Not even the ghost of obsolescence can coerce users onto Windows 11

Windows 10 may be just shy of two years away from the ax, but its successor, Windows 11, appears to be as unpopular as ever. The end of Windows 10 support is getting closer. Unless the company blinks, October 14, 2025, will be the end of the line for the Home and Pro editions of the operating system, yet users seem reluctant …

[StrangerHereMyself]

Advert

I hope when the day comes that Microsoft announces the cease of support for Windows 10 the organization behind Linux Mint will run full-page ads in newspapers to invite users to ditch Windows and to install their operating system to safe their PC's from the dumpster bin.

If there's a large uptick of Linux desktop installations I foresee Microsoft quickly extending support for Windows 10 by at least 3 years in the hope that the threat will have subsided by then. In the mean time they'll try the same carrot-and-stick approach they successfully used to subdue Corel Linux twenty years ago.

[Yankee Doodle Doofus]

Re: Advert

Full page ads in newspapers? I bet those are very inexpensive these days, or at least they should be. I don't think I know anyone under the age of 50 who subscribes to print news these days.

[AMBxx]

Re: Advert

50? More like 70. I'm 55 and haven't had a paper newspaper for well over 10 years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Advert

Ah, but you had to hamster toilet paper during Covid, and killing flies with a tablet eventually gets expensive.

:)

[AMBxx]

Re: Advert

I just want to know who down voted by post. Was this youngsters who don't like oldies on here, or was it oldies who like their newspapers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Advert

Someone selling tablets, I reckon.

:)

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: Advert

Yet the New York Times is about to hit 10 million subscribers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Advert

I'm one, but they'd have to fold the paper version into a decent plane if they wanted it to get to me as I'm on the wrong side of the pond - I get it digital.

I also don't have any pets who would need it in their cage/basket/whatever either :).

[Ken G]

Re: Advert

There are a lot of pet owners in New York apartments.

The NY Times is thick and absorbant.

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

Re: Advert

50+x and always get a "Blast from the past" feeling when i see one , along with a "Wow they still make those?"

[Dacarlo]

Re: Advert

Curiously, when in London, I frequently see 'The Metro' and quite a few people seem to take one. I'll usually peruse one if left on a seat near me.

I suppose a lack of battery and signal leaves a small niche in the world for analogue methods.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Advert

what's 'ads', and 'newspapers'?

[phuzz]

Re: Advert

Basically they get a bunch of trees (you might have to ask your parents what they were), and mash them all up with some chemicals, then press them out to make these thin white sheets called 'paper'. Then you use a robot to put paint on them so they look sort of like a screen. It's quite like e-ink, but you can only use each 'sheet' once, then you have to throw it away!

A 'news paper' is when the painting robot downloads the main stories from a news site and 'prints' them onto the 'paper'. A bit like a screen-grab, but less convenient.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Advert

Ads are what is removed from the white spaces you have in your ad filtering browser.

They rarely contain useful information, but some companies insist on buying those reserved spaces as they have been misled by those selling them that magic algorithms predict it would lead to a sale rather than to an annoyed customer. Spending that money on magic mushrooms will result in a similar effectiveness but is more fun for the buyer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Advert

A full page advert in the Daily Mail is about £30,000

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Advert

Does that include the disbelieving laughter that someone actually paid that?

Just curious :)

[GraXXoR]

Re: Advert

I’m 50 and haven’t bought a newspaper since I was at University.

[Snake]

Re: not happening

I wish I would stop hearing this dream, that there will be this huge onrush to Linux after Windows does something "X". It's not going to happen. Companies will not spend man-hours to upgrade and retrain, and no industry that runs industry-specific software - be it the creatives, pharmaceutical, retail, financial, manufacturing, accounting, and more - will *ever* be satisfied with hearing "Just run it in a VM / emulator!". No. Not happening. Dream on. We've got decades of proof that this won't happen yet every Linuxhead keeps trying to revive the dream.

Windows 11 isn't being adopted because of a combination of locked-in hardware requirements and a known level of integrated telemetry, a no-no as far as business goes. We can't risk our data profiles to launch into the cloud; some may be OK with it, but as previous missives on this very tech blog note, even "cloud" is coming down from the fantasy highs of "It'll fix everything!". I think Win11 may end up being as "popular" as Win8, and we all know how that went...

[Smirnov]

Re: not happening

"I wish I would stop hearing this dream, that there will be this huge onrush to Linux after Windows does something "X". It's not going to happen."

Probably not with Linux. But Windows is already losing market share left and right to Mac OS and ChromeOS. Because the TCO of both platforms is notably lower, and user satisfaction a lot higher than with Windows.

"Companies will not spend man-hours to upgrade and retrain"

Strange argument, because the same companies clearly need to upgrade to something because Windows 10 will be dead soon.

And retrain, for what? For employees which, for most part, have zero trouble using tablets, phones and any other kind of devices with widely varying user interfaces? Or the now completely revamped interface in Windows 11, or the constant UX experiments Microsoft forces onto its users of its on-prem and MS365 offerings?

"and no industry that runs industry-specific software - be it the creatives, pharmaceutical, retail, financial, manufacturing, accounting, and more - will *ever* be satisfied with hearing "Just run it in a VM / emulator!"."

Outside a few niches, most business specific software is already running in a web browser, connected to the cloud (and the ones that aren't will be there soon!). If you haven't noticed, even Microsoft has been busy killing off its on-premises software one by one to get its customers into their cloud offerings.

What's left are a small number of businesses with niche applications which have to be run locally for one reason or another, and a larger number of businesses who made the stupid move to buy into some shitty software which is built on top of Microsoft Office. These are literally the only edge cases which need to stick with Microsoft and the Windows platform, but the second group wholeheartedly deserves what it gets.

"No. Not happening. Dream on. We've got decades of proof that this won't happen yet every Linuxhead keeps trying to revive the dream."

You're not wrong, we "day of the Linux desktop" has been coming soon for a quarter of a century. So no, Linux (as in regular Linux distros) are not going to replace Windows in businesses anytime soon.

But other alternatives already are. And the outcome has been universally much lower TCO and much more satisfied users.

Windows won't go away, but in the not too distant future it'll only be the OS of choice for the kind of businesses that still think it's hip to have fax machines.

"Windows 11 isn't being adopted because of a combination of locked-in hardware requirements and a known level of integrated telemetry, "

Telemetry which already exists in Windows 10 (and which has been retrofitted to Windows 7 and 8.x as well).

If you think that's new then you must have been in a coma over the last decade or so.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: not happening

Retraining will be required for the different applications staff will need to use. Despite many applications moving to the cloud, there are still a boatload of legacy Windows based applications still in use.

Considering we have end users who shit a brick if an icon moves or the background colour changes, moving to a different OS and set of applications won't be as easy as you seem to think it will be. One VIP user logged a category one case just because his applications had moved on his multi monitor setup, demanding someone on site immediately. These are the people you have to deal with in enterprise environments.

[Smirnov]

Re: not happening

"Retraining will be required for the different applications staff will need to use. Despite many applications moving to the cloud, there are still a boatload of legacy Windows based applications still in use"

Training for specialist applications is a different issue, and one that's not related to the operating system. Such training also doesn't really revolve around user interfaces but rather on specific processes.

"Considering we have end users who shit a brick if an icon moves or the background colour changes, moving to a different OS and set of applications won't be as easy as you seem to think it will be."

If you really have users who "shit a brick" when they face any minor change then you'll be in a world of hurt anyways as there are a lot of changes in Windows 11. And Microsoft already said that a lot more major changes are coming, whether you like it or not. And not just to Windows, but to Office and other Microsoft applications as well.

If you want a platform with a stable UX environment then Windows has been the wrong choice for a very long time.

"One VIP user logged a category one case just because his applications had moved on his multi monitor setup, demanding someone on site immediately. These are the people you have to deal with in enterprise environments."

I know this type of user, but the matter of fact is that you'll have to deal with these things one way or another. And I can tell you from experience that the amount of stupid complaints has dropped dramatically (i.e., >85%) once our clients moved off Windows. Not just because a lot of the BS that is necessary on Windows doesn't exist on other platforms.

[nijam]

Re: not happening

> These are the people you have to deal with in enterprise environments.

These are the kind of people who would only be tolerated in an enterprise environment, for that matter. Same as the shitty software that insist on buying, in that regard.

[43300]

Re: not happening

Yep, agree.

The reality is that corporates will move to W11 at some point in the next couple of years because it will be the easiest option, and they won't run unsupported versions. Little businesses and home users will probably just ignore the risks and continue to use W10 until the device dies, then buy a W11 one (or if they don't need Windows programs possibly a Chromebook or somethign from the fruity range).

[thondwe]

Re: not happening

Company's will also make a choice between a hardware refresh and paying MS for extended support - which ran for several years after the demise of Windows 7. Hardware cycle to go from 7 to 10 happened in 2020 - added in with the COVID WFH laptop refresh. So that' kits 3 near 4 yrs old by time of W10 eof - and likely as not was OK to run W11 anyway?

It's places like schools, unis, councils, where they don't have £££ to spend

Home - factor in chromebooks, smartphones, tablets etc - how many households worry much about their PC OS??

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: not happening

4 years is nothing.

If a pc continues doing what it is designed to, and carries on running as the whole thing is web based. It will probably be used until the unit is non-functional.

The same goes for schools. Record I've seen so far in a classroom is 12 years!

Laptops are a different story though.

[43300]

Re: not happening

4 year old computers will mostly meet the minimum specs for W11 anyway,

Our newest machines (desktops or laptop) which don't meet them (and it's the CPU which is the issue) are now a bit over five years old.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: not happening

My 25+ year old PC is still going strong. Had a few upgrades over the years of course.

Motherboards, CPUs, GPUs, RAM, HDDs, SSD, Case, Fans, OS.

Still using the same keyboard with it though (IBM Model M)!

[collinsl]

Re: not happening

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

[navarac]

Re: not happening

"Company's will also make a choice between a hardware refresh and paying MS for extended support"

There's no guarantee the MSFT will offer extended support to W10, and I wouldn't be surprised if they don't.

[collinsl]

Re: not happening

Try telling that to the US Govt or the DoD - MS will offer support if they're going to get paid $$$ for it.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: not happening

You keep referring to "companies" but private individuals, especially those in poorer countries, have great interest in moving to Linux. Even in wealthier countries the notion that you're forced to ditch your hardware just because Microsoft wants to up its profits will prod many to give it a try. And if all of them rally around Linux Mint the flock could jump ship.

I agree companies may not standardize on Linux for a while (since there really isn't one dominant Linux desktop right now and many features businesses need are still missing) but I'm convinced that for private individuals Linux Mint is more than sufficient.

[Smirnov]

Re: not happening

" You keep referring to "companies" but private individuals, especially those in poorer countries, have great interest in moving to Linux."

I keep referring to companies because the reality is that consumers, even in rich countries, are small change compared to the revenue software vendors like Microsoft make from business and enterprise sales.

Even people in poorer countries tend to use Windows, often either an expired version (even XP) or a pirated version of something newer.

"Even in wealthier countries the notion that you're forced to ditch your hardware just because Microsoft wants to up its profits will prod many to give it a try. And if all of them rally around Linux Mint the flock could jump ship."

There won't be a mass migration to Linux (and even less likely to something like Mint, a community distro which is little more than a clone of Ubuntu, built by a community who got hacked because they couldn't be bothered to do security properly). That's a pipe dream.

If anything, we'll see an increase in ChromeOS Flex adoption, which does most of what the majority of users want off a PC anyways. The rest most likely will simply buy a new computer eventually.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: not happening

Oh come on! That security incident was 6 or 7 years ago and lasted ONE day! Microsoft has been hacked many times and its entire Windows source code has been leaked. And tens of thousands of highly confidential government emails were pilfered by Chinese hackers because Microsoft couldn't be bothered to properly vet a digital certificate in its Azure infrastructure! Mind you, this is supposedly the "highly secure" government Azure domain, not the commercial one used by businesses.

[Smirnov]

Re: not happening

"Oh come on! That security incident was 6 or 7 years ago and lasted ONE day!"

It lasted one day because the hackers were idiots (they managed to replace install media with manipulated ones, but didn't change the checksum files), which is why it was discovered so quickly.

It could have easily ended worse and the fact that this was even possible suggests a lack of security hygiene.

"Microsoft has been hacked many times and its entire Windows source code has been leaked."

So your argument is it's fine because someone else is worse? That's a rather stupid argument to make.

"And tens of thousands of highly confidential government emails were pilfered by Chinese hackers because Microsoft couldn't be bothered to properly vet a digital certificate in its Azure infrastructure! Mind you, this is supposedly the "highly secure" government Azure domain, not the commercial one used by businesses."

Yes, Azure is shit, but still, comparing the complexity of a global cloud infrastructure with the website of a community Linux distro is a bit silly, really.

Fact is that, if you want Linux, there are much better options than Mint. Which, as mentioned, is little more than an clone of Ubuntu. Which is one of the worst Linux distros there is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: not happening

:: Sits back and munches on popcorn ::

Was waiting for the inevitable distro holy war to continue here, was not disappointed.

anon for obvious reasons.

[A.P. Veening]

Re: not happening

Fact is that, if you want Linux, there are much better options than Mint. Which, as mentioned, is little more than an clone of Ubuntu. Which is one of the worst Linux distros there is.

I have good experiences with Linux Mint Debian Edition.

[snee]

Re: not happening

Been using OpenSuse for a while here, and Kali for my studies.

*Tips hat to 'Anonymous Coward'*

[James O'Shea]

Re: not happening

Hmm. I like Ubuntu.

Please elaborate on why Ubuntu is one of the worst distros. Provide details. And examples.

I'm over here, with my bowl of popcorn.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: not happening

Even in wealthier countries the notion that you're forced to ditch your hardware just because Microsoft wants to up its profits will prod many to give it a try.

Many, many people will just stick with W10 and not worry about updates.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: not happening

The stream of Windows 11 exploits are likely to work on Windows 10 as well but not receiving any updates will start to take its toll on the userbase. They'll either have to decide to wing it, update to Windows 11 (which implies buying new hardware) or switching to Linux Mint (or some other distro).

Switching to Linux is by far the cheapest option.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: not happening

Switching to Linux is by far the cheapest option.

Also the most technically difficult and the steepest learning curve. Cheap ain't everything.

[Lurko]

Re: not happening

If switching to Linux for desktop was really cheap, and as easily feasible as some think, there would be a long list of blue chip business clients because believe it or not, nobody actually wants to pay the MS tax.

There isn't that long list, which tells us that business has looked at Linux for desktop, worked out what the retraining and support costs are, and concluded that any saving simply isn't worth the aggro. And when I say "business has looked", I mean a proper, professional look by people who know stuff, the sort of people that read this website. The sort of people who are fully conversant with Linux because it's used for many business applications already in their comapnies.

And never mind a long list, excluding use by devs and software businesses, is there even a short list of large businesses that use Linux for their standard enterprise desktop?

[Richard 12]

Re: not happening

It's not the retraining or the support costs.

Both of those are actually far lower for switching to Linux than for switching to Windows 11, because far less changes.

The single change of "start button moved to the middle" is utterly mind-blowing for many, possibly even most real users - they genuinely won't be able to use it.

The problem is line-of-business software, most of which is only available for Windows.

However, quite a lot has already moved to web. For the users who do everything in a browser, Linux (possibly as Chromium) is far better and requires no retraining at all.

[43300]

Re: not happening

Sorry, but that's nonsense. Most of the training costs are for the programs, not the OS. Try moving users from MS Office to Libre Office (or whatever) - you are going to have problems. Also, many line of business applications (finance, CRM, etc - even cloudy ones) use plugins which work with a local install of Excel / Word / Outlook.

As regards your issue of Windows 11 start menu, if you have managed devices that is easily dealt with by any competent system administrator - I've done it in Intune with a couple of Powershell scripts; there are probably alternative methods. I did various other customisations in the same way to make it as simple as possible for the users. We now have W11 on about three quarters of our machines. I'm not especially a fan of it, but it reached the point where I couldn't see any particular benefit in delaying, given that we were replacing quite a lot of machines anyway. We have users with a wide range of IT aptitude, and even those who don't find it easy don't seem to have had any particular issues.

Which certainly isn't to say I'm a fan of W11 or of the way in which Microsoft is forcing its adoption: it doesn't offer any notable benefits over W10, but at least it's not as bad as W8!

[ITMA]

Re: not happening

Not to mention the most fundamental fact for virtually all businesses.

The OS is there to run APPLICATIONS. If the applications you need (or viable equivalents) are not available for a particular OS then that OS is a dead in the water for that business.

A total non-choice.

That happens to be the case with ours re. Linux.

[43300]

Re: not happening

Home users and very small business, yes - but larger businesses won't want to take the risk (and their cyber insurers are highly likely to be warning them about that clause in most cyber insurance policies about not running unsupported software). Those businesses, which make up the majority of the Windows market, will mostly be moving to W11 at some point before the cut-off date.

[David 132]

Re: not happening

Ian Johnston: Many, many people will just stick with W10 and not worry about updates.

Well, until one of the updates Microsoft does deign to push out (probably described as something innocuous like “stability and customer experience improvement”), puts giant scary full-screen “This version of Windows has reached end of life!” warnings in front of the user to panic them into an upgrade…

[43300]

Re: not happening

"Many, many people will just stick with W10 and not worry about updates."

And if you try to point out the risk, a good few of them will come out with "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Try to explain that in security terms it very much is broke, and you'll probably get blank stares! I encountered this with a number of people when W7 had gone out of support.

[Sigmund Fraud]

Re: not happening

Still have a laptop with Windows 7 :) ... Windows keeps nagging but I don't care

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: not happening

> So no, Linux (as in regular Linux distros) are not going to replace Windows in businesses anytime soon.

I'm surprised that no one in this thread has mentioned immutable Linux distros with A B upgrades; they are the new "regular distros". Much of what makes ChromeOS special is its one of those.

[Pinjata]

Re: not happening

I cannot imagine regular users opening up a black console window and running commands to make the OS it's things.

In short: Linuxheads need to accept the GUI fully.

[Ropewash]

Re: not happening

They can't even pick a default window manager without triggering a war.

[ITMA]

Re: not happening

I have Rocky Linux 9 on one box at home which has GNOME GUI on it...

That seems to be becoming more widespread and God it is absolutely hideous, God damn awful.

[alain williams]

Re: not happening

For most Linux end users a GUI is what they see.

Me: I prefer a terminal as it is easier and faster -- for me.

[collinsl]

Re: not happening

> What's left are a small number of businesses with niche applications which have to be run locally for one reason or another, and a larger number of businesses who made the stupid move to buy into some shitty software which is built on top of Microsoft Office.

And those of us in a certain sector of governments where there is no internet access

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: not happening

"Companies will not spend man-hours to upgrade and retrain"

If you want a UI that doesn't require periodic retraining of users - nor requires them to just take UI changes in their stride without retraining - then you're a lot better off moving to Linux.

Do the retraining once and from then on enjoy the stability of UI. Between KDE 3 & KDE 5 there's only been one change that's really annoyed me and that's the fact that I can no longer confine un-hide of the panel (task bar to you) to a corner. I suppose for Windows users that would be classed as a minor annoyance given what Microsoft have wrought on them over that time.

Unfortunately a few applications, particularly browsers have changed their UI for the worse. That's because they've followed what happens on Windows and, believe me, that imported lack of stability bugs me no end.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: not happening

Unfortunately a few applications, particularly browsers have changed their UI for the worse. That's because they've followed what happens on Windows and, believe me, that imported lack of stability bugs me no end.

A small but increasing number of the applications I use under XFCE are getting contaminated by the GNOME project's "Fuck the users" interface guidelines.

[BobChip]

Re: not happening

Popularity of Win 8?? It was the joy and delight of living with Win 8 that "drove me into the arms of Linux" Warm, welcoming, cuddly, friendly, reliable - arms---I'd better stop here before El Reg imposes censorship on this post - and I'll be damned if I ever look at Microsoft again. Even if Win 11 was not complete rubbish in the first place, which some of the "dinosaurs" I have to work / collaborate with are always telling me. Because their businesses are stuck with it and they are not allowed to flush it down the nearest toilet.

Happy penguin!

[FatGerman]

Re: not happening

Agreed. Until Linux becomes as easy for a large organisation to manage as Windows is (SSO, group policy, etc etc etc) nobody's going to ditch Windows. I've been trying to get my Linux laptop to print to my company's network printers for 2 years and it still won't find them. Despite all the hate there are some things that it does very well for certain customers. Microsoft know who those customers are and they're genuinely don't care about the rest.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: not happening

I can log onto any Windows computer on my employer's system (it's a large university) and see my desktop, my applications and my files. How easy is that to do with Linux?

[cyberdemon]

Re: not happening

It's trivial. You put /home on a remote fileserver

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: not happening

VERY easy. Has been done decades before Windows. Note that I type "decades" and not "decade".

And with way less hick-ups the Windows version has.

[Tron]

Re: not happening

MS will extend W10 and rush out W12. W12 will be W11 with the most idiotic bits removed and a few W10 features built back in.

Because that is what they usually do after their dud versions.

[navarac]

Re: not happening

W12 could possibly have the added problem of AI bloat and a subscription base.

[Sigmund Fraud]

Re: not happening

>> I think Win11 may end up being as "popular" as Win8, and we all know how that went..

The thumb rule is "Every alternate version of Windows does well"

[ForumNameForSomeGuy]

Re: not happening

While I agree with you for the most part, I think the combination of cloud computing, subscriptions, and corporate greed has great potential to cause a shift in the status quo.

The threat to Windows dominance will be Microsoft themselves creating a situation where licensing costs become so prohibitive that it forces businesses to make the decision to look at other options to cut costs. This becomes easier as applications become browser dependent. With companies like Cononical and Red Hat/IBM to pay for support for the tough problems, Linux (or something else) may look a lot more appealing for the limited application (push a button, get a banana) employee. Yes, this may increase support costs initially. If those support cost increases are significantly less then the subscription costs, it may be preferable. Overtime, as more applications become browser dependent or are written for the new dominant non Microsoft OS, these support costs will fall.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: Advert

I have two identical desktops (Lenovo ThinkCentres) running identical Linux Mint versions (same memory stick for the install) and connected to identical printers (Brother). One will only print via USB, the other will only print via wireless. Having set up Meta+left and Meta+right to tile windows, one does and one doesn't. My conclusion: Linux Mint is flakey as hell.

[Smirnov]

Re: Advert

Mint is based on Ubuntu, which itself is known as the "Windows amongst Linuxes". So flakey-ness is part of the program.

I tend to stick with distros based on enterprise Linux (openSUSE Leap, Alma Linux) where stuff tends to work more reliably. Especially openSUSE has been great on the desktop, aside from being the most user friendly one (thanks to YaST).

[Vincent van Gopher]

Re: Advert

I agree, printing can be a bit odd with Mint or is it a cups thing or something. I have a couple of dozen customers using Linux Mint - home and small businesses, some on pretty old hardware (my main system must be 8+ years old), two of them have the occasional printing hiccup (HP, Brother & Epson printers). Windows never has printing hiccups :)

But does Mint crash? Flaky to me means crashy and rarely - if ever - do I have, or hear about, a system locking up or rebooting on its own volition. Updates also don't cause problems like on Windows.

Only if your ThinkCentres and Brother printers have sequential serial numbers can you even be reasonably sure that all the components are identical.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: Advert

I use a HP Laserjet and Linux Mint prints perfectly on it, in color!

I do admit that it stopped working for a while after they switched to a HP driver which hadn't yet properly updated configuration files. I was still able to print but couldn't use the scanner anymore. After a month of so it automatically downloaded the needed files and it started working again.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Advert

"Windows never has printing hiccups"

Hmmm. I remember having to help out a cousin-in-law. He'd got an HP inkjet (OK, first mistake). Windows couldn't see it. That was because the Windows setup for it had configured it to a completely different subnet address.

[Vincent van Gopher]

Re: Advert

I hope you saw the smiley after that statement :)

[mirachu]

Re: Advert

Wrong smiley if you wanted to imply sarcasm.

[James O'Shea]

Re: Advert

That's not a Windows problem, that's a bloody HP problem.

HP used to make good quality stuff. That time is long gone.

[ITMA]

Re: Advert

Software not being one of them.

[James O'Shea]

Re: Advert

HP software had it's (many) problems. Screwing up subnets was not usually one of them.

I used to use a lot of HP laser printers, especially at the office. They're all gone now, replaced by Brothers, mostly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Advert

I have three Ubuntu machines (18.04, 20.04, 22.04) and a MacOS machine. All print to a Brother laser or Brother inkjet with no trouble. The inkjet significantly predates Ubuntu 18.04. Haven't had a 'hiccup' in years.

Windows, on the other hand...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Advert

Windows has printing hiccups all the effing time if your setup is even remotely unusual, and that's not even considering old printers that you will have to use a driver from an older version of Windows because the current one has no drivers for them. I have a 2001 vintage Laserjet that uses drivers from IIRC Windows 7. CUPS has supported it since forever.

[katrinab]

Re: Advert

Cups was developed, at least in part, by Apple. And I don't hear people complainting about printing on MacOS.

[FatGerman]

Re: Advert

That's because Apple spent a lot of effort on making a UI that discovered the printers and installed the drivers automatically. Linux has no such thing. CUPS is just a backend. Users want a frontend that doesn't require them to know which protocol their printer uses, or even what a protocol is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Advert

"Updates also don't cause problems like on Windows"

Also a Mint user here, and we've got it running on about 150 PoS terminals. I had one problem with a grub update (several years ago) which bricked the bootloader on certain hardware. Certain hardware that made up about 20% of the machines we were using. That was a pain until I worked out the issue.

I also have a constant problem with CUPS updates which stop the CUPS service, but never restart it, causing broken printing until the user restarts the machine. (Or Puppet restarts it, but still).

I've also got a bunch of Windows machines, which haven't had a problem with Windows update for years (Win 7 era), but I wouldn't go on the internet and say "Windows update has zero problems" with a straight face.

[jgarbo]

Re: Advert

When I see "hope" I read "naive loser". Companies don't care about buying new hardware. It's tax deductible and comes with "free" Windows 11. And the wheels keep turning, no new staff training on "weird" software. Admittedly it's corporate extortion, but that's just business. Now go cry in the corner...or glue your foot to the road.

[ettery]

Forced upgrade even of machines that pass checks?

My old i7 is still going great guns, and my computer passes all of the Windows 11 requirements including the TPM security model, but the upgrade checker still says "Processor not currently supported for Windows 11". "Currently" - as in, may be in the future? Seems like they are just trying to force upgrades. Either they will have to allow people like me to upgrade or they will continue to support Win 10 - at least, thats what I think. I'm sure there are many people in my position.

[MrDamage]

Re: Forced upgrade even of machines that pass checks?

Micros~1 seem to have relaxed their requirements somewhat. While the update checker won't do it, you can download the ISO and kick off the "upgrade" from USB.

[AMBxx]

Re: Forced upgrade even of machines that pass checks?

My 5 year old Dell XPS was marked as unsupported by Windows 11. Something changed 2 weeks ago and now it's available.

Seems to run fine. One improvement is that suspend works properly for the first time.

Still don't like being forced to have the start stuff at the bottom.

[Caver_Dave]

Re: Forced upgrade even of machines that pass checks?

I have an i7 processor in my convection cooled PC - one of the faster types - and its not supported. I made sure that I had TPM and all the other requirements as I was putting it together around the time that the first hardware requirements for Windows 11 came out.

When Windows 10 goes unsupported I will move to Linux (I use it for work 50% of the time anyway). I just need to find a seamless move from Outlook.

Youngest child is in the 6th Form and the school insist on Windows files for submissions (and I really can't be ar5ed to argue too hard), but what they don't realise is that she has been on Ubuntu for years!

It's the older children and wife that I will have to prize away from Windows (one of them is already on 11). I might just stop the Office subscription one day!

[NoneSuch]

Re: Forced upgrade even of machines that pass checks?

"Youngest child is in the 6th Form and the school insist on Windows files for submissions (and I really can't be ar5ed to argue too hard), but what they don't realise is that she has been on Ubuntu for years!"

LibreOffice can export in MS Format.

[Terry 6]

Re: Forced upgrade even of machines that pass checks?

Yes. File format has been a non-issue for years. Half the time I don't even know which I'm using.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: Forced upgrade even of machines that pass checks?

LibreOffice can export in MS Format.

In theory. In practice (ie in my experience) the .docx files are, 50% of the time, unreadable or badly corrupted. I use LibreOffice but have given up on it for sending working on MS files with my colleagues.

Note: This may be LibreOffice's fault or it may be Microsoft's fault. That's irrelevant. What matters to me as a user is that I cannot reliably transfer files between the two systems.

[James O'Shea]

Re: Forced upgrade even of machines that pass checks?

It depends on the complexity of the document. A nice simple 20 page document would go from Word to LO and back without troubles. A complex (images, tables, lots of styles) 5 page document would have problems. This has been a common problem with LO and OO before it for a Very Long Time. It used to be a problem with WordPerfect and Apple Pages, but no longer. If Apple and the Canadians can fix things, what's LO's problem?

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Forced upgrade even of machines that pass checks?

> what's LO's problem?

Resources obviously. Programming is hard. Programming in a large distributed group is harder. Inheriting a code base as large as Staroffice/Openoffice ist next level.

If it would be easy I would have taken care of my personal missing pet feature long ago.

[Kev99]

Re: Forced upgrade even of machines that pass checks?

The only reason I upgraded from win7 to win10 was because mictosoft's sycophants reworked their software and hardware to work with win10 which in turn had been tweaked by mictosoft to not work with older, perfectly capable hardware. I do have a couple pieces of hardware that were designed win7 and even winxp, humming along just fine with win10. With the regular bug fixes and design flaw repairs win11 has, it's a wonder anyone wants to run it. As to security, don't open every email or click on every url that comes along.

[bronskimac]

Hanging on as long as possible.

I have a fast PC with a great graphics card. Windows artificial hardware block means I can't upgrade to 11. Having used 11 on another machine I find it horrible, even after several registry hacks to make it more palatable, it is still a pain in the butt. So I'll be hanging on to 10 as long as possible. I may finally start to search for Linux alternatives to the two Windows based apps that consider essential.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: Hanging on as long as possible.

The more Microsoft managers scheme to force people to upgrade (netting them another Windows install fee) the more Linux will be installed on older desktop PC'S and the more people gain experience using it and the bigger the chances the flock will jump ship.

[Citizen99]

Re: Hanging on as long as possible.

My hardware vintage is well over 10 years old. I have W7 'on the metal' in a partition, and XP in a VM just to drive an ancient scanner. Usage is very rare. Multi-system boot management is done from one of the Linux partitions. When I use W7 MS has kindly deactivated it for me, but I press on ignoring the remonstrations. But last time it also screwed-up the initial boot system on shut-down. As It happened I had configured boot for rapid recovery.

[Tim 11]

Re: Hanging on as long as possible.

Just upgraded from 10 to 11 and I only noticed two differences:

1 - rounded window corners which is a huge productivity boost because you can visually tell wherre one window ends and another begins. This alone is enough to make it almost as good as windows 7

2 - taskbar won't go vertical which basically takes the window management experience back to windows 3.1. At the moment I'm using a hack to get back the old taskbar. Not sure what I will do if the hack stops working before vertical taskbar is officially supported

[JoeCool]

Re: Hanging on as long as possible.

I'm seeing a butt loaded of injected adverts. The desktop looks like a tat shop website.

[Dan 55]

Re: Hanging on as long as possible.

rounded window corners which is a huge productivity boost because you can visually tell wherre one window ends and another begins. This alone is enough to make it almost as good as windows 7

It's almost as if making everything flat slabs of indistinguishable colour was a mistake but it's still too early to go back to a 3D look with colour hints as they'd lose face so they found another way almost as good which was copying Apple.

[abend0c4]

Windows 11 itself is not much of a carrot

That's a pity. It would be nice if it were to be of use as something.

That said, it's a sad end: there are some technical merits to Windows, but none that I can't do without in the face of the increasing drawbacks.

[MrDamage]

Re: Windows 11 itself is not much of a carrot

What are you talking about? It's useful as a spyware and malware vector.

[Someone Else]

Re: Windows 11 itself is not much of a carrot

It would be nice if it were to be of use as something.

Burn its ISO image on to one (or more?) DVDs, and use them as coasters.

[nijam]

Re: Windows 11 itself is not much of a carrot

> there are some technical merits to Windows

That's a claim I've never heard before. Lots of other reasons (albeit rarely as strong as they believe) that people buy it, but not technical merit.

[smudge]

How long?

Windows 10 may be just over a year away from the ax, but its successor, Windows 11, appears to be as unpopular as ever.

The end of Windows 10 support is getting closer. Unless the company blinks, October 14, 2025, will be the end of the line for the Home and Pro editions of the operating system

On my planet, it's currently October 2023.

So, two years.

[Joe W]

Re: How long?

And I thought I should bring my calendar to a reputable calendariologist... whew, I was a bit confused myself.

[David 132]

Re: How long?

Considering that this same story gets published every year (“Despite looming end-of-support of previous Windows version, customers reluctant to move to newest version”) I just assumed this was next year’s version of the article, that had slipped through a temporal wormhole.

[mcswell]

Re: How long?

I think it's a Martian year away.

[ITMA]

Re: How long?

Is it a repeating plant?

If so, by whom?

Linux fanboys or Microsoft?

[Nick Ryan]

Re: How long?

There is confusion because Microsoft changed the Windows 10 edd of support date as well as using the same name for the OS version in Windows 10 and Windows 11 but having different end of support dates for them. I.e. Windows 10 22H2 currently has an end of support date of October 2025, Windows 11 22H2 has an end of support date of October 2024.

So situation normal for Microsoft confusing things with their naming... the same nonsense, but worse, is currently going on with Microsoft Teams...

[FirstTangoInParis]

I'm sure AI has some use somewhere .....

.... but likely not in your average office user (says he typing this on a M2 MacBook which has an ML processor). So far on my corporate PC, I have experienced editing Word documents on web view on MS 365, while battling the popups suggesting how to fix my grammar, maybe in much the same way as Grammarly (hence icon). It's annoying and got turned off pretty quick. Likewise Bing Search ..... I'd like to know the search results, not have a conversation with an Eliza-style machine about nothing in particular. I'm really not against change, and in fact I think Decision Engines are pretty damn smart, but please vendors do not lob in AI/ML just because the suits tell you to. Or at least put the result out to beta test users first, to get their reaction good or bad.

In fact, just by a MacBook with Apple silicon to replace your PC. It's streets faster, even if it is quite expensive. As said, it has ML if you want/need that sort of thing, which I guess is why PC manufacturers are doing it.

[JessicaRabbit]

Re: I'm sure AI has some use somewhere .....

Ah yes, MacBooks where you have to buy a whole new machine because one small part of it broke and the Apple approved repair people tell you it's busted and you just need to replace it. See Louis Rossmann's many videos on the subject for examples of this happening.

[MrDamage]

Re: I'm sure AI has some use somewhere .....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qbrLiGY4Cg

Fuck your data, Apple needs to save a few cents per build.

[munnoch]

Re: I'm sure AI has some use somewhere .....

Broke the fan connector on the main board of an Air whilst fiddling internally. It ran, but tended to overheat, unsurprisingly. Local repair shop didn't bat an eye lid and fixed it within a couple of hours for under a hundred notes (your choice of currency).

So, partly true, hardware upgrades and repairs can be an issue, but they aren't necessarily the death knell. Its just annoying that you need to over-spec new hardware purchases by a few increments to ensure you get say 5 years out of it rather than being forced into an upgrade after 24 months.

Why was I even inside it? Swapping a more capable main board from a cosmetically trashed one into mine. Mid-life refresh. iFixit is your friend.

You pays your money and takes your choices. I'd rather have a sleek, shiny thing under my fingers (oooh err) than something that looks like it came out of Scrapheap Challenge.

[SundogUK]

Re: I'm sure AI has some use somewhere .....

Started well; turned into an Apple shill.

[nijam]

Re: I'm sure AI has some use somewhere .....

Well, a cattle farmer may have something to say on the subject.

But as for what's being tirelessly touted in the IT press nowadays, it's the same story as before - artificial stipidity rather than artificial intellegence.

[Steve Kerr]

Annoyances

Got windows 11 on a work PC now

Seems to be spending time fighting againt it - so many things are a pain, the most annoying the forced location of the task bar - I know there are probably hacks etc.. around being able to change it, though this is a work PC so there's a limit to what I can do to it (and also corporate policy restrictions). I prefer to have the start bar on the side but no, microsoft says I'm not allowed to do that with the default install of windows 11.

So my own PC, I'm waiting for something better to come along (new framework laptop when it arrives will have linux), gaming PC will be sticking to windows - maybe windows 12 will be better.

[MrDamage]

Re: Annoyances

Shutup10, Win10DeBloater, DISM++, Revo, and a few reg tweaks, and it's almost usable.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Annoyances

They messed up the UI on a level close to Windows 8.0 debacle. Even Vista/Win2000/WinNT 4.0 UI was better. I found one thing the UI which is a tiny bit better. But more than ten to complain about. On top of that the constant push to "use OneDrive" "Logon on with Microsoft account" and so on. The sad part: The kernel level is better with only one bug which currently annoys me. Nested-V for AMD and robocopy /iorate are the best Windows 11 features. But the UI: Way too much against customer need, widget nonsense is back again, extra space for advertisment in start menu etc blah you all know the long negative list. And I don't even include the TPM/CPU requirements...

But hey, paint can do layers now. That is more important than bugs at nearly kernel level.

[wsm]

Re: Annoyances

PaintDoNet has done layers for years now. And a lot more...https://getpaint.net/

[Steve Hersey]

Needless, wasteful churn.

Does anyone really believe that Windows 10 is materially deficient for ongoing use? <crickets> You there in the back, put your hand back down, we know you work in Marketing for Microsoft.

No one NEEDS Windows 11 except Microsoft's share price (and Dell's). Dropping Windows 10 support is purely a method of squeezing the marks for dollars.

With Windows 10's forced-update methodology, any "obsolescence" argument is moot. The OS can be kept current with little to no user intervention (or, alas, choice).

Now, if Microsoft needs an ongoing revenue source from this OS to fund ongoing improvement, an annual support subscription would certainly be possible. I'd probably even buy one, and I know that most corporate users would. But scrapping the OS and dropping support for existing hardware that still works perfectly well is needless, wasteful churn.

[Peter2]

Re: Needless, wasteful churn.

Yep. I've said for many years that if they charged £1 per user per month for ongoing windows maintenance on their latest professional version with absolutely zero new features and just security updates and patches with a rename to "Windows Classic" then companies would buy it in such quantities that building a replacement for business would be pointless.

Frankly, as an OS even XP had all of the features we required. Win 7, 10 or 11 haven't added anything useful.

[Someone Else]

Re: Needless, wasteful churn (aided and abetted by less-than-helpful media types)

From the article:

However, while Windows 11 itself is not much of a carrot, the impending demise of Windows 10 is undoubtedly a stick, [...].

Hardware makers are, unsurprisingly, pretty happy about the impending demise of Windows 10.

"Demise"? As in, it will suddenly go away or stop working at Micros~1's whim and wish?? Not hardly (as legions of Reg commentards will happily attest). Yes, you may not have your work interrupted with Micros~1 suddenly deciding that now would be a really good time to summarily stop whatever you're doing and boot your machine to accept their latest pile of semi-functional drivel. But your machine, its contents, and, significantly, its OS, will continue to function quite nicely beyond October of 2025, thankyewverramuch!

_{And you, Richard -- shame on you for equating the end of Micros~1 "support" to an extinction-level event. I know that media types are somehow honor-bound to parrot manufacturer's drivel from time to time, but this is El Reg, dammit, and I'd have expected better.}

[Yankee Doodle Doofus]

"shame on you for equating the end of Micros~1 "support" to an extinction-level event"

But ending security updates in this day and age of everything being online IS an extinction-level event, especially for enterprise use. Just try buying cyber-security insurance for a business with the whole fleet still on Windows 7. They'll laugh you right out of the meeting.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Needless, wasteful churn (aided and abetted by less-than-helpful media types)

"As in, it will suddenly go away or stop working at Micros~1's whim and wish??"

Are you giving them ideas? The upgrade that installs W11 if the hardware meets spec or wipes the PC if it doesn't?

[Terry 6]

Re: Needless, wasteful churn (aided and abetted by less-than-helpful media types)

Well, if we finally want to see the year of Linux on the desktop......

[Pascal Monett]

"A collective shrug from PC users"

Yup. We don't care.

And the fact that hardware doesn't improve that much year over year means that we won't care for good long while to come.

Why is Borkzilla declaring Windows 1 0 obsolete ? It was supposed to be the last version until Redmond got an aneurysm and decided to do another one.

There is nothing in 11 that can't be ported to 1 0. All you need to do is put it in the upgrade system. You do know how to do that ? I'm asking because I seem to recall that Windows 1 0 patches from fast track kinda spilled over to the regular channel from time to time.

But, in any case, there is nothing in 11 that anyone cares about but you.

Oh, and talking AI for future upgrades ?

Fuck off.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: "A collective shrug from PC users"

" It was supposed to be the last version until Redmond got an aneurysm and decided to do another one."

I wonder if someone faced with a large, otherwise unnecessary, replacement requirement might use this to sue Microsoft under the Trades Descriptions Act.

[Yankee Doodle Doofus]

"I wonder if someone... might use this to sue Microsoft under the Trades Descriptions Act."

No, because contrary to popular belief, Microsoft never officially claimed that Windows 10 would be the last version. That was something that a developer said during a presentation which was taken out of context and widely reported.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/394724/why-is-there-a-windows-11-if-windows-10-is-the-last-windows.html

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: "I wonder if someone... might use this to sue Microsoft under the Trades Descriptions Act."

"and widely reported."

But no widely reported contradiction. But never mind: plausible deniability.

[MisterHappy]

Re: "I wonder if someone... might use this to sue Microsoft under the Trades Descriptions Act."

If they can do that, can I sue Apple when the iPhone 14, that was touted as "The best iPhone Ever!!" turns out not to be as good as the iPhone 15?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "A collective shrug from PC users"

The developer was just speaking a little early, that's all. Windows 10 is the *last* version now. The *current* version is windows 11...

[Anonymous Coward]

PC is good enough for now.

For many years I was forced to upgrade my computer because it was not capable of running the latest applications. However, now that even the most basic laptop will run apps plenty fast enough there is little imperative to upgrade for business purposes. Since I don't use gaming or 3d rendering and much of the applications that I run are now cloud based, my old computer runs just fine and so I have not upgraded this one for over 5 years. Its perfectly adequate. The CPU power and knowledge of running a PC smoothly without everything slowing to a software brain freeze has improved the longevity of the average PC.

The ability for the latest apps to run on different platforms or in the cloud should shift people away from this wasteful replacement cycle and the environment will be better for it. So legitimate reasons for change are: It may break and be unfixable; there may be some unforeseen application that will require a monster speed upgrade; I may start PC gaming; An upgrade will save me money due to improved power efficiency.

I can only see the power efficiency reason on the horizon at the moment. Unless someone knows of a really good game that I need to play at work?

[Alumoi]

Re: PC is good enough for now.

Unless someone knows of a really good game that I need to play at work?

Solitaire?

[mikus]

Re: PC is good enough for now.

Linux comes default with Mahjong usually if any games, which on flights as the only default game learned to greatly enjoy in place of solitaire.

[David 132]

Re: PC is good enough for now.

“Hunt The Hidden Registry Key To turn Off Annoying Feature <X>”?

[BenDwire]

Re: PC is good enough for now.

Minesweeper is so much better than Solitaire IMO

[TReko]

Re: PC is good enough for now.

Microsoft's last few Windows 10 updates will slow it down (for "security") forcing you to upgrade.

[gerryg]

Re: PC is good enough for now.

On the specific issue of power efficiency, with a decent graphics card, say 300W for a desktop, 12 hours day.

3.6kWh about 70p/day

How efficient would the new PC have to be to justify the expenditure?

What about all the energy used to make the existing PC?

Or the cost of disposal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: PC is good enough for now.

If your GPU is pulling 300W on desktop there's something very wrong. My RX 6800 pulls roughly 35W in a triple monitor setup.

Also, holy hell @ that electricity price. We're having *free* electricity quite commonly when renewables (mostly wind) are going wild.

[Anonymous Coward]

So0rry, Linux still is nowhere near ready to replace windows.

I run Linux. I love Linux. I have loved Linux since I learned UNIX on a PDP-11.

I put Debian on a machine in 2000 and have run various flavours since then.

But there is no way it can replace Windows. Speaking just for myself, there are 2 killer features missing. They didn't used to bel But no one maintained them and they are well over 5 years out of date.

Which is a shame, as they are used daily in all the places I have had to use Windows.

And no amount of the Linux community saying they aren't really needed is going to convince Windows users. Just piss them off.

[HenryCrun]

Re: So0rry, Linux still is nowhere near ready to replace windows.

Ahhhh PDP-11/34 RT-FB was a nifty little machine. I now run an emulation on a Raspberry Pi. But in those days there was a clear separation between the operating system and all the other applications. The latest Windows versions are stuffed full of things the average person is never going to use but can't delete because they are now considered part of the core operating system. Utter nonsense Microsoft.

[tatatata]

Re: So0rry, Linux still is nowhere near ready to replace windows.

If you want a 'real' PDP, look at https://pdp2011.sytse.net/wordpress/pdp-11/

[Yankee Doodle Doofus]

"There are 2 killer features missing"

There is at least one major thing missing from your post: Identification of these "killer features" that linux lacks.

[Someone Else]

Re: So0rry, Linux still is nowhere near ready to replace windows.

Speaking just for myself, there are 2 killer features missing.

And those two "killer features" are.... Wait! I used to know them...they're right here on the tip of my tongue! Yeah, it's been awhile, but sheesh! I should know these by heart! Uhhhh, let me get back to on that, 'K?

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: So0rry, Linux still is nowhere near ready to replace windows.

Unspecific claims from an A/C are soooo convincing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sorry, Linux still is nowhere near ready to replace windows.

Miracast and HFP in bluetooth.

Both long since withered on the vine.

[Yankee Doodle Doofus]

"Miracast and HFP in bluetooth."

GNOME-Network-Displays for Miracast.

HFP on my bluetooth headset works out of the box with multiple distros.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Miracast and HFP in bluetooth."

We'll see.

Last time looked (since 2019) was December last year.

However it's too late for the last cycle in my place.

[BinkyTheMagicPaperclip]

Certainly resisting at home

Work laptop rebooted into Windows 11 one morning, after a very short update - can't be that different then! The task bar now starting in the middle of the screen rather than the left is very annoying, and I uninstalled the news app so that my work(!) laptop was not bombarding me with news and notifications.

At home I'm rarely using Windows these days, it's basically for games and VR. Games seem to be getting there in WINE (and WINE is even almost entirely up to date on FreeBSD these days), VR is still pretty ardently Windows only from what I can see.

I strongly object to any operating system that requires me to have a user account that isn't under my control, and I'm not sure I can be too bothered to source an Enterprise release of Windows. I probably would pay for a retail Pro release of Windows that let me retain a local account (I paid a lot for Ultimate Vista back in the day..), but I'm also not minded to upgrade my hardware when it doesn't need to be.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Certainly resisting at home

The home version can be tricked into local only account with Shift F10 during setup.

For the pro version just use email "x@x.x" with password "x". That always works for me so it offers a local only account, no shift-F10 needed (yet).

Being less bothersome would be nice from Microsoft, but their internal evil forces won't stop.

[X5-332960073452]

Re: Certainly resisting at home

Shift + F10 is now disabled (22H2), user - fuckoff , password - microsoft, oops something went wrong, local account dialogue (all versions)

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Certainly resisting at home

> Shift + F10 is now disabled (22H2)

Not really, easy to re-enable.

> user - fuckoff , password - microsoft,

Youtube video with proof please. Reason: Username is not a valid email address.

[cyberdemon]

Re: Certainly resisting at home

> VR is still pretty ardently Windows only from what I can see

Been happily using SteamVR with Vive / VivePro for 4-5 years now. Debian Sid. Last time I ran Windows on my own PC was 2013.

Yes, you can play Windows VR games through Proton

[Allonymous Coward]

Computers I will probably upgrade to W11

1. Kids’ computers (because gaming, and screen time controls)

2. Errr…

3. That’s it.

[bombastic bob]

Re: Computers I will probably upgrade to W11

I might eventually need W11 for doing my taxes "not on the cloud".

If that happens I'll get the cheapest pile of crap I can find that has 11 pre-installed. If I cancel my MSDN this time, it will pay for it 5 times over in 2 years.

I did zero windows development in the last year., and what I DID do (load something someone else did) I did with a DevStudio that runs on WIn7.

getting sick of Micros~1 and I'm too old to care any more.

[I should just stick with what I have, do not need TIFKAM or .Not or that other "App" thing]

If they kill Win32 API, I'm done with them forever.

[Terry 6]

Weird bullshitabout what's supported

In the Summer, for my birthday,I was given a Lenovo Yoga 7 2 in 1. Which is ideal for me. It was very much what I wanted for casual, recreational need. (There's a two year old i7 Chillblast upstairs with several HDDs and 2 SSDS partitioned so that I can keep stuff nicely organised and backed up, for anything important).

It was bought a couple of months or so previously and put away for me, by Mrs. B, because it was on special, and it'd never have been justifiable at full price.

And it's a nice machine. Absolutely perfect for me.

It won't upgrade to Win 11 ( as if!) though. I might be able to enable that TPM ( or whatever order of initials it is) in the BIOS even though Windows itself just says it's not suitable. But this is a new machine. Even had I started to use it on initial purchase it would still be relatively new now. There is absolutely no justification for making this machine obsolete.For the next two* and a half years I'll keep it on Win 10. After that it will joine (or replace) my old lap top on Mint.

*It's two years, not one to EOL for Win 10

[El Duderino]

MS can zuck* off

Ever since they started their Windows 10 telemetry snooping bullshit, I installed O&OShutUp10 (once Windows 7 updates were no more) and started working on my migration. Now a happy Linux Mint user, all code that was previously written with MS stuff has been migrated to other environments, and LibreOffice replaced MS Office. So long MS, have a good life (or not, don't care).

* (Just like all the 'social' crap)

[Boris the Cockroach]

We need to contact

greenpeace et al.

Tell them that thanks to m$'s stupid upgrade policies that 25% of the PCs/laptops in use today will not be able to be used and will have to be replaced generating 1000s of tons of e-waste (along with mega tones of CO2 emitted by making their replacements.) in the next 2 years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: We need to contact

Greenpeace can't force anyone do anything.

[boris9k3]

Microsoft is it's own worst enemy. Has to be kick backs from hardware vendors..... That can all got to windows update hell.

[Excused Boots]

Now, of course a more cynical person that I, might well think that this is a medium/long term ploy to push desktop users to a 'cloud' (ie Azure), system whereby 'of course you can continue to use your (obsolete because we said so), Windows 10 machine (shudder), because it's just a dumb terminal to your 'proper' and fully supported and 'secured' machine which we have graciously allowed you to use , in our cloud.

Of course the low, low price we will be charging for this will ramp up year or year, but if we have done our calculations right then by the time you have realised this, the cost of you moving away will be more than just continuing to pay us - profit (that's profit for MS not you, who are you again?)

[Excused Boots]

Tell me, does anyone here actually believe that MS will really pull the plug of W10 in two years time?

Or will it be a case of almost indefinite 'extensions' of the support provision because 'we have listened to our customers and have decided to.... although the reality is ''oh shit; hardly anyone is buying this crap about needing new machines, or are prepared to pay for them and are looking at possible alternatives'!

[Alumoi]

Yeap, they will. They did that with 7, so it can be done.

[Someone Else]

Tell me, does anyone here actually believe that MS will really pull the plug of W10 in two years time?

/me raises hand.

As, from all indications, Win11 is the camel's nose under the tent for their eventual full migration to the "clowd" and a subscription model, of course they will not hesitate to "pull the plug" on any and everything prior. I mean, we can't let recalcitrant "users" with the need to actually get work done get in the way of Our Secret Plan for World Domination, now can we?

[Doctor Syntax]

"a subscription model"

That'll be W12. It'll be interesting to see what that does to the home PC users. Will it finally turn them to something else? If not and users get used to paying a subscription to use their PCs will that ease the social media site users into paying subscriptions?

[navarac]

A subscription model

Just about had it with subscriptions. Like renting a house. After a while (few years?) you could have bought it outright many times over. I personally think it would be the death knell for Windows, especially outside the Enteroprise.

[matjaggard]

Re: A subscription model

I get subscriptions for some things - where a company is providing an ongoing service or even significant upgrades that customers definitely want but now subscriptions are used for software that never gets changed and requires no support. So frustrating.

[Adelio]

Subscriptions

I willl NEVER change to using a subscription version of any OS or ant other software.....

[Someone Else]

Mem'ries...

From the article:

Infamously, Microsoft axed support for a raft of hardware with Windows 11, including older Intel CPUs, on security grounds. The result was that hardware that will run Windows 10 perfectly well will not accept the new operating system. And this is not due to performance problems (who remembers trying to run Vista on XP hardware?) but rather because of Microsoft's edict.

What I wanna know is: Who remembers trying to run Vista?

_{The mind is a wonderful thing; it does a good job of suppressing memories of traumatizing or extremely unpleasant events....}

[Yankee Doodle Doofus]

"What I wanna know is: Who remembers trying to run Vista?"

Not me, because I never tried. I built a new PC in 2002, when XP was the new shiny. I always dual booted XP along with one linux distro or another, but that machine happily ran XP until support ended 12 years later in 2014. I still miss XP sometimes...

[tfewster]

Re: "What I wanna know is: Who remembers trying to run Vista?"

I bought a mid-range laptop that came with both Vista and XP pre-installed and the ability to switch. I tried using Vista, but found the UI so slow and UAC so intrusive (Not quite "You moved your mouse. Please enter the Administrator password to make the change") that I gave up on the experiment after a couple of hours. Fortunately the laptop vendor made it easy to switch and delete the Vista installation

The only other time I saw it was with a friends laptop that he'd persisted with, but hadn't installed any updates on - Usually just switching it off when he couldn't do what he wanted to do. Leaving it running for a couple of days to catch up on updates brought it back to a semi-usable state.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Mem'ries...

> Who remembers trying to run Vista?

I do. With SP1 and 64 Bit it was faster on my Hardware that Windows XP. Phenom II X4 with 4 GB RAM, expanded to 8 GB shortly after. The first MS-Consumer OS with 64 bit widely available. And when it went to Windows 7, which is faster than Vista for known reasons, I immediately hated "select full row" feature of Windows 7 making drag and drop more annoying. My personal opinion about the then hated UAC: I liked it, separating admin-actions from user actions with such a simple "sudo replacement".

[David 132]

Re: Mem'ries...

> Who remembers trying to run Vista?

“My name is David 132, and it’s been over 20 years since I last ran Windows ME.”

(rest of rehab group murmurs approval and support)

[Anonymous Coward]

What I wanna know is: Who remembers trying to run Vista?

I do. I took part in the betas, and got it when it was released for business customers (consumers had to wait another year).

As someone else mentioned, it was the first useful 64bit version of Windows for standard PCs. I had used 64bit XP on Itanium and later on AMD64 (Opteron), but both were poorly supported. Vista 64bit was the new mainstream product so even at release support was already better than it ever had been for XP x64.

I also very much like the UX, and the strict, straight forward way UAC worked (which was subsequently watered down in Windows 7 and later).

The biggest issue with Vista was the fact that hardware vendors had been caught asleep at the wheel. Many had only XP drivers ready when Vista launched (if even that, often there were none), despite a very long beta phase preceding the release. Resulting in regular BSODs.

Then Microsoft forked up with its Vista compatibility label program, resulting in low-end PCs which were unable to run Vista properly to be assigned "Vista ready", which added to the bad press.

Vista's public image was subsequently burned completely when computer and even mainstream media began to widely parrot a series of nonsense articles written by wannabe-scientist Peter Gutman, spreading FUD through made-up BS claims (Gutman later admitted he never even used Vista himself, all his articles were based on his interpretation of randomly selected public information and conjecture).

Which was completely undeserved. Vista was a good Windows release, and early problems were mostly resolved with SP1.

It's my favorite Windows version, right after WindowsNT4

[Ghostman]

Re: Mem'ries...

The result was that hardware that will run Windows 10 perfectly well will not accept the new operating system.

How many remember trying to run Win 95 hardware after an "upgrade" to Win98? Printers, scanners, sound cards, video cards, hardly any would run on Win98 after the upgrade.

[WolfFan]

Re: Mem'ries...

I do. Vista, particularly with the service packs, was faster than XP on my hardware, a Toshiba laptop. I couldn't see what all the shouting was about.

Win 7 was better.

Win 8 was an abomination.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't quite care for Win10 updates.

It's the Firefox browser support that will put the final nail in the coffin of W10. I still have W7 machines both virtual and physical running quite happily and they will continue to run until Mozilla stops supporting its v115 browser.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I don't quite care for Win10 updates.

>> I still have W7 machines both virtual and physical running quite happily and they will continue to run until Mozilla stops supporting its v115 browser.

I thought the stupid myth that all it takes to secure an obsolete OS was a current web browser had long been put to rest, but yet here we go.

I'm sure there is a global malware industry rooting for you (probably literally).

[david 12]

Re: I don't quite care for Win10 updates.

the stupid myth that all it takes to secure an obsolete OS was a current web browser

Who said anything about security? You can't browse the web on an obsolete OS.

The javascript libraries choose to disable operation when the browser people increment the version number. When you can't use your computer anymore, you're forced to a new OS.

[Tim Roberts 1]

I don't count myself as an expert by any measure, but I do have a win 10 desktop for home and a win 11 laptop for work - yeah yeah the old one died, and was not worth repairing.

I see absolutely no advantage to upgrading my 10 machine, and will resist the temptation until something that cannot be replace finally bites the dust. No, I'm not a fan of win 11.

[DanceMan]

Look on the bright side

In two years there will be a bunch of good usable computers for sale to happy linux users.

[Anonymous Coward]

Engineered obsolescence

Win 10 is quite satisfactory thanks.

[The Spider]

Always amused...

As this thread no sooner began than the "Year of the L. Desktop" shtick started, let me offer my opinions.

Currently I work on a range of systems which inclde Mageia Linux 8 and 9, Win10, Win7 (on an old, second-hand mini-laptop), and several incarnations of Android on other devices. The Mageia installs usually wrote over partitions which used to have an incarnation of Win, and I have been using different shades of Mandrake, Mandriva and Mageia consistently here since 2005.

When it comes to the question of migration from W to some form of L, I suspect (based on my own experience) that it is those who, in the now-remote past, had to put up with regular re-installs of Win that would find the transition to L easier; they have experience which includes solving the very kinds of issues that arise during an installation.

However, although I have three different versions of W spread across a number of machines, I don't normally use it because Mageia has all the compatibility that I need; my only gripe is that I am far from sure whether I really need systemd and have been looking elsewhere the last couple of years... but seriously, a person can live without M$Office and the like and still be productive; it hardly takes any flexibility of mind.

So, if M$ actually went belly-up and disappeared some time, I wouldn't miss it because I already have all the functionality that I need - including slic3r for my recently-purchased 3D printer and multiple options for print publishing (the use of which goes as far back as 2008).

However, what amuses me is that when offering their opinions about exactly which version of L a Win refugee might plump for, it's usually either Ubuntu or Mint. I get the impression that they haven't really tried many different distros. Perhaps said refugees need to be pointed in the direction of Distrowatch to choose for themselves?

[Jason Hindle]

Re: Always amused...

"However, what amuses me is that when offering their opinions about exactly which version of L a Win refugee might plump for, it's usually either Ubuntu or Mint. I get the impression that they haven't really tried many different distros. Perhaps said refugees need to be pointed in the direction of Distrowatch to choose for themselves?"

Let them eat Arch (and RTFM).

[Jason Hindle]

As far as I can tell, the whole point of Windows 11 is planned obsolescence for old but otherwise very capable hardware. Until recently, I had a 2015 Thinkpad that still performed perfectly well but will not upgrade to 11. The happy new owner will likely bin Windows and install Mint. We reached a point of sufficiency, as far as hardware goes, a decade or more back - I suspect there was a risk of sales slowing down as people stuck with stuff that still works. Antitrust? Anyone?

[derrr]

Could it be the ridiculous minimum spec requirements??

He said, posting from his Win11 i5-2500K PC which is working just fine.....

[Herby]

Life goes on (sadly)...

Well, a new version of Windows that obsoletes the previous version. Nothing to see here, please go away. Seems like something close to the "red Car" conspiracy back a long time ago. Companies getting together and making everyone upgrade. If it were that with such common things as vehicles, or outlet plugs, we would have all gone mad. Alas nobody cares. We are now resigned to having out data squirreled away in the cloud (read someone who doesn't care about security's computer), and having our actions monitored like North Korea (trying not to invoke Godwin's law). What is needed is a "recyclery" that takes these nice "old" computers and sells nice Linux boxen. Yes, there will be a surplus of very capable machines that "cannot be trusted" to have a W11 installed on them.

So, a software company and hardware companies have all made up the Cabal, and do things for "Progress".

Me? I'll wait.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why single out Ubuntu?

Where there are many other Linux Distro's out there that will do the same job without the madmess (delibertate) that is SNAP. Once your system is infected with it there is no getting rid of it short of a full rebuild. If you thought that systemD was bad then SNAP is systemD on Steroids. Canonical can go F themselves for foisting that POS on us. We don't need to daemon running in the background collecting who knows what and sending it to the Ubuntu mothership.

In my LUG, even the most longterm and diehard Ubuntu fans have given up and moved on to other distros. Only a few went to Mint.

FSCK the lot of them.

[prh99]

I am a happy Mint convert, Ubuntu without all SNAP garbage etc. Gaming was the last thing keeping me on Windows, but Valve's pouring resources into Wine etc to make Proton has put an end to that.

[navarac]

Lipstick on a pig

As Windows 11 is basically Windows 10 with a mangled front end/GUI, a large smattering of irrelevant crap and getting infested with crap adverts, it is no wonder people have stuck with 10.

[Wolfclaw]

any company can migrate to Linux, they just need the will, the time to migrate apps and the money to put in to the project. End result, longer hardware refresh cycles, really long term O/S support, long term savings. Windows 11 is Microsoft legal attempt at monopoly with the hardware manufacturers being co-conspirators.

[Dagg]

time to migrate apps

Only if they have the source to these apps. If (as most companies do) they run 3rd party apps then they are screwed. Typical retailer running POS, Stock control, Payroll, banking, GL etc. Odds on these are from different vendors so to move to linux would require a migration effort from all vendors or change of vendor. An trust me as one who has worked in this industry for a long time this would be extremely expensive, time consuming and painful. VERY PAINFUL.

[Big_Boomer]

Not like us!!

Believe it or not, most PC users are NOT LIKE US. They don't give a flying **** about MicroSatan or Gungle or Fartbank steaking their data, so long as their icons stay put and their software doesn't change too much. They don't want to learn a new OS or a new Office program or that a-n-other software that so many of us are stuck with (which only runs on Windows), so they stay on Windows. They are not SysAds or Coders or H@ckers or whatever species of tech-junkie you are, they are just users and they just use. If forced to use Win11 they will grumble but will learn it because they get paid to learn it and do stuff on it/with it. They include the VERY people who make the decisions on what OS to use in future like CEOs, CFOs, and CTOs. Nobody ever asks us techies for our opinion or even listens if we raise an issue.

When they have to, companies will move to Win11 or Win12 and pretty much none of them will move to Unix/Linux, just like the last time Windows moved to a new version, and the time before that,... and the time before that,......and no amount of wailing and chanting "Linux is God" is ever going to change that.

For home users, the PC is mostly dead/dying anyways. Tablets/Phones/ChromeBooks have usurped pretty much all of the things people use PCs for. Email, web, gaming, social media, etc. I still have a PC that is currently excluded from upgrading to Win11 due to it's CPU, but it mostly only gets switched on so I can play music whilst I work so it can continue on Win10 for all I care. Yes, I could install <insert-fave>Linux on it instead, but I really can't be arsed. When it dies I doubt I'll replace it.

[Andy The Hat]

Security is paramount

The suggestion is that Win 11 can't be installed on "legacy" hardware as it will not be secure.

Therefore, logically my dear Watson, that means that Win10 (currently installed on legacy hardware and fully supported by Microsoft) is known to be insecure by Microsoft yet still supplied to Government, financial and defense institutions.

Given that, I would like MS to tell me where those known insecurities exist so I can fix or work around them myself please before they are exploited ... After all, if the OS is known to be insecure and MS are actively not fixing gaping security holes in a supported OS then a class action could be in the offing ... Unless they're telling marketing fibs ...

[dog_man]

UI of limited choice

I clicked on the upgrade link in Windows 10 my initial impression, the first 5 minutes, was seems OK but probably unnecessary. Then I tried to customise the task-bar only to find it cannot be placed to the left or right. As the registry hacks to fix this where ignored or automatically rolled back I hit the revert to Win 10 button without delay. Probably the smallest of the erosions of freedom from MS but enough to put me off for a year or two.

[Anonymous Coward]

For my business this is painful - all our PCs are perfectly capable of doing the job but none are supported by Windows 11. So if the life of Windows 10 isn't extended we're facing a major expense with absolutely no other business case for spending the money. We're a small business and it's going to hurt.

But - I'm not sure I agree with other comments that big organisations will just decide a hardware refresh is the least painful option. My better half works for the NHS - they have no money available for upgrading PCs, they can't even get hardware that hasn't really been up to the job for several years upgraded as it is. Windows 10 EOL isn't going to change that.

[PeeKay]

"Windows 10 may be just over a year away from the ax ... Unless the company blinks, October 14, 2025, will be the end of the line for the Home and Pro editions of the operating system"

Um, just over 2 years away, surely?

Avoiding Windows 11 as long as possible, but the boss is saying next year is going to be painful...

[SammyB]

The only support I need is virus protection. As long as I can get updates for Win10 (from anyone), Win11 can collect dust.

[bed]

History would suggest M$ will huff and puff, then continue with security updates for a while, then huff and puff some more. Eventually, the corporate world will migrate to something or other. The domestic user is probably not bothered what OS is being used providing they can use a web browser, receive, and send email, and watch some Pr0n (allegedly). The nerds may start getting pissed off with M$, telemetry and the bloody paperclip being reincarnated, then maybe think MacOS, then look at the price tag (though it has been put to me that as, generally, the devices last longer, a case can be made), or Linux.

[Anonymous Coward]

Many corporates have barely made it onto 10.

Our own policy is to be at least one major release behind, deliberately. Why sit on the bleeding edge and do the bleeding instead of MS testing properly?

The same rationale are why I dont use Fedora as a daily driver.

[gc23]

Windows 11 issues

I recently switched from Devuan Linux to W11 due to niche software requirements that Linux has no equivalent for (drivers for health care equipment). But there are fixes for W11's most annoying issues:

* My Dell Optiplex 7040 is running an older CPU that W11 doesn't officially support. On another W10 box, I burned a bootable USB key using Rufus which allows you to slipstream fixes to W11 to ignore the processor, TPM, and memory requirements and allow you to create a local account bypassing the "online account" requirement. Of course, M$ could break this at any time, but it's worked so far.

* I used O&O Software's ShutUp10++ and AppBuster software to curb M$'s appetite for telemetry and bloatware.

* If you don't like the task bar centered, right-click on the taskbar, select "Taskbar Setttings" -> Taskbar Behaviors -> Taskbar Alignment, then choose your preference of location.

I still prefer Linux but since I have to run Windows, I took a modicum of time, did a little Web searching, and found answers to my questions. So far, so good. Linux still has much better performance than W11 but for my simple needs these days, I don't notice it much. I would switch back to Linux in a heartbeat if I could but since I can't, I'm trying to make the best of it.

[Yankee Doodle Doofus]

Re: Windows 11 issues

At my work, we have installed Win 11 on numerous unsupported machines. The one major drawback we have found is that if we try to do a feature update (like to the soon to be released 23H2), it won't do it, we have to wipe it and do another clean install. This means that every 2 years or so, when the version you are on loses support, you're doing a nuke and pave on each device.

[Mint Sauce]

It's not about Windows 11

It's about "my system works just fine now, and I don't trust microsoft not to fuck it up with the upgrade"

My work laptop is Win11, its ok, its just windows, no different to 10 really.

My home machine is Win10, there's no way I'm upgrading until forced - not because I 'hate' win11, but because it works fine now and I don't want it broken by the upgrade (even if the chances are smaller these days of that happening).

YMMV of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

"enterprises, at least, must plan to refresh their fleets"

Must they? Ours has gone into full post-pandemic penny pinching, they won't refresh until the old one is literally broken. And it's not for lack of profit.

[MC]

I got a new laptop with 11 installed - I clicked on what I thought was the start menu and saw an article about Justin Bieber appear. My experience with 11 ended right there.

[cpage]

Took me ages to get Win 11 to look and work like Windows used to

I also had to get a new laptop and it came with Windows 11 installed. It took me half a day to remove the bloatware and install classic shell and other things that make it almost usable. I still don't have the file explorer under control, anyone know how to get that looking and working like it used to?

As for Linux: I've used it a lot at work but think one of the obstacles to getting it popular on the desktop is that there are so many different distributions, and as we've seen above, the proponents of each distribution make virulent comments about all of the others. This fragmentation is not an attractive feature for the ordinary computer user.

As for full-page ads in the newspaper: we still take two newspapers each day as we prefer to read them on paper than on a screen. But when I see a full-page advertisement I know it is for some over-priced product that I don't want and can safely ignore. Smaller ads might work, no idea.

[Daz555]

Happy to upgrade but.....

I have 6 Windows 10 machines in the home at the moment. Only 1 is supported officially for upgrade which would be laughable were it not almost criminal from an e-waste perspective.

[Gerlad Dreisewerd]

Carrot! What carrot?

Windoze refused to update my previous computer from 7 to 10; they didn't like nvidia onboard graphics. Now they refuse to update my three year old computer to 11; wrong processor you know. More recently Microsoft announced that they are taking over printer drivers; I've already had a taste of how THAT is going to work. If there's a carrot in here I don't see it.

[MarkMac]

virtualisation....

Enterprises won't rush to upgrade hardware for Windows 11, as most of them will already be running virtualised desktops, and Windows 11 runs just fine in a Hypervisor on existing hardware.

My i5-based PC can't run Win11 natively but somehow it works in a Hyper-V container.

[43300]

Re: virtualisation....

It'll run, but you won't get it to install any annual feature updates - I have tried, and the only thing which worked was a feature install.

not sure where you get the idea that most will be running virtualised desktops. Sure, some will but it's not going to be the majority. And of those that are, many will be using session-based terminal servers running Windows Server.

[Nasuno]

TPM

Remove the TPM module requirement and I'll install it.

[Updraft102]

"The move to Windows 10 usually required the purchase of new hardware. It tended to be unavoidable – 7 could run on far lower-spec devices than later versions..."

I don't think this is the case. Windows 7 was heavier and more graphically intense (when the default Aero Glass theme was used) than 8, which dropped transparency effects, and was engineered to work on low-spec tablets and phones, which were less powerful and had less RAM than low-spec PCs of the day. Windows 10 (10240) was also meant to work well on low-spec mobile devices, and was indeed a close sibling to 8.x, one that worked quite well on the older machines I tried it on, like a Core 2 Duo laptop that originally came with Vista. Windows 10 on Windows Vista or 7 era machines worked well, or at least as well as Windows 10 ever worked in that period of time.

This is presumably why Microsoft adopted the strategy of offering free upgrades for consumers using 7 or newer, which they presumably would not have done if it ran so poorly that everyone took them up on their offer to roll Windows back to the original version. The goal of that strategy was to push as many PCs to 10 as possible and to hasten the demise of 7 and 8.1, not to create even more bad publicity for MS, which was already taking heat for the GWX adware debacle, the unwanted upgrades debacle, the uncommanded download of Windows 10 on metered connections debacle, and the debacle of the machines soft-bricked by the upgrade attempt (through no fault in the compatibility of hardware and OS; upgrades are just trickier than clean installations).

Personally, my objection to 10 was not that it ran poorly on my hardware, It didn't... it was (and is) just a crappy product in other ways unrelated to that. The UI is still (to this day) inferior to that of older versions on the desktop, and it still serves Microsoft first and the user second. There is insufficient control over updates, too much advertising (should be "none" on a product that costs money), too much spying, too little user control over many things, and back then, the unwanted feature updates for the sake of having something to talk about came far too quickly. That's why I moved to Linux in late 2015 and early 2016, a decision that I have only become more certain about as I have witnessed what Windows has become.

[Kris Sweeney]

{insert expletive of choice} Microsoft!

My Core i7, 32GB, dual SSD rig is still perfectly functional today, I have three 27" monitors, no problem hosting virtual machines, I'm able to play new game releases but according to their "PC Health Check" tool, apparently unable to run the next version of Windows. I'll need a new processor, probably a new motherboard and memory all because the i7-6800K isn't on their supported hardware list.

I will however probably be able to run Windows 11 in a virtual machine albeit with poorer performance and a poorer experience.

Windows 10 is still incomplete, contains numerous privacy violations, ads, needs 3rd party replacements or extensions for key OS UI components, the settings and configuration applets and tools are a conflicting mess from different versions of Windows and if I purposely ignore the restart warnings from Windows Update until they turn red, various components, usually networking though sometimes the graphics drivers just stop working in order to force an update and as soon as the update has been permitted, all of the problems magically disappear.

Since what was a fairly consistent and stable release in Windows 7, Microsoft have stumbled from one arguably bad build of Windows to another and now in their wisdom have again decided it's time to force users of their OS to upgrade their hardware despite incomes remaining static or barely climbing while the cost of living has skyrocketed.

They can't fully finish one version of their OS before trying to force people to upgrade software and hardware, they even have a plan to charge an increasing fee to use your existing hardware with Windows 10, the tactics they now use just leverage the fact they have a massive market share to ransom your existing hardware and "licenced" software.

The adverts creating fear of running an insecure operating system have already started.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: {insert expletive of choice} Microsoft!

Everything you complain about in Windows 10 is worse in Windows 11 or simply "different, with the new not really better, but then why changed". The best features of Windows 11 are: Nested-V for AMD, robocopy got /iorate, and SMB-compression. Only a few care about those things and can take advantage from them.

You might switch to AMD, 'cause I could upgrade my 2700x to an 3900x and then an 5950x - all on the same board. Others even upgraded from first gen ryzen to fourth with an 5800x3d. The current socket for the Ryzen 7xxx is spoosed to stay for a few generations. I suspect at max three tough, maybe four. Which is more than Intel...