Posted on 08/08/2025 1:48:48 PM PDT by nickcarraway
In two months, I will be performing a personal Mexit for much of my PC activities. There is an option to extend a Windows 10 license an extra year for $30, but it requires using microsoft.com for the login. ESAD, Microsoft.
So, they admit that moving away will NOT save them money as new training, etc will cost them just as much and be less efficient.
But they need to do it anyway. Not a MS fanboy, but this reeks of stupidity.
I imagine most of the fees paid to Microsoft are for desktop computer licenses, and there are alternatives for the desktop without hanging up most of the desktop functions they are running, because in addition to the desktop operating system, there are alternatives to most all the important Microsoft desktop apps as well; and usually the old data files are portable over to the non-windows apps. The U.K. (and the U.S. as well) would be well making the one time expense of ending the MS desktop addiction.
I have one desktop PC on Windows 7 which I am considering a Mexit for. It is more my actual working PC than a Windows 11 Laptop I have (used only when I travel away from home). Once I have all the alternative apps I want on the desktop PC, I will download versions of them to the laptop and kill Win11 on the laptop as needed.
Run giant data centers with myriad business applications, you can pay Microsoft or IBM.
Your choice.
“I will be performing a personal Mexit for much of my PC activities”
As just a dumbass end user, I am well pleased with the Microsoft/Intel/Dell combo.
re: Alternatives to Microsoft
As a tech PM, recently retired, I can tell you there is no cheaper modern computing infrastructure than Microsoft on Intel everywhere.
Pay enormous bucks to them yearly and focus on your business. Think of it as electricity.
The alternatives will bleed you to death, with no visibility and no idea how to fix it. And it’ll cost nearly twice as much when you include all the roll out failures, outages and personnel costs.
Oh, and let Cisco rape you too. It’s cheaper.
The why do so many techies here in this forum push Linux???
“The why do so many techies here in this forum push Linux???”
Most have never even comprehended the complexity of an enterprise environment.
You can go Linux as an individual, it’s getting easier every day. But when something goes wrong, and it will, you better know what you’re doing.
following
“ In two months, I will be performing a personal Mexit for much of my PC activities”
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I did my Mexit years ago when I moved to Apple. For the most part I’ve found perfectly good substitutes for everything that I used a Microsoft application for. The most difficult thing for me to move from was Excel, of which I was very fond. But I’ve now developed equivalent expertise in Apple Numbers so while I have fond memories of Excel, I surely do not miss the usurious terms required to keep it.
Go Woke, Go Broke
I don't always bring up Linux any time there is an opportunity to do so, but Linux is in fact the only option to where I can do exactly $0 dollars in subsidies for the woke agenda; at least on the software side. - and of course not be a thief.
Microsoft, Apple, and Google are all blindingly and frustratingly woke.
For those planning to get away from Microsoft, that is one heck of a very sensible choice. If I can help, please let me know.
This is a casualty of tariffs, or so it looks like it.
You are correct its not fiscally sound in this very moment. But the UK is seeming to take the idea that if the UK government can promote UK software providers, it’ll all start coming back to them.
They have a point. If Trump’s tariffs are true in that US based providers help the US, then its true. UK based providers help the UK - or else Trump is a liar.
It can’t go both ways.
I was hoping “Mexit” meant Muslim Exit.
Microsoft is like a bandaid. It sticks easy, and remains stuck to you, as long as you need it, and then another need comes up and you need to seek the sticky little thing again. You know how the stickiness works and are not willing to learn any other way to fix the problem.
To undo the Microsoft sticky thing, you need to go back some 30 or so years, but you will, in the end, seek the sticky thing that the whole world understands and is easy to get stuck to and easy to use.
LibreOffice is well rated alternative to the MS desktop apps and it runs on Mac and Linux as well. And there are good alternatives to the MS browser and Email apps. So there is a place the UK government could start to unbundle its MS dependence. And there are cloud alternatives to MS cloud, as well as to MS network server OS, ect. And some top network server OEM’s offer preloaded server operating systems besides MS, at customers choice.
I think the UK could become less MS dependent, with a carefully scheduled transition process, and with that process, cost-wise, maybe dovetailing with equipment, systems, due to be replaced anyway.
With different systems in place some of the keys are necessary points of inter-connection and cross-platform use of the same data. If data connectivity is maintained across platforms, application transitions can be accomplished with less loss of operational efficiency.
Some of the big enterprise application systems like Oracle and SAP can run on multiple different platforms and have cross-platform interoperability. If they are among the big systems already deployed in the U.K. government, those systems can support a transition away from MS. Lo and behold, the U.K. government has systems using both Oracle and SAP.
I may take you up on that offer of help, in addition to the help from Freeper 'Openurmind'. I've been making a list of applications I run on Windows 10 Pro and looking for suitable substitutes with Linux. Too many routes are ending up at the dead end street known as "Run the application under Wine," and sometimes "Good luck with that!"
I am still stuck with that crap OS. When I started engineering everything was on Unix based OS. I hate MS. BUT. That’s what I get. I am not upgrading to 11 because I am sure if I do I will be forced to spend 20-30k of new software licenses and move to subscription based software rather than my permanent licenses I currently own.
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