In my view, this is unacceptable…
They changed my background (previously there was a default blue window), placed an icon in the bottom corner of the screen that read “Learn more about this photo”, and re-added the search bar that I had previously removed.
Fortunately, I don’t have to deal with this on a daily basis.
Oh, didn’t you know? It’s not really your PC any longer.
Fortunately, it’s actually mine, cuz I use Fedora with Gnome, which doesn’t do these magic tricks 😁
Tricks are something Microsoft does for money.
Coo-coo-ka-cha!
Owning your computer is an ILLUSION
Or candy.
The PC might be yours, but that virtual machine is Microsoft’s little bitch
I actually enjoy playing with Windows and Active Directory. I think it is ahead in terms of management and needing hacky workarounds
there isn’t active directory for linux?, actually what active directory do diferently?
You absolutely can join Linux machines to AD. You just don’t have the same power that group policy gives you.
what group policy gives that unix filesystem permissions don’t?, i really don’t know, and i don’t have a windows machine to test :b
Group policy lets you basically configure anything on any machine in the active directory domain; Installed programs, installed updates, basically any settings, schedules, services, automatically adding (and limiting by users if you want) network devices like printers and storage… It’s pretty powerful, and does way more than just filesystem permissions.
I use FreeIPA and it works just fine for everything I would need AD for. Your point still stands. I just mean there are good enough alternatives for the Linux environment.
There are definitely ways of configuring Linux systems. For many organizations Ansible or Puppet works completely fine. However, they require a significant amount of knowledge and aren’t completely standardized. Group policy on Windows has been around for a long time and will be much easier to deploy, at least in the short term.
I used to use Fedora on my Asus gaming laptop, and loved it. More recently I’ve chosen to switch over to Manjaro, because I wanted something based on Arch that was more lightweight than Garuda. Gotta love that Linux life.
Have you tried reborn or endeavor?
I tried EndeavourOS, but it didn’t fully support my hardware like Manjaro does
Interesting. I’ve only had one system that had hardware issue with any of them. And it was of course the finger print reader. Though I suppose it could be a WiFi issue.
The issue I had with my Asus ROG laptop was that EndeavourOS didn’t support the volume buttons on the keyboard, along with some other keys. It was annoying enough that I went to Manjaro.
I guess Lemmy is mostly tech nerds like myself, but it’s still cool as hell to see another Fedora user around :)
Oh, let me tell you why your [sic] wrong for not using Arch and Ice Weasel! /s 😉
your PC
are they going to backronym PC now that the P can’t possibly stand for PERSONAL
Just shuddered at a possible future where someone’s PC locked up with the following notice:
“We have locked your PC because you no longer have sufficient MS funds. One of our technicians will be by shortly to retrieve it. Sit tight, we are downloading its contents. Turning off the internet during this time will lead to strict legal action against you. Thank you for using Microsoft! Be sure to check out the new Surface Ultra and sign up to receive free rewards such a Panago and Ivey Cream!”
Well yea, you turned off the windows search/Cortana/Bing bar, but now it’s called copilot/recall bar which you haven’t turned off yet.
/S
Soon I won’t have to anymore. This is the last Windows virtual machine I have that sometimes I have to use 😀
I have a virtual machine with WinXP and one with 98, for when I’m feeling nostalgic :)
Sorry to hear you have to use Windows… I’m still stuck on 10 but I’ve been enjoying the hell out of Mint Xfce and I’ll complete the move soon enough!
How would one go about setting up a win 98 at this point? Do you need an ISO of it already, or can you find that somewhere for that specific use?
I ask because I have a game that I want to play for nostalgia reasons (it’s a kids game from waaay back, but I remember it fondly, and I bet I’d do a touch better now) but I can’t get it to play in any compatibility mode or anything. It just flat refuses to launch.
You can find plenty of ISO files on archive.org. I’m not sure about the legality of it, so I’ll say I don’t condone doing it, etc. But some of them have been there for several years, so I think MS doesn’t care.
Just be careful about clinking links in the user comments. People have been known to post shady links and moderation seems to be lacking, from what I’ve seen.
Good luck getting your game to run! Oh, and long live archive.org!
For operating systems https://winworldpc.com/library is easier to find things in and has way faster download speeds
This is really cool, thanks for sharing!
At some point M$ allowed the free download of something called “Windows XP Mode for Windows 7”. It was some virtual machine or something. What matters is that it’s possible to extract an XP ISO from this, which I have successfully used to spin up a virtual machine! It still complains about a license key, though.
The reason I mention this is that this is still available on archive.org, and it’s signed by M$, so you know it’s legit. I don’t know if other ISOs available have such a receipt of authenticity. Probably, but I never cared enough to check, especially since I grabbed this from the official website while it was available.
Have you tried React OS?
Chris Titus made this tool. I use it to debloat windows, disable all the telemetry, then pause all feature updates for two years and let only security updates through. As an added bonus (and if you want win11), he added a tool to create a micro windows iso. I am running the micro and it has been fantastic. I even removed defender and other garbage they force on people.
I wonder how many people confuse him for the comedian.
Didn’t even know about a comedian with this name
He’s pretty good. Kinda like a left leaning Dennis Leary
Who’s Dennis Leary? 😂 Sorry, immigrant here and don’t know many people.
He’s a comedian from the '90s and early '00s
Oh, ok. Good thing I didn’t know him I guess.
Oh definitely look up Christopher Titus on YouTube he put all his standup specials on there for free.
Nah, look him up. He is actually funny, but a bit right wing these days. He was closer to mainstream in the '90s
Oh, and watch the video. It is funny.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I just did
I assumed it wasn’t the comedian, but bought that he might be angry enough at Windows to make it happen.
I used a similar tool in the past. When I wanted to re-enable something, I forgot which tool I used to disable it, and I couldn’t actually get it working ever again
OUR desktop wallpaper, comrade
They don’t do this shit in Linux.
Come join us, Comrade.
Hmm, on one of the KDE plasma updates, my wallpaper did change to their infamous teletubby wallpaper. Mind you, I was still using the default wallpaper at that time, and this was their new default wallpaper, so that’s probably why.
Tell that to Fedora that keeps resetting the Firefox homepage back to a Fedora news site.
I hate that goddamn searchbar
Tell me about it. Useless. The whole start menu is fucked honestly. Can’t ever find anything you’re looking for. WHY THE FUCK WOULD I WANT BING WEB SEARCH RESULTS HERE!?!?
Just booted? Better wait 45 seconds and many failed searches, because DNS isn’t resolving.
Doesn’t matter that you are trying to launch a local program, it absolutely must delay the user experience until it can successfully resolve a DNS query.
Disgusting
Dont say it… dont say it… dont saaaayyyy iiiiitt!!!
Have you considered Linux Mint?
Damn… sorry… was I the first to suggest it this time?
You were, but it appears OP is running Windows in a VM on Linux.
I already use Fedora Linux, and this Windows is in a virtual machine because sometimes my school requires me to use software that simply doesn’t run on Linux
That’s where Windows belongs now, in a VM.
“what is my purpose?”
“you stay in a vm until i need to update my mouse firmware”
In a VM, in a box, at the bottom of the sea.
*Gnome Boxes
I bought a cheap laptop for school just to run their windows anti cheat crap. Do you have to run something similar?
Fortunately, no. My school expects me to use XAMPP (a LAMP stack but without “L” cuz it’s on Windows) and Microsoft Office applications like Word, Access, and Excel.
While in the case of LAMP, I can install the individual services (Apache, PHP, MySQL) myself from command line, Microsoft Office applications won’t work like that.
Use Libreoffice where you can and just open it up in Word to verify
I guess I should count myself lucky everything is expected in be turned in as a PDF and Google docs is used for everything else. The anticheat recognizes it’s running on a VM and throws and error.
You’re right though. I recently installed it and it is so much more user friendly and does everything I need it to.
Your computer? You mean Microsoft’s bitch box?
Face it, they can do whatever they want with your computer and you’re powerless to stop them. They’ve also been looking through your photos and adding them to their AI model.
Face it, they can do whatever they want with your computer and you’re powerless to stop them.
Not my computer. They can’t do shit if it’s not installed.
We have to face the reality; Microsoft has got the majority of users by their balls. People don’t like M$ per say, but rather the applications,the compatibility, and ubiquitousness of their platform.
Till people get their favourite apps on their desired platform, M$ could start charging $10 a month to access Windows + malware + ads, and people would still rush to buy them.
well there is one thing you can do to stop them
at this rate the only good versions of windows that are supported are windows 10 LTSC and IoT editions since these are versions of windows used by most corporations schools and goverments thus they need to only get security updates
Most corporations use enterprise or maybe Pro.
Schools mostly use the EDU version.
It even did the same thing with enterprise customers. All our machines suddenly started asking us to enable search. Like why do I need another thing when opening the Start Menu and typing is the same fucking thing?? And to fuck with my group policies and undo the customization I had is mega infuriating.
Test updates before deploying
They didn’t say they deployed it, also enterprise operating systems are generally expected to not suddenly change manually-set policies for users…
Well Microsoft can do whatever they want really. Testing can just help to see it coming before you get run over
When they tell you they’re walking back Recall and it’s “off by default”, remember that they constantly do this shit.
“We’ve installed malicious spyware on your computer without you asking for it, but don’t worry, it’s off by default.”
“No.” (Installs GNU/Linux)
I’d love to meet the engineers who work on these “features”. How do they go along with this shit and sleep at night?
Like the fruit and internet search giant, they forced RTO and all the smart talent left.
So they have the B team, and likely a bunch of H1-B visa engineers that are basically indentured servants writing the code now. It’s just a paycheck and survival at this point.
All your data are belong to Microsoft
You don’t own your computer anymore, Microsoft just allows you to use it.
Somebody set up us the bomb!
We get signal.
What!
Main screen turn on.
It’s you!!
How are you gentlemen!!
Exactly.
This is why you should not trust them regarding Recall. They will not let it go. It will be forced on you eventually.
don’t look now but they’ve probably installed a new version to Teams along with everything else, lol
I have two versions of Teams installed on my work PC. The regular old Teams that is apparently not long for this world anymore. And New Teams, which is exactly the same as old teams but on a different tech stack (?) That will replace the old one. MS has lost the plot, they have somehow a worse product management than Google.
There’s a third Teams
Teams Classic
Teams NEW
Teams Personal
Someone else in another thread I read recently, I think they worked for Microsoft at some point, said that it’s due for different departments all competing for corporate attention. Doing the big new thing to keep their job. Rather than just fine tuning for performance or longevity. Something like that.
It was for legal reasons. They split personal teams and work teams to try to dodge an antitrust iirc
But the old one will still be installed so you will just repeatedly get popups to switch
And they’ve made Bing your standard browser and activated Copilot.
no no no, it asked your permission. It’s just that the “we added back the search bar, is that ok” dialog defaults to “yes” after some short time. Extremely fucking annoying change
the dialog:
I had no dialog
The dialog goes away after a short time defaulting to “yes I want the useless search bar”
It happened on all my PCs, I was infuriated
According to the screenshot the question is only asked embedded in the start menu. Windows 10 does that all the time without actually asking. Win11 is better at actually keeping the configuration.
All it did to you was cosmetic.
Windows 10’s “feature” updates consistently also re-enable the “fast startup” option on my machine when they install. Which, on my particular motherboard and SSD combination, causes Windows to take about 30 minutes to boot when left enabled for reasons I have never been able to comprehend. A regular cold boot only takes like 20 seconds, so… I definitely tend to notice when it does this behind my back yet again.
It also does it so that you no longer hit the bootloader. My one last dual boot machine is normally a Linux setup, but every so often I have to use the real MS Office tools (some collaborator or publisher demands it), so I boot windows. Then windows patches and stops actually hitting grub so it acts like a windows only machine until I fix whatever Microsoft fucks up yet again.
It’s time to move to a VM for this garbage. I just don’t neet it more than once every other year so I never seem to get around to nuking it.
How’s gaming on Linux working out lately? I have a newer Windows 11 machine and looking to jump ship, asap.
It’s really good. Proton works great for everything over tried to play. It’s pretty amazing actually
Ive been 100% linux since 2016, and while there are some pain points, the games that work, work amazingly well.
I have epic games, gog, steam games all working through launchers that work pretty perfectly. The biggest pain points are developers with intrusive anticheats.
Check the games you/your friends play against protondb.com or areweanticheatyet.com before committing yourself.
Rule of thumb: If your game has kernel-level anticheat, it probably won’t work. If your game doesn’t have any anticheats, there’s a 95% chance it will work on Linux.
Still no good if you play about 70% of games with an anticheat. Outside of that it’s fine if you’re willing to put up with general Linux issues
I’ve been 100% Linux for almost 8 years now and a fairly heavy gamer. There’s a handful of games with online anticheat stuff that devs refuse to make compatible, but beyond that it’s almost always click install and play in Steam even for stuff that isn’t “compatible”.
I haven’t had time to seriously game in a decade now (single dad killed my free time), so I’m by no means well versed beyond a few things. My kids do game a lot and most of them are on Linux machines. They use a combination of Steam and standalone installs to get things working.
I don’t run into a lot of complaints. They’re well aware that not all games run on their Linux setups, so they pick and choose games a bit more. I’m fortunate that they’re not always jonesing for the latest AAA games, but they’re also getting new ones with some regularity.
My favorite part is how it broke the Intel wifi card during my Linux install until I booted back into windows just to turn fast boot off. Maybe some hackery to skip initializing wifi hardware or something?
Dude, you enlighten me, that happened to me too but it was during the time I jumped between win and Linux and one day did the wifi card just stop working and I couldn’t figure out why, I tried many things without luck but some days it magicaly worked again and I haven’t been in windows since and have never had that problem again. I don’t know if I turned off fast boot (but I have done that many times so it is likely), so it could have been an update that turned it on. I will remember this if it happens to someone or myself again. Thank you!
Just passing the tourch I guess. A random post on the archlinux forum saved me and I’m glad sharing my experience helps someone else.
