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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The W10 bullshit eventually caused me to leave. Never even made it to 11 haha.
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
Web search can be disabled with a few registry keys.
Not using it is easier
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Drop requirements for TPM and secure boot then.
That shit is just Xbone Kinect all over again.
Desolder your tpm chip to prevent forced downgrade to win11
Disabling it in Bios is enough
Oh, you can do this? Neat.
Eventually, windows will just override it.
That seems much easier than installing Linux.
Or don’t buy a machine with that bullshit.
Edit: I’m not sure why I’m being downvoted. My comment is still valid. If the argument is “you can’t, all the machines now include it,” then it’s fucked up. Like today’s TVs which all of them are smart, and that’s fucked up.
If you’ve got a CPU from the last 6 years or so, you’ve probably already got one.
Hence I will never get rid of my 2017 laptop that doesn’t qualify for Windows 11. The day Windows 10 stops updating for it is the day I’ll install Linux in it.
x86 cpu.
There’s no bullshit on Arm and RISC.
ARM is entirely made out of bullshit. It’s almost impossible to buy a ARM device that isn’t boot locked to a particular OS.
You can turn off those requirements a few ways. IIRC using Rufus to make the bootable USB can, or something like Windows X-Lite which absolutely strips away all the M$ bullshit, like edge, defender, telemetry, bloat, and ads.
Windows is like the corner prostitute: pay some money, usually get what you want although not the best, occasionally get some horrible disease
Linux is like the sweet SO: has its quirks but you love them for it. let’s you grow in your skills but that can be challenging at times. Surprises you in good and bad ways.
Edit: for grammar
its* quirks.
Ha ha. Yes of course. Corrected.
I love you username in this context :)
I have a different perspective after trying to go linux as my daily driver for decades:
Windows is that kind of easy girl in college that everyone has a chance with but is pretty mid and highly controlling.
Linux is that hot alt girl that you keep seeing in strange clubs like the anime or robotics club, and is really fun to be around until they have a major meltdown out of nowhere and absolutely no one is willing to give you any advice until you take a 6 month course and prove you know enough about girls before they will respond to your questions.
Lets* you grow 😉
I finally swapped to Linux and it’s been easier than I expected. Don’t know if I’ll ever go back to only windows.
Same I was really surprised how easy it was. Thank you Lutris
What distro did you go with? Been thinking of switching myself
Not OP, but there’s many beginner friendly distros. I’d look into Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Zorin, or Elementary
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There is a reason these people get blocked
I want to get the microsoft monkey off my back, can anyone point me to a guide or give me steps to making the switch?
Usually, I help family and friends setup their computer to something familiar/similar to their routine (especially those that do everything in their browser). Otherwise, I let them slowly adapt to some new alternative software for their case use by preconfiguring it with them.
Generally, I recommend Linux Mint for those that are used to the Windows “feel”.
Guide: Linux Mint Installation Guide
Video: Linux Mint 21.3 (Wayland) Install Guide Note: I have not watched the whole video, I just quickly skipped around to see if they made sense.
Ideally, try to get a relative or friend who already use some flavor of Linux to sit down with you and help you get going with the transition, guaranteed they would be overjoyed. It’ll help avoid some obvious pitfall/mistake depending on your expertise level on IT stuff and streamline the experience by sharing knowledge.
If any of my friends ever asked me to teach them Linux I’d be floored. I’d be over there with all kinds of devices and white boards to show the paradigms and strengths of open source.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Linux Mint 21.3 (Wayland) Install Guide
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
wow, thank you Xavier
Hi. 10-year Linux user here. Here is my concise guide to making the switch from Windows to Linux:
Step 1: Start trying out open source software on your Windows machine. A lot of my first year of using Linux full-time was googling “linux equivalent for [software name].” See what you think of LibreOffice, Blender, FreeCAD, Shotcut, Inkscape, GIMP, Krita, whatever programs you would use for your workflows.
Step 2: Try out Linux in a VM. You’ll probably use a package called Virtualbox, which lets you install Linux in a file on your computer, and run it in a window. This is a great way to just…try out Linux distros without doing any permanent changes to your computer. Speaking of distros, yes there are thousands of them, yes that choice can be paralyzing. I recommend trying Linux Mint, Kubuntu, and Pop!_OS. These are designed with good out-of-box experiences and beginner friendliness in mind and are designed as daily drivers rather than as tinkering projects.
Step 3: Live USB. If you’ve ever installed Windows, you’re probably familiar with the “you put the disc/USB stick in, boot to it, and it dumps you straight into the installer which runs at like 800x600 and you have to fully install Windows to get to the desktop” process. Not Linux; most Linux distros use what they call a Live environment, where from the disc/USB stick it boots to a fully functional version of the desktop. Nothing gets written to your machine’s internal hard drive, but now you’re running the OS on bare metal and not in a virtual machine, you can now genuinely test it for compatibility with your hardware.
Step 4: Run the installer. I’m not going to cover this process, you can find guides easily on the internet, including how to dual boot with Windows if you’re not ready to fully burn that bridge. But now you’re actually moving in.
Answers to some FAQs:
-
Do I need to use the terminal? Probably on occasion. Microsoft has trained a few generations of computer users to hate and fear the CLI by making theirs horrible. Think about the kind of things you need to edit the registry or dive into configuration files on Windows, and that’s the kind of thing you’ll need to use the terminal for on Linux. If you ask for technical help on a Linux forum or Lemmy community, you will likely be asked to run a terminal command, for the simple reason that “run lsblk and copy-paste the return” is way easier to do in a text forum. There are several “Linux terminal basics” videos out there that take around an hour and show you how do do things like make folders, create and delete files, install software etc. from the terminal, which is worth learning how to do, it will help your understanding of the Linux desktop. It’s a good way to learn how the Linux file system works.
-
Do I need to know how to program? No. Scripting and programming tools will fall to hand easier on a Linux system, but if you create art in GIMP and play games in Steam and whatnot you won’t need to write any code.
-
Will my [weird program or esoteric hardware work] Maybe, maybe not. I have seen it go both ways, I have hardware that works in Linux better than in Windows, I have seen things that don’t work in Linux at all. If you have a gaming mouse or keyboard, it may be that the vendor’s software for configuring the RGB lighting or remapping the buttons doesn’t work. On the other hand I use a Spacemouse in CAD software and it works fine. Ultimately you will have to test this.
Good luck, and Welcome to the Linux community!
Hi thanks for the guide, I do use most of those applications already not even realizing the linux connection before now. I use all the windows stuff for work and honestly they are all so similar now.
-
I don’t have a guide as I had a Linux-friendly relative help me, but I can say that I use EndeavourOS with KDE and coming from someone who has used Windows all their life, I couldn’t be happier. Now every time I have to use Windows on my work PC I die a little inside.
I found an excellent for me, half measure. Look up Windows X-Lite, they have a website. They offer 10 and 11 absolutely stripped of all the M$ bullshit and annoyances. Even windows defender can be removed.
Legit reminds me of a fresh XP install. Back to installing the vc++ and net desktop runtimes again, even.
I only don’t ditch windows because I love playing VR and occasionally Valorant. And Wayland isn’t quite where I’d like it to be feature wise for things like VRR and HDR.
Macbook? Chromebook?
Honestly, anything is better than Windows. But don’t switch to Linux unless you are actually interested in Linux.
Longtime Linux user, here…
Windows 10 AME Wizard, get AtlasOS or whatever takes your fancy. Otherwise Linux Mint.
Pick anything that’s not Ubuntu and enjoy it! Be prepared to reformat a LOT as you figure out what distro and configs you like the best. No one guide is ever going to be complete and experience is the best tool for learning Linux.
So this was the exact thing that pushed me over to the FOSS side the last time they did it. Nice to see the tradition of annoying users to the point of them abandoning Microsoft is alive and well.
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.
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.
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.
I would’ve preferred if he stayed away from GitHub, tbh
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.
I wish they’d stop defaulting to the goddamn boot drive for updates… I don’t have the space
rm -rf /*Works every time.
It doesnt work for me,
C:\Users\HelloHotel> rm -rf /* not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. C:\Users\HelloHotel>Why
Edit: this is a joke, daily drive linux. (I even think cmd would give a diffrent error message than “not a command”) the child comments are an absolute shitshow
You’re running an incorrect kernel. Make sure you’re running a modern release from here: https://github.com/torvalds/linux
Don’t forget to chroot into your NTFS partition first!
It’s a Linux command. It means Remove (rm) from the root folder (rf) everything, and don’t warn me about this action (/*)
I can’t tell if you’re joking or if I misunderstood what you wrote.
It’s remove (rm) recursively (allow removing folders) (-r) and “force” (don’t prompt for confirmation, e.g. when removing write protected files) (-f) everything in the root folder (/*)
With -r and -f getting combined into -rf of course.
lol. Demonstrating why Windows chooses not to give control to it’s users.
One of the main reasons many still are on Windows 10, is that 4 year old hardware is appearently too old
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.
Meanwhile I’ve got the latest Linux Mint running on a laptop that turns 10 years old this August.
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.
Yep. Just turned on my win10 machine and had a full screen spread trying to get me to upgrade which I had to decline 3 different times to get to my desktop. Keep this up M$oft and I’m gonna switch entirely to Linux and run windows in a VM.
I found an excellent for me, half measure. Look up Windows X-Lite, they have a website. They offer 10 and 11 absolutely stripped of all the M$ bullshit and annoyances. Even windows defender can be removed.
Legit reminds me of a fresh XP install. Back to installing the vc++ and net desktop runtimes again, even.
I only don’t ditch windows because I love playing VR and occasionally Valorant. And Wayland isn’t quite where I’d like it to be feature wise for things like VRR and HDR.
I wish Riot would make it so you can play Valorant on Linux, I’d switch off windows permanently right away.
Just quit that shit and don’t look back. No vidya is worth dedicating your life to.
I play consistently with a group of friends, and I like the game. I don’t think using Windows counts as dedicating my life to it.
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.
I didn’t even get a question, just straight up installed Windows 11 on my Surface with a bunch of cumulative roll ups after using it again for the first time in about 8 months. Couldn’t even stop it once the “windows update” started, only option is to allow the reboot and then go through the hassle of rolling back to 10. It’s a tertiary device for me and goes long periods without being used and I was probably ok with testing 11 performance on it, but don’t appreciate being strong armed. I had to kill modern standby again to prevent battery drain while shut down, which is plaguing my laptop after I tried 11 on it.
Windows 11 is straight up unusable in multi-monitor configurations though due to the locked down UI customization, so my main rig won’t be touching it with a 20ft pole. If Linux had more consistent VR gaming performance and support, I’d probably be jumping ship. As it stands, once 10 hits EOL I’ll probably end up there anyway. Microsoft will be killing one of my headsets at the same time anyway by dropping WMR, and I hear there is some great Linux options for the Surface Pro line now too.
what was that nice app that would block Windows 10 upgrades?
Linux. (ducks)
(ducks)
Penguins. :D
Damn a new distro? I can’t keep up…
Linux Ducks sounds delightful. I’d give it a shot.
It will curse and swear to helll with unintelligible error messages.
You say that like that’s not a feature.
Never said it wasnt ;)
You might be talking about Never10, made by Steve Gibson over at GRC.com. It has since been updated and renamed InControl. It now also works to prevent unwanted Win11 upgrades, as well as other things. https://www.grc.com/incontrol.htm
grc yes! thank you
There’s a registry setting for telling Windows that the target feature release is a specific version (it should be 22H2) which also will stop it from trying to push win11 upgrades
If anybody is curious, here are the details on how to do that: https://www.pdq.com/blog/how-to-block-the-windows-11-upgrade/
If you want to take it a step further, write a Powershell script that checks that the registry entry is what you want it to be, and then changes it if it is not. Then create a scheduled task to run at login that runs the script. That way if/when Microsoft pushes an update that switches the registry entry back, the scheduled task will flip it back after installing updates/rebooting/logging in.
I am currently fighting this battle with New Outlook in Win 11 23H2. It’s really annoying. I can get rid of it with registry entries, but when windows does updates it reverts the registry changes back. So scheduled task it is. It would be great if there was an Intune configuration profile to deal with this, but that would go against Microsoft’s current methods of shoving new products down your throat.
But 11 wants sometjing from my computer that it doesnt have, so it cant “upgrade”…
It’s called Russian botnet initiator 5.0
