from Hacker News

The Mutable OS: Why Isn't Windows Immutable in 2025?

by ndegruchy on 4/9/25, 3:26 PM with 24 comments

• by mystified5016 on 4/9/25, 6:45 PM

  Probably because third party vendors want to push malvertising to un-consenting users through windows update. Windows will just install shit for no reason, like the "Dell delivery service" I've uninstalled six times, or any printer driver

• by cedws on 4/10/25, 1:59 AM

  Windows kind of has this in the form of UFW. You can have either a RAM or disk based overlay for your C: partition and all writes will go to the overlay, which can be wiped. Except there are specific paths which must be excluded otherwise Windows craps itself. You also have to set up the overlay after the sysprep phase which inits drivers and stuff.

  https://cedwards.xyz/messing-around-with-windows-unified-wri...

• by ndegruchy on 4/9/25, 3:26 PM

  Hey all—this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while in my day-to-day as a desktop support tech. We’ve made huge strides in OS security, but immutability is still seen as exotic, and I don’t think it should be. Curious to hear thoughts or counterpoints from folks who’ve wrestled with these same issues.

• by emchammer on 4/9/25, 7:33 PM

  An operating system should be self-hosting. You should be able to compile it and reinstall it on the same machine. Obviously, Windows and macOS are closed-source, but I would if I could.

• by fsflover on 4/9/25, 7:29 PM

  If you care about security, consider Qubes OS, https://qubes-os.org, which achieves security through compartmentalization based on strong, hardware isolation. My daily driver, can't recommend enough.