“You will own nothing, and you will like it.”
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Ignore brainwashed people man
Microsoft has recently announced Windows Copilot, an AI-powered assistant for Windows 11. Windows Copilot sits at the side of Windows 11, and can summarize content you’re viewing in apps, rewrite it, or even explain it. Microsoft is currently testing this internally and promised to release it to testers in June before rolling it out more broadly to Windows 11 users.
Oh my God, they’re bringing back clippy.
That means a whole new market of NFT Clippy Skins can be established.
That fixes the main problem with Clippy, which was not using a blockchain.
“It looks like you’re trying to defraud people. Would you like help with that?”
If it’s GPT4 though I might sell my soul for that kind of automation integrated into my PC…
Don’t worry, you will.
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That’s a big nope for me.
Internet goes out? I can still do some amount of work, now I need power and internet to both work to do any work at all.
Not a fan of this and I will not embrace it.
I guess that means more people switching to linux, assuming they eventually 100% phase out non-cloud. Not even because “cloud bad” - there will be some of that, but because of the sheer number of people who don’t pay for windows, not paying for it isn’t an option if they control it completely.
Yup, that’d also be the case for people like me who stick with Windows for gaming compatibility/convenience reasons and critical GPU features the Linux drivers just don’t implement (looking at you, DLDSR). That, or just anyone with a GPU, I suppose, assuming the hardware market would look remotely like it does nowadays by then.
There’s definitely going to be a push for cloud gaming / cloud GPU + VDI, and with GPU pricing going the way nvidia is doing right now isn’t going to help prevent adoption of that.
Will this actually be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, or will everyone just continue to say “but I can only do this on a PC” and not even attempt to look at Linux or MacOS as an alternative.
My moneys on the latter. People have been complaining about anti-consumer practices from Microsoft since Windows 7, but it always ends the same way. Microsoft has most of the world by the balls and they know they can squeeze tighter and tighter and not lose 99% of their customers.
Didn’t read the article.
The idea of online only software irritates me. Of course multiplayer games have to work this way. When blizzard and Ubisoft started requiring an active connection for single player games that was just going too far.
Can you imagine sitting at your computer, doing literally anything. The screen goes strait to blue with the windows shutting down screen saying, “Internet disrupted, please contact your provider for support”.
Or trying to do any work on the go? This whole idea is just idiotic to me.
They will have to continue to offer some kind of offline option it seems, for people with flaky internet connections.
Never mind flaky internet, what about people that do events?
Things like PowerPoint presentation machines, VJ systems, video servers (for massive multiscreen playback).
You can’t go into a field for a festival and expect reliable internet.
You can’t go into a theatre and expect reliable internet, especially when 3k+ people turn up.
There are a few systems that run OSX, but Apple’s hardware doesn’t give you as much control as something like an Nvidia Quadro with sync cards. 99% of the big shows will be ran from Windows OSApple can barely figure out how to get a picture out of their own hardware. Monitor support is surprisingly an afterthought in a graphical operating system often used by artists. I shouldn’t need to download scripts from GitHub to change my RGB monitor to run in RGB mode. With such an expensive computer, I should be able to connect multiple monitors at the same time like I can on much cheaper computers.
I guess even a chromebook has some sort of offline apps and storage.
and I want to move fully off of windows, what a coincidence.
The situation has never been better for comfortably abandoning Windows. Come to Linux, we have penguins
tbh, windows user since the 90s, tried *nix desktops since the early 00s every few years. Used to have a thing where I would force myself to use it for 6 months and it would fail again and again.
In the last year, ive been using ubuntu (which i know isint the best desktop to use even) as a dev system on some of my work. Unlike in the past I am no longer finding an unreasonable delta between the user expectations in linux vs windows systems. I need to drop to a cli for both with ~ the same propensity once I do anything advanced. Not having a registry is a blessing I never thought I would be able to have in a rich visual system.
Long time .NET / Azure dev - moving to linux. After all, what do you think remote windows will run under-the-covers?
That’s a pretty similar story to mine. Used Linux pretty exclusively over a decade ago, then switched back for my gaming PC. Now that I’m back on Linux though, I don’t see any reason to use windows on anything but my company PC, Linux is just better IMO now.
Azure Linux with a strong Wine hahahahaha
pretty much, though my understanding is they ended up making thier own “wine” that leverages hyper-v. Seems like they are still banking on thier own hypervisor. Can’t say I blame them. no way MS hands thier ops to VMWare.
EDIT: Honestly, I would expect NT4 based windows to be sunset within a decade in place of a linux kernel version that has a window manager developed in microsoft’s signature style. A large number of newer UWP apps will port relatively easily if already written on .NET core and microsoft has indicated they are starting to think more like apple when it comes to some levels of compatibility.
As another dev here, I have barely used a PC/laptop outside of work in years. I got a gaming PC like 2 years back and don’t use it much. But every time I get the hankering for some personal dev project and have to mess with the registry I cry inside. I really need to just ditch it for Linux entirely. I’m so much more comfortable on Linux. You might just convince me to bite the bullet and remove it entirely since 90% of my gaming is on steamdeck anyway.
Since WSL2 and terminal preview I have spent more time doing “nix things” than windows things anyway, I even do a lot of windows file management through ubuntu since the Linux tools are more expressive.
Much of my day is web browser, cli and VSCode. The desktops are capable, at this point its more about getting used to a different set of keyboard shortcuts, my next build out will be a linux system for sure.
No thank you.
Also I bet instead of a one-time license you can have the privilege of paying $9.99 a month forever or lose access to all your files. And possibly requiring an internet connection to use your desktop computer?
Okay but what happens if you don’t have a good net connection like at the coffee shop or airports? I swear sometimes people are clueless and just assume you always have good internet when that’s not often the case!
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Are we doing the nobody reads the article thing here too? This isn’t a replacement for Windows as an operating system, it’s a cloud based version of the OS being sold to consumers. They’re trying to compete with inexpensive Chromebooks, not take away your PC.
As an occasional sys admin, they’ve had stuff like this for enterprise forever, it’s just self hosted. This is about as surprising as the sun coming up, they’ve been moving lots of their enterprise tech to consumer subscriptions.
Why would I read the article? I don’t want to know the details. I want to be outraged.
I did, but it sounds like what the headlines implied to me
Microsoft has been increasingly moving Windows to the cloud on the commercial side with Windows 365, but the software giant also wants to do the same for consumers.
The idea of moving Windows fully to the cloud for consumers is also presented alongside Microsoft’s need to invest in custom silicon partnerships.
Yeah, it is fair to say it’s just an alternative option to a non cloud based OS, but some people are extrapolating based on Microsoft moves the past few years with the subscription model they’ve pushed for Office and OS coming with office versions that require you to sign in to an account to use.
And versions of Windows that don’t come with pre-installed ad apps like Facebook or Candy Crush aren’t commercially available.
Ya I’d be fully Linux after that. Still too many benefits of having your own hardware.
Google tried that.
Anyway, I’ll stick with Linux.
With Chromebooks? ChromeOS is a pretty solid Linux distro if you’d ask me. It is built around cloud-sync and Google Drive, but otherwise perfectly fine to use offline. Even Steam is supported nowadays
The best thing I ever did with that one used Chromebook I bought was install Gallium OS on it. I ended up with a fully functioning laptop that was able to fulfill my mobile computing needs for $50. It’s a shame Gallium got discontinued. ChromeOS was very primitive and restrictive when I tried it 5 or 6 years ago, but you say they even support Steam now, so apparently they’ve made some improvements. Still wouldn’t want to use it over a Linux distro like Gallium that would let me have full control of the device, though.
In case anyone reading this is interesting in alternatives to ChromeOS, more info can be found here: https://mrchromebox.tech/#alt_os
Well of course they do. They want to turn an every-few-years OS purchase into a monthly subscription fee, like they did with O365. And eventually they’ll drop the ability to install apps except through their store (under the guise of providing “safety” from malicious apps), so that they can collect a commission on the third party software sales market as well.
The share holders they need more!!!
lets eat the shareholders
It’s depressing to see. Unfortunately I’m heavily invested in music software which is not available on Linux. If Microsoft actually does this it could get to the point where even a switch to Apple seems better. But Linux is the only satisfactory and viable solution for actually having control of your machine.
WINE and similar tools have gotten really good in the past few years. Valve’s Proton compatibility layer is good too, despite being designed for gaming many people are using it to run software which WINE itself struggles with.
It could very well be possible to run your music software with minimal tinkering.
As someone who works in cloud services/ops and has to deal with Microsoft partner relations almost daily, good luck with that.
Haha that will be the year of the Linux desktop, in many ways
That was two years ago for me. Always happy to see articles like this.
How is this supposed to work in countries that have bandwidth caps, or slow internet connections?
It seems like every company these days wants to move everything to the cloud, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. While something like this makes sense in some instances (like kiosks or similar maybe?) for the vast majority of use cases this is a non-starter.
When I had a laptop, it’s wasn’t always connected to the internet and it certainly did not have a mobile internet connection - nor would I pay for another one when I have a perfectly good one in the form of my phone.
Most of the time, believe it or not I didn’t need an internet connection - half the time I was sitting at a park or a restaurant and playing singleplayer games or writing code.
I never connected to the restaurants free wifi, as I have trust issues with it. And I used a cable to hotspot when necessary. (Either that or i use the browser in my phone, mainly for stack overflow purposes)
If this happens, and windows goes Cloud ONLY - it would necessitate an always on and active internet connection.
God forbid if you decide to move out of signal range with it - let’s say, watch a movie on the laptop while camping in the outback. On top of that, what if your internet goes down - ISPs can and have been a-holes in the past, and this isn’t going to stop them in the future.
I have to wonder why anyone on earth would go for this? It’s inherently limiting, despite all the AI gimmicks they are touting.
I for one and not switching back to windows any time soon - I mean I wasn’t anyway, but I’m definitely not now.
On the other hand, this makes sense, why else would they release a sub par ARM chip in a surface pro 9 for the only 5G model? I always thought that decision made no sense. Now it makes perfect sense.
I live in a third world country. There is no way that this takes off here. Windows will just have to abandoned this country. But maybe they will as there is not a lot of money here. People will often buy laptops second hand at the market and the sellers load it with pirate content or can do it if they are asked. The only people really paying for Microsoft products here are the big corporations and foreigners, like myself, who are working here.
Additionally, most people just use their phones as a hotspot for data while at home. That is good enough for streaming and basic stuff. No one is going to get a fiber connection and pay a microsoft subscription. I honestly do not see this working here and I expect Microsoft will have to pull out or continue to offer offline options.
