This is such a huge W for linux. It legitimizes linux as a real competitor in so many eyes.

Microsoft adds the bloat themselves, and ever increasing telemetry reporting back, promises to update W10 for the lifetime of the device, reneges on it with W11 quoting security as its rationale but leaving 400 million users without security updates. Does all this at a time Linux is becoming very friendly and android phones have a desktop mode so they can be plugged into a keyboard and monitor and bypass the need for Windows. Microsoft has a bit of a think about the market value of its idiot direction and decides to remove a lot of the crap slowing the OS and give people back a little privacy, touts it as a new way of thinking about personal computing.

Microsoft is reportedly looking at Valve's SteamOS as the benchmark for gaming

Yeah, that's Linux

Valve's SteamOS continues to show significant advantages over Windows 11 for gamers, with better memory utilization and improved in-game performance, but Microsoft has a plan to combat that.

Let that sink in for a second. Linux with a not-an-emulation layer API runs Microsoft Windows games faster than Microsoft Windows, and so now Microsoft is scrambling to get windows at least as efficient again as Linux in running Windows products.

Anyone ever trusting Microsoft again is a dumbass fool

Rather than a dedicated release (or update) for Windows 11, project K2 is Microsoft's effort to maintain high quality across current and future versions of the OS, prioritizing consistency, and ultimately win back the trust of users.

This reads as a big nothing. So they’re going to focus on making quality software now? Can I ask where that ranked on their priority list prior and where does it rank with ‘project K2’? Something tells me it’s somewhere in the double digits still. But it’s an ‘effort’ now!

I don't even care what they do at this point, they've proved themselves to be so incompetent that I have no desire to go back to windows.

should just use the Linux kernel and pit their version of the desktop on top of that.

There you are, racking up multi kills, bonus points are pouring in. The map is yours and you are about to push the score back in favour of your team…

When all of a sudden

“DO YOU WANT TO TURN ON STICKY KEYS? PWEASE LOGIN TO ONEDRIVE TO ACTIVATE YOUR 365 COPILOT ACCOUNT SUBSCRIPTION. ACTIVATING BITLOCKER LOCKDOWN.”

Reducing ai but not removing it ain’t it

They'll either never do it, or do it for a year or so then go back to being pieces of shit.

Also expect this:

"hey windows is better"

yeah? Is it this good?

"well, no, but..."

Get rid of telemetry, ads, AI, and the MS account requirement for a start.

Of course not.

Install Linux, Problem Solved.

Strip out all tracking, anti-competitive anti consumerist features, remove all AI, make it secure and with all of the extra and fancy features opt-in.

Literally just make a decent, respectable operating system, and you will win. This is how you win at literally anything right now. Just make it durable and private and secure and not extremely expensive and make sure it WORKS, and people will suck your dick from across the planet.

NOBODY WANTS AI OR MICROTRANSACTIONS OR TO BE PUSHED AROUND OR CONNED, YET THAT'S ALL ANYBODY IS DOING - THE POSITION OF NOT A PIECE OF SHIT IS LITERALLY UP FOR GRABS, YOU JUST NEED TO REACH OUT AND TAKE IT.

I will preface by saying, I hate it so much, and fear the day we can no longer put TPM into 'user mode' and enroll our own keys for our own signed & authorized OS (on hardware we own, in our house, not in th cloud), BUT if you are building an operating system focused on gaming, performance, and security, implementing and securing trusted + measured boot so the hardware platform ensures all stages of the bootloader, OS + game are the exact code the vendor intended is the absolutely correct way to implement anti-cheat. Sketchy 3rd party kernel mode modules that rummage around your system reporting what to who knows who wouldn't be needed at all in this environment.

MS... The only reason why I still ise it is because I don't have the time or nerves to get used to Linux in my current life.

Getting and understanding the workarounds I need to get working just to play my two favorite games that don't run on Linux is not something I will use my time on.

I need a plug and play windows clone on Linux that runds everything I know out of the box, sadly.

People here won't like that, but it's the reality gate that keeps many people aeay from switching.

Well, if MS ever tries to force me into ID verification or subscription windows or based on AI at its core I'll bite the bullet. But not before

I abandoned Windows for Linux rather than update to Windows 11. I will be interested to see what Microsoft does, but at this point I seriously doubt they're going to be able to give me a good enough reason to return to Windows as my primary OS. At this point I only need it for a few applications that don't have a Linux equivalent and don't run on Wine.

This sounds like a very good thing, right? They've got the message that we don't want Copilot, we don't want AI, we don't want our computers to require an Internet connection, and they're listening.

Knowing Microsoft, the new project is an update to DirectX which has features impossible for Proton to translate without violating anti-circumvention laws or an always on DRM baked into core features.

Yeah, MS lost a lot of trust with stupid things and getting that back - good luck with that. ~~I'm gone~~ I switched to Linux ~~since~~ a year (been on Windows since 3.0) or so ago and won't ever go back even though I still need to run Visual Studio in a virtual guest.