Microsoft changes the deal

XBox Game Pass, already not the best deal in gaming, has just become a worse deal. As reported by Polygon:

Microsoft has announced sweeping changes to the pricing and structure of its Game Pass subscription service. There are price rises across the board; Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is going up to $19.99/month, an increase of $3. And the basic console tier is to be phased out and replaced with a new Xbox Game Pass Standard tier that will not include day one releases like the forthcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.

The changes were reported by Windows Central and confirmed by Microsoft on an official Xbox support page.

[...]

Death Watch 2024, Continued -- Embracer Group will cease to exist, and XBox (!) is starting to spiral

About five months ago, Dan Olson AKA @foldablehuman AKA Folding Ideas, posted a two-and-a-half hour video about the meme stock movement with the catchy title, "This Is Financial Advice." I won't try to recap the entire thing (although you should definitely watch it if you haven't), but I do want to draw attention to the portion about Bed Bath and Beyond's desperate last-ditch attempt to stay afloat: a financing arrangement known as "death spiral financing."

Very quickly, the arrangement involves a company with more debt than they can repay, not enough revenue to meet operating expenses, and no fat remaining to trim from their operation. This company, BBBY, accepted a financing deal from a private equity firm, with the understanding that they would release shares to the market in order to raise the funds needed to repay them.

The simple fact of such a deal is enough to drive down share prices on its own, and a flood of new shares will also depress the share value, which means that the number of shares needed to repay their PE financiers keeps increasing, in an ever-increasing spiral of share dilution and devaluation that ultimately failed to repay all of their debts, let alone raise enough money to continue operating.

BBBY was forced to file for bankruptcy, was de-listed from NYSE and NASDAQ, and no longer exists. And this was the model that immediately came to mind when I learned of Embracer Group's latest galaxy-brained plan to save themselves from a very similar situation, using a very similar-sounding financing scheme.

Here's another pernicious thing about Windows 11

I just came across this gem from Joel Hruska at ExtremeTech, and had to share it:

I Will Never Use a Microsoft Account to Log Into My Own PC

Preach, Brother!

His reasons cover the entire gamut, beginning with the fact that Windows 11's new online and account requirements literally make it harder to him to do his job, and progressing to the fairly fundamental point that his PC is not, in fact, the internet:

To me, my PC and “the internet” are two entirely different things. I connect to the latter to download files, read news, and watch content, but it is not the totality of my personal computer. Using an online account to log into my personal PC breaches the distinction between the two. Weird as it is — because I’m willing to admit this is a personal oddity — I find that distinction matters to me. It actually matters a lot. I don’t want my local Windows account to be synonymous with an online login.

But that's not the biggest reason why Hruska is digging in his heels about this. No, the biggest reason, the real deal breaker, is simply that Microsoft keep trying to force the issue.

My problem with Microsoft and non-local accounts is this: Since the introduction of Windows 10, Microsoft has pulled every dirty trick in the book. It has obfuscated the ability to create a local account by hiding it in unclear language. It has deployed installers that hid the option to create a local account unless you were offline when you ran setup. It has deployed “Get Windows 10” tools that were so aggressive, they acted more like malware than a product built by a Fortune 500 company.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...

Do you remember when Microsoft's vision for Windows 10 involved blocking normal program installation by default? When they had to make a big deal of the ability for users to enable "side loading," as if it was some sort of fucking gift that Microsoft were giving us out of the goodness of their hearts, rather than because Windows Store was a wasteland of shit that consumers wanted no part of?

They didn't stay backed down for long, though. It was only six months later that they were announcing Windows 10 S, a gimped version of the OS which didn't even allow the option of turning side-loading on unless you paid to upgrade from WX S to WX Pro. They ended up making upgrades free for the rest of 2017, because the Windows (later Microsoft) Store was still a wasteland of shit that consumers wanted no part of. Oh, and WX S was also unusably bad, because there were no apps for fucking thing.

Well, it turns out Microsoft still isn't done trying to force Windows users onto their horrible, horrible digital storefront for fucking everything, because they're trying yet again to do exactly that. Just, you know, not with people who've already switched over. No, it's only new WX users who'll get fucked.

From Tech Republic:

Windows 10: Get ready for more PCs that only run Microsoft Store apps by default

Microsoft is planning to update all versions of Windows 10 to incorporate S Mode, which will limit the machine to only installing apps from the Microsoft Store, according to a leaked roadmap.

Because of course they are. This has always been the plan.

Microsoft gutting Windows 10's Pro version to make their Advanced User version

Remember that "advanced user" version of Windows 10, that was first rumoured back in June and finally confirmed earlier this month? The one that people were calling a cynical cash grab, because it just didn't include enough extra functionality to justify its separate SKU, or its higher price point? Well, it would appear that Microsoft heard those criticisms, and took them to heart, because they're now cutting functionality from Windows 10's less-expensive Pro version in order to create a clearer distinction between Pro and Pro for Workstations.

It looks like Brad Sams at Petri.com was the first to report on this revoltin' development:

Tell me if you have heard this one before, Microsoft is cutting features from Windows 10 Pro to push you towards a higher-priced version of Windows 10. As of August 17th, Microsoft has quietly updated the list of features that are being removed or deprecated in the Fall Creators update and this will impact Pro users.

On August 17th, Microsoft added to its technical document that details what features will be removed or deprecated with the Fall Creators Update to include that the creation of ReFS drives is no longer supported in Windows 10 Pro. To get this feature, you must be on Enterprise or Windows 10 Pro Advanced Workstations; both SKUs are more expensive than Pro.

[...]

Using this type of feature is for advanced users and likely won’t impact too many users of Pro but it’s the fact that Microsoft has no problems cutting features from this SKU that is more alarming. Microsoft has already trimmed down Pro to force more users to Enterprise in the past and with this removal, they are once again trying to force users into higher priced iterations of the OS.

[...]

The question becomes how much further is Microsoft going to cut back on Pro to force users to the Enterprise SKU? It is well-known that Microsoft wants every business to be running Enterprise iteration of Windows 10 but that some have managed to use Windows 10 Pro to save a few dollars. With cuts like this and the few that were made last year, Microsoft is slowly tightening down on premium grade business features in its lower priced OS.

This, my friends, truly is some bullshit. Not that Darth Microsoft altering the deal is anything new, but even for them, this is a whole new level.

Remember, Microsoft has been pushing Windows 10 Pro from the very beginning, and many fairly advanced users have already paid for the older, now-lesser, "semi-Pro" version, in some cases because it included ReFS. While I'm sure those users' existing installations and and already-formatted volumes will be unaffected, the fact that Microsoft is now demanding extra from them in order to continue using a feature that they already fucking paid for is beyond the pale... and yet, it's also totally Microsoft.

(Oh, about those existing installations? How would you rate the odds of an advanced user wanting to do a clean install of the OS every once in a while? My guess is those are some damned good odds. ♫Bye-bye♫, existing installation...)

Cutting features from a product service package that people have been buying since 2015 in order to sell those same people another, more expensive package containing exactly the same shit, is just.... well, shit, and every customer that Microsoft is screwing over this way should receive a full refund, from Microsoft, no questions asked. In fact, Microsoft should do away with the low-rent "semi-Pro" (and yes, I'm going to call it that for the rest of time, now) licence entirely, and just upgrade Home users to the (now reduced) Pro functionality for free... especially since they're doing exactly that free version upgrade for people who actually buy systems with Windows 10 S installed.

Expect yet another cluster of class action to emerge from the market in response to Microsoft's latest anti-consumer fuckery. Seriously, who in Redmond thought that this was good idea?

Windows 10 will now require up-to-date hardware

Just in case you thought Microsoft's "Clover Trail" Atom debacle was some kind of aberration, Microsoft have now made it official: if they don't feel your hardware, you won't get any more Windows 10 updates. Period.

From Gordon Kelly at Forbes:

Right now Windows 10 is undergoing a massive upgrade to the so-called ‘Creators Update’. But suddenly Microsoft has confirmed millions of Windows 10 users will never get it…

Speaking to PC World, Microsoft said that despite pledging Windows 10 feature updates until October 13th 2020, this will now depend on users running relatively modern hardware. In short: if a manufacturer stops supporting your hardware at any point then Microsoft may not longer upgrade your version of Windows 10.

“Recognizing that a combination of hardware, driver and firmware support is required to have a good Windows 10 experience, we updated our support lifecycle policy to align with the hardware support period for a given device,” Microsoft said in a statement.

“If a hardware partner stops supporting a given device or one of its key components and stops providing driver updates, firmware updates, or fixes, it may mean that device will not be able to properly run a future Windows 10 feature update.”

And the result of a device or component no longer being supported is severe. When updating users will simply receive the message: “Windows 10 is no longer supported on this PC”.

And to make matters worse, at present Windows 10 will not tell users which piece of hardware is responsible for the cancellation. A user will have to check every part of their PC, from the processor and RAM to the hard drive, graphics and network card.

This brutal (and frankly over generalised) decision follows in the wake of Microsoft blocking Windows 10 Creators Update upgrades for computers using older Intel Atom ‘Clover Trail’ processors without warning or explanation. Conversely it also said new Intel Kaby Lake and AMD Ryzen silicon will also be made incompatible with older versions of Windows to force them onto Windows 10.

Brutal snobbery: confirmed.

Once again, Darth Microsoft is altering the deal, making Windows 10 look like an ever-less-attractive option for organizations (and individuals) who may not want to be forced to upgrade all of their hardware in order to switch to an operating system that they're not what wild about, to start with. Still, even with the banality-of-evil tone of this new announcement, something feels slightly different about this latest broken promise by the Redmond crew. Given how horrible the optics of this are, and how self-destructive this move should be to Microsoft's attempts to woo enterprise customers over to Windows 10, I have to think that this is almost entirely a cost-cutting measure.

After laying off unknown thousands of their staff, Microsoft are clearly not done cutting costs in their stagnant Windows 10 operations, as they shift focus to the Azure and other cloud services. Supporting the entire range of Windows-capable hardware wasn't luring users over to the new OS, so it makes a brutal sort of sense to stop doing that, awful PR be damned. It's possible that this was always the plan, that Microsoft never planned to continue supporting older hardware in spite of promising to do so, but it doesn't feel like that to me; it feels like Microsoft's ongoing failure to lure customers to Windows 10 is starting to stress their organization and operations, more broadly. The cracks have been slow to show, but this might be the cracks starting to show, no matter what their share price is doing on any given day.

Windows 7 & 8 now blocking older AMD processors, too, not just Ryzen.

Are we really surprised?

From InfoWorld:

I reported earlier this morning that we're seeing "Unsupported hardware" and "Windows could not search for new updates" messages from people who are running Windows 7 and 8.1 on Intel Kaby Lake and AMD Rizen-based computers. It's part of Microsoft's long-threatened ban on Win7 and 8.1 updates for newer seventh-generation processors.

Now there's a report of similar blockages on an older AMD A6-8570 processor. It isn't clear if there's a bug in the detection logic, or if Microsoft's going to block Win7 and 8.1 updates on some older sixth-generation processors.

The report comes from poster The Heretic on [H]ardForum:

Well it isn't just the Ryzen that's going to get whacked. I came into work this AM to look at one of the system's I'd re-imaged with Win7 Pro and started downloading updates to it as I left yesterday. I was greeted with Microsoft's gotcha.

The screen he posts clearly says the block took place on an AMD Pro A6-8570 system.

[...]

AMD's product page for the AMD Pro A6-8570 clearly states that this is an older, sixth-generation chip.

I know that one should always hesitate to ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence, but when you consider just how much anti-consumer bullshit Microsoft has pulled in their efforts to force Windows 7 & 8 users to switch to Windows 10, I honestly think that we can just assume that this is deliberate on Microsoft's part. AMD really did a deal with the devil, when they agreed to let Microsoft lock their silicon to the products of Microsoft's choosing, and they should really be rethinking that decision, if they're not already.

The Shilling Continues!Microsoft is now actually pre-loading unwanted apps in Windows 10, not just previewing them.

Not that long ago, Microsoft tried to convince us that blocking installation of Win32 programs was an anti-bloatware feature that they were adding to Windows 10 for users' benefit. That was, quite simply, a lie. Although many Windows users will, over time, end up installing, and then forgetting about, any number of programs, neglecting to uninstall them and thus adversely affecting system performance, that hit to performance doesn't make those programs bloatware. Programs which you choose to install are not bloatware; only software which is installed against the user's wishes can count.

And the simple reality of Windows 10 is that the single biggest source of bloatware isn't Win32 programs of any description. The single biggest source of bloatware in Windows 10 is Microsoft. And, as if to hammer this point home, they're upping the ante on this practice again.

From The Verge:

I’ve sat back and witnessed the development of Windows 10 and appreciated the speed of new feature releases, but it seems there’s a price to pay for this new “Windows as a service” world. Microsoft has gradually been infesting Windows 10 with annoying ads. The first emerged on the lock screen as “tips,” and then there was the bundling of Candy Crush with the OS, and now Microsoft has started blasting notifications into the task bar and File Explorer.

Windows 10 users have been complaining vocally in recent weeks about OneDrive notifications in the File Explorer, encouraging them to pay $6.99 for an Office 365 subscription. The task bar notifications that prompt people to switch to Edge when they use Chrome, or install Microsoft’s Personal Shopping Assistant for Chrome, have been appearing for months. Microsoft even decided to use notifications to warn Chrome users about battery drain. These types of notifications not only spoil the experience of using Windows 10’s built-in features, but they’re an annoying distraction.

Now Microsoft is planning to preload another app in Windows 10: Sling TV. While only US Windows 10 users will get Sling TV preloaded without the necessary subscription, it will sit alongside Candy Crush and Solitaire as other examples of what will soon be described as bloatware. Thankfully, it’s easy to uninstall these unnecessary apps, but that doesn’t mean Microsoft won’t add more to the mix in the future. Microsoft used to blame its OEM partners for bundling lots of useless apps on Windows PCs, but now it has itself to blame for doing the same to Windows 10.

[...]

Microsoft added a notification center to Windows 10 for a reason. If it feels the need to blast its loyal users with irritating prompts then these should be channeled into that notification center, not wedged into the File Explorer or on top of the task bar. You shouldn't have to dig deep into a settings panel to disable these; they shouldn't be there in your File Explorer in the first place. Microsoft already had to walk back its aggressive Windows 10 upgrade prompts last year, so hopefully the company will come to its senses and rethink these annoying ads and bloatware in Windows 10.

Pre-loading apps that a user has expressed no interest in, whatsoever? That's what bloatware looks like, Microsoft. Do you want to know why Windows 7 users are in no hurry to adopt Windows 10? Bullshit like this, is why.

Darth Microsoft alters the deal again

A while back, AMD and Intel made waves when they both annouced that their latest CPU chipsets (Zen and Kaby Lake, respectively) would only receive driver support for Windows 10. At the time, the speculation was that this "official" Win10 exclusivity wouldn't actually matter much, since both chipsets would probably run just fine on Windows 7 or 8.1, anway, and nobody was apparently willing to give much credence to the idea that AMD and Intel would just write off a huge chunk of their potential customer base by actively preventing users of older Windows versions from using their new chips.

People who were thinking that way, however, apparently didn't reckon with Microsoft, or with the amount of anti-consumer bullshit that Microsoft would be willing to build into its products. Because they're now actively blocking users of Windows 7 and 8.1 from using older versions of Windows on new Ryzen and Kaby Lake machines.

From PCGamesN:

It’s only frickin’ March. I find it hard to believe we haven’t even had three months of 2017 yet we’ve already seen entirely new CPU platforms from both AMD and Intel as well as a new ‘fastest graphics card ever.’ But as they announced over a year ago, Microsoft aren’t supporting the latest CPU platforms on their last-gen operating systems, suggesting anyone who wants to keep their PCs all nice and OCD updated should immediately upgrade to Windows 10.

Now that wouldn’t be a massive issue, as older operating systems were obviously not built with the intricacies of whole new chipset and CPU platforms in mind and it’s arguably more important for Microsoft to focus on ensuring good support for them with their most current OS.

All well and good. Except for the fact that reportedly AMD’s Ryzen chips seem to actually perform better on Windows 7 compared with Windows 10.

[...]

Yeah, that’s a mite awkward. But it’s okay ‘cos AMD says everything is fine, move along, nothing to see here. Windows 10 definitely isn’t having any scheduler issues with the Ryzen CCX architecture and any performance differences between the two operating systems “can be more likely attributed to software architecture differences between these OSes.”

Tom's Hardware gives more detail:

Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users with new processors who try to scan or download updates via the Windows Update tool are greeted with one of two messages. The first is straightforward: "Unsupported Hardware [...] Your PC uses a processor that isn’t supported on this version of Windows and you won’t receive updates." The second message isn't quite as clear:

Windows could not search for new updatesAn error occurred while checking for new updates for your computer.Error(s) found:Code 80240037 Windows Update encountered an unknown error.

So the company published a support article to explain that the way its new support policy was implemented means that "Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 devices that have a seventh generation or a later generation processor may no longer be able to scan or download updates through Windows Update or Microsoft Update." The company (naturally) advised users affected by this problem to upgrade from their current operating system to Windows 10.

If you planned to upgrade to Kaby Lake, AMD's Ryzen, or another new processor, then you'll also finally have to move to Windows 10. This might have been implied by Microsoft's previous statements--it has repeatedly said that Windows 10 would be the only operating system to support the new processors--but now it's clear that some people didn't get the message (hence the support article) and that "will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support" really means "you won't even be able to search for updates if you buy a new CPU without moving to Windows 10."

At this point, I just want to emphasize that this new behaviour isn't being added to Windows 10. It's being added to Windows 7 and 8, products whose users bought and paid for the software, and who never agreed to only run the OS on hardware that was approved by Microsoft.

The deal was always simple -- you owned your PC, and could install any hardware in your PC that you liked, as long as you understood that your installed hardware might not all play nicely together, either with your other hardware or with Windows itself. Once again, however, Microsoft have altered the deal, and Windows 7 and 8 users can now only run hardware that Microsoft approves in advance.

Here's a thought: if they can do this with your CPU and motherboard, then what's stopping them from doing this with your GPU, too? Want a better graphics card? Better switch to Windows 10! Any kind of hardware that Windows 7/8 can detect, which is all of it, can now cause you to simply be blocked from future updates of your supposedly-supported-until-2020 operating system, purely by Microsoft's fiat.

That, my friends, is bullshit. It shouldn't be at all surprising, of course, at least to anyone who's been watching Microsoft's behaviour over the last couple of years, but it's still bullshit. That point should not be in question.

The only real question is, "Will it work?"

So far, benchmark comparisons between Intel's new Kaby Lake processors and their older Skylake ships have shown almost identical performance between the two. Some heavily hyper-threaded applications showed significant gains, so if you're a professional videographer or YouTuber who renders hours of video as a business, Kaby Lake might be worth your while, but for all other applications, including games, you may as well stick with the PC you're already using, unless it's older than SkyLake.

AMD's Ryzen benchmarks, by comparison, have been such a hot mess that AMD had to issue disclaimers, asserting that their chips ran just fine with Windows 10, really, and weren't running unusually hot, either, regardless of what your PC's onboard temperature sensors were saying. And while Ryzen benchmarks for some heavily-hyperthreaded applications looked great, most of the benchmarks that gamers and other PC power enthusiasts really care about showed no better performance than Intel's.

This is what the end of Moore's Law looks like. PC performance seems to have plateaued, with brand-new PCs quite simply not being much of an upgrade over chipsets that are years old.

If your PC is pre-dates the Obama administration, and you're needing to upgrade because everything runs terribly, and you're wanting to stay with Windows 7 or 8.1, then you have a tough choice to make. You can buy last-gen tech and get an inexpensive system that will work perfectly well for at least a few years, but which may need replacing again in a few years' time... or you can switch to Windows 10, which you've been avoiding for a number of excellent reasons, in order to get more future-proofing, and just hope and pray that Microsoft eventually pull their heads out of their collective asses. Good luck with that.

If, however, you bought a decently powerful PC relatively recently, then you're probably good. You can stick with what's working, rather than spending money on a new PC that you don't actually need, that won't perform much better than what you're already running, and that you'll have to switch to Windows 10 to use, even though everything about Microsoft's Windows 10 strategy turns you completely off.

"Will it work?" The answer depends on how many Windows 7 and 8.1 users are genuinely happy with their machines, and the extent to which they're determined to avoid Windows 10's bullshit. Given that (a) PC sales have been trending downwards for eight years, while Android has overtaken Windows as the most-used OS on Earth thanks to its utter dominance on mobile devices, and (b) Windows 7 users, in particular have shown no desire whatsoever to switch to Windows 10, I somehow doubt that this will drive Windows 10 adoption. It could, and probably will, hurt sales of Ryzen and Kaby Lake, which makes AMD's and Intel's collusion in this scheme all the more baffling, but I don't see this actually benefitting Microsoft much at all.

So, will it work? I don't think so. In fact, I'm going to stand behind my earlier prediction, and say that Windows 10's market share will continue to tick backwards next month, both in general and among Steam users, while sales of new PCs continue to decline as Microsoft's latest anti-consumer step further depresses demand for new silicon.

Place your bets!