I guess that means more people switching to linux, assuming they eventually 100% phase out non-cloud. Not even because “cloud bad” - there will be some of that, but because of the sheer number of people who don’t pay for windows, not paying for it isn’t an option if they control it completely.
Yup, that’d also be the case for people like me who stick with Windows for gaming compatibility/convenience reasons and critical GPU features the Linux drivers just don’t implement (looking at you, DLDSR). That, or just anyone with a GPU, I suppose, assuming the hardware market would look remotely like it does nowadays by then.
There’s definitely going to be a push for cloud gaming / cloud GPU + VDI, and with GPU pricing going the way nvidia is doing right now isn’t going to help prevent adoption of that.
Will this actually be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, or will everyone just continue to say “but I can only do this on a PC” and not even attempt to look at Linux or MacOS as an alternative.
My moneys on the latter. People have been complaining about anti-consumer practices from Microsoft since Windows 7, but it always ends the same way. Microsoft has most of the world by the balls and they know they can squeeze tighter and tighter and not lose 99% of their customers.
Are we doing the nobody reads the article thing here too? This isn’t a replacement for Windows as an operating system, it’s a cloud based version of the OS being sold to consumers. They’re trying to compete with inexpensive Chromebooks, not take away your PC.
I did, but it sounds like what the headlines implied to me
Microsoft has been increasingly moving Windows to the cloud on the commercial side with Windows 365, but the software giant also wants to do the same for consumers.
The idea of moving Windows fully to the cloud for consumers is also presented alongside Microsoft’s need to invest in custom silicon partnerships.
Yeah, it is fair to say it’s just an alternative option to a non cloud based OS, but some people are extrapolating based on Microsoft moves the past few years with the subscription model they’ve pushed for Office and OS coming with office versions that require you to sign in to an account to use.
And versions of Windows that don’t come with pre-installed ad apps like Facebook or Candy Crush aren’t commercially available.
As an occasional sys admin, they’ve had stuff like this for enterprise forever, it’s just self hosted. This is about as surprising as the sun coming up, they’ve been moving lots of their enterprise tech to consumer subscriptions.
Why would I read the article? I don’t want to know the details. I want to be outraged.
Okay but what happens if you don’t have a good net connection like at the coffee shop or airports? I swear sometimes people are clueless and just assume you always have good internet when that’s not often the case!
Don’t worry, you’ll be able to purchase super duper satellite internet from microsoft. Or something.
I’m kind of confused…if the plan is to move Windows fully to the cloud, why are they talking to chipmakers about enabling more Windows features in future chip releases? Why would you need processing power for the OS if the OS is fully on the cloud?
Client side rendering and stuff? Your youtube video is still rendered locally.
Makes me think DRM and TPM functions as well in that case too.
I’m surprised they’re bothering to focus on consumer devices instead of just going all-out on enterprise and business.
Cloud workstations make a lot of sense for when you need the extra grunt occasionally and have a rock-solid internet connection, but about the only reason the average consumer would want to use them on a portable device is gaming. Everything else you can do locally or as a web app.
And even gaming has been a bit rocky, though it has its small cult of followers.
Good luck to them. I’ve been very much enjoying Fedora since Windows 11 came out.
Fedora, what is that?!
It’s a distribution of Linux. Everything I was running on windows works pretty much the same minus the annoying shit that Microsoft brings to their OS
Ah, I see. I’m going to read more about it. Thanks for the explanation.
A Linux distribution, much like Ubuntu and Arch
It is one of the more user friendly distros and (somewhat unlike other user friendly distros like Linux Mint) is pretty quick at updating packages (including the kernel).
I like Ubuntu the most from a GUI perspective. Sometimes I feel the urge to uninstall Windows 11 entirely and replace it with the latest version of Ubuntu or even dual-boot them side-by-side, but then I realize that I’m way more used to Windows than Ubuntu. Also, there are a lot of apps and games I won’t be able to use on Ubuntu.
I have a Bachelor’s in Computer Science, so I’m familiar with Ubuntu, but as I told you before: I would choose Windows over Linux in the meantime.
Yeah, I removed Windows on my laptop a couple years back, and I still run into issues running some video games (darn you Nvidia!). However, usability has been increasing recently, and because I like the UI of my distro I really look forward to the day I can do everything I would want to on Linux.
I don’t think any operating system would replace another any time soon.
A version of linux (distro). I’m running Fedora and it’s fantastic
Yeah, I just learned. Thanks for answering my question.
I don’t really want to switch to Linux, Microsoft, please stop pushing me to. I will, but I’d rather not. Ffs.
Made the switch 4 years ago. No regrets.
Me too.
I originally intended to do a pcie passthrough setup with a second video card and use a Windows VM for gaming, but then DXVK hit and it just wasn’t necessary. The Windows games I cared about worked under Linux so I never got around to it.
Come over, it’s nice here!
I tried it in the past, admittedly a long time ago, and it just wasn’t great for my workflows.
I use Adobe products for the time being because the other available software doesn’t have the features I need quite yet. They’re getting closer year by year and I could see switching being way easier once they get more feature rich. But for right now I still need Windows for my creative programs.
Ah, that’s unfortunate. Doesn’t Adobe still offer their tools on Mac? Not as good as Linux for me, but better than Windows.
Yeah, that’s a more likely option for me. I’m not super keen on how locked down Apple keeps the OS but MS is getting just as bad with Windows Apps and all that nonsense. So my reason for not switching to Mac is basically price of hardware at this point.
I would like to switch to Linux in the future though, not saying no, I just need my creative programs to work there and I’ll be golden. Because everything else I used worked mostly okay (some hiccups but that’ll happen when switching OS’s).
I don’t experience any meaningful issues either using macOS. Some parts are locked down but I don’t have any issues installing apps, running brew utilities, or using third party extensions.
there are ways of running macOS on non-Apple hardware, but it requires a fair bit of tech savvy, and you usually need to build your own machine. not sure how easy it is nowadays, but i ran a macOS desktop on a PC for years without many issues.
Oh you mean a good old fashioned hackintosh! I’m aware, but every update seemed to be a pain in the ass (experimented with that in the past too, I have about a decade of IT experience). I’d rather just get an official Mac. The hackintosh is a cool project but not something I’d want to make a daily driver. I know some people can make it work and I’m happy for them but I found it to be too fiddly.
For anybody else interested though you can find more info at this link
Give Linux Mint a try. It is very similar to Windows and will make the transition very smooth. Pretty much any windows programs that you want to run you can run in a shell like Wine.
I like Mint and I tried Ubuntu, Debian and even Arch way back in the day just for funsies. I’m not unfamiliar with Unix based systems, I just use creative programs and that is Linux’s biggest Achilles’ heel. The alternatives to Adobe software just don’t have the features I need yet. They’re getting there but at this time it would be a rough transition.
Not sure what Adobe products you’re using, or in what application, but I do photography as a hobby and do my editing on my linux machines. Rawtherapee and DarkTable are good alternatives to lightroom, with Gimp being a very good alternative to Photoshop. Gimp is getting better all the time, but Darktable already is a stronger editor than Lightroom.
Haven’t tried any video editing alternatives (not my thing), but these programs have the added benefit of being free.
GIMP is still hot garbage imo, you can do a lot with it but it has a looong way to go before being comparable to Photoshop. It was only last year in 2022 they added CMYK support, that’s insane to me.
I’m not saying it won’t get to the feature rich state I’m looking for, but it’s got a long way to go. I’m not going to be able to switch from Photoshop for a while. If I did, Affinity is a better program for that but even that is missing a lot of features in comparison. Only for now though, I’m looking forward to the future of these programs.
GIMP still doesn’t have non-destructive editing; I can’t imagine doing any serious image work with it. If FOSS wants a Photoshop alternative, then devs need to add more image manipulation stuff to Krita.
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Well of course they do. They want to turn an every-few-years OS purchase into a monthly subscription fee, like they did with O365. And eventually they’ll drop the ability to install apps except through their store (under the guise of providing “safety” from malicious apps), so that they can collect a commission on the third party software sales market as well.
The share holders they need more!!!
lets eat the shareholders
It’s depressing to see. Unfortunately I’m heavily invested in music software which is not available on Linux. If Microsoft actually does this it could get to the point where even a switch to Apple seems better. But Linux is the only satisfactory and viable solution for actually having control of your machine.
WINE and similar tools have gotten really good in the past few years. Valve’s Proton compatibility layer is good too, despite being designed for gaming many people are using it to run software which WINE itself struggles with.
It could very well be possible to run your music software with minimal tinkering.
Not really surprising, it is what they earn on
More reasons to switch to Linux and stay there.
Once you’re logged into Windows 365 you’re technically using their hardware and just streaming the use to your machine. You will have almost no control over your own device because it isn’t actually your own device. Your own device has been turned into a television, a device that just plays what another device is displaying.
This is about property and ownership and how Microsoft wants to take those things away from you. They want full control of how you use their operating system, and when they force users to use their software and hardware, they will acheive it.
and I want to move fully off of windows, what a coincidence.
The situation has never been better for comfortably abandoning Windows. Come to Linux, we have penguins
tbh, windows user since the 90s, tried *nix desktops since the early 00s every few years. Used to have a thing where I would force myself to use it for 6 months and it would fail again and again.
In the last year, ive been using ubuntu (which i know isint the best desktop to use even) as a dev system on some of my work. Unlike in the past I am no longer finding an unreasonable delta between the user expectations in linux vs windows systems. I need to drop to a cli for both with ~ the same propensity once I do anything advanced. Not having a registry is a blessing I never thought I would be able to have in a rich visual system.
Long time .NET / Azure dev - moving to linux. After all, what do you think remote windows will run under-the-covers?
As another dev here, I have barely used a PC/laptop outside of work in years. I got a gaming PC like 2 years back and don’t use it much. But every time I get the hankering for some personal dev project and have to mess with the registry I cry inside. I really need to just ditch it for Linux entirely. I’m so much more comfortable on Linux. You might just convince me to bite the bullet and remove it entirely since 90% of my gaming is on steamdeck anyway.
Since WSL2 and terminal preview I have spent more time doing “nix things” than windows things anyway, I even do a lot of windows file management through ubuntu since the Linux tools are more expressive.
Much of my day is web browser, cli and VSCode. The desktops are capable, at this point its more about getting used to a different set of keyboard shortcuts, my next build out will be a linux system for sure.
Azure Linux with a strong Wine hahahahaha
pretty much, though my understanding is they ended up making thier own “wine” that leverages hyper-v. Seems like they are still banking on thier own hypervisor. Can’t say I blame them. no way MS hands thier ops to VMWare.
EDIT: Honestly, I would expect NT4 based windows to be sunset within a decade in place of a linux kernel version that has a window manager developed in microsoft’s signature style. A large number of newer UWP apps will port relatively easily if already written on .NET core and microsoft has indicated they are starting to think more like apple when it comes to some levels of compatibility.
That’s a pretty similar story to mine. Used Linux pretty exclusively over a decade ago, then switched back for my gaming PC. Now that I’m back on Linux though, I don’t see any reason to use windows on anything but my company PC, Linux is just better IMO now.
Didn’t read the article.
The idea of online only software irritates me. Of course multiplayer games have to work this way. When blizzard and Ubisoft started requiring an active connection for single player games that was just going too far.
Can you imagine sitting at your computer, doing literally anything. The screen goes strait to blue with the windows shutting down screen saying, “Internet disrupted, please contact your provider for support”.
They will have to continue to offer some kind of offline option it seems, for people with flaky internet connections.
I guess even a chromebook has some sort of offline apps and storage.
ChromeOS is just a regular OS. Without internet, everything continues to work that was designed to work. It’s about the same as Windows that way.
However, Chromebooks have planned obsolescence, and most devices lose official OS updates after some number of years, with many having weird hardware that makes it difficult to move to another operating system.
Never mind flaky internet, what about people that do events?
Things like PowerPoint presentation machines, VJ systems, video servers (for massive multiscreen playback).
You can’t go into a field for a festival and expect reliable internet.
You can’t go into a theatre and expect reliable internet, especially when 3k+ people turn up.
There are a few systems that run OSX, but Apple’s hardware doesn’t give you as much control as something like an Nvidia Quadro with sync cards. 99% of the big shows will be ran from Windows OS
Or trying to do any work on the go? This whole idea is just idiotic to me.
That’s a big nope for me.
Internet goes out? I can still do some amount of work, now I need power and internet to both work to do any work at all.
Not a fan of this and I will not embrace it.
Microsoft has recently announced Windows Copilot, an AI-powered assistant for Windows 11. Windows Copilot sits at the side of Windows 11, and can summarize content you’re viewing in apps, rewrite it, or even explain it. Microsoft is currently testing this internally and promised to release it to testers in June before rolling it out more broadly to Windows 11 users.
Oh my God, they’re bringing back clippy.
If it’s GPT4 though I might sell my soul for that kind of automation integrated into my PC…
Don’t worry, you will.
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That means a whole new market of NFT Clippy Skins can be established.
That fixes the main problem with Clippy, which was not using a blockchain.
“It looks like you’re trying to defraud people. Would you like help with that?”
