Did nobody read the article? Nowhere does it say they would make Windows cloud-only. They're talking about renting out virtual machines.

Of course they want to get as many people as possible to pay a monthly fee to use their cloud system. I'm sure they won't be going cloud only anytime soon, but they will keep making each new windows version worse than the previous one.

They won't get a single cent from me. I've been running Linux for the last 15 years. Wine, DXVK, and Proton keep getting better and I can run all of my games in Linux now.

This seems odd to me, I've dabbled with Linux before but I'm generally a macos guy where the os is the free bit. Charging for an os is outdated surely?

I switched to Linux a long time ago, it's only getting better and better. After valve started making serious investments in the ecosystem it has only gotten better for desktop usage and it simply 'works' in ways that even windows struggles with, ie: ps4 controllers/switch controllers work ootb, gamescope allows significantly more control over how games are rendered and offers a true console-like experience combined with big picture UI.

Yeah, stuff like this is why I just recently changed back to mac a week ago (after years of hating them). For gaming I swapped my Xbox X to PS5 too at the same time (the Xbox X can't even remote play in windows because I just get a black screen, which is embarressing for them).

Got sick of Edge hijacking my Chrome tabs randomly too. Things are getting worse in windows, not better

Might finally convince me to move fully to Linux.....

Assuming this is just fancy talk for Remote Desktop to the average user and hosted by MS.

I suddenly feel an urge to install Arch

Not really surprising, it is what they earn on

That’s a big nope for me.

Internet goes out? I can still do some amount of work, now I need power and internet to both work to do any work at all.

Not a fan of this and I will not embrace it.

I'm surprised they're bothering to focus on consumer devices instead of just going all-out on enterprise and business.

Cloud workstations make a lot of sense for when you need the extra grunt occasionally and have a rock-solid internet connection, but about the only reason the average consumer would want to use them on a portable device is gaming. Everything else you can do locally or as a web app.

And even gaming has been a bit rocky, though it has its small cult of followers.

Cool, I've been looking for an excuse to move to Linux again. I tried ubuntu years ago but it was too limited in features and capabilities to fully replace windows for my productivity needs. Time for me to dual-boot so I can start getting more practice with Linux (Probably going to go for Linux Mint this time around)

That's going to be interesting.

Here in Germany, we are forced to use Windows in schools because "it's what the kids need in the real world".

By forcing Windows to work cloud-only, they are literally making it illegal to use in schools here, because we can't force children to use anything doing data-harvesting in order to pursue their education.

Fun times ahead!