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Comment by jwitthuhn | Hacker News Reader

You are describing Windows 11 LTSC which is a product that exists because Microsoft knows people want to turn this crap off.

It is of course only available in volume licensing to keep it away from normal users. Only businesses get to control their computers.

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Does LTSC comes with respectable default settings or that's still a matter of setting up system?

I'm replying to you from Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC courtesy of massgravel (or massgrave... not sure wth it's actually called now!) and it's activated until 2038.

The only thing it didn't have out of the box that I wanted was Microsoft Store (so that I could install Winget and Terminal) but you install it from an elevated powershell command with "wsreset -i" and that's it done.

It also has the original version of Notepad, not that abomination with the tabs and Copilot!

Oh, no Copilot whatsoever in fact.

All the instructions for IoT (including where to get it... legitimately) are on the massgrave github page and website.

And before I am accused of sailing the high seas... I'm not! The activation script just activates complicated processes built-in to Windows: it doesn't "hack" it or anything!

I still use a similar version of Windows 7 — licensed offline through an old enterprise activation. It just works for its specific purposes.

I moved all my home LAN Windows machines to LTSC IoT in February; cost me about 90 euros for each license. You can buy individual licenses from online stores that will connect to MS and validate correctly. You'll have to install the MS app store from GitHub (!), and there are some other issues, but at least you're years away from what hit everyone else this October.

You can find some licenses sold online; it costs about 3x the price of Home. But I am not sure if it's legal; I have already bought some and then realized it's just keygenerated.

Normal, reputable websites never sell single LTSC licenses. So go figure

which shows that only businesses care about that stuff.

normal people don't give a fuck, they actually like the things HN bitches about - online account, data storage and services

Normal people don't want a Microsoft account (indeed, many don't have one), nor do they want ads in the Start menu.

It shows nothing. Normal users dont even get the option. They probably dont give a fuck, based on a ton of other things, but there is no option to even choose the no bloat option.

Word on the ground is this is turning around

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