• @[email protected]
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    282 years ago

    It says that the tool is being shared around online but I can’t find it, anyone know where to get it? Just curious is all.

  • @[email protected]
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    1902 years ago

    The bug bash quests can be found in the Windows Feedback Hub, and partaking in the bug bash often concludes with a badge in the Feedback Hub that acknowledges your participation.

    Imagine doing free QA for a multibillion dollar corporation. I hate Microsoft so much.

    • @[email protected]
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      652 years ago

      No one is forcing you. Actually, you need to jump through many hoops to get into the program. And Microsoft tends to pay nice rewards to people who find critical issues.

        • @[email protected]
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          162 years ago

          Calm down, no one’s getting exploited. Many people like trying out new features that aren’t available yet for stable releases.

        • @[email protected]
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          122 years ago

          Nobody’s being forced into it, you can just decide not to do it. There’s no risk or reward for doing so other than because you want to. There’s no power imbalance. It’s just users deciding they want to do it. It’s not exploitation, haha

          • @[email protected]
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            32 years ago

            At best, these people are scabs taking away QA jobs by working for free. If we were talking about a community-driven Free Software project it’d be different, but doing that kind of unpaid labor for a for-profit corporation is toxic and harmful in a systemic way that goes beyond personal choice.

            • @[email protected]
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              2 years ago

              Be me. Like a thing. Find issues with thing. Share those issues with the devs. Dopamine. Find better avenue for sharing issues. Do issue finding in my spare time with my own free will. Get shamed on internet for doing my own thing.

              Yeah ok.

  • @[email protected]
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    522 years ago

    The biggest thing I want is to just move the task bar to the top of the screen. I can’t use my finger on my Surface tablet unless I remove the keyboard. Such idiocy…

    • @[email protected]
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      132 years ago

      I don’t have W11. I have had my taskbar at the top of my screen since the 90s. W11 doesn’t allow this ?

        • @[email protected]
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          62 years ago

          That’s just stupid. I never have my taskbar anywhere else because it makes me ill. But fuck that, you can’t tell me where to put it…

          • @[email protected]
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            2 years ago

            Not only is it forced to the bottom. It’s in the middle and you can’t ungroup tabs.

            • Frodo
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              92 years ago

              The start menu can be in the left corner in Windows 11 just like older Windows versions.

              • @[email protected]
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                2 years ago

                That’s not what they’re talking about. They’re talking about the taskbar icons. Power users like myself ungroup those because it’s annoying and not at all helpful. It stops being icons and goes back to the regular rectangles. I’m assuming you’ve used icons for so long you forgot what it looks like. Win11 let’s you do it in dev releases but I just use Start11 because it basically lets you do whatever you want with the taskbar.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      Use StartAllBack. Not only does it restore the old Taskbar features, it also lets you do even more things, like have the Start button on the left but keep the icons centered, and customize the transparency level (among other things). You can even use your favorite era of Start menu (7, 8.1, 10). Personally I’m using Win7’s Start Menu with Windows 11-related buttons added in (like Settings).

      (Edit: It does cost $5 after a 90 day trial, but that’s less than the cost of lunch, and with all the features you’re getting I’d gladly pay 10x the amount.)

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      My favourite is when I’m trying to click a notification tray thing and shit like teams messages keep popping up on top. Who the hell designed it so notifications come up on top of tray pop ups? So fucking stupid.

    • @[email protected]
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      72 years ago

      Dude right??? I’ve been losing my fucking mind. My home computer, work computer 2, and work computer VM are all top bar mounted. Work computer 1 for upgraded to 11 and it’s pissing me off. Every week I check for a way to change it back.

      • @[email protected]
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        122 years ago

        I think side is the best. When almost all monitors are wider than they are tall it makes more sense to put it on the short edge to use up less space.

    • Eris
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      22 years ago

      You can do this with TaskbarX

      • Acid
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        32 years ago

        My work emails all run through the google suite of applications and I have two of them plus drive etc so having chrome allows me to have multiple profiles for each work account and they are remote managed by the company.

          • Acid
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            12 years ago

            This does not keep my bookmarks and passwords synced across all the work devices I have to use does it?

            I regularly log into 2 work email accounts and have a third that I check monthly. I do this across 5 work devices which are shared, my personal MacBook Air which is used primarily for work and my phone.

            If Firefox has sync features that work with cloud storage as opposed to device storage it would be practical otherwise it’s no go

            • @[email protected]
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              12 years ago

              If you use browser to store passwords that’s a huge security risk. You’re better off using a password manager to manage and sync your password.

              Having synced bookmarks is fair though. I use 2 devices for work but I didn’t keep synced bookmarks. I usually have the most used tabs pinned so it keeps standby and I keep the important links for each project pinned inside the project Slack channel.

        • El Barto
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          52 years ago

          I hate Edge less than I hate Chrome now, I feel dirty saying it tho.

          • @[email protected]
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            12 years ago

            the vertical tabs <3

            now i use Arc though which has been amazing. i don’t think i can ever go back to horizontal tabs. i love Firefox so much, its just missing a good implementation of this one feature that i can’t live without! there are some extensions but it’s not even close to the native implementation of it on edge and arc browser especially

            • Matt
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              12 years ago

              If you’re wanting a Firefox-based browser with sidebar / vertical tabs, I’d take a look at Floorp.

              It aims to be a Gecko equivalent to things like Vivaldi, you can get it at https://floorp.app. The recent version 11 release is fantastic.

              • @[email protected]
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                12 years ago

                interesting! looks pretty cool, i’ll give it a shot later. thanks! something just feels morally wrong to me about actively using a chromium based browser, it’s always in the back of my mind lmao. we are all part of the problem.

                • Matt
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                  22 years ago

                  I know that feeling, which is why I moved to Firefox quite a long time ago.

                  Jumped around some forks for a bit, and now I’m settled on Floorp for desktop and Mull for Android.

          • Madlaine
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            72 years ago

            I love derivate-browsers; using vivaldi (based on chrome).

            As much of the site seems japanese and I don’t want to dig deep this morning: can you please give me 2-3 reasons what makes floorp so good?

            • @[email protected]
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              2 years ago

              I used to love Opera back in the day, but now there just doesn’t seem like much of a point when Opera and Vivaldi are just Chromium forks.

              (Vivaldi is the successor to the old Opera.)

            • @[email protected]
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              2 years ago
              1. Pre-installed tools such as a translator and tab bar on the left

              2. More pre-installed themes and integration with Mica For Everyone (haven’t tested this because I ain’t booting to W🤢ndows)

              3. Tighter on privacy than default Firefox

              There are some others I may have missed because I got used to them

      • @[email protected]
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        52 years ago

        I couldn’t find the setting “don’t give websites the permission to play sound” (mutes all audio unless enabled per-site) in Edge, or Firefox. Chrome has that setting.

        • Sarsaparilla
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          242 years ago

          Firefox:
          Tools/Settings/Privacy & Security/Permissions/Autoplay/Settings/Default for all Websites: Block Audio

          • @[email protected]
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            Not the same thing, audio will still start playing after user interaction with the site. The setting in Chrome blocks all audio from the site, regardless of what you do.

              • @[email protected]
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                2 years ago

                But I still want to allow sound on a small number of select sites like YouTube or Twitch. It just needs to be off for the other 99% of the web.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        You’ll get a lot of hate here for saying it, but you’re not entirely wrong. When they offered free GPT to people running edge I went ahead and loaded it out with my normal compliment of plugins to try it as a secondary browser.

        I’m not exactly sure what all they did to it, but it’s not just Chrome with the different skin It’s notably faster and lighter on the memory footprint.

        The reason why I’m not willing to convert to them completely as I don’t trust Microsoft with all my data. I’m already keeping as much telemetry from them as I can.

        These days I float between Firefox and Brave. Firefox isn’t likely to sell my data, and Brave will sell my data but their anti-fingerprinting is pretty solid so they’re at least not just letting everyone track me for free.

  • @[email protected]
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    192 years ago

    Does the calendar taskbar flyout count as a hidden feature? Perhaps it would be more useful to leak a tool that can disable windows features. Ads, internet-spam, gutter-news, etc.

    But mainly I just want the calendar agenda back in the taskbar.

  • ∟⊔⊤∦∣≶
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    252 years ago

    Isn’t this the same as BMW locking away functionality that exists in the product you purchased?

    • Bythe
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      212 years ago

      Not at all. It’s to by-pass the A/B testing of features part of the early insiders ring. And as the article says, there are already unofficial tools to do the same thing. Now we just have the ‘official’ command line tool made by MS, nothing more.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 years ago

      Back by popular demand! Right click on task bar for task manager!

      But none of the other stuff. Thanks, Microsoft.

      Regression of features = future.

  • @[email protected]
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    432 years ago

    Nice try, Microsoft, trying to get people to use Windows 11. Just focus on fixing Windows 12 and cut your losses.

  • sadreality
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    2 years ago

    We getting to the point where some Linux distros are objectively better systems… all around. Having way less issues with PopOS than I did with Win11

    • @[email protected]
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      172 years ago

      Yeah, I switched my gaming PC over to popOS and noticed no major issues - steam and heroic just worked as I expected.

      • @[email protected]
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        42 years ago

        Does this mean the games that worked on steam for windows will also work on steam for popOS?

        • @[email protected]
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          112 years ago

          Usually. Proton by Steam (versions of wine tuned specifically for games) makes just about anything run flawlessly with one click to turn it on in the settings and occasionally some fine tuning for particular games like setting it to run a particular version of proton. This works on any Linux distro.

          Outside of Steam, and when trying to mod Steam games, it’s a lot more hit or miss.

          • @[email protected]
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            52 years ago

            The other thing worth noting is that just because a linux distro is noob friendly, it doesn’t mean advanced users should feel the need to use more complicated distros. Quite the opposite in a lot of cases - I’ve used Linux for work over ~10 years (first tried it in 2007) and yet find myself back on Ubuntu for my laptop. PopOS for my desktop because of nvidia convenience (+ less issues than most other distros).

    • @[email protected]
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      132 years ago

      If I didn’t use my pc primarily as a gaming pc I would absolutely be running Linux. Hopefully one day we can get there with compatability and performance.

      • sadreality
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        182 years ago

        I use mine for gaming and shit posting… only anti cheat triple AAA does not work like new BF and CoD, everything else runs great or fine.

          • sadreality
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            2 years ago

            Valve doing lords work but let’s NOT bootlick too hard they are just defending turf and we happen to benefit

            • @[email protected]
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              2 years ago

              I mean I’m going to date myself but the game I play the most on my steam deck is dungeon keeper 2 from GOG and it works fine

        • @[email protected]
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          62 years ago

          The bad news, for me at least, is yes I can get most games to run fine. Skyrim, cyberpunk, Sims 4 etc. The issue is modding. Sims 4 is excluded from this as you littlery just drop .package files in the mod folder and just works. But games like cyberpunk and Skyrim…you often need external tools/injectors/animation riggers etc for a lot of the 'good stuff’s. And getting those tools to work properly can be a nightmare.

          • @[email protected]
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            32 years ago

            Why do those tools work differently on Linux if the games are fine? At most a script extender would need is a Microsoft Dell and don’t those come with wine or whatever?

            Honestly asking. I use Windows. But if games work I’ll switch.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 years ago

              They can use any number of extra libraries and such. Idk I’m not a programmer. But I’ve certainly tried. Though tbh it’s been. A while. Sadly I dual boot just for the games that I mod that require a bunch of external tools to mod. I don’t have the time anymore to try and force em. A me problem yes.

            • @[email protected]
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              92 years ago

              Generally you use some kind of tool to manage/update the mods and set them to load in the right order. While those tools may also work under Linux with Proton/Wine/etc, each app you launch typically has its own isolated folders. So in order to get it to work, you’d need to change where that mod manager app uses to use the folders that Proton/etc configured for the actual game like Skyrim. That’s compared to just installing the mod configurator/launcher app and having it start Skyrim for you on Windows.

              The fact that there’s a 60 page guide on how to do it tells you it’s not as easy as on Windows: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/91500?tab=description

              • @[email protected]
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                42 years ago

                Aaand I’ll be using Windows for awhile I guess.
                Kudos for the author putting that together.

                • CALIGVLA
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                  42 years ago

                  I think the best you can do is still dual boot Linux and Windows, not ideal but at least you’re avoiding most of these issues.

          • exu
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            12 years ago

            I don’t remember it being much of a nightmare for Skyrim, but then again some mods were indeed broken. Pretty normal tho :/

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          There are definitely “quirks”, even with a lot of the gold/platinum rated games on protondb. E.g. Titanfall 2, horrible crackling audio issues at times, even though it runs great otherwise. Firewatch, random choppy slowdowns, but rare. BattleBit, sometimes (not too often) 20 seconds of 20fps, then back to normal.

    • @[email protected]
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      72 years ago

      Same, switched to an easy Mint install and immediately felt more in control of my computer again. Some professional software does still cause problems though so a 100% switch sadly isn’t possible… yet.

    • Poggervania
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      242 years ago

      Yup, just moved to Mint on my laptop since I’ve been getting some issues with Windows draining the battery quick despite it being in “good health” according to Dell, and just general performance hiccups across Windows.

      Super low CPU and RAM usage, snappier performance for word processing and surfing, and a longer battery life? With no tracking features to boot? All for free? Hell yeah I’ll move over to Linux lol.

    • @[email protected]
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      712 years ago

      True, I’ve been using NobaraOS and have no problems at all, I moved my mom from windows to ZorinOS and she only noticed because her laptop no longer “freezes up” randomly, and I’m talking about a surface book that runs better on Linux than on Windows. Gotta love the irony

      • @[email protected]
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        262 years ago

        Hah, same here. Nobara for me and Zorin for mum, works like a charm. If only mainstream OEMs pre-installed Linux and promoted it more… But I guess this is fine too. One day, when I have enough capital, I’ll launch my own Linux Desktop company and be the change I want to see.

      • @[email protected]
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        162 years ago

        Yep! Co-worker had 2 old laptops, threw a SSD into one of them and put Zorin OS on it for his daughter to do schoolwork on. Not one complaint or question about how to do anything, and it’s been a year. The other one was very very underpowered so I threw CasaOS onto it and got him setup with Home Assistant and Adguardhome.

        • Tippon
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          22 years ago

          The other one was very very underpowered so I threw CasaOS onto it

          How did you get past the website? It’s bloody awful :o

          Joking aside though, I hadn’t heard of CasaOS, so I just did a quick search. That website is awful on mobile. I swiped up, assuming that there was more than just the live demo link, but nothing happened for a while. Then, loads of content popped up at once and scrolled past >.<

          I’ve sent it to myself to check out on the computer. Hopefully, if it does what it claims, it could resurrect an old laptop :)

      • iByteABit [he/him]
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        42 years ago

        I once installed Zorin for my gf’s ancient laptop, it was so much faster and she loved the color schemes for xfce

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      My keyboard and trackpad often don’t work on resume in PopOS but otherwise I really like it.

    • @[email protected]
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      82 years ago

      Currently demo-ing Mint, and might actually switch.

      Mostly because almost every non-UWP app works fine and good alternatives exist for things that don’t, and partially because the PC doesn’t sound like it’s taking off when it starts up.

  • @[email protected]
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    32 years ago

    Like how to get publicity when you’re using windows media, or delete all non subscription software from the system, or how to make the CPU run at 15% when idle(oh no it’s already a windows 10 feature)…

  • @[email protected]
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    1272 years ago

    So what are the hidden features? The article doesn’t say and I scrolled through all the comments and nothing popped out at me other than a bunch of comments of people bashing windows and sucking their own dicks over Linux?

    • @[email protected]
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      72 years ago

      This is what i came for, i wanted to know what these features are. Thanks for saving me a click

    • @[email protected]
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      42 years ago

      Afaik it’s a tool to interact with an API to override A/B testing in an official way.
      Apparantly some tool already exists that does it. Just not the official way.

    • Riskable
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      652 years ago

      sucking their own dicks over Linux

      This one trick explains why people who use Linux love it so much!

    • @[email protected]
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      232 years ago

      The hidden features are flags that Microsoft enables or disables for random users as part of A/B testing. The article contains a link to the various flags that can be enabled depending on your edition and version of Windows.