Windows: we noticed that you kept the useless search bar disabled since 2015, so we sent an update that re-enabled it without your permission
For my "convenience" and because in this way they can show ads and clickbait
Also: I SET A FUCKING GROUP POLICY THAT DISABLES THE SEARCH BAR; WHY THEY FUCKING IGNORE IT???
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Classic microsoft move.
Linux has gotten great over the years and keeps improving while windows gets worse and worse every day. This has been going on for many years now.
I switched already and suggest you give it a shot as well. It's honestly much easier than windows if you know the basics and understand how things are done there.
How is it for gaming?
Pretty damn good these days.
I just got a new game off steam, no issues with installation. Thats my experience this entire year.
Fantastic - made the jump a month ago. I don't play FPS games. Those are the ones that have trouble running on Linux due to anti-cheast software, but the vast majority of my 600 steam games run with no issues it all - at sometimes running even better than on windows.
For example division 2 was sluggish on win11 on my Lenovo y540 (integrated GeForce whatever gaming laptop card) with 16gig of ram, now that I swapped over to Pop!_os - it doesn't lag at all.
I mostly play single player games, but guild wars 2 2 and ff14 work great too if you are an MMO fan.
PoE works great if you want an ARPG to play.
Make the move and own your PC again.
Can you play Games like World of Warcraft on Linux?
I've played world of Warcraft on Linux for at least 8 years now.
You can yes, you can use Lutris and it will help you get that installed. GW2 and FF14 will both run with steam (proton)
I play mosty either indy games or just older games on an older gaming laptop (geforce 1070m based HP Omen) and Steam/Linux Mint work pretty great. Outer Wilds works even better in Linux now that I've begun using CoreCtrl to disable CPU power throttling. Otherwise, it runs about like it did on Windows. The MCC runs flawlessly. Recently purchased No Man's Sky and it runs pretty well and is actually incredibly smooth--no idea how that one runs in Windows because I've been just using Linux full-time for maybe two months now.
There is some weirdness like having to process Vulcan Shades before games boot up which can be annoying, but it hasn't discouraged me yet. You can also skip that and the only difference is there might be a bit of stuttering for the first bit of game play. After going back to Windows to compare performance, I think it does this stuttering thing anyways?
Shader compiling is just a graphical technique. DX12 does it too. Just that, Vulkan is nice enough to tell you a bit about it, and Steam has preemptive compiling, which runs most of the compiling before running the game precisely to reduce stuttering during gameplay. If you recall when The Last of Us remake launched, a lot of people were reporting up to an hour of “Loading” time at the menu before the game was playable on first run, and some were even reporting compiling on every single run of the game just as long. That was a bug with DX12 Shader compiling and it was prominent in both consoles and Windows. It's not a Vulkan thing, nor particular about Linux. That is just how graphically intensive games are made nowadays.
+1 for indie games. I really think we're living in the golden age of indie gaming with tools like Godot, Unreal, and Unity (yes, yes, I know, but Unity is probably still the most popular engine for now). As indies get empowered more and more by tools like this, and AAA studios get greedier and greedier, I can't find any reason to play anything that isn't from an indie game developer.
And most, nearly even all indie games work great on Linux, often even better than their Windows counterparts.
I just skip the loading vulkan stage and it works fine for me.
Mmhmm. I've started doing this and it does work fine. I think I saw a comment once that noted they compile faster in-game anyways. So that makes me feel better about skipping lol
Yeah that's kinda what I figured- it just does it in the background!
Vulkan skip gang rise up.
Does it actually work that well? I've been waiting ages for halo shaders every time lmao
Yeah - no different whatsoever - I'm pretty sure it just loads over time in the background once you start the game.
What about AAA games like cyberpunk 2077 or Armored Core VI?
https://www.protondb.com/app/1091500 https://www.protondb.com/app/1888160
Both are fine.
Cyberpunk flat out is unplayable with an NVidia card right now, just FYI. They broke something with the 2.0 update.
Very……interesting……I wonder how RTX drivers work
Thank you for this!
Just make sure to use the Nvidia proprietary driver and you should be fine. Don't try to install it yourself, use the distribution offered version.
What distro would you recommend? Is arch the best right now? (Steam Deck is arch based)
Not a gamer myself but from reading it used to be "this is a limited list of games that will work in Linux" and now it's a "this is a limited list of games that will not work", with a lot of thanks to valve, pop-os!, etc.
I have been a Linux gamer for the past 10 years. I haven't booted into Windows to play a video game in 8.
When I started out, it was very much a question of "Here is the list of games that work on Linux." You had to look for that Steam logo next to the Windows or sometimes Apple logo on the Steam page, and there are some games I would have played years earlier had that logo been there. With Proton, it has switched to "Here is a list of the games that don't work on Linux." Because most just do, with the very notable exception of competitive shooters, because something something anticheat.
I often hear that games actually run better on Linux than they do on Windows, except the newer whiz-bang features don't work. Give a recent example, apparently Cyberpunk 2077 runs at a significantly higher framerate on Linux than Windows, but DLSS, HDR and RTX aren't available.
Let me tell you the tales of two gamers on Linux:
My tale: I was disgusted with Windows 8.1, I had been learning some Linux because I wanted to use a Raspberry Pi with my ham radio stuff, so I went...why don't I try switching? This was circa 2014. There was exactly one game in my Steam library that just could not be persuaded to run and that was Sleeping Dogs.
There have been a few games I've wanted to try that refused to run in some way or another; Heave Ho! by Devolver Digital...the demo ran fine, had a good time with it. Bought the game, and the UI on the player select screen didn't work. Grow Up or Grow Home (one is a sequel to the other, I forget which it was) launched, but the character didn't respond to any controls. Oh and Fallout: New Vegas launched one of those Windows-style autorun screens then asked me to put in the DVD. I bought it from Steam. And refunded it.
I generally avoid AAA games, I don't play many online multiplayer games, I do play multiplayer games with friends, stuff like Stardew Valley or Unrailed, but I don't go play with random people online, those just are not fun to me. I tend to prefer more indie stuff, more nerdy stuff, like I've got hundreds of hours in Factorio and Satisfactory, both work fine. I think it just so happens that I'm into games that are likely to be well supported on Linux. Antichamber, Firewatch, Hollow Knight, Return of the Obra Dinn, every Zachtronics game I've tried, Undertale, Subnautica, these all run great.
My cousin: had an aging Dell upgraded from Windows 7 to 10 on an "optane boosted" hard disk drive, starting to run pretty sluggish. Swapping out the hard disk and optane module for an SSD and attempting to install Win10 on bare metal just wouldn't work, it kept throwing cryptic errors, so to get the machine to work at all I put Linux Mint on it.
She has more mainstream tastes than I do, lots of Bethesda and EA games. Funnily enough, I found that the third-party launchers were the real problem. The Sims 4 ran pretty well on Linux...Origin barely does. Minecraft support on Linux is actually worsening with time as a result of Microsoft's involvement, but at least the Java edition does currently run.
In brief, I have observed a very stark inverse relationship between Linux compatibility of games, and the size/corporateness/evilness of the developer.
Luckily I don’t play multiplayer games online either. Losing DLSS is rough though
Owning a GTX-1080, I haven't really noticed.
I'm not really worried about stuff like that because it's a self-bootstrapping cycle. As more end users adopt Linux, more effort will be put into supporting it.
Have you tried Red Dead Redemption 2? I’m looking at switching over to Linux soonish.
No I haven't.
https://www.protondb.com/app/1174180
Mildly inconvenient at worst unless certain anti cheat software is being used. At best, you can run games on Linux that your machine may not be able to handle on windows because distros that use more resources than windows are rare. Steam on Linux has proton built into it and it just works once you set it to run through it. You might have gpu driver trouble with Nvidia but it’s a maybe issue that happens less and less.
I play Baldurs Gate 3 on it and it turned out the issues I thought might be linux related were hardware, when I fixed it it worked perfectly.
Between Steam's Proton Compatibility Layer and Lutris, pretty damn fine.
Pretty great actually. Not as out of the box as on Windows but almost there. Firstly you get a vastly different experience depending on if you are using Steam. Since I have my entire library on Steam I can't say anything about other stores. There's imo 3 points where the experience still differs:
1 - you have to enable Proton as the default compatability tool, Valve has a guide for it and the setting is pretty straightforward to find.
2 - Most games just work now but a few don't in those cases things like protondb.com are an enormous help.
3 - Mods are hit and miss (Steam Workshop works fine) depending on the game, for Cyberpunk for example I had to mess with the Proton Config a bit but there were guides for it. However since we are now in a niche of a niche (modding a game running proton) you're likely to run into unexplored territory
Great, I play a lot on it and the only game I had to use windows for so far was titanfall 2 because it kept stuttering on linux and troubleshooting stutter is hard.
In my experience, much of the studdering comes from the desktop environments. If you're using Gnome, try KDE or one of the others. If it changes then it's probably the Compositor settings. It's a pain but once you find the right settings, oh yeah it's great
Thanks, I use KDE on X already (thank you nvidia) and find gnome's design absolutely asinine, so I'll try to fiddle around with the compositor settings.
SteamOS has been a big boon to the Linux gaming world.
With the release of the steam deck Linux gaming has gotten a lot better and more support since their steam OS is a branch of Debian. A lot of games now support Linux gaming more than before.
It's Arch based now
This is the way
Not every distro of Linux has gotten better, for the most part this comment is innacurate. That said, I have generally had the same experience here, but I use arch btw.
Downvoting the arch meme? Are the Linux people grumpy today?
We're always grumpy at Windows people.
I just wanted to talk out of my ass here and drop a joke lol. I think it was the HC Linux people disagreeing that not all distro have gotten better. It was bs fluff for the meme lol
because you dont own your pc. microfrost does
The OS, not the PC.
If you own a Microsoft product the technical own your balls, read the fine print
I should ask my friend in IT about this to confirm.
Just ask him to return your balls
Bad news. He won't. :(
The os controls the PC. As long as it's running it's controlling it
if you refer to the hardware as "PC" then you are wrong, the OS utilizes the hardware and uses it. it cannot destroy it, and even if it could by using a lot of resources, "controlling" is the wrong word here. Microsoft owns the OS, not your computer and/or its hardware
control is the perfect word for it. they control the hardware. doesnt mean necessarily that they can break it but they can do anything physically possible with it.
fair but the original post is about microsoft controlling something in the OS
I am sure they just replaced the gpo with another one and accidentally forgot to carry over the setting.
They new one is totally better though and will improve your experience. You should configure it.
More and more I am considering taking a vacation with the specific goal of migrating to Linux. I've got decades old workflows linked to certain programs and tools that I know for sure only exist in Windows, so I'll likely have to still run it in a VM for those, but my system setup is just kinda the place I call home the most, yet my patience for all this nonsense is rapidly declining.
Do it, my friend. I took the leap ~5 years ago and have not once regretted it. You're right, you have Wine and Windows VMs available, if need be. But, honestly, I bet you end up replacing those work flows with better ones within Linux before long.
I mean, I'd like to. But some of my work requires me to use stuff like Adobe products and I find it massively easier to keep up to date with what these tools can do, if I can just muck around in my private projects (I actually care about) and then transfer the knowledge to my work stuff. I'll mull the idea some more time. Not really interested in dual booting at all, though that might be a solid solution, but windows simply deciding to kill everything else, even if its on a different disk entirely is not a prospect I relish.
If its for work I would suggest picking a "stable" distribution like Debian, Kubuntu or OpenSuse.
A lot of people recommend Arch or Fedora but the focus of those is getting the very latest releases, which increases your chance of stuff breaking.
A lot of people will suggest niche distributions, those can be great for specific needs but generally you will always find Debian/Ubuntu/RHEL support for commercial apps.
I would also suggest looking at the KDE Desktop, many distributions default to Gnome but it is unique in how it works, KDE (or XFCE) will provide a desktop similar to Windows 11.
Lastly I would suggest looking at Crossover Linux by Codeweavers.
Linux has something called WINE, its an attempt to implement the Windows 95 - 11 API's so windows applications can run on linux.
WINE is how the Steam Deck/Linux is able to play Windows games. Valve embedded it into Steam and called it "Proton".
WINE is primarily developed by Codeweavers and they provide the Crossover application that makes setting up and running a Windows application really easy.
People will mention Lutris but that has a far higher learning curve.
There is an application database so you can see in advance if your applications would work: https://appdb.winehq.org/
Thanks for the long response. I was thinking Mint maybe, had some experience with it a few years ago. But it'd replace both my private and work stuff over, so some gaming, too (mainly through steam). Stability is key to me. My current Windows install hasn't needed anything for 4 years or so, so I'm absolutely not going for Arch. I need this stuff daily, I cannot waste time trying to troubleshoot for hours or relying on backups, etc.
Yeah I honestly wouldn't use Arch or indeed any rolling release distro for any machine that's used for revenue. Go with a stable release distro. Mint is one of the very few I even bother considering, there's a reason it's been as popular as it has for so long.
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Mint was a reaction to Gnome 3, the unique workflow upset a lot of people and the people behind Mint decided to build Cinnamon desktop (its Gnome 3 made to look/work like Gnome 2). They needed a distribution to build/test their work and so based a distribution off of Ubuntu and called it Mint.
As a bit of explanation, there are only a few projects which attempt to build an entire linux distribution from scratch. This involves finding code from thousands of sources, work out packaging, etc.. We call these 'base' distributions, Debian is the base distribution for Ubuntu, Ubuntu is the base distribution for Mint.
Ubuntu tends to be slightly ahead of Debian in the software versions it uses and automatically enables the 'non-free' repositories. Ubuntu tends to push some Canonical specific things like Snaps (which everyone hates)
I believe Mint rolls the Canonical specific things out of Ubuntu and you get the latest version of Cinnamon.
Its all a bit...
Just a heads up OpenSUSE is phasing out leap so it won't have a stable release "soon" unless the things with ALP shake out well.
Apart from Wine, Proton also includes some other stuff that helps gaming.
Also here is the Proton comparability site: https://www.protondb.com/
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There might not be a Linux native version of the adobe products available but theres a fun script that lets it run from what I experienced flawlessly on several distributions
Could you give more info on that?
https://github.com/LinSoftWin/Photoshop-CC2022-Linux A good friend of mine as recommended this to me and for what I care it works pretty well For the others I just used wine and the normal installer and they worked but without GPU acceleration
Thanks! I'll give it a try next time I have time to spend in front of my own computer (not anytime soon..)
Sure if I can find it On it as soon as I am able to
I've been dual booting for almost ten years and distro hopped a fair bit and never had that happen. Not once ever. I've screwed up my fair share of installs too. I think it's one of those things that used to be a problem 20+ years ago, but is now basically a meme.
I'm a fan of Linux, but my personal experience was filled with headaches on how to solve compability issues. It's just a pain that some things don't work as well as they used to with a clean windows install. So I traveled from Windows to Debian to Dualboot (win/debian) to Windows. And tbh I never looked back since then. Took too much time just to keep things running properly.
If you depend on Adobe products I would at least opt for Dualboot if I were you. Otherwise you have no safe option to return to if things don't seem to work out as you wished.
I'm doing it. I build a new pc every 5 to 10 years. The new monster has posted. Need a few small cables before I really get started. I was going to put an older copy of win10 pro on it. But I'm going to take the Linux leap. The tower will be free of windows from day 1.
Nobara simply because the author also wrote Proton, the Steam linux gateway. (Open to suggestions).
All AMD.
Gaming. Streaming. Internet. Video files. Voice recording. Occasional simple documents. That's 99.99 percent of my usage.
Right on, dude. I hope the transition is a pleasant one for you!
I would suggest OpenSUSE Thumbleweed, but I did not use it for many years. And my current distro(Gentoo) isn't well known as entry-level. Though for me personally it was.
Also for gaming never use PulseAudio, lag is unbearable.
Best of luck. I can't go back to windows any more. Well, I still dual boot for one game and the digital features of my national ID cause OF COURSE that software is windows only. 😒
In case you didn't know or haven't tried yet: AusweisApp2 does exist for Linux. But I assume, like me, you tried unsuccessfully already. For me, the Linux drivers of my card reader don't work...
I think if you have a new Perso it should be possible to utilize the NFC module in your phone
I think we're both German. My ID doesn't have that yet, I dread the day where I can't renew it without all that nonsense.
I'm not German, so I need explaination.
Germany introduced some digital ID functionality so you can do certain things online rather than having to go talk to someone in person, but that means that your ID isn't just a card anymore but has some digital elements to it as well. And apparently the apps to use that stuff are Windows based.
Come on. Join the dark side. We have cookies.
[Reject all]
But once you have tweaked things a bit, a new home is surprisingly quickly found. I mean, i know what you mean. But in the end, like or dislike boils down to a few basics and the rest accumulates over time.
I did the switch twenty years ago, starting with dual-boot and Wine. Nowadays dual-boot is gone and I never use Wine outside of gaming.
You'll be surprised how much you can do with wine and mono. But even so, switching and getting a vm is a viable option
It would be nice if lemmy made it easy to create a community or such for every program and let people join to collect the necessary knowledge together.
huh, is it not easy to create a community? I created one a few months ago and all I needed was a name for it.
The problem lies in reaching the people who could be interested in joining.
well, that's just the way it is. not sure what you want the lemmy devs to do about it
windows is malware
r/redditmoment
the fact they did this on ltsc as well is insane
definitely insane to do this on LTSC
Makes me worried what Microsoft force onto us next.
Advertising in the explorer, personalised by the files you're looking at
Fuck you for being right
I doubt that they would go that far for ltsc. But maybe windows store?
they don't care, they will put it everywhere they can.
While that is true for normal user versions. But do you really think that for enterprise?
Not to mention that ltsc is enterprise with less features for stability. We don’t have windows store, Cortana or even edge.
if it can add an extra buck to the enterprise profits they will go the extra mile to get that buck
Or on znls. It's ridiculous
One thing I did was go through hoops to disable the bing searches from the menu.
Instead I should have switched to linux long ago.
You paid for windows?
If you buy a computer with Windows, you're paying for it as a part of the price.
People like you is why they do this shit in the first place. The entitlement of wanting products for free basically forces companies like Microsoft to become the huge advertisement pushing cunts that they are now.
Nah, failure to enforce consumer protection and anti-trust law is why they do this shit in the first place. It doesn't matter if you paid for it or not; even when you do pay, they exploit you anyway because they can.
Yeah cars are one of the most expensive things you’re likely to buy, pull subscription bullshit, and spy on you like crazy, sometimes including your sex life. I pay about a gaming pc of cash upfront for my phone and still get spied on and advertised to by its os.
And yeah I bought windows a year or so ago because I bought a new motherboard and needed an os and didn’t know linux was this good now. About a hundred bucks and it comes with all this bullshit that drove me to linux
Windows 10 was a free upgrade from 7/8. 7/8 was a free upgrade from XP. I mean, XP was installed on something, but I certainly haven't paid for windows in decades.
Apparently it's still a thing:
https://www.techspot.com/news/100334-microsoft-closes-windows-7-11-free-upgrade-loophole.html
And if you think about it, why would private customers pay for windows, given it's loaded with spyware? I'm already paying to use it with my data. No different than using google software.
Sure, I prefer windows because I'm used to it and I'm lazy, but why pay for something that's arguably inferior to open source software?
Windows 7 and Windows 8 were definitely not free upgrades
You may be right. I seem to remember there being a free upgrade for the visually impaired, but I may be mistaken.
In any case, I haven't paid since I first bought this PC, which I've continually upgraded for over a decade. Ship of Theseus, basically. IRC because I never bought windows 10, and windows 7 (xp?) licenses weren't tied to the system, I just used that the one time it asked me to verify my license.
Seemed pretty obvious microsoft doesn't actually care about individual users with custom built pcs. They make their money off desktop pc and laptop makers. That and increasingly advertising/data harvesting.
Must’ve been Win7. There were ways to upgrade certain 7 licenses to valid Win 8.x licenses (the infamous Windows 8.x with Media Center) that you could get if you had a viable Win7 license (anything except starter, basic and pro). Win 10 and 11 were free “upgrades” if you had a 7+ key
It's never morally wrong to steal from a mega corporation.
They do it because of greed and the everlasting thirst of large companies to grow bigger and bigger.
They literally gave Windows 10 and 11 away for free if you had Windows 7 or 8.
Many if not most people pay for Windows in the form of licensing costs included in the price of a device, mainly laptops. Most laptops come with Windows preinstalled, and Microsoft earns with every laptop sold with Windows preinstalled. People building their own PC and getting an OEM key for cheap off of eBay or pasting a one-liner into PowerShell are the minority.
Do you really expect people to go out of their way to purchase a retail Windows license when they already have a perfectly valid and activated version of Windows preinstalled on their device?
And now that Windows 10/11 is a nice mix of adware, bloatware, nagware and spyware, do you really think it's worth $199 (for the "Pro" version)?
It's a business model Microsoft deliberately chose. Guess what? They were doing just fine before doing what they do now, despite of a few "software pirates".
I'd happily pay even a subscription fee for Windows if Microsoft didn't try to shove their crap down my throat every chance they get.
I wouldn’t pay a subscription fee for windows without the bullshit, but that’s partly due to the value of their competition. Without the bullshit though I’d likely be ok with buying a new version every major pc upgrade or if the new edition offered a serious value improvement. Otherwise I’d hold on until such a situation. The move from 10 to 11 was whatever until I got the ads. I’d also probably consider linux every time I have to pay to upgrade. But their bullshit converted me to give it a second chance and I won’t go back. Linux happens to stand on its own merit now.
I switched to Linux when the "We've scheduled your free update to Windows 10!"-like popup started appearing again and again on my Win7 machine even though I disabled it. I didn't like not having a choice and they only got worse from there. Meanwhile, you have full control over every part of a Linux system. You can even uninstall the update manager if you feel like it.
They're getting there with windows 11.. first it was 'hey you're compatible with windows 11' now they've stepped up to a full screen non-skippable screen a big 'upgrade to windows 11' but still with a button to stay on windows 10 hidden in the corner. It's only a matter of time before that button disappears.
I tried the Win11 compatibility app once, it said i wasn't compatible due to some BIOS settings I needed to change. Nah, I'm good, and it hasn't bugged me to upgrade since.
I made mine deliberately incompatible by disabling the fTPM but started getting the upgrade prompts recently.
I'm almost glad my current hardware doesn't support Windows 11. No matter how much it tries, it can't force me to have different hardware.
I remember a lot of folks waking up one day to find their system had borked itself overnight installing Win 10 without their permission. It doesn't matter to Microsoft if it'll actually work.
But that would upset Pacman and you don't want to upset Pacman, do you?
Remove the update manager? Remove the bootloader and all kernels if you want to - you might if you're preparing a container image, it won't stop you. Remove glibc and init? Fine, if that's what you want - might have no need for those if you're prepping it up for embedded.
The price of having a computer that does exactly what it's told is that you have to know what to tell it. But that's well worth while.
And when you feel really adventurous….
You can delete the kernel….
Everybody does it at least once, just to see. Usually it’s just to see. MS support reps still learning the power of grep …. “Where are the backups” is both a question you want to hear … and really don’t want to hear. (At the start, it says they’re… at least thorough… an hour to the end of the patch window… not so much.)
We're approximately the same vintage; I bought a laptop with Windows 8.1 and, long story short, said "Absolutely not."
Same with 'compatibility telemetry runner' after every update I have to disable it and delete the .exe from system32. None of the permanently disable tricks work. Plus I always have to run "oo shutup" to disable the other privacy stuff. I wish I could switch to another is, but most of my software is windows only.
isn't WINE for running windows only stuff on linux? or is the software you use actually utilizing some windows specific API?
Yeah I've heard Wine has gotten really decent. Maybe I should give it a shot. Change is always a bit hard, when it comes to habits.
absolutely agree on that last part. but yeah, apparently valve really accelerated the development of those translation layers for the steam deck.
For regular gaming experiences, WINE and Proton are brilliant. For some .NET stuff it's still lacking. On WINE, MusicBee for example lacks proper CJK font redirection and dragging the tabs on it causes MusicBee to throw errors. You might also run into issues gaming if you have certain setups + controllers too.
.NET runs natively on Linux now. so newer apps should work fine unless they're using Windows-specific APIs. For the legacy .NET Framework 4.x, they should work in Mono.
Have you tried using mono? It does winforms by now though apps doing direct Win32 API calls (bypassing the actual .NET stuff) are iffy no matter what.
Could it be possible to place a read-only dummy .exe in its place? I think FS attributes should be respected by the update process.
They ought to be. You might have to change ownership of the file to some other local user (and disable permission inheritance for that file so admin can't touch it), but I bet this would work for most use cases except like a system restore.
Ooshutup is wonderful
My next gaming PC's gonna be Linux.
Windows, on my work computer, decided Monday morning was a good time to turn my default pdf reader to Microsoft Edging. Turns out you can't delete Edging from add or remove programs.
ah i got that too!! I thought it was because monday i updated foxit reader and then for some reason it gave back the default to edge! Instead it was edge that took it back by force without my consent!
They are edging you without consent.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Ooh microshaft, noo stop
(👁 ͜ʖ👁)
I like to swing but cntrl+alt+delete means cntrl+alt+delete
That's a name I haven't heard in a long time. I didn't realise it was still around!
i'm up to using any alternative that isn't adobe or edge as my default :)
I tried sumatrapdf but while was extremely fast to start, it was too "simple" for me, i need better printing support
i don't really like foxit reader, they try to push a demo install of the pro version on each update
You should try Okular. It's on the Microsoft Store.
Doesn't Okular depend on KDE Frameworks? Didn't know they can run on Шindows.
That looks nice, I remember that from the time I tried kubuntu
nice program but it has the print dialog from win95 :( (understandably, because it's mainly a ported linux program), i need something like "booklet", a preview because auto portrait/landscape is always conflicting with the print driver and zoom/adapt
Search for 'change default apps' and move it back to your favorite program, or right click the pdf -> properties -> change program
Thanks but I fixed it. I do appreciate you mentioning this in case others encounter it.
Just you know, I shouldn't have to do it. I don't need Microsoft to help me with edging.
Same here
But don't you want to have what I've come to enjoy: Printer roulette?
Win, "printer", enter.......come on Printer and Scanner control panel, baby wants a new printer queue to kill that stuck job......dammit edge, no I don't want to search bing for an inkjet.
Win, "printer"...., enter.......come on Control Panel, you can do it......HP Smart Panel, you piece of crap
Welcome to Windows update. Where they revert any settings you make to the OS that won't benefit them.
really looking forward to getting another SSD and just installing linux on it so I don't have to deal with that kind of bullshit anymore. The bullshit I will be dealing with will not be privacy related, just compatibility related.
Do it. I did that a year ago. Totally worth it.
which distro do you recommend for gaming? I'm looking at fedora games, drauger OS or Pop_OS
I cannot strongly recommend enough pop_os. For reference, it was my last distro of choice, but its been my all time favorite out of 10+ I've tried in 2 years
Wasn't really in the market for a new one but guess I'll be checking it out now n
sounds promising! thanks!
Pop_OS is fine as long as you don't try to install Steam :)
I've swapped from windows to Pop about a month ago and haven't had any issues with Steam
My gaming rig is running Nobara Project right now and I'd highly recommend it for gaming centric use.
sounds good! thanks for the recommendation, I'll have a look :)
I set up a test rig with Fedora to see how the gaming went and didn't have any issues with Steam or a handful of AAA games. Of note though, my test machine has an AMD GPU so I didn't have to deal with any Nvidia driver shenanigans.
team red here as well :D
That's probably the best way to try it. First get comfy and still have a fallback solution if you don't like it.
When using Microsoft products and accepting their incomprehensible terms and conditions, you have no say and your opinion doesn't matter.
Group policy doesn't matter, domain administrator, GPO rules, all of it- none of it matters.
You'll get dogshit and you will like it. (Friendly reminder that it was extremely overpriced also) That's the tax you pay for being in their horrible, horrible "ecosystem" from hell. Enjoy! Grease up or take it dry, you're "taking it" either way.
Let's also not forget the update also installed fucking edge again even with registry keys telling it not to. Fuck Microsoft.
PC people: Many of you are now realizing what “Windows as a Service” means. Your OS is harvesting every bit of your data and sending it back to the MS Mothership.
And you’re kind enough to pony up the cash to supply the hardware for it to run on.
Doesn't detract from the point whatsoever. Exactly what the Linux fanboys were always made fun of for is what's happening. It's heading exactly where Stallman has always warned. (Edit: I'd argue it's already arrived, actually.)
What they're made fun of for is never shutting up about how superior they are.
i mean at this point it's more of a collective disbelief that people continue to punch themselves in the stomach when it's perfectly possible to simply not do so
OK.
Which is funny because the original comment doesn't mention Linux or Arch at all.
This is like making fun of someone for getting into Harvard. I'm sure they'll survive.
Choosing to be a smug asshole is like getting in Harvard? Oh, yeah, I see your point.
I use arch btw
yup it's true
"Using Gentoo on 4 different architectures" bar is not here because other bars would be invisible if it was.
The Kingdom of Torvalds beckons.
So it wasnt just me that got the bar renabled
The enshittification of Windows continues apace.
The funniest thing is that people complain about Windows, but at the same time are afraid of switching to Linux. Linux has improved so much over the years that it is capable of doing most of the same things as Windows can do (and I don't mean restoring the search bar every update)
Me running ClassicShell/OpenShell since Windows 8:
Why bother with group policy? You can disable it by just right clicking on the task bar and customizing it.
it's a domain joined account, in this way it gets disabled immediately after every new install
Please tell me you didn't create a GPO for just your account so you could disable the search bar, lol.
Tell us you're not a sysadmin without telling us you're not a sysadmin.
Please explain why that's a reasonable thing to do if that is actually what OP did. If OP applied the GPO to all or many users that's fine, but IMO it's weird to force these kinds of changes on users unless many complain. In my experience most actually like a colossal search bar for some reason.
If OP uses a GPO as their personal config, that can't be how they are supposed to be used. But maybe that's really common, sounds pretty odd though. (I don't think OP actually did this, the first option seems more likely and my comment above was mostly a joke).
Either way, OP should troubleshoot their GPOs before complaining about it. Restarting would probably solve it.
I work at a Managed Service Provider for IT and we have a ton of GPO policies that are labeled "VIP", which is internally understood as 'there's no reason for this policy to exist except that someone in power demanded we create it'. Many of those policies are dialed down to a single or small handful of people.
Well, that sucks.
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Microsoft has restricted normal GPOs to Pro and up, because the Home edition can't join a domain. They also restricted local group policies but I don't think they are used much (as it should be).
OP said that they were in a domain so they are probably using normal GPOs with AD anyways.
No, absolutely not. I just thought it was on a corporate domain joined computer. OP can do whatever they want on their own machine.
Btw, GPOs just edit the windows register so you could just apply all the changes using regedit instead of using a GPO. This should also work on Home (I haven't tried but I see no reason why it wouldn't work). But please don't, you will have a bad time if you do anything remotely complicated.
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no, that would be insane. I run an active directory compatible server (samba 4) in my network so i can get the same settings when i have a new pc (i always reinstall stuff from zero)
Alright, if it's your own domain carry on.
Folks, don't worry. lud approved it.
Thanks lud!
Yup. I just re-started since it had been quite few days since my laptop had a reboot and boom I was shown this.
Like c'mon, even LTSC is Targetted with such BS, then I'm not sure wtf is going with W11.
Yeah, same shit happened on my (W10) laptop today (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Luckily, I rarely have to deal with this shit since I daily drive Fedora on my desktop PC, and only dual-boot into W11 when I want to play games on Game Pass.
I don't even use the built in taskbar anymore, I always put mine up top and windows 11 broke that functionality so I'm using some other taskbar replacement
I just spent more than an hour fixing this shit, everyone was right. It forced search bar on LTSC also. Which I thought was against Windows 10 LTSC policies for Enterprise editions? Or at least, against it's very core functions? lol
If you have no choice but to use Windows download Microsoft 10 LTSC iot, lock down all policies and use Shutup10 and WPD to remove all telemetry. Blackbird can also block specific Windows 10 addresses that phone home but it's better to just get a third party firewall and block them because Blackbird can sometimes break things.
I also was able to remove Microsoft EDGE forever using this. Follow the steps exactly:
https://gist.github.com/ave9858/c3451d9f452389ac7607c99d45edecc6#file-uninstalledge-ps1
If an update you want forces edge back then just follow the steps again. If Edge "remnants" remain, use bulk crap uninstaller on any leftovers.
I've never had the search bar return or anything I didn't want to return on a locked down Windows 10 LTSC installation except Edge, and that's easy to remove. You can even turn off updates for a while if you want to, but I still update because you should.
If you have hardware that needs Windows 11, they're releasing an LTSC version of that, too soon.
As someone running a windows 10 update right now that I procrastinated to let install I am now having a bad day already. Can't wait for this to happen to my pc!
So that's what happened. Thought I just mashed buttons weirdly at some point and caused it.
Windows: You will use Bing. Resistance is futile.
Got the same message this morning. At least in the message is a button to roll back the unvoluntary change.
the only reason I'm still using windows is for my simulators and race sims and better setup compatibility. X-Plane works on Linux but even though the flight model is better on X-plane the sounds and graphics of Microsoft Flight sim it's hard to go back. I say this because I actually need them for my work. other than that Linux all the way.
Is it hard to get two monitors running on Arch w/ i3wm? I can't really read another bullshit thing about microsoft again and thats all I am worried about for the switch.
What language is this?
And what am I missing?
italian, it says "we added back the search bar on the taskbar, keep or cancel?" If you click anywhere else except the grey "annulla" button, for example you click on the desktop, it assumes "yes i love the search bar, keep it", and is set back to the state microsoft wanted to be.
From an update downloaded last night
Thank you.
Thank you.
Google says it's Italian.
Thanks. I tried Spanish and Portuguese and it made no sense.
Italian still makes no sense. I don’t understand the OP.
The ? search has been added to the application bar. Do you want to keep this change?
Keep | Cancel
I think the thing that I marked with ? just says box (so search box), but I am not 100% sure.
Hopefully this helps and I haven't fucked up the transation, I has been a long time since I last spoke Italian.
Good translation. It is indeed "the search box", or rather "the box of search"
Thank you for confirming that I didn't mess it up too badly :)
I don't know why, but this made me laugh.
Thank you so much for your post.
No worries!
I actually just got the same nonsense on my work laptop so I can now actually give the "official" English translation:
Search box has been added to your taskbar. Want to keep the change?
Keep it | Undo
Close enough
Why all my window machines use ltsc fucking "feature" updates
Hahaha!
It is literally asking you for your permission if I understand the post.
In my case it said something like "you apparently don't know how great our search bar is, so we reactivated it. You can disable it again if you want to"
I see now.
yes but it's opt-in instead of opt-out. If i click on the desktop it's dismissed and the search bar setting is reverted to their preferred setting. If really needed, should have been the opposite like "did you know that you missed out on the latest spambar? Click here to make the change permanent"
Ok. So it still wasn’t forced?
users never change default settings. So, for all the people where i removed the bar, they got it back with this update
Ok. So it still wasn’t forced?
It's the equivalent of asking "Would you like to cancel? Are you SURE you'd like to cancel? Are you REALLY sure? Take a look at our new features and make sure you'd actually like to not cancel. You said yes - so you'd like to not cancel? Okay!"
An extremely forceful and dishonest way to keep people on the feature. Should require just one No to permanently keep it off.
For the 26482747th time,
Install Linux. Get rid of the microshit malware
Actually, I use the search bar a lot to find programs
You didn't read that pop-up above the search bar asking if it should stay disabled or not?
Almost like Windows caters to the average user, who might have disabled the search bar accidentally and doesn't know how to turn it back on ...
Why not use win 10 ameliorated, no updates enabled
There are ways to make the search bar useful
If you hate Windows so much why are you still using it? At some point I can't be sympathetic to those shooting themselves in the foot.
I literally cannot comprehend how you can use windows without the search bar. Its a total clusterfuck otherwise imo.
If you hit start and type, it has the same function
This is what I do since windows 8.1
Thats how i use it too. Is there anything more to it ?
it's a useless duplicate that takes useful screen estate. You can open the start menu, and if you start typing, the search bar appears. It doesn't need to waste 20% of the taskbar for that
But anyway, the search is broken. It gives priority to web searches, so if you want to search "libreoffice", to open "libreoffice writer", it suggests "libreoffice download" which is pointless. I replaced it with "powertoys run" and now i get useful results.
some people don't know that, and it isn't made obvious, so having it by default on is great i think... but, enabling it at random for no reason? that's ridiculous
It's poor UI but also I think it's a sign that the userbase has been coddled too much with things like this. Even Google adding the search bar widget to their homescreen of Android is kind of an illusion since it doesn't need to be shaped that way. But an entire generation has been programmed to type into a little empty field with a search button that they don't think of alternatives anymore.
Windows 8 thru 11 are trying to add sleeker and more intuitive interface skins to be more usable for the masses but the underlying OS is still the same. Accessing additional options that a legacy Windows user uses all the time just takes you back to the old menus. It feels so lazy that each major windows iteration feels like a new skin on top of windows xp/2000 because not much really has changed since then other than the bloat and a few cute features that could've been done with a 3rd party app.
Obviously being a little reductive here but with how windows 11 looks, I would've imagined it being actually different. But as soon as I right click something and view more options, it's clear it's still the same stuff once the old right click menu pops up from underneath.
Aaah i see what you mean even though i dont really care about taskbar real estate off with its head.
Even if you hide the search bar, you can hit the windows key and start typing your search query. The search bar doesn't have to constantly take up screen real estate in the taskbar.
Hence why I always hide it on my systems.
Yeah didn't know that the function you are describing is the exact way i use it
Whether I want to open a document I open once a week, or a program that I use every day, the search takes a minimum of 10 seconds to turn out a result, after first consulting its server for Firefox websites. It is useless beyond useless.
Idk about docs and stuff but for apps the win button-appname-return sequence is pretty much a matter of 1-2 seconds for me
"I installed malware on my computer and now the malware does what the author of the malware wants."
Oh no. Anyway...
Ladies and gentlemen, a prime example of exactly why people don’t switch to Linux.
The loudest portion of the community are insufferable twats, and you know it’s bad because I’m an insufferable twat and I’m calling this one out on it.
Most of the Linux communities are the same.
often the content isn't even related to Linux it's just tirades of anger against corporations. Doesn't even have to be Microsoft, any commercial that dares make any move in the Linux space - Canonical, red hat, oracle get derided too.
“Proposers of a piece of free and open source software, an ideology created by an anarcho-socialist software engineer, tend to lean left on the political spectrum. More news at 11…”
Not to forget this is Lemmy which has a development leadership so left leaning that the CIA are likely already working on regime destabilisation
To be fair, Oracle seems to be ridiculed by everyone.
Yeah, if you want people to try switching you need to understand their use case and nicely explain the pros and cons. Being a dick about it just makes people think it’s some elitist club for computer nerds instead of a tool they may find useful
Yeah, but, DAE LE WINDASS WINDOWNS BAD??! LOL LE MICRO SHIT USERS LOLOLOL XD XD EGGS DEE MI$RO$OFT IS BIL GAETS DIK JOKE. Seems perfectly welcoming to me, especially the heavy insinuation that absolutely everything is PEBKAC, even if you're on a fresh install of something allegedly intended for mainstream - following verbatim, explicitly appropriate instructions. If you're really lucky, someone might deign to link you an LMGTFY.
This stuff truly has helped make Desktop Linux a force to be reckoned with over the years. So much so that Year of Desktop Linux has been... pretty much every year of the past 20, I think.
On Windows, we all know it's spackled together shit with shoe strings, spit and duct tape - probably still involving some tech out of the 70s-80s or at least tech debt from back then. We tend to not pretend it's flawless because no software is.
Your lack of self awareness is disturbing.
Preach, lemmy user was mean to me so ill stick to my os lmao? Enjoy
People like OP install obviously shit software and then whine on the Internet about how shit the software is they chose.
People like you cry about that someone points out how it's obviously their own fault entirely.
I'm pretty sure I'm not the most insufferable twat in this thread. Not even close.
Yup, you are the insufferrable twat. You just keep proving their point. Just move on, life isn't about "winning" imaginary internet discussions.
Discussion? You think this is a discussion? You might want to freshen up on the definition of discussion, my friend. Neither you nor the other guy even have made a single point yet. None of you even tried to prove to me that I am wrong. All you have done until now is throwing insults at me. Please keep doing that. Please keep not proving me wrong.
Yup, a completely insufferrable twat.
Right back at ya 😘
You may not even want to hear it because you're obviously so far up your own ass that you wouldn't be able to but:
Most computers ship with Windows installed, maybe they didn't "choose" anything
There are a lot of people who need to use Windows professionally, Linux is not always a viable alternative at all
People are allowed to prefer Windows for their own reasons and still complain about the shit MS pulls off without immediately being attacked for "installing malware"
They chose a computer with Windows preinstalled.
You misunderstand. I'm not saying don't use Windows. I'm saying don't use Windows and then whine about it later. If you have a job that requires you to use Windows and you have a problem with using Windows, go complain to your manager, not some strangers on the Internet, they can't help you.
People are allowed to prefer Windows no question, but somehow they're always surprised that an operating system, that is generally known for performing actions from which MS profits, performs actions from which MS profits. And then they go cry on the Internet about it like dealing with this wasn't the consequence of their own actions. And then they're surprised they get ridiculed for being ridiculous.
You keep talking about choice even though there isn't one for many people. And why wouldn't they be allowed to whine about it? To call out MS for their constant bullshit is absolutely the right thing to do imo.
Your initial comment was not only incredibly condescending and presumptuous but doesn't help anyone. And it's also absolutely the last thing people wanna hear who keep getting invaded like that by MS all the time. So you kinda deserve the backlash, sorry you don't see that.
The post quite literally says "WHY THEY ****ING IGNORE IT???". That's not calling out MS for their bullshit. That's asking why MS would do MS bullshit, to which the obvious answer is "because they're MS", hence my comment
May I point out the part where I said, that if you're forced to use Windows then maybe you should complain to the people who force you, not random people on the Internet, who are not responsible for your problems.
Then it was right on topic. 🤷♂️
As someone who just wandered into this thread - yes, you are by far the most insufferable poster on this thread so far. Worse than many other vegetarians in fact.
Vegetarians? Are you sure you're doing alright? This is a discussion about software, not beef and lettuce, buddy.
More like "My computer came with malware and I'm starting to realise that's what it is" in most cases.
Yeah, exactly. You can help people accept that or be an asshole to people when they start to approach it
i agree with your contention, but sadly many are forced to use windows for work or school.
Never had anything like that happen to me and I've got four windows 11 computers and one windows 10.
Did I mention Linux or made it about Linux vs Windows?
Well, congratulations, but "works on my machine" is not exactly the best argument when it comes to software.
Neither is "I had a bad experience because I don't know how it works."
I agree, but what to do when people give up so easily on Linux when hitting their first bump. 🤷♂️
Why are you talking about Linux in the first place? Nothing pointed to this discussion being about Linux, or maybe you're so used to Linux users having nothing to talk about except "DAE Windows bad" that you thought you were on the Linux meme community?
I assumed your last message was about Linux, since it's not exactly hard to understand how Windows works. 30 years of technical debt with a new UI every now and then, so they can give a reason why they are reselling the same software over and over again, combined with the effort to squeeze every bit of possible profit out of their user base, e.g. through ads, selling data gathered from their user base and possibly even silently postponing fixes for gaping security holes, so e.g. Antivirus companies have a reason to exist.
You can't possibly believe MS does all the bullshit they do with the user in mind? No user ever said "Please let the next overhyped Candy-Crush-esque game pop up in my start menu automatically" or "Please randomly enable this useless search bar during an update" or "Please give me this piece of software with full control over every digital step I take, but don't you dare tell me what it does in detail." And the best part is the users even pay to have this software on their machine.
You do realize the topic of this thread is "Windows bad" right? Maybe read the post again?
Read again, I'm saying you assumed this conversation was about Linux because Linux people have nothing to talk about expect how they hate Windows, I didn't say this conversation wasn't able Windows being bad, I said it wasn't about Linux in the first place but just like vegans or people who do CrossFit, you guys can't help bringing everything back to your own field of interest no matter if people opened the door to it or not.