back to article Are you a 1%er? Windows 11 turns up in the usage figures

Windows 11 has reared its Fluent-designed head in the latest set of usage figures for Microsoft's operating systems. In the absence of official word from Microsoft, the figures for July from AdDuplex give a handy indicator of what is hot and what is not in the Windows world. As usual, three editions of Windows dominate things …

  1. karlkarl Silver badge

    "documenting the decline of Microsoft's once great developer hope – UWP"

    UWP was interesting in that it required a non-standard C++ compiler. Greatly reducing the tools that developers want to actually use.

    And then you had the winrt binding layer around it (Microsoft weirdly call this a "language projection"). This binding layer was weak and unsafe. It was impossible to predict lifespans of objects, especially since the async architecture was overly consumed and poorly chosen. The whole thing was sodding spaghetti!

    Microsoft. Can you please just be... better!

    (or at least go back to ANSI C until you can be trusted with decent handwriting using a pen)

    1. ThomH

      UWP requires a non-standard compiler if you want to target it from C++; a non-standard C++ compiler is not required for UWP because it was always mainly for the C# crowd.

      Microsoft not only could be better, but is: C++/WinRT is the standard C++17 way into WinRT, provided as a header-only library for any old compiler.

      Alas, I have absolutely no idea how UWP maps to WinRT, how either corresponds to Win32 or .NET, or what WPF has to do with any of it. All I really know is: don't mention Silverlight.

      I think Reunion is meant to clarify, even to idiots like me.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Micro soft

      Universal Wanker Population

  2. NetBlackOps

    Theoonly reason I even visited the Windows Store was to grab Linux distros for WSL.

    1. karlkarl Silver badge

      Many guys simply refuse to engage with "app stores", myself included.

      Luckily Microsoft is still in the EMBRACE stage of metastasis so currently provides a solution:

      https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-manual

      1. FILE_ID.DIZ
        Thumb Down

        Well...

        Unless you went out of your way and installed Windows 10 LTSC, most likely your GPU driver is dependent on the Store, namely DCH-based video drivers.

        These abominations are UWP, or just using a Desktop Bridge to help extinguish regular executables.

        I first noticed this issue after my fresh installation of LTSC when my Lenovo System Update asked each day to install the newly released nvidia driver. After a few weeks of annoyance, I dug into it a bit deeper by manually attempting to install the Lenovo driver and watched it fail miserably.

        An aside - having experienced all the pain formerly known as Nvidia Optimus on a much older and now retired Lenovo laptop, I half-expected to need to go to the BIOS/Setup and disable the iGPU once again.

        But no... the problem wasn't due to mixed GPUs... but simply my blissfully ignorant version of Windows 10, edition LTSC. I knew I liked LTSC as soon as I opened up Calculator, but never did I think that GPU drivers would require the Store as well.

        Nevertheless, each time I hear my little laptop CPU blower kick on high around 5PM for a few days in a row, I double-check to see if there's a pending GPU driver in System Update and I go to Nvidia's Advanced Driver Search and download the latest non-DCH driver and install that.

        1. karlkarl Silver badge

          Really?

          I just go onto NVIDIA's, intels or AMDs driver download site and grab the latest.

          Admittedly I am using LTSC. Is there something weird and crooked Microsoft is doing? Can't you just install drivers "normally"?

          I tend to wipe the Lenovo installed image (too much bloatware on it). But first I extract the drivers using the built in pnputil. As for updates, unless they are reproducible I do not use them. So no windows update and no Lenovo update.

          1. Snake Silver badge

            "I just go onto NVIDIA's, intels or AMDs driver download site and grab the latest.

            I'm surprised that works for you, many laptops do not necessarily like their generic drivers (Dells especially), losing functionality or stability, sometimes both.

          2. FILE_ID.DIZ

            I can't tell if you're a troll or not.

            Of course, who doesn't wipe a computer before being used.... but I still reinstall System Updater. No easier way to keep up to date on firmware updates for an individual laptop.

            As for going no updates on a machine, well, that's stupid IMHO. And now that Microsoft has a monolithic/cumulative patching process (and has for years), how do you go about just applying just fixes that are reproducible? Install that one patch and you've installed all patches issued previously. Plus, let's not go into the problems with failing to install the appropriate SSU before attempting to install a patch.

            If I attempt to install Lenovo's provided driver, that fails. I am required to go to Nvidia's Advanced Driver Search page and download the "Standard" driver (non-DCH).

            Part of the problem I believe is that the DCH driver provided by Lenovo requires the installation of the Nvidia "Control Panel" and Intel "Graphics Command Center" tools which are UWP/DCH-only applications by default.

            When I read further (albit a long time ago) into DCH drivers, it has UWP written all over it, as shown in the links I provided earlier and this overview.

            Nvidia has a link on DCH drivers. Even their latest Release Notes has three mentions of DCH, here is the the first

            1. karlkarl Silver badge

              No windows update.

              For Windows machines that really have to touch the internet, I do download and install updates but through other channels. Ones I trust to be more competent than Microsoft.

              I just don't trust an auto update system that doesn't allow you to back up the patches and deterministically reproduce the installation. It is careless quite frankly. Contrary to what the Microsoft shills say, Windows is *not* a service. It is not fit for that purpose.

              Also, though I don't need this for drivers, UWP isn't strictly tied to the Windows store. For example you can make an offline UWP application in i.e C++/ CSharp.NET quite easily. All UWP really provides is an obsolete GUI library and helper libraries loosely built ontop of a reduced subset of Win32.

      2. JetSetJim

        I see no app store on my win 7 install, 2nd Gen Intel machine

        I'm starting to think I might upgrade soon...

        1. Trollslayer
          1. JetSetJim
            Mushroom

            There was me thinking I might have trouble running it on 64bit architecture, but waddaya know.

            I wonder how fast it runs....

        2. LybsterRoy Silver badge

          No don't do that - as a W7 user I need company

          1. Charlie van Becelaere

            Yes,

            I miss Windows 7 these days. If I could just get rid of Teams, that might help some.

    2. katrinab Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux

      Invoke-WebRequest -uri https://aka.ms/wsl-debian-gnulinux -OutFile Debian.zip

      Expand-Archive .\Debian.zip ./Debian

      No need to use the Windows Store

    3. Adelio

      Never used the windows store and never got a (home) microsoft account.

      Not even sure i willing have used a windows store app pre-installed. The first thing i always do is remove as much of the M/S garbage as possible.

  3. Yorick

    Breathless

    One of the 1% who breathlessly etc.

    Machine is definitely not “Win11 capable”, it’s 9 years old. I expect that come official release, I’ll regedit something and run Win11 on it regardless.

  4. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Insiders

    Are they getting paid for beta testing and if not how M$ gets away with getting free labour?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Insiders

      I imagine a lot of the numbers are Microsoft employees dogfooding.

      1. Steve Evans

        Re: Insiders

        I suspect most are software devs who are checking to see how much of a headache 11 will be.

        That's certainly how it is with me. I have a win 11 VM to check compatibility with our products. Of course it's running on a twin xeon machine with buckets of RAM which is deemed "Not worthy" by the requirements... Grrrr

    2. That Badger

      Re: Insiders

      Everyone running Windows 10 have already been (unwilling) beta testers, since Microsoft got rid of most of its internal testing team...

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