Microsoft Has Committed To Right To Repair (vice.com) 53
Microsoft just promised it's going to make it easier for its customers to repair the products it sells in the near future. As first reported by Grist, the company will study the environmental impact of right-to-repair and act on its findings by the end of the next year. From a report: The initiative is a reaction to a shareholder resolution filed in June 2021 that demanded the company seriously consider the environmental impact of making its products easier to repair, which itself was fueled by the broader right to repair movement, which has been gaining steam and momentum for years. The shareholders partnered with As You Sow, a non-profit specializing in shareholder advocacy, to help them put pressure on Microsoft. It seems to have worked.
Let's first see what that means in practice. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's Microsoft, after all.
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It certainly won't apply to older products. The original Surface machines were made of glue. Even basic maintenance was impossible without destroying the nice soft touch cover they glued onto it.
Re:Let's first see what that means in practice. (Score:5, Informative)
It's really interesting to observe how in the face of this new corporate world that we live in (Apple with their walled garden and yearly shiny-gadget tax, Facebook with their unabashed spread of disinformation and conspiracies, Google with their greedy harvesting of user data), Microsoft is in a position to present itself as the good guy these days.
So what about "It's Microsoft, after all"? Most MS software is pretty high quality these days. I'm now able to run Linux inside Windows 10. MS is very liberal with what it allows on its app-store, positioning itself as an "open platform", and right to repair is something that is long overdue.
Times have changed, but yeah, the new corporate overlords of today seem somewhat more evil than MS ever was.
Re:Let's first see what that means in practice. (Score:4, Insightful)
MS is liberal with their app store largely because their app store is a late to the party also-ran.
Same with Linux, they resisted it for a long time but with them trying to compete in the cloud market they really had no choice.
Their mobile strategy to copy apple also failed miserably, so now they have to rely on other peoples platforms there.
MS' typical behavior comes about when they dominate a market, and can strong arm people. It would never work as an underdog which is what they are in most markets for now.
MSIE is the classic example from the past, when it was an underdog competing with netscape they updated it regularly, ported it to multiple platforms etc. The product was good, better than the alternatives, and free.
Once it was dominant and the competition eliminated, development stagnated completely.
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MS has changed what makes them money. Before, it was licensing software. Now, even though that is a big source of income, MS has a sizable patent portfolio which is licensed out at a reasonable cost, and their focus is getting Azure going, and it doesn't really matter what the OS is that is running on the meter on a cloud provider.
I do worry about MS though... look at what they have access to -- telemetry data, "suspicious" files that Windows Defender automatically slurps up, surveillance of the OS above
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Until shown otherwise, yes. That is the default option.
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SChematics, or Die. (Score:3)
SChematics, or Die.
We won't accept less.
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Speak for yourself. Schematics would certainly be nice in a very narrow range of circumstances. But most circuit board repair amounts to "spot and replace the obviously damaged joint or component", and even then very few people repair circuit boards any more - shrinking sizes (especially in personal electronics) and changing mounting technology mean it's just not nearly as cost effective as it once was.
I happily would accept a return to screws and (de-)interlocking parts instead of glue, and the use of ea
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Schematics. Are. Needed.
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Brilliantly argued.
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Thanks.
"Schematics would certainly be nice in a very narrow range of circumstances. "
You said yourself it's useful.
for you it's not a case you use, fine.
For a lot of other people, board repair is essential to keep equipment in function, because multiple factors, like dropped support from the manufacturer, economics, etc etc.
We will not compromise on board repair.
Re:Let's first see what that means in practice. (Score:5, Insightful)
It means that it is having a hard time selling it hardware products.
We see companies embrace Customer benefiting features only when they are needing some extra oomph to be competitive.
If they get to a dominate spot, those ideals and principals are dropped in no time flat.
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Probably. But it's still nice to see one of the technology "evil empires" realizing they've gone too far, and not just stepping back, but publicly embracing the movement. Though obviously the actual extent of their follow-through remains to be seen.
Honestly, I've been really intrigued by their Surface products. They use them at work, but I just can't see buying an expensive piece of kit that's glued together. I would be delighted to see them embrace repairability and upgradeability. Modularity, really.
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this aligns with microsofts business interests. Satya has microsoft 100% laser focused on cloud use consumption and azure consumption. they only care about driving consumption of office 365 and azure and other associated services. right to repair in their hardware stack will make devices cheaper/easier to maintain and easier to stay integrated/grow their cloud engagement. so right to repair will be embraced at microsoft without a doubt.
Smart move (Score:5, Insightful)
Supporting right-to-repair is not just the ethical thing to do, it also sets them apart from their competitor Apple who is actively opposing right-to-repair. My only worry is that regulators will say "this shows manufacturers are embracing right-to-repair on their own, so we don't need change the laws to mandate it".
Yea, the setting apart is the reason (Score:3)
this is marketing. Their anti-consumer (notice I didn't use the word customer, because most people who deal with their products don't have a choice) practices are as bad as Apple's, if not worse.
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because most people who deal with their products don't have a choice
Horseshit. The choice is more than open for anyone to buy a Mac or install Linux, heck you can do that even on Microsoft's own Surface devices.
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There are definitely more iPods in landfills than Zunes.
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Just noise (Score:2)
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You might be able to replace the RAM/Battery/SSD, but that will be after unglueing and breaking all the little plastic tabs.
Repair what exactly? (Score:2)
I can see them only allowing a battery replacement and then tout the repairability of the lappy.
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That's still better than Apple which not only intentionally makes hardware difficult to repair but actually sues repair shops that dare to fix it's shitty products. [repair.eu]
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How much do you really want to repair on a laptop or tablet though?
I suppose you could theoretically want to replace the whole motherboard if something fries but in most cases it isn't worth the cost/hassle even if the case is easily removed. The replacement cost for the parts alone will almost set you back the cost of a new unit.
For laptops the most that you would probably want to be able to repair is the memory, storage unit (HDD or SSD), battery and maybe the CPU (assuming it isn't soldered in place). I
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Thought (Score:1)
Ignore
Embrace, *you are here*
Extend
Extinguish
Surface? (Score:2)
Money where their mouth is (Score:2)
Begin with "easy to fiedl strip" (Score:5, Insightful)
The classic Thinkpads (and their classic Hardware Maintenance Manuals) are examples of easily repaired notebooks easily fixed from cannibalized parts. I used to build them from wrecks off Ebay for dirt cheap and their design was generally outstanding.
The large Thinkpad community thrives because they remain (mostly) easy to work on and upgrade.
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I recently got a new Dell laptop. It has a decent hardware maintenance manual, freely available, also. Not quite as nice as the IBM manuals, but still pretty good.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Please don't push your ideology on a very real actual issue. It's bad enough when companies muddy and confuse the issue to the point of incomprehensibility without your bring OSS politics into it.
Surface users rejoice! (Score:3)
Both of them.
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Don't know what you're talking about. The Surface is easy to repair. Heck mine opened itself up and popped its own screen right out when the battery was due to be replaced.
Wish I was joking actually, I do wonder how close it was to burning the house down. :-/ On the upside though getting the screen off is the hardest part of any modern tablet device so a battery swell makes that very easy.
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Huh? No the only glue in the Surface pro is the double sided tape holding in the screen and the tap holding the battery in place. If you buy a battery replacement kit you will get replacement tape for both. You'd never be able to tell I dismantled my Pro 4 and swapped out the battery.
I do agree about the cost though, it's painful seeing how minor spec changes have a big impact on the price :-(
Remove the Ribbon (Score:4, Funny)
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Does this mean I can repair their office apps and get rid of that stupid ribbon?
So, while I wasn't a fan of their roughshod deployment of the ribbon in 2007...it's been possible to make your own custom tabs with your own custom set of commands since 2010. 2016 allows you to search for commands.
And if neither of those are viable, for $35 you can get your 2003 menus back: ...so, this is a solved problem?
https://www.addintools.com/off... [addintools.com]
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The repair is easy. You just need to RTFM and then you'll realise it wasn't the ribbon that was broken, but your own perception of reality. There is no spoon.
Put your money where your mouth is (Score:2)
Show us the schematics, publish some repair videos, make the spare parts available for easy purchase without having to become member of an elite club.
Then we talk.
Just a hint....It's called a screw... (Score:1)
"Committed"? (Score:3)
Green=run Windows 11 on older hardware. (Score:2)
Hey, Microshlock, if you want to be all greeny and good for the environment, then let everyone install Windows 11 on older hardware!
I'm looking at a couple of machines, and as far as I can tell, the only thing they are missing to run Windows eleventy is that secretive nazi-ific TPM shit. Why do we allegedly even need that?
These are excellent news.... (Score:1)
I assume they mean hardware (Score:1)
I assume they mean hardware, not software.