I'm also 100% convinced Microsoft will introduce mandatory code signing at some point and make it so that you can only ever install software from Windows Store.
They are envious of the Google and Apple walled gardens/cashcows and are now determined to turn Windows into one.
Windows is no longer a product for users, the users of Windows are the product for Microsoft to be shoved into the Azure sales funnel.
This misses how Microsoft makes money from Windows. Taking a cut of apps isn’t that useful because most people don’t install many apps. Of course it’s still welcome revenue, especially for games, but Steam has too much goodwill there, and Epic won’t still idly by (and Adobe etc in other domains).
Instead Microsoft is trying to upsell cloud storage, backup and ad-free email (along with Office apps) with Microsoft 365. And on the biz side they’re getting into the biz of offering managed patched online Windows VDIs, kind of like Citrix.
Also Microsoft Store-only Windows is a deal killer for Windows in businesses. A lot of specialised LOB (line of business) apps run on Windows and the Store is a non-starter for those. And in home contexts there’s a bunch of legacy apps that people keep Windows for, dropping support for them will mean switching to ChromeOS or macOS just got easier.
So yeah — I fully agree they’ll absolutely shove you in into the Azure or M365 sales funnel, and individual users no longer feel like a priority. But non-store apps aren’t quite dead yet.
Apropos, running Steam on my Archlinux Desktop with Windows compatibility turned on works really, really well. Much better than what I remembered from the bad old days of trying to get stuff running in Wine.
Wine and it's alternatives have greatly profited from valve going this route and as a result all software runs better. It's a gradual improvement over time and we are past the early stages. I'm still running a gaming PC on windows but that is going to end quite soon if Microsoft keeps doing these things.
Stream actually paid for contributions to Wine if I understand correctly.
I too planning to use a gaming centric distro for my next gaming PC build. The horseshit they've been pushing at me on 10 has been atrocious. The lie that 10 would be the last. Injecting pages into Chrome. Windows acts more and more like literal malware.
> I too planning to use a gaming centric distro for my next gaming PC build.
I don't find that the distribution makes that much of a difference?
I just use Arch Linux, and install all the programs (gaming centric or otherwise) that I need when I need them. I guess I'm lucky, because the Steam Deck's distribution is based on Arch Linux, but I used it before it was cool.
I suspect the main differences between the distributions is what you get by default, and that can be a huge factor in terms of convenience?
Yeah and good on you for using Arch but gaming distros are designed to support dummies, meaning people like me that don't really want to build the OS from the ground up get to coast. We just want to use it.
I know a fair bit about OS internals but especially when I'm gaming I want to play rather than read and follow technical docs.
I game using Steam on Pop_OS![1] with a home-built AMD machine and, while I know there are some background processes (Proton) that run to establish and maintain a compatibility layer, it's nearly seamless to me as a user. The most I really see is a progress bar that appears before some games where Vulcan shaders have to be pre-rendered. In my experience everything needed for Windows-native games to run on Linux is handled automatically, without any configuration, runtime flags, or anything else.
Early on I consulted ProtonDB to see if my games would run, but honestly now I don't even look at it any more. While YMMV depending on the games you play, I haven't encountered really any major bugs and zero crashes. The most I found was some strange shadow texture rendering artifacting in Baldur's Gate 3, but it was contained to a particular part of a particular map.
A decade ago it was kind of rough, but now? I am never going back to Windows for gaming. Playing games on Linux is light-years better than what it used to be. If you're curious but haven't tried it because you had bad experiences in the past, I'd encourage anyone to give it another go.
Just a note to readers who are interested in this: some games in your Steam library may still not work with Proton, but the ones that do work should have rather few issues. (I play exclusively on a Steam Deck so “should” is in reference to the variance in hardware among bespoke machines.)
The Steam Deck has done well, and releasing SteamOS for free so people can install it on their own PCs is great, but I think they should make a “Steam PC” they could sell. The majority of gamers aren’t technical and buy pre-built PCs. A Steam PC with Steam OS pre-installed would make it easy for these people to game on Linux and pump up the Linux gaming share of the gaming market.
> I'm also 100% convinced Microsoft will introduce mandatory code signing at some point and make it so that you can only ever install software from Windows Store
2017 called. It wants Windows S Mode back.
Needless to say it still isn't very popular. But this has been around for <checks notes> 8 years now
Windows S failed hard so they have a new strategy. Every new CPU ships with M$'s Pluton root of trust. For 'security' everything will have to be signed. They consider the user to be the threat actor. Eventually they will charge a percsnt fee for using their signing service.
It’s only a matter of time before Microsoft forces everyone with local accounts to switch to a Microsoft Account just to access their own machines. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the future, local accounts are completely disabled, except maybe on specialized enterprise versions of the OS.
I'm exhausted by the anti-consumer behavior of American companies, constantly restricting user choice and access, undermining privacy, and hiking up prices, all in the name of "profit".
It's been near a decade of them trying and failing (or over a decade, if one'd look at windows 8 and its apps as part of some plan), that at some point this 'what if they lock everything down!!' thing just sounds like a FUD, which is kinda ironic. And the 'they're locking down installs!!' thing too, every time they make a change it gets to the front page here, and yet it still remains circumventable (just use Rufus). Years have gone by and the actual "locking down" of it still hasn't arrived.
I highly doubt it, Windows is known for its stellar backward compatibility. Code signing means a lot of older software, that is still in use, would not be able to install or run. This is not going to happen (at least in the enterprise).
I have mad respect for Microsoft engineers for the compatibility work that they've done over the past decades. It is indeed superb that you can take even today an old Win32 executable and run it and it'll just work.
But I expect the new leadership will not put much value on this. I imagine it'd play out that first to "to enhance the security and improve the UX" they'll start a shoving a bunch of nagging dialogs in the users face "this app is not safe" etc.
Then they'll add a flag to enable "unsafe mode" where the user can run unverified / unsigned code.
Then finally they'll just nuke the flag.
After all requiring that the ecosystem with the most "important" apps such as their own office suite, slack, adobe etc. grind out new versions with digital signing is not out of alignment with these companies incentives and development cycles either.
In fact I would not find it surprising if these companies would actually be approached by Microsoft to participate in any such scheme and get offered some kind of "discount" or reward (whether it's app store discount or whatever else) and these companies would only see it strengthening their own moats against any possible competition.
And I'm talking about the consumer use case, not the corporate.
You don't know how many ad-hoc legacy apps based on Java/C# are out there. Zillions. If you want to give GNU/Linux a huge chunk of share (Java and C# code from early 00's/2010 will run everywhere), MS would face a huge disaster and billions of loses.
This is likely why the TPM2 requirement is a thing for Windows 11: Microsoft wants to migrate all Windows users onto a hardware base with nigh-uncrackable security/DRM protection, such that everything from power on to application is signed, approved code. For "security".
And people will buy it. Because "general purpose computing" is a niche feature for nerds. (Astronaut 2: Always has been.) And it presents enough problems and extra work that most consumers woyld gladly give it up. Most consumers just want something thet can do Facebook/Excel/Spotify/Netflix/games with.
And? Just, uh, boot without secure boot and patch things until they work again without enforcing code signing? The only way this sort of thing could be possibly partially enforced is by remote attestation for apps that depend on a server to function. So do what iOS jailbreaks did, except you don't need a vulnerability to start because secure boot will always be optional.
But manufacturers won't cooperate. One OEM (Asus?) once cited a price of like $16M to trust one key. The price for Microsoft is nothing because Microsoft can say "trust our keys or lose Windows certification".
That requirement isn't technical though. It's purely a marketing one. You can still install Windows 11 on a TPM-less machine and, for all intents and purposes, it'll work just fine.
That would never work, they would have to have some kind of override. Microsoft doesn’t have that kind of leverage over Windows users because they don’t have tight vertical integration. If Windows 12 enforced that, users would just stay on Windows 11 and MS’ leverage would decrease even further.
Windows 12 Enterprise would have the option, Windows 13 Enterpise would remove the option but allow for a signed "legacy" sandbox. Windows 14 Enterprise would have no option.
Sure, if we talk about decade or more, companies can and will adapt. They can run several apps in VM, or just migrate to Unix. I've worked at bank who was through and through completely Linux including all front desk people, in 2010. If rigid banks can do it, everybody can.
I can’t believe people didn’t stay on Windows 7. It seems to have slid into some always-online ad-filled cloud hellhole since. Office365 is worse than Office 2000. This is the OEM strategy still at play. You gotta hand it to Bill Gates for capturing PCs for decades. People truly don’t care how poor their operating system behaves, because your only other option is to buy a Mac.
Normal mainstream users can't stay on very old operating systems like Windows 7 because they'll eventually be forced to install newer software that's not compatible with it. Outside actors other than Microsoft force os upgrades.
- buy a new printer and it only has drivers for newer os like Windows 10/11 and later
- need for installing newer software like latest versions of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Adobe suite, TurboTax 2024, etc. They don't install on Win7. For Windows 7, the last version of Chrome was January 2023. Last version of Firefox was August 2024.
So setting aside commercial apps like Adobe, TurboTax, etc. -- why can't a user just stay with old version of Mozilla Firefox that's compatible with Win7 and turn off updates?!? Because bank websites like JP Morgan will block the user with an error "You need to upgrade your web browser" because the SSL/TLS encryption algorithms in old Firefox versions are obsolete.
Deliberately trying to freeze your computer on Windows 7 or Windows XP means relegating it into a "museum piece" that becomes less and less useful for practical real-world tasks. That's ok for an isolated machine that runs old video games but no good for online banking.
Some of us do! I get fewer problems at home on W7 than at work on W10/11.
- Printers: the W7 cohort probably overlaps with users of classic HP Laserjets (I know it's not just me!).
- Chrome: Supermium adds W7 support back into the latest(ish) version.
- SSL/TLS: does such an issue exist on W7? It's exactly what pushed my mother (at the age of about 65, and hating having to learn anything new) to upgrade to 11 from XP a year or so ago. I do all my Internet banking on W7, via several different banks as I often move around chasing the best interest rates, and never had a problem with any of them. (Vivaldi, Supermium, Firefox 115ESR.)
- Some software such as Adobe XD: yeah, unfortunately it's not supported. Depends how much it's needed I suppose. I may be forced to "upgrade" sometime this year but I'd really rather not.
"I can’t believe people didn’t stay on Windows 7."
Microsoft forced Win10 down people's throats. I had all of my machines Windows Update processes turned off and somehow it STILL got onto my systems. I suspect Skype was the mechanism through which Microsoft did this, as they owned Skype then and I still used it.
Staying on some windows 10 lite-repack for about 8 years now. Automatically activated. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Paint. Windows-7-like start menu. No UWP apps, cortana, onenote, onedrive, even no freaking microsoft Edge. No app store. Not a single moving pixel, ad or notification , or another jumpscaring layout when system starts. Everything installs/works perfectly, perfect system.
I have no idea why people even consider updating, must be some really weird case.
There is zero new value in the latest Windows versions, just plain nothing new, there is really no reason to switch.
Too much fuss with community hacks to maybe get stuff working and end up having wasted time in any case. There is too much garbage to deal with in modern computing already. And some features are just not available with or without hacks.
If I want to use a decent OS, I can do most of my development on Fedora or Arch or some other Linux distro at my workplace.
For proprietary stuff that won't work there, honestly, Windows 11 is not that bad as far as Windows go. I do not get ads, I use a local account without problems and I can do development actually decently with PowerShell, vcpkg, VS Code which Microsoft offers for free and which work on all platforms.
TL;DR: There are hills with a much better view to die on.
Until they need new hardware, for which there will (and can) be no drivers anymore, as Microsoft stops crosssigning them in the Hardware Dev Center after a while for old Windows versions.
Microsoft does have the leverage in this case, as long as folks want to continue using Windows.
Would not fly.
Developers would not go into the store. Because everyone knows, that 30% tax would be next (basically it is the current situation on the Mac, apple could pull the switch on gatekeeper any time). And, because a lot of modern apps are just electron wrappers, people would just move to the web versions for everything. Which means killing their own platform.
Similar why gatekeeper exists on Mac.
This would mean that old software would stop to work, though. Which is a bit anti-microsoft politics. Without running all the old unsigned software Win is not Win anymore.
Having to use an account to get apps from app store (Apple) vs. having to use an account to install and use the OS in the first place (Microsoft) = not even a a competition
Until you need to download something from the app store (happened to me the other day on a mac I wiped and then needed to bring on holiday so now I need to go through the process again afterwards)
Can you install anything from the windows store without a Microsoft account, or from google play without a google one? I assume this is already the state of affairs since ever, but except iOS all the rest allow you to install stuff outside their stores.
The point is you are not going to be allowed to even install windows without an account to make use of the great privilege of using a walled garden app store.
And no one on this forum really needs app store when homebrew exists
Just a matter of time. Look at where their interest are. Apple will probably be second on this, but if it happens it will be for both and the argument of security will be cried out loud at whoever complains.
it doesn't matter if you don't need account to access windows app store if you can't even use the os without an account. your point just doesn't make any sense to me
The "Command Line Tools for Xcode" don't require an Apple ID to install (and provides a C/C++/Objective-C/Swift toolchain (LLVM/Clang) and things like Make and Git). Not to mention other compilers not provided by Apple that you can just download and install. And yes, while you do need an Apple ID to download Xcode from Apple, you don't need to be signed into macOS with it (you can download it from the Apple Developer site).
Nah. In one case no one prevents you from torrenting third party Xcode at your own risk. You can run any code you want on your device. But in the other case you can't even use the OS. Cope however you want but QED.
We're most of the way there with the switch to web apps and their native wrappers, even Microsoft isn't using their own UI toolkits anymore.
The only segments left targeting Windows as a platform are games, replacements/extensions to the OS tools, and a bunch of legacy .NET LOB apps. And since the Steam Deck and clones, Wine/Proton are (very) slowly becoming the actual target for games rather than Windows.
They are envious of the Google and Apple walled gardens/cashcows and are now determined to turn Windows into one.
Windows is no longer a product for users, the users of Windows are the product for Microsoft to be shoved into the Azure sales funnel.