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Microsoft Needs Windows Lite

philipbohun.com

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Re: Microsoft Needs Windows Lite

#21

Post by haunter »

throwa356262 wrote: post #17

Windows problems are major tech debt and an architecture that is just not working anymore Sure ads and AI are horrible but they are root of like 5% of the Windows problems. A good example of a real windows problem is the garbage filesystem performance

>Windows problems are major tech debt

tbh the backwards compatibility is not the best and you might have better chance with Wine on Linux but it's still better than MacOS where even software from a couple years ago is unusuable (no 32 bit apps anymore). And will be only worse once Rosetta2 is dropped.

Re: Microsoft Needs Windows Lite

#23

Post by rolph »

mschuster91 wrote: post #10

> The biggest pull keeping people on Windows, outside of shear inertia, is content creation and gaming. Oh hell no. The one big pull keeping people on Windows (and, for similar reasons, Office) is the insane amount of legacy enterprise stuff that depends on it. WINE and, with it, Valve/Proton have done a lot in that regard, but still, it's by far not enough.

bundling with windows into OEM and big box distributions as a condition of licensed sale, penalizing non bundled sales, does a good job capturing the market.

OEM, retail, and consumers are not choosing the best product, they are hindered from having a choice.

Re: Microsoft Needs Windows Lite

#24

Post by bmurphy1976 »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #9

> no .NET Not quite sure about this. .NET is a superb platform, easy to write reasonably good code, huge standard library, well-maintained, many languages supporting a wide variety of paradigms (C#, VB, F#, PowerShell, C++). .NET is one of Microsoft's success stories.

It should be installable, just via a package management system. You choose what you need. I think OP hasn't thought this through completely so he's missing this nuance in his post.

That said, knowing Microsoft they WOULD release something like this but cripple it by doing something stupid like disallowing the use of virtualization technology, even as an installed package.

Re: Microsoft Needs Windows Lite

#26

Post by thewebguyd »

Rotundo wrote: post #2

The blog post sums up why users of Windows might want this. However, this is not what Microsoft wants or needs. Microsoft is doing just fine by providing businesses what they need: a platform that can be tightly controlled and is easy to administer for large user counts.

Yes 100%. All these discussions around Windows always miss the fact that consumers are not Microsoft's core customer, and haven't been for a long time (outside of GameDiv/Xbox).

The fact that consumers use Windows is a nice side effect for keeping mind share and to get people familiar and preferring windows when they enter the workplace. That's it. It's an accidental userbase that exists to be exploited.

Microsoft's money comes from Azure & Office(365). If you're not spending millions on enterprise support/software assurance (or whatever they call it these days) contracts, you pretty much don't exist to them.

Re: Microsoft Needs Windows Lite

#28

Post by CamouflagedKiwi »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #9

> no .NET Not quite sure about this. .NET is a superb platform, easy to write reasonably good code, huge standard library, well-maintained, many languages supporting a wide variety of paradigms (C#, VB, F#, PowerShell, C++). .NET is one of Microsoft's success stories.

It's also kind of pointless. Almost immediately, something will be installed that will require installing the .NET runtime, maybe multiple versions of it.

If the argument is to try to prohibit it, then it just won't work as a platform, because too much existing software won't work on it. There's a lot of garbage I'd love to not have (all the stupid hardware config apps all the manufacturers push on you) but just having that functionality not work can't be the answer.

Re: Microsoft Needs Windows Lite

#30

Post by theandrewbailey »

Rotundo wrote: post #2

The blog post sums up why users of Windows might want this. However, this is not what Microsoft wants or needs. Microsoft is doing just fine by providing businesses what they need: a platform that can be tightly controlled and is easy to administer for large user counts.

> No telemetry, no spying, no ads, no AI, no .NET, nothing.

How will MS PMs meet their quarterly targets without Windows phoning home every moment someone is using it? \s

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