My wife continued to use Windows for her work because many of her clients are locked into the MS ecosystem. A few weeks ago a Windows update decided to corrupt her SSD and now she has finally joined me in Linux land. Good job Microsoft!
I obviously don’t know her exact needs but so much can be achieved by web versions of Office and Outlook that I didn’t have issues working with MS-using clients.
Neither web versions nor LibreOffice can satisfy the needs of a true Excel power user. Also, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint and multi-account Outlook access are all problematic unless you are using the native clients. Now she runs Windows VMs for that stuff.
You had me until multi-account Outlook access. Why not just use different browser profiles?
That said, the Outlook application is necessary for lots of things, like saving email files (record keeping) and mail merges, but the number of accounts has never been a problem for me. I have 9 active email accounts spread across three/five different platforms (depending if you separate corporate vs. free), and I use web apps (by choice) for all of them, aside from popping Outlook open for the aforementioned mail merges and digital record keeping for email files.
But absolutely true for Excel. It frustrates me so much when I’m stuck on a computer with even slightly outdated versions of the Excel application. SORT, FILTER, TEXTSPLIT, and so many other functions are so much simpler than the many workarounds I used to kludge together.
But fuck Teams. The application is just as garbage as the web app. Those two fail/crash ten times more than all the other apps on my computer *combined". I’ve crashed three times in a single meeting. It must be vibe coded, bolted together, janky, spaghetti code.
My wife continued to use Windows for her work because many of her clients are locked into the MS ecosystem. A few weeks ago a Windows update decided to corrupt her SSD and now she has finally joined me in Linux land. Good job Microsoft!
🥂
You aren’t allowed to stop there. It is mandatory to share the distro she is using, the desktop environment, and what she loves most about it so far.
Even though I’m a Pop user, I put her on Mint Cinnamon because the interface is very Windows like.
I obviously don’t know her exact needs but so much can be achieved by web versions of Office and Outlook that I didn’t have issues working with MS-using clients.
As somebody who works as an accountant: The web version of Excel is shit and the desktop version is far superior.
Things like extensions, power query among other things just exist in the desktop app and not in the web app.
Fair, my own needs on spreadsheets were are formulas and enumerations, I can’t comment on more advanced uses.
Neither web versions nor LibreOffice can satisfy the needs of a true Excel power user. Also, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint and multi-account Outlook access are all problematic unless you are using the native clients. Now she runs Windows VMs for that stuff.
You had me until multi-account Outlook access. Why not just use different browser profiles?
That said, the Outlook application is necessary for lots of things, like saving email files (record keeping) and mail merges, but the number of accounts has never been a problem for me. I have 9 active email accounts spread across three/five different platforms (depending if you separate corporate vs. free), and I use web apps (by choice) for all of them, aside from popping Outlook open for the aforementioned mail merges and digital record keeping for email files.
But absolutely true for Excel. It frustrates me so much when I’m stuck on a computer with even slightly outdated versions of the Excel application. SORT, FILTER, TEXTSPLIT, and so many other functions are so much simpler than the many workarounds I used to kludge together.
But fuck Teams. The application is just as garbage as the web app. Those two fail/crash ten times more than all the other apps on my computer *combined". I’ve crashed three times in a single meeting. It must be vibe coded, bolted together, janky, spaghetti code.
She has almost a dozen active clients at the moment. Browser tabs for Outlook doesn’t help her organize them.
That’s why I finally made the switch!
Such a wholesome story!
Thanks for sharing.