4 ms·

Sorry for an emotional expletive-laden post here, but this enrages me so much. My computer is my main professional and creative tool, and for MS to do this shit

Sorry for an emotional expletive-laden post here, but this enrages me so much. My computer is my main professional and creative tool, and for MS to do this shit without my permission or control (like it already does with fucking Edge and OneDrive nags every time it installs an update) feels so exploitative, greedy, and evil. And stupid - their execs are chasing myopic short term gains with aggressive stongarm tactics, while long-term I and probably a million others are running for the exit, and doing our best to never use Windows, Azure, Outlook, Office etc again. So few companies out there seen to care about their long term reputation.

humanistbot 4y ago
> while long-term I and probably a million others are running for the exit, and doing our best to never use Windows, Azure, Outlook, Office etc again. So few companies out there seen to care about their long term reputation. Sadly, the number of people who will actually run for the exit is much, much smaller. People on HN are completely unrepresentative of the general population. I'm pretty sure MS has people who do user retention as part of design research, it is standard in the industry before rolling out a feature to all users. Especially when switching costs are high, even people who hate ads get used to them after a very short time. Plus, everyone who can afford a Mac and doesn't mind being locked-in to the Apple ecosystem is already there. Every mainstream platform is already inundated with ads. Social media is full of ads and sponsored posts. Most 'news' sites have gotten so bad that content is only 25-50% of the screen. E-commerce marketplaces from Amazon to Walmart are compromised and corrupted. People may run from one ad-saturated platform or site to another, but the norm is ads everywhere. If they're not running from that, would they notice or care about this?
- QuadrupleA 4y ago
  Well we're often the ones who recommend a computer to our parents and grandparents. Or the ones who decide which cloud hosting platform or email service provider to use in our organizations. People and governments are collectively getting fed up with surveillance capitalism. One can hope.
  - 323 4y ago
    Well, I remember how 10 years ago tons of HN users were posting about how they changed the browser on all of their relatives and friends computer to Chrome. How did that end up?
    - MikeDelta 4y ago
      Chrome became the most popular browser in the market. (Unfortunately with its own issues.)
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  It took me a while to abandon the Microsoft ecosystem for my own use but I'm so glad that I did. It was a lot of careful considerations though and finding out what was important to me and how other open source projects aligned with those goals. I'm thinking maybe a site that has a way for users to pick things that matter to them and then recommend an OS and software would be a good idea.
- prox 4y ago
  This article was 50 percent ads. What’s interesting is that MS is doing things that the EU already gave substantial fine for making a browser default.
- timbit42 4y ago
  > Sadly, the number of people who will actually run for the exit is much, much smaller. Doesn't matter as long as the number is growing. As it grows, more people will tell others that they switched and it's better. It's slow to start but eventually it becomes unstoppable. I think Microsoft will keep the business desktop but they will lose the home desktop. When that happens, Eventually, games won't even be made for Windows anymore, like Macs today.
Slighted 4y ago
Microsoft transitioning Windows into a spyware platform filled with advertisements and garbage has been in the making for years at this point. Its absolutely exploitative, greedy, and evil, which is why if you can you should consider switching to a different operating system, like Linux. At the very least you can transition to using Linux for tasks that work on Linux while keeping around Windows for tasks which require windows, either due to a lack of Linux support or poor performance/stability/etc. All of this assuming you aren't doing this already.
- leeoniya 4y ago
  i used to do all sorts of stuff with Windows XP/2000 (like sysprepping reg-tweaked/debloated/pre-loaded Windows ISOs for myself). but now i have fully moved away from Windows to EndeavourOS/KDE and haven't looked back; many others have jumped ship to PoP_OS. yes, you do have to slightly limit/research your hardware options to get a great experience, but i've always been an AMD GPU guy (due to their better thermals / power efficiency), and all of my laptops are Thinkpads w/Intel wifi, so take this with those grains of salt. i do miss Foobar2000 and HeidiSQL (DeaDBeeF and DBeaver aren't quite as polished), and Affinity products are hard to get running without glitches in Wine/Proton, but otherwise it's been fantastic. though i've had to fiddle quite a bit with Chromium and MPV settings to enable GPU hardware acceleration for video decoding. first straw was slow filesystem access due to Windows Defender, last straw was unstoppable Windows updates full of ad garbage and apps i previously removed with various debloating scripts. i ran Windows 10 with these addons to get back a more Windows XP experience: disable TPM v2.0 (keep it at v1.2) to forever prevent Windows 11 upgrades: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/enable-tpm-2-0-on-your-pc-1fd5a332-360d-4f46-a1e7-ae6b0c90645c https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/enable-tpm-2-0-o... debloat: https://github.com/farag2/Sophia-Script-for-Windows https://github.com/farag2/Sophia-Script-for-Windows. there's also LTSC, but it's basically impossible to purchase an actual license, so you have to pirate it: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/ltsc-what-is-it-and-when-should-it-be-used/ba-p/293181 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/l... start menu: https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu taskbar: https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker search: https://goffconcepts.com/products/filesearchex/index.html https://goffconcepts.com/products/filesearchex/index.html archives: https://www.7-zip.org/ https://www.7-zip.org/ task manager: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/pro... Notepad replacement: https://github.com/rizonesoft/Notepad3 https://github.com/rizonesoft/Notepad3
GraphenePants 4y ago
It's unclear that Microsoft providing up-to-date guidance on the continued leverage of various professional features included with your Windows license qualifies as "nagging". I would double-check if you actually have experienced this.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
christophilus 4y ago
I know I probably sound like a broken record, but Linux really is quite nice these days. I personally find it miles better than Windows. It is even decent for gaming, thanks to Steam’s work on proton. So, depending on your use case, you might be able to make the switch without any significant drawbacks. FWIW, I say this as a former Microsoft employee and heavy promoter of their ecosystem for the first 15 years of my career.
brundolf 4y ago
One of the many reasons I don't use Windows for anything but gaming (and even then, I'm keeping my gaming machine on 10 as long as I can)
swayvil 4y ago
Make a deal with a demon and it will come around to bite you in the ass every single time. They've written instructional parables about this stuff for thousands of years. Learn from the ancient wisdom. Say no to demons.
amelius 4y ago
And sadly, there is no reason to believe other companies will not end up going down the same road. Hence we should fight for open hardware.

humanistbot 4y ago

> while long-term I and probably a million others are running for the exit, and doing our best to never use Windows, Azure, Outlook, Office etc again. So few companies out there seen to care about their long term reputation. Sadly, the number of people who will actually run for the exit is much, much smaller. People on HN are completely unrepresentative of the general population. I'm pretty sure MS has people who do user retention as part of design research, it is standard in the industry before rolling out a feature to all users. Especially when switching costs are high, even people who hate ads get used to them after a very short time. Plus, everyone who can afford a Mac and doesn't mind being locked-in to the Apple ecosystem is already there. Every mainstream platform is already inundated with ads. Social media is full of ads and sponsored posts. Most 'news' sites have gotten so bad that content is only 25-50% of the screen. E-commerce marketplaces from Amazon to Walmart are compromised and corrupted. People may run from one ad-saturated platform or site to another, but the norm is ads everywhere. If they're not running from that, would they notice or care about this?

QuadrupleA 4y ago
Well we're often the ones who recommend a computer to our parents and grandparents. Or the ones who decide which cloud hosting platform or email service provider to use in our organizations. People and governments are collectively getting fed up with surveillance capitalism. One can hope.
- 323 4y ago
  Well, I remember how 10 years ago tons of HN users were posting about how they changed the browser on all of their relatives and friends computer to Chrome. How did that end up?
  - MikeDelta 4y ago
    Chrome became the most popular browser in the market. (Unfortunately with its own issues.)
encryptluks2 4y ago
It took me a while to abandon the Microsoft ecosystem for my own use but I'm so glad that I did. It was a lot of careful considerations though and finding out what was important to me and how other open source projects aligned with those goals. I'm thinking maybe a site that has a way for users to pick things that matter to them and then recommend an OS and software would be a good idea.
prox 4y ago
This article was 50 percent ads. What’s interesting is that MS is doing things that the EU already gave substantial fine for making a browser default.
timbit42 4y ago
> Sadly, the number of people who will actually run for the exit is much, much smaller. Doesn't matter as long as the number is growing. As it grows, more people will tell others that they switched and it's better. It's slow to start but eventually it becomes unstoppable. I think Microsoft will keep the business desktop but they will lose the home desktop. When that happens, Eventually, games won't even be made for Windows anymore, like Macs today.

Slighted 4y ago

Microsoft transitioning Windows into a spyware platform filled with advertisements and garbage has been in the making for years at this point. Its absolutely exploitative, greedy, and evil, which is why if you can you should consider switching to a different operating system, like Linux. At the very least you can transition to using Linux for tasks that work on Linux while keeping around Windows for tasks which require windows, either due to a lack of Linux support or poor performance/stability/etc. All of this assuming you aren't doing this already.

leeoniya 4y ago
i used to do all sorts of stuff with Windows XP/2000 (like sysprepping reg-tweaked/debloated/pre-loaded Windows ISOs for myself). but now i have fully moved away from Windows to EndeavourOS/KDE and haven't looked back; many others have jumped ship to PoP_OS. yes, you do have to slightly limit/research your hardware options to get a great experience, but i've always been an AMD GPU guy (due to their better thermals / power efficiency), and all of my laptops are Thinkpads w/Intel wifi, so take this with those grains of salt. i do miss Foobar2000 and HeidiSQL (DeaDBeeF and DBeaver aren't quite as polished), and Affinity products are hard to get running without glitches in Wine/Proton, but otherwise it's been fantastic. though i've had to fiddle quite a bit with Chromium and MPV settings to enable GPU hardware acceleration for video decoding. first straw was slow filesystem access due to Windows Defender, last straw was unstoppable Windows updates full of ad garbage and apps i previously removed with various debloating scripts. i ran Windows 10 with these addons to get back a more Windows XP experience: disable TPM v2.0 (keep it at v1.2) to forever prevent Windows 11 upgrades: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/enable-tpm-2-0-on-your-pc-1fd5a332-360d-4f46-a1e7-ae6b0c90645c https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/enable-tpm-2-0-o... debloat: https://github.com/farag2/Sophia-Script-for-Windows https://github.com/farag2/Sophia-Script-for-Windows. there's also LTSC, but it's basically impossible to purchase an actual license, so you have to pirate it: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/ltsc-what-is-it-and-when-should-it-be-used/ba-p/293181 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/l... start menu: https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu taskbar: https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker search: https://goffconcepts.com/products/filesearchex/index.html https://goffconcepts.com/products/filesearchex/index.html archives: https://www.7-zip.org/ https://www.7-zip.org/ task manager: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/pro... Notepad replacement: https://github.com/rizonesoft/Notepad3 https://github.com/rizonesoft/Notepad3

GraphenePants 4y ago

It's unclear that Microsoft providing up-to-date guidance on the continued leverage of various professional features included with your Windows license qualifies as "nagging". I would double-check if you actually have experienced this.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

christophilus 4y ago

I know I probably sound like a broken record, but Linux really is quite nice these days. I personally find it miles better than Windows. It is even decent for gaming, thanks to Steam’s work on proton. So, depending on your use case, you might be able to make the switch without any significant drawbacks. FWIW, I say this as a former Microsoft employee and heavy promoter of their ecosystem for the first 15 years of my career.

brundolf 4y ago

One of the many reasons I don't use Windows for anything but gaming (and even then, I'm keeping my gaming machine on 10 as long as I can)

swayvil 4y ago

Make a deal with a demon and it will come around to bite you in the ass every single time. They've written instructional parables about this stuff for thousands of years. Learn from the ancient wisdom. Say no to demons.

amelius 4y ago

And sadly, there is no reason to believe other companies will not end up going down the same road. Hence we should fight for open hardware.