People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/people-inside-microsoft-are-fighting-to-drop-windows-11s-mandatory-microsoft-account-requirements-during-setup

by breve • 4 months ago

764 615 4 months ago

windowscentral.com

ano-ther2• 4 months ago

That would improve things.

Over the weekend, a family member could not log into their laptop any longer. Turned out to be “a problem with Teams” that required an unscheduled update which was marked as optional. Needless to say that they never used Teams on that machine.

When the login worked partially, their files weren’t accessible because they accidentally saved it on OneDrive which now defaults to storing online only. And OneDrive was also affected by the Teams bug.

Spent a good part of the day cursing in the direction of Redmond.

SirFatty• 4 months ago

That must be the free version of OneDrive that forces cloud only.

tzs• 4 months ago

It doesn't force cloud only. It defaults to cloud only. This is for both free and paid versions.

It has been this way for 3 years.

shevy-java3• 4 months ago

saved it on OneDrive which now defaults to storing online only

This is why local backups should always have the highest priority.

Storing online can be useful, but people should never forget that local backups are the best.

ano-ther2• 4 months ago

Fully agree.

The problem is that on a fresh system with a free MS account, OneDrive shows up as the first choice as “$User - Personal files”. No notice that this actually only stores it online and offers only a fraction of the 1TB local drive.

Truly deceptive and my mistake for not noticing when I helped to set up that laptop.

gooob• 4 months ago

lol wtf

stronglikedan• 4 months ago

OneDrive which now defaults to storing online only

Holy shit that's nuts!

autoexec4• 4 months ago

Makes it easier for them to mine your files for personal data they can use to push ads I guess.

userbinator2• 4 months ago

One drive. On a server in one of Microsoft's datacenters.

jasomill7• 4 months ago

Worse, when Microsoft made this change, One Drive actually deleted almost a terabyte of files from my Mac.

Uninstalled, restored from a recent backup, and haven't used it, or any other cloud sync application, since.

rurp• 4 months ago

This happened on my work machine. One day I noticed tons of important files had been deleted without my permission after being migrated to OneDrive online only. At no point did I authorize anything like this and it took some time to copy them all back and disable everything I could access related to this.

Utter insanity that this can happen in a major OS. I switched to Linux for personal use years ago and have only gotten more grateful for that decision over time. My head would explode if a Linux distro tried any number of things that Windows regularly does to abuse their users, it's unfathomable.

BLKNSLVR3• 4 months ago

So now 'cloud' is a reason to need local backups. Full circle!

mcdeltat• 4 months ago

Since forever, I've been pretty stubborn with managing my tech/digital stuff myself, even if it's kind of a pain, and this kind of shit reinforces that belief. Other entities, especially big companies, cannot be trusted with your tech. The best place for my hardware is in my house; software, in my own git repo; data, in plain files on my hard drives. The fewer hands that touch it, the better. Just let me have it my own way, please.

noisy_boy3• 4 months ago

On Linux, I have my backup script that syncs the data to two local disks + Cloudflare R2. I run it when I want to even though I can schedule it to run automatically. I also use Syncthing which syncs the important files between my main computer and phone. So I have 4 copies of the data and I'm paying only for R2 (which I deliberately opted for). The setup works exactly as per my wishes and my needs. I am so grateful that Linux has given me that freedom.

ooterness• 4 months ago

Too little, too late. I switched to Linux and I'm never looking back. Good riddance, Microsoft.

pipes6• 4 months ago

I've done this several times over the last 18 years or so. The most recent was a few months a go. And my steamdeck persuaded me. Unfortunately I ran into the same WiFi networking issue I've never managed to resolve. Even on different hardware. Pings to my default gateway are ridiculously slow compared to windows. I spent countless hours trying to resolve. I gave up and have gone with windows 11 ltsc.

graemep• 4 months ago

What is the constant? You have something that is unusual and that has not changed for 18 years. Is it specific to your home network?

I have not had any issues I can remember with Linux wifi for as long as I have used wifi.

ImPostingOnHN• 4 months ago

Like what sort of response times for each?

k4rli• 4 months ago

This is the type of thing that AI is actually good at diagnosing in my experience. Haven't had anything similar happen but seems more of a router issue upstream.

Maybe worth checking what Steam Deck's connection has configured differently given it's on the same network?

ikidd• 4 months ago

You can mess around or go buy a $10 gbit USB dongle that you know works like a tplink.

tombert3• 4 months ago

Interesting; I haven't had wi-fi issues in Linux for more than a decade, but admittedly I sort of selection-bias towards laptops that are known to work fine with Linux.

slekker• 4 months ago

I had a problem with a Realtek wifi card, where it would become slow for a few seconds every couple of minutes, had to disable a setting , maybe it helps you: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Network_configuration/Wirel...

ninjagoo4• 4 months ago

Pings to my default gateway

You have a non-default gateway in addition to a default one?

WarmWash2• 4 months ago

The problem with linux is that it is made and maintained by people who love linux. Until product people start getting involved, it's damned to it's eternal ~5% consumer market penetration.

user432678• 4 months ago

I actually hope “product people” won’t be involved as long as possible. “Product people” is mostly a reason of our current state of enshitification of most of the products. I would actually try my best to gatekeep.

tim-projects• 4 months ago

The problem with linux is that it is made and maintained by people who love linux.

I think I'd probably say that the problem with Windows is it's made and maintained by people who own macbooks.

tosti• 4 months ago

Which isn't really a problem because that doesn't stop anyone from installing it. Next year could be 6%, the year after that 7%... That's quite a lot!

miyoji• 4 months ago

The problem with Windows and MacOS is that they are hostile to the user, and that's because they serve a "product" manager who is trying to maximize business value for a massive corporation, not serve you a good OS.

We don't need three garbage corporate operating systems mismanaged by MBAs, we already have two!

imoreno• 4 months ago

That's how it has to be. Volunteer community doesn't have the bandwidth to make everything maximally user friendly. Users have to do their share too, by accepting the responsibility to learn about their system. Otherwise the model isn't feasible. If you want an appliance experience where you have zero responsibility as a user, you can go to the commercial vendor, but they will also have power over you and abuse it.

Linux is indeed for people who can love linux. For people who don't like computers, there's basically no solution.

phendrenad25• 4 months ago

The problem with linux is that it is made and maintained by people who love linux

To specialize that statement a bit, Linux is made and maintained by people who showed up and contributed. These two facts create a vicious cycle. The people show up to add things they love to Linux, and Linux becomes something that only those exact people love. We're deep into this spiral where Linux has become specialized for ultra-nerds who enjoy solving puzzles to get their wifi to work.

If you look at old Linux magazines, the community is completely different. People were focused on "beating Microsoft" and democratizing computing. The people who took those goals seriously have left the scene.

skipants2• 4 months ago

I think that's a fair criticism for issues where Linux devs might be blind to the friction a lot of Linux distros come with, but I don't think it's universal for all devs and for all features, all the time.

Personally, although I'm not a Linux maintainer, I am a dev and I love doing work that makes UX better for everyone.

yoyohello13• 4 months ago

Frankly, I hope Linux keeps the product people out. Product people always turn what they touch to shit. It’s the product people who made Windows the ad ridden mess it is today.

neop1x• 4 months ago

No, the problem is that windows is in schools and come pre-installed with majority of computers. Another problem is kernel-level anti-cheats mentioned earlier.

hhlevnjak2• 4 months ago

I recently changed my distro to Bazzite expecting it to work well on a laptop since it's supposedly optimized for handhelds. While it "just works" and I had no hardware problems, it still required tweaking to get the battery life anywhere close to what it would be in Windows. "Normal people" would still need someone to support them with the installation to get it to work well for their machine.

legacynl7• 4 months ago

The website of Bazzite says it comes with 'cpu-governors that are optimized for gaming'. A governor basically decides when and how to change the power level of your CPU. If a core is experiencing high load, it might increase power and clockspeeds to compensate. Of course this draws more power, so 'optimized for gaming' kind of means unoptimized for battery. I think most distros come with a 'power-saver' governor by default. This option should be available in power settings called 'governor' or 'power profile' or something like that.

Also, I recently switched from KDE Plasma (one of the Bazzite options) to xfce4 and I've seen massive gains in battery life, about 1-2hrs extra. I don't remember how many hours I used to get on win10 on this laptop, but I'm sure it has never been as good as this.

exographicskip5• 4 months ago

The only two moats MS has for desktop OS usage are:

1) Kernel-level DRM for multiplayer games (looking at you, Marathon)

2) Intentionally nerfed MSO 365 apps on web and macOS

You could make a strong case that MDM (which InTune uses as well) negates the AD + GPO advantages of the past 20+ years in enterprise.

Helmut100012• 4 months ago

I found virtual files support also somewhat critical. This is not really stable on Linux yet and makes using Nextcloud with 8TB and Million of files pretty difficult.

skipants2• 4 months ago

1) Kernel-level DRM for multiplayer games (looking at you, Marathon)

This finally forced me to quit League of Legends (this is a buff)

criddell3• 4 months ago

There's also a bunch of software that only runs or runs best on Windows.

noisy_boy3• 4 months ago

Intentionally nerfed MSO 365 apps on web

Don't get me started on that. Outlook PWA is so stupid that I can't delete invitations without sending a decline response. Run all rules on the inbox? Tough luck, no such option. I use a Linux VM at work and the only Microsoft thing I am forced to run on my Windows PC is Outlook. That PC is basically the VM launcher at this point because everything else I need to run is on KDE inside the VM and I couldn't be happier that I get to use KDE both at office and home. Microsoft deserves every ounce of hate that it gets and much more.

65• 4 months ago

Now this is the type of comment to farm upvotes on Hacker News!

xeromal• 4 months ago

Windows LTSC gang.

xiaolong543• 4 months ago

I made sure to have Windows 10 LTSC installed on every PC that I had in the past five years. Will never look back.

pomian3• 4 months ago

Yes and now win 11 ltsc! It's like the difference between browsing the internet with and without unblock origin.

lousken• 4 months ago

And they have not yelled when they were implementing it years ago?

That sounds more like they were ok with it at the time and now they are seeing how much it actually backfired.

keeda• 4 months ago

Alternatively, they yelled back then and were dismissed but now have some political ammo to push their case. I mean, if it was actually backfiring enough, they would not have to "fight" for it now, Windows PMs themselves would be scrambling to do it.

throwa356262• 4 months ago

Serious question: why is this not a problem with apple products?

kstrauser19• 4 months ago

How do you mean?

Supermancho• 4 months ago

people remember creating an Apple Account login and using it on their laptop, but don't understand that it's connected in fundamentally different ways.

The answer is: Because the Apple Login is not calling out for every service, including login.

Jare2• 4 months ago

I don't recall macos forcing it. They definitely over-suggest it and the ecosystem (especially for dev) is very full of it and I consider that a problem, but it's limited in scope. If you don't want the Apple ecosystem, as far as I know you never need an AppleID.

nananana9• 4 months ago

I had to make one to download Xcode from the store. I couldn' figure out a way around it, but admittedly I have about 4 hours of macos experience.

ubermonkey• 4 months ago

The key difference is that you do not need an Apple account to use a Mac.

Most people DO use one, though, because that's how you access the iCloud services that underpin the Apple ecosystem. But it's not MANDATORY.

My understanding is that you cannot even log into a Windows machine without an MSFT account. That's a big difference.

KaiMagnus• 4 months ago

Also people probably have more of a problem with MS accounts because they don’t really have an ecosystem that provides clear value.

An Apple account together with an iPhone and MacBook let’s you share clipboard, passwords, notes etc., a no brainer.

Windows laptop and iPhone? I guess an Apple account still is more useful here too, actually. So the average user does not really need an MS account, hence the annoyance.

spogbiper3• 4 months ago

You certainly can log into a Windows machine without a microsoft account. It's actually still quite common in businesses that you log in with an account managed by your organization, although this is changing as more and more businesses migrate to MS Entra ID. This still isn't exactly a "microsoft account" but its similar.

You can also still log in with a completely local account as well. It takes a few extra minutes to set up but once configured it works fine.

The system is full of dark patterns and roadblocks that steer users towards an MS account, but you don't have to use one.

taeric2• 4 months ago

Fundamentally, I think you are driving at a legitimate complaint and it should be a concern with Apple products.

The direct answer, though, is largely one of execution. Microsoft isn't just pushing this heavily. They are doing so poorly.

zadikian7• 4 months ago

Mac doesn't require an Apple ID to use. iPhone only needs one for installing apps, and my only complaint is it's the strictest auth check on the entire phone besides disabling the account. Shouldn't need to input the Apple ID password just to install a free app, shouldn't even ask for passcode.

dpark4• 4 months ago

Apple does not tie the local account to the cloud account the same way. On a Mac you create a local account and you can (and almost certainly will) create a cloud account to link to it. But they are separate accounts. In fact I’m pretty sure Apple blocks you from setting the passwords the same on both, presumably with the intent of reminding you that they are not the same entity.

SirMaster• 4 months ago

But what about our phones? Why are people so OK with an online account for their phone or tablet but not laptop?

wvenable4• 4 months ago

Apple is a hardware company -- their software exists to support their hardware.

Microsoft is a cloud provider now -- their software exists to support their cloud business.

pier25• 4 months ago

you can totally use macOS without an Apple account

dmitrygr• 4 months ago

No apple product REQUIRES an iCloud account. I have an iphone without one and a mac without one

gib444• 4 months ago

No apple product REQUIRES an iCloud account

Except an iPhone and iPad,to install apps people want and need. The number of people who use an iPhone without apps can be rounded down to 0

Krssst3• 4 months ago

People that don't want to use Apple products are not forced to do so. They can use Android (which has alternative stores, at least for the time being). Though I guess almost everyone logs in anyaway. Generally both major OS have good support from application developers, while on PC almost every one ends up being forced to use Windows at some point (to use Office, to play games).

And phones have been little spying machines from the start, people are more used to their phone spying on them than to their PC doing the same. I don't think macbooks require an Apple account for example.

kstrauser19• 4 months ago

Microsoft has, by far, the absolute worst sign-on experience of any enterprise vendor I've ever used in any industry for any reason. Try to log in to AWS and you'll either get authed or a clear denial reason. Google Workspace? You're in or you're out. Enterprisey MS service like Outlook or Azure? Well, if you've logged in from that computer before, you might get to log in, but you may also have to hunt around for your organization login. I recently tried to log in to an org but it ended up creating a personal account with an email address at the org's domain, and then I couldn't sign in to the org because that account was already taken, and it took something like a week for the anti-fraud cooldown to let me delete the account and eventually re-register it inside the org.

For giggles, I just logged into my charity's Outlook account. I tried to log out, but it's showing me a "Your privacy matters" popup explaining why my privacy doesn't matter, and the "sign out" menu item stopped working, presumably until I agree to let them hoover my data. (Aside: the "To adjust your optional connected experience, go to Privacy settings." link doesn't take me to my privacy settings. It takes me to a page telling me how to get to my privacy settings.)

You cannot convince me that anyone at MS actually uses their public-facing auth system for anything ever. MS gets love for backward compatibility, but I see it as laziness. Instead of making one system that "just works", like Google and Apple and AWS and every other large vendor on the planet has managed, they half-ass support all 537 different auth systems they've ever deployed, driven by what I imagine must look like a giant nested switch/case behind the scenes. "OK, the user didn't have an "@" in their username, so call `legacy_pw_auth_23(form.password)`. It did have an "@", and also a "@minecraft." in it, so call `minecraft_v1_real_pw_authorizerer(form.password)`, unless it also contains `foo@minecraft.`, in which case call `minecraft_migration_2014_null(form.password)`, except in February, which has 28 days most of the time, where we call..." Heaven help you if it guesses wrong and sends you down the wrong twisty passage.

I'm far from a Google fanboy. I use their stuff for work, and it's alright, but it does not spark joy in my day. Still, I bet if the Microsoft Account login worked anywhere near as clearly, reliably, and rationally as Google sign-on, then Windows wouldn't get 1/10th the pushback we're seeing. If I couldn't authenticate to my own desktop any more reliably than I could auth to Outlook, I'd want nothing to do with it, either.

masfuerte• 4 months ago

This is so true. When you log in to their website it bounces around through about fifteen different domains before it concludes. I'm nearly sure passport.com is still in there.

Izkata• 4 months ago

Or how about if you're already logged in and switch tabs - returning to OneDrive / SharePoint lets you start doing something for a second, then it interrupts you to redirect through several pages for an auth flow before returning you back where you were.

jmclnx• 4 months ago

Windows 11 will still force you to setup an internet connection and sign-in with a Microsoft account during the out of box experience

One has to wonder if this change will occur, that is due to these state laws requiring various levels of age verification. I can see MS stating you need to have this account because of the Age Verification Law in your State.

In a way, California's law is a huge gift to big tech, and now it is being replicated to other US states with additional requirements.

wvenable4• 4 months ago

Age verification just requires that one be able to provide an age when setting up an account. Like, for example, when you setup an account for your child on the device. This doesn't seem to require any sort of online account requirement as far as I understand it.

senfiaj• 4 months ago

Yes, the law itself doesn't, but I guess online accounts will make it somewhat easier for MS to verify users.

grujicd10• 4 months ago

This "make Windows better" push is far more political than technological. It's a fight with other divisions about using Windows as a marketing and sales channel for other products and services.

It has to be a decision from the very top. I hope they realize that Windows is in significant danger, the majority market share for Desktop OS is not guaranteed anymore. It's not just 10% of revenue, it's a foundation for how enterprises ended up on Azure and are bringing big money.

I'm still a Windows power user, MacBook is a wonderful piece of hardware and I'm typing this on one, but I'm not nearly as productive as on multimonitor PC with TotalCommander and Visual Studio where I use all the shortcuts subconsciously.

riversflow• 4 months ago

I use all the shortcuts subconsciously.

I realize you probably are referencing visual studio, but at the OS level KDE plasma seems to have copped Windows hot keys wholesale. I was giving it a go recently and was delighted that even meta+arrow keys for monitor switching fullscreen apps works. My only gripe, and what got me booting back into windows, was that even the latest wifi drivers for my brand new wifi 7 motherboard were too flaky to reliably play multiplayer online games.

TimTheTinker• 4 months ago

the latest wifi drivers for my brand new wifi 7 motherboard were too flaky

A GL.iNet travel router in WiFi to ethernet bridge mode is an excellent stopgap until Linux support arrives. It also has the benefits of (a) taking with you on trips for safer/easier internet use (use your home SSID, even auto-VPN traffic if you want) and (b) letting you plug in other wired-only devices adjacent to the computer.

Here are their travel routers filtered to just those that support WiFi 6 and 7: https://store-us.gl-inet.com/collections/travel-routers?filt...

drewda• 4 months ago

FWIW I've been on a OS X for many years now, but I still miss keyboard shortcuts in Windows. So much more consistent across the operating system and applications...

kstrauser19• 4 months ago

This may be the first time that sentiment's ever been expressed.

cmiller1• 4 months ago

I've always found the opposite, do you have any examples where macOS falls short compared to Windows in shortcut consistency?

sidkshatriya3• 4 months ago

I've used macOS for years and still don't understand their windows minimize/restore logic. I'm always hunting for my minimized window. Yes, the fault probably lies with me.

OTOH the Windows UI is far better well designed and intuitive. But yeah... I'd rather fumble around in macOS: Windows is always trying to upsell a service that I don't need. If I say no it will helpfully keep reminding me (my answer is never going to change). I have 32GB ram and a recent processor being fed tons of wattage -- it feels so bog slow.

Windows needs to fix itself fast.

dyauspitr• 4 months ago

The MacOS is a pretty nice system but their window management has been and still is shit. I get that tilling 4 windows doesn’t look good but all the view swapping and desktop switching stuff gives me a headache and sucks. Also that half second transition to full screen sucks. Windows seems so freeing when it comes to window management. Simple transition free resizing. Snaps into corners. The rapid transition free minimize and restores etc.

devilbunny• 4 months ago

I’m going to use Cunningham’s Law here.

Windows menu navigation by keyboard allows almost everything to be done with no mouse, and macOS doesn’t. Alt-space, X will maximize a window from 3.0 to 11. Not a direct shortcut, more like the / menu of Visicalc or Lotus 1-2-3. Not as fast, but close, and better because it’s discoverable - if you forget, the menu is open and you can see the next step.

intrasight2• 4 months ago

Isn't part of this Microsoft preparing for the requirement to do age verification in the OS?

GeekyBear• 4 months ago

It has more to do with Microsoft deciding to emulate Google and Facebook's surveillance capitalism business model.

If you combine mandatory online user accounts with telemetry and Windows Recall, you have a system for building out advertising profiles linked to known individuals.

shevy-java3• 4 months ago

I'm still a Windows power user

I used to be, but in 2004 I switched to Linux.

I still use windows as a secondary operating system on another computer, though only Win10. I decided I will not transition to anything after Win10 as Microslop declared war on the users with Win11. Which was the case already before Win11, of course, but I feel the qualitative difference is too much now.

oliwarner2• 4 months ago

far more political than technological

I don't know. A company worth trillions of dollars does a pretty fine job of making Windows incrementally worse in new and interesting ways, each release.

There's some truth; the bloated company structure has contributed to these unforced errors, but just at an engineering level, people are releasing this tripe without the skill or training or backbone to know what is bad, and push back on toxic management decisions.

Engineers collaborating with oppressive management is a technical failure. Google is riddled with the same problem. I'm sure all the FAANG-a-likes do. Paying billions in salaries to sycophant devs. They have the market share to keep failing upwards. They don't deserve it.

marssaxman• 4 months ago

Who says the engineers have any leverage they can push with? I sure didn't, when I worked there.

Rapzid3• 4 months ago

As someone with a sizeable background in Linux system engineering.. I prefer Windows to MacOS.

It's IMHO a better desktop now with the edge snap tile layout and etc. Excellent device compatibility. And I get my linux environment needs satisfied via WSL2 these days.

But damn if they don't get in their own way. I have my own Pro licenses, and even with Pro turning off ads and features is text book whack-a-mole:

* Frequent "Let's finish setting up your PC" after updates

* Killing OneDrive is a like night of the living dead

* Edge popping up "ads" asking you if you want to pin apps when it closes(a lot of windows apps wrap edge, like streaming apps, and show this too on close!)

* Scary Power Automate crap getting injected on updates(haven't seen this in a while)

* Internet search results in the "Home" search

* Random popups and product recommendations

* Registry disabled "features" randomly resurrecting after Windows update

Holy. Hell.

Edit: I recall now; Windows was installing a power automate extension into Chrome during Windows Update un-prompted last year. Caused a minor panic.

guilamu3• 4 months ago

Use LTSC. It'll fix all the issues you are mentioning here.

grujicd10• 4 months ago

Recently I'm finding MSN home opened in Chrome over night. Aparently it's connected to some "active probing" feature, and I do have scheduled nightly restarts in the home router. But come on... No one could convince me it's not intended to inflate MSN numbers.

Miraste3• 4 months ago

I also think Windows' native window tiling is one of its best features, but there's a fantastic program called Swish that implements tiling for MacOS in a very native-feeling way. It supports keyboard shortcuts, but it's built around really elegant touchpad gestures. Highly recommend if that's all that's keeping you on Windows.

The other native Windows feature I really like is the clipboard manager, and I don't have a great replacement for that yet. I'm kind of shocked Apple hasn't built one. If anyone has a recommendation that feels native instead of like a ported Linux widget, please share.

kipchak2• 4 months ago

I've had good luck with the winutil tool, which is wrapper for a bunch of powershell commands and registry edits in a .ps1 to remove bloat. After using it on a fresh install I can't recall the last time I've had any of the mentioned issues.

If you're (understandably) concerned about the security implications most of the changes can be done manually going off the docs.

https://github.com/christitustech/winutil

varispeed• 4 months ago

Don't forget the search that doesn't work. You have app "X" installed? You type X and it doesn't find it, but gives you irrelevant results about X.

Melatonic• 4 months ago

Get Windows LTSC instead and run Firefox ! Most problems solved.

kevin_thibedeau• 4 months ago

The only tolerable Windows 11 experience is a corporate PC with Active Directory login.

ryandrake2• 4 months ago

This might be obvious, but all of those things have a single common denominator: Microsoft, over you, getting to decide what your computer is doing. This is the biggest generalized danger in computing today: That OS (and device) manufacturers have gotten it in their heads that it's OK for them to have a strong say in what your computer runs. User doesn't want X, Y, or Z running on his computer? TOUGH. We are going to run it and make it really hard or impossible for user to turn it off. As a user, I no longer feel like I'm driving the car--I'm just a passenger. "Where do you want to go today?" has turned into "You're going here today, whether you want to or not!"

pityJuke• 4 months ago

Ditto. I've found it pretty tolerable once I've used "ShutUp10!" to disable the annoying stuff. I've used harder tools than it, but I've then found it breaks useful stuff (like the Xbox Gaming stuff, which some MSFT games use).

will4274• 4 months ago

Frequent "Let's finish setting up your PC" after updates

Fwiw, this one is entirely predictable. Windows shows the Second Chance Out Of Box Experience (SCOOBE - pronounced like Scooby-Doo) each time a semi-annual update is installed, i.e. once every six months.

jayd16• 4 months ago

Pro is almost pointless these days. If you really want to be upset about what could be you should try a windows server trial with Desktop experience.

Zero bullshit and it just works. Why does this have to be $1k+???

LordDragonfang• 4 months ago

If you're on Pro, Group Policy tends to be more stable than plain registry tweaks.

In particular, I advise everyone to turn off web search in the start menu, it makes it so much faster and more useful:

   Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Search > Don't search the web or display web results in Search

yourapostasy2• 4 months ago

I use Linux exclusively on the backend, a Windows laptop is usually what my clients issue to me for gigs, and I migrated years ago from macOS to a Linux laptop as my personal primary daily driver (though I still use macOS, just not where I spend 90% of my personal time). I agree with Windows having its own issues like you pointed out. To be fair however, Linux and macOS daily driver experiences are also not without their annoyances.

The Linux daily driver windmills I am currently tilting at are the lack of 3D infrared sensor-based secure facial recognition. On Linux we currently are missing true 3D mapping, the option to bind the biometric data to the onboard TPM, and running the matching in something like the Protected Media Path stack Windows uses, so Linux facial recognition solutions like Howdy are not as secure as on Windows.

Other deep gaps in the Linux daily driver role are not having a solution to encrypt our disks and hibernate under Secure Boot, nor a comprehensive common application framework for power management like Apple's IOKit and IOPowerSources so my Linux laptop gets far less battery life than my macOS laptop. Linux has many different ways for applications to participate in power management, so as a result there isn't a single way for the applications to cooperatively negotiate for this centralized scarce resource based upon user preferences.

But the death by a thousand tiny cuts I was experiencing on macOS led me to reluctantly conclude I'd rather face the thousand tiny cuts in Linux where at least I have the option to go to the source and address or fix it myself a particular cut got annoying enough. In my clients' corporate land, I hide behind a small army of desktop teams that grind away most of the annoyances you list (mainly through the pricing discrimination magic of Windows enterprise licensing).

I've resigned myself to not hold out hope for re-experiencing what I felt was my personal peak user experience of the early 2000's PowerPC PowerBook and Intel MacBook Pro and early Mac OS X. It was a portable Unix workstation that could run a full virtual Windows box inside, giving me the best of all worlds, and It Just Works bled into every nook and cranny of the entire stack.

I believe a lot of it came down to that Steve Jobs was an intensely personal user of his own products from the perspective of someone doing it himself as much as someone who is the head of a multinational multi-billion dollar corporation could be, with as little corporate desktop support as necessary, and he had an extreme intolerance for annoyances in the small details.

Linux as a daily driver has many, many rough edges. But at least I can durably contribute into it as I solve my own annoying small details, and hope a flywheel effect eventually takes place in the future.

figmert3• 4 months ago

I dunno, you say you prefer Windows over macOS, but it sounds to me like you're fighting your OS.

MacOS has a lot of flaws, but at least I'm not fighting it. If I say to do something, it does it. It doesn't suddenly revert your decision.

asah• 4 months ago

LOL, any __ONE__ of those would be a deal-killer for me. The sum is so WTF I can't understand how anyone willingly chooses Windows over... anything.

(mind you, MacOS has its own nightmares from KeyChain hell, iCloud crap, signed apps etc - but I can use my Mac laptop without iCloud/etc and go weeks without thinking about Apple)

sombragris• 4 months ago

Easy solution: Ditch WSL, ditch Windows altogether, and use a good Linux distro with Plasma 6.6. Problem solved.

PufPufPuf• 4 months ago

FYI macOS now natively has edge snap, half-half tiling with draggable divider that resizes both windows, and even tiling options similar to Windows except a bit less options (e.g. no thirds) -- ok for a laptop screen, ultrawide monitors benefit from a free app to add more options.

And the shell environment is POSIX, with most bash scripts just being ootb compatible without WSL-like shenanigans.

john_strinlai16• 4 months ago

I hope they realize that Windows is in significant danger, the majority market share for Desktop OS is not guaranteed anymore.

i agree with most of what you said, but this is borderline fantasy.

the majority of home market share is not guaranteed, sure. with how good gaming is on non-windows machines now, there isnt much for a home user to get locked-in with (except games that require windows-only malware i.e. anticheat)

but government, institution (hospitals, universities, etc.) and large non-tech enterprise? that will be windows for at least 20 more years even if they started to change everything now (which they arent). and the number of machines in those places absolutely dwarfs the number of home installs.

sidkshatriya3• 4 months ago

Decline often happens slowly, gradually and then suddenly. Could anybody imagine Intel where it is now ? This could happen to Microsoft and is probably already happening as we speak.

baal80spam2• 4 months ago

I agree with this. At this point, Windows is like COBOL.

kuerbel3• 4 months ago

Large parts of one german state switched to open source. First they laughed at them and now they are envious.

The switch to Linux is happening this year. Until the end of the year they want all workers on Linux instead of Windows.

It is possible, and fast if you want it.

TheDong5• 4 months ago

with how good gaming is on non-windows machines now, there isn't much for a home user to get locked-in with

The options for the average user are not linux or windows, but only macOS or Windows. Gaming is abysmal on macOS on any of the current hardware.

That said, I agree with you that there's less-and-less gaming lock-in on windows, but that's because the majority of gamers are gaming on iOS and android.

mrweasel• 4 months ago

The home market is interesting, because they do need to address that as well. I'm not sure how many people are switching to macs, and even fewer are switching to Linux, That's not Microsofts problem, not on the large scale.

If you have a PC at home right now, and you're not technically inclined, and Windows is driving you nuts, you're just not getting a new PC again. More and more people are managing without PCs at home, using their phone or a tablet.

To many of us, the idea of your phone as your primary computing device is complete bonkers, but more and more people are choosing that option. Microsoft isn't really giving them a reason to stay, because every time they fired up their laptop Windows updates starts rolling in, taking forever, the UI keeps bugging them about things they don't care about and now there's ads in the start menu. So will Windows attempts to boot, the average person already did the thing they needed to do on their phone.

Windows Home Edition, or whatever it's call now, isn't competing with Linux and Mac, it's competing with Android and iOS, and it's losing.

pjmlp8• 4 months ago

Only if you mean gaming on PlayStation and Nintendo, or mobile devices.

Valve is dependent on Windows games market, and Apple mostly cares about iOS games.

anal_reactor2• 4 months ago

I've been using MacBook at work for years and I still perceive UX as fundamentally broken - I'm incapable of doing basic operations in Finder or changing basic system settings, and random shit I didn't want to press pops up when I'm doing other things. I feel like my grandpa trying to adjust to new phone. I will never ever recommend anything Apple to anyone.

Having said the above, I think that KDE is almost there to have a functional UX that can replace Windows. Not there yet because of random bugs, but almost almost.

Once gamers actually switch to Linux, which is a viable thing, they'll teach their family members. Home users will switch to Linux, and Windows will become an exclusively enterprise and government thing. But once average person is comfortable with Linux because they have it at home, those institutions will start switching to Linux too. And that's how Microsoft will fall. Just like most other corporations - through their own greed.

bowsamic2• 4 months ago

I'm incapable of doing basic operations in Finder or changing basic system settings, and random shit I didn't want to press pops up when I'm doing other things

Why?

smrtinsert• 4 months ago

For the AI frontier, I find my windows PC just about useless unfortunately. Too much tooling and package doesn't adapt to WSL+windows host well. I've shifted my entire dev experience to my mbp which used to be my backup. Can't imagine the new generation of vibe coder will even consider a windows box.

phendrenad25• 4 months ago

Too much tooling and package doesn't adapt to WSL+windows host well

Curious about this, what specifically?

kakacik• 4 months ago

+1 for Total Commander mention, its bizarre how many otherwise smart folks completely ignore this productivity enhancer. I keep showing it to colleagues but they all anyway revert back to basic clunky File explorer and variants.

Doesn't matter if I show them that I can be easily 10x faster, do stuff simply impossible otherwise, has tons of plugins etc. its just ignored.

antiframe5• 4 months ago

I don't know about Total Commander because that appears to be Windows-only, but twin-pane "Commanders" (named after NC) do seem more popular in certain circles. They're still in wide use in Eastern Europe. Commanders have also influenced Dolphin, which has a built in twin-pane view (but it's not a commander because it lacks the typical keybinds) and there's a commander called Krusader that is a better fit.

grujicd10• 4 months ago

The only negative side of Total Commander is I'm extremly used to it - been using it since mid 90s. When I compare alternatives on Mac I'm searching for exact keyboard commands, navigation patterns, etc. I'm using Crax Commander, but it's not the same.

TC is probably one of the reasons I don't care that much about problems in newer versions of Windows, I don't use Explorer, I don't use windows search, text is viewed with Lister and not Notepad...

BeetleB2• 4 months ago

Also a big plug for Far:

https://farmanager.com/

archon810• 4 months ago

Another die-hard user of dual-pane commanders, including Total Commander for over 20 years, reporting in.

The best part about Total Commander is that my license from like 20 years ago is still valid, and every update that comes out still works with it and never pushes for upgrades, etc. As much as new software has dark patterns and upsells everywhere, Total Commander is wonderfully frozen in time in that regard.

lpcvoid• 4 months ago

And then there's me, hoping they don't realize that Windows is in danger. The world needs less Microslop.

z3ratul1630712• 4 months ago

go freely on Linux. did that switch myself few years back. Double Commander is an exact copy with the same (and configurable) shortcuts.

randusername• 4 months ago

The year is 2050. Desktop operating systems are a relic of the past.

Windows collapsed inwards on itself in 2031 when MS realized telemetry data was 10X as profitable when sold directly to nosy exes, neighbors, priests, and so on instead of advertising agencies. This practice was highly illegal, but the MS legal team unanimously ruled that SCOTUS's ruling on it was unconstitutional. Nevertheless, society barely survived.

Windows XP lives on quietly powering ATMs. We also still have Surface Tablets. They don't function anymore, but they hide the paunch of aging sports commentators well and NFL players and coaches greatly enjoy using them to bludgeon each other on the sidelines.

lowbloodsugar3• 4 months ago

I’ve got three monitors on my MacBook plus its screen; I know all the keyboard shortcuts and then have automation with various other things. It was hard at first back in 2010 when I moved from Windows. It became second nature within a year and I’ve never looked back. Windows is fucking awful.

torginus• 4 months ago

The weird thing about this is old Microsoft understood that ordinary users are not cash cows, companies are.

Microsoft built its empire because of SMB and Active Directory, and other enterprise features, where actually these things are important.

Ironically orgs hate MS Accounts just as much, as they have to give up a degree of autonomy, control and security compared to how Windows used to be.

HoldOnAMinute• 4 months ago

> It has to be a decision from the very top

Satya is incentivized to maximize his own pay package, not whatever it is that customers whinge about

chaosharmonic2• 4 months ago

This is maybe just that I switched to Linux years ago and haven't touched Apple hardware much, but what strikes me is how little the OS matters anymore. So much of the tooling is cross-platform now, so many of the applications are web based, and so much of the native platform can know be emulated, that part of why the market share isn't guaranteed is a level of portability that didn't exist a decade or two ago.

Everything from Edge as a cross-platform Chrome derivative to .NET as a cross-platform open-source toolkit to their React Native builds and experiments with Android suggest that MS itself understands this. The Linux side demonstrates it with things like Proton and the forthcoming Android desktop mode. The Web demonstrates it in general as it expands in capability and more applications skip shipping native entirely in favor of technologies like Electron. And not that I don't personally sob in system RAM, or have extreme reservations about how we got these things (see: Google and antitrust), but I can't say I hate the ease of switchover.

Ecosystem lock-in didn't go away, but it feels like it's changed a lot.

IshKebab• 4 months ago

Yeah but it's one of those cases where even if an alternative works 99% of the time, it still isn't worth it because of that 1%. Same with web browser compatible - that's why even Microsoft switched to Blink. Same with electric car range - "it covers 99% of your journeys!" isn't as persuasive as proponents would like.

m463• 4 months ago

from the very top

this kind of thing happens with the founder, but follow-on CEOs very very rarely have the leadership and vision.

I wonder how leadership can be the same for someone who initially folloed others when they joined.

pjmlp8• 4 months ago

Unless Apple decides to make computers for the remaining 80% of the less fortunate population (Neo isn't it), or OEMs decide to finally support GNU/Linux, Windows has many years to come, regardless of the pain points.

ksec• 4 months ago

I know this is going to be unpopular on HN. They basically need to stop thinking Windows as a profit milking centre but as a moat to capture business and enterprise customers. In order to do that they need Windows to offer one of the best experience possible, or at least so good macOS and Linux is not much of a threat.

But I never thought Apple would venture into $599 category. Other than Education I am pretty sure large enterprise customer can get Neo for $499 as well. This completely shift the dynamics. And I guess it wakes a lot of people inside Microsoft, if they don't fight, the collapse of M$ might finally be numbered.

spandrew• 4 months ago

I would never advise anyone buy a Microsoft Windows laptop these days — between the forced updates, the account and service-fee thirst, ads, and consumer unfriendly product release process (forced opt-in).

Guess what? With Apple's new Neo laptop the price is also way way wayyy out to lunch.

If MSFT gives a business a huge bulk discount to buy their laptops + Office360 + Teams... OK? But as a "consumer" it really sucks.

Want PC gaming? Steamdeck or Steambox.

bushbaba• 4 months ago

The neo is the Chromebook for education revolution. It’s cheap and better than 98%+ of windows laptops. I’d not be surprised to see further Mac penetration to the business sector

TheRoque• 4 months ago

13 inch screen though.. it's really small

And with 8GB of RAM you are quite limited in the business sector as you say

9999000009992• 4 months ago

The Neo is probably the best laptop for typical people.

I have an RTX 5070TI laptop. 95% I use it with Tumbleweed.

Unfortunately with work I don't have too much to play with LLM training and such.

The ultra poor person system is a used 200$ Thinkpad ( something about 2 years old) + your Linux distro of choice.

jcelerier• 4 months ago

200$ ThinkPad...? The current best sellers on Amazon US are two 180$ brand new laptops. Intel Celeron N4020, 4Gb ram, 64 GB storage, 1366x768.

This is what the average computer user is using to try to run your apps and websites. And remember - a cheap laptop bought today is going to be in use for at least five years.

Teckla• 4 months ago

The Neo is probably the best laptop for typical people.

I don't think traditional desktop operating systems are best for most people. I believe a Chromebook, or an iPad with a keyboard, is best.

longislandguido6• 4 months ago

The Neo costs $200 more than a comparable Windows laptop, but with half the RAM and storage as said comparable Windows laptop.

They're fighting to seize the very specific market segment of "I don't like Windows and don't want to use Linux or a Chromebook, and I'm also poor, but still want to pay a premium price for an underpowered tablet with keyboard glued to it."

kstrauser19• 4 months ago

Please, by all means do post a link to a comparable new Windows laptop for $400, including a fast GPU, reasonable amount of fast storage (and not counting an SD card or such), a high-DPI monitor, and non-embarassing build quality. I'd love to see this.

goldenarm3• 4 months ago

The specs may be comparable, but not the end result : my $2000 Windows 11 laptop is slower and laggier than the Neo.

bombcar3• 4 months ago

Can you recommend a Windows laptop in the $400 range? I'm interested in a craptop for various Windows things that still pop up from time to time.

internet101010• 4 months ago

You are right about the first part but I think you're overestimating the number of people that see Apple products as status symbols. Maybe that was true a decade ago but I don't think it is anymore. Enough of the products have found their way to every country imaginable over time that an Apple laptop is... just another laptop.

A fun, brightly colored, relatively inexpensive, Windows-less laptop that you can use for doing your taxes while watching a movie has appeal. The performance isn't that important, so long as it is as responsive as the owner's phone.

throwawaytea• 4 months ago

I was at Costco and ran browserbench speed test on the Neo vs several of the windows laptops. The neo beat them all, even the $1199 laptop. The $500 windows laptop for sale actually performed worse than my 2011 27" iMac running Linux Mint.

jwrallie• 4 months ago

The internet is full of these comments that go for ages in Mac vs PC discussions, but with the Neo pricing the arguments are breaking apart. Seeing the PC arguers bring up the being poor argument against the Mac buyers is showing how disruptive the Neo actually is.

moondance• 4 months ago

The irony of your last line. The whole thing of the Neo is that it feels distinctly not glued together—- not true of the $400 “comparables” you have in mind. I’m convinced the people who make these sorts of comments have either never experienced a non-terrible trackpad, or simply don’t care to.

ATMLOTTOBEER• 4 months ago

I kinda agree with you but consider that the perf on apple silicon is so much better that you’re probably still better off using the gimped tablet thing.

emptyfile• 4 months ago

Meanwhile every MacOS thread is filled with people complaining how everything is broken and only getting worse.

Not that I'd know, I've probably seen <10 apple laptop devices in my life and never used one.

alemanek• 4 months ago

Apple is in the process of fixing Tahoe which was a regression from Sequoia the previous release. Tahoe is decent with 26.4 though from what I am hearing. Either OS version is far far better than regular Windows 11 though.

Apple’s real differentiator is their silicon. M series chips are just incredibly good and you get a full workday out of them on battery.

The M1 Pro I still have at work is easily the best laptop I have ever used. For side projects I use an M4 air with maxed out RAM and it has no issues with anything I have thrown at it.

p_j_w• 4 months ago

Meanwhile every MacOS thread is filled with people complaining how everything is broken and only getting worse.

Having been using Macs for work and home use for the last few years, I have to say you’re right. And yet, in spite of that, I’d still rather use MacOS over Windows. The fans on my Mac never start spinning up as soon as the login screen appears or randomly when it’s sitting untouched on my desk, I never find MacOS to have rebooted in the middle of the night without asking me, it doesn’t constantly nag me to use iCloud more, and it never shows ads for Apple shit in Finder.

When I use MacOS, the worst I feel is the developers are a bit sloppy. When I use Windows, I feel like the developers actively hate me.

phendrenad25• 4 months ago

Buying a gaming laptop is like buying have a sports car. Sure, it looks nice, and you may even be able to wheel it around a bit. But it's not the ideal experience.

tombert3• 4 months ago

I bought my mother in law a Lenovo Thinkbook for Christmas; I didn't know that the Macbook Neo was coming else I might have waited for that.

Anyway, I installed Linux Mint on there. She has been using it every day and at least according to her there hasn't really been any jank (and I told her to call me any time if something breaks and I'll fix it).

At this point, I think Linux distros have gotten good enough to realistically start stealing users away from Windows. Linux Mint is easy to use, runs fine even on modest hardware, and doesn't push a bunch of shitty ads at you. I think there is an option for telemetry, but I also think that disabling it actually disables it.

Wine and Proton have gotten so good that outside of modern MS Office, most Windows things just run if you need it, but if you're not using MS Office heavily then you likely can get by with web apps and/or the Linux alternatives.

Maybe it really will be the Year of the Linux Desktop!

seb1204• 4 months ago

Great, I did the same some years ago with xubutu. Did you set up some remote control software to log in if needed? Which one?

pjmlp8• 4 months ago

Over here it is 800 euro for a 8 GB device, no thanks.

I would rather advise XBox, Nintendo or PlayStation for gaming.

noisy_boy3• 4 months ago

I would never advise anyone buy a Microsoft Windows laptop these days — between the forced updates, the account and service-fee thirst, ads, and consumer unfriendly product release process (forced opt-in).

Buying a Windows laptop is a default even for a lot of Linux users because the alternatives are mostly too US-centric. In Asia, Framework only delivers to Taiwan - which is astounding given the technically advanced population of consumers in South East Asia. I'm not aware of System76 etc having any sales channels and after sales service setup in Asia either.

Until Asahi becomes a stable choice on Macs, if you want to run Linux on a laptop of a reputable brand, a Windows laptop is basically the only option (even though you may just wipe it). I kept mine dual boot not because I actually use Windows at home but because I paid for the bloody license, even though against my wishes.

ChocolateGod• 4 months ago

I wonder how much pressure is coming from OEMs given the MacBook Neo is coming straight for them in the budget laptop range.

freediddy• 4 months ago

I have Windows and Mac PCs/laptops. I've used Windows since Windows 3.0, for 30+ years now. In the early 90s I invested in Windows NT 3.5 as a college student and learned how to use that over Windows 3.1 or OS/2. I attended the Windows 95 celebration in person. I almost went into becoming a Microsoft MCSE because it would have doubled my pay but went the programming route instead because I loved it more.

I'm still on Windows 10. Fuck you Microsoft for making Windows 11 worse than Windows 10. The simple fact I can't stop them from updating my Windows 10 machine and it reboots my machine makes me so angry that's one of the main reasons why I will never upgrade. Microsoft Recall is a non-starter for me, even though they made it "better".

If they force me to upgrade, I'll move entirely to Mac and install Linux on my current Windows desktop.

wvenable4• 4 months ago

With a few small tweaks, Windows 11 is just as good if not better than Windows 10.

Now maybe you shouldn't have to do those tweaks but it's certainly not a major hardship.

dahdum2• 4 months ago

You’ve always been able to install and use without an account (oobe\bypassnro). As long as power users and businesses can avoid it, they have no real incentive to change.

hackyhacky• 4 months ago

Note on Current Status (2025/2026): Microsoft is actively removing this command in newer Windows 11 updates, especially in 24H2/25H2 and Insider builds. If oobe\bypassnro fails, the command is not recognized, or simply reboots without enabling the option, you must use alternative methods.

whyoh• 4 months ago

The command (oobe\bypassnro) still works in 25H2. There was some talk that they're going to remove it, but so far it hasn't happened.

nubinetwork• 4 months ago

The only benefit I've seen to having a Microsoft account is that I don't have to remember a cd key anymore if I have to reinstall... other than that, what was it actually used for?

dahdum2• 4 months ago

They use machine id, shouldn’t need the key to reactivate on reinstall.

wvenable4• 4 months ago

But you can move your key across devices -- just de-register the old machine and register on the new one.

I bought a Windows Pro license a decade ago (maybe for Win7) and I'm still using the same license for Windows 11 on a new PC.

smithcoin2• 4 months ago

I posted something similar the other day, but at this point it is too little too late. Using windows feels like actively submitting to a hostile user experience.

I look back fondly to the time I had using my Dell XPS when WSL first came out, they had me hooked. I've been using MacBook Pro for about a decade now and I can't even fathom going back to windows. Every time I open the start menu I feel personally attacked.

I used to obsess over reading xda developer forums and playing around with my android phone. I would laugh at the "sheeple" using apple products for not being customizable and giving away their freedom.

At this point in my life "it just works" is good enough and no longer a point of ironic derision.

baal80spam2• 4 months ago

At this point in my life "it just works" is good enough and no longer a point of ironic derision.

I am the same. I used to fiddle and obsess on customising every last thing possible. Now I just want the damn thing to work, and MacOS does exactly that.

exographicskip5• 4 months ago

I remember the OG XPS 13 had what Dell called "project sputnik". To my knowledge, it was the first time a Dell laptop shipped with Ubuntu, if not Linux.

Really wanted one, but was a poor recent college grad at the time.

shevy-java3• 4 months ago

Great - so even Microsoft is not convinced to force everyone into having a Microslop Account. We need to change Microsoft - its current culture is too evil.

tonymet4• 4 months ago

I’m a Windows fan, and I could see this being a pain for OEMs and installers / IT guys – but I don’t see why people are making a huge deal . Windows quality is a much bigger issue: latency, reliability issues, inconsistencies in the UI, etc.

Windows account login provides decent value: Bitlocker recovery, device management, Onedrive sync (even the free version), simpler RDP & remote RPC authentication.

You won’t even defeat telemetry with a local account. Windows TOS grants telemetry consent.

Why do you guys care so much about this? It feels like a bikeshed – something easy to complain about with little nuance. What will be won if MS concedes?

kstrauser19• 4 months ago

With it, can you use your laptop offline?

spogbiper3• 4 months ago

yes, as long as you signed in once while online. windows caches the creds locally and afaik they do not expire

antiframe5• 4 months ago

I care about this because I don't want to have to get permission from a third party to log into my local computer. It seems like a fundamental part of owning a computer, to me. It's really that simple. If Microsoft made the default to setup or login to a Microsoft Account but had a pretty easy way to opt-out and make a local account, I don't think anyone would care (well maybe some people would prefer the default to be local, but then I'd be with you on asking why they care so much if the bypass is right there a click away). But, they don't let you do that. They require you to get permission to use your own computer, and that's a feel bad.

tonymet4• 4 months ago

It's a fair concern. And I believe you can add local accounts once you init windows with your Microsoft account.

Try to think about it from a vendor perspective. How much more difficult it is to maintain support for local accounts, now that so many activities depend on online support. It's preferrable to have a universal/ online credential you assume to be authenticated, rather than having each app test for identity. This applies to consumer experiences (e.g. cloud storage, AI inferrence), and vendor service (telemetry, crash reporting, etc)

For your main PC, are you really using it anonymously (like you would with TAILS or other secure OS)? In practice most people are immediately logging into email (google), Microsoft, facebook , github etc the moment they set up their PC. So it seems to be overcomplicating things for Microsoft to deny them the credential, when it carries so much more value for both the consumer & the vendor.

wildpeaks• 4 months ago

The lack of local account makes it so difficult to setup a PC for someone else, I wish they just used the same strategy as macOS.

TheGRS• 4 months ago

I've always understood why they do this. Its data collection, its a really weak lock-in to their ecosystem, it gets users embedded into Windows more. Its just not very compelling, just another hoop to jump through. Also I don't really see Microsoft accounts as a major SSO offering on many sites, its usually Google/Apple/Facebook and maybe some other related sites. Seems logical to call this one done and just focus on making a more enjoyable experience in Windows.

beart2• 4 months ago

This entire article is based on a one sentence tweet with zero details provided.

"Ya I hate that. Working on it." - Could mean anything, which I would argue in this case, is equivalent to being meaningless. Does this mean Hanselman has a team with tickets lined up for the next sprint to allow offline accounts as a first-class workflow? Or does it mean he sent an email to the relevant stakeholders asking, "Hey guys, what can we do about this"?

I am not encouraged that we will see a change in momentum from Microsoft on this issue.

sidkshatriya3• 4 months ago

People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

This is the minimum peace offering acceptable to your long suffering users.

benterix• 4 months ago

But remote account is just one of the many evils they cane up in the last decade or so. Honestly, not sure if the net benefit for humanity is negative if Windows gradually disappears.

everdrive• 4 months ago

I hope they succeed, and this is from someone who loves Linux and hate Windows. I want as many positive general purpose computing platforms as possible. No, this won't make Windows perfect, but every step in the right direction is crucial.

Much like politics, you want sane, healthy competitors. Microsoft enshittifying as much as possible might bump up the Linux numbers in the short term, but I think it would be unhealthy for Linux in the long term. You want a major power like Microsoft pushing back on some of these trends, which completely opens the door for small players to benefit from that pushback.

I hope the folks at Microsoft can roll back as much of the slop as possible.

exographicskip5• 4 months ago

I think it would be unhealthy for Linux in the long term

Mostly agree until this line. MS enshittifying their ecosystem is the resting state and if you believe in the free market (I don't btw), customers voting with their money or data (since they're the product) should be applauded.

TBF Apple does this too on macOS and arguably iOS. I think a lot of their longstanding pushes to merge the two OSes is hostile to their user base who want stronger separations of concerns; a desktop OS has different requirements and capabilities than a phone or a tablet.

Would love to have a Neo with Sequoia which in itself is a step back from Sonoma, but I haven't truly loved any of their OSes since Mountain Lion.

herf• 4 months ago

Apple makes a nice distinction between their "app layer" (iCloud drive and Messages, etc.) and the OS login. This would work fine for Windows power users, and for the most part Windows has already had this (your "store" login). But to require the cloud to replace your login, the cloud has to be essential to the functioning of Windows and you have to explain the security implications clearly, and it's not clear that any of these things happened.

For instance, almost none of the useful settings from win32 apps sync - migrating to a new PC is painful, your apps don't move, your settings are all missing. It takes weeks, you don't just login to it. So this idea that it makes all your settings sync is maybe 10% true.

The argument for this online account (vs just a container for apps) is that you think a few Windows appearance settings must be synced always, or that you want to save things like your BitLocker keys in the cloud (which probably makes them visible to FBI or whoever else). And the security implications need to be spelled out in plain language. And in the end, it's a pretty bad argument - Grandma doesn't need BitLocker, but the people who do want a clear explanation. A lot of the rest could live in a "Microsoft apps" credential layer: Edge, OneDrive, Office, etc.

I want to feel like I can login to a recovery console and fix a bad partition. I want to keep using the same username across Linux and Windows. I want to recover a router with the old laptop that has actual ethernet, and who knows if it has cached credentials? My Microsoft account is my least used one, and who knows if it is secure?

One last thing: logging in with biometrics is amazing, but why must I use a low-security PIN in place of your pre-existing password?

Please fix it all.

tremon2• 4 months ago

why must I use a low-security PIN in place of your pre-existing password?

FAFAIK, all characters that are allowed in a user password are also allowed in device PIN codes. Knowing Microsoft, I'm sure there's domain policies to alter/restrict this. And the idea behind it is sound: that PIN is tied only to a single device, meaning that even if someone watches you enter your device passcode (or uses a keylogger), they can't go to a different machine or online portal and re-use the captured credentials there.

lowbloodsugar3• 4 months ago

Because nobody would use the same pin for different devices. This is a farcical argument.

saratogacx• 4 months ago

When setting up the PIN you pick for it to be alphaneumaric (There is a option for it) and it acts just like a password field with a silly name.

The reason why it is tied to device isn't to protect against over the shoulder watchers, it is that the resulting key that is stored in the system is unique from system to system so you can't lift the key from one machine and use it on another. Maybe not as useful for a PIN but does make it harder to use a stored key to replace a biometric key so a compromised key doesn't leave every system you've ever logged into vulnerable to a key-auth attack.

windex• 4 months ago

A lot of people are finding the Mac Neo very interesting given how unfriendly the whole Win11 experience has become. Either MS learns or the market teaches them the same lessons IBM learnt.

semiinfinitely• 4 months ago

microslop

PeterStuer• 4 months ago

I have used Microsoft operating systens for 30 years. I started moving servers onto Linux 5 years ago. The desktops on laptops stayed on Windows (10). I have started converting those ss well.

Windows had a good thing going (if you ignored some bad releases), but them pushing it too far with 11 and the Linux desktop making great strides, sort of put the nail in that coffin for me.

Not sure what they can do to make me reconsider. It's a trust issue now.

hacker_homie3• 4 months ago

replace Satya Nadella?

dbdjdjdkeke• 4 months ago

he will just be replaced by Sandeep Dicksheet

cute_boi• 4 months ago

microslop can do anything, but I am not going to use their stupid OS anymore. Even enterprise window is full of bloatware.

TheDong5• 4 months ago

Are people inside apple fighting to drop the mandatory apple account for iOS and various core apple features?

I can buy a thinkpad and install linux on it without once creating a microsoft account. I can buy an android phone supported by GrapheneOS, and use it as a perfectly fine phone without ever creating a google account.

I cannot buy an iPhone without creating an apple account, without getting ads shoved in my face by apple, without them deciding what I can and can't install on it, and them charging me for the privilege of writing my own software.

Microsoft doesn't deserve as much shame here as Apple does since MS isn't requiring their hardware vendors to lock down the hardware to only be able to run Windows (even though they very well could). Apple, with iOS, is.

embedding-shape• 4 months ago

I use both, almost on a daily basis, but spend most of my time in Linux (Arch btw).

Both of them deserve equal amount of shame because they're both trying to do the same, force you to have an online account associated with a local user profile, either directly or indirectly.

Not sure why it has to be a contest who "we should shame the most" or whatever, how about saying both of them suck when it comes to this?

zadikian7• 4 months ago

Does iOS truly require it? I thought that was only if you wanted to use the store.

TheDong5• 4 months ago

Being unable to install an alternate app store or sideload my own apps means I need an apple ID to use the computer I purchased.

Again, android phones with GrapheneOS or windows machines with linux let me use my hardware fully without creating any advertising-ridden-evil-corporate-company's account, including building and running my own apps.

I can't even build my own code for iOS, let alone run it, without an apple account (and paying apple money).

LeoPanthera• 4 months ago

I cannot buy an iPhone without creating an apple account

You can both buy and use an iPhone without creating an Apple account. You are limited to the built-in apps, but those built-in apps cover most common use-cases.

Most people wouldn't want to do this, of course. But you can.

debazel3• 4 months ago

cover most common use-cases.

It absolutely does not.

culopatin4• 4 months ago

I know the logic on what I’m about to say is not that tight, but… For some reason, creating an account with Apple doesn’t feel like opening a can of worms like it does with Microsoft.

I know exactly what I’m getting when I open the one with Apple, and I have visibility into it from the settings of every device, feels secure and I never get emails or spam associated to it.

The Microsoft account is another story. It’s a black box, I don’t know what they are collecting, I know that even if it looks like a square today, it’ll be a hexagon tomorrow, and a triangle the next day. They’ll change the product name, merge with some other crap, etc. to access it, you’ll have to remember what the service was when you created it. Live? Hotmail? Outlook? Are they the same as my windows account? Who knows.

It’s just not trust worthy IME. I don’t have an issue with creating an account, I have an issue not knowing why I need it or what I get from it.

DeathArrow• 4 months ago

Maybe Apple will follow suit and won't require an Apple account anymore to be able to use a MacBook.

antiframe5• 4 months ago

They do? News to me, and I probably shouldn't update then. I haven't booted my MacBook for a long while but it doesn't have an Apple ID logged into it. I last used my Apple ID when I had an iPhone back in 2016 or so.

observationist• 4 months ago

No, they should leave it. Make it as onerous and tedious and annoying as possible to set up a new computer.

2026 is the year of the Linux desktop. It's time - Linux has never been better or easier to use than it is right now.

exographicskip5• 4 months ago

Chaos agent hahaha

zhengyi13• 4 months ago

I'm reminded of people inside Google arguing with Vic Gundotra to drop the Real ID requirement for Plus :(

tgsovlerkhgsel• 4 months ago

The enshittifiers don't seem to understand inertia. By the time the enshittification becomes bad enough to do something about it, it's too late.

For that to happen, people have to be pissed off enough that it starts affecting metrics. Then, that needs to be detected, a decision to do something about it has to be made (we are probably somewhere around here), then that decision needs to be implemented step by step by removing all the enshittification... and in the meantime, the reputation as a terminally enshittified product keeps growing.

Even if most of the enshittification is removed, the reputation will stick for a while, just like the product was able to initially keep being successful despite the enshittification.

Atlas267• 4 months ago

Nothing about intertia means it’s ever “too late”, just that there’s a lag between a change (positive or negative) and its effect.

People said the exact same thing about Linux ever taking off on the desktop, but slowly but surely it’s increasing. The effect always comes, eventually.

zadikian7• 4 months ago

I only deal with Windows during a little IT volunteering. The org's PC has an MS account, which is ok per se, but the nagging doesn't stop there. Like it randomly started asking for SMS verification at login, which looks like a real auth challenge, but you can actually skip it. So that's in their handbook now.

imzadi• 4 months ago

My company is still on windows, but it's only because most of our users are over 60 and would stroke out if they had to learn something new. I predict within the next 10 years we will move to something else. The hoops I have to jump through to setup new devices without a Microsoft account are ridiculous. Every time we have a workaround they disable it and we have to do a deeper dive on it. The process right now requires using the command line to create an account with administrator permissions and no password and then create a password after logging in. Then we can create a non-admin local account.

Animats• 4 months ago

I dropped Windows when Microsoft first added ads. My last Windows 7 machine was turned off last year.

It's just better without Microsoft.

layer8• 4 months ago

For what it’s worth, `start ms-cxh: localonly` after Shift+F10 during installation still works. Another way is to prepare a custom installation image. Of course, such workarounds shouldn’t be needed, so this is nevertheless a good fight.

lloydatkinson2• 4 months ago

I use Rufus boot to change downloaded ISOs to allow local accounts and bypass other nonsense. Like TPM and other crap. This allows me to use 11 on my PC I built in 2015.

fredgrott• 4 months ago

hmm MS killing off MS Windows by employing the Google AI and surveillance in everything push....who would have guessed that MS ran out of product ideas!

drillsteps5• 4 months ago

They might drop it for end consumers but I doubt it.

It's such a small niche right now they do not even care if they're in their cloud. Enterprise users are the absolute majority of their user base revenue-wise.

However dropping the requirement might force them to change some things. Like in Azure-related stuff such as OneDrive where you have to design/build/test it behave differently if the user is not constantly logged into the Azure account. This means that they might decide to continue to force the Azure account and if they lose more of the end consumers so be it.

Unless they decide to separate Home and higher versions of Windows even more and drop the requirement for the home version users. But it might be more trouble than it's worth.

Enterprise is where the money is.

hexage1814• 4 months ago

Totally random observation, but this site, Windows Central (I think it belongs to a company named Future PLC), is bloated as hell. So it was somewhat ironic seeing them publishing about how Microsoft should make Windows less shitty for its users

OliveMate• 4 months ago

I think the decreasing fondness of Windows can mostly be blamed on Microsoft forcing their internet services on users; with the need for Microsoft accounts being the most recent & damning of the bunch.

You had gadgets in Vista & 7, but they could easily be disabled. 8 had live tiles for things like the news (effortlessly removable) and introduced the Microsoft Store (which increasingly needs an account). 8.1 added Bing Search to the start menu (requires Regedit to remove nowadays), 10 added news & current events to the start menu, and in 11 they want us to register Microsoft accounts to use the OS.

It's ridiculous how much control we've lost over Windows so that Microsoft can tell shareholders more people are doing Bing searches and signing up for Microsoft accounts than ever before.

judah• 4 months ago

FYI, Microsoft Store doesn't need an account. You can install apps without being signed in to the Store.

Source: I work on the Microsoft Store.

trinsic2• 4 months ago

Microsoft store try's to dark pattern you to think you need to log in though. Or at least it did.

hacker_homie3• 4 months ago

Yeah but it really looks like you need to, are they still showing the login modal dialog that you have to close before it installs?

nkrisc• 4 months ago

How? When? Every time I tried to use it I was prompted to log in to a Microsoft account.

If it is in fact possible then you’ve done an excellent job hiding it.

ehnto• 4 months ago

Yep, the continued moving of the goalposts for how much internet integration is required was really why I bailed on it.

That is putting it kindly mind you, it has become increasingly user hostile software. Distrusting you, the owner of the computer and software, whilst also exploiting your information and usage telemetry, hoovering up private files into the cloud, pushing their online services into every crevice. MSPaint connects to the internet now, like back it off just a little bit you greedy sods. Can't a man draw some pixels in peace?

sevenseacat• 4 months ago

And things like the Copilot app that can't be uninstalled and send regular alerts to the user.

xnyan2• 4 months ago

Microsoft lost me, longtime windows user, when they started fucking with the start menu. I play a lot of games, and was willing to tolerate a lot of abuse to avoid the hassle of changing platforms, but they literally injected MSN tabloid news article results and aware like candy crush above the local applications I was clearly trying to open.

There are definitely concerning trends with the direction of macOS development, but I still maintain a Windows 11 PC in a closet that just runs steam to play games and holy shit it makes Tacoma feel like the pinnacle of UI design and consistency.

deflator• 4 months ago

Ironic that the website that has this article also features similar bloat and ads that the article complains about.

savageaudit• 4 months ago

feels like microsoft keeps optimizing for ecosystem lock-in while users just want less friction

requiring an account for basic stuff might make sense internally but from user side it just adds unnecessary steps

dbvn• 4 months ago

PLLLLLLEEEAAAASSSSEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

It just doesn't make any sense. Starts off the user experience with a kick in the nuts and a slap across the face. "You don't own this machine"

gregates• 4 months ago

I was a MS-DOS 2.0 user as a child. I have always preferred windows to OSX. I used WSL for years at companies where every other engineer had a MacBook.

Last weekend I finally started dual-booting Arch Linux as a trial. Yesterday I deleted my windows partition.

Too late, Microsoft.

SV_BubbleTime2• 4 months ago

I’m still on the Linux Mint part of the transition from Windows and I just for no reason see going back.

I’m dealing with sub-par Office on my work machines. But as MS moves/forces Office into online modes and I’m hoping that it’ll just be an electron app I can pull up.

lugu• 4 months ago

Deleting the partition is a good strategy to commit yourself. It might take some effort to get back to you productivity (and autonomy) levels, but then you will exceed them.

driverdan• 4 months ago

Too little too late. I've been a Windows user since 2.1. It hasn't always been my primary OS but I've always had it running somewhere. Win 10 LTSC is the last Windows I'll use. I still have it on my desktop but will be moving completely off to Linux.

My dad has also been primarily a Windows user since it existed. A few weeks ago he switched over to Linux, his first time running it.

MS is killing themselves with this mess.

pedalpete2• 4 months ago

Of all the things wrong with windows, I don't feel that having a Microsoft account is the worst of them, or the one that needs the most attention.

Is the reasoning that if you don't have a Microsoft account, they'll do less of the ads nonsense which is baked into the OS? Maybe I don't get what the issue is.

I've tried linux, but haven't converted (though I'm tempted), but my mac has a mac account and nobody seems to complain about that, my android has a google account, why is a Microsoft account so much worse.

The things I feel it is more important for Microsoft to get rid of 1) the push for OneDrive everywhere - Mac is as bad if you don't have iCloud 2) updates requiring "set-up" and trying to trick you into adding services in the process 3) Windows Hello moving the "sign in" button down 10px once it recognizes you....WTF!! 4) ads, ads, ads (though if you don't use start button much or Edge, I think this is mostly avoided 5) letting apps add shortcuts to your desktop on an update.

What am I not understanding?

sdwr• 4 months ago

"Requiring an account" means leaning in the Apple/Disney direction - upselling, walled gardens and milking captive customers. Dropping the account requirement is a symbolic (and practical!) step in the other direction, towards using the product as a tool.

pedalpete2• 4 months ago

That's fair, so is the outrage focused on Microsoft because they are a "more" open system without the app store being the default method of installing apps?

I guess I'm wondering why Apple and Google don't get the same pushback?

dana321• 4 months ago

You don't need and apple account to use macos

BLKNSLVR3• 4 months ago

The fact there has to be a 'fight' about this tells you all you need to know about the direction the company's leadership wants to take.

Get out before their terms allow them to sue your company and hold your data to ransom if you think about migrating away.

worik• 4 months ago

Why Windows?

kogasa240p• 4 months ago

Good to see there's some people fighting the good fight in the depths of Redmond.

nmstoker• 4 months ago

My "favourite" with this is the new Windows app (terrible new name for the remote desktop app). You now have to sign in to use the app but then as soon as you connect to any corporate resources (ie remote PCs/Cloud PCs), you have to sign in again! It seems like the perfect opportunity to SAVE the user some hassle but instead it's adding it.

vardump• 4 months ago

That new Windows app didn’t even work for me at all. Could not connect a Windows 10 box for example.

darkhorn• 4 months ago

Why Microsoft is obsessed with accounts? Azure's managed identity for this for that drives me crazy. An integration that could be done in few hours takes more than a week. No proper documentation, buggy libraries, made up, non-standard behaviors, uhhhh...

jwpapi• 4 months ago

Another chill day on Linux..

trollbridge2• 4 months ago

I was shocked to install Windows 11 in a VM today for some throwaway purpose I needed (specifically, proving that some piece of software that's 3 years old will absolutely not work on up-to-date Windows 11), and was not required to use a Microsoft account. Just prompted to make a local account and that was it.

2b3a51• 4 months ago

Which Windows 11 sku did you use for that test?

trollbridge2• 4 months ago

I selected Pro. Downloaded the ISO from Microsoft yesterday.

chka• 4 months ago

The irony of needing to fight internally for something users have been asking for since day one. Local accounts should be the default, not a hidden workaround

khuedoan• 4 months ago

Even if the good people fighting for this win, Microsoft will eventually enshittify it again. It’s just what Microslop does.

There's no future for Windows. I think most people should move to Linux, or to macOS if they still need proprietary software for work.

TuringNYC2• 4 months ago

Ss it just me or did Microsoft never actually fix/figure out their account merge? I found that anyone who had a legacy skype/hotmail account basically got locked out once Skype/Hotmail/Outlook.com all merged. Multiple frustrated message threads online complained about this and from my personal experience it never got fixed. Basically two out of three accounts became inaccessable.

That was when I completely left that ecosystem, Office 365, everything. It was literally impossible to log in. Not surprisingly, the Office 365 bills continued to charge even though accounts were inaccessible. To this day, i'm far too scared to even attempt to use Azure on a personal account for this reason.

culopatin4• 4 months ago

For a long time I used my Gmail account as my Microsoft account somehow. So my login ended in Gmail.com. At some point like 2015 I realized it had been merged with outlook or something and now I had an outlook mailbox that had a Gmail domain, along with my actual Gmail mailbox. I got locked out once and it took me days to figure it out. Got so confused about it I decided to close that MS account and get an outlook one. I don’t even know if it’s active or what it was for anymore.

TuringNYC2• 4 months ago

Well you are lucky if you were able to dump the account. For me, I had Skype credit, monthly billings, and tons of contacts -- all gone in a botched post-merger integration. Definitely makes me never go back to that ecosystem ever again.

gorfian_robot• 4 months ago

my win11 disk shit the bed and I had the local PC guys put in a new one (wiping all my data). they gave me the the machine back with a local 'user1' admin account. so that's me now. user1. hi.

smetj• 4 months ago

I run Linux. If there's something I'm missing out because of that, then I accept it rather than going through this hell.

hacker_homie3• 4 months ago

Satya Nadella's obsession with Azure and online services has basically removed all say for local development, if it doesn't use azure he doesn't care.

I think he needs to be replaced before his obsession kills the golden goose that is windows.

leonidasv• 4 months ago

Using Windows these days feels like "you're the product" in a way that's really annoying.

Like, I know that "I am the product" when I open Instagram or Facebook, but the overall experience makes me not think about it; using Windows I get constantly remembered that I am the product: ads, forced Copilot, telemetry making things slow/showing up in the Task Manager, more ads, mandatory account (more telemetry, yay!), Edge begging me to use it... I'm just trying to do my work and the OS gets in front of it!

This is (technically) a paid operating system. Ubuntu is free and doesn't do 1/100th of that (and Ubuntu isn't even the best distro in that regard). I tolerated Windows 7, tolerated 10 a little bit less, but Win 11 is impossible to use. And I haven't even touched the performance issues...

saltyoldman• 4 months ago

Macs are cheap now.

Zenul_Abidin• 4 months ago

I had to set up a Windows laptop for work... and you guessed it, it badgered me for a Microsoft account. No bypasses working since it was in S Mode.

Ended up just logging in on my personal account and then scrubbing it after. I also got rid of S Mode.

dogcomplex• 4 months ago

lol. lmao actually.

Windows has an absolute onslaught of competition about to stream its way, and they're gonna be paying for every little enshittified user experience they've embedded into their OS. Hope they enjoy ripping that out just to slow their user numbers deathspiral

The people inside Microsoft fighting to keep mandatory accounts out are the equivalent of a crew throwing furniture off a sinking ship, hoping to buy more time. They're smart enough to have an innate sense of where things are going, and it might even help a little, but man... good luck.

speedylight• 4 months ago

At this point windows should be classified as a public utility and regulated as such. Microsoft has turned the most popular operating system on earth into an ad riddled and dysfunctional joke. Satya Nadella destroyed what would’ve been a stellar legacy as CEO of Microsoft by allowing all this crap to go on, chief among them is the war on local accounts.

red_admiral• 4 months ago

If you can't set up without an account, this should work, no?

  1. Create an admin user "setup" with a throwaway Microsoft account on first boot.
  2. From there, create a local user "admin".
  3. Reboot into "admin" with internet off, delete "setup", and run a bunch of deshittification scripts to get rid of AppX(Provisioned)Packages.

zamadatix• 4 months ago

Assuming you have internet during setup (can be a pain loading drivers via USB) and are fine with creating the throwaway to just not use it, sure - but that's precisely the kind of thing people don't like about the setup requiring an account. Getting rid of the preinstalled packages is a bit of a game of russian roulette for the install as you never know when the next incremental update breaks something because the machine doesn't match baseline or something else was built with the assumption certain crap would be there.

If you're going to go through all of this there are easier ways to just work around the install and crap limitations. They are also still annoying, but at least easier.

lloydatkinson2• 4 months ago

Why go through all that instead of updating the ISO to bypass all that?

monster_truck• 4 months ago

One of the most common things people still reach out to me for help with is when they are travelling with a windows laptop, go to a country they have been to and worked from before, and Microsoft helpfully locks the account.

I then have to make a judgement call wrt them being competent enough for me to walk them through the process of booting into recovery mode and prying this shit out.

The official support channels, if they respond at all, often take weeks to handle it.

And FWIW, I still see this happen to people with Apple products more.

delphic-frog• 4 months ago

The OneDrive thing drives me crazy too. I set up a fresh Windows install last month and spent the first hour just undoing defaults and disabling prompts. It's weird how Microsoft keeps doubling down on this when the backlash is so consistant. At some point they have to realise they're pushing more technical users toward Linux.

Peaches4Rent2• 4 months ago

I moved from windows to Linux a few years back. As of now the only thing I've not been able to do is update my Chinese gaming mouse's firmware. I'm afraid to brick it if I upgrade using wine.

Honestly, for anyone who's on this site, switching to Linux isn't hard or problematic. Go for something like fedora silverblue and you get a similar experience where you don't have to control the operating system yourself.

The only thing would be if your company wants you to be on windows.

bjackman• 4 months ago

The other side of the coin is also funny: I've used Linux for 15 years. There's always been a little voice in the back of my head that says "ah, but one day you'll be forced to admit that these hobby OSs just can't compete with the reliability and product investment offered by a commercial backer like MS".

And then every few years I have some reason to boot Windows and I go "ah, here it goes, I bet this is gonna be slick as hell".

But you already know how the story ends - every single time it's a confusing, hostile, slow and ugly experience.

Also, it used to be that you could say "actually, if you really take care to set it up, Linux is usable for nontechnical people". But nowadays Linux is actually the obvious choice for non-Apple hardware. There's really no reason to leave your family on Windows. Specialised applications are the _only_ remaining reason to use Windows, and most people don't need them.

shlewis• 4 months ago

I have minor inconveniences and hiccups with Linux.

I have a gut-level disdain for and distrust of Windows.

albert_e• 4 months ago

Is this a reaction in part to the threat posed by the launch of very affordable Macbook Neo; and partly the rise of AI Agents like Cowork that will drive massive demand and scale of sanboxes and virtual machines and Windows OS is not a great fit for that today.

legacynl7• 4 months ago

The start menu is a react app? What the hell.

culopatin4• 4 months ago

My 30000+ person Windows centric company has discovered that Macs are not only cheaper to order (than the 2.5k HP laptops they’ve been fed) but people don’t complain about the fans as much, batteries last longer, speakers are better and screens are brighter, so there has been a massive wave of Windows to Mac transition.

It went from web devs and designers to now HR, admins, anyone. I don’t think we’ll swap Active Directory just yet but I would’ve never thought we’d do this. We’re an old school slow red tape wrapped industry.

Cloud too, Azure could not secure our business even though we’ve been Microsoft everything. We’re in AWS.

People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

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