Microsoft moving fully to the cloud, does this mean something to us?
Microsoft moving fully to the cloud, does this mean something to us?
It means I’ll continue to happily use Linux.
Literally every single year since I switched (~2007) there has been news of one kind or another in MS-land that has driven home further and further that it was the right thing to do. Meanwhile, Linux has only become better, easier to use, and easier to recommend.
It means Windows is switching to a subscription model. It could be a good thing for some Linux users, if they need Windows for specific applications and don’t want to spin up a VM. O can’t see a reason for using it beyond that, other than being forced to, because Microsoft kills off yoir local Windows and turns your computer for a bootloader for a cloud system, which is itself a bootloader for your browser, for most people. What a terrible world we live in. Zero privacy guaranteed, a subscription model making Windows more profitable (again).
ALSO, good luck stripping down Windows, removing bloatware, ads and telemetry. I GUARANTEE you it will be impossible to remove telemetry on Windows in the Cloud.
However, since most retail hardware is built to target Windows compatibility, it could mean fewer options for hardware that will be easy to install Linux (or any other OS) on.
In fact, I would count on Microsift making their hardware spec intentionally be difficult to load anything “unapproved” on.
they are doing that already with secureboot.
altho i fortunatley haven’t encountered machines yet where you can’t disable it.
That's something I want to do, but I'm afraid of missing something while backing up up my files and losing it in the OS wipe. It's a lousy excuse, I know, but it still stops me. Mostly since I play a lot of games and don't want to lose any save files tucked away somewhere unexpected.
That stuff should all be in C:/Users, but what if its not. And would have to go to each of my installed pieces of software to make sure any of my files are properly backed up which is so much work. Which only reveals another issue that I am terrible at keeping my stuff backed up.
Buy a new hard drive, boot and run off that until you’re comfortable
Linux can run off a thumb drive, and continue to use your windows install drive as storage, losing you nothing at all.
Yeah, but you will get the most basic machine made up of a screen, touchpad, keyboard, basic ARM CPU, wifi and framebuffer. Those will be sold as Windows 365 terminals for a low price. Probably even subsidised and sent free if you subscribe for a year ahead.
I've used what used to be the shadow PC (before OVH got hold of it). That was surprisingly good. Latency often so low I could play FPS, yes not as good as playing local. But still not dying every single round because of it. But it DID need a fair amount of bandwidth to look good (30Mb/s was the point I think quality started to drop).
But in the end I don't want it to succeed, because if it does proper PC hardware will become hobbyist and niche. And we all know hobbyist niche items are expensive!
That sounds like a horrid decision. Imagine having to troubleshoot a relative's computer, which isn't working because their internet is down, or is too slow to support streaming Windows like that.
It just sounds like a nightmare all-round, both from a Microsoft Standpoint, since they would have to build all the hardware to support it, people who would have to troubleshoot an issue that might show up on either the local or networked version of Windows, but not both, and from a security standpoint, since it seems like it would make it a lot easier to just hijack the whole computer using that kind of mechanism, with the user being none the wiser, for the most part.
Guaranteed this is so they can run even more malicious proprietary software because client side malware scanners are a blocker for “progress”
And in the peak of all irony, they will likely have Linux running the client to stream in all the proprietary dogshit
My take on this Cloud-First-Windows vision that was leaked from a Microsoft presentation with very little details and just a lot of speculation:
If it actually happens, it will be more similar to a Chromebook, they will provide, likely an ARM based, low specs device with a basic Windows install that perhaps only has the cloud-connector (probably RDP based), One Drive to sync files, and Edge with extensions to run Office365 in offline mode.
Apps would just be either web-wrapper based apps, or RDP Apps, or you could just deploy your cloud desktop to do some work that requires more power.
I also think they would still provide an x86_64 based Windows for more powerful PCs for content creators and gamers.
made a switch to linux recently due win11 changing privacy settings with updates and installing tiktok icons. i paid good moeny for this hardware, fuck off satya microsft
steam on linux supports everything i play but CoD and new BF so not a big loss imho