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How to Build a Better Suburb: YIMBY Lessons from Disney, Houten, Japan, Carmel

https://www.governance.fyi/p/main-street-usa-suburban-yimbyism
1•toomuchtodo•1m ago•0 comments

Seeing Like a Software Company

https://www.seangoedecke.com/seeing-like-a-software-company/
1•praptak•1m ago•0 comments

Microsoft clamping down on Windows 11 local account setup

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/microsoft-clamping-down-on-windows-11-local-account...
2•layer8•4m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Sweep, AI autocomplete for JetBrains that rewrites code

https://sweep.dev
1•williamzeng0•4m ago•0 comments

Sol Lewitt and Vibe Coding

https://lewitt.rob.computer
1•benzguo•5m ago•0 comments

Mylinux Made by Me

1•Mylinux-os•6m ago•0 comments

BigBang-Proton, Next-Word-Prediction Is Scientific Multitask Learner

https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.00129
2•SSymTech•6m ago•1 comments

The drone strategy that helped Ukraine turn the tables on Russia

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/10/ukraine-russia-drone-war-attrition/684419/
2•FinnLobsien•6m ago•0 comments

I open-sourced a ~200k word English dictionary

https://github.com/freetalk-fun/freetalk-dictionary-v1
1•erondpowell•8m ago•2 comments

Show HN: Arc – high-throughput time-series warehouse with DuckDB analytics

https://github.com/Basekick-Labs/arc
1•ignaciovdk•10m ago•0 comments

FCC kicks off 'Space Month' with vow to fast-track satellite licensing

https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/07/fcc_satellite_licensing/
1•rntn•10m ago•0 comments

'What Does a Scanner See?' – Keanu Monologue in a Scanner Darkly vs. PKD Book

https://firasd.substack.com/p/what-does-a-scanner-see-keanu-reeeves-scanner-darkly
2•firasd•10m ago•0 comments

Cache-Friendly B+Tree Nodes with Dynamic Fanout

https://jacobsherin.com/posts/2025-08-18-bplustree-struct-hack/
2•jasim•11m ago•0 comments

What past education tech failures can teach us about the future of AI in schools

https://theconversation.com/what-past-education-technology-failures-can-teach-us-about-the-future...
1•onychomys•11m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Contract Extraction Assistant – Local, open-source contract data tool

https://github.com/Qleric-labs/contract-extraction-assistant
1•Mo1756•11m ago•0 comments

Kicked from RubyGems, maintainers forge new home at Gem Cooperative

https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/06/gem_cooperative/
1•fork-bomber•12m ago•0 comments

Some observations concerning large programming efforts (1964)

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1464122.1464146
1•PaulHoule•15m ago•0 comments

Going Phoneless

https://messyprogress.substack.com/p/going-phoneless
1•robotelvis•15m ago•2 comments

Ask HN: Career Burnout Looking for Options

1•ultrasounder•17m ago•1 comments

Arduino "retains its brand and mission" following acquisition by Qualcomm

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/10/arduino-retains-its-brand-and-mission-following-acquisiti...
2•anfilt•17m ago•0 comments

Show HN: netq – A script to fetch common network parameters, written in POSIX sh

https://github.com/pvonmoradi/netq
2•pooyamo•18m ago•0 comments

What People Miss About OpenAI Canvas

https://rashidazarang.com/c/what-people-miss-about-canvas
1•rashidae•23m ago•1 comments

Contract Concerns [pdf]

https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2025/p3573r0.pdf
1•gemstones•24m ago•1 comments

Show HN: We trained an MoE LLM built for developer tasks

https://interfaze.ai/blog/intefaze-beta-v1
3•ykjs•24m ago•0 comments

How to build tools that shape civilizations (Alan Kay and Ivan Zhao) [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M6_aoTEtBQ
4•justin66•25m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Just Schedule Me – Instantly add events to your calendar

https://justschedule.me
1•kilroy123•26m ago•0 comments

Steamed Hams but It's a Critically Acclaimed Feature Film [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk-Oq8iYtVA
2•brandrick•27m ago•0 comments

A Systematic Analysis of Information Leakage in Preprint Archives Using LLMs

https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03761
1•bikenaga•28m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Kalendis – Scheduling API (keep your UI, we handle timezones/DST)

https://kalendis.dev
3•dcabal25mh•30m ago•0 comments

Police Said They Surveilled Woman Who Had an Abortion for Her 'Safety.'

https://www.404media.co/police-said-they-surveilled-woman-who-had-an-abortion-for-her-safety-cour...
21•locopati•31m ago•2 comments
Open in hackernews

No account? No Windows 11, Microsoft says as another loophole snaps shut

https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/07/windows_11_local_account_loophole/
178•Bender•2h ago

Comments

imglorp•1h ago
Notice all the potential revenue operations for Windows: exfil your data, show you ads, sell your data, sell you cloud services. All these things require you to have an identity. Windows is not the product any more.
paxys•1h ago
Considering they are selling it for $140 it is very much the product.
dijit•56m ago
sure and premium games that cost $90 don’t have any micro transactions in them.

Unfortunately, many MBAs will see it as leaving money on the table.

So yes, the product might cost some money, but that doesn’t mean it’s meeting financial targets, since they grow year on year.. but PCs as a market are not growing at the same rate.

npteljes•1h ago
Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45497384
neogodless•54m ago
Expanded:

Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account (theverge.com)

509 points 16 hours ago 727 comments

tombert•1h ago
I doubt it’s going to happen, but a part of me prays that people will eventually get sick Microsoft’s increasing bullshit and it really can become the Year of the Linux Desktop. Gnome has genuinely gotten pretty great in the last couple years, and I think a lot of former Windows would genuinely like it if they gave it a chance, and virtually any Linux you install will have less tracking bullshit than Windows.

I suspect, though, people will realistically just migrate to Chromebooks, which I suppose are “Linux”, but not what I would consider the “Linux Desktop”

rpodraza•1h ago
I would honestly do so, but if I want to run games and music production stuff (like Cubase) I'm pretty much forced to be on Windows.
tombert•1h ago
I don’t play much AAA stuff, but Steam+Proton has gotten very good; I almost never even bother checking compatibility anymore.

I don’t know anything about music production though.

dleslie•1h ago
The snags arise when playing games that use specific anti-cheat measures. Which is particularly annoying these days because developers are forcing them to be active when you're playing single player.

https://areweanticheatyet.com/

sph•1h ago
Yes, but it's the usual suspects. If you literally do not play those, admittedly very popular 5 or 6 games, it's a smooth sailing.

There's an entire world outside of AAA FPS games-as-a-service that require kernel-level anticheat.

SV_BubbleTime•24m ago
The shortsightedness of this comment makes me think that there are hundreds of comments, exactly like yours that talked about dedicated GPU’s or direct X or any other technology that was dismissed as Dan don’t worry it’s only the big guys using it.

Do you know how valve used to make games and now it makes money? What happens when EA comes up with an amazing amazingly effective and cheap anti-cheat solution? And they offer it effectively for free to all indie developers, and it just works?

I don’t care, because I switched over to console for effectively this and other reasons. But Colonel level anti-sheet absolutely must be rejected.

sph•11m ago
I'm not sure what you're saying here, and why you're criticising my comment as short-sighted. The hegemony of Valve isn't eternal? What's that got to do with gaming on Linux today?
bitwize•15m ago
Microsoft will eventually be able to build attestation services into the kernel that will allow third-party software assurance that no unauthorized software is also running on the same machine, obviating the need for third-party kernel-level anticheat. For security, of course.
tombert•1h ago
Yeah, I don’t really play any multiplayer games outside of Minecraft and OG Doom on my own server, so it’s never been an issue for me but I realize I am a weird case.

Always-online single-player is supremely bullshit though.

hyghjiyhu•1h ago
> are we anti cheat yet

While anti cheats have obvious benefits and are a dealbreaker for some, be careful what you wish for. It's a slippery slope. One chess streamer famously had to set up multiple cameras pointing at him from different angles to combat cheating accusations.

Eggpants•54m ago
The whole windows game mod scene shows just how much of a toy operating system windows is. Game mods are changing memory values on the fly on running programs and the OS allows it. These mods can just as easily read/modify Excel spreadsheets to get business health data. This is why corporate windows machines lock everything down. Crazy.

Originally anti-cheat was to detect the running of the mods but of course now are phoning home every thing you are doing on your computer.

When the next window image manager claims windows is secure ask them to turn off the virus scanner. They will look at you like your nuts.

wing-_-nuts•51m ago
And mods. Yes there are work arounds to get various mod managers working on linux, but they're honestly jank. Also any mods that are windows executables (version downgraders, engine optimizers, etc) don't work, even trying to run them through wine / proton.

So now my annoyance at windows does battle with my love of mods. I know the nexus folks are working on a new cross platform mod manager, but they have yet to support bethesda games (I suspect for some of the same reasons I had issues).

BirAdam•1h ago
What music stuff I've tested worked on Linux, but I am also not a very demanding user in that regard.

EDIT: by Linux, I mean Linux+Proton

cortesoft•1h ago
I play a lot of sports games and they rarely work with Linux. A ton of my other multiplayer games I play also don’t work. Anti-cheat stuff often requires Windows.
tombert•1h ago
That’s fair. I do wonder if Valve has a plan to fix this at some point in the future for their Steam Decks.
delecti•1h ago
This is kinda on the game developer. There are anti-cheat systems which work fine on Steam Deck already, as long as the developer checks the box to allow it (as I understand it, it is just about that simple for EAC, one of the bigger anti-cheat options). But if the dev doesn't care, or actively doesn't want to support Linux like in the case of Epic, then Valve can't really patch around that.
cortesoft•23m ago
Sadly, there is a fundamental incompatibility between successful anti-cheat systems and Linux, mainly that the user is fully in charge of their computer. Anti-cheats work by ensuring certain modifications aren’t made to the system the game is running on, and this relies on the operating system being trusted by the anti-cheat software. With Linux, a user is in full control and can just tell the kernel to lie to the anti-cheat system, completely bypassing it. In windows, there are things the user is not in control of and the anti cheat can be sure are correct.

Until anti cheat design changes entirely (and it may not be fully possible), the freedom and control Linux provides simply doesn’t work with them.

SV_BubbleTime•22m ago
I would assume the most likely solution would be that the game can only run in its own highly specialized virtual environment with its own suite of checks and memory verification.

You know, design better games.

Night_Thastus•1h ago
I'm keeping my eyes peeled. Proton has made a LOT of progress, and most of what I do could be done on Linux these days. I think things are moving foward.
sph•1h ago
Proton and flatpak. The latter still has a lot of issues, but I recently come across a $200+ piece of commercial software (Bitwig Studio) that distributes as a flatpak, and it works great. And so is 99% of the desktop apps I'm using, Steam included.

Flathub is the best app store around. Can't wait until they allow selling paid apps (they had a few contractors working on it last I checked)

Feels good to be on Linux, man.

tombert•1h ago
I don’t do anything with audio more advanced than what FFmpeg can handle, but I do edit video on occasion and I think Lightworks on Linux is actually pretty solid.
kwanbix•1h ago
I would love for it to happen. I really like my Mint/XFCE install, but more people migrating to Linux should probably mean better support from hardware and software.
dax_•1h ago
With Windows 10 going out of support soon, I suspect there will be an increase in Linux adoption. After all, why throw out perfectly good hardware because of an arbitrary rule that Microsoft made? For me, I know that I'll install Linux for some relatives.
noirscape•1h ago
I think people will sooner just start hard breaking Windows ISOs just to get rid of MS's garbage (arguably already the case if you use Rufus, which customizes the OOBE setup to already reject checks and tracking if you tick the boxes. They also have a checkbox to iirc disable the TPM check that's killing a lot of older device support because there's nothing in W11 that actually relies on a TPM, it's just an artificial restriction from Microsoft to kill old hardware), which will just lead to people doing what they've already been doing with Microsoft's stuff: pass it around like arcane knowledge that becomes increasingly difficult to find as it gets ingested by dodgy spam sites to the point where you're entering registry keys that either fix your problem or send everything to a third party.

Microsoft is a level of entrenched that Linux practically won't be able to beat for reasons that have little to do with technical viability and everything to do with legacy tools, having software that works with business formats (Office; any other office equivalent on Linux will still have compat issues and as long as those exist, they won't be a valid replacement - for much the same reason, although not fully locked to their platform, Adobe is a permanent barrier to Linux adoption) and video game DRM on popular titles keeping them basically in that position forever.

time0ut•1h ago
I have been a Linux desktop user for 20+ years. It is incredible how far it has come. There is nothing Microsoft can do that will drive the normies away though. Microsoft knows this and that is why we are where we are.
tombert•1h ago
> It is incredible how far it has come

No argument on my end.

I have been running Linux since 2011, and so much more stuff is in the “Just Works” category, especially if you have AMD graphics. When I installed NixOS on my Thinkpad about a year ago, it was almost comical how easy it was for me; I had gotten used to having to waste an entire day messing with drivers and fixing issues in 2012-2015, so it felt kind of weird for stuff to work as expected immediately.

I am trying very hard to get my parents to use something like Linux Mint because the Windows 11 auto-update on my mom’s computer actually prevented it from booting (making me waste an entire remotely having them flash a live USB so I could rsync over her files to me…thanks MS!), so this might be enough of a final straw for them.

catapart•1h ago
FWIW: I'm moving from my current win10 desktop to linux of some kind. I've been running mint on my laptop, in preparation, and I think I'm pretty comfortable with it (really hoping that the slowness that builds up over time has something to do with old laptop components, rather than the OS).

For me, it's always been the local account and network services. So long as I can run the thing with only a monitor and keyboard, I'm happy. The second I am required to have a net connection, or even a mouse, I will be looking for alternatives. It's 100% that simple.

bobajeff•1h ago
About Gnome (Shell). I disagree it looks very pretty but the UX a huge step backwards from Gnome 2. Users are better off with KDE, XFCE or Mate.
tombert•1h ago
Everyone says that it’s a step backwards, and even I did for awhile until I, you know, actually used it.

I don’t mean “install it and run it for an hour and declare it sucks”, but actually try and learn the way that the devs wanted you to use it, and stick with it for a week or two. When I did that, I actually found myself really liking it.

One of my biggest pet peeves in tech, and I am guilty of this myself, is when people make no effort to actually understand a product, and then declare it as “worse”. I feel like Gnome 3 was a victim of this; it was different than Gnome 2, different enough to where it arguably should have had a different name, but people just universally declared it as shit because it wasn’t exactly the same as Gnome 2.

Regardless, my overall point stands, replace desktop environment with any of the ones listed (though TBH I never have given KDE a fair shake so I can’t speak to it).

kwanbix•33m ago
I tried many times to use Gnome3+ and I never understand the logic behind it.
WD-42•30m ago
Agreed. Gnome shell is actually super keyboard driven. But the KDE folks point out the fact that there isn’t a start menu to click and declare it bad UX. It’s just sad.
wing-_-nuts•55m ago
I installed linux mint xfce edition on a laptop with only 8 gb of ram, and while there were a few hiccups where I had to adjust, it's a breath of fresh air. Super low memory usage, no wayland nonsense, it. just. works.
kwanbix•34m ago
Yeah, for me XFCE > Cinnamon > Budgie > KDE.
k3nx•1h ago
It was enough to get me to try Linux again, and it was pretty eye opening for me. My work laptop is a $3,200 USD Dell 5570 from 2023. I bought a Beelink SER5 on amazon on discount because it was an older model around $300. I installed Ubuntu on the SER5. I've used gentoo and other distros, I wanted to use the computer, not configure it, that's why I went with Ubuntu. That little Beelink box runs circles over the Dell, it's embarrassing. Granted, the Dell has a bunch of corporate stuff that kills the performance, but I'm just happier using the Linux box. Luckily JetBrains tools, VSCode, Obsidian work just fine, which is what I use it for most of the time. I did install a steam game for giggles and it works. Like Dr. Seuss says in Green Eggs and Ham "Try them! Try them! And you may. Try them and you may, I say." I still have a Windows tower though...
BizarroLand•20m ago
If you have the space on your main drive you could probably shrink the partition a few hundred gigs and dual boot linux on it.

Swap over whenever you need something on Windows, easy peasy.

olivierestsage•58m ago
I made the move two years ago and it's going great. Currently running Debian 13. Gaming was the last thing for me but in my case, that's no longer an issue thanks to the Steam Deck.
otikik•52m ago
I used to have Windows just for gaming. I tried Bazzite on the new PC that I bought. It works so well. I don't need a toy SO for my games any more.
prerok•49m ago
To be honest, I think KDE is a better alternative to transition to from Windows.

Maybe it's just personal preference but I could also never really get the hang of Gnome.

jasode•43m ago
>I doubt it’s going to happen, but a part of me prays that people will eventually get sick Microsoft’s increasing bullshit and it really can become the Year of the Linux Desktop. [...] I suspect, though, people will realistically just migrate to Chromebooks,

Most people will stay on Windows... even with all the increasing annoyances from Microsoft... because there's too much important software that runs only on Windows.

And workarounds such as Linux Wine emulator or QEMU virtual machines are still not enough because lots of Windows software won't run in those environments for various compatibility reasons.

E.g. I can't migrate a friend to Linux because her embroidery software for her sewing machine has a USB hardware dongle for DRM. It doesn't work by passing it through as a USB device to a "Windows virtual machine" under Linux.

Other examples are Adobe Photoshop, CAD software like SolidWorks, etc. Too much inertia out there with Windows-only software.

If one does everything in a web browser (e.g. Google Sheets, Google Docs, etc), that's the type of usage profile where switching to Linux desktop is an easy no-brainer.

mr_machine•33m ago
Ink/Stitch (https://inkstitch.org/) is a F/OSS option for a lot of embroidery machines... maybe not hers, but worth a look.
mholm•7m ago
I've been using Ink/Stitch for awhile, and it has an extraordinarily steep learning curve compared to manufacturer specific software. Most of the information you need to run it safely without getting tangles or breaking needles is not published by sewing machine vendors, and you have to trial+error it with ink/stitch. You can get there eventually, but it'll take a lot of frustration.
lukeschlather•29m ago
> If one does everything in a web browser (e.g. Google Sheets, Google Docs, etc), that's the type of usage profile where switching to Linux desktop is an easy no-brainer.

Some streaming services don't work on Linux, the ones that do have degraded video quality, and it generally feels like streaming services are deliberately trying to break the Linux experience because it's associated with piracy.

jasonjayr•27m ago
> embroidery software for her sewing machine has a USB hardware dongle for DRM

While I don't have any sort of built up library of work or experience with a specific propriatary software, consider reccomending Inkscape + the Ink/Stitch extension to do embroidery designs.

I bought a Husqvarna Designer Jade, and the included windows-only software was a 'Lite' version, with an upsell for more advanced features (and pricing that was an additional 25-50% of the embroidery machine itself!), and I suspect a hardware dongle since I spotted references to it. I've been able to get by Ink/Stitch for the simple hobbyist jobs we've needed to do. The machine's USB port just expects a usb storage device, and the ink/stitch software can write the .vp3 files it needed to run a job.

free_bip•19m ago
I disagree with the reasoning "Because there's too much important software that runs only on windows."

My disagreement isn't because wine or proton exist, it's because most people only use a web browser. They check their email, watch tiktok and netflix, and write documents. 90% of people would have all their computing needs met by a basic chromebook.

thewebguyd•40m ago
I think we'll see a small uptick in Linux desktop usage, but nothing massive. Gamers are one of the biggest windows holdouts, and Linux is much better for that now (outside of kernel-level anti-cheat games, which we should be pushing back on anyway even on Windows - no game should require that level of rootkit to play).

More likely though, it's going to be "Eh, do I really need a laptop?" and we'll see even more people than we do already just using their phones and maybe an iPad.

I already see it with the non-tech employees at my work. Very few even have laptops at home. They have an iPad, maybe, a gaming console, and their phone. Sooo many people do almost all of their computing from their phones now.

dartharva•39m ago
Windows dominates the market because it dominates the enterprise segment. Enterprises demand accountability and servicing, things that philanthropic community projects that are mainstream Linux distros cannot provide, at least at the scale that Microsoft does.
Exoristos•22m ago
As someone who's used Linux on the desktop (mostly Ubuntu) daily for about 15 years, I still couldn't conscientiously recommend it except to tech hobbyists or for limited use cases. It's shinier than ever but still a mess.
SuperHeavy256•19m ago
> it really can become the Year of the Linux Desktop. Gnome has genuinely gotten pretty great in the last couple years, and I think a lot of former Windows would genuinely like it if they gave it a chance

This comment could have been written at any point in the past 20 years.

bitwize•18m ago
The future of desktop Linux is in a Windows-hosted VM, and some configurations (Home) might not allow even that.

We're a few years out from machines that, by law, cannot run an alternative OS on bare metal. As it is, Linux only runs on bare metal because Microsoft, the sole Secure Boot key authority for almost all OEMs, deigns to allow it.

y-c-o-m-b•18m ago
I so badly want to jump ship entirely, but there's several things holding me back. I do music production as a hobby and Ableton Live doesn't play nice with Linux. In fact it seems anything that is resource intensive without native linux support has some issues. I'm also an MS stack developer, so things like Visual Studio Pro aren't available (although I've been using Cursor IDE more and more these days). Lastly I have some games acquired through "the high seas" in which a work-around doesn't exist for compatibility.
timtom123•7m ago
Might happen. I told my entire family I would not support their windows installs past 10 and 11 is full of spyware. Half bought a mac and half opted to install Linux. IF all you want to do is a browser. Linux is honestly very easy to use.
ZeroConcerns•1h ago
So, yeah, this whole thing is a bit silly, and also discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45497384 (and possibly elsewhere).

My TL;DR: a. Get a Microsoft 365 subscription, so you can set up Entra ID and avoid the 'consumer' account nonsense; b. It would sure be nice if the EU DMA would also be applied to this obviously monopolistic situation; c. Do, however, note that there are exactly zero Linux distros that even come close to offering comparable functionality...

fph•1h ago
Comparable to what? To Windows 11?
ZeroConcerns•32m ago
Yeah, sure. I'm getting heavily downvoted here, and that's fine, but truth of the matter is that nothing gets even close to Windows 11 when it comes to Enterprise-ish deployments, and failure to acknowledge that is why possibly-better alternatives are losing.

Source: I'm sort-of the IT manager for several around-50-employees businesses. All of these offer a choice of Windows, Mac or Linux laptops, because that's what needed to attract quality employees these days.

For Windows, it's really simple. Order HP or Lenovo without an OS, put on the Windows 11 Enterprise image, and send it on along with the Entra credentials. User powers the machine up, selects 'for work', enters the AD credentials and gets a working desktop with AV, firewalling, Office and so on.

MacOS? Slightly more involved story: we need to provide instructions on how to successfully navigate the forced Apple sign-in story, then download some dependencies to get to the point where the Windows users already were.

Linux? Oh, boy... Even when standardizing on something like Ubuntu LTS, basic compliance and policy enforcement is a huge pain. As in: hours and hours of support. I've evaluated several supposedly-solutions for this, and, ehm, no...

And: to be perfectly clear: I'm wide-open to suggestions for something better! If you can offer Ubuntu LTS, (or, well, anything) but with AV, firewalling and basic policy enforcement that can be remotely attested, I'm all ears!

BizarroLand•11m ago
We are not talking about enterprise.

We're talking about individual users, people who buy a computer for their kids or for themselves.

Fancy hosted domain and entra setups and enterprise activations are not relevant to this discussion.

jonathanstrange•1h ago
I don't care about a Microsoft account as long as they don't force me to log in, remember some kind of password,or use some Microsoft email. If they locked me out of my machine or transmitted data to their servers violating the GDPR, then that would be a problem. Windows 11 is a paid product, it's quite expensive, and that alone means Microsoft is fully liable for damages from negligence and failure.
hobs•1h ago
Check the shrink wrap - in most localities you are leasing a license for which they tell you that you accept all liability and failure upon yourself.
BirAdam•1h ago
There should be some kind of requirement to prominently state that a purchase does not imply ownership of any kind, right on the "box." The entire thing is quite deceptive. I am not singling out Microsoft here. Apple's AppStore and other digital purchasing methods are the same.
hobs•19m ago
In my opinion anything like this is just failing to address the real problem, which can only be addressed by legislation. Having someone put a label that says "this is poison" on it does not improve the consumer situation when your choices are between different flavors of poison.
ChrisArchitect•1h ago
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45497384
josefritzishere•1h ago
Microsoft is so hostile to their users, it's genuinely surprising they maintain market share.
pavel_lishin•1h ago
I would imagine that their home users are a tiny percentage of their market share; I'd wager that most people using Windows aren't the ones who purchased it, but are using company-provided hardware and software.
gethly•1h ago
Microsoft will become the Nokia of operating systems. Nothing lasts for ever.
Krssst•1h ago
Compatibility.

Anticheats makes multiplayer games hard to run on Linux (still sad that Apex walked back on Linux), and hardware may have sometime random issues on Linux (for some reason my mic was not working well on Discord (did not investigate, suspecting something on the software side since I could hear myself well when testing but my friends couldn't); I cannot use multiple screens with my current video card without my text editor dropping to 10FPS for some reason).

Plus Microsoft Office for people that prefer the ribbon over menus (but the browser version probably works well enough).

Though I feel that sleep is more reliable on Linux than on Windows today with "modern" sleep.

pixl97•1h ago
What are the users choices?

Mac is an option, but Apple is plenty hostile to their users, and you're tied to their hardware.

Linux is an option, but good luck getting that business software you absolutely need that only runs on windows working.

Running everything online in a SaaS is an option, but at the end of the day those services aren't generally any less hostile than MS.

dartharva•34m ago
It's because Microsoft is not a consumer company, it's a B2B service provider. They couldn't care less about retail users in general, to the point that it's been their policy to turn a blind eye or even tacitly support the blatant piracy of Windows among Home users across generations.
Night_Thastus•1h ago
My biggest annoyance is that I specifically bought a Windows 11 license, from the MS store, using my MS account. I did this because I assumed that if something went wrong, I would always be able to recover it. I could never 'lose' the key if it was tied to my account.

Well unfortunately, MS screwed me. When I upgraded my PC I was apparently supposed to transfer the license before deleting the old PC from my account. Doing it in the wrong order lost the license forever - no way to transfer it.

Despite having one license, one account, and one PC registered, MS refused to help. I tried to call support, but there are NO on-call support anymore. Only automated online support. No chat. Nothing. I tried over and over for a couple days and got nowhere.

portaouflop•1h ago
Pirate it and you will have a much better experience for free
k4rnaj1k•1h ago
Using a pirated OS does not sound like a good idea lol. Who knows what could be added during "cracking" of the license.
pshirshov•52m ago
Nuthing. You could manually reproduce what massgrave does.
eviks•39m ago
How much time would you need to manually reproduce their 20k lines of activation code? And what qualification would you need?
leshenka•31m ago
if anything bad ever happened after using MAS there would be piles of evidence because MAS is brought up every time people discuss Windows license price. Equating piracy to malware is disingenuous and malware is not the only bad factor. If you consider all of them it turns out that there is a lesser chance you'll get screwed if you pirate be it music, movies or operating systems
anal_reactor•13m ago
Whatever it is, I'm sure it's not half as bad as things that Microsoft puts there. After all, who knows what's in Windows source code.
wing-_-nuts•59m ago
and it comes with free malware!

I gotta be honest man, I do not understand someone who pirates executable code. I (and I assume most of the hn audience) am not some starving student with nothing to lose. I would much rather run linux than pirate windows.

haritha-j•54m ago
The ones who're pirating the non executable code are who I don't understand. Oh and I'm a starving PhD student.
2Gkashmiri•52m ago
What???

Commenter was suggesting using original Microsoft ISOs and verifying through massgrave.

Zero malware

wil421•52m ago
Agree with you but not every answer is move to Linux. A lot of us help family member with IT stuff. People I help use excel, quicken, and one drive to run their businesses and finances. I could see myself running into GPs license issue with my father in law.

I tried to get a few of them to use chromebooks but the need for quicken or another app they used for decade(s) keeps them windows based.

Balinares•49m ago
You might not be up to date on how this works.

The OS installation images come from Microsoft. They're the same amount of malware as the OS that comes preinstalled on your laptop. Probably a tad less, depending on the brand.

eviks•41m ago
What about the crack executable?
immibis•39m ago
It's free and open-source.
leshenka•30m ago
and hosted on github
eviks•28m ago
> and it comes with free malware!

So where is the contradiction?

LetsGetTechnicl•49m ago
Lmao what? Microsoft gives the ISO's away and the MassGrave tools literally use Microsoft's own code to activate it.
mybackhurtsabit•47m ago
I assume you haven’t checked on this since the Windows 7 days, but Massgrave is open source, and the activation logic boils down to about five lines of PowerShell, using only native Windows utilities. I think they even have a tutorial on their website that explains how to perform the activation manually if you want to avoid running their scripts.
eviks•40m ago
Is it 5 lines of PowerShell or 19861 lines of cmd?

https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts/b...

throwawaygmbno•46m ago
If you are worried about malware from your pirated content you are going to the wrong websites. The good ones are hard to get on and have severe consequences for the uploader and whoever invited them.
dartharva•42m ago
Shouldn't talk about things that you don't know much about so confidently
edm0nd•1h ago
Just use Massgravel and problem is solved :)

https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts

oblio•55m ago
LOL. I found that website today and thought it was named "mass grave".
calvinmorrison•50m ago
it is

https://massgrave.dev/

dp-hackernews•44m ago
The website IS called that;

https://massgrave.dev/

giancarlostoro•56m ago
Last I ever bothered to buy a CD key I got it off one of those gaming key sites. I have since moved on to Linux, but you can get a Pro key really cheap on those sites. I refuse to overspend to upgrade what should have been a computer with Windows Pro OOTB. If you spend over 2 grand on any computer you should not be getting Windows Home edition.
sekh60•17m ago
I have to ask, why even bother paying some key site? It is violating the terms of the license agreement anyway, so why not just pirate?
observationist•50m ago
Companies that cannot run their businesses responsibly at scale should not be allowed to run their business at that scale.

If Microsoft can't do it, if Apple, Google, Facebook, X , OpenAI can't do it, then maybe we shouldn't allow companies to operate at scales which inevitably lead to widespread consumer harm.

They should be required to provide human customer service, with some sort of legal liability to ensure their products perform as advertised, without an end-user having to spend tens or hundreds of hours chasing down a solution, spending thousands of dollars on a lawyer, and all the rest of the hassle.

This is a legislation and regulation issue - the data barons are exploiting the effective absence of any accountability for harms they casually inflict on the public, ranging from gotcha situations like the OP to viral self harm trends among kids to mass surveillance and commercial invasion of privacy.

Pirate everything, support open source, pay content creators directly.

If they want to have billions of users, they damn well better be able to handle each and every one of those users in a commercially responsible fashion, or they have no business operating at that scale. We should be done with the "oops, we're too big and we make too much money to care that we just casually wrecked your life, oh well!" If the solution is to force users to have to buy a new PC, or a new phone, or create a new account, or anything in that vein, it's almost intentional, and casually malicious.

It's not like these companies don't know what they're doing, they can simply afford not to care. Until there's regulation and accountability that's more expensive than ignoring the consumer casualties, things will continue to get worse.

lagniappe•38m ago
>Companies that cannot run their businesses responsibly at scale should not be allowed to run their business at that scale.

The reality of the situation is: If it were enough of a problem that the bad outweighed the good, people wouldn't use it, but yet they still do, so it's not enough of a problem.

palmotea•33m ago
> The reality of the situation is: If it were enough of a problem that the bad outweighed the good, people wouldn't use it, but yet they still do, so it's not enough of a problem.

The key words are monopoly and lock-in. Those things can really scramble the bad vs good equation.

philipallstar•38m ago
I guess they don't want Windows to cost $10000 per licence.
serialNumber•21m ago
When you buy a Windows license, you expect at least a basic level of support from them in case something goes wrong. It is built into the cost.
koakuma-chan•30m ago
Apple has customer service you can call and speak to a person.
Zenst•23m ago
They also high-street stores as well for that human experience.
PaulHoule•15m ago
It was a long time ago but more than once I had troubles with a Windows license and it was known that if you talked to somebody at Microsoft on the phone long enough they'd take pity on you and give you a new license key.

They're not really afraid that individuals are going to rip off Windows, they are afraid that system builders are going to rip off 20 copies of Windows for machines that they build. In fact, given that they are so into Azure and GAME PASS and all sorts of thing you've never heard of, Windows might just be a loss leader.

goodluckchuck•14m ago
This is why we have courts and judges, to hear complaints and issue remedies when the defendants are unwilling to do so. A better solution would be to reign in arbitration agreements, which are horribly inefficient. Arbitration purports to be lest costly, but it encourages unnecessary litigation by preventing the operation of res judicata, it increases the costs of litigation by preventing class actions, etc. It increases injuries by keeping wrongdoers conduct confidential.
behringer•45m ago
Sail the high seas and you'll never feel cheated again.
dariusj18•35m ago
I had a similar issue recently and was able to convince the AI agent to give me a phone number to talk to a support representative. They manually fixed my accout and key and gtg in a few minutes.

What a PITA it took until I got a human though.

jdc0589•31m ago
same situation. I have 2 different licenses I've purchased via their store, hooked up to my account over the years, and none of them are recoverable.
exe34•26m ago
can you claim it through the small claims court? it's the kind of thing I'd do out of spite.
jcalvinowens•14m ago
> When I upgraded my PC I was apparently supposed to transfer the license before deleting the old PC from my account. Doing it in the wrong order lost the license forever - no way to transfer it.

This happened to me too! It's absolutely insane that a license I bought through my account can't be transferred somehow...

My newest NUC is somehow recognized by Windows 11 as being entitled to a copy, and I can reinstall on it repeatedly while keeping the activation, so at least we've got that going for us.

But after Proton, all the machines in my house exclusively run Linux. I sincerely hope I never touch a windows machine again for the rest of my life :)

simmons•12m ago
I was in this same situation earlier this year with one machine that was using a license attached to my Microsoft account. From what I read online, I thought I was freeing up the license by running "slmgr /upk" and "slmgr /cpky" on the old machine, but I guess not. I was eventually able to get the license transferred to the new machine, but only after a very painful morning of working with an MS support person.

I learned that there are two ways of buying a Windows 11 license. One way results in getting a traditional license key that can be reliably transferred, and the other way (tying the license to your Microsoft account) risks losing your license. :( I'm very careful to only buy licenses the former way, now.

thorum•1h ago
Am I the only one who has simply said “no thanks” to Windows 11?

There were hints of where Microsoft was heading in Windows 10, but at least a lot of the worst “features” could be disabled.

I find 11 just completely unacceptable software to run on any system I own.

prerok•18m ago
Really? I found them reenabled after the next update. I just gave up and switched to Linux a year ago.
SirMaster•1h ago
>There remain a number of ways to avoid the Microsoft account requirement during setup, including setting up an unattended installation, but these are more complicated.

Apparently checking a checkbox in rufus is more complicated.

LeifCarrotson•1h ago
Rufus and Massgravel still function as a pressure release valve to prevent too much outrage from building up, but Microsoft is working hard to direct more and more of the flow into the channels that get them the most revenue. If HN readers want to set up a machine without any of the bloatware, with all the "developer-mode" switches turned on, without a Microsoft account, there are still ways to get it done.

I actually just set up a new laptop this morning with Windows 11 LTSC 24H2. I'm an engineer, I can edit config files and burn bootable USB drives and install Intel storage drivers in the setup environment and validate sketchy batch files and compare ISO hashes. Now that I'm done, it's got a pair of fully-offline user accounts, it stays out of the way, it boots in seconds, the Windows-only software I have to use for work is no longer nagging me about being out of support, I'm quite happy with it.

But it was not trivial. Had I not known what I was doing, there were a dozen ways it could have gone wrong. I suppose it's nice that I'm not vulnerable to Mossad surreptitiously installing a MITM-patched OS while I sleep, but secure boot makes it scary simple to turn your new laptop into a $1800 brick. And I have a good sense for which links are the tools I actually want to download and run, and which links are scams.

But it's nowhere near smooth enough for me to point a non-technical peer at it and say "Oh yeah, if you don't want your OS to do that, just install LTSC."

logifail•1h ago
I've been using Win10 LTSC since it first shipped, but the pain of it just keeps on increasing (not being able to load the latest .Net; Teams and more and more other apps refuse to run despite the OS still being "in support" now and for many years to come).

Any tips for moving to Win11 LTSC? (I've been avoiding Win11 for as long as I can...)

MarcelOlsz•1h ago
We're so screwed. Tahoe sucks so my Sonoma days are numbered. Win11 sucks and win10 days are numbered. On the other hand the rails guy released Omarchy linux which is pretty great but it will take months to make it usable.
pcardoso•57m ago
I'm getting used to Linux again after 20+ years of Mac OS.

First, just using more cross-platform software on my Mac. Ditched Safari for Firefox; replaced my MacOS-only password manager; using iMessage less.

Bought the cheapest Framework 13 laptop, running stock Fedora. Omarchy is interesting but too weird for me. Gnome, is still familiar enough.

Using the Linux machine more and more, feels very fresh. To be honest not feeling this excited in a long time. Perhaps the year of Linux on the desktop is indeed coming.

eviks•31m ago
But win 10 days are numbered in years, same for Sonoma? Definitely longer than months (though in reality think it should take much longer)
anonymars•15m ago
Erm..

> not being able to load the latest .Net; Teams and more and more other apps refuse to run despite the OS still being "in support" now

eviks•11m ago
Erm, how is this relevant to the number of days???
soupfordummies•55m ago
The cheeky response to that is: At that point you might as well have just installed Linux :)
protonbob•34m ago
You may have missed this part. >the Windows-only software I have to use for work is no longer nagging me about being out of support
throitallaway•20m ago
> secure boot makes it scary simple to turn your new laptop into a $1800 brick

Maybe I'm misunderstanding how secure boot works, but why would it prevent you from using the hardware? At worst I'd think you'd just need to reinstall your OS. That's not a brick.

rwmj•1h ago
OOBE = Out Of (the) Box Experience, in case anyone was wondering. And not out of body experience ...
blinkingled•1h ago
Bye Microsoft - I'm already on Linux on all my desktop and workstation machines and working on migrating off of the MacBook Pro.

It's only going to get more and more unpleasant in the commercial desktop OS landscape - need to start contributing money and effort to few OSS projects to keep the dream alive.

lazyfanatic42•1h ago
Isn't it kinda obvious that Microsoft is moving from a OS provider to a Cloud provider?
SirMaster•1h ago
So what's stopping people from using an older installer and then updating the OS after installation?
paxys•1h ago
This could have been excusable if Microsoft was handing out the licenses for free, but the fact that you have to pay $140 (more than the price of some entire computers) and then deal with this bullshit is a slap in the face.
prerok•20m ago
Exactly this. We've entered an era where you pay for the product and you are still the product. Disgusting.
Redster•1h ago
I know that there are enterprises and individuals who need Windows. I also know that I had been on Windows my whole computing life and made the switch late in 2023 and there's never been a better time to switch to Linux. I could have switched much sooner!

I have found my Windows apps for everything work (or have equivalent or better Linux versions) and will soon be switching my non-technical wife over to Linux to avoid Windows 10.

For her, I've looked at her workflows and setup a configuration that I can use on her new machine that will setup all of her apps and menu settings so it's as seamless a transition as possible. She rarely needs to update her computer or apps, the latest Debian 13 "Trixie" release is what I'm going to try for her.

Redster•1h ago
Also, I have found for tweaking and customizing my own Linux machine, tools like Claude Code allowed me to be much more adventurous and fast at making my machine exactly how I want it to be. I don't bork my machine because I have my machine's configuration (I'm on NixOS, but this could apply on Arch or elsewhere) versioned in git and things tend to build correctly or they don't.
fnordsensei•1h ago
Gaming seems to have been improving massively as well, in no small part due to Valves efforts if I’m to understand correctly.

Other than that, there’s literally nothing I need from Microsoft currently.

MS is little more than a rent seeker to me.

bluetidepro•1h ago
For majority that want to switch but can’t yet, gaming is the biggest pillar still very far behind. Many popular games (and game related apps) don’t work on Linux, sadly. I don’t know if it’s ever going to change either because of it being a chicken or egg scenario where they don’t want to spend the time supporting it cause it’s not enough users, but it’s also not enough users cause it’s not supported.
popcar2•58m ago
The biggest problem is probably work-related apps not working. Adobe products, MS Office, and certain niches like the music industry just aren't supported on Linux.

Many ultra-popular games don't work due to anticheat, but some do. Dota 2, Counter-strike, Marvel Rivals, Overwatch 2, among others work perfectly fine. We've also reached a point where virtually every offline game will work too.

thinkingtoilet•48m ago
If you aren't using advanced features, Google's online suite can easily replace MS Office.
thewebguyd•37m ago
> I don’t know if it’s ever going to change either because of it being a chicken or egg scenario

We don't even need native games. Proton, when it works, is amazing. Win32 is effectively now the stable ABI that Linux always needed but never had.

The real problem is kernel level anti-cheat, which will never happen on Linux, but more importantly, gamers should be pushing back against it even on Windows. It's invasive. The latest of which you can't even enable virtualization support in Windows if you want the anti-cheat to run, which also means you lose virtualization based security, no WSL, etc. It's completely obnoxious and I hope Microsoft cracks down on it, because if they do then more games will run on Proton.

macNchz•34m ago
Depends a lot on what kinds of games you play, I think—I built a PC in 2020 and originally set it up to dual boot Linux and Windows, but over time I used the Windows partition less and less and wound up deleting it last year.

I realized recently that at some point I stopped even checking ProtonDB before buying games on Steam, I guess because its been so long since I've run into one that didn't work. I play a pretty wide variety of games, but not so much the type of competitive multiplayer FPS that seems to have the worst Linux compatibility due to anti-cheat.

citizenpaul•1h ago
This is really going to screw over small places that still do manual setups on their PC/Laptops because they don't have the resources for a full automated setup.

They gotta make back those hundreds of billions they lit on fire to chase the dream of eliminating all their employees with AI. This will force a lot of places to pay for Azure Endpoint to setup their stuff if you really can no longer sign in without an online account.

Jare•1h ago
After my recent (and dismayingly poor) experience with a new PC on Windows 11, I wonder: Windows 11 installer did not recognize my wifi card (integrated in asus motherboard), so my installation was purely offline. I had to install manufacturer's drivers via usb key to get the PC online.

How is this possible in a world where MS wants installations to be online?

Meanwhile, Linux installer recognized the wifi right away and worked perfectly fine at full speed.

tapland•56m ago
For me it's been on and off, sometimes a windows installer manages to detect network cards and sometimes it doesn't.

I think I've been blocked from continuing an installation once, so I assume you'll just have to plug something in that it can detect or grab an install image which has the drivers.

I swapped over to primarily use linux a while ago, but was surprised that they've made windows 10 look like (what I think is) windows 11. When did that happen?

nowittyusername•1h ago
I've been thinking to fully switching to Linux for a while now. But there was just not enough pressure for me to switch over, I think this might do it. I think the universe is done whispering in to my ear and is finally shouting from the rooftops.
prerok•25m ago
Yeah, it takes some work. I did that about a year ago. Super happy. All games through Steam work, for gog some require some tinkering but it's not too bad.

Do note what others have said about mods and some publishers' multiplayer games and music software. I am not affected but it's best to keep in mind.

otikik•54m ago
Oh no! How will I get my Kim Kardassian ads on the menu bar now?
WD-42•20m ago
I’m going to deeply miss pre-installed candy crush when I switch to Linux.
jimbo808•52m ago
There's never been a better time to switch to Linux. For the longest time I was using Windows on my personal machine (for gaming), and MacOS for work. Not sure why, but one day I decided to try out dual booting Kubuntu (KDE Plasma + Ubuntu), and haven't touched a Windows machine since. Using MacOS feels bad now. I don't see myself ever willingly installing Windows again. MacOS is unfortunately something I still have to use.
Figs•50m ago
Linux Mint is a very nice, easy to use distro for people who are sick of this shit and want to try getting off Windows...
hooverd•48m ago
damn, I remember when Windows 10 was supposed to be the evergreen OS.
daveguy•46m ago
I gave up trying to keep from using a microsoft account to login to Windows 11. Instead, I installed linux and created a Win 11 virtual machine. Fortunately, I only rarely boot the Windows VM. Now I have:

1. no more random reboots

2. fast updates

3. much lower idle cpu use

4. cleaner operation with fewer crashes

5. no ad garbage from the OS to worry about

6. much much faster linux environment (WSL2 is atrocious).

It was 600% worth switching. Caveat -- I used linux as a daily driver in the late 90s early 2000s, and went back to Microsoft for work compatibility. Linux is much better now, but I still wouldn't try to get my parents to run it.

mzmzmzm•40m ago
I've used Win 11 for years and never had an MS account. If you just get the right European/enterprise/education image the first time you don't even have to do anything to skip OOBE. But it feels like the walls are closing in, and the day I finally can't do anything without an MS account, I'll finally daily drive Linux. Hopefully the part of my Steam library that will still need Proton will run smoothly--that's the main thing I'm scared of.
bob1029•33m ago
Proton runs like a dream these days. I can't think of a game that I couldn't run under it that I really wanted to. The biggest incompatibility seems to be caused by multiplayer games or live service games with hyper aggressive DRM or anti-cheat measures (Destiny, PUBG, etc). If you typically avoid these kinds of games I think you'll be alright.
dartharva•36m ago
For those who don't know, there's an open-source script that automatically enrolls your Windows 10 copy for Extended Service Updates, which increases its life by another three years: https://github.com/abbodi1406/ConsumerESU
myko•26m ago
Pretty much done with Windows at this point. So sad.
sergiotapia•23m ago
Download and use Omarchy today. I promise, it's smooth as butter.

https://omarchy.org/

I say this as someone with very little tolerance for linux bullshit - my job is hard enough I don't want to wrestle with OS bullshit.

samiv•18m ago
I just love it how the people in Redmond are so altruistic and continuously thinking about what's best for us users.
rrrrrrrrrrrryan•13m ago
Finally caved and bought a Mac this year. Never used one before in my life - I've used Windows / Linux / Chrome OS as my primary computing environments at various times over the years.

It's just okay. Windows 11 is worse.

pdntspa•8m ago
Time to hug my Windows 11 24H2 ISO I guess?
Permik•8m ago
I just always try to create a MS account with example@example.com or example@example.org, then you just get kicked over the MS account creation and it prompts you for local account creation.

This has worked always after they started pushing creation of online accounts.

evo_9•7m ago
How can I prevent Windows 10 from upgrading to 11? I have a gaming pc that's basically just for VR, and is ~5 years old. I play non-VR on my SteamDeck, so really I just want to keep my old pc gaming box running on 10 for (occasional) VR gaming at this point... also, pretty heavily invested in Steam (VR and non-VR) so I really prefer not to switch to something like Meta Quest, etc.
__MatrixMan__•6m ago
This is connected with windows 11 requiring a TPM. If all their users have a Microsoft account and that Microsoft account is needed to access all their passkeys, then they end up with a privileged position where they can aggregate info about user behavior based on their logins which, thanks to the TPM, the user is cryptographically locked out of interfering with, and their competitors are locked out of participating in.
joduplessis•5m ago
I've got an Ideapad that had Win11 on - completely removed it and installed Ubuntu. I've primarily used a Mac over the last decade, but it's insane how close the Ubuntu/Gnome experience comes - really have been super impressed. There are actually a few things I prefer on it too - the only (rather big) downside is that the web runs visually worse on it. I don't know how, but painting and font rendering feels suboptimal (compared to Windows and MacOS).