and we get whatever sticks.

If this interview is not a wakeup call for all IT managers then... You have been warned. With the threat of W12 on the horizon there has never been a better time to re-examine their IT strategy.

Windows is not the answer to anything these days. They shit on the shovel with W8 and still haven't learned.

Will be sticking with Linux as the OS on bare metal and Windows in a VM.

It's like they did a global survey of Windows users and asked them what they really didn't want, under any circumstances, even for free. That list would have been Recall, Pervasive AI, higher hardware requirements, enforced updates, voice input and pen input. And off they went, adding them all in. If W11 wasn't enough to make you stick with LTSC or switch to Linux, this promise of worse to come, should be.

How about an OS without all the extra unnecessary guff that is forced on us just now. If you can do all the voice etc while it is offline and not being data mined and monitored that would be good.

Oh and MS.you can stick Copilot and any other AI where the sun don't shine, and get the bugs gone!

And I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake, and the sun became as black as sackcloth, and Windows became a promotional toy to sell Microsoft's AI...

Is there really no limit to their arrogance? Guess not.

I am done with Microsoft's "OS". They're as delusional and psychotically destructive as the Gnome team with their non-customizable desktop. Shoving theoretical CRAP no one wants down everyone's throat, especially the "AI" nonsense in Microsquishy's case. Soft in the head they are...

Throughout the history of computing we see newbies coming along and reinventing the stuff that a previous generation already tried and dumped because it didn't work.

What's that old saw about people who don't learn from history being doomed to repeat it?

I have a better one: "The one thing we learned from history is that we do not learn from history." - Georg Hegel 19th century.

Microsoft has always been totally disconnected from reality and when they hear a buzzword, they fall for it in the biggest possible way.

Windows 8 was an OS for tablets, the future of computing, and Windows 12 will be an AI front end. Because that's what the market wants according to their understanding of what people do with computers, and Microsoft want to be the first to offer it...

Because of course everybody has the time to sit around and chat endlessly with that wonderful, non-confrontational AI which clearly likes you, really: At least somebody who understands you and values you--Who cares about getting things done?

Shout's in loud voice in open plan office: "FORMAT C DRIVE".

"Sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that..."

Just call the bloody thing CopilotOS and save the marketing money.

Sorry but Keyboard/Mouse interface aren't going to be replaced by "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that" because life isn't an R&D lab. My work lappy is a hybrid touch screen laptop and very heavy "tablet" if you do the screen 360 flip thing. My previous laptop was the same. I have remembered that I could do touch things on the screen fewer times than I can count on my toes and I have the regulation 10 of those.

Windows RT is not a thing (and never really was) for a very good reason. As one commentard has already mentioned "those that cannot remember the past..." well they'll actually probably purchase a 3 year ESA and tell the C-suite that "We got that AI you wanted"

"Recovery" can't come soon enough.

> Keyboard/Mouse interface aren't going to be replaced by "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that" because life isn't an R&D lab

You already said that back in Windows 8. Did they listen? Did they?...

Why would they do it now. Everybody is hyping AI, it is impossible they could be all wrong, isn't it? Microsoft knows they are right, and billion $ of profit are just a little effort away.

Exactly the same scenario when they thought tablets would replace all other computer form factors (except maybe some servers) a decade ago.

Where to begin?

Never mind, It's pointless anyway. Linux already exists.

It's like there's a book within M$ to see what utter dumbfuck ideas Satya will get shown and run with. Imagine the conversations:

"Bet you twenty dollars we can show him a re-skinned Windows 8 and he'll love it. Especially if we jazz it up with Copilot stuff and a voice command interface."

... they can't become the main input means.

The Metro interface and pen input worked well on Surfaces - because they can be used as tablets. Pen input on a vertical (or quasi-vertical) large monitor is useless. Touch almost as well (and you have to clean your monitor far more often). And I do use a Wacom tablet with Lightroom and Photoshop - but it is flat besides or in front of me, not a vertical surface 40 cm away from me. And it pens does not need recharging. While on travel the Surface and its pen are OK for photo editing in tablet mode, or when using a mouse is impossible, for example when it is mounted on my tripod. But these are special cases - and Wndows 10/11 are far worse than 8 in such cases. Still MS has to decide what system factors Windows targets, and which is the best UI/UIX on EACH of them.

Fairly improved voice recognition would be welcome in games - I'd like in Flight Simulator being able to talk to an AI ATC without being forced to use exact sentences (although ATC jargon is already made of specific standard sentences, but some variation can be accepted anyway). It might be occasionally useful at home, or in spaces where you're alone. Of course it would be good for people who can't interact with a PC normally.

Anyway Microsoft is not really interested in a desktop system today. Nadella wants people in Azure, it's easier to make money there. Thereby, Davuluri is not probably the righ person to turn the tide back, agains the wishes of his CEO.

I agree tablets work well using pens or fingers (you don't have a choice anyway), and some games might profit from voice input. The problem is, that about wraps the use cases in which voice and fingers are superior to a keyboard + mouse.

I don't see myself clicking with my finger in a minuscule cell in a huge spreadsheet on a 17" laptop screen. A mouse cursor is smaller (and more precise) than any finger out there (I also hate fingerprints on my screens with a passion).

As for trying to explain something professional to a dumb-as-rocks AI, that's aggravating enough* when you're alone, it will be hell on earth when there are a couple people working in the same space.

* Of course Microsoft assumes "work" consists solely of asking to be shown a good restaurant in the vicinity, which is easy to parse.

IMHO it's an attempt to bring back the Win8 tablet GUI, but this time married with an AI. AI means you don't need a keyboard or mouse anymore, you just need to be able to tell the AI how it can make you happy.

Also, my keyboard is *here*, my screen is *over* *there*. I'm not a fecking orangutang.

Oook.

“I think we will see computing become more ambient….”

“more pervasive”

“continue to span form factors”

“more multimodal in the arc of time."

Is this guy serious? FFS

No

No, he's in marketing. You can tell by the lack of actual content in the sentences.

It's a sad day when people like that earn a wage for a tech company. They should be doing something useful, standing at the front of a supermarket handing out baskets or something.

So, a solution to the longstanding inconsistency of the legacy control panels has finally defeated whatever human resources are still committed to Windows development? What could be more reassuring?

...how completely out of touch they are.

Can we get all the tech bros and most of the world leaders together in Davos and then just nuke the place? Several times, just in case.

Windows 8 is that you?! AWAY FOUL BEAST!

I mean seriously why are they running this back? It was a bad idea the first time they did it and it's a worse idea now. They don't have the reminder of Windows 7 being decent to placate people, just the annoyance of Windows 11 and the death of 10.

That it, save you the trouble of watching the video.. Windows setting is shite, in future it will be slightly less shite.

I've used and developed with every version of Windows from Windows 1.0 to 11, not because I like it, but because it's like a toilet: functional. Like most people, I tolerated rather than welcomed every change since Windows NT4 thirty years ago. The passage of time has proved one thing: Microsoft has almost northing to contribute to man-machine-interfaces, they should stop pretending.

> Microsoft has almost northing to contribute to man-machine-interfaces, they should stop pretending.

Not true! They made a pretty good mouse.

Shout-out for the [1]MS Internet Keyboard Pro (from circa '99) on which I am typing this comment. Bullet-proof and very comfortable to use. And now old enough [2]to rent a car, and soon, run for Senate .

[1] http://www.activewin.com/reviews/hardware/keyboards/ms/ipro/index.shtml

[2] https://xkcd.com/2661

So the Windows Experience is progressing onward. Enema, then colonoscopy. Next it will be offering to perform an AI-guided vasectomy.

Imagine being on a long-haul flight and having to scream at your laptop to stop opening Microsoft Edge by itself.

Douglas Adams already covered this in HHGTTG with the Genuine People Personalities. I can see in the near future that every PC will become a Marvin explaining at length why your request is not only incorrect but is also not worth spending even a few cycles considering. At which point a chirpy Eddie comes along to jolly along the situation

His observation on gesture control systems - essentially, that Zaphod could control his radio by gesturing, but as a result had to sit very very still to avoid unwanted station-skipping - was also prescient.

Truly, he was a prophet and taken from us far too soon.

That's not a pint of beer, it's a draught Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.

"That's not a pint of beer, it's a draught Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster."

Oh Zarquon, having PGGB on tap is a really bad idea. Taxes would treble to pay for all of the rehabilitation centers required.

Cheers,

thump.

From the floor: "Where did that lemony gold brick wind up?"

Whenever I talk about the guy I always refer to him as "The Great Philosopher Douglas Adams".

But "Phrophet" can very well be substituted.

The vast majority of people consume content rather than create it. That includes work documents. Consumers can be very delighted with a UI that caters to consumption. Creators would like the UI to get the hell out of the way so they can get work done. One day, and I'm not hopeful, M$ should come to the understanding that if they don't have an OS that serves business, business will go looking elsewhere. Large companies don't want "ambient", they want quarterly profits (and bonuses, stock options, that sort of thing).

With as long as ubiquitous computing has been around now, maybe there needs to be a split between the toys and the tools. A one OS to rule them all is getting too hard to balance for the majority of users on one side and the majority of buyers on the other.

That's been exactly my thoughts in recent years with Zoom. I had to kill a Zoom session earlier today, because what they label "Share Screen" is not "share" screen, it's "bully your way ont everybody else's screen and take it over and convert it into a TV set". Zoom forces you to sit like good little kiddies at a presentation, it actively goes out of its way to prevent you actually getting any work done while Zoom is fecking your computer.

"Here I'm going to need a routine to do X, any advice?"

"Give my my fecking computer back so I can actually use it to actually engage with the fecking meeting and answer your fecking questions!"

More and more it seems like Microsoft execs are like the 1960s tobacco execs. "We don’t smoke that shit. We just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor, the black and stupid."

I can usually find something hopefully witty to say around here but this leaves me hanging.

What are they fundamentally trying to achieve.

Their target age-group for the OS appears to be pre-schoolers.