I wish Microsoft would just let me buy a copy of Windows 11 Ultimate and be done with it. No restrictions, no bloat, privacy, just an exchange of money for a product.
I have a copy of Windows 10 LTSC that I have installed on a virtual machine just in case I need the one last program that I use that I cannot get to work on Linux.
Lately I upgraded my machine and had to reinstall everything. As I was installing Windows on my VM, it started demanding that I create an account and wouldn’t let me proceed without one, asked be to associate third party accounts to my OS and was generally being extremely intrusive and forceful in ways I didn’t remember it being before, like opening Edge and forcing me to click through an introduction that I didn’t want without giving me the option to close it. I then realized that I had forgotten to disable network access to my VM and that Windows had downloaded updates during the install.
I immediately destroyed that VM and started over again, this time without allowing it to connect to internet. Suddenly the experience was far better.
The moment I had let Windows connect to the internet it had thoroughly enshittified itself. It let me appreciate how badly Microsoft has enshittified Windows 10 over the years ever since its release. We are far away from the Windows 7 days.
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Goretantath@lemm.ee 2 days ago
Ltsc or ltsc iot? Only the IOT lasts long enough and is debloated.
DaddleDew@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s some sketchy pre-cracked Jack Sparrow edition I torrented to run exclusively offline in a VM and will never let it connect to the internet. I’m not too worried about security updates.