I'm done with Microsoft Windows

As of May 31st, 2024 when Microsoft announced Windows Recall, I have a single physical machine, and no virtual machines, with any version of Windows installed and that will not be changing as long as Microsoft remains on the path they're forged for themselves. The one machine which has Windows 10 is a Dell Venue 8 Pro which needs a dongle to install another operating system, and I need to find the dongle. Once I find the dongle, Windows is gone, gone, gone. Why would I go through so much trouble getting rid of Windows?

In short, mostly Windows 11 and that I'll have to pay to get support for Windows 10 in October of 2025, but also everything Microsoft is doing now that is clearly anti-consumer. Let's dig into the demonstrable reasons:

  • Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 in October 2025. And if you have a system that has been proven to easily run Windows 11, but isn't officially supported you are shit out of luck. You either pay for ongoing support, live without getting security updates, or stop using it and buy a compatible device. This isn't a great look for one of the wealthiest corporations in the World. It's a greedy look, especially for people who can't afford to drop $1,000+ on a new PC. At the very least, it's tone deaf AF.
  • Microsoft has reopened Windows 10 beta channels and will start adding some Windows 11 features into the older system, despite them ending support for the platform next year. And by "new" features, it likely means AI, ads, and more tracking. And don't forget, Microsoft is still selling your data, and you're paying them for the privilege.
  • Users are so unhappy with Windows 11 they are reinstalling Windows 10, again despite Microsoft ending support it in 2025, which is likely what prompted Microsoft to start development of Windows 10 again (See above). Hey Microsoft, here's a Pro Tip: If your users feel like their operating system isn't letting them be productive and switch back to a previous version, maybe what you're doing isn't working.
  • Microsoft has made Windows 11 hardware requirements incredibly restrictive, meaning you cannot install it on anything but the more recent CPUs and requires TPM, so that limits installation to mostly Intel and AMD systems with integrated TPM, or requires the installation of a TPM 2.0 module into desktop systems like gaming machines. And it's not like older machines are incapable of running Windows 11. While better security is always better, and TPM 2.0 definitely provides that like Apple did with Secure Enclave years ago, these choices by Microsoft and Apple still leave a lot of working computers to be relegated to the landfills, since only a small percentage end up going to collectors or are redirected to groups which repair older computers for people who can't afford to buy their own.
There are organizations in various parts of the US that take donations or older computers, refurbish them, and sell for cheap or donate them to families in need. One fantastic resource is Digitunity's AFTRR location map which lists US and Canadian organizations that take computer donations, refurbish them, and provide them to people and families in need. Another resource is the list of organizations at Impactful.Ninja, which is up-to-date as of 2024. If you have more resources, comment on this post to let me know and I'll add them if they check out :)
  • Due to the overwhelming success of Apple's shift to their own ARM architecture for all of their systems, the rest of the industry is starting to follow suit, including Microsoft. If ARM takes over the overall marketplace for personal computers, the only operating systems you'll be limited to on older x86 systems that are still viable will be unsupported Windows and Linux, as well as a few other lesser known platforms (i.e., BSD, Haiku, RISC-OS). And if you've invested in Microsoft-compatible software, you can kiss that all goodbye unless you buy into Microsoft's subscription model.
  • You can no longer use a Windows 11 system with a local-only account. Microsoft now forces you to login using a MIcrosoft account. This isn't a thing on any other operating system, even macOS. While I don't think this applies to most users, if there are a few who don't want to have a Microsoft account to use their computer, that should be their choice.
  • Finally, there's decreasingly little one cannot do on a Mac or Linux machine with the same or equivalent applications or through web apps. In other words, users no longer need Windows to do anything but the most bespoke of tasks that require Windows. Sites like Switching.Software and AlternativeTo.net help you easily find replacement apps instead of being chained to Windows.

I am, first and foremost, a Mac guy. I've been using Apple computers since the early 80's, and my first full-time Mac was an Apple PowerBook 145b in the early-90's. When I started writing professionally in the late-90's I'd added a PowerMac 7300/200 and a Newton MessagePad 130 to my stable. Despite my technical editing and revision contracts were predominantly for Windows books, I used my PowerMac to run Windows 95 and 98 in Connectix's Virtual PC to complete my work, and never once disappointed an editor (except when I missed deadlines, of course). It was a potent combination for the time.

In the early 2000's I started fiddling with Linux, taught myself how to build my own system based on Caldera's OpenLinux using internet resources and, using a Packard-Bell desktop running Citrix MetaFrame, served Windows apps to my Linux desktop over our home network. I ended up cruising on Macs and Linux machines almost exclusively through to 2011 when my MacBook Pro was stolen from a Starbucks.

It was quite the blow. And I had begun to be disenchanted with Apple at that time, so I dove into the PC ecosystem and Windows 7. I then struggled through Windows 8 until Windows 8.1 and 3rd party utilities improved it, then migrated to Windows 10 when the betas became stable. But in recent years, Microsoft has been backsliding from many of the advances they'd made during the Windows 10 era.

Then Windows 11 was introduced when Microsoft had strongly suggested that they were doing to drop the number scheme and just keep updating Windows continuously. That alone made people upset, but in the beginning it was much like Windows 10 with a new desktop experience that was... novel.

It didn't take long for that novelty to start wearing thin, however. Microsoft dropped the ball on a number of exciting projects like the Surface Duo, yet another in a long line of mobile device flops they've attempted following their initial success in the 2000's, and the Hololens, their mixed reality headset that was supposed to usher in a new age of computing, but is now only available for enterprise customers. In fact, Microsoft has bombed on a shocking number of projects over the years.

Ultimately it is the general air of disrespect and disdain for users that is wafting from Redmond in 2023-2024 that has finally irretrievably soured me on Microsoft. While I dislike absolutes, I find it highly unlikely that Satya Nadella will turn make significant changes to the plan he's been ushering in, at least not without facing down a sizeable consumer backlash that will threaten stock prices and spook investors.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see if it comes to that.