MS Windows is the Pontiac Aztec of operating systems.
Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March
311–320 of 550 posts
Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March
#312I recently got locked out of my machine because logging in with the mandatory Microsoft account-backed primary user of my machine didn't work anymore. It said I was offline and I had to use the "previous password" even though I didn't have a previous password for that account. Hacking around in the recovery console to add another administrator user worked, but then I couldn't reset the original user's password becaus…
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Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March
#31311 years of mandatory telemetry in Windows, and it still takes a huge amount of noise from users and journalists online over a long time for Microsoft to notice and finally make change. What good is the fucking telemetry then? Why can I still not turn it off?
Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March
#314> We’ve also made changes to the Power menu so you’ll always see the standard Restart and Shut down options without having to install a pending update first. You decide when updates happen, not the other way around. Great! We've progressed back to Windows XP of 22 years ago.
Microsoft doesn't allow its users even to reboot the computer without permission?
I wonder whether it has to do with the actual installation being in progress in the background. There is probably a time window in some updates where an interruption leaves the OS in a bad state.
Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are caused by moral busy bodies who think they know better. To quote CS Lewis: >Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torme…
> They are caused by moral busy bodies who think they know better. If you know better just hack it your way. Linux is an open platform. Nothing prevents you from gutting Ubuntu and making it your own. You can't say the same for Windows though. So I guess is not a matter of monopoly of idiocy, but whether you can do something about idiot decisions when they are made. This is why an open platform will always win. It's…
>If you know better just hack it your way.
While this might be technically true, I also think it's a lazy argument that ignores practical reality. It's basically a way to avoid any kind of accountability or self-reflection on the part of developers. "Users aren't happy? If they don't want to make the change themselves, they can fuck off." This is a toxic attitude which I see a lot in discussions of free software.
In practice, 99% of the time it's not worth the time and effort to fork and maintain a large project. Even in a free ecosystem, users get locked into specific products and technologies. This is why sane technical leadership and responsiveness to user feedback are important, even (especially?) in open source projects.
Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
They went all in on pretending to care about quality since the MacBook Neo. The numbers they're seeing must be terrifying.
> They went all in on pretending to care about quality since the MacBook Neo. The numbers they're seeing must be terrifying. Yeah. Worldwide Neo sales at 5 million units + production raise to 10 million? [1] Even if only 50% of those are US consumers, add to that the number of folks switching over to linux [4]; and suddenly that's not small potatoes, considering there are only about 162 million working folks in the U…
Those production numbers for the Neo are global and from unnamed supply chain sources. I'm not sure why you brought the US workforce population into the equation as that mixes up scales, nor is there a 1:1 relationship between people and computers (I have 5 x86 systems and 2 M-series laptops in my home between work and personal use).
Lenovo shipped roughly 16m units in Q1 2026 at #1, with Apple shipping roughly 6m in the same timeframe at #4, WW. [0]
Linux is hardly a blip and even the Steam survey #s back that up if you want to be targeted towards a particular audience. It's a lot of noise in forums like this, not so much on the general street. Windows overall gaining ~1.1% with Linux overall declining ~0.8% (and macOS continuing to be poorly represented for obvious reasons) in April.
[0] https://www.idc.com/resource-center/press-releases/1q26-pc-t...
Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I can use Linux but I have decades of Windows muscle memory and I do a bunch of DirectX programming. I see a likely inversion of motives here: you earn your living coding or otherwise are deeply vested in Windows, so you are committed for survival to Windows and to fixing the absurd account problem that MSFT has inflicted on you. The expression "muscle memory" here just means the cognitive load of working with a te…
My Ubuntu servers have been in an undefined state since canonical botched a regular upgrade to 26.04 LTS due to the ongoing DDOS. Their status page says everything works. A simple ping tells me nothing works. Let's not pretend Microsoft has a monopoly on idiocy in the software world. All major Linux distros are hell bent on repeating the mistakes of Windows. Especially since the people in control of the stack (minus…
> My Ubuntu servers have been in an undefined state since canonical botched a regular upgrade to 26.04 LTS due to the ongoing DDOS. Their status page says everything works. A simple ping tells me nothing works.
So is it the DDOS that's responsible, status page notwithstanding?
Anyway, heard about Timeshift for Ubuntu on here, might be worth taking a look at it: https://github.com/linuxmint/timeshift
Doesn't require a GUI, so it can be used for servers/headless too. Please note that's it's not a backup solution, just an OS snapshot one, albeit with scheduling.
Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
> perpendicularly misaligned Um. Perpendicular lines intersect at some point. Parallel lines never touch, maybe that’s a better geometric analogy. Of course, for most people things that are “parallel” would seem to be in close agreement.
> Um. Perpendicular lines intersect at some point. Unless you are trying to screw your loyal users in 3 or more dimensions which seems to be the case here
> Unless you are trying to screw your loyal users in 3 or more dimensions which seems to be the case here
That made me chuckle ... good one
Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March
#319OK so I see someone at Microsoft decided that their strategic decisions do have impact on their income so they are implementing a crisis management strategy.
The way I read this, it sounds like "We're not giving up on disabling local accounts, telemetry, ads in the OS and other things most people complain. However, we're willing to make some concessions in how aggressively the updates are pushed on users and a few minor points or things we planned to implement at some point anyway but didn't consider that important."
Prove me wrong.
Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are caused by moral busy bodies who think they know better. To quote CS Lewis: >Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torme…
> They are caused by moral busy bodies who think they know better. If you know better just hack it your way. Linux is an open platform. Nothing prevents you from gutting Ubuntu and making it your own. You can't say the same for Windows though. So I guess is not a matter of monopoly of idiocy, but whether you can do something about idiot decisions when they are made. This is why an open platform will always win. It's…
> If you know better just hack it your way. Linux is an open platform.
The GP already knows about FOSS. He uses OpenBSD and Guix and in his own words this is his "small, happy place".
Guix in particular is an excellent example of FOSS innovation.