
Onedrive is slow on Linux but fast with a “Windows” user-agent (2016) - wielebny
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_onedrivefb-mso_o365brs/onedrive-for-business-open-is-very-slow-on-linux/3d33dc1b-3cc3-4c24-9998-9ab96bad31fc
======
ebang4
Hi everyone, this is Edgar from the OneDrive team. We know that some users may
have experienced difficulty accessing OneDrive for Business on Linux. The
issue was resolved as of Tue, March 22nd 3pm PST.

We identified that StaticLoad.aspx, a page that prefetches resources in the
background for Office online apps was using the link prefetching browser
mechanism only for certain platforms (iOS, Chrome OS, Mac, Windows), but for
Linux it was falling back to a less efficient technique that was causing the
issue. Rest assured that this was not intentional. It was an oversight.

The prefetching optimization was disabled, and it will be enabled again soon
after an update for StaticLoad.aspx has been tested on Linux and released.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused.

~~~
faragon
So for the "New Microsoft" releasing a bug fix for a "bug" affecting customers
using Linux for more than 3 months it just required to be popular at Hacker
News and Reddit.

~~~
alexval
Sometimes at a large company feedback from support and those customer forms
doesn't make it all the way back to the engineers. The engineers read hacker
news. As soon as they saw this it makes sense that they fixed it.

Seems like the pipeline for customer feedback could be improved.

~~~
faragon
So engineers at "New Microsoft" read Hacker News, but don't use "New
Microsoft" products on Linux.

~~~
pmilot
It may sound farfetched to you, but I assure you that some people who read
Hacker News regularly don't actually use Linux on a day-to-day basis.

~~~
faragon
Sure. That was my point: the "New Microsoft" is not using Linux, or don't
{care about | want} their customers using "New Microsoft" products on Linux.

------
glogla
I have to admit, the whole exchange is pretty funny:

> Hello, Onedrive for Business open is very slow on Linux (Chrome/Firefox) but
> with very fast with a "Windows" user-agent.

> Hi DL, As Office 365 for Business services(e.g. SharePoint Online, including
> OneDrive for Business, Exchange Online) are not supported on Linux as shown
> below, for the best experience, we recommend the operating system listed in
> the article.

> Thank you, I go back to Google Apps suite.

> 12 people found this helpful

~~~
Keverw
I found that interesting too. I'm not familiar with office 365, but isn't it
web based? So why does it matter what browser or OS you use?

~~~
diggan
If the one creating a product also creates a OS, making that product run
faster on your OS compared to others makes your OS look better I guess.

~~~
ConceptJunkie
Kind of a corollary to "It ain't done 'til Lotus won't run."

------
rsweeney21
"Don't assume bad intentions over neglect and misunderstanding." \- Hanlon's
razor

I worked as a Microsoft employee on the xbox.com website from 2007-2010. We
didn't officially support any browsers on Linux because it represented <1% of
our user base. It just didn't make business sense. We tested it on occasion
anyway because we are decent people and, being part of the tech community, we
were fans of Linux.

We supplied a list of officially supported browsers to the customer support
team. Any bugs on non-supported browsers would never get reported back to our
team, so we'd never hear about them. The support team did their job.

This is how pretty much every company in the history of ever works.

~~~
golfer
Well, Microsoft often doesn't get the benefit of the doubt because of their
history of incredibly aggressive, borderline unethical behavior. Being a
convicted monopolist tends to color people's attitudes to a company. Let alone
something ridiculous like trying to destroy the open source movement in its
nascent stages, stealing Google's search results, or running the completely
insane Scroogled campaign. And all the other things Microsoft has done to
erode good will.

~~~
kayoone
Ironically, people seem to forgive Apple a lot of similar practices.

~~~
movedx
Can you provide an example, with a citation? :)

~~~
lotso
You used to (maybe still) couldn't watch Apple Keynote presentations on any
other browser than Safari.

~~~
MVorlm
Microsoft Edge is supported now.

------
rory096
This was reported on /r/linux yesterday:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/60nj67/office_365_on...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/60nj67/office_365_onedrive_looks_at_useragent_to/)

This user did some experimentation with user agents to narrow down the bug:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/60nj67/office_365_on...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/60nj67/office_365_onedrive_looks_at_useragent_to/df7wnk1/)

------
morinted
Unhelpful catch-all responses that don't display a shred of effort or care are
the bane of my customer support experiences. Nothing hurts my opinion of a
company like being brushed off like a bug.

~~~
adsfqwop
Whenever I google a problem with a microsoft product, and the search ends up
on one of these answer.microsoft.com pages, I always click on the link with an
enormous feeling of dread.

I don't think I've ever seen a usable answer on that site.

~~~
easytiger
As a linux user since the 90s, googling for basic issues on Windows is an
unmitigated disaster. For linux I have always got a correct answer.

~~~
TheRealDunkirk
<cough>Bullshit</cough> If you were a Linux user in the mid-90's, then about
the only place to get "help" was #linux on EFnet. Collectively, I don't think
I've suffered more abuse on the internet than in that forum. And, yes, I'm
still bitter. It was NOT a noob-friendly place. The best place -- ever -- to
get Linux help was, and will always have been, the Gentoo forums, but that
didn't take off till the early 2000's.

~~~
kuschku
Oh, it’s quite easy to get help there, and has always been.

You just have to be tricky: People will not help you, but as pedantic as they
are, they’ll correct mistakes you make.

You go there, and say "I’m disappointed that you can’t even use <device> with
Linux" and you’ll get hundreds of answers telling you exactly how to use it.

~~~
anonbanker
#linux, the notorious troll channel on EFnet, only provided help when counter-
trolled.

------
anonymous_iam
This is not a new thing. Decades ago when Verizon contracted with Microsoft to
"upgrade" their web portal, it was no longer usable from any browser other
than IE. I had been using it from Netscape on various SPARC machines and from
my mobile device (PalmOS). The web page html source had no exotic platform
specific language elements. It was obviously a "business decision". I wrote
the VP at Verizon a letter pointing out that they had just abandoned 5% of
their user base. I also switched to AT&T.

~~~
mtgx
Behold the "new" Microsoft, same as the old Microsoft.

~~~
cookiecaper
Microsoft's cash cow has always been Windows, and secondarily, Office. That
directed their decisions then and it directs their decisions now.

The landscape may change such that Microsoft feels it is beneficial to release
things like .NET Core as open-source, but this doesn't reflect a change in
what Microsoft values ("A PC on every desk running Microsoft software" and the
associated revenue streams), it reflects a change in what they believe is
necessary to secure their goals.

~~~
sqeaky
Saying "its a business decision" doesn't justify unethical and potentially
illegal behavior. This is either incompetence or malice. If it is malice it
falls well on the wrong side antitrust behavior. If its incompetence, well it
isn't much better is it?

~~~
cookiecaper
Although I don't think it's unethical to intentionally make the experience
slower for some users, I'm not trying to justify it.

I'm trying to explain that as long as Microsoft's incentives align with making
Windows dominant, they're going to engage in behaviors to make it happen,
including things like artificially slowing connections from non-Windows
machines.

Instead of saying "MS is releasing stuff open-source, they must be having a
change of heart", we should say "MS believes that opening this as open-source
is the best way to ensure Windows' continued dominance". That's what I'm
trying to highlight.

~~~
sqeaky
So why do you say anti-competitive behavior wouldn't be unethical?

Sorry for the double negatives, I am just trying to understand. It seems clear
to me that potentially hurting paying customers to increase one's own wealth
is obviously unethical. This of course presumes malice, which hasn't yet been
proven.

~~~
cookiecaper
IMO, most companies can't engage in anti-competitive behavior independently.
You need a special status as a monopoly or a part of a cartel. For normal
companies, normal behavior is "anti-competitive" because the point of business
is to beat your competitors.

If we assign MS the role of a "typical business" instead of a monopoly (they
have may been a monopoly 20 years ago, but it's hard to make that case now),
Microsoft is under no ethical obligation a) to provide a client for other
operating systems; or b) to ensure that performance parity exists between
every client on every platform.

While it may not be super polite to release clients for other platforms and
then subtly cripple them in order to drive users back to Windows, there's
nothing below-the-belt about it IMO.

~~~
sqeaky
For desktop PCs they still have greater than 90% marketshare. In businesses
its closer to 99% I think the title is "Monopoly" is appropriate.

------
mhluongo
They can't be throttling based on user-agent... right? I thought this was the
New Microsoft. Any other hypotheses?

~~~
tankenmate
I have no direct understanding but I have a hypothesis;

\- different generated html / js depending on user agent (UA)

\- bug fixes are rolled out on a UA by UA basis

\- bug fixes have been rolled out for Windows and Mac (supported)

    
    
      - but not for the "generic" HTML / JS output
    

If this is true it will mean that anything other than the supported platforms
will fall further behind as time goes by.

~~~
tyingq
That sounds highly likely. Intentional throttling doesn't help Microsoft in
this case. I don't think they view Linux desktops (aside from Chromebooks) as
a serious threat. Why wouldn't they want more OneDrive users?

~~~
yebyen
This reminds me of the article about the OneDrive team being allowed to
introduce ads into Explorer because they don't care at all about the
experience of using Windows and they just want more OneDrive users.

(Supporting documentation of the position "why wouldn't they want more
OneDrive users"...)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13903701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13903701)

------
AdmiralAsshat
FWIW, I see this kind of thing regularly because I have the RandomAgentSpoofer
extension installed on Firefox. Sometimes the page will look at the UserAgent
and think it can't run X or Y so I will get an HTML-only version.

It's actually kinda interesting to see what the website does when it thinks my
browser can't support certain stuff (which it can...I just like to avoid
fingerprinting).

------
Dangeranger
Considering that there are places in the world where government employees must
use Linux due to regulations, and Microsoft is moving ever closer to cloud
delivered services, one would think that they want to support Linux as an OS.
[0]

[0] [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2009/03/frenc...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2009/03/french-police-saves-millions-of-euros-by-adopting-ubuntu/)

~~~
ruleabidinguser
Maybe it's just expensive to support

~~~
mintplant
It's running in a web browser. The OS doesn't make much of a difference.

~~~
kevingadd
Patent-encumbered media codecs are available in most Windows and Mac browsers
thanks to the OS shipping codecs. On Linux?

On Windows you have a battle-tested Direct3D 9/11 backend for WebGL (ANGLE)
used by Chrome and Firefox, while on other platforms you're subject to the
whims of the GL implementation (and on Linux there are multiple drivers to
choose from in some cases). Direct3D graphics are also thread-safe in a way
that is not consistently true for OpenGL (just ask a driver developer) which
means that certain operations could block the UI thread (or in the case of
Chrome, GPU process) that can be performed asynchronously on Windows,
resulting in a difference in application behavior.

On Windows there is one common software audio stack (they dropped hardware
audio acceleration ages ago because it was a compatibility nightmare). On
Linux in some circumstances there are multiple audio stacks which can produce
differences in user experience and behavior. Recently Firefox has switched
over to pulseaudio, which has caused some grief.

Windows and Mac and Linux all have different networking stacks that can result
in behavioral differences between OSes if you're using WebSockets or WebRTC.

The GamePad API is also subject to OS differences depending on whether your
gamepad has drivers and which underlying system API the browser uses. This
even varies between browsers on the same machine.

~~~
mcbits
I don't think changing the user agent string affects which codecs or device
drivers are available on the client. If changing the user agent string
"solves" the problem, then the problem is most likely with the site -
especially if the same problem and solution exist between different browsers.
They are probably assuming some capability is absent instead of testing and
gracefully degrading.

I wonder what happens in Windows 10 with a user agent mimicking a Linux
environment. Does the site slow down? If so, the support bot can't brush it
off since it's a supported operating system.

------
PleaseHelpMe
> Thank you I go back to Google Apps suite.

That reply is gold!

------
viliam_jobko
The previous answer by Microsoft was already edited. Here's the original:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20170322092445/https://answers.mi...](http://web.archive.org/web/20170322092445/https://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_onedrivefb-mso_o365brs/onedrive-for-business-open-
is-very-slow-on-linux/3d33dc1b-3cc3-4c24-9998-9ab96bad31fc)

------
can-onedrive
Hi everyone, this is Can from the OneDrive team.

We know that some users may have experienced difficulty accessing OneDrive for
Business on Linux. The issue was resolved as of Tuesday, March 22nd 3pm PST.

We identified that StaticLoad.aspx, a page that prefetches resources in the
background for Office O nline apps was using the link prefetching browser
mechanism only for certain platforms (iOS, Chrome OS, Mac, Windows), but for
Linux it was falling back to a less efficient technique that was causing the
issue. Rest assured that this was not intentional. It was an oversight.

The prefetching optimization was disabled, and it will be enabled again soon
after an update for StaticLoad.aspx has been tested and released on Linux.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused.

------
blahblah12
"This is certainly a bug. It is not a targeted attacked against Linux users.
Report it to Microsoft. Microsoft is just doing really shitty feature
detection using User Agent strings instead of, well actual feature detection.
I was able to reproduce the same result by setting my User Agent to Firefox 52
on Windows 98. If I set it to a "more realistic" user agent like IE 7 on
Windows XP, it would actually redirect me to a busted page to upgrade my
browser instead of Word Online. It appears if Microsoft cannot figure out your
User Agent (including your OS as part of it), it gives you a busted
experience."

------
examancer
Apparently someone took notice. A few minutes ago a reply was added by a
Microsoft employee stating a fix has been deployed. Wish they would have
provided more details, but glad they finally listened after. Only took 4
months.

------
davesque
I'm trying to give the benefit of the doubt in my mind here but this is a
tough one to explain away.

~~~
adrianpike
Maybe they're injecting a brazillion polyfills if it's not a known user-agent?

~~~
madmulita
Yet, it works as expected without the polyfills.

~~~
DoctorOW
Right. But he's suggesting that if they don't recognize the browser that they
inject as much polyfills as they can so everything works no matter what.

------
larsnystrom
I was managing a Google Apps account when I had a problem with Google Groups I
didn't know how to solve. Picked up the phone and called the support number,
and within minutes I was talking to a super nice guy who helped me out. That
was the best customer support I've ever experienced.

I have no affiliation with Google and I still think the original issue I had
with Google Groups was due to some sloppy UI-work on their part, but that
support call makes me happy just thinking about it.

~~~
TheRealDunkirk
To be fair, if you've ever used _paid_ support from Microsoft, you'd have
gotten equal treatment. The couple times I had to call them back in the early
00's, I got super-technical, friendly people who got to the root of the
problem right away.

One even taught me to catch a Windows error via remote debugging on a
different machine. I leveled up because of a support call.

------
Mikeb85
And this, along with MS' history, is why I still have a hard time using any of
their technology. I appreciate some of their open source efforts, but for the
most part they're still the same old. Embrace, extend, extinguish.

~~~
jethro_tell
That and I use it for ten minutes and realize that myself and the
designers/builders of the software live in different worlds.

Why? Why? Why? Who would do it like this? fuckit back to linux

------
fzaninotto
The guy who takes one hour to build an Electron app that acts as a "windows"
browser will become a celebrity.

------
lol768
Tangentially related, but Netflix also do some similar User-Agent sniffing
logic for Linux users browsing with Firefox. Firefox does indeed support
Widevine, but unless you pretend to be Chrome Netflix refuses to work.

I got brushed off in much the same way as this user did when I tried to
discuss the matter with customer support. In the end I carpet bombed a bunch
of executives by guessing the email address format, and only then did I get a
response from someone who knew what they were talking about and understood my
complaint.

I think front-line support being unhelpful like this (and furthermore being
unwilling to escalate the issue to someone technically adept) is a widespread
issue and I'd agree with some of the other posters here: I've encountered
maybe 1 helpful post from answer.microsoft.com after numerous visits when
troubleshooting Windows issues.

~~~
0x6c6f6c
You're correct that Netflix was using the user-agent to handle which browser
can watch on Linux as a first check.

However Netflix has updated their system to allow Firefox to stream on Linux,
just so you know.

~~~
lol768
As of today, it seems! Interesting coincidence, thanks for the heads-up. Bit
overdue in my opinion, but better late than never.

------
excalibur
The business that Microsoft alienated in this exchange probably comprised
around 3% of the people who were using OneDrive on purpose.

~~~
oculusthrift
more like .3

~~~
to3m
What are you talking about? Next year is the year of Linux on the desktop, and
here's Microsoft barely even ready.

------
binglybob
from the early 90s Microsoft: "The job isn't done until Lotus won't run"

------
jjordan
Looks like there are still some Ballmer-era holdovers on the OneDrive team.

------
askvictor
Has anyone tested this on a Chromebook (being Linux based)? I get that they
might overlook Linux desktop due to market share, but the edu sector uses
Chromebooks heavily, and this would be shooting themselves in the foot to
degrade (intentionally or unintentionally) the 'first experience' a person
might have with ms products.

------
spullara
Could it be a very simplistic anti~bot system?

------
userbinator
Isn't Onedrive just Microsoft's cloud storage service? I haven't used it
before, but is this implying that a _web file manager_ is slow? Feature
detection or not, regardless of OS, I think an application of this nature just
shouldn't be slow _at all_ on any computer 5 years old or less.

------
veli_joza
Funny, I'm changing the user-agent to access web version of Skype from Android
Firefox. It's also "not supported" but it works fine for occasionally checking
the chat.

------
joe563323
The next step for the microsoft is to move the entire domain of this question
[https://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_...](https://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_onedrivefb-mso_o365brs/onedrive-for-business-open-
is-very-slow-on-linux/3d33dc1b-3cc3-4c24-9998-9ab96bad31fc) to migrate to some
other url to coverup from the search links and the future damage.

------
blahblah12
Seriously lower your pitchforks. This was a bug and a mistake.

------
simion314
And we hear all the time that the browser is the new OS, and that web apps are
the only cross platform way to do software. I am wondering why is MS spending
for the new Skype for Linux web app but not for One Drive, it would make more
sense to be consistent on what platforms the web apps made by MS are
supported. Now it looks like we support Skype on Linux(as alpha for now) but
not One Drive(I do not know what other business apps they have)

------
faragon
Any official explanation from the "New Microsoft"?

------
jernfrost
Hahaha silly me starting to think Microsoft after all these years had changed.
Reminds me of how the crushed Lotus 1-2-3 by making their software run
deliberately crappy on Windows and how they made sure all the competitors RTF
products was always behind the Windows variant by releasing the updated specs
to everybody only once they themselves had made a finished version. And who
forgets their dirty tactics against Netscape?

------
rplnt
Google is doing this with many of their products. And has been for many, many
years. Limiting features, blocking services, etc... based solely on user
agent.

~~~
snackai
Any source for that claim?

~~~
ldavison
Try [https://meet.google.com](https://meet.google.com) in any browser other
than Chrome and you'll get a message saying your browser isn't supported.

If you setup Firefox to use a newer version of Chrome user agent, the page
will at least load. Seems like they are using user agent instead of feature
detection to limit usage.

------
cpg
Microsoft did the same thing way back with CPUID .. when it was Intel, it
worked well. Otherwise (AMD, Transmeta), they would use very inefficient
operations instead of SSE (IIRC), slowing down benchmarks that used media
(like players, etc) and Photoshop. This is from a distant life in the past,
but I think it was not limited to use of SSE.

~~~
21
Are you sure you're talking about Microsoft, and not about Intel's C++
compiler?

------
StanAngeloff
It's not just Onedrive, it's the entire Office 365, e.g.,
[https://office.live.com/start/Word.aspx](https://office.live.com/start/Word.aspx)
crashes Chrome (renders it unresponsive, closing the tab then takes forever).

Tested Thu, 23 Mar 2017 12:11:09 +0000

------
pacoverdi
I don't know the intersection between SharePoint and OneDrive but when I use
browse documents on SharePoint using linux/chrome my browser gets stuck eating
100% of a CPU while I don't have the same problem with linux/firefox or
win10/chrome ...

------
fetbaffe
So basically just one bug and community goes bananas on conspiracy theories.

What is most plausible? Microsoft does vast majority of user testing on
Microsoft Windows or that they added _sleep()_ for Linux? Do you know any
software developer that works like that?

------
celticninja
MS giveth and MS taketh away.

~~~
ourmandave
MS giveth and I'd wish they'd take it away.

I can't turn Onedrive off because I'm on Windows 10 Home edition (thanks to
the forced upgrade from Win 7). I don't use it but everytime I access a share
on my linux box, it pops up and want to be configured.

~~~
johnmarcus
[https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Turn-off-or-
uninsta...](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Turn-off-or-uninstall-
OneDrive-f32a17ce-3336-40fe-9c38-6efb09f944b0)

------
lottin
But but I thought MS had changed and that now loves "open-source" ;)

------
cvrajeesh
my 1$ hypothesis - partner company to which Onedrive UI project outsourced
didn't had any Linux machine and all developers/QA working for this partner
company were Windows users, to improve compatibility matrix they had kept few
Mac machines in the office to run tests. Moreover this team might not received
proper spec about the backend API at the initial stages of the project
development, would have receive only at last stage of the development. So they
try to get it working only in one or two platforms to make the release happen
:)

~~~
solomatov
I am pretty sure that they don't outsource development of such important
functionality.

~~~
toqueteos
You'd be surprised of what things management chooses to outsource and later on
insources because it's a steaming pile of shit.

------
voidlogic
UserAgent switchers are a godsend. Have your Chrome or Firefox on Linux always
send the Windows UA.

I even have a system on work that required Chrome (by UA), but only actually
works on Firefox... :'(

------
DrBoyfriend
I can't stand how awful the UI is on Mac compared to Windows. Why have the
sections and the page list waste a ton of space on the left and why can't I
collapse sub-sections?

------
daveloyall
Remember when I said "mark my words, MS hasn't changed!"?

Side note: in this thread, users who mention events of decades past (ie, they
are experienced) tend to be more critical of MS.

~~~
blahblah12
glad you didn't actually read the analysis of the bug

------
markoutso
I'm a person that wanted to give them another chance and got my self a Lumia
930. They didn't deserve it. Sometimes I get the feeling they are incompetent.

------
jklinger410
Onedrive is an embarrassingly subpar product for Msoft to be pushing anyway. I
can't think of a single worthwhile use-case?

~~~
NoGravitas
Use case: your company uses Office 365, and you want your cloud storage to be
integrated with the rest of the Office 365 apps, and you don't otherwise care
about the quality of the cloud storage app.

~~~
jklinger410
I'm going to basically cede my point to you because, honestly, Office 365 is
not a bad product and even though I would not personally use it, I have to
admit that this is a valid use-case, haha.

I do have to point out your note about "not otherwise caring about the quality
of the cloud storage app" which is more towards my point.

------
NinetyMPH
This explains why it takes forever to transfer files from my phone to my
desktop on the same network. It's been so slow.

------
vorticalbox
Has anyone tries changing their windows user agent to Linux to see if it gas
the same effect? Do reply to me if you try it.

------
zycamanaic
DOS Ain't Done 'til Lotus Won't Run.

Don't tell me it's a myth, same thing happened with DR-DOS as well.

------
shmerl
_> for the best experience, we recommend the operating system listed in the
article._

Yeah, what a pile of junk.

------
bythckr
I was starting to think that Microsoft MIGHT change. Good to know it's still
the same old fox...

------
erikj
All hail the "new" Microsoft, still using the old anticompetitive tricks from
the DOS era.

~~~
blahblah12
read the analysis of the bug. it wasn't malicious or intentional.

------
stratigos
Still amazes me that people support Microsoft in _anything_ in this day and
age.

------
known
Identified on 16th November 2016 and fix on ?

------
ocschwar
Yay, it's the 90's again!

------
diebir
What's "onedrive"?

------
StreamBright
It is a feature, not a bug. :)

------
robert_foss
Microsoft up to Microsoft antics again, eh?

Their open source friendliness only goes so far.

------
yAnonymous
With Microsoft Exchange, you get the simplified web interface on Linux, even
though the browsers support everything required for the regular one.

Change the user agent and it works the same as on Windows...

------
elastic_church
yeah, but why? lots of discussions about user-agent detection and how its not
a malicious attack against linux users, but no discussion how and why it is
slow.

is it protecting users from something further in the UX? is it stuck in an
infinite loop trying to download silverlight? are they actually redirecting
users to a staging server on the cheapest Azure instance?

------
EJTH
With the state of microsoft in mind, I wouldn't be the least surprised if this
was done on purpose.

------
tomc1985
I've noticed this too but never investigated....

seriously M$, what the F?

------
partycoder
Microsoft in 2000: "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual
property sense to everything it touches"

Microsoft in 2017: "Microsoft <3 Linux! It's totally not cancer, hehe. Please
buy our products, we won't monopolize anymore we _promise_ "

