For me it is so weird, that you have to use extra tools to disable telemetry and unwanted features in windows systems. Why is windows not giving me a central option to decide on those things? Is it maybe because they do not want me to decide for myself and therefore splitting the places where I need to disable all that unwanted stuff as opaque as possible? Can they be more obvious that they do not value your opinion on how you want your OS to behave?
Quit Windows. It is a dead end and get worst with every release.
If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.
want your OS
That’s the problem, it’s not your OS.
It’s a shame. I really love Windows 10. It’s fast and the UI’s ergonomy is near perfect.
On my work laptop we recently had to switch to Windows 11 and it’s a fucking pain to use. You have to jump through so many hoops and do extra clicks to do what you want. And the start menu has become completely useless. And I hate the gaps and rounded corners everywhere. And that’s just on the surface. Performance is piss poor and you have all that crap spying on you to collect your usage data.
The day Windows 10 becomes unsupported is the day I go 100% Linux.
Forced to use it at work, too, and only by the grace of being in the IT department do I have the ability to make it less shitty.
There’s registry entries to restore the full context menu, and PowerToys Run has effectively become my defacto start menu, though obviously you need to use the keyboard so it’s not a perfect UI replacement. Meanwhile for searching, I’ve got Everything running and set global keyboard shortcuts/touchpad gestures to it. Maybe I’ll grab an old gaming mouse and shortcut them to the extra buttons.
They finally implemented never combine on the taskbar, and it’s…tolerable, but buggy and still resizes things for no reason
Unfortunately I’ve yet to find a way to get some damn 90° angles back. I can not wait for a few years down the line when we finally swing away from this Apple-chasing “bubbles with an inch between them on a white/black field” design aesthetic. I’m tired of everything looking like a toy, especially at the cost of its actual utility.
And not just a toy, the same toy. It’s seriously Corporate Memphis levels of lifeless, forced design with no character, creativity, or ingenuity.
Forced to use it at work, too, and only by the grace of being in the IT department do I have the ability to make it less shitty.
I’m a user 🤮 and the IT on my Japanese employer is run by Mordac the Information Preventer. FML.
TIL about PowerToys Run. That’s a game changer for me. Thanks!
This has been exactly my stance as well apart from ever having used Win11. Never did and never plan to, downloaded Mint a few months ago to start getting familiar with it. Turns out I’m not real great at technical stuff but I’m getting there. Dual monitors was kind of a booger and now I’m trying to figure out how to install some games since Bottles is being a real wiener about Battle.Net. I’m glad there’s so many resources and forums out there but I still hope some version of Linux gets dumbed down a little more before Win10 sunsets to make the transition easier for us blue collar folk
I had problem with bottles and battle.net too. It went flawless year ago, then I went to play other games and when I finally wanted to play Diablo 2 again, battle.net kept crashing all the time. I solved it by running that bottle in wine-ge. Easier way to get it (and manage such prefixes) is ProtonUp-qt that is also on flathub.
Windows 10 already had telemetry (what you call spying) and what it didn’t have in the past got patched in. So when it comes to that both Windows 10 and 11 are the same.
Performance is totally fine for me on Windows 11, but the new right click context menu sucks.
Overall there’s really not much difference between the two otherwise.
I’ve been using Manjaro on an old modded chromebook. Windows is not gonna be on my next machine build.
I think you can use a third-party tool to remove rounded corners
If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.
Trust me, I’m not installing Windows as the Operating System for my Children’s brains.
Quit for what? Linux is a mess with hardware like fingerprint readers being unsupported, and without the most used commercial software. Mac OS is a buggy mess lately, and it ties your data to a time bomb hardware and that damn walled garden.
Windows is the best general use OS out there, and Microsoft knows it. We need regulation to stop that abuse.
Been this way since windows XP. There’s always been good folk who go out and provide tools to remove bloat.
I removed it by installing Linux
Annnnnnnnnnnd there it is!
Like clockwork! Almost as reliable as the OS /s
Linux has no mainstream advertising so word-of-mouth is the only way it gets adopted.
It’s also about the customer having better options beyond “modify the ever-living shit out of Windows until it behaves”. Microsoft only does these things because they know how many hundreds of millions of customers are locked into their ecosystem. No matter what they do, no matter how poorly they treat their customers, they’ll keep coming back to buy more! So why should they care? Why should they slow down or offer some privacy-friendly version for anything below $1000 per person? Hell, I’m surprised Microsoft hasn’t been steadily raising the price of Windows over the years. Not like the customers are going to actually switch, right?
Honestly, I would switch to Linux if it didn’t take so much time to learn. I’ve messed around on a Raspberry π 4th gen board, but have no real experience. To really make the Linux jump, I’d need a tutor or something.
Also I don’t know which of my games will be compatible.
Mint and Debian are great, and once you set everything as you like it, they’re pretty solid. Pop_OS is easy if you have an Nvidia GPU too.
As for comparability, proton has all but settled the issue. The SteamDeck runs on Linux after all. Take a look on Proton Database to check if a game works well or not. FWIW, every game I’ve tried save one has been flawless, and that one did things with files and wallpapers.
If you have a second computer you don’t need working, I’d recommend just trying something on it, switch distributions now and then. See how far you can get with just Linux.
Most games are compatible, you can also check https://protondb.com/ for each game, how people play it and how they run it. It’s a very neat website!
About the jump: Do it now, and you’ll thank yourself later. I did it with no prior experience myself and didn’t find it difficult at all tbh, as previous comment suggested, try Mint first of you’re afraid. And if you want an easy to use one that also focus on a bit of gaming then try PopOS! Don’t let the amount of choices discourage or confuse you, just pick one and go with it. Feel free to message me if you ever need any help 🌻
This might be a deeper dive than you mean but should cover everything you’d need to know and more
I finally switched to Linux as my daily driver (gaming, browsing, watching stuff) a week ago. Admittedly I have been using it at work for a few years.
- I chose Pop!_OS as a distribution, because it supposedly streamlines nvidia driver hassles and I wanted to give it a try
- Installed the OS, Discord, Steam, no problems
- Installed and played Raft, Vampire Survivors, TW Warhammer 3, Outer Wilds, no problems and no additional config needed
Just to add a voice to the positive feedback! If you have a spare computer or hard drive, I absolutely encourage you to try it out!
Can you imagine installing Windows and having to install 10 seperate programs just to fix all the issues with it?
Every day with Windows is like this. It’s a fucking nightmare. I don’t know what else to do.
Install linux :)
I tried installing Linux on the new work laptop yesterday.
The keyboard wasn’t recognised. The fucking keyboard.
Apparently it’s fixed in kernel 6.6 but nothing has that yet coz they’re all using the earlier LTS
i didn’t even have to scroll to find the first instance of this comment
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Truly Truly, I say unto you, install Linux; it’s what you really must do.
Right, right. Smh
Onenote, publisher, CAD. Excel (and don’t give me open/libre can do it, no they can’t. They are marginally compatible).
And a laundry list more of the issues trying to replace windows with Linux on the desktop.
If you work by yourself and don’t share docs, yea, could probably work. I need to trust that what I send is what people see.
Try to open an excel workbook with tables on open/libre and see what happens.
Specialist software in general is patchy at best. There are often FOSS alternatives… But in the same way they aren’t compatible with what other people are using.
I have a few games that don’t run on Steam. How big of a pain is it to get them running?
This is like 50-70% of my PC usage.
Fairly easy with something like lutris or the heroic game launcher if said games are on gig amazon gaming or epic
No, they have their own launchers.
You can search on e.g. Lutris if the game is supported. It’s usually just a one button install
Thanks. Looks like it’s all Wine wrappers. 🫤
It is not uncommon to find “Wine wrappers” to actually work better than on Windows itself.
I game on Linux and mainly play games bought from GOG. Both GOG and Epic games are extremely easy to get working, and are as simple as downloading Heroic Games Launcher, signing into GOG and/or Epic, and choosing the game you want to download from your library. While it is possible to use the official GOG Galaxy client with Lutris and WINE, I personally don’t recommend it, as it’s quite a glitchy and laggy experience, and is only done by people who can’t live without GOG achievements. For GOG… just use Heroic. It’s just as easy to use as the official Galaxy client is on Windows and also supports cloud-saves.
I’ve never used Amazon, but Heroic also recently added downloading your Amazon Prime games as an option, which I imagine is just as easy to get working as GOG and Epic Games already are.
This part isn’t necessary, but if you want to play those games but launch them from Steam, you can add each game individually to Steam as a non-steam game through the Lutris or Heroic Games’ interface. A handy app I recommend, which I never hear people mention, is BoilR, which automatically adds all of your non-steam games in bulk into your Steam Library.
As for the EA App and Ubisoft Connect, I ditched them over a year ago due to not wanting to support the companies (same with Epic). I honestly don’t remember what the process was exactly for those launchers, but I do remember it was very easy to set up in Lutris.
Lastly, I’ve never used Battle.net either, but I’ve heard it’s quite easy to set up in Lutris.
Truly the Bethesda of operating systems.
install random third party software that may be sniffing or leaking information to remove shady features from windows that sniff and leak information.
windows sucks.
The app is open source so you can review the not-leaking-your-information that it does yourself.
Windows on the other hand …
I wonder how many apps this actually happens for, my guess is “way less than people think”
That they leak information? I work in commercial software development and I have to do a lot of open source security reviews. The answer is: virtually none.
Private, closed-source software on the other hand… If it could sniff your farts and send the smell to advertisers, it would; in almost all cases.
No, that people actually take the time to check the source code before installing them
I’ve seen enough crypto scams to know that even when the code is public, people don’t bother… Heck, there are scanning tools for crypto that tell you how risky the shitcoins are and people still get scammed out of thousands of dollars!
Not everyone have to check something. But there are people that do routinely check popular stuff, either on their own or for their job. Sometimes this raises issues, which are usually handled appropriately. Of course if you download a little unknown piece of software made by a single person and never advertised anywhere, you’ll have to do the job yourself. But anything semi-popular attracts enough attention to get some level of audit, at least because business uses a lot of open source. There are even businesses whose main product is auditing and developing open source, kind of like bounty hunters.
And of course there are counter-examples, too. TrueCrypt got pulled out quite dramatically, and I’m not sure we know why even now. But the more sensitive the stuff, the higher the chance of it getting some level of investigation.
As a software user, you can either care about your privacy or not. Caring about your privacy and not either vetting what you’re planning to use or checking that someone else has before using it, is akin to sticking your hand in a fire to find out if it’s hot.
Taking that analogy further, malicious open source software is kind of like a burning building. It only takes one person to raise the flag for it to spread pretty quickly through social media or other means that it is malicious. The whole community doesn’t need to acknowledge the fire for something to be done about it.
Yeah, but it is virtually impossible to read all code running on your machine. At the very least it is an option. While I personally wouldn’t search the code of random open source calculator app. I’ll be damned if I ain’t inspecting something like this.
My reason for not using them is that they tend to be overly aggressive in what they remove. I only need a few reg tweaks and denying permissions on a few files. These often go whole hog and remove whole components, almost all apps etc. I actually use one drive, I don’t want its files also removed.
Although im part of the Linux crowd, if you’re tired of reapplying debloat scripts every update, you could get the W10 IoT LTSC edition that only has security patches with no updates. You will have to pirate it though.
A non pirate solution is Windows Server Essentials 2022. It’s like $300, has zero bloat and updates don’t ever hijack your settings. Oh and you’ll get over 10 years of security patches.
does Windows Server Essentials comes with a desktop GUI? Can you install Steam and things like that like you’d normally do in Windows?
I’m happy with Linux, but my brother who is a gamer has Windows but he’s annoyed af by updates and the AI nonsense. This seems like a perfect solution.
It should be able to run all windows apps, though you can use microsoft store to install apps.
Yes it is regular Windows but stripped of all the consumer apps like TikTok and CandyCrush. It has one extra app: Server Manager (A GUI like Control Panel with buttons to disk manager, device manager etc) which loads at startup and is easily disabled. Under the hood the registry has changes that tell Windows to give background tasks equal resources to the foreground app. This is needed for server use for smoother multitasking like Linux, but at the expense of a few FPS in games. You can edit the registry in regular Windows to act like Server and vice versa. They use the same kernel.
This is intriguing. Does it still try to force you to use a Microsoft account? Would make no sense for a server version, but you never know with microsoft’s bullshit sometimes.
Not even an option for MS account during setup.
I do both and happy with debloated Windows 11 Enterprise with automatic updates restricted to security only. Pirating now is running a powershell command that fetches activation scripts from github.
This might be interesting. I’m looking to have a few installs to test some of my programs in an actual Windows environment without having to daily drive Windows and without having to deal with all the unnecessary changes MS wants to make.
Tiny 10/11
https://archive.org/details/tiny-11-NTDEV
Activation script
https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts
Edit: My Tiny10 reports as LTSC for some reason, but I’m pretty sure Tiny isn’t based on LTSC now that I’ve done some more reading.
Neat. I tried this last night on my once top of the line machine (in 2012) because why not…
It didn’t upgrade my win10 install but at least it didn’t delete all my data. Maybe I goofed on that as I was tired.
I used the 23H2 iso but it installed 22H2.
I didn’t use the script, it picked up my existing valid key.
It fails to update. Perhaps that’s the point or bloat would come back?
But if it can’t update then what’s the point?
Again, might be my fault but I’m not really trusting this image yet. Not enough to reinstall and relicense my tools.
I use Linux where I can but I’m bound to some windows-only proprietary software. I do use a stripped down win10 VM for a lot of it but at least it updates.
Will update this comment if i find that I’m at fault.
LTSC only gets security updates. No feature updates.
It’s intended for stability, so you don’t wake up and suddenly nothing works right because of an update. That won’t happen on LTSC.
I wouldn’t use it to update an existing install, that’s not what it’s intended for (and probably pointless as it may retain stuff that came with the existing os).
Thank you. It does seem cool but I can’t really keep up. I appreciate the explanation. I really thought it was a fully workable de-bloated win11. Which it is, but I need long term installs. I learned a few things though! So not a waste.
If i could ever figure out how to run a windows app via VM. Seamless mode comes close but not quite enough.
Anyway thanks and I didn’t mean to be negative, just didn’t totally get it.
I used to have a power shell script that a coworker gave me that would uninstall a huge number of services and apps on windows, change a bunch of config settings etc.
I’ve always wished there were a way to roll out a stripped windows release as an open source project without getting sued.
That’s pretty cool I just used Enterprise Edition and ran Powershell to uninstall shit. Also Chris Titus Tech’s tool is quite nice as well.
This is awesome!!
Thanks! This is a great project
There is. It’s called slipstreaming and IT people have been doing it for decades
Configuration Management is the term I’m familiar with, third party tools or SCCM, or just group policy.
Was it the christitus thing? Wonder if this ai debloat would complete that.
I’ve no idea what MS are even doing with all this shit.
I’m like 95% sure I had an AI icon in the search bar yesterday, and today it’s a briefcase. 🤷
I guess for some reason it decided to pack up
I have no idea why they’re even remotely interested in Windows as a product anymore. Surely they can’t expect that much revenue from integrated AI services when most of the general public’s needs can be covered by web services that will severely outmatch Microsoft’s development speed (y’know because of juggling legacy code and all).
Considering the fact that they gain most of their revenue by far from their Azure cloud services and enterprise customers, it just seems like a stupid business decision to invest this much into all kinds of random features for their desktop OS aimed at consumers.
In proper systems architectecture theory, we generally try to avoid mixing up functionality this much because a modular design allows your system to evolve without too much pain. Why build all this crap into Windows when you can just opt-in by installing an application for it?
I really don’t get it…
They make a lot off of business licencing. They still push the consumer and education side in order to create familiarity.
“Gaming contributed $7.11 billion in revenue for the quarter, more than the $5.26 billion from Windows, but behind the $13.47 billion from Office and cloud services and the giant $23.95 billion from server products and cloud services.”
I’ve never had any major issues with windows and I can strip out what I don’t like, so whatevs. I like Linux, but gaming, so I roll with windows.
Windows Server on the other hand, fuck that noise. Ugh.
Gamings gotten pretty good with linux. I made the switcheroo when windows forced an update that undid a lot of my changes to windows AGAIN and I was like evwrytime they do this I have to take time to finish this and was pissed.
All games I play work on Linux no problem and all the games I’ve been interested since then have worked day 1; but of course I’ve always taken issue with games that have kernel level anticheats.
They keep inching me towards Linux with all this bullshit
Just make the jump. I keep a cheap n100 box as a backup.
go to linux alreadiii
Sigh.
Sure.
Now how do you: CAD, exchange, Publisher, Access, Excel (no, open versions of excel still don’t come close, they can’t even do tables), Onenote/SharePoint, etc, etc.
And Linux is as messed up in its own way. Power management is off by default, so it kills your laptop battery (at least on every version I’ve tested). Notifications that you can’t silence without looking up a command line.
No, the learning curve is still too steep to recommend to people who I will have to support.
And while the Open/Libre office apps are “compatible”, people don’t have time to waste dealing with the ways they whack a document. Libre couldn’t even properly display the spreadsheet I use to setup a new machine, with 3 sheets and a few hundred lines, because tables.
“Switch to Linux” is a simplistic answer that doesn’t address the needs of users. And I use Linux every day, as a serverOS, running VM’s and docker.
They hated him for he spoke the truth…
“Switch to Linux” is a simplistic answer that doesn’t address the needs of users. And I use Linux every day, as a serverOS, running VM’s and docker.
“Let me debate you about why you shouldn’t use Windows” as if I want to use Windows, people who have no experience with the software in my industry dropping alternatives. Even had someone debate me after saying I’m a sysadmin in a mixed environment, and how I alone should just move the whole company and all our software vendors to Linux.
What learning curve? Whether my mom clicks on the Firefox icon in Ubuntu or Windows makes zero difference
Dude literally just explained the issues facing actual workers that use computers for productive activities, not your mother looking up tendie recipes.
What’s for dinner tonight, I wonder
Joe Mama
They “can’t even do tables”!!!
uh hu, you locked yourself in. Imo if you dont need Excel, OneNote or any of that shit, its perfectly cool. For devs its even nicer not to have to deal with all the windows shit ways of doing things. As for documents, LaTeX is great.
Also, in the end, the command line is even easier than having to learn shitty user interfaces. And you get much faster with command line too. Windows likes to have 3 different design languages from different decades for no reason.
Using it as OS and as Server, it has been perfect for years.
People who don’t use it either have a life and simply dont want things to change, or are too foolish to realise they are getting trolled with every update.
For people starting, just dual boot a Linux Distro. For the shit that requires windows boot into it. The rest can all be done in linux. Even boots faster.
And for average people probably the google documents / slides […] will be more than enough.
Rip to people that need windows shit to be in their life for work. Though they could also use a windows vm.
I could not find any selfhostable solution that comes close to the features of one note. Handwriting, offline work and syncing are a must for me.
Also one note web sucks.
Using syncthing and obsidian with the excalidraw addon does this. Don’t know if that’ll meet your standards, but it’ll do handwriting, offline work, and syncing.
While obsidian is not open source, it is extensible with a large community, so it can do a very wide variety of workflows. It’s what I used before moving to Logseq.
Just as a minor correction - Librecalc can do tables. Why they didn’t call it tables and bind it to CTRL&T is beyond me though. link
select the cells -> Data -> AutoFilter
I create them with CTRL&T through the custom shortcuts in options. They work about the same as Excel.
Librecalc is a little rough, but I’m actually starting to find it superior in functionality and customization compared to MS. And it’s about 10x faster on very large spreadsheets for me.
I would also definitely recommend using use dark mode if you’re going to use calc. Options -> Application Colors -> LibreOffice Dark
What’s slowing down Linux adoption?
Is it the monopoly Microsoft has on all PC hardware and strong relationships it has with desktop software partners that make leaving windows near impossible?
No, it must be the users.
/s insert principal Skinner meme
Commercial support for it.
On a personal level, I installed Ubuntu for the first time in over a decade and found the experience worse. Previously I could download everything I needed either through the package manager or deb file easily. Ow I ran into a new flat pack type installer that has failing dependencies that weren’t found through command line either. The new mouse driver in gnome was hot garbage too with the touchpad sensitivity so high I couldn’t scroll more than a page and a half at even the lightest touch. No settings to change it either. Windows is far easier at this point.
Gaming
I game on Linux all the time. I’ve been playing apex legends, phasmophobia (VR), palworld, the finals, and so much more. It all works on Linux. There’s not a lot of games that I can’t play. Most of the time my sister, who’s on Windows, has more trouble getting her games running.
I forgot what 2008 was like. Thanks for the reminder
Nothing near the level of Adobe software for example.
These types of comments are annoying and super unhelpful.
Nice job /s
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It really is a shame that music production is so painful in Linux. All I need to make the final switch
After leaving Macs (and Logic) (Apple software great, Apple iMac shit) switched to LInux over 10 years ago. Haven’t made music since (hardware in boxes). Fully learned that Linux music ain’t got that swing.
I recently heard that newer PipeWire has improved things a quite a lot. Haven’t tried it yet … not sure I remember how to play any instruments any more.
You could try bitwig, the daw is really good and has a native linux client for years.
Ya know … I’ll just give that a close hard look. Thanks!
As someone who uses windows to produce music
Exactly and some other media/creative stuff as well. Windows is the only way to run Ableton with full VST support on my own hardware. Then if I’m going to need a Windows workstation anyway, I might as well use it for gaming too, and lump in all my other “power station” uses. It’s sometimes frustrating when you mention this and people who aren’t familiar with these programs to try to debate you or assume you haven’t entertained the alternatives. In my case I run Linux on my laptop and servers, and even some of my instruments like the monome norns and m8 are rpi based. Real time audio synthesis on linux is actually amazing, PureData and Supercollider are the ones I’m somewhat familiar with.
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Yeah and in those linux examples its not really latency that’s important, plus those things run on Windows too. The Monome Norns is a raspberry pi shield with a linux platform and development community around it, where people write scripts to turn it in to all manner of musical devices. When it comes to a full DAW with VST support it’s basically OSX or Windows, and if you don’t want to be restricted to Apple hardware then congrats, you’re using Windows.
Problem I’ve had with all these “fixes” the issues come back or the OS craps the bed
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I literally have a windows 10 installed that I haven’t logged in since before AI came up. WTF! I can only imagine the massive update when I try to login next time.
You should just login in to a linux distro instead. (╭☞´ิ∀´ิ)╭☞
Every fucking thread that is even remotely about “Windows”
You know you’re on Lemmy, right? This is how it works here ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hopefully, that includes the downvote parade you’re getting for being insufferable.
It was an observation, but hey everyone go ahead and downvote me anyway. Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all – i love ya anyway 🥂❤️
I use AtlasOS to debloat and optimize (disabling animations, annoying requests and so on) Windows 10/11
I’ll thank you ahead of time, i’ll checl this out (hopefully) this weekend. It’s bookmarked.
The option to install Opera should be removed.
Another way of removing windows ai bloat is by using balenaetcher and an usb stick
Are you saying they should install Linux?
I know Rufus has options to modify the Windows image before writing it to your USB stick but AFAIK Balena can’t write Windows images.
You mean dd like a madlad
