[HN Gopher] Report: Microsoft kills official way to activate Win...
___________________________________________________________________
Report: Microsoft kills official way to activate Windows 11/10
without internet
Author : taubek
Score : 312 points
Date : 2026-01-03 18:53 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.neowin.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.neowin.net)
| xiconfjs wrote:
| ,,just like the gypsy woman said"
| alex1138 wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46471081 already posted
| incognito124 wrote:
| Thank you, Microsoft, for accelerating the advent of The Year of
| The Linux Desktop
| petepete wrote:
| They're pulling out all the stops. If you told me that whoever
| was in charge of the consumer versions of Windows was trying to
| drive it into the ground, I'd believe you.
| dotancohen wrote:
| To be fair, Microsoft did deliberately drive Nokia into the
| ground.
| wvenable wrote:
| Nokia was driving pretty close to the ground before
| Microsoft ever got involved.
| lfllfkddl wrote:
| Well, many consider Elop to be a Microsoft asset.
| saubeidl wrote:
| Maybe the Finns got their mole in to extract revenge. Don't
| forget Linux is Finnish as well ;-)
| wiseowise wrote:
| Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| Look at the Nokia sales volume, revenue and the date of
| Burning Platform memo - and don't repeat this bullshit ever
| again.
| chocochunks wrote:
| They're working on Xbox too!
| tialaramex wrote:
| At this point probably there's no room for another
| Playstation-style video game console. My friend who plays
| only console-style video games, the sort of person who
| owned Wii-U and an Xbox One as well as that generation of
| Playstation, bought a gaming PC last year. He will
| undoubtedly buy a Switch 2 at some point, to play a Zelda
| or something, but why would you buy another Xbox?
|
| So I think Xbox becomes a brand for video games with
| Windows and then gradually it loses relevance until one day
| the question is "Why isn't Minecraft on Steam like a proper
| video game?"
| eek2121 wrote:
| According to leaks with an excellent track recordWe are
| getting at least 1 more console, and possibly 2. The
| first (most likely) is a classic Xbox, the second is a
| handheld. After that, who knows?
|
| All I know is that I own both an Xbox Series X and a PS5.
| I use the PS5 more. I also own a PC, and it sees more
| than 1,000 times the usage of either. I bought the PS5
| for exclusives, and Sony began changing that. However
| there are still alot of older PS4/PS5 titles that are fun
| to play, and some games are just better with a controller
| and a TV.
|
| That being said, I'm likely not going to purchase any
| other consoles.
| AnthOlei wrote:
| I switched my parents onto Linux a couple months ago, after my
| mom kept getting confused between edge and chrome - not being
| to uninstall edge was the last straw, but the massive amount of
| adware slowing down her capable-but-old laptop was a close
| second.
|
| So far so good! Some smaller hiccups, like chrome won't use
| dolphin, but I installed rustdesk so I can help them through
| whatever.
|
| Over Christmas the in-laws were asking about Linux because of
| windows issues, which was surprising since they're
| technologically literate but in a layman sense. I didn't try to
| switch them over since the parent experiment is still ongoing
| but a couple more months of seamless use and I'll consider it a
| success.
|
| All this to say I'm very glad for Microsoft leadership!
| owaislone wrote:
| Cool. I used to install it on all my family and friends
| computer when I was a teenager but as I grew older and had
| less and less time, being the constant tech support guy for
| everyone I introduced to Linux got very hard so I stopped
| recommended/installing it. Which distro did you choose for
| your parents?
| incognito124 wrote:
| My non-technical friend installed linux on her 10yo old
| laptop _by herself_ after a windows update slowed down her
| device and rendered it unusable. She said she said she read
| about it somewhere and that the Ubuntu installation was
| pretty intuitive.
|
| I was both amazed and proud. She's daily driving Linux now
|
| (to be fair, it's just tv shows and web apps like chatgpt or
| docs, but still, Linux is now a good-enough alternative, at
| least anegdotally)
| plagiarist wrote:
| AFAICT the only thing that should be keeping people from
| Linux nowadays is gaming (especially VR) and systemd doing
| dumb shit device naming so that changing the physical
| location of an unrelated GPU renames your NIC and breaks
| your internet.
| graynk wrote:
| ALVR has been working really well for me on my Quest 3.
|
| there are a lot of other things stopping people from
| migrating besides gaming though. sure, there _are_
| alternatives for professional audio /photo/video
| editing/producing, but they all mean losing some
| functionality if you migrate.
| flipthefrog wrote:
| Would have switched years ago if it wasn't for Adobe.
| Open source equivalents to Photoshop and Lightroom are
| NOT viable alternatives
| bentcorner wrote:
| For casual use I use lightroom web and it's good enough
| for me, if you haven't tried it, I highly recommend.
|
| I'm sure for some workflows it isn't sufficient but for
| basic edits and raw development it works quite well.
| throwaway1389z wrote:
| Don't use NIC name for networking. This is a none
| problem.
| malfist wrote:
| It is clearly a problem for them. Just because you do
| something different doesn't invalidate their pain point
| jasomill wrote:
| I was under the impression that the systemd device naming
| schemes were created specifically to solve the problem
| you describe[1].
|
| Are there cases where the old scheme worked well that
| none of the systemd schemes properly address?
|
| Is the scheme Windows uses to bind configuration to
| physical network interfaces even documented?
|
| [1] https://systemd.io/PREDICTABLE_INTERFACE_NAMES/
| b112 wrote:
| anecdotally?
| incognito124 wrote:
| Yes, thank you. It's 'c' in English but 'g' in my mother
| tongue
| b112 wrote:
| Interesting, I can see how it would sound the same, with
| a different accent.
| fwipsy wrote:
| Native English speaker. I tried saying both out loud and
| it sounds the same. It's just a glottal stop (?) either
| way in my accent.
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| "Hard c" is voiced, "g" is unvoiced.
| Sharlin wrote:
| (I think you mean the other way around.)
|
| But the difference is almost meaningless in this case
| because in practice the c blends to the d, which is
| voiced.
| barbs wrote:
| My Dad, who's well into his 60s, managed to install linux
| himself on his computer. His kept the windows partition in
| a dual boot setup just in case, but spends just about all
| the time in Linux, he loves it.
| fwipsy wrote:
| After my mom's Chromebook died I switched her to Ubuntu +
| Firefox on a Thinkpad x201 and it's been her daily driver for
| years. I keep asking to buy her a newer laptop with a bigger
| screen (800p is pretty painful these days) but she won't let
| me.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Sometime around 2012, Windows XP started having issues on my
| parent's PC, so I installed Xubuntu on it (my preferred
| distro at the time). I told them that "it works like
| Windows", showed them how to check email, browse the web,
| play solitare, and shut down. Even the random HP printer +
| scanner they had worked great! I went back home 2 states
| away, and expected a call from them to "put it back to what
| it was", but it never happened. (The closest was Mom
| wondering why solitare (the gnome-games version) was
| different, then guided her on how to change the game type to
| klondike.)
|
| If "it [Xubuntu] works like Windows" offended you, I'd like
| to point out that normies don't care about how operating
| system kernels are designed. Normies care about things like a
| start menu, and that the X in the corner closes programs. The
| interface is paramount for non-technical users.
|
| A family friend recently called me for advice on her old
| decrepit laptop. I told her about my work "laptop": a Surface
| Pro tablet with Linux. I just sold one to her (I work in
| e-waste recycling), partially on the security and privacy
| advantages of Linux. Lets see how that works out.
| spuz wrote:
| My elderly parents asked me to install Linux on their laptops
| this Christmas after finally getting sick of the adware on
| Windows. If Microsoft can make them switch, anyone can.
| Fnoord wrote:
| I switched my mum to Unix(-like).
|
| Her router is running Linux. I can tell because of the speed
| of the WLAN alone.
|
| Her STB runs Linux, specifically Android TV (Nvidia Shield
| TV). Thanks for adding the fantastic ads in the newest
| Android TV, Google! /s
|
| Her vacuum cleaner runs Linux, I know because I slapped
| Valetudo on it.
|
| Her NAS runs Linux (DSM), Synology.
|
| Her printer runs Linux (Brother).
|
| Her Raspberry Pi with Home Assistant runs Linux (DietPi).
|
| Her tablet runs macOS variant, iPadOS.
|
| Her smartphone runs macOS variant, iOS.
|
| Her smartwatch will run macOS variant, watchOS.
|
| OK, fair enough. Her laptop! Her laptop still runs Win...
| wait a sec, she hasn't had a laptop for more than a decade.
| She's been using that super expensive hardware keyboard for
| iPad. My mum never even used Windows 10 or 11. Her laptop
| came with Windows Vista back in the days, it was terribly
| sluggish.
|
| I don't know which year it is, but it isn't the year of the
| Windows OS.
|
| And yes, I am super happy with Microsoft using thumb screws
| like these. Squeeze them tight. The more computers will slip
| through your fingers, grand moff Nadella.
| bigyabai wrote:
| > Her tablet runs macOS variant, iPadOS.
|
| > Her smartphone runs macOS variant, iOS.
|
| > Her smartwatch will run macOS variant, watchOS.
|
| None of these platforms run a variant of macOS, rather a
| variant of Darwin.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I have no particular insight into whether the wikipedia
| article is correct, but it says "iOS is based on macOS."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS
| pjmlp wrote:
| Being repeated since Windows XP days, and yet without Proton
| there is no Linux gaming.
| capitol_ wrote:
| And yet, without the software for Linux gaming, there is no
| Linux gaming.
|
| Very hard to falsify such a statement.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Software written for Windows, running with a translation
| layer on GNU/Linux.
| graynk wrote:
| is there a point somewhere in this statement?
| pjmlp wrote:
| A reality slap.
| 2b3a51 wrote:
| Not the parent or grandparent poster and not a gamer.
|
| The echo in my mind from the statement was along the
| following lines:
|
| I can do everything at work remotely from my Linux laptop
| as they use Microsoft365/Sharepoint/Teams/Outlook and
| all. I can just log in via Chromium and noone knows any
| different with _one_ exception: the finance portal. I
| have to be on an employer owned Windows PC to do that one
| thing as it is the last 'native program' needed. Moral:
| enterprise-ish stuff is happening via the Web browser.
|
| Steam _et al_ financing WINE /Proton and generally
| hammering all the sharp edges out of the compatibility
| layer for running Windows software on Linux. Moral:
| Complex Windows native software _can_ be run under Linux.
|
| So, at some point in the future, does Microsoft just
| phase out Windows? Replace it with a really well
| engineered Linux with compatibility environment for
| legacy software?
| chrisldgk wrote:
| The translation layer doesn't really matter though, does
| it? If a user installs a game and it runs the same, the
| user doesn't care about the translation layer inbetween.
| If installing and running a game on Linux is the same as
| running it on windows, there's no reason to prefer one
| over the other for gaming.
| pjmlp wrote:
| It certainly does, because it allows game studios to keep
| ignoring GNU/Linux, even when they happen to have
| Android/Linux games written with the NDK, it is a Valve's
| problem.
| Tom1380 wrote:
| With better performance than on Windows
| u8080 wrote:
| Maybe in rare cases with few compatible games.
| pjmlp wrote:
| In some cases.
| nkrisc wrote:
| So there is Linux gaming, you're saying.
| pjmlp wrote:
| No there isn't.
|
| What is there are Linux users playing Windows games.
|
| There used to be one, sadly the likes of Loki Entertainment
| are now gone.
| malfist wrote:
| What do you call a game that plays natively on Linux?
|
| Not a windows game.
| gligorot wrote:
| There is a chicken/egg problem.
|
| We should be happy it has a solution.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I would not call being dependent on Windows games a
| solution.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| The file format and APIs used are irrelevant as long as
| the games work. The games work and that is all that
| matter.
| timeon wrote:
| Sure but not everyone is using desktop for gaming.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| every discussion like this has at least one of these comments.
| The year of the Linux Desktop must be nearly here. They've been
| predicting it for years already!
| abdusco wrote:
| Linux on desktop = the fusion energy of computing.
| throwaway1389z wrote:
| Yeah, except there has been a steady increase in Linux (~5%
| "confirmed") and a steady decline of Windows. I bet a large
| percentage of those "unknown" are also linux machines.
|
| https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-
| share/desktop/worldwide...
| llm_nerd wrote:
| As the old saying goes, it happens slowly and then all at
| once. The things tethering people to Windows have largely
| disappeared for many/most people.
|
| One of my sons has a desktop that is quite powerful and
| overwhelmingly adequate for what he does. As Windows 10 hit
| the end of support we were considering how to move forward as
| Windows 11 refuses to work on his device. We realized there
| is absolutely nothing keeping him on Windows, and perhaps we
| just replace his PC with a Mac Mini. But in the meantime he's
| rolling with Ubuntu and has lost absolutely nothing and
| gained plenty.
| leptons wrote:
| For me, after 35 years of Windows, 2025 was the year of the
| Linux desktop. Finally. Linux has become a lot better, and my
| skills with Linux have too. And Microsoft screwed me over a
| few times too many. I had bought a "lifetime license" for
| Outlook, which cost me over $100 a couple of years ago. So
| then I wanted to upgrade the CPU on the machine running the
| VM where I had Outlook running, and suddenly that "lifetime
| license" ended due to the CPU being different. That was
| really the last straw for me. I moved to Linux Mint and
| Firebird for email, and it's been great. Now all of my VMs
| are running Linux, all the locally hosted services I had
| running have Linux binaries. The switch was a lot easier than
| I anticipated.
|
| If Microsoft is alienating people like me, using Windows for
| 35 years, they can alienate anyone.
|
| The forced buying of new hardware just to run Windows 11 is
| going to be the last straw for a lot of people. And Apple is
| really no better, their existing x86 machines have the same
| problem. We could no longer update a MBP, and other software
| stopped working due to the inability to update (and sorry, no
| we're not going to use hacky solutions to force it to
| update).
| throwaway1389z wrote:
| The only thing holding millions, possibly in the 100s, from
| switching to Desktop Linux from Windows is Apple's iPhone
| support.
| stefanfisk wrote:
| As a Mac user I might be missing something obvious - why do
| they need iPhone support on their computer?
| throwaway1389z wrote:
| Backups. Copying photos. Sharing files. As a Mac User,
| you're probably well served with backups integration in
| Finder, as well as iCloud, AirDrop, iMessage, and friends
| without realising it.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| Do you mean like...iTunes? Huh?
|
| I know approximately zero people who still tether an
| iPhone to a desktop for any sort of backups.
| throwaway1389z wrote:
| No.
| lorenzhs wrote:
| Even if it was still a thing (and it really isn't, imo),
| libimobiledevice does a decent job already, and given a
| little funding it shouldn't be super hard to close the
| gaps and build a nice UI on top of it. But that's not
| happening because very few people care about it at all.
|
| Now, AirDrop support is a completely different beast. But
| it requires hardware support (promiscuous mode, iirc)
| that many common chipsets simply lack.
| throwaway1389z wrote:
| Your response and the parent sounds like the comments on
| DropBox thread. It is detached from reality of consumers
| and fails to contribute direction that can actually move
| the needle.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| Could you describe the "reality of consumers", because it
| sounds like you just time travelled from 2011.
| jasomill wrote:
| The only integrations that matter to me are Messages and
| notifications for phone calls, neither of which are even
| available on Windows AFAIK, and could just as usefully be
| implemented as a Web app as a native Windows app if Apple
| chose to do so.
|
| Oh, and USB tethering, but in my recent experience that's
| harder to get working on Windows 11 than on Linux (had to
| find the correct driver manually on
| catalog.update.microsoft.com as neither Windows Update
| nor any of the Apple Windows apps installed it, only to
| have some update or other remove it without my knowledge
| or consent a few weeks later).
| gambiting wrote:
| Eh? I don't have an iPhone, but my mum does and she uses
| it fine without a Mac. Everything just syncs to iCloud,
| if there is some benefit to connecting it to a Mac then
| I'm genuinely unaware of it.
| mat_b wrote:
| Haha. Been seeing this comment for at least 20 years now. Some
| things never change...
| eek2121 wrote:
| I've been using Linux since the 90s, however I was never super
| awesome with it. I can do the basic stuff, and with a bit of
| documentation/guidance, a bit more. I was able to install Arch
| Linux at least 3X, for example. I also managed to build a
| kernel like twice...although I didn't do a great job of
| configuration.
|
| I think my crowning achievement came early on when I managed to
| follow Linux From Scratch all the way through.
|
| I say all of this to say that I am finally off Windows for
| good. It has become my daily driver. I've no obstacles. Not in
| gaming, software dev, personal work, media consumption (beyond
| streaming services degrading streams for a non-supported OS),
| or anything else. I've found open source apps to be quite a bit
| better than their closed source equivalents.
|
| Things have really shifted in the past 5-10 years, and I dig
| it. KDE + CachyOS is great! Although I hear Bazzite is better
| for new users (I have some decent experience using Arch so I
| prefer Cachy)
|
| I don't foresee ever moving back to Windows. The AI and
| constant push to Microsoft Edge, Second OOB experience, and
| other nonsense (including Diablo 2: resurrected, a [now]
| Microsoft owned product that still gets a few updates, hard
| locking my system), I decided to take my ball and go home...to
| Linux. A few people I know who aren't even remotely computer
| literate at all have done the same, and they've been surprised
| at how much better everything is, particularly on somewhat
| older hardware.
| criddell wrote:
| Is it The Year of the Linux Desktop again?
| mulakosag wrote:
| I have not used windows in a while but thinking of building a PC.
| Is there a way to install way older version of windows 10 without
| Microsoft's AI nonsense and the online account requirement?
| lifetimerubyist wrote:
| I just did it today with the current ISO you can download from
| Microsoft themselves. Then installed all the Windows updates,
| graphics drivers and even enrolled in the free extended
| security support. Then I just uninstalled Cortana and Copilot
| manually. Ezpz
|
| Be warned that they employ extreme amounts of dark patterns to
| try and trick you into converting the offline account into an
| online one.
|
| Online activation of the Windows license is separate from an
| online user account.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Be warned that they employ extreme amounts of dark patterns
| to try and trick you into converting the offline account into
| an online one.
|
| This would be an extremely valuable comment if you would
| document that.
| abound wrote:
| Were you able to enable extended security updates without
| logging in?
|
| I've held out for literal years, but that was the thing that
| finally made me log into an online user account (and start
| figuring out how to finally cut the last bit of Windows out
| of my life)
| wmf wrote:
| Just pirate the updates with Massgrave.
| robinsonb5 wrote:
| Were you able to use the online activation system without a
| Microsoft account? I wasn't able to - though as you say, that
| account doesn't have to be tied to the license or an account
| on the machine being activated.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Look into LTSC, and the resources at https://massgrave.dev/ .
|
| Disclaimer: I have no personal knowledge of that site, but it
| is commonly recommended when this subject comes up.
| q3k wrote:
| I've heard that it is a way to reliably but potentially
| illegally activate MSFT products. Stay away.
| kristofferR wrote:
| Nah, it's been hosted by Microsoft for years, on Github for
| a decade, without as much as a takedown notice, 161k stars
| now, they don't mind.
|
| https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts
|
| If they wanted it removed from GitHub they would have done
| so.
| nixass wrote:
| Hot take but legality is completely irrelevant for home use
| 9x39 wrote:
| If you're a midsize business with revenue, theoretically
| one of their enforcement partners may take a run at you,
| but this is not a thing with home users (or even most small
| business abuse).
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| I'd feel bad only if there were a legitimate way to acquire
| the LTSC for home use
| everyone wrote:
| Just get Windows 10 LTSC from the pirate bay and install IOT
| version. It's an actually good version of Windows MS dont sell
| to normal people.
| monocasa wrote:
| It's based on 20H2, so there's software that doesn't support
| it like Starfield.
| 9029 wrote:
| I thought it worked just fine on LTSC 2021 (21H2)
| loeg wrote:
| It's possible, but it won't get security updates anymore.
| kristofferR wrote:
| Windows 10 is outdated, not recommended at all. Just install
| Win11 Enterprise and get your favorite LLM to give you
| instructions to remove the stuff you don't want, after like 15
| minutes it will be totally cleaned for perpetuity.
| wvenable wrote:
| If you're willing go through a little bit of trouble -- and it
| sounds like you are -- it's pretty easy to configure Windows 11
| to look and act pretty much like Windows 7. You'd be hard
| pressed to tell what version of Windows I'm running if you gave
| it a cursory glance.
|
| The main tool for me is https://www.startallback.com/
|
| O2O Shutup ( https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 ) is also
| pretty useful for disabling anything you don't like all in one
| place -- it doesn't even install.
| nilslindemann wrote:
| I also found Winscript and Windhawk useful.
|
| https://github.com/flick9000/winscript
| https://github.com/ramensoftware/windhawk
| layer8 wrote:
| Only Aero, Classic theme not really.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links
| jjaksic wrote:
| When Nadella took over from Ballmer, he steered Microsoft in a
| better direction for a while. But by now he's become a lot worse.
| The biggest software company can no longer produce good software
| and its products are actively hostile to users. Nadella cares
| only about one thing, which is shoving AI everywhere and to
| everyone, at any cost. The irony is that he knows nothing about
| AI, how to build capable models or how to build useful AI
| products, nor does he have people who do. AI is his Metaverse:
| something he's singularity focused on, to the point of neglecting
| everything else, without any idea what to actually do with it.
| YY4387268632 wrote:
| I noticed an immediate dip in quality of the products when
| Nadella came into power. Even Windows 8, for all the faults of
| the Metro UX, felt like a complete product.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I miss Balmer in what concerns Windows development culture.
| burnte wrote:
| As someone who lived through a small portion of the internal
| mess that was Vista, I DO NOT miss him at all. I worked there
| 6 months and his bizarre management directives were obvious.
| Behind every single developer push was a lock-in push, too.
| Every "open" product had to have some form of lock in or
| vendor-only advantage. None of it was driving customer
| success, it was all about enforcement and lock-in from top
| down.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Meanwhile nowadays everyone at Windows is a Web developer.
| acka wrote:
| Developers, developers, developers, developers[1].
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fcSviC7cRM
| wolvoleo wrote:
| He seemed to me like such a total d**k, sorry to say but the
| energy I got from him and the things he did (throwing chairs
| etc), brrr. Also his public shows were so hard and pushy.
| This is not ok even for a CEO. A toxic work environment is
| never acceptable.
|
| If I had worked for MS I would have hated him and the company
| he forged. I don't like Nadella much (note, there's very few
| 'leaders' I like) but at least he seems to be a nice person.
| pjmlp wrote:
| At least Windows development wasn't done with Chrome.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| That's a good point. The new electron apps like teams and
| "new" outlook are terrible.
| bezier-curve wrote:
| It wasn't? There are those kernel protected
| msedgewebview2.exe processes Microsoft shoved into
| Windows 11, actively making performance horrible.
| awesan wrote:
| People have forgotten this, but he did the same with Windows
| Phone for a while at the very start of his time as CEO. His
| motto was "cloud first, mobile first" where cloud meant Azure
| and mobile meant Windows Phone. After some time he gave up and
| they pivoted into the direction he is now well known for, which
| was to focus on good developer tooling regardless of OS.
| echelon wrote:
| GitHub and VSCode were smart ways to quickly recapture
| developer mindshare. They felt distinctly un-Microsoft with
| how open and multiplatform they were.
|
| The Azure Linux friendliness play was essential and smart.
| Again, Microsoft felt like they were opening up to the world.
|
| But they've backslidden. They've ceded Windows and gaming to
| their cloud and AI infra ambitions. They're not being
| friendly anymore.
|
| Microsoft spent a lot of energy making Windows more consumer
| friendly, only to piss it away with Windows 11.
|
| One evil thing they were doing that they've suddenly given up
| on: they spent a ton of money buying up gaming studios
| (highly anti-competitively) to win on the console front and
| to stymie Steam's ability to move off Windows. They wanted to
| make Windows/Xbox gaming the place everyone would be. They
| threw all of that away because AI became a bigger target.
|
| They'll continue to win in enterprise, but they're losing
| consumer, gamer, and developer/IC support and mindshare. I've
| never seen so many people bitch about GitHub as in the last
| year. You'd swear it had became worse than Windows 7 at this
| point.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > You'd swear it had became worse than Windows 7 at this
| point.
|
| Do you mean Windows Vista instead? Because Windows 7 was
| probably the last (half-)decent windows (no UI though for
| tablet, no ads in the OS, no ubiquitous telemetry, no
| account BS).
| echelon wrote:
| Yeah, my mistake. I spent the post-XP era on Linux and
| specially Ubuntu.
|
| I've been using all three major OS families recently and
| I'm not enjoying my time on Windows. It's so full of ads,
| and the Linux / Unix bits feel bolted on.
| timeon wrote:
| Often gets confused because of same liquid-glass as
| vista.
| layer8 wrote:
| Windows 7 was the last Windows version to still support
| the Classic theme: https://betawiki.net/images/d/da/Windo
| ws_7_classic_theme.png
| mattmanser wrote:
| Do you think they'll continue to win in enterprise? As a
| casual office user, who's had to do some PowerPoint and
| word docs recently, I found the experience of using office
| 365 truly miserable. All of them are laggy and horrible to
| use.
|
| I think by moving onto the cloud they've left themselves
| open to being disrupted, and when it comes it'll be like
| Lotus Notes, an extremely quick downfall.
| layer8 wrote:
| They have enterprise users locked in mainly due to Active
| Directory, for which there is no good replacement, and to
| a some extent SharePoint. There's also Office, of course,
| and you are right that the migration to web tech isn't
| well taken. I'm thinking of "New Outlook" in particular.
| They probably plan to EOL classic Outlook when Office
| 2024 EOLs in 2029. The last stronghold will be Excel. If
| native Excel ever gets discontinued, then everything
| Microsoft will have been webshittified(tm).
| ezst wrote:
| Trust me, I really want that to happen, but who has the
| billions to burn (and the will to use them at that) to
| build a solid alternative? Most probably, the EU will
| have a misguided shot at it, out of desperation from the
| USA, and will subsidise some inadequate local actors. I'm
| not sure whether it will be good, timely nor sufficient.
| the_snooze wrote:
| >One evil thing they were doing that they've suddenly given
| up on: they spent a ton of money buying up gaming studios
| (highly anti-competitively) to win on the console front and
| to stymie Steam's ability to move off Windows. They wanted
| to make Windows/Xbox gaming the place everyone would be.
| They threw all of that away because AI became a bigger
| target.
|
| No kidding, the totally threw it all away. It used to be
| that Windows was already the place for gaming. And the Xbox
| 360 arguably won its generation. But that was a long time
| ago. Has any Microsoft gaming release exceeded expectations
| lately? Call of Duty will always sell like hotcakes, but
| the latest Black Ops is a hot expensive mess that
| underperformed last year's title.
| starkparker wrote:
| > the Xbox 360 arguably won its generation
|
| Maybe it won some battles in your part of the world,
| presumably North America. But the PS3 outsold it globally
| as its contemporary, and even the PS5 passed the 360 in
| global lifetime sales as of November 2025:
| https://www.vgchartz.com/article/466599/ps5-outsells-
| xbox-36...
| layer8 wrote:
| Microsoft seems to have decided that they can't make all
| that much money with gaming. But they are underestimating
| the mindshare they are losing with that.
|
| Slightly related, they also discontinued most of their PC
| peripherals in 2023, many of which were quite good:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35748645
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Windows 7 was about the best Windows ever got, like 2K and
| XP. Vista and 8 (and now 11) are the bad ones.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Yes, I use Win7 every day!
| WWLink wrote:
| Microsoft has never been an end-user-focused company.
| Almost every successful product they've ever made was to
| sell to a business for their employees to use. Everything
| else they seem to either half ass or screw up or lose their
| passion for at some point.
|
| I think I first came to that realization with windows phone
| 7/8? The UI was cool looking, but functionality was half-
| baked and third party app availability was dismal. HOWEVER!
| You could sign a windows phone into an active directory/365
| account and manage the bloody daylights out of it via group
| policy and the tools to do that were SUPER WELL MADE.
|
| Same is/was true of Microsoft Teams - an utter abomination
| of a chat client, the search is garbage, the emoji and
| sticker variety sometimes weird, the client itself randomly
| uses up 100% CPU for no reason and is just generally
| buggy... but gosh darnit, MS made sure sysadmins could ban
| memes and use of certain emoji via policy and gave insane
| amounts of detail to auditing and record keeping. So sure
| it's a pile of shit to use, but awesome if you wanna spy on
| your employees and restrict their every move.
|
| Windows is fun because with the enterprise version, they
| give all that control to the employers, but with the
| consumer version they give all that control to advertisers,
| developers, and themselves.
|
| I think this is also why every consumer-focused product
| they make either fails instantly, or ends up rotting on the
| vine and failing after whoever evangelized that product
| leaves the company (possibly being forced out for not being
| a "culture fit"). Do I have to go on about zune/windows
| phone/xbox? Or surface? Or the way they randomly dumped
| their peripherals product line on another company? lol.
| amluto wrote:
| > But they've backslidden. They've ceded Windows and gaming
| to their cloud and AI infra ambitions. They're not being
| friendly anymore.
|
| Forget being "friendly". GitHub has enormous mindshare and
| has frankly quite reasonably pricing (far cheaper than
| GitLab, for example), but the product just sucks lately.
| The website, while quite capable (impressively so at times)
| is so slow and buggy that it's hard to benefit from any of
| its capabilities.
|
| It's gotten to the point where, every time I try a newish
| capability, I ask myself "how bad can this possibly be,"
| and it invariably exceeds expectations.
|
| GitHub needs to take a step back and focus on fixing
| things. Existing features should work, be coherent, and be
| fast. If it takes longer to load a diff in the web viewer
| than it takes to pull the entire branch and view the diff
| locally, something is wrong.
|
| If a coworker reviews my code, I should not sitting right
| next to them, literally looking at the same website they're
| on, and wondering why they see the correct context for
| their review comment but I don't.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > "focus on good developer tooling"
|
| So "developers, developers, developers"?
| coliveira wrote:
| People don't understand that this is MS culture. It doesn't
| mater the CEO. They'll always move to lock customers into the
| useless products they create.
| csdreamer7 wrote:
| Nadella was the one who fired Microsoft's QA team for Windows.
| It took a while but those chickens finally came home to roost.
|
| https://www.computerworld.com/article/1626871/microsoft-to-b...
|
| This one youtuber, I forget his name, was fired as part of that
| layoff. He had a son with severe Autism and Microsoft's health
| benefits were very important to him.
| bsimpson wrote:
| There's a long-circulating mind virus that makes executives
| believe top-tier engineers don't need their software tested.
|
| Google's QA is pitiful too.
| hnthrowaway0328 wrote:
| They have long adopted the mindset to get users as free
| beta testers. Long gone the tradition that quality matters.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| It's always the departments that are closest to the
| customer that pay the price in my experience. At one
| company, after killing QA, the support team created their
| own internal QA process. They were going to deal with the
| issues anyways, so they wanted to catch as many as they
| could first.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| In case of some recent Windows parts, that would need to be
| compounded by the mistaken belief to have top-tier
| engineers working for them.
| frde_me wrote:
| > He had a son with severe Autism and Microsoft's health
| benefits were very important to him.
|
| This really sucks for him. Through should Microsoft _not_
| layoff specific people due to health conditions? Is that
| something we require from companies?
| bowsamic wrote:
| Yes I'd say that such people should get extra protections
| kwanbix wrote:
| In europe (at least in Germany), they do get extra
| protection.
| CrimsonRain wrote:
| And that's why people think 5 times before hiring such.
| It's already super hard to fire people unless they make
| gross mistakes. It's nearly impossible to fire someone
| like that. It's stupid.
| kakacik wrote:
| Its not stupid rather humane, just very ineffective from
| economical perspective.
|
| You want society where its everybody for themselves, fuck
| the rest, be lucky with ie your health so you and your
| family can have a decent life and one problem big enough
| can wipe you out? The benefit is more money, economy
| works better, is more agile to ever-changing situation.
| Just those extra money often go to that healthcare (since
| we all end up with various issues over time, the only
| exception is early death), or university for kids, or
| cost of properties.
|
| Or something glacial, without real pressure to improve,
| more poor, but with additional safety nets.
|
| I keep saying it over and over - EU should take over
| system (and mindset, good luck there) of Swiss folks.
| They strike the best balance between predatory capitalism
| that often grinds unlucky individuals and various safety
| nets (free top notch public education, almost free public
| healthcare, very good but not ridiculous social system
| etc). Unsurprisingly, mix of European competency and a
| bit of proper capitalism creates one of best stable
| living standards in the world, and arguably still The
| most free nation in the world (TM).
|
| Its a place that french or germans just can't swallow -
| neighbor showing them how much better a similar society
| can end up functioning with few rather minor tweaks.
| jasomill wrote:
| In the US at least, there are needs-based high-risk
| insurance programs run by states that do just that.
|
| Even so, while it's not a good argument against layoffs,
| the fact that it's even considered as such is in itself a
| reasonable argument against health care being tied to
| specific employment.
| chrishare wrote:
| Not at all - it's legal, but it doesn't garner goodwill
| either.
| project2501a wrote:
| How about you nationalize your healthcare, so people like
| that are not depended on their work to get the care they
| need?
| bagels wrote:
| What role did you specifically play in your country's
| nationalization of healthcare?
| cheesecakejava wrote:
| Maybe not that person above, but I've continually voted
| in support of it and initiatives to expand it
| WalterBright wrote:
| Employer provided health care insurance came about during
| WW2 because Roosevelt froze wages. Companies discovered
| they could "raise" wages by paying for the insurance
| themselves.
|
| The practice persisted because employer paid health
| insurance is tax-deductible, while it isn't if a person
| pays it out of pocket.
|
| The obvious solution is to make it tax-deductible.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| I don't see how this addresses the comment you replied
| to.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I suggested an alternative solution to the one proposed
| by the comment I replied to.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| I don't understand how "make it tax-deductible" is an
| alternative to "nationalize healthcare so it's not tied
| to employment."
| WalterBright wrote:
| Sorry, I don't know how to make it any clearer.
| wwweston wrote:
| It doesn't. It's part of a rosary of things people wield
| to stave off thinking about the topic. You _can_ do other
| things besides nationalizing all care or insurance, but
| when you hear people talk about "open up markets to cross
| state competition", or "everyone gets an HSA", or "make
| insurance tax deductible /it's fdr's fault", it's rarely
| about the specific policy, those are liturgical texts /
| catechisms designed to give the impression of solutions
| without substance.
|
| Tax deductibility is only a very minor reason why most
| private insurance is employer provided; the much larger
| reason is that employment is a decent way to get a
| reasonably distributed group (of people generally healthy
| enough to work) and that's one way of getting balanced
| risk pool if you're not doing community rating or a
| societ wide pool.
| y7 wrote:
| > The obvious solution is to make it tax-deductible.
|
| Or make employer paid health insurance count as income
| and therefore _not_ tax-deductible.
| WalterBright wrote:
| True. Total employee compensation is around 145% of their
| salary. The government could tax that extra 45%, but I
| doubt that would fly politically.
|
| Typical accounts of employee compensation only measure
| wages and salaries. I've only seen the WSJ using total
| employee compensation, which is a far more realistic
| figure.
| wombatpm wrote:
| Or lower the age for Medicare every year until everyone
| is covered.
| trollbridge wrote:
| Note that a freshly laid off person will usually qualify
| for generous Medicaid benefits, including in WA state.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Companies don't have agency. People do. Compassion is a
| cross cultural value. Including amongst those that run
| companies.
|
| For the most part none of us has any "required" obligation
| to anyone else.
|
| Is it something we require of companies? No. But being a
| responsible, compassionate human being that considers the
| totality of circumstance is something I expect of that
| company's leaders. Especially a company that has the money
| and need for technical skills elsewhere in the org.
|
| The golden rule does not stop being true just because you
| are at work.
|
| Preemptively: duty to shareholders is broader than short
| term profit maximizing. Avoiding bad PR like this is also
| in the service of MS shareholders.
|
| As a side note: Nadella moved his home to Canada, while
| working at MS, so his special needs kid could go to a
| specialist school. That is absolutely the right choice. The
| argument that MS should not consider the health of their
| employees children is horseshit when they allow the CEO to
| set up house hours away in a different country for that
| exact reason.
|
| At the end of the day, a kid suffered unnecessarily through
| no fault of his parents or his own.
| mxkopy wrote:
| Yes
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Is that something we require from companies?
|
| In Germany, yes. For mass layoffs, this absolutely has to
| be considered. In general, the older the employee is, or if
| the employee has dependents, the more difficult it gets to
| both fire them or lay them off.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Germany's GDP is shrinking.
|
| The regulations that make it hard to lay off someone have
| an equal and opposite effect of making companies very
| reluctant to hire. This impedes the efficient allocation
| of labor, resulting in a poorer GDP.
| monocasa wrote:
| It looks like Germany's GDP has increased every year in
| recent memory except 2009 and 2020.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Germany#Data
| WalterBright wrote:
| google [german gdb growth] says: "-0.2% annual change
| (2024)"
| omnicognate wrote:
| The "GDP Growth (Real)" column in the wikipedia article
| GP linked agrees, but it doesn't tell a story that
| justifies "Germany's GDP is shrinking".
| WalterBright wrote:
| See the graph "G7 Real GDP % change compared to pre-
| Pandemic level":
|
| https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-
| briefings/sn02...
|
| The US has 13.3% growth and Germany 0.1%.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| I would 100% chose to live in Germany than the USA. GDP
| is one consideration, but QOL more important.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Live wherever you want to!
| eek2121 wrote:
| Legally, Microsoft, or any company, cannot use any personal
| factors in determining who to lay off. If they do, they
| risk a very real lawsuit. All one needs to do is show some
| evidence of discrimination, and the EEOC doesn't charge a
| dime, the worst they will do is deny to pursue. If that
| happens, most private lawyers will take the case on
| contingency.
|
| This is the reason you see sweeping cuts without regard to
| age, sex, etc.
|
| There have also been lawsuits in the past that have settled
| out of court where a company's layoffs appear to overly
| inflict damage on one class vs. another, even if the intent
| was not to do that.
|
| I am not defending these companies at ALL btw. I just have
| a bit of experience in this area due to the legalities, and
| I wanted to share it.
|
| I am also not saying that companies don't do this, but the
| smart ones don't, and the smart ones at least try to at
| least avoid making it look obvious.
| WalterBright wrote:
| COBRA enables one to continue with the employer's insurance
| for up to 18 months after a layoff.
| trollbridge wrote:
| Yes, because it's easy to afford $2000 or $3000 a month
| when you just got laid off.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Microsoft pays well. The prudent move is to not increase
| spending until saving up at a bare minimum 6 months of
| "runway".
|
| I live in Washington. My accountant told me stories, one
| of which was a Microsoftian who got the big job, and
| promptly bought the most expensive house he could swing.
| He soon ran into trouble because he didn't have enough
| left to pay the property tax, and was forced to sell it.
|
| BTW, Microsoft has unusually generous benefits for
| autism. Many autism clinics have sprouted up around the
| campus to take advantage of that.
|
| Never, ever, EVER assume that a high paying job is a
| guarantee for life.
| SlightlyLeftPad wrote:
| Was he the reason shift-left hit mainstream? Recently,
| smaller non-faang companies followed suit and fired all the
| qa people. DevOps/SRE people are likely next.
| mihaaly wrote:
| Concerning AI he is also cluless about how to use it well - or
| at all - for their non-AI product portfolio.
| ezst wrote:
| I feel the same, but in hindsight it makes a ton of sense once
| you consider that Microsoft customers have not, and for a very
| long time, been its end users. Instead, it's been those (mostly
| technically incompetent) FortuneXXX middle/top-managers and IT
| support department managers that they hooked on to Azure & al.
| via obscene service agreements (for no better cause than
| "everyone else is doing it anyway" and "nobody ever gets fired
| for placating MS stuff everywhere").
|
| Microsoft is just profiteering off of their defacto monopoly,
| selling more is their only metric, the "what" is secondary.
| Geste wrote:
| Not aiming at you specifically, but I am tired of seeing shitty
| behaviour that is dismissed as best as incompetence. I do not
| want to believe someone becomes the CEO of one of the strongest
| organization on earth without a strategy sixth sense. So, why
| would he be shoving AI everywhere ? What does he know that we
| don't about it ? Is it just plan surveillance ?
| solarkraft wrote:
| I think Hanlon's razor becomes a lot weaker the more the
| offender has to gain from their action.
|
| Nadella is doing his job of shareholder value maximization
| quite well.
| lexoj wrote:
| True, its insane how bad MS teams performs and is built and
| this is coming from a company that have written their own OS,
| Programming languages, frameworks etc.
| joshribakoff wrote:
| I actually just had to independently tag him on LinkedIn after
| my son had an issue with his Minecraft account. Their account
| recovery flow directs you to call on the phone and then when
| you call on the phone, it directs you to use the account
| recovery flow. When we went to their Support page we received a
| stack trace from asp.net. After wasting several hours, we
| screenshot of the error and tagged him on LinkedIn and filed a
| credit card dispute.
|
| In my LinkedIn post I questioned if they can't be trusted with
| a $30 game license how can we trust them with a multi million
| dollar copilot rollout? I pointed out that it seems like this
| is more than just a lack of human support. It is a company
| that: does not care about their own brand, the up-time of their
| own systems, their own employees, or their customers.
|
| I question if their goal is to simply extract money under
| unethical conditions. I question whether they expect the
| customer to just repeatedly purchased the game every time the
| company fails to deliver it. I also questioned to him why he
| has hiring managers bragging on LinkedIn that they expect
| people to output 1 million lines of code per month, so they can
| rewrite the operating system in rust, while their systems are
| off-line.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| I have a little AMD AliExpress PC where the Windows installer
| recognizes neither the wifi card nor the Ethernet port. I guess
| there's a way to download the drivers on another computer and
| load them during installation, but instead of figuring out how to
| do that or what the latest option for circumventing the online
| requirement is, it now runs Pop OS.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Nothing wrong with Pop OS, but I assume you could still install
| Windows without activating it, install the drivers, then
| activate online.
| buccal wrote:
| Without unofficial bypasses of MS online account requirements
| you would not come to a point where activation is a concern.
| No internet access is not enough of a reason for MS let you
| use your device.
| burnt_toast wrote:
| That won't work. Windows won't let you finish the
| installation process unless you connect to the internet so
| you can't get the PC to a point where you could install the
| drivers.
| blagie wrote:
| Really?
|
| When did this come up?
|
| I know tons of people who run Windows unactivated. The key
| difference is there's a watermark. Otherwise, it seems to
| work fine.
| jasomill wrote:
| Personalization options like wallpaper and color settings
| are disabled until activation, though I'm sure there are
| workarounds.
| fylo wrote:
| Unless they have fixed it you used to be able to change
| stuff really quickly after install before it locked it
| down due to activation.
| jasomill wrote:
| The official solution[1] is to slipstream network drivers
| onto the Windows image before installation.
|
| The official solution for non-technical users is to buy a
| PC with Windows preinstalled.
|
| [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-
| hardware/manufactu...
| II2II wrote:
| The trouble is you need network access to end up at the
| desktop to install the network drivers in the expected
| manner. Both of the ways I am aware of resolving the issue
| involve dropping to a command prompt. One method is to run
| the device driver installer from the command prompt. The
| other method is to run the bypassnro script from the OOBE
| directory, to get to the desktop to install the driver. There
| are probably other ways, but given that most search results
| talk about non-official ways (which I place less faith in,
| frequently don't work, and are more complex anyhow) I don't
| see how most people would get around the problem.
|
| In contrast, most desktop oriented Linux distributions have a
| simpler installer and provide at least enough hardware
| support to leave you at a functional desktop. (There may be
| issues with more esoteric hardware, but chances are that
| hardware wouldn't work under Windows until vendor supplied
| drivers are installed anyhow.)
| m463 wrote:
| A few years back I bought win 11 pro retail on usb flash
| drive.
|
| I just install and type in the key. no network.
|
| I use it for VMs no network necessary.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| What does this mean for using Windows in air gapped environments?
| I would have assumed this was common enough to make Microsoft
| want to support it.
|
| Is it possible to activate via a web browser on a separate
| computer, similar to the flow for phone activation?
| cheschire wrote:
| you probably need to stand up a key management server (KMS)
| wvenable wrote:
| Just don't activate. It's not necessary.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| If you're a home user, I agree. But if you're a business,
| wouldn't this be a liability?
| prmoustache wrote:
| Liability would be to not purchase a license, not failing
| to activate it.
|
| Only risk would be to not have suppport available.
| lfllfkddl wrote:
| You don't get support on non-activated software.
| prmoustache wrote:
| That's my point. The question is which fraction of
| users/businesses actually ever ask for support? And as
| long as error can be replicated on an activated install,
| I guess they could still get support.
|
| I knew a number of companies who were using a handful of
| RedHat servers and many more running CentOS and whenever
| they encountered issues on a CentOS system they would
| just replicate it on a RedHat one before asking for
| support and sending logs. Morally dubious but
| contractually OK.
| layer8 wrote:
| You rarely get useful support from Microsoft anyway.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Can't remember what, but there will be functional limitations
| if you don't activate, even with a verified key.
| tormeh wrote:
| Microsoft is the US military's biggest supplier. There is
| definitely a solution for this. And that solution is probably
| not available to regular users.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| Yeah this. The common man rules don't apply there.
|
| Even in Enterprise by the way. No way we pay the amounts
| listed on the MS website.
| wmf wrote:
| Regular users buy a PC with Windows pre-activated.
| m463 wrote:
| I would guess (no idea) that military computers log into the
| cloud, maybe it is a special (expensive) ms military cloud.
| leptons wrote:
| That then is explicitly not an "air gapped" computer, which
| there definitely is need for in the military and
| government.
| jasomill wrote:
| There are several solutions, and while most are limited to
| volume licensing, which, depending on your definition, may
| exclude "regular users", at least one is not:
|
| 1. Supply the code given by the "slmgr /dti" command to
| Microsoft over the phone or online from a non-air gapped
| machine.
|
| 2. Apply the resulting activation code with the "slmgr /atp"
| command.
| 9x39 wrote:
| Key management services or Active Directory activation.
|
| This is a small roadbump to home/smb free activations.
| bri3d wrote:
| VAMT proxy activation, or full fledged volume licensing with
| KMS
| navigate8310 wrote:
| The closest solution is using IoT LTSC
| andix wrote:
| Last time I tried to use it for an appliance, we weren't able
| to buy licenses. Microsoft gave us the contact to the only
| reseller in our country, and they couldn't find anyone in the
| company who knew how to sell Windows IoT licenses.
|
| Edit: We only wanted to buy around 20 licenses, so their
| motivation was also not that big to figure it out.
| andix wrote:
| I don't think regular Windows 11 is that useful in those cases.
| You probably either want an intranet connected Windows client,
| that gets activated and updated via a local server. Probably
| also a LTSC release, that doesn't get feature updates all the
| time.
|
| Or a Windows 11 IoT image, that only enables some specific
| features, and is stripped down for a specific purpose.
|
| For individual use I guess the solution is to set it up once
| with internet connectivity and air gap afterwards.
| leptons wrote:
| >For individual use I guess the solution is to set it up once
| with internet connectivity and air gap afterwards.
|
| That's simply not good enough for some purposes. Once a
| computer is connected to the internet, _at all for any amount
| of time_ , the system could be considered to be less secure.
| andix wrote:
| Sure, but why do you need to use Windows for such a
| specific setup?
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Internal key activation can be done through a KMS host , which
| can be activated by phone (or some other dedicated mean if
| you're big enough for MS to care)
|
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started...
| well_actulily wrote:
| I'll never install Windows on another machine.
| giantg2 wrote:
| The way this is going, I'm probably going Linux only next time I
| upgrade.
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| I read their handheld Xbox is a version of Windows with none of
| the bloat nor slop. I'm sure they'll never sell that as a version
| of Windows but I wonder if it's possible to make it into an
| installable by third parties like other custom ISOs that float
| around the internet.
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| Is this the last way that was vaguely easy to access? Can you
| still run the OOBE command or use the XML unattended install
| method?
| nzeid wrote:
| Would like to know this as well.
| Jare wrote:
| When I recently installed Windows 11 on my new rig, it didn't
| recognize the built-in motherboard wifi and I could only connect
| after installation of Windows + mobo drivers. How would that work
| now?
| MrDOS wrote:
| Just like you used to be able to provide storage drivers on a
| floppy disk, you can now provide NIC drivers on a USB stick.
| (IIRC, there's a button for it on the Microsoft account sign-in
| page of the OOBE.)
| nottorp wrote:
| There are activation cracks right?
| wolvoleo wrote:
| I do have to say that telephone process was terribly tedious. You
| had to enter 50 digits or so and it would repeat them all to
| confirm, ugh.
| rationalist wrote:
| You could do so by keypad, and I was done in either 3 or 4
| minutes (I forget which).
| wolvoleo wrote:
| Yes it just felt really really awkward and drawn out. I
| really hated it. I had some sequestered VMs at work which
| were not allowed internet access so I got this a lot. Was a
| security lab.
| rawling wrote:
| Dupe
|
| 283 comments
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46471081
| 867-5309 wrote:
| awaiting what massgrave dev do about this. if nothing, then
| there's nothing to worry about
| spudlyo wrote:
| With both Windows 11 and macOS Tahoe now being non-starters for
| many, it's clear that we're going to continue to see impressive
| growth in the Linux desktop in 2026. Last year I migrated my
| Windows gaming machine to Ubuntu, and it's been a great success.
| I don't play games that require kernel level anti-cheats, so for
| me, Proton has worked great. I'm playing new games like Anno 117
| on my 2019 vintage RX 5700xt and am having a blast. I'm about to
| wipe my Windows 10 partition and not look back.
|
| I still have an M1 laptop with a broken screen that is going
| strong in clam shell mode, but once it dies or I can no longer
| run Sequoia for whatever reason, I'll be tempted to abandon macOS
| if Apple can't move beyond the mess they've made with Tahoe.
| michaelhoffman wrote:
| I understand why this is bad, but I _personally_ would sign up
| for a Microsoft account anyway. Mainly, I don 't want all my
| stuff in "C:\Users\micha". Is there a way to set your username?
| layer8 wrote:
| Unless you prepare a custom image for installation, a non-local
| account is created, but you can replace it by a local account
| later.
| jimbo808 wrote:
| If/when support for Linux gaming becomes widespread and easy to
| navigate with few configuration hurdles, Windows will die very
| quickly. As for MacOS, I genuinely can't wrap my head around why
| anyone who is technically competent would prefer that OS.
| herpdyderp wrote:
| Unfortunately sim racing requires Windows (that's my last
| holdout).
|
| As far as macOS goes, Linux is so good but I also like my
| peripherals to work for my job where I don't have time to
| tinker all day.
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| Fewer and fewer people own home computers anymore. I would not
| be surprised if ChromeOS laptops outpace home Windows install
| at some point.
|
| The bastion of Windows installations will still be the
| corporate market. Outside of developer circles, Macs are only
| used by executives - the drones still get underspecced Windows
| laptops.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Doubtful this will ever happen for the most lucrative part of
| desk/lap-top gaming: multiplayer and micro transaction games.
| They require anti-cheat to keep the money flowing. And IIUC,
| Linux fundamentally grants too much user control for effective
| anti-cheat.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| > As for MacOS, I genuinely can't wrap my head around why
| anyone who is technically competent would prefer that OS.
|
| Even technical users can succumb to Apple's Reality Distortion
| Field.
| lencastre wrote:
| what about that mass grave site ... asking for a friedn
| spwa4 wrote:
| The only official way to activate Windows 11/10 without internet
| is to insert a linux installation USB stick. Got it.
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| The responses here baffle me. This IS GOOD NEWS. HN more than
| anyone should understand this. Every mistake Microsoft makes with
| Windows is a free win for Linux. We should celebrate this and
| encourage Nadella to make Windows as hostile as possible. Add
| that nasty recall ai spyware, put ads everywhere.
|
| People here hating on Nadella and loving Ballmer are missing the
| point. This is not a partisan issue. Windows stopped being good a
| long time ago. Arguably XP was the last good version of Windows.
|
| Windows becoming an OS mostly for corporate types is beneficial
| for the world. Let us celebrate!
| layer8 wrote:
| A decent amount of people actually like Windows as graphical
| user interface, and some of the related tech. That's a loss
| that Linux can't replace in a comparable fashion. Unless
| https://loss32.org/ becomes a viable reality, that is.
| joshribakoff wrote:
| The flaw in this logic is they are a monopoly. They continue to
| profit off of the bad user experience, that's been their
| business model since day one, and they keep posting growth
| numbers. I hope they do die, but in the meantime the bad
| decisions still negatively impact users, and many of them
| didn't have a choice.
|
| The other flaw in your logic is assuming that markets are free.
| A free market is one that is both informed and consents. In
| this market, there is both misinformation and a lack of
| consent.
| EAtmULFO wrote:
| Server 2022 > Windows 11 for desktop OS. No bloatware, less
| garbage, almost identical driver and application support.
| andix wrote:
| An expensive solution.
| Retr0id wrote:
| Well, only if you pay for it
| layer8 wrote:
| It EOLs in October this year, however.
| jasomill wrote:
| Server 2025, then?
|
| Though admittedly $1,176/16 cores is a bit steep for a
| desktop OS, and don't forget the CALs if you plan to use file
| sharing or Remote Desktop (or third party alternatives like
| Steam Remote Play).
| hasperdi wrote:
| Why Windows Server 2022, not 2025? Can't the latter be used as
| desktop OS?
| throawayonthe wrote:
| You should still be able to activate windows offline by using the
| "ZeroCID" or "KMS4k" methods with
| https://massgrave.dev/chart#basics
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| If you think Windows is bad, imagine there are people paying real
| money to use it.
| hexo wrote:
| Windows becoming less and less relevant every day and then they
| do this. 2026 is gonna be true Year of the Linux Desktop.
| llmslave2 wrote:
| Microsoft? Nah, it's called Microslop now.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46471081
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