Setting up a windows VM at my old job took like a few minutes, but I already had virtual box (I think that’s what I used)

And I needed to see some software running in a Windows box while editing the code that talked to it.

if they did that then nobody would use it, and then the shareholders would be sad.

Their loopholes are called “campaign contributions”.

Yes and no. It’s still more a theoretical choice.

If you buy a new computer, you have basically the choice between MacOS and Windows. And if they do not want a Mac or are not able to afford it, the only only Windows.

Sure, you can buy computers with pre-installed Linux, but it’s hard to find.

Now, with Hardware not supporting Windows 11 anymore, more people switch to Linux, but it’s still a small amount. And many people do not know how to install linux. It’s relativ easy these days on older hardware, but if one buys a brand new computer, there are often still problems with hardware that is not yet supported out of the box in Linux.

I think, consumers should have the right of choice for an OS at the moment they buy a computer. There should be the option to have Windows, a Linux distribution or no OS installed.

Office applications (Excel, Powerpoint, PowerBI, Word) is one area where I can’t have any friction at all, since that’s how I get my income. I need the latest version of these applications for desktop, web version does not cut it and Linux emulation seems very spotty unless you are OK with using a much older version of office like 2013/2016.

That just on the Microsoft side, there is also Tableau desktop, some Adobe applications and even open source Windows applications that I rely on that don’t have native Linux versions (Notepad++, Paint.net).

I am planning to buy a new laptop, might be worth trying to switch to Linux on the laptop and experiment with emulated Office solutions (while always having a reliable fallback on desktop).

if you use a vm, you still need a legit copy of windows (lol)

Get Windows 11 ltsc if you insist on using Windows. All that stuff people try to debloat is already not present on the ltsc version, and unlike the consumer version its not a constant battle of updates breaking things or installing yet another new copilot app.

Its probably safer to activate and run windows 11 ltsc after verifying the iso from multiple sources. No need for scripts after that and you don’t have to worry about the next new update forcing copilot into another part of Windows for a long time.

Sure I totally believe them, but I’ll keep blocking data access to Microsoft processes anyway

are being opted in. Slight difference.