Microsoft fixes a Windows 11 annoyance as PC revenue declines

107 pointsposted 3 days ago
by rbanffy
(arstechnica.com)

270 Comments

glimshe

3 days ago

The incredible thing is that Windows 10 was already near perfect. It would make sense to increase performance and security, but they changed the UI without improving an iota of user productivity, including removing key features of the product. Almost ever change in the past few years made Windows worse. Windows leadership should be fired and replaced by people who are actually Windows users, not MacOS users.

leonidasrup

2 days ago

The biggest improvement in Windows 11 is increased locking of small users into Microsoft ecosystem and Microsoft cloud services.

This is not a improvement for the users, it's a improvement for Microsoft shareholders, because many users may decide to pay for additional Microsoft services (additional revenue after paying for the operating system) and it allows Microsoft to monetize customer data (Microsoft learned this business strategy from Google).

" Home and Pro (since version 22H2) edition installation requires internet connection and Microsoft account login (only if for personal use on Pro) is mandatory unless manually bypassed to create a local user. However, Microsoft has since blocked one of the last remaining easy bypass methods that allowed local account creation during initial setup, complicating the bypass process further. All other editions are excluded from this requirement. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_11#Setup

kotaKat

2 days ago

Don't forget having to shove all the "recommendation" and "suggestion" systems into it, too, so they could add random sponsored apps to your Start menu primed and ready to install as soon as you clicked on them at the same time they push more notifications at you to use more OneDrive.

thw_9a83c

2 days ago

> The biggest improvement in Windows 11 is increased locking of small users into Microsoft ecosystem and Microsoft cloud services.

It is true that it was a major scam by Microsoft against its users when they forced them to sign into an online Microsoft account during the Windows 11 installation. Especially the stubbornness and determination with which they patch all the loopholes in the installation process (just to make it impossible to install Windows without an online account) is remarkable.

But in all fairness:

* Microsoft practically stopped charging users for upgrades since Windows 10. Windows 10 could be installed for free from older Windows, and Windows 11 is again a free upgrade from Windows 10.

* How many macOS users actually press "Setup later" when setting up a new Mac and use macOS without an Apple account? I think there will be very few of them.

dpoloncsak

2 days ago

We probably should have done it earlier, but this move is what forced my company to setup an MDT and do things proper instead of setting up windows and re-keying the license key to ours on each new laptop we got

cosmic_cheese

3 days ago

If they’d just taken Windows 10 and applied the Windows 11 theme (Fluent) that would’ve made for an OS that I wouldn’t have minded leaving on my gaming PC. That didn’t happen, and so now it’s now running Linux.

> Windows leadership should be fired and replaced by people who are actually Windows users, not MacOS users.

As a longtime Mac user, Windows leadership decisions don’t make any sense to me either. I have precisely zero interest in making 11 my primary OS… XP, 7, or 10 wouldn’t have been ideal but if I had no choice but to work with Windows those would be greatly preferable to 11.

globalnode

3 days ago

as an avid gamer, win11 is the one that pushed me to use linux only (edit: along with the fact that proton and wine make games playable on linux!!!). i would have LIKED to keep using windows but the way they treat their customers is unforgivable. when i go to a restaurant i give them 2 chances at annoying me before i go elsewhere, i gave the windows team what feels like a hundred chances. dont care what they do now, theyre history.

edit again: do they even need pc business, they make all their profits from server stuff now, they may as well wrap up the pc os division ;)

fuzztester

2 days ago

re last para.

loss leader funda in action, prolly.

or, sort of: those who live together, stick together.

aka if you buy window pcs, you're likely to buy windows servers and vice versa.

BizarroLand

2 days ago

Not a loss leader, it's still $17.08 Billion dollars (~5%) of their revenue according to bullfincher:

In fiscal year 2026, Microsoft Corporation's revenue by segment (products & services) are as follows:

    Dynamics Products And Cloud Services: $9.01 B
    Enterprise and partner services: $8.26 B
    Linked In Corporation: $19.82 B
    Microsoft Three Six Five Commercial Products And Cloud Services: $102.00 B
    Microsoft Three Six Five Consumer Products and Cloud Services: $9.18 B
    Other Products And Services: $109.00 M
    Search Advertising: $15.18 B
    Server Products And Cloud Services: $129.43 B
    Windows and Devices: $17.08 B
    XBOX: $21.79 B
This is down from 2024, when Windows was $23 Billion of revenue equaling nearly 10% of their annual revenue.

https://bullfincher.io/companies/microsoft-corporation/reven...

TiredOfLife

3 days ago

> If they’d just taken Windows 10 and applied the Windows 11 theme

That is what they did. They took windows 10 added the theme and taskbar/start from the triple failed 10x added arbitrary cpu cutoff and released as 11.

ToucanLoucan

3 days ago

> As a longtime Mac user, Windows leadership decisions don’t make any sense to me either.

To be sure, as another Mac user, they make sense in that they want Apple's revenue and reputation. The problem is they categorically refuse to invest in their engineering staff to even remotely the degree Apple does, which is reflected in the "quality" of the products on offer.

Everyone wants to be Apple, and they're all convinced despite ongoing proof to the contrary, that they can do it for pennies on the dollar. It's genuinely kind of pathetic how desperate they are to be Apple.

felixgallo

2 days ago

Microsoft's talent pool is deeper and equally smart. The problem is in the leadership, which grew fat and lazy and permitted a continuously terrible corporate culture and unfocused plan, and in the design. Microsoft's historical game plan is to copy and leverage its scale, but you can't copy and leverage scale in design or in management.

lostlogin

2 days ago

> Everyone wants to be Apple

Can they instead aim to be what Apple was? Being what Apple is or going where Apple is heading is rather gross.

SoftTalker

3 days ago

Win2KPro was the peak. Windows 7 wasn't terrible, and you could select the Windows 2000 UI. It's been downhill since then.

WarOnPrivacy

3 days ago

I really liked Win2KPro. My son has a copy of Windows Neptune he fires up now and then.

But I also had lots of fun when Code Red and Nimda came around - full perm file navigation on computers everywhere. Any Win2k box knocking on my firewall was telling me it was wide open for use.

testing22321

3 days ago

I remember building a lc for a client, installing 2k then SP2. Clicking around installing our software thinking “this could be my main machine. This would be good”

Then it got a virus.

30 minutes after I finished installing windows.

SoftTalker

2 days ago

Oh yes, security-wise it was a nightmare. I was talking about the UX. Efficient, consistent, and pretty minimalist. Animation effects started to appear but was easy to disable.

DanielHB

2 days ago

One thing that drives me nuts is just how they refuse to take the time and update all the settings pages to the new style. I don't hate the new style, in fact I think it is pretty okay (better than macos and KDE in some things, worse in others).

Like if you dig even slightly below the surface you get a dialog window straight from windows 95. Network settings for example, something I routinely have to deal with. It is absurd VPN companies make full-blown windows desktop software to tweak VPN settings on your PC because the default windows UI is so crap.

PaulKeeble

2 days ago

There is just so much of this old stuff on Windows that you run into if you need to do anything past the surface. So many old programs they just couldn't be bothered to rewrite to a new standard. Settings is what most people run into but the registry editor, all the permissions stuff, networking settings, the entirity of the control panel is a miss mash of different eras and on and on.

xnx

2 days ago

There still a Windows 3.1 file picker in ODBC Data Source

ChoGGi

2 days ago

I like the old control panel; I don't use Explorer as my shell, so I can't use settings unless I close my shell and temp change it to Explorer.

I doubt there's many people using them, so I can see why they don't bother to support alternative shells.

mschuetz

3 days ago

I've recently switched from windows to Mac and it was so refreshing using a system that does not purposely work against the user. I don't agree with many design decisions in Mac (wtf is up with tabbing into apps I've closed, or not being able to tab through instances of an app without a separate shortcut?!) but at least they're not shoving telemetry and ads down your throat.

flenserboy

3 days ago

(many) apps keep running without windows — all you closed was the last open window. cmd-~ switches between windows within a running app. this has been the case since the classic Mac days, & while it seems to drive those who come from Windows bonkers, long-term Mac users (at least all I've known) appreciate this small aspect of macOS as it makes a clear distinction between apps & windows. newer apps (some from Apple) which break this model are still maddening to use.

mschuetz

3 days ago

> many) apps keep running without windows

That's fine, but I do not want to tab into an app whose last windows I have purposely closed. I closed it so I have a cleaner slate of apps to work with. If chrome is closed, it should not show up until I open it again. Not just windows but also linux make much more sense in that regard.

It's annoying because the x button on the windows is now a completely useless widget to me, and I have to close apps via cmd+q instead. It's even more annoying that I can't actually close Finder, even though I'm using a different filebrowser.

fodkodrasz

2 days ago

1. do this on a non-us layout 2. do this with Firefox / Chrome and its in-private window. Those are not reachable with neither shortcut for me.

Mac is the most culturally colonialist minded thing in my experience, its i18n support is terrible for smaller languages.

The "windows bonkers" model is strangely copied by most third party windowsin systems, as it makes sense, with having the recency based tab order, and being a global list. For us who work with more than a single software and often have to work between two different software, maybe an editor and a terminal... it is usually pretty handy.

skeletal88

2 days ago

That is fucking annoying on mac. If i close the window, why is it useful to still have the application running without any windows. For example Finder? It still appears when alt tabbing, but when selecting it i get nothing. How is this a good design or good ux?

solyin

2 days ago

Back in the olden days, when macintoshes were new, it took literal minutes to load the program off the disk. This was an improvement upon programs taking hours to load off cassette tape. So when you closed the last document, you didn't want to have to wait to load the program again if you were just going to start a new document in the same program. It just kind of persisted from there.

mschuetz

2 days ago

It's fine to keep them active in the background, but the annoying thing is that Mac still shows them when tabbing, even though I closed them on purpose. I closed them because I do not want them to show up on my workspace.

ezst

2 days ago

> it was so refreshing using a system that does not purposely work against the user.

I don't share this optimism, Apple has not been a hardware-first/computers company in a very long time and nowadays makes more bucks profiling your consumption habits to sell you "content" on their ever more "content-consumption" oriented devices.

Edit: just to add to that the same ads (for cloud storage and premium services) that people in the Microsoft world get pissy about very much exists on that side of the fence. It's a race to the bottom, Apple isn't there to lead by example.

flohofwoe

2 days ago

macOS is just a bit behind the curve. For instance a couple of years ago macOS added Windows Vista style permission popups, and Apple really doesn't want you to install UI apps outside the App Store, which is essentially the equivalent of "Windows SmartScreen".

fodkodrasz

2 days ago

You must be using a different macos than me, or have not attempted to connect a mouse (Scroll Reverser), an external display (BetterDisplay), wanted to have sane power management (Amphetamine), want to reach all application windows with only the keyboard, wanted to close modal popups with only the keyboard, etc...

About telemetry, and ads: It is also present in MacOS, but less invasive indeed. And about not showing something down my throat: the other day my iphone just told me in declarative, with a single accept button: now your system will be updated to ios27 (download of updates was enabled, with manual confirmation).

Also having to unlock every app after every brew update in the applications as they "have been downloaded from the internet"... it is not something i'd call refreshing and not working against me.

thw_9a83c

2 days ago

> want to reach all application windows with only the keyboard

So damn true. I never got the point of the MacOS windows management approach. It's a joke.

* Switch between non-minimized application windows: "⌘ + Tab" (but not between windows of the same application!)

* Switch between open windows of the same application: "⌘ + `" <- Yes, that's backtick, a different physical key depending on the keyboard language layout, WTF! (but doesn't work for minimized windows of that application)

* Switch between open and minimized windows of the same application: "Ctrl + ArrowDown" and use arrow navigation.

And yes, there's Exposé button/gesture, which, again, doesn't show minimized windows and doesn't work with an arrow navigation.

cubefox

3 days ago

> The incredible thing is that Windows 10 was already near perfect.

This is a ridiculous statement given how many people complained about it at the time!

There seems to be a common cognitive bias where things in the past are considered good and things in the present bad. So a few years from now, a bunch of people would say "Windows 12 is so bad, the incredible thing is that Windows 11 was already near perfect", completely forgetting the sentiment at the time.

AlAjem

2 days ago

Windows 8 hasn't been vindicated by time yet, Windows releases have been more of a pendulum where every other major release is widely adopted (not necessarily beloved) after a misbegotten major release.

samiv

2 days ago

Because designers must design, programmers must program and managers must manage to ear a paycheck you have to change things even when they don't need changing. When you put this into a context of a greedy corporation that is completely self serving, i.e using the platform to serve their needs instead of those of the user it's inevitable that the product will turn into shit from the user perspective.

InsidiousWombat

2 days ago

W10 was still plenty annoying. It still had all of the MS bad practices. But it was stable(enough) and not too bloated compared to W11

customguy

2 days ago

For me the incredible thing is that Win 11 has any users. Microsoft announced Win 10 as the last OS, with updates from there on out. I assume the only reason Win 11 came into existence was to change EULA for more tracking and ads. I certainly never saw anything about how 11 is this fundamentally different thing that 10 couldn't have been updated into, that's why I have to assume it's for legal / user-hostile reasons.

Everybody should have simply ignored them. Win 10 yes, whatever you're trying to pull with 11, no. What could MS have done about that? Threaten to end support and then relent when nobody takes the bait?

2III7

2 days ago

I'll always remember that statement about 10 being a rolling release and will never ever consider having a windows machine at home. I had one for gaming before 11 was released and then moved gaming to Bazzite.

misiek08

2 days ago

That's why a lot of us still works on Windows 10. I'm always laughing hearing that on Win 11 even Task Manager breaks not showing process list, randomly. Clipboard on RDP breaks every few connections and requires killing process or restart. The funniest is when next person calls me and asks if he really needs creating Micro$hit account to just use PC for local stuff.

I hope someone at big corp will be so bored one day that he'll just start releasing Win 10 updates after reverse engineering the mechanisms and we will get Win 10 support again.

The rule still alive and stands strong - every second Windows is just a crap. ME, Vista, 8 and now 11.

protocolture

3 days ago

>. Almost ever change in the past few years made Windows worse.

I feel like this is the point. Microsoft don't want to support a consumer desktop OS anymore, and are pushing people to other devices, where their profitable cloud services are also available.

MS wants you to pay for authentication, office, cloud services etc without having to do consumer support or anything like that. I reckon they see Apple as the perfect partner for this, someone with a desktop experience compatible with their cloud experience.

vbezhenar

2 days ago

I've been Windows 10 user for many years, but just few days ago I bought new laptop and went with Windows 11.

Honestly it's the same for me. Taskbar is a bit weird and start menu is a bit weird, but I was able to turn off unwanted features, so it's not bad right now.

I'm mostly Linux user and my Windows usage is more about gaming, but I did some programming with it as well.

mapontosevenths

3 days ago

> Almost ever change in the past few years made Windows worse.

No, it's just made it worse for you. You aren't the customer though. Enterprises are customers, you're just a lowly user.

Hopefully one day someone at Microsoft will remember that customers are actually made out of users.

jpardoe

3 days ago

How has it been made better for Enterprises?

mapontosevenths

2 days ago

Just read the release notes. Almost every new feature is built with the enterprise in mind. Typically some very specific large customer (or two).[0]

Whether that is to the benefit of smaller enterprises is a separate question, but it's clear that almost all of the effort going into windows is (and has been) aimed at the enterprise. Users be damned.

[0] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/whats-ne...

apercu

2 days ago

MacOS has gotten worse too. It’s leadership but it’s also too many employees trying to hit kpis (defined by poor leadership).

xscott

3 days ago

I'm sure you meant Windows NT 4. It's all kind of down hill after that, with worthwhile stopping points at Windows 2000 and Windows 7.

ahoka

2 days ago

I keep hearing this since Windows 98.

gjsman-1000

3 days ago

Pff… remember Cortana?

jensenbox

3 days ago

Windows 7 was the perfect OS for me.

joooscha

3 days ago

Cortana is literaly the reason I am on Linux now for 9 years.

Had to reinstall Windows and could not disable Cortana or even skip some weired voice output during initial setup. Immediately removed Windows again and installed Ubuntu.

TiredOfLife

3 days ago

It was hilarious how the update to finally remove cortana came out a month after they announced copilot

Melatonic

3 days ago

Every other windows is always terrible

tommica

3 days ago

Windows 11 is really the worst iteration, my partner did not want the telemetry and other windows 11 crap, so she, from her own free will, researched linuxes and chose Fedora Kinoite as her operating system, because she liked the idea that she could not accidentally break it.

After a year or so, she is a happy camper, steam works, web works, all is good. Though once we start with the art software, that might be a bit tricky.

Only issue that it had was when after an os update the extra hdd mount points lost their execute flags for some reason, so unfortunately not a 100% technical free experience.

dv_dt

2 days ago

If you don't know the name already check out Krita https://krita.org for art software

Depending on interests other solid sw is Inkscape, Blender, and GIMP. But those get increasingly intricate to use. I also wonder how the Adobe AI clones will do after their first one shot publicity.

anthk

2 days ago

Krita has a Flatpak, it will run well under Fedora Atomic.

ponector

2 days ago

You can argue it's the best iteration. It annoys people so much they wre eager to look for another option.

skeletal88

2 days ago

I built a new computer for gaming after.. 10+ years of using the old one with windows. It was too old to update windows.

I did not want a microsoft account for local logins, telemetry, i had already used linux for 15 years for work so.. new gaming computer is running Fedora. Steam is working nicely, Gog is working too. Amd rx9070 with no driver issues.

simoncion

2 days ago

> Though once we start with the art software, that might be a bit tricky.

Something that took me way too long to figure out is that you can have Steam run arbitrary Windows software in a Steam-managed -er- Protonprefix. [0] Perhaps this might remove some of the hassle of handling Art Software if Wine doesn't quite work for you?

To do this, you can use the menu option to "Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library", browse for any old .EXE, and Steam will handle setting up Proton for you. You can also change the .EXE that that Steam entry points to after all that shit gets set up... so I _assume_ that you could first point to the .EXE for the Art Software's installer, let it run through the install process, and then change what the Steam entry points to to the .EXE for the Art Software.

[0] ...it's like a WINEPREFIX, but with Proton... get it???

anthk

2 days ago

Lutris handles this for you.

pojntfx

2 days ago

> Though once we start with the art software, that might be a bit tricky.

This might be super helpful for her: https://getartcraft.com/apps. Works extremely well as a CC etc. replacemenmt.

Also https://capycanvas.art/ - a lovely native Linux replacement for Procreate, which I've been looking for ever since my 2018 iPad Pro stopped receiving updates.

viraptor

2 days ago

I'm all for artcraft effort to succeed and wish them all the best. But you're overselling this as "Works extremely well as a CC etc. replacemenmt." - it's alpha level software. It's got lots of issues and is not polished yet. Give it some time.

In the meantime, Krita and a few online apps have been around and very successful.

nukanse

3 days ago

My sister gave me his win 11 laptop to fix. 1 Tb SSD was full. Half of it was windows.old folder after 26h2 update. Windows has 5 different ways to delete that folder and none works. They are all badly documented. It spends 1 hour reading the file list before starting to delete... On a 4 tb/second nvme drive. Then spend a day "deleting" the folder, but doesn't deletes anything.

Finally, booted an Linux rescue distro from USB and deleted the folder.

Then had to clean the winsxs folder, which was full of useless files after an update.

In the end I cleaned 700 gb wasted.

frankacter

3 days ago

Settings - > Storage -> Temporary Files

That's the universal way to clean up roll back installs and other Windows update related.

If that's not working for you, there's probably a much larger issue at play on her machine and would be much better off backing up her data, wiping all the partitions and installing fresh. You'll likely reclaim more than 700 GB.

The only time I've seen situations like what you're describing is when these are machines that have been in use for years and have major Windows versions on top of major Windows version stacked on top of each other, not just incremental updates.

nukanse

3 days ago

That doesn't works, and it's a 1 year old laptop that came with 2024 windows 11 that accumulated updates up to 26h2.

frankacter

3 days ago

You don't have the option? Or when going into system mode as part of temporary cleanup it doesn't show older Windows update as an option to clean or it fails when it tries?

What doesn't work specifically?

nukanse

2 days ago

It had the option. It didn't worked. It used cpu for hours and nothing was deleted.

lincon127

2 days ago

Even better way to clean your Windows comp is to delete everything in C:\Windows

kevin_thibedeau

3 days ago

> It spends 1 hour reading the file list before starting to delete

Shift delete bypasses the relocation of files to the recycle bin.

mrheosuper

3 days ago

As long as they still require online account to install, nope, not for me. That's stupid requirement.

frankacter

3 days ago

If that's important to you, there's an option to allow using a local account during setup by dropping to command line and setting a flag. Pretty straightforward if that's your only deal breaker.

I just recently installed Windows 11 on a computer and this is the steps that I followed

https://rtech.support/guides/bypass-11/

It's two steps:

1) During Windows setup you push Shift-F10

2) It opens a command prompt and you type OOBE\BYPASSNRO

When you hit enter it reboots and allows local mode.

Microsoft should not have hidden this away like they have and it should be an option for everyone installing Windows, and I recognize this isn't a solution for the non-technical user.. but for you specifically if it's something you're comfortable doing, it's an option to allow you to avoid having to use a Microsoft account when installing Windows.

OuterVale

3 days ago

I know that a lot of tech folks consider it a non issue because it is 'easy' to fix if you know the bypass and your way around the more inner workings, but broadly this isn't really an answer to the problem.

If we always just say 'Oh, well, if you do XYZ then you can manage to do A despite B' then we're eroding our control and agency. Slowly the bypasses will phase out, as they have slowly been in this case, and then we're really in a poor state.

I had a tech support client who came to be because they valued their privacy and didn't want an account but who had no idea how to make that happen. They didn't even really know what to be looking for.

superkuh

3 days ago

Not only that, if someone has a tech knowledgable person set up their Windows 11 computer without online accounts MS updates will cause it to spam the tech-ignorant person owning that computer with misleading pop-ups saying they need to press this button to do $x thing. Which then secretly sets up online accounts which automatically and silently enables drive encryption. Which causes it to go to a bluescreen saying to go to some shady looking URL at aka.ms and type in a long code that appears on your blue screen only broken computer. It's basically ransomware. This is not some theory, I had this happen to a sewing machine laptop I set up for my mother.

And yes, I later learned that aka.ms is a real Microsoft URL. But when it was first described to me it sounded exactly like ransomware and had exactly that effect.

frankacter

3 days ago

I'm by no means suggesting it's normal or that I think it's okay Microsoft removed the native ability.

You're right that I probably made an assumption that someone posting on hacker News would have the technical ability to hit a keyboard combination and type a command on a command line and hit enter, which is essentially what's required currently to utilize the local account ( https://rtech.support/guides/bypass-11/ )

My reply was intended as more of a direct message to OP, as opposed to general advice I think every end user should know and follow. I should have been more clear.

kencausey

3 days ago

I would appreciate a link to the details about 'setting a flag.' The last version of that I used earlier this year stopped working in recent months, and I believe I saw tech news stories to the effect that Microsoft had intentionally closed that path.

For now I just use a customer-supplied email address which I used to setup a Microsoft account, setup Windows and use that account, immediately create a local-only 'admin' account with full rights, delete the online associated account, and start creating user account(s) from there.

O_H_E

3 days ago

I had recently had to install windows for the first time in years, did some chatting with mr gpt and poking around on reddit until I arrived at: https://massgrave.dev. They guide you on how to download windows LTSC from the "official" Microsoft links. So much less crap shoved down the system, it's kind of nice.

frankacter

3 days ago

Great point. It is the ONLY way I would use Windows on my computers. I just use the media builder from Microsoft directly:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11

There are also community projects like NTLite ( https://ntlite.com/ ) and Windows ISO Debloater ( https://github.com/itsNileshHere/Windows-ISO-Debloater ) for the more technically advanced that want full control to prevent the bloat from even making it to your machine during installation at all (instead of having to clean it up after the fact)

frankacter

3 days ago

I just recently had to install Windows 11 fresh on a computer and this is what I used

https://rtech.support/guides/bypass-11/

I have a Microsoft account, but I prefer to use a local account to avoid a lot of the "value add" that comes from using the Microsoft account.

mrheosuper

3 days ago

It's not about technical, it's about their view and mindset.

vor_

3 days ago

That doesn't sound like something that counts as an easy option.

frankacter

3 days ago

If someone is already setting up Windows manually themselves, I believe they're already at some level of technical ability.. but as I pointed out in another comment, my reply was specifically to OP who I made an assumption had some technical ability given that they're here on hacker News. Maybe that assumption is wrong and I recognize that.

That said, the process is:

1) while installing Windows press shift f10

2) a command prompt will open and you type OOBE\BYPASSNRO

When you hit enter the computer will reboot and allow local mode.

I fully recognize that this is a hidden option that most people don't know about, but if you do, it seems pretty straightforward to me for someone that's already at a level where they're comfortable manually installing Windows, but I recognize I have an blind spot due to my own technical abilities.

everdrive

2 days ago

Until they drop an update and retroactively force the creation of an online account. This is a game of cat and mouse that even the tech-savvy will eventually lose.

1718627440

2 days ago

Then you just reset the VM back.

BLKNSLVR

3 days ago

Just ignore the sign saying "Beware of the leopard".

redundantly

2 days ago

I hope you enjoy not being able to use the Ctrl-Alt-Delete menu to reset your password, because bypassing OOBE breaks that functionality.

fodkodrasz

2 days ago

Could you back this up? I did lots of unattended install without having to fill OOBE, and the Ctrl+Alt+Del menu always worked.

I'd recommend creating a sysprep answer file (with LLM's its pretty easy, also rufus can do it) instead of the trick mentioned above.

vbezhenar

2 days ago

This method does not work in current home installer. And they also closed other loopholes.

frankacter

2 days ago

I just used it with the last official build media from Microsoft over the weekend.

Which part failed for you?

Couldn't open a command prompt? Error entering the command.

Note the command is case sensitive.

4k93n2

2 days ago

i couldnt get that to work the last time i tried but i ended up using rufus to burn the ISO which gives you options to turn off the microsoft account. it even disables the tpm2.0 check so you can install it on older hardware if you want to

vbezhenar

2 days ago

Windows 11 Pro does not require online account to install.

dijit

2 days ago

That's not true, I tried last week.

vbezhenar

2 days ago

That's true, I tried last week. Choose "work account" or something along the lines and it'll create local account.

dijit

2 days ago

Forced me to log in with an EntraID account tied to an organisation.

vbezhenar

2 days ago

I have no idea what's Entra ID. I don't have VM to create screenshots but I assure you that it worked for me without any network accounts with very straightforward workflow. And I've used latest windows iso from MS website just few days ago to set up the very computer I'm writing from.

Something like that:

1. Proceed through ordinary steps until account screen.

2. Choose "Set up for work or school".

3. Choose "Sign-in options" and select "Domain Join".

4. Enter username, password, recovery questions.

That's it. Despite the name, the domain join is not happening at installation time. I assume user can join domain once the installation is complete, but it's not enforced or even signalled in any way.

pjmlp

a day ago

It is the new name for Active Directory.

rationalist

2 days ago

That hasn't been true for years.

user

2 days ago

[deleted]

jswelker

3 days ago

Way too little way too late Microsoft. After 30 years I will never choose Windows again. Got on Windows with 3.1 and off the train with 11. It's not me--it's you.

hx8

3 days ago

What took you so long? I got on Windows 3.1 and off with Windows Vista.

turpentine

3 days ago

As maligned as it was... I think Vista was actually servicable if all the extra visual effects and UAC stuff was turned off. It ended up looking more like a plainly styled XP desktop and ran moderately well on laptops just for a win32 C development machine (emacs, gcc/msvc cl.exe). I had this setup for windows builds, with a Linux desktop as my main machine.

At least back then more of the original engineering talent that Microsoft had was still around, and you would even run into them on irc from time to time. 20 years on, I suspect a lot of the foundational personalities that drove engineering decisions have since retired or been made redundant, and that reflects the weird UI fracturing and endless regressions. I doubt they can recover at this point.

lelanthran

3 days ago

> What took you so long? I got on Windows 3.1 and off with Windows Vista.

I got off on Windows 95.

adventured

3 days ago

It was Microsoft Bob that was the last straw, wasn't it.

jswelker

3 days ago

Inertia and many years being forced to use it for work.

OnlineTux

3 days ago

> What took you so long?

Support for Gaming - not Wine, but hardware support and performance.

jswelker

3 days ago

Yeah proton is a helluva drug.

pjmlp

a day ago

It is still running Windows games, developed on Windows, which is used by game studios full of Windows desktops, using Visual Studio and DirectX 11/12.

Those same studios are using GNU/Linux on their game servers, or even targeting Android NDK for their games.

contubernio

2 days ago

About 25 years ago (maybe a bit more) I remember a friend, a top tier developer at Microsoft (this was in the period where the underbelly of windows 7 was being designed) explaining to me that Microsoft knew its users better than they knew themselves and that the key was to train them properly. While there's some sense to such an attitude when introducing tweaks to technology, some variant of the attitude underlies most of Microsoft's missteps since then.

eps

2 days ago

> the key was to train them properly

How very Apple of them.

dizhn

2 days ago

Apple users train each other.

phyzix5761

2 days ago

Its the same device and software ever year. Nothing new to train.

dizhn

a day ago

Kind of. What changes is whether this year you're holding it wrong or you shouldn't be taking your device to a non humidity and dust controlled environment. That's what the users teach each other and the rest of us. :)

(I even heard "it's good for a laptop to be heavy" in the early 2000s)

bajard

3 days ago

Linux: Install and use. Windows: Fight 3 days with the installer. Spend 4 weeks tweaking it... And do it all again after any random update.

the__alchemist

3 days ago

This is a broad generalization, and inconsistent with my experience. Especially notable as Linux refers to a diverse family of operating systems.

8note

3 days ago

youve missed the joke, that the descriptions used to be swapped

vor_

3 days ago

Well, I mean, they still are for most of the public.

the__alchemist

2 days ago

Sorry - I think you're right. I had a hard time telling with several of the early comments in this thread. (The new ones are more serious) What's that rule about it being tough to tell on the internet?

anal_reactor

3 days ago

Linux day 1: whole day looking up which distro is usable.

Day 2: install Linux distro, total process is like 4 hours because at every step you double check that you won't lose your Windows data because it's your first time installing Linux. Realize that your distro doesn't support modern displays and never will. Call it a day because you're mentally exhausted.

Day 3: install a distro that does support modern displays. The process is only 3 hours because you're already familiar with it. Spend the rest of the day looking up which Linux programs are good replacements for Windows ones. Hint: all of them have bugs that affect your particular use cases - KDE shits itself when it sees a folder with 20k images, DaVinci Resolve has lots of issues with audio drivers and video codecs and gives zero error messages, no native Linux audio player supports all exotic music formats in my library so I need to run foobar2000 which obviously crashes when it sees WMA lossless and then UI fails to scale properly, lots of random shit like Wine installation causing system update to fail.

Day 4: connect $DEVICE. Look up drivers.

Day 44: $DEVICE works.

Day 104: $DEVICE works AND survives system update.

In my case that were keyboard (support for extra keys) and steering wheel.

Day 204: invite friends for video games. Spend the entire evening trying to fix controllers because they're fucked - if I first connect Steam Controller and then run Steam, then Steam shits itself. I need to specifically do it the other way around. Also, Xbox One controller drivers have an incompatibility with X360 controllers so I couldn't simply connect the old dongle and play like that.

jswelker

3 days ago

Debian+xfce or even lxqt are about as plug and play as you can get with UX straight out of 2002 in the best way. Hell it probably even runs on 2002 hardware.

anal_reactor

3 days ago

Linux users who ignore critique and claim "yeah bro but have you tried MY distro" are like potheads "yeah bro but have you tried MY strain".

jswelker

3 days ago

Ok my guy have fun grinding that axe. I don't care pick any distro and it's gonna be more stable and less user hostile than Windows. Meanwhile tell me how Windows 11 is actually great and we are all using it wrong. All we need is the right magic strain of regedits and post install cleanup scripts. Brb let me send those steps to my grandma for her PC so it stops uploading all her files to the cloud every 5 minutes.

hexasquid

3 days ago

I particularly liked the presence of windows, .WMA and xbox controllers in this.

anal_reactor

2 days ago

Well, I was moving away from Windows so it's natural I wanted to replace things I had working on Windows.

Lossless WMA is an ancient exotic format so yeah, fair to push back. But Xbox controllers are the standard gaming controllers so there's no excuse. The rest of my complaints are Linux fuckery.

BTW my keyboard is also from Microsoft and someone did all the difficult things in the driver except one simple last step, which is like two extra lines of code. There are like ten forks of this driver on GitHub, each of them adding the same two lines.

The driving wheel is NOT Microsoft. The whole software stack had a critical bug that made the wheel unusable after a few minutes of gameplay. People worked on this for a long time. It finally got fixed, a few months after I joined the Linux party. BTW the Linux driver/userland tool implemented correctly LEDs on the wheel EXCEPT they were missing a parser of a file format that took me a day to manually implement and connect. It would take me at least a week though to make it a quality contribution. If I need to redo this for a new game, I'll publish my code.

I feel like there's a common theme that Linux usually almost works and for every functionality you need to spend a day fixing it because the developers did do all the difficult work, but then either botched UI, failed to implement non-core functionalities, or didn't test less common use cases. When my Fedora refused to update until I removed Wine, the official response was along "your program your problem".

Good4boothee

2 days ago

After another "Year of the Linux Desktop", the "It works for me on $DISTRO" is still very common reply in forum support threads. In past I hoped Canonical will make Ubuntu the obvious (and default) choice, but it never went beyond very popular distribution. And they already have some controversial decisions on record, they literally experimented with ads in "start menu" before MS.

pjmlp

a day ago

"Year of the Linux Desktop" is already here, however most folks won't accept how it ended up being delivered.

WSL and Virtualization Framework.

prmoustache

2 days ago

> Linux day 1: whole day looking up which distro is usable. > > Day 2: install Linux distro, total process is like 4 hours because at every step you double check that you won't lose your Windows data because it's your first time installing Linux. Realize that your distro doesn't support modern displays and never will. Call it a day because you're mentally exhausted.

Hmmm day 2 should be: making a backup of my windows data, that way I can do the f... I want during installation.

> Day 3: install a distro that does support modern displays.

Apart from LTS/enterprise versions, all distros are running the same kernel generations. They all have the same hardware support really.

The rest of your text soup doesn't mean anything. Like this: "random shit like Wine installation causing system update to fail.", this really sounds like hallucinations and inventions.

The part about $DEVICE and drivers is like looking at a kid trying to connect a Nintendo SNES controller to a PS5 and complaining it doesn't work to well.

com2kid

3 days ago

> Linux: Install and use.

I mean yes, but an update on my Linux box just installed a new kernel, uninstalled the old video card driver, and didn't install a new video card driver.

I have taken to asking claude "is it safe for me to reboot now?" before restarting after updates. So far 3 times in a row it has come back with "no, your system won't startup".

Edit: I also just woke my desktop up from sleep and the alt-tab service failed to resume. Just... wut.

samiv

2 days ago

Unfortunately this is still the reality of many Linux distros. On every update something breaks.

Just as an exMple I'm on arch myself and after last update if I use X11 screen saver with lock some service crashes and the computer cannot be unlocked.

Maybe next update will have a fix but then something else will be broken instead.

Linux (as in the kernel+user space of your choice) is a perpetual alpha. Has been for 30 years and will always be.

Whenever GTK/Gnome becomes reasonable stable it's time for a rewrite!

(And I'm a Linux user since red hat 7.2)

anthk

2 days ago

I stopped to care since Flatpak. Pull down the same dependencies everywhere. Oh, disk usage, right. It's 2026, and BTRFS either compresses stuff and/or deduplicates.

anthk

2 days ago

Get an inmutable distro. For everything else, Flatpak. For gaming, AppImages are not sandboxed but you can always create a user account for gaming and logout/login again to avoid nasty surprises.

For instance, I use RecompLauncher as an AppImage, but I launch the recompilations themselves from a desktop shortcut after closing the launcher to get every CPU cycle for the game.

tom_alexander

2 days ago

Both AMD and Intel have open source graphics drivers which are upstreamed into the Linux kernel, so that situation would be impossible with an AMD or Intel graphics card. Any driver issues are a pain that nvidia decided to inflict on you.

prmoustache

2 days ago

I am not sure you know what you are talking about. What is the "alt-tab service" you are speaking about. There is no systemd service with that name in any linux distro I have used.

Also if you are able to know that the new video card driver hasn't been installed, you also know that you can solve this by doing it yourself. In that case why wouldn't you do it?

Ultimately if all those things are too hard for you there are a number of immutable "image" based distros where packages/drivers aren't managed individually during updates and where you can always boot to the previous version. Maybe that is what you need.

com2kid

2 days ago

> There is no systemd service with that name in any linux distro I have used.

Cosmic desktop uses a separate executable just for alt-tab. Currently there is a bug where sometimes it falls to grab ahold of a surface when the system wakes from sleep, and the process dies, and then alt-tab doesn't work.

> Also if you are able to know that the new video card driver hasn't been installed, you also know that you can solve this by doing it yourself. In that case why wouldn't you do it?

If I run my distro's updater, and I then reboot when it asks me to reboot, I expect my system to properly start up.

I've had that not happen so many times now that before rebooting I ask Claude if rebooting is safe.

Most recently I was informed that my kernel had been updated, my old graphics driver uninstalled, but the installation of the new graphics driver had not proceeded as expected. Mind you the updater reported everything as a-ok.

prmoustache

4 hours ago

> I was informed that my kernel had been updated, my old graphics driver uninstalled, but the installation of the new graphics driver had not proceeded as expected. Mind you the updater reported everything as a-ok.

It may have been ok anyway. Without further details we can't say. Most drivers are included with mainline kernels so your "old graphic driver" may have been an out of distribution gfx driver (nvidia?) that doesn't support new version of kernel for example or said driver may have been replaced by something else with a different name.

switchbak

3 days ago

I installed it on a laptop for a friend after not having used it since the mid 2000’s. What a piece of flaming dogshit that whole platform is. How is this the output of a multi billion dollar company?

Well then you look at a random webpage from CNN and I guess they’re all competing for how trashy they can make their products.

There can’t be any pride left at all in that place.

nukanse

3 days ago

You just made me check the CNN website. It had black font on black background. Run by incompetents.

pteraspidomorph

3 days ago

It took me longer than 3 days to set Linux up for my (multi-specialty) needs, but I can see absolutely no reason anyone would ever want to go back to Windows at this point. You know what else lets me customize my menus? KDE.

My last few years of Windows were more frustrating than Linux has ever been. Everything locked down and a never ending string of crashes and issues that are impossible to properly diagnose or repair. At least on Linux, when there's an issue, it's clear what it is and where to report it.

(Disclaimer: I have an AMD GPU and I don't play competitive multiplayer games. All other games have just worked so far.)

mihaaly

2 days ago

I have some Lenovo 'temporary UI removal tool' (don't remember its name exactly, do not care that much to look for it from this Mac) that comes back with each update. The tool, as my AI agent explains, regularly (24h) wakes the computer from hibernation (yes, I took care of being that available, I need that, despite as a MS SE says: they know me better than I, so they removed that possibility only coming back by tweaks) to check if the post-installation temporary UI something is still there, and removes if it is there. But keeps running - it is a service or what -, still waking after removal, every 24h, including weekends. Checking if the already removed UI thingy that it removed is still there. They then have some service restoring service too watching if the UI removal service was stopped/disabled/removed, restoring that. One need to kill/unset both through command line to have some remedy. Which both come back at each Windows update. Yes, it is Lenovo. But yes, it is Windows delivering this way sometimes just few days apart with frequent 'updates'.

user

3 days ago

[deleted]

zamalek

3 days ago

And yet you still hear "Linux is only free if your time is worthless."

It's untrue in comparison to Windows, and MacOS (at least for software dev, when I last used it 1.5 years ago).

Linux easily has the lowest maintenance burden if you pick a boring distros. It can be a huge pit of wasted time, _if you actually want to fall into that pit._

IshKebab

2 days ago

IMO that is still kind of true. Windows 11 LTSC gives a totally bloat free experience, the only downside is you can only reasonably get it through grey market cdkey sites.

Linux, sometimes works without faff. But in my experience it's at best 50:50 if you get that, or constant crashes, hangs, broken peripherals, etc. (Of course any time you mention this the luck 50% pipe up with "it works for me".)

opengrass

3 days ago

Maybe they haven't realized how convoluted their licensing system is, and as Gabe Newell says, piracy is a service issue.

craftkiller

3 days ago

While I'm sure that would help, I still wouldn't use Windows even if it was completely free and distributed as easily as Linux. Windows has some serious problems with dark patterns like ads in the start menu and telemetry everywhere. The software is slow and bloated. The lack of a package manager makes each application run their own updater (though they did at least put the drivers inside windows update which was a step in the right direction).

rewgs

3 days ago

Windows does have a package manager nowadays. I install the majority of software with Winget, and Chocolatey and Scoop fill in the gaps.

kasabali

2 days ago

those aren't package managers rather a catalog of automated installer switches.

pjmlp

a day ago

Valve will be missed when the new management generation takes ownership, some folks have this dream Valve will be forever as they stand today.

rf15

3 days ago

...who is ironically a former MS employee.

dhx

3 days ago

Trying to understand the original Windows 11 context menu diagram as someone who hasn't used Windows 11 is surprisingly difficult. By contrast, Gnome 51's context menu (or earlier versions as far back as I remember) for a file/folder are unambiguous and easy to understand.

At the top of the Windows 11 context menu are some small icons without text for high usage actions which I assume are:

1. select-for-moving (cut), perhaps Gnome's "Move to..."

2. duplicate-in-place-with-number-appended-to-duplicate-filename or select-for-copying (copy), perhaps Gnome's "Copy to..."

3. something to do with the clipboard--maybe copy contents to clipboard

4. something to do with text entry--maybe rename the file/folder, perhaps Gnome's "Rename..."

5. share via social media applications or cloud file sharing applications, or move the file/folder locally perhaps Gnome's "Move to..."

6. move to recycle bin (delete)

Menu options with text are unambiguous for "Open", "Open with", "Compress to ZIP file", "Properties", although Gnome will state "Open with {name_of_default_app}" to make it clear exactly how a file will be opened without having to guess.

I guess "Copy as path" might just copy the full filesystem path to the clipboard. I can't remember the last time I wanted to do that.

I guess "Always keep on this device" prevents the file/folder being backed up to some cloud storage provider. I'd rather open up an application dedicated to cloud storage backups and be able to review current backup options there all in one place for all types of data/files.

The "Free up space" option I'm less clear on--will a local application pop up and suggest what I can delete within the folder, will a cloud storage provider application pop up and suggest the file not be synchronised with the local device and only be kept in cloud storage, etc.

The bottom option "Show more options" is not expandable so I assume there are so many other options an entire new window is needed to display them all. Maybe it'll give me useful but rarely used options from a list of hundreds available, such as "count how many words are in this file" for text files...?

j16sdiz

3 days ago

"Always keep on this device" / "Free up space" only make sense when you understand the "Desktop" and "Document" is now backed by cloud -- the file you have on your local computer is just a cache.

The former meant it have higher priority in caching, the latter is just evicting from cache immediately.

recursive-call

3 days ago

I use "copy as path" all the time. It's good for if you have scripts and want a program in a different folder to launch them (e.g AutoHotKey, Task Scheduler).

anal_reactor

3 days ago

TBH while the menu has glaring issues (half of it is basically an ad for cloud storage), your complaints boil down to "I don't like it because I'm not familiar with it" which is not valid critique, and especially shouldn't be coming from a Linux user if you want Windows users to switch - they don't like Linux because they're not familiar with it.

dhx

3 days ago

My complaints are generic to human-computer interfaces. Providing small icons in close proximity is poor design per [1]. Providing icons without text is also poor design, as summarised at [2]. We can argue more about how detailed labels should be--as I would equally complain about Gnome's context labels too. For example, "Open with..." is more useful as a menu with maximum 5-10 other applications to choose from. For example, will "Compress..." replace/remove my original file if I click on this action, or just create a compressed archive alongside the original?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law

[2] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/icon-usability/

anal_reactor

3 days ago

Halfway through writing a response I've realized that Americans have a completely different approach to icons compared to the rest of the world. In the US most traffic signs have text information on them, while in most other countries most signs are icon-only. Text is usually reserved for exceptional situations that cannot easily be represented with an icon. So we're going to be talking past each other because you'll insist that a "yield" sign absolutely needs the "yield" word, while I'll insist that it should not.

wffurr

3 days ago

What if traffic signs had text for many years and then suddenly a bunch were replaced by new ones with only a new icon and no visible explanation of what the icon means?

I think the analogy to traffic signs is flawed even further. Traffic signs icons are also standardized, have been for many years, and are taught in required safety classes. Not even close to the situation with mystery UIs in computer programs.

anal_reactor

2 days ago

> What if traffic signs had text for many years and then suddenly a bunch were replaced by new ones with only a new icon and no visible explanation of what the icon means?

That's... exactly how meaningful icons are born. First you put icon with text, and once everyone understands the meaning of the icon, you remove the text, because it's not necessary anymore.

Do you think that US drivers would be left completely clueless when seeing the "yield" sign without the text, or would they recognize the icon?

> Not even close to the situation with mystery UIs in computer programs.

Android UI offers three buttons at the bottom of the screen. There's never been any text there. Yet somehow, most people have no issues using them. How come? Follow-up question: if you wanted to put text there, whete exactly would you do that, and what would it say? In real life, what about public toilets? Many places don't have a text "toilet", they just have a symbol of two stick figures, one wearing a skirt, yet we're all fine. Emergency exit? Sometimes it's without text, just a green light with a white stickman running through a door. Red X is also widely recognized as "closed" or "don't enter".

Finally, please tell me what you see in top-right corner of a window in your computer. If you see spelled out words "minimize", "maximize", "close" then yeah. Otherwise I'd like to ask you what makes these three buttons so special that they don't need text.

Payment terminals have green-yellow-red buttons at the bottom. No text, just icons and colors.

Point is, "icon without text" is an idea that exists in the wild and works.

wffurr

2 days ago

>> That's... exactly how meaningful icons are born. First you put icon with text, and once everyone understands the meaning of the icon, you remove the text, because it's not necessary anymore.

> First you put icon with text

They skipped this step. It's a really, really important step. And you have it to leave it for a while.

anal_reactor

2 days ago

Office 97 already had exactly the same icons for cut-copy-paste. Rename icon is from Windows 8.1 (2013). Share icon is present in Windows XP. Trash can appears in Windows 95, although the meaning "to delete" was indeed introduced in Windows 11, previously it was the trash itself.

In other words, people who were born alongside with four of these icons are already sending their own kids to schools.

user

2 days ago

[deleted]

wolvoleo

3 days ago

Why would I as a Linux user want windows users to switch? I don't. If many of them do, Linux will become more like windows to appease them, and also because there's more money in the masses.

katzenq

3 days ago

As long as Linux is fundamentally open, I don't see how Windows users switching over and popular distros becoming more like Windows is a negative thing, as the power users will still be there and have the ability to tune their systems however they like along with the benefit of more funding and software support. I think the ecosystem is too diverse and open-ended to have a tragedy of the commons.

bauble

2 days ago

Firefox already auto-selects the location bar when it gets focus, and refuses to even give the option not to do that. This is the sort of unwelcome behavior that can be forced on a community when a larger, less technical community merges with it. Overall, I do support Linux becoming the majority OS, but there will be some negative consequences.

anal_reactor

2 days ago

Firefox is already on life support anyway. No normies no Firefox.

anal_reactor

3 days ago

Linux is the "normie" open source system, while hobbyists who want to have things done their way use things like Haiku. Gatekeeping Linux is like gatekeeping Toyota Corolla.

wolvoleo

2 days ago

There are almost no normies using desktop linux.

But I'm not gatekeeping it, just that I'm not a fan of the cheering around "linux on the desktop". If that happens it will no longer be what makes linux great.

newsclues

3 days ago

Windows 11 is a major regression.

10 was better, but I’d pay for a modern version of windows 2kpro UI. Bring back msn messsenger.

It’s basically a gaming box, everything else is on a Mac or Linux machine, all on my desk.

qn8bdebq

3 days ago

Actually, it is a substantially worse gaming box too once you've used SteamOS/Bazzite. All it's good for right now is windows-only legacy software and anti-cheat implementations for the time being.

And somewhat excel because excel is badly implemented on mac

nukanse

3 days ago

The only "game" I could not run on Cachy Os Linux is 3DMark. Some benchmark run, but not all.

jimmyjazz14

3 days ago

honestly Linux has gotten pretty good even for gaming, I set up a Linux (Fedora) on my primary gaming rig as a lark and figured I would go back to windows but I have not really had the need to and some games actually even run better on Linux it seems.

OnlineTux

3 days ago

Didn't I recently read on here that MS themselves admit SteamOS has better performance than Windows for gaming?

gt0

3 days ago

100%.

I'd pay for this, compatible with Windows 11 apps, but basically works like NT4.

fhn

3 days ago

Done. This is how easy it is to make money off you people.

CivBase

3 days ago

I'd rather a setting to go back to the old right-click menu by default. It's possible to do with a registry edit, but not from a user-friendly setting.

rmuratov

2 days ago

I feel like, in the spirit of gaming’s return to its roots (WoW Classic, League of Legends Classic), Microsoft should give Windows a soft relaunch, call it something like Windows Classic, and bring together the best of Windows XP, 7, and 10, with a consistent UI, familiar interaction patterns built up over decades, and so on.

DaiPlusPlus

3 days ago

Meh. It's been 3 years and *gestures broadly* so much else of the Windows 11 UX still leaves much to be desired: making the context-menu slightly-less-awful isn't going to bring me back to the fold when so many other aspects of Win11 are not just unappealing, but actually off-putting.

(I maintain that Windows 11's bad UX is a consequence of MS having to make a single UI for everyone, which means it'll be too dumbed-down, simplified, or inflexible for power-users (XP, Win8, Win11); or too complicated and intimidating for everyone else (Win7, Win10), or just bad for everyone (Vista)).

If Microsoft wants me to willingly buy into Windows 12, then I want the option to keep the Windows 10 UI (File Explorer, Taskbar, Start Menu, and Window Management) - I know it can be done in theory[1], I just want proper support.

[1] https://lesferch.github.io/OldExplorer/

DonHopkins

2 days ago

DaiPlusPlus> Windows 11's bad UX is a consequence of MS having to make a single UI for everyone, which means it'll be too dumbed-down, simplified, or inflexible for power-users; or too complicated and intimidating for everyone else

That's a false choice, and pie menus are the way out of it. The same menu can lead novices by showing them labels, follow intermediate users who know roughly where things are, and get out of the way of experts who flick in the direction without waiting for it to appear. One UI, no "simple mode" and "advanced mode", and the novice turns into the expert just by using it, by self-revealing rehearsal! I went into that and the research behind it upthread.

As I titled my 1998 Xerox PARC talk: "Natural Selection: The Evolution of Pie Menus", reviewed here:

https://baychi.org/calendar/19981013/

> Pie menus appealed to Hopkins because they conform to the rule that the user's attention should not be squandered. A pie menu selection offers direct feedback versus a user selection that brings up intermediate menus. The programmed pie menu ignores users' gestures except the motions to select or cancel. Hopkins uses pie menus because they take advantage of Fitts' Law, which relates fast selection speed and low error rate to the pie menus' large target size and small distance between selections.

The other half is letting users rearrange it themselves, without registry hacks. HyperCard set the precedent in 1987: the user interface was made of the same stuff as the content, so anyone could open it up and change it. Arthur van Hoff's HyperLook took that to NeWS and PostScript and networking: users could build and edit not just their own nested linear and pie menus, but also customize the live user interfaces of running apps, including the SimCity I ported to it, by copying, pasting and configuring scriptable components from "warehouse" stacks. We were taking it all the way to the window frames themselves, with a HyperCard-like window manager where you could build your own frames out of the same parts, a built-in structured PostScript graphics editor you can use in your own stacks, windows with any shape (like my Lava Lamp shaped Cellular Automata Machine), and you can compose your own custom applications inside them.

HyperLook Cellular Automata Machine:

https://github.com/SimHacker/WillWrightShowForFood/blob/main...

HyperLook SimCity:

https://github.com/SimHacker/WillWrightShowForFood/blob/main...

Why we also need a non-editable runtime system (with a removable UI editor): User Interface Vandalism:

https://github.com/SimHacker/WillWrightShowForFood/blob/main...

My comments in the "What HyperCard Might Have Been" discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22282361

I also discussed HyperLook and HyperCard with Alan Kay, who said "This work is so good -- for any time -- and especially for its time", and also "I wish he had done a real end-user language for this":

https://github.com/SimHacker/WillWrightShowForFood/blob/main...

Simon Schneegans's Kando carries that spirit today. Its menu editor is direct manipulation all the way down: you drag and drop items and submenus right into the pie, see exactly where they'll go, and put the things you use most in the directions that feel right to your hand. That's how a power user should customize a menu, and a novice can do it too, because it's just dragging things around:

https://kando.menu

I took that idea further in MediaGraph, a music navigation prototype I made in Unity for Will Wright at the Stupid Fun Club in 2010. It has two layers of pie menus.

The first layer is ordinary nested pie menus for editing the content, with live feedback: as you move around the menu that sets a song's size or its "biome" (a cellular automaton growing around it on the map), you see the effect in the world before you commit. Same biomes merge, different biomes compete for territory.

The second layer is the content itself. The songs are laid out on a map and connected by roads, and the map is a geographic, networked pie menu. Touch one song to another -- kissing them together -- to make a road between them, and kiss them again to break it. Flick on a song in a direction and it fires you down the road to the next song that way, like the cannons in Super Mario World. Point at a song and it plays an earcon, click it to play.

Following links, editing links, panning, zooming and flicking are all the same kind of gesture, with continuous zoom and pan and inertia. As I wrote at the time, what I was proudest of was the "Fahrvergnügen" of connecting and disconnecting places by bumping them together, and traveling down the roads by flicking between them, "without creating another mode". The menu editor disappears and dissolves into the content, by replacing hierarchy with geography.

MediaGraph demo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KfeHNIXYUc

How it works, with a timeline from DreamScape and iLoci to MediaGraph:

https://github.com/SimHacker/WillWrightShowForFood/blob/main...

esalman

3 days ago

They also finally allowed moving the taskbar to any edge of the screen.

SillyUsername

3 days ago

That's the one that made me ditch Win11 for Mint, a top panel + Plank Reloaded.

My entire UI workflow is top right orientated (menus, windows size/close buttons, docks) for muscle memory, so the Win10 stopped security updates forced me to switch.

Ironically a week later they extended security support for Win10.

rf15

3 days ago

again. For some reason, they forbid it after setting the standard for decades themselves.

accidc

3 days ago

It only too them 6 years. But still lacks the ability to set it to your desired width. Its coming sometime in the next 6 years (unless windows 12 come first, then you lose the ability to set the taskbar to the side and have ot restart the cycle).

justsomehnguy

2 days ago

NB:

I'm still waiting for Mozilla to give back the option to delete MRUs from the Firefox navbar.

Oh, it's absolutely has nothing with how they push sponsored links there. Absolutely.

wolvoleo

3 days ago

Pretty insane how a company that knocked out office and visual studio in the scope of a year or so now has problems making a task bar moveable.

accidc

3 days ago

I have to use sharepoint on ms edge for work. Today I had to search something up an on my 27" monitor, I had 7 fixed rows of non-content on the top (including the tab bar and the locator bar) and 3 fixed rows at the bottom: last one being the windows taskbar that I still cant move as 26H2 hasn't been deployed.

The actual search results were a scrollable list with 5 rows visible of the content I was searching for.

I wonder what skills must one posses to rise to places that give one the authority to make such decisions? Are there incentives that drive these or are these borne of Kafkaesque bureaucracies? Does no one object to such monstrosities? Are the ones responsible so bereft of empathy and/or common sense? I know this is meandering and pointless but I wonder and struggle to understand the thought processes. This apathy, sure it presents itself in something so mundane but it permeates everything. i guess its the human condition.

Gravityloss

2 days ago

Ah, this could be a great study in organization design! Conway's law suggests that the software architecture resembles the organization. So there might not be any designers making such decisions. Probably lots of organizations can't use each others' toolbars but are expected to add their own toolbar?

gnabgib

3 days ago

Which year was Office (1988) and Visual Studio (1997) knocked out?

wolvoleo

3 days ago

The late 90s. Office for dos is not what we know now. Office 98 was basically the same as what we have today, the improvements since then have been only incremental. And often worse like the ribbon. Visual studio came from this time too, they were really on a roll then.

Microsoft just stops investing in innovation once they take over a market. You saw it with IE, with office, with windows even.

kalleboo

3 days ago

There was never an MS Office for DOS. The first version was for the Mac.

There was a Word for DOS, but Word for Windows was a port of Word for Mac. Excel started on the Mac (their DOS spreadsheet was called Multiplan). PowerPoint started out as a Mac product funded by Apple, which Microsoft acquired.

None of this can be described as "knocked out by Microsoft in a year".

thatonehack

2 days ago

I’ve been using Linux (Debian) for well over a decade as I just couldn’t handle the hostility of Microsoft. I do have some Windows 11 machines for gaming exclusively and I am absolutely dumbfounded that Microsoft is still a household name, let alone one of the most valuable companies in the world. The hostility towards end users is 100x worse than a decade ago. It is bonkers that people willingly use Windows 11 as their primary OS.

mihaaly

2 days ago

One done, four thousand three hundred twenty-one to go. Plus minus couple of hundreds.

I have a dozen or so myself, probably two dozens, that I meet daily. Yes, daily. Using Windows feels like trying to run in muddy water with Lego bricks in the bottom here and there. It wasn't like this much earlier. Not even when the blue screen of death was commonplace.

sunaookami

2 days ago

What does a change in a preview update have to do with declining revenue? Bad article. Real non-clickbait article directly from the source:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/servicing/os/windows-11/...

>New! This update introduces an updated context menu that is faster, simpler, and more customizable. The updated menu opens more quickly, reduces clutter, and gives you more control over the commands and app extensions that appear when you right-click.

>You can now customize the context menu to better fit how you use Windows. Select Customize menu at the bottom of the context menu to open its Settings page.

gxs

3 days ago

I recently got my hands on a windows machine - I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t actually excited to use windows after a 15 year hiatus

What a heaping pile of you know what. You need Microsoft accounts to download basic apps from the App Store

You get nagged and nagged to enter a windows account

Having grown up with it, it’s an incredibly odd feeling using it. Modern ui…modern ui…modern ui…and then BAM a weird screen directly ported from windows 98 (or 2k, you get the point)

An OS that was always incredibly intuitive to me all of a sudden just felt like a disorganized mess. Want to see your Ethernet adapters? Good luck, you’ll open 10 other settings menus/search results before finally getting to the options you need. Advanced sound settings? Same

My headset wasn’t working, after clicking through a bunch of options at some point I loaded a wizard with very specific questions that I’d never seen before and wouldn’t how how to get back to, it randomly worked

Still a bunch of bloatware, still can’t be on for more than a day without having to reboot, everything I remembered that was bad with made worse by bad ux

These days they even tried to remove the option of installing windows with an internet connection, aka ms account

Just bad, there are a lot of annoyances to fix

eviks

3 days ago

> Users will get a “customize menu” button that controls what commands appear when they right-click their mouse

Good, though doesn't seem to be include the ability to control icons, name and accelerator keys, so still a long way to reach the user ergonomic heaven...

dataminded

3 days ago

I built a new PC because they made me abandon 10 for 11. 11 sucked enough to drive me Linux.

BLKNSLVR

3 days ago

8 sucked enough to drive me to Linux.

(I think it was actually 10, but 8 really started the lean away)

josteink

3 days ago

I don’t know what could drive PC sales in this age.

Old machines from the last 10 years are still capable of all normal daily tasks, even development tasks. This has the 95% covered through existing or cheap second hand machines.

The only new use-case is local AI, which for most people is simply out of price range right now with the current GPU and RAM prices. There’s some people who’ll want this, but they are a minority. Not enough to drive sales at scale.

So whatever remains as a segment is business - which in these cost-aware times are mostly doing like the other 95% and only buy new machines if needed to cover new hires.

4k93n2

2 days ago

i recently dusted off an old desktop that i hadnt used in a really long time. the GPU was a 1070 from 2016 i think and it wasnt even that high end when i bought it but it works surprisingly well. although im only using a 4b qwen model and only asking it very basic questions but its still better than nothing and it means i only need to switch a cloud model when i need to do something more complex. that GPU is going for 100-150 these days as well and im sure there are better options that are still cheap enough

smukherjee19

2 days ago

Glad to see all the bad karma Microsoft accumulated for their several anti-consumer and user-unfriendly practices coming back to bite them where it hurts the most: declining revenue.

phyzix5761

2 days ago

Remember when Windows 10 was supposed to be the last Windows version?

roody15

2 days ago

They need to fix a lot more than just this. Fundamentally, I am not sure they can make meaningful changes.

Users do not want forced cloud integration and forced “features” added that are clearly designed to maximize connection to Microsoft cloud services.

They may be able to allow more customizations of the UI and back off to some degree but as far as their business model I don’t think they can provide an OS like many users want.

waltbosz

3 days ago

You can shift+right-click to get the old right click context menu.

user

2 days ago

[deleted]

eviks

3 days ago

What do you need to click to edit it?

waltbosz

2 days ago

I don't know that part. I think the context menu is configured in the Registry, and there may be apps for editing those values.

statenjason

3 days ago

Installed Windows 11 on a VM over the weekend for running a specific program. The lengthy multi-reboot updates are just like I remember from Vista. Except now they show advertisements. Grateful 2008 was Year of the Linux Desktop for me.

rf15

3 days ago

Sometimes I do wonder why it's hard to see that you shouldn't invest in AI, let Sam Altman hoover up all compute hardware and then make a surprise pikachu when hardware sales of your user base decline. Same for Google: "what, if I stop people from going to websites because I let a bot summarise what they're looking for, I get less money from website visits?"

At this rate (I know I keep beating that drum), I think we cannot have AI: it is too self-defeating from a business pov.

dubeyaayush07

3 days ago

It's not like Google had a choice. Asking AI is superior to browsing links in 90% of use cases, and they would have been disrupted otherwise.

catlikesshrimp

3 days ago

Browsing a curated list of the worst SEO generated spam, sure. Anything is better. Wait for SEO advertising to come to AI summary.

simulator5g

3 days ago

It's already here, ask AI for a product recommendation and it will recommend whichever company has the highest Reddit astroturfing budget.

dubeyaayush07

3 days ago

Yeah but there is more competition in that space which might delay/slowdown the inevitable enshitification

tliltocatl

2 days ago

Google search became considerably worse around 2019 when they started using LLMs for indexing, which make it ignore keywords it deemed "irrelevant".

kristianp

3 days ago

Just a clarification, Google's search revenue actually went up in their latest quarterly reporting. It just didn't go up as far as analysts were predicting.

rf15

2 days ago

Yes, but the logical ouroboros should be evident:

- make money from ad views

- make people place ads on many websites, so a lot of ads can be shown

- use made money to build AI summary

- AI summary prevents people from visiting many websites

esFran

2 days ago

I will be eternally grateful to Windows 11 and its TPM 2.0 requirement, and to Windows 10 for its senseless end of updates.

ETERNALLY, you read that right. Because thanks to that, I finally dared to try Linux, openSUSE, Doom Emacs and KDE, and I'm IN LOVE with my PC all over again.

Thank you so much, Microsoft!!!

conception

3 days ago

Can they fix that it runs like trash on 16gb of ram? That’d be cool.

wolvoleo

3 days ago

They actually are: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2026/11/03/raisi...

Not that Microsoft isn't a terrible company IMO but they also finally see the need to optimise due to the ram crisis.

TonyStr

2 days ago

Watch what they do, not what they say. My right-click menu still takes 2000ms to open, the Weather app idles at over 700MB ram, teams randomly heats up my CPU and causes my laptop to sound like a jet engine until i close it, opening start menu still causes the PC to lag. Do not give them any credit for posting Copilot-generated press posts, before you see the changes yourself.

Try an OS that's designed for people rather than for tracking, and you'll be amazed at how fast an OS can be.

wolvoleo

2 days ago

Oh I'm not taking this for granted, but they are just getting started of course. And don't forget, the business market is a huge influence on Microsoft. They are also looking to save significantly on hardware costs and are pushing for real improvements here too. They are spending more on AI services that MS is also trying to sell, and hardware costs are going up a lot.

And yes I use FOSS privately. I just have one big gaming PC with windows because I love VR and VR on Linux is not ready for primetime.

TonyStr

2 days ago

Oh that's unfortunate to hear about VR - I haven't tried. I would think VR on Linux was good now with the Steam Frame from Valve being released.

wolvoleo

2 days ago

It's not really, and I don't really run SteamVR that much anyway. I mainly use meta's Airlink or virtual desktop for streaming. The Steam Frame itself is also still really hit and miss, many accepted features on Windows are considered "not important" by Valve and they may get to it at some point. There's a lot of catching up going on.

For me it's not worth the trouble. My game PC is for 2 things only: Gaming and 3D design and for those I am ok with just using windows.

I'm not a big fan of Steam anyway, I'm more of a GOG user. I will just buy on Steam if I can't find something on GOG.

nikanj

2 days ago

*They see the need to put optimization to the marketing copy. No need to actually do anything, just say the new release is 42% more efficient

orliesaurus

3 days ago

I wonder if MacOS is also going down the drain - obviously not as fast as Windows - but I believe it doesn't feel as smooth - it feels always more bloated with every updates and I find myself having to install more and more custom little tools for everything:

- Cleaning my drive from unwanted files → One app

- Organizing files based on type → another app

- A good voice-to-text → another app

- A better launcher → another app

- An incredible terminal → another app

I mean is this the way it's supposed to be? Wasn't the whole point - unwrap the macbook, load up Mac OS and LFG?

jlarocco

3 days ago

I don't wonder. I used it for years, and there's no doubt it was getting worse.

At this point both Windows and OSX are rent seeking, squeezing as much money as they can out of their users.

jimmyjazz14

3 days ago

yes and the nonstop notification popups for some iCloud nonsense really drive me crazy.

VladVladikoff

3 days ago

Please tell of of this better launcher? Spotlight is so bad these days. I used to be able to pull up the calculator with cmd+space..ca[enter] but lately it grabs some other completely ridiculous thing like some random file that throws an error instead. Yeah Apple that’s what I wanted, I wanted to open the Caltable.inf file, or worse if parallels is open it picks the windows calculator first before the macOS calculator? Wtf!

jedbrooke

3 days ago

I’ve been using Raycast[0] to replace spotlight. Spotlight index kept randomly losing my /Applications dir, and like 90% of what I use spotlight for is Cmd + space > type in the name of the app I want to switch to/open. So it was a constant annoyance.

They have some AI stuff that they try to push on you during the install, but it can all be disabled so day to day it doesn’t bother you.

0: https://www.raycast.com/

wolvoleo

3 days ago

Yeah though spotlight was never meant as a program launcher. KDE has a nice thing that is just that.

simulator5g

3 days ago

I had to install an app just to get smooth scrolling to work with my mouse. On a Mac! Apple practically invented smooth scrolling! It's like no one gives a shit about user experience anymore.

phendrenad2

2 days ago

Windows 11 was just a hastily-developed salesperson-tier excuse to require TPM 2.0 wasn't it?

Surac

2 days ago

Too late too little microslop

dfedbeef

3 days ago

I assumed people would find shift+right click. It brings up the old right click menu

billybob9911

3 days ago

theres a registry key you can edit too, to use the """legacy"" menu on all right clicks

vachina

3 days ago

Just rerelease Windows 10 IoT LTSC as standard Windows, there fixed it.

timcobb

3 days ago

It's a drag that products like Windows are stuck forever the way they are. Or, rather, that they're stuck the way they are but then command such market share that nothing new ever comes and sees the light of day. Windows is doomed to keep generating billions for Microsoft until one day it doesn't, which I guess is what they're going for.

It also seems silly to tie the decline of Windows to UI discontent. Windows is in decline because it's increasingly irrelevant in the post-PC, post-USA world, and sucks in general.

anthk

2 days ago

Unless Windows 11 runs fine under 2GB of RAM (even 1 with some profiles) and with 4GB with normal browsing, they are doomed.

d--b

3 days ago

the question this doesnt address is whether the world is buying less PCs or is it the windows share of market that’s declining, or both.

The end of windows has been heralded since it exists, but it’s still not going anywhere.

mancerayder

2 days ago

I for one am extremely grateful for Windows 11 Pro - as a longtime user of Windows for gaming, I couldn't wait to get off Windows at any possible cost. The nagging and repeated reverting of settings and forced defaults and increased telemetry (perhaps inspired by Papa Google) were too much for me. Not to mention I really tried to stay on Windows 10 and they didn't let me.

Thank you, Microsoft, for pushing me into Fedora Workstation, which works mostly flawlessly, and whose updates excite me. Updates on Microsoft were always an Oh Man, let's cross our fingers, type situation. MacOS updates are increasingly a groaning trepidation - what new UI experiments are they going to throw at me. With Fedora, innovation comes with every update and where something annoys me (like the minimalist KDE UI that hides window drop down menus and whatnot) I can just download someone's override or plugin to customize it the way I want.

Windows 11 was an attempt to turn the hardware we own into hardware owned by Microsoft. I should say pwn3d.

lbriner

2 days ago

I use Linux, MacOS and Windows and I am generally happier with Linux and Windows for navigating around but if there are annoyances that still haven't been fixed after 20 years on Windows, they are:

1) Paying for a licence and still being treated like a marketing target

2) Windows update is ridiculously slow end-to-end and takes a whole morning once per month to update our platform machines (even though we are 80% Linux)

3) Search is really, really, really bad. I mean honestly, search for a program and it might take 10 seconds to load a result if it loads anything at all. Partial matches? Nope. This has never worked on any of my windows 7-11 machines and has never been fixed.

4) The whole "reinstall Windows" attitude at Microsoft Support if they cannot work out why something isn't working

5) The half-arsed attempts to harmoize the UI which just leads to weirdisms like network in 3 different places, remote desktop still in a windows 32 bit dialog, and the fact that things got renamed and moved with every major release for what can only be assumed to be a shit reason breaking muscle memory for 1000s of people.

6) Not having the Virt IO drivers included in the base windows installer.

I think that is enough for now!

speed_spread

3 days ago

I assume we still won't be able to make the task bar vertical.

rr808

3 days ago

After using Windows since I was a pre-teen I finally switched to Omarchy. Its incredible having claude (or other agent) to manage all the random linux config. Its not just good enough its better than Windows in every way. (OK I dont game)

user

2 days ago

[deleted]

tarokun33

2 days ago

I believe no one on the earth loves and trusts MSFT.

Night_Thastus

2 days ago

A reminder that Window's entire (very small) revenue for MS boils down to 2 things:

* Advertisement

* Sale of collected user data to advertisers

You will notice that neither of those require Windows to be a 'good' product. They do not make anything other than a pittance on actual license sales.

MS has 0 reason to invest any time or effort in making Windows a better product. It just needs to be good enough that the world doesn't totally abandon it. And with how entrenched it is with legacy software that won't run anywhere else, they've got that sorted.

I don't get why anyone is surprised when Windows sucks. There's no financial motivation to care about it. MS is a big company with shareholders - they go where the money is.

jqpabc123

3 days ago

OpenAI wants all the RAM --- pushing up the price of PCs.

jimbob45

3 days ago

I still prefer this to burning countries worth of electricity for bitcoin bros.

kasabali

2 days ago

Are you fucking kidding me? crypto bros were angels compared to these spawns of Satan ai bros. at least during crypto craze only GPUs were on short supply and nobody except gamers were affected. RAM and storage prices affect every single consumer electronic device thus everyone.

vivzkestrel

3 days ago

- slghtly offtopic but also covers how to run windows 11 super duper optimally

- here is my production grade setup for agentic ai on windows 11

- setup windows 11 with Rufus boot to disable online MS account creation https://rufus.ie/en/

- [download window 11 x64 iso from here ](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11)

- then download vmware workstation pro (you ll need to create a free account to get the download link on their website)

- install vmware workstation pro

- turn internet off

- plug your pendrive in with the rufus w11 x64 iso on it (mind ya, this pen drive ll first need full formatting before burning a w11 image to it)

- press f2 to reach bios in vmware settings and make it boot from pendrive

- turn internet off on your machine (DO NOT keep it on)

- install w11 (keep a 100gb for vmware)

- without updates it ll load real fast and you wont need an MS account (rufus takes care of it)

- while it installs, download revo uninstaller pro on a separate machine https://onefiles.net/9d170d01078634b5 (latest version 5.4.x) and put it inside a second pendrive / portable hdd

- once w11 loads, it ll ask you to enter a password, keep existing password blank and enter literally anything for a new password

- voila you are done with w11 setup inside vmware

- now connect the 2nd pendrive with revo and install it (need to clean uninstall many tools, hence we need this one)

- now go to search bar and type check for updates and update everything on w11 inside vmware

- next stop get unigetui from ms app store or from here https://devolutions.net/unigetui/ (it is a package manager responsible for installing just about everything else with auto updation of all packages)

- the open unigetui and search for the following packages vlc, winrar, winhance

- winhance is the fully customizable debloater you ll need to turn off all telemetry (we ll debloat after installing all the other requirements)

- next go to ms app store and install python or open powershell and type python

- the open unigetui and search for the following packages vlc, winrar, winhance

- winhance is the fully customizable debloater you ll need to turn off all telemetry (we ll debloat after installing all the other requirements)

- next go to ms app store and install python or open powershell and type python

- mind you this installs a python version manager that lets you install and uninstall multiple python versions

- after this python version manager is setup, install a specific version of python like

``` py install 3.13 ``` - next we need a node.js version manager, use fnm for it

https://github.com/Schniz/fnm - once installed, it may need to be added to environment variables manually

- once again choose a specific version of node.js and install it using

``` fnm install 23.12.0 ``` check fnm --help for commands - next we need a java version manager, use jvms for it

https://github.com/ystyle/jvms

- pretty self explanatory

- now install git and again it ll give you some trouble over environment variables, command not recognized etc, fixable with some gpt help

- at this point, we got git, node version manager, java version manager and python version manager and are ready to rumble

- install vscode/ visual studio whatever

- install codex

- install claude

- install opencode (both cli via npx and desktop app) and check their plans out https://opencode.ai/console/go

- install ghidra , ghidra-mcp (mind you open ghidra-mcp first because it only works with specific versions of ghidra and java) this is the reason we installed a java version manager

- check out setup for rea https://github.com/morluto/rea requires npx setup for rea and ghidra both, read documentation

- run winhance, check recommended settings under optimize and every other tab and restart the vm a few times for full debloat with 0 telemetry services

- congrats you have a full blown agentic environment at this point (if I missed anything i ll come back and update)

shevy-java

3 days ago

"The timing is notable, as the announcement comes alongside Microsoft’s quarterly financial report, which showed a continued decline in the business of selling Windows licenses for new PCs."

Several factors come together. For me, Spy-Recall was the dealbreaker. I can not use an operating system that constantly reports to the USA what I am doing. But the increase in RAM prices also means that I fail to see why I should overpay now due to greedy US AI corporations. These corporations all us folks money here. It is like a racket. This is not a "free market" either, since it is so heavily skewed in favour of corporations. The whole idea about capitalism, which the USA once claimed to worship before selling out to the TechBros, has been that free market competition leads to lower prices. Right now we see collusion, a mafia - why the TechBros aren't in jail already beats me. Too much financial kickbacks into the judicial system.

tokamak

2 days ago

too little too late

Ygg2

3 days ago

Between Microsoft (indirect) contributions to ongoing RAM shortages, and its frankly hostile UI, color me un-fucking-surprised.