Technology

I think it's basically the same idea as Citrix. They're targeting the same market, anyway, as far as I understand. I assume they each have their own pros and cons.

Its probably different in that money goes to Microsoft instead of Citrix.

Its probably in direct competition to citrix.

For a recent job I had to sign into citrix to open a windows VM to access a corporate network. It was a pain, to be honest.

MS could have made that much easier if it was just a matter of signing in and getting some form of windows image streamed directly.

Perhaps I've just read too many Microsoft business documents (I used to work for them years ago), but that's not how I interpret that slide. It looks more to me like they want to "cloud-ify" functionality that could be used either from a desktop install or from a cloud streamed version. The key phrase in that slide to me is "Use the power of the cloud and client to enable improved AI-powered services and full roaming of people's digital experience".

That kind of fits with what they've been doing by moving Windows login to use a Microsoft Account by default (which I hate, btw -- I'm one of those local account people), as well as integration of OneDrive as default file save location. It's the same kind of thing Apple's been doing with macOS for the past few years, adding iCloud integration with everything. If you move that functionality for desktop installs to mostly be cloud-based, it also allows you to create a more viable cloud-only offering. But it doesn't mean there's a reason to stop selling a desktop-installable version.

Microsoft is still a business, and they'd lose a ton of market-share by killing off desktop installs, especially in the enterprise sector, which is their bread and butter. They're looking to expand into other markets, not kill off large existing ones.

I'm absolutely with you. Boiling frog and all. 10 years ago nobody would have believed that you'd require an online account to log into your local machine.

As soon as it's viable from a business point of view (as in people will swallow it), it will be cloud only.

Yep, you're absolutely right. I think my main point is that switching to only offering a cloud-streamed OS as their only offering would kill off a massive market where they have market dominance (enterprise desktops). It doesn't make business sense for them to leave that market. If the demands of that market change, then you're right -- they're going to do whatever is most profitable. But we're nowhere near there yet.

It's literally a fork of wine.

But from a practical perspective, you tell steam to start the game and it starts it, installing and using proton as necessary. If the developers haven't configured it you have to first click a button in preferences that says "use proton" (paraphrased), but that's it.

Tbh you can also be forced to windows by software. Like yes a lot of stuff works on wine and Proton but that doesn't mean it runs good. For VR i didn't hear much good especially if you don't use a native SteamVR headset. Then there is lots of games with anticheat not working and whatever... So if you fall into any of these categories you're kinda SOL.

Does it include MS office?

This is not accurate for windows 11. Microshit turned windows 11 into spy shitstain worse than google android phones.

You have to use power shell to avoid it.

I've had enough. I am now a Linux gamer. fuck you bill gates

I am not having issues, they just made it complicated for the average user in Win11.

And no, installing offline does not force a local account anymore, it just keeps asking you to go online unless you do another workaround usually too complicated for the average user.

So it's not a firm strategic commitment but it would certainly make sense for them. They want everything to be subscription based and they want to control everything you do on your (or their) computer. There are still technical challenges but when they've worked those out, I think it's a safe bet that this is where they're going.

And even if an average user gets things installed and running, they're going to run into graphical issues and lack of polish that pretty much every Linux DE and application has. Stuff like dialog boxes opening up that are too big to fit on a smaller-resolution screen; inconsistent use of widgets, fonts, and icons; help strings being misspelled or completely missing; applications that look wildly different from each other just because they use different GUI frameworks; etc.

Linux "just works" in the loosest sense possible, and I say this as someone who has been using Linux for many years. It's certainly much better than it used to be in the early 2000s, but it continues to lack the design polish and cohesion of Windows and macOS, and that makes it rather off-putting for an average person to use.