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SamsonSeinfelder ,

For me it is so weird, that you have to use extra tools to disable telemetry and unwanted features in windows systems. Why is windows not giving me a central option to decide on those things? Is it maybe because they do not want me to decide for myself and therefore splitting the places where I need to disable all that unwanted stuff as opaque as possible? Can they be more obvious that they do not value your opinion on how you want your OS to behave?

Quit Windows. It is a dead end and get worst with every release.

If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.

muntedcrocodile ,
@muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world avatar

I switched to linux yeats ago but i now need to build myself a windows 11 base image thats as lightweight as possible for my vms and im dreading that immeansly. I just want onw toll that can kill literally everything thats unessasary. I mean unless proton and wine has gotten good enough to run autocad programs.

BearOfaTime , (edited )

Use Windows LTSC, it doesn't have this stuff. Then permanently license it with the MAS tool on github (let me go find a link)

https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts

Courtesy of subtext

7u5k3n ,

This is absolutely the way.
My wife needed windows for school recently... Ltsc was the only way to go.

I use windows 11 for work and it's absolutely horrible.. took them a year to let us ungroup windows on the task bar.
Win11 literally didn't ship with that ability.

anamethatisnt ,

In Win7 and Win10 I always had my own Toolbar added with a bunch of .rdp, .bat and .ps1 for quick and easy access.
In Win11 that feature is missing. :(

Proxima_Centauri11 ,

Tiny11 is good too!

ililiililiililiilili ,

Link?

Proxima_Centauri11 ,

Tiny11 Archive Link

In the "ISO Image" dropdown under "Download Options", I recommend the latest build, but that's up to you!

ililiililiililiilili ,

Thanks! I'll have to check it out. I've been waiting for an LTSC version before I tried 11. This might do for now.

Proxima_Centauri11 ,

Yeah you're welcome! Good good. I only have experience with Tiny10, not Tiny11, but if Tiny10 is anything to go off of, it's a pretty seamless experience.

BearOfaTime ,

Yep.

Isn't Tiny11 just LTSC with stuff removed? My Tiny10 VM reports as LTSC.

Proxima_Centauri11 ,

Mhm.

subtext ,

https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts

BearOfaTime ,

Thanks for updating the link, I forgot!

cyborganism ,

It's a shame. I really love Windows 10. It's fast and the UI's ergonomy is near perfect.

On my work laptop we recently had to switch to Windows 11 and it's a fucking pain to use. You have to jump through so many hoops and do extra clicks to do what you want. And the start menu has become completely useless. And I hate the gaps and rounded corners everywhere. And that's just on the surface. Performance is piss poor and you have all that crap spying on you to collect your usage data.

The day Windows 10 becomes unsupported is the day I go 100% Linux.

ballskicker , (edited )

This has been exactly my stance as well apart from ever having used Win11. Never did and never plan to, downloaded Mint a few months ago to start getting familiar with it. Turns out I'm not real great at technical stuff but I'm getting there. Dual monitors was kind of a booger and now I'm trying to figure out how to install some games since Bottles is being a real wiener about Battle.Net.
I'm glad there's so many resources and forums out there but I still hope some version of Linux gets dumbed down a little more before Win10 sunsets to make the transition easier for us blue collar folk

BombOmOm ,
@BombOmOm@lemmy.world avatar

For games, running stuff through Steam makes things much easier, as it configures Proton for you automatically. Also check out https://www.protondb.com/ for ratings and help with specific games.

ballskicker ,

Steam's been fantastic! Problem for me is that some of the battle.net games aren't on there. If there's a way to download those somewhere and run them through Steam that'd be incredible. I didn't even think to consider searching around for that possibility.
I've seen people run Diablo 4 on their Decks so it's clearly possible, I'm just still learning how to troubleshoot Linux and I'm trying to be extra careful since their OS doesn't have much in the way of guardrails to prevent dummies from nuking themselves

BombOmOm ,
@BombOmOm@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, I will say I have personally found Blizzard games tend to run poorly on Linux. It has mostly lead to me playing less Blizzard games. I have more games than I can possibly ever play, I don't need to bang my head against a wall for a specific one. Though, it has also helped their sequels have been less-good than their prior games. Starcraft 2 wasn't as good as Starcraft, Diablo 4 just never appealed like Diablo 3, I'm now playing more Guild Wars 2 and ignoring WoW, etc etc.

kurcatovium ,
@kurcatovium@lemm.ee avatar

I had problem with bottles and battle.net too. It went flawless year ago, then I went to play other games and when I finally wanted to play Diablo 2 again, battle.net kept crashing all the time. I solved it by running that bottle in wine-ge. Easier way to get it (and manage such prefixes) is ProtonUp-qt that is also on flathub.

deweydecibel , (edited )

Forced to use it at work, too, and only by the grace of being in the IT department do I have the ability to make it less shitty.

There's registry entries to restore the full context menu, and PowerToys Run has effectively become my defacto start menu, though obviously you need to use the keyboard so it's not a perfect UI replacement. Meanwhile for searching, I've got Everything running and set global keyboard shortcuts/touchpad gestures to it. Maybe I'll grab an old gaming mouse and shortcut them to the extra buttons.

They finally implemented never combine on the taskbar, and it's...tolerable, but buggy and still resizes things for no reason

Unfortunately I've yet to find a way to get some damn 90° angles back. I can not wait for a few years down the line when we finally swing away from this Apple-chasing "bubbles with an inch between them on a white/black field" design aesthetic. I'm tired of everything looking like a toy, especially at the cost of its actual utility.

And not just a toy, the same toy. It's seriously Corporate Memphis levels of lifeless, forced design with no character, creativity, or ingenuity.

acockworkorange ,

Forced to use it at work, too, and only by the grace of being in the IT department do I have the ability to make it less shitty.

I'm a user 🤮 and the IT on my Japanese employer is run by Mordac the Information Preventer. FML.

kill_dash_nine ,

TIL about PowerToys Run. That’s a game changer for me. Thanks!

BumbleBeeButt ,

I've been using Manjaro on an old modded chromebook. Windows is not gonna be on my next machine build.

Vlyn ,
@Vlyn@lemmy.zip avatar

Windows 10 already had telemetry (what you call spying) and what it didn't have in the past got patched in. So when it comes to that both Windows 10 and 11 are the same.

Performance is totally fine for me on Windows 11, but the new right click context menu sucks.

Overall there's really not much difference between the two otherwise.

TheGrandNagus ,

MS even backported spying to Win7

dditty ,
@dditty@lemm.ee avatar

I think you can use a third-party tool to remove rounded corners

IchNichtenLichten ,
@IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world avatar

want your OS

That's the problem, it's not your OS.

Potatos_are_not_friends ,

Been this way since windows XP. There's always been good folk who go out and provide tools to remove bloat.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.

Trust me, I'm not installing Windows as the Operating System for my Children's brains.

tigerjerusalem ,

Quit for what? Linux is a mess with hardware like fingerprint readers being unsupported, and without the most used commercial software. Mac OS is a buggy mess lately, and it ties your data to a time bomb hardware and that damn walled garden.

Windows is the best general use OS out there, and Microsoft knows it. We need regulation to stop that abuse.

TheGrandNagus , (edited )

It's good that these tools exist, but it's so frustrating that it's a constant cat and mouse game of Microsoft trying to make their products as cumbersome and shit as possible and the community trying to salvage Windows to the best of their ability.

At what point do OEMs just say actually nah, I'm tired of you making our laptops frustrating to use?

At what point do they say fuck it I'm going the Valve route and moving away from a company that wants to undermine my products and my brand?

joewilliams007 ,
@joewilliams007@kbin.melroy.org avatar

uhh they will include copilot key in keyboard in new laptops...

sigmaklimgrindset ,
@sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz avatar

Very useful, just like my dedicated Cortana key. 🤡

iAmTheTot ,

The people who use tools like this are in the minority. The majority (probably the vast majority) of people use Windows as it is out of the box.

TheGrandNagus , (edited )

Yes, I know.

But it's not like these people actually love ads all over the place, or bing results in start menus, or popups asking them to pwetty pwease use OneDrive, or can you pwetty pwetty pwease use Edge instead of Chrome, they just either:

  • don't know they can get rid of that stuff

  • don't trust tools and are afraid they'll break something or the tools will contain a virus

  • don't care enough to research this crap

  • view using their PC as a chore anyway, and so power through the annoyances

I don't own a Mac, and don't intend to, but of the biggest things people like about them is that there are far fewer of these types of annoyances.

It's not just extreme power users that can be irked by all this crap - they're just the ones who do things about it and chat on forums about it. A normal person just sighs and thinks ugh I'd rather just do this on my phone

asbestos ,
@asbestos@lemmy.world avatar

View using their PC as a chore anyway, and so power through the annoyances

Damn, good one.

TheBat ,
@TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

The number for people I have seen with search box still enabled in taskbar tells me that's true.

PlutoniumAcid ,
@PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world avatar

Everyone. Everywhere.

It blows my mind, but then I realise that we here on Lemmy are the 1% of IT users.

lud ,

Yeah right‽ Why do people keep the full search box enabled? It takes up so much space. I usually switch to the search button.

I even see quite a lot of people in IT (not talking about tech or devs) that keep it enabled.

MonkeMischief ,

I think it's one of those things that just becomes mentally invisible after a while. Like Microsoft slowly just drops in a new bar here, a stock ticker there, and there's a point where a majority of folks are like "...Was that always there?" and don't bother hunting for a way to turn it off like we do lol.

TravisKelce ,
@TravisKelce@lemmy.world avatar

At what point do OEMs just say actually nah, I’m tired of you making our laptops frustrating to use?

LTT put out an (surprisingly insightful) video about ChromeOS and how it's kind of secretly spreading Linux. I don't think its crazy to say that in 5-10 years ChromeOS or similar will be the default and Windows will be a premium add on or something.

umbrella ,
@umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

"premium"

TravisKelce ,
@TravisKelce@lemmy.world avatar

lol honestly maybe competition will force them to reverse the ehittification of their product

phillaholic ,
@phillaholic@lemm.ee avatar

I doubt it. Google will squander it away one way or another. It could work on a technical level, I’ve been using flex since before Google bought it for family members, it’s just poorly advertised and explained.

Iamdanno ,

It's google, they'll just stop working on it.

littlebluespark ,
@littlebluespark@lemmy.world avatar

To be fair, Window$ has been bloat since the very day M$ stole it from its Unix roots, and Linux is everything that the OS could've been were it not run by money-grubbin' cringelords.

TrickDacy ,

Unix roots? Lol wtf

littlebluespark ,
@littlebluespark@lemmy.world avatar

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    TrickDacy ,

    Sounds like an ageist to me. As far as I knew, Microsoft's first product was msdos but I guess I'm just too unintelligent and "young" (lol) to know better

    TrickDacy ,

    At what point do OEMs just say actually nah, I'm tired of you making our laptops frustrating to use?

    You're under the impression that most people care about the horrible parts of windows?

    TheGrandNagus , (edited )

    I think they do.

    Enough to do much about it, other than maybe buy a MacBook if they have money to burn? Nah.

    But enough to use their PC less and try to do as much as possible on their phone/iPad? Honestly, yeah, I think so.

    I hear normies complaining about stuff in Windows all the time. It's just when you go "well you could..." they turn off and don't want to do anything about it, because to them you may as well be giving them advice on how they can hack their washing machine to wash clothes faster. It's just an appliance.

    TrickDacy ,

    Is your point that you think laptop and desktop makers could increase sales by ditching windows? That feels like suicide to me and I am a Linux lover. At what point do they do that is what you asked. When they're desperate enough to take a risk, if ever, would be my guess

    TheBat ,
    @TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

    it's a constant cat and mouse game

    It's not just Microsoft. Never heard of always on DRM? Or government making it difficult for people to receive assistance (disability or homeless)?

    joewilliams007 ,
    @joewilliams007@kbin.melroy.org avatar

    go to linux alreadiii

    BearOfaTime ,

    Sigh.

    Sure.

    Now how do you: CAD, exchange, Publisher, Access, Excel (no, open versions of excel still don't come close, they can't even do tables), Onenote/SharePoint, etc, etc.

    And Linux is as messed up in its own way. Power management is off by default, so it kills your laptop battery (at least on every version I've tested). Notifications that you can't silence without looking up a command line.

    No, the learning curve is still too steep to recommend to people who I will have to support.

    And while the Open/Libre office apps are "compatible", people don't have time to waste dealing with the ways they whack a document. Libre couldn't even properly display the spreadsheet I use to setup a new machine, with 3 sheets and a few hundred lines, because tables.

    "Switch to Linux" is a simplistic answer that doesn't address the needs of users. And I use Linux every day, as a serverOS, running VM's and docker.

    onion ,

    What learning curve? Whether my mom clicks on the Firefox icon in Ubuntu or Windows makes zero difference

    TimeSquirrel ,
    @TimeSquirrel@kbin.social avatar

    Dude literally just explained the issues facing actual workers that use computers for productive activities, not your mother looking up tendie recipes.

    TheVillageGuy ,

    What's for dinner tonight, I wonder

    far_university1990 ,

    Joe Mama

    Whayle ,

    They "can't even do tables"!!!

    SeedyOne ,

    They hated him for he spoke the truth...

    laverabe ,

    Just as a minor correction - Librecalc can do tables. Why they didn't call it tables and bind it to CTRL&T is beyond me though. link

    select the cells -> Data -> AutoFilter

    I create them with CTRL&T through the custom shortcuts in options. They work about the same as Excel.

    Librecalc is a little rough, but I'm actually starting to find it superior in functionality and customization compared to MS. And it's about 10x faster on very large spreadsheets for me.

    I would also definitely recommend using use dark mode if you're going to use calc. Options -> Application Colors -> LibreOffice Dark

    banneryear1868 ,

    “Switch to Linux” is a simplistic answer that doesn’t address the needs of users. And I use Linux every day, as a serverOS, running VM’s and docker.

    "Let me debate you about why you shouldn't use Windows" as if I want to use Windows, people who have no experience with the software in my industry dropping alternatives. Even had someone debate me after saying I'm a sysadmin in a mixed environment, and how I alone should just move the whole company and all our software vendors to Linux.

    joewilliams007 ,
    @joewilliams007@kbin.melroy.org avatar

    uh hu, you locked yourself in. Imo if you dont need Excel, OneNote or any of that shit, its perfectly cool. For devs its even nicer not to have to deal with all the windows shit ways of doing things. As for documents, LaTeX is great.

    Also, in the end, the command line is even easier than having to learn shitty user interfaces. And you get much faster with command line too. Windows likes to have 3 different design languages from different decades for no reason.

    Using it as OS and as Server, it has been perfect for years.

    People who don't use it either have a life and simply dont want things to change, or are too foolish to realise they are getting trolled with every update.

    For people starting, just dual boot a Linux Distro. For the shit that requires windows boot into it. The rest can all be done in linux. Even boots faster.

    And for average people probably the google documents / slides [...] will be more than enough.

    Rip to people that need windows shit to be in their life for work. Though they could also use a windows vm.

    raldone01 ,

    I could not find any selfhostable solution that comes close to the features of one note. Handwriting, offline work and syncing are a must for me.

    Also one note web sucks.

    JayDee ,

    Using syncthing and obsidian with the excalidraw addon does this. Don't know if that'll meet your standards, but it'll do handwriting, offline work, and syncing.

    While obsidian is not open source, it is extensible with a large community, so it can do a very wide variety of workflows. It's what I used before moving to Logseq.

    randomaside ,

    What's slowing down Linux adoption?

    Is it the monopoly Microsoft has on all PC hardware and strong relationships it has with desktop software partners that make leaving windows near impossible?

    No, it must be the users.

    /s insert principal Skinner meme

    alphacyberranger ,
    @alphacyberranger@lemmy.world avatar

    Gaming

    TheGrandNagus , (edited )

    Gaming on Linux is ridiculously easy. And for some, easier than on Windows.

    It's only really in VR where I notice Windows being better. On average, my games run better on Linux than on Windows, which is crazy considering they were made for Windows.

    There are some games that use kernel-level anti-cheat (essentially a rootkit for your PC), these don't work in Linux, and Linux devs have made clear they won't accept inclusions of rootkits in the kernel.

    alphacyberranger ,
    @alphacyberranger@lemmy.world avatar

    Sorry but will games like GTA V, Forza Horizon 5, Doom eternal, Horizon Zero Dawn,Cocoon and all run on linux ?

    jrgd ,
    @jrgd@lemm.ee avatar

    I am not sure if jest, but you could always take a few seconds at protondb to see that yes, all of those games do in fact run on Linux. Forza in particular seems to have issues for some users, but everything else works with minimal hassle.

    kronarbob ,

    Yes. Check yourself :). https://www.protondb.com/

    Not all will run out of the box. Some require tweaks, some won't run as good as on windows.
    But many games will run day one nowadays .

    TheGrandNagus , (edited )

    I've not heard of Cocoon, but the rest of them I own and yes.

    Open steam, press play, game is running.

    E: apparently Cocoon is steam deck verified, so works flawlessly.

    ItsMeSpez ,

    From: protondb.com

    GTA V - Gold; seems to be playable for most people, with a few performance hiccups depending on your system.

    Forza Horizon 5 - Silver; requires significant tinkering, but playable.

    Doom Eternal - Gold; works well for most, but has some reported performance issues on some systems.

    Horizon Zero Dawn - Gold

    Cocoon - Platinum

    Single player experiences like these aren't typically where you find problems with linux gaming, however. Games with accompanying anti-cheat software, like competitive shooters, fighters, etc. are typically problematic. Competitive titles are the only reason I have a windows partition at this point.

    Gaming on linux is more viable than ever, and becoming more and more stable all the time - mostly thanks to Valve. That being said, your experience will be dependent largely on your hardware. There are known issues with Nvidia cards on linux, because Nvidia refuses to cooperate with the FOSS community, but even those issues seem to be easing up (although to be fair I don't follow this topic closely, as I have an AMD system). Anyone telling you there are no issues is lying to you, but so is anyone who tries to tell you that linux gaming is still borked. Do your research if you're interested in switching, and determine if the games you play are well supported or not. In the end if there is one game holding you back from switching and you want to switch, it's always an option to keep a windows partition around as a backup for games that don't play nice with linux.

    Zeke ,

    I game on Linux all the time. I've been playing apex legends, phasmophobia (VR), palworld, the finals, and so much more. It all works on Linux. There's not a lot of games that I can't play. Most of the time my sister, who's on Windows, has more trouble getting her games running.

    TrickDacy ,

    I forgot what 2008 was like. Thanks for the reminder

    hagelslager ,

    Nothing near the level of Adobe software for example.

    phillaholic ,
    @phillaholic@lemm.ee avatar

    Commercial support for it.

    On a personal level, I installed Ubuntu for the first time in over a decade and found the experience worse. Previously I could download everything I needed either through the package manager or deb file easily. Ow I ran into a new flat pack type installer that has failing dependencies that weren’t found through command line either. The new mouse driver in gnome was hot garbage too with the touchpad sensitivity so high I couldn’t scroll more than a page and a half at even the lightest touch. No settings to change it either. Windows is far easier at this point.

    Coreidan ,

    These types of comments are annoying and super unhelpful.

    Nice job /s

    sirico , (edited )
    @sirico@feddit.uk avatar

    Problem I've had with all these "fixes" the issues come back or the OS craps the bed

    dditty ,
    @dditty@lemm.ee avatar

    Same. I used a GitHub project called Windows10Debloater and about 5 months later Windows Update totally broke. I tried everything under the sun to fix it but nothing worked; it was either reinstall or upgrade to 11. I chose the latter and things are fine now.

    And yes I use Linux on all my machines; I dual-boot Windows for convenience on a couple though since a few tools i use are Windows-only but I don't use them enough to warrant getting them working in WINE

    boolean ,
    @boolean@kbin.social avatar

    install random third party software that may be sniffing or leaking information to remove shady features from windows that sniff and leak information.

    windows sucks.

    killeronthecorner ,
    @killeronthecorner@lemmy.world avatar

    The app is open source so you can review the not-leaking-your-information that it does yourself.

    Windows on the other hand ...

    Kecessa ,

    I wonder how many apps this actually happens for, my guess is "way less than people think"

    killeronthecorner ,
    @killeronthecorner@lemmy.world avatar

    That they leak information? I work in commercial software development and I have to do a lot of open source security reviews. The answer is: virtually none.

    Private, closed-source software on the other hand... If it could sniff your farts and send the smell to advertisers, it would; in almost all cases.

    Kecessa ,

    No, that people actually take the time to check the source code before installing them

    I've seen enough crypto scams to know that even when the code is public, people don't bother... Heck, there are scanning tools for crypto that tell you how risky the shitcoins are and people still get scammed out of thousands of dollars!

    cley_faye ,

    Not everyone have to check something. But there are people that do routinely check popular stuff, either on their own or for their job. Sometimes this raises issues, which are usually handled appropriately.
    Of course if you download a little unknown piece of software made by a single person and never advertised anywhere, you'll have to do the job yourself. But anything semi-popular attracts enough attention to get some level of audit, at least because business uses a lot of open source. There are even businesses whose main product is auditing and developing open source, kind of like bounty hunters.

    And of course there are counter-examples, too. TrueCrypt got pulled out quite dramatically, and I'm not sure we know why even now. But the more sensitive the stuff, the higher the chance of it getting some level of investigation.

    killeronthecorner ,
    @killeronthecorner@lemmy.world avatar

    As a software user, you can either care about your privacy or not. Caring about your privacy and not either vetting what you're planning to use or checking that someone else has before using it, is akin to sticking your hand in a fire to find out if it's hot.

    Taking that analogy further, malicious open source software is kind of like a burning building. It only takes one person to raise the flag for it to spread pretty quickly through social media or other means that it is malicious. The whole community doesn't need to acknowledge the fire for something to be done about it.

    D_Air1 ,
    @D_Air1@lemmy.ml avatar

    Yeah, but it is virtually impossible to read all code running on your machine. At the very least it is an option. While I personally wouldn't search the code of random open source calculator app. I'll be damned if I ain't inspecting something like this.

    purplemonkeymad ,

    My reason for not using them is that they tend to be overly aggressive in what they remove. I only need a few reg tweaks and denying permissions on a few files. These often go whole hog and remove whole components, almost all apps etc. I actually use one drive, I don't want its files also removed.

    RDAM_Whiskers ,

    I removed it by installing Linux

    tenextrathrills ,

    I removed your useless post by blocking you

    n3m37h ,

    Thanks now we all know what idiot to block 🤣

    tenextrathrills ,

    Fair, same

    Railcar8095 ,

    There’s a nix based distro called SnowFlake that I am not sure why but think might be interesting for you.

    Might be your whining. Will never know, I guess

    tenextrathrills , (edited )

    You’re hilarious! Your projection is truly first class. I’m amazed that you think it’s totally fine for some nix bro to post the exact same comment on every post about windows but anyone who dissents is a snowflake. Get the fuck over yourself.

    You’re truly an embarrassment to us linux enjoyers.

    TexMexBazooka ,

    This made me chuckle

    DoucheBagMcSwag ,

    Annnnnnnnnnnd there it is!

    Goldmage263 ,
    @Goldmage263@sh.itjust.works avatar

    Honestly, I would switch to Linux if it didn't take so much time to learn. I've messed around on a Raspberry π 4th gen board, but have no real experience. To really make the Linux jump, I'd need a tutor or something.

    Also I don't know which of my games will be compatible.

    Tlaloc_Temporal ,

    Mint and Debian are great, and once you set everything as you like it, they're pretty solid. Pop_OS is easy if you have an Nvidia GPU too.

    As for comparability, proton has all but settled the issue. The SteamDeck runs on Linux after all. Take a look on Proton Database to check if a game works well or not. FWIW, every game I've tried save one has been flawless, and that one did things with files and wallpapers.

    If you have a second computer you don't need working, I'd recommend just trying something on it, switch distributions now and then. See how far you can get with just Linux.

    LunchEnjoyer ,

    Most games are compatible, you can also check https://protondb.com/ for each game, how people play it and how they run it. It's a very neat website!

    About the jump: Do it now, and you'll thank yourself later. I did it with no prior experience myself and didn't find it difficult at all tbh, as previous comment suggested, try Mint first of you're afraid. And if you want an easy to use one that also focus on a bit of gaming then try PopOS! Don't let the amount of choices discourage or confuse you, just pick one and go with it. Feel free to message me if you ever need any help 🌻

    JayDee ,

    This might be a deeper dive than you mean but should cover everything you'd need to know and more

    JohnAnthony ,

    I finally switched to Linux as my daily driver (gaming, browsing, watching stuff) a week ago. Admittedly I have been using it at work for a few years.

    • I chose Pop!_OS as a distribution, because it supposedly streamlines nvidia driver hassles and I wanted to give it a try
    • Installed the OS, Discord, Steam, no problems
    • Installed and played Raft, Vampire Survivors, TW Warhammer 3, Outer Wilds, no problems and no additional config needed

    Just to add a voice to the positive feedback! If you have a spare computer or hard drive, I absolutely encourage you to try it out!

    JayDee ,

    Like clockwork! Almost as reliable as the OS /s

    Linux has no mainstream advertising so word-of-mouth is the only way it gets adopted.

    FoxBJK ,
    @FoxBJK@midwest.social avatar

    It's also about the customer having better options beyond "modify the ever-living shit out of Windows until it behaves". Microsoft only does these things because they know how many hundreds of millions of customers are locked into their ecosystem. No matter what they do, no matter how poorly they treat their customers, they'll keep coming back to buy more! So why should they care? Why should they slow down or offer some privacy-friendly version for anything below $1000 per person? Hell, I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't been steadily raising the price of Windows over the years. Not like the customers are going to actually switch, right?

    n3m37h ,

    They keep inching me towards Linux with all this bullshit

    ___ ,

    Just make the jump. I keep a cheap n100 box as a backup.

    blackstampede ,

    I used to have a power shell script that a coworker gave me that would uninstall a huge number of services and apps on windows, change a bunch of config settings etc.

    I've always wished there were a way to roll out a stripped windows release as an open source project without getting sued.

    lickmygiggle ,

    https://ameliorated.io/

    banneryear1868 ,

    That's pretty cool I just used Enterprise Edition and ran Powershell to uninstall shit. Also Chris Titus Tech's tool is quite nice as well.

    Haha ,

    This is awesome!!

    WhiteOakBayou ,

    Thanks! This is a great project

    thorbot ,

    There is. It’s called slipstreaming and IT people have been doing it for decades

    banneryear1868 ,

    Configuration Management is the term I'm familiar with, third party tools or SCCM, or just group policy.

    TexMexBazooka ,

    You can do some fun stuff with group policy

    TexMexBazooka ,

    There’s a pretty funny disconnect on Lemmy of hardcore Linux users that have very very obviously never supported enterprise environments and have no understanding of how important windows is

    thorbot ,

    Yep, it’s an echo chamber here

    gearheart ,

    Was it the christitus thing? Wonder if this ai debloat would complete that.

    michael_palmer ,

    I use AtlasOS to debloat and optimize (disabling animations, annoying requests and so on) Windows 10/11

    CrowAirbrush ,

    I'll thank you ahead of time, i'll checl this out (hopefully) this weekend. It's bookmarked.

    dan1101 ,
    @dan1101@lemm.ee avatar

    I'm tired of playing the debloat game, especially with the frequency of Windows updates that undo and add things.

    banneryear1868 ,

    Should restrict updates to security only

    CriticalMiss ,

    Although im part of the Linux crowd, if you’re tired of reapplying debloat scripts every update, you could get the W10 IoT LTSC edition that only has security patches with no updates. You will have to pirate it though.

    NaoPb ,

    This might be interesting. I'm looking to have a few installs to test some of my programs in an actual Windows environment without having to daily drive Windows and without having to deal with all the unnecessary changes MS wants to make.

    BearOfaTime , (edited )

    Tiny 10/11

    https://archive.org/details/tiny-11-NTDEV

    Activation script

    https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts

    Edit: My Tiny10 reports as LTSC for some reason, but I'm pretty sure Tiny isn't based on LTSC now that I've done some more reading.

    Cihta ,
    @Cihta@lemmy.world avatar

    Neat. I tried this last night on my once top of the line machine (in 2012) because why not..

    It didn't upgrade my win10 install but at least it didn't delete all my data. Maybe I goofed on that as I was tired.

    I used the 23H2 iso but it installed 22H2.

    I didn't use the script, it picked up my existing valid key.

    It fails to update. Perhaps that's the point or bloat would come back?

    But if it can't update then what's the point?

    Again, might be my fault but I'm not really trusting this image yet. Not enough to reinstall and relicense my tools.

    I use Linux where I can but I'm bound to some windows-only proprietary software. I do use a stripped down win10 VM for a lot of it but at least it updates.

    Will update this comment if i find that I'm at fault.

    BearOfaTime , (edited )

    LTSC only gets security updates. No feature updates.

    It's intended for stability, so you don't wake up and suddenly nothing works right because of an update. That won't happen on LTSC.

    I wouldn't use it to update an existing install, that's not what it's intended for (and probably pointless as it may retain stuff that came with the existing os).

    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/ltsc-what-is-it-and-when-should-it-be-used/ba-p/293181

    Cihta ,
    @Cihta@lemmy.world avatar

    Thank you. It does seem cool but I can't really keep up. I appreciate the explanation. I really thought it was a fully workable de-bloated win11. Which it is, but I need long term installs. I learned a few things though! So not a waste.

    If i could ever figure out how to run a windows app via VM. Seamless mode comes close but not quite enough.

    Anyway thanks and I didn't mean to be negative, just didn't totally get it.

    Blue_Morpho ,

    A non pirate solution is Windows Server Essentials 2022. It's like $300, has zero bloat and updates don't ever hijack your settings. Oh and you'll get over 10 years of security patches.

    long_chicken_boat ,

    does Windows Server Essentials comes with a desktop GUI? Can you install Steam and things like that like you'd normally do in Windows?

    I'm happy with Linux, but my brother who is a gamer has Windows but he's annoyed af by updates and the AI nonsense. This seems like a perfect solution.

    redcalcium ,

    It should be able to run all windows apps, though you can use microsoft store to install apps.

    Blue_Morpho , (edited )

    Yes it is regular Windows but stripped of all the consumer apps like TikTok and CandyCrush. It has one extra app: Server Manager (A GUI like Control Panel with buttons to disk manager, device manager etc) which loads at startup and is easily disabled. Under the hood the registry has changes that tell Windows to give background tasks equal resources to the foreground app. This is needed for server use for smoother multitasking like Linux, but at the expense of a few FPS in games. You can edit the registry in regular Windows to act like Server and vice versa. They use the same kernel.

    Cannonhead2 ,

    This is intriguing. Does it still try to force you to use a Microsoft account? Would make no sense for a server version, but you never know with microsoft's bullshit sometimes.

    Blue_Morpho ,

    Not even an option for MS account during setup.

    banneryear1868 ,

    I do both and happy with debloated Windows 11 Enterprise with automatic updates restricted to security only. Pirating now is running a powershell command that fetches activation scripts from github.

    prosp3kt ,

    To this point just use Linux already. You will be doing a lot of telemetry cleaning and even might be breaking things.

    UsernameIsTooLon ,

    My anti-cheat don't work on Linux

    prosp3kt ,

    But that's worse, because that implies ring 0 anticheat. That is synonym of rootkit.

    vox ,
    @vox@sopuli.xyz avatar

    or use the enterprise edition which is the only windows edition with an option to disable telemetry using group policy editor. in the other versions, you have to resort to terrible hacks.

    prosp3kt ,

    It is bad the AMD support in windows. In Linux is better in my case. For sysadmin sorry but powershell is overengineered garbage. You need a very long command when in shell you got in three pipes. Even what are your proposing its hard to do, and sincerely i think it is better to just use a sane linux distro.

    vox ,
    @vox@sopuli.xyz avatar

    idk it's over-engineered but it's actually pretty cool in it's own way. it's like a crappier version of nushell i guess. still I'd rather use nu.

    littlebluespark ,
    @littlebluespark@lemmy.world avatar

    Thanks, but these kids are born every second or more. 🤷🏼‍♂️

    werefreeatlast ,

    I literally have a windows 10 installed that I haven't logged in since before AI came up. WTF! I can only imagine the massive update when I try to login next time.

    jabathekek ,
    @jabathekek@sopuli.xyz avatar

    You should just login in to a linux distro instead. (╭☞´ิ∀´ิ)╭☞

    Kbobabob ,

    Every fucking thread that is even remotely about "Windows"

    frunch ,

    You know you're on Lemmy, right? This is how it works here ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Agrivar ,

    Hopefully, that includes the downvote parade you're getting for being insufferable.

    frunch ,

    It was an observation, but hey everyone go ahead and downvote me anyway. Happy Valentine's Day, y'all -- i love ya anyway 🥂❤️

    RandomVideos ,

    Another way of removing windows ai bloat is by using balenaetcher and an usb stick

    NaoPb ,

    Are you saying they should install Linux?

    I know Rufus has options to modify the Windows image before writing it to your USB stick but AFAIK Balena can't write Windows images.

    Sp00kyB00k ,

    You mean dd like a madlad

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