3 ms·

The pretext for banning Windows is comically bad. Paying extra for Mac hardware is perfectly fine (no, encouraged!), but paying $100 or so to upgrade Windows Ho

by gizmo 4y ago

The pretext for banning Windows is comically bad. Paying extra for Mac hardware is perfectly fine (no, encouraged!), but paying $100 or so to upgrade Windows Home to Windows Professional is prohibitively expensive? That's such a joke. I have no trouble with companies mandating one OS or the other. But when the justification for the policy is so bad it looks petty and ideological as opposed to the result of a level-headed cost/benefit analysis.

nazgulsenpai 4y ago
What if they're worried about the telemetry that would be going to their biggest direct competitor? Not a defense, just a curious thought.
- unnouinceput 4y ago
  Telemetry can be turned off. You can do it at org level, at department level, or individually. Use WPD, best tool for this.
  - switch007 4y ago
    To be clear, you're saying there is a way to prevent _any_ and _all_ data about the device and its usage ever being sent to MSFT? And it won't be overridden by Windows updates or any nonsense like that?
    - unnouinceput 4y ago
      yes to 1st part, no to 2nd part. after update re-run WPD, and if anything was enabled, do disable it. Takes 2 minutes.
nix23 4y ago
And make a screenshot to verify that you encrypted your disk ;)))) The lost art of (fleet-)administration.
pessimizer 4y ago
Ideological doesn't mean petty. It's not somehow beneath serious people to have beliefs about your company and to stick to them.
rsynnott 4y ago
I would suspect that there's a valid reason (probably along the lines of "we are set up to remote manage a bunch of linux and macos machines, and our tools work on them; we don't want to add more overhead") but that the person writing the page didn't entirely understand the reason. "Mac or linux, but not windows" is a somewhat common policy, or certainly used to be, and it's never about the cost _of the licenses_ (except for tiny companies, perhaps).
mmcnl 4y ago
I agree, it's very petty. Engineers should keep their personal vendettas out of business.

by gizmo 4y ago

nazgulsenpai 4y ago

What if they're worried about the telemetry that would be going to their biggest direct competitor? Not a defense, just a curious thought.

unnouinceput 4y ago
Telemetry can be turned off. You can do it at org level, at department level, or individually. Use WPD, best tool for this.
- switch007 4y ago
  To be clear, you're saying there is a way to prevent _any_ and _all_ data about the device and its usage ever being sent to MSFT? And it won't be overridden by Windows updates or any nonsense like that?
  - unnouinceput 4y ago
    yes to 1st part, no to 2nd part. after update re-run WPD, and if anything was enabled, do disable it. Takes 2 minutes.

nix23 4y ago

And make a screenshot to verify that you encrypted your disk ;)))) The lost art of (fleet-)administration.

pessimizer 4y ago

Ideological doesn't mean petty. It's not somehow beneath serious people to have beliefs about your company and to stick to them.

rsynnott 4y ago

I would suspect that there's a valid reason (probably along the lines of "we are set up to remote manage a bunch of linux and macos machines, and our tools work on them; we don't want to add more overhead") but that the person writing the page didn't entirely understand the reason. "Mac or linux, but not windows" is a somewhat common policy, or certainly used to be, and it's never about the cost _of the licenses_ (except for tiny companies, perhaps).

mmcnl 4y ago

I agree, it's very petty. Engineers should keep their personal vendettas out of business.