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Comment by thesuperbigfrog | Hacker News Reader

"You might argue that this is Microsoft’s operating system, or that when using Microsoft’s browser and search engine it’s well within its rights to try and sway people away from Chrome."

"Microsoft’s behaviors here are totally beyond a simple webpage prompt. I shouldn’t have to be dismissing pop-ups that appear on top of my apps and games, or ones that magically appear after I update my copy of Windows."

Windows 11 is doing what it was programmed to do: https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM?t=57

Sadly, this kind of user-hostile behavior is increasingly common and a form of enshitification (https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/) of the operating system.

What should Windows 11 users do to let Microsoft know that such behaviors are intrusive and offensive?

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> What should Windows 11 users do to let Microsoft know that such behaviors are intrusive and offensive?

They'll tell you to use the Feedback Hub, but all of that feedback promptly gets discarded or drowned out in the SNR of overzealous "insiders" acting as free QA for Microsoft praising every horrible decision they make.

Feedback Hub is a black hole: everything that goes in never sees the light again and has no purpose other than training machine learning models (a form of textual Hawking radiation?).

Sadly, it's similar with Apple discussions. "X is not working as described on Ventura and was like that since update to Big Sur" "try restarting your Mac"

There is literally no point in such an effort that doesn't involve the threat of significant impact, i.e. legal/regulatory penalty.

We've been in this world long enough, and we should be smarter about understanding that.

> What should Windows 11 users do to let Microsoft know that such behaviors are intrusive and offensive?

Leave it for a proper OS.

It might not be possible for your company issued computers if they don't allow you to use something else[1][2] but for your personnal uses it is fairly easy.

[1] I doubt it would be configured to receive popup ads in that context anyway [2] Having a toxic work environment is a good reason to change job. I personnally count being forced to use Windows as a toxic env.

> Leave it for a proper OS.

> It might not be possible for your company issued computers if they don't allow you to use something else[1][2] but for your personnal [sic] uses it is fairly easy.

It's not that easy, unless you're willing to make a bunch of sacrifices for the sake of using a different OS. Windows is by far the dominant desktop OS, and there's a lot of software people need and want to use that's available only for it.

It used to be that way, but now Linux has really good application compatibility. You can run the majority of apps using wine/proton, and ironically old hardware tends to be better supported in Linux.

> You can run the majority of apps using wine/proton

I've heard that, but I'm skeptical. I'm assuming "most apps" don't include MS Office. How much wrestling is involved? Can you just run a Windows installer and have it work? Do updates break things?

Take a look at https://appdb.winehq.org/ for compatibility. Older software (even stuff like MS Office) often works well.

> there's a lot of software people need and want to use

This is mostly a mindset issue.

A bit more than 2 decades ago I would have said you would have pried photoshop from my cold dead hands.

Then I got fed up by a lot of things in this ecosystem, and I left it completely. I may not have access to the same applications, but I have access to decent applications that allows me to get the job done. And it applies to a very broad range of domains.

There are a few exceptions of course, but rarely ones you encounter in a non professionnal setting. In these very few and rare use cases there are options:

1. wine if it works would be the preferred one 2. accessing an app running on a windows through rdp, either as a full desktop or as a standalone window.[1] OK granted you are still using windows in that case, in the background, but you can do that only sporadically by launching a cloud windows vm instance for the small amount of time in a year you definitely need that dirty OS for personnal use.

Obviously YMMV but the barrier is mostly psychological imho.

[1] I think there was a project to facilitate that for office, adobe applications called winapps, see the different active forks here:

https://techgaun.github.io/active-forks/index.html#Fmstrat/w...

there is also this: https://github.com/ne0YT/Linux-Subsystem-for-Windows_Seamles...

It is true that it can be difficult -- but, emphatically, no longer an excuse.

The Steam Deck has shown that there are no essential technical barriers to rendering the Windows operating system irrelevant.

This is good work, and it should be done.

Okay downvoters -- why am I wrong? Genuine question.

Microsoft is enrained in industrial and businesses because of legacy. Example is that number of industrial sensors need an application to configure their operating parameters, Often they only run on Windows OS. The need to run legacy prevents moving to an different OS

IT is often engrained in Microsoft's environments. It is by no means easy to walk away from Microsoft unless it is personal computing.

At least now at work, I was given a research ticket to find out which legacy Windows OS applications are viable to run in WINE. And how viable it would be move our main product application away from Windows.

PS. You have to pay me to engage with Microsoft and run Windows OS.

The only thing that a user can do is switch OS. Microsfts goal is to extract as much profit as possible. The main factors that oppose enshitification are users leaving (revenue is lost) or regulation (increases costs).

And I think this highlights the real problem. The issue isn't that MS is pulling some nonsense. It's that I can't really vote with my feet and stop using Windows.

But wherever and whatever you're doing you CAN make steps toward doing that.

What should Windows 11 users do to let Microsoft know that such behaviors are intrusive and offensive?

Downgrade to Windows 10.

If enough users did this, they might realise that people still want to use Windows, but without the user-hostility, so will be more incentivised to change things back to how they were instead of just squeezing harder on what remains of their userbase.

Psh. Microsoft will just force-upgrade those computers back to Windows 11.

> > What should Windows 11 users do to let Microsoft know that such behaviors are intrusive and offensive?

> Downgrade to Windows 10.

Windows 10 introduced things that would have been (and were) deemed unacceptable by people who care about things like this at the time, too. You could have said all this about Windows 8 or Windows 10 with a retreat to Windows 7 being the prescription. Many people did.

The only message a move like this sends is that if Microsoft moves slowly enough, people will accept basically anything as 'the less user-hostile alternative'.

The frog doesn't jump out of the pot if you boil the water with him already in it.

Not use Windows?

If a user can't switch to another OS, you can run Windows Server. I run that in my home lab when I have to use a Windows based OS for certain scenarios.

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