Windows 12 May Require a Subscription
Windows 12 May Require a Subscription
References to subscription 'edition,' 'type,' and 'status' found in a test build of Windows.
[A]n INI configuration file in the Windows Canary channel, discovered by German website Deskmodder, includes references to a "Subscription Edition," "Subscription Type," and a "subscription status."
I'm looking forward to the Year of the Linux desktop ™️
Right now, my Windows 10 installation is pretty bloatless and is easily revertable when an update wants to change things. However I'm definitely looking for a more mainstream Linux solution because I know these times won't last.
Check out Endeavor OS. I've been using it for about 3 months now as a full replacement to my old windows 11 set up.. everything I've needed it to do, with the exception of a few games has worked either right out of box or with minor tweaks. The forums are active and the Arch Wiki has answers to nearly every question you may have about the backbone of the OS. System updates are incredibly easy and are done on your schedule, not Microsoft's.
I've got a windows 10 PC that I built as a gaming computer like 10 years ago. To be honest it spends a lot of time turned off because Linux has become much better for gaming using Proton.
However sometimes it is really useful to have a windows computer around. Being able to use Visual Studio for C# and C++ projects is particularly good given how much scaffolding their frameworks give you. Still, if I end up having the system being forcibly upgraded or when it leaves LTS it will probably end up being sold for spare parts.
We would need large companies and developers to start making their applications for linux and right now thats very hard because linux has 2500 different package managers and no one wants to maintain version of their apps for even the top 5 linux packaging methods, so unless that changes they will continue to make windows/mac only apps
Actually, yeah, that's a cool way to look at this. Imagine everything getting support over night. The only reason I don't use Linux is because a ton of the things I do on a computer require windows.
Been and gone for me.
it may actually come now if this happens
Literally can't happen, at least not on the scale y'all like to imply, not in the way Linux is today. If your OS doesn't work with a ton of peoples' hardware at all, no wide adoption. Don't pretend this doesn't happen-- it happens all the time. I was never able to get sound working on Ubuntu with mainstream hardware. If your OS requires a ton of technical knowledge to get any basic hardware or software feature working, no wide adoption. If your OS runs any commonplace software in a glitchy, super-slow way, no wide adoption. Wide adoption of desktop Linux is just not going to happen until a distro has a well-organized, goal-oriented, QA-pushing non-profit such as Mozilla making sure it works for the masses, on almost any hardware.
Remember when Microsoft said that Windows 10 would be the last edition?
In effect, it will be for some people fed up with all this bullshit.
They're not wrong. It'll be the last Windows for me.
tbf, it was Jerry Nixon who said that, a developer evangelist for microsoft, not the company itself. the media just ran with it.
I don't believe for one bit that windows will move to a pure subscription based model. They are greedy, but not stupid.
What's more believable is that the base OS will be the same as usual, but if you want fancy AI assistants in your OS, you must subscribe, with the justification being that MS must pay for the servers running the models you're using.
The idea that windows would require a subscription for an OS pisses me off more than I thought.
Good way for them to guarantee a exodus of people switching their OS.
Kinda like the reddit exodus...
If reddit decided to charge for access I'm sure everyone would leave
"Like all reddit protests, this will blow over too"
But why though? Like, the major complaint people have with Windows now is that it’s starting to advertise. They need to consistently provide updates and security patches, and the consumer has clearly shown it’s willing to pay subscriptions. This is kind of a blending of that. As long as they remove the advertising, and keep their “AI” out of my files I’d actually be happy paying for Windows again just like the “old” days except as a subscription. If it means that every windows install doesn’t come with Candy Crush and other bloatware I’d actually chalk this up as a win for consumers rather than the “free” windows right now that’s ad ridden and full of trackers.
Of course the realist in me also knows though that they’d fuck it up and make you pay while tracking everything, but I’d rather have an either or.
People hate advertising. That is why people switched over to cable. If you give companies money directly, they won't have to do ads to make money.... just like how cable has no ads! Or Netflix!
Can anyone confirm that my understanding of the source article is correct?
The "Windows 12 may require a subscription" is coming from the fact that the word "Subscription" exists in a Windows config file somewhere?
That seems like a pretty big leap to me. Not that I don't think it's impossible that Microsoft would do this, but the evidence here seems thin to say the least.
Maybe this will finally convince the world to move to Linux Mint
You'll be surprised/dismayed how resistant people are to learning something new.
It's extremely obnoxious to suggest that people don't use Linux because they don't want to learn something new. They don't use it because there's absolutely no need for them to do so when Windows is a fantastic OS for their needs
Even when you're a bit more savvy it's easy to configure Windows to your liking without all the bloat and spying
I'm perfectly happy programming a Pi for little projects so I know Linux wouldn't be a problem for me, but I simply have no need for the hassle
Linux users are like militant vegans; they do more to put people off Linux than promote it
I'm technical and I still prefer Windows at home. Linux, as great as it can be for development, is not great for everyone. It doesn't "just work." My favourite example of Linux not "just" working is when Linus tried to install Steam on Pop_OS. He accidentally nuked the entire desktop. I could have easily done the same if I wasn't paying careful attention. One should never, ever be able to destroy their OS by installing Steam. That's part of the issue. When things go wrong, all of the instructions which present on Google are people providing terminal commands. Unless one is very comfortable with using the terminal, they're going to be copying and pasting these commands in and hoping for the best. This is what went wrong for Linus. This is far worse than following GUI based troubleshooting techniques which guide the user through defined and safe resolutions.
This over-reliance on the terminal is pervasive, and I find myself having to use it for everything from basic OS configuration to software installation to software configuration to drivers to hardware installation and troubleshooting. Every year I boot up a new flavour just to see if things have improved, and they haven't. Ultimately Linux is built by developers, for developers. That's great, and it does many things really well. I've just come to accept that it doesn't do consumer stuff very well. It lacks the UX polish present in Windows and MacOS, and most consumers like that. It fails especially hard when it comes to gaming. I literally cannot install any of my Fanatec wheel/peddle/shifter peripherals in any distro. Only 18% of games on ProtonDB are Tier 1. Even of those, it doesn't guarantee a trouble-free experience. Half the top streamed Twitch games just don't run on Linux at all, or require absurd workarounds and suffer from terrible performance.
I'll keep using Linux for my home server, but it's along way from replacing my PC or laptop OS.
That's not the problem... The problem is Linux isn't "normal". Their work laptop comes with Windows or osx. Their home computer comes with the same.
Now go tell the average person to install Linux... To them, you might as well be telling them to open up their computer and snip a jumper to make their computer faster. To them, you're telling them to take their working computer and do something they don't really understand and is beyond their ability to undo.
It's an aftermarket modification to them. If you want to make Linux approachable, it's really damn simple. Hand them a computer running Linux, with a pretty desktop manager, and a GUI for everything you expect them to do with it. Better yet, add an app store so they can try out software and run updates without feeling intimidated
My point is, if manufacturers start selling Linux machines again, a lot of people will get on board
People aren't opposed to learning, they're just scared of breaking it, and they need to at least be able to use a web browser without going up a learning curve
Humans are creatures of habit. The average user won't switch until the pain of using what they know outweighs the pain of learning something new + the fear of something new.
I have mint dual booted on my laptop with Win 11. I find myself using Win11 more.
Idk why, linux mint doesn't feel finished to me:
- 120hz won't work with my dock (works fine in ubuntu and w11)
- Touchpad scrolling is insanely quick and almost unusable
- My mouse jitters allover, accelleration or something seems wrong.
- Can't seem to set different governors depending on battery or power.
- Fingerprint doesn't have a driver (works in Ubuntu ok though).
- Scaling 125% seems janky, everything is blurry as shit
It does work mostly ok though and is quick, but it doesn't feel polished. Ubuntu was great but fuck snap packages.
If you're using synaptics as the touchpad manager, there is a config element to control the speed of the scroll
VertScrollDelta and HorizScrollDelta (integer) configures the speed of scrolling, it is a bit counter-intuitive because higher values produce greater precision and thus slower scrolling. Negative values cause natural scrolling like in macOS.
It’d certainly convince me. I run windows 11 since my laptop came with it but if I had to pay for my OS I’d run to Linux. The existence of Proton makes it much easier to switch now as well.
Most of my tech literate (yes, literate, not illiterate) friends were actually supportive of this.
So imagine what tech illiterates will be like.
Most people will just accept it as a cost of computing, I fear.
Switching to a Linux can be overwhelming. A few distros have made great strides to make most of the OS work right after installing it. But even if there’s only 1% issues due to hardware, drivers, gaming, etc., troubleshooting those issues would often require using terminal and are not accessible to everyone. There’s no customer support to reach out to, and online forums can be difficult to navigate for someone not familiar with coding.
It 'can' be overwhelming, yes. I've never found, however, so MANY online guides that literally tell you step by step what to enter in the terminal window to succeed. There's always a learning curve, it's just about whether or not you want to pay Windows every month to avoid figuring this out. This is why I mentioned Mint specifically, btw. It's the most user friendly.
For personal use maybe. Im 100% my job (and possibly most workplaces) will just eat the subscription cost to stick with what they know.
Arch
btw?
I have used Windows for a decade now and keep using it because my workflows and the application support are there. But as someone that uses Linux on my server, has tried out Linux desktops, and uses WSL, I can confidently say that I am gone if they start charging me a subscription. It will be annoying as hell but just like leaving Reddit I am willing to give up some niceties to keep my money and my morals.
So does Linux, I subscribe to the Arch rss feed, which is the operating system I use btw.
Oh thank goodness you told me, I thought you might be an Ubuntu user there for a sec
typical Arch user :).
If an arch user was a vegan what would they tell you first?
I know there's always someone evangelizing Linux when you mention Windows anything, but when Microsoft requires a subscription for Windows is the day I will actually move to Linux.
Why not now?
Not the commenter but the answer is easy - right now, it's not costing me anything to run Windows on my PC, and installing Linux takes research, time, and attention that I don't feel like investing in my home PC at the moment. Probably the next PC I build (whenever my 10 year old Dell i7 is too damn slow, only now starting to get laggy) will run Linux. Previously I only installed linux on laptops I retired from active use, just for shits and giggles. Never once had a linux powerhouse, but now that linux gaming is a reality, I'm very interested in getting away from the advertising platform that Windows has become.
Article: "We don't know how, but Windows is taking away a pint of blood from the user every time the OS is booted up".
Some guy at the edge of fainting: "I swear, I am this close to switching away".
Windows would always give you a homeopathic dose of value to being kept from switching out.
I have friends that no longer use Facebook to chat, but still doomscroll their timeline anyway, because once per twenty ads there is one post that barely interest them. They won't switch, they won't even try other media, they just keep telling themselfs about those two times per year they got something useful out of it.
I can confirm if Windows ever required a subscription I'd be swapping to Linux so fast. So Fast.
Am not convinced this will happen with Win12 or anytime soon. Microsoft realizes if they did this they would be losing monopoly over desktop operating system and with that they will lose a lot more than just OS money as people will migrate towards alternative software, like Google Docs or LibreOffice. What might end up happening is subscription based pro edition or something similar. If there's ever subscription for all of Windows am assuming they will make it easy to pirate.
Maybe the subscription edition means that it will be a different tier, so you will buy Windows for cheaper, but you have to pay a monthly or yearly subscription.
Or it has some connection to your Microsoft 365 subscription, and it would give you more Copilot/Other AI features.
This feels most likely to me too, though maybe even for an Edu or "managed" Windows install of some kind where you get more support and more opinionated stable installs or something. Sort of like Windows S mode but maybe with more help.
I'm already planning to. I run Windows 10 and as soon as that stops receiveing security support (or really as soon as I have the time) I'm gonna be swapping over to Linux for good.
Would fit in with the fact that Microsoft has just patched the remote activation exploit that was used for years.
They patched KMS‽
They patched HWID, but looks like a new version dropped shortly afterwards
I think they're referring to the use of a Windows 7 key to get a Windows 10/11 upgrade?
I will happily just not use it. My desktop usage is already 99% Linux, and it has been for considerable amount of time too. The only thing holding me back is my Destiny 2 guild. The moment that is allowed through Proton, I will be removing the partition completely
I'm so confused why Bungie doesn't just flip the Linux switch on... they don't have to do anything else. Cheating can't be the problem, since most cheats are developed for Windows anyways... as for support, the Linux community is very self sufficient, look at all the games running on through proton out of the box
They're already struggling with cheaters as is, because battleye has never properly prevented things properly. Supporting another system that can potentially flood their backend with more stuff they can't handle properly isn't in their interests.
They claim to have grasped interest in what's happening but some 200k views and half as many active responses later, nothing had happened
Sometimes moneygrubbing shareholders do us a favor by steering companies into implementing terrible policies. If Reddit wouldn't have been so greedy with it's treatment of third-party app developers most of use wouldn't be on Lemmy right now. If Microsoft forces Windows users to pay a subscription I think it sends more people away from closed-source garbage and into the arms of the open source community. I've enjoyed watching Reddit implode, hopefully I get to watch a similar show from our friends at Microsoft.
Maybe this isn’t for personal editions.
I’d suspect Microsoft would prefer to move personal editions to being mostly perpetual and OEM licenses, while a subscription service for business/enterprise makes more sense. Windows licensing for business is a nightmare and a per-install subscription model could be much simpler to manage while still offering good breaks under Enterprise Agreements and putting license and support under one annual sku.
ETA: Also, worth remembering that “Windows 365” is a thing and it’s very useful for DaaS. Term-based licensing makes tons of sense for DaaS/Cloud Desktop/VDI environments.
And actually, that could make a lot of sense in a future home/personal market with purpose built thin clients. Or perhaps even a set top box. Maybe, even, the Series S. A small monthly/annual fee to to make your Series S into a full-fledged desktop PC, sounds like a hell of a deal to me.
Linux. Again. Install Linux
Ubuntu Linux Debian Linux Fedora Linux Pop!os linux Arch Linux for all i care
Install Linux, stop accepting this bullshit from Microsoft. ALL of their software sucks, they care more about marketing and pulling money out of your pocket than actually giving quality software.
Open source software blows everything Microsoft out of the water, stop accepting the bullshit
I have ran GNU/Linux since the early 1990s. Practically since it first existed. Distributions like MuLinux, Yellowdog Linux, Slackware, Debian, etc. This generally has lead to multiple difficulties. Sometimes I had to dual boot to get around said difficulties. Around 2010, I got good enough with WINE, software work arounds and alternatives that I didn't need to dual boot anymore. I did like to play various games still back then, but around 2010 Valve's GNU/Linux support was improving (unless my memory deceives me)
This post has made me feel that for the first time, all that struggle was worth it, heh.
On a side note, there's some sort of dark irony with personal ownership dying under capitalism. I feel like the majority of us hate all these subscriptions models, but we keep playing along .vs. becoming cave hermits.
"Windows 12 is now included with game pass ultimate "
If they launch a subscription that includes ad-free Win12, Office, OneDrive and GamePass for like $20 a month, a lot of people would actually be happy about the change. Especially if the base version of Win12 was free with ads.
Then once people are happy with how good the deal is, they start raising the price and removing things that were once included.
Its the classic slow boiling frog, slowly raise up the temps until its fully cooked
*200$
I am on Game Pass Ultimate right now because I got a free trial month, which I am using to play Starfield. I have 18 days left on it, after which I intend to cancel the subscription and wipe Windows out of my life forever.
Spend your remaining 18 days playing Lies of P instead. Or TMNT Shredders Revenge. Or Arcade Paradise. Or Exoprimal if you wanna get wild.
Fuck that noise
A subscription really would push me to linux. I already prefer it at work anyway.
I don't even want windows 11. What makes them think I'm gonna actively buy and pay a subscription for Windows 12. Linux exists and I will absolutely buy a computer, wipe it and put a Linux distro on it. Microsoft is way too invested in this subscription nonsense.
Hmm, I’ll be running Windows 10 after EOL then. I won’t pay for Adobe subscriptions, I won’t pay for ANY monthly subscriptions. I will license lifetime software with 1 year of updates but that software works after the update phase has passed.
What will be the Windows equivalent to "drink verification can?"
And Windows 12 will become business use only.
edit, i only see this being the case for an enterprise version tied to azure ad. There will still be a retail version.
That feel when you just moved to Linux and you still enjoy Halo and Forza.
Gaben literal god tier status
I'm only on windows because it's easier for my setup and game support. The second that becomes costly or annoying is when I nuke my C drive and reinstall Mint. I used to use it as my daily before I started gaming heavily, I can easily go back.
Guess it's time for templeOS then?
Looks like M$ really got to like Linux! It does everything to promote it! :D
I’m just so sick of it. God I miss the early 2000s era of just about everything.
autokms is gonna get a lot more popular if microsoft do this
I'm somewhat amused by the fact that lots of people are suggesting Linux as an alternative but can't agree on which flavor to use as the alternative.
Don't get me wrong, I think Linux is awesome, but this is the problem. You're never going to get the saturation necessary to bring average consumers over in significant numbers until they have a clear choice.
I mean, how the hell wouldn't it? What's more surprising to me is that they didn't do this with 11. Everyone is totally used to this model at this point and while we all hate it, it's become the accepted way of living for most tech products now. If you are a big corporation and can get away with making customers rent your product instead of buy it, you are going to make so much more money. Of course they will choose this.
They need to bring ads in at 11
Then use 12 for ad-free subscription
Then both sides are justified by virtue of the other existing
This guy corporates.
There's a limit to how willing consumers are to continue adding new subscriptions. We're seeing this happen right now in the car industry. Subscription is only a proven model in content delivery systems, and even those are slowly starting to fail. I think that the average consumer would be very resistant to pay monthly for an operating system. Most people barely even understand what an operating system is. There's no way places like the EU will allow this either.
What's laughable is how quickly they're abandoning Windows 11
Eh? 11 has been out for what, 2-3 years now? And it'll likely be supported for another 5-8, easily. This article is talking about a beta version of 12, which means it'll likely be another 2 years before public release. Most enterprise settings won't even bother with 12 until at least a couple years after it's launched.
I would definitely pay a subscription for windows 12 if hell froze over and it was the only operating system on Earth. I have very little experience with Linux, limited entirely to my steam deck, and it certainly hasn't been awful. It isn't what most of us are used to but it's not like it's completely insane and unusable.
Windows was kind of cool until Windows XP (Windows 2000 was also really good), because at the time you felt like you had software where you could see that lots of engineering went into it, and most importantly that you could feel you owned (EULA-aside obviously): you pay once for the license and it's done, the OS is immediately usable. Recent Windows versions went through enshittification and Microsoft now harasses you from time to time to join their online services. Even on the first boot you immediately get harassed to create a Microsoft account and allow them to use your data, and you need to say no many times. Microsoft still makes you feel like you aren't done paying.
It's frankly hilarious how Microsoft is killing its own product. Windows went from something that used to be good and felt like a real software engineering product (Windows 2000 and XP) to something now that feels like a sketchy malware-infused phone app.
I would assume that the subscription they found is similar to existing subscription models for enterprise like E5, which includes Windows 11. I doubt this will get to the consumer level.
Hello Linux my old friend..........
They can't even consistently get people to pay for one time and they're expecting a subscription? Lol they're massively out of touch.
Lol they’re massively out of touch.
Gestures broadly
Have you looked at the tech sector recently? Out of touch describes most corporations at the moment.
Ha! They can blow me all the way to my full Linux conversion at that point.
How to lose marketshare speedrun?
I have been using computers since before there was an internet. I have used DOS and now Windows 10. Is there a good place to learn about Linux with a GUI and which one I should purchase? I'm so tired of M$.
Edit: I am primarily a PC gamer that uses Steam and this is what has kept me from using another OS in the past.
I would recommend linux mint. Its completely free, has a nice gui, and is fairly straight forward to use. All you need to do is download the iso file from their website. If you want to try using it you can put it in a virtual machine to try it out first and then if you want to actually use it just download a program called rufus to flash the iso file onto a flash drive and then boot from the flash drive. There are plenty of tutorials on how to do this on youtube.
Linux mint does seem to be the best Debian based distro. It comes with cinnamon. There are a respectable frequency of protondb entries where people successfully run newer games in mint. Ubuntu is bad because snap. Debian cares more about open source drivers than hardware compatibility which isn't what the average user wants to fuck with. Somehow even after enabling "non-free" drivers in Debian, it still works on a lot less stuff than other distros.
Yeah seconded on Mint. Works really well, is very stable (way more than windows), has a lot of out of the box configuration and tools in the GUI. Connectivity (printers, wifi, network shares) and security are both excellent and intuitive. I use it 10 hours a day 5 days a week and its glorious
Linux is pretty much universally free, with the exception of a few select distributions like Red Hat Enterprise Linux (and even then, there's variants of RHEL that are free like CentOS and Fedora, the main attraction for RHEL is paid support).
Most distributions are fairly similar, these days, with the main differences being the desktop environment (i.e. how the UI looks and feels), the update cadence (some distros are much more aggressive about deploying updates to the software and utilities underlying the distro, which gives new features faster at the cost of breaking things more often, while other distros prefer to stay on older, known-stable versions longer, at the cost of being slower to deploy new features that sometimes a program needs to run), and the methods used to configure settings (some distros go out of their way to make as much configureable in the GUI as possible, while others are primarily configured through console commands, and others like Gentoo expect you to manually compile pretty much all the software yourself--this makes it extremely customizable, but extremely difficult), and the default file format for package installation (rpm, deb, flatpaks, snaps, etc).
My personal recommendation is to check out a few of these:
-
Ubuntu
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Linux Mint (or Cinnamon)
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EndeavorOS
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Pop!OS
I also recommend that when you first format the disk, you make two partitions: one smaller 50-100 GB partition for the root partition (where Linux stores its system files and software), and a larger partition for /home, which is where all your personal files are stored. This way, you can easily swap between different distros without needing to really worry about losing your files.
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As others have said, Mint or Pop_OS are your best options. It really depends on what you want in terms of layout. Do you want a more apple mac osx look or a Windows look, if you want Mac then pop, if you want Windows then mint. They're both based on the same OS, Ubuntu, and in Mint's case there's a Debian edition. None of these have a price, they're free, you have nothing to lose trying them out.
Thanks. As a gamer, I am primarily looking for an OS that will run games without a hitch. To be honest this is what has kept me from switching previously.
As others have said, Mint or Pop_OS are your best options.
Realize this is a hot take, but, honestly I'd suggest Fedora, as it just always seemed more stable than Pop OS. Mint had core security issues some years back when I last look at it, not sure they've been resolved?
I use the KDE version of Fedora. I installed Steam and Bottles, and I haven't had a problem since.
All AMD set up though, I can't speak towards the Nvidia side of things.
I third Linux Mint. Everything you need is in the same place as you'd find it on Windows. Everything simply works out of the box. It's a very smooth transition. If you dual-boot you don't even need to get rid of Windows before you're comfortable. (I keep Windows available for games.)
Youtube. There are a lot of content creators in the Linux realm.
You don't need to purchase Linux. If your computer can run virtual machines (e.g. via VirtualBox) you could just download various distros and try them out in VMs. If you find one you like you can then install it as the main OS. If you're worried that you might want Windows back, buy a cheap SSD and swap it into your PC, then install Linux on that, keeping the old Windows one on a shelf just in case.
Personally, for a beginner-friendly Linux with plenty of community support I'd recommend Linux Mint.
Here's a Reddit post with some people talking about Linux distros if you want to see some additional opinions: link. Manjaro with KDE is a good option as well I'd like to add, my personal recommendation is to install a Linux partition separate from Windows and ease into it, if you enjoy the experience you'll find yourself using the Windows partition less and less until you are able to finally delete it.
Hi there! I'm you. My first computer was a TRS-80 in the early 80s, and my daily driver today is Debian (a flavor of Linux). I'm not an IT person, but I've had some skin in the game for a while.
You won't need to purchase a thing unless you have some weird/old hardware where drivers will be a challenge.
There are a million flavors ("distros") of Linux. The most straightforward ones to start with are probably Ubuntu and Mint.
Most Linux distros have a "live CD" version that you can "install" on a thumb drive. That allows you to take the entire OS for a test spin without changing anything on your "main" computer.
ou won’t need to purchase a thing unless you have some weird/old hardware where drivers will be a challenge.
There are a million flavors (“distros”) of Linux. The most straightforward ones to start with are probably Ubuntu and Mint.
Most Linux distros have a “live CD” version that you can “ins
Thanks! I have been a gamer for a while now and have primarily been using Steam. One of the main reasons that I have not switched to another OS is I have been worried about compatibility issues.
I L O L from Linux.
I'm probably going to get flammed for this, so let me just say I'm already a Linux user.
We need to cool our jets here. Windows 12 isn't even confirmed yet, and there's no proof that it will require a subscription. That being said, a subscription service isn't necessarily a bad thing if it will allow users to have access to features they need, or replace other existing subscription services like xbox game pass, cloud storage, media, etc...
Subscriptions need to fuck off. I made a stand a few months ago. I will not subscribe to anything at all unless i'm getting INSANE value.
Cancelled streaming, random apps, patreon etc. I now have usenet and backblaze b2 for about £3 a month each. Saving me a fortune 🏴☠️🦜
I don't think this is anyway a serious option. They aren't idiots.
My guess is they’ll follow the Office model: offer both as an option, but slowly improve only the subscription version until it’s not really feasible to stay on the pay-once model. Then kill it off. So maybe we have another 5-8 years before it’s fully enshittified?
I mean, they already advertise in the operating system, is it really that far of a stretch? Shareholders have to squeeze that rock as much as they can.
I think it's a stretch, maybe not a big one but still. This could cause a shift to another os, at least in countries where having such a model is out of the question. And something like that can cause a snow ball effect of people switching. Right now Microsoft is still in a sweet position, problems already coming from apple. They wouldn't.
I've seen some people saying that there's no way Microsoft is this stupid. Some really, really, really obviously bad choices (see: Wizards of the Coast's OGL debacle) have been made because MBAs got greedy and convinced themselves it would be fine. I find it hard to believe that Microsoft would fuck up this badly, but it's not out of the spectrum of possibility. What I think is more likely is that this is one of those 'leaks' where they're testing the public reaction, like when Wizards leaked the changes to the OGL via journalists. Hopefully (or not, if you're a Linux fan) Microsoft plays it smarter than Wizards, because Wizards saw the immense public backlash, gave the sorriest corporate half apology ever, and then proceeded to double down, and it blew up in their face big time.
Honestly OneDrive is actually very good as far as cloud storage platforms go. It just works. I paid for a subscription for a few years.
But starting around the 1000th time Microsoft tried to install even more bloatware I started looking for alternatives. For the low low price of "spend a few minutes learning about Tailscale" and buying a few extra hard drives, I've got 24TB of storage. My most important stuff gets encrypted locally and backed up to B2. I use Immich to manage my photos, so now I dropped my Google Drive subscription as well. Still on the fence about Nextcloud's office suites but LibreOffice works great.
The only reason I still use Win11 is because gaming on Linux still has some issues with the games I play.
It's Linux time then.
And that will be the end of me using Windows for anything aside from AutoCAD & ArcGIS.
And even then Proton will probably let them run just fine in Linux.
Yeah, I'll just get Linux.
Do it now, it's great :D
I actually have a machine set aside for it, but I just haven't taken the plunge yet.
My desktop PC kicked the bucket after 10 years a few months back and I ended up using my Steam Deck as my primary computer for about a month. In that time I learned that Linux isn't so bad.
If forced to either pay a subscription for Windows or switch to Linux the choice seems simple for me at this point.
They are doing the same with Windows that they did with Office. Win12 will come as either one time purchase or subscription based but over the course of 10 years they'll push harder and harder on getting people into the subscription version. Once it has enough uptake, and it will get there, they will then start pushing the "Why run it on local hardware when you can put it in our cloud and access it from anywhere?".
They're already doing the Virtual Desktop thing in both M365 and Azure now so it'll be a pretty easy transition when comes.
I don't really know how your gonna sell people on this exactly. Like people will just stop buying laptops. The average person just buys a laptop at walmart in the desired size, from any brand. They don't even really think about windows. I just don't really see this working for anyone. What will end up happening is Chromebooks will overtake the laptop market if microsoft goes all in on this.
the only reason why I still using windows is gaming. give me a platform where I can use steam and gog and I will not be touching windows ever again if not in a professional capacity.
Fuck subscription models
You can use Proton on Linux to make Steam and windows games work. It's the same way the Steam Deck runs games even though it's Linux based.
I need to have a look at it. thank you for the suggestion
Lutris + Proton.
Baldur's Gate 3? Yep.
Cyberpunk with raytracing, DLSS, and mods? Yep (a bit of tinkering required)
I boot Windows only for Battlefield 2042 now, thanks to DICE's implementation of EAC
I have been playing CS2, War Thunder and so many games on Linux (Zorin OS). Three years now full time on Linux. And I am a newbie, never used the command line ahah
I would happily subscribe to an operating system for a fair price, as long as it's stable, compatible, has timely security updates and - and I highly doubt MS will do this one - without any bloat-, nag- or crapware. Make your default browser a browser, not a spying shopping coupon Bing AI mess. Let me choose the search engine the start menu uses (or use none at all), stop telling me to sign into OneDrive every chance you get, fuck off with your widgets, etc.
If I pay, you have no business trying to fuck me over, Microsoft.
They are going to try and fuck you over.
I want to pay for a Linux desktop
i kinda get this now with Mint and patreon. secure os, managed application source for easy install/uninstall. fortunately, i dont require a ton of windows-only nonsense
Windows is nothing but a nightmare. It's privacy invasive, uses too much resources, breaks 24 7, has a boring UI, limited customization, more susceptible to viruses than any other OS, etc...
People should just switch over to Linux IMO.
I went full Linux (at home - no choice a work) in 2007. It was painful, though way less painful than it was for the folks doing it in the mid-late 90s. (I took a shot and failed during that time.)
Literally each passing year since then, with what I see at work and in the news regarding Microsoft and Windows, has done nothing but deepen my conviction that it was the right move.
I'm years past trying to convince people who don't care about the technical advantages, but I'm really disheartened to see how the telemetry and privacy concerns, and now the idea of software as a service, is not even a blip on most folks' radar.
Most people don't care about their privacy as long as they have something that works for them and doesn't require a learning curve.
Ahoy Mateys 🏴☠️
yep i guessed it end of windows 11 will begin growing of linux
At this rate I'm gonna be on 10 for forever
Lmao!
I'll just use the pirated versions with the malware ripped off of it, thank you. Tiny11 is a beauty to run already.
Look at reactOS for a redo of golden-age windows.
So basically, finally Linux time? I actually like Windows but I ain't putting up with that shit.
Microsoft would be as stupid as your typical League of Legends player for going down that route. Doing this would be an own-goal and would give Linux market share instantly.
I donate to Gentoo every once in a while so I don't have to live this life.
I can't imagine this is entirely true. I bet they will charge for advanced features
Please do this microchumps
They gotta be crazy to do this to consumer Windows, since it's been like, free for a lot of people now.
Except for Onedrive, office365 and your data
Good thing that not one OS is Windows in our household and workshop.
There is literally no advantage in using Windows anymore for us.
I dare them to try
Wondering how will F2P games with anti-cheat react to the news. Knowing that much of their player base may jump ship to Linux to avoid the subscription fees, will they relent and start using less invasive anti-cheat programs, or will they try to adapt specific versions of Wine / Proton to work in rooted mode?
I think an optimistic view would be 1% of their users jump ship…until they see their game isn’t available and they jump back
I want to see MICROSOFT burning along with streaming services, not only for the subscriptions they want to offer, but because they think they can do what ever they want, and that we will say yes and hand them the money! (harsh I know) What they want to achieve with subscription idea? profit monthly ? make more money than before? Yet people can install linux, but in our side as linux users, we have to provide safe interaction in linux environment to new uers.
Windows 12? Did they ever explicitly revoke the "Windows 10 will be the last"?
I thought 11 was an exception die to the hardware requirements.
But I guess any big enough change can be a new reason for the next.
Win10 support ends in 2025. It is not in fact the last version of Windows like they originally claimed.
So there is already a thing with Windows 11 where you can, as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription, upgrade your Windows 11 machine from Pro to Enterprise.
The idea of having the base OS be a subscription is really just a stones throw away.
... but the Pro -> Ent activation process is really a PITA and often randomly PC's will revert back to Pro after they've been ugpraded, so I guess we'll have fun with that.
BWahahahahaaaaaa! Ahhhh shoot that’s funny.
That’s the most Microsoft thing ever.
Fair enough. Give me a clean windows without ads, auto installs from the store, telemetry and other data theft, Cortana/copilot/clippy, onedrive, edge, teams, Microsoft account and nag screens and I will gladly pay 1€ per month. Otherwise, Linux it is.
Too sad that there is not the Office suite for Linux because it's really powerful
(I do use Open and LibreOffice at work. Personally they are mostly worse in comparison.)Besides that I don't have a high dependance except for games. And looking at my SteamDeck it's not a high dependency.
If Steam can solve the anticheat and maybe even releases SteamOS as a desktop distro it would be very tempting to switch if I can't get anything else than a subscription or a free key.Microsoft can suck the juices out of my ass and thank me for it.
Fck them. Fck all subscription models. I ended every subscriptions which I was forced into apart from proton ecosystem which is worth 10$ monthly to me. Either I own it or go fck yourself.
There ins no fcking way I'd pay monthly subscription for social networks.. 🤣
Steamdeck ahoy, then. The only reason I have a Windows box at all is for gaming.
If your games are running on the Steam Deck, they should run on Linux just as well :)
True enough. Did a little looking into that earlier today. Proton is pretty sweet.
You can already purchase Windows through a subscription. Windows Business and Windows Enterprise are 365 subscription based editions.
I hope so the Linux adoption can grow up
I'll switch to fucking Apple before I pay a subscription for Windows.
Or you can switch to Linux.
We need to support true open hardware or less ACPI-WIndows first one. MS can do whatever they want with their OS BUT it should not mess with hardware.
I expected Framework to be a FOSS first laptop but eventually, it just became a wintel derivative.
Hopefully this is just some business related version and not for standard consumers
IF there is going the be a subscription based windows version, it's most likely going the be the cloud version of Windows 11
Ok and I'll just crack it like I do with every other windows version.
Once I paid $250 for Windows pro and a month later my licence key stopped working, and Microsoft didn't do shit.
I even bought it directly from them!
Never paid money for Windows since.
already on linux. The only reason i ever load windows is my capture card doesn't work with linux yet (so like 2 times a month) this is how windows dies
at this point is there even a reason to use windows? I genuinely want to know from windows users, why are you still on this operating system?
for many years (since windows 8.1) I switched to using only linux (and at times macos), and I have never regretted my decision; what keeps you using this hellish platform?
They should make everything subscription corporations cant have enough money.
Id rather be a femboy then use subscription windows
Aha-a-haha-hahahaHa!!!! Oh lord, that's so dumb.
Please don't make me go back to Linux. Linux has become an unusable clusterfuck of bugs, poorly implemented trash, and garbage over the last several years and after using it since the late 90s through a few years back when it was good, I've recently decided to free myself from it because I couldn't take it any more. I've accepted that Windows is the only OS that has itself together these days (fuck Apple and its trash, overpriced, hardware-tied OS, fuck the extremely limited ChromeOS, fuck NODRIVERS *BSD, and especially goddamn fuck horrible user interface crappy system mobile OSes), so if Microsoft makes some shit moves to make their OS unusable, I'm just going to throw all the computers in the trash and go live in the wilderness in a shack chopping wood.
Guaranteed this is just some enterprise-level shit someone found and decided to publish for clickbait, though, so I'm not too worried. Too.
Is it possible to invest in Linux?
you can learn to code and submit a PR
I said invest, not donate! But this is also a good idea.