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People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

windowscentral.com

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

#551

Post by guilamu »

cyberax wrote: post #462
Krssst wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LTSC cannot be bought as a regular customer unfortunately. Legally, regular customers are only allowed to use the enshittified version.

You can get access to it, but it's a quest. You need to buy a volume license, and this requires at least 5 licenses (about $300). Then you'll be eligible to buy an LTSC version. It doesn't require a corporation or anything, you can do that as a private person. But it IS annoying.

Why not just get the iso, install, activate with massgravel and be done for life?

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

#552

Post by TeMPOraL »

roenxi wrote: post #391
ctoth wrote: post #319

Earlier 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…

> 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…

> 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

Agreed.

FWIW, accessibility is insecure, that is a fact, and it's also fine. The problem is that many security-minded people forget to ask the critical question: security for whom, and from what. There is no such thing as "security" in general. There is always a subject being secured from a threat.

With Wayland, like with most modern software development, the user ends up being the thing to secure from, and what is being protected are the interests of the vendor.

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

#553

Post by TeMPOraL »

figmert wrote: post #520
Rapzid wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Alternatively: you're not fighting your OS because you know you can't win, so you give up before even considering fight as an option.

Windows is super annoying to power users in large part because you know it can be beaten into submission with enough effort, but that effort is usually just not worth it.

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

#554

Post by kalleboo »

pjmlp wrote: post #500
jon-wood wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An increasing number of people are coming into the workplace never having used a Windows machine, or only occasionally having done so when it was absolutely necessary.

Maybe in US and related high salary countries where the Apple tax isn't a problem. Rest of the world, depends pretty much even if an half work second hand PC is an option.

In the low salary countries, everyone is doing everything on phones, not PCs

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

#555

Post by TeMPOraL »

Someone1234 wrote: post #188
varispeed wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the search that doesn't work. You have app "X" installed? You type X and it doesn't find it, but gives you irrelevant results about X.

Windows' search has been broken for multiple generations now. Some people inside Microsoft seemingly even know , that's why the PowerToys team created "PowerToys Run." A Windows Search that actually basically functions correctly. People act like it sudden was broken in Windows 11 when in reality it never worked correctly in 7, 8, 8.1, or 10 either. Instead of fixing it, they've only made it worse. It seems like nobod…

Almost everyone's search has been broken like this. I don't trust Windows search, I don't trust search in Explorer - but I also don't trust search in my Samsung at OS level, in Google Drive, in OneDrive, in Dropbox, and in just about any other webshit there is.

I can't put my finger on what's going on exactly; there seems to be some design choice commonly made, that makes search behave (or appear) inconsistently to the point you can't really trust it to be exhaustive. I.e. "if I search for term 'foo' and it finds nothing, it means 'foo' thing is not on file". It's a fundamental guarantee search systems should deliver, but these days most don't. Without this guarantee, I always seek out means to manually walk the resource catalog (e.g. filesystem tree).

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

#556

Post by jojobas »

brookst wrote: post #548
jojobas wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean Activation Lock Server Check.

As someone who had a brand new M1 MBP stolen from a San Jose coworking space. I am 100% in favor of the this having at best some parts and not a working computer.

Yeah let's all surrender what remains of computer ownership to a software-hardware conglomerate, because theft.

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

#557

Post by pjmlp »

kalleboo wrote: post #554
pjmlp wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in US and related high salary countries where the Apple tax isn't a problem. Rest of the world, depends pretty much even if an half work second hand PC is an option.

In the low salary countries, everyone is doing everything on phones, not PCs

There are enough folks with pirated Windows, which is what they use when a phone isn't enough.

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

#558

Post by Atlas26 »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #187

The enshittifiers don't seem to understand inertia. By the time the enshittification becomes bad enough to do something about it, it's too late. For that to happen, people have to be pissed off enough that it starts affecting metrics. Then, that needs to be detected, a decision to do something about it has to be made (we are probably somewhere around here), then that decision needs to be implemented step by step by r…

Nothing about intertia means it’s ever “too late”, just that there’s a lag between a change (positive or negative) and its effect.

People said the exact same thing about Linux ever taking off on the desktop, but slowly but surely it’s increasing. The effect always comes, eventually.

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

#559

Post by hughw »

jojobas wrote: post #556
brookst wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who had a brand new M1 MBP stolen from a San Jose coworking space. I am 100% in favor of the this having at best some parts and not a working computer.

Yeah let's all surrender what remains of computer ownership to a software-hardware conglomerate, because theft.

You can turn it off.

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

#560

Post by dyauspitr »

drewda wrote: post #27
grujicd wrote: 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…

FWIW I've been on a OS X for many years now, but I still miss keyboard shortcuts in Windows. So much more consistent across the operating system and applications...

The MacOS is a pretty nice system but their window management has been and still is shit. I get that tilling 4 windows doesn’t look good but all the view swapping and desktop switching stuff gives me a headache and sucks. Also that half second transition to full screen sucks. Windows seems so freeing when it comes to window management. Simple transition free resizing. Snaps into corners. The rapid transition free minimize and restores etc.
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