Answer 1

Back in 2015, Microsoft announced they will no longer be releasing new versions of Windows as they have in the past with new names / major versions. Rather, they will be following a model similar to Apple with major updates to the main OS.

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Announcement Article from 2015:
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https://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/microsoft-confirms-there-will-be-no-windows-11-1293309

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There have been major updates since Windows 10 was first released:
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10#Updates_and_support

Answer 2

Alex Good question.

Microsoft has been working on a completely revamped operating system known as Windows Core OS (WCOS) which is a modular version of Windows 10.

Rather than supporting multiple variations of an OS for desktop, mobile, XBOX, HoloLens, IoT, Surface Hub, etc... the same Windows Core OS will be used with different components to support OEMs for desktop vs mobile and so on. It is speculated that the UI will look much like Windows 10 as we know it.

Windows Polaris will be the "composer" for the desktop UI experience.

This will likely not be delivered as an update to Windows 10.

Here is an excellent article with an even better video walk through of all the moving pieces:

https://www.windowscentral.com/understanding-windows-core-os-and-polaris

Answer 3

I refuse to update my Windows laptop. It's going to stay at Windows 8.1. If it ever stops working, I still have my other laptops that are running OS X & Linux, lol.

Answer 4

Is Polaris a rebuild of windows 10 or their last OS which then will be modified with updates? I didn't follow the announcements that much.

Answer 5

David Carroll I agree with you 100 percent but not everyone sees it the way you do with the facts or logic, people make it seem that its hard to update, a friend of mine was running xp and obviously was in risk, I recently updated him to windows 10, but last 10 years or more he is been running windows xp. also were I live a lot of people still run windows xp like more than half the town, etc a lot more I can add to this.

Answer 6

👆

Answer 7

Markpeach96 Wow... Thanks for sharing that perspective.

At least your community has knowledgeable people like you to help where you can. 👌🤓👍

Answer 8

Yea I update as much as possible because the old os are very vulnerable plus I did a lot of pentesting on them and used them on ceh courses that I did. But I updated about atlest 200 peoples os, in last year or so.

Answer 9

Is this a joke and I don't get it?

Answer 10

Microsoft keeps changing thier os making it harder for others to update, I still know people that run xp on thier computer cause they don't want to pay to update.

Answer 11

Markpeach96 Interesting comment...

In what way has Microsoft changed their OS to make it harder for others to update?

People still running XP are at risk due to various known security vulnerabilities that will no longer be addressed due to dropped support of this version by Microsoft.

On the otherhand, Microsoft made it quite easy to upgrade from Windows 7 and 8 to Windows 10 and for a good period of time, that upgrade was at no cost.

Moving forward, my understanding is Microsoft plans on keeping the OS at Windows 10 indefinitely with semi-annual feature updates. This prolongs the time between versions which lowers costs overall. It's also possible that Microsoft will not charge for that next version, if or when a new version is announced. This would be similar to the MacOS.

Perhaps this is less about the perception that Microsoft is making it hard to upgrade and more about people not willing to pay for the upgrade. I'm not sure.

Answer 12

David Carroll This article is indeed excellent. It raises questions just to answer them immediately after that. That's how articles should be written.

This actually sounds quite good, but I guess the success will be determined by how good they solve the legacy code problem.
This was the only raised up question that didn't got answered precisely. Seems like they didn't knew how to solve this the best way at the time the article got written. But they addressed it and that's a good sign. I hope they find a good solution to this though.