Uninstalling the store would be the biggest feature. A lot of telemetry is tied to it. I tried some of the “debloaters” out there, but the windows Installation breaks after a couple of months (I assume when ms pushes a new major update).
Oh look, with the threat of a big enough fine, you can uninstall those things.
Or at least hide the front ends for them.
Linux gives all global users more control: Uninstall Windows, say goodbye to Microsoft
I would love to, but we stiill use Windows specific software (and sometimes even Dos specific software!) but we already do that through a VM. The other issue is the extensions we have for Microsoft Office just won’t work on the Linux alternatives and even then Libreoffice isn’t good enough for half the staff in my accounting firm because it lacks certain features for now.
Most companies who work in browser based software + email can easily switch to Linux and they would barely notice it.
even then Libreoffice isn’t good enough for half the staff in my accounting firm because it lacks certain features for now.
The worst part is where some functionality breaks in a document bigger than a holiday card. I mean formulae vanishing.
I think OOO around year 2009 was very stable and without such annoying bugs. But I haven’t tested it there TBH.
Seriously, feature parity is a dead end. If there were a cross-platform office suite that would at least support the absolutely necessary things with a format not much more complex than org-mode, big documents (300 pages without degrading performance) and UTF-8, it would be fine. I think. That format can even be XML-based, just … why would you have vanishing objects in a document past their certain number? Do they have an unsigned byte counter somewhere?
I would love to, but we stiill use Windows specific software
If I had 1 cent every time I read that… and I pulled those cents together… and then paid software developers to build that missing software for other OSes like Linux… then we’d gradually see less of those comments.
It’s as if the isolation was the business model, proprietary software insuring that alternatives do not exist because users do not bother to get together and unstuck themselves from glowingly dangerous (security wise but probably even financially dependencies.
Hopefully initiatives like NLNet are precisely trying to alleviate such challenges. Until them compatibility layers like Proton are showing the way with arguably some of the most complex and demanding in terms of performance software, namely games.
If I had 1 cent every time I read that… and I pulled those cents together… and then paid software developers to build that missing software for other OSes like Linux… then we’d gradually see less of those comments.
There is a version of the software that works in the browser, but it’s not really that great. That’s what you get when you legally need to use specific software (even the Dutch tax office still use the same old version we use). There are other alternatives, but it’s a massive investment of time to test and switch to that. Something we are forced to do in the near future, but it’s gonna take a lot of time inclusing a lot of time of people with hourly rates of over the 200 EUR excluding VAT. I estimate it will cost us maybe 50% of our yearly revenue to fully switch an organisation to Linux and we will loose a lot of people working here where there are a lot of issues with finding new people for accounting firms.
I have been trying to install Microsoft Office in Linux mint on my personal PC cause I have more issues with LibreOffice when using MSOffice files (and the people receiving the files will be using MSOffice as well) than I have with games. I tried it using Bottles (Wine) with multiple different installers, but no luck so far.
Not sure what NLNet is going to do about software lol, I believe you mean something different. NLNet is an instance that is there for people living with lymphedema and/or lipedema and their loved ones.
Because laws were made by incompetent and malicious people.
Laws should mandate protocols and formats, not implementations. Protocols and formats mandated by the law should be simple. The whole humanity was just fine transmitting telegrams by Morse code consisting of letter groups. Then it was just fine with fax. If what we absolutely require to stay productive needs to be so astronomically complex that one programmer, given ready libraries for XML, encodings, compression etc, can’t write a fully functional and usable by everyone editor for that in 1 month - then such a protocol or format is not good enough to be mandated by law.
Blame the US for that, they are generally the country that goes most against international countries, things like ISO codes for dates, accounting standards, but also things like the way they make invoices etc.
The ISO standards are generally made to make it easier to communicate with each other and here in Europe we also have some really good things going with the VAT rulings and later on with the invoice exchange protocol that is mandatory in Belgium from 2026 onwards.
I also think that beliving that “laws where made by incompetent and malicious people” is a glass half empty way of looking against it and as somebody who has a decent amount of hours learning national and international laws (mostly about taxes) I understand that a lot of them where just made in a different time and people abusing the system cause “quick” fixes to be applied instead of rewriting the enitre relevant law.
Not sure what NLNet is going to do about software lol, I believe you mean something different.
That NLNet https://nlnet.nl/ funding FLOSS project.
There are also BlueHats in France showing how administration is using AND consequently funding FLOSS https://code.gouv.fr/en/bluehats/ by paying for sysadmin, feature dev, maintenance, etc.
I’d love to at work, but I’m using some win-only software with a f-ed up licence manager that I cannot stuff into a VM.
Now switch package managers and run all your drives on different obscure file systems! Make every login cycle through plasma gnome an unhinged custom DE and raw terminal where a camera with sign language recognition is the only valid input!
Create a script to revert to systemd every third startup!
Which distro hurt you?
Arch, obviously, but it was all arranged before hand. After care was lacking. Forgot to load that though, so it’s kind of my fault.
Sounds like half of the process your average Windows debloater goes through every time they update?
On like 8, maybe, sure.
You’re doing something wrong, maybe ask someone knowledgeable for help with your system. It doesn’t happen to other people.
doesn’t happen to other people
Because they’re fucking cowards.
Yeah, you need to be really brave to setup your system incorrectly.
‘incorrectly’
That word absolutely reeks of being no fun.
What, may i ask, is the correct way to configure and use my computer?
The one where you aren’t frustrated by the usage of it.
Oh, so there’s only one of those?
Edit: I read further down…Arch is a bit of a motherfucker. Sorry.
Sorry for what? This was consensual.
For slagging you pre-edit
Imagine living somewhere where those in charge have even there smallest bit of spine.
mmm, that was nice. can i have another?
To get pedantic for a second. The title of this post is “Microsoft gives…” as if this was an altruistic act that Microsoft decided to do for some people, when the article states they did it to comply with a law.
A much better title would have been “EU Forces Microsoft to Give Users More Control:” It returns the credit to the people who deserve the credit and clarifies that it wasn’t something Microsoft did willingly.
Not pedantic. The specificity, imo, is extremely important here, and the poor phrasing really bothered me, too.
I will even uninstall Windows
Europeans have the Freedom to Uninstall SPYWARE? LoL COMMIES here in America we have TRUE FREEDOM of being FORCE FED SPYWARE with NO Other options!
the other option is a faster, more privacy focused, free, open source operating system.
I made the switch a little over a year ago, I know not everybody can/wants to - but major distros are honestly polished enough these days that I haven’t looked back, I should have switched to Linux years ago.
Not everyone will agree, but I think Ubuntu + installing apps through Flatpak is a winning option.
Gotta LOVE the EU, they’re working at a glacial pace but sooner or later (most likely later) it changes the landscape for the better.
If only enshittification would happen slow enough for the EU to catch up to.
I reeeeally wish they would just embrace and find open source software as a public good and get it over with. The equally glacial pace of adoption of OSS to avoid vendor lock in with MS is not exactly giving the OSS world the boost it deserves.
Yeah, well the DMA wasn’t going to cost most EU politicians much of their good ol’ corporate lobbying monies. But switching the EU off of Micro$oft would definitely not only lose those funds, but also introduce way more vigorous counter-lobbying.
One pro of the EU’s glacial pace is that they frog-boil the shareholders, meaning most counter-lobbying activities are relatively tame.
But damn, do I wish they would just give the finger to all those
americancorporations and start a 4-year transition to OSS.This is me being selfish I’m fully aware, but I don’t want the EU to pull from those companies because it seems they’re the only countries willing to fight for the good causes and if they aren’t then the rest will suffer 10fold. At least in it’s current state it slowly feeds back to everyone else, I’m concerned if they pull the plug it’ll be full on anti-comsumer hellscape.
The EU is pumping a lot of money into FLOSS, often not even for administrative use (like, say, lemmy gets EU funding), but at far as adoption rate in administration is concerned well the Commission is one of the worst offenders. As in municipalities realising they can’t fully switch to LibreOffice because they need to apply for EU funds and the commission only accepts .docx. Parliament happily spending money on something and the executive getting around to getting its shit together are two different things.
OTOH it’s not all about Microsoft and the like, a lot of administrative software is special-purpose, written by private companies according to specs, paid for by public money. Making that kind of thing open source is a no-brainer. It’s also a way better use of money to improve and customise some open source ERP than to go to SAP and get a customised solution there.
And a lot of that has to do with lacking competency in administration – outside of police, specifically IT forensics, it’s usually quite dire. States have no issues figuring out whether a blueprint makes sense when they’re issuing building permits, road and railroad engineering, of course they can do that, but IT? Nope. Bring in the private consultants and private consultants are basically the marketing arm of big software companies.
I know what FOSS and OSS is, but what is FLOSS? Search gave me only dental hygiene results.
Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
The FSFE has an overview over the various terms but tldr FLOSS is the one that has the least amount of agitated neckbeards breathing down your neck because it a) includes both free software and open source and b) includes the “L” that clarifies that what’s meant is free as in speech, not free as in beer.
…and I guess it’s about software hygiene?
Thank you for the explanation and link!
Schleswig Holstein (sp?) are doing so, ditto Copenhagen and Aarhaus (DK) and I believe France are looking into it
Yeah, but it’s all piecemeal and small batches of workstations. There’s no full national scale moves.
It’s an entire german state cutting off 800k p.a of MS revenue. That’s not piecemeal is it ?
1 out of 16 states. In 1 out of 27 countries.
Where is Estonia or Finland or the Netherlands to set the bar higher?
I agree it feels very slow, but identifying the correct action and then building consensus around that action takes time. Once consensus is built it is very stable though. That is supposed to be the biggest benefit of democracy; stability built through coalition.
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 me 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.
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.
Ltsc or ltsc iot? Only the IOT lasts long enough and is debloated.
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 because I don’t trust it. I’m not too worried about getting security updates for it.
I exclusively use it to run Autodesk Inventor for making 3D printable objects. Once the STL is created I just drag and drop it out of the VM into my Linux machine. It’s the only communication with the outside world it will ever have.
They’re moving faster than any other government regulatory body.
I wish we could join soon, but that’s also happening at the glacial pace
If the EU could borrow some texans, release them in the european parliament, and tell them “lobbyist” means homosexual in european (since apparently that’s all they need to start shooting someone), the EU would work a lot faster
In other words: Users of proprietary OS like Windows have so little control over their own devices that it’s newsworthy when the vendor allows you to uninstall 2-3 bundled things out of many more. But only in some countries! It’s pathetic.
Tbh everything listed is how 10 LTSC came by default for all users.
10 ltsc?
Windows 10 long term servicing channel. It’s intended for things like electronic signs but works great if you just want un bloated windows. It comes with most of the random bullshit not installed and has a longer period of security updates.
In addition to what Hangon said, some copies of LTSC 10 still have support until 2027 unlike other Windows 10 versions.
If you wanted to try it out on a spare device without buying then ye’d be digging yerself a massgrave wink.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Since this sublemmy doesn’t have any requirement for the title to be the same as the source, can we actually have a correct title: “Microsoft abides to laws in EU and does <…>”, or even better “Microsoft is forced under EU law to <…>”.
The title makes it appear as if it’s out of charity and goodness of their corporate heart. (Fabrication)
Seriously. Correct title is “EU gives EU users more control”
The title makes it appear as if it’s out of charity and goodness of their corporate heart
Only to someone that has been living under a rock for the last decade. Everyone else is able to deduct from the “to European users” in the title that the EU forced their hand
Correct. You’re right, without context (or as you put it - living under a rock) one comes to the wrong conclusion.
I mean they kind of are? It’s not like M$ couldn’t just pay the fines and keep things as is.
No its not, the object of a corp in this modern era we live in is to milk as much money out of the customer without caring about them. The EU laws are the only thing protecting their customers from microsofts greed. microsoft IS being forced to do this and thats a GOOD thing.
The only mechanism of “enforcement” that the EU is levying is fees/fines. M$ can absorb a large amount of fees/fines pretty readily if it means complete market capture.
There is no “force” here when it’s just the “cost of doing business”.
The EU isn’t raiding M$'s headquarters and capturing board members/C-suites. There is no “force”.
I don’t think you understand the fact that the DMA allows fines of up to 20% of a company’s global total turnover for repeated infractions.
Global, as in worldwide. Turnover, as in not profits, but revenue.
For chronic cases, non monetary fines can be applied, including divestiture of parts of the corporation operating in the european union.
No, microsoft can’t just absorb the fines, because the DMA was formulated from the beginning with the specific goal of making it impossible to just absorb the fines.
I don’t think you understand the fact that the DMA allows fines of up to 20% of a company’s global total turnover for repeated infractions.
And how many times has that happened?
None? Great, we’re on the same page now.
because no company has dared to ignore it yet. Those high fines are for repeated infractions, As in if you just pay the fine but don’t change the behaviour your fine goes up.
https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/first-fines-issued-eu-digital-markets-act
Yes… it’s only been 1.1 months since they’ve first issued fines under the DMA… What a long and litigated history! Definitely shows what you claim it does over it *checks notes* 2 issued fines ever.
Funny part is, DMA has been law since MAY 2023. So in 2 years… it issued 2 fines ever… less than 2 months ago.
But right! NO COMPANY EVER DARES IGNORE IT!
LMFAO. Right.
https://www.theverge.com/news/627522/apple-meta-eu-dma-antitrust-fines
The Financial Times reported in January that the EU was planning to soften its regulatory practices around Big Tech following an increase in pressure from the US, with the new EU Commission that took office in December reportedly being more focused on enforcing compliance than issuing hefty fines.
Weird… Doesn’t sound like the commission even wants to issue fines at all!
And you’re suggesting what, that msft tests the waters to risk a fine of potentially 25 billions (10% of 2024 revenue) rather than letting EU users uninstall stuff. I mean I’d love for them to try and get smacked by a huge fine, but they’re not that stupid. And the fact that they have no intention of testing the waters means that the DMA is working. The goal of the DMA is not fining corporations, it’s to force them to behave. And it’s working.
No, I don’t think we are on the same page
Microsoft is also after those juicy administrative contracts, and right now, with US-skepticism sky-rocketing everywhere in Europe, they are terrified that the EU might mandate that administrations have to use (or, at least, have to use more in the coming years) European-made software.
Loosing those EU contracts wouldn’t just be lost money at a time where Microsoft is pumping more and more money into AI with not a single cent of profit on the horizon, it’s also leaving the door open for a competitor to gain worldwide legitimacy and challenge their monopoly in business software.
And that is worst case scenario for them. That’s why every tech giant has been pourring billions into trying to capture the chinese market. Because where they did not succeed, another brand started taking their place.
How would you feel if, in the coming years, a good chunk of the EU administration were to switch to Nextcloud? If, following that move, ISPs started providing those same services to end user? If more and more people switched from MS Office to other office suites that ACTUALLY follow standards and are interoperable? Would one’s reasons for staying with the MS Ecosystem in general crumble?
And if you think that’s not possible, remeber where Yahoo was, and where they are now. In the recent Google trial, there were internal memos showing that Google was actually concerned about DuckDuckGo, and had to prepare a strategy to ripost just in case. DDG has 0.3% percent marketshare.
All giants have clay legs, it’s just a matter of making them bend the knee :)
The best control: uninstall Windows.
Funny what happens when you have a government that actually gives a shit.
Thats what happens when you get unionised.
(because the EU is a type of Union)I just wish they didn’t also constantly try to force backdoors into everything…
I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with this concept…
European governments and the EU definitely don’t care about us, their citizens, but most do see the threat coming from USA these days, thankfully
But I thought Edge was so crucial for the system to function it can’t be removed? That’s what MS told me at least, and I definitely trust them
No that’s internet explorer. They “removed” it, but really it’s just hidden in a way so you can’t run it directly.
Windows 11 does not allow Edge to be removed. There may be some roundabout ways to do it, but the system actively puts up a LOT of roadblocks. It’s extremely trashy.
Yea, but as you can see, it’s really just a browser added ontop. When they made xp, it was so deeply rooted it was silly. Windows explorer panels used it, I think the help reader application (remember that?) was completely re-written on it. Anything that didn’t look like a standard dialog from 2k or before, used the web engine for the UI. Hell you could even set the desktop to a webpage.
It was ahead of its time, but in a bad way.
I just found out the other day that items pinned to the taskbar are in %AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar. 🤦♂️
Microsoft is a sad parody of itself.
Huh, well ill continue living without all that shit on Linux Mint.
Mint… more than just a delicious herb!
For those curious, if you can get a European Windows product key, you can install the “N” version of Windows. Be warned, it only works with certain product keys…
The standard Windows installer should give the option of “Windows 10” or “Windows 10 N” (or similar). The N version is basically bloatware free out of the box…
The regular version has a bunch of promos pre-installed, like candy crush, and other things that most people couldn’t give a shit about…
Recently I’ve been playing a “fun” game with my work laptop where I’ll remove copilot, and a few days later it will appear again. Weeee. In that case, it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a policy in place to enable copilot on my works systems… I’m sure someone who works here, probably higher up the food chain than me, wants it enabled, and the ham fisted policy maker can’t create a policy just for those who want it, so everyone gets it because the bosses son Shane decided that he wants to see how much of his work can get done by AI so he can do even less while on the clock.
Companies absolutely HATE copilot. I remember they didn’t even like Siri enabled on the Mac’s where I used to work. No way in hell copilot is getting a pass.
I work for a fairly large company, and we’re hearing about “AI” constantly. CoPilot is available and its use encouraged. Also, in the cybersecurity space, AI is fucking everywhere. Vendors won’t shut up about their “AI Enabled” products. And the new hotness is “Agentic AI”, which is basically automation, but we’re going to let AI hallucinations fire off the automated process which could bring production systems down.
Good times are surely coming. /sHeh, it’s a small business and bossman isn’t exactly anti-AI.
Don’t underestimate management desire to be absolutely indistinguishable from their competition.
They read the Harvard Business Review, learn new terms they don’t understanding, make a PowerPoint out of it and voila, they are “innovative” like everyone else.
If HBR put “AI” on its cover you can be damn sure all those innovators are going to put AI wherever they can.
N editions should exclude just certain media features. I remember it trying in Win 7 days and never touched it again, never saw a point. Some additional info. Important bit is to not use Home edition, use Pro, Education or Enterprise instead.
As for Copilot, is there anything under these registry keys?
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCopilot
Neither of those keys exist.
Probably because I keep uninstalling the software.
If those keys do not exist, then there is no policy configured to either force enable or disable Copilot.
