The Microsoft Build 2017 Recap: What To Expect When You’re Expecting Windows
by Brett Howse on May 19, 2017 8:00 AM ESTWindows Subsystem for Linux
Microsoft bringing Linux into the Windows platform was one of the most surprising announcements at Build last year, and as we discussed in the Creators Update, they’ve continued to improve their Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) with quite a few new features coming earlier this year. Considering Build is a developer conference, and the Linux capabilities are being added to address their needs, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that more features are coming, but the announcements were surprising nonetheless.
With the shipping version of Windows, enabling the Linux subsystem does require enabling a developer mode, and then install Linux. With the Creators Update, Microsoft bumped the version of Linux from Ubuntu 14.04 to Ubuntu 16.04, and to do the update the recommended method was to remove WSL and reinstall. Microsoft is now going to move this process into the Windows Store, which should make it much easier to deal with. Even though developers could likely be considered capable of handling the install, it never hurts to make things easier and more reliable.
Second, Microsoft is also adding several other flavors of Linux as options. Microsoft is working with both SUSE and Fedora to enable multiple Linux distributions to be run simultaneously.
In addition, they are going to add support for USB device communications, so you can talk to things like Raspberry Pi, USB drive mounting, network share mounting, and more. For a company that used to be at war with Linux, it’s kind of amazing how much effort they are putting in now to make Linux a great experience on Windows.
OneDrive Files on Demand
One of the biggest downgrades of Windows 10 compared to Windows 8.1 was the loss of OneDrive placeholders, which would allow you to see every file stored in OneDrive whether or not it was downloaded or not. The initial implementation wasn’t perfect, and apps would sometimes struggle trying to open files that had not yet been downloaded, but overall it was a very useful method to access OneDrive without having to sync every file. Considering OneDrive can easily and inexpensively be upgraded to offer 1 TB of cloud storage, asking people to sync everything when many computers, especially with solid state storage, come with well under 500 GB of local storage.
Microsoft had already announced that placeholders would be coming back at the Ignite conference, but at Build we got an official announcement and name of the feature – OneDrive Files On-Demand.
With the new version of this, the performance issues and application compatibility will hopefully all be solved, and better yet, the feature is going to be available not just for personal OneDrive, but also for OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online team sites as well.
There are other fixes coming as well. If a file is synced from a SharePoint Online team site, and the file is being collaborated on by multiple users, the system won’t automatically sync every single change that happens, unless of course you are opening the file. This should save a lot of unnecessary bandwidth.
With the new icons, it will hopefully be more obvious if a file is available offline, which was one of the issues cited by Microsoft when not bringing the original placeholders forward to Windows 10, and you can set any file to always be downloaded by just right clicking it and choosing Always keep on this device.
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mkozakewich - Tuesday, May 23, 2017 - link
Office is a completely different product and they've coded all the controls from scratch. It's really terrible and barely functions.Bullwinkle J Moose - Friday, May 19, 2017 - link
"How about the ability to NOT install certain updates."------------------------------------------------------------------------
That is not allowed as that would give the END USER control over their own security and future
I am posting this comment with WINDOWS XP-SP2 without ANY Microsoft security updates!
I am not worried about Wannacry or any other malware destroying this box or the software it contains because I understand the security issues and have secured this system from malware and Spyware created by Microsoft as well as the NSA and other criminals
In addition, Microsoft appears to be using malware in Spyware Platform 10 that was originally created by myself and others not related to Microsoft
Hiding my proprietary technology in Microsoft DRM is not allowed under my license or contract agreements and makes Microsoft Licenses NULL AND VOID!
Therefore, I will continue to use END USER supplied security instead of being locked into a backdoored system that cannot be secured by design
I haven't had a bluescreen of death on XP in over 10 years now and can easily mitigate the security problems created by Microsoft and the Tech Laws that were created to control everything by a few scumbags at our expense
This is a Control Issue!
Deal with it
versesuvius - Friday, May 19, 2017 - link
Microsoft Windows 10 is probably the only piece of software "built" by one of the richest companies in the world that has about 1,000,000,000 testers around the world, testing it in all sorts of scenarios and under all kinds of imaginable conditions. It is a wonder why it is still such a lousy piece of software.Meteor2 - Saturday, May 20, 2017 - link
Is it though? Really? I have no problem with Windows 10, nor does anyone I know.Macpoedel - Saturday, May 20, 2017 - link
Can't tell if you're being sarcastic here... English isn't my native language, so I could be missing the point of your post.If end user control of security is such a big concern for you, why stick with Windows XP and not just run a Linux distro which seems to be exactly what you want. Sticking to an old OS because you want to stay in control doesn't make sense when there are plenty of modern alternatives where you're still in control, they're just not Windows.
Or is that what you're referring to in a convoluted way?
nonameo - Friday, May 19, 2017 - link
LOL. I see this book all over the place in thrift stores. One of the most common books.mominusa - Saturday, May 20, 2017 - link
Well, one thing you can count on is that they will break something with each update and never bother to correct what the update broke. Another thing you can count on is that you will lose more privacy and control over the OS. For instance, I had the "lose wifi on wake from sleep" bug initially, but had gotten rid of it with the known workaround to disable the wifi power saving option in device manager. Of course, MS could have fixed that with any one of their many updates, but never did. Well, since the anniversary edition update, it is back, and the workaround no longer solves it. Thanks microsoft. Worse yet, it is apparently a known issue that MS is aware of, but they wont bother to fix it this time either. At least I managed to disable the extremely annoying Cortana before the last update made that much more difficult. Words cannot describe how much I hate Win 10. I only leave it on my computer because I game occasionally and also share it with my wife, who would not be comfortable with linux. For my personal laptop that no one else uses, I have changed over to linux for almost everything.RichardHeartonYouTube - Saturday, May 20, 2017 - link
MS is going to appstore your ass. They are going to walled garden you until they're making the same money on you that apple is. Fuck freedom. Fuck running what software you like. MS will embrace, extend, extinguish your asses. You will bow to microsofts will, for they deserve $50 on every new laptop purchased forever, because, well, they're just that fucking worthy. Seriously, have you seen how much better Word and Excel have gotten over the last 15 years? Bow the fuck down!Meteor2 - Saturday, May 20, 2017 - link
Do you still live in 1997?mkozakewich - Tuesday, May 23, 2017 - link
He said 15 years! So 2002.