Using Windows 11 is, for me personally, absolutely brutal. The defaults feel anti user. An example in the form of an issue I encountered recently: if you have an OS that fails to boot, and you had files on demand enabled in directories backed up with one drive, the files are totally inaccessible on the local disk, even if you had them "synced".
It seems like retrieving files from my SSD should be a basic function of a general purpose OS, but they've gone and bungled it in order to push dependence on their cloud services.
General answer: Because it's needless complexity (relying on a company's service rather than... reading from a local disk) that masks what is actually happening behind the scenes. It will always be less reliable.
Answer in that specific situation: They were files in a OneDrive that no longer existed after a tenant migration (they hired a consulting company that seemed to bungle things).
Absolutely as a work tool it is perfect. No chance I'd be as productive if I was to be forced to use Windows in a software development professional environment.
I find it really surprising on the rare occasion these days that somebody shares the screen and suddenly Windows is there.
Windows constantly nags me to "back up my files to OneDrive". There does not appear to be a way to turn off this nag, just silence it for 30 days at a time. This is just one of the many annoyances that mean I rarely boot windows anymore.
Trying to use the file browser (Explorer) on Windows 11 is enough to make me want to gouge my eyes out. I only use Windows for launching Call of Duty. As soon as the game is off, the PC gets turned off.
Linux gets a lot of flack for having UI issues - but truth be told modern Windows is a case study in lava driven development where some apps look like they were made in 1998 and others look like they were made by the IKEA childrens department. Heck even the OS installer has not been touched since Windows 7 and is pretty terrible.
Modern KDE is really worth taking for a spin. I find it to be far more visually consistent than Windows 11. The customization can be all the rope to hang yourself with but if you don't go hogwild with that I find it is a very clean, modern and consistent desktop experience.
You aren't really suffering because the group policy manager or whatever isn't written in the latest winui framework. I'd rather continuity than apple style shenanigans in the name of an annual rebrand and spitshine.
Apple is literally the definition of continuity. All of their apps have looked great and have remained consistent since OS X was initially released. Recent exception is the changes to the system settings panel, but the old design was the same for like 15 years.
Just going through the "Let's finish setting up your PC!" that pops up after certain Windows updates (which is a problem in and of itself) illustrates the design inconsistency. Each stage of the wizard is a distinct web view rendering a completely different UI that has different fonts and buttons. You can get them to glitch and scroll a-la old school iframes, too.
The context menus in Win11? They are fancy and new but 90% of the functions you want and need are hidden behind a disclosure menu that - you guessed it - pops out an ancient looking Windows 10 menu. Why even add the facade with limited functions? Just keep the old menu.
I could probably write a 20 page blog post on all the UI fuckery in Windows 11.
There is something to be said for the MSC stuff / management console remaining the same all these years ... but at that point we could all just be happy on Windows 2K shell with modern kernel and security enhancements.
KDE is the pretty terrible in terms of consistency. Because it tries to support every variation of workflow it always felt like it was really lacking in UX. Ive tried several times to get it but I usually fall back to Gnome. Even if I don't agree with every decision and lack of customization at least it feels like there's some vision in how it should be used.
Amazing is the new Outlook app for Windows, which inserts adverts inline into your inbox and disguises them to look like emails so that you'll click on them. Better yet, the new Outlook will forcefully replace the existing built-in Mail app in 2024.
Amazing is the new Edge browser, which syndicates clickbait articles and adverts from some of the worst and most divisive publishers right onto the opening screen. Attempts to download other browsers are met with nagware popups pleading with you to use Edge.
I thought the same, until I noticed a really annoying WSL2 bug: On two machines I own, waking up from hibernate or standby causes a wsl related process (vmmem) to consume 100% CPU, with wsl becoming completely unresponsive (including wsl terminate etc).
You have to kill all wsl processes, which requires admin rights. So without elevated rights, Ubuntu on windows is not usable on these laptops.
I ran into this issue as well. I also spent a few hours debugging problems with a database just to discover that I could not reach a server because WSL2 does not support IPV6 (https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4518)
I'm very much a Linux person, having used it for decades, but I still find whenever I need to do something in Windows, that it's a total mess with regards to the different GUI paradigms in use in different tools. For instance, setting up an iSCSI volume drops you into some archaic window that isn't resizable despite having lengthy WWIDs that need to have their column size increased so that you can then scroll and actually see the relevant bit at the end. And that's just one example from the top of my head. Maybe I just notice the glaring inconsistencies and user-unfriendliness of it because I'm much more at home using a CLI which is typically very flexible and doesn't force you to interact with poorly designed GUIs.
I will say, with a touch of humor (but also some genuine sharpness), it's been somewhat entertaining to watch things go from "Linux sucks because it's so inconsistent because it's built by a bunch of people with different ideas" to watching Windows, a single OS by exactly one company, devolve into the same hodgepodge. Like, sure, making GTK and QT apps look similar is a pain (if you even bother), but what's your excuse when they're all under one roof?
If you need to connect iSCSI I'd say you're definitely not the target user base for Windows 11. I use W11 at home (streaming, browsing, emails, word) completely happy, it's a no-brain-required environment and W11 is perfect for that. At work I happily use Linux for all the tricks and updates and whatnot I actually need to do to win my bread. And someone else will happily use MacOS for artistry... so? Does that deny the use case of any others? No it doesn't.
I have no issue with people using whatever OS they want to - that's part of why I had a big grudge against Microsoft over the years with their anti-competitive strategies. It just amazes me that other people don't pick up on the obvious issues that come with competing teams producing different parts of the OS. There's still a bunch of old style control panel tools in use in Win11 and they've been there since Vista at least.
My kids windows computers suddenly activated Family mode so I need to log onto my MS account to authorize absolutely everything; but only in Edge, not Chrome. What's the point. It's very frustrating. I'll probably switch it to Linux for the one that uses Google classroom at school.
That's more to do with the flexibility of choice and that there isn't one controlling organisation. However, the use of a CLI is pretty much ubiquitous with Linux and it's usually trivial to get text output into whatever form that you desire.
I suppose my biggest gripe with Windows is non-resizable windows still in use in it - just why?
I feel like Windows is the bud light of operating systems. It's corporate, a worse experience than alternatives, increasingly focused on advertising and is only popular because it's the only beer on tap at your favorite bar (video games).
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It seems like retrieving files from my SSD should be a basic function of a general purpose OS, but they've gone and bungled it in order to push dependence on their cloud services.
General answer: Because it's needless complexity (relying on a company's service rather than... reading from a local disk) that masks what is actually happening behind the scenes. It will always be less reliable.
Answer in that specific situation: They were files in a OneDrive that no longer existed after a tenant migration (they hired a consulting company that seemed to bungle things).
I find it really surprising on the rare occasion these days that somebody shares the screen and suddenly Windows is there.
Deleted Comment
Windows is also free if you know where to look for it :)
"Thousands of proceedings due to dubious Microsoft licenses
Anyone who buys a very cheap license key for Microsoft products must expect to be summoned by the police or have their house searched."
Linux gets a lot of flack for having UI issues - but truth be told modern Windows is a case study in lava driven development where some apps look like they were made in 1998 and others look like they were made by the IKEA childrens department. Heck even the OS installer has not been touched since Windows 7 and is pretty terrible.
Modern KDE is really worth taking for a spin. I find it to be far more visually consistent than Windows 11. The customization can be all the rope to hang yourself with but if you don't go hogwild with that I find it is a very clean, modern and consistent desktop experience.
Just going through the "Let's finish setting up your PC!" that pops up after certain Windows updates (which is a problem in and of itself) illustrates the design inconsistency. Each stage of the wizard is a distinct web view rendering a completely different UI that has different fonts and buttons. You can get them to glitch and scroll a-la old school iframes, too.
The context menus in Win11? They are fancy and new but 90% of the functions you want and need are hidden behind a disclosure menu that - you guessed it - pops out an ancient looking Windows 10 menu. Why even add the facade with limited functions? Just keep the old menu.
I could probably write a 20 page blog post on all the UI fuckery in Windows 11.
There is something to be said for the MSC stuff / management console remaining the same all these years ... but at that point we could all just be happy on Windows 2K shell with modern kernel and security enhancements.
Amazing is the new Edge browser, which syndicates clickbait articles and adverts from some of the worst and most divisive publishers right onto the opening screen. Attempts to download other browsers are met with nagware popups pleading with you to use Edge.
Truly amazing.
You have to kill all wsl processes, which requires admin rights. So without elevated rights, Ubuntu on windows is not usable on these laptops.
The issue is known for years and has hundreds of comments on GitHub without a fix (https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/6982)
There's literally a setting with the word Family in it. Although I don't know how computers would activate whatever on their own.
I suppose my biggest gripe with Windows is non-resizable windows still in use in it - just why?
I think the one thing we can all agree regardless of OS we like or are using is: Windows 11 is NOT amazing.
It's.. Windows. It's good/bad/ok/whatever but not amazing.
As for Linux, reading the comments it's safe to say 2023 doesn't look like it's the year of Linux on the desktop. Maybe 2024 :)
I’m curious who at Microsoft is blowing this opportunity by making these bad decisions and burning the credit they earned with developers?
Brandon Leblanc? Someone higher up? Satya?