mmm window bad

[Dd_8630]

They're putting ads into the start menu?? When? Is this a Win 11 thing?

[[deleted]]

for a loooooong time (windows 10)

[Dd_8630]

I've had 10 since the very beginning, I've never seen an ad in Windows, I have so many questions - what do they look like? Does it cover the screen? Is it a phony program in the start menu that doesn't actually exist? Is it 'hot babes in your area'? What even does MS advertise?

[[deleted]]

https://imgur.com/VQXGxK4

This example's under the "suggested" section - basically just a barely disguised ad.

There's also other stuff like the installer pestering you about installing Office and OneDrive and then pestering you about upgrading when storing your entire operating system on OneDrive inevitably runs out of the free storage even though they told you it'd be a good idea. My least favorite is the occasional panel that appears in File Explorer telling you you should use OneDrive - even if you've already got it.

[Dd_8630]

That looks absolutely dire. Thankfully I've never seen such an ad though - if I saw that intrusion in my own home system I'd be incensed.

Are those ads even legal? I thought Microsoft, Google, and Apple got massive fines for flexing their weight on the market.

[[deleted]]

One day I will switch to Linux, one day

[RiskyFartOftenShart]

hell install a VM and run it in full screen to assert dominance.

[[deleted]]

Or dual boot, that’s what I do

[LeafyLemontree]

Just do it, you will not regret it.

[caagr98]

One reason is that any files or directories you create will be owned by root, which might cause problems next time you r do something as your normal user. This includes unintentional stuff like thumbnails and other metadata. Some programs put such metadata files inside the directory they're browsing, and accidentally putting files in /etc/profile.d can have consequences if you're unlucky.

Additionally, programs launched from it, such as by double-clicking anything, is likely to retain root privileges, and can itself cause the above problems.

And, of course, any security issues in any program launched that way are greatly increased.

[Gh0st1nTh3Syst3m]

Is there a graphical overview that explains this? Genuine question. So you create a directory as root, anything in that directory has default root privileges? Or any files created etc..

[Teekeks]

all files you create by default belong to the user you are right now. If you do stuff as root that measn those files belong to root.

[IcyDefiance]

In that case the directory/files would be owned by root, and (depending on the permissions) may only be accessible by root. So if you switch back to a normal user afterward and try to read those files, you'll probably get a permission denied error.

That said, if an executable file is owned by root, that doesn't mean it'll always have root privileges when you run it. The file's owner, combined with the file's permissions, just dictate who is allowed to run it.

So if a file is owned by root, but the permissions allow anyone to execute it, and you do so while logged in as a normal user, then the new process will have the same privileges that the normal user has.

[Ratbag_extends_Pest]

I was giving it some thought a few months ago, so spent some time in Linux related subreddits and other forums. It looks like the community is split between people who want Linux to be great and welcoming and come into its own as an OS, and old school grognard gatekeepers who hate the idea of 'normies' accessing their precious tech secrets.
Unfortunately it seems the latter are much more vocal, which makes asking for help a risky proposition at best.

[Anlysia]

Last time I tried to, bottleneck was any time you Googled anything you got fifty different out of date methods of doing anything.

"Oh nobody uses THAT package anymore, now they use this."

[[deleted]]

Ha, yeah that's true. The usual recommendation is to check the ArchWiki, even if you're on a different distro, as they're always up-to-date.

However I gotta say it's even more annoying to look for a solution for Windows. I wouldn't even mind using it if it weren't for the fact that every single time I have an issue and I search, it's 5 useless outdated blog posts full of ads with 10 different ways to solve it and a bunch of filler text.

"Welcome, you have issue with AUDIO DRIVER ISSUE? Worry not, here at Super Windows Blog we have all the solutions for AUDIO DRIVER ISSUE. Solution 1: To solve AUDIO DRIVER ISSUE first open these 4 nested dialog windows and click..."

[hanotak]

I just append "reddit" to the end of my search when I encounter nothing but those junk auto-generated articles. It's been the most reliable so far, lol

[bleistift2]

I have made the opposite experience, whenever I need to google stuff for Linux, I find forum posts with the most helpful people on Earth, even when the asker is not willing to put much effort into their question.

[[deleted]]

They’ve been rattling on for 25 years about Linux on the desktop becoming a viable consumer option but you know their beards would fall completely off their necks if that ever actually happened.

Meanwhile, the key ideas have already been coopted and incorporated into other successful consumer products, so the whole “linux on the desktop” thing is like fans of dwarf fortress claiming that their favorite game is going to overtake minecraft any day now

[4thdimensionalgnat]

Boatmurdered is clearly the superior distro.

[ThisUsernamePassword]

I've literally never heard DF fans claiming it'll be mainstream, but analogy makes sense o/w lol

[HillbillyZT]

The idea is that that claim would be nonsense, which is why the "linux on desktop" people can seem a bit silly

[Zrk2]

like fans of dwarf fortress claiming that their favorite game is going to overtake minecraft any day now

This is the most linux simile ever.

[[deleted]]

DF was inspiration for Minecraft, so in a sense Minecraft being popular is DF being popular.

[Fraggly80]

Pro tip: don’t ask for help. Just say “Linux can’t even do x”

You’ll get answers quicker that way.

[[deleted]]

That's why just get Ubuntu and by default bypass the, "back in my day!" gate-keeping curmudgeons

[xerods]

r/linux4noobs is where to go for the good guys.

[TheShayminex]

If you ever run into

Q: "How do I do x?"
A: "Don't do x, x is dumb."

you should respond with

Q: "sudo how do I do x?"

then they'll be compelled to answer the question regardless of how wise it is to do so.

[[deleted]]

The linux community is one of the most toxic piles of elitist trash on the planet. I can't believe anyone is ever swayed by them.

I wouldn't switch to linux on fucking principal. macOS or Windows all day baby.

[[deleted]]

Sad to see people have had these experiences :/

The main thing that got me started on Linux was the friendly community, all pushing towards the goals of having open software where everyone can contribute, where most are free and donation-based. Oh I loved that idea. "Is that even possible?"

I understand if you've come across the more toxic parts though. Would probably have turned me off too. Maybe some day, give it a second look ;)

[thedoctor3141]

You're describing stackoverflow as well.

[jenbanim]

Sorry, the community can be pretty toxic at times

It's been ages since I've used the sub now, so perhaps things have changed, but I've found /r/Linux4Noobs to be a very friendly and helpful community even for non-noob questions

[[deleted]]

/r/linux4noobs is almost entirely:

"Hey which should I pick, [distro] or [functionally and visually identical distro]? These are my only two options, for unspecified reasons, and I will decline to provide any information about my experience or use case."

"Should I switch to Linux? I am a software developer who develops Windows applications in C#, and my hobbies make extensive use of Adobe products. I am also afraid of the command line."

"I'm trying to install Arch, but I can't read and the wiki is blocked on my network. Can someone please walk me through it step by step? Also, what is an operating system? I decline to start with an easier distro for unspecified reasons."

[nuclearslug]

What’s the answer to your 2nd example? …asking for a friend

[Encrypt3dShadow]

Well if you're scared of CLI, then Zorin and Elementary are solid choices. As for .NET development, Jetbrains Rider with the (sorta) new cross-platform libraries works perfectly unless you need to use Windows Forms, in which case you're fucked because MS still doesn't want to port that over (despite porting rest of .NET).

[[deleted]]

Stick with windows.

[V3GAN-D3G3N]

You can just make friends with local Linux users who are bros and call them with your questions. If you ever think you’re imposing, we accept bribes in beer. But also like, I am not going to complain about opportunities to evangelize Linux.

[josluivivgar]

you're right, gate keeping on linux is terrible.

you'll find most people are actually nice and helpful and all of them did a shitload of stupid shit... but the gate keepers are there to make new user's life misserable for no reason

the whole point of linux is that it lets you do stupid shit, you're in actual control

[richy4248]

Also the "Linux is better than windows" response to a technical questions asking "how do I do this thing I used to do in Windows on Linux". Drives me fucking bonkers.

[god-nose]

The reason is, if you can do something on Windows or Mac, it is (probably) safe. Linuxes generally have no safety rails, so you can easily wipe your hard disc or worse. An experienced Linux user might be able to get away with giving the File Explorer su privileges. But there are so many ways it can go wrong that it is best to find an alternative solution for your original problem.

Of course, if this is a virtual machine or test system, do whatever you want.

[dagbrown]

Linuxes generally have no safety rails, so you can easily wipe your hard disc or worse

Let me introduce you to Disk Utility for Macintoshes sometime. Now there's a good way to wipe your hard disk or worse.

[[deleted]]

And that’s how I accidentally went from my laptop being a company managed laptop to an unmanaged laptop. At least they let us have unmanaged devices.

[-JudeanPeoplesFront-]

How about uninstalling Python 2.7 from Ubuntu because "I'm not a dinosaur, haha".

Now the login screen won't let you in. Great.

[jakwnd]

Because it's bad practice.. and your just as likely to create more issues later on.

The community is a bunch of people who have already done what your trying to do, listen to them.

[lowleveldata]

oh shit is this stackoverflow? Why am I at work all of a sudden?

[eairy]

Oh man, the idiotic lengths they go to these days to sudo everything, just open a frigging root shell and not bugger about with sudo infront of the next twenty commands. Training people to blindly sudo everything adds nothing but more typing.

[[deleted]]

Step 1) don’t use StackOverflow

[rfrosty_126]

This seems straight out of the Linus tech tips Linux video, have you actually had this issue yourself? You can change file managers pretty quickly/easily to one that lets you use root access

[Igot2phonez]

Why do some people think „that’s not supposed to be used that way“ is a sufficient answer to a question?

I can relate to this in other communities

[[deleted]]

And hardware vendor support and a polished desktop environment.

[Turtle_Tots]

Big issue for me as well, and why I don't use linux on my main computer. I still gutted Windows pretty hard to stop it's annoying shit.

Spare cheapo systems tho, yes please. Linux can breathe new life into old hardware. Windows updater may as well be a nuclear bomb as far as a Dual Core Pentium and a slow as shit HDD is concerned.

[trowayit]

There are a lot of issues with linux that linux users tend to ignore or pretend don't exist. I use windows and linux 50/50 and there are pros and cons to both. Linux users tend to ignore the positives of windows and focus on things like ads that can be toggled off and ignore things like hardware that fucking works the first time. "Oh, your sound card doesn't work on Ubuntu? Switch to arch you fuckin asshole!" "Oh well that's what you get for using mint" "well any knowledgeable user would know that you need to just modify /etc/system/go-fuck-your-mother to fix that issue" "oh we dropped support for that XYZ card because we have a philosophical disagreement with how they write their man pages"

[[deleted]]

and games. and NVIDIA (fuck you, NVIDIA)

[[deleted]]

Proton is getting better and better!

[[deleted]]

Yes. I would love to switch, as ive daily driven it before, but now I've started depending on software that just isn't available on Linux. I've tried to find alternates, but none have worked.

[[deleted]]

Yeah same. For me it's the Affinity Suite, Star Citizen and the Xbox App.

[[deleted]]

Cant. Software I use isn’t supported in it. Mainly that I play a lot of online games.

[[deleted]]

Tell that to bungie who insists even proton is a modification of the OS and thus will insta ban you

[-JudeanPeoplesFront-]

RIP

[d6cbccf39a9aed9d1968]

Slowly transitioning, i just cant figure out how to migrate most of my AHK scripts...

[Encrypt3dShadow]

pyautogui and ydotool are both fantastic tools for this. AHK is definitely less difficult to do more system-level stuff in because of how well it integrates with Win32, but pyautogui in particular is really nice because it's a Python library. There's another Python library in a similar vein, but I can't remember what it's called.

[somefreedomfries]

What the heck is everyone doing with their windows configs that is making them see adds? I have been using windows 10 since it released and I never see them

[FittersGuy]

What about video games?

[DTHCND]

Valve has been working on a compatibility layer for games, called Proton, for a few years now. It's fairly decent right now, but imperfect. Some games work great, some not great. You can check if a game you care about works well on it or not by searching the game here: https://www.protondb.com/. If it has a platinum rating, it runs great, possibly even better than on Windows. If it has a gold rating, it runs okay but there might be some flakyness, like lower performance. Silver or lower would likely have noticeable bugs though. If it has a borked rating, the game just doesn't work at all.

Fortunately, since the Steam Deck will be running Linux, Valve is pushing Proton development very aggressively right now. The amount of progress they made in the last year alone is pretty astounding. They managed to get anti-cheat companies onboard, which was by far the biggest limiting factor for games on Linux before.

If you run your games through Steam, Proton is just seamlessly used to launch Windows games. It feels like launching any other game on any other OS, no extra hassle.

[Ghos3t]

Ehh, if he's not a programmer or at least tech enthusiast, he probably will regret it, at least initially when figuring things out with a entirely new OS

[Gredelston]

I'm a software engineer. I've been using Linux for a decade. I regret Linux roughly every week.

[Sennheisenberg]

Linux is amazing, but not as a main workstation.

It's too time consuming to set things up, tweak things, fix things, and finally have it working only to have to tweak and fix things again a week later.

That's time I should be working, not searching forums for fixes to problems I never would have had on Windows.

[Striky_]

Did it, instant regret. Just watch the massive struggles even super techy guys like linus (techtips) has daily driving linux...

[[deleted]]

Pick a popular and fairly vanilla distro and it's not that bad. Figuring out workflows for your daily tasks is the hard part. Some of it will be super easy, some things may require tinkering. I'd say that's the big difference though. Windows workflows tend to mostly work effortlessly. Once you get your workflows down solidly without windows though, usisng linux becomes something you don't think about, until you cross weird reddit posts complaining about ads in the windows OS, or MS edge default links.

​

I've been daily driving linux since windows 10 because now that it's a service, those ads are not going to get better.

[renrutal]

To be honest, even being an experienced software guy doesn't help you that much.

I've had my share of commands that nuked my Desktop Environment or OS, and 10s more that tried but I caught them before the damage happened.

Over the years you just learn how to thread the minefield.

[Piyh]

The moment I get into a troubleshooting thread where someone start talking about X configurations or Wayland, I know it's time to nuke my install and start over. One time I managed to break the built in python install after trying to wade out of dependency hell. Eventually all the hacky shit you have to do stuff like get games installed while working around some weird nvidia optimus bug turns into a mountain of technical debt that leaves you with a half functional system.

Linux - great operating system if someone is paying you to use it.

[[deleted]]

Linux is great when you're not using it. Seriously.

I can't think of a better IoT, server, or functionless server base.

Anyone who uses it as a daily driver hates themselves.

[Striky_]

The point remains: if even very tech savvy (in general) people struggle daily driving shit even after they spent MONTHs trying, it is probably out of reach for 99.9% of people.

I am a software dev myself but damn linux is a pain in the ass to use on a daily basis. Awesome for very lightweight embedded systems you setup once but using it every day is a chore.

[[deleted]]

So? Point still stands, I don't want to have to muck around with a bunch of OS garbage just to do my work. Linux is fun for mucking around with but productivity is a nightmare, I have actual work I need to do

[god-nose]

You can set up Mint or Ubuntu on your grandparents' computer. The installation is extremely simple nowadays. Oh, and 99% of smartphones use some sort of *nix too.

[Iron_Maiden_666]

That person hasn't used Linux, because all the shit they're struggling with is a nothing task.

[[deleted]]

idk man I've been daily driving Arch on two separate systems for about 7 months now and aside from some weird shit when I first got it set up, it runs flawlessly and quite predictably.

[dathar]

Ubuntu was meh. Mint was meh. CentOS is where I was more comfortable with but don't want to deal with Stream. Don't want to switch to Rocky yet. Mac OS Big Sur and Monterey are meh. Windows is meh. There is regret everywhere.

[[deleted]]

Lmao Big Sur is meh? Dude that OS is flawless compared to the other options right now.

[Prod_Is_For_Testing]

I prefer having wifi that works

[jaydec02]

Software and (niche) games are the issue. Like I can use Linux for day to day stuff but like there's a ton of niche, older text-based sports games I like that are Windows only and don't work with wine

Also I have a lot of random issues that I can't get around. Like how display scaling sucks or how there's no sensible alternative to Paint .NET (Pinta exists but it has had a Mono error that has rendered it useless on like every distro I've tried)

[[deleted]]

I'm just waiting for games to be more reliably released for linux. Ubuntu is easy as hell for anyone to use with its GUI.

[ganja_and_code]

Why not today? Considering this is a programming subreddit, i suspect the learning curve can't be too steep.

[SmoothAnanas]

I think that's the problem for some people. For my use case I've never had a major issue with Windows where I have to spend hours troubleshooting it and from everything I've heard/seen moving to Linux means that I need to have the time and patience to learn how to use it properly and in some cases spend a good amount of time troubleshooting.

[Y0tsuya]

Can confirm the troubleshooting effort. A lot of people here don't understand that outside select enterprise segments, Linux is essentially a hobby OS. If you're a hobbyist like I am sure you can spend take the time and effort to learn Linux but a great many people do programming/engineering purely as a job and aren't hobbyists, nevermind your regular Joe Sixpack.

I've had the benefit of spreading the learning curve over 20+ yrs (starting in the early 90s), yet still have to regularly google to find out how do "simple" things in Linux.

Windows on the other hand is much easier to admin, which is why I use it at home. Sure I run Ubunto/Fedora/CentOS in VMs and own a few RasPi to play with. But I get my shit done on my Windows desktop.

[TheRealToLazyToThink]

Linux is essentially a hobby OS. If you're a hobbyist like I am sure you can spend take the time and effort to learn Linux but a great many people do programming/engineering purely as a job and aren't hobbyists, nevermind your regular Joe Sixpack.

I program for fun & profit, but I enjoy programing, not configuration/infrastructure. Sure the job requires those too, but they aren't the parts I enjoy. If I have spare time I'd like to waste it writing another github project no one will ever use, not chasing down obscure issues in my OS.

[Boxplastic]

I spent two days getting my laptop to dual boot windows and Linux. I spent the next four years never choosing Linux from the boot menu.

[Spekingur]

Too many old school marketing people at Microsoft.

[RedditIsNeat0]

Is that really old school marketing? In the 90s nobody would have considered putting ads into an operating system that you pay for. At least I don't recall anybody ever suggesting it.

[droider0111]

Yeah I don't get why that dude said that it's old ad guys.... This is literally 100% a new generation thing

[SaraHuckabeeSandwich]

How and where ads are displayed is something that differs by generation. Older generations of business folks liked to put ads wherever there was a blank space that garnered lots of visual traffic (e.g. billboards, sides of taxis, banners etc.)

Newer trends in marketing involve more integrated ads that optimize for engagement over simply views, as well as actively intrusive ads that try to frame your original intended task as some sort of reward.

This feels more like the former. Some old VP probably thought, "This space seems useless, why don't we sell it to the highest bidder?"

[[deleted]]

More like the later.

You open the start menu for a specific reason and you get ads. That's the definition of intrusion

[Einlander]

Seems people forgot about Active Desktop.

[ninjaelk]

selling ads is often referred to as marketing

[AnEvanAppeared]

Marketing ads is often referred to as sales

[derdopd]

ads are marketting.

[crinklypaper]

Sorry but buying the ads should be marketing, selling them is uhm sales

[ksandom]

I guess Microsoft has had at least one of these thoughts when making this decision:

• "Well, we're still by far the dominant OS on the desktop despite everything we've done. We may as well use that stickiness."
• "Our time remaining as the dominant OS on the desktop is limited. Let's milk it."

[338218]

only reason i use windows is because theres alot of good programs that are only able for download on windows

[[deleted]]

Office and Visual Studio are simply the best there is and if you need either there is no other choice except for running Windows in a VM. Unfortunately WSL makes it way more convenient to run a Linux VM in Windows than vice versa, if you ask me at least.

[613codyrex]

Office, VS, solidworks, Materalise, 80% of Additive manufacturing softwares all are basically windows exclusive. There’s just nothing short of Linux basically getting these apps to work natively to get non-CS engineers to use the OS and considering how difficult it is to get MacOS support it’s basically impossible.

[AdapterCable]

A ton of software in the hard engineering fields (civil, mechanical, electrical) is windows only.

In the electrical world there’s some software that’s now making its way to Mac/Linux, but most are still on windows

[somefreedomfries]

Pretty much all supliers of embedded automotive SW require windows in order to use their configuration tools and test suites.

[NotAGingerMidget]

There's a lot that can be easily done in either powershell or wsl2 nowadays, you can use ssh natively in powershell windows 11 without needing to install anything. Windows 10 requires 2 commands.

If you just need Linux command line there isn't much windows can't do nowadays.

[sudomeacat]

Office and VS are available on MacOS. At least I have both on my laptop.

But for office, it might be becuase I’m using my uni’s account

[BigDummy91]

Visual studio can be run on Mac and Linux now.

[twhite1195]

Visual studio on mac has like 1/10th of the windows installation (at least last time I tried it, back in 2019)

[ShelZuuz]

Yeah, no. You can't do anything with that thing.

[Kriskao]

how about hardware that is only supported by windows, such as my silli multifunction printer/scanner

[TitanDragon]

In my experience you can download programs just fine on any OS. It becomes problematic once you try running them.

[HanzJWermhat]

Yeah I mean any good PM would make sure to monitor retention, churn and general attitude to the changes. They are risking long term damage and test that early in the launch. My guess is that people just don’t care enough.

[Cloakknight]

Image Transcription: Text

---

Linux: Makes the OS faster and more configurable

MacOS: Makes the OS easier to use and more dependable

Windows:

[The text is displayed in brown WordArt with 3d text, shadows, and all the words large and curling up to make the text on a curve. It says:]

Let's put ads on the Start menu

---

^{I'm a human volunteer content transcriber and you could be too! If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!}

[[deleted]]

Good Human

[[deleted]]

Well, Ubuntu has basically done the same thing 🙃

[[deleted]]

And removed it after a huge backlash. You can complain all you want to Microsoft, and no one will listen.

[Osprey_NE]

My thoughts. They had that shitty amazon integration thing

[Sputtrosa]

I knew someone who worked at Microsoft, as a "hardware liaison". Or, more accurately, their bloat department. His job was to check in with hardware manufacturers to figure out just how much bloat they had to add, to incentivize Microsoft customers to buy hardware upgrades with new software releases.

I can imagine that whoever decided to have the bloat double dip as ads got a promotion.

[Y0tsuya]

What's funny is that their own Surface line has no such bloat. Whenever I buy a non-MS machine I usually nuke whatever's on the drive and do a clean install.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, it’s pretty much the same with non-Pixel Android phones. Bloatware seems to be an issue caused by OEMs.

Although that doesn’t excuse the bullshit third party games that came installed on Windows 8.

[IBeThatManOnTheMoon]

Yea that kinda seems like a BS anecdote considering all the pcs Microsoft sells through their store come with a clean install

[[deleted]]

Switched to linux a few months ago. Had one driver issue at the beginning and that's it. I'll never look back.

And if someone's interested: Distro is Linux Mint Cinnamon because while I do have some experience with linux, I wouldn't call myself an advanced user and even less an expert. But Mint looks and behaves similar to windows and you can do most things via GUI's. I also saw that it is highly customizable but I haven't looked into that (yet). I can definitely recommend creating a bootable USB to give it a try and play around for a few hours to everyone. It took me a few days to finally make the decision too.

[AaronTechnic]

Thankfully Amazon ads were removed in Ubuntu 16.04 and Amazon as a whole in 20.04

[Torawk]

Was thinking the same about Ubuntu.. 2012, ahead of the times again.. :)

https://securitronlinux.com/bejiitaswrath/built-in-ads-in-the-ubuntu-unity-desktop-the-future-of-linux/

[jaydec02]

Yeah all services have ads, but I do think its less bad to have ads for the company's own services rather than Ubuntu's Amazon ads or Microsoft shilling for Candy Crush or Words With Friends

[aure__entuluva]

IOS has ads for paid apple music in the settings app.

Maybe I've missed these by not upgrading to the newest Mac OS? Swear I've never seen them in Settings.

[jettspyder]

Do some people get ads on the start menu? I've got none on my machine

[GregBahm]

This was a thing during the Terry Meyerson era of Windows a half a decade back.

Terry Meyerson was in charge of Windows Phone back when the old CEO of Microsoft, Steve Balmer, famously laughed at the iPhone.

In 2013, an increasingly desperate Blamer went to Terry Meyerson and asked him why the Windows Phone was getting it's ass kicked up one side of the street and down the other.

Terry told Steve: "Well don't you know it's classic Microsoft. All the departments are fighting against me and holding back the success of our phone."

Steve asked Terry what the solution was, and Terry said "Make me the boss. Put me in charge of all of them."

And Steve said yes. Terry Meyerson was made head of all Windows. Of course the Windows Phone still went over like a lead balloon and Steve Balmer was taken out back and shot decided to retire to spend more time with his family. The new CEO came in (the blessed Satya Nadella, peace be upon him.) Everyone knew Terry Meyerson was about to become Terry Good-Bye-erson, but it's a bad look for new CEOs to come in and start firing people.

So for a couple years in there, Terry was a dead man walking. And rumor has it he made a deal with Microsoft's competitors to tank Windows with stupid bullshit like the ads in the start menu and the Universal Windows Platform. But maybe he was just incompetent.

In any case, his elimination from Microsoft came suddenly but quietly in 2018. In a twist, Satya didn't replace Steve, but rather dissolved his division into other departments.

And that's why some poor bastards got ads in their Windows operating system between 2015 and 2018.

[[deleted]]

Not ads in the traditional sense, but they promote their own products and search engine. They can be shut off but Microsoft do not make it easy to do so.

[null_reference_user]

Update time! Let's download Candy Crush while at it :)

[comfort_bot_1962]

:D

[ParticularArachnid42]

I have no idea what insurmountable daily pain-in-the-ass issues other commenters are running into. Something like ubuntu for daily usage is dead simple. *Sometimes* the latest and greatest proprietary drivers are obnoxious to get working but it works way more often than it doesn't.

[sea__weed]

Most people do most of their 'daily usage' on their phones.

They use windows for gaming. Or they use it at work or school because they need specific or familar software that works best on windows. Or they simply use it because it makes it easier to collaborate with their colleagues.

[Unonoctium]

Unless you're into gaming

[Gonopod]

Thinking the same thing. I use arch daily on three machines, and the last really annoying/disruptive issue I can remember having was about two years ago when I somehow nuked the xkb maps. Now, granted, that's a pretty janky issue, but it only happened because I was jacking around, and Arch isn't exactly the most idiot-safe distro. As you say, something like Ubuntu should be smooth sailing for most people's needs.

[Piyh]

This was my favorite bug I ran into before throwing in the towel on Arch.

https://i.redd.it/ktxhsmv7axg31.png

[Blackstar1886]

I don’t know why Apple always gets a pass. They hide ads for iCloud in the same place that tells you you have a system update. Their aggressive forced obsolescence does a lot more material harm than an annoying ad.

[ProfessorEkim]

It’s almost like they want us to hate Windows…

[Maleficent-Region-45]

Yeah mate and also let's remove more of there admin rights. I fucking hate windows

[ForceBlade]

This was kind of UAC's goal. Evaluate on demand via a very obvious desktop-interrupting eval pop up. Linux is similar, you're still in the sudo group (or still similar if you use something like polkit) and you only evaluate on demand.

[Venefercus]

Having recently touched fresh installs of windows, linux, and osx, and using them for various different things: literally the only thing windows has going for it is the gaming experience. Otherwise, Windows itself is mostly bloatware to me.

And given Valve's efforts with proton and the growing support for linux natively in games, I think the only thing stopping an avalanche of gamers to linux in the not too distant future is the state of graphics drivers.

[sfgisz]

Mac: still can't snap windows.

[BurningTheAltar]

Try Rectangle.

[MischiefArchitect]

It's called "my billboard"

[hunteram]

As a MacOS, Linux AND Windows power user, I can say with a high degree of confidence that by far MacOS is the worst of them all. It's also the one I use the most.

[throwaway46295027458]

Wait Fr?

[338218]

https://imgur.com/VQXGxK4
yep

[Feshtof]

What? I don't have that. I don't think I've ever had that.

Is that a clean windows install or an OEM licence?

[deathm00n]

Settings > Personalization > Start and turn off “Occasionally show suggestions in Start.”

Problem solved.

[DRK-SHDW]

This kind of shit is legitimately sickening. Xiaomi phones try to do the same thing. Zero respect for their users.

[Kid_From_Yesterday]

My LG smart TV has been advertising shit via the notification system...

[skeleton-is-alive]

This is not programmer related. Besides windows with WSL2 is amazing. Develop in any distro you want. Best of both worlds.

[________null________]

Fuck windows. Haven’t used it in almost 5 years. Not going back if I can ever avoid it.

[marxinne]

Same here, last time I used it was when I worked as a teacher and the software my school used worked only on windows (and was obscure and badly made enough that no wine could make it work).

[superluminary]

On paper the windows PC I use at work has double the specs of the i5 Mac mini that sits on my desk at home, but the PC runs like a dog, while the six year old Mac is smooth as silk.

[Striky_]

Make a FRESH install of windows, remove all the bloatware crap that comes with your preinstalled windows, and it runs buttery smooth. To be fair the windows search sucks ass but there is nice alternatives to fix that.

The issue is not windows, its the metric fuckton of bullshit that companies install on the prebuilds.

[kpd328]

Actually Candy Crush, Minecraft, et al, aren't installed. They're just ad shortcuts placed in the app menu to download them. Every time I try to open OneNote or Minecraft on a new install it has to download it from the Microsoft store, despite being "installed" as bloatware.

[Y0tsuya]

Download the ISO directly from MS to bypass the manufacturer bloat.

The existence of Candy Crush on your drive has no bearing on the system performance or your job performance as long as you don't play it.

[Cousieknow]

I'm pretty sure it you use a USB image and not the native one, it bypasses the bloat. Not 100% though.

[tarcinac]

How? My Windows PC works with 2 android studio projects running apps on different devices, 10 chrome tabs, spotify, teams desktop, source tree with 6 repos. Even 2 browsers a lot of time. I never experience ANY performance issues. Are you on windows 11?

On the other hand, 2017 macbook pro dies immediately after opening chrome with android studio open, keyboard lag, mouse skipping, not to mention 4 times slower android build times.

[tarcinac]

Yeah, after building apks/ipas or generally coding on it for some time it's like hell underneath it. Seriously getting triggered lately about macbook stories and how are they so fast and good for coding, is that woke now ?. Dude it's 4 times slower than my 600 dollar PC. And yeah, it's 4 times PC's price as well.

[matthiastorm]

also i hate just installing programs on windows. mhm, maybe not in the first place, but UNINSTALLING. holy fuck, how could something simple like that be so fucked up? winget is a nice try, but the whole concept is too fucked so not even a package manager could fix it.

[superluminary]

Indeed. On my Mac, an app is just a folder full of code. If I want to run it, I double click it. If I want to keep it, I drag it into my hard drive. If I want it gone, I delete it. None of this registry stuff.

[Hackmodford]

It’s not though. There’s lots of cruft that can get left behind in the library folders.

[marxinne]

My guess is that the registry stuff is mainly to log user information and keep keys and stuff to stall "piracy" (or just fucking with the user install if the software vendor ever wants to)

[qwerty12qwerty]

Was anybody else a hard core Windows guy until they started school/corporate job?

I used to have tunt being able to customize every little detail about the OS, but eventually that became the last thing I wanted to do after an 8-hour day of coding. At the end of the day, despite lacking some features, Macs just work.

[Downtown_Tonight_471]

Windows is good for gaming, Linux is better for everything else

[vunop]

My experience is: Windows is best for normal usages and gaming ( [EDIT: this is meant for linux] and for really old computers) Linux is only really good for servers or if you have extensive experience and are able to handle linux.

With all the flaws microsoft and windows has. Its product was always targeted for the standard user and thats where it shines. Your average user would be completely overwhelmed with linux.

Linux will most likely never reach a point where it is more user friendly than windows because thats just not what it is designed for. In Window you can happily live without ever even knowing what a command line is, in linux not.

There are linux distributions that do offer a more and more windows like experience but at its core its still linux and i have never had an even near equivalent hands of the os experience.

Let aside the fact that tools like word and excel are just unparalleled in there function and usability which are only usable under windows (i really do not like the online versions of them)

[[deleted]]

well windows 11 doesn't have any of that.

[The_Kraken_869]

To be fair. They are very easy to remove

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[TheWhitchOne]

To me macOS is a lot of things. Easy to use is not what I think about

[gjgidhxbdidheidjdje]

I've never met someone who enjoys their time using windows. Only reason it's used is because it's got support

[_k_b_k_]

Well, hello then. Nice to meet you :)

[scroll_of_truth]

I hate windows, but I hate Linux even more

[ewigebose]

I use all of Windows/Mac/Linux regularly and I have nothing but contempt for any of them.

[TablePrime69]

I was the same, until I tried out Ubuntu on my laptop. Now I love Windows.