I got a message on my computer, Win10, saying my computer wasn’t capable of being upgraded to Win11, but it would be protected by updates until October? 2025. Nice of them to give me a reminder to switch to Linux.
I have a low spec desktop for work, I just load Tiny11 on it.
Distributions of Windows are an inherently terrible idea. Maybe look at amelioration scripts instead.
I haven’t heard this before. Why do you say that?
You’re putting a lot of faith in whoever packages the ‘distro’.
Obviously you have the same problem with trusting FOSS software distributions, but it’s mitigated by things like Linus’ Law and reproducible builds.
That being said, I personally use tiny11 VMs for certain non-critical things at home and work. I’d never use it for anything security related, or as my main OS, as there is a non-negligible chance that it’s compromised (and there’s basically no way of knowing).
There is nothing in 11 that I want that isn’t already in 10, and what I need from Windows vs. Linux is approaching zero.
Windows users should be outraged.
We’re at a point where a company makes an operating system used by a majority of the population while they force you to use your personal online account to log in, and they record everything you do on screen and collect an obscene amount of other information about you.
Picture MS getting breached in a couple years. What would that look like for you, the individual? Do you really trust all these screenshots are also locally stored? I doubt it. If they are today, do you trust they always will be?
I can’t help but feel the individual direct consequences to be like pretty small to the institutional risks.
Imagine China all of a sudden getting access to all the trade secrets of US companies that still ran MS. Imagine Russia gaining full access to all the government, health, educational data of every single US citizen. Or imagine something like the recent fuckup of google deleting the entire cloud of one financial institutions. Imagine MS to fuck up royally and all consumer facing computers in all banks to be broken for three weeks…
All of these are not immediately targeting the individual directly, but they can be extremely destructive to a nation or even globally as a whole.
ai can now parse and sort through that data. cambridge analytica has the potential of looking like kid’s play. who knows what they will be able to do with us.
Before this is all over, MS will be charging users to extract their snapshots from a proprietary cloud-only one drive account. The recovery process will take about 3 hours, and involve scrolling through ai-authored help articles that don’t lay out clearly and methodically how to access the old snapshots. The comments on the help articles will begin with “Hello sir, can you confirm that you have followed the steps at this link?”. The link, before delivering you to an irrelevant solution, will shunt you to a landing page that forces you to log into your microsoft account before you can see the answer.
I almost want to kill myself reading this
We’re at a point where a company makes an operating system used by a majority of the population while they force you to use your personal online account to log in
I find it hilarious to see how many people rage at this from their iPhone or Android phone where they are logged in with a personal online account in order for the device to function.
Yeah this is a fair point. Not a fan of that either.
Does Rufus installer still give the option to bypass all this BS when flashing a windows ISO to a USB?
not yet, maybe they’ll add it?
Better. And it doesnt even require a modified wim:
During OOBE setup: Shift +F10
then inputOOBE\BYPASSNRO
They’re really trying their best to make windows as unfriendly as possible, pretty annoying when they’ve already been paid, bunch of pricks
Don’t connect to the internet.
Open a cmd window with F10 (maybe it’s shift-F10?) and type the following:
OOBE\\BYPASSNROYou can thank me later.
I’m pretty sure they have removed this recently.
Do you have a source? First time I’m hearing about it
I know some folks on the SysAdmin discord mentioned it wasn’t working for them anymore. It also stopped working for me about 2 months ago. (I work in IT and set to up new computers fairly often)
But looking online real quick, several sources including Tom’s Hardware claim it still works. So I’m not sure what’s going on with it. Maybe your milage may vary?
I thought we couldn’t use Linux because people don’t want to use a command prompt.
This is the way.
And if you do connect to the Internet type ipconfig /release
Why?
Why… Why does anyone have to do this bullshit? Leave windows l, everyone for the love of everything good, leave windows!
Because Windows is still effectively a monopoly in many industries with proprietary software solutions not found on Linux.
It’s not rocket science to figure this out.
Shush you’ll just anger the cultist with logic!
Lol, right. Linux ain’t even close to replacing windows - just look at the gaming issues that persist, or other compatibility issues.
It’s great for specific use-case scenarios, but I’m not dealing with supporting friends and family when stuff doesn’t work because I told them to install a Linux distro.
Besides, business doesn’t have this issue - it’s only on home (not Pro) installs, because for business we do all sorts of system management that would preclude this, even is MS tried to push it.
This just reflects how MS sees home users - there’s no profit there (never has been, it’s always been about getting people used to Windows at home, to capture the audience).
No one in my family is allowed to use Windows Home versions. They either buy pro when they get a new computer, or I get it for them.
My standard response to “just go Linux” :
I keep having to say this, as much as I like Linux for certain things, as a desktop it’s still no competition to Windows, even with this awful shit going on.
As some background - I had my first UNIX class in about 1990. I wrote my first Fortran program on a Sperry Rand Univac (punched cards) in about 1985. Cobol was immediately after Fortran (wish I’d stuck with Cobol).
I run a Mint laptop. Power management is a joke. Configured as best as possible, walked in the other day and it was dead - as in battery at zero, won’t even boot. Windows would never do this, unless you went out of your way to config power management to kill the battery (even then, to really kill it you have to boot to BIOS and let it sit, Windows will not let a battery get to zero).
There no way even possible via the GUI to config power management for things like low/critical battery conditions /actions.
There are many reasons why Linux doesn’t compete with Windows on the desktop - this is just one glaring one.
Now let’s look at Office. Open an Excel spreadsheet with tables in any app other than excel. Tables are something that’s just a given in excel, takes 10 seconds to setup, and you get automatic sorting and filtering, with near-zero effort. The devs of open office refuse to support tables, saying “you should manage data in a proper database app”. No, I’m not setting up a DB in an open-source competitor to Access. That’s just too much effort for simple sorting and filtering tasks, and isn’t realistically shareable with other people. I do this several times a day in excel.
Now there’s that print monitor that’s on by default, and can only be shut up by using a command line. Wtf? In the 21st century?
Networking… Yea, samba works, but how do you clear creds you used one time to connect to a share, even though you didn’t say “save creds”? Oh, yea, command line again or go download an app to clear them for for you. Smh.
Oh, you have a wireless Logitech mouse? Linux won’t even recognize it. You have to search for a solution and go find a download that makes it work. My brand new wireless mouse works on any version of windows since 2000, at the least, and would probably work on Win95.
Someone else said it better than me:
Every time I’ve installed Linux as my main OS (many, many times since I was younger), it gets to an eventual point where every single thing I want to do requires googling around to figure out problems. While it’s gotten much better, I always ended up reinstalling Windows or using my work Mac. Like one day I turn it on and the monitor doesn’t look right. So I installed twenty things, run some arbitrary collection of commands, and it works… only it doesn’t save my preferences.
So then I need to dig into .bashrc or .bash_profile (is bashrc even running? Hey let me investigate that first for 45 minutes) and get the command to run automatically… but that doesn’t work, so now I can’t boot… so I have to research (on my phone now, since the machine deathscreens me once the OS tries to load) how to fix that… then I am writing config lines for my specific monitor so it can access the native resolution… wait, does the config delimit by spaces, or by tabs?? anyway, it’s been four hours, it’s 3:00am and I’m like Bryan Cranston in that clip from Malcolm in the Middle where he has a car engine up in the air all because he tried to change a lightbulb.
And then I get a new monitor, and it happens all damn over again. Oh shit, I got a new mouse too, and the drivers aren’t supported - great! I finally made it to Friday night and now that I have 12 minutes away from my insane 16 month old, I can’t wait to search for some drivers so I can get the cursor acceleration disabled. Or enabled. Or configured? What was I even trying to do again? What led me to this?
I just can’t do it anymore. People who understand it more than I will downvote and call me an idiot, but you can all kiss my ass because I refuse to do the computing equivalent of building a radio out of coconuts on a deserted island of ancient Linux forum posts because I want to have Spotify open on startup EVERY time and not just one time. I have tried to get into Linux as a main dev environment since 1997 and I’ve loved/liked/loathed it, in that order, every single time.
I respect the shit out of the many people who are far, far smarter than me who a) built this stuff, and 2) spend their free time making Windows/Mac stuff work on a Linux environment, but the part of me who liked to experiment with Linux has been shot and killed and left to rot in a ditch along the interstate.
Now I love Linux for my services: Proxmox, UnRAID, TrueNAS, containers for Syncthing, PiHole, Owncloud/NextCloud, CasaOS/Yuno, etc, etc. I even run a few Windows VM’s on Linux (Proxmox) because that’s better than running Linux VM’s of a Windows server.
Linux is brilliant for this stuff. Just not brilliant for a desktop, let alone in a business environment.
Linux doesn’t even use a common shell (which is a good thing in it’s own way), and that’s a massive barrier for users.
If it were 40 years ago, maybe Linux would’ve had a chance to beat MS, even then it would’ve required settling on a single GUI (which is arguably half of why Windows became a standard, the other half being a common API), a common build (so the same tools/utilities are always available), and a commitment to put usability for the inexperienced user first.
These are what MS did in the 1980’s to make Windows attractive to the 3 groups who contend with desktops: developers, business management, end users.
All this without considering the systems management requirements of even an SMB with perhaps a dozen users (let alone an enterprise with tens of thousands).
Power management is a joke. Configured as best as possible, walked in the other day and it was dead - as in battery at zero, won’t even boot. Windows would never do this, unless you went out of your way to config power management to kill the battery (even then, to really kill it you have to boot to BIOS and let it sit, Windows will not let a battery get to zero).
Are you kidding? Windows does this all the time. There have been countless times when I’ve left work with a fully charged laptop, then bring it back the next day to literal zero charge without having used it. I no longer trust sleep or hibernate mode at all for anything longer than an hour. And I’m not the only one with this problem. My partner (with a different laptop) has had the same thing happen, and so have my colleges.
I’ve got some ideas about why and how it might happen; but kind of beside the point. The point is that it is not true that Windows would never let your battery drain to zero while the computer is not in use. It does do it. Often.
That’s partly a manufacturer issue, a lot more difficult problem to solve than it may seem.
In my specific case the manufacturer is Microsoft. (It’s a Surface Pro.) There isn’t anything wrong with the battery. The gist of the issue is that there are milllion-and-one different things that can wake the computer from sleep, and then a couple of reasons why it might not automatically sleep again when ideal. If it was up to me, I’d have it so that the power button was literally the only thing that could wake it. But alas, I cannot even find a way to stop it from waking when opening the case (which I would like to do to check if it has woken up from some other reason).
In any case, I’m just saying that power management can be a problem in Windows (as well as in Linux).
Configure wakeup sources
Had this issue for years over 2 machines.
One had some shit in the background the prevented standby.
Other was so simple it pissed me off… … the damn mouse jostling around in the laptop bag was walking it up.
I’m still going to point the finger at windows because 1) there should be a better tool for identifying what is keeping a system awake and 2) should be default for a mouse to not wake a portable machine who’s lid is shut.
-
I agree with.
-
Is terrible as there are many times you want to be able to use a machine with its lid closed. Layering more and more “id10t” prevention into a system isn’t great, and windows is already bitched about for the levels it has now.
2 is fine.
I know where you’re coming from, I use a closed notebook with external display sometimes.
I might need to be more specific. If the notebook is used as a typical notebook, and one closes it with the intent of putting it to sleep, once sleep has been reached an external mouse should not wake it.
However if you do toggle the power settings to allow the machine to function with the lid closed and/or machine docked then you do want to mouse to wake it keep awake the machine.
-
I run some windows-only proprietary software. Realistically what’s the performance like with Wine or whatever it is that emulates windows?
I run a lot of GPU accelerated CAD
Some apps actually run faster on Wine than on native Windows, but it’s a bit a hit and miss. You should try them yourself.
Also, dual boot is usually the best solution to begin.
Near 100% since Wine isn’t a hardware emulator. But it depends on how well the software is supported, and CAD has historically been a sore point (but it may be better these days).
Apparently anything running on top of .NET is also harder than it should be.
Apps that Vulkan and OpenGL should work as usual, apps that use d3d9 are supported with GalliumNine and dxvk, d3d10 with d3d10um and dxvk and d3d11 with dxvk only.
I develop software that has a Windows version, I need a Windows installation to test it.
Guck you. I’ll thank you NOW.
5 days too late; was setting up a new PC for a 10 year old, and we had to jump through all the hoops in the world in the terrible microS. family thing just so a kid can play minecraft bedrock edition.
Yeah that Minecraft setup is ridiculous now, then you get ads.
You need a Microsoft account to play Minecraft anyway, so you still would have had set one up.
OOBE\BYPASSNRO FTW
Linux keeps winning by doing nothing.
Yep, I will switch to Linux before I get another OS from Microsoft. Once 10 goes away, I jump onto a Linux distribution and use Proton.
I was hoping for a Steam Created distribution to come out, but I’ve been waiting for that for years. I’m just too lazy to switch over before I have to.
Same here. There’s nothing tying me to Windows other than that’s what I already have installed. Microsoft already announced a forced upgrade to Windows 11 next year. If I’m being forced to change my OS anyways I’m going to pick a Linux distro.
I just installed Manjaro and it just worked with minimal issues. The issues that did come up, were easily fixed with building apps. If you aren’t an IT professional or up for tweaking things around there are easier distros, but I was surprised how much it was plug and play with gaming
Try Bazzite
i am running Linux for gaming now too and i have yet to encounter a steam game that does not run smoothly out of the box with Proton on my machine.
Steam has Steam OS, but experiments on my classmate showed it wasn’t user-friendly outside of Steam.
Linux Linux Linux
Fuck you, MS, for making people create an account to use something they paid for.
So stick it to them, stop giving them money and data.
Louder for the people at the back!
And also at the front, and also in the middle.
Friggin’ 73.91% desktop market share. 1.6 billion…
Damn you Microshaft!!!
I can’t reveal too much but MS’s long game is to have everyone sign up for a Live account. They want to do what Apple did with Apple ID and iCloud, making every customer sign up for one. Expect more of this.
And this sort of thing is the prelude to them finally pulling off their “OS as a service” scheme and I guarantee you in a couple of years they will try to float a monthly subscription just to use Windows, tied to your M$ account.
Pretty much. The thing is it’s done sooooo poorly. Like beyond hot trash. They are also bringing it to all their games, PC, mobile, what have you. It’ll get much worse just wait.
You can make local accounts on MacOS still.
The announcement of the AI recall thing was enough to stop me from ever buying another Windows device. Best wishes for your job, though!
I left last year lol. I read the writing on the wall 😁
So am i missing something (yes well definitely but still)? You need an online account to login to windows. So if im somewhere where there is no internet i just cant login to my w11 laptop? I cant use my laptop… wow. I havent touched windows in a long time but still. Thats gotta be nice for ppl that are always on the road for work. Damn.
I can say that in the case of enterprise windows setups, the system caches your login credentials if it can’t reach the domain controller, so that you can still log in even if you’re not on the corporate network. I imagine it does similar for windows accounts (but I never use one so I can’t say for sure).
I guess that you still can unplug your lan cable and create a local account?
No need to guess when you can actually read the article and find out.
Fuck, you’re right, is that I don’t read each new that is posted here, but I should at least read that.
Well there’s some dude out there that recompiled windows 11 with some shitty laptop, cigarettes in his hand, & some beer into useful windows & lighter
So Microsoft is essentially doing what Google and Apple have been doing for years and we think Microsoft are anti consumer because of this?
I think an email address is required to access their respective app stores, but is it actually required for creating an account?
No, you don’t need an Apple ID to setup an Apple laptop or other iDevice.
Yes
Who said google and apple aren’t anti-consumer?
