Windows 10 Lean – Microsoft’s essential step (back) to the future?

29 April 2018

The report “Windows 10 Lean: Latest build offers first glimpse of Microsoft’s new cut-down OS” (1) published by Liam Tung on 24 April 2018 at ZDNet made me really curios.

Why is the industry in desperate need of a cut-down Windows OS? To answer this question we need to dig into the history of computing.

Tandberg TDV 1200 Terminal. Picture Credits (2)

Tandberg TDV 1200 (2)

In the nineteen sixties and seventies IT business was largely based on host-based computing. Usually the end-user devices were character based terminals with very restricted functionality. Business reports or letters were a real challenge on a Tandberg terminal with IBM ISPF. Individual changes to the user interface were usually limited to the change of the highlight colors and the function key assignment.

Apollo Domain DN330 Workstation

Apollo Domain DN330 (3)

The introduction of server-based computing in the nineteen seventies was a significant benefit for the end users. Graphics-based workstations, often diskless, opened up new fields of application, e.g. desktop publishing, CAD or CAPE. Here, too, the users had only limited options to customize the user interface or to install applications.

With the introduction of Windows NT AS 3.1 in 1993 everything changed. For the first time an operating system had an easy to use graphical user interface, was easy to operate through this GUI , and had easy to use inbuilt peer-to-peer networking capabilities. This was the Wild West for the users.

Unfortunately, very often the Wild West ended up in chaos. With Windows 2000 everything was under control again. Server-based computing was the standard again, peer-to-peer networking capabilities were hardly used.

SAAS, e.g. O365, OneDrive, Sharepoint Online, Box for Business or Google’s G Suite, takes us eventually back to host-based computing: The cloud is the new host.

Once the industry has adopted SAAS every interaction with the cloud is based on the HTTPS protocol. SMB and all the client-server and peer-to-peer networking capabilities of Windows are no longer needed. Even for printing the IPP protocol can substitute SMB.

Thus it is time to eliminate these networking capabilities from the OS. And with this, we eliminate all this EternalBlue, EternalRomance, WannaCry and NotPetya stuff because lateral movement depends heavily on the Windows Peer-to-Peer networking capabilities.

Chrome OS is Google’s answer to this trend. Will Microsoft follow with Windows 10 Lean?

From Liam Tung’s report we learn:

“Windows 10 Lean was revealed on Twitter by Windows enthusiast Lucan, who noted the heavily cut-down OS has no wallpaper and is missing apps like Registry Editor and Microsoft Management Console, as well as drivers for CD and DVD drives.”

From my point of view that’s not enough to deal with the IT security challenges the industry faces today.

Have a great week.

  1. Tung L. Windows 10 Lean: Latest build offers first glimpse of Microsoft’s new cut-down OS [Internet]. ZDNet. 2018 [cited 2018 Apr 24]. Available from: https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-lean-latest-build-offers-first-glimpse-of-microsofts-new-cut-down-os/

  2. Picture credits: Telemuseet, Wikipedia, https://digitaltmuseum.no/011025208286/datautstyr

  3. Picture credits: Jim Rees, Wikipedia, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dn330.jpg