social.noyu.me

if i hypothetically had A Patreon and the main goals were to

• maintain touchHLE
• produce a “Linux distro” for creatives and power users that is user-friendly, and only runs Windows software
• possibly develop an end-to-end-encrypted replacement for Twitter alt accounts

[poll]

i do worry the linux distro concept might be alienating to uh, linux users, but the whole point is it's not targeted at people who find that an enjoyable environment already

‪it feels rather urgent because windows 10 goes EOL in less than a year‬

my weakness is that i tend to try to limit the size of my audience, an impulse i will have to relax a bit if i want something like this [the broader project described by the poll] to work

‪oh, the other thing i'm considering doing is make interesting youtube videos. those serve three purposes: let people know i exist and what i'm up to, actually do something with all the knowledge i've accumulated, and potentially provide revenue. but it wouldn't be the main focus‬

@hikari so I sorta doubt the practically of getting the things you want to wide usability within a year, even if I think they would be technically neat

And I also wonder why people won't just upgrade to Windows 11 when the software they use makes them

@erincandescent @hikari …because people will rather not spend effort nor money and assume business as usual? it """"worked""" with XP and 7 so they have no reason to assume otherwise

@xerz @erincandescent @hikari because windows 11 is so actively alienating that it becomes worth the effort?

i would absolutely patch out any checks in such software for example

@whitequark @erincandescent @hikari oh it absolutely is alienating, I just don’t think most people are even aware of that yet and thus don’t factor it in

@xerz @erincandescent @hikari i think this was the case for 8 and 10 but the amount of hate is see towards 11 seems to exceed even vista. so maybe not? it's hard to get a representative sample

@whitequark @xerz @erincandescent windows 11 is a weird one. i've come around to it for dayjob but i had to ask corporate IT to figure out how to disable bing start menu suggestions with a group policy for me (lmao), and in a corporate environment a lot of the bullshit is pre-disabled anyway, and i still don't like it because the most noticeable UI changes make the experience more sluggish and unwieldy

@hikari @xerz @erincandescent yes

my headmate runs an activedirectory domain that makes our windows 10 machines tolerable through extensive use of group policies

and my understanding is that on windows 11 even that won't be enough

@whitequark @xerz @erincandescent logs onto work computer oh hello there microsoft edge icon that has somehow reappeared on my taskbar for the 212nd time

@hikari @whitequark @xerz wtf that doesn't even happen to me on a barely modified 11 install that I use exclusively for gaming.

FWIW I am a bit puzzled about the degree of intense Windows 11 dislike I've seen... But I found 10 to be particularly unpleasant to use so it's quite nice by comparison...

@erincandescent @xerz @hikari i stayed off 10 until the moment it became largely impossible, and (with all of the group policies) i can almost pretend that it's XP with a kernel that isn't a pile of garbage

with 11 i can no longer pretend

@whitequark @erincandescent @xerz the thing with win10 is it's also miserable out of the box but it still respected the user's right to bash it into a shape usable for them

win11 however, with its æsthetic overhaul, has deliberately thrown out parts and principles of the ui unchanged since win98(!), with no way to restore them

@whitequark @erincandescent @xerz it's actually more radical than win8 was in this respect, it “merely” jettisoned the start menu

@hikari @erincandescent @xerz yeah like, i don't care about the start menu really, half of what i do is win+r <something>.msc and the other half is using the search functionality. in kde i use krunner for the same thing

i care that it might as well not be windows but a poorly designed parody of it. i will begrudgingly acknowledge that they have improved the kernel somewhat. now put userspace back, you shitheads

@whitequark @hikari @xerz maybe we just use different bits of Windows but my experience is that among the bits of Windows I use, 11 is closer to 7 than 10 was.

@erincandescent @xerz @hikari

@whitequark @hikari @erincandescent @xerz I was shocked a little while ago when W11 ran like butter on a Phenom II X6 specifically using HBCD PE, which is as trimmed as possible. It might be worth checking out what they did to make that happen, if any of it works in non-RE configs?

@whitequark @erincandescent @xerz @hikari You could pretend 11 is XP without service pack updates, antivirus or firewalls connected directly to the internet with a public IP I guess?

@erincandescent @xerz @whitequark @hikari Personally, I've never had any removed icons reappear, but I did have Edge go through the first run "experience" several times when I ran it to test something (I've since worked around this problem by changing my Edge shortcut to start it with -inprivate parameter).

@whitequark @hikari @xerz @erincandescent One thing I found that seems to help a lot is to use the N version of Windows; if you currently have Pro installed, and the activation status (in Settings → System → Activation ↓) shows "Activated with digital license", you can do a clean install of Windows Pro N without a key, and it'll activate (this doesn't work with Home unfortunately).

Once N is installed, you have to install Media Feature Pack through Settings → System → Optional Features (to get the codecs and phone connection support back); this randomly fails – if that happens, run these commands from an elevated command prompt:
dism /online /remove-capability /capabilityname:Media.MediaFeaturePack~~~~0.0.1.0
(cleans up halfway-installed Media Feature Pack; reboot after doing this)
dism /online /add-capability /capabilityname:Media.WindowsMediaPlayer~~~~0.0.12.0
(installs Windows Media Player)
dism /online /add-capability /capabilityname:Media.MediaFeaturePack~~~~0.0.1.0
(installs Media Feature Pack again; if it fails, repeat the command, it usually succeedds on second or third try – don't ask me why)

@hikari @whitequark @xerz @erincandescent I set up a ton of group policies to make Windows 11 more bearable, and I pre-install StartAllBack for users to get the non-shitty taskbar back (I seem to have a lot of users that want their taskbar on the side or even on top of the screen).

@erincandescent the thing with win10 is that there's a large install base that literally can't upgrade to win11 without buying new hardware, unless they use weird hacks

but yes it may be too esoteric a project. if i do do it, i'm doing it for myself more than anyone

@hikari a bit of me wonders whether some of the less necessary (and hence easier to hack around) requirements will get dropped close to the date. It would be weird but it wouldn’t be too surprising tbh

But really you’ve gotta consider that your target market becomes people

• On older hardware (and consider that hardware that shipped with 11 will enter the recycling channel soon)
• Who are nerdy enough to install a new OS
• But are uninterested in running Linux

@erincandescent @hikari I'd be willing to use it as a lightweight gaming solution to normal distros, which can get quite heavy sometimes. Not many games actually require that extra amount of resources on my machine, but it'd be nice for something like VR, where stutters can lead to nausea.

@erincandescent @hikari One reason why people may not upgrade to Windows 11 even if software tries to make them is if their computer does not support it.

@erincandescent @hikari I think that if people are *looking* for an offramp from Windows 10 because of Windows 11, this at least creates space for an active community that works toward a full replacement. Instant success or even short-term success might not be necessary once you have a group of people's attention. It is also possible people will be *more* desirous of a Windows replacement *after* the Windows 10 EOL, because they will be using Windows 11 and disliking it

@mcc @erincandescent @hikari Is there any practical difference between Windows 10 and 11 after you go force off all the malicious shit in both?

@dalias @erincandescent @hikari Yes. The difference is the *new* malicious shit which will be added to Windows 11 next month, which has not been added yet, and which thus you don't know which registry entries to disable to disable them.

Also, no one has yet told me how to turn off rounded window corners in Windows 11. It is not clear to me it is possible.

@mcc @erincandescent @hikari I was including Windows Update in malicious shit to force off.

@dalias @erincandescent @hikari I would have assumed receiving security updates would be the (sole?) reason for using Windows 10 in the first place.

@hikari as a linux user i would probably use it?