7 ms·

This is great. I really hate Windows 11. It doesn’t run on several of my computers due to its system requirements and for those that it does run on I find the

This is great. I really hate Windows 11. It doesn’t run on several of my computers due to its system requirements and for those that it does run on I find the UX to be such a huge step backwards that I find myself continually fighting with the shell rather than actually getting work done. So, I’ve been steadfastly sticking to Windows 10 on machines where I need Windows. There’s so many things completely artificially gated to Windows 11. The new Apple Music Preview which is gated to 11 can be easily patched to run on 10 just by editing the manifest. I’ve found many other “Windows 11 only” things to be entirely “paper” limitations. I tried to hack WSA onto 10 a while back but quickly realized it was more than a manifest change and lost interest because it wasn’t important enough to me to pursue further. I’m glad someone took the time to figure it out and I tip my hat to the folks that took the time to debug and reverse engineer this solution. The relative simplicity of the resulting hack to run WSA on Windows 10 shows that it seems to be more of an unwillingness to backport some new APIs rather than any sort of deep technological changes in the OS.

iforgotpassword 4y ago
When Windows 10 came along, people happily moved over from 8.x, as it was such an improvement. Those who stuck with 7 decided to still stick with 7 for a while longer. When 7 came around, same thing: most Vista users happily switched, XP users held out until the bitter end. Every time the sentiment was similar to the comment I'm replying to. Somehow people must be forgetting that the previous thing they had was already better then the current thing. Maybe helped by the fact that the next thing seems to suck even more. Wait until support for 10 ends and 12 has full screen unmutable video ads. 11 will only seem half bad.
- voidfunc 4y ago
  The difference between 7 and basically every other Windows OS since XP was that it was actually really really good. They took Vista and fixed most of the things that pissed everyone off about it. I don't remember a lot of problems with 7 at all. Then they scrapped it for 8 which was a UX disaster. Win10 was OK, but still quirky as hell with lots of weird 8 carry over. I loathed when I finally upgraded from 7 to 10. I've been using Win11 Pro for gaming mostly and it's OK but not great once I moved the task bar back to the left. I dunno why anyone felt that was worth mucking with. What I really resent about Win11 is the desire to connect my Microsoft account to everything. Someday I'm gonna seriously give the Steam/Proton thing a try on Linux. I'm battle scarred from trying to game on Linux in the early 2000's... but I need to give it another chance. I'd much rather stay on my Linux host for both work and fun rather than just work.
  - nickphx 4y ago
    Proton works great with the exception of some online titles that require useless anti-cheat software or wacky drm.
    - aruggirello 4y ago
      BTW for those considering this WSA thing, in Linux land we have Waydroid!
  - heywhatupboys 4y ago
    i really loved Vista, don't really get the hate. I recently used a computer with vista, and oh boy it is BEAUTIFUL! more prettier than modern flat bland paint-made Windows
    - iforgotpassword 4y ago
      Ok then, but in which ways was it better than 7? I'm firmly in the "Vista was pretty unpolished" camp, and it wasn't helped by the fact that like the majority of people, I first experienced it on underpowered hardware, adding insult to injury. The story goes that during development, Microsoft overestimated the advances that would be made regarding raw computing power, extrapolated from previous years where we did in fact move crazy fast. So when 7 rolled along, half of the performance issues were solved by hw finally catching up, the other half were tweaks and fixes by MS. The UI I think was improved across the board. So that's why I'm curious what the Vista fans loved so much about it compared to 7.
      - lmm 4y ago
        > Ok then, but in which ways was it better than 7? The way I remember it it was less gratuitously flashy, or at least easier to switch back into a win2k-like mode. Doesn't 7 force you to use a GPU-accelerated desktop or something?
        layer8 4y ago
- CamperBob2 4y ago
  When Windows 10 came along, people happily moved over from 8.x, as it was such an improvement That's... not how I remember it. What I remember is that people hated the first Windows 10 builds so much that Microsoft not only couldn't give it away for free, but they had to use deceptive techniques -- essentially leveraging Windows Update as a malware distribution channel -- to force them to upgrade.
  - smolyeet 4y ago
    The reception of 10 was pretty good and a step in the right direction from the tablet/desktop aio that was 8 and 8.1. Plus it was free and didn’t have as many restriction to upgrade as say 11. It was a challenge for enterprise but people adopted 10 fairly quickly. Even if you google the stats of it : https://www.businessinsider.com/windows-10-adoption-rate-vs-windows-7-windows-8-2015-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/windows-10-adoption-rate-vs-...
    - CamperBob2 4y ago
      It didn't "sell." Upgrades were free (and still are, AFAIK.) Windows 8 was widely (and correctly) perceived as a disaster, so it's not a valid benchmark for market share comparison. Windows 7 was the target Microsoft wanted to hit, and that didn't happen until Q4 2018: https://windowsreport.com/windows-10-7-market-share/ https://windowsreport.com/windows-10-7-market-share/
    - deely3 4y ago
      Erm. Thats not how I remember it. There was a lot of "Microsoft forcing Windows 7 and 8.1 users to install Windows 10" articles in that time. Articles "How to STOP Windows 7 auto Upgrade to Windows 10" was popular too in that time.
  - iforgotpassword 4y ago
    Yeah admittedly it's been a while, and it didn't help that most of my peer group was in the 7 camp, but after some initial hesitation and "let's wait for others to try it first", Windows 8 folks seemed rather happy about the free upgrade. I can think of only one person from my group that really loved 8 and only just switched when 8.1 support ended.
- logbiscuitswave 4y ago
  I wouldn’t say I was thrilled to go to 10. Initial releases were really rough, but it got better really quickly and many of my early complaints were addressed. 11 seems to have stumbled out of the gate and it doesn’t feel to me like any of the even most basic complaints I have will ever be addressed. The taskbar for one still has piss-poor usability and represents a huge (and completely unnecessary) backslide from previous versions of Windows. I also hate that I can’t turn off rounded corners. (Yes it’s a minor thing but it really irks me.)
  - Macha 4y ago
    Yeah, I went to 10 as Microsoft wouldn't sell me new license key for 7. A year or two later I would have had to move for software support. But if I had to name user facing things that are nicer in 10 than 7, I struggle. I'm left at stuff like.... the win-p project/extend/mirror toggle menu? Obviously there have been developer facing improvements like modern TLS versions or DirectStorage, but none of them couldn't have been done without the UI or privacy changes
  - Zecc 4y ago
    I really held back moving to 10. The feature which finally got me to move from 7 was virtual desktops. I upgraded my Windows 7 to Windows "final version" 10 the week before they announced Windows 11. >_<
- saurik 4y ago
  The theory has always been that every other release of Windows is terrible; so, while Vista and 8 sucked, XP, 7, and 10 were OK... based on the historical evidence, 12 should be fine despite 11 being trash. https://redmondmag.com/articles/2021/09/07/windows-11-good-bad-oses.aspx https://redmondmag.com/articles/2021/09/07/windows-11-good-b...
extheat 4y ago
I agree, the shell changes are a big step backwards for the sake of some eye candy. Personally I use ExplorerPatcher [1] to restore most of the shell UI back to stock Win10, and it's been working pretty well for me without any problems. [1] https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher
- logbiscuitswave 4y ago
  ExplorerPatcher is great and the developer that works on it is doing a service for us all. However it’s also very brittle and if you’re not using mainline builds it will definitely break. I’ve looked a lot at its source code and it relies on an incredible amount of hackery to actually work. A lot of what it does is injects itself into various parts of the OS and shims in its own behavior. It’ll do things like redirect API calls to older DLLs or even modify data structures on the fly. It’s how it can do all kinds of cool stuff that your typical “Windows tweaked” apps that only rely on registry changes can’t do. (Not surprisingly the kind of things it does can look a lot like malware to heuristic analyzers.) It’s an incredible piece of reverse engineering but it shouldn’t even be necessary to get back such basic things like squared corners and old taskbar behaviors.
nikanj 4y ago
So many of the Windows 11 changes are just…odd. Like no longer being able to disable taskbar grouping, or the explorer right-click menu getting half the options hidden under ”show more” One would think there was some reasoning behind this, but it all just seems like ”let’s make it different because if it’s the same people complain that there’s nothing new in Windows 11”
- accoil 4y ago
  Oh wow, and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker can't fix the grouping either[^1]. I use it in Win 10 to ungroup without labels as that's not a configurable option. Looks like the dev has moved to Windhawk, and that at least has partial support for ungrouping[^2]. [1]: https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker-and-a-first-look-at-windows-11 https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker-and-a-first-look... [2]: https://ramensoftware.com/windhawk-mods-for-the-windows-11-taskbar https://ramensoftware.com/windhawk-mods-for-the-windows-11-t...
  - nikanj 4y ago
    Start 11 ( https://www.stardock.com/products/start11/ https://www.stardock.com/products/start11/ ) can ungroup the taskbar, but at the cost of making the Start menu / taskbar / systray generally unstable. They are reasonably good at restarting Explorer as needed, but you can definitely tell that something's wrong.
- layer8 4y ago
  Apparently it’s because designers who actually use Macs instead of Windows are running the show now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30019307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30019307
super256 4y ago
I recently switched from the windows 11 task manager to the windows 7 legacy task manager. I’m delighted how the legacy task manager just opens instantly and unlike the win11 task manager it doesn't lag for a whole second when switching from the process to the service tab. Same for the start menu: I installed start11 yesterday and the old start menu is just sooo much faster. My CPU is a few years old (i7 8700k), and I thought about upgrading because windows 11 was always so laggy, but this showed me that Microsoft is only releasing poor software as their flagship product.
- fishtacos 4y ago
  Tried Win11 and reverted back to 10 within a day. Gonna give it another shot soon with start menu patching, I guess. At least MS has a revert-back feature. There are some minimal benefits in scheduling threads on big.LITTLE Intel processors, such as mine, through Intel's Thread Director in Win 11. It's just so annoying to have to hack around an OS when they could easily provide something as basic as moving the taskbar on the left (not the icons, the actual taskbar - using a 32:9 monitor). While the current task manager is rather slow to launch, it also is more functional than the Win7 version. Disk and GPU monitoring being big ones. Somewhat related side note: check out Process Explorer for in-depth monitoring of every process' attributes/state. It can replace Task Manager in Windows as well, if you want, via a setting.

iforgotpassword 4y ago

When Windows 10 came along, people happily moved over from 8.x, as it was such an improvement. Those who stuck with 7 decided to still stick with 7 for a while longer. When 7 came around, same thing: most Vista users happily switched, XP users held out until the bitter end. Every time the sentiment was similar to the comment I'm replying to. Somehow people must be forgetting that the previous thing they had was already better then the current thing. Maybe helped by the fact that the next thing seems to suck even more. Wait until support for 10 ends and 12 has full screen unmutable video ads. 11 will only seem half bad.

voidfunc 4y ago
The difference between 7 and basically every other Windows OS since XP was that it was actually really really good. They took Vista and fixed most of the things that pissed everyone off about it. I don't remember a lot of problems with 7 at all. Then they scrapped it for 8 which was a UX disaster. Win10 was OK, but still quirky as hell with lots of weird 8 carry over. I loathed when I finally upgraded from 7 to 10. I've been using Win11 Pro for gaming mostly and it's OK but not great once I moved the task bar back to the left. I dunno why anyone felt that was worth mucking with. What I really resent about Win11 is the desire to connect my Microsoft account to everything. Someday I'm gonna seriously give the Steam/Proton thing a try on Linux. I'm battle scarred from trying to game on Linux in the early 2000's... but I need to give it another chance. I'd much rather stay on my Linux host for both work and fun rather than just work.
- nickphx 4y ago
  Proton works great with the exception of some online titles that require useless anti-cheat software or wacky drm.
  - aruggirello 4y ago
    BTW for those considering this WSA thing, in Linux land we have Waydroid!
- heywhatupboys 4y ago
  i really loved Vista, don't really get the hate. I recently used a computer with vista, and oh boy it is BEAUTIFUL! more prettier than modern flat bland paint-made Windows
  - iforgotpassword 4y ago
    Ok then, but in which ways was it better than 7? I'm firmly in the "Vista was pretty unpolished" camp, and it wasn't helped by the fact that like the majority of people, I first experienced it on underpowered hardware, adding insult to injury. The story goes that during development, Microsoft overestimated the advances that would be made regarding raw computing power, extrapolated from previous years where we did in fact move crazy fast. So when 7 rolled along, half of the performance issues were solved by hw finally catching up, the other half were tweaks and fixes by MS. The UI I think was improved across the board. So that's why I'm curious what the Vista fans loved so much about it compared to 7.
    - lmm 4y ago
      > Ok then, but in which ways was it better than 7? The way I remember it it was less gratuitously flashy, or at least easier to switch back into a win2k-like mode. Doesn't 7 force you to use a GPU-accelerated desktop or something?
      - layer8 4y ago
CamperBob2 4y ago
When Windows 10 came along, people happily moved over from 8.x, as it was such an improvement That's... not how I remember it. What I remember is that people hated the first Windows 10 builds so much that Microsoft not only couldn't give it away for free, but they had to use deceptive techniques -- essentially leveraging Windows Update as a malware distribution channel -- to force them to upgrade.
- smolyeet 4y ago
  The reception of 10 was pretty good and a step in the right direction from the tablet/desktop aio that was 8 and 8.1. Plus it was free and didn’t have as many restriction to upgrade as say 11. It was a challenge for enterprise but people adopted 10 fairly quickly. Even if you google the stats of it : https://www.businessinsider.com/windows-10-adoption-rate-vs-windows-7-windows-8-2015-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/windows-10-adoption-rate-vs-...
  - CamperBob2 4y ago
    It didn't "sell." Upgrades were free (and still are, AFAIK.) Windows 8 was widely (and correctly) perceived as a disaster, so it's not a valid benchmark for market share comparison. Windows 7 was the target Microsoft wanted to hit, and that didn't happen until Q4 2018: https://windowsreport.com/windows-10-7-market-share/ https://windowsreport.com/windows-10-7-market-share/
  - deely3 4y ago
    Erm. Thats not how I remember it. There was a lot of "Microsoft forcing Windows 7 and 8.1 users to install Windows 10" articles in that time. Articles "How to STOP Windows 7 auto Upgrade to Windows 10" was popular too in that time.
- iforgotpassword 4y ago
  Yeah admittedly it's been a while, and it didn't help that most of my peer group was in the 7 camp, but after some initial hesitation and "let's wait for others to try it first", Windows 8 folks seemed rather happy about the free upgrade. I can think of only one person from my group that really loved 8 and only just switched when 8.1 support ended.
logbiscuitswave 4y ago
I wouldn’t say I was thrilled to go to 10. Initial releases were really rough, but it got better really quickly and many of my early complaints were addressed. 11 seems to have stumbled out of the gate and it doesn’t feel to me like any of the even most basic complaints I have will ever be addressed. The taskbar for one still has piss-poor usability and represents a huge (and completely unnecessary) backslide from previous versions of Windows. I also hate that I can’t turn off rounded corners. (Yes it’s a minor thing but it really irks me.)
- Macha 4y ago
  Yeah, I went to 10 as Microsoft wouldn't sell me new license key for 7. A year or two later I would have had to move for software support. But if I had to name user facing things that are nicer in 10 than 7, I struggle. I'm left at stuff like.... the win-p project/extend/mirror toggle menu? Obviously there have been developer facing improvements like modern TLS versions or DirectStorage, but none of them couldn't have been done without the UI or privacy changes
- Zecc 4y ago
  I really held back moving to 10. The feature which finally got me to move from 7 was virtual desktops. I upgraded my Windows 7 to Windows "final version" 10 the week before they announced Windows 11. >_<
saurik 4y ago
The theory has always been that every other release of Windows is terrible; so, while Vista and 8 sucked, XP, 7, and 10 were OK... based on the historical evidence, 12 should be fine despite 11 being trash. https://redmondmag.com/articles/2021/09/07/windows-11-good-bad-oses.aspx https://redmondmag.com/articles/2021/09/07/windows-11-good-b...

extheat 4y ago

I agree, the shell changes are a big step backwards for the sake of some eye candy. Personally I use ExplorerPatcher [1] to restore most of the shell UI back to stock Win10, and it's been working pretty well for me without any problems. [1] https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher

logbiscuitswave 4y ago
ExplorerPatcher is great and the developer that works on it is doing a service for us all. However it’s also very brittle and if you’re not using mainline builds it will definitely break. I’ve looked a lot at its source code and it relies on an incredible amount of hackery to actually work. A lot of what it does is injects itself into various parts of the OS and shims in its own behavior. It’ll do things like redirect API calls to older DLLs or even modify data structures on the fly. It’s how it can do all kinds of cool stuff that your typical “Windows tweaked” apps that only rely on registry changes can’t do. (Not surprisingly the kind of things it does can look a lot like malware to heuristic analyzers.) It’s an incredible piece of reverse engineering but it shouldn’t even be necessary to get back such basic things like squared corners and old taskbar behaviors.

nikanj 4y ago

So many of the Windows 11 changes are just…odd. Like no longer being able to disable taskbar grouping, or the explorer right-click menu getting half the options hidden under ”show more” One would think there was some reasoning behind this, but it all just seems like ”let’s make it different because if it’s the same people complain that there’s nothing new in Windows 11”

accoil 4y ago
Oh wow, and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker can't fix the grouping either[^1]. I use it in Win 10 to ungroup without labels as that's not a configurable option. Looks like the dev has moved to Windhawk, and that at least has partial support for ungrouping[^2]. [1]: https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker-and-a-first-look-at-windows-11 https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker-and-a-first-look... [2]: https://ramensoftware.com/windhawk-mods-for-the-windows-11-taskbar https://ramensoftware.com/windhawk-mods-for-the-windows-11-t...
- nikanj 4y ago
  Start 11 ( https://www.stardock.com/products/start11/ https://www.stardock.com/products/start11/ ) can ungroup the taskbar, but at the cost of making the Start menu / taskbar / systray generally unstable. They are reasonably good at restarting Explorer as needed, but you can definitely tell that something's wrong.
layer8 4y ago
Apparently it’s because designers who actually use Macs instead of Windows are running the show now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30019307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30019307

super256 4y ago

I recently switched from the windows 11 task manager to the windows 7 legacy task manager. I’m delighted how the legacy task manager just opens instantly and unlike the win11 task manager it doesn't lag for a whole second when switching from the process to the service tab. Same for the start menu: I installed start11 yesterday and the old start menu is just sooo much faster. My CPU is a few years old (i7 8700k), and I thought about upgrading because windows 11 was always so laggy, but this showed me that Microsoft is only releasing poor software as their flagship product.

fishtacos 4y ago
Tried Win11 and reverted back to 10 within a day. Gonna give it another shot soon with start menu patching, I guess. At least MS has a revert-back feature. There are some minimal benefits in scheduling threads on big.LITTLE Intel processors, such as mine, through Intel's Thread Director in Win 11. It's just so annoying to have to hack around an OS when they could easily provide something as basic as moving the taskbar on the left (not the icons, the actual taskbar - using a 32:9 monitor). While the current task manager is rather slow to launch, it also is more functional than the Win7 version. Disk and GPU monitoring being big ones. Somewhat related side note: check out Process Explorer for in-depth monitoring of every process' attributes/state. It can replace Task Manager in Windows as well, if you want, via a setting.