Windows 11 turns five, leaving some important lessons for Microsoft

OPINION On June 24, 2021, Microsoft announced Windows 11, unveiling a new and controversial operating system. Five years on, how has that worked out for you, Redmond? Windows 11 has always been a problem child for Microsoft. It was announced in June 2021 and became generally available on October 5 that year, while much of its …

[Tejodo]

Debloating it helps.

I tend to judge each Windows release - and a lot of other software - by its FOQ (Go Away Quotient). This is a count/rate of the number of times I tell it to "go away" during the installation process and the first day of use.

I held on to Win10 (moderate FOQ) until recently with the 1-year ESM they gave to the public and finally upgraded a few weeks ago. Since it was an in-place upgrade and the first thing I did on boot was to run Win11Debloat on it to eliminate a lot of the default guff it ships with, I've found the FOQ to be remarkably low. It's not perfect - I still can't get the explorer context menu back to normal - but it's been relatively painless.

(Beer for for the Reg for pointing me at this script)

[Mark #255]

Re: Explorer context menu

There is a regedit "script" that restores the old (Win10) context menu - it sets a value on a CLSID key.

(Finding the correct script is left as an exercise for the reader; usual regedit caveats apply)

[X5-332960073452]

Re: Explorer context menu

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32]

@=""

[Tippis]

Re: Debloating it helps.

You're being very generous about that Win10 FOQ, but I suppose if you measure it early on it might be right.

Towards the end, the amount of useless junk that Win10 absolutely refused to let you get rid of, and reinstalled alongside its “required” working directories and shortcuts to said directories and desktop icons and whathaveyou became downright absurd. It got to the point where some of the forced installations during some updates were taking on “downloaded a utility package from a dodgy .bb side” characteristics, and would for instance fail the entire windows update if you had dared to, say, write-protect the desktop to keep it free from unwanted icons. Because what do you mean you don't want babby's first 3D thingy as one of your default directories and associated app for your production-document extensions?

[Tejodo]

Re: Debloating it helps.

You're not wrong, the FOQ did seem to increase over the lifetime of the OS. Perhaps it's only 'moderate' in comparison to Vista and Win 8. (My scale goes from 1 to SBS 2003).

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Debloating it helps.

So you missed SBS 2008 (without R2) on a "Server" with 8 GB RAM. SBS2003 was easy to tame in comparison.

[TonyHoyle]

Re: Debloating it helps.

Yes I've always run the debloater, which makes windows 11 only mildly annoying.. also since I've never run a win11 with the AI crap still in have little knowledge of how annoying it is, thankfully.

[Gerhard den Hollander]

Win 12 ?

Why ?

Giving it a new number is just marketing,

so unless they have something new to market (ohh .. an all AI driven PC ) just stay with win 11 ...

And that ``all AI driven'' is not going to go down well with corporate (GDPR, Sox, cost-control-over-token-use)

[DS999]

Re: Win 12 ?

I mean we all know that Windows 12 will require a NPU to support the mandatory can't-be-turned-off Copilot.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Based on the last five years of Windows 11, Windows 12 should be a beacon of light. Right?

I get the rhetoric, but no, it won't. Microsoft is going the way of IBM, soon they'll stop even being a household name. They have already given up on the consumer market and put all their energy into cloud compute anyway, I'm genuinely not even sure if they even make money on Windows sales anymore. Like Google paying for YouTube, they effectively run it at a cost because of the strategic market advantage.

Who's to say how computing will transform in the future. But Google has already been experimenting with turning Android into a desktop OS, so that's at least one of the many knives pointed at Microsoft's self-neglectful consumer software department.

[Homo.Sapien.Floridanus]

A Beacon of Light

The P must be silent.

[Dave K]

Win 10 was "OK"...

Agreed. Plus of course, lots of people look upon Windows 10 as being a "good" release, but it wasn't, not really. It was simply "OK" and better than Windows 8, and I feel that in comparison to Windows 11, a lot of people look back at it with rose-tinted spectacles.

Let's not beat around the bush:

* It began the rot of requiring a Microsoft account - although it was easier to bypass than with Windows 11.

* The UI was one of the flattest, blandest and dreariest UIs Microsoft has ever come up.

* It had the mis-mash of Settings and Control Panel - something Microsoft introduced in 2012 with Windows 8 and a migration they still haven't managed to complete 14 years later. I won't dwell on the failings of the toggle-switch design that needs an accompanying text label to confirm if it's "on" or "off"...

* There was all the sneaky installing of programs you didn't ask for (Candy Crush anyone?)

* The Start Menu was a definite step back from Windows 7's in terms of flexibility, usability and design.

* Cortana was a hopeless flop, as were many of the other Metro-style utilities Microsoft pushed throughout Win10's life, such as Paint3D, Snip & Sketch etc.

* It introduced forced updates and earlier versions were unbelievably trigger-happy about rebooting when you were in the middle of working.

* The twice-yearly "feature" updates were introduced that regularly broke things and offered little of value.

Ultimately, it simply never felt like a finished, polished product. It always felt like it was a beta release with half-finished/rushed placeholder content. Whether it was the bodged-together start menu (shrink the Windows 8 Start screen and bung a list of programs down the left), the basic bingy-bongy sound effects that sounded like they'd been rustled up in 10 minutes by an intern with a cheap keyboard, the unfinished Settings, heck even the throbber which isn't a smoothly looping animation but which stops and starts all the time. It always felt "unfinished".

On the plus side, it was at least customisable and ran on a wide range of hardware. Overall, it was "OK", but it wasn't "Good". I still maintain Windows 7 is the last MS OS that ticked all the boxes, felt properly "finished" and felt like it was designed to be what users wanted, not just what Microsoft wanted.

[Neil Barnes]

Re: Win 10 was "OK"...

"...Paint 3D, Snip and Sketch..."

Classic cases of MS taking working software that people were used to and replacing it with something almost but not entirely unlike tea, er, I mean the application people expected.

There is a recent trend - and it applies not just to MS (and Apple? I don't use that, can't comment) but also to Android and Linux - of someone deciding they have to replace existing software with 'updated' equivalents which aren't: functionality missing, user interface apparently deliberately obscured; look and feel modified. It's as if people don't feel they're providing a useful function unless they're messing up learned muscle memory and messing with people's taste.

Certainly a more recent update can be a significant improvement - for some, or many. But is it necessary to remove the original for those who prefer it?

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Win 10 was "OK"...

Get PBRUSH.EXE from Windows NT 3.51. Still works on Windows 11. That is the original experience.

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: Win 10 was "OK"...

There is a recent trend - and it applies not just to MS (and Apple? I don't use that, can't comment) but also to Android and Linux - of someone deciding they have to replace existing software with 'updated' equivalents which aren't:

The one thing that going to prevent me upgrading to the next version of MacOS is the removal of Intel support - I've still got old Intel Windows stuff that's running under Wine/Crossover and there's no hope of it *ever* being rewritten for Apple Silicon.

Apple are being remarkably coy about whether Rosetta2 is going to be supported post MacOS 27 - it certainly won't be installed as standard

[David Hicklin]

Re: Win 10 was "OK"...

Wish I could give you 2 upvotes for Windows 7 (aka Vista SP2) - that for me was peak Microsoft - since then it has turned into Micro$lop

[PeterM42]

Spot On!

Android + ChromeOS = Aluminium (aka Googlebook, or whatever) = Will be fantastic.

Microsoft - Bill Gates = A right clusterfuck = IBM v2.0 = disaster.

[Zack Mollusc]

Of course windows makes money

How can windows not make money? They charge £100 for home and £200 for pro. What are their costs?

A few grand a year for half a dozen unpaid and untrained interns vibe coding updates.

£0 on testing.

£0 on support.

Easy money.

[AndrueC]

Obsolescence is in the eye of the beholder. My mail server is stuck on Win10 and it has continued running just fine. It might in fact be more reliable now that MS is no longer pushing updates to it.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

As long as it is hidden behind something. See the TCP/IP bug MS fixed a few month ago, which affected Serer 2012 up to Server 2025/Windows 11.

[williamyf]

A mail SERVER.. Which I guess is permanently connected to the internet with a fowarding rule in your firewall (or in the DMZ) is running without security patches... and you are happy about that?

Sure you jest, and forgot the joke alert icon....

[TonyHoyle]

It's very likely only port 22 is exposed to the world.. the OS state really doesn't matter that much. Unless his MTA has a bug which allows someone to get a shell over port 22, which would be novel..

[Anonymous Coward]

To be honest, privately I am far more comfortable with an MTA on practically any Unix variant (prob FreeBSD or Debian), but that obviously also depends on available skillsets. It gives me more layers of protection, even if I hang it raw off the Net.

I would be uncomfortable doing that with a Windows box, and the contents of every Patch Tuesday has only served to confirm that discomfort.

[Stephen7Eastern]

Windows 7 was the last usable shell from MS

For work, I begrudgingly had to start using the Windows 10 pox a few months ago. I loved Win 7 but find Win 10 the most poorly designed, user hating OS I've ever used.

So to access the internet at home, two years ago I switched all internet facing VMs from Windows 7 to Linux. Finally settled on a Debian server install with the barest of minimal XFCE shell on top. This setup is among the most stable, user friendly client systems I've ever used. Built a Linux VM, secured it, tweaked it (restored ifup/down for networking etc), then distro'd the VM to all home users They all run without a single issue, ever. What I've found.

Those thousands of never ending registry/GPolicy tweaks required to keep windows private and secure? Those are not needed. Just install Linux, optionally learn nftables (users should), make a few dozen tweaks, then done; resulting in a carefree OS that will run "forever". Been using BSD and Linux servers for decades but this is my first time using client as an actual tool instead of a curiosity. Getting off Windows is the smartest home tech decision I've recently made. After four decades of making a good living with their dev tools, sad to say no thanks to home use of Redmond's modern, very poorly executed malware.

[sarusa]

Re: Windows 7 was the last usable shell from MS

> I loved Win 7 but find Win 10 the most poorly designed, user hating OS I've ever used.

Then thank your stars you have never used Win 11, which makes Win 10 look like a glorious pinnacle of user friendly restraint in comparison.

[David Hicklin]

Re: Windows 7 was the last usable shell from MS

> Then thank your stars you have never used Win 11,

I managed to retire days before my out of lease win10 laptop was going to be replaced with one on win11. I had set the date as far back as I could as I knew retirement was coming.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Windows 7 was the last usable shell from MS

I've been toying with the idea of setting up a PXE server and then netboot everything else. I have a decent network, but making it all dependent on one machine is uncomfortable so maybe I'll just use it for an install facility.

There's no need for it, but experimenting is part of the fun. Just because I can :)

[lglethal]

Re: Windows 7 was the last usable shell from MS

Win 10 the most poorly designed, user hating OS I've ever used.

Vista would like a word. As would ME. And 8. And Win 11.

[theOtherJT]

Re: Windows 7 was the last usable shell from MS

Vista, ME and 8 were all better for the user than 10 is. I mean, they were awful buggy crashy pieces of crap, but they didn't set out to randomly move things around and hide them from you between one release and the next. You could learn to live with them once you understood their quirks and flaws. 10 appears to treat the person in front of the keyboard as a direct adversary to be thwarted at all costs. It felt like dealing with a really obstructive supermarket. Just when you think you've worked out where the popcorn lives they reorganize the place and now you can't find it again. Or you've finally found a really good own-brand alternative to something and out of absolutely nowhere they just stop selling it.

I can't speak to 11, because I rage-quit Windows about 8 years back and have been entirely happy with that decision.

[Paul Crawford]

Re: Windows 7 was the last usable shell from MS

I have used (for varying amounts of "use") practically all of the windows versions and must agree that 11 is crap. It is the olny one I rolled back to the previous version.

Since ~2008 it has been Linux as my primary OS though. but some stuff needs Windows.

[Cruachan]

Re: Windows 7 was the last usable shell from MS

8 was actually decent IF you were using the right hardware. They got the timing wrong and assumed everyone would be on touchscreen/hybrid devices and it worked pretty well on Surfaces for example, but was a POS on a regular desktop for normal users which were and still are the main users of Windows.

ME was the least stable OS I ever used, even going back many years to a ZX81 with the RAM pack that would fall out and crash the whole thing if a butterfly flapped its wings 3 counties away.

[Terry 6]

Re: Windows 7 was the last usable shell from MS

As much as I loath 11 and won't use it, 8 was the worst of all.

I started with MS-Dos then Win 3.1 and 8 has been the only version I couldn't make work reasonably well. I think it was the fucking "charms" that finally did it for me. Important controls hidden in odd places on the screen, totally impossible to locate if you waned them, but would magically appear when you didn't want them, if you happened to move the cursor in their vicinity.

[BobChip]

Re: Windows 7 was the last usable shell from MS

Absolutely. Very happy with Win 7. Win 8 refused to support two critical high end peripherals - a film scanner and printer. MS "advice" was to replace with new ones. Thousands of pounds, to replace kit that worked perfectly under 7. Then found that everything still worked perfectly under Ubuntu. That was enough. I went Linux, and have never looked back.

Odd, when you think that one of the most common arguments against switching to Linux used to be lack of support for peripherals. No longer true. Most major makers now provide full function driver support for Linux systems, but apparently, not always for Win 11.

Nuf said.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Windows 7 was the last usable shell from MS

I'd pick the Server 2003 x64 shell here. Does not have that "search dog", which can only sniff and walk, but not find.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Just throw away the shell...

...and use the one from Server 2022. As base, and then maybe add a few things there, but not switching the framework again. And not bodgs-overlay something so slow over it.

Rework the existing classic menu to make "cut-copy-paste-delete-rename-properties" buttons, that basic idea was fine. Just that horribly slow implementation which removed existing important options on top was the worst possible way.

Tabs in explorer, I never had a use for it once. Just does not fit into any workflow. The buttons on the upper left, especially the "new folder" button, are practical.

And bring a "admin default view", which is details, show extensions, hide the "file type" column, and make sane default widths for date and size.

(etc I have tons of tiny things which need to improve...)

[breakfast]

Re: Just throw away the shell...

Explorer tabs are pretty good if you ever move files around on the desktop - way better than having to switch between two windows - I was using them in Linux for a long time before Windows introduced them and they work fine here as well.

[Neil Barnes]

Re: Just throw away the shell...

Oddly, I haven't found them so (on linux). Perhaps just me - but if I want to move files around I generally feel safer when I can see both the source and destination window.

[Terry 6]

Bullying

Much about Windows 11 ( and 8 and to some extent even 10) has being Microsoft trying to bully the public into accepting what they want us to do, mostly to help monetise ongoing use of their OS like they have done with Office.

F**k 'em

I'll stick with 10 or Zorin on my PCs.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Angry at the TPM?

I'm not angry at the need for TPM 2.0. I'm delighted that not having one means that I don't have to resort to registry hacks to stop Microsoft from forcibly downgrading my system like it did when I was running Windows 7.

[CA Dave]

Windows may be 5 years old...

...but it's still acting as though it's in the Terrible Twos, in behavior and borked updates people delay routinely.

[Cyberhash]

When it's not broke , replace it !!!

Anyone else noticed that once they get an O/S fixed and running all creamy, they immediately jump to release another that's broken, clunky and full of nonsense that nobody actually wants.

Some twisted minds at Redmond.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: When it's not broke , replace it !!!

> Some twisted minds at Redmond.

It rubs the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever it is told. It enters its credit card into Windows Store. It puts a Copilot subscription into the basket. IT PUTS A COPILOT SUBSCRIPTION INTO THE F***ING BASKET!

[retiredFool]

If 11 is bad, imagine what 13 will be

Not a windows person at all, in fact never really used it beyond ensuring a laptop boots (works) before I wipe it for Linux. Desktop's are easier as I build from scratch.

But my god, how can they f*ck every other time so consistently? And my last laptop, I had to register the damn thing with uCrap before I could finish the boot to ensure it was

ok before I wiped. I was very tempted to just wipe as it came from costco and I think they would have taken it back wiped. Just wasn't positive.

[Fred Flintstone]

Re: If 11 is bad, imagine what 13 will be

Whatever they will come up with, given their attitude towards the needs of their users I am pretty certain they will release Windows 13 on a Friday.

[AMBxx]

Re: If 11 is bad, imagine what 13 will be

13 won't happen. There was a reason they skipped 9 (nein), so they'll skip 13 too.

What will the release after 68 be called?

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: If 11 is bad, imagine what 13 will be

> What will the release after 68 be called?

systemd?

[Throg]

Re: If 11 is bad, imagine what 13 will be

Windows Bill & Ted?

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: If 11 is bad, imagine what 13 will be

Windows Freddy and Kruger is more likely...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If 11 is bad, imagine what 13 will be

What will the release after 68 be called?

Windows Next Generation, of course.

:)

[Martin an gof]

Re: If 11 is bad, imagine what 13 will be

And my last laptop, I had to register the damn thing with uCrap before I could finish the boot

For future reference, when I had to set up a dual-boot laptop six months ago, the trick was to make sure Windows could not see a network when booting for the first time. When it moaned, a quick incantation on the command line (I forget the details) and a restart and the setup process sailed through. Hasn't complained since.

The only other issue I had with this second-hand machine was that Windows was set up with GPT (good) but GPT had a 4-partition limit, thus making it impossible to repartition for Linux as Windows had already bagged all four. Got that sorted with the handy (linux) utility gdisk.

M.

[Blackjack]

Microsoft could sell Windows 12 on it having a button to turn off AI.

Unfortunately they likely won't.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

NOOOOO! Windows 12 must have a button to turn ON Ai. If must be off by default, not installed by default, and then you choose to get it. Opt-In not Opt-Out!

[EnviableOne]

wishfull thinking

Microsoft will bundle anything that makes them money

W10 removed the none option fro telemetry, they're drunk on the data now.

[Homo.Sapien.Floridanus]

What are you doing, Dave?

[sarusa]

The biggest thing to be learned

The biggest lesson any smart person would take from Windows 11 is that vibe coding suxass and makes your code flaky, fragile, bloated, and unmaintainable. It's just Windows 10 with half a decade of slop crapped out on top of it.

Of course this has happened with every single product they have. But also of course they won't learn this lesson, can't learn this lesson, as long as Slopya is in charge and every Microslop employee is rated mostly on how much stinking slop they can squat out on their customers' heads.

[Tim Chuma]

tiny11

Works quite well.

Could not get the "self rolled" version to work but one off the web archive did. Also did not come with any browsers to connect to the internet!

It is either do that or not have a computer as I can't afford to upgrade at the moment.

[williamyf]

there is nothing arbitray about the HW lrquirements

Just AWFULL communication from Microsoft.

The real requirememt was HVCI (for security, to prevent Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver attacks that became prevalent during windows 10 tenure) and MBEC (to accelerate HVCI). That means that only 7th gen intel (and similar AMD) and onwards qualify.

The cut was made with mostly 8th gen because intel and AMD refused to provide driver support (i.e. security patches for drivers) for anythig older.

The fact that most of el reg readership does not even know this tells you how bad ms communications was towards the technical audience

[LikeAStone]

Re: there is nothing arbitray about the HW lrquirements

For the record, a hypervisor is not a requirement to prevent execution of untrusted kernel mode code. Yes, you need a root of trust, but using a hypervisor doesn't change that.

Clearly, you can throw your hands in the air and declare you give up(*) and have to use HVCI. But that makes new CPUs a requirement of your (somewhat arbitrary) decision.

(*) : I'm writing an OS but it is hard to secure it using "just" kernel mode code. I know, let's use something that can run below kernel mode code.

[Richard 12]

Re: there is nothing arbitray about the HW lrquirements

It was entirely arbitrary.

Consider the Intel i7-7700K. Flagship CPU of the family, had been shipping for less than four years and was still being sold in new machines when Win 11 launched.

It had TPM 2.0, all the security and virtualisation extensions. If you bypass the CPU check then it apparently works perfectly.

And yet, arbitrarily excluded by Windows 11.

I suspect Windows 11 is one of the reasons for some of the recent EU laws on software support.

[ThatOne]

Re: there is nothing arbitray about the HW lrquirements

Well, I have a similar problem: 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700H, TPM 2, and this Dell laptop actually shipped with Win11 preinstalled, so one should assume there are no compatibility problems...

But it won't upgrade beyond Win11 23H2 or use Bitlocker, because "PCR7 binding is not supported" (yet Device Manager says "TPM 2.0 on Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System" is working properly...).

Go figure.

My point is, Windows is a house of cards.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: there is nothing arbitray about the HW lrquirements

You can activate Bitlocker without TPM. Just lauch gpedit.msc, navigate to Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Bitlocker Drive Encryption, Operating System Drives.

There all "Configure TPM-*", and "Require additional authentication at startup".

While you are messing around there, navigate to Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Bitlocker Drive Encryption. Set all "Configure drive encryption method" to the highest possible.

What, you expected something user friendly? Sorry, you'll only get marketing friendly, aka "Automatically activated for you without notification, recovery key stored in Azure only and copied to specific US departments".

What, you have Windows 11 home? Sorry, I don't touch that.

[ThatOne]

Re: there is nothing arbitray about the HW lrquirements

> You can activate Bitlocker without TPM.

Thanks, but actually I don't want it, because I'm also accessing that HD from Linux (which is my main driver, Windows is only there for firmware updates and a couple games). I just wonder about the reasons why things which should work (like Windows Update), actually stop doing so at some point.

House of cards, as I said. *shrug*

[Martin an gof]

Re: there is nothing arbitray about the HW lrquirements

The real requirememt was HVCI ... That means that only 7th gen intel (and similar AMD) and onwards qualify.

Forgive me if I am being totally thick (no change there) but if that were the case it would presumably be a "hard" requirement and no amount of fiddling about would get W11 to run on older hardware as the OS itself relies, deep down, on a feature only available on newer hardware. And yet...

And yet, plenty of stories about running W11 on older hardware so the requirement is obviously "soft" and W11 does not rely on those new features. At the very least, MS could have said something like "for the best security we recommend x, y and z in your processor, but Windows will run on older hardware without p, q and r features". And probably put up a warning box / click through disclaimer on install.

M.

[williamyf]

Re: there is nothing arbitray about the HW lrquirements

That is fine and dandy, until the day MS wants/needs to change a flag in the compiler and starts using those instructions deep down in the OS, and suddenly, many installations fail.

Better make it a "hard" requirement in the spec sheet from the get go, and save all the agravation down the line...

[Bebu sa Ware]

"Windows 12 should be a beacon of light."

The brilliant flash as the whole circus starts to disappear over the event horizon of the black hole of AI.

[frankyunderwood123]

entirely ignorable

for personal use, at least, windows 11 is avoidable, relatively easily, assuming you have a basic grasp of installing operating systems.

This may be in the realm of the computer geek, but outside of that realm, personal computing is dominated by android and iOS making it a moot point.

we’re in such a different world to when windows 7 was released. Back then most homes had at least one “beige box” and in wealthier homes a few more.

I reckon in the vast majority of homes for the last decade, those boxes have either been sent to the tip or are gathering dust in the loft rather than being replaced.

The primary market is business use and if you are unlucky enough to be forced into using windows, I’d argue it doesn’t make one bit of difference over win10 or even win7 - your work computer is going to be locked down and you’ll face exactly the same frustrations as you always did.

Does anyone really believe that Linux would fare better in such an environment amongst users who are not computer enthusiasts?

That Linux would be somehow immune from issues?

If you do, I have a bridge to sell you.

Fact is win 11 is just about good enough and that’s always been the case with microsoft.

[blcollier]

Re: entirely ignorable

> Does anyone really believe that Linux would fare better in such an environment amongst users who are not computer enthusiasts?

>

> That Linux would be somehow immune from issues?

How many Linux machines were affected when a bad CrowdStrike update was pushed out, causing the kernel-level driver to malfunction in such a way that it brought the entire kernel down at boot time?

Microsoft wasn't responsible for the shoddy CrowdStrike update. But it was responsible for the way that kernel-level drivers are implemented in Windows, and certifying & approving a kernel-level driver whose functionality could be modified by a config file which won't receive anywhere near the same level of scrutiny.

[Anonymous Coward]

Get rid of the AI crap

And then maybe we might talk…

[mili]

There are no good versions of MS Windows

The only reason for MS Windows was the software base it was hosting.

The iffy but cheap was always better than the good but expensive.

At some point mediocrity has created its own gravitation and the Office world is orbiting it since without the will to go for the better.

[Prst. V.Jeltz]

Its just a storage box to put your apps in

Just make yourself a few shortcuts, pin-to-start and then ignore the GUI . The OS is just there to host the apps and provide frameworks like .net

Who cares what they did with the start menu - its got a search box , just use that .

see also Win+r and then cmd / services.msc compmgmt.msc / appqiz.cpl etc

[nww02]

What's all the fuss?

I bought three new gaming laptops last year for myself and the (young) kids. I can code, surf, draw and play all the latest games with ease, no need to reboot or mess with the auto updates. I've had zero problems from the kids with the machines set to auto update, plus they only need the standard 8gb to play all the latest games really well. I don't see what all the fuss is about. Just ditch windows 11 and install Linux like we did. You'll be much happier.

[Tippis]

XP good?

“Microsoft's operating systems have followed a set pattern over the years. Windows XP was good, Windows Vista was not. Windows 7 was good, Windows 8.x was not. Windows 10 – good.”

I'm not convinced. In particular, I will never accept the notion that XP was “good” other than that it was the version that got everyone over on NT and finally forced software developers to stop assuming that the wide-open Win9x environment was their playground to shit all over.

For similar reasons, I don't think Vista was bad. It was just strict. This was a good thing. The UI silliness and associated power requirements aside, the whole business about complaining about UAC can invariably be traced back to yet more incompetent software designers who didn't get the hint with XP and still tried to treat the OS as their own playground rather than learn how to operate within the clearly explained and defined boundaries of user space. Any software that triggered the safety mechanism enough to be annoying was shit anyway, made by amateurs, and should be avoided.

It was very similar to trying to run Win98 software under Win2k and see what broke and what didn't.

[ThatOne]

Re: XP good?

> I'm not convinced

Because you use a different metric. XP was excellent from an ease-of-use point of view. It had a simple logic (like, all settings are in "Settings", grouped in clear and logical categories), and it stuck to it, which means that even those rare few who don't work in IT for a living were able to master it after a month or two (elderly aunt for instance, historian by profession).

Now specs-wise Win11 might be better, but from the aforementioned ease-of-use point of view it is totally crap. I've been using Windowses from v.3 on (skipped Vista, 8 and 10), and yet I'm lost when I have to change some fairly basic setting in Win11, or understand why something isn't working as advertised. I don't care about the specs, I just need to get work done, and that was easier in XP.

_{(Didn't downvote you though.)}

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: XP good?

Oh, the important stuff is still in Windows 11.. ncpa.cpl, sysdm.cpl, appwiz.cpl, powercfg.cpl and so on. Same for lusrmgr.msc, diskmgmt.msc, gpedit.msc and so on. They should just kill the new control panel and return to the windows 7 one. Except for the printer view, that was better with Vista. Create a folder named: Printer old-style not grouped.{2227a280-3aea-1069-a2de-08002b30309d} and it still works. You can google for the "god mode", which is just a folder with .{some id} - but I don't like that for some reason.

[ThatOne]

Re: XP good?

> Oh, the important stuff is still in Windows 11

But impossible to find for the uninitiated. Windows users used to make fun of the cryptic Linux commands one simply had to know, but nowadays Windows is about as user-friendly as start-of-the-century Linuxes.

_{Example? Due to ongoing problems to update to 24H1 and beyond I wanted to check my TPM settings. It took me hours of Internet search to eventually find the secret code "tpm.msc". Obvious you could say, but then again you clearly do this for a living, I don't... For me MSc is a "Master of Science"... :-D}

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: XP good?

Oh, you don't need to complain to me about that stupid nonsense :D.

[ThatOne]

Re: XP good?

I do complain, but not to you specifically...

[alkasetzer]

Vista/8.x

While I admit that the first releases of Vista and of 8 weren't particularly good from an User Experience point of view. The later releases fixed several issues and both had necessary foundations to bring stuff forward:

Vista brought a new security model (horrible UX though), integrated support for IPv6, actual support for fast storage, WDDM for better graphics and a more secure kernel (for the time).

Windows 8 (not 8.1) brought more security improvements at the kernel level, native support for usb3, advanced format for disks and the first stab at ARM support.

And all of this did not require vastly improved hardware support for the time. And yes, I do know that the recommended specs for Vista were steep at the time of release, but the minimum specs (i.e. windows 2000 look) were not.

[Cruachan]

I'd like to say it's just MS who don't listen to users and instead say "you want this, don't you?" but I've been setting up some Android devices at work this week that are used as scanners in a production facility's warehouse, and the latest Android update changes the functionality of the power button from opening the power menu to opening Gemini.

Hours wasted writing and testing MDM policies to change it back cos these devices need to be as dumb and as "set and forget" as possible. Much like writing GPOs to disable consumer features on an enterprise OS.

[Luiz Abdala]

I miss control panel.

Let me describe what exactly I am missing with examples:

- You have USB headphones, speakers on the motherboard, and hmdi sound on the monitor. You need to change the default between the three. I knew where all that was in Windows 7, and still can get that shorcut on Windows 10. Windows 10 still asks you sometimes if you want to use the monitor hdmi output (the gpu has all the functionality, the monitor does not).

- You just got a new monitor. It can play 4k at 200Hz or something. You also want to change power settings and the screensaver. Even in Windows 10 you have to fumble around to find all these in different places... why? They were all combined in previous versions.

- You need to increase swap file, and put them on a fast drive, or one made purposely empty, because some apps still use it. Go.

Windows 11 fails at being intuitive on where to look for all of these, Win 7/previous had them all in obvious places, THE CONTROL PANEL.

[Mickey Porkpies]

one giant leap backwards for mankind

indicative of where M$ is going enshitifaction personified - I have watched them take great ideas and screw them up for decades - they (much like Google) lost their way and will never recover - Bill Gates did say in 100 years time MS will not exist

[Sproggit]

The "Last Version of Windows"

If you think back to Windows 10, back in 2015, Microsoft announced that it would be "The Last Version of Windows"... and stated that the OS would instead be delivered as a service, receiving continuous feature and security updates, rather than being replaced by future, stand-alone versions.

Even Auntie heard about it:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32658340

I've long wondered about the run-up to the decision to release Windows 11...

In the years previously, Microsoft had got a "cozy thing going on" with Intel and the games ecosystem so that if you wanted to play the latest triple-A game on your PC, then you would need to have the latest version of DirectX... [a *very* thin API shim]... which in turn meant that you would have to have the latest graphics driver for your GPU, which, sadly, meant that you would probably also need to buy a new GPU... and if you didn't need a new GPU, then you'd probably need a new PC with more RAM because the latest version of Windows just demanded more resources.

That nice little ever-decreasing-circle of lies worked for a while... but when governments started muttering "antitrust" and looking at the practice as being a conspiratorial racket, the worldview changed.

It never made sense that Microsoft would back-track and issue Windows 11 so quickly after making such a clearly committed statement.

I mean, we all *know* that Microsoft were lying through their teeth when they said that the latest version of DirectX requires a different OS... Maybe it was the case that GPUs - and gaming hardware in general - just got so expensive that the market for PC gaming dried up... at which point they realised that people with a computer that did what they wanted "today" would not feel obliged to pay for upgrades.

My sense was the whole upgrade cycle was a scam from start to finish.

And don't get me started on the obscene amount of spyware now embedded as standard...

[2141]

I was forced to move to Win 11 at work, of course. But at home Win 10 chugs away reliably and consistently on hardware that should have been long retired, but also chugs away reliably and consistently (TPM, Schmee-PM).

Since the updates stopped, Win 10 has become an island of predictable calm compared to being jostled, mugged and harrowed by Win 11 every time you log in. I do believe retiring and neglecting Win 10 was the best thing MS did with it - made it more useable and increased its appeal.

[marky_boi]

Microsoft shoved me from their shite for good

The Win11 push was the final straw for me. Moved to Apple and Linux. NO regrets and is so much less painful. MacOS for the family 6 iMacs and 2 iPads, and a Lenovo Laptop with SUSE.

won't be back.

[mw_foot]

Can we just have some common sense?

Organisations just want Windows to be simple and fast. Why not strip back a lot of the bloat from Education and Enterprise SKUs?

There’s always going to be E3/E5/E7/A3/A5 paid so why not simplify the OS?

[blu3b3rry]

Windows-free household

I gave Windows 11 a whirl a few months on my gaming desktop after it came out. I wasn't impressed, so reinstalled Windows 10. (That desktop has now been running Linux Mint since last August, and perfectly good for gaming it is too including AAA titles).

Three years ago I bought a Lenovo laptop brand new for a good price - just new enough at this point that W11 was mandatory, and W10 didn't have driver support for some of the hardware. When the warranty expired a year later, it got migrated onto the then-latest Kubuntu LTS, which it still runs without issue.

I find the UI changes, endless moving crap about and infestation of adverts and copilot just....too much. Like many I had an enforced upgrade at work from W10. Work colleagues also found the "improved" experience jarring to the extent ExplorerPatcher and OpenShell are easily installed and found in use by quite a lot of people!

As a result I have an almost Win7-esque (in layout, just not appearance) taskbar and start menu. A little clunky at times due to the addons but still far, far more usable than the mess that is the W11 UI.