That did what he asked for and was [1] freely available

[1] https://www.openvmshobby.com/

That's kinda funny. Was meant to be funny right?

"Plummer's complaints boil down to two main areas: a desire for a hardcore mode that optionally removes all the fluffiness added to the operating system for the benefit of non-technical users, and a combination of transparency and an end to the 'Microsoft knows best' attitude that has plagued recent releases."

I mean, there is another freely available OS which does fit that bill quite nicely. I've heard it's the future. Can you guess what it is?

Clue: It's not OS/2 and it's not FreeBSD.

If you are going to suggest Linux, I would ask a question and make an observation:

Which Linux distro?

Certain Linux distros are so busy reinventing the wheel and adding ever more complexity that using them requires full time brain input. Linux is full of complex fluffiness, which just boggles the mind compared to how it used to be.

> Which Linux distro?

[1]Devuan Excalibur , of course.

[1] https://www.devuan.org/

All good questions. I use Linux for my job (server) but still have to use Windows (desktop) quite a lot. I have used Mac too a fair bit, and honestly I think all three of them suck, but just for different reasons.

When it comes to using my own personal machine (which I don't use much, perhaps once a week) I tend to dual boot between Ubuntu and Windows 11, and being lazy I tend to go for Windows 11 most often as it's just a bit easier. It's stupid little things like the finger print sensor which works on Windows but not Linux, and I'm really that lazy that I'd rather not type my password if I don't have to. I guess also as I'm forced to use Windows for work it's what I'm most familiar with, and I'm actually getting to quite like it with Terminal and WSL. I know I *should* make the effort to use desktop Linux more often, and I have tried many times, but something usually breaks or just won't work (or almost works, but not quite) and I have to switch back.

I'm 'weaning myself off of Windows'.

I have a mostly stripped Linux Mint as my daily drive, and Windows10 in a VM for those days when I can't find any pins to stick in my eyes.

I'm slowly discarding 'Everything Comes With Copilot' and replacing it with FOSS. It may not be a straight 100% replacement, but it gets the job done.

When I shared my goal with a colleague, I received this reply:

"But Microsoft is the industry standard!"

Stuff that...

Actually, it could well be FreeBSD.

VMS, the OS that WinNT was meant to be

So, in some ways Plummer is saying to Microsoft "Hey you kids, get off my OS!"

Then again, he might be saying something different to us, using exactly the same words?

The same words can mean radically different things if said by different people or to a different audience. So yes.

The wry laugh is that if Ken Olsen had Seized the opportunity DEC had in the 1980’s, we could all be using a variant of VMS today, with Windows a interesting sideline, just like OS/2.

It's hard not to agree.

Fuck off, Microsoft. It's my computer, my operating system. Let me use it how I see fit.

And yeah, stop trying to send back every fucking detail of what I am doing at any given point. As Dave says - diagnostics data, I can consent to, but I'd also like the option of telling it "No, don't send that report, thanks, as it has confidential customer data in it"

And this constant shitty idea of moving away from the control panel - well it's shitty full stop, but the way it's executed in dribs and drabs. It's bad enough when a setting has moved and/or morphed into something unexpected. It's even worse when it exists in both places.

I'd switch hardcore mode on in a second.

I agree entirely.

This quote from the article baffled me:

>> a reason why ditching telemetry as a whole isn't realistic.

Maybe I do not want MS to see any of my data. Not one bit of it. It's my data.

I think it's perfectly okay to send a "core dump" or equivalent when something crashes. You have this option on MacOS – no obligation and thus far I've had no feedback but the way it's handled is fine. Have the same with a few apps as well.

Suppose that core dump contains private or personal data. What guarantee (and I mean actual guarantee, not MS' word for it) that this could not somehow be used against you? Even if it could not be used, it could still be private. Private = if I share this, I know who I am sharing it with.

Remember the original Windows core dump facility did give the user the option to send or not the core dump to MS. Telemetry is always on.

It would be interesting to know how many of the monthly updates/patches owe their existence to analysis of the core dumps/telemetry.

The original error message stuff came straight from OS/2, where, if you had the manuals, you could look up the error and probably cause.

Actually, this is something that can be covered by contractual obligation and anywhere with GDPR or similar this will be the case. From the dumps I've seen, however, and the debugging I've been involved with, personal data has never been relevant. What's often gold is the ability to replicate the problem and describe the steps you followed for it to happen. This is usually very banal but useful because it includes the kind of thing that users do that developers never think of.

...to see whether he suggests using the Server version to easily get rid of most nonsense.

All he says is true. MS went crazy after Windows 7. They made a step back from craziness with Windows 10 but it was just a short break before setting off again with renewed vigour.

In the video, Plummer calls for an "expert mode" in Windows that takes all of the fluff out of the way and lets the user just get things done directly. What he misses is that cloud services are what makes Microsoft most of its money these days, and Windows is just a delivery system that pushes ads and nudges the user to effect uptake of those cloud services. They do it because they have to. That's the only way the Windows business model still works.

The "get out of the way and get it done" operating system already exists in Linux.

Did he really call for Systemd, a rusting kernel, license legal nightmare, and childish infighting?

You left out the endless room of GUI toolkits…

Also known as Linux.

"So, does Windows suck," he asks rhetorically. "Only when it forgets who it's working for…"

I think he may have forgotten, Windows works for Microsoft. You are the user, you are the payment for using, you should be grateful you are allowed to give Microsoft everything they want.

Hardcore mode? That's called Linux. Or *BSD.

Fluffy mode? macOS.

Job jobbed. Next!

MacOS is pretty good for most things – I spend a lot of time in the Terminal – but settings has been taking on an increasingly MS look over the last few versions as Apple try and shoehorn the IOS UI into MacOS. The current list of items for me on MacOS 25 (Sequoia): WiFi; Bluetooth; Networking; VPN; Battery; General; Accessibility; Screensaver; Apple Intelligence & Siri; Displays; Appearance; Background; Control Centre; Desktop & Dock Spotlight…

It goes on but I hope you get the idea that it's a bad mix of low-level and arbitrary grouping, so some permissions are security – much further down – but some of them are in Accessibility and I can never remember which. Doesn't matter anyway, because they'll probably change in the next version!

[...] due to the blessing and curse of Windows's obsession with backward compatibility.

All those who jumped on the Silverlight bandwagon will question this statement. Many scanners and other devices have prematurely been thrown away because the lack of backwards compatibility. And of course, the stance on backward compatibility with hardware has led to enormous landfill of perfectly good PCs and laptops.

That backward compatibility may be there, or at least a design goal, for supporting applications. But it sure ain't there for users' workflows, troubleshooting procedures, and muscle memory. Legacy file formats, too.

> " Only Except when it forgets who it's working for…"

Fixed that for you.

This goes for so much these days for devices that have embeded computers. Cars, Televisions, Phones, almost anything in the IoT. "You will own nothing and be happy" You may "own" the hardware, but in reality you only rent the software. As many have said--You are the product.

He really hit the nail on the head with the OS being just another vehicle to deliver ads and data harvesting methods onto the consumer.

Why make a thing that performs a single feature reliably, when you can wirelessly update it at any time to spam the user, force them to engage with your "GenAI" offering to juice metrics and bill them monthly for the privilege? They're going to use it either way, if your only incentive is profit at all costs you might as well drain them for all they're worth.

The last reasonably good version of Windows was XP. That's when we started to see the evil in Microsoft starting to manifest.

It started with licensing and activation. Everything was gradually, step by step, being shifted away from the user's control, over to Microsoft's control.

The elephant in the room isn't failures in Windows. It is MICROSOFT. The company stopped being about delivering products, it has joined all the other corporations in the single goal of complete control of, and spying on their "users". I wouldn't even call them customers, "livestock" would be a better term for them.

Everything is FORCED. You can get on your knees and beg the overlords to delay this "update" for a month, but make no mistake, you WILL submit to the will of Microsoft.

I mean come on, the Windows 11 fiasco is so painfully obvious, and Microsoft's demand that everyone login to a microsoft account. How can ANYONE not see what is going on.

F THAT!

almost as if m$ GUI designers have thrown away the guidebooks to good consistant GUI design carefully written at the start of the mouse/keyboard/screen era of computering. and then got the crayons out, handed them to some random 5 year olds, then implemented whatever the five year olds drew.

The old control panel might have been old and clanky, but click on devices and it shows something is not right straight away, click on the error message and see that a device driver for the printer is missing rather than m$ going "let me help you with that" spinning a wheel for 5 mins, then saying "I cant fix the fault.. heres some web searches I did advertising a new washing machine"

I suspect (and maybe I'm not the only one) that m$ are unhappy at their income from selling windows/orafice licences and are trying to move everyone to a subscription type service where you rent access to windows monthly, it stores all your data in a m$ cloud, and forcing you to continually pay m$ for access to your own data as a result(and dont try not paying ..... after all... it would sad if something............. happened...... to your data wouldn't it)

Would you like me to summarise that for you…

Boris said he would prefer to use a crayon on his computer…

The explosion of internet crime can surely be traced to all the data gathering. Without that you are just random unknowns,a sea of similar things,bit like those fish that swim in a swarm and bolt in every direction while the seal tries to swallow one.

Now we are all plankton,swallowed in a mighty gulp by some fat old whale called tech bro billionare.

Autorities are powerless,as they want their dumb kids to get internships.

So the world goes to shit.

It needs a "it's my fucking operating system not yours" mode - where I configured the OS to my liking, and not have it spy on me, or force me to use Edge every 6 months, or integrate the new Clippy into every application against my wishes.

Oh, who am I kidding.

https://www.debian.org/

Debian? Have the ditched systemd then?

Of course, the Linux fanboys have to come in and claim that Linux is The Way and The Light . . . and then immediately fall to bickering about systemd.