My review: Defenders of the Earth (2024) new comic #2-4 ►

◄ Hasbro/WotC quietly cast Resurrect on DnD novels (inc Ravenloft)

It's 2025 and the only clarity about an estimated 240 million devices that won't run Windows 11 is that Microsoft will be offering paid extended support (ESU) on similar terms that businesses are used to, typically with the price rising each year - i.e. they create the security updates and then withhold them from most people. Since most won't or can't pay, we can add botnet security disaster to the e-waste environmental disaster that Microsoft is determined to create. In addition to that, there's the millions of Windows 10 machines that won't be upgraded because users hate Windows 11 changes enough to fight automatic installations.

Of course, you could stick another OS such as Linux onto that good condition hardware and (if you really wanted) run Windows in a virtual machine, emulating the TPM hardware that Windows 11 requires since it's an entirely artificial requirement. But that's going to be way beyond most people, whose best option is friends/family able to set up another OS. Like I say, most people will do nothing, irrespective of any nag screens that Microsoft put in front of them. I expect to see mainstream press covering this as a cost-of-living crisis story more the closer we get to October 14th, and of course Microsoft can't actually afford to kill Windows 10 installations.

Will we see a Windows 12 announcement in the near future that fixes some of things people dislike about 11 and/or fixes to 11? Carrot as well as stick?

The pithiest /. comment re: this is probably: "We’ve invested a metric shit ton in AI and now we need you to also invest in AI or we are going to lose our shorts. We’ll force you by expiring your current hardware for you."

People share tips on making Windows 11 less shit such as this:

- Remove OneDrive and Teams. If you need teams or onedrive, just delete that item: winget uninstall microsoft.onedrive uninstall microsoft.teams.free "widgets platform runtime" "windows web experience pack" - Get rid of Recall and extra search/advertising crap: Dism /online /Disable-Feature /FeatureName:"Recall" Dism /online /Disable-Feature /FeatureName:"SearchEngine-Client-Package" - OneDrive backstop (for the next time MS reinstalls it): gpedit.msc Computer Configuration - Administrative Templates - Windows Components - OneDrive - Prevent the usage of OneDrive for file storage - Enable - Copilot: gpedit.msc User configuration > Administrative templates > Windows components > Windows Copilot - Disable Copilot - Enable (yes, Enable to disable) - Widgets backstop (for the next time MS reinstalls it): gpedit.msc Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Widgets -> Allow Widgets -> Disabled - Services: Windows Search: Disabled Connected Devices Platform Services: Disabled Connected User Experiences: Disabled

Also, installing Windows using a local account has reached new levels of stupidity, including running setup without a network connection and Ctrl-Shift-F10 to use a command prompt to run an oobe\BypassNRO script.

But if you have to fight a company and operating system that much to not waste resources, steal information via telemetry (or with Recall literally screen record sensitive data), and abuse a monopoly position with ads, really the conversation should be around legally sanctioning Microsoft.

Bonus discussion, interesting El Reg articles about Windows history
https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/05/os2_flopped_reason/
https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/18/how_windows_got_to_v3/

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