[HN Gopher] New Windows updates cause UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR blue...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       New Windows updates cause UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR blue screens
        
       Author : mikece
       Score  : 80 points
       Date   : 2023-08-24 16:15 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
        
       | UberFly wrote:
       | Yet another reason not to install the preview updates.
        
       | tw04 wrote:
       | I think people might need to put the pitchforks down. It's a
       | preview release, and we have 0 information on the systems in
       | question. You can easily avoid the issue by not participating in
       | the early release program.
       | 
       | Finding issues like this is literally why the preview program
       | exists. Should they have caught this with internal testing?
       | Maybe, we don't have enough information to know.
        
         | FirmwareBurner wrote:
         | _> I think people might need to put the pitchforks down. It's a
         | preview release, and we have 0 information on the systems in
         | question._
         | 
         | Yeah, but making this info clear in the title doesn't drive the
         | pitchfork driven clickbait FUD that seems to be invading HN
         | lately.
         | 
         | Nearly half of Windows 11 related topics I read here lately
         | were mistakenly titled or factually wrong, and yet full of rage
         | comments of people who haven't even read the article, or don't
         | even use Windows, but came by to tell everyone they use Arch or
         | MacOS.
        
           | mrguyorama wrote:
           | >drive the pitchfork driven clickbait FUD that seems to be
           | invading HN lately.
           | 
           | This isn't "lately", HN has been this way since at least 2017
           | when I started reading. If you didn't notice it, that's on
           | you. Almost nobody has ever read the articles on HN.
        
         | toasteros wrote:
         | Indeed no pitchforks, but I can see where some concern has come
         | from. On the release of Windows 11 it was stated that only
         | newer Intel and AMD generations were to be officially supported
         | and while workarounds are built in (literally a registry flag
         | in the installer) to install on even a Pentium 4 [1], they came
         | with a warning from Microsoft that installations in such
         | environments "may not receive updates".
         | 
         | Is it therefore possible that this bug check is being
         | implemented as part of the journey towards _actually_ dropping
         | "support" for these CPUs?
         | 
         | Indeed, it's a preview release, and the Insider program is
         | amazing for getting insight into Windows development and it
         | shouldn't be held up to the same level of journalistic scrutiny
         | as a sanctioned general release, but I can absolutely see why
         | this particular change may have raised some eyebrows.
         | 
         | [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivrlU73VcHw
        
           | tw04 wrote:
           | > Is it therefore possible that this bug check is being
           | implemented as part of the journey towards actually dropping
           | "support" for these CPUs?
           | 
           | That seems entirely possible. That being said, I'm not sure
           | I'm going to be upset about them dropping support for a
           | 20-year old CPU built on an architecture that I think is
           | pretty widely accepted as a failure.
        
             | auguzanellato wrote:
             | > I'm not sure I'm going to be upset about them dropping
             | support for a 20-year old CPU
             | 
             | Windows 11 doesn't support CPUs that are 6 years old (Intel
             | 7th gen) that are still ok by today standards
        
             | toasteros wrote:
             | The Pentium 4 is an extreme example, and I admit I used it
             | quite dishonestly to over-emphasise the fact that Windows
             | 11 _runs_ on CPUs that it claims not to _support_.
             | 
             | A 7th or 6th gen Intel would run Windows 11 quite well,
             | unlike a Pentium 4 which struggles a great deal with it.
             | Despite that, without workarounds, you cannot install Win
             | 11 on one of these CPUs. You must have an 8th gen or later.
        
           | arprocter wrote:
           | I see the buggy 'preview' updates offered on all my Windows
           | 10 and 11 machines, and none of them are signed up for
           | Insider
        
             | mig39 wrote:
             | Preview means preview. It doesn't automatically download
             | and install.
             | 
             | You have to actually opt in and download the preview. Then
             | you'll be part of the preview :-)
        
               | arprocter wrote:
               | 10 does state "Optional" but 11 doesn't (although there
               | is an x to dismiss it)
               | 
               | These always struck me as an odd middle ground between
               | regular updates and Insider
               | 
               | fwiw my very 'unsupported' 11 Dell box seems okay with
               | this update installed. All the Reddit folks getting the
               | error are on Intel MSI boards
        
           | tracker1 wrote:
           | I was on insiders for years, switched for WSL1... I switched
           | over to using Linux as my personal desktop OS when I first
           | say ad results in the Windows start menu search. It may have
           | been preview, but was just one thing too far that someone
           | would even consider it. I still have a windows drive in my
           | desktop, I only booted into it once a few months ago to
           | update my ssd/nvme firmware (samsung bugfix).
        
         | JoeAltmaier wrote:
         | Agreed, vitriol not required.
         | 
         | Still, Microsoft gutted their internal testing, so they hold
         | some blame for disastrous failure, even during preview.
        
           | Stranger43 wrote:
           | It's always puzzled me how much <insert appropriate epithet
           | here> people are willing to take from Microsoft for products
           | they pay good money for, without ever considering that there
           | might be an world where not everyone buys their software from
           | the same vendor.
        
             | mrguyorama wrote:
             | Almost nobody buys Windows though. The vast majority of
             | users get given a laptop with windows on it from work,
             | where the robust AD system is pretty great, though O365 is
             | a letdown in a lot of ways, and the rest get Windows pre-
             | installed on their laptops from the store, where microsoft
             | gives OEMs a sick deal.
             | 
             | The only people who "buy" Windows are those who build their
             | own gaming machine. Even then, they usually buy a sketchy
             | "volume license" key off ebay.
             | 
             | I bought windows retail, because I actually like the
             | Windows kernel, and despise running pretty much any install
             | of Linux that isn't just a command line to boot daemons and
             | web servers from. I use my computer every single goddamn
             | day, and don't ever want it to randomly break, which Linux
             | has always done to me. The steam deck is the first Linux
             | install that hasn't been utterly useless or shit the bed on
             | me.
             | 
             | Every single problem I have had in Windows has been caused
             | by shitty hardware, or AMDs abysmal drivers.
        
               | Stranger43 wrote:
               | Thats kind of not true, someone bought windows(and not as
               | cheap as people think) it's just that nobody really sees
               | it as something different from the computer because it's
               | bundled.
               | 
               | Enterprises pay a surprising amount of money to Microsoft
               | usually in the form of monthly/annual pr user licenses(to
               | the time of double digit percentages of the end user
               | device budget) and yet no amount of badness seem to make
               | anyone in those Enterprise departments think that they
               | have any alternative and it's the same in the laptop
               | space, where despite having to fork out whats often a
               | double digit percentage of the retail price to Microsoft
               | there is no serious appetite from hardware vendors or
               | consumers to consider that maybe we could have a market
               | where multiple Operating systems coexisted.
               | 
               | And your driver argument is exactly the weirdness here as
               | people will absolutely hold anyone but
               | Microsoft(especially smaller opensource competitors)
               | responsible for bad drivers but with windows it's
               | suddenly an valid excuse for bad experiences with
               | windows.
        
         | ramblerman wrote:
         | I'm torn on this.
         | 
         | I'm really happy with where MS is going, I think they have been
         | killing it with vs code, chatgpt integration, and I was quite
         | bullish on the surface pros.
         | 
         | But after having owned one for 1 month, they were still a real
         | disaster in the OS area. I "subscribed" to the preview track,
         | and had to reformat my pc twice. It was a fricking disaster.
         | I'm back on osx now, having sold the surface pro.
         | 
         | Hardware and OS is still very much their weakpoint imo. It's
         | like the whole OS is designed by product owners working on
         | macbook pros (which apparantly isn't far from the truth)
        
           | laserdancepony wrote:
           | > I "subscribed" to the preview track, and had to reformat my
           | pc twice.
           | 
           | "I subscribed to test betas and they were unstable. Thanks
           | Bill Gates!"
        
             | tracker1 wrote:
             | I ran insiders since later windows 8.1 updates... I had to
             | reinstall a couple times, when the win11 went full release
             | (didn't have secure boot and tpm enabled and it broke
             | itself) and there was another bug a few months later. What
             | really irked me into leaving was that someone thought it
             | was cool to show literal ads in the start menu search
             | results. Insiders or not, that's something that is just
             | wrong. I changed my default boot to my linux drive and
             | haven't looked back on my personal desktop.
        
             | FirmwareBurner wrote:
             | Yeah, I also don't get how people voluntarily choose to use
             | a beta OS, and then complain that it broke.
             | 
             | Like, my brother in Christ, that's why there's the stable
             | version of that OS.
        
             | ramblerman wrote:
             | Yeah this is the sarcastic take, but MS pushes people to
             | get onto the insider preview to enable certain features. My
             | surface pro wouldn't sleep properly, and only the "insider
             | preview" would fix that for instance.
             | 
             | There is a difference between having a few apps crash more
             | often, and literally having the offical MS help tell you,
             | the only solution is to reinstall everything.
        
               | Shared404 wrote:
               | This being the case on MS's own hardware is actually
               | ridiculous.
               | 
               | And unsurprising.
        
           | pavel_lishin wrote:
           | I've sworn off Windows as an OS after multiple dealbreakers:
           | advertisements in the OS, and hard reboots with no warning.
           | 
           | I understand there are workarounds - such as buying a non-
           | personal Windows license, and fiddling with the registry -
           | but that's like selling me a car that'll shut its engine off
           | on the highway and force me to listen to its own
           | advertisements while I'm using a bluetooth device, and
           | assuring me that I can adjust the behavior. If I know how. If
           | I even know that's possible. If I'm willing to pay more.
        
             | tracker1 wrote:
             | Yeah, running insiders and seeing an advert in the start
             | menu search was the final straw for me. I've used it for
             | work a couple times, but mostly choose Mac, only because
             | the corp apple experience isn't as bad as corp Windows can
             | get.
        
           | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
           | > I "subscribed" to the preview track, and had to reformat my
           | pc twice. It was a fricking disaster. I'm back on osx
           | 
           | Are you tracking the pre-release versions of MacOS?
        
         | summerlight wrote:
         | The problem is that they're not meeting their own baseline
         | standard. ~10 years ago, MS didn't frequently make these kinds
         | of issues even in the early release program. I suspect
         | something's broken in their Windows org.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | nehal3m wrote:
       | >"Microsoft has received reports of an issue in which users are
       | receiving an 'UNSUPPORTED_PROCESSOR' error message on a blue
       | screen after installing updates released on August 2," Redmond
       | said.
       | 
       | >The company also added that the problematic cumulative updates
       | "might automatically uninstall to allow Windows to start up as
       | expected."
       | 
       | "Might"? What a weaselly way to put it. Either Windows will, or
       | it won't. I realise there's tens of millions of LoC but if we're
       | talking about an update that crashes machines shouldn't you know
       | what the failure mode is before talking to the press?
        
         | mplewis wrote:
         | When an issue is at this scale, you have to give some
         | acknowledgment of the issue even if you don't know its cause.
        
           | nehal3m wrote:
           | Agreed, but then you'd expect a behemoth like MS to respond
           | that they're aware, working on finding cause for the issue
           | and releasing a fix. What they did here is throw out a 'maybe
           | it'll fix itself'.
        
             | Tijdreiziger wrote:
             | For end users, it's pretty important to know whether their
             | system is hosed or will fix itself
        
         | kube-system wrote:
         | Linguistically, "might" could also mean "will under certain
         | circumstances". It doesn't definitively imply they don't know.
         | 
         | I myself have used "might" when speaking to customers when the
         | criteria by which _we_ would differentiate is something that
         | isn 't necessarily accessible to the audience.
        
           | nehal3m wrote:
           | Yeah I guess you're right. If that's the case I'd expect the
           | journalist to ask some follow up questions to broadly define
           | in which circumstances it would or wouldn't.
        
             | fuzzfactor wrote:
             | There's a recent Windows feature called Known Issue
             | Rollback (KIR) that you would have to opt into using Group
             | Policy, which might soon address an anticipated snafu like
             | this, once it's become apparent after deployment:
             | 
             | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-
             | clien...
             | 
             | Here's last month's article from the same author giving an
             | example of how KIR can be used to mitigate a video
             | showstopper at the time:
             | 
             | https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-
             | fi...
             | 
             | My follow-up consisted of following the journalist back,
             | and that might give an idea about what he had in mind.
        
               | nehal3m wrote:
               | That's awesome. Both the feature and you leading by
               | example.
               | 
               | Thank you!
        
             | Stranger43 wrote:
             | That assumes that the company lets journalist talk to non
             | marketing people.
             | 
             | The term might in marketing department vetted
             | communications often cover over "the techies droned out for
             | 10 minutes using words we did not understand" and few large
             | brands feel that comfortable letting anyone not under some
             | kind of confidentiality agreement talk to anyone in the
             | technical teams.
        
             | zamadatix wrote:
             | Everything seems to be from the linked text source so I
             | doubt the journalist actually got to interact with
             | Microsoft at all.
        
       | Jenk wrote:
       | I was aghast that you cannot move the taskbar. Now I am forced to
       | keep it in the least optimal orientation. On my employer-provided
       | system that is. No way is that dumpster fire of privacy invading,
       | 80% baked UX, nonsense getting anywhere near my own devices.
        
       | duxup wrote:
       | >the August 2023 preview updates
       | 
       | I don't understand what the point of preview updates are if MS
       | says they're not beta updates.
       | 
       | Is it just a place for say corporate IT to test to decide if they
       | want to do the next monthly update?
        
       | tibbydudeza wrote:
       | Windows XP - Windows 7 for many years.
       | 
       | Then I turned to the dark side and bought a used cheese grater
       | Mac Pro (dual CPU Xeon) for a few years before and I always found
       | OSX weird - dropping to command line on occasion to get things
       | done and definitely not very friendly but tolerated it for the
       | sake of the hardware.
       | 
       | When I started the SAP part of my career, I got a Windows 7
       | laptop for SAPGUI and realized it was nicer - the Mac Pro went to
       | a new home after I had to hack the boot firmware to install
       | Sierra and realized the bells was tolling on the hardware.
       | 
       | Could not afford a Mac Pro replacement so I bought a Dell - A
       | decent specced Mac Studio M2 (64GB) would cost me more than my
       | car is worth.
        
       | WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
       | Most popular OS on planet earth and they can't afford testing
       | their software on popular CPUs
       | 
       | These execs and managers should be criminally charged
        
         | Karellen wrote:
         | Are you sure it isn't only happening on unpopular CPUs? I
         | couldn't see anything about which CPU makes/gens/models are
         | affected in the article?
        
         | deely3 wrote:
         | I agree with you. Except for criminal charge. There no complex,
         | big, up-to-date and bug-free program in a world.
        
       | lacoolj wrote:
       | The website linked here (an advertiser) just requested to run a
       | custom URL handler (launch something outside of chrome). Most sus
       | thing I've come across in a while
        
       | bitwize wrote:
       | When Microsoft says "your CPU needs to be this high in order to
       | run Windows 11", perhaps listen to them eh?
        
         | tom_ wrote:
         | There's a Microsoft note about this issue:
         | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/sta...
         | 
         | The list of affected operating systems supposedly includes
         | Windows 10, version 22H2.
        
         | rstat1 wrote:
         | If their supported CPU list wasn't completely arbitrary BS,
         | then you might be on something here. But it isn't There are
         | CPUs that have no problem running the OS that are for no
         | discernible reason "not supported".
         | 
         | And I'm not talking about old crap like Pentium 4s or
         | something. I'm talking about ones that are barely 5yrs old.
        
           | bitwize wrote:
           | Microsoft is moving to a model of "signed software from power
           | on to application level" for Windows. The supported CPUs have
           | the TPM features necessary to support this transition.
           | 
           | Presumably, for Windows 12, remote attestation capability
           | (Pluton) will be required.
        
             | ndriscoll wrote:
             | Right and for the home user, there is exactly zero benefit
             | from this. There is no reason someone should have to go buy
             | a new computer to replace one that's only 5 years old. A
             | world where local accounts are an enterprise feature and
             | hardware attestation is a home feature is completely
             | backwards.
        
         | TillE wrote:
         | It would be trivial for Microsoft to strictly enforce their CPU
         | "requirements" on install. They've chosen not to.
         | 
         | The workaround for that isn't some weird hack, it's an explicit
         | registry value that they made.
        
           | Tijdreiziger wrote:
           | I don't think end users are supposed to change registry
           | values (even IT admins aren't, as they can use GPO). That
           | qualifies it as a 'weird hack' in my book.
        
         | FreshStart wrote:
         | Wtf.. Come on its just ms getting kickbacks for deprecating
         | hardware.
        
       | whalesalad wrote:
       | My experience with Windows 11 has been roughly bug free - but
       | it's not a pleasant place to be. Installing is a nightmare too
       | with the online account requirement. You can circumvent with a
       | shell but still annoying.
       | 
       | I've been much happier with Debian 12 and KDE for my primary
       | workstation.
       | 
       | I can't think of a compelling to use windows outside of gaming.
        
         | vladvasiliu wrote:
         | > Installing is a nightmare too with the online account
         | requirement.
         | 
         | My nightmare, before the account shenanigans, was finding a
         | mouse for my HP laptop, whose trackpad didn't work OOB. Then,
         | once I'd managed to go through the installation, the account
         | thing was a PITA because the Intel wifi card wasn't supported,
         | and this laptop doesn't have a wired network port. I was
         | actually going to use an MS account (this is a work computer,
         | and they're all in on MS). But I couldn't set it up without
         | jumping through the hoops of creating a local account first and
         | then grabbing the wifi drivers by booting Linux.
         | 
         | This happened mid-2023 with a 2020 model laptop. Also, HP
         | recommends Windows. Arch Linux worked fully out of the box.
        
           | justsomehnguy wrote:
           | Ah, yes, Gates personally banned the drivers for this 2020
           | WiFi cards.
           | 
           | Or maybe it was Intel who did a bazillion of cards with a
           | minor diffs and/or didn't ask MS to add this flavour to the
           | default driver set, shipped with Windows install media?
        
             | vladvasiliu wrote:
             | Those are pretty standard Intel cards installed on laptops
             | with Intel CPUs. ax201 or something. If "nothing-ever-
             | works-without-fiddling" Linux is able to ship drivers for
             | that card and work out of the box, I don't see why windows
             | couldn't ship with drivers for that, especially since they
             | seem to get updates via Windows update, so ms has them.
             | Plus, if you're going to force people to use an _internet_
             | account, maybe make sure that they 'll actually be able to
             | get online?
             | 
             | Or maybe the whole point of not supporting the touchpad was
             | to weed off the faint of heart and send them off to Linux?
        
               | justsomehnguy wrote:
               | > Those are pretty standard Intel cards installed on
               | laptops with Intel CPUs. ax201 or something
               | 
               | If they were 'pretty standard' then they would be in the
               | default list of drivers shipped with install media.
               | 
               | If they weren't in the install media then:
               | 
               | your media is older than the drivers
               | 
               | your device isn't 'standard'
               | 
               | device vendor doesn't give a shit if you can reinstall
               | Windows and get the working WiFi out of the box
               | 
               | > , I don't see why windows couldn't ship with drivers
               | for that
               | 
               |  _Because Intel does not give a fuck_. It 's that simple
               | and it is borderline ridiculous how linux fanboys can't
               | accept what Windows has a completely different driver
               | model compared to built-in-the-kernel way of Linux.
               | 
               | And again, where did you got your install media for
               | Windows? Directly from
               | https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows10 ?
               | Somewhere else?
               | 
               | > Or maybe the whole point of not supporting the touchpad
               | 
               | Can you ask Synaptic (or whoever made that touchpad) why
               | there is no drivers for their touchpad in the default
               | Windows install media or why it's not just a simple HID
               | pointing device? Or again that's Nadella's fault or
               | whoever at the lead now?
        
             | mrguyorama wrote:
             | I haven't used a device that Windows didn't ship drivers
             | for _In twenty years_!
        
               | tuetuopay wrote:
               | I recently had the (dis)pleasure to install Windows 10 on
               | a Dell XPS laptop from 2018. The Windows installer had no
               | drivers for the nvme controller _that is provided by the
               | CPU itself_, so a platform controller.
               | 
               | Oh and getting the installer to recognize the drivers was
               | much harder than the usual "stick the files on a thumb
               | drive, plug to laptop, tell the installer". I had to
               | generate a custom Windows ISO with the drivers
               | preinstalled, for which the process is described by a
               | single indian dude on a website very sparsely indexed by
               | google.
        
               | justsomehnguy wrote:
               | Yep, just as I said in the previous comment: everyone is
               | at fault but for sure it wasn't the vendor of the device!
               | How the vendor could be the culprit in doing something
               | what would cripple the boot/install of the OS? Nonsense!
        
               | tuetuopay wrote:
               | The vendor? Ha! Let me laugh.
               | 
               | Would this have tripped on some obscure device specific
               | to Dell laptops, sure, I would understand. (like their
               | blimey fingerprint reader). But this is the standard NVMe
               | controller on this generation of intel CPUs. The drivers
               | are common for _most intel platforms_: the Intel Rapid
               | Storage Technology.
               | 
               | As somebody else pointed out, Linux fares much better in
               | this space. All devices are properly recognized out of
               | the box, including this bog-standard NVMe controller.
        
         | DanTheManPR wrote:
         | What keeps me trapped using Windows on my main home workstation
         | is simply that a lot of the professional software I use is
         | Windows-only, and always will be.
         | 
         | Fortunately, the advancements in Proton and better cross-
         | platform support for a lot of software has let me use Linux on
         | my gaming computer and notebook. There are a few games which I
         | can't play, but honestly there's so many options available that
         | I don't miss them much. I don't think I'll ever completely
         | eliminate Windows from my life, I think around 2021 was The
         | Year Of Linux On The Desktop for me.
        
         | jonhohle wrote:
         | It's somewhat ironic that Windows users used to call Macs "toy
         | computers". Now most deeply technical people are using Macs or
         | at least Linux or BSD and Windows is relegated to games. It
         | seems Windows is for toy computers ;-)
        
           | laserdancepony wrote:
           | I've never heard crap like that in my life before.
        
           | DiabloD3 wrote:
           | I don't know any technical people who use Macs with OSX still
           | installed.
           | 
           | They all gave up on that trainwreck of an OS, and either
           | their final Mac died and they replaced it with an even better
           | laptop by a different vendor (Framework, et al), or they
           | still own a Mac but it now runs Windows or Linux (and when
           | that one dies, it will be their last, and they will become
           | post-Mac, too). I know exceptionally few tech people with M1,
           | and they bought it knowing they had to suffer the rough edges
           | of Asahi; I do not know a single tech person who bought an M1
           | and left OSX on it.
           | 
           | The number of Macs in existence only goes down, not up;
           | doubly so in the tech world.
           | 
           | I don't get why theres a few people on HN that persist in the
           | FUD+FOMO combo that OSX is gonna make a comeback and win
           | because "its a Unix!" and "Apple takes security seriously!"
           | and "Safari is world's best browser!" and "Swift is a great
           | language to code in, even if it doesn't work on other OSes!"
           | and "I use XCode unironically!"
           | 
           | Just stop already, we've all heard it. Repeating it doesn't
           | make it true.
        
             | tibbydudeza wrote:
             | I always notice it during conferences since Keynote is
             | great at making slides :)
        
             | tibbydudeza wrote:
             | OS X is a just a fancy bootloader for Aqua.
        
             | failuser wrote:
             | Are all those technical people Linux kernel hackers? Maybe
             | even just hackers, running a some BSD OS.
             | 
             | You should realize "I don't know people who do X" is a very
             | weak argument.
        
             | whalesalad wrote:
             | What the heck are you on about? This is patently false.
             | I've been using Mac hardware professionally since 05 in a
             | ton of different environments. We very rarely had issues.
             | Apple makes the best laptops in the world, nothing else
             | comes remotely close.
        
               | politelemon wrote:
               | Haven't found this to be true at all, what I do see is
               | osx users not realizing they have problems or simply
               | pretending it never happened.
        
               | whalesalad wrote:
               | Examples? I've been CTO at multiple companies (+ managing
               | IT rollout) including a defense contractor who relies
               | heavily on MS infrastructure. At the end of the day Apple
               | has always been the most pain free shit periodt. It
               | literally just works.
               | 
               | I've gone so far as to deploy M1 Mini's in factory
               | environments to run production processes for very large
               | scale printing operations (think Amazon, Walgreens, tons
               | of orders daily) and guess what I haven't been called in
               | over a year because it is all rock solid.
        
               | CacheRules wrote:
               | well that's just like your opinion man
        
               | whalesalad wrote:
               | aluminum chassis master race.
        
               | gumballindie wrote:
               | Battery aside apple laptops are rather lame.
        
           | gumballindie wrote:
           | > Windows is relegated to games.
           | 
           | Unless you absolutely must play ea games then even that can
           | be done on linux rather nicely.
        
           | nullindividual wrote:
           | Windows runs the largest of enterprises. Very few go without
           | at least Active Directory.
        
             | whalesalad wrote:
             | Fortunately the enterprise IT seems to be slowly waking up
             | to the realization that AD is just LDAP wrapped in a thick
             | layer of (very expensive) Microsoft epoxy and glue.
             | 
             | OSS is alive and well in the enterprise!
        
         | runjake wrote:
         | What edition of Windows 11 are you using? I hear this a lot
         | about the online account requirement but on my versions (Pro
         | and Enterprise) you just select "Domain Join" and it bypasses
         | the online account requirement.
         | 
         | My guess is that a lot of people are using the crappy Home
         | edition.
        
           | toast0 wrote:
           | > My guess is that a lot of people are using the crappy Home
           | edition.
           | 
           | What makes Home crappy? Other than the account thing,
           | obviously. You can't join a domain with it either, but then
           | most people don't have a domain at home. There's some other
           | disabled features, like Hyper-V, but why should people have
           | to pay for a higher tier Windows to use a local account if
           | they don't need the other features?
        
             | whalesalad wrote:
             | I want to say RDP is limited to higher trims. I don't think
             | you can Remote Desktop to home. But otherwise I agree with
             | your points.
        
               | toast0 wrote:
               | Yeah, that seems familiar, but RDP hosting seems like
               | another feature many people can live without / can mostly
               | replace with other software for ocassional use.
        
               | fuzzfactor wrote:
               | With Home:
               | 
               | you also don't have Bitlocker
               | 
               | no Group Policy
               | 
               | no Active Directory
        
             | runjake wrote:
             | - Hyper-V
             | 
             | - RDP
             | 
             | - Windows Sandbox (super neat and useful and under-
             | appreciated!)
             | 
             | - BitLocker
             | 
             | - Active Directory
             | 
             | - Local accounts, apparently
             | 
             | - Various other little things and some local policies.
             | 
             | I use all of the above Pro-only stuff.
             | 
             | If my use of "crappy" offended you, please substitute the
             | term "less-featureful".
             | 
             | Other than that, I didn't say what Microsoft should or
             | shouldn't do for home users. That's on you.
             | 
             | It's my personal belief that multiple Windows 11 editions
             | are insulting, and it should just be a single OS edition,
             | with all features available, across the board.
        
           | drbawb wrote:
           | I did three installs of Pro this year. Two of them required
           | hacks to force local account creation because the motherboard
           | (Asus) ships with a _literal rootkit_ that injects a wireless
           | driver that Windows itself does not ship with. So you either
           | have to disable that in firmware before first boot to Windows
           | OOBE, or run the BypassNRO cmdlet from a hidden shell to
           | convince it that you do not, in fact, have internet access.
           | 
           | I tried to domain join the third device to see what that flow
           | is like. It asks:
           | 
           | 1. Personal use / Work or School
           | 
           | 2. You are asked to login to Azure AD. You have to click a
           | small (10pt?) link for "Sign-in options." with no indication
           | that will let you join to the domain.
           | 
           | 3. Pick "Domain Join instead"
           | 
           | 4. It asks you to setup a local account ("Even better, use an
           | online account" :-)
           | 
           | 5. _You finish setup without the device actually being joined
           | to the domain!?_
           | 
           | 6a. You now have to login (click)
           | 
           | 6b. and go to the system settings (click)
           | 
           | 6c. go to accounts (click, ad for M365),
           | 
           | 6d. go to "Connect to work or school" (click),
           | 
           | 6e. click another "Connect" button with no indication that it
           | will join it to a domain,,
           | 
           | 6f. Click another small link for "Join this device to a local
           | Active Directory domain" to domain join the PC.
           | 
           | So, I'm sorry, but if you think the Pro SKU is better in this
           | regard you are just incorrect. There is no excuse for these
           | dark patterns, this is user-hostile behavior designed to
           | convert you to being recurring SaaS revenue and not retail
           | revenue.
           | 
           | As an added bonus I just tried to create a Windows 11 VM in
           | hyper-v to confirm my memory, and _Microsoft Hyper-V_ doesn't
           | even correctly configure itself to allow Windows installation
           | to proceed by default. (Secure Boot enabled, but no vTPM.) It
           | then proceeded to download updates to the installer and
           | reboot without a prompt or any option to skip it. Microsoft
           | _clearly does not give a shit_ about the OOBE if you are not
           | using their cloud services.
        
           | whalesalad wrote:
           | Pro
           | 
           | https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-
           | windows-11-witho...
        
           | theryan wrote:
           | I'm confused by that as well. I've setup multiple machines
           | this past year with Windows 11 and they are all just straight
           | up local accounts.
        
         | Tijdreiziger wrote:
         | > I can't think of a compelling to use windows outside of
         | gaming.
         | 
         | - Office
         | 
         | - Adobe
         | 
         | - Ableton
         | 
         | - Visual Studio
        
           | BitwiseFool wrote:
           | I'd also like to add that the Windows user experience is my
           | "native language", if you will. I have no major problems
           | using macOS, but I'm definitely not as fast using it, I find
           | its window management cumbersome, and my muscle memory is
           | constantly misfiring. I've been using Windows since childhood
           | and there's something to be said for the level of familiarity
           | and comfort that comes with that.
           | 
           | That being said, I'm terribly frustrated with the direction
           | Microsoft is taking Windows and I hope to stay off of 11 for
           | as long as I can.
        
           | rebolek wrote:
           | I can't comment on Office, Adobe and Visual Studio, but for
           | Ableton or any other DAW, I would certainly choose macOS over
           | Windows. Audio runs much smoother on Mac than on Windows.
           | Lower latency, less dropouts, better overall stability from
           | my experience.
           | 
           | Too bad that audio is total joke on Linux. There's very good
           | software, like BitWig and Reaper, but the audio subsystem is
           | total mess doing random stuff all the time. PipeWire seems
           | promising but there are still problems. Maybe one day.
        
             | nullindividual wrote:
             | The Windows Audio Stack had improvements in Win 10 for
             | latency.
             | 
             | https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-
             | hardware/drivers/a...
        
           | pmontra wrote:
           | I had to google Ableton.
        
           | whalesalad wrote:
           | If I needed all of those tools for my daily workflow I'd be
           | on macOS without hesitation.
           | 
           | Visual Studio as a developer for Windows apps is a different
           | story... but then you have much bigger psychological issues
           | I'm untrained to diagnose.
        
             | politelemon wrote:
             | Please read the guidelines on behavior in comments.
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        
             | Tijdreiziger wrote:
             | Eh, they're both proprietary OSes. Maybe you're more used
             | to the UI paradigms of one or the other, but other than
             | that, I don't see a strong reason to prefer one or the
             | other.
             | 
             | Also, I personally don't use any of these tools except
             | Office, but I'm pretty sure classing developers as having
             | psychological issues based on their language ecosystem
             | choice is against HN guidelines.
        
               | whalesalad wrote:
               | Under the hood macOS is Unix though... so there is a lot
               | to be said for that. I can run tools like sed, awk, grep
               | right out of the box. As someone who is in a shell 24x7
               | on multiple remote linux servers it is nice to also have
               | a very similar experience within my local desktop
               | environment.
        
               | Tijdreiziger wrote:
               | So then you just `wsl --install` and you get a proper
               | Linux distribution. Also get the Windows Terminal from
               | the store and you're off to the races.
               | 
               | I honestly consider this a better experience compared to
               | Apple's BSD tools and lack of first-party package
               | manager.
        
               | whalesalad wrote:
               | if you enjoy using windows, sure this is a perfectly
               | valid option.
        
             | gambiting wrote:
             | >>Visual Studio as a developer for Windows apps is a
             | different story... but then you have much bigger
             | psychological issues I'm untrained to diagnose.
             | 
             | WTF are you on about. Games development for PS5/Xbox and
             | Switch only works on Windows, that's where the entire
             | toolchain for these platforms is. It's not just windows
             | apps. I love how so many people on HN like to pretend that
             | Visual Studio isn't the most powerful IDE around, it's a
             | powerhouse for developers and you'd need to pry it out of
             | my cold dead hands.
        
               | whalesalad wrote:
               | I don't know a single dev who _enjoys_ using Visual
               | Studio. It 's a necessary evil. Let's be real here.
        
               | gambiting wrote:
               | Do you actually know any devs who use Visual Studio? I
               | work in a studio of hundreds of people using VS, been
               | here for nearly a decade, and I'm yet to find someone who
               | thinks VS is anything other than great. Yes it has its
               | issues, like any dev tool, but otherwise it's probably
               | the best piece of software to have come out of Microsoft,
               | as a C++ developer I cannot imagine using anything else,
               | no other IDE comes anywhere near in terms of features and
               | usability.
        
             | FirmwareBurner wrote:
             | _> If I needed all of those tools for my daily workflow I'd
             | be on macOS without hesitation._
             | 
             | And how do switch my existing PC from Windows to MacOS,
             | without spending money to buy new proprietary HW in a
             | locked-down unrepairable unupgradable ecosystem that comes
             | with insane markups on RAM and storage?
             | 
             | At least Linux, works with what I already have and doesn't
             | require me to spend money on proprietary HW and then spend
             | more money on paid apps just to have some functioning
             | window management out of the box. _:drops mic:_
        
               | whalesalad wrote:
               | Why not both? I own a handful of Mac machines, have a
               | server rack in my basement loaded with R720s, and a
               | 13900k beast Debian workstation on my desk. I'll
               | occassionally rotate to my couch or a coffee shop and
               | thanks to the wonders of SSH and wireguard I can access
               | the rack and my workstation from anywhere while still
               | having incredible all-day battery life (M2 Macbook Air).
               | vscode+remote-ssh+tailscale is a killer combo.
        
               | FirmwareBurner wrote:
               | _> Why not both?_
               | 
               | Because money. Owning a wide variety of premium HW,
               | especially Apple, is a rare privileged wealthy western
               | position. Most people on the planet own something in the
               | ballpark of a ~$200 Lenovo/Acer as their main machine, so
               | telling them to just buy an Apple and a 13th gen homelab,
               | is like telling them "let them eat cake", especially that
               | due to taxes and tariffs, HW in other countries often
               | costs way more than in the US, despite much MUCH lower
               | wages.
        
               | whalesalad wrote:
               | If you can afford a $1000 laptop, Apple is the way to go
               | with an M1 Air (cheaper secondhand or with an education
               | discount). If Apple hardware is unaffordable I would
               | certainly opt for Linux.
        
               | FirmwareBurner wrote:
               | _> If you can afford a $1000 laptop, Apple is the way to
               | go with an M1 Air_
               | 
               | Thanks, but I'm contempt with my Ryzen laptop with double
               | the ram and storage at half the price of an M1, as my
               | main and only machine.
        
               | whalesalad wrote:
               | I have always had a soft spot for AMD. I have been
               | meaning to build a Ryzen rig.
        
           | hospitalJail wrote:
           | >- Office
           | 
           | >- Adobe
           | 
           | >- Ableton
           | 
           | >- Visual Studio
           | 
           | Find alternative software. If those companies aren't
           | compatible on Linux, use one that is.
           | 
           | Make sure you send them an email explaining why you are
           | canceling your subscription.
        
             | at_a_remove wrote:
             | That's really not an option for some industries. Mine, for
             | example. When you're in a sufficiently niche market, you
             | can't just "yay open source" your way out of the issue.
        
         | isaacremuant wrote:
         | > I can't think of a compelling to use windows outside of
         | gaming.
         | 
         | And thanks to Steam deck/proton, that gap is also decreasing
         | significantly.
         | 
         | Windows definitely has regressed in terms of user experience
         | and updates/upgrades and online integration are two big pain
         | points that really make me miss Linux (Ubuntu or Arch+lxde, if
         | you want names) every time I'm there.
        
       | nerdponx wrote:
       | > The company also urged users encountering these BSOD errors to
       | file a report using the Feedback Hub.
       | 
       | > To do that, you will have to go through the following steps:
       | 
       | > Launch Feedback Hub by opening the Start menu and typing
       | "Feedback hub", or pressing the Windows key + F
       | 
       | Something seems off here.
        
         | jeroenhd wrote:
         | After several (three, I think?) boot failures, Windows will
         | automatically restart to recovery mode and use system restore
         | to undo the last update. This fixes the BSODs until you install
         | the updates again.
        
       | JohnClark1337 wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | konschubert wrote:
       | Windows, Office and Teams are so weirdly unpleasant to use. It's
       | hard for me to put my finger on it - it's a mix of ugly UI, bad
       | UX and general bugginess.
        
         | deely3 wrote:
         | I can't agree about Office and Windows tho. They still have
         | quirks, and I definitely can put finger (a lot of fingers
         | actually) at points that stupid and I can't stand, but in
         | general I like working with Office and Windows. I tried Open
         | Office, Libre Office, few Linux distibutives, but return to
         | Windows everytime.
        
           | konschubert wrote:
           | Have you tried google docs? The cooperative editing and
           | commenting feels much more robust than what office 365 is
           | doing.
           | 
           | The default new tab on bing is a bunch of trashy news. It's
           | just icky.
        
       | Dwedit wrote:
       | Just noticed the article showing the "Recreate my problem" and
       | "Start Collecting" feature...
       | 
       | That feature is sending an insanely large amount of personal data
       | to Microsoft, and it's horribly irresponsible to include this
       | feature as it is.
        
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