Please MS just go to hell...

[bd139]

Free Windows 10: Most off the shelf PCs since around 2016 have an embedded product key. Trick is to buy them second hand and upgrade. The other one is the window between around 2015 and 2017 where they stuck product keys on the case for windows 10 pro like the old days. I regularly hear of a skip full and go and photograph all the product keys 

You can get an i5-6400 with 8Gb of RAM and 256Gb SSD here for about £180. Stick another 8Gb of RAM in it and perfect workstation for 99% of users.

[madires]

Karma is such, both computers won't run windows 11 officially.

I'd think that it's not karma, but simply corporate greed.

[SiliconWizard]

Times changed where we can choose not to be treated
as underclass imbeciles by these MS assholes

"Microsoft isn’t evil, they just make really crappy operating systems."

-- Linus Torvalds.

Yeah. I do not agree with that though. Don't know when he said this. But this isn't true IMO.

- Windows NT was certainly not "crappy". Dunno if he was considering NT when saying this. And honestly, I've used NT4, 2000, 2003 and 7, and never thought they were crappy OSs. The older 3.x and 9x lines were not that good, certainly.
- As to being evil? Well, again I don't know when he said this. MS *wasn't* evil. What they have been doing for a few years, though, makes this statement questionable.

[bd139]

NT, 2000 and XP were absolutely excellent operating systems. Was a shit show since which is why I’m now a Mac user.

[bsfeechannel]

"Microsoft isn’t evil, they just make really crappy operating systems."

-- Linus Torvalds.

Yeah. I do not agree with that though. Don't know when he said this. But this isn't true IMO.

- Windows NT was certainly not "crappy". Dunno if he was considering NT when saying this. And honestly, I've used NT4, 2000, 2003 and 7, and never thought they were crappy OSs. The older 3.x and 9x lines were not that good, certainly.
- As to being evil? Well, again I don't know when he said this. MS *wasn't* evil. What they have been doing for a few years, though, makes this statement questionable.

You seem not to know Torvalds very well. He said that in 2013. In case anyone took what he said at face value, I added the comment you cut out: Came for the OS, stayed for the sarcasm.

Microsoft have always been evil. They were tried and found guilty of abusive commercial practices.

For those of you too young or too old to remember, please read this article by Wired Magazine, entitled "The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth". I have the printed version of this issue, so significantly historical it was at the time.

[bd139]

To be fair with Linus he's fairly well balanced and ripped Gnome and NVidia new asshole a couple of times as well 

[MrMobodies]

Free Windows 10: Most off the shelf PCs since around 2016 have an embedded product key. Trick is to buy them second hand and upgrade. The other one is the window between around 2015 and 2017 where they stuck product keys on the case for windows 10 pro like the old days. I regularly hear of a skip full and go and photograph all the product keys 

I wouldn't accept an install or an upgrade to Home or Pro even if it was offered to me free.

The last one I got down the skip that had a Windows 10 Pro coa key (all excited at first) gave me so much grief when I ended up removing a lot stuff and stripped it most of the store out but I replaced that with LTSB 2016 in 2019 that I modified and so far so good. Loyal as a dog and no interference. All set up in the way I want, works beautifully and very quick but can be unstable attimes

I'd go for the Enterprise LTSB/LTSC and I have a LTSC 2019 virtual machine template (all setup with the defaults I set) that I use to disk image when I want to install it on something so I can start/stop windows update or any service when I please and all I do is buy another key.

In the Home and Pro edition There are so many "horrors" like the "apps" store I keep forgetting about and that is certainly don't want and things being installed on there without my permission and interfering with foreground tasks during the updating of them.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Can't stop using Windows?

The first step in solving any problem....

[PKTKS]

Can't stop using Windows?

The first step in solving any problem....

It does solve a hell of nasty problems..

But sick people from MS spent last decades spreading
the nasty insane PATENT minefield on software and "desktop"
aberrations (including gestures and common sense)..

Which will turn vendors and hardware manuf.  practical adoption
of sane stuff a total nightmare.

MS will request fees to cross their patent minefield

I like to thing that some crank allowed to patent the wheel to someone. 
That someone ...

Paul

[bd139]

Um which patents are those? All I hear is a lot of paranoid bullshit.

If your want to kick them in use some tangible things ie unreliability, half of it is a burning trash heap or the privacy concerns of telemetry.

[SeanB]

Funny thing is MS were doing a campaign in Africa, where you could buy a legitimate copy of Windows 98 and XP for a very low price, as part of a hardware upgrade. I bought a lot of USB A to B cables, parallel port cables, power cables and the odd keyboard and mouse using that incentive. Still have a shrink wrapped copy of 98SE around, never used, and at one point had a CD containing all the cabinet files, the setup program, and another directory with 400M of every single Windows update, used to reinstall 98 and get it to the latest version. Format hard drive, copy the 2 directories over, and run setup, then on the first boot enter the key, and then run every single upgrade one after the other, ignoring those hundred reboot requests, till the last one finished, and then a single reboot, with a 20 minute churning of all upgrades getting installed. Then you had a fully updated system, with no massive set of windows updates to do. Saves a lot of time having all updates locally.

[PKTKS]

Um which patents are those? All I hear is a lot of paranoid bullshit.

If your want to kick them in use some tangible things ie unreliability, half of it is a burning trash heap or the privacy concerns of telemetry.

MS typical  M.O.  is to finance several TROLL shell companies
to shadow this issue.

Across last decades I have read countless times on the net and
other specialized mags.  about such problems.

MS and theirs shells REFUSED TO DISCLOSE the patent portfolio 99.99% times...

Usually the threats of sue for some "obscure" patent over the USPTO
messy insanity is enough.  Large competitors (like phone makers)
.. they have typically choosing to set some sort of fee agreement
instead of being held on that for an unpredictable time and value..

Fairly easy to find some cases last decades instead of actually
having MS and shells  to disclose their portfolio of threats..

Paul

[bd139]

You're talking complete bullshit.

MS's entire portfolio is open and they don't operate shell companies (unlike say Alphabet Corporation). ISVs do but that's different and they aren't related to MSFT. They also opened 60,000 of their patents under OIN unconditionally in 2018 as well.

Also this one makes people pee pee themselves when they actually see it... https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/main/ms-openspeclp/3589baea-5b22-48f2-9d43-f5bea4960ddb

I don't like them as much as the next person but please, this is like reading Slashdot in 1999 which was populated by way too many stoners convinced that the evil corporations were going to get under the tinfoil hats and meddle with their marbles.

It's important that we look at the actual facts not misinformed opinion.

Now I'm going in the shower as I feel a little dirty for defending them 

[PKTKS]

You're talking complete bullshit.

MS's entire portfolio is open and they don't operate shell companies (unlike say Alphabet Corporation). ISVs do but that's different and they aren't related to MSFT. They also opened 60,000 of their patents under OIN unconditionally in 2018 as well.

Well..  is that classic case of the wolf dressed like sheep ...

Their M.O. was *NEVER* ever direct.
They use undisclosed financed shell companies to do that.

These folks do their dirt..
While they pose of being "open" and on the mood of charity ...

A clever but obvious way to do dirt.

The shell patent trollers never undisclosed the portfolio
Almost all cases I have read  settle the fee agreement

Paul

[bd139]

Bollocks.

[nuclearcat]

Bollocks.

https://americansfortaxfairness.org/issues/corporate-taxes/hilights-of-microsofts-tax-dodging/
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-tough-against-microsoft-microsoft-got-tougher

[bd139]

Every American megacorporation does that. I work for a different one which is 10x more nefarious. The whole thing is set up to make sure that is possible.

But that's not even the point that was raised a minute ago... 

[rsjsouza]

The patents argument is old news. A couple of examples:

2007: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/07/05/24/1916203/microsoft-too-busy-to-name-linux-patents
2013: https://www.wired.com/2012/03/ms-patent/

Something newer than five years ago:

https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-calls-truce-in-linux-patent-wars/
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-readies-exfat-patents-for-linux-and-open-source/

(but somehow I imagine this will be glossed over the vitriol)

[nuclearcat]

And this is interesting, how Microsoft tried to put down Linux by proxies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes#Microsoft_funding_of_SCO_controversy

[bsfeechannel]

Can't stop using Windows?

The first step in solving any problem....

Some people have a more radical solution (albeit for the wrong reasons).

https://odysee.com/@neworderwolrdconsp:2/arrest-bill-gates!!!--arresto-a-bill-gates:3

[Karel]

What a pitty they never executed this order:

"Microsoft ordered to split into two companies"

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2000/jun/07/microsoft.business1

[james_s]

What a pitty they never executed this order:

"Microsoft ordered to split into two companies"

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2000/jun/07/microsoft.business1

I wonder how that would look today. Alternate history is always interesting.

[Karel]

What a pitty they never executed this order:

"Microsoft ordered to split into two companies"

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2000/jun/07/microsoft.business1

I wonder how that would look today. Alternate history is always interesting.

I guess LibreOffice would be bundled with windows and ms office would run natively on Linux 

[bd139]

Next office version will run on Linux. They’re already working on it. In fact the next version is a superset of their web applications.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Next office version will run on Linux. They’re already working on it. In fact the next version is a superset of their web applications.

You mean to say they are working on making it backwards incompatible.