7 off the market completely... at least, not yet. Lenovo, for one, apparently stockpiled Windows 7 licences while they could, and are still introducing new and refreshed models that come with the older OS installed, and some quick Googling will turn up other options, too, in both laptop and desktop form-factors, especially if you're just willing to buy a refurbished PC that can easily last until 2020, Moore's Law not being a thing anymore.

And there's one more option for folks that are determined to never switch to Windows 10: Linux. LaptopNinja makes the case for changing OSes entirely:

I know despite the posts about how great Linux is and why I like it, many of you are probably still hesitant to try Linux. I understand. I remember years ago when I first heard about it, even I was slow to try it at first. After all, Windows just worked. Everything I needed Windows would do, so why bother trying something else that may or may not work for me. Of course, back then, Linux was quite different from what it is today.

Over the years, Linux has evolved to become one of the most powerful operating systems in the world. In addition to computers, did you know that it powers a wide range of devices including routers, switches, your smartphones and even your televisions. That’s right, when your fancy television boots up chances are its running a customized version of Linux. Most web servers today are powered by Linux as well, including the one that is serving this site out to you.

As you can see, Linux is more popular than it ever has been. But, it has failed to capture a huge share of the personal computer market. That market is consistently dominated today by Windows 10 followed behind it by Apple’s Mac line of machines. However, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a great desktop operating system. In fact, it is one of the best out there. Most people just don’t realize it. After all, Linux doesn’t have a million dollar marketing budget to tell us how good it is.

Instead, it relies on people like me to drill it into your heads about how great it is and why you should try it. So today, I wanted to give you ten reasons you should try Linux today so you can begin your journey towards free computing and a life of not having to answer to Microsoft or Apple for your computer needs.

Just remember that "Never 10ers" still have lots of options, when it comes to exercising their fundamental consumers' right of choice. Microsoft don't have the right to dictate to you which OS you'll run on any PC that you've bought, or what other software you'll run under that OS, or where you'll buy your software from. Much to their chagrin, I'm sure.

This is why Edge can't take browser market share away from Chrome.

Just last week, I was blogging about Microsoft's latest desperate attempt to trash-talk Google's Chrome browser's battery life, when I wrote this:

Saying that Chrome is a better browser because it includes the features that users want in a modern browser, while providing acceptable battery performance, is not the same as saying that Chrome is perfect. Chrome can still be improved, and Google proved themselves willing to work on improving it [...] Not because they were losing market share, because they weren't and aren't, but because they wanted to keep winning, and saw no reason to concede any part of the field to Microsoft.

I wasn't thinking about ad-blocking, specifically, but built-in ad-blocking is perfectly in line with this kind of thinking. And so, naturally, Google is experimenting with adding build-in ad-blocking to Chrome.

From Gizmodo:

It’s not just you, online ads are getting worse. Auto-play video has become a standard, pop-ups are back in a big way and those inline ads seem accidentally clickier all the time. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is well aware of this and it’s planning to add a built-in ad blocker to the Chrome browser. [...]

The Journal reports that sources familiar with Google’s plan say that both the mobile and desktop versions could soon feature an ad-blocking system that would be turned on by default. But it wouldn’t filter out all ads, only the ones that don’t comply with the Coalition for Better Ads list of standards. For instance, auto-playing video ads with sound and large sticky ads would be out. The company is reportedly still deciding whether or not to block individual ads or all advertising on any site that doesn’t meet the “threshold of consumer acceptability.”

But why would a company that makes billions on advertising add a feature to its own free product that would block advertising? Simply put, Google doesn’t want more people downloading ad-blockers that it has no control over. Google has seen the reports that as many as 26% of desktop users have some sort of software to hide advertisements and it doesn’t want that number getting any larger.

The lack of extensions, or even the ability to add extensions, was one of the things that hurt Edge right out of the blocks. Ad-blocking is just standard practice now, for anybody who values their privacy, security, or just plain sanity; I actually run two different ad-blocking extensions, and would love for Chrome to just build in ad-blocking, so that I can free up those system resources for other things. This, assuming Google follow through on it, is a great, pro-consumer move. 

It's also a feature that Microsoft would absolutely have to add to Edge before they'd have any hope of competing for browser market share. Are you listening, Microsoft? This is what your customers actually want in a web browser. If you add this to Edge before Google adds it to Chrome, then you'll actually have a competitive edge in the browser wars, however briefly... on Windows 10, anyway.

Users fix Windows 7 & 8.1 updates again, after Microsoft deliberately breaks them [UPDATED!]

In the absence of TRON, it seems the users can, and will, fight for themselves.

From BleepingComputer:

GitHub user Zeffy has created a patch that removes a limitation that Microsoft imposed on users of 7th generation processors, a limit that prevents users from receiving Windows updates if they still use Windows 7 and 8.1.

This limitation was delivered through Windows Update KB4012218 (March 2017 Patch Tuesday) and has made many owners of Intel Kaby Lake and AMD Bristol Ridge CPUs very angry last week, as they weren't able to install any Windows updates.

[...] When the April 2017 Patch Tuesday came around last week, GitHub user Zeffy finally had the chance to test four batch scripts he created in March, after the release of KB4012218.

His scripts worked as intended by patching Windows DLL files, skipping the CPU version check, and delivering updates to Windows 7 and 8.1 computers running 7th generation CPUs.

Huzzah! Now users of PCs with 7th generation processors can run whatever software they fucking well please on them, which is as it should be. Microsoft does not have the right to tell you how you'll use the PCs that you own, and the fact that they've now failed to do so gives me feelings of satisfaction.

My hat is off to you, Zeffy! Today, you are a hero.

UPDATE!

It looks like this development is starting to gain some more much-deserved attention, like this piece from ExtremeTech:

It should be hard for Microsoft to make any more mistakes with its Windows 10 push, but it keeps finding new ways. After nagging everyone incessantly about upgrading, updating computers without asking, and making Windows 10 patches mandatory, Microsoft has started disallowing Windows 7 and 8.1 updates on machines running the latest hardware. One developer has had enough, and is releasing a patch to help users get around this artificial blockade.

The unofficial patch from a developer calling him or herself ‘Zeffy’ on GitHub targets those running very new CPUs on older versions of Windows. Windows 7 and 8 are still supported with updates, but Microsoft has started blocking non-security updates for systems that run Intel 7th-Generation Kaby Lake processors, AMD “Bristol Ridge” Rizen chips, or the Qualcomm 8996 (Snapdragon 820 and 821) SoC.

[...] The Zeffy patch goes after a change Microsoft introduced in March that identifies the system’s CPU. As the changelog explained at the time, the patch “Enabled detection of processor generation and hardware support when PC tries to scan or download updates through Windows Update.” Zeffy is very clear on his dislike for Windows 10 when he calls this “essentially a giant middle finger to anyone who dare not ‘upgrade’ to the steaming pile of garbage known as Windows 10.”

Well said, Zeffy. Well said.

PC sales up slightly... because of Chromebooks?

This is a surprise on a couple of levels. From The Verge:

Microsoft might have more reason to be scared of Chromebooks these days. While the software giant was spooked by Google’s low-cost laptops three years ago, they’ve mostly only been selling well to schools. That appears to have changed over the past year. Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US last year, and now they appear to be contributing to overall PC market growth.

IDC claims the PC market is “up slightly,” recording its first growth in five years. It’s a tiny growth of just 0.6 percent, but it’s a flattening of the market that Microsoft and its PC maker partners have been looking for after years of decline. While percentage growth looks good on paper, it doesn’t always tell the whole story.

Over at Gartner, another market research firm that tracks PC sales, the story is a little different. Gartner claims PC shipments declined 2.4 percent in the recent quarter. There’s a good reason for the disparity between IDC and Gartner’s figures, and it involves Chromebooks. IDC's data includes Chromebooks and excludes Windows tablets, even machines with a detachable keyboard like the Surface Pro. Gartner counts Windows-based tablets as PCs and excludes Chromebooks or any non-Windows-based tablets.

Considering that 2-in-1's like the Surface were being touted as a sales success not that long ago, it's something of a surprise that adding their sales numbers to those of desktop and laptop PCs isn't enough to reverse the PC sales slump; apparently 2-in-1's are only selling well when compared to standalone tablets, which continue to slip.

It's also a surprise that Chromebook sales are suddenly booming, in spite of the fact that almost nobody in the tech press has paid Chromebooks any significant amount of attention until five minutes ago -- Gartner still refuses to track them as PCs. I'll admit to being quietly surprised to learn, a few months ago, that Chromebooks were winning the education market, and I'm gobsmacked to learn that they're now catching on with businesses, too, according to The Verge piece:

Without IDC providing the exact split of Chromebooks sold vs. Windows- and macOS-based machines, it’s impossible to know exactly how well Google’s low-cost laptops are selling. However, IDC also claims that Chromebooks are doing well with businesses. The US commercial PC market “came out strong mostly backed by growth of Chromebooks,” says IDC. Gartner has no opinion on Chromebooks as the company refuses to track them as PCs.

It does help make sense of Microsoft's recent move to this low-cost computer market with their new Windows 10 "Cloudbook," however. From VentureBeat:

In a few weeks, at its education-oriented software and hardware event in New York, Microsoft could unveil a sub-premium laptop — something more robust than a Surface but not as fancy as a Surface Book.

And rather than run good old Windows 10, the new product could run something called Windows 10 Cloud, which reportedly will only be able to run apps that you can find in the Windows Store, unless you change a certain preference in Settings.

The idea is that this will keep your device more secure. However, that does mean you won’t be able to use certain apps that aren’t in the Store — like Steam — on a Windows 10 Cloud device, such as the rumored CloudBook.

This concept might sound familiar. You may be reminded of the original Surface tablet running Windows RT, for which Microsoft ultimately took a $900 million write-down. Older Windows apps wouldn’t work on the thing.

This is perhaps the least surprising part of this developing Chromebook vs. Cloudbook death-match: that Microsoft has learned nothing from the failure of Windows RT, and is still trying to find a way to monopolize software distribution on some segment of the PC market, even if it means undercutting the single biggest competitive advantage that PCs have. 

In the red corner, we have Google's Chromebook, which is thriving in spite of a complete absence of hype, apparently because Google has made a better mousetrap: a good-enough product at a low-enough price point that provides education and business users with enough tools to get their jobs done, all without coming laden with a ton of anti-consumer, monopolistic bullshit.

And in the blue corner, we have Microsoft's Cloudbook, which is apparently a retread of the failed Surface RT, complete with a crippled OS that blocks the use of the huge library of Windows software which forms the reason that most Windows users use Windows for, locking it instead to the broken Windows Store that Microsoft still can't convince developers to develop for, or users to use (although they are planning to add Steam-style refunds, so there's that). 

Fight! And may the best 'book win.

How to kill a golden goose, the Blizzard way

A while back, I deleted my Battle.Net account, and all my Blizzard game licenses with it. I was done with Blizzard's bullshit, and had no intention of ever going back, and certainly no intention of ever spending money on another Blizzard product. There was still one Blizzard game that I kept an eye on, though, one game which looked to be something that might potentially lure even a die-hard downer like me back into Blizzard's orbit.

That game, of course, was Hearthstone.

Free to play, or at least free to try, Hearthstone was a real departure from the rest of Blizzard's stable of games. While their other franchises seemed to be locked into the AAA death spiral of searching for new ways to extract increasing amounts of revenue from diminishing player bases, the Hearthstone team seemed to be keenly aware that a game like theirs can only thrive if it keeps attracting new players. The Whispers of the Old Gods expansion, in particular, gave every player at least one of the set's fun legendary cards to play with, along with a handful of essential support cards for that legendary, and then strung together a series of "free pack" reward quests for those players who actually decided to play the game afterwards. And it was fun, like really fun; fun enough that I actually bought a few Hearthstone packs just to show my appreciation.

That was before I deleted my account information, of course, but I'll admit that I kept an eye on Hearthstone anyway, just to see if Blizzard managed to keep it on this same course. Maybe, I thought, they'll convince me to buy back in, at least for this one game.

I needn't have bothered, though, because Blizzard have done nothing since WotOG that hasn't served to screw up the new player experience. And results have been predictable; the game's active player population has dropped sharply, fewer new players are entering the community, and the players who are still around are spending less. F2P games like Hearthstone really do need to keep luring in new players; Hearthstone isn't doing that anymore, and revenues are down as a result.

Blizzard's solution? Why, to make it even harder for new players to get into the game, of course. How AAA of them!

From The Independent:

With Journey to Un’Goro, Blizzard has released their first back-to-back Expansion. Importantly, this happened following a price hike as well, two packs previously costing £1.99 as opposed to £2.99. These two factors have led to outrage among Hearthstone fans.

A price hike was always going to cause issues; who wants to spend more money on the same product? Releasing back-to-back expansions is a less obvious problem, but something that has affected players quite deeply. For an extended period of time, we’ve been purchasing packs with no guarantee of a card they actually want. Adventures gave stability — core cards every player could use — and often form deck archetypes.

[...] Singular cards have never dominated deck archetypes as heavily as with the introduction of Legendary Quests, a new card-type singular to Un’Goro. These cards require you to build decks around them and will no doubt help define this year’s meta. However, to gain a Quest — like with all Legendaries — you need to be very lucky with your card openings, spending huge amounts of money.

The argument can be made that Hearthstone requires you to eventually earn these cards as time goes on. But, considering there are nine of these Quests, and each is basically a requirement for the majority of new deck archetypes, these have become almost essential additions to your collection.

By introducing so many Legendary-but-pretty-much-necessary cards, Hearthstone now commands you spend your savings to make the most of the game. We’re not even talking about £49.99 you would spend on an AAA game — that would likely only get you one of the Quests. Plus, in four months when another expansion is released, you’ll need to spend the same amount again to stay on top.

These Quests should probably been released differently. Perhaps through an Adventure-like system where you complete challenges to win them, therefore not forcing your wallet to empty itself unnecessarily. Whatever the case, Hearthstone currently feels like a huge cash grab when it hasn’t before, and that’s putting off casual players like me.

This is looking more and more like the consensus opinion, too. Take Polygon:

WHY SO STINGY, BLIZZARD?

While the issue of quests is specific to the Journey to Un’Goro expansion, the question of how much value packs provide (and how frequently) is a much bigger question that players have struggled with for a long time now.

Popular Hearthstone streamer Kripparian lays out the problems elegantly in the video above [link]. He makes a living off of playing and making videos about this game. He played Journey to Un’Goro for 17 hours on the day it launched and opened over 1,100 packs on stream, so obviously he’s not concerned about missing cards.

But Kripp also plays others digital cards games, and he’s noticed a clear trend: Every other major digital card game is much more willing to provide players with free packs, doling them out as daily login rewards, event celebrations or as a gift for even the briefest of server problems.

Blizzard, by comparison, is downright miserly. When the developer announced the details of Hearthstone entering the Year of the Mammoth, I praised the news that the game would implement daily login rewards for the first time ever. In addition to the regular quest rewards, players could get gold, dust and even full packs just for logging in each day.

It was a big, smart step forward for the game. Unfortunately, it was also short-lived. The login rewards were only offered for a couple of weeks, as part of the celebration of the Year of the Mammoth beginning. As of the launch of Journey to Un’Goro, they are no longer in the game.

There’s no easy fix to the issues Hearthstone is facing, but I have no doubt that Blizzard needs to fix them. The game certainly isn’t at any immediate risk of failing. As of last year, it had reached a milestone of 50 million players. But to keep that number climbing, it needs to pull in new players.

Some people have pretty definite ideas on how Blizzard can fix some of these issues, and do so pretty much immediately -- por ejemplo, Paul Tassi at Forbes:

'Hearthstone' Should Dump 50 Free Un'goro Packs On Every Player (Seriously)

I’ve been thinking a lot about Hearthstone this week in the wake of the Un’goro expansion. It’s a game that I’ve sunk a lot of time and money into, with more hours played than anything else in my library other than say, Destiny or Diablo 3 these past few years.

Yet it’s hard to feel like the game isn’t in a bit of a downward spiral as of late. Revenue has been falling pretty sharply on mobile, and a bit on the desktop version as well, which has led Blizzard to try and extract more and more money out of Hearthstone to compensate. Now, that’s led us to a point where Adventures no longer exist, and old drop rates and duplicates now feel oppressive due to the fact that there’s an extra expansion per year, and this latest one is designed around must-have legendaries that are hard to get.

My solution? Blizzard should dump 50 free Un’goro packs on every player, full stop.

This is not me saying “Blizz messed up, give us free stuff plz.” Rather, I genuinely believe this is the kind of gesture that Blizzard needs to consider for its fans, maybe for this expansion especially, yes, but possibly for all future expansions going forward, for the sake of the overall health of the game.

For what it's worth, I think Tassi and Kripparrian are onto something, here. Rather than doing the AAA-standard thing of strangling your player base by extracting as much money as possible while giving back as little as you think you can get away with, Blizzard should really look into how much they can afford to give away, and trust that the benefits of that, in the form of new and returning players that add to the enjoyment of the game even for their regular players, and who might even spend some more money, too. Sadly, Blizzard seem to only care about pulling as much money as possible out of their remaining "whales," even if it harms the long-term prospect of the game.

I am not surprised to see Blizzard going down this road; there's a reason why I cancelled my account, after all. I have, however, still managed to be slightly disappointed. Hearthstone looks like a potentially fun game; it's a real shame that Blizzard's corporate overlords seem so intent on spoiling it. There's nothing inherently wrong with the Free2Play business model; I'm still a long-time and active Path of Exile player, after all. But there is a point at which your game stops feeling like it's F2P, and starts feeling like it's Pay2Win, and Hearthstone would seem to have strayed a long way into P2W territory, apparently with no idea how to find their way back... or any desire to do so.

GG, Blizzard. GG.

Doubling down on a losing argument

Microsoft is once again trying to make Edge relevant by bad-mouthing the competition. ZDNet has a pretty good breakdown, in a piece titled, "Windows 10: Chrome vs Firefox vs Edge. Guess which wins Microsoft's battery-life test?"

Microsoft says a PC running its Edge browser will last 77 percent longer than Firefox, and 35 percent longer than Chrome.

To prove its point, Microsoft has once again employed a time-lapse video of three unplugged Surface Books side by side streaming video for several hours with Chrome, Edge, and Firefox.

The Surface running Edge lasts 12 hours and 31 minutes, while the Chrome device peters out after nine hours and 17 minutes, with the Firefox unit lasting seven hours and four minutes.

Microsoft released similar video last June, again showing Edge outlasting its rivals, which prompted a reply from Google showing Chrome's battery improvements.

Yes, this is basically the same argument that Microsoft was making last June, to exactly zero effect on Edge's market share. Having already lost this argument once, they're now trying to win it again, apparently with zero understanding of why this pitch didn't sell Edge to users the first time around.

Listen up, Microsoft: I'm going to do you a solid here. I'm going to tell you why this sales pitch didn't work last time, and won't work now. Ready?

1. Nobody browses the Internet for 10 continuous hours. Users are doing other things with their PCs (or phones, natch) instead, most of which are way tougher on their batteries than browsing the net. If you're doing anything on a laptop for an entire work day, then you're plugging that puppy in at some point. 10 continuous hours of Internet browsing really is more than enough, for almost everyone.

2. While people don't really care about squeezing out 2 extra hours of Internet browsing from their laptops, they DO care about the features of the browser they're using. Edge has recently added some much-needed functionality with the latest update, bringing it to a point which arstechnica described as "on the edge of being good," but it's still an inferior product to both Chrome and Firefox. Two extra hours of a terrible browsing experience on an inferior browser is just not attractive to users. The market has already spoken on this one; a good experience is better than a longer experience, especially when the "shorter" experience is already ten continuous hours long.

3. "Microsoft says Microsoft product is better than the competitions'" is not news. Never mind that click-hungry tech blogs have run with this story because their business models require them to publish as much content as possible, regardless of its quality; very few of them are treating this like a serious news item. Of course Microsoft's own testing shows their product outperforming the competitions' products (on a metric that the users don't care about), but users already knew that Edge gave better battery performance. They just didn't care, because Chrome has every other feature that they want in a browser, features which Edge is still trying to add in, now more than a year and a half after release.

4. Google is going to continue improving Chrome's battery performance. Saying that Chrome is a better browser because it includes the features that users want in a modern browser, while providing acceptable battery performance, is not the same as saying that Chrome is perfect. Chrome can still be improved, and Google proved themselves willing to work on improving it, in response to Microsoft's previous battery-life broadside. Not because they were losing market share, because they weren't and aren't, but because they wanted to keep winning, and saw no reason to concede any part of the field to Microsoft. They won't be resting on their laurels this time, either; expect new battery-life improvements for Chrome to be announced within a month.

There you go, Microsoft. Does that help?

Instead of slagging your competitors over a battery-life metric that the market has clearly indicated your users don't care about, maybe focus on improving the experience of using Edge. When Edge has all the features of Chrome that users care about, then the fact that it extends users' battery life slightly can start to make a difference; until then, though, publicizing these claims just make Microsoft look desperate.

Turn off all the advertising in Windows 10

From Mark Wilson at betanews:

Pretty much since the launch of Windows 10 there have been complaints about ads and usage tracking in various forms. You might think that Microsoft would listen to complaints and consider removing ads from its operating system, but in fact more and more have been added.

We've looked at the various ads (or app suggestions, app tips and so on to use Microsoft's phraseology) that have cropped up over the last couple of years, but the release of Windows 10 Creators Update seems like a good time to revisit the topic. So here, once and for all, is how to kill all the ads (or whatever you want to call them) in Windows 10.

For such a short article, the list it gives of places where Microsoft have shoe-horned in some unwanted advertising is actually somewhat impressive:

• Ads in File Explorer;
• Ads in the Start menu;
• Ads on the Lock screen;
• Ads in the Share dialog;
• And elsewhere in Windows 10 (yes, there are more). 

Click through to betanews for all the detailed instructions about where to find all the relevant settings and how to set them to turn all the advertising off.

Wilson ends his article with a plaintive, "Have we missed any?"

Yes, Mark, you probably have. 

Uninstalling OneDrive from Windows 10 just got.... easier?

Was it just last month that Microsoft was pushing OneDrive at users via carpet-bombing-style ads in Windows 10's File Explorer?

From Bleeping Computer:

Users no longer have to walk on nails and sacrifice lambs to the Microsoft deity in order to uninstall OneDrive from their PCs.

Starting with the Windows 10 Creators Update, you can now click on a button and rid yourself of OneDrive, Microsoft's in-house version of Dropbox and Google Drive.

Step 1: Press the start button, type and select: "Apps & features"

Step 2: In the Apps & features window, in the "Search this list" box type in "OneDrive"

Step 3: Select OneDrive and hit the "Uninstall" button

 

That's it! You've now got rid yourself of an app you never asked for, never wanted, but which Microsoft still shoved down your throat.

Since the launch of Windows 10 in the summer of 2015, Microsoft has made it a pain to remove OneDrive from Windows 10 computers, never providing a one-click uninstall procedure.
Users had to use all sorts of registry hacks, batch scripts, or specialized apps to uninstall OneDrive [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

Starting with Windows 10 Creators Update, Microsoft appears to have listened to its many critics and is now providing a simple method to uninstall OneDrive.

OK. I'll admit it. This... surprises me. But it's good. It's finally an actual pro-consumer move from Microsoft that doesn't appear to have happened under threat of regulatory action from the EU, or because of looming class action lawsuit troubles. Microsoft have finally, actually, really, done something good, apparently just for its own sake, and because users have been asking for it.

Well done, Microsoft. More like this, please.

Don't rush to install the Creators Update

If the disastrous rollout of the Anniversary Update didn't convince you of the need to wait a bit before adopting any brand-new Microsoft OS release, maybe InfoWorld's article will do the trick:

Microsoft says it will begin pushing out the Windows 10 Creators Update, aka version 1703, on Tuesday, April 11, to anyone who has not disabled updates. Windows Insider beta testers on the Fast Ring have had the near-final version, build 10563, since March 23, and if you know where to look (Microsoft’s Update Assistant page or, if you are registered, from the Microsoft Developers Network), you can download Windows 10 Creators Update right now.

Don’t do it.

Given Microsoft’s recent history, chances are good there will be bugs that look like the mashup of the Keystone Kops and “Godzilla 2” that was Windows Anniversary Update build 14393.222, which included freezing and randomly disconnecting hard drives, failure of a widely used webcam, strange installation bugs, and tromped-on settings. Heaven help you if you tried to plug in a Kindle: The whole PC would freeze.

The dirty secret of Microsoft’s “Windows as a service” plan is that the initial public releases are really public beta tests, meant to catch flaws that the Windows Insider beta program did not, where regular users get to experience the thrill of finding Windows bugs in real time. Microsoft officially calls this the Pilot phase of the deployment cycle [...] But it’s also misleadingly identified as Current Branch, which normal people interpret to mean “current safe version.”

That Pilot phase lasts four months. The actual safe version (well, as safe as you can get with a Windows release), is called the Current Branch for Business. [...] If you upgrade to Windows 10 Creators Update right now, you’re joining the very beginning of the bug-catching Pilot phase.

"Don't do it" seems like pretty good advice to me when it comes to Windows 10, generally, but you should definitely wait for them to squash the bugs before installing the Creators Update. If you need some pointers on how to do that, InfoWorld's article has more details.

XBox Scorpio's specs revealed! Do you give a shit?

XBox One is getting clobbered in this round of the console wars. Actually, all of the consoles are kinda getting beat by Steam, which currently boats 125+ million users who remain users even if they upgrade to new hardware, which handily beats even Sony's (2nd place) PlayStation 4. But XB One never really did recover from a terrible launch event in which Microsoft talked about nothing but TV and DRM, and was only selling half as well as PS4 when Microsoft announced that they wouldn't be announcing their console's sales numbers anymore. Ouch.

The Slim version sold slightly better, but Microsoft's hopes for maintaining a presence in the living have pretty clearly been pinned on their new Scorpio console for a while now. We've been hearing for months about how Scorpio was going to be the most powerful console ever made, but details have been sparse, and genuine hype has been hard for Microsoft to maintain. Apparently they're aware of that problem, though, so they're doing everything they can to make as big a splash as possible when Scorpio is actually rolled out, which should be any day now.

Which brings us to those specs.

The specs themselves look impressive enough... for a console. And apparently performance is also pretty good... for a console. But are the specs impressive enough, and is the performance good enough, so lure gamers away from their PS4's and Steam accounts, and back to an XBox environment which Microsoft has very strongly tied to Windows 10?

Probably not, at least according to Gizmodo:

We finally know the specs for Microsoft’s supercharged Xbox One: the Project Scorpio console. They’re impressive. The GPU has nearly four times as many compute units as the original Xbox One and the memory on the console will be 108GB/s faster than the memory in both the Xbox One S and Scorpio’s primary challenger, the PS4 Pro. On paper this thing reads like lightning.

In practice it means jack shit.

As proven in many previous console wars, specs alone aren’t enough to win the race. A system needs a lot more if it wants to unseat a challenger. According to Superdata there are twice as many PS4 consoles in the wild as Xbox One machines. A report earlier this year suggest that Sony has sold 55 million units of its next-gen console to Microsoft’s 26 million unit sales. That’s not just a win from a sales perspective. It makes it appealing for prospective console owners too. If they’re investing in a console for Overwatch or Destiny 2 or any of the other multiplayer games available (or soon to be available), then they’ll have twice as large a base of players to compete with on a PS4. Sony is winning, and it’s not just because it got its souped up console to market nearly a full year before Microsoft.

[...] This highlights Microsoft’s fundamental console problem. The company knows how to make its product shine. Beating the PS4 Pro to market with a console that doubles as a UHD Blu-ray player was smart. And announcing the specs for its new souped up challenger two months before it’s officially revealed at E3 is a great way to build hype. But all that polish on the Xbox One, One S, and Scorpio can’t cover up the console’s biggest problem—games. [...] Microsoft’s exclusive Halo and Gears of War franchises are a good draw, but they lack the allure of Sony-only blockbusters.

Sony has Naughty Dog’s excellent Uncharted 4, and the gorgeous Last of Us remake (as well as the upcoming sequel). Those aren’t just critically-acclaimed games for this console generation—they’re considered outright masterpieces. The same might be said of February’s Horizon: Zero Dawn or last year’s Bloodborne.

[...] So the great specs Microsoft announced earlier this morning? Those aren’t going to be enough to help it scramble back to the top of the console heap. But its certainly a start. Which is more than Microsoft could say yesterday.

Yes, four years after launching the XBox One, Microsoft are finally starting to actually run in the current race for console domination. Sony, meanwhile, has already lapped them, killed off Nintendo's offering the process, and is winning the sales war on VR as well (something else that Gizmodo mentions), all while making it look easy.

I have to agree with Gizmodo's take on today's Scorpio spec reveal; they're very shiny specs, but it's a little late in this race for Microsoft to be leaning on specs alone. Especially not if you're a PC gamer... which, statistically, most gamers are (125+ million Steam users, 55+ million PS4 owners... do the maths).

But don't take my word for that. From PC Gamer:

How does all of this compare to our PC platform? It's a bit apples to oranges, since we have the ability to customize all of our components. The best approximation of the performance offered by Scorpio is our budget PC build, which includes a Core i3-7100, 8GB RAM, and an RX 480 8GB graphics card. It also has a larger case, PSU, and a 500GB SSD, and it costs around $700.

[...] Put another way, the current Xbox One has hardware that looks positively pathetic in many areas. Sure, it has eight CPU cores, but each CPU is about one third the performance of a single i3 core. Eight of them working together might, maybe, match a Core i3 in a few specific workloads. The graphics meanwhile is like an HD 7770, a chip that came out in early 2012 and which would struggle with modern games.

[...] Now triple the performance of the Xbox One, and you can see how this might challenge a desktop PC for gaming prowess. It doesn't have the raw power a PC has, but it makes better use of its power.

[...] Today's top-end PC GPUs like the GTX 1080 are still much better suited to 4K gaming at high and ultra settings, and CPUs like AMD's Ryzen and Intel's Kaby Lake are much newer, more efficient architectures. If Scorpio ends up a capable 4K 60 fps gaming machine, that should only mean good things for PC gaming: we should expect all the ports from Microsoft's console to meet that standard on PC, too.

So, it's a budget PC for a budget price, meant to compete with PCs, released at a time when PC sales have been in decline for years, and that lives in your living room. You can't upgrade it, which is a bit of a bummer but not as big a deal as it would have been while Moore's Law was still driving PC upgrade cycles. It only runs Windows 10, but most PC gamers seem to be OK with that, anyway (alas). But... if your gaming PC pre-dates the Obama administration, and you're in the mood for a budget PC that will probably be good enough for your gaming needs for years to come, and have a nice, big TV to connect it to, then I guess Scorpio could be decent value. It will probably sell a few million units this year.

It's not game-changing, though, and I don't think that Sony need to be worried. Kudos to Microsoft for not giving up, but I doubt that this is going to move the market in any major way.