> Yes we know of the horrible bloat, tracking and privacy invasion that the OS does to us, but many people tend to just ignore it and move on.
Or in the case of enterprises, Windows gets controlled and managed by a (hopefully) competent IT team or enterprise desktop group, and with LTSC versions Microsofts give them the tools to strip the bloat, tracking, and most of the privacy invasions (to then be replaced with corporate privacy invasions in a lot of cases).
Point being, Windows as an enterprise user desktop is a whole different beast from Windows on the laptop mom and dad just bought from Best Buy.
HN lives in a macOS/Linux bubble, but outside of SV it's a Windows world still. So much of the world runs on Windows in places that you wouldn't even expect to see Windows. And with enterprise purchasing agreements, you can get some good deals on bulk laptop purchases that you aren't getting from Apple. $1,000 or less per 32GB of RAM laptop, depending on how many you are buying. I've seen bulk purchases as low as $700/laptop for enterprises that buy thousands at a time for scheduled refreshes. You're not going to be able to buy everyone a MacBook Pro for that pricing.
Windows remains one of the best general purpose OSes for generic office worker productivity, and I don't see that changing anytime soon unless Microsoft really fucks it up with whatever Copilot garbage they are doing.
My work laptop is Windows and IT have removed the bloatware but the desktop is still a shitshow. Clicking on a window in the taskbar doesn't even reliably bring it to the front.
I've noticed it seems windows aren't allowed to foreground themselves/each other anymore, which seems reasonable (anti click jacking?), but this includes VS not being able to foreground my diff tool when I diff something, and Outlook not being able to foreground itself when I double click the new mail envelope in the notification area.
I also enjoy going to grab a maximised window by its title bar and somehow grabbing the window behind it.
Yeah, windows is pretty aggressive with the focus stealing prevention (I believe GNOME on Linux is also working on something similar, hopefully with a better implementation).
It seems to struggle with differentiating between what's a user initiated focus-steal and what's automated/originating from the app without user action.
I'll take that over what existed before, which was any app could just open a window and give itself focus at any time.
The quite sensible reason is that LTSC doesn't contain the windows store, and as a result a bunch of driver apps don't work because they moved to using UWP apps (eg. realtek audio console). Not to mention that you'll eventually get weird compatibility issues because you'll eventually be running a windows version 5-10 years old, whereas most devs assume you're using be using the normal versions which are at most 2 years out of date. All of these issues can be worked around if you're sufficiently technically inclined, but people who are hiring "Microsoft consultants" probably aren't.
I recommend LTSC for terminal services environments like Azure Virtual Desktop, where driver issues just aren’t a problem.
Windows LTSC has semi annual updates, the same as Windows Server. Speaking of which, that’s essentially what it is: a cut-down version of the Server Desktop Experience with pretty much the same defaults and capabilities.
Microsoft could implement App Store support for LTSC (and Served), they simply choose not to. It’s telling that this isn’t a problem in practice.
Windows 11 IoT Enterprise, version 25H2 2025‑09‑30
Windows 11 IoT Enterprise, version 24H2 2024‑10‑01
Windows 11 IoT Enterprise, version 23H2 2023‑10‑31
Windows 11 IoT Enterprise, version 22H2 2022‑09‑20
Windows 11 IoT Enterprise, version 21H2 2021‑10‑04
Microsoft "consultants" are are usually just license auditors in disguise. We ignore them, and I suggest everyone else do the same. They "helpfully" reach out and offer to optimize your infrastructure and spend. That 'optimization' is actually "let's make sure you bought all the CALs you were supposed to, and when you inevitably didn't, because we make our licensing confusing, we'll charge you extra and threaten legal action for non-compliance"
Better to find a reputable VAR and get your licensing through them and don't ever deal with Microsoft directly.
Or in the case of enterprises, Windows gets controlled and managed by a (hopefully) competent IT team or enterprise desktop group, and with LTSC versions Microsofts give them the tools to strip the bloat, tracking, and most of the privacy invasions (to then be replaced with corporate privacy invasions in a lot of cases).
Point being, Windows as an enterprise user desktop is a whole different beast from Windows on the laptop mom and dad just bought from Best Buy.
HN lives in a macOS/Linux bubble, but outside of SV it's a Windows world still. So much of the world runs on Windows in places that you wouldn't even expect to see Windows. And with enterprise purchasing agreements, you can get some good deals on bulk laptop purchases that you aren't getting from Apple. $1,000 or less per 32GB of RAM laptop, depending on how many you are buying. I've seen bulk purchases as low as $700/laptop for enterprises that buy thousands at a time for scheduled refreshes. You're not going to be able to buy everyone a MacBook Pro for that pricing.
Windows remains one of the best general purpose OSes for generic office worker productivity, and I don't see that changing anytime soon unless Microsoft really fucks it up with whatever Copilot garbage they are doing.