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Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

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Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desktop linux has all standard software. It's just incompetent IT teams trying to sugarcoat the fact they keep throwing money down the Microsoft drain.

Desktop linux doesn't even have anything close to things like group policies. And if by magic that function would appear tomorrow, it would disappear again the day after tomorrow. Sure active directory and group policies have their flaws but its ease of use and tight integration blows everything else out of the water.

You're bringing up an important point. However: As far as I can tell, Linux can very well be integrated into an Active Directory setup.[0,1] Also: If you want to avoid Active Directory altogether, there seem to be plenty alternatives?[2]

[0]: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/linux-active-directory

[1]: https://documentation.ubuntu.com/server/explanation/intro-to...

[2]: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/333/what-is-the-equ...

Are there any alternatives to ActiveDirectory in the Linux ecosystem? Maybe from RedHat?

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#202
post #132

Between Office's increasingly bloated size, slow booting and super annoying CoPilot icon right where I'm working (which still can't be turned off in OneNote) - I'm on the edge of dumping Office. I pretty much only use OneNote and a little OneDrive (3% of the included storage plan) to sync files between machines and I run Word and Powerpoint less than a dozen times a year combined. Even as a paying customer, all the O…

Office 2003 still works absolutely fine and is free if you bought a licence some time in the past. It doesn't have the stupid ribbon or any other annoying new feature. I recently wrote a macro so that Word could call an AI API to do AI-assisted translation, works like a charm.

Main problem with office 2003 is that it can't reliably open docx and friends making it more or less non compatible with anything newer. Being able to open only docs you create yourself isn't very useful in a collaborative environment.

The main advantage of office 2003 of course is that it's the last office without activation and other crap: you pass the serial and own it for life, it won't bother you again.

I wantwd to only use 2003 but after the 10th time I argued with a person that sent me a docx for editing I gave up.

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#203

At this point I view Windows as a legacy/compatibility OS, all the news about Windows is how they are making it worse for everyone. And using it now and then it feels like that too. Windows 10 Mail app had integration with system calendar, you would get itsycal built into the OS. Windows 11 removed that and made the OS Mail app spam infested shit, and they expect me to pay a subscription for something that comes bund…

What is really missing for Linux desktop nowadays? Still drivers? And I guess office software and gui configurability.

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#204
Microsoft have even managed to make Windows Explorer (a lot) worse in Windows 11. Auto-complete in the address bar completely unresponsive. Taking ten seconds to show the contents of a local folder. Interacting with network shares a complete usability mess. Looks a bit nicer though, and there's tabs. Goodness knows who they've got maintaining Windows.

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#205

To be fair to Microsoft, Excel crashes far less frequently than it did 10 years ago so that is something I guess. I would put the "productivity gains" from that alone at +40%.

Probably because you have a way better computer. My girlfriend and I work in the same company, I have an M1 mac because I'm a dev and she has a shitty Dell laptop with Windows. Sometimes it's easier for her to send me an Excel, make the edit for her and send it back, because Excel constantly hangs on her laptop.

Companies will buy the cheapest, shittiest PCs/laptops and wonder why their slow or people are unproductive. Apple have their share of issues, but at least they won't sell you completely useless laptops.

The minute someone is using a computer and it's noticeably slow their brain will start looking for something else to do and they'll lose any momentum on whatever task they where working on.

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#206

Between Office's increasingly bloated size, slow booting and super annoying CoPilot icon right where I'm working (which still can't be turned off in OneNote) - I'm on the edge of dumping Office. I pretty much only use OneNote and a little OneDrive (3% of the included storage plan) to sync files between machines and I run Word and Powerpoint less than a dozen times a year combined. Even as a paying customer, all the O…

I used to always have an Office installation on my computer, whether it's pirated (many years ago)/using my personal license/using my school license/etc.

Then I got a new computer without bothering to do the installation. It was a long time before I discovered that I need any of Word/Excel/PowerPoint. And I was able to get by with Google Docs. If that's not good enough, I go to the free version of Office 365. In the rare occasions where I need the actual, native Office software for compatibility/functionality reasons, I do it on another machine I have access to. This has worked out surprisingly well.

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#207
post #178

Once in a while I’m happily reminded that I haven’t had to worry about this circus any more since I switched to Linux some 5 years ago.

You can get the same effect by uninstalling Office on Windows. In that you don't have a bloated start time anymore, but also can't use Office.

You still have to deal with the rest of Windows.

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#208
post #154

This is the kind of genius move you get when all your devs play leetcode all day and then have leetcode battles as an interview service. Hundreds of millions of hours spent microfussing over leetcode and gatekeeping work because your solution isn’t copied from the top 5 solutions character for character. Only for the same devs to just abandon all optimization in the real job where it actually matters and implement an…

Don't worry, Principal Engineer Copilot will fix all their issues.

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#210

I think Microsoft may doing that with Microsoft Edge as well. My Windows 11 Registry has an HKCU key called MicrosoftEdgeAutoLaunch_[...] "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --no-startup-window --win-session-start

I haven’t used a windows machine for like 15 years, but back when I was a teenager I could swear computer magazines included all kinds of tips about unchecking things from the auto startup menu, some modifying the registry. Did this pattern stop being a thing and we’re back to it now? Or was it just “forgotten”?

Autoruns utility still exists.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/aut...

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