this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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Steam Hardware

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A place to discuss and support all Steam Hardware, including Steam Deck, Steam Machine, Steam Frame, and SteamOS in general.

As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
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[–] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 34 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Even Windows 7 actually didn't care if you had no key.

You could leave it unactivated forever and the worst thing that would happen is it would have a "Activate windows" watermark message bottom right over the desktop, and it wouldn't let you change the personalization settings eg theming (oh no).

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

Never had to pay for a key anyway. I just hopped on eBay and looked for machines that were "for parts only" where the seller took a very nice picture of the bottom of the computer.

It was very nice of them to share that software with me once they were done using it.

[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 23 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

It’s way more profitable to audit corporations than fight Eastern European crackers and Asian “distributors”

[–] Droechai@piefed.blahaj.zone 13 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

I miss all those super weird XP editions seemingly made by colourblind and hyper 8 year olds (at least in taste). Like rockets, gold or muscle car themed distros.

Nowadays all themes seems so... adult and boring. Tried to find some weird stuff in Plasma but alas

[–] Shellofbiomatter@lemmus.org 2 points 5 hours ago

That's not related only to windows themes. It's an overall design shift. Cars, phones, businesses, PC parts, everything has been shifting towards this adult, boring, sleek, corporate, uniform, grey look.

[–] tutter@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

Hannah Montana Linux OS keeping this proud tradition going singlehandedly. ✊

Edit: not singlehandedly, just learned of the two other parts of the holy Linux trifecta, RebeccaBlackOS & Justin Bieber Linux Distro