Windows 10 - 19H1 and 20H1
Here we are again nearing the semi-annual release of the latest Windows 10 version called 19H1.
I'm currently running the latest 18351 build on two devices - a 2-in-1 laptop and an Intel NUC and to be honest - there's not a ton to get excited about or report on.
Sure there's some continued improvement to Settings, Menu, Pen based apps, game support, multi-language, and really important stuff like emojis (really ?).
But will you really notice a huge different from the 1809 release ?
In a word - No.
The big question will be can MS get 19H1 out the door cleanly and without the PR nightmare they experienced with 1809 and file deletions.
I will have to say that they have improved the update process in that for both my test machines they can prep, download, install and apply a new build in under an hour. But that's on newest generation Intel Core i5 CPUs with 16GB of RAM and NVMe. But in comparison to my Pixelbook it's still a joke - where I see a new build weekly and updates are less than 5 minutes.
We're also seeing the new Windows org start to take shape and it has impacted the Skip Ahead releases as they are now for the 20H1 release and not 19H2. This means I expect 19H2 to be even more boring of an update cycle as the old group winds down.
I'm currently running one machine on the 20H1 cycle - a 3 year old HP laptop with AMD CPU and build 18845. It can still take up to 2 hrs to install a build on that device - even though it's a 4 core, 16Gb RAM, SSD device. Just shows you how MS treats AMD based devices.
The big change expected for 20H1 is the change to the Google Chrome based Edge branded browser. MS has basically conceded the browser market to Google. While it hasn't been distributed yet to 20H1 testers - early screen shots effectively show the new Edge as a branded Chrome browser - period. And I don't expect that to change much as now features will be tied to Chrome builds.
I'm really not expecting a lot for 20H1 to be honest. While MS is making a push in their AI capabilities in Azure via the Power brand (think PowerBI for example) - I'm not sure yet how that will really impact the day-to-day windows experience.
I've speculated about MS changing the Windows development model to a shell running on top of a linux distro - but I don't expect that in 2019 or 2020. For MS Windows is now just an Azure end device and no different than a Smartphone.
We may see a little of that vision with the Windows 10 "Lite" release which is in theory targeted to ARM based Always On Always Connected devices and the long rumored Surface foldable tablet.
But I wouldn't hold my breath. MS's first attempt at ARM based devices failed miserably and MS even backtracked with the Surface Go series returning to Intel Pentium CPUs. While I can applaud the effort - the execution in this space has been pretty bad.
Personally this drives my Windows shell on Linux argument even further. In my opinion MS efforts should focus more on the end user experience and UX than the underlying OS. As MS has shown with their Surface line - maintaining firmware, device drivers, etc is costly and often frustrating as many Surface owners will tell you.
As much as I'd like to see Windows on ARM succeed - MS has always been somewhat challenged running Windows on anything but Intel. So I'm skeptical that this will be any different - especially if they continue with the current Windows OS Architecture.
I'm currently running the latest 18351 build on two devices - a 2-in-1 laptop and an Intel NUC and to be honest - there's not a ton to get excited about or report on.
Sure there's some continued improvement to Settings, Menu, Pen based apps, game support, multi-language, and really important stuff like emojis (really ?).
But will you really notice a huge different from the 1809 release ?
In a word - No.
The big question will be can MS get 19H1 out the door cleanly and without the PR nightmare they experienced with 1809 and file deletions.
I will have to say that they have improved the update process in that for both my test machines they can prep, download, install and apply a new build in under an hour. But that's on newest generation Intel Core i5 CPUs with 16GB of RAM and NVMe. But in comparison to my Pixelbook it's still a joke - where I see a new build weekly and updates are less than 5 minutes.
We're also seeing the new Windows org start to take shape and it has impacted the Skip Ahead releases as they are now for the 20H1 release and not 19H2. This means I expect 19H2 to be even more boring of an update cycle as the old group winds down.
I'm currently running one machine on the 20H1 cycle - a 3 year old HP laptop with AMD CPU and build 18845. It can still take up to 2 hrs to install a build on that device - even though it's a 4 core, 16Gb RAM, SSD device. Just shows you how MS treats AMD based devices.
The big change expected for 20H1 is the change to the Google Chrome based Edge branded browser. MS has basically conceded the browser market to Google. While it hasn't been distributed yet to 20H1 testers - early screen shots effectively show the new Edge as a branded Chrome browser - period. And I don't expect that to change much as now features will be tied to Chrome builds.
I'm really not expecting a lot for 20H1 to be honest. While MS is making a push in their AI capabilities in Azure via the Power brand (think PowerBI for example) - I'm not sure yet how that will really impact the day-to-day windows experience.
I've speculated about MS changing the Windows development model to a shell running on top of a linux distro - but I don't expect that in 2019 or 2020. For MS Windows is now just an Azure end device and no different than a Smartphone.
We may see a little of that vision with the Windows 10 "Lite" release which is in theory targeted to ARM based Always On Always Connected devices and the long rumored Surface foldable tablet.
But I wouldn't hold my breath. MS's first attempt at ARM based devices failed miserably and MS even backtracked with the Surface Go series returning to Intel Pentium CPUs. While I can applaud the effort - the execution in this space has been pretty bad.
Personally this drives my Windows shell on Linux argument even further. In my opinion MS efforts should focus more on the end user experience and UX than the underlying OS. As MS has shown with their Surface line - maintaining firmware, device drivers, etc is costly and often frustrating as many Surface owners will tell you.
As much as I'd like to see Windows on ARM succeed - MS has always been somewhat challenged running Windows on anything but Intel. So I'm skeptical that this will be any different - especially if they continue with the current Windows OS Architecture.
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