Microsoft is fucking butthurt no one wants Windows 11 so they're stopping the sale of Windows 10 licenses this month

[Patrick Bait-man]

Jokes on you, I only use TempleOS.

GODLY TempleOS user

 

[seri0us]

It's sure interesting how half the Linux people in this thread say "everyone should switch to Linux - you can still run all your Windows program no problem, bro" and then when it doesn't work the other half say "lol only idiot n00bs would try to run their Windows programs in Linux."

You may be an idiot n00b, but I'm a serious n00b and it justwerks for me.

Let's settle this thread once and for all.
View attachment 4526674

 

[The Ugly One]

I didn't say the consumer market, I said consumer, singular. MSFT doesn't report OEM sales numbers directly, but you can work it out by using the %change numbers and algebra. OEM sales make up about 60% of Windows revenue.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/789019/000156459022026876/msft-10k_20220630.htm

The annual report gives the factors that impacts revenue for OEM sales:


Just because it's not a large % doesn't mean it's not the trunk of the tree. If desktop market share started to drop, I think most analysts would say sell.

No, actually, that's exactly what it means. Microsoft is first and foremost an enterprise software company. Virtually every technology decision they make that is bewildering to home consumers is because you're getting dragged along on some technology direction that's being set by enterprise users. (The insane UI decisions are driven by literal trannies who wish they were working at Apple.) The scenario you seem to be imagining, where their entire business is going to collapse if middle-aged women aren't forced to upgrade their decade-old all-in-1 PCs to get Windows 11, doesn't exist.

We really only ever see two ways Linux is commercially successful:
1. Server operating systems like RHEL and SLES
2. Integrated verticals like Chrome OS and Android

It's been over 30 years since Linux launched. If somebody was going to build a successful desktop product out of it and dethrone Windows at Dell or HP, they would have done it already. The fact is that Microsoft is simply much better at satisfying the needs of the desktop market than any challenger who's come at them in decades, and there's no hint of that changing any time soon.

 

[Aidan]

No, actually, that's exactly what it means. Microsoft is first and foremost an enterprise software company. Virtually every technology decision they make that is bewildering to home consumers is because you're getting dragged along on some technology direction that's being set by enterprise users. (The insane UI decisions are driven by literal trannies who wish they were working at Apple.) The scenario you seem to be imagining, where their entire business is going to collapse if middle-aged women aren't forced to upgrade their decade-old all-in-1 PCs to get Windows 11, doesn't exist.

We really only ever see two ways Linux is commercially successful:
1. Server operating systems like RHEL and SLES
2. Integrated verticals like Chrome OS and Android

It's been over 30 years since Linux launched. If somebody was going to build a successful desktop product out of it and dethrone Windows at Dell or HP, they would have done it already. The fact is that Microsoft is simply much better at satisfying the needs of the desktop market than any challenger who's come at them in decades, and there's no hint of that changing any time soon.

I don't expect Linux to ever take off in the home but it really just boils down to how one gets a Linux 'puter. You install some distro to something else... If Linux 'puters were in stores and cheap enough then people would buy them. Would they dethrone Windows? Not remotely, partially because Microsoft has kids using Windows all throughout school and into the workforce which has been a part of Microsoft's business strategy for 30+ years.

You do see Linux propagating into enterprise desktops. Notably, I believe it was Munich that went autistic and decided to transition public computers to using Linux and Microsoft moved their German HQ there in response.

Not saying Microsoft doesn't have competitive products on offer but when it comes to personal desktops they don't offer anything that exceptional anymore.

 

[Matt Damon]

Microsoft has kids using Windows all throughout school and into the workforce which has been a part of Microsoft's business strategy for 30+ years.

Nobody anywhere complained that smartphones sucked because they didn't run Windows. This argument just doesn't hold any water when we have a recent historical example that so completely refutes it.

Not saying Microsoft doesn't have competitive products on offer but when it comes to personal desktops they don't offer anything that exceptional anymore.

What has Linux ever competitively offered to the desktop end user besides "we're not Microsoft"? In 30 years, has desktop Linux EVER sold itself on any compelling feature or killer app that's relevant to users? I can't think of a single instance of that. It's always "we're Just As Good™", the slogan of the perennial loser also-ran.

The insane UI decisions are driven by literal trannies who wish they were working at Apple.

Imagine taking a time machine back to 1993 and trying to convince these guys that men in dresses would soon become the most protected class in the western world and pose an existential threat to the entire tech industry.

 

[Aidan]

Nobody anywhere complained that smartphones sucked because they didn't run Windows. This argument just doesn't hold any water when we have a recent historical example that so completely refutes it.

This is irrelevant. Novel* thing that's designed by a crazy guy hyperfocused on UX is widely adopted by millions even though it's another OS, more at 11 in 2007.
*Not actually novel

What has Linux ever competitively offered to the desktop end user besides "we're not Microsoft"? In 30 years, has desktop Linux EVER sold itself on any compelling feature or killer app that's relevant to users? I can't think of a single instance of that. It's always "we're Just As Good™", the slogan of the perennial loser also-ran.

It's free and does either everything most people do are 90% of it. I've already said my thoughts on this. Nowadays it also is the only mainstream user-friendly OS that doesn't build a dossier on all of its users.
Again, the reality is most people just don't know Linux exists or how to find it. Linux is a kernel, it doesn't have multi-billion dollar companies breaking balls to get it in people's homes.

edit: Adding that it's more secure, longer lasting, and less resource heavy. Secretly the perfect boomer OS on their 2010 laptop with a nonworking battery, forcing it to always be plugged in.

View attachment 4535198
Imagine taking a time machine back to 1993 and trying to convince these guys that men in dresses would soon become the most protected class in the western world and pose an existential threat to the entire tech industry.

John Carmack is an open source respecter and enjoyer, by the way.

 

[Matt Damon]

This is irrelevant. Novel* thing that's designed by a crazy guy hyperfocused on UX is widely adopted by millions even though it's another OS, more at 11 in 2007.

It's painfully relevant - I truly don't think you could imagine a more relevant scenario.

It proves that billions of users will jump ship (to a Linux kernel-based OS, no less!) if they're given just a handful of compelling reasons to do so, something that desktop Linux has utterly failed to do in its entire history.

 

[Aidan]

It's painfully relevant - I truly don't think you could imagine a more relevant scenario.

It proves that billions of users will jump ship (to a Linux kernel-based OS, no less!) if they're given just a handful of compelling reasons to do so, something that desktop Linux has utterly failed to do in its entire history.

No it doesn't make sense, no one jumped ship from desktop operating systems to exclusively use smartphones. Androids are the cheap/diverse smartphone alternative so filled the remainder of the market that Apple doesn't so it makes sense Android would be the popular choice.
Mainstream desktop linux distros would grow in popularity if they were the poor man's laptop or desktop which is repeating my previous point.

ChromeOS is a better comparison and people have ditched Windows for ChromeOS which was also touched on previously. I have to assume the primary reason is because they're cheap, but I've never looked into it.

 

[Secret Messages]

I love that the Linux tards in this very thread are continuously criticizing and ridiculing anyone who thinks it's a bad idea to switch to Linux and claiming they're making unjustifiable "excuses" while you're openly admitting that trying to use an nVidia GPU on Linux is tantamount to running Windows Mobile on an iPhone. nVidia - the company with >75% of the discrete GPU market.

I don’t know if this got clarified upthread because this thread is so dense with autism I haven’t cut my way through it yet, but I have a nvidia gpu and it works fine on linux for me. The open source drivers suck ass but the official blob ones *are* compatible with linux, you can just download them.

Personally, I just have 2 hard drives, one with linux and one with windows. With linux, I customize all my shit, shitpost on kf, manage my crypto keys, and super-encrypt everything.

Then when I want to be a normie and play vidya with friends, I have windows, and it doesn’t really matter if anyone’s spying on me, keylogging, telemetry, whatever through it because I don’t do anything important on it.

 

[Smar Mijou]

This is irrelevant. Novel* thing that's designed by a crazy guy hyperfocused on UX is widely adopted by millions even though it's another OS, more at 11 in 2007.
*Not actually novel

It's free and does either everything most people do are 90% of it. I've already said my thoughts on this. Nowadays it also is the only mainstream user-friendly OS that doesn't build a dossier on all of its users.
Again, the reality is most people just don't know Linux exists or how to find it. Linux is a kernel, it doesn't have multi-billion dollar companies breaking balls to get it in people's homes.

John Carmack is an open source respecter and enjoyer, by the way.

I fail to see how something can be both "mainstream" yet the argument for it's unpopularity is that people are perpetually unaware of it? Also, John Carmack and all the old school id Software guys have my respect, alot of those games were a huge part of my childhood. Even the supreme weirdo John Romero deserves accolades. But Carmack himself historically has had issues with Linux support.

In related news, Microsoft is finally, no really, they mean it this time for sure probably, officially ending Internet Explorer support across all browsers.

 

[TheBigZee]

No, actually, that's exactly what it means. Microsoft is first and foremost an enterprise software company. Virtually every technology decision they make that is bewildering to home consumers is because you're getting dragged along on some technology direction that's being set by enterprise users. (The insane UI decisions are driven by literal trannies who wish they were working at Apple.) The scenario you seem to be imagining, where their entire business is going to collapse if middle-aged women aren't forced to upgrade their decade-old all-in-1 PCs to get Windows 11, doesn't exist.

OEM doesn't instantly mean home users. OEMs make most of their sales to businesses and enterprise. $16 billion of their revenue in 2022 came from OEM sales. That specific post I was emphasizing that Microsoft isn't shifting to an android model for Windows to get cloud subscriptions. They price their OEM keys (including those sold to businesses) based on the specs of the machine. That's evidence to me that they've just changed the cash flow for how they expect to directly monetize Windows. Giving windows 11 away isn't proof that windows 11 is moving towards an android model. If MS already expects to be supporting a machine for it's useful life, they aren't losing OEM revenue. If it got home users to buy new devices, it'd help soften the decline of the OEM revenue. A $4 billion decline (that's where we are at now) in OEM revenue is going to affect the share price. Windows 11 still seems to be windows 10 with a shitty UI.

I maintain a business can be a consumer, but my point definitely would have come across more clearly if I hadn't used the word.

I also never said Microsoft would collapse without their desktop monopoly, I said they'd have to compete. The performance of almost all other Microsoft divisions is still tied to the desktop in some form or fashion.

We really only ever see two ways Linux is commercially successful:
1. Server operating systems like RHEL and SLES
2. Integrated verticals like Chrome OS and Android

To clarify, substantial market share. Linux only gets paid if you contribute code back - it's how you pay for GPL software. When Linux gets paid it becomes more competitive. If China had shifted to Kylin, Linux would have been more competitive in western markets where people actually pay Microsoft. If Microsoft cares about legitimate use in China, they'd have to adopt regional pricing for their business offerings.

Being more competitive doesn't mean it's ever going to be the year of the Linux desktop.

It's been over 30 years since Linux launched. If somebody was going to build a successful desktop product out of it and dethrone Windows at Dell or HP, they would have done it already. The fact is that Microsoft is simply much better at satisfying the needs of the desktop market than any challenger who's come at them in decades, and there's no hint of that changing any time soon.

Why would Dell or HP do that. They get money from selling keys, and they don't have to support it. Microsoft has also played super nice with them since the anti-trust settlement. It's pretty easy for Windows to satisfy the desktop market if one of the main requirements of the desktop market is Windows compatibility. Linux simply having market share makes windows compatibility less important.

 

[Cavalier Cipolla]

Aaand, what's the problem here? I just downloaded it from some torrent (admittedly, with some sketchy activation stuff that didn't let me install Malwarebytes for some reason) and pretended the "Activate Windows" part didn't even exist when it appeared. Later on some big titty Polish (that means actual big titty, not some 200 kilo Amerifat big titty) IT girl helped me activate Windows for free via some activation server.

An Activate Windows watermark isn't gonna cripple your system.

 

[Aidan]

I fail to see how something can be both "mainstream" yet the argument for it's unpopularity is that people are perpetually unaware of it? Also, John Carmack and all the old school id Software guys have my respect, alot of those games were a huge part of my childhood. Even the supreme weirdo John Romero deserves accolades. But Carmack himself historically has had issues with Linux support.

In related news, Microsoft is finally, no really, they mean it this time for sure probably, officially ending Internet Explorer support across all browsers.

I italicized "mainstream" since I agree, desktop Linux is not mainstream and likely never will be. I'm aware of some of Carmack's older thoughts on Linux, though nothing from the past decade where I think a lot, particularly regarding graphics and gaming, has changed that may have softened him up a bit. I know he has supported official linux ports for a long time.

The baby boomers in my personal life all switched entirely to smartphones/tablets. The advent of a portable touchscreen made everything so much easier on them.

With hindsight I think I misunderstood Matt Damon's point about smartphones as referring to when they were initially taking off in the mid-late 2000s and how people had no problems "switching." People nowadays are increasingly shifting to 100% smartphone use, though I still think that plays into Linux's favor, people can figure out new GUI-based systems they just need to throw away the notion that all desktops have to be Windows-like similar to how Apple's renaissance had people using Mac which is different in nearly every way.
People are trained on the desktop experience they grow up with and that's the hardest thing to shake in my opinion.

Thinking of the Windows -> Apple migration that happened over a decade ago which consisted of a lot of insufferable hipsters... Perhaps it's best Linux doesn't have that happen. As has already been said, the users are already one of the worst things, nu-hipsters would exacerbate the community problem further.

 

[SilentDuck]

With hindsight I think I misunderstood Matt Damon's point about smartphones as referring to when they were initially taking off in the mid-late 2000s and how people had no problems "switching." People nowadays are increasingly shifting to 100% smartphone use, though I still think that plays into Linux's favor, people can figure out new GUI-based systems they just need to throw away the notion that all desktops have to be Windows-like similar to how Apple's renaissance had people using Mac which is different in nearly every way.
People are trained on the desktop experience they grow up with and that's the hardest thing to shake in my opinion.

I would take that as proof people would rather squint at a 4-5" screen than deal with linux (or modern windows). Not the other way around.

Why do oldsters like iphones so much? I don't think they had or used them in the 50s-60s to train on while they were growing up. Is it perhaps usability and reliability in the form of a finished product that can be readily serviced?

Windows tried a fresh and hopeful renaissance in a new UI approach. It was called the Metro interface, and even tech-literate tards who could have taken 5 minutes to figure out how to disable most of it or switch the shell are still griefing about it 10 years after the fact. Canonical tried as well, and BTFO'd themselves and ended their own meteoric rise.

 

[Baguette Child]

Look, my dudes, I don't really care to try and proselytize for the church of Linux even being balls deep in open source. Linux is cool and I love it but it isn't ever going to be the market leader. And that's okay. The fact we have options for the consumer so they can choose what they want from their PC is enough. Those of us who want tighter control can take one road and the average user who just wants out of the box simplicity can take the other.


I just personally hate seeing every successive desktop OS from Microsoft take away more and more of my capabilities while treating hardware I paid for like it isn't really mine. I miss Windows XP. Despite the flaws it was a quality product. It was nice while it lasted.

These days I'm pretty comfy with my setup over in Debian land though and I don't think there's much chance of Microsoft ever getting sales from me again. Especially not with the bullshit heap that is 11.

 

[Pissmaster]

Okay so, since there’s a number of Linux dudes ITT, let me ask you a question that I’ve genuinely wondered for a long time: what exactly is the deal with Linux executables?

I’ve downloaded assorted programs where the actual executable, the icon I double click to start the program, sometimes just won’t run, and it’ll try to open in a text editor or whatever. I’ve seen guys on forums insist that you should stick to repos to install software, but I've seen older versions of whatever just sitting around on repos while newer versions are available on the website. There just doesn't seem to be much of a standard like on Windows or Mac, where you just run the .exe/.app and it starts to at least some capacity.

And another thing: Why are there different builds for different versions of Linux? Let's take ScummVM, for example. https://www.scummvm.org/downloads/#release

There are 7 releases available for Windows. A universal installer for both 32 and 64 bit versions, separate portable zipped versions for 64 and 32-bit, and then the same for XP (which is considerably older), and then a version for Windows 95 (for I guess truly retro PCs). Easy to understand. Then for Linux, there's a grand total of 13 builds. Five for different versions of Ubuntu, six for different versions of Debian, a Flatpak package, and a Snap package.

• Why are those different?
• What is a Flatpak package?
• And Ubuntu has five versions, all 64-bit, but they're for different versions raging from a 2018 version through 2022? Why are those separate? I understand Windows 95 and modern Windows builds needing to be distinct, but five different builds across four years of Ubuntu? What on Earth?

Don't give me any shit here, I genuinely want to know.

 

[Matt Damon]

I’ve downloaded assorted programs where the actual executable, the icon I double click to start the program, sometimes just won’t run, and it’ll try to open in a text editor or whatever.

Most of those files have to be explicitly set to self-execute by the user. There's usually a checkbox in the file properties or you can use the terminal because you're a h4rdc0re 1337 ha><or.

And another thing: Why are there different builds for different versions of Linux?

Because Linux is disastrously unstandardized between distros and new versions of libraries regularly break backward compatibility even from one version of a distro to the next. There are so many versions because they have to be compatible with so many different target configurations. It's one of the core, foundational problems with bringing serious commercial development into desktop Linux - even dedicated Linux lovers say this, so it's not just me bashing.

Few businesses are willing to spend serious time and money putting out software that breaks every time there's a system update.

What is a Flatpak package?

Flatpaks bundle libraries with the executable, rather than using the system's libraries in an attempt to deal with the aforementioned problem. Snaps and AppImages and probably others I can't remember work according to a similar principle.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

And Ubuntu has five versions, all 64-bit, but they're for different versions raging from a 2018 version through 2022? Why are those separate? I understand Windows 95 and modern Windows builds needing to be distinct, but five different builds across four years of Ubuntu? What on Earth?

That's the development cycle for Ubuntu. Every 6 months they put out a new version that has support for about 9 months. These version are meant to be a sort of testing bed for their next long term support distro which tends to have updates for 4 years.

 

[byuu]

Okay so, since there’s a number of Linux dudes ITT, let me ask you a question that I’ve genuinely wondered for a long time: what exactly is the deal with Linux executables?

I’ve downloaded assorted programs where the actual executable, the icon I double click to start the program, sometimes just won’t run, and it’ll try to open in a text editor or whatever.

First off, your file manager needs to recognize that it's an executable. On Windows that happens with the file ending ".exe", on Linux it happens with the file permission. So if your file manager tries to open it as a text file, you need to set it to be executable.

Second, software is usually dynamically linked and depends on several libraries (DLLs in the Windows world).

On Windows all the libraries are usually bundled together with the software and every piece of software uses its own copy of all the needed libraries (AppImages on Linux work the same way).
On Linux you usually have the libraries installed system-wide so every piece of software uses the same system libraries. And all of that is managed by your distribution's package manager (so look there first before downloading random shit off some website).

This saves some space and ensures that all the libraries are up to date with the latest security patches. With the downside that software has to be upgraded with the libraries when a newer library versions breaks some compatibility.

 

[Matt Damon]

And all of that is managed by your distribution's package manager (so look there first before downloading random shit off some website).

This is one of my biggest frustrations with Linux. There's no doubt that the package manager is convenient when it has what you want, but when it doesn't (and that's pretty often when you're trying to install anything interesting) you're often left in this hellish no-man's-land of manually tracking down particular deprecated versions of fifty dependencies and even compiling shit from source.

It's either very centralized, automated convenience or a tedious clusterfuck and little in between. I mean, just look at this shit. This is commercial, paid software.