Comment by andrewstuart | Hacker News Reader

Comment by andrewstuart | Hacker News Reader

"discontinuing Windows" is obviously a step too far and clickbaity.

BUT the point remains - MS appears to not want people to run Windows.

In the old days, Windows was welcome on any damn machine you could boot with and Intel compatible CPU.

Windows 11 however has all sorts of restrictions on what it will run on - restrictions primarily designed to sell new computing hardware it seems.

I feel like Microsoft does not want me to use Windows 11.

So they point remains, despite the clickbaity title - Windows 11 ain't for me and Microsoft doesn't seem to want me to run it on all my old machines, so what now?

Wait for SteamOS for general computing?

Try Ubuntu desktop again?

Just stay on Windows 10 till it's deprecated then never run Windows again?

What is clear is that Windows users come last in MIcrosoft's calculations - before that comes Windows OEMs, Windows advertising sales group who put all the crapware and advertisements on Windows, and all Microsoft's other big businesses that have eclipsed Windows in importance such as Azure.

It's strange - MS just doesn't seem to care at all any more about whether you want to run Windows or not.

Steve Ballmer would turn in his grave, except he's alive and well.

Windows 11 is also buggy as hell. And not esoteric things either - things like the clock crashing, or the path in the file explorer being wrong, or the wrong icon appearing for a file type until a reboot. Basic polish is missing.

As someone currently on Windows 11 for the last two years; I can say these things have never happened to me.

Lol I've never seen any of that and I've been pushing 11 to clients since it got out of the dev previews.

I find 11 way more stable than 10 ever was. Less bsods and all.

I purchased a Chromebook a while ago, and I've found it quite adequate as a "daily driver".

It's vastly simplified compared to any other desktop OS, and I appreciate that the simplicity makes it lean and understandable, to beginners or power users alike.

Pretty much everything I did was in the Google ecosystem, and PWAs are well-supported in Chrome, and as a bonus, I can run any Android app natively in the VM, and full-screen! It's fantastic for my astronomy work!

My Thinkpad T580 is 6 years old at this point, and out of warranty, but still performing admirably. When it dies I will wait awhile to replace it with something else, as my Chromebook has taken over the daily duties, and performing great.

My only hesitation with recommending Chromebooks is the fickleness with which Google treats its offerings. One of MS's strengths is their support of legacy technologies. They may deprecate things, but one doesn't have to go out of one's way to keep such tech afloat.

Sure, Google has killed off numerous failed projects and ventures, but practically none of the important ones.

I'd say that ChromeOS and Chromebooks are key to Google's enduring presence in our homes and on the Internet. I believe that ChromeOS represents an important foothold in the "non-mobile" market, where users are locked into Chrome but still have generous access to Android apps. ChromeOS is a forward-looking system, under active development, and still experiencing its initial design decisions and unique additions.

Furthermore, Google has made plenty of commitments to long-term support of existing Chromebook hardware. They've also got a significant presence in the educational market. Chromebooks aren't just manufactured with Google badges, but by numerous OEMs: mine is an Acer, for example. Therefore, Google is creating its own ecosystem to rival Windows and macOS. ChromeOS won't be going away.

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