Microsoft’s cloud ambitions for Windows could kill off desktop PCs – and sooner than we expected

Boiglenoight@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 25 points – Microsoft’s cloud ambitions for Windows could kill off desktop PCs – and sooner than we expected
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Never mind Windows 365, I’ve yet to move on to Windows 11. Tried a few times and never liked it.

This seems like a really bad idea. Are there any examples of this that Lemmians are familiar with? Certainly can’t play games on it. Right?

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I feel like the threat to "kill off desktop PCs" has been going for years, yet it has never eventuated. I'm a bit too old and too tired of all the threats/clickbait lately to even start to worry about it actually happening.

If it does, I'll find an alternative, but I very highly doubt it will happen anytime soon.

Yeah I've been hearing this for so many years. If it were to affect gaming on Windows, it will definitely not happen. MS would be crazy to kill the stronghold they have on gaming.

I remember there was a guy in the D development community that liked to block any and all changes to the DLL support, because he convinced himself, that smartphones/tablets will replace desktop PCs, especially Windows. Then he got so annoying on the forums he was thrown out from there, then he left the project. Since then most of the blocked changes are implemented, now it's even possible to get the D runtime compiled as a DLL file in experimental mode (similar thing is done for ages under Linux with its own version of shared libraries).

Could kill off desktop PCs

Linux has entered the chat.

We have Valve's Proton. The Prophet Gabe has prophesized the Evils of M$ and its anti-Consumerist Bill Gates (Satan-Borg). In His wisdom, Gabe has prepared for us our salvation. Praise Valve!

More likely the end of desktop Windows. But I wouldn't take my bet on it as Windows users often tend to accept everything Microsoft does, sooner or later.

People leaving Windows en masse needs three things:

  1. Continued enshitification, which will likely continue.
  2. More apps (games, productivity, etc.) having native support for Linux, or at least a viable alternative.
  3. Linux devs to prioritize user friendliness over gatekeeping/"just use macros" mentality.

I'm heavily thinking on moving to Linux in the future, likely when I'll need to reinstall my OS. Then I'll only keep around Windows for testing purposes.

EDIT: I wrote two instead of three

I can only imagine how thin the margins will be on laptops that are physically incapable of running their own operating system and basically don't qualify as general-purpose computers. The computer itself will be streamed to you over the internet and you'll just have an IPL that handles your keyboard and mouse, the display, the network connection and the encrypted memory buffer you use to send files to your cloud PC or receive them onto a Microsoft-authorised USB device for external transfer.

Will also be so much fun in 5-10 years when only enterprise customers are allowed the luxury of being sold a local version of Windows, so your whole laptop freezes up every time your connection is interrupted and trying to turn it on without an internet connection just takes you to a 404 page baked into the bootstrap ROM.

Enterprise already runs remote virtualized desktop instances and while it works it’s a useable experience, but when there’s any problem it’s a nightmare scenario.

At that point it's someone else's PC in a server somewhere else. Unless it's to make networks in business or school, I don't really see it being used much outside of that. Especially when you could just set up your own cloud network locally.

Game playability depends on network bandwidth and latency and also on the type of game. I've played Hitman Blood Money over the net when Square Enix had a programme that let you play their games in a browser for 30 minutes or something for every ad you watched and that worked quite well on a 12mbit connection close to the servers. But I can't imagine something like Counter Strike working well.

But no matter what happens the desktop can't die as there are still Linux, BSDs and MacOS (maybe even Haiku but I don't know how viable that is, certainly not for gaming anytime soon).

I had a friend, who runs a company hosting various OSs designed for this use case. He was singing their praises, till I pointed out a flaw. I work in places with less than optimal internet access. Even the mobile phone network often collapses. Suddenly, my laptop being independently capable is very important.

I've moved away from windows a lot however. I mostly boot Ubuntu, with windows available if I need it. Most of the games I play also work fine under Linux now. It can be 6 months or more between windows boots.

I think it's a problem for consumers, especially as long as traditional PCs and laptops remain ubiquitous. I could see this changing over time as the natural way of things. There are all kinds of examples of people giving up a superior experience for the sake of cost or convenience. :-/

I've moved completely to Arch and I don't think I'm going back. It supports every game I've wanted to play up until now except Fall Guys, worst case I'll set up a small Windows partition or VM for the couple of exceptions that I still want to play

I would move to Linux if this ever occurred, and I hate Linux.