While I doubt they would kill the Home edition if you own it already, not offering for sale is a possibility in the future as well as not offering it to for OEM. Just Windows 10 S and Pro/Enterprise.

Sure is, but those people will be more inclined to install things in the store and not install things that aren't (because they can't if on Windows 10 S). So not specifically talking about gaming, but apps in general... may end up needing to be in the store as a necessity down the road to which if paid MS gets a cut off.

Yes but the games as far as I am aware aren't all UWP, I believe that will be standard on Scorpio...

I was referring to home users more than businesses, having to get the Enterprise or hell even Pro versions of Windows isn't something that is common for home users, and companies like Steam/GOG won't find much of a market there. So while sure you can get one of these versions to continue to play your win32 applications, finding future non-UWP applications, especially for non-business purposes may become impossible.

It won't be easy sure, but MS has shown they are more than willing to play the long game... they will even continue to restrict future API's to UWP that developers will have to use UWP in-order to get access too. See DirectX 12 and button rumbling on Xbox controllers which is exclusive to UWP. This will get worse, it's a given.

That doesn't work in Windows 10 S from my understanding, If it not signed by the windows store you can't use it. So even if someone created a non-Store version using UWP, you could not install it on Windows 10 S. Of course we will have to wait until it's actually released to confirm this, but that is what on was told when I posed the question on a Windows 10 sub.

People can develop also for e.g. iOS even though it is walled garden. I don't see how that would somehow guarantee Win32 is here to stay forever.

Of course MS wouldn't make such switch overnight, but nudge people bit by bit away from Win32 apps, and towards Windows Store-only. Make it continuously harder and harder to get to the legacy "desktop mode" for running "legacy" Win32 apps, introduce more and more devices (like this laptop) where you can't run non-Windows Store apps easily (without paying extra and going through hoops) etc. And much much later, when they have alienated people enough from Win32, kill it completely.

In a similar way like they did with support for old MS-DOS programs. First they offered the option to run your old MS-DOS apps and games in Windows 95/98/98SE (and ME? Not sure, I've never used it), but with XP they finally felt it was safe to kill MS-DOS support completely. They had a different motive (technical reasons) to kill MS-DOS support and steer people away from MS-DOS (even for games), but the plan could be similar for steering people away from Win32 apps.

About comparisons to Chromebooks... don't Chromebooks allow running Android applications that are not from the Google Play store? I know all my Android phones and tablets can run non-Google Play apps just fine, e.g. those Android games I've bought from Humble Bundle. It is disabled by default for security reasons, but you just change the setting and you are all set, you don't have to pay Google $50 extra in order to run non-Google Play apps etc.

Unless Chromebooks don't have this ability, I don't see why the comparison is made. Android isn't really a walled garden, similarly like iOS, Windows RT and Windows 10 S are. You are not locked only to Google's store.

Microsoft stifles innovation, at a point in time when the human species can no longer afford to be stifled.

Mega corporations are modern day dinosaurs, trying to hold back time so they can maintain their dominance in perpetuity, which is impossible. The only real question is: will they take us down with them?

I was unaware of the Windows 10 S restricting installations to the Store. That said, I hope that is not true or will be dropped on the actual release, as this limits the OS's potential far than it already is. Honestly it isn't a good idea at all.

That's because for a long time, MS has focused on backwards compatibility as a reason to pick up their OS. iOS on the other hand needs its apps to be updated per major release, and now there cannot be any 32-bit apps remaining as the OS will soon entirely run 64-bit apps only. Meanwhile, Windows 10 has a 32-bit and a 64-bit edition, whereas Mac only has 64-bit and Arch Linux will kill 32-bit later. Win32 apps and games, continuously updated and developed and used, and the goal of axing it, they don't seem to click together. That's the problem, alienation. Honestly, besides 'develop for more platforms at once', UWP applications don't really have a definitive advantage over Win32 apps. They're sandboxed which is an advantage in that if an app does something it will end up doing it only in that limited sandbox, and a disadvantage in that power tools that rely on accessing other applications' data or system files cannot be developed in UWP, which is one thing. It's also hard to backup their data, let alone the application itself. It will be a while until they catch up on any of this. Tested that on a XP VM, and you're right. I thought for a while that DOS applications are fine on XP. Thanks for the tip-off. That begs the question, what are they going to say if they were to move Win32 away this time?

So far, right now, it's positioned as a Chromebook competitor. But if it does expand to what both of you say, a strategy to kill off what makes Windows Windows, then the future of the PC is going to be uncertain from then on. While they have the power to do that, I trust that they are not going to take it as far as this simply because it is a bloodline.

On second thought, making it harder and harder sounds like what is being done for 16-bit applications on the 32-bit systems, in which you have to install a Windows component to run them on at least Windows 8, I believe.

You forgot:

5. It`s very difficult and confusing to handle and to get games to run, even if they have Linux support!

No, it isn't.

In the case of Steam it's virtually identical to Windows - you download the "installer" (.deb package), double-click on it to install it, then click on the Steam icon in the system's launcher/"start" menu. You then install and play games exactly like you would on Windows.

In the case of GOG it's only marginally more complicated for the most part, lack of Galaxy client aside. You download the installer, right-click it in the file manager and select properties then check the box to give it permission to run. From then on it's almost exactly like on Windows: you double click on it to run it, you then tell it where to install & set any options, then when it's finished double-click on the desktop icon or so to play.

You *may* need to install additional dependencies but these should be specified on the store page, are not at all difficult to install through the Software Manager or Synaptic Package Manager, and will only need to be done once. Plus it tends to be the same few libraries that are required so doing this is not a frequent requirement.

On occasion there might be other issues such as hardware/driver related problems, but a) these kind of problems are not unique to Linux and happen on Windows, Mac etc. from time to time as well, and b) other users tend to figure out what the problem is and often come up with a fix or workaround fairly quickly.

It's really not that hard to figure out a Linux game, it's just that most of them suck at making binaries.

Then enjoy your future in MS' walled garden.

There are actually a growing number of old games that will run in Linux with Wine, but not Windows 10.

The hardware design of these surface tablets is really nice.

Otherwhise. Shrug. No one is forced to buy.

You do know how percentages work, right? Also, I'd be happier if the number was 0%. Nobody should be using Steam.