A Loathe Letter to Microsoft

Yes, you read that correctly. I was so close to ready to accept Windows 10 as a viable operating system, when Microsoft's update system pushed a firmware update on me, just as I was about to start this review. Compared with my HP Pavilion with an Intel Core i7-8550U, clocked in at just over 1GHz per core, the Asus TUF series laptop with an AMD Ryzen 5 I recently purchased clocked in at about twice the speed was quite responsive, and even handled most of my tasks better than when my HP Pavilion had Windows 10, but that's a story for another review.

I've had issues in the past with Windows 10 since my days at BYU-Idaho, particularly on refurbished machines. When I bought this system, my first thought was to install some form of Linux from the Ubuntu or Debian families, particularly SteamOS, however, all of the effort I put in was for naught. Eventually, I decided to settle with Windows 10 and a bunch of open source supplement software.

This seemed to be working just fine, especially because tracking down the licenses I got from OnTheHub were more trouble than my time was worth in terms of doing a clean install to remove OEM crapware. However, flash forward to this review with the opening scenario, and I am seriously entertaining a revisit of an Ubuntu or SuSe reformat.

Normally what happens when Windows 10 pushes a major update, all I have to do is reinstall my uncurated software. However, this is the first time Microsoft has pushed an OEM firmware update on me, and if it ever happens again, especially if I get my stuff back, I'm giving them every 1-star rating on social media that I can. I refuse to be their ginuea pig in terms of software testing, regardless of what their P.R. department's twisted review data suggests that it's a brilliant idea.

If I am successful in installing Linux on this beast, there will be a more positive follow-up review to come. Until then, if there are any Microsoft employees seeing this on Twitter, I will direct you to my proverbial #1 foam finger where the middle finger is the single digit extended.