{"id":8796,"date":"2015-12-31T19:07:14","date_gmt":"2015-12-31T23:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.nccomputertech.com\/?p=8796"},"modified":"2015-12-31T19:07:14","modified_gmt":"2015-12-31T23:07:14","slug":"whats-ahead-for-windows-10-needed-upgrades-forced-updates-and-developer-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nccomputertech.com\/techtalk\/2015\/12\/31\/whats-ahead-for-windows-10-needed-upgrades-forced-updates-and-developer-love\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s ahead for Windows 10: Needed upgrades, forced updates, and developer love"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Blair Hanley Frank<\/a> | PCWorld<\/a><\/p>\n

Windows 10 was the biggest news story<\/a> out of Microsoft in 2015, and looking forward to the coming year, it\u2019s slated to continue as one of the pillars of the company\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

To recap: Microsoft first announced<\/a> its new operating system in late 2014, skipping over Windows 9 and showing the world what it wanted to see: a version of Windows that kept some of the key innovations of Windows 8, while smoothing out some of the jarring or rough edges of its predecessor that drove people to stick with Windows 7 (or worse, Windows XP).<\/p>\n

That strategy has been remarkably successful for Microsoft, which reported in November of this year that there are 110 million devices running Windows 10 after its launch at the end of July. Of those devices, 12 million are already running in a business setting, which is a good sign for the business prospects of Microsoft\u2019s new operating system.<\/p>\n

One of Microsoft\u2019s big changes with its new operating system is that it will be regularly updated with new features and fixes, rather than the company holding back key features for a service pack release. That\u2019s a double-edged sword, since Microsoft is also pushing out cumulative updates in an effort to ensure that all of its users are running (roughly) the same version of Windows 10\u2014this means that administrators don\u2019t have control over which update packages they install.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the operating system has been. So what\u2019s coming next?<\/p>\n

A more forceful push for upgrades<\/h2>\n

Microsoft will keep offering consumers free upgrades to Windows 10 until the end of July in 2016. Expect the company to do more to encourage businesses and consumers alike to pick up the new operating system. Case in point: Microsoft has already revealed<\/a> that it will start automatically downloading the Windows 10 installer on some Windows computers as a recommended update.<\/p>\n

As part of that, the installer will run automatically, though users will have to choose to go forward with the upgrade process themselves. The good news in all of this is that Windows 10 is reaching a point of maturity that Microsoft believes it can get away with downloading an installer on users\u2019 devices that automatically runs. It also means that some people may end up upgrading to Microsoft\u2019s new OS before they\u2019re ready.<\/p>\n

On the enterprise side of things, expect a lot of companies to start rolling out Microsoft\u2019s new OS, especially after their experiences with replacing Windows XP.<\/p>\n