Apparently it’s not that the software is broken, it’s that the software being installed breaks Windows Update. There are reports from people that uninstalling StartAllBack, updating the OS, then reinstalling it back (renaming the install executable first) works fine.

As much as being affected by this is frustrating to me (though this is all happening still on the dev channel, so for me it’ll be a problem for the future), I understand Microsoft’s rationale here. They can’t be expected to support every third-party tool that can break the OS, and it’s known that both ExplorerPatcher and StartAllBack relies on many hacks using undocumented APIs to work.

In the last few decades that I’ve been using Windows, I never felt compelled to use shell replacements or customizations - the default experience always worked fine for me with a few tweaks. So, if anything I’m more frustrated at Microsoft that I’m forced to use StartAllBack, because MS went and removed options from the shell that existed forever and always took for granted, and then some.

Thank you for digging this out. Turns out it’s even worse than what I gleaned from my surface-level take.

This sounds like dev sour grapes but what the company was asking them to do seems better from the customer pov and for cyber security I’m general.

As a developer myself (though not on the level of these guys): sorry, but just, no.

The key point is this:

[…] we did not issue CVEs for experimental features and instead would patch the relevant code and release it as part of a standard release.

Emphasis mine. In software, features marked as “experimental” usually are not meant to be used in a production environment, and if they are, it’s in a “do it at your own risk” understanding. Software features in an experimental state are expected to be less tested and have bugs - it’s essentially a “beta” feature. It has a security bug? Though - you weren’t supposed to be using it in a security-sensitive environment in the first place, it sounds perfectly reasonable to me that it should be addressed in a normal release as opposed to an out-of-band one.

We can argue if forking the project is or isn’t extreme, but the devs absolutely have good reason to be pissed. This is typical management making decisions without understanding technical nuances and - from what is being told by the devs - not talking it through before doing it.

You have plenty of time to fall madly in love, get married, fall madly out of love, get divorced, and repeat.

As a 43yo, fuck did that hit hard. Well, except for the "repeat" part. I have a lot of issues to work through before I get to that, if ever.

there's almost nobody with 3 legs

Hol up there, tell me about those people with 3 legs!

Actually, we just entered spring, on late September. And we did so in the midst of a heatwave that broke heat records for this year - we had days with 37C, which is high even for summer, and it won't be summer here until December.

Yes, I'm scared af as well. My family is sort of ignoring my warnings and actually planning to move to the coast (Santos), which is even hotter.

Some guys here in the comments said about migrating to the north, and that's something that has been on my mind as well as a long term plan, although I find it unlikely I can move to North America in the short term, so I'm thinking more realistically maybe southern Argentina?

Yes, and you have to remember that the situation there is so volatile due to the factors involved.

Just FYI, Barrier has been abandoned / unsupported for awhile. Although the last release mostly works, don't expect future support.

Its successor is https://github.com/input-leap/input-leap, and although there have been some coy maintainance on it, they have yet to provide an installable release, due to "reasons".

I use Synergy myself, which is the ancestor of both of the above. Although it started as open source, it has been turned into a commercial product a long time ago, which is why I'm not providing the link here. It's still maintained, for better or for worse, but in the latest release-to-be they revamped the UI and for some reason I couldn't get it to work at all on my setup - it seems to rely on some auto configuration / autodetection gimmickry which simply is not working here. To make matters worse, the new UI is essentially an electron app, which means it has become a lot more bloated. And then there's also the telemetry thing. I've been using the old 1.1 legacy version, holding out hope that input-leap eventually lifts off.

Be sure to hear the 2000’s re-record. It’s one of those rare cases where the re-record blows the original (IMHO, at least)

As I grow old and struggle with the break up of a marriage of ~19 years: Both Sides Now, from Joni Mitchell

It’s a bit long to paste here, so just Google it if you care.

~19 years of marriage ended late last year due to mental health issues + NPD. I’m still trying to get over it, but it’s tough; she just won’t leave me alone.