61–67 of 67 posts
> The third dark pattern is OneDrive secretely downloading 280GB of photos and videos without once realising this was way more data than her root drive could store. That's not a dark pattern, it's just a failure in software development. Microsoft doesn't get anything from overflowing your disk.
It gets your data.
If you buy a Samsung phone, after initial setup (be sure to Opt-out of all the extra ToS), install all the google equivalent app (calc, calendar, contacts, phone, etc) enable developer mode and remove all the samsung variants via adb. Takes an hour but well worth it. Some packages/apps can only be removed via adb. On a brand new samsung, there are three Meta/facebook packages installed in android as hidden even if yo…
Which... actually runs a lot of software out of the normal google app store anyway. But it also has a tracking blocker installed by default, and nothing is mandatory.
Couldn't be happier.
> The one idea I still have left is to enable the hidden administrator account in Windows 11, which gives you password-free access to what is basically Windows’ root account. Pardon my pedantry, but technically Windows' equivalent of the root account is `NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM`, although it's a little different in that it isn't an account one can use to Logon. You're right that `Administrator` is the highest privilege l…
The problem with Linux, they say, is that you have to fiddle with it endlessly to get it working; Windows, by contrast, Just Works Right Out of the Box. Oh, but you don't actually want to use Windows as it comes out of the box, so they tell us you have to use a custom build, replace utilman.exe with cmd.exe, create an unattend.xml, don't connect it to the internet during the install procedure, run these commands, mak…
Yes, it is after you install it on your box that it stops working. /s
> The third dark pattern is OneDrive secretely downloading 280GB of photos and videos without once realising this was way more data than her root drive could store. That's not a dark pattern, it's just a failure in software development. Microsoft doesn't get anything from overflowing your disk.
>Microsoft doesn't get anything from overflowing your disk. It gets your data.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If windows borks itself how many people will just give up and buy a new computer? That's Microsoft's entire game right now with obsoleting perfectly good hardware. But yes, this one is most likely just plain incompetence
Microsoft destroying your computer with bugs is just as likely to make someone go buy a MacBook.
I hate Windows and Microsoft and switched to Linux years ago with no regrets. I can't help but wonder the goodwill they would garner if this was the typical user experience with Windows. If I had some path to using Windows like this, and was able to use GPOs as a home user, I might not have left in the first place.
It's a convoluted pain in the ass to get licenses for LTSC as a business, and it's basically a nonstarter as an individual. There is a 5 license minimum.
I'm tired of companies being determined to make everything shitty in the name of value extraction from customers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
TBH I use both windows and Linux since ages and it's Linux that's painless and always works, but my main personal OS is still Windows (10) because I can't get all I need running well (or at all) on Linux. And yes, the windows updates resettling all these little necessary settings is little infuriating.
While you should never blindly trust a stranger that suggests you open and admin power shell and enter PS C:\Windows\system32> irm "https://christitus.com/win" | iex it's worth a shot - that downloads the latest stable Chris Titus WinUtil as a tabbed text GUI with easy click options and various recommended setting levels to deal with all of that. See: https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil https://christitus.com/w…