6 ms·

Microsoft really needs to take a real hard look at Windows and figure out what its place is in the world. I know very few people outside of gamers that have a

Microsoft really needs to take a real hard look at Windows and figure out what its place is in the world. I know very few people outside of gamers that have a full computer outside of one given for work. This is one of the many reasons that my windows computer is solely for gaming (and I use a debloated Windows 10 LTS install) and never has anything sensitive on it. Any general computing tasks happen on my Mac. I would love to ditch Windows and go to Linux for gaming but as good as proton is. I value being able to play my games without hassle more. This is seriously disgusting behavior from Microsoft (and not the only example of Windows turning into an ad machine) but they also realize they have a stronghold so what is the choice for most normal consumers. It’s not Linux as much as technical people love to say it is.

hot_gril 3y ago
Microsoft owns or has partnerships with many game studios, and they'll always keep that advantage. You can easily ditch Windows if you ditch video games, which is what I did.
gumballindie 3y ago
> Microsoft really needs to take a real hard look at Windows and figure out what its place is in the world. They did. But they looks in the wrong mirror from the wrong angle. They probably asked a few business people in microsoft what can the company do to increase revenue, and that's what they came up with. > I would love to ditch Windows and go to Linux for gaming but as good as proton is. The more people that play on Linux and leave negative reviews for products that don't work the more vendors will spend time on it. Id's say voting with our wallets is worth it.
- nerdjon 3y ago
  I disagree with the idea of leaving negative reviews just because a game doesn’t support a specific platform. It’s the same toxic fanboy wars we see if a game doesn’t come out on a specific console or available on a specific store. Doing so costs money for a small portion of the community. Ultimately these studios are businesses and have to make financial choices. I do fully recognize that this is a chicken and the egg problem. But proton is not a perfect solution and I even had to install Windows on my steam deck to play some of the games I want to play. At the end of the day I’m a gamer first and a fanboy second. I want to play the games.
  - sickofparadox 3y ago
    Leaving a negative review of the product because it doesn't work where you want it to work is absolutely not "toxic fanboy" behavior, its called being an advocate for your own interests. As the person paying up to 70$ for the game, consumers deserve to have their voices heard. Besides, is anyone actually worried about the rampant "toxicity" in the reviews section on a games steam page? Seems a bit pearl clutch-y.
    - falcolas 3y ago
      > Leaving a negative review of the product because it doesn't work where you want it to work is absolutely not "toxic fanboy" behavior You can also call it free market research. Here's someone who wants to play your game enough to go through this extra effort.
    - nerdjon 3y ago
      Um... "review bombing" is a thing that is often talked about. So... yes people are worried about it... You knew what the game did and did not support when you bough it. If you choose to do something outside of what it says, it's your problem not theirs.
      - AlexandrB 3y ago
        Personally, I think using aggregate review scores to make decisions is foolish - and this was true even before user scores and review bombing were a thing. To paraphrase George Carlin - the average reviewer is dumb and half of the ones Metacritic is aggregating are even dumber than that. Why do you give equal weight to their opinion? My approach: Find someone whose opinion/taste I trust. Make decisions based on the full text of their review. Ignore Metacritc/Rotten Tomatoes/Steam User Reviews like the plague.
      - sickofparadox 3y ago
        And review bombing is almost always a legitimate outcry by fans that have very little leverage against an industry riddled with anti-consumer practices. The only people that are worried about review bombing should be the creators of the games, and they should do their best to avoid making decisions that force the fan base to resort to tanking their game's score.
throwaway290 3y ago
I think you mistake gamers and normal consumers who do have a choice. Maybe they don't want to pay more for Mac, and that's the only leverage. If they don't play games, they lose nothing.
- nerdjon 3y ago
  I don’t think I am? I specifically mention that I know very few people outside of gamers that have a computer. So I feel like most normal consumers have already made that choice and they don’t need windows or Mac.
  - goostavos 3y ago
    What do they do with just a phone...? Are students just using ipads these days? I guess I'm getting (am?) old. Without a general purpose computing device in the home, my life would have been radically different.
    - nerdjon 3y ago
      It ultimately depends on what the student is doing I think. If you are just writing papers, doing research, taking notes. Just use an iPad. Maybe get a keyboard to attache to it. Obviously if you are going for programming thats an exception but thats not everyone. Most people that I know do the vast majority of their computing tasks on their phones. I think it's very telling that apps like Threads launched first as an app and the website came later. Gaming is basically the exception for most people that I know. You might be able to argue that some of these tasks are better on a PC, but is it worth it if you already have a tablet or you just want fewer devices. And again to be clear, I am talking about a personal computing device vs a work supplied computer.
      - input_sh 3y ago
        > I think it's very telling that apps like Threads launched first as an app and the website came later. This isn't new, Instagram itself did the same over a decade ago. It was phone-only until shortly after Facebook bought it. But I agree with your other point, PCs (mostly laptops if you want to make that distinction) are for business use, while phones and iPads (because other tablets suck) are general purpose devices. And to take it from there: browsers are increasingly irrelevant, and videos won over text. But I don't think laptops are going anywhere for business use, as merging them with tablets never really took off.
Maken 3y ago
Their current approach to Windows seems to be to milk it as much as possible before the desktop dies out.
- trinsic2 3y ago
  >Their current approach to Windows seems to be to milk it as much as possible before the desktop dies out. I'm starting to think that this is what Microsoft's goal is.. pushing people to the mobile platform deliberately and getting people use to it. where there is less control over the experience. I'm so glad I switched to PopOS[1] Last year. [1]: https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transition-windows-to-linux/ https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transi...
- danaris 3y ago
  That seems to me to be begging the question. I see no evidence that the desktop will "die out". It may change form, and it may be used by a smaller percentage of the computing public, but the idea that we're going to see a time without significant usage of desktop (or laptop) computers within the foreseeable future just seems laughable to me. It smacks, to me, of the idea that the only thing worth being in the market is the very top: the company selling the biggest product, making the most money—otherwise you might as well not even bother. This is toxic thinking.
  - Maken 3y ago
    I do agree that "desktop" computing is not going away any time soon. But there is no point denying that PC market is shrinking and the average user is migrating towards smartphones and tablets. There is no more space to grow here and is no longer MS's priority like in the 90s. I mean, they tried to actively kill desktop PC with Windows 8.
tempodox 3y ago
> Microsoft really needs to take a real hard look at Windows and figure out what its place is in the world. But they did! It's the thing that the browser runs on. And since ads in the browser belong to Google and Facebook, MS has only the OS and their own apps left to cash in on ads. /s
DrBazza 3y ago
> Microsoft really needs to take a real hard look at Windows and figure out what its place is in the world. I wish it would just quietly die in a corner. As a developer Windows has brought us such highlights as: * backslash instead of forward slash * magic paths with drive letters, spaces, and tildas (for you kids, that 8.3 DOS compatible path names) * its own custom C/C++ project format rather than make, that accidentally gave birth to CMake * VBA, and all associated viruses * exclusive file locks I can't be bothered to go on, but the man-hours/years/decades/centuries spent on making code work on Linux and Windows is spectacular.
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  > "backslash instead of forward slash" Why not try Start -> Run c:/windows and see what happens? > "magic paths with drive letters, spaces, and tildas (for you kids, that 8.3 DOS compatible path names)" Linux systems have magic paths like /sys and paths with tildes (isn't that where /~username in URLs came from?) and path/filenames with arbitrary byte sequences which cannot even be displayed safely: https://dwheeler.com/essays/filenames-in-shell.html https://dwheeler.com/essays/filenames-in-shell.html > "VBA, and all associated viruses" VBA is Visual Basic for Applications, it came from Office not Windows.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  And yet, with all that supposedly terrible cruft, it's still a more stable and reliable interface to program against than pretty much anything in Linux world. The best Linux api is Win32. Oh, and that also means if you wrote Windows API compliant code in 1998, it still works today.
  - ziml77 3y ago
    I still can't get over how wild it is to look back at even Windows 1.0 documentation and see familiar functions.
sotix 3y ago
> I would love to ditch Windows and go to Linux for gaming but as good as proton is. I value being able to play my games without hassle more. I play all my games on Linux via proton without hassle. I made the switch 2 years ago and haven’t run into any major issues. At one point, I was playing Elden Ring hassle-free while my friends playing on Windows faced stuttering issues. I am unable to play sim-racing in VR because iRacing uses a Linux-hostile anti-cheat, but that’s the only time I’ve had an issue. Personally, I’m fine avoiding anti-cheat because I don’t like how it interacts with my personal device. Currently, I am playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on ultra settings, and it has worked phenomenally since day one. Overall, I would say my gaming experience is surprisingly better on Linux than it was on Windows, and I’m absolutely shocked that’s the case.
- Alekhine 3y ago
  For certain games it's still borked. Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines is among my favorites and it's unplayable.
- heyoni 3y ago
  I’m with you on proton. It’s totally hassle free and I’ve been using it for everything but call of duty and non-steam games (even though they should work with wine I think).

hot_gril 3y ago

Microsoft owns or has partnerships with many game studios, and they'll always keep that advantage. You can easily ditch Windows if you ditch video games, which is what I did.

gumballindie 3y ago

> Microsoft really needs to take a real hard look at Windows and figure out what its place is in the world. They did. But they looks in the wrong mirror from the wrong angle. They probably asked a few business people in microsoft what can the company do to increase revenue, and that's what they came up with. > I would love to ditch Windows and go to Linux for gaming but as good as proton is. The more people that play on Linux and leave negative reviews for products that don't work the more vendors will spend time on it. Id's say voting with our wallets is worth it.

nerdjon 3y ago
I disagree with the idea of leaving negative reviews just because a game doesn’t support a specific platform. It’s the same toxic fanboy wars we see if a game doesn’t come out on a specific console or available on a specific store. Doing so costs money for a small portion of the community. Ultimately these studios are businesses and have to make financial choices. I do fully recognize that this is a chicken and the egg problem. But proton is not a perfect solution and I even had to install Windows on my steam deck to play some of the games I want to play. At the end of the day I’m a gamer first and a fanboy second. I want to play the games.
- sickofparadox 3y ago
  Leaving a negative review of the product because it doesn't work where you want it to work is absolutely not "toxic fanboy" behavior, its called being an advocate for your own interests. As the person paying up to 70$ for the game, consumers deserve to have their voices heard. Besides, is anyone actually worried about the rampant "toxicity" in the reviews section on a games steam page? Seems a bit pearl clutch-y.
  - falcolas 3y ago
    > Leaving a negative review of the product because it doesn't work where you want it to work is absolutely not "toxic fanboy" behavior You can also call it free market research. Here's someone who wants to play your game enough to go through this extra effort.
  - nerdjon 3y ago
    Um... "review bombing" is a thing that is often talked about. So... yes people are worried about it... You knew what the game did and did not support when you bough it. If you choose to do something outside of what it says, it's your problem not theirs.
    - AlexandrB 3y ago
      Personally, I think using aggregate review scores to make decisions is foolish - and this was true even before user scores and review bombing were a thing. To paraphrase George Carlin - the average reviewer is dumb and half of the ones Metacritic is aggregating are even dumber than that. Why do you give equal weight to their opinion? My approach: Find someone whose opinion/taste I trust. Make decisions based on the full text of their review. Ignore Metacritc/Rotten Tomatoes/Steam User Reviews like the plague.
    - sickofparadox 3y ago
      And review bombing is almost always a legitimate outcry by fans that have very little leverage against an industry riddled with anti-consumer practices. The only people that are worried about review bombing should be the creators of the games, and they should do their best to avoid making decisions that force the fan base to resort to tanking their game's score.

throwaway290 3y ago

I think you mistake gamers and normal consumers who do have a choice. Maybe they don't want to pay more for Mac, and that's the only leverage. If they don't play games, they lose nothing.

nerdjon 3y ago
I don’t think I am? I specifically mention that I know very few people outside of gamers that have a computer. So I feel like most normal consumers have already made that choice and they don’t need windows or Mac.
- goostavos 3y ago
  What do they do with just a phone...? Are students just using ipads these days? I guess I'm getting (am?) old. Without a general purpose computing device in the home, my life would have been radically different.
  - nerdjon 3y ago
    It ultimately depends on what the student is doing I think. If you are just writing papers, doing research, taking notes. Just use an iPad. Maybe get a keyboard to attache to it. Obviously if you are going for programming thats an exception but thats not everyone. Most people that I know do the vast majority of their computing tasks on their phones. I think it's very telling that apps like Threads launched first as an app and the website came later. Gaming is basically the exception for most people that I know. You might be able to argue that some of these tasks are better on a PC, but is it worth it if you already have a tablet or you just want fewer devices. And again to be clear, I am talking about a personal computing device vs a work supplied computer.
    - input_sh 3y ago
      > I think it's very telling that apps like Threads launched first as an app and the website came later. This isn't new, Instagram itself did the same over a decade ago. It was phone-only until shortly after Facebook bought it. But I agree with your other point, PCs (mostly laptops if you want to make that distinction) are for business use, while phones and iPads (because other tablets suck) are general purpose devices. And to take it from there: browsers are increasingly irrelevant, and videos won over text. But I don't think laptops are going anywhere for business use, as merging them with tablets never really took off.

Maken 3y ago

Their current approach to Windows seems to be to milk it as much as possible before the desktop dies out.

trinsic2 3y ago
>Their current approach to Windows seems to be to milk it as much as possible before the desktop dies out. I'm starting to think that this is what Microsoft's goal is.. pushing people to the mobile platform deliberately and getting people use to it. where there is less control over the experience. I'm so glad I switched to PopOS[1] Last year. [1]: https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transition-windows-to-linux/ https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transi...
danaris 3y ago
That seems to me to be begging the question. I see no evidence that the desktop will "die out". It may change form, and it may be used by a smaller percentage of the computing public, but the idea that we're going to see a time without significant usage of desktop (or laptop) computers within the foreseeable future just seems laughable to me. It smacks, to me, of the idea that the only thing worth being in the market is the very top: the company selling the biggest product, making the most money—otherwise you might as well not even bother. This is toxic thinking.
- Maken 3y ago
  I do agree that "desktop" computing is not going away any time soon. But there is no point denying that PC market is shrinking and the average user is migrating towards smartphones and tablets. There is no more space to grow here and is no longer MS's priority like in the 90s. I mean, they tried to actively kill desktop PC with Windows 8.

tempodox 3y ago

> Microsoft really needs to take a real hard look at Windows and figure out what its place is in the world. But they did! It's the thing that the browser runs on. And since ads in the browser belong to Google and Facebook, MS has only the OS and their own apps left to cash in on ads. /s

DrBazza 3y ago

> Microsoft really needs to take a real hard look at Windows and figure out what its place is in the world. I wish it would just quietly die in a corner. As a developer Windows has brought us such highlights as: * backslash instead of forward slash * magic paths with drive letters, spaces, and tildas (for you kids, that 8.3 DOS compatible path names) * its own custom C/C++ project format rather than make, that accidentally gave birth to CMake * VBA, and all associated viruses * exclusive file locks I can't be bothered to go on, but the man-hours/years/decades/centuries spent on making code work on Linux and Windows is spectacular.

jodrellblank 3y ago
> "backslash instead of forward slash" Why not try Start -> Run c:/windows and see what happens? > "magic paths with drive letters, spaces, and tildas (for you kids, that 8.3 DOS compatible path names)" Linux systems have magic paths like /sys and paths with tildes (isn't that where /~username in URLs came from?) and path/filenames with arbitrary byte sequences which cannot even be displayed safely: https://dwheeler.com/essays/filenames-in-shell.html https://dwheeler.com/essays/filenames-in-shell.html > "VBA, and all associated viruses" VBA is Visual Basic for Applications, it came from Office not Windows.
mrguyorama 3y ago
And yet, with all that supposedly terrible cruft, it's still a more stable and reliable interface to program against than pretty much anything in Linux world. The best Linux api is Win32. Oh, and that also means if you wrote Windows API compliant code in 1998, it still works today.
- ziml77 3y ago
  I still can't get over how wild it is to look back at even Windows 1.0 documentation and see familiar functions.

sotix 3y ago

> I would love to ditch Windows and go to Linux for gaming but as good as proton is. I value being able to play my games without hassle more. I play all my games on Linux via proton without hassle. I made the switch 2 years ago and haven’t run into any major issues. At one point, I was playing Elden Ring hassle-free while my friends playing on Windows faced stuttering issues. I am unable to play sim-racing in VR because iRacing uses a Linux-hostile anti-cheat, but that’s the only time I’ve had an issue. Personally, I’m fine avoiding anti-cheat because I don’t like how it interacts with my personal device. Currently, I am playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on ultra settings, and it has worked phenomenally since day one. Overall, I would say my gaming experience is surprisingly better on Linux than it was on Windows, and I’m absolutely shocked that’s the case.

Alekhine 3y ago
For certain games it's still borked. Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines is among my favorites and it's unplayable.
heyoni 3y ago
I’m with you on proton. It’s totally hassle free and I’ve been using it for everything but call of duty and non-steam games (even though they should work with wine I think).