Microsoft could have made Windows:
able to run on any hardware
free for basic usage, paid for commercial usage
lightweight, simple, stripped of all cruft and extras
consistent in it's UI and cleaned up from 40 years of inconsistencies
But they didn't - so people are looking for alternatives.
As much as I like many Windows versions, the corporate idiocy of the company behind the OS is indeed something else.
I get the impression that a lot of the old guard are long gone from the Windows team or have no influence. Raymond Chen is still around but not sure how much he actually works on Windows day to day.
Microsoft was founded in 1975. 1981 was the first DOS release. 1985 was the first release of Windows. 40 years working on windows is a long time, I would be surprised if anyone for the original team is left at this point. Even someone joining out of college in 2000 is now 25 years in, is 57, and could feasibly be retiring....
You mean 1990. Someone graduating college in 1990 would have been about 21. That was 35 years ago, so they would be about 56 in 2025.
Math is hard.
Never ascribe to stupidity, that which has been proven to be malice.
Yeah, they delivered whatever they delivered on purpose. Sometimes I imagine MS is playingn Lemmings with their users to reach their corporate goals.
I doubt the various shitty parts of Windows (not the forced AI/whatever) is due to malice, unless you mean employees maliciously trying to destroy the company.
Hanlon’s razor applies
This is true with a lot of companies. If you made people actually use their own product (do they?!) maybe they'd think twice before doing boneheaded things
Then again, I get the biological desire to put food on the table for one's family and therein lies the problem
If you made people actually use their own product (do they?!)
Yes, they do. Unfortunately even MS employees are powerless to do anything about the crap that gets shoved into Windows by other employees working at the company, and the ones who complain about it are quietly shown the door or have already left of their own will, leaving only those who are completely apathetic or...
Then again, I get the biological desire to put food on the table for one's family and therein lies the problem
Exactly. That and the desire to remain in the country --- part of the reason why companies like H-1Bs so much is because they are going to be far more docile and less willing to resist doing things they feel are wrong.
I remember I was at a Python conference some years ago and every Microsoft dev I saw had a MacBook. So no, I don’t think they use their own product internally.
As an aside, I used to know a number of MS heads who ran Windows on Mac Intel machines because they preferred the hardware (~2014 MBP) and/or because they ostensibly worked at Mac shops and were handed one upon entry.
The only thing worse than work-from-office is mandatory work-on-windows.
If only there was something Microsoft’s developers could do about that…
"I get the biological desire to put food on the table for one's family and therein lies the problem"
They don't make money (put bread on the table) by selling Windows any more. That is soooo 2000s.
Income is from data mining and from subscriptions to cloudy offerings that are mostly MVP (Minimum Viable Product).
Oh, and hyping their perceived value to the point that the term "meme stock" is no longer just a joke.
With the way the economy is going (some call it K-shaped) it's more profitable to squeeze as hard as you can and extract as much as possible out of whales versus trying to have mass market appeal. Azure, Office and Copilot will sustain them.
Nvidia is doing something similar where they're just extracting as much as possible out of AI companies and not caring one bit about consumers.
Consumers need to remember how to wield a pitchfork
The challenge is that consumers in the case of Windows don’t generally choose Windows. Someone else chooses it for them.
>With the way the economy is going (some call it K-shaped) it's more profitable to squeeze as hard as you can and extract as much as possible out of whales versus trying to have mass market appeal
How does whatever microsoft is doing to windows line up with that?
Hmm, it does line up with that from my perspective too.
It's just a different way to say "you're the product, not the customer" if you look at the statement from a neutral perspective - the whale being the actual customer, who changes all the time depending on what Microsoft MBAs think might have the highest potential value they can extract.
>the whale being the actual customer, who changes all the time depending on what Microsoft MBAs think might have the highest potential value they can extract.
Who's the "whale" in this context? Windows users who subscribe to copilot? Enterprise? Advertisers?
Enterprise.
Enterprises are the whales. Microsoft sells user management, Office, Copilot, Outlook, etc... all bundled together for more per seat per year than a consumer will spend or generate in the whole lifecycle of their device. Nevermind Azure.
So consumers are mostly ignored, except as a testbed to shove AI and ads.
>free for basic usage, paid for commercial usage
And lose all the OEM license money?
Windows is now less than 10% of their revenue, last I saw. I think Windows is more valuable to keep people in the Microsoft ecosystem, than as a source of direct revenue.
won't someone think of the shareholders?
Luckily Linux exists.
When did any manager get promoted for keeping software stable?
Just look at google and their chat softwares... you either make something new, or someone else does and you're left behind... be it ads in their start menu, spyware "AI", or paid solitaire.
When did any manager get promoted for keeping software stable?
A few industries reward that. Telcos and other parts of critical infrastructure come to mind.
It could be a nice OS, if Microsoft didn’t go out of their way to make it awful.
I run Active Directory at home, for various reasons. I’ve got Group Policy in a good enough shape now that I’m not terribly troubled by Microsoft’s enshittification but it took substantial effort to get there, and it requires some work to maintain.
That would require empathy.
lol, what's your point really? alternatives exists since very long time.
I wonder what's their endgame. I mean, if it keeps getting worse, at some point they will really bleed users.
Even if for now the stats (e.g. steam hardware survey), show only a slight increase in Linux users (and a lot of them could be dual booting)
> a lot of them could be dual booting
I should have a valid license for windows, my Win 8 Pro license (which I paid full price for, like $150) should have worked for Windows 10 (and then transfered to 11) but it's not working anymore for whatever reason, I probably upgraded without disabling the key somewhere or whatever. So when I use Windows I have that "activation required" nag watermark now. When microsoft finally remotely kills my unactivated windows 10 install (a week from now? 6 months?) I'm just not going back. The only reason I dual boot these days is fusion 360 CAD and there's a steam install on there so it's probably showing up as a windows install even though I haven't played games on there in probably years.
Windows will probably continue on forever simply due to inertia but this "you have to have a web login to use your private computer" b.s. is going to turn off a lot of consumers, and this will be the watershed moment where Proton/Wine finally moves from 5, to 10 or 15% of users
Keep milking the cash cows to pay for the new growth area (AI). Convert maximum % of Windows users into subscription service consumers (e.g. cloud storage, Office 365, future paid AI capabilities.)
Try the internet without an adblocker. The typical user will put up with a lot of pain.
Windows is absolutely insufferable now. Offensive, defective, regressive, clumsy, slow garbage.
I 100% agree, I dual boot myself and get reminded on how horrible the user experience is as opposed to Fedora with KDE Plasma
I boot to Linux, but have a Windows 11 VM. I haven't spun up the Windows VM more than once a month for many months (maybe a year?). And that's just to update windows.
I put up with so much Windows crap over the years, and Windows 11 was the final straw. It’s not even the gaming OS anymore as Linux feels snappier and more stable for running games.
Until Linux has an alternative to anticheat, gaming on Windows is still king.
And until Linux implements similar abstractions in the Kernel akin to Filter Drivers in Windows, Linux will never have a proper anticheat.
I think “king” may be overstating it somewhat. While it’s true that there are some big titles with anticheat that won’t work on Linux, there are quite a few major titles that work fine, and in practice I’ve been able to use Linux as a gaming system for awhile now without issue. I primarily play Overwatch, The Finals, ARC Raiders, Rocket League and Age of Empires.
I think the success of the Steam Deck has really helped the situation, and the titles that are broken because of anticheat are not important enough to me to keep a Windows system around.
This is huge. I work in filmmaking and CG and a few apps still aren’t on Linux. I might just move anyway though. I’m so done with it.
Linux has working EAC. Any software not working on Linux is a Policy decision by the seller, not lacking features on the buyer.
Oh and rootkit level EAC? Expect that to go away on Windows too when MS finally gets sick of Crowdstrike and that ilk causing self inflicted Denial of Service attacks on whole economic sectors.
This is begging the question. Games on linux lack kernel anticheat because linux isn't very popular. Once linux is popular enough, then they will figure out a way to do anti cheat on it in a way that they consider acceptable. Valve already considers VAC good enough, because they want to support linux. Anti cheat on windows works the way it does because that's what's available on windows, on linux they'll figure out some other way.
The anticheat needs to be server-side to be credible, i.e. the game should be designed to only provide the information that client needs for fair play. I know this isn't easy, but it should be the goal.
Client still needs to know coordinates of opponents and other objects that could be in their view within the next 200ms, and once the client knows those, a cheating client can reveal opponent positions. You can't enforce that server side without adding huge mandatory lag to all clients.
Anticheat is sloppy engineering
This was me after decades of running Windows. I'm now firmly on Debian (13).
Anyone know if Helldivers 2 works on Linux now? Because I'd say if I can't stick with 10 much longer then I'm just going to format that partition.
Yes: https://www.protondb.com/app/553850
Personally I have been playing it on Arch Linux since release and it has always worked just fine, besides it being a deeply janky game regardless of OS.
we should all come together and collectively kill the idea of using a windows based operating system unless they get their stuff together and give us an AI free, bloat free, single page with 10000 settings configurable for privacy and security and a promise of updating only once a month with full opt out
How about requiring a ms account to activate?
Have they closed the double install trick?
1. Install once with ms account and activate.
2. Reinstall offline with local account.
3. It will be activated when you go back online.
I suspect the remote server remember your computer hardware generated guid
As someone who hasn't used Windows in a long time, could you explain the benefit of doing a double install like that? I.e., if you stopped at step #1, it's activated, so what purpose does step 2 serve?
How did we get here from W2K? It's hard to think of a time when you could use software without internet connection or a phone line.
Two decades of turning screws.
I never thought it would happen, but now I use Linux about 95% of the time. These days, I rarely touch Windows. It feels like Microsoft’s higher-ups never found a clear direction for the OS, focusing more on saturating the market than on maintaining quality. :(
I've been running openSUSE tumbleweed myself for years, and recommend Linux to like-minded power users. OP is preaching to the choir.
How do you all deal with (extended) family? This Christmas I spent time with my parents and the topic of Windows 11 came up again with all of its associated dark patterns.
What do you all do to help them out of this madness? Is Ubuntu/Fedora/etc the best option for seniors? My dad's entire career was in Silicon Valley 1.0 where Excel/Outlook was his bread and butter and feels married to Windows, but ever since leaving the workforce those skills are more of a hindrance than an asset.
Now that he's retired, he still uses Excel to plan vacations for example, but Windows is riddled with this BS and I am powerless to help him navigate this anti-consumer behavior. It's incredible that Microsoft is shooting their most loyal customers in the foot with this BS.
Do you all help your parents remotely? What kind of issues do you run into being your parents IT support?
Senior care and technology is going to be a gold rush over the next couple decades. Society is not prepared for the only generation who grew up on the internet to regress into mental infirmary while still believing technology is an essential need.
For those of you who haven't already had to deal with today's 70 year old MCI sufferers and technology, it is already a complete shitshow, and that generation lived half their adult lives without mobile technology.
Imagine finding 12 renewing subscriptions to malwarebytes and other security suites. Or having to burn credit cards every month because they can no longer tell the difference between ads/scams and actual needs. Microsoft, of course, helpfully shovels those scams straight to them via the operating system now. The corporations of America have figured out that milking our elders is good for a quick buck, and it is in their interests to make sure no safety nets are in place. Once they are required, they'll game whatever that system is too.
It is all the control battles our parents fought with their parents over driving, but now it is about the phone/tablet/computer, but not being able to take the phone away as a practical matter because the (first) world expects everyone to have them.
SSO and recovery keys are a problem for proxy account administrators - especially with the banking and medical sectors which still rely solely on SMS. Sites such as login.gov won't allow multiple accounts to have the same phone number. So if both you and your parents need accounts for social security, you as the caregiver can't use your phone as the second factor for their account.
For added fun, many organizations, including banks and the US Government/various federal pension boards, refuse to recognize a power of attorney letter, either. The entire modern situation leaves caregiver children having to commit technical TOS violation/fraud/perjury just to get accounts reset or to (re)gain access to submit address changes.
This is why Windows will get away with it.
As much as Windows is deeply flawed, the user interface challenges with Linux are difficult to overcome. Until there is a version of Linux where you don’t have to open the console, Windows will keep its market.
Good on them. Just hastening the inevitable shift to Linux. I don't even care what they do anymore.
Windows 11 is a thin client for the Microsoft cloud. It's not surprising that you have to activate it online, and that you can no longer use it without a Microsoft account. That's the whole point.
People who complain that Windows isn't what they want are missing the point. Windows isn't for you. macOS, Linux, and more obscure choices still exist for general purpose computing. SteamOS or various Steam focused Linux distros exist for gaming. ChromeOS exists as a less offensive and more reliable thin OS.
Trying to force Windows into being something it isn't is a waste of your time.
i recently upgraded a computer. windows 10 deactivated itself due to the hardware change. i tried everything i could to reactivate. microsoft support told me my only solution was to buy a new license. microsoft treats its customer with contempt.
At that point, find a reseller site and buy a key for cheap or just don't activate Windows at all. I don't think you lose much "features" when leaving it unactivated. It's not worth your time to deal with Microsoft support over Windows activation keys in 2026.
I'm curious did you have an OEM license or a retail license? OEM licenses die with the mobo.
OEM licenses are for the computer, not the motherboard. The online activation historically hasn't worked if you change motherboard, but the phone line folks would always activate it for you if you explained that it was the same computer with a different motherboard.
Windows server is the best Windows os (can be use as a client os) but it's still Windows shit.
Kills ONE official way to activate Win11/10 without internet. There's still KMS and other methods... Article title is slightly misleading.
Sure, it sucks about the phone activation thing, but frankly... STOP USING WINDOWS ALREADY.
This is the result of indification of microsoft as a whole.
The what now?
This is just so bizarre. Like 90% of the people wouldn't even know you COULD activate without an MS account and the remainder will just use Rufus to bypass restrictions. So what is MS actually "fixing"?
People who care about Windows, lol.
Finding more modern ways to be lame and making it easier for folks to either pirate (use shady activation methods) or move to other platforms.
(as a person whose "year of the Linux desktop" was literally 30 frickin' years ago) Oh no! Anyway...
People should switch to Linux. I started using Fedora on Cosmic and it is great!
Mint is very similar to Windows UI