Windows 11 still sucks.

[Night Wing]

It's not as much about learning Linux rather than Linux way of doing things being alien to me and things you take for granted on Windows not working or not working as expected. I've been following Linux for half my life now and it just doesn't click with me. It's not for everyone.

Exception being some very specific tasks, but those are not every day things and I'm fine with dual booting for those.

I think anyone who is not a power user in Windows, someone like me, it is easier for them to transition to Linux from Windows. We are not ingrained or in love with the Windows operating system.

I used Windows 98 SE, Windows XP and Windows 7. In these versions of Windows, there is a Terminal in Windows. But in all three versions I used, I "never" used the Terminal in Windows.

And I doubt the "mom and pop" types never used the Terminal in Windows either. And I think I can safely say, the "mom and pops" types never knew there was a Terminal program in Windows.

You say doing things in Linux is alien to you. Good point because that is true. But since you say you do dual booting, I am assuming you have two hard drives in your computer. If so, one of your hard drives has a linux distro installed on it.

Unless you are using one hard drive and make a folder with a linux distro installation in it. In other words, a virtual machine where you have the "best of both worlds" (Windows and Linux).

Now for a hypothetical scenario.

The owner of the computer shop where I volunteer at, has a friend who retired from Microsoft. This guy told the owner Microsoft keeps doing things which Microsoft wants and then listens to all the users of Windows to see what they will do or not do. Like many of them in the majority; they rant, scream, holler stamp their feet, threaten to leave Windows, etc; but they never do.

Microsoft has learned MS can put a "circular ring in these people noses, attach a leash to the ring" and lead these people around to where Microsoft wants them to go. The guy above said lot of the higher ups in Microsoft say; for all of their hollow threats, these people will essentially "bend over, grab their ankles and take it' meaning they will continue to use Windows because these people are familiar with how Windows "works".

With the above said, lets say Windows 12 comes out and it is fully subscription based. Which means you will pay a yearly fee to use (rent) the Windows 12 operating system, pay a yearly fee (rent) to use their Office program, pay a fee (rent) to use any program in the Microsoft Store, etc.

If people refuse to pay it, then Microsoft can send an update where Windows will not work or cut off your use of a program in the Microsoft store. People like me call that being "nickel and dimed to death".

I am going to ask you how much money would you spend and keep spending, to keep using Windows because "you are more comfortable" using Windows than doing things in Linux which you consider alien to you?

Bottom line. Money talks. It just depends on how much economic pain you want to endure before you will admit and say, "enough and no more".

When Windows 8 was released, as I have stated in numerous posts, that was my journey to the world of linux distros. My daily driver was linux Mint back in January of 2013. I dual booted Windows 7 and Mint from then on. When I turned on my desktop tower, it booted straight to the default drive which was Windows 7.

But in January of 2014, I was using Mint about 90% of the time so I went into the BIOS and and changed the boot order to where when I turned on my computer, it went straight to the default drive which was now Mint.

Around August of 2016, I think that was when Windows came up with those Cumulative and Quality Rollups updates. For me, there was nothing "quality"about Windows updates. With Microsoft's penchant for breaking something with their so called quality updates, I had the "plan for the worst and hope for the best" feelings which made me cringe when I saw those updates. That was when I said, "enough".

I then formatted the Windows 7 hard drive and put another Mint installation on it. This gave me two Mint drives and they were a mirror image of one another. So literally, when it came to the Windows operating system, I "burned all of my bridges behind me" and never looked back.

[UCyborg]

3 disks, though one was only ever used for data and after the latter developed bad sectors, I figured 3 internal disks are a bit overkill for me, so I didn't replace the broken one, decided stuff not accessed often might be better off on external disk not powered as often.

Total 4 operating systems on the other 2 disks, each on its own dedicated partition. I generally prefer to stick to one that does most things though.

I imagine it will be a while before things stop launching on current 10 or 11. And even then, it might be worth inspecting if latest or greatest version of any particular program is really needed.

Can't say what the future holds. Maybe we'll just keep using workarounds to keep things somewhat sane on future Windows versions. This PC is definitely not ever seeing Windows 12, unless anomaly happens in Windows development. There was one such version that seemed less demanding (hardware) in practice than its predecessor, it was Windows 8.

No idea what to say regarding possibility of Windows becoming subscription based, but I said on the other forum there might come a time when might as well just stick to smartphone alone.

[Night Wing]

As for the shop I volunteer at, there are a lot of young people, under the age of 30, who are not happy with Windows 11. But they "hold their nose and grudgingly" use it.

Games has always been strickly the realm of Windows. But that is changing. Slowyly, but it is changing.

We have three "gamers" who frequent our shop and have come on over to the Dark Side of Linux for their gaming computers. These gamers are using two linux distros which are basically "linux distros geared to Games".

Those two distros are:

1) CachyOS
2) Bazzite

I think these two distros will eventually "eat" into the Windows operating system market share whether it will be Windows 11 or the "supposedly" future Windows 12.

Someone on this site mentioned he thought linux market share would top out at round 5%. I think with gaming coming more to Linux, it will be around 7%. Just my opinion from what I hear around the web and on what I've see on YouTube.

But again, in my opinion, I see a bright future for Linux compared with the future of Windows in the "retail" market. Not Enterprise where Windows will reign supreme for many, many years.

But in servers, I think most Enterprise servers belong to Linux. Specifically Debian and Red Hat.

[UCyborg]

MS has definitely gone crazy, maybe it will be the nail in their coffin, though historically, the year of Linux desktop remained an internet meme, despite the numerous flops.

My fairly recent experience with Linux was, when Cloudflare tended to lockup Pale Moon, I had to use reset button because the system was completely unresponsive. Then it didn't boot anymore, had to use live USB to run e2fsck on the partition.

So I remain pessimistic about viability of Linux. Poor support for older GPUs doesn't help either.

[Night Wing]

So I remain pessimistic about viability of Linux. Poor support for older GPUs doesn't help either.

You say you are pessimistic about the viability of Linux. This is where you and digress. I am on the opposite feeling. I think Linux has a great future for it. Why do I say that?

I've got two very old HP, 14" laptop computers. The first laptop model is a dv4-5113cl which was built around 2010 and it came with 64 bit Windows 7 Home with 16 GB of memory. It is installed with an Intel i5 processor with a processor speed of (2.50).

The second laptop is a dv4-5213cl model which was built around late 2012 and it came with with 64 bit (ugh!) (cough, cough) Windows 8 Home. It also has an Intel i5 processor in it with a process speed of, I think, (2.66). And it also has 16 GB of memory.

Both of these laptops are both running, at the time of this post, 64 bit MX Linux 23.6 (Libretto) Xfce. So both of these laptops are dinosaurs by Windows standards GPU wise. But they are not extinct because both of them "still roam the earth" since they both run MX Linux.

And I will put 64 bit MX Linux 25 (Infinity) Xfce, when it is released, on those two laptops and hope they install and work.

[Night Wing]

Myself and the owner of the computer repair shop where I volunteer at, we went down to his shop to do a little "experiment". We wanted to see if we could un-install Recall in Windows 11 and make the un-installation permanent.

We have a few computers down at the shop loaded with various operating systems and linux distros for learning purposes. We had one which already had Windows 11 (Retail) installed on it. Not Enterprise used strictly for business. We went through the motions to un-install Recall.

Short story, Recall "cannot" be un-installed. It might have been once before, but now no more. As far as we know, Recall can be disabled, but we suspect when MS sends an update to Windows 11 and if Recall is disabled, we think Recall will be enabled again.

So if you are using Windows 11 and it is not the Enterprise one used strictly for businesses; if you have Recall disabled, when the next round of updates for 11 is released for your computer, you need to check if Recall has been enabled again.

[Moonchild]

So if you are using Windows 11 and it is not the Enterprise one used strictly for businesses; if you have Recall disabled, when the next round of updates for 11 is released for your computer, you need to check if Recall has been enabled again.

More likely you will be presented with a nondescript dialog box that you may have to use some non-intuitive way to close to not "agree" to it being re-enabled.

I don't really think recall is the worst part of Windows 11, though. It's fun to speculate about it, of course.

[UCyborg]

Nice thing about Windows, it takes a while before signs of obsolescence start showing. I noticed with Win10, they started rapidly updating WDDM. Maybe it effects newer AAA games a bit.

Current installations should still last couple of years before Win32 API errors start popping up. Can't be more specific, knowing only tiny portion of software. Microsoft's own programs are likely to be the first requiring bells and whistles.

Then, who knows. If we're even still alive by then.

Good amount of programs I have work on Windows 7, then some want Win10, some others still work down to (immortal) Windows XP.

[Mæstro]

Good amount of programs I have work on Windows 7, then some want Win10, some others still work down to (immortal) Windows XP.

Immortal is the perfect word for XP. I find myself in the happy place where I could, in principle, revert to Windows XP or even 2000 without mishap. The biggest changes would relate, perhaps unsurprisingly, to networking. Reconfiguring my VPN or using an older version, which might have been required anyway had I chosen to continue using Windows 7 a few more years, would be the most involved task, and I would need substitute Roytam’s fork for Pale Moon proper and keep to an older version of Pidgin, but I could carry on as normal.

I actually slightly preferred XP to 7. I was content to use 7 for most of a decade beginning in late 2010, interrupted by a return to XP for several months in 2012, but some of those changes which 7 (or Vista) introduced and were apparent to me were for the worse. I disliked Office 2010, Paint and Wordpad’s ribbons for inconsistency with other interfaces, even if the new Paint was much more powerful than the old. Libraries tended to steal my files and deposit them in mysterious directories. On the other hand, the snipping tool and the new search were genuine improvements, as well as the ability to cap CPU usage in the power settings: a feature which I have never quite been able to replicate even in Linux. It is safest for me to use Linux online this decade, but if my security were guaranteed, I would be happy to revert to any of the OS I have regularly used in the past. I am no loyalist.

[UCyborg]

Off-topic:
I used to memorize product key of Windows XP my family bought back in the day. I also knew a cheat in XP version of Minesweeper that shows if there's a mine under a particular square when you hover over it with the mouse.

It seems there's always something better AND something worse in newer Windows versions. And people differ in how much some specific feature means to them. You can never make everyone happy.

I disliked Office 2010, Paint and Wordpad’s ribbons for inconsistency with other interfaces, even if the new Paint was much more powerful than the old.

Off-topic:
I remember using some program that added back classic menus in Office. Though these days, I'm not sure I could say they are that terrible.

Libraries tended to steal my files and deposit them in mysterious directories.

Off-topic:
I figured it's one of those features I rather not touch and keep it simple. There isn't anything that could help keep my mess organized...

I remember HomeGroups being one of those funny features that were good on paper, but in practice only worked properly if all stars aligned in a certain way.

Understanding file shares / their permissions combined with NTFS permissions was more rewarding in the end.

as well as the ability to cap CPU usage in the power settings: a feature which I have never quite been able to replicate even in Linux.

Off-topic:
I only learned this year CPU power management was supported to some extent on XP with all the right drivers, but it wasn't proper until Vista it seems. No idea if it works any better on Intel platforms, but switching frequencies depending on CPU load makes things super laggy on XP on my computer. Not having auto dynamic scaling and putting CPU manually in lower power state with the right program is OK.

[moonbat]

Libraries tended to steal my files and deposit them in mysterious directories.

How?
They just allowed you to group together multiple different locations other than the default Documents/Music/Pictures under those categories so you could get a unified view. When I ran 7, I had 3 locations for my MP3 collection and 4 for my movies, across removable USB drives. When connected, they would show up under the relevant library. Were you using it differently?

[Mæstro]

I only learned this year CPU power management was supported to some extent on XP with all the right drivers, but it wasn't proper until Vista it seems. No idea if it works any better on Intel platforms, but switching frequencies depending on CPU load makes things super laggy on XP on my computer. Not having auto dynamic scaling and putting CPU manually in lower power state with the right program is OK.

Would you have anywhere to read more about XP’s CPU power management abilities? Relevant online discussions and what I could glean from available XP power setting screenshots suggested no firm ability to limit total CPU usage to half existed.

How?
They just allowed you to group together multiple different locations other than the default Documents/Music/Pictures under those categories so you could get a unified view. When I ran 7, I had 3 locations for my MP3 collection and 4 for my movies, across removable USB drives. When connected, they would show up under the relevant library. Were you using it differently?

I recall that it had somehow become the default to save files direct to the appropriate library instead of My Documents (Pictures, etc), and this would happen again after a while even if the default directory was changed. At the time, I did not regularly use USB except, on rare occasions, for transferring individual files which I would need at school (eg a slideshow I was to present). I did not understand the purpose of libraries at all, saw no need for them (I never organised my files much beyond the default locations, and they struck me as redundant counterparts of My Documents etc) and eventually learnt how to disable them altogether.

[UCyborg]

Would you have anywhere to read more about XP’s CPU power management abilities? Relevant online discussions and what I could glean from available XP power setting screenshots suggested no firm ability to limit total CPU usage to half existed.

Off-topic:
I got pointed to this on another forum. So dynamic frequency scaling at best. Maybe with the laptop, you can have it running constantly at lower frequency with the right power plan, but other than that, the only potential option might be specialized program that can work with your CPU, if you can find it, eg. PhenomMsrTweaker.

[Moonchild]

And.. funnily enough, even a retired Microsoft systems engineer (Dave Plummer) actually completely agrees with the issues (specific to Windows 11 mostly):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTpA5jt1g60

[mr tribute]

I'm not here to defend Microsoft or Windows, but I think you can disable the new Windows 11 stuff just by using Rufus to create the bootable USB:
https://www.howtogeek.com/heres-the-eas ... quirement/

Windows 10 was already a mess so I don't really understand why people are upset about Windows 11. Aside from lack of privacy and Windows Update I don't see anything that is fundamentally wrong with Windows 10/11. Apple, Google and Microsoft are all the same when it comes to (lack of) privacy. No escaping that.

Statcounter currently has the Windows base roughly as follows:

Windows 11: 50 %
Windows 10: 40 %
Windows 7: 10 %

I have used Windows 11 for a long time (multiple PCs) and never seen Recall. Isn't that experimental or a US thing only?

[UCyborg]

Dave Plummer also made some videos in the past about certain Win11 aspects.

I've read Recall has specific system requirements.

[UCyborg]

Windows 10 was already a mess so I don't really understand why people are upset about Windows 11.

It's a bigger mess!

[Moonchild]

Windows 10 was already a mess so I don't really understand why people are upset about Windows 11.

It took what was still workable (especially after the unmitigated disaster of Win 8) and made it unworkable long-term.
Win 10 can still be used as a daily driver without it getting in your way, becoming unstable, or causing risks of unwanted exfiltration of data. Win 11 can't. It's actually as simple as that.

Sure, Win 10 wasn't ideal, but I already saw early on that even if it unnecessarily killed a lot of the intuitiveness and elegance of Windows 7, it was at least possible to work with without (too much) frustration. As a compromise, it was acceptable. What Win 11 asks is no longer an acceptable compromise.

[frostknight]

Sure, Win 10 wasn't ideal, but I already saw early on that even if it unnecessarily killed a lot of the intuitiveness and elegance of Windows 7, it was at least possible to work with without (too much) frustration. As a compromise, it was acceptable. What Win 11 asks is no longer an acceptable compromise.

When even a die hard windows fan like yourself is against a windows version, microsoft is in danger of losing some people.

I am sure they don't care though as long as most of their users stay though and feed them.

But yeah... I see this