[luckys]

Maybe it would be a good idea for Microsoft to split Windows into a version for business that supports all the cruft that has accumulated and is needed, and another version where they start from scratch. Something that is lightweight and respects the user. A man can dream.

[lizknope]

I see people saying the opposite and saying MS should sell windows Enterprise or LTSC (Long-Term Servicing Channel) version to consumers. These have less of the bloatware and forced features that most people are complaining about.

I have 10 Linux machines and 1 Mac at home. I never use windows for anything personal. At work we have windows laptops that I really only use for email /web and to connect to a remote Linux desktop where I do all my work. The windows enterprise version we have seems to have far less of the crap that people complain about.

[bjacobel]

This already exists, but you have the markets backwards. Microsoft wants to force the cruft onto everyday users; it subsidizes the cost of the operating system license. Home users can be conned into paying for OneDrive or Copilot subscriptions much more easily than enterprises can. On the other side, Windows Server is their lightweight version, and it's made for the only customer that Microsoft respects: ones that paid in full upfront.

[p_ing]

You don't want that dream.

It's a whole new set of unknown bugs, security issues, lack of essential features, and app compat issues.

And the internals of NT are quite good and still largely modern. There's not a lot worth replacing (my only thought would be to rip out the file system filter driver model though I don't know what would replace it).

[BloondAndDoom]

Back in the day windows NT was serving this purpose and a lot of pro users would use it over windows 98. (At least in 3rd countries where all licenses are pirated).

It actually used to work well, and I think there are still some windows editions like this they are more strictly separated and not that good for daily en user usage.

[zbentley]

I like your dream. I think financial incentives make it unlikely, though. The writing's been on the wall for user-friendly general computing OSes for awhile, I think. So Microsoft's incentive is to treat Windows like a loss leader (even if it's not) and use it as a funnel for services/subscription revenue from their other products.

I hate that/wish it weren't so, but I think the last ~15y of M$ decisionmaking makes a lot of sense in that context.

[keyringlight]

Another aspect to this is that I really doubt consumers would go to linux if there was any pay-wall or 'donate for more features' type aspect to it. Something that really isn't emphasized much is how lots of OSS/linux work is done by the various big corporations often for goals that are not aimed at the small scale users, and it's a happy byproduct that many aspects of their system may run better just by swapping OS, all free to them. Similarly Valve's efforts seem tightly focused on what matters to their products/services and being available to everyone is a byproduct.

The windows cost gets hidden/de-emphasized when buying a PC, or other users just ignore it which is seems to be below MS's pain tolerance for lost revenue on those users. If there was a price of admittance to linux for any other company to devote resources to work on it where it couldn't be treated as a loss-leader for something else, it'd be an even tougher struggle to migrate users over. (and it's likely right now most people moving to linux are somewhat enthusiasts)

[drooopy]

Introducing Windows NNT (New New Technology).

[accrual]

There's "MinWin", I wish this could be used as the foundation for a consumer Windows OS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MinWin