That's probably all consumer speak for 'we are implementing a new security protocol, which is built into Windows 10 and after which we don't want to have to back port and then test on all the old systems (that our metrics show few use)'.

I'm not sucking anyone's dick ATM.

I remember my personal computer, a P3 600 maybe, got faster after installing XP. I preferred the interface of 2000 but the speed, compatibility, and reliability benefits of XP quickly overcame the UI preference. Classic theme got me back to mostly-2k like, which survived until Windows 7.

I remember 2000 being much slower than XP.

Light switches don't live in a world where building codes, light technology, wiring materials, and human hands all change yearly. Technology changes all the time. Though I think a lot of what Microsoft does with new releases is for the worse (usually UX related), the under-the-hood changes are usually for the the best. They have to test OneDrive on all those releases, and it's a lot of work.

Windows 7 is ancient; Windows 8 was DoA. Windows 10 is 6 years old and is a free upgrade to all the aforementioned users. The only real loss is classic theme from Windows 7. That doesn't sound too bad.

Windows tried to solve the problem of users not knowing where their files are using Libraries. It just makes the problem worse. This looks a lot like libraries: organization is hard, make it opaque, now it's hard AND unpredictable AND confusing.

Tens of millions of people probably click "Trust this document" every day =)

Edge case of what? Doing graphics work or video work would get to 16GB fast too. Anyone doing work outside a browser or maybe Office apps.

As I pointed out in other comments, 98% of all users or users buying this machine? Any developer using Windows and Docker would be running a VM implicitly. Windows handles the WSL2 docker VM pretty poorly and when memory usage gets to about 15GB, it just kills the docker VM without notice, even when there's still plenty of swap space left.

As I explained, as a programming activity, when working on a small application, with Chrome, IDEA, and a VM (docker in WSL2), I run into out of memory errors.

It's also not enough for Chrome and three or so heavy applications.

It may be more than enough for 99.9% of laptop users, but most of those aren't interested in a powerful, (more) expensive machine like this one. I'd say of the people that would be interested in this exact machine, way more than 0.1% are going to be turned away by the memory quantity.

16GB seems like an odd pairing for a high end 8 core CPU. If someone's just browsing the net or video chatting or whatever, seems like a cheaper, lower end laptop would be a better choice. Considering the CPU supports more than 16GB and that memory is cheap, this limit is pretty silly.

Do you mean that linux apps use less memory or do you mean that it doesn't have the WSL bug that windows has when it runs out of memory? I'm sure the latter is true, after all, it's not windows. I suspect the former is false. On top of that, Linux has it's on issues that Mac and Windows don't have.

MacOS does a better job swapping when running a VM (docker's at least). Windows just kills the VM without notice.

I've used Edge (which is Chrome now), IntelliJ IDEA, and a VM (for running docker, through WSL2); Windows kills the WSL2 VM without notice or feedback and containers just stop responding.

How are we still allowing a maximum memory of 16GB? That's not enough for Chrome, one heavy application, and a VM.

I believe the law is that the employer can't prevent employees discussing it within the office, and for a company with remote workers, Slack is close enough to 'the office' that it's at least in the gray area if not solidly in the protected area.