Windows 11 24H2 hoards 8.63 GB of junk you can't delete | Hacker News Reader

Windows 11 24H2 hoards 8.63 GB of junk you can't delete

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151 pointsBender195 comments

The micro distribution devs found that Replay is now a dependency for explorer. They have to install it and then disable it. Seems MSFT really wants those screenshots.

It was possible to disable it vs. removing using ShutUp10 in July. Have they since patched that away? If so could one create a scheduled job that runs in the same security scope that would truncate all the files? Or maybe add a RAM disk overlay? There must be a way to put an arrow in it's knee.

[1] - https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 [freeware]

Is this Replay the same as Recall? The take a screenshot every 5 seconds AI thing? I saw disabling Recall would revert explorer to an older version. Personally I don't care for the changes to explorer, but how much will the system break if I leave the old version up.

Whatever happened to Microsoft? Did they become like this because they have trouble attracting decision-making talent post, like, 2010 or so?

Or were they always like this, and the bar was just incredibly low when they were taking over the world?

Enshittification!

Microsoft used to earn a lot of revenue from selling perpetual software licenses (like any software company in the 1990s). Now they've pivoted over to services, SaaS, and ad-driven freemium software (Windows itself). They're not seeing any growth in Windows installs (and haven't in years), so in order to continue growing they've got to enshittify the existing install base!

Can we please not use the word that makes us sound like whining adolescents? (No apologies Cory Doctorow)

Can we call things as they are? We are all adults here.

As a semi-functioning adult, I am sympathetic to the argument that the term “enshittification,” while accurate, is also too vulgar of a term in some settings. It’s one thing to use it on Hacker News, but I personally wouldn’t use this term at church or when talking to K-12 students. Not everything can be PG-13 all the time; sometimes we need G-rated language.

There needs to be a more professional-sounding, G-rated term that describes the degradation of quality of software services.

If I was Apple or Microsoft, convincing people to use the term “enshittification” is actually the best possible outcome.

Nobody can use it in a TV ad.

Nobody can use it in political messaging.

Nobody can use it in G-rated settings.

Nobody can use it in a party platform.

Nobody can use it on the debate stage.

Nobody can use it in marketing on why they are better.

Nobody can use it in a courtroom without being accused of bias.

Nobody can use it who is generally soft-spoken or has strong cultural inhibitions.

The term itself silences speech. Anyone who calls this out is labeled a prude, which is perfect from a corporate planning point of view.

The only possible better outcome would be to use the term “assholeification” or something stronger. Call it “companies fucking with consumers” - that’s even better from a PR perspective.

Why not use “degradation of software services” when you want to be staid — and let everyone else use the term they want?

Inventing jargon with the intention of being boring is just hiding the issue with euphemisms.

You’re just trying to shift the narrative to using a less impactful term.

Regardless of whether the word is vulgar, I often see it thrown around as a meme that has became overused. Even if the original phrase used different words, they will become less and less meaningful once they start appearing in every other comment thread.

Is it overused or does it apply to many things?

You're overstating the impact of the term. No one is going to change the world or overturn the status quo or shift the dominant paradigm by using slightly vulgar language. The only value it has is in the catharsis it provides by comparing something to shit. It isn't a technical term (even though it used to masquerade as one.), it's evocative, so let's be honest. People just like saying things they don't like are shit. It's snark. It's weirdly the only kind of snark that gets past HN's filter.

And since "enshittification" is applied to everything now, and no longer refers to the specific context for which it was coined, we can say we're witnessing the enshittification of enshittification itself.

You’re underestimating how much this stuff matters. There’s an old George Carlin bit about “soft language” that is very relevant here:

“Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent a kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it.”

There’s a reason why clickbait is a thing, it’s because if you don’t find a way to punctuate the noise then people don’t pay attention, and people’s brains are affected by the things that grab their attention.

Except that isn't what's happening here. No one is protecting themselves from uncomfortable truths by choosing not to use the word "shit" to describe anything and everything they don't like. People use vulgar language all the time, especially online. "Enshittification" doesn't move the needle either way, but it comes off as trying too hard to be edgy and it's well overdone at this point.

I mean, you accuse people of trying to "shift the narrative" if they don't like it. As if not using it is wrongthink to you. You frame "enshittification" in terms of class warfare and self-deception, and almost imply that using it is a revolutionary act. And that's weird. That's far too much emotional and political investment in what amounts to a poop joke.

It's done, please find another meme. I know you won't, but I wish you would.

"Value engineering"?

> There needs to be a more professional-sounding, G-rated term that describes the degradation of quality of software services.

It may be. The problem is that enshitification is much more than a simple degradation.

Things that are “adult” or “mature” tend to reinforce the status quo and reduce the probability of change.

Think about why you dislike the word “enshittification”, it’s likely because the word is both very direct and is based on a swear word. These both give the word impact and switching to a word that doesn’t have these properties would likely have less impact and be less likely to catch people’s attention.

Digging even deeper there is also a class dynamic as swear words are considered lower class. I don’t want to write an essay so I won’t go in-depth but “adult” and “mature” could also be considered code for “imitating the upper class” as the upper class loves to protect its identity and uses these dynamics in their favor. Consider for example how, historically, dressing in a suit is both considered upper class and mature, but what function does a suit really have? The primary function is signaling to other people.

The point I’m making is that the upper class generally doesn’t want change, they want to keep their status and power. So many of the things we consider “adult” or “mature” tend to really be imitating the upper class and indirectly maintaining their power and the status quo.

This is actual whining dude.

Whether swearing sounds childish is a cultural convention, particularly in the case of such a mild swear as “shit.” My experience is that it is not something that carries this baggage you describe for the typical person. Of course we’re both commenting from inside our bubbles.

I think you completely missed my point.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41820447

These are cultural conventions and they also help enforce the status quo by pushing us to use less impactful language.

I guess I did miss your point, I thought by “we” you meant us currently in this conversation here, instead of some other hypothetical situation. In that case, sure, it would be good to have a sanitized named to describe the thing.

Enshittification seems to have found resonance with the folks who engage with tech often, so I think it is a good term for us as. But maybe something like “abusive platform cash-in” would be a better name in other contexts.

Neither here nor there, but in my cultural context (Anglo-Canadian, middle millennial) “shit” is usually considered one of the most vulgar swear words (second only to “fuck”) outside of the slurs.

as a brit living in scotland, there are much worse swearwords.

we use them on a daily basis here.

vulgarity and or beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Quite, not sure why american puritanism needs to be exported.

It's change for the sake of change. Features unrelated to the cloud, like Notepad, Calculator, Control Panel, context menus, and now File Explorer, are constantly being tweaked and nerfed.

What means to "nerf" software ?

To reduce functionality or capability. Like a foam-dart-firing Nerf Gun is an impaired version of a rifle.

I could never have imagined this coming back in the '00s. Like it or not, Windows was miles ahead of Linux in terms of usability. Their business practices were terrible as ever for sure, but it was not an OS that constantly tried to screw over the user at every chance it could get.

Fast forward 20 years later, Windows is a UX nightmare cramming in a barrage of user-hostile changes every month. It's the least usable desktop operating system out there. What the heck happened?

Yes, this is sort of my perspective to. Well, I switched around 2010, maybe a bit earlier, so I wasn’t on Linux during the real heyday of Windows villainy. But there were lingering sentiments. It is and odd sort of sentimentality to look at them and say “wow, how did they go from competently evil to just embarrassing.” Time makes IBMs of us all I guess.

> What the heck happened?

They talk directly to CEOs who have no idea about SW. The CEOs buy their crap and the employee must use it.

> freemium software (Windows itself).

Last time i looked, you had to pay money for a Windows licence.

It doesn't have any effect, except that you can't change the desktop wallpaper.

My theory is that they're now a Cloud Services company with a bunch of legacy junk attached that they really don't know what to do with, kind of like a person who changed careers but can't let their old wardrobe go. Azure and everything in its orbit are the stars of the company now; Windows is more and more of a distraction and an expense that needs to find ways to fund itself since consumers aren't willing to pay for a desktop OS, much less for constant updates. The solution is to make the users the product that's for sale.

Windows is more and more of a distraction and an expense

Is it? Or is it simply not the New Hotness with the biggest growth?

If this source is to be believed, Windows accounted for almost $25 billion in 2022, up from $20 billion in 2018.

To me, it sounds like the same problem that Microsoft has had for years: if it's not showing explosive growth, then it gets ignored.

Adjusting for inflation, those numbers suggest very minimal growth.

But also, if you look at their 2023 report[1] it is contracting substantially:

  Windows revenue decreased $3.2 billion or 13% driven by a decrease in Windows OEM. Windows OEM revenue decreased 25% as elevated channel inventory levels continued to drive additional weakness beyond declining PC demand. Windows Commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 5% driven by demand for Microsoft 365.

Some of that may be cyclical because hardware purchases went way up during the pandemic period and are coming back down to earth, but that doesn't matter anymore to stock value when investors are chasing quarterly or annual performance.

[1]: https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar23/index.html

Adjusting for inflation, those numbers suggest very minimal growth.

Adjusting for inflation, that's still a two billion dollar increase. I wish I had problems like that.

As for the rest, you're demonstrating my point. GGP talked about Windows being a "distraction and an expense" when it's still generating tens of billions in revenue.

That's not a distraction and expense, that's a cornerstone.

they could turn windows into a thin compatibility layer on Linux and open source that. they would never need to support it again.

I fully believe at this point that Microsoft will port their GUI and APIs to Linux within the next 10 years.

Which GUI ? They are busy reinventing it every couple of years since Win 2k.

They were always like this. They deliberately broke early Windows compatibility with non-MS DOS implementations for no good technical reason. They bundled Internet Explorer as an unremovable component of Windows during their browser war with Netscape and made it hard to change defaults. They artificially added nonsense dependencies on IE throughout the OS like "ActiveDesktop", which rendered an HYML page as your desktop background. They created the atrocious Windows 8 desktop shell changes (now entirely rolled back) in a desperate effort to gain tablet market share. They added extensive phone-home telemetry with an uninspectable data stream that seemed to log every keystrokes at some point. They try to force the use of Microsoft Accounts to log into Windows. The current replay effort is only remarkable among all the other user-hostile changes in that it is a the biggest invasion of user privacy yet. In every other way, this is standard MS behavior.

The "early Windows compatibility" problem with DR-DOS happened in a Win3.1 beta. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS#DR_DOS_6.0_/_Competitio...

I don't think Microsoft designed/tested Windows to run on anything other than MSDOS/PCDOS.

> Whatever happened to Microsoft?

Personally, I think this has the same root cause as Microsoft trying to force everyone to log on to the local machine with an online Microsoft account, and telemetry that even the administrator can not completely turn off.

They want to gather personal interest data from your your computer use to fill out your online advertising profile.

They are looking to fully embrace the surveillance capitalism business model that has previously been so successful at Google and Meta.

I think it's simpler. They were tired of their name and OS being dragged through the mud by your average user who has no idea what they're doing. So they started forcing updates, providing their own anti-virus, started adding lots of metrics to track what your average user was actually doing, and tied your documents to an account with cloud storage so that when the user inevitably broke something, it was recoverable in an easy manner. I think people forget that earlier versions of Windows were virus-laden wastelands that had to be fixed all the time because of all the mistakes users were making (most famously all the viruses they'd download and run on their machines that hadn't been updated in 5 years).

I’ll argue iPhone won the smartphone because Windows was such a minefield that a foolproof device like that meant everybody could compute safely.

People who are arguing for freedom to mess up their own computer and those of the tech-illiterate (the kernel access maximalists, the people conflating code signing with corporate oversight) are arguing for giving general computing to closed systems because a majority of users need protection from themselves.

> that a foolproof device like that meant everybody could compute safely.

Can you do real work on an iPhone ?

Yes there are a couple ok SSH clients for iOS so you can connect to a real computer, which is all any laptop or cellphone is good for anyway.

What is real work? I manage a park, and can do all the work on the phone if need be. The only problem is the screen size.

You must have never done VBA excel. Mostly just emails and text msging. Look at your assistants. Your works that suppose to be done by you in many countries shifted to your assistants. Look at theirs. I doubt they using apple iPhone to do their work. Otherwise your parks must be rather primitive in operations.

> They were tired of their name and OS being dragged through the mud

If this were the case, they wouldn't insist on making a "feature" like this uninstallable.

Occam's razor tells me that it is only worth forcing a universally reviled "feature" on everyone if there is a great deal of money at stake.

As much as I hate it, content marketers and other shady scoundrels are really good at teaching even most computer-illiterate people how to pwn themselves. If something that annoys regular people can be disabled, you can bet there's already hundreds of guides explaining how to do it step-by-step.

Oh sure, it's all for the user's own sake. Microsoft recording the screen, collecting keyboard and voice input, tricking users into uploading their private files, and literally stealing emails? It's all about protecting users from themselves. I don't know exactly how, but it's a much simpler explanation than seeing things for what they are. /s

>What if you could remember everything? Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell draw on their experience from their MyLifeBits project at Microsoft Research to explain the benefits to come from an earth-shaking and inevitable increase in electronic memories. In 1998 they began using Bell, a luminary in the computer world, as a test case, attempting to digitally record as much of his life as possible. Photos, letters, and memorabilia were scanned. Everything he did on his computer was captured. He wore an automatic camera, an arm-strap that logged his bio-metrics, and began recording telephone calls.

Blurb for Total Recall (2009), with foreword by Bill Gates.

https://www.amazon.com/Total-Recall-Memory-Revolution-Everyt...

Instead of an Overton window imagine an Overton amoeba. Microsoft, as a monopolist, has for two decades been pushing out pseudopods in all directions against the boundaries of acceptable behavior for an operating system. ("All" directions, but overall in the direction of more corporate surveillance and less control and visibility for users, as well as profligate resource use.) So it's not that the bar was higher or lower in the past, just that the amorphous shape of the effontery is pushing out a new lobe.

Bar was very low, and they didn't win by making a better product, they won with business techniques, let's put it that way. Bundle Windows with new machines, have schools teach Windows and Office, let people pirate Windows and crack down only on business users, bribe officials to use and mandate Microsoft software and formats, the list goes on an on an on. Bill is a ruthless businessman and the others were not shy as well. Don't get me wrong, Microsoft products are plenty capable, but they didn't became the de facto PC and office standard by merit, they did so by force.

I think Windows makes up 10% of Microsoft's revenue - which isn't a small dollar amount but is minor compared to their other divisions.

I suspect Microsoft is looking for ways to extract value from Windows rather than thinking about the OS as the critical computing infrastructure that it is.

Who knows where this road will end up. Maybe EU regulators will ensure there is a clean build of Windows available for those savvy enough to install it?

Maybe international governments will deem Windows a liability/threat and investment in Linux will increase?

Microsoft have the enterprise space locked down with Windows, many of the enterprise architects I've spoken to know little-to-nothing about Linux and have high praise for Active Directory. A transition away from Windows feels impractical - which further justifies the risk

Most of the enterprise architects I've met know very little about computers, let alone Linux.

They’ve always been like this. People who lived through 90s Microsoft will remember this kind of thing well.

But I will say, this isn’t just a Microsoft phenomenon. Apple, Google, pretty much any company will pull sleazy tactics if it improves their bottom line.

It’s just more painful with Microsoft because their products suck. So you don’t even get a consolidation of buying into a great but flawed product. You just get crap piled on top of more crap.

The fact that Microsoft are even remotely successful is a testament to how you need a good businessman (Gates) and a lot of luck (IBM vs Kildall) rather than the best tech on the market.

They were always like this.

Actually, they were even worse under Bill Gates, who was smarter and more ruthless than his successors.

Yeah thought I needed a new laptop but with XFCE instead of bloated windows I can code as much as I want now with almost 50% more drive space with XFCE than windows.

Not trying to sound like a dork, but 9 GB -- that's nothing.

MacOS routinely eats 30-40 GB of HD space in Volumes/Preboot and "macOS Install Data" for god knows what. Plus even a bare bones XCode installation will cost around 20 GB, much more if you actually want to run your code on connected devices.

But of course saving disk space is not exactly #1 on Apple's priority list when the 512 GB and 1 TB disk upgrades sell at 80% margin.

I agree. I don’t run Windows, but even a relatively cheap laptop will have a 1tb disk. It seems silly to worry too much about an extra 9 gigs used by the OS.

I run windows on a 150gb partition for a couple of games, rest is linux for work.

9gb doesn't seem like much but it's wasted space I get to pay for but am not able to use.

Fair enough. I guess I didn’t consider dual boots.

Out of curiosity, any reason you don’t just use Proton and stick with Linux?

Several popular games use kernel level anticheat that can't be emulated

I have a 256 GB Macbook Air and losing 9 GB would make me cry. :(

Considering that 9GB free is all you have after you back up your phone once, that's no surprise.

Another form of 'comparison is the thief of joy'. Don't accept either

There's a subdirectory in the Windows folder (WinSxS) that can easily eat up 50+GB and deleting files there or in the Installer subdirectory can easily break things like updating any Adobe products you might have installed (which I've experienced directly and seen plenty of reports about online). 9GB is a joke and so is that article.

WinSxS (introduced with NT6.0, Vista) is the component store. It stores most of system files which are versioned and it's what solved DLL hell. Files in other system folders are hardlinks to them.

On my 1 year old install, it's 9GB with only 4GB allocated i.e. with no hardlinks outside WinSxS. So delete stuff outside instead of messing up with this folder.

Good for you. I've seen it and folders like Installer balloon to absurd sizes.

Even 1TB isn't enough for me these days, especially since Lightroom requires your catalog be on your boot disk.

But 2TB and 4TB upgrades, in addition to a cost of I think $400/$800 respectively, require you move up a CPU model as well - a HUGE increase in cost that most users can't justify through improved performance.

Depedns on the use case. As someone using all 3 major desktop operating systems regularily, guess which one is my choice for performance critical, rugged, cheap applications.

And before someone says that mjcrosoft doesn't go after that space: a lot of ticket automats, ATMs, Kiosk displays etc. run Windows under the hood. And 9GB times the amount of devices out there are a lot of gigabytes someone has to pay.

And even if for that usecase there is a special slimmed down version of the OS one could argue that they would profit from their main desktop OS and their main embedded OS not drifting apart.

An Xcode install is 12 GB.

That's apparent size; the size taken on disk is ~5 GB (including command line tools).

If it were only 9, you might have a point, but as mentioned it is only one of many instances.

No, that 9GB is in addition to the ~40GB already taken up by C:\Windows.

Linux on desktop is a thing. No need to suffer abuse from MS.

I try to completely get into Linux desktop at least once a year.. Been more than 20 years I've been doing that. There is always some blocker. Had 2-3 months of exclusive linux use a couple of times but never stuck.

My latest main issue btw:

Fractional scaling does not work reliably. It just results in different type of fuckery for different apps. Yeah yeah I know wayland x11 this that. No. There are workarounds for different apps, env vars, cmd line flags. Some simply do not cooperate (JetBrains...) It is complete shit show.

It is just not worth it. I'm fine with macOS desktop and Linux on servers. And I salute all the masochists running Linux on their desktops.

At this point, I am afraid that you will never be able to switch to Linux completely. You know what they say, can't teach old dog new tricks. Linux has it's issues and Windows also has it's own issues. You have to choose which ones you can live with one you cannot.

For me, I use a FHD display where 100% scaling looks the best and also it's the small things I cannot live without, like Super+drag to drag/scale windows from anywhere, middle-click paste, powerful POSIX shells (yes, yes I know PowerShell, too old to learn a new shell), etc. But I cannot live with Windows privacy nightmare, mouse-heavy desktop environment.

Just do use what you like. Just have fun computing.

> mouse-heavy desktop environment

Ironically, Windows still being the best system for keyboard GUI usage is an important reason why I continue using it. With Cygwin for my POSIX shell needs.

I am on Windows for the same reason but KDE finally has fractional scaling that works just as well as Windows. AFAIK, it is the only Linux DE that has it though.

Hasn't fractional scaling always been a problem on Linux? How is it your latest issue, did you never use Hi-DPI screens before?

I say “latest” in relation to years of issues. I’d probably get around other smaller stuff at the moment. But the fractional scaling simply blocks me from using desktop linux at the moment.

It might be easier to buy a 2x resolution display, like the 2.8K Display on the framework laptop, and not have to deal with fractional scaling.

I want to love Linux, but No. Last time I tried Mint, I had to use a script that runs on startup to configure mouse scrollweel speed?!

No.

There's probably a long list of these types of experiences ranging from scaling issues on external monitors (if they work at all) to other basic hardware and functionality just not working.

The best coders I know use Mac or even Windows while managing FreeBSD on their servers. There are reasons why they don't use Linux or (non-Apple) Unix on their desktop.

There are 2 usable desktop OS'es for the masses and those are Windows and Mac. Don't take my word for it, just look at the market. The market has spoken.

Would you like a list of the hours needed to deshittify Windows (and free disk space)? Preventing macos telemetry is another time sink.

There’s no free lunch.

I don't think it's that bad, the duration is certainly not enumerated in hours, at least on Windows. It depends on how high a standard you have, but since other people were long aware of the issue, third-party scripts and software to automate a lot of the tedium exist and work pretty well, anything else can be smoothed out by hand.

so you don't trust ms but you trust a script from some guy in his mom's basement in Russia?

Any such tools that are worth their salt have their code posted publicly, you can check it yourself. Most of it isn't some groundbreaking stuff, a lot can be stripped out by just changing registry values and other deeply-ingrained settings that would take a long time to find and edit by hand. I also don't see how "trust into Microsoft" factors in here - it's not about trust, we know there's telemetry that can't be disabled through standard settings, and I know there are features I'd like to uproot entirely (like deep OneDrive integration).

Yeah I can't deal with rug pulls every version. I use xmonad on linux, with no rug for anybody to pull on me.

Freeing up the disk space in a VM is definitely an hours long struggle the first time, must count research time into it as well. I did it last year. Don’t forget the privacy tweaks and research. Sure you could script most of it, like anywhere.

I've never had to deshittify Windows, everything just works. But every time install Linux, I have to spend hours searching for little configuration problems. Like why Ctrl+C doesn't work in the terminal. Why doesn't Shift+arrow select text? Yes, there are solutions for these problems, but you have either install some crap or copy-paste stuff into config files.

> Like why Ctrl+C doesn't work in the terminal.

Bad example, this is the same as asking why doesn't sudo work in windows.

Sudo is a thing now in Windows [1]

[1] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/introducing-sudo-...

sudo literally works in Windows.

Both in Windows itself as well as in WSL.

>Ctrl-C

Ctrl-C it's a signal. Now, try creating these folders under Windows:

- NUL

- AUX

- PRN

- COM

Good luck.

I don't care about creating such folders.

But I care about Ctrl+C working.

Your obscure requirements are meaningless.

I'm happy to report Ctrl+C doesn't work in cmd either.

Also if Windows is perfect out of the box then just use Windows. For me, I'd always have to spend hours configuring Windows to not be shitty and to adapt to my workflow. At that point I'm better off just running Debian.

This post is evidence against. There’s hundreds more. Ctrl+C has always worked on Linux—but there are real issues, which makes me think you’re not being honest.

Ctrl+C also doesn't "work" (assuming you mean "copy text"?) in Windows command prompt last I checked. (Ctrl+Insert I believe performs copy.)

Yeah, I use Mint on my laptop (not my main PC), but it's a bit rough around the edges. I spent an hour trying to get the fingerprint reader to work, having to compile the driver myself, and it's still a bit buggy sometimes.

Bluetooth also randomly bugs out, mouse or airpods refuse to connect for no reason. Touchpad a bit wonky, pinch zoom doesn't work out of the box, I assume it's some setting somewhere but can't be bothered.

Discord can't update itself, I have to download and install it from a file each update.

Little things that add up to hours and hours of your time wasted.

>Last time I tried Mint, I had to use a script that runs on startup to configure mouse scrollweel speed

not a linux but Mint issue. Both Plasma and GNOME offer this.

Not trying to be a jerk to you but this is the type of response that keeps Windows firmly ahead of Linux. Most users don't care who in the Linux ecosystem is at fault for things not working, they just know some function that works without a thought on Windows is an issue on Linux and they don't care about who in what stack is to blame. If they have to research which combination of distro, desktop environment, and bundle of hacks and flags they need, they'll go back to Windows where the scroll wheel just works. Ditto for all the excuses and finger pointing over audio, printing, and dozens of other pain points that have lingered around for decades.

>this is the type of response that keeps Windows firmly ahead of Linux

and that is fine. they can keep using a continuously worse and hostile OS while linux just keeps on improving with or without them :)

The surveillance, ads, and preference reverts just work as well. Choose your poison.

The problem is that people expect Linux to work exactly the same as Windows. But they simultaneously expect it to fix all the things Windows has broken. Those two aren't compatible.

Linux desktops having different design philosophies is why they're any good. if they worked like Windows, they would suck ass, and nobody would even think about switching. I mean, really? Windows or shitty cheap Windows? Come on now. We need to think about what makes Linux intriguing in the first place.

You can talk about design philosophy all you want. You can confirm that Windows sucks all you want (I agree).

That doesn't change the fact that my external monitor doesn't work and will never work on Linux/Unix (random example, I can give you tons of others of things not working).

Is it Linux's fault? No. Does it make Linux suck in that it is completely unusable for most people? Yes.

Apple (and System76 and Frame.work) understood this and are changing this fortunately.

It’s not like those are better. I switched back from Fedora KDE a month or so ago. If it isn’t mouse scroll wheel it’s fractional scaling in X11 applications. And if it isn’t that then it is broken hibernation. And if it isn’t that it is broken fan control. And if it isn’t that then it’s device driver support. And if it isn’t that then it is that one application that supports Linux but actually doesn’t well enough to be usable.

There is always something messed up. At least with Windows, people have spent time building scripts to remove the garbage.

> fractional scaling in X11 applications

Very real, no solution either. The only solution is Wayland.

> broken hibernation

This is broken on Windows, too. Basically, suspend to RAM just doesn't work properly/reliably on a bunch of laptop manufacturers firmware.

> device driver support

Pretty much not a problem on x86 and commodity hardware. It becomes a problem on ARM because ARM is a hot mess, but then again that's the case on Windows, too. Some laptops have strange hardware, unfortunately. This is becoming less of a problem as time goes on.

> supports Linux but actually doesn’t well enough

Getting better with containerization deployments like Flatpak.

In 2024, Mint is a net negative to Linux adoption and its name.

It’s just not ready for a non-technical user. Try to explain to your mother how to properly get NVIDIA graphics cards running. I couldn’t even do it myself. When I installed Debian, the included open source drive was unusable (lagging even when just moving the mouse) so I wanted to get the driver by NVIDIA. You need to mess around with secure boot and even then, I couldn’t log in using Wayland and would just loop back to the login screen because Wayland didn’t start properly. That’s not acceptable for noobs.

My mom gives a f** about Nvidia.

Well does she give a f** about a usable computer? Because you have to care about Nvidia to get Linux working if you have a nvidia graphics card.

My mom doesn't have nvidia gpu. She doesn't need it, so it was not purchased for her. She uses Intel integrated graphics, that's all what she needs. It is perfectly usable computer.

Thus, a side effect is no need to install any third-party drivers at all.

So the response to "Linux isn't ready for mass adoption due to suboptimal driver availability" is "Well it works on one machine I care about"? Good for you, but how does that contradict my point? Is the solution to not just switch everyone over to Linux but also get new graphics cards for everyone who has a nvidia GPU (which is probably the majority)?

No, the point is, that when you are switching someone to linux, especially when it is a "normie", that would not be capable of installing windows either (nevermind dealing with windows update overwriting their oem driver), you do that for them.

Edit: No, most users do not have Nvidia GPU. Most Steam gamers do. But gamers are not entire computer market; it is just a small slice of the market. Meanwhile, Intel iGPU is the majority.

Yeah, the ideal Linux desktop for non-technical people is a Chromebook. Roast me if you want, but that's what my mom uses. I did have her using a Ubuntu install awhile ago but the amount of times I had to provide technical support or her to do very normal stuff just made it impractical.

For a "mother proof" / "noob" system, I'd recommend:

1. Install Ubuntu 2. Select closed source Nvidia driver during install 3. Done

I don't recall having to mess with secure boot -- is that some dual boot thing?

>Try to explain to your mother how to properly get NVIDIA graphics cards running

why would she need that? 1. on almost all big distros thats included by default 2. 99% of user do not use a GPU they just browse the web.

For 1., I was citing Debian as an example which doesn’t include it, and that’s certainly a big distro. Other might be better and this isn’t needed for them. For 2., as i said, the default driver was absolutely unusable for me.

no mom is gonna install debian lol besides are we gonna act like there are no drivers needed on windows? People will get the information how to install the drivers like on windows. By using a search engine.

Two problems here:

1. Debian has ideological reasons for not including nvidia. If you're not a proponent of FOSS software, you wouldn't even look to Debian. It's popular because it's a good distro, but it's a very particular kind of distro.

2. Debian Stable does now include nvidia drivers. Yes, they relented, specifically because of situations like yours. Personally, I think it's a good thing they relented.

My mother taught me to program, and ran my first programs (FORTRAN) on paper with me. Please don't casually use "mother" or "grandmother" to mean technically incompetent.

i'd rather have MS taking 8GB away from my 1TB disk than having Linux taking away at least 6 hours of my life per week cause something broke or cause I have to hoop through the entire internet to install or configure some shit that could've been a single click in windows.

This isn't 2010 any more. If you're doing any dev work at all native linux will cause way less headaches than WSL/mingw or whatever. Even the old folks in my family are all using linux these days because everything they do is in a browser and it's easier for them than windows. That and microsoft constantly changing things out from under you and reverting settings you thought you picked for your own computer.

> This isn't 2010 any more.

I've used Linux Desktop for 2 years in 2018 for IT studies, it was mandatory. We were like 20 students and there was a new Linux-related complaint, timewaste and workaround every day. Nobody got their degree and thought "Y'know what? i'm gonna use linux at home!"

I still use Linux for servers nowadays, though.

> If you're doing any dev work at all native linux will cause way less headaches than WSL/mingw or whatever.

I use visual studio and I don't dev for linux, so I don't have this problem.

> Even the old folks in my family are all using linux these days because everything they do is in a browser and it's easier for them than windows.

If all you do is use a web browser, you might as well just use a chromebook.

> That and microsoft constantly changing things out from under you and reverting settings

My settings are never touched, but I agree they sometimes change stuff in a way that bothers me. Like, removing file explorer functionality in W11 and remaking it months later. But they usually make up for it by adding other cool features. Such as native (but slow) unzipping, file explorer tabs, power toys and so on.

Yes, Microsoft will not touch your settings if you haven't disabled all the anti-features they force upon users.

For the rest of us, they are relentless. They won't take no for an answer. They won't hesitate to take their users' precious time as hostage. During each update, they coerce users to enable their numerous spyware with full screen nags riddled with dark patterns. They revert explicit opt-outs. They remove user choice altogether if things don't go their way. This has been reported in the media so many times. You can't just pretend that this hasn't happened.

When is enough enough? Windows bombards you with ads, installs junkware users never asked for, forces you to use Edge, collects keyboard input, records your screen, and outright steals your email. On top of that, their UX is far worse than it was 2 decades ago.

In contrast, desktop Linux has improved dramatically. Unzipping and file browser tabs? They've been around since forever. They're only cool new features on Windows.

> If all you do is use a web browser, you might as well just use a chromebook.

Which is Linux.

We know MacOS is Unix. We know Linux server runs most of the internet. We know Android is Linux. Thanks for your input.

We were obviously talking about the classic Linux Desktop distros, and based on the whole conversation you should know that. If ChromeOS and Android were categorized as Linux distros, then nobody would hate/love Linux Desktop per se.

> We know MacOS is Unix.

We're obviously talking about Linux, not "Unix", and based on the whole conversation you should know that. Thanks for your input.

> If ChromeOS and Android

One is traditionally used on a laptop/desktop, one on a phone, not sure why you're conflating the two.

And the point is, if you are "just using a web browser", desktop linux has done this for decades. And Chrome OS is definitely a desktop linux distro, why do you not consider it to be one?

Linux without the shitty aspects of having to use desktop Linux.

The only downside is how firmly it is wedded to Google's cloud ecosystem.

> cool features. Such as native (but slow) unzipping, file explorer tabs

Linux circa 2005. I will admit that the file explorer ads are a nice feature. Maybe one day ubuntu will figure out how to do this.

> I use visual studio

That's not a solution. Visual Studio isn't portable, it's very close to worthless software. You can use VS, my company does too. But the baggage you take with it is pretty extreme. And now we're still maintaining COM stuff (sigh...)

> If all you do is use a web browser, you might as well just use a chromebook

Ironically, chromebooks have a full Linux environment and you can install graphical applications and whatnot. Also they run android apps.

> Such as native (but slow) unzipping, file explorer tabs, power toys and so on

Those are "neat" features, but IMO Windows 11 is still not a good desktop environment. KDE has significantly more features, is much more customizable, and also much more consistent in look and feel. Windows USED to at least be polished. Now there's 3 different setting apps and also Computer Management exists and none of them even look like they belong on the same system.

Yeah, I know Linux can do gaming, dev and is stable and good. But there is always something which needs a hack / fix, different lib or something.

"Normal" people just take the convenience of a working system out of the box than having a privacy respecting OS.

Personal anecdote, installed Linux Mint on an old Laptop of a friend. First thing, we open Firefox and go to YouTube, hard freeze of the whole OS. Not a single key worked anymore.

Not the best advertisement for the stable and better OS Linux I was showing him.

How certain are you it was a problem with Mint and not an issue with the laptop itself?

I have been a full-time Linux use for over a decade, running Linux desktop on all my machines. But there is a reason for the year of Linux desktop not coming: it is garbage. Horrible defaults everywhere, every customization is hidden in some totally unexpected place, bad error handling, driver quality all over the place...

Learning Linux as a user and developer made my career, but I use it at home just out of spite (I feel a special hate towards MS), and not because it is such a great experience.

I just got back from a work trip and conference where, for four days, my laptop couldn't go to sleep and wake back up. Every time my laptop went into my bag, I had to fully shut down the entire system then when I got where I was going spend a bunch of time starting everything back up, getting all my context back up, etc.

Good luck trying to search for sleep issues on Linux... I only managed to hunt anything down due to some incredible luck and a couple educated guesses.

Apparently some recent systemd update decided to start freezing user.slice during suspend and either there's something wrong with this or there are bugs in the kernel (I'm not going to try and figure out which) that this fails if you use unusual and esoteric things like "kvm" or "nfs". The only way to recover the machine when this happens is a particular Magic SysRq incantation since even switching to a console TTY doesn't work directly.

To resolve this in the meantime, you need to add a drop-in conf for systemd-suspend.service to set the `SYSTEMD_SLEEP_FREEZE_USER_SESSIONS` environment variable to revert the change in behaviour.

This isn't even getting into all the esoteric bullshit involved in getting everything to a reasonably usable state in the first place. (Never did get full disk encryption working and partial encryption involved a lot of failed starts and reinstalls; Steam wouldn't show anything but a black screen without setting DRI_PRIME; fingerprint scanner required editing some PAM configs and still doesn't _really_ work right; ...)

There is no chance in hell that the hours I've invested in Linux don't completely eclipse the hours it takes to deshittify Windows.

I'm not switching off, but I'm not also going to be flippant about suggesting other people switch to Linux. It's a project, and not one everyone is willing or capable to take on.

Windows 11's big 2024 update leaves behind 9GB of undeletable files - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41802912 - Oct 2024 (26 comments)

yes, this has been posted several times already

there do seem to be more dupes lately...

LTSC FTW https://old.reddit.com/r/WindowsLTSC/wiki/index

LTSC eliminates so many antifeatures present in 11 and 10 Home, and also solves the problem of the EOL for 10 next year - Win10 IoT Enterprise LTSC is good through 2031.

Grab the "en-us_windows_10_iot_enterprise_ltsc_2021_x64_dvd_257ad90f" ISO, sha1 begins 76c3c10e, from Microsoft:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

(Note that you have to set your user agent to something other than Windows.)

Run the activation script from Github:

https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts

And enjoy a Windows that feels like your own PC again, not Microsoft's.

I have to run a number of CAD programs and proprietary IDEs in a Win10 VM, this is the only way it's usable for me.

That’s way too complicated for the average person or business, who probably doesn’t even know recall is spying on them. We need to regulate and to break up or heavily tax megacorps like Microsoft

If Recall is all that needs to be fixed, it can just be disabled pretty easily from systems that have it (I presume that most don't, and it doesn't even exist on my current Windows PC).

LTSB/LTSC is very much viable for businesses that can obtain it legit through bulk licensing as a build of Windows Enterprise. The complicated process above is intended for individuals, who can't get buy it directly. Even then, it's more oriented towards HN users and such, not the average person.

That still won't fix Windows.

I rarely understood the actual reasons behind breaking up big corps. But microsoft is the clearest number 1 example that they make a base operating system that requires utmost top level trust, but they are fisting in advertising and spy features into every device on earth? including used by governments??? what the fuck????

No doubt. That's probably why they haven't closed the loophole. It gives savvy users a release valve, while still allowing them to reap the rewards from the majority of users.

massgrave is also an excellent resource: https://massgrave.dev/

I would happily buy an LTSC license at a reasonable price but it doesn't appear possible.

Oh Windows is worse than that: basically every patch or installer you've ever run is also kept on your system. In addition to the files it installed. Remove them and it leads to lots of pain with updates & de-installations.

indeed, such a poorly designed wasteful system, "amazed" it's still not fixed

This shouldn’t be a huge surprise. Microsoft’s Windows has a long and proud history of using users’ hard drives as their own dumping ground for trash, and for package management that fails to entirely clean up after uninstallations and updates. No respect whatsoever for the user’s filesystem.

How is it even possible to have files a user with admin privileges can’t delete?

This makes more sense when you realise that you're not the user of your computer, but a resource to be exploited.

`Administrator` isn't the most powerful user on Windows, `SYSTEM` is[1].

Those lingering files are likely created/owned by SYSTEM

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/identity-...

Doesn't Administrator account have permission to register new system services (e.g. in services.msc) and have them run as SYSTEM account? I thought it is the case but never tried.

Yes, this is precisely how the (now owned by Microsoft) Sysinternals PsExec [1] tool can spawn a shell as SYSTEM — it creates a service which spawns a shell in your current desktop session.

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/pse...

its worse than that; for instance in w10 the registry will have a whole slew of SYSTEM owned items, but only the TrustedInstaller (still SYSTEM) has permissions to traverse the registry tree; sadly the specfics escape me at the moment (im pretty sure the last ASUS laptop i'll ever own corrupted the nvme drive; so replicating that project that produced the results i was seeking is on the backburner) i was using NSudo for elevation to that scope when needed (wow looks deprecated now in favor of new tooling, neato)

Looking at all the articles about this issue, this seems to be more about a bug in the Windows cleanup tool that lets the user delete old update files. Maybe the tool isn't working properly, or it's flagging update files as deletable and they're not supposed to be. Admin users can still delete whatever they want manually, unless the system or something else is currently accessing the file. The OS sometimes protects its system files by having them be owned by the SYSTEM user, but the admin can take ownership of them to delete them. This hasn't changed and I can't see it changing.

Could always mount the NTFS on a live Linux USB. Physical access > admin login.

its not your Computer

You probably can with the usual two-step process: First change the permissions (which an admin is allowed to), then delete.

Bleachbit is very good (with community cleaup file even more) to get rip of trash remains of installs, temp files, game saves, Steam Cache etc.

So glad I switched to MacOS for my desktop system a few years ago.

Microsoft will never get another penny from me.

The funny thing is that I'd been looking at switching to Windows from MacOS in the last 5 years -- main thing is Microsoft's tradition of backwards compatibility, which respects user investment in software, something that much of the industry is briming with contempt for, and the kindest thing I could say about Apple on this particular topic is that they're not the worst offender.

So, bought a Windows Laptop and a Surface Pro, explored that for a bit, and it was ... OK. I could see my hopes getting some kind of payoff with enough work, when I got around to the work. Until this OS-level surveillance stuff went down.

And that's it. I can't imagine investing in their platforms. I can't imagine trusting that the product stakeholders are even capable of learning to act with user interests in mind, or that executive management that created a team making decisions this bad is capable of learning either.

MacOS and Apple have their issues, but they haven't crossed that threshold yet and I can probably fix my backward compat issues with VMs.

(Some responsibility for trusting MS has to fall on me given the "fool me twice" principle, it was clear that they were fundamentally untrustworthy at least as far back as the 90s antitrust trials, now also seems clear that the recent image rehab was exactly that: image, nothing more.)

Apple is pretty bad. They nuked all 32-bit support at some point, which made almost my entire Steam library unplayable until I cobbled together a Windows box. When coupled with the idiotic UI design direction they have taken the last 10 years, MacOS is no longer a contender for me.

The 32 bit support nuking was in fact the source of my macOS concerns too, and why I was looking over the fence to see if Windows offered me some shelter from the tech treadmill.

Current plan is to see if I can run 10.14 in a VM for 32 bit apps and finally ditch the hardware I’m keeping for them.

Starting to get the feeling that Microsoft puts all of their best devs and managers on Azure, and perhaps BI/Dynamic, with legacy products like Windows getting people they're going to PIP out the door eventually.

Trust me, they dont. Many Things in Azure are Buggy as hell or idioticslly desogned

The guys at Azure aren't the best at all. My last Azure surprise: you can create custom attribute types for users. But you cannot update or delete these custom attribute types. So if you create one for testing because you are trying to figure out the UI, expecting to delete them, well FU the attributes are staying there forever.

"since the rollout on October 15" I love articles from the future.

At least it gives Microsoft a few days to fix it before time catches up to them!

It updated my corp laptop a few days ago

New feature for overlay file systems: tricking Windows into thinking the 8.63GB of junk you deleted is still there.

I hope we don't get overlay file systems in Windows. Such a headache to debug low disk space issues.

Are there any ideas to make low disk space issues with overlay file systems easier to debug?

Perhaps another read-only virtual drive that accurately mirrored the actual underlying space used?

I wonder if something like this would help vs. cloud storage overlays like Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.

Haha oh I thought you meant all the other crap windows hordes that you can’t delete like, copilot, weather, news, internet explorer, Skype, teams, new teams , old teams F you Microsoft , what does any of this garbage have to do with an operating system ??

I had copilot suddenly appear last week, but I just right clicked and uninstalled it?

Luckily Microsoft is upfront about the storage requirements in the specs.

We just began testing the upgrade to 24H2 this week and haven't noticed the issue on any of our test machines (about 80 amd64 devices and VMs so far).

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41802912

My ROG Ally cries

This feels like clickbait, and also may be a duplicate.

Is that a lot?

Not really. Some dislike the idea of wastefulness, others want a reason to hate on Microsoft, and a minority are actually on 128gb/256gb drives where 9GB can actually be meaningful.

It’s a lot on a MacBook but not on a windows laptop where it’s easy to swap out to a much bigger drive :) . I still prefer my apple/linux world however and glad that all the software that I need to use currently lives there.

disk swap files?

On Windows the swap file is usually C:\pagefile.sys, and the size is configurable (even to zero if needed).

I always set it to something like 4GB min/max for nostalgia, I don’t even know if it matters any longer, but that’s what I do on my friends’ computers when they ask me to clean it up a bit; glad I exited windows years ago though.

... and that's just in the registry (joke attempt)

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