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Self-hosting paradox: Windows for specifically MS word (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago by TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

39 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hey Home-labbers/ self hosters.

This weekend my 10 year old processing machine finally bit the dust (RIP 🗿 💀 ; old system76 laptop, won't even post, not the topic of this thread but if you've got ideas, I'm all ears), and as part of figuring out what happened and coming to the realization its time for a new machine. And as part of getting/ pricing a new machine (not looking forward to the consequences of the RAM-pocalypse), I've been reviewing/ thinking about the "structure" of what we as a household currently use our self-hosted/ home-labbed system for.

Myself and my partner are researchers, and as such, we regularly collaborate/ work together on manuscripts, and the reality is, we rely on windows because we're also collaborating with other authors who also rely on MS word to write in. Now I'm a 100% FOSS advocate, but this is a sticking point my partner has had, and I agree with them, at least in practice that realistically, we need a windows machine laying around specifically for this one, particular use case.

Now my thinking here is to use proxmox to spin up a windows machine as a VM, something we can remote into. Is there any best practice for something like this? How would this work with licensing? I personally haven't installed windows on something since like windows 7, and I know they've enshittified beyond recognition.

I personally don't want windows on my machines. But realistically, I recognize its necessity for this one particular use case. Thoughts?

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[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

No.. but we do need to be able to access all features of document composition. I've never used the free web version. We're pretty hung up on doing things locally, on our compute, without having to have access to the broader internet.

[–] phanto@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago

I have a Windows 11 VM running in Proxmox. It works fine. I put a desktop with a Windows license in the cluster, passed the hardware ID into the VM, it didn't work, so I hollered at an MS rep for a bit and they activated it for me. I don't use it for much, but it works.