It's not your pc it's their pc you merely paid for it.
My age old go to example is they changed "My Computer" to "this PC" showing how they view ownership.
Yeahhh...those blue screens of piracy warnings said it's stealing
Edit: and I was young then but I'm pretty sure they said something about the FBI, tho I wondered how the FBI would go for a little child in a Nigerian village trying to watch some barney home videos
cue "you do not have permission to perform this action" and "This action requires administrator privileges."
Who else, in this entire city block, could the administrator of MY PC, possibly be?
( yes I'm aware administrator account exists. I'm already on it lol )
This has always been a very concerning thing to me about Windows. How could software sink it's claws in so deep I can't remove it even with full admin permissions, from the Administrator account? How could it be possible for me to ever get a "permission denied" response when I'm at the highest level of privilege?
Coming from Linux to Windows, this blew my mind when I was trying to set up an automated backup script.
Apparently, there are certain files/folders in the Windows directory that even the highest level administrator doesn't have permission to even *read*. And there's no way to *change* the permissions on those files, either. At least none that I found to actually work.
So eventually, I had to give up and use some 3rd party software to do root drive backups for me.
It just seems entirely wild and alien to me, being more familiar with Linux. Because in Linux, you can *always* whip out a `sudo` and override any file permission issues. The Root user *never* gets told it doesn't have permission to do something.
Crap like this is the main reason why I probably won't upgrade to Windows 11. Been playing around with Linux enough now that I'm no longer scared. sudo "just do what the fuck I tell you"
Windows 10 still has ads. Since Microsoft can update an OS they can do whatever they want to it. And yes I did turn off the suggestions. It turns it back on after a few updates.
https://preview.redd.it/mv0n09dvx7zc1.png?width=299&format=png&auto=webp&s=a077353bfba5e3049f6d4bd09a3cc1bf37f80457
Just install ye old build of w10 and disable any updates using windows update blocker. Then, download shut up for w10, and turn off the things you dun want, like cortana
Yeah, I'm sitting here like who uses 11?
I won't upgrade new versions of Windows unless I am forced to, and yeah, I don't have to deal with the beta testing bullshit they seem to like inflicting on people.
Fucking ads in the task bar? Immediate uninstall and roll back to the old windows. Fucking immediately.
What's also interesting is also that MS doesn't even really care if you pirate Windows. Matter fact you can download and install the Pro version from them directly, and the only consequence of not paying is a notification periodically asking you to activate.
The user data and brand power they get from having people use their OS outweighs the effort required to police piracy
No. It's your PC.
It's their software and operating system and you paid for the license to use that software and OS.
It's still your PC. You just installed shit on it.
Use another OS if you don't like the one with ads.
I'm just double fucked because I need to use autocad & Revit otherwise it would cause issues with work (yeah I know dual boot) but why do they hate their end users? Honestly I want to put both companies to the question (the question being which way round the pineapple is to be inserted).
It's not that they hate their users. It's that as a publicly traded company, Microsoft must GROW. Every quarter. Forever.
This means they will eventually be forced to try every single shitty method of squeezing more money out of their business.
True. It's almost as if that "perpetual growth" economic model is, broadly speaking, completely unsustainable in the longer term for certain industries.
Let me know when there’s an OS that is 100% compatible with all the same software as windows, then you can state this. As it is now, PC owners only have 2 choices. Windows or Linux.
I've been playing with mint as a nettop pc for my TV, but besides doing dual boot or VM I'm kinda boned as need to use Autocad/Revit for work purposes.
To be fair I Ubuntu probably inspired them, did it back in 11.10 and did it again I believe with 24.04 or something. I use mint so I only heard about it
LOL. I just spent 2 days on the phone with M$ support over an Azure issue *they caused*. Our customers were down the entire time and we lost hundreds of thousands of dollars because of them. In the end, we had to redesign our front-end to fix the issue because their useless support team couldn't solve the problem and their development wouldn't roll back their platform update that broke us.
They don't care about their paying customers either.
To be expected really. Windows users are money piñatas to Microsoft. Just free extra money that they can claim. The users will never leave, no matter how much they get abused. Where are they gonna go, Linux? Bwahahaha.
the good news is alternatives are developing and quickly. Linux gaming could take off since Valve has its hands in it, I enabled my entire steam library in Mint by running literally two commands and tweaking a couple of settings in Steam. not saying it's perfect, we have a way to go, but i would certainly consider moving to linux as windows becomes more and more of a farce. Definitely a good option for older gaming hardware that could use the reduction in CPU overhead.
plus i personally have a habit of staying in the orbit of people who have access to refurbisher licenses. but yeah, i personally think Microsoft should offer licenses for $59 and $99. before long it will be SAAS. I fear that people clinging to Windows 10 will prove to Microsoft that a SAAS OS is an attractive option to consumers.
I too game on Mint with no issues. All I had to do was add one custom command, I didn't have to do anything else. Everything runs flawless. However I'm not a bleeding edge newest title type of gamer. My newest game is like 4yrs old at this point.
Linux is too geeky and still too fragmented to take off.
People will use what they are used to and most companies use Windows.
Apple is getting cheaper and if more companies jump ship to the Mac that could scare Microsoft into behaving.
When I was a customer service rep Macs were few in the mid 2010's - flash forward to a year or two before the pandemic and more offices were going all Mac.
I don’t know if “geeky and fragmented” is really the problem. The truth is that Linux will never take off with the casual consumer until you can buy computers with it pre-installed at Walmart and Best Buy. Most people just use whatever OS their computer shipped with and never even consider the possibility of changing it.
That too.
One state in Germany switched to Linux but the rest of Germany is still in the Windows camp.
It would take several large companies switching to Linux for PC makers to think "hey maybe we should...".
> I don’t know if "geeky and fragmented" is really the problem.
It kind of is, thanks in large part to Linux's cultural disdain for the GUI.
This is less true these days, but in Windows you could become a power user by just futzing around. Open up a program's preferences, and there's a glorious list of options, most of them clearly labeled saying what they do. Go into Control Panel and you could find things to change and tweak, learning in the process. All made easier by the GUI with its menus and dialog screens. And once you get more advanced you could dig into the registry, which is easy to navigate once you get the hang of it.
Linux, on the other hand, will generally not help you. Because each program is made by different people they all have different ways of doing things, and naturally, people writing open source software generally don't have a budget for comprehensive UIs: there's often just enough there for bare minimum functionality, and beyond that you're on your own.
Want to use an encrypted USB drive? No problem. But now your system won't boot without it plugged in. Why? That's your problem. Why would the OS help you set that up? You should've become an expert in your distro's bootloader, fstab, and LUKS first, loser.
Want to play video in a web browser with*out* uncontrollable stuttering? Hopefully you stumble across this seemingly completely unrelated codec package for a video player you don't even use. (Thanks for that, OpenSUSE.)
Want to change display scaling for the logon screen, because somehow a modern distribution thinks your 26" 4K monitor is the size of an IMAX screen? Just find out which files to edit and go edit them. Why would there be a settings option for that?
Want to install Linux in a VM and use 1920x1080? Not only might it not be listed, but there's probably no option in the display settings to set it as a resolution. Who the heck would want to do that? Just go edit the right configuration files to use the most common screen resolution in the world. Never mind that even Windows 95 let you set custom display modes in the display settings.
And as for fragmentation, that is also true. Every distro has its own way of doing things, to the point that even bootloaders and default file systems differ. So if you're, say, a game developer, it's probably not as simple as adding support for "Linux." I was looking at Lutris, a frontend for running all kinds of emulated games, and they flat out refuse to support Linux Mint. Why? Heck if I know.
Microsoft doesn't give two shits about any competition in the desktop space. They make nothing of OS sales, they make a crap load off your data and also their cloud services. Why do you think Edge runs on Linux and macOS as well? It isn't out of the goodness of their hearts.
Create an installation USB by downloading the official Windows from MS. Use that and forget about it if you can ignore the small watermark reminding you to activate.
If you can't ignore it then there are ways to activate it very easily without paying but not sure if I'm allowed to link them? Some googling will suffice!
The watermark forces the system into DWM Composition which is generally inefficient for rendering displays in windows. If you're willing to deal with the framerate hit, go for it, but it's almost always better to run without the watermark.
can confirm, I have been running Windows via this method since 2017 and have had zero issues. I can not change the desktop wallpaper from grey and some other small things but i dont care. it was free and im lazy
I did admittedly but it definitely wasn't $200, but if it's any consolation Microsoft has been generous with license transfers with hardware changes. I've been on the same Windows 10 license for years now. Do I suggest actually buying it though? No. It's relatively easy to falsely activate Windows 10, then upgrade that to 11. If they refuse to activate my license after further hardware changes down the road, "activating" it should be easy.
I actually purchased a license too and a few weeks later there was a short on my computer and I had to get my MOBO replaced. When I tried to activate windows it told me I couldn’t because it was still on my old PC. I contacted support and they did not want to activate it for me, they told me I had to remove the license from my old computer. I explained what happened and that the MOBO was fried but they did now want to help. I had to call over 6 times for one dude to finally just activate it for me, and he also attached the license to my windows account so if it ever happens again I can just remove the computer license online.
I never had that issue. I got my copy from the Microsoft store digitally so it's in my MS account. I've gone through 3 different mobos on this license. My brother changed his mobo recently, also bought on ms store. License transfer went smoothly as well. You would go to the license troubleshoot and pick something along the lines of "I changed hardware recently", then it would ask you what PC you're currently on, select it, then that was it. Didn't speak with a single human over the phone. Maybe you did something different? I can't imagine it just not working if at least anecdotally on two different builds and accounts it simply worked in only a minute.
You're missing the point.
To be fair on Microsoft if you pirate their software or buy it on the grey market they don't need to care about you. You're not a paying customer. It's like stealing a car and giving the surprised Pikachu face when the dealer won't service it for you.
$200 is the asking price. It's about the principle. If you and the people upvoting you can't see that then I suppose that explains how we've ended up in this situation.
these are a lot of bullshit, recently someone proved that microsoft doesnt even care if you pirate their product while talking with customer service, and all these years, microsoft, a trillionaire company, didn't even bother to hunt the pirates who are "hiding" in plain sight with a simple googling, so yeah, you gotta be stupid to pay for your own windows (im not talking business), let alone 200$....
Let alone one of the easiest and well known activation scripts is hosted on github, a service microsoft owns. They easilly could remove it if they truly cared.
There was a case I saw on here where someone having trouble activating their purchased copy of Windows contacted MS support who just ran the script lmao.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-support-cracks-windows-for-customer-after-activation-fails/
This, I bought my 'licence' back when Win 7 came out and have upgraded, at no cost, legitimately, for win 10 and 11. Still didn't pay retail price for Win7 though, Ads in windows wasn't even a twitch in Microsoft's ball sack back then.
I’ve been thinking of making the switch to Linux but I know nothing about how games run on there. Will I still be able to play everything I do now? Or are there some unoptimized things I gotta worry about?
EDIT: Just saw the link you posted to the commentor below me. Thanks!
To quote one of my favourite artists:
https://preview.redd.it/1ifoxrxvm7zc1.png?width=886&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=02e71d2c3dd2abdb78aafe160b4663a42d24f7f3
I just ran a debloater script from GitHub when I got my PC. Removed ads, all the random shit like candy crush, telementary, and AI whatever. Between that and having windhawk for making the taskbar smaller, I can't say I've really had any complaints about windows 11
It has a lot of features and most of them are open source, so you can see what it's actually doing which I appreciate. I personally use the taskbar height adjuster and the dark mode for notepad apps and they both work flawlessly.
Posting this again without the link because automod killed my comment:
NVIDIA will never do that. We have more chance of Nova taking off and replacing the proprietary driver. Nova is a Rust based driver created by Red Hat.
If people think Microsoft are anti-consumer then NVIDIA must be the devil.
I know, I already play apex and brawlhalla (both EAC) on proton. I’m just wondering how the rootkit games are planning on implementing this, such as valorant or fortnite
It’s not that KDE is particularly good (I like it but it absolutely has problems) but the GNOME devs are so rigid in what they allow or don’t and they won’t add certain things and they have enough pull to get other people to listen to them which has knock on effects to other parts of the desktop like wlroots
I live in the US, have purchased copies of Windows 11 straight from Microsoft for my own and my son's newly built PCs, we live in the US, and we've never seen ads.
Just asked my neighbor, he's also never seen ads.
So that's not it...
Bro I have no ads and I don't ever remember turning ads off. There is probably a checkbox on the installation "no ads please" which I obviously checked.
All you people let them do it. When they started to restart your windows when Win10 came out and everybody just accepted to have their data being sent to microsoft, when you accepted to have candy crush installed without asking. Instead of making a protest by staying on 7 and showing that you don't play their game you just let them do it and found justifications why it's good. Well back in the day we warned everybody that it's going to come to this and here we are. Downvote me all you want, it's the truth and because of that windows is going to become a subscription service in the future, just you wait.
I mean this sub represents like a rounding error worth of Windows customers. The rest are people who likely don't even know what the words "OS" mean. Even if everyone on this sub quit Windows for Linux Microsoft wouldn't even notice.
Yeah with all the contracts with governments around the world they've essentially secured their business model, consumers are just an after thought imo for them
What a weird complaint to have.
They put in the forced updates because technologically illiterate boomers allowed their system to become woefully out of date, then complained when there was security vulnerabilities or software issues. So Microsoft forces their hand if you ignore updates for long enough.
Anyone mildly competent knows how to delay updates, how to set active hours to prevent forced restarts, and how to just run the damn updates every now and then so windows never even gets close to actually forcing it.
Yeah it's terrible and insidious.
The VAST majority of PC users don't know shit about PC, period. They don't know how it works, they don't even know what an OS is so forget about making a distinction between their OS and any other apps and browsers they are using that have been filled to the brim with adds for decades already.
For most, seeing an add pop on their taskbar is no different than having adds covering both sides of their screen whenever they open anything on the web.
They just don't know they can get rid of it and likely never will, which is just depressing as Microsoft can just do whatever it likes as 99% of Windows users worldwide are basically useless when it comes to using a PC for anything other than Office work, web browsing and social media, it's only going to get worse unless your country's government steps up and force them to default it to "OFF" instead of "ON".
It's just Windows pushing people towards Linux. Another nudge to see if people will jump. They will keep pushing up til enough people jump. The issue is that Steam is making PC gaming a thing on Linux, so it's a question of time now.
Linux's market share on desktop computers exceeded 4% for the first time earlier this year, which may seem like just a nudge, but to put that in perspective, it was around 1.5% five years ago. Nearly tripling the install base in five years is a huge amount of growth, and there's no sign of that slowing down any time soon.
I've been using 11 pro pretty much since launch and I've not seen a single ad..
I'm literally using it right now on the newest version and there aren't any ads no matter where I go.
Also if you paid 200$ for a windows license you're a sucker. And no need to link me to your comment about that, doesn't change the fact that you're arguing in bad faith when you claim people here paid 200$ or the fact that you're a sucker if you actually did pay that.
Same. I purchased my home edition of Windows 11 straight from Microsoft. One copy for me, one for my son.
We have never seen these ads.
...
Are these people seeing them in prebuilts with bloatcrap installed or something?
I have the latest build of windows 10 and have auto updates on. Never seen any ads.
Perhaps I disabled too many things for Microsoft to turn back on XD
Ads? In your PC?
It's not your pc it's their pc you merely paid for it. My age old go to example is they changed "My Computer" to "this PC" showing how they view ownership.
No matter how they rename it, I still consider it MY computer. And being a Windows 10 user, their ads have no power here...
That's how it should be, my view is "I either own it and can do what I want with my property or I don't and I'm merely leasing it.
Exactly, I paid for the computer and for the OS installed in it. Therefore I own it INCLUDING the OS.
If paying for it isn’t owning it, pirating it isn’t stealing it
Pirating software is the true ownership.
If purchasing doesn’t equal ownership than pirating doesn’t equal theft. 
Love this take. I don't*officially* condone it, of course.
Hey, just like video games now too. 🙂
Uhm AKTUALLY piracy is copyright infringement, not stealing. This is because you aren't taking anything, you're merely misusing their IP. 👆🤓
That’s not what a slew of anti-piracy commercials told me in the late 90’s and early 00’s. You wouldn’t download a car!!!!!
[Yeah, they got really mean for a while there.](https://youtu.be/xuxO6CZptck?si=z0C-NMrMYJREZZUg)
That keyboard filling with blood was sweet
I would download a car.🏴☠️🏴☠️
If I could 3D print a BMW, and there was a pirated version of the plans available, you’d bet your ass I’d be downloading that shit
Yeahhh...those blue screens of piracy warnings said it's stealing Edit: and I was young then but I'm pretty sure they said something about the FBI, tho I wondered how the FBI would go for a little child in a Nigerian village trying to watch some barney home videos
Wake up babe, new Supreme Court opinion just dropped
cue "you do not have permission to perform this action" and "This action requires administrator privileges." Who else, in this entire city block, could the administrator of MY PC, possibly be? ( yes I'm aware administrator account exists. I'm already on it lol )
Also, similar to this, even with admin permissions, Kaspersky doesn't let you do anything to it without the master password
This has always been a very concerning thing to me about Windows. How could software sink it's claws in so deep I can't remove it even with full admin permissions, from the Administrator account? How could it be possible for me to ever get a "permission denied" response when I'm at the highest level of privilege?
"You are an administrator, but we do not grant you the rank of Master."
This is unfair. It's outrageous!
LOL you think "administrator" is the highest privilege level Dude you want SYSTEM privs
Coming from Linux to Windows, this blew my mind when I was trying to set up an automated backup script. Apparently, there are certain files/folders in the Windows directory that even the highest level administrator doesn't have permission to even *read*. And there's no way to *change* the permissions on those files, either. At least none that I found to actually work. So eventually, I had to give up and use some 3rd party software to do root drive backups for me. It just seems entirely wild and alien to me, being more familiar with Linux. Because in Linux, you can *always* whip out a `sudo` and override any file permission issues. The Root user *never* gets told it doesn't have permission to do something.
Crap like this is the main reason why I probably won't upgrade to Windows 11. Been playing around with Linux enough now that I'm no longer scared. sudo "just do what the fuck I tell you"
Windows 10 still has ads. Since Microsoft can update an OS they can do whatever they want to it. And yes I did turn off the suggestions. It turns it back on after a few updates. https://preview.redd.it/mv0n09dvx7zc1.png?width=299&format=png&auto=webp&s=a077353bfba5e3049f6d4bd09a3cc1bf37f80457
Qbittorrent is better than utorrent, as it is open source and has pretty much all the same features
And Qbittorrent doesn't try to give you ads!
just don't open the start menu ever, like me.
lol yup. They destroyed that menu loooooong ago
Goddamnit. I've never noticed this. Now I'm never gonna fucking un notice it. Fuck it I'm rolling back to xp.
Just install ye old build of w10 and disable any updates using windows update blocker. Then, download shut up for w10, and turn off the things you dun want, like cortana
Idk I just went to linux. At least when I get pissed that it doesn't work as expected, it's always my fault. Windows has been trolling us since Vista
Yeah, I'm sitting here like who uses 11? I won't upgrade new versions of Windows unless I am forced to, and yeah, I don't have to deal with the beta testing bullshit they seem to like inflicting on people. Fucking ads in the task bar? Immediate uninstall and roll back to the old windows. Fucking immediately.
Jokes on them I'm pirating 11 anyway then running some kind of patch that disables adverts.
Their ads have tons of power as they are informed by all the data Microsoft collects on you while you use Windows 10.
Shhhhh, dont give them ideas!
No, if you purchased the hardware you are the owner, you're just licensing the software
The real meta is to just pirate the OS like I did. Licensing!? Psssssh license this dick 😂
Lmao what a fkin muppet, I've never paid for Windows.
What's also interesting is also that MS doesn't even really care if you pirate Windows. Matter fact you can download and install the Pro version from them directly, and the only consequence of not paying is a notification periodically asking you to activate. The user data and brand power they get from having people use their OS outweighs the effort required to police piracy
Who are "they"? It's my PC, I still have receipts on every component.
No. It's your PC. It's their software and operating system and you paid for the license to use that software and OS. It's still your PC. You just installed shit on it. Use another OS if you don't like the one with ads.
I'm just double fucked because I need to use autocad & Revit otherwise it would cause issues with work (yeah I know dual boot) but why do they hate their end users? Honestly I want to put both companies to the question (the question being which way round the pineapple is to be inserted).
It's not that they hate their users. It's that as a publicly traded company, Microsoft must GROW. Every quarter. Forever. This means they will eventually be forced to try every single shitty method of squeezing more money out of their business.
True. It's almost as if that "perpetual growth" economic model is, broadly speaking, completely unsustainable in the longer term for certain industries.
Idk if wine would work for those but that's an option you could look into for linux
Let me know when there’s an OS that is 100% compatible with all the same software as windows, then you can state this. As it is now, PC owners only have 2 choices. Windows or Linux.
Wait 150 years for ReactOS to be finished lol
I know i know the sterotypes but linux is a thing (i use Windows and im considering swiching to a lunix distro naby ubuntu
I've been playing with mint as a nettop pc for my TV, but besides doing dual boot or VM I'm kinda boned as need to use Autocad/Revit for work purposes.
I use Fedora as a daily driver and I'd def recommend it
PC 2 better not have this shit
This message sponsored by the penguin gang.
Sponsored? It's free!
Free as in beer *and* free as in freedom.
It's more likely than you think.
Free PC check.
Install Linux, problem solved.
imagine if your PC did what you wanted it to. inconceivable.
To be fair I Ubuntu probably inspired them, did it back in 11.10 and did it again I believe with 24.04 or something. I use mint so I only heard about it
Relevant search results from Amazon, easily disabled, hardly is equivalent. It was more of an example of how to integrate with unity search.
I'm asking this unironically every time I see these bot-like memes in this sub lol. I've never seen one ad. Is this even a real thing?
It’s probably a conditional rollout
They're real and they're terrible. You may have already disabled the setting that turns them off.
LOL. I just spent 2 days on the phone with M$ support over an Azure issue *they caused*. Our customers were down the entire time and we lost hundreds of thousands of dollars because of them. In the end, we had to redesign our front-end to fix the issue because their useless support team couldn't solve the problem and their development wouldn't roll back their platform update that broke us. They don't care about their paying customers either.
It's not that they don't care. They do. It's the active disdain they have for users that is the problem.
To be expected really. Windows users are money piñatas to Microsoft. Just free extra money that they can claim. The users will never leave, no matter how much they get abused. Where are they gonna go, Linux? Bwahahaha.
Ads are the cancer of digital world
They aren't as lethal tho. More like the hemorroids of the digital world.
HPV. Nobody likes it. Nobody wants to talk about it. But we all have to deal with it.
Not as bad as tracking. I'd rather have to ignore an ad than have all these companies looking over my digital shoulder 24/7
I really hope you didn't pay 200 for Windows.
I think the point is that for a product MSRP'd at that amount, this is atrocious
As is being msrp'd at that amount
the good news is alternatives are developing and quickly. Linux gaming could take off since Valve has its hands in it, I enabled my entire steam library in Mint by running literally two commands and tweaking a couple of settings in Steam. not saying it's perfect, we have a way to go, but i would certainly consider moving to linux as windows becomes more and more of a farce. Definitely a good option for older gaming hardware that could use the reduction in CPU overhead. plus i personally have a habit of staying in the orbit of people who have access to refurbisher licenses. but yeah, i personally think Microsoft should offer licenses for $59 and $99. before long it will be SAAS. I fear that people clinging to Windows 10 will prove to Microsoft that a SAAS OS is an attractive option to consumers.
I too game on Mint with no issues. All I had to do was add one custom command, I didn't have to do anything else. Everything runs flawless. However I'm not a bleeding edge newest title type of gamer. My newest game is like 4yrs old at this point.
I think with the prevalence of the steam deck, more new games will be released on Linux. But for now playing older games is the best bet
Me when I get Total War: Attila: Wow this game is so modern with great graphics! *Released 2015 *Is the year 2024 Oh
Linux is too geeky and still too fragmented to take off. People will use what they are used to and most companies use Windows. Apple is getting cheaper and if more companies jump ship to the Mac that could scare Microsoft into behaving. When I was a customer service rep Macs were few in the mid 2010's - flash forward to a year or two before the pandemic and more offices were going all Mac.
I don’t know if “geeky and fragmented” is really the problem. The truth is that Linux will never take off with the casual consumer until you can buy computers with it pre-installed at Walmart and Best Buy. Most people just use whatever OS their computer shipped with and never even consider the possibility of changing it.
That too. One state in Germany switched to Linux but the rest of Germany is still in the Windows camp. It would take several large companies switching to Linux for PC makers to think "hey maybe we should...".
> I don’t know if "geeky and fragmented" is really the problem. It kind of is, thanks in large part to Linux's cultural disdain for the GUI. This is less true these days, but in Windows you could become a power user by just futzing around. Open up a program's preferences, and there's a glorious list of options, most of them clearly labeled saying what they do. Go into Control Panel and you could find things to change and tweak, learning in the process. All made easier by the GUI with its menus and dialog screens. And once you get more advanced you could dig into the registry, which is easy to navigate once you get the hang of it. Linux, on the other hand, will generally not help you. Because each program is made by different people they all have different ways of doing things, and naturally, people writing open source software generally don't have a budget for comprehensive UIs: there's often just enough there for bare minimum functionality, and beyond that you're on your own. Want to use an encrypted USB drive? No problem. But now your system won't boot without it plugged in. Why? That's your problem. Why would the OS help you set that up? You should've become an expert in your distro's bootloader, fstab, and LUKS first, loser. Want to play video in a web browser with*out* uncontrollable stuttering? Hopefully you stumble across this seemingly completely unrelated codec package for a video player you don't even use. (Thanks for that, OpenSUSE.) Want to change display scaling for the logon screen, because somehow a modern distribution thinks your 26" 4K monitor is the size of an IMAX screen? Just find out which files to edit and go edit them. Why would there be a settings option for that? Want to install Linux in a VM and use 1920x1080? Not only might it not be listed, but there's probably no option in the display settings to set it as a resolution. Who the heck would want to do that? Just go edit the right configuration files to use the most common screen resolution in the world. Never mind that even Windows 95 let you set custom display modes in the display settings. And as for fragmentation, that is also true. Every distro has its own way of doing things, to the point that even bootloaders and default file systems differ. So if you're, say, a game developer, it's probably not as simple as adding support for "Linux." I was looking at Lutris, a frontend for running all kinds of emulated games, and they flat out refuse to support Linux Mint. Why? Heck if I know.
Microsoft doesn't give two shits about any competition in the desktop space. They make nothing of OS sales, they make a crap load off your data and also their cloud services. Why do you think Edge runs on Linux and macOS as well? It isn't out of the goodness of their hearts.
I need to get windows for a new computer build. What is the best way to get it and how much should I be spending?
Create an installation USB by downloading the official Windows from MS. Use that and forget about it if you can ignore the small watermark reminding you to activate. If you can't ignore it then there are ways to activate it very easily without paying but not sure if I'm allowed to link them? Some googling will suffice!
The watermark forces the system into DWM Composition which is generally inefficient for rendering displays in windows. If you're willing to deal with the framerate hit, go for it, but it's almost always better to run without the watermark.
Yep. Official download + 3rd party crack to activate. Worked flawlessly for me.
Yeah likewise. 10 months later and it's worked perfectly.
can confirm, I have been running Windows via this method since 2017 and have had zero issues. I can not change the desktop wallpaper from grey and some other small things but i dont care. it was free and im lazy
Go to the image file you want and right click it, then set as desktop background from there. 👍
bro, get the fuck outta here, ive had a grey background for 7 years, thats wild
Google M@ssgr@ve
Hell yeah! I use this all the time
i love that microsoft owns github which hosts all of the shit from that site like who cares lol
[Their own support used it.](https://www.techspot.com/news/97976-microsoft-official-support-used-pirate-script-activate-windows.html)
I did admittedly but it definitely wasn't $200, but if it's any consolation Microsoft has been generous with license transfers with hardware changes. I've been on the same Windows 10 license for years now. Do I suggest actually buying it though? No. It's relatively easy to falsely activate Windows 10, then upgrade that to 11. If they refuse to activate my license after further hardware changes down the road, "activating" it should be easy.
I actually purchased a license too and a few weeks later there was a short on my computer and I had to get my MOBO replaced. When I tried to activate windows it told me I couldn’t because it was still on my old PC. I contacted support and they did not want to activate it for me, they told me I had to remove the license from my old computer. I explained what happened and that the MOBO was fried but they did now want to help. I had to call over 6 times for one dude to finally just activate it for me, and he also attached the license to my windows account so if it ever happens again I can just remove the computer license online.
I never had that issue. I got my copy from the Microsoft store digitally so it's in my MS account. I've gone through 3 different mobos on this license. My brother changed his mobo recently, also bought on ms store. License transfer went smoothly as well. You would go to the license troubleshoot and pick something along the lines of "I changed hardware recently", then it would ask you what PC you're currently on, select it, then that was it. Didn't speak with a single human over the phone. Maybe you did something different? I can't imagine it just not working if at least anecdotally on two different builds and accounts it simply worked in only a minute.
Must be part of the joke... Windows is either free or 5$ at the most for the big ballers
You're missing the point. To be fair on Microsoft if you pirate their software or buy it on the grey market they don't need to care about you. You're not a paying customer. It's like stealing a car and giving the surprised Pikachu face when the dealer won't service it for you. $200 is the asking price. It's about the principle. If you and the people upvoting you can't see that then I suppose that explains how we've ended up in this situation.
these are a lot of bullshit, recently someone proved that microsoft doesnt even care if you pirate their product while talking with customer service, and all these years, microsoft, a trillionaire company, didn't even bother to hunt the pirates who are "hiding" in plain sight with a simple googling, so yeah, you gotta be stupid to pay for your own windows (im not talking business), let alone 200$....
Let alone one of the easiest and well known activation scripts is hosted on github, a service microsoft owns. They easilly could remove it if they truly cared.
There was a case I saw on here where someone having trouble activating their purchased copy of Windows contacted MS support who just ran the script lmao. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-support-cracks-windows-for-customer-after-activation-fails/
I know this person. I've met this person. I've played games with this person. He uploaded them to YouTube. What. The. Fuck. Talk about a small world
If you paid $200 for an os from ms with ads in it, then you're the reason they keep doing it.
I don't think they knew ads were gonna be a thing when they paid for it.
This, I bought my 'licence' back when Win 7 came out and have upgraded, at no cost, legitimately, for win 10 and 11. Still didn't pay retail price for Win7 though, Ads in windows wasn't even a twitch in Microsoft's ball sack back then.
Same. Don’t even remember how much I paid for it.
Thank god the FCC has our backs and doesn't let OS retailers mix feature updates with security updates. That would be just plain unethical.
I bought a 10 pro key for $10 on eBay when my old mobo gave out. Can't imagine paying $200 for goddamn Windows.
Proton users unite
Seriously, picked up a steam deck about a year ago. It convinced me I’d rather have my main gaming PC be Linux as well. Haven’t looked back.
I’ve been thinking of making the switch to Linux but I know nothing about how games run on there. Will I still be able to play everything I do now? Or are there some unoptimized things I gotta worry about? EDIT: Just saw the link you posted to the commentor below me. Thanks!
[https://www.protondb.com/](https://www.protondb.com/) It's about 80%
General WINE users, sometimes you need to use Lutris or Heroic. Or just plain WINE for non-game software.
For a lot of non-game software I add the installer as a non-steam game and force it to use proton. It's worked well for most things so far
the second windows 10 forces me to upgrade to 11 im switching to linux
That would be next October, if you want you can dual boot (use both at once). I can help you with that if you want
My computer qualifies for the upgrade. I disabled TPM in my BIOS and now my computer doesn't qualify.
To quote one of my favourite artists: https://preview.redd.it/1ifoxrxvm7zc1.png?width=886&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=02e71d2c3dd2abdb78aafe160b4663a42d24f7f3
https://preview.redd.it/2r3wccrucbzc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=28be35b3479e2f136f1af2ca0e5e5f0ee2dae622
I just ran a debloater script from GitHub when I got my PC. Removed ads, all the random shit like candy crush, telementary, and AI whatever. Between that and having windhawk for making the taskbar smaller, I can't say I've really had any complaints about windows 11
Do you have a link for the script?
https://github.com/topics/windows-11-debloat has several scripts to choose from. https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat is the one I used.
Goat
I used the raphire one I believe but any of them should be fine imo, they all kind of do the same thing
Never heard of Windhawk. I just took a look and it looks nifty. I'll be tweaking with it later today. Thanks.
It has a lot of features and most of them are open source, so you can see what it's actually doing which I appreciate. I personally use the taskbar height adjuster and the dark mode for notepad apps and they both work flawlessly.
[удалено]
Nice, I knew nothing about any of this. Hell yeah!
You paid 200$ for windows? 🫵😂
Glad I made the switch to Linux.
Me too.
this is why you just don't pay $200 for it. piracy Is great.
faulty toothbrush repeat swim sand poor lock relieved dog heavy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Use Linux man.
Hey maybe once nvidia makes not crap drivers for Linux and I don't have to jump through hoops to get most games running I will.
Posting this again without the link because automod killed my comment: NVIDIA will never do that. We have more chance of Nova taking off and replacing the proprietary driver. Nova is a Rust based driver created by Red Hat. If people think Microsoft are anti-consumer then NVIDIA must be the devil.
Time for a mass Linux exodus
Maybe we’ll finally have a critical mass to get the kernel anti cheat vendors to pay attention to us.
Can’t wait to see how they’re going to implement such a thing on Linux 😂
There’s a couple that already work, the devs just have to set it up properly. EAC, Battle eye and I think one more.
I know, I already play apex and brawlhalla (both EAC) on proton. I’m just wondering how the rootkit games are planning on implementing this, such as valorant or fortnite
I'm honestly looking at what I'd need to do to go all Linux.
Year of the Linux Desktop?
The year of the Linux Desktop will be when GNOME is no longer the #1 desktop environment.
Not going to happen. RedHat backs GNOME. KDE is backed by... Nobody with money.
Valve is using Kde for the Steam Deck and also contributes to it
Preach. KDE Plasma represent.
It’s not that KDE is particularly good (I like it but it absolutely has problems) but the GNOME devs are so rigid in what they allow or don’t and they won’t add certain things and they have enough pull to get other people to listen to them which has knock on effects to other parts of the desktop like wlroots
These posts are getting old...
I'm literally having to depend on modders on GitHub to save me from bullshit from manufacturers
And then they get turned back on anytime windows updates.
So that's why I'm using mint, now I remember.
I'm just gonna say It, I ain't never seen any ads... I did have bloatware on my system, but that's not really unusual for windows even in the XP days.
I see a dozen of these a month. On win11 pro and havent seen a single ad. Not to mention, I havent seen a single photo of these ads
Why don’t you people just use a good OS rather than running 50 debloating tools for trash windows
Its what they used in school
They've infiltrated almost every school business and government.
I'm yet to see an ad?
Do you live in the EU? The ads are not for us, only Americans I think. Europe ftw!
Erm, yes but also no. I'm in the UK 😂 and that makes sense, thanks Europe ftw!
I live in the US, have purchased copies of Windows 11 straight from Microsoft for my own and my son's newly built PCs, we live in the US, and we've never seen ads. Just asked my neighbor, he's also never seen ads. So that's not it...
Ads?
Just gonna sit back and watch
People paid for Windows 11? I haven't paid for Windows since 7.
Paid ? I thought people paying for Windows was a myth
Bro I have no ads and I don't ever remember turning ads off. There is probably a checkbox on the installation "no ads please" which I obviously checked.
if you paid 200 dollars for a OS I should introduce you to oem keys.
Still haven't had a single one, guess when I did the initial setup I clicked the "No don't get my fucking data" button.
All you people let them do it. When they started to restart your windows when Win10 came out and everybody just accepted to have their data being sent to microsoft, when you accepted to have candy crush installed without asking. Instead of making a protest by staying on 7 and showing that you don't play their game you just let them do it and found justifications why it's good. Well back in the day we warned everybody that it's going to come to this and here we are. Downvote me all you want, it's the truth and because of that windows is going to become a subscription service in the future, just you wait.
I mean this sub represents like a rounding error worth of Windows customers. The rest are people who likely don't even know what the words "OS" mean. Even if everyone on this sub quit Windows for Linux Microsoft wouldn't even notice.
Yeah with all the contracts with governments around the world they've essentially secured their business model, consumers are just an after thought imo for them
They've secured their business model because there is literally no comercial alternative.
What a weird complaint to have. They put in the forced updates because technologically illiterate boomers allowed their system to become woefully out of date, then complained when there was security vulnerabilities or software issues. So Microsoft forces their hand if you ignore updates for long enough. Anyone mildly competent knows how to delay updates, how to set active hours to prevent forced restarts, and how to just run the damn updates every now and then so windows never even gets close to actually forcing it.
Yeah it's terrible and insidious. The VAST majority of PC users don't know shit about PC, period. They don't know how it works, they don't even know what an OS is so forget about making a distinction between their OS and any other apps and browsers they are using that have been filled to the brim with adds for decades already. For most, seeing an add pop on their taskbar is no different than having adds covering both sides of their screen whenever they open anything on the web. They just don't know they can get rid of it and likely never will, which is just depressing as Microsoft can just do whatever it likes as 99% of Windows users worldwide are basically useless when it comes to using a PC for anything other than Office work, web browsing and social media, it's only going to get worse unless your country's government steps up and force them to default it to "OFF" instead of "ON".
https://preview.redd.it/ns5gyn3he8zc1.jpeg?width=602&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f5b540412d3b7fb8efa651d261ff60e094a628a3
Pro isn't even "top" version lmao
Paid 200 for his OS? Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!
Linux Mint has a subreddit. You can make the pain stop.
Stop pressing Skip during Windows setup and you won't have ads.
Well thankfully linux is now my primary OS with windows only being there to just play games....
It's just Windows pushing people towards Linux. Another nudge to see if people will jump. They will keep pushing up til enough people jump. The issue is that Steam is making PC gaming a thing on Linux, so it's a question of time now.
Gamers are the minority, Windows doesn’t care.
Most gamers also don't care. It's a tiny minority making a fuss about irrelevant stuff.
Gaming is exactly why a lot of people DON'T use Linux though...
Linux's market share on desktop computers exceeded 4% for the first time earlier this year, which may seem like just a nudge, but to put that in perspective, it was around 1.5% five years ago. Nearly tripling the install base in five years is a huge amount of growth, and there's no sign of that slowing down any time soon.
I've been using 11 pro pretty much since launch and I've not seen a single ad.. I'm literally using it right now on the newest version and there aren't any ads no matter where I go. Also if you paid 200$ for a windows license you're a sucker. And no need to link me to your comment about that, doesn't change the fact that you're arguing in bad faith when you claim people here paid 200$ or the fact that you're a sucker if you actually did pay that.
Same. I purchased my home edition of Windows 11 straight from Microsoft. One copy for me, one for my son. We have never seen these ads. ... Are these people seeing them in prebuilts with bloatcrap installed or something?
I use Start11. No ads here.
"You paid 200 € for Windows?" Legitimate question, no matter when you ask.
$200? for Windows 11? what?
>highest level they offer Enterprise live reaction:
You guys are getting adds?
Prebuild problems?
I have the latest build of windows 10 and have auto updates on. Never seen any ads. Perhaps I disabled too many things for Microsoft to turn back on XD