- imagine a version of windows made from the ground up with 0 spyware, 0 adware, 0 bloatware
- 100% minimal designed for absolute performance coded ground up in rust
- backward compatibility by required drivers on the fly instead of bloating the OS with 30 yrs of support for all the. 456257963423512 hardware device types
- Its called "Windows Maximal" priced 4x the cost of Windows Home
- when are we getting this version of windows?
Gud 15 hours ago [-]
We had it, it was called Windows 2000, and it was awesome.
FreeBSD on the server and Windows 2000 on the desktop, a match made in heaven.
It was a beautiful year.
Since then, computing has only deteriorated.
nerdsniper 9 hours ago [-]
Windows LTSC / IoT comes pretty damned close. It's the only version I install. I'm always shocked by the <20 processes running in Task Manager on a clean install.
afpx 17 hours ago [-]
No source code? No thanks but no thanks.
There also seems to be a lot of ‘privacy’ tools popping up on github lately. It’s a good time to be wary of any if you don’t trust the author 100%.
It’s like when HIV emerged in the 80s - the disco days of free love are over. Be wary of who you’re sleeping with, and always wear a condom.
nerdsniper 17 hours ago [-]
> There also seems to be a lot of ‘privacy’ tools popping up on github lately.
FWIW, O&O ShutUp10 dates back to 2015, with the launch of Windows 10. This isn't v10, it's "Shut Up, [Windows] 10!".
O&O Defrag has been a trusted tool since 1998.
That said, I largely agree with "No source code? No thanks." as I don't want to worry about a private equity group buying O&O Software and doing with it what they will.
16 hours ago [-]
swat535 13 hours ago [-]
There are plenty of better open source alternatives like FlyOOBE:
O&O has been around for decades, they're among the OGs of third party functionality providers for Windows.
afpx 16 hours ago [-]
I understand. Different people have different thresholds for trust. Unfortunately, I have lived in DC for a long time. Long enough to know the basics of how espionage works. And, appealing to authority is very effective. Humans love authorities. Write a few papers. Give a few conference talks. Get a few magazines to report on your expertise. That's pretty much all it takes to get entry. Otto and Olaf are probably great guys. I'm just extra cautious.
orbital-decay 14 hours ago [-]
I remember that time very well, and not in a good way. We were all running dubious janky obfuscated software without giving it a second thought. These days trust is not enough, you need at least some way to verify (but also a lot more). Plenty of trusted software has been sold, hijacked, or otherwise has turned on its users over the decades.
To be frank we're still running dubious and janky software, but at least it tends to be a bit more transparent.
vlyan 16 hours ago [-]
a myriad STDs existed before HIV.
dspillett 15 hours ago [-]
Few were as potentially deadly, at least at the time (in earlier times there might have been less we could do to treat them), and in the 80s the main source of fear of HIV was that it was not understood (people feared catching it in ways that are not possible, and so forth) were those that had been around much longer had well known risk factors.
flaburgan 17 hours ago [-]
I removed my dual boot in 2009, so the last windows I used on a personal computer was Vista. I switched my close family (parents and even my grand mother) to Linux years ago, nevertheless I still am the tech-savyy go-to person for other people and I am completely disconnected from what's going on the Windows world. Is an antivirus still needed there? Are there some good tools that should always be installed on a computer?
The only thing I usually do is to put as many free software as I can (Firefox, Thunderbird, LibreOffice, VLC, Gimp...) But then what ?
collabs 17 hours ago [-]
Yes, antivirus is still required but as long as you have decent common sense, the built in antivirus and antimalware on Windows (sometimes known as Windows Defender or Windows Security) is good enough for most users (the only use case where I can see commercial AV solution being of any use is for compliance checklists).
Chocolatey, Winget, and Scoop are all good options for installing software.
Oh and you will love Powershell 7 on Windows Terminal. It is a delight and a breath of fresh air if you ask me.
This is more a decrapifier than an "anti-spy tool". Yes, it also lets you easily block things like microphone access and disable AI features, but it's not a firewall.
I started using it with Windows 10 because I could disable most of the crap Microsoft was using with a few clicks. When I reinstalled Windows 11, this was one of the first things I ran because of how much shit there's now (weather, news, recommended apps, ai, etc). I have almost everything disabled.
We can do the same by following some guides, setting up system policies and go to 20 different menus, but this does the same in 1 or 2 minutes.
Unfortunately, over the years, ShutUp10 has also suffered from some enshittification itself. Now there's a message tell you to buy the premium version, more branding, etc. I understand why, and considering it still does the job and still runs without having to install it, perhaps I shouldn't complain too much especially when it's free, but it used to be more "bare-bones"... something that I prefer on these tools.
taspeotis 16 hours ago [-]
I'm always hesitant to trust these things after one of them turned off CRL checking because external connectivity = bad!!1
ChoosesBarbecue 17 hours ago [-]
Huge fan of this. I run it once on a fresh format, and then I never have to worry about Windows annoying me again.
(And no, I simply do not like Linux or even macOS enough to switch over, despite being perfectly competent. That, and I play video games that will never be compatible.)
celsoazevedo 16 hours ago [-]
You should check your settings (or run this again) after each major update, because Microsoft loves to reset some settings to default.
segfaltnh 17 hours ago [-]
My favorite anti-spyware tool for Windows is Linux.
smt88 15 hours ago [-]
This isn’t helpful to the fairly large percentage of people who are forced to use Windows by their employers
McAtNite 13 hours ago [-]
It’s about on par with these tools no? Running a closed source configurator that heavily alters the core OS isn’t really something I would expect a responsible IT team to do. Doubly so if you are in any sort of regulated industry.
smt88 8 hours ago [-]
Many IT teams are irresponsible though. I have a client now that has revenue of $1B and has no legal review process and doesn’t require IT vendors to submit SOC 2 certifications or any other security attestations.
ptx 15 hours ago [-]
They could still switch to using a Linux machine for most things (that don't belong to the employer), segregating the Windows machine off as much as possible and never letting Microsoft near any of their own data.
TheAceOfHearts 17 hours ago [-]
When your OS is pure spyware, maybe it's time to look into switch to a less abusive option. The more people that switch, the stronger signal it sends.
This tool is equivalent to dating an alcoholic that beats you whenever they're drunk, so you keep trying to take away all the alcohol instead of dumping them and finding a new partner. The signs were always there and they just keep getting worse, it's time to move on.
embedding-shape 16 hours ago [-]
Well, when this alcoholic is the only one that works properly for the sort of audio and 3D/VFX work I do, and a bunch of tools are only able to run (well) on Windows (Yes, I've tried WINE and everything else under the sun, for a decade), so dual booting is really the only option here, unless I wanna throw out a bunch of licenses I've paid thousands for and stop accepting that sort of work.
Ableton is probably the biggest reason I still have a Windows installation, and the one I try to get working (properly and well) with Wine/Proton maybe once a month or so. Cascadeur, Unreal Engine Editor, rekordbox are some of the other software I can't get to run well enough on Linux (yet) to fully migrate.
But, on the other hand, lots of other software I use professionally works amazingly on Linux, better than Windows in fact, like Houdini, Unreal Engine (the runtime, not the Editor), DaVinci Resolve and Blender.
I'm not worried though, eventually it'll be runnable on Linux no doubt, but personally we're not quite there yet, sadly.
belthesar 15 hours ago [-]
I know this doesn't address all your concerns, but I switched from Ableton Live to Bitwig Studio for unrelated reasons to my leaving Windows behind, and I was thoroughly pleased with how easy the transition was between the two DAWs (I guess it shouldn't be too much of a surprise given how many ex-Ableton devs work on Bitwig), and how well the Linux build of Bitwig worked. Bitwig on Linux, with Pipewire as the audio engine for low latency operation, is essentially an identical operating experience for me.
Getting your plugins working is a different story. A small but growing number of mainstream audio plugins have native Linux builds available, a wide swath of them work quite well with yabridge (https://yabridge.org/ - so shim to expose Windows audio plugins running in WINE prefixes to Linux audio plugin hosts), and a few required alternatives to be found.
I found the workflow decent enough to use, but as one might expect, some plugins not working well via yabridge/WINE made things a little janky, and once I picked up a Mac device again, that became my production machine. That said, WINE's come a long say since I last tried this out a few years ago, and I'd be interested to see if things work better.
My point, I suppose, is to share a reasonably good success story (though perhaps still not of a grade that you'd be comfortable switching to for paid work), and perhaps to encourage you to consider some alternatives to the tools you use. Tool changes are expensive, sure in cost, but moreso in time, so I don't suggest it lightly. That being said, I think that it might be worth it to grab a Bitwig trial and see how you like it. I'd grab it both on Windows and Linux, so you can try it "how it should work" when your plugins and the DAW are working in harmony while also getting the Linux toolchain working. And from the cost perspective, Bitwig does not have crossgrade licenses, so you can buy Studio once, and run it on any supported platform.
SSLy 15 hours ago [-]
Well, Ableton at least works pretty fine on macOS, if that's more acceptable than Windows for you.
SV_BubbleTime 16 hours ago [-]
>when this alcoholic is the only one that works properly for the sort of audio and 3D/VFX work
I mean, that seems universally truer than not.
trinsic2 16 hours ago [-]
That's exactly the way I framed the relationship between Microsoft and its victim in a companion article[0] I wrote in 2025 looking back on my switch to Linux.
Since then I started realizing how parasitic the proprietary software industry really is.
I'm daily driving both Windows and Linux, and each has its own issues unfortunately, so using tools like OO is a necessity of making my(and others) life bit less miserable.
For Linux I have bunch of custom repair scripts because of certain bugs I encounter(which are tracked too but not solved).
Unfortunately this is the game no one will ever win, unless you will move, drop tech, and start breeding dogs, but then you need to sell them, and where would you advertise? :)
callc 15 hours ago [-]
IMHO:
I like the issues faced on Linux more, since I can solve them. I too have a handful of repair scripts.
I feel like an adult to be given access all the internals. I don’t feel that way on Windows (and any other locked down OS).
We should put in the volunteer hours to upstream these fixes to make it nicer for normies :^)
real0mar 16 hours ago [-]
Too many games are Windows only
arcfour 16 hours ago [-]
Very few are these days with the enormous amount of resources Valve has been pouring into Proton. The only truly Windows-only games I have encountered were online multiplayer with anticheat and that was almost always because the developer chose not to support Linux (e.g. EAC, Rust) and not for lack of support for Linux.
Perhaps that wouldn't happen if more people switched...
r_lee 15 hours ago [-]
those are the vast majority of games that people play
and people won't switch if there is no way to switch, it's like asking people to go on a hunger strike
arcfour 14 hours ago [-]
Speak for yourself, there are hundreds of thousands of people playing games that do not fall into this category on Steam right now.
GreenVulpine 16 hours ago [-]
This hasn't been the case for at least half a decade. Most games run perfectly fine if not better on Linux. The only exceptions are purposely broken remote rootkit "anticheat" gsmes which no sane person would want on their system anyway.
fabian2k 13 hours ago [-]
With the exception of multiplayer games with invasive anti-cheat measures, a very large number of games works very well on Linux now with Wine/Proton. When using Steam this mostly works just out of the box without fiddling.
bigfishrunning 16 hours ago [-]
This is why I own a playstation
technothrasher 16 hours ago [-]
Because your PlayStation couldn't possibly be spying on you?
bigfishrunning 16 hours ago [-]
Because my playstation spies on my games, not my whole life. It's limitation of scope.
celsoazevedo 16 hours ago [-]
I guess for that you could have a Windows machine just for gaming. No need to deal with the trade-offs of that come with using a console (if that matters to you).
bigfishrunning 15 hours ago [-]
Not having a windows machine is one of the benefits of not having a windows machine! Using a console for gaming is cheaper, more secure, and more reliable then using a windows machine. The only downside is i don't have access to the wide ocean of steam and gog releases, but it's a fair trade as far as I'm concerned.
dspillett 15 hours ago [-]
Though that would likely be a bit more expensive, or if cheaper it might be by compromising on GPU performance.
AmazingTurtle 16 hours ago [-]
I use cachyos as my daily driver for a long time now. I play quite a few games. Only league of legends forces me to dual boot into windows every once in a week or so - fuck the anticheat cartel
rdudek 15 hours ago [-]
I'm approaching a year now on CachyOS and it has been a wonderful experience. All the games that I play run just fine, maybe a few FPS drop compared to Windows, but it's not a big deal for me. I also don't play any competitive online games that require 3rd party anti-cheat spyware. Biggest positives, I got very comfortable with terminal and CLI work. My development work has definitely improved.
tgv 15 hours ago [-]
I have a PC mainly for Hauptwerk, which uses ilok, which doesn't run under Linux and probably never will. I've got an MBP, but getting one with 128GB of RAM was terribly expensive, and is probably unaffordable now. Hauptwerk doesn't even run natively on the arm. The End.
jeanmichelselli 16 hours ago [-]
I completely agree with this comment! If your OS does not behave like an OS anymore, better to switch to a real OS at that point. That's it. I've always been disappointed by Windows "OS" in the past but now it's really too much..
nilslindemann 16 hours ago [-]
Fine, I will switch when your OS has Autohotkey, Total Commander, and allows me to log in as Administrator.
orbital-decay 14 hours ago [-]
AHK is a pretty Windows ecosystem-specific crutch and everything it does is done in different ways in other systems. TC can be run on Wine absolutely everywhere, I used to do this on Linux for a number of years and it's perfect including plugins, although there are plenty of good FMs out there (e.g. DoubleCommander is a near-direct replacement) so feel free to try them if you just need a way to manage your files and not your specific setup in particular. Log in as Administrator... uh what? Not sure what you mean. Not requiring admin password on system-wide actions? Sure, it's trivial everywhere.
nilslindemann 13 hours ago [-]
> everything it does is done in different ways in other systems.
You are not the first Linux user claiming that to me, but it is not true. you never actually tried, admit it.
> TC can be run on Wine absolutely everywhere
I just tried again on Linux Mint. The folder tabs overlay the path to the current dir and the window can just be full screen. Those are the bugs detected after a minute of usage.
> DoubleCommander is a near-direct replacement
Okay, I was just able to install that, and it seems to have what I need. So thats a valid Point, Linux has something comparable to Total Commander.
> Log in as Administrator (...) Sure, it's trivial
Yes it is, I just did that. I give you that.
orbital-decay 12 hours ago [-]
Well, since you never even said what AHK feature you need it's impossible to suggest anything. Yes I used to use AHK years ago, but GUI automation is fairly alien and roundabout way of doing things on Mac and Linux. That's why I can't think of anything special about it. GUI-blind input automation and macros? There's maybe a dozen different utilities for this on every OS. If you have something specific in mind, you can say it.
nilslindemann 11 hours ago [-]
> GUI automation is fairly alien and roundabout way of doing things on Mac and Linux.
That's a nice claim you just made up there, out of thin air.
> If you have something specific in mind, you can say it.
I need something to hack together a solution and then go on. I don't want to
* Create GitHub issues and hope and then wait.
* Learn how this GUI was written and fix it by modifying and compiling the source.
What I need is the ability to:
* Activate windows
* Detect the active window
* Move and rescale the active window
* Move the mouse relative to the active window
* Move the mouse absolutely to the screen (if the relative method is broken)
* Sometimes move the mouse relative to itself
* Press mouse buttons, including WheelUp, and WheelDown (and that is sent to the active window)
* press keyboard button combinations (and that is sent to the active window)
* Send text (yep, many tools can do that)
* activate menu entries in the active window
* Get the text of active menu entries in the active window
* Find icons in the active window by providing an image, rarely used, when all above attempts fail.
* Finally, define shortcuts that do combined actions of the above.
I won't walk with you through every concrete possible application, but I give an example for Scid, which is also a Linux tool. Both on Windows and Linux, it happens that the save game dialog is partly moved outside the view rectangle of my screen. No idea why that is so. I need to drag the save dialog to the middle of the screen first. AutoHotkey to the rescue:
#HotIf exe_active("scid") ; `exe_active` is a shortcut
^s:: {
Send("^+s")
WinWait("Scid: Partie speichern...")
WinMove(19, 95, 660, 651) ; place it over the board.
}
; ...
#HotIf
Another example. Every window manager I tested, which has "snap window to border in order to place it on half the screen" does not restore the window to full screen when I press the button left of the "close window" button. Instead, they place the window in a random position. It is not "click the middle button twice to switch between full screen and snapped position", which is the common use case. Thanks to AutoHotkey, there is a fix available on Windows: https://github.com/RamonUnch/AltSnap Edit: Okay, thats not AutoHotkey but raw C. But still that would be a use case for AutoHotkey.
I hope I’ve managed to clarify my point regarding the need for an AutoHotkey on Linux. There are simply too many bugs, idiots, and unimplemented features to get back into the flow quickly without AutoHotkey.
Just when sending this text, noticing that this site does not properly handle markdown bullet list, I found another great use case for Autohotkey, when pressing the Enter key on Hacker News ...
orbital-decay 10 hours ago [-]
Window manipulation is trivial, most window managers are even natively programmable or at least support complex rulesets that don't need scripting for such basic tasks, I'm automating KWin in a similar manner for example.
There's a myriad of tools for blind input macros.
DE manipulation is generally done with DBus and CLI tools.
UI element manipulation (menus, icons, widgets) is done through a11y, with things like accerciser, dogtail, etc. AT-SPI makes it unified.
Providing an image... do you mean OCR? Use SikuliX, however that's just a Rube Goldberg machine like way to do things if you ask me. Not if deep UI automation to fix things is any better, though.
And of course you can script all that in any industry standard scripting language instead of janky DSLs.
>Just when sending this text, noticing that this site does not properly handle markdown bullet list, I found another great use case for Autohotkey, when pressing the Enter key on Hacker News ...
I think that's easier done with a userscript.
nilslindemann 7 hours ago [-]
Thank you, dick from the internet, for these links, which are not as relevant as you think they are. I will prefer my yanky, well-documented DSL. I think you are right with the userscript.
It's cross-platform, so could switch file manager on Windows first to make it easier to switch to Linux later.
nilslindemann 14 hours ago [-]
It is not listed in the Linux Mint App Installer. The Portables downloaded from Sourcefoge do not work. Can it filter-as-you-type the file list? Does it have chainable script button bars? Is there a poweful rename tool? Can it look pretty (example: https://i.imgur.com/tLt5B1m.png)?
ptx 13 hours ago [-]
> It is not listed in the Linux Mint App Installer. The Portables downloaded from Sourcefoge do not work.
It's packaged in Debian and Ubuntu as "doublecmd-qt" and "doublecmd-gtk", so Linux Mint ought to have it as well.
> Can it filter-as-you-type the file list?
Yes.
> Does it have chainable script button bars?
I don't know what that is.
> Is there a poweful rename tool?
There's a Multi-Rename Tool, yes.
> Can it look pretty
You'll have to be the judge of that. It looks good to me. It uses the Lazarus component library, so it can be built with either Qt or GTK (or native win32 on Windows) and uses whatever themes and configuration applies to those.
nilslindemann 13 hours ago [-]
> It's packaged in Debian and Ubuntu as "doublecmd-qt" and "doublecmd-gtk"
Ah, I found it now. I must have misspelled it, just saw the language files earlier. Yes, this seems to be a valid alternative to Total Commander. It has what I need, including script buttons, very nice. There are still a few bugs, like the buttons are currently all light grey. I will see if I can resolve that. Thanks for this tip.
nilslindemann 15 hours ago [-]
Oh, I also need a way to compile CodeBrowser 4.9 [1]
If you need Autohotkey you can still run that under wine (if you are ahk on windows applications), you can run total commander under wine. You can log in as admin I think its time to make the switch
nilslindemann 15 hours ago [-]
I tested these things and the results were not so great. Also, if I need to emulate my OS under wine, then I can as well just use it directly.
The only Linux Software I miss on Windows is Timeshift. Thats not enough.
Edit: I just have set up root login on Linux Mint. Okay, thats actually not much more difficult than on Windows.
Der_Einzige 15 hours ago [-]
If they’re running auto hotkey they’re also likely gamers, likely needing to run games that either can’t emulate or lose performance when running via proton or wine. AKA, this advice, like most “switch to Linux” advice, is tone deaf.
orbital-decay 14 hours ago [-]
Not sure why you think it's gaming related but fine, I just don't think AHK can do anything special. OP sounds rather like he's trying to find gotchas and justify staying on Windows, not genuinely find the replacement, which is also a thing in these discussions (see his adjacent post with a vague dismissal, I personally used a heavy TC setup under Wine and it was indistinguishable even 15 years ago). All these features are either readily available or the apps themselves are Wine-ified with no performance loss, I have tried that and I don't think you have. All you need to switch to Linux or Mac is overcoming some friction which is of course inevitable, but utility software like this is definitely not a hard blocker.
nilslindemann 13 hours ago [-]
The points I made were valid blocks for using Linux exclusively. Like the other dude answering, I wonder if you ever used Autohotkey to unfuck annoyances in software. I bet you have no clue at all. Regarding your other improvement suggestions, yes, it is actually easy to log in as administrator, and yes, DoubleCommander is a great alternative. You people are right about that. No, Total Commander does not run smooth under Wine, at least on Linux Mint. No, there is no good replacement for AutHotkey. You people are wrong about that. <Homer Simpson Voice>so far</Homer Simpson Voice>.
vablings 10 hours ago [-]
I have extensively used AHK for workarounds with annoying software. Generally, it's probably the worst class in terms of a workaround if you had something specific in mind with a bit of effort you could solve this now with AI tooling to write your something that does that specific behaivour anyways.
The only valid holdup for Linux at this point is kernel anticheats and some larger commercial software that is deeply engrained in the windows ecosystem eg most desktop offline CAD software. But once again AI is going to help you get that running under wine. I am already working on a series of wine patches and a custom runner to allow me to run ProE/Creo under wine without issues.
orbital-decay 12 hours ago [-]
> wonder if you ever used Autohotkey to unfuck annoyances in software.
Sure I did, but what particular annoyances in what software that you want to take with you into another ecosystem? I just don't get it, as you're being vague about it. Every environment has its own ways to solve your actual goals, and has its own quirks that need entirely different workarounds, not necessarily AHK.
nilslindemann 11 hours ago [-]
See my answer to user orbital-decay above.
vablings 10 hours ago [-]
Game performance under wine with Linux is near native. I have zero issues playing games that are "allowed" to run under wine.
nosioptar 16 hours ago [-]
I can't read the page. There's a giant fucking sticky navigation panel that blocks over half the screen.
majorchord 17 hours ago [-]
Ah yes, the closed-source proprietary black box antispy tool.
thenewnewguy 16 hours ago [-]
If you care about software being closed source or proprietary you probably aren't running Windows.
DaSHacka 16 hours ago [-]
Honestly, even as a Linux guy who doesn't use Windows (almost) at all anymore, I trust Microsoft to be generic and corporate in their spying.
They'll spy on users usage habits, and likely backdoor their OS for the feds, but they won't individually exfil your browser cookies and steal money from your bank account.
A random closed-source black-box "privacy" tool though? You have zero guarantees.
notabotiswear 15 hours ago [-]
> They'll spy on users usage habits, and likely backdoor their OS for the feds, but they won't individually exfil your browser cookies and steal money from your bank account.
What’s the difference between backdooring for the US gov’t and directly robbing/bugging you (assuming for the sake of argument that they don’t already do at least the latter)?
Used to be that you’d only ask that question if you were brown and/or write your name from right to left. Doesn’t matter much whether you were from Svalbard or Sanaa these days…
majorchord 15 hours ago [-]
I think they are making the assumption that if such a govt backdoor existed, it wouldn't be used for generic mass spying, but instead targeted at specific individuals they are trying to find/arrest.
That may or may not be true, but I feel like the former would be a whole lot harder to hide, and the risk of having to reveal it in court would likely mean they aren't going to blow their cover over someone who wasn't worth it.
notabotiswear 2 hours ago [-]
>Generic mass spying.
Like PRISM, Boundless Informant, Stellar Wind, etc?
You can also run ShutUp10 from winutil, so there's a bit of an endorsement there.
askl 17 hours ago [-]
Linux is a great FOSS alternative.
jjordan 16 hours ago [-]
Closed source doesn't mean not trustworthy. O&O has been making tools like these for a long time.
Toynbeeidea 16 hours ago [-]
>Closed source doesn't mean not trustworthy
Yes, it does.
>O&O has been making tools like these for a long time.
Microsoft has made Windows for a long time. Longer, even.
SV_BubbleTime 16 hours ago [-]
The “million eyes” argument has massive exceptions, among the top of my head is OpenSSL’s HeartBleed, a critical and extremely popular security suite that had a simple overflow issue for a decade or longer.
People don’t read the source. And chief among them, statistically, is you.
Open Source is ideal but not a deal breaker.
Toynbeeidea 15 hours ago [-]
True. And yet the possibility exists that one COULD. That's the difference.
voidfunc 17 hours ago [-]
Right? Im not touching that thing with a 10ft pole.
speed_spread 17 hours ago [-]
I get the sentiment. But for the record, O&O has been around for a long time, they were known for their excellent defragmentation tool, which isn't so much required nowadays. Their business model was never close to Adware (to my knowledge).
ShutUp has also been around for a while and always seemed to me like a O&O side project by someone who got really pissed at Windows taking the spyware tangent. The distribution model is still that of shareware / freeware (no source), because that's what O&O does. But as far as closed software goes, that's _probably_ as clean as it gets.
encom 16 hours ago [-]
>defragmentation
Windows has had built in defrag since at least WinXP. I can't remember if Win2000 had it - I think it did. It runs in the background and you don't have to worry about it. 3rd party defrag tools are snake oil, like registry cleaners and so on.
keyringlight 16 hours ago [-]
I'm pretty sure some versions of DOS had a defrag tool, or at least windows 9x had a DOS mode equivalent where you could see the block map getting moved around.
speed_spread 15 hours ago [-]
IIRC W2K didn't have one. Defragmentation can use different strategies which may impact the time it takes and additional perf gains if the right files are next to each other. The builtin defrag tool doesn't give any option. So "snake oil" I'm not so sure.
Also, a watching a proper defragmenter run was an OCD soothing experience before we had stray kitten and powerwashing videos galore. I know I'm not alone with this experience.
encom 11 hours ago [-]
I know for sure NT4 didn't have defragging built in, because I was a Windows server admin back in the primordial soup that was sysadmin'ing in the 90's.
>OCD soothing experience
I've always felt it was a certain kind of person who found amusement in watching a defragger work. I'm absolutely sure that 3rd party tools made sure to incorporate the equivalent blinkenlights to give the impression that their tool did something useful.
glub103011 11 hours ago [-]
[dead]
xyst 16 hours ago [-]
An even better solution — don’t use windows.
VCFundedGenYer 16 hours ago [-]
FYI this seems to be an AI slop copy of Win11Debloat which is the original (+has all the same options).
https://wpd.app works well too for extra telemetry and https://github.com/builtbybel/privatezilla still works with Windows 11 but again autounattend.xml works magic.
- WinScript: https://winscript.cc/
- Winhance: https://winhance.net/
I find O&O ShutUp10 easier to use and understand.
- 100% minimal designed for absolute performance coded ground up in rust
- backward compatibility by required drivers on the fly instead of bloating the OS with 30 yrs of support for all the. 456257963423512 hardware device types
- Its called "Windows Maximal" priced 4x the cost of Windows Home
- when are we getting this version of windows?
Since then, computing has only deteriorated.
There also seems to be a lot of ‘privacy’ tools popping up on github lately. It’s a good time to be wary of any if you don’t trust the author 100%.
It’s like when HIV emerged in the 80s - the disco days of free love are over. Be wary of who you’re sleeping with, and always wear a condom.
FWIW, O&O ShutUp10 dates back to 2015, with the launch of Windows 10. This isn't v10, it's "Shut Up, [Windows] 10!".
O&O Defrag has been a trusted tool since 1998.
That said, I largely agree with "No source code? No thanks." as I don't want to worry about a private equity group buying O&O Software and doing with it what they will.
https://github.com/builtbybel/FlyOOBE/
To be frank we're still running dubious and janky software, but at least it tends to be a bit more transparent.
Oh and you will love Powershell 7 on Windows Terminal. It is a delight and a breath of fresh air if you ask me.
https://github.com/ramensoftware/windhawk is also worth mentioning, I use it to unfuck the Taskbar.
I started using it with Windows 10 because I could disable most of the crap Microsoft was using with a few clicks. When I reinstalled Windows 11, this was one of the first things I ran because of how much shit there's now (weather, news, recommended apps, ai, etc). I have almost everything disabled.
We can do the same by following some guides, setting up system policies and go to 20 different menus, but this does the same in 1 or 2 minutes.
Unfortunately, over the years, ShutUp10 has also suffered from some enshittification itself. Now there's a message tell you to buy the premium version, more branding, etc. I understand why, and considering it still does the job and still runs without having to install it, perhaps I shouldn't complain too much especially when it's free, but it used to be more "bare-bones"... something that I prefer on these tools.
(And no, I simply do not like Linux or even macOS enough to switch over, despite being perfectly competent. That, and I play video games that will never be compatible.)
This tool is equivalent to dating an alcoholic that beats you whenever they're drunk, so you keep trying to take away all the alcohol instead of dumping them and finding a new partner. The signs were always there and they just keep getting worse, it's time to move on.
Ableton is probably the biggest reason I still have a Windows installation, and the one I try to get working (properly and well) with Wine/Proton maybe once a month or so. Cascadeur, Unreal Engine Editor, rekordbox are some of the other software I can't get to run well enough on Linux (yet) to fully migrate.
But, on the other hand, lots of other software I use professionally works amazingly on Linux, better than Windows in fact, like Houdini, Unreal Engine (the runtime, not the Editor), DaVinci Resolve and Blender.
I'm not worried though, eventually it'll be runnable on Linux no doubt, but personally we're not quite there yet, sadly.
Getting your plugins working is a different story. A small but growing number of mainstream audio plugins have native Linux builds available, a wide swath of them work quite well with yabridge (https://yabridge.org/ - so shim to expose Windows audio plugins running in WINE prefixes to Linux audio plugin hosts), and a few required alternatives to be found.
I found the workflow decent enough to use, but as one might expect, some plugins not working well via yabridge/WINE made things a little janky, and once I picked up a Mac device again, that became my production machine. That said, WINE's come a long say since I last tried this out a few years ago, and I'd be interested to see if things work better.
My point, I suppose, is to share a reasonably good success story (though perhaps still not of a grade that you'd be comfortable switching to for paid work), and perhaps to encourage you to consider some alternatives to the tools you use. Tool changes are expensive, sure in cost, but moreso in time, so I don't suggest it lightly. That being said, I think that it might be worth it to grab a Bitwig trial and see how you like it. I'd grab it both on Windows and Linux, so you can try it "how it should work" when your plugins and the DAW are working in harmony while also getting the Linux toolchain working. And from the cost perspective, Bitwig does not have crossgrade licenses, so you can buy Studio once, and run it on any supported platform.
I mean, that seems universally truer than not.
Since then I started realizing how parasitic the proprietary software industry really is.
[0]: https://www.scottrlarson.com/blog/publication-looking-back-w...
Each system has pros and cons.
I'm daily driving both Windows and Linux, and each has its own issues unfortunately, so using tools like OO is a necessity of making my(and others) life bit less miserable.
For Linux I have bunch of custom repair scripts because of certain bugs I encounter(which are tracked too but not solved).
Unfortunately this is the game no one will ever win, unless you will move, drop tech, and start breeding dogs, but then you need to sell them, and where would you advertise? :)
I like the issues faced on Linux more, since I can solve them. I too have a handful of repair scripts.
I feel like an adult to be given access all the internals. I don’t feel that way on Windows (and any other locked down OS).
We should put in the volunteer hours to upstream these fixes to make it nicer for normies :^)
Perhaps that wouldn't happen if more people switched...
and people won't switch if there is no way to switch, it's like asking people to go on a hunger strike
You are not the first Linux user claiming that to me, but it is not true. you never actually tried, admit it.
> TC can be run on Wine absolutely everywhere
I just tried again on Linux Mint. The folder tabs overlay the path to the current dir and the window can just be full screen. Those are the bugs detected after a minute of usage.
> DoubleCommander is a near-direct replacement
Okay, I was just able to install that, and it seems to have what I need. So thats a valid Point, Linux has something comparable to Total Commander.
> Log in as Administrator (...) Sure, it's trivial
Yes it is, I just did that. I give you that.
That's a nice claim you just made up there, out of thin air.
> If you have something specific in mind, you can say it.
I need something to hack together a solution and then go on. I don't want to
* Create GitHub issues and hope and then wait.
* Learn how this GUI was written and fix it by modifying and compiling the source.
What I need is the ability to:
* Activate windows
* Detect the active window
* Move and rescale the active window
* Move the mouse relative to the active window
* Move the mouse absolutely to the screen (if the relative method is broken)
* Sometimes move the mouse relative to itself
* Press mouse buttons, including WheelUp, and WheelDown (and that is sent to the active window)
* press keyboard button combinations (and that is sent to the active window)
* Send text (yep, many tools can do that)
* activate menu entries in the active window
* Get the text of active menu entries in the active window
* Find icons in the active window by providing an image, rarely used, when all above attempts fail.
* Finally, define shortcuts that do combined actions of the above.
I won't walk with you through every concrete possible application, but I give an example for Scid, which is also a Linux tool. Both on Windows and Linux, it happens that the save game dialog is partly moved outside the view rectangle of my screen. No idea why that is so. I need to drag the save dialog to the middle of the screen first. AutoHotkey to the rescue:
Another example. Every window manager I tested, which has "snap window to border in order to place it on half the screen" does not restore the window to full screen when I press the button left of the "close window" button. Instead, they place the window in a random position. It is not "click the middle button twice to switch between full screen and snapped position", which is the common use case. Thanks to AutoHotkey, there is a fix available on Windows: https://github.com/RamonUnch/AltSnap Edit: Okay, thats not AutoHotkey but raw C. But still that would be a use case for AutoHotkey.I hope I’ve managed to clarify my point regarding the need for an AutoHotkey on Linux. There are simply too many bugs, idiots, and unimplemented features to get back into the flow quickly without AutoHotkey.
Just when sending this text, noticing that this site does not properly handle markdown bullet list, I found another great use case for Autohotkey, when pressing the Enter key on Hacker News ...
There's a myriad of tools for blind input macros.
DE manipulation is generally done with DBus and CLI tools.
UI element manipulation (menus, icons, widgets) is done through a11y, with things like accerciser, dogtail, etc. AT-SPI makes it unified.
Providing an image... do you mean OCR? Use SikuliX, however that's just a Rube Goldberg machine like way to do things if you ask me. Not if deep UI automation to fix things is any better, though.
And of course you can script all that in any industry standard scripting language instead of janky DSLs.
>Just when sending this text, noticing that this site does not properly handle markdown bullet list, I found another great use case for Autohotkey, when pressing the Enter key on Hacker News ...
I think that's easier done with a userscript.
It's cross-platform, so could switch file manager on Windows first to make it easier to switch to Linux later.
It's packaged in Debian and Ubuntu as "doublecmd-qt" and "doublecmd-gtk", so Linux Mint ought to have it as well.
> Can it filter-as-you-type the file list?
Yes.
> Does it have chainable script button bars?
I don't know what that is.
> Is there a poweful rename tool?
There's a Multi-Rename Tool, yes.
> Can it look pretty
You'll have to be the judge of that. It looks good to me. It uses the Lazarus component library, so it can be built with either Qt or GTK (or native win32 on Windows) and uses whatever themes and configuration applies to those.
Ah, I found it now. I must have misspelled it, just saw the language files earlier. Yes, this seems to be a valid alternative to Total Commander. It has what I need, including script buttons, very nice. There are still a few bugs, like the buttons are currently all light grey. I will see if I can resolve that. Thanks for this tip.
[1] https://github.com/nilslindemann/Code_Browser_49
The only Linux Software I miss on Windows is Timeshift. Thats not enough.
Edit: I just have set up root login on Linux Mint. Okay, thats actually not much more difficult than on Windows.
The only valid holdup for Linux at this point is kernel anticheats and some larger commercial software that is deeply engrained in the windows ecosystem eg most desktop offline CAD software. But once again AI is going to help you get that running under wine. I am already working on a series of wine patches and a custom runner to allow me to run ProE/Creo under wine without issues.
Sure I did, but what particular annoyances in what software that you want to take with you into another ecosystem? I just don't get it, as you're being vague about it. Every environment has its own ways to solve your actual goals, and has its own quirks that need entirely different workarounds, not necessarily AHK.
They'll spy on users usage habits, and likely backdoor their OS for the feds, but they won't individually exfil your browser cookies and steal money from your bank account.
A random closed-source black-box "privacy" tool though? You have zero guarantees.
What’s the difference between backdooring for the US gov’t and directly robbing/bugging you (assuming for the sake of argument that they don’t already do at least the latter)?
Used to be that you’d only ask that question if you were brown and/or write your name from right to left. Doesn’t matter much whether you were from Svalbard or Sanaa these days…
That may or may not be true, but I feel like the former would be a whole lot harder to hide, and the risk of having to reveal it in court would likely mean they aren't going to blow their cover over someone who wasn't worth it.
Like PRISM, Boundless Informant, Stellar Wind, etc?
Yes, it does.
>O&O has been making tools like these for a long time.
Microsoft has made Windows for a long time. Longer, even.
People don’t read the source. And chief among them, statistically, is you.
Open Source is ideal but not a deal breaker.
ShutUp has also been around for a while and always seemed to me like a O&O side project by someone who got really pissed at Windows taking the spyware tangent. The distribution model is still that of shareware / freeware (no source), because that's what O&O does. But as far as closed software goes, that's _probably_ as clean as it gets.
Windows has had built in defrag since at least WinXP. I can't remember if Win2000 had it - I think it did. It runs in the background and you don't have to worry about it. 3rd party defrag tools are snake oil, like registry cleaners and so on.
Also, a watching a proper defragmenter run was an OCD soothing experience before we had stray kitten and powerwashing videos galore. I know I'm not alone with this experience.
>OCD soothing experience
I've always felt it was a certain kind of person who found amusement in watching a defragger work. I'm absolutely sure that 3rd party tools made sure to incorporate the equivalent blinkenlights to give the impression that their tool did something useful.
Support the original, not the copy: https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat
But thanks for the link, wasn't aware about that open source project.