Mark my words: Windows will become a Linux distro that includes a good compatibility layer that people will take advantage of in other distros, and this will mark the year of the GNU + Linux desktop
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Yeah that's not going to happen.
However, I think Windows will become more and more tied to the Microsoft cloud offerings.
Very much this. I can see one potential future Microsoft product being something that is to be installed on a thin client PC sold to consumers for cheap. It will run not much more than a browser in which all apps will load from Microsoft servers, and all storage will be on the Microsoft cloud. And if you miss a monthly payment they'll basically hold all your files for ransom until you start paying again.
I can practically hear the Microsoft execs making some very unsavoury noises about that idea.
As for (admittedly somewhat weak) proof they're headed in this direction: Wordpad is a useful small program that would easily fit onto a thin client and there'd be room for documents created by it on the limited storage available. It has to have some storage for browser cache after all.
Wordpad was recently cancelled, and users urged to use Word instead. Which is not free of (further) cost like Wordpad was.
Imagine having to PAY to write some prettified text. Killing off some basic and essential software that literally every operating system has seems like such a smart move towards OS dominance /s
Windows Chromebook
Edgebook
That's not too far from Windows S edition. That more closely mimics the smartphone model, but still allows the Windows app store.
Wordpad is much more easily explained: They don't want to maintain it anymore, since that costs money. It was also cannibalizing sales of Word, and often left users frustrated. Frankly, it's weird that they maintained it as long as they did.
Now, solitaire becoming a subscription, that's a blatant cash grab.
They could have just renamed it. Wordpad's Win3.11 predecessor was called "Write", for example, so that name could have been revived.
For a long time, write.exe still existed and all it did was launch Wordpad, so they'd only have to reverse that.
They could also have chosen another name entirely. Or, since they've recently added a bunch of unnecessary crap to Notepad, they might as well have merged the two.
"Confusion" is merely an excuse.
I never said confusion, nor did I say it had anything to do with the name. WordPad development takes time and money with minimal return. It also provides a very minimal subset of the capabilities of Word. People expecting Word capabilities are frustrated by the limitations of WordPad, and are actually happier being told it's simply not available without additional purchase.
It's a rich text box with a few controls to enable or disable those features at certain points in the text. The whole thing was entirely built from components used elsewhere in the OS, or at least the earlier versions were. One competent employee could manage it in an afternoon; a week at the outside. If Microsoft has let it get so ridiculously bloated that it's now unmanageable by one person, that's on them.
I never said confusion
People expecting Word capabilities
Now, why would they expect that?
See also: Java and JavaScript.
Truly feel the ultimate goal is to make Windows itself a subscription model
Windows will become more and more tied to the Microsoft cloud offerings.
imagine spending thousand of dollars on hardware only to have dependencies in NSA data center for your own safety, of course
Windows subsystem for copilot