A lot of people need to use software that’s only available on Windows. I don’t, and on the rare occasion I need to check Windows behaviour I use a cloud instance, so I use a Chromebook instead.
A lot of people need to use software that’s only available on Windows.
Maybe once a year I’m forced to do that, but it’s been a long time since I’ve found anything that I couldn’t run under emulation (WINE is not not an emulator), or in a VM. And those sandboxes are typically going to be forced to known states at every startup. And they definitely don’t have access to any of the juicy information or behavioral pressure points that would motivate the war.
Anyway, I think that most of the software that used to only run under Windows is now starting to only run in “the cloud”. Which is of course its own special kind of hell, but not this kind of hell.
That’s fine for one offs, but if, like many, your job is essentially “use Excel” then the simplest solution is to just use windows, not mess around with emulators or VMs.
I used to exchange MS office documents with people all the time without running Windows. Admittedly it wasn’t “my job to use Excel”, but I did it regularly, and I could have used Excel all day if I’d needed to. And that was years ago; it’s actually gotten easier to sandbox the software now.
Anyway, all that office stuff is now in the “in the cloud” category, and to the degree it’s not, Microsoft wants it to be.
The only things I can think of that might actually be hard to do without putting Windows on the bare metal would be CAD, 3D rendering, simulation, that kind of thing. I’m not sure how well GPU computing works.
Also, a “work” computer is a less likely battleground, since it’s likely to be locked down in an “enterprise” configuration that won’t let that happen.
Accountants use features of excel that are not available in the cloud (e.g. VBA) all the time.
You are lucky that you don’t need these features (and that’s great for you), and assuming that therefore nobody has a legitimate reason to use Windows. This is just a really silly blind spot. Excel is just one of a huge amount of software, used day in and day out by a huge number of people (many of whom are self employed so not using an enterprise laptop) for which Windows is the only sensible option.
A lot of people need to use software that’s only available on Windows. I don’t, and on the rare occasion I need to check Windows behaviour I use a cloud instance, so I use a Chromebook instead.
Maybe once a year I’m forced to do that, but it’s been a long time since I’ve found anything that I couldn’t run under emulation (WINE is not not an emulator), or in a VM. And those sandboxes are typically going to be forced to known states at every startup. And they definitely don’t have access to any of the juicy information or behavioral pressure points that would motivate the war.
Anyway, I think that most of the software that used to only run under Windows is now starting to only run in “the cloud”. Which is of course its own special kind of hell, but not this kind of hell.
That’s fine for one offs, but if, like many, your job is essentially “use Excel” then the simplest solution is to just use windows, not mess around with emulators or VMs.
I used to exchange MS office documents with people all the time without running Windows. Admittedly it wasn’t “my job to use Excel”, but I did it regularly, and I could have used Excel all day if I’d needed to. And that was years ago; it’s actually gotten easier to sandbox the software now.
Anyway, all that office stuff is now in the “in the cloud” category, and to the degree it’s not, Microsoft wants it to be.
The only things I can think of that might actually be hard to do without putting Windows on the bare metal would be CAD, 3D rendering, simulation, that kind of thing. I’m not sure how well GPU computing works.
Also, a “work” computer is a less likely battleground, since it’s likely to be locked down in an “enterprise” configuration that won’t let that happen.
Accountants use features of excel that are not available in the cloud (e.g. VBA) all the time.
You are lucky that you don’t need these features (and that’s great for you), and assuming that therefore nobody has a legitimate reason to use Windows. This is just a really silly blind spot. Excel is just one of a huge amount of software, used day in and day out by a huge number of people (many of whom are self employed so not using an enterprise laptop) for which Windows is the only sensible option.