Microsoft not giving up: Windows Lite rumors surface

[Karlston]

While Microsoft's Windows operating system is still going strong, the company is facing tough competition in the classroom and Universities. Google Chromebooks are doing well there thanks to a combination of cheap prices and ease of use; Chromebooks use cloud storage and syncing functionality that is built deeply into the operating system.

 

Microsoft launched two products in the past designed to compete in the low-end market: Windows RT and Windows 10 S. The main issue with both products was that they carried all the ballast of full versions of Windows without really offering anything that made devices running these versions of Windows attractive.

 

The devices did not offer better battery life, were excluded from the attractive software catalog and limited to Store apps, online services, and PWAs. Not many wanted to run a device with Windows that could not run Windows games or applications, most of them at least.

 

 

Third time's a charm, as rumors surfaced that Microsoft is working on yet another restricted version of Windows called Windows Lite. Whether that is just a more recent version of Windows Cloud, which leaked in 2017, remains to be seen.

 

Tero Alhonen spotted the new SKU Lite in Windows 10 SDK 18282 and Brad Sams suggested over on Petri.com that Microsoft will position it to target Chromebooks.

 

Windows 10 Lite will run UWP applications and PWAs only, according to Sams, who dug deep into builds and talked to "a couple insiders". What sets this apart from Windows RT or Windows 10 S is the fact that Microsoft removed parts that are not required to run PWAs or Universal Platform Applications.

 

Sam's calls it a "truly lightweight version of Windows" and suggests that it will not be sold openly but will be for OEMs exclusively. Devices could be powered by the next Qualcomm processor or Intel processors.

Closing Words

It is not clear if Lite will indeed be Microsoft's third attempt at establishing a low cost device in a market that Windows devices have not performed overly well in previously.

 

Lite may still feature a desktop interface that resembles Windows 10 and if Microsoft managed to throw a lot of components overboard, it could show in battery life and performance.

 

Windows Lite could be unveiled in 2019 officially.

 

Source: Microsoft not giving up: Windows Lite rumors surface

[steven36]

This is  there next OS its not going to look or feel like Windows 10 at all  . It most likely not even going to be Windows its just going to be called Windows lite. They fell like in order to compete with Chrome OS they need get away from  the sigma of it being based on windows 10.   If they become successful making  a tablet OS that ever gains any marketshare  it would be the 1st . Chrome OS  uses Linux like Android  does but Chrome OS is less successful than GNU Linux  even,  it has a very niche market  only   schools have adopted it,  it never had a main stream market  it has only like a 0.3%  marketshare. 

 

What is Windows Lite? It's Microsoft's Chrome OS Killer

https://www.petri.com/what-is-windows-core-os-its-microsofts-chromebook-os-killer

 

There more worried about making a new OS they can sell Hardware with like Apple doses than fixing what is in the wild witch is Winders 10 .

 

like this is why i switched to GNU  Linux  they keep trying to reinvent the wheel  of a broken  wheel  that never sold good to begin with. Nobody wants and OS that needs to be in the cloud 24/7  if you not heard  the price of internet is not getting any cheaper  with people using Android TV boxes to stream 4k and  to play games in the Cloud it's going to get more expensive with the move toward the cloud.

[Karlston]

You're right, but you'd think that after their spectacular failure with Windows 10 Mobile trying to get a foothold in the iOS/Android smart phone space, they'd have learnt a lesson.

 

Nope.

 

And to ensure its doom, it'll probably be limited to Windows Store apps only.

[steven36]

2 minutes ago, Karlston said:

You're right, but you'd think that after their spectacular failure with Windows 10 Mobile trying to get a foothold in the iOS/Android smart phone space, they'd have learnt a lesson.

 

Nope.

 

And to ensure its doom, it'll probably be limited to Windows Store apps only.

It' will be limited to UWP and PWA's  The reason Chrome OS is failure is a tablet is not a phone  and no one wants phone apps  on a tablet because a tablet is not a phone . They can just buy and Ipad  if they want that. The 1st tablets  came out were windows 7  with low powered atom  processor  then soon after Apple came out with one with IOS  on it and  now tablets have really went  out of style some years ago.

 

 

 

[Karlston]

I think people are just hanging onto tablets for much longer than phones. There's much less innovation happening to tablets than phones so less incentive to buy a new one.

 

Got my first tablet, a 4th gen iPad in late 2012, and my second, an iPad Pro 10.5" in mid-2016.

 

Unless Apple or someone else innovates something incredibly brilliant, the Pro will last me several more years.

[steven36]

1 hour ago, Karlston said:

I think people are just hanging onto tablets for much longer than phones. There's much less innovation happening to tablets than phones so less incentive to buy a new one.

 

Got my first tablet, a 4th gen iPad in late 2012, and my second, an iPad Pro 10.5" in mid-2016.

 

Unless Apple or someone else innovates something incredibly brilliant, the Pro will last me several more years.

I never  wanted  one running  Windows 7 on a New XP computer  with a Atom processor i bought was a bad enough experience for me. The only new advancement that really sells now  are  4 K TV boxes witch you can buy a good one for what you paid for a cheap Chrome Book. The only thing that stops  me  from buying one is the crappy internet speeds i have here no way i could stream 4 K  so I just  use Kodi on my older Dell mini or on my older AMD  Gateway. They are Windows 8 and 8.1 generation PCs . it's 1080p and 720p for me.

 

it's like a smart phone what am  I going to do with that? I live in a dead zone. phones are only good for if i'm traveling and if I'm on vacation or leave the house i just go put some time on my burner phone,  no one in my house uses a smart phone we still have normal cell phones.

 

My windows 8 PC  I got in like 2013 and my Windows 8.1 PC  I got in 2015 after Windows 10 came out , I only used Windows 7 for 2 years  I was on XP for 10 years it never did bother me back then because my  net was so slow back in the day i only watched DVDs in  a DVD Player,  if i pirated a movie i rented  it and copied  it on DVD  with  my PC. I've not rented a movie since 2007  I stop watching anything  after that for a few years it was when I got rid of satellite internet and got Hi speed  that i  started downloading TV shows and movies  and i stop using Convert X to DVD  years ago. Its all digital storage and streams  for me now i been collecting digital download videos for like 7 years now .Piracy could dry up and id still have stuff to watch for ages..  

[Karlston]

46 minutes ago, steven36 said:

i been collecting digital download videos for like 7 years now .Piracy could dry up and id still have stuff to watch for ages..  

 

Same here, need to live at least another 20 years to give me a chance to see them all.

 

Been converting the h.264 videos to h.265 just to make room for more. Fortunately my little Odroid C2 (with LibreElec Kodi distro) does h.265 decoding in hardware,