Microsoft has a new idea on how to deter students from MacBook Neo - 9to5Mac (9to5mac.com)

submitted 1 month ago by ryujin470@fedia.io to c/technology@beehaw.org

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[-] Janx@piefed.social 58 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

college students in the US can score 12 months free of Microsoft 365 Premium and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with the purchase of an eligible PC, plus a free custom Xbox controller.

Wow. A controller for the gaming ecosystem they're letting die, and temporary access to their online (worse) office programs along with Game Pass access (also temporary)... Where do I sign up!?

[-] slacktoid@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 month ago

Lmao thanks for saving me a read. That's so trash

[-] MattR@feddit.org 45 points 1 month ago

Microsoft is unaware that students need a reliable device, this also means a stable OS which they can't offer.

[+] Steve@communick.news -22 points 1 month ago

Windows is remarkably stable. Has been for many years.

[-] SteevyT@beehaw.org 30 points 1 month ago

When fucking File Explorer freezes a CAD machine for several minutes at a time resulting in explorer.exe crashing and restarting multiple times a day I'd say it's not as stable as I got used to. Several of us at the place I work at have been dealing with this, although it has been getting better, it never should have happened in the first place.

[+] Steve@communick.news -11 points 1 month ago

That's not the OS really.
Explorer restarting is no different than any app.

Becides, It depends on the specifics, but good chance it's the CAD software doing something it shouldn't. Specific small market industry software is notoriously quirky and troublesome.

[-] SteevyT@beehaw.org 13 points 1 month ago

Nope, it happens with literally just a couple explorer windows, outlook, and teams open. The CAD box comment was just to make clear that it is not on underpowered hardware by any means. And I've managed to trigger it with nothing but explorer windows open.

[+] Steve@communick.news -13 points 1 month ago

Okay. I don't know what it could be. I'm not gonna troubleshoot your specific company issue blind from a distance . But still not the OS.

[-] SteevyT@beehaw.org 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I don't expect troubleshooting, but it's not isolated to just my company, my home computer did it too, not nearly as often, and it's been a while since it's happened there (probably since I only leave file explorer open for 30 seconds at a time).

And even if it's not technically part of the OS, will Windows even be in a useable state without it? Most things I see call it a "Core part of the OS," although those are also specific to Windows 10 so if 11 changed it, that's news to me. I dont see a difference. To most people (myself included), explorer.exe crashing and restarting looks just like Windows shitting itself, and since it's packaged with every Windows install, that perception really is hard to argue against despite what some technicality of it being an executable says.

[-] SteevyT@beehaw.org 1 points 1 month ago

Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think my wife's laptop had the explorer issue. Every computer that did had multiple monitors attached, her laptop always operates single screen. Or it's somehow specific to enterprise Windows 11, I forget why my home machine is running enterprise, but that's what I installed on it for some reason.

[-] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 month ago

If you can't replace explorer.exe with a third party desktop environment, it's kind of part of the OS.

[-] PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social 12 points 1 month ago

Then why do they keep having to roll back what seems like every update they release due to some major bug?

[-] dosse91@lemmy.trippy.pizza 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I sincerely hope you're trolling.

I teach computer science and windows has been the biggest source of problems I've had in the last five years: I've seen defender delete their programs when compiling them, I've seen it delete gcc because it thought it was malware, I've seen it do forced updates in the middle of a test, I've seen updates break tools like compilers and servers that needed to be reinstalled on a daily basis, I've seen onedrive make some of their files inaccessible, I've seen updates break their wifi, I've seen it take upwards of 10 minutes to log into our AD domain, the list of problems goes on.

These days windows is a piece of shit, especially if you're a developer. I'm basically forced to have them either install linux or do all their development in wsl, and it fucking sucks.

[-] Anivia@feddit.org 5 points 1 month ago

I sincerely hope you're trolling.

He is, it's painfully obvious. If not from his original comment, then at the very least from his follow-ups to the replies he got

[-] motruck@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 month ago

You are using GNU development tools, largely targeting non-windows operating systems, on Windows. Just use Linux

[-] Steve@communick.news -2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Again none of those things are the actual OS. They're all optional features and programs. Every one of those problems can be turned off. Most with simple settings toggles.

I'd expect that kind of thing to be first semester computer science stuff; Setting up your machine as a proper development platform.

[-] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 month ago

Setting up your machine as a proper development platform.

Well they can't force everyone to install Linux unfortunately.

[-] Janx@piefed.social 4 points 1 month ago

"has been" is right, lol

[-] hazelnoot@beehaw.org 3 points 1 month ago

it was stable, up until a few years ago. But starting when MS scaled back their QA department (Windows 10 era IIRC) - and worsening when they went all-in on AI (Windows 11 era), stability and reliability has fallen off a cliff. I started tracking crashes and problems that required manual intervention, and over the last two years I've spent more hours debugging and fixing Windows 11 than Xubuntu. This is the first time in my life where Linux has required less maintenance than a stock Windows installation. It's bad enough that I advised all my non-technical family members to stay on Windows 10 instead of upgrading to Windows 11, despite the lack of support.

[-] Steve@communick.news 0 points 1 month ago

That may be.
I've always disabled all that stuff immediately. Even applied ReviOS to permanently remove it all 6ish months ago.

[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I think a majority of people would consider needing to disable multiple parts of the default installed system to not encounter potentially breaking bugs to be a pretty big indicator that the platform is not as stable as it used to be.

Personally, I never had to disable anything, perform any specific actions, or disable a particular part of Windows XP, Window 7, or Windows 10 LTSC to achieve a very stable system, and new updates generally didn't introduce any bugs either since MS had a pretty big QA team.

There are now regularly reports of major or critical components of a windows system failing or even becoming unbootable due to updates or bugs in new features in Windows 11, which is very much a change from the norm.

It is likely these bugs are being introduced far more frequently due to MS laying off the majority of their QA team, and instead relying on regular users to report bugs after they have already been shipped.

[-] Steve@communick.news 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Wow. I had full blue-screen system crashes every couple months at least, even daily at times, with XP and 7. I haven't seen any with 10 or 11. But I've always kept them both pretty clean.

[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I definitely had a few blue screens with XP over the years, maybe once every 5 or 6 months?

7 was super stable on my hardware, I've probably had about the same amount of blue screens on that as I did on Windows 10, maybe about 4 or 5 from what I can recall. The bigger issue I had back then was AMD's GPU drivers were insanely unstable at that point, resulting in constant green screen crashes from youtube videos.

At least for me, blue screens haven't been too much of an issue, especially since after they reboot, everything is still working as normal. That's in contrast to Windows 11's bugs introduced from updates, which often introduce a new persistent problem that a user either has to actively troubleshoot to resolve, or cannot resolve on their own, leaving them to wait until Microsoft pushes out a fix.

Examples of that being:

KB5077181 breaking Blutooth and causing Samsung devices to lose the ability to access the C: drive
KB5085516, preventing users from resizing or moving windows, which itself was supposed to be a fix for KB5079473
Microsoft themselves admitting that multiple major core features were broken for months

I personally consider the severity and frequency of these issues appearing in Windows 11 to be fairly unprecedented in the history of Windows, which happens to coincide with the QA team being fired.

(I didn't downvote you, btw).

[-] irvinefantasyno@beehaw.org 1 points 1 month ago

Lmao what in the world

[-] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 39 points 1 month ago

This is an idiotic counter to the Neo. Microsoft is in a position it's not faced before: Macs are cheaper than PCs. Offering a year of "free services" doesn't change the fact that Surfaces start at more than twice what Apple has on offer.

[-] doleo@lemmy.one 34 points 1 month ago

college students in the US can score 12 months free of Microsoft 365 Premium and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with the purchase of an eligible PC, plus a free custom Xbox controller.

Saved you a click

[-] Midnitte@beehaw.org 22 points 1 month ago

Which is really funny because most (all?) students get 365 free from their school already

[-] stoy@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 month ago

Ok, so students can select either:

A computer that they can study, work, (light) game, edit photos, and do much more on, without a digital use by date.
An admittedly excellent office suite, a collection of games, for a limited time, and an Xbox controller, but only if they buy a specific computer.

Yeah, nah Microsoft, nah.

[-] Asetru@feddit.org 6 points 1 month ago

An admittedly excellent office suite

Every time some colleague uses office and I'm forced to hop on as well it feels like my whole workflow just grinds to a halt and there's nothing that I'd want more than to throw my laptop out the window... There's not much else that I hate with the same passion like ms Office. "Admittedly excellent"? What?

without a digital use by date

What? Apple just drops devices at some point.

[-] B0rax@feddit.org 5 points 1 month ago

Regarding the second point… the offer from Microsoft is good for 12 months. The Apple software does not expire. Sure, the support will end in about 7 years, but that’s a completely different story

[-] stoy@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

That was exactly my point.

[-] stoy@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 month ago

You must have a pretty specific workflow that fails so completely using Microsoft Office.

The second point is that as has already been mentioned, you can keep using the computer after the software support ends, that doesn't really work for most subscription software.

[-] Asetru@feddit.org 1 points 1 month ago

You must have a pretty specific workflow that fails so completely using Microsoft Office.

My company provides latex templates, so I'm using those. They also provide a gitlab instance, so working collaboratively is easy and reliable.

The second point is that as has already been mentioned, you can keep using the computer after the software support ends, that doesn't really work for most subscription software.

Fair point.

[-] nocturne@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 month ago

The subscriptions are only available to new subscribers.

[-] Midnitte@beehaw.org 15 points 1 month ago

Or just a Framework and install Linux, skip Microslop

[-] Jrockwar@feddit.uk 7 points 1 month ago

The only thing is that the 8GB Framework 12 is a bit more expensive than the (8GB) MacBook Neo, and if you get it to 16GB it starts getting close to MacBook Air territory. But if you can sacrifice the nice build quality and nice screen plus spend some extra £, you can get Linux and a repairable laptop.

In any case: Windows is just not a value proposition anymore. Why pay extra to deal with Intel, MS and Copilot?

[-] PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social 6 points 1 month ago

To be fair to Framework, the 12 is a 2-in-1 with a touchscreen, which is not something that's currently offered on any of Apple's laptops and at least partially accounts for the extra cost. Of course, economies of scale play a part, as well.

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 month ago

To be fair, Frameworks are way more expensive.

I have one, and love it, but I'm pretty sure it's the most I've ever spent on a piece of tech.

[-] Midnitte@beehaw.org 1 points 1 month ago

But you also own the device, can upgrade and repair it, and you arent the product.

Totally worth that up front cost imo

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 month ago

Definitely. Part of the reason I got it. I also didn't need 64 gigs of RAM, but I don't regret it given how much it costs now

this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2026

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