Anon uses Windows

I got this same pop up ad on my work computer. Beyond stupid.

ERROR! Please drink a verification can!

Honestly I've been eyeing Linux more and more, but it also scares me a little. What I'm mostly worried about is losing any functionality I've gotten used to.
- I've been using Mint since November. Love it. It's made using my PC new and fun again. There are only two things I cannot figure out yet, and that's putting roms on my PS2 hard drive, and connecting my TI-86 calculator. Luckily, those are both things I can do on my XP machine.
- I use Mint. I'm not a tech savvy person at all. It was so easy. I love it, being free from windows is a breath of fresh air. Never have ads down my throat, my OS doesn't use MY computer to spy on me. Break the chains of capitalism!
  
  Happy cakeday
- Do it. I was where you are 2 months ago. Everything isn't perfect to where it was but I don't mind it and am not looking back.
  
  Dumb question. Can you play games that don't officially support Linux? The oblivion remaster that came out today for instance
  I'm due for an OS reinstall and maybe this is the time for the switch
- I'm a big Linux advocate these days and my best advice is to set realistic expectations. If your intent is to recreate your Windows experience exactly, you'll always be left disappointed. There's simply nothing better than OneNote at what it does, but I migrated my note taking habits over to Obsidian and I'm perfectly happy there now. Turns out I didn't need 90% of OneNote's immense functionality.
  At the end of the day though, Linux is FOSS: it's made by people, for people, to solve the computing problems people have. There are a variety of solutions out there. Reexamine your workflows and be open to fitting new solutions to them, there are just SO MANY choices out there for how to handle most problems.
  Aside from that, there's always going to be a small learning curve. People tend to view that as simply a hassle that takes time to overcome and while that's not entirely wrong, it very much undercuts the real value of learning how to operate and maintain the OS that you most likely use every day, all day. It's extremely hard to accurately describe the value of investing that time and having an OS that isn't bloated with corporate nonsense and fighting you to dictate your workflows into their intended patterns so they can agitate you with ads and paid services at every step. There's a reason we all come out sounding like zealots and while I acknowledge it can feel a little cult-ish, who you gonna trust? Your online nerd community or a corporation who has shown time and time again that they do not value you as an individual user?
  
  Well said. I switched to Mint on my laptop recently and just the serenity of not being pestered by the OS constantly fills me with contentment. Also, the fan was running constantly due to Windows background processes before and now it is silent unless I'm doing heavy work. Feels good.
  
  Your comment nailed it. I just switched a couple of weeks back and it really wasn't awful. There is a bit of a learning curve, mostly around setting up your system the way you want it, but there are so many good text and video tutorials available.
  Now I have a system that just works, has improved my laptop's battery life by over 20% (the fan is no longer cranking the whole time it's on), and actually has greater functionality than when I was on Windows without all the shit I don't want.
  
  My main concern is for my hobbies, like games and such. I've heard that games can have a bit of difficulty running on Linux, and graphics drivers too.
- Also me whenever a new version of windows came out or I just to reinstall for some reason. It never felt the same as it was.
  I've switched to Linux a long time ago. You'll get used to it and it will be the new normal if you give it a chance and understand that it is different.
  People worry too much about it, just give it a spin.
- My thinking was that one day, microsoft will pull the rug beneath my feet and i will lose a ton of data and features brutally. I did the switch 3 weeks ago to fedora and i have no regrets, i actually gained many features for free
- You can try Linux with dual booting ( but be careful or windows will fuck everything up)
- I switched to Fedora KDE a couple years ago and am happy, but the desktop Linux experience does have it's rough edges. Do research and experiment before you make the full switch
- I switched two years ago and it's mostly fantastic. You might "lack" something windows does because you are used to it, but you get a vast amount of choice in other features, depending on how much you try and experiment.
  I recently moved to EndeavourOS with KDE Plasma and immeditately loved it, and so much of the UI is customizable by default and super easy. PoP!_OS just works, Mint or just Ubuntu are also often mentioned as nice picks.
  Of course there might also be situtations where you have to look up solutions online because some software/hardware might not be automatically supported, but I personally can count the issues on one hand that took me longer than a few minutes to fix.
  As someone else suggested, give dualboot a try and feel some different distros out. Could also just make a ventoy (fantastic tool) usb stick and try multiple distros very easily without fully installing.
  I think as long as you don't expect it to "be exactly like Windows" it could be great to switch.
  Edit: it's also much easier nowadays to use and/or to find solutions for isses i think. I tried ubuntu the first time in 2013 but it didn't stick. Nowadays I could not imagine going back to Windows

Man, this is genuinely painful to watch unfold... Yeah, yeah, Linux, I know, already started migrating, but let your feelings speak for a second, sib!
Think back to how much joy and sheer functionality Windows used to encompass. Even Vista, I swear! It was a poorly optimised mess bloated to hell and back with overlapping features, but it was bursting with a genuine desire to innovate. I honestly don't remember ever having as bad a time with Vista as I do with 10, even when I used to run it on an overheating MSI.
Not to mention XP and 7, which were, I dare say, the best operating systems I've ever used, almost interchangeably if we go for XP SP3 with more unofficial tweaks. I'm not trying to diminish the improvements brought on by 8 and 10, they did have some much needed upgrades for vital features and functionalities, that's undeniable. But everything good came wrapped up (or, rather, jumbled up like 10 sets of wired earbuds you just found in a pocket of the coat you pulled out of the washing machine) with sooo much intrusive crap, that it defeats the purpose...
Gotta grieve that shit...
- I'd been a Windows user for around 30 years and I'd probably qualify as a fanboy. I'm sure I hit all seven stages of grief to some extent over Windows' enshittification.
  But switching to Linux has given me all the good feelings about my computer. So I'm good now.
- Switching from Windows to Linux about 25 years or so ago was when I finally realized that computers actually behave in deterministic ways so no, Windows was never really a joy to use.
  
  Yeah like XP was way better than windows now, and 7 was mostly fine in retrospect, but even as a gamer who always used windows, but had experimented with linux, I always knew windows was shit even back in the XP days. I remember doing so much debloating and random troubleshooting.
- This is how I mourn https://gitgud.io/wackyideas/aerothemeplasma/
  
  Ho-ly, the dedication.
  
  omg that's actually beautiful, will be installing later
  
  Uuu, shiny! Thank you!

I didn't even let my latest laptop boot to Windows when I first turned it on, the Linux USB stick went in right away. But for those who use Windows for one reason or another, always perform a clean install; manufacturers love including all sorts of crap by default.
- My laptop booted in to Windows once. I missed my first guess on the key to enter setup and USB storage didn't have a higher boot order than internal storage.
- theres also these fantastic tools: https://privacy.sexy/ https://github.com/builtbybel/Bloatynosy/releases https://github.com/crazy-max/WindowsSpyBlocker https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu
  Not FOSS: https://winaero.com/download-winaero-tweaker/
  Someone's curated list: https://github.com/TemporalAgent7/awesome-windows-privacy
- I wanted to check if everything worked correctly out of the box (and not have trouble with any warranty if it didn't), and doing the initial round of bios updates was easier on windows. So, I booted to windows, played around a bit, and then installed Linux.

I literally just want Windows 7 again but with security updates, driver support, and back end technology upgrades.
For now I'm settling with Window's current state with some Linux use mixed in with the intent to nearly fully migrate for my next desktop build. I'll only use Windows for whatever games refuse to budge on anti-cheat, assuming by then I'm even still interested in playing pvp games at all considering how enshittified they are with engagement based matchmaking and FOMO battlepasses.
- I personally see Linux Mint exactly as a Windows 7 but with modern support (there is even a cool Aero theme for it) :P
  
  It's... It's beautiful
  
  I use mint in my stores so I am no mint hater, but I still find windows 7 to be a nicer user experience. And funny enough "modern support" is still seemingly a thing for my old windows 7 machine. I am often shocked at how well new hardware just works with it. I would have changed it to mint years ago if it showed even a hint of obsolescence, but it seems to just keep trucking on and on. The same can not be said for other windows machines I have tried to put on line (for fun I have done windows XP, vista, 8 and 2000).
- What made me switch permanently to Linux was the KDE Plasma Desktop Enviorment, using Archlinux (SomeOrdinaryGamers had this as his setup.) Basically has what I love about windows 7, and more. Even the desktop widgets!
  
  For me, learning the GUI isn't the biggest issue but taking full advantage of my hardware and some online game's anti-cheat.
  I know Linux driver support that Nvidia has put out has brought it to a pretty good place, but my understanding is that its still not at parity and there is a performance impact to switching.
- there is a program that makes windows 11 exactly like windows 7, it’s called StartAllBack:
  https://www.xda-developers.com/startallback-review/
  i switched to windows 11 recently, spent about a week battling all the bullshit, then found StartAllBack and it’s been beautiful.
  i also recommend MalwareBytes “Windows Firewall Control”, which is actually free without pirating it… which i’m sure no one on here would ever do… but it lets you control exactly what programs can access the internet….
  like, every time i open the file manager, explorer.exe tries to access the internet, i’ve been manually denying it for a while and it works exactly the same, so now i can just permanently disable it from going online….
  but, StartAllBack is amazing, and everyone should have it… or really there should be an open source version by now….
  
  Like Glasswire i think it was? And Tinywall. That category is called application firewall.
  
  lol, no… the link i posted is to a review about it.
  i do love it, though….
  
  Do you get a licensing cut or a referral link?
- I still use 7 on my media PC in the living room. Its wild how much better it still is to use. Gamepass seems to be all that is keeping one PC in my home running windows 10, and when that ends so will my use. Never going to 11.
  
  Unless that windows 7 computer is entirely air-gapped from your network, you should switch it to Linux or Windows 10 (which is going out of support in October).
  Even if you have it on a separate VLAN or have it restricted from accessing the internet, there are attacks that can use another device on the network as a starting point for attacks.
  Having a Windows 7 computer anywhere near your network is an enormous security risk. And one that is frankly not worth it, given the alternatives that exist.
  
  Window's 11 is pretty annoying to use on various levels. I only upgraded to it because my brother encouraged me. Hes always been a little bit of a mainstream tech cheerleader though. Hes always cheered on Intel, Nvidia, and Windows. Its funny though right now I (somewhat resentfully) have an Nvidia because of my performance demand and he has a Radeon because of budget.
  I think I might need to start trusting myself on my hardware searches a lot more. Of course I probably wont be buying new hardware for a while anyway.
- what about win10/11 ltsc?
  
  No, they are bad. Boo windows 10 and the one that is even worse.

It's not entirely clear from the post, but allow me to provide some further context as I received this same pop-up myself.
I had purchased a legit Windows 10 Pro license with my own money for a custom built PC. Was always a trim installation because that's how I roll. Still got this out of nowhere when I booted back into my Windows partition the other day, was unclear what app or process pushed it. Some update either added a new app responsible for pushing these desktop level ads or enabled a pre-existing notification feature I had previously disabled. Just a typical Win10 toast notification a few moments after logging in. Dismissed it quickly and did not care to investigate, but that's about as bad as you can really get, IMHO. They've slowly been pushing the bounds, but here we are: ads straight to the desktop.
- Multiple full screen intrusive ads for win 11, one during a fucking interview, pushed me to finally install Linux last weekend. No regrets, I'm loving it
  
  Windows is only getting harder to control and Linux is easier than ever to get on board and learn. Are we at a tipping poing? Maybe. With what Valve is doing for PC gaming, Microsoft's introduction of Recall for Windows 11 and killing off (for home users at least) Windows 10 in October, who knows, maybe we'll look back and see 2025 was the year of the Linux desktop.

Recently I installed Linux mint on my laptop, and then my main PC died so I replaced it with windows 11. I've had the unique experience of setting them both up from scratch alongside each other.
Windows 11 took longer to set up (4 days), but was 80% via GUI, and the 20% I did in PowerShell was mostly using winget with very few failures. I used ChatGPT for some planning and checklist and also used it to craft a PowerShell script that would silently install about 35 applications that I was too lazy to do manually by downloading the exe's, but I could have gotten there without it.
Mint took 2 days to set up but was 80% terminal, and I would not have been able to install half the things I wanted without the help of ChatGPT crafting baffling workarounds for me that I would not have found on my own.
In the end, both systems are 95% how I want them, with 5% unattainable due to their own unique issues.
I'll continue to use both for now, and see how I go in a year or so.
Edit: I must add that I am extraordinarily fussy about my OS configuration, it needs to look, act, and respond exactly how I want it to or I'm dissatisfied
- The fact it took you that long to set up either OS tells us you're definitely the problem here.
- I got mint up and running with zero terminal input. It was so slick. Idk what you did, but maybe just try booting mint up yourself and leave chat gp out of it.
  
  Which additional software in all did you install after boot though?

Horrendously racist term aside, I feel for this dude. I've logged into Microsoft's support forums more than a few times specifically to call out and report the mindless idiots who keep marking their own unhelpful comments as "solutions."
- Help me, which term is racist?
  
  I think 'jeets' means Indian from the contexts of other greentexts I've seen. But I'm not sure why
  
  Windows is largely an Indian product, jeets is racist against Indians.

This is why I run MAGA Linux with the Kristi Gnome desktop. Problem is my Java imports cost more.
- Oh shit if you have a dog you need to shut down the computer right now no time to explain
- i dont even know this comment can be called. Politically-online? that Doesnt integrate the linux bit though only the irony and the politics 😭 you've created art today jaybone.
  
  Reminds me of when I use to watch leftist political streamers 24/7 (mainly Vaush). Good thing I stopped watching, no matter how depressed afterwards I was.
- Better than Python import tarrifs.

Today I booted my work laptop to be greeted with a fucken ad glazing AI and trying to tell me its the future. Its junk microsoft and you cannot convince me otherwise.
- Work laptop = not your problem
  I'm in the same situation. If I wanna dick around on the internet at work, I have my phone and personal laptop, which happens to be a Thinkpad T14 G1 (running LMDE 6) and blends right in.
  
  I remember some linux laptops my employer handed out to devs that absolutely needed them. Horrendously outdated and misconfigured, half-assed ports of the company software, you had to have a second laptop to read the knowledge base if it broke again. Not fun. Imagine all the shitshow of corporate windows, but with 1/100th the budget.

EDIT: was trying to embed this gif, but not having any luck, so just linking it instead

"Pay hundreds of dollars for a new computer"?
Forget this guy's struggles with Windows, I want to know where they're buying sub-1K PCs in 2025. I'll debloat Windows 8 for that deal if I have to.
- You haven't looked at all. There's zillions of them everywhere
- 2000 is still hundreds
  
  that's another order of magnitude
- "New" can also mean "new to me".
- Let me open a random online computer shop here in Central Europe, and I am greeted with this:
  Ranging from shit-tier 300€ office and youtube machine to 1k€ entry-level macbook. Sure, it's no thinkpad carbon pro ultra leet, but face it, most people don't buy that (or buy that used)
  
  And that is laptops, desktop PCs usually tend to be a bit cheaper for the same performance level.
- One thousand is just ten hundreds if you really think about it.

It's not as bad as people make out, but buying a brand new Windows machine is a pretty annoying experience.
- now that is a well-boiled frog
  
  Could well be European. EU Windows installs are significantly less bloaty than shit than US installs are.
- I always take these posts with a huge grain of salt. I have installed Windows 11 in two PCs so far and never seen these things happen. I don't see no candy crush or nonsense installed save for some microsoft apps. I then proceed to delete what I don't want and turn off tips and suggestions. After doing that it never has bothered me again...
- I’m on Windows 11 and I don’t recall ever seeing a pop-up like this but it looks like a standard notification from the Microsoft Store App, which means it SHOULD be possible to suppress by turning off notifications for that app (Open Settings, go to System -> Notifications -> Microsoft Store and just set the toggle to “Off”).
  Yes, that turns off ALL Notifications for the Store App, but it doesn’t really have any useful ones anyways so it’s not a big loss.

Anon's on 4chan. He literally just has to go from v to g to have a treasure trove of information on how to not deal with this exact problem.

I can mind the popups and ads but its the surveillance that I don't like. Mc recall was the whole reason I deleted my os and got arch

Got a new rog recently. The included bloatware, I think it was antivirus but I don't remember, made games (the thing it was designed for) basically unplayable. There would be random MASSIVE keyboard lag, like I would stop holding W and my character would keep running for several seconds. The mouse had no such issue so I could turn to mitigate, but fuck me it took a while to find the answer. And they're SHIPPING that shit.

this is the way… to fix that: https://www.xda-developers.com/startallback-review/
- Why would I pay for what I get for free with linux?
  
  i didn’t pay for it…
  and although i use linux, this is for people who have to use windows for one reason or another.
  if you don’t, then no, this windows program won’t run on linux.

Just use an enterprise edition and then CTT cleanup tool.
- How much extra does that cost?
  
  Just use the mass activation script. It doesn't cost anything
- Where does one just use such edition?
  
  May I also recommend dusting off the old pirate hat?
  Oh, and group policies. I could not work on a system without turning all sorts of shit off in gpedit.
  
  Mass Activation Script
  
  In Germany you just purchase an OEM volume license on eBay for 8€. That's why I don't give a shit about all this drama, lol. I'm still switching to Linux once I find the time to do so, because I don't want to support American companies any further.

Windows peaked at XP. Vista was the plateau on the other side, followed by the sheer cliff of windows 7.
- What? Windows 7 was probably the best version of windows ever just ahead of 2000.
  Windows 8 was where the cliff was.
  People look back at XP through rose tinted glasses. It was incredibly insecure in every way. Vista made the security architecture changes needed. Windows 7 was polish on top.
  Windows 8 was where metro, start menu ads, auto installing unwanted apps, and ruining Windows control panel / settings happened.
  
  XP was just 2000 with a teletubby desktop. I absolutely hated it.
  
  Whatever Windows you matured with is the best Windows. Mine was Windows 2000. Thanks, Dad 😂
  Except ME. We don't talk about that one...
  
  Prolly, I don't really remember tbh.
- 10 introduced a bunch of cool stuff that made it seem like it was going places: WSL, the new terminal, multiple desktops. If you're able to ignore the sad state of the control panel and settings apps, 10 was peak windows experience (feature-wise).
  Then 11 came around and fucked everything up. As someone who subscribed to MS Insider to run beta builds of windows and get updates earlier, win 11 was the first iteration that really felt like there was just no upside to it. It was exactly the same as win10, but with some features removed and a much heavier hardware requirement. Even Vista (microsoft's most successful OS) had some cool stuff going for it back in the day, but win11 was nothing but one disappointment after another. Shit it wouldn't even let you keep a clock on the second screen until like a year after release.
- Windows 7 was pretty damn good.

Figure it out.

I've been using windows my entire life and have never run into any of the issues Linux users talk about all the time.
- I dont think annon is a Linux user
  
  I don't know of anyone who uses any other OS that complain about windows the way Linux users do
- Lucky you.
- I just had to use my job's OEM device to connect to our new contactor's site since it doesn't work with my machines for some reason (standard deb stable and a popos machine). When I boot into it the lock screen was so overwhelming with weather info, news and other junk I just had to laugh. Its crazy how much junk you need to disable to have a usable device. I haven't really seen vanilla windows for awhile, but it seemed like Vegas slot machine with how many notifications I was getting.
  
  We may call it junk, but a lot of users want those kinds of features.
  It also isn't an "unusable device" just because it shows if it is going to be cloudy. Stop being so pedantic.
  And all of it can easily be disabled with a simple easy-to-find setting. But it is on by default because a majority of users don't look into their settings and thus wouldn't know it is available.
  You have to remember that Windows was made for non-tech savvy users. Not for you and me.
  
  I have a Win11 ThinkPad for work, so I get MS ads, Lenovo ads, and 2 or 3 versions each of Teams and Outlook. We use SharePoint, so when I open a file from there via the web interface, I don't want to deal with that BS for printing. Depending if it's Word or Excel, the button/link for opening in the desktop app will be located differently (or maybe it's based on editing permissions), but it never fails to throw a dialog saying it couldn't open the file in desktop mode and asking if i want to cancel or try again...just before the desktop app opens.
  Some of these things don't happen every day, but they all happen every week, and anyone who doesn't see a problem with that hasn't used a half-decent OS (and I'm willing to include early-release Win10 in that group, telemetry and Cortana notwithstanding).
  
  I mean it was 4 years ago (still 10) and in rough EU area (luckily, nobody but Apple cares enough to not include Swiss) so it was no that bad. But it was a developer device with admin rights, so everything that popped up a notification without good reason got removed.
  Btw, every and each driver vendor installs a background service "for updates" on Windows, that tracks you and occasionally shows ads or flips out to eat all CPU. You can just copy the driver file, uninstall that crap and install the driver file via HWManager. Sorry, i don't remember the file extension, have to google it.