“The new Start menu is said to respond up to 60 percent faster. Microsoft is even considering removing all advertising from the Start menu.” Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3126651/microsofts-secret-windows-k2-project-aims-to-fix-what-users-hate-most.html
Not a chance. I subscribe to (pay for) Microsoft 365. They’ve recently (for a week now) implemented an advert in the title bar of all their Apps inviting me to upgrade.
Co-pilot has been removed from the ribbon and now floats.
The relentless intrusion never ceases to disgust me.
Oh, and the Start Menu implemented a demented version of a phone floating alongside the Start Menu and shoved every app you’ve never wanted into the Start Menu. I feel lucky, I found a way to shred every useless piece of crap.
Microsoft Marketing obviously took PC World staff out for drinks.
so reliable that a restart is only required once a month
And they think that’s something to be proud of? I ran my Debian desktop for years until one day when I was leaving for a holiday, I decided to shut the machine down and give it a rest. Closest to reboot there ever is is to log out of the desktop session after graphics driver update.
I bought the last available version of MS Office that you can own. I refuse to subscribe to things like that. I don’t want all the new AI khrappe anyway.
For those of you wanting a legal, single downloadable copy (Mac/Windows) of MSWord/Excel, stacksocial dot com has regular sales for those two products. You need to provide an outlook or hotmail address to get the serial number. The Mac 2021 version recently highlighted was 49 bucks. Be sure to read the entire presentation for details.
There are quite a few sites that sell the licenses, they are all legal (the Volume Licence keys are a grey area though).
In July 2012, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in Case C-128/11 (UsedSoft GmbH v Oracle International Corp) that the resale of software licences is legal under EU law, even when the original licence agreement says otherwise.
The court ruling: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A62011CJ0128
You can find a summary of it here: Reselling used software licences – new ruling from the European Court | Clarion
It’s always a good idea to do research of the site selling the keys before ordering, just in case.