6 ms·

Microsoft confirms Windows 11 is about to change

147 points by OptionOfT 11mo ago

LunicLynx 11mo ago
Even my mother of 75 years switched to a Mac. Microsoft does not understand the effect of these stupid decisions. They also don’t seem to realize that MacOS was the operating system for many demos on the just finished dotnetConf … If your developers don’t want to use your system how do you expect others to use it…
- downrightmike 11mo ago
  Doing the needful...
- Herring 11mo ago
  I think they know and this is a hail mary. Windows market share has been gradually eroding. They don't intend to go quietly.
- koakuma-chan 11mo ago
  It's ok that developers don't use Windows. Developers can use macOS. Windows is for office workers where AI features can be helpful.
  - worik 11mo ago
    > AI features can be helpful. Embedded into the operating system? Will they be helpful there? IMO there are better ways
    - koakuma-chan 11mo ago
      Yes it will be helpful when you are an office worker staring at an excel sheet 9 to 5. I've been there and I don't care if it scans my entire PC or whatever, if I can prompt it to click around on my screen to do the thing.
      - ryanjshaw 11mo ago
        Vast majority of HN does not seem to understand just how powerful the modern Microsoft stack is for office workers. Integrated AI solves so many real problems, not the least of which is that it’s sanctioned by IT.
        thewebguyd 11mo ago
        > not the least of which is that it’s sanctioned by IT. This is the big thing that Microsoft understands. For a non-tech company, it's going to be pretty hard to get buy in to pay for ChatGPT enterprise, and then pay for/spend dev or IT resources to integrate it (and develop those integrations) with their already existing Microsoft/SharePoint/Teams stack to make it useful. And then you still don't get the convenient Office app add-ins. Microsoft bundles this all, integrates it for you, and provides a GUI for governance controls. It's very click-ops focused, which enterprise IT likes, and the bundling means you don't have to sell those with the wallets on buying extra third party tools. Nobody every got fired for buying s/IBM/Microsoft
    - bdcrazy 11mo ago
      Hey computer, what files did i work on last thursday afternoon? and it'd show me a collage of word, excel emails and cad files I was using. this would be fantastic. If it worked. and didn't require i sell what's left of myself to the computer.
      - axus 11mo ago
        I click Windows 11 "Start" button and under Recommended it has the last 6 files I opened. Click "More", and there's a list of files for the last two weeks with dates, and timestamps for the last week. So they've already got this idea covered. We do have all the News and Weather and other "Suggestions" turned off. Adding features isn't inherently a bad thing, but we don't believe Microsoft can do it without making the existing features worse.
        bdcrazy 11mo ago
        That sounds like a useful feature. Thanks. alas my new work laptop is still on win 10.
      - bostik 11mo ago
        WinFS and Longhorn are back on the wishlist, apparently. But this time you're getting a really fat thin client OS and non-deterministic execution.
    - thewebguyd 11mo ago
      Yes, if it works (and that's a big if). For the normie/general office worker, even Copilot (the Microsoft 365 for Business version) has been wildly popular where I work. "Copilot, help me prepare for this meeting coming up" and the worker gets a nice little package of all the emails, word docs, spreadsheets, teams/sharepoint convos, etc. related to the meeting. Imagine: User accidentally deletes file. Instead of opening a help desk ticket, they can ask Copilot "Hey Copilot, I accidentally deleted this excel file, can you get it back?" and the OS integrated AI restores it from volume shadow copy, or from %appdata% or "Hey copilot, I have a meeting starting. Can you turn on do not disturb, and open my xyz presentation for screen sharing" Yeah, those things can be done pretty fast manually, or even scripted, but the average office worker doesn't have the computer knowledge to do so. A real functioning version of (to use their buzzword) "agentic" AI integrated in the OS means they don't need the knowledge, just ask the computer to do it for them. It could be huge, but I have my doubts it'll actually work as well as Microsoft wishes it would.
      - koakuma-chan 11mo ago
        That actually sounds very cool and exciting. If Microsoft is reading this—we should talk! My email address is in my bio.
    - croon 11mo ago
      I'm as big a skeptic as anyone, but having it integrated into the OS could be very helpful to a lot of people. I myself will of course run for the hills due to the considerable trade-offs of that decision (always-online, tracking, surveillance, huge attack surface, etc), but I can't dismiss the fact that a lot of people will take the usefulness of the features without considering the cost.
  - thewebguyd 11mo ago
    > It's ok that developers don't use Windows. Sure. Except once upon a time ago, Microsoft was really big on dogfooding and it definitively was not ok for Microsoft's developers to not use Windows. Seeing their employees using macs on stage at conferences sends a very clear message "don't bother with Windows. It isn't even good enough for our own staff to use." What happened to "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!"? Ballmer was not a good CEO, but he understood at least that dev & enthusiast mindshare = your product being chosen and recommended elsewhere.
  - bigfatkitten 11mo ago
    > Developers can use macOS. Developers building things like web apps can use macOS. Developers developing for Windows, or who need Windows-only toolchains cannot.
    - mostlysimilar 11mo ago
      Who's developing for Windows? Microsoft themselves are turning things that would naturally have been native into web views instead.
      - bigfatkitten 11mo ago
        The people building the many thousands of native Windows apps used by millions of people every day. CAD/CAM systems. GIS applications. Automatic teller machine software. Public safety dispatch systems. Automotive diagnostic tools. Point of sale systems. List goes on.
        array_key_first 11mo ago
        While these systems are often written for Windows, there's actually very little reason to do so, and typically you're doing yourself a huge disservice. Yes you can build a POS system using Windows tech, but you don't really gain much by doing so, other than a whole host of headaches when it comes to deployment and administration.
        bigfatkitten 11mo ago
        This is only remotely true for embedded systems, where you ship a fully integrated device, with all its associated peripherals as a turn-key system that does not have to interoperate with anything else. If you’re in the business of shipping software that needs to run alongside other people’s software on the same machine, it’s a disaster. Linux userspace backwards compatibility is extremely poor, the “solutions” to this issue (Flatpak, Snap et al) generally create more management problems than they solve. Desktop Linux is already an absolute monster to manage. Try securely deploying hardware-backed PKI certificates for 802.1x to a fleet of Linux workstations. Takes a couple of minutes on Windows and macOS, but it’s a massive engineering effort on Linux.
  - pjmlp 11mo ago
    I always find funny that Windows, games consoles, mainframe, micros, and embedded software sprungs into existence via magic pixie dust, as developers only use UNIX.
- keraf 11mo ago
  My parents are both 70+ and I put them on Linux (Ubuntu and Mint) a decade ago, best decision ever. All the frustration from Windows went away overnight. They are simple computer users - browsing (email, search, booking), opening PDFs, offloading photos from a camera and watching them, editing word documents and spreadsheets, everything just works with no friction. I'm so happy they never got to experience Windows 11. A few months ago, I switched my aunt (70+ as well) to Linux Mint after repeated issues with Windows 10 and now 11. The last straw was the printer stopped working one day out of the blue. Tired to re-install it for over an hour, impossible! When I installed Mint and looked to add the printer, it was already there and ready to work. And for the user experience, I just sat her in front of the computer and asker her to do various tasks that she would normally do on Windows without any explanation, and she just did them intuitively. She even sent me a message a few days ago to thank me for installing Linux on her machine! Microsoft keep shooting themselves in the foot with Windows, it's like they don't even care about consumer operating systems anymore. Most popular Linux distros are stable and easy to use, for an average computer user it's perfect. I also daily drive Linux (Bazzite, based on Fedora Silverblue) and it does everything I need - coding, browsing, games, it's all there. I'm never going back to Windows.
  - klaussilveira 11mo ago
    Same experience here. Couple with one of the Redmond themes, and all of a sudden everything looks similar: https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Redmond-Themes https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Redmond-Themes Just works.
stalfosknight 11mo ago
WTF is wrong with Microsoft? No one is asking for this.
- blibble 11mo ago
  Microsoft is the world's first AI controlled company the CEO has been conned into the bullshit, and now has "AI" Chiefs of Staff telling him what to do https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-05-15/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-on-his-ai-efforts-and-openai-partnership https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-05-15/microsoft... "Excellent question!" "Great idea!" "You're so smart!" you can see how someone can fall into this trap, but normally they're not the one at the top so it's somewhat harmless if you get someone at the top though... they can enforce their will downwards via KPIs and OKRs
  - rsynnott 11mo ago
    .... Oh, wow, I assumed you were _joking_, but: > At the office, he relies on Copilot to deliver summaries of messages he receives in Outlook and Teams and toggles among at least 10 custom agents from Copilot Studio. He views them as his AI chiefs of staff, delegating meeting prep, research and other tasks to the bots.
- bachmeier 11mo ago
  I don't think that's how these decisions are made. Their objective certainly does not have anything to do with happy users. Even if they lose a few (very few probably) Windows users they want to stay relevant in the AI race.
  - PKop 11mo ago
    > stay relevant in the AI race The race to what, pursue more of what users don't want so as to lose even more of them?
    - AlexandrB 11mo ago
      The race to talk more about AI at the quarterly earnings call.
IAmBroom 11mo ago
OK, the headline got borked into ungrammatical garbage, but that's probably an HN filter thing. MS is going all-in on something the users don't want... surprise! Your OS is going to be involuntarily made all-AI all-the-time. And somehow, this fundamental change isn't even worthy of a rev; it's still "Windows 11" - FWIW. My favorite part of the article is when they refer to it (apparently accidentally) as MS Widows.
- IAmBroom 11mo ago
  I can't open an app anywhere anymore without some popup in my way, excitedly telling me I can now use AI to <do what I've always done>, and I have choices of "Use now" or "Ask me later".
- kps 11mo ago
  > “How about making widows fast?” Will AI spare the children as well?
- quadrifoliate 11mo ago
  If anyone's taking requests for the filter, removing adjectives or adverbs preferentially would be better if possible. The shortened title has an unnecessary "enormous", but mangles actual meaning.
tehjoker 11mo ago
The problem is that I don't really trust a big company to have an agent monitoring me let alone all the phoning home it does, but in an alternative universe, I can see the vision here as creating something that is closer to a starship-type OS from scifi where interactions are increasingly natural. That's interesting, but at the same time, what does it mean when the computer has its own kind of volition and is more loyal to the company than to you?
- wvenable 11mo ago
  Computers are too complicated for the average user. So many people have me on speed-dial to fix issues or walk them through stuff. And AI is surprisingly good at this stuff. If someone can simply say "Connect my bluetooth headphones" and the computer does it that's a big deal. But this is balanced by the fact that we live in a world where all our software is effectively user hostile -- look for whatever means possible to extract more value from us. This is the society that we live in now.
  - vorpalhex 11mo ago
    I think the "my computer is too complicated" is mostly a Windows issue. I don't think I can pair a bluetooth headset on Windows 10! Folks don't seem to have these problems on macs or their phones.
    - wvenable 11mo ago
      To be fair, Windows runs on an infinite combination of devices and Airpods only work fully on Apple devices.
- AnimalMuppet 11mo ago
  Yeah, if I have an agent in my computer, I want it to work for me, and nobody else. Not the company that sold it to me, not the FBI or CIA, nobody but me. Otherwise it's not my computer.
- pndy 11mo ago
  > I can see the vision here as creating something that is closer to a starship-type OS from scifi where interactions are increasingly natural Then you're a real optimist. I'm afraid this whole AI technology once settles down will be nothing more than a corporate tool to manipulate populations economic behavior and perception of the world. An antithesis to what for example was seen in Star Trek, and something even worse than HAL9000.
AtlasBarfed 11mo ago
Agentic will be the worst word invented in the last 100 years of humanity.
- WolfeReader 11mo ago
  I love the subtle double meaning of "the last 100 years of humanity". Kudos!
MrDrMcCoy 11mo ago
Gives me hope for more desktop Linux adoption :-D
- glonq 11mo ago
  I'm thinking that Valve's new SteamBox will help this tremendously.
  - xeonmc 11mo ago
    You meant GabeCube
smartmic 11mo ago
It would be wonderful if this were the final blow for Windows as a classic PC operating system and if Linux were to establish itself on the desktop as a more than reasonable, indeed unavoidable, alternative. The problem with AI is that it offers apparent solutions to non-existent problems. How long will big tech continue to back a horse that the general public does not want to ride?
- josefritzishere 11mo ago
  Only in my dreams.
- worik 11mo ago
  > The problem with AI is that it offers apparent solutions to non-existent problems Yes The good thing about AI is it offers assistance with old, tractable, problems When it is everywhere it is an unhelpful annoyance
  - palmotea 11mo ago
    > The good thing about AI is it offers assistance with old, tractable, problems That doesn't sound very good. I'm not sure if it's sarcasm or a typo. If the problem is old and tractable, you don't need AI for it. You could use a simpler, more efficient, and more reliable technology.
    - worik 11mo ago
      Good point! "old, tractable" and hard problems. Routine things.
- pndy 11mo ago
  There's sadly whole business and services sector that relies on deals with MS. My mother mid pandemic placed an order for a hearing aid which is partially supported with money from our healthcare system. Unlike 10-15 years ago nowadays everything is digitalized and done by the Internet - clients are no longer running around the city with paper forms. Sadly that means every personal information, data is exposed to Windows and with W11 it's even less possible to avoid being harvested. Not mention always online browser software used for hearing tests that surely collects on its own.
happytoexplain 11mo ago
We've been working against the direction of capitalism and human nature for fifty years to achieve the promise of software, in all its theoretical beauty. It was always an uphill battle, but the glimmer of possibility never completely disappeared. In all this time, I never could have guessed that AI would be the thing to finally kill the promise of software.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- AlexandrB 11mo ago
  It's not capitalism, it's too-strong IP laws and "contempt of business model". Reverse engineering for interoperability should be legal under any circumstances - regardless of whether you have to break encryption to do it. Vendors have way too much control over how end users interact with their products.
  - ShroudedNight 11mo ago
    It's not just that, current sentiment around the CFAA is that any kind of unsanctioned third-party user agent for anything that isn't the open web is potentially prosecutable. Plus, if the big user platforms decide they don't like some aspect of what you're doing, they will shut down all of your access, and potentially access of others close to you, everywhere, and aggressively prevent you from reestablishing even a baseline of inoffensive participation, at great potential cost to your well-being.
  - happytoexplain 11mo ago
    >It's not capitalism, it's too-strong IP laws and "contempt of business model". This just seems like a semantic disagreement - I'm using "capitalism" by its common colloquial definition: As a loose shorthand for "the way we run things here", i.e. as a superset of the thing you've said.
embedding-shape 11mo ago
> Microsoft's Windows chief Pavan Davuluri had earlier hinted at such plans already about how the next evolution of OS will make it capable enough to make it "semantically understand you" as Windows will get "more ambient, more pervasive, more multi-modal". Using features like Copilot Vision it will be able to "look at your screen" and do more. These are not words that usually leads to user shouting "Yay, finally, what a pleasure this is to use now!". Why even use the word "pervasive" and the term "look at your screen", almost sounds like it's intentional to turn a specific segment of users away. I feel like we're still discovering how security, privacy and LLMs connect together. Add in a OS-available MCP that has access to your computer and applications, and I feel like it's way too early to integrate it on that level, especially when they at the same time say "security is our top priority".
- polski-g 11mo ago
  Instead of Office Clippy, your entire OS will be Clippy!
  - poly2it 11mo ago
    Clippy will generate your OS for you in real time!
- pndy 11mo ago
  Of course they won't admit they screw everything up and that's what exactly made their users run away to competition or towards FOSS alternatives. So there's this toxic marketing positivity clown dance of "plans" happen while they're ignoring once again the criticism and feedback. And frankly, I'm fed up with this - not only in this particular MS case because this ridiculous bs can be seen in the whole corporate world.
  - happymellon 11mo ago
    > "No way to prevent this" says only OS where this regularly happens.
- thewebguyd 11mo ago
josefritzishere 11mo ago
Key words: more bloat incoming
hybridtupel 11mo ago
I guess now is the best time to switch to Linux. MacOS 26 being super sluggish and looking like a soap bubble game for children. Windows becoming a SkyNet OS. Meanwhile Steam just announced their new hardware on SteamOS, emphasizing that users still own their hardware and can install whatever they want.
- turtletontine 11mo ago
  I’ve been using Linux distros daily for >10years now, and I only get more confident that I made the right choice. Pretty much the only things I miss out on are Microsoft Office and Photoshop. Gaming works astonishingly well on Linux these days with Steam+Proton.
  - foobarian 11mo ago
    > Gaming works astonishingly well on Linux these days with Steam+Proton. This alone is the last frontier IMO. It's the only reason I still run Win11 on a gaming PC with a big Nvidia. Take that away and their marketshare will tank.
    - nartho 11mo ago
      I wouldn't call it the last frontier. Gaming works well enough for me to not have to worry about. I am, however, obligated to keep a Windows partition around because I do music production. If there are good DAWs that run natively on Linux, almost all plugins won't run on Linux. Everything plugin that runs as standalone or anything similar is guaranteed to not work on Linux. I am thinking about getting a Mac mini for music production only, seems it's probably the lesser of 2 evils
      - klaussilveira 11mo ago
        Which VSTs you had problems with? Have you tried LinVst?
    - thewebguyd 11mo ago
rekabis 11mo ago
As long as debloat and spyware-removing software such as Win10Privacy continue to exist, I’ll have at least one system still running a pro workstation version of Windows. But damn, they seem to be doing everything they can to drive users away.
tetrisgm 11mo ago
They need to out product people in charge. Humans buy products that delight them. I love using my PC, but in the past couple of years it’s become my Steam and emulation box, and for tinkering. They need to step up.
- thewebguyd 11mo ago
  > Humans buy products that delight them. Individuals aren't Microsoft's core customer which is why they don't care. It's the same reason Apple never went after the enterprise. Steve Jobs wanted people to choose the product, not have it chosen for them. For Microsoft, they don't care. Businesses/IT Departments are the ones choosing and shoving it on everyone else. The users don't have to like it.
dade_ 11mo ago
It’s Vista 2! I switched to Mac in 2008, and I just did it again a few days ago. Reality is that almost everything I do is Linux, but Office with its horrific file formats keep it around. Fortunately Visio is nearly dead, 3 to go.
- keyringlight 11mo ago
  With Vista it was coming from the failed Longhorn project that was supposed to be transformative to windows and longer fixing up winxp than they wanted, but at least vista ended up as plain old windows then win7 was a polished up release. For the direction MS have taken win11 I can't see them turning it around so quickly especially while they're still driving full speed in the direction they think is right. Really the question is who are they selling windows to and what do they put in it to try and make it an attractive offering. "Selling" might as well be figurative or literal seeing as they've now completely trained retail customers that they don't have to buy an OS even when before piracy was overlooked, and they'd need to be a significantly better offering than linux which is $0 and only getting better at undermining the core offering of 'running windows applications'.
  - thewebguyd 11mo ago
    > who are they selling windows to Big companies that are still all-in on Microsoft, or basically all Microsoft 365 customers (which is 89% market share). They already have, and will continue, to make Office features exclusive to Windows, leaving the macOS version of the desktop apps behind, especially as more and more functionality starts to get locked behind Copilot. They were OS agnostic for a while before the AI craze, and now it seems they want to roll back some of that agnosticism and make sure that M365 shops remain Windows shops instead of M365+macOS shops.
pm90 11mo ago
Im hopeful that the current crop of Linux PCs (hey steamos!) might finally kill windows.
- chuckadams 11mo ago
  I'm not picturing a large company running on SteamOS just yet. I doubt even Valve does.
afavour 11mo ago
> "How about making widows fast ? Not agentic" said one user clearly hoping Windows acted and felt faster than it now does. Why do I feel like Neowin is using AI to write its articles?
- tanseydavid 11mo ago
  That particular sentence gave me the exact same feeling.
protoster 11mo ago
>Windows itself is about to change in a really big way such that it already requires AI-specific hardware The AI models that everyone wants to use are cloud based. What is the purpose of AI hardware on users' machine?
- taejavu 11mo ago
  The purpose of AI hardware on users' machine is that then MS can hand-wave away any privacy concerns, claiming that anything sensitive is handled on-device.
- noisem4ker 11mo ago
  Local processing of privacy-sensitive data, that is: personal files and what is shown on screen. Just think about Recall.
toast0 11mo ago
Microsoft Bob 2: Confirmed
- TowerTall 11mo ago
  Bob 3. Bob 2 lives in the Virtual Reality Portal https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42678822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42678822
maxlin 11mo ago
Never upgrading from Windows 10 to another Windows. To a nice Linux distro next probably
shortrounddev2 11mo ago
For anyone who devs C++ on Windows because they still prefer visual studio over having to manage cmake on Linux, I've found meson to be a much friendlier build system and has really good integration with VSCode. And if you're like me and hate bourne-like shells (sh, bash, zsh), powershell works on linux and mac and there's also nushell and fish, which have nicer syntax but I've had compatibility issues in the past
tbrownaw 11mo ago
So is this a "how do we de-commoditize the OS" thing?
roscas 11mo ago
To stop being used by Windows and use Linux, ask for help with some friend that already use it. This is a great start. If you don't have anyone that use Linux, you will need to install it and this is the summary of the process for Manjaro Linux: This is for you that don't even know what Linux is. Welcome. Read below: - download an ISO file from https://manjaro.org/products/download/x86 https://manjaro.org/products/download/x86 and choose a desktop to use, Plasma is cute, XFCE4 is mega fast and Gnome is mac-like desktop - once you got the file, record this ISO to a USB pen drive with Rufus - reboot your pc and press the key to allow you to choose to boot from the USB - the usb will boot and Manjaro will open, you can start the install - once installed, your next reboot will bring Manjaro installed - start using it, install LibreOffice, video or photo editors, create music, browse the web with Firefox, LibreWolf, degoogled-chromium and you can also use Chrome if you really really want it and other browsers Configure the programs like email clients and many MANY other programs Since you already know Windows, you will now learn about computers and you will be the boss of that pc, like updates are when you want it, reboot is when you update and if you really want it There are many "versions" of Linux, like Manjaro, Ubuntu, Archlinux, Fedora, Red Hat, RockyLinux, AlmaLinux, etc. Each of those versions will usually also allow you to choose your desktop. Windows has one desktop, here you can choose from Plasma, XFCE, Gnome and many many others. Then each allow you to configure the looks and feel. It is this amazing! Now that you are the owner, the boss, the administrator of that operating system, you start using it. For the first weeks, save your documents to an external drive or pen, because if you have any problem, you will use the installer USB again and delete everything, so you have a backup of your docs. The programs you can install again.
- OnionBlender 11mo ago
  I've tried many Linux distros and Manjaro is the only one that completely fail to install.
  - roscas 11mo ago
    I installed Manjaro on many diferent hardware and virtual machines. Just because you can't install it does not mean it is not good for other people. Problably the problem is your hardware. I have installed Fedora and Windows and it did not install, because of reasons. So what was the problem? Can you install it again?
dcchambers 11mo ago
I feel like the stars are all aligned for Linux-on-the-Desktop right now. - Windows 11 forced-AI integrations and telemetry. Many "old" devices are incompatible - Windows 10 is officially end-of-life - MacOS 26 looks and feels like a toy operating system. Performance issues and bugs continue to pile up and undo the incredible work that Apple hardware teams have done the past decade. - Omarchy Linux has some substantial hype in the developer world. - Valve continuing to make Linux a first-class OS for gaming and is pushing forward ease-of-use. - New hardware from Valve looks to be a great entryway into PC Gaming/Linux for outsiders. - Framework is becoming more mainstream and has great options at all price points.
throw7 11mo ago
The Return of Clippy.
mindcrash 11mo ago
I see my decision to sunset Windows and my upcoming migration to Gentoo Linux is already paying off. Can't wait until my new hardware arrives. Also really hope that KDE Plasma and GNOME usage statistics go to the moon and Microsoft really shits their bed this time around. With all these enshittification tactics they really deserve it.
meatjuice 11mo ago
Everyday is a good day to switch to Linux.
cam_l 11mo ago
I have got to say, I rolled the dice on that headline before I read the link. Heads, windows was going to ditch all the ads and tracking, any other number and it was going full AI. Needless to say, not surprised when a number came up..
anonymousiam 11mo ago
Microsoft is repeating their own history. Initially, they integrated the GUI into the OS (Windows). Now they're integrating AI (another application) into their OS too. The result will be an even slower and more bloated OS, with a bigger maintenance burden. People are also unhappy with Microsoft's approach to privacy, which will get even worse (if that's possible) with integrated AI.
precommunicator 11mo ago
Sometimes while traveling I just watch movies on my laptop, I don't even bother to connect to Wi-Fi as there is simply no need. I wonder how Windows 11 would even work without internet, and probably it's not a bad assumption that it will refuse after a while. Anyway, just wiped W10 out of this laptop and installed KDE (underlying distro doesn't matter that much), it works amazing.
HacklesRaised 11mo ago
Enshittification doesn't just happen to products!! Who TF thought this was a good idea? Deliver a first class, lean operating system and then layer user space enhancements as requested. Are they trying to make Linux desktop happen? I'd encourage people to consider Chromebooks but I'm not sure Google deserves any more praise.
npteljes 11mo ago
I'm personally not worried, because crap like this doesn't make it into the LSTC editions, the type of Windows that's expected to be reliable and do actual work. That'll do for my multiplayer gaming needs, and for the rest of the functionalities I expect from my PC, they can fuck right off.
speak_plainly 11mo ago
All of Microsoft’s products seem like they are all trying to be everything for everyone. Instead, people want more focus. The entire experience of Windows is a mess. How many terminals does an OS need? Or settings and control panels? Or all the legacy stuff? Just start from scratch and think simple, secure, and fast…. Otherwise you get trapped and bound to endless reasons for doing stuff and no focus and end up with Windows 11.
- thewebguyd 11mo ago
  That would be great, but starting from scratch would take away Windows' core strength: backwards compatibility. There's a lot of legacy out there that depends on all that old cruft being there. There's still critical infrastructure running on Windows XP. MS could probably just virtualize it or containerize the old parts, but people made a lot of dumb choices back then and windows software got its tendrils into every part of the OS and so weird things can break when you try and containerize it.
daft_pink 11mo ago
It’s obvious that build in ai powered rpa like features are important to add to the platform.
beefnugs 11mo ago
You know this might be the final push that the long needed IT-overhaul happens: every employee now needs 2 computers. One super locked down white list only apps and network connections required to get their work data. email links completely blocked, email files can only be sent to a sandbox One with immutable sandbox tasks: internet browsing, AI processing (super locked down human chosen only data in, and only outgoing connections are to foundational model, or back to the secure system for long-term-storage/backup) (basically qubesOS, or more likely cant if microsoft needs its own secure boot and tpm hardware)
- thewebguyd 11mo ago
  This is already best practice for IT admins (even per Microsoft's own guidelines). Privileged Access Workstations. Admins get 2 computers. One privileged, locked down, where all admin tasks are done from, and one general purpose machine for email/office tasks.

147 points by OptionOfT 11mo ago

Even my mother of 75 years switched to a Mac. Microsoft does not understand the effect of these stupid decisions. They also don’t seem to realize that MacOS was the operating system for many demos on the just finished dotnetConf … If your developers don’t want to use your system how do you expect others to use it…

downrightmike 11mo ago
Doing the needful...
Herring 11mo ago
I think they know and this is a hail mary. Windows market share has been gradually eroding. They don't intend to go quietly.
koakuma-chan 11mo ago
It's ok that developers don't use Windows. Developers can use macOS. Windows is for office workers where AI features can be helpful.
- worik 11mo ago
  > AI features can be helpful. Embedded into the operating system? Will they be helpful there? IMO there are better ways
  - koakuma-chan 11mo ago
    Yes it will be helpful when you are an office worker staring at an excel sheet 9 to 5. I've been there and I don't care if it scans my entire PC or whatever, if I can prompt it to click around on my screen to do the thing.
    - ryanjshaw 11mo ago
      Vast majority of HN does not seem to understand just how powerful the modern Microsoft stack is for office workers. Integrated AI solves so many real problems, not the least of which is that it’s sanctioned by IT.
      - thewebguyd 11mo ago
        > not the least of which is that it’s sanctioned by IT. This is the big thing that Microsoft understands. For a non-tech company, it's going to be pretty hard to get buy in to pay for ChatGPT enterprise, and then pay for/spend dev or IT resources to integrate it (and develop those integrations) with their already existing Microsoft/SharePoint/Teams stack to make it useful. And then you still don't get the convenient Office app add-ins. Microsoft bundles this all, integrates it for you, and provides a GUI for governance controls. It's very click-ops focused, which enterprise IT likes, and the bundling means you don't have to sell those with the wallets on buying extra third party tools. Nobody every got fired for buying s/IBM/Microsoft
  - bdcrazy 11mo ago
    Hey computer, what files did i work on last thursday afternoon? and it'd show me a collage of word, excel emails and cad files I was using. this would be fantastic. If it worked. and didn't require i sell what's left of myself to the computer.
    - axus 11mo ago
      I click Windows 11 "Start" button and under Recommended it has the last 6 files I opened. Click "More", and there's a list of files for the last two weeks with dates, and timestamps for the last week. So they've already got this idea covered. We do have all the News and Weather and other "Suggestions" turned off. Adding features isn't inherently a bad thing, but we don't believe Microsoft can do it without making the existing features worse.
      - bdcrazy 11mo ago
        That sounds like a useful feature. Thanks. alas my new work laptop is still on win 10.
    - bostik 11mo ago
      WinFS and Longhorn are back on the wishlist, apparently. But this time you're getting a really fat thin client OS and non-deterministic execution.
  - thewebguyd 11mo ago
    Yes, if it works (and that's a big if). For the normie/general office worker, even Copilot (the Microsoft 365 for Business version) has been wildly popular where I work. "Copilot, help me prepare for this meeting coming up" and the worker gets a nice little package of all the emails, word docs, spreadsheets, teams/sharepoint convos, etc. related to the meeting. Imagine: User accidentally deletes file. Instead of opening a help desk ticket, they can ask Copilot "Hey Copilot, I accidentally deleted this excel file, can you get it back?" and the OS integrated AI restores it from volume shadow copy, or from %appdata% or "Hey copilot, I have a meeting starting. Can you turn on do not disturb, and open my xyz presentation for screen sharing" Yeah, those things can be done pretty fast manually, or even scripted, but the average office worker doesn't have the computer knowledge to do so. A real functioning version of (to use their buzzword) "agentic" AI integrated in the OS means they don't need the knowledge, just ask the computer to do it for them. It could be huge, but I have my doubts it'll actually work as well as Microsoft wishes it would.
    - koakuma-chan 11mo ago
      That actually sounds very cool and exciting. If Microsoft is reading this—we should talk! My email address is in my bio.
  - croon 11mo ago
    I'm as big a skeptic as anyone, but having it integrated into the OS could be very helpful to a lot of people. I myself will of course run for the hills due to the considerable trade-offs of that decision (always-online, tracking, surveillance, huge attack surface, etc), but I can't dismiss the fact that a lot of people will take the usefulness of the features without considering the cost.
- thewebguyd 11mo ago
  > It's ok that developers don't use Windows. Sure. Except once upon a time ago, Microsoft was really big on dogfooding and it definitively was not ok for Microsoft's developers to not use Windows. Seeing their employees using macs on stage at conferences sends a very clear message "don't bother with Windows. It isn't even good enough for our own staff to use." What happened to "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!"? Ballmer was not a good CEO, but he understood at least that dev & enthusiast mindshare = your product being chosen and recommended elsewhere.
- bigfatkitten 11mo ago
  > Developers can use macOS. Developers building things like web apps can use macOS. Developers developing for Windows, or who need Windows-only toolchains cannot.
  - mostlysimilar 11mo ago
    Who's developing for Windows? Microsoft themselves are turning things that would naturally have been native into web views instead.
    - bigfatkitten 11mo ago
      The people building the many thousands of native Windows apps used by millions of people every day. CAD/CAM systems. GIS applications. Automatic teller machine software. Public safety dispatch systems. Automotive diagnostic tools. Point of sale systems. List goes on.
      - array_key_first 11mo ago
        While these systems are often written for Windows, there's actually very little reason to do so, and typically you're doing yourself a huge disservice. Yes you can build a POS system using Windows tech, but you don't really gain much by doing so, other than a whole host of headaches when it comes to deployment and administration.
        bigfatkitten 11mo ago
        This is only remotely true for embedded systems, where you ship a fully integrated device, with all its associated peripherals as a turn-key system that does not have to interoperate with anything else. If you’re in the business of shipping software that needs to run alongside other people’s software on the same machine, it’s a disaster. Linux userspace backwards compatibility is extremely poor, the “solutions” to this issue (Flatpak, Snap et al) generally create more management problems than they solve. Desktop Linux is already an absolute monster to manage. Try securely deploying hardware-backed PKI certificates for 802.1x to a fleet of Linux workstations. Takes a couple of minutes on Windows and macOS, but it’s a massive engineering effort on Linux.
- pjmlp 11mo ago
  I always find funny that Windows, games consoles, mainframe, micros, and embedded software sprungs into existence via magic pixie dust, as developers only use UNIX.
keraf 11mo ago
My parents are both 70+ and I put them on Linux (Ubuntu and Mint) a decade ago, best decision ever. All the frustration from Windows went away overnight. They are simple computer users - browsing (email, search, booking), opening PDFs, offloading photos from a camera and watching them, editing word documents and spreadsheets, everything just works with no friction. I'm so happy they never got to experience Windows 11. A few months ago, I switched my aunt (70+ as well) to Linux Mint after repeated issues with Windows 10 and now 11. The last straw was the printer stopped working one day out of the blue. Tired to re-install it for over an hour, impossible! When I installed Mint and looked to add the printer, it was already there and ready to work. And for the user experience, I just sat her in front of the computer and asker her to do various tasks that she would normally do on Windows without any explanation, and she just did them intuitively. She even sent me a message a few days ago to thank me for installing Linux on her machine! Microsoft keep shooting themselves in the foot with Windows, it's like they don't even care about consumer operating systems anymore. Most popular Linux distros are stable and easy to use, for an average computer user it's perfect. I also daily drive Linux (Bazzite, based on Fedora Silverblue) and it does everything I need - coding, browsing, games, it's all there. I'm never going back to Windows.
- klaussilveira 11mo ago
  Same experience here. Couple with one of the Redmond themes, and all of a sudden everything looks similar: https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Redmond-Themes https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Redmond-Themes Just works.

stalfosknight 11mo ago

WTF is wrong with Microsoft? No one is asking for this.

blibble 11mo ago
Microsoft is the world's first AI controlled company the CEO has been conned into the bullshit, and now has "AI" Chiefs of Staff telling him what to do https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-05-15/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-on-his-ai-efforts-and-openai-partnership https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-05-15/microsoft... "Excellent question!" "Great idea!" "You're so smart!" you can see how someone can fall into this trap, but normally they're not the one at the top so it's somewhat harmless if you get someone at the top though... they can enforce their will downwards via KPIs and OKRs
- rsynnott 11mo ago
  .... Oh, wow, I assumed you were _joking_, but: > At the office, he relies on Copilot to deliver summaries of messages he receives in Outlook and Teams and toggles among at least 10 custom agents from Copilot Studio. He views them as his AI chiefs of staff, delegating meeting prep, research and other tasks to the bots.
bachmeier 11mo ago
I don't think that's how these decisions are made. Their objective certainly does not have anything to do with happy users. Even if they lose a few (very few probably) Windows users they want to stay relevant in the AI race.
- PKop 11mo ago
  > stay relevant in the AI race The race to what, pursue more of what users don't want so as to lose even more of them?
  - AlexandrB 11mo ago
    The race to talk more about AI at the quarterly earnings call.

IAmBroom 11mo ago

OK, the headline got borked into ungrammatical garbage, but that's probably an HN filter thing. MS is going all-in on something the users don't want... surprise! Your OS is going to be involuntarily made all-AI all-the-time. And somehow, this fundamental change isn't even worthy of a rev; it's still "Windows 11" - FWIW. My favorite part of the article is when they refer to it (apparently accidentally) as MS Widows.

IAmBroom 11mo ago
I can't open an app anywhere anymore without some popup in my way, excitedly telling me I can now use AI to <do what I've always done>, and I have choices of "Use now" or "Ask me later".
kps 11mo ago
> “How about making widows fast?” Will AI spare the children as well?
quadrifoliate 11mo ago
If anyone's taking requests for the filter, removing adjectives or adverbs preferentially would be better if possible. The shortened title has an unnecessary "enormous", but mangles actual meaning.

tehjoker 11mo ago

The problem is that I don't really trust a big company to have an agent monitoring me let alone all the phoning home it does, but in an alternative universe, I can see the vision here as creating something that is closer to a starship-type OS from scifi where interactions are increasingly natural. That's interesting, but at the same time, what does it mean when the computer has its own kind of volition and is more loyal to the company than to you?

wvenable 11mo ago
Computers are too complicated for the average user. So many people have me on speed-dial to fix issues or walk them through stuff. And AI is surprisingly good at this stuff. If someone can simply say "Connect my bluetooth headphones" and the computer does it that's a big deal. But this is balanced by the fact that we live in a world where all our software is effectively user hostile -- look for whatever means possible to extract more value from us. This is the society that we live in now.
- vorpalhex 11mo ago
  I think the "my computer is too complicated" is mostly a Windows issue. I don't think I can pair a bluetooth headset on Windows 10! Folks don't seem to have these problems on macs or their phones.
  - wvenable 11mo ago
    To be fair, Windows runs on an infinite combination of devices and Airpods only work fully on Apple devices.
AnimalMuppet 11mo ago
Yeah, if I have an agent in my computer, I want it to work for me, and nobody else. Not the company that sold it to me, not the FBI or CIA, nobody but me. Otherwise it's not my computer.
pndy 11mo ago
> I can see the vision here as creating something that is closer to a starship-type OS from scifi where interactions are increasingly natural Then you're a real optimist. I'm afraid this whole AI technology once settles down will be nothing more than a corporate tool to manipulate populations economic behavior and perception of the world. An antithesis to what for example was seen in Star Trek, and something even worse than HAL9000.

AtlasBarfed 11mo ago

Agentic will be the worst word invented in the last 100 years of humanity.

WolfeReader 11mo ago
I love the subtle double meaning of "the last 100 years of humanity". Kudos!

MrDrMcCoy 11mo ago

Gives me hope for more desktop Linux adoption :-D

glonq 11mo ago
I'm thinking that Valve's new SteamBox will help this tremendously.
- xeonmc 11mo ago
  You meant GabeCube

smartmic 11mo ago

It would be wonderful if this were the final blow for Windows as a classic PC operating system and if Linux were to establish itself on the desktop as a more than reasonable, indeed unavoidable, alternative. The problem with AI is that it offers apparent solutions to non-existent problems. How long will big tech continue to back a horse that the general public does not want to ride?

josefritzishere 11mo ago
Only in my dreams.
worik 11mo ago
> The problem with AI is that it offers apparent solutions to non-existent problems Yes The good thing about AI is it offers assistance with old, tractable, problems When it is everywhere it is an unhelpful annoyance
- palmotea 11mo ago
  > The good thing about AI is it offers assistance with old, tractable, problems That doesn't sound very good. I'm not sure if it's sarcasm or a typo. If the problem is old and tractable, you don't need AI for it. You could use a simpler, more efficient, and more reliable technology.
  - worik 11mo ago
    Good point! "old, tractable" and hard problems. Routine things.
pndy 11mo ago
There's sadly whole business and services sector that relies on deals with MS. My mother mid pandemic placed an order for a hearing aid which is partially supported with money from our healthcare system. Unlike 10-15 years ago nowadays everything is digitalized and done by the Internet - clients are no longer running around the city with paper forms. Sadly that means every personal information, data is exposed to Windows and with W11 it's even less possible to avoid being harvested. Not mention always online browser software used for hearing tests that surely collects on its own.

happytoexplain 11mo ago

We've been working against the direction of capitalism and human nature for fifty years to achieve the promise of software, in all its theoretical beauty. It was always an uphill battle, but the glimmer of possibility never completely disappeared. In all this time, I never could have guessed that AI would be the thing to finally kill the promise of software.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
AlexandrB 11mo ago
It's not capitalism, it's too-strong IP laws and "contempt of business model". Reverse engineering for interoperability should be legal under any circumstances - regardless of whether you have to break encryption to do it. Vendors have way too much control over how end users interact with their products.
- ShroudedNight 11mo ago
  It's not just that, current sentiment around the CFAA is that any kind of unsanctioned third-party user agent for anything that isn't the open web is potentially prosecutable. Plus, if the big user platforms decide they don't like some aspect of what you're doing, they will shut down all of your access, and potentially access of others close to you, everywhere, and aggressively prevent you from reestablishing even a baseline of inoffensive participation, at great potential cost to your well-being.
- happytoexplain 11mo ago
  >It's not capitalism, it's too-strong IP laws and "contempt of business model". This just seems like a semantic disagreement - I'm using "capitalism" by its common colloquial definition: As a loose shorthand for "the way we run things here", i.e. as a superset of the thing you've said.

embedding-shape 11mo ago

> Microsoft's Windows chief Pavan Davuluri had earlier hinted at such plans already about how the next evolution of OS will make it capable enough to make it "semantically understand you" as Windows will get "more ambient, more pervasive, more multi-modal". Using features like Copilot Vision it will be able to "look at your screen" and do more. These are not words that usually leads to user shouting "Yay, finally, what a pleasure this is to use now!". Why even use the word "pervasive" and the term "look at your screen", almost sounds like it's intentional to turn a specific segment of users away. I feel like we're still discovering how security, privacy and LLMs connect together. Add in a OS-available MCP that has access to your computer and applications, and I feel like it's way too early to integrate it on that level, especially when they at the same time say "security is our top priority".

polski-g 11mo ago
Instead of Office Clippy, your entire OS will be Clippy!
- poly2it 11mo ago
  Clippy will generate your OS for you in real time!
pndy 11mo ago
Of course they won't admit they screw everything up and that's what exactly made their users run away to competition or towards FOSS alternatives. So there's this toxic marketing positivity clown dance of "plans" happen while they're ignoring once again the criticism and feedback. And frankly, I'm fed up with this - not only in this particular MS case because this ridiculous bs can be seen in the whole corporate world.
- happymellon 11mo ago
  > "No way to prevent this" says only OS where this regularly happens.
thewebguyd 11mo ago

josefritzishere 11mo ago

Key words: more bloat incoming

hybridtupel 11mo ago

I guess now is the best time to switch to Linux. MacOS 26 being super sluggish and looking like a soap bubble game for children. Windows becoming a SkyNet OS. Meanwhile Steam just announced their new hardware on SteamOS, emphasizing that users still own their hardware and can install whatever they want.

turtletontine 11mo ago
I’ve been using Linux distros daily for >10years now, and I only get more confident that I made the right choice. Pretty much the only things I miss out on are Microsoft Office and Photoshop. Gaming works astonishingly well on Linux these days with Steam+Proton.
- foobarian 11mo ago
  > Gaming works astonishingly well on Linux these days with Steam+Proton. This alone is the last frontier IMO. It's the only reason I still run Win11 on a gaming PC with a big Nvidia. Take that away and their marketshare will tank.
  - nartho 11mo ago
    I wouldn't call it the last frontier. Gaming works well enough for me to not have to worry about. I am, however, obligated to keep a Windows partition around because I do music production. If there are good DAWs that run natively on Linux, almost all plugins won't run on Linux. Everything plugin that runs as standalone or anything similar is guaranteed to not work on Linux. I am thinking about getting a Mac mini for music production only, seems it's probably the lesser of 2 evils
    - klaussilveira 11mo ago
      Which VSTs you had problems with? Have you tried LinVst?
  - thewebguyd 11mo ago

rekabis 11mo ago

As long as debloat and spyware-removing software such as Win10Privacy continue to exist, I’ll have at least one system still running a pro workstation version of Windows. But damn, they seem to be doing everything they can to drive users away.

tetrisgm 11mo ago

They need to out product people in charge. Humans buy products that delight them. I love using my PC, but in the past couple of years it’s become my Steam and emulation box, and for tinkering. They need to step up.

thewebguyd 11mo ago
> Humans buy products that delight them. Individuals aren't Microsoft's core customer which is why they don't care. It's the same reason Apple never went after the enterprise. Steve Jobs wanted people to choose the product, not have it chosen for them. For Microsoft, they don't care. Businesses/IT Departments are the ones choosing and shoving it on everyone else. The users don't have to like it.

dade_ 11mo ago

It’s Vista 2! I switched to Mac in 2008, and I just did it again a few days ago. Reality is that almost everything I do is Linux, but Office with its horrific file formats keep it around. Fortunately Visio is nearly dead, 3 to go.

keyringlight 11mo ago
With Vista it was coming from the failed Longhorn project that was supposed to be transformative to windows and longer fixing up winxp than they wanted, but at least vista ended up as plain old windows then win7 was a polished up release. For the direction MS have taken win11 I can't see them turning it around so quickly especially while they're still driving full speed in the direction they think is right. Really the question is who are they selling windows to and what do they put in it to try and make it an attractive offering. "Selling" might as well be figurative or literal seeing as they've now completely trained retail customers that they don't have to buy an OS even when before piracy was overlooked, and they'd need to be a significantly better offering than linux which is $0 and only getting better at undermining the core offering of 'running windows applications'.
- thewebguyd 11mo ago
  > who are they selling windows to Big companies that are still all-in on Microsoft, or basically all Microsoft 365 customers (which is 89% market share). They already have, and will continue, to make Office features exclusive to Windows, leaving the macOS version of the desktop apps behind, especially as more and more functionality starts to get locked behind Copilot. They were OS agnostic for a while before the AI craze, and now it seems they want to roll back some of that agnosticism and make sure that M365 shops remain Windows shops instead of M365+macOS shops.

pm90 11mo ago

Im hopeful that the current crop of Linux PCs (hey steamos!) might finally kill windows.

chuckadams 11mo ago
I'm not picturing a large company running on SteamOS just yet. I doubt even Valve does.

afavour 11mo ago

> "How about making widows fast ? Not agentic" said one user clearly hoping Windows acted and felt faster than it now does. Why do I feel like Neowin is using AI to write its articles?

tanseydavid 11mo ago
That particular sentence gave me the exact same feeling.

protoster 11mo ago

>Windows itself is about to change in a really big way such that it already requires AI-specific hardware The AI models that everyone wants to use are cloud based. What is the purpose of AI hardware on users' machine?

taejavu 11mo ago
The purpose of AI hardware on users' machine is that then MS can hand-wave away any privacy concerns, claiming that anything sensitive is handled on-device.
noisem4ker 11mo ago
Local processing of privacy-sensitive data, that is: personal files and what is shown on screen. Just think about Recall.

toast0 11mo ago

Microsoft Bob 2: Confirmed

TowerTall 11mo ago
Bob 3. Bob 2 lives in the Virtual Reality Portal https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42678822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42678822

maxlin 11mo ago

Never upgrading from Windows 10 to another Windows. To a nice Linux distro next probably

shortrounddev2 11mo ago

For anyone who devs C++ on Windows because they still prefer visual studio over having to manage cmake on Linux, I've found meson to be a much friendlier build system and has really good integration with VSCode. And if you're like me and hate bourne-like shells (sh, bash, zsh), powershell works on linux and mac and there's also nushell and fish, which have nicer syntax but I've had compatibility issues in the past

tbrownaw 11mo ago

So is this a "how do we de-commoditize the OS" thing?

roscas 11mo ago

To stop being used by Windows and use Linux, ask for help with some friend that already use it. This is a great start. If you don't have anyone that use Linux, you will need to install it and this is the summary of the process for Manjaro Linux: This is for you that don't even know what Linux is. Welcome. Read below: - download an ISO file from https://manjaro.org/products/download/x86 https://manjaro.org/products/download/x86 and choose a desktop to use, Plasma is cute, XFCE4 is mega fast and Gnome is mac-like desktop - once you got the file, record this ISO to a USB pen drive with Rufus - reboot your pc and press the key to allow you to choose to boot from the USB - the usb will boot and Manjaro will open, you can start the install - once installed, your next reboot will bring Manjaro installed - start using it, install LibreOffice, video or photo editors, create music, browse the web with Firefox, LibreWolf, degoogled-chromium and you can also use Chrome if you really really want it and other browsers Configure the programs like email clients and many MANY other programs Since you already know Windows, you will now learn about computers and you will be the boss of that pc, like updates are when you want it, reboot is when you update and if you really want it There are many "versions" of Linux, like Manjaro, Ubuntu, Archlinux, Fedora, Red Hat, RockyLinux, AlmaLinux, etc. Each of those versions will usually also allow you to choose your desktop. Windows has one desktop, here you can choose from Plasma, XFCE, Gnome and many many others. Then each allow you to configure the looks and feel. It is this amazing! Now that you are the owner, the boss, the administrator of that operating system, you start using it. For the first weeks, save your documents to an external drive or pen, because if you have any problem, you will use the installer USB again and delete everything, so you have a backup of your docs. The programs you can install again.

OnionBlender 11mo ago
I've tried many Linux distros and Manjaro is the only one that completely fail to install.
- roscas 11mo ago
  I installed Manjaro on many diferent hardware and virtual machines. Just because you can't install it does not mean it is not good for other people. Problably the problem is your hardware. I have installed Fedora and Windows and it did not install, because of reasons. So what was the problem? Can you install it again?

dcchambers 11mo ago

I feel like the stars are all aligned for Linux-on-the-Desktop right now. - Windows 11 forced-AI integrations and telemetry. Many "old" devices are incompatible - Windows 10 is officially end-of-life - MacOS 26 looks and feels like a toy operating system. Performance issues and bugs continue to pile up and undo the incredible work that Apple hardware teams have done the past decade. - Omarchy Linux has some substantial hype in the developer world. - Valve continuing to make Linux a first-class OS for gaming and is pushing forward ease-of-use. - New hardware from Valve looks to be a great entryway into PC Gaming/Linux for outsiders. - Framework is becoming more mainstream and has great options at all price points.

throw7 11mo ago

The Return of Clippy.

mindcrash 11mo ago

I see my decision to sunset Windows and my upcoming migration to Gentoo Linux is already paying off. Can't wait until my new hardware arrives. Also really hope that KDE Plasma and GNOME usage statistics go to the moon and Microsoft really shits their bed this time around. With all these enshittification tactics they really deserve it.

meatjuice 11mo ago

Everyday is a good day to switch to Linux.

cam_l 11mo ago

I have got to say, I rolled the dice on that headline before I read the link. Heads, windows was going to ditch all the ads and tracking, any other number and it was going full AI. Needless to say, not surprised when a number came up..

anonymousiam 11mo ago

Microsoft is repeating their own history. Initially, they integrated the GUI into the OS (Windows). Now they're integrating AI (another application) into their OS too. The result will be an even slower and more bloated OS, with a bigger maintenance burden. People are also unhappy with Microsoft's approach to privacy, which will get even worse (if that's possible) with integrated AI.

precommunicator 11mo ago

Sometimes while traveling I just watch movies on my laptop, I don't even bother to connect to Wi-Fi as there is simply no need. I wonder how Windows 11 would even work without internet, and probably it's not a bad assumption that it will refuse after a while. Anyway, just wiped W10 out of this laptop and installed KDE (underlying distro doesn't matter that much), it works amazing.

HacklesRaised 11mo ago

Enshittification doesn't just happen to products!! Who TF thought this was a good idea? Deliver a first class, lean operating system and then layer user space enhancements as requested. Are they trying to make Linux desktop happen? I'd encourage people to consider Chromebooks but I'm not sure Google deserves any more praise.

npteljes 11mo ago

I'm personally not worried, because crap like this doesn't make it into the LSTC editions, the type of Windows that's expected to be reliable and do actual work. That'll do for my multiplayer gaming needs, and for the rest of the functionalities I expect from my PC, they can fuck right off.

speak_plainly 11mo ago

All of Microsoft’s products seem like they are all trying to be everything for everyone. Instead, people want more focus. The entire experience of Windows is a mess. How many terminals does an OS need? Or settings and control panels? Or all the legacy stuff? Just start from scratch and think simple, secure, and fast…. Otherwise you get trapped and bound to endless reasons for doing stuff and no focus and end up with Windows 11.

thewebguyd 11mo ago
That would be great, but starting from scratch would take away Windows' core strength: backwards compatibility. There's a lot of legacy out there that depends on all that old cruft being there. There's still critical infrastructure running on Windows XP. MS could probably just virtualize it or containerize the old parts, but people made a lot of dumb choices back then and windows software got its tendrils into every part of the OS and so weird things can break when you try and containerize it.

daft_pink 11mo ago

It’s obvious that build in ai powered rpa like features are important to add to the platform.

beefnugs 11mo ago

You know this might be the final push that the long needed IT-overhaul happens: every employee now needs 2 computers. One super locked down white list only apps and network connections required to get their work data. email links completely blocked, email files can only be sent to a sandbox One with immutable sandbox tasks: internet browsing, AI processing (super locked down human chosen only data in, and only outgoing connections are to foundational model, or back to the secure system for long-term-storage/backup) (basically qubesOS, or more likely cant if microsoft needs its own secure boot and tpm hardware)

thewebguyd 11mo ago
This is already best practice for IT admins (even per Microsoft's own guidelines). Privileged Access Workstations. Admins get 2 computers. One privileged, locked down, where all admin tasks are done from, and one general purpose machine for email/office tasks.