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Phil’s Ramblings
September 2017
And so, as Labor Day has come and gone, we
bid goodbye to summer!
But fall brings its own delights…… warm days,
cool nights, the changing colors, Halloween and
Thanksgiving. And, another major Windows 10
update from Microsoft! The second of two major
Windows 10 updates scheduled for 2017, the
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Fall Creators Update will arrive on October 17 .
Here is a link to the Microsoft website, which
provides a high-level view of changes we can
expect to see in this new update:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/
upcoming-features
The Windows Insider program gives participants
ongoing insight into changes being worked on
for each major release, and provides more in-
sight about what may be coming than the high-
level Microsoft announcement. Here are some
links to more detailed reports……..
PC World published an article on September 1st
that features 28 slides, describing their take on
the new features we can expect:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3196367/
windows/the-windows-10-fall-creators-updates-
best-new-features.html
The Windows Central website has an article by
Zac Bowden, a Senior Editor, with his analysis
of what is likely to be in the new update. Take
time to read the comments at the end of the arti-
cle; they range from enthusiastic to negative –
but are certainly interesting! Here’s the link:
https://www.windowscentral.com/fall-creators-
update
At this point, it is hard to say how this update will
affect the casual Windows 10 user. While it will
obviously provide new capabilities, they are not
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necessarily something that everyone will
want or use. More important to those who
have learned how to do their tasks comforta-
bly with the current version of Windows 10 is
how their lives may be changed for the worse
by this update. (As a small example from the
Spring Creators Update, the Control Panel
link that had previously appeared in the Start
Menu was removed. Since then, users desir-
ing access to Control Panel have had to go
into the Windows System app to find Control
Panel, and then pin it to their Start screen or
taskbar.)
From my perspective, the jury is still out
about how beneficial the Windows 10 ap-
proach is for the average PC user. In years
past, users bought a computer that came
with the current version of Windows, and
learned how to use it for their purposes. Mi-
crosoft published updates to that Windows
version to fix “bugs” or to patch security
holes, but the basic operation of the software
remained largely unchanged. Users were
often happy to use their version of Windows
for years. (Consider Windows XP and 7, for
instance.) With Windows 10, we were prom-
ised an OS for life, with no need to buy a
new version a few years down the road. In
theory, this could become another Windows
7 that we could learn thoroughly and use on
auto-pilot literally forever. No need to worry
about Microsoft end-of-life schedules – as we
ran into with Windows XP (and will with Win-
dows 7).
But Microsoft’s approach to updating Win-
dows 10 goes far beyond simply fixing bugs
and patching security exposures; they are
also changing features and design. Which
means that users must refresh their OS
knowledge every time a major update is re-
leased. Microsoft appears to be on track for
two major updates a year, which may keep at
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