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People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

windowscentral.com

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Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#151

Post by pydry »

kuerbel wrote: post #125
john_strinlai wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope they realize that Windows is in significant danger, the majority market share for Desktop OS is not guaranteed anymore. i agree with most of what you said, but this is borderline fantasy. the majority of home market share is not guaranteed, sure. with how good gaming is on non-windows machines now, there isnt much for a home user to get locked-in with (except games that require windows-only malware i.e. anti…

Large parts of one german state switched to open source. First they laughed at them and now they are envious. The switch to Linux is happening this year. Until the end of the year they want all workers on Linux instead of Windows. It is possible, and fast if you want it.

This exact same thing (literally another german state i think) almost happened about 20 years ago and Microsoft freaked the fuck out. Thats where all the TCO nonsense came from - just one german state trying to de-microsoft.

I think Microsoft won, too.

I think theyre terrified of positive examples. Especially ones with FAR lower TCO and lower geopolitical risks.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#152

Post by kakacik »

grujicd wrote: post #12

This "make Windows better" push is far more political than technological. It's a fight with other divisions about using Windows as a marketing and sales channel for other products and services. It has to be a decision from the very top. I hope they realize that Windows is in significant danger, the majority market share for Desktop OS is not guaranteed anymore. It's not just 10% of revenue, it's a foundation for how…

+1 for Total Commander mention, its bizarre how many otherwise smart folks completely ignore this productivity enhancer. I keep showing it to colleagues but they all anyway revert back to basic clunky File explorer and variants.

Doesn't matter if I show them that I can be easily 10x faster, do stuff simply impossible otherwise, has tons of plugins etc. its just ignored.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#153

Post by ikidd »

pipes wrote: post #19
ooterness wrote: post #3

Too little, too late. I switched to Linux and I'm never looking back. Good riddance, Microsoft.

I've done this several times over the last 18 years or so. The most recent was a few months a go. And my steamdeck persuaded me. Unfortunately I ran into the same WiFi networking issue I've never managed to resolve. Even on different hardware. Pings to my default gateway are ridiculously slow compared to windows. I spent countless hours trying to resolve. I gave up and have gone with windows 11 ltsc.

You can mess around or go buy a $10 gbit USB dongle that you know works like a tplink.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#154

Post by janalsncm »

chocochunks wrote: post #114
philistine wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're proving the point. The computer you found wins on the specs page for sure. But the proof is in the pudding; Apple makes money hand over fist because they focus on reasonable specs, and quality. The thing that kills a modern laptop is not a slow CPU or RAM on the chip; it's a cheap chassis that breaks. That's what makes people change their computer.

Apple wins on the perception of being a luxury brand. That's it.

It’s not just about perception. Apple doesn’t load your computer up with crapware and ads from the five different companies in the supply chain.

They got away with it forever because at $600 there was no competition.

I would say it’s more that Microsoft will make your $600 feel cheap, Apple will make it feel respectable.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#155

Post by varispeed »

Rapzid wrote: post #64
grujicd wrote: post #12

This "make Windows better" push is far more political than technological. It's a fight with other divisions about using Windows as a marketing and sales channel for other products and services. It has to be a decision from the very top. I hope they realize that Windows is in significant danger, the majority market share for Desktop OS is not guaranteed anymore. It's not just 10% of revenue, it's a foundation for how…

As someone with a sizeable background in Linux system engineering.. I prefer Windows to MacOS. It's IMHO a better desktop now with the edge snap tile layout and etc. Excellent device compatibility. And I get my linux environment needs satisfied via WSL2 these days. But damn if they don't get in their own way. I have my own Pro licenses, and even with Pro turning off ads and features is text book whack-a-mole: * Frequ…

Don't forget the search that doesn't work. You have app "X" installed? You type X and it doesn't find it, but gives you irrelevant results about X.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#156

Post by chocochunks »

kotaKat wrote: post #139
chocochunks wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes it horrifying? Plastic? Is the only thing that's important the material it's made out of? I think there's many use cases where the Acer would be less horrifying to use than the Neo. Which device would be better for running a Linux VM for CS class homework for example?

Hypervisor.framework on the Mac, personally.

With half the RAM?

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#157

Post by alemanek »

emptyfile wrote: post #38
spandrew wrote: post #13

I would never advise anyone buy a Microsoft Windows laptop these days — between the forced updates, the account and service-fee thirst, ads, and consumer unfriendly product release process (forced opt-in). Guess what? With Apple's new Neo laptop the price is also way way wayyy out to lunch. If MSFT gives a business a huge bulk discount to buy their laptops + Office360 + Teams... OK? But as a "consumer" it really suck…

Meanwhile every MacOS thread is filled with people complaining how everything is broken and only getting worse. Not that I'd know, I've probably seen <10 apple laptop devices in my life and never used one.

Apple is in the process of fixing Tahoe which was a regression from Sequoia the previous release. Tahoe is decent with 26.4 though from what I am hearing. Either OS version is far far better than regular Windows 11 though.

Apple’s real differentiator is their silicon. M series chips are just incredibly good and you get a full workday out of them on battery.

The M1 Pro I still have at work is easily the best laptop I have ever used. For side projects I use an M4 air with maxed out RAM and it has no issues with anything I have thrown at it.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#158

Post by willy_k »

john_strinlai wrote: post #133
kuerbel wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large parts of one german state switched to open source. First they laughed at them and now they are envious. The switch to Linux is happening this year. Until the end of the year they want all workers on Linux instead of Windows. It is possible, and fast if you want it.

kudos to them! out of curiosity, "large parts" of "one german state" is how many machines roughly? i am suspecting that it is probably nowhere near enough to put windows in "significant danger". however, i am rooting for their success and hope that they thoroughly document (and publish) the process. i have never seen a transition like that go smoothly, let alone when it is in government.

This alone obviously doesn’t put Windows in danger, but if it does go over well then it’ll mark a turning point; A large non-techy institution getting away from Microsoft’s castle and being better off for it would signal to the world that it’s not only doable, but could even be worth it. It’ll take a while, but this could be the start of the end for Windows.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#159

Post by john_strinlai »

jerf wrote: post #146
john_strinlai wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> gradually and then suddenly. governments, institutions, and large enterprises (like, thousands of people) do not have the power to do anything "suddenly". they have contracts, and cash flow concerns. you cannot suddenly replaces tens to hundreds of thousands of machines. 20-50 years down the road? maybe! they (microsoft) surely arent doing themselves many favors. but they are certainly not in "significant danger" t…

"Suddenly" in this case does not mean tomorrow. It means that, today, a lot of enterprises begin pondering the question, and then about a year from now, they start seriously studying and prototyping it, and then "suddenly" in 2029 Microsoft starts seeing a deluge of defections. It means a whole bunch of peopling finishing the conversion all at once, relatively speaking, even if that "all at once" is 3-4 years away. T…

>20 years is way too large a minimum estimate.

i disagree. unless intuit is also rewriting quickbooks, dassault systèmes is rewriting solidworks, every bank is rewriting their custom windows-only software, every government branch is rewriting their custom windows-only software, etc. and every company is willing to retrain 95% of their employees on a new operating system, have increased support requirements for a few years at least, etc.

not even touching the capital required for such a transition that in many cases has questionable benefits (from a business perspective).

time will tell! i have first-hand experience with how fast banks move, so i will stick by my 20 year minimum. happy to see otherwise, though.

in any case. what i replied to was a claim that windows is in "significant danger" today. it is not.

Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

#160

Post by Miraste »

malfist wrote: post #46
kstrauser wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be the first time that sentiment's ever been expressed.

Why do you say that? A lot of shortcuts are shared between windows and linux and fairly consistent across applications. Mac is the one that takes a decided "we're different" approach to shortcuts. I.e., Alt+L for address bar instead of Alt+D, Command swapping with Control, Q instead of W for closing tabs, Command+Control+Q for locking a computer instead of Super+L, etc

If you want a little more consistency for muscle memory, ctrl+L goes to the address bar on Windows the same way cmd+L goes to it on Mac. Same for ctrl+W and cmd+W to close tabs.
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