Windows 9 to Come with Real-Time Telemetry System Codenamed Asimov

Microsoft will unveil Asimov later today

By Bogdan Popa on September 30th, 2014 09:10 GMT 

 

 

Windows 9 will come with lots of new tools to collect user feedback, but Microsoft has also prepared a little bit of something for those who install the preview build of the operating system in order to see what’s happening on users’ computers in real time.

Codenamed Asimov, the new telemetry system will allow Microsoft to collect information regarding the features that customers use the most, thus helping the company deliver updates only to specific computers and depending on their past activity.

While this could obviously raise some privacy concerns, Microsoft will most likely offer a way to protect users’ identity and not collect any other information except their OS activity and the way they interact with new features.

At the same time, the word is that Microsoft is working to divide users into subsets and thus deliver them only the features they want, so Asimov would be specifically developed to help in this regard.

New updates via built-in system

Microsoft plans to release new Windows 9 preview updates on a regular basis, and thanks to a new integrated system, users will be allowed to receive these improvements without the need for a clean install.

That’s actually the big plan behind the testing builds of Windows 9, as Microsoft wants to deliver large updates at least once a month, with new features that would be specifically address to users who need them, all based on information collected from their computers.

All these updates won’t be included in separate ISOs released for download, but only delivered through the new Windows update mechanism that would make it a very seamless process.

Same approach for the stable version as well

Rumor has it that Microsoft is preparing a very similar approach for the final version of Windows 9 too, as the company wants to make this the last stand-alone operating system that it ships.

Basically, future Windows releases could come as large updates for Windows 9, again delivered through the integrated update system and without requiring a fresh install.

This would also come in very handy to users who are trying to keep their current installations untouched, but also makes everything faster and easier for all customer categories.

Of course, Microsoft has no other option than to make this update system work flawlessly when it comes out, but given the past experience with botched Patch Tuesday fixes, there’s no doubt that this is quite a challenge. More information will, however, be provided in a few hours at the San Francisco press event.