I would upgrade to windows 11 if it wasn’t full of ads, I had two computers accidentally upgrade after mis-clicking an upgrade prompt and the experience was bad enough I reloaded the whole computer.
Not only that, but it doesn’t make sense to have a task bar on the bottom of an ultrawide display. I’ve been putting my taskbar on the left side for over a decade, and now you just can’t do that for some reason…
The task bar is my main reason for staying on 10. Forced grouping with icons only and no option to change it is such a bizarre design decision.
Edit: Sounds like my last major gripe with W11 has been fixed! Dreading a forced switch to 11 much less now.
you can now set taskbar to ungrouped (unless full) now in win11, as of one of the recent monthly updates. still can’t move the taskbar to the left side (my preference on wide screen displays), though.
And honestly the never combined feature is really really buggy, and just downright ugly with the way it resizes the bars based on the amount of text in the window’s name, even when there’s empty space left on the taskbar. If you have your file explorer open to c:/ the bar for the File Explorer is ridiculously tiny, for no good reason. If you want uniform, clean, consistently sized tasks that only shrink to make room when the taskbar is full, forget it.
It also just gets stuck. A lot. If you have a full bar and it needs to combine, then close a couple windows to free space, a lot of times it won’t do what it’s supposed to do and “ungroup” the remaining windows. It’s very inconsistent about when and how it chooses to combine, uncombine, and shrink things.
It just barely works well enough that I’ll grit my teeth with it on my work computer, because I don’t have a choice about that, but I’m not abandoning the Windows 10 taskbar for this at home.
My work machine is W11 and has options to change it. Not one of those stupid ‘home’ vs ‘pro’ version things is it?
You can only align the icons to the left, but you can’t move the entire taskbar to the side.
Or to the top!
The update for grouping just came out a few weeks ago on 11. I know this because when I started a job 5 months ago as a regional analyst it was pure hell with windows 11 until grouping became available. I swear it knocked 10% productivity off the top.
It’s not, that was “fixed” a while ago.
This is also my main reason for not switching and let me tell you this issue is NOT fixed. Do not upgrade to 11. You don’t have an option to use small taskbar icons, making the ungrouped tabs massive. Plus they resize themselves constantly. I use 11 at work and the only workaround as of now is third party stuff that either costs money, is a resource hog, or both.
Thank you for clarifying. That sounds awful.
They (finally) changed this in a patch a few months ago. W11 still sucks, but at least it can now do this one thing that all the previous versions could do.
You can move the “start” button to the left but you can’t move the entire taskbar to the right or left to be a vertical stripe going down the side. I don’t do it but a right or left vertical bar makes much more sense than horizontal given today’s wide and ultra wide monitors.
For that matter, they said the reason for the new centered taskbar was to be better for touch screens. Centered on the left or right, sure, but centered on the bottom? That’s probably the least convenient spot for a touch interface, especially on a laptop.
I don’t like start button being on the center when using mouse, but come on, when using touch screen on my laptop I don’t really care where it’s at exactly, as it takes roughly the same amount of time to move my finger to any place on the screen.
The keyboard gets in the way a bit for me when things are lower on the screen. Haven’t tried it with a tablet, but I would assume that keeping controls near the sides, where you’re already holding the device, would be beneficial there, too.
Good catch. I somehow missed the second part of the comment I was replying to - I was referring to the ability to finally ungroup taskbar items in W11.
I can change it on 2H22 with these instructions
I had to use it on a work laptop briefly. It is still insane, when you run out of space it the apps then get put in this crappy overflow area.
You know what I used to be able to do? Make the taskbar 2, or even 3 lines. No more.
I’m staying on windows 10 for work as long as I can help it.
The “show more” menu on right click is absolute insanity. I right click files constantly, all day.
They’ve taken features away for seemingly no reason.
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I’m so confused by the ads thing. I don’t think I’ve noticed any since upgrading to Win 11. Are they only on certain editions or something?
That’s what confuses me. There are absolutely ads, it’s just fake installed apps. But amount of ads are exactly the same as windows 10. They’re in all the same places, same types (mostly the start menu). Shit you could say 10 has more since that awful edge desktop widget doesn’t exist by default on 11 as far as I’m aware.
Do people just have such deeply debloated windows 10 installs that they’ve forgotten what windows 10 is actually like? Maybe it’s because it’s been 1.5 years without a major update that reinstalls all the garbage automatically?
My start menu is a glorious thing with zero ads. No programs are listen in those shite block tile things. Removed them all and shrank the start menu to be the same size and feel as ptevious windows versions. In fact, I never even use the start menu for anything anymore but typing CMD.
They killed it for me the day it started searching the web instead of the system. I just navigate to the install folders like I always have years and run programs with the actual exe.
Man I’m programmed to just ctrl+r and type cmd lol
Windows key is 1 less button I need to press
Got me there!
Web search can be disabled with a few registry keys.
Not using it is easier
I think the key is I simply never interact with the OS outside of opening the search bar or PowerToys Run to type in the program I want to open, clicking on desktop shortcuts, or going into Control Panel. All the places they try to sneak ads in I literally just don’t use because there are other, faster ways to get there.
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-remove-most-annoying-ads-from-windows
check out how many settings you have to search and disable to turn off MOST of the ads in windows. It’s completely ridiculous.
Microsoft’s Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems are PCMag Editors’ Choice picks
lol
they keep moving that shit around, too. seems like i’m always finding some new crevice they’ve hidden some setting they don’t want you to know about.
What? I was expecting registry edits from your description. Actually hidden shit. Those examples are all right where you should expect those settings to be.
That really isn’t that many settings, and while it would be nice to have a collected “ads” settings page, those are all located sanely. You just need to pay a modicum of attention to where the ads are on your system, then go to the associated settings page.
Do people in general just not ever go through the settings when they first get something new? I feel like that’s the equivalent of buying some flat packed Ikea furniture and complaining about how shit it is after you throw away the instructions and can’t figure out how it needs to be put together.
Do people in general just not ever go through the settings when they first get something new?
Basically, yeah. Lots of people just mindlessly click next to be finished as fast as possible instead of looking at the page and seeing what it turns on by default.
This was my thought as well. Pretty sure I already have all of that turned off but I would have done that as part of the install and brief customizing of the UI. Can’t say I ever used a guide or anything, or even considered it unusual for modern software.
There aren’t more ads than 10 because MS has added those ads to 10 with each update over the years.
Weather bug in taskbar is an ad server. You click on it and it brings up bing stories to get you to click them and see ads. The search bar now has a little daily decoration. Click it for ads. The search menu has bing news- again to bait you into clicking one and seeing an ad.
All of that is disabled on my system.
And all of these are easily disabled with GPO, registry edits, and other basic system administration means.
One shouldn’t have to disable ads in any OS. They shouldn’t exist in the first place.
Ah, that likely explains it. I know when installing I hit “no” on anything that sounds remotely marketing related and I turned off search and weather because they just don’t add any value and I like a clean screen. So I think the only ads I get are the small, unobtrusive ones on the lock screen, which I can’t say I’m bothered by in the slightest. I barely even notice them since it isn’t like I stare at the lock screen.
I have to use W11, but I use ExplorerPatcher to make it bearable.
I had to purchase new computers for my wife and son. So W11 home edition it is. $12 for for the family pack of startallback and the PC’s run as they should. It’s so stupid that I have to do it, but it clears out all the annoying shit so it’s worth the few bucks.
I have been using classic shell/open shell since Win8 anyways. My screens look the close to the same since Win7 and I am not changing anytime soon.
I’ve been using classic shell fro years. Is there a reason you’re paying for startallback?
They successfully reverted adding a custom toolbar to the taskbar. I create one for each of my cloud drives and one for the desktop. It turns a folder into a menu.
I organize my files in nested folders. It allows me to open files/programs much faster than searching using the mouse hover on the folders
For example:
Clouddrive^research/2023/ file.
Older files or less frequently used ones are buried deeper in a folder tree. Actives ones are very shallow so it’s fast to find them.
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Windows 10 came with Candy Crush ads in the start menu (on my machine), it’s not any better than W11. Don’t get me wrong, I use W11 and think it sucks more overall, but W10 does the same crap.
This popped up over the weekend on my work PC. It was an emergency and I absolutely needed to get to my desktop ASAP.
Nope. Full screen advertisement for Windows 11 demanding my immediate and undivided attention. Blocking all other functions, commands, and inputs. I must interact with this ad or else I cannot use my computer.
Fuck. That.
I am never installing Windows 11. I am never buying another Microsoft operating system. Specifically because of this sort of heavy-handed dark patterned bullshit. Not to mention the fact that Windows 10 is dog shit.
I paid full price for Windows 10 twice, from Microsoft’s website. I believe in paying for good software but Windows 10 was anything but. After the whole forced Microsoft account thing I had very little patience and then Windows 11 dropped. I switched to Linux and never looked back.
I understand if anyone can’t switch or disagree with my point of view, you don’t have to leave a comment.
What do you mean by forced Microsoft account? You can make local accounts out of the box in 10 and 11. It’s just annoying to get around.
There isn’t much stopping them from patching the workaround and forcing a setup screen right after the update. I’m glad it works for you, I’m just not interested in making excuses for a three trillion dollar company .
The point being that he paid for the software and he shouldn’t have to get around if
I agree, but I’m just pointing out that it’s possible to get around it. Microsoft fucking sucks, but I want people to know ways around stuff so they aren’t wasting time and money if they don’t have to.
Yup. Personally only use it for work. Linux all the way on all my machines
I’ve never worked with Linux and I get so drained from work, that I don’t even want to look at a computer when I get home. Idk if I have the energy to learn Linux lol.
I switched to Linux in 2014 mostly because Win 8.1 happened to me.
Learning Linux MInt felt about like learning a new Windows version. Think about what it was like to cope with 7 if you’re used to XP, or 10 if you’re used to 7. It’s about like that. But on Linux, it doesn’t go through those dramatic pointless UI changes. Features get added, they sometimes change the default theme, but they don’t drastically change the workflow from one version to the next. If anything, the UI felt more familiar to me than Win 8.1 did. Coping with things like the new way file systems are handled can be a thing, but as I was already playing with Raspberry Pis and had learned how to type cd and ls in a terminal I was kind of okay with that.
Install mint (cinnamon). Very easy to use for starting. Will make computers fun again. As for games. Most work fine but ymmv
Microsoft fucking sucks, but I want people to know ways around stuff so they aren’t wasting time and money if they don’t have to.
What is the way around Microsoft accounts during 10/11 setup?
10: put no@thankyou.com as the email and whatever the fuck you want as a password. It’ll give you an error then let you proceed with local setup. That’s if it forces you to connect to the Internet. I prefer saying I don’t have Internet and choose the limited setup option.
It’s just annoying to get around.
This right here is exactly why I jumped ship. Linux questions tend to be “How do I do this?” and ya learn something.
Microsoft questions tend to be: “Windows is trying to force some new commercially motivated shenanigans on me when I’m just trying to use the OS I already paid them for, how many clever steps must I take to work around their unending, ever-evolving nonsense… Until they pull something else with the next update?”
The complete obfuscation of making local accounts and pushing M$ accounts was infuriating.
I feel this in my bones. Can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been working on some late night or weekend work emergency when fucking Microsoft throws some random unnecessary bullshit in my path. Haven’t run into the Win 11 mandatory commercial yet. But MS is notorious for wasting our time with push notifications, Teams drama, mandatory updates, and slow ass software that glitches at the worst possible times.
MS lost the way years ago. They forgot that software is supposed to work for us. They demand we work for their shitty software.
“Just use Linux” indeed. Will be doing that in my retirement.
Whenever that switch to linux comes, I recommend linux mint.
Works out of the box, the community using it seems friendly and happy to help, and can be pretty easily configured to fit with windows habits.
Thank you for the recommendation. I have dabbled but have a lot to learn. Looking forward to it.
It seems like every other time I interact with teams I get a “ARE YOU AWARE OF THIS FEATURE” popup that I have to close before I can do whatever it was I was trying to do. It’s annoying as fuck. Then there’s outlook fucking up my view every time I open the calendar across all my work PCs.
Pain. Very familiar. They went full Clippy on us.
I feel you. I wish I wasn’t supporting 3500 windows endpoints but that’s the job. Refuse to use that shit at home though except for gaming. Luckily my home windows 10 has all that dumb shit slipstreamed out. I use a Mac or iPad for most other stuff.
I work at an MSP and it has made me hate Windows with a passion. I don’t even want to look at my own computer when I get home. I do almost everything I need to at home on my phone (a pixel 7) and I game on my PS5, switch, and I will be getting a Steamdeck at some point soon.
I adore my steam deck! I play it at home more than my gaming PC because I can be on the couch with my partner instead of another room. Luckily when I do game on my PC I never have to mess with windows, it’s just opening steam and picking something.
I’m saving up for a fence for my yard and a new patio roof, because those take precedence over fun shit. After that I’m gonna get a steam deck. I wanted to get one with my Xmas bonus, but I had vet bills for my puppy and I was out of work for two months due to an injury.
You can support a Windows domain and tons of endpoints from Linux. I know. My work PC runs Arch, btw.
xfreerdp is much better than mstsc.exe
Welcome to the real corporate world where we have teams of people and good luck trying to get your help desk to support Linux, they can’t even figure out Macs
I doubt my helpdesk staff will support my PC. I manage the company including helpdesk PCs from my PC.
It will probably be last PC working when the dummies in that department manage to get spearfished and all windows boxes are encrypted.
There’s not a lot you can do against idiots with Domain Admin credentials other than off-site backups (on a non AD joined Linux PC of course).
Windows 11? Ads. New outlook program? Ads. Old outlook iOS app? Now injecting ads there too.
Ads are a cancer on the internet.
Nadella has ruined Microsoft.
Are you kidding? He’s made some…questionable decisions over the last couple of years, but look at where Microsoft is at today compared to when Ballmer left. It’s a much more successful, more exciting, and more open company than it was. Could you imagine Ballmer’s Microsoft releasing WSL? Or greenlighting a major faithful remaster and re-release of all 4 of the big Age of Empires games, as well as developing an entire new one? Or buying and actually being a surprisingly good steward of GitHub?
He’s far from perfect, and all the enshittification of the last 2 or 4 years should be roundly criticised. But overall, Nadella has been a net positive for the company both financially and in terms of the company’s societal impact.
The same can not be said for Google’s Pichai…
Yes, let’s look at it. Great for the shareholder, not for the customer.
- phone, dead
- AR/VR product dead
- non-Xbox peripherals, dead
- App Store, a joke
- other stores like books, music, and retail, closed or sold off
- Edge now a bloated privacy invading Chrome clone
- windows is now a crap ad-infested product that only runs on new hardware
Somehow other companies in these spaces have not had problems making this stuff work. It’s obvious all Nadella is interested in is cloud based products with subscriptions. And while that might be insanely profitable, it’s driving the consumer space to Google, Apple, and Linux. All the creativity and inventiveness has been removed from Microsoft. Xbox somehow survives in spite of his leadership.
I have an issue with calling Edge “a bloated privacy invading Chrome clone”. It’s a “a bloated privacy invading Chrome repackage”, thank you.
phone, dead
A product which, as interesting as it was, had sadly failed pretty resoundingly in the market under Ballmer’s leadership.
AR/VR product dead
As far as I’m aware, Hololens still exists? True it’s a product not getting as much attention as might have the potential to, but the same can be said for the entire VR market. Outside of a couple of very narrow fields, nobody has managed to get VR to really catch on the way the hype suggested it might back when Google Glass was a thing or when Hololens was first announced. (Who knows, maybe Apple will manage it with their product like how they made smartphones and tablets mainstream.)
non-Xbox peripherals
Honestly that seems like a real stretch. What exactly was their raison d’être? There are so many options for peripherals from companies that are better at it.
App Store, a joke
A joke when it was released under Ballmer. Still a joke today. That’s not a mark in Nadella’s favour, for sure, but nor can it really be counted against him.
Edge now a bloated privacy invading Chrome clone
Edge only existed under Nadella. Under Ballmer Microsoft still had Internet Explorer.
Great for the shareholder, not for the customer
Depends on what customer you’re talking about. As a software engineer, his tenure has been incredible. WSL is probably the single greatest thing to happen to Windows since '95. .NET Core and later simple .NET is such a huge improvement over the ancient .NET Framework for developing modern applications.
As an RTS gamer, I suspect he probably didn’t have a lot of involvement here, but it was still under his leadership of Microsoft that we’ve seen the greatest era in Microsoft’s first-party gaming since the 1997–2007 period when the original trilogy + AoM were being released by Ensemble Studios.
The creativity and inventiveness at Microsoft died under Ballmer. Nearly any Microsoft watcher will tell you he’s turned it around for the better not just in terms of business, but in terms of how it impacts the customer, as well.
Personally I’ve been relatively disappointed with Microsoft over the last 2-ish years, but compared to the last half-decade or so of Ballmer, the first 8 years of Nadella’s tenure were impeccable.
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Honestly so would I, but looking back on it now, I can’t say that Microsoft has been bad for it. If Microsoft hadn’t bought it, maybe someone else would have, who would have been far worse. Google might have bought it and shut it down 6 months later. Or Facebook data-mined it and sold all your private repos off to Russia. Or we could have been in a world where Microsoft did what many (myself included) expected would happen, with them ruining it themselves.
Yes, GitHub staying independent would have been the best-case scenario. But what we got was probably second-best.
MS is still alive ONLY because of the licensing model they use which makes all corporations globally dependent. Period. The bundles, the product dependency, the price. If it’s not for this it would have banished years ago.
Microsoft is still alive. That is bad. And nadella made it bigger. Even worse.
No company that size and power should exist at all.
Whether Nadella is running Microsoft well is a separate argument from whether trillion dollar corporations should be allowed to exist.
Thought the original comment was that nadella ruined microsoft by letting it live. And comment i replied to missed that point.
Maybe wrong then.
WSL? Trying to keep developers on the platform. Ages of Empire? Bought up studios to get a grasp on the market. Github? Again developers on their platform.
Nadella has been a net positive for the company
Exactly. That doesn’t mean positive for the customer. He only made the cancer bigger.
As a software developer: MS has been 100X better to work with under Nadella. He may not know what to do with the operating system side of things, but the .NET/Azure/android/linux etc side has never been healthier.
Are you implying it was good before that?
He did make it worse, but I don’t know about “ruined”
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Yep, my computer is zippy and nice but they won’t even let me upgrade. I’m off to Linux once I’ve finished BG3.
You may want to try BG3 on linux, too. Might even get better performances at this point.
So BG3 probably runs just fine but my main concern was that I made the purchase on GOG and downloading it manually was a nightmare and I kept getting failures to download or install with the 3rd party GOG launcher solutions. If I could have gotten past that, I would have been golden. I didn’t want to invest the time to figure it out so I just reverted back for the time being.
I was super impressed with Steam + proton though. Insane how far Linux gaming has come.
Use heroic! It works great as an unofficial gog client for Linux, you can try it on windows to see how it works
I’ll try it out next time! I was trying to dive head first and probably should have just dual booted until I worked out the kinks.
BG3 runs more reliably on Linux for me, though my Windows install is getting old and crusty these days.
Microsoft didn’t get nearly enough flak for the amount of environmental damage they will cause with that decision. A literal mountain of computers being unnecessarily replaced worldwide.
I’m Running the most recent kernel and Linux on a rolling release distro, on my 8 year old Ryzen, with upgraded GPU. Runs buttery smooth even with new games! Windows is a joke.
Meanwhile I’ve got the latest Linux Mint running on a laptop that turns 10 years old this August.
My hardware is closing in between 7-9 years depending on the part. Have been meaning to upgrade and convert to Linux, but for now my pc “just works”
Slows my pc down while downloading and prepping upgrade. Attempts upgrade. Not compatible. Undoes upgrade. Bitches to upgrade the next week…
You know who won’t do you dirty like this?
A certain penguin knows.
I have a dual boot. And the penguin works and Microsoft is still sitting around not having an update. I don’t really care. But I can’t game with out Windows. So, bleh.
Can’t play certain games* without windows
Which games are keeping you on windows?
I’m curious because I’m in a similar situation, but really the only game I know isn’t going to work is Tarkov.
Fortnite specifically for me. My son plays it and it’s how we hang out. So, yes. I’m going to keep doing that.
I think the most major ones are
- Tarkov
- Valorant
- Overwatch
- Fortnite
If you know any other major titles LMK
Valorant and now League of Legends use kernel based anti-cheat, so they’re off the table.
I play overwatch on endeavouros and I have better experience on it than in windows. League of legends will stop working soon. In general most of the games with rootkit anticheat clients will not work on Linux. On protondb you can see rankings and user comments about games. Last I checked 2% of all games are not working on Linux.
I can play every Paradox Game on Linux. Therefore, I can play every game that matters. Now, if you need me, I’ll be in Crusader Kings, trying to build a family tree that looks like a giant beanstalk.
I’m actually transitioning. Windows for what I need it for but daily driver on mint. I think that makes the updates worse since I’m not using Windows as often.
These incessant, full-screen upgrade ads, with no way of canceling other than a small “Remind me later” tucked away in the corner, where the final straw from me switching to Linux.
When this screen recently came up, i had a mini stroke because it looked like it just updated itself… Iam really sold for linux mint, but my laptop is currently my desktop and i need functional Dockingstation use and an external gpu. Which doesn’t do well on Linux :(
I guess I’m lucky I just get the “System requirements not met” instead of the Win11 update option.
Purposely not fixing that issue
Yeah same here. Don’t have TPM, not buying a new CPU just to enable Microsoft’s bullshit, so we are at an empasse.
I do have TPM, still not turning it on.
My computer is good enough to run any games I want to play, even recently released FPS types of games at reasonably high settings. Still not good enough for Win11. My weak-ass tablet, though, was upgraded straight away.
Yeah that’s funny how a gaming laptop with a beefy i7 can’t be upgraded but an enterprise laptop with whatever pitiful i3 can be. Even though gamers see windows as their primary OS, Microsoft clearly doesn’t see gamers as their primary audience.
that’s probably the case with the majority of those still using win10 outside of ‘enterprise’ (corporate managed) environments. those upgrade ‘offers’ are quite effective at tricking people into the ‘upgrade’
There’s a reason everyone says “Just use Linux”
I jumped onboard last weekend. Built my new computer from parts because I couldn’t find a system I liked that didn’t come with a Windows license, and I refuse to pay for a shitty OS I won’t use.
I installed Mint have been happily gaming for just over a week now. I even upgraded my kernel when I came home for lunch one day. That’s not something you can say about Windows!
I’d recommend staying with your current distro if you’re happy with it!
Linux gang, but I use Windows at work and do a full update (“Please wait… We’re working on things…”) weekly over lunch due to being trapped in the Windows insider program. It takes about half an hour. Longer than compiling a kernel though.
The pain of this. I have two separate Windows work laptops (one for my employer, one for the firm we work with; data separation fun). The number of times I’ve booted up the second laptop ready to dive into a meeting or to quickly grab a reference only to be confronted with 15 minutes of that.
Between pestering me to check for updates, pestering me to restart to complete updates, hanging on shutdown to carry out updates, and hanging on startup to finish updates, I feel like I spend an unfeasible amount of time and brainspace thinking about system updates. Why? I’ve got actual work to do too!
that’s awesome, i’d recommend trying out EndeavorOs for your next distro
It’s really so much better. I’m going on a year now since I ditched windows and I have to say it’s been great and there’s nothing I miss about windows.
There is a reason these people get blocked
Everyone says to just keep it at Windows 10 or that Windows 11 is not that bad as that’s the majority of people. It’s a small group that says to just use Linux, and if you think it’s everyone it suggests you are in an echo chamber/don’t participate widely enough in various communities.
As a Windows 10 user who tried Win 11, it’s super gross. I’m hoping to get my shit together enough to convert to linux this year before Microsoft forces my hand.
If Microsoft forces my hand it’ll probably mean a month without gaming and I’ll be a sad, sad boy.
Linux gaming is a thing. Lutris and steam are working quite well. In some games I have better performance than windows. That being said not everything is working, some games are not working at all and other games have quite some settings and fiddling until they work. Check protondb where you can see users comments and game compatibility ranking for the games you play. Sometimes I want to go back to windows, but for the last 5 months I’ve booted windows once or twice. There is a learning curve and getting used to Linux, but in my opinion it is worth it. If you want to transition from windows don’t go with gnome. Start with kde or xfce, or cinnamon.
Every time I’ve tried to upgrade Windows major versions in place, it’s been a terrible experience. And not on potatoes, either!
From XP to Vista, everything broke. This was long enough ago that I don’t remember exactly how it broke, just that it made my computer unusable and I had to reinstall from CD. I mean, that makes sense though, right? Vista was terrible. From Vista to 7 (on a different machine), I just did a fresh install.
I skipped 8. After that, my Windows 7 machine (a third machine now) kept begging me to upgrade to 10, so I tried it. But even though Microsoft’s own tool told me everything would work just fine, the install was absolutely trash. I was stuck at 1024x768 (on a 16:9 monitor). Performance even with no programs running was so bad—on a machine that could easily run Adobe Premiere and Photoshop simultaneously under Win7—that it took ±30 seconds to open Task Manager. Exactly zero drivers for any USB peripherals worked; I had to dig out my PS/2 keyboard to revert the install.
At this point I must just be out of my mind, because last fall I let Windows 11 install on my Windows 10 computer (a fourth machine). The installation took several hours somehow, and when it was done wifi didn’t work. There were a few other annoyances, like stealing back defaults and reverting my Firefox default on every reboot. Being in no mood to deal with the nonsense, I switched back to Windows 10. And guess what? Wifi was still broken. Windows 11 broke network connectivity on Windows 10.
These were all good computers, and I don’t do anything particularly odd or unusual with them.
I’m never doing an in-place Windows upgrade again. No way, no how. Not gonna happen.
Ultimately it will all be anecdotal.
I’ve done plenty of upgrades without issues.
And I’ve tried Linux and found it abysmal with way too much of the sorts of issues you’ve mentioned.
So for me Linux is obviously a no go, but I could see why it would appeal perhaps to someone like yourself. Ultimately we are directed by our experiences.
Ultimately it will all be anecdotal.
Oh, for sure. But in any case, their QA isn’t as robust as it seems. With only one such experience, it would be bad luck. Maybe even with two. But with multiple, across experiences with few common factors, it seems more like ineptitude; and what else have they missed?
And I’ve tried Linux and found it abysmal with way too much of the sorts of issues you’ve mentioned.
Right, but I think what I’m trying to communicate is, if I’m going to run the risk that I’ll have to deal with this nonsense either way, why not at least use an OS which has goals aligned with my own?
Well if you use a shit product you have constantly to fix because something is bothering you, you might as well change to something else.
Your fault.
Yes I agree. This is why I use Windows over Linux because Linux requires too much tinkering…
Thanks?
What smells like copium in here?
? My experience is as valid as anyone else’s.
If you can’t cope with that then I guess you are the one huffing copium.
If you find a community like that then they are too tech illiterate to be taking advice from
If you have to be on Windows then you have to upgrade
If you can’t upgrade/want a better experience then it’s Linux
There should be no “stay on Windows 10” group because it will be EOL in a year
Eh I’m glad that’s for you and you’re happy, and I know Lemmy might as well be the Linux fan club, but for me personally?
I’ve tried to switch to Linux on 2 occasions in the past (mid to late 00s and again in the mid 20-teens) and both times I found the conversion process tedious, the experience within the system to be one that felt like I was constantly fighting the system to accomplish my goals, and ultimately after giving it a few months each time, was absolutely relieved and delighted to finally give it up and go back to Windows each time. I tried at least 4 different flavors as well, so I don’t think it was so much that I just happened to not like one specific software, but rather that my primary annoyance was that I just wanted Windows and none of the Linux substitutes were it.
I’m sure a lot of that is simply being used to Windows after using it since the early to mid 90s, and I’m not saying Windows is perfect by any means…but for me at least, even a slightly annoying Windows experience will remain preferable to me over a third attempt to switch to Linux for the foreseeable future.
I just wanted Windows and none of the Linux substitutes were it.
Of course not. At the very least you have to be fed up with Windows before moving elsewhere. If you want Windows, stay with Windows.
You shouldn’t continue using Windows 10 after end of life though. Once it doesn’t get security patches anymore, it is a time bomb. And since the code base is easily 80-90% the same across versions, new vulnerabilities patched on newer versions are just hints for malware devs making the obsolete version even more likely to be attacked.
I’ve tried to switch to Linux on 2 occasions in the past (mid to late 00s and again in the mid 20-teens)
I’m not saying Windows is perfect by any means…but for me at least, even a slightly annoying Windows experience will remain preferable to me over a third attempt to switch to Linux for the foreseeable future.
To be fair, Linux gaming in the 2015s is not anywhere near as good as it is today in 2024.
I’d honestly say it’s worth another try, the third time may be the charm for you.
Windows 10 is the end of the line for me regardless of software compatibility.
That’s it Microsoft…keep pushing more people to use Linux. 🐧
It’s working. I’m in the (looooooong) process of moving over to Linux.
Same here, I used to be 100% Windows, now I only have a single device in my house that uses it. Windows becomes less useful over time as they push these dark patterns as Linux continues to improve.
I’m similar, I have my gaming desktop running Win10, and my old gaming desktop which migrated from Win7 to Win10 acting as a media center PC. Everything else is using Linux, either Debian or Proxmox. When Win10 hits end of life, the media center PC is an easy upgrade to Debian, but proton only supports ~70% of the games I’d like to play well, so I either need to keep a Windows machine around, or do virtualization + hardware passthrough, both of which are a pain.
With the direction Windows is going, I don’t think I’ll really even want a VM in 2030.
Gaming is literally the only thing keeping me chained to windows. As you said 70% is not 100% and I play a lot of random games. It’s not enough to play some of what I want just to avoid Microsuck even though I reallllllly want to…
Exactly. I only have my workstation on Windows still. Well, it has Linux too, but I use some Windows only software and hardware so it’ll be some time before I figure that out. Will probably have to run Windows in a VM with hardware pass through, if I can get reasonable latency for music production that way.
Linux people are so annoying
Yeah we are… but not more annoying than Microsoft pushing ads everywhere. 😋
:3
Look, no hate, but I always find these kinds of comments funny because I’ve been reading them for over twenty years.
It’s not going to happen, certainly not in any significant numbers.
Hell, look at the fediverse. The vast majority of internet users find signing up to mastodon hard, let alone lemmy. How the hell are these people supposed to install linux, for example when they follow many an ‘easy’ linux installation guide, but then find Rufus isn’t able to create a bootable USB stick in fat32? How are they supposed to verify their data, or hell change the bios settings when the guide they read gives them the wrong key to press to enter the bios? And then if by some miracle they do manage to install linux, you expect them to move away from all the apps they’ve grown used to? They’ll try to install MS office on linux and blame this not working on linux.
TLDR: Gretchen! Stop trying to make mass linux adoption happen! It’s not going to happen!
It’s not going to happen
It’s…been happening. Notice how gaming on Linux is an actual thing and large companies like Valve now put out things like the SteamDeck that use Linux, not Windows.
windows costs money, per device. microsoft places limits, pretty strict ones, on how far oems can go wrt customizations of the oobe, the ui/ux, and other shit. valve didn’t chose linux because of anything other than it was the only reasonable choice for what they wanted to produce.
Just the fact Linux is a viable, and preferred, choice for a gaming handheld speaks volumes to how far Windows has slipped. This was an arena that nobody else competed in 10 years ago, the only choice was Windows. Now if you want a gaming handheld that won’t chew through the battery via piles of ads and background processes, Linux is the choice.
Valve has been doing (or trying to do) Linux things for a long time. The reason is Microsoft’s move towards a centralized Windows Store and their Xbox on Windows. That’s a huge threat to Valve because they could all of a sudden find themselves in a situation where the preferred way to game on Windows is through their gaming competitor Microsoft’s services because they control the OS. That’s why Valve has been working hard for many years now to get gaming on Linux to the state it’s currently in. It’s for survival on their part.
So, do you stop rooting for your favourite sports team because they can’t be world champion? Do you not support a small artist you like because he won’t ever be as big as van Gogh?
Like, will desktop Linux overtake Windows anytime soon in market share? No. Do I use Linux on all my machines? Yes. Does that mean I’m not allowed to like it / hope for more adoption or hell, help people who would like to get away from Windows?
I get your point and I mostly agree. But why exactly should that be an argument for people to stop liking / improving something that’s objectively got more future?
he won’t ever be as big as van Gogh
Wait until you learn how big van Gogh was during his life…
TL;DR:
“Stop advocating for things you care about, it’ll never happen. Fuck your passions and your want to share them with people.”
That’s how you sound.
I don’t think entry level users are what will be converted, at least first. It’s users like you and me. Users that, for whatever reason, haven’t preferred Linux historically. I’ve tried the new popular distro every few years to ‘check in’ with Linux, and each time I ended up running into some issue which reaffirmed my preference for Windows sooner or later.
Until I tried Debian 12 a couple of months ago, that is. Between nonfree drivers, Wayland and its compatibility throughout the ecosystem, and updates to GNOME, it’s honestly been refreshingly user-friendly and feels more optimised than Windows.
Importantly, in searching for alternatives to Windows-only software I use, I didn’t have any problems and in one case actually ended up finding new software I prefer.
The peace of mind of my OS not trying to sell me something or trying to farm my engagement is nice too, but not why I’d recommend giving it a try. I’ve always gotten behind it in principle support of free software, but now I can get behind it actually using it. I’d recommend it because it genuinely seems better in my general use.
Linux has something like 15% market share in India and growing
lol my reasonably good gaming pc doesn’t even meet the minimum system requirements. I don’t have anything with a cpu that’s in the “list of approved CPUs” 😎. Guess I can’t use Windows even if I wanted to. 🤷
So absurd. My i5-6600K apparently didn’t make the cut either. Sure it’s almost 10 years old now but it runs W10 just fine. Thank god for Linux Mint.
You can. Just make the installation USB using Rufus. Rufus allows to configure the Windows 11 iso to override minimum requirements. Almost all Windows 10 drivers work with Windows 11 too. I’m running Windows 11 on an ancient 1st Gen i7 Laptop with 6GB Memory and an NVIDIA GT 425M. Works better than Windows 10.
Plus if I remember correctly rufus disabled at least SOME of the spyware
I think you are misremembering, since the iso already contains all the microsoft shitware, rufus can’t strip those out.You might have used a custom build.
So. If my PC cannot be upgraded because of your bullshit requirements, can you leave me alone please.
Also in win 11… if I have an office subscription activated in the OS can you please not throw ads for office 365 then.
It’s nonsense.
i just set up a new one the ‘right’ (according to microsoft) way; allowing it on the network and to link to msa right off the bat, during oobe. sure you ‘installed’ the office (had 365 on that msa)–it was already there, you just ‘activated’ it. you also messed-up the document libraries, relocating three to onedrive, even though no pc on the msa has ever even had onedrive turned on in the first place. you also linked the edge browser to msa, even though the user has never, ever used edge for anything (user has been using firefox, exclusively, forever).
there were full screen ads more cloud space and for xbox whatever-the-fuck-that-was during ‘first boot’.
I’m a Mac user. I like using Macs, and I like using macOS. Apple are just as bad as MS for this shit.
I have an old MacBook Pro, as well as a pair of older minis. All three were left behind by macOS a few years ago, but if they weren’t all running Sonoma through OpenCore, they’d have an update in the App Store to upgrade to a new OS that Apple won’t let them run.
I think with the latter it might be them pushing a personal account, assuming you’re logged in with a work account. It often does this to me on my work computer. Or, it’s just being typically annoying - that would make sense too.
No I have it on a personal account on that pc… it’s part of the family network.
Ok, so it’s just being extra annoying then. Doesn’t surprise me.
Thanks for thinking with me. Keep on being excellent!
Jokes on them, I disabled by TPM chip and I’m now incompatible. Fuck W11
Some regedit tweaks can bypass it. But yeah
Windows update can revert a regedit change. Can’t fuckin touch the BIOS / UEFI
Not these entries m8
Maybe not. But I remember there was a regedit for disabling Cortana and Microsoft straight up revered it in an update. Not only that, windows was unable to boot and I had to fix it in safe mode
Doesnt actually matter in this case. After the install you can revert the tweaks and your still good. It just trys to prevent the install.
I have even clonned full win11 installs to systems that do not meet the minimum requirement. And it boots no problem (ofcourse disable bitlocker before clonning if it is enabled.)
I had to update my BIOS a while ago and it set TPM back to disabled as default. Voila. No Windows 11 prompts because, as far as it can tell, I do not meet the requirements.
Brilliant! TPM as a crappy OS ad blocker… but this is still the worst timeline.
My $2000 PC built a year before its release with no TPM will beg to differ.
if you built a $2000 desktop and didn’t specifically go out and source old parts… it’s got one, most likely, you’ve just chosen to not enable it. intel and amd cpu have them built-in and motherboards and their bios support those. they don’t need headers for a module or a discrete tpm chip on the board.
