Technology Ramblings

On Oct 12, MS released build 10565 of the Threshold 2 branch of Windows 10 to Fast Ring folks. I installed it on my typical list of devices - from Desktops, to Laptops and tablets. On all devices the availability of the update and the installation process was problem-free which is a nice sign.  Compared to some of the pain involved with earlier TH2 builds it was nice to have a group of clean upgrades. Overall build 10565 continues on the polishing effort I experienced with build 10547.  As I stated back on my 9/22 post about 10547 - Windows 10 is starting to look and feel the way Windows 10 should have been back in July.  And that's a good thing.   Like many it made me wonder why MS actually released Windows 10 as build 10240 back in July as it is a dramatically different experience today. This build along with sister builds of Windows 10 Mobile are all focusing towards the availability of the new Surface Pro 4, Surface Book and Lumia devices here in the upcoming weeks.  

On Oct 14th, then the 20th MS released two new Windows 10 Mobile builds 10549 and 10572. In both cases you had to revert to Windows 8.1 first and re-install Windows Insider app to get the builds.   I performed this exercise on my Nokia Lumia 735. Luckily in both cases, the entire process took less than two hours which was huge improvement over the experience I had with 10536 which took the better part of 8 hours end-to-end. MS claims with 10549 that they were testing their Windows 8.1 to 10 upgrade process and therefore that was the requirement - but I would say that for the vast majority of us Insider Fast Ring folks who were at 10512 or 15036 previously it was still a nuisance. One step I did not do this time with either 10549 or 10572 was to perform a Phone Reset after the upgrade.  I simply used the 3.01 version of the Windows Device Recovery tool to flash my device back to 8.1, then let the store update all the apps, installed Windows Insider and registered, the updated.  

On October 6, MS had what many described as their "Big Bang" event around Microsoft hardware specifically focused to support Windows 10. There were two new laptop/tablet devices in the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 as well as 3 new phones the Lumia 950, 950XL and 550.   Finally there was the new Microsoft Band and Hololens VR headset. There have been many reviews and specs released so I'm not going to drill into them all here.   The focus of this post is on the question will the combination of new Microsoft branded gear and Windows 10 change the market and as well the perception of Windows. Microsoft recently announced that since it's release in July - that over 110M devices have been activated with Windows 10 and they expect 1B devices activated by 2018.   Overall the new devices have really nice specifications and are more powerful and more effective than any of their predecessors.   But will be combination change the market ? So let's first look at