this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
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This isnt surprising... my work laptop can barely run excel anymore....
Constantly running Windows Telemetry Services or some bullshit background junk eating up 20% CPU.
I got a decent laptop for work. But its fans are always cranked trying to run the full spyware stack of W11+copilot+365copilot, Crowdstrike, lansweeper, screenconnect, fortigate.
Crowdstrike + Defender alone eats a lot. Security software is so heavy in the corporate world and standard Windows bloat on top of that is not helping
My personal daily driver, a 14-year old Thinkpad w/ the same debian install for 10 of those years, runs 10x snappier, cooler and quieter than the MS surface IT at work gave me just 2 months ago. It's also built like a tank and has a clicky keyboard and a sexy red nipple. I never have to think about how many tabs I have open, and it does everything I need it to, the first time, without unexplained delays.
The surface only runs kinda ok with constant policing of resources, absolutely everything non essential disabled at startup (including OneDrive, which I now have to run on an adhoc basis due to its performance impact) and also needs to be on top of a laptop cooler with fans to not overheat and shit itself, so it's not even fully portable.
Debian on old laptop for the win!
back in 2023, i was using a junky old acer laptop from 2014 with 8GB RAM. It was still faster than the 16GB dell laptop work gave me.
Windows tax isnt just monetary...