this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2025
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I've never understood Microsoft's design and marketing strategy.
They appear to exist in some sort of mirror universe in which quality is a bad thing, so they mostly build OSes that are bloated, clunky garbage and do everything they can to fool/coerce/force people into using them. But then every once in a while it's like they accidentally let an actually decent OS slip through, and they immediately panic and start trying to kill it. Like they can't cope with having an OS that people actually want to use, and can't wait to get back to where they're comfortable - fooling/coercing/forcing them to use bloated, clunky garbage.
Windows 11 IoT LTSC is anything but bloated and clunky. Best OS I've used.
The whole point of LTSC is reduced bloat and increased stability for enterprise customers -- doesn't the existence of a bloat-free version tell you all you need to know? They don't seem to have an issue selling enterprise software, but the users on the home versions definitely suffer from bloat and choices they never asked for.
To be fair most of the "bloat" is the flashy stuff that gets consumers to buy things. The extras that enterprise and some power users don't care about because they want to use their own thing instead.
A lot of that "bloat" is the easy integrated stuff the average person can set up and use themselves following a couple login and setup screens without having to think about it. Things like OneDrive for easy automated document backup, backing up device licenses to an account versus needing to keep track of a license key if they need to reinstall, integrated find my device services, etc.
All of those functions are expected in a modern OS by the average user, so they are ready to go out of the box with a little setup. It's the same way Apple handles similar services on OSX and iOS, and Google does with ChromeOS. Not every user will use those services, and there are alternatives of course. Nothing prevents you from uninstalling OneDrive, or most other pre-installed programs or components. I got rid of those immediately after installing Windows 11 because I use other services, and I haven't seen them since.
I think I see your point, you're saying what I'm calling "bloat" isn't necessarily useless, right? Sure, but that still kind of supports my point -- they include software/features by default that aren't necessary and should be opt-in instead of opt-out regardless of how easy it is to set up. That's the dictionary definition of bloatware, and they have a lot of it. I'm not trying to say it's a terrible OS, but it is definitely bloated.