Microsoft's support rules for Windows 10 LTSB void allure to enterprise customers

[steven36]

Clarifications, says Gartner, bring 'restrictions and caveats' that make LTSB impossible to rely on as originally envisioned

 

 

Microsoft has largely invalidated one of Windows 10's signature concessions to corporate customers, said Gartner analysts who recommended that enterprises reconsider running the operating system's most stable and static edition.

 

"Microsoft has clarified support plans for LTSB, highlighting restrictions and caveats that could make this an unviable strategy," wrote Stephen Kleynhans and Michael Silver in a Gartner research note to clients earlier this month.

 

LTSB, or "Long-Term Servicing Branch," is one of three release tracks that enterprises can select for their Windows 10 devices. Unlike the others -- called "Current Branch" (CB) and "Current Branch for Business" (CBB) -- LTSB does not involve once- or twice-yearly upgrades that add new features and morph the user interface (UI). Instead, LTSB versions receive security updates only.

 

Microsoft conceded the need for LTSB because of corporate customer resistance to the accelerated tempo of added features, changed code and altered UI in Windows 10.

 

For their part, enterprises saw LTSB as being like decades of past Windows' editions -- including Windows 7 -- in how the new operating system would be serviced by Microsoft, and thus maintained by their IT departments

 

While Microsoft cautioned from the beginning that companies should not select LTSB for any but a small fraction of their PCs, both enterprises and analysts thought LTSB would be broadly adopted.

"Some enterprises will undoubtedly try to fall back to the LTSB because it will seem safe and familiar," Kleynhans said in a June 2015 interview.

 

The promise of LTSB was certainly alluring: Microsoft said it would support each LTSB edition for a full decade, just as it had earlier versions, Windows 7 among them, and thus require corporate customers to upgrade just once during those years.

 

But as Kleynhans and Silver pointed out, Microsoft's rules revolving around LTSB have changed, making the track less attractive.

 

The most far-reaching change was quietly revealed as the 22nd item in a long FAQ on Windows support. "Windows 10 Long Term Servicing Branches, also known as LTSBs, will support the currently released silicon at the time of release of the LTSB," the new policy stated [emphasis added].

 

"As future silicon generations are released, support will be created through future Windows 10 LTSB releases that customers can deploy for those systems."

 

The tying of support to the latest silicon -- to the current generation of processors and associated chipsets from the likes of Intel and AMD -- was broadly communicated by Microsoft in January 2016, and revised in March.

 

 

However, most of the attention paid to the unprecedented change was about how it affected those running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 on newer PCs. Even though Microsoft also said at the time that "all future silicon releases will require the latest release of Windows 10," there was no clear call-out that the same rule applied to LTSB.

 

But it did, and does. And there's the rub.

 

"Many I&O [Infrastructure & Operations] leaders expected to pick a single LTSB release that they would deploy and run for up to 10 years on all their organizations' PCs, old and new," Kleynhans and Silver said in their report. "With Microsoft's latest guidance on LTSB, this is not possible."

 

The problem, they explained, is that in the face of essentially annual silicon upgrades by Intel, enterprises would have to ditch the idea of sticking with a single LTSB build for, say, five years.

 

Instead, they could be required to adopt virtually every LTSB version as they buy new PCs powered by new generations of silicon.

 

"Hardware incompatibility and limitations on support could actually make managing LTSB more challenging than a mainstream CBB deployment," the analysts said.

 

One solution, though hardly practical, would be for enterprises to freeze their hardware specifications, and try to buy new systems equipped with old silicon.

 

Kleynhans and Silver dismissed that as "challenging" because as new Intel and AMD processors are introduced, the old quickly vanish from sellers' inventories.

 

Other options they offered included running change-sensitive applications through a server-based container such as Microsoft RDS or Citrix XenApp from a non-LTSB edition of Windows 10, or pushing Microsoft to rethink the silicon-LTSB rules.

 

Bottom line, however, is that LTSB is far less attractive than originally presented by Microsoft or envisioned by customers. "For most enterprises, the best solution is to avoid LTSB for broad user deployments and use the more broadly supported CBB," said Kleynhans and Silver.

 

Because of the support changes, Gartner has slashed its LTSB popularity forecast from an earlier 10% or less by 2020 -- the date of Windows 7's retirement -- to less than 5% by that year.

 

Yet LTSB is not a completely dead branch, Kleynhans countered in a Thursday interview. "There are still some really important places where you'll want to use it," he said, citing examples such as power plant control systems and devices powering retail check-out machines.

 

Gartner

 

Because LTSB versions will not be supported on hardware introduced after their release, enterprises hoping to use the stable-and-static track must deploy many more builds than they originally had planned.

 

By Gregg Keizer (Computerworld (US)

http://www.reseller.co.nz/article/614845/microsoft-support-rules-windows-10-ltsb-void-allure-enterprise-customers/

 

[oliverjia]

They have hardware drivers for many common PC hardware such as Video/Audio/Ethernet drivers via Windows Update. Why can't MS just release an CPU driver for new silicons while keep the same LTSB build?  Corporate users just want an OS that works, they can't care less about so called "features". Why can't the dick heads at MS realize that?

[IronY-Man]

Typical MS, BS and blah blah just to make them dance to their tune !!

[straycat19]

Just more proof, from the mouth of the liars themselves, that they will do whatever they want to do without any consideration for their customers.  Just wait and see, but Microsoft has been talking more and more about taking Windows 10 to a monthly subscription because they have a system that will invalidate all the pirated copies of windows 10.  There plan is to require everyone to pay a monthly fee to run the OS, as much as $9.99 a month has been discussed, and the system will be required to login to a Microsoft server in order to get the token of the day which will allow it to run.  I wish I was a fly on the wall for all their discussions because sometimes my friends aren't very talkative or forthcoming about everything they know.

 

As far as tying the OS to the silicon is concerned, that will just make organizations change their replacement dates to a longer period which will only hurt the PC industry.  Most organizations are on a 6 year cycle now for system replacements and there is no reason why they couldn't go to 10 years.  So the systems they bought last year and run LTSB on are good until 2026.  For the majority of organizations who have no actual software on the systems but use web based software from the organizations servers, this isn't even considered a problem since their systems have plenty of computing power to carry out that far.  It would be different for specialized systems that may need to be replaced more often but software developers could help by refining their code to make it run faster on older systems.  It all depends on whether everyone is going to cave in and be held prisoner by Microsoft.  In the meantime, Microsoft is still having problems with the EU who are still not satisfied with Microsoft's data collection and their new privacy controls.  They want more explicit communications on exactly what Microsoft is collecting and why  and the ability to stop all data collection since in the EU that is considered a privacy violation.

[steven36]

21 hours ago, straycat19 said:

As far as tying the OS to the silicon is concerned, that will just make organizations change their replacement dates to a longer period which will only hurt the PC industry.

Already windows 8.1 and now Windows 10 done this for 4 years for even consumers .
 

Quote

 

“There are over 600 million PCs in use today that are over five years old,” Schiller said. “This is really sad, it really is.”

PCs aren’t like smartphones, replaced every other year. To the vast majority of people, PCs are like microwaves—pricey appliances replaced only when they’re no longer able to fulfill their basic function

 

 

Most of the PCs in use are old today  no one wanted windows 8.1 and when they had the chance too sell PCs again by adding startmenu back they decided to give it away free full of privacy issues and consumers did not have buy new PCs  to get windows 10 most who use it got it for free.

 

They done showed they dont care about the PC industry when they released Windows 10 for a  free upgrade and charged PC vendors for it. And they dont care about businesses  buying PCs ether. The only reason  businesses bought new PCs  was they were forced off XP  because of updates running out sooner or latter its going happen and Microsoft going get paid  and there only predicting 5% of windows pcs to be in use that will  ltsb in 2020  that's down from 10%.. 10% out of 100%  of windows 10 pcs are not much no ways . But still millions of consumers stayed on XP  long after most all businesses upgraded .

 

The reason everyone on my network left XP was there work upgraded too Windows 7  and updates ran out for XP ..But millions didn't care now all the 3rd party software vendors  are dropping updates  soon Windows XP will belong in a museum. When XP 1st came out many swore the never leave win 98se  when Win 7 came out  many swore they never leave XP and they did . But once you cant get software updates you're going to do something .

 

I dont even know if i will use Windows in 2020  I may switch to MAC or Linux by then it just depends if they ever make windows were they cant run win 32 apps or not. If they do this and there working on it all software vendors  left on windows will have too  make store apps  and many will leave and go to other platforms . Microsoft's future  has been shaky and now there's almost as many on smart  phones as desktops.