The latest Windows 11 preview build in the Beta Channel delivers a rather odd change to the Start menu. For some reason, the "Sign out" button is hidden behind a Microsoft 365 ad and other banners.
Every generation has this moment, where they learn to hate Microsoft (or Micro$oft). Then, 4% install Linux, 6% buy a Mac with half the RAM for twice the price; and everyone else to keeps complaining.
As much as I like Linux, and use it almost exclusively on desktop/laptop, every time I see something like this I am reminded how much I hate the fact that Apple of all companies is about the last bastion of commercial and consumer operating systems who isn’t trying to derive the bulk of their revenue from advertising.
Another day, another piece of enshittification by MS, another reason to talk about our Lord and Saviour, Linus Torvalds, if you can spare a few minutes.
What I love the most about Windows is just how easy it is to find all the user settings I need to change.
And I super appreciate how they configure things that work so perfect for me. It's like I never need to make decisions of my own, they can read my mind.
/S
I tried building a Steam box with the bootleg version of SteamOS from the deck... Can't remember the name of the distro. Steam Games ran great for the most part, but getting Epic, EA and Ubisoft to work was a nightmare. If Linux can get that sorted, I'd never use Windows again.
Microsoft got to much time on their hands.
Can they please work on the more important stuff like completing the transition from controlpanel to settings?
Autodesk! All the others! Can you now, goddammit, for the sake of the mental health of your customers, start building your tools on platforms other than this crap? PLEASE? I mean I'm seriously considering building a parallel system running Linux for all my other office needs and just touch my Win-pc to run my CAD.
I hope MS will continue in this way and ai-mercialize their OS more and more so hopefully the software providers will have enough at one point.
In total, I expect this to cost about a minute or two of my life if they never remove the ads. This figure is fairly typical for daily windows users, of which ~400kk are on win11. Microsoft will steal ~1.5*400,000,000 minutes with these ads. Ads that nearly no one will even consider clicking. 600,000,000 minutes=10,000,000 hours=1140 years. Multiple lifetimes in aggregate, all to be thrown away for nothing. I’d like to send a very strongly worded knot tying tutorial to Satya Nadella and Brad Smith.
Wait, so this is not about the power menu, it's about the pop up when clicking on your account picture bubble if you're signed in to a MS account. They aren't adding a step to logging out of your local Windows user, just to logging out of your Microsoft account if you're using that as a login for Windows, OneDrive and Office365.
The "Lock" button also has a new home—it now sits in the power menu alongside "Shut down," "Restart," and "Sleep" options.
THAT is where the Lock button was? Not gonna lie, I've been Windows-L-ing so long I didn't even know they had moved that to the account bubble.
I'll be honest, the article is a bit overdramatic. Yeah, they are surfacing your services there to upsell you on the ones you don't have, but it's actually not a useless piece of info (currently finding your subscriptions is an ordeal) and none of the functionality is gone. It is true that a lot of UX things around Win11 have gotten worse, though. I'm currently using additional software to replace the taskbar (which will do the Start menu, too, if you want) because the inability to move it to the sides is ridiculous on the OS you're most likely to pair with an ultrawide monitor.
So they want people to pull the plug instead of signing out properly. If they don't can this before it leaves the Beta Channel, they're going to need to beef up their tech support, because the many office workers who use Windows mostly as a launcher for Excel won't have a clue.
Great to know. Not that I ever fucking use that menu, opting to use the sleep button on my keyboard instead.
Anyone who can should switch to Linux. Most of us can, I have done so on my laptop. I have tried gaming on Linux too and it's fucking fantastic though I personally had an edge case issue that barely anyone will ever meet and had to go back. Do not let that discourage you from trying, however. Cyberpunk, as an example, was wonderful on Linux. No issues. As soon as my issues are sorted, something that will happen sooner or later, I will switch that pc in an instant!