Credit: Dreamstime
Microsoft introduces concept as it often stops pushing feature changes to Windows 10 users Windows Feature Experience Packs as a way to increase the number of times customers receive bright new things during the year.
Redmond released the first preview of the Windows Feature Experience Pack to participants in the company’s Windows Insider beta program.
“If we try this process first with Windows Insiders, we hope to expand the spread and frequency of future versions,” Brandon LeBlanc, CEO of the program, wrote in a company blog. “Eventually, Windows Feature Experience Pack updates will be collected in the process for the existing Windows 10 service and thus sent to customers via Windows Update.”
These feature packs, for lack of a better short form, have been around for a long time in Redmond: two years ago, a Windows 10 support document mentioned them. Of ZDNet Mary Jo Foley, who reported on LeBlanc’s message on Monday, called the Windows Feature Experience Pack when it was being delivered to some users in June.
The idea for feature packs, LeBlance explains, is to send “features and experiences” using a mechanism that is already established for Windows 10 outside of the two-year upgrade cycle. Such functions and functionalities can be installed independently of the operating system. were developed to be independent of the operating system, such as the Edge browser.
Only two small improvements to the existing features were included in this release. The first allows users to save screenshots or snapshots of the screen taken by the Snip & Sketch tool to a saved folder, and not automatically to the Photos / Screenshots folder. The other supports a split keyboard for a 2-1 device touch keyboard.
Windows Feature Experience Packs will be provided to users through Windows Update, as LeBlanc said.
Thus, they will focus on the same technology service used to deploy the security update on a monthly basis, including other monthly submissions (including optional updates on the third or fourth Tuesday of each month) and especially the innovative “small” features of the new version of Windows 10 November 2019 and 2020.
Okay, but why?
In 2019, Microsoft began a very low-key upgrade cadence, where the first new version of the year – released in the spring – was made much smaller in the fall. The former had many additional features and functionalities or enhancements, and was delivered in a standard way to upgrade the operating system, requiring complete replacement of the operating system.
All the repairs provided since the first and all the number of additional features provided were very limited; due to construction, it could be processed and installed as one of several monthly updates. In fact, the entire second “upgrade” was embedded in the code of one of those cumulative monthly updates, which was later activated with a two-minute code received later.
“Windows Feature Experience Pack updates will be delivered to Insiders via Windows Update as builds and accumulated updates occur,” LeBlance wrote.
This feature means that Microsoft intends to process these updates much faster than upgrading to true features, even if they are unnoticed. (LeBlanc noted that a feature pack requires a reboot of the device, which Patch Tuesday’s security update does not.) Microsoft means that these updates are expected to be made much more frequently than feature versions, perhaps as often as monthly.
The latter is likely to be of concern to commercial customers and IT staff, specifically. In the group, IT has not been keen on Microsoft’s Windows aa-service tempo; in a survey earlier this year, six out of nearly 10 administrators surveyed said the upgrade was not useful or very rare.
In addition, only 17 percent of administrators preferred a two-year update frequency, and 75 percent preferred a single update or upgrade each year. two years.
Microsoft’s pace of renewal effectively dropped twice a year when it began in 2019, when it went to a major-to-small cadence. Now are you thinking of increasing the frequency with the Windows Feature Experience Pack?
Why?
Microsoft has never proven that customers claimed the model as a Windows 10 service, thought their rooms were safer, or that those customers saw the Windows 10 operating system as a result of frequent upgrades.
Actually, since it premiered in Windows 10 10 years ago – even more so before marketing – users have complained about Microsoft’s innovation practices, about speed disruptiveness, and have questioned their value and Microsoft’s motives. Customers have adapted to the new service strategy because they needed to, not because they wanted to.
The concept of the Windows Feature Experience Pack is the same. Because the feature packs are almost significant, it contrasts with the change Microsoft has made to get fewer upgrades, such as 30-month support for Windows 10 Enterprise upgrades and an annual cadence of Windows 10 Home and Windows 10 Pro once a year. From there, what, another way to distribute updates? Again, why?
Microsoft should respond – and for once, before fills the turn. Customers, especially those who pay commercially, deserve this.
Tags MicrosoftWindows 10
