Windows 11 is a minefield of micro-aggressions in the shipping lane of progress Workflow. Productivity. Enablement. These are the holy words by which software companies sanctify their ever more plunder-hungry Viking raids on enterprise IT coffers. If only they were true. At least Vikings didn’t pretend to be offering monastery renovations and smart haircuts when they turned up. Microsoft, sad to say, is …
After digging a bit on the subject, due to a recent change from Windows 10 to Bazzite; I've found out that the kernel based anti-cheats get a level of access to machines that I don't even give my family members...or myself on a regular basis.
Scary stuff, even if they just deploy a coding error it can trash your Windows machine similar to Crowd Strike.
> Show me on MacOS where the walled garden hurt you
*cough* Gatekeeper *cough*
"By default, Gatekeeper helps ensure that all downloaded software has been signed by the App Store or signed by a registered developer and notarised by Apple"
So in other words, we need Apple's permission to install third party software. Even M$ doesn't enforce this...
"So in other words, we need Apple's permission to install third party software. Even M$ doesn't enforce this..."
The evaluation versions I find helpfully include a CLI ready applet to disable Gatekeeper so one doesn't need to know anything about Terminal to use it.
S mode.
Where you are forced to use a Microsoft Account. And Bing. and Edge. And store-only apps. Your data is tied to a Microsoft account by force.
You can switch out of S mode, by logging in to a Microsoft Account and using the Microsoft Store. There is some logic there, but also a strong feeling that Microsoft is forcing things for their benefit - not for the owner of the device.
Even creating a throwaway MS account for this purpose can tie device encryption to a Microsoft Account.
iTunes, iOS apple store, macOS applestore.
Apple's complete and absolute control over every single application on your computer.
They can forcibly remove/update or patch software (even stuff you didn't buy from them and manually installed yourself) without you even being aware or able to stop it happening.
It's not a walled garden, its a fenced in concentration camp where the residents have been convinced the sniper towers are for their own protection, even though all the machine guns only point inwards.
Sure, Apple is a very close ecosystem under many aspect - still it has more useful applications that Linux for most people who are not system administrators, web developers or retired Facebook users. And even a lot of system administstors/web developers uses Apple for its bling bling aura when they can - especually if their company spends the money. The market numbers says so. Religious beliefs favour Linux - and that could be sometimes a reality distorsion field as poweful as Apple one.
Yeah, you’ll get a lot of Apple haters here.
I’ve been using Mac and Windows literally for decades, developing and teaching on both, and it cheeses me off when a Windows user feels the desperate need to dump on Apple users. I personally enjoy using a Mac more, and I haven’t found anything that interests me that I can’t do on my Mac.
I recently picked up a cheapo 2019 Macbook Pro that my workplace was throwing out, running the latest version of Mac OS. Can't say I was too impressed by it compared to those from 2012 or so when I last used one - in comparison it felt clunky, icons that weren't clearly matched to their software, and a task switcher that never seemed to interpret what I wanted to do correctly.
Oh, since Yosemite, the macOS environment has been a hot mess. I use it for graphics and need an older OS - 32-bit capable - for my apps and peripherals and also a functioning Messages (which I wish to God that Snow Leopard had..) so at this point in time, I've jhad to install Mavericks and dual boot between that OS for my work and Mojave but I can see the writing on the wall.. and it spells LINUX - which I'll likely be running on a third volume in the system (MacPro3,1) so as to keep up with the internet when I have to go online from the studio.
I see the same step happening on my gaming PC as well. Win10 Pro is at it's end, and though the games work fine, I'm leery of Win 11 so maybe I'll be looking at Steam OS for that in the not too distant future.
If only Apple weren't so stingy with their memory. Anything post Intel is an utter con for memory and storage. If you actually use memory (containers, video editing, local AI workloads, 3D CAD/design systems), having half the memory at twice the price and then also losing the VRAM (it's not only half the main memory, but you are now sharing that for the video too?!). I'm sure those that use their computer for browsing the internet and Netflix are fine with 8Gb, but I've not been on less than 32Gb + 4 Gb for nearly a decade, and I do see it in use.
Secondary storage - the story is also pretty grim. You can pay iCloud for storage, but it's not guaranteed not to mess up your files and has done for me in the past. Apple make it a pretty unpleasant experience to use any cloud or NAS storage that wasn't rented by them.
I was a MacOS user for a long time. When they started making computers like phablets I stopped - I don't want an iPad with a keyboard, I want a power tool for compute with a stable OS. It's also pretty unhelpful that Apple has wars NVidia.
It feels like Apple are trying to con us into unpowered overpriced hardware, Windows are conning us into testing beta crap. I like Linux, but as a desktop, I'm then left with a lot of options off the table - especially around gaming. Windows tends to be the most commonly supported OS for things, so I reluctantly use Windows + WSL.
Use PSn XBox, Nintendo, Steam Deck for Gaming?
A VM with Windows on Linux or a VM with distro & desktop of choice on Windows is superior to WSL, which is admittedly a bit better than the old MS SFU, which had no included X-Server.
But if you are not a corporate cubical user, there is little that needs Windows. It's time that Sage, Payroll, CRM etc for small businesses produced Linux and Max versions, but I remember they were very slow to produce versions that worked properly on NT (hardly any for NT 3.5x or NT 4.0, a few on Win 2K). Even by 2002 there were issues on XP with them ignoring NT security model and needing patches. The issue too for payroll & accounts is they obfuscate what needs to be changed when there is a Budget or whatever, so you pay an annual sub. Decades before Adobe and MS thought of it. There are some Linux bookkeeping & accounts SW, but who will help you set it up if you never studied the subjuct?
If only Apple weren't so stingy with their memory. Anything post Intel is an utter con for memory and storage. ... I'm sure those that use their computer for browsing the internet and Netflix are fine with 8Gb
For the sake of accuracy/pedantry (but this in no way a defence - should have happened years ago), the base-tier Macbooks do now come with 16GB. And the cheapest Air (M4/16GB) is still £999.1 Which is a lot for a laptop,2 but not as much as the upgrade used to be from 8GB>16GB. They've clung onto their £1k entry-level price point for a while. And courtesy of inflation, £999 is worth quite a bit less than it was even 5 years ago.
and then also losing the VRAM (it's not only half the main memory, but you are now sharing that for the video too?!)
In fairness they're not alone in those shenanigans. HP had a line of AMD-powered Envy laptops which were sold as 8GB of RAM but on closer inspection, 2GB was reserved as VRAM. They were advertising it as "8GB" when it was really 6GB. And those weren't cheap either. £800-1200 in 2019 depending on screen size and options (transformer/3-in-1, etc). Comfortably into Macbook Air territory, but with the added startup hassle of uninstalling Candy Crush and associated nonsense.
1. In June 2023, the M1/8GB Air was £999 and the M2/8GB was £1149. By June 2024, the M2/8GB dropped to £999 and the M3/8GB was £1099.
2. Albeit one which will last a decade, unlike some of the landfill-tier W10/11 trash you see in high street retailers. There's a reason it's cheap.
From what I've seen the recent ARM based systems pretty much start at 16GB. So entry level systems are very reasonable(ok for an Apple product). And unless you are a complete dolt its trivial to attach non-Apple storage devices. I have an 2018 era iMac booting off of an external solid state drive.
for a lot more money
Not that much more, if you're doing a genuine apples-to-apples comparison.
If we baseline on an M3 Macbook Air, which was £999 last year and can still be found for £900 new on third party sites like ebuyer.
You can technically buy "a" laptop (Asus, HP, Lenovo) with 16GB of RAM for £500 and it'll be... okay. But you're probably looking at something like an i5-1334U or 1335U, which have 10 cores (2P/8E, 10C/12T). They sound comparable to an 8C/8T M3, but clock much lower and bench 30% slower for single-thread and overall CPUMark. The screen will be rubbish (apparently "Full HD" is still a selling point?) and you get what you pay for in build quality. Bump up to £700 and yeah, you get a pretty serviceable business machine.
If you punt up to £900-1000 (so, the entry level Mac money I'm baselining against) you get a much more sensible processor (e.g. Ryzen 7 Pro 7735U, 8C/16T), which still doesn't bench quite as well as the M3. Although you're getting a 512GB SSD instead of the 256GB in the Mac.
So no, Apple don't make a cheap laptop and they gouge on RAM. But honestly? For £900-1000 you can have a Macbook Air with an M3/M4 processor, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, very good battery life and a great screen. Or you can have a good Win/Linux laptop with the same RAM, comparable CPU and more storage but probably a worse screen. Usually more repairable/upgradeable though (e.g. Thinkpad L14 has socketed RAM so you can swap your 1x16GB for 2x32GB. Or for creatives, an HP Envy x360 with a very good touchscreen aimed at drawing/digital art but - relatively speaking - scrimping on base specs to pay for the screen).
You pays yer money and makes yer choice. Apple are not appreciably more expensive than comparably specced third party laptops when considering all aspects including screen quality/resolution. But yes, they are overspecced for what a lot of people use them for. On the other hand, my mum is stll running a 2012 MBP. So amortised as £/yr, that's a hell of a lot better than most windows laptops I've managed which were starting to creak after five years.
They don't make an equivalent to your "good enough" productivity slab.
And yeah, if you're in the market for something much more powerful, then the RAM/SSD upgrades get eyewatering and you're better off building your own. Paying for a 64GB Macbook... nah. Get me a uITX box and I'll buy several rounds at the christmas party with the difference.
As a freelance developer, what moved me back to Windows is that there are some customers with some apps that still aren't 100% portable (asp.net pre-core, PowerApps custom controls, and even excel spreadsheets).
Most of these can be overcome if you're persistent enough but I don't get paid for trying to fix my development environment so I need to spend my time being productive.
If you really need both Windows and unix-like, I think WSL gives the most seamless experience compared to dual-boot, parallels, wine, vmware etc.
I’ve been using Mac and Windows literally for decades
Likewise. And MacOS is my daily use - both for work and home. I do use Windows as well (looks at shiny new Windows 11 work device) but, by preference, use MacOS.
And Homebrew. Want a linux utility? Homebrew will have it. Want to run something unsigned? Just go into Preferences/Security and tell MacOS to "run it anyway".
and it cheeses me off when a Windows user feels the desperate need to dump on Apple users
Again - likewise. Most of them have never used MacOS and just repeat the tired old tropes of "it's more expensive" [1] or "you can't get the software" [2] or even "it's all locked down" [3]. At work I recommend whatever will do the required task whether it be Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, Linux etc etc. Sure - one of the variables is "is the user capable of using the solution" [4] - it's no good providing a barely IT literate Windows user a Mac because they'll hate you and generate more spurious support requests than you can shake a stick at.
[1] Taking into account the quality of the hardware compared to similarly specced Windows machines, no it's not. And I'm typing this on a 2019 MBP - try running Windows 11 on a laptop from 2019 (in a supported fashion.. sure you can install it but the moment you ask for any support MS and any of the support places will laugh at you).
[2] Yes you can. Want to run linux stuff? Homebrew. Want to run Windows stuff? Crossover/WINE or a Windows VM.
[3] No more than Windows. And considerably safer than Windows too. No Crowdstrike idiocy. Sure - there's malware targetting MacOS but it has a harder time taking root (pun intended)
[4] My wife being an example - she's never used MacOS and refuses to start because it woks in a different way to Windows. So she has a carefully-firewalled Dell laptop that I back up all the time, just in case.
"My wife being an example - she's never used MacOS and refuses to start because it woks in a different way to Windows. So she has a carefully-firewalled Dell laptop that I back up all the time, just in case."
My wife was retiscent to switch from her Windows laptop but a shiny new iMac persuaded her - and it made my life a lot easier. She quickly got the hang of macOS and, for the past 10 or so years, almost the only time I get a plea for help is when she's messed up a spreadsheet she was working on, or needed some particular document formatting (ironically, both in Microsoft apps). OK, I usually step in for the annual macOS update, but that's little beyond checking she's got a recent TimeMachine backup (just in case) before telling her to press the button to proceed with it. A year or so back, her iMac went to the PC graveyard in the sky (well, in the attic) and she now has a MacBook Pro - but switching over was a breeze.
It's a good start, but only a partial mitigation and by its' nature will be playing catch-up on patch days as MS renames registry keys, adjusts GPO hierarchies, and introduces new elements.
If one can get away from Windows for common use cases, FLEE, FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES (or at least to recoup some free time and sanity after the initial learning curve).
Or, as I've done for the past 10+ years, have a Mac with a Windows VM running under Parallels for those times you just need Windows. My 2011 iMac was still going strong after 12 years - it cost me £2k at the time, but not expensive for >10 years productivity. When I bought the iMac I was originally speccing out a new Windows desktop - once I'd kitted out all I needed (on paper) the price differential to an iMac was insignificant (<10%) and offered something that promised to be less expensive over its useful life. I only stopped using it when a new software package I needed to run required a new OS (ironically, I could have run the Windows version as I was able to run a Win11 VM) but the Apple M processors were a game changer as they gave me desktop power in a laptop with an all-day battery.
Yes, life without Windows is not only possible, but it is a very much better life all round. It does not matter too much which alternative you use, provided that you avoid M$ Windows.
If I were a doctor, and M$ were my patient, I would be seriously worried that they were showing suicidal tendencies. Fortunately I am not a doctor, and their eventual suicide will not cause me any concern. I might even get bored waiting for it to happen. Even though it may be inevitable, and the outcome abundantly obvious, I don't expect it to happen overnight. Large animals usually take a long time to die after their final malaise has been diagnosed. I will rely on The Register to keep me updated.
I found the Copilot tab on MS Admin Entra. There is no “fscking turn all this nonsense off and never ask me again” control. As usual you have to wade through various sub options and likely other controls too, but you get the feeling you can’t really turn it off off for all your users. This means that some of your data is going to get hoovered by Copilot whether you like it or not, and some of that data could be really sensitive as defined by national legislation, and you literally cannot stop that happening. Which is why MS is getting the heave ho fairly soon.
You haven't seen it. I have. It is the result of:
"Hello AI, give me an avatar which is friendly and as neutral and non offensive all over the world as possible."
So it looks basically like a blob with a smile. Less imaginative is not possible (though I should be careful saying that).
.... but as long as Linuxtards babble about "freedom", "choice", etc. etc. it will be simply impossible.
Standards are needed for applications - and resource are needed to write truly good UIs. While those promoting Linux need only a server OS to hoard user data through web sites, and then sling ads or worse.
If Microsoft had someome far more clever than Nadella at the helm, he would have understood it - the huge advantage Windows (and mac OS) still have over Linux. But he can only see Azure and its protection money, ooops, steady cash flow, so he's trying to cripple Windows too to hoard data while make applications far less usable ("new outlook"), hoping people will move to the cloud... probably his dream is to be Pichai.
Maybe one day Windows becomes so bad as a desktop system Linux will look a better alternative doing nothing. That day I'll take out of storage my Commodore...
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"resource are needed to write truly good UIs"
But who judges what's a truly good UI? Is it going to be ISO Good UI standard? And what then happens to users who don't like the standard? Who find it unuseable?
Who's the best judge of the UI I, personally, find most useable? Have a go at working out the answer to that one. I'll give you a hint: it's not you.
Users. There's a reason why people like Apple UIs (it's not only their distorsion field) and don't like Linux ones. Gnome is truly irritating - it's a jump back in a distant past.
Great UIs can't be coded by amateurs, they do require a knowledge well beyond programming. Those whe can code them won't work for free. And no big company is interested in investing for a Linux desktop system and its APIs.
That's why all you get is GNOME, KDE and their APIs/widget. Years beyond whatever Apple and even Microsoft (before Nadella cuts) are able to deliver.
"Great UIs can't be coded by amateurs,"
Amateurs don't do so bad, especially considering that software professionals have demonstrated their wretched inexpertise in this field repeatedly.
However, if you want a great UI, consult an old school mechanical engineer from the car industry.
"Amateurs don't do so bad"
The problem is that amateurs are unwilling, sometimes unable, to agree to standardize the OS. FOSS-heads will disagree to their last breath but the rest of the world's users, and markets, have spoken: until Linux can provide a standardized experience so that investment of time, resources and funds means that you are assured of user experience commensurate with said investment, Linux will always trail on the desktop.
Note I said "desktop". Linux has won on servers and is immensely powerful on embedded systems as well. But "Year of the Linux desktop" simply will never arrive when the Linuxphere is content with constantly forking distros rather than fixing issues or complaints on current releases; Linux will never fully arrive on the desktop until a large majority of users no longer feel fear, regret or left behind in productivity when they switch. Many of the available application packages need hundreds of man-hours of work of additional polish; many fields of user needs have no available legitimate application package alternatives to Windows programs at all (again, note "legitimate", as there are often alternatives but seriously lacking in power / functionality / compatibility).
But many in the Linux community are happy with this status-quo, because let's face it (and not deny the reality) that some in the FOSS community relish in intentionally keeping Linux a bit more...difficult...than need be, under the belief that they are "elite" and "elite users" don't need things like "silly UI's" to get their work done.
“Linux will never fully arrive on the desktop until a large majority of users no longer feel fear, regret or left behind in productivity when they switch”
Don’t understand this. My use cases are browsing web, email, gaming, light spreadsheet, occasional documents. Tablets don’t work for me. I have Ubuntu and am happy with my productivity on all of the above…I don’t regret not having windows as my primary OS at all. What specifically did I lose when I switched?
Commonly: printer driver support, scanner driver support, serious desktop publishing (by that I mean production files that actually get sent to commercial printers for series output, not just printed on your personal printer sitting next to you), professional-level image editing and camera RAW support, DAW compatibility, industry-specific software compatibility...
shall I go on?
Everything you mention and functional is modest-use home / SoHo-level profiles. Once you step out of that modest experience with Linux you're often left fighting the system to get your work done, especially if the experience required is professional-level and not DevOps. As I often note, thanks to DaVinci Resolve it is no longer necessary to add "video creation" to the list of Linux failures but, FWIW, only if you are willing to move your workflow to DaVinci away from your current video stack (that often being, "Adobe"); you will have Resolve but you will lose After Effects, the workflow integration of same, loss of productivity, etc.
Let's not mention the hundreds of millions of users who use industry-specific software: the entire financial industry, the manufacturing industry, the retail industry, the insurance industry, the automotive industry, the logistics industry, etc. They need compatibility and "Just run the app in WINE" is saying "Just switch to a commercially-unsupported OS in order to run your app in a developer-unsupported configuration with a commercially-unsupported compatibility layer". They'll just be lining up for that one. [/s]
For example, I work with 2 industry-specific programs, one of which is very essential for the continuation of the business (inventory & billing). And before you ask, no, a general-use program for same won't work as it also integrates things like imaging (via both microscope imaging camera capture plus photo import) and specific fields - the database interface is divided into 6 different UI panels. That microscope camera is connected to my workstation via a USB-to-Ethernet bridge, as it sits on a countertop 8 feet behind me.
Windows has been around So Damn Long that things like this are relatively easy: the application is over 25 years old (still current and supported by the developer), the ethernet bridge drivers are compatible with Win10, etc. Linux? No matter what I may hope in this example, it's just not happening. So just because "But I can use my web browser and LibreOffice!" doesn't mean that it solves the fundamental problem of being a true Windows replacement.
Hmm. Am in a similar boat. Older peripherals, older software that demands specific support and 25 years of custom brushes for the graphics work, digital scanning via SCSI or FW800 and a HUGE Wacom Intuos 1 from 1998 that is geometrically perfect for the displays I use... and I'm stuck with the last actually decent MacOS that's viable to push all the kit and run the apps, which is Mavericks 10.9.5..
I can see that in the instances of specialized work that's tied to older kit, how replacing Windows is a non-starter.
I won't even get into the specialized sound equipment I have that's in the even older Powermacs that I have and use for processing audio. I guess the point I'm trying to get at is that in instances like yours and mine, our workflows represent legacy hardware and software that is purpose-built.. but the majority of the users don't share our experience. I have had to train people on software that is *older* than they are, and the one constant refrain I hear is that they wish it could run on newer systems or that the newer apps they can get (on their tablets, of all things!) had the same level of granular control and adaptability.
Obviously there's a culture shift along with the hardware one.
Oh, that's just the primary business application I use every day, I also use the Adobe suite.
At home I have installed: the aforementioned Adobe suite; a Wacom Intuos 5; two MILC cameras with RAW support; a tethering app for one of those cameras; firmware updaters for (2) Garmin GPS's (was three units), (4) wireless flashes for the MILC's, (2) motorcycle helmet communicators *and* a programmable touchscreen universal remote control; DaVinci Resolve (not really used often); a legacy installation of 2013 Microsoft Streets & Trips (because Garmin's mapping solution is a pain); MS Visual Studio; an X-rite iDisplay colorimeter with software; Genie Timeline; TeamViewer; another previously-mentioned USB-to-Ethernet bridge, connected to a Canon CanoScan to allow for network sharing; a Canon Pro-100 printer with software...
I'm running out of memory to remember everything I have on that thing. Let's just say, "A lot", and all Windows applications. Linux can't handle some of it even if I wanted it to.
So I lost nothing with my specified use cases.
“Everything you mention and functional is modest-use home / SoHo-level profiles”
Precisely. So for the millions of home users: they lose nothing. It’s the professionals that lose out.
As a side note, windows didn’t recognise my old Samsung printer/scanner device at all…Linux immediately did and gave me an interface to scan and print.
Even with all this, it will not happen until there is a viable alternative to Office! I am sorry Libre IS NOT IT! WPS is amazing but it won't be accepted the world over because it is a Chinese product!
Many ERP apps and targeted vertical application are now we based so that isn't a hurdle.
There are other issues:
1. I would not recommend our development team switch to Linux as they are married to Visual Studio. Visual Studio Code is not the answer to this.
2. Linux IS NOT novice friendly! I run a Linux desktop but there are members of my IT team I would not recommend this to. They are not IT novices, but they lack any Linux skills they could call upon when the inevitable "issues that Linux will eventually have" comes up. I have the skill to deal with these relatively simple issues, they DO NOT!
3. Poor enterprise network services. Connecting to SMB shares, this is a serious pain in the ass! Linux doesn't handle disconnected SMB shares well. It can hang up the system. (Macs are even worse)
I could go on. Until these things are dealt with, and presented from a single source, i.e. a company "selling" a Linux desktop they are willing to support, the Enterprise will not embrace it!
"The problem is that amateurs are unwilling, sometimes unable, to agree to standardize the OS."
What standard is this? It can't be Microsoft's because that's been shifting with every release. Would W2K have been a good standard? A lot of people seem to tink so. If so why didn't MS stick with it? Why did they come up with Windows for Teletubbies? W8? All the rest?
Is macOS the standard? If so why doesn't Wny version of Windows look like it.
The closest thing we've ever had to as standard is CUA. AFAICS the closest adherents to that standard are KDE and LibreOffice. The "professionals" have dirfted further and further away because their marketing departments and they crayon departments told them to. The "professionals" aren't allowed to follow standards. I also wonder how many of the "professional" coders have worked on UI design as compared to the "amateurs".
Constantly forking distros...
I had to evaluate a significant number of minor distros recently to come up with a low-footprint live system. The conclusion I came to was that many of them were the output of a small number of highly opinionated individuals (or one person, actually), and that "highly opinionated" generally means, well, wrong. And that many distros were effectively dead, and had been for years. All those lists of distros you find are very misleading.
At the end of the day, there are only two realistic options, with minor variations on those two, because (a) they pay their developers, and (b) they release frequent security updates. For all intents and purposes, the OS actually is standardised. Whether you can live with that standardisation is another matter, though.
Oh just go away... what "standardized experience" are you on about ? And why the fuck would i want that? I currently have 3 differrent os's on 2 seperate machines and another at work.
The linunx desktop haopened when cromebooks out sold all other laptops... get one if those if you want a "standardized experience" and don' t mind getting sucked off every 3 minutes.
"Gnome is truly irritating - it's a jump back in a distant past."
I'd be interested to know how you see Gnome as going back to the past. Was there a windowing system based on similar principles before?
(I've been spending time in Endless OS which is Gnome based but with some modifications and therefore digging around in previous versions and the history).
Ditto for Microsoft. If you select an "accent" color so you can tell which window has focus (because the title bar is blue for that one instead of gray for the others), most software respects it. Guess what ignores it? Most things Microsoft. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams all insist on their own, non-changeable colors. (Yes, there's "themes", you get 4 choices, and none of them respect the OS's instruction on what color to use.)
There is a load of choices other than Gnome3
IceWindow Manager
KDE
XFCE
Mate
Then you can apply a theme, customise the theme, add customisation to the desktop.
You can easily make Linux have the look and feel of Mac OS9, some versions MacOSX, RiscOS, NT4.0, Vista, Win7, Win10 or even Win 8 (see Unity).
Sadly Mozilla, Viber, Google etc applications will ignore how your theme and desktop works and in some cases give you bad imitations of Android, but OTOH they are identical on Windows or Linux!
There are 2 types of generally accepted UIs.
1. The standard desktop US with a categorized start menu and desktop icons.
2. The touch screen UI seen now on phones and tablets.
Every attempt to "improve" #1 has been met with scorn and derision! People DO NOT want a version of #2 on their desktops or laptops! Even if those systems have a touch screen! I own a Service, which I have TURNED OFF the touch screen because it is basically useless!
The latest versions of GNOME are a terrible implementation! An attempt to create a tablet UI for desktops in some vane hope that there will someday be a Lunix tablet (that no one will want)!
The mere fact that many, many people are screaming bloody murder that they cannot revert Windows 11 back to the not so popular Windows 10 UI is telling!
Question: Who's the best judge of the UI I, personally, find most useable?
Answer: Users.
Maybe a lack of reading skills. Look at the question again:
Note thetwo words "I, personally".
Why should a mass of undefined people "users" be able to make a judgement on my preferences. Why? How? It's an answer beyond reason.
The only person who can judge that is me. Not you. Not "users". Sure, some users might come to the same conclusion. Some might come to different conclusions.
You find Gnome ittitating. So do I. So I don;t use it. I have choices and, FWIW, my choice would also exclude Apple's UI which I think weird
W8 which is exactly the opposite of what I want from a UI. I think a lot of people agreed about that and yet I assume it wasn't coded by amateurs.
I'm not sure you intended your last paragraph to say what it di but as far as KDE is concerned you are correct.
" personally, find most useable"
then you are happy - thing is though, to make any year the year of "Linux on the desktop" you'll have to attract the millions of Windows users out there, and whilst most Linux desktops still look like something from the early noughties that's not going to happen.
Windows sits more than halfway between the "box of bits build it yourself" Linux boxes and the "I own you, don't do a thing" fruity kind - people like things that work for them and look slick - Linux doesn't just quite do it, and apple - well I don't want to live in a fenced off community.
Each to their own and long may it be that way.
"most Linux desktops still look like something from the early noughties"
And what's the difference between WIndows from then and Windows now?
Quarter of a century of enshitification, that's what.
Quarter of a century of releases that expected ttheir users to go along with whatever changes Microsoft expected them to adapt to.
Quarter of a century of changes imposed simply because Microsoft needed to force purchase of new H/W for the latest Windows because that meant new licences being sold.
What have you gained from it? And what have you lost?
A while ago I played around with running some old Windows versions in a VM.
You could pretty much track the decrease in usability and noticeable increase in popups, "helpful" notifications at boot and blatant adverts from Windows 98/2000 > XP > Vista / W7 > W10 > W11.
XP has a few annoyances and nags. W7 and Vista a few more. Windows 10 has too many and as for Windows 11....!
kmorwath might be surprised to discover that I personally rate W2K as a very good desktop UI. Since then it's been downhill for Windows. KDE, OTOH has built on the W2K getting such things as multiple workspaces before Wondows. The divergence between the two has left us with the situation that the free UI is what the Windows UI could have been if, in kmorwath's own words "Microsoft had someome far more clever than Nadella at the helm" and W10/11 is what it is.
Similarly LibreOffice retains the UI that Office 97 had achieved before Mircorosft produced the brainfart that is the ribbon interface.
Between them KDE and LO have conserved the UI the Microsoft had achieved before they embarked on quarter of a century of enshittification.
Windows 7 UI was good too - although it lost some of the Windows 2000 features - like "local help", because Microsoft again killed WinHelp and never replaced it with a true sobstitute (HTMLHelp was left unfinished and lacked some features).
And still, Liunx does not have a UI as polished as Windows 2000. 25 years later. Why?
"I think maybe because Linux is chasing the users it doesn't have rather than making the system suit the users it does have.
Hence a focus on design and shiny over pure functionality."
You did miss the irony tag didn't you?
Or did you just parrot something you read somewhere posted by somebody who's never used Linux based on something written by a Microsoft shill?
Because those uf us who use Linux do so because it suits us exactly (it has the flexibility to so that) while W11 is the result of 25 years focusing on design style and shiny over functionality.
The problem with winhelp was the compiler. They never got it to work properly .
Back in the day, I used to have three different winhelp compilers on my PC, each with different sets of bugs.
I had to choose the version that was least worst for that task.
If only they could have sorted it by teleading a compilertjat worked properly: winhelp would have been a superb tool.
W2k was peak functional windows for me. It just got on with the job.
The UI was familiar from 98 but the stability was NT4.
XP was good to use, Win7 was too but nothing since then.
WinPho 8 I consider to be the best mobile OS I have ever used.
W11 was the final straw for me, the idea that I should throw away a decent rig just to buy a half finished OS which acts more like a piece of spyware whilst failing to carry out basic functions (i.e. I could not get W11 to format a USB stick).
I've switched that machine to Mint (Via Pop_OS). I do like it and it does everything I need but the idea that Linux is super easy to install is only true when it works. If you have any problems installing hardware or software on Linux it is a complete ballache. PoP despite being advertised as the most steam compatible OS with built in NVidia support would not use the NVidia card and managed to corrupt user profiles every time the drivers were forced in. Mint was more fluid but still suffers from the occational blank stare when things are opened (especialty the software centre), at the moment it won't pair with a bluetooth XBox controller and the solution is tied up somewhere in GitHub in a way that Mint doesn't seem to understand. nor do I for now.
However I like the OS, it's still an improvement on Linux of old it's nice to feel back in control to some extent anyway and my old hardware continues to provide value.
I've got my son a Macbook for college now that his W10 machine is also seen as unclean by MS. He's just not up to learning Linux and I don't have time to support him, he just needs something that works and that means Apple. I use an iPhone not because I'm an Apple fanboi but because it works, and everything works with it. Apple is easy mode.
I had a droid phone once but got sick of incompatabilities and unreliability with pairing to devices especially cars.
My Mrs has used Macs for years and that is her default.
So right now in my house it's anyone but MS.
Yes, idiotic hyperbole, meaningless. When people say “unusable” they mean they personally don’t like it and of course the world revolves around what they like and don’t like.
I use Windows. I also use Mac and Linux on the desktop. They are all perfectly useable and versatile.
In fact, I launch an and use the app. When I’m in the app doing actual wok I forget which OS is behind it.
All this tedious sanctimony from people who off an alternative that is becoming worse by the day.
What saddos spend their time playing in an OS?
Obvious troll is ob...wait OP is serious.
The only real problem with Linux is the endless, corporate-backed push to make it into Windows, so they can make it too byzantine to work on without corporate backing, cryptographically lock down the "official" brand name releases, and "fund development" of those by pushing ads and training AI on our... well anyway that's the problem.
The API on Linux systems is essentially standardized. I don't write a whole lot of user software and what I do write is likely to be rather pedestrian by most peoples' standards but it works and its portable. (My experience with developing products is that reviewers tend to be enthusiasts, they're always up to date with the latest bells and whistles, while customers seem to just want something to work predictably and reliably.)
I think that Windows seems have curdled peoples' minds about what a systems should be like ("complicated", "opaque" etc). We've got Macs for people who are comfortable with this. Macs have a nice, pretty wrapper around what was a Unix core (and may still be for all I know) running on solidly engineered hardware. A easy to use, hermetic software ecosystem, maybe a tad pricey but it looks nice anywhere.
Linux isn't about freedom, as it is proprietary software.
It will never be a usable desktop, nor a system, as it is only a kernel.
You are thinking about GNU, which was written to be a free software OS that respects the users freedom.
GNU packages and software that rely on the GNU system do indeed implement standards and go even so far to reverse-engineer and re-implement things that are not standards and instead designed to carry out handcuff-in.
windows was so bad years ago that GNU/Linux was clearly a suitable replacement years ago, even if all you care about is functionality - and it only gets better.
GPLv2-or-later is a free license (although there are many freedom bugs in the GPLv2) and is compatible with GPLv3+.
Linux does has a problem where its GPLv2-only license is only enforced against freedom (although approved kinds of license infringement is all well and good) - but that alone doesn't make it proprietary.
I did make a post with links to the proprietary software in and part of Linux, but who knows if you'll see that.
If Linux isn't proprietary software, could you find me the source code to these assorted array encoded software in object form, patches to object code without source code and array encoded init sequences in a non-source form (without comments)?
(You'll likely need to change your browser useragent, or https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nopow/ to view the files without executing malware in the form of JavaScript (but is it that surprising that such sort doesn't hesitate to attack people with malware if they feel like doing so will do something about scraping? (spoiler; it is easier for scrapers to bypass evil anubis than users))).
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/arch/powerpc/platforms/8xx/micropatch.c#n42
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/media/usb/dvb-usb/af9005-script.h
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/media/common/b2c2/flexcop-fe-tuner.c#n226
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/media/i2c/vgxy61.c#n115
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/iio/proximity/aw96103.c#n122
(Just a few examples - there's much more).
Also, can you please find me the source code of each binary of this massive collection of proprietary software that is part of Linux?; https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/ (a handful of such programs are free software and have the source code available).
Such programs are clearly part of Linux, as if you go and read many drivers in linux.git, you'll soon realize that half the driver is missing and the other half is implemented in a proprietary binary, with the source code withheld.
Without *all* the source code under a free license, you cannot exercise the 4 freedoms; https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#four-freedoms - therefore Linux is proprietary software.
Tell me you have never used linux without telling me you have never used linux (or any other unix like os)
Only os I could handle ... after macos, ios and microshit, almost made me walk away in disgust.
Try flying a drone on another planet or easyer still get 100 drones to hold in a heart shape on a mac or windows (even with wsl) ... go on l dare you...
Getting a little sick of people with more money than brains spouting bullshit about linux and then going on about how linux tards are so evangelical about nix.
you can do almost anything you like with linux ...but you keep paying out more and more for less and less you go enjoy the wounder of patch tuesday and the joy of new unwanted settings and well... malware
hire a develper (still cheaper and safer in the long run) or learn how to write solid apps... but don't come to town witout trying all the examples above and say "janky server os, standaeds blah" you would not have m$ or mac os if not for unix so stfu & gtfo
And indeed, none of my own computers run it.
However, out there in corporate IT land, where I work, companies are still addicted to Microsoft's products and I am therefore required to use them.
Something pretty drastic has to happen for the corporates to wean themselves from Microsoft's teat and Microsoft are well aware of that.
Running WSL Oracle Linux 9.4 on my Windows 11. Close enough to Redhat.
Red hat 10 is supported, but not by the Server software suite I need no install, but will soon. Runs a treat, being as it’s client only supports windros, I love it better than vm’s I used to install
"WSL1" didn't have Linux in it - it was rather installing GNU without Linux; https://mikegerwitz.com/2016/04/gnu-kwindows
It was only "WSL2" that was glorified GNU/Linux or BusyBox/Linux VMs.
The whole idea of "WSL" was to prevent people from escaping from windows, as the user could run actually decent software (GNU software and software written for the GNU system), while still using windows (and of course with the bonus of the user thinking that they're "running Linux" and never even realizing that they're running GNU without Linux, or GNU with Linux added).
The drastic thing would be people using Linux at home. Windows is still the default choice for gamers but many are exploring Linux. Many people are happy with a Chromebook which has limitations similar to Linux when needing Windows programs.
If businesses can look at what software they run they may discover they could immediately switch to Linux. Some business cannot, or at least not all the staff can.
> However, out there in corporate IT land, where I work, companies are still addicted to Microsoft's products
Indeed at at my last job there were over 250,000 windows machines of some sort, many running exotic software on production lines that just won't move to another OS unless as you say something drastic happens
Literally everything has to be "A.I. Enabled" or the stock price will fall and the CEO might not get his $100 million bonus. No way that's gonna happen!
Wall Street and Big Tech are holding each other in a deadly embrace, with hype after hype to keep the stock valuation rising. When the A.I. hype finally dies down the tech market will implode like it did in the late '90's / early 00's, The Big Fizzle.
And the same thing Google does also (see Google groups with a selection of irc and then it was summarily closed down, getting people reading RSS feeds via Google reader and then closing that down suddenly also) - embrace the technology, extend it and then extinguish their support for it
The real question is: Why do MS do all these things?
That answer has been known since the inception of MicoSoft in the late 1970's: Because MS' earning have to beat expectations.
MS is simply a money making machine whose sole purpose is to earn more money this quarter than last quarter. And it should earn more money than was expected this quarter to boot. If not, the stock prices will go down and the bonuses will be lower and people in marketing and the EO's will get fired.
As the market for windows is saturated, everybody who could want to run Windows has been doing so for years now, the only way to make more money is to get their users to spend more money. And the only way to get users to spend more money is to force higher license fees or to make them buy "more" products with advertisements.
Both avenues are tried to the max, eg, by forcing an upgrade that requires a new computer with a new license fee. Which is what this article is describing. It also means that MS will hunt down and destroy any effective means to "detoxify Windows" by legal or illegal means.
We know how this works as we have seen it too many times to remember since the launch of MS as a company.
"forcing an upgrade that requires a new computer with a new license fee"
This indeed accounts for new entrants to the W11 horror, but not for subsequent "upgrades". I have a horrid suspicion that for these there may not be a corporate strategy at all. It's entirely possible that continuing development is in the hands of juvenile self-styled whizz kids who believe that, because they're geniuses, every idea they have is so wonderful it must be forced on all users. I've met this attitude on a smaller scale when collaborating with developers where the products functional design was vested in myself -- on occasion they have tried to wrest the functional design from me because they thought they "knew better" what the market supposedly wanted, regardless of whether their proposed features were appropriate to the product.
Quote
" It's entirely possible that continuing development is in the hands of juvenile self-styled whizz kids who believe that, because they're geniuses, every idea they have is so wonderful it must be forced on all users."
Sounds an awful lot like the FOSS linux desktop boys too.
The UI rules we had at university were KISS.
If you had a really clever way of doing something, yet the regular user never had to use it, you did not plonk a button on the desktop for it, put it away in a setup menu somewhere (and keep the location consistant across upgrades/new versions) but if the user has to use a function everytime they use your application, you plonked a big fat button in the middle of the application to do that function(AND kept it consistant across upgrades/new version).
But with windows now, its hide the menus everywhere.. dumb the setup options down, then make it not run on hardware older than 2020.
<<fed up with searching for the classic 'RS 232 setup menu' to set baud rates/ parity/stops/ flow control and FIFO buffers
>FOSS linux desktop boys
The kernel, Linux is proprietary software.
>The UI rules we had at university were KISS.
The UI rules of GNU is to push it to the limit - you should see the Church of Emacs.
><<fed up with searching for the classic 'RS 232 setup menu' to set baud rates/ parity/stops/ flow control and FIFO buffers
You need a setup menu?
I set the baud rate with GNU screen like so?; `screen /dev/ttyS0 115200` and it auto detects parity and flow control?
"Linux is proprietary software."
Please define "proprietary" and how it applies to Linux?
"The kernel, "
Why do you make a distinction between Linux and the Kernel?
The kernel is what is called Linux. The operating systems containing the Linux kernel are generally called by the name of their distribution. However, 'Pars pro to style', we group most operating systems containing the Linux kernel "Linux".
In the first place, what you say of Microsoft chasing profits is equally true of literally every company in the western world. Some are just better at it than others.
In the second place, you seem to be assuming that Windows is Microsoft's only, or at least its strongest, revenue generator. It's not, not even close. Windows is to Microsoft as mud to a carrot, it's necessary that it should be there, but not very tasty in itself. Frankly I doubt if it makes a profit at all.
"In the first place, what you say of Microsoft chasing profits is equally true of literally every company in the western world. "
Not every company breaks the law to a tune of $1B/year las MS did during the 90's and 00's. MS have broken every law that applies to businesses on a monthly basis as far as I know.
"Windows is to Microsoft as mud to a carrot"
No, Windows is the moat and walls of their castle. Windows is there to keep the competition out of their markets. Without their stronghold on the OS, the competition would wipe them out.
All useless crap which should have NEVER been put into the OS at any point. No-one asked for it, nobody likes it, no-one uses it, but it all just sits there, huge fat gobs of unwanted and useless shitty code that's woven so deeply into the OS that it can't be easily removed whilst at the same time making the whole user experience thoroughly miserable and also hoovering up your system resources like a rampant parasitic leech. It's not an operating system, it's a glorified ad platform with lots of subscription options tagged on.
I'm so glad I ditched Windows years ago.
> whilst at the same time making the whole user experience thoroughly miserable and also hoovering up your system resources like a rampant parasitic leech
You forgot “and increasing the attack surface for malware”.
Since about Win8, I have been using WinServer on my workstations (when I had corp licenses available). Not my money, and a much nicer working environment.
Tip for installation: WinServer does not have all drivers, so first, from a normal (OEM) install, extract/backup drivers:
set DriverBackupFolder=c:\temp\DriverBackupFolder-%computername%
md %DriverBackupFolder%
pnputil.exe /enum-drivers >%DriverBackupFolder%\DriverList.txt
pnputil.exe /enum-devices >%DriverBackupFolder%\DeviceList.txt
pnputil.exe /export-driver * %DriverBackupFolder% >%DriverBackupFolder%\BackupLog.txt
<< Microsoft ....has made the Windows 11 environment an ADHD horror show, full of distractions, promotions and snares >>
I can cut that sentence down short to either "Microsoft has made Windows F**CKING SHIT" or "Microsoft has crapped on Windows".
Others can probably think of better!
I have a mini pc bolted to the back of my 4k display that runs Win11. Fortunately it is too low powered to meet the Win11 AI standard. I also have a 2014 vintage ultra book running Win10. It has a lovely touch screen and plenty of power and memory, but is too old to run Win11.
The upgrade path I have chosen for both of these is the same - an Android tablet.
It seems a bit sad to plan a farewell to Windows, especially as I used to run my home domain with a bevvy of hyper-v guests before I retired. But also sadly Microsoft have put a vast amount of effort into making Windows not relevant to most of its traditional customer base.
…but I’m not victimized by Microsoft.
I do it by running a sandbox version from inside Ubuntu via virt-manager. Microsoft is blocked from the internet, in fact it’s blocked from the network. I boot up the virtual machine and use it solely to run whatever windows program I need to run. I have a shared folder in Ubuntu through which I can share data to Windows and then back again.
There are no updates, no viruses, no emails instant messages back doors remote access artificial intelligence or anything that I didn’t explicitly allow.
Plus I run any version that’s appropriate from XP up to Win10 (I could also run Win11, but I never will.)
Apple???
Yeah there’s a couple more macOS machines on there, for emergency purposes I suppose.
Exact same arrangement though.
Phase I - An entrepreneur, with like-minded people, pushing forward their ideas and seeking investment. Exciting times for 'driven' people. Hope versus personal risk.
Phase II - Success, and expanding market. Establishing reputation. An edge on competitors. Development of further products to complement, or run parallel with, the flagship product. Refinement of products.
Phase III - The entrepreneur(s) loosening grip on the reins of something set to become a behemoth. More delegation than in the beginning. Entrepreneurial attention focuses on particular strands or turns elsewhere. Business school graduates - jargon laden, superficial people, hard-working in terms of hours put in, but not prone to 'productive contemplation', bonus aware, and as useful as tits on a bull - begin to relegate technical expertise and lingering innovative desire to the margins.
Phase IV - Tightening control of the market, consolidation, assimilation of small competitors or their distraction through a deluge of patent litigation harassment. The entrepreneurs now pretty much withdrawn or retired and, anyway, ageing has dampened their fires. The business school nonentities award themselves grandiose titles, eye-watering salaries (oddly called 'compensation', but for what?), and ride the wave of bonus culture. As taught by their business school gurus, these people, in collusion with a host of law graduates and accountants, concentrate upon 'profit maximisation'. This entails setting aside long-term expectations for the company in favour of prosperity until at least the retirement time (or move to pastures new for exploitation) of the top executive tier. Shareholders, especially pension funds managers, and other 'outsiders' to the powerhouses of Wall Street, the City of London, etc. can be run rings around. Bonus share allocations, buybacks, and so forth, are the mark of prosperity for people who never had their own 'skin in the game' and whose creative capacity ranks with that of the potted plants in the hallway to the sumptuous 'executive suite'.
Phase V - Happy days as money rolls in from a captured market with only niche competition. Intellectual and imaginative sloth continue to offer rewards.
Phase VI - This can be either of two things. (A) Muddling along happily for a steady return but no excitement on the horizon. (B) Insidious rot leading to overall failure or to dismantlement (sell-off) of still thriving components.
Outcome (A) befits a maker of 'widgets'. The item's origins, e.g. cat's eye road markings, may have been a stroke of genius; there is no need for further R&D, and diversification is unnecessary when there is a sewn up market for the product.
Outcome (B) may apply to Microsoft (BOEING and others too). No matter how brilliant the technical people employed, there can never again be the excitement or incentive to take risk.
For instance (A), it makes sense to reconfigure as a workers' co-operative. However, these are useless for cutting-edge innovation, that because 'democratic' procedures don't foster originality, but are excellent for stability when doing the mundane. Instance (B) would be short or lengthy senescence.
"The most trustworthy mechanism to get the good stuff is GitHub."
And it's certainly not problematic in the least that GitHub is now a Microsoft joint as well, and pushes its own AI and other features on you willy nilly. I'm sure there is no conflict of interest there.
Operating Systems exist to do one thing: Let me use the computer. Let me break that down. Me: The user, often the owner. Sometimes the owner is my employer.
The other part is “use the computer”. I (or my employer) expects me to be productive and achieve a given task or end. (Sometimes productive is a very loose term). I do NOT exist to serve the maker of the Operating System nor the hardware. If I am spending time working around the shortcomings of the O/S it hasn’t done a good job. And if it is actively spying on me, it can FUCK RIGHT OFF.
Sometimes Windows has been a productive environment for me, sometimes Linux. My daily drivers are Apple devices but I have a few laptops that run Mint or Arch (formerly Gentoo and on about 40 floppy disks, ca 1994, Slackware) Once upon a time I even had a v2, 3, and Warp OS/2. The Apple stuff is the least worst - which isn’t a compliment. Others have different views. But I am still waiting for someone to say “wow, Windows is really great”. It just never happens. It’s more like “Fredd, I was doing X and Y popped up and said I needed to get ‘Z’. How can I stop it doing that”. (Clearly I need to stop telling people I work in IT and tell people I work distributing asbestos dust in kindergarten playgrounds, because carcinogenic distribution generally gets one more sympathy and respect).
I don’t want an upsell, I don’t want to have your games pushed on me, I don’t want 3rd party games pre-installed, I don’t want time limited trial software that nags me to buy. I don’t want my hard drive space being eaten recoding data that I have chance to recover. I want security patches that are timely, install cleanly and respect MY installation deadlines. I want to have fully usability without sending one byte of data back to the provider, unless I consent. I want to have a device that works perfectly WITHOUT an internet connection. I don’t want “An AI buddy with a Genuine People Personality”. A wise man once predicted the future for people that push these things …. I recall the quote …. “The first against the wall when the revolution came”.
Get out of my way and let me get on with it. That’s all you have to do.
I've recently gone to Win11 from Win10 on a work laptop, it was required by the company. I resisted for a long time because I didn't have time for the upheaval and setting up of all the VPNS and VMs all over again. But now it's done, everything is back and I can't perceive any difference.
I know it's the thing around here to whinge about WIndows, but in reality I am using it every day so I know when people are lying.
You are NOT using Win11 'enough' to notice its 'features' ... often not wanted BUT you are ONLY the user as far as MS are concerned !!!
People are NOT lying ... you are simply NOT hitting the 'sharp edges' ... BUT don't worry you will eventually :=) !!!
'It works for me' therefore you are wrong and MUST be lying is a strange conclusion to reach ???!!!
Are you using EVERY feature & function in Win11 ???
I have used Kit & OSes of all shapes & sizes, over 35+ years, BUT would never say I know ALL the plus & minus points of them.
YOU use Win11 and find it suits your needs and it is usable because you previously used Win10 and learned its UI ... WELL DONE !!!
Your success does not invalidate others 'issues' and other users opinions that the usability is a backward move from previous versions of Windows.
Win11 is full of 'features etc' that no-one has asked for and MS persist in adding/changing more & more, particularly the current favourite 'AI' AKA CoPilot.
The OS is meant to be there to enable you to do your job, not for MS to use you as an extended tester for UI features and 'AI' dross.
As the old saying goes ... "Beware of Gift Horses !!!" ...
MS and all the other 'AI Dealers' are not giving you 'AI' out of the goodness of their hearts, it is there to enable them to monitise YOU !!!
:)
Are you using EVERY feature & function in Win11 ???
Who would use EVERY feature? What a stupid question.
I launch the application I need and use it. I barely notice the OS because I'm using the application. All this other stuff, doesn't become involved unless I go looking for it. Which I don't.
When people are making up these fantasy problems, they forget that the people reading are actually using this stuff every day and can see that it's all bullshit.
And, by their own admission, the people making up all this bullshit don't actually use the stuff and wouldn't dream of it.
Seems your journey is different to mine.
The problems with Windows (for me) begin with the install. One needs to jump through hoops to NOT be forced to use a Microsoft account. That doesn't fly for me. If it works for you, great.
Since Windows 95 one has then been cleaning up a Windows install. Previously it was 3rd party apps, now it is the MS 1st party apps.
If Windows was any good it would be clean from the get go.
But that's my story and that's no lie.
Spent weeks trying to get to the bottom of a new pc build that often blue screened on startup. The cause, a requirement by the Windows 24H2 update for the drive to report the size of the cache, which certain Western digital drivers misreport. Microsoft knew about the issue so didn't deploy the update unless the firmware was updated unless it's a sodding fresh install where it deployed the current version including the issue. I've no problem with that but please let the users know, even if it's just an entry in the event logs. Stuff like the above is the kind of polish thats missing, just some dev with imagination and empathy. It's something I come across all the time when encountering issues in Azure too when scripts start failing for some unknown reason. I do like the steady replacement of the old control panel though, even if it's taking 20 years to complete they're actually quite usable.
So much whitespace and a UX that's actively harmful.
Take the volume control.
Since Windows 95 this was a small popup in the system tray with vertical faders. It slowly gained more granularity over the years, eventually having a fader per application and tab per output.
In Windows 11 someone recently decided to utterly destroy it.
It's suddenly in the new control panel - so a new window that opens somewhere else (often a different screen) and has to be actively closed.
Horizontal sliders spaced out so that even a full screen view shows fewer than half the sliders.
They are extremely short, despite having huge amounts of horizontal space.
Dragging a slider goes "ding" very loudly when you let go.
There's no visual link between any of their levels.
Every single change they made - every single one - is actively harmful to usability. Even the colour!
It is very, very obvious that the product manager has never used it and never intends to.
I don't need Xbox and other gaming services on my Windows machine amongst other crap. I don't want the fire hose of spam that is the news feature forced on our users. New update = new whack-a-mole. A non-insignificant amount of my time is spent scraping off the latest experiment that Microsoft foists on us. I know I can create images and custom deployments, read the near constant flow of teaching cards, but that takes time which becomes a cost to our business. I'm spending too much time battling fluffy features and vapourware like CoPilot. They're just so many things s that should be turned off and banished from the get-go. I can't wait for Windows Enshitification 12. It's clear that Microsoft quit giving a rats rectum decades ago.
Windows is fast becoming no more than a thin client, plus fat backup offline service for when it can't connect to Office365.
What intrigues me more is the way that Teams is muscling in on Outlook's contacts and calendaring stuff, moving the collaborative workflow from email to video+chat, and in the process losing the neat historical listings of mailboxes. This is a great move for email sanity, IMHO, but a business cannot run on "Yesterday? I've heard of it".
Dual booting Linux used to be a couple of minutes and job done. My primary machines have always been Linux but tried briefly the other day for a new (or at least this-decade) win 11 laptop and these days it's a minefield of secure boot pitfalls just to get a live usb running.
Gonna have to set aside a full day to figure it out
The problem is switching off all the secure boot bios settings to allow Linux to run is only half the battle, and the other half is fixing windows afterwards as it acts like a total rape victim and you have to enter verification codes to and from the ms site afterwards
It's not making it easy to have windows as a secondary OS just for the sake of some ham radio applications.
Why get all protective with license verification if it's seemingly ad supported these days anyway
When a company stops innovating all it can do is sweat its existing customer base for as much as possible. Microsoft clearly saw the writing on the wall years ago. To stop their customers from migrating away, it has used its cabal of MSCEs to create as much lock in as possible.
As a retired 30 year plus windows IT support user, now a home user, I think Windows has lost its way. When I found my i5 NUC could not run win11 because it lacked the security chip, I was shocked. So waited to see if Microsoft would relent, but no. So faced with new hardware I looked around I already had an iphone and ipad mainly because of photos and kids and grandchildren Apple users.
I got a Mac mini to use existing screen mouse etc, bit of a shock but help in Apple shop great and unlimited phone support with really good people the other end, mainly ex Windows user !
Six months on wondered why I worried about moving.
Realise would be a whole different issue enterprise wide, makes me think thats where Microsoft is going, not worried about home users, not enough revenue.
Sad, but a happy Mac user now.
IN CS101 an OS was defined as those essential bits to do core OS operations like IO and SVC's. You do not add junk to the OS as this causes unreliability. Extras should run at a minimum and sandboxed level. Windows has taken it to a whole new level , enforcing bloatware and 'purchase nee rental' options and flat out advertising and data/ privacy theft. Its been a while, but once you turn on an iPhone is sends a lot of something to somebody. Anyway this engineer had an exit to scramble such packets and send garbage to whoever.
In case of Server 2019/2022 definitly recommended. Gaming is no difference anyway, just a few tiny adjustments which don't get nuked every month. The worst are only the Edge updates asking you unwanted startup questions again - if you actually start it. Practically crap free, and surprisingly lean. Server 2025 is somewhat OK too, you might have to use it, but it shares the same "efficient" kernel and a few "efficient" subsystems. And still not as bug free ad 2022, sadly, the Win11 24h2 crapification in sense of simply bad code has reached that server version too. Makes me wish for Server 2012 (without R2), which I saw with 800+ days more often than you think (until I came alone and ruined it by updating). Below the GUI some tiny things are better in 2012 than in R2, but that are some rare things like fine grained role control which then got remove in 2012 R2 in favor of SCVMM or other crap.
Just to expand on this, it’s a good idea to escape the fad-driven crap but for anyone reading the comments, it’s worth making sure it fits your use case first.
If you use Windows Server versions prior to 2025 you don’t get Bluetooth, Miracast, Voice Recognition and support for some hardware-accelerated codecs which are useful for better performance when playing videos. If you use Server 2025, then you’re basically receiving Windows 11 24H2 with all its warts, with some of them possibly never to be fixed. You might think “Why would I want voice recognition?” for example, but some [horror] video games and other software applications utilise those APIs on-device for various purposes, so not having said things can be problematic depending on your use case.
As another alternative, Windows 10 Enterprise IoT LTSC 2021 will give you the best of Windows 10 until early 2032 and supports adding in all the otherwise missing multimedia codecs via independently downloaded packages (e.g. HEVC from VLSC download) or by enabling Microsoft Store, depending on how sensitive you are to trash.
I’m personally at the point where I’m willing to put up with the deficiencies of desktop Linux (in terms of driver and multimedia support with web browsers and WebRTC) as the lesser of the two evils for the majority of my personal IT, since it is looking like a much safer long-term bet.
The only reason you get windoze pushed on you relentlessly is every business and your job/dog uses the damn thing.
Once AI ensures there is nobody with an actual job a vast amount of people cease to have any reason to use it. A lot of talented people free to develop the thing they want.
Bolstering the Linux community.
Only worry I can see in the distopian world it will be. How does one get their state handout? Most clicks and engagements. Viewing 1000s of ads per day.
How else would you be the new middle class £400 per week not working class £150 per week?
... to how much people will put up with OSes that benefit their creators more than their users.
At some point people will realise that Windows is not there for their benefit. It's following the same enshittification route as the internet in general. Always trying to upsell anything and rinse you for all you've got, and if they can't, you're the commodity being traded.
Every day I come across something that Microsoft has produced, be it Windows, Microsoft 365 or Office, and I find it doesn't do something without you paying extra, or there's an option that's hard to find because it doesn't benefit MS.
I'm not saying Linux or MacOS is the answer, but there is a lot less of that shit in those OSes.
From the article:
There is a word for intrusive, unwanted software that intervenes in your work to advertise or engage you in unwanted interaction. The same word describes software that constantly monitors and exfiltrates what’s going on between you and your data. That word ismalwareWindows, [...]
There, FTFY.
...just 'their' malware. The features that make malware so annoying and destructive and the very features that drive marketing types to orgasmic paroxysms. Being able to see into a person's soul via their computer, to track and guide their actions and so steer their money into your pocket is the Holy Grail of a monetized Internet. Its just unfortunate that its also exactly what the typical crook is looking for (except they tend to be more selective, especially these days -- they're after the biggest payoff for the least risk and effort).
The essence of software dogs' breakfasts like Windows is to try to have it both ways, to enable the technology that hands your computer to corporate America for marketing purposes while preventing Bad Guys from doing exactly the same thing for their profit. Its therefore not surprising that the result is a bit clunky, uses phenomenal amounts of resources to do very little and never quite works properly.
(....and, yes, I'm a grumpy old sod that doesn't give a damn about a 'enhanced user experience'.)
Saving Microsoft from itself .... looks like..
1 Much too late. Should have seen this coming more than a decade ago.
2 Self contradictory - MS is evidently determined on a course of self-destruction, and is deaf to all criticism.
3 Endorsing too many bad decisions - such as AI in all your drinking water.
4 A waste of effort, as in "is there anything actually worth saving at all?"
The drift away from MS may be slow, but there can be no doubt about the direction in which the arrow is pointing. And it is gathering speed. I doubt that there is anything that MS can now do to reverse the trend.
Remember that nothing lasts for ever
Microsoft essentially stopped charging money for non-enterprise Windows licenses outside of the small amount they get from hardware bundlers.
If we want Microsoft to stop trying to follow Google/Meta down the path of "User as Product", then the product has to have an actual revenue stream that pays for its upkeep, instead of relying on conversion to other products, advertising revenue and the monetizing of personal data.
But companies like Google/Meta have successfully goaded people into the infantile belief that all services and software are "free", as long as everyone is willing to make that deal with the devil and become the "product" themselves.
Unfortunately I don't see any antidote to that mind virus on the horizon yet. The zombie army numbers in the billions now.
As a person with ADHD, I resent the regular interference from new Windows features.
They are not typically offered as options. They just appear and take over. My personal computer is being taken over by an entity that just wants to interfere and meddle, instead of letting me get on with things.
I really didn't want my start menu and taskbar cluttered with random news, MS store games suggestions. I wanted my apps list to show apps, and my PC search to give me local results. My web browser can show me web results (and from the search engine that I choose, thank you very much). Yet, we are getting this web content on the Lock Screen, the wallpaper, the taskbar, start menu... even floating in the middle of my screen. Ads in apps, email. Features that are moving to Microsoft Accounts, OneDrive, CoPilot.
Everything comes across as a desperate attempt to push Bing or Copilot or adverts on everything, at the expense of the user experience.
I am not stuck in my ways. I am not adverse to change and progress. I just want each function to do what it's good at and not trick me into clicking a Bing link.
Many of my users also find the changes confusing. I'm happy to educate when a change has clear benefits - but many of the changes just irritate me.
I maintain a batch file with various tweaks, which I can apply to new and health-checked computers. Users seem to appreciate the effort when their Windows 11 install suddenly looks cleaner and less distracting.
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