My key problem with this is that I know WHERE my program is in the program menu, but I don't know what it's called. Care to tell me how to search for a program you don't know the exact name of?

And frankly, with more and more programs coming up with more and more esoteric names...

The only application I "need" that I couldn't find a suitable Linux replacement for was Autodesk 360. And that runs fine in a VM.

What else would I need that I can't get on Linux?

We run our own (huge) data center, so convincing our people that we should stay "at home" was easier, especially since we have our own cloud service (with blackjack. And hookers) so they can placate marketing with "yes, yes, we are doing this in the cloud" without even lying, but even here, some felt that urge to move stuff into AWS.

And yes, now we're having severe headaches.

The expense isn't in the infrastructure. That's peanuts. Quite frankly, the metal you need to haul your data back into the data center is pocket change. What really puts the money boot on your back is adaptation of your software, services, processes and of course the manpower you now suddenly need for maintenance.

The alternatives to the cloud are certainly not free. Actually, cloud services do have their niche. When I need sudden spikes of processing power, Lambda services beat on-prem server farms in pretty much any aspect. If I just need to try something out and need to spin up a machine quickly, a cloud container sure is easier to get with less overhead than even an on-prem VM.

But for anything where you have a constant base load, especially if you're large enough to warrant the staff for maintenance, the costs for cloud services quickly spin out of whack compared to on-prem systems.

Cloud systems are a tool. Not a silver bullet. They are not the hammer and your problems are not all nails.

And it even fails at this. Miserably. I can still install Linux on those systems. So what's the goal here?

Windows has really been "good enough" at least since WinXP. There are very, very few actual reasons why you would want to upgrade from there other than the OS losing manufacturer support.

Quite frankly, if XP still had patches going, I'd really have a hard time justifying upgrading from it.

True, true.

It's time to dig out the Linux distribution from back when Win7 had to be replaced and check whether now, finally, it is ready for business. I think that VMs are now far more capable than they used to be, so the few applications that can't run in Wine would probably by now work sensibly in that VM.

They already have altered it further.

Yes, MS is now officially worse than The Empire.

I'm fairly sure the reason for the lack of 2FA is the usual "I'm too important to be inconvenienced" screwup. Where C-Levels demand that they have full reign, full access and maximum privileges, but also can't be assed to agree on bare minimum security features because it's "too complicated" for them.

Let the users jump through all sorts of ridiculous hoops to access their locked down accounts, but I'm far, far too important to be in any way inconvenienced (hell, remembering that 8 letter password that doesn't conform to any password standards we require everyone else to follow) when I want to access my all-access account.

Which I don't use, because that's what my secretary is for. But I need to have it. Because I'm important.

Nooooo, say it ain't so! That's unpossible!

Companies just noticed that cloud services are a bit like a marriage. It's easy to get into, but if you want out, it gets expensive and chances are good that half your stuff will go missing.

If you cannot justify what your side does, the only option is to pretend the other side is just as bad.

Basically, any time someone goes to deflect to someone else, you know that they know that what they do isn't ok and they cannot justify it anymore.

Do we really have to clone it first?

I mean, really, do we?

He could no longer be the Annoying Orange if he didn't.

Technically, Russia should not be a permanent member of the security council. The last USSR member to leave the union was not Russia, it was Kazakhstan. So, actually, Kazakhstan should be the successor to all things USSR, including the permanent seat on the security council of the UN.