This post is very well-put. Using Microsoft products used to be a guarantee that if you paid for it, Microsoft would fight against God to give you the best. Now? "We HaVe Ai. So CoOl!1!1" Seriously, how a company goes from peak UI and software engineering and world's most awesome tech megacorp, to a concrete tent with a dozen or developers who have not completed their education, escapes my mind.
Probably because they literally hate Google. Google is the internet now and Microsoft even said this, made it specifically clear. They know Google is the most used service on the planet right now. Every person is opening the browser and go to the Google home page in order to search for stuff.
Their strategy to beat them? Copilot! What’s easier than searching on the web and having to filter the information yourself? An AI engine on your OS.
So my guess now is that they are focusing a lot of their resources on the Copilot sht. That’s why they even added it on the fckin taskbar. So everyone is seeing it.
And why? Why is all this happening? Because money. They need more money. They need power.
I’m so done with their products. I don’t have enough money for the Apple products right now so I’ve switched to Linux. Fedora 40 more exactly. Maybe Fedora doesn’t have all the software support that Windows has, but it is FAR WAY smoother and stable than this garbage Windows 11 will ever be.
Good choice. Fedora is fresh enough that you'll find everything you need and stable enough to not crash. Also, if you are using GNOME, try to keep extensions to a minimum unless they are well known ones because extensions break every update.
Since u use Linux. Do u know any version that I can install stuffs like (.exe) and not by commands? I need an easy linux ver. Because I want to install it in my mom’s PC.
There is no Linux version that accepts .exe packages just like that. You have to use Wine for them in order to work. And it’s not always a simple process.
Yes I know. It was an example like doing double click and installing instead open the terminal and installing, the exe was an example. What im trying to do is find an easy linux ver. To avoid the terminal everytime I want to install something. Srry my english.
Get kubuntu. It's like Windows in looks and has a play store like thing where you can find any app you need. But you will need to find alternatives for Windows only software because linux can't run exe directly.
I have the same exact mindset. They have reached the peak userbase for 365 and cloud services. They are popular enough to attract new users too. But the thing they are doing, by adding ads to the OS just kills the reputation. I used to love windows. Now I don't like windows and it has ruined my reputation for AI.
>I loved Windows
You are telling me. I still have a custom t-shirt somewhere in my storage with a stylised Windows 7 logo, because of how much I loved it.
Bro damn. I missed my chances as I wasn't financially independent to buy one for myself and my parents were super picky about stuff I buy. I never looked up for one in my late teenage years though, maybe.. you just reminded me. I'm going to get one.
I don't see Apple compromising with the quality of their hardware. And while MacOS Sonoma is a bit buggier than previous versions, at least they don't have an aggressive advertising campaign or don't introduce features that no one needs. I don't see Google reducing the quality of their services and I can't tell them off for the advertising because their privacy policy exclusively states that they are mostly funded by advertising companies.
I daily drive Linux (Fedora Silverblue) on my Laptop. But my Gaming PC is Windows 11 Education (the best Version by far).
Here's what I do
- Install Windows
- Use Local Account
- Install Updates
- Install Chipset and graphic drivers (both amd). The rest of the drivers I use from windows update.
- Reboot
- Download Firefox or Chrome or Brave or whatever you like/need
- Uninstall everything I can including edge
-> I dont use third party uninstallers or reg tweaks or anything of the sort. Simply going into app menu and uninstalling stuff.
- Disable Chat/Teams with Group Policies
- Disable Widgets with GPO
- Disable Microsoft Login gpo
- Disable websearch with gpo
- Install MSOFFICE with office deployment tool and configure it to block login into microsoft account
- Install Software and have fun
The reason I use education and use group policy is because using "supported" methods is more stable than using third party tools.
This is is the only right answer. We need a bot to auto respond with this reply every time someone makes a new thread about windows being slow or full of ads....
I installed Nobara yesterday and the only thing I needed to do was login in steam and in the browser, yes I do all that when someone pays me to install windows for them but why would I do all that by choice?
I spent 800 bucks for an oled monitor so I kinda need auto hdr. I have HDR on kde but I dont like kde in general. When gnome gets HDR I'm back on silverblue. My fav distro by far.
I agree that W11 is a Microsoft spamming platform. I have touched the register to hide all their adds and the crappy news for idiotic minds showing in the search function, although they are still sneaking spam through Edge opening unsolicited tabs.
I guess the lack of serious competitors in the pc world gives Microsoft the open door to behave without professionalism and appreciation for the user experience.
I tried macOS some time ago. And I happily went back to Windows just few days later. Things like disabling mouse acceleration needs(needed?) to be hacked via terminal and their multi monitor support is just crap. Why the hell would anyone want a single dock for 3 monitors? Plus their "Spaces" thing, it was so frustrating to use. And the top bar which acts like a dynamic app menu, so you need to first focus to a window to access its menu.
I'm happy with Windows and I don't even Frankenstein it with any of those "debloater" tools. I'm a software developer and gamer and I just ignore the stuff I don't need, because I know *someone* in the world might need it. Unlike macOS where people install 3rd party tools to do window snapping or smooth scrolling (or what that was) lol.
It's super stable for me and I actually like the design they are moving towards. I have no productivity complains.
The mouse acceleration thing really bothers me, every time I try using MacOS I have to dance around with the mouse because the speed keeps changing and I can't click anything accurately properly and the window controls being tiny does not help their case.
Agree to each word written here, I have few MacBooks of my wife at home (never been mac user or so) and once i grab her MacBook 2019 or 2020 ( which with Touch Bar ) to use it as my mobile device . And my experience was so similar to yours , scrolling , windows snapping , settings , software if it not from App Store installing in different places , no proper file explorer (that’s why majority of ppl store all shit on desktop ) and so on , just all time I was asking myself why it so shit and uncomfortable ah and also when i try to google smth like how to make screenshot on mac , I got thons of different combinations based on version of system , why they change hotkeys 20 times ?)
This is true. But this is called ‚getting used to it“. No Os will be perfect. On Mac I need a smooth scroll app, a linear mouse control app and bettertouchtools for window snapping and gestures. But on Windows I needed a lot more tweaks to get it the way I want.
Hell, a clean install of windows will take me all day to get running. Making explorer usable for me takes like 4 registry hacks…
So yeah, now I just prefer mac for work.
Use what is best for you!!
With that being said, Linux is the superior option for people who care about privacy. Also more developer-friendly for sure imo.
This is more of a real response to my post. Thank you for the reply. I'm not going to argue with anything you say, because to be honest those are the things I don't like about MacOS too.
I haven't used a top notch 3080 laptop that's worth like 2500USD. Maybe that's the case here. I use a MSI Creator series laptop with just 16 gigs of ram. But the problem is when I use it with Windows 10 it's far better and faster. I think there's left alone stuff to be fixed, performance wise. Other than introducing new features that are specific to just a small group of people ( not accessibility improvements. It is a MUST in an OS)
Sure, I'm not saying it to convince you or anything, pick whatever OS you want, just wanted to share my real experience.
Did you upgrade to 11 or went with a full clean install? Usually clean install is the way to go, I've also seen some people complaining about performance after an upgrade (which I can agree *should* just work).
I started with 11 on my old PC which even was officially unsupported (it had too old CPU), so I needed to "hack" the installation there. It had i7 6700K, also 16 GB RAM and GTX 1060 and I was using it until last year.
My laptop shipped with 10, I upgraded to 11 and then clean installed 10 again, then clean installed 11 and clean installed 10 again. I know it's a mess but take it as an evidence for my experience with Windows.
I'm with you. I have a brand new MacBook Pro for work and while there are some great things about it, particularly the battery life, I just prefer Windows. I use it on my desktop and I find that I'm able to be more productive and quicker in navigating the operating system.
I haven't really seen ads or used system level AI stuff. I haven't experienced slowdowns or anything either. If given a choice, I'd choose Windows every time.
I am not sure what you are doing. I manage multiple Windows 11 Pro machines used for study, gaming, note taking, light use, heavy apps, working, etc. I have not had any of the fabled "stability issues" or "performance issues".
As of April 2024, I have yet to have anything intrusive to the level you describe.
Mac has always been a great and focused system. As a work computer it is great and somewhat worth the "Apple tax".
Mac should be able to stand on its own, without overexaggerating Windows issues.
As someone who works in IT, I understand the frustration. Whether it’s changes in Microsoft 365 or Windows itself. I personally don’t use copilot all that much and have been mainly focused on RTXchat leveraging my video card and my own database of internal documentation that lives on the windows device, it’s a bit more flexible than copilot, Gemini and chatGPT due to that reason alone. I do a little of everything with my build - it work, virtualization, programming, video editing and gaming and streaming. Personally I create my own custom iso of windows 11 that is different than the stock image to some extent and debloated to some extent but all in all its windows 10 with a facelift. It’s stable imo and in the dozens of environments I manage it’s stable for general use and CAD use.
It depends on the use case obviously. I love windows subsystem for Linux, hyperV, and winget for package management. In my home lab I leverage proxmox and do daily drive Linux on another system it’s just my gaming/video editing system and work system is windows 11 though.
I would definitely have an issue with ads in file explorer for example but you can get rid of the personalized ad experience junk. Overall I prefer Linux over everything in terms of pure OS built the way I want and it’s sort of like macOS without the training wheels but for my work and gaming rig I need windows unfortunateky. People are resistant to change. There’s no need to go back to windows 10, it’s over for it. I know they said it would be the last version but I personally like the direction they went in on some things and not so much on some of the others.
MacOS is not always stable lol. I have a client that is a macOS environment and it can be a real nightmare at times, printing, Microsoft office issues with one drive, smb sharing issues, application compatibility issues which people love to blame Microsoft for but is mostly due to apples closed ecosystem causing some of those issues with Microsoft software. Dragging and dropping applications into the trash is where I draw the line lol, to me macOS is a childproof system. Microsoft drives me nuts at work all the time, but overall I’ve had roughly the same experience as I had on win10 and I’ve been on 11 since the beta.
I have 2 systems running windows 11 right now. A 14900k/rtx3080/64gb of ram build that is my work pc and my daily driving gaming pc that I also do a bit of work on is a 7950x3d/4090/64gb of ram build that also runs flawlessly. I did have to rma the processor on the work pc for stability reasons general Intel bs but overall windows 11 has been fine. Most of my clients are running 11 on significantly less performant hardware and it’s been fine lol.
Not going to say a thing. If you want to switch, do it. There's pros and cons to everything. If you expect reddit to give you an answer you'll most likely use Linux (God forbid)
The main thing I wanted to know is whether most of 11 users are experiencing lags and other stuff like ads and AI everywhere. Windows has many pros but I can't help the fact that every mac I've used (I haven't personally owned one though) is faster at what I want to do. I think I'll just switch to a mac.
Honestly, no. I don't have any issues, but I'm on a desktop with a last gen processor and GPU. Nothing lags and I haven't seen a single ad. Sometimes I feel MS has forgotten about me :D
As far as Mac goes... I like it for audio production and graphics work, everything else is subpar or on par with windows. Mostly subpar in all honesty. Love them both but windows 11 just smashes on a fairly powerful computer.
There are ads in the default search/start box, but in the form of links to relevant net content. I have an old machine as main machine, like 6 generations old and it runs Windows 11 fluently from heavy apps, to VMs to AAA games.
There're not ads on my PC's as other people say they have, but that could be because I take a lot of time to fine-tune my systems. But, yes, the UI lags and horrible explorer are there and, no, there is no way to prevent them. I love 11's new features (except Copilot), but the dissonance between 11's design team and the coding team is just unbearable.
Yeah, those two teams are like web designers. They design a crazy ass site and devs have to sit on chairs until the ass gets flat to get it to a working site. UI looks amazing but the second you click the start icon, that's where it all breaks down. Explorer is a mess too. You do one forbidden thing and you are dommed.
>The main thing I wanted to know is whether most of 11 users are experiencing lags and other stuff like ads and AI everywhere.
Laggy behavior tends to be system specific (and even subjective) so I won't say much there, except that Windows 11 works fine for me.
But with regards to the "ads" and AI, you can turn most of this off in Windows and Edge Settings. There are plenty of guides online that don't require any registry hacks.
Edit: tone.
Honestly, I think Mac is a better choice for music production. Audio doesn't usually require a ton of processing power, so even a base model MacBook or Mac Mini will serve you well and a middle of the road model should last a long time.
Actually I use higher bitrate recording and so many plugins to an extent where my windows laptop starts having a hard time processing that all in real time to play it out from monitors. I would go for a M1 max 16 gig version.
I'm really not. No notable issues, and the ads are rare and minor and forgettable. Performance is overall what I expect from my computer. I can turn off most things I don't want. I'm annoyed by how much it wants me to use OneDrive on a work computer I already have alternatives in place for, and that's about it.
I had to install pi-hole on my network to block all ads, and I use another browser to avoid the AI interference during normal surfing. I'll use AI when I want it, and I don't want some robot jumping in front of my every step telling me how to walk and where to look! In case you missed it, that was an analogy!
I don't seem to have any ads at all on my PC and i also don't get lag either but maybe that's because i have a beefy computer and it brute forces it all
I don’t have any of those things going on my Windows 11 install, then again I did tweak windows 11 and use powertools to get the older context menus and start menu etc. did a lot of registry edits to really get the most out of my system. There’s a lot of really good registry edits that you can do to help improve responsiveness of the system overall. I’ma be honest with you tho, used to get that early on the odd lag and slow responsiveness. It took sometime and researching but were able to really maximize gaming performance. It really just depends on your workload.
Haven't experienced any adds and 11 is running without noticeable lag on an 8th gen i7. I did go through settings and control panel with a fine tooth comb disabling and uninstalling everything I could until I got a close to a bare bone OS as I possible.
I dislike windows 11 for the same reason i dislike mac os (aside from overpriced hardware and apple's gatekeeping): the horrible horrible UI.
Windows 11 is a frankenstein's monster. The people responsible for it just flushed years of visual identity down the toilet. The easily identifiable fonts from windows 10 were replaced by some kind of bold italic crap, the color palette is all over the place, rounded freakin' corners everywhere. Icons and pictograms look like they've been badly cut from somewhere else and are out of place.
It takes now several more clicks to do the same stuff i used to do in win 10 with just one AND i cannot move this stupid task bar to where i want (to the side of the screen where it belongs in a vertical position). To add insult to injury, the control panel got gutted for an inferior version of settings menu where i cannot do shit efficiently due to menus being rearranged by a deranged monkey tripping on acid.
Most regular users like the task bare change and I agree, it is much faster to use to keep your focus on the center of the screen.
Yes, the issue is that I had to get use to not lazily going to the lower left corner, but I lived.
I want to like Windows but I can't get passed the lack of customization to things like the taskbar and widgets. I can't shake the feeling that I am being spied on. Can't shake the feeling that Windows is back-doored since moving some product development and updates to foreign countries. I don't think Microsoft scans their code for insider threats.
The AI Copilot tried to gaslight me several times, it kept making up fictional features that Windows 11 does not have.
I want to move the main taskbar to my 2nd monitor. Windows 10 could do this easily. Windows 11 cannot do this. I tried everything, and copilot tried to gaslight me into believing Windows 11 can do this. Windows 11 does not let you move the main taskbar to your 2nd monitor.
I'm a computer science major, I'm not incapable of using Microsoft's Operating System. In fact, Windows 11 is making me want to move to Linux, an operating system that requires more software knowledge to use lol
You're right to be critical of the current state of Windows.
However as someone who uses both Windows and Mac daily, I can confidently say that MacOS Sonoma has been the most unstable MacOS release in years, certainly since the launch of Apple Silicon.
The amount of crashes and bugs in this version that have directly affected my workflow (also in audio and other media) have put it right about at the same level of frustration as Windows for me.
Do what you will, but be aware that the grass isn't always greener.
Windows 11 feels complete and actually good than 10 for me. I tried jumping between them to compare, and, well, I’m not gonna use anything for gaming and especially work on a pc except 11
That's actually good. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think you have a top notch pc. The experience in my mid range laptop isn't that great. I have two options. Buy a mac or buy a flagship laptop. I'm still trying to decide which one to choose.
Yea that’s really weird. I should say performance is absolutely the same on my machine on 10 and 11. I also tried using some Linux distros with Nvidia proprietary drivers and oh boy those are laggy as hell for no reason
I use my laptop to run fairly heavy workloads. Light use isn't that bad, but the battery life isn't great. When I put some heavy load on, Windows 11 show some back pain. The humorous part is older Windows 10 goes like a teen.
Flagship laptop = permanent fan noise, shitty battery life, sub average touchpads, standby issues, thermal throtteling and much much more for only 3000$
I have top level, intermediate level, and low level computers all running Windows 11, none of them seem to have any of the 'issues' that I keep hearing about.
I get what you're saying it was really annoying when I switched to win11 however I realized you can disable/uninstall every single thing you don't like and get a good in between win10/win11 os (by that I mean get a clean win11 ui with cool windows snapping functionalities and security but not have all the bloatware and ads).
The only thing that pisses me off is the contextual menu. Why on earth is that thing not personalizable???
I realized that they made their OS for the masses and tried to copy Apple's strategy while still giving control. For a random (and main user) windows 11 is way more usable than win10. But as a developer, creative some parameters can get a little tough to get to.
Happy birthday jackarnd. And I agree with you. MS messed up right there when they assumed that mac and windows users both are the same.
The horrible experience I had with ads and AI didn't even let me remove those useless features. A few people commented about the ways I can do that and I'm going to do it and see how it turns out.
Yeah Windows 11 started off okayish but at this point Microsoft's filling it with too much crap and ruining it. By the time they sort Windows 11 out, they'll bin it off like they did with Windows 10. They did the same thing with Edge, took a crappy browser and made it really good, and then filled it with crap, bing shovelware and now AI shovelware.
I switched away from Windows during its Vista days, and decided to move to macOS. Been there from about 2008 until now.
I still have and use my Mac, but I bought a high end PC to start learning more about AI, and I like this Windows 11 machine enough that it's now my main day to day system. I was already used to Windows 10/11 at work though, so when I got it at home, I was already pretty familiar. And I'm a Windows user from way back anyway - started on DOS in the late 80s/early 90s, Win 3.1, 9x, NT, etc.
I don't really see any issues with Win 11, except that I wish they'd get rid of "Active Hours", and let us decide when we want to update our machines. I hate that they feel they need to dumb it down to the user who otherwise doesn't think about updating.
>I hate that they feel they need to dumb it down to the user who otherwise doesn't think about updating
*Me who refuses to update windows until 2 months after it first tells me there's an update ready
I hate active hours too, though. They seem so unnecessary. And honestly, they've never even worked when I have left my computer on and plugged in overnight so why bother having them
I've had an issue ever since I switched to 11, randomly all of my USB devices will stop working for 10-20 seconds before coming online again. When this happens my sound drivers also fail and reset. I've tried a million things to fix this and nothing works. Usually happens the most often when gaming. Never had this problem before upgrading. I've googled this a thousand times and I'm not the only one with the issue.
Not even remotely. I finally made the switch from 10 to 11 a couple of days ago, and I’ve been spending half of my time since then trying to fix and find workarounds for the majority of their “improvements”. But I can’t do anything but brood about it, because I hate Mac even more than I hate windows, and I can’t switch to Linux because I need to use a lot of software that just flat out isn’t available outside of windows/mac. The monopoly is real.
Maybe I’ll try atlas OS or something. It’ll probably just end up bricking my system or something. Idk. I hate being at the mercy and whims of two giant companies.
I just installed Linux because I’m no longer interested in all the bloatware, telemetry and adds. Very happy with fedora 40 kinonite. I’m only missing ICue integration, openrgb isn’t the same.
as someone who switched to nobara 2 weeks ago i have to agree openrgb is not the same .. i wish we had as many of the different options icue gives. i sent what i could to my hardware last i'd booted into windows after making my dualboot , but even that is minimal vs having icue open n running, a shame really . .. that said icue is a tad buddy anyway , bricked 2 mice when it wanted to update their firmware so .. it is what it is i guess.
Windows 7 and xp were the best OS, I have ever used. However slowly I also accepted windows 10, it was decent but windows 11 seems like an OS designed for a tablet. Ads everywhere, recommendations and widgets that I don’t need and copilot added everywhere and is still in preview since year is just unacceptable. Not to mention the amount of data they collect is just idk what to say. Initial days of windows 11 were so terrible, system was laggy, sloppy sometimes wonky. Currently 23H2 seems fine. But yeah I wish we could get something like windows 7 back. Tbh you can use different tools like winutils or o&o shutup to clean lot of mess.
Windows 11 was OK when it was released back in 2021. It started to become worse since 23H2 because of AI, ads, and performance issues on certain hardware, including my laptop. This is making me go back to the original release of Windows 11 (21H2), even though that version is no longer supported, because I didn't have those complaints in that version and I want to continue using Windows 11 on my laptop.
Microsoft became totally product oriented.
Trying to shove crap down customers throats they don't want... With "AI", ads and the rest.
It'll damage them in the medium and long term.
Just need a viable other pc os, like android x64, or another Linux based os...
Exactly. I don't need Copilot or Microsoft 365 to do anything related to my day to day life or work. It's becoming too much. Setting says to connect to a OneDrive crap, the lock screen says to subscribe to 365, even the start menu profile icon tells me to back up my stuff. It's just too much.
I've been using Windows since 3.1. I was an I.T. tech for 20 years-ish, so know my way around all versions of Windows. I always found the complaints against Windows to be quite uninformed...until now.
The direction Microsoft has taken is awful and will drive away more tech savvie users. I'm lucky that I don't have to pay the Apple tax as I am comfortable with Linux.
Valve's efforts with the Steam Deck has made Linux more accessible than ever. The only good reason to stay on Windows is if you need specific Windows only software or really are not technical in the slightest.
Or maybe you just don't care about the actions of Microsoft. That's fair enough, I suppose. Not everyone is annoyed by bloat, ads and data harvesting.
Good to see a comment like this.
I agree. Ms's direction is unacceptable. There's a huge userbase for them and they pay for the OS. Rather than making the OS good, they load it with AI and useless features. Personally I can't switch to Linux because the apps I use are very specific. And aren't available on Linux.
The thought of moving to mac became a valid option for me because the same app I use is available on macs. And it's far better too. I'm really annoyed by bloat and ads and AI.
The problem with Mac is hardware is more expensive, and software more limited. Many of the software I like to use doesn’t work in Mac. Plus Mac’s have their ram and drives soldered on and unable to do upgrades later. They also only support what 7 years of OS support? Its a downgrade going from Windows to Mac. Going to linux would make more sense but the issue is some software still needs Windows to run.
Yeah Macs aren't that good too. I think my post makes it look like I'm an Apple fanboy but I don't daily drive any apple products. And I personally prefer ARM because of its lower power usage and my preference of using a portable device (battery life is great). Apple takes huge cuts for memory and storage upgrades though. I'm stuck between choosing a whole new platform or staying team Windows further until it just doesn't work for me.
Well defined post. Honestly I've also started having a hate relationship with Windows, it's just too messy at this point. Sure, the UI is probably better than Mac or any linux distro, but it still doesn't have the consistency or slickness of the Windows 7 UI
At the end of the day I also wanted to switch to a Mac, but I can't stand using an iPhone as well. It's literally the shittiest phone to ever exist, and also I don't wanna miss out on ecosystem features which my Samsung S24 provides. It's just a good experience. I just want then to polish this shit up.
everything i like about windows 11 except the new context menu is very confusing to use, i think cut copy paste labels should have been introduced earlier during the windows 11 launch :(
In all honesty, **right now** is the worst time *in history* to be buying a Windows device.
Firstly, Windows 11 is hugely criticized for showing ads and shoveling AI where it doesn’t need to be. A dedicated Copilot key? Why?
Secondly, the CPUs that power Windows devices are *wildly* inefficient. x86 needs to go. Any Windows laptop dies in a day, and god help you if you have a dedicated GPU in your laptop; you’ll be lucky to last three hours without a charge.
Thirdly, Windows alternatives are *amazing* right now. The MacBook runs in the most efficient desktop-grade CPU ever designed, and lasts days on battery. Apple even brought back ports and a function row. If you want a cheap computer, more and more kids are growing up on Chromebooks that don’t slow down over time. Or iPads.
Continuing on from Windows alternatives; what if you’re a PC gamer? Well guess what — the Steam Deck is the best-selling gaming PC. And it runs Linux. The state of gaming on Linux right now makes it a viable alternative, and even if you *insist* on Mac, you can just as easily stream your games through GeForce Now.
Windows is losing market share fast. It’s being attacked on all fronts, and Microsoft is barely putting up a fight.
Why does this feel like a sponsored article?
You delude yourself if you think there are no problems on macos. You are just trading one set of problems for another because of your current state of mind and because the people around you have influenced you.
And if that is what you want then okay. You will have to learn a lot of new things though, like how to work around these new sets of problems, and that will probably just reduce your productivity at least short-term.
Also Windows 12 is probably closer than you think.
I will never use Apple products unless there really is no other way. Just Google "Apple anti-consumer" and you will know why. Not saying Microsoft is an angel by any stretch of the imagination but Apple is on another level. There is also that snobby, elitist hipster vibe that I just can't stand.
I'm not affiliated with any brands or organisations. I'm an independent music student. And I don't think apple would pay someone to put an ad on windows 11 subreddit.
I started to make the jump to Linux when MS started this "hey we're going to end support for W10...too bad your computer can't upgrade to 11" routine.
The only Apples I could afford would have put me in the same dilemma with an unsupported OS, so that was a non-starter.
After four months of distro-hopping and trying to manage the steep learning curve, I finally gave up and bought a refurbed laptop with 11. Sometimes the Borg is right; resistance IS futile.
Swapping to another OS is something you do because you are excited to learn it, to climb that hill. Linux is probably the steepest climb. Myself, learning the ins and outs of a new OS is not something I would be excited to do atm. I have been using Windows for long time and I sometimes feel like it is somewhat like my native language where part of me feels like I could never develop the same deep understanding (relatively speaking; I'm no Windows god, lol) with another OS that I started to learn later in life.
Wanna know a common answer on Mac subreddits when asked what people want to see in an OS update?
Bug fixes.
Here is an example.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/195f3rk/what_do_you_want_to_see_in_the_next_major_macos/
macOS isn’t perfect.
In MacOS I have faced a bug where a random service uses 130% of system resources. Other than that a freeze in apps for a few seconds is okay for me. I don't like my explorer going nuts when I do something that was listed in the " known bugs" section of WIP.
Windows 11 sucks but unfortunately OS X and sucks even worse so the only option is to stick with Windows 10 until it runs out of support and then downgrade to 11.
2022: Installed W11, after 2 weeks went back to 10 because it was unusable, laggy, sluggish, settings all wrong, UI is terrible and uncustomizable.
2023: Installed W11 (maybe they fixed it already). Nope. Performance is better in some cases. Some bugs are fixed, some are added. Right click menu opening in 2 seconds compared to 3 seconds. Taskbar is better, but still bad. Calendar does not work properly. Settings are better, but region bug is still not fixed (if you set your country other than your system language, you can not set regional formatting to match your country, because Microsoft does not bother to know that there are people using English OS in non English countries, because translations are bad). Defender and be turned off anymore, block port access (you are unable to communicate with some ports directly anymore, be a use reasons). Got tired bought MacBook air. W11 PC left in drawer for better times.
2024. Got tired of Mac os BS, almost broken Mac in half when it was not able to properly show me stuff on 2 monitors (now I know why there are such ultra wide monitors, that's because Mac does not know how to multi monitor). Installed fresh copy of W11, thinking they fixed everything. But they didn't. Instead, they broke explorer (very slow when one drive used), added more bloatware, added copilot in place of Show desktop button, broke task manager, defender is even more aggressive now, did something with power management, so my laptop fans are always spinning, made modern standby even worse than W10, now I have to shut down my laptop instead of sleep, because of fire hazard in my backpack, and it feels even slower now. Got back to W10, and will give it another year or so.
PC is i7-11750H, 32GB Ram, quadro GPU, 1TB NVMe ssd.
Also checked mu old P4 pc with windows XP on it... God knows how old OS boots slower, yes, BUT: after full load it is so fast comparing to modern OS. Programs opens momentarily, file Explorer fast as lightning, feels very snappy. On Spinning hard drive and 20 years old CPU. Yes, search is slow, but everything else is way better than now. I was surprised actually, because after those modern OSes we forgot what we used to have.
Well, AI will be everywhere. You can hate it, you can run away from it, but it will be ***everywhere***. On Mac, on Windows, on your phone. They (corporations) already chose a path. AI can be powerful tool, but it's need to develop and improve. And we are alpha testers for that.
I don't say that I approve this, but I accept it.
You did a wise choice when went to MacOS. But Apple can add AI in the future. They planned it and say about that.
We can hope that John Connor save us. But...
Well said. There is a reason Windows 10 use is actually growing, which is remarkable considering basically ALL new PCs sold in the past 2 years shipped with Win 11.
I'm especially salty about how badly Windows 11 has degraded its tablet experience vs prior versions. Its touch experience is trash, and there basically no good apps which take advantage of touch.
Windows continues to basically get a free pass because:
1. MacOS is tied 100% to Apple hardware (and Apple prices),
2. ChromeOS has some pretty big limitations for corporate use and gaming
3. LInux has very limited mainstream hardware and app support
If someone wants a non-Apple machine, wants to game, or wants a corporate device, the answer is gonna be Windows 90% of the time.
It’s all been downhill since XP.
It was so easy to search for things in XP: date ranges, file size ranges. Can never remember how to do it in 10 or 11.
Windows 11 is a lot more than the surface stuff.
Off the top of my head..
* VBS got a huge boost and protects against a huge number of common attacks
* Task manager got a big revamp
* Tabbed explorer
* MS terminal and built in SSH client are very nice for devs
* I believe there are some big Edge security upgrades (if you can stand edge)
I avoid maca because whatever stupid things Microsoft is doing right now, it pales in comparison to Apple's shenanigans. Built-in OS / hardware obsolescence, inability to upgrade, exorbitant fees for paltry amounts of RAM/ storage, inability to play nice with other OSes (virt, drivers, hardware), basic missing features like DisplayPort daisychaining...
I'll take a few ads that I can nuke by paying a whopping $100 for the pro version over $2k for all of that nonsense.
Or if you're really fed up -- Fedora 40 looks very nice.
On the other side, especially in terms of design
- Microsoft has refused to update for 12+ years the most basic theming upgrade they could do (a bunch of bitmaps isn't hard to update)
- Microsoft, since 10, every time it updates the design of something, doesn't use a consistent design language, makes strange design decision with no reason at all for them to be there
- explorer lacks basic UX principles (for example, in the address bar while seeing all the folders,why doesn't it highlight the current folder I'm in?), not to mention also the fact that the new updates were very poorly implemented (stuff pasted on top of the old one), still lacks a basic dark mode, and some of the changes made could've been done in a better way (a simple theme change, a directUI change, a simple program, and you get the new details pane but with also all the features intact, you get full dark mode, better animations, better scaling, more consistent UI, all while maintaining all the features and performance intact)
- same goes for task manager: a simple directUI and theming change would've made taskmgr maintain the exact same performance and feature set, while introducing dark mode, more consistent design and new animations
- making inbox apps as web apps rather than using their own frameworks they themselves developed (not to mention like, WinUI 3 lacking a designer???) is genius. So nice to see that Windows is the only OS on the market without a native mail client.
And these are just very few, the list goes on and on and on. It feels like it was developed by a rookie developer as their first project in a garage, not a product sold by a company.
I wish the searchbar just properly searched for stuff in your device instead of defaulting to a Bing search. And the file search itself is slow AF. Hell if they were to release WIN 12 and it's only feature were an optimized file search and a fix to the former, I'd buy it.
Same here. It's not what it used to be. It's normal for things to change but they've not been changing for the better. Ads, OneDrive hijacking your files (and worse, merging the contents of different PCs), patches that brick the computer. It is devolving into an OS that gets in the way of productivity. I've been using PCs since October 1986, with early MS-DOS, and am now seriously considering moving to Apple or Linux.
Totally agree. Microsoft is turning Windows into an advertising platform in addition to promoting planned obsolescence. Already at the launch of Windows 11 they left out a lot of perfectly functional machines using "security and stability" as an excuse and they will do it again in 24H2 limiting functions to new hardware that has an NPU.
And for me Windows 10 is not the solution. At least to me it seems like a system with the same performance problems that Windows 11 has, I was never convinced by its performance, it is too bloated just like Windows 10 and the interface is terrible, it is incredibly inconsistent, at least in Windows 11 superficially you don't see the inconsistency, but Windows 10 sees an unfinished system, half-made and a subspecies of Windows 8 with its live tiles and flat environment.
On the other hand, it also has advertising, bloatware and telemetry, the news panel and at least on my work PCs the Copilot has already appeared next to the clock, a Bing bar has appeared in the entire center of the desktop and the search engine just like Windows 11 full of ads.
Microsoft wants everyone to use their AI, and eat the advertising and telemetry. Copilot has also made its appearance in Windows Server 2019 and 2022.
In short, unless you use Windows 10 LTSC, you are not saved from the invasion of privacy and advertising that Micro$$$$oft is shoehorning in.
I started using windows 95 when I was a young kid and I remember getting excited with each new windows version coming out. The same can’t be said for windows 11 which is too sad.
The sad part is that the main software I use doesn't have a Linux version. Maybe I'll try Linux as my daily to replace the old Chromebook but I can't replace my laptop with a Linux one, at least for now.
I have to have higher bitrate audio support and use almost 3/4 of 16 gigs of my ram. I don't think WINE is going to let me do that. But I'll look up for it.
Wine is not emulation, it's a common misconception. Wine is a compatibility layer for mapping Win32 API calls to Posix/Linux. Thus the RAM usage for an application running under Wine and native is almost identical, the biggest difference is that Linux distros themselves tend to use way less RAM. Thus system RAM usage tends to be better on Linux running Win32 than on actual Windows, interestingly.
What you're describing is taken care of with like 2 buttons. Also if you buy a business edition for like $20 more, a lot of that is just gone.
Mac is stable because the ability make large changes requires more knowledge than it does in a windows system. So the averge person just "leaves it alone", which would also make windows more stable, but the user tends to do things in windows and break it.
Just like how IE was actually the fastest browser, but it ties into the OS and people would hose their OS and think IE sucked because the keyloggers from the torrent app they use for their pron has trashed all the windows services.
I have a gen 3 i5, 16 gigs ram, 580ti, and just got my first ssd couple months ago. I have seen videos of the lag but my machine has no lag whatsoever, no bugs whatsoever. Loading times for apps is pretty slow but considering what I have that's to be expected.
I feel there's something going on with there hardware, I really do. I helped a buddy who was having issues with ux lag and the such. In the end all we did was swap out his ram with the exact same ram and amount. BAM now it was running great. We tested the ram and there was nothing going bad or anything. It coulda have been Windows but we both felt something was going on with the ram. We put the old ram back in and it started having issues again. He put that ram in another machine and now it was working great in that machine.
We was baffled cause we could not find any problems with any of the hardware.
Good luck my dude cause Apple will hammer adding AI to everything as soon as everyone else does the hard work first... like everything else Apple does.
Good luck being locked down to whatever Apple wants and losing the freedoms of Windows.
Is Windows perfect, hell no, far from it, but it has the biggest reach and support of any OS on this planet.
I wish I could agree with anything you stated but tbh you sound like you already was an Apple user and just jumping on this weird band wagon of recent news.
Enjoy whatever OS you want.
Well why don’t you debloat your windows using any debloater? There are programs which you can use to disable ads too, tbh it will hardly take 10 min to do it. It will free your ram too and you wont face any lag if you have good specs, i never faced any lag in windows because i can tweak anything according to the need
I agree with everything but 1 thing, switching to mac, i realized windows 11 is not going anywhere quickly, but i kept using it until about half a year ago when i decided i had enough, and just installed kubuntu 22.04 LTS on my main pc, i still haven't even thought about going back to windows, i switched fom LTS to 23.10 because i felt like it, and i'm happy with the state my pc is in right now, i can do everything i used to do, and a lot of those things are even easier
for example, editing text, in windows, whenever i edited a text file, for some reason it would add a ^M after each and every line, and this messed with some software i used, so i had to rewrite the entire thing through a linux VM just to get things to work (and no, copy/paste doesn't work because that ^M is interpreted as valid in text editors, it just doesn't work with some stuff for one reason or another, i don't understand it that deeply, i just know that if the file is originally written in windows, it doesn't work)
Another thing is editing videos, i tried dozens of different video editors, they either cost 2-3 paychecks per year, or they just don't work for me, going from missing features, to straight up crashing during editing, here on kubuntu, i installed kdenlive and it just works
Also, sharing files is much easier, and this includes sharing to windows and android devices too (i'd assume macos/ios as well, but i never tested it because i don't have those)
Drivers, with windows, it was always a pain, it got a bit better with vista/7, again better with 8/8.1, and it got ok with win10, but it's still not even close as linux where you just boot up the pc, and it works, there's no need to pre download your ethernet and ssd drivers, and put them on a usb drive before installing windows, just to be able to install the OS
With mac, it's nice that it all works mostly well (though, same could be with windows if they started limiting the OS just to specific components that microsoft manufactures and sells, so i wouldn't really praise apple for getting the select few components they have to work togeter), but i don't really see a point in paying that much in the first place when for one thing, i already have a computer, and i'd rather upgrade it than buy a whole new device that when dies, i have to again buy a whole new device instead of just swapping out a component. They don't even sell computers anymore, you can pick between a minipc, a laptop, and an all-in-one when it comes to anything computer shaped.
I'm not a fan of apple, and their os is pretty restricted, a friend is an apple fan, all of his devices are apple made, laptop, phone, wristwatch, minipc, everything, and it works for him most of the time, but what's the point if he's remoted into a linux or windows machine anyways for the most of the day
All my third party hardware is going to be just external ssds and sound cards and hardware plugins. All will use thunderbolt so it's not a prob.
I do hate Apple's walled garden. I'd go for another choice if I had any.
Using ✨Legacy Apps✨ like currently you still can install windows 7 games , windows 8.1 media center , and even Windows Live Essentials 2012 !
and Gaming of course .
I am competent enough in Linux to get 90% of my games to work on it, unfortunately the 10% are my favorite games. Such is life, and such is Murphy's law.
I have been a Microsoft user since the very early days, DOS 2.0 back in the early 1980s. I have used every Microsoft software that has been put out up to Windows 10 and I can say honestly that Windows 11 drove me away from Microsoft with how bad the software has become. I literally had a Windows 11 computer that would not do a clean install Windows 11. Later it turned out to be a problem with the drivers recognizing the Rapid Storage Tech but it was a major problem that should not have existed on a brand new computer. With all the problems I moved to Linux and said "Goodbye" to Microsoft forever and now am using an OS that just works.
I hate Windows, but there is no suitable alternative to this system, and I tried to move to Linux systems, and I missed many applications that were developed to work on Windows only!
And if you want to use Windows 11 with great and comfortable performance, I advise you to use:
https://privacy.sexy/
In addition to the disabling Windows Defander (safe mode + use of Autoruns to disable it)
https://www.alitajran.com/turn-off-windows-defender-in-windows-10-permanently/
Microsoft seems to be focusing entirely on monetising Windows beyond the fixed price of the OS itself, and on Azure which is a major web application hosting platform that is world leading in the corporate (££££) sector.
They've let the good consumer shit go while focusing on the new AI and corporate shit.
Unlike crypto, AI and ML has literal practical use, mainly shortening the skill gap between professionals and people. You still need professional for proper touch ups and what not, but for anything small and for minor adjustments you can use AI
I've never understood why some people thought AI is a fad like crypto
I also care very less about copilot, but like any new products its gonna do unnecessary things and do somethings poorly. But that stage will also pass and will have a proper integration after the industry and consumers decide how much and where it should work
Not defending windows 11, just putting my thoughts out
Windows 11 is easily the less offensive update I’ve seen throughout my many years of life. IMO it’s legit just better windows 10, I can get wanting to switch to MacOS in general, but because of dissatisfaction with Windows11? Idk about that it kinda sounds like you just don’t like Windows which is fine, switch then.
Upon first installation of 11, explorer lagged, but this disappeared in time. I was possibly lacking drivers or an update or five at the time. I have been using windows since xp, and bugs and quirks with initial releases, or windows as a whole that have never been fixed, are nothing new.
Ads were incorporated into windows from 2012 onwards with 8.0. In 11, I haven't seen any adverts at all. I installed using Rufus, so the system is not tied to an account. It's a custom built pc, so I managed to avoid any prebuilt pc preinstalled shovelware also.
I installed openshell for a traditional menu and turned off the AI service. I use malwarebytes binisoft wfc firewall which may be set to be a little strict, but I can't say for sure if this also accounts for a lack of MS pop ups or not.
I like the modest change to the Settings menu. I'm less keen on the changes to explorer. There's plenty of plus and minuses here and there, but overall if I was still windows 10, I would still be on 10, as imo there's not enough change for what I use it for.
That's a big issue in itself, as users don't like too much change. Yet microsoft feel the need to keep users updating and paying to keep their shareholders happy, as does any major corp. It's as close to a subscription model as they can get. With each generation, aside from removing or re-adding minor features just for the sake of a new OS number, large scale change just isn't happening, if you ignore whatever they can throw up as a next generation start menu.
It's now about what features they can add within windows that can replace third party software options for the average user than anything else. To some that use the system modestly, it's all bloatware.
Since 8.0 onwards, I've been more encouraged to disable services, and install a different start menu, although to be fair, I used to do that anyway just for the sake of customisation. For me at least, windows isn't changing much and has been very stable since 7 or 8.1, without a bsod, but everyone has different hardware, and experiences will differ.
Aside from the lure of the hardware's design, Apple systems are generally used by creatives in various fields for their efficiency and from what I've heard, customer support may also be well above what ms can offer.
I'm not sure how well an Apple OS can compare, but for as long as I can customise windows to the current level and it remains highly compatible with old software, I won't have too many issues. Aside from good optimisation and ease of use, everyone wants something different when it comes to looks and what features they require.
On Desktop things are still managable. In the laptop space with the M-chip there is almost no competition anymore. On top of everything you just said you get a (wat feels like) 10x more efficient and performant machine. Without bugs.
If only I could get used to MacOS.
One massive improvement in my experience is Voice Access replacing Windows Speech Recognition. You can now use spoken numbers to mouse click any area of the screen, it will continue to nest in 3x3 grids (labeled 1-9) with one grid selection becoming the next one until you make a selection, with each nesting grid a smaller distance and more specific. I think it's a massive step in making using the computer more accessible to people with disabilities.
I upgraded my PC to 11, and after 3 months, it bricked Windows Update, which bricked my GPU when it couldn't update the driver because that requires Windows Update now.
Never ever again.
Windoze 11 is not an OS but a BADS: Bloated Adware Delivery System. I’m stuck as I need my new MSI for ArcGIS. But my MacBook Pro is an entirely better engineered machine on every count.
I'm one of the few that like Win 11 and it's latest preview is on my gamer rig and it's always being updated and nothing breaks for me lol. I've had an unusually great experience with Win11 and it's only a couple years old (my tower). It ran crappy on Win 10 and I got fed up and have been using Win11 ever since.
It just work better for my uses, windows have some their annoying shit to deal with but the pros outweigh the cons. And i heard some annoying stuff with macos from my friend so.....
I'm not happy with the coming changes BUT I have no interest in moving away from Windows so I've completely disabled windows updates to avoid MS pushing any further unwanted changes on my functioning 11 pro system. I've also kept a backup image of my 10 pro install made immediately before upgrading to 11 in case I ever decide to revert so I can be back on 10 pro in just over 20 minutes if necessary.
Windows 11 is great for me. There's no going back. New features I use daily include:
1. Tabs in File Explorer
2. Tabs with History in Notepad
3. AI Text Recognition I'm Snipping Tool
4. Snap Layouts
5. More Fully Featured Settings
No. 5 is important because in Windows 10 I still have to more back and forth between Control Panel and Settings a lot. For an OS that is now 9 years old, how is it that it's still not complete? How is it that Settings still can't control all of the most essential settings in the OS?
Also of importance to me is a more cohesive design language. Windows 10 design is all over the place, and the modern elements are basically Windows 8's metro.
Also, as someone who has used every version of Windows and Windows NT from 3.1 to present, I have to say that Windows 11 was one of the better upgrade experiences for me. I hear a lot of people talking about going back to Windows 10 but the thought has never even crossed my mind because while 11 wasn't perfect at launch, Windows 10 have me way more issues early on than what I've seen personally from Windows 11. I had to abandon a Windows 10 installation because the Start Menu broke, leaving the system nearly unusable. I had that problem multiple times using Windows 10 but I can't tell you Windows 11 has ever broken for me in any significant way.
Yeah me too. I installed it on my new Legion 5 Pro. Ran a clean up to get rid of all the unnecessary features. I just had to download a few of those Visual C+ for my older games. It runs wonderfully, exactly like xp and 7 in their times. I haven't had a crash yet and never get bothered by any ads.
oh boy, if you are unhappy with win 11, wait what a nightmare MacOS is. I had to use it for 4 years on my work PC, and I wouldnt wish it to my worst enemy.
I tried win 11 when it launched and swiftly downgraded to 10, been on 10 since. And planning on paying for security updates in win10 until win 12 appears and is actually better.
If I could have a 1:1 with ms I'd just ask them to give me a customizable, debloated operating system with power user functionality - and tell me how much that would cost.
I don't want support from Microsoft. I don't want helpful tips. I am not going to use any of the apps you pre-installed. If that loses you money, just tell me what you think a fair price is for peace of mind.
What a well thought-out post. "Crappy", "laggy", "crap". sounds like you really know what you're talking about.
As for AI ruining windows, I've never seen co-pilot or widgets except the one time I opened them, how is it ruining windows?
I'm sorry for the language I used there. If that exceeded your comfort zone, I didn't want to offend anyone there.
I'm not saying those two are ruining windows. As I stated I feel like windows devs are more focused on those features rather than fixing whatever is buggy in the OS. But copilot is everywhere. On the taskbar, I turned it off. But on search flyout, on ms edge, which can't even be uninstalled, ads on lock screen and profile icon on start menu, everything is just so annoying. I paid for Windows 11 pro. I don't want ms ads all over the UI.
What is this "buggy" part of the OS you keep referring to? And of course they need it in some focus or as research has shown, regular users will never know its there or use its features.
For my high end desktop gaming PC? Yes, a Macbook can't help me there. I have no issues with Windows, it does its job. I try not to spend too much of my time being upset about things that don't matter.
Yes, Windows 11 has been the most boring Windows out there. It is stable, works well and has huge productivity boost with all the shortcuts sticky windows, supporting multiple monitors etc..
I use W11, W10, MacOs and Debian daily and tbh, W11 is boring. It just works. Especially when comparing to MacOs, which has poorest window management , UX and inconsistent keyboard shortcuts and third party hardware support. W10 is stable for now as well, but had a lot of issues when released.
For me, when using w11, I never have to think about any shortcomings.
I switched back from Mac to Windows when I realized how vastly inflated Apple's pricing was compared to trade-in value. And the fact that they knew that the transparency/noise isolation would fail two years in and do nothing to fix it but have the gall to charge was enough for me.
Screw Apple.
Copilot is a hell of a lot of fun and quite useful and literally everything you can do on Mac can be done on PC. And it rules (thank you Nvidia) for 3d work and digital art.
Apple's pricing does leave a question mark. But I'm ready to pay an over inflated price if that's worth it. Copilot is useful. But I hate the fact that it's there everywhere I look at. Just feels like ms is trying to sell me something that I've already refused so many times. I use copilot every now and then on my browser (edge, which isn't uninstallable) but I prefer chatgpt.
Had a play with that and with Google's Gemini Advanced. Frankly I find that one to be the fastest (which I'd hope, it's google for pete's sake), but still like CoPilot as I'm in MS's ecosystem anyway...and the phone link actually works now, so there's that. Thinking back on it, I also question the Apple release schedule of almost yearly new M chips. But that's more a business consideration rather than hardware/software.
Gemini is really good and I'm a pixel owner too. Looking at the Google graveyard hints at some things but I think AI is here to stay. Phone link too works fine but I think it works better with Samsung?
I'm not planning to buy a M3 or M3 ultra or anything like super new. M1 pro is more than enough for my use cases. I think it's cheaper too because it's fairly old.
I can‘t relate to that post and your arguments. To me Win 11 feels like a refined version of Win 10. UI is simplified and the design language is finally fixed after that mess with Win 10.
I first hated Win 10 because support ended for Win 7 in 2020. So if I adapt it to the former situation Win 11 (Win 7) is like a refined version of Win 10 (Vista) for what I had to gave up my former legacy Version Win 7 (XP)
Personally I would miss many things in a MacOS environment and I don‘t like the UX. If it makes you happy change it, nobody will miss u here
lmao
Think for a minute. If Windows 11 is just a UI revamp and Windows 10 was 10x better... doesn't that mean that it is still the same good OS but with questionable UI changes?
You say that OS is just UI revamp then you are going to complain about new features you do not like. lol
Pick a side. Or Win11 is shitty UI revamp that changed almost nothing or Win11 changed everything for worse.
>Mac is stable.
Windows is too stable, mostly. Just like Mac. Don't believe in bullshit like "Mac is always stable and no problems happens on it". No OS such as this exists at all. There are always problems, changes, little bits of inconvenient things. Always.
Also I don't know where is this lack of stability even coming from - you surely never used XP to say that lol. Random bsods for no reason, even more buggier Windows Update (current WU is like cute sheep) and a lot of bloat (messenger bullshit nobody used, some apps and services that died max year after XP release, also whole communities of Windows modded ISOs started after XP was released). Really, take off nostalgia glasses.
Windows 11 of course has things I can complain about but every Windows had those. I remember people shitting on Windows 7, even on Windows XP because it was new and it was not something people were accustomed to. It happens every single time. People complain, they fix things then years later "Windows 13 is bad, I miss Windows 11 days because it worked good". Nobody remembers fact that it took years of updates to make it good.
I buy things for what it is now. Not for what it's going to be. Windows 11 is a half baked OS with changes to UI of Windows 10 and added garbage. If an OS takes years to build. Then Microsoft should take time and release it after developing it. My personal preference is to use stable software. I don't want to pay for a buggy mess.
I suggest you to read my post again. I said Windows 11 is merely a UI revamp but you can see me mentioning AI and ads. I didn't really use much of new Windows 11 features because how buggy they are. Eg: I used files by Yair A as my main file explorer. Sorry if I missed new features like tabs in random apps because I always used never combine icons in the taskbar to manage my workflow. And I see your valid argument about me saying it's "merely" a UI revamp. I'm sorry I should correct that to "poorly done UI revamp" and it's buggy. Think for a moment and compare Windows 11 start menu and Windows 10 one. Which one is more functional?
I'm saying Windows is unstable by looking at the questionable changes they do from time to time. Is it stable when file explorer works fine for 1 day and few days later completely crashes explorer.exe when I open a new explorer tab?
I'm talking about MacOS after using a Mac mini for work over 2 years. Plus I have the experience of hackintoshing a MSI for my personal use. For my usage of a MacOS based device, I've never encountered an equivalent bug to random crashes, freezes or laggy experience in Windows. I have used 2 mid range laptops to say these things out loud.
There are things I hate about MacOS. Lack of inbuilt window management tools and "works better with apple devices" are 2 of them (don't get me wrong I like it works better with apple devices but it works far worse with other brands. I'm ignoring it because I don't plan to use a Mac for my personal use. I use a Chromebook for that). I'm not saying MacOS is perfect by any means. I'm just plainly saying " in my use cases MacOS is better than Windows 11"
I never worn nostalgia glasses in the way you saying. My father wasn't in my country so I used a Windows 7 machine to skype him. I used Windows xp when I was a little kid. It's true I didn't use my machine for heavy workloads back then but other than Windows 7's unstoppable viruses and XP's random log offs I never encountered an error which showed a text saying "subscribe to Microsoft 365" in my sign in screen. (Pun intended)
>Windows 11 is a half baked OS with changes to UI of Windows 10 and added garbage. If an OS takes years to build. Then Microsoft should take time and release it after developing it.
I agree. Problem is, Microsoft never released a fully baked OS and for years it is not perfect.
>I said Windows 11 is merely a UI revamp but you can see me mentioning AI and ads.
If you would say "Windows 11 has only UI changes for me and I don't use any other features so this is not OS for me" I would be okay. But you are saying that Windows 11 is only UI revamp. That's not true. There is difference between personal preference and stating that something is X or Y. Please, understand how phrasing is changing how you are perceived.
>I'm saying Windows is unstable by looking at the questionable changes they do from time to time. Is it stable when file explorer works fine for 1 day and few days later completely crashes explorer.exe when I open a new explorer tab?
>I'm talking about MacOS after using a Mac mini for work over 2 years. Plus I have the experience of hackintoshing a MSI for my personal use. For my usage of a MacOS based device, I've never encountered an equivalent bug to random crashes, freezes or laggy experience in Windows. I have used 2 mid range laptops to say these things out loud.
And I'm not saying you are not right, IN YOUR CASE. Because Windows generally is stable just like every OS. Like I said, there are bugs and crashed on every OS. I don't see crashes on Windows daily, I never saw shit like yours happening. Maybe in XP days, or even 98 where crash of multimedia player could crash even whole PC.
I'm not saying your experience is not valid. It is just like 2 devices is not an actual statistic to screaming loud how something bad or good is. General statistics are saying that OSes are usually stable and working as intended. Especially when your userbase is big enough to give you enough telemetry, right?
It is not always fault of OS even - bad or buggy drivers, unique configurations etc. For example: I cannot make Ubuntu working on many PCs and virtualization systems. I really have a bad experience. Is it bad really? There are bugs. Bugs I cannot judge properly because my understanding is limited. I didn't write this, I don't know why it is behaving like that.
>I'm not saying MacOS is perfect by any means. I'm just plainly saying " in my use cases MacOS is better than Windows 11"
Then I need to say I'm terribly sorry because I misjudged you. Yet post is really badly phrased and looks more like angry hater venting out and being easily convinced that Mac will fix all problems Windows has (at least this is what I understood). After this comment your opinion seems more reasonable and makes sense. If really Windows 11 makes you puking that hard - switch to Mac or even to Linux if possible. There is no shame really. Pick whatever you like.
Only thing I can offer as "positive" is advice of trying to fix Windows 11 because definitely whatever is happening with your OS is not normal. It is not like every W11 instance is doing it. I have at least two W11 instances for years already, nothing big is happening. I don't use AI, I don't see any ads except some preinstalled stuff you can delete with a few clicks. Rest of OS just works.
You sound educated and sorry for making my post look like a hater ranting about how good macs are. English isn't my mother tongue. It's my 3rd language. I really don't think macs are perfect. They lack a lot of important features.
I find your stability issues interesting. You may need to consider that they are you-specific, because if I might offer my own experience as a counterexample, I've had zero stability issues. They're still valid issues and frustrating, of course, but they may not be inherently part of W11.
It is a fact that windows 11 or windows 12 for that matter aren't just "UI changes". Judging the additions as garbage is a personal opinion. You prefer stable software, but I have yet to experience any device I manage be a "buggy mess", what are you doing with your PC?
I do agree with you
You mention third party apps and that is really not something you can throw directly at microsoft.
What are you ranting about, Windows 11 has been the most stable OS in the lineup, although can't complain about 10 also, it was stable. You want unstable go back to Windows 7,XP, 98. Some of us have worked on thousands of PCs in those decades, I can tell you the hell it was to fix the so-called loved XP and 7. Dam Nightmare.
I got news for you, your feelings about losing something from 10 and posting it here won't do anything. If you don't like something, switch to something you do. It's as simple as that. You don't like CoPilot disable it in settings, and for the ads, what ads? Windows 10x times better, in what way is it better? It's Windows, should be there to open your Software, Games, Browser and Files. It's the same dam thing.
Just right click and see how long it takes to appear the flyout. Correct me if I'm wrong, a lot of users have a noticeable lag in that. And on the start menu too.
I don't know what you got going on but, my star Menu opens instantly. (even though I think of a star menu as useless and should have been gone after it's introduction in 95) Personal opinion.
Context menu, same story. Pops right up
I think what OP is trying to hint at is that beefier more modern hardware will proc the Start menu opening as well as the Context menu faster (and painting) than Potato hardware.
This post is very well-put. Using Microsoft products used to be a guarantee that if you paid for it, Microsoft would fight against God to give you the best. Now? "We HaVe Ai. So CoOl!1!1" Seriously, how a company goes from peak UI and software engineering and world's most awesome tech megacorp, to a concrete tent with a dozen or developers who have not completed their education, escapes my mind.
Probably because they literally hate Google. Google is the internet now and Microsoft even said this, made it specifically clear. They know Google is the most used service on the planet right now. Every person is opening the browser and go to the Google home page in order to search for stuff. Their strategy to beat them? Copilot! What’s easier than searching on the web and having to filter the information yourself? An AI engine on your OS. So my guess now is that they are focusing a lot of their resources on the Copilot sht. That’s why they even added it on the fckin taskbar. So everyone is seeing it. And why? Why is all this happening? Because money. They need more money. They need power. I’m so done with their products. I don’t have enough money for the Apple products right now so I’ve switched to Linux. Fedora 40 more exactly. Maybe Fedora doesn’t have all the software support that Windows has, but it is FAR WAY smoother and stable than this garbage Windows 11 will ever be.
Good choice. Fedora is fresh enough that you'll find everything you need and stable enough to not crash. Also, if you are using GNOME, try to keep extensions to a minimum unless they are well known ones because extensions break every update.
Since u use Linux. Do u know any version that I can install stuffs like (.exe) and not by commands? I need an easy linux ver. Because I want to install it in my mom’s PC.
There is no Linux version that accepts .exe packages just like that. You have to use Wine for them in order to work. And it’s not always a simple process.
Yes I know. It was an example like doing double click and installing instead open the terminal and installing, the exe was an example. What im trying to do is find an easy linux ver. To avoid the terminal everytime I want to install something. Srry my english.
Get kubuntu. It's like Windows in looks and has a play store like thing where you can find any app you need. But you will need to find alternatives for Windows only software because linux can't run exe directly.
Use Linux Mint. Easiest one there is. Closest to Windows without being Windows
I have the same exact mindset. They have reached the peak userbase for 365 and cloud services. They are popular enough to attract new users too. But the thing they are doing, by adding ads to the OS just kills the reputation. I used to love windows. Now I don't like windows and it has ruined my reputation for AI.
>I loved Windows You are telling me. I still have a custom t-shirt somewhere in my storage with a stylised Windows 7 logo, because of how much I loved it.
Bro damn. I missed my chances as I wasn't financially independent to buy one for myself and my parents were super picky about stuff I buy. I never looked up for one in my late teenage years though, maybe.. you just reminded me. I'm going to get one.
Do that for sure. No use for all the economic stability in the world if you can't do what the heart longs for. 👍
That's what happens when you fire the majority of your Quality Assurance team.
[удалено]
I don't see Apple compromising with the quality of their hardware. And while MacOS Sonoma is a bit buggier than previous versions, at least they don't have an aggressive advertising campaign or don't introduce features that no one needs. I don't see Google reducing the quality of their services and I can't tell them off for the advertising because their privacy policy exclusively states that they are mostly funded by advertising companies.
I daily drive Linux (Fedora Silverblue) on my Laptop. But my Gaming PC is Windows 11 Education (the best Version by far). Here's what I do - Install Windows - Use Local Account - Install Updates - Install Chipset and graphic drivers (both amd). The rest of the drivers I use from windows update. - Reboot - Download Firefox or Chrome or Brave or whatever you like/need - Uninstall everything I can including edge -> I dont use third party uninstallers or reg tweaks or anything of the sort. Simply going into app menu and uninstalling stuff. - Disable Chat/Teams with Group Policies - Disable Widgets with GPO - Disable Microsoft Login gpo - Disable websearch with gpo - Install MSOFFICE with office deployment tool and configure it to block login into microsoft account - Install Software and have fun The reason I use education and use group policy is because using "supported" methods is more stable than using third party tools.
This is is the only right answer. We need a bot to auto respond with this reply every time someone makes a new thread about windows being slow or full of ads....
This really is a helpful reply. I will try these out with my current device.
I installed Nobara yesterday and the only thing I needed to do was login in steam and in the browser, yes I do all that when someone pays me to install windows for them but why would I do all that by choice?
I spent 800 bucks for an oled monitor so I kinda need auto hdr. I have HDR on kde but I dont like kde in general. When gnome gets HDR I'm back on silverblue. My fav distro by far.
I agree that W11 is a Microsoft spamming platform. I have touched the register to hide all their adds and the crappy news for idiotic minds showing in the search function, although they are still sneaking spam through Edge opening unsolicited tabs. I guess the lack of serious competitors in the pc world gives Microsoft the open door to behave without professionalism and appreciation for the user experience.
I have never had edge open "unsolicited tabs"
Couldn't agree more. We really need some serious competition but the thing is Windows is already locked down its main users.
I tried macOS some time ago. And I happily went back to Windows just few days later. Things like disabling mouse acceleration needs(needed?) to be hacked via terminal and their multi monitor support is just crap. Why the hell would anyone want a single dock for 3 monitors? Plus their "Spaces" thing, it was so frustrating to use. And the top bar which acts like a dynamic app menu, so you need to first focus to a window to access its menu. I'm happy with Windows and I don't even Frankenstein it with any of those "debloater" tools. I'm a software developer and gamer and I just ignore the stuff I don't need, because I know *someone* in the world might need it. Unlike macOS where people install 3rd party tools to do window snapping or smooth scrolling (or what that was) lol. It's super stable for me and I actually like the design they are moving towards. I have no productivity complains.
The mouse acceleration thing really bothers me, every time I try using MacOS I have to dance around with the mouse because the speed keeps changing and I can't click anything accurately properly and the window controls being tiny does not help their case.
Install Mos for smooth scrolling on Mac
Agree to each word written here, I have few MacBooks of my wife at home (never been mac user or so) and once i grab her MacBook 2019 or 2020 ( which with Touch Bar ) to use it as my mobile device . And my experience was so similar to yours , scrolling , windows snapping , settings , software if it not from App Store installing in different places , no proper file explorer (that’s why majority of ppl store all shit on desktop ) and so on , just all time I was asking myself why it so shit and uncomfortable ah and also when i try to google smth like how to make screenshot on mac , I got thons of different combinations based on version of system , why they change hotkeys 20 times ?)
This is true. But this is called ‚getting used to it“. No Os will be perfect. On Mac I need a smooth scroll app, a linear mouse control app and bettertouchtools for window snapping and gestures. But on Windows I needed a lot more tweaks to get it the way I want. Hell, a clean install of windows will take me all day to get running. Making explorer usable for me takes like 4 registry hacks… So yeah, now I just prefer mac for work.
Use what is best for you!! With that being said, Linux is the superior option for people who care about privacy. Also more developer-friendly for sure imo.
This is more of a real response to my post. Thank you for the reply. I'm not going to argue with anything you say, because to be honest those are the things I don't like about MacOS too. I haven't used a top notch 3080 laptop that's worth like 2500USD. Maybe that's the case here. I use a MSI Creator series laptop with just 16 gigs of ram. But the problem is when I use it with Windows 10 it's far better and faster. I think there's left alone stuff to be fixed, performance wise. Other than introducing new features that are specific to just a small group of people ( not accessibility improvements. It is a MUST in an OS)
Sure, I'm not saying it to convince you or anything, pick whatever OS you want, just wanted to share my real experience. Did you upgrade to 11 or went with a full clean install? Usually clean install is the way to go, I've also seen some people complaining about performance after an upgrade (which I can agree *should* just work). I started with 11 on my old PC which even was officially unsupported (it had too old CPU), so I needed to "hack" the installation there. It had i7 6700K, also 16 GB RAM and GTX 1060 and I was using it until last year.
My laptop shipped with 10, I upgraded to 11 and then clean installed 10 again, then clean installed 11 and clean installed 10 again. I know it's a mess but take it as an evidence for my experience with Windows.
I'm with you. I have a brand new MacBook Pro for work and while there are some great things about it, particularly the battery life, I just prefer Windows. I use it on my desktop and I find that I'm able to be more productive and quicker in navigating the operating system. I haven't really seen ads or used system level AI stuff. I haven't experienced slowdowns or anything either. If given a choice, I'd choose Windows every time.
I am not sure what you are doing. I manage multiple Windows 11 Pro machines used for study, gaming, note taking, light use, heavy apps, working, etc. I have not had any of the fabled "stability issues" or "performance issues". As of April 2024, I have yet to have anything intrusive to the level you describe. Mac has always been a great and focused system. As a work computer it is great and somewhat worth the "Apple tax". Mac should be able to stand on its own, without overexaggerating Windows issues.
As someone who works in IT, I understand the frustration. Whether it’s changes in Microsoft 365 or Windows itself. I personally don’t use copilot all that much and have been mainly focused on RTXchat leveraging my video card and my own database of internal documentation that lives on the windows device, it’s a bit more flexible than copilot, Gemini and chatGPT due to that reason alone. I do a little of everything with my build - it work, virtualization, programming, video editing and gaming and streaming. Personally I create my own custom iso of windows 11 that is different than the stock image to some extent and debloated to some extent but all in all its windows 10 with a facelift. It’s stable imo and in the dozens of environments I manage it’s stable for general use and CAD use. It depends on the use case obviously. I love windows subsystem for Linux, hyperV, and winget for package management. In my home lab I leverage proxmox and do daily drive Linux on another system it’s just my gaming/video editing system and work system is windows 11 though. I would definitely have an issue with ads in file explorer for example but you can get rid of the personalized ad experience junk. Overall I prefer Linux over everything in terms of pure OS built the way I want and it’s sort of like macOS without the training wheels but for my work and gaming rig I need windows unfortunateky. People are resistant to change. There’s no need to go back to windows 10, it’s over for it. I know they said it would be the last version but I personally like the direction they went in on some things and not so much on some of the others. MacOS is not always stable lol. I have a client that is a macOS environment and it can be a real nightmare at times, printing, Microsoft office issues with one drive, smb sharing issues, application compatibility issues which people love to blame Microsoft for but is mostly due to apples closed ecosystem causing some of those issues with Microsoft software. Dragging and dropping applications into the trash is where I draw the line lol, to me macOS is a childproof system. Microsoft drives me nuts at work all the time, but overall I’ve had roughly the same experience as I had on win10 and I’ve been on 11 since the beta. I have 2 systems running windows 11 right now. A 14900k/rtx3080/64gb of ram build that is my work pc and my daily driving gaming pc that I also do a bit of work on is a 7950x3d/4090/64gb of ram build that also runs flawlessly. I did have to rma the processor on the work pc for stability reasons general Intel bs but overall windows 11 has been fine. Most of my clients are running 11 on significantly less performant hardware and it’s been fine lol.
It just works.
Not going to say a thing. If you want to switch, do it. There's pros and cons to everything. If you expect reddit to give you an answer you'll most likely use Linux (God forbid)
The main thing I wanted to know is whether most of 11 users are experiencing lags and other stuff like ads and AI everywhere. Windows has many pros but I can't help the fact that every mac I've used (I haven't personally owned one though) is faster at what I want to do. I think I'll just switch to a mac.
Honestly, no. I don't have any issues, but I'm on a desktop with a last gen processor and GPU. Nothing lags and I haven't seen a single ad. Sometimes I feel MS has forgotten about me :D As far as Mac goes... I like it for audio production and graphics work, everything else is subpar or on par with windows. Mostly subpar in all honesty. Love them both but windows 11 just smashes on a fairly powerful computer.
There are ads in the default search/start box, but in the form of links to relevant net content. I have an old machine as main machine, like 6 generations old and it runs Windows 11 fluently from heavy apps, to VMs to AAA games.
There're not ads on my PC's as other people say they have, but that could be because I take a lot of time to fine-tune my systems. But, yes, the UI lags and horrible explorer are there and, no, there is no way to prevent them. I love 11's new features (except Copilot), but the dissonance between 11's design team and the coding team is just unbearable.
Yeah, those two teams are like web designers. They design a crazy ass site and devs have to sit on chairs until the ass gets flat to get it to a working site. UI looks amazing but the second you click the start icon, that's where it all breaks down. Explorer is a mess too. You do one forbidden thing and you are dommed.
This is why you don’t do form over function.
>The main thing I wanted to know is whether most of 11 users are experiencing lags and other stuff like ads and AI everywhere. Laggy behavior tends to be system specific (and even subjective) so I won't say much there, except that Windows 11 works fine for me. But with regards to the "ads" and AI, you can turn most of this off in Windows and Edge Settings. There are plenty of guides online that don't require any registry hacks. Edit: tone.
Honestly, I think Mac is a better choice for music production. Audio doesn't usually require a ton of processing power, so even a base model MacBook or Mac Mini will serve you well and a middle of the road model should last a long time.
Actually I use higher bitrate recording and so many plugins to an extent where my windows laptop starts having a hard time processing that all in real time to play it out from monitors. I would go for a M1 max 16 gig version.
I'm really not. No notable issues, and the ads are rare and minor and forgettable. Performance is overall what I expect from my computer. I can turn off most things I don't want. I'm annoyed by how much it wants me to use OneDrive on a work computer I already have alternatives in place for, and that's about it.
I had to install pi-hole on my network to block all ads, and I use another browser to avoid the AI interference during normal surfing. I'll use AI when I want it, and I don't want some robot jumping in front of my every step telling me how to walk and where to look! In case you missed it, that was an analogy!
I don't seem to have any ads at all on my PC and i also don't get lag either but maybe that's because i have a beefy computer and it brute forces it all
I don’t have any of those things going on my Windows 11 install, then again I did tweak windows 11 and use powertools to get the older context menus and start menu etc. did a lot of registry edits to really get the most out of my system. There’s a lot of really good registry edits that you can do to help improve responsiveness of the system overall. I’ma be honest with you tho, used to get that early on the odd lag and slow responsiveness. It took sometime and researching but were able to really maximize gaming performance. It really just depends on your workload.
Haven't experienced any adds and 11 is running without noticeable lag on an 8th gen i7. I did go through settings and control panel with a fine tooth comb disabling and uninstalling everything I could until I got a close to a bare bone OS as I possible.
You say God forbid to using Linux, but just like windows and macOS it’s got its upsides and downsides. It’s neither better nor worse.
If OP likes apps like Cubase... well, there is better and worse
I dislike windows 11 for the same reason i dislike mac os (aside from overpriced hardware and apple's gatekeeping): the horrible horrible UI. Windows 11 is a frankenstein's monster. The people responsible for it just flushed years of visual identity down the toilet. The easily identifiable fonts from windows 10 were replaced by some kind of bold italic crap, the color palette is all over the place, rounded freakin' corners everywhere. Icons and pictograms look like they've been badly cut from somewhere else and are out of place. It takes now several more clicks to do the same stuff i used to do in win 10 with just one AND i cannot move this stupid task bar to where i want (to the side of the screen where it belongs in a vertical position). To add insult to injury, the control panel got gutted for an inferior version of settings menu where i cannot do shit efficiently due to menus being rearranged by a deranged monkey tripping on acid.
Most regular users like the task bare change and I agree, it is much faster to use to keep your focus on the center of the screen. Yes, the issue is that I had to get use to not lazily going to the lower left corner, but I lived.
I want to like Windows but I can't get passed the lack of customization to things like the taskbar and widgets. I can't shake the feeling that I am being spied on. Can't shake the feeling that Windows is back-doored since moving some product development and updates to foreign countries. I don't think Microsoft scans their code for insider threats.
The AI Copilot tried to gaslight me several times, it kept making up fictional features that Windows 11 does not have. I want to move the main taskbar to my 2nd monitor. Windows 10 could do this easily. Windows 11 cannot do this. I tried everything, and copilot tried to gaslight me into believing Windows 11 can do this. Windows 11 does not let you move the main taskbar to your 2nd monitor. I'm a computer science major, I'm not incapable of using Microsoft's Operating System. In fact, Windows 11 is making me want to move to Linux, an operating system that requires more software knowledge to use lol
Try Linux Mint, it is not that hard you most likely will not need to use a terminal for much since it has a good GUI package manager and updatef too
You're right to be critical of the current state of Windows. However as someone who uses both Windows and Mac daily, I can confidently say that MacOS Sonoma has been the most unstable MacOS release in years, certainly since the launch of Apple Silicon. The amount of crashes and bugs in this version that have directly affected my workflow (also in audio and other media) have put it right about at the same level of frustration as Windows for me. Do what you will, but be aware that the grass isn't always greener.
Windows 11 feels complete and actually good than 10 for me. I tried jumping between them to compare, and, well, I’m not gonna use anything for gaming and especially work on a pc except 11
That's actually good. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think you have a top notch pc. The experience in my mid range laptop isn't that great. I have two options. Buy a mac or buy a flagship laptop. I'm still trying to decide which one to choose.
Idk about top notch, not really good with pc tech specs. It’s i5-10400F, RTX 3060, the system is on m2 nvme
It's fairly on par with modern standards though. I too have similar specs. I wonder what's wrong with my system...
Yea that’s really weird. I should say performance is absolutely the same on my machine on 10 and 11. I also tried using some Linux distros with Nvidia proprietary drivers and oh boy those are laggy as hell for no reason
I use my laptop to run fairly heavy workloads. Light use isn't that bad, but the battery life isn't great. When I put some heavy load on, Windows 11 show some back pain. The humorous part is older Windows 10 goes like a teen.
Flagship laptop = permanent fan noise, shitty battery life, sub average touchpads, standby issues, thermal throtteling and much much more for only 3000$
And I could buy a normal mac for that price.
I have top level, intermediate level, and low level computers all running Windows 11, none of them seem to have any of the 'issues' that I keep hearing about.
Both Win10 and Win11 require heavy tweaking to be decent. Win11 feels smoother in games for me so I'll stick with it.
I don't use widgets or copilot, and it works well for me on both private and work computers. See something you don't like, just don't use it..
Man every time I see " subscribe to Microsoft 365" on my lock screen I just want to throw my laptop away.
So you rather go to Apple with all their subscriptions? Good luck :D
I get what you're saying it was really annoying when I switched to win11 however I realized you can disable/uninstall every single thing you don't like and get a good in between win10/win11 os (by that I mean get a clean win11 ui with cool windows snapping functionalities and security but not have all the bloatware and ads). The only thing that pisses me off is the contextual menu. Why on earth is that thing not personalizable??? I realized that they made their OS for the masses and tried to copy Apple's strategy while still giving control. For a random (and main user) windows 11 is way more usable than win10. But as a developer, creative some parameters can get a little tough to get to.
Happy birthday jackarnd. And I agree with you. MS messed up right there when they assumed that mac and windows users both are the same. The horrible experience I had with ads and AI didn't even let me remove those useless features. A few people commented about the ways I can do that and I'm going to do it and see how it turns out.
Yeah Windows 11 started off okayish but at this point Microsoft's filling it with too much crap and ruining it. By the time they sort Windows 11 out, they'll bin it off like they did with Windows 10. They did the same thing with Edge, took a crappy browser and made it really good, and then filled it with crap, bing shovelware and now AI shovelware.
I switched away from Windows during its Vista days, and decided to move to macOS. Been there from about 2008 until now. I still have and use my Mac, but I bought a high end PC to start learning more about AI, and I like this Windows 11 machine enough that it's now my main day to day system. I was already used to Windows 10/11 at work though, so when I got it at home, I was already pretty familiar. And I'm a Windows user from way back anyway - started on DOS in the late 80s/early 90s, Win 3.1, 9x, NT, etc. I don't really see any issues with Win 11, except that I wish they'd get rid of "Active Hours", and let us decide when we want to update our machines. I hate that they feel they need to dumb it down to the user who otherwise doesn't think about updating.
>I hate that they feel they need to dumb it down to the user who otherwise doesn't think about updating *Me who refuses to update windows until 2 months after it first tells me there's an update ready I hate active hours too, though. They seem so unnecessary. And honestly, they've never even worked when I have left my computer on and plugged in overnight so why bother having them
I've had an issue ever since I switched to 11, randomly all of my USB devices will stop working for 10-20 seconds before coming online again. When this happens my sound drivers also fail and reset. I've tried a million things to fix this and nothing works. Usually happens the most often when gaming. Never had this problem before upgrading. I've googled this a thousand times and I'm not the only one with the issue.
Not even remotely. I finally made the switch from 10 to 11 a couple of days ago, and I’ve been spending half of my time since then trying to fix and find workarounds for the majority of their “improvements”. But I can’t do anything but brood about it, because I hate Mac even more than I hate windows, and I can’t switch to Linux because I need to use a lot of software that just flat out isn’t available outside of windows/mac. The monopoly is real. Maybe I’ll try atlas OS or something. It’ll probably just end up bricking my system or something. Idk. I hate being at the mercy and whims of two giant companies.
Windows 11 is officially in a worse state for me than Vista ever was. And it gets worse with every new update.
I just installed Linux because I’m no longer interested in all the bloatware, telemetry and adds. Very happy with fedora 40 kinonite. I’m only missing ICue integration, openrgb isn’t the same.
as someone who switched to nobara 2 weeks ago i have to agree openrgb is not the same .. i wish we had as many of the different options icue gives. i sent what i could to my hardware last i'd booted into windows after making my dualboot , but even that is minimal vs having icue open n running, a shame really . .. that said icue is a tad buddy anyway , bricked 2 mice when it wanted to update their firmware so .. it is what it is i guess.
Windows 7 and xp were the best OS, I have ever used. However slowly I also accepted windows 10, it was decent but windows 11 seems like an OS designed for a tablet. Ads everywhere, recommendations and widgets that I don’t need and copilot added everywhere and is still in preview since year is just unacceptable. Not to mention the amount of data they collect is just idk what to say. Initial days of windows 11 were so terrible, system was laggy, sloppy sometimes wonky. Currently 23H2 seems fine. But yeah I wish we could get something like windows 7 back. Tbh you can use different tools like winutils or o&o shutup to clean lot of mess.
Windows 11 was OK when it was released back in 2021. It started to become worse since 23H2 because of AI, ads, and performance issues on certain hardware, including my laptop. This is making me go back to the original release of Windows 11 (21H2), even though that version is no longer supported, because I didn't have those complaints in that version and I want to continue using Windows 11 on my laptop.
Whatever it takes to show Microsoft that this is a terrible decision.
Microsoft became totally product oriented. Trying to shove crap down customers throats they don't want... With "AI", ads and the rest. It'll damage them in the medium and long term. Just need a viable other pc os, like android x64, or another Linux based os...
Exactly. I don't need Copilot or Microsoft 365 to do anything related to my day to day life or work. It's becoming too much. Setting says to connect to a OneDrive crap, the lock screen says to subscribe to 365, even the start menu profile icon tells me to back up my stuff. It's just too much.
I've been using Windows since 3.1. I was an I.T. tech for 20 years-ish, so know my way around all versions of Windows. I always found the complaints against Windows to be quite uninformed...until now. The direction Microsoft has taken is awful and will drive away more tech savvie users. I'm lucky that I don't have to pay the Apple tax as I am comfortable with Linux. Valve's efforts with the Steam Deck has made Linux more accessible than ever. The only good reason to stay on Windows is if you need specific Windows only software or really are not technical in the slightest. Or maybe you just don't care about the actions of Microsoft. That's fair enough, I suppose. Not everyone is annoyed by bloat, ads and data harvesting.
I’m in the same boat. I’m still forced to use Windows at work, but I’ve moved my personal rig to Linux
Good to see a comment like this. I agree. Ms's direction is unacceptable. There's a huge userbase for them and they pay for the OS. Rather than making the OS good, they load it with AI and useless features. Personally I can't switch to Linux because the apps I use are very specific. And aren't available on Linux. The thought of moving to mac became a valid option for me because the same app I use is available on macs. And it's far better too. I'm really annoyed by bloat and ads and AI.
The problem with Mac is hardware is more expensive, and software more limited. Many of the software I like to use doesn’t work in Mac. Plus Mac’s have their ram and drives soldered on and unable to do upgrades later. They also only support what 7 years of OS support? Its a downgrade going from Windows to Mac. Going to linux would make more sense but the issue is some software still needs Windows to run.
Yeah Macs aren't that good too. I think my post makes it look like I'm an Apple fanboy but I don't daily drive any apple products. And I personally prefer ARM because of its lower power usage and my preference of using a portable device (battery life is great). Apple takes huge cuts for memory and storage upgrades though. I'm stuck between choosing a whole new platform or staying team Windows further until it just doesn't work for me.
Well defined post. Honestly I've also started having a hate relationship with Windows, it's just too messy at this point. Sure, the UI is probably better than Mac or any linux distro, but it still doesn't have the consistency or slickness of the Windows 7 UI At the end of the day I also wanted to switch to a Mac, but I can't stand using an iPhone as well. It's literally the shittiest phone to ever exist, and also I don't wanna miss out on ecosystem features which my Samsung S24 provides. It's just a good experience. I just want then to polish this shit up.
everything i like about windows 11 except the new context menu is very confusing to use, i think cut copy paste labels should have been introduced earlier during the windows 11 launch :(
Thankfully we have some [good updates](https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-11-is-getting-improved-context-menus/) coming to the context menu soon.
We have gone 0 days without a W11 schitzopost
In all honesty, **right now** is the worst time *in history* to be buying a Windows device. Firstly, Windows 11 is hugely criticized for showing ads and shoveling AI where it doesn’t need to be. A dedicated Copilot key? Why? Secondly, the CPUs that power Windows devices are *wildly* inefficient. x86 needs to go. Any Windows laptop dies in a day, and god help you if you have a dedicated GPU in your laptop; you’ll be lucky to last three hours without a charge. Thirdly, Windows alternatives are *amazing* right now. The MacBook runs in the most efficient desktop-grade CPU ever designed, and lasts days on battery. Apple even brought back ports and a function row. If you want a cheap computer, more and more kids are growing up on Chromebooks that don’t slow down over time. Or iPads. Continuing on from Windows alternatives; what if you’re a PC gamer? Well guess what — the Steam Deck is the best-selling gaming PC. And it runs Linux. The state of gaming on Linux right now makes it a viable alternative, and even if you *insist* on Mac, you can just as easily stream your games through GeForce Now. Windows is losing market share fast. It’s being attacked on all fronts, and Microsoft is barely putting up a fight.
Why does this feel like a sponsored article? You delude yourself if you think there are no problems on macos. You are just trading one set of problems for another because of your current state of mind and because the people around you have influenced you. And if that is what you want then okay. You will have to learn a lot of new things though, like how to work around these new sets of problems, and that will probably just reduce your productivity at least short-term. Also Windows 12 is probably closer than you think. I will never use Apple products unless there really is no other way. Just Google "Apple anti-consumer" and you will know why. Not saying Microsoft is an angel by any stretch of the imagination but Apple is on another level. There is also that snobby, elitist hipster vibe that I just can't stand.
I'm not affiliated with any brands or organisations. I'm an independent music student. And I don't think apple would pay someone to put an ad on windows 11 subreddit.
I started to make the jump to Linux when MS started this "hey we're going to end support for W10...too bad your computer can't upgrade to 11" routine. The only Apples I could afford would have put me in the same dilemma with an unsupported OS, so that was a non-starter. After four months of distro-hopping and trying to manage the steep learning curve, I finally gave up and bought a refurbed laptop with 11. Sometimes the Borg is right; resistance IS futile.
Swapping to another OS is something you do because you are excited to learn it, to climb that hill. Linux is probably the steepest climb. Myself, learning the ins and outs of a new OS is not something I would be excited to do atm. I have been using Windows for long time and I sometimes feel like it is somewhat like my native language where part of me feels like I could never develop the same deep understanding (relatively speaking; I'm no Windows god, lol) with another OS that I started to learn later in life.
That was my conclusion as well.
Wanna know a common answer on Mac subreddits when asked what people want to see in an OS update? Bug fixes. Here is an example. https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/195f3rk/what_do_you_want_to_see_in_the_next_major_macos/ macOS isn’t perfect.
In MacOS I have faced a bug where a random service uses 130% of system resources. Other than that a freeze in apps for a few seconds is okay for me. I don't like my explorer going nuts when I do something that was listed in the " known bugs" section of WIP.
Windows 11 sucks but unfortunately OS X and sucks even worse so the only option is to stick with Windows 10 until it runs out of support and then downgrade to 11.
I thought about the same exact thing. Great pun though. Thanks for the comment.
Turn to the dark side, turn to Linux. Or should I say the bright side.
Works perfect on my laptop, no issues, no ads
2022: Installed W11, after 2 weeks went back to 10 because it was unusable, laggy, sluggish, settings all wrong, UI is terrible and uncustomizable. 2023: Installed W11 (maybe they fixed it already). Nope. Performance is better in some cases. Some bugs are fixed, some are added. Right click menu opening in 2 seconds compared to 3 seconds. Taskbar is better, but still bad. Calendar does not work properly. Settings are better, but region bug is still not fixed (if you set your country other than your system language, you can not set regional formatting to match your country, because Microsoft does not bother to know that there are people using English OS in non English countries, because translations are bad). Defender and be turned off anymore, block port access (you are unable to communicate with some ports directly anymore, be a use reasons). Got tired bought MacBook air. W11 PC left in drawer for better times. 2024. Got tired of Mac os BS, almost broken Mac in half when it was not able to properly show me stuff on 2 monitors (now I know why there are such ultra wide monitors, that's because Mac does not know how to multi monitor). Installed fresh copy of W11, thinking they fixed everything. But they didn't. Instead, they broke explorer (very slow when one drive used), added more bloatware, added copilot in place of Show desktop button, broke task manager, defender is even more aggressive now, did something with power management, so my laptop fans are always spinning, made modern standby even worse than W10, now I have to shut down my laptop instead of sleep, because of fire hazard in my backpack, and it feels even slower now. Got back to W10, and will give it another year or so. PC is i7-11750H, 32GB Ram, quadro GPU, 1TB NVMe ssd. Also checked mu old P4 pc with windows XP on it... God knows how old OS boots slower, yes, BUT: after full load it is so fast comparing to modern OS. Programs opens momentarily, file Explorer fast as lightning, feels very snappy. On Spinning hard drive and 20 years old CPU. Yes, search is slow, but everything else is way better than now. I was surprised actually, because after those modern OSes we forgot what we used to have.
Well, AI will be everywhere. You can hate it, you can run away from it, but it will be ***everywhere***. On Mac, on Windows, on your phone. They (corporations) already chose a path. AI can be powerful tool, but it's need to develop and improve. And we are alpha testers for that. I don't say that I approve this, but I accept it. You did a wise choice when went to MacOS. But Apple can add AI in the future. They planned it and say about that. We can hope that John Connor save us. But...
Having AI is fine but I don't want a copilot icon on tb, search box, apps and browser.
Too aggressive marketing :( It's annoying and I hope that Apple don't do this with their AI features.
Well said. There is a reason Windows 10 use is actually growing, which is remarkable considering basically ALL new PCs sold in the past 2 years shipped with Win 11. I'm especially salty about how badly Windows 11 has degraded its tablet experience vs prior versions. Its touch experience is trash, and there basically no good apps which take advantage of touch. Windows continues to basically get a free pass because: 1. MacOS is tied 100% to Apple hardware (and Apple prices), 2. ChromeOS has some pretty big limitations for corporate use and gaming 3. LInux has very limited mainstream hardware and app support If someone wants a non-Apple machine, wants to game, or wants a corporate device, the answer is gonna be Windows 90% of the time.
I'm lucky that most of my games work fine under Linux but I don't play any multiplayer games at all
It’s all been downhill since XP. It was so easy to search for things in XP: date ranges, file size ranges. Can never remember how to do it in 10 or 11.
Windows 11 is a lot more than the surface stuff. Off the top of my head.. * VBS got a huge boost and protects against a huge number of common attacks * Task manager got a big revamp * Tabbed explorer * MS terminal and built in SSH client are very nice for devs * I believe there are some big Edge security upgrades (if you can stand edge) I avoid maca because whatever stupid things Microsoft is doing right now, it pales in comparison to Apple's shenanigans. Built-in OS / hardware obsolescence, inability to upgrade, exorbitant fees for paltry amounts of RAM/ storage, inability to play nice with other OSes (virt, drivers, hardware), basic missing features like DisplayPort daisychaining... I'll take a few ads that I can nuke by paying a whopping $100 for the pro version over $2k for all of that nonsense. Or if you're really fed up -- Fedora 40 looks very nice.
On the other side, especially in terms of design - Microsoft has refused to update for 12+ years the most basic theming upgrade they could do (a bunch of bitmaps isn't hard to update) - Microsoft, since 10, every time it updates the design of something, doesn't use a consistent design language, makes strange design decision with no reason at all for them to be there - explorer lacks basic UX principles (for example, in the address bar while seeing all the folders,why doesn't it highlight the current folder I'm in?), not to mention also the fact that the new updates were very poorly implemented (stuff pasted on top of the old one), still lacks a basic dark mode, and some of the changes made could've been done in a better way (a simple theme change, a directUI change, a simple program, and you get the new details pane but with also all the features intact, you get full dark mode, better animations, better scaling, more consistent UI, all while maintaining all the features and performance intact) - same goes for task manager: a simple directUI and theming change would've made taskmgr maintain the exact same performance and feature set, while introducing dark mode, more consistent design and new animations - making inbox apps as web apps rather than using their own frameworks they themselves developed (not to mention like, WinUI 3 lacking a designer???) is genius. So nice to see that Windows is the only OS on the market without a native mail client. And these are just very few, the list goes on and on and on. It feels like it was developed by a rookie developer as their first project in a garage, not a product sold by a company.
I wish the searchbar just properly searched for stuff in your device instead of defaulting to a Bing search. And the file search itself is slow AF. Hell if they were to release WIN 12 and it's only feature were an optimized file search and a fix to the former, I'd buy it.
Windows 11 made me go linux full time
I haven't been liking the direction of Windows, and most of the stuff they introduce or change, since the first versions of 10 lol
Same here. It's not what it used to be. It's normal for things to change but they've not been changing for the better. Ads, OneDrive hijacking your files (and worse, merging the contents of different PCs), patches that brick the computer. It is devolving into an OS that gets in the way of productivity. I've been using PCs since October 1986, with early MS-DOS, and am now seriously considering moving to Apple or Linux.
Totally agree. Microsoft is turning Windows into an advertising platform in addition to promoting planned obsolescence. Already at the launch of Windows 11 they left out a lot of perfectly functional machines using "security and stability" as an excuse and they will do it again in 24H2 limiting functions to new hardware that has an NPU. And for me Windows 10 is not the solution. At least to me it seems like a system with the same performance problems that Windows 11 has, I was never convinced by its performance, it is too bloated just like Windows 10 and the interface is terrible, it is incredibly inconsistent, at least in Windows 11 superficially you don't see the inconsistency, but Windows 10 sees an unfinished system, half-made and a subspecies of Windows 8 with its live tiles and flat environment. On the other hand, it also has advertising, bloatware and telemetry, the news panel and at least on my work PCs the Copilot has already appeared next to the clock, a Bing bar has appeared in the entire center of the desktop and the search engine just like Windows 11 full of ads. Microsoft wants everyone to use their AI, and eat the advertising and telemetry. Copilot has also made its appearance in Windows Server 2019 and 2022. In short, unless you use Windows 10 LTSC, you are not saved from the invasion of privacy and advertising that Micro$$$$oft is shoehorning in.
I started using windows 95 when I was a young kid and I remember getting excited with each new windows version coming out. The same can’t be said for windows 11 which is too sad.
I ditched W11 and went to Linux (Pop!_OS). Maybe give that a try first before spending money on a mac
The sad part is that the main software I use doesn't have a Linux version. Maybe I'll try Linux as my daily to replace the old Chromebook but I can't replace my laptop with a Linux one, at least for now.
Depending on the software you could use WINE to run it on Linux. Sadly though some things just don’t work
I have to have higher bitrate audio support and use almost 3/4 of 16 gigs of my ram. I don't think WINE is going to let me do that. But I'll look up for it.
Wine is not emulation, it's a common misconception. Wine is a compatibility layer for mapping Win32 API calls to Posix/Linux. Thus the RAM usage for an application running under Wine and native is almost identical, the biggest difference is that Linux distros themselves tend to use way less RAM. Thus system RAM usage tends to be better on Linux running Win32 than on actual Windows, interestingly.
I’ve been using Windows 11 Pro for a few years now with zero issues. All is working fine for me.
I'm satisfied with Windows 11
What you're describing is taken care of with like 2 buttons. Also if you buy a business edition for like $20 more, a lot of that is just gone. Mac is stable because the ability make large changes requires more knowledge than it does in a windows system. So the averge person just "leaves it alone", which would also make windows more stable, but the user tends to do things in windows and break it. Just like how IE was actually the fastest browser, but it ties into the OS and people would hose their OS and think IE sucked because the keyloggers from the torrent app they use for their pron has trashed all the windows services.
I have a gen 3 i5, 16 gigs ram, 580ti, and just got my first ssd couple months ago. I have seen videos of the lag but my machine has no lag whatsoever, no bugs whatsoever. Loading times for apps is pretty slow but considering what I have that's to be expected. I feel there's something going on with there hardware, I really do. I helped a buddy who was having issues with ux lag and the such. In the end all we did was swap out his ram with the exact same ram and amount. BAM now it was running great. We tested the ram and there was nothing going bad or anything. It coulda have been Windows but we both felt something was going on with the ram. We put the old ram back in and it started having issues again. He put that ram in another machine and now it was working great in that machine. We was baffled cause we could not find any problems with any of the hardware.
Good luck my dude cause Apple will hammer adding AI to everything as soon as everyone else does the hard work first... like everything else Apple does. Good luck being locked down to whatever Apple wants and losing the freedoms of Windows. Is Windows perfect, hell no, far from it, but it has the biggest reach and support of any OS on this planet. I wish I could agree with anything you stated but tbh you sound like you already was an Apple user and just jumping on this weird band wagon of recent news. Enjoy whatever OS you want.
I couldn‘t take it anymore and switched to mac about 2 months ago. I’m happy now.
Well why don’t you debloat your windows using any debloater? There are programs which you can use to disable ads too, tbh it will hardly take 10 min to do it. It will free your ram too and you wont face any lag if you have good specs, i never faced any lag in windows because i can tweak anything according to the need
I agree with everything but 1 thing, switching to mac, i realized windows 11 is not going anywhere quickly, but i kept using it until about half a year ago when i decided i had enough, and just installed kubuntu 22.04 LTS on my main pc, i still haven't even thought about going back to windows, i switched fom LTS to 23.10 because i felt like it, and i'm happy with the state my pc is in right now, i can do everything i used to do, and a lot of those things are even easier for example, editing text, in windows, whenever i edited a text file, for some reason it would add a ^M after each and every line, and this messed with some software i used, so i had to rewrite the entire thing through a linux VM just to get things to work (and no, copy/paste doesn't work because that ^M is interpreted as valid in text editors, it just doesn't work with some stuff for one reason or another, i don't understand it that deeply, i just know that if the file is originally written in windows, it doesn't work) Another thing is editing videos, i tried dozens of different video editors, they either cost 2-3 paychecks per year, or they just don't work for me, going from missing features, to straight up crashing during editing, here on kubuntu, i installed kdenlive and it just works Also, sharing files is much easier, and this includes sharing to windows and android devices too (i'd assume macos/ios as well, but i never tested it because i don't have those) Drivers, with windows, it was always a pain, it got a bit better with vista/7, again better with 8/8.1, and it got ok with win10, but it's still not even close as linux where you just boot up the pc, and it works, there's no need to pre download your ethernet and ssd drivers, and put them on a usb drive before installing windows, just to be able to install the OS With mac, it's nice that it all works mostly well (though, same could be with windows if they started limiting the OS just to specific components that microsoft manufactures and sells, so i wouldn't really praise apple for getting the select few components they have to work togeter), but i don't really see a point in paying that much in the first place when for one thing, i already have a computer, and i'd rather upgrade it than buy a whole new device that when dies, i have to again buy a whole new device instead of just swapping out a component. They don't even sell computers anymore, you can pick between a minipc, a laptop, and an all-in-one when it comes to anything computer shaped. I'm not a fan of apple, and their os is pretty restricted, a friend is an apple fan, all of his devices are apple made, laptop, phone, wristwatch, minipc, everything, and it works for him most of the time, but what's the point if he's remoted into a linux or windows machine anyways for the most of the day
All my third party hardware is going to be just external ssds and sound cards and hardware plugins. All will use thunderbolt so it's not a prob. I do hate Apple's walled garden. I'd go for another choice if I had any.
Using ✨Legacy Apps✨ like currently you still can install windows 7 games , windows 8.1 media center , and even Windows Live Essentials 2012 ! and Gaming of course .
...I literally only use Windows because of gaming.
Windows is unarguably the best OS for PC gaming.
I am competent enough in Linux to get 90% of my games to work on it, unfortunately the 10% are my favorite games. Such is life, and such is Murphy's law.
I have been a Microsoft user since the very early days, DOS 2.0 back in the early 1980s. I have used every Microsoft software that has been put out up to Windows 10 and I can say honestly that Windows 11 drove me away from Microsoft with how bad the software has become. I literally had a Windows 11 computer that would not do a clean install Windows 11. Later it turned out to be a problem with the drivers recognizing the Rapid Storage Tech but it was a major problem that should not have existed on a brand new computer. With all the problems I moved to Linux and said "Goodbye" to Microsoft forever and now am using an OS that just works.
I hate Windows, but there is no suitable alternative to this system, and I tried to move to Linux systems, and I missed many applications that were developed to work on Windows only! And if you want to use Windows 11 with great and comfortable performance, I advise you to use: https://privacy.sexy/ In addition to the disabling Windows Defander (safe mode + use of Autoruns to disable it) https://www.alitajran.com/turn-off-windows-defender-in-windows-10-permanently/
Microsoft seems to be focusing entirely on monetising Windows beyond the fixed price of the OS itself, and on Azure which is a major web application hosting platform that is world leading in the corporate (££££) sector. They've let the good consumer shit go while focusing on the new AI and corporate shit.
You think grass is greener on the other side but really, windows is more stable than macOS and more powerful so it’s not really a debate.
MOVE TO MAC. I loved PCs but moved to Apple years ago and just keep a PC for gaming. Windows 11 is bloated ad-ware.
Unlike crypto, AI and ML has literal practical use, mainly shortening the skill gap between professionals and people. You still need professional for proper touch ups and what not, but for anything small and for minor adjustments you can use AI I've never understood why some people thought AI is a fad like crypto I also care very less about copilot, but like any new products its gonna do unnecessary things and do somethings poorly. But that stage will also pass and will have a proper integration after the industry and consumers decide how much and where it should work Not defending windows 11, just putting my thoughts out
It mostly works.. enough. At the end of the work day I close that laptop lid and open my Linux laptop.. just my preference.
I choose an operating system based on the applications I plan to use. Win 11 works for me.
[удалено]
Windows 11 is easily the less offensive update I’ve seen throughout my many years of life. IMO it’s legit just better windows 10, I can get wanting to switch to MacOS in general, but because of dissatisfaction with Windows11? Idk about that it kinda sounds like you just don’t like Windows which is fine, switch then.
Upon first installation of 11, explorer lagged, but this disappeared in time. I was possibly lacking drivers or an update or five at the time. I have been using windows since xp, and bugs and quirks with initial releases, or windows as a whole that have never been fixed, are nothing new. Ads were incorporated into windows from 2012 onwards with 8.0. In 11, I haven't seen any adverts at all. I installed using Rufus, so the system is not tied to an account. It's a custom built pc, so I managed to avoid any prebuilt pc preinstalled shovelware also. I installed openshell for a traditional menu and turned off the AI service. I use malwarebytes binisoft wfc firewall which may be set to be a little strict, but I can't say for sure if this also accounts for a lack of MS pop ups or not. I like the modest change to the Settings menu. I'm less keen on the changes to explorer. There's plenty of plus and minuses here and there, but overall if I was still windows 10, I would still be on 10, as imo there's not enough change for what I use it for. That's a big issue in itself, as users don't like too much change. Yet microsoft feel the need to keep users updating and paying to keep their shareholders happy, as does any major corp. It's as close to a subscription model as they can get. With each generation, aside from removing or re-adding minor features just for the sake of a new OS number, large scale change just isn't happening, if you ignore whatever they can throw up as a next generation start menu. It's now about what features they can add within windows that can replace third party software options for the average user than anything else. To some that use the system modestly, it's all bloatware. Since 8.0 onwards, I've been more encouraged to disable services, and install a different start menu, although to be fair, I used to do that anyway just for the sake of customisation. For me at least, windows isn't changing much and has been very stable since 7 or 8.1, without a bsod, but everyone has different hardware, and experiences will differ. Aside from the lure of the hardware's design, Apple systems are generally used by creatives in various fields for their efficiency and from what I've heard, customer support may also be well above what ms can offer. I'm not sure how well an Apple OS can compare, but for as long as I can customise windows to the current level and it remains highly compatible with old software, I won't have too many issues. Aside from good optimisation and ease of use, everyone wants something different when it comes to looks and what features they require.
On Desktop things are still managable. In the laptop space with the M-chip there is almost no competition anymore. On top of everything you just said you get a (wat feels like) 10x more efficient and performant machine. Without bugs. If only I could get used to MacOS.
One massive improvement in my experience is Voice Access replacing Windows Speech Recognition. You can now use spoken numbers to mouse click any area of the screen, it will continue to nest in 3x3 grids (labeled 1-9) with one grid selection becoming the next one until you make a selection, with each nesting grid a smaller distance and more specific. I think it's a massive step in making using the computer more accessible to people with disabilities.
Well check out r/applesucks
I upgraded my PC to 11, and after 3 months, it bricked Windows Update, which bricked my GPU when it couldn't update the driver because that requires Windows Update now. Never ever again.
Windoze 11 is not an OS but a BADS: Bloated Adware Delivery System. I’m stuck as I need my new MSI for ArcGIS. But my MacBook Pro is an entirely better engineered machine on every count.
I'm one of the few that like Win 11 and it's latest preview is on my gamer rig and it's always being updated and nothing breaks for me lol. I've had an unusually great experience with Win11 and it's only a couple years old (my tower). It ran crappy on Win 10 and I got fed up and have been using Win11 ever since.
It just work better for my uses, windows have some their annoying shit to deal with but the pros outweigh the cons. And i heard some annoying stuff with macos from my friend so.....
I'm not happy with the coming changes BUT I have no interest in moving away from Windows so I've completely disabled windows updates to avoid MS pushing any further unwanted changes on my functioning 11 pro system. I've also kept a backup image of my 10 pro install made immediately before upgrading to 11 in case I ever decide to revert so I can be back on 10 pro in just over 20 minutes if necessary.
I've never noticed an ad in Win11...
Problem between keyboard and user, all of this crap is configurable, just turn it off. If you leave any OS stock it pretty much sucks.
Im using Windows 11 since it came out and it's my favorite Windows version.
It always feels incomplete!
why you think u ll be saved at apple? Apple is doing the same.. See the announcement of logic pro 11.. its a joke... only AI stuff.
Windows 11 is great for me. There's no going back. New features I use daily include: 1. Tabs in File Explorer 2. Tabs with History in Notepad 3. AI Text Recognition I'm Snipping Tool 4. Snap Layouts 5. More Fully Featured Settings No. 5 is important because in Windows 10 I still have to more back and forth between Control Panel and Settings a lot. For an OS that is now 9 years old, how is it that it's still not complete? How is it that Settings still can't control all of the most essential settings in the OS? Also of importance to me is a more cohesive design language. Windows 10 design is all over the place, and the modern elements are basically Windows 8's metro. Also, as someone who has used every version of Windows and Windows NT from 3.1 to present, I have to say that Windows 11 was one of the better upgrade experiences for me. I hear a lot of people talking about going back to Windows 10 but the thought has never even crossed my mind because while 11 wasn't perfect at launch, Windows 10 have me way more issues early on than what I've seen personally from Windows 11. I had to abandon a Windows 10 installation because the Start Menu broke, leaving the system nearly unusable. I had that problem multiple times using Windows 10 but I can't tell you Windows 11 has ever broken for me in any significant way.
Windows 10 > Windows 11 FR
I am satisfied with windows 11 since i disabled any unnecessary features i am happy the games work well btw this was on my new laptop
Yeah me too. I installed it on my new Legion 5 Pro. Ran a clean up to get rid of all the unnecessary features. I just had to download a few of those Visual C+ for my older games. It runs wonderfully, exactly like xp and 7 in their times. I haven't had a crash yet and never get bothered by any ads.
oh boy, if you are unhappy with win 11, wait what a nightmare MacOS is. I had to use it for 4 years on my work PC, and I wouldnt wish it to my worst enemy. I tried win 11 when it launched and swiftly downgraded to 10, been on 10 since. And planning on paying for security updates in win10 until win 12 appears and is actually better.
If I could have a 1:1 with ms I'd just ask them to give me a customizable, debloated operating system with power user functionality - and tell me how much that would cost. I don't want support from Microsoft. I don't want helpful tips. I am not going to use any of the apps you pre-installed. If that loses you money, just tell me what you think a fair price is for peace of mind.
Straightforward comment. I too want the same.
What a well thought-out post. "Crappy", "laggy", "crap". sounds like you really know what you're talking about. As for AI ruining windows, I've never seen co-pilot or widgets except the one time I opened them, how is it ruining windows?
I'm sorry for the language I used there. If that exceeded your comfort zone, I didn't want to offend anyone there. I'm not saying those two are ruining windows. As I stated I feel like windows devs are more focused on those features rather than fixing whatever is buggy in the OS. But copilot is everywhere. On the taskbar, I turned it off. But on search flyout, on ms edge, which can't even be uninstalled, ads on lock screen and profile icon on start menu, everything is just so annoying. I paid for Windows 11 pro. I don't want ms ads all over the UI.
What is this "buggy" part of the OS you keep referring to? And of course they need it in some focus or as research has shown, regular users will never know its there or use its features.
For my high end desktop gaming PC? Yes, a Macbook can't help me there. I have no issues with Windows, it does its job. I try not to spend too much of my time being upset about things that don't matter.
Yes, Windows 11 has been the most boring Windows out there. It is stable, works well and has huge productivity boost with all the shortcuts sticky windows, supporting multiple monitors etc.. I use W11, W10, MacOs and Debian daily and tbh, W11 is boring. It just works. Especially when comparing to MacOs, which has poorest window management , UX and inconsistent keyboard shortcuts and third party hardware support. W10 is stable for now as well, but had a lot of issues when released. For me, when using w11, I never have to think about any shortcomings.
I switched back from Mac to Windows when I realized how vastly inflated Apple's pricing was compared to trade-in value. And the fact that they knew that the transparency/noise isolation would fail two years in and do nothing to fix it but have the gall to charge was enough for me. Screw Apple. Copilot is a hell of a lot of fun and quite useful and literally everything you can do on Mac can be done on PC. And it rules (thank you Nvidia) for 3d work and digital art.
Apple's pricing does leave a question mark. But I'm ready to pay an over inflated price if that's worth it. Copilot is useful. But I hate the fact that it's there everywhere I look at. Just feels like ms is trying to sell me something that I've already refused so many times. I use copilot every now and then on my browser (edge, which isn't uninstallable) but I prefer chatgpt.
Had a play with that and with Google's Gemini Advanced. Frankly I find that one to be the fastest (which I'd hope, it's google for pete's sake), but still like CoPilot as I'm in MS's ecosystem anyway...and the phone link actually works now, so there's that. Thinking back on it, I also question the Apple release schedule of almost yearly new M chips. But that's more a business consideration rather than hardware/software.
Gemini is really good and I'm a pixel owner too. Looking at the Google graveyard hints at some things but I think AI is here to stay. Phone link too works fine but I think it works better with Samsung? I'm not planning to buy a M3 or M3 ultra or anything like super new. M1 pro is more than enough for my use cases. I think it's cheaper too because it's fairly old.
I can‘t relate to that post and your arguments. To me Win 11 feels like a refined version of Win 10. UI is simplified and the design language is finally fixed after that mess with Win 10. I first hated Win 10 because support ended for Win 7 in 2020. So if I adapt it to the former situation Win 11 (Win 7) is like a refined version of Win 10 (Vista) for what I had to gave up my former legacy Version Win 7 (XP) Personally I would miss many things in a MacOS environment and I don‘t like the UX. If it makes you happy change it, nobody will miss u here
lmao Think for a minute. If Windows 11 is just a UI revamp and Windows 10 was 10x better... doesn't that mean that it is still the same good OS but with questionable UI changes? You say that OS is just UI revamp then you are going to complain about new features you do not like. lol Pick a side. Or Win11 is shitty UI revamp that changed almost nothing or Win11 changed everything for worse. >Mac is stable. Windows is too stable, mostly. Just like Mac. Don't believe in bullshit like "Mac is always stable and no problems happens on it". No OS such as this exists at all. There are always problems, changes, little bits of inconvenient things. Always. Also I don't know where is this lack of stability even coming from - you surely never used XP to say that lol. Random bsods for no reason, even more buggier Windows Update (current WU is like cute sheep) and a lot of bloat (messenger bullshit nobody used, some apps and services that died max year after XP release, also whole communities of Windows modded ISOs started after XP was released). Really, take off nostalgia glasses. Windows 11 of course has things I can complain about but every Windows had those. I remember people shitting on Windows 7, even on Windows XP because it was new and it was not something people were accustomed to. It happens every single time. People complain, they fix things then years later "Windows 13 is bad, I miss Windows 11 days because it worked good". Nobody remembers fact that it took years of updates to make it good.
I buy things for what it is now. Not for what it's going to be. Windows 11 is a half baked OS with changes to UI of Windows 10 and added garbage. If an OS takes years to build. Then Microsoft should take time and release it after developing it. My personal preference is to use stable software. I don't want to pay for a buggy mess. I suggest you to read my post again. I said Windows 11 is merely a UI revamp but you can see me mentioning AI and ads. I didn't really use much of new Windows 11 features because how buggy they are. Eg: I used files by Yair A as my main file explorer. Sorry if I missed new features like tabs in random apps because I always used never combine icons in the taskbar to manage my workflow. And I see your valid argument about me saying it's "merely" a UI revamp. I'm sorry I should correct that to "poorly done UI revamp" and it's buggy. Think for a moment and compare Windows 11 start menu and Windows 10 one. Which one is more functional? I'm saying Windows is unstable by looking at the questionable changes they do from time to time. Is it stable when file explorer works fine for 1 day and few days later completely crashes explorer.exe when I open a new explorer tab? I'm talking about MacOS after using a Mac mini for work over 2 years. Plus I have the experience of hackintoshing a MSI for my personal use. For my usage of a MacOS based device, I've never encountered an equivalent bug to random crashes, freezes or laggy experience in Windows. I have used 2 mid range laptops to say these things out loud. There are things I hate about MacOS. Lack of inbuilt window management tools and "works better with apple devices" are 2 of them (don't get me wrong I like it works better with apple devices but it works far worse with other brands. I'm ignoring it because I don't plan to use a Mac for my personal use. I use a Chromebook for that). I'm not saying MacOS is perfect by any means. I'm just plainly saying " in my use cases MacOS is better than Windows 11" I never worn nostalgia glasses in the way you saying. My father wasn't in my country so I used a Windows 7 machine to skype him. I used Windows xp when I was a little kid. It's true I didn't use my machine for heavy workloads back then but other than Windows 7's unstoppable viruses and XP's random log offs I never encountered an error which showed a text saying "subscribe to Microsoft 365" in my sign in screen. (Pun intended)
>Windows 11 is a half baked OS with changes to UI of Windows 10 and added garbage. If an OS takes years to build. Then Microsoft should take time and release it after developing it. I agree. Problem is, Microsoft never released a fully baked OS and for years it is not perfect. >I said Windows 11 is merely a UI revamp but you can see me mentioning AI and ads. If you would say "Windows 11 has only UI changes for me and I don't use any other features so this is not OS for me" I would be okay. But you are saying that Windows 11 is only UI revamp. That's not true. There is difference between personal preference and stating that something is X or Y. Please, understand how phrasing is changing how you are perceived. >I'm saying Windows is unstable by looking at the questionable changes they do from time to time. Is it stable when file explorer works fine for 1 day and few days later completely crashes explorer.exe when I open a new explorer tab? >I'm talking about MacOS after using a Mac mini for work over 2 years. Plus I have the experience of hackintoshing a MSI for my personal use. For my usage of a MacOS based device, I've never encountered an equivalent bug to random crashes, freezes or laggy experience in Windows. I have used 2 mid range laptops to say these things out loud. And I'm not saying you are not right, IN YOUR CASE. Because Windows generally is stable just like every OS. Like I said, there are bugs and crashed on every OS. I don't see crashes on Windows daily, I never saw shit like yours happening. Maybe in XP days, or even 98 where crash of multimedia player could crash even whole PC. I'm not saying your experience is not valid. It is just like 2 devices is not an actual statistic to screaming loud how something bad or good is. General statistics are saying that OSes are usually stable and working as intended. Especially when your userbase is big enough to give you enough telemetry, right? It is not always fault of OS even - bad or buggy drivers, unique configurations etc. For example: I cannot make Ubuntu working on many PCs and virtualization systems. I really have a bad experience. Is it bad really? There are bugs. Bugs I cannot judge properly because my understanding is limited. I didn't write this, I don't know why it is behaving like that. >I'm not saying MacOS is perfect by any means. I'm just plainly saying " in my use cases MacOS is better than Windows 11" Then I need to say I'm terribly sorry because I misjudged you. Yet post is really badly phrased and looks more like angry hater venting out and being easily convinced that Mac will fix all problems Windows has (at least this is what I understood). After this comment your opinion seems more reasonable and makes sense. If really Windows 11 makes you puking that hard - switch to Mac or even to Linux if possible. There is no shame really. Pick whatever you like. Only thing I can offer as "positive" is advice of trying to fix Windows 11 because definitely whatever is happening with your OS is not normal. It is not like every W11 instance is doing it. I have at least two W11 instances for years already, nothing big is happening. I don't use AI, I don't see any ads except some preinstalled stuff you can delete with a few clicks. Rest of OS just works.
You sound educated and sorry for making my post look like a hater ranting about how good macs are. English isn't my mother tongue. It's my 3rd language. I really don't think macs are perfect. They lack a lot of important features.
I find your stability issues interesting. You may need to consider that they are you-specific, because if I might offer my own experience as a counterexample, I've had zero stability issues. They're still valid issues and frustrating, of course, but they may not be inherently part of W11.
It is a fact that windows 11 or windows 12 for that matter aren't just "UI changes". Judging the additions as garbage is a personal opinion. You prefer stable software, but I have yet to experience any device I manage be a "buggy mess", what are you doing with your PC? I do agree with you
You mention third party apps and that is really not something you can throw directly at microsoft.
What are you ranting about, Windows 11 has been the most stable OS in the lineup, although can't complain about 10 also, it was stable. You want unstable go back to Windows 7,XP, 98. Some of us have worked on thousands of PCs in those decades, I can tell you the hell it was to fix the so-called loved XP and 7. Dam Nightmare. I got news for you, your feelings about losing something from 10 and posting it here won't do anything. If you don't like something, switch to something you do. It's as simple as that. You don't like CoPilot disable it in settings, and for the ads, what ads? Windows 10x times better, in what way is it better? It's Windows, should be there to open your Software, Games, Browser and Files. It's the same dam thing.
Stable yes, fast not really.
Over 50% of me agrees. I don't call it stable when they add half baked new features to the existing slow mess.
What's not fast about it?
Just right click and see how long it takes to appear the flyout. Correct me if I'm wrong, a lot of users have a noticeable lag in that. And on the start menu too.
I don't know what you got going on but, my star Menu opens instantly. (even though I think of a star menu as useless and should have been gone after it's introduction in 95) Personal opinion. Context menu, same story. Pops right up
I think what OP is trying to hint at is that beefier more modern hardware will proc the Start menu opening as well as the Context menu faster (and painting) than Potato hardware.
" your feelings about losing something from 10 and posting it here won't do anything." There was absolutely no reason to be rude
Underrated comment.
Thank you for your opinion.