Windows 11 still sucks.

[Mæstro]

Why these videos keep referencing Bill Gates rather than Satya Nadella?

My cynical answer is that unscrupulous hacks let LLM draw up most of the script, which they edit to taste. Gates, and to a lesser degree Balmer, have been more prominent in their tenures as individuals, so their names are more likely to appear in the plagiarised corpus. A more innocent answer, but one which still betrays carelessness on the authors’ part, is that many people simply forget that Gates has retired to obsess over genetically modified mosquitoes.

[frostknight]

I am beginning to think that windows not sucking is becoming a regular happening even more than before.

The difference is, its way more than just surveillance issues now

In my opinion, it was:

50% surveilance
30% get viruses easily
the rest is other issues.

This was my experience on windows 7 and 8.

I still question why windows 10 and newer went rolling release style.

Very odd...

[UCyborg]

How do you even get viruses on Windows these days?

[ownedbywuigi]

How do you even get viruses on Windows these days?

Lack of common sense, outdated browser (looking at you, IE and EdgeHTML users...), etc.

[Night Wing]

This will be a little bit of sarcasm. True story though.

I remember when I was using Windows 7. At least two time when I was using it, I got two viruses. Both times the viruses came on Patch Tuesday when Microsoft sent out their "Quality Updates".

Those two particular updates, upon reboot, Windows 7 would no longer boot. To make a long story short, I had to re-install Windows 7 which took a few hours of time.

[Moonchild]

How do you even get viruses on Windows these days?

The same way you get them on any other O.S.: not using common sense when dealing with links and software.

[Moonchild]

Why these videos keep referencing Bill Gates rather than Satya Nadella?

Because there are a shit ton of AI slop videos and thumbnails out there that have latched onto Bill Gates as CEO for Microsoft, and it's been dogfooding itself.
Regardless if Gates hasn't been in that position for a decade now.

[UCyborg]

The same way you get them on any other O.S.: not using common sense when dealing with links and software.

The 'ol problem of explaining common sense to common folk.

Because there are a shit ton of AI slop videos and thumbnails out there that have latched onto Bill Gates as CEO for Microsoft, and it's been dogfooding itself.
Regardless if Gates hasn't been in that position for a decade now.

It's a bit beyond ridiculous at this point.

[nero355]

I wonder if Audigy drivers behave better on 10. The thing with EAX controls in control panel app going kaput if application using Creative OpenAL driver is abruptly terminated. At least that's what happened when trialing on Win11. Though attempting to stop the driver crashed both Windows 11 and XP.

Off-topic:
Funny thing about Audigy Rx on Linux, I had to select DIGITAL output to get sound out off ANALOG port. 🙃

Sound BlasterX AE-5 Plus on the other hand, had to mess with HDAJackRetask to disable jack detection on the headphone port since it always considered nothing plugged in it. And for some reason, there's something strange about how this card sounds on Linux.

Edit: Strange sound is apparently due to some extra processing enabled by default...

NOFI, but you have chosen the worst Soundcard you could have ever chosen since their benefit for mainly (and only) gaming has become ZERO many years ago !!

Creative Labs drivers have always been horrible and these days there is no reason to buy them at all

The usual Onboard RealTek Soundcards are perfectly fine these days and if you are not using one of those for whatever reason then usually the small simple USB Soundcards/Dongles that come with some (Gaming) Headsets are just perfectly fine!



About Windows in general these days :

Even tho Windows 7 could have been improved here and there it will always be the last decent Windows for me.

Everything released after it is just pure crap !!!

The only reason I have a very basic Windows 10 install running is because I needed something that can run all those annoying Electron based applications from Valve/Rockstar Games/etc. that are based on the Chromium Framework which does not support Windows 7 Pro any longer
I call Windows these days "GamingOS" and treat it like Google ChromeOS : Something wrong/Not working properly anymore = REINSTALL!!!

But since it has gone EOL and there are no longer any annoying Windows Updates that could break it I am sure it won't come that far anymore

[UCyborg]

Off-topic:
I got SB Audigy Rx just so I finally have the card that does EAX (even if doesn't support the latest 5.0 version...). If I wasn't oblivious to sound aspect, I would probably have gotten some SB X-Fi model back when this PC was new. Audigy Rx was just easiest to get in 2020s. EAX does sound better in some games with it than software solutions. CMSS-3D for spatial sound over headphones could be better though. Heh, putting own music in GTA: San Andreas for which you know how it should sound, CMSS-3D muffles it too much. Though you can still get 3D surround effect by wrapping to OpenAL Soft (which you have to configure right) without as much negative impact on the music.

In other aspects, Sound BlasterX AE-5 is better hardware-wise. Drivers are different for this one and don't carry legacy baggage of Audigy and X-Fi lines. My onboard VIA is part of the motherboard that only cost about 70€. I noticed putting volume on this one to 100% does produce audible artifacts.

Welp, these are what I have currently to play with.

[nero355]

[offtopicso I finally have the card that does EAX (even if doesn't support the latest 5.0 version...).[/offtopic]

Off-topic:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environme ... evelopment
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAL

For more fun :
- https://duckduckgo.com/?q=eax+audio
- https://duckduckgo.com/?q=eax+audio+is+dead

But you do you!

Off-topic:
My onboard VIA is part of the motherboard that only cost about 70€. I noticed putting volume on this one to 100% does produce audible artifacts.

Off-topic:
Cheap Motherboard = Cheap OnBoard Sound Chip = Bad Sound to Noise Ratio

So that makes sense more or less...

[UCyborg]

Off-topic:
^Aye, that was my drift about cheap motherboard. But I also didn't have any special headphones for the long time. Things are better now, although there are people out there that can perceive the differences better.

As for EAX, I'm aware, but old games aren't going anywhere.

[Gemmaugr]

Well, this just happened: https://alternativeto.net/news/2026/4/m ... -software/

I wonder what it means.

[Night Wing]

@ Gemmaugr

In the link to the article you posted, I will quote one sentence which is below.

Hanselman further said that the account terminations were due to a verification email that was ignored (not received?) by the concerned developers, leading to this issue.

Ignored or since Microsoft has no love for linux, from my time working in the maritime industry; "a shot across the bow".

[xode0000]

"...Microsoft is really failing its user base right now. They have 2 more years to get their act together so here's hoping..."

Microsoft still hasn't got its act together as of 14 April 2026: https://www.zdnet.com/article/i-ditched-linux-for-windows-11-for-one-week-and-found-9-big-problems/

The taste of xubuntu 22.04 with some custom bash script enhancements far and way is superior to even Windows 7 or Windows XP, and it's good for updates up to 2032.

[Moonchild]

If I ditched windows for a week to use xubuntu 22.04 I'm 100% sure I'd find more than 9 big problems with it. Let's not focus on comparing the two as if one is objectively better than the other because that's a discussion without end.

[frostknight]

If I ditched windows for a week to use xubuntu 22.04 I'm 100% sure I'd find more than 9 big problems with it. Let's not focus on comparing the two as if one is objectively better than the other because that's a discussion without end.

What problems would you find?

I know windows has the best third party support for applications of all operating systems, but what else? I imagine you can think of eight other problems besides that...

I on the other hand, only see that one problem.

besides windows application compatibility, I see nothing else.

[Moonchild]

My dude... If I go down to the level of "big problems" that article looks at (e.g. picking a random mail app from the app store and calling its operation a big problem... which isn't even part of the O.S.) I'll easily find dozens of them. I'm not going to spend my time installing Linux as a daily OS for a week and making an extensive report. I have much better things to do.
And, like I said in my previous post, let's not focus on this.

The article otherwise highlights some of the well-known problems with Windows 11 (MS cloud integration push, offline/local accounts, ads in the start panel) and it does seem that the tester was not using a normal out of the box experience with Windows 11 in some of the other issues it showed (defender off, passkeys not working, etc.) so it most definitely was a biased article to say the least.

[frostknight]

My dude... If I go down to the level of "big problems" that article looks at (e.g. picking a random mail app from the app store and calling its operation a big problem... which isn't even part of the O.S.) I'll easily find dozens of them. I'm not going to spend my time installing Linux as a daily OS for a week and making an extensive report. I have much better things to do.
And, like I said in my previous post, let's not focus on this.

Fair enough, I was just curious is all. If you want to enlighten me with the list ever, you know where to find me/contact me.

I just thought you would have remembered some of the problems you encountered is all.

Anyways, have a good one

[Mæstro]

To stop this thread spiralling into the Linux debate again, I would like to propose a hypothetical question for anybody interested. If Microsoft were to burn down tomorrow, how would you personally notice? Probably, I would only feel it inasmuch as random websites I attempt to visit happen to depend on Microsoft’s VPS and therefore appear as down, rather like the times when Cloudflare is stormy. Beyond that, I struggle to think of any way I would know unless I happen to read it in the newspaper one day. The global outage a year or two ago did not affect me in the least.