US Microsoft wants to move Windows fully to the cloud

Microsoft wants to move Windows fully to the cloud / A new Microsoft internal presentation reveals the company’s long-term goal for Windows.​

By Tom Warren, a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.
Jun 27, 2023, 12:58 PM GMT+2

Microsoft has been increasingly moving Windows to the cloud on the commercial side with Windows 365, but the software giant also wants to do the same for consumers. In an internal “state of the business” Microsoft presentation from June 2022, Microsoft discuses building on “Windows 365 to enable a full Windows operating system streamed from the cloud to any device.”

The presentation has been revealed as part of the ongoing FTC v. Microsoft hearing, as it includes Microsoft’s overall gaming strategy and how that relates to other parts of the company’s businesses. Moving “Windows 11 increasingly to the cloud” is identified as a long-term opportunity in Microsoft’s “Modern Life” consumer space, including using “the power of the cloud and client to enable improved AI-powered services and full roaming of people’s digital experience.”


Microsoft’s state of the business from June 2022. Image: Microsoft

Windows 365 is a service that streams a full version of Windows to devices. So far, it’s been limited to just commercial customers, but Microsoft has been deeply integrating it into Windows 11 already. A future update will include Windows 365 Boot, which will enable Windows 11 devices to log directly in to a Cloud PC instance at boot instead of the local version of Windows. Windows 365 Switch is also built into Windows 11 to integrate Cloud PCs into the Task View (virtual desktops) feature.

The idea of moving Windows fully to the cloud for consumers is also presented alongside Microsoft’s need to invest in custom silicon partnerships. Microsoft has been doing some of this for its ARM-powered Surface Pro X devices. Bloomberg also reported in late 2020 that Microsoft was looking at designing its own ARM-based processors for servers and maybe even Surface devices. More recently we’ve heard Microsoft could be working on its own AI chips, too.

In another slide in the presentation, Microsoft mentions the need to “shore up Windows commercial value and respond to Chromebook threat” for its “Modern Work” priorities in its 2022 financial year. Long term opportunities on the commercial side include growing the usage of cloud PCs with Windows 365.

Microsoft has recently announced Windows Copilot, an AI-powered assistant for Windows 11. Windows Copilot sits at the side of Windows 11, and can summarize content you’re viewing in apps, rewrite it, or even explain it. Microsoft is currently testing this internally and promised to release it to testers in June before rolling it out more broadly to Windows 11 users.

Windows Copilot is part of a broader AI push for Windows. Microsoft is also working with AMD and Intel to enable more Windows features on next-gen CPUs. Intel and Microsoft have even hinted at Windows 12 in recent months, and Windows chief Panos Panay claimed at CES earlier this year that “AI is going to reinvent how you do everything on Windows.” All of this is part of Microsoft’s broad Windows ambition, detailed in its internal presentation, “to enable improved AI-powered services” in Windows.

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[Car Won't Crank]

Yeah I've used Windows for my home rigs since 3.1 but my next home/gaming machine is going to be Ubuntu. 90% of my Steam library, and all the games I play regularly, are ready to go under Ubuntu according to the Steam API. The baked-in spyware in Win11 was the final straw for me, and the massive improvement in gaming under Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular brought down the last barrier for me changing over. Not sure about work machines, might stick with Windows though frankly ChromeOS is probably good enough these days for everyday office-type work.

Go with Mint Cinnamon. It's slick, just works TM, and avoids the Canonical snap nonsense. It's perfect for the Windows refugee.

 

[Return of the Freaker]

You vill not own your files. You vill only type goodspeech or ve vill see. You vill coom and consoom on your goybox

And you vill be happy

 

[Skeletonized Cow]

Well Google docs already delete your files if you put a nono word in it so why not do that with everything?

Wait, what? Do you have any more info on this?

 

[beepbopisuckcock]

Nope.

What a thoughtful and insightful post.

Seeing as it was clearly a mistake to be nice and give you the benefit of the doubt I will explain as simply as I can and hopefully get through your thick nigger skull. I am not "bitching about office" and in fact I use open office myself. I am pointing out office is cloud based and that has not caused normies to switch so windows becoming cloud based won't be much of a change and also probably won't cause normies (like the post I was replying to) to switch.

 

[$80 Nude Haircut]

The entire reason Microsoft gets away with shit like this is that niggercattle will literally bend over backwards to sell out their entire lives for a APPEARANCE of convenience. So they shut down the sensible, nice and good offiline and on the machine text editor to have a always online DRM enabled subscription based shitfest that they can profit off because the mouthbreathers just saw "oh I need to click one less icon neat me likey" and swallow it up.

The reason IT departments buy fleets of Microsoft shit is because they can tailor the OS image precisely. They can use a framework of Windows Enterprise & inject all of the company's invasive monitoring tools into it. Teams manually test & approve software which is then offered by a corporate portal. Everything else is locked down so the 80 year-old office boomer doesn't mistake a Gmail ad for something legitimate & compromise the entire company network. It just works™ but the reasoning has nothing to do with laziness. It's about security and consistency.

 

[Coccxys]

Wait, what? Do you have any more info on this?

They did a big block/lock of documents in 2017, they referenced it when the media picked it up and blamed a software update incorrectly flagging things. Even if it was it proves they're going to check contents and shut down things they don't like.

Here's a news article.

 

[Betonhaus]

What a thoughtful and insightful post.

Seeing as it was clearly a mistake to be nice and give you the benefit of the doubt I will explain as simply as I can and hopefully get through your thick nigger skull. I am not "bitching about office" and in fact I use open office myself. I am pointing out office is cloud based and that has not caused normies to switch so windows becoming cloud based won't be much of a change and also probably won't cause normies (like the post I was replying to) to switch.

Wait, you actually use OpenOffice and not LibreOffice or OnlyOffice?
I question your ability to reaserch the tools you use.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

I'll possibly switch to a Linux distro when Windows 10 stops being a viable option. I say possibly because I'm getting old and set in my ways.

 

[Betonhaus]

I'll possibly switch to a Linux distro when Windows 10 stops being a viable option. I say possibly because I'm getting old and set in my ways.

You won't do it now when your brain is still capable of relearning operating systems?

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

You won't do it now when your brain is still capable of relearning operating systems?

Good point.

 

[Snekposter]

I'll switch to Linux as soon as the Linuxfags get their shit in order instead of splitting and arguing more than the damned IRA. So, never.

 

[beepbopisuckcock]

Wait, you actually use OpenOffice and not LibreOffice or OnlyOffice?
I question your ability to reaserch the tools you use.

Entirely ignoring the point in order to focus on a nigh irrelevant detail with a meaningless insult. Interesting. So I'm guessing you realized you actually did misunderstand my original post now that I explained simply for you huh?

 

[Betonhaus]

I'll switch to Linux as soon as the Linuxfags get their shit in order instead of splitting and arguing more than the damned IRA. So, never.

Generally theres only a few camps worth considering. If you're not an enterprise user or need intense custom software you can outright ignore anything in the fedora camp, and of the rest there's only really three distros to consider: Linux Mint, Zorin OS, and Ubuntu. There are many others with their own specialty, but none of them will have the same level of support, stability, and user friendliness of the first three. Zorin OS has a paid edition that adds more powerful features but their largely unnecessary, Linux Mint is pretty consistent, and Ubuntu lets you install different desktop managers depending on what you want it for.

Entirely ignoring the point in order to focus on a nigh irrelevant detail with a meaningless insult. Interesting. So I'm guessing you realized you actually did misunderstand my original post now that I explained simply for you huh?

It's not exactly irrelevant. OO.o is the original version, but has so much drama and shit behind it that it's highly not recommended. If you're somehow not aware of that then that indicates your knowledge of the subject is limited. LibreOffice is a direct fork that makes necessary concessions to reality and improves the code. But not use .odf internally so if you open a .docx file it internally converts it to .off and back, causing issues. OnlyOffice is written to natively render in .docs as those are open standards now, and it handles them much better. And your post was pearl clutching and not really worth dissecting.

 

[beepbopisuckcock]

It's not exactly irrelevant. OO.o is the original version, but has so much drama and shit behind it that it's highly not recommended. If you're somehow not aware of that then that indicates your knowledge of the subject is limited. LibreOffice is a direct fork that makes necessary concessions to reality and improves the code. But not use .odf internally so if you open a .docx file it internally converts it to .off and back, causing issues. OnlyOffice is written to natively render in .docs as those are open standards now, and it handles them much better.

Again a bunch of fluff entirely unrelated to the original point that normies didn't move away from office because it was put in the cloud so there's no reason to think they will move away from windows when it becomes cloud based. If you removed my mention of the office software I use it wouldn't the point you seem to really focus on that and only that. Probably because you've realized you made a mistake, then doubled down, and now are too much of a soy filled bitch to just say so.

And your post was pearl clutching and not really worth dissecting.

There it is. If you're going to accuse someone of pearl clutching maybe don't try to dismiss everything they've said by over reacting to which particular FOSS office suite they use. It comes off as hypocritical and stupid. I use open office because it's free, runs locally, and works. I can't see why I should care beyond that let alone why you would care unless it was just something to latch onto after acting like a retard. Makes me think your pearl clutching accusations here might be just a wee bit of projection.

Anyway you're clearly a fucking sperg who can't even handle someone saying you might have misread something so I'm going to drop it here. You can sperg out about my choice of FOSS software again if it makes you feel better.

 

[SIMIΔN]

I'm currently running a freeware version of Office now and while it works okay for short term tasks, if I want to write or study again, I'm going to have to invest in Microsoft Office because the freeware crashes on a regular basis and simply isn't reliable.

I'd recommend WPS Office. They have tiny ads upselling you their other products, but other than that it is as functional and reliable as MS Word.

 

[Betonhaus]

Again a bunch of fluff entirely unrelated to the original point that normies didn't move away from office because it was put in the cloud so there's no reason to think they will move away from windows when it becomes cloud based. If you removed my mention of the office software I use it wouldn't the point you seem to really focus on that and only that. Probably because you've realized you made a mistake, then doubled down, and now are too much of a soy filled bitch to just say so.

"normies" didn't move away from office, because the older perpetual license versions of Office still worked. They just never upgraded to the cloud version. By the time the old versions were getting too old, Microsoft caved and released a new perpetual license version of office. It doesn't seem that Microsoft releases a breakdown of how many customers have perpetual licenses and how many have subscriptions, something Iu would suspect they would be very open about if the numbers were NOT inconvenient. Additionally, Office 365 is fully installed on the computer and can be used completely offline - it just needs to connect to the internet once every 30 days to verify that the subscription is still valid. A fully cloud-based version of Windows would not have that ability.

And the reason why I put so much emphasis on OpenOffice vs LibreOffice is because OpenOffice is effectively discontinued software - the equivalent of someone still patching Windows XP in the hopes that people use it. Openoffice only just got .docx support two years ago, and it only has Apache trying to keep it alive while Libreoffice is heavily supported by the majority of the Open source community - and even comes preinstalled with most - if not all - desktop Linux distributions. Not being aware of the difference reveals a level of stagnation and refusal to research that puts your knowledge and opinions of the matter in question - kind of like having an argument with someone about fine cheese and finding out they have a piss drinking fetish.

https://itsfoss.com/libreoffice-vs-openoffice/

 

[cybertoaster]

When I was 10 years old I probably spent half my youth waiting for tape games to load. People these days have to restart or reset connections on a TOR browser and they lose their shit.

I'm from the CDROM age but I remember waiting forever for images to load in the dialup days, and forget about video I still remember trying to download movie trailers in literal microscopic resolution and I still had to wait hours.

Though I even seen boomers getting antsy when netflix starts buffering, is like they already forgot the previous 40-30 years when they had to go out and rent a movie, a single movie, and got so used to having everything right now that they have no patience anymore.

The year of Linux is imminent!

If only, frankly we need someone to step up like Musk did on Twitter, not to paywall it but to bring some order and cohesion, there's so much waster and even graft going on at FOSS foundations, specially gnome which is still the standard DE for some of the biggest distros.

It surprised me that despite being the architect of winNT Gaben can't see the huge potential of making SteamOS the kind of vertically-integrated linux distro Ubuntu wanted to be but canonical couldn't deliver. The work done on Proton alone its a quantum leap and yet he's stopping at that when Valve could be making billions with a SteamOS that's an actual windows replacement and not simply linux with a custom UX for gaming.

though frankly ChromeOS is probably good enough these days for everyday office-type work.

If you're afraid of spyware stay away from google apps.

there's only really three distros to consider: Linux Mint, Zorin OS, and Ubuntu.

Seriously? what about PopOS and Manjaro? I see a lot of people moving to arch, and AFAIK SteamOS is arch-based now.

Zorin OS has a paid edition that adds more powerful features

Which features?

 

[Omen_Sulk]

If you're afraid of spyware stay away from google apps.

They won't allow a new OS to become the standard unless it has some sort of spyware/backdoor.

 

[Betonhaus]

Seriously? what about PopOS and Manjaro? I see a lot of people moving to arch, and AFAIK SteamOS is arch-based now

I'll concede I'm not to familiar with those versions, sorry.

Which features

...
You know what, good question. There some nice to have bonuses behind a paywall but talking to their support they confirmed that they haven't moved important features behind the paywall.

It surprised me that despite being the architect of winNT Gaben can't see the huge potential of making SteamOS the kind of vertically-integrated linux distro Ubuntu wanted to be but canonical couldn't deliver. The work done on Proton alone its a quantum leap and yet he's stopping at that when Valve could be making billions with a SteamOS that's an actual windows replacement and not simply linux with a custom UX for gaming

This I'll admit it would be nice for Steam to do, even if it's just officially partnering with a distribution to make it work. Steam probably doesn't want to deal with all the hardware and use cases and brokering video card driver support though. That would effectively be an entire branch of the company on itself.

 

[Male Idiot]

This sounds extremely impractical. Have they never heard of internet outage? Especially for companies this is a dumbass idea.