Windows 10 S May Not Play Well with Desktop PCs

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
Paul Thurnott has found that Windows 10 S isn’t necessarily a good match for desktop systems: in his latest “Living with Windows 10 S” series, he describes how he installed Microsoft’s stripped-down OS but found that drivers were missing for a variety of components, which is interesting, being that the system used was just a basic Intel NUC.

...I was still surprised to see that such a standard Intel-based PC was not fully supported, through the OS, from a driver standpoint. I suspect all of the PCs that are supported are portable PCs. Which is interesting, when you think about it. Chrome OS runs on Chromebooks, of course, but also on Chromebits and Chromeboxes. Anyway, I can continue using Windows 10 S on a laptop—well, a new Surface Pro—while I work in Windows 10 Pro on this huge PC. But maybe I’ll experiment with using the Surface Pro with Surface Dock and an external monitor. I’d really like to stay within Windows 10 S if possible. No matter how painful it is.
 
What I want to know is how long updates take? If its more than 8 seconds it still doesnt beat a Chromebook.

II bet its still 5 mins+.
 
daglesj said:
What I want to know is how long updates take? If its more than 8 seconds it still doesnt beat a Chromebook.

II bet its still 5 mins+.
Click to expand...

It's got the same 3+ decades of spaghetti code as regular Windows 10 Pro, since all they really did was reghacked out the desktop and called it a day.

Utterly pointless. They took the worst, most half baked aspects of Windows 10 - the store, it's crappy mobile apps and a handful of UWP wrappered Win32 fake apps - and want to confine users to them. Which users, I have no idea. I think they only exist in the mushroom hallucinations of the marketing department.

Windows 10 S is the manifestation of Microsoft's true intentions from Windows 8 forward. A locked down platform ala Xbox or Apple iOS where they're gatekeeper and data harvester for everything. But they're expecting to do it without the innovation, engineering and cool must-have features of the successful walled gardens.
 
Last edited:
Yeah so 10 S is not a full blown version of Windows that you can install on any random box of hardware....big surprise there. I guess if I become a premium member at his site he will give me more gold nuggets of knowledge like that?

That pic of him makes me think he shit his pants...
 
From the screen shots it looks like they are trying to make W10 look like Ubuntu.
 
In Linux you don't need to worry about drivers or about which features are available in your edition. You get everything!
 
Corvette said:
So, we just have to get some drivers like the good ol' days?
Click to expand...

It's like that with some laptops and standard Windows 10. I was given a new HP laptop recently. I naturally went for a clean install without the HP bloat (there's so much) and Windows 10 didn't pick up on the missing drivers until I manually installed a few of the Intel specific chipset drivers.
 
I was surprised that I didn't need to download all my motherboard drivers when i installed windows 10. I'm sure you could just download them if they don't have a workable one for your setup. Not sure if this is just another generational technology misunderstanding/gripe or if it's an actual issue. Regardless, if that's the major problem, this seems like a fairly overblown piece.
 
Who cares. Let the drama subside. It's no big deal. You will all be just fine, trust me.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
BloodyIron said:
In Linux you don't need to worry about drivers or about which features are available in your edition. You get everything!
Click to expand...

Yeah, you just need to recompile everything everytime you upgrade the kernel. Or wait a few weeks/months for the upstream devs to update their software. Meanwhile, apps on Windows work because the hardware drivers lie outside kernel space.
 
I knew it, Windows RT just renamed. I swear that's what this is. Slap a "new and improved" sticker on it says its a new design, no one will notice......
 
gamerk2 said:
Yeah, you just need to recompile everything everytime you upgrade the kernel. Or wait a few weeks/months for the upstream devs to update their software. Meanwhile, apps on Windows work because the hardware drivers lie outside kernel space.
Click to expand...

Hm, I haven't had to do that yet. I started dual booting when Windows 10 came out and on 2 desktops and one laptop, everything has been fine. Even on the desktop with a Ryzen processor (winner of HardOCP drawing!!!), I upgraded the kernel to a version with better Ryzen support and had no issues. But, I'm not the type to upgrade my system just because there's a new version. If everything is working correctly and is still being supported, why upgade.
 
gamerk2 said:
Yeah, you just need to recompile everything everytime you upgrade the kernel. Or wait a few weeks/months for the upstream devs to update their software. Meanwhile, apps on Windows work because the hardware drivers lie outside kernel space.
Click to expand...

Yeah, not really. Contrary to popular belief Linux isn't stuck 20 years in the past.

I update the kernel using the GUI....And life goes on, I do don't do anything else at all and I haven't compiled software in about ten years.

Install a fresh version of Windows 7 on an OEM laptop that's had about 7 hardware revisions during its lifespan and being forced to use hardware ID's to locate drivers as you have no idea what hardware is installed in the machine - At that point the idea of a hybrid kernel gets old pretty damn quick.
 
BulletDust said:
Install a fresh version of Windows 7 on an OEM laptop that's had about 7 hardware revisions during its lifespan and being forced to use hardware ID's to locate drivers as you have no idea what hardware is installed in the machine - At that point the idea of a hybrid kernel gets old pretty damn quick.
Click to expand...

Have to say in 25+ years of Windows computing and IT support I think I might have done that once, many many years ago for some non brand sound card. Hardly a frequent occurrence.

Plus you can always just look inside the machine or look up the spec list online. But again in most cases not required. It just works.
 
I haven't had to compile a kernel in over a DECADE. What are you smoking sucka?

gamerk2 said:
Yeah, you just need to recompile everything everytime you upgrade the kernel. Or wait a few weeks/months for the upstream devs to update their software. Meanwhile, apps on Windows work because the hardware drivers lie outside kernel space.
Click to expand...
 
Dude there's so many OEM laptops and desktops with obscure onboard bullshit that you need to PCI device ID lookup to get drivers. I've done this countless times. And no, just opening it and "looking" for it is a non-solution because it's integrated!

daglesj said:
Have to say in 25+ years of Windows computing and IT support I think I might have done that once, many many years ago for some non brand sound card. Hardly a frequent occurrence.

Plus you can always just look inside the machine or look up the spec list online. But again in most cases not required. It just works.
Click to expand...
 
BloodyIron said:
Dude there's so many OEM laptops and desktops with obscure onboard bullshit that you need to PCI device ID lookup to get drivers. I've done this countless times. And no, just opening it and "looking" for it is a non-solution because it's integrated!
Click to expand...

It's been a very long time since I've had to go this route. Stuff does happen when vendors drop support and there's tons of hardware out there of various ages that stops getting support. But even in that case it's just a matter of finding an older driver it it's compatible with the whatever version of Windows you're on.
 
gamerk2 said:
Yeah, you just need to recompile everything everytime you upgrade the kernel. Or wait a few weeks/months for the upstream devs to update their software. Meanwhile, apps on Windows work because the hardware drivers lie outside kernel space.
Click to expand...

Haven't looked at how printer drivers work eh? There's still plenty of them running in kernel-space.
 
Faeces might not be a good material to build things out of, who would've thought?
 
BulletDust said:
Install a fresh version of Windows 7 on an OEM laptop that's had about 7 hardware revisions during its lifespan and being forced to use hardware ID's to locate drivers as you have no idea what hardware is installed in the machine - At that point the idea of a hybrid kernel gets old pretty damn quick.
Click to expand...
Yeah, oems. They don't just put completely unidentifiable hw in laptops but also change a few bits here and there so reference drivers don't work with their crap, and they stop releasing new drivers exactly 1 year after their garbage hits the market. Now in some cases someone might find a workaround or you're fooked.
 
Installed it on my spare desktop PC. Activated with a DL all on its own. I suspect it used the 10 Pro DL this PC already had. Can't use command prompt, or PowerShell. regedit is there, won't run though. I'm stuck with the "Microsoft basic display driver" Trying to run the NVidia installer is blocked and Windows update can't find a better driver. That leaves me stuck at 1024 x 768 instead of 1440 x 900. 1440 x 900 is not listed as an option, 1280 x 1024 is the highest listed. manually pointing it to the folder with the ini file seems to have worked though.

Can't install office 2016 and the "Get Office" App just returns a "The thing your looking for isn't here" message.

That's enough for me, did the change product code and upgraded to full Pro. To restrictive for my use.
 
gamerk2 said:
Yeah, you just need to recompile everything everytime you upgrade the kernel. Or wait a few weeks/months for the upstream devs to update their software. Meanwhile, apps on Windows work because the hardware drivers lie outside kernel space.
Click to expand...
"You" don't, your distro maintainers do (unless you are a Gentoo user but we are a special lot)

Binary distro users do not have to recompile their Kernel.


In windows, many drivers reside in kernel space, some in userspace
Guess what... In Linux many drivers reside in kernel space, some in userspace

All drivers need a kernel space stub, whether they fully reside in kernelspace or are in userspace is downto other considerations (kernel is faster, limited API, fixed point only).

Just like in Windows, graphic drivers are in userspace.


The reason drivers are "easier" to deal with in windows is because MS exposed alot of the kernel API and ensure it is stable for all major versions
The reasons drivers are more "dynamic" to develop in Linux is the kernel internal API constantly chances (hence the rebuild) and the exposed API is very very slim
 
daglesj said:
Have to say in 25+ years of Windows computing and IT support I think I might have done that once, many many years ago for some non brand sound card. Hardly a frequent occurrence.

Plus you can always just look inside the machine or look up the spec list online. But again in most cases not required. It just works.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm gonna open up a laptop just to find out that it contains a Toshiba WiFi card that could be a rebranded 'anything' from Intel to realtek?! Come off it!

Perhaps back in your day it was just a little trap door on the bottom of the laptop, nowadays it's a little more complicated than that! Perhaps in your day driver support for older devices was a little better, these days it's garbage.

I have to look up drivers using driver ID's all the time. Most of the time, when it comes to Windows 7 - Things never 'just work'.
 
BulletDust said:
Yeah, I'm gonna open up a laptop just to find out that it contains a Toshiba WiFi card that could be a rebranded 'anything' from Intel to realtek?! Come off it!

Perhaps back in your day it was just a little trap door on the bottom of the laptop, nowadays it's a little more complicated than that! Perhaps in your day driver support for older devices was a little better, these days it's garbage.

I have to look up drivers using driver ID's all the time. Most of the time, when it comes to Windows 7 - Things never 'just work'.
Click to expand...


I think some of you are making this more difficult than it is.

I get all sorts of laptops in to me to service, fix and rebuild. I live in a big University City and I get them from all over the world from students. Chinese laptops, Greek laptops, Russian laptops you name it.

OEM brands I have never seen or heard of. I have NEVER struggled to find a driver or identify an item without a simple inspection or Google Search for the spec list.

The only bit of hardware I might struggle with is some part of the Intel chipset but a Google Search will tell me within 30 seconds (with the Intel chipset drivers) or maybe some built in sensor, again easy to sort.

This maybe happens 1 in every 15 laptops. I get a lot of laptops in.

You must be working on laptops from another dimension maybe?:confused:;)
 
daglesj said:
I think some of you are making this more difficult than it is.

I get all sorts of laptops in to me to service, fix and rebuild. I live in a big University City and I get them from all over the world from students. Chinese laptops, Greek laptops, Russian laptops you name it.

OEM brands I have never seen or heard of. I have NEVER struggled to find a driver or identify an item without a simple inspection or Google Search for the spec list.

The only bit of hardware I might struggle with is some part of the Intel chipset but a Google Search will tell me within 30 seconds (with the Intel chipset drivers) or maybe some built in sensor, again easy to sort.

This maybe happens 1 in every 15 laptops. I get a lot of laptops in.

You must be working on laptops from another dimension maybe?:confused:;)
Click to expand...

A Google search will direct you to some malware driver tool in 30 seconds - By no means will it find you the exact driver based on hardware ID alone, not a chance my friend.

As a tech working on a magnitude of different devices, I do this all day, every day also. I'm not exaggerating anything.

Lenovo and Toshiba have some of the worst legacy support I've ever seen, after a few years the device simply drops off the end of the list and disappears into the void. Forget hardware fitted, forget windows 7 drivers and don't even consider Windows 8/8.1 or 10 drivers.
 
BulletDust said:
Lenovo and Toshiba have some of the worst legacy support I've ever seen, after a few years the device simply drops off the end of the list and disappears into the void. Forget hardware fitted, forget windows 7 drivers and don't even consider Windows 8/8.1 or 10 drivers.
Click to expand...

As many have stated there's just so much hardware out there so it depends. I have, well had as the screen crapped out back in April just I as I was about to give it to a family member, a Lenovo Sandy Bridge based x220t Thinkpad convertible I bought in June 2011 running Windows 7. I didn't have any problem updating to 8.x all the way to the Windows 10 Creators Update before the screen gave out and all of the hardware functioned though one of the drivers for the tablet conversion never got updated but still worked with 10 and they were all provided from Lenovo's website.

A lot of it just depends on the device and hardware in question. Sometimes it works out fine for years. But sometimes not especially with stuff that wasn't that great to begin with.
 
heatlesssun said:
As many have stated there's just so much hardware out there so it depends. I have, well had as the screen crapped out back in April just I as I was about to give it to a family member, a Lenovo Sandy Bridge based x220t Thinkpad convertible I bought in June 2011 running Windows 7. I didn't have any problem updating to 8.x all the way to the Windows 10 Creators Update before the screen gave out and all of the hardware functioned though one of the drivers for the tablet conversion never got updated but still worked with 10 and they were all provided from Lenovo's website.

A lot of it just depends on the device and hardware in question. Sometimes it works out fine for years. But sometimes not especially with stuff that wasn't that great to begin with.
Click to expand...

Windows 10 is pretty good at sorting out drivers out of the box, but once that device ages and support is dropped by the manufacturer, Windows 7 is hopeless.
 
BulletDust said:
A Google search will direct you to some malware driver tool in 30 seconds - By no means will it find you the exact driver based on hardware ID alone, not a chance my friend.

As a tech working on a magnitude of different devices, I do this all day, every day also. I'm not exaggerating anything.

Lenovo and Toshiba have some of the worst legacy support I've ever seen, after a few years the device simply drops off the end of the list and disappears into the void. Forget hardware fitted, forget windows 7 drivers and don't even consider Windows 8/8.1 or 10 drivers.
Click to expand...

I disagree. You just have to know where to look and how to look.

It's not difficult and malware free. Who users driver tools? Idiots.

There does come a point however, that you should tell the customer that the laptop is just too old or past it to warrant spending anymore on it. If I get handed a 6+ year old laptop in poor condition then I'll tell them to get a new one and I'll transfer the data over and delete the bloat.

Some machines are not worth the effort. I find customers appreciate the honest advice that their Vista laptop with a single core might just not cut it any more.
 
Last edited:
heatlesssun said:
A lot of it just depends on the device and hardware in question. Sometimes it works out fine for years. But sometimes not especially with stuff that wasn't that great to begin with.
Click to expand...

Yeah that stuff goes in the trash if its not worth saving.
 
daglesj said:
I disagree. You just have to know where to look and how to look.

It's not difficult and malware free. Who users driver tools? Idiots.

There does come a point however, that you should tell the customer that the laptop is just too old or past it to warrant spending anymore on it. If I get handed a 6+ year old laptop in poor condition then I'll tell them to get a new one and I'll transfer the data over and delete the bloat.

Some machines are not worth the effort. I find customers appreciate the honest advice that their Vista laptop with a single core might just not cut it any more.
Click to expand...

I've been doing this stuff for a long time, I know where to look - Using hardware ID's as that's the only way anyone can identify the hardware in question without manufacturer support (which is usually vague at best).

There's nothing wrong with a 6yo device, I'm replying to this on a 6yo device running an Intel Xeon, 24GB of ram, SSD's, HDD's and an Nvidia GPU. Just because the OS is no good at identifying hardware out of the box and downloading drivers doesn't mean perfectly capable hardware is destined for the scrap heap.

No, the OS I'm running has the bulk of the drivers built into the kernel, all I installed was the Nvidia binaries.
 
BulletDust said:
There's nothing wrong with a 6yo device, I'm replying to this on a 6yo device running an Intel Xeon, 24GB of ram, SSD's, HDD's and an Nvidia GPU.
Click to expand...

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with six year old hardware, it depends on what that six year old hardware is. The hardware you listed here is good hardware, I have a 6 year old x58 system that has no problems running Windows 7, 8.x or 10, it’s run all of these over the years without issue or difficulty with drivers and no need fussing with hardware IDs.

Now if you’re talking about crappy six year old hardware that was crappy six years ago things might be different.
 
daglesj said:
Have to say in 25+ years of Windows computing and IT support I think I might have done that once, many many years ago for some non brand sound card. Hardly a frequent occurrence.

Plus you can always just look inside the machine or look up the spec list online. But again in most cases not required. It just works.
Click to expand...
Have to call this one as bullshit.

Unless somehow in those 25+ years you haven't had the pleasure of restoring windows on a dell using their own damn restore media and finding the nefarious unknown device listed in device manager.

And thats a pretty common one with one vendor, add more options and it just gets worse.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top