I would upgrade to windows 11 if it wasn't full of ads, I had two computers accidentally upgrade after mis-clicking an upgrade prompt and the experience was bad enough I reloaded the whole computer.
Not only that, but it doesn't make sense to have a task bar on the bottom of an ultrawide display. I've been putting my taskbar on the left side for over a decade, and now you just can't do that for some reason....
The task bar is my main reason for staying on 10. Forced grouping with icons only and no option to change it is such a bizarre design decision.
Edit: Sounds like my last major gripe with W11 has been fixed! Dreading a forced switch to 11 much less now.
you can now set taskbar to ungrouped (unless full) now in win11, as of one of the recent monthly updates. still can't move the taskbar to the left side (my preference on wide screen displays), though.
And honestly the never combined feature is really really buggy, and just downright ugly with the way it resizes the bars based on the amount of text in the window's name, even when there's empty space left on the taskbar. If you have your file explorer open to c:/ the bar for the File Explorer is ridiculously tiny, for no good reason. If you want uniform, clean, consistently sized tasks that only shrink to make room when the taskbar is full, forget it.
It also just gets stuck. A lot. If you have a full bar and it needs to combine, then close a couple windows to free space, a lot of times it won't do what it's supposed to do and "ungroup" the remaining windows. It's very inconsistent about when and how it chooses to combine, uncombine, and shrink things.
It just barely works well enough that I'll grit my teeth with it on my work computer, because I don't have a choice about that, but I'm not abandoning the Windows 10 taskbar for this at home.
My work machine is W11 and has options to change it. Not one of those stupid ‘home’ vs ‘pro’ version things is it?
You can only align the icons to the left, but you can't move the entire taskbar to the side.
Or to the top!
The update for grouping just came out a few weeks ago on 11. I know this because when I started a job 5 months ago as a regional analyst it was pure hell with windows 11 until grouping became available. I swear it knocked 10% productivity off the top.
It’s not, that was “fixed” a while ago.
They (finally) changed this in a patch a few months ago. W11 still sucks, but at least it can now do this one thing that all the previous versions could do.
You can move the "start" button to the left but you can't move the entire taskbar to the right or left to be a vertical stripe going down the side. I don't do it but a right or left vertical bar makes much more sense than horizontal given today's wide and ultra wide monitors.
For that matter, they said the reason for the new centered taskbar was to be better for touch screens. Centered on the left or right, sure, but centered on the bottom? That's probably the least convenient spot for a touch interface, especially on a laptop.
I don't like start button being on the center when using mouse, but come on, when using touch screen on my laptop I don't really care where it's at exactly, as it takes roughly the same amount of time to move my finger to any place on the screen.
The keyboard gets in the way a bit for me when things are lower on the screen. Haven't tried it with a tablet, but I would assume that keeping controls near the sides, where you're already holding the device, would be beneficial there, too.
Good catch. I somehow missed the second part of the comment I was replying to - I was referring to the ability to finally ungroup taskbar items in W11.
I'm so confused by the ads thing. I don't think I've noticed any since upgrading to Win 11. Are they only on certain editions or something?
That’s what confuses me. There are absolutely ads, it’s just fake installed apps. But amount of ads are exactly the same as windows 10. They’re in all the same places, same types (mostly the start menu). Shit you could say 10 has more since that awful edge desktop widget doesn’t exist by default on 11 as far as I’m aware.
Do people just have such deeply debloated windows 10 installs that they’ve forgotten what windows 10 is actually like? Maybe it’s because it’s been 1.5 years without a major update that reinstalls all the garbage automatically?
My start menu is a glorious thing with zero ads. No programs are listen in those shite block tile things. Removed them all and shrank the start menu to be the same size and feel as ptevious windows versions. In fact, I never even use the start menu for anything anymore but typing CMD.
They killed it for me the day it started searching the web instead of the system. I just navigate to the install folders like I always have years and run programs with the actual exe.
Man I’m programmed to just ctrl+r and type cmd lol
I think the key is I simply never interact with the OS outside of opening the search bar or PowerToys Run to type in the program I want to open, clicking on desktop shortcuts, or going into Control Panel. All the places they try to sneak ads in I literally just don't use because there are other, faster ways to get there.
check out how many settings you have to search and disable to turn off MOST of the ads in windows. It's completely ridiculous.
Microsoft's Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems are PCMag Editors' Choice picks
lol
they keep moving that shit around, too. seems like i'm always finding some new crevice they've hidden some setting they don't want you to know about.
What? I was expecting registry edits from your description. Actually hidden shit. Those examples are all right where you should expect those settings to be.
That really isn't that many settings, and while it would be nice to have a collected "ads" settings page, those are all located sanely. You just need to pay a modicum of attention to where the ads are on your system, then go to the associated settings page.
Do people in general just not ever go through the settings when they first get something new? I feel like that's the equivalent of buying some flat packed Ikea furniture and complaining about how shit it is after you throw away the instructions and can't figure out how it needs to be put together.
Do people in general just not ever go through the settings when they first get something new?
Basically, yeah. Lots of people just mindlessly click next to be finished as fast as possible instead of looking at the page and seeing what it turns on by default.
This was my thought as well. Pretty sure I already have all of that turned off but I would have done that as part of the install and brief customizing of the UI. Can't say I ever used a guide or anything, or even considered it unusual for modern software.
There aren't more ads than 10 because MS has added those ads to 10 with each update over the years.
Weather bug in taskbar is an ad server. You click on it and it brings up bing stories to get you to click them and see ads. The search bar now has a little daily decoration. Click it for ads. The search menu has bing news- again to bait you into clicking one and seeing an ad.
All of that is disabled on my system.
And all of these are easily disabled with GPO, registry edits, and other basic system administration means.
One shouldn't have to disable ads in any OS. They shouldn't exist in the first place.
Ah, that likely explains it. I know when installing I hit "no" on anything that sounds remotely marketing related and I turned off search and weather because they just don't add any value and I like a clean screen. So I think the only ads I get are the small, unobtrusive ones on the lock screen, which I can't say I'm bothered by in the slightest. I barely even notice them since it isn't like I stare at the lock screen.
I have to use W11, but I use ExplorerPatcher to make it bearable.
I had to purchase new computers for my wife and son. So W11 home edition it is. $12 for for the family pack of startallback and the PC's run as they should. It's so stupid that I have to do it, but it clears out all the annoying shit so it's worth the few bucks.
I have been using classic shell/open shell since Win8 anyways. My screens look the close to the same since Win7 and I am not changing anytime soon.
Windows 10 came with Candy Crush ads in the start menu (on my machine), it's not any better than W11. Don't get me wrong, I use W11 and think it sucks more overall, but W10 does the same crap.
This popped up over the weekend on my work PC. It was an emergency and I absolutely needed to get to my desktop ASAP.
Nope. Full screen advertisement for Windows 11 demanding my immediate and undivided attention. Blocking all other functions, commands, and inputs. I must interact with this ad or else I cannot use my computer.
Fuck. That.
I am never installing Windows 11. I am never buying another Microsoft operating system. Specifically because of this sort of heavy-handed dark patterned bullshit. Not to mention the fact that Windows 10 is dog shit.
I paid full price for Windows 10 twice, from Microsoft's website. I believe in paying for good software but Windows 10 was anything but. After the whole forced Microsoft account thing I had very little patience and then Windows 11 dropped. I switched to Linux and never looked back.
I understand if anyone can't switch or disagree with my point of view, you don't have to leave a comment.
What do you mean by forced Microsoft account? You can make local accounts out of the box in 10 and 11. It's just annoying to get around.
There isn't much stopping them from patching the workaround and forcing a setup screen right after the update. I'm glad it works for you, I'm just not interested in making excuses for a three trillion dollar company .
The point being that he paid for the software and he shouldn't have to get around if
I agree, but I'm just pointing out that it's possible to get around it. Microsoft fucking sucks, but I want people to know ways around stuff so they aren't wasting time and money if they don't have to.
Yup. Personally only use it for work. Linux all the way on all my machines
Microsoft fucking sucks, but I want people to know ways around stuff so they aren’t wasting time and money if they don’t have to.
What is the way around Microsoft accounts during 10/11 setup?
10: put no@thankyou.com as the email and whatever the fuck you want as a password. It'll give you an error then let you proceed with local setup. That's if it forces you to connect to the Internet. I prefer saying I don't have Internet and choose the limited setup option.
This right here is exactly why I jumped ship. Linux questions tend to be "How do I do this?" and ya learn something.
Microsoft questions tend to be: "Windows is trying to force some new commercially motivated shenanigans on me when I'm just trying to use the OS I already paid them for, how many clever steps must I take to work around their unending, ever-evolving nonsense... Until they pull something else with the next update?"
The complete obfuscation of making local accounts and pushing M$ accounts was infuriating.
I feel this in my bones. Can't tell you the number of times I've been working on some late night or weekend work emergency when fucking Microsoft throws some random unnecessary bullshit in my path. Haven't run into the Win 11 mandatory commercial yet. But MS is notorious for wasting our time with push notifications, Teams drama, mandatory updates, and slow ass software that glitches at the worst possible times.
MS lost the way years ago. They forgot that software is supposed to work for us. They demand we work for their shitty software.
"Just use Linux" indeed. Will be doing that in my retirement.
Whenever that switch to linux comes, I recommend linux mint.
Works out of the box, the community using it seems friendly and happy to help, and can be pretty easily configured to fit with windows habits.
Thank you for the recommendation. I have dabbled but have a lot to learn. Looking forward to it.
It seems like every other time I interact with teams I get a "ARE YOU AWARE OF THIS FEATURE" popup that I have to close before I can do whatever it was I was trying to do. It's annoying as fuck. Then there's outlook fucking up my view every time I open the calendar across all my work PCs.
Windows 11? Ads. New outlook program? Ads. Old outlook iOS app? Now injecting ads there too.
Ads are a cancer on the internet.
Nadella has ruined Microsoft.
Are you kidding? He's made some...questionable decisions over the last couple of years, but look at where Microsoft is at today compared to when Ballmer left. It's a much more successful, more exciting, and more open company than it was. Could you imagine Ballmer's Microsoft releasing WSL? Or greenlighting a major faithful remaster and re-release of all 4 of the big Age of Empires games, as well as developing an entire new one? Or buying and actually being a surprisingly good steward of GitHub?
He's far from perfect, and all the enshittification of the last 2 or 4 years should be roundly criticised. But overall, Nadella has been a net positive for the company both financially and in terms of the company's societal impact.
The same can not be said for Google's Pichai...
Yes, let’s look at it. Great for the shareholder, not for the customer.
phone, dead
AR/VR product dead
non-Xbox peripherals, dead
App Store, a joke
other stores like books, music, and retail, closed or sold off
Edge now a bloated privacy invading Chrome clone
windows is now a crap ad-infested product that only runs on new hardware
Somehow other companies in these spaces have not had problems making this stuff work. It’s obvious all Nadella is interested in is cloud based products with subscriptions. And while that might be insanely profitable, it’s driving the consumer space to Google, Apple, and Linux. All the creativity and inventiveness has been removed from Microsoft. Xbox somehow survives in spite of his leadership.
I have an issue with calling Edge "a bloated privacy invading Chrome clone". It's a "a bloated privacy invading Chrome repackage", thank you.
phone, dead
A product which, as interesting as it was, had sadly failed pretty resoundingly in the market under Ballmer's leadership.
AR/VR product dead
As far as I'm aware, Hololens still exists? True it's a product not getting as much attention as might have the potential to, but the same can be said for the entire VR market. Outside of a couple of very narrow fields, nobody has managed to get VR to really catch on the way the hype suggested it might back when Google Glass was a thing or when Hololens was first announced. (Who knows, maybe Apple will manage it with their product like how they made smartphones and tablets mainstream.)
non-Xbox peripherals
Honestly that seems like a real stretch. What exactly was their raison d'être? There are so many options for peripherals from companies that are better at it.
App Store, a joke
A joke when it was released under Ballmer. Still a joke today. That's not a mark in Nadella's favour, for sure, but nor can it really be counted against him.
Edge now a bloated privacy invading Chrome clone
Edge only existed under Nadella. Under Ballmer Microsoft still had Internet Explorer.
Great for the shareholder, not for the customer
Depends on what customer you're talking about. As a software engineer, his tenure has been incredible. WSL is probably the single greatest thing to happen to Windows since '95. .NET Core and later simple .NET is such a huge improvement over the ancient .NET Framework for developing modern applications.
As an RTS gamer, I suspect he probably didn't have a lot of involvement here, but it was still under his leadership of Microsoft that we've seen the greatest era in Microsoft's first-party gaming since the 1997–2007 period when the original trilogy + AoM were being released by Ensemble Studios.
The creativity and inventiveness at Microsoft died under Ballmer. Nearly any Microsoft watcher will tell you he's turned it around for the better not just in terms of business, but in terms of how it impacts the customer, as well.
Personally I've been relatively disappointed with Microsoft over the last 2-ish years, but compared to the last half-decade or so of Ballmer, the first 8 years of Nadella's tenure were impeccable.
MS is still alive ONLY because of the licensing model they use which makes all corporations globally dependent. Period. The bundles, the product dependency, the price. If it’s not for this it would have banished years ago.
Microsoft is still alive. That is bad. And nadella made it bigger. Even worse.
No company that size and power should exist at all.
Whether Nadella is running Microsoft well is a separate argument from whether trillion dollar corporations should be allowed to exist.
As a software developer: MS has been 100X better to work with under Nadella. He may not know what to do with the operating system side of things, but the .NET/Azure/android/linux etc side has never been healthier.
Are you implying it was good before that?
He did make it worse, but I don't know about "ruined"
Slows my pc down while downloading and prepping upgrade. Attempts upgrade. Not compatible. Undoes upgrade. Bitches to upgrade the next week...
You know who won't do you dirty like this?
A certain penguin knows.
I have a dual boot. And the penguin works and Microsoft is still sitting around not having an update. I don't really care. But I can't game with out Windows. So, bleh.
Can't play certain games* without windows
Which games are keeping you on windows?
I'm curious because I'm in a similar situation, but really the only game I know isn't going to work is Tarkov.
Fortnite specifically for me. My son plays it and it's how we hang out. So, yes. I'm going to keep doing that.
I think the most major ones are
Tarkov
Valorant
Overwatch
Fortnite
If you know any other major titles LMK
Valorant and now League of Legends use kernel based anti-cheat, so they're off the table.
I play overwatch on endeavouros and I have better experience on it than in windows.
League of legends will stop working soon. In general most of the games with rootkit anticheat clients will not work on Linux.
On protondb you can see rankings and user comments about games. Last I checked 2% of all games are not working on Linux.
I can play every Paradox Game on Linux. Therefore, I can play every game that matters. Now, if you need me, I'll be in Crusader Kings, trying to build a family tree that looks like a giant beanstalk.
I'm actually transitioning. Windows for what I need it for but daily driver on mint. I think that makes the updates worse since I'm not using Windows as often.
These incessant, full-screen upgrade ads, with no way of canceling other than a small "Remind me later" tucked away in the corner, where the final straw from me switching to Linux.
When this screen recently came up, i had a mini stroke because it looked like it just updated itself...
Iam really sold for linux mint, but my laptop is currently my desktop and i need functional Dockingstation use and an external gpu. Which doesn't do well on Linux :(
I guess I'm lucky I just get the "System requirements not met" instead of the Win11 update option.
Purposely not fixing that issue
Yeah same here. Don't have TPM, not buying a new CPU just to enable Microsoft's bullshit, so we are at an empasse.
I do have TPM, still not turning it on.
My computer is good enough to run any games I want to play, even recently released FPS types of games at reasonably high settings. Still not good enough for Win11. My weak-ass tablet, though, was upgraded straight away.
Yeah that’s funny how a gaming laptop with a beefy i7 can’t be upgraded but an enterprise laptop with whatever pitiful i3 can be. Even though gamers see windows as their primary OS, Microsoft clearly doesn’t see gamers as their primary audience.
that's probably the case with the majority of those still using win10 outside of 'enterprise' (corporate managed) environments. those upgrade 'offers' are quite effective at tricking people into the 'upgrade'
There’s a reason everyone says “Just use Linux”
I jumped onboard last weekend. Built my new computer from parts because I couldn't find a system I liked that didn't come with a Windows license, and I refuse to pay for a shitty OS I won't use.
I installed Mint have been happily gaming for just over a week now. I even upgraded my kernel when I came home for lunch one day. That's not something you can say about Windows!
I'd recommend staying with your current distro if you're happy with it!
Linux gang, but I use Windows at work and do a full update ("Please wait... We're working on things...") weekly over lunch due to being trapped in the Windows insider program. It takes about half an hour. Longer than compiling a kernel though.
The pain of this. I have two separate Windows work laptops (one for my employer, one for the firm we work with; data separation fun). The number of times I've booted up the second laptop ready to dive into a meeting or to quickly grab a reference only to be confronted with 15 minutes of that.
Between pestering me to check for updates, pestering me to restart to complete updates, hanging on shutdown to carry out updates, and hanging on startup to finish updates, I feel like I spend an unfeasible amount of time and brainspace thinking about system updates. Why? I've got actual work to do too!
that's awesome, i'd recommend trying out EndeavorOs for your next distro
It's really so much better. I'm going on a year now since I ditched windows and I have to say it's been great and there's nothing I miss about windows.
Windows 10 is the end of the line for me regardless of software compatibility.
lol my reasonably good gaming pc doesn't even meet the minimum system requirements. I don't have anything with a cpu that's in the "list of approved CPUs" 😎. Guess I can't use Windows even if I wanted to. 🤷
So absurd. My i5-6600K apparently didn't make the cut either. Sure it's almost 10 years old now but it runs W10 just fine. Thank god for Linux Mint.
That's it Microsoft...keep pushing more people to use Linux. 🐧
It's working. I'm in the (looooooong) process of moving over to Linux.
Same here, I used to be 100% Windows, now I only have a single device in my house that uses it. Windows becomes less useful over time as they push these dark patterns as Linux continues to improve.
I'm similar, I have my gaming desktop running Win10, and my old gaming desktop which migrated from Win7 to Win10 acting as a media center PC. Everything else is using Linux, either Debian or Proxmox. When Win10 hits end of life, the media center PC is an easy upgrade to Debian, but proton only supports ~70% of the games I'd like to play well, so I either need to keep a Windows machine around, or do virtualization + hardware passthrough, both of which are a pain.
With the direction Windows is going, I don't think I'll really even want a VM in 2030.
Gaming is literally the only thing keeping me chained to windows. As you said 70% is not 100% and I play a lot of random games. It's not enough to play some of what I want just to avoid Microsuck even though I reallllllly want to...
Exactly. I only have my workstation on Windows still. Well, it has Linux too, but I use some Windows only software and hardware so it'll be some time before I figure that out. Will probably have to run Windows in a VM with hardware pass through, if I can get reasonable latency for music production that way.
So. If my PC cannot be upgraded because of your bullshit requirements, can you leave me alone please.
Also in win 11.. if I have an office subscription activated in the OS can you please not throw ads for office 365 then.
It's nonsense.
i just set up a new one the 'right' (according to microsoft) way; allowing it on the network and to link to msa right off the bat, during oobe. sure you 'installed' the office (had 365 on that msa)--it was already there, you just 'activated' it. you also messed-up the document libraries, relocating three to onedrive, even though no pc on the msa has ever even had onedrive turned on in the first place. you also linked the edge browser to msa, even though the user has never, ever used edge for anything (user has been using firefox, exclusively, forever).
there were full screen ads more cloud space and for xbox whatever-the-fuck-that-was during 'first boot'.
I’m a Mac user. I like using Macs, and I like using macOS. Apple are just as bad as MS for this shit.
I have an old MacBook Pro, as well as a pair of older minis. All three were left behind by macOS a few years ago, but if they weren’t all running Sonoma through OpenCore, they’d have an update in the App Store to upgrade to a new OS that Apple won’t let them run.
I think with the latter it might be them pushing a personal account, assuming you're logged in with a work account. It often does this to me on my work computer. Or, it's just being typically annoying - that would make sense too.
No I have it on a personal account on that pc.. it's part of the family network.
Ok, so it's just being extra annoying then. Doesn't surprise me.
Thanks for thinking with me. Keep on being excellent!
Jokes on them, I disabled by TPM chip and I'm now incompatible. Fuck W11
Some regedit tweaks can bypass it. But yeah
Windows update can revert a regedit change. Can't fuckin touch the BIOS / UEFI
Not these entries m8
Maybe not. But I remember there was a regedit for disabling Cortana and Microsoft straight up revered it in an update. Not only that, windows was unable to boot and I had to fix it in safe mode
I had to update my BIOS a while ago and it set TPM back to disabled as default. Voila. No Windows 11 prompts because, as far as it can tell, I do not meet the requirements.
Brilliant! TPM as a crappy OS ad blocker... but this is still the worst timeline.
My $2000 PC built a year before its release with no TPM will beg to differ.
if you built a $2000 desktop and didn't specifically go out and source old parts... it's got one, most likely, you've just chosen to not enable it. intel and amd cpu have them built-in and motherboards and their bios support those. they don't need headers for a module or a discrete tpm chip on the board.
what was that nice app that would block Windows 10 upgrades?
Linux. (ducks)
Damn a new distro? I can't keep up...
Linux Ducks sounds delightful. I'd give it a shot.
It will curse and swear to helll with unintelligible error messages.
You say that like that's not a feature.
Never said it wasnt ;)
(ducks)
Penguins. :D
There's a registry setting for telling Windows that the target feature release is a specific version (it should be 22H2) which also will stop it from trying to push win11 upgrades
If you want to take it a step further, write a Powershell script that checks that the registry entry is what you want it to be, and then changes it if it is not. Then create a scheduled task to run at login that runs the script. That way if/when Microsoft pushes an update that switches the registry entry back, the scheduled task will flip it back after installing updates/rebooting/logging in.
I am currently fighting this battle with New Outlook in Win 11 23H2. It's really annoying. I can get rid of it with registry entries, but when windows does updates it reverts the registry changes back. So scheduled task it is. It would be great if there was an Intune configuration profile to deal with this, but that would go against Microsoft's current methods of shoving new products down your throat.
But 11 wants sometjing from my computer that it doesnt have, so it cant "upgrade"...
You might be talking about Never10, made by Steve Gibson over at GRC.com. It has since been updated and renamed InControl. It now also works to prevent unwanted Win11 upgrades, as well as other things. https://www.grc.com/incontrol.htm
grc yes! thank you
It's called Russian botnet initiator 5.0
got a book on Linux from the library this week, and I've been speaking with a friend who runs Linux full time on his system. looking to make the switch within the next few weeks; absolutely done with windows, personally.
I've been on Linux Mint for a few months now, and haven't booted into Windows in like three weeks.
The transition has been relatively painless.
Say what you will about Apple but I don't have to put up with this insane shit at least on their computers. I really wonder how long they hold out on this stuff.
You have to deal with different shit thought. Source: been using both Windows and Mac for over 20 years now.
Yeah for sure they both have their pros and cons, I've used both extensively. This just happens to be something that would particularly fucking infuriate me and I'm glad I don't have to deal with it on my daily driver.
Sorta feels like someone kicking the door into your house and tacking up billboards on your walls or something.
The problem with Apple is that it's not your computer. It's their computer and they get to dictate everything you do on it.
Their phones maybe? But not really Macs..... You can have full root access, edit system files, replace the OS, whatever.
Edit: I'm not sure why I'm being downvoted. My comment is still valid. If the argument is "you can't, all the machines now include it," then it's fucked up. Like today's TVs which all of them are smart, and that's fucked up.
If you've got a CPU from the last 6 years or so, you've probably already got one.
Hence I will never get rid of my 2017 laptop that doesn't qualify for Windows 11. The day Windows 10 stops updating for it is the day I'll install Linux in it.
You can turn off those requirements a few ways. IIRC using Rufus to make the bootable USB can, or something like Windows X-Lite which absolutely strips away all the M$ bullshit, like edge, defender, telemetry, bloat, and ads.
Windows is like the corner prostitute: pay some money, usually get what you want although not the best, occasionally get some horrible disease
Linux is like the sweet SO: has its quirks but you love them for it. let's you grow in your skills but that can be challenging at times. Surprises you in good and bad ways.
My hardware couldn't run Windows 11 anyway. But if it could, I still would've installed Linux.
I'm done needing 10 different tweaking programs before Windows works the way I want it to. I don't want an OS that is working against my workflow.
What distro do you use for day to day stuff? I’m a Mac user but want to dip my toes into Linux as a VM
If you want to dip your toes, go with something easy. Pop_os or Linux Mint are the two most often suggested. Lesser offered but with a Mac OS feel is Elementary.
Haven't heard much about ElementaryOS in awhile. It's still a thing?
I'm a little late to the party but I'm using Ubuntu myself. There are a handfull that are pretty good for starters. Ubuntu and Linux Mint are probably part of those. And I see others have given you some advice on good ones as well.
I would suggest to not just jump off the deep end but maybe make it a dual boot or install it on a spare computer. It's probably also usefull to make like a list of applications you're using in Windows and see if they're available on Linux. And if not, what alternatives there are.
It helps if you are willing to try some alternatives to your daily applications when they are not available in Linux. But worst case scenario there are a lot of Windows applications that can run inside Wine in Linux.
You can't "upgrade" windows, only downgrade it with patches and new versions that make your computer slower and more annoying.
Plasma 6 comes at the end of the month. Maybe upgrade to that instead. :)
I've had TPM disabled in the BIOS since I got this machine (which is getting pretty long in the tooth, granted). Can't upgrade, doesn't bug me about it.
Next computer will be the latest OS at the time, but I get to decide when that is.
Off topic, why does clicking keep windows 10 trigger the admin pop up? What does it need permission to do? It ain't for removing the ad because I still get it most boots
My machine can't handle that upgrade and I've not gotten any popups, thankfully.
I want to get the microsoft monkey off my back, can anyone point me to a guide or give me steps to making the switch?
Usually, I help family and friends setup their computer to something familiar/similar to their routine (especially those that do everything in their browser). Otherwise, I let them slowly adapt to some new alternative software for their case use by preconfiguring it with them.
Generally, I recommend Linux Mint for those that are used to the Windows "feel".
Ideally, try to get a relative or friend who already use some flavor of Linux to sit down with you and help you get going with the transition, guaranteed they would be overjoyed. It'll help avoid some obvious pitfall/mistake depending on your expertise level on IT stuff and streamline the experience by sharing knowledge.
If any of my friends ever asked me to teach them Linux I'd be floored. I'd be over there with all kinds of devices and white boards to show the paradigms and strengths of open source.
Hi. 10-year Linux user here. Here is my concise guide to making the switch from Windows to Linux:
Step 1: Start trying out open source software on your Windows machine. A lot of my first year of using Linux full-time was googling "linux equivalent for [software name]." See what you think of LibreOffice, Blender, FreeCAD, Shotcut, Inkscape, GIMP, Krita, whatever programs you would use for your workflows.
Step 2: Try out Linux in a VM. You'll probably use a package called Virtualbox, which lets you install Linux in a file on your computer, and run it in a window. This is a great way to just...try out Linux distros without doing any permanent changes to your computer. Speaking of distros, yes there are thousands of them, yes that choice can be paralyzing. I recommend trying Linux Mint, Kubuntu, and Pop!_OS. These are designed with good out-of-box experiences and beginner friendliness in mind and are designed as daily drivers rather than as tinkering projects.
Step 3: Live USB. If you've ever installed Windows, you're probably familiar with the "you put the disc/USB stick in, boot to it, and it dumps you straight into the installer which runs at like 800x600 and you have to fully install Windows to get to the desktop" process. Not Linux; most Linux distros use what they call a Live environment, where from the disc/USB stick it boots to a fully functional version of the desktop. Nothing gets written to your machine's internal hard drive, but now you're running the OS on bare metal and not in a virtual machine, you can now genuinely test it for compatibility with your hardware.
Step 4: Run the installer. I'm not going to cover this process, you can find guides easily on the internet, including how to dual boot with Windows if you're not ready to fully burn that bridge. But now you're actually moving in.
Answers to some FAQs:
Do I need to use the terminal? Probably on occasion. Microsoft has trained a few generations of computer users to hate and fear the CLI by making theirs horrible. Think about the kind of things you need to edit the registry or dive into configuration files on Windows, and that's the kind of thing you'll need to use the terminal for on Linux. If you ask for technical help on a Linux forum or Lemmy community, you will likely be asked to run a terminal command, for the simple reason that "run lsblk and copy-paste the return" is way easier to do in a text forum. There are several "Linux terminal basics" videos out there that take around an hour and show you how do do things like make folders, create and delete files, install software etc. from the terminal, which is worth learning how to do, it will help your understanding of the Linux desktop. It's a good way to learn how the Linux file system works.
Do I need to know how to program? No. Scripting and programming tools will fall to hand easier on a Linux system, but if you create art in GIMP and play games in Steam and whatnot you won't need to write any code.
Will my [weird program or esoteric hardware work] Maybe, maybe not. I have seen it go both ways, I have hardware that works in Linux better than in Windows, I have seen things that don't work in Linux at all. If you have a gaming mouse or keyboard, it may be that the vendor's software for configuring the RGB lighting or remapping the buttons doesn't work. On the other hand I use a Spacemouse in CAD software and it works fine. Ultimately you will have to test this.
I don't have a guide as I had a Linux-friendly relative help me, but I can say that I use EndeavourOS with KDE and coming from someone who has used Windows all their life, I couldn't be happier. Now every time I have to use Windows on my work PC I die a little inside.
I found an excellent for me, half measure. Look up Windows X-Lite, they have a website. They offer 10 and 11 absolutely stripped of all the M$ bullshit and annoyances. Even windows defender can be removed.
Legit reminds me of a fresh XP install. Back to installing the vc++ and net desktop runtimes again, even.
I only don't ditch windows because I love playing VR and occasionally Valorant. And Wayland isn't quite where I'd like it to be feature wise for things like VRR and HDR.
Macbook? Chromebook?
Honestly, anything is better than Windows. But don't switch to Linux unless you are actually interested in Linux.
Longtime Linux user, here...
Windows 10 AME Wizard, get AtlasOS or whatever takes your fancy. Otherwise Linux Mint.
So this was the exact thing that pushed me over to the FOSS side the last time they did it. Nice to see the tradition of annoying users to the point of them abandoning Microsoft is alive and well.
I got the full-screen splash screen depicted on the second screenshot a couple of weeks ago, I screamed "No!" thinking Microsoft upgraded me to W11 without my consent. My partner thought my computer was broken 😂
Trust bust tech
I wish they'd stop defaulting to the goddamn boot drive for updates.. I don't have the space
rm -rf /*
Works every time.
It doesnt work for me,
C:\Users\HelloHotel> rm -rf /*
not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
C:\Users\HelloHotel>
Why
Edit: this is a joke, daily drive linux. (I even think cmd would give a diffrent error message than "not a command") the child comments are an absolute shitshow
Give me back my vertical side-docked taskbar or STFU.
No, I don't want to deal with Explorer Patcher.
Just reinstall xp and these will stop.
*Upgrade to XP
Yep. Just turned on my win10 machine and had a full screen spread trying to get me to upgrade which I had to decline 3 different times to get to my desktop. Keep this up M$oft and I’m gonna switch entirely to Linux and run windows in a VM.
I found an excellent for me, half measure. Look up Windows X-Lite, they have a website. They offer 10 and 11 absolutely stripped of all the M$ bullshit and annoyances. Even windows defender can be removed.
Legit reminds me of a fresh XP install. Back to installing the vc++ and net desktop runtimes again, even.
I only don't ditch windows because I love playing VR and occasionally Valorant. And Wayland isn't quite where I'd like it to be feature wise for things like VRR and HDR.
I wish Riot would make it so you can play Valorant on Linux, I'd switch off windows permanently right away.
Just quit that shit and don't look back. No vidya is worth dedicating your life to.
Hmmm.
I mainly play heroes of the storm at the moment and I've had issues getting that to work. While the steam games seem to work great I really feel like it needs some more polishing.
The work that has been done on it is stellar though. Especially considering it's the publishers not supporting Linux systems.
Everything on my steam deck works great though thanks to valve.
But my desktop... Not sure if I'm ready for that yet. :/
If it works on steamdeck it should also be working on normal Linux using the Linux native steam program
I know. It's the other platforms I'm worried about :D.
Although I've kind of stopped playing all blizzard their other games.
Maybe I'll give it another go at one point.
What issues did you have getting it to work? I have been playing hots on Linux for a few years now..nearly a couple of hours everyday, but I've not needed to install it for a long time so I've probably forgotten what was needed to set it up. There are some prerequisites and I will leave that here in case you feel like trying it out again in the future. https://github.com/lutris/docs/blob/master/Battle.Net.md
I tried installing it through lutris, first the battle.net client and then hots but it just failed to install.
I'd have to reinstall Linux and see exactly what the issue is. I probably missed one of the prerequisites.
I read something on the Linux gaming Lemmy group where they are planning on combining the fixes so not every platform ( bottles, lutris, steam ) has to maintain their own scripts to fix things.
I'd need to actually put some effort into figuring out why it didn't work.
I would rather move to Linux at that point but I can’t do that either since some critical apps I require don’t run on it (yet)
Do they work via Wine on Linux? I have had pretty good success there.
windows has sucked ever since 8
Windows 10 was alright if it weren't for the constant almost-forced updates.
I miss Windows 7.
7 still took getting used to for me, I miss XP
I...do not miss XP, but I understand the nostalgia attached to it.
I learned a lot of technical skills on XP, but that's what made me appreciate the architectural decisions behind UNIX-likes all the more.
XP was good too, but the whole swarm of vulnerabilities ruined it for me.
The last version of Windows I liked was 2000
Same. I held out on it for a really long time, until finally some stupid game pretty much forced me to update.
I didn't even get a question, just straight up installed Windows 11 on my Surface with a bunch of cumulative roll ups after using it again for the first time in about 8 months. Couldn't even stop it once the "windows update" started, only option is to allow the reboot and then go through the hassle of rolling back to 10. It's a tertiary device for me and goes long periods without being used and I was probably ok with testing 11 performance on it, but don't appreciate being strong armed. I had to kill modern standby again to prevent battery drain while shut down, which is plaguing my laptop after I tried 11 on it.
Windows 11 is straight up unusable in multi-monitor configurations though due to the locked down UI customization, so my main rig won't be touching it with a 20ft pole. If Linux had more consistent VR gaming performance and support, I'd probably be jumping ship. As it stands, once 10 hits EOL I'll probably end up there anyway. Microsoft will be killing one of my headsets at the same time anyway by dropping WMR, and I hear there is some great Linux options for the Surface Pro line now too.
Maybe you want to open that file in browser right? Ok setting default to open in browser!
But I really like the app because It was working just fine except for a few stupid glitches everywhere...!
What's that? So you really love the browser for files! That's great! Yeah it's compatible with Firefox we just put the file menu here, prin behind settings, view, you gotta triple click...oh very compatible!
But just wait until you want to do a teams meeting! Or a power point presentation! Full screen mode is now 10 menus deeper on power point and you'll love the 5 pixel screen when you present your power point on teams! People in the back really love being able to see all the very large people icons all around the very important 5 pixels representing your mouse and all graphics on your slides. Plus Karen! She'll change her icon to a cute little kitty and not tell anyone the secrete code to do it! It's Visual C++ now!
I don't see the point of your comment. What exactly are you critiquing?
I imagine the aggressive “feature” upsell popups that get more and more invasive with every new windows release
I'm sorry, you lost me at PowerPoint. You hit F5? Have you checked your screen resolution?
I'm thankful that I made the Switch to Linux after Windows 10 forced updates got annoying while gaming. I'll deal with whatever trade offs. I only need Windows for my Elgato atm.
More and more happy I left Windows behind a couple of months ago. I'd been on Windows since version 3. I dual-booted for a few weeks, then took the plunge. Windows is completely gone from my life.
I'm on Ubuntu at the moment, but I'm planning a move to LMDE, I think that's a better distro for me.
Thought about regular Linux Mint too? It has some of the Ubuntu benefits but not the parts people don’t like.
I am considering switching one of the computers at home away from windows, so I have been looking at the latest on some of my options.
At this point I know of two Ubuntu features that would make a difference to end users: PPA support, and the Device Manager.
PPAs are/were Ubuntu's answer to the question "What if the software I want isn't in the repository?" "Well the vendor will host a personal package archive, you can just add it and then still use APT." From where I'm sitting, Flatpak and/or Appimage have completely invalidated any use case for PPAs, I haven't installed a package from a PPA in years.
The Device Manager is handy if you have an Nvidia GPU, open Device Manager and click the one that says "Recommended." IIRC this is an Ubuntu-derived feature not available in LMDE and as soon as I own an AMD GPU I'd have less reason to not use Debian Edition.
Informative, thank you!
I may need to try regular Linux Mint first on this particular machine.
I was able to solve this annoying problem by replacing my PC with a raspberry pi running android.
Android? But you can do better with any distro that runs on ARM.
Did you choose a de-googled Android?
I'm running a Google-free distribution, so no worries there.
How is this bad
It either pushes them to an actual supported Windows OS, or to a FOSS/Linux OS. Both scenarios are good
I would upgrade to windows 11 if it wasn't full of ads, I had two computers accidentally upgrade after mis-clicking an upgrade prompt and the experience was bad enough I reloaded the whole computer.
Not only that, but it doesn't make sense to have a task bar on the bottom of an ultrawide display. I've been putting my taskbar on the left side for over a decade, and now you just can't do that for some reason....
The task bar is my main reason for staying on 10. Forced grouping with icons only and no option to change it is such a bizarre design decision.
Edit: Sounds like my last major gripe with W11 has been fixed! Dreading a forced switch to 11 much less now.
you can now set taskbar to ungrouped (unless full) now in win11, as of one of the recent monthly updates. still can't move the taskbar to the left side (my preference on wide screen displays), though.
And honestly the never combined feature is really really buggy, and just downright ugly with the way it resizes the bars based on the amount of text in the window's name, even when there's empty space left on the taskbar. If you have your file explorer open to c:/ the bar for the File Explorer is ridiculously tiny, for no good reason. If you want uniform, clean, consistently sized tasks that only shrink to make room when the taskbar is full, forget it.
It also just gets stuck. A lot. If you have a full bar and it needs to combine, then close a couple windows to free space, a lot of times it won't do what it's supposed to do and "ungroup" the remaining windows. It's very inconsistent about when and how it chooses to combine, uncombine, and shrink things.
It just barely works well enough that I'll grit my teeth with it on my work computer, because I don't have a choice about that, but I'm not abandoning the Windows 10 taskbar for this at home.
My work machine is W11 and has options to change it. Not one of those stupid ‘home’ vs ‘pro’ version things is it?
You can only align the icons to the left, but you can't move the entire taskbar to the side.
Or to the top!
The update for grouping just came out a few weeks ago on 11. I know this because when I started a job 5 months ago as a regional analyst it was pure hell with windows 11 until grouping became available. I swear it knocked 10% productivity off the top.
It’s not, that was “fixed” a while ago.
They (finally) changed this in a patch a few months ago. W11 still sucks, but at least it can now do this one thing that all the previous versions could do.
You can move the "start" button to the left but you can't move the entire taskbar to the right or left to be a vertical stripe going down the side. I don't do it but a right or left vertical bar makes much more sense than horizontal given today's wide and ultra wide monitors.
For that matter, they said the reason for the new centered taskbar was to be better for touch screens. Centered on the left or right, sure, but centered on the bottom? That's probably the least convenient spot for a touch interface, especially on a laptop.
I don't like start button being on the center when using mouse, but come on, when using touch screen on my laptop I don't really care where it's at exactly, as it takes roughly the same amount of time to move my finger to any place on the screen.
The keyboard gets in the way a bit for me when things are lower on the screen. Haven't tried it with a tablet, but I would assume that keeping controls near the sides, where you're already holding the device, would be beneficial there, too.
Good catch. I somehow missed the second part of the comment I was replying to - I was referring to the ability to finally ungroup taskbar items in W11.
I can change it on 2H22 with these instructions
https://www.howtogeek.com/ungroup-taskbar-icons-windows-11/
I had to use it on a work laptop briefly. It is still insane, when you run out of space it the apps then get put in this crappy overflow area.
You know what I used to be able to do? Make the taskbar 2, or even 3 lines. No more.
I'm staying on windows 10 for work as long as I can help it.
The "show more" menu on right click is absolute insanity. I right click files constantly, all day.
They've taken features away for seemingly no reason.
I'm so confused by the ads thing. I don't think I've noticed any since upgrading to Win 11. Are they only on certain editions or something?
That’s what confuses me. There are absolutely ads, it’s just fake installed apps. But amount of ads are exactly the same as windows 10. They’re in all the same places, same types (mostly the start menu). Shit you could say 10 has more since that awful edge desktop widget doesn’t exist by default on 11 as far as I’m aware.
Do people just have such deeply debloated windows 10 installs that they’ve forgotten what windows 10 is actually like? Maybe it’s because it’s been 1.5 years without a major update that reinstalls all the garbage automatically?
My start menu is a glorious thing with zero ads. No programs are listen in those shite block tile things. Removed them all and shrank the start menu to be the same size and feel as ptevious windows versions. In fact, I never even use the start menu for anything anymore but typing CMD.
They killed it for me the day it started searching the web instead of the system. I just navigate to the install folders like I always have years and run programs with the actual exe.
Man I’m programmed to just ctrl+r and type cmd lol
Web search can be disabled with a few registry keys.
Not using it is easier
I think the key is I simply never interact with the OS outside of opening the search bar or PowerToys Run to type in the program I want to open, clicking on desktop shortcuts, or going into Control Panel. All the places they try to sneak ads in I literally just don't use because there are other, faster ways to get there.
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-remove-most-annoying-ads-from-windows
check out how many settings you have to search and disable to turn off MOST of the ads in windows. It's completely ridiculous.
lol
they keep moving that shit around, too. seems like i'm always finding some new crevice they've hidden some setting they don't want you to know about.
What? I was expecting registry edits from your description. Actually hidden shit. Those examples are all right where you should expect those settings to be.
That really isn't that many settings, and while it would be nice to have a collected "ads" settings page, those are all located sanely. You just need to pay a modicum of attention to where the ads are on your system, then go to the associated settings page.
Do people in general just not ever go through the settings when they first get something new? I feel like that's the equivalent of buying some flat packed Ikea furniture and complaining about how shit it is after you throw away the instructions and can't figure out how it needs to be put together.
Basically, yeah. Lots of people just mindlessly click next to be finished as fast as possible instead of looking at the page and seeing what it turns on by default.
This was my thought as well. Pretty sure I already have all of that turned off but I would have done that as part of the install and brief customizing of the UI. Can't say I ever used a guide or anything, or even considered it unusual for modern software.
There aren't more ads than 10 because MS has added those ads to 10 with each update over the years.
Weather bug in taskbar is an ad server. You click on it and it brings up bing stories to get you to click them and see ads. The search bar now has a little daily decoration. Click it for ads. The search menu has bing news- again to bait you into clicking one and seeing an ad.
All of that is disabled on my system.
And all of these are easily disabled with GPO, registry edits, and other basic system administration means.
One shouldn't have to disable ads in any OS. They shouldn't exist in the first place.
Ah, that likely explains it. I know when installing I hit "no" on anything that sounds remotely marketing related and I turned off search and weather because they just don't add any value and I like a clean screen. So I think the only ads I get are the small, unobtrusive ones on the lock screen, which I can't say I'm bothered by in the slightest. I barely even notice them since it isn't like I stare at the lock screen.
I have to use W11, but I use ExplorerPatcher to make it bearable.
I had to purchase new computers for my wife and son. So W11 home edition it is. $12 for for the family pack of startallback and the PC's run as they should. It's so stupid that I have to do it, but it clears out all the annoying shit so it's worth the few bucks.
I have been using classic shell/open shell since Win8 anyways. My screens look the close to the same since Win7 and I am not changing anytime soon.
Windows 10 came with Candy Crush ads in the start menu (on my machine), it's not any better than W11. Don't get me wrong, I use W11 and think it sucks more overall, but W10 does the same crap.
This popped up over the weekend on my work PC. It was an emergency and I absolutely needed to get to my desktop ASAP.
Nope. Full screen advertisement for Windows 11 demanding my immediate and undivided attention. Blocking all other functions, commands, and inputs. I must interact with this ad or else I cannot use my computer.
Fuck. That.
I am never installing Windows 11. I am never buying another Microsoft operating system. Specifically because of this sort of heavy-handed dark patterned bullshit. Not to mention the fact that Windows 10 is dog shit.
I paid full price for Windows 10 twice, from Microsoft's website. I believe in paying for good software but Windows 10 was anything but. After the whole forced Microsoft account thing I had very little patience and then Windows 11 dropped. I switched to Linux and never looked back.
I understand if anyone can't switch or disagree with my point of view, you don't have to leave a comment.
What do you mean by forced Microsoft account? You can make local accounts out of the box in 10 and 11. It's just annoying to get around.
There isn't much stopping them from patching the workaround and forcing a setup screen right after the update. I'm glad it works for you, I'm just not interested in making excuses for a three trillion dollar company .
The point being that he paid for the software and he shouldn't have to get around if
I agree, but I'm just pointing out that it's possible to get around it. Microsoft fucking sucks, but I want people to know ways around stuff so they aren't wasting time and money if they don't have to.
Yup. Personally only use it for work. Linux all the way on all my machines
What is the way around Microsoft accounts during 10/11 setup?
10: put no@thankyou.com as the email and whatever the fuck you want as a password. It'll give you an error then let you proceed with local setup. That's if it forces you to connect to the Internet. I prefer saying I don't have Internet and choose the limited setup option.
11
This right here is exactly why I jumped ship. Linux questions tend to be "How do I do this?" and ya learn something.
Microsoft questions tend to be: "Windows is trying to force some new commercially motivated shenanigans on me when I'm just trying to use the OS I already paid them for, how many clever steps must I take to work around their unending, ever-evolving nonsense... Until they pull something else with the next update?"
The complete obfuscation of making local accounts and pushing M$ accounts was infuriating.
I feel this in my bones. Can't tell you the number of times I've been working on some late night or weekend work emergency when fucking Microsoft throws some random unnecessary bullshit in my path. Haven't run into the Win 11 mandatory commercial yet. But MS is notorious for wasting our time with push notifications, Teams drama, mandatory updates, and slow ass software that glitches at the worst possible times.
MS lost the way years ago. They forgot that software is supposed to work for us. They demand we work for their shitty software.
"Just use Linux" indeed. Will be doing that in my retirement.
Whenever that switch to linux comes, I recommend linux mint.
Works out of the box, the community using it seems friendly and happy to help, and can be pretty easily configured to fit with windows habits.
Thank you for the recommendation. I have dabbled but have a lot to learn. Looking forward to it.
It seems like every other time I interact with teams I get a "ARE YOU AWARE OF THIS FEATURE" popup that I have to close before I can do whatever it was I was trying to do. It's annoying as fuck. Then there's outlook fucking up my view every time I open the calendar across all my work PCs.
Pain. Very familiar. They went full Clippy on us.
Windows 11? Ads. New outlook program? Ads. Old outlook iOS app? Now injecting ads there too.
Ads are a cancer on the internet.
Nadella has ruined Microsoft.
Are you kidding? He's made some...questionable decisions over the last couple of years, but look at where Microsoft is at today compared to when Ballmer left. It's a much more successful, more exciting, and more open company than it was. Could you imagine Ballmer's Microsoft releasing WSL? Or greenlighting a major faithful remaster and re-release of all 4 of the big Age of Empires games, as well as developing an entire new one? Or buying and actually being a surprisingly good steward of GitHub?
He's far from perfect, and all the enshittification of the last 2 or 4 years should be roundly criticised. But overall, Nadella has been a net positive for the company both financially and in terms of the company's societal impact.
The same can not be said for Google's Pichai...
Yes, let’s look at it. Great for the shareholder, not for the customer.
Somehow other companies in these spaces have not had problems making this stuff work. It’s obvious all Nadella is interested in is cloud based products with subscriptions. And while that might be insanely profitable, it’s driving the consumer space to Google, Apple, and Linux. All the creativity and inventiveness has been removed from Microsoft. Xbox somehow survives in spite of his leadership.
I have an issue with calling Edge "a bloated privacy invading Chrome clone". It's a "a bloated privacy invading Chrome repackage", thank you.
A product which, as interesting as it was, had sadly failed pretty resoundingly in the market under Ballmer's leadership.
As far as I'm aware, Hololens still exists? True it's a product not getting as much attention as might have the potential to, but the same can be said for the entire VR market. Outside of a couple of very narrow fields, nobody has managed to get VR to really catch on the way the hype suggested it might back when Google Glass was a thing or when Hololens was first announced. (Who knows, maybe Apple will manage it with their product like how they made smartphones and tablets mainstream.)
Honestly that seems like a real stretch. What exactly was their raison d'être? There are so many options for peripherals from companies that are better at it.
A joke when it was released under Ballmer. Still a joke today. That's not a mark in Nadella's favour, for sure, but nor can it really be counted against him.
Edge only existed under Nadella. Under Ballmer Microsoft still had Internet Explorer.
Depends on what customer you're talking about. As a software engineer, his tenure has been incredible. WSL is probably the single greatest thing to happen to Windows since '95. .NET Core and later simple .NET is such a huge improvement over the ancient .NET Framework for developing modern applications.
As an RTS gamer, I suspect he probably didn't have a lot of involvement here, but it was still under his leadership of Microsoft that we've seen the greatest era in Microsoft's first-party gaming since the 1997–2007 period when the original trilogy + AoM were being released by Ensemble Studios.
The creativity and inventiveness at Microsoft died under Ballmer. Nearly any Microsoft watcher will tell you he's turned it around for the better not just in terms of business, but in terms of how it impacts the customer, as well.
Personally I've been relatively disappointed with Microsoft over the last 2-ish years, but compared to the last half-decade or so of Ballmer, the first 8 years of Nadella's tenure were impeccable.
MS is still alive ONLY because of the licensing model they use which makes all corporations globally dependent. Period. The bundles, the product dependency, the price. If it’s not for this it would have banished years ago.
Microsoft is still alive. That is bad. And nadella made it bigger. Even worse.
No company that size and power should exist at all.
Whether Nadella is running Microsoft well is a separate argument from whether trillion dollar corporations should be allowed to exist.
As a software developer: MS has been 100X better to work with under Nadella. He may not know what to do with the operating system side of things, but the .NET/Azure/android/linux etc side has never been healthier.
Are you implying it was good before that?
He did make it worse, but I don't know about "ruined"
Slows my pc down while downloading and prepping upgrade. Attempts upgrade. Not compatible. Undoes upgrade. Bitches to upgrade the next week...
You know who won't do you dirty like this?
A certain penguin knows.
I have a dual boot. And the penguin works and Microsoft is still sitting around not having an update. I don't really care. But I can't game with out Windows. So, bleh.
Can't play certain games* without windows
Which games are keeping you on windows?
I'm curious because I'm in a similar situation, but really the only game I know isn't going to work is Tarkov.
Fortnite specifically for me. My son plays it and it's how we hang out. So, yes. I'm going to keep doing that.
I think the most major ones are
If you know any other major titles LMK
Valorant and now League of Legends use kernel based anti-cheat, so they're off the table.
I play overwatch on endeavouros and I have better experience on it than in windows. League of legends will stop working soon. In general most of the games with rootkit anticheat clients will not work on Linux. On protondb you can see rankings and user comments about games. Last I checked 2% of all games are not working on Linux.
I can play every Paradox Game on Linux. Therefore, I can play every game that matters. Now, if you need me, I'll be in Crusader Kings, trying to build a family tree that looks like a giant beanstalk.
I'm actually transitioning. Windows for what I need it for but daily driver on mint. I think that makes the updates worse since I'm not using Windows as often.
These incessant, full-screen upgrade ads, with no way of canceling other than a small "Remind me later" tucked away in the corner, where the final straw from me switching to Linux.
When this screen recently came up, i had a mini stroke because it looked like it just updated itself... Iam really sold for linux mint, but my laptop is currently my desktop and i need functional Dockingstation use and an external gpu. Which doesn't do well on Linux :(
I guess I'm lucky I just get the "System requirements not met" instead of the Win11 update option.
Purposely not fixing that issue
Yeah same here. Don't have TPM, not buying a new CPU just to enable Microsoft's bullshit, so we are at an empasse.
I do have TPM, still not turning it on.
My computer is good enough to run any games I want to play, even recently released FPS types of games at reasonably high settings. Still not good enough for Win11. My weak-ass tablet, though, was upgraded straight away.
Yeah that’s funny how a gaming laptop with a beefy i7 can’t be upgraded but an enterprise laptop with whatever pitiful i3 can be. Even though gamers see windows as their primary OS, Microsoft clearly doesn’t see gamers as their primary audience.
that's probably the case with the majority of those still using win10 outside of 'enterprise' (corporate managed) environments. those upgrade 'offers' are quite effective at tricking people into the 'upgrade'
There’s a reason everyone says “Just use Linux”
I jumped onboard last weekend. Built my new computer from parts because I couldn't find a system I liked that didn't come with a Windows license, and I refuse to pay for a shitty OS I won't use.
I installed Mint have been happily gaming for just over a week now. I even upgraded my kernel when I came home for lunch one day. That's not something you can say about Windows!
I'd recommend staying with your current distro if you're happy with it!
Linux gang, but I use Windows at work and do a full update ("Please wait... We're working on things...") weekly over lunch due to being trapped in the Windows insider program. It takes about half an hour. Longer than compiling a kernel though.
The pain of this. I have two separate Windows work laptops (one for my employer, one for the firm we work with; data separation fun). The number of times I've booted up the second laptop ready to dive into a meeting or to quickly grab a reference only to be confronted with 15 minutes of that.
Between pestering me to check for updates, pestering me to restart to complete updates, hanging on shutdown to carry out updates, and hanging on startup to finish updates, I feel like I spend an unfeasible amount of time and brainspace thinking about system updates. Why? I've got actual work to do too!
that's awesome, i'd recommend trying out EndeavorOs for your next distro
It's really so much better. I'm going on a year now since I ditched windows and I have to say it's been great and there's nothing I miss about windows.
Windows 10 is the end of the line for me regardless of software compatibility.
lol my reasonably good gaming pc doesn't even meet the minimum system requirements. I don't have anything with a cpu that's in the "list of approved CPUs" 😎. Guess I can't use Windows even if I wanted to. 🤷
So absurd. My i5-6600K apparently didn't make the cut either. Sure it's almost 10 years old now but it runs W10 just fine. Thank god for Linux Mint.
That's it Microsoft...keep pushing more people to use Linux. 🐧
It's working. I'm in the (looooooong) process of moving over to Linux.
Same here, I used to be 100% Windows, now I only have a single device in my house that uses it. Windows becomes less useful over time as they push these dark patterns as Linux continues to improve.
I'm similar, I have my gaming desktop running Win10, and my old gaming desktop which migrated from Win7 to Win10 acting as a media center PC. Everything else is using Linux, either Debian or Proxmox. When Win10 hits end of life, the media center PC is an easy upgrade to Debian, but proton only supports ~70% of the games I'd like to play well, so I either need to keep a Windows machine around, or do virtualization + hardware passthrough, both of which are a pain.
With the direction Windows is going, I don't think I'll really even want a VM in 2030.
Gaming is literally the only thing keeping me chained to windows. As you said 70% is not 100% and I play a lot of random games. It's not enough to play some of what I want just to avoid Microsuck even though I reallllllly want to...
Exactly. I only have my workstation on Windows still. Well, it has Linux too, but I use some Windows only software and hardware so it'll be some time before I figure that out. Will probably have to run Windows in a VM with hardware pass through, if I can get reasonable latency for music production that way.
So. If my PC cannot be upgraded because of your bullshit requirements, can you leave me alone please.
Also in win 11.. if I have an office subscription activated in the OS can you please not throw ads for office 365 then.
It's nonsense.
i just set up a new one the 'right' (according to microsoft) way; allowing it on the network and to link to msa right off the bat, during oobe. sure you 'installed' the office (had 365 on that msa)--it was already there, you just 'activated' it. you also messed-up the document libraries, relocating three to onedrive, even though no pc on the msa has ever even had onedrive turned on in the first place. you also linked the edge browser to msa, even though the user has never, ever used edge for anything (user has been using firefox, exclusively, forever).
there were full screen ads more cloud space and for xbox whatever-the-fuck-that-was during 'first boot'.
I’m a Mac user. I like using Macs, and I like using macOS. Apple are just as bad as MS for this shit.
I have an old MacBook Pro, as well as a pair of older minis. All three were left behind by macOS a few years ago, but if they weren’t all running Sonoma through OpenCore, they’d have an update in the App Store to upgrade to a new OS that Apple won’t let them run.
I think with the latter it might be them pushing a personal account, assuming you're logged in with a work account. It often does this to me on my work computer. Or, it's just being typically annoying - that would make sense too.
No I have it on a personal account on that pc.. it's part of the family network.
Ok, so it's just being extra annoying then. Doesn't surprise me.
Thanks for thinking with me. Keep on being excellent!
Jokes on them, I disabled by TPM chip and I'm now incompatible. Fuck W11
Some regedit tweaks can bypass it. But yeah
Windows update can revert a regedit change. Can't fuckin touch the BIOS / UEFI
Not these entries m8
Maybe not. But I remember there was a regedit for disabling Cortana and Microsoft straight up revered it in an update. Not only that, windows was unable to boot and I had to fix it in safe mode
I had to update my BIOS a while ago and it set TPM back to disabled as default. Voila. No Windows 11 prompts because, as far as it can tell, I do not meet the requirements.
Brilliant! TPM as a crappy OS ad blocker... but this is still the worst timeline.
My $2000 PC built a year before its release with no TPM will beg to differ.
if you built a $2000 desktop and didn't specifically go out and source old parts... it's got one, most likely, you've just chosen to not enable it. intel and amd cpu have them built-in and motherboards and their bios support those. they don't need headers for a module or a discrete tpm chip on the board.
what was that nice app that would block Windows 10 upgrades?
Linux. (ducks)
Damn a new distro? I can't keep up...
Linux Ducks sounds delightful. I'd give it a shot.
It will curse and swear to helll with unintelligible error messages.
You say that like that's not a feature.
Never said it wasnt ;)
Penguins. :D
There's a registry setting for telling Windows that the target feature release is a specific version (it should be 22H2) which also will stop it from trying to push win11 upgrades
If anybody is curious, here are the details on how to do that: https://www.pdq.com/blog/how-to-block-the-windows-11-upgrade/
If you want to take it a step further, write a Powershell script that checks that the registry entry is what you want it to be, and then changes it if it is not. Then create a scheduled task to run at login that runs the script. That way if/when Microsoft pushes an update that switches the registry entry back, the scheduled task will flip it back after installing updates/rebooting/logging in.
I am currently fighting this battle with New Outlook in Win 11 23H2. It's really annoying. I can get rid of it with registry entries, but when windows does updates it reverts the registry changes back. So scheduled task it is. It would be great if there was an Intune configuration profile to deal with this, but that would go against Microsoft's current methods of shoving new products down your throat.
But 11 wants sometjing from my computer that it doesnt have, so it cant "upgrade"...
You might be talking about Never10, made by Steve Gibson over at GRC.com. It has since been updated and renamed InControl. It now also works to prevent unwanted Win11 upgrades, as well as other things. https://www.grc.com/incontrol.htm
grc yes! thank you
It's called Russian botnet initiator 5.0
got a book on Linux from the library this week, and I've been speaking with a friend who runs Linux full time on his system. looking to make the switch within the next few weeks; absolutely done with windows, personally.
I've been on Linux Mint for a few months now, and haven't booted into Windows in like three weeks.
The transition has been relatively painless.
Say what you will about Apple but I don't have to put up with this insane shit at least on their computers. I really wonder how long they hold out on this stuff.
You have to deal with different shit thought. Source: been using both Windows and Mac for over 20 years now.
Yeah for sure they both have their pros and cons, I've used both extensively. This just happens to be something that would particularly fucking infuriate me and I'm glad I don't have to deal with it on my daily driver.
Sorta feels like someone kicking the door into your house and tacking up billboards on your walls or something.
The problem with Apple is that it's not your computer. It's their computer and they get to dictate everything you do on it.
Their phones maybe? But not really Macs..... You can have full root access, edit system files, replace the OS, whatever.
How so?
Drop requirements for TPM and secure boot then.
That shit is just Xbone Kinect all over again.
Desolder your tpm chip to prevent forced downgrade to win11
Disabling it in Bios is enough
Oh, you can do this? Neat.
That seems much easier than installing Linux.
Or don't buy a machine with that bullshit.
Edit: I'm not sure why I'm being downvoted. My comment is still valid. If the argument is "you can't, all the machines now include it," then it's fucked up. Like today's TVs which all of them are smart, and that's fucked up.
If you've got a CPU from the last 6 years or so, you've probably already got one.
Hence I will never get rid of my 2017 laptop that doesn't qualify for Windows 11. The day Windows 10 stops updating for it is the day I'll install Linux in it.
You can turn off those requirements a few ways. IIRC using Rufus to make the bootable USB can, or something like Windows X-Lite which absolutely strips away all the M$ bullshit, like edge, defender, telemetry, bloat, and ads.
Windows is like the corner prostitute: pay some money, usually get what you want although not the best, occasionally get some horrible disease
Linux is like the sweet SO: has its quirks but you love them for it. let's you grow in your skills but that can be challenging at times. Surprises you in good and bad ways.
Edit: for grammar
its* quirks.
Ha ha. Yes of course. Corrected.
I love you username in this context :)
Lets* you grow 😉
Every time I see people complain about this while I'm running PopOS https://media.npr.org/news/images/2008/dec/12/sip_200-8cd52659abd57bb28c4d7bd3797c582d77527643-s6-c30.jpg
Shit tier os
Enshitification continues.
My hardware couldn't run Windows 11 anyway. But if it could, I still would've installed Linux.
I'm done needing 10 different tweaking programs before Windows works the way I want it to. I don't want an OS that is working against my workflow.
What distro do you use for day to day stuff? I’m a Mac user but want to dip my toes into Linux as a VM
If you want to dip your toes, go with something easy. Pop_os or Linux Mint are the two most often suggested. Lesser offered but with a Mac OS feel is Elementary.
Haven't heard much about ElementaryOS in awhile. It's still a thing?
I'm a little late to the party but I'm using Ubuntu myself. There are a handfull that are pretty good for starters. Ubuntu and Linux Mint are probably part of those. And I see others have given you some advice on good ones as well.
I would suggest to not just jump off the deep end but maybe make it a dual boot or install it on a spare computer. It's probably also usefull to make like a list of applications you're using in Windows and see if they're available on Linux. And if not, what alternatives there are. It helps if you are willing to try some alternatives to your daily applications when they are not available in Linux. But worst case scenario there are a lot of Windows applications that can run inside Wine in Linux.
I finally swapped to Linux and it's been easier than I expected. Don't know if I'll ever go back to only windows.
Same I was really surprised how easy it was. Thank you Lutris
What distro did you go with? Been thinking of switching myself
You can't "upgrade" windows, only downgrade it with patches and new versions that make your computer slower and more annoying.
Plasma 6 comes at the end of the month. Maybe upgrade to that instead. :)
I've had TPM disabled in the BIOS since I got this machine (which is getting pretty long in the tooth, granted). Can't upgrade, doesn't bug me about it.
Next computer will be the latest OS at the time, but I get to decide when that is.
Off topic, why does clicking keep windows 10 trigger the admin pop up? What does it need permission to do? It ain't for removing the ad because I still get it most boots
Hope they push so hard to a point that finally most of users adopt Linux and developers focus more in Linux
My machine can't handle that upgrade and I've not gotten any popups, thankfully.
I want to get the microsoft monkey off my back, can anyone point me to a guide or give me steps to making the switch?
Usually, I help family and friends setup their computer to something familiar/similar to their routine (especially those that do everything in their browser). Otherwise, I let them slowly adapt to some new alternative software for their case use by preconfiguring it with them.
Generally, I recommend Linux Mint for those that are used to the Windows "feel".
Guide: Linux Mint Installation Guide
Video: Linux Mint 21.3 (Wayland) Install Guide Note: I have not watched the whole video, I just quickly skipped around to see if they made sense.
Ideally, try to get a relative or friend who already use some flavor of Linux to sit down with you and help you get going with the transition, guaranteed they would be overjoyed. It'll help avoid some obvious pitfall/mistake depending on your expertise level on IT stuff and streamline the experience by sharing knowledge.
If any of my friends ever asked me to teach them Linux I'd be floored. I'd be over there with all kinds of devices and white boards to show the paradigms and strengths of open source.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Linux Mint 21.3 (Wayland) Install Guide
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
wow, thank you Xavier
Hi. 10-year Linux user here. Here is my concise guide to making the switch from Windows to Linux:
Step 1: Start trying out open source software on your Windows machine. A lot of my first year of using Linux full-time was googling "linux equivalent for [software name]." See what you think of LibreOffice, Blender, FreeCAD, Shotcut, Inkscape, GIMP, Krita, whatever programs you would use for your workflows.
Step 2: Try out Linux in a VM. You'll probably use a package called Virtualbox, which lets you install Linux in a file on your computer, and run it in a window. This is a great way to just...try out Linux distros without doing any permanent changes to your computer. Speaking of distros, yes there are thousands of them, yes that choice can be paralyzing. I recommend trying Linux Mint, Kubuntu, and Pop!_OS. These are designed with good out-of-box experiences and beginner friendliness in mind and are designed as daily drivers rather than as tinkering projects.
Step 3: Live USB. If you've ever installed Windows, you're probably familiar with the "you put the disc/USB stick in, boot to it, and it dumps you straight into the installer which runs at like 800x600 and you have to fully install Windows to get to the desktop" process. Not Linux; most Linux distros use what they call a Live environment, where from the disc/USB stick it boots to a fully functional version of the desktop. Nothing gets written to your machine's internal hard drive, but now you're running the OS on bare metal and not in a virtual machine, you can now genuinely test it for compatibility with your hardware.
Step 4: Run the installer. I'm not going to cover this process, you can find guides easily on the internet, including how to dual boot with Windows if you're not ready to fully burn that bridge. But now you're actually moving in.
Answers to some FAQs:
Do I need to use the terminal? Probably on occasion. Microsoft has trained a few generations of computer users to hate and fear the CLI by making theirs horrible. Think about the kind of things you need to edit the registry or dive into configuration files on Windows, and that's the kind of thing you'll need to use the terminal for on Linux. If you ask for technical help on a Linux forum or Lemmy community, you will likely be asked to run a terminal command, for the simple reason that "run lsblk and copy-paste the return" is way easier to do in a text forum. There are several "Linux terminal basics" videos out there that take around an hour and show you how do do things like make folders, create and delete files, install software etc. from the terminal, which is worth learning how to do, it will help your understanding of the Linux desktop. It's a good way to learn how the Linux file system works.
Do I need to know how to program? No. Scripting and programming tools will fall to hand easier on a Linux system, but if you create art in GIMP and play games in Steam and whatnot you won't need to write any code.
Will my [weird program or esoteric hardware work] Maybe, maybe not. I have seen it go both ways, I have hardware that works in Linux better than in Windows, I have seen things that don't work in Linux at all. If you have a gaming mouse or keyboard, it may be that the vendor's software for configuring the RGB lighting or remapping the buttons doesn't work. On the other hand I use a Spacemouse in CAD software and it works fine. Ultimately you will have to test this.
Good luck, and Welcome to the Linux community!
I don't have a guide as I had a Linux-friendly relative help me, but I can say that I use EndeavourOS with KDE and coming from someone who has used Windows all their life, I couldn't be happier. Now every time I have to use Windows on my work PC I die a little inside.
I found an excellent for me, half measure. Look up Windows X-Lite, they have a website. They offer 10 and 11 absolutely stripped of all the M$ bullshit and annoyances. Even windows defender can be removed.
Legit reminds me of a fresh XP install. Back to installing the vc++ and net desktop runtimes again, even.
I only don't ditch windows because I love playing VR and occasionally Valorant. And Wayland isn't quite where I'd like it to be feature wise for things like VRR and HDR.
Macbook? Chromebook?
Honestly, anything is better than Windows. But don't switch to Linux unless you are actually interested in Linux.
Longtime Linux user, here...
Windows 10 AME Wizard, get AtlasOS or whatever takes your fancy. Otherwise Linux Mint.
So this was the exact thing that pushed me over to the FOSS side the last time they did it. Nice to see the tradition of annoying users to the point of them abandoning Microsoft is alive and well.
I got the full-screen splash screen depicted on the second screenshot a couple of weeks ago, I screamed "No!" thinking Microsoft upgraded me to W11 without my consent. My partner thought my computer was broken 😂
Trust bust tech
I wish they'd stop defaulting to the goddamn boot drive for updates.. I don't have the space
rm -rf /*Works every time.
It doesnt work for me,
Why
Edit: this is a joke, daily drive linux. (I even think cmd would give a diffrent error message than "not a command") the child comments are an absolute shitshow
Give me back my vertical side-docked taskbar or STFU.
No, I don't want to deal with Explorer Patcher.
Just reinstall xp and these will stop.
*Upgrade to XP
Yep. Just turned on my win10 machine and had a full screen spread trying to get me to upgrade which I had to decline 3 different times to get to my desktop. Keep this up M$oft and I’m gonna switch entirely to Linux and run windows in a VM.
I found an excellent for me, half measure. Look up Windows X-Lite, they have a website. They offer 10 and 11 absolutely stripped of all the M$ bullshit and annoyances. Even windows defender can be removed.
Legit reminds me of a fresh XP install. Back to installing the vc++ and net desktop runtimes again, even.
I only don't ditch windows because I love playing VR and occasionally Valorant. And Wayland isn't quite where I'd like it to be feature wise for things like VRR and HDR.
I wish Riot would make it so you can play Valorant on Linux, I'd switch off windows permanently right away.
Just quit that shit and don't look back. No vidya is worth dedicating your life to.
Hmmm. I mainly play heroes of the storm at the moment and I've had issues getting that to work. While the steam games seem to work great I really feel like it needs some more polishing.
The work that has been done on it is stellar though. Especially considering it's the publishers not supporting Linux systems.
Everything on my steam deck works great though thanks to valve.
But my desktop... Not sure if I'm ready for that yet. :/
If it works on steamdeck it should also be working on normal Linux using the Linux native steam program
I know. It's the other platforms I'm worried about :D. Although I've kind of stopped playing all blizzard their other games.
Maybe I'll give it another go at one point.
What issues did you have getting it to work? I have been playing hots on Linux for a few years now..nearly a couple of hours everyday, but I've not needed to install it for a long time so I've probably forgotten what was needed to set it up. There are some prerequisites and I will leave that here in case you feel like trying it out again in the future. https://github.com/lutris/docs/blob/master/Battle.Net.md
I tried installing it through lutris, first the battle.net client and then hots but it just failed to install.
I'd have to reinstall Linux and see exactly what the issue is. I probably missed one of the prerequisites.
I read something on the Linux gaming Lemmy group where they are planning on combining the fixes so not every platform ( bottles, lutris, steam ) has to maintain their own scripts to fix things.
I'd need to actually put some effort into figuring out why it didn't work.
create a bootable USB disk and try it out, you don't need to fully commit until you feel ready
Yeah I had it on dual boot for a while, but I rarely started it. I'd need to put some effort into it. Win10 currently isn't so bad ( for gaming ).
But I am happy to see Linux gaming picking up.
if your machine is already dual boot I guess you already did most of the hard lifting, you just have to break that windows bad habit now :)
I had removed the partition and now I'm having a PITA to get PopOs to install at all.
"This GPT partition label contains no BIOS boot partition".
I'll need to figure out what's wrong there.
Just needed to boot the USB drive as UEFI rather than just boot from the USB drive. I swear these are hurdles for the sake of creating them...
Installed battle.net as a non-steam app and forcing it to use proton. It's installing and I haven't had to do anything. That's a good start at least.
I've tried to upgrade but the updater rolls it back every time. Idk what's up lol but my PC has given up trying to ask me
Does your computer have a TPM?
Yeah it covers all the requirements
I would rather move to Linux at that point but I can’t do that either since some critical apps I require don’t run on it (yet)
Do they work via Wine on Linux? I have had pretty good success there.
windows has sucked ever since 8
Windows 10 was alright if it weren't for the constant almost-forced updates.
I miss Windows 7.
7 still took getting used to for me, I miss XP
I...do not miss XP, but I understand the nostalgia attached to it.
I learned a lot of technical skills on XP, but that's what made me appreciate the architectural decisions behind UNIX-likes all the more.
XP was good too, but the whole swarm of vulnerabilities ruined it for me.
The last version of Windows I liked was 2000
Same. I held out on it for a really long time, until finally some stupid game pretty much forced me to update.
I didn't even get a question, just straight up installed Windows 11 on my Surface with a bunch of cumulative roll ups after using it again for the first time in about 8 months. Couldn't even stop it once the "windows update" started, only option is to allow the reboot and then go through the hassle of rolling back to 10. It's a tertiary device for me and goes long periods without being used and I was probably ok with testing 11 performance on it, but don't appreciate being strong armed. I had to kill modern standby again to prevent battery drain while shut down, which is plaguing my laptop after I tried 11 on it.
Windows 11 is straight up unusable in multi-monitor configurations though due to the locked down UI customization, so my main rig won't be touching it with a 20ft pole. If Linux had more consistent VR gaming performance and support, I'd probably be jumping ship. As it stands, once 10 hits EOL I'll probably end up there anyway. Microsoft will be killing one of my headsets at the same time anyway by dropping WMR, and I hear there is some great Linux options for the Surface Pro line now too.
Maybe you want to open that file in browser right? Ok setting default to open in browser!
But I really like the app because It was working just fine except for a few stupid glitches everywhere...!
What's that? So you really love the browser for files! That's great! Yeah it's compatible with Firefox we just put the file menu here, prin behind settings, view, you gotta triple click...oh very compatible!
But just wait until you want to do a teams meeting! Or a power point presentation! Full screen mode is now 10 menus deeper on power point and you'll love the 5 pixel screen when you present your power point on teams! People in the back really love being able to see all the very large people icons all around the very important 5 pixels representing your mouse and all graphics on your slides. Plus Karen! She'll change her icon to a cute little kitty and not tell anyone the secrete code to do it! It's Visual C++ now!
I don't see the point of your comment. What exactly are you critiquing?
I imagine the aggressive “feature” upsell popups that get more and more invasive with every new windows release
I'm sorry, you lost me at PowerPoint. You hit F5? Have you checked your screen resolution?
I'm thankful that I made the Switch to Linux after Windows 10 forced updates got annoying while gaming. I'll deal with whatever trade offs. I only need Windows for my Elgato atm.
More and more happy I left Windows behind a couple of months ago. I'd been on Windows since version 3. I dual-booted for a few weeks, then took the plunge. Windows is completely gone from my life.
I'm on Ubuntu at the moment, but I'm planning a move to LMDE, I think that's a better distro for me.
Thought about regular Linux Mint too? It has some of the Ubuntu benefits but not the parts people don’t like.
I am considering switching one of the computers at home away from windows, so I have been looking at the latest on some of my options.
At this point I know of two Ubuntu features that would make a difference to end users: PPA support, and the Device Manager.
PPAs are/were Ubuntu's answer to the question "What if the software I want isn't in the repository?" "Well the vendor will host a personal package archive, you can just add it and then still use APT." From where I'm sitting, Flatpak and/or Appimage have completely invalidated any use case for PPAs, I haven't installed a package from a PPA in years.
The Device Manager is handy if you have an Nvidia GPU, open Device Manager and click the one that says "Recommended." IIRC this is an Ubuntu-derived feature not available in LMDE and as soon as I own an AMD GPU I'd have less reason to not use Debian Edition.
Informative, thank you!
I may need to try regular Linux Mint first on this particular machine.
I was able to solve this annoying problem by replacing my PC with a raspberry pi running android.
Android? But you can do better with any distro that runs on ARM.
Did you choose a de-googled Android?
I'm running a Google-free distribution, so no worries there.
How is this bad
It either pushes them to an actual supported Windows OS, or to a FOSS/Linux OS. Both scenarios are good