Ever since Windows 8, Microsoft has shown to be a sadist.

Linux Mint Cinnamon is incredible, free to try/move to, and reversible.

Consumers are not the main driver of profit, speculative value is. Microsoft knows that Windows is guaranteed to be on the majority of PC's, which means they can afford to implement hostile features that increase the speculative value on data collection and AI investment.

I don't think MS is out of touch with what the customer wants, I think they just stopped listening.

The fact is nobody is asking for this stuff.

I think the hope is that they build it anyway and then people will use/want it. AI is the big buzzword of the decade, just like 'cloud' was the big buzzword of last decade.

In theory, I could use an AI for doing stuff. For example, opening ripped videos, finding the timestamp where the episode name is given, and then copying that into the video's filename. Afterwards, it can open Handbrake, use my preferred settings for audio and subs, then start the conversion of multiple files.

However, this is all predicated on the AI not doing unwanted things - such as giving Microsoft my personal information, preferences in hentai, and passwords.

Someday I will use agentic AI, but it will be on my terms.

put the socks on >:3

Woah woah woah, lot's not compare fabulous knee high rainbow socks with the malware MS is putting in their OS. That's not fair to rainbows or socks.

Microsoft is forcefemming en masse.

The socks have a bit of a learning curve, depending on what you want to do with them, but it's worth it. It's such a huge relief to not care how much more Windows is getting enshittified this week, since it's not my problem anymore.

I don't want to have to start wearing rainbow knee-length socks

it’s pretty obvious that you do

I work in IT for businesses and the number of times I've had to debunk AI slop hallucinations as actual troubleshooting information is not zero.

"Yes, I can see the instructions say to check that checkbox, however, that checkbox does not exist" (screenshot of relevant control panel).

This is just evidence, to me, that business types are already relying on AI instead of doing any actual thought or research on any topic they don't already have a deep understanding of, or are too lazy to bother with.

Consumers are not driving this change.

The worst part is that it's an echo chamber of yes-men that seem to be pushing for it. The AI enthusiasts trying to sell their crap, convincing the middle managers that they need their AI crap, and them buying it and asking for more/better AI crap, and the cycle continues. At no point does any of the output of any AI system provide any unique insight, or value, to anyone. The rest of us are being dragged along for the ride, regardless of what we want.

The tech industry puts bazillions of dollars into AI development and now it has to put AI literally everywhere to make it look somehow useful. Whether the customer / user wants this or not. I guess they are hoping that people will eventually like it.

Isn't it so they can train their AI on your personal files?

Just pirate windows server or other enterprise editions which can be used only by business

I'm guessing that the answer to that is .. as soon as openai collapses .. hopefully.

I'd give it another year at best.

I guarantee you they will solve it by lobbying to get rid of HIPA

I work in healthcare (maintenance) and our computer system is so fucking locked down, I'm sure CoPilot will have some similar way of being shackled. I was surprised to learn that the terminal isn't locked, until I fooled around some and realized that every possible command was individually blocked.

Recall 2.0

I had this happen before but not in recent times. Not sure if others have experienced the same.

For a while I had my bootloader on a single drive but I now have my Linux bootloader on /dev/sda and my windows on /dev/sdb and toggle it in the bios when I need to use Windows. I haven't had Windows overwrite anything in a long time. Could be a coincidence though.

One of the reasons why I never dual boot. Unfucking GRUB is not on my priority lists.

I have a dual-boot with Linux Mint. I don't access anything personal from my windows installation. It's just for games that don't work on Linux.

Oof - that reminds me - I have a LOT of scanning / digitizing to do.

Dont forget "Everything"

Drugs can at least be fun?

That should be a fun defcon.

There’s not a day that goes by that i don’t think about it. In fact i might just install a dual boot today and get reacquainted with a Linux distro. See if it runs the software I need…

Because they make so much more $ from selling your data. Microsoft would rather push these AI programs in an update, and bank on their users not noticing. The majority of users operate in a walled garden, they aren't editing registry files or manually running commands, so they are less likely to notice the changes. It's the power users that notice this shit, and sound the alarm.

They can't do that. They have all of their money riding on AI. They can't possess any data that might show the all-mightly Shareholders that they bet wrong.

Also, the AI-Windows could be upsold as a luxury, which means you can charge more for AI-11.

... If people were willing to pay for it, which is a tiny percentage of the small percentage of people that want AI on their windows. Even the people that are all in on chatgpt will very rarely accept paying a cent for it (and it must be a bargain considering that openAI said a few months ago that the average premium plan is a net loss for them due to the server costs)

The way things have been going it's more likely that the AI-free version will be the upsold luxury

“Remind me later…”