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People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

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

#511
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not my experience at least. You can go to the forum of archlinux and see the replies. They tend to be quite useful and in a good tone.

Within the last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47463982 "But, a Raspberry Pi isn't supposed to be a replacement for your desktop; it is meant as a device for experimentation." "why couldn't you read the self-contradicting docs and pick the right option?" (paraphrased) "just because you don't know how to follow the instructions, doesn't make the OS bad." " By now, you should see that years of experience !=…

> This has been my experience with the Linux community for 26 years.

I read through that post that elicited those comments that you have a problem with. At the end of a long list of complaints, it says: ".....yep, just as user friendly as I remember."

Nowhere does that post request help, and with that last comment, is clearly intended as a disparagement of Linux, not a request for help.

Then, you are turning around, and cherry picking responses to highlight the negative responses to a negative post, and disparaging the Linux community while ignoring the helpful responses.

I have to ask, what's going on here?

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

#512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using MacBook at work for years and I still perceive UX as fundamentally broken - I'm incapable of doing basic operations in Finder or changing basic system settings, and random shit I didn't want to press pops up when I'm doing other things. I feel like my grandpa trying to adjust to new phone. I will never ever recommend anything Apple to anyone. Having said the above, I think that KDE is almost there to…

> I'm incapable of doing basic operations in Finder or changing basic system settings, and random shit I didn't want to press pops up when I'm doing other things Why?

Because the interface is very counter-intuitive. I don't have any other explanation. In Windows, KDE and Gnome I eventually "get there" with Gnome being my least favorite, while MacOS feels like vibecoded "my first UI".

Also, the Macbook keyboard is fucked. I constantly press buttons I didn't mean to. This literally never happened to me on any other device. And that's after years of using a Macbook.

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

#513
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, Microsoft Store doesn't need an account. You can install apps without being signed in to the Store. Source: I work on the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft store try's to dark pattern you to think you need to log in though. Or at least it did.

It no longer does.

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

#514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half those aren't even remotely harsh. Saying the raspberry pi wasn't designed to be mained is totally reasonable, what possible objection do you have to somebody saying that?

I understand pointing out that an upgrade failure should be expected when Ubuntu tells you that upgrades won't work, but I don't agree with calling the Pi a "device for experimentation". Not only it's used for serious applications in industrial settings, but some products are sold as... personal computers: > Raspberry Pi 500 > The refined personal computer. > A fast, powerful computer built into a high-quality keyboa…

Isn't the standard OS for that platform not Ubuntu? From that link: "... Raspberry Pi OS is made to get the most from your Raspberry Pi 500."

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

#515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only two moats MS has for desktop OS usage are: 1) Kernel-level DRM for multiplayer games (looking at you, Marathon) 2) Intentionally nerfed MSO 365 apps on web and macOS You could make a strong case that MDM (which InTune uses as well) negates the AD + GPO advantages of the past 20+ years in enterprise.

I found virtual files support also somewhat critical. This is not really stable on Linux yet and makes using Nextcloud with 8TB and Million of files pretty difficult.

What are you using for virtual files? I definitely found it to work much much better when I added Nextcloud through Gnome’s settings rather than the Nextcloud client

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

#516
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Can you recommend a Windows laptop in the $400 range? I'm interested in a craptop for various Windows things that still pop up from time to time.

Just go on eBay and find whatever ThinkPad fits your budget

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

#517
post #64
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…

I use Linux exclusively on the backend, a Windows laptop is usually what my clients issue to me for gigs, and I migrated years ago from macOS to a Linux laptop as my personal primary daily driver (though I still use macOS, just not where I spend 90% of my personal time). I agree with Windows having its own issues like you pointed out. To be fair however, Linux and macOS daily driver experiences are also not without their annoyances.

The Linux daily driver windmills I am currently tilting at are the lack of 3D infrared sensor-based secure facial recognition. On Linux we currently are missing true 3D mapping, the option to bind the biometric data to the onboard TPM, and running the matching in something like the Protected Media Path stack Windows uses, so Linux facial recognition solutions like Howdy are not as secure as on Windows.

Other deep gaps in the Linux daily driver role are not having a solution to encrypt our disks and hibernate under Secure Boot, nor a comprehensive common application framework for power management like Apple's IOKit and IOPowerSources so my Linux laptop gets far less battery life than my macOS laptop. Linux has many different ways for applications to participate in power management, so as a result there isn't a single way for the applications to cooperatively negotiate for this centralized scarce resource based upon user preferences.

But the death by a thousand tiny cuts I was experiencing on macOS led me to reluctantly conclude I'd rather face the thousand tiny cuts in Linux where at least I have the option to go to the source and address or fix it myself a particular cut got annoying enough. In my clients' corporate land, I hide behind a small army of desktop teams that grind away most of the annoyances you list (mainly through the pricing discrimination magic of Windows enterprise licensing).

I've resigned myself to not hold out hope for re-experiencing what I felt was my personal peak user experience of the early 2000's PowerPC PowerBook and Intel MacBook Pro and early Mac OS X. It was a portable Unix workstation that could run a full virtual Windows box inside, giving me the best of all worlds, and It Just Works bled into every nook and cranny of the entire stack.

I believe a lot of it came down to that Steve Jobs was an intensely personal user of his own products from the perspective of someone doing it himself as much as someone who is the head of a multinational multi-billion dollar corporation could be, with as little corporate desktop support as necessary, and he had an extreme intolerance for annoyances in the small details.

Linux as a daily driver has many, many rough edges. But at least I can durably contribute into it as I solve my own annoying small details, and hope a flywheel effect eventually takes place in the future.

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

#518
If you can't set up without an account, this should work, no?

  1. Create an admin user "setup" with a throwaway Microsoft account on first boot.
  2. From there, create a local user "admin".
  3. Reboot into "admin" with internet off, delete "setup", and run a bunch of deshittification scripts to get rid of AppX(Provisioned)Packages.

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

#519
One of the most common things people still reach out to me for help with is when they are travelling with a windows laptop, go to a country they have been to and worked from before, and Microsoft helpfully locks the account.

I then have to make a judgement call wrt them being competent enough for me to walk them through the process of booting into recovery mode and prying this shit out.

The official support channels, if they respond at all, often take weeks to handle it.

And FWIW, I still see this happen to people with Apple products more.

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

#520
post #64
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…

I dunno, you say you prefer Windows over macOS, but it sounds to me like you're fighting your OS.

MacOS has a lot of flaws, but at least I'm not fighting it. If I say to do something, it does it. It doesn't suddenly revert your decision.

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