Every time I search on the start menu there is a web search, impossible to turn off. How is that acceptable?

I install Edge Beta to test something, and the I uninstall it. All of the sudden my search provider in my normal Edge is reset.

And the nagging everywhere. No I don't want 'back-up' my files (OneDrive is not backup, it's sync). And I don't want to be reminded later. I don't want to be reminded ever. All this fuzzy language makes me feel like I'm dealing with a kindergarden teacher addressing his/her pupils.

It's not my computer any more.

Oh, I update a driver. And 2 days later Windows installs an older version. Since when is 6.6.1.40 better than 6.6.1.72? Why would you do that?

Debloat / Software Management: https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil

Command line software management (Scoop): https://pilabor.com/blog/2021/12/automate-windows-app-setup-...

Comparison (Scoop/Chocolatey/Win-Get): https://daftdev.blog/2024/04/01/chocolatey-vs-scoop-vs-winge...

I would also recommend starship (https://starship.rs/) for your Powershell, which is cross platform and therefore usable for all popular shells. Scoop can also install and manage nerd fonts:

    scoop bucket add nerd-fonts
    scoop install nerd-fonts/JetBrains-Mono

    format="$all\u001b7${fill}$cmd_duration | $time\u001b8"
    
    [fill]
    symbol = " " 
    
    # right_format = """$cmd_duration$time"""
    
    [username]
    show_always = true
    format = '[$user[@](red)]($style)'
    
    [hostname]
    ssh_only = false
    format = "[$ssh_symbol$hostname]($style): "
    
    [time]
    disabled = false
    format = '[$time]($style)'
    
    [character]
    success_symbol = '[>](bold green)' 
    
    [git_branch]
    format = "[$symbol$branch(:$remote_branch)]($style)"
    
    [cmd_duration]
    min_time = 0 
    format = '   [$duration]($style) '
    show_milliseconds = true

I'm also running a number of additional software on mac to make the experience more liveable (Alfred, scroll inverter, ice, rectangle, iterm,...). I think the big companies got to the point where they do the bare minimum for Gene Public to accept the useability, and leave the rest of us with our ### dangling to fill in the gap.

Probably something to do with maximizing profit and minimizing expense?

also, while the tool is nice, it needs admin permissions to work.

And no, this is not a reason to leave an otherwise perfectly fine job behind.

older jobs let us put whatever on the laptops, and even had hardening scripts if we wanted to use linux. only approved linux was ubuntu, but you could slap mint or other derivatives in there and get away with it / not have concerns.

Starship seems quite promising, this is the first time I'm seeing it. But I'm a bit confused on how it works, can you go into a bit more details?

Can I use starship+ps to get all Unix and git tools or should I stick with my existing workflow with windows git bash?

  wsl ls -lsa
  wsl cat file.txt

  starship init zsh

  zmodload zsh/parameter  # Needed to access jobstates variable for STARSHIP_JOBS_COUNT

  # Defines a function `__starship_get_time` that sets the time since epoch in millis in STARSHIP_CAPTURED_TIME.
  if [[ $ZSH_VERSION == ([1-4]*) ]]; then
    # ZSH <= 5; Does not have a built-in variable so we will rely on Starship's inbuilt time function.
    __starship_get_time() {
        STARSHIP_CAPTURED_TIME=$(/home/andreas/bin/starship time)
    }
  else
    zmodload zsh/datetime
    zmodload zsh/mathfunc
    __starship_get_time() {
        (( STARSHIP_CAPTURED_TIME = int(rint(EPOCHREALTIME * 1000)) ))
    }
  fi
  # ...
  # ...

i'll admit the object vs text thing is annoying, i feel like bash is more straightforward there, but PS will let you do the same thing eventually.

Instead they re-invented the wheel. It's not a bad wheel, but the wheel is completely different than most people would expected to be and for POSIX enthusiast it just does not feel right.

With wsl or git bash you can do this but it feels slow and clunky most of the time.

That's not the exclusive problem to Microsoft - it happens all around us within the IT world. The corporations stopped acknowledging the permanent "No" anymore and the actual user choice. It's a plain harassment up until you give up and agree to what you get shoveled with.

Whenever I read comments regarding last two Windows versions and issues people had or have with these, or news about newest Microsoft "ideas" - I ask myself, where the hell are regulators?

We have killed them. If a government tries to do anything against a company that isn't a perfect 1:1 mapping to an explicit thing in the law that they are breaking, the company will sue back and win. And if they try to pass such a law, the biggest companies are powerful enough to get rid of them next term, so they don't even try.

The only issue that is still here would be bing in start search but that's trivial to disable compared to the configurations I had to do on my linux desktops, so while it is bad and shouldn't be a thing I don't see it as a big issue when comparing to linux.

The idea was good but the interpretation and implementation of this law failed - the banners, cookies aren't as permanent and universal as browser sending the header.

I only use Windows as a game launcher (and I’m still on Windows 10), I don’t understand why anyone would need it anymore except games.

Thanks to Valve/Steam and Heroic (Epic Store client), and a few other handy tools including Valve's Proton (WINE fork) I haven't even needed Windows for games for ages now. I can live without the small handful of Linux-hostile Windows-only games that still won't run due to draconian DRM/AntiCheat, as the vast majority of my Steam library is "Click 'Play' and they just work", for Windows games and the many native Linux games I also have. Same for more'n half of the games I have on Epic (all from their freebie giveaways). The ones that don't work I can live without. Every other thing I want to do on my PC I've found native Linux software for that more than handles the task.

#1: Apple locks you into their ecosystem, and feels even creepier than MS. #2: The Linux distros I've used are designed in a way so you shouldn't have to use the CLI and sudo for normal tasks, but you end up having to anyway in practice. It's a combination of annoying, and I, sooner-or-later, end up in a state where the system is "totaled"; easier to do a clean install than get it working again after the wrong CLI C+P broke something important.

just off the top of my head:

- whoopsie - uploads crashes to canonical

- motd - telemetry and nags

- forced automatic updates

- snaps and other features lots of people don't want, but can't be disabled

- removing the ubuntu-advantage package disables most of the OS

etc..

Yes, it limits available jobs and probably doesn't pay any top salaries. But better than selling myself to people I don't respect.

That being said, at a certain scale or type of company centralized management, software support, and security risks mean "allowing" random people to run their own OS becomes difficult and risky. Lots of large older companies probably have proprietary software, too (thankfully more of this is becoming web based).

Yes, in theory linux is more secure and anybody who would want to use it is probably capable of taking care of themselves, but it is probably (at large companies) corporate lawyers and CISOs ruining the fun. And linux can have its own risks and dedicating a team to support (from a security perspective) them isn't economical for the what would be very small user base. Ye old big bank can't and arguably shouldn't allow it without an otherwise good reason.

Another user commented about how it's unreasonable to ask them to run CAD software in a VM, but this is exactly what (some? many?) companies ask programmers to do. It's especially goofy if it's a software company where that development is their core business.

That devs at a company use Windows doesn't mean they're forced to. Often it just means the designers also work on Windows.

Most designers use Figma these days, which has clients for Windows and macOS, and can be used fully in a web browser as well.

In my experience of the rise of macOS among developers, the biggest driving force was mobile app development and mobile web development because Apple refused to provide first party developer tools or emulators usable on other operating systems and made it intentionally difficult to run macOS on non-Apple hardware or in a VM. Previously macOS was largely associated with designers, not developers. This move also started blurring the lines more with designers making the move to development and (to a smaller degree) vice versa.

Basically there's no alternative to the Surface Pro or the Asus' Z13 (or even X13), or Lenovo's dual screen or tablet lines that works with Linux.

Incidentally these form factors also doesn't come to macs either.

  - Needed a custom kernel to get the pen (or was it touch) working?
  - No good note taking applications (eg OneNote competitor)
  - Notably latency on the pen.
  - The first distro I attempted to install didn't work. (Manjaro?)

Apple Silicon has the power envelope advantage, Intel and AMD chips remain faster for those who can deal with the power consumption (under lock when longer battery is really needed, and either be plugged or have a backup battery when going full throttle)

I purchased Alibre Atom3d because it was the only non-subscription affordable package I could find, but it's quite disappointing and won't run in wine anyway due to the licensing rootkit it uses. So I end up using one of the above linux capable tools, depending on the needs of the model. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses and none is satisfying overall. I reach for OnShape for any design that is going to be open source, because it is a pleasure to use (even though it is web-based), but I don't make enough money from CAD to pay for a $1500 annual subscription.

I tried Fusion under Wine and it didn't really work. I haven't tried NX or Solidworks in the last few years.

as far as powershell scripts; i cant say i am a fan (i do like the potential targeting of offline machines with something like the mentioned website) - but my favorite to date is still: https://github.com/hellzerg/optimizer/

edit: if you end up trying out hellzerg's optimizer: do know that reboot button, once clicked, reboots right meow

Linux software is not immune to frustrating changes

So yeah, Linux is not a refuge either.

I'll note that Microsoft's PowerToys run solves this properly, just like MacOS's Spotlight and the built in search on most Linux desktops

Though for now I've just turned that one off as I don't have obvious need for it and haven't looked at what else it might offer. I use PowerToys mainly for FancyZones and plain text paste.

I'm not sure if it works on Win11, but this was used to disable it in Win10:

REG ADD HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search /v BingSearchEnabled /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f REG ADD HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search /v CortanaConsent /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Mac, no. It's almost as bad as windows in terms of having to chase perpetual change for no reason.

Linux though? Absolutely. Nothing changes unless I want it to change. Here's an admittedly extreme, but very real example: I build my parents a simplified Linux desktop setup ca.1996 (neither had any computer experience so wanted to keep it very simple).

Today ~28 years later, my remaining parent is using the exact same setup. The last thing you want to impose on a 95 year old with fading vision is an interface change. So it is exactly what it was in 1996. Through several hardware replacements, countless updates and even distro changes, it is still exactly the same.

This is what user-friendly means. I, the user, own the experience. Neither microsoft nor apple are able to respect that.

My other comment was not actually about that though. It was about my computer not actually fighting me over random things, such that I have to circumvent normal means like using the Windows Registry to get what I want done. If you get to the point where you're twiddling with Registry values, you have sunken a lot of time into that problem.

install basic ubanto and then run that bad boy. walk away for 15 min while it does its thing, and then generally good to go. at that point it's just changing the desktop background and ps1 colors

No one should have to resort to registry hacking or the many scripts or hacks available to regain control over basic UX, privacy, or usability selections. It is absolutely absurd.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a Linux lover and user, but from an outside perspective Windows registry (a central, structured database of configuration for everything) looks easier.

The big advantage of this is that you can take your local config files and take it to other system. Can you do that with the Windows registry? Ironically, the only way to port settings in Windows is to have a .reg script and execute it, the thing you critisize.

And the Windows registry might be a single centralized config file, but config values are scattered through all the tree, and usually undocumented. E.g. this is a commonly recomended tweak:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] "UserPreferencesMask"=hex(2):90,12,03,80,10,00,00,00

Can you tell what it does?

I would love a configuration system with centralized database and centralized documentation, but no OS currently seems to be able to achieve that, and Windows' missing documentation appears even worse than obscure but documented config files.

With Windows you have to patch it through the registry (which is not bsckupable config files) to remove ads and other annoying "features".

So the out-of-the-box experience is better with Linux. My mom even understands Linux GUIs better these days than Windows, it's just less bloat and distraction. And for basic apps you don't have to configure anything on the CLI. I recently got a Raspberry PI for my parents to use as a HTPC, installed some basic apps on it, and they can just use it like that.

Registry hacking, with all it's resets and duplicate keys is hard to backup, constantly reverts ( because m$ doesn't believe it to be user editable) and is a pain in the ass to back up and restore.

Oh yes, and is your registry value supposed to be a dword, or something else? No way to tell.

I am not sure why this is. My best guess is it unpleasant to use because now you have two trees. only one has all the nice tooling and the other is sort of second class and can only be accessed via special mechanisms.

1. it was portable 2. it was well documented ( I absolutely hated that I was finding out about some magical way of enabling something by putting magic string somewhere from a magazine ) -- all those options should be available for me to peruse. I am not even suggesting third party software, just Windows.

But I agree, somehow this idea seems better on paper than in practice.

The good thing is that explanations is often a `man` command away, and the location of these files is often listed in the same place. Also general computing is an expert subject. You may as well have a kiosk if you start hiding away capabilities. The expectation to drop to a terminal is often because the terminal is the fastest way to get things done.

You can scroll, use pages, tabs, nested menus, guided wizards, Chrome or VS code style searchable settings lists, buttons which appear or disappear dynamically when necessary.

> where on Windows for years (I have no experience with its new shells) many people would have to load Office, import the text, write a macro, and export back the text.

If you can assume office, why can’t you assume gvim or any other text editor with a gui? And why is text editing your yardstick? At least you can do that with a gui somehow, image processing you can’t do with a cli - yes you can write the code for ffmpeg or graphviz but you can’t see the result without a graphic interface.

Back around 2003 I read in local "Linux Magazine" about some project that tried bringing kind of a registry equivalent to Linux world. Sadly these were Internet caffee times so it was hard to track projects, so I really don't know what happen to it. The closest thing that resembles that idea is dconf.

With Windows nowadays you do all this tweaking or juggling within registry/group policy editor to protect yourself (and of course you do that if you care - majority of people don't) while with Linux I'd say it's more a matter of fine-tuning your distro of choice to your needs.

~/.gitconfig, ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.vimrc

~/.ssh/config

~/.gnupg/gpg.conf, ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf

> ~/.ssh/config

> ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf, ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf

None of those settings are going to be edited by a non-technical human, even on Windows.

OTOH, all of those are easier to edit in their respective files than via a registry hack.

Now too, for normal computer users who don't want to tweak their operating system and only need basic utilities, and are able to read and follow simple instructions, Linux has long become way more accessible than Windows.

To be frank, I think the only battle-tested reliable ways to make a config language or a set of command line flags easier to use is good, complete documentation, though little things like integration with tab-completion or syntax highlighting can often go a long way too. These exist in almost any commonly used software found on a linux distro and are more than enough for someone willing to actually try stuff, which describes most of the people who can navigate doing anything that's not a default behavior of any OS anyway. Most people seem to have what I can only describe as learned helplessness about computers doing things they don't expect, but to be honest if you put people in an environment where they are motivated and don't feel afraid to mess up (which most educational contexts fail miserably at, both in terms of social norms and systemic incentives), most will actually start to figure stuff out a lot quicker than they expect themselves to. A small portion won't, and unfortunately most social environments are either too rushed or too high-pressure to facilitate this kind of exploration. But if we just accept that people are "non-technical" in the sense of "can't try anything remotely new in order to fix their computer", the only real way to satisfy those users is going to be keeping a system they already know how to use the same, which companies are simply not willing to do

To me, the main difference between open (like linux distros, but there are others) and closed computer operating systems is that the former tends not to tell you "Sit tight and we'll send a company-certified adult to help you" (or sometimes "This is not allowed", or "You need to pay extra for that now"), and the latter, increasingly, wherever possible, makes these the only options available

Linux alternatively uses config files directly meant to be altered by the end user. It's less user-friendly, but better than the registry.

The real crime is having a registry in the first place instead of a .config directory.

Only system config files. I know of no package manager that scans config files in users' home dirs.

Same as chrome with flags.

Good UX means nowadays eat or die.

Like if some drastic new search doesn't appear within a couple years we are talking IT not being able to fix problems anymore

I hate this as well, same with Spotlight on the Mac. Doesn’t it make sense to look for things on my own device first?

Anyway, here’s a solution I found for Win11:

## Disable web search from run menu

1. Select Start, type regedit.exe and select the Registry Editor to launch it. Accept the UAC prompt that is displayed.

2. Navigate to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search

3. Right-click on Search and select New > Dword (32-bit) Value.

4. Name the value BingSearchEnabled.

5. Double-click on the new Dword and set data to 0.

From <https://www.ghacks.net/2021/11/26/how-to-turn-off-search-the...

- the start menu opens but displays only an empty box.

- the start menu opens fine, but application search produces zero results, not even if I type the complete name of the program I ran yesterday.

Yes, when something like this happens I throw my hands up and declare it not-working today. At least Winkey+R works and my most-used programs are pinned to the taskbar anyway.

Most of the time it's fixed after a good night's sleep, other times Windows manages to pull itself together after a few hours. It's usually not a blocker for me, so I don't care enough to keep rebooting my machine in the vain hope that some user action might fix it. It's my employer's machine, so my employer's problem, not mine.

Not the GP, but, yup. Got fixed about 6 months later in a routine update.

Wasn't just the start menu, none of the icons are responsive in the taskbar either, so I couldn't change the volume, or switch networks, etc.[1]

Luckily, for me, Windows is used almost exclusively for unimportant stuff, like games, netflix/disneyplus/prime, surfing, etc.

[1] Not a major issue: all my game (and firefox) shortcuts are on the desktop, my headset has a volume knob and the wifi can be turned off/then on again using the laptop Fn-key (which I only did when it lost a connection once).

Try adding some passes and see.

Both before and after I could pull up my other passes easily.

Very fitting… both the kindergarten teacher addressing her pupils vs Windows abusing its users have the one thing in common - people who have zero chance of escaping their control and little influence to chamge their situation. In the business world, it’s called a captive market

But I don’t know how much credit is due to ongoing config work by central IT versus Microsoft.

1) WSL2 is fantastic to work. Having various Linux images on my system is nice, this is huge for me alone

2) plenty of things work just better on windows like Docker

3) stuff like power tools is insanely useful

4) monitor, windows and desktop management is very well done in comparison to the mess of MacOS

5) I don't have all these issues the article describes. An automatic update has never broken my computer let alone ruined my flow

6) I don't see these ads, maybe in the start menu there are but I just never use it I have shortcuts

7) MacOS is way more annoying for me. I really dislike the filesystem, the window management, the fact that it will be always a third class citizen to Linux for software development (still have nightmares about installing Haskell and other languages on MacOS), the fact that it keeps resetting the output of my monitors at every sleep

I could provide other reasons but essentially it is way better for me and my use case than alternatives.

Unless I'm using a laptop, there I prefer MacOS for hardware.

And yes, Docker and most other development works better on Linux than any other OS.

Because WSL 2 satisfies all my Linux needs, and yes, it runs Docker perfectly and Windows is a better desktop OS, with more tools and software.

I used to run mint, ubuntu and some others up to Windows 10 I never considered a productive machine on my desktop but this has changed during the last years and Windows is an incredibly productive machine for software development.

Anyway I'm not trying to sell anybody Windows, was just answering a pointless comment like "I don't understand why would anybody use Windows", and I answered that there's plenty of reasons and tools for me, but I ain't gonna die if you force me on other OSs too.

We’ve tried windows machines for docker and hit a ton of performance problems that just aren’t there on modern docker for mac.

2) This makes no sense to me. I've run docker on my mac with zero issues, except that the move to apple silicon has caused some disruption for cases where I build and push images locally (99% is done via CI/CD, but there are always exceptions) and I have to specify linux/amd64, which with some tooling is actually quite painful.

3) Yeah, powertools is nice.

4) This is absolutely true. The most recent macos announcement does add some better native window management, but all I really want is to be able to plug in my external monitors and have macos not switch them around half the time. It's frustrating as this used to work until around 2012 or so, and then just broke and was never fixed.

5) I've run into windows updates reverting settings or replacing defaults that point to third parties. To be fair, macos has sometimes done this, too. In particular it used to re-enable siri after every OS point release.

6) The ads are there and (with effort) can be removed. But it's the principle. Some product manager thought that this is a good idea - the good idea being something that's good for microsoft and not the user. This way of thinking can and does lead to rot by a thousand cuts. What's next enabling location tracking for the advertisers, thus making my laptops battery slightly worse? - google did this with android. This way of thinking has been killing google.

7) Most of this is repeating point 4 which I agree with, but its filesystem is just a posix filesystem. Mind you the finder has it's strengths and weaknesses - it took awhile to get used to, but it's never really gotten in my way. Calling macos third class for linux development is just plain incorrect. One of the main reasons MacOS took off when it did is because so many developers moved to it because they could use the same "unix/linux" tools more natively than windows, but didn't have to deal with linux on the desktop. Web developers in particular could easily run apache/php/etc as well as various design tools from Adobe or whoever. I've not seen too many complaints with most languages on it, but I could see more niche ones like Haskell being painful.

> I could provide other reasons but essentially it is way better for me and my use case than alternatives.

This is what ultimately matters. :-)

> Unless I'm using a laptop, there I prefer MacOS for hardware.

Hilariously for me, the one thing that's more painful than anything else when using windows is the poor quality of the bloody trackpads, even on more expensive/premium hardware (I haven't bought a windows laptop since before covid, so maybe this is better now?). Though a close second is having to deal with various pop-ups (from both windows and other software/utilities) that seem to vie for my attention.

Disabling autoupdates via Group Policy is supported and won't bork anything.

Ubuntu at least asks if you want to proceed with a package update, you can look at the changelog to see what the update is about, and you can mark packages to be on hold and skipped for updates.

Leave computer idle windows rolls it back in the night to a driver from 2021.

YMMV, but this is what I used to disable web search on my Win 11 Pro workstation:

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
    
    [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer]
    "DisableSearchBoxSuggestions"=dword:00000001

If gpedit.msc gives you unexpected results (I.e. policies just don’t seem to work) then do two things:

1. gpupdate /force 2. Download the latest ADMX templates; newer versions of Windows often introduce similarly-named - but still distinct - policy templates, for unwanted “features” in older versions, just like Start Menu web-search and forced-restarts for updates.

Lastly, while Windows LTSC is really what Microsoft should make available for everyone, don’t forget that Windows Server is still Windows LTSC too - so if you’re outside the MSDN Subscription Garden-of-Eden, you can still get Windows Server tricked-out as a real LTSC Workstation OS.

But even if you wait a few seconds before confirming, you'll get some garbage like Windows Photos, even though that's literally never been used.

At least the start menu got a lot faster with the net search disabled, but dropping usage based ordering is just another sign that Windows is NOT aimed at power users anymore.

At least in Europe it did get a proper uninstall a while ago, which proves that it really was just there for promotion.

I'd gladly pay for a version of Windows that just leaves me alone. No I don't want Edge, Bing, a weather snippet, start search, Cortana, forced updates and a regular black pattern maze promising a somehow "improved experience" while trying to force metrics participation down my throat.

But I also don't want Linux, because many tools I rely on (plus games) won't run on it and I don't want a Mac because it's too opinionated. It feels exactly like being stuck in an abusive relationship at this point.

Windows works, and has always worked, just fine without onedrive. Microsoft just doesn’t want you to know that, because they are obsessed with the idea of upselling you on subscription based cloud services.

And if you think OneDrive is essential for Windows then I’d suggest you do a little reading on the history of Microsoft and how they falsely claim dependencies on their own software stacks. Especially the court cases around debundling IE4 with Win98, and DR-DOS vs Windows 95.

It's akin to adding webview to your application to display a text file, even though you never would display an HTML file. It could have been done another way, but it wasn't.

So, yeah. If you actually know enough about libcs to want to get rid of glibc for a real reason, you can do it without breaking things. If you just want to go around and start deleting core system dependencies (which I think is very silly to put a cloud storage client in that bucket, regardless of the brand of cloud storage) without replacing them, then chaos seems to be the goal, and maybe order is the "broken" state for that machine :P

Though as an ex-Windows developer and hacker, I can tell you that NT is pretty modular and is designed to be “fucked” with in various different ways. Microsoft just like to ship defaults that are more favourable for their own business than your typical power user.

I suppose the problem for many people is that advertisements are now "core components", when they really shouldn't be.

First-party upsells are now core components when they shouldn't be.

Third-party resellers are now core components when they shouldn't be.

Look, I get it: minesweeper is no longer free, and I'm okay with that. But FCOL, now the start button is ad-supported?

None of that stuff is a core component. The only reason any of that stuff is part of windows is because windows is a mature product. And all their desperate product managers need to add stupid features to windows to justify getting promoted.

Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but I don’t use windows because I want to be part of Microsoft’s software empire. I just want an OS that boots fast and lets me play video games. I don’t buy ram from the computer store so some tasteless bozo at Microsoft can justify their 6 figure salary.

Unfortunately just like the original post is anecdotal (I haven't had a machine fail to startup after an update since XP) not all anecdotes are born equal.

Interestingly, I don't see adverts myself, and I've never seen any at work. I -suspect- that's heavily regionalized.

Are there features I don't care for? Sure - I don't use OneDrive, I don't internet search from the Start bar, and I use Edge only occasionally. But it's not like somehow you -have- to use everything they ship.

I get it. An OS is personal. If you don't like Windows, use MacOS or Linux. All 3 have different approaches and one of them will fit you better than the others. Arguing over which is better or worse is like fighting over ice-cream flavors.

Yes there are work arounds, but that’s not for the average user. If I need to start tinkering and hack around in registries I might as well use Linux.

I haven't touched the registry, so that's not in play.

OneDrive doesn't nag me.

As I said earlier this is all anecdotal, clearly your experience is different to mine. This post is just anecdotes, not data, and I'm not suggesting my experience is your experience.

Why do you ask them to remind you? It sounds like you're already set up?

Unless you keep modifying the registry to disable it, you do, every time you do a search. You're just not using those results. But you're still getting the crappy experience of delayed actions when you just want the local results.

After I started administering fleets of Windows machines, I learned that if you don't fuck with it, it's fine!

If you need to make changes, use group policy. Don't like OneDrive? Don't use it! Uninstalling it is going to fuck things up.

Install updates as they come. "But it breaks things!" No it doesn't. It only does if you've fucked your registry to hell.

Just leave things alone and stop trying to customize it like a Linux box is my advice. It is what it is and will work fine if you use it the way it's intended.

OneDrive in the end is a component designed to exfiltrate documents. Wanting to remove a security vulnerability should not brick a device. Asking people to not use it is not a solution because you are prompted to send your documents over the internet to a third party every single time you save a new file.

1. It should not be uninstallable and MS screwed up by making it so.

2. The uninstaller is broken and MS screwed up by making it so.

Either path is MS’s fault, not the user’s.

No, I absolutely want it off my computer. But then I'm not going to bother with weird registry scripts. Windows won't let me easily remove things, so I removed windows.

KB4541335 entered the chat. If you haven't seen a broken vanilla update, you haven't been doing this long enough.

That may be true for work PCs, where my access is already restricted and heavily monitored, but I don't accept that for my personal machine.

<< It's because people fuck with the registry,

Hey, if MS wants to put configs somewhere else that is cool too. I don't understand how it is somehow expected that I don't touch the magic box ( because it is all held by rubber band and glue ). It is not some rinky-dink shop that made its first release. It is a global company. I simply expect more.

<< Install updates as they come.

This is for the user to decide. I am personally livid that windows machines update bios these days without any user interaction. If I ever saw retarded setting just waiting to cause a major issue, this is it.

<< Just leave things alone and stop trying to customize it like a Linux box

I use my Windows instance in a VM so I suppose I technically am leaving it mostly alone, but even then I chose to make some changes to registry to make the access easier for myself.

If I may get a little personal for a moment. I think your professional experience may be clouding your judgment in this case. I see it fairly often across a wide variety of professions, where various representatives consider client/user/buyer a hindrance of sorts that should make their lives easier 'by just doing X'. The thing is, the relationship is really not about making the representative's life easier.

Bonus points: I’m having fun with my computer again!

Gaming is what kept a lot of people on windows over the years, but thanks to valve and the proton team, Linux gaming works as well as Windows gaming (and some people say better than — I certainly don’t have to deal with all the crap Microsoft tries to put into windows).

Some people refuse to use Linux because they’re afraid of having to tinker with it, but that hasn’t been my experience in over a decade. Things have generally just worked for me.

AoE2:DE is one example of incompatibility. Simple game (by modern standards) with no advanced anticheat.

It's been a few months since I played but the only thing that doesn't work is Xbox login. I needed to download a DLL to get multiplayer working, which I agree isn't really userfriendly, but compared to the early Wine days Proton is a walk in the park.

What I do miss a bit is Capturage, apparently it's really hard to make it work in Proton.

The only problems I’ve had are that the intro video and menu for supreme commander forged alliance runs at very low frame rate (but the actual game runs without problems), and that Gothic 3 was very glitchy on steam deck. Everything else I’ve tried ran without issue.

It's even been less troublesome than when I used to use AMD GPUs, where IIRC accelerated graphics drivers and the ROCm drivers had some sort of conflict unless installed a certain way (a few years ago now, my last AMD card was a 5700xt).

I haven't tried that game, but I know for a fact that Fallout 4 works quite well, and it -- like Skyrim -- has a gold status on protondb.

There were also some rendering issues, but I could let that slide given my GPU is ~10 years old.

- I download games from gog via linux and put them on an NTFS partition

- I boot windows 11 in a proxmox VM with passthrough gpu + usb controller for sound

- I mount NTFS partition in VM, install and run games

- my windows 11 install has no network device

- tbh there was a windows defender nag, but I managed to disable it.

I've been wondering if I can do something similar for steam, but haven't touched my steam login in 5+ years. I think you can use a proxy for steam.

That monitor, incidentally, is a 25-inch former iMac. I gutted it after it suffered the widespread burned-out-GPU problem that afflicted many (most?) Macs of circa-2010 vintage, and put an LCD driver board in it.

Everything else works well on Linux. Gaming included. I've run Linux many years, in fact.

But Capture One and Lightroom are not available over there, which is what draws me back to MacOS. Of course I could just use darktable. Have done that for several years. But at the end of the day, I just prefer Capture One, and that's enough reason for me to switch my OS.

The browser will only ever log in to one bank per tab, and with different UI per bank. If you have more than one bank, it becomes a hassle quite quickly.

The few I had a pleasure of using have a really good browser and mobile app support. The only problem I ran into is that sometimes mobile apps refuse to run on rooted Android devices.

I have been multi booting for 20 years, preferring Linux distributions the whole time, but other OSes when I want to use them.

I recently started using a dedicated Windows system for gaming and other Windows favored tasks. I am running a KVM switch, using AMD Graphics on a Linux system and Nvidia on this Windows system. I also have a macOS system, that I use as needed.

I do this with mobile devices as well. It doesn't seem worth it to squabble over choosing a path.

But hardware is more affordable than ever (unless you want a really powerful GPU). What's worse is that you have to separate the tasks between OSes, you can't easily have a default computer for everything, with everything relevant locally available. It's fine if you keep Windows for gaming, and want gaming to be explicitly separate. It's harder if you need Windows for graphics / video, or for CAD/CAM, or for Office. Having important related bits and software on another box may be a hassle.

Put all your fun things on one OS (or user account), and all your business stuff on another (possibly blocking distractions via hosts or firewall rules); and you've added a bunch of friction to switching from work to play. Not that it can't be done, but it needs to be a deliberate choice and you can't just bounce between them.

I don't really have a set work schedule, so it's normal for me to jump between a work context and a play context. It's much easier to do by very rarely rebooting my computer (once or twice a month), so I can always pick up where I left off. The regularly scheduled update meetings do a good enough job of keeping procrastination in check.

At least back when win10 was new, Proton is good enough that I haven't needed Windows in a good few years.

For me, there are evenings when I am hacking away on a hobby project for 2 or 3 hours. Then suddenly just go, 'I wanna just veg out for another 2 hours then go to bed.' When I'm in that mood, I don't even want to be bothered changing machines. Just hit the steam icon and veg. Thats also bout the only time I end up gaming though, haha.

Last time I dual booted though, I remember why I didn't for along time. Did a Windows update, windows rebooted my computer and it did something with grub and I couldn't easily boot into linux anymore.