Do you remember the days when software vendors made products for the benefit of their users, and not themselves?
I’ve been using Microsoft Windows since 1990. Since then I’ve had at least one Windows machine for personal and work purposes. Back in the day, the majority of my machines were Windows — but now it’s only the bare minimum, for I’ve recently switched to Linux and Mac wherever possible.
What pushed me there
Is it ironic that my company makes revenue by selling software for Windows, but I personally now despise that operating system?
I am lucky that I am fluent in both Unix and Windows, and have been for decades. So unlike many others, I have the freedom to choose my operating system. Today my default operating system for servers is Linux and for workstations it’s Mac — and I only use Windows where necessary for testing and build machines.
Three things have driven me insane. Let’s talk about them.
Updates that install products you didn’t ask for
We run build machines and test machines. These are environments where stability matters above almost everything else. I expect security updates — but I should still be in charge of what is on my own system.
Then Microsoft OneDrive started popping up unexpectedly on my machines. I was baffled, because I didn’t think I had OneDrive installed there. I started to doubt myself — maybe I had configured things wrongly and forgotten to uninstall OneDrive when I built the system originally. For that matter, there were also these games installed on the system that I thought I had uninstalled months earlier. The first time something like that happens, you tend to accept responsibility yourself.
But then, some months later, Copilot started appearing on my machines. I had already had massive frustration with Copilot when it inserted itself into Microsoft 365 — more on that shortly. So this was absolutely infuriating.
We try to keep our build environments as clean as possible. Microsoft kept getting in the way.
Deprecating perfectly good hardware
Believe it or not, in our test environments there are cases where we want — or need — to run our software on older hardware. Running on older and slower hardware means we can more easily detect performance problems that would otherwise be masked by faster hardware with more RAM.
That need is directly undermined by Microsoft’s policies to end support for Windows 10 and then impose tougher hardware requirements for Windows 11.
When Microsoft makes a unilateral decision, we as customers have to cop it. And those of us who know about planned obsolescence are obviously very cynical about Microsoft’s practices.
The Copilot takeover of Microsoft 365
This was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I used to be able to log into Microsoft 365 and get to SharePoint or OneDrive without any fuss. Then one day the landing page was gone, replaced by Copilot — just a single text box staring back at me.
At first I thought I had clicked on the wrong bookmark, so I tried it again, only to get to the same page. I wondered to myself — am I going insane, or did this used to get me to my Microsoft 365 account?
Anyway, with only this single text box in front of me, I typed in: “How do I get to SharePoint?”
It didn’t know. It gave me a bunch of links. None of them worked. I tried rephrasing the question. I got different wrong answers. At one point it told me I didn’t have permission to access something I’d been using for years without any issue. I spent more than 15 minutes going around in circles, and in the end I just gave up.
And this is the thing that really gets me — when Copilot doesn’t know the answer, it doesn’t say so. It either gives you wrong directions with complete confidence, or it tells you that you don’t have permissions, which sends you off questioning your own account setup. It inserted itself as the first point of contact for a platform I depend on, and it wasn’t remotely ready for that role.
Microsoft didn’t ask if I wanted this. They just did it.
The pattern underneath all three
Reading back over these frustrations, the common thread is obvious. In each case, Microsoft had leverage — over my environment, over my hardware investment, over a platform I depended on — and used that leverage to serve Microsoft’s interests rather than mine.
Ever since Microsoft made perpetual licences of Office increasingly unworkable, almost forcing us onto subscriptions, I have felt like nothing but an instrument for their profit. They didn’t care about me — they only cared about my wallet.
Earlier this year I happened to see this insightful video on YouTube.
And I then committed to switching every possible machine away from Windows and on to Linux.
What I found on the other side
When I moved my servers to Linux and my workstations to Mac, the difference was immediate. The machines are clean. Nothing installs itself without being asked. Updates do what they say they’ll do. I’m spending less time managing the operating system and more time doing actual work.
I know most of you can’t make that same move — your clients are on Windows, your tools depend on it, and that’s just the reality. But if you’ve ever had the option and wondered whether it was worth it, for me the answer is yes.
Do vendors have a moral obligation to their users?
When a vendor has you locked in — when switching is genuinely painful — they have a choice about what to do with that power. They can use it to serve you better, or they can use it to serve themselves.
Microsoft’s behaviour over the past few years has made their choice pretty clear. And once customers feel that, the trust is hard to rebuild. People leave when the switching cost finally drops below the frustration threshold. I’m a pretty good example of that.
What this means for how I run BackupAssist
I’ve believed since I built the first version of this software that vendors have obligations to the people who depend on them. My experiences with Microsoft have only made me more committed to that.
Users deserve respect. They deserve software that does what it says, stays out of their way, and doesn’t treat them as a revenue opportunity to be exploited. Microsoft has made its values clear over the past few years, and contempt for its users is written all over every one of these decisions.
We want to be the opposite of that. And if you’ve found BackupAssist to be that way — reliable, honest, not getting in your way — I’d genuinely appreciate you saying so publicly. Reviews help us stand out in a crowded market, and they help other IT administrators and MSPs find us when they’re fed up with the alternatives.
If you have a moment, we’d be grateful for a review on either of these platforms:
