Windows is now an app for iPhones, iPads, Macs, and PCs | Hacker News Reader

Windows is now an app for iPhones, iPads, Macs, and PCs

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73 pointsdivbzero72 comments

I love Windows but it's been on a downward spiral for the last decade, which I blame squarely on poor product decisions and backward priorities.

It's a shame as the kernel team has made vast improvements, but the business unit seems to have no interest in simply offering a rock-solid OS.

I don't want ads, tracking, assistants or other distractions. There are so many fundamental core technologies they could be investing in advancing instead, but the idiots making the decisions seem attracted to glitter like moths to a flame.

Don't get me wrong I always love a good remote desktop tool, but the indicators shared in the article of the direction Microsoft intends on taking the OS make me want to puke. A front-and-center "Windows and Web Experiences" team and turning the OS into something you stream from Microsoft? No thank you. Don't shovel your shit down my pipes.

Ironically enough, moves like this, and with the New Outlook and New Teams merging features and functionality between the web and desktop versions (and probably soon Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) I likely will no longer need to dual boot and will run Linux full time on my desktop.

You could also run WSL2 for the Linux apps you need to use part-time.

It’s more that I on occasion need to run Windows applications. Modern Office 365 doesn’t work with Wine and the web version doesn’t support the features needed.

When they fully merge the desktop app and web version of Office, I won’t need to boot into Windows ever again.

9/10 I use my computer, everything I do works in Linux. That 1 time out 10 is what forces me to pay for a Windows License and a copy of Microsoft Office. I’ll still pay Microsoft a license but I would no longer need to manage a dual boot to log into Windows to use Office when the occasion rises.

You don't really need to pay of Windows nowadays as it can work indefinitely without Activation.

It looks pretty unprofessional to have a watermark whenever you record your screen. Like I said, literally the only thing keeping Windows in my house (literally could be using MacOS not just Linux) is a specific software compatibility that the current Windows versions of the Office desktop apps have. The extensions I need to use do not work on even Macs. So the ability to either stream a Microsoft desktop to any device or have full feature compatibility with the web version of Office is something I am looking forward to.

https://massgrave.dev/kms38.html

And now you won't even have to do that.

Do you need some advanced features of Office? LibreOffice is pretty good, nobody amongst my clients know I use it as we exchange documents. It’s pretty seamless!

There is no replacement for Excel in many cases. Otherwise I agree.

i want to know beyond macros, where else is libreoffice lacking behind excel ?

i have been daily driving calc for a long time now and with each update it feels like they are fixing that one bug i did not remember last time but it is fixed this time.

yeah, then there is power query and power stuff but other than that, i mean for regular people at home or "regular" office stuff, this should be enough, what do you think?

For home use sure, libreoffice or Mac pages or even Google spreadsheet is adequate.

I do a bunch of financial modeling in excel and the custom formatting, formula construction and sheer number of formulas are useful — saves me from jumping to just writing a program. Honestly, writing a program would be easier for me, but the presentation would be a pain, especially losing the excel UX that lets someone else do “what if”.

Word has that same level of complexity or more, but it gets in the way. It’s easier to write a latex doc.

As far as I (not the OP) am concerned, it's mostly not that I need some advanced feature of Office, it's that a document I get from someone else uses some advanced (layout) features or some fonts which aren't available on Linux, and then the document appears completely garbled.

I need a copy of the Windows desktop version of Microsoft Excel for a specific add on for my wife uses for a class. Even the MacOS version is not compatible with this add on. Convincing people not to use Microsoft specific Excel features that don’t work anywhere else is not the easiest thing. It’s quite calcified. I would probably have an easier time teaching pigs to fly.

Yeah but then I’d have to put up with the telemetry, ads and other crap they’re distributing with Windows.

IMHO The bugs are far worse than the telemetry. Many Linux distributions are now more stable than both Windows and MacOS.

WSL2 is still too buggy to recommend this - e.g. they still haven't fixed the 100% CPU on wake from sleep.

wow, still? this was actually the final nail that drove me back to Linux. that was years ago!

What are you talking about? I use WSL2 every day. Issues are very rare (rarer than on my desktop that runs an actual linux distribution...). I've never encountered 100% cpu when waking up from sleep.

I use it every day too. Issues are not rare. It can even bluescreen windows (docker garbage collect on a many core workstation). I would not recommend over Linux if one has a choice (I don't).

They are still using ram as a buffer for file transfer... absolute pain with big files.

Oh thank goodness I wasn't the only one with this issue! My coworker uses WSL2 regularly and never ran into it...

That aside I think it's a pretty good substitute, but if your stack is already Linux adjacent anyway I think running Linux is best.

The point probably was that OP don't want to run Windows as main OS.

Ironically what WSL made for me is that I no longer need to install VMWare.

Those of us in the known, already have sorted out this with Virtual Box and VMWare at least since Windows 7 days.

“The Windows App might just set the stage for consumers to access cloud PCs and Windows apps on devices that don’t run Microsoft’s operating system.”

…like computers that are a couple years too old.

What do you mean?

I believe they're talking about Windows 11's requirements, for processors in particular. Some relatively recent systems like those built around the first Ryzens weren't supported, thus putting them in the "devices that don't run Windows" category.

Windows 11 requires a hardware TPM (Trusted Platform Module), which is a black box for crypto key storage. They want to be able to lock you out of certain things on your computer. The nanny processors (IME for Intel, PSP for AMD) and TPM in conjunction with HDCP standards can control whether or not you can view certain media, when used in concert.

The end goal of major tech companies is to limit your freedoms on computing machines. You do things their way or not at all.

Requiring a TPM is a pernicious requirement added for political reasons. When Windows 11 adoption remains crawling, they will suddenly realize "oh you really don't need a TPM for Win11 guys, try it out! :)" to fool people into switching over.

We need more players like Purism and Pine64 who are trying to wrest control of the hardware layer away from businesses and back into the hands of computer owners, where it belongs.

Windows 10 is still supported until end of 2025. And you can just force Windows 11 installation if what's blocking you is just the CPU model / TPM.

It's supported until 2032 [0]. And don't let the IoT name fool you, it's a fully functional Windows 10.

[0] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows...

I should be excited for something like this. I don't want to devote a computer to frickin' Windows, especially not a powerful one. If I need Windows occasionally, being able to spin it up, do what I need, then shut it down and forget about it.

I just fear Microsoft's implementation of it. Like all of Windows will migrate to a privacy- and freedom-disrespecting cloud instance. PCs will ship with a minimal, Citrix-like OS that just connects to this and you have to reup your subscription to do... well, anything. That sort of thing.

I hear you, this might be a privacy nightmare, and I am not sure that the public at large cares a great deal about it, if it means supercheap computers that only have to login basically.

And the subscription is another headache since if you depend on it, they can set any price.

How is this any different than my using my own AWS Account and spinning up an EC2 Windows instance in a pinch like I’ve done before?

(Yes I’m self aware enough to know that this might end up being my BrandonM moment)

Too much work, and you have to pay. Why not just install it on local VM?

I have an ARM Mac, I want the performance of a native x86 computer, and I don’t have to share my 24GB of RAM with the VM.

And we are talking about a a quarter an hour for a 4 vCPU 16GB instance.

It’s a simple bash script to start up the instance and start session manager system manager to create a no ingress tunnel to the instance to run RDP over

https://awscloudsecvirtualevent.com/workshops/module1/rdp/

>I should be excited for something like this. I don't want to devote a computer to frickin' Windows, especially not a powerful one. If I need Windows occasionally, being able to spin it up, do what I need, then shut it down and forget about it.

VMs are perfect for that. Why would you want an inferior (slower etc.) version with all your data on MS's servers?

From the article -

> Microsoft supports multiple monitors through its Windows App, custom display resolutions and scaling, and device redirection for peripherals like webcams, storage devices, and printers. The preview version of the Windows App isn’t currently available for Android, though.

That's pretty interesting!

> The Windows App is also limited to Microsoft’s range of business accounts, but there are signs it will be available to consumers, too.

I think it'll be useful for developers who work across multiple systems.

Obviously, a first class local virtual machine is superior in most ways, but Apple in particular is way too stubborn about blocking this.

I think a secure VM would be a really cool choice for remote work. If it could be optionally locked down by the host operating system so you couldn't get at the disk, then BYOD would be a lot simpler.

There is an x86 virtual machine running Linux available on the App Store now.

https://ish.app/

Now would Apple allow a full blown Windows VM is a different question

That's an x86 emulator with all the performance and battery penalties that entails, and not even full JIT like Rosetta would provide.

There is no hardware virtualization on Apple’s A series chips.

Not quite true. The hardware supports it but iOS does not.

https://worthdoingbadly.com/hv/

Why would they block another great reason for people to buy their hardware?

Fair - I am advocating for the user :)

I really love the idea of plugging a phone into a dock on a desktop. I remember Ubuntu phone had it 10 years ago. But if I can remotely stream any OS, that’s the future of personal computing.

The future of locked down non private “personal” computing for sure… :(

Outside of FOSS, that's the present ;)

X Windows, VNC, RDP, Citrix have been doing it for decades, depending on the the network availability naturally.

This is just Microsoft wanting a bigger slice of that market for themselves.

Microsoft made RDP, no?

You have been able to do that for years, even with low latency. Apart from the usual desktop sharing tools mentionned in another comment I was using parsec to game on a remote VM a few winters ago.

The only real limiter is people lazyness to setup a vm in the first place.

Samsung Dex

I had a Motorola smartphone at least a decade ago that supported a clamshell dock with a small monitor and a keyboard, along with a more traditional dock that allowed me to use extrenal peripherals.

What's old is new again.

Wish this was available as a Flatpak.

Is this MSFT giving up on creating a good OS?

Now you can run you legacy software also on Mac!

Which is funny because everybody I know that has worked with office on mac and windows says that the mac version is better...

Outlook for Mac is a dream. The animations, design, great support for keyboards, focus mode integration, native toolbar UX, and menu bar app are almost enough to make me think there’s a future for desktop-native software.

I don’t know how the MBA types let that team get away with making such a great work of software.

It’s weird because on Windows they’re moving to just shipping the web version in an electron (or equivalent) wrapper.

As someone that decided to go back into native development in 2014, and then after how the whole WinRT/UWP mess was managed, and still is being managed in WinUI 3.0/WinAppSDK land, returned into distributed systems, yeah it looks like it.

Go watch a couple of community sessions, or the Github issues, it looks like a quite underresourced set of teams, still living in the days of "we do everything in C++ with no tools".

Having a designer for WinUI 3.0 was never a priority, a GUI framework!

Tried to install the iOS app in TestFlight:

"The beta is full"

Finally maybe Windows might see wide adoption

But it poses a threat to Windows as a gaming platform. Perhaps that (and the sheer volume) is why they're restricting it to business accounts?

Copilot was restricted first also only to enterprise accounts.

I'm wondering if full Desktop Excel (with VBA) will be compatible with this.

As the article says, this is basically an RDP client, along with cloud PCs presumably hosted in Azure, so yes.

This is literally just a pretty RDP client that connects to a cloud VM running full-blown Windows, so yes, you can do whatever you want in Excel.

That should make pure subscription pricing a lot easier to implement.

The irony if WSL on Windows on macOS is the best way to run Docker. (Seriously, does no one at Apple use Docker? Why is it so shit on macOS?)

I’ve been using rancher desktop the past few days, not been having a bad time. Curious what you’ve been encountering that I need to look out for.

Try Orbstack: https://orbstack.dev

It’s amazing.

Can you say a few words about why it’s amazing?

The best way to run docker is on Linux ;)

The reason it sucks on Mac is because docker uses underlying Linux tech. So to get around that docker on Mac runs in a lightweight Linux VM.

Because it is a Linux VM running on top of another OS, whereas on Windows when Hyper-V is activated everything is a guest, as it is a type 1 hypervisor.

So WSL and Windows run in parallel as guest OSes.

Also usually there is no need to use docker on macOS, I never did.

So now we can see Micosoft's ads on Apple devices. Cute.

Of course it is, the IAP and Adware crap is already on board.

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