The Microsoft Build 2017 Recap: What To Expect When You’re Expecting Windows
by Brett Howse on May 19, 2017 8:00 AM ESTFirst Thoughts
Build continues to be one of the most important events for Microsoft for the year, and this year there was plenty of announcements for what’s coming this year for Windows, Azure, and more. There are plenty of chances for developers to make their impact, with a surge in computing devices available now. Phones, PCs, tablets, Xbox, IoT, and other devices are permeating the world we live in, and Microsoft is hoping to not only provide devices, but to also power cloud connections through Azure, and they continuously update their tools to enabled developers to do more.
On the Windows front, there is plenty to look forward to this year. The Fall Creators Update is going to bring some excellent additions to Windows, after the Creators Update which just came out was a more muted release. OneDrive Files on Demand, Linux Subsystem updates, and more apps finding their way to the store thanks to the help of the Desktop Bridge for Windows should provide pretty much anyone with something to look forward to.
Microsoft also announced quite a few updates to their developer tools, and they continue to expand their cross-platform capabilities after the purchase of Xamarin last year. Visual Studio Mobile Center was announced, Project Rome to add the Microsoft Graph to apps, and a Xamarin Live Player was announced which lets you deploy, run, test, and debug iOS apps from a Windows PC.
Windows is not the dominant platform it once was, but with Azure, Office 365, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and more, Microsoft still has plenty of platforms to target. Windows has a diminished role in the world of 2017, but Windows 10 is running on over 500 million devices, and if Microsoft can ever get developers to embrace the store, they should have an easier time in the future with updating the base frameworks.
This looks to be another exciting year to keep track of what’s coming out of Redmond.
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Meteor2 - Saturday, May 20, 2017 - link
One way of thinking about it could be the amount of value created per platform (as GDP type value). While there's probably more mobile client devices around than desktops/laptops, I bet the large majority of value comes from the latter, and always will.mkozakewich - Tuesday, May 23, 2017 - link
While I was impressed by the Stream 7 and other $100 Windows devices, I do wish we had some higher-priced options. I'd love a 7" tablet with OLED, Gorilla Glass, and 4 GB of RAM.BrokenCrayons - Friday, May 19, 2017 - link
I know Linux is still basically a rounding error worth of installed systems, but since Windows 8 was released, the number numbers have show very slow, but steady increases. The fact that it's consistently above 2% now is pretty cool, but for those of us using it, I wouldn't bother celebrating yet. It's got a long way to go before it becomes a significant factor.peevee - Friday, May 19, 2017 - link
"The fact that it's consistently above 2% now is pretty cool"Probably the result of Chinese and Russian governments not wanting to use Windows or MacOS and switching to their domestically cooked distros of Linux.
Meteor2 - Saturday, May 20, 2017 - link
Is that a thing? After all, the Russian government was hit by WannaCry.versesuvius - Saturday, May 20, 2017 - link
People grow up gaming on Windows and along the way pick up some other software which they learn and become dependent on and when they are engineers, doctors, lawyers or housewives or jobless or whatever keep on playing games and software. There is nothing that Linux does not do better than Windows except gaming. That is the whole idea of Windows and as long as Windows is a good platform for gaming the same story repeats itself ad infinitum. Unless of course Linux starts paying more attention to gaming and there is a Linux version of popular games on the market. Another thing that that plays a part in the popularity of Windows albeit not as much as the above is what the late Dennis Ritchie described as its "feeling of Snappiness". The apps do not load any faster on Windows than on Linux and Linux even loads them faster most of the time but the Windows feels snappy, so people feel that are doing something more or their time is not being wasted whereas in reality the time that Windows wastes for its users is almost equal or even more than the time that people spend time actually doing something on Windows.sadsteve - Saturday, May 20, 2017 - link
I now dual boot Windows 10 and Mint Linux. Linux definitely boots up faster for me. It's to the point where the only time I boot Windows is to play a game that's not available on Linux. l could even use Linux for work, if my company would let me, since all the tools I use are available for both OSes.anactoraaron - Friday, May 19, 2017 - link
So with this next major update will they finally stop this insane automatic download and install of garbage apps? Just had to refresh a pc that would no longer join my domain and watched in horror as windows automatically downloaded and installed 10+ apps. Eclipse manager, pandora, adobe express, on and on the apps kept coming. Why oh why do they do this?neogodless - Friday, May 19, 2017 - link
What brand computer? Was this configured by the manufacturer to do this? I've never seen this on a clean install of Windows 10. (Just one... to four... data point(s), though!)Macpoedel - Saturday, May 20, 2017 - link
I have seen this on a clean Windows install, last weekend I installed Windows 10 Pro v1703 (Creator's update) on a NUC, latest iso at that time, and it tried to install all kinds of apps from the Play Store. I don't think Intel could configure this if I brought my own iso, download from Microsoft's website. Maybe hardware manufacturers also have the capability to mark apps as "updates" even when you're using your own install media (kind of like drivers?), but I think this was Microsoft's doing.At first I thought this was some leftover from using the same account on a branded laptop earlier, those apps got tied to my account library and Windows 10 tries to install all of the apps in the library when you set things up. But on the other hand, I haven't setup a branded machine running the factory image since Windows 7... And also, the UWP apps that I actively have installed on other machines, didn't get installed automatically.
So unless my girlfriend is installing those apps behind my back, Microsoft is pushing those apps on us.