* Posts by Mwnelson

3 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Jan 2024

Windows 11 continues to creep up behind Windows 10

Mwnelson

Win11 is still awful

What I don't understand is how Microsoft still can't see how dreadful Win11 is. I'll try it from time to time on a VM but it's simply a bad OS. With gaming still not having moved on from the PS5 generation, other than the yahoos interested in LLMs and Machine learning there little to no reason to upgrade hardware. A Zen2 processor is still doing its good work on a B450 board. The hardware really hasn't been struggling at all.

Sadly, although I dual boot Ubuntu and Win10 I still don't have a long term solution past the EoS. Windows 11 isn't the solution for me with it's bloat and it's poor design choices. Ubuntu, and indeed all Linux distros are not the solution either. They carry with them the *ability* to do almost anything, but not the usability either without a massive learning curve.

There are those here on elReg who I'm sure will criticise those planning to just ride out the expiry of Win10 support. Fact is though that there is no realistic solution. The machines that work now, will be capable of running things as they are in another eleven months, so from a User perspective why should they be thrown away.

Microsoft tried these scare tactics once before with Win7/8 and failed. Users often don't understand the impacts of EoS. Which means the real question is - how long before Microsoft wake up and realise that they either need to remove trash like copilot, or extend support for Win10 again. The real answer of course is that both need to happen. Just like it went down last time!

Windows 11 unable to escape the shadow of Windows 10

Mwnelson

Re: RE: Start Menu

I think you're a little unfair here. Consider for a moment that many schools still have old Windows machines because they've never been able to afford to upgrade.

I literally taught at a college a year ago that were using a mix of XP/Vista era Hardware and Windows 10 through Horizon. I kid you not!

When talking about design paradigm I do understand what you're driving at but consider for a moment the Coca Cola logo. Over the years it's had minor tweaks but at core is still the old style that the world is familiar with. What happens when they try to modernise? Well everyone hated it (New Coke).

The history of tech is littered with superior solutions to problems that got discarded in favour of more regressive systems.

Most users are never going to pin apps to taskbars. Power users definitely aren't (they'd need more taskbars). Enterprise and educational users aren't going to either for the most part.

Much like there are more efficient ways of boarding planes than the systems currently in use - it comes down to what the market and users will tolerate. The number of people complaining about the start menu should tell you quite simply that they want the old paradigm.

That doesn't make you wrong or them right. It just makes it the most popular choice. So if windows wants market share they need to follow what their users want...not what their tech geeks and advertiser's want.

That's my opinion anyway.

Mwnelson

It's not the hardware requirements!

Look, this nonsense narrative of users not upgrading because of hardware requirements...I don't agree.

Windows 11 is an objectively less suitable option for productivity. It requires effectively relearning your way around the Start Menu and taskbar...something that ordinary users interact with most. Microsoft should have learnt this lesson with windows 8, but have repeated it with Windows 10.

It is not an upgrade in any way to have to click five times to do something I used to be able to do in two clicks. Integrating the bloat of their ad supported search options aren't upgrades.

Fact is that the majority of home users don't use bitlocker as standard. They never did. For a home desktop it doesn't even make all that much sense. For laptops and enterprise...that's a different story.

Problem is that companies don't like it when they have to lose hundreds of thousands of hours to their poorly IT literate workers relearning how to navigate a new system. This has always been the case.

Other than the added security benefits that TPM brings to Win 11 there just isn't a UX improvement for the normies in the world. Microsoft for decades now have chased after features that are like Apple, or Android, or Chrome, all the whole forgetting that often those people likely wouldn't have bought a windows machine for their purposes in the first place.

The UI will be alienating to most Windows 10 users. And the extra steps to do simple things in Windows 11 make it a dreadful UX. That's the reason behind the poor uptake...well that and users being told Windows 10 was the last version they'd need!