my win11 disk shit the bed and I had the local PC guys put in a new one (wiping all my data). they gave me the the machine back with a local 'user1' admin account. so that's me now. user1. hi.
People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account
431–440 of 640 posts
Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account
#432I 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…
The Neo costs $200 more than a comparable Windows laptop, but with half the RAM and storage as said comparable Windows laptop. They're fighting to seize the very specific market segment of "I don't like Windows and don't want to use Linux or a Chromebook, and I'm also poor, but still want to pay a premium price for an underpowered tablet with keyboard glued to it."
The irony of your last line. The whole thing of the Neo is that it feels distinctly not glued together—- not true of the $400 “comparables” you have in mind. I’m convinced the people who make these sorts of comments have either never experienced a non-terrible trackpad, or simply don’t care to.
Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account
#433Earlier quoted context omitted.
This might be obvious, but all of those things have a single common denominator: Microsoft, over you, getting to decide what your computer is doing. This is the biggest generalized danger in computing today: That OS (and device) manufacturers have gotten it in their heads that it's OK for them to have a strong say in what your computer runs. User doesn't want X, Y, or Z running on his computer? TOUGH. We are going to…
All true, and yet: Windows accessibility actually works. I use a screen reader daily. Linux a11y is complete dogshit — AT-SPI2 is unreliable, Orca is barely maintained, Wayland broke what little existed. I need something that actually works. When Linux goes off and decides it'll rewrite its working desktop stack and it's still, ten years later, not useable? ADHD-Driven development might be fine if you can see your sy…
macOS supports VoiceOver even in the boot disk selection screen. That's the real king of accessibility.
Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account
#434I 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…
The Neo costs $200 more than a comparable Windows laptop, but with half the RAM and storage as said comparable Windows laptop. They're fighting to seize the very specific market segment of "I don't like Windows and don't want to use Linux or a Chromebook, and I'm also poor, but still want to pay a premium price for an underpowered tablet with keyboard glued to it."
I kinda agree with you but consider that the perf on apple silicon is so much better that you’re probably still better off using the gimped tablet thing.
Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
All true, and yet: Windows accessibility actually works. I use a screen reader daily. Linux a11y is complete dogshit — AT-SPI2 is unreliable, Orca is barely maintained, Wayland broke what little existed. I need something that actually works. When Linux goes off and decides it'll rewrite its working desktop stack and it's still, ten years later, not useable? ADHD-Driven development might be fine if you can see your sy…
I mean, why are you even on Windows then? Apple is the accessibility king by far. Both Windows and Android are aeons behind.
I'm not completely sure I would call Apple the accessibility king. It's UI gets worse with each release. Modal dialogues with no keyboard options to make a choice in the window at times, etc.
Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account
#436Earlier quoted context omitted.
They didn't mention cross-OS shortcuts, though. I interpreted "across the operating systems" as meaning "across the various versions of Windows". Yes, Windows is more consistent with their own common shortcuts. But Macs have exceedingly consistent shortcuts across Mac applications, compared to my experience with Windows and especially Linux. I might also point out that Mac had keyboard shortcuts before Windows existe…
Apple also invented their own key “Apple” now “CMD” for operation like copy / paste to explicitly not have the issue to overload the already know escape sequences. Windows being on a system without a normalized keyboard had to reuse keys that are common to keyboards used back then. Vertical integration played into apples cards even back then.
With regards to the windows key, I have grown to appreciate it, I am on a X11 desktop and map all my window functions to it which makes a lot of sense, then ctl and alt can be freely used by applications however they like. I suspect this is sort of what microsoft wanted when they specified it but were hamstrung by their own backwards compatibility(they were not able to make the hard decision to move close to window+f4 for example).
The otherwise useless context key makes a great compose key.
On a theoretical level one would almost want one dedicated control key per level(os_key to send commands to the kernel, window_key to send commands to the windowing system, program_key to send commands to applications, user_key reserved for user custom bindings not to be pre bound by applications) I am not sure what role chording should have under this scheme. allowing a higher level to use the lower level button? a window manager cannot use os+key or app+win+key but they can use win+os+key. an app could use app+win+key. I would also like a unicorn, oh well, fun to think about.
Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account
#437Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The options for the average user are not linux or windows, but only macOS or Windows. i dont think this is true. steam surveys also do not agree: linux gamers are about 2x the number of OSX
2% (linux, really 1% steamOS and 1% other linux) and 1% (macOS) makes it sound much less impressive than "2x". The options for an average user, who does not use steam and is not in the steam hw survey, are just macOS and windows. The options for a serious gamer who uses steam (a tiny fraction of PC users) is clearly just Windows or SteamOS at this point, or more likely Windows + a steam deck (which is half of the 2%…
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Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account
#438Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When Linux goes off and decides it'll rewrite its working desktop stack and it's still, ten years later, not useable? In fairness it wasn't just the rewrite that was the problem, but it looks for all the world like there was a large faction in the Linux UI world around Wayland that believes accessibility is insecure and designed the new systems to make it impossible. It has been an interesting if unfortunate situat…
All of this in the name of being able to run proprietary malware like you do on android.
What on earth are you referring to?
Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account
#439This "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…
Pro is almost pointless these days. If you really want to be upset about what could be you should try a windows server trial with Desktop experience.
Zero bullshit and it just works. Why does this have to be $1k+???
Re: People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account
#440Earlier quoted context omitted.
That, and having a machine at this price point that people aren’t horrified to use.
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?
Why bother with a VM for Linux on the Acer? Just run it natively. There's almost nothing that actually requires Microsoft anymore, and you'll get better performance.