I had a Teams meeting for an outside of work topic this morning. Since all my personal machines are Linux based I was kinda happy I had my work laptop available with Windows and Teams installed.

Booting it up about half an hour before the meeting... Installing updates...

After rebooting twice and only five minutes before the meeting started I reverted to my Linux desktop, opened the email with the link to the Teams meeting and was a minute early using the web version of Teams.

Phew, saved by Linux.

Kudos to Microsoft for making Teams web version operating system and browser agnostic. But fuck what they've done with Windows updates. Numerous coworkers also saying their computers decided to reboot of their own volition the last couple of days in order to install updates.

Maybe it's a worthwhile trade off for security, but I'm glad I had an alternative option this morning.

I'm the five-odd years since switching to Linux exclusive at home, my decision is only ever reconfirmed as correct.

(I'm a reformed gamer from a long while ago, but the very few games I do play I have gotten to work on Linux).

This is a very common workflow for me, except I was using Teams on a Mac. And thanks to some update there are now two non-working versions of Teams installed ("Teams" and "Teams new" or some equally tacky naming). Luckily I have a Linux laptop next to it that can run it in-browser.

I would love to know what Microsoft thinks the purpose of the standalone app is, when it is both slower and less reliable.

> Booting it up about half an hour before the meeting... Installing updates...

I have that exact workflow with any computer I do not use on a regular basis. If I use the thing every day it is ok. But if I let something sit for like 6 months it is 'patch city'. I usually play that game on my game consoles because i do not use it much. My daily used computers 10-15 seconds tops until usable desktop.

Microsoft used to have a Teams for Linux application. It was identical to the Windows application because it's just an Electron app, but shockingly it was buggy on Linux (???) I don't even know how... I mean, Microsoft chose a cross-platform framework. They must've written some stupid ass code that isn't portable, at which point why not use one of the dozen Microsoft GUI frameworks available?

Do you use your Windows laptop daily?