Windows 11 re-imagined [Satire]

[subir]

Windows 11 re-imagined with new features [Satire]

 

Windows 10, which was declared as the last version of Windows ever is soon getting replaced as Microsoft is holding the launch event for its successor on June 24th, 2021. Microsoft has hinted at the new version being named Windows 11, which makes us believe that the company has made some major changes under the hood that make it worthy of getting a new name altogether.

 

Although a preview version of Windows 11 has leaked yesterday, it only showed off a few UX changes mainly related to the new Start Menu. Here is a list of five things we speculate that Microsoft might have added or changed in the next version of Windows which could be revealed at the launch event next week:

 

1) Crypto mining as a service built into Windows:

Microsoft can add a built-in crypto-mining service in Windows. After NortonLifeLock announced that it would be adding an Ethereum crypto-currency miner within its Norton 360 antivirus software, such a thought does not seem too far-fetched. Back in 2017, The Pirate Bay was caught using a script embedded in its website for mining Monero cryptocurrency using visitors' CPUs.

 

Performance and mining can be balanced with rules such as when the computer is using less than a certain amount of resources, say watching movies or browsing the web, the mining service can start in the background and start mining blocks of coins for both the users and Microsoft.

 

Microsoft can also become a pool operator and combine the power of all computers together to mine blocks of crypto-currencies. The mined coins can be kept in OneDrive's Personal Vault, which provides an extra layer of protection to backed up data in the cloud. Users get to keep 88% of the mined coins and Microsoft can keep 12%, just like the newly announced Microsoft Windows Store revenue sharing model. Users can disable this feature, but those who enable this can also get the full version of Windows + Office free for life provided they allow the mining service to function for a certain amount of predefined time each week. Microsoft can also add the option of allowing the user to select their preferred cryptocurrency to mine.

 

2) Windows with Micro-Transactions:

 

This one follows the idea of how Microsoft charges its Azure customers. Microsoft can give away the complete professional version of Windows for free. It would have all the features, requiring you to pay for only for the specific features you use and how much you use them via micro-transactions.

 

Let's say for every 100 times you open the start menu, you pay 10 cents. You pay 20 cents for opening the file explorer 100 times. Use and update default apps for free. Install a new application pay 1 cent each time. Moving files within the internal storage, the first 20 files up to 100MB in size are free every week, anything above that limit would cost you one cent per instance. Copying data to external storage would cost you another 10 cents per GB. Formatting an external drive would cost you one cent per instance. Windows will only use 25% and one core of your CPU and GPU for free and charge you another 10 cents a day for 100% CPU/GPU utilization, so you can use Windows for free on days you just search the web or watch a movie and pay on days you play games or run graphic intensive programs.

 

There are unlimited combinations that can be created so that you only pay for what you use and how much you use. Microsoft can make these available as Pay As You Go plans and issue monthly invoices to business customers.

 

3) Windows as a cloud-hosted OS:

 

Instead of buying Windows outright and then updating it which causes incompatibilities with other software and hardware, Microsoft can launch a version of Windows that is hosted on the web and requires no installation.

 

We already have Remote Desktop Protocol and the recently renamed Azure Virtual Desktop, but those are geared more towards businesses and enterprises. There was also the Windows To Go feature which has since been deprecated. Microsoft could launch a desktop-as-service Windows where you install just a small enabler program that lets you connect to the real OS hosted in the cloud. This Windows can be run on the majority of computers irrespective of how powerful the hardware is as the only processing it needs to do is send the inputs to the cloud and receive back the data and display it. Consumers get the benefit of having access to seamless updates and a personal computer they can access anywhere and on any device.

 

One of the most recent examples of moving whole services to the cloud and junking expensive hardware is Google Stadia, which eliminated the need for buying gaming consoles for playing the latest games at high resolutions. Stadia has had its share of problems, ranging from gamers having to buy games again to lag issues, but when using an OS for simple and light home and office work, lag issues to a large part can be ignored. On the contrary, when Cyberpunk 2077 turned out to disaster on launch, Stadia was the only service that ran it at perfectly without any hardware optimization issues.

 

4) A modular version of Windows:

 

The whole premise of announcing that Windows 10 would be the last version of the OS was to eventually convert it to a software as a service model. Instead of a major release every 3 years, there would be incremental updates twice a year. Apparently, this model did not work very well. There have been blocking issues ranging from Windows deleting files to hardware and software incompatibility problems.

 

If Microsoft were to follow this philosophy, it can release Windows 11 as a free basic operating system with default apps to do everyday work. Modules or upgrades can be bought by users as upgrades from the Microsoft Store. Specific modules like virtualization and Hyper-V, access to regedit and group policy editor, the ability to have more than one user account, etc can be offered as upgrades. Such upgrades have been available between different versions of Windows but they usually cost a lot more as all features are bundled together. Microsoft can break these down into specific and individual groups.

 

Microsoft did try a similar version of this approach with Windows 10 in S Mode, where only UMP programs could be run and to run Win32 programs users had to pay to upgrade to full Windows 10 Home/Pro. Like other efforts, this also failed miserably and Microsoft had to eventually offer upgrades for free to everyone.

 

5) Windows with advertising support:

 

Microsoft could make Windows completely free and recoup development costs through in-built advertising. Microsoft has tried advertising within Windows on a limited scale before. The start menu has been used to promote paid apps and games to users in the past. Now advertising can be expanded to the whole OS and displayed in areas like the taskbar, file explorer, etc.

 

Most of the major social media companies generate billions of dollars of revenue by offering services for free but earning from using user data for targeted advertisements. Facebook and Google are both know to be the kings of data harvesting with the former offering Instagram, Whatsapp, and Facebook for free while the latter offers multiple services including Gmail, Google Maps for no charge in exchange for access to personal data of users. Although one major repercussion from this move could be a large-scale exodus of users from Windows to other OS's.

 

These are some of the ideas that come to mind when we imagine what changes major Microsoft could have baked into Windows 11. Please feel free to discuss (or dissect) them in the comments below. Also, let us know what features would you like to see in the upcoming Windows 11.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is pure speculation and not real news. Please take it with a pinch of salt. In case anything from this article does become a reality, remember you heard it first on Neowin!

[adrynalyne]

Oof. 
 

What did I just read?

[Jim K Global Moderator]

This is a joke...satire?

 

If not ... I would say "hell no" to all 5.

 

 

Edit:  Title was changed with "Satire" added after I posted. 

 

[lnmnky]

but but I could make $0.01 a month of Monero!

[lnmnky]

Number 3 has some legs to it, but it exists as VDI thin clients already doesn't it? 

[Nick H. Supervisor]

1) NO, 2) no, 3) hopefully not, 4) meh.

 

Putting Crypto mining into a mainstream OS will not go down well, and the idea should be shot down before it is even considered. There are the evironmental issues to consider, as well as how individuals could be financially impacted. Someone will surely make the argument, "but it wouldn't be enabled by default" to which I would point them at history and all the things that have been secretly enabled until enough people made a fuss about it. Even then, sometimes the response has been, "well tough, it's staying." If people want to mine cryptocurrency then let them go and find the software and accept the responsibility for what they are doing. But don't support it by baking it into the OS.

 

No one likes micro-transactions except the companies that implement such a structure. It's just pure greed on their part, and I will never ever agree with such a practice.

 

A cloud-hosted OS is great (in theory) if you have an Internet connection good enough to support the requirements. How would this play out if an individual or a company loses their network, even temporarily?

 

A modular idea for Windows...meh, it's already kinda like that. Your suggestion of making it more granular could be an idea, but what purpose does it serve? These days people have so much storage space that we look at the space items we don't want occupy and think, "I don't use this, so I just won't use it." And could you imagine trying to support such a system? I think it would be a nightmare.

 

And for the advert suggestion which I missed originally, I'm against it. We're seeing too many adverts already, I don't want to have to sit through an advert every time I click on my Start menu.

[subir]

8 minutes ago, Jim K said:

This is a joke...satire?

 

If not ... I would say "hell no" to all 5.

the article was meant to be a funny take on future of windows. i guess this wasnt obvious on first look so i added the satire tag to it!

[margrave]

do not give them ideas.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

1 hour ago, subir said:

the article was meant to be a funny take on future of windows. i guess this wasnt obvious on first look so i added the satire tag to it!

It was mashing all the things "hated" into one thing.... Micro, crypto, etc.  

[Son_Of_Dad]

2 hours ago, Jim K said:

This is a joke...satire?

 

Sure attempting to be, personally I don't think it really hits the mark