
MS to Give Windows 10 a ‘Modern’ Overhaul with Light Weight Polaris Windows Core - rbanffy
https://hothardware.com/news/microsoft-polaris-os-to-ditch-legacy-components
======
ctrl-j
> One big caveat to Polaris will be that it is unable to run Win32 programs
> natively. However, reports indicate that Microsoft will be bringing the
> Centennial Win32 app to Polaris employing virtualization.

So.. no gamers, powerusers, or most corporate deployments. Got it. Can't wait
for them to kill this off in 2-5 years.

~~~
jakebasile
Yep, as a gamer there is no chance I would willingly upgrade to this. I like
being able to run 20 year old games natively if I feel like it. (e.g. Diablo
1, released in 1996, can still run without virtualization on Windows 10.
Sometimes.)

I wish Microsoft was content with just keeping Windows working. I'd buy a
special "we will only issue security and compatibility updates" version if I
could. I hardly ever want the new features they decide to add. UWP is garbage.
the Microsoft/Windows/Zune store is garbage. Cortana is garbage. The Xbox
app/game bar is garbage. I don't want any of it, I want Windows to run my
games and get out of my way.

edit: All that said, Edge is kind of OK.

~~~
ctrl-j
> I like being able to run 20 year old games natively if I feel like it. (e.g.
> Diablo 1, released in 1996, can still run without virtualization on Windows
> 10. Sometimes.)

As I pointed out below, this isn't even 20 year old games. Name a release in
the last year - if it's not a first-party Microsoft title, chances are it's
Win32.

You mentioned Diablo 1, well with polaris Diablo III would need
virtualization.

Fortnight? PUBG? Overwatch? All are Win32 games.

Excited for monster hunter in Q3? That'll be virtualized in polaris.

This is going nowhere.

~~~
TheRealPomax
Can you explain what you understand will be going wrong when you imply that
games needing virtualization will somehow "go nowhere"? Is there something
about OS-managed virtualization (rather than application-managed
virtualization) that you know that the rest of us don't? Why would a
virtualized API even be noticable for modern games, which offload almost all
the work to the GPU already anyway?

~~~
Strom
Only technical people have a clue what virtualization even means. Generally
speaking, gamers haven't even heard of the word. Thus whatever virtualization
soulution is used must be pretty much automatic. However if Windows already
automatically handles this, then why mention that there's no Win32 support?
Either people can keep launching their games on Steam or they can't. If they
can't, then this new Windows won't win any fans among gamers. Even if there's
automatic virtualization in place, as soon as you're losing fps, gamers won't
be happy.

~~~
wmgries
Security. I believe Centennial apps don't have the ability to actually modify
the system - they just think they can via the container interface.

Worth noting: the Xbox One has used virtualization since day one for video
games. Done right, gamers shouldn't even have to know that this is what's
happening.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_One_system_software#Syste...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_One_system_software#System)

Disclaimer: Microsoft employee, not working on Windows 10 (aka I have no idea
how accurate this is).

~~~
jakebasile
Yeah, that sounds like it might preclude any modding (as is the case with
current UWP games) which will be a hard pass from me and many other PC gamers
(I don't even mod much, usually just fan patches).

The Xbox One has come up a couple times here, and I don't think the people
bringing it up understand that the Xbox is the exact opposite of what PC
gamers want their PC to be. It's closed down, controlled, and limited compared
to a full PC. It may be more secure, but often the beneficiary of that
security is not the user but the console manufacturer, game publishers, and
game developers.

------
nmeofthestate
I understand all the grumpy, snarly attitudes to this, but it seems imperative
to me for MS to extricate themselves from the mire of 24 years of legacy OS.
There's no sensible alternative for them, unless they decide to just be
maintainers of a legacy OS.

~~~
quincunx
If they were being held back by the "legacy" parts of the OS, you might be
right. But they're not being held back, rather, it's their unique selling
point..

Arguably the legacy bits are the bits that work, the modern bits (UWP) are
barely seeing any adoption. They're force feeding the modern bits, presumably
because they've lost the human resources/mindset/talent to maintain the legacy
bits?

This strategy of arm twisting coercion has failed them before and it will fail
them again, and again, and again.

~~~
watmough
Yes, look at the bits used by Microsoft Office ... Win32.

I could believe the flashing (when running over RDP), glitchy, sluggish
Outlook 2016 is using some of the new stuff. It's not a success in my view.

~~~
DougN7
Office 2016 really sucks compares to 2013. It feels like a browser app. Is it
UWP?

------
luch
a new Windows version with no direct upgrade path and breaking backward
compatibility with Win32 ? Good luck getting devs and enterprise IT on it.

Project Centennial is an amazing piece of virtualization but it has its
caveats ([https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/uwp/porting/desktop...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/uwp/porting/desktop-to-uwp-prepare)): it won't be able to convert
every legacy software (why isn't Office on the Windows Store for example ?).

At best, it will target locked down hardware like consoles and tablets, but
isn't what Windows S was created for ?

~~~
melling
What software will it be able to run? I’m not a Windows users, but a future
version of the Surface might be appealing. Love my iPad but would like
Photoshop on it, for example.

Think this might go in devices used by the next 2 billion computer users?
Emerging markets...

------
hungerstrike
Windows is my favorite desktop OS and hearing that it's going full-UWP kinda
makes me feel sick. I don't use a single UWP app outside of the Settings app
because they're so limited, ugly and annoying to use.

For instance, just highlight some text in Edge and bring up the context menu.
Look how huge and ugly the context menu is and how few menu items there are.
This is designed for touch users I guess. Compare with Chrome. No thanks
Microsoft!

If Windows goes full UWP I'm going to have to move to Linux, something I've
put off doing because I really enjoy the ease of use that I get with Windows
where everything that I need to do just works.

~~~
tabletiptop
"Windows is my favorite desktop OS ... I really enjoy the ease of use that I
get with Windows where everything that I need to do just works."

I was in 100% agreement with this up until maybe a year or two ago, having
flirted between Windows and Ubuntu for at least a decade. But now, I find
Ubuntu 16.04 (MATE being my variant of choice) to work better out of the box
than Windows, even with third party peripherals.

As one anecdotal example, I've a basic EPSON printer / scanner combo on my
network. It's always been a fiddle to make work with Windows - you need to go
to their website and download their driver and proprietary application so that
Windows can find it and produce scans, and it's not all that reliable. The
other day, I needed to scan something, and typed "scan" into my MATE menu
fully expecting there to be a problem to solve. I opened up the Simple Scan
application and not only was the scanner detected and online, but it just
worked immediately with no quibbles. I get these sorts of pleasant surprises
all the time now, to the point that I can honestly say it's easier to use than
Windows.

All of the Applications I use have native Linux support (Firefox, Thunderbird,
Spotify, Steam, Unity with VS Code, etc) and work as well as their Windows
counterparts. Lots of things I find are easier to set up compared to Windows
such as Python programming with virtualenvs, CUDA support for TensorFlow and
so on.

Plus - no UWP, no forced updates, no dodgy telemetry, no obnoxious adverts for
OneDrive and Office popping up in Explorer... add all that up and it's a done
deal. No Windows in this house.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Personally I'd really love to move off of Windows, but I've never had this
supposedly "good" experience with linux that people talk about. Everything is
overly complicated and inflexible unless you want to strip it down to the
kernel and start over, which is probably why there's a thousand distros out
there.

------
moogly
I have yet to see an UWP app that wasn't horrible to use on a desktop, and
hence I regularly use exactly 0 UWP apps. And this OS would be all UWP?

~~~
pjc50
The font rendering is ugly too, for some inexplicable reason. Microsoft
haven't even the courage of their own convictions to convert all of Control
Panel to UWP.

~~~
rehemiau
It is ugly on low resolution screens. With displays that need scaling the new
rendering is actually better.

Also, they are currently working on moving more and more settings from the
Control Panel to the UWP Settings app.

------
pmilot
Isn't this basically the strategy as the old Windows 8 on ARM? Ditch all
legacy stuff, no backward compatibility... why would this succeed where Win8
on ARM failed?

~~~
vim_wannabe
Windows RT; Store apps only with Microsoft Office tablet version preloaded.
Not sure what happened to it.

~~~
pjc50
Nobody liked it because of the restriction to Store apps meant a real shortage
of software. It would be like having a Chromebook that ran IE.

------
AllegedAlec
Why even call this Windows 10? It's a complete overhaul which has little
backwards compatibility. Hell, I'd even say that it's false advertising to
still call it Windows 10.

~~~
TheRealPomax
Who said it will be called Windows 10 when it's done? They're starting with
their current codebase, which is Windows 10, and are now working to remove any
and all legacy code from it that they can, to get to a reduced codebase for a
new OS release. Like all projects, it has a codename for now, and when it's
done (but right now, "if" it's done sounds a more realistic assertion) it'll
certainly not be called Windows 10 anymore.

Just like when Windows XP was developed: they took the Windows NT 4.5
codebase, and started hacking on that until they'd changed enough to make it
"Windows NT 5", but it was never released under that name. The underlying
version number, however, was kept. So, it'll probably be Windows 11 (or
rather, a Windows "something") with an underlying version number like 10.5.x
or 11.x.x

~~~
catpolice
Microsoft is the one who said it will be called Windows 10 when it's done.
They've repeatedly stressed that Windows 10 is the last numbered update to
Windows. That's not to say that the underlying technology won't change, even
radically - it's just that this will be done through Windows Update as an
upgrade to the existing OS rather than a new OS that you won't have access to
without purchasing an upgrade.

They realized at some point that they had several concurrent versions of
Windows out there that they had to support, and many customers had no apparent
incentive to upgrade to new versions. So going forward they ostensibly have a
single version that auto-updates, and they provide the OS "as a service".

~~~
contextfree
You can't update between Mobile and Desktop editions, or between Desktop and
Xbox, or between Xbox and Hololens, etc.

~~~
WorldMaker
Yet.

Right now there are a bunch of little forked differences between them all.
Microsoft says they are working to merge all the shell differences into a
single project (CShell; composable shell), and the point of getting to a clean
core (the "Polaris" codename in this article) seems to be to make sure all the
rest of Windows modularly slots in on top of that, and a benefit to that is
that you could quite possibly more easily change between which modules are
loaded/available.

From the Continuum project, we know that Microsoft finds it interesting to be
able to switch between Mobile and Desktop editions as much "on the fly" as
possible. Could mean they have ideas for switching between Desktop and Xbox
modes, too.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Microsoft says they are working to merge all the shell differences into a
> single project (CShell; composable shell), and the point of getting to a
> clean core (the "Polaris" codename in this article)

The clean core is Windows Core OS; Polaris is the desktop-specific composer on
top of CShell and Windows Core OS and is also used in this article as the name
of a UWP-only Windows edition incorporating the Core OS/CShell/Polaris-
composer stack.

~~~
WorldMaker
Do you have a source for your specifics? From the linked article I assumed
that Polaris was just the new codename for the next big phase of Windows Core
OS/OneCore/etc work and the article was mistaken or presuming much about a
Core/CShell-only edition release plan.

It makes sense that there would be a codename for the desktop-composer on top
of CShell, and that would be a far better explanation of things than the
article here.

~~~
dragonwriter
Here's an article which discusses the strategy in some more detail, explicitly
identifying Polaris as the composer (but then also seeming to use it as the
name for a desktop spin of Windows with Polaris in the stack):

[https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-core-
polaris](https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-core-polaris)

This Windows Central article actually seems to be the source for most of the
other recent coverage, so it may be the most complete piece out there.

------
yakz
Maybe things have changed, but last time I checked you can't easily publish
UWP apps without going through the Windows Store, and the Windows Store
requires you to give 30% of your revenue over to Microsoft. That's a huge
change from Win32.

~~~
Richicoder
It's changed. You do have to explicitly opt into to it, but you can sideload
UWP apps pretty easily these days.

------
mezzode
Reading all these comments makes me feel weird for actually liking UWP apps.
Of course certain things don't make sense for them, like games, but I
definitely prefer UWP apps over web-apps for things like Messenger and
Todoist. I honestly wish more programs were UWP instead of Electron since they
would work way better most of the time.

------
garganzol
As if Windows 10 Mobile overhaul wasn't enough. What's up with Microsoft these
days, seriously? They clearly lost their mojo.

------
jacksmith21006
Sounds like MS is concerned about Chromebooks. Did see they still had a pretty
small base but did have 38% growth YoY.

[https://www.pcworld.com/article/3194946/computers/chromebook...](https://www.pcworld.com/article/3194946/computers/chromebook-
shipments-surge-by-38-percent-cutting-into-windows-10-pcs.html) Chromebook
shipments surge by 38 percent, cutting into Windows ...

------
jblow
There are no sources listed anywhere in this article. The wording feels very
intentionally vague. Not sure anyone should take it seriously.

------
zamalek
I recall Microsoft saying that Windows 10 would be the last Windows, which was
their reasoning for shoving it down our throats.

Guess we're going to have Polaris upgrade nags now.

~~~
josephpmay
As mentioned in the article, Polaris is only for new devices

~~~
zamalek
Given how long the Windows 10 promise held, I really don't have much faith in
that remaining true by 2019.

------
m0ther
Has anyone seen any official word from Microsoft explaining what this is, and
how this will affect the win32 experience?

------
inlined
Is this related to the old MinWin project or a new beast entirely?

~~~
WorldMaker
My assumption is that it's more of a "sprint milestone" codename for the
MinWin/OneCore "next phase" than an entirely new project. (It was also rumored
to have the milestone codename "Andromeda" recently, and I wouldn't be
surprised that they switched to Polaris to avoid Google's similar codename.)

~~~
WorldMaker
Another commenter suggests Polaris may be the codename for the UWP-native
desktop-compositor on top of OneCore/CShell:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16259539](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16259539)

------
mtgx
Again?

~~~
inlined
I'm not sure this deserves a down vote aside from failing to provide context.
The major app compatibility problems in vista boiled down to two things: 1\.
Apps that hard coded which OS they supported (the number one compatibility fix
was just too lie about the OS version) 2\. DOS applications were now
virtualized in an app we called "DOS box".

Though it seems silly to have such hatred pop up over DOS support in 2006, a
lot of b2b apps still used it.

Given how much of a beast WOW is (the x86 on x64 later), dropping native x86
support excites me and makes me cringe.

------
bitwize
Hate to say I told you so, but...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16200863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16200863)

~~~
randomString1
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_RT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_RT)

