I am glad that I don't need to use Windows anymore. When I did, the LTSC version (the one made for ATM and Kiosks) was the only one that was productivity-friendly.
Microsoft doesn't want to accept that no one cares about Windows, and the OS is the thing that gets you to the thing you want to do.
I saw 2 instances of people getting "updating windows" in their personal laptops when they tried to present something and lost everyone's time. I imagine this happens a lot of times every day. And now they are just breaking everyone's system by forcing updates as well.
If nobody cared about windows there wouldn't be any posts like this one everyday on HN. The problem is people do care and need to use windows which makes all these stupidity by Microsoft the recent years frustrating.
I am personally just a lurker. Windows used to be my only OS for a -very- long time (DOS 2.x, yes 2, was my first MS OS). Now I click on these just to see how far it has fallen. It is like that friend you drifted away from and now you look at their FB posts now and again to watch as they get crazier and crazier.
LTSC is what mainstream Windows should be. It doesn't load up a bunch of apps you don't ask for or throw ads in your face all the time. Solid, dependable, reliable, and stable.
Last Thursday windows 11 forced this update on my Acer machine. It caused me BSOD: inaccessible boot device, so I had to reformat my machine to get Windows running again.
So I am now very wary of this Out of Band Update[0], especially when it's not mentioned whether the latest update solve my issue or not. I don't know the same problem is still there, or whether this update makes the problem any better or worse.
I switched to Macs almost completely for personal and devlopment use about 13 or 14 years ago. However, last year I started a 3d printing side hustle, and got an HP laptop for running the print studio since the amount of hardware I could get for less than $1000 was hard to ignore. However, things like this, and other weird issues (my fonts have gone all wonky a couple of times after random updates) make me want to switch it over to a Linux distro (even though the software support for what I need is much better in the Windows world, and in some cases, better than even on the Mac)
A number of the Autodesk tools and Solidworks, for modeling. Slicers can use APIs native to Windows to perform model repairs. Bambu Lab's farm manager only runs on Windows.
The Creality one runs decent on Mac and Windows, sadly on Linux its a nightmare, and technically why I ditched Ubuntu / popOS for Arch Linux, but I can't help but still feel it runs a little weirder + its out of date compared to Mac and Windows versions. My buddy used to use Orca slicer on my printer, that one iirc should run on Mac too, but I havent tried it.
Not the person you replied to, but I’ll go. Try experimenting with ham radio on anything but Windows. As far as I can tell, they revoke your Apple developer’s license and confiscate your Linux install disks when you start selling radio hardware.
That’s not completely true. There’s good Linux and Mac software for lots of things. But approximately 100% of radio manufacturers ship Windows software. Far fewer support anything else.
I bought a new radio at Christmas. Before buying it, I ruled out alternatives that didn’t have 1st party or good 3rd party support. It’s like trying to buy a scanner in 2003.
You mean the one I just downloaded and updated my laptop with? It installed OK.
I usually use MacOS and Linux, it's just that some software is Windows only, and I run MacOS on Apple Silicon - the windows program I needed only uses x86-64 architecture, so I can't use parallels (AFAIK).
I'm kind of hoping I get an update that bricks my laptop so I can install Debian over this MS Windows hellscape and run windows on a VM when needed. I may do it anyways after I get fed up with nagging MS messages and workarounds.
You don't really need Windows for gaming anymore unless you're playing the games that absolutely insist on kernel-level anti-cheat. Proton is extremely good on Linux these days.
> unless you're playing the games that absolutely insist on kernel-level anti-cheat
Sadly, I do :( Valorant is the main one that keeps my Windows partition around, for better or worse. Also sadly still there's some performance overhead for Linux gaming today, I hope that goes away in the future (for Intel/Nvidia cards especially)
Not being an incompetent or inexperienced Windows user, I'm vanishingly unlikely to be infected by a bot network trojan... and if that does happen, rest assured, I'll notice it.
Windows Update, on the other hand, is part of my threat model.
And noone asks why Windows looks, feels and operates the way it is. Isn't it strange that a megacorp creates these watermelon headed monstrosities and it gets worse after each iteration?
Microsoft doesn't want to accept that no one cares about Windows, and the OS is the thing that gets you to the thing you want to do.
I saw 2 instances of people getting "updating windows" in their personal laptops when they tried to present something and lost everyone's time. I imagine this happens a lot of times every day. And now they are just breaking everyone's system by forcing updates as well.
So I am now very wary of this Out of Band Update[0], especially when it's not mentioned whether the latest update solve my issue or not. I don't know the same problem is still there, or whether this update makes the problem any better or worse.
0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46750358
Please elaborate; can you name a few tools and what you use them for? Just curious.
That’s not completely true. There’s good Linux and Mac software for lots of things. But approximately 100% of radio manufacturers ship Windows software. Far fewer support anything else.
I bought a new radio at Christmas. Before buying it, I ruled out alternatives that didn’t have 1st party or good 3rd party support. It’s like trying to buy a scanner in 2003.
I usually use MacOS and Linux, it's just that some software is Windows only, and I run MacOS on Apple Silicon - the windows program I needed only uses x86-64 architecture, so I can't use parallels (AFAIK).
I'm kind of hoping I get an update that bricks my laptop so I can install Debian over this MS Windows hellscape and run windows on a VM when needed. I may do it anyways after I get fed up with nagging MS messages and workarounds.
Except I think the problem happened just before Jan 13
But symptoms were almost exactly what TFA says
it's great
my only remaining windows PC is for games, and it's on its own vlan with its own external IP
if it gets hacked: I simply don't care
Sadly, I do :( Valorant is the main one that keeps my Windows partition around, for better or worse. Also sadly still there's some performance overhead for Linux gaming today, I hope that goes away in the future (for Intel/Nvidia cards especially)
not quite there for me yet I'm afraid!
it's an OS with constant built-in ads and spyware
it would have been considered malware in the 2000s
KMFMS
Windows Update, on the other hand, is part of my threat model.