Windows 11 tries to escape Windows 10's shadow with AI muscle Microsoft is set to launch Copilot+ AI PCs this month, aiming to boost adoption of the little loved Windows 11 operating system. Statcounter has published its latest market share statistics, showing that the OS could certainly use a shot in the arm years after launch (October 2021). For May 2024, Windows 11 jumped to 27.67 …
Windows always seems to use edge for displaying stuff, so of course it will show up in the stats. I am surprised it is as low as 13%
Can they get statistics for non windows O/S use, eg for accessing BBC, or google, or amazon?
I think that would give a better idea of the usage
I believe the same is (or has happened) with Outlook.
Everything is being wrapped into Edge and as far as I can see it then grabs more and more to do into. Open a link in an email - it goes to Edge inside Outlook even though something else is the default.
PDF - Edge and worse the wretched thing appears to keep resetting.
The list goes on
"The longer-term trend for Windows 10 is very slightly downward, while for Windows 11, it is slightly upward"
What we never get of course is a statement of the uncertainty of these stats, so it's impossible to tell whether a 1% change is really significant. Nevertheless, it's quite possible that the upward trend in W11 take-up is largely due to folks buying new computers, as W11 is all you get offered now except second-hand. So it may not be down to preference, but merely to there being no option.
This is the idea, of course.
I do wonder if part of the slow uptake is a lot of users, both domestic and corporate, who believe that MS will blink and relax the hardware requirements for Win11 before Win10 goes out of support.
People less aware of MS than us would never think that a company could say "that hardware you paid for? Tough, no good, buy it again".
My desktop has met the hardware requirements for Win11 since day 1. If you have a PC built in the last 5 years they should not be an impediment.
I have used Win11 on work laptops and don't like it. It improves nothing and gets in the way more than Win10 even after tweaking various settings. Add to that the only feature that interested me - Android apps - was US only and is (has?) now been removed then what would be the point?
My SteamDeck is showing me I don't need Windows for games. The writing may be on the wall for MS and I've used every version of Windows since 2.0.
"My desktop has met the hardware requirements for Win11 since day 1. If you have a PC built in the last 5 years they should not be an impediment."
BS. I've brand new Lenovo desktop (a gaming machine to boot) and it's 'not compatible to windows 11'.
Not that I'd want it, but pure assumptions again.
I think it's even simpler. I think people just don't care. They see nothing that Windows 11 has that Windows 10 can't do. I've been running Windows 11 for years now, and it's fine, but there's not much that is different from Windows 10 that affects what I do with it. People will replace broken things and get updates that way, and they won't care at least until security updates stop. I predict that there will be a spike after those updates end from people updating the Windows version on machines that could have supported it any time since 2021, but even then there will be lots of people running 10 because they see an optional update and always cancel it.
I agree, I have been running Windows 11 for 8 months or so now, and it's fine and I'm used to it now, but there is no reason at all to upgrade old running hardware. There's no new features that any thinking person want. It's nothing but win 10 with slightly changed and more annoying ui.
The stats do sound plausible though. There are basically no new Win10 machines being produced, but some of course have died / been upgraded. So a small but significant number of new Win11 PCs being sold. There has been no compelling reason or rush to upgrade, so the change has been gradual. We support a number of smaller businesses, and are maybe 1/2 way though getting sites onto Win11, basically through natural attrition, new units either came with Win11, or are new enough to upgrade. Planning for more machine replacements over the next 12 months, so the trend will continue. Basically what happened over the Win7 -> Win10 upgrade process. By the time Win7 aupport ended the machines running it had been depreciated to zero value for the company, and they could be binned.
If you haven't already, I'd recommend trying Linux out on a live CD or a VM for a while first, to get used to the intricacies without the pressure of needing it to work. I had Arch running on VMWare Player on my second monitor and would do as much of my non-critical activity on it before I switched. It also allowed me to compile a list of software packages and system configurations that I'd want on day one.
Or dig out an old Win7 vintage PC or laptop and just have a play. It will be plenty good enough for testing, and with a cheap SSD and another stick of RAM, probably good enough for light everyday use. Mint is my distro of choice becase it has a "Windows Look and Feel", making it easy to swap between it and Windows. Because I'm a PC bottom feeder, I don't have a machine that will officially run Win11. Dual 6 core Xeons, but they aren't new enough. It should run Linux of some sort until it actually falls apart....
Iet my laptop 'upgrade' to W11 because it was allowed to and to keep my eye in on new things. Yet again like pretty much every new version of Windows after XP it really offers nothing new or extra to home users. Lets be honest most home users would still be largely happy with W98SE if it supported everything they needed to do.
A new Windows OS is make work for MS, simple newness to drive sales. But an opportunity to gather up all the data they feel they have missed by screwing up their phone and tablet adventures. Also to try to cash in on the microtransactions that are making so much money for everyone else.
My laziness keeps me using Windows but I have to say the data slurping, advertising, nagging, bloated turds that MS produces now are likely to push me over the edge to sort out linux on my W11 unsupported but perfectly usable machine.
Apologies for the rant!
I jumped to Linux about 18 months ago now on my main driver at home (still stuck with Windows for work, but they provide that gear, so meh).
All my docs and media are on a NAS (with separate backup and cloud sync), so very little local that needed to be moved, so that made switching easier, for me anyway.
I didn't quite fully commit, as I set up a dual boot, with my existing Win 10 install on one drive, unchanged other than doing a clean up (uninstalling/moving stuff around to fee up other drives etc). Then a separate drive with Mint (as I was already familiar with Mint, other flavours exist). I set up Mint as the primary drive, with Windows as an option via GRUB. But I found, other than booting into Windows to grab some settings or something like that on the odd occasion, that I quickly just stopped using Windows. (Also helps that you can mount NTFS drives as read/write with a single click in Mint (and I assume other flavours), so if all I needed was to grab a file, I can do that from within Linux anyway).
I've been using Mint now for ~18 months, I really can't imagine ever going back to Windows on any personal machine. I don't miss it at all.
A few things I don't miss :
Random slow boot times.
So called background updates or tasks that hog your system for a while (I kept a reasonably clean system).
System updates that seem to take forever even though it's a quick system [*]
Reboots required after even small updates.
The 'update and shutdown/restart' thing, that even when told to update and shutdown, still carries on patching at the next boot up! Time to go get a coffee I guess.
Ads in the Start menu.
Really bad Start menu search system, that keeps pushing Internet results and ads on me (again!). (I turn it off, it then comes back after an update!).
Suggestions, of any sort (it's like Clippy all over again!)
Applications/programs having to be manually updated (I love having a common Software manager and update system now!).
I could go on!
I hadn't realised until I switched, just how many things that are just a normal part of using Windows, are just not a thing, or are less of a hassle, under Linux. To some extent, I hadn't realise just how bad Windows had gotten, until I took that leap, and looked at it from the outside!
Obviously different people will have different use cases, different software needs etc. So millage may vary!
The point is, for me anyway, I have no regrets in jumping to Linux.
And just to be clear, Linux isn't perfect. For example I switched to a different Mesa (GFX driver) as the version in the Mint repo is a bit behind (they go for stability, not cutting edge), and so some newly released games just crashed on start, and this took a bit of digging, and a couple of attempts to get working!
Oh, and I'm also a PC gamer, playing a mix of legacy (C&C, Sword of the Stars, KotoR etc), and newer titles (Horizon Forbidden West, Fallout 4, Starfield, Cyberpunk 2077 etc). All work fine on Linux (sometimes better, especially for older titles such as those written for Win 7 etc).
For ref:
* System: Ryzen 5800X3D, 6900XT, 32GiB RAM, 3 x NVME M.2 drives, one for Windows, one for Mint, and one for my Steam Library :-)
I'd been put off by gaming issues but largely it appears that Steam etc all pretty much sorted under Linux.
The last terror is probably printing / scanning which had always been a bit of a nightmare in previous Linux experiments.
Granted this is just my experience, and just one printer, but for what it's worth...
I've got one of those all-in-ones, a Samsung laser with scanner etc (M2070 to be specific), which I've had a while. (I think HP bought out their printing business years ago now).
It connects via Wi-Fi. When I ran Mint up while building the system, I turned the printer on, just went to the built in 'Admin>Printers', clicked 'Add' and followed the instructions. Job done. It prints from everything so far, and the built in scan software picks it up as well (although it takes a few seconds before the device shows in the device list).
I'd suggest a live CD, or a install into a VM, then see if it works (Linux Mint in my case).
For gaming,....
Yes Steam is amazing. It was pretty good 18 months back, and has just gotten better since then. So many games are Steam Deck verified now, which means it'll be fine on desktop Linux as well, and even if it's not deck verified, I haven't found any recent games on Steam that didn't just work.
Of course a huge part of this is Proton, Valves tweaked version of Wine and used on their Steam Deck, and is built into the Linux version of desktop Steam. Valve are fairly fast at updating and bug fixes, but if it's a brand new game release, it can sometimes have issues (basically the same as needing a day-one Windows driver updates for a specific game). GE Proton is usually a little ahead of Steams Proton, a bit more cutting edge, but you can have both installed at the same time, and multiple versions of each at the same time. (Steam has a global Proton option, but can also be set to a specific version per game if needed).
The only other issue I had for gaming was the MESA (GFX driver), I use Mint, which goes for stability rather than cutting edge, so MESA was always a bit behind. This was fine for like 95%+ of games, but sometimes a new release would crash, hang, or just exit. Switching to a different MESA build (in my case kisak-mesa), resolved these issues.
One thing I have heard, is that AMD GFX has less issues than nVidia. AMD also seem to be a bit friendlier towards open source, Linux etc.
Good luck if you decide to jump!
"The last terror is probably printing / scanning which had always been a bit of a nightmare in previous Linux experiments."
I had a similar experience to Boothy.
When I installed Mint last year, i chose default setup for printers and scanners during the install and my Xerox C235 has worked flawlessly right out the gate. I was most pleasantly surprised.
Also just to mention, setting up the same printer in Windows was a pain.
Windows would not recognise the printer at all without downloading drivers (something not needed in Mint).
The drivers for my Samsung are now on the HP site, they have multiple drivers and software packages, with no clear instructions as to which ones you actually need. I recall having to plug it in via USB to get Windows to see it, set it up initially, then switch to WiFi afterwards!
Well just so happens I do have a Brother MFD.
And W11 has been a PITA to work with it with Wifi printing basically unusable (W10 better but not good). It's a large office grade MFD which I would be lothed to replace just because MS can't be arsed (same as my Ryzen powered PC).
I don't get this "flash in the pan" comment at all. Technology hype is always accurate. Look at how 3D printers destroyed all manufacturing industries and now we all have one on our desk pumping out everything we need. The metaverse transformed work and play - imagine only a few years ago people started their day without putting a VR headset on - cavepeople. I do sort of miss those dead tree books I had in my childhood but my e-book reader more than makes up for the loss. Yesterday I was visiting a client at home when I realised that his fridge couldn't talk to his microwave, it could only do basic Amazon shopping and low-milk alerts. I left immediately, these "live like it's the 90's" weirdos make me sick. Anyway, I have to go now my smart glasses are making my 3D TV look wavy, so I just vomited over my hoverboard.
Meanw\ile all the fuss goes on , im still happily using ye old Mint on my boxes and enjoying every minute of it.
If there was a sticker that sticks it's tongue out i'd use it :D
Come on .. unless there's a program that needs windows absolutely to run and the pc to perform it's task , why stick with the mess ?
Come on .. unless there's a program that needs windows absolutely to run and the pc to perform it's task , why stick with the mess ?
Am I the only person who doesn't seem to have all these problems with Windows? Win 11 seems fine here, boots fine, works as expected with no random slowdowns or crashes. (Although since the NT4 days I do tend to buy good hardware as I've found well written drivers can make a huge difference, but I suspect that's less of a problem now).
WSL gives me enough of Linux that I don't need to install Linux.
I can't be the only person who doesn't seem to suffer from the issues others describe? Is PiHole really blocking that much stuff??
(I will say the only Windows machine I find horrible to use is the works laptop, but that's the amount of 'security' software they've installed, not Windows itself).
You are not alone. I put Windows 11 on my PCs right back at beta release, and it's worked fine for me ever since. I have no idea what people are doing who suffer all these problems, but perhaps it's just a sign of how wide and deep the hardware support is for Windows?
I'm still very happy with the Microsoft ecosystem, it does everything that I need for my PC use, and means that I will never have that awkward "well, it opens fine on *my* PC" conversation with any of my customers.
I do have a number of machines running Linux and OpenBSD, it's fine for the tasks I picked it for. Everyone should run what they like for the tasks that they have, but please, please don't turn it into some sort of tribal warfare nonsense!
GJC
...but perhaps it's just a sign of how wide and deep the hardware support is for Windows?
Yeah, I perhaps hadn't considered that. That is one of the things with Windows driver support, it does mean anyone (well, anyone who can afford the signing cert) can get code in the kernel without supervision.
I'm still very happy with the Microsoft ecosystem, it does everything that I need for my PC use, and means that I will never have that awkward "well, it opens fine on *my* PC" conversation with any of my customers.
I've come to like it more recently. My current employer is a MS shop. Azure is fine. :)
The thing for me too is that I'm old enough to remember when Microsoft were actually evil, not 'evil' in the sense of a large faceless corporation beholden to its shareholders, but evil in the sense that they'd deliberately hobble Windows when running on a competitors DOS to sow seeds of doubt over it's reliability. Or that time Bill and Steve were discussing how best to get the shares owned by their friend and co-founder Paul if he should die from cancer.
Those people are gone now, they've reverted to just the standard level of 'evil'.
I do have a number of machines running Linux and OpenBSD, it's fine for the tasks I picked it for. Everyone should run what they like for the tasks that they have, but please, please don't turn it into some sort of tribal warfare nonsense!
This.... (I have FreeBSD, Linux in several VMs, macOS and Windows... each has it's strengths... each has it's weaknesses).
Yes, you are one fo the select few that seem never to had an problems with Win 11. There will always be lucky exceptions or users that don't fully understand just how sh1t Windows 11 is.
I have a top spec laptop. Loads of RAM and a fast processor. Win 11 runs like a dog. Right click the desktop and see how long it takes for the context menu to be 'rendered'. A good second after you click it.
Oh, and what about the trackpad issue? Microsoft in their wisdom have so sort of stupid 'smart' trackpad control that guess how your fingers move across the pad. Christ. It is like using a laptop from 30 years ago. Ok, switch that off then. No effect as it just ignores you. Dig into the registry (my god, I am still having to do stuff like this!). No fix. Not fixable. Scroll speed also not fixable so I have to use 10 times the force I have always used before to scroll a web page! And there is no fix that actually works!
Then we have the audio sync issues. I first noticed this a day after buying this machine and though "Ah, this can be fixed easliy in Mint by playing the the audio delay until it syncs". Win11, no chance. Forget it. OK this is a Bluetooth problem - 30 years after the protocol was launched and we are still have this basic problems! No, even with the local speakers it drops out of sync. Breathtakingly bad.
Then we have the problem of people not being able to turn off S mode. Then there is that sleep/wake-up bugs ... in 2024! Then the 100% CPU usage when the machine is doing nothing.
I thought this level of hatred I had outgrown as I got older, but no. There will always be a special place in my heart for the hatred I have for MS. If they were a person, I woulld have killed them by now and happliy serve my time content in the knoweldge that a great evil has been purged for this planet.
This laptop is going back as Mint drivers are poor for it. Whilst Mint is somewhat old-fashioned I used it for 5+ years and the only problem I every had was ... I'm struggling to think of any issues I had. I can't think of a time I ever hated the it. And what about the 2 days or so it takes to get Windows into any form of usable state. It's like the old days of installing XP. Mint is literally 5-10 minutes to customise a few bits and then it's good to go.
Also, the is no way Firefox can be that bad on Win11. It doesn't run like that on Mint and Im sure MS are doing something to it. YouTube loads instantly on Edge but 5 seconds on Firefox.There is no difference in the rendering speed on Firefox Win11 on a mid- to top-spec laptop (£600), than a my wife's 5-year old bottom of the range laptop (£150) running Mint.
Also HDR is very poor and even after calibration the blacks are too black and there is no fix apart from boosting the other colours which give a saturated effect. Also, the decoder they are using seems to make the picture look like it is computer-rendered. Everything looks false and like it came from Sora.
Ok, I thought, but maybe Co-Pilot with help things. Nope, keeps crashing and requiring a restart. Even when it is working the answers are often wrong and it will make an answer to fit your question even if it is completely wrong. It plainly refuses to discuss a wide range of topics.
Sadly, not distro worked for this laptop, but the one that was partly useable was Manjaro of a USB stick. And even in live mode, it was 10 times faster than Win11.
There will always be lucky exceptions or users that don't fully understand just how sh1t Windows 11 is.
Windows (well NT), as an actual OS, is fairly decent. (NT is a great little OS that unfortunately had Windows grafted on it).
It has a fine grained kernel level security model and a well documented and stable driver model. As an actual OS, technically, it's arguably better than Linux[1]
Is your laptop clean? Have you tried a fresh install of windows without whatever crap the manufacturer puts on there?
I have a reasonably good machine and right clicking on the desktop is near as instantaneous. Youtube in firefox is actually more performant than Edge here.
The issues you describe with your trackpad and audio sound like shit trackpad drivers and shit audio drivers. (I've got bluetooth, works with many things without any sync issues).
Don't get me wrong, if you've bought a laptop with shit drivers there's not much you can do. But it's probably the manufacturer of the hardware that's really to blame.
This laptop is going back as Mint drivers are poor for it.
So... the drivers don't work on mint and that's a driver issue, not a Linux/Mint is shit issue.... interesting.
1I mean it's not an argument I'd bother with on the internets, except for fun....
The trackpad is fully supported under Linux - in all distros the trackpad work flawlessly. It isn't a problem with the drivers it is a problem with Windows 11. As were the audio drivers working perfectly under Linux. . The trackpad issue has not been resolved by MS even though it has been ongoing for many users since Windows 10.
I never said Mint was shit. Quite the opposite.
"Is your laptop clean? Have you tried a fresh install of windows without whatever crap the manufacturer puts on there?"
Thanks for the advice but Ive been suffering Windows machine professionally for 40 years. I told you I spent nearly 2 days cleaning up this POS OS removing the crud. . Besides which, I cant believe that in 2024 I would need a fresh install of the OS to fix a driver issue. This type of conversation should not even be taking place! I feel like Ive been transported back to 1998.
Im glad you have had success with it. And when I first booted up, I thought, yes at last they have cracked. But then those painful memories were rekindled over the following few days until the state now where I would happliy smash this laptop against the wall. It is that kind of 90s computer rage that I had thought had been consigned to the hellish depths of history.
Life is way too short for Win11 unless you have no choice.
The trackpad is fully supported under Linux - in all distros the trackpad work flawlessly. It isn't a problem with the drivers it is a problem with Windows 11. As were the audio drivers working perfectly under Linux. . The trackpad issue has not been resolved by MS even though it has been ongoing for many users since Windows 10.
Fair enough. It still sounds like a 'trackpad driver' issue to me.
The drivers working under Linux mean the hardware is good and the Linux drivers are better written, that's all.
I never said Mint was shit. Quite the opposite.
No, you said the laptop was going back because the Linux drivers weren't good enough. My point was you seem to be blaming Windows for similar driver issues.
Thanks for the advice but Ive been suffering Windows machine professionally for 40 years. I told you I spent nearly 2 days cleaning up this POS OS removing the crud.
Right, but with a digital licence (which you've got), a fresh install would've taken about 20 minutes on modern hardware. You're then starting at a base clean system, not one with all the laptop manufacturers crap ripped out of it. You could've then spent those 2 days setting it up the way you liked.
As an example, someone above commented about clicking on the desktop and it taking a while for the menu to appear... that's almost certainly a dangling reference to some uninstalled piece of software that takes a few seconds to work out whatever hook it was trying to execute for the menu doesn't work. You'll never ever find all of that crap, so don't bother; start from scratch. Most of the crap that gets bundled with hardware isn't well written, but that's also not Windows fault.
The main improvement in the last 10-20 years with Windows has been the ease of installation.
Besides which, I cant believe that in 2024 I would need a fresh install of the OS to fix a driver issue. This type of conversation should not even be taking place! I feel like Ive been transported back to 1998.
You've been using Windows 40 years and you've not learnt that default installs on commodity hardware come with a lot of bundled crap? Yes it shouldn't be like that, but you try to persuade Dell, et. al. that they shouldn't take the marketing cash? ;)
To be clear, I wasn't suggesting a fresh install of the OS to fix a driver issue, I was suggesting a fresh install of the OS to start from a known clean system.
Thanks for the advice.
I didn't post here for support advice though. 2 days of that was more than enough for me. The issues with the sound and trackpad are UNFIXABLE and that is because of MS. Their smart touchpad setting is broken. Same with enhanced audio settings messing with the sync and it not being able to switch off. These are known issues since Win10 and they haven't been fixed.
If you want to relive those XP days then go for it. Me, no. I am never going back there. Never.
The only positive thing to come out of this experience is that when I return to Linux, I will be so much more appreciative of it and never take it for granted again.
... would be a good auto-captioning function for all my photos, so I could sort and find them by sensible description (and people's names, once faces are clustered). I know some of that is available from Google and Amazon, but that's all on their storage - I want a good local version.
Mint is pretty good.
Not tried printing yet as still migrating.
Commands not difficult
CD is cd
MD is mkdir
COPY is cp
Run as admin is sudo
But the nicest thing is that is has been worked on by pissed off windows users so it feels a bit seveny in a nice way.
The software updater is great.
OpenVPN installed a RDT client found.
Just have emails to migrate.
At the office, some (not all) of the Windows boxes can run Win 11. I had one running Win 11 as a test. It is now running Ubuntu, as Microsoft went to a lot of trouble to try keep me from reverting it ti Win 10. Yes, I could have made it go back to Win 10. No, it was easier to just reformat... and once reformatted, easier to put Ubuntu on it. Congrats, MS, you reduced the Windows count by one. Hoo-rah.
The fine tertiary institution where I do adjunct work some evenings has a lot of machines which could run Win 11. Every one runs Win 10, and IT department says that this will not change for the foreseeable future. By this they mean at least the next three years. When MS pushed Win 8 out, they swore that Win 8 would never be on any machine in the school, and lo! it came to pass that they ran Win 7 until well after Win 10 came out, and installed Win 10 only when they deemed that the OS was acceptable. No Win 8, no Win 8.1. I suspect that the school will have Win 10 until an acceptable, to the IT department, OS arrives. Win 12, 13, 14, whatever. It ain't gonna be Win 11. Ever. They may go to Apple or Linux before they go to Win 11. This is the third biggest college-level operation in Florida, with 60 to 70,000 students. It's a big deal, at least around here, if they don't move to Win 11.
The biggest college-level school in the US is just down I-95 from here: Miami-Dade College, 170+ thousand students.They are resisting Win 11, too. Microsoft had higher ed in Florida locked up tight. This may no longer be the case.
And al this was before the Great Recall Revelation, which screws with FERPA, and that's _Federal_ and deals with _money_. Even if the school administration wants to go with Win 11, if someone (IT department) mentions 'Federal lawsuit' and 'loss of access to Federal financial aid for students because of FERPA violations' to to them, the sonic boom you hear will be the administration demanding that Win 11 be banned immediately. High schools are already hotbeds of Chromebooks and iPads, it wouldn't take much to drop kick the remaining Windows machines into the swamp. That's a whole lot of cash evaporating out of MS's hardware partners' pockets. Money talks. Win 10 will be supported for a good while longer, until an acceptable OS is available.
I haven't the foggiest idea how you'd go about doing it but, like religion, MS needs removing from all schools.
Industry will use whatever their workforce grows up with,apart from the odd box that's still running Win 95 because somebody once won an internet tea urn that came with what used to be called a 'program' before apps were invented.
@James - are you saying that the big edu institute will pay for extended support for the W10 devices or just 'wing it' once official support ends?
The problem a lot of orgs have is that their cyber insurance won't cover them if they continue to use unsupported (and therefore unpatched) machines/OSes.
My org isn't massive (+-3000 users each with a W10 laptop) we can't afford extended MS support as it's incredibly expensive so we're forced to go W11 as otherwise our insurance won't cover us...
Under current rules, if a student (or faculty. Guess how I know) calls into MS with a problem with, say MS Office, MS Non-Support directs you to contact IT Dept for support. IT Dept already does most of the support that MS is supposed to do. IT Dept already has a lot of security installs which are non-standard; just a little way away from the school campus in Palm Beach Gardens the city of Rivera Beach was ransomewared, and IT Dept does NOT want that happening to them. They are massively paranoid about security. One reason for the three year limit is that this is the limit of what they think they can get out of MS for security support. Yes, they are seriously looking at Apple and Linux. The IT Dept office in PBG, on the second floor of the library, has a big Apple sticker on the door. The IT guys in Boca favor Linux Mint. Lake Worth, the lead campus, still likes Windows... to an extent. Loxahatche and Belle Glade have no opinion. If MS cuts security support for Win 10, this will change. Loxahatche and Belle Glade and PBG do a lot of instruction on medical matters. Security is quite important in medical matters. (Not that idiots like United Health seem to care...) Lake Worth is where the Police Academy and the Fire Academy for the county are; security is a big deal with cops and fire fighters. The Boca campus in literally on the grounds of Florida Atlantic University (right opposite the football field; do not even think about going to PBSC Boca on home football Saturdays...) and has a deal with FAU for biotech matters. That needs security, too. If MS doesn't support Windows for at least security matters, and on the current contract without any additional fees, there will be a PROBLEM.
Look, one of the classes that all students have to take in order to graduate is CGS1100, Microcomputer Applications. That would be MS Office. The book specifies Office 2021; Office 2019 is still installed on every Windows and Apple system in the school. The IT Dept has not got around to installing Office 2021 at this late date because this would require a new contract with MS, and they aren't sure that they want a new contract with MS. Think about the license fees for thousands of copies of Office, for thousands of copies of Windows, for Azure, for SQL Server, etc. Think of all of that going away. Think of headlines like "College saves millions by dumping Microsoft and moving to Apple."
Miami-Dade College is worse. There are seven Miami-Dade campuses, every one of which requires heavy duty security support. If Miami-Dade doesn't get the support it needs, it will move to something which does provide the support. 173,000 students...
I see fun times ahead. I have my popcorn ready... and the office is (again) in the process of dumping Windows. The last two attempts failed because certain senior execs hated the idea. Most of them are no longer with us, and ransomeware attacks on Rivera Beach and Publix Supermarkets and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese have got the attention of those still here. Never underestimate the power of a really bad example.
Normally such a giant change in the way Windows works would be accompanied by trumpets and renumbering it to 12. But having seen how absolutely terrible the uptake on 11 has been compared to 10 (and half the people who deliberately upgraded to 11 at the outset, when it really was not bad, are sorely regretting it right now as they have been making it worse every single month) they pretty obviously realized nobody who had a choice would actually upgrade to this steaming turd if they made it a 'new' product - except, you know, the Elmos of the world. There are always some.
Because there is no upside for the user here. The only one who benefits from making the whole OS Clippy is MS, who at some point gets to start slurping up all your training data for unprecedented user experience tracking and constantly nudge you towards using Edge, Office, OneDrive, etc., and now they've got a giant foothold because you just let them do it all. In return, the user gets everything s/he's ever done instantly stolen when they get any data slurping malware because * MS IS STORING ALL YOUR OCR-ED SCREENSHOT TEXT (from the screenshots they are taking of your desktop every 5 seconds) IN PLAIN TEXT IN SQLITE FOR ANYONE TO LOOK AT *. Sorry for all the caps, but they really encapsulates my feelings when I found that out. This how shoddy the whole damn thing is. About what you'd expect from 'AI'.
Windows 10 is finally a good OS to use (yes yes, the bloatware and removing odd rubbish) over 11.
I have tried 11 a few times and it is rubbish, the interface to make it look and act like mac terrible.
If I wanted to mac OS, I would buy a mac, hiding features, making you dig more for them worse than 10.
Windows 8 was far better!
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