This sound like something they would totally do.
Next up, an ad anytime an executable is run!
Everything could be operated by ads. Run a program? Watch an ad. Open the start menu? Watch an ad.
You don’t HAVE to watch the ads, just subscribe to Windows 11 platinum for 20$ a month. /s
Are you sure you want to run an untrusted executable? Microsoft Store contains lots of safe, curated apps that are 100% definitely not crappy ad-filled spyware.
As much as I like Linux, and use it almost exclusively on desktop/laptop, every time I see something like this I am reminded how much I hate the fact that Apple of all companies is about the last bastion of commercial and consumer operating systems who isn’t trying to derive the bulk of their revenue from advertising.
That sounds like you’re seeing ads in Linux. Or doesn’t it count as “consumer OS”? Please elaborate.
Linux ain’t as mainstream as MacOS and Windows are.
For sure. But that’s also not what they said.
Yes they just derive it by keeping the Windows/MacOS duopoly in place and monopolizing communication channels.
Even Apple is falling. Their ad business (yes, they have one) makes billions and is the fastest growing part of the company. The app store is already quite ad-riddled, and the other parts of iOS are geared to get you to subscribe to all the Apple services.
In some sense yes, but advertising for its own stuff is advertising too. It nudges you to use their whole ecosystem.
The most annoying thing for me is that you can’t remove the iTunes component in mission control (the settings deck).
It does nudge you…but it’s not full screen ads that take multiple clicks to get through every week. I was a Windows zealot through W7…W10 got bad…W11 got me to start using Apple and Linux.
As much as everyone pushes Linux, it’s not a suitable replacement in a lot of scenarios
But it is a suitable replacement in a lot of scenarios. Most scenarios. The only time it isn’t is in niche specialty situations.
The problem is mostly that those niches count up, so that quite a lot of people fit in one of those niches.
I happen to fit in 3 niches at the same time: VR, Music and Professional design.
VR? No linux. Music production? Depending on your VSTs, No linux. Playing Music live? Depending on VSTs, No linux. Professional design? No Linux.
I currently actively trying to switch to Linux, despite its apparant shortcomings in above applications. It’s quite the challenge. Wine seems to install quite some stuff, but from what I’ve read it’s a crabshoot if stuff breaks after every update…
Not really. Adobe creative cloud is used my almost all graphic/media professionals, yet doesn’t work on Linux… that’s not very niche
And fwiw, most computer users still aren’t Adobe CC users.
graphic/media professionalsadobe usersAlthough it’s a bloated mess, it’s the standard for a reason. Affinity is starting to catch up, but the complete Adobe suite has no real competition.
That is a niche. its a large niche, but its still a niche.
What are some of these scenarios?
It is in far more situations that it isn’t
Nothing productive mentioning the situations it can’t do while ignoring the massive amount of situations it can do far better
Bloat vs. Bloat. FIGHT!
No.
Explain what you mean by bloat please
There is nothing you can’t uninstall on Linux. Linux distros, let alone desktop environments, really can’t qualify as bloat
There are even enough mainstream distros to let you choose one that meets your needs with little or nothing you need to trim
Is there something like PowerToys Run for KDE? That’s one of the utilities I would miss the most when switching to Linux.
Yeah, KRunner, and it’s been around longer than Powertoys.
I never really used it on Windows so I don’t know if it has all the same features, but there’s probably some way to make whatever you need from it work.
The whole point of PowerToys was essentially to implement the features Windows was missing that the Linux DEs had already.
PopOS’s COSMIC menu is like that I think (you can search files, the web, even stuff like turning volume up and down)? But I’ve never tried to run it outside of PopOS.
I use Pop_Os on my desktop, but that’s nowhere near PowerToys. Even the search is barebones when you compare it with PowerToys using the Everything search plugins.
Also PowerToys has a lot more to offer than the search: mouse shake features, keyboard remapping, a great window manager with shortcuts, files preview and much more.
I know there are some decent alternatives in MacOS, but I haven’t found a proper replacement for that on Linux.
kde really has a LOT of power, most of the stuff you mentioned afiak. its not a 1 to 1 clone of powertoys obviously, so it has a lot of stuff thats not in powertoys, and is lacking some stuff thats in it,l but the kde desktop also has support for plugins, so you should be able to fill in the gaps
But in order to use that, I need to get replace the current Pop_Os Gnome interface, right? I cannot use that as an application, like PowerToys does, or can I?
ok so the thing with kde is that you can replace your pop_os gnome interface with it, but it would probably cause issues, so itd probably be simpler to just switc hto a different distribution instead. Id recommend tuxedo os
Fair. Powertoys is really extensive. I quite like Pop (or gnome’s? Not sure) tiling window manager though.
That’s a Pop addition, although you can easily use it on any other Gnome desktop by installing it as an extension
Great to know. Not that I ever fucking use that menu, opting to use the sleep button on my keyboard instead.
Anyone who can should switch to Linux. Most of us can, I have done so on my laptop. I have tried gaming on Linux too and it’s fucking fantastic though I personally had an edge case issue that barely anyone will ever meet and had to go back. Do not let that discourage you from trying, however. Cyberpunk, as an example, was wonderful on Linux. No issues. As soon as my issues are sorted, something that will happen sooner or later, I will switch that pc in an instant!
Is there somewhere a guide in how to get started with gaming on Linux?
Tbh it’s pretty easy. Install Linux, install Steam.
Try Linux Mint, specifically. Very easy to install, runs on everything, just works. And gaming really is as easy as installing Steam, even for non Steam games.
Mint is great! Not my personal choice but it does work out of the box and is easy to use!
It’s perfect for anyone who wants to switch from Windows with minimal hassle. There are plenty of other great distros, of course, but choosing one can be a bit overwhelming at first. That’s why Mint is such an easy recommendation. It’ll get you started, may well be all you ever need and once you’re more into it, you’ll better understand what to choose.
Exactly! I think Mint is a great choice. I wouldn’t recommend anyone unfamiliar uses anything else unless they have very specific needs.
What of Indie games that I download from the developer’s page or other stores?
Also, how is the update process of Mint these days for make versions? Is it a complete reinstall of the system? I might opt for a rolling distro for that purpose.
You can add non steam games to steam and it’ll run them via proton, can be pretty effortless in most scenarios. Otherwise, you can install Lutris and there’s a significant chance there’ll be an entry for how to run the game you want
I read that a lot. Somehow I’m not into adding all my games into the Steam client, though I am not totally opposed if there’s no other option. That’s due to my inherent trust issues with gaming platforms.
Might give Lutris a shot.
Whatever happened to PlayOnLinux?
POL is still around, it’s just not quite as user friendly as Lutris. I use Lutris for Battle.net games and older titles where I have a physical disk. Easier than trying to add them to steam IMHO.
The major updates can be done though the software manager and have been completely painless for me so far. If you are concerned with always having the latest stuff, Mint might not be ideal for you. They’re pretty conservative with updates so they can be a few versions behind on some stuff. That’s the downside of the “everything just works” mantra.
WTF happened to Microsoft? What a fall. Is this a leadership thing?
They were always about screwing over consumers to make money. The only thing that changed is that they’ve become increasingly unsubtle about it.
Their way to screw customers with W2K was very persuasive. Such a clean UI, everything looking so relaxed and, eh, not commercialized. That startup sound. Those wallpapers.
Later I learned that that’s also when they released those Unix services for Windows (may have swapped words), with which you really could have something practical with an X server and POSIX-compatible applications and so on.
And compared to W9x it was very stable.
Turns out you can make more money by reducing usability and user choice in an entrenched product because hardly anyone will baulk and jump ship to a different product.
With how aggressive Microsoft is becoming with ads, services, and data collection they could at least make Windows itself free.
But no, you still have to pay £100+ per license to have the pleasure of putting up with this crap.
Piracy is not a real solution to the problem. Microsoft allows these sorts of things to exist in the background because they would rather lose out on some sales than lose market share.
Kinda the same thing as winrar. They rather have consumers get used to it so the companies they work at have a higher chance of buying licenses. That’s where the real money is.
Piracy is the solution when what you think you’re buying is not what you’re getting and the company that you’re buying changes the product without your consent.
aka spyware
Ding ding ding!
Like how Adobe puts minimal effort into protecting from cracks for their software.
They’d much rather have little Jimmy and a million others pirate PS at home and get used to the workflow, so that businesses pay out big recurring fees for Adobe’s tools, which they will if that’s what everybody knows how to use.
Piracy is their weapon. If not for piracy, ex-USSR countries wouldn’t transition to Windows till around 2009, and I’d expect that in such an alternative reality they wouldn’t then too.
People pay for this?
Usually they just over-pay for their computer because you can’t really buy a system without Windows pre-installed (unless you build it).
I have so many computers that came with Windows installations that I never even booted into.
“Can’t really buy a computer without Windows pre-installed”? Weird, that’s not my experience. The stores allow filtering by “no OS” and you can see quite a lot of options.
Which retail store have you ever walked into that had a PC on display with no OS?
I don’t know if the people walking into a brick-and-mortar for a prebuilt PC are making decisions beyond “what’s available” and “what’s in my budget”.
There are absolutely online stores that do that, but they’re usually gamer-focused, so there’s three issues;
Note: I’m taking about laptops, because it’s all I’ve bought for the last decade or more;
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The non-gamer focused stores rarely (if ever) have the option (Lenovo, Dell, Microsoft, etc).
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The gamer focused stores usually sell hardware that runs Linux like shit because the hardware needs extremely specific drivers (which isn’t necessarily an issue for Linux, but if it doesn’t exist yet, you’re either building them yourself, or waiting for someone else to do so).
- Note: Most Clevo systems - that are private-labeled by the likes if IBuyPower, OriginPC, etc - run Linux really well. Some of these sellers make custom hardware, or sell other private-label systems, so your milage may vary.
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The gamer focused stores are usually patroned by people who are all in on Windows gaming, because they don’t do much else with the system, so they don’t experience the kinds of annoyances that power users would gripe about (which is why the above point doesn’t compel those sellers to do anything different).
- And before someone corrects me: Gamers are not inherently power users, they just have powerful systems. It used to be that powerful systems were only buildable and maintenable by power users, but that hasn’t been true for years. If all you do is install and click “play”, you aren’t a power user.
As for desktops, I really couldn’t say. Haven’t been paying attention for years. It’s possible that you could buy a system without a hard drive, never mind an OS.
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In total, I expect this to cost about a minute or two of my life if they never remove the ads. This figure is fairly typical for daily windows users, of which ~400kk are on win11. Microsoft will steal ~1.5*400,000,000 minutes with these ads. Ads that nearly no one will even consider clicking. 600,000,000 minutes=10,000,000 hours=1140 years. Multiple lifetimes in aggregate, all to be thrown away for nothing. I’d like to send a very strongly worded knot tying tutorial to Satya Nadella and Brad Smith.
Lots of people will spend a few hours then several tens of minutes monthly or so finding out how and then disabling the ads after each update
Now figure out how much that is in lost revenue and write a headline like „Microsoft to lose economy one million gazzillion $“.
lost revenue
You can be sure this is retail only.
Enterprise Windows won’t have this feature and now appears to have added value for corporate customers.
That why I pay my gold partner friend for a copy of enterprise he gives to his developers.
What is Window 365? Is it a cloud based OS? If Yes, then all High End Machine will become useless?
It’s what Microsoft opted to call their office suite now. So Office365 is now officially Microsoft 365 in an effort to acknowledge that your office work has now completely left their focus and they are only concentrating on themselves
its ‘msoffice as a service’… and it sucks donkey balls. imagine tryin to manipulate a giant dataset in a web version of excel in a browser tab. annoying enough in the binary, impossible in ‘office365-excel’
I mean, even desktop excel isn’t great for that. Doubley so if you have to use dates/times and timezones
Just install Linux already, get rid of this Microshit crap
EU, please do something about that.
Ow My Balls
Question: if you skipped signing in to Microsoft when you set up Windows, does this f’upgrade still happen?
At this point I’m convinced that the new windows feature announcements are just ads for linux
*Ads for MacOS/chromeos
Autodesk! All the others! Can you now, goddammit, for the sake of the mental health of your customers, start building your tools on platforms other than this crap? PLEASE? I mean I’m seriously considering building a parallel system running Linux for all my other office needs and just touch my Win-pc to run my CAD. I hope MS will continue in this way and ai-mercialize their OS more and more so hopefully the software providers will have enough at one point.
I’ve used FreeCAD for hobby 3d printing and plywood CNC projects. It seemed buggy, and the workflow seemed strange, but I’ve never used anything else, so it’s fine, I guess, lol.
FreeCAD is of course the tool of choice for my hobby projects. All of our workgroup’s students get an introduction. But while its a great tool, you’ll notice the lack of … management (?) in the background. I’m not bashing or even judging. I very much appreciate all the work put into it. But it’s simply … not there yet to be considered a serious alternative to one of the big players.
At that point you might as well just use a windows VM for CAD. With desktop integration you hardly have to notice you’re using windows.
I’ve certainly considered that, but have a hard time imagining a comparable performance with large assemblies. Any hands-on experiences?
I have used a windows vm at a previous job for a closed source IDE we were required to use. I’ve never used AutoCAD, so I’m afraid I can’t help you there.
