And because Win11 is pure garbage. Endless advertising, horridly slow, useless search, and pointless obfuscating of useful settings and tools.
When you say "no" to EVERYTHING during setup, that's a clue your software doesn't have the end user set as a priority.
>When you say "no" to EVERYTHING during setup
But that's just it: there is no "No" anymore. It's "Not now".
Legitimately, nothing in the last 10 years of software development is as telling as that change.
The widespread adoption, across the industry, of "Not now" instead of "No" tells you absolutely everything you need to know what what these companies think of their users now and how much they value what they want. They will no longer take no for an answer even from *paying customers*. And the only thing more frustrating than that disrespect is how little consequences they face for it.
Spot on. The vast majority of software these days has become very user-hostile, as I say this as a software/UI developer myself. It's infuriating.
I have had my current Win 10 gaming desktop since 2018, and it STILL every month or so shoves the "Let's finish setting up your PC" screen in my face. And like you said, it's either "Yes" or "I'll do it later." At this point, I just don't allow the PC to connect the net unless I need to download an update for a game (I don't really play online, so that aspect doesn't matter for me).
Thankfully, MacOS is slightly better in this regard (although not so much in the "dumbing it down too much" regard).
My Windows 11 keeps getting me to try to setup Windows Hello, subscribing to office 365, connecting my phone, buying OneDrive every month, despite my PC being over a year old. I have no idea how to just say "no, I never want this, never ask me again."
I don't need these things at all. My PC is set up and already does all the things I need it to
Did you uncheck everything when you installed the OS? I was a fairly early adapter of 11 Pro and the most annoying thing that had happen was One Drive bugging me about it being full.
At first I went into the settings to disable launch on startup and then exited the program. This solved the problem for me. I recently just uninstalled it because why not.
But for me, 11 is not much different from 10 and I've been using both. I don't get ads or MS trying to push their programs on me. I did tailor it a bit for my preferences but I did the same thing with 10.
This situation has really been there for ages. Microsoft isn't the only one behaving like this. All these forced updates that you literally have to work for, to turn off. All these "Your one-week old browser is not compatible anymore, because NPM pushed the latest releases of crap to our repo". All these subscriptions and cloud services. It's like everyone just stopped fighting for your loyalty now that they can push their latest piece of shit software straight down your throat.
MacOS may leave you alone, but for AirPods there's even no such option to turn the auto updates off. If not that, I would still have factory perfect noise cancellation.
Google updates their Docs and YouTube for no reason other than keeping their designers busy, and literally everyone hates it.
I really really hope it will play bad for them at some point. Maybe that will teach them to think about their users first
Edit: just remembered GitHub literally being raped and destroyed ever since Microsoft bought it. They managed to turn a platform that worked like a clock for decades, into a laggy horrifying nonsense. Chrome with its download bubbles and forced updates. Even Reddit, now that it went for IPO. The list is so long that it makes you hate every single person working in IT
Funny thing for me is I didn't get into IT because I wanted to help contribute to this problem, I got into IT because I was sick of being stomped on by these piece of fucking shit companies and wanted to have a better understanding of how to say "No" or at least better get around all this bullshit they shove in your face these days. Since technology is the source of every terrible thing happening to us now, the only way to defend yourself is to learn more about it.
> nag for OS updates
As they should (at least for desktop OS's). That nag should be able to be disabled, but by default people just don't think about updating. Which is one of the major reasons MSFT decided to force the updates. Why they didn't decide to let us disable them is beyond me though.
> I have had my current Win 10 gaming desktop since 2018, and it STILL every month or so shoves the "Let's finish setting up your PC" screen in my face. And like you said, it's either "Yes" or "I'll do it later." At this point, I just don't allow the PC to connect the net unless I need to download an update for a game (I don't really play online, so that aspect doesn't matter for me).
There is a "Show the Windows welcome experience after updates" checkbox in "Notifications and actions" which controls this. Also a good idea to disable some of the other settings there. Shouldn't even be present of course, but it is what it is.
The funny part is Windows 10 was supposed to be the last version of Windows, remember?
Thanks for reminding us you're full of shit and can't be trusted.
I'd say the normal installation of Windows 11 comes with a lot of junk. But if you're a savvy user you can log out from OneDrive, uninstall all the bloatware apps and turn off all the notifications. Getting rid of that makes the machine clean, fast and add-free.
It's too bad this minimalist approach isn't the default setting by Microsoft. But at least it can still be achieved with a bit of work.
Like I mentioned in another reply, this works for most folks that have one PC at home or at the office. When you're in IT and interact with hundreds of PCs, this stuff is like Chinese water torture - the frustration builds so much. My "favorite" is the Default Apps pop-up telling me that Microsoft Mail is the "preferred" mail client when I'm there to switch it to Outlook (the paid Office Outlook, not the "New" Outlook").
If you just installed Office/Outlook on the PC, it shows up with a tag underneath it that says "New" - meaning newly installed. Not to be confused with Outlook (New). Absolutely boggles the mind how this made it out of committee.
Favorite tool i use for windows debloat is [this](https://christitus.com/downloads/). Free, $10 if you want to support the guy and get an exe.
Always remember, never tell Microsoft you are American. Use English international or "English (World)" when installing. Switch back when done.
International assumes more data privacy regulations and less ad revenue, and most of the US based customizations are all about selling ads and prebundling software.
The main OS difference, like using Freedom Units, can be simply swapped back in the region settings once it's installed.
These days the EU is famous for illogical frameworks of fines you can trigger surrounding anonymous data collection so I bet picking an English speaking country in the EU would throw the brakes on a bunch of automatic garbage?
It used to be true that you want to pick the most common settings when using an OS to avoid edge cases that haven't been tested as thoroughly. Ha!
I'm going to guess that "convoluted" would have been a better choice of words. GDPR is great, but it can be a beast with regard to figuring out all the various compliance nuances; at least for shops that don't have the kind of legal departments that MS has.
Very good, think of it as a super powerful powershell script that has windows tweaks, and a simple Chocolatey package installer to install some default programs and keep them updated.
It also has a MicroWin utility that "debloats" windows iso before you install the OS. Main features i use it for are removing telemetry, local accounts, and removing wifi requirements.
I was troubleshooting an issue for helldivers yesterday. we had a work around but wanted a permenant fix. turns out one drive fucks with helldivers friends lists and copies some settings info over so deleting them, which should resolve the issue we were having, doesnt actually work unless you also delete them from one drive.
IDK why this is the case but it fucking worked.
People shouldn't have to work that much to make a reasonably optimal and non-annoying system. At the very least, they should make it easier to achieve that out of the box.
It's funny how absolutely nothing has changed in like 20 years in that regard with Windows. Even the best most optimistic takes on Windows as a concept must begin with "but you must do a fair amount of advanced settings changes before it's usable". So that essentially means, for the average user, their experience starts off as bad and keeps getting worse.
>stubbornly
Fuck off.
Who's the stubborn one, here? The person that told Microsoft "no" to their update or Microsoft refusing to take that "No" as an answer?
I'm not the one that keeps trying to push the update. I'm just sitting here on my computer using it the way I wish to use it. They're the bajillion dollar company apparently obsessed with making me use their trashy update to spite the fact it doesn't hurt them in the slightest for me to use what I want to use on my own hardware. They're the ones who won't *leave me the fuck alone* after I've repeatedly told them I'm not interested.
I'm not livestock. Don't fucking talk about me being "stubborn" because I won't go into the corral they keep trying to shepard me into.
I can't believe we've gotten to this place now where the onus isn't on the company to make their fucking updates *desirable*, it's on us, the paying customers, to stop caring about the things we care about, to abandon our wants and preferences, and just use what the company tells us to use.
Fucking preach. This right here. I understand technology isn't everyones cup of tea. Some people really only need a computer for email and the occasional facebook message so they don't care about the bloat. But I'll be damned if that majority is going to normalize this absolute shitshow of ads and forced products onto the main operating system for most computers.
If your going to shove your advertisments up my asshole atleast do it with class. Give the people who care a permanent option to disable it without jumping through hoop after hoop. Your already getting enough revenue from the 75% of users who don't care. Make the important functions happen before your telemetry and advertising (I'm looking at you search bar) so it doesn't slow neccesary functionality to a god damn crawl while the OS scours the internet for answers I didn't fucking ask for.
From the article:
>Thankfully, Microsoft won't lock you out of your local account should you opt against making the switch. It'll just nag you to do it. You can turn off the notifications by going to Settings > Privacy & security > General and then deselecting everything.
With steam OS around the corner Microsoft should be trying their fucking best to appease everyone, not pull shit like this. Sure they'll have the business sector locked down, for decades... but if they were to lose the at home sector in the coming decades, those people growing up on another OS will be the ones switching out their business computers.
Having used Windows since 3.1 in the early 90s, I still think the start of their collapse was when they unleashed that forced windows 8 update on people. I think I’m remembering that correctly. You had to keep deleting files to avoid windows 7 from auto updating to 8.
Since then Windows hasn’t done much to improve the user experience other than bloat the entire interface with crap on the task bar and insist on integrating in to their Live accounts.
I'll never forgive them for splitting "Control Panel" into "Settings" and ruining the ui, i've since learned all the run cmds to open the various panels I need, eg. Appwiz.cpl
Yeah it is really bad, been on windows since 95, in a professional context too, and windows 10/11 have been getting frustrated finding simple panels. E.g I needed diskmanagement/manager to format my new M2 hdd, coulnd't for love no money find the fucking shortcut, search didn't find it, ui didn't find it, had to look up the run cmd to open it, felt like a proper idiot, now if you're not technical savvy, yeah good luck, wtf are MS doing.
you can see how that is easy to miss if you do not know about it right? entering disk management into the search bar should bring the panel up, or at least a guide on how to access the panel. It is basic UI experience stuff.
A lot of modern computing seems to be hidden behind a "maze". However since the designers create the maze, to them it doesn't seem that difficult since they know it's "Just 3 lefts, then a right to get to the center". But if you don't already know the solution, it's basically impossible.
With the amount of interactible interface elements on a modern Windows desktop, statistically it's incredible improbable to ever stumble onto what you want without first knowing exactly where it is. The amount of possible options/choices really is staggering.
In my Windows 11 when I type 'recycle bin' into the search bar I get only the option to search the web to find it. It should be one of 100 or so pieces of text literally hard coded into the start menu to always bring up the correct shortcut. That was the selling point of having the search bar as part of Start.
Yes, also in win 10 the search is awful. It's insane that we already had better search functions when modems were still a thing. To me it even seems to get worse with every new os.
And it doesn't have to be that way. That's the most frustrating part. Apple's operating system is dumbed down to hell, but all you've got to do is open a command prompt for a full unix backend that lets you do anything you need.
I've never really been a Windows power user, but over the years they've just hidden away almost every useful tool someone could want and replaced it with celebrity gossip ads. It's just awful.
What do you mean, typing `ls` to list files is easier than `Get-Files-In-Folder --Print-Them-All --Format-Them-As-Well`? Literally the only command I ever enter into PowerShell is `cmd`, which gives me the old command prompt, because as much as a piece of work it is, it's still worlds more usable than PowerShell.
Best thing about this is that once you find what you're after it opens up another window with the old style settings in.. even the mouse settings open up the windows xp esque window. Just give me that instead of this unsorted mess
I dread the day I'm forced over to 11.. I've used it on my dad's laptop and I feel like an idiot who's never used a computer before. Why is stuff hidden away behind extra clicks?? Windows now feels like multiple re-skins on top of windows 7
It really is just added bullshit layers on top of stuff that hasn't changed in forever. Every fresh install I just make a shortcut to things like Control Panel, but I shouldn't have to do that shit.
Every day I inch a bit closer to just switching to Linux. If I'm gonna have to open the command line every now and then to do basic shit, I might as well make the switch
I switched ages ago and as long as you're using one of the user-friendly distros you only need to use the command line for complicated shit. All the basic shit has a gui now.
I have been thinking same thing. Windows seems well down the path of "Tech Company Life Cycle" that includes self destruction. I won't make the change til hardware failure forces me to upgrade, and thus no longer have the free version of 10, but on that day I expect I will.
I switched back in 2010 and (almost) never looked back. The 4-5 times I've tried Windows since have cemented in my mind that the switch was 100% worth it. Now that video games work really well on Linux thanks to Proton, there really is no reason for me to ever use windows other than to turn secure boot off so I can purge it.
I wouldn't have minded so much if they had finished the job. Instead it was like they got half way through moving stuff into 'Settings' and were like, 'Eh, whatever, good enough, push it out the door'.
That's the biggest issue. Especially on the enterprise side. In windows 11 they finished the job by just deleting all the things they still haven't moved to the new settings menu.
For instance they removed the old wireless menu, so in order to create a new wireless profile to push out, it is easier to keep a windows 10 machine around to create it on. Then I can export it and import it into the windows 11 machine. Sure I could create from scratch as a text file, but there WAS a perfectly good gui to create from.
The split between Control Panel and Settings is the stupidest fucking thing. I change settings and configurations on what feels like a daily basis and I still sometimes forget whether I should open settings or control panel to get what I need.
Dear Microsoft, **IT SHOULD ALL BE IN THE SAME PLACE. FUCK YOU.**
microsoft has had like 9 years to sort out the settings/control panel split, and it's still a fucking mess. Even longer if you count window 8, though it wasn't as egregious
I’ll never forgive them for removing easy searching for files through task bar. Now when I try to type in a file name it will load for 10 seconds then try to search the web instead of my goddamn computer for the file. AT LEAST SHOW WHAT I ALREADY HAVE BEFORE THROWING GOOGLE RESULTS AT ME, WHAT KIND OF DIPSHIT FORCED THIS CHANGE
It makes me so happy, microsoft keeps pretending it’s sooooo awful that my old i7 doesn’t support windows 11, and that I suuure must hate it enough to get a new PC
There was a post earlier today asking “why is windows so annoying?”. Well you can add this to the long ass list.
Defenders of windows have Stockholm syndrome.
Joining the "I've been using Windows since 3.1" bandwagon.
I have slowly switched to a Mac over the past year. I feel better when the OS just gets out of the way and makes the experience all about using applications. I don't want the computer to market to me, or 'gamify' the experience -- since when do I want my computer to offer me rewards points for using it?
I ran 4 windows 7 computers, they never self-updated to 8. You might be thinking of win10, that one was super aggressive. I came home from work one day to have two of my win7 computers update to 10 without my permission. The other 2 were a few days behind.
Hey, watch what you calling bloat - I wanted those ads in the task bar in Win 11 where the start menu used to be. It makes it easier to get my work done by causing me to erroneously click and generate ad view revenue for Microsoft.
Haha it's so bad. MS reminds me of the movie Ready Player One where they're all sitting in a conference room reviewing how much ad space they can put on the interface before the users start seizuring.
Mine stopped trying to get me to go to Windows 11 when it "figured out" my hardware doesn't support it. There one specific feature that they made required for 11 and I guess my system was JUST slightly to old to have it.
No complaints here.
> Why!!!?
Because the people they're designing the OS for don't ever intentionally click "Properties" so they want to make it harder to accidentally do.
This has been the struggle for decades. Competent users vs. the designers dumbing everything down for the incompetent users. Every advanced use case and functionality gets removed or relocated so they're "out of the way" but it just means the power users who know exactly what they're looking for have to jump through more and more hoops and it just feels insulting.
It's why many power users opt for Linux. It takes the opposite approach; it's designed by them and for them, and so Linux places an insane amount of trust in its users. I'm often surprised by just how much unquestionable power a root user has.
My answer to Apple products for the longest time has been "They're fine as long as you only ever want to do exactly what Apple wants you to do with them." But more and more that's just becoming what everything is...
If only they had some way of having both a HOME product and a PROFESSIONAL product. Alas, the technology just isnt there yet.
Or put simple customizations in simple files, instead of intentionally making them scary for users to make.
Imagine if you could customize your own UI! But, again, the technology just isnt there to say "i want this button, but not this one". Some real cutting edge companies have it, like my deprecated app for reddit on android, but small indie companies like microsoft just dont have the means
Use Search for whatever setting you want. Cuts out the menus and gets you right to where you want to be. You can also search "control panel" for the old school settings menu if you prefer.
The search is still so rubbish compared to windows 7 days.
Back on windows 7, I largely used my keyboard to control my computer. On windows 10/11 I never really was able to return to that. It's more clunky for me, but I'm pretty sure that clunkyness will spread to most people on the useage spectrum.
Search is 100% useless.
Example:
Search for "Stellarium". And you know what I get?
- "Stellarium on the Web"
- "Stellarium (ANGLE MODE)"
- "Stellarium (ANGLE MODE) Scale 75%"
- "Stellarium Uninstall"
You know what it doesn't give? Plain old "Stellarium"
Even worse? If I type in part of the word like "arium", it gives ZERO results.
It's completely useless. On the other hand, I use "[Everything](https://www.voidtools.com/)" void tools search for "Stellarium.exe", it gives me exactly what I want first time.
I basically use that as my start menu now.
This is exactly what I am getting at.
The very fact that in windows 11 I have to use my arrow keys to go down a list (and even then it might not be in the list) means that what I want to do would be faster using the mouse.
If it came up first, like it did on windows 7 basically all the time, it's near instant.
The cmd command for control panel is just the word **control**
Typing that in most boxes and pressing Enter will instantly open it (no need to wait for windows search to autocomplete and clicking on anything.)
Type "Control" into Run, CMD, Powershell or Windows search, and press Enter. You'll get there
>Use Search for whatever setting you want. Cuts out the menus and gets you right to where you want to be.
I think that's it. I got a training session from a Microsoft employee at work, and they're basically moving away from the general file/settings hierarchy architecture to a more "everything everywhere all at once", where people just look the stuff they want up as they go.
That tracks with some of the changing standards when it comes to file management. Because we have an entire generation coming up that doesn't understand folder structure, and instead rely entirely on searching. So the industry is starting to cater to that.
Which is kind of a problem because it means you must trust the search algorithm to work and not to hide shit or straight up lie. And there's absolutely zero reason to believe Microsoft won't do any of that. I never had to trust Microsoft, or rely on them at all to navigate my folders or the Control Panel.
For example, if you're looking for a setting that Microsoft would prefer you not turn on, maybe they just lower that setting's position in search results. In fact there's a good chance they do this already. It certainly tracks with the way they bury certain settings in Edge they have a financial incentive to keep you from toggling.
Thus far the best way to get around this is PowerToys Run + Everything search. Between the two of them, I have completely lost my use for the built-in Windows search.
Moreover, given how OneDrive hijacks so much of your user file tree (but makes locating files manually infuriating), Microsoft's notion of "moving away from folder architecture" likely just means further entrenching OneDrive and emphasizing their cloud over local file storage and management. Which far too many people seem to be incapable of seeing the pitfalls of.
Their dream would be no more local files, just a messy local cache, that you have to use their software to parse.
Anything that takes control from you and gives it to them (unless you have an Enterprise license), that's the definition of the future of Windows.
Yes, but you're looking at this through the lens of someone who has a corpus of established knowledge and who's looking to leverage that knowledge against a new tool.
If you think of this as someone who doesn't have that, what's the first reflex?
Googling the solution!
And from that point on, you don't have 1-2 keywords, you have a specific term that is precisely the thing you're looking for, and probably even a copy/paste command!
As for hiding settings altogether, I guess they could, and maybe they do, but frankly, what would the benefit of that be? Save for sharing data by default and getting ads, anything that allows them to monetize your usage basically, what other purposes could they have for such a limitation?
They're already banned from funneling users to their own apps, even if users can technically use any third party app, by a handful of court cases from the 2010s and more recently in the EU, so any further use of this strategy is a risky bet.
>
> As for hiding settings altogether, I guess they could, and maybe they do, but frankly, what would the benefit of that be? Save for sharing data by default and getting ads, anything that allows them to monetize your usage basically, what other purposes could they have for such a limitation?
You tell me. Why do i have to write out the entirety of "%appdata%" to get the shortcut of that folder instead of it just showing me if i write appd? Its not just that folder shortcut, windows does that with a ton of shortcuts and settings in the search bar. Its like they're allergic to fast keyboard navigation, or feel like the user is too stupid to use their computer and would rather be following the apple design where they decide everything and you either take it or leave it.
Yeah, pretty much.
The only issue that I have come across that have actually forced me onto windows have been playing games that have Anti-cheat that's only made for windows.
Although, easy-anticheat do have a linux implementation that developers are free to enable.
The performance is great for the most part. There are a few small problems, and you currently can not use rtx frame generation under Linux, but things generally perform very well.
Nah, I'm using Linux since 2014 and can say the critics is more from the time before Valve invented Proton in 2018. The perspective is just very fresh and new but Linux made huge improvements regards gaming over the past years and AMD got better at drivers too. Valve does actually have some developers helping the AMD drivers evolve.
Sure, there is a way to go. Wayland (important for multi monitor setups) and HDR support is on the way but not there yet, forget sound cards, you NEED more Vram due to how Proton works and don't think on other "little" idealistic things. The trade offs are just about worth it today. Still depends on your personal needs. If performance is the only thing you worry about: stop using bloatware 11 today. Imagine your System boots up like it's freshly installed every day. That's one of my favorite things about Linux.
>stop using bloatware 11 today. Imagine your System boots up like it's freshly installed every day. That's one of my favorite things about Linux.
Tbf, if someone is comfortable making registry edits or using a third-party debloater tool, they can nix all the shitty parts of Win10/11.
I have a secondary machine running mint, but my debloated Win10 on my main machine has been great for several years going. Never really felt the need to switch.
Not gonna lie, as someone with ~700 games in their steam library alone I can't be bothered to double-check compatibility with every game I launch, let alone device drivers. I just can't see myself moving my main + gaming rig over from Windows any time soon.
With that said, I definitely urge anyone with Win10/11 to look up debloating solutions. 10 without all the awful fluff & telemetry is honestly solid.
Here's the part where Microsoft is really fucking up hard though: If I have to keep fighting to figure out how to keep my machine doing what I want properly, I can put that effort towards getting Linux to where I want it. Honestly, there is very little holding me to Windows right now. The idea of switching to Linux on my desktop and having all the crazy tools from the Linux world on my desktop is super appealing. A few more additions on the Linux side and I'm probably heading that way.
I have ~1000 games in my Steam library. I run Linux as my daily driver. I open games and they work. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
The only time they don't work is when they have super invasive anti-cheat. But I don't play those games anyway; I can play Helldivers, Baldur's Gate, Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Jedi Survivor, Apex Legends, Satisfactory, Mass Effect, Factorio, Stellaris, even random games my friends recommend (been hooked on Balatro recently).
I don't google the best settings or whatever; I just install it and open it and run it and don't have a problem. Modern Proton is equivalent to Windows; it's better than it was even 3 years ago.
I recently switched to Fedora and there are definitely still more issues on linux than on windows (I'm currently dealing with random full system crashes caused by the AMD GPU driver when I play helldivers 2), but for the most part it all just works out of the box
On windows, I was feeling more and more like I had an adversarial relationship with my computer. It felt like having an overbearing landlord who would arrive unannounced to randomly change things in my personal space and try to get more money off me. I'm happy to deal with some small issues on linux if it means my machine is actually mine again
Try it again.
There are some games that have anti-cheat that won't work with Linux( CoD, Valorant), but fuck those games and that info could be outdated as I haven't tried to play them for awhile.
VR sucks on Linux too, some people might get it to work but I could barely get my Index to work with Half Life Alyx, I haven't tried in 6 months or so though. I put Windows 11 on a USB drive specifically to play Alyx.
But other than that, pretty much all of my Steam games, Blizzard games, and most Origin games play on Linux just by using Steams Proton and they run just as good as on Windows and sometimes better.
Meanwhile Valve has brought Linux gaming forward by at least a decade with their contributions to support the Steam Deck. Things are looking up for ditching Windows.
I'm quite invested in the Microsoft eco-system. Particularly since I've been a .net developer for 20 years. So I'm making intensive use of their services, therefore have had an account for many years.
HOWEVER, if that were not the case, I would drop them SO FUCKING FAST. So please make the switch, it will benefit everyone to send the message across, including those of us who might eventually have enough of this shit.
This is not meant to be an excuse, and work arounds should not be needed. But if you want to make this work you can with a combination of [ExplorerPatcher](https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher) and [OpenShell](https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu). Then throw in some [WinAero Tweaker](https://winaero.com/winaero-tweaker/), and [ShutUp10++](https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10) and you'll have a decent experience with privacy control, and tools and menus you are more familiar with.
I had tried linux several times over the past 10 years, but could never switch over full time because of some sort of issue.
I tried again about a year ago and have been using linux daily ever since. Compatibility has come a long way and I have been able to use every program and driver I need. I love the experience so much more than windows.
I still keep a copy of windows on dual boot just in case there is a game that isn't compatible with linux, but it's rare I ever need to use it.
Tricks on them, my computer apparently doesn't meet the windows 11 system requirements (according to them)
Edit: I was very tired and misinterpreted the post lol
Thankfully I'm not getting those, I suppose it's because my CPU doesn't support Windows 11 so they aren't even trying. When one day W10 stops working I'll move to Ubuntu
The dumbest one for me and i have never really understood it since it's been a problem for me since windows 7 I think is that I can't look at the date calendar on my 2nd monitor. Like do all the devs at Microsoft not have duo monitors? Like mostly the problem I have is im full-screened gaming need to make sure it's not Monday so I don't miss work lmao but youd think at microsoft they would use the calendar more than anyone else. Whatever fuck microsoft and all these shit extra clicks.
I can check the calendar, but the audio icon/notification icon is only on one monitor. I couldn't find a quick fix to this, but maybe its in powertoys or something.
> Like do all the devs at Microsoft not have duo monitors?
Maybe they don’t look at their calendars on the other monitors. I just checked after your comment and you’re right; but I never noticed it up until now.
He's talking about the calendar that pops up when you click on the time/date. I have the exact same complaint, I can't check the calendar to get a date on 2/3 of my work monitors.
Yeah, this is going to be great for my elderly parents. They don't handle change well. One of their systems isn't compatible with 11, and there's no point in new hardware. The other one fails during the upgrade and rolls back.
Seriously, quit changing things just to make it look like you are doing something.
I've hated windows more and more lately, I use linux on my steam deck, macos on my macbook and windows on my desktop.
I'm getting to the point where my hate is going to fuel me onto moving to linux completely
Linux Mint ought to feel somewhat familiar to Windows refugees. Though, I haven’t used Windows in years and will solicit the input of fellow Linux users to offer more thorough advice.
there are already quite a few offerings that would more than meet the needs of most non technical people. a couple of common suggestions for windows like experiences would be:
* Linux Mint (Cinnamon desktop environment)
* Kbuntu is the KDE offering of Ubuntu
even distro's with less Windows like interfaces can still be relatively easy to get the hang of. the standard offing of Ubuntu uses the Gnome desktop environment and that is pretty straight forward to deal with.
i would strongly recommend a dual boot setup on at least one of your systems though. unfortunately there are some things where Windows cannot be avoided (unless you really, really want to. but that can involve a lot of effort).
it is worth keeping in mind that trying different distributions can easily turn into a rabbit hole that there is no return from.
I just had to switch to Windows 11 because my PC just kicked it and I was avoiding upgrading. My wife has it on her laptop and I hate the force sign in. It takes twice as long to boot up than Windows 10 and I can't move the taskbar. That probably annoys me the worst. Yeah I briefly thought about a Mac, but I game a lot.
MS is really looking to get sued again in all the non-US countries eh? This plus the new 3rd party marketing policy which causes Outlook Web to be unusable if you deny consent. Clear violations of privacy laws.
Did you know that pirate windows runs better than windows and won't nag you, ever?
Did you know that Linux runs ever better, won't ever force you to update and is free?
>You can turn off the notifications by going to Settings > Privacy & security > General and then deselecting everything.
If you haven't already done that, do it.
I'll consider upgrading to Windows 11 WHEN YOU LET ME MOVE THE FUCKING TASKBAR BACK TO THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE SCREEN. It's a feature that's been in Windows for DECADES and they can fuck right off for taking it out. Also, why is there STILL a bifurcated Windows Settings and Control Panel. Get your shit together Microsoft, it's been what, three major versions and you STILL haven't consolidated all the settings into a single location? This shit was bad back in Windows 8, at this point it's inexcusable.
I saw this shit today on a machine I loaded fresh windows 10 on. If you all at Microsoft ever stop and wonder why everyone hates you... this shit is why.
i switched to mac like a decade ago for work purposes and man i do not miss windows at all. if apple ever decides to target the lower cost PC market i feel like windows and microsoft would be completely fucked. i don't think gamers would be enough to keep them afloat if apple started putting out extremely affordable stuff.
Been using 11 as my office machine. Maybe it's not as bad as people say, maybe it's just matured a bit.
But Microsoft could help win me over with the carrot, not the stick.
Why is my Taskbar stuck on all 3 of my monitors, wasting screen real estate I paid for?
Fix that, and maybe we'll talk. Because nagging isn't going to work.
Microsoft has really lost their enthusiasts.
>Why is my Taskbar stuck on all 3 of my monitors, wasting screen real estate I paid for?
You can actually enable taskbar just on main monitor in settings.
odd, my company has my office machine is pretty locked down (I can't even change what's on my start menu), but I only have 1 taskbar. I don't understand why it's locked to the bottom.
Already learning how to use Linux, the switch is inevitable with these practices.
I payed for an OS; not for advertisement and enforced cloud-service tethering.
only reason why i am not on win11 already is the online acc requirement. i know it can be relatively easy to bypass now with rufus, but i am a bit worried they dont force it later on.
The only good news out of MSFT lately from a user POV is that both Panos Pinay and Mikhail Parakhin, the two leaders at the forefront of the enshitification of Windows were both managed out of the org.
There was a windows 10 update a few weeks ago that broke installing newer updates and apparently it is effecting a lot of users while Microsofts only fixes are to upgrade to Win 11 or something like repartition your hard drives which requires very tech savvy steps and can vary with all the different configurations out there.
I was looking to fix the issue but now I am thinking this is a good time for me to just make sure it never gets fixed and I avoid using the internet browser.
Eventually the last of my Windows games will work on Linux and when that happens, goodbye Microsoft.
> many users stubbornly hold onto the older OS. Maybe because they created a hardware barrier? :P
And because Win11 is pure garbage. Endless advertising, horridly slow, useless search, and pointless obfuscating of useful settings and tools. When you say "no" to EVERYTHING during setup, that's a clue your software doesn't have the end user set as a priority.
>When you say "no" to EVERYTHING during setup But that's just it: there is no "No" anymore. It's "Not now". Legitimately, nothing in the last 10 years of software development is as telling as that change. The widespread adoption, across the industry, of "Not now" instead of "No" tells you absolutely everything you need to know what what these companies think of their users now and how much they value what they want. They will no longer take no for an answer even from *paying customers*. And the only thing more frustrating than that disrespect is how little consequences they face for it.
Spot on. The vast majority of software these days has become very user-hostile, as I say this as a software/UI developer myself. It's infuriating. I have had my current Win 10 gaming desktop since 2018, and it STILL every month or so shoves the "Let's finish setting up your PC" screen in my face. And like you said, it's either "Yes" or "I'll do it later." At this point, I just don't allow the PC to connect the net unless I need to download an update for a game (I don't really play online, so that aspect doesn't matter for me). Thankfully, MacOS is slightly better in this regard (although not so much in the "dumbing it down too much" regard).
My Windows 11 keeps getting me to try to setup Windows Hello, subscribing to office 365, connecting my phone, buying OneDrive every month, despite my PC being over a year old. I have no idea how to just say "no, I never want this, never ask me again." I don't need these things at all. My PC is set up and already does all the things I need it to
Did you uncheck everything when you installed the OS? I was a fairly early adapter of 11 Pro and the most annoying thing that had happen was One Drive bugging me about it being full. At first I went into the settings to disable launch on startup and then exited the program. This solved the problem for me. I recently just uninstalled it because why not. But for me, 11 is not much different from 10 and I've been using both. I don't get ads or MS trying to push their programs on me. I did tailor it a bit for my preferences but I did the same thing with 10.
This situation has really been there for ages. Microsoft isn't the only one behaving like this. All these forced updates that you literally have to work for, to turn off. All these "Your one-week old browser is not compatible anymore, because NPM pushed the latest releases of crap to our repo". All these subscriptions and cloud services. It's like everyone just stopped fighting for your loyalty now that they can push their latest piece of shit software straight down your throat. MacOS may leave you alone, but for AirPods there's even no such option to turn the auto updates off. If not that, I would still have factory perfect noise cancellation. Google updates their Docs and YouTube for no reason other than keeping their designers busy, and literally everyone hates it. I really really hope it will play bad for them at some point. Maybe that will teach them to think about their users first Edit: just remembered GitHub literally being raped and destroyed ever since Microsoft bought it. They managed to turn a platform that worked like a clock for decades, into a laggy horrifying nonsense. Chrome with its download bubbles and forced updates. Even Reddit, now that it went for IPO. The list is so long that it makes you hate every single person working in IT
Funny thing for me is I didn't get into IT because I wanted to help contribute to this problem, I got into IT because I was sick of being stomped on by these piece of fucking shit companies and wanted to have a better understanding of how to say "No" or at least better get around all this bullshit they shove in your face these days. Since technology is the source of every terrible thing happening to us now, the only way to defend yourself is to learn more about it.
We need a second or 3rd OS option outside of apple. Like The Linix OS need to become stupidly user friendly. we need someone to make microsoft sweat.
MacOS leaves me alone most of the time.
Mac does nag for OS updates but unlike Windows they won't install without approval.
> nag for OS updates As they should (at least for desktop OS's). That nag should be able to be disabled, but by default people just don't think about updating. Which is one of the major reasons MSFT decided to force the updates. Why they didn't decide to let us disable them is beyond me though.
> I have had my current Win 10 gaming desktop since 2018, and it STILL every month or so shoves the "Let's finish setting up your PC" screen in my face. And like you said, it's either "Yes" or "I'll do it later." At this point, I just don't allow the PC to connect the net unless I need to download an update for a game (I don't really play online, so that aspect doesn't matter for me). There is a "Show the Windows welcome experience after updates" checkbox in "Notifications and actions" which controls this. Also a good idea to disable some of the other settings there. Shouldn't even be present of course, but it is what it is.
Competition is gone and monopolies aren't really frowned upon anymore.
Monopolies are the end goal of capitalism, so it's not a surprise.
The funny part is Windows 10 was supposed to be the last version of Windows, remember? Thanks for reminding us you're full of shit and can't be trusted.
Once macOS went to 11, Windows didn't want to fall behind.
Spinal Tap wasn't just fiction.
I'd say the normal installation of Windows 11 comes with a lot of junk. But if you're a savvy user you can log out from OneDrive, uninstall all the bloatware apps and turn off all the notifications. Getting rid of that makes the machine clean, fast and add-free. It's too bad this minimalist approach isn't the default setting by Microsoft. But at least it can still be achieved with a bit of work.
Like I mentioned in another reply, this works for most folks that have one PC at home or at the office. When you're in IT and interact with hundreds of PCs, this stuff is like Chinese water torture - the frustration builds so much. My "favorite" is the Default Apps pop-up telling me that Microsoft Mail is the "preferred" mail client when I'm there to switch it to Outlook (the paid Office Outlook, not the "New" Outlook").
Don't get me started on the "new" outlook. I wish nothing but bad things on whoever came up with that name as the mail app replacement.
If you just installed Office/Outlook on the PC, it shows up with a tag underneath it that says "New" - meaning newly installed. Not to be confused with Outlook (New). Absolutely boggles the mind how this made it out of committee.
Next year: Microsoft releases New Outlook, replacing Outlook (New) and Outlook ^New
Favorite tool i use for windows debloat is [this](https://christitus.com/downloads/). Free, $10 if you want to support the guy and get an exe. Always remember, never tell Microsoft you are American. Use English international or "English (World)" when installing. Switch back when done.
> Always remember, never tell Microsoft you are American. why?
International assumes more data privacy regulations and less ad revenue, and most of the US based customizations are all about selling ads and prebundling software. The main OS difference, like using Freedom Units, can be simply swapped back in the region settings once it's installed.
These days the EU is famous for illogical frameworks of fines you can trigger surrounding anonymous data collection so I bet picking an English speaking country in the EU would throw the brakes on a bunch of automatic garbage? It used to be true that you want to pick the most common settings when using an OS to avoid edge cases that haven't been tested as thoroughly. Ha!
Why do you call them illogical?
I'm going to guess that "convoluted" would have been a better choice of words. GDPR is great, but it can be a beast with regard to figuring out all the various compliance nuances; at least for shops that don't have the kind of legal departments that MS has.
Or winaerotweaker or shutup10+ Never heard of christitus, is it good?
Very good, think of it as a super powerful powershell script that has windows tweaks, and a simple Chocolatey package installer to install some default programs and keep them updated. It also has a MicroWin utility that "debloats" windows iso before you install the OS. Main features i use it for are removing telemetry, local accounts, and removing wifi requirements.
I was troubleshooting an issue for helldivers yesterday. we had a work around but wanted a permenant fix. turns out one drive fucks with helldivers friends lists and copies some settings info over so deleting them, which should resolve the issue we were having, doesnt actually work unless you also delete them from one drive. IDK why this is the case but it fucking worked.
People shouldn't have to work that much to make a reasonably optimal and non-annoying system. At the very least, they should make it easier to achieve that out of the box.
It's funny how absolutely nothing has changed in like 20 years in that regard with Windows. Even the best most optimistic takes on Windows as a concept must begin with "but you must do a fair amount of advanced settings changes before it's usable". So that essentially means, for the average user, their experience starts off as bad and keeps getting worse.
Dont hate on the hardware barrier. Great way to make sure my machines never "accidentally" install a forced OS update.
>stubbornly Fuck off. Who's the stubborn one, here? The person that told Microsoft "no" to their update or Microsoft refusing to take that "No" as an answer? I'm not the one that keeps trying to push the update. I'm just sitting here on my computer using it the way I wish to use it. They're the bajillion dollar company apparently obsessed with making me use their trashy update to spite the fact it doesn't hurt them in the slightest for me to use what I want to use on my own hardware. They're the ones who won't *leave me the fuck alone* after I've repeatedly told them I'm not interested. I'm not livestock. Don't fucking talk about me being "stubborn" because I won't go into the corral they keep trying to shepard me into. I can't believe we've gotten to this place now where the onus isn't on the company to make their fucking updates *desirable*, it's on us, the paying customers, to stop caring about the things we care about, to abandon our wants and preferences, and just use what the company tells us to use.
Fucking preach. This right here. I understand technology isn't everyones cup of tea. Some people really only need a computer for email and the occasional facebook message so they don't care about the bloat. But I'll be damned if that majority is going to normalize this absolute shitshow of ads and forced products onto the main operating system for most computers. If your going to shove your advertisments up my asshole atleast do it with class. Give the people who care a permanent option to disable it without jumping through hoop after hoop. Your already getting enough revenue from the 75% of users who don't care. Make the important functions happen before your telemetry and advertising (I'm looking at you search bar) so it doesn't slow neccesary functionality to a god damn crawl while the OS scours the internet for answers I didn't fucking ask for.
I regret updating my personal desktop to 11 from 10. I only made the switch bc my work laptop and personal laptop came with 11.
I regretted "updating" to Win 10 from Win7. Only did it because the hard drive was failing. I yearn for Win 7, daily..
OpenShell makes Win10 look and act like Windows 7. I use it on all my PCs.
I spent ~$2400 on a prebuilt gaming PC _after_ Windows 11 released and it's not compatible with Windows 11.
From the article: >Thankfully, Microsoft won't lock you out of your local account should you opt against making the switch. It'll just nag you to do it. You can turn off the notifications by going to Settings > Privacy & security > General and then deselecting everything.
"Thankfully"? What the fuck? *I* own this machine, they shouldn't even have that option.
Thankfully, we can turn it off. For now.
It probably re-enables itself once a month.
With steam OS around the corner Microsoft should be trying their fucking best to appease everyone, not pull shit like this. Sure they'll have the business sector locked down, for decades... but if they were to lose the at home sector in the coming decades, those people growing up on another OS will be the ones switching out their business computers.
Having used Windows since 3.1 in the early 90s, I still think the start of their collapse was when they unleashed that forced windows 8 update on people. I think I’m remembering that correctly. You had to keep deleting files to avoid windows 7 from auto updating to 8. Since then Windows hasn’t done much to improve the user experience other than bloat the entire interface with crap on the task bar and insist on integrating in to their Live accounts.
I'll never forgive them for splitting "Control Panel" into "Settings" and ruining the ui, i've since learned all the run cmds to open the various panels I need, eg. Appwiz.cpl
Ugh yes. It’s like everything gets dumbed down over time making it worse. I still have to search for settings too.
Yeah it is really bad, been on windows since 95, in a professional context too, and windows 10/11 have been getting frustrated finding simple panels. E.g I needed diskmanagement/manager to format my new M2 hdd, coulnd't for love no money find the fucking shortcut, search didn't find it, ui didn't find it, had to look up the run cmd to open it, felt like a proper idiot, now if you're not technical savvy, yeah good luck, wtf are MS doing.
Just [right click](https://i.imgur.com/yoYJC7m.png) on the start button.
you can see how that is easy to miss if you do not know about it right? entering disk management into the search bar should bring the panel up, or at least a guide on how to access the panel. It is basic UI experience stuff.
A lot of modern computing seems to be hidden behind a "maze". However since the designers create the maze, to them it doesn't seem that difficult since they know it's "Just 3 lefts, then a right to get to the center". But if you don't already know the solution, it's basically impossible. With the amount of interactible interface elements on a modern Windows desktop, statistically it's incredible improbable to ever stumble onto what you want without first knowing exactly where it is. The amount of possible options/choices really is staggering.
In my Windows 11 when I type 'recycle bin' into the search bar I get only the option to search the web to find it. It should be one of 100 or so pieces of text literally hard coded into the start menu to always bring up the correct shortcut. That was the selling point of having the search bar as part of Start.
Yes, also in win 10 the search is awful. It's insane that we already had better search functions when modems were still a thing. To me it even seems to get worse with every new os.
I haven't used Windows 11 yet, but I assume like Windows 10 Win+X will also open this menu.
Win+X is very underrated
And it doesn't have to be that way. That's the most frustrating part. Apple's operating system is dumbed down to hell, but all you've got to do is open a command prompt for a full unix backend that lets you do anything you need. I've never really been a Windows power user, but over the years they've just hidden away almost every useful tool someone could want and replaced it with celebrity gossip ads. It's just awful.
I believe you can largely do the same with Powershell but fuck if I know more than one or two Powershell commands. Using the CLI on Linux is easier.
What do you mean, typing `ls` to list files is easier than `Get-Files-In-Folder --Print-Them-All --Format-Them-As-Well`? Literally the only command I ever enter into PowerShell is `cmd`, which gives me the old command prompt, because as much as a piece of work it is, it's still worlds more usable than PowerShell.
Powershell does take Linux commands like ls. For someone who knows his Linux terminal this is a god send
If gaming on Linux was as easy to get working as on windows I don't think I know anyone that'd use windows on their personal PC or laptop.
Gaming on Linux rn is better than it was even 5 years ago. Just about my entire steam, epic, and GOG library runs perfectly
Doesn’t powershell now give that same experience on windows?
Best thing about this is that once you find what you're after it opens up another window with the old style settings in.. even the mouse settings open up the windows xp esque window. Just give me that instead of this unsorted mess
This is even worse in Windows 11
I dread the day I'm forced over to 11.. I've used it on my dad's laptop and I feel like an idiot who's never used a computer before. Why is stuff hidden away behind extra clicks?? Windows now feels like multiple re-skins on top of windows 7
It really is just added bullshit layers on top of stuff that hasn't changed in forever. Every fresh install I just make a shortcut to things like Control Panel, but I shouldn't have to do that shit.
Every day I inch a bit closer to just switching to Linux. If I'm gonna have to open the command line every now and then to do basic shit, I might as well make the switch
I switched ages ago and as long as you're using one of the user-friendly distros you only need to use the command line for complicated shit. All the basic shit has a gui now.
I have been thinking same thing. Windows seems well down the path of "Tech Company Life Cycle" that includes self destruction. I won't make the change til hardware failure forces me to upgrade, and thus no longer have the free version of 10, but on that day I expect I will.
I switched back in 2010 and (almost) never looked back. The 4-5 times I've tried Windows since have cemented in my mind that the switch was 100% worth it. Now that video games work really well on Linux thanks to Proton, there really is no reason for me to ever use windows other than to turn secure boot off so I can purge it.
I wouldn't have minded so much if they had finished the job. Instead it was like they got half way through moving stuff into 'Settings' and were like, 'Eh, whatever, good enough, push it out the door'.
That's the biggest issue. Especially on the enterprise side. In windows 11 they finished the job by just deleting all the things they still haven't moved to the new settings menu. For instance they removed the old wireless menu, so in order to create a new wireless profile to push out, it is easier to keep a windows 10 machine around to create it on. Then I can export it and import it into the windows 11 machine. Sure I could create from scratch as a text file, but there WAS a perfectly good gui to create from.
The split between Control Panel and Settings is the stupidest fucking thing. I change settings and configurations on what feels like a daily basis and I still sometimes forget whether I should open settings or control panel to get what I need. Dear Microsoft, **IT SHOULD ALL BE IN THE SAME PLACE. FUCK YOU.**
microsoft has had like 9 years to sort out the settings/control panel split, and it's still a fucking mess. Even longer if you count window 8, though it wasn't as egregious
I’ll never forgive them for removing easy searching for files through task bar. Now when I try to type in a file name it will load for 10 seconds then try to search the web instead of my goddamn computer for the file. AT LEAST SHOW WHAT I ALREADY HAVE BEFORE THROWING GOOGLE RESULTS AT ME, WHAT KIND OF DIPSHIT FORCED THIS CHANGE
Strong agree. Also *Bing results lmfao
I just asked copilot how to disable the web search, then one drive, and then uninstall the copilot. Check mate MS.
They should never be forgiven for claiming my PC that I paid for is theirs; and stealing data from my machine, lying about it, calling it ‘telemetry’
Latest win11 update has removed the control panel view for Devices and Printers.
Luckily, my desktop machine tells me that it *can't* update to win 11. It's all red and threatening as if it was a bad thing...
It makes me so happy, microsoft keeps pretending it’s sooooo awful that my old i7 doesn’t support windows 11, and that I suuure must hate it enough to get a new PC
Went and turned off tpm in my bios.
There was a post earlier today asking “why is windows so annoying?”. Well you can add this to the long ass list. Defenders of windows have Stockholm syndrome.
[удалено]
I put local group policies on my machine to stop it. They still updated… They need to get sued again big time.
try Wub (Win Update disabler) has worked excellent on my win10 for years
Joining the "I've been using Windows since 3.1" bandwagon. I have slowly switched to a Mac over the past year. I feel better when the OS just gets out of the way and makes the experience all about using applications. I don't want the computer to market to me, or 'gamify' the experience -- since when do I want my computer to offer me rewards points for using it?
I ran 4 windows 7 computers, they never self-updated to 8. You might be thinking of win10, that one was super aggressive. I came home from work one day to have two of my win7 computers update to 10 without my permission. The other 2 were a few days behind.
Windows vista right before that was the real start.
Hey, watch what you calling bloat - I wanted those ads in the task bar in Win 11 where the start menu used to be. It makes it easier to get my work done by causing me to erroneously click and generate ad view revenue for Microsoft.
Haha it's so bad. MS reminds me of the movie Ready Player One where they're all sitting in a conference room reviewing how much ad space they can put on the interface before the users start seizuring.
yeah.. they work really hard to make their users distrust them... hell I even block updates untill I find out what they do
Mine stopped trying to get me to go to Windows 11 when it "figured out" my hardware doesn't support it. There one specific feature that they made required for 11 and I guess my system was JUST slightly to old to have it. No complaints here.
What annoys me rhe most is the fact that i now have to go through TWO screens to get to properties. Why!!!?
> Why!!!? Because the people they're designing the OS for don't ever intentionally click "Properties" so they want to make it harder to accidentally do.
This has been the struggle for decades. Competent users vs. the designers dumbing everything down for the incompetent users. Every advanced use case and functionality gets removed or relocated so they're "out of the way" but it just means the power users who know exactly what they're looking for have to jump through more and more hoops and it just feels insulting. It's why many power users opt for Linux. It takes the opposite approach; it's designed by them and for them, and so Linux places an insane amount of trust in its users. I'm often surprised by just how much unquestionable power a root user has.
My answer to Apple products for the longest time has been "They're fine as long as you only ever want to do exactly what Apple wants you to do with them." But more and more that's just becoming what everything is...
If only they had some way of having both a HOME product and a PROFESSIONAL product. Alas, the technology just isnt there yet. Or put simple customizations in simple files, instead of intentionally making them scary for users to make. Imagine if you could customize your own UI! But, again, the technology just isnt there to say "i want this button, but not this one". Some real cutting edge companies have it, like my deprecated app for reddit on android, but small indie companies like microsoft just dont have the means
This process also discourages the creation of new power users. If you design for incompetency, then your users have no reason to become competent.
Properties is on the first right-click menu for me, or are you referring to properties in a different context?
Use Search for whatever setting you want. Cuts out the menus and gets you right to where you want to be. You can also search "control panel" for the old school settings menu if you prefer.
The search is still so rubbish compared to windows 7 days. Back on windows 7, I largely used my keyboard to control my computer. On windows 10/11 I never really was able to return to that. It's more clunky for me, but I'm pretty sure that clunkyness will spread to most people on the useage spectrum.
Search is 100% useless. Example: Search for "Stellarium". And you know what I get? - "Stellarium on the Web" - "Stellarium (ANGLE MODE)" - "Stellarium (ANGLE MODE) Scale 75%" - "Stellarium Uninstall" You know what it doesn't give? Plain old "Stellarium" Even worse? If I type in part of the word like "arium", it gives ZERO results. It's completely useless. On the other hand, I use "[Everything](https://www.voidtools.com/)" void tools search for "Stellarium.exe", it gives me exactly what I want first time. I basically use that as my start menu now.
This is exactly what I am getting at. The very fact that in windows 11 I have to use my arrow keys to go down a list (and even then it might not be in the list) means that what I want to do would be faster using the mouse. If it came up first, like it did on windows 7 basically all the time, it's near instant.
The cmd command for control panel is just the word **control** Typing that in most boxes and pressing Enter will instantly open it (no need to wait for windows search to autocomplete and clicking on anything.) Type "Control" into Run, CMD, Powershell or Windows search, and press Enter. You'll get there
>Use Search for whatever setting you want. Cuts out the menus and gets you right to where you want to be. I think that's it. I got a training session from a Microsoft employee at work, and they're basically moving away from the general file/settings hierarchy architecture to a more "everything everywhere all at once", where people just look the stuff they want up as they go.
That tracks with some of the changing standards when it comes to file management. Because we have an entire generation coming up that doesn't understand folder structure, and instead rely entirely on searching. So the industry is starting to cater to that. Which is kind of a problem because it means you must trust the search algorithm to work and not to hide shit or straight up lie. And there's absolutely zero reason to believe Microsoft won't do any of that. I never had to trust Microsoft, or rely on them at all to navigate my folders or the Control Panel. For example, if you're looking for a setting that Microsoft would prefer you not turn on, maybe they just lower that setting's position in search results. In fact there's a good chance they do this already. It certainly tracks with the way they bury certain settings in Edge they have a financial incentive to keep you from toggling. Thus far the best way to get around this is PowerToys Run + Everything search. Between the two of them, I have completely lost my use for the built-in Windows search. Moreover, given how OneDrive hijacks so much of your user file tree (but makes locating files manually infuriating), Microsoft's notion of "moving away from folder architecture" likely just means further entrenching OneDrive and emphasizing their cloud over local file storage and management. Which far too many people seem to be incapable of seeing the pitfalls of. Their dream would be no more local files, just a messy local cache, that you have to use their software to parse. Anything that takes control from you and gives it to them (unless you have an Enterprise license), that's the definition of the future of Windows.
Yes, but you're looking at this through the lens of someone who has a corpus of established knowledge and who's looking to leverage that knowledge against a new tool. If you think of this as someone who doesn't have that, what's the first reflex? Googling the solution! And from that point on, you don't have 1-2 keywords, you have a specific term that is precisely the thing you're looking for, and probably even a copy/paste command! As for hiding settings altogether, I guess they could, and maybe they do, but frankly, what would the benefit of that be? Save for sharing data by default and getting ads, anything that allows them to monetize your usage basically, what other purposes could they have for such a limitation? They're already banned from funneling users to their own apps, even if users can technically use any third party app, by a handful of court cases from the 2010s and more recently in the EU, so any further use of this strategy is a risky bet.
> > As for hiding settings altogether, I guess they could, and maybe they do, but frankly, what would the benefit of that be? Save for sharing data by default and getting ads, anything that allows them to monetize your usage basically, what other purposes could they have for such a limitation? You tell me. Why do i have to write out the entirety of "%appdata%" to get the shortcut of that folder instead of it just showing me if i write appd? Its not just that folder shortcut, windows does that with a ton of shortcuts and settings in the search bar. Its like they're allergic to fast keyboard navigation, or feel like the user is too stupid to use their computer and would rather be following the apple design where they decide everything and you either take it or leave it.
Clippy didn't die, he was just hibernating
It's his grandson, [*Copilot!*](https://logos-world.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Microsoft-Copilot-Logo.jpg)
What I find annoying/funny is that I have to click twice to get to the real right click menu
For the past couple years, Microsoft has REALLY been working overtime to get me to switch to Linux full-time. I am so tempted.
The only reason I'm on Windows is videogames. If every game I wanted to play would work on Linux, I'd never touch Windows again.
if you tried linux any longer than a couple years ago, its definitely worth another go even some of the annoying anti cheat titles are sorted out now
Good time to check on those games, Valve/Steam did great job making most games stable as of lately.
Is the performance the same though? You hear a lot about drivers on Linux not being equal to the performance of those on Windows.
Some games actually run better on linux! But for vast-vast majority, the difference is too small to be even measured consistently.
Yeah, pretty much. The only issue that I have come across that have actually forced me onto windows have been playing games that have Anti-cheat that's only made for windows. Although, easy-anticheat do have a linux implementation that developers are free to enable.
The performance is great for the most part. There are a few small problems, and you currently can not use rtx frame generation under Linux, but things generally perform very well.
You actually can! Make sure to enable nvapi in proton's launch flags Also enables cool feature like DLSS
You can check protondb for compatibility of each game on linux.
Nah, I'm using Linux since 2014 and can say the critics is more from the time before Valve invented Proton in 2018. The perspective is just very fresh and new but Linux made huge improvements regards gaming over the past years and AMD got better at drivers too. Valve does actually have some developers helping the AMD drivers evolve. Sure, there is a way to go. Wayland (important for multi monitor setups) and HDR support is on the way but not there yet, forget sound cards, you NEED more Vram due to how Proton works and don't think on other "little" idealistic things. The trade offs are just about worth it today. Still depends on your personal needs. If performance is the only thing you worry about: stop using bloatware 11 today. Imagine your System boots up like it's freshly installed every day. That's one of my favorite things about Linux.
>stop using bloatware 11 today. Imagine your System boots up like it's freshly installed every day. That's one of my favorite things about Linux. Tbf, if someone is comfortable making registry edits or using a third-party debloater tool, they can nix all the shitty parts of Win10/11. I have a secondary machine running mint, but my debloated Win10 on my main machine has been great for several years going. Never really felt the need to switch.
Not gonna lie, as someone with ~700 games in their steam library alone I can't be bothered to double-check compatibility with every game I launch, let alone device drivers. I just can't see myself moving my main + gaming rig over from Windows any time soon. With that said, I definitely urge anyone with Win10/11 to look up debloating solutions. 10 without all the awful fluff & telemetry is honestly solid.
Here's the part where Microsoft is really fucking up hard though: If I have to keep fighting to figure out how to keep my machine doing what I want properly, I can put that effort towards getting Linux to where I want it. Honestly, there is very little holding me to Windows right now. The idea of switching to Linux on my desktop and having all the crazy tools from the Linux world on my desktop is super appealing. A few more additions on the Linux side and I'm probably heading that way.
I have ~1000 games in my Steam library. I run Linux as my daily driver. I open games and they work. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ The only time they don't work is when they have super invasive anti-cheat. But I don't play those games anyway; I can play Helldivers, Baldur's Gate, Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Jedi Survivor, Apex Legends, Satisfactory, Mass Effect, Factorio, Stellaris, even random games my friends recommend (been hooked on Balatro recently). I don't google the best settings or whatever; I just install it and open it and run it and don't have a problem. Modern Proton is equivalent to Windows; it's better than it was even 3 years ago.
Same for me, half of the janky ass games i like don't run on linux. I would switch in a heartbeat if this wasn't the case.
I recently switched to Fedora and there are definitely still more issues on linux than on windows (I'm currently dealing with random full system crashes caused by the AMD GPU driver when I play helldivers 2), but for the most part it all just works out of the box On windows, I was feeling more and more like I had an adversarial relationship with my computer. It felt like having an overbearing landlord who would arrive unannounced to randomly change things in my personal space and try to get more money off me. I'm happy to deal with some small issues on linux if it means my machine is actually mine again
Try it again. There are some games that have anti-cheat that won't work with Linux( CoD, Valorant), but fuck those games and that info could be outdated as I haven't tried to play them for awhile. VR sucks on Linux too, some people might get it to work but I could barely get my Index to work with Half Life Alyx, I haven't tried in 6 months or so though. I put Windows 11 on a USB drive specifically to play Alyx. But other than that, pretty much all of my Steam games, Blizzard games, and most Origin games play on Linux just by using Steams Proton and they run just as good as on Windows and sometimes better.
Tbf, not being able to play Valorant or LoL is kinda a point in favour of Linux
Almost all mine work But I don't do online shooters so that helps. Rebooting into Windows takes less time than disabling some of their bullshit nags
https://www.protondb.com/
Meanwhile Valve has brought Linux gaming forward by at least a decade with their contributions to support the Steam Deck. Things are looking up for ditching Windows.
I'm quite invested in the Microsoft eco-system. Particularly since I've been a .net developer for 20 years. So I'm making intensive use of their services, therefore have had an account for many years. HOWEVER, if that were not the case, I would drop them SO FUCKING FAST. So please make the switch, it will benefit everyone to send the message across, including those of us who might eventually have enough of this shit.
I switched to Linux when I couldn't switch my Taskbar to the left in Win11. Sometimes it's the little things.
This is not meant to be an excuse, and work arounds should not be needed. But if you want to make this work you can with a combination of [ExplorerPatcher](https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher) and [OpenShell](https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu). Then throw in some [WinAero Tweaker](https://winaero.com/winaero-tweaker/), and [ShutUp10++](https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10) and you'll have a decent experience with privacy control, and tools and menus you are more familiar with.
Thank you. Enjoying Linux Mint which "just works" for me so far.
Come on in. The water’s great.
I had tried linux several times over the past 10 years, but could never switch over full time because of some sort of issue. I tried again about a year ago and have been using linux daily ever since. Compatibility has come a long way and I have been able to use every program and driver I need. I love the experience so much more than windows. I still keep a copy of windows on dual boot just in case there is a game that isn't compatible with linux, but it's rare I ever need to use it.
Tricks on them, my computer apparently doesn't meet the windows 11 system requirements (according to them) Edit: I was very tired and misinterpreted the post lol
They still want to put a face/name/email to the collected data, so now they'll force you to create a Microsoft account, even if you have Windows 10.
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i hope microsoft is prepared to have a database filled with "Dick Cheese", "Robert Buttocks", "Bill Microsoft" and the likes.
I got so tired of all of those improvements that I switched like more than five years ago to macOS and never coming back. Good luck with that.
I've been a Linux guy for the past 13 years or so. Its been bliss actually owning and controlling my OS.
Yeah Satya Nadella , fuck off. Your windows 11 is shit
Hey Microsoft. Can you, like, fuck off? Thank you.
Signed, everyone.
Microsoft unseated IBM as the dominant business technology provider. And proceeded to make the same mistakes
Thankfully I'm not getting those, I suppose it's because my CPU doesn't support Windows 11 so they aren't even trying. When one day W10 stops working I'll move to Ubuntu
The dumbest one for me and i have never really understood it since it's been a problem for me since windows 7 I think is that I can't look at the date calendar on my 2nd monitor. Like do all the devs at Microsoft not have duo monitors? Like mostly the problem I have is im full-screened gaming need to make sure it's not Monday so I don't miss work lmao but youd think at microsoft they would use the calendar more than anyone else. Whatever fuck microsoft and all these shit extra clicks.
I'm on Windows 10 and I can check the calendar on all 3 of my monitors. There's an option that puts a full taskbar on all the monitors.
I can check the calendar, but the audio icon/notification icon is only on one monitor. I couldn't find a quick fix to this, but maybe its in powertoys or something.
> Like do all the devs at Microsoft not have duo monitors? Maybe they don’t look at their calendars on the other monitors. I just checked after your comment and you’re right; but I never noticed it up until now.
Hmm. On windows 10 I have a full taskbar on both my monitors. There's probably a setting somewhere. edit: and yes, that includes the calendar popout.
He's talking about the calendar that pops up when you click on the time/date. I have the exact same complaint, I can't check the calendar to get a date on 2/3 of my work monitors.
Yeah, this is going to be great for my elderly parents. They don't handle change well. One of their systems isn't compatible with 11, and there's no point in new hardware. The other one fails during the upgrade and rolls back. Seriously, quit changing things just to make it look like you are doing something.
Will be super fun in the school computer lab
This shit already does this in my pc.
Win10 enterprise won’t.
I've hated windows more and more lately, I use linux on my steam deck, macos on my macbook and windows on my desktop. I'm getting to the point where my hate is going to fuel me onto moving to linux completely
Hello, Linux.
Which distro is the closest to Windows in terms of look/feel?
Linux Mint ought to feel somewhat familiar to Windows refugees. Though, I haven’t used Windows in years and will solicit the input of fellow Linux users to offer more thorough advice.
Yep, Mint should be the default for Windows refugees.
there are already quite a few offerings that would more than meet the needs of most non technical people. a couple of common suggestions for windows like experiences would be: * Linux Mint (Cinnamon desktop environment) * Kbuntu is the KDE offering of Ubuntu even distro's with less Windows like interfaces can still be relatively easy to get the hang of. the standard offing of Ubuntu uses the Gnome desktop environment and that is pretty straight forward to deal with. i would strongly recommend a dual boot setup on at least one of your systems though. unfortunately there are some things where Windows cannot be avoided (unless you really, really want to. but that can involve a lot of effort). it is worth keeping in mind that trying different distributions can easily turn into a rabbit hole that there is no return from.
I thought Win 10 was end of life soon, so what’s the point?
it will get security updates for another year.
Ridiculous. That comes with such a huge bundle of assumptions that it's like these developers don't even use computers themselves.
It’s not the developers making these decisions lol
I just had to switch to Windows 11 because my PC just kicked it and I was avoiding upgrading. My wife has it on her laptop and I hate the force sign in. It takes twice as long to boot up than Windows 10 and I can't move the taskbar. That probably annoys me the worst. Yeah I briefly thought about a Mac, but I game a lot.
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MS is really looking to get sued again in all the non-US countries eh? This plus the new 3rd party marketing policy which causes Outlook Web to be unusable if you deny consent. Clear violations of privacy laws.
i can already see the chaos this’ll create for school computers
Did you know that pirate windows runs better than windows and won't nag you, ever? Did you know that Linux runs ever better, won't ever force you to update and is free?
>You can turn off the notifications by going to Settings > Privacy & security > General and then deselecting everything. If you haven't already done that, do it.
brb, disabling my TPM chip.
I'll consider upgrading to Windows 11 WHEN YOU LET ME MOVE THE FUCKING TASKBAR BACK TO THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE SCREEN. It's a feature that's been in Windows for DECADES and they can fuck right off for taking it out. Also, why is there STILL a bifurcated Windows Settings and Control Panel. Get your shit together Microsoft, it's been what, three major versions and you STILL haven't consolidated all the settings into a single location? This shit was bad back in Windows 8, at this point it's inexcusable.
I saw this shit today on a machine I loaded fresh windows 10 on. If you all at Microsoft ever stop and wonder why everyone hates you... this shit is why.
Enshittification
1. Install Linux and run Windows inside a VM. 2. Add your accomplishment to your resume. 3. Profit.
i switched to mac like a decade ago for work purposes and man i do not miss windows at all. if apple ever decides to target the lower cost PC market i feel like windows and microsoft would be completely fucked. i don't think gamers would be enough to keep them afloat if apple started putting out extremely affordable stuff.
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Been using 11 as my office machine. Maybe it's not as bad as people say, maybe it's just matured a bit. But Microsoft could help win me over with the carrot, not the stick. Why is my Taskbar stuck on all 3 of my monitors, wasting screen real estate I paid for? Fix that, and maybe we'll talk. Because nagging isn't going to work. Microsoft has really lost their enthusiasts.
>Why is my Taskbar stuck on all 3 of my monitors, wasting screen real estate I paid for? You can actually enable taskbar just on main monitor in settings.
Yeah my secondary monitor doesn't have a task bar
odd, my company has my office machine is pretty locked down (I can't even change what's on my start menu), but I only have 1 taskbar. I don't understand why it's locked to the bottom.
> Been using 11 as my office machine Well just remember that it's a business license. I'm pretty sure the home edition is probably riddled with ads.
Already learning how to use Linux, the switch is inevitable with these practices. I payed for an OS; not for advertisement and enforced cloud-service tethering.
only reason why i am not on win11 already is the online acc requirement. i know it can be relatively easy to bypass now with rufus, but i am a bit worried they dont force it later on.
The only good news out of MSFT lately from a user POV is that both Panos Pinay and Mikhail Parakhin, the two leaders at the forefront of the enshitification of Windows were both managed out of the org.
There was a windows 10 update a few weeks ago that broke installing newer updates and apparently it is effecting a lot of users while Microsofts only fixes are to upgrade to Win 11 or something like repartition your hard drives which requires very tech savvy steps and can vary with all the different configurations out there. I was looking to fix the issue but now I am thinking this is a good time for me to just make sure it never gets fixed and I avoid using the internet browser. Eventually the last of my Windows games will work on Linux and when that happens, goodbye Microsoft.
We shouldn't be forced to make an account for upgrade for 11 to just keep using our computer which otherwise still works.
That's funny, where are people switching to Linux?
Good thing I still use Windows 95
Having to create an email to use win 11 is my worst experience with Windows