The Windows OS Thread - Formerly THE OS for gamers and normies, now sadly ruined by Pajeets

[HildegardOrgonAkkumulator]

For an old fossile 2gb ram potato (which is used for emulators) what OS do you recommend the most?
Not Linux, i know nothing about Linux.

Funnily enough, on the Linux thread, they tried out ReactOS. It's a FOSS Windows clone with features at around XP-level complete. I myself used it once to run an old program that newer Windows versions don't support anymore. Despite it being in Alpha, it appears to run solid when I used it.

Post in thread 'The Linux Thread'

May 15, 2025

FOSS & WINE related, it seems like ReactOS project has finally started to move again. From the gallery it looks like someone actually got a recentish non-FOSS game like Paper's Please to run on it last year. And a build from March by a dev on the right looks very different to where the system was just a few years ago:



Dunno if anyone here has messed with it recently, I assume it's still trash. It’s obviously still in alpha and unusable outside of novelty, but I am still sort of tempted to try to mess around with it again in a VM. Last time I did was half...

• Akerman

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[ForkyMeetsPorky]

For an old fossile 2gb ram potato (which is used for emulators) what OS do you recommend the most?
Not Linux, i know nothing about Linux.

For an old emulation box (VIA Eden thin client) I ran Windows Thin PC, which is an embedded version of Windows 7 with a lot of optional components removed. There is no .NET Framework v3, so check to see if any emulators rely on that. Its out of support now and was only released as a 32bit OS, The modern equivalent would be Windows 10/11 LTC/IoT editions.

 

[xXthrowawayaccountXx]

The vast majority of consumers obtain Windows through OEM licenses. They're not even the primary buyers. Microsoft doesn't really care what they think; they care what Lenovo, HP and Dell think.

They're cramming AI into everything because of pure FOMO. I don't think people in general understand how irrational and panicked AI has made your typical corporate C-suite & board room. We've got the winning combination for setting piles of capital on fire:

• Almost nobody understands what AI does
• Almost nobody has any idea what AI is good for
• They're all certain AI is the next big thing
• They all see that AI made NVIDIA a trillion-dollar company
• They're all terrified that if they don't make big investments in AI NOW NOW NOW, they'll be out of business in 5 years

If you want a peek into the panic, look at Google's AI-"enhanced" search, where your search results are now pushed down half a page as you wait for a GPU somewhere to write out an incorrect summary of them that you could have gleaned yourself by reading the two-line teasers under each link. It's not just that the feature is broken shit. When has Google ever unrolled a new feature to Search that was this broken? This is far worse than any of their algorithm tweaks. It just outright doesn't work correctly. They're panicking.

This has the potential to end very badly for all these companies due to this FOMO. Everything about this trajectory is basically a massive gamble. They have been bleeding not only goodwill (which usually doesn't matter much) but gimping their own software and talent because they are banking on the idea that it's going to replace every human they hire and they can live as technofeudal royalty forever. Usually any tech alternatives gunning for the throne fizzles out, but but when people are looking for alteratives because your software is literally unusable now it's very bad news.

 

[barrow greeter]

I'm going to purchase the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for Windows 10 because the time it would me to reinstall Windows 11 exactly the way I have my Windows 10 now is more valuable than the cost, at least through year 2. Year 3, I may reevaluate.

 

[Tiny Chinaman]

This has the potential to end very badly for all these companies due to this FOMO. Everything about this trajectory is basically a massive gamble. They have been bleeding not only goodwill (which usually doesn't matter much) but gimping their own software and talent because they are banking on the idea that it's going to replace every human they hire and they can live as technofeudal royalty forever. Usually any tech alternatives gunning for the throne fizzles out, but but when people are looking for alteratives because your software is literally unusable now it's very bad news.

I think the few wealthy people that actually understand AI are hyping it up to manipulate the markets into giving them the insane amount of money they need to go quantum and eventually achieve AGI. LLMs will look like parlor tricks when compared to AGI.

 

[Slav Power]

I'm going to purchase the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program for Windows 10 because the time it would me to reinstall Windows 11 exactly the way I have my Windows 10 now is more valuable than the cost, at least through year 2. Year 3, I may reevaluate.

Quick PSA that Microsoft Activation Scripts can activate Windows 10 ESU via TSForge so you can keep using Windows 10 with security updates up to 2028. On Massgrave's site you can also find guides on how to convert any pre-existing Windows 10 installation into a IoT LTSC one so that you can get security updates until 2032.

Save yourself the money.

Anyways, here are some slightly positive Microsoft Windows news:

-Microsoft has launched Edit, a simple CLI text editor written in Rust. nano for Windows essentially.
-Windows 11 will get a refresh and a rebrand of the "For Developers" options menu, expanding it with extra functionality.

 

[Overly Serious]

-Microsoft has launched Edit, a simple CLI text editor written in Rust. nano for Windows essentially.

Why the Fuck does it have to be in Rust?

If you need CLI text editing on Windows (and anybody coming from UNIX or Linux does because not having it feels like missing a digit), then just install GIT on Windows and you'll get both Nano and Vim with it. And not the crappy pop-out a new window Vim experience but actual in-terminal experience.

From Powershell / Windows Terminal:

winget install -e --id Git.Git

Then either of:

& 'C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\vim.exe'

or

& 'C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\nano.exe'

Now if you don't want to type all that every time then you can set some aliases and add them to either your global or user Powershell profile. I'll show creating it for the User profile as that's usually better unless you have some reason it's not. You want the following two lines in your Powershell profile:

Set-Alias nano 'C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\nano.exe'
Set-Alias vim 'C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\vim.exe'

Now you might or might not have a profile already and I don't want people crying if they blindly followed some instructions and blitzed it. (But if you never had cause to make yourself a profile you probably don't have one).

This will tell you where it's looking for a profile file. We do it this way because depending on what your Windows version or how you've set it up, it might be different to where someone else's is.

echo $Profile

Either way the below should make you a new Profile file if you don't have one.

If(!(test-path $profile)) { New-Item -path $profile -type file -force }

Now it's just a case of adding the aliases. You can either do this by going to it and adding the lines manually. Or you can just append them to the end with the following:

"Set-Alias nano 'C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\nano.exe'" | Add-Content -Path $Profile
"Set-Alias vim 'C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\vim.exe'" | Add-Content -Path $Profile

Voilà- you can now type `vim myfile.txt` from any location in Windows Terminal or Powershell and you have inline editing. This has been around for a while.

TL;DR:

Spoiler: All in one copyable block for your enjoyment

winget install -e --id Git.Git
If(!(test-path $profile)) { New-Item -path $profile -type file -force }
"Set-Alias nano 'C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\nano.exe'" | Add-Content -Path $Profile
"Set-Alias vim 'C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\vim.exe'" | Add-Content -Path $Profile

So, no need to use Rust!

 

[Slav Power]

Why the Fuck does it have to be in Rust?

So, no need to use Rust!

So, you wrote all of that just because you hate Rust as a language?

Edit is less than 500kb in size, it's a single self-contained binary, you can drop it in a PATH folder and use it to do very simple text edits, as that's the scope of the project. No need to install Git, no complications of vim. Simple, clean, does what it's meant to do, will most likely end up getting added to Windows 11 into system32 so it'll be available by default. A neat idea on Microsoft's part to be fair.

By the way, if you want vim, you just do winget install neovim, restart the terminal to update PATH and type nvim. Much easier than whatever the fuck you're suggesting. Except edit isn't meant to be vim.

 

[Overly Serious]

So, you wrote all of that just because you hate Rust as a language?

Hate is as good a reason as any. But I wrote it because most people who work with the terminal are probably also using Git and therefore already have these tools installed. And because people are often already familiar with Vim or Nano it's a ready solution with no re-learning and all the power of these tools that have had a lot of ecosystem built around them over time. It's good to know this stuff.

And as to writing "all of that", I could have just shared the four line summary I wrote at the end but explaining the steps and reasoning is a good thing. If you read what I wrote and understand it, then you also now understand how to make other GNU standbys like less, sed and split accessible in just the same way. Or how to add aliases for anything else you might want to your user profile. Some people don't even know these things are an option. Why are you getting your knickers in a twist?

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Edit is less than 500kb in size, it's a single self-contained binary, you can drop it in a PATH folder and use it to do very simple text edits, as that's the scope of the project. No need to install Git, no complications of vim.

The "complications" of Vim are its selling points. It's extremely powerful. And like I said, most people who are bothered enough to need CLI file editing are likely to have Git already. nano.exe is 366KB in size, btw. Sorry - I hadn't realised it was a competition or I'd have brought that up for you.

By the way, if you want vim, you just do winget install neovim, restart the terminal to update PATH and type nvim. Much easier than whatever the fuck you're suggesting.

That's good too. But as I pointed out, I'm showing that many people already have actual Vim (and nano) and how to conveniently access them.

 

[Baraka Obama]

Are you aware that CLI "edit" is a very old Microsoft thing which was included as far back as very early versions of DOS and also included in Windows up to Win 7? Bringing that back is a good thing.

 

[Overly Serious]

Are you aware that CLI "edit" is a very old Microsoft thing which was included as far back as very early versions of DOS and also included in Windows up to Win 7? Bringing that back is a good thing.

I mean I certainly was. I'm not sure @Slav Power was since he called it "Nano for Windows" and then sperged out at me for explaining how you can already use Nano on Windows.

 

[Slav Power]

But I wrote it because most people who work with the terminal are probably also using Git and therefore already have these tools installed.

That is a massive assumption you're making here. Besides, those Git/CygWin binaries are always an overcomplication since you're getting a pseudo-Unix binary directory that's not automatically added to PATH, and adding it could cause issues. In contrast, standalone neovim or edit is way simpler, and lighter if you don't need Git, and guess what, there are people who want a CLI text editor on Windows but don't have Git.

I mean I certainly was. I'm not sure @Slav Power was since he called it "Nano for Windows" and then sperged out at me for explaining how you can already use Nano on Windows.

What I meant by "nano for Windows" is that it's a basic text editor for Windows, much like nano fulfills that purpose for Linux. Not everyone needs a modal editor like vim. Besides, you were the one who went on a tirade assuming every CLI Windows user already uses PowerShell and Git, saying how no one needs it because in your particular case you use alternative software.

Like, if you just want to hate everything Microsoft related then just say so. Going above and beyond to make it seem like edit is somehow a bad thing is just retarded.

 

[Overly Serious]

Like, if you just want to hate everything Microsoft related then just say so. Going above and beyond to make it seem like edit is somehow a bad thing is just retarded.

I don't know what position you imagine I hold but it exists solely in your mind. You are throwing around words like "tirade" because my post appears to be longer than your default attention span. Pretty sure the emotional one here is you.

Not everyone needs a modal editor like vim.

Or indeed, like "Edit" which you were the one posting about the good news we've got it. If you post about the good news that there is now "nano for Windows" don't get het up if someone replies pointing out there is already Nano for Windows.

Besides, you were the one who went on a tirade assuming every CLI Windows user already uses PowerShell and Git, saying how no one needs it because in your particular case you use alternative software.

What are you blithering about? I "assumed every CLI Windows user already uses PowerShell" you say? If you're using CLI on Windows for anything more than copy pasting something into CMD you copied off WikiHow then yes, you're most likely using PowerShell.

And why yes, I do also think that "most" (the word I actually used) people who are frequently enough editing files from the CLI for this to be a need for them are going to have Git installed. It's certainly frequent enough that I should be able to make a post saying "hey, if you want to use Vim or Nano for in-terminal editing, this is how to use the versions that are included in Git" without some maniac freaking out about it. Or who interprets a post longer than ten lines as being a "tirade" and starts posting at me about the file size of Edit.

Question - what do you personally use CLI file editing for?

EDIT:

Besides, those Git/CygWin binaries are always an overcomplication since you're getting a pseudo-Unix binary directory that's not automatically added to PATH, and adding it could cause issues.

If you'd read my instructions you'd note that I didn't add them to the Path and they aren't automatically added either. I was showing people how to make a custom Powershell environment. You're just arguing with someone in your head at this point.

 

[Betonhaus]

I think the only times I've used the command prompt on windows was to 1. ssh into my Ubuntu server 2. Activate windows and Office using MAS 3. Increase the size of my EFI partition because Windows by default makes it too small so certain updates fail when it runs out of space.

 

[The Ugly One]

Why the Fuck does it have to be in Rust?

Because a lot of trannies work there now.

The "complications" of Vim are its selling points. It's extremely powerful. And like I said, most people who are bothered enough to need CLI file editing are likely to have Git already. nano.exe is 366KB in size, btw. Sorry - I hadn't realised it was a competition or I'd have brought that up for you.

As much as I like Vim, a lot of people don't. Notepad is a little too lightweight for editing code, while VSCode is a little on the heavy side for a quick text file edit. I liked notepad++ just fine

 

[Overly Serious]

As much as I like Vim, a lot of people don't.

I get that. But having used it for 20+ years I'm not going to quit just as I'm getting the hang of it.

 

[Slav Power]

I liked notepad++

I still like it. If I haven't opened the "About" window I wouldn't knew Don Ho dedicated the latest releases to Ukrainian virtue signaling. Pretty amazing that he learned his lesson from the Je Suis Charlie update where it'd autotype his virtue signal on first run, leading to people believe they've been compromised.

 

[Gog & Magog]

Windows Photos used to play animated webp files. Now it is broken.

 

[HalHalliday]

Windows Photos used to play animated webp files. Now it is broken.

To be fair, webp spec, RFC 9649, is 46 pages long, too many tokens for an AI, let alone a pajeet, to get right.

 

[Betonhaus]

Come to think about it, there's probably very few Indian Linux developers or maintainers