Previewing changes in Windows to comply with the Digital Markets Act in the European Economic Area
blogs.windows.com
Hello Windows Insiders, Microsoft is working to ensure compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in the European Economic Area (EEA). We have released the November 2023 non-security preview update for Windows 11, version 23H2 to the Rele

geteilt von: https://lemmy.world/post/8371095

Long post and well worth the read, but the interesting part to me is this:

Windows operating system and apps

Customers using Windows have always used a combination of operating system functionality as well as apps, but now Windows will clearly identify operating system functionality in places like Settings, Start, and Search:

  • Settings > System > System Components will show notable operating system components.
  • Start menu’s All Apps list has been renamed to All and operating system components are labeled with “system”.
  • Under Search, search results will show operating system components labeled with “system”.

All apps in Windows can be uninstalled. Of course, apps can always be installed again from the Microsoft Store and internet. Settings > Apps > Installed apps continue to show all the apps installed on the PC and we’ve added the ability to uninstall:

  • Camera
  • Cortana
  • Web Search from Microsoft Bing, in the EEA
  • Microsoft Edge, in the EEA
  • Photos
  • jmcsEnglish
    127·
    7 months ago

    So, they went to the trouble of keeping a different set of functionalities just for Europe instead of unshittifying Windows for everyone. Wow.

    • vmachiel@lemmy.worldEnglish
      651·
      7 months ago

      So it must be worth a lot of money to force al of that stuff on users right?

        • vmachiel@lemmy.worldEnglish
          71·
          7 months ago

          Is it that bad now? I don’t use windows products in my private life, only at work. And I don’t find things that bad over there, but maybe that’s because it’s windows for business

          • notepass@feddit.deEnglish
            261·
            7 months ago

            Your business sysadmins will have gone through the trouble of getting rid of any bullshit. My companies windows installs are more chill than default win11 versions.

          • AAA@feddit.deEnglish
            828·
            7 months ago

            It’s not. People just like to complain. Ad-bloat in the Camera, and Photos app? Edge doesn’t show more ads than other browsers without an ad-blocker. I don’t think Cortana is specifically pushing ads and Web Search from Bing… well Google is also pushing ads wherever they can.

            This is not about ads, it’s about choice.

            • Sigmatics@lemmy.caEnglish
              16·
              7 months ago

              Edge used to be fine until the recent GPT craze. Now they added a giant obnoxious Bing AI circle ad in the top right. Bing is of course default everywhere. At this point I’m just waiting for the MSN bar to reappear

            • Demosthememes@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              3·
              7 months ago

              You’re partly right, it is not about ads. It is about the integrated control of your camera, your media & other peripherals/software/data by Cortana - which rings home all day long - all from behind closed source software which does who-knows-what with the information it gathers.

      • zerofk@lemm.eeEnglish
        11·
        7 months ago

        How quickly they forget. Canonical added Amazon ads to Ubuntu 10 years ago. They walked it back after huge backlash, but don’t believe that any corporate-backed Linux is immune to “shittifying”.

        • Ibaudia@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          7 months ago

          The good thing about that is that you have the choice to avoid Ubuntu and still retain 100% functionality (at least as a private user), but there’s only a small handful of Windows versions with extremely minor differences.

      • trollercoaster@feddit.deEnglish
        8·
        7 months ago

        Linux distributions and/or components have been, and will be, shittified repeatedly. Not as badly as commercial operating systems, but pretty bad anyway.

      • Shayeta@feddit.deEnglish
        1635·
        7 months ago

        Because it has never been good enough for the average terminal-averse user to begin with.

        • Sureito@feddit.deEnglish
          281·
          7 months ago

          You don’t need that in todays world. Otherwise the Steam Deck would have been dead on arrival

          • Spiralvortexisalie@lemmy.worldEnglish
            51·
            7 months ago

            Counter-point, on the Steam Deck/ SteamOS almost anything involving getting past the one app shell (Steam) or installing from a store (flathub) requires terminal and often does not survive system updates. It honestly sounds like Windows 8 typing it out.

        • ShaunaTheDead@kbin.social
          181·
          7 months ago

          There are plenty of distros which can be operated entirely through graphical user interfaces. Ubuntu, for example.

        • MiddledAgedGuy@beehaw.orgEnglish
          4·
          7 months ago

          I love Linux, but I’ll admit what you say has some credence.

          Linux has a lot of polish now. Most big distros are going to have an easy to use GUI installer, and there are several mature very usable desktop environments.

          But, for example, if a new user has an nvidia card it’s probably going to be a poor experience for them and they won’t understand why or how to fix it. So there’s shortcomings there. I blame nvidia for this specific issue, but your average user probably doesn’t care about that. They just want their video card to work well.

          • Shayeta@feddit.deEnglish
            21·
            7 months ago

            It is definitely getting better. I’ve been running the same Arch installation with KDE for the last 5 years at work. Surprisingly stable and had little to no issues.

            Still, the issues I did have required a basic understanding of what a package manager is, what does sudo do, and other general linux knowledge.

            The results difference between a newbie googling “wifi doesnt work” and an experienced user googling “networkmanager service logs showing error XY” is just too great.

    • NaibofTabr@infosec.pubEnglish
      8·
      7 months ago

      Hmm… but the registry hooks for those uninstalls must be in there even if the option isn’t surfaced in the UI right?

      Maintaining different UI options is one thing, maintaining completely different OS versions is another… and it seems like it would be prohibitively complex and expensive to do that.

      Probably all you’d need is for someone with the EU version to export a backup of the relevant parts of their registry, and distribute that so anyone who wants to can have the same uninstall options. The trick would be keeping it that way through Windows updates.

    • Treczoks@kbin.social
      7·
      7 months ago

      Well, they are no longer allowed to milk victims in the EU thanks to good laws. That does not mean they cannot exploit those who are not protected.