I can't even remove 'Recommended' from the start menu, not even on a Pro for Workstations.<p>Every time I search on the start menu there is a web search, impossible to turn off. How is that acceptable?<p>I install Edge Beta to test something, and the I uninstall it. All of the sudden my search provider in my normal Edge is reset.<p>And the nagging everywhere. No I don't want 'back-up' my files (OneDrive is not backup, it's sync). And I don't want to be reminded later. I don't want to be reminded ever. All this fuzzy language makes me feel like I'm dealing with a kindergarden teacher addressing his/her pupils.<p>It's not my computer any more.<p>Oh, I update a driver. And 2 days later Windows installs an older version. Since when is 6.6.1.40 better than 6.6.1.72? Why would you do that?
About a year ago I dumped Windows from my personal PC for good. I ran a Linux desktop at work for a decade, but my Steam collection get me with at least a bit of a tether to Microsoft. But Valve finally made Linux gaming a reality. I hope more people can make the switch someday because I'm quite happy with the system (Pop!_OS is my distro of choice these days).
I used Windows from about 1993 to 2006. In 2006 I was given a Mac Mini as a thank you for completing an unpaid internship. I fell in love with macOS and have basically been a macOS user since.<p>At the start of the pandemic I bought a PC to game on. 16-core Ryzen, 64 gigabytes of ram. I'd been kind of pleasantly surprised with WSL and just general improvements in cohesiveness. It's still got that Windows jank under the hood though.<p>But then... It won't f**ing run Windows 11 because it doesn't have a TPM. And they pester me about buying a new computer. You have to be kidding me.<p>It's just absolutely incredible Microsoft decided to declare very powerful machines only a few years old essentially eWaste.<p>I'm probably going to give Desktop Linux another go, at least for a bit. I have no idea what distro though.<p>I ran Ubuntu on some of my older machines for a number of years. I actually loved Unity, I still think it was the best Linux desktop and I'm bummed they basically killed it.<p>I tried Pop_OS! a couple years ago on a MacBook Pro but it just up and imploded on me after a couple days Windows ME style. I've got Elementary OS on an old MacBook and I've had a decent time with it. The apps not made specifically for it though. Felt real out of place.
People don't switch operating systems at the drop of a hat. There's got to be a pretty good reason for it. All the people switching away from Windows, those are probably users that are lost to Microsoft forever. I get that their money comes from other places, but I bet there's a second-order effect of people who don't use Windows—maybe even people who now <i>hate</i> Windows—not having any desire stick with their other products or services either. It's weird that they don't seem to care about this slow diminution of their brand.
Nothing electronic I own feels like mine anymore<p>My Mac, iPhone, and Apple TV are owned by Apple. My Sony TV is owned by Sony and Google. My Windows PC is owned by Microsoft. My Quest 2 is owned by Meta. My Kindle is owned by Amazon.<p>At best, the Mac and PC I could install Linux on to make them mine. The rest, not so much
> Linux Respects Its Users<p>Maybe I'm just ranting, but Ubuntu seems to be by far the most common distro for Windows users, and they're definitely not perfect in this respect. I've been running Linux as my main OS for about 20 years and I can't rid myself of snaps. Synaptic will show that the package provided by Mozilla is the latest version and the snap is the installed version. If I reinstall, it goes back to the Mozilla package, only to mysteriously show the snap is the installed version within a few days.<p>I don't want to bring up the discussion of the Snap Store again, but this experience is pretty much what you get with Windows, just on a much smaller scale. I'd strongly encourage Windows users to install Mint or some other friendly alternative rather than going with the standard recommendation.
2024 won't be the year of the Linux desktop, but it will be the year of the Linux desktop for everyone who gives a damn about having control over their digital life. PopOS is lovely so far, I cringe every time I have to interface with Windows 11 for my job.
There's basically 2 reasons I haven't been able to switch to linux:<p>1) Fusion 360 - Just can't get it working under linux well enough.
2) Monitors - Always issues mixing highdpi and low dpi monitors in linux, my main is a 4k 144hz 43", the sides and tops are all 2560x1440 27s. Oh and there's my Ceiling 4k projector which I turn on to watch movies or baseball when I lean back and think. Which leads to the other issue, Nvidia seems to greatly limit the number of outputs you can have under linux compared to windows. With 6 monitors, I've never gotten it to work even with 6 of the same monitor, let alone my messed up setup.<p>Yes yes, woa was me. I've had linux as a daily driver for at least 10 years of my main computer use since 1998. I do really prefer it but so far just making the tradeoff.<p>Also I tend to play games that have anti-cheat like CoD / PubG, etc which further locks things out.<p>I do like the direction things are going
It's sad to see Windows fall so far from the Win2k days but this trajectory has been obvious since Windows XP.<p>Fortunately or unfortunately, for most people for most things, the host OS hardly matters anymore. The operating system is now the browser. And this "doesn't feel like mine anymore" is 100x worse there because corporations have fogotten that they're voluntarily presenting data upon the request of an external client and what said client does with the data is none of their business. It's as if visiting a website and downloading the publicly available contents is a nation setting up an embassy of "foreign soil" on your hardware. Editing CSS (or whatever) is equivalent to vandalizing a physical storefront because the pixels on your monitor are <i>theirs</i> not yours despite it being your hardware. Even the very protocol of hypertext transport (HTTP/3) is now designed around being encryption verified JS application delivery for corporate person use cases with no allowances for HTML hypertext transport for human person use cases. So not even linux/mac/bsd/etc is free from the trend.
The first time I needed to install Linux on my computer was last week because Wireshark didn’t support 802.11 packet capture on Windows or WSL. So, I installed Ubuntu on my Surface Laptop 3, and my experience had been quite terrible. (Disclaimer: I’m a former Windows engineer, but I’ve also been using Linux since Slackware 3 occasionally)<p>* Setup started in 100% HiDPI scaling, making everything impossible to read. Every time I ran setup, I had to set it to 200% using display settings before I do anything else.<p>* Installation software crashed twice mid-installation. I was only able to complete installation on my third attempt.<p>After the installation, I noticed that Ubuntu doesn’t have the features below out of the box: <a href="https://x.com/esesci/status/1803374884858347856?s=46" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/esesci/status/1803374884858347856?s=46</a> You either had to go through painful and complicated configuration steps, or install third-party software:<p>* Hybrid sleep (is a must for laptops).<p>* Face login.<p>* Live full disk encryption on demand. I’m actually baffled by this as Bitlocker on Windows makes this trivial. I actually expected FDE to be enabled from the installation by default but I wasn’t even asked.<p>* Fast fractional scaling on HiDPI displays. 200% is just too big and 100% is too small, and 150% hogs the CPU (or GPU?). As I understand, fast fractional scaling is impossible with Linux because fractional scaling is a bitmap operation while it’s just a rendering parameter on Windows.<p>* No factory reset. If you ran a script that messed up your system, your only option is to reinstall the OS. The problem with that is, if you had to install it using a very slow USB stick in the first place, a reset operation also becomes a multi-hour operation while Windows could just use its local recovery image to reinstall itself in a much shorter time.<p>All in all, Ubuntu felt like a huge step back from Windows. I haven’t tried other distros, but I don’t think the difference would be significant for the issues I mentioned.<p>Yes, I also dislike the features in Windows that inconvenience people, but man, does Linux have a long way to go.
I don't see myself moving away from Windows due to the software ecosystem that has been built upon it for decades, but if I was forced to use the "Home" version I would be long gone. That being said, when I can, I use Linux on various PCs and it's a refreshing experience.
- no more solitaire<p>- cortana<p>- ads… ADS… in the OS<p>- forced updates<p>- windows live accounts (or is it microsoft.com? wait, no, I think it’s office.com?)<p>- two system settings screens<p>- major new versions after “last version of Windows ever: 10”
Oh don’t tell me MacOS treats me as the true owner. Would you want to switch to Safari as the default browser?. Would you enable iCloud sync, your disk is low. Would you update tonight or tomorrow? Can be annoying just as Windows.
Stallman for all his faults at least got this fundamental message right.. these software ain't free.<p>When I was logging into my work the other day, using MS Teams it suddenly dawned on me that my younger self is very disappointed. There I was in the process of logging into work VPN, the teams app is actually scanning my face couple of times... and god knows what else.
Windows is just plain humiliating and embarrassing to use at this point. MacOS is starting to creep that way with lots of pushing for signing up for additional services, as well. It’s a real shame, but it’s no wonder no one wants to deal with a PC anymore outside of the office where most of the trash is turned off by corporate IT.
I've been out of the Windows loop for roughly as many years as the "skip every other Windows release" is holding: Windows 98 good, Windows Me bad, Windows XP good, Windows Vista bad, Windows 7 good, Windows 8 bad, Windows 10 good, Windows 11 bad ... has this meta rule changed? There seems wisdom or even intent behind it in that MS keeps correcting their overreaching changes every other release.<p>The one thing Windows gets right IMO is binary backward compatibilty, in particular with games, but also with older apps still from the pre-subscription era (3D modelling, Adobe sw, ...). Unfortunately, x86 seems kindof going under. Haven't tested extensively, but I wouldn't be surprised if a regular (non-pro) iPad can run old DOS games on RetroArch/dosbox longer on a charge than any outdated x86 hardware can. Right now, MS also again attempts to bring Windows onto ARM after their former attempt failed miserably with no exclusive software available that people actually wanted to use (cf Dells new ARM-based XPS and others). Is there instruction-level emulation with JIT on Windows ARM for x86/64 like Apple's Rosetta/Rosetta2?
Use LTSC, it's marketed for "enterprise" but it's functionally identical to the regular versions with the bonus of advanced configuration that lets you disable AV, forced updates, telemetry, ads, etc.
Windows, after 98SP2 and XP it just became absolutely untenable. (it started during XP already) Any pre-installed version was rife with junk one just wanted to get rid of. What still remains to this day, the inexplicable slowdown between a fresh install and a couple of months down the road, at boot time processes which keep writing to hd choking the os for tens of minutes, restore point hell, ... anti-virus which guaranteed ruins your OS ... software that somehow gets installed out of nowhere ... a printer completely impossible to install, then there's the 600mb HP printer software you need to install ... the endless dialog questions you are bombarded with at random times ... I think many people accept this as normal, part of how things are. I switched to Linux and it stays out of my way. I do recognize that some of its configs are difficult for the non-experienced user, however on the flip side you can actually do fixes yourself. Its comparable to someone who can work on his/her own car. YMMV.
About the first time there was some hidden Registry value jacking up my life, Windows made <i>me</i> feel like the product, instead of Microsoft's OS or application.<p>Open Source isn't challenge-free, but it's much closer to the chess experience that I seek than the poker experience of proprietary alternatives.
Been trying out AtlasOS recently (in a VM), which is one of those Open Source projects for debloating Windows: <a href="https://atlasos.net" rel="nofollow">https://atlasos.net</a><p>It's been pretty good so far, and makes Win 11 seem like a usable desktop rather than the piece of shit that MS wants to inflict on people.<p>Linus Tech Tips reviewed it a while back, and gave it the thumbs up:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc7CIkZcWYE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc7CIkZcWYE</a><p>Bizarrely, the earliest versions of AtlasOS used to disable security updates. No idea what was going through their heads when they did that.<p>Thankfully that stupidity has passed (after lots of people complained), so (security) updates work as expected these days.
The only reason I still dual boot win11 is for 3 programs that require windows only drivers. I purchased that laptop specifically because it supported dual ssd.<p>Win11 offline install and de-dork instructions is a must:<p><a href="https://github.com/StellarSand/privacy-settings/blob/main/Privacy%20Settings/Windows-11.md">https://github.com/StellarSand/privacy-settings/blob/main/Pr...</a><p>Even then, one must assume win11 comes with a telemetry payload every second update.<p>Linux has its own share of issues, but is far easier to develop on (if you check the hardware support before purchase). The only parts of win11 that are any good was the FOSS they packaged in.<p>Strange times for sure, MS still chasing a set-top box market 30 years after it flopped =)
Update: This Debloating tool seems promising: <a href="https://github.com/LeDragoX/Win-Debloat-Tools">https://github.com/LeDragoX/Win-Debloat-Tools</a><p>It’s one of many I was able to find!<p>My favourite version of windows was Windows 2000. It was a true get shit done and stay out of the way experience. I believe the enterprise server versions retained some of that appeal (might still).
I'll probably be building a new desktop in the next year or two, and I'll try running Debian on it first. (Or maybe a SteamOS fork.) I don't want to run Windows 11 on anything, and Windows 10 doesn't fully support new CPUs anymore, and official support for everything stops October 2025.<p>Forcing ads into something is a sure fire way to get me to stop using a product.
Although not non existent, I’ve found this to be less of an issue with the Surface laptops and look forward to trying the Surface CoPilot PCs.
Have never had that much of an issue with Windows 11. I think Recall could be a useful feature once implemented.
On non surface laptops, I still don’t understand why PC manufacturers are so beholden to McAfee?
My friend recently got a new Windows PC. Out of the box, it spent maybe 15-20 minutes updating itself.<p>"We're getting things ready", reboot, create a Microsoft account, 10 data sharing settings to turn off, "almost ready..."<p>Iirc, a MacBook is ready to use without any updates.
I have to admit, I read the article and the comments and can't help but smile a little. Personally, I switched from Windows to macOS & iOS (Linux on my second computer) back in 2013. Even though I am still ridiculed by Windows users for my Apple ecosystem, I have never regretted this step myself. macOS has never felt like it was patronizing me or getting in my way - it just works. While all my colleagues who use Windows are still busy setting up their development environment for every single project, I've been able to work for a long time because I configured the whole thing once many years ago.
In short, my tolerance threshold for poor user experience in software has simply dropped to 0. And I can only encourage everyone to make the switch if you're not happy - sometimes the grass really is greener on the other side.
In addition to the obvious, Windows feels like a neglected ecosystem. They pile on new, half-baked features without fixing what’s already present and broken for years.<p>Try searching for a file by name. Third-parties have had this figured out for years and yet Microsoft can’t deliver accurate or quick results.<p>Two different interfaces for settings since the failed Metro experiment. The jarring introduction of old NT menus where they haven’t updated a setting to the new UI.<p>I could go on, but the author has done a good job of cataloguing a broken product.
It's pretty sad, but with each iteration of Windows, it feels more and more impersonal and intrusive. There could be a mass migration to MacOS and Linux for many of us.
I still use Windows for gaming, and it still shocks me every time how poor quality it is.<p>Within minutes of turning it on I get broken features, disjointed UIs, poor performance, outdated software, and exploitative functionality. Not just from third parties, who are a big problem, but Microsoft itself! They've had decades to address these issues but instead just chase marketable ideas. If they course corrected even a little every year they'd have something viable but it doesn't seem like that's part of their corporate culture.<p>But I guess I'm wrong because they're a multi-trillion dollar company and still dominate the PC market.
I only ran Windows (11) for gaming and today I tried to install Steam with Proton and... all games just work. Some (like Quake Champions) even work better without lags and better graphics.<p>I think I might be able to completely get rid of Windows now.
> At this point, I have lost count of the number of times that I've left my perfectly working Windows computer at the end of my work day, only to return to a completely broken computer that won't boot the next morning.<p>Has this happened to anyone else? I've never experienced an official Windows update rendering a system unbootable. I've certainly broken Windows before, especially when messing with the MBR, dual booting, changing system files for customization etc., but never with a random Tuesday patch.
Amazing to me that people are still only just realising this a full 15 years after I made the switch. And I was by no means some kind of pioneer. I honestly don't think I'd still be doing computers if free software wasn't a thing. Get the shackles off and dump Microsoft for good! It feels great. Give it time and before long you'll start doing things that Microsoft/Apple etc won't let you do. Compute freely, my friends.
I sort of figured that anyone capable of leaving that abusive relationship would've done so long ago, but apparently Microsoft Windows still has something to lose.
Reading Microsoft's post on the EU's DMA shows that the only way they will make user experiences better is when forced to do so by regulation.<p><a href="https://blogs.microsoft.com/eupolicy/2024/03/07/microsoft-dma-compliance-windows-linkedin/" rel="nofollow">https://blogs.microsoft.com/eupolicy/2024/03/07/microsoft-dm...</a>
I know the feeling. Recently I switched to Linux because of it. Now I’m running:<p>Manjaro Cinnamon LTE: I know there’s some controversy with Manjaro, but it’s been working fine for me and it drastically increased my laptop’s battery life.<p>AtlasOS, a trimmed down version of Windows 11 for gaming: I know it’s a bit controversial as well, but I’ll never install or store anything sensitive in it. Only games.
You could see where it was going when Candy Crush came installed with Windows 10 Enterprise.<p>If you treat Apple hardware like a subscription model where you make sure not to hang on to anything for too long (these engineering problems that happen after a couple years seems awfully convenient) then you get the arguably better OS / general computing experience without the risk of expensive hardware going wrong over time. And it's an expensive subscription model today, the days of a top spec Apple laptop for £1500 are gone, so a decent general computing experience is now at a premium.<p>Owning a MBP beyond a few years these days puts you in the ticking time bomb territory, at some point whether it's the soldered SSD endurance or an exploding SSD/T2 chip, it cannot be affordably repaired when it bricks.<p>In the meantime, hackintoshes have a little bit of life left, and Linux looks to me finally like its only another 5-10 years before the year of the desktop is here, and I say that positively having used it on and off for 25 years
I followed tutorials to remove the search using the internet.<p>Three days later the computer rebooted and had undone all my fixes and now search was back to using the web!<p>Definitely never felt like MY system. It feels like a creepy corporation changing my settings. Which is exactly what it does.<p>Another three days later, Recall was announced.<p>Three days later, I wiped Windows from all my computers.<p>All going well for me, I love Pop!_OS
Every problem has a top-level part and you only have to look at its main contributor: Bill Gates, to see where the problem comes from.
Microsoft is based on cut-throat greed as its most fundamental principle.
It overshadows everything else including all the friendly, intelligent and hard-working people that contributed to its products.
I’ve been really liking emacs across the 3 major OSs - pretty much works the same everywhere. The joke is that emacs itself is an OS, but it makes a decent shell. Setting save-desktop to 1 and it survives Windows reboots. Change some keybindings, get meta and control in the same location even when using MacOS.
<i>I really hope there will be some way in the future to get a version of Windows (that's not for enterprise users) which gives you the choice to have Microsoft butt out of the daily running, appearance, and settings of your computer.</i><p>I have not looked much at the OS-modding scene recently, but there used to be huge communities around deep customisation, and they produced "distros" of Windows with very different defaults and much of the annoyances removed, and popular useful thirdparty software installed. It's not 100% legal of course, and that "choice to have Microsoft butt out" is usually an absolute --- no updates at all except ones you manually install, some things might not work (possibly a feature for some), and you are truly on your own (with the community) with those mods.
(The entire "pretense" [even that] of it <i>ever</i> having been <i>your</i> computer while running a Microsoft OS is just coming off. We have reached the point were it either does not pay or does not matter to keep the "pretense" on.-<p>And this, in a "paid" OS. One, on top of everything, where - other than money - you are paying with compute and ever increasing disk space for "updates" to cover the vendor's incompetence incorporating bug fixes on the fly ...<p>In no other area of human industry is this model tolerared: Would you buy a car only to <i>gradually</i> receive better (correct) tires aftermarket?)
You MOST NOT GET in the way of me doing the thing I need to do on my computer.<p>My computer is how I interface with the critical functions of my life; family, friends, income, entertainment. That is important time to me.<p>If you put any friction in front of me accessing those things, you are getting the boot. Interruptive advertising? Popups and popovers? A forced login where none is necessary? Delete.<p>I don't give a baker's fuck how valuable you think your service is, you get about 5-10 seconds of my time before you're wasting it. This is why people want book summaries and reviews, why they scan headlines, why they'll install ad blockers.
Using Windows Server as a personal OS can be an option: <a href="https://www.windowsworkstation.com/win2016-2019/" rel="nofollow">https://www.windowsworkstation.com/win2016-2019/</a>
can someone suggest tips to remove all the bloatware from HP/Dell/etc and reinstall a cleaner minimalistic windows in a laptop? How do I know all the compatible drivers that exactly map to my specific laptop? The vendor websites are sometimes ambiguous and I don't get the confidence that right drivers would be installed. If reinstallation is too much of a hassle, is there at least some kind of script that can remove all the non-essential bloatware and make windows lean?
Last weekend I finally removed windows from my private laptop, dual boot from my desktop and set up WSL on my work laptop at least.<p>I thought that some things like games would stop working, but instead I had to install absolutely no drivers, fix nothing, video playback on my laptop has gotten better (before I often switched to 720p on YouTube) and even high performance requirement games on my desktop just work thanks to proton. It’s actually the year of the linux desktop for me now.
Yesterday on my laptop a survey popped up in tray. "Would you recommend this computer to other people?". What the hell do you mean? I wouldn't recommend it to other people. They can't have it. It's mine!<p>It's especially bizzare that it's a 4 year old laptop with dying battery and Windows 10.<p>Was it a Window thing or a hardware manufacturer thing? Either way it was very strange
I know iPads aren't macOS, but, despite the mention that "My Mac doesn't feel subsidized," one of the cheapest-feeling things to me about my iPad is that I've got an un-dismissible notification constantly asking me to upgrade my iCloud storage for $0.99/month. I don't mind being presented with such a reminder once, but it is literally permanent.
Windows is the SF of operating systems. I first moved to SF because I wanted to be there, not because it had a job for me. It was amazing. Regular people lived there and did interesting things and raised the next generation. You could enjoy the city because it was a city built for people and that was amazing. Then tech completely took over. I noticed my friends that had kids move first. They were the canaries in the coal mine. The city stooped being a place that made people want to put roots down, they were just there because of the job, so people have stopped moving there and started moving away. When you can work from anywhere why work in a place you don't want to be? I became one of the people that left and I don't regret it, unfortunately.<p>Microsoft and their operating systems are exactly the same. I started using MS operating systems with DOS 2.0. I was hooked. Every new version really was an upgrade. I couldn't wait for each new release because they were all amazing and truly 'upgrades'. I used their stuff because it was good, not because I had to. Slowly however things started to change. Each new 'upgrade' came with things that didn't help and didn't improve. One day I realized they were upgrades, just not upgrades targeted at me. My machine slowly but surely became less and less mine. Eventually I couldn't take it anymore and jumped on the Linux bandwagon. The last two machines I have purchased haven't even made it to the windows startup screen before I wiped them and, just like SF, you would have to pay me a lot of money to move back.<p>I hope SF and Microsoft learn a lesson from this: If you aren't raising the next generation because they love your product then you are creating a group of people that will leave as soon as they get the chance.
For the past few years I've had this thought in the back of my head . If I use a Samba server as a domain controller, how much cruft and hostility can I shave off a standard Windows 11 Pro installation with GPOs. I keep kicking around the idea of trying to do it as an exercise in absurdity.
> Honestly, it might sound weird, but macOS feels like the offline Windows experience of old to me. In fact, the operating system tends to stay classy and out of my way as far as possible.<p>It does sound weird to be hoenst, as this has not been my experience at all. My Macs have never felt like my own, and the obtrusiveness has been of a different form.<p>But reading through, my experience with Win10/11 has been slightly different as well. I haven't come back the next morning to find it 'broken', so I do wonder if it's about use cases and regional settings too - after all, isn't there a reduced jank in the European zones?
On every new Windows device I set up, I disable everything via a powershell script. The fact that no one complains about things missing tells me that very few people even make use of the "features" Windows now has.
I switched to Linux when I got frustrated because of windows just updating and restarting itself over night when I left my unfinished project for the next day to continue. That was a trigger for me
O&O shutup does a good job of disabling most of the modern Windows garbage though you may need to occasionally re-run it as sometimes Windows update decides to re-enable some garbage marketing you'd previously disabled.
I just got a new computer with windows 10 installed. First thing when it booted up, it asked me wher I live. Using that "fuzzy kindergarten teacher language". Ugh.<p>Destroyed that abomination with a nice debian install.
I prefer Linux (Ubuntu, Alpine, etc) over MacOS X because it can be locked down a lot easier and you have a lot more control over actually what's going on behind the scenes. not to mention all the software is free.
The experience of using Windows is so much better these days, IMO. I too started on Windows 3.1.<p>> At this point, I have lost count of the number of times that I've left my perfectly working Windows computer at the end of my work day, only to return to a completely broken computer that won't boot the next morning.<p>What? I have had this happen maybe three times in my 30 years of using Windows products (from automatic updates). Do people really forget what a pain it was to patch things from scratch in 98, Win2k, or Windows ME? (Probably before then as well, but I didn't have the Internet). I remember using CDs for service packs, specialized software to download updates that MS didn't serve anymore, so many things. When that process failed, it was a all night event for one system.<p>I do remember rampant malware on Windows (unless you kind of knew what you were doing) until about 2007 when windows defender actually started helping and you didn't need to nuke your computer with Malware Bytes or something every time you used a web browser.<p>This belly aching and nostalgia is everywhere on the web, and I really think there is a trend toward selecting only the good memories.<p>We get old. It gets harder to deal with change. IMO, drop the ego, and say what you really mean.<p>However, I agree with the privacy and advertising gripes.
Every time this comes up I read most of the comments. The control we have lost is so important. I'm finally getting to the point where I almost don't care and move on from windows entirely.
It never was...n The EULA stating you have a limited use right and stop... As any commercial software and black boxes. It's not just ads and co, it's the concept behind it's development.
The software I miss the most from Windows is MusicBee. The best music player I’ve ever used. I’ve tried Strawberry on Linux and it is the closest but way far off.<p>Swinsian on Mac OS is pretty good when im using a Mac.
Opening the web browser on fresh install was hilarious already 10 years ago with Msn front-page full of clickbait articles for the masses and some thumbnails even including women in binini.
If a hacker would attack the ms ecosystem, replace win with a similar looking lin, that just uses a vm to run win programs, goes back to win7 gui wise, what hat would that hacker wear?
Really i Don't like windows but the text editor or the official tools like powerpoint, mas word, Excel more good than LibreOffice.
I use it for my paper because my collage.
Try a Mac... you won't even have read-write access to parts of your own file system.<p>Thankfully Linux Desktop is now a completely viable thing for many many professions.
I use windows to run obscure hardware vendor tools that flash chips. Can I expect those to keep working under Proton? Is the serial port / USB pass-through stable?
M$ is cutting the branch it sitting on. Have been using Windows for over two decades now. And I clean wiped one of my brand new Windows 11 machine for Linux just a couple of days ago. And I was surprised to see how good Linux had became.<p>Put all that aside, satisfactory of Windows peeked at Windows 7. Never seriously used Windows 8. Windows 10 was trouble, but still much better than Windows 11. When Windows 10 started rolling out, I heard there was lots of issues, so I ignored the upgrade notice. Soon I noticed the fan on computer was running crazily in midnight, but when I checked in the day time, it looked alright. It went on for around half a year or so, I was woken up and was so annoyed decided to check what was happening. It was M$ trying to upgrade to Windows 10. Alright, let me upgrade then. The manual upgrade failed and the rollback also failed. Had to clean wipe and install Windows 10 to avoid such nonsense. Then I started to notice after almost every update, there would most likely something got fixed or broken randomly. Also the Active Hours setting just annoyed me, but still not quite enough to force me to go to Linux.<p>Windows 11 is even worse. Got a Surface pro for the kid, took a couple of hours to get it working. Then an upgrade broke the display driver. Uninstall of the offending patch failed, could not rollback neither. So first clean wipe for Windows 10. On my gaming PC, all my settings to disable those defender etc would be lost after an update, the UI is sometimes very lagging, don't want to touch it yet as too much effort required. Then I got a new PC with Ryzen 7840u and 64G RAM, after booting up, the CPU would constantly be around 20% for no obvious reason. Since I didn't really have anything installed, so I directly wiped it and installed Linux. It was so good. Video/Audio drivers installed correctly automatically. CPU usage when idle now drops to ~2%. The only thing I miss about is Visual Studio, but that's about it.
m$ has successfully stretched the "you don't own the software, you lease it" model to its extremes.<p>unpopular opinion - almost all annoyances are most affecting those who can then find a solution and apply it (provided they don't get a restricted account from work).<p>on the other hand, have to agree that when even those publishing such circumventions had enough, m$ got to tread a bit lightly.
Just to put things in perspective - MacOS forces you to run on their update treadmill for the OS, and you can't even update your xcode dev environment if you refuse. Ditto with Linux, you can't refuse OS updates if you use a package manager because eventually you can't update anything without accepting all the dependencies. Windows for all its warts did do something well with binary compatibility. I am happy as a pig in poop with my work supplied LTSC install.
We're basically at Vista again, but in a different dimension. This time instead of performance, it's invasiveness, and erosion of both discoverability and general cohesiveness.<p>Windows 11 installs all sorts of stupid stuff and turns it on.<p>I feel like I only know how to use Windows 10 and 11 because I know about all the old dialogs from old versions.<p>I struggled today on a Windows 10 computer with Wi-Fi and ethernet to turn on/off Wi-Fi due to mixed meaning of tile highlight state. Maybe it's just me.<p>And when Windows 11 installs updates and says "You're almost there" I say, "no, you're almost there and why are you doing this now."<p>I'm optimistic that eventually leadership will change and this will be corrected. Edit: or somehow a new OS will be developed that's backwards compatible with Windows.
Almost nobody cares about privacy or control. I wonder if there is a market there. Maybe you can make people perceive privacy as something valuable and capitalize on that and on Windows. But people mostly don't care and will put up with anything.
In addition to all the privacy and "MS knows best" bullshit...<p>None of the fucking app store icons work?<p>Terminal, one of the better additions of 10, shows up in the start menu with the image preview app icon...<p>I have tried all the stupid solutions around the icon cache to no avail.
I agree mostly, but not about updates. Updates are necessary for a system that it connected to the internet. And the more the publisher manages the system, the more likely it is that it's updated timely. If the user has a say, then the updates won't get applied, then the system might become compromised or deprecated, and in either case the user will blame the system, not themselves. So it ends up as a question of brand management.<p>Otherwise, yeah, Windows nowadays, especially the Windows 11 feels like a cheap bazaar.
My prediction for power users: Linux distros away from Ubuntu.
MacOS will be AI crap-ware in no time. People love this bullshit. As usual.
Windows Adware AI crap-ware will stay for gamers and specific apps.
And please, use simplewall. It's a free app which solves a lot of problems, as Little Snitch on macOS.
A reminder that microsoft owns more products, in different lifetime stages.<p>I thought of that recently, when I noticed that Github started displaying links promoting Copilot.
The saddest thing I see about Windows is that most people (outside work) refuse to switch because they need Windows for <i>gaming</i>. Like really? With so many ways to play these days you let your video game addiction keep you on this invasive, user hostile piece of crap OS? Really?
Windows is the only reasonable option for someone who wants a modern desktop but doesn’t want a Mac. Apple has been integrating ID into their systems for years and nobody bats an eye. Do you want a computer that “feels like” something or do you want to get work done?
People need to get over the in OS ads. They’re easily removable honestly. Personally I’ve never seen windows look this good in years. The whole system shell looks really good and well designed these days. On top of that the included features like wsl2 and hyperv are great.
There's no substance to any of these gripes. What advertising? The section hardly describes where/what that is. Sure there's Microsoft Store/app related things (if you use them) but other than that, isn't most of it third-party/manufacturer-included bloat and ads? I don't see any ads on my Win 11 install anywhere. I never use the Start menu except for my already pinned/frequently used apps. Most of my apps are no MS-related.... VS Code and OS stuff excepted. No ads there. Not using Edge browser so that eliminates any of that MS/Bing/whatever related ads. The file explorer mostly works. Problems with updates come and go, but are minor/years apart. There's no particular lock-in at the level of Mac OS, and I can manage my device/files/plug'n'play mostly without any restrictions. It still feels like my machine in ways that Macs never do.