Leaks confirm low takeup for Windows 11

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 385 points – Leaks confirm low takeup for Windows 11
theregister.com

Leaks confirm low takeup for Windows 11::Time to rethink Windows 10 support cycle then?

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No shit...people don't want more ads and normal features hidden behind 12 new windows/tabs..

Stop fucking with the os and maybe people will want to continue with it .

Yeah, they neglected to mention ads once in that article. I'm pretty sure that's the reason why no one wants it. I uninstalled it after like 20 minutes upon seeing the ridiculous amount of ads on a fresh install.

Yeah I don't understand how there's a whole article of "no one is using it" and the author then states "it's OK, there's nothing wrong with it".

If there's nothing wrong with it, why is no one using it?

Maybe because 11 is fucking awful. Maybe it's the ads. Maybe it's removing fuck tons of features for no apparent reason. Maybe it's the fucking awful design choices.

But no, the author just says "every decision has haters, people just hate it because it's different"

“it’s OK, there’s nothing wrong with it”

This person probably uses corporate laptop connected to an Active Directory server which has disabled all the questionable features via group policy. Because that's what I'm using.

It was a shock using 11 pro after having been forced into using LTSC at work, they're almost unrecognizable they're so different.

At the risk of being pilloried here….

I’ve been using windows 11 at home and work for over a year now. It’s fine. I’ve not seen ads aside from easily removed links to apps (not even fully installed apps, just links to install them), I don’t see removed functionality. It’s not slow.

It doesn’t make me cum, it’s also not terrible - it’s fine. Just like every windows except ME and early Vista.

I like tabs in explorer and the new task manager. Dark mode notepad is nice. I got used to the start menu because across macOS and windows, I just keyboard shortcut -> completion match search to launch things.

This is the same cycle I’ve seen since 98SE.

warms up tar and gathers up feathers

Let's get 'em boys!

You definitely are seeing ads all the time, you just don't realize that they're ads. They're not your typical "buy penile enhancement pills!" Or "Sign up with Geico and save 15% on your car insurance", but ads from Microsoft themselves. You know that OneDrive bubble that pops up from the system tray? That's an ad. The "suggestion"to use Edge when you install another browser? Also an ad. There's ads all over the OS, they're just covert and we're used to the way Windows presents us with these ads, so we just accept that it's a part of Windows and not Microsoft trying to get you to use their products, even if those products are free.

Yeah I went in with an open mind. It’s far less different than the Linux distro it drove me to

There is nothing about windows 11 that's better than on windows 10. Why would anyone switch voluntarily?

Windows 10 at least had better automatic driver installation, touchscreen and multi-monitor support compared to 7, but came with a shitload of ads built right into it. Windows 11 has even more ads, but what does it give you?

Apk support. Saves you having to get LDplayer or something. Would be great if you're developing android aps.

But yeah the juice isn't worth the squeeze in this case. I'm not switching till 10 goes eol and even then there's a strong chance I'll fully switch to linux instead.

That's not even a selling point to an android dev. Android emulators already run, and give a better simulation of a physical device. The only reason it'd be useful for android dev is if you're actually developing an APK for Windows itself.

Also dev on android code on linux, both use linux so the drivers have performance mostly native, better apk support isn't selling if the performance is worse

You literally need a third party application to install an APK. At that point you might as well get an android emulator instead of using this spyware.

I did the upgrade so I could have tabbed explorer windows. It was honestly worth it as my work is much more organized.

But even then, it’s still a bit glitchy in a way that should be embarrassing for a company of that size.

You could just buy the program from the windows store and run it in Windows 10 (it's called Files). Also linux had tabbed file explorers for decades. Glad to see windows finally catch up.

I wish I knew that! I would have stayed with windows 10. Well if I ever need to reformat I’ll switch back.

I’m a long time linux user, but work requires windows or Mac. I’ve tried forever to use Linux for work but there are 2 key pieces of software that do not have a functional alternative on Linux and they don’t run through wine.

I understand your plight. I'm an engineer and I use CAD programs all the time. Very few are available in linux and the ones that are (they are good) are not production level. I'm talking about the FLOSS ones not the close source ones like BricsCAD.

I am seeing a "Files App" by "Yair A", it's €9 for me. Is that the program you are talking about?

Yes that is the program. It should have a link to the github but it should be the same one that Windows 11 uses. I paid for it (I'm so ashamed) and run it in Windows 10 no problem.

Interesting. I am going to try the free version and if with the better UI it also has stuff like better archive support than default explorer, I don't mind too much buying the app to support it honestly. My desktop is usually a huge mess of flying windows.

Files has issues too though. It has the ugly buttons instead of text for the context menu, and it doesn't have any of my context menu apps added to the right click menu for some reason.

Great app though if you're not hype reliant on the context menu like me

I wouldn’t go that far, but the nagware is exhausting.

AutoHDR is only available in Windows 11. Granted, HDR uptake on PC monitors has been abysmal, it’s a great feature for the few that might use it.

Does it change the screen's contrast depending on what's being displayed? Because my work laptop does that. If there's a white window on screen, contrast is great. But if I minimize that and just have something dark on screen, it slowly reduces the contrast until I can barely read anything.

No, that sounds like adaptive brightness, HDR is more like localized brightness overdrive, particularly in gaming and film.

I think the VM support is better on Windows 11. I tested gaming on both 10 and 11 on my Linux install and 11 performed better. Otherwise, agreed 11 is a downgrade

For linux clients maybe, but definitely not for windows clients. Microsoft practically killed Virtualbox, so we have to use Hyper-V at work now. And unlike virtualbox, it doesn't let me install my keyboard layout in the VM via MSKLC, which is literally made by microsoft. I had to convert my virtualbox VM where it was installed already and guess what, it works perfectly now.

I also have to disable the keyboard manager in powertoys, another microsoft product, whenever I use the VM because capslock gets stuck on inside the VM if I don't. That also happens on VMs without my keyboard layout, so it's a separate issue.

The VM also feels much slower and glitchier than the virtualbox one I used on an older computer.

I'm actually running Windows 11 on QEMU and passing my GPU through to it. Runs VR games perfectly

I haven't tried VMs via hyper v but WSL and sandbox seems to work a bit better. I don't know if it's quantifiablely better but it feels like runs better.

Ah. Maybe that's the case. I meant I'm running Windows 11 on Linux using QEMU for gaming.

HDR support is a big one for me and the reason I switched. APK support is nice. I like the glassy look although that could be achieved on 10 via other means. The search function feels much better to use and it’s nice because I like to use the search function instead of keeping things on my desktop

Search only feels better in 11 because 10s was so bad. Both of them are pretty bad.

Fair, but I feel my point stands. It’s not like spotlight on Mac, but it actually understands what I want now. I use it mostly to launch programs.

And before someone attacks me: I use all 3 major OSes weekly. Hot takes: Mac doesn’t suck and isn’t incompatible for the majority of tasks, but it does end support for things normal people don’t care about, Linux is not that great when it comes to normal quality of life (not power user stuff, it’s awesome for that), and windows makes things easy to access while somehow making everything behind a million menus and across different menus (but still much easier to change than linux)

MS Indexing is terrible. It's only saving grace is that it scans inside Outlook. If you want a fast search and instant results try Everything by VoidTools com.

How much better is the HDR support in Win11? Does it stop your desktop looking washed out when turned on?

Yea that has been fixed. And AutoHDR is pretty much a must have if you have a real HDR monitor. (Not that fake hdr400 B's they put on all monitors nowadays.)

Might finally have to give it a look then. I have a good HDR monitor now but it looks so bad with HDR turned on when not in a game.

For me it does. I have two HDR monitors, neither with exceptional hdr. Both look much better with it on, but I personally like the HDR look that some things have. I can tell when something is washed out, but my RGB has also not been properly calibrated. Regular HDR modes in games suck and make it look like I’m staring at the sun or an old photo. Auto HDR makes fire look brighter

The only feature I've seen that's worth it is tab support in windows explorer.

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Windows 10 replaced 7 for most people because 8 was a piece of junk. Windows 7 was old by the time 10 came out so there was pent up demand and 10 was a pretty solid showing.

There’s not much that’s compelling about 11 and they’ve introduced unwanted things. It shouldn’t be surprising that people prefer to stay on 10, which is one of the better operating systems Microsoft has ever released. Combine that with the dominance of Linux in the server space and what seems like increased adoption on the desktop and it’s a recipe for poor numbers. For a lot of developers, it’s easier being on a Linux desktop when Linux is the deployment target.

Is there even any actual positive for upgrading? I haven't heard a single good thing about Windows 11 vs 10

Yeah mostly I've only heard people defending Windows 11 with "It's not that bad, guys!"

I actually love Windows 11 personally (no I'm not paid by MS). I get an extra hour of battery life on 11 somehow, and finally like 2 years in the right click menu is getting support from 3rd party apps so it's not just in the way and is actually nice and fast unlike a bloated legacy right click menu.

Windows 11 has a lot of issues, but most of them are carry overs from windows 10. The same work arounds work for 11 as 10 so if you do an upgrade you don't even have to deal with them.

Thanks, I've disabled the right click Win 11 menu on launch as it was terrible, missed a lot of functions, but good to know it's better now.

Windows 11 Pro is pretty good!

Windows 11 Home is pretty stinky!

I use 11 for work and 10 for my personal usage still.

I'm the same, but I would actually like 11 on my home gaming pc though. I've grown tired and sometimes frustrated with 10 after spending so much time with 11 now. 10 feels so clunky at times. And with me using startisback on my 11 pc i would say the whole interface of my 11 pc is way better than my 10 pc

For anyone reading this, you can easily upgrade your windows installation locally for free with "windows activation scripts" (hosted on GitHub).

It even has a oneliner you paste into a command prompt which guides you through.

And yeah it sure sounds shady, but it works great and Microsoft will only get money from selling my data as they would do anyways even if I paid.

No idea. I haven’t heard anything positive either. It’s been like 3 years since I’ve touched a Windows machine. I had to use Windows 10 at an old job and it was a solid OS. Stable, reliable, can’t really say anything negative about it. I prefer Linux though.

Rounded corners lmao. But actually the UI makes the OS feel more complete and polished compared to Windows 10. You can never know how much you missed out until you try it.

Given that I pretty much only use my windows PC for gaming, I think I'll pass on upgrading for round corners lol

Yeah, I'd never upgrade. Got a new laptop for work. It has 11. It's ostensibly the same thing. It opens my programs. It came with shit that I had to get rid of. Not that unlike 10.

My PC has 10. Windows 11 would have to be the second coming of Christ for me to upgrade, mainly because I don't have a need to upgrade. When I build a new one, I'll more than likely get whatever is current, and I'll scour the Internet for little secrets of how to improve my experience. At the end of the day it'll make no difference. It's not ME or anything. It's just an OS.

The UI is still missing basic features. The start menu is fucked.

The OS is fine, the Desktop is under cooked.

I saw in my old line of work that most business over a certain size just have a few key programs that need to work and could not give two shits about whatever new OS was out if it could not run those programs. The fact that in places like the banking sector many of the programs are UNIX era and need emulation just to use on a desktop and not being spied is often a requirement it would make no sense what so ever to upgrade. I have also seen an uptick in Linux and Mac workstations as both are looking more attractive then the wild ride windows has become.

Oh and in case people think security on older OS is a concern for companies I know for a fact that several ATMs in north America are still running on XP (upgraded about 7 years ago from 2000).

My last gig was as a CIO in a fairly large organization and we had stringent infosec requirements due to the industry we were in. Old operating systems and software are absolutely an issue, although it still doesn’t stop some companies from running them.

Most of the malware going around exploits patched vulnerabilities. It literally takes seconds and not exactly a high skill level to compromise a machine that’s missing security updates. Regular patching is without a doubt one of the best controls you can have in place. The other big issue was social engineering. If you don’t effectively tackle those two things it doesn’t matter what else you do because you will be breached.

Besides that, you’re mostly right. We were all over the security updates but didn’t care for other upgrades because they introduce instability. It’s the last thing you want with thousands of endpoints and a bunch of shitty enterprise apps. Run it until the wheels fall off or it’s approaching EOL for security updates.

Oh sorry if it came across as old software not being a security issue just that most places don't care or plan around it (those ATMs running XP are running a very stripped and locked down version).

I remember quite a few places paying extra for a little bit longer for updates just due to how rough the change was going to be. I think most of the time when something did go wrong at a place it was (in this order):

  • Social engineering
  • Some sort of update that was not tested enough (or at all)
  • A new roll out going bad (this happened way more then it should have)
  • Hardware failure (often because a sales guy did not know the difference between "redundancy" and "reduced failure rate"
  • Actual disaster (I remember getting calls about a bank networking device calling home with fan errors as the building it was in was floating down the river)

For sure social engineering. That eventually becomes the most serious threat. The jackpot is getting to a user. They are the ones with access to money, confidential data, etc. and it often won’t set off alarms because it doesn’t look out of the ordinary. Get them to do something on your behalf or grab their credentials and you basically get to bypass security.

Yeah no way to make an alarm for say looking at their own confidential files. The key to social engineering working is having someone stupid with credentials, and you can not fix stupid. Oddly enough a lot of the issues I saw where on the call centre side (I guess paying people nothing to do that job may have been a mistake). Then again you you get access to a single helpdesk person you get a silly amount of access everywhere.

You’d be surprised at how effective some hackers are. I was in an industry where we generally employed smart and educated people. I always told them the person on the other side doesn’t eat if they don’t fool someone. We would push education and protocols. For example, multiple approvals for a wire transfer over different channels and verbal verification of the account number after positive identification.

These people are submitting phony job applications with infected resumes. They email back and forth posing as a prospective client and will even talk on the phone before sending infected documents. They send fake invoices. They call the help desk. They forge checks. They try impersonation wire transfer scams. They send you fake marketing type packages or gifts with infected USB drives. They try to set up bogus interviews for articles or award nominations and pump you for information. They pose as vendors like printer repair. Or someone with some bullshit excuse asking an office manager in a remote office to unlock the server room. Some asshole showed up once and tried to get a receptionist to plug in a thumb drive. They will try to exploit every function of an organization. They are relentless and whenever you think you’ve seen it all there’s something new.

Windows XP is also not actually that insecure. You just have to not download malware really. It's not like just having an XP machine gives hackers free reign by default.

Even more so when used in a device that does not have a user.

banking sector many of the programs are UNIX era

Somewhere in the distance a mainframe sysop with blue tie is protesting that statement but nobody's hearing him over the noise of the rotating drum.

Not allowed to wear the ties anymore (due to the rotating drum).

Windows 10 replaced 7 for most people because 8 was a piece of junk.

Mostly true; most people who wound up with 8 or 8.1 did so by buying a computer during that brief period of time, few people wanted it, few people liked it, and many people avoided using it. Especially computer enthusiasts did in fact go from 7 to 10.

Windows 7 was old by the time 10 came out so there was pent up demand and 10 was a pretty solid showing.

That's not how I remember events. When Windows 10 was young it was not very popular; they got a lot of backlash for that "Upgrade to Windows 10! [yes] [not yet]" pop-up that took no answer as a yes and installed the OS on idling computers overnight.

Maybe that was an issue with Windows 10 on the consumer side. I don't have experience with the home versions. In any case, it was a good upgrade and it provided more secure desktops for most people. On the corporate side, we were pretty happy to go to 10 and it was a smooth process. We had to do it in phases and we got a lot more calls from users wanting to move higher on the list than complaints. There were only a few asking to be last and the only real problem we had was one guy who demanded we buy him a refurbished Surface that had a specific old version of 8 pre-installed because it was "the best version ever".

You forgot Vista. Nobody wanted Vista because it was a piece of junk. 8 was ok, but since 7 was still supported and people hate change they stuck with 7. The worst thing about 8 was the dumb full screen start menu... once that was gone after 8.1 I enjoyed it just fine and was pretty close to windows 10.

Same goes for 11 for me. I don't mind it, I hate the tracking and built in news and ads but it's pretty easy to stop a lot of that. I think the thing I hate the most is the small stuff they release for 11 that 10 could easily have but they will never release it for 10. Like tabbed notepad, or window arrangement, and now built in winrar support. I love these things, but hold them back from 10 just to get people to switch without realizing it's not enough for people to care that much.

Vista was pretty bad. That was another one most people skipped. They had 2 excellent releases prior to that - 2000 and XP - and then shit the bed with Vista. I still think 8 was worse though. But 2000 was my personal favorite Microsoft OS so what the hell do I know.

People seem to forget about how with 8 Microsoft tried to make everything fullscreen squares, the desktop also being a square but by changing settings you can get away with using the "Desktop" square exclusively.

I had a laptop that came with Win8.1. I forget exactly why I refused to upgrade to 10, partially because I had switched to Linux by then.

Windows 8/8.1 was a bit of a brainfuck, because they introduced that tile-based UI which opened apps in single-tasking full screen mode like a phone or tablet OS. The traditional Windows desktop was treated as one of those full screen apps. As were several of the baked-in default utility programs, to include the fucking PDF reader. So if you were working on an essay or something in Word on the desktop, and then went to open a PDF as a reference, instead of opening a new window, the entire screen turned orange, and then the PDF loaded full screen without any way visible way to get back to the desktop.

Such "apps" could be tiled, but in a different way via a different system than window tiling on the desktop. The desktop itself could be tiled.

There's one other thing I always hated about the Windows 8 Tile Hell: The tiles intermittently moved. Weird connection: You know that weird horror game Roberta Williams made, Phantasmagoria? There was a sequel second game in that franchise made that bore little resemblance to the first other than it was a horror/confrontingly adult FMV game made by Sierra. In it, you play as a guy slowly going insane, and one way they simulate going insane is they make you sit at a computer and read work documents, except sometimes some of the words flash for a brief moment to a scarier word like "murder" or "stab" or something. That's the effect that Tile Hell had. While you were trying to find the app you wanted, the labels of some of them would change in your peripheral vision, drawing your attention to them.

Windows 11 finally pushed me over to Linux. I'm not advocating everyone jump ship, because it's different and takes getting used to. I work in IT so it was a bit more natural for me. I would encourage people maybe trying it on old hardware or just off of a USB to experience it though. Mainly, I wanted to be proficient with Linux before Microsoft made Windows a subscription.

The rumor of Windows going subscription based is so cooked. There's no way that happens. It's a shitty rumor based on huge speculation that already has better explanations.

IIRC, it was internal Microsoft file/mail.

E: INI file in the Canary channel.

It’s currently in win11 dev beta, it’s for tracking your game pass and/or MS 365 sub in the settings menu.

That indicated they were tracking subscriptions....

And everyone jumped to the conclusion that it was to Windows. Because that made a better story than Xbox, Office, or any of the other products Microsoft makes.

Turns out, it wasn't Windows after all.

I'm not speaking to any specific reports. I just think that some day Microsoft will make it a subscription because that's where they've taken everything. You'll have to sign up for a new "w365" which will have the office suite and the OS will live in Azure. They will be like Chromebooks, but for Windows. Naturally, there will be tiers for storage and pro apps, a business tier, and a government tier.

I hope it doesn't come to that, but if it does, I don't want to be a part of it. On the business side, I think it's already headed that way. It may not be a subscription for Windows, but it will be thin clients running stuff in the cloud. It's already possible, I think it will be the mainstream someday.

This has actually been on Microsoft's internal roadmap for a while now. The bigger goal is to move to a Desktop as a Service model for Windows.

By that argument, it's been on their road map since before Vista. So that's not really any "news" at this point.

Welcome to the good side 😀 what distro did you settle on?

Admittedly, I did dabble a little in Ubuntu and Mint years ago, so I had some level of familiarity.

I wanted something gaming focused to minimize setup, so I went with Garuda, which is Arch based. I had some issues early on with discord and steam that I thought having a gaming centric distro would have prevented, but it didn't. If I didn't have to reinstall things I would probably switch to something more vanilla, but stick with Arch.

The file structure and cli commands have been the biggest hurdle having spent my life in a Windows environment, but it's coming along. It's weird needing to think how to do things and look up commands for things that are second nature. Like ipconfig /all in Windows. Linux has ethtools with a million switches, and ifconfig which is similar, but different. I run a Pihole docker on my unRAID server, and setting a static DNS was a pain. Some of those things which could give a new user enough problems that they just give up and go back to Windows is why I wouldn't say it's for everyone on a whim. Best to get a more user friendly distro and dabble before committing.

Nice! I've been using pure Arch for like a decade, I've tried other distros but I haven't found anything that I like better than it.

I remember the struggles of overcoming the Windows indoctrination, it took a while, and caused a lot of frustration, but that was back when Linux was a lot less developed, back around 2005. Keep hacking at it and it will eventually become second nature. Don't slack on using man command or the help flags, they'll save you a bunch of time.

Setting static DNS servers should be as simple as using PiHole to hand out the DNS servers via DHCP and if you're setting a static IP for the Linux host then you could either just define it in /etc/resolv.conf or set it with systemd-named (I think that's what it's called, I forget, it's the systemd implementation.)

Once you get the hang of Linux, you'll realize that it's actually a lot easier to use than Windows.

Actually just last night I dipped into a vanilla Arch install on an old laptop. The wiki is pretty good, but I feel it skirts over some things that true beginners don't know. I misread a line when seeing my efi partitions, which caused a cascade of issues that took some fixing. Then it took me a while to get a numlock hook set, mainly because I was trying to build a package as root, which again led to other issues with access rights. And I finally got microcode added to my boot file, which took an embarrassingly long amount of time, because I didn't see the line that says I can't update efistub, I have to replace it to add options.

All of that said, the process has definitely forced me to learn a lot of things I didn't know, and I already feel a bit more comfortable rooting around the system with confidence I can fix my problems. I'm ready to install a DE, so I need to do a little reading on some of those. It's been already been quite a journey, and I know I've barely scratched the surface.

As someone who's seeing a lot of this for the first time, I think the toughest part is understanding the jargon. The tutorial will reference some file, or the kernel, or things in the bootloader and ramdisk, but without any prior knowledge of most of those, it's like reading a foreign language. Seeing the big picture of how things jive together so that the small things make sense is a rabbit hole of pages that are easy to get lost in.

Nice! Arch's wiki is pretty much the best of all the distros and it can be referenced for a lot of other distros since they usually only differ in package management.

Arch used to have a Beginners Guide which was the long form of the current Installation Guide, IDK why they removed it, maybe they felt it was redundant.

I love Arch, because, just as you said, it forces you to learn Linux and get comfortable with the inner workings of Linux instead of being like "Click a few buttons to get it installed, and now you have a GUI. Have fun." I had used Ubuntu for like a year or two before I found Arch, I had learned a bit by then (I jumped in head first and learned how to recompile the kernel within a few months of using Linux lol) but still didn't know much. Doing a few Arch installs and horribly breaking them taught me a lot. Also the installation was more complex about ten years ago, so there's that.

There's definitely a lot of jargon in the Linux world, and some of the things are archaic, but you'll get used to it eventually!

Honestly I feel like people would pay more for a simple windowsOS, no spyware, no ads, just fucking works as an OS. I already switched to Linux but some people haven't or can't at the moment.

I would also like one that isn't: "this is the last one I promise. Oops I released another windows like 3 years into it. Guess what gamers, you need it or you can't get future improvements."

It's win10 with dx12 all over again...

I'm gonna keep riding 10 as long as I can then it's back to Linux for me.

There's not enough money in one time purchase products, always have to forcibly push everyone into an ecosystem focused on subscription and make it difficult to escape from.

The odd part is that I am sure many people and businesses would not mind paying a subscription to keep there existing windows (whatever that happens to be) up to date. It would be way cheaper then making a new OS every few years.

But then they might have to accept that the technology is maturing overall....

I could see a subscription model for windows as well but one of the biggest problem would be OEM installs in laptops as even the normies would think twice about buying a new device that comes with subscription built in. Maybe they would lock some features behind payment and make the locked down version free or those snakes will figure something even worse.

They've already done that previously, years ago I had a 'notebook' with a version of Windows 7 where all options were ridiculously limited unless you upgraded. Would never have bought the thing if I'd known.

If windows LTSC was released as Windows 10 home addition I would have been pretty happy relatively.

It already just works, keep projecting and troubleshooting linux

It already just works

Is that why IBM found that it took 22 times the help desk personnel to support Windows users compared to their Mac peers?

Ive never even needed any windows personnel, I guess theres a reason mac support is more coordinated 😜

"Windows 11 is simply OK. There's nothing particularly wrong with it except for its hardware requirements."

Wtf? It's just ok? It's a resource hog, excelling at one thing: spyware implementation.

Have you seen the new Taskbar? It has the functionality of a wooden stick. They even had to make a damn patch to put the "Start Task Manager" option back in the context menu! They fucked up the menus and now everything is just "several hundred clicks away".

And their constant push for subscription based shit is just annoying like hell.

L.E. typo

Linux Desktop is the future, might as well start to get familiar with it now, why wait?

Just like Linux is the great leader in server space.

Unfortunately for work I have to use Windows.

That comment in the article made me wonder how long this person has been using computers, and whether he has seen anything other than Windows 10 and 11. If you've only seen 10, then 11 seems like a bland, slightly shittier OS, but if you have a broader experience you probably find 11 to be a bloated, slow, ad ridden piece of crap.

Windows 11 isn't a particularly bad version of Windows by any stretch of the imagination. Some elements of the user interface might grate a little, and there will always be users for whom one design choice or another will be loudly rejected – there were those, after all, who raged at the imposition of the Start Menu over the Program Manager of old. But the operating system itself is... fine.

The enshitification of Windows has been going on a long time.

I don't want the latest flavor in my devices.

They've been getting a lot more aggressive with forcing preloaded apps, and advertising by the way of 'recommendations' or 'suggestions' and they keep making it harder to disable. Forced bing web search, forced 'AI' integration... It's pretty bad these days. Windows 7 feels like the last version that you could actually run lean without risking stability.

I went through all the trouble of enabling the UEFI/BIOS stuff I needed for the upgrade. Then I found out what they did to the taskbar and decided not to get it.

Last time I checked, the third highest voted feature request in the built-in feedback tool is to take the recommended section out of the start menu. A couple years after launch the best we got is the product manager saying “we added an option to reduce the size :)” So it’s definitely intended for advertising, and I don’t do advertising. The professional version used to allow people to customise away that kind of bullshit, but not on W11.

It has a setting to at least not show anything there but it still leaves a blank space. Seems like something that would have a mod somewhere to get rid of it.

Seriously, the Taskbar shit has me considering going to Linux for even my gaming pc, especially since they've said they have no intention of fixing it. So stupid to get rid of such a common customization just so you can see their fancy start menu.

If you dont play competitive multiplayer, Steam Deck's version of Linux runs damn near every game at this point

I use "StartIsBack" it's so good. Makes the taskbar exactly how I want it (it's customisable). I've got it functioning closer to Windows 7 but with the look of 11 but still keeping it thin. Well worth the money. Shame it required a third party app for me to really like 11 though.

The Windows 11 version is called StartAllBack and makes Windows 11 much better. Annoyed I had to pay for an upgrade but it was worth it

If microsoft would just put out a modernized version of windows 95 it would probably be seen as "visionary" and be perfect for like what eighty percent of people and businesses, I just want a modern windows that unnoticeable and secure

Honestly, if there was just a modern windows XP that could run the programs I dualboot for, I wouldn't be dualbooting!

Modern windows is just so bloated and cluttered.

I was gutted when I had to move on from XP. Bring it back!

I've been using windows all my life and I've never seen anyone not say this about "their" version. Except ME. Fuck ME.

But seriously my dad refused to switch to Windows from DOS for the longest time. 95? The best. 98? Can't upgrade. Xp or die. 7 forever. 10 or bust. In 10 years it will be people clamoring over 11 and refusing to switch.

I don't see win2000 or vista or 8 in that list. Not including those demonstrates within your anecdote that Microsoft is capable of putting out shitty half-step OS's that people pretty widely dislike.

That's what 11 feels like. In ten years people will be fighting the move from 12 to whatever is next, and people might not even talk about 11. Like they don't talk about 8.

That's because, like with the pattern of those other three disliked OS's, Microsoft is going to to have to be reminded that people won't just accept a polished turd. They will actually have to make a good OS with a reason to upgrade.

Windows 2000 was for enterprise, not home use. 8 was for mobile & touchscreens (at first) and that failed miserably yes, hence their 8.1 release. Just like ME they tried hopping on a bandwagon and it flopped. Two major flops in 23 years is not a bad record. But my point remains that when whatever new OS comes out, people look back at the last one with rose tinted glasses.

My gran had a pc with 2000 on it. I still have an old laptop with 8 on it. 8.1 failed too. Don't act like those OS's were nonexistent.

Nobody looks at those 3 OS's with rose tinted glasses. 10 isn't the best operating system, but let's not pretend that 11 is such a major upgrade that people will fall over themselves to get it. That's literally what the OP is about.

From the days of DOS till today Windows 2000 is definitely my favorite, the most cohesive, straightforward and consistent experience. For now I just hope software will keep supporting LTSC through till the end of support.

I still don't understand how people prefer 10 over 11. The only difference to me is that 11 isn't supported on most of my devices. 11 seems like 10 with some "CSS" changes...

For a small example: They hid a bunch of useful things like 7Zip behind a sub-menu. Doing a basic task like zipping a file now requires extra effort. For the short time I used it, everything was like that. Everything was just more steps or more hidden for no reason.

Furthermore, 11 has a ton more spyware in it. 10 was already bad, but 11 just dials it up.

I went Windows 10 > Linux Mint

I have nothing to complain about. Lateral move in terms of functionality. In terms of general freedom and feeling like I actually own the PC I purchased,... 100% improvement.

If video games weren't my primary hobby, I'd have switched already. But the gaming experience on Linux is still wanting.

I can only speak for myself, but as a gamer I don't have a lot of complaints with gaming on linux. If most of your games are on steam they should work fine on linux thanks to proton (and steamdeck too). Sure, if you play a lot of multiplayer games where the anti-cheat doesn't tolerate linux, then staying on windows is understandable. Outside of steam, there are other launchers, lutris and heroic, for example.

I'm personally still dual booting, because one game that I played still doesn't work on linux, but as I don't play that game anymore nor have I booted to windows in like 6 months, I might as well get rid of windows once and for all.

I mean, if you're still wanting, it's wanting.

Personally I don't really touch EA or Ubisoft so, I don't miss anything, and even if I was into them, from the looks of things, I wouldn't be missing much.

You'd miss exactly nothing.

I have tried several times over the years to pick up a game of theirs that looks interesting due to the story, setting, or due to the fact that it's a sport game my friends are playing.

Every single time, for well over a decade now, it's taken me about 20 minutes to realize they haven't changed one thing about their formula in any genre.

All of their games feel kind of cheap, floaty, and/or just "off" somehow in terms of physics and gameplay. They have nonstop in-game purchases, and they fill their game with hundreds of thousands of copy and paste quests. Like, the most tedious thing in the recent Zelda games is getting the Koroks seeds, and even that is more varied and interesting than the vast majority of Ubisoft quests.

If Ubi made smaller games less frequently, they'd be an amazing studio I'd bet.

The sports games from EA are also the same exact thing every single year. Similarly, if EA released fewer sports games, instead just updating rosters and stats through free downloads, they could probably make some pretty incredible games.

One thing I'd like to see EA do is add more fun and experimental features. First person mode in Madden where you play with a full team of guys, creative rule sets, totally off the wall fantasy settings and rule sets, career modes where you start as a high school player and get noticed, marathon games where you don't get to call plays and instead it's a constant stream of making it to the end zone and having to immediately punt the ball to the other team so they can start running and passing freely instantly, etc.

They could do so much to make sports interesting to non-spors guys. And someone who likes sports more could probably tell me some of the more realistic/simulation style upgrades they'd like to see from these games. Things that have been missing way too long.

That's a big issue for lots of people.

I will say though that Steam's Proton is amazing. I play Guild Wars 2 and all previous emulations were awful and buggy. With Proton it's no different to running in Windows.

Definitely worth a try.

Guild Wars 2 has been fully playable with regular WINE since launch. I've always played it (and GW1) on Linux, never on Windows.

Not to take from Proton's benefits but this is probably not the best game to give as an example. 🙂

Maybe my Linux skills (which doesn't surprise me) were lacking. I tired in the past and gave up as it was buggy for me. That said I ran the game on a potato for the longest time so adding in emulation probably didn't help.

I believe only one of the like 200 games I tested didn't work on linux. Everything else works except for some anticheat titles. But I'm playing titanfall 2, aoe2 and drg without any major issues. Everything else just works.

Mint ftw!

I've loved mint ever since I first tried it. An OS that actually does what I want it to do. My only complaint with mint is that it works so well that I keep forgetting the console commands and have to look them up when I do need them. Thinking about installing suicide linux on an old laptop and learning the hard way lol.

I used Arch for about a decade but I got really tired of babysitting.

Oh, that library causes crashes to such and such app, either downgrade or eat shit until it's updated again

That can be a day,... a week, a month, maybe longer.

Mint is new enough without being too new and it's polished enough without seeming like too much, like Garuda or most flavors of Ubuntu.

Windows 11 was mostly released to take advantage of Intel's split of CPU cores into efficiency and performance cores (E and P cores). If you don't care about these E-cores or don't have them, Windows 11 looks like just a small UI change at first glance.

What if any advantage does the P/E cores have when weighed against the bloat? It can't be power related as those CPUs last time I checked are still hogs.

On a desktop system? Cost to manufacture. Simpler cores are more space-efficient per IPS (instructions per second) and thus you can squeeze more IPS on a given area of die and die area is money.

In areas where you care about power and heat budget (mobile, datacenter-scale servers) you also get advantages in those terms. What you lose is the sheer single-thread speed of the beefy CPU cores, but then not everything needs to be that fast. Small cores also keep random small loads off the beefy cores (say: move the mouse pointer) meaning that those don't have to context-switch that often meaning the get to run more instead of waiting for data.

It definitely makes sense to have a couple of them around though they're not going to make or break a CPU, at least not on the desktop. ARM processors have been using that scheme for ages (called big.LITTLE), hardly surprising seeing as practically everything mobile runs ARM. Also Linux had scheduling support for those kinds of architectures for ages, MS definitely didn't have to roll out a whole new OS version for that.

Fun side note: AMD's mini Zen 4 cores are in a sense the exact same cores as their usual Zen 4 cores: They have the same gate layout. What they do is pack them differently (and giving them half the L3 cache), achieving only ~3GHz instead of the full 5.5GHz for the full cores, but fitting two mini cores into the same area as one big core.

Honestly, I don't know. It was supposed to be power management but for all know, it could all be marketing nonsense.

Isn't 11 like less bloaty than 10? I've not noticed that much bloat compared to when I originally installed 10

They are both bad but 11 has a lot more crap running at all times.

Time to rethink Windows 10 support cycle then?

This doesn't stop Microsoft. It only encourages them to do it harder.

Just downgraded back to Windows 10, such a relief. 11 is absolute trash. Constantly hangs, on a completely stock install with literally ONE app, a single app that I even still use Windows for that is not the cause the hang. The UI on 10 is so much simpler, and functional 11 just feels like Windows ME/Vista all over again.

I had so many Bluetooth issues with 11. Fucker would crash the bt stack and eventually all audio would cease then the computer would occasionally crash.

Obviously as much of the installed base can’t upgrade. This was done on purpose. As 10 goes eol, businesses and consumers will have to upgrade their hardware. Pushing new hardware has been msft strategy since forever.

Why though? Do they own parts of manufacturing? Or do they cut deals with CPU companies to have windows installed, therefore making money on every new laptop/cpu sold? The latter sounds most likely

The PC and Windows became a thing because Gates cut deals with hardware OEMs to use DOS, and outsource the OS work to a company that does only microcode software, hence the name. That meant hardware devs could disentangle from high level shit and focus on the hardware, which saves them money and effort, and in exchange Microsoft gets paid via OEM license and completely locks down the PC market.

It was called the "line in the sand" when they did this with Vista. I think they have some sort of belief that if people are not needing better and better hardware the whole PC market will falter and they will not be able to sell as much software. This might even be true but as with vista this approach normally just pisses people and companies off.

Yup. It’s the Wintel juggernaut. While the license fees are much lower for pc manufacturers they are still a huge source of Windows revenue. Enterprise and cloud licenses are making it less important than it used to be, but they intend to continue to capture as much rent for windows as possible.

Win11 is more secure than prior releases, but certainly not better enough to justify buying new hardware.

What did they expect? Windows 11 cannot run in anything.

Just try Linux, people. I bet at least 1/5 of you would be just fine with the change (I still have to dual boot because of work related stuff).

Ironically, Microsoft is making this the reality more so than Linux/GNU + Valve.

I have tried but have found dual booting frustrating. I need to find a setup that allows me to use it with all my work stuff.

I have been interested in Linux Mint as a starter into Linux. However I think I need a separate computer for work and another for home use. Then on top of that still have dual boot for the few things that don't work on linux. Just feels like a mess.

Overall though I 100% wish I could do Linux.

This is normal Microsoft cadence: one good OS, one shitty OS.

Yes, but that's a downward spiral. Every good version is a worse user experience than the previous good version.

Windows 12 is supposed to be a subscription service.

Also Windows 10 was/is some ass compared to 7 (out of the box). Preinstalls unwanted apps like Candy Crush, has ads, inconsistent UI elements, etc.

The preinstalled bloatware in Windows is what started to sour me on the OS. It used to be you could do a fresh format and you would have a clean, crisp install. Now it has Candy Crush and Tik Tok pre-installed. The fuck is that?

Yeah, I used to reinstall XP about every 6-12 months and it would be nice having a fresh, clean OS. I would do it with 7 occasionally but once 8 came out, that was the end of that.

This is patently false, and I don’t understand how this rumor is going around still. This started because people found code in windows 11 previews for subscription based windows. That was related to windows 11 enterprise iot. Not windows 12. Not windows 11. The iot version of windows.

Idk why anybody would use windows on embedded systems, but I also don’t know how this rumor is still going around.

Have you heard about decrapify? I highly recommend it for all new Win10 installs.

There are many tools and scripts to remove bloatware from Windows, which is why I specified a stock install, since the majority of users will use the stock install.

Also I haven't daily driven Windows in over a decade now. Been using Linux.

Linux FTW. I have Windows 10 on my desktop only because I heavily mod Skyrim and it's a bitch to get all the tools and external mods to work under Linux. My laptop runs Linux and so does pretty much every other device I use.

New os ass because i have to click uninstall candy crush 🤣🤣 takes 1/10 of the time needed to whine on internet about it

It starts to grind you down when you're dealing with multiple users per PC and unmanaged PCs from a bunch of different sources. Propagating start menu changes to all profiles post install is a hassle in 10 & 11. Sysprep is a lot less useful for setting up the defaults pre install now. The out of the box install process is smoother these days without as much waiting to click through various stages but the post install environment reduces your quality of life with a bunch of clicky fiddling.

I used to customize the hell out of my XP installs, once they changed everything in 7 I stopped doing it and started using Linux more and more.

Multiple computers and install enviroment every decade I change pc how did I miss those relatable things time for linux

Windows 11 has way more nonsense than just CandyCrush. I got a new PC with Windows 11 on it and didn't connect it to the internet after signing in. It was waiting to autoinstall ELEVEN apps I didn't ask for.

Ill click uninstall 11 times then takes less time than your comment

It definitely doesn't take like 30 seconds to uninstall all that crap. Keep using a bloated, ad filled OS if you want. It doesn't bother me.

No ads and not bloat since I can remove it, keep lying and have fun troubleshooting Linux angry boy

Go back under your bridge

1 billion windows users under the bridge you know better 😜

I still think 10 is a waste of space and would be using only linux or 7 if not for gamepass (old distant friends have xboxes only). I still run 7 on my living room PC and its honestly a better experience then 10. If not for end of life (that lets face it are mostly arbitrary at this point) there is little reason to upgrade, even the few things not in things 7 or 10 (like auto HDR support or new Direct X) are simply withheld for no reason and often people have worked out how make it work anyway.

I am old enough to remember how each new windows addressed a flaw in the last (even if that flaw was made up). Here is off the top of my head some examples (leaving out the better NT line) :

  • Windows 95: Upgrade from 3.1 in most ways, first time dos was really secondary.
  • Windows 98: Much better USB support and more "plug and play"
  • Windows ME: Fixed the issue of people having hard drive space.
  • Windows XP: Massive upgrade in supported hardware, usability etc.
  • Windows Vista: People thought this sucked (it did) but the main reason was that it (and x64 XP) supported more then 4 gigs of ram.
  • Windows 7: Was not Vista and much more efficient.
  • Windows 8: Fixed the perceived flaw that your PC should really be a phone for some reason?
  • Windows 9: DAMN IT MICROSOFT LEARN TO COUNT!
  • Windows 10: Was not a Phone OS. Things like gamepass are supported. Told this was the last windows.

My theory is that after 98 windows started to follow the "this one shit, next one good" pattern. ME was shit, XP was great, Vista was shit, 7 was great, 8 was shit, 10 is good. Obviously 11 is shit and if the pattern holds the next one will be good again.

The issue with that theory is that the "good" keep getting worse and the "shits" plumb the depths more and more with each cycle.

They look good when comparing it with the last one but I would say ME (I used ME as a teen I know it) was better then Vista and Vista was better then 8 and 8 was better then 11.

Microsoft decided to skip Windows 9 because, after doing a lot of research, they found that a lot of commonly used legacy software had implemented compatibility hacks which involved checking for "Windows 9" to detect when the software was running under either Windows 95 or Windows 98.

Instead of breaking a lot of software or requiring a lot of updates (some of which could even be from vendors who were no longer in business) they decided to work around the problem by just skipping straight to 10.

Edit: My mistake, I responded to the wrong comment. But I'm gonna leave it here because I already typed it.

Version check on Windows 9x was done by comparing with the number 4, which was the internal version number, not with the marketing name.

Windows 9: DAMN IT MICROSOFT LEARN TO COUNT!

B-but seven ate nine...

I for one expect my computer operating system company to be able to count to at least 10.

Genuinely I'll give Michaelsoft credit on skipping 9, they did that to avoid SEO poisoning windows 9x variants.

What? if that was a good enough reason to skip 9 they could have called it something else. What happened was that marketing said 10 is cooler.

The did name it something else. They named it 10. A lot of programs had checks for windows version looking for 9 for 95/98 which would cause issues without updates. So it's better to avoid it altogether.

That's an urban myth. Programs check for the internal windows version major and minor number which doesn't resemble the official name in any way. The version for Windows 9x was version 4 and the version for Windows 9 (if it existed) would have been 7.

You skipped 2k, the first NT intended for consumer use. If you ask me it's been downhill ever since, some security stuff they added certainly makes sense but 2k was the last actually coherent OS Microsoft published. Oh they also added search which is useful because who the fuck can find settings nowadays, how many different interfaces to various settings does Windows 10 have? Twenty?

(leaving out the better NT line) :

I agree the NT line was better, but I left it out.

Me and 8 gave me a good chuckle, great list.

I hated ME so much when I had it but looking back it was not nearly as bad as say 8. And once you learn how to delete the evergrowing windows files safely it was fine.

I'm sorry but as someone who remembers Win 3.0 I have to say that Win 95 was a fucking revelation when it came out. The taskbar with star menu paradigm made many a man cross their legs.

Well as someone who also was there, I agree. That was why I wrote "first time dos was really secondary", that was not a slight on dos.

Does Windows 11 still requires a TPM module?

I was forced to switch at work and the UI ergonomics itself is a major step back compared to Win 10. It's such a chore to work with. The start menu, which is one of the major features of Windows, is a disorganized mess. It looks like an iPhone app menu and you really have to focus to find the app you're looking for. Or else create folders which require an extra click. Compared to the Win10 menu where you could have big ass tiles and organize them in groups made it really easy to locate and click and you just got used to the location. I could use my Win10 start menu blindfolded.

And let's talk about the rounded corners and gaps. Win10 has no gaps. No blank spaces. Every piece of pixel real estate is used. And you know exactly what you click on. I can't say the same about win11.

And going into the settings... Well the settings button is gone from the start menu for one. You gave to right click on start and select it from the context menu. The settings have become harder to find, especially advanced settings.

And finally, my parents installed it on their home PCs. Everything is linked to their Microsoft account and it just collects heaps of data on your usage. Plus the ads. Like, what the fuck Microsoft???? I care about my privacy. I already have a god damn corporate big brother watching and listening to everything in my pocket thanks to my smart phone and every website tracking my every move on the internet. Can I at least have some privacy on my home computer and a break from ads??? Goddamn!

I made a promise that I will never switch to win11 and would rather go Linux full time when Win10 reaches end of life. I've been a long time Linux user and already started to easily enjoy gaming in Linux thanks to Steam and proton so there is very little holding me back now.

Windows 11 won't even run on most of the computers I have and those computers have still got many years of life in them. If they drop support for Windows 10 I guess I'll go all in on Linux (I just use it for my work machine at the moment).

It's almost like artificially limiting adoption to all computers made in ~2018 or later would do that. Software TPM 2 has been present in systems since Haswell (~2014) yet even people with Zen 1 Threadrippers got dicked out of "official" upgrade support due to their computer's age.

I would very much like to switch (back) to Linux. I used it (and FreeBSD!) 20+ years ago as my daily driver.

Unfortunately, there are a few things that keep me stuck in windows... -Music production. I know Reaper exists (I use it and script for it daily), but my Maschine hardware that I paid good money for won't run with Linux. And beyond that there's still a subset of plugins (again, that I've paid for) that I'm just not likely to be able to use, and most of that which I can use will be unsupported. -Adobe. Lightroom in particular. Eventually I will wean off this, but as of now, it's simply the best tool I have to unify all my photography (old and new) across all devices with very, very little friction.

I can find a suitable counterpart for just about everything else I use.

Also, FWIW - I recently revitalized an old laptop with Ubuntu and that's become a springboard for seeing if I can map out a path to Linux for my other needs.

(Apologies for rant - it's front of mind for me lately!)

I've never had a VST not work on Linux through WINE and a bridge. Native Instruments plugins are a bit of a pain due to Native Access, but it's still possible to get running. Serum works, but requires a DLL bypass. Most Windows-only DAWs also work via WINE, but I'd recommend checking out Bitwig.

Also check out darktable instead of Lightroom. I haven't used either, but I hear darktable is a good replacement.

Not sure about Maschine hardware since I don't own any.

Similar issue, I'm bound by programs that only seem to work on Windows.

For me, it's heavily modded Skyrim and Fallout 4. Something about linux seems to break skse/enb and after a few hours trying to debug it, I got nowhere.

Steam in-home streaming might help you out for the odd game that is only works in Windows for you. You have a Windows machine with the game installed/setup, and that gets streamed to the computer of your choice over your LAN. A few of my buddies use it to play computer games on their TVs when they don't feel like sitting at their desk.

Plugins should be easy to use and pretty painless thanks to yabridge. Also just running reaper fully on wine is fine option with a ñn asio bridge to JACK. I tried it once just to play around and was impressed at how easy and performant was. Shame in the maschine hardware, this is the only thing I could find about that https://github.com/wrl/maschine.rs I also got triggered by win11 to switch to Linux half a year ago and couldn't be happier on endeavour os, no problems so far on the music production side,even with heavy drm'd plug ins. Work flow s also much better, as I can run higher sample count with lower latency than windows thanks to pipewire.

That maschine.rs tool looks intriguing, though limited to mk2 (I have mkiii). It keep seems to connect it as a midi device, for use in midi mode, which is not my main use case. I may try though. If I just want a midi pad controller there are plenty of choices beyond maschine, whose actually killer feature is full edit workflow through its own interface (connected to PC, yes, but you can avoid using the computer for the most part).

Someone mentioned darktable. I am familiar with it - it's a perfectly serviceable interface/non-destructive editor, but it's the interoperability/workflow that lightroom provides that is the secret sauce (ie - all devices, edit anywhere, sync to desktop (where I keep originals and do heavier edits) and back). I'll look at darktable again now that I have an install.

At some point (with some use cases) the Linux desktop switch becomes an exercise of putting a square peg in a round hole - an uphill battle of shoehorning in workarounds. I'm game to try - pls don't read this as being dismissive - but I've gone down this path many, many, many times.

The real answer (pie in the sky) is to get commercial product manufacturers to actually support Linux. Snaps exist (software can be done even if inefficiently), but HW requires commitment from the builders.

Seriously no reason to use it over win10 enterprise iot ltsc 21h2 other than the cpu scheduler in intel 13th gen

My only interactions with Windows are on company equipment and I eagerly await Win11. By the gods I need tabs in the file explorer. I know there are Win10 solutions but the system is locked down because it is company equipment. And I ain't got time nor energy for chats with IT/HR.

most people I know are still waiting to upgrade for stability and feature parity with windows 10

1 more...

I live in fear that one day IT will tell me my work computer needs to move to 11. Its bad enough I need to spend 1/3rd of my day using Windows, I don't need it to be Windows+Ads

Only home edition has ads. They suck, but at work you will likely be using enterprise or pro.

Microsoft has a way. I still get a message recommending Microsoft Authenticator when logging in the work enterprise laptop. That’s an ad. Can’t imagine what they’re capable of on 11.

Maybe because it's garbage and a worsening of everything people hate about what Windows is becoming? Nah, it's the consumer that's wrong....

I both can’t upgrade most of my devices, and have switched to linux on my home pc (in a dualboot with windows still) but use linux mainly. Been pretty nice so far.

I had to tolerate them only because they came with new PC. I needed all sorts of utilities to reverse my taskbar. I want Win7 back

It say my device is not compatible with Windows 11 :(

No reason to be unhappy about that. Windows 11 is the first Windows OS I put myself on and shortly later upgraded away from (back to 10).

I bought two new computers in the past few months. Both had Windows 11 on them. It lasted about a half hour before I put 10 on them.

So I'm using a Mac but my gaming rig is still running (cracked) Win7 and steam is about to stop working on it in few months and I was wondering to which OS I should move to? I'd be interested in trying Ubuntu but I'm not sure how gaming is on Linux. What's the least shitty OS I should go to? I'm basically using it to play DayZ, Cities skylines and AoE2 few times a month.

Ubuntu should be fine especially given GNOME clearly borrows some visual concepts from OSX. I prefer Linux Mint myself, but that uses Ubuntu as a base so I'm not exactly blazing a brave trail. Most games I have work. Unless some anti-cheat is involved that the dev does not support Linux with you will most likely be OK. Baulder Gate 3 works excellent and that has sucked up most of my time. Join the ranks. Pump up the valve hardware survey Linux numbers. Make the business people in control of the devs care about linux support somewhat. Free yourself form the whims of Microsoft.

At the risk of a distro fight, if you bounce off Ubuntu give another distro a shot. I can't really explain it but I had issues with Ubuntu being almost to streamlined; it mostly worked out of the box as advertised but when it didn't I had no idea what was going on.

I just learned more quickly on Debian. It's a personal thing, so it might be you as well.

I'll also add: if you're new to Linux you're used to thinking about the Explorer, the desktop environment, etc as part the OS. They aren't. With nearly every Linux distro, you can have a more Mac like desktop (gnome) or windows (kinda KDE Plasma). And in either of those if you don't like the file Explorer there are options there to.

Most of what Ubuntu does stock should be fine, but I just remember getting used to things was easier for me with plasma than gnome coming from a windows machine.

edit: I wanted to add, some people have strong opinions about which of those other elements are better (desktop environments/explorers). It's mostly taste, except when it isn't, because they do in-fact have aspects than can be important. Stick to something well known and used while starting.

SteamOS if you want to give Linux gaming a try. Valve have been putting some real work into it thanks to the success of Deck.

I used Linux for a while many years ago, and I just switched over again the other day after the Windows updated and brought the search bar back (yes, this is the dumb thing to push me over the edge). I'm using a flavor of Ubuntu, and it's amazing so far. It's so much better than I remember. Managing software updates is easier, customization is fantastic, and I'm pretty sure it's more responsive.

I can say GamePass doesn't work on Linux, which is a bummer, but most Steam games should. I've only played Factorio so far, and it ran fine. Since Valve launched the Steam Deck, a huge portion of the Steam library now supports Linux. It shouldn't be too much of an issue for you. Dual boot and give it a go. It's free and takes very little effort.

Steam Deck and by extension Proton being heavily funded by Valve mean that Linux is a seriously viable gaming setup now. I can play pretty much every game I want to play on Arch Linux now. Even games that don't support it (NB: you need to enable use of Proton in the Steam client).

You can check here for games that will run on Linux to make sure your 'must haves' are supported: https://www.protondb.com

Personally I've been playing Apmplitudes games (even pirated ones [Humankind, Endless Space, Endless Legends]), Cities Skylines, HOI4, Stellaris, Dead by Daylight, etc.

I've actually found a few games (Paradox esp.) run better on Linux (using Proton) than they do on Windows.

AoE2 works on linux and DayZ should also work with some minor fiddling (according to protondb), cities skylines is native to no problem there. You should stick with ubuntu if you are unfamiliar with linux.

Windows 10 probably. I’d suggest trying Ubuntu to see if you like it.

Yeah I'd rather go with ubuntu but hows gaming on that? Do all games on Steam work on Linux or just certain ones?

You can check the games you want to play here :https://www.protondb.com/

Overall its a mixed bag but generally getting better quite quickly. Some games are one click launches and some do require some config.

Running on Fedora right now. Given that it's not the best distro for gaming, it's still very decent IMO with my choice of hardware (1st gen Ryzen and Vega 54). Even Halo and Forza 5 are running pretty well.