Look, Microsoft, we need to talk. It's no secret that you've been nagging me (and everyone else) to upgrade to Windows 11 for a while now, with everything from ads to in-OS reminders pushing me towards the settings menu to check if my PC is eligible for an upgrade. But here's the thing, Microsoft: this path you're on isn't sustainable.
I mean this in a few different ways. Firstly, the extremely literal sense; Windows 11 forces a Trusted Platform Module 2.0 requirement, which for the uninitiated is a specific chip on your laptop or desktop's motherboard enabling enhanced security features. No TPM 2.0? No Windows 11. Yes, I know you can technically upgrade to Windows 11 without TPM 2.0, but I wouldn't recommend it.
Is that enhanced security good? Yes, absolutely - but it effectively means that many older computers literally can't run Windows 11, which combined with the impending Windows 10 End of Life is eventually going to result in a lot of PCs headed to the ever-growing e-waste pile. That's a real problem in itself. But I'm not here to rant about e-waste (though it's really bad). I want to talk about how users perceive Microsoft's nigh-omnipresent operating system, and how its current trajectory could result in serious issues further down the line.
See, Windows is constantly evolving - from humble beginnings as an MS-DOS interface in the mid-Eighties to beloved iterations like Windows XP and 10 (and widely panned versions, such as Vista and RT). But over the years, there have long been whispers of a 'final' version of the OS; a 'Windows Perfected' if you will, designed to last forever with continual updates - or at least, designed to last for a very long time.
In a sense, what those hunting for this 'last' Windows iteration want is the same experience that macOS users get: an operating system that just continually gets free updates adding new features, rarely changes in a hugely significant way, and isn't chock-full of annoying ads. Of course, it's not quite that simple for Microsoft; Apple has incredibly tight control over the macOS hardware ecosystem, while Microsoft theoretically has to make Windows run on a near-limitless selection of custom- and pre-built PCs as well as laptops from numerous different manufacturers. Then again, keeping ads out of Windows should be as simple as it is for macOS, and that hasn't happened...
At the end of the day, Microsoft doesn't need to keep creating entirely new versions of Windows - it does so because outside of an Apple-esque closed ecosystem, that's profitable, as system manufacturers will need to keep buying new OS keys and users will need to keep buying new systems.
Sure, there might need to be major overhauls now and then that leave some people behind - the TPM 2.0 debacle is perhaps one such example. But there are cracks in this methodology that are slowly starting to show, and I suspect it won't end well unless Microsoft changes course.
If upgrading to a new OS is a lot of hassle for an individual (I've personally been putting it off for years, still using Windows 10 on my personal desktop), imagine how much work - and how much money - it takes for a large business to do it. Although Windows 11 adoption is finally on the rise, plenty of private businesses and public sector organizations are still stuck on Win10 or older, despite Microsoft's insistence for us all to upgrade.
A 2021 report by Kaspersky suggested that 73% of healthcare providers globally are still using equipment with an outdated OS for medical purposes. Now, this isn't just talking about Windows computers, but it's a damning figure - a more recent investigation by Cynerio claimed that 80% of imaging devices are still using operating systems that have been officially EoL'd and are now unsupported, like Windows 7 and XP.
Healthcare is just one such sector, but it's felt widely, particularly in sectors and countries where funding for hardware and software upgrades often isn't readily available. Running an out-of-support OS can lead to a variety of issues, not least with security and compatibility. It's not that these organizations don't want to upgrade, it's that they literally can't - not without the significant expenditure of completely replacing the computer, and sometimes the entire machine it's hooked up to.
Lastly - and I'm going to be a bit brutally honest with you here, Microsoft - the slow but inexorable enshittification of Windows has got to stop. Ads, bugs, pestering notifications, the constant forcing of Copilot AI down our throats; just stop it, guys. Please.
I have Windows 11 on my laptop, and also the ROG Ally I used for handheld PC gaming. I'm no stranger to how bad it's become. My dislike of Apple hardware is well-documented, yet macOS's year-on-year consistency and total lack of ads is beginning to look mighty appealing.
Win11 feels less like a product you buy and own and more like an 'OS as a service' - something you pay for but don't really own, and can be snatched away or heavily modified at a moment's notice. It's already a serious issue in the game industry, with triple-A games increasingly becoming less about providing a good, fun experience and more about extracting as much value from the player as possible.
Even Windows 10 isn't safe from Microsoft's meddling. At this point, I'm half looking forward to the EoL purely so that Microsoft will take its grubby little fingers out of my desktop OS. No, I don't care about how great Windows 11 supposedly is now. No, I don't care about Copilot and how it's going to fix my digital life and cure all my worldly ailments.
Let me create a little analogy here. Imagine if you bought a car. It's a good car, it runs fine and doesn't give you any major issues. Then, a few years later, a new model comes out, and every morning, no matter where you park, the dealership sends someone to put a flyer on your windshield advertising the new car, or some other new offer the dealership is running. Every now and then, they also take away a small part of your car, like a wiper blade or a single tire nut. The kicker? You don't want the new car, and you might not even be able to afford it anyway.
I just want a straightforward OS that runs smoothly and doesn't become outdated every five years. Is that really too much to ask, Microsoft?
« NIST Finalizes Guidelines for Evaluating ‘Differential Privacy’ Guarantees to De-Identify Data | Cooling Chips With Lasers: Innovative Cooling Method Removes Heat Precisely From Hot Spots »
Related Stories
The KDE community has an outreach campaign encouraging the use of the Plasma desktop by people with older, but usable, laptops. Vista10 support will come to an end and Vista11 has been designed not to run on many still viable models of computer due to several factors including Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) requirements centered around TPM-2.0. GNU/Linux can not only keep the old system working, it can improve its performance, ease of use, and general security. KDE Plasma can be part of that.
Even if you agree to this tech extortion now, in a few years time, they will do it again as they have done many times in the past.
But things don't have to be this way...
Upgrade the smart way! Keep the machine you've got and switch to Linux and Plasma.
Linux can give new life to your laptop. Combined with KDE's Plasma desktop, you get all the advantages of the safety, stability and hi tech of Linux, with all the features of a beautiful, modern and powerful graphic environment.
Their campaign page covers where and how beginners can get help, what the differences are, the benefits gained, and more.
[Editor's Comment: This is obviously a KDE/Plasma centric promotion - which doesn't mean that it is bad but there are lots of other options too. Which Linux OS and desktop would you recommend for someone wanting to make the move from Windows to Linux? Which are the best for a beginner, and which desktops provide the most intuitive interface for someone who has never sat down in front of a Linux computer before?--JR]
Previously:
(2025) Microsoft is Digging its Own Grave With Windows 11, and It Has to Stop
(2023) The Wintel Duopoly Plans to Send 240 Million PCs to the Landfill
(2023) Two Security Flaws in the TPM 2.0 Specs Put Cryptographic Keys at Risk
(2022) Report Claims Almost Half of Systems are Ineligible for Windows 11 Upgrades
(2021) Windows 11 Will Leave Millions of PCs Behind, and Microsoft is Struggling to Explain Why
(2019) Microsoft's Ongoing Tactics Against Competitors Explained, Based on its Own Documents
(2016) Windows 10 Anniversary Update to Require TPM 2.0 Module
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DECbot on Tuesday April 15, @08:29PM (2 children)
Linux will never acquire substantial desktop share because of its features or technical merits. It will gain market share because of Microsoft leaving users behind and forcing misfeatures.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 16, @12:56AM
He never once mentioned Linux. Come down.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by darkfeline on Wednesday April 16, @08:22AM
The Linux Desktop comes as many technologies do, slowly and then suddenly.
It has been slowly coming for a long time now. Cloud, containers, WSL, Git. Wine and Proton and Steam and Steam Desk/SteamOS.
Games represent a large portion of Windows exclusivity, and they're a good metric, being extremely volatile, often poorly coded for compatibility, graphics and computation intensive. Valve has been silently improving Linux game support, and now all of a sudden, pretty much all games without aggressive kernel level anti-cheat run on Linux. Which is to say, pretty much all Windows applications run on Linux (and many apps have moved to the Web besides). There's already been an acceleration of gamers toward Linux (sped up by the disappointment around the Switch 2).
One day you'll wake up and realize everyone is using Linux, and the year of the Linux Desktop already arrived, unbeknownst to you.
Microsoft may be helping it, but it has already been coming for a long time (seriously). Though it will probably still be a few years out.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bart9h on Tuesday April 15, @08:38PM
Who cares? Let it die a horrible and painful death.
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 15, @08:39PM (1 child)
That was supposed to be Windows 10, even got a fair bit of press to that effect back in the day.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by mrpg on Tuesday April 15, @09:47PM
The concept of Windows 10 as the "last version" of Windows did get significant press coverage when it was launched. Microsoft initially positioned Windows 10 (released in 2015) as a "service" rather than a traditional numbered OS release, suggesting it would receive continuous updates instead of being replaced by entirely new numbered versions.
Satya Nadella and other Microsoft executives described it as "Windows as a Service" where the operating system would evolve through regular updates rather than major version jumps every few years. This created the impression that Windows 10 might indeed be the "final" numbered version of Windows.
However, Microsoft ultimately changed course and released Windows 11 in 2021, moving back to the traditional numbered release model. The company determined that the architectural and user experience changes they wanted to make were substantial enough to warrant a new major version rather than just updates to Windows 10.
It's an interesting (fuckedup) example of how technology companies' strategies evolve over time, sometimes contradicting their earlier messaging as market conditions and priorities (money) change.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Freeman on Tuesday April 15, @08:41PM (17 children)
Yet with every new version of Windows people just stick with the old version until they buy a new PC with the new version / forced to upgrade to the new version / use new update as an excuse to buy a new PC with the new version.
Sure there are some people that will switch to a Chrome Book / Apple computer and some likely even fewer people will switch to Linux. The likelihood is that come October / November, we'll just see people do what they've always done, get new one when/if they can afford it.
Year of the Linux desktop is a meme. Even with the likes of the Steam Deck which as far as I can tell has done very well. Most people stick with what they know and Windows is what they know. That may change as the older generations die off and all that's left are people that have only ever known a world where smart phones existed. At that point however, we may be in danger of losing desktop computers as we've known them.
What, you're still using a Flat Panel display instead of a Holographic screen that just plays stuff from wrist? What century were you born in?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Touché) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 15, @08:59PM (16 children)
2005 I was approached by an electrical engineer interested in maybe switching to use Linux.
"So, my wife uses Word and Excel, can we get those in Linux?"
"Sure, there's Open Office - some of the menus will be a little different but it's the same kind of productivity suite, and sometimes I have to switch to it to get my reports written if I'm including more than five or six digital photos, Microsoft Office is choking on that (it was in 2004-5), but Open Office handles it fine."
"So, she's going to have to learn new menus?"
"Yes, it's different software that does the same things, some of the names have changed but the concepts are all there..."
"The names of things have changed too?"
"Yes, pretty much everything your wife is used to using will be available under freely available software with different names..."
"Oh, I don't think we can be learning new names for all our software."
"O.K. then, I'm going to say that moving from Windows to Linux just isn't for you, then."
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by krishnoid on Tuesday April 15, @10:23PM (14 children)
"I can say, almost certainly though, that they won't f--- around with the user interface like Microsoft did with that ribbon thing."
"Well ... hmm ... keep talking ..."
"Remember Excel '97? It looks like that."
"Keep talking ..."
"And if you ever need to open the files on any other Windows, Linux, Mac, or chromebook [google.com], you're good, and it's free of cost on all platforms."
"Sold!"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Unixnut on Tuesday April 15, @10:59PM (13 children)
> "I can say, almost certainly though, that they won't f--- around with the user interface like Microsoft did with that ribbon thing."
I wish this was true, but since GTK3 they have been seriously breaking the user interface on Linux, especially on non-mainstream window managers (i.e. not Gnome). Thankfully shim libraries like https://github.com/PCMan/gtk3-nocsd [github.com] exist to at least allow most (but not all) of these apps to be usable but the UI changes are not only jarring, they impact productivity because like the ribbon, they seem hell bent on hiding all the options and features as deeply as possible in order to provide a "clean" interface.
Its like someone looked at the piss-poor interfaces used on smartphones (but at least you can argue they are "optimised" for use on small touch screens), and thought "Would that not be great on a PC", which has a mouse, keyboard and large display.
After all who does not want options to be buried so deep in an app that the only way to find them quickly is to run a search, all while hidden behind some barely noticeable icon in some corner of the interface.
I have held out on using the older GTK2 versions of software for as long as possible (in some cases until present day), but more and more of these are being retired with only the GTK3 versions available, and the interfaces really are awful.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 15, @11:17PM (11 children)
When they do it badly enough in FOSS you get a branch/fork with the old way and then if enough users seek out the fork it wins in the long run.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Unixnut on Tuesday April 15, @11:36PM (10 children)
Yes in theory, but in practice some programs and systems are too large to fork by a community, especially when against paid developers. Forking GTK2 and maintaining it would be quite a large mission, not to mention all the GTK2 apps where the original devs have moved to GTK3 as they don't have the time or inclination to support both. Something that could only be done by creating a similar foundation to the Gnome one and funding it to the same level.
SystemD is another counter example. Despite howls of protest by the majority of the community and a large number of forks and systemd-free distributions coming into existence,it was unable to stem systemd which is now the de-facto Linux standard, simply because there was more money thrown at it.
In many ways the commercialisation of Linux was a double edged sword. Yes it was nice that some open source developers were able to get paid to hack on OSS, but the community did lose a lot of its freedom to choose in the process. Once money got involved, the saying "He who pays the piper picks the tune" becomes apt and the direction a funded OSS project takes follows what the funders want rather than the community wishes.
Still, I agree given the choice better to make use of OSS software, as at least it can in theory be forked and/or maintained in future. With closed source software you very much have a "take it or leave it" choice.
(Score: 4, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 16, @02:01AM (9 children)
If you mod me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...
I wasn't thrilled with the switch to SystemD, I'm well aware of its shortcomings in open-ness, accessibility, and systemd service startup control files can easily become a god awful mess, but... overall... most of that stuff is stuff I rarely interact with, I get an image setup and working, replicate it a couple of thousand times, and mostly just work on-top of SystemD without interacting with it over 99% of my time. As such, it seems to perform better than SysVInit, in ways that I appreciate during that 99% of my usage.
It was most evident in old school Raspbian where they had a choice, with SysV as the default IIRC. Switching to the systemd option reduced boot times by about half - that is a meaningful difference.
For people who muck about in the init system all the time, maybe the visibility (and familiarity) of SysV or whatever your preferred flavor is worth it. There are certainly niche distros out there that still use the old systems, but for the majority it seems that SystemD is good enough to not bother getting rid of.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by boltronics on Wednesday April 16, @03:30AM (7 children)
I used to have an EeePC 701 that mostly ran from an SD card and USB thumb drives. I was giving a talk at a free software meet-up and someone noticed how fast it booted to the desktop, and they made a comment along the lines of "systemd has really improved boot speeds". I had to point out that I had steered clear of systemd and was running SysVInit.
In my opinion, the reported faster boot times are largely a result of the placebo effect. People are told it's faster and so want to believe it's faster, and thus it feels faster — even if the performance difference isn't actually noticeable for their use case. There are a lot of factors at play that determine boot times, but faster boot times seemed to be the main marketing point to convince people who otherwise wouldn't care.
A very low powered CPU such as a Raspberry Pi, especially if running a number of services without significant dependencies, is probably one of the rare cases people will notice a practical difference without tweaks to SysVInit scripts.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Unixnut on Wednesday April 16, @07:33AM (6 children)
Interesting that the GP poster mentioned Raspberry pi booting, because in my experience I find that booting Devuan (sysVinit) on a Raspberry Pi 3 is faster than using Raspbian (lite version) on the same machine. Takes over a minute for Raspbian to boot, while Devuan could do it in less than 30 seconds.
Saying that, I have not cared about boot speed since the late 2000's, if a machine booted in less than minute it was fine, plus in most of the cases I go in an out of sleep mode (sometimes for months on end). As such it isn't like I need to boot up the computer every time I want to use it so that the boot time is important. Nowadays with SSDs as the default no doubt even sysVinit machines could boot up in 20 seconds or less, so boot speed is really a moot point at this point in time.
For me, the problems with systemd is that it has made configuring things harder, more obscure, dysfunctional and unstable. Linux's vaulted stability, long uptimes and ease of debugging and configuring are a thing of the past thanks to systemd. It is effectively a black box that seems to exist to generate problems that can be billed as part of an enterprise support contract.
I am certain that had there not been a large amount of money thrown behind systemd it would have died on the vine (as it should have based on technical merit), but as I said previously, money trumps community, so we are stuck with it (its a shame I can't bill my company by the hour for Linux administration, the introduction of systemd would have tripled my income at least).
Thankfully there are better OS alternatives available, therefore I have dumped Linux pretty much everywhere. One place I still use Linux (with systemd) is Raspberry pi's with Raspbian, simply because that distro supports all the Raspberry pi's features out of the box without me needing to tinker with the OS in order to get things like GPIO working and other such things. Yes they can take a while to boot (Sometimes up to 3 mins) but as these are low-powered servers that run for weeks, again the boot times are not something I care about in the slightest.
For me the Linux community has been broken, at least 10 years ago. Linux to me is what Windows once was. A crappy OS that I have to use for work because specific apps run on it or because work mandates it. It is still better than Windows because it at least makes a pretence at emulating a Unix, which I am comfortable with and can make use of known scripting languages, but I would not consider it for anything serious if I am given the power to make that decision.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 16, @11:26AM (5 children)
I have machines that are up for years at a time. I have other machines that get powered down cold nightly. I appreciate fast boot times on both kinds of systems.
My baseline experience of boot time was the BASIC cartridge in an Atari 800 in 1982, that was on the order of one second. Of course if you wanted to load something from the 88kb capacity floppy drive, that took.... longer. Still, power on to command prompt about as quickly as you could move your hand from the power switch to the keyboard.
In the late 80s my first company designed a dual Z80 system with a boot time of about three seconds. It needed a 5 minute self calibration to start producing good data, but still the three seconds seemed sluggish to me. 6811 systems we made in the late 90s all came up to functional state in under a second.
I just purchased a ZigBee to PoE bridge device, it's available via http within a second of plugging in the power/data cable, and most devices on the mesh are available to control as soon as you can reach their control interfaces.
One of those devices is a wall switch that I am considering removing the double tap functionality from to get rid of the 500ms delay it necessitates.
The CAN bus connected horn in our 1999 vehicle has about 700ms more lag than a proper contact switched horn, same for the headlight controls... That's starting to impact safety, delaying communication with other drivers.
IMO people are far too complacent about slow systems. Sometimes delay doesn't matter, but if you calculate the number of lifetimes wasted waiting for Windows to boot globally, the loss of meaningful human lifetime annually is on holocaust scale.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by boltronics on Wednesday April 16, @11:55AM (4 children)
I think most modern systems spend more time getting past the BIOS/UEFI before the bootloader has even executed. It might be a little faster if things like Fast Boot is enabled, but then you risk not being able to boot from USB in a pinch, which isn't an acceptable trade-off IMO.
As previously pointed out however, putting the computer to sleep is often the better option for time efficiency. Even if the OS boot times were insignificant, the UEFT will still take time.
When it comes to my small fleet of Raspberry Pis,I only connect to them over SSH, and I have a Fabric script to reboot them all at once. I don't have to sit there and wait for them to come back up, as I can immediately use my desktop for other things. The same deal with my NAS; it can take an hour to boot up for all I care, so long as daily backups still get done. It's likely the same with Windows for most people; they switch on their computer, go do something else, and come back when it's ready. Maybe they press the power button, then sit down in the chair, turn on their monitor and speakers, pull out their phone and put it on the desk, etc. It becomes routine so time isn't actually wasted.
The flip side to this is that there are scenarios where you really do just have to sit in front of the device and wait for it to load, without any possibility to do something else because the waiting time would be too short. One example is waiting for a video game to boot on a game console — which is where I really do feel the pain. That's why Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo [videogameschronicle.com]. In that instance, the trade-off was not acceptable.
It's also why you might find 3 seconds problematic even if you only have to wait that time once every day or so, but if it were 5 minutes you might find you don't care so much.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 16, @12:23PM (3 children)
> I don't have to sit there and wait for them to come back up
That's a learned lifestyle choice... My standard compile cycle is taking nearly 20 minutes these days, I code up about 20 minutes worth of changes, commit, push, hit the pull and compile button on the target machine, then settle in to write another 20+ minutes of changes before I get the test results of what I just did. Instant gratification would be better, but the brain cycles I save on worrying about "did I make it right" more than compensate for the delayed gratification for testing.
> my NAS; it can take an hour to boot up for all I care, so long as daily backups still get done.
Somewhere I recently mentioned my Pi Zero 2W unison mirror, which takes something like 14 hours to check 2TB for differences when it runs a mirror cycle - and who cares? Overnight is overnight, it's not like I'm thinking about it, that's the point.
> there are scenarios where you really do just have to sit in front of the device and wait for it to load, without any possibility to do something else because the waiting time would be too short.
Efficient people switch on their computers while they are doing other things. I'm going to guess less than half of Windows users are efficient this way. A lot of them do, unconsciously, use sleep modes - I stay away from sleep modes because they tend to also store creeping problems which are all too common in desktop environments. Our IT department highly recommends a "real" reboot daily, in part to clean out potential malware.
> waiting for a video game to boot on a game console
We stopped buying "new" game consoles with the PS3, the boot time and software update cycles just aren't my definition of fun. I tell myself while wating "the whole point of a game console is to waste your time, so.... mission accomplished." Back to nostalgia days, I never had a 2600, but I did have a few cartridge games for the Atari 800 and they were all instant-on. You don't walk up to an arcade game and wait for it to boot, as soon as your quarter is processed it's giving you that instant audio-visual-tactile feedback, and the whole point is: zero lag between action-reaction.
> you might find 3 seconds problematic even if you only have to wait that time once every day or so, but if it were 5 minutes you might find you don't care so much.
Our current product has a boot time requirement of 90 seconds or less... the typical use case is that a nurse flips it on pre-surgery, probably 30 minutes or more before it actually comes into use, so 90 seconds is trivial, and to get it under 30 seconds is unrealistic given our developers' addiction to the 'doze .NET API. While it could "hibernate" for a very long time on the battery it has while stored in the closet, see above about flushing out accumulated issues with a power cycle.
When the "cure all" is "have you tried switching it off and back on again?" short boot times are valuable.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by boltronics on Thursday April 17, @12:50AM (2 children)
All good points.
which yeah I guess leads back nicely to the main article topic.
I do use suspend on my GNU/Linux desktop when I have work the next day and a bunch of things open that are not SSH sessions. On weekends I shut it down. Occasionally there'll be some important security updates throughout the week that I want to reboot for, so I usually issue the reboot, go to the fridge to get a drink, and then I'm ready to sign back in by the time I've returned to sit down. But, I don't just reboot for the heck of it or for malware reasons. I'm pretty careful about what I put on my machine, and for the things where that's not possible (eg. Steam and the things it installs for some after hours gaming) I isolate using firejail and have them use a fake home directory.
I don't think I've used suspend before on Windows come to think of it. I find myself using it rarely enough to justify that.
When it comes to consoles, interestingly all modern consoles have suspend/resume these days to practically eliminate start-up time. It still doesn't stop game developers (including studios from Microsoft and Sony) from including mandatory launch screens to wait through such as content warnings, engine logos or studio logos just to get to the game's main menu.
I note that Quake on Windows (with the recent updates that cause it to sign into Bethesda) lets you press escape to speed up those launch screens, but on a console you have to wait the full amount of time. However, on the console you can suspend multiple games and switch between them quickly (presumably as fast as a suspend state can be loaded from SSD into RAM) which may be seen as some kind of acknowledgement of the issue.
Yes we're still a far cry from the days of the NES and Sega Master System, where there was no OS as such. Those were the oldest consoles I ever owned (which I only acquired years later when they were already retro, but ultimately replaced with a MiSTer FPGA because space is also an issue).
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday April 17, @02:58AM (1 child)
>I don't just reboot for the heck of it or for malware reasons.
I just read that Android is going to start automatically rebooting every 3 days, mostly for malware reasons.
>all modern consoles have suspend/resume these days to practically eliminate start-up time.
Do they also download all updates during downtime automatically? Our first PS3 drew 300 watts in standby, the newer generation is better at 70 watts, but still significant. Leaving it on 24-7 would raise the electric bill $30 per month for the first gen.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by boltronics on Thursday April 17, @03:28AM
Damn... okay! 😅
I think they do... but maybe it only works for internal storage because my Xbox (with three external drives) still checks for game updates and downloads them when it's on. Fortunately it can do so in the background while gaming.
As someone with 5 PS3s (2x fats, 2x slims and 1x super slim, with all but the fats plugged in) I'm going to need to check this! That sounds crazy if true.
According to this [homehackerdiy.com], it's more likely you meant ~200W during play, with the slim using ~75W at idle (but still powered on — and by default will switch to standby after a few hours). Stand-by is 1.22W for the fats (not great), or 0.36W for the PS3 Slims that I mostly use so I think I am relatively safe. :)
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday April 20, @04:29PM
A big factor is that most distros offer a de-fanged systemd. That is, you can still drop a bash script into /etc/init.d and link it into /etc/rc?.d and it will work.
That doesn't make systemd good, but makes it a small enough problem that it's usually not worth fighting over.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday April 17, @05:38PM
No, no, you've got it all backwards! They originally went with their piss-poor PC interface (arguably "optimized" for desktop monitors), and thought, "What the smartphone really needs is a start menu!" [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday April 17, @12:09AM
My final reply, to the third question, would be: "Your wife is stupid. Divorce!"
You are too manipulable. That engineer was just playing cat and mouse with you.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 15, @08:51PM (2 children)
Surprised it took so long for the fanboi to show his colors... macOS continually gets updated and intentionally makes older hardware obsolete. The most painfully obvious play in this way was iOS on the first iPad. Nothing wrong with the iPad One, the hardware was bulletproof (or, at least, 8 and 10 year old boys proof, which is probably harder - they trashed a iPod Touch in less than an hour, incidentally necessitating a toilet pull and replace in the process...) Then we can talk about the "educational market" Macs which have artificially limited RAM expansion capabilities, and after a few years that gleaming aluminum and glass hardware just can't be updated to the latest OS-X because to do so with their limited RAM would be a colossally bad experience. Even regular Macs suffer similar fates - I just sent one for recycling because it needed a new SSD, yes that's a "spudgel the glass off" operation, and when the expired SSD is replaced what to you have? A machine that can't competently run the latest OS, a machine whose launch OS went "out of support" in 2018 after being purchased in 2015. It's a fine piece of hardware, I might have considered putting Linux on it, if it weren't for the horrendous access to the hardware for maintenance. I also suspect there are a few extra "stand on your head" operations required to get Debian on a 2015 Mac as compared with the 2005 Mac Pros that accepted it rather easily.
So, yeah fanboi, Microsoft ain't Apple, and that's a good thing. Trust me when I say: M$ knows where their income is coming from, and "enthusiast" PC owners aren't a significant slice of the pie. I suspect they are more concerned with the X-Box market.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Tuesday April 15, @11:50PM (1 child)
I just purchased a new Mac a few months ago (iMac 24"). The "upgrade" prices for RAM and SSD are horrendous, so I decided to bypass that in part. I purchased a base model with slightly increased RAM (24GB) and the smallest SSD I could (256GB). I then went out and purchased a 4TB external SSD for less than half the price of the 1TB internal "upgrade" and installed the OS on that. There is a performance hit in running off the external SSD, but 99% of users won't know it as the throughput is still orders of magnitude better than what's needed for browsing, office productivity etc. Only the most punishing disk-intensive operations (e.g. 4K or 8K video editing, or heavy local database processing) would have any noticeable impact.
There is a bit of mucking around in the computer's configuration to allow it to run off an external volume (default security settings prevent it), but it's doable. Now my SSD is easily upgradeable and replaceable, so I'll only need to replace the computer once the M4 chip or the 24Gb of RAM are no longer enough. I'm annoyed that the RAM is no longer user-upgradeable, but not so annoyed that I'm ready to dive into the world of PC hardware.
One other benefit is that I could, if I wanted to, set up different SSDs with different OSes. I could set up a Linux SSD and plug that in whenever I wanted, then swap it out and use the OSX as needed (or keep them both plugged in and just switch the startup volume as desired).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 16, @02:09AM
I bought a used MacMini for something like $70 a few months back, just to have something we can Facetime on if (when) our ancient iPad finally dies. The other end of that Facetime link was on a newer iPad and we did nightly calls, so being without a functioning Apple product wasn't an option. Shortly after that, our need for nightly Facetime calls ended, and the Mini sits there, collecting dust. I suppose I should fire it up once in awhile to keep the SSD from losing too much data...
As for the external drive thing, yeah - that's how I have been buying my systems lately: maybe 128GB or whatever makes sense as a small internal drive, then stick on an external 2TB in my case for the real storage. If (when) the system craps out, I just unplug my data drive and plug it into the replacement. EZPZ. I also have taken to running unison on all the systems so-equipped, keeping the external data mirrored - really, truly, for sure got everything on both sides mirrored.
Just for yucks, I setup one 2TB drive on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W with unison - it takes about 14 hours to run the signature checks on all the files looking for differences, but what do I care? It gets it done, and is another mirror in a physically different spot connected wirelessly so it won't likely go down for the same lightning strike that might take out the wired systems. I'm thinking about relocating it closer to a bluetooth controlled water valve so I can integrate those valves with Home Assistant... just because it can.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by turgid on Tuesday April 15, @08:57PM (3 children)
Is that enhanced security good? Yes, absolutely - but it effectively means that many older computers literally can't run Windows 11, which combined with the impending Windows 10 End of Life is eventually going to result in a lot of PCs headed to the ever-growing e-waste pile.
My boomer parents, well into their 70s (including my Mum who hates computers) decided for themselves last year to move to Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition and I helped them install it on their erstwhile Windows laptops.
These are very old laptops and Windows had become unusable on them. Now they're more than fine. I got them connected to my Dad's old Windows server with CIFS.
It wasn't that hard. I wrote about it in my journal documenting all the little niggles I had to solve and the script I wrote to hide behind an icon on the GUI to do the connection to the Windows server. Part 1 [soylentnews.org] and Part 2 [soylentnews.org].
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 15, @09:04PM (2 children)
I bought my wife a new Dell equipped by Dell with Ubuntu (22.04 - I think we bought it just under a year ago).
She bitches about it probably 20% less than she used to bitch about the Windows laptop(s) it replaced. It has some freaked out issue with cups not printing to our network printer - I hate buying all that paper and toner so I haven't bothered to fix it, she e-mails me stuff she really needs to print.
Learning curve: zero. I literally never had to explain anything about running Ubuntu to her. It probably helped that she had been using LibreOffice under Windows previously, but honestly 95%+ of her computer interaction goes through the web browser anyway so that's an identical experience regardless of OS.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday April 15, @10:27PM (1 child)
Printing can be a huge hassle to set up. After noodling on it for a while, it seems like the best thing would be to configure all printers on one Windows host with their myriad screwy drivers, then just print to PDF in a network share from every other system, open in acrobat reader on Windows, and print it from there. Autohotkey running on such a Windows host might be able to watch for PDFs dropped into the network share and do all that itself.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 15, @11:19PM
Cups is working fine from my machine. I think what happened is she got wrapped up with some kind of out of paper situation and retried and retried and retried again and tried different options and different check boxes and managed to hang her machine up where it doesn't print anymore at all. Like I said, I'm not too interested in fixing it.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by SDRefugee on Tuesday April 15, @09:33PM (5 children)
Somewhere, deep in your treatise, you make the following claim..
I seriously DOUBT Windows 10 is/was/will be "beloved".. I think you meant
WinXP and Win7..
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Tuesday April 15, @11:15PM (4 children)
To be fair when Windows XP came out it was anything but "beloved". It was seen is nothing more than Windows 2000 with a bloated GUI that ate RAM while looking like something you would give to kids to use in the kindergarten (what with all the speech bubble notifications and bright glaring colours).
It was very much mocked and maligned, especially as it looked like a money grab from MS, who took an existing OS and just slapped on some eye candy and sold it as something new (especially as they managed to break compatibility with some existing Win32 programs somehow, and their "compatibility" mode rarely worked).
The only people who raved about XP were those on Windows 98 or *shudder* ME who somehow missed the existence of Windows 2000, but for them anything would have been an improvement over their previous experience.
Saying that XP is much more liked in hindsight, because the later MS offerings were so much worse it actually made XP look decent in comparison. It seems MS is an expect at making every iteration of Windows so much worse that people actually miss the last version despite that being worse than the previous one (win 98/ME expected, as those were from the original MS-DOS, non NT branch architecture, which were already showing serious limitations in design by Win98 already).
It doesn't make sense to me, but I long ago came to the conclusion that anyone who in this day and age willingly uses Windows must be some kind of masochist, so I by-and-large leave them to enjoy their vices.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 16, @01:04AM (2 children)
Bullshit, people were raving about XP when it came out. You idiots say the same thing about 95, yet people were lined up around to block waiting for it like it was Star Wars.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 16, @02:19AM
You know what I really liked? Windows ME. I had a fair amount of software for Windows 95/98 that wasn't going to port to XP so I got an ME laptop just to have something to run all that stuff on for a little longer. I spent two nights on the web ripping out all the cruft and basically turned it back into Windows 98 from the interface experience, but it ran better and more stably than any 98 machine I ever had.
Then we plugged in a PCMCIA expansion card to add WiFi to it, because... WiFi!!!! Yeah, that screwed up the power system somehow, the battery was bricked within a week, but we still used it as a plug-in laptop (with WiFi!!!!!!) for several years after that.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Wednesday April 16, @06:42PM
People lined up round the block to buy Win 95 were doing so without a clue about what it was like. All they knew was that Gates was their god and He had commanded them to buy it. They also assumed that nothing could be any worse than Win3.1. I'll leave others to be the judge of that - I never used it, was on NT at work at the time, and still on CP/M at home.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 17, @05:20PM
I don't recall XP being particularly maligned. It was installed on my ThinkPad, and I ran it for 10 years. The hardware gave out first, strange intermittent booting problem with a message I forget. I definitely have fond memories of that laptop--it saw me through a turbulent period in my life.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mrpg on Tuesday April 15, @09:41PM (1 child)
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Wednesday April 16, @07:32PM
- Sun Tzu, The Art Of War
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gawdonblue on Tuesday April 15, @09:47PM (1 child)
Reading that, I was hopeful that the author would come to an enlightened realisation that there are other options besides MS. And they did: Apple, but only Apple.
Oh, dear.
This is from something called TechRadar?
Oh, dear.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Wednesday April 16, @07:08AM
1) Linux (which does require some usage adjustment, but is probably the best option for someone reluctant to buy a whole new PC).
2) Microsoft's paid-for patch support extension (a stop-gap, but still viable).
3) Use third party software and a hardware firewall to mitigate the security risks (which obviously takes some clue).
There's also 1a) Acquire they patches through "other means", of course, but as an above board site they can't really suggest that, can they?
It's clearly an editorial piece, but that they completly overlooked one of the (many) reasons why a large number of people are not upgrading to Windows 11 *and* several alternative options for dealing with the issue hardly inspires confidence in the site. (TechRadar, BTW, is a wing of Future Publishing, that produces a LOT of the UK's dead-tree tech magazines, amongst other genres, - they should definitely know better).
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday April 15, @09:56PM (5 children)
It is kind of weird how Windows worms its way into everywhere. One would hope they would have secured and lockdown OS:es. But it appears it is often just skin deep. Such as Medical-ipads. It is almost as odd as windows based ATM.
One would think the OS should have a lifespan as long as the device. It is kind of odd seeing WinXP out and about these days.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 16, @02:23AM (3 children)
If those medical devices aren't networked, I don't see (much of) an issue with them running whatever outdated OS they might have, even Windoze 10, or XP, or 98, or 3.1.1 - if it works, it works.
Also, M$ has sold lots of embedded versions of 'doze over the years, many can be configured to a pretty reasonable security level. One of the big things they got right, early, is immutability. They were doing reliable HORM (Hibernate Once Restore Many) back before 2012... Ubuntu Core is still dorking around with what I would call undesirable to unworkable immutability options.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday April 16, @08:34AM (1 child)
The problem is that more and more, if not almost all, those devices are sometimes or always connected to some kind of network. They also contain medical data about patients. So it's not so much about if the device could be secure, it's more about if and for how long. After all most network admins shouldn't be thrilled about the idea of all these odd OS:es connected to the network in all their odd states of security and updates.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 16, @11:31AM
We are still dragging our feet about turning on network connectivity for our device. The last two generations have both had the hardware and a plan to activate it in software since about 2005 I believe.
The up coming next generation product will finally turn it on, or at least that's the current plan. Hospitals and governments are demanding electronic medical record connectivity, otherwise we wouldn't touch it.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Username on Wednesday April 16, @09:52AM
At work there is a machine made in West Germany running Windows 3.1 that has lasted longer than machines made in unified Germany around 2002. I can fully understand not getting rid of something that is designed to be repaired. Something that has an 1980's 16 bit PLC that appears to be indestructible.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Wednesday April 16, @08:30AM
When it comes to Management decisions, technical excellence, reliability and all that are not important. What is important is having a signed contract where money has changed hands and there is the threat of legal action at any time should agreements not be fulfilled. Also, it's a nice tick box on the audit.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Tuesday April 15, @10:09PM (8 children)
Let's not forget Microsoft's insistence on tying everything to a Microsoft Account. That is some grade A shit right there that needs to stop, and stop yesterday.
Oh, look, another message telling me I'm a bad person for not handing over all my data to Microsoft. I mean, "make sure my computer is secure and protected by backing it up to Microsoft One Drive".
I hate this planet.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 15, @11:09PM (7 children)
Create a Microsoft Account with a "burner" email address to catch all the spam. Your data will be just as safe as it is now.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday April 16, @04:02PM (6 children)
"Bring your own lube."
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 16, @08:45PM (5 children)
It's so weird that nobody wants to explain what makes this a bad idea. Windows works just as well with a fake account as it does with a real one. And with or without an account, they can still read your disk. So, what's the dillio?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Tork on Wednesday April 16, @08:55PM (2 children)
When did you ask?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 16, @10:02PM (1 child)
The question is implied by the drive-by downmod, but actually raising the issue directly would be seen as a complaint by certain people.
I guess I'll die waiting for a logical answer
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday April 16, @10:17PM
Heh. Welp I hope whoever modded you down receives your un-asked question and gives you an answer before you die. If you actually apply a little logic, though, you won't have to wait that long. Good luck!
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Friday April 18, @02:25PM (1 child)
They'll use ID info on the computer to determine who you are, actually.
They'll combine the fake account with your work account for a 'unified' experience.
They'll also combine any accounts for your side/weekend job. With your day job accounts.
They'll share bookmarks in Edge between them, so they land on your work computer.
O365 email on your phone? Employer can remote wipe your phone without notice...
I've had Google do this as well. ('unified' my personal Android account and an employer's Google cloud account because I admin it, putting my personal phone + cloud data into my employer's hands)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 18, @09:31PM
Oops...
(Score: 5, Funny) by bloodnok on Tuesday April 15, @11:43PM (2 children)
Why does it have to stop?
__
The Major
(Score: 1) by ichthus on Wednesday April 16, @06:33PM
My first thought exactly. I moved my wife to Linux 15 years ago, and tried to persuade my parents to do the same. They weren't interested. But, with the constant nagging, being held hostage to inconvenient updates, and now being told their 6-year-old computers aren't worthy of Win11, they've now INVITED me to move them to Linux. And, I will -- either Kubuntu or Fedora KDE. I haven't decided yet.
(Score: 1) by arubaro on Thursday April 17, @03:31PM
well if it is big enough,so that you can put it there and fill the hole with cement....
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday April 16, @02:33AM (6 children)
I've been using linux in one form or another since 1999 and haven't looked back once. Nothing is forced on me. I upgrade when i want to and it's never forced on me. No ads.
You just have to jump the 'shark that Windows jumped'; just leave Windows behind on your computers and fuck it.
Don't upgrade those older computers...linux them.
Just GET. THE. FUCK. OUT.
You'll be happier. Trust me.
This a 'Windows Perfected' just sounds like a rolling release Windows... yeah. I'd trust that.
FUCK. NO.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Wednesday April 16, @03:52AM (5 children)
Ok, great! Which distro will run Mastercam and Solidworks? I'll get right on it.l
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Funny) by Username on Wednesday April 16, @09:55AM (1 child)
Any of them! You just have to hold these two wires together with your toes while cranking this handle while touching the antenna with cheek after you recompile the linux kernel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 16, @06:35PM
Oof. Just tried. Made me poop.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday April 17, @02:20AM (2 children)
He has several laptops, according to him, all running Windblows. He COULD get it off some of them and start weaning himself off it.
If all you need Widows for is running a couple programs, then run it for only those programs. Teh less you need it, the less you need it and the easier it is to stop sucking that teat.
And write those companies and demand linux versions.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday April 17, @05:52AM (1 child)
Ok, running Mastercam and Solidworks is the main thing I do on a computer. It's what I bought the computer for. I always have them open working on projects, even as I watch videos, listen to music, and maintain my spreadsheets. Since there is practically no time I'm not running them, what's my use case for Linux?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday April 17, @10:37AM
I guess ... nothing, then.
Keep using an inferior OS, keep hating what MS is doing with it and do nothing.
Or write the companies and complain.
Or do nothing and keep getting shafted by MS.
Or complain.
Meh.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 16, @09:04AM
No, definitely NO!
(Score: 4, Touché) by Rich on Wednesday April 16, @12:45PM (2 children)
The very article is proof that Microsoft do NOT have to change. Otherwise the article would be "I've finally had enough with Windows. I installed Mint and I'll take you along to watch my sorry first steps in this alien land..."
There's $2.87bn MSFT market cap to maintain as of right now. So, dear author, bend over. Deeper!
(Score: 2) by kolie on Thursday April 17, @04:58PM (1 child)
Windows is 10% of overall revenue.
Over 62% of revenue is Server & Office Products / Cloud Services. MS365 / azure stuff.
Windows? 9.5% of revenue, just ahead of Gaming 8.8%. LinkedIn, 6.7%, Bing/News Ads another 5%, etc.
Microsoft could literally forget windows existed and turn into a SaaS/IaaS cloud provider and be essentially the same behemoth it is today.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rich on Friday April 18, @01:37PM
Quite to the contrary. While Windows doesn't create the revenue, it is the platform that collects the personal billing information, plays out the advertisements to sign up for the rest, and makes it hard to deviate.
Assume Laptops would be shipped with, say, Mint, or a vendorized version of that. Would people go out of their way to sign up for an MS account, maintain the tools for seamless identification, and subscribe to Office 365 with monthly payments? Or would they just open LibreOffice, hardly notice anything they can no longer do, and sign up with the cloud/sharing solution that the laptop vendor bundled either for his own profit, or for subsidies from someone else?
So, in order to milk the existing Windows installation base with all their other offerings, they have to make Windows even worse in the eyes of TFA author. Windows revenue itself is, indeed, as you say, rather unimportant. However, they might lobby the governments so they make a law that a "notified vendor" has to provide continuous updates for general computing for security from Xi Jong Putin's pedoterrorists, where everyone who doesn't subscribe gets a fully invoiced expert visit from the BSA. With that in place, they can jack up the price and it becomes important revenue again.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by stormreaver on Wednesday April 16, @02:38PM
Here's what Microsoft sees:
A Windows user named Christian Guyton is telling us to change our ways less we destroy ourselves. He pays for and uses Windows, and will continue doing so despite what we do. So carry on.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Thursday April 17, @02:52PM
I've been using Linux (or BSD) on my personal computers since 1996. The laptop I'm using right now is about 8 years old and running bleeding edge new software. I see no reason to get a new one. I just don't use Microsoft for my own personal computing and see no need to do so. Perhaps I'd feel differently if I were a gamer. But in my 60's I don't care about playing video games anymore.
On the other hand, at my job we operate in a Microsoft world. A lot of the specialty software that we use in my industry and profession is only available for Windows. The interoperability of work done internally at the organization, and with outside entities, is very dependent on software that was developed exclusively for Windows, or just works better in a Windows environment. I'd like to see all of that software, or comparable replacements, available for better open source operating environments. I've been hoping for that since the 90's. It's getting asymptotically closer with time, but just hasn't quite gotten to where it needs to be yet.
Due to political developments, the rest of the world is suddenly looking on all things American with suspicion. And that includes Microsoft. Perhaps this will motivate the development of alternatives.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Thursday April 17, @03:01PM
Microsoft is Digging its Own Grave With Windows 11, and It
Has to StopShould Dig Faster.(Score: 2) by Lester on Friday April 18, @05:05PM
When Vista came out, Linux fan boys said "everybody is going to switch to Linux"
When window 8 came out, Linux fan boys said "everybody is going to switch to Linux".
I use Linux since 2001 with a slackware, now I use Linux mint. But in my job I use windows 11. I hate when windows pushes an internet account instead of letting you a local account, I hate that it always proposes you to save in onedrive, I hate SharePoint. I hate when it tries to keep you for everything in office365 ecosystem.
But the sad truth is that the main competence of Microsoft products are previous versions of Microsoft products.