MS is about to learn how hard it is to build trust in commercial markets, and why it's a terrible decision to set that on fire for a short term profit. Honestly, it's hard to find a better example of a company that had a more comfortable and ideal position in their market, that just decided to disrupt itself without any pressure or prompting. You wanna gamble, you gotta be ready to lose.
this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2026
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They'll never read nor act on this feedback, but here's my list:
- drop the AI
- drop the ads
- stop pushing services, namely cloud
- stop requiring Microsoft accounts
Honestly win10 was great when it dropped. Not sure why we needed 11.
Marketing bullshit. Microsoft isn't going to actually reverse any of the enshittification it's inflicted on Windows.
If you don't have any customer mandated software that requires Windows, I'm looking at you AutoDesk, then do yourself a favor and go ahead take the week to install and learn Linux Mint.
I’ve been wanting to install Linux, but I don’t have a drive large enough to back up my windows installation.
Do you really need the entire installation? Would only the user folder(s) (C:\Users) suffice?
Alternatively, you could install Linux mint on a large enough USB stick and run it off there, if you don't mind the longer read/write times. You'd also need to change the boot order for it too.
Enshittification, as always, is the word here. It's important to point out because to disenshittify(?) the product would need to turn back the wheel, including profits. Line go down.
With all the other lines going down, they literally cannot course correct here in any way that would matter to the consumer to rebuild trust. So much of their model is built off of force feeding users and directing their behaviors, the thing they absolutely hate.
Way too fucking late for that.
You want trust? Fuck off with Slopilot and start supporting windows 10 again.
I haven't had any trust since in Windows since about mid Windows 7 and that was probably unfounded.
Lol. Buhbyeeeeee
Next week:
“We’ve listened to your feedback and have made the hard decision. Copilot will henceforth bear the likeness of Clippy”
Maybe if they keep making it worse and worse it will kind of circle back to good.
“I see you’re trying to edit this config file and respect your choice to do so. May I take this task over from you? No wait, I’ll make a test run and save it elsewhere for review. No wait, that’s too forward of me, I’ll delete it instead.
Come to think of it I’ll delete myself as well, goodbye”
clanker.exe terminated
That's a kind of horseshoe theory I haven't heard of :D
Please don't. It's actually quite funny if you don't have to use windows at all.
Ha. I thought this was from The Onion the first time I scrolled past it. What a hilarious joke. I hope it back fires so people and countries continue moving away from Windows.
countries continue moving away from Windows
you have to admit a huge percentage of people are just dumb enough to actually believe they need the thing they're being told they need, by the people who are selling them the thing.
but when a company spends decades doing shit that literally everyone hates, changing shit that no one asked to be changed, ignoring the changes people want, and now force-feeding this copilot bullshit that doesn't even work, which, again, NO ONE asked for-- fuck microsoft, and fuck their ~~windows~~ spyware
"Improving", the agentic OS thing? Or did they step back from that?
Looking back, these will be the times that trump destroyed america and microsoft destroyed itself. Maybe america destroyed itself and trump was nothing more than the guy who squeezed the pimple.
Hilarious
I have a strong feeling they won't be removing the spying, AI everywhere, ads, and bloatware. Microsoft views those as positives.
Plus getting closer with the govt contracts to allow private data to be surveillance.
Tech has long been in the era of surveillance capitalism. Windows, Chrome, MacOS/iOS(iAds, NewsApp, notarization security, mediaanalysisd, and the most locked down hardware on earth), Android, the majority of all of the apps in the various walled gardens are all out to extract, analyze and monetize every aspect of our digital lives... which is a lot of our waking hours.
As users of these services we all need to ask ourselves if the companies who now make up the lion-share our retirement savings, who collectively dictate how we view and interact with the world really have anything but their own best interests in mind.
Most people would say no but "what am I supposed to do?". People really need to understand that power like the kind that these mega-corps have is only taken and basically never surrendered willingly. Vote with your dollars now and for as long as it takes to see the fall of these vile companies.
Seems they're figuring out you can't sell ads and AI on your platform if nobody wants to use your platform.
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Rebuilding trust for most companies means some bullshit marketing campaign. New catch phrase. Some promotion. It rarely means admitting fault and changing direction. It would take something really huge for that to happen. Perhaps a combination of AI bubble burst, leadership change, shareholder revolt.
Everything anti-consumer in Windows is a deliberate choice aimed at extracting more revenue from customers. This isn't unique to Microsoft. They exist to make money for their shareholders.
If like me you think a lot of companies have been incredibly short sighted and are burning their brands and customer loyalty for short term gains, just look at the stock prices. Short termism is making a killing for tech companies while the rest of the economy is treading water. Is it sustainable? I don't think so. Does it matter for Microsoft or any of the other tech companies?
I have been a customer of companies that were awesome for years then sold out and their prices sky rocketed. They were clearly bleeding customers but every time they did they just put the price up more. Some people always stay for some reason. This can go on for years. As long as they keep screwing people faster than people leave they are probably making a lot more money in the short term than they would have made with a longer vision. That is business these days. People aren't building products for the long term anymore. Now that thinking seems to have moved to companies. Modern business leaders are about gobbling revenues up like a locust plague then moving on to the next pasture.
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Rebuild trust?
- remove all telemetry
- remove all ai bullshit
- remove ads
- open source the whole code
Then, and only then, we might start to trust again.
Please dont do step 4. Devs will get heart attacks left and right if they see that piece of shit code.
To add to this list
- Remove WebView apps. Eat our own dogfood and use MAUI.
- Go back to the classic Start Menu. Use API to make the whole UI available for customizations
- Get rid of the whole shitty "Settings" menu and go back to the Control Panel.
- Drop backwards compatibility for a bunch of crap. Stop pulling the 1980s forward, let that shit die.
- Address real modern issues with compatibility and performance with current CPUs
- Undo all the vibe coding.
- Focus on stability and performance, not trying to be "An experience". Windows runs apps, make it do that the best it can.
- For the love of everything holy, take a risk and modernize the OS. This goes back to 8. But as someone who makes Windows Server golden images for multiple platforms, FUCKING CHRIST. Having to use the Autounattend to even get anything started, and that's often (Even in Azure) just a minimal thing to get some client to do the real work, should tell you there's a problem. The Autounattend is poorly documented. I learned more from just building a basic VM on different providers and seeing what they figured out. I could write a god damn novel on the shortcomings of the initial installation and customization of Windows, but it's especially embarrassing for their Server platform
- Stop dropping support for the crap that works. Just so you can sell an inferior subscription version. WSUS being sunset is stupid. Having on-prem WSUS is always going to be faster and easier. You should focus on making that better instead of letting it limp along and then "Oh, we have an overpriced and slower option!" Get bent.
- Azure Local is a really fucking cool idea. That was an god awful pricing as far as I can tell. But neat.
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Okay, that's easy: remove all the LLM slop. That'll start fixing it. Then get the ads out of the UI. Get rid of the MS account requirement, and make all updates optional. For a stretch goal, go back to making an OS that only does what the user tells it to, and doesn't have any function to phone home without direct user input.
I wake up to a bright flashing of my phone.
It is 3am, damn I forget to turn my phone to silent.
I can't resist the urge, who would text me this time of night??!?
"hey I have been thinking about you, you know I think we could work it out together. I will spend 2026 improving myself I promise. Please baby I miss you"
"go to bed Microslop, you are drunk and you are the one that wanted the divorce because you left me for Al" I text back frustratedly and turn my phone to silent.
King/Queen (whichever you prefer, frigging royalty)
I want a divorce and I'm keeping Clippy
Rebuild trust… by integrating more mandatory and default-on server-based features?
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Bullshit.
Been a linux user for a solid 9 years now. Never going back!
Microslop is going to spend 2026 improving Windows 11.
Why bother? Just upgrade everyone to Windows 10.
lol
Lmao, even
Also, hi from bazzite, which runs the vast majority of games I’m interested in flawless, and usually with even better performance than W10 (let alone W11)
It seems like we’re at a real turning point for Linux adoption. I’m an Apple nerd, but I love seeing people switch to Linux and write about what a (mostly) positive experience it is. Cheers to my fellow nerds getting off the screaming pile of garbage MS if forcing on people who just want a computer that works.
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"Fuck this shit…"
Forever. If by some miracle W12 rolls out and undoes all of this shit I’m still not going back.
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