Uninstalling the store would be the biggest feature. A lot of telemetry is tied to it. I tried some of the "debloaters" out there, but the windows Installation breaks after a couple of months (I assume when ms pushes a new major update).
this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2025
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I will even uninstall Windows
Oh look, with the threat of a big enough fine, you can uninstall those things.
Or at least hide the front ends for them.
Linux gives all global users more control: Uninstall Windows, say goodbye to Microsoft
I would love to, but we stiill use Windows specific software (and sometimes even Dos specific software!) but we already do that through a VM. The other issue is the extensions we have for Microsoft Office just won't work on the Linux alternatives and even then Libreoffice isn't good enough for half the staff in my accounting firm because it lacks certain features for now.
Most companies who work in browser based software + email can easily switch to Linux and they would barely notice it.
even then Libreoffice isn’t good enough for half the staff in my accounting firm because it lacks certain features for now.
The worst part is where some functionality breaks in a document bigger than a holiday card. I mean formulae vanishing.
I think OOO around year 2009 was very stable and without such annoying bugs. But I haven't tested it there TBH.
Seriously, feature parity is a dead end. If there were a cross-platform office suite that would at least support the absolutely necessary things with a format not much more complex than org-mode, big documents (300 pages without degrading performance) and UTF-8, it would be fine. I think. That format can even be XML-based, just ... why would you have vanishing objects in a document past their certain number? Do they have an unsigned byte counter somewhere?
I would love to, but we stiill use Windows specific software
If I had 1 cent every time I read that... and I pulled those cents together... and then paid software developers to build that missing software for other OSes like Linux... then we'd gradually see less of those comments.
It's as if the isolation was the business model, proprietary software insuring that alternatives do not exist because users do not bother to get together and unstuck themselves from glowingly dangerous (security wise but probably even financially dependencies.
Hopefully initiatives like NLNet are precisely trying to alleviate such challenges. Until them compatibility layers like Proton are showing the way with arguably some of the most complex and demanding in terms of performance software, namely games.
If I had 1 cent every time I read that… and I pulled those cents together… and then paid software developers to build that missing software for other OSes like Linux… then we’d gradually see less of those comments.
There is a version of the software that works in the browser, but it's not really that great. That's what you get when you legally need to use specific software (even the Dutch tax office still use the same old version we use). There are other alternatives, but it's a massive investment of time to test and switch to that. Something we are forced to do in the near future, but it's gonna take a lot of time inclusing a lot of time of people with hourly rates of over the 200 EUR excluding VAT. I estimate it will cost us maybe 50% of our yearly revenue to fully switch an organisation to Linux and we will loose a lot of people working here where there are a lot of issues with finding new people for accounting firms.
I have been trying to install Microsoft Office in Linux mint on my personal PC cause I have more issues with LibreOffice when using MSOffice files (and the people receiving the files will be using MSOffice as well) than I have with games. I tried it using Bottles (Wine) with multiple different installers, but no luck so far.
Not sure what NLNet is going to do about software lol, I believe you mean something different. NLNet is an instance that is there for people living with lymphedema and/or lipedema and their loved ones.
Because laws were made by incompetent and malicious people.
Laws should mandate protocols and formats, not implementations. Protocols and formats mandated by the law should be simple. The whole humanity was just fine transmitting telegrams by Morse code consisting of letter groups. Then it was just fine with fax. If what we absolutely require to stay productive needs to be so astronomically complex that one programmer, given ready libraries for XML, encodings, compression etc, can't write a fully functional and usable by everyone editor for that in 1 month - then such a protocol or format is not good enough to be mandated by law.
Blame the US for that, they are generally the country that goes most against international countries, things like ISO codes for dates, accounting standards, but also things like the way they make invoices etc.
The ISO standards are generally made to make it easier to communicate with each other and here in Europe we also have some really good things going with the VAT rulings and later on with the invoice exchange protocol that is mandatory in Belgium from 2026 onwards.
I also think that beliving that "laws where made by incompetent and malicious people" is a glass half empty way of looking against it and as somebody who has a decent amount of hours learning national and international laws (mostly about taxes) I understand that a lot of them where just made in a different time and people abusing the system cause "quick" fixes to be applied instead of rewriting the enitre relevant law.
Not sure what NLNet is going to do about software lol, I believe you mean something different.
That NLNet https://nlnet.nl/ funding FLOSS project.
There are also BlueHats in France showing how administration is using AND consequently funding FLOSS https://code.gouv.fr/en/bluehats/ by paying for sysadmin, feature dev, maintenance, etc.
I'd love to at work, but I'm using some win-only software with a f-ed up licence manager that I cannot stuff into a VM.
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Imagine living somewhere where those in charge have even there smallest bit of spine.
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To get pedantic for a second. The title of this post is "Microsoft gives..." as if this was an altruistic act that Microsoft decided to do for some people, when the article states they did it to comply with a law.
A much better title would have been "EU Forces Microsoft to Give Users More Control:" It returns the credit to the people who deserve the credit and clarifies that it wasn't something Microsoft did willingly.
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In other words: Users of proprietary OS like Windows have so little control over their own devices that it's newsworthy when the vendor allows you to uninstall 2-3 bundled things out of many more. But only in some countries! It's pathetic.
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So I could have a usable machine at work? Good. I am forced to upgrade from win7 to win11 in the lab, and current win11 crap did not appeal to me at all. And it has WSL, so at least it can actually be used for work.
For those curious, if you can get a European Windows product key, you can install the "N" version of Windows. Be warned, it only works with certain product keys....
The standard Windows installer should give the option of "Windows 10" or "Windows 10 N" (or similar). The N version is basically bloatware free out of the box....
The regular version has a bunch of promos pre-installed, like candy crush, and other things that most people couldn't give a shit about....
Recently I've been playing a "fun" game with my work laptop where I'll remove copilot, and a few days later it will appear again. Weeee. In that case, it wouldn't surprise me if there's a policy in place to enable copilot on my works systems.... I'm sure someone who works here, probably higher up the food chain than me, wants it enabled, and the ham fisted policy maker can't create a policy just for those who want it, so everyone gets it because the bosses son Shane decided that he wants to see how much of his work can get done by AI so he can do even less while on the clock.
Companies absolutely HATE copilot. I remember they didn’t even like Siri enabled on the Mac’s where I used to work. No way in hell copilot is getting a pass.
I work for a fairly large company, and we're hearing about "AI" constantly. CoPilot is available and its use encouraged. Also, in the cybersecurity space, AI is fucking everywhere. Vendors won't shut up about their "AI Enabled" products. And the new hotness is "Agentic AI", which is basically automation, but we're going to let AI hallucinations fire off the automated process which could bring production systems down.
Good times are surely coming. /s
Don't underestimate management desire to be absolutely indistinguishable from their competition.
They read the Harvard Business Review, learn new terms they don't understanding, make a PowerPoint out of it and voila, they are "innovative" like everyone else.
If HBR put "AI" on its cover you can be damn sure all those innovators are going to put AI wherever they can.
Heh, it's a small business and bossman isn't exactly anti-AI.
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Europeans have the Freedom to Uninstall SPYWARE? LoL COMMIES here in America we have TRUE FREEDOM of being FORCE FED SPYWARE with NO Other options!
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Gotta LOVE the EU, they're working at a glacial pace but sooner or later (most likely later) it changes the landscape for the better.
If only enshittification would happen slow enough for the EU to catch up to.
I reeeeally wish they would just embrace and find open source software as a public good and get it over with. The equally glacial pace of adoption of OSS to avoid vendor lock in with MS is not exactly giving the OSS world the boost it deserves.
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Funny what happens when you have a government that actually gives a shit.
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Since this sublemmy doesn't have any requirement for the title to be the same as the source, can we actually have a correct title: "Microsoft abides to laws in EU and does <...>", or even better "Microsoft is forced under EU law to <...>".
The title makes it appear as if it's out of charity and goodness of their corporate heart. (Fabrication)
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how do i europe
But I thought Edge was so crucial for the system to function it can't be removed? That's what MS told me at least, and I definitely trust them
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The best control: uninstall Windows.
Make it world wide!
Microsoft is grudgingly forced to give...*
🇪🇺the🇪🇺land🇪🇺of🇪🇺the🇪🇺free🇪🇺
Please let them also remove all the XBox nonsense. The other day my laptop from work that runs Windows 11 Pro gave a big ass prompt if I didn't want to try XBox Game Pass with the new Doom game. It's basically an ad for games on a Pro machine, ridiculous.
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I love being in EU
Perhaps sometime in the future, more people will try Linux and see how good it is. My recommendation based on my own experience:
Want stable, just working. Robust workhorse: Try Debian
Want newest, nicest, good for gaming (need a tiny bit of tinkering if you run Nvidia): Try Fedora
Want easy to install, but a bit older and slower, but requires no tinkering: Try PopOS
Don't like settings, tweaks and fuzz: choose Gnome desktop 😊
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This is why when u pirate windows u always pirate the European version. Not that I condone pirating windows that would be immoral and wrong.
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