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And this is treated as a bad thing?!
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Send only info about your device, its settings and capabilities, and whether it is performing properly.
In other words, even after turning off all the settings, your data still gets collected.
The rest of the installation process wasn't fun either. It was worded in this weird, condescending tone, like "Let's get everything set up for you", and "Let Cortana help you get things done!".
Thank goodness for FLOSS and GNU/Linux.
I still don't get why people keep defending it. Win+e doesn't even open to a panel that lets me open the c drive without clicking other shit and waiting for it to appear first. An update also just put the search bar back on the task bar when I explicitly disabled it as soon as I got through the bad default options for days during the install. It also added copilot. Auto update is also supposed to be disabled.
While I'm at it fuck every dev that uses libraries/framework/etc that is known to not work in wine. There are thousands of better ways to be a shitty dev.
I have been seriously considering creating a “graphical registry editor” that would be feature-focused and could be both portable (for one-off application) and installable (for constant on-login resetting of any changed preferences). Just open it up, browse the offerings, select the feature mods you want, apply and restart.
There is a lot of File Explorer shit that you can do to mod it back to WinXP days. Had to do this to a Win11 install for my Octogenarian father who has become very intolerant of unexpected changes, and while it needs regular maintenance to “keep”, it has worked out well for him.
That would be pretty handy especially if it could reapply each update. The lock screen merely existing is another. I want my first keypress to be the first letter of my password, not sliding up a screen that serves no purpose and is a pain even on phones. Really there are so many small things they did over the years to make a genuinely worse experience that I can't even list them all. This week's unapproved update after a few without windows running even once made edge the default browser again. First boot after windows hiatus initiating update reboot loop immediately without even logging in is also concerning.
The only reason I don't completely despise Windows is because it, along with Mac OS, has made computing available for the masses. The average person doesn't have the time to learn how to use a computer. They just want to use it. That in my subjective opinion is a good thing. A very strong, and valid argument could be made that it's a faustian bargain, probably because it is.
Yeah. I've been wanting to adopt Linux as a daily driver, but unfortunately there are programs that simply aren't made for anything other than Windows/Mac. I seriously do hope programmers start investing more in software for Linux so that I can make the switch permanently.
See if the software is compatible with Wine, a compatiblity layer for Windows software to run on Linux.
With microsoft being the most valuated company in the world rest assured that many of the people defending their products are getting paid to do it.
PR team hard at work.