4 ms·

Has anyone become so disillusioned with windows that they just have a windows pc sitting around collecting dust? Sometimes I still need to use some legacy prog

Has anyone become so disillusioned with windows that they just have a windows pc sitting around collecting dust? Sometimes I still need to use some legacy program or whatever on there but I feel like the last time I booted into that thing was over a month ago now.

misnome 3y ago
I started my machine for the first time in a couple of months yesterday; I mostly use it for gaming. The taskbar “Search” box had a new “fun” little icon representing whatever search item they wanted to advertise to me today. Had to find windows “tips” site to work out how to turn it off… Not as egregious as “full screen game adverts on login screen by default” though.
- baal80spam 3y ago
  > The taskbar “Search” box had a new “fun” little icon representing whatever search item they wanted to advertise to me today. Had to find windows “tips” site to work out how to turn it off… It boggles my mind how people don't find it absolutely infuriating. I watch quite a lot of streams and people always have 3 things enabled that I personally would disable instantly: - huge searchbox taking a good 1/3 of the taskbar (I've yet to see anyone use this control for initiating a search) - the playful icon in this huge searchbox (you mentioned it) - Weather widget in the taskbar (just why?) I assume that vast majority of Windows users just don't care.
  - blooalien 3y ago
    > "I assume that vast majority of Windows users just don't care." Most of them it's not so much that they don't care as it is that they've been literally brainwashed their entire lives to believe that Windows holds the top market position because it's somehow "superior" to other operating systems. They really truly believe the decades old Ballmer FUD about other operating systems. It's impossible in their minds that Microsoft gained such a stranglehold over the PC operating system market through completely unethical, borderline illegal means, and no amount of well-documented historical fact can change their minds about it. It's very nearly a literal cult.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      It's really not that complex for me: I work in games, lots of game development tools only work in Windows and/or have horrible, undersupported Linux ports at best. I have no allegiance to Microsoft, I can still rotate around to Linux. but it's no surprise I end up mostly in Windows. now with all that said, on topic: I haven't seen this search fun icon nor really any ads on W11. Don't know if that's because I opted out of any personalized targeting or whatnot, but I wasn't nagged much once I got everything installed and customized my toolar.
h0h0h0h0111 3y ago
I've found wine good enough to run nearly any windows programme I want to use; the only exception is VR games, but I've found myself just not playing VR as a result
julienreszka 3y ago
Same here
not_your_vase 3y ago
Windows is nowadays required for maybe 2 major things: games (I know, Wine is a thing, but let's be honest: it is very much still a hit or miss), and some video conference software (e.g. webex with camera). I install Windows only for job interviews. Usually I install it 2 days ahead, and keep running windows update repeatedly, until it finally finishes with everything, and I can use the system for a 30 minutes call, before I would install a usable OS. Maybe a bit tangential: until about 10 years ago I used only Windows. One day I tried make something bluetooth related work on it, I don't even remember what. I just remember that it kept failing in a very cryptic way. It got me so angry after many hours that I just deleted the whole OS, and swore that I will learn Linux starting immediately, and that will be my main system going forward. It became my career after a few months, lol. Don't know if I should be grateful for Windows or not.
- throwaway70134 3y ago
  And Android ROM stuff. All the vendor-specific ROM flashing apps are Windows only and I don't have the balls to run it via Wine. Sadly not even macOS (my main system) is an option.
  - tetris11 3y ago
    There are usually linux alternatives. Heimdall is a pretty good alternative to Odin
    - jamal-kumar 3y ago
      I started this thread and I will chime in on this Lmao nah that shit doesn't work
      - tetris11 3y ago
        YMMV, but in my experience it works flawlessly. If that fails there are chip specific tools you can use to read/write to the right partitions, such as the fantastic EDL tool for Qualcomm devices: https://github.com/bkerler/edl https://github.com/bkerler/edl
nraynaud 3y ago
I do, but I’m an independent software contractor, so sometimes I need to do windows stuff. It’s also useful to lend to house visitors.
NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
Your system will probably become unusable, because anytime Windows is shut down or disconnected too long, it will immediately crave gobs of updates upon boot, and you may be powerless to stop it. For that reason, I made sure I rotated through all my VMs about once a month, just spin up and down for no other reason but updating.

misnome 3y ago

I started my machine for the first time in a couple of months yesterday; I mostly use it for gaming. The taskbar “Search” box had a new “fun” little icon representing whatever search item they wanted to advertise to me today. Had to find windows “tips” site to work out how to turn it off… Not as egregious as “full screen game adverts on login screen by default” though.

baal80spam 3y ago
> The taskbar “Search” box had a new “fun” little icon representing whatever search item they wanted to advertise to me today. Had to find windows “tips” site to work out how to turn it off… It boggles my mind how people don't find it absolutely infuriating. I watch quite a lot of streams and people always have 3 things enabled that I personally would disable instantly: - huge searchbox taking a good 1/3 of the taskbar (I've yet to see anyone use this control for initiating a search) - the playful icon in this huge searchbox (you mentioned it) - Weather widget in the taskbar (just why?) I assume that vast majority of Windows users just don't care.
- blooalien 3y ago
  > "I assume that vast majority of Windows users just don't care." Most of them it's not so much that they don't care as it is that they've been literally brainwashed their entire lives to believe that Windows holds the top market position because it's somehow "superior" to other operating systems. They really truly believe the decades old Ballmer FUD about other operating systems. It's impossible in their minds that Microsoft gained such a stranglehold over the PC operating system market through completely unethical, borderline illegal means, and no amount of well-documented historical fact can change their minds about it. It's very nearly a literal cult.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    It's really not that complex for me: I work in games, lots of game development tools only work in Windows and/or have horrible, undersupported Linux ports at best. I have no allegiance to Microsoft, I can still rotate around to Linux. but it's no surprise I end up mostly in Windows. now with all that said, on topic: I haven't seen this search fun icon nor really any ads on W11. Don't know if that's because I opted out of any personalized targeting or whatnot, but I wasn't nagged much once I got everything installed and customized my toolar.

h0h0h0h0111 3y ago

I've found wine good enough to run nearly any windows programme I want to use; the only exception is VR games, but I've found myself just not playing VR as a result

julienreszka 3y ago

Same here

not_your_vase 3y ago

Windows is nowadays required for maybe 2 major things: games (I know, Wine is a thing, but let's be honest: it is very much still a hit or miss), and some video conference software (e.g. webex with camera). I install Windows only for job interviews. Usually I install it 2 days ahead, and keep running windows update repeatedly, until it finally finishes with everything, and I can use the system for a 30 minutes call, before I would install a usable OS. Maybe a bit tangential: until about 10 years ago I used only Windows. One day I tried make something bluetooth related work on it, I don't even remember what. I just remember that it kept failing in a very cryptic way. It got me so angry after many hours that I just deleted the whole OS, and swore that I will learn Linux starting immediately, and that will be my main system going forward. It became my career after a few months, lol. Don't know if I should be grateful for Windows or not.

throwaway70134 3y ago
And Android ROM stuff. All the vendor-specific ROM flashing apps are Windows only and I don't have the balls to run it via Wine. Sadly not even macOS (my main system) is an option.
- tetris11 3y ago
  There are usually linux alternatives. Heimdall is a pretty good alternative to Odin
  - jamal-kumar 3y ago
    I started this thread and I will chime in on this Lmao nah that shit doesn't work
    - tetris11 3y ago
      YMMV, but in my experience it works flawlessly. If that fails there are chip specific tools you can use to read/write to the right partitions, such as the fantastic EDL tool for Qualcomm devices: https://github.com/bkerler/edl https://github.com/bkerler/edl

nraynaud 3y ago

I do, but I’m an independent software contractor, so sometimes I need to do windows stuff. It’s also useful to lend to house visitors.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago

Your system will probably become unusable, because anytime Windows is shut down or disconnected too long, it will immediately crave gobs of updates upon boot, and you may be powerless to stop it. For that reason, I made sure I rotated through all my VMs about once a month, just spin up and down for no other reason but updating.