16 ms·

Windows 11 still not winning the OS popularity contest

33 points by nixcraft 4y ago

eric__cartman 4y ago
Who would have thought that an operating system with crazy minimum system requirements and no meaningful improvements for the average user wouldn't be a popular choice.
- Cyberdog 4y ago
  Will anyone at MS learn a lesson from this and stop taking their OS development in directions the user doesn't want it to go? Or is that just crazy talk?
  - eric__cartman 4y ago
    They know most users don't have a choice and will upgrade when their current OS goes EOL or they buy a new computer. If it were for me I would have kept the Windows 7 shell and upgraded the operating system under the hood. Why change someone's workflow with a worse version of what you previously had. Like the awful search in Windows 10 that looks stuff up in Bing before searching the hard drive. Who thought that was a good idea? IT WORKED JUST FINE IN WINDOWS 7.
- TillE 4y ago
  The official minimum requirements are just bizarre, because they're only enforced at installation. Windows 11 runs just fine on Skylake processors. Yes, older CPUs don't have certain security features. That's unfortunate, but it's not like running Windows 10 is more secure for them. Just turn those features off when they're not supported.
UI_at_80x24 4y ago
The real issue here is that W11 doesn't solve a problem or fix a need. Instead what it does do is makes unnecessary UI changes. File explorer right-click menu change: check Advertisements for MS store/MS services in working areas of the UI: check Harder to create/use a 'local-only' account on non-enterprise versions of the OS: check Not that long ago, the `safe` option for businesses was to wait until ServicePack 2 for an OS was released before we installed it. MS would have better W11 adoption if they had just called it Windows10 SP2. I used W11 (because it came pre-installed on a laptop I bought) for 2 weeks. The right-click menu changes were infuriating. The 'Start' menu is still an abomination. I had more popups advertising MS services and pushing a MS Account then I ever saw on the popup-hell of the 90-00's internet. IMHO It would take using 'Start10' (is the new version called Start11?) to de-crapify W11 before I would want to use it, and since the upgrade is primarily cosmetic; then what's the point of upgrading?
- dragontamer 4y ago
  > The real issue here is that W11 doesn't solve a problem or fix a need Having a scheduler that actually works with 12th generation and 13th generation P+E cores coming out of Intel is a pretty important problem methinks. Especially if you're a user who wants to take advantage of the E-core's efficiency to increase battery lives on your laptop. > Instead what it does do is makes unnecessary UI changes. I do wonder why the Microsoft / Windows folk keep reinventing their UI. Literally reinventing it. We're on WinUI 3 now, from like Silverlight -> Windows 8 Metro -> Windows 10 UWP -> WinUI3 (I'm not sure where WinUI1 or 2 stand, but its probably somewhere in that Win10 UWP era). I get that Microsoft's business strategy keeps changing. But it has to be annoying for Windows developers to try to keep up with all that.
  - skelpmargyar 4y ago
    How come they don't update the scheduler in Windows 10 to support Intel's processors? Also, from what I have read the biggest changes are UI based and some new features like DirectStorage which don't seem like they would require an entirely new operating system. Is there some backwards compatibility issue with the new features? And is there a complete changelist from Microsoft?
    - mike_hearn 4y ago
      A lot of people aren't aware of this but Win10 is in maintenance mode and has been for quite some time. Not only do they not backport new features but they also don't always backport important bug fixes either (except for security obviously). Win11 is probably an opt-in upgrade due to the UI changes. The idea of Win10 being the last version ever was nice, but if all upgrades happen automatically you can't make any serious UI changes because people hate stuff just suddenly changing on them when they don't expect it. Note that Apple never made any move as bold as removing versions, and they were able to continue making UI changes as a consequence in each version. People moan, the people who don't like it don't upgrade, and eventually have to pick between support or upgrading but they're never forced so the blowback is minimal. The idea of Win10 being the last version seems to have come from web apps which aren't visibly versioned. But the same problem crops up there, hence why big UI changes on sites like Gmail, Reddit etc have to fork the frontend codebase - sometimes for years.
0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
Don’t forget the feature regressions! Also amusing to report that someone installed Windows 11 on an old pentium [0]. Evidently Microsoft used a processor blackist, but nobody thought to go back that far. So yes, arbitrary hardware restrictions. [0] https://www.pcmag.com/news/no-new-pc-needed-windows-11-runs-on-a-15-year-old-intel-pentium-4-chip https://www.pcmag.com/news/no-new-pc-needed-windows-11-runs-...
sonicgear1 4y ago
I am a life-long Windows user but 11 is just a total blunder.
- skelpmargyar 4y ago
  I am a life-long Windows user and I'm pretty sure there have been more release blunders than successes. The most I have ever expected from a new Windows version is "well it works as well as the last" other than Bluetooth actually working in Windows 10 compared to Windows 7. I'm sure there are tons of improvements under the hood, but I feel like I can't experience them because of how TERRIBLE Microsoft has become at UI/UX.
dzdt 4y ago
As far as I can tell the main 'feature' of Windows 11 is a stronger move towards everything-is-a-service (and particularly a service you have to pay for on an ongoing basis). Why else the push to be logged into microsoft and onedrive? Office365 being online only software-as-a-service was just the start. The goal is clear, and its clear its primarily a step backwards for the user.
Kukumber 4y ago
all my family is either on android or macOS for their laptop i haven't seen a windows machine in the wild for a while already EDIT: looks like i hurt some Microsoft Windows fanboys, life must be hard https://i.imgur.com/pbSoAUn.png https://i.imgur.com/pbSoAUn.png
jgalentine007 4y ago
I did Windows Me, Vista and 8 already, I can't put myself through another cycle. MacOS it is!
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Same ones I'd pick out as the "bad" releases, as someone using Windows since 3.1. 10's kinda a dud, too, though. If 7 supported newer hardware (or, vice versa, rather) I'd still be on that. 10's got WSL2 and... not much else going for it, and even that's not really a normal-user feature.
  - jgalentine007 4y ago
    Same, and DOS before it. I've always been a Microsoft fan, but I'm a bit tired now. Apple silicon is a killer feature and I'm finding it hard to justify not moving wholesale to it (I'm dual wielding right now).
- CharlesW 4y ago
  I love that for you (and me), but note that there are just as many people whining about macOS Ventura's modest changes.
  - jgalentine007 4y ago
    I do feel like MacOS has done a better job of continuity - they change the system preference tool one time, Microsoft has done it like 4 times. Microsoft messed with the Start menu nearly every release, most people would still be fine with how it was way back in XP/2000. The place where MS shined was program and api compatibility and no sudden surprises (usually) - you knew what was coming down the roadmap ahead of time!
paxys 4y ago
Looking at https://www.pcbenchmarks.net/os-marketshare.html https://www.pcbenchmarks.net/os-marketshare.html, Windows 11 seems to be gaining adoption at the expected rate, at least among the enthusiast crowd (who will run such tests). As with all previous versions, people aren't going to be in any rush to upgrade their OS no matter the feature set. It will naturally gain market share when people throw away their devices and buy new ones.
- prometheus76 4y ago
  I tried to like it, but between the telemetry, the bugginess, the insane UI changes, and embedded ads all over the place, I went back to Windows 10. Win11 is a mess.
gryf 4y ago
Despite writing tomes of scathing bitching about Windows 11, I have to say that the direction it's going in is the correct one. All they have to do is kill off the mandatory cloud sign in everywhere, the telemetry, the crapware bundled with it, fix the S3 sleep problems, actually do some QA for a change, make the onboarding experience smooth as butter, deal with the buggity hellscape that is Windows Hello, fix all the stupid HiDPI weirdness, clean up at least 50% of the legacy shite hiding behind it and start respecting customers again and they will have a product. Oh and fucking stick to one UI for a bit. Edit: honestly I would love to use Windows on a daily basis. I lived through the glory days of Windows 2000 and it was consistent and dependable back then. Every step forward since has been two steps backwards.
- trollerator23 4y ago
  lol. yes. Specifically, the whole cloud sign in SUCKS
  - bradford 4y ago
    Disclaimer, MS employee here, but I've got to say that the cloud sign-in is one of my favorite features. The amount of time I spend worrying about and preparing for a hard drive failure has significantly gone down. I'm able to have one device at home, and another at work, and they stay reasonably in-sync with one another. I'm able to check things from my phone (even if I can't be productive on the phone, at least having access to progress made on my home machine is important). I see others commenting here about how hard it is to create a local-only account on Windows 11, and I don't want to dismiss such criticism, but I'm personally never going back to a local-only account on my devices.
    - yoyohello13 4y ago
      Well, I'm glad you trust your employer to be a good steward of your personal data. I certainly don't trust them...
    - masterof0 4y ago
      Good for you. Most people don't want Microsoft to own their data. You get that? User's data belong to them, if you are set to share all your personal data with Microsoft , then it should be an opt-in process (maybe they can entice you with Bing points or some sort of rewards?). It should be offline by default. As customer are already paying for the operating system. You can also use many syncing solutions from Google drive to dropbox, and many others. Regarding the "amount of time I spend worrying about hard drive failure" , never have I had a hard drive that just dies, is possible , but extremely unlikely, I make a backup of my important stuffs to other hard drives or the cloud. Cloud sign-on is just another way to track users and violates their basic privacy rights.
eitally 4y ago
We have a Thinkpad running W11. It's my son's and I didn't really think much about the OS until he started having issues (with things like the Windows Hello security system that automatically logs you in through webcam face recognition...supposedly). It used to be that Windows had it's own quirks, but the UI and functional interfaces were generally roughly equatable with what you'd get on a popular Linux distro, or OSX. Now, though, while you can still get under the hood easily, Microsoft has messed with the UI/UX so much that it feels more like trying to use an XBOX for productivity than a desktop computer OS. If it wasn't for the fact that you can generally assume reverse compatibility and drivers for literally everything from MSFT, I think they'd have lost huge marketshare with this release. It's a Vista for a new generation.
chrsig 4y ago
I feel like the odd one out on windows 11. I actually quite like it, and the UI changes it brings. I also approve of how well they've integrated wsl2. It's been making many aspects of developing for both windows and linux much less painful. I don't like how much content it grabs from the internet on things like the menu bar and the start menu...but that's about my only gripe with it. I say this as someone that grew up using linux and gnome 1.4, 2.0, 3.0, having gone through various other desktop environments andwindow managers like enlightenment, kde, openbox, fluxbox, xmonad, etc. and abbreviating microsoft to "m$". I don't like microsoft as a corporation, and I'm no fanboy. but it seems nicer to use than what I've seen in the linux world. I definitely like it more than macOS. Sometimes windows can still feel cluttery, but I'm very happy with how they allow easily snapping windows to current positions/sizes. I generally am only using firefox, clion/goland/emacs (in wsl2), and various games though. So maybe I'm just getting a limited experience. I also use it on a very beefy machine (12 core amd ryzen 9 3900xt, 128gb ram, 2x2tb nvme, gtx 3060). It could be on more average hardware that it's a terrible experience.
binkHN 4y ago
I haven’t touched Windows 11—no big reason to. The fact Windows 10 will never get better is pushing me to give ChromeOS a shot on my next hardware refresh, and ChromeOS + it’s Linux VM support will likely seal the deal as my next OS going forward.
StillBored 4y ago
Yah, I'm done with windows on personal hardware. I was late to 7, and refused to run 10, rather switching to KDE on a number of machines. MS didn't learn the lesson that apple taught them, about how a desktop interface doesn't work well on small screen devices without keyboard/mouse. Instead what they appear to have learned is that small screen UI's designed for touch should be used on desktop systems with screen real estate measured in 10's of square feet, and where the primary input device is a keyboard followed by a mouse. And its terrible. People complain because it sucks. Not being able to figure out which window is active because they removed most of the visual active/inactive window hinting, not being able to find more than a couple dozen programs works great for a work computer where your day job involves sitting in one of a small number of applications all day long, but fails miserably for any other use case. Even android/iphone can group program/icons by function these days (and have you seen anyone under 20's phone screen? Those kids have 100's of applications installed). And yet the past 10 years of MS "advancements" are largely things people either didn't ask for, or are reversions of things that were possible in older versions of the OS. Sure the task manager can now display network utilization, but you can't figure out if the window your typing in is active until you realize that you just typed your SSH key unlock pin, into slack. And don't get me started on the scroll bars, the new control panel UI has the same abominable f*ed up scroll bar situation as most web apps, and it still can only do about 1/2 of what the old win7 control panel could. You have to try and scroll it 1/2 the time before you can be sure there isn't more information below the bottom of the window. Its just one user hostile change after another, and they add up... over and over. until it feels like the entire point is just to screw around with people.
grishka 4y ago
I know some people who still use Windows 7. The reason is simple: they don't want to fix what's not broken. 7 is also the last properly-desktop release, and it also doesn't put itself before the user.
- jnxx 4y ago
  I am still using Debian. Debian 10 "Buster" to be precise. But I think I will upgrade, it will be uneventful and everything I use will work as before. BTW it is a nice combo with the Guix package manager ontop when one needs recent libraries and stuff for development. Saves a ton of time.
phendrenad2 4y ago
Dug up a several weeks old comment of mine to repost this: Windows 11 was released in Oct 2021. In Oct 2022, its market share was 15%. Windows 10 was released in Jul 2015. In Jul 2016, its market share was 28%. So not ALL that much of a difference, definitely not enough to be writing articles like this and expect to be taken as serious journalism.
li2uR3ce 4y ago
It won't run on perfectly fine hardware which manufactures EOL practically as it leaves the conveyor belt. They'd like the solution to everything be to buy a new one. So when Microsoft left it to manufactures to decide if a machine could run Windows 11, it was a lot of "nope". Yes even the ones with new enough TPM. When everyone wants 10 bucks from you, 10 bucks isn't cheap. That model scales poorly at the PC price point. They need to break Windows 10 and remove choice.
kyriakos 4y ago
I recently decided to upgrade from Windows 10. I have a 7th gen Intel cpu and was planning to a hardware upgrade so I said why not let's give Windows 11 a try before abandoning this pc. To my surprise its much better than people make it to be. I did do a registry change for the right click menu, installed startallback but otherwise everything else is substantially improved. What surprised me mostly is that memory management has improved to the point I decided not to proceed with replacing my pc. It's sad Microsoft chose not to support older cpu cause it really shines in regards to performance.

33 points by nixcraft 4y ago

Who would have thought that an operating system with crazy minimum system requirements and no meaningful improvements for the average user wouldn't be a popular choice.

Cyberdog 4y ago
Will anyone at MS learn a lesson from this and stop taking their OS development in directions the user doesn't want it to go? Or is that just crazy talk?
- eric__cartman 4y ago
  They know most users don't have a choice and will upgrade when their current OS goes EOL or they buy a new computer. If it were for me I would have kept the Windows 7 shell and upgraded the operating system under the hood. Why change someone's workflow with a worse version of what you previously had. Like the awful search in Windows 10 that looks stuff up in Bing before searching the hard drive. Who thought that was a good idea? IT WORKED JUST FINE IN WINDOWS 7.
TillE 4y ago
The official minimum requirements are just bizarre, because they're only enforced at installation. Windows 11 runs just fine on Skylake processors. Yes, older CPUs don't have certain security features. That's unfortunate, but it's not like running Windows 10 is more secure for them. Just turn those features off when they're not supported.

UI_at_80x24 4y ago

The real issue here is that W11 doesn't solve a problem or fix a need. Instead what it does do is makes unnecessary UI changes. File explorer right-click menu change: check Advertisements for MS store/MS services in working areas of the UI: check Harder to create/use a 'local-only' account on non-enterprise versions of the OS: check Not that long ago, the `safe` option for businesses was to wait until ServicePack 2 for an OS was released before we installed it. MS would have better W11 adoption if they had just called it Windows10 SP2. I used W11 (because it came pre-installed on a laptop I bought) for 2 weeks. The right-click menu changes were infuriating. The 'Start' menu is still an abomination. I had more popups advertising MS services and pushing a MS Account then I ever saw on the popup-hell of the 90-00's internet. IMHO It would take using 'Start10' (is the new version called Start11?) to de-crapify W11 before I would want to use it, and since the upgrade is primarily cosmetic; then what's the point of upgrading?

dragontamer 4y ago
> The real issue here is that W11 doesn't solve a problem or fix a need Having a scheduler that actually works with 12th generation and 13th generation P+E cores coming out of Intel is a pretty important problem methinks. Especially if you're a user who wants to take advantage of the E-core's efficiency to increase battery lives on your laptop. > Instead what it does do is makes unnecessary UI changes. I do wonder why the Microsoft / Windows folk keep reinventing their UI. Literally reinventing it. We're on WinUI 3 now, from like Silverlight -> Windows 8 Metro -> Windows 10 UWP -> WinUI3 (I'm not sure where WinUI1 or 2 stand, but its probably somewhere in that Win10 UWP era). I get that Microsoft's business strategy keeps changing. But it has to be annoying for Windows developers to try to keep up with all that.
- skelpmargyar 4y ago
  How come they don't update the scheduler in Windows 10 to support Intel's processors? Also, from what I have read the biggest changes are UI based and some new features like DirectStorage which don't seem like they would require an entirely new operating system. Is there some backwards compatibility issue with the new features? And is there a complete changelist from Microsoft?
  - mike_hearn 4y ago
    A lot of people aren't aware of this but Win10 is in maintenance mode and has been for quite some time. Not only do they not backport new features but they also don't always backport important bug fixes either (except for security obviously). Win11 is probably an opt-in upgrade due to the UI changes. The idea of Win10 being the last version ever was nice, but if all upgrades happen automatically you can't make any serious UI changes because people hate stuff just suddenly changing on them when they don't expect it. Note that Apple never made any move as bold as removing versions, and they were able to continue making UI changes as a consequence in each version. People moan, the people who don't like it don't upgrade, and eventually have to pick between support or upgrading but they're never forced so the blowback is minimal. The idea of Win10 being the last version seems to have come from web apps which aren't visibly versioned. But the same problem crops up there, hence why big UI changes on sites like Gmail, Reddit etc have to fork the frontend codebase - sometimes for years.

0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago

Don’t forget the feature regressions! Also amusing to report that someone installed Windows 11 on an old pentium [0]. Evidently Microsoft used a processor blackist, but nobody thought to go back that far. So yes, arbitrary hardware restrictions. [0] https://www.pcmag.com/news/no-new-pc-needed-windows-11-runs-on-a-15-year-old-intel-pentium-4-chip https://www.pcmag.com/news/no-new-pc-needed-windows-11-runs-...

sonicgear1 4y ago

I am a life-long Windows user but 11 is just a total blunder.

skelpmargyar 4y ago
I am a life-long Windows user and I'm pretty sure there have been more release blunders than successes. The most I have ever expected from a new Windows version is "well it works as well as the last" other than Bluetooth actually working in Windows 10 compared to Windows 7. I'm sure there are tons of improvements under the hood, but I feel like I can't experience them because of how TERRIBLE Microsoft has become at UI/UX.

dzdt 4y ago

As far as I can tell the main 'feature' of Windows 11 is a stronger move towards everything-is-a-service (and particularly a service you have to pay for on an ongoing basis). Why else the push to be logged into microsoft and onedrive? Office365 being online only software-as-a-service was just the start. The goal is clear, and its clear its primarily a step backwards for the user.

Kukumber 4y ago

all my family is either on android or macOS for their laptop i haven't seen a windows machine in the wild for a while already EDIT: looks like i hurt some Microsoft Windows fanboys, life must be hard https://i.imgur.com/pbSoAUn.png https://i.imgur.com/pbSoAUn.png

jgalentine007 4y ago

I did Windows Me, Vista and 8 already, I can't put myself through another cycle. MacOS it is!

yamtaddle 4y ago
Same ones I'd pick out as the "bad" releases, as someone using Windows since 3.1. 10's kinda a dud, too, though. If 7 supported newer hardware (or, vice versa, rather) I'd still be on that. 10's got WSL2 and... not much else going for it, and even that's not really a normal-user feature.
- jgalentine007 4y ago
  Same, and DOS before it. I've always been a Microsoft fan, but I'm a bit tired now. Apple silicon is a killer feature and I'm finding it hard to justify not moving wholesale to it (I'm dual wielding right now).
CharlesW 4y ago
I love that for you (and me), but note that there are just as many people whining about macOS Ventura's modest changes.
- jgalentine007 4y ago
  I do feel like MacOS has done a better job of continuity - they change the system preference tool one time, Microsoft has done it like 4 times. Microsoft messed with the Start menu nearly every release, most people would still be fine with how it was way back in XP/2000. The place where MS shined was program and api compatibility and no sudden surprises (usually) - you knew what was coming down the roadmap ahead of time!

paxys 4y ago

Looking at https://www.pcbenchmarks.net/os-marketshare.html https://www.pcbenchmarks.net/os-marketshare.html, Windows 11 seems to be gaining adoption at the expected rate, at least among the enthusiast crowd (who will run such tests). As with all previous versions, people aren't going to be in any rush to upgrade their OS no matter the feature set. It will naturally gain market share when people throw away their devices and buy new ones.

prometheus76 4y ago
I tried to like it, but between the telemetry, the bugginess, the insane UI changes, and embedded ads all over the place, I went back to Windows 10. Win11 is a mess.

gryf 4y ago

Despite writing tomes of scathing bitching about Windows 11, I have to say that the direction it's going in is the correct one. All they have to do is kill off the mandatory cloud sign in everywhere, the telemetry, the crapware bundled with it, fix the S3 sleep problems, actually do some QA for a change, make the onboarding experience smooth as butter, deal with the buggity hellscape that is Windows Hello, fix all the stupid HiDPI weirdness, clean up at least 50% of the legacy shite hiding behind it and start respecting customers again and they will have a product. Oh and fucking stick to one UI for a bit. Edit: honestly I would love to use Windows on a daily basis. I lived through the glory days of Windows 2000 and it was consistent and dependable back then. Every step forward since has been two steps backwards.

trollerator23 4y ago
lol. yes. Specifically, the whole cloud sign in SUCKS
- bradford 4y ago
  Disclaimer, MS employee here, but I've got to say that the cloud sign-in is one of my favorite features. The amount of time I spend worrying about and preparing for a hard drive failure has significantly gone down. I'm able to have one device at home, and another at work, and they stay reasonably in-sync with one another. I'm able to check things from my phone (even if I can't be productive on the phone, at least having access to progress made on my home machine is important). I see others commenting here about how hard it is to create a local-only account on Windows 11, and I don't want to dismiss such criticism, but I'm personally never going back to a local-only account on my devices.
  - yoyohello13 4y ago
    Well, I'm glad you trust your employer to be a good steward of your personal data. I certainly don't trust them...
  - masterof0 4y ago
    Good for you. Most people don't want Microsoft to own their data. You get that? User's data belong to them, if you are set to share all your personal data with Microsoft , then it should be an opt-in process (maybe they can entice you with Bing points or some sort of rewards?). It should be offline by default. As customer are already paying for the operating system. You can also use many syncing solutions from Google drive to dropbox, and many others. Regarding the "amount of time I spend worrying about hard drive failure" , never have I had a hard drive that just dies, is possible , but extremely unlikely, I make a backup of my important stuffs to other hard drives or the cloud. Cloud sign-on is just another way to track users and violates their basic privacy rights.

eitally 4y ago

We have a Thinkpad running W11. It's my son's and I didn't really think much about the OS until he started having issues (with things like the Windows Hello security system that automatically logs you in through webcam face recognition...supposedly). It used to be that Windows had it's own quirks, but the UI and functional interfaces were generally roughly equatable with what you'd get on a popular Linux distro, or OSX. Now, though, while you can still get under the hood easily, Microsoft has messed with the UI/UX so much that it feels more like trying to use an XBOX for productivity than a desktop computer OS. If it wasn't for the fact that you can generally assume reverse compatibility and drivers for literally everything from MSFT, I think they'd have lost huge marketshare with this release. It's a Vista for a new generation.

chrsig 4y ago

I feel like the odd one out on windows 11. I actually quite like it, and the UI changes it brings. I also approve of how well they've integrated wsl2. It's been making many aspects of developing for both windows and linux much less painful. I don't like how much content it grabs from the internet on things like the menu bar and the start menu...but that's about my only gripe with it. I say this as someone that grew up using linux and gnome 1.4, 2.0, 3.0, having gone through various other desktop environments andwindow managers like enlightenment, kde, openbox, fluxbox, xmonad, etc. and abbreviating microsoft to "m$". I don't like microsoft as a corporation, and I'm no fanboy. but it seems nicer to use than what I've seen in the linux world. I definitely like it more than macOS. Sometimes windows can still feel cluttery, but I'm very happy with how they allow easily snapping windows to current positions/sizes. I generally am only using firefox, clion/goland/emacs (in wsl2), and various games though. So maybe I'm just getting a limited experience. I also use it on a very beefy machine (12 core amd ryzen 9 3900xt, 128gb ram, 2x2tb nvme, gtx 3060). It could be on more average hardware that it's a terrible experience.

binkHN 4y ago

I haven’t touched Windows 11—no big reason to. The fact Windows 10 will never get better is pushing me to give ChromeOS a shot on my next hardware refresh, and ChromeOS + it’s Linux VM support will likely seal the deal as my next OS going forward.

StillBored 4y ago

Yah, I'm done with windows on personal hardware. I was late to 7, and refused to run 10, rather switching to KDE on a number of machines. MS didn't learn the lesson that apple taught them, about how a desktop interface doesn't work well on small screen devices without keyboard/mouse. Instead what they appear to have learned is that small screen UI's designed for touch should be used on desktop systems with screen real estate measured in 10's of square feet, and where the primary input device is a keyboard followed by a mouse. And its terrible. People complain because it sucks. Not being able to figure out which window is active because they removed most of the visual active/inactive window hinting, not being able to find more than a couple dozen programs works great for a work computer where your day job involves sitting in one of a small number of applications all day long, but fails miserably for any other use case. Even android/iphone can group program/icons by function these days (and have you seen anyone under 20's phone screen? Those kids have 100's of applications installed). And yet the past 10 years of MS "advancements" are largely things people either didn't ask for, or are reversions of things that were possible in older versions of the OS. Sure the task manager can now display network utilization, but you can't figure out if the window your typing in is active until you realize that you just typed your SSH key unlock pin, into slack. And don't get me started on the scroll bars, the new control panel UI has the same abominable f*ed up scroll bar situation as most web apps, and it still can only do about 1/2 of what the old win7 control panel could. You have to try and scroll it 1/2 the time before you can be sure there isn't more information below the bottom of the window. Its just one user hostile change after another, and they add up... over and over. until it feels like the entire point is just to screw around with people.

grishka 4y ago

I know some people who still use Windows 7. The reason is simple: they don't want to fix what's not broken. 7 is also the last properly-desktop release, and it also doesn't put itself before the user.

jnxx 4y ago
I am still using Debian. Debian 10 "Buster" to be precise. But I think I will upgrade, it will be uneventful and everything I use will work as before. BTW it is a nice combo with the Guix package manager ontop when one needs recent libraries and stuff for development. Saves a ton of time.

phendrenad2 4y ago

Dug up a several weeks old comment of mine to repost this: Windows 11 was released in Oct 2021. In Oct 2022, its market share was 15%. Windows 10 was released in Jul 2015. In Jul 2016, its market share was 28%. So not ALL that much of a difference, definitely not enough to be writing articles like this and expect to be taken as serious journalism.

li2uR3ce 4y ago

It won't run on perfectly fine hardware which manufactures EOL practically as it leaves the conveyor belt. They'd like the solution to everything be to buy a new one. So when Microsoft left it to manufactures to decide if a machine could run Windows 11, it was a lot of "nope". Yes even the ones with new enough TPM. When everyone wants 10 bucks from you, 10 bucks isn't cheap. That model scales poorly at the PC price point. They need to break Windows 10 and remove choice.

kyriakos 4y ago

I recently decided to upgrade from Windows 10. I have a 7th gen Intel cpu and was planning to a hardware upgrade so I said why not let's give Windows 11 a try before abandoning this pc. To my surprise its much better than people make it to be. I did do a registry change for the right click menu, installed startallback but otherwise everything else is substantially improved. What surprised me mostly is that memory management has improved to the point I decided not to proceed with replacing my pc. It's sad Microsoft chose not to support older cpu cause it really shines in regards to performance.