Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has made the term Microslop go viral with his admonition to “get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication” when discussing Large Language Model (LLM) Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Microslop Trending
Nadella was attempting to set the tone for discussion of AI in 2026 with his “Looking Ahead to 2026” post.
Unfortunately for him, he succeeded.
Here’s the introduction to Nadella’s post:
As I reflect on the past year and look toward the one ahead, there’s no question 2026 will be a pivotal year for AI. Yes, another one. But this moment feels different in a few notable ways.
We have moved past the initial phase of discovery and are entering a phase of widespread diffusion. We are beginning to distinguish between “spectacle” and “substance”. We now have a clearer sense of where the tech is headed, but also the harder and more important question of how to shape its impact on the world.
We are still in the opening miles of a marathon. Much remains unpredictable. Amidst this “model overhang,” where capability is outpacing our current ability to use it to have real world impact, this is some of what we still need to get right
He followed with three bullet points, but it was the first one that got him in trouble and triggered the Streisand effect:
A new concept that evolves “bicycles for the mind” such that we always think of AI as a scaffolding for human potential vs a substitute. What matters is not the power of any given model, but how people choose to apply it to achieve their goals. We need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication and develop a new equilibrium in terms of our “theory of the mind” that accounts for humans being equipped with these new cognitive amplifier tools as we relate to each other. This is the product design question we need to debate and answer.
The reaction on social media was immediate:
— 눈 ︵ 눈 (@apathei) January 2, 2026
Nadella Follows in Pavan Davuluri’s Footsteps
Nadella’s Microslop debacle comes not quite two months after Windows President Pavan Davuluri stepped in a similar pile by tweeting the following:
Windows is evolving into an agentic OS, connecting devices, cloud, and AI to unlock intelligent productivity and secure work anywhere. Join us at #MSIgnite to see how frontier firms are transforming with Windows and what’s next for the platform. We can’t wait to show you!…
— Pavan Davuluri (@pavandavuluri) November 10, 2025
These replies are representative of the response to Davuluri’s tweet:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) January 5, 2026
Forcing AI on Microsoft Users
Jez Cordon of Windows Central put Nadella’s Microslop kerfluffle in context:
(AI) is hard to avoid right now, particularly if you’re a user of Microsoft ecosystem products. Every single app, service, and product Microsoft has on the market now has some kind of AI integration, regardless of quality and usefulness.
Microsoft Copilot is the tip of the spear for the firm, powered entirely by ChatGPT and Microsoft’s savvy early investments in OpenAI. Its interface is pre-installed now on Windows PCs, and has a commanding position on most mobile app stores as of writing. It’s nowhere near as widespread as OpenAI’s ChatGPT service, though, and advancements in Google Gemini sees Microsoft’s old arch rival rapidly outpacing the competition — particularly in enterprise integrations, where Microsoft has its sights primarily set.
The oft-forced, oft-useless Microsoft Copilot integrations on Windows and other consumer products have people exploring alternatives more so than ever before. Entire governments are abandoning Windows for Linux, and there’s more interest in Linux consumer-grade distros than any time I can remember. Despite the noise about the degradation of quality in Windows, the price gouging on Xbox, and the apparent abandonment of Surface — Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made no mention of any of them in a recent post to close out the year.
If you had any illusion that Microsoft might address concerns about any of its major product categories in 2026, Nadella’s “Looking Ahead to 2026” article offers an insight into the company’s focus for the new year, and yep, it’s all about AI.
It’s not just Nadella’s obsession with AI that is infuriating customers, it’s also the dramatic degradation of their flagship Windows product.
Windows 11 Driving Users to Flee
Matthew Sholtz at BGR has a piece headlined “Windows 11 Is A Broken Mess (And Microsoft Knows)” that ably sums up the situation:
It feels like very few of Microsoft’s customers are happy with the direction of the company, and you can certainly see evidence of these complaints when it comes to Windows 11.
Considering locking customers out of the upgrade due to TPM 2.0 hardware requirements, the operating system’s well-documented design issues, its many bugs, and constant breakages left for other companies to fix, there appears to be a lot of anger stewing over Microsoft’s rather poor handling of Windows 11. Worst of all, Microsoft is well aware of its users’ complaints, yet few changes in terms of user satisfaction have been issued. The warning signs are clear. Why isn’t Microsoft listening to its users?
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Copilot’s usage statistics paint a dire image; user visits have been falling since 2024. Then again, Copilot is supposedly the “fastest-growing” Microsoft 365 product, according to the president of Volt Technologies (a Microsoft partner), and many more businesses are set to adopt the tech for their workforces in 2026. Still, this claimed growth is potentially explained by the fact that many of these partners pay employees to adopt the tech by offering bonuses.The backlash from users remains clear, and many are choosing to ditch Windows 11 altogether, with a 70% increase in Linux installs across distros compared to 2022. Users are leaving Windows 11 in droves, and others are taking advantage of Windows 10’s recently announced extended support. Yet Microsoft still isn’t listening to consumers; instead, it’s continuing to chase AI and the money involved in its partners’ adoption of the tech, which could very well lead to a significant valuation drop if things don’t go as planned.
Microsoft intended to muscle its enormous user base (many of whom are corporate, educational, or government users who have limited ability to influence which software they are forced to use) into switching to Windows 11, even if that meant buying new PCs. Unfortunately for Microslop, er Microsoft, that effort seems to have stalled (chart via XDA):
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) January 5, 2026
Zac Bowden at Windows Central has more on the state of Windows 11:
Support for Windows 10 ended in October, and this year was the perfect time to strengthen Windows 11 as a viable replacement for millions of users. Instead, Microsoft spent most of it shoving the OS full of half-baked AI features, all while letting the quality bar slip and shipping new bugs and issues on an almost monthly cadence.
Everything Microsoft has done when it comes to Windows this year has eroded the platform’s reputation in ways that I haven’t seen since Windows 8. Today, it feels like people hate Windows 11 with a passion, much more so than they did when 2025 first started.
…
Of course, the issue that made headlines the most this year is AI, as Microsoft falls over itself trying to make Windows 11 a frontier platform for artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, this effort feels like it has been prioritized above everything else, including quality of life and overall platform stability.Copilot has forced its way into almost every surface and intention on the platform. Heck, even Notepad now has a Copilot button, which is something literally nobody has ever asked for. Microsoft’s AI intentions feel obsessive and forced, almost as if the company is just throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.
Under the hood, Microsoft has been moving to make Windows 11 agentic. It unveiled the agentic workspace, along with a set of APIs that will allow AI developers to build tools that can automate workflows on your behalf. Sounds great on paper, until you read the fine print and discover that it comes with serious security implications and warnings.
Nadella’s Microslop imbroglio reflects his decision to cannibalize Microsoft’s flagship product in the interest of staying competitive in the AI race.
Microsoft’s Hallucinated CoPilot Christmas Ads
It’s not just Nadella’s personal communications either. Microsoft’s Christmas ads for CoPilot seem to have fictionalized the app’s functionality, according to Antonio G. Di Benedetto of The Verge.
Don’t try the above at home.
Cannibalizing Windows for CoPilot
I’ve written before on Google’s decision to gut their incumbent search business in pursuit of AI dominance, but Alphabet’s recent leap-frogging of OpenAI’s ChatGPT with the the third iteration of Gemini shows there may be a viable business rationale behind that decision.
With Microslop, er Microsoft, I am not so sure that they are making a sound decision.
Nadella’s Culture of Fear Driving Microslop Direction
The Verge makes a case for Nadella’s motivations: fear.
From their piece titled “Satya Nadella is haunted at the prospect of Microsoft not surviving the AI era“:
“Our industry is full of case studies of companies that were great once, that just disappeared. I’m haunted by one particular one called DEC,” said Nadella. Digital Equipment Corporation once ruled the world of minicomputers with its PDP series in the early 1970s, but it quickly faced competition from IBM and others that made it irrelevant. It also made some strategic errors by betting on its own Virtual Address eXtension (VAX) architecture instead of the emerging Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) architecture.
Nadella’s first computer was a VAX, and all he wanted to do when he was growing up was work at DEC. “Some of the people who contributed to Windows NT came from a DEC lab that was laid off,” said Nadella. “I think about that, and I think about what it takes for a company not to just thrive at one time, but to continue to actually have the smartest, best people who are going to only work if they’re going to have the opportunity to get both great economic rewards and great job opportunities.”
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Microsoft still generates around one-fifth of its annual revenue from productivity software, but Nadella said that “some of the margin that we love today might not be there tomorrow.” It’s a stark warning to Microsoft employees that a platform shift is underway, and one that is already causing big changes inside Microsoft.
Seems reasonable enough, but there may be a different set of ideas driving Nadella’s decision making.
Nadella and the ‘Growth Mindset’
Ed Zitron wrote about that in November of 2024 in a piece he called “The Cult of Microsoft“:
At the core of Microsoft, a three-trillion-dollar hardware and software company, lies a kind of social poison — an ill-defined, cult-like pseudo-scientific concept called ‘The Growth Mindset” that drives company decision-making in everything from how products are sold, to how your on-the-job performance is judged.
I am not speaking in hyperbole. Based on a review of over a hundred pages of internal documents and conversations with multiple current and former Microsoft employees, I have learned that Microsoft — at the direction of CEO Satya Nadella — has oriented its entire culture around the innocuous-sounding (but, as we’ll get to later, deeply troubling) Growth Mindset concept, and has taken extraordinary measures to institute it across the organization.
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The “growth mindset” is Microsoft’s cult — a vaguely-defined, scientifically-questionable, abusively-wielded workplace culture monstrosity, peddled by a Chief Executive obsessed with framing himself as a messianic figure with divine knowledge of how businesses should work. Nadella even launched his own Bible — Hit Refresh — in 2017, which he claims has “recommendations presented as algorithms from a principled, deliberative leader searching for improvement.”
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Like any messianic tale, the book is centered around the theme of redemption, with the subtitle mentioning a “quest to rediscover Microsoft’s soul.” Although presented and packaged like any bland business book that you’d find in an airport Hudson News and half-read on a red eye to nowhere, its religious framing extends to separation of dark and enlightened ages. The dark age — Steve “Developers” Balmer’s Microsoft, with Microsoft stagnant and missing winnable opportunities, like mobile — contrasted against this brave, bright new era where a nearly-assertive Redmond pushes frontiers in places like AI.
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Your career at Microsoft — a $3 trillion company — is largely defined by the whims of your managers and your ability to write essays of indeterminate length, based on your adherence to a vague, scientifically-questionable “mindset theory.” You can (and will!) be fired both for failing to express your “growth mindset” — a term as malleable as its alleged adherents — to managers that are also interpreting its meaning in realtime, likely for their own benefit.
Great, another Tech overlord devoted to some sort of semi-religious ideology and using those precepts to drive his decision-making.
Regardless of what Nadella actually believes, his actions put off more than a whiff of desperation.
Yeah this is likely because Microsoft is making so little selling 365 Copilot (8m active paid licenses in aug 2025) and they need to find a way to pretend it’s popular https://t.co/TY9kAplazJ
— Ed Zitron (@edzitron) January 5, 2026
I’ll follow up with a post about Microsoft’s complicated relationship with OpenAI on Wednesday.
Google wants me to use the keyword Microslop a few more times so here we go: Microslop, Microslop, Microslop. Apologies to my human readers.
i burned my microsoft ships this fall…a lil faster and willy-nilly than i had hoped, as the laptop that i knew was dying suddenly did just that.
linux mint, on 2 older laptops(both with dead batteries, it turns out).
cpu, etc runs leaner and meaner without all the bloatware…and i can pick and choose what i wnt to update, without all manner of tricks and tactical run arounds to get around microsoft forcing themselves on “my” machine.
prior to that 1st laptops death, i obtained an external hard drive, and downloaded all the pictures and music and stuff i wrote, etc onto it.
the only issue i have had with linux so far is it not recognising that hard drive.
stuff’s still on there(plugged it into mom’s computer to check), but all linux sees is a bunch of ms logfiles and such.
so at a loss…until one of the 2 geeks out here in the hills get back to me with a command line entry.
(likely something to do with the external hard drive being in fat32, or something…im not tech savvy enough)
i have wanted to abandon microsoft for 20 years…really ever since windows 98se ceased to work.
but i was too chicken,lol.
now, im happy that i did.
and the coming windows 11 hijacking operation and the damned ai nonsense you speak of indicates that i was just in time.
Did you go into the ‘disks’ area and mount the external drive? I have several at various times but my 2nd internal memory card is indeed FAT from my previous computer. If it’s always connected you can edit the mount to always show on startup. I have mine labeled as ‘bulk drive’ and switched everything MS to Mint a couple months ago…never looking back!
I am nowhere near a geek but Linux has great community resource sites if i haven’t explained well enough.
The only thing I really miss is PotPlayer for movies as there is no Linux version yet.
yeah, it mounts(the new to me linux terminology is bewildering,lol)…but cant see the actual files.
the geek guy ive known for 30 years has been out of pocket.
picked up another tech guy’s card at the feedstore(!), but havent heard back since i first talked to him(a fella could make bank out here doin this stuff…similarly to handyman services…much demand, no supply).
the latter told me theres a command/executable thing, but he couldnt remember it, and would hafta research…but holidays, and him being in high demand, etc.
all i see is log files from windows.
my real files, like i said, are still there, when i take the thing to mom’s computer.
im afraid to do anything too radical, because i dont really know what im doing, and fear i could reformat or otherwise erase that ext hard drive.
linux cant see any of the flash/thumb drives i have, either.
same deal…just windows logs.
first world problem, lol…i cant curate my own music, is the main thing…got maybe 40 GB of pirated music on that drive.
stuck with the curation of others:https://texasrebelradio.com/listen/
Assuming your HDD has an IDE/ATA interface, there are IDE to USB devices you can use to grab whatever was on your drive if you don’t figure out a way to get Linux to see it.
I’m not a Mint user, but I reckon your issue reading the drive might be a driver problem. See if you can install something from Mint with names like: dosfstools and/or exfat-utils and exfat-fuse. I think the odds are good that would let you access the drive. Dosfstools would handle fat32, exfat-utils/exfat-fuse would handle MS’s newer FAT format.
Linux reads fat32 partitions (though Windows can’t see Linux’s preferred ext3-formatted partitions unless you install a weird file browser).
I’m not enough of a computer person to know from a description without looking at it, but sometimes Windows wants to save your backups in an archived format that their backup system is designed to unpack.
If that happened, you might find the archive file and unarchive it with an appropriate utility on your Linux computer.
Your stuff may be in a hidden folder. Any filename or foldername that begins with a dot is hidden (like “.hidden”). Find an option to show all files to see the possible hidden directory. (at the command line it’s “ls -a” which means “list all”).
Left Windows at home around 2010 when a netbook with Win XP broke and the new one had Win 7 Starter Edition which was not an operating system. Still use it at work at the hospital, though.
So the main point about what’s going on with Microsoft and Windows 11 is being missed by everybody here.
MS under Nadella no longer cares about Windows except as a means to move MS users’ data via OneDrive into Microsoft Azure cloud datacenters, where 365 subscribers will pay to have their data hosted and be accessible from anywhere on Earth that there’s an internet connection.
That’s it. That’s the MS strategy and business model in 2025. When Nadella talks about Microsoft being “still in the opening miles of a marathon,” that’s the marathon he’s talking about running.
That’s why MS is the second-biggest datacenter hyperscaler on the planet after Amazon, with more than 400 datacenters in 70 regions. (Google is the third biggest, and between the three they have more than 55 percent of all compute capability on the planet in their datacenters.)
That’s why “Microsoft is well aware of its users’ complaints” but “isn’t… listening to its users.” Nadella’s decision to “cannibalize Microsoft’s flagship product” is because in 2025 Windows is in fact not the MS flagship product. Rather, Microsoft’s primary business going forward is Azure and the MS cloud of which AI is, yes, a big part, but only a part.
That’s why Windows 11 is ‘screwing-up’, because those continual updates it’s doing are literally designed, firstly, to increase interoperability with the MS Cloud and, secondly, to highjack your personal data via OneDrive into MS datacenters — and to this end forex those updates will literally turn OneDrive back on when you’ve turned it off and literally copy your personal files to the MS cloud without your agreement and erase you personal files on your machine.Nadella’s Microsoft is about the MS cloud and hyperscale datacenters, with the Windows OS still mattering inasmuch as as that OS is a means — for now — to onboard users into that cloud.
It’s actually an impressively ambitious vision of the world of the 21st century and Microsoft’s role in it, and it’s likely that Nadella is going to pull it off, given that over 3.7 million businesses are using Microsoft 365 worldwide, and you and I are either going to be working for those companies or interacting and doing business with them.
But everybody who wants to have control of their own data without constantly paying Microsoft to have access to it needs to get themselves a Linux Mint Distro.
so,in spite of my external hard drive issues(which i am certain are overcomeable, much thanks to everyone!)…
i got out of billgatesland just in time.
with linux mint, is my laptop finally mine?
like actually?
if so…and as i suspect…its a weird feeling,lol.
with linux mint, is my laptop finally mine? like actually?
It seems the best bet. But another very simple option is just to carry all your data on a hard drive that can be connected to whatever computer with whatever OS you’re using, so you take your data with you when you finish that work session and disconnect that hard drive .
Depends on your situation. You’re out in the boonies and budget conscious, I assume, so you’re probably only going to have one laptop on the premises.
Still perfectly good refurbed laptops in the UK where I’m now at can be picked up for £160-250 (probably less if I looked). So currently I’ve got one running Linux, one Microsoft, and another I use when I visit the US (and go through customs and immigration).
Point is, computers are so cheap nowadays that there’s no need to be locked into that one machine that you nurse along when you could be using a portable hard drive — which actually holds your data and also offers you control of your data — as your main device, and which might be preferable to, forex, futzing around with Linux like you’re doing with the one laptop you’ve got.
The most popular Linux distros (and probably all of them) can be installed to a USB stick. I’ve found 256 GB is large enough for me, but you can use as small as 64 GB.. Different brands of computer have different ways of bringing up a boot menu (I press F8 on my Asus after hitting the turn-on switch) that lets you choose which drive to boot from. Or which partition — I finally gave up and installed Windows 10 on my machine to play a simulation game I love. I prefer Ubuntu Linux, but I have Fedora and Debian on USB sticks. A 256 GB stick only costs about $20 here in Thailand, and it’s a great way to try out different distros. You can install Linux to a USB from Windows, too.
“with linux mint, is my laptop finally mine? like actually?”
Yes. Linux has no license keys that can malfunction or be revoked, and it doesn’t “call home” to get permission to run things or to transmit your data elsewhere. Software cannot be “pushed in” from elsewhere.
Also, updates are more robust (I haven’t had the equivalent of a Windows Update failure in over 15 years), and if you do them from the command-line, they’re fine-grained and you can see exactly what’s being updated. [And they’re much faster. My update script takes less than 5 seconds to run if no updates are pending, and even a very large set of updates will typically complete in less than 90 seconds. In contrast, even small updates in Windows Updates take several full minutes, while app updates in the Microsoft Store often take over an hour. Microsoft is awful in comparison.]
About the only potential downside is the lack of automatic backups. Despite the severe privacy implications of OneDrive, it does keep your data safe if your computer should suffer a severe hardware failure. On Linux, you’ll have to set that up yourself. Fortunately, numerous tools are available in Linux for said purpose, and you should be able to find one that suits your needs.
You have a backup utility in your Linux whatever distro you have. Try searching for “backup.” It took me a long time to get Deja-dup working right on Ubuntu, but I finally got the right choice of destination. It’s completely automatic, daily, weekly, or monthly. And there are several open source (free) solutions, but they seem to be more technical.
Wow. Thanks for the concise and compelling explanation of WTF Nadella is up to. There is a reason they’re evil billionaire masterminds, and I’m not.
I believe the world’s most used operating system now is Android and this has been true for some time. Like any computer person I spent years using Windows through various versions. But now I never use it even though 10 still retained on my dual boot laptop. This required a few changes of habit but, changes made, I don’t miss Windows in the least. Their usability breakthrough was actually Win XP and a few programs from that era are still found on my Linux via the Wine. Most Linux distros are themselves derivatives of that now long ago XP user interface with both having 20th c predecessors that others could talk about more intelligently than yours truly.
The operating system is merely the road, not the destination. Why mess with it? It sounds like MS now little more than an eventually failing marketing company.
Agreed. Windows 7 was my preferred operating system because I was late to the party.
Microsoft is a failing and flailing marketing company, but it turns out that we are the “products” being put ‘on offer.’
The above is why I do not carry, much yet use apps on our flip phone. The smaller our electronic ‘footprint,’ the better.
Stay safe.
It sounds like this Nadella chap trained originally to be a Human Resources functionary. The “True Believer” mindset is a classic employee management tool. It also is a cult like world view.
The first thing I did with our Windows 10 running desktop computer when I heard about Copilot was to learn how to try and disable the Copilot application. I too yearn for the halcyon days of Windows 7. It just worked. Nothing “special,” just simple functionality.
Remember, complexity is not your friend.
Stay safe.
Windows 7 sigh… man I miss that O.S. As someone who still uses a computer more than I ever wanted to, it’s getting harder and harder to keep my tech running the way I need it to as every new version of Windows has slid into my shop.
I run software that’s ‘good enough’ for what I need it to do and, most importantly, own it. Most current offerings are all rented. Some software is legacy as well and has had trouble making the OS upgrade leap.
Most recently, I made a mistake of taking a long overdue vacation for one week. Camping away from cell phone reception- heaven.
When I returned home earlier than planned (final camping spot had reception and was ruined by a young man constantly trying to impress his superiors on his phone on how he was motivating his employees to make more deliveries by threatening them with job termination) we decided enough was enough and headed home.
Only to find windows OS updated ( even though I thought I had disabled that feature) and my capacity to print labels out of legacy programs (scuse me app) No longer worked.
Much hair pulling, delayed schedule, money spent and the services of a tech dude and I now have a stand alone win10 computer cabled to a printer firewalled from the internet just to print out labels for the parts that come off my CNC. still running that machine on a Nuked WinXP OS, btw.
I’m getting redundancy back up computers in case any go down so no part of my humble production processes get jacked. I built my shop around windows xp and then 7. It’s getting harder and harder to make product without firewalling my shop off from Windows updates. I make stuff for people to put their stuff into. I don’t need AI or all the bloatware. I’ve realized I’m not a valued customer to Microsoft except as a renter if their products that no longer work with what I’m doing-custom fabrication.
I’m in the process of planning my exit from Microslop (also Adobe, Quickbooks, and all the other predatory SOS providers), but it’s not easy. As a lawyer I have an ethical responsibility to use software that is considered secure and reliable by someone who knows what they are talking about. I’m not that person, and I haven’t found a person like that for any Linux or open source system.
Unfortunately I didn’t figure it out in time to avoid upgrading my desktop/server, which also means upgrading to Windows 11 this week.
If I hate the new Microslop as much as I expect, I may actually retire from the practice of law next year to get away from the predatory software. I’ll consider un-retiring when or if I figure out a workable open source tech platform.
Wow, that’s an incredible case study. These idiots are destroying the entire economy for their AI bullshit.
@albrt — we switched to Linux (LibreOffice) about six years ago and never looked back. But then, we’re not lawyers. And actually, we’re retired.
If you want to leave Windows, you may want to look into getting a computer with Linux preinstalled from a company like System76 or Purism.
Unix-like operating systems are secure and reliable enough that most of the internet runs on Debian Linux servers, and services like Netflix run on NetBSD. Probably the most secure operating system there is is Qubes Linux, but you’d better never forget your password! Mint Linux is best for most people.
The problem is, who do you call if you mess something up? I’ve been using Unix-like operating systems for 16 years and I am not a tech person, and do not like tinkering. I have had a series of people I call when I did something stupid and didn’t know what to do. They tell me to open a terminal and type in incantations that fix my problem.
Problems, when they happen, have usually happened to me when installing the operating system, updating it, or messing with things on a wild hare that I should have left alone.
I wonder if one of the vendors (lile System76) offer a similar service, if you don’t know any Unixy admins to call?
“They tell me to open a terminal and type in incantations that fix my problem.”
i need somebody like that!
i would currently feed such a mage richly!
I end up working with both the windows and Linux command line. Claude.ai or perplexity.ai are pretty good at answering my questions and getting the results I want. Chatgpt would work too. Best, of course is to submit the problem to all three and see if the answers are similar enough to be trusted.
System 76 will definitely respond and help you out if you buy one of their boxes. They are a good company, linux advocates, based in Denver.
So much to unpack with AI crap and enshittification in general:
The push from Office perpetual license to Office 365 monthly rental
The obfuscation of document locations between workstation to OneDrive in the cloud
The push to having a Windows account at Microsoft
Just bought a family HP laptop with Windows 7, so now I’ve got HP and McAffee malware spam to deal with, each pining for me to subscribe to rental agreements.
Honestly, I constantly miss the cleanliness of Windows 7
(Please spare me the Apple white noise, they are not exempt either)
My old laptop (win10) had a memory slot die, so I figured time to get a new backup set up just in case. I decided to try linux mint. Works great for open office (libreoffice) and i fit the browser brave on it. Mostly using it for writing at present. I think I’ll be to depart from the windows world anytime.
I often wonder how such a powerful company can make such stupid moves showing complete lack of vision for their flagship product. It looks like the inflection point was their botched attempt at mobile with totally mishandling Nokia killing their phone division. Since that time their UI designers are thoughtlessly aping Apple Iphone forcing touch-first mobile user interface on a keyboard+mouse workstation that just kills productivity for professionals their core user base.
Since Windows 10 and 11 are about the same functionally (except the latter huge thick layer of paintover) and can be used interchangeably on the same PCs it is easy to compare how much slower and unresponsive the latter is even on powerful top of the line PC it’s ridiculous.
I’ve made my peace with Win 11. Don’t see that it provides any benefit over win 10, but it is what it is. The 25H2 release, not sure of the point but I guess if you are into copilot then may something.
My main tower/development machine is still Win 10. I use it for Visual Studio compiling/debugging C++ and also VS Code, which I find to be an excellent IDE. I also run some AI models on it via NVidia CUDA in a Python environment so not too keen on having to sort an upgrade. It does keep pushing copilot at me but I think you actually need a subscription to make it worthwhile.
My wife still uses Office 2003 but I’m on Libreoffice so don’t really care about the Office360 world (and have never used Outlook for anything).
In the open source project I work on, we’ve been using Claude to review pull requests on MS Github. Haven’t seen any “slop”, but the AI does provide some IMO gratuitous developer ego strokes (“This is a well-designed improvement to the xyz module”.)
Win 11 cannot even open (explorer or program) windows consistently from the taskbar. The OS is terrible and released only to get a version of copilot out in an expedient manner. Me thinks Copilot is the revenge of Clippy–the much maligned program assistant from a previous Windows generation.
Last spring, Microsoft tried to push a resubscription to Office 365 for $100/yr rather than the usual $70/yr. I found out that the price increase was to support AI/Copilot which I didn’t need or want. I found a way to resubscribe at the $70 amount then proceeded to migrate my Office data over to Thunderbird (free email client) and LibreOffice (free office suite) both of which run on Windows and Linux
Now that Microsoft is no longer supporting Windows 10 on my old PC, I plan to switch to Linux (Ubuntu). Good job, Microsoft!
I believe Microsoft is dealing with a lawsuit in Australia over this, because they hid the fact that you could in fact renew your Office subscription -without- Copilot and keep paying the lower price. Don’t know how it will turn out, but the optics certainly look bad.
and thus does Linus Torvald take over the world?
sucks being a cynic, these days
No. Linux is not built like Windows. Linus Torwald is only responsible for the kernel, which does “housekeeping” (reacting to turning on the computer, translating software instructions into hardware instructions (drivers), setting priorities, etc.). On top of that is a set of GNU Utilities (file, folder copying, etc.). When you download a distro, in addition to the above, you get a set of programs that have been tested to work together. The key point is when a Linux program is developed, it is not the “kitchen sink”. Programs rely on key library programs. When a new version of a program comes out, the distro maintainer has to see what has changed with the libraries it uses and the versions of these libraries. If a program requires a new version of a library, and this new version won’t work with another program, can the old version of the library be made to work with the new version of the program?
He can’t even if he wanted to. That’s the good thing about open-source.
Agreed. And besides, Torvalds has never shown any inclination towards “taking over” anything. He’s clearly been focused on technical improvements to the Linux kernel, and as a regular user of Debian Linux since 2002, I can state that he done a good job of it. Despite his rather blunt leadership style, the Linux kernel has steadily gained useful new features while becoming faster and more robust.
This contrasts rather sharply with Windows 11, which gained many useless and intrusive features while becoming slower and more fragile. And more resource intensive. Windows 11 requires at least 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage to run comfortably. I could get by with a quarter of those values using Linux.
US sanctions can get people removed from the kernel maintainers list, though. So there are forces bigger than him.
Luckily the Russian, Chinese, Iranian and others can fork their own kernel if the need be. That’s the good (and the bad) thing about open-source.
Hmm does Nadella being so haunted and afraid of Microsoft’s eclipse by the very technoeconomic “innovation” that will ruin it fall more under irony, psychogenic death, or a self-fulfilling prophecy
A little too allegorical maybe but for some reason it’s making me think of the experience being in a CVS now, with all wares behind glass and no one to unlock it
i almost feel moved to write some obscure arthurian tragedy…
i look forward to these people(sic) being considered delicacies/trophy dishes.
like backstrap or snails.
You can enable Windows 10 security until 2026 with this https://github.com/builtbybel/FlyOOBE/releases
Select the Details button under Upgrade to Windows 11, and under Advanced Options choose Enroll in ESU (Windows 10 security until 2026).
Breathing space…
It sure buys you the 10 minutes you need to install Linux Mint
It actually buys you 10 months, so you can look at Zorin and MX Linux as alternatives to Mint for Windows refugees.
i’d copyright and patent-pending on “micro$lop”. been using that term since the 90s. now who can i sue?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y7DAedIrMU
I am ready to abondon the MS (MotherShip, former employer). But, I am looking for a tax prep package in Linux that can import TurboTax files. Any recommendations?
I’m not an American so I don’t know how TurboTax works, but, browsing around on the internet, it seems that people say that browser-based tax programs are sufficient, no need to download a package. Some use TurboTax, some use Free Tax USA. Again, I can’t vouch, but you can look into it.
I think the Trumpeters killed the free ones this year.
Also a proper PDF writer/editor is required on linux for some tax issues.
I have had to use Abode for that even last year.
So linux is not there yet on some significant issues.
Libre Office can create and edit pdfs. For large pdf files – books hundreds of pages long, with illustrations – publishers prefer it to the Microslop alternative.
Been looking for an alternative for a few years now.
No luck so far.
“Agentic”
One is reminded of M$’ creation of an entry-level virus writing program, when they rushed VisualBasic control into all their applications, to try to compete with / quash Java. Sun Microsystems had developed a secure, cross-platform programming standard that had the potential to break MS’ monopoly. MS’ recklessness created a generation of script kids who could make malicious word files.
It is also interesting to consider how much MS has bet on OpenAI, as the search for bagholders quietly gathers momentum.
Just for the record, I was one of the first people brought in from a senior position in Microsoft to work at the central teams on copilot, and I retired 2 years ago for health reasons, but still with immense frustration. In particular I spent a few weeks trying to corral the copilot tool usage across the platforms and felt hollowed out within days due to the panic and egos and overpowering numbers of people thrown at the walls managing something nobody knew how to understand. Since leaving, I have fully invested myself in the technology, and as I had at Microsoft have found myself trusting it less and less. that does not mean it is not revolutionary. But I knew the internet was important in 1992, and until 1999 with Amazon, it was still mostly a toy. I was not part of the team that invented AI (and was frankly a skeptic then), but I was a person brought in to make it an amplifier for our existing users, and the word ‘slop’ is an enormously accurate word for how AI introduces friction at exactly the point where it could be amplifying.
I just told my teenage sons that Microsoft Office is now called “Microsoft 365 Copilot App”.
They laughed and said, “that is why everyone is switching to Linux these days”.
Until a couple of years ago they thought that Linux was not “cool”, now they have it on their laptops.
There is an under the radar aspect to Windows 11 migrations and it is due to the Valve software gaming store developing their Proton compatibility software allowing 90%+ of Windows games to run on Linux. The reason Linux is now “cool”, is because it can finally run games.
Previously games were guaranteed to keep the next generation of teens, nerds, and entertained firmly locked into the Windows ecosystem, second only to Office users. It was simply out of the question for them to be ported to Mac OS most of the time, let alone to the vast array of Linux distributions. But now Valve have opened up an escape. I don’t think it’s coincidental that the US Linux desktop usage rate broke 5% for the first time.
Microsoft is losing users on the way out, and now even on the way in. The company is in long term trouble and it will take years of sustained, desktop focused product development to arrest and reverse this bleeding. I no longer believe Redmond capable. Neither do MS veterans.
“Microsoft is losing users on the way out, and now even on the way in.”
Agreed. It’s bad enough that Microsoft is forcing people off Windows 10 to the slower, more intrusive, and more annoying Windows 11, but now you have to buy an entire new computer and somehow transfer your data (which a lot of people don’t know how to do). And because of the AI boom (bubble?), prices on RAM and storage have risen sharply, making new computers more expensive.
It’s a perfect storm of factors pushing people away from Microsoft.
In contrast, Linux provides a more reasonable experience and will run quite acceptably on even 15-year-old hardware. [Well, at least for routine web-surfing, email, and office work. Gamers would probably want something newer.]
I have heard it said that Operating Systems by nature reflect the corporation that built them. If that still holds true, then Microsoft favours some divisions over another, is dysfunctional, only listens too internal sources and does not listen to the computer world. Windows 11 is chocking on what corporate wants it to be who figures that people will not have a choice but to “upgrade” to it. We’ll see how that works out.
Apps are likely the main thing preventing most ppl from bailing on Microslop.
Sure, you can install Linux Mint, run LibreOffice and a decent browser, but as @Young asks above, what about TurboTax, etc. etc. etc.? Many specialized apps have not been ported to Linux.
One possible solution is to install VMware on a Linux machine, and set it up to run a virtual Win10 or Win11. This way, you get to cut loose from MS, migrate to Linux, but you can still make booty calls to Windoz if necessary lol.
I have done this on macOS — cost: nothing, to runs WIndoz apps on macOS — and I’m guessing the same can be done in Linux. It takes a bit of doing the first time, because you are installing the whole Windows OS into VMware, but after that it’s easy to launch it and run your fave Windoz apps just like before.
No need for VMware, Linux has it’s own native virtual machine infrastructure called KVM.
Many Windows apps will run under Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) so you may not need a VM. That’s how I run ABBYY Finereader (OCR), the only Windows software I use, apart from Baldur’s Gate…
Thanks for that pointer. Wine failed the one time I tried it, so I figured a VM is just the simplest route.
It’s important to have a solution that is not a yuge pain to get working.
KVM and QEMU is the way to go. It typically comes packaged with whatever Linux distribution you pick. I use it with libvirt and Virtual Machine Manager.
Here’s Veronica walking thru creating a virtual machine. No command line required. It’s a bit dated, but it hasn’t changed that much:
QEMU/KVM for absolute beginners https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgZHbCDFODk
There are also many Linux programs that are nearly the same as their Windows counterparts. GIMP is a good substitute for Photoshop, although there’s a learning curve.
My last Windows was Widows95. Embraced Linux and never looked back. No regrets. I am still well pleased with that choice.
Windows 98SE was the last Windows I used as my daily driver. [Though I’ll admit to having a second computer down in the basement with Windows 11. It only gets used once a quarter or so when I absolutely must use MS Office.] I’ve been using Linux for over 20 years and have never regretted it.
But at work… Hoo boy. We just got upgraded to Windows 11 at work, and combined with all of the “big brother-ware” security and monitoring software that’s installed, my high-performance $3000 engineering workstation is ponderously slow. Takes 5 minutes to boot. [In contrast, my $600 Linux PC takes 6 seconds to boot.] And every single day, there some weird slowdown or malfunction that has me muttering once again, “Wow. I hate Microsoft.”
[test] Pardon my dust. Have not been able to post to this article since yesterday.
OK. So that worked. What in my post is tripping the wire then?
There was an early joke about CoPilotEverywhere™ in tech circles: CoPilot was the new MSFT PaperClip™ … LOL
Back in the halcyon days of #UnixExpo, which used to take place at the Javits Center in Manhattan, I once got a free Unix poster that showed the history of the operating system and all its various branches, that grew off of the two initial “universes” – att and bsd (Berkely). I was amazed to find out way back then (the 90’s) that under its blue-screen-hood, Windows NT was essentially one of those flavors. I have no idea why the evolutionary direction of Windows took it so far away from the core, but I am amazed that today so many companies still use Windows. It’s a security disaster. Not surprised to see the comments.
Windows NT still exists as the codebase for Windows Server – it is a rock solid server OS. I use the 2016 version for a home lab machine, NAS and virtual machine base. You can basically hit it with a sledgehammer and it won’t break. They’ve put some GUI elements from the various consumer versions of Windows on there but it’s very good. You can usually get a key on ebay for around $100. You don’t want to run it on a PC though.
In the early days of my current gig, a common thing to do on Linux was to run Windows on VMWare locally. But eventually license costs nixed that option as well. NT was great. Fond memories of running NTManage in turn-of-the-century NOCs, and installing different software firewall packages for customers in Manhattan.
Can confirm that I hear from peers of many companies desperate to ditch Windows.
Nadella’s fear is ironic, because it was he who started it all.
Now everyone’s desperate to make AI a thing, but Alphabet CEO Sundar’s comments about there being elements of “irrationality” in the AI boom won’t have helped either when it comes to market fears.
Grab some popcorn. I suspect 2026 is gonna be like Saturday at golf major (moving day) when it comes to AI.
The idea that your company is going to live forever seems very strange and unhealthy, just like the idea that your body will live forever, a concept that seems to be in vogue among silicon valley bros as well. If your goal is a company that will still be around a century from now, you have to be in a stable business area like sugar, board games, or breakfast cereal. The last thing you want to do is develop and sell products that change radically every decade.
I used DEC products for years at my first job. They were powerful, easy to use, and amazingly well thought out. DEC didn’t sell to individuals, however, and the idea of doing that probably sounded outlandish to them.
It’s always easy in hindsight to criticize the direction of a past company; it’s a lot harder to predict the future when it hasn’t arrived yet. Nevertheless, the current philosophy of high-tech management seems to be to guess what is going to be the next big thing, and then bet the farm on it (self-driving vehicles, AR goggles, web 3.0, NFTs, smart watches, crypto, and now AI). None of these moonshots of the current century seem to have really gone anywhere or led to anything worthwhile.
Really an astonishing and amazing waste, especially considering the real and serious problems our species currently faces.
They have extracted trillions of dollars in investor and fund money. I believe this has been the primary goal of tech bubbles ever since dotcom at least. AI is simply the latest, hopefully final con.