I would never usually be as presumptuous as to suppose that I knew exactly what my thousands tens of readers wanted to hear me talk about this week, but this is clearly a special occasion. Only one thing has been on everyone's mind since Microsoft quietly updated the list of features that are being removed and/or deprecated in the Windows 10 1709 update, and only that thing would be expected to be the subject of an almost-weekly almost-amusing blog post.
No, I am not referring to the 3D Builder app no longer being installed by default. In a move to force more IT Pros towards Enterprise or Windows 10 Pro for Advanced PCs SKUs Microsoft is removing the ability to create new Resilient File System (ReFS) formated drives from the Windows 10 Pro edition. At times it seems like the Windows 10 development plows along on the whim of a crazed schizophrenic as functionality is chopped, changed, dropped, brought back and mixed up with alarming irregularity.
Well you know what, I am actually going to make a stand here and now, and make a solemn oath not to dedicate myself to this latest tiresome twist in Microsoft's ongoing efforts to get every business to run expensive Enterprise iteration of Windows 10. I am not going to be dwelling on this issue at all. After all, this particular story has already been covered by other tech savvy blogs to death.
Personally, I have no gripe with Microsoft slowly cutting Enterprise features from the Windows 10 Pro SKU. However, the subtle way of removing an Enterprise grade feature and the point in time which aligns with the introduction of the Windows 10 Pro for Advanced PCs SKU are alarming. The world does not need yet another product edition of Windows 10 - this is the third new SKU announced in the past twelve months, alongside Windows 10 Enterprise E3 in CSP and Windows 10 S. More specifically, there is no need for an SKU which aims to
increase the performance and reliability of high-end PCs. Partly because how this is supposed to happen is never really explained and also because
this should be the primary goal of every Windows 10 edition on any type of hardware. This kind of money grab is hard to justify, because that is all it is.
