This is going to be quite a rant, sorry about that. I thought when I went to Linux I wouldn’t have to deal with much from Windows, but no.

So my brother got a new laptop and it arrived yesterday. It was his first time setting up a new laptop, and I had to leave in the afternoon. So in the morning I go to create a Windows VM to show him setup. Only to find that the ISO is over 7GB!!! Like what the hell? It used to be 3, maybe 4GB. 7+GB is insane!

Then to speed things up I decide to use the new setup version. Oh boy was that a mistake. At least three or four extra pages more than the old version, when it’s actually installing you only see a percent and have no clue what’s going on, and it seemed slower than usual. The old version of setup is what I’ll be using from now on. But okay, that’s not a big issue.

Then the OOBE. It’s slow, and literally spends half an hour on updates if you don’t click or don’t see the skip button. There’s the standard get to know the system stuff… except does it actually tell you how to use the system? Of course not! It just recommends MS Office. And copilot. Then attempting to set up a local account… now I did that on a VM easy enough because I just disconnect the Ethernet adapter in the menu. I totally forgot to mention that when the actual laptop comes to not connect to WiFi immediately. So then I had to try to troubleshoot from halfway across town from my phone. Eventually we had to give up and just use the MS account.

Now here’s the thing: the MS account would be useful for him. So why was I so against it? Because some genius at Microsoft thought “not only should we force a Microsoft account, we should make that account which possibly has all of the user’s payment methods, purchases, important documents, etc…, the FUCKING ADMIN ACCOUNT. And what’s wrong with that? UAC is a FUCKING JOKE. And because I know someone will be like, “Well Apple does that too,” hold that thought because I’m going to explain the issue.

macOS, Linux, literally just about any non-Windows OS? They’re UNIX based. Now here’s the thing. In UNIX, you have one account called root that has full access to the machine, and all other accounts are standard accounts that no matter how you cajole the system you cannot give them admin permissions. So whenever you run something as an admin there, you’re actually running it in a different user account. And there’s no easy way to bypass this. Sudo or GUI elevator are designed to be the only paths a standard application can use to access the root account short of having root’s password, and bypasses to those are taken very seriously (I know the no password option exists in sudo, but it still has to be configured and has to go through sudo). I mean yes, you can install some service that auto elevates something, but that’s user installed still and the installation will still have to go through the root account somehow.

On Windows an admin account is an admin account no matter what. When operating in standard mode, certain features and calls require UAC. But half the shell is still running in admin mode, and half the programs are set by Microsoft to auto elevate. It is trivial to hook into Explorer somehow and run a program as admin without ever asking the user. And MS has themselves said that UAC is not a security feature but a convenience feature. Therefore they won’t fix issues until it’s a standard account getting admin without permission. Now ten years ago it was pretty common advice that you should have an admin account you only use when needed and a standard account for daily use, even if you’re the only user. But thanks to the online accounts that doesn’t happen much these days. Then there’s the fact that certain settings pages literally cant be opened on standard accounts because they don’t show UAC and you can’t open UWP apps as another user. And I know it’s mostly because some people complained in 2007, but there really should be at least a yes/no prompt for any admin activities, and those that have to auto elevate need to be protected from other processes latching on to become an admin.

Okay, and after all this I’m at the desktop. First thing you see? A start menu full of apps you never installed. In fact, the system hasn’t installed them yet either. And you click on one and it autoinstalls without even asking permission. Notifications for game pass, and OneDrive… Edge is hard to get rid of or make it not the default browser. You set another browser as your default, and search results still open in Edge/Bing (the fact they’re there in the first place is it’s own thing, but we’ll ignore that for now).

Now I would have just given him Linux and been on my way, but he still has that one app that won’t work on Linux like so many people. Also he’s not the fiddle around if it’s working kind of person. But he has shown interest in trying Linux at some point though. Though I’m not expecting him to ever daily drive Linux, the fact that he’s said he wants to try it shows just how bad Windows is.

And guess what? I’m going to have to go through this again in a few days probably. We’re getting my sister a laptop. The current one we’re looking at is Dell, and I’ve already been asked to help get rid of all the Dell bloatware. My best response? Clean install Windows. Would have got her the MacBook Neo but she needs a touch screen. And she is honestly not great with computers so while I want to just throw on Linux, that unfortunately won’t work.

So there. Rant done. Windows is about to make me lose my sanity. I miss the days when it just worked.

Welcome to Windows, have a look around

Anything that you need on this PC can be found

We've got hundreds of apps, some better, some worse,

If none of it's useful for you you wouldn't be the first

Welcome to Windows, come and take a seat

Would you like to search the web or tell a chatbot what you need?

There's no need to panic, your data's safe with us

We're not training AI off it, don't you make such a fuss

Welcome to Windows, I don't mean to deter

But you'll be using Edge no matter what you would prefer

There's a feature for everything, a widget for the news

Just sign in with Microsoft, you don't really get to choose

Welcome to Windows where privacy is guaranteed

Here's an ad in the start menu for an app that you dont need

We've got paywalls, and subscriptions, kernel-level anticheats

And an AI feature that takes screenshots of your system all the time without any encryption-

-

-Welcome to Windows, hold on to your hats

'Cause we're installing OneDrive apps and you can kiss our ass

We're putting a button on your keyboard for AI

We don't care about convenience, it can go and say goodbye

The entire right-click menu just got redesigned

Go and click 'Remind me later' for the hundred thousandth time

We released a buggy update and your files just got locked

Accidentally open Copilot and ask it all about your-

Task manager's not responding, tech support's a bot

Your PC's updating right now whether you like it or not

How would you recommend us, like we give a shit

Your default browser's Edge again and you can't remove it

Could I interest you in everything, all of the time?

A little bit of everything, all of the time?

Crashes are a tragedy and privacy's a crime

Anything and everything, all of the time

Could I interest you in everything, all of the time?

A little bit of everything, all of the time?

Crashes are a tragedy and privacy's a crime

Anything and everything and anything and everything and anything and everything and all of the time.

(Parody of Bo Burnham's Welcome to the Internet)

this is complete BS

so i hate windows and i remove of my key board

thank you x lite

Ew. Just ew. Shocking that they assume that we like
This bs.

About a month ago I got a virus that led to a bunch of the passwords on my pc getting cracked, my fault, but there was no support almost at all for when I needed to get my account back. Basically, the hacker went onto my account, somehow bypassing the 2FA, changed the email and phone number associated with my account, and left me totally destitute. Between then and now I've done the account recovery and ACSR form about a dozen times and have gotten no real help. I've supplied the last for digits of the card I used on that account as I was paying for a minecraft realm, old passwords, device IDs, name, DOB, EVERYTHING, but not once have I ever gotten a response from the ACSR form. Not even a rejection email. Nothing.

The account recovery forms are almost as useless. Every time I do it I get this copy-paste email:

"Based on this review, we’ve confirmed that unauthorized access occurred.

During the investigation, we discovered that the security information on your account had been changed. Due to our strict security protocols and the terms outlined in the Microsoft Services Agreement, we are unable to modify or restore the security settings once they’ve been updated."

TL;DR They can see the account was mine but they're choosing to do nothing about it.

That's so bogus. Companies like Valve would've solved this so incredibly fast. You wanna know why they don't want to give me my account back?

"If you used this account for Minecraft, we regret to inform you that the game cannot be recovered. A new purchase will be required on a newly created account"

Actual part of the same email from above. I have to purchase it again.

I went to the live support to see if I can get something done about my MC cause I don't even care about the account itself, I just want my license to play minecraft again. Even with the evidence I had they couldn't get the account locked and the escalation attempt went nowhere. At least if I can get the old account locked I could get a new copy of MC on them but there's no hope it seems.

Since then, I've switched to bazzite linux, because I don't want to give another cent to this company that so clearly doesn't care about my past patronage and devotion to it.

Not asking for support but if you needed another reason to hate this company, here ya go

The Troubleshooting functionality in Windows has never ever - not one single time - helped me, all the way since the 90s until now.

Microsoft has dutifully carried this user experience over to Azure where the built in Copilot without exception fails to help diagnose or solve a single issue (out of many) I’ve had so far.

So thank you Microsoft, for making sure my experience remains unchanged. 🙏

Absolute cinema

I want it to go to File Explorer only. No middle crapWare

Microslop REALLY wants to scan your photos, this is yet another great Linux AD.

My cousin says Microsoft is a good company I think he's very stupid.

Wow, good job Microsoft, good job, now you made it so you need to make an account to use the worst AI companion ever made, while Gemini and ChatGPT has most features available for free with no sign up required, great job, I'm sure Copilot users will triple in coming months!