7 ms·

Windows 11 is a minefield of micro-aggressions in the shipping lane of progress

108 points by beardyw 1y ago

LarryDarrell 1y ago
Windows users have no negotiating power. Windows will continued to be monetized in user-hostile ways. Call it enshittification, call it the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, call it what ever you want. It won't reach a breaking point. It'll just get worse and worse, steadily and slowly. I'm trapped because I'm a C#/WPF developer. But, the day after I retire will see a reformat and installation of Debian. The only thing I'll miss is Directory Opus.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- yndoendo 1y ago
  Also currently a C#/WPF and Windows is permanently segregated to a VM for development. At the end of the day I don't have to use their terrible OS. Retirement is not having to deal with IT that latches onto Microsoft like a parasite.
  - nix0n 1y ago
    > Windows is permanently segregated to a VM for development Have you been able to get a debugger working for this? Last time I tried to develop C++ this way, the Visual Studio debugger would not work from within a VM.
joenot443 1y ago
> The ideal, therefore, is an automated Windows detoxifier with a solid chain of trust; one that's rapidly updated to track new outbreaks of unwholesomeness; one that's constructed to be usable by anyone, and to be configurable so that the user can dial in what they want to go. Maybe I'm wrong, but I was certain something like this already exists?
- paxys 1y ago
  It's called Linux
  - JackAcid 1y ago
    And FreeBSD.
- nehal3m 1y ago
  I would also like to joke that you’re describing Linux, but there’s a great tool by Chris Titus, the YouTuber: https://christitus.com/windows-tool/ https://christitus.com/windows-tool/ It has worked well for me on a gaming system that does not contain sensitive data, check it out.
  - joenot443 1y ago
    Thank you! This is exactly what I was thinking of :)
- fuzzfactor 1y ago
  When it comes to tweaking Windows, >Doing things manually by recipe is also less than optimal. >The ideal, therefore, is an automated Windows detoxifier I've already seen it baked in for a few years now for specialized uses. There are scientific instruments which require very specialized software from the manufacturer, Windows-only naturally, and to use the latest software you need a post-2022 OS version now. The most recently-purchased are on Windows 10, set up by the "experts", and run like dogs compared to the 20-year-old instruments still using Windows XP. The same app version on W11 is very noticeably worse and I've been working on it in preparation for migration. For XP Pro there was a couple documentation pages of manual settings to Windows that you were expected to follow which increased Windows performance, before installing the major lab app. Now there are quite a few pages to the manual checklist beforehand, and then during install a factory autoscript tweaks away and stuffs in some dependencies for about a half hour before the package finally begins to install. Afterward alerting you if any recognized beneficial manual changes are still recommended. Not only Pro, but Enterprise and LTSC are supported now but they are not so great either. Arf arf, it still wants to make you howl :( There are dozens more settings that need to be identified and experimented with, fortunately it's a 24/7 lab and this started as soon as W11 was released. Anyway, Windows has gotten to the point where I can make plenty as a consultant just visiting labs and recovering untapped workflow from the electronics. Which never would have paid off even a few years ago. I don't even need to automate. Manual is just fine. As things progress it's likely to pay better than being a referee witness or calibrating the instruments against NIST-traceable materials too. Decades ago I wrote thousands of LOC before they had very advanced software like this, now I still write pages of text but it's all "scripts". And not mainly the code kind, more like a screenplay where I'm the actor following the script my own self with a number of one-liners :\ Reproducible results require a reproducible environment so it's worth it. Today the instrument manufacturer's offerings are very advanced, you need their current app version to support the newest instruments, but the app also does still support a number of 20-year old models. Basically new software has shipped with updated factory device drivers for the old (expensive) lab hardware to keep it running with later Windows versions. I have one of those on the bench that is highly reliable for years on XP, that way it uses up less than 1 GB of memory and only 1.2 GB of drive space for Windows, plus another 1.4 GB of 2006 instrument software and it runs like a top. The new software on W11 can get the same instrument to analyze the chemical in the same amount of bench time and get the same result from the same calibration. This is impressive but anything less would always be complete failure. The instrument factory engineers have gone the extra mile with their built-in auto-tweaking script too. Too bad nothing less would do. But all interactions with the combined system are still like you've got a Chihuahua in a Greyhound race compared to XP. And Windows 11 does it with Enterprise "only" taking up about 10 GB, and then the lab app takes another 15 GB on the drive, plus you've got to have at least 8 GB of memory. Or approximately 10x the PC resources to do a noticeably poorer job of accomplishing a comparable thing using the exact same instrument. Or if you are not prepared to give the workflow a complete workover, a much worse performance when it comes to what you can get done on the same analyzer in one day. Although everybody should have a chance to get their hands on XP when it's mainlining SSDeroids on the bare metal :)
lenerdenator 1y ago
Honestly, the end of Windows 10 has me off Windows as much as possible from here on out. I'm an old man now. They moved my cheese. How dare they. Also they put more tracking crap on the OS that I don't want.
- timw4mail 1y ago
  They moved my cheese, they removed my cheese, they replaced my cheese with worse cheese.
jjbinx007 1y ago
For home users I'd say the biggest thing that keeps them on Windows is gaming, but Valve have made excellent progress at getting games to run on Linux now. For business users I'd say the biggest thing is Active Directory - being able to manage and micro-manage a fleet of hundreds or thousands of PCs by a small team is highly desirable.
- qualeed 1y ago
  >For business users I'd say the biggest thing is Active Directory Also QuickBooks (online does not come close to replacing desktop enterprise) & CAD, in my experience.
  - jabroni_salad 1y ago
    The small/midsize banking ecosystem (jack henry, fiserv, FIS) runs on windows server as well. maybe the big guys with a self-developed platform have it better.
  - neutronicus 1y ago
    Yeah I work on Architectural CAD and let me tell you that Linux and the browser and both not even close to on the roadmap. The application is cumbersome enough as a native app I can't even imagine if the whole thing were ported to run on JS.
- paxys 1y ago
  It's all about applications. The % of business apps out there with Linux support is negligible. The majority of mid-large sized companies worldwide would fail without the Office suite, or really just Excel.
  - voxic11 1y ago
    Office and Excel are now both browser based though right? So they should run on Linux as well as they do on Windows. The last two companies I have worked for didn't even use Office or Excel they used Google Workspace.
nftom 1y ago
[flagged]
nerdjon 1y ago
I know I have said this many times, but if you need Windows just use Windows 11 LTSC. It lacks almost all of the bulk and crap that Microsoft is trying to shove into Windows. And the things that are missing if you really need them are easy to install. Don't believe Microsoft's "marketing" about LTSC that it won't work for a general purpose OS. I use this for my gaming PC and it is fantastic. No need for any sort of debloat script that is doing untested things, LTSC is a working version of Windows.
- jmkni 1y ago
  Where do you get your hands on a legit copy though? It's infuriating, I would happily pay for a real licence for this, and MS makes it basically impossible to do so.
  - nerdjon 1y ago
    Microsoft makes it hard (impossible) because they don't want normal users using LTSC. They try very hard in their marketing to make it seem like LTSC is not good for general purpose computing since it removes many of the features they are trying to push and their ability to show ads. That being said, check out the WindowsLTSC subreddit. All the information on how to get it is there. You don't need any sort of crack make it work and don't need to go anywhere shady to get the ISO. And if you are concerned from an ethical standpoint, buy a normal Windows license and just install LTSC instead.
    - ahartmetz 1y ago
      Sounds a lot like "Win2k is not for home users" back then. It was the best Windows version in a long time.
  - zamadatix 1y ago
    The last I looked into this these were the conclusions I reached (depending on individual situation): - If you're looking to do this 100% to the letter, then you'll need to enter some form of VL agreement with an authorized reseller. This will come with a minimum purchase of 5 licenses. - If you're looking to do this with a "real" key, but not by the book, then one of the gray market sites. - If you're looking to do this morally (by paying Microsoft), but don't care if the actual activation is completed with the license you purchase, then purchase a Windows 11 Pro license but use https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts/ https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts/ to activate your Windows 11 LTSC. The ISO itself can still be sourced from Microsoft. - If you don't care about any of this, then the same as the above except don't buy the Windows 11 Pro License - If you absolutely want to buy a single license "by the book"... there is no official offering available.
FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
Windows is an onramp for their online services and a data harvesting tool. The entire industry is going this way and we have enabled it through overly complicated abstractions and an obsession with "web-scale". Start by building on-premise systems and you'll develop a different mindset.
- red-iron-pine 1y ago
  on-prem systems in F500s in 2025? good luck mate, they love the cloud even though they probably shouldn't
  - FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
    Stuff comes back on-prem or at lest colocated breach by breach and lawsuit by lawsuit...
jrm4 1y ago
A little offtopic, but this headline perfectly illustrates why I (a Black person, perhaps relevant) never much liked the term "micro-aggressions" in the way it was initiated. Call the person out as e.g. racist or don't. Or call out the statement or whatever as stupid or messed up and make them apologize. But, nitpicking things as "micro-aggressions" and giving them this weird power, meh. Just say, "Hey, get a load of this a-hole" and move on. Now, here it kind of works because they are micro and because it's not a human, etc.
twilo 1y ago
I use this thing daily, its a win11 pro, and I see no issues with it at all... I am the only one?
- hu3 1y ago
  Same. I need a Windows machine for legacy .NET projects and the pro version just works. I think most problems stem from home versions of windows. Still prefer my Linux machine tho.
  - 3x35r22m4u 1y ago
    Yup. Home version is full of gadgets with news, weather, offers, AI stuff in the task bar... feels claustrophobic.
- jabroni_salad 1y ago
  Despite always opting out of onedrive, one day it somehow activated itself, converted all my personal files into web shortcuts, and then complained about being out of space. All my stuff is backed up to a synology so it wasnt a huge ordeal, but there are horror stories around the net about onedrive interactions.
- inversetelecine 1y ago
  I use various versions of Windows 11, mostly LTSC because I'm lazy. Otherwise I'll do a light debloat with something like ShutUp10 to turn off the majority of the annoyances. I'm able to deal with any snafus from this so it's not an issue for me. No real issues to report. Various OEM and custom machines run fine. Ever since Windows 7 I'd say I haven't ran into major issues or even many minor ones.
ringeryless 1y ago
but building such a free tool would only encourage more windows usage... stop enabling abusers. oem bundling should be seen for the extortion it is, and not one more red cent should go to Redmond
resource_waste 1y ago
Over the last week, I helped 4 people get a piece of software working on Windows. Something I found mind boggling is that the windows/search button doesnt load every time. From my nvidia 3060 gpu laptop, to my tiny i5, to cheap refurbished laptops, all computers seem to have an issue displaying the search/windows button's data. I believe if you wait long enough, it shows up, but sometimes you click off and re-click. Anyway, its utterly mind boggling that the OS that has 90% of users has this issue. (My guess is that its doing some sort of online thing and it wont display results until it gets the ads/sends data)
- staticman2 1y ago
  Yeah... that's why I install Everything to have a third party search backup app. My sense is this has been a problem for a long time and Microsoft presumably just doesn't care.
taeric 1y ago
I'm all for complaining about silly little things in computers. Can we not with "micro-aggression" though? Seems any chance that term had for being a useful one was destroyed by it being used in precisely the way that it was coined to identify.
voxleone 1y ago
[sigh] I remember when modal windows were the only imaginable disruption to your work. The irony is, at least they had a clear purpose — and a close button. Use Linux. Windows is over if you want it.
- inversetelecine 1y ago
  Does Linux have a stable and reliable remote desktop server yet? Using Wayland. I love being able to remote into my home PC and experience near lag-free use via RDP. I've tried the Gnome and KDE implementations but they aren't that great as a user who just wants to connect and use the PC. I found the gnome one confusing, as it had two options. One had to be logged into locally and unlocked first. The other didn't I believe but there was some other gotcha. Maybe having signed in once but then locked the session. I do remember not being able to RDP from a fresh reboot which made me think the machine failed to boot. KDE's implementation I think also suffered from having to log in locally first. I've made use of Sunshine and Moonlight for now. It works, but it's meant more for gaming. No copy and paste, more bandwidth or more cpu/gpu cycles, etc.
  - taeric 1y ago
    I'm curious why you need a graphical remote experience? Note, I'm specifically not trying to dissuade you. My guess is that what is driving your need will likely lead you to specific solutions. Though, I do have to hazard a guess that Wayland will be a bit of a hiccup. Remove graphical desktops were niche enough that a lot of the good solutions for them in the past have not been high on people's radars.
  - glitchc 1y ago
    VNC works really well for Linux based workstations. Both RealVNC and TightVNC are good although RealVNC has started pushing their cloud offering recently. Install on both machines, one running as server, the other as a client.
    - JohnFen 1y ago
      VNC does desktop sharing. That's useful, but very different from remote desktops. Wayland's lack of the ability to do actual remote desktops is the showstopper for Wayland for me.
rco8786 1y ago
I had to turn off 2-3 different settings to make the ads go away just on the default desktop. It really is bad.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  Having to open settings to disable default advertising is why I cannot fundamentally respect Windows 10/11 or modern MacOS as operating systems.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
jauntywundrkind 1y ago
I went looking for a write-up but I would have sworn ~2 years ago Microsoft had disbanded Windows as its own team, and put half the people under Azure and half under like Office or something. Really feel like there's a Conway's Law explanation that would underscore the shift here. But I failed to find any links/coverage of the shift.
gwbas1c 1y ago
I wish the article had examples and screenshots. It's just a rant, and a poor one at that.
aagha 1y ago
1. Pay for a license of Win Pro. 2. Win11Debloat - https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat 3. O&O Shutup - https://www.oo-software.com/ https://www.oo-software.com/
- sitzkrieg 1y ago
  or simply use win10 ltsc + massgrave + o&o and use the last decent windows forever.
- Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
  I would also add: WindowBlinds 11 - https://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/ https://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/ - Reskin your GUI elements to make it look like Windows 7. Start 11 - https://www.stardock.com/products/start11/ https://www.stardock.com/products/start11/ - Bring back a more classic Start Menu UX.
  - SilverElfin 1y ago
    Are all of these apps and the parent’s apps safe? I feel uneasy having to install a bunch of random things, not knowing really what they may be doing.
    - Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
      I don't know about Win11Debloat (Though it's open source, so you can check it yourself), but O&O has been in business for a couple decades now. I used to use their Defrag app back in the WinXP days. WindowBlinds 11 and Start 11 are made by Stardock, who has also made some AAA games like Ashes of the Singularity and the Galactic Civilizations series. They've also released other utilities for Windows to improve UX. If you've ever heard of a program called Multiplicity that allows you to use one mouse/keyboard for two computers without a KVM switch, that's Stardock. I personally use WindowBlinds on my Win10 PC because Win7 with the Classic theme (Which I guess really is just Win98) was peak UI and I will never move on from it. I love my grey taskbar with 3D buttons.
- 1y ago
stuartd 1y ago
I’m using Windows 11 at my new job and wow, it really is horrible (always been a server OS user at work, Mac at home) This whole thing about it opening links in Edge despite your preferences is just.. bizarre! It’s like they had a bet on “hey what’s the most user hostile thing we can get away with?!”
jbaber 1y ago
At this point, how much does Microsoft make per license? Like cost to customer and/or OEM for the system, plus selling scraped user data? $100 or something? Maybe they could make as much just selling perfect Linux binaries of Excel, Word, Outlook. Then charge small amounts for upgrades annually. Decouple the popular software from the OS. They could still sell the OS to businesses (e.g. because they want ActiveDirectory). But for regular customers, make money off the software. It worked for Sega.
randomcarbloke 1y ago
My god El Reg has fallen off, that was the worst article I have ever read.
southernplaces7 1y ago
Folks, all this nonsense can be avoided with the following steps. First, tell Microsoft to fuck itself by not using its constantly-updated, parasitic, hostile bloatware version of Windows. Second, without having to pay Microshit, simply download an LTSC version from the following source. https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links Given all the shittery Microsoft regularly commits against users, there is not a single moral conundrum in grabbing a copy of their OS with the abusive aspects cut right out, and resting easier. Anyone here who mealy-mouths about this being wrong has their head up their ass. I really hope the "hacker" in hacker news can stand for at least a tiny modicum of something more than fervently virtue-signalling to an abusive dumpster fire of a megacorp.

108 points by beardyw 1y ago

Windows users have no negotiating power. Windows will continued to be monetized in user-hostile ways. Call it enshittification, call it the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, call it what ever you want. It won't reach a breaking point. It'll just get worse and worse, steadily and slowly. I'm trapped because I'm a C#/WPF developer. But, the day after I retire will see a reformat and installation of Debian. The only thing I'll miss is Directory Opus.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
yndoendo 1y ago
Also currently a C#/WPF and Windows is permanently segregated to a VM for development. At the end of the day I don't have to use their terrible OS. Retirement is not having to deal with IT that latches onto Microsoft like a parasite.
- nix0n 1y ago
  > Windows is permanently segregated to a VM for development Have you been able to get a debugger working for this? Last time I tried to develop C++ this way, the Visual Studio debugger would not work from within a VM.

joenot443 1y ago

> The ideal, therefore, is an automated Windows detoxifier with a solid chain of trust; one that's rapidly updated to track new outbreaks of unwholesomeness; one that's constructed to be usable by anyone, and to be configurable so that the user can dial in what they want to go. Maybe I'm wrong, but I was certain something like this already exists?

paxys 1y ago
It's called Linux
- JackAcid 1y ago
  And FreeBSD.
nehal3m 1y ago
I would also like to joke that you’re describing Linux, but there’s a great tool by Chris Titus, the YouTuber: https://christitus.com/windows-tool/ https://christitus.com/windows-tool/ It has worked well for me on a gaming system that does not contain sensitive data, check it out.
- joenot443 1y ago
  Thank you! This is exactly what I was thinking of :)
fuzzfactor 1y ago
When it comes to tweaking Windows, >Doing things manually by recipe is also less than optimal. >The ideal, therefore, is an automated Windows detoxifier I've already seen it baked in for a few years now for specialized uses. There are scientific instruments which require very specialized software from the manufacturer, Windows-only naturally, and to use the latest software you need a post-2022 OS version now. The most recently-purchased are on Windows 10, set up by the "experts", and run like dogs compared to the 20-year-old instruments still using Windows XP. The same app version on W11 is very noticeably worse and I've been working on it in preparation for migration. For XP Pro there was a couple documentation pages of manual settings to Windows that you were expected to follow which increased Windows performance, before installing the major lab app. Now there are quite a few pages to the manual checklist beforehand, and then during install a factory autoscript tweaks away and stuffs in some dependencies for about a half hour before the package finally begins to install. Afterward alerting you if any recognized beneficial manual changes are still recommended. Not only Pro, but Enterprise and LTSC are supported now but they are not so great either. Arf arf, it still wants to make you howl :( There are dozens more settings that need to be identified and experimented with, fortunately it's a 24/7 lab and this started as soon as W11 was released. Anyway, Windows has gotten to the point where I can make plenty as a consultant just visiting labs and recovering untapped workflow from the electronics. Which never would have paid off even a few years ago. I don't even need to automate. Manual is just fine. As things progress it's likely to pay better than being a referee witness or calibrating the instruments against NIST-traceable materials too. Decades ago I wrote thousands of LOC before they had very advanced software like this, now I still write pages of text but it's all "scripts". And not mainly the code kind, more like a screenplay where I'm the actor following the script my own self with a number of one-liners :\ Reproducible results require a reproducible environment so it's worth it. Today the instrument manufacturer's offerings are very advanced, you need their current app version to support the newest instruments, but the app also does still support a number of 20-year old models. Basically new software has shipped with updated factory device drivers for the old (expensive) lab hardware to keep it running with later Windows versions. I have one of those on the bench that is highly reliable for years on XP, that way it uses up less than 1 GB of memory and only 1.2 GB of drive space for Windows, plus another 1.4 GB of 2006 instrument software and it runs like a top. The new software on W11 can get the same instrument to analyze the chemical in the same amount of bench time and get the same result from the same calibration. This is impressive but anything less would always be complete failure. The instrument factory engineers have gone the extra mile with their built-in auto-tweaking script too. Too bad nothing less would do. But all interactions with the combined system are still like you've got a Chihuahua in a Greyhound race compared to XP. And Windows 11 does it with Enterprise "only" taking up about 10 GB, and then the lab app takes another 15 GB on the drive, plus you've got to have at least 8 GB of memory. Or approximately 10x the PC resources to do a noticeably poorer job of accomplishing a comparable thing using the exact same instrument. Or if you are not prepared to give the workflow a complete workover, a much worse performance when it comes to what you can get done on the same analyzer in one day. Although everybody should have a chance to get their hands on XP when it's mainlining SSDeroids on the bare metal :)

lenerdenator 1y ago

Honestly, the end of Windows 10 has me off Windows as much as possible from here on out. I'm an old man now. They moved my cheese. How dare they. Also they put more tracking crap on the OS that I don't want.

timw4mail 1y ago
They moved my cheese, they removed my cheese, they replaced my cheese with worse cheese.

jjbinx007 1y ago

For home users I'd say the biggest thing that keeps them on Windows is gaming, but Valve have made excellent progress at getting games to run on Linux now. For business users I'd say the biggest thing is Active Directory - being able to manage and micro-manage a fleet of hundreds or thousands of PCs by a small team is highly desirable.

qualeed 1y ago
>For business users I'd say the biggest thing is Active Directory Also QuickBooks (online does not come close to replacing desktop enterprise) & CAD, in my experience.
- jabroni_salad 1y ago
  The small/midsize banking ecosystem (jack henry, fiserv, FIS) runs on windows server as well. maybe the big guys with a self-developed platform have it better.
- neutronicus 1y ago
  Yeah I work on Architectural CAD and let me tell you that Linux and the browser and both not even close to on the roadmap. The application is cumbersome enough as a native app I can't even imagine if the whole thing were ported to run on JS.
paxys 1y ago
It's all about applications. The % of business apps out there with Linux support is negligible. The majority of mid-large sized companies worldwide would fail without the Office suite, or really just Excel.
- voxic11 1y ago
  Office and Excel are now both browser based though right? So they should run on Linux as well as they do on Windows. The last two companies I have worked for didn't even use Office or Excel they used Google Workspace.

nftom 1y ago

[flagged]

nerdjon 1y ago

I know I have said this many times, but if you need Windows just use Windows 11 LTSC. It lacks almost all of the bulk and crap that Microsoft is trying to shove into Windows. And the things that are missing if you really need them are easy to install. Don't believe Microsoft's "marketing" about LTSC that it won't work for a general purpose OS. I use this for my gaming PC and it is fantastic. No need for any sort of debloat script that is doing untested things, LTSC is a working version of Windows.

jmkni 1y ago
Where do you get your hands on a legit copy though? It's infuriating, I would happily pay for a real licence for this, and MS makes it basically impossible to do so.
- nerdjon 1y ago
  Microsoft makes it hard (impossible) because they don't want normal users using LTSC. They try very hard in their marketing to make it seem like LTSC is not good for general purpose computing since it removes many of the features they are trying to push and their ability to show ads. That being said, check out the WindowsLTSC subreddit. All the information on how to get it is there. You don't need any sort of crack make it work and don't need to go anywhere shady to get the ISO. And if you are concerned from an ethical standpoint, buy a normal Windows license and just install LTSC instead.
  - ahartmetz 1y ago
    Sounds a lot like "Win2k is not for home users" back then. It was the best Windows version in a long time.
- zamadatix 1y ago
  The last I looked into this these were the conclusions I reached (depending on individual situation): - If you're looking to do this 100% to the letter, then you'll need to enter some form of VL agreement with an authorized reseller. This will come with a minimum purchase of 5 licenses. - If you're looking to do this with a "real" key, but not by the book, then one of the gray market sites. - If you're looking to do this morally (by paying Microsoft), but don't care if the actual activation is completed with the license you purchase, then purchase a Windows 11 Pro license but use https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts/ https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts/ to activate your Windows 11 LTSC. The ISO itself can still be sourced from Microsoft. - If you don't care about any of this, then the same as the above except don't buy the Windows 11 Pro License - If you absolutely want to buy a single license "by the book"... there is no official offering available.

FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago

Windows is an onramp for their online services and a data harvesting tool. The entire industry is going this way and we have enabled it through overly complicated abstractions and an obsession with "web-scale". Start by building on-premise systems and you'll develop a different mindset.

red-iron-pine 1y ago
on-prem systems in F500s in 2025? good luck mate, they love the cloud even though they probably shouldn't
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
  Stuff comes back on-prem or at lest colocated breach by breach and lawsuit by lawsuit...

jrm4 1y ago

A little offtopic, but this headline perfectly illustrates why I (a Black person, perhaps relevant) never much liked the term "micro-aggressions" in the way it was initiated. Call the person out as e.g. racist or don't. Or call out the statement or whatever as stupid or messed up and make them apologize. But, nitpicking things as "micro-aggressions" and giving them this weird power, meh. Just say, "Hey, get a load of this a-hole" and move on. Now, here it kind of works because they are micro and because it's not a human, etc.

twilo 1y ago

I use this thing daily, its a win11 pro, and I see no issues with it at all... I am the only one?

hu3 1y ago
Same. I need a Windows machine for legacy .NET projects and the pro version just works. I think most problems stem from home versions of windows. Still prefer my Linux machine tho.
- 3x35r22m4u 1y ago
  Yup. Home version is full of gadgets with news, weather, offers, AI stuff in the task bar... feels claustrophobic.
jabroni_salad 1y ago
Despite always opting out of onedrive, one day it somehow activated itself, converted all my personal files into web shortcuts, and then complained about being out of space. All my stuff is backed up to a synology so it wasnt a huge ordeal, but there are horror stories around the net about onedrive interactions.
inversetelecine 1y ago
I use various versions of Windows 11, mostly LTSC because I'm lazy. Otherwise I'll do a light debloat with something like ShutUp10 to turn off the majority of the annoyances. I'm able to deal with any snafus from this so it's not an issue for me. No real issues to report. Various OEM and custom machines run fine. Ever since Windows 7 I'd say I haven't ran into major issues or even many minor ones.

ringeryless 1y ago

but building such a free tool would only encourage more windows usage... stop enabling abusers. oem bundling should be seen for the extortion it is, and not one more red cent should go to Redmond

resource_waste 1y ago

Over the last week, I helped 4 people get a piece of software working on Windows. Something I found mind boggling is that the windows/search button doesnt load every time. From my nvidia 3060 gpu laptop, to my tiny i5, to cheap refurbished laptops, all computers seem to have an issue displaying the search/windows button's data. I believe if you wait long enough, it shows up, but sometimes you click off and re-click. Anyway, its utterly mind boggling that the OS that has 90% of users has this issue. (My guess is that its doing some sort of online thing and it wont display results until it gets the ads/sends data)

staticman2 1y ago
Yeah... that's why I install Everything to have a third party search backup app. My sense is this has been a problem for a long time and Microsoft presumably just doesn't care.

taeric 1y ago

I'm all for complaining about silly little things in computers. Can we not with "micro-aggression" though? Seems any chance that term had for being a useful one was destroyed by it being used in precisely the way that it was coined to identify.

voxleone 1y ago

[sigh] I remember when modal windows were the only imaginable disruption to your work. The irony is, at least they had a clear purpose — and a close button. Use Linux. Windows is over if you want it.

inversetelecine 1y ago
Does Linux have a stable and reliable remote desktop server yet? Using Wayland. I love being able to remote into my home PC and experience near lag-free use via RDP. I've tried the Gnome and KDE implementations but they aren't that great as a user who just wants to connect and use the PC. I found the gnome one confusing, as it had two options. One had to be logged into locally and unlocked first. The other didn't I believe but there was some other gotcha. Maybe having signed in once but then locked the session. I do remember not being able to RDP from a fresh reboot which made me think the machine failed to boot. KDE's implementation I think also suffered from having to log in locally first. I've made use of Sunshine and Moonlight for now. It works, but it's meant more for gaming. No copy and paste, more bandwidth or more cpu/gpu cycles, etc.
- taeric 1y ago
  I'm curious why you need a graphical remote experience? Note, I'm specifically not trying to dissuade you. My guess is that what is driving your need will likely lead you to specific solutions. Though, I do have to hazard a guess that Wayland will be a bit of a hiccup. Remove graphical desktops were niche enough that a lot of the good solutions for them in the past have not been high on people's radars.
- glitchc 1y ago
  VNC works really well for Linux based workstations. Both RealVNC and TightVNC are good although RealVNC has started pushing their cloud offering recently. Install on both machines, one running as server, the other as a client.
  - JohnFen 1y ago
    VNC does desktop sharing. That's useful, but very different from remote desktops. Wayland's lack of the ability to do actual remote desktops is the showstopper for Wayland for me.

rco8786 1y ago

I had to turn off 2-3 different settings to make the ads go away just on the default desktop. It really is bad.

bigyabai 1y ago
Having to open settings to disable default advertising is why I cannot fundamentally respect Windows 10/11 or modern MacOS as operating systems.

deleted 1y ago

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jauntywundrkind 1y ago

I went looking for a write-up but I would have sworn ~2 years ago Microsoft had disbanded Windows as its own team, and put half the people under Azure and half under like Office or something. Really feel like there's a Conway's Law explanation that would underscore the shift here. But I failed to find any links/coverage of the shift.

gwbas1c 1y ago

I wish the article had examples and screenshots. It's just a rant, and a poor one at that.

aagha 1y ago

1. Pay for a license of Win Pro. 2. Win11Debloat - https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat 3. O&O Shutup - https://www.oo-software.com/ https://www.oo-software.com/

sitzkrieg 1y ago
or simply use win10 ltsc + massgrave + o&o and use the last decent windows forever.
Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
I would also add: WindowBlinds 11 - https://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/ https://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/ - Reskin your GUI elements to make it look like Windows 7. Start 11 - https://www.stardock.com/products/start11/ https://www.stardock.com/products/start11/ - Bring back a more classic Start Menu UX.
- SilverElfin 1y ago
  Are all of these apps and the parent’s apps safe? I feel uneasy having to install a bunch of random things, not knowing really what they may be doing.
  - Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
    I don't know about Win11Debloat (Though it's open source, so you can check it yourself), but O&O has been in business for a couple decades now. I used to use their Defrag app back in the WinXP days. WindowBlinds 11 and Start 11 are made by Stardock, who has also made some AAA games like Ashes of the Singularity and the Galactic Civilizations series. They've also released other utilities for Windows to improve UX. If you've ever heard of a program called Multiplicity that allows you to use one mouse/keyboard for two computers without a KVM switch, that's Stardock. I personally use WindowBlinds on my Win10 PC because Win7 with the Classic theme (Which I guess really is just Win98) was peak UI and I will never move on from it. I love my grey taskbar with 3D buttons.
1y ago

stuartd 1y ago

I’m using Windows 11 at my new job and wow, it really is horrible (always been a server OS user at work, Mac at home) This whole thing about it opening links in Edge despite your preferences is just.. bizarre! It’s like they had a bet on “hey what’s the most user hostile thing we can get away with?!”

jbaber 1y ago

At this point, how much does Microsoft make per license? Like cost to customer and/or OEM for the system, plus selling scraped user data? $100 or something? Maybe they could make as much just selling perfect Linux binaries of Excel, Word, Outlook. Then charge small amounts for upgrades annually. Decouple the popular software from the OS. They could still sell the OS to businesses (e.g. because they want ActiveDirectory). But for regular customers, make money off the software. It worked for Sega.

randomcarbloke 1y ago

My god El Reg has fallen off, that was the worst article I have ever read.

southernplaces7 1y ago

Folks, all this nonsense can be avoided with the following steps. First, tell Microsoft to fuck itself by not using its constantly-updated, parasitic, hostile bloatware version of Windows. Second, without having to pay Microshit, simply download an LTSC version from the following source. https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links Given all the shittery Microsoft regularly commits against users, there is not a single moral conundrum in grabbing a copy of their OS with the abusive aspects cut right out, and resting easier. Anyone here who mealy-mouths about this being wrong has their head up their ass. I really hope the "hacker" in hacker news can stand for at least a tiny modicum of something more than fervently virtue-signalling to an abusive dumpster fire of a megacorp.