And so, the technofiefdom begins.
this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2026
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Well, when the AI market crashes they will have lots of unused datacenters... Guess they found an use for that after all.
Back in 2008-2009 I shared this crazy idea with my peers that Microsoft was moving towards an "always connected" OS that would probably be hosted on their servers, because you can make more money charging someone for access to their data than charging them once for their OS.
they laughed it off and told me that nobody would fall for that.
....who's laughing now assholes?
It was never crazy and people were predicting this since the 90s. It's essentially a return to the dumb terminal & mainframe paradigm that was in use prior to desktop pcs.
yeah Im so glad I finally went to linux for my personal computing. Really should have done it about a decade earlier.
This is horrifying in that it signals a concerted push towards getting consumers on cloud computing.
But in terms of self hosting your own compute these actually look great, especially if they’re subsidized to get you into a subscription fee. As long as we can break into the bootloader and run Linux on these, they look to be very capable and efficient small compute boxes. 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports, DDR5 memory, and Intel N series processors?
Self hosters and homelabbers will be licking their lips.
These fuckers themselves have increased the price of PC components and now they have the gall to release this cloud-only PC to "alleviate the problem of the current market scenario".
I have a sneaking suspicion that these PCs will have some sort of protection so that nothing other than Win365 can run. Maybe a locked bootloader/secureboot?
I have a sneaking suspicion that these PCs will have some sort of protection so that nothing other than Win365 can run. Maybe a locked bootloader/secureboot?
Yes. Very probably.
Of course, no security mechanism lasts indefinitely in the hands of a persistent hacker with physical access.
Businesses will adore this. I can guarantee a lot of us will be forced to use these at work, like Teams and CoPilot, as a further mega deal with Microsoft.
...But honestly, I think "home" buyers who don't really care about PC stuff, aka most people, would pick tablets over this.
Business's will not adore this. Cloud PCs in M365 or Azure cost money, often as much per year as it would cost to just purchase a pc to begin with.
So do all the Microsoft subscriptions they already buy, yet they're extremely popular anyway?
MSO and EXO have a value proposition that Cloud PC doesn't and Cloud PC at minimum doubles the cost.
I used to work at a thrift store a decade ago, it was pretty common for people to drop off laptops (some of them pretty sick at the time), I'd ask why and the response was always "we have ipads". I doubt things have improved since then.
I'm really worried about this, I don't think it'll become a universal standard by all means but I can see Microslop forcing this onto people as a kinda next step from all the hardware limitation bs.
They would finally have total control over your OS.
They've been pushing the thin client for years and it's never taken off. You and I wouldn't be the target for this machine and neither would gamers or content creators. This is for business or grandparents.
They've been pushing the thin client for years
I think it's been decades at this point, and I hope it never takes off.
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Why do you care? If you are using microsoft now it's already a bad idea.
I don't use Microsoft so I don't really care what kind of crap they do.
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They did since it was online. It's closed and online, the OS "owner" are the only true admin. If it's closed and online, your "commands" are just "suggestions" compared to theirs.
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Google calls it a Chromebox.
And in the 80's we called them X Terminals.
What in the name is the flying spaghetti monster is Windows 365? An even less private version of windows that won't work is you don't have internet?
The OS is fully running on the cloud. You will be given a VM. Everything stays there. You may have to take permission to download a file from the VM onto your local device. You don't get any choice about telemetry.
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It is a Thinnet client. They have been around for at least 26 years.
Remember when you used to host your own citrix? Pepperidge Farm remembers
Lol citrix.. now that is a name i have not heard in a very long time.
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And when your Internet goes down, you can't even work locally.
Genius!
I'm sure CoPilot in the cloud already took that into account though and goes off on all sorts of tangents with the user disconnected.
What could possibly go wrong?
Considering this is very clearly targeted enterprise, there's probably some sector of a company that works on data that's only in the cloud anyways. They're likely the ones asking for this. I highly doubt this would become a norm across the enterprise.
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The best we'll soon be able to own is workstations. Talk about data manipulation.
Ah yes, it's around the time for thin clients of this cycle.
Buy all the ram, inflating prices. Sell thin clients and access to computing power/ram. What a scam.
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Goodbye local Windows, you mean. Except I said goodbye two years ago and never looked back or missed it. Windows does nothing I need, and does it poorly.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still petty enough to hope this effort is a miserable failure, but ultimately I don't care all that much.
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