You must log in or register to comment.
Windows 7 was peak. Everything after that has been getting worse and worse every iteration.
Windows peaked with Windows 2000.
That’s not true. Windows 10 is better than Windows 8. But windows 11 is so bad I’m switching to Linux when it’s time to update
I loved windows 8.1 on my surface pro. It was a great touchscreen OS.
Same here. I don’t understand people who tell me Windows 11 is alright. I use Windows 11 at work, and it’s everything I hated about 10 magnified, with fewer or no ways to fix it. Every time it has an update, it’s even worse.
The only reason I haven’t migrated to Linux on my main rig is I’ve got years of regedits investing into Windows 10, but when it loses support, I’m out. I’ve already installed Linux on my laptop and the mini PC we use for streaming.
So 11 is the new ME/Vista/8?
Just on schedule, we will know if it’s so bad that they need to change naming to something different on version 12.
So 11 is the new ME/Vista/8
I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s designed for the Facebook demographic, if that makes sense – and there are a lot of people on Facebook.
But if you want to have any level of control over your device or any real choice, it’s not for you.
It may have been a little slow at times, but it just worked. It wasn’t constantly trying to advertise to you, trying to get you to download apps, trying to force AI onto you, trying to harvest your data, forcing you to use online services, it was just an operating system and a good one at that
Did it even have any online component? I can’t seem to remember. Right after installation it would present you with a desktop. No bs about setting up onedrive or anything.
Microsoft.com accounts made their debut in W8.
But even Vista already had some nasty features like IE Smartscreen which to this day is on by default and which sends every website URL you visit to Microsoft. Vista was also the first Windows version to include telemetry throughout the OS. However, in Vista and W7 you could still disable telemetry on normal editions of Windows.
From a privacy standpoint, the last good-by-default OS was XP. The only bigger issues iirc were the Media Player which downloaded album art and DRM licenses and Active Desktop which Microsoft tried to use to advertise to you. Oh, and (edit): Windows license activation was online for the first time and in some cases you had to reactivate after changing hardware.
I was an XP fan. 7 was cool, too, though.
My favorite was when my new Windows 11 laptop started automatically backing up my files to OneDrive without telling me, then STOPPED LETTING ME SEND AND RECEIVE EMAILS because my OneDrive was full. Full of stuff that I never wanted to back up.
So one of my main email accounts, which I’ve used within the free tier limits for 20ish years, suddenly went dark because I signed into Windows.
Of course while investigating, the UI offered helpful options like:
- Pay for more cloud storage
(Not depicted: “Free up some space,” “Disable backups”)
Epilogue: After several rounds of disabling backups, then deleting the stuff in OneDrive, then Windows deciding that I couldn’t have wanted that and backing all my stuff up again anyway, I finally fixed it by deleting some key directories so the backup would just fail.
You can fix it by never logging on with an email address.
You can also fix windows by installing a real operating system.
Don’t cut yourself on that edge brah
This is not a helpful recommendation.
Indeed. Helpful would be, “try Mint bc that is likely to be the easiest for Windows faniliar users to assimilate to, all it costs is your soul.”
Not everyone can use Linux. That’s just a fact. There are games I’m quite keen on playing that simply don’t work on Linux.
This is not as true as it once was. Not a gamer, so i cant direct you in the best direction, but im aware that people are running the steam deck, or gog, or installing Windows on a VM on their Linux.
The worst thing Linux has going for it, is that it involves taking a leap of faith that, evidently, most are not willing to take. Theres been 20 years of “Linux complicated, not for the average joe” that most of us have had ingrained in us for a while. My initial comment was more of a joke trying to poke fun of that very notion. Its more of an option than its ever been, to the extent that even running games isnt a dealbreaker anymore. In my experience, i started dual booting Mint and Windows sometime between 5-10 yrs ago and very quickly realized that theres very little I truly need Windows for. Im not that tech savvy, i cant code, the linux terminal is daunting and i dont use it for installing all my software. Just before the plunge, i didnt know about partitions; today, i still dont understand what "kernel* fully means, regardless of how many times ive heard it explained.
Somehow someway, it turned out that after everything i always heard, there was a hardly a learning curve in using Mint bc it was so similar to what i already knew. Before id spend hrs cleaning things that refused to delete off of Windows, or learning to deal with viruses, or just getting past the babyproofing Microsoft intentionally includes in their OS. That meant that i hsd the time and spare brain power to look up the (usually simple) solutions to anything that was new and unexpected about Mint. In the case of a gamer, the time u lose on Windows bs (even tho u typically dont notice until u try a less greedy OS) is more than enough to learn how to game on Linux. And if thats not enough, i still would recommend dual booting due to the lightweight nature of Linux and how much more enjoyable simply internet or file browsing is on Mint.
/endrant
i get it if its still not the time for u, but maybe it will be for somebody else reading.
I’ve actually done a bit of distrohopping (including Mint, currently on Pop_OS) on my laptop and I do know how, in theory, to play games on Linux that don’t natively support Linux. The problem is that Lutris just doesn’t work for the game I want to play. I can’t get past Blizzard’s launcher because the login button just doesn’t appear. It seems to be a common problem and the only fix I could find (can’t remember what it was exactly) just didn’t do anything for me. I’ve also met someone who did successfully play it on Linux and they said that they couldn’t play certain modes because it made the game really unstable and they crashed all the time.
At best, I might go for a dual boot and do my main stuff on Linux with just games on Windows if I get a PC upgrade, but for now, I can’t see any major advantage to only partially switching that would outweigh having to go back and forth as well as reinstalling a bunch of shit.
deleted by creator
Thing is, installing win11 without linking a Microsoft account is still a rather large pain in the ass. 1000% worth it minf you, but they really don’t want you to.
I just did it this morning, when you burn the ISO to a usb drive using Rufus you get a nice little menu that allows you to pre-set a local account, disable the TPM check and more.
The biggest pain is downloading the windows 11 iso in the first place. You can only do that when the site believes you’re not already using windows.
Bypassing the online check on setup is basically required on new hardware anyways, since most 2.5g/wifi6+ networking drivers aren’t included in the installer.
this is a feature of rufus, not of windows, while it’s really cool, go rep rufus, not windows. Especially for the linux users who don’t use windows and have to suffer through what is sometimes arbitrarily confusing. I will say, there is a script out there that works great for flashing windows isos under linux. Uses a grub intermediary layer to ensure consistent behavior i think? Idk, i used it once.
If you’re in a situation where you absolutely must use Windows, at the out-of-box screen ,Enter a fake email address and a fake password a few times, and once it fails to sign in it will give you the option of creating a local account. Sneaky, deceitful, and underhanded, sure, but at least it’s still possible.
i’ve already commented this, but just to get my point across properly here, it’s these kinds of comments that bother me. They reek of “too occupied with whether we could do it, rather than whether we should do it.”
It’s a neat trick, but completely fucking ignores the problem. It’s like a car shipping from the factory with a bunged transmission but everyone going “well you can just not use first gear” or “well, doing a swap is easy” and my favorite “just re-gear it with third party parts, these ones don’t explode” Like, yeah, you could. Nobody would be buying that car though. For some reason tech nerds have a masochistic relationship to this shit and i dont understand why.
I don’t use Windows. I remember this from tech support days though.
I am repping Rufus here, not windows. Painful as it may sound, truth is that most people creating windows usbs would do so from windows.
The tool you’re talking about might be Ventoy. Which is indeed a great way to make any type of bootable usb stick. Once installed you can just throw all sorts of isos (and more) to your usb drive and it’ll generate nice grub menu to pick from.
You’ll just have to use the classic oobe\bypassnro method instead to install windows. (The fact that you have to use a workaround to create a local account at all is still BS, there’s no denying that.)
i get it. It just pisses me off to no end when people bring up genuine issues and people go “oh but you can just unplug the fuckin ethernet” yeah and why do we need to fucking unplug it again?
I mean yeah i could just not install a shitty piece of software like windows, given my linux user nature, i should do that, but here i am trying to be reasonable, and people keep yelling at me, because apparently i dont know that “well uhm ackshually”
like the guy who responded to my comment with “well just use a fake email if you REALLY have to” like yeah, that’s cool, im sure there are other ways of doing that too. That was not the point of my comment though.
Ventoy is pretty cool, not what i was talking about though, woeusb iirc, really slick little script. Used it for a win 7 iso ages ago.
People having to work with Microsoft stuff (not just windows) have gotten so used to needing to find workarounds for everything that those genuine issues have become the baseline expectation.
Only having to fill in a wrong email/password a few times sounds like peak user experience compared to the shit I have to pull in Azure/Power BI/AD at times. My genuine first reaction when reading that post was “ah of course, that makes sense”.
Personally I use Linux for server/container stuff wherever possible. With the occasional excursion into Manjaro to see what’s happening on the desktop side.
i had the same shit with google drive recently, legitimately had to CTRL A and delete everything. It should genuinely be criminal to not have “delete all button” Though to be fair, i think it kind of did tangentially a little bit? It was hidden behind like three menus, and didn’t properly update, and i still dont think i have everything deleted from there, i have no idea what google is doing honestly.
Delete some key directories
My grandfather is in need of a new computer, im not gonna try to Linux pill him, which leaves me with a windows 10 machine that will be EOL this year, and just hope nothing breaks with time. I think he would stop using technology if he saw the constant nags and popups in 11.
Older folks normally do just fine if you set up some desktop shortcuts and bookmarks. He’s likely gone through a few Windows versions and figured it out, after all.
I dunno, Linux Mint Cinnamon is pretty dang close to the standard Windows 7 experience. He’ll have an adjustment period of about 2 weeks running into minor differences and then not have any issues.
Oh I am sure of that, thats how I got into Linux :p
But now convince a 70 year old man that the one thing he has been consistently using for almost a decade and a half is in need of a change.
But really I may push him on it again, I’ve assured him he can get to his excel documents and all that but it doesnt seem like enough and is now irate with the ads in solitare
Can you get away with just installing it and telling him it’s the new windows?
You know, if there’s a real nice solitare applet just maybe
You have a choice. Kpatience is pretty good.
But now convince a 70 year old man that the one thing he has been consistently using for almost a decade and a half is in need of a change.
You mean like installing Windows 11 when he’s used to Windows 10 or even older? 😁
He’s on 10 now, with some gripes that I likely could regedit, it really depends how harsh w10 EOL goes and how hard they try to fill some landfills
Worked with my 76 year old dad. He happily does all of his stuff on Manjaro. Vivaldi looks like on Windows. And Kodi is even better than the satellite TV crap he had on Windows.
If all he needs is a browser, get him a Chromebook. Sure it’s Google, which is arguably as bad as Microsoft, but you’re getting a simple machine which is hard to break, and Google is doing the tech support rather than you.
Or, if you don’t want to waste perfectly good hardware, install ChromeOS Flex on the existing machine.
deleted by creator
Windows users will say this and then call you slurs when you even suggest other options exist
I remember there was a folder for a Windows marketplace game that I spent a good couple of days trying to get rights to access so I could mod the single player game contained inside. But no, Microsoft had a folder on MY OWN computer locked down tougher than Fort Knox. That was Windows 10 iirc, I can’t imagine how much worse it’s gotten, I switched to Linux completely a couple years back.
Appx is locked down tight on purpose. It’s built to be a more secure application platform than exe.
Not saying it’s right and you should have to deal, but that’s why.
Editing to say I also went Linux last year and I love it far too much to ever go back to Windows. Flatpaks are similar to AppX but at least you can customize the permissions for them. Still I find them to be a bit of a pain to use for some apps.
I just feel there is a glaring flaw in Appx, in that if you ever need to try and troubleshoot a piece of software or need to access the application folder in anyway for any reason, it’s effectively blackwalls it. Or at least, it’s not worth the amount of effort and compromise required to bypass it.
Flatpaks are way better than Snaps, but I feel AppImage’s do a much better job of modularizing executables and their libraries into an easy to run package. I just wish there was a decent piece of software for management of installation of them.
I use Pop_os on my main computer and recently have been getting back into NixOS and been working on writing a full configuration file for it.
I hear a lot about those distros around here. I recently settled on openSUSE Tumbleweed after having used Fedora and ZorinOS for a while. It’s so good, I haven’t thought about switching to anything else. Manjaro, Pop_os, and NixOS are on my list if that ever changes.
I like AppImage a lot and I wonder why that didn’t take off like Flatpak did. A timing issue, perhaps?
I got write access once to that folder, but I never found a way to do it without breaking EVERYTHING connected to the Windows store lol Photos app - borked, fucking Calculator - borked, random settings panels - borked, Game Pass - borked
I was eventually able to put Humpty back together again without reinstalling windows, but it never was quite right until I did. It was not a pleasant experience lmfao
Yeah AppX is a different kind of application platform that was built to be secure. Breaking that security breaks functionality. What’s lame is that they don’t have mechanisms to allow you to change permissions at a granular level and then change them back to defaults. You have to hack it and deal with the consequences which is just bad design.
From my understanding, it’s heavily obfuscated*
*Sigh
I just set up VFIO. I remember it being a total pain in the ass a few years ago, so I was expecting to spend a whole week debugging and tweaking. But, it was surprisingly easy. In just a couple hours I’ve got a windows 11 VM with it’s own dedicated GPU up and running. And the next question that popped into my mind, that I’m yet to solve, is, “What now? What did I just do it for?”. All the games I wanted to play now work on wine/proton, some even went out of their way to not work in a VM specifically. Yes, there are a couple pieces of
shitsoftware that I need windows for, but I’d rather keep trying and testing open source alternatives, maybe even participate in their development to the best of my ability, rather than maintaining a VM just for them.its* own dedicated GPU
Gosh trying to find the Open PDFs by default using anything other than Edge was a HUGE pain at work where I have to use Microsoft Shit…
It’s nowhere in the settings, Edge straight up ignores the fact you set up a different PDF viewer app as a default, which takes way longer to load files than my other installed PDF readers.
You have to right click and have this option checked, smdh.
i uninstalled edge. that solved most of my edge related problems.
Dude, please explain how, because I cannot on Windows 10 as far as I’m aware.
Shipping five separate executables to avoid CLI arguments is the most Windowsy thing ever.
well last time i tried doing that all pdf files got borked with no way to fix the issue, on windows 11.
there used to be a semi official way to do it in win10 from 2021-2024, they broke it in January and reinstalled edge thoWhen I made a fresh install of windows 11 a few months ago I used this tool. The readme says it works on windows 10 but I’ve never tried it myself on 10. https://github.com/LeDragoX/Win-Debloat-Tools
When I got rid of edge on windows 10 a few years ago I think I booted into a live linux USB stick and deleted or renamed the edge directory. Maybe that doesn’t quite fit the definition of uninstall but the end result was edge couldn’t run afterward which is what I wanted.
I don’t remember if disabling edge updates is part of the debloat tools or if I did this myself, but the tasks starting with MicrosoftEdgeUpdateTask in Task Scheduler are disabled now on my system. Method 3 of this guide shows how to find those tasks. https://www.askvg.com/how-to-disable-or-remove-microsoftedgeupdate-exe-process-running-in-task-manager/
Windows XPsp1 was peak. No visual overhead, no surplus protection , nothing but plain interaction with a computer using only mouse
Mouse is bloat
Me and the four other people using qtile concur. Alpha computing.
I have been a i3 user for a few years now, honestly, the only reason I still keep my mouse around is to occasionally play some video games.
We’ll it was certainly better than me or vista, I’ll give it that!
Maybe in crazy but I preferred both ME and Vista over XP.
Vista’s only real problem was that it was resource intensive and people tried to put it on older hardware that could technically run it, but not well. Which understandably caused a bad experience for a lot of people. My experience was on a new laptop that was designed with Vista in mind, and it was fine.
ME allegedly had a bunch of stability issues. Maybe i was just too young to notice, but I don’t remember having problems with it as a kid. I was really disappointed when we “upgraded” to XP and lost most of the UI customization options. The rounded blue bars were so bland and boring.
WinME was a straight downgrade from Win98SE. I had to support a lot of peoples PCs privately at the time, and WinME was an unstable mess in comparison; the amount of undiagnosable bluescreens that just didn’t occur on Win98 on the same hardware was infuriating; and the performance was worse in every instance.
We’ll it was certainly better than me
Don’t be so hard on yourself! I’m sure you’re better than Windows XP! Even the best version of it!
That was the hearty chuckle that I needed after a very long day (and very long nap, so now I’m up in the wee hours kicking about on social media! Thanks for that!
You’re so very welcome 😁
I also tried to word it, but it was awful. Thanks for doing that for me!
All in a day’s work, ma’am. I mean band
Man I hate one drive. Can it be removed/uninstalled?
deleted by creator
In short: yes.
Will it also take you a short time to do, and be certain it won’t be magically back next Windows update? Not really, and once in a while they break the current system on how to uninstall it.
what’s wrong with it though?
The biggest thing that pisses me off about onedrive is moving my damn folders.
C:\Users\Me\Documents
Becomes
C:\Users\Me\onedrive\Documents
Why? JUST WHY???
When you install powershell modules in user context it syncs to one drive. NO REASON FOR THIS. Oh and I can’t update the modules because one drive is using the files constantly.
I had to go online to one drive and delete it from one drive so it syncs the delete to my local machine.
Holy shit that’s idiotic.
i haven’t had this happen, my local files are separate from onedrive, just like in windows 10
I just bought a new computer yesterday and mines isn’t set up like that. That being said, that sounds like a nightmare.
Mine doesn’t do anything like that
I want to keep some of my files locally and not on a cloud service? I dislike how that’s the default location to save stuff to. Finding my local machine is harder than it should be.
Also cost. Eventually when you get used to it or mass adoption happens they will start nickel and diming you to use their service.
I
What do you mean it’s the default location?? It isn’t and never was for me… I have all my documents locally separate from onedrive…
When I attempt to save a file in Excel it automatically defaults to try to save it to one drive.
When I click save as I get to choose between Onedrive and “This PC”, which when clicked defaults to
C:/Users/<Name>/Documents
This is what trying to emulate Apple does to you. Fuck Windows 11.
There’s nothing quite like starting the configuration of a linux distro on top of shiny new hardware.
Just click next next until Ubuntu is installed
And that is absolutely fine. Everyone can hop into Linux with Ubuntu and be up and running and is finally free from Microshit.
But it’s super fun to have all the config files for e.g. hyprland and what not open while adjusting every single microscopic little screw to make your system exactly the way you want.
We are in the minority of minorities my friend lol
I remember being hype about a new version of windows. Like win95 -> win98. Or even win2k. It was insanely nice.
Windows 7 may officially be the last windows release anyone anticipated or liked
7 made me realize MS was getting serious about making a decent OS, 10 was the first version of Windows I was willing to shell out my meager savings for, 11 made me install Linux and I’ll never go back.
Windows 11 has made me feel old.
wtf just popped up, whats it doing
Even on maybe 6 year old hardware and SSD some components like the news and weather, sometimes search just take so long to populate that its a question why anyone would use it, and I often don’t intend to
wheres that setting
Still have control panel and settings, now we get two right click menus! (More options summons the old win10 styled right click context)
Wish I could stick to windows 7, it was comfortable and clean, people got in a tizzy when they decided to report when you logged on to a server. And look im sounding old
Wish I could stick to windows 7
Bring back XP. Win 7 is far better than 10, which is more tolerable than 11, but XP didn’t have any of the multiple settings menu systems.
The two right-click menus are just pain. I can’t imagine the reasoning. It’s a core UX interaction that is used by every user repeatedly throughout the day. There is no excuse for this type of redundant, time-wasting nonsense.
Well the new one is cleaner! But it didnt fit all the options because we forgot how to make dynamic UI elements, so we figured the user would be fine clicking again and just reimplementing the last dynamic UI we had.
But heres a button for our AI product that summons an edge window locked to the side of your screen that provides the same functionality as using it in your browser!
Priorities, I guess!
deleted by creator
There is a reason why I don’t use Windows on devices I own.
This. This is the reason.
I 100% agree with you. On my windows 11 machine, the forced integration is incredibly frustrating. When I’m on my mac, though, OneDrive and all of the other Microsoft applications actually work almost flawlessly. There is no forced integration, only what I choose to integrate.
Microsoft shoving integration down our throats is awful. Having the ability to integrate when we choose to is fantastic.
Group policy settings are your friend…and Windows still messes with those too.
But don’t you dare suggest Linux or else you’ll be an obnoxious zealot. Better to just keep your head down and let Microsoft maintain their monopoly and steadily make the lives of everyone who uses a computer worse.
Maybe 4 years ago I would’ve thought that last line was an exaggeration about win10, but ohhh boy if thats not their goal now I don’t know what is.
Problem with average users its either be fucked in ways that arent apparent until you have to buy a new PC even though your last one was perfect fine, or you fuck yourself up and don’t know how to fix it, let alone to approach the thought of that.
To who I have suggested Linux to, usually they are already familiar but not using it as a daily, I’ve said how installation was smooth and easy, most of the software I need is available or has a nice alternative, some games need light config but there are some that won’t, but it isnt for everyone. If they’re modifying reg keys to make it less annoying, they deserve a less annoying OS, if they don’t give a shit… their loss lol
but it isnt for everyone
Downgrade them to Windows 10 Enterprise and activate with MAS.
MAS
Thank you, most likely what I’ll end up doing
Don’t forget O&OShutup, should be run regularly as well to catch the things Windows Update resets.
Win11 got me to finally get off my ass and switch to Linux… it’s just so invasive, and the way it eats up resources is flat out irresponsible.
Windows 7 was really the last good windows.
Windows 10 was when I switched fully to Linux in my personal life. Windows 11 is far, far worse.
In a work setting, when the admins give it a short leash…it’s bearable. But aside from proprietary software i don’t understand why people choose to use windows.
I don’t think I’m being patronizing here. If anything, it’s the computer that’s being patronizing.
I recently had to spin up a Fedora VM and a Win 11 VM, simultaneously, from ISO. Guess which one required more interaction. Guess which one was quicker from “Boot from CD” to “functional web browser”. Whatever metric you want…clicks, words on the screen (even excluding EULAs to be fairer), pages, time, whatever. Fedora was a much smoother and faster experience
Same here. I think my friends have been expecting me to come crawling back to Windows but not only have I since used the SSD for other Linux projects, I have had no desire to go back to Windows. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with KDE has been a true delight to use and learn Linux with. I smile every time the desktop loads. I use three monitors and KDE handles windows better than Windows ever could. It does it with far more customization options and its features just make sense and feel really useful, all without being forced.
Oh, and all my games run with higher FPS than they did with Windows 11.
I have had to reinstall it twice due to my learning process, but the last reinstall was a while ago and I’ve since learned how to fix problems that I create or the very rare update issues. It’s a very different beast when you’re coming from a lifelong use of Windows.
The desktop was feature complete in 1998. Everything after that was unnecessary complication. I use xfce desktops and it hasn’t changed a bit and I love it.
False. We didn’t have wobbly windows in 1998.
You may not have had them but I sure remember the plastic sheeting keeping the wind at bay!
