See, the thing is, Microsoft is no different than any other company with a series of "platforms" - they are software "products" made by humans for a PROFIT by paying money for them. With that comes various 900 page long End User License Agreements (EULAs) that nobody will read or follow, they just blindly click "I Agree" to them, and then get mad when what they just signed away is something they don't agree with. The difference between Microsoft, compared to say, Apple or Linux though, as far as "ownership" and "Ecosystem" goes, is Major governments and corporations worldwide have been investing in their "Ecosystem" for over 40 years now. Since the dawn of the IBM PC in 1981 - Microsoft has been the "(not-so) Golden CHild" of international business standard computing - after all, they were in bed with a company called "International BUsiness Machines" early on. Thing is, it's easy to change to an IBM Alternative hardware, compared to changing to an alternative operating system and office software that functions entirely differently.

Now, I am in no way saying everything Microsoft does is bad. They have some good products/services/etc. Free O365 via Microsoft account being one (since the megacorps REQUIRE everyone to use Microsoft Office for resumes, hiring paperwork, and whatnot - remember what I said about a 40+ year old Ecosystem investment?), Microsoft Windows from 7 on back has had some real smash hits (Windows 7, XP, 98 SE, 95 OSR 2.5, For Workgroups 3.11), and of course, MS-DOS is still to this day a absolute freakin' unit, for RetroGaming at least. But Outside of those (now antiquated) technologies, it seems more and more over the last decade things have made a turn for the worst.

First off, Windows 8.x introduced some "fluff" that was utterly usless unless you had a touch screen. One gripe of mine as an I.T. Professional is the inclusion of personal home-use applications with their Enterprise solutions. I'm not at all sorry to say to you Microsoft, but having Candy Crush Saga on Windows 8/10 Enterprise is UNACCEPTABLE in ANY environment. After all, some of us DO remember the joke about Minesweeper and Solitaire on company time from the 90's. Seriously, some of us got REALLY good at those filling those gaps of time between tasks with a few clicks. But the modern oppressive Corporate enviroments controlled by blind lemmings focused on "productivity" really should be far more enraged about such "PRoductivity Wasters" like Candy Crush Saga or YouTube being offered on that stupid "Start PAge" bit on Windows 8.0/8.1. You would think a company like Microsoft who has a campus the size of a small town in the midwest would be at the utmost interested in keeping up a PROFESSIONAL appearance at this point.

This has generated another problem on top of that - that whole "Metro UI" or "New Style Interface" (probably in part due to me calling it the "Metrosexual UI" on the internet back then when I got mad at it) - which has caused a big mess for I.T. pros and those of us at home trying to manage our own systems. Now we have 2 different systems of applet - the old one which worked great and was no non-sense and is pretty much the archetype that Windows/Apple started and Linux and Apple have copied in their UIs since and kept - and then the new "Metrosexual UI" which is a sleek interface of slide switches - more than the Fender Jaguar line at the Corona Fender plant probably - many of which do the exact same thing on the surface as the old UI, but does some things using different background methods that might not check all the command line switches the old UI did - causing all sorts of problems - such as the dreaded Globe when you have Internet! Making Office 365 pester you ad nauseum to connect to the internet.

Then there's the return of Microsoft's Authoritatianism - in the form of Microsoft Edge. Seriously FUCK Microsoft Edge - and Fuck Google Chrome too! I hate them both - just useless memory hogs. Seriously, the Edge development team seems to assume that the only people who use a web browser are money-wasting consumertards who enjoy having lots of switches and buttons all over their browser that serve no purpose but to use up RAM and slow things down - ladies and gentlemen, I bring to you - the return of the search bar! And now to make it worse - you don't need your girlfriend to download a cute copy of "Bonzi Buddy" to do it, oh no, the TechBros at M$ decided "Hey! Let's install Bonzi Buddy ourselves and call it Cortana!" - probably the same ones that go home and jerk off to her voice in the Windows 11 search bar! So no matter what you do, they make sure to pester you to use Microsoft Edge. Got an outdated application that only works in IE with a super-legacy compatibility mode and Active X controls - tough shit, unless you get a Long Term Service Release - and even with, they will pester you over and over "The future of Microsoft Internet Explorer is in Microsoft Edge" - jeezuz, I see why ToastyTech says "I Wish Bill would take his ActiveX and Shove it up his Active Ass" - yeah, seems M$ shot themselves in the foot with that one! Now they have a bunch of Active X legacy things jammed in the government gridlock of Alphabet Orgs for regulatory compliance coming to terms with Microsoft trying to force you to use a browser that even WITH "Compatibility Mode" it does not work. Hey, maybe we should try something, ya' know, like the inventor of the internet Tim Berners-Lee would approve of......like, oh, I dunno, USING ACTUAL FRIGGGIN UNIVERSAL WEB STANDARDS!?!?!?

One long standing complaint of mine has been Windows Update. Seriously, I still describe it as the unruly teenage "Wizard" of the lot who is moody and decides to do what it wants, when it wants, and sometimes not inline with what the documentation tells you it will do. Somedays it'll listen to daddy group policy, other day's it just decides to turn off the circuit breakers to the house willy nilly (Windows)....as if "Gee, I wonder what this switch does" - next thing you know you, the End user, are in a flooded basement of doo doo trying to bail it out so you can flip the 48 breakers (Bitlocker) to turn the damn house (Windows) back on! Seriously, you have to yell at it to mow the fuggin' lawn (install security updates) and then it might do it, it might not, it might get a weird idea to use the wood-burning kit to solder headlights on the push mower and mow the grass at midnight.....that crazy Windows Update! Maybe it'll warn you, maybe not, maybe it will postpone for 4 hours, or it's friend Dell Command Update comes over and decides to reboot the house and go for a walk around the block looking for more trash curb garbage to install (features).

One straw-man arguement users like to make is against the software. First off, this is my discoveries since moving to linux....

• First off, I use a TON of *FREE* (for non commercial use at least) software! A ton of it, and almost all of it has some form of Linux port. These include Balena Etcher, DIY Layout Creator, Veroroute, The GiMP, SCUMMVM, STELLA, FCEUX, even friggin Microsoft Visual Studio has a Linux port (one of the things they HAVE done right), Firefox, REAPER, Ardour, FileZilla......should I go on? I mean, why do I *NEED* a Microsoft O/S to run ANY of these?
• Second, the (very very few) things that DON'T run in Windows (Line6 HD500 Edit) I can run over USB in a Windows Virtual Machine on something more aggreeable - like a isolated XP install, or Windows 2000 Pro - versions I DO Like a lot.
• Let's talk about games - since that's an arguement. Here's what I say, get a STEAM account, and use PROTON! Alternate to that is WINE, and for older games (which is about 90% of my catalog) just use an old Windows VM and shut up - or better yet, buy an old PC and use THAT for the older games. My 486 gets a TON of action! Honestly, I consider my 486 more of a PC than the laptop I'm writing this on, it still can run DOS 1.01 - because it's not using the Universally Effable Fuckware Interface and Somewhere Boot! And has a non-flashable ROM for the BIOS, so nobody's bricking that thing either!
• My printer - a Cannon ImageClass LP6230DW laser printer, has Linux drivers, and those drivers are bloat-free and work great, better than any other platform really!
• Almost everything else on Linux is Plug N' Play without a driver install - I just plug it into a USB Port - it works. Even my HD500 does, now if we can just get Line6 on the Linux train, or to open up their specs to Linux devs so we can make a proper HD500 editor for Linux that doesn't suck - that'd be great!

Now, am I saying Linux is perfect?!?!? Hell no. But I'll say it's a MASSIVE improvement over MicroShaft Windblows! Especially version double hockey sticks! (Maybe the Windows "HE" is silent). Since moving to Linux, I've stopped being stressed out about upgrading, I've stopped being stressed out about updates ruining my day, I've stopped worrying about security so much because Linux is far more secure than Windows is if you configure it right.