That’s going to be in the free upgrade to Windows 10 and 11. Back porting some critical features to old, but still supported releases, is an essential part of good customer support.

DLC? All we offer is a monthly weekly subscription.

“What to make quick copies of certain areas of the image? Buy 100 packs of both ‘Copy’ and ‘Paste’ tokens now on sale in the Microsoft store! Each use of Copy or Paste function uses only 1 token. Make sure you stock up for ‘Back to School’!”

Time to learn how to hack motherboards I guess

The European Commission would appreciate the multi billion euro “donation” from Microsoft if they did something so obviously anti competitive.

I don’t think they would hard shoot themselves in the foot like that thankfully/sadly? idk my opinions on it. They would start with company graded devices before doing a consumer lockdown, since they are less apt to get massive backlash from that, they have tried already and backtracked iirc with lenovo systems

That’s never gonna fly as long as the EU exists. They’d never allow it.

They did already

Switch to gitea

I quit after Windows 2000. XP seemed like it just added bloat to force you to buy a new computer without adding anything useful and my computer wouldn’t run it. I used 2000 until I couldn’t any more then got an Ubuntu disc when they used to mail them out for free and never looked back.

XP for me!

Same after Windows 8.1 ! 🥳

I’ve had to use Windows 11 a tiny bit for work and it was the most painful experience I had for a while. Most apps I used on there had obvious bugs, like the VPN chosen by my company requiring me to reboot every time it goes to sleep …

I’m right there with you.

Microsoft (and honestly a lot of mainstream software) has been slowly evolving over the years from providing robust, full-featured products that allow you build your own workflows to shipping things with an inherent “paradigm” or “ideology” on how they should be used. Mostly (unsurprisingly) to the ends of data collection, ad serving, and profit driving. Gross, gross, gross.

I’m sticking to my win10 LTSC vm whenever something doesn’t run on wine. I dont like it when candy crush appears on the start menu.

We’re busy criticizing Apple as a whole.

Id wager few have used a Mac compared to Windows. Windows was always more ubiquitous, and its usually the default in work and school settings so it has a lot more chances to disappoint

Because Mac is tonnes better than windows still despite inflated hardware costs.

Here you go

Most of us used Windows before and a Mac is a lot closer to Unix (many Terminal applications and stuff work well) but from a usability standpoint the completely walled garden is awful and bashing Apple is one of my favorite hoppies, iOS and their hardware are just even better attack surfaces and I like low hanging fruits!

/me waves from thé back.

I do love polybar, though.

The Start menu will now be hosted in SharePoint Online so that your shortcuts are available everywhere!

I am waiting for an taskbar, entirely replaced by bing chat. You will never find anything with seconds of the delay, besides internet websites and is horrible to use with bad internet. Offline mode will also not be available anymore, because Microsoft needs funktion critical telemetry

If they break it into bits, maybe they can allow it to move to the side of the screen!

Then I can move directly from 10 to 12.

Linux Mint is as easy as Windows to set up imo. Maybe try that on a stick

Dude, with the exception of Gamepass, Linux gaming is really easy.

If you’re okay with Redhat/Fedora, using Nobara Linux (it’s a spin-off, unofficial, but by the guy who does a lot of the Proton [magic compatibility sauce] stuff, GloriousEggroll, who AFAIK is a dev at RedHat) literally installs everything you need.

Steam → Steam
GoG/Epic → Heroic Launcher
Amazon/Blizzard → Lutris
Gamepass → You have to use the cloud version with Edge browser

Click, install, game.

There’s only a few Anticheat PITA titles still (I believe Valorant is one) that won’t work.

You can have multiple operating systems installed and choose which one you want to use during boot. So just install GNU/Linux on a separate partition or a separate drive (a bit easier). Then try to use GNU/Linux as your main system. Install everything you need on it and configure it they want you want. Only switch to Windows when you absolutely have to. So you don’t have to be a GNU/Linux expert right away and you can choose when to remove Windows. It can be a gradual change.

I don’t know any good videos for beginners, but you can just look up answers to specific problems when you need them. If you will still have Windows, there is nothing to worry about. You can always ask for help here as well. So don’t wait and install GNU/Linux today! Choose the distribution you want to use, find a video on how to install it and start using it.

Here is a link to a video explaining the Free Software movement if you are curious why this operating system was created https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM. Maybe it will motivate you.

I’d suggest setting up linux in a virtual machine first to get familiar with it first. There’s many many distros out there and if you don’t like the one you’re trying, just try another one. When you have one you like, you can install it for real.

It’s not nearly as hard as people make it out to be. For most distros you’ll likely have a system with a browser, libre office, steam (except games aren’t going to work well in a VM), etc. up and running in about an hour or two. It only really gets tricky if you’re trying to get some janky hardware working.

Dualboot Ubuntu and experiment there. That is what I did and loved the OS

You’ve got some time to plan out your transition :)

I’d pick up a Raspberry Pi 400 or a renewed Steam Deck depending on your budget. Those devices have amazing communities and both will build familiarity and confidence with the environment just through play. Find a project that interests you with one of those devices and follow along trying to re-create it. That’s where you’ll find most of your blog/YT stuff. I’d be happy to help try and find a project if you’d be up for talking about some of your interests or hobbies.

IMO the most important thing is to start using cross platform applications (E.g. LibreOffice, the GIMP) on Windows as well as you start learning the Linux environments. Especially if you are coming from the windows 7 or earlier era of gaming PC building, actually installing Linux is a piece of cake. Once you have confidence with the programs you’ll be using and the resources available you’ll have conquered a lot of the fear.

Honestly you’d be fine starting out with installing linux yourself 90% of the time, but I think it’s worth the peace of mind to start out with a pre-installed distro on a well standardized platform like the rPi 4 or the Steam Deck.

Depends what you need to do, there are apps abd games that if you can’t leave behind you’ll either won’t be able to run or you will have to do a lot of work to get running. If you don’t use the Adobe suite and your games are officially supported on Linux (check them out on protondb.com) then you’re good to go.
If you want distro suggestions I can tell you my opinionated selection.

Sorry, I have watched so many videos, yet I don’t remember exactly who goes in depth and presents with a simple step by step guide

Look at protonDB for game compatibility and try out a live USB with some easy to use linux version like Ubuntu. Most games will work except if they have anticheat.

I saw something about dual booting. I know you want to game but start small. Try a virtual machine. They aren’t difficult to setup and there are hundreds of easy tutorials. Get a feel for Linux. See how you feel and then dual boot. When you are comfy then migrate the truth is this community pushed Linux hard and that’s because it is mainly FOSS and it is private or more private rather.

However, no matter what anyone wants to tell you. Linux absolutely has its quirks and sometimes they get technical. There is a learning curve and some issues can divulge into multiple problems. This kind of thing can be frustrating but shouldn’t stop you from learning and experimenting. I like Linux but I also appreciate that Windows for an average consumer does what it needs to.

The other thing is there is one OSX and up. There is one Windows version. There is an insane amount of Linux distributions. The easiest to learn are Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and if you want something more lightweight and true to force you to learn then you can just install Debian.

Folks have mentioned dual boot before but you can also run Linux directly from a usb stick, without changing anything on your computer. You can try it to see what it’s like and when you remove the stick it’ll be like it was never there.

Windows is the default. Linux takes time and effort to learn and has negative aspects beyond that. I think it’s worth it, much like I assume everyone here does. But it’s not a sign of a lack of intelligence to decide it isn’t worth it for you. My wife is smarter than me and a programmer who has come to the conclusion that as it is linux is too much effort for not enough gain.

Being a condescending prick keeps people away from it.

My only use for Windows at home is for Zwift, an online virtual cycling community, and I use a dedicated computer for that purpose. But someone figured out how to get it to run under Linux using Docker, so I figure when I can no longer use Windows 11, I’ll switch to Linux on that computer.

Supposedly that computer isn’t compatible with Windows 12, which I assume means that security chip or whatever is turned off (the computer is new enough - 2021 - that I assume it has it). I assume I could turn it on in BIOS, but…eh.