Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps on My PC Without Asking

I know for a fact the malware analysis software we used are now planning a Linux version. I've literally persuaded a multinational to not continue using .net and Windows servers because of my argument that it's not sustainable. They alone are tens of thousands of Windows licenses that may go to Red Hat or even Centos or Ubuntu.

Windows has already started to go - my son doesn't know how to use it, all he's used is Google Docs or an iPhone / iPad. There is no love for Windows, only halcyon remembrances from the likes of myself who remembered the golden days of MSDN subscriptions. There is literally not a startup on the planet who will decide 'fuck it, we'll use a windows domain and Office instead of o365 or Google Apps.

Active Directory is really powerful in a way that, as far as I know, alternatives are not.

Actually, I am not sure if Linux is in fact user unfriendly. I mean, my grandpa (78) uses it every day since about a year now and hasn't complained once (email, banking, ebay, news, ...; he used vista before).

I mean it's not like you don't have to learn a lot of new stuff if you come from years of windows experience and want to reach the same level of proficiency on a new platform which is totally different. It most certainly doesn't feel good to be novice again just because you booted a different system. But I doubt that it is a usability problem with the Linux desktop as people who have no previous experience with windows tend to have an easier start with Linux.

My primary PC has Linux installed and my laptop has a dual boot with Linux and Windows 10. When I use Windows I feel often helpless. Some program tells you that you need to install the newest update but while the updater tells you that its updating, you can't see any progress. After waiting for hours without seeing any progress you conclude that something must be wrong. So you reboot a few times and start searching on the web. Eventually you find a page which tells you how you can reset the update cache and after that it takes only a few reboots to complete the update. I definitely prefer updaters which actually work and tell you straight away when something is wrong.

My problems are probably just the result of too much Windows absence, but somehow I don't expect that to become a real problem anytime soon.

Linux is much more user friendly than Windows. This is completely arbitrary metric, I am very comfortable using GNOME, KDE, awesomeWM and i3 but whenever someone hands me some Win 7 or Win 10 I just can't figure out anything for a while. Stuff starts jumping around and there are literally ads built into OS which annoys me. Windows may be user friendly for 90% of the population BUT this is only because it is "pre-loaded on every machine" as you put it. That is the only reason people find Windows easier to use.

Reactos, Haiku, AROS, OSFree, etc should all be considered as well and money invested in making them better and easier development tools for them to compete with Windows when Linux doesn't always work and a MacOS machine costs too much.

Do you have a more recent source for that? Your link is from 2016.

Most professionals would have no problem using Linux for their needs. What applications are you suggesting aren't up to snuff?

I have gotten around this with a virtualized Windows installation for CAD applications. The Windows VM goes online for software activation only.

With VFIO, a dedicated graphics card, and an nVME SSD I don't feel any performance degradation. The graphics card and nVME drive are passed directly to the VM. Some simple benchmarks show there is ~3% performance decline in the VM vs booting it native, but I don't "feel" it.

Granted, picking VFIO compliant hardware and setting everything up is far outside the ability of the average Windows user.

I'm both, and you're definitely wrong. 155 of my 343 steam games have direct native ports. I've just stopped playing stellaris and started playing KSP. I've been a linux gamer for the last three years and it's been a better experience, not worse. I dominate on ballistic overkill because the input lag is noticeably lower on linux.

I'm also a software developer, and with the exception of dotnet development, software development is a considerably smoother and more consistant experience on linux. It grates every day to have to use windows at work, and I do half of my work inside a linux VM.

Also, I don't want to hear the UI argument when KDE Plasma exists. I bet 90% or better of Windows users would be comfortable on Plasma.

Lack of suitable software can be a dealbreaker for some professions. There aren't many professional video editing suites, for example. But in companies I've worked at, most workers only need a browser and an office suite to do their jobs. Linux would work for them.

I think the real obstacle is training. You have a workforce that's already used to the way windows works. It's easier to hire IT people with windows experience than it is with Linux. Users know how to do their tasks in Microsoft office, and even though Libre office is similar, they might have to learn a few new things.

The amazing thing is that I could already switch it over to Linux via KodiBuntu or some other distro and get 90% of my day-to-day functionality. But then there's the Windows-only library of games that I have on Steam--games that I've paid hundreds of dollars for over the years, that I simply don't have the energy to try fiddling for hours with in WINE. And that damn remaining 10% is what keeps that PC on Windows 10.

As much as I despise W10, Microsoft has the gamer market by the balls, and they know it. I try as much as I can to buy the Remastered Classics of games like Baldur's Gate 2 or Planescape: Torment that include proper Linux ports, just to chip away at that dependency, but there are plenty of games that in all likelihood will never have first-class Linux support.

Moreso on topic, I actually do much of my gaming in Linux, I only have a couple of AAA titles that I use Windows for (Elite: Dangerous and AC:Origins), everything else is Linux (KSP, X-Com, X-Com 2, RimWorld).

I often try and make a point of emailing a "Thanks for supporting Linux!" to the companies who release the ones I want to play, just so they know we are out there.

I think the irony of that statement is from Windows 3.1 and on Windows (25-ish years) was already THE defacto PC platform. I was a pretty big MS fanboy for a long time (and make my living with .NET and their developer tools). But MS's quixotic fetishization of their app store to me looks like dousing the legacy (no pun intended) of their platform with gasoline and lighting it on fire.

Edit: format tweak

So they had to find another way to monetize Windows.

This is part of the reason I gave up developing for Windows and .NET after around a decade of doing it. I prefer to work on a stack with which I'm at least partially values-aligned. (Same reason I abandoned Linux for FreeBSD, actually).

Are they really that different of a company? Microsoft is huge, organizational memory is long, and decisions made long ago, whether rational or mere cargo culting, will affect how they run today.

I'd argue they're a bit more cunning, but not one whit less underhanded. The EU browser ballot thing was considerably more recent, for instance. The forced W10 upgrades with the trick X dialog. Dark patterns surrounding use of a Microsoft account. Non-disableable telemetry. Hawking Edge in a way that would even make Chrome blush [1].

I think they know that they can't be as overt anymore; a couple of antitrust suits will do that to you.

[1]: https://i.imgur.com/W56CuN6.jpg

macOS implementation was bad, because I accidentally switched between desktops all the time. It shows all launched apps in the dock from all desktops. If I'm working on my project, I don't want to see that I have Battle.net client launched and 10 unread notifications in Discord guild channel. If I'm clicking on Safari icon, I want to launch new window on current desktop, I don't want to switch to another desktop with some random website.

Anyway the main point of virtual desktops is that they are implemented at OS level. Actual interface is not very important, because if API exists, 3-rd party programs can embrace it. For example Windows 7 had virtual desktops implemented on system level (there wasn't UI to manage them), but API was very limited, for example it wasn't possible to move windows between desktops. Also applications usually weren't aware about those desktops and sometimes were outright buggy (for example you couldn't launch second Firefox window on another desktop).

If you buy high end laptops from a business partner or directly from the vendor and make sure you get a pro(paid) version of windows things are better but the razor thin margins of the consumer market make it hard to avoid strange and badly designed attempts at price differentiation and/or payola schemes.

Edit: Oh and Camera app. On a desktop. Without even a webcam. What is the justification for that?

On top of that, I can run Rome 2 Total War which is not a simple game. It runs great.

My harware is not here to be part of someone else botnet. If MS wants my money, let’s make good product without subscription and let me pay for it. I would be glad to pay 20 to 50€ for Visual Studio if it encourages user friendly business practices.

Microsoft should design their OS to not require reboots for updates. The only time I ever have to reboot my Linux box is for a kernel update — that’s it.

In any case, it really is just a breeze to remove UWP apps, and they leave no trace either, so I cannot rationalize how it can be this so annoying to anyone.

I am completely unfamiliar with the experience you had, with no apps having been installed on my behalf without me explicitly installing it through the Microsoft Store, except for the ones I get after I reinstall the OS.

I also have a Windows Phone that I have been using for the past 2 years. Again, it gets some apps pre-installed whenever I reinstall the OS, but never otherwise.

Admittedly, PCs I think did once get some of them after one major update. I suppose it was one of the Creators Updates.