My transition from Windows to Linux in an anti-customer age

Hm, yes, Wayland. It has not convinced me so I'm using X11 everywhere, that network transparency (through NX/X2go) is just too useful to let go. It is how my mother uses a Mate desktop running on the server-under-the-stairs here in Sweden from her laptop in the Netherlands to do her banking: Wireguard VPN + X2go. Would it work in Wayland? Probably, using VNC instead of X2go. Would it work without needing to futz with recalcitrant bits? Probably not. X2go "Just Works™" so... why bother?

Making it difficult to install alternative browsers? Requiring you push 5 "skip" buttons to avoid getting a Microsoft online account on a Windows install? And perhaps coming soon to a computer near you:

Microsoft is testing ads in the Windows 11 File Explorer: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-is...

I must've read too much into you mentioning that particular year (being of course the one with the Blaster's infamous if unintentional countdown to reboot due to XP's RPC service crashing). For me, it might've well been one of the bigger reasons why XP was also the last Windows as the main OS on my home computers.

> I find it totally incomprehensible how anyone could possibly still use Windows seriously as a developer/hacker/programmer/interested in computing.

Spoken like a true developer. I have one nit: I don't think anyone does use Windows for hacking. It's too locked down, too resource hungry, utterly opaque and the number of platforms it runs on can be counted on one hand. No one in their right mind would put Windows on a RPi.

I'm not sure what Windows is now. It's not a particularly reliable, robust, light, secure or stable platform for the masses to run apps and games on. iOS, Android (and WinPhone in its day) do a far better job. It's far too heavy, expensive and inflexible to use as a server platform. That leaves one niche: the company wide computer system for companies that can't build their own. Windows is the king of the "company owned, controlled and monitored computer". Admittedly it's a huge market, and they own it. If there are competitors that aren't selling "rent all your computing resources on our cloud infrastructure", I can't see them. And the companies that have the wherewithal to build their own corporate computing structure are few and far between: Google, Facebook, Amazon and the like. You won't find the vast bulk of normal businesses such as Bridgestone, local hospitals or banks in that list.

But equally, that market is ripe for the plucking. Microsoft does an appallingly bad job at it. To wit: most of the ransomware, and company owning (like Sony) are in fact failures in the security model Microsoft has sold these companies. If you look at the model Microsoft is peddling nowadays, it's almost the reverse of the best model we've developed so far, trustless. It's the "corporate locked down VPN" style, based on InTune.

And it's not getting better. Microsoft's software engineering processes have been getting worse, as in the poor API documentation now regularly commented on here, the testing rates have dropped and the effect is noticeable, Windows just keep getting slower and bigger. (Admittedly many Linux distro's are also getting bigger and slower, but Linux has distro's pulling in both directions: feature rich but big and tiny but few features. Users: take your pick. Windows is headed in one direction only.)

To add insult to injury, the companies are now being forced to rent computing resources from Microsoft's cloud for things like SSO (Azure AD), one drive storage, and even device control (InTune is cloud based). So Microsoft's corporate customers are being dragged toward a Google cloud like model where they rent every CPU cycle and byte of storage anyway.

I thought Kim Jong-un's take down and complete ownership of Sony would be enough to trigger change away from the Microsoft model. Clearly it wasn't. Now I'm not sure what it will take.

>The installs are "reproducible" to a point that 99% of users care about

I would hardly call click an pray, and then having to redo this every time you want to set up a fresh install reproducible or deterministic. My standard for that is using Nix.

>if the manufacturer doesn't keep on top of their driver code, it'll fall into disrepair

Imagine actually having to care about the products you release.

>Most people do not experience features in Windows 10/11 that they consider harmful.

I think any sane person should consider advertisements in their file explorer harmful.

For a person using their computer for basic tasks, office work, some productivity I'd point them to a Mac. Otherwise if you are a developer I'd still recommend Mac or make the switch to Linux. Windows is just too far gone. Just because a lot of people don't know any better, doesn't mean they would still be okay with the current status quo, if they knew what the alternatives are. It's like driving a car. American cities seem like some hellish dystopian carscape, and everyone is trapped in the system, but they perpetuate it.