<p> <i> 15.53 pm </i>

Windows 10: Looks good, but Microsoft mum on some issues

Joe Belfiore,
Microsoft’s corporate vice president of the operating systems group,
 demonstrates new features of Windows 10,
the latest version of the company’s flagship operating system.

There’s a lot to like about Windows 10, the next version of Microsoft’s flagship operating system. But the tech giant has also worryingly left unanswered a lot of important questions about the software.

At an event at its Redmond, Wash., headquarters last month, Microsoft gave developers and the press the latest peek at Windows 10. I’ve not yet tested the software, but from what I’ve read and seen from the webcast of the event, the new operating system appears to address many of the worst flaws in its predecessor, Windows 8. It also offers a bunch of cool and innovative features, such as a Siri-like personal assistant that will work on your desktop computer, the ability to stream Xbox games to your PC, and support for HoloLens, a new kind of computerized eyewear.

Best of all, Microsoft will be offering it as a free upgrade to many existing Windows users and will continue to upgrade the software to those users at no additional cost.

But I was troubled by some of the things that Microsoft didn’t fully discuss. Most notably, the company envisions transforming Windows from a piece of software that receives major, but infrequent, updates into something that resembles a Web service such as Gmail or Facebook that sees much more frequent incremental changes. But it’s not clear at all how that will work in practice or how much control consumers will have over the updates.

For all of us who stuck with Windows XP or Windows 7 instead of upgrading to Windows Vista or Windows 8, that’s an important detail to know.

Microsoft gave consumers their first glance of Windows 10 last spring and has gradually revealed more details during the past nine months. It’s clear that the design of the software is in part a reaction to the widely negative response to Windows 8.

As the company has shown before, Windows 10 will bring back a version of the traditional Start menu. It also will be much more flexible than its predecessor, adapting to how users are interacting with it. Unlike Windows 8, the new software will recognize whether consumers are using a touch-screen or a keyboard and will give them the choice of which mode to use.

Microsoft is also finally developing a version of its Office apps for touch-screen Windows tablets, which will allow users of such devices to avoid having to delve into the old desktop.

But as much as I like what Microsoft has done with Windows 10, I’m worried about some of the things it didn’t say about it. For example, Microsoft said that certain existing “qualified” Windows users will be able to upgrade for free to the new software. But it didn’t define who exactly would be qualified or eligible for the update. Some Windows users clearly will be left out; on a blog post, the company noted that “some editions” of Windows would be excluded from the upgrade offer and that it would set as-yet-undefined hardware and software requirements.

What’s more disconcerting is how the company will update Windows 10 after users install the software. Company officials painted a vision for the software where updates would happen in the background, automatically, and no one would worry anymore about which version they were running because everyone would be on the latest iteration.

That vision is undeniably attractive for Microsoft and software developers; it means they’d have to support far fewer versions of Windows. But it’s unnerving for a lot of us end users, because Microsoft has a poor track record of upgrading its operating systems. Two of its last three major updates — Vista and Windows 8 — were largely rejected by consumers because of their flaws. Windows XP eventually became a solid operating system, but it didn’t start that way — Microsoft had to issue three big updates to fix numerous bugs and close major security holes.

Because of such issues, experts often advise waiting to update software until the bugs are identified and addressed. But if Microsoft’s vision for Windows 10 comes to pass, consumers might not have that choice. They might get the updates whether they want them or not.

So, as good as Windows 10 sounds, I’m wary of it nonetheless. Upgrading to Windows 10 might be great in the short term, but it also could mean getting involuntarily stuck with another Vista somewhere down the line.</p>