Microsoft wants to hide the 'Sign out' button in Windows 11 behind a Microsoft 365 ad

Frellwit@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 818 points –
Microsoft wants to hide the 'Sign out' button in Windows 11 behind a Microsoft 365 ad
neowin.net
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With how aggressive Microsoft is becoming with ads, services, and data collection they could at least make Windows itself free.

But no, you still have to pay £100+ per license to have the pleasure of putting up with this crap.

Piracy is not a real solution to the problem. Microsoft allows these sorts of things to exist in the background because they would rather lose out on some sales than lose market share.

Kinda the same thing as winrar. They rather have consumers get used to it so the companies they work at have a higher chance of buying licenses. That's where the real money is.

Ding ding ding!

Like how Adobe puts minimal effort into protecting from cracks for their software.

They'd much rather have little Jimmy and a million others pirate PS at home and get used to the workflow, so that businesses pay out big recurring fees for Adobe's tools, which they will if that's what everybody knows how to use.

Piracy is their weapon. If not for piracy, ex-USSR countries wouldn't transition to Windows till around 2009, and I'd expect that in such an alternative reality they wouldn't then too.

Piracy is the solution when what you think you're buying is not what you're getting and the company that you're buying changes the product without your consent.

Every generation has this moment, where they learn to hate Microsoft (or Micro$oft). Then, 4% install Linux, 6% buy a Mac with half the RAM for twice the price; and everyone else to keeps complaining.

With me it was when they killed off my favorite browser. I'm now using the reanimated bushy red corpse of it.

MS has done shady things but Netscape's own top employees have written about how Netscape destroyed itself with the version 4 rewrite. Joel Spolsky has also written about how complete rewrites are always a mistake.

Their corporate side failed too. If you weren't fortune 500, Netscape wouldn't talk to you. I was spending $50k a year with Netscape and they wouldn't fix a bug unless I paid for an additional $75k a year support tier. ( The bug was Netscape 4 didn't support dialing with area codes! )

Meanwhile during the late 90's Microsoft devs put their personal emails in the readme.txts and would quickly patch any bugs or add features if you emailed them.

All the small isp's (which were over 50% of the market) gave up on Netscape because of this.

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Linux and Nvidia really need to sort out their shit so I can fully dump windows.

Luckily the AI hype is good for something in this regard, since running gpus on Linux servers is suddenly much more important.

Its mainly Nvidia's shit. The only reason Nvidia is caring about Linux now, is that is the platform AI models use.

The only thing keeping me on windows is the Nvidia GPU in my laptop. If Linux got actual dynamic GPU switching support I would delete windows and never look back.

it has that? You can use the nvidia utility to enable that on most any distro, or just use Pop_OS! 24.04 when it releases.

I've tried what popOS had around 6 months ago, and it wasn't what I wanted. I needed to manually launch apps with the GPU. I want it to work like it does in windows where when the igpu gets too much load it dynamically switches to the dgpu.

i specified Pop_OS! 24.04 because in the new version with the cosmic dekstop, theyre going to add a seamless synamic gpu in the new version (thatll be out in a month or 2)

also, you CAN get that behavior on linux now.

https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx3d4QH_43Ekei3-cNuecZpCaaaPzFFXbI?si=oha_xORoHC0oZvtr

this part of a linux experiment video shows how to do it, i cant confirm if it works as i do now have a laprtrop with an nvidia gpu tho

Oh wow, thats incredible! Looks like I have my Sunday project now.

I can help you with that if you want, you can message me on discord or matrix, just dm me your username of the chosen platform

Bazzite has an image that includes integrated chip swapping on my nitro 5

Is it dynamic, or does it use the existing Nvidia Optimus utilities?

how long is having a GPU you can't use without an OS going to he worth staying off Linux?

The only reason I have windows is to play games and not all games will work on linux

the only thing Linux can't play is drm'd shit, and rootkit anti cheats. find a pirated version; bet it'll run.

Which everyone should be avoiding anyway, regardless if they use windows or not. . so it shouldnt be a problem for any gamer.

Most people, even people on Reddit/Lemmy who are presumably tech-savvy, are completely fine with installing rootkits on their PC and handing full control over to random game devs.

Yeah, there will always be mouth breathing imbeciles.

You just ignore them, not enable them. Let them wallow in their own self made filth. Anything more runs the risk of them getting elected president.

I'm not going to pirate software. Developers deserve a paycheck

Buy the game through whichever means you like supporting the developer on, pirate the game to run it without the DRM bulshit

you don't own it til you pirate it.

if they wanted money, they wouldn't have added DRM.

Until we are in a post job society, I see nothing wrong with wanting to support those who make your life happier, even if that requires giving some to those who make your life worse. Nuance exists, and its on each if us to draw our own lines on where we wont budge. I was merely giving an option to someone they might not have thought of. For instance, I'm done giving Nintendo money. Unicorn Overlord is an awesome game however, so even though I dont have modern xbox, and even though I'm playing Unicorn Overlord on a yuzu emulator. Eventually I'm going to by the Series S version of the game if it doesnt get ported to steam, even though Microsoft can go fuck itself (It can just fuck itself less than Nintendo or Sony)

I'll buy games. the thing is: I won't stop myself from enjoying it just because they don't want my money.

Oh, yeah, thats perfectly fair. I'm already playing Unicorn Overlord even though they didnt release on PC, and it was pretty much the same train of thought you just expressed there why I jumped straight into piracy. If I hadnt enjoyed the game as much as I'm currently enjoying it, I wouldnt even have gotten to the step of figuring out which megacorp I despise giving money to the least in order to shunt some of that change to the developers

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How do you play helldiver's 2 with my friends?

I mean, yeah, you can find exceptions to any rule if you look for them

Dismissing major releases with drm isn't the victory you think it is. Linux is getting better it's almost there.

I dont know what the hell you are talking about dude. If the game has shitty drm but a pirated version doesnt, you can buy the game (or dont if you dont care about giving developers money) and then pirate it to get around that. If the game doesnt have a pirated version that skips the DRM, which is pretty much the ENTIRETY of online only games due to their nature, then yeah, you have to either accept the drm or not play it. I was merely countering your point that you can't pirate AND support devs. I have no idea why you are bringing up games that you straight up cannot pirate. Lastly, being a slave to major releases is a choice. Personally I only touch about 1 every 5 years, because the vast majority of new video game experiences come from indie games nowadays, so if drm is someones line in the sand, avoiding a new release because it has it isnt the loss you think it is to the person who drew that line

Helldivers 2 works almost perfectly on Linux. I had to nest it in a gamescope session to fix some weird mouse issues, but that was it. I dual-boot Windows and I've never even launched it there.

I just press a green button in steam

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since running gpus on Linux servers is suddenly much more important.

It's always been important. Nvidia will never have actual open source drivers. They do this thing where they intentionally hobble your GPU unless you pay them even more money for a more expensive GPU.

I've been running NVIDIA under Linux for about six years now, with no more issues than one would encounter running hardware/drivers from a number of manufacturers under a number of platforms.

In all honesty, I've encountered far more issues regarding HP printer drivers under Windows.

I've been using Nvidia under Linux for the last 3 years and it has been massive pita.

Getting CUDA to work consistently is a feat, and one that must be repeated for most driver updates.

Wayland support is still shoddy.

Hardware acceleration on the web (at least with Firefox) is very inconsistent.

It is very much a second-class experience compared to Windows, and it shouldn't be.

CUDA works fine here, in all honesty it's never given me any problems. NVENC works fine, DLSS1, DLSS2, and DLSS3 all work fine, RTX runs at acceptable FPS compared to AMD under Linux - and NVIDIA Reflex is supported as of VKD3D-Proton 2.12 and DXVK-NVAPI 0.7.

On top of that, FSR is also fully supported - as is HDMI 2.1.

I only use Firefox, and hardware web rendering works fine. Hardware video acceleration isn't working yet, but running back to back tests at 1080p with hardware video decoding under VLC, the difference between hardware video decoding and CPU rendering is about 5% CPU usage on average running a desktop PC with adequate power supply/cooling capacity as opposed to a laptop with limited power supply/cooling capacity.

The only problem with Wayland under KDE 6 is the lack of any form of sync, but explicit sync has 'finally' been merged, and should be supported under the 555 branch of drivers. Once explicit sync is supported, I really have few Wayland issues left to complain about.

Overall, I really don't experience any showstopper issues that have me wanting for Windows in the slightest.

My old HP printer won't even install on Win10 anymore. The have also removed the driver from the HP website. I'm sure you can still find it on some sketchy website, but I'd rather just use Mint on a laptop for printing all the 3 documents I print each year. Not to mention that windows updates take FOREVER on this low powered dual core laptop. On Mint it's seconds.

PopOS has a good nvidia card support, try it out! It made me dump windows last October.

Pop OS has great Nvidia support out of the gate. Latest mint seems to handle Nvidia well also.

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As much as I like Linux, and use it almost exclusively on desktop/laptop, every time I see something like this I am reminded how much I hate the fact that Apple of all companies is about the last bastion of commercial and consumer operating systems who isn’t trying to derive the bulk of their revenue from advertising.

Even Apple is falling. Their ad business (yes, they have one) makes billions and is the fastest growing part of the company. The app store is already quite ad-riddled, and the other parts of iOS are geared to get you to subscribe to all the Apple services.

Yes they just derive it by keeping the Windows/MacOS duopoly in place and monopolizing communication channels.

In some sense yes, but advertising for its own stuff is advertising too. It nudges you to use their whole ecosystem.

The most annoying thing for me is that you can't remove the iTunes component in mission control (the settings deck).

It does nudge you...but it's not full screen ads that take multiple clicks to get through every week. I was a Windows zealot through W7...W10 got bad...W11 got me to start using Apple and Linux.

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This is what happens when they know you won't leave.

"But muh games...and Linux is too difficult and weird"

I say to those: well then you've made your choice, didn't you? It's going to keep happening, like it's been since the 90s.

Why is the target of your comment towards people that use Windows?

I am not sure why People on Lemmy feel like if they point something out to people who can't see the comment is going to get them to change their mind.

I have and use both Linux and Windows. I prefer both for different reasons.

I know I'm talking into the void. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm too tired of trying to do that. Just trying to get people to realize they made the choices they have to live with.

I may be spoiled in that I don't play AAA multiplayer games, but I do play AAA single player and indie single/multiplayer (usually the type where one of the players is also the server, e.g. Terraria).

Been running Linux on my systems for more than a decade, and - especially since Proton/SteamDeck enchantments made their way upstream - I haven't had any major ssues (except having to wait a while to play RDR2-PC in Ubuntu because of a weird game-specific graphics card driver issue, but even that was fixed in due course).

Fuck Windows, and fuck the assertion that it's the only way to run games.

Proton really did marvelous shit.

Made it so easy that even an idiot (like me) could get games running on linux without much headache. Especially nowadays, even big game titles working almost flawlessly on release day.

Again it might be that I pretty much don't play competitive online games because if there's anything that ruins gaming it's random strangers, but I have had practically no problem playing games over the last ten years.

What about people who needs NURBS tools and Affinity/Adobe class art softwares? Where do they go that corporations decided Windows and Mac are only to be supported? And believe me, plenty of them hates Windoze and I'm one of them.

Dual boot if you're up for it.

Dual booting kinda sucks. It fragments your workflow and it is pretty disruptive compared to just being able to move to whatever you need to move to.

Run windows on a VM.

That's better but assuming they have a system that can run windows in a VM at native resolution it's still a broken workflow that won't attract people to Linux.

Look Linux is my daily driver, my entire lab is Linux. We use a combination of Debian, fedora, and rhel. I'm not opposed to using other distros. It's okay for working with my peers who are on windows but not the best. Easy enough to work around.

However if an important part of your workflow requires Windows, Adobe, Autodesk, the murky shit of office products, etc., then arguing for dual booting, using a VM , or a different computer isn't going to win people to Linux. It makes proponents seem silly

Why does it have to be one tool though? More of a complaint to business in that they don't let you use other tools.

Develop own software or support indepndent sw development however you can.

If you really need something, think about your personal dependencies and try to build some resilience / backups , one way or another.
Whatever your craft, a pathway towards ownership and control of tools and maintenance should be a traditional part of mastering the craft.
So that you can eventually do things like extend the toolset, or adapt tools to niche circumstances and advance things along.

If you don't have that pathway, then you might end up trapped as an apprentice or journeyperson and will continue to be exploited by those who control the things you depend on.
If there's no freedom and no way to develop competition in the supply chain, then you probably would benefit from - collective organisations such as trades-guilds, or professional associations or trade-unions to counter the power imbalance, and represent your needs - but they can also get captured/bribed so those probably need a bit of effective democracy / transparency/accountability or something. I'm not going to suggest govt regulation, becasuse that's super easy to capture and national-election democracy is a weak control, but you might get some progressive govts like some European ones that'd think about doing something suppoting foss projects, maybe.

It might not be easy, but you have to look for and support those types of features for the good of your industry.
Corps will eat their industry for a quick $, it's the workers, tradespeople and masters of the craft and some small businesses who care about the long term. And maybe any enlightened customers if you're lucky enough to have them.

As an example, for physical 3d cad, personally I don't like freecad much it's complex and not very intuitive; but it lets me do all the maths I want in python, with my own made up data structures / object model. So i'll use and support freecad 100% over all the other more user friendly CAD that i've seen - it really is the freedom, and not being so dependant.

Those will not run under/with emulation?

Autodesk seems to be inconsistent with emulation. I can make fusion 360 run but not other tools.

My issue is more Rhino and Solidworks. If Blender actually can render NURBS and retesselate from NURBS to polygon, I can pretty much ditch Autodesk Maya as that's the only reason I use Autodesk Maya.

Solidworks/Rhino probably can work under VM, but I don't know.

There has to be a point of diminishing returns for them with this kind of behavior. This is just so aggravating.

I'd wager they are hoping to entrap as many people as they can on the platform, with their TPM restrictions, and store restrictions, and account restrictions, that sunk cost fallacy will keep the overwhelming bulk of people stuck in their web.

I'd also wager that enterprise probably doesnt have any of this bullshit

Can confirm, I run enterprise at home and have yet to see some of these shenanigans I've seen posted.

But there's still enough I hate about Windows 11 that I'm slowly transitioning to Linux and then just running windows in a VM for things there aren't good alternatives for.

Ads have evolved into a cancer that is just growing and growing, making everything around them worse.

Ads have always been a cancer.

Not exactly. When the webmaster you knew put a banner in the corner of their site with ads from one and the same source, in one and the same place, not popping up and not bothering you, it really felt fine. I even felt the urge to click that and see where it leads.

Remember also Opera free version with that ad banner.

Yeah. I used to run a website back in the very early 2000s that a local bicycle seller/repair shop used to pay me to have a little static banner for. It was just an image, that's it. No tracking, no malware, no silly animations or covering content, etc. It was unobtrusive.

Did I get a huge amount of money? No. But it paid for maintenance, and a bit to spare. It made me feel like the effort I was putting into the site wasn't wasted. It was relevant to the site content (cycling club in my town) and so was probably an effective advertisement.

Ads aren't automatically evil, but the way they exist now definitely is. I wouldn't dream of browsing the web without Firefox+Ublock origin.

The unbridled greed of companies has made me go out of the way to remove them all from my life. If they had been more restrained, I'd have happily accepted some ads as being the price I pay for using the web.

The way they exist now is similar to taxi drivers in airports. You simply know that if something is being advertised this way, it's likely not what you need and probably a scam. So anything you don't find intentionally and not via ads becomes useless, so ads become useless.

I used adblockers back then too. Else some sites would cause infinite pop-up windows to open (I assume to get pay-per-click revenue). Even plain banners would significantly increase loading times on 56k connections.

The best part is when spammers and ad generators realized how easy it is to use GPT to automate and increased the number of spam bots and ads.

Another day, another piece of enshittification by MS, another reason to talk about our Lord and Saviour, Linus Torvalds, if you can spare a few minutes.

I don't see any enshitiffication features and ads in Windows 11 that Lemmy and tech news are reporting. I wonder if it's because I'm in the EU.

They may have not implemented it yet. I see a lot of things reported that they are still testing.

New features get released into the developer preview. It's basically beta test windows. It's what the tech sites watch to see what new features/etc have been added/removed/changed. Usually they end up making it into the release builds, but sometimes they end up not doing it, or the change doesn't apply to certain regions.

Now that Linux can run pretty much all the games I play on the PC I don't think I'm going to have much use for windows at home anymore

May I suggest getting a mini PC if the home PC is going to be used by everyone else at home?

I want my power button to cut off the power instantly. I want my log off button to be instant. Add any delay and I start pulling cables!!!!!!!!!

I got to go, lock this computer, so I can do a thing! Oh shit, its not locking... fuck... Security says I can't leave a unlocked console.... POWER!

Adding needless friction is terrible! Don't do it.

At work, when I did desktop support, the number of people who would just hit their power bar when they left every day...

Is that bad for the computer? Because I didn't even think about this in a corporate environment until your comment. All our employees would be pulling cords or batteries, they all march out at exactly 430.

any unwritten data would be lost, perhaps some file system updates get out of sync, but it shouldn't be a big problem.

It is very easy to corrupt files doing this.

A proper journaling filesystem should handle this, but I hardly trust NTFS as it is.

Journaling should make sure that the file system itself doesn't corrupt, but journaling doesn't magically make all writes atomic. If a program is halfway through writing a file and the power is cut, that file will be corrupt.

As a user. When I want the computer to shut down. I've got my programs already closed. I really don't care if there's a half open log file or some telemetry isn't properly recorded. It needs to shut down now.

By default, Linux can take up to 15 seconds to write a file to disk, this is for power saving reasons. You could corrupt the last document/photo you saved, your browser profile, or your nextcloud sync.

Linux usually shuts down immediately if you don't have any unsaved files and nothing glitches out during shut down. But yeah, windows sucks, corrupt files is probably the least of your problems using Windows.

I guess on Linux, if you run sync to write all cached files to disk, and then pull the cord, you're probably fine.

I like to think of it like this. When I tell the computer to power down its a fair warning. Just like when a UPS sends the alarm signal. Power is going off, you better get in a good state now.

Win+L to immediately lock a windows machine. You can get the logout dialogue with alt+F4

KDE Plasma uses largely all the same shortcuts as windows. The most important ones in my opinion being super+arrow keys to move and tile windows.

Microsoft got to much time on their hands. Can they please work on the more important stuff like completing the transition from controlpanel to settings?

By the time they do that, they'll have introduced a third settings app, and only four options from the current Win8/8.1/10/11 one will have been ported to it.

Or make Teams a not piece of shit. Even worse they had teams on Linux in the past. Now have new teams and new outlook, which are just electron...give it back to Linux please.

After Apple creates an iPad calculator probably…

They're researching how to make a calculator great andndo it the apple way...

Nah, it’s because the technology hasn’t reached that level of advancement.

Calculator: Now available for iPad (M10 with FP1 floating point coprocessor)

/s

I've held off on saying it until now (I haven't), but now I'm going to call it (again):

This is the year of the Linux Desktop.

(It feels like someone influential at Microsoft is trying to protect my reputation and force my prediction to come true.)

I finally switched my gaming rig two weeks ago. Been great so far, except VR and I'll admit, the Xbox Game Pass missing...I wish gog or someone would come up with something like it, because there have been a lot of games I started and didn't finish because they just haven't been my cup of tea...

Now if Autodesk would get their shit together as well, things could be happening at work as well.

I think subscription would go against gog and its DRM policy (how would they enforce a subscription period without DRM), specially because gog is like the last place where we can have something that resembles owning a game nowadays.

That's why I said "someone" and "something", because I'll be the first to admit I have absolutely no clue on how that would look like. Humble Bundle Choice is something I do like, but it's steam only...while that's cool in terms of proton, steam deck and so on, Steam is still a service that has to work, because without I can't use the products. With gog I can just save those files and use them whenever and wherever I need to... Windows, Linux...doesn't matter much.

i had gamepass working via browser on my computer.

my controller, on the other hand, never worked in the browser, so it kinda made it pointless thatn gamepass worked

Different Game Pass - talking about the one where you run the games locally...

I setup my ROG Ally to dual boot Linux about a week ago and have had plugged into a monitor and I have not had any issues using it in desktop mode. If not for Easy Anti-cheat I’d being a thing I wouldn’t have much reason to keep windows on my main pc.

If not for Easy Anti-cheat

Linux, through Steam, has EAC.

Just search the Steam store (it's free).

Still depends on the specific game dev enabling the linux support option, which many seem to not want to do.

Aware, but it's worked for the games that's required it so far for me. Worth a try.

What does that mean. What does "the year of the Linux desktop" mean, really? And why is it different than last year?

It means that this year, Linux on desktop will make big strides (again)!

And why is it different than last year?

When I declared it last year, I was a year early, because this year will be bigger.

What I love the most about Windows is just how easy it is to find all the user settings I need to change. And I super appreciate how they configure things that work so perfect for me. It's like I never need to make decisions of my own, they can read my mind. /S

theyre turning the deskop into a mobile platform which is inherently difficult to mod. this is so they can provide it as a service to any device.

I always laugh when someone says Linux has fragmented settings. Windows has that buddy. the fucking MOUSE SENSITIVITY setting is in a windows 7 UI.

You got me on the first half

Autodesk! All the others! Can you now, goddammit, for the sake of the mental health of your customers, start building your tools on platforms other than this crap? PLEASE? I mean I'm seriously considering building a parallel system running Linux for all my other office needs and just touch my Win-pc to run my CAD. I hope MS will continue in this way and ai-mercialize their OS more and more so hopefully the software providers will have enough at one point.

At that point you might as well just use a windows VM for CAD. With desktop integration you hardly have to notice you're using windows.

I've certainly considered that, but have a hard time imagining a comparable performance with large assemblies. Any hands-on experiences?

I have used a windows vm at a previous job for a closed source IDE we were required to use. I've never used AutoCAD, so I'm afraid I can't help you there.

I've used FreeCAD for hobby 3d printing and plywood CNC projects. It seemed buggy, and the workflow seemed strange, but I've never used anything else, so it's fine, I guess, lol.

FreeCAD is of course the tool of choice for my hobby projects. All of our workgroup's students get an introduction. But while its a great tool, you'll notice the lack of ... management (?) in the background. I'm not bashing or even judging. I very much appreciate all the work put into it. But it's simply ... not there yet to be considered a serious alternative to one of the big players.

I tried building a Steam box with the bootleg version of SteamOS from the deck... Can't remember the name of the distro. Steam Games ran great for the most part, but getting Epic, EA and Ubisoft to work was a nightmare. If Linux can get that sorted, I'd never use Windows again.

You don't need the bootlegged version of SteamOS, there is ChimeraOS (GitHub).

Also Steam runs great on a lot of distros, I use Arch Mint btw. ;-)

For Epic Games, GOG and Amazon you can use Heroic Games Launcher (GitHub).

Heroic is amazing. Rather than running the crappy Epic client via Wine, you just install this native piece of software that then launches each game via Wine/Proton/whatever else and pretty much just works every time, complete with things like EAC

Most EA and Ubisoft games I've played run fine on Deck. Just need to run the game in desktop mode first and then it boots in the Steam UI side of the OS just fine.

Not a video gamer myself and can't love linux enough. No more searching for installers. yay all the way.

I mean doesn't sound like you're missing out on anything tbh

I wanted to say this, but I mean, people can choose to consume garbage if they want

Right. Snob all you want, but I thoroughly enjoyed Div1 and 2. AC Origins was also a lot of fun, especially for someone that grew up fascinated by ancient Egypt.

Civ6 is on EGS... Battlefield 1and5 on EA, plus the Mass Effect series...

But hey... Those games are awful, right... The chi chamber is loud today.

Are those games not available on Steam and GoG? And like I said, you do you. I cant stand EA and Epic, but everyone has their own lines in the sand that they will or wont cross. I specifically called EA and Epic garbage though, not the customers who'd be willing to do business with them

Yeah, it's definitely better now then it was before believe it or not. I honestly just avoid them at all cost even on windows. I hate games that ship their own launcher even though I bought it on steam

So, literally every game I've bought on steam is playable on my Manjaro box.

Additionally, a recent KDE6 upgrade messed up my config and necessitated a full system reinstall. After remounting the partition where my steam games were installed on in the old sys, they....just worked. Even the ones that don't cloud sync, saved games all there, DLC all there.

I don't know how long reinstalling ~1TB of games would take on windows.... a lot? Pretty sure you have to fully reinstall them, not just "point steam to the drive where they live"

Frankly I just don't see why people tolerate windows anymore. It's just laughably bad.

I used to keep my steam games on a separate windows 10 partition and it worked exactly as you describe after a reinstall, it was all there. It’s still incredibly cool that this works on Linux and we get to use it as daily driver without being forced to dual boot for games. A windows installation still lingers on my desktop but it’s been years since I booted into it.

If you have games in a separate partition, then you will have no need to reinstall it even in case with reinstalling Windows, though.

You haven't really highlighted any of the linux advantages here.

You haven't really highlighted any of the linux advantages here.

I wasn't really on that side quest, I'm only asserting it's (apparently) as easy as Windows is. If you don't see "not having to use windows" as an advantage, or if it's actually an impediment to your non-game-related computer use, that's totally fair; subjectivity is absolutely part of this. I'm just glad it all works for me in my life and that I'm lucky enough to be able to get to work on the platform I prefer.

Like I wrote, Steam games were generally good, other storefronts, not so much.

Bottles and Lutris would help in this case for you.

It didn't work before, maybe I'll try it again when I have the time.

Epic runs nice using Lutris 😃😃

I want able to get it to work unfortunately. This was a few years ago though.

I have really tried getting epic to work, but both ea and Ubisoft launchers work quite well now through Lutris

Strange, was it recently?? My Epic install have been working for years (installed again a few times)

I just realized that I missed a word. I have not tried getting epic to work. Sorry for the confusion 😅

I run both the Epic Store as well as the EA App via Bottles, and I had both up and running in about ten minutes.

You can also install both launchers under Steam via Proton. The process is a little more involved, but far from difficult.

In total, I expect this to cost about a minute or two of my life if they never remove the ads. This figure is fairly typical for daily windows users, of which ~400kk are on win11. Microsoft will steal ~1.5*400,000,000 minutes with these ads. Ads that nearly no one will even consider clicking. 600,000,000 minutes=10,000,000 hours=1140 years. Multiple lifetimes in aggregate, all to be thrown away for nothing. I’d like to send a very strongly worded knot tying tutorial to Satya Nadella and Brad Smith.

Now figure out how much that is in lost revenue and write a headline like „Microsoft to lose economy one million gazzillion $“.

lost revenue

You can be sure this is retail only.

Enterprise Windows won't have this feature and now appears to have added value for corporate customers.

That why I pay my gold partner friend for a copy of enterprise he gives to his developers.

Lots of people will spend a few hours then several tens of minutes monthly or so finding out how and then disabling the ads after each update

Wait, so this is not about the power menu, it's about the pop up when clicking on your account picture bubble if you're signed in to a MS account. They aren't adding a step to logging out of your local Windows user, just to logging out of your Microsoft account if you're using that as a login for Windows, OneDrive and Office365.

The "Lock" button also has a new home—it now sits in the power menu alongside "Shut down," "Restart," and "Sleep" options.

THAT is where the Lock button was? Not gonna lie, I've been Windows-L-ing so long I didn't even know they had moved that to the account bubble.

I'll be honest, the article is a bit overdramatic. Yeah, they are surfacing your services there to upsell you on the ones you don't have, but it's actually not a useless piece of info (currently finding your subscriptions is an ordeal) and none of the functionality is gone. It is true that a lot of UX things around Win11 have gotten worse, though. I'm currently using additional software to replace the taskbar (which will do the Start menu, too, if you want) because the inability to move it to the sides is ridiculous on the OS you're most likely to pair with an ultrawide monitor.

I'll be honest, the article is a bit overdramatic. Yeah, they are surfacing your services there to upsell you on the ones you don't have, but it's actually not a useless piece of info (currently finding your subscriptions is an ordeal) and none of the functionality is gone.

Look up "boiling a frog"

They count on this exact reaction.

Every time they implement these little bullshit changes, people inevitably go "It's annoying but it's not that big a deal." And then they do more of it a few months later.

The article isn't being hyperbolic because it's reacting to the overall trend that this is yet another step forward in. Because the writer and everyone here knows it will get worse and worse over time.

Dark patterns are, by design, slow and incremental so as not to trigger too much pushback at once. People need to start being more aware of it and pushing back on it when they see it.

And yes, that information is probably useful to some people, but that doesn't in any way justify hiding the options that used to be there.

Do you know the term "trust thermocline"?

Basically it described a problem with the boiling the frog technique. There's a point for every user at which they're fed up with the bullshit, lose all trust in you(r company) and are hard to impossible to get back as a customer. Every customer leaving has a little unnoticeable effect on you, but with time there will be so many people that you lost that all your tactics to lock your users in will fail.

Look up "boiling a frog"

You mean the myth?

It's a widely-understood phrase/metaphor. Nobody is saying Microsoft literally boils millions of frogs.

What is it with Redditors/Lemmings taking a turn of phrase, interpreting it extremely literally, and completely missing the point?

That's what the win XP search dog was for.
They'd send it out hunting for frogs so that they can boil them all.

Bill Gates first programme was a reverse frogger game, he'd get to drive the cars and score get points for squishing frogs.
I think it was called Grand Theft Amphibian or something. The dude just really hates frogs.

  1. Autism, personally speaking.

  2. I knew it was a metaphor, but it's also a lie and does not actually happen.

  3. That's actually the result of "looking it up", which was the instruction.

What is it with you that makes you so incapable of reasoning that someone might know what it means and also want to point out that it's bullshit?

It doesn't matter that interpreted literally, it's not what happens to frogs. That's not the point of the phrase, and certainly not the point the other commenter was making.

They were trying to talk about Microsoft's business practices, not about what happens if you were to literally start boiling a frog. Yes, we know they aren't fine with it, it's extremely well-known and completely irrelevant.

Yeeeeah, but this isn't a dark pattern, though. That's what I'm saying.

The article really wants it to be, but... well, it's not. The option to log out remains in the same place as the rest of your account info, and the account info they are surfacing is actually useful and relevant to how much money you're spending. They are making it easier to subscribe, for sure, but also to cancel, which used to be pretty hidden away.

I get that this fits into a wider pattern for both MS and other major software companies, but if they inch towards the boiled frog at this pace we're probably fine.

Now, if they ever try (again) to make MS accounts mandatory for Windows or to move Windows to a sub, we can have this conversation. As others said below, when you try to inch people towards dealbreakers you can find yourself losing ground very quickly. Especially if a new comparable alternative surfaces at the same time.

So they want people to pull the plug instead of signing out properly. If they don't can this before it leaves the Beta Channel, they're going to need to beef up their tech support, because the many office workers who use Windows mostly as a launcher for Excel won't have a clue.

Jesus Fucking Christ. They really want people to switch to Linux, don't they?

Microsoft should stop trying to become another Apple. This is not going to work.

as soon as they require a microsoft account to use versions of windows, they are apple... minus the mobile, but plus a metric shittone of things apple doesnt.

not that any of that is good, microsoft should die in a fire.. but theyve spent 20 years building an OS-as-a-service platform and its coming to fruition. they might be slow, but rest assured they will get their captured, vertically integrated audience.

You don’t need an apple account to use a Mac. If you just want to enter a username and set a password, that’s all you need to do. If you want everything synced between another Mac or iPhone and so on, sign into iCloud. But you don’t HAVE to, just skip it.

This sound like something they would totally do.

Next up, an ad anytime an executable is run!

Are you sure you want to run an untrusted executable? Microsoft Store contains lots of safe, curated apps that are 100% definitely not crappy ad-filled spyware.

Everything could be operated by ads. Run a program? Watch an ad. Open the start menu? Watch an ad.

You don't HAVE to watch the ads, just subscribe to Windows 11 platinum for 20$ a month. /s

I guess the family computer will be entirely useless to everyone else in the house but me.

WTF happened to Microsoft? What a fall. Is this a leadership thing?

They were always about screwing over consumers to make money. The only thing that changed is that they've become increasingly unsubtle about it.

Their way to screw customers with W2K was very persuasive. Such a clean UI, everything looking so relaxed and, eh, not commercialized. That startup sound. Those wallpapers.

Later I learned that that's also when they released those Unix services for Windows (may have swapped words), with which you really could have something practical with an X server and POSIX-compatible applications and so on.

And compared to W9x it was very stable.

I feel like they go through cycles of "hey, we just remembered we have de-facto monopolistic power, what are we doing with that? Let's do stuff with that" And "everyone got mad at us for anticompetitive practices again... Let's lay low and play nice until governments stop threatening to break us up"

Turns out you can make more money by reducing usability and user choice in an entrenched product because hardly anyone will baulk and jump ship to a different product.

When will VR be a thing in Linux?

The Quest is Android based, which is Linux based, so kinda if you're cool with two layers of megacorp between you and the kernel.

Just install Linux already, get rid of this Microshit crap

Great to know. Not that I ever fucking use that menu, opting to use the sleep button on my keyboard instead.

Anyone who can should switch to Linux. Most of us can, I have done so on my laptop. I have tried gaming on Linux too and it's fucking fantastic though I personally had an edge case issue that barely anyone will ever meet and had to go back. Do not let that discourage you from trying, however. Cyberpunk, as an example, was wonderful on Linux. No issues. As soon as my issues are sorted, something that will happen sooner or later, I will switch that pc in an instant!

Is there somewhere a guide in how to get started with gaming on Linux?

Tbh it's pretty easy. Install Linux, install Steam.

Try Linux Mint, specifically. Very easy to install, runs on everything, just works. And gaming really is as easy as installing Steam, even for non Steam games.

Mint is great! Not my personal choice but it does work out of the box and is easy to use!

It's perfect for anyone who wants to switch from Windows with minimal hassle. There are plenty of other great distros, of course, but choosing one can be a bit overwhelming at first. That's why Mint is such an easy recommendation. It'll get you started, may well be all you ever need and once you're more into it, you'll better understand what to choose.

Exactly! I think Mint is a great choice. I wouldn't recommend anyone unfamiliar uses anything else unless they have very specific needs.

What of Indie games that I download from the developer's page or other stores?

Also, how is the update process of Mint these days for make versions? Is it a complete reinstall of the system? I might opt for a rolling distro for that purpose.

You can add non steam games to steam and it'll run them via proton, can be pretty effortless in most scenarios. Otherwise, you can install Lutris and there's a significant chance there'll be an entry for how to run the game you want

I read that a lot. Somehow I'm not into adding all my games into the Steam client, though I am not totally opposed if there's no other option. That's due to my inherent trust issues with gaming platforms.

Might give Lutris a shot.

Whatever happened to PlayOnLinux?

POL is still around, it's just not quite as user friendly as Lutris. I use Lutris for Battle.net games and older titles where I have a physical disk. Easier than trying to add them to steam IMHO.

I tried a while ago to get SC2 working, but didn't have luck. Are there any tricks to it these days?

I haven't tried SC2 in a while but I seem to recall it working fine for me a few years ago. Dunno. Lutris has good details on the website for tons of stuff, no idea what that looks like for SC2 tho

use heroic for gog, epic and amazon games, and bottles or lutris for random exe's and the other stores. you can also add random exe's as non-steam games to run them. Also do keep in mind to install things from the app store, not the web

The major updates can be done though the software manager and have been completely painless for me so far. If you are concerned with always having the latest stuff, Mint might not be ideal for you. They're pretty conservative with updates so they can be a few versions behind on some stuff. That's the downside of the "everything just works" mantra.

People pay for this?

Usually they just over-pay for their computer because you can't really buy a system without Windows pre-installed (unless you build it).

I have so many computers that came with Windows installations that I never even booted into.

"Can't really buy a computer without Windows pre-installed"? Weird, that's not my experience. The stores allow filtering by "no OS" and you can see quite a lot of options.

Which retail store have you ever walked into that had a PC on display with no OS?

I don't know if the people walking into a brick-and-mortar for a prebuilt PC are making decisions beyond "what's available" and "what's in my budget".

There are absolutely online stores that do that, but they're usually gamer-focused, so there's three issues;

Note: I'm taking about laptops, because it's all I've bought for the last decade or more;

  • The non-gamer focused stores rarely (if ever) have the option (Lenovo, Dell, Microsoft, etc).

  • The gamer focused stores usually sell hardware that runs Linux like shit because the hardware needs extremely specific drivers (which isn't necessarily an issue for Linux, but if it doesn't exist yet, you're either building them yourself, or waiting for someone else to do so).

    • Note: Most Clevo systems - that are private-labeled by the likes if IBuyPower, OriginPC, etc - run Linux really well. Some of these sellers make custom hardware, or sell other private-label systems, so your milage may vary.
  • The gamer focused stores are usually patroned by people who are all in on Windows gaming, because they don't do much else with the system, so they don't experience the kinds of annoyances that power users would gripe about (which is why the above point doesn't compel those sellers to do anything different).

    • And before someone corrects me: Gamers are not inherently power users, they just have powerful systems. It used to be that powerful systems were only buildable and maintenable by power users, but that hasn't been true for years. If all you do is install and click "play", you aren't a power user.

As for desktops, I really couldn't say. Haven't been paying attention for years. It's possible that you could buy a system without a hard drive, never mind an OS.

Question: if you skipped signing in to Microsoft when you set up Windows, does this f'upgrade still happen?

Windows key + L

Try and put an as on my keyboard ya stupid fucks

That's the lock screen combo, not sign out. To quickly sign out: win+x, u, i. i can be replaced with u for shutdown or r for restart.

Win+R, logoff, enter.

That's what I do every time, because I'm often working on a remote system and don't want to mis-click and shut it down.

Careful what you wish for...

Typo and all...

Yeah auto "correct" is the bane of my existence.

Its been years since Ive seen ads on my PC, the first windows ad I see I'm installing Linux

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