Could they do it? Deactivate Windows licenses, block Cloud services, access to Office 365 and whatnot?
Sure, but they like money, so not happening.
They can send all of their online services like Office 365 and Copilot, as well as sales or registration of Windows very quickly. I wish they would! I’d love to see Linux and Libreoffice take over, and maybe a new European player on the market. That would be a boon for consumers worldwide.
Microsoft is an Eldritch hydra monstrosity. I think it has become its own civilization. I think it’s so large that it just exists as a self sustaining chaos phenomena. I don’t think the organization can make a decision. One department of thousands makes a decision. And they all jostle about breaking each other’s shit every other day.
- They can deactivate cloud services likely on a press of a button, for all EU IP addresses.
- If there’s a killswitch in Windows, yes. Otherwise they can still selectively put out an update that would lock up your PC and disable it from functioning, possibly even wiping any and all drives in the PC completely clean.
The likelihood of this scenario is small outside of either the USA invading Europe, or Trump giving the EU to Russia or other powers, while Trump promising MS no taxes and regulations for a given period.
Yes, no problem with those rented licences.
Time to enjoy free open source clones
I’d leave the clone part out
Sadly I’ve found nothing as good for spellcheck
Have you tried: https://github.com/languagetool-org/languagetool
I’m very happy with it!
I think I installed this but I will try it again, thanks for the recommendation!
Does it catch double spaces for you?
How about a dedicated third-party service like Grammarly?
My family used that a lot but in trying to keep my research private I prefer to not use something proprietary. Which hurts me a little bit… :/
I think I understand. I don’t know how Grammarly compares to Microsoft Office in terms of privacy though.
What I mean is since I got into selfhosting services via my servers I try to keep as much data as I can in my own home. I know Microsoft Office calls to home so I try to stick to FOSS which I can guarantee doesn’t. I also don’t know but I bet grammarly does call home a lot since they use AI as well now.
It’s still a good recommendation, so thank you! I know it does help my family more than word typically, so it’s a good product.
I see, I misunderstood then. From your first post that I replied to, I assumed that you were using Microsoft Office. Sorry for the confusion. You’re welcome! I’ve never used it myself, but I get the impression that it works well.
Thanks! :) If I ever have a stressful paper my mother still helps me to this day and I think they go through that. So still inadvertently helping me lol
Update could brick your computer intentionally, and on a regional basis. Could steel your data. Mix of love, loyalty and money for US government and its global dominance all that is needed.
Of course they could. One update could render the system worthless or come with malware that infests systems in the network.
Oh, so just another Patch Tuesday then.
Yep. The idea that microsoft can “do nothing” to a system that isn’t hosted on their servers is pure delusion - or ignorant. They haven’t thought more deeply about being evil, which is quite cute actually.
As surely as you could set $100,000 of your own money on on fire, yeah.
Yes but not legally. They are also legally bound to EU laws, which would protect the clients that bpught the software. But! Just like plenty of companies pulled out of Russia, if the US does not care and decides ro enable this behavior then they could do it without too much trouble.
But I doubt this would happen, the EU is a big part of their income, and money is what they care about.
Microsoft has the ability to do this if they really wanted to. It would completely destroy their business if they did, though, so they won’t. I mean, who would keep using Microsoft products if the company was willing to just take it away from you at a moment’s notice?
The US government cannot do it so easily. They’d have to order Microsoft to do so. Microsoft would resist and take it to court. The US Court system makes a LOT of really fucked up rulings, but the one thing they do reliably is side with big business. I’m inclined to think that in this hypothetical showdown, the courts would side with Microsoft.
I mean… If you take the leaks by Snowden (iirc?) seriously, there’s a good possibility the CIA or other intelligence agencies have backdoors in everything.
I’m sure that if a government has information that’s so sensitive they’ll store it on servers that run some sort of proprietary OS, or maybe not digitally at all.
Not like loads of militaries care.
They either use Linux (probably not BSD (or maybe they do?!) or outdated af Windows NT/XP/embedded 7/Server versions.
I’d honestly not expect them to at least use Windows 10 IoT or an embedded modern version.I mean our banks still used Windows 7 or Server 2012 for their ATMs.
And they are network connected lolIsn’t it even part of US law? And why big organization request their data to be hosted in their country?.
I thought this was far more than just Snowden
They could block Windows licenses going forward, but it wouldn’t impact all the activations already done. Windows is not a subscription.
Despite their best efforts.
Give it 3 years… “Your operating system license has expired, renew now for $150/year.”
Unfortunately for them, my relationship with Microsoft expired last year.
Haven’t used a Microsoft product at home in years, at work though is a very different story. Everything is Microsoft and its horrible and frustrating.
It would be the biggest self-own in history but apparently the yanks are into that these days.
That, yes, and maybe Microsoft wouldn’t be the one pulling the trigger? I mean, with prism the NSA had access to most internet traffic between the US and the rest of the world, I think. Who knows what mechanisms there are in place, and what this government might decide to do?
They could, but so could any other cloud provider. The main difference is that with a European based provider there is hopefully not a likely scenario where they would do this.
