Recently I had a hiccup with my main SSD drive. I have a dual boot Win/Kubuntu setup. Linux was crashing hard and Windows was giving me blue screens. After I resolved the issue (cooling/loose connection, idk) my Linux was doing fine, but Windows was giving me blue screens. I think it was doing an update when it crashed.
After a couple of hours messing with my recovery USB and booting in safe mode, I was able to fix the bad update and reboot normally.
I tried to open Firefox and it couldn't find the executable. Looking into the Program Files Mozilla folder, I found the .exe files had been renamed to .exe.sig??????
Then looking for the Edge browser, I suddenly found out that Microsoft Copilot AI had been installed!?!?!?!?!?!?
What the actual fuck???
I never wanted that trash on my PC! That's one of the reasons out of the many that I didn't want to use Windows 11.
And it's a weird fucking coincidence that Firefox was fucked. I couldn't even rename the files to .exe because they wouldn't execute. Looks like they were encrypted or some shit? What the fuck is Microsoft pulling?
It's a happy coincidence because you know what? I've been thinking about going full Linux install since all my games and Windows applications work with Steam, Proton and Bottles now.
I really don't see any fucking reason to keep using Windows. Fuck this shit and fuck Microsoft.
Edit: Oh and that's on top of all the other bullshit like forcing users to create a MS account to install Windows 10 now and having to jump through hoops to have an offline installation. And also defaulting to having all your user folder documents into their fucking One Drive cloud.
Embrace it. Most of us used to use Windows at some point. But I think it's really nice here on the other side. Hope you find your nice and bullshit-free way to use your computer.
Windows is as the Backyard Baseball machine when I was a kid... It probably won't even run that game anymore
If there's one thing windows does well, it's maintaining backwards compatibility.
Most of my childhood games from that era run with little issue. Biggest issue is going to be 16bit stuff, but IME, it's mostly been the installers that are 16bit only and the actual executable was 32bit and ran fine
You found a .sig file where you expected a .exe?
Did Windows crash while the Mozilla Updater was running? Sounds like a file that’d be present to verify that a new copy of the .exe was legit and complete, but the .exe itself was never written to disk.
As shitty as Microsoft is, I don’t think they encrypted your Firefox.exe…
How auspicious that this popped up on my Lemmy feed
Earlier on my Misskey I was bitching about how like
Holy shit
I hadn't realllly used windows in 2 years (only for emergencies, and my emergency windows install is a debloated windows 10 AME thing that I set up one geological era ago). But today I was setting it up in a family member's laptop as a favour. It somehow got even worse in the past few years!
Like to not even get into the whole privacy and control over one's machine discussion (someone smarter can explain that in an eloquent way that isn't just "windows bad", though windows IS terrible for that, mind) -- it's just annoying!
Like you can't even start using the computer without setting up a Microsoft account, and then you have to go through seven different screens where Microsoft wants you to give consent to them spying on you, and even if you were to say yes (don't), it still is slow and plodding to do. And THEN after that it still sees fit to drop advertisements for Microsoft 365 and Gamepass because hey you just bought a license key to premium software? How would you like some fucking subscription services with that?
Everytime I use a windows machine it's a real "damn bitch you LIVE like this?" moment
It was nearly my daily driver for several of those years, especially in college.
I really liked Windows 10 when it came out and I've enjoyed using it until it became enshitified.
I've been using Linux on the daily for the past couple months and haven't even noticed. I've been blown away by the progress in Wine and Proton and Bottles.
They are expecting linux to be honest. If a change is made there likely will be open documentation and discussion about it.i
I really dont think the OP is making a point about buggy software, they even repaired their windows boot after fixing the linux one, despite not needing the windows one.
We dont want software that is deceptive and antagonistic, and tries to steal whatever it can by calling it free.
They are expecting linux to be honest. If a change is made there likely will be open documentation and discussion about it.i
I really dont think the OP is making a point about buggy software, they even repaired their windows boot after fixing the linux one, despite not needing the windows one.
We dont want software that is deceptive and antagonistic, and tries to steal whatever it can by calling it free.
That's the AT&Tv building in New York. The one used by the government for mass telecom surveillance. It's also the building used as the place for the game Control.
To be real I have had a similar experience with data loss and broken links on an install drive, requiring the reinstallation of impacted apps. Honesty it's probably not a great idea for me to keep using that disk lol. Reason it comes to mind is that my Firefox install was impacted in exactly the same way as on your end. It was also caused by an interrupted update.
I hope you find that you have everything you need on the other side. People here might be able to help fill in the gaps if not.
system files getting corrupted under linux is way harder to fix than on windows... most distros do not even have a tool to check for integrity/existance of all the necessary base system package files.
Not sure what you're on about, most package managers have a literal database of most package manager installed files. Debian and derivatives have dpkg --verify or debsums to verify the files, arch has paccheck, I'm sure other distros have something similar. And fixing them is just a matter of reinstalling the package, which you can do from a chroot if the system won't boot.
Or you can just run your system on a checksumming FS like btrfs which will instantly tell you when a file goes bad.
As long as your home directory is intact, you can simply reinstall. You can also easily reinstall individual modules and overwrite bad file. There's so many ways you can fix a Linux installation.
Most package managers store md5sums. A few times I've used that to validate package binaries. I'm not sure what tool you'd use for it, since I always just whip up a bash one-liner for it.
That's your problem right there. So often, when somebody says "I have a problem with Linux", they mention NVIDIA. Sir/Madam, you have a problem with NVIDIA. Those fucks have been a thorn in the backside for more than a decade. As the creator of linux said "single worst company they've dealt with".
Tips... uh... in rising order of monetary cost
no cost: install a distro that might have support for downloading the right proprietary drivers (linux mint, Pop!OS, ubuntu, bazzite? nobara?)
no cost: try to install the proprietary drivers yourself
variable cost: get a geeky friend to try and fix it for you, compensate with a beer, meal, or vacation depending on how annoying it was
I have a simple setup with only one monitor. I haven't messed around with having two screens yet. But I used to when I had a laptop and I don't remember it being that difficult. I dunno.
In the few cases I need Windows, I use it on a VM, and usually through an old iso I keep around and with Windows Update Blocker. Maybe it would be viable for you too?
Yeah. That's probably what I'll do. Install it without an internet connection, then remove all the bloat and online stuff. Then keep it as minimal as possible. Just as a backup.
Edit: for the benefit of people downvoting this question: missing executables sounds like the behavior of an overzealous antivirus. It's a relevant question to ruling out what may have caused the issue.