Windows 11 still sucks.

[UCyborg]

Off-topic:
I have a Debian VMware virtual machine on work laptop with KDE. open-vm-tools is installed for integration with VMware. Wayland is chosen by default if you don't change it, quite laggy compared to X11 in this environment, not even mouse integration works.

[frostknight]

Off-topic:
I have a Debian VMware virtual machine on work laptop with KDE. open-vm-tools is installed for integration with VMware. Wayland is chosen by default if you don't change it, quite laggy compared to X11 in this environment, not even mouse integration works.

Off-topic:
Screw wayland, its just a piece of big tech crap

[chrisriley+3000]

I can say one positive thing about Windows 11. It helps keep your PC for getting constant security and regular updates. It runs pretty smoothly, that's 2 positive things about it. How's Windows 11 going for you guys?

[Mæstro]

Pretty smoothly?

Windows 11 is so annoying sometimes… [My mother] said when she takes screenshots, the pictures sometimes vanish. She can't copy and paste videos on Instagram or Twitter. And it runs more updates than Windows 10…

For all our sakes, please do not publicly try to delude yourself into thinking that Windows 11 is acceptable. Extended security updates for Windows 10 will continue to exist, if you know where to look, for some years to come. There are security tips in this board advising those who, like the webmaster, have chosen to stick with Windows 10; I know you know about this thread. As somebody who has avoided all Windows versions since 2012, I should answer your question by saying I just get to watch the circus. I like the fair!

[UCyborg]

Clunkier and a bit buggier. My old PC doesn't run anything beyond Win11 23H2. I suppose extra buttons for window positioning that appear when hovering over maximize/restore buttons can be useful. Interestingly, moving windows across monitors with keyboard shortcut doesn't preserve their relative positioning unlike on 10 (at least can confirm up-to 20H2), if it was centered on one monitor, it may not be when moved to another, at least the case here where second monitor is smaller.

Granted, I haven't run Windows as-is in a long time, 3rd party shell tweaking programs are a must, OpenShell, ExplorerPatcher, OldNewExplorer, QTTabBar. In recent months, I got to know about Clink to make Command Prompt better. I disable some scheduled tasks that don't seem needed, so there's a bit less going on the background, though Windows in recent decade is stubborn and some things just run. Or services that get re-enabled on their own. Maybe you can prevent some of these by tweaking permissions, but I haven't felt like experimenting deeper to confirm the effectiveness.

There are people going out of their way to slim the OS with NTLite, but, they never explain anything and I prefer not to break things since I'm not too enlightened on the purpose of all random components. Regardless, it's usable despite the old CPU (AMD Phenom II X4 920) and 7200 RPM HDD. This PC was on the more affordable side while still handling games for its time relatively well. It's slower for things to load initially on HDD and Explorer on Win11 is just ugly, they keep bloating it, changing libraries in the background or I don't know what the hell they're doing, but there is a delay when opening folders. And ever since Windows 8.1, enumerating files and folders for counting their disk space usage, has been slowed down significantly compared to Windows 8 and earlier, that can be seen opening big folder's properties and observing the time it takes.

Most effort I've put towards getting newer Windows to my liking is Windows 7 like theme. Hey, it's the only theme that's wow to me. I like the one made by sagorpirbd (technically, it does re-use compatible Win7 resources), but hasn't been updated in ages. I have my own version made by changing Win11 RTM's aero.msstyles that works fine from Win10 1809 towards Win11 RTM. I've replaced the theme atlas image dealing with window frame with a bit clearer version posted by someone years ago on MSFN forum. I did some minor work on improving some other random images. But really, would need an artist or at least good AI upscaling to get images to more proper quality to support high DPI settings. Mostly the ones that Win7 supported for higher DPI are good, but Win10's DPI can go higher than Win7 can. So I haven't felt like the theme was worth publishing in its state. That's my curse, starting things and never finishing them. It's mundane work, transplanting images around from one theme to another, you end up with dozens of images in a folder.

Some would go and replace icons as well, buuut, that's too much bother. Though that part is supposedly easier these days compared to Win7 as Microsoft decoupled icons from system DLLs and put them in separate resource files. I believe they're in C:\Windows\SystemResources.

There's at least one program dedicated towards theming, may be more flexible compatibility wise, but native themes, while prone to breakage with newer Windows versions and require to be re-created for newer version, only need small DLL (SecureUxTheme) to disable requirement for the theme to be signed by Microsoft for the OS to load it.

There was the time when I was undecided whether updating OS was better than not updating, but with time and due to updating occasionally going wrong, I prefer to not update. I update when I change the entire OS build, when I may add the latest updates to the installation medium, then install the updated OS. Most people don't know if specific patches will even effect them and how. All they ever hear is propaganda they'll be hacked if they don't update every 5 min. I feel more at peace knowing that the OS I booted today is the same as the one I booted yesterday. I know things in software will never be perfect and it's a wonder things run at all. It's a double edged sword, sometimes things improve, other times they regress, other times things are left behind because updating something in a way that would also clean up old residues not needed anymore after changing something in significant way is too much bother.

[Mæstro]

While on the topic of theming newer Windows versions to look like older ones, I discovered today by accident in my virtual machine that setting Windows XP to 256-colour mode resurrects the Windows 95–2000 icons. Those of you who hate Luna and Aero, this is for you.

[frostknight]

While on the topic of theming newer Windows versions to look like older ones, I discovered today by accident in my virtual machine that setting Windows XP to 256-colour mode resurrects the Windows 95–2000 icons. Those of you who hate Luna and Aero, this is for you.

Interesting... I was unaware.

I would probably use this for vms now though, this info if needed.

[UCyborg]

Wasn't there a checkbox Show icons in all possible colors somewhere? Or something like that.

[moonbat]

For Windows 7, there was a performance and visual effects section in system settings where you could turn off aero effects. Don't recall if this would revert the UI to classic the way you could in XP.

[Mæstro]

Don't recall if this would revert the UI to classic the way you could in XP.

The windows, controls and taskbar would revert to how they had been in Windows 2000, but the start menu and icons would remain like Aero. The cursor could also be changed separately. Returning to the XX^th century menu would require something like Classic Shell. I never experimented with low-colour modes last decade, but I recall the old icons being buried among the available choices for setting shortcut icons, so it might have produced them then.

[UCyborg]

The section is still there in Win11.

“Adjust visual effects for best performance” should really be called “Adjust visual effects for crappiest appearance”

There's a checkbox for Aero transparency alone somewhere on Personalization page in Control Panel on Win7.

Aero basic theme on Win7 is rendered with composition disabled, that's one step before classic theme. I remember playing with the program whose name I don't recall that forces Aero basic window frames on Win10. If you prevent the running program from accessing shared theme memory section on Win10, it would fallback to classic style. The difference from Win7 is that these would still be rendered with compositor.

[UCyborg]

Off-topic:

While on the topic of theming newer Windows versions to look like older ones, I discovered today by accident in my virtual machine that setting Windows XP to 256-colour mode resurrects the Windows 95–2000 icons.

Out of curiosity, if you don't mind me asking, what do you even do on that VM these days? I have one such VM with a lot of junk on it, related to hacking old games. Even though the old Visual C++ 6.0 works fine on Win10 (it's possible to just copy installation folder and run it as-is, no worrying about old installers leaving a mess). I haven't used it in several years; some day, I should recover what's useful and then clean it up, those snapshots waste many gigabytes, seems I was messing with other random things for them to accumulate. Probably having a container was the only real reason to have that VM rather than something about XP specifically.

There's also an installation of XP x64 I have on bare hardware (XP proper IMHO). This one, most of it was messing with web browsers.^* And some other basic programs installed like 7-Zip (can't have 7-Zip-ZStandard on XP), Hex Workshop, Notepad++, AIMP, PotPlayer, IrfanView. Oddly, have Office 2010 there too, though I haven't really needed Office ever since leaving school.

Missing on the EAX era and wanting to hear what's it about, I got my hands on brand new Creative Sound Blaster Audigy Rx sound cad some time back (the only such card easily obtainable - I'm a sceptic when it comes to used goods). On XP x64, hardware DirectSound acceleration and EAX refuse to work, though some people with X-Fi cards managed to get it working by restricting OS to 4 GB of RAM. These features work through OpenAL on XP x64 regardless. Interestingly, 100% volume is louder on XP than on newer ones. Makes you wonder what's an actual 100%.

32-bit XP works for these, but it's flaky in other ways. For some reason, with offical NVIDIA AHCI driver for my SATA controller, it just bluescreens. Oddly, some hackery involving backported Microsoft's driver from later Windows works, though this one has issues on newer versions related to power transitions, which are better avoided entirely on XP...

^*But, font rendering is just disgusting. If I'm honest, they all suck.

My experience in general has been that most things XP (still) does, 10 does better.

[Mæstro]

Out of curiosity, if you don't mind me asking, what do you even do on that VM these days?

Quite a bit, in fact!
From time to time, I have said that I could return to XP or even 2000 without feeling any real pain. This is not hyperbolic. Using a virtual machine is easier for me than hitting Wine until software works, and I can better control RAM usage and processor temperature. Among the tasks for which I use it:

• Reference. The 2006 DVD edition of Encyclopædia Britannica was my birthday gift to myself last year. For many years, i have relied on the web version, but after the Farlex Cloudflare scare, the wisdom of an offline edition was evident. (I also own the 1962 edition in print in my other home, but it is a trifle harder to access 6000 km away. Call me a slave to convenience.) Most articles, of course excepting those about events or discoveries of the last twenty years, are present and substantially identical between live and preserved versions, and when there are disparities, it is easier for me to note them. For example, only the live article on astronomy mentions that Zwicky proposed tired light as an alternative to the expanding universe, and only the live site has the article hoax. The last offline edition of EB is the 2015 one, which neither runs in XP nor has a free serial code. I have also got the 2004 British edition of Encarta, and actually use it as an ordinary reference, not for the nostalgia value.
• Browsing. That XP fork of Pale Moon from Hong Kong is invaluable here. No Linux version of Shockwave ever existed, so this is the only way I can access live applets. I also think Arial looks prettier as displayed in XP than on 7 or modern Linux.
• Games. This is hardly surprising, minding that I stopped paying any attention to computer games as something to play, as opposed to objects of literary or aesthetic merit or to discuss principles of game design in the abstract, near the end of XP’s supported era. (Extra Credits is largely to thank for this development.) Games I have already played for more than a few hours in it include Fate (2005), which is a simple Diablo clone, and the venerable Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri (1999). When I am in my other home, where I keep my physical discs, Civilization Ⅲ and Ⅳ (including Colonization) and World of Goo (2008), all games from my own childhood which I should enjoy again in their own right, can be added to that list.
• Visual novels. These are not games, so deserve their own category. I have tested some old patching instructions for the edition of Planetarian which I own physically in the machine, and got it to run smoother than it did applying the same instructions in W7. I have yet to test certain other features in the unpatched Japanese I am curious about, but this should come sometime weeks from now, for I am already busy with academic and personal affairs now (moving out of my flat and helping friends leave Discord). All my visual novels should run in 2000+, so reading through them again, and exploring other visual novels sounds fun.
• Writing. WordPad or Office 2003/XP seems more pleasant an interface in which to work than the current version of LibreOffice. Many of the auxiliary features embedded in the older Office versions would be nice to access again. I plan to do a good deal of creative writing once my workload eases.
• Watching. In 2019, a video website which had existed unchanged since 2005 shut down, and I had gone to the manual effort of saving several gigabytes of its material for posterity. All of this reel is in 240p and the contemporary Windows-based file types, for which I have been able to find codecs in my current Debian installation, but which are likely someday to be abandoned. The same can likely be said of my Flash file collection, as Linux developers have been content to let it fail as time passes.

In short, I can use it for ordinary purposes, as if I were an adult twenty years ago.

My experience in general has been that most things XP (still) does, 10 does better.

There are a few ways working in XP is a bit more awkward than working in Linux or I remember 7 to have been, although I suspect that is simply because I have been here for five years now, and I have forgotten all the minor headaches in administrative tasks in 7. I never poke about in /usr on my own, but (un)installing files in Windows feels like an awkward blend of running from a tarball and installing from a repository, with the added need for caution because of how Windows treats registry entries. Software sometimes fails to work in XP despite nominally being supported and following the instructions, but that sometimes happens to me in my Linux life also.

Familiarity and the fact that computers are weird seem more important here. I have never interacted with W10 more than casually, for periods of up to a week in intervals years apart, so i cannot attest to its ease of use. Likewise, I have never used W11 at all. Friends who use younger systems, especially W11 and smartphones, speak often of a ‘convenience’ in their IT lives I have simply never experienced. Even the mobile OS I tried in the tens were just as finicky. For me, computers have always been stable for tasks known to work, but expanding their abilities has always been a complex, possibly treacherous affair. What is the man on the Clapham omnibus even doing on Windows 11 these days?

[UCyborg]

I'd say 7 if this was said 10 years ago, but I find 7 a bit rusty at this point.

Windows 11 may still suck, but I don't think there's an alternative to modern NT for me from what I've seen.

[Mæstro]

I was content to stay with 7 as long as it remained in support, even if I had disabled installing updates half that time. If I knew more a decade ago, I could have installed all the security updates, including ESU, while discarding the Windows 10 nagging and telemetric ones, into the last few years. But I have come to no hurt for failing to update my computer back then, so it no longer matters.

My casual uses of Windows 10 never even hinted that it was at all different to 7 in any essential way but appearance and telemetry. Since then, I have heard vaguely about kernel extensions to 7 which help it agree better with software compiled exclusively for 10. The only such software I have ever run myself was a single visual novel, Harmonia (2016), which was devoid of technical features actually requiring 10. After completing that story and finding it underwhelming, I installed Mint for the first time into that computer.

[UCyborg]

There are quite some differences (good and bad), though not sure if I should go into them (again), I probably already sound like a broken record.

[Moonchild]

Leaving aside the various levels of good and bad of other Windows versions, I still severely struggle to see what Windows 11, even years after it was first RTM, brings to the table that is a real upgrade over Windows 10. I mean at its core, beyond what is personal preference for how things look. All I've seen so far is steps backwards in usability and general (functional) UI design, while at the same time imposing a more "always-on" and "always-online" computing environment that makes a personal computer less personal, and in a number of cases makes it even completely unusable outside of the always-online environment (think logging in with MS account being tied to unlocking access to your drive/files, etc.).

[Falna]

Windows 11 Pro came with my latest laptop and I've not found it to be any worse - nor any better - than Windows 10 Pro, but use it without an account and with Start11 to replace the default menu & task bar, while the Pro version means that I can (and always do) delay updates.

However, I'm not happy with MS's direction of travel and would choose to move elsewhere if I didn't need several specialist Windows-only software packages. FWIW I've run Linux on other machines for years, though that has it's problems too.

imposing a more "always-on" and "always-online" computing environment that makes a personal computer less personal, and in a number of cases makes it even completely unusable outside of the always-online environment (think logging in with MS account being tied to unlocking access to your drive/files, etc.).

I've not yet found the absence of an account to be any problem at all though, from what I've read, I would agree that there are real dangers in using one.

[Mæstro]

All I've seen so far is…imposing a more "always-on" and "always-online" computing environment that makes a personal computer less personal, and in a number of cases makes it even completely unusable outside of the always-online environment (think logging in with MS account being tied to unlocking access to your drive/files, etc.).

This has already happened with Windows 10 for me. It would outright ignore that certain connexions were metered and trying to download updates despite that, exhausting a monthly data cap in the process. This is one of the many reasons I am categorically opposed to forced updates. However much I hear about 10 and 11 in contrast, for me, it has always been a distinction without a difference.

The abundance of unambitious software which happens to have been compiled to require younger OS (as well as DRM-bound games etc) obscures any genuine technical advances the younger systems offer. Even the starkest differences can be lost on me: I can appreciate the abstract difference between 32- and 64-bit, but because my computer lags or freezes if over 4 GB store are committed, it changes nothing.

However, I'm not happy with MS's direction of travel and would choose to move elsewhere if I didn't need several specialist Windows-only software packages.

My recent XP experiences have taught me that virtualisation is far more powerful than supposed. If only I could test Clip Studio Paint in one for my artist friend…

[UCyborg]

The abundance of unambitious software which happens to have been compiled to require younger OS

Backwards compatibility does require some conscious effort. Programming languages also keep changing. Having certain OCD tendencies, it kinda bugs me how much time you could spend just rewriting things in a prettier syntax, that may, depending on the language and toolchain, break backwards compatibility.

And since you went over to the dark side, it's Linux where it's been the norm for a long time where using younger gcc compiler will restrict the program to the contemporary minimum distro version. Most Linuxes dropped x86 way before Windows went exclusively x64. Even though using PAE on Linux does not impose classic 32-bit 4 GB RAM limit, unlike Windows where it has been restricted since XP SP2 (if my memory is right...) due to buggy drivers. Though I wonder how many sinners were really out there besides Creative. The company behind infamous Sound Blaster brand, which these days seems to be taking desperate measures to avoid bankruptcy.

Though this whole 32-bit vs. 64-bit phenomenon is strange, I guess due to culture differences between two systems. The architecture is over 20 years old now and yet, we still discuss x86 vs x86_64.

Can you elaborate in more detail regarding your issue over 4 GB?