Microsoft Envisions One Windows OS To Rule Them All

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Does anyone care? Microsoft is dead, as is Windows. It's a legacy technology at this point, from an irrelevant company.

The future belongs to the free OS, as in Chromebooks, Android or Linux. Microsoft had their time, they don't matter anymore. Treat them like you would Netscape, or Novell. That's their path.
 
That would be great. I can't wait for the day that I could use my smartphone as a mobile PC. We should be able to connect a smartphone to a docking station and use it flawlessly between stationary and mobile modes.
Microsoft - give us one OS, but leave us the choice of choosing the GUI we prefer, or define a GUI for each mode (mobile / desktop) with "hot" switching between them.
 
@toalan

Only having x86 devices is an interesting idea and may be possible in the not too distant future and so at that point you may be right. However that point is too far in the future for MS to dump WinRT/Windows Phone now. Given that is the case I see no reason why MS should not move forward with coalescing the stores and the OS to as much of a degree as possible.

It is my understanding that WinRT MAY be retired in favor of Windows Phone across all ARM devices, we shall see... However beyond having a shared Store across all devices Win8.1/Windows Phone 8.1/Windows RT 8.1 and potentially Xbox One, I am not sure I really understand what MS means by one OS. I can see a shared design language, but to my understanding there will always be a difference between the x86 and the ARM versions. But then I am neither a developer or a programmer.
 
I see a lot of random comments of different thoughts about it and some poetry, many marked with - and with no reason why that thought is wrong/bad. But the ones bashing MS are always welcomed. Guess this is what some guys are all capable of.

You start to shout that the free market is the way to go , bla bla, chrome linux... well... linux is with us since forever and still nothing out of the ordinary has happened, chrome os .. well don`t be silly.. nothing in this world is free, especially when it comes to Google(yes i know MS does it too), and here, there`s a lot to debate about your privacy that Google makes a lot of money out of it, how to spread your tentacles faster than making something "free".

And some of you guys forget that not everybody needs a power user PC, and MS as a company needs to address every customer, so making a portable device that has the same OS(or vice versa) as a big computer is quite logical for a company like them. I`m a power user and i like the PC as it is but with no doubt i would love to take my phone, plug it to a monitor , and use a wireless keyboard and mouse and do stuff also with the same software. Get a grip to your senses... everything concerning the PC evolves and changes, adapt to it or be left behind. Like it or now even your phone is now actually a PC that can make phone calls, and you can game at 720 or 1080p ... things not possible with PCs around 2000 year era.

You can`t please everybody, if in the PC building department we have millions of variations from the CPU to the PSU to choose, on the OS part there`s only a handfull of OS that you can choose from and none of them are perfect for everyone`s needs, so be reasonable and stop with the mindless hate.
 
didnt they learn theire lessons one os to rule them all wont work because of different architectures if you make something for more than one its a mess look at windows 8 and 8,1 because of this cpu overcloking no longer works properly, steam hurry up with your os
 
"One of the biggest complaints thus far is a lack of a common store shared between all three platforms"

This makes a lot of sense, if a software developer creates a successful program, they should be able to deploy that single program to anybody regardless of the device. Android helps a little by having smartphone and tablet all use the same Apps but not for Chromebooks or PCs?

If there was one "app" for every device it would help the end user and it would assist in the creation of new software as devs aren't having to do 3 times as much work making a version for every platform out there
 


that is a technical limitation in platforms, pc's can do a lot more than any other platfor, runs on diferent instructions and has unlimited power(kind of), different drivers and the same goes for each platform the hardware is different and creating one thing that would run on all of these is a compromise and i bet we all know compromise is the worst thing for technology, where there is compromise we lose inovation, it would prove hugely taxing for every platform in the end
 
I'll keep putting Windows 7 on my PC's and using Jellybean on my tablet. I like stuff that's specifically designed to work with what it's installed on, not "Well it kind of, sort works on that too."
 
Windows 8 Phone -> failure
Zune -> failure
Windows 8 in general -> failure
Surface RT and Surface Pro -> failure

What does it need to happen for Microsoft to understand that what they are trying to do people do not want it.

Metro -> Biggest 'crap' for the past 20 years i have seen coming out of computer lab.
 


agreed it seems like they are all the time thinking that they are apple who got tons of brainless folowers who'll buy theyre products day one without second thought on how good they are, plus no one ever asked for one os for all these devices i want good os for each device, they will learn once steam os hits and linux becomes more mainstream
 
This is awesome, it would really help Windows and all the thousands of hardware configurations become much more seamless.
And to the person who said Windows fans are mindless cults, well, that might be somewhat true, but not to the degree that we camp out in front of a store and put our life on hold for a freaking phone that's going to be released.
At least we have better priorities than that!
 
This one size fits all makes for a giant OS. Why not make it a basic OS or two. Then you can download the components you need like wireless or network monitoring. Just pay for what you need. Not everyone is going to be running a virtual server or have multiple monitors. Personally I consider Windows 8 to be a total waste if all you want is a desktop or a way to watch videos online.
 
For many of you who are of the opinion that Apple and Google have some great knowledge of the "proper" way to do mobile devices with a bunch of discrete OS's, I have to ask you, do you really think that was because of some great and well thought out master plan so much as a recognition of the technical limitations of mobile platforms at the time they were making them? Simply put, an OS as capable as a desktop OS couldn't possibly run on an original iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, or Android equivalent. This will not be the case for much longer.

We are on the verge of video signals being wirelessly transmitted like wifi signals, devices seamlessly connecting to and streaming video and audio across networks, of tablet and phone sized devices which can run full x86 applications. What amazes me is that many of you think that it, in the face of this, is somehow "clever" to keep rinky-dink OS's which are too limited to make use of potential like this. Many of you clamouring for limited phone/tablet OS's are missing the fact of technological development that tiny machines can now have hardware that can successfully run x86 applications, and we're only a few years out - if that - from phones that can could run games as good looking as those you'd see on an XBOX 360 or PS3 along with everything else a full PC can do.

Personally, I'd rather not have current mobile OS philosophy holding back the potential of mobile hardware. I can't help but thinking that a lot of you disagree and are happy with mobile devices whose potential is a tiny screen, half-arsed e-mail and productivity apps rather than proper applications, and Plants VS Zombies being a technical achievement for its graphics output. We are on the verge of tiny little devices being able to do 95% of what we now do with PCs - so why the heck do so many of you want a status quo of OS development that came into existence because of hardware limitations to outlive the hardware limitations?

The funny thing is, if MS doesn't jump on this boat, many of you will be laughing at them in 5 to 10 years when there are Linux distros that work on your phone and then seamlessly output to your 4k tv when you get home without having some rinky-dink OS that is still stuck using apps and you'll all think you are oh-so-clever...
 


Guess you`re one of those guys who will not try to change/create anything because you`re afraid of failing at it. You can`t blame MS for trying different stuff or approach something, some of the biggest wins in history of FILM/IT/music etc, you name it, came from other big shots considering them fails from the start, 1 example that comes to my mind, a lot of publishers turned down Harry Potter... guess the look on their faces years later.

Better to have tried and fail than never have tried at all.
 


^word

I like all the stuff you have marked as fail, though I never tried the Zune.
I guess I'm just more adept at confusing things than some people... I'll sit down and learn something to the T, others seem to throw up their hands and call it 'non-functioning'
 
I think this is where I got off the MS bus tbh. Call me old fashioned, but I'm not interested in having a mobile UI on my desktop. Gonna use Windows 7 until they stop supporting it, then I'll move onto something else. I suppose this is what happens when you start to age a bit, you become less interested in new waves of tech.
 
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