Poll: What operating systems (OSes) run your music production systems (Dec 2024)?

[BBFG#]

A bit OT, but since it was questioned as an impossible:

Microsoft Copilot is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Microsoft, launched in February 2023 as a replacement for the discontinued Cortana. It functions as an everyday AI companion, providing conversational chat capabilities for various Microsoft applications and services, including Bing, Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft 365. Copilot uses the Microsoft Prometheus model, which is based on OpenAI’s GPT-4, and it can cite sources, create poems, generate songs, and use numerous languages and dialects. It is available as a free service with an optional paid subscription called Microsoft Copilot Pro, which offers priority access to newer features.

Anyone know how to remove this permanently?
And how to force Windows 10 to once again recognize logical as well as physical cores?
As well as stop "safety" scans on already installed and trusted apps? (Adding 20% CPU to them.)

[jamcat]

I thought Copilot was a replacement for Clippy

[BONES]

They will never be able to replace Clippy!

IMO it started out with Macs dominating due to Pro Tools being the first solid popular option on a computer for recording and editing multiple tracks etc.

You reckon? As a working performer through the 80s and 90s, before I owned a computer or had ever worked on one, I got the impression that Cubase on Atari ST was the popular choice. ProTools was something you went into an expensive studio to work with, because you had to own some expensive peripheral hardware to run it. It was not something your average muso had in their home studio. When computer set-ups became de rigeur for home studios, I'd say the market was evenly split between Logic and Cubase (with Cakewalk a distant third), which in turn were pretty evenly split between Mac and Windows. When Apple bought Emagic in 2002, I recall that its user-base was roughly 50:50 between Mac and Windows.

I would say without question when I joined this site in 2003 or so it was far more PC centric than even now, likely 85% or so. The numbers he comes back with in this poll I think reflect that long standing trend.

It's interesting that you say that because my recollection is quite different. I recall it being a pretty even split in the early 2000's. The relatively poor showing for macOS in this poll surprised me, although it does fit with trends in my industry. iMacs, in particular, seem to be a lot less popular than they were a decade ago.

When I started in a new department in 2014, I was pretty much the only person in the dept, out of about 25, who had a PC at home. By the time I left that job in 2022 I reckon around three-quarters of them had switched to PCs (not my influence).

To be fair, there are solid reasons for being on PC in broadcast graphics, as 3D applications are much better supported on Windows, mostly thanks to the huge influence of gamers. I mean, my current PC only exists at all because of gamers, for which I am eternally grateful.

[BONES]

Anyone know how to remove this permanently?

Yeah, I had a look for you and it's easy. It's an app, it takes up 432kb on your drive and you can uninstall it like any other app. There are no CoPilot processes running in the background in Task Manager so it uses zero system resources unless you open the app.

INTERESTING ASIDE: I just noticed that in Win11 you can search Task Manager to find processes and services, which is bloody handy.

Even with the app open, it uses less than 1Mb of RAM, so it obviously does all the work in the cloud. I think that might be different with Windows-on-ARM, and possibly with new-gen PCs that include a neural processor, but on my AMD Z1 Extreme, it's not working in the background at all. For all intents and purposes, it may as well not be there at all so you have nothing to worry about.

And how to force Windows 10 to once again recognize logical as well as physical cores?

When did it stop doing that? Win11 shows all cores and threads for my Z1 Extreme.

As well as stop "safety" scans on already installed and trusted apps? (Adding 20% CPU to them.)

This is something else I have never encountered but, according to the internet, it is easy -

- Internet Options
- Advanced Tab
- Go to the Security Section
- Uncheck Enable Windows Defender SmartScreen
- Click Apply and then OK

Search for "Internet options" in Settings. It's not there in my Win11 install but it should be in Win10, according to the internet.

[machinesworking]

They will never be able to replace Clippy!

IMO it started out with Macs dominating due to Pro Tools being the first solid popular option on a computer for recording and editing multiple tracks etc.

You reckon? As a working performer through the 80s and 90s, before I owned a computer or had ever worked on one, I got the impression that Cubase on Atari ST was the popular choice. ProTools was something you went into an expensive studio to work with, because you had to own some expensive peripheral hardware to run it. It was not something your average muso had in their home studio. When computer set-ups became de rigeur for home studios, I'd say the market was evenly split between Logic and Cubase (with Cakewalk a distant third), which in turn were pretty evenly split between Mac and Windows. When Apple bought Emagic in 2002, I recall that its user-base was roughly 50:50 between Mac and Windows.

We're mixing up things a bit here, my quote is related to audio recording in the 90's which was all Pro Tools, and if you wanted a DAW experience at that time you had to use DP or Logic as a front end for Pro tools hardware, by the end of the decade all the MIDI sequencers as you well know got audio recording capabilities. Being the CA Bay Area in the 80's we switched from Performer to Opcode Studio Vision, which remained popular until the kiss of Gibson. It was more or less the same on the US west coast, it was Cubase, Logic, CakeWalk and Performer, with Opcode until it got killed. Pro Tools was for rich people and recording studios.
Cubase and Sonar made Windows with VSTs the thing in the early 2000's, I think Cubase leaned heavily PC at that time, still probably does. I don't think Macs really came back until Logic packaged their entire plugin catalog for $200, and Ableton Live was 50/50. Recently there's a small surge with Apple Silicon but it's looking like Qualcom are catching up and it's just Windows that's lagging there.

It's interesting that you say that because my recollection is quite different. I recall it being a pretty even split in the early 2000's. The relatively poor showing for macOS in this poll surprised me, although it does fit with trends in my industry. iMacs, in particular, seem to be a lot less popular than they were a decade ago.

When I started in a new department in 2014, I was pretty much the only person in the dept, out of about 25, who had a PC at home. By the time I left that job in 2022 I reckon around three-quarters of them had switched to PCs (not my influence).

To be fair, there are solid reasons for being on PC in broadcast graphics, as 3D applications are much better supported on Windows, mostly thanks to the huge influence of gamers. I mean, my current PC only exists at all because of gamers, for which I am eternally grateful.

I've always used Macs, I've helped people set up PC's it's not like it's an alien world. I would say for "pro" recording studios it was all Mac in the early 2000's because of Pro Tools, but by the time VST developers kicked in full force, anyone trying to be in the box was going to be on a PC or using Live, or Reason. At least around here, I've used Live on and off but mostly DP or Logic, which I had just switched to before Apple took over. So Live was the one cross platform DAW I used all the time (Reason just to get a ton of instruments via rewire), and it's always been solid on Macs. I literally decided to stick to Mac right before Apples buyout because I was using Pluggo and Max MSP freebies at the time and neither were on PC.

I think the Mac Mini kinda killed the iMac in terms of popularity and for good reason, decent mid high end monitors aren't that expensive anymore and the chips are all the same, makes more sense. If the iMac was a touch screen that sat on your desk like a Raven, it would make sense, but that's a wall that will likely take years to break.

[xx JPRacer xx]

INTERESTING ASIDE: I just noticed that in Win11 you can search Task Manager to find processes and services, which is bloody handy.

Or just use CTRL+Shift+Esc.
Or right-click the task bar and choose Task Manager.

[BBFG#]

Anyone know how to remove this permanently?

Yeah, I had a look for you and it's easy. It's an app, it takes up 432kb on your drive and you can uninstall it like any other app. There are no CoPilot processes running in the background in Task Manager so it uses zero system resources unless you open the app.

INTERESTING ASIDE: I just noticed that in Win11 you can search Task Manager to find processes and services, which is bloody handy.

Even with the app open, it uses less than 1Mb of RAM, so it obviously does all the work in the cloud. I think that might be different with Windows-on-ARM, and possibly with new-gen PCs that include a neural processor, but on my AMD Z1 Extreme, it's not working in the background at all. For all intents and purposes, it may as well not be there at all so you have nothing to worry about.

And how to force Windows 10 to once again recognize logical as well as physical cores?

When did it stop doing that? Win11 shows all cores and threads for my Z1 Extreme.

As well as stop "safety" scans on already installed and trusted apps? (Adding 20% CPU to them.)

This is something else I have never encountered but, according to the internet, it is easy -

- Internet Options
- Advanced Tab
- Go to the Security Section
- Uncheck Enable Windows Defender SmartScreen
- Click Apply and then OK

Search for "Internet options" in Settings. It's not there in my Win11 install but it should be in Win10, according to the internet.

Done those. Repeatedly.
This is why I know that Windows hides several resources under other tasks to scan the system when they get turned off and find ways to reinstate update after turning it off and reinstall apps that are removed. Nice try, but those were just the beginning in finding out MS believes it's their machine, not ours.
And yes, I'm extremely familiar with Task Manager. I have got the 4 cores back operating, but read in one article where MS believes that the majority of apps only need one and therefore will only let them run on that one. Y'all Manager confirms that. And that's on top of the virtual cores no longer showing. JFI, I use Xeon processors. As if that should have anything to do with it.

[BONES]

But that's just provably wrong, you only have to fire up Resource Monitor when you are using any application to see that. If I look at my Resource Monitor now, for example, I can see that with Media Player and Edge running, there is significant CPU usage in 9 of my 16 threads. Now, having started Studio One, loaded a song and set it playing, I see spikes in 12 of the 16 threads. I say "spikes" but, in reality, where Studio One tells me it is using 42% of my CPU resources, Task Manager tells me total CPU usage is only 19%, so it really only makes a small difference to the CPU graph. But 42% is about as high as my CPU usage gets with music production. (I can easily max it out in Blender.)

Honestly, It seems to me you are over-thinking everything and worrying about shit that really and truly doesn't matter. It's not 2005 any more, everything pretty much just works so let it go and get on with making music.

We're mixing up things a bit here, my quote is related to audio recording in the 90's which was all Pro Tools

Again, not in my experience. Every studio I looked at and/or used in the 90s was using ADAT. I honestly wouldn't have known what ProTools was back then. I'd probably never heard of it until I joined KVR.

by the end of the decade all the MIDI sequencers as you well know got audio recording capabilities.

Actually, I don't, as that predates any interest I had in using computers for music. Cubase VST 3.5 was my first experience of working ITB and I did not enjoy it one bit. I tried it for a month or two before returning it to the store where I'd bought it. It was all completely new and foreign to me at the time and made no sense at all compared to my fully loaded Trinity. If it wasn't for Orion, I'd probably still be working with hardware.

Or just use CTRL+Shift+Esc.
Or right-click the task bar and choose Task Manager.

That brings up the Task Manager but you can't search within it unless you have Win11.

[xx JPRacer xx]

Or just use CTRL+Shift+Esc.
Or right-click the task bar and choose Task Manager.

That brings up the Task Manager but you can't search within it unless you have Win11.

Oh sorry I misread your comment. I thought you were saying you can search for the Task Manager, not search inside the Task Manager. Yes, this is very handy.

Also, wish you a happy and healthy 2025!

[BBFG#]

My CPU usage on my 4c machine used to be between 12-28% before these Win updates. Now it's 28%-58% and has 99% spikes. Using the exact same apps and the only thing that's different is an updated Windows.
I know I should just be done with them and install Ubuntu permanently. Not sure how much the spouse is ready for that though.

[IvyBirds]

I know I should just be done with them and install Ubuntu permanently. Not sure how much the spouse is ready for that though.

So you hate Microsoft but love Ubuntu/Canonical with the VERY long history of spyware, bloatware and other annoying garbage

So many awesome Linux distros out there besides that garbage

Wow

[BBFG#]

Well, I don't "love" any of them. I've been exploring others, as well as reading how that distro can be customized. What I'm learning to hate with Windows is the inability to strip it and have the garbage stay stripped. (As I've done to every version since 3.6)

So do you have any suggestions on getting Windows to work like it did for me a few months ago?

[harryupbabble]

get two identical computers
update one computer
if the update f**ks up that computer then
don't update the other computer?

[harryupbabble]

that way, you can try to fix the f**ked up computer at your leisure
meanwhile you can keep making music on the unupdated computer

[BBFG#]

Well, while not identical, I do have two main computers. I was just getting ready to put Win 10 on my "mostly air gap" box that is stripped to being studio centric. It runs both hardware workstations and internal software apps in a Win 7 environment. I tried 8.1 on it awhile back but that made some sacrifices to hardware communication I didn't care for.
This computer I use in my home is internet connected running Win 10. I use it consistently for downloads and to test/demo before deciding if I will try it on the "studio" machine. Note that the studio box is a double CPU server type. Since Windows is suddenly doing these things, I'm skeptical about letting it even near my better (albeit older) dedicated box.

I have run Ubuntu on it and it set up easily, but was informed by audiojunkie some time ago about the new undesirable implementations. It also has a left hand approach I didn't care for on first load up. Other distros I'm considering are Mint, Debian and even other Red Hat which look a little more promising for the hybrid hardware side of things. I've n also had an interest in BSD Dragonfly, but that maybe more of a future thing and more hoping that some of their coding makes into Linux distros.

For this home computer, I think my next step is to get another (larger) SSD and clone the current OS along with another partition for multiple boot. But figuring out what MS is doing here is paramount in any plan I go forward with.