This "make Windows better" push is far more political than technological. It's a fight with other divisions about using Windows as a marketing and sales channel for other products and services.<p>It has to be a decision from the very top. I hope they realize that Windows is in significant danger, the majority market share for Desktop OS is not guaranteed anymore. It's not just 10% of revenue, it's a foundation for how enterprises ended up on Azure and are bringing big money.<p>I'm still a Windows power user, MacBook is a wonderful piece of hardware and I'm typing this on one, but I'm not nearly as productive as on multimonitor PC with TotalCommander and Visual Studio where I use all the shortcuts subconsciously.
As someone with a sizeable background in Linux system engineering.. I prefer Windows to MacOS.<p>It's IMHO a better desktop now with the edge snap tile layout and etc. Excellent device compatibility. And I get my linux environment needs satisfied via WSL2 these days.<p>But damn if they don't get in their own way. I have my own Pro licenses, and even with Pro turning off ads and features is text book whack-a-mole:<p>* Frequent "Let's finish setting up your PC" after updates<p>* Killing OneDrive is a like night of the living dead<p>* Edge popping up "ads" asking you if you want to pin apps when it closes(a lot of windows apps wrap edge, like streaming apps, and show this too on close!)<p>* Scary Power Automate crap getting injected on updates(haven't seen this in a while)<p>* Internet search results in the "Home" search<p>* Random popups and product recommendations<p>* Registry disabled "features" randomly resurrecting after Windows update<p>Holy. Hell.<p>Edit: I recall now; Windows was installing a power automate extension into Chrome during Windows Update un-prompted last year. Caused a minor panic.
I've had good luck with the winutil tool, which is wrapper for a bunch of powershell commands and registry edits in a .ps1 to remove bloat. After using it on a fresh install I can't recall the last time I've had any of the mentioned issues.<p>If you're (understandably) concerned about the security implications most of the changes can be done manually going off the docs.<p><a href="https://github.com/christitustech/winutil" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/christitustech/winutil</a>
I also think Windows' native window tiling is one of its best features, but there's a fantastic program called Swish that implements tiling for MacOS in a very native-feeling way. It supports keyboard shortcuts, but it's built around really elegant touchpad gestures. Highly recommend if that's all that's keeping you on Windows.<p>The other native Windows feature I really like is the clipboard manager, and I don't have a great replacement for that yet. I'm kind of shocked Apple hasn't built one. If anyone has a recommendation that feels native instead of like a ported Linux widget, please share.
Use LTSC. It'll fix all the issues you are mentioning here.
Don't forget the search that doesn't work. You have app "X" installed? You type X and it doesn't find it, but gives you irrelevant results about X.
Recently I'm finding MSN home opened in Chrome over night. Aparently it's connected to some "active probing" feature, and I do have scheduled nightly restarts in the home router. But come on... No one could convince me it's not intended to inflate MSN numbers.
><i>I hope they realize that Windows is in significant danger, the majority market share for Desktop OS is not guaranteed anymore.</i><p>i agree with most of what you said, but this is borderline fantasy.<p>the majority of <i>home</i> market share is not guaranteed, sure. with how good gaming is on non-windows machines now, there isnt much for a home user to get locked-in with (except games that require windows-only malware i.e. anticheat)<p>but government, institution (hospitals, universities, etc.) and large non-tech enterprise? that will be windows for at least 20 more years even if they started to change everything now (which they arent). and the number of machines in those places absolutely dwarfs the number of home installs.
Large parts of one german state switched to open source. First they laughed at them and now they are envious.<p>The switch to Linux is happening this year. Until the end of the year they want all workers on Linux instead of Windows.<p>It is possible, and fast if you want it.
kudos to them!<p>out of curiosity, "large parts" of "one german state" is how many machines roughly?<p>i am suspecting that it is probably nowhere near enough to put windows in "significant danger". however, i am rooting for their success and hope that they thoroughly document (and publish) the process. i have never seen a transition like that go smoothly, let alone when it is in government.
This alone obviously doesn’t put Windows in danger, but if it does go over well then it’ll mark a turning point; A large non-techy institution getting away from Microsoft’s castle and being better off for it would signal to the world that it’s not only doable, but could even be worth it. It’ll take a while, but this could be the start of the end for Windows.
><i>This alone obviously doesn’t put Windows in danger,</i><p>so, the quote i specifically replied to said that <i>today</i> windows is in "significant danger", and i said it isnt. we seem to be in agreement.<p>as for what the future holds, i think it will be much slower than other people. but maybe i am wrong! which would be fine with me.<p>but, <i>today</i>, windows is not in "significant danger".
This exact same thing (literally another german state i think) almost happened about 20 years ago and Microsoft freaked the fuck out. Thats where all the TCO nonsense came from - just one german state trying to de-microsoft.<p>I think they won, too.<p>I think theyre terrified of positive examples. Especially ones with FAR lower TCO and lower geopolitical risks.
Decline often happens slowly, gradually and then suddenly. Could anybody imagine Intel where it is now ? This could happen to Microsoft and is probably already happening as we speak.
><i>gradually and then suddenly.</i><p>governments, institutions, and large enterprises (like, thousands of people) do not have the power to do anything "suddenly". they have contracts, and cash flow concerns. you cannot suddenly replaces tens to hundreds of thousands of machines.<p>20-50 years down the road? maybe! they (microsoft) surely arent doing themselves many favors. but they are certainly not in "significant danger" today.
"Suddenly" in this case does not mean tomorrow.<p>It means that, today, a lot of enterprises begin pondering the question, and then about a year from now, they start seriously studying and prototyping it, and then "suddenly" in 2029 Microsoft starts seeing a deluge of defections. It means a whole bunch of peopling finishing the conversion all at once, relatively speaking, even if that "all at once" is 3-4 years away.<p>To put it another way, the thresholds where people get annoyed enough to quit are highly correlated to each other. If individuals on HN are posting "I don't want to switch, I've been working this way for decades now, but Windows has crossed the line for me, I've switched to Linux, and it was easier than I thought it would be", then corporations and governments are having very similar deliberations internally.<p>This is probably a more accurate model for how "influencers" seem to work than the idea that some crazy guy in your organization falls in love with Product X and evangelizes it internally. I'm sure that happens and is a real force, but this correlation-of-experience effect is probably bigger on the whole. If Product X was good enough to make an evangelist internally, or more germane to this conversation, to make some a mortal enemy of it internally, it's usually because it was a good enough or bad enough product to be able to do that in the first place, and eventually everyone will figure it out in exactly the same way, just later.<p>20 years is way too large a minimum estimate. If Microsoft responds correctly that might be good, but if they just decide to rest on their laurels and extract whatever value they can out of Windows while they can, Windows would never last 20 years of that. Even the slowest organizations can move faster than that. After all, to cut Microsoft's revenues off at the knees, they don't need to remove every last Windows 2000 server in their backoffice they can't upgrade, they need to cut out just the majority of desktop licenses.
><i>20 years is way too large a minimum estimate.</i><p>i disagree. unless intuit is also rewriting quickbooks, dassault systèmes is rewriting solidworks, every bank is rewriting their custom windows-only software, every government branch is rewriting their custom windows-only software, etc. and every company is willing to retrain 95% of their employees on a new operating system.<p>time will tell!<p>in any case. what i replied to was a claim that windows is in "significant danger" today. it is not.
Still, a lot of those woke up from a profound sleep about digital sovereignty and are now contemplating leaving the American software ecosystem.<p>It won't be sudden, until it is
You can't suddenly replace them, but in a lot of cases you can find that over an extended period more and more people choose the MacBook option from IT rather than the Windows one.
most people are not willing to learn an entire new operating system for no reason, though. this might happen in tech-based companies, sure, but banks? accounting firms? ive never seen them offer macbooks.<p>this is also ignoring all of the critical software that is windows-only (e.g. quickbooks, solidworks, bespoke programs in banks and government).<p>point is: microsoft is not in "significant danger" today.
and then something like COVID happens and they change fast.
expanding your vpn to support more employees working from home is much easier than replacing hundreds of thousands of machines, all of the windows-only software that runs on those machines, training all of your employees on a new operating system, cancelling all of your existing contracts... you get the point.
well, it happened with Teams meetings replacing fancy CISCO equipments.<p>It happened with all the vpn+shared drives buried to just use SPO.<p>different experience,I guess.<p>Did your employees got trained? or just sent the link to 3 'online trainings'?<p>Managers manage to switch to Mac seamlessly. I am sure the rest will follow with cheaper macs now available. And now, with 'office on the web', you can use basic office everywhere. (even on Debian)
I agree with this. At this point, Windows is like COBOL.
> far more political than technological<p>I don't know. A company worth trillions of dollars does a pretty fine job of making Windows incrementally worse in new and interesting ways, each release.<p>There's some truth; the bloated company structure has contributed to these unforced errors, but just at an engineering level, people are releasing this tripe without the skill or training or backbone to know what is bad, and push back on toxic management decisions.<p>Engineers collaborating with oppressive management is a technical failure. Google is riddled with the same problem. I'm sure all the FAANG-a-likes do. Paying billions in salaries to sycophant devs. They have the market share to keep failing upwards. They don't deserve it.
FWIW I've been on a OS X for many years now, but I still miss keyboard shortcuts in Windows. So much more consistent across the operating system and applications...
I've used macOS for years and still don't understand their windows minimize/restore logic. I'm always hunting for my minimized window. Yes, the fault probably lies with me.<p>OTOH the Windows UI is far better well designed and intuitive. But yeah... I'd rather fumble around in macOS: Windows is always trying to upsell a service that I don't need. If I say no it will helpfully keep reminding me (my answer is never going to change). I have 32GB ram and a recent processor being fed tons of wattage -- it feels so bog slow.<p>Windows needs to fix itself fast.
This may be the first time that sentiment's ever been expressed.
Why do you say that?<p>A lot of shortcuts are shared between windows and linux and fairly consistent across applications. Mac is the one that takes a decided "we're different" approach to shortcuts. I.e., Alt+L for address bar instead of Alt+D, Command swapping with Control, Q instead of W for closing tabs, Command+Control+Q for locking a computer instead of Super+L, etc
If you want a little more consistency for muscle memory, ctrl+L goes to the address bar on Windows the same way cmd+L goes to it on Mac. Same for ctrl+W and cmd+W to close tabs.
They didn't mention cross-OS shortcuts, though. I interpreted "across the operating systems" as meaning "across the various versions of Windows". Yes, Windows is more consistent with their own common shortcuts. But Macs have exceedingly consistent shortcuts across Mac applications, compared to my experience with Windows and especially Linux.<p>I might also point out that Mac had keyboard shortcuts before Windows existed, so it's not really fair to describe them as the "different" one when MS chose their own, different shortcuts for Windows.
The big one for me on Mac was refreshing a web page being CMD+R rather than F5.<p>Not to mention the muscle memory for pressing CTRL in the corner of the keyboard rather than CMD where Alt is.<p>Though I will say that having "Copy" (cmd-c) being different from ^C (ctrl-c) was kind of nice. Though Terminal has done a nice thing of making it so if you highlight text, Ctrl-C copies the first time you press it, and sends ^C the second time.
> The big one for me on Mac was refreshing a web page being CMD+R rather than F5.<p>It's not like you can't change it.<p>System Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts > App Shortcuts > add your browser > remap the Reload menu item to F5<p>Along with Karabiner you can pretty much make Mac OS work however you want it to when it comes to keyboard shortcuts.
Conversely, when I use a PC, I have to stop and wonder why alt-R doesn't reload the web page like it's supposed to, and alt-C doesn't copy, and I have to stretch my pinky all the way over to use that shortcut. And what's the mnemonic for "F5 means reload"?<p>Which is to say that neither Windows nor Mac shortcuts are inherently better. It's just what we're used to. IME, the main difference is that once you learn the Mac shortcuts in a handful of apps, they'll pretty much work on the other apps you encounter, too.
I've always found the opposite, do you have any examples where macOS falls short compared to Windows in shortcut consistency?
Isn't part of this Microsoft preparing for the requirement to do age verification in the OS?
For the AI frontier, I find my windows PC just about useless unfortunately. Too much tooling and package doesn't adapt to WSL+windows host well. I've shifted my entire dev experience to my mbp which used to be my backup. Can't imagine the new generation of vibe coder will even consider a windows box.
+1 for Total Commander mention, its bizarre how many otherwise smart folks completely ignore this productivity enhancer. I keep showing it to colleagues but they all anyway revert back to basic clunky File explorer and variants.<p>Doesn't matter if I show them that I can be easily 10x faster, do stuff simply impossible otherwise, has tons of plugins etc. its just ignored.
I've been using MacBook at work for years and I still perceive UX as fundamentally broken - I'm incapable of doing basic operations in Finder or changing basic system settings, and random shit I didn't want to press pops up when I'm doing other things. I feel like my grandpa trying to adjust to new phone. I will never ever recommend anything Apple to anyone.<p>Having said the above, I think that KDE is almost there to have a functional UX that can replace Windows. Not there yet because of random bugs, but almost almost.<p>Once gamers actually switch to Linux, which is a viable thing, they'll teach their family members. Home users will switch to Linux, and Windows will become an exclusively enterprise and government thing. But once average person is comfortable with Linux because they have it at home, those institutions will start switching to Linux too. And that's how Microsoft will fall. Just like most other corporations - through their own greed.
> I use all the shortcuts subconsciously.<p>I realize you probably are referencing visual studio, but at the OS level KDE plasma seems to have copped Windows hot keys wholesale. I was giving it a go recently and was delighted that even meta+arrow keys for monitor switching fullscreen apps works. My only gripe, and what got me booting back into windows, was that even the latest wifi drivers for my brand new wifi 7 motherboard were too flaky to reliably play multiplayer online games.
> the latest wifi drivers for my brand new wifi 7 motherboard were too flaky<p>A GL.iNet travel router in WiFi to ethernet bridge mode is an excellent stopgap until Linux support arrives. It also has the benefits of (a) taking with you on trips for safer/easier internet use (use your home SSID, even auto-VPN traffic if you want) and (b) letting you plug in other wired-only devices adjacent to the computer.<p>Here are their travel routers filtered to just those that support WiFi 6 and 7: <a href="https://store-us.gl-inet.com/collections/travel-routers?filter.p.m.custom.protocol=IEEE+802.11a%2Fb%2Fg%2Fn%2Fac%2Fax&filter.p.m.custom.protocol=IEEE+802.11a%2Fb%2Fg%2Fn%2Fac%2Fax%2Fbe" rel="nofollow">https://store-us.gl-inet.com/collections/travel-routers?filt...</a>
> I'm still a Windows power user<p>I used to be, but in 2004 I switched to Linux.<p>I still use windows as a secondary operating system on another computer, though only Win10. I decided I will not transition to anything after Win10 as Microslop declared war on the users with Win11. Which was the case already before Win11, of course, but I feel the qualitative difference is too much now.
Apple makes a nice distinction between their "app layer" (iCloud drive and Messages, etc.) and the OS login. This would work fine for Windows power users, and for the most part Windows has already had this (your "store" login). But to require the cloud to replace your login, the cloud has to be <i>essential</i> to the functioning of Windows and you have to explain the security implications clearly, and it's not clear that any of these things happened.<p>For instance, almost none of the useful settings from win32 apps sync - migrating to a new PC is painful, your apps don't move, your settings are all missing. It takes weeks, you don't just login to it. So this idea that it makes all your settings sync is maybe 10% true.<p>The argument <i>for</i> this online account (vs just a container for apps) is that you think a few Windows appearance settings must be synced always, or that you want to save things like your BitLocker keys in the cloud (which probably makes them visible to FBI or whoever else). And the security implications need to be spelled out in plain language. And in the end, it's a pretty bad argument - Grandma doesn't need BitLocker, but the people who do want a clear explanation. A lot of the rest could live in a "Microsoft apps" credential layer: Edge, OneDrive, Office, etc.<p>I want to feel like I can login to a recovery console and fix a bad partition. I want to keep using the same username across Linux and Windows. I want to recover a router with the old laptop that has actual ethernet, and who knows if it has cached credentials? My Microsoft account is my least used one, and who knows if it is secure?<p>One last thing: logging in with biometrics is amazing, but why must I use a low-security PIN in place of your pre-existing password?<p>Please fix it all.
<i>why must I use a low-security PIN in place of your pre-existing password?</i><p>FAFAIK, all characters that are allowed in a user password are also allowed in device PIN codes. Knowing Microsoft, I'm sure there's domain policies to alter/restrict this. And the idea behind it is sound: that PIN is tied only to a single device, meaning that even if someone watches you enter your device passcode (or uses a keylogger), they can't go to a different machine or online portal and re-use the captured credentials there.
That would improve things.<p>Over the weekend, a family member could not log into their laptop any longer. Turned out to be “a problem with Teams” that required an unscheduled update which was marked as optional. Needless to say that they never used Teams on that machine.<p>When the login worked partially, their files weren’t accessible because they accidentally saved it on OneDrive which now defaults to storing online only. And OneDrive was also affected by the Teams bug.<p>Spent a good part of the day cursing in the direction of Redmond.
That must be the free version of OneDrive that forces cloud only.
> saved it on OneDrive which now defaults to storing online only<p>This is why local backups should always have the highest priority.<p>Storing online can be useful, but people should never forget that local backups are the best.
Fully agree.<p>The problem is that on a fresh system with a free MS account, OneDrive shows up as the first choice as “$User - Personal files”. No notice that this actually only stores it online and offers only a fraction of the 1TB local drive.<p>Truly deceptive and my mistake for not noticing when I helped to set up that laptop.
Don't feel bad.
Even if you noticed,
It is likely that during the next "security" update, one drive would be re-enabled, as the default - and possibly everything moved there.
[dead]
[dead]
I would never advise anyone buy a Microsoft Windows laptop these days — between the forced updates, the account and service-fee thirst, ads, and consumer unfriendly product release process (forced opt-in).<p>Guess what? With Apple's new Neo laptop the price is also way way wayyy out to lunch.<p>If MSFT gives a business a huge bulk discount to buy their laptops + Office360 + Teams... OK? But as a "consumer" it really sucks.<p>Want PC gaming? Steamdeck or Steambox.
The Neo costs $200 more than a comparable Windows laptop, but with half the RAM and storage as said comparable Windows laptop.<p>They're fighting to seize the very specific market segment of "I don't like Windows and don't want to use Linux or a Chromebook, and I'm also poor, but still want to pay a premium price for an underpowered tablet with keyboard glued to it."
Please, by all means do post a link to a comparable new Windows laptop for $400, including a fast GPU, reasonable amount of fast storage (and not counting an SD card or such), a high-DPI monitor, and non-embarassing build quality. I'd love to see this.
The GPU in the Neo isn't particularly fast...nor is the storage. Neo makes loads of compromises to hit $600 with some of it's features. Even for $400 you can get Windows PCs with TWO whole USB 3.0 ports. $400 quickly hits diminishing returns territory.<p>Like here's a $500 PC:<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Aspire-Copilot-WUXGA-Display-Processor/dp/B0DWNLN3KP" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Aspire-Copilot-WUXGA-Display-Processo...</a>
<a href="https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Aspire-14-AI-review-Basic-home-and-office-laptop-done-right.974950.0.html#c12912859" rel="nofollow">https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Aspire-14-AI-review-Basic...</a><p>Twice the storage, twice the RAM, comparable GPU. CPU is a slower in single core, but comparable in multi-core. Faster storage. USB 4, HDMI, multiple USB A ports. Supports more than 1 external monitor. Yep, chassis and screen are worse but it's better in many other ways.
You're proving the point. The computer you found wins on the specs page for sure. But the proof is in the pudding; Apple makes money hand over fist because they focus on reasonable specs, and quality. The thing that kills a modern laptop is not a slow CPU or RAM on the chip; it's a cheap chassis that breaks. That's what makes people change their computer.
So for $100 less, you get a markedly lower-DPI screen that's 40% dimmer, a slower CPU, hotter running, and a worse chassis. Almost no one's going to be slapping multiple external monitors on either of these. If they did, they might run into the problem where the Acer is often limited to 640x480: <a href="https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/733442/have-a-new-aspire-14-ai-external-display-resolution-will-not-go-better-than-640-x-480-help?tab=all" rel="nofollow">https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/733442/have-a-new-a...</a><p>That is not remotely in the same category as the Neo.
You get twice as much RAM, twice as much storage. 4x faster storage too. You get a full sized HDMI port. You can do multiple monitors if you need to. It has a fan for better sustained performance. You can plug in a flash drive, mouse, monitor or other external peripheral without a dongle. Oh, and it's actually COOLER running than the Neo.<p>The Neo costs a $100 more, needs a $30 dongle to connect to 90% of the stuff people have, has half the RAM, half the storage, slower storage. Has considerably worse I/O. But has a better screen and build quality comparable to a MacBook Pro from 2007.<p>It's different compromises. Personally I'd rather have more RAM, storage and IO than a prettier case and better screen.
The screen is also much worse. 60% SRGB coverage 1920x1200 300 nits vs 97% 2408x1506 500 nits.
I'd pick the macbook neo for $99 extra.
The specs may be comparable, but not the end result : my $2000 Windows 11 laptop is slower and laggier than the Neo.
You are right about the first part but I think you're overestimating the number of people that see Apple products as status symbols. Maybe that was true a decade ago but I don't think it is anymore. Enough of the products have found their way to every country imaginable over time that an Apple laptop is... just another laptop.<p>A fun, brightly colored, relatively inexpensive, Windows-less laptop that you can use for doing your taxes while watching a movie has appeal. The performance isn't that important, so long as it is as responsive as the owner's phone.
Can you recommend a Windows laptop in the $400 range? I'm interested in a craptop for various Windows things that still pop up from time to time.
The Neo is probably the best laptop for typical people.<p>I have an RTX 5070TI laptop. 95% I use it with Tumbleweed.<p>Unfortunately with work I don't have too much to play with LLM training and such.<p>The ultra poor person system is a used 200$ Thinkpad ( something about 2 years old) + your Linux distro of choice.
200$ ThinkPad...? The current best sellers on Amazon US are two 180$ brand new laptops.
Intel Celeron N4020, 4Gb ram, 64 GB storage, 1366x768.<p>This is what the average computer user is using to try to run your apps and websites. And remember - a cheap laptop bought today is going to be in use for at least five years.
The only things I recognize on that are the CPU brand name (there have been times the Celeron has been good bang for the buck), the RAM, and the storage (I guess and the resolution).<p>To me, all of those seem woefully underpowered, but $180 is $180...
Used, on eBay you can find something very capable for 200 to 250.<p>Around 300$ it gets better, specifically if you're open to Dell and other brands.
The neo is the Chromebook for education revolution. It’s cheap and better than 98%+ of windows laptops. I’d not be surprised to see further Mac penetration to the business sector
Meanwhile every MacOS thread is filled with people complaining how everything is broken and only getting worse.<p>Not that I'd know, I've probably seen <10 apple laptop devices in my life and never used one.
Too little, too late. I switched to Linux and I'm never looking back. Good riddance, Microsoft.
I've done this several times over the last 18 years or so. The most recent was a few months a go. And my steamdeck persuaded me. Unfortunately I ran into the same WiFi networking issue I've never managed to resolve. Even on different hardware. Pings to my default gateway are ridiculously slow compared to windows. I spent countless hours trying to resolve. I gave up and have gone with windows 11 ltsc.
You can mess around or go buy a $10 gbit USB dongle that you know works like a tplink.
This is the type of thing that AI is actually good at diagnosing in my experience. Haven't had anything similar happen but seems more of a router issue upstream.<p>Maybe worth checking what Steam Deck's connection has configured differently given it's on the same network?
What is the constant? You have something that is unusual and that has not changed for 18 years. Is it specific to your home network?<p>I have not had any issues I can remember with Linux wifi for as long as I have used wifi.
Like what sort of response times for each?
I recently changed my distro to Bazzite expecting it to work well on a laptop since it's supposedly optimized for handhelds. While it "just works" and I had no hardware problems, it still required tweaking to get the battery life anywhere close to what it would be in Windows. "Normal people" would still need someone to support them with the installation to get it to work well for their machine.
The problem with linux is that it is made and maintained by people who love linux. Until product people start getting involved, it's damned to it's eternal ~5% consumer market penetration.
That's how it has to be. Volunteer community doesn't have the bandwidth to make everything maximally user friendly. Users have to do their share too, by accepting the responsibility to learn about their system. Otherwise the model isn't feasible. If you want an appliance experience where you have zero responsibility as a user, you can go to the commercial vendor, but they will also have power over you and abuse it.<p>Linux is indeed for people who can love linux. For people who don't like computers, there's basically no solution.
> The problem with linux is that it is made and maintained by people who love linux.<p>I think I'd probably say that the problem with Windows is it's made and maintained by people who own macbooks.
The problem with Windows and MacOS is that they are hostile to the user, and that's because they serve a "product" manager who is trying to maximize business value for a massive corporation, not serve you a good OS.<p>We don't need three garbage corporate operating systems mismanaged by MBAs, we already have two!
Windows is arguably philosophically user-hostile.<p>Anyone who's ever tried to get support online with a question about Linux will quickly meet *actual* user hostility as they're asked why they didn't know to check for the config file in the filing cabinet in the basement behind a locked door saying beware of leopard, how dumb they are, etc.
Which isn't really a problem because that doesn't stop anyone from installing it. Next year could be 6%, the year after that 7%... That's quite a lot!
I actually hope “product people” won’t be involved as long as possible. “Product people” is mostly a reason of our current state of enshitification of most of the products. I would actually try my best to gatekeep.
"Product people" have long been involved, it's called Ubuntu and SteamOS.<p>Do we think these companies aren't selling anything??
You really think it's product people pushing enshitification rather than the people who want to financialize every aspect of our lives?<p>Every product person I have worked with was just a SME in their domain, and pushed for a cohesive piece of software that solved their (users) needs.
I have used Microsoft operating systens for 30 years. I started moving servers onto Linux 5 years ago. The desktops on laptops stayed on Windows (10). I have started converting those ss well.<p>Windows had a good thing going (if you ignored some bad releases), but them pushing it too far with 11 and the Linux desktop making great strides, sort of put the nail in that coffin for me.<p>Not sure what they can do to make me reconsider. It's a trust issue now.
I've always understood why they do this. Its data collection, its a really weak lock-in to their ecosystem, it gets users embedded into Windows more. Its just not very compelling, just another hoop to jump through. Also I don't really see Microsoft accounts as a major SSO offering on many sites, its usually Google/Apple/Facebook and maybe some other related sites. Seems logical to call this one done and just focus on making a more enjoyable experience in Windows.
Serious question: why is this not a problem with apple products?
Fundamentally, I think you are driving at a legitimate complaint and it should be a concern with Apple products.<p>The direct answer, though, is largely one of execution. Microsoft isn't just pushing this heavily. They are doing so poorly.
Apple does not tie the local account to the cloud account the same way. On a Mac you create a local account and you can (and almost certainly will) create a cloud account to link to it. But they are separate accounts. In fact I’m pretty sure Apple blocks you from setting the passwords the same on both, presumably with the intent of reminding you that they are not the same entity.
I don't recall macos forcing it. They definitely over-suggest it and the ecosystem (especially for dev) is very full of it and I consider that a problem, but it's limited in scope. If you don't want the Apple ecosystem, as far as I know you never need an AppleID.
Apple is a hardware company -- their software exists to support their hardware.<p>Microsoft is a cloud provider now -- their software exists to support their cloud business.
you can totally use macOS without an Apple account
The key difference is that you do not need an Apple account to use a Mac.<p>Most people DO use one, though, because that's how you access the iCloud services that underpin the Apple ecosystem. But it's not MANDATORY.<p>My understanding is that you cannot even log into a Windows machine without an MSFT account. That's a big difference.
Also people probably have more of a problem with MS accounts because they don’t really have an ecosystem that provides clear value.<p>An Apple account together with an iPhone and MacBook let’s you share clipboard, passwords, notes etc., a no brainer.<p>Windows laptop and iPhone? I guess an Apple account still is more useful here too, actually. So the average user does not really need an MS account, hence the annoyance.
How do you mean?
people remember creating an Apple Account login and using it on their laptop, but don't understand that it's connected in fundamentally different ways.<p>The answer is: Because the Apple Login is not calling out for every service, including login.
I hope they succeed, and this is from someone who loves Linux and hate Windows. I want as many positive general purpose computing platforms as possible. No, this won't make Windows perfect, but every step in the right direction is crucial.<p>Much like politics, you want sane, healthy competitors. Microsoft enshittifying as much as possible might bump up the Linux numbers in the short term, but I think it would be unhealthy for Linux in the long term. You want a major power like Microsoft pushing back on some of these trends, which completely opens the door for small players to benefit from that pushback.<p>I hope the folks at Microsoft can roll back as much of the slop as possible.
A lot of people are finding the Mac Neo very interesting given how unfriendly the whole Win11 experience has become. Either MS learns or the market teaches them the same lessons IBM learnt.
The lack of local account makes it so difficult to setup a PC for someone else, I wish they just used the same strategy as macOS.
But remote account is just one of the many evils they cane up in the last decade or so. Honestly, not sure if the net benefit for humanity is negative if Windows gradually disappears.
This entire article is based on a one sentence tweet with zero details provided.<p>"Ya I hate that. Working on it." - Could mean anything, which I would argue in this case, is equivalent to being meaningless. Does this mean Hanselman has a team with tickets lined up for the next sprint to allow offline accounts as a first-class workflow? Or does it mean he sent an email to the relevant stakeholders asking, "Hey guys, what can we do about this"?<p>I am not encouraged that we will see a change in momentum from Microsoft on this issue.
> People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account<p>This is the minimum peace offering acceptable to your long suffering users.
I wonder how much pressure is coming from OEMs given the MacBook Neo is coming straight for them in the budget laptop range.
microslop can do anything, but I am not going to use their stupid OS anymore. Even enterprise window is full of bloatware.
The only benefit I've seen to having a Microsoft account is that I don't have to remember a cd key anymore if I have to reinstall... other than that, what was it actually used for?
I posted something similar the other day, but at this point it is too little too late. Using windows feels like actively submitting to a hostile user experience.<p>I look back fondly to the time I had using my Dell XPS when WSL first came out, they had me hooked. I've been using MacBook Pro for about a decade now and I can't even fathom going back to windows. Every time I open the start menu I feel personally attacked.<p>I used to obsess over reading xda developer forums and playing around with my android phone. I would laugh at the "sheeple" using apple products for not being customizable and giving away their freedom.<p>At this point in my life "it just works" is good enough and no longer a point of ironic derision.
Microsoft has, by far, the absolute worst sign-on experience of any enterprise vendor I've ever used in any industry for any reason. Try to log in to AWS and you'll either get authed or a clear denial reason. Google Workspace? You're in or you're out. Enterprisey MS service like Outlook or Azure? Well, if you've logged in from that computer before, you <i>might</i> get to log in, but you may also have to hunt around for your organization login. I recently tried to log in to an org but it ended up creating a personal account with an email address at the org's domain, and then I couldn't sign in to the org because that account was already taken, and it took something like a week for the anti-fraud cooldown to let me delete the account and eventually re-register it inside the org.<p>For giggles, I just logged into my charity's Outlook account. I tried to log out, but it's showing me a "Your privacy matters" popup explaining why my privacy doesn't matter, and the "sign out" menu item stopped working, presumably until I agree to let them hoover my data. (Aside: the "To adjust your optional connected experience, go to Privacy settings." link doesn't take me to my privacy settings. It takes me to a page telling me how to get to my privacy settings.)<p>You cannot convince me that anyone at MS actually uses their public-facing auth system for anything ever. MS gets love for backward compatibility, but I see it as laziness. Instead of making one system that "just works", like Google and Apple and AWS and every other large vendor on the planet has managed, they half-ass support all 537 different auth systems they've ever deployed, driven by what I imagine must look like a giant nested switch/case behind the scenes. "OK, the user didn't have an "@" in their username, so call `legacy_pw_auth_23(form.password)`. It did have an "@", and also a "@minecraft." in it, so call `minecraft_v1_real_pw_authorizerer(form.password)`, unless it also contains `foo@minecraft.`, in which case call `minecraft_migration_2014_null(form.password)`, except in February, which has 28 days most of the time, where we call..." Heaven help you if it guesses wrong and sends you down the wrong twisty passage.<p>I'm far from a Google fanboy. I use their stuff for work, and it's <i>alright</i>, but it does not spark joy in my day. Still, I bet if the Microsoft Account login worked anywhere near as clearly, reliably, and rationally as Google sign-on, then Windows wouldn't get 1/10th the pushback we're seeing. If I couldn't authenticate to my own desktop any more reliably than I could auth to Outlook, I'd want nothing to do with it, either.
I have Windows and Mac PCs/laptops. I've used Windows since Windows 3.0, for 30+ years now. In the early 90s I invested in Windows NT 3.5 as a college student and learned how to use that over Windows 3.1 or OS/2. I attended the Windows 95 celebration in person. I almost went into becoming a Microsoft MCSE because it would have doubled my pay but went the programming route instead because I loved it more.<p>I'm still on Windows 10. Fuck you Microsoft for making Windows 11 worse than Windows 10. The simple fact I can't stop them from updating my Windows 10 machine and it reboots my machine makes me so angry that's one of the main reasons why I will never upgrade. Microsoft Recall is a non-starter for me, even though they made it "better".<p>If they force me to upgrade, I'll move entirely to Mac and install Linux on my current Windows desktop.
microslop
You’ve always been able to install and use without an account (oobe\bypassnro). As long as power users and businesses can avoid it, they have no real incentive to change.
Note on Current Status (2025/2026): Microsoft is actively removing this command in newer Windows 11 updates, especially in 24H2/25H2 and Insider builds. If oobe\bypassnro fails, the command is not recognized, or simply reboots without enabling the option, you must use alternative methods.
>Windows 11 will still force you to setup an internet connection and sign-in with a Microsoft account during the out of box experience<p>One has to wonder if this change will occur, that is due to these state laws requiring various levels of age verification. I can see MS stating you need to have this account because of the Age Verification Law in your State.<p>In a way, California's law is a huge gift to big tech, and now it is being replicated to other US states with additional requirements.
Age verification just requires that one be able to provide an age when setting up an account. Like, for example, when you setup an account for your child on the device. This doesn't seem to require any sort of online account requirement as far as I understand it.
And they have not yelled when they were implementing it years ago?<p>That sounds more like they were ok with it at the time and now they are seeing how much it actually backfired.
Alternatively, they yelled back then and were dismissed but now have some political ammo to push their case. I mean, if it was actually backfiring enough, they would not have to "fight" for it now, Windows PMs themselves would be scrambling to do it.
I’m a Windows fan, and I could see this being a pain for OEMs and installers / IT guys – but I don’t see why people are making a huge deal . Windows quality is a much bigger issue: latency, reliability issues, inconsistencies in the UI, etc.<p>Windows account login provides decent value: Bitlocker recovery, device management, Onedrive sync (even the free version), simpler RDP & remote RPC authentication.<p>You won’t even defeat telemetry with a local account. Windows TOS grants telemetry consent.<p>Why do you guys care so much about this? It feels like a bikeshed – something easy to complain about with little nuance. What will be won if MS concedes?
Great - so even Microsoft is not convinced to force everyone into having a Microslop Account. We need to change Microsoft - its current culture is too evil.
Windows LTSC gang.
[dead]
[dead]
[dead]