It is of course only available in volume licensing to keep it away from normal users. Only businesses get to control their computers.
normal people don't give a fuck, they actually like the things HN bitches about - online account, data storage and services
The only thing it didn't have out of the box that I wanted was Microsoft Store (so that I could install Winget and Terminal) but you install it from an elevated powershell command with "wsreset -i" and that's it done.
It also has the original version of Notepad, not that abomination with the tabs and Copilot!
Oh, no Copilot whatsoever in fact.
All the instructions for IoT (including where to get it... legitimately) are on the massgrave github page and website.
And before I am accused of sailing the high seas... I'm not! The activation script just activates complicated processes built-in to Windows: it doesn't "hack" it or anything!
Normal, reputable websites never sell single LTSC licenses. So go figure
[1]: Assuming you're not married to some Windows only software that you can't get working using Proton/Wine, or don't want to run a Windows VM.
Should work out of the box, no configuration needed.
The only caveat is games with kernel based anti-cheat, but I don't play many of those. Arc Raiders works just fine, for example.
I'm sure for some users it's acceptable, solid even, but I know several people, including myself, that keep hitting edge cases and invisible walls when on Windows these games "just work". And no, it's not about kernel anti-cheats or any other DRM.
I recently started dual booting Linux again and tried both Arch and CachyOS. Former with Hyprland, the latter with Gnome just to see how well the games run. I knew going in that tiling window managers don't behave well with games and that was indeed the case. With Gnome, even some native games made by Valve had terrible performance issues where I have none on Windows. There are also cases, and I wouldn't even describe them as edge cases, that you have to tinker to get things to work properly.
I have a very basic dual monitor setup, but yesterday I spent an hour trying to fix a problem where my cursor would escape the game's window into the second monitor. The obvious solutions (gamescope) didn't work for some reason. Did I end up fixing it? Yes. But that's only because I know my way around Linux. That's an hour I'm never getting back.
I'm not making an argument for Windows, I very much dislike using it but Linux folks need to accept reality. A reality which isn't fair, but reality nonetheless. That's when you start to make progress. (Which, to be fair, they have. Tremendously so. But there's still a long road ahead!)
That would definitely save me part of that hour you lost :) But honestly, I'd trade that hour on linux a thousand times to not have to close another notification from Windows about this amazing new game they have for me to install. And I don't even have Windows 11.
Linux has quirks, of course, but every OS has them. People like to dismiss quirks on Windows because they're used to it, but a lot of the time they're worse than Linux's quirks.
Neither does Windows. W11 (or was it W10) famously broke a bunch of old games. Running Windows games from the 90s is easier on linux than on Windows at this point.
If Wine doesn't work I'll run it in 86box.
[1]: https://www.protondb.com/explore
[2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1kjib0y/is_th...
Is that not sufficient these days? I might take another look; this is one of those games that I intend to keep running one way or another until I die.
Exception EWin32Error in module VCL30.dpl at 00010E4F
Win32 Error. Code 1400. Invalid window handle.
VMs are useless for most gaming.
For games up to around the late 90s, and if you have a real beast of a machine, full emulation such as with PCem is the best option.
Source: Someone using Debian to play games from the 90's (Master of Orion 2, HoMM 2&3, etc) to recent games like Helldivers 2