Ariel Millennium Thornton @arielmt@computerfairi.es

It's bad enough that Windows 11 absolutely requires an Internet connection just to turn it on for the first time.

But now I've confirmed on two different brands (Lenovo and HP) that Windows 11 *CAN'T* connect to an ordinary Linksys router's WPA2-PSK wifi via the WPS button, even though it encourages the setup user to do precisely that. It tries, errors, and reverts to needing the key/passphrase.

The Commodore Plus/4, but it didn't reinvent peripheral interfaces, and its integrated software ROM was a dealer-swappable or user-swappable ROM instead.

Merry Beltane!

Zik-Zak
Know Future

"Ariel, don't you mean first-party retail websites?"

What, you mean HP? They have a parts store, yes, but they either discontinue or run out of the parts most likely to break, even before the laptop models those parts are used in are themselves discontinued.

Sorry about your screen breaking. Yes, we know you downloaded & read our service manual, but we're all out of replacement screens. Would you like to buy a replacement SSD instead? How about a replacement power cord for your power adapter?

Don't buy an HP laptop unless you love paying a premium for disposable hardware.

The only ones I've put my hands on lasting more than 4 years without something critical breaking are ones that spent at least 3 of those years turned off and collecting dust. Even better, when they break, simply buying replacement parts is a crapshoot of no-name third-party vendors with sketchy reviews, even on major second-party retail websites.

Customer: "I need a new computer. What kind should I get?"
Me: "Your pawn shop's oldest computer."

Ars Technica, 2025-04-11, "Microsoft is putting privacy-endangering Recall back into Windows 11": https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/04/microsoft-is-putting-privacy-endangering-recall-back-into-windows-11/
Snapshotting and AI processing a screen every 3 seconds. What could possibly go wrong?