Microsoft in their infinite wisdom has replaced the Hide Desktop icon with Copilot.

AnActOfCreation@programming.dev to Technology@lemmy.world – 1411 points –
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I must admit, "Linux becomes the refuge of luddites" was never on any bingo card I could have conceived of for 202X.

Huh? Isn't this about Microsoft changing out a button with a well established use, in order to take advantage of muscle memory and the unobservant?

Don't think it's much to do with people opposing technological advancement, but rather with opposing another company wanting to making a fool of them.

More over being a luddite on Linux is like a fish trying to breathe in a public swimming pool; it works until the chlorine poisoning sets in.
Linux adopts new technology constantly.

The difference is that Linux generally adopts new technology because it enhances the user experience in some way, and not because it maximizes ad revenue and telemetry.

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The Luddites of Linux are one's desperately trying to convince people that Xorg is perfectly flawless and that Wayland is vaporware.

A luddite should ideally not involve in Display Server wars

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If Linux Luddites could TELNET into Lemmy, they would be very angry with you!

"And the lord said unto John, come forth and install gentoo."

What do you mean? Vocal parts of Linux community is about 80% luddites

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Muscle memory abuse

That's what made me refuse to use the Reddit official app before their API garbage. Every update was a gamble as to whether they'd try to make me spend money through muscle memory.

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I've been using Linux since Ubuntu was in the single digits. Looks like windows entering the double digits is finally the end. I thought win10 would be able to stay relatively unmolested, but nope, copilot button and bullshit right there in the bar. Why can't you just leave us the fuck alone. Your driving everyone away who doesn't have a professional obligation to use your OS. I'll still have to keep a old win10 boot drive that never connects to a network so I can play games and use CAD that Linux can't. As a KDE fanboi they've added pretty much everything I've always wished for and plasma 6 is launching.

Now is my time. Fuck you Microsoft. I won't miss you.

10+ years with Linux as my daily driver (yeah I'm old). When my os updates, it's almost always with some feature that's pretty neat.

Nowadays the steamdeck or some combo of Linux with steam can play my games, do my work, and I actively make other people's lives better when I contribute.

Thanks for your contribution to the Linux ecosystem!

It's people like you who make this whole thing possible

Have you tried gaming on Linux lately? You don't need Windows anymore except if you use GamePass, because MS has locked that software down to Windows. The only problem game I had was The Finals until recently, and it now works on Linux. Besides that the only issue is I can't mod Baulder's Gate 1 because it requires injecting things and that doesn't work with Linux as far as I can figure out. The game runs fine.

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I flirted with gnome this install around. I'm so lazy to reinstall yet again to get back to my previous plasma. Seriously Linux is a way better experience these days, I wish those that could would just give it an honest shot. The learning curve isn't too bad once you understand a couple things.

Gnome is awful. It's almost as bad as windows. Basically 0 customization, and getting worse every release. I can't even fathom how you would voluntarily switch from plasma to gnome and not immediately switch back

It just works for me, and I prefer the look to that of KDE. Like, fair enough if itā€™s not your cup of tea, but your basic point here is ā€œI donā€™t like the workflow and I highly value customisationā€, and you then act like your subjective preferences are fact.

You can customise Gnome quite a lot, btw. Iā€™m not even saying you should give it another shot, but please just donā€™t act like your personal preferences are objectively accurate.

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Didin't Linux had FreeCAD?

Yes, and holy shit has it come so far. Unfortunately in the professional world you often just need the native program to open the file. Even just for compatability, but rolling back and/or modifying is only possible within its native software.

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FreeCAD...is getting there. They're actually heading toward a 1.0 release, and bringing usability and convenience features. I'd say by 2025 it'll be a better value proposition than the "Free non-commerical use drawbackware" tier offerings from Onshape or Fusion360.

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I noticed this bullshit a few days ago on my Win 11 desktop! I found if you go check the settings of the start bar, you can hide the copilot icon in the lower right, and then there's a check box to enable the lower right hand corner to work as show desktop again. The functionality can be restore to exactly as it was, but what the hell were they thinking.

Enshitification, plain and simple.

I genuinely do not get the hype of integrating LLMs fucking everywhere. There are places it makes sense, like word processors and email clients. Then there are places it doesn't make sense, like as an aside in my desktop environment. No one's going to use it. It's Cortana all over again.

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I don't wanna defend Microsoft here cause yk fuck them but I'ma guess most people didn't even know the show desktop was there tbh or if they did use it but then again I've never understood why it was there I never use it

Hide desktop is useful if you have many non-minimized windows and you don't want to minimize each one. I can vouch for that button šŸ˜Ž.

Yeah, I hink its super useful too. But i usually use win+d.

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Switch to Linux!

As a Linux user myself, let me tell you that telling people what they should/must do this is how you make people plainly ignore you and think you're just an annoying person.

People will keep using what works for them, be it Windows/Linux/MacOS even if with minor inconveniences. Same goes for browsers/services/etc...

"Microsoft continually makes their OS worse, but every time they do, Linux users come into the comment section telling me I should switch, so I'm not going to."

People don't switch just because of some minor inconvenience (as if Linux didn't have any...) and outside of Lemmy/the Fediverse echo chamber very few people are concerned about privacy. They will switch (maybe) if the new tool works better for them than thge previous one. Otherwise, why should they bother? Linux is my primary OS since many years, but it isn't everybody's cup of tea.

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The thing is, is that it really doesnā€™t affect people in the way you guys seem to imagine.

Iā€™ve used Linux, MacOS, and Windows. Currently use Windows for work as a C# . net, SQL / GraphQL, and React TypeScript developer and although I was shocked theyā€™re all pro windows, coming from MacOS. Once you get used to it you donā€™t really notice the shit stuff as you just do what youā€™re doing.

I would still rate my experiences in this order though: MacOS, Linux, Windows. Best to worst, but like I said even though in now use the worst in my opinion it really doesnā€™t have much of an impact. Plus if I were to use Linux Iā€™d need to geek out and waste so much time configuring it and Iā€™m past that stage.

I work in healthcate and use windows, at work and at home if I need to do work related stuff. I don't mind windows at work as it's been configured for the purpose and all the shitty bits are switched off - something Microsoft let's it's business users do. It's a decent operating system when it's set up to do what it needs to do, and I'm very familiar with it from using it since Windows 95.

I used to use windows at home and had Linux for occasional interest. But in the last few years I've moved away from windows and now I'm on Linux as my main driver on multiple devices.

For home users Windows is getting pretty shitty - it steals data all the time with numerous privacy settings you have to set to try and stop it, it tries to force you ads, it tries to force you to use its Web browser, it bundles lots of sponsored apps and when it does a big update it resets alot of your choices on privacy plus reinstalls removed bundle apps. It also throws new "features" at you which take up resources and impact privacy. Like Xbox gaming - I didn't ask for it, I don't want it, stop installing it every year and stop forcing an overlay on my own games.

It's really a chore to use windows now; it feels like a constant battle to make sure it's not intruding on your data and privacy or showing you ads. I now use windows as the exception when there is a specific game that doesn't work in Linux. The rest of the time I boot into Linux, or use a separate work provided Windows device for home working.

I know it's probably a case of "who asked" but I guess I just mean I get that windows can be decent for work related stuff (or necessary) but when it comes to personal stuff it's a bit of a nightmare. And I guess it also comes down to whether the privacy invasion and advertising bothers users. Bothers me a lot, but some people don't seem to care how the customer has become the product.

Most people don't care because most of your problems are all privacy related. And that's what Linux people don't seem to get. They rant and rave about how much better Linux is.... for privacy. But the average Joe doesn't know or care that data is being collected and for the most part it doesn't affect them. It's just some Boogeyman being thrown at them. What they care about is ease of use and convience. They don't dig into those details because, for the most part, they're not even aware.

When Linux people say it's a "better experience", they largely mean detailed customization and more privacy.

When Windows people say it's a "better experience", they mostly mean that it's the same relatively easy to use experience on every device and it Just WorksĀ®.

They're both right. But each side argues their side of the conversation not seeing that the other side has a perfectly justified use case for theirs. It's like arguing that everyone should drive a van and not understanding why someone might not want one.

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Maybe they are not Linux users, maybe they are Microsoft employees trying to keep you on Windows by making Linux users look obnoxious.

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Exactly. As a musician many paid music plugins simply don't work on Linux because of all the installers attached to them. Also, I design with the Adobe suite for my work, also not viable on Linux (I believe?). I would love to use Linux, but for my needs it's simply a no go.This is what annoys me about all the "just use linux" comments. There are usecases where it's simply not an option.

I've gotten every single Windows VST I've used working on Linux with WINE. Some of them require extra work (Serum and anything needing Native Access specifically), but they still work.

I've also tried both Ableton and FL Studio in WINE, and they both work fine as well.

Adobe suite is something I don't have experience with, though.

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Wow, Microsoft are always so innovative! I never thought that the Win11 taskbar could get any shittier, but somehow they managed it. It's great to see those thousands of engineers being put to good use.

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Everyone: Don't say anything sensitive or personal to an AI because it could end up in training data!

Microsoft: We're making it easier to feed everything you do on your computer to an AI from notepad to your desktop!

[thisisfine.jpg]

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just switched to Linux for the first time this week!

One of us! One of us! One of us!

There are dozens of us, dozens!

Twitter sent me to Mastodon. Reddit sent me to Lemmy. Windows has sent me to Linux. These things are basically promoting the better versions of themselves by becoming shittier versions of themselves.

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... You guys might shit on it, but that's incredibly smart on their part. Ten years or more of that button being there and now suddenly something else replaces it, just imagine the amount of people accidentally hitting the button and being introduced to copilot. This was a very deliberate change.

It's Smart as in, MLM scheme smart. Not honorable, just smart. Like a thief that is clever about not leaving fingerprints.

I'm pretty sure there's a term for it. Google did it with shopping and images, Instagram changed the home button with some advertising thing (dont remember the exact details).

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Nobody said it wasn't deliberate. It's still shitty af.

And the thing failed the things I asked it to do so far. It's not very helpful with actually getting things done.

That's why there are 3 of them now. One there and two in the corners of the start menu popup

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Just once I would love to open one of these threads without seeing people shitting... on Linux.

Linux is not even the one doing anything wrong but people gotta rag on whoever recommends it as an alternative. This is getting more annoying than however annoying they say Linux users are.

edit: Just to make clear because some folks aren't getting it, this is not an invitation to argue about how you feel about Linux and Linux users. I. don't. fucking. care. I don't even use Linux. Take it to someone who cares.

People be like:

"Hey I have a problem with my Samsung"

"Drop it and get an iPhone instead"

This is what you guys are like.

When people tell you to use Linux, they're not telling you that to solve your immediate problem (e.g. your "show desktop" icon has been replaced with a different icon), but they are telling you to get out of your abusive relationship with Microsoft, because that is the real problem: Microsoft does not respect you, the end-user of their product, and this kind of abusive shit will keep happening for as long as you keep using Windows.

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More like:

ā€œHey I have a problem with my Samsungā€

"Here's a custom ROM you can install instead" (but also glosses over a lot of the finer decisions that go into whether or not to choose to run a custom ROM)

you don't have to pay for a +1000$ device to switch to Linux. In most cases, you can just install it in the same machine you have Windows.

It's more like replacing Samsung's Android ROM with a custom ROM. Sure, you'll have to learn new things to use it, but you don't have to buy an iPhone.

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Nah, I switched to Linux last year and it cost me $0. No new hardware needed. So not a good metaphor.

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As is everyone taking every possible opportunity to mention Linux. It's not like we don't know it exists, we don't need constantly reminding that it's an option.

Although it isn't an option for a vast number of reasons, but mostly because corporate IT requires systems that run only on Windows. Therefore the only solution is Windows so the fact another operating system exists is utterly irrelevant and yet somehow you guys constantly keep mentioning it. Then we constantly have to point out that lots and lots of programs don't run on Linux and then you will inhibitively start going on about Wine. It's tiring. I would love it if we could have a conversation about Microsoft without having to pretend that other operating systems are viable alternatives.

If Linux is not for you that's understandable. The thing here is that they are not having a conversation about Microsoft. They are having the pettiest, least technical possible discussion about Linux, it's devolving to pure clique shit talking.

If you want to talk about Microsoft, just talk about Microsoft.

Problem is, whenever you try taking about Microsoft, someone just has to interject and be like "yeah you should be using Linux instead"

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Or how about

  1. You can't easily define what apps start with startup
  2. Even when wine is installed , lot of programs won't run in wine
  3. You cannot easily find where the program is installed like you can in windows
  4. You attach a external disk but some apps won't see it mounted making it Impossible to explore in their file picker , not all but some
  5. There is almost huge lack of programs , for which there is huge possibility that a windows program exists.
  6. There is constant need to use terminal for lot of things for which you can't a program see point 4.

I keep telling Linux is still not for common home use for users who are in between power users and people only using it for browsing. This will get me downvotes here on Lemmy all the time . Linux edge lords are their own bubble.

All but one of your points here appear to be your lack of understanding Linux and/or user error. Point 4 (2) is understandable due to Windows just being the default and most popular choice.

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I rarely see that,. But what I see all the time is Linux lovers being toxic fanboys trying to shove their "passion" down everyone's throat. Also, 99% of them being wrong about what it can "offer".

Its a pure superiority complex fanbase.

Complaining about Linux and Linux users happens in every Windows-related thread, and you are doing it right now.

As a slight aside I am also sooo tired of people calling talking about something "shoving down our throats". People talking about someone you don't care for is not physically assaulting you. That expression seems to exist solely for people to wind themselves up over stuff that absolutely doesn't justify that level of outrage.

It's shoving down throats when Linux is brought up in every single Windows discussion. The complaints about Linux are in response to Linux users never being able to just let it lie, people aren't just bitching in a void.

This is absolutely not people being mad for people just talking about something. I have an extremely hard time believing you truly believe that is the issue here.

There are countless places to discuss Linux without bringing it into the comments of every Windows post. Windows users are not commenting on every post in the Linux communities about how much more straightforward running Windows is.

It would be like vegan eaters commenting about how good it is to be vegan on every post in food communities that features non-vegan food.

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Fanbase because the philosophy is based on owning your computer. If some asshole you don't know needs your trust to run their closed-source-no-one-really-knows-what-it-actually does inside what is no longer really your computer just because you paid for it then here...here's a dum-dum. Hands you a sucker.

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Well maybe stop suggesting that the solution to every tiny little cosmetic inconvenience is to completely switch operating systems to one that has notoriously flakey hardware support.

I would say "notoriously flakey hardware support" is a false statement these days

Nope, still true of the last time I tried Linux last year. The sound system stopped working after every reboot, and clicking the distro's built-in update button completely trashed the system.

But it doesn't have an AI button in the corner, so I guess that solves my problem!

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I guess people downvoting you are thinking of Brother printers, AMD graphics cards and Intel WiFi cards. Sure, itā€™s great when you have the right hardware, but what if you donā€™t. Iā€™ve banged my head against Optimus and Broadcom, until I learned to be extra picky when buying a laptop.

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Just once I would love to open one of these threads without seeing people spam "USE LINOOX INSTEAD!"

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I love Linux, but it's extremely annoying how many threads there are showing a mildly annoying and optional feature in Windows with 10 people replying "Use Linux!". As if Linux doesn't have a ridiculous number of UX problems itself.

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Just press windows+d bro.

I forgot that the button exists.

Win+d also redirects to copilot

I hope that's a joke or else I'm gonna be so mad

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You can still re-enable it in the taskbar settings. Personally I like asking an AI to do stuff, so I like the Copilot icon in my taskbar, BUT NOT ON THE FREAKING BOTTOM RIGHT CORNER GODDAMMIT THAT'S FOR LIKE NOTIFICATIONS
AND NOW NOTIFICATIONS GO OVER COPILOT BUT NOT QUICK SETTINGS FOR SOME REASON AND IF YOU BRING UP QUICK SETTINGS IT SHIFTS TO THE LEFT AND HIDES NOTIFICATIONS??
at least I won't accidentally hide my desktop while clicking copilot in a place where it shouldn't have been
except oh no signing in to unlock copilot doesn't even fucking work

time to grind on my giant arch migration checklist and hunt for a good foobar2000 alternative which i'll likely never finish

For a Foobar2000 alternative have you seen Deadbeef . It doesn't replace everything but has the same sort of modular interface.

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For me, there are 2 on the top left and too right of the start menu pop up and they don't even look the same. Whoever is in charge of UI/UX needs to be shot. Holy shit. Windows just feels like a taped together heap of shit. The competition is way better.

Holy shit. Windows just feels like a taped together heap of shit.

I thought that was pretty much an open secret since Windows ME. As a begrudging Windows user who loves Linux infinitely more, my impression has been that theyā€™re just dialing that shit to 11 (hah) while they complete their transition to being the high-margin SAAS empire known as AzureCopilotGithubOfficeGamepassSoft. I kind of doubt that Windows revenue is even worth labeling on their pie charts anymore.

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Linux exists people, without copilot using your information for training data and if you game, has Valve releasing updates like crazy for proton making it easier and easier to use Linux for gaming. The only thing I use Windows for is GeForce now as the windows and Mac apps are the only way for me to play 1440p 120fps with their service.

Good beginner distros: pop_os, Ubuntu, Linux mint, Nobara or fedora, Garuda, Manjaro, solus, zorin. The possibilities are really endless. Just take your pick, make a bootable USB and try it out.

has Valve releasing updates like crazy for proton making it easier and easier to use Linux for gaming.

It quite ridiculous how far it has come. I remember trying out ubuntu years ago and being incredibly disappointed with how few games were compatible. Nowadays I'm running a dual boot LMDE/Win 10. Probably 80% of my games work right out of the box, and the other 20% I can just switch over within a minute or so.

I am still a little disappointed at the lack of mod manager compatibility for some games, but it no longer feels like a deal breaker for me.

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Linux isn't for mainstream users yet. It wasn't when I tried switching to it several years back, it isn't now.

I tried Zorin recently, UI looked absolutely beautiful so I wanted to try and get into it on my laptop.

Only issue is, the trackpad scroll speed was too fast. I went into settings to try and slow this down. No dice, this option just want available. I tried googling, which led me to some stackexchange posts, which I tried to use to solve the issue by changing xinput or something device parameters.

I tried for maybe 15 mins to do this without success. This kinda stuff is why Linux is not ready for the masses yet. I shouldn't have to touch the command line for something like this. On windows I could have changed this without googling anything or touching the cli.

I know this is just one thing, but it's representative of my other experiences with Linux in general. Things seem to have improved since several years ago (needed terminal to even get touchscreen working in Firefox), bit it's just not there yet.

I really do want to switch to Linux, but I don't want my computer os to be a hobby project that I have to sink time into to keep functional, I need it to be a tool that lets me get work done with minimal roadblocks.

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If you use nvidia, make sure to choose a distro that deals with their drivers by default. I havent manage to get Nvidia drivers and ingame cutscenes to work on Fedora, but after switching to Nobara all is well now. (And switching to KDE on X11, since wayland was freezing occasionally and some apps wouldnt work)

Aside from HDR, I still havent managed to get HDR working and its starting to look like it wont really be possible. And Unity. Unity simply doesnt work both in a VM and on Linux, so I annoyongly still have to dualboot.

Other than that, ive switched around two months ago, and aside from the first pains caused by me choosing Fedora instead of Nobara, everything mostly works without issues.

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Well I listened to all the people hyping up Linux and tried pop os, literally nothing works right, itā€™s unusable lol. First time I tried to install it it straight up failed, worked on the second try. My hdr monitor isnā€™t supported apparently and looked dim no matter what I did. Had to fiddle with the display settings for a while to get scaling to work right so I could read text on the higher resolution monitor and fonts looked like ass anyways on the 1080p one. The messenger I use didnā€™t get a network connection until it crashed and restarted without OpenGL (what?). And the system scaling didnā€™t work in steam anyways so all the text was like 8px. After all that fun I canā€™t imagine how bad windows would need to get for me to switch to this garbage

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2024 will be the first year I use linux exclusively on my desktop. Bazzite has been amazing.

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They're signaling that you don't need a desktop anymore, only chat bot. Your device will be a kiosk where you ask Microsoft for favours.

Microsoft, please google "dystopia"

"I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that. Perhaps you want me to Bing "dystopia" instead?"

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I'm so glad I switched to linux

i'm glad i did too, but i do not like the trend toward immutability and flatpacks

For every distro thatā€™s immutable and using flat packs youā€™ve got 2 distros that rail against this. Thereā€™s plenty of Linux people who canā€™t do with immutability so thereā€™ll be plenty of distributions that donā€™t use these concepts.

Personally, for a computer for your non-techie family member I think these concepts rock.

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Typical capitalist race to the bottom to appease investors with short term decision making

Im so glad i moved away from windows ages ago.

The last 10 years if Windows have been so agressively anti-user that I can't comprehend anyone chooses Windows unless they need it for work.

And most are stuck in Windows at work because IT is incompetent dinosaurs.

IT guy here, the choice of what to ship on the corporate desktops/laptops is a lot more naunced than that.

Are there users in the organization that use Excel heavily? Other windows-only software heavily? If the answer is yes then you're looking at complicating support instantly because now you have 2 separate fleets of workstations that each require different tooling to manage and you either have to have a helpdesk that can be trained to handle questions for both or have different teams to handle each which is more opportunities for helpdesk requests to be miscommunicated, lost, etc. and adds some time to the ticking process. You also have to decide how users are selected for which they get. If you leave it up to the users they'll all choose what they're used to and you'll just get a handful of weirdos which make the cost of allowing it likely higher than it's worth. But if you force it on people by team you run the risk of someone having dual roles or covering duties and being largely hamstrung when they can't use the windows software needed for the other role. Does this create a 2 tier system where users given the Linux workstations have less upward mobility? Or are you potentially creating future hassle where your Linux users will randomly have to come to IT to have their computer switched because they gained a duty that requires Windows software (which is a ton of lost productivity while they get things set how they like)

You also have to now maintain 2 sets of management tooling since generally Active Directory and Linux tend to be a pain to mix. This also means 2 different streams of vulnerability tracking and patch tracking, and 2 different streams of testing if you hold back updates for testing before deployment. And 2 different attack surfaces to keep secure for audits and red teams.

But let's suppose you find that absolutely everybody in your organization can be moved to Linux as nobody uses software that won't work on Linux natively. Awesome this is the best case scenario for Linux workstations in the office. What are the long term ramifications? Are you potentially limiting your options for vendors or contracts your organization can take on? Are some of your employees working at reduced productivity potential because they aren't using the best tool for the job?

These are the considerations that have to be made, and argued politically for Linux to be deployed to user workstations in the office. Extremely similar conversations have historically had to happen (and continue to have to happen!) within IT departments to move things away from Windows Server. A bank I worked at just a year ago was so heavily invested in the Windows server ecosystem that they had Windows server in places it really shouldn't have been and the choice to use Windows Server actually was a hindrance.

I think in the long run it has a chance. Linux has gotten so much better on the desktop in just the last 5 years, plus with the move to webapps across the board (not to mention kids in school right now learning on ipads and Chromebooks and never touching a Windows machine) I'm sure the decision will slowly get easier and easier, but right now, there's very limited opportunities to make Linux workstations happen in a big way in the corporate world, and I don't forsee that changing in the next 5 years

This. This is the nuanced intelligent discussion points we need to be talking about. Thanks for writing all this up.

It's infuriating, but in the end, business tends to feed into and be run by other business. Microsoft is business. Their software is business.

Business is a slow lumbering behemoth that does funny things like base mission-critical operations on a Windows95 machine because decades ago they committed to the tar-pit of a now-dead vendor, and nothing else can read those files. (I'm told this happens in science fields all the time)

I mean hey, OS/2 and COBOL are still in use, connected to faded beige hardware using parallel ports. In 2024. People don't understand how change-averse businesses are! Lol

We're also up against particularly targeted campaigns from tech giants since the beginning, to put their proprietary software in schools and taught in universities to eventually cement themselves in perpetuity, no matter how crappy they get, as "industry standard."

Thankfully Linux is really big in server world already, but I hope in the future more organizations will be able to take more control over their own infrastructure. I understand why it's not feasible to "just switch" yet.

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Two things keep Windows around. Office/Exchange and remote management. Nothing really works that well in any other ecosystem.

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Penguin lovers, assemble.

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Windows 11 offers nothing better than Windows 10, but there's a few key things that don't work as good/bugged on win11 for me. Should have not updated I think

The only thing windows 11 had that windows 10 didnt is wslg ( the integrated x server in windows substystem for linux, aka the linux vm inside windows ), but they ported that to win10 last year. Fuck windows 11...

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Clippy never really went away, he's just been evolving this whole time into something more and more annoying with each new iteration.

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I guess they figured out where people clicked a lot and put the button there?

Looking forward to the Google search trends for "disable copilot"

Just don't search that if you've also been searching for any flights recently.

Or where people didn't click a lot.

Could go either way - I could see MS doing this because people use this a lot.

Only time I've ever used it was the first time I installed a version with it (7?).

Win-D is far faster, or a simple Alt-Tab, which I've used for what, 30 years now?

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Is this just a new Cortana?

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can this be hidden via registry or group policy?

I had it gone within two minutes if seeing it appear. Found this thread on it:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-uninstall-copilot-i-dont-want-to-disable-it/b301b77d-b879-4433-9979-f8795805e9f1

The top pinned answer has a single line reg command that I used. I assume there are still pieces of it that will just always be around, but at least it's out of my mind for now.

The GPO method should work similarly, and it's what I'm going to try as soon as I see it start showing up on my work domain. I say when, not if, because these things have a way of getting around our deployment schedules. I just know one day will get a dm from a user asking if its a virus and I'll end up finding out a third of the office already loves it.

They added it to my task bar in front of my pinned apps, I right clicked and went into the task bar settings to remove it.

(Basically the same way you remove the search icon and things like that)

I think it's currently in A/B testing as it's not like this on either of my Windows machines that installed updates this week. I don't think they let you disable the things you're in A/B testing for.

Either that, or it's not GDPR compliant, and they're not rolling it out to the UK or EU.

I was able to disable autopilot with a registry change but I don't remember where I found the link. It wasn't easy to find at the time when I looked. That being said if you reply asking for the link I'll try and find it but otherwise, yes.

Edit to add that I'm specifically talking about hiding or disabling autopilot bloatware, not just the icon.

so.... where's the hide button?

win+d

thats like an entire extra button tho

I never grab a mouse unless I need to

thats probably cool if youre some kinda like, prison hacker or something, im just a basic bitch who clicks on stuff what can i say

edit: also I popped my win key out cuz i kept hitting it instead of alt in games

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LMAO?? HOW TO GET ME TO NEVER USE IT

I've already switched to Linux partially. My PC now dual boots to Manjaro and Windows. I won't switch completely, but it's great to have such an awesome alternative right there one click of a button away. And the funny thing is that I'm not even the only one amongst my friends to do that. We are now three already and we even game on Linux too.

I set up Linux dual-boot as well, around half a year ago now. But I made (Mint) Linux the default boot option; so that when I turn on my computer, I get 3 seconds to interrupt it and choose Windows - otherwise it just starts Linux. And just like that, I've never used Windows again. There just hasn't been any need or desire.

If someone is setting up dual-boot with the hope of maybe switching to Linux, I'd say it's import to make the Linux boot option the default. Otherwise they'll still just be booting Windows most of the time out of habit, and never make the switch.

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Itā€™s too bad that the year of the linux desktop has been so long in the coming. Because now, it really is far superior to windows. Bluetooth, printers, and games even ā€œjust workā€ these days.

/shrug

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Is that a default-ish tray these days? It looks like a complete mess.

The ENG US is only shown if the user has multiple languages. As for the icons to the left of that, the user has manually chosen to always show them instead of having them in the overflow area. So it is a bit cleaner by default.

It's windows security center, Everything search, locales, sound settings, time, copilot, surely not that bad.

Everything is installed by the user, not sure why the locales are there, but maybe he swaps keyboard layouts?

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I can't run a lot of games with anti-cheat on Linux, so it's not viable for me.

I'm wine inept so it's not viable for me either. I spent a total of 4 to 6 weekends trying to get shit to work. I just can't get it right.

I just made the switch and Steam with Proton has been really smooth, they've made a lot of progress to make it easy since the Steam Deck has come out. I don't play any online competitive games that use anti-cheat though.

I just recently tried a game running with proton (which i understand is wine with extras). I was really impressed cause i download it and it was just running. Maybe i got lucky or it was just the game (valheim).

My only big trouble with all of this is the hardware management, not having access to software like adrenaline gives me a bad feeling. I ran the game steadily with the GPU at around 60Ā°C, but certain situations, and specially the "start up" produced peaks of 90Ā°C in really small time windows. Thats holding me for now.

As I understand, valheim has a linux native version but i wamted to try proton after all.

I was able to get an indie title to work but it wasn't the two games I was playing at the time. Guardians of the galaxy and RE4. I'm currently on FFXIV which has a silver or gold on the "does it work" site I forget what it's called. But not having adrenaline is kind of a bummer. I use that too. The frame generation is a great feature.

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You can just turn that off. You know that, right?

EDIT: also, the icon doesn't show up in the position the OP's screenshot shows it, at least not in my experience. It showed up right next to the start button for me, but you CAN move it around the taskbar if you want.

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Please stop. This is getting me depressed and I don't even use Windows.

I'm trying to move to Linux! I game on a custom built chimera OS computer using an AMD GPU. I've been using a MacBook Pro as a life raft. I still need windows for work.

I've considered once 24H2 Windows 11 release comes out that I would try to customize that image and keep it like an LTSC but I heard about some read only registry components that are going to make that very difficult. I'll just kick around on Win 10 LTSC for anything that I can't get rid of until it's no longer useful.

The solution that worked for me was dual booting, and using the windows boot only for work. In time I've figured out how to transfer most of my work to be on Linux.

Yeah, it's tough switching over but worth it IMO. It cuts twice as deep when you build a custom PC, buy a legitimate copy of windows full price just for stuff like this to happen. I even paid twice because I built my mother a pc.

Surprisingly she asked me to switch her over to Linux after seeing me play games on it. She would always call me up Everytime Microsoft popped up a full screen and trying to sell office 365 and getting her to agree to new privacy settings.

Almost everything she does is online, email, personal accounting in a spreadsheet, using the printer, and some gaming. The hardest part for her was relearning the small stuff like scanning documents and learning which one was her email app. It runs the sims 4 and an ancient game called wizards101 just fine.

The funny thing is I warned her it's not a smooth transition verified multiple times before switching and encouraged her try it on her laptop for about a week or so before switching her main computer. She went through with it though and started to really love it once she figured out the main stuff.

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Have you considered using Windows in a VM? I currently don't have any reason to use Windows, but if I had to again, that would be my first approach.

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Sorry about all the dorks here. You spotted a problem and proposed a solution and rather than propose better solutions people are just bitching about the suggested solution without offering better ideas.

Lol dude, OP proposed installing an entirely new operating system. The other solution from those "bitching' is to right click and toggle copilot to "off" in the task bar settings.

I never pressed that button anyway I just use the keyboard shortcut.

oh this one is going to be so pissed when they find out they also re-mapped the keyboard shortcut /s

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Windows is shittyā€”don't get me wrong. But for all my coursework it's pretty annoying to do on Linux. Especially Office, and yes I am well aware it's a MS product and that Linux-support will likely never come. Though the limited online version of Office or LibreOffice don't quite cut it for me. Besides, running it with Wine or in a VM is too much of a hassle.

So "Switch to Linux!" is not really a solution for some. Let's hope that'll change in the future.

With that said, fuck Microsoft! I use NixOS btw.

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Maybe here is a good place to ask. I have used Mint for months now on my non-gaming laptop. I like it. I was ready to move my gaming rig at months end. Then I read that it can have issues with multiple monitors at different refresh rates and also with Mouse acceleration. Is this true and is there a solution?

Monitors at different refresh rates is a downside of x11, which Mint uses for all its desktop environments. Fortunately, they're working on moving to Wayland for the Cinnamon edition, which has better support for that. There's an experimental version you can use now, and they plan to be done in 2026.

I'd test things first ofc, maybe with your laptop plugged into one of the monitors.

My gaming rig has been on arch and manjaro for the past 6 years. No regrets. Sometimes games can be a pita to get working right, but proton/steam/valve have done an amazing job and it's better every day.

I have a 2.5k 34" uktawide and a 27" connected. No issues.

It's a case by case scenario.

If it works for you, then it's all good.

If it doesn't, then you might see the need for having a Linux PC and a Windows PC for different use cases.

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I just use my windows PC for gaming, and it does the job without issues.

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A decision that also lightly favors business as the "hide desktop" button has a general reputation as the "uh oh, the boss is coming!" button. Definitely not their first purpose here, but a "nice" side benefit for the pro-enshittification crowd.

Does it? My boss is like 70 and he would know something was up instantly if I was just staring at the desktop.

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