Microsoft wants a do-over — or three

It’s déjà vu all over again, as the folks in Redmond commit an ever-lengthening series of do-overs. So if reading tea leaves to predict Microsoft’s next CEO doesn’t appeal and retrospective homages to Steve Ballmer don’t amuse, there’s now the spectacle of Microsoft starring in its own private “Groundhog Day.” 

My bad

Last week Microsoft posted on its website that retail sales of Windows 7 had ended and that Oct. 30, 2014, is the last day it would sell Windows 7 preinstalled on PCs. Turns out this is not the deadline you’re looking for. Microsoft has backtracked on its Windows 7 demise date — without actually clarifying what lies ahead. According to the company’s statement:

We have yet to determine the end of sales date for PCs with Windows 7 preinstalled. The October 30, 2014 date that posted to the Windows Lifecycle page globally last week was done so in error. We have since updated the website to note the correct information; however, some non-English language pages may take longer to revert to correctly reflect that the end of sales date is “to be determined.” We apologize for any confusion this may have caused our customers.

Just to be perfectly clear: Nothing’s decided, and Microsoft hopes you’re not confused. The new end-of-sales dates could be sooner — or later. Or, as Computerworld’s Gregg Keizer writes, “It’s possible that Microsoft will still tell OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to stop selling Windows 7 PCs in just under 11 months, but did not want to publicize the date now.”

But rest easy. Even if Microsoft ends sales next year, there are still workarounds available for customers looking to score a copy of Windows 7.

Separate but equal

Ballmer’s not gone yet, but it seems he’s already being repudiated. Tony Myerson, executive VP of operating systems, hinted this week that Microsoft may revert to separate release schedules for consumer and business versions of Windows. If Myerson’s comments come to fruition, it will mark “a return to a practice last used in the early years of this century, when Microsoft delivered new operating systems to the company’s consumer and commercial customers on different schedules.”

Just last year Microsoft accelerated its development and release schedule for Windows, delivering Windows 8.1 a year after the launch of its predecessor. However, analysts say enterprises are uncomfortable with that pace. “Businesses as a rule are much more conservative about upgrading their machines’ operating systems than are consumers: The former must spend thousands, even millions, to migrate from one version to another, and must test the compatibility of in-house and mission-critical applications, then rewrite them if they don’t work.”

But in October, when an analyst at a Gartner-sponsored conference noted enterprises’ issues with the accelerated delivery cycle, Ballmer dismissed those concerns, shaking his head. “Let me push back,” said Ballmer, “and say, ‘Not really.'”

Myerson’s hint of separate release trains may be a rejection of Ballmer’s contention.

Windows: The trilogy And then there are the rampant rumors about Threshold, the next version of Windows expected in spring 2015. Many analysts say Windows 8 and RT caused Ballmer’s downfall. Now, as InfoWorld’s Woody Leonhard writes, “Myerson appears to be dismantling the Jekyll-and-Hyde monstrosity that is Windows 8, instead replacing it with a triumvirate of products that people and companies will actually want.”

If rumors about the next Windows prove true, it will offer users the do-over they have been waiting and agitating for: namely, a return of the Start button. Paul Thurrott says his source also revealed that the next version will be able to run Metro apps in floating windows on the desktop — much as you can already do today with third-party utilities such as ModernMix.

Also amid the details leaked by sources, Leonhard says, is talk “about a single Windows core (which has been the holy grail of Windows development at least since Windows CE), with ‘a few’ Windows versions built on top of that core.” These could include the following: First, a “modern” Metro consumer version, designed to run on ARM and Intel-based devices; second, a traditional consumer version that would include a desktop and “be customized so that mouse/keyboard users will be able to continue to have some semblance of productivity and familiarity with Windows”; and third, a stodgy old-fashioned traditional Enterprise version — what Leonhard calls OFW, for old fogey’s Windows — with “all the usual business bells and whistles, like support for Win32 apps.”

“Who knows? Windows might actually become relevant again,” Leonhard says.

Caught in a Black Tuesday time loop And lastly, no list of Microsoft do-overs would be complete without mention of its perennially and predictably botched patches — so much so that InfoWorld’s Leonhard has proposed a Patch Monday “that would give software manufacturers, corporate customers with patch testing capabilities, enthusiasts, and, yes, hackers, a one-day head start on the pandemonium that invariably ensues upon unleashing Automatic Updates.”

Microsoft’s most recent flawed updates had customers complaining about a wide array of Outlook 2013 problems.  Leonhard writes:

At the time it seemed like a relatively minor problem that would be diagnosed and fixed quickly. Over the ensuing weeks, reports started surfacing about two related problematic patches, KB 2837618 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2837618/en-us and KB 2837643. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2837643 Resolving the Outlook 2013 problems may — in some cases — involve removing both of the bad patches; removing one or the other might not solve the problem. Microsoft hasn’t documented any problems with the latter patch, and we don’t yet have definitive word when the problems will be fixed.

In Microsoft’s “Groundhog Day” time loop, perhaps it will all come right in the end.

This story, “Microsoft wants a do-over — or three,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.