This generation of software companies really seem to have abandoned all previous goals for “Let’s see how shit we can make this!”
“Sir, if we can finish our robot it could help with any household chores and even take over most of the care work for the elderly. Then in future patches we could make it waterboard the user unless they get the waterboardless premium subscription. Then we’ll increase the cost and slowly reintroduce waterboarding even for subscribers.”
You are now VP of product development at Microsoft. Congratulations.
P.S. Get a bullet proof vest and car.
I have been very successful at ignoring Windows for quite some time.
The tech bros are turning everything to shit so you don’t notice any one thing is shit because it’s all shit now. Genius
I have tried out a bunch of Linux ones last year and I will be converting over my main PC at some point this year due to all the things they have done or want to do with Windows 11. I agree it’s very hard to ignore.
Debian + KDE has been rock solid, if you dont already have a favorite distro. KDE is just what you expect in a traditional desktop, it doesnt have a bunch of ui experiments to make things “better”.
Consumers are what, less than 10% of MS’s revenue? Most of their income is from cloud (Azure, O365) so they can afford to treat their consumer customers like trash. They don’t give a shit about your 50-150 bucks for a win license because it’s peanuts to them.
The only viable option for consumers is to massively ditch MS products altogether and migrate to alternatives, which used to be in short supply but luckily aren’t anymore.
It’s probably less for OEMs, right? Most people don’t install their own OS, much less pay full price for a license.
And yeah, consumer Windows could disappear and MS wouldn’t care, as long as office computers are still stuck with it. Which they are.
I’m starting to think Microsoft gives windows a new version number every time they want to make a bunch of big breaking changes, just so the bad reputation can die when they rebrand it as Windows 12 (or whatever stupid naming scheme their marketing team comes with next.)
I wouldn’t be surprised if they just started calling it Copilot at some point. I could see them renaming their “agents” after big feature updates, much like we do with hurricanes which would be fitting given their history of breaking things with each KB.
I’ve been a Windows user my whole life. I support 5000+ Windows devices along with the whole Microsoft enterprise suite. It’s been bad with them, but there have usually been patches at some point or at least community discovered workarounds. However, Microsoft’s reckless abandon into AI legitimately worries me.
I’m finally making the switch to Linux for personal devices.
Su that’s why they never released 9 - it was too perfect and they wouldn’t make money in the future
Zac Bowden used to post a video for every single new insider build of Windows to cover any change he could, he’s bought the original Surface table from 2007, he’s been covering and championing all things Windows for at least a decade. To get someone like him off side, you really gotta be fucking the dog.
Yep.
I started using windows as a kid (Win 3.1). Was more or less happy to be a windows user through all of the various versions, although 95, XP and 7 were the most usable.
For the first time in about 35 years, I’m genuinely unhappy with Windows and am looking at other options.
They’ve really dropped the ball if users like me are unhappy.
Come to CachyOS!
It’s like everything I’ve ever wanted from an OS served on a silver platter.
Look, I’ve used Cachy. It’s great, pretty polished, looks nice.
But do not recommend an arch distro like that until you know person is more tech inclined.
Because a lot of Windows users are not, and they’re not going to want to open the terminal.
Cachy is best for those who like to more effortlessly tinker with their system, like messing around with Polkit so KDE doesn’t ask for a password every second.
Don’t forget, it’s not about what we’ve always wanted from an OS, but what the other person might want from an OS. When unknown, pick the simpler solutions, like Bazzite, Debian, or Mint.
That’s how I’ve gotten 8 people converted to Linux from Windows this year.
Time for Nadella to take responsibility for these fuck ups and resign already.
CEOs taking responsibility for their actions? In the Usa?!?!
Turns out, there were a lot of users, primarily gamers, who were considering giving Linux a chance. Microsoft gave them the push they needed.
Steam should get some credit for working on improving its proton integration.
Valve certainly put in the lion’s share of effort in making Linux a hospitable environment for gamers. Without their hard work, the rise in popularity of Linux simply wouldn’t be possible, and I had no intention of belittling that.
Valve made sure there were life rafts. Microsoft provided the iceberg.
I resisted getting 10, and finally acquiesced. When 11 was announced, I watched apprehensively from the side-lines, and finally decided it was time to dump Windows if I could. Fortunately, Linux is here, it’s great, and it just works, now.
An OS should do its job and disappear behind the programs (I’m purposely resisting saying “app” in favor of the old-school “program”, too). Linux does that, like Windows used to.
I do admit that I run Win10 IOT in VirtualBox for a few small programs that won’t run under Wine. Once a week, for a few minutes. I’m sorry. I don’t wear the shirt, because I feel like a fraud. Please forgive me.
An application is for end user, a program is a set of instructions. All apps are programs but not all programs are apps ;)
The real issue is that they pulled Windows 10. When Vista was shit, you could use XP until 7 was released, when 8 was shit, you could use 7 until 10 was released. Now 11 is the only supported version and you have no choice if you’re for some reason stuck with Windows.
I know that linux is the popular answer to this problem.
I use a Mac and it’s a pretty good machine. I know it isn’t for everyone, but it works well enough for me and has enough mainstream support. As well the hardware has gotten ’ good enough’
MacOS is not hostile to me when I want to run and install programs. There is some opensource support on the platform and the a good amount of closed source programs.
I do miss the wide ranging PnP hardware support for things like SAS/LTO
Mac hardware is great. But they overcharge so much and are so anti right to repair that I could never give them my money
Yeah the closed ecosystem is just cutting off your nose to game on your face
I think it’s not hard to understand how MacOS is easily better than Windows. I don’t think Apple is enshittifying quite as fast as Microsoft, if at all.
Ever update an app and then be told that you need to update MacOS cause the new version need the latest MacOS? So you try to update MacOS but can’t cause your MBP can’t run the latest version. That’s okay, let’s go back to the older version of the app. Oh wait, now you can’t cause that version is no longer in the Apple Store. So you can’t update the app, can’t update MacOS and you can’t reinstall the older app version, which you may have paid for.
Apple’s enshittification was baked-in and normalised a long time ago. The rate it gets worse is slower compared to Win 11 in 2025 but the MacOS level of enshittification is already pretty fucking high.
Apple supports its devices for a lot longer than most OEMs after release (minimum 5 years since being available for sale from Apple, which might be 2 years of sales), but the impact of dropped support is much more pronounced, as you note. Apple usually announces obsolescence 2 years after support ends, too, and stop selling parts and repair manuals, except a few batteries supported to the 10 year mark. On the software/OS side, that usually means OS upgrades for 5-7 years, then 2 more years of security updates, for a total of 7-9 years of keeping a device reasonably up to date.
So if you’re holding onto a 5-year-old laptop, Apple support tends to be much better than a 5-year-old laptop from a Windows OEM (especially with Windows 11 upgrade requirements failing to support some devices that were on sale at the time of Windows 11’s release).
But if you’ve got a 10-year-old Apple laptop, it’s harder to use normally than a 10-year-old Windows laptop.
Also, don’t use the Apple store for software on your laptop. Use a reasonable package manager like homebrew that doesn’t have the problems you describe. Or go find a mirror that hosts old MacOS packages and install it yourself.
if you’ve got a 10-year-old Apple laptop, it’s harder to use normally than a 10-year-old Windows laptop.
Also, don’t use the Apple store for software on your laptop. Use a reasonable package manager like homebrew that doesn’t have the problems you describe. Or go find a mirror that hosts old MacOS packages and install it yourself.
Agree with both and able to do so cause I’m an IT professional and wo ked on all 4 major OSes in my past.
However, having to use an external package manager undercuts the advertising that they’re just plug and play.
I liked macOS but the Tahoe update with its new “liquid ass” interface is hideous.
Windows recently “hung up” when opening “network and internet settings”, just a blank square.
Also, blank square when opening “file explorer”.
Both are working now; my point is I couldn’t accomplish basic tasks in the usual way, fundamentally basic settings. First time this has happened to me. I am old and have been using Windows since there were screensavers. That you would buy. For money. On a floppy disk.
