After 20 years of Linux, my only use for Windows is as a runtime engine for Visio and Project running in a VM. All I really ask for is a secure runtime with updates. What annoys me is when I start getting popups and ads in my start menu or desktop when going to launch said Visio or Project.
Hopefully it keeps driving people away to Linux or sadly even Mac, it isn't really needed for much these days, even games.
> it isn't really needed for much these days, even games
Windows will be with us for decades to come. There is no shortage of industry-specific software that doesn’t run on anything else.
Take our family business: Our CAD doesn’t run on Mac; and forget about the CAM software for a router. That’s just our industry - I would say almost every industry has it’s bespoke software that isn’t going away.
For many other businesses, Microsoft Office is non-negotiable. What’s the alternative, sending PII to Google Docs? Knowing that if you open that 2011 document, the formatting will be cooked? What if you need Adobe or Affinity software?
I’ve just accepted that Linux on the desktop will never happen.
Edit: The comment below me on Adobe, shows the commentator is clueless. Adobe legally has commercial rights to their stock photo library (Adobe Stock) and the 248 million images in it. That’s plenty for training AI, and as a result, a copyright challenge against Adobe has never been attempted. Many artists have been fairly vocal that this wasn’t what they intended when they literally sold their photos to Adobe, but that’s hardly a winning legal argument.
The Windows API will be with us for decades to come, but not necessarily Windows itself. We'll deal with legacy Windows software the same way we deal with legacy mainframe software: run it in a container.
That container may or may not be running Windows and it may or may not come from Microsoft. Compare with how millions of people run Windows games on Steam Decks.
Hopefully it keeps driving people away to Linux or sadly even Mac, it isn't really needed for much these days, even games.