Has Windows 11 really lost marketshare to Windows 10? According to market share figures from Statcounter, the gap between Windows 11 and Windows 10 usage is slightly growing, and not in a way we imagine Microsoft wants. Windows 11's global desktop market share dipped between February 2024 and April 2024 from 28.16 percent to 25.65 percent, while Windows 10's share grew to 70.03 …
The problem with "Windows Mary Rose" is not so much the hardware requirements as the obeissance requirements. The future of commercial IT seems to be a new feudal system where only the overlords are permitted to own property and everyone else is in perpetual servitude.
> The problem with "Windows Mary Rose" is not so much the hardware requirements as the obeissance requirements.
TIL two new words!
"obeisance" ("s"): https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obeisance
"obéissance" ("ss"): the French equivalent
Thanks!
Indeed. He is anispeptic, prasmodic, even compunctuous, to have caused you such pericombobulations!
I work at a mid-sized company of about 3000 employees that designs and manufactures lasers and such. It's important that all PCs, whether in an office or on the factory floor, run the same OS. We run Windows 10 and use Dells. The models we use, if I go to Dell's website, don't have a Windows 10 option, only Windows 11 or Ubuntu. Since all PC's given to my new employees (or mine replaced last August) all have the "Standard Company Image" of Windows 10 Enterprise, Office, Solidworks & Matlab, I presume they came from Dell with whatever OS option was cheapest as the SSD gets the "Standard Image" slapped on it anyway. If many companies behave similarly, I can see Windows 11 losing ground to Windows 10.
We buy Dells, and never use the stadard image - too much shite, even on the business machines. Best policy is a wipe and reinstall / reimage with generic MS install media (or an image built from generic MS Install media).
The Pro OEM licenses of Windows allow downgrade so buying them with W11 Pro then wiping them and putting W10 Pro on is perfectly within the rules.
We are nearly entirely W11 now (last few W10 machines expected to be withdrawn within the next few weeks). Does it offer any major advantages? No, not really, but it's not horrendous, and as much of our hardware supported it we decided to go for it - managed in place upgrades with a lot of the machines (which worked with no issues in most cases), and replaced the remaining W10 machines which didn't meet the hardware requirements as they reached end of life. This did give a much longer overlap than I would have liked (in the past we've done OS switchovers within three months or so - this was over a year), but it's not given any major problems.
Basic reason for the lack of interest seems to be that W11 doesn't offer any major feature advances. I doubt if the hardware requirements are much of an issue in businesses now as most will be on a maximum of five years in the renewal cycle, and anything which doesn't meet the requirements is likely to be a fair bit beyond that now. It is going to be more of an issue with home users, though, who tend to keep computers much longer and use them less.
Basic reason for the lack of interest seems to be that W11 doesn't offer any major feature advances.
Yep, been using 11 for a year now. Just Win 10 rearranged with new cover.
Oh, it does have a new built in video editor. And some Control Panel settings that loop back to the Apps GUI settings, that loop back to Control Panel. And a crap ton of MS spyware that makes Win 10 look positively introverted.
But yeah, nothing really compelling about 11 at all.
Since most of your machines in your company already support Win11, expect that between Now, and Oct 15 2025 (or even oct 15, 2028) several things will slowly occur:
1.) People will be sent to "refresher courses" for Windows + Relevant Apps. I doubt the people in HR need solid works or matlab, and I doubt the boffins require the Native HR App, and do everithing HR related via browser, and not the Native HR Client. Here they will explain the differences between Win10 and Win11 and the differences between the Win10 version and Win11 version of each (relevant) app (if any)
2.) Canary Users within every group will go to Win11
3.) Then, low risk groups will transition wholesale to Win11, leaving a few select users with Win10 as Fallback
4.) Then, all groups will transition wholesale to Win11, leaving a few select users with Win10 as Fallback
5.) Outlying Apps will be identified, and great effort will be done to upgrade or replace them.
6.) then, is finished. If your company is on an LTSC branch, you will have support for five years from the landing of the LTSC (witch tend to be an H2 Version). (with ~3000 users is plausible you meet the licensing requirements)
7.) If your company uses plain vanilla pro or Workstation, somewhat less support time.
Your company does not seem to require sertifications (or maybe is a top secret DoD stuff), but having compliant endpoints is critical in industries that have strict regulation and certification rules, think financial (for example Payment Card Industry certifications), Health (HIPPA), Legal, etc. Yes, a company could go from Win10 to Ubuntu desktop (as per your own experience, they are the flagship company for Linux desktops that require certifications), but there enters that beespoke App, that app where the developer refuses to certify linux, or that web portal that was never tested with Firefox ESR, and you see that the environment steers COMPANIES to stay on Windows....
Expect big bumps to Win11 around october 25, 26, 27 and 28.
Have a laptop which started life on Win 8 back in 2012. Over the years have upgraded SSD and from 8 to 16 gig of Ram, new battery and thermal paste etc. Upgrade from Win 8.1 to Win 10 went well. Classic Shell is great.
Obviously the ancient i7 cpu in my lappy and no TPU chip, meant on the surface, I could not upgrade to Win 11. Saying that, there is a way and MS doesn't block it, I found out how through a small YT channel, Chris Waite. All the MS updates come through and can choose what to install, currently on Win 11 Home, 23H2
Then came the issue of telemetry and ads etc in Win 11, used OFGB (Oh Frick Go Back), find it on GitHub, it cuts the cruft. Was also able to install gpedit.msc, meaning my Win 11 Home, functions somewhat more like the Pro version.
I don't work in IT but El Reg helps me take an interest and want to learn more.
Thanks. I honestly don't need the enterprise version, I'm not even on a network. I did just manage to remove Edge, my goal is to strip out, where possible, everything which can report back to MS as well as keep attack vectors to a minimum. Inter-wibbles is scary these days.
I always keep the native browser of my OS, as a fallback from FireFox ESR (which is my main browser in all platforms). I sugest you do the same.
EDGE now is chromium based, and you can not really take it out completely, as, under the hood, remains there to provide webview services to web-like apps in the OS. (Think Tauri or Neutralino). So, the bulk of it will remain in your C drive...
> Thanks. I honestly don't need the enterprise version, I'm not even on a network. I did just manage to remove Edge, my goal is to strip out, where possible, everything which can report back to MS as well as keep attack vectors to a minimum. Inter-wibbles is scary these days.
That's where the Enterprise edition comes in handy. It has group policies that allow disabling all that telemerty stuff built right into the O/S.
Most large organisations just don't allow telemetry, think government departments, defence, even just commercial organisations that don't want their desktops phoning home to a potential competitor (MS). Therefore MS did recognise this fact and released a version of windows that allows the administrators to disable all the telemetry, customise auto-updates (turn it off completely or point it at your own update server, etc.). That is pretty much the only difference between Pro and Enterprise, Enterprise is Pro but with the ability to turn all that crap off.
That is pretty much the only difference between Pro and Enterprise, Enterprise is Pro but with the ability to turn all that crap off.
You're fooling yourself - both versions "phone home" just as much, but MS claim that "Enterprise" doesn't.
It does.
Just as much as any other version. It just doesn't (yet) serve spurious adverts!
You're fooling yourself - both versions "phone home" just as much, but MS claim that "Enterprise" doesn't.It does.
I'm not the one who's fooling himself.
I work in a 20k+ employee organisation that is so concerned about staff data exfiltration, that we have a MITM proxy (i.e. it decrypts TLS traffic, inspects it's now plain text request, then re-encrypts for delivery to the target host) and a firewall that blocks all outgoing traffic (and obviously incoming) that doesn't go via the MITM proxy.
I work in the firewall and server team. If Enterprise was phoning home (after the appropriate group policies were set to tell it not to) there is zero, nada, zilch chance that we would not see the phoning home in our firewall logs (as DROPPED requests) or in the MITM (which will, if it rejects it, log it to security and throw up an error saying the proxy has denied your proxy-request due to it being in breach of organisational policies).
You have no idea how frustrating it is to do a DDG or google search for an error or message, see an article that looks like it's exactly what you want, only to be blocked by the proxy because it's a blog or reddit or other social media (twitter, facebook, youtube, email web-servers so yu can't access your personal webmail from your work desktop) or some such.
"Have a laptop which started life on Win 8 back in 2012. Over the years have upgraded SSD and from 8 to 16 gig of Ram, new battery and thermal paste etc. Upgrade from Win 8.1 to Win 10 went well. Classic Shell is great.
Obviously the ancient i7 cpu in my lappy and no TPU chip, meant on the surface, I could not upgrade to Win 11. Saying that, there is a way and MS doesn't block it, I found out how through a small YT channel, Chris Waite. All the MS updates come through and can choose what to install, currently on Win 11 Home, 23H2”
And surely this raises a question, no?
This, supposedly, ancient device (albeit with a new SSD), can run 11 to the satisfaction of the user. So what exactly is the justification for the official hardware requirements? Security? Well, if so then surely MS would have made it impossible to install Win 11 on non-supported hardware, or at least closed all loopholes with every update. Because if security really is the reason, then surely they wouldn’t want to allow the use of ‘insecure’ systems, no?
Concern about perfomance? I am running Win 11 on ‘unsupported hardware’ at $JOB, and it all works fine on a core i7, 7th Gen. processor- so that’s a hard one to justify too!
So I’m a bit confused, the oft mentioned ‘justification’ is that it’s just designed to sell more PCs, but do MS gain from that? I’ve seen references on MS talking about the ‘journey to Windows 11’, the danger being that some customers might well ‘journey’ to the local Apple Store instead.
Maybe, what MS should have done is said, "right Windows 11 is an entirely new architecture, it will only run on strictly hardware which meets xyz specification, and it WILL NOT run legacy x86 and x64 applications except under emulation and even than some features won’t work and never will. Applications will need to be rewritten according to these standards and we are cutting away a lot of the legacy cruft that has existed since Win 3.1 and has just been retained and built on because - backwards compatibility!
However, we understand the reality of the situation, so we will be supporting Win 10 for the next five/eight/years, which will support legacy systems and software, but after then, we ARE killing any and all ongoing support for it, so you have until then to update your software and migrate - after that, you are on your own!”
Incidentally, in the absence of the above happening, there is zero, absolutely zero chance that Microsoft WILL pull support for Windows 10 in October next year. It’s a game of chicken and, I’m afraid MS will blink first!
They 24H2 update will have a kernel compiled to use newer instruction set extensions. So anyone who bypassed the restrictions will end up with an unbootable install of Windows. But for the rest with more modern machines it will run faster, and I can confirm to that build 26100 is actually faster and smoother (dare I say even more so than Win 10 ever was).
But the new build will run on 5-year-old processors, so a lot of machines currently barred from installing would support it.
I see a concerted attempt to clear out all of the old iron. New OEM license fees? Or pressure from the big PC makers. Remember, MS were so keen to kill off old boxes, they accidentally blocked install on some Surface tabs!
I get why people write up scripts and fixes and little utils to undo some of the crap that Microsoft introduces into Windows.
I'm sure this way of thinking will piss of those that have limited choice (I'm forced to use Windows at work, but work are paying for that machine and the licence so cest la vie), but why not explore an alternate operating system that...well I don't know...isn't actively trying to screw you over.
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Nah, microsoft is not on an "every three years a new version of the OS" like old times. Instead, they are on a:
"We only emit a "new OS" version when we need to radically alter the (minimum) Hardware specs."
Also, they are on a "We will reduce partial support timelines for xxH2, LTSC and IoT so that the Overalll OS version gets 10 years (and maybe a 3 years paid ESU extension), even though every specifc xxH2, LTSC and IoT receives less than that" and you will see that Win12 will take a lot long time to land. Many enterprises can not wait that long (due to support and certification issues).
So, expect Win11 to be supported until around Oct 2031 (probably without an ESU option, but do not quote me on that). Expect the Last LTSC and IoT of Win11 to be emmited around 26H2, and for reference, the last supported version of Win10 is IoT 21H2 which will be supported until Jan 2032.
As we say in my country: Te lo firmo
Win12 will not appear before 26H2, probably much farther to that date than closer to it.
Microsoft will take its sweet time to learn about AI requirements and usage with the (optional) Win11 AI PCs, before setting those HW requirements in Stone for 10 years with Win12
I would be happy to pay for a new release of Windows 7 Professional that restores the original working environment on the new W11 laptop I bought in December. No Adverts, No personal data export and running all my original applications on the current Windows 11 PC would make working so much better.
I think that a new release with the original environment on the new hardware would be very popular.
For years Microsoft was been making money by forcing everyone to buy new computers with a new version of Windows, but originally everyone was only buying new software updates on their original computer. That resulted in all the machine manufacturers complaining and the new Windows version only running on the new computers. Every manufacturer was only working to make more money by forcing users to update, not just offering new improvements that would make everyone want to update and be so happy with the new environment (that's never happened for years now).
I paid Microsoft for the privilege of running Windows 7 Enterprise for as long as the privilege was extended. I run Windows 10 on a Surface, on a WinBook, and in a VM, but I found I could largely support it without running 10 myself. Enter Windows 11. I run it in a VM, but that will be curtailed, I am sure. I really do not like all the extra bullshit Microsoft has added into it, finally IMNSHO earning the moniker "Micro$oft," because the whole damned thing seems like a way to grab money. Advertisements, "recommendations," news and weather, telemetry capturing God-knows-what from me. A lot of it can be turned off, but at what point does a streaming update add more or turn them back on? I thought I escape micro-transactions by not playing games, but here it is, right on the desktop.
For the first time in my 25 year professional IT career, I am considering Linux on the desktop. Aside from the Windows 7 now completely out of support for schmucks like me, I have faced the issue that more and more of the applications I use no longer supported 7. I have a year and a-half to figure it all out.
Win-11 is no longer identifiable by the User Agent string on http(s) GETs, it always returns "Windows 10.0" (maybe M$ were afraid that takeup might be a bit slow and didn't want to provide ammunition for their detractors). There is an alternative "Client Hints" API available but Firefox refuse to have anything to do with that. I assume that StatCounter have found another way to collect the OS version information.
"or of keeping Windows 10 supported for a little longer"
Sorry, but, for the first time, Microsoft extended the ESU to mere mortals and SMB, instead of the large and huge companies of before.
Which means, that, if you pay, your win 10 stays supported until 2028. the first year is cheap, the other two, not so much (the program is designed to help you move to Win11, not to stay on Win10).
Also, If you can (legaly) get your hands on it*, LTSC 2019 H2 is supported until ~2029 and IoT 21H2 is supported until Jan 2032
So, with Win10 microsoft gave every opportunity to keep the OS supported "a little longer"
* Is harder but not impossible for us mere mortals.
Regardless of what they said, or the context it was said: Windows 10 was the last version of Windows that *I* did buy.
And that does not mean sailing the high seas. I began to think I might discontinue my Windows experience when I saw Windows 8 at work, I decided to opt out of that version.
I used Windows 10 dual boot for about a year before being confident that it has nothing to offer me anymore. I have that as a vanilla install which gets entirely unused and is mostly forgotten about - waste of an good SSD really.
I recently purchased a small form factor computer which I intended to load with linux. For some incomprehensible reason it came with Win11 preloaded so for the sake of curiousity I allowed it to complete the installation. At this point I should mention my monitor is 5120x1440, a legacy of my gaming days. With the start button in the middle of the screen and other controls in all 4 corners this is effectively unusable without third party software akin to Classic Start Menu (which I use even under Win 10).
The system is now chortling away happily with Linux Mint. I am hoping other manufacturers of low end kit will not preinstall Win 11 because it is a pointless exercise.
It takes mere moments to move the start button back to the left: https://www.wikihow.com/Move-the-Start-Menu-Back-to-the-Left-on-Windows-11
Unfortunately that's the least of the issues. Windows 11 is touted as "faster, more reliable and more intuitive". I'd say it's the opposite, and after spending a while making it usable, now I "only" waste about half an hour every day fighting with it on my company laptop.
Actualy I want the start button in the top left corner and the task bar to the left, which is the setup I have used for years. I understand this is not possible on Win11 without third party software and TBH I am sufficiently satisfied with my customized Win 10 to stay with it until I make the inevitable final jump to a full linux household.
Sorry, yes, that makes better use of space on an ultra widescreen monitor. And it's the location I set on servers that I RDP in to, so I can have multiple sessions open.
(Windows Server 2022 is a retrograde step in terms of UI - borderless File Explorer windows FFS).
Anyway, you dodged many bullets by scrapping Windows 11 immediately.
Well, maybe not quite all of them.
Definitely not all of them. My laptop is more than capable of running Win11, but I am not interested in wasting energy on running spyware. And that is besides the changed interface I don't like, which goes double for my mother and her husband who already had problems with Win10 (until I installed Classic Shell).
What happens next is textbook, up to a point. Borkzilla finds that its weight in the market is once again thwarted by the fact that hardware that is five years years old still does the job fine, thank you very much.
Redmond has still not understood that the days where everyone happily upgraded every year, or 18 months, are over. You can try to cram a new OS version (that is only new via the number scheme and silly GUI changes), we know that our hardware is fine and will be for the next ten years.
So Redmond desperately tries to convince everyone, via Windows Update blockages and dire messages on the IntarWebs, that the new version is absolutely indispensable, and Intel concurs (duh). Meanwhile, users still find that their Windows last-version-that-was-ever-supposed-to-be works fine, Windows Update blockages be damned.
The only thing Borkzilla is going to gain here is that, at one point, users are going to knock on the door at Redmond HQ and bring out the pitchforks and torches and say "Stop fucking around with out work tool. Just support it and make it secure".
At least I hope that will happen.
Who would fancy the job of going to the beancounters to tell them they have to budget for replacing a fleet of PCs in good shape and working well before the H/W hits physical EoL just because Microsoft says so? Or alternatively explaining that paying Microsoft a subscription for extended support isn't really blackmail?
"Who would fancy the job of going to the beancounters to tell them they have to budget for replacing a fleet of PCs in good shape and working well before the H/W hits physical EoL just because Microsoft says so?"
That ain't going to happen assuming the computers are mostly going to be on 3 to 5 year replacement cycles (as will be the case in most medium and large organisations) - computers which are five years old now will nearly all be capable of running W11, and there is still 18 months to go yet until W10 hits end of support.
3-5 year replacement cycles? Luxury!!!!!
I've only known systems to be replaced when they physically catch fire or something. There are exceptions to this -- applications software developers always need "the latest", they just can't survive with anything less in order to develop (actually, "nearly develop" -- the real release is always coming in a month or two) their bloatware.
Maybe I should have complained more but, seriously, I had better things to do than constantly fiddle with PCs. I'd have just loved emulators to stay put on one port (USB + Microsoft => Bad_News") but I think it was just easier to retire than keep fighting Windows (especially as the Powers That Be were trying to replace shared drives with OneDrive.....try building a FPGA off one of *them*!).
I'm with you on the hardware. If it wasn't for gimmicky Intel instructions (AVX/AVX2) creeping into the one thing I can't compile (commercial games), I'd still be using my old Nehalem Corei7 rig. I upgraded video cards a few times, but I used that from 2010 to March 2024 lol. Nice to have a big honking CPU and more modern hardware in general, but I was dragged to it, kicking and screaming. "Why, just why". I still have the old rig on another desk, it's too good to mothball.
What happens next?
Simple. Microsoft will just make Windows 10 worse via the update process in order to make Windows 11 look better in comparison.
Companies have done this thing for centuries: In the 1800's railways cut the roofs of 3rd class carriages to make the other classes better in comparison. Airlines do similar things now with economy class.
I had Win11 briefly on a gifted laptop and found it horrible with the advert-like "suggestions" and other crap that I struggled to turn off without too much wasting of my short life.
As I had need of a Windows machine for some hardware specific crap, it was nuked and Win10 put on with the help of Rufus to more easily get rid of the forced MS account creation, etc. While I prefer Win 7 and generally use Linux, Win10 was nicer than 11 which is pretty damning.
Try as I might, I couldn't get access to my Health Care records from my somewhat-out-of-date Linux machines. I really wanted to get to see that stuff. After a phone session with a quite polite and willing (and Indian-accented) help person, the conclusion is that they simply do not support Linux.
So, I ordered a new laptop from Amazon. Works fine. WSL is cool and runs my code. The advertisement crap, etc. is *very* annoying. Luckily, I'm here by myself, so the occasional "F**K OFF!" doesn't bother anyone.
I still struggle with using the trackpad - instructions I found online are on my desktop.
I saw somewhere what to do to get WSL to source my .Xresources on startup, but can't find it now. Anyone know what to do there?
1) Get a decent mouse & disable the trackpad
2) As other commentard has said, you can run Windows in a VM for special software that has no hardware specific requirements (as I do with w2k, XP, and 7) and then us a Linux or Mac host to avoid the other pain-points.
There's also WINE, which may work for your purposes...or not.
I found that TurboTax seems to hunt down the version of Windows you're using, and will summarily refuse to run if it doesn't like what it sees. WINE may or may not fool it (haven't tried it yet), but your VM may have to be a Win11 VM, if this trend continues and/or applies to your specific package.
...which would sort of defeat the purpose of the VM exercise, I wot...
"However, businesses not caught up in the hype are also all too aware that buying an AI PC is a risky prospect right now."
Sorry, I don't agree. An 'AI PC' is just a reasonably-specced PC using modern components. It's going to be perfectly capable of all the things you might want to use a computer for, even if (as is likely) the AI hype isn't on your radar.
>>It's going to be perfectly capable of all the things you might want to use a computer for<<
and the AI PC is also going to be perfectly capable of slurping everything you do in the cause of "suggesting" unimportant "needs". Do us a favour Microsoft. Just get the OS (preferably 10, not 11) consistent and stable, and not prone to borking all its updates. That's all I would ask - but for me it is too late. I moved to "another L-word" OS on a machine that would run 11 if I was daft enough.
I realise that this is probably an unrealistic hope, but is there any chance we could have a thread on Windows which doesn't consist of a load of people telling us 'just use Linux' / 'I moved to Linux and it's fantastic' / 'I installed Linux on my 105 year old great-aunt's 20 year old computer and she thinks it's great', etc, etc.
The Linux fanboyism on here gets utterly tiresome, Everyone on here knows about Linux. Many of us do use it (especially on the server side), but the reality of working in IT departments is that it's likely to have a heavy Microsoft component. This is not going to change, and as an IT department we cannot tell the organisation 'you're all using Linux now'. This is a site mainly aimed at IT Pros, who will be working with a variety of systems on a day to day basis and need to know about all of them.
If you want to go and congratulate yourselves on your fantastic decisions to move to Linux then no doubt there are Linux-specific forums where you can do that.
The Linux fanbois seem to be have become even more repetitive and predictable than the Apple ones...
Eh, you, stop bringing your properly articulated and rational arguments, we don't need your sort here!
Everyone knows that the solution to every single corporate IT issue, or concern about Windows is ‘just install Linux’.... and then tumbleweed when anyone dares to point out the obvious!
Perversely the Linux fanboys’ rants probably do more harm than good to their cause.
Let’s be honest, Linux, is not, ever, ever going to be a realistic replacement for Windows in the corporate environment. And, be honest, we know the reasons, lack of support (no, looking up articles on StackExchange, doesn’t cut it), lack of software, yes Outlook, the bette noire of the Office suite, please is there a single Linux alternative, that does everything, everything, not most but... that Outlook does? Because Outlook / Exchange is often the lifeblood of companies, replicate that perfectly, and you might be in with a chance - otherwise....!
Just to be clear, I do use Linux-based systems, I know how good they are, I also know their failings. I work in corporate IT, I know how it works, I know the issues, I know just how long the average Linux evangelist will last in front of the average CEO, telling him to scrap everything in place of....
Lastly, I do wonder how many downvotes this post will get. I’m thinking 30-40, which is fine, as long as said downvoter can be bothered to post and tell me where I am wrong. I’m not perfect, I can certainly be wrong and am more than happy to admit it, when presented with evidence and rational arguments.
A lot of so-called Linux fanboys, are probably like me - ex-IT professionals who used both Linux and Windows in their professional lives. I never minded Windows, and used from W3,0 and upwards. Some good and some mediocre. Unfortunately, AFAIK, Microsoft have lost the plot with Windows. Change for changes sake, ads, telemetry gone crazy etc etc. Blocking customisation. It goes on and on as recorded on El Reg. Some of us (I'm retired for instance) have found that not having to deal with all the crap that comes out of Redmond is a relief. Linux is far saner, gives us control of our computers and it is with sadness that I think of "current working" professionals having to deal with Windows. Microsoft has only got the bottom line in its sights (like good corporations) but has totally forgotten customer service - nearly as bad as HP's printer division.
Some "I use Linux" comments are probably tedious to some, but then that's life. Reading some of the Microsoft shenanigans is also tedious and you wonder what is going to drop on users next!. It really makes me sad for a once good OS - flaws and all, that I have used since the beginning.
"In a thread full of people whining about the continuing enshittification of Windows it is perfectly rational to present the possibility and benefits of a freely available alternative."
There are problems with all OSs. What gets irritating is that whenever any Microsoft problem is raised, the fanbois pop up to smugly tell us how they've moved to Linux and it's fantastic. Believe it or not, most of us on here know about Linux. We might well use it day to day as well as Windows (especially on servers). But many of us work in business IT departments, and in the majority of cases it is not a "possibility" to move wholesale to Linux.
And the fanbois normally don't actually "present the possibility and benefits of a freely available alternative" - they just smugly tell us that they now use Linux / it's fantastic / they have no intention of going back, etc, etc. They don't usually present any 'benefits', nor any of the issues (yes fanbois - Linux isn't perfect either!). Plus, they are also almost always telling us about a single home computer (or a handful of home computers), which is pretty much irrelevant to business IT (which is what this site is geared towards). If, of course, they had been involved in a project to roll out Linux to client machines at scale, and reported on the approach, the pros and cons, that may well be of relevance and interest. But a home user isntalling Ubuntu / Mint / whatever on a single computer in their spare bedroom isn't. We don't need to know.
I feel your pain, and largely agree with your complaint.
However, 'your problem' is, in many cases, not the 'inadequacy of alternative OSes' (yes, they are all crap in their own ways), but one of 'corporate culture' and sunk costs.
Linux clearly 'works' at a corporate and infra-structure level. The problem isn't lack of capability, it's that hoary old monster 'Fear of Change'. We like our smoothly running daily routines, we like not having to work too hard, we like having things just the way we're used to having them (however crap they may be), and who can blame us.
We like life the way we like it, and if the planet burns because of that?
But change is what life is all about, whether we like it or not ...
"I realise that this is probably an unrealistic hope, but is there any chance we could have a thread on Windows which doesn't consist of a load of people telling us 'just use Linux'"
I suppose that might happen if there was a thread on Windows that didn't rapidly turn to its enshittification.
I think you missed the point that I was taking the piss...
Copilot is utterly pointless. One of the first things I did when it appeared as a taskbar icon in W11 was to work out how to deploy a policy to remove it (the icon and the desktop program) from all our machines.
A comapny wants to buy an AI PC because they want that PC to be compatible with Win12 in the future, and not be doing the whole crying riglamore about TPM and secure boot everyone did, but now with the TOPs (Tera Operations PEr Second) in the NPU all over again.
Problem is, right now there are NO PCs which comply with the 40TOPs in the NPU required for AI (microsoft Dixit) unless you have a GPU with suitable NPUs on them. And no processor available TODAY includes NPUs (either in the iGPU or the SoC) that hit that target. Qualcomm (arm, not X86) promisses a processosr that does it, but has not launched yet.
And even if the copmputer the company ends up acquiring hits 40TOPs, nothing guarantees that the Win12 requirement is above that number (which will render said HW incompatible or subpar) or below (which means the company spent money unnecesarily).
Then release a version of windows with an option to support the commands found in Linux. Make some hard decisions for work places that use.linux build machines.
And if you really want to make me switch fast support features like ssh.
The problem is that they never improve anything not even really basic stuff about the UI. There is so much low hanging fruit and any user who thinks critically of what tasks waste their time.during a workday could tell you what those things are.
Does file.search within a folder work now? Are things indexed properly? I could go on.
I recently switched from a stupid noisy Window laptop to a Mac Mini. I’ve never had Mac OS before but I wanted the M2 hardware (essentially silent computer). Was fully prepared to run Parallels and keep my existing OS environment. But I now never power on the Windows VM.
Mac OS is much ‘quieter’ than Windows. A calmer working environment. The only thing I think is better in Windows is explorer, and Everything by void.
A small couple of examples:
After first boot, MacOS asked me ‘want to open the windows you last had open when you shut down last?’ It’s handy and actually works properly. Also, unlike Windows, after the login screen it is actually booted - not just pretending and running like a dog for another couple of minutes or so. Windows has ‘boot up and enter decryption key, then wait ages and enter Windows user login, then wait ages for an actual usable OS. MacOS gets all the user entry done a few seconds after power on, and a functional OS a few seconds later. It’s much better thought through.
If Microsoft cared, they could try it and write down 5 things that are an obviously better user experience with MacOS within 5mins of playing with it.
Can’t imagine it’d be that hard to improve the UX of Windows - but they obviously haven’t, or don’t care.
I've been increasing the number of W10 machines.
Just brought a seriously battered laptop out of storage to replace (temporarily) a broken W10 machine.
I am about to take my Dell XPS Core 2 Duo up from W8.1 to W10 (pre-qualified for W10 years back).
This PC has just been upgraded from W7 Pro to W10 Pro.
I do have one W11 machine (the Dell replacing the broken laptop) but I had to install Open Shell to make it feel workable for me.
I'm getting too old to learn new GUI methods which are just there to prove that W11 is different.
I have a couple of other PCs in storage which could be due for W10 some time soon.
All these will not be allowed W11 because old.
I suspect the increase in W10 machines is mainly people finally moving on from W7 and W8.1.
I'm on the fence, I hate them both, but Windows 11 is a bit more dumbed down yet, and more dictatorial. I have to jump through more hoops to get it set up the way people want it etc.
Buy a new laptop (or some pre-built thing) with Windows 11. Right out of the box you're going to have a vendor branded Microsoft dialog that won't let you skip connecting to a network, even if you don't have a cable plugged in and even if there are NO wireless networks in range. Dead in the water, unless you know the tricks to get around it (and currently I think they've closed all but one... "press Shift+F10 to get a console and type oobe\bypassro" and you have to be not connected to a network for that to not just loop you through similar non-choices). If I was selling someone a system they'd get it with a preconfigured, password-less "owner" type local account. Fuck Microsoft and their lock-in hoops.
But... once I get Windows 11 set up nicely, it's OK for people I think. I don't use Windows for anything but I recently installed Windows 11 Home Edition in a virtual machine (Qemu/KVM) so I could be on the same page with people I'll need to help with it. VM's are also easily destructible to test different shit and to make screenshots etc.
Boy... to think I actually stopped hating Windows for a while. Windows 7 x86_64 was too good to be true, but they couldn't let the computing environment stabilize on that, no... they had to try a power grab with Windows 8. I didn't mind servicing it, it was pretty solid and the driver signing requirements (by default) changed the character of the malware going around, making it operate at higher levels and easier to detect and remove (often without me! They could use the tools I left them and it would work lol). A combination of factors really. Firstly a new environment for malware authors (64 bit). Also, for example they made "UAC" (user account control) more usable since Vista and people were more likely to leave it on. I used Windows 7 myself for games and liked it, until about 2018 when Valve started getting involved.
There's no way 3% of the Windows userbase downgraded from 11 to 10, or even .3%. Didn't we see someone (was it statcounter as well) have to restate their numbers for Google Search's share of search queries recently?
They must have made some change to the way they collect data, either introducing a bug or correcting an existing bug, that accounts for the difference. Either way, the picture for Microsoft's ability to force people to upgrade is pretty grim.
I upgraded to windows 11 pro on this PC and ran it for 3 months or so. While it seemed to do what was required, it became annoying, so I restored Windows 10 from a disk image and brought it upto date quite quickly. Of course I had to fix the recovery partition issue using diskpart, which amazingly worked first time. So maybe its also people doing what I have done which changes the figures.
I'm very much an end user now that I'm semi-retired.
Back in my days as a teacher I had to log into the school network to do my stuff, and that had particular requirements of course.
So, my main computer now is win 10 - built for me by the grandson of one of my friends a few years ago. Very happy with it, and use duckduckgo as my browser, thunderbird for email, and am pretty anal about security and regular backups.
I mainly use it for my two interests, ham radio and photography - plus email and general browsing
On the other hand I bought a new lenovo laptop for the odd days I do relief at schools, and it has win 11.
Frankly I cannot see any advantage to win 11 at all. Even after turning off all the "extras" it can be very irritating.
I keep it installed because I don't use the machine for any important stuff, and my internet connection is vis a Ryoko wifi unit.
Window11 is several steps far too far. MS increasingly want to funnel and control your access and usage of what it offers to you. Plus hoovering up behind the scenes all of your traffic, connections and contents to exploit and monetise.
NO THANK YOU.
Win10 is already too far down that road. When they, MS, pulls the plug I will be going OpenSource -Zorus calls.
I didn't mind 7 or 10, even 8/8.1 weren't horrible with a proper start menu replacement. It's the ads, the dialog boxes to trick you into pushing everything back to Bing and Edge (no thanks, I've seen reports on the data harvesting there), and all that stuff. I mean I shouldn't have to coach my elderly father on "okay, if it boots up and tells you to finish your setup, there's a no thanks button in blue text on the blue background in the lower left hand corner, click that or it'll ruin your browser settings. Let me know and I'll come by and reset the options to stop that from happening." I think 11 would be a lot more attractive if they made 11 Pro something like the version where you can tame the ads, halt the constant cramming of Copilot into every unpleasant space they can and the tricking you into changing the browser defaults back to Edge. Stop reverting settings like making the copilot button come back randomly on reboot would be nice as well. Little quality of life things like that.
11 would be better if it just did what an OS ought to: run my programs, honor my settings, and stay out of my way.
The Continued use of Windows 10 remains a potential large financial boost for Microsoft if the company charges a subscription fee for any fixes, particularly security, and/or updates to Windos 10 users, while continuing to hike the hardware specifications for Windows 11, or Windows 12 by that time.
A Win Win for Microsoft, which just announced stellar market share gains for azure and corporate profitability going forward.
It appears that Microsoft has no concerns about Apple or Linux substantialy affecting their hegemony at this stage.
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