Get your Windows license refund
en.refund4freedom.org
en.refund4freedom.org
Maybe I got lucky but I called the customer service, told the lady I did not agree with the Windows license terms, fully ready to argue my case and she just went "oh, ok, let me just edit a new invoice and wire you the money for Windows plus the Antivirus plus etc.".
Which was extra nice because I had no idea I was in fact charged for the bloatware, but I still got ~50€ for it on top of the OS license price.
This being 15 years ago it feels like a forever unsolved issue. My opinion remains the same, that a personal computer should not be tied to a specific OS. But now with smartphones the hardware/software (de)coupling situation seems even worse.
Use laptop for a few months, than finally boot windows install...
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windows-itpro-blog/...
Have a great day =3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
Perhaps getting outside for a nice walk could lower stress levels a bit. =3
You usually must pay for windows twice (or more if you don't know) to be Pro license compliant for commercial use.
Setting a machine up for multi-boot Linux/BSD is not always a simple process with every BIOS firmware, and configuring Windows to stop automatic encryption of NTFS volumes is nontrivial. Even with an offline install for games, if the OneDrive account is ever activated... files are upped to Microsoft cloud anyway.
Running an offline win11 account with a recent "rclone gui" NFS mounter for cloud APIs is a better option:
https://github.com/rclone/rclone
winget install Rclone.Rclone
Thankfully, disarming Win11 TPM/Drive-boobytrap/BS-encryption/Spam is easy with Rufus, O&O ShutUp10, and Copilot removal (note undocumented AI API areas suggested RAT/snitch-ware... the final straw with Microsoft BS around here...)
https://github.com/pbatard/rufus
https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
https://github.com/zoicware/RemoveWindowsAI
Yes it still supports DRM Steam games, and Win11 x4 gen4 SSDs are now about 17% faster i/o on my rig.
You know what I like about Apple OS, is you just flip around 8 options and it goes quiet.
Best of luck, ymmv =3
“Note: Affected third-party OS includes MacOS. However, it's outside the scope of Microsoft support. For Linux systems dual booting with Windows, Windows will update the certificates that Linux relies on.”
> Windows is unseparatable from hardware after all...
What are you talking about ? The TPM ? Not windows', they enforce once being there for W11 but it's not some trojan M$ code ?
What is more surprising is that competitors do not arise. Democracies in general have totally messed this up. The USA should be fined for exerting a monopoly onto other countries. And then fined for penalising US customers with that monopoly at home.
Nothing is stopping you from buying an mp3 player, a small point and shoot, and running Linux on a 12 in ultra portable.
You don’t NEED a smartphone for daily life. It sure is convenient though!
And thank's for the advice, but I know how to live with little to survive and I know what I need to thrive and that ain't the same thing.
There was a recent story about some guy who had been buying season tickets for decades by paper ticket. The stadium shutdown the paper ticketing and left him without an option, except to purchase a smartphone.
Also, plenty of businesses have very few physical offices.
Every restaurant I’ve been to like this has a menu somewhere.
> or replace a lost credit card.
The phone numbers never stopped working. You just stopped calling
The bank managed to not fix the problem the last 4 times my grandmother called them. Every single problem required an appointment to fix (I suspect they're not even allowed to do anything with any account over phone given how many times this has happened).
Yes, her bank is bad and I've told her to switch. But I wouldn't expect any other bank to actually have good customer service.
Is it COMPLETELY impossible that you could receive that link on a dumb phone, send it to a PC with a webcam, and then take a selfie photo and an ID photo? No. Is it likely to be an incredible hassle? Dear lord, yes. You can't upload photos, so you'd have to finagle with a webcame to get a shot of your ID on a surface followed by a selfie of yourself. Is it possible that in other similar situations, you'll be required to use an android app instead of a website? Yes, I've had that happen.
I think you are grossly underestimating the degree to which smartphones have become absolutely mandatory for many tasks.
And the best restaurants have staff and chefs that can deliver things that aren't even on a standard menu...
Actually, this reminds me of a time when I saw a person with communication difficulties order at a McDonald's counter. Without missing a beat, the staff member pulled out a large pictorial menu from beneath their counter for the person with a disability to point to. It seemed like a totally normal occurrence to them, but a very novel one to me as the next person in line.
Yeah have fun being that guy for every restaurant visit.
There problem with relying on last-resort alternatives is that sooner rather than later you'll be in a situation where they have been optimized out and you are left with nothing.
What do you mean by:
> support for VoLTE Emergency
Even fake toy phones for kids need stickers that say there's no emergency service.
> https://www.whistleout.com.au/MobilePhones/Guides/Check-if-p... "But it's not just 3G phones that won't work on Australian mobile networks; certain 4G phones won't work either if they don't support Voice over Long-Term Evolution (VoLTE) Emergency Calling."
Actually the Point and shoot market has largely dried up, even the 'fancier' point and shoots.
Apple did a very smart thing, using Sony BSI[0] and Stacked[1] Sensors in their phones.
As the 'Camera Snob' in the family my Brother recently asked me to help look for a small point and shoot for his wife for their child's events, and I was shocked at how few options there are compared to a decade ago (And how little most have improved since!)
To be clear, the 'ILC' (what many might think of when they think of when they say DSLR) market has continued to advance and the tech is better than ever, but the simple built-in lens point and shoot market has gotten very small outside of certain markets.
[0] - Back Side Illumination, basically a way to build the sensor that allows more light to hit it, but has some yield implications
[1] - Stacked sensors is again another sensor-build optimization, but it allows for faster readout of the full sensor with less rolling shutter, makes 'computational photography' feasible.
On small point and shoots, I have a Sony ZV-1. It's marketed as a video camera, but I mostly use it for photography. It's great quality, and pocketable.
On compute, I don't really have a phone at all. I carry a Daylight Computer DC-1. Which as a device I recommend, but unfortunately the company backs anti-vax efforts which I found out about recently :\
So, yes, I can buy a phone that I can mostly control (at the risk of losing access to some draconian apps). But most devices being sold don't allow consumer control.
Doing crazy things like taking a backup of the phone which you paid full price for?
I would if I could. Which non-Android Linux phone can I buy here in Brazil? Importing from outside Brazil doesn't count unless it has ANATEL certification, customs rejects any non-certified phone.
I am trying, that's why I know
None of these in my country support crypto either. Well for mobile maybe.
Maybe the Aussie Linux users could get together and work together with Linux Australia[1] to act as an intermediary and work something out.
I also have a similar suspicion that that order has been lost to time, partly because it's very rare that people do that (and Dell even offers Linux machines to those who do care), partly because the support's been outsourced to someone who hasn't read that part of the script, and partly because the world has become more hostile towards consumers during the past 15 years.
The CPU is almost identical in performance to the one they were advertising —it was certainly malicious— but do I deserve $200 for something I didn't even care about in the first place?
There an argument to be made for harming the criminals even if you deserve it but it just doesn't vibe with my type.
And exactly like you said if the customer cares enough to reach out, just give them what they want. Best case they are super happy and recommend you and if you don’t comply they might go ballistic and do all kinds of stuff that will damage the business way beyond what the refund costs (very little)
I actually expected those to pay for being pre-installed, offsetting or possibly even exceeding the cost of the Windows license.
Camera : Software for Integrated Camera (Only for standard Base )
Windows Live
Optical Software : PowerDVD Software for Vista Home Premium and Ultimate, WIN7 Home Premium, Pro or Ultimate
Software Driver : Latitude E6420 Diagnostics & Drivers 1 S
Operating System : French Genuine Windows 7 SP1 Professional (64Bit OS) 1 S
OS Media : MUI Windows 7 SP1 Professional (64Bit OS) Resource DVD 1 S
Software : Microsoft Office Starter 2010 1 S
Operating System Recovery Dell Backup and Recovery Manager for Windows 7 SP1 1 S
AntiVirus : Trend Micro Worry Free Business Service (15 Month subscription)Software MUI
It’s complicated. Those licenses have a dollar amount for accounting purposes.
That's why so many people go with pre-built and don't even care about wiping and reinstalling the OS to get rid of the bloat. They want a fully functioning product from the moment they power it on so having the OS is a big deal.
It got me thinking though: what is a laptop? People probably count Chromebooks, and that seems fair. Is a SteamDeck a laptop? Is an iPad with a keyboard case a laptop? Is a Microsoft Surface Pro a laptop when it has its keyboard attached?
There's actually a very simple answer to that! A laptop is a mobile device with the set of functionalities that macOS has, but iPadOS hasn't :)
I wish this was ironic (I'd love to use the iPad Pro as laptop), but it isn't.
That's exactly the situation with the iPad Pro, with the exception that Microsoft didn't castrate it. I've had one and used it for professional development; it's not very ergonomic when used on your lap (but still usable), so it's not to everyone's liking. Still, I'd use a modern one if it were 100% Linux-compatible, and wouldn't miss anything.
> Does a SteamDeck become a laptop if you install Windows on it?
Whether a laptop requires a hinge to be defined as such can b matter of personal preference. For me (and, again, for Apple), it's not a requirement. 7 inches is a dealbreaker for me, although I think Stallman used a 7-inch laptop.
- A chrome book is a laptop, it uses the laptop form factor.
- A Steamdeck is not a laptop. It does not use the laptop form factor.
- An iPad is not a laptop. It does not use the laptop form factor out of the box, it needs peripherals to even pretend to be one.
- A surface Pro is also not a laptop, but the Surface Laptop is. Just "having a flippy floppy magnetic keyboard pre-bundled with it" doesn't make a tablet a laptop. Having a rigid clamshell design makes it a laptop.
And yes, that makes the Asus Zenbook a laptop, because it is. It just has the circuitry in the screen instead of the base. Hell, Asus literally calls them laptops themselves.
In fact, the only people who use windows are finance people, HR, etc
Others let you choose Linux, but you have to pay to remove Windows. They can't install their bloatware (or are unwilling to, anyways), so you have to pay the unsubsidized price.
They actually don't, which is why the vast majority of software developers would never "raise an eyebrow" to the very well known obviously true statement that the vast majority of laptops are only sold with Microsoft Windows, regardless of what they themselves or their coworkers use.
A cat.
> Device manufacturers and vendors should not impose an operating system or software on consumers
This is not a reasonable expectation.
Hardware needs software to work, and software runs on an operating system. You can't expect every vendor in the work of every kind of product you can buy to offer you a slightly different version than you would like to buy.
You can do that with software, too. It just turns out that there's more people who want to bundle their software
It seems to me that you are asking too much.
I don't blame them, it's not like Apple makes it easy for them. They're definitely working hard on the project and I wish them luck. But one can't act like it's actually a viable OS to generally run on M series hardware. It kind of works on a select few models.
Was it wasted money going to Microsoft? I don't know, I bought the computers because the price point worked for me. I have also built a lot of computers myself, but most of the time my home built machines end up costing more than the pre-built one that has windows installed (although my parts are probably nicer, but maybe not always).
This is like a ton of things you buy. Sometimes they include parts you don't want, but if the price is good, it doesn't matter that you discard part of it.
Windows (+$120)
Linux ($0)
DIY ($0)
I may be of a different age, but in my time it was common to buy computers without any OS pre-installed. It was on you to install one (from CD, floppy, whatever).
Of course, vendors selling PCs often also sold OS's...
I'm sure they did sell computers with Windows pre-installed in the 90's. But almost every place also sold computers without any OS. It was not at all unusual.
The computing world wasn't just in the US, you know. Microsoft didn't have a deal with all PC manufacturers in the world.
But I also believe your recollection is erroneous or must differ by region because I was there as early as the 80s and computers sold without an operating system weren't common. If you were buying a PC clone in the 90s you could buy it without the Windows license, of course, but the default was to include it.
Even before PCs, computers typically shipped with BASIC, which was their operating system of sort. Macs, Amigas, they all shipped with an OS as well.
Sure. In the 80's, all the IBM PC compatibles I dealt with shipped with BASIC in their ROM. But I don't think they charged a licensing fee for it.
I don't think Compaq even made XTs, did they?
Here is an HP without an OS: https://www.newegg.com/p/1VK-001E-4UPC7
If you want something that most other people don't want, it is going to be a little harder to find. That isn't a conspiracy, that is just life.
How convenient!
For the vase majority of users, it only makes sense to buy hardware with a preinstalled OS.
Imposing Windows implies requiring agreements to unknown eula's at the time of purchase. Consider Windows is there in the first place because of anticompetitive practices. Stuff like this is unreasonable too. I think moreso. I guess it comes down to if you think consumers or big tech is more deserving of protection.
Edit: it's covered on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Refund_Day
Win 11 Pro OEI, $149
https://www.microcenter.com/product/643566/microsoft-windows...
Win 11 Pro Retail/FPP, $199
https://www.microcenter.com/product/669901/microsoft-windows...
I'm certain OEMs are getting volume discounts, and Microcenter is adding their own margin as well.
And yeah, Asus DOES need to sell windows laptops because the market demands it, but it doesn't mean they need to follow all of Microsoft's rules/goals. ("Pleeeeease put an NPU in every laptop and advertise copilot for us, pleeeease") Giving them a steep discount gives Microsoft a lever to pull if they feel like punishing an OEM later, though with the goal of avoiding anything that halts the sale of PCs with windows on it, which is bad for all parties.
You can't really model that on a supply/demand curve. Microsoft supplies Windows licenses, but Asus supplies a big chunk of market access. A license to software is an infinitely available resource which only has a value determined by the market's willingness to pay for it; a market that microsoft has historically been dogshit at accessing themselves. (Surface product line, for example)
AI isn’t going away any more than graphics acceleration is. You can deliberately buy a low-power board or notebook that doesn’t have those capabilities if you want. It will save you money too.
Cheaper → more licenses and also more post-license profit, yes, agreed, hence my (admittedly oblique) wellness comment, but this is also true of direct to consumer prices, and my question is specifically about any price difference between the two.
PC makers intermediating other MS objectives makes sense.
Re market access, does Asus actually increase the size of the Windows market, or sell to people who’d otherwise buy Windows another way? I think you’re saying yes, a big PC maker plays a part in getting more people to buy Windows more often, and that’s the biggest thing I was missing.
After drowning my last laptop in tea I needed a PC urgently and bought ASUS. Had I known that a refund was possible, would I have applied, to get what amounts to £10 refund on a £2K machine?
I am not sure!
The Windows install means my laptop has some value in the second-hand market, should I need to sell. Without it, I am not going to easily find a buyer, because it is still not yet 'the year of the Linux desktop', and even then, stock Ubuntu is not as fashionable as some other Linux variants.
What did surprise me was how flaky Windows is these days. If memory serves me correctly, I needed to boot into Windows to turn 'bitlocker' off, in order to resize the drive for my Ubuntu partition. However, there was no UI to turn 'bitlocker' on again afterwards. Allegedly I need a 'pro' version of Windows to do that, since the UI is just absent from the 'Home' version of Windows.
This process means that I did 'accept the EULA' and therefore denied myself the opportunity to claim back the Windows tax. Drat!
In previous decades I kept the Windows install just in case I needed MS Office or Adobe products to do work. MS Outlook was the 'gotcha', but then they got the web version of MS Outlook working acceptably.
Nowadays I am quite confident that there is nothing Windows that I want, so this use case has gone, yet I have new rationale to keep paying the Windows tax, to 'insure' my PC with some resale value.
I wish manufacturers such as ASUS provided Linux support, even if in a 'community' guise, so as to not upset Microsoft. With my example, I needed to change the power setting on the Wifi card to ensure that Bluetooth worked for the mouse. That was it, yet I had to work that out for myself, with no instructions provided. If I was completely new to Linux then I might have struggled with this or lacked the confidence to spend £2K on a machine that might not run my chosen OS.
In 2026 we still have a long way to go!
That said, calling Windows flaky for shipping disk encryption on a laptop seems odd to me. On a device that’s easy to steal, that’s a feature you want. You can turn the cut-down BitLocker that Home gets back on in the security settings: search “Device Encryption” in the Start menu and you should land on it.
There have been numerous examples of malware and spyware in proprietary firmware.
Best to clean house completely, starting with hardware you can trust. And everyone’s purchases compound due to investment.
I’m pretty sure (though I have no record of it) that I asked ASUS Australia through their online channels before I bought my current laptop six years ago, and they said no. I never tried following it up more closely. In truth at that stage I didn’t mind having a Windows license, it was convenient for testing certain things occasionally. But I haven’t booted into it for at least three years now other than a couple of times to verify that the keyboard problems are hardware, not software.
Got my money back from the store after 15 minutes of quoting the specific law.
The Windows boxes had the ToS on the outside though.
If I could run linux on Apple hardware and get the same power-sipping performance, that's what I'd be doing.
No one at Apple paid for a macOS license on your behalf in any sense a legal regime might recognize so there is nothing to be refunded if you choose not to accept the license. It’s one of the many, many structural advantages of vertical integration.
Apple can claim "we offer vertical integration" because we make both for each other, but you should be able to buy hardware or software independently of each other.
If MS sells they own laptops with bundled windows, they will have an incentive to make adjustments so other hardware products are less competitive. Long term, we'll end up with Apple/MS monopoly on devices where you don't have a vote on how your system works and what data it sends to whom.
This means that it should be possible to install any OS on readers / phones / laptops / consoles and vote with your own money against shovelware (hello, smart TVs).
Part of my motivation was that one of the machines was still on Windows 7, but more than anything it was the incessant push to associate my OS account with an online Microsoft account, and the cramming of Copilot into everything, that have left a bad taste in my mouth.
You're in a better place today than back then as finding software solutions to common problems is much easier now.
For other OS needs, just virtualize. I started off using VMware Workstation, after a decade (or so) transitioned to Virtualbox, and now today, virt-manager (qemu, kvm through libvirt).
I’m not proud of this, but it’s the truth.
I remember trying again with Ibex and nearly rage quitting X11 config. Glad all that BS has been worked out.
Even used it to make a task bar applet adjacent to Media Controls, where I can rate the current plexamp song without having to open plexamp.
A big plus of linux is the easy ability to use workspaces and switch between them with a hover over the workspace taskbar applet and the mousewheel (and other options).
I do recommend checking methods against another provider. Occasionally Claude will suggest X, and Sol is like WTF are you insane? Clear often and update the prompt with your latest findings, because there are so many opportunities for the agent to find red herrings that they'll fixate on.
As with all LLM work, if you know some sysadmin, the process goes a lot smoother because you can say specifically "Write me a systemd unit file that does X" instead of a vague "I want to automate this, how do I do it" and not have a gut feel for which approaches are jank.
Especially with NixOS. I would never allow an LLM to make core updates to my OS for fear of breaking it. Now LLMs manage all my packages and upgrades, and because it's all declarative, I can always revert anything that goes wrong.
Absolutely. Obnoxious and unacceptable. Then there's the fact that Windows has regressed into a clinic on UI incompetence and defective design.
I put Mint on my 2014 27" Intel iMac and it's slick.
This should be challenged in court and prohibited by law. But so far, no computer manufacturer has dared to do so for fear of losing the ability to sell their computers with Windows pre-installed.
Here's a few examples:
- https://www.dell.com/pt-br/shop/notebooks-dell/notebook-dell...
- https://www.dell.com/it-it/shop/notebook-dell/nuovo-notebook...
I ended up not buying their computer.
Ie: the Windows OEM license costs less than the total amount of money that the other software publishers are paying for distribution and if you reject windows, your are rejecting things that subsidize the price of the PC itself.
Instead, buy hardware from vendors that ship hardware with the operating system you want to use preinstalled, and with support you can contact to get help if something breaks.
How to make sales when generally no one wants to buy what you are selling, e.g., a proprietary software license
Tie the product to another product that generally everyone wants to buy, e.g., personal computers
Preinstall the proprietary software on the computer
Make it difficult to replace the software (OS) with an alternative, e.g., a UNIX-like OS
This worked for Microsoft
If the consumer buys a laptop and overwrites (erases) Windows with a freely available, open source OS, then why should she pay for a Windows license
Although that doesn't work as well for laptops :( .
IANAL, but Windows is already installed, so IMO this wouldn't apply. OOBE is not installation, it's setup.
Judge's verdict seems solid though.
> The vendors do not remove the Windows license, and you must pay the entire price, even if you do not want to use this system.
Surely if you don't want Windows you just boot from a usb drive and install another OS without having to pay them anything. Its not like Windows can stop you from installing another OS, right?
So even if on the first boot you just immediately booted into whatever other operating system, you still paid for Windows.
As a consumer I should also have the right to free ice cream and a pony ride.
Many of us have tried to start or run businesses small or large. Does it make any sense for a government to start telling us what software the business should use or not use?
Consumers already have the right to decline pre-installed software: don't buy the laptop. There, you've declined it.
I think it's reasonable for manufactures putting their own software on (I.e., Mac or Microsoft devices running what they want), but all other hardware manufactures only offering Windows just benefits Microsoft, and is clearly part of the MS strategy
What's the importance difference?
I make the analogy to highlight that just because something is desirable to a consumer doesn't mean we should have laws to enforce it.
The theory and law around monopolies is something I know at only a surface level. Up until I read Thiel's Zero to One I would have told you monopolies are bad but his chapter comparing airlines to Google made me question this.
I don't use the builtin speaker on my laptop -- can I get refund on that too?
This is not the same thing at all. These computers all advertise that they come with Windows. It isn't like when you buy it, you have a 5% chance of it being infected with Windows.
If the Cyclospora lettuce was labeled as containing Cyclospora, and you could choose to buy that lettuce or some other lettuce, then yes, it wouldn't be a problem.
Let's say you and I bump into each other in the town square and we each have some things we might be willing to give the other if we get the right thing in return. In that situation I'd think both sides have the right to offer what they like and both sides can choose freely whether to accept what is offered.
What is different about this town square and your relationship to say Dell?
What I don't have is a factory/expertise/resources to build the hardware myself if Dell, Lenovo, or Apple decide to start offering things that you or I do not want. I was very careful to say as such: If you're selling the software, the ideal situation for you would be that the buyers have no other choice other than you. That's the "free pony ride" you think customers are wanting, but these companies are actually getting.
The world doesn't run on analogies and situations don't become equal because they look similar. Evidently you could argue about incentives to build software going away, or anything else, but I would like to reiterate that the ideal situation for me, as a customer, would be for me to have a _choice_ in whether I buy the software or not. Not having the choice, i.e., by being told to "just not buy hardware" is not the ideal situation for me as a customer.
And just as you are arguing for the ideal situation for the companies, I'm arguing for the ideal situation for the customer.
I still want a refund. I feel pretty stupid.
Oh well.
I do wonder whether AI may change that. Now, I don't think so, and I hate AI, but have a look at Omarchy from DHH. Personally I would not use it for many reasons (including the fact that DHH goes on my nerves), but IF the underlying rationale is that people can use Linux in an extremely simplified manner, then this is a good thing.
Utterly pointless waste of time. If I see a vendor offering Linux/FreeDOS, I buy that.
If you've had any success in the UK getting a refund, please correct me, but I think time is probably better spent writing to the MP about it as the consumer should have choice when the options are MS or Apple.
Sorry, if this offends anyone, but Windows (non-Server editions) is a junk OS that I never ever want to see or use again.
For document editing or code it’s pretty awesome but a sluggish web is a deal breaker for many these days.
I agree that it's a dealbreaker, and the circumstances in which it can happen are opaque and difficult to troubleshoot.
Luckily these days with anything released since 2020- it's a lot better. Linux still struggles a lot with JS runtimes on Skylake.
While I am throwing Linux under the bus a bit here, I am still perplexed that we use an exceptionally inefficient language as the major application delivery system of the modern day. We complain that it uses a lot of RAM and is slow, but if you consider what javascript is compared to how CPUs think about things, it's a miracle we get what we get... we managed to get a marvel of engineering and the response has been to shove millions of lines of code through it... At some point, yeah, it's slow.
Unless it’s a post-Intel Mac, and that’s all of them these days.
You mean Linux, probably, but thats because Chrome doesn't enable hardware acceleration pn ARM, so smooth scroll is disabled. Pretty rough.
And by Linux, I mean there’s no distribution that runs on a Mac better than a 1990’s consumer HP laptop did in the 1990’s.
And that’s only for M1 and M2 silicon.
Linux doesn’t run on M3 silicon and later at all.
are serious? web is sluggish anywhere... and this is a common "trend"
Some people realized this 25 years ago
For instance there's a fair number of old laptops which exist now that can't play full screen 1080p content from youtube inside a browser without extensively dropping frames (way below a smooth 30 fps) because the cpu/video hardware has no support for hardware acceleration of the codecs in use. Even if the laptop has a 1920x1200 or 1920x1080 screen. Additionally they will struggle heavily with 100% CPU load doing something like running any video conference webRTC app (generally equivalent to google meet) in a browser tab.
Complexity of features and more computationally intensive things will still obsolete an old system even if it's running an 'optimal' non windows OS.
What’s inexcusable is just that every application out there, web or Electron, the only two kinds that seem to exist anymore, is written with increasingly bloated stacks and layers of JavaScript. I’m pretty sure the system requirements needed for applications to run smoothly are scaling exactly in sync with the spec of the average software engineer’s (or PM’s) computer. For some reason, in 2012 something like Slack or Outlook or an IDE was exactly as performant on a PC with 8GB and 2 cores, as the current versions are today on a modern high-end machine with 32GB of RAM and 10 cores. Yet they do the same tasks. There haven’t been any big innovations in the calendar, or chat, or email - none that inherently require more hardware resources, at least.
2. windows + ssd
3. linux + ssd
I know that Linux can greatly speed up startup, but more likely that ssd gave bigger impact.
Anything more than 3 seconds and less than 45 seconds is perceptibly the same, it's the same level of inconvenience unless you're in a rush.
.. but I can't honestly tell you the last time I booted my Macbook from cold.
Worthwhile suspend/resume is a much better goal for the modern computer user... Windows fucked us all with s2idle, including themselves.
At least in my experience it's not comparable to suspend + resume in terms of speed.
I was back to where I left when I had counted to eleven.
It’s about six years old, running W11, and was <$600 new. It has a touchscreen I never use.
> suspend/resume
Hard agree. Frustrating that I’ve still never had a non-Mac yet that I can just shut the lid and know that it won’t be blowing fans, apparently running, in my freaking backpack. Or wake up randomly in the middle of the night disturbing my sleep.
Nor can I be confident that when I open it, I’ll see the login screen already ready to go. How is this so hard? I would understand with Linux or with a home-built PC. But shouldn’t Lenovo and HP be able to make sleep work correctly?
1) Reduced telemetry and background services. 2) More efficient resource management.
Windows is super bloated when it comes to number of background task that transfer information to Microsoft and how much of the system resources their own applications need. Weather APP for example.
Windows telemetry can easily consume one CPU core after startup for 5 to 15 minutes depending on the age of the computer.
Windows updating system uses even more system resources than a Linux distro updating system. Linux is simple file copying-replace while Windows has to perform logical transactions because of how bad the bones of the OS are.
It can take _cleanmgr_ 15 minutes or more to clean up a system when selecting to remove old Windows update installers. Linux just has to mark the file as re-usable and move on. _cleanmgr_ does not even clean out all of the Temp files and requires manual interaction to do so.
Worst of all, Windows makes it a complete pain the ass to manage air gap system with updates. Linux just needs to create a HTTP server pointing to the packages on USB drive.
SSD generally adds 3x to that speed due to access latency for small files.
I remember pressing power button and leaving my PC alone to get a tea or something when I was booting my Windows installation which I had around for gaming. Same with an SSD. Desktop arrives faster, CPU still choked to launch whatever services are needed, fans are doubling as hair dryers.
Both scenarios were on the same machine, BTW.
60% of my time spending on windows is wasted in refreshing/slowstartup/installing bloat and updates/.
Clicking next > next etc multiple time just to install one software.
Winget is not upto mark like apt and other unix package managers. As soon as i install chocolatey or 3rd party it starts to stall even more
Initially i formatted whole installed fresh no external or extra software just bare bone fresh win 10 install
Yet its slow as turtle. And windows standard installation iso is 5gb multi iso. So it waste a lot of my bandwidth. Plus it does'nt let iso download on desktop browser. And only with phone useragent you get downloadable link, and phone doesnt have much space to store 5gb file Cherry on top even if i download 5gb file on phone i cannot transfer it to pc as standard usb is limited to 4GB per file. So i had to install additional ssh or feem or other software for wireless transfer. Or had to use non standard browser on phone to capture download link copy it to pc and downlod.
Even after that creating unattended installation is mess and require ntlite or other and hours of waste. And now newer isos despite adding ei.cfg and pid.txt the version selection menu does not appear it enforces installation of win10 home the native laptop was bought with. So hours wasting to upgrade it to pro.
So finally this year i decided to move to linux. Keeping window as secondary. But could noy decide due to myriad of varieties. Choice is majorly between Mint or Fedora
I def have all kinds of warm feelings towards the moment I first installed W ‘95 but wow I can’t imagine having that UX as my daily OS today.
Most avoid gimmick Windows/MacOS themes, as they know these tend to be unmaintainable over the long-term.
Keep in mind most Linux desktop options tend to be power-user focused, high contrast for outdoor use, and eye candy entertainment options just waste peoples time. =3
(The slide-to-unlock on the original iPhone OS comes to mind as an analogy on the phone: babies could figure it out, but by iOS 7 they figured enough people knew how to unlock that they could make it less obvious.)
There has to be a middle ground somewhere in this.
… hang on, I’m still parsing this.
Everyone has an opinion on distros, but Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop is going to be easiest to migrate over use wise (looks like XP/win7.) Debian family of OS like Linux Mint or Ubuntu 26.04 LTS support most drivers like Brother network laser printers and scanners (check support before buying.)
For most users, Linux Mint will work with your hardware out of the box. Again, do a quick laptop model search to see what others say about your hardware drivers in a specific distro. Note, Ubuntu 26.04 with rtx 5070 ti needs a bit of driver customization, and quite a bit of patches to be pleasant. =3
I haven't tried Fedora in like 20 years, but I remember odd things being broken, adding up to a death by a thousand cuts, but I've never had a bad time with Mint (or anything based on Debian).
The few times I needed a key, it worked the first time. And for a friend who needed Win11, the upgrade from 10 Pro to 11 worked first time.
I'd never pay more than $5 per Windows key. But I prefer Linux instead.
"Oh, you need more backup space! Take this special offer now for more storage, only $NN a month".
But with the horrendous performance and scam behavior, Ive heelped others to Linux to really good effect.
Just theres that 1 person who *needed* Windows and all the abusiv behaviors it inflicts. It was more akin to "Executives dont get fired for recommending IBM/Microsoft", and a utter refusal to try something better. Theyve been a friend for 2 decades, so I gave them the warning, but did help them.
Grey market means the codes often work (valid KMS generation etc) because they match the algo,
and or were validly issued to a manufacturer,
but that doesn’t make them “100% legit”.
Otherwise you wouldn’t be saying “grey market” - it would just be the market.
How about this: don't buy a product that you don't want.
If you don't want Windows, then buy a product that doesn't come with Windows. Buy from System 76 or another vendor that sells the product that you want.
> Want to buy a licence-free PC directly? Search for your nearest Linux-friendly shop on LinuxSi! (Italian-only).
It's like going car shopping and having a choice of a dozen brands and 8 or 10 different types of subcompact, compact, sports cars, compact SUVs, full size SUVs, minivans, EVs from each manufacturer. But no, you can only buy this specific model of Toyota Camry or or maybe 3 different models of Hyundai. Oh, you wanted something else? So sorry
I mean, I bought a random Intel N150 with 12GB RAM, 256GB SSD mini PC on Amazon to run Home Assistant on, it came with windows 11 out of the box and immediately got wiped. If I'd gone buying only the equivalent hardware that came with no OS or linux on it I would have paid hundreds more for the exact same thing.
How about laptop manufacturers stop making shady deals with Microsoft to force its OS on everyone?
It’s crazy how many passes these companies get. A huge number of them are still selling high-end laptops with Intel chips because they signed agreements that effectively prohibit them from offering AMD variants.
Let's stop pretending like any of this is acceptable.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Refund_Day
[2] https://www.wired.com/1999/01/the-non-refundable-refund/
[3] https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/...