• LUHG
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    52 years ago

    So is business moving to M365 windows lics no doubt. It’s been on the cards for a while.

  • SuiXi3D
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    82 years ago

    This is what happens when one part of their business (Game Pass) does well and they want to translate that success to other operations. What they don’t realize is that Windows is less a product and more a service, and you can’t make money on services. Not for long, anyway.

    • Caststarman
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      62 years ago

      The whole point of this is Microsoft potentially treating windows as a service

      • SuiXi3D
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        22 years ago

        Right, but I meant a service in the traditional sense, like trains or food stamps or whatever. Windows is so ubiquitous with operating a PC at this point, and they’ve literally given it away for free for so long at this point that if they start charging a subscription for it nobody’s gonna go along with it. Microsoft’ll be in the same position they are now, but they’ll lose a lot of money implementing this BS.

        • Hot Saucerman
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          2 years ago

          Who isnt going to go along with it?

          Gotta be like 90% of people have never installed an OS because Windows was already on their PC when they bought it.

          To them, its part of buying a PC. They don’t consider the OS a separate purchase.

          If they make this move they’re banking on people not noticing until after they’ve bought a shiny new PC. After that most people will suffer the cost because they already own the PC and its just “easier.”

  • wander1236
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    422 years ago

    Y’all really need to actually click the article and read the first sentence. This has nothing to do with Windows 12, and even Neowin has clarified that right at the top in an update.

    Microsoft is a bad company, but it’s a little worrying when someone can just say some random things in a title and have it be believed without question, just because it paints Microsoft in a negative light.

    • southsamurai
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      42 years ago

      It is very worrying that they’ve detained destroyed their reputation so much that any negative news about them is automatically believable.

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        Let me introduce you to humans; tell them anything and at least one person will believe it. Get enough of them together and you too can have such crazy beliefs as: sky daddy is real and you make him angry, the earth is flat, the earth is a doughnut, the earth is hollow, you have 5g chips inside your body that allow you to be mind controlled, lizard people.

        Need I go on?…

    • @[email protected]
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      82 years ago

      It’s more that MS has leaned into the subscription model with Office 365 and such.

      Windows is already kind of a “Freemium” OS, so I’m expecting them to continue in that fashion. Your are right, the article is mostly pointless speculation that was refuted anyways, but I’ll admit it sounded a bit off to me anyways. MS wants people to be running Windows, so they can seem then GamePass subscriptions, Office365 subscriptions, and whatever other services they can think of. As such, I expect the core OS to be very free. Just what constitutes core functionality versus Premium features might change.

  • King
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    72 years ago

    I’d rather subscribe to windows than troubleshooting linux

    • @[email protected]
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      42 years ago

      You don’t need to troubleshoot Linux any more than Windows these days. Especially if you get your machine from a Linux-friendly supplier.

      • King
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        32 years ago

        Who and where are these Linux-friendly suppliers? This is already more complicated than windows bud

            • @[email protected]
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              32 years ago

              Then you’re installing the OS anyways, and with Linux you’re skipping the whole “buying a license from a shady reseller” part because there is no payments or license keys involved. And it is much easier to install a friendly distribution like Linux Mint, than to install Windows. The Windows installer looks almost as archaic as the Debian installer.

              • King
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                22 years ago

                why assume I use shady reseller? every big electronics chain sells windows licenses. window installer looking “archaic” ? u advocate for amd too bcs nvidia control panel looks archaic too? zero windows issues mentioned so far

                • @[email protected]
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                  2 years ago

                  Point is, shady resellers make you pay 20-30 bucks, official stores make you pay even more, with Linux you pay nothing.

                  Now onto the Windows issues:

                  Crazy system requirements. You can bypass them, but the real question is: why do you have to even bother bypassing them in the first place?

                  Crazy resource usage. You can debloat Windows with something like CTT’s winutil, but the resource usage still isn’t close to the heaviest Linux desktop (GNOME).

                  Telemetry aka data collection, also called spying in some circles. You can disable most of it with the aforementioned winutil, but even then you can’t be sure that it was all stripped out.

                  Ads. Again, most, but you can never be sure if all, have been removed with third party tools.

                  And can I just ask: why do you even have to bother with using extra third party tools to do all that? In Linux, it comes disabled out of the box, and most of it doesn’t even exist.

                  Worse install process. It takes much longer, you have to go through workarounds to ensure you can bypass the forced usage of a Microsoft account. The install and setup process, from booting the iso, to logging into your installed system takes longer on Windows (I’ve had it take about 30 minutes sometimes, while a typical Linux install would take about 10-15 minutes)

                  Choice. You don’t like the default Windows-like paradigm? How about a MacOS-like one, or a completely unique one? You want something that has very few customisation options (Cinnamon, GNOME), or something extremely customisable (KDE Plasma, Standalone Window Managers like Openbox, AwesomeWM, Qtile etc.)

                  Customisability. You don’t like the default window decorations? Or your bar? You want it to be a floating dock, you want it on one side, or at the top? You want to use a tiling window manager, with their extreme customisability? You can do all that on Linux. There are projects that attempt that on Windows, but they are just gimmicks at the end of the day, because gou can’t actually replace the proper Windows shell. Technically, you could do it in the past, but all of these projects are basically dead and none of them offer tiling so…

                  Freedom. Linux isn’t just free as in beer, it is also free as in Freedom. Thousands of volunteers work tirelessly on the various projects that come together to male up your distribution of choice. And most of them do it for free because they like the project and more often than not, because they use it themselves.

                  Security. Even out of the box, if you are to compare the list of vulnerabilities for Windows and Linux systems, you will find multiple remote code execution, and iirc, privilege escalation vulnerabilities on Windows. This means that if an attacker wanted to, they could execute malicious code as admin remotely, without ever touching the system.

                  Exclusive features. You might have heard that only in the last few years, Microsoft has started to include things like a decent terminal experience, the winget package manager, full disk encryption, tabs in the file manager, etc. all of which are features that have existed on Linux for years, if not decades. There are some that still keep on making their way on Windows, when they have existed for many years on Linux, such as floating taskbars (which is apparently coming to Windows 12), while some features (like Changing the position of the bar) are actually being removed on Windows!

                  I’m sure there’s more but that’s all I can think of, off the top of my head.

                  Edit: I forgot, No forced updates. Apparently MS is now forcing updates. Link: https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-to-force-push-23h222h2-update-as-windows-11-21h2-end-of-support-date-nears/

                  No such thing on Linux. There are updates. You want to apply them? Okay, go on. You don’t? Okay, that’s alright too.

                  And something else: you don’t have to reboot. You only have to reboot on Linux if you are doing a kernel upgrade. If you’re upgrading anything else, it’s perfectly fine.

              • King
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                22 years ago

                the argument was troubleshooting linux and apparently the friendly ones are in prebuilts

                • @[email protected]
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                  12 years ago

                  They were just specifying good prebuilds. The only hardware that would cause problems would be niche proprietary parts on laptops and prebuilds. All custom-builds will work fine the large majority of the time.

          • King
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            12 years ago

            ive heard fedora was bought by ibm or something now they go close source? ubuntu goes bad too with snaps? debian not for beginners i think and how old does it get? I want stability subscribing is way easier im not 15 anymore

            • @[email protected]
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              12 years ago

              Fedora is not closed source. Snaps don’t matter for your average user. Debian is fine for beginners. These distros are all very stable, and none of them are going to make you pay for them when they upgrade.

              • King
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                12 years ago

                ok its open source until red hat says so theyre sold now, ubuntu is at the mercy of canonical’s whims too, debian i know it doesnt change for a long time, idk how long until apps break etc. I have no reason to dump microsoft thats already working and my windows programs for a less evil big corp

                • @[email protected]
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                  22 years ago

                  There are plenty of completely community run distros. I’m not trying to make you switch to Linux, just pointing out that your reasoning wasn’t right. If you’re comfortable and don’t care about FOSS, privacy, ownership of your OS, etc., then Windows is fine.

    • katy ✨
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      22 years ago

      the most troubleshooting i’ve had to do for linux was google and get a stackexchange post and then copy and paste an apt command

    • yukichigai
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      122 years ago

      Yeah, this seems like the kind of thing they’d try to push on Business/Pro+ users, where management is willing to fork out absurd amounts of money monthly as long as the per-seat price can be vaguely justified. Doing this for home users would just be dumb. Plenty of people would see the monthly subscription and go “eh I don’t need a computer, I can just use my phone.”

  • @[email protected]
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    52 years ago

    Seems like an odd direction when a lot services are moving online and to SaaS based solutions, removing the dependency of a specific underlying OS.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 years ago

      This is just another move in that direction. Maybe the next version will be a thin client where you stream most of your apps. The pricing wouldn’t change, only where apps are run.

      • ares35
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        22 years ago

        pricing would change, you think they’d let you run ‘apps’ for free?

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          I’m guessing there would be one base charge for the OS, and additional charges for whatever apps you opt into.

  • JokeDeity
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    172 years ago

    Cool, even more reason to stick with 10 as long as I can. Enshitify everything, who even cares anymore?

    • @[email protected]
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      12 years ago

      Once Linux figures out a better way to install apps to other drive without causing the user to figure out complex systems it will start closing the gap.

      • cally [he/they]
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        2 years ago

        It’s called a graphical app store. Most distros meant for desktop usage that come with a desktop GUI have a software store. IIRC KDE’s Discover even has Flatpak support which leads to a higher variety of apps.

        Otherwise, you can install an AppImage, or just a .deb file if you’re running something Debian-based.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          I’ve not once seen a software store app (besides something like steam) ask me where to install stuff. Discover, Software Manager, etc. They all just install stuff, typically from the official repos but maybe from flatpak but none of them actually let you change where to install something.

          • cally [he/they]
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            2 years ago

            binaries (executables) go in /usr/bin, flatpaks are installed in their own sandboxes, appimages are wherever you put them.

            the shortcuts in application menus go in /usr/share/applications as .desktop files which link to the app, so the user generally won’t have to worry about where the executable is.

            why would the app store ask you where to install stuff??

            • @[email protected]
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              12 years ago

              Because a lot of people have multiple drives. I have 2tb of storage across 4 drives. I want to use all of my drives, not just one. This is a very common workflow. Linux has never truly supported it.

  • @[email protected]
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    502 years ago

    They’re too smart to do this …

    More likely they will make the base OS free and charge for the premium SaaS features … like they already do with one drive, O365 and game pass

    • Random Dent
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      382 years ago

      Yeah that seems like the more likely move, have a free tier that starts off decent and a premium tier with ‘power features’ or whatever, and then slowly drift almost everything over to the ‘premium’ tier until in a few years you won’t be able to change your desktop wallpaper without paying. That definitely sounds like the MS way to me.

      • ares35
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        2 years ago

        they’ve already done various low-cost or no-cost (to the oem) windows editions that you can’t change wallpaper, or default search engine, stripped out utility programs included in ‘regular’ editions, and even one that limited multitasking, disabled some network functions, and had hard limits on ram and total disk space.

          • ares35
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            12 years ago

            windows 8 ‘with bing’, and ‘starter’ editions of earlier versions, are the ones that came to mind.

      • @[email protected]
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        42 years ago

        YUP! And then something like a 1 year free demo when you buy a computer from an OEM … to make sure all the normies get used to it.

        Right of the M$ playbook.

        I for once can’t wait, it’s going to be a fun dumpster fire to watch

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          Seems a dumb way to destroy the desktop PC market.

          People will feel scammed that after one year everything needs a subscription, will dump that shit on eBay, prices will crash, and the market will be dominated by iPads with mouse and keyboards

  • Gianni R
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    212 years ago

    And you’ll still hear “Well I know everything about Windows sucks and now I’m being charged out the ass, but I refuse to even consider switching because [one particular game doesn’t work / I’m used to it]”

    • lemmyvore
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      52 years ago

      Remember that these are the same people that used to not think twice about $150 for Windows and Office added to their PC or laptop purchase price.

    • Polar
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      202 years ago

      I was asked why I can’t switch to Linux, so I replied listing the software I require Windows for, and then was called a fanboy and downvoted heavily…

      • @[email protected]
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        It appears that the other guy didn’t call you a fanboy. He implied that you might be a troll, before you’d listed that software and after you’d called him a fanboy.

        But yeah, it’ll probably be a while before there’s a Linux version of Adobe Illustrator, and the alternatives are different enough that it’d be a lot of work to switch even if it’s otherwise practicable.

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            Man, that was a wild ride. Thanks for the link.

            Yes, that’s lemmy for you. You happened to point out something in a way that showed some frustration and people started attacking you for it.

            They are either 12 or 42 and live in their mothers basement with linux as their whole identity. They don’t read thoroughly nor do they accept criticism.

            I‘ve encountered them before. Don’t worry. If this makes you feel bad, consider wording your comments differently.

            Maybe expand a bit on why and don’t answer to obvious troll questions, at least not honestly, like the implication that you‘re using pirated windows.

            A complete moron could have seen that you were just frustrated with seeing no way out of windows and getting it blindly suggested still. That is not your fault.

      • taanegl
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        22 years ago

        Which is dumb. We want adoption, because there’s no other way that software will be portrs to Linux. I’m all for a libre base operating system, but I REALLY want some commercial software to be officially supported under Linux.

        That Bitwig is supported under Linux is a godsend for beatmakers and producers, but I want Ableton Live on Linux :( and also Affinity Designer. Inkscape is nice, and so is Krita, but there is no serious desktop publishing apps on Linux that focuses on usability AND productivity.

        The more users there are though, the bigger the chance is…

        So don’t listen to those bastard’s. A bunch of self-defeatists. May I suggest Vanilla 2.0 when it’s finished? :) Then you can try to run some of that software using Wine Bottles…

        …which doesn’t work for Affinity Designer :(

  • @[email protected]
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    62 years ago

    Valve moves SteamOS to the desktop… The only trick would be getting corporate buy in.

    I just can’t see people standing for ads in their os at best and paying a continual fee at worst.

  • bermuda
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    22 years ago

    Seems possible enough to me, considering what they’ve done with pretty much everything else