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RemoveWindowsAI

github.com

73 pointshansmayer59 comments

The PC revolution started with the idea that you can own a computer. Now, by your operating system choice, you don't own it nor what it runs, you don't own the computer, and you don't own anymore the data that used to belong to you that you put there. And with your data it goes along you, eventually.

And if you decide that you must install that operating system because it runs a particular game or app, think all you are sacrificing for that as an implicit extra cost.

Hmm... I own my computer and the software it runs. I license access to features that I want.

The headline post here is about a user having to exercise an incredible amount of effort to remove features they don't want but which the vendor will deliberately reinstall despite user preference.

Yeah, this makes sense, in a world where the things sold to you are produced by profit-maximizing capitalists.

If the company were instead owned by the users, such as a consumer co-operative, then its products would serve the interests of its users.

Define own. Because you barely own the hardware. Everything else you are granted temporary licenses that can be revoked without warning.

Things like this and other custom "Windows distros" are a sign that MS would have no problem selling a version of Windows that's nothing more than a base OS, but clearly they would rather take the user-hostile route.

Microsoft has always been the bad guys. Does nobody remember Embrace Extend Extinguish any more?

Those of us who came up in the 80s and 90s remember that bad behavior and even worse software is baked into Microsoft's DNA.

That sort of organizational culture doesn't just evaporate.

>Does nobody remember Embrace Extend Extinguish any more?

EEE was something a single Microsoft employee allegedly came up with 0 evidence of it being used internally within Microsoft.

Internally, it was Embrace, Extend, Innovate, used in an executive memo from 1994 [0].

But it doesn't matter where it originated or who first said it. The reason this phrase gained so much popularity is that outside observers could see that's their strategy was (and still is).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

MS was hostile towards competitors, not users/customers. You can run a VM of Windows 9x or NT and see how quiet the experience was. No pervasive spyware or ads to bother you while you work.

That’s only because they had no practical way of doing that since no computer was expected to be online 24/7.

Had they had the opportunity, they would 100% have taken it. Windows was never about serving a good experience to customers, it was always about serving the Microsoft-owned experience to customers—and these two things are very much mutually exclusive.

I don’t think they would have done it any other way, it always had to be a slow ratcheting of control over the user. If the user hostile experience that exists today was the default back then, everyone would have moved to something else while they still could.

why would ms do that when they could make more money by not doing that ?

It's easier to use the LTSC: https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links

> & ([scriptblock]::Create((irm "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zoicware/RemoveWindowsAI/m...")))

Finally, we can do 'curl https://host.com/script.sh | bash -' in Windows!

Yes, that's called

  irm script.ps1 | iex

Famously used in the Windows Activation Scripts.

im not exactly sure why they have chosen to execute as scriptblock, but normally, you can just do ``` irm <url> | iex ```

which essentially sends a request (curl) and runs everything (iex)

I find it odd that Ms seems to invest in AI so heavily and yet, I can't still do a basic text selection in copilot's chat in Intellij and VSCode

It’s all about signaling and posturing to Wall Street. To this date, I’ve not encountered any user that said: “I have a need for this, how much does it cost?”, kinda like how you would buy a software license. Instead it’s sold like a street drug “Wanna try? The first’s on me” Except that is not good and the user doesn’t get addicted and now, they’re trespassing onto people’s space.

Every comment that seems pro AI either falls in “I’m playing with it now and it’s a nice toy” or “It’s very useful for me, I can’t tell you how, but trust me that it is”.

Yes, people steal ideas and sell as their own. That is actually happening. Communities share less publicly, but if you know how to poke, you can find a gem or two. Anybody actually productive with LLMs just doesn't want to invest energy to fight the unwinnable mob mentality. I don't remember any time in my career, where you got such a backlash for using a tech.

One example of a an absolute gem is this: https://youtu.be/vlD8CXr20OI?si=J2A5nrqjkFCqU_6R

Had I been still working with computer graphics, this would've been a true game changer. You can see how little views this video has. There is however a whole subreddit dedicated to sell this exact workflow (and even only the first node). There's a similar story with programming, but people are disincentived to share that. Github Copilot has potential, but seems abandoned already and I find it very odd, because it's the one product with actual substance

Here's another potential example

https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1pm5ik5/so_slig...

Could be a dud, but I'd ask the person about details and perhaps it's a good use case

That sounds a bit like shareware

It would be useful to separate "AI that stays on your device" from "AI that makes you send more personal data to the cloud" - maybe two scripts?

That is a good idea, as new categories of bloat and performance compromise appear for different reasons.

Does Windows have literally any "AI" features that are the former

Yes. They actually deploy a number of small models that run on NPUs on copilot PCs that only run locally.

Which are these? Information online didn't seem very clear on that split?

> Running the script with PowerShell 7 can cause issues, to avoid this ensure you are running Windows PowerShell (5.1)

Interesting, I'd expect it to be more backwards compatible given the overall reputation

PowerShell 5.1 is the last of the .net framework version. Everything newer switches to .net core open source flavored which is cross platform. it's mostly compatible but not really either.

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