Comments
By embedding-shape 2025-11-1318:424 reply > Microsoft's Windows chief Pavan Davuluri had earlier hinted at such plans already about how the next evolution of OS will make it capable enough to make it "semantically understand you" as Windows will get "more ambient, more pervasive, more multi-modal". Using features like Copilot Vision it will be able to "look at your screen" and do more.
These are not words that usually leads to user shouting "Yay, finally, what a pleasure this is to use now!". Why even use the word "pervasive" and the term "look at your screen", almost sounds like it's intentional to turn a specific segment of users away.
I feel like we're still discovering how security, privacy and LLMs connect together. Add in a OS-available MCP that has access to your computer and applications, and I feel like it's way too early to integrate it on that level, especially when they at the same time say "security is our top priority".
By thewebguyd 2025-11-1319:494 reply > at the same time say "security is our top priority".
I don't think that's true anymore, and this proves it.
They did the security song and dance for a while because they were under pressure. Now AI is the number one priority over everything else, security be damned.
By bigfatkitten 2025-11-1320:511 reply The security focus mostly ended when Nadella got the top job, well before the AI craze.
By embedding-shape 2025-11-1321:292 reply I remember Bill Gates (sometime around 2000-2005 maybe?) saying "Security is now the top priority for Microsoft", and in 2024 Satya Nadella said it again (https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/microsoft-ceo-securit...) and just one month ago, a blog post titled "How Microsoft is creating a security-first culture that lasts" (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2025/10/13/bui...)
I don't think it ever ended, nor that it ever started. But they've been saying this for a while not, for at least two CEOs.
By bigfatkitten 2025-11-1321:461 reply Security came onto Nadella’s radar in 2024 because Microsoft was compromised quite thoroughly (and avoidably) by the Russian intelligence services that year.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2024/01/25/mid...
Midnight Blizzard was the turning point after a decade of neglect, that saw a lot of amazing work done by some very talented people during the Trustworthy Computing era (following the Gates memo) being unwound.
By embedding-shape 2025-11-1321:471 reply Yes, I'm aware of that, but I'm telling you "Security is Microsoft's #1 priority" isn't a novel thing Nadella came up with, Bill Gates been saying that many times too.
Gates in 2002: https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Gates-makes-security... (which mentioned Gates also said to focus on security in 1995 as internet became a new vector)
Gates in 2016: https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/gates-security-is-to...
Just two examples. I think saying "Security is the most important!" is part of the job description of a Microsoft CEO, since they keep repeating it, yet security keeps being a low priority.
By bigfatkitten 2025-11-1322:00 The difference in 2002 is that Gates actually meant it, I know this because I got to see it first hand.
Windows XP SP3 was all about security. Vista introduced massive improvements with things like UAC, ASLR, Bitlocker, secure boot and add-ons like EMET that eventually got rolled into Windows itself. At the same time, there were massive changes in the engineering culture in terms of the secure development lifecycle.
A lot of other, arguably sexier feature work took a back seat to get all of these things across the line.
By kjs3 2025-11-1416:37 I remember asking Steve Balmer somewhat before this (late 90s?) "will Microsoft ever prioritize security over new features?". He looked at me like I'd kicked his puppy and said "we would never do that". Culture comes from the top and all that...
By einsteinx2 2025-11-1323:291 reply I don’t think security has ever been Microsoft’s top priority.
Before Windows Defender, people were paying small fortunes for anti virus and malware scanner software.
By sunaookami 2025-11-148:24 Because there was enough propaganda to make people believe they need kernel-level malware to "combat" real malware.
By array_key_first 2025-11-141:511 reply I mean, has security been Microsoft's, and specifically Windows', priority... like, ever? They pretty much half-ass it every chance they get, just slapping some popup or something, training their users to completely disregard whatever Windows warns them about.
By thewebguyd 2025-11-143:21 There’s quite a bit of security related features they baked into Windows. Virtualization based security with code integrity, app guard, device guard credential guard, etc. are all really robust, but it all requires configuration, and some is locked behind enterprise licensing. The entire NT security model is built on security descriptors applied to pretty much every system object and is way more granular than *nix’s User and Group ID access control.
So yeah, for a while at least, Microsoft did prioritize security and did a lot of work to harden windows (or rather, provide the features for corporate IT departments to harden it). The problem is much of it is off by default, or even not available at all, to home users.
Given Microsoft’s attitude and locking this stuff behind enterprise licenses, it’s clear they don’t even view windows as a consumer OS but one that’s designed to be managed at scale by someone else.
By IT4MD 2025-11-1322:14 [dead]
By poly2it 2025-11-1319:31 Clippy will generate your OS for you in real time!
Of course they won't admit they screw everything up and that's what exactly made their users run away to competition or towards FOSS alternatives. So there's this toxic marketing positivity clown dance of "plans" happen while they're ignoring once again the criticism and feedback. And frankly, I'm fed up with this - not only in this particular MS case because this ridiculous bs can be seen in the whole corporate world.
By happymellon 2025-11-148:33 > "No way to prevent this" says only OS where this regularly happens.
By cyanydeez 2025-11-1320:32 User locking is their top priority.
By hybridtupel 2025-11-1318:459 reply I guess now is the best time to switch to Linux. MacOS 26 being super sluggish and looking like a soap bubble game for children. Windows becoming a SkyNet OS. Meanwhile Steam just announced their new hardware on SteamOS, emphasizing that users still own their hardware and can install whatever they want.
Unfortunately the most popular distro (Ubuntu - Canonical) is behaving more and more like Microsoft. I updated to 25.10 last week and it decided to ignore my settings, reset the snap priority and reinstall the snap firefox package, all without my consent. I was fed up when Canonical decided to hijack apt to inject their own proprietary closed-source snap packages, now after having dealt with it again and again after each major upgrade, I just switched to Fedora Gnome a few days ago and I'm not missing anything with Ubuntu.
Corporate ethics-wise, Canonical is vastly better than Microsoft.
But I prefer Debian Stable, for reasons both pragmatic and on-principle:
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-dvd/d...
(Or people can go to a confusing download page: https://www.debian.org/distrib/ )
By KetoManx64 2025-11-1416:49 Debian isn't heading down the best path either with their their policies (keeping the child sex predator on their payroll to do conferences that often times parents bring kids to, forcing the removal of the fortune packafe because it was deemed offensive, openly stating that straight white males shouldn't apply for internship, etc)
By happymellon 2025-11-148:35 > Canonical is vastly better than Microsoft.
However Canonical apologised, and removed it.
Microsoft doubled down, adding more adverts.
By sharts 2025-11-1321:05 Just BSD and chill
I switched to Mint (Mate) around 2012 or so because of radical UI changes made by Canonical. At the time, the "mobile revolution" was the big industry trend. Windows 8 had come out which was designed for touch screens (and people hated it) ... and Canonical released a new default desktop environment (I think it was Unity? Memory is fuzzy). It was shocking to me and when I complained about it, a friend recommended Mint.
The nice thing about Linux is that you have max choice. That can pose problems for new users who might be a bit overwhelmed but we shouldn't pretend that Canonical "owns" Linux or that everyone is necessarily going to land there. I recommend Mint when people tell me they're thinking of giving Linux a try. Haven't given Ubuntu a second thought in years.
I went from Ubuntu to Mint around the same time on my laptop. I took my desktop from Ubuntu to Fedora. A later laptop followed it, because I was tired of the little differences.
Ubuntu is completely off my radar too. So many dumb things that often lasted a few releases. Like ads for their cloud services, Unity for a while, window controls on the left for a while...
My biggest problem with Mint was that upgrading the OS became a hassle if I put it off for too long (which I started doing after a not-so-smooth upgrade experience, one release).
By DemocracyFTW2 2025-11-1321:05 I'm happy to report that I upgraded my Mint from the previous to the most recent version without any snags. I then discovered I was still on an older kernel version which required a little more research, but went without any difficulties. The second part is admittedly something that not-so technical people will have considerable difficulty in even realizing. But all in all I can say that Mint is a solid, stable, and usable system for experts and novices alike.
By dv35z 2025-11-1419:24 Curious your experience with Mint Debian Edition. I currently use Debian Stable as my workstation & local server - I considered Mint, but since it was Ubuntu, I held off...
By stubish 2025-11-145:03 What is unfortunate? You found one alternative was not to your liking, and another right there to take its place. You didn't have to pay for anything. You were not locked in to anything. Now you are not fighting your OS. Seems to be working as it should.
By roscas 2025-11-1319:50 Some people like Ubuntu but I don't because of so many reasons. If rather use Debian.
Same for Fedora that I don't like also. I prefer to use RockyLinux or AlmaLinux if you really need a RHEL compatible system.
There are other options, most of them based on Debian or Ubuntu.
My desktop choice is ArchLinux with Plasma or XFCE4. No snaps, no crap.
My servers choice is RockyLinux 8 or 10.
Who are you the people still praising Ubuntu? Where does it come from, this Ubuntu by default thing? Why? I genuinely interested. It was one of my first distros, but that was when they were doing this shipping CD thing. There are countless of distros that are better out of the box, e.g. Fedora. Sincerely, I don’t understand. Who uses Ubuntu these days, and why. Especially on servers, lol. Why not use Debian then?
By rurban 2025-11-1412:16 Privately I'm using Fedora, because that works. But my last two companies are using Ubuntu overall. Maybe because there are so many packages available. It's still far less stable than Fedora. I have to fight stupid Ubuntu bugs every single day. On my Fedora machines it tested OK, so that is my gold standard.
By klaussilveira 2025-11-1319:221 reply Ubuntu was always like this. Use Debian.
By anticensor 2025-11-157:48 Ubuntu was like this since 2009, use Pardus (which is based on Debian and follows roughly the same release process as Ubuntu, but no snaps).
By WorldMaker 2025-11-1320:06 Or distros taking cues from it like Bazzite.
By surgical_fire 2025-11-1321:38 Mint is love, Mint is life.
By scuff3d 2025-11-145:46 Debian, Mint, Fedora...
By anonymousiam 2025-11-142:34 Canonical needs snap in order to distinguish them from all the other Linux distros, so they've gone overboard to make sure that you "need" it.
I think it's horrible that they've taken extreme measures to overtly circumvent their users' desire to run the Firefox distributed through Mozilla's repo.
The following link describes how to overcome the latest version of Canonical's extreme insistence on the snap version of Firefox. It's almost laughable when you see how far they've gone to try to lock you in.
https://gist.github.com/jfeilbach/78d0ef94190fb07dee9ebfc340...
By turtletontine 2025-11-1318:513 reply I’ve been using Linux distros daily for >10years now, and I only get more confident that I made the right choice.
Pretty much the only things I miss out on are Microsoft Office and Photoshop. Gaming works astonishingly well on Linux these days with Steam+Proton.
> Gaming works astonishingly well on Linux these days with Steam+Proton.
This alone is the last frontier IMO. It's the only reason I still run Win11 on a gaming PC with a big Nvidia. Take that away and their marketshare will tank.
I wouldn't call it the last frontier. Gaming works well enough for me to not have to worry about.
I am, however, obligated to keep a Windows partition around because I do music production. If there are good DAWs that run natively on Linux, almost all plugins won't run on Linux. Everything plugin that runs as standalone or anything similar is guaranteed to not work on Linux.
I am thinking about getting a Mac mini for music production only, seems it's probably the lesser of 2 evils
By klaussilveira 2025-11-1319:24 Which VSTs you had problems with? Have you tried LinVst?
By thewebguyd 2025-11-1319:53 Last frontier for gamers.
I'm still on macOS for the foreseeable future as long as there's no Lightroom (Classic) or Photoshop on Linux. I'd even settle for CaptureOne or Exposure. DarkTable still isn't there, nor is the UI as easy to work with.
Not to mention other business uses and different fields whose apps are exclusively Windows, not even mac and Windows.
Windows has a captive audience. Yeah, Linux can and will take some, but it'll still be a small piece of the pie, unfortunately. Everyone else has no choice but to put up with the abuse.
By fletchowns 2025-11-1319:061 reply > Gaming works astonishingly well on Linux these days
They have certainly made a lot of progress, but there are many of us that will be stuck unless all the new AAA titles are supported. Battlefield 6 is a notable recent example of a wildly popular game that you can't play on a Steam Deck.
Seems like it's really just the anti-cheat that is holding things up. I wish every game studio out there didn't have to come up with their own anti-cheat system. Is this something Valve could solve once and for all with their OS & platform? That seems like something that would make the 30% tax a lot more appealing to game studios.
By netsharc 2025-11-1414:10 I wonder if the solution would be multi-booting. Keep the OS open, but games with anti-cheat would boot out of its own partition, with a secured bootloader, and secured lightweight OS, just enough to load the game..
By TremendousJudge 2025-11-1319:063 reply Is there any video production software that runs on Linux well nowadays?
By dfxm12 2025-11-1319:25 I've used Shotcut, it's simple and easy: https://github.com/mltframework/shotcut
I've tried Kdenlive, but honestly, shotcut met my needs, so I didn't explore it too much: https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/kdenlive
DaVinci Resolve is also available for linux. I've never used it though.
All the Davinci software runs well and I consider it class leading in its category of software.
Design, sound production and cad are all lacking strong alternatives on Linux.
By sprkwd 2025-11-1410:52 https://reaper.fm has a Linux build.
By phibz 2025-11-1319:36 Kdenlive isnt bad
Until normies start getting fully working GNU/Linux laptops on PC stores, it will be the same migration story since Windows XP days, that gets repeated every single time Microsoft does something folks don't agree with.
By WolfeReader 2025-11-1319:01 They also need tech support. Desktop Linux is in great shape, but most current Desktop Linux users are capable and willing to troubleshoot their own problems.
By thewebguyd 2025-11-1319:042 reply Yep. And they will ultimately return them or be disappointed when [insert xyz app] doesn't work.
Gamers are only one case that's currently being solved. Devs are already solved (except for iOS). Creatives are a different story entirely.
If anything, Microsoft's decisions are more likely to boost mac sales than they are to create any kind of meaningful normie migration to Linux. Especially if Apple goes through with the rumored low-cost macbook. That thing will sell like hotcakes, and macOS share is already growing as is.
We are many times more likely to see the "Year of the macOS desktop" than we are the "Year of the Linux desktop"
By pjmlp 2025-11-1320:00 Not every Dev is a UNIX developer, for some reason this misunderstanding keeps being repeated.
Proton is a betting on the wrong horse, until Microsoft decides to put an end to it, in whatever way they feel like it. They own Windows, and are one of the biggest publishers in the industry, when grouping all studios they own.
Apple margins are too much for economies not on the same level as USA.
I do agree with devices being returned, this happened quite often with netbooks.
By NoGravitas 2025-11-1415:29 Chromebooks seem to be fairly successful, despite [insert xyz app] not working on them.
By LennyHenrysNuts 2025-11-1319:172 reply We don't want a bunch of entitled ex-windows users shitting up our forums thank you very much.
Lets hope they all buy a Mac.
By pjmlp 2025-11-1319:59 Unfortunately not everyone can afford Apple margins outside a few selected tier 1 economies.
By workfromspace 2025-11-1320:541 reply I apologize but weren't we all one of those normies when we first started using Linux or any other computer?
By LennyHenrysNuts 2025-11-171:41 Not me. My first computer was a Dragon 64. I was an outsider from day one!
"MacOS 26 being super sluggish" is the kind of thing I only read here on this website. For me and everybody I know who upgraded to it it's running fine.
By Gigachad 2025-11-140:28 Yeah on my M1 it’s running as fast as it ever did. I have experienced a bug on both my personal and work Mac on 26 where the internal screen fails to turn on sometimes when using an external display. Hoping that gets fixed but otherwise I have no issues.
By rsynnott 2025-11-1415:14 It was painfully slow if you were using Electron crap for a few weeks, due to an Electron bug. This may have coloured peoples' impressions.
By johaugum 2025-11-1320:01 Can confirm, has been flawless for me. I waited until 2 weeks after release to upgrade, possible I avoided some initial friction that way.
The only device I’ve found more sluggish after this recent OS upgrade is my Apple Watch Ultra (gen 1).
Animations when navigating the OS are noticeably sluggish where the previous version was smooth as butter. This degradation has persisted through multiple minor version updates since, so it seems to be permanent.
Disappointing for what is marketed as the most powerful watch in their lineup.
By deafpolygon 2025-11-1412:13 m4 and m4 pro here, runs like butter
Linux (with the "traditional" userspace) is a mess on the inside, has always been, and will always be. It blows my mind that there still isn't a universal, easy way to compile binaries that would run on any distro, of any version — something that all other mainstream OSes have solved from day one.
Yes, I know that AppImage and Flatpak are a thing. No, they are not the answer, because they, too, all come with their own issues.
By thewebguyd 2025-11-1322:511 reply There's a reason that Win32 is currently the stable ABI for Linux (via Wine/Proton).
And you know what? Tbh, I don't see a problem with that. If it keeps improving and eventually expands beyond gaming and can start running some of the stuff that can't currently (modern office, adobe stuff, etc.) then why not? There's decades of windows-only apps that there's just not enough time or talent in the world to re-create for Linux, so might as well put effort into Windows compatibility and just start running Windows apps.
By grishka 2025-11-1323:22 I don't disagree with that, but I feel like ReactOS is more promising in this regard, as it reimplements not only win32 API/ABI, but also the NT kernel with its stable API/ABI, so it would allow using Windows drivers as well. I mean, no translation layer is better than even the best translation layer :)
By BeFlatXIII 2025-11-1319:41 IIRC, MacOS 26 sluggishness is a problem with Electron, not a mistake on Apple’s part.
By marak830 2025-11-1322:38 I switched 3 weeks ago. (First Ubuntu now the badly named POP!_OS), and couldn't be happier.
Fast, a slight learning curve(took me a weekend), and I'm back gaming and coding regularly.
By NexRebular 2025-11-1319:011 reply And as linux is becoming more and more a corpo controlled monoculture, the time has never been better to switch to *BSD and illumos where true freedom awaits.
By sekh60 2025-11-1320:32 You mean the *NIXes that via their license hold dev freedom (and corporate freedom without the forced source publication) over user freedom (the purpose of the GPL)?
By sunaookami 2025-11-148:26 Surely 2026 will be the year of the Linux desktop!
Even my mother of 75 years switched to a Mac. Microsoft does not understand the effect of these stupid decisions. They also don’t seem to realize that MacOS was the operating system for many demos on the just finished dotnetConf … If your developers don’t want to use your system how do you expect others to use it…
My parents are both 70+ and I put them on Linux (Ubuntu and Mint) a decade ago, best decision ever. All the frustration from Windows went away overnight. They are simple computer users - browsing (email, search, booking), opening PDFs, offloading photos from a camera and watching them, editing word documents and spreadsheets, everything just works with no friction. I'm so happy they never got to experience Windows 11.
A few months ago, I switched my aunt (70+ as well) to Linux Mint after repeated issues with Windows 10 and now 11. The last straw was the printer stopped working one day out of the blue. Tired to re-install it for over an hour, impossible! When I installed Mint and looked to add the printer, it was already there and ready to work. And for the user experience, I just sat her in front of the computer and asker her to do various tasks that she would normally do on Windows without any explanation, and she just did them intuitively. She even sent me a message a few days ago to thank me for installing Linux on her machine!
Microsoft keep shooting themselves in the foot with Windows, it's like they don't even care about consumer operating systems anymore. Most popular Linux distros are stable and easy to use, for an average computer user it's perfect. I also daily drive Linux (Bazzite, based on Fedora Silverblue) and it does everything I need - coding, browsing, games, it's all there. I'm never going back to Windows.
By klaussilveira 2025-11-1319:28 Same experience here. Couple with one of the Redmond themes, and all of a sudden everything looks similar: https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Redmond-Themes
Just works.
By Herring 2025-11-1318:47 I think they know and this is a hail mary. Windows market share has been gradually eroding. They don't intend to go quietly.
By koakuma-chan 2025-11-1318:474 reply It's ok that developers don't use Windows. Developers can use macOS. Windows is for office workers where AI features can be helpful.
By thewebguyd 2025-11-1319:08 > It's ok that developers don't use Windows.
Sure. Except once upon a time ago, Microsoft was really big on dogfooding and it definitively was not ok for Microsoft's developers to not use Windows.
Seeing their employees using macs on stage at conferences sends a very clear message "don't bother with Windows. It isn't even good enough for our own staff to use."
What happened to "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!"? Ballmer was not a good CEO, but he understood at least that dev & enthusiast mindshare = your product being chosen and recommended elsewhere.
> AI features can be helpful.
Embedded into the operating system? Will they be helpful there?
IMO there are better ways
By thewebguyd 2025-11-1319:131 reply Yes, if it works (and that's a big if).
For the normie/general office worker, even Copilot (the Microsoft 365 for Business version) has been wildly popular where I work. "Copilot, help me prepare for this meeting coming up" and the worker gets a nice little package of all the emails, word docs, spreadsheets, teams/sharepoint convos, etc. related to the meeting.
Imagine: User accidentally deletes file. Instead of opening a help desk ticket, they can ask Copilot "Hey Copilot, I accidentally deleted this excel file, can you get it back?" and the OS integrated AI restores it from volume shadow copy, or from %appdata%
or "Hey copilot, I have a meeting starting. Can you turn on do not disturb, and open my xyz presentation for screen sharing"
Yeah, those things can be done pretty fast manually, or even scripted, but the average office worker doesn't have the computer knowledge to do so. A real functioning version of (to use their buzzword) "agentic" AI integrated in the OS means they don't need the knowledge, just ask the computer to do it for them.
It could be huge, but I have my doubts it'll actually work as well as Microsoft wishes it would.
By koakuma-chan 2025-11-1319:15 That actually sounds very cool and exciting. If Microsoft is reading this—we should talk! My email address is in my bio.
Hey computer, what files did i work on last thursday afternoon? and it'd show me a collage of word, excel emails and cad files I was using. this would be fantastic. If it worked. and didn't require i sell what's left of myself to the computer.
I click Windows 11 "Start" button and under Recommended it has the last 6 files I opened. Click "More", and there's a list of files for the last two weeks with dates, and timestamps for the last week. So they've already got this idea covered.
We do have all the News and Weather and other "Suggestions" turned off.
Adding features isn't inherently a bad thing, but we don't believe Microsoft can do it without making the existing features worse.
By bdcrazy 2025-11-1319:45 That sounds like a useful feature. Thanks.
alas my new work laptop is still on win 10.
By bostik 2025-11-1319:13 WinFS and Longhorn are back on the wishlist, apparently. But this time you're getting a really fat thin client OS and non-deterministic execution.
By croon 2025-11-1412:30 I'm as big a skeptic as anyone, but having it integrated into the OS could be very helpful to a lot of people. I myself will of course run for the hills due to the considerable trade-offs of that decision (always-online, tracking, surveillance, huge attack surface, etc), but I can't dismiss the fact that a lot of people will take the usefulness of the features without considering the cost.
By koakuma-chan 2025-11-1318:561 reply Yes it will be helpful when you are an office worker staring at an excel sheet 9 to 5. I've been there and I don't care if it scans my entire PC or whatever, if I can prompt it to click around on my screen to do the thing.
Vast majority of HN does not seem to understand just how powerful the modern Microsoft stack is for office workers.
Integrated AI solves so many real problems, not the least of which is that it’s sanctioned by IT.
By thewebguyd 2025-11-1319:17 > not the least of which is that it’s sanctioned by IT.
This is the big thing that Microsoft understands. For a non-tech company, it's going to be pretty hard to get buy in to pay for ChatGPT enterprise, and then pay for/spend dev or IT resources to integrate it (and develop those integrations) with their already existing Microsoft/SharePoint/Teams stack to make it useful. And then you still don't get the convenient Office app add-ins.
Microsoft bundles this all, integrates it for you, and provides a GUI for governance controls. It's very click-ops focused, which enterprise IT likes, and the bundling means you don't have to sell those with the wallets on buying extra third party tools. Nobody every got fired for buying s/IBM/Microsoft
By pjmlp 2025-11-1413:08 I always find funny that Windows, games consoles, mainframe, micros, and embedded software sprungs into existence via magic pixie dust, as developers only use UNIX.
By bigfatkitten 2025-11-1321:052 reply > Developers can use macOS.
Developers building things like web apps can use macOS.
Developers developing for Windows, or who need Windows-only toolchains cannot.
By mostlysimilar 2025-11-1321:202 reply Who's developing for Windows? Microsoft themselves are turning things that would naturally have been native into web views instead.
By thewebguyd 2025-11-1323:031 reply Is that a rhetorical question?
There's software that exists beyond the web and SaaS.
Windows is still used widely in all sorts of places you'd never expect to see it. POS systems, ATMs, industrial controllers, digital signage/interactive kiosks, SCADA is largely Windows still. You need software for all of that, and it ain't gonna be web apps.
Windows is also still widespread in finance. The backend systems may be Linux or custom FGPA hardware but the front end finance world is ran on Windows (and Excel on Windows). Plenty of trading software is Windows only.
Heck, MS SQL Server is still in the #2 or #3 spot for database marketshare behind Oracle. Granted, it can run on Linux now but I don't many who are yet.
None of it is "sexy" like HN startups and SaaS so it doesn't get the coverage or discussion, but Windows is everywhere and so are Windows developers. You could argue whether or not Windows is/was the right choice for a lot of those (it's probably not), but it's there nonetheless and probably isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
By array_key_first 2025-11-142:01 There's a lot of legacy software that is bound to Windows, yes, but as time goes on, the amount of greenfield systems targeting Windows dwindles. From what I've seen, a lot of that software is also being actively containerized so that it can run on Linux systems, because administering legacy Windows systems is a huge pain in the ass. A lot of legacy Windows software is very difficult to containerize, because it gets it's grubby little hands in everything, but it can be done and usually that's the preferred approach.
By bigfatkitten 2025-11-1321:421 reply The people building the many thousands of native Windows apps used by millions of people every day.
CAD/CAM systems. GIS applications. Automatic teller machine software. Public safety dispatch systems. Automotive diagnostic tools. Point of sale systems. List goes on.
By array_key_first 2025-11-142:041 reply While these systems are often written for Windows, there's actually very little reason to do so, and typically you're doing yourself a huge disservice.
Yes you can build a POS system using Windows tech, but you don't really gain much by doing so, other than a whole host of headaches when it comes to deployment and administration.
By bigfatkitten 2025-11-145:43 This is only remotely true for embedded systems, where you ship a fully integrated device, with all its associated peripherals as a turn-key system that does not have to interoperate with anything else.
If you’re in the business of shipping software that needs to run alongside other people’s software on the same machine, it’s a disaster.
Linux userspace backwards compatibility is extremely poor, the “solutions” to this issue (Flatpak, Snap et al) generally create more management problems than they solve. Desktop Linux is already an absolute monster to manage.
Try securely deploying hardware-backed PKI certificates for 802.1x to a fleet of Linux workstations. Takes a couple of minutes on Windows and macOS, but it’s a massive engineering effort on Linux.
By fingerlocks 2025-11-1410:40 We use remote windows VMs when doing windows development from our Macs. Everyone on my team and the adjacent only use MacOS. We do not work on web apps.
By downrightmike 2025-11-1318:38 Doing the needful...
