I can't even remove 'Recommended' from the start menu, not even on a Pro for Workstations.
Every time I search on the start menu there is a web search, impossible to turn off. How is that acceptable?
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.
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.
It's not my computer any more.
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?
I would also recommend starship (https://starship.rs/) for your Powershell, which is cross platform and therefore usable for all popular shells. Scoop can also install and manage nerd fonts:
That's not the exclusive problem to Microsoft - it happens all around us within the IT world. The corporations stopped acknowledging the permanent "No" anymore and the actual user choice. It's a plain harassment up until you give up and agree to what you get shoveled with.
Whenever I read comments regarding last two Windows versions and issues people had or have with these, or news about newest Microsoft "ideas" - I ask myself, where the hell are regulators?
We have killed them. If a government tries to do anything against a company that isn't a perfect 1:1 mapping to an explicit thing in the law that they are breaking, the company will sue back and win. And if they try to pass such a law, the biggest companies are powerful enough to get rid of them next term, so they don't even try.
Happens to me all the time with Google because I'm choosing not to pay for their backup. They constantly bother me about almost running out of space, even with a modal that requires you to use a toggle to dismiss it without accepting. It's gross.
This illustrates just how ridiculously screwed up Windows is now.
No one should have to resort to registry hacking or the many scripts or hacks available to regain control over basic UX, privacy, or usability selections. It is absolutely absurd.
This wouldn't even be sooooo bad if we could still google how to disable and fix everything... but complete google search collapse is exacerbating microsofts shit to an unbelievable unfixable level.
Like if some drastic new search doesn't appear within a couple years we are talking IT not being able to fix problems anymore
You can use Windows Firewall to block outbound connections from the Start bar. It would be nice if some basic features like calculator would still work, but no luck.
What do you mean when you say it doesn't "work"? You click the windows icon and nothing comes up? It displays but nothing is clickable? On 2 different machines? Really? This seems like hyperbole. It sounds like there's a specific feature that doesn't work for you as it used to, but instead of describing the issue you've thrown up your hands and declared it to not work. If it truly does not open or respond to clicks I'd love to know about it and retract this comment!
> All this fuzzy language makes me feel like I'm dealing with a kindergarden teacher addressing his/her pupils.
Very fitting… both the kindergarten teacher addressing her pupils vs Windows abusing its users have the one thing in common - people who have zero chance of escaping their control and little influence to chamge their situation. In the business world, it’s called a captive market
> Since when is 6.6.1.40 better than 6.6.1.72? Why would you do that?
well, recently, there was a compromised update to a software package and the recommendation was to roll back to a previous version. there are definite times when removing the latest not-so-greatest for a previous version is the best solution. there's no reason to lose the plot in your ranting. you just lose credibility in your arguments at that point
"The US federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has issued a security advisory recommending that the affected devices should roll back to a previous uncompromised version."[0]
For some consolation: Windows Autoupdates can be disabled and likewise driver installs in general via Group Policy, which is available if you use Pro or above.
Windows updates can be disabled on any edition with my "I wasn't asking" approach of moving C:/Windows/system32/wua*.dll somewhere else. You can put these dlls back when and if you want to install updates.
Not exclusively a Microsoft/Windows problem. It reminds me the nagging "Update iOS" messages in iphone, that take you to a new screen to dismiss them. Also in iOS, you can't use their wallet app for tickets and other cards if you don't add a payment card there, because they have this huge banner that says "Get started with Apple Pay" and that can't be dismissed. Disgusting.
This is false. I don’t use Apple Pay and I have lots of tickets and such. You don’t add them from within the Wallet app. The Apple Pay prompt is shown whenever you don’t have any passes or whatever in the wallet.
1) WSL2 is fantastic to work. Having various Linux images on my system is nice, this is huge for me alone
2) plenty of things work just better on windows like Docker
3) stuff like power tools is insanely useful
4) monitor, windows and desktop management is very well done in comparison to the mess of MacOS
5) I don't have all these issues the article describes. An automatic update has never broken my computer let alone ruined my flow
6) I don't see these ads, maybe in the start menu there are but I just never use it I have shortcuts
7) MacOS is way more annoying
for me. I really dislike the filesystem, the window management, the fact that it will be always a third class citizen to Linux for software development (still have nightmares about installing Haskell and other languages on MacOS), the fact that it keeps resetting the output of my monitors at every sleep
I could provide other reasons but essentially it is way better for me and my use case than alternatives.
Unless I'm using a laptop, there I prefer MacOS for hardware.
On Pro it would be better to use the group policy editor. As a bonus this also ensures the setting survives updates, which is not always a given for raw registry edits.
It's frankly offensive that this utterly pointless "feature" can't just be disabled. Starting Photoshop used to be windowskey, "ph", enter. Now, by default, it will give you an Edge Bing search for "ph"...
But even if you wait a few seconds before confirming, you'll get some garbage like Windows Photos, even though that's literally never been used.
At least the start menu got a lot faster with the net search disabled, but dropping usage based ordering is just another sign that Windows is NOT aimed at power users anymore.
I have absolutely none of these problems on my Windows 11 pro for workstations desktop. My computer is very much my computer and I seem to have full total control over everything. I'm not sure what I do differently than everyone else but that's just how it is.
Try completely removing one drive to understand the rest of our pain. Even if you manage to get the program gone, somehow the default file save location for many applications is still a (now deleted) one drive folder. If you forget and click save.. well now you have one drive again.
You're getting downvoted, as will I, because presenting an alternative anecdotal experience isn't acceptable in Windows threads. I've learned this the hard way.
Unfortunately just like the original post is anecdotal (I haven't had a machine fail to startup after an update since XP) not all anecdotes are born equal.
Interestingly, I don't see adverts myself, and I've never seen any at work. I -suspect- that's heavily regionalized.
Are there features I don't care for? Sure - I don't use OneDrive, I don't internet search from the Start bar, and I use Edge only occasionally. But it's not like somehow you -have- to use everything they ship.
I get it. An OS is personal. If you don't like Windows, use MacOS or Linux. All 3 have different approaches and one of them will fit you better than the others. Arguing over which is better or worse is like fighting over ice-cream flavors.
It's because people fuck with the registry, run those decrapifier scripts etc. They completely mess with the guts doing nonstandard things and eventually it turns into a mess. Ask me how I know.
After I started administering fleets of Windows machines, I learned that if you don't fuck with it, it's fine!
If you need to make changes, use group policy. Don't like OneDrive? Don't use it! Uninstalling it is going to fuck things up.
Install updates as they come. "But it breaks things!" No it doesn't. It only does if you've fucked your registry to hell.
Just leave things alone and stop trying to customize it like a Linux box is my advice. It is what it is and will work fine if you use it the way it's intended.
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 did this about three months ago in response to Windows insisting again that I must link my desktop user with my Live account. I'm blown away by how viable Linux gaming is now, entirely because of money dumped in by Valve. It's only looking better, too, the deck means people are motivated to at least make sure it boots in Wine, and if they support Vulkan the perf will likely work out well.
I installed Windows for a media PC for the first time in many years, and holy shit it’s insane. The dark patterns. The nags. It’s a given they are somehow tracking everything I do and selling all of my files. They are milking boomers who will never switch from Windows as a cash cow, longterm they know Windows is dead as a personal desktop. Their revenue is no longer dependent on Windows PC so it’s an end game scenario.
That's what finally gave me the confidence to switch to Linux a year ago. I'm running Manjaro on my main system and Valve's efforts in improving WINE/creating Proton have been fantastic. The amount of games that "just work" has been nothing short of amazing.
I also moved over to PopOS over a year ago and have been quite happy with the end result. Between Steam and Lutris I’ve been able to run everything I want to, and I don’t have to play whack-a-mole with Microsoft’s “features” that I’m not interested in.
Bonus points: I’m having fun with my computer again!
My last version of Windows was 7. After that I used a MacBook for work for a few years, and I somewhat missed windows for gaming (but mainly used a PS4 during that time so I got by). Then, a few years ago, I switched exclusively to Linux (I’ve usually had a dual boot or a second machine running Linux, but it was rarely my exclusive OS), and haven’t looked back. I’ve since also got a Steam Deck which has completely replaced my PS4, while I also play a few games like Crusader Kings on my Linux laptop.
Gaming is what kept a lot of people on windows over the years, but thanks to valve and the proton team, Linux gaming works as well as Windows gaming (and some people say better than — I certainly don’t have to deal with all the crap Microsoft tries to put into windows).
Some people refuse to use Linux because they’re afraid of having to tinker with it, but that hasn’t been my experience in over a decade. Things have generally just worked for me.
Would not say that Linux gaming works as well as Windows gaming. Plenty of things won't work in Proton, at least not out of the box, and you're kinda restricted to AMD GPUs. That's fine cause I don't play video games anymore, but people who really care about that will put up with a lot of MS's BS.
AoE2:DE is one example of incompatibility. Simple game (by modern standards) with no advanced anticheat.
Windows is such execrable trash now that, when my late-2014 25-inch 5K Intel iMac got orphaned, I didn't even consider putting Windows on it. Now it's running Mint, and I use my M1 MacBook Pro in clamshell mode connected to a monitor.
That monitor, incidentally, is a 25-inch former iMac. I gutted it after it suffered the widespread burned-out-GPU problem that afflicted many (most?) Macs of circa-2010 vintage, and put an LCD driver board in it.
Photo editing is my last holdout. And a European-compatible banking software.
Everything else works well on Linux. Gaming included. I've run Linux many years, in fact.
But Capture One and Lightroom are not available over there, which is what draws me back to MacOS. Of course I could just use darktable. Have done that for several years. But at the end of the day, I just prefer Capture One, and that's enough reason for me to switch my OS.
I switched to Pop OS in 2018 because I was in college, and I wanted to spend less time gaming. Unfortunately for me, that was also the year Valve released Proton, and my gaming didn't (immediately) drop very much :>
I think Proton is a great project (and CodeWeavers deserve credit there as well), but why does it have to be a choice?
I have been multi booting for 20 years, preferring Linux distributions the whole time, but other OSes when I want to use them.
I recently started using a dedicated Windows system for gaming and other Windows favored tasks. I am running a KVM switch, using AMD Graphics on a Linux system and Nvidia on this Windows system. I also have a macOS system, that I use as needed.
I do this with mobile devices as well. It doesn't seem worth it to squabble over choosing a path.
Not everyone has multiple desktop computers at home, especially powerful ones. (With an Apple device to top it up.)
But hardware is more affordable than ever (unless you want a really powerful GPU). What's worse is that you have to separate the tasks between OSes, you can't easily have a default computer for everything, with everything relevant locally available. It's fine if you keep Windows for gaming, and want gaming to be explicitly separate. It's harder if you need Windows for graphics / video, or for CAD/CAM, or for Office. Having important related bits and software on another box may be a hassle.
I don't know if I'd say its a choice between a squabble or no squabble, its just a different set of squabbles.
For me, there are evenings when I am hacking away on a hobby project for 2 or 3 hours. Then suddenly just go, 'I wanna just veg out for another 2 hours then go to bed.' When I'm in that mood, I don't even want to be bothered changing machines. Just hit the steam icon and veg. Thats also bout the only time I end up gaming though, haha.
Last time I dual booted though, I remember why I didn't for along time. Did a Windows update, windows rebooted my computer and it did something with grub and I couldn't easily boot into linux anymore.
I was that dude, but I hate using Windows! Microsoft kept giving me more and more reasons to stop using Windows, on a silver platter lol. So now my gaming PC runs fedora, and all of my other computers are Macs.
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.
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.
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.
It's just absolutely incredible Microsoft decided to declare very powerful machines only a few years old essentially eWaste.
I'm probably going to give Desktop Linux another go, at least for a bit. I have no idea what distro though.
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.
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.
I would recommend checking out one of the Universal Blue images of Fedora Silverblue like Bazzite (for gaming) or Bluefin (for developers who are fans of Ubuntu but want something cleaner and less... Canonical). Because they're based on an image based distro they're incredibly resiliant and reliable, and they really use all the cutting edge (but proven) tech going into OSI-image based distros to the utmost to provide a really great user experience, taking care of all the pain points and rough edges of Silverblue and providing a really complete well rounded setup right out of the box full of stuff that's just done for you and full of nice little thoughtful touches. I've moves three friends to Bazzite (from Windows) and they love it. I use my own custom image based on one of their base images too, and run their version of Fedora CoreOS on my home server.
Your CPU should have a TPM built-in. It's most likely just disabled in the BIOS (it was often disabled by default on motherboard BIOSes in the pre-Windows 11 days). Have a look in the BIOS for something labeled fTPM or Firmware TPM.
On Ryzen, in particular with their use case (gaming), the fTPM was known to introduce issues. Lag spikes of some sort. I don't remember how or why, but there's a bit of a concert where this is concerned
I'm pretty sure it's fine now with updates applied...
I went and bought a discrete one since my platform was in a weird middle ground. New but not integrated
The best gaming machine indeed runs Linux, and is called Steam Deck.
I don't like macOS, but I'd take it over Windows without much hesitation. MacOS is like an authoritarian but tidy country. Windows is more and more like a corrupt third-world country :(
Also try Fedora Kinoite if you don't modify your system packages enough. Immutable OS is a game changer. All app installs are Flatpaks. CLI applications run in OCI containers.
Default Ubuntu is still pretty good. I have been using the default Fedora Workstation for almost a decade and it works great for me. I also don't spend time on tweaking it anymore (used to be the complete opposite). The defaults work, I concentrate on my work, side projects and games.
Suggesting a GNOME distro to someone who's using Windows is a sure way to get them to hate Linux. I personally couldn't stand Ubuntu as a desktop until I tried Kubuntu and KDE which has a much more similar workflow and is actually customizable. I switch between 22.04 and Win10 a lot and on some days I almost forget they're different systems.
I switched to Linux Mint a couple of years ago and couldn't be happier.
So far I had one problem with a botched nvidia driver update, but with the magic of Timeshift, reverting that was painless, and I could upgrade properly later.
I haven't missed Windows a single time since making the switch.
I also love unity! I was devastated when it was dropped. It's been kinda revived recently iirc. I've since switched to Linux mint for my daily driver which I can highly recommend.
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 hate 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.
I wonder if we're already lost (including myself in "we"). The average home user has ditched MS Office, and is using cloud apps such as Google Docs. They don't even have a reason to know what OS they're using. Things like battery life and wake-up times are what my work colleagues talk about at the lunch table. Setup might be a hassle, but occurs once in the life of the computer. Often, the discussion is in the context of an elderly relative who they're supporting.
At the workplace, a large Microsoft shop is buying a complex package of products and services that I can't even identify all of the pieces of. There's Microsoft stuff on my work computer, and on my company supplied iPhone. I must sheepishly confess that it all just works.
For myself at home, my main computer related interest is programming, and a programmer can live a platform-independent life if they want to. This is what I advocate, above and beyond my actual platform preference.
What I suggest to friends if they're thinking of switching (to Linux, Mac, Chrome) is: First, achieve platform-independence by finding the tools that work across OS's. Get up to speed on those tools. Second, switch platforms. That way, you're 99% up to speed before you even switch.
Can confirm, already use Linux more than 5 years. Never did touching desktop version of libre doc, google doc is better. Opened libre calc sometimes to open local csvs, otherwise google sheet for more advanced use case.
Online tools are already advanced enough for most use case
The issue is the people switching are the kinds of people who set up family computers and recommend things to others. So there is this huge hidden knock on effect of people going from pro-windows to nutrual or recommending a different os.
In the simplist terms, it's a similar reason youtube allows users with ad blockers, those people with ad blockers will still share videos to people without ad blockers.
Very short-sighted move from Microsoft. All of this gain now from ad revenue but long-term damage to the brand.
Switched to Linux in Windows' "golden age" - XP. Never looked back. There's one thing that reminds me that old Windows - cloud providers. Their configuration in UI looks a lot like group policies on Windows. Every time I have to deal with those IAM permissions in Google Cloud I get flashbacks, except now the UI is much slower
I don't think stock would be a good metric. If I had to guess, Windows at this point is probably just a cost center. Their main revenue streams are office362 and azure. The Windows OS itself is just a rounding error.
Another way to put it. People aren't buying Microsoft stock because of Windows. They are buying because of Azure and Office365.
And I think that's why Windows gets worse. They just don't care anymore. I have wanted to like Windows and hoped Microsoft to get serious against these consumer-centric companies like Apple and Google, to use their cloud revenue to pump Windows up. That hasn't happened.
To be fair, the Windows experience on managed corporate PCs that are imaged without all the fluff and adware is far superior to what consumers get.
I frankly don't know why anyone who isn't tied to very specific software requirements would ever choose Windows anymore.
I had to replace an aging Pixelbook last year and eventually decided the right decision was to get a Mac. It's stable, the hardware is high quality, it does what it needs to do, most non-enterprise software is available, and the custodian of the operating system isn't licensing my data to 3P advertisers. I almost went Linux -- and have built my own Linux machines dating back about twenty years -- but I just wanted a polished, lightweight laptop I didn't have to worry about. I almost bought a new Chromebook, but the software problem is more acute even if the OS is dead simple, and frankly, the hardware -- ever since the Pixelbook -- has been lacking polish (no matter which OEM you buy from).
Desktop operating systems are increasingly irrelevant (to a first approximation). Windows is still very relevant, especially on servers, but even on corporate desktops; you just don't see a lot of Windows laptops at the sort of events and companies that most of the readers here are probably most familiar with. But it's not like most companies developing software for the largely Linux ecosystem are doing much desktop-specific investment either. Apple's a bit more complicated because they still want to sell Macs so their operating system can't get too bad--but it's only there to sell MacBooks.
a whole bunch of older pcs are going to be completely useless or quickly become virus machines next year when windows 10 hits end of life and windows 11 won't support the intel 7x00 series of chips. A lot of people are going to be making the decision what computer to get next.
This! I've switched to Raspberry Pi OS on a Pi 5 now that a hat lets me use an m.2 SSD drive to boot the OS off of. It's a game changer for web surfing and email. It's also pretty quick for file transfers of music and video.
As for my traditional Windows 10 machine that I game on, in the near future I'll be switching to the best Linux OS for Steam gaming. Two things made me mad enough to change: Win 11 with it's ads and other BS and I'm tired of transfer of data problems relating to both USB-3 and C plug-ins. I've had some experience with Linux, so the transition isn't a problem.
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.
At best, the Mac and PC I could install Linux on to make them mine. The rest, not so much
I feel like I own my Mac because it doesn't bother me for anything and lets me do what I want. The iPhone, less so because it's secured against me in many ways.
My Mac is constantly bugging me to install OS updates. Same with my iPad and my iPhone. Apple gives you no option to skip the updates. The only way to avoid the constant carping is to allow Apple to do the update automatically, which is not by any means having control of your own devices.
You can replace the Kindle with Kobo. For the most part, Kobo just gets out of your way. Integrates tightly with Calibre. Easily hackable. Many extensions available with installation as simple as dropping a file on the device.
Not a perfect device but good enough that I feel like I own it.
Your Kindle feels like it's owned by Amazon because you're using their books as a service stuff. Zlibrary, Calibre, 24/7 airplane mode, and it's as yours as a ZX Spectrum my dude.
And jailbreak that Kindle and install KOReader on it, too; now it supports epub in a much more awesome reader app (not to mention having the capability to install any gtk app - I have a term emulator with ssh on mine, among others). And you're now root and can remove the amazon crap for real, no need to use airplane mode after that.
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.
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.
Ubuntu lost me over a decade ago or about a decade ago when I did an install and saw Amazon ads in the DE.
The good news is, as you highlight, today there are quiet a few good distros, some that are not that much more of a hassle then Ubuntu for people to get up and going.
And the whole wildly inconsistent UI elements of Linux shows it doesn't respect users.
You have one default app that does things one way (say, with a "Save" button, and a nice "Settings successfully changed!" message), and another that does things a totally different way (say, with an auto-save and no message that it's been saved).
Linux respects developers, in that it allows the people who make aspects of Linux to do anything any way they way -- but without consistency of UX, is it really respectful of users? Or does it just leave them at the mercy of the devs who often give the impression that they don't care about the user at all and can't be bothered to build anything consistently, or re-factor old code to bring it up to modern consistencies, or put even show a little empathy for users who aren't also advanced software developers.
Not everyone wants to learn how to build a car just to drive a car.
(Disclosure... My exposure to Linux is running various distributions on my Raspberry Pi side projects... Pi Hole, Retro Gaming, silly home automation toys. I tried to set up my elderly parents with Mint Linux and that was a complete disaster.)
Is Windows any different in this regard? Windows itself (at least 10, I haven't used 11) has very different UI elements for something as crucial as its own settings, and third party programs very often have wildly different UI styles.
It looks like you don't understand what Linux is at all. It's just a kernel that other distributions build on top of to create an OS. You have multiple "UIs" available in that space, like gnome, kde and others.
I have no idea how having choice and being able to customize your desktop experience is a bad thing but I guess some people won't be happy no matter what.
I'm guessing most those people are just late and came in after the couple "exoduses" of sorts of people jumping ship from Ubuntu to the offshoot projects (Mint, etc.).
As far as my memory and perception of the situation go, there was a time where Ubuntu was #1 on distrowatch and couldn't conceivably be dethroned. Then, they added the spyware in '12 and snaps in '16, neither of which were by any measure without controversy, IMO. (And, spoiler alert -- they have since tumbled down from that position.)
I switched to Ubuntu from Windows gradually over the last two years and have now dropped Windows entirely. I agree, Ubuntu isn't perfect, but I was a Windows user for about 25 years and the difference in terms of control is night and day.
By the end, it was like Windows was shoving me into things like OneDrive that I hadn't (at least deliberately) installed, didn't want to use, and didn't understand. This set me up for a risk of breaking things when I'd treat it like the regular Windows filesystem, and eventually I did break Windows and had to reinstall.
I've had none of these problems with Ubuntu. I wouldn't be surprised if alternative Linuxes are even better, but I'm satisfied enough with Ubuntu that trying alternatives isn't a priority.
Yup, a 20+ years Linux user here. Most of that time I used Ubuntu but their insistence on shoving shitty snap system down everyone's throats broke the camel's back for me. Switched to Fedora two years ago. Another great example how a clueless business person can mess up otherwise great software.
Ditto - long-time user here. Ubuntu was my intro... and for probably 200 of my classmates.
Those free CDs were incredible in the time of dial-up. This lasted longer than you think for most of America. My rural area and many others didn't get affordable ISDN/DSL/cable until the early 2000s.
Anyway, I didn't stick with them too long. This insistent nature of theirs goes back that long. It was a bit more acceptable, if not something to encourage, given the smaller size of the community.
Fedora/Red Hat are generally, in my opinion, better participants.
That said, with what happened RE: CentOS [releases] to Stream... I truly, honest to goodness, worry for Fedora. It might be next for some other business-minded shenanigans.
Technically/version-wise, whatever - I use Fedora! I'm not worried about new software. Upgrading, especially without testing, isn't compelled.
I'm more worried about new/unfriendly policies to the community; the systems I'm well in control of!
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.
I don’t think Linux needs to win in one big swoop year. I can see it slowly eating away at windows until it’s as big as MacOS or bigger. I think there could be a tipping point when certain Linux distros are just better for almost everything and windows looks silly in comparison.
There's basically 2 reasons I haven't been able to switch to linux:
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.
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.
Also I tend to play games that have anti-cheat like CoD / PubG, etc which further locks things out.
There’s basically 1 reason I haven’t switched back to Mac: I want a non reflective screen - I don’t want to look at an outline of myself when working, and I want a laptop I can work with in any position, not just where light sources and reflections behind me are carefully removed.
Just put an anti-glare screen on it. Tons of Mac users feel the same way and do this (myself among them).
And fwiw, you can make a glossy screen into a matte one with a cover, but you can't make a matte screen into a glossy one the same way. Which may be why Apple makes all their screens glossy.
Every time I search on the start menu there is a web search, impossible to turn off. How is that acceptable?
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.
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.
It's not my computer any more.
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?
Debloat / Software Management: https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil
Command line software management (Scoop): https://pilabor.com/blog/2021/12/automate-windows-app-setup-...
Comparison (Scoop/Chocolatey/Win-Get): https://daftdev.blog/2024/04/01/chocolatey-vs-scoop-vs-winge...
I would also recommend starship (https://starship.rs/) for your Powershell, which is cross platform and therefore usable for all popular shells. Scoop can also install and manage nerd fonts:
Here is my starship.toml config:Starship seems quite promising, this is the first time I'm seeing it. But I'm a bit confused on how it works, can you go into a bit more details?
Can I use starship+ps to get all Unix and git tools or should I stick with my existing workflow with windows git bash?
also, while the tool is nice, it needs admin permissions to work.
That's not the exclusive problem to Microsoft - it happens all around us within the IT world. The corporations stopped acknowledging the permanent "No" anymore and the actual user choice. It's a plain harassment up until you give up and agree to what you get shoveled with.
Whenever I read comments regarding last two Windows versions and issues people had or have with these, or news about newest Microsoft "ideas" - I ask myself, where the hell are regulators?
We have killed them. If a government tries to do anything against a company that isn't a perfect 1:1 mapping to an explicit thing in the law that they are breaking, the company will sue back and win. And if they try to pass such a law, the biggest companies are powerful enough to get rid of them next term, so they don't even try.
If you want less government interference then less regulatory power will exist.
I love GDPR, yet so many complain about it for cookie banners, which are not even what the law requires: There Is No Cookie Banner Law (https://www.bitecode.dev/p/there-is-no-eu-cookie-banner-law)
https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
and this free tool took care a lot of painful things in windows
I only use Windows as a game launcher (and I’m still on Windows 10), I don’t understand why anyone would need it anymore except games.
Works well to disable various telemetry, bloat and other baddies.
I shouldn't have to run on a privacy treadmill to stay in the same place.
No one should have to resort to registry hacking or the many scripts or hacks available to regain control over basic UX, privacy, or usability selections. It is absolutely absurd.
Like if some drastic new search doesn't appear within a couple years we are talking IT not being able to fix problems anymore
This. Oh my god this.
I'm not sure if it works on Win11, but this was used to disable it in Win10:
REG ADD HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search /v BingSearchEnabled /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f REG ADD HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search /v CortanaConsent /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
I hate this as well, same with Spotlight on the Mac. Doesn’t it make sense to look for things on my own device first?
Anyway, here’s a solution I found for Win11:
## Disable web search from run menu
1. Select Start, type regedit.exe and select the Registry Editor to launch it. Accept the UAC prompt that is displayed.
2. Navigate to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search
3. Right-click on Search and select New > Dword (32-bit) Value.
4. Name the value BingSearchEnabled.
5. Double-click on the new Dword and set data to 0.
From <https://www.ghacks.net/2021/11/26/how-to-turn-off-search-the...
Very fitting… both the kindergarten teacher addressing her pupils vs Windows abusing its users have the one thing in common - people who have zero chance of escaping their control and little influence to chamge their situation. In the business world, it’s called a captive market
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well, recently, there was a compromised update to a software package and the recommendation was to roll back to a previous version. there are definite times when removing the latest not-so-greatest for a previous version is the best solution. there's no reason to lose the plot in your ranting. you just lose credibility in your arguments at that point
"The US federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has issued a security advisory recommending that the affected devices should roll back to a previous uncompromised version."[0]
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XZ_Utils_backdoor#Remediation
But I don’t know how much credit is due to ongoing config work by central IT versus Microsoft.
Try adding some passes and see.
1) WSL2 is fantastic to work. Having various Linux images on my system is nice, this is huge for me alone
2) plenty of things work just better on windows like Docker
3) stuff like power tools is insanely useful
4) monitor, windows and desktop management is very well done in comparison to the mess of MacOS
5) I don't have all these issues the article describes. An automatic update has never broken my computer let alone ruined my flow
6) I don't see these ads, maybe in the start menu there are but I just never use it I have shortcuts
7) MacOS is way more annoying for me. I really dislike the filesystem, the window management, the fact that it will be always a third class citizen to Linux for software development (still have nightmares about installing Haskell and other languages on MacOS), the fact that it keeps resetting the output of my monitors at every sleep
I could provide other reasons but essentially it is way better for me and my use case than alternatives.
Unless I'm using a laptop, there I prefer MacOS for hardware.
YMMV, but this is what I used to disable web search on my Win 11 Pro workstation:
But even if you wait a few seconds before confirming, you'll get some garbage like Windows Photos, even though that's literally never been used.
At least the start menu got a lot faster with the net search disabled, but dropping usage based ordering is just another sign that Windows is NOT aimed at power users anymore.
Unfortunately just like the original post is anecdotal (I haven't had a machine fail to startup after an update since XP) not all anecdotes are born equal.
Interestingly, I don't see adverts myself, and I've never seen any at work. I -suspect- that's heavily regionalized.
Are there features I don't care for? Sure - I don't use OneDrive, I don't internet search from the Start bar, and I use Edge only occasionally. But it's not like somehow you -have- to use everything they ship.
I get it. An OS is personal. If you don't like Windows, use MacOS or Linux. All 3 have different approaches and one of them will fit you better than the others. Arguing over which is better or worse is like fighting over ice-cream flavors.
After I started administering fleets of Windows machines, I learned that if you don't fuck with it, it's fine!
If you need to make changes, use group policy. Don't like OneDrive? Don't use it! Uninstalling it is going to fuck things up.
Install updates as they come. "But it breaks things!" No it doesn't. It only does if you've fucked your registry to hell.
Just leave things alone and stop trying to customize it like a Linux box is my advice. It is what it is and will work fine if you use it the way it's intended.
Bonus points: I’m having fun with my computer again!
Gaming is what kept a lot of people on windows over the years, but thanks to valve and the proton team, Linux gaming works as well as Windows gaming (and some people say better than — I certainly don’t have to deal with all the crap Microsoft tries to put into windows).
Some people refuse to use Linux because they’re afraid of having to tinker with it, but that hasn’t been my experience in over a decade. Things have generally just worked for me.
AoE2:DE is one example of incompatibility. Simple game (by modern standards) with no advanced anticheat.
- I download games from gog via linux and put them on an NTFS partition
- I boot windows 11 in a proxmox VM with passthrough gpu + usb controller for sound
- I mount NTFS partition in VM, install and run games
- my windows 11 install has no network device
- tbh there was a windows defender nag, but I managed to disable it.
I've been wondering if I can do something similar for steam, but haven't touched my steam login in 5+ years. I think you can use a proxy for steam.
That monitor, incidentally, is a 25-inch former iMac. I gutted it after it suffered the widespread burned-out-GPU problem that afflicted many (most?) Macs of circa-2010 vintage, and put an LCD driver board in it.
Everything else works well on Linux. Gaming included. I've run Linux many years, in fact.
But Capture One and Lightroom are not available over there, which is what draws me back to MacOS. Of course I could just use darktable. Have done that for several years. But at the end of the day, I just prefer Capture One, and that's enough reason for me to switch my OS.
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I have been multi booting for 20 years, preferring Linux distributions the whole time, but other OSes when I want to use them.
I recently started using a dedicated Windows system for gaming and other Windows favored tasks. I am running a KVM switch, using AMD Graphics on a Linux system and Nvidia on this Windows system. I also have a macOS system, that I use as needed.
I do this with mobile devices as well. It doesn't seem worth it to squabble over choosing a path.
But hardware is more affordable than ever (unless you want a really powerful GPU). What's worse is that you have to separate the tasks between OSes, you can't easily have a default computer for everything, with everything relevant locally available. It's fine if you keep Windows for gaming, and want gaming to be explicitly separate. It's harder if you need Windows for graphics / video, or for CAD/CAM, or for Office. Having important related bits and software on another box may be a hassle.
For me, there are evenings when I am hacking away on a hobby project for 2 or 3 hours. Then suddenly just go, 'I wanna just veg out for another 2 hours then go to bed.' When I'm in that mood, I don't even want to be bothered changing machines. Just hit the steam icon and veg. Thats also bout the only time I end up gaming though, haha.
Last time I dual booted though, I remember why I didn't for along time. Did a Windows update, windows rebooted my computer and it did something with grub and I couldn't easily boot into linux anymore.
[1] Doesn't work for games requiring kernel-mode anti-cheat.
[2] https://looking-glass.io/ to use both GPUs on the same monitor.
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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.
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.
It's just absolutely incredible Microsoft decided to declare very powerful machines only a few years old essentially eWaste.
I'm probably going to give Desktop Linux another go, at least for a bit. I have no idea what distro though.
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.
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.
I'm pretty sure it's fine now with updates applied...
I went and bought a discrete one since my platform was in a weird middle ground. New but not integrated
I don't like macOS, but I'd take it over Windows without much hesitation. MacOS is like an authoritarian but tidy country. Windows is more and more like a corrupt third-world country :(
MacOS:Windows::Singapore:Brazil*
(*The US is probably a better comparison, in all honesty.)
You can keep using Windows 10. The LTSC version will be supported until 2032. Even the regular versions will get (paid) updates probably until 2028.
So far I had one problem with a botched nvidia driver update, but with the magic of Timeshift, reverting that was painless, and I could upgrade properly later.
I haven't missed Windows a single time since making the switch.
At the workplace, a large Microsoft shop is buying a complex package of products and services that I can't even identify all of the pieces of. There's Microsoft stuff on my work computer, and on my company supplied iPhone. I must sheepishly confess that it all just works.
For myself at home, my main computer related interest is programming, and a programmer can live a platform-independent life if they want to. This is what I advocate, above and beyond my actual platform preference.
What I suggest to friends if they're thinking of switching (to Linux, Mac, Chrome) is: First, achieve platform-independence by finding the tools that work across OS's. Get up to speed on those tools. Second, switch platforms. That way, you're 99% up to speed before you even switch.
Online tools are already advanced enough for most use case
In the simplist terms, it's a similar reason youtube allows users with ad blockers, those people with ad blockers will still share videos to people without ad blockers.
Very short-sighted move from Microsoft. All of this gain now from ad revenue but long-term damage to the brand.
- "all the people" is probably actually well under 1% of users
- successfully switched all corporate accounts from single-purchase w/ occasional renewal to ongoing monthly subscription
- also a lot of of consumer subscriptions
- Azure
- Github
- LinkedIn
- OpenAI investment
I actually agree with you that the Windows experience is getting worse, quickly. But on balance, seems more is going right than going wrong.
Another way to put it. People aren't buying Microsoft stock because of Windows. They are buying because of Azure and Office365.
I frankly don't know why anyone who isn't tied to very specific software requirements would ever choose Windows anymore.
I had to replace an aging Pixelbook last year and eventually decided the right decision was to get a Mac. It's stable, the hardware is high quality, it does what it needs to do, most non-enterprise software is available, and the custodian of the operating system isn't licensing my data to 3P advertisers. I almost went Linux -- and have built my own Linux machines dating back about twenty years -- but I just wanted a polished, lightweight laptop I didn't have to worry about. I almost bought a new Chromebook, but the software problem is more acute even if the OS is dead simple, and frankly, the hardware -- ever since the Pixelbook -- has been lacking polish (no matter which OEM you buy from).
As for my traditional Windows 10 machine that I game on, in the near future I'll be switching to the best Linux OS for Steam gaming. Two things made me mad enough to change: Win 11 with it's ads and other BS and I'm tired of transfer of data problems relating to both USB-3 and C plug-ins. I've had some experience with Linux, so the transition isn't a problem.
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.
At best, the Mac and PC I could install Linux on to make them mine. The rest, not so much
Not a perfect device but good enough that I feel like I own it.
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.
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.
The good news is, as you highlight, today there are quiet a few good distros, some that are not that much more of a hassle then Ubuntu for people to get up and going.
You have one default app that does things one way (say, with a "Save" button, and a nice "Settings successfully changed!" message), and another that does things a totally different way (say, with an auto-save and no message that it's been saved).
Linux respects developers, in that it allows the people who make aspects of Linux to do anything any way they way -- but without consistency of UX, is it really respectful of users? Or does it just leave them at the mercy of the devs who often give the impression that they don't care about the user at all and can't be bothered to build anything consistently, or re-factor old code to bring it up to modern consistencies, or put even show a little empathy for users who aren't also advanced software developers.
Not everyone wants to learn how to build a car just to drive a car.
(Disclosure... My exposure to Linux is running various distributions on my Raspberry Pi side projects... Pi Hole, Retro Gaming, silly home automation toys. I tried to set up my elderly parents with Mint Linux and that was a complete disaster.)
As far as my memory and perception of the situation go, there was a time where Ubuntu was #1 on distrowatch and couldn't conceivably be dethroned. Then, they added the spyware in '12 and snaps in '16, neither of which were by any measure without controversy, IMO. (And, spoiler alert -- they have since tumbled down from that position.)
Microsoft is a publicly traded, for-profit company.
Canonical Ltd (Ubuntu) is a privately held, for-profit company.
The Linux Foundation is a 501(c)(6) non-profit organization.
Software in the Public Interest (Debian) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
See the pattern?
By the end, it was like Windows was shoving me into things like OneDrive that I hadn't (at least deliberately) installed, didn't want to use, and didn't understand. This set me up for a risk of breaking things when I'd treat it like the regular Windows filesystem, and eventually I did break Windows and had to reinstall.
I've had none of these problems with Ubuntu. I wouldn't be surprised if alternative Linuxes are even better, but I'm satisfied enough with Ubuntu that trying alternatives isn't a priority.
Those free CDs were incredible in the time of dial-up. This lasted longer than you think for most of America. My rural area and many others didn't get affordable ISDN/DSL/cable until the early 2000s.
Anyway, I didn't stick with them too long. This insistent nature of theirs goes back that long. It was a bit more acceptable, if not something to encourage, given the smaller size of the community.
Fedora/Red Hat are generally, in my opinion, better participants.
That said, with what happened RE: CentOS [releases] to Stream... I truly, honest to goodness, worry for Fedora. It might be next for some other business-minded shenanigans.
Technically/version-wise, whatever - I use Fedora! I'm not worried about new software. Upgrading, especially without testing, isn't compelled.
I'm more worried about new/unfriendly policies to the community; the systems I'm well in control of!
Results in less work and represents the wider ecosystem, too. Canonical does what Canonical wants.
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.
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.
Also I tend to play games that have anti-cheat like CoD / PubG, etc which further locks things out.
I do like the direction things are going
And fwiw, you can make a glossy screen into a matte one with a cover, but you can't make a matte screen into a glossy one the same way. Which may be why Apple makes all their screens glossy.