32 ms·

The Windows 11 Trash Party

• jasfi 4y ago
  I nearly switched to Windows 11 (from 10), but then I thought, do I have to? Instead I'm now running Fedora instead and my only concern is a printer driver, which I haven't needed to look at just yet.
• LeoPanthera 4y ago
  This is mostly blogspam for this: https://thomasbandt.com/the-day-windows-died https://thomasbandt.com/the-day-windows-died Which has already been posted to HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35415758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35415758
  • userbinator 4y ago
    This one adds another example of the distracting invasive mess that article doesn't have.
  • branon 4y ago
    I thought blogspam meant low-effort, SEO-optimized articles found on websites trying to sell you stuff. Small opinionated blog posts referring to other blogs are not really blogspam although I can see the comparison in an offhand sort of way.
  • weartear 4y ago
    I agree. Some people do great things with whatever they have on hands, and some... well... just whining.
• sho_hn 4y ago
  If you've never used an older Windows, here is a Win 2000 in the browser: https://bellard.org/jslinux/vm.html?url=win2k.cfg&mem=192&graphic=1&w=1024&h=768 https://bellard.org/jslinux/vm.html?url=win2k.cfg&mem=192&gr... (The Qemu.js post on the front page today lead me there via a readme link to jslinux.)
  • mostlysimilar 4y ago
    Peak interface.
  • userbinator 4y ago
    I wonder how much it would take to get explorer.exe and the rest of the UI (userland) from Win2k running on a newer version of Windows. Backwards-compatibility has been MS' strong point for a long time, and the majority of other applications from the 2k era would probably be fine on Win11 too.
    • hestefisk 4y ago
      I would do anything for a modern version of Windows NT 4.0 Workstation. Now THAT was a professional OS. I would even pay for it.
      • xbar 4y ago
        I rode Windows NT 4.0 into the ground. It was a truly professional operating system. Honestly, Windows 7 and Windows 10 have been configurable into a mostly serviceable state. It was much more of a hassle to keep Windows 10 tamed, but tamed it can be. I worry that Windows 11 will require a bunch of disassembly to get it operational, so I will keep Windows 10 until it is no longer supported.
      • CamperBob2 4y ago
        Google "Enterprise LTSC IoT." Downside is that "I would do anything" doesn't begin to describe what will be necessary to obtain a legitimate license.
    • toast0 4y ago
      Count me in. I'm willing to make sacrifices for this vision, too. HiDPI/scaling isn't required (well, no big deal for me, I try to buy monitors with the DPI I want to use). I can live without searchable start menu (although it would be nice). I'm willing to drop other features too. Honestly, I'm considering running fvwm95, but that's probably a bad idea.
• userbinator 4y ago
  Windows is definitely adware now. Microsoft saw how much the average user would install, and thought "we can do that too"; of course, by being "official", their own adware is much harder to remove. Windows can show the weather in the bottom left of the task bar, which is nice I've never wanted that feature nor found it appealing. I can just look outside if I want to know the weather where I am, or visit a site otherwise.
  • Waterluvian 4y ago
    Yeah but what percentage of users wanted that feature? Microsoft probably knows.
    • FridayoLeary 4y ago
      Well it is actually a rather useful feature even if op doesn't like it.
      • kevingadd 4y ago
        Personally I use the weather app a lot, but I disabled that godawful taskbar icon the moment it appeared due to the performance hit and the way that it blasts you with right-wing clickbait the moment you click on it. A good version of it would definitely be enabled personally.
        • WWLink 4y ago
          [flagged]
    • throwaway8503 4y ago
      It's useful as an excuse for the OS to be continuously connected to the internet, which elides nicely into connecting to the internet for search results when you type something in the searchbox. And you can't argue that it's /useless/. It's more information, and, ceteris paribus, more information is better.
• gigel82 4y ago
  > there is no way to turn this news feed off There are several layers to "turning it off". You can use Personalization -> Taskbar to turn off the "Widgets" icon which takes care of the immediate problem. But widgets.exe will continue running in the background, and the only way I found to get rid of that is winget uninstall "Windows Web Experience Pack"
  • pxc 4y ago
    Against fixing this behavior, and others: The year of the Linux desktop for anyone who regularly browses this site came a long, long time ago. If you're running Windows today and still telling yourself that you'll switch once it finally gets bad enough, the sad truth is that you'll put up with anything, as long as Microsoft introduces new bad behavior slowly enough to let you acclimate to their successive, increasingly fucked-up 'new normal's. As long as learning how to mitigate Microsoft's next insult to your dignity seems like it'll probably be less work than mastering a whole new operating system, Linux won't seem 'ready' to you. But accumulating more knowledge about how to partially unfuck Windows only keeps you stuck. So stop. Cleverly, laboriously contending with your OS vendor as a fundamentally hostile party is not a solution— it's the hallmark of serious dysfunction. Don't do it. Don't reward Microsoft's abuse with further investments of your time and energy in 'mastering' their platform. Divest. Instead of fixing this like it's a benign papercut, let the full badness of Windows wash over you. And then... leave.
    • eviks 4y ago
      But this is a benign papercut that you fix once per a few years here and there, but Linux would have many more and deeper cuts (and your sad truth is not true, there is a limit)
      • surgical_fire 4y ago
        Ehh, I recently switched to Linux for good. Couldn't be happier about the move. No paper cuts at all. Honestly, Linux has never been better.
    • 4y ago
• FridayoLeary 4y ago
  One thing i find particularly obnoxious about windows is how they promote their edge browser. It would be one thing if it is well integrated into the rest of the operating system like ie. But in reality its pretty much indistinguishable from Chrome which, incidentally, is the only thing i've ever downloaded on Edge.
  • jasonjayr 4y ago
    The integration with their microsoft account/office account is growing. They recently turned on 'by default' a sidebar with all sorts of MSN things.
  • fouc 4y ago
    IMHO we should be boycotting all chromium-based browsers. Use Firefox or Safari (if on MacOS) as your daily driver.
    • Takennickname 4y ago
      I want to use Firefox but simple quality of life features like 3 fingers swipe to go back don't work on my xps13. Firefox doesn't give a damn. The only thing they have going for them is that they're the underdog and people like underdogs.
      • vips7L 4y ago
        This definitely works on my T14, I think it’s two fingers though.
    • FridayoLeary 4y ago
      My issue with ff is that when you load a tab, it's status is denoted by a horizontal bar moving from left to right which distracts me. It's beyond me why they don't use a rotating loop like the rest of civilisation. It's an incredibly minor thing, but it's the main reason i stick to chrome. A similarly trivial feature makes me dislike edge.
      • 4y ago
• bigmattystyles 4y ago
  I went out looking for how much the enterprise (or business) version would cost as I expected those versions would (hopefully) have all this crap removed. Am I wrong in finding you can no longer just buy the enterprise or business version? They want you to either buy a device with it on it or contact their sales rep? Maybe this has always been the casse and I never noticed because most previous versions didn't have this crap on it. Very disappointing.
  • noncoml 4y ago
    Can’t access the website, so don’t know what crap we are talking about, but Windows Pro for Workstations, which anyone can purchase, doesn’t have any third party crap installed. Only some MS crap. Much less overall.
    • cowsup 4y ago
      We are talking about the MS crap, actually.
      • noncoml 4y ago
        ok, yeah I see now that the website is back up
  • wongarsu 4y ago
    There is basically Windows Home, Pro and Pro for Workstations. There's also Enterprise and Education, but those seems to be the same as Pro for Workstations, just distributed differently. Windows 11 Pro is about $150 from official channels, or $30 for a key from a reseller, and the key can just upgrade your Windows Home install. It doesn't automatically fix everything, but it gives you the group policy editor which lets you permanently turn lots of things off. It also generally treats you more like a responsible adult, e.g. giving you more control over windows updates.
    • blibble 4y ago
      I've heard the $2 LTSC keys on aliexpress activate without issue
• menshiki 4y ago
  I fully agree that this is a big issue, but I also think that an average user does not care at all. It just matches all other software and of course the web (if you ever access it without an adblock). I love my Xbox but damn that thing is full of ads. From the first second you turn it on and see the dashboard you are bombarded with ads. This is just the Microsoft way of creating UX/UI.
  • AraceliHarker 4y ago
    That’s even worse. Microsoft is trying to make money by taking advantage of users’ ‘ignorance’, right? That’s no different from a scammer.
• neilv 4y ago
  This is relatively mild, by historical standards. Flee while you still can: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/ https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-in... https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/current/amd64/iso-dvd/ https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/release/current/amd64/iso...
• ajoseps 4y ago
  the ads in the start and weather widget bothered me enough to switch to Linux for my desktop. I mostly use Windows to play games and Proton/Steam has gotten good enough that a lot of games I play now work on Linux. The only place I still use Windows is my laptop since battery management isn't as great... but if it gets better I'm hoping over to Linux as well there.
  • djbusby 4y ago
    I'm on Gentoo with mostly stock kernel, Xfce and my battery life is pretty good! It sleeps and goes dim just fine. Lenovo Yoga6. But I had to swap they pieceofcrap RealTek WIFI for Intel - cause the rtw89 module has sleep issues (and that card generally sucks)
    • ajoseps 4y ago
      yeah , I've heard Realtek drivers have issues on Linux, it's very hit or miss. How did you swap it on a laptop??
• somat 4y ago
  when I run windows it's because I want to run a specific program on windows, If I wanted to use the os I would pick an os I enjoy using(for me this is openbsd). For most people it is this way, very few people go "Oh boy I get to use the os to day" they just want to use a specific program. unfortunately microsoft does not sell a "windows just to run programs" version. even worse they feel they have to put effort into "making people want to use windows / monitizing the enormous pool of people running windows" so there is this race to the bottom in stupid pointless feature cruft accumulation.
  • drpixie 4y ago
    Everything I need to run I can run on Linux, either as Linux app or via Wine. The few things I can't run on Linux, they're not that important...
• nightski 4y ago
  I haven’t used a as weather widget in decades lol
• nstart 4y ago
  Windows is my daily driver. I actually like the OS but Microsoft would do well to listen to these concerns being raised consistently. They need to ask some deep questions of themselves of what they want Windows to be. This reminds me of the days where Ballmers goal seemed to be to lock everyone into Windows and MS products when the real upside turned out to be “make MS products fully available where people already are”. To me this brought about some great changes to their products on android, Mac, and iOS. Even the web versions of their products are actually really good. I feel like windows is going through the same identity crisis that Ballmer took the MSFT brand through. Like what does it want to be? Is it an OS or an advertisement platform. Right now it’s trying to be both and that sucks. I hope that someone from very high up finally steps in at some point and clarifies the vision for windows and closes up all these crap avenues of revenue squeezing.
  • michaelcampbell 4y ago
    > what they want Windows to be. A way to make as much money as they possibly can. Was this ever a question, really?
  • WWLink 4y ago
    > Like what does it want to be? Is it an OS or an advertisement platform. It's an OS created for enterprise corporations to support and manage the actions of their employees in a digital world. First and foremost. Most MS products are. The ad platform is MS trying to find ways to continue growing profits. :D
    • StillBored 4y ago
      Nah, few enterprises have asked for any of this trash either. I'm pretty sure that most of them would be perfectly happy with a windows 98 style GUI, that supported modern hardware. They don't want all this churn either, they want something that is stable, doesn't change very fast and doesn't require them to constantly retrain their staff or waste their IT admins time fighting with whatever new options require a new set of group policies. AKA, the new control panel that has been evolving.. most users are likely locked out of it for anything more advanced than changing the sound volume, its the IT nerds that need to figure out the optimal set of setting and push it out. Which is work that the C*'s would be more than happy to not have to pay IT staff to perform.
• akomtu 4y ago
  I can see MS implementing an Ad auction built into Windows. Each rectangle in the UI that can show ads receives bids from advertisers in real time. The latter get a direct link to user data, they can see who the users are, their names, ages, the programs their run, even their webcam feed. The auction will be poorly implenented, so often Windows would switch between two almost winners, resulting in annoying flickering of the ad. The big whales will get access to the VIP ad placement: the one that locks up your screen and shows a full screen ad for a minute.
  • gigel82 4y ago
    I chucked but then... I worried some Windows PM is reading this and taking it seriously.
• adithyassekhar 4y ago
  Edit: I'm comparing it with Windows 10. For me it felt like Microsoft lost it's way after 8.1 and now coming back to the Windows 7 way of things. Design wise aero looks similar. Windows 11 has been the most beautiful most stable and consistent windows I've ever used. It feels like a modern and rock stable update of Windows 7. I never got a blue screen or anything bad. Finally it feels like Microsoft is trying to make everything feel part of a single os. Of course there's 30 years of baggage but they are moving at break neck speeds compared to past windows to change everything. Content on the desktop is something the younger generation actually wants, for people who don't want it, it's shockingly easy to disable everything from settings ang revert to the old windows look. But I do agree with the author about the widget. Although I can't confirm because I've disabled the weather widget when I installed windows. There are "recommended apps" on the start menu then again most are apps people want to install. In fact the "apps" in start menu aren't really apps, they are not installed. You can click on them to download and install or remove it. The new context menu is atleast consistent design wise with the rest of the operating system. Applications need to be updated to integrate with it. For those apps which don't update for it, you can still set the old context menu through registry or use the "Show more options" button occasionally. Depends on your needs. I use the old context menu. Notepad++ recently updated to support Windows 11 context. Saw it in a changelog, I don't use the new context so can't say for sure. The settings app is way better than Windows 10 settings app, I rarely have to use the control panel. Only to change the power profile settings.
  • teruakohatu 4y ago
    > Windows 11 has been the most beautiful most stable and consistent windows I've ever used. It feels like a modern and rock stable update of Windows 7. I never got a blue screen or anything bad. Preventing updates is herculean and some of those updates inject advertisements [1]. It feels like Windows 11 is constantly changing and I have no control over it. > or use the "Show more options" button occasionally. It feels I have to "Show more options" about 50% of the time. [1] https://sports.yahoo.com/microsoft-isn-t-done-shoving-150500881.html https://sports.yahoo.com/microsoft-isn-t-done-shoving-150500...
    • 4y ago
• catchnear4321 4y ago
  is any of this not able to be disabled? uninstalling is disabling, but better. sure, it is annoying to have crapware installed by the manufacturer. maybe my test potato isn’t powerful enough to warrant using windows as more than something on which to run a browser. poorly. ignoring that detail, windows 11 is fine as windows goes.
  • CatWChainsaw 4y ago
    I recall that you can't uninstall Edge because it shows up in weird places all over the system. As for disabling, maybe some of it can be disabled. If the myriad anecdotes across the web are to be believed, however, then updates have a tendency to silently re-enable settings or revert defaults almost at random.
• johnea 4y ago
  That's when Windows died for me... Welcome back to reality. took you long enough. M$ has no motivation to put anything in there, or take anything out, unless it's going to profit M$. Of course, most people on this propaganda feed are firmly in the "if it's good for a billionaire it's good for me" boat. Good luck with that...
• delta_p_delta_x 4y ago
  There are two Microsofts, as I see it. The one with DevDiv and stuff, which has amazing and mostly free development tools like VS Code, VS 2022, Windows Terminal, WSL, Azure, the .NET ecosystem, the MSVC C++ STL, PowerShell, TypeScript, and so on. And then there's the bean-counting, irritating part of Microsoft that has stuck around since the 90s and doesn't seem to go away. This part justifies adding advertisements and crapware to Windows, pushing for SaaS (while still charging a LOT), changing the UX of Office programs every version, not being able to implement and release a proper UI library after a decade or so, and pushing laggy Electron apps like Teams instead of developing fast, native ones. Like many others here, Windows is a daily driver for me. I actually like using it, because a lot of hardware and configurations that need painful finagling on Linux (just try using a multi-monitor high-DPI, mixed-DPI setup on Linux, or any game that has anti-cheat, or touch fingerprint sensors, or HDR and wide colour gamut displays) just work on Windows. It has a massive repository of programs that I use frequently. But some changes are just... irritating.
  • matrix_overload 4y ago
    Well, guess which part pays the bills for the other one.
    • darzu 4y ago
      Azure
      • cachvico 4y ago
        [flagged]
        • nneonneo 4y ago
          Except those numbers are…wrong? I mean, they’re not far off, but they’re not actually right either. You should probably never trust ChatGPT outright with facts. From the horse’s mouth, https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar21/index.html https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar21/index.html: Productivity and Business Processes: 53.9B (not 53.7) Intelligent Cloud: 60.1B (not 58.4) More Personal Computing: 54.1B (not 53.6)
• jmclnx 4y ago
  > That's when Windows died for me I never really used it at home, I went from DOS to Coherent to Linux/BSDs. But from the Work Computers I had, I found one of the NT (around 2000/2005) interesting. Then XP came out, but by then I was on Linux at work. I do not know how to replicate early PC usage these days where you poke around with the commercial OSs we have now. Maybe a Linux/BSD would be fun for a youngster to mess around with. You can still start with text mode and create silly to useful applications without GUI complexity. One example for a young person is to pull raw weather data from NOAA and create your own analysis applications using it.
• alphabet9000 4y ago
  the look and feel of this type of visual bombardment reminds me of a grocery store checkout aisle https://i.jollo.org/_o8mgw46.png https://i.jollo.org/_o8mgw46.png
• TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  These articles are probably important to really drive the point home, but I also have a bit of a sense that they are akin to saying "the face eating leopard is eating people's faces". Idk as I approach ten years without windows, the decline has been obvious for a long time. But I suppose when you try to stick with it and use the system there is a part of the brain that really tries to look past this stuff, and then one day you look at what it is with clear eyes and find yourself so disgusted you have to write about it. Anyway, Ubuntu isn't perfect, and actually does do a teeny bit of advertising to you, but it isn't anything like this. Give it a shot if you haven't. I used to have to really wrangle with it to get stuff to work, but some combination of I finally learned how to deal with it and also it got better means I don't have to do that anymore.
  • neogodless 4y ago
    > But I suppose when you try to stick with it and use the system there is a part of the brain that really tries to look past this stuff, and then one day you look at what it is with clear eyes and find yourself so disgusted you have to write about it. Maybe a combination, plus, like any OS user, you learn what you like and don't like, and you customize it to get rid of the stuff you don't like. I'm using Windows 10 and there are very, very few things to complain about 99% of the time. But sure when I do a fresh install, I'm reminded of things I don't like for roughly 5 minutes, and then I don't think about them again for like 2 years straight. So you can see why it wouldn't matter? On the other hand, if you use Windows 11, and you don't disable the News and Weather widget, you will be reminded constantly how horrible it is. (I tried Windows 11 on a laptop for a few hours, and it a trash party.) Now, I tried Linux Mint for just over 2 months, and lots of things were awesome, but there were things that sucked, and I could not for the life of me fix them, including losing brightness controls in situations, very frequent hangs on boot, and some games playing much, much worse than they do in Windows. (There were also a ton of games that played just as well as they do in Windows!) It's the problems that are in your face, especially if you cannot configure around them that will eat at you over time.
    • TaylorAlexander 4y ago
      All valid points. I will say that while the trash in your face in Windows is an issue, the stuff that really gets me about Windows is their persistent desire to surveil users in every way possible. I put up with some difficulties in linux because it is generally very anti-surveillance, and that is a bigger issue for me than ads in my start menu. The ads in the start menu just serve as a reminder of what I really mean to Microsoft - I am a consumer who can provide value to Microsoft, rather than with Linux where I am a user who should be provided value by the operating system.
• wesleywt 4y ago
  The thing is. Most Windows users don't care. You are not MS target customer.
• throwaway202303 4y ago
  I would be happy if I could turn off the tab rape you get every time you click a link in Edge. You have to manually close the search tab or you end up with dozens of tabs.
  • taneq 4y ago
    Install Firefox?
    • throwaway202303 4y ago
      Edge and Bing is quite compelling apart from that
      • themodelplumber 4y ago
        Surely there's a registry key. Or a utility with a funny icon, named in camel case, that fixes it. Or a utility written by a demoscene group that somehow manages the behavior through a DOS TSR.
• plaguepilled 4y ago
  I say it everywhere windows comes up, but if you're curious about Linux, please try Fedora. Or, if your friend insists it, even Linux Mint.
  • wtcactus 4y ago
    I'm a long time Linux user, and for the 1st time I've stuck to a version for a long time with Mint. For the 1st time, I found a distro that hadn't a bunch a little glitches and bugs popping out everywhere and that drove me nuts.
    • plaguepilled 4y ago
      Glad to hear it! Mint is definitely a strong pick if your workflow exposes you to a lot of bugs. Love their UI flair as well.
  • mrburnssama 4y ago
    I've been distro hopping for months now and found openSUSE the most stable and bug-free experience out of the main distros. I'm not sure why it isn't mentioned more often. People think more bleeding-edge distros have more bugs but I've found that to be the opposite and even IF something went wrong, it is automatically installed with a snapshot rollback feature!
    • plaguepilled 4y ago
      Oh I like OpenSUSE! Been a while since I used it though. I've been meaning to look into a few things for that distro such as its secure boot implementation and mandatory access control defaults, but I've just not got around to it.
• AraceliHarker 4y ago
  I think you can understand Microsoft’s Windows 11 development policy well if you look at the following subreddit. https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/123br95/news_in_widgets_on_windows_11/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/123br95/news_in_...
  • userbinator 4y ago
    More precisely, this: This post is locked. You won't be able to comment.
    • pndy 4y ago
      Some subs exist solely to provide space for product promotion using unaware users as medium, so yeah it's not surprising this thread is locked.
• signal11 4y ago
  The Windows OOBE experience is trash now. Thanks to their “on by default” widgets, it’s like getting a subscription to the National Enquirer along with an OS. This isn’t a knock against the idea of widgets btw. Widgets can be useful. The issue is, whoever PMed this feature has applied his or her taste on to millions of Windows users. This is a masterclass on how not to manage a widely used product.
  • midoridensha 4y ago
    >This is a masterclass on how not to manage a widely used product. The MSFT stock price disagrees with you. Looks like they're managing it just fine to me.
    • signal11 4y ago
      The stock price has little to do with product quality, especially for a company like Microsoft with multiple revenue streams. That said, Windows OEM revenue is down almost 40% [1] — yes weak PC sales have contributed, but these days I suspect it’s going to be difficult for Microsoft to find enthusiastic PC buyers. Most buyers grit their teeth and spend time undoing Microsoft’s obnoxious defaults. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/24/23569050/microsoft-q2-2023-earnings-revenue-profits-windows-xbox-gaming-surface https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/24/23569050/microsoft-q2-202...
      • midoridensha 4y ago
        >The stock price has little to do with product quality, especially for a company like Microsoft with multiple revenue streams. Product quality has little to do with profitability, and really isn't very important to the company that makes the product, except as far as it helps them make more profit. With MS, quality just isn't very important: their customers will buy their crapware no matter how bad it is, as long as it does what they need most of the time. Windows actually works pretty well these days (i.e., not blue-screening if you look at it wrong or wait 30 minutes like in the Win95 days); the complaints are mostly about adware now. >these days I suspect it’s going to be difficult for Microsoft to find enthusiastic PC buyers. Microsoft doesn't need enthusiastic PC buyers. There's hordes of people and businesses willing to buy their adware-laden OS for $reasons; MS can simply milk them for more and more money with things like ads and tracking. Maybe next they can take a page from the budget airlines and car companies and charge people extra fees (or subscription fees) for generally-necessary add-ons, like networking/WiFi support, external drive support, etc. >Most buyers grit their teeth and spend time undoing Microsoft’s obnoxious defaults. Exactly. Why should MS bother making products people really want, or not annoying them with stuff like ads, when people are going to buy their crapware regardless? It would be a breach of their fiduciary duty not to take advantage of their customers with this situation. The PC market is saturated anyway, so there's no room for new growth; the correct course for them is to milk their existing customers who refuse to go elsewhere.
• daviddever23box 4y ago
  Stockholm syndrome is real.
• berkle4455 4y ago
  This doesn’t excuse any of that behavior but none of this stuff is enabled/exists on Win11 Pro.
  • neogodless 4y ago
    **ing Microsoft. I was trying to compare editions of Windows, and ended up on this page (don't click it) which commandeers your back button for exactly zero (valid) reason: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsforbusiness/compare https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsforbusiness/compare Anyway, at least officially[0] omitting the News and Weather widget is not a feature of the Pro version to my knowledge, but perhaps you found better options for disabling it? Can you enable the weather widget without the news feed? I would love to learn how to do it if I ever end up on Windows 11 again for some reason! [0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/compare-windows-11-home-vs-pro-versions https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/compare-windows-11-h...
• gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Remember when the Microsoft Store sold Microsoft Signature PCs? Those PCs were advertised as being fresh Windows installs with no adware, no bloat, and no vendor-added "benefits." Those were the days. Now Microsoft has stopped selling them and decided they wanted a piece of the pie. However... honestly, I feel terrible for anyone who pays for a legal, retail, copy of Windows 11 Pro. Spend $199, total "F you" response.
• taneq 4y ago
  I can turn off all the UI trash. What I can't turn off is this stupid bug where it intermittently generates spurious keystrokes. I thought until recently that it was the trackpad on my laptop doing it but it happens with an external mouse and keyboard too. It's just intermittent enough that it's hard to pin down, while being frequent enough to be infuriating. The worst part is that sometimes one of the meta keys will get 'stuck down' and I'll have to press them all until I find the one that's 'stuck'. A couple of times I've even had the right mouse button think it's being held down.
  • nazgulsenpai 4y ago
    Maybe try booting into a live Linux USB and poke around and see if you can replicate the problem there.
• bodge5000 4y ago
  The ending of the article this one links to (The Day Windows Died) perfectly sums up my view of modern Windows. I've been using Linux (Fedora) for a few years now, and occasionally I do look back to Windows. I have my issues my linux (for the record, macos fixes a lot of them but introduces entirely new issues), and maybe with a debloater and some tinkering, I could fix my initial problems with Windows. But as the article says, even if I can fix them, my biggest issue of all is how little I can trust the operating system. My issues with linux and macos aren't issues of trust really, they're just annoyances or things I don't like. My biggest issue with Windows is that I fundamentally don't trust it. Its a shame as well, because to me Windows used to be a middle ground between the "do it yourself" nature of Linux and the "do it our way" nature of MacOS. I don't even know what it is now, but I don't like it.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• donohoe 4y ago
  I took a shirt-term job a few years back and tried giving Windows a go after many many years absence. Never again. Wow. It’s stagnated in many respects and its leading innovations are, sadly, hostile to users. I was very surprised.
  • gondaloof 4y ago
    > It’s stagnated in many respects You can’t say that with a straight face when the Finder on Mac has seen absolutely zero change since 2008. Windows Vista’s file controls blow every OS out of the water. I’m an Apple user and honestly I don’t remember the last useful feature added other the Universal Clipboard. I asked ChatGPT for a rundown and I just see a list of “moved things around and refreshed the UI”
    • DaiPlusPlus 4y ago
      > Windows Vista’s file controls blow every OS out of the water. Please elaborate.
      • 72deluxe 4y ago
        I think XP's File Explorer was the best. Keyboard shortcuts that actually do things useful: keypad * will expand all directories under the current one if you select the item in the tree on the left. A great way to make your hard-disk using friends sit for a while - select C:\ and press * on the numeric keypad...
      • gondaloof 4y ago
        This is a file manager, but it acts as a Media Library. See how it can show the music’s metadata in the columns. You can edit all of the metadata, even in batch. https://i.stack.imgur.com/7iF2D.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/7iF2D.png Here you can find a few examples of its features. Skip the sorting and look at the grouping, custom metadata filtering, etc. not to mention the advanced search with any of this metadata. https://www.digitalcitizen.life/transform-windows-explorer-filtering-options/ https://www.digitalcitizen.life/transform-windows-explorer-f... It has a field for “word count” (!!!) while in Finder I’m lucky if it remembers that I want my files to NOT appear overlapped on the desktop.
• denkmoon 4y ago
  It makes me so angry that companies like Microsoft are so dead set on shoving the culture down my throat by all means possible for a few cents of ad revenue while I do my best to avoid the culture as much as possible. I will pay. I will pay lots. Just fuck off with the shootings and the child abuses and the red vs blue and the things that are ruining our brains.
  • DaiPlusPlus 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • edwardsdl 4y ago
      Hopefully the next version of Windows will lock the start menu until the user is sufficiently remorseful for all of society’s failings.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • horsemans 4y ago
      In your estimation, how much graphic violence should my operating system show me on a routine basis?
      • midoridensha 4y ago
        >In your estimation, how much graphic violence should my operating system show me on a routine basis? I think it's simple: the amount that maximizes the OS vendor's profits. If you don't like this, you're free to choose a different OS vendor, or use a free OS, of which many variants exist. Personally, I applaud Microsoft for doing their fiduciary duty and maximizing profits, even if that means pissing off their users who refuse to abandon the platform.
      • deafpolygon 4y ago
        Oh, and I'd like to know how many 10 year old kids should be reading about them on a daily basis? I bet that really helps settle their minds when they go to school the next day!
• emodendroket 4y ago
  So this is a longwinded way of saying the author doesn't like that they put news in the start menu?
  • sundvor 4y ago
    There's News, and then there's the cesspool of filth that is NineMSN.
• charles_f 4y ago
  There's been a long observed tradition that every other version of Windows is trash. 3.1, 98, XP, 7, 10 were good^, 95, ME, Vista, 8 and now 11 are trash. This one is a bit of a fun one because the bits described here are almost sabotage level bad. You can deactivate that pretty easily so it's not a big deal; there's some other clunky ui interface notably in settings where you can still find 4 or 5 different generations of Windows ui. The two things that I reaaaally dont like is the right click menu that's now hidden behind a "more options" first ui someone figured was a good idea, the poorer performance where the antimalware or other bloatware sometimes decides to grab your CPU for itself, the lack of reliability - notably of the wsl, and most of all the sleep management. What burns me is that my laptop used to wake up instantaneously in 10 when I opened the screen, even after a couple days of stowage. That was even one of the sales arguments, I think it was called "instant on" or something like that. Now if I wait more than 5 minutes it goes into Deep sleep. If I setup the sleep to longer than that the battery drains. I can't rollback to 10. Even with 250gb free disk, I wanted to dual boot a Linux distro, can't resize the partition because "reasons", that's the first time I'm stuck on that. So yeah, waiting for 12. ^hold your horses, even if you don't like the system, everything can still be relative
  • userbinator 4y ago
    You consider 10 "good"? Maybe compared to 8, but not anything before. It's gotten consistently worse with each new version since ~XP. 8 was a massive nosedive, 8.1 a slight improvement over 8, and 10 roughly the same, and 11 another nosedive.
    • pianoben 4y ago
      IDK, I consider Windows 7 a solid improvement over XP. XP, by the time Service Pack 3 came around, was good but showing its age. As far as I'm concerned, they could have stopped at 7 with no real loss to the business.
    • waboremo 4y ago
      10 LTSC is the best version of windows in history. Far better than XP or 7.
• richjdsmith 4y ago
  Windows 11 has made me hate my computer. I have a top end surface book pro and it lags every day. Things like opening the calculator or file explorer are a test of patience and my patience has been tested daily. I loathe windows 11 and regret the day I installed it.
  • aembleton 4y ago
    If you installed it yourself, why can't you install something else?
  • animesh 4y ago
    My work installed Windows 11 to fix a drivers issue. After 2 days of understanding most of the quirks, I tried installing the same on my personal desktop. The installed failed with some random bsod. It gave me an option to rollback to Windows 10 thankfully. I will stay with 10 for as long I can.
  • npteljes 4y ago
    I feel the same. They made me hate this shit. I'm especially salty because to me, originally, Windows was the coolest thing ever - when I first saw Win 3.1.
• hparadiz 4y ago
  I've been daily driving Linux since March 2020 however recently purchased a Valve Index and decided to pop Win 10 on a completely empty secondary M.2. The setup kept failing because it just could not handle the fact that the primary M.2 had a Linux boot loader on it. It just refused to install. My work around was to setup a QEMU VM inside Linux where I provided the VM with the secondary M.2 as the main install drive. With only one drive visible it completed the install fully. At which point I was able to restart and boot directly from the secondary M.2. Most people would recommend simply removing the Linux M.2 until the installation was complete. My workaround was something only a tech guy like me would even think to try. These kinds of little things about Windows drive me up the wall. That and the fact that I had to immediately run a few debloat scripts to rip out a bunch of junk. I type all this while I have Path of Exile running at 200 FPS on my Linux install. Is anyone at Microsoft listening? I feel like in another 10 years there will be very little reason to ever install Windows. The dominos are falling and at this point there's very few reasons to have Windows at all. Off the top of my head all I can think of is Photoshop and VR. When I was in high school Linux was unusable for desktop, MacOS was just for designers, and Windows was really the only option. In only 20 years the dynamic has shifted so drastically. I wonder what the next 20 years will bring.
  • Wowfunhappy 4y ago
    > I've been daily driving Linux since March 2020 however recently purchased a Valve Index and decided to pop Win 10 on a completely empty secondary M.2. The setup kept failing because it just could not handle the fact that the primary M.2 had a Linux boot loader on it. It just refused to install. That's better than what has happened to me with prior versions of Windows: the Windows installer just deleted the Linux bootloader, even though it was on a completely different drive. Nowadays I always disconnect all other drives when installing Windows. But it's a pain.
    • 0000000000100 4y ago
      Even doing it the opposite way around still doesn't work (installing Windows first, and then replacing the Windows bootloader). Every time there is a Windows update that is "major" enough, it will wipe the existing Linux bootloader. I lived like that for about a year, but eventually just gave up and stuck to Windows. I like Linux a lot, but I've found that I save more time using Windows then trying to get Linux to work on whatever piece of hardware I have (driver issues, bugs, some remaining software that still doesn't work with Linux). You can remove most of the crap via a debloater, but Windows 11 is just overall worse than Windows 10. The UI updates just took all the negatives of using a Mac, but without any the parts that make it actually useful. I miss being able to see the title of windows in the taskbar... My favorite pet theory about Microsoft is that no one that works there actually uses any of their products and are just on Macs lol
• psyclobe 4y ago
  I held on to Windows for years, finally had enough after I was forced to make a live account one day (the wizard just appeared providing no alternative one day).
  • FridayoLeary 4y ago
    ... and sent you on a quest accompanied by the elves Analytics, Required Diagnostics and Better Experience and the dwarf twins Location and App Usage History. The epic journey took you through the mythical Optional Fields to Microsoft Land where you were to slay the dragon of User Choice and allow Men to once again reap their harvests of personal data without fear.
• Chriskryo 4y ago
  [flagged]
• RajT88 4y ago
  I solved these frustrations by using CairoShell. No more start menu.
• retrocryptid 4y ago
  You're no longer the customer. You don't pay for the operating system, so you're the product.
  • esafak 4y ago
    As if Windows or MS-DOS were ever good!
    • 72deluxe 4y ago
      They did help the entire world get work done for 30+ years so they can't have been too bad.
      • 2b3a51 4y ago
        Sigh I watched a colleague once spend half an hour to get a classroom PC booted, mirrored to the projector, calibrated to the interactive whiteboard and a presentation converted to the whiteboard software. Endless reboots, popups about out of date software, error messages, popups from the system tray that had to be clicked on, popups from Powerpoint.... So over that 30 years we are talking how many lifetimes wasted?
        • retrocryptid 4y ago
          How long did it take to get the Mac working with the interactive whiteboard?
    • retrocryptid 4y ago
      I liked DOS because it was an executable loader. You told it what program you wanted to run and it got out of your way. (That being said, I use a real OS these days and don't want to go back.)
  • npteljes 4y ago
    >You don't pay for the operating system What do you mean? Windows 11 costs money. The cheapest version is around $100 in Hungary. It's not even free when bundled to stuff - backchannel business deals take care of that. So we both pay, and also we are the product. Always have been, I believe.
• smusamashah 4y ago
  I have a theory. People who actually like Windows 11 are mostly new windows users. New as in they haven't used Windows 98 or it's likes, also they were never have been the power users of Windows from that time. Yead old windows had so many problems, mostly around finding where particular settings are, but otherwise it was fast and usable and was definitely not a Mac. There is a saying in my language which translates to "when the crow tried to walk like swan, it even forgot it's own walk".
  • makeitdouble 4y ago
    Chiming in as a new user who jumped from XP to 11 (also tried rolling it back to 10 just to see, and reverted it to 11) Windows has always been to me a "make it work" experience, from 95 to XP at least. Critical aspects have always been broken, a fresh install always started from wiping everything clean, removing junk, going into the registry and adding third party tools to make it viable. And then backing it up, because as some point it will need to be wiped again. In that respect, Win 11 doesn't feel that different to me. I also was frustrated by the side dashboard, and there's tool suites to remove it quickly. Most of the eggregious stuff can be worked around, getting rid of Edge is the only tough part. Now, Windows 11 comes with a linux subsytem, Amazon's android subsystem is also promising, touch support is actually workable, hdpi support is good, and using windows on a tablet is actually doable. That's a very long way from the win 2000 area where multi-language support was seen as a cutting edge feature.
    • smusamashah 4y ago
      Modern windows didn't have to cut down on lots of old features, but they did anyway to appeal to Mac crowd. They got rid of classic theme few versions back, cut down on lots of customizablity. There are lots of useful and convenient features which could have all co-existed, but no, they have be trying to become Mac both in UI and a closed eco system where they can do whatever they want to their users leaving them as little choice as possible.
• deafpolygon 4y ago
  You can turn off the widget. Whether that actually turns it off under the hood, I don't know.
• kjellsbells 4y ago
  Pet theory: Windows for consumers doesn't get dogfooded by internal employees, as they all use the Enterprise version. So they never get to see the full effect of what the Windows group is pushing out to their grandmas.
  • concinds 4y ago
    I use Windows 11 Enterprise and it has all the things both articles complain about.
    • shmde 4y ago
      Install Win 10 Enterprise LTSC. This is the only usable windows version available. Been using it since 2 years, no regrets/complains.
• canistel 4y ago
  It does sadden me that ReactOS has not been mentioned even once in this entire discussion so far. Understandably, it is not a viable alternative at the moment. However, I will hope against hope. Looking back, Lazarus IDE had languished for a long while, before maturing. As I write this, I have at least 3 applications written in Lazarus running. So I will hope against hope...
  • LeFantome 4y ago
    Your Lazarus example saddens me. Perhaps it has matured to the point of being awesome. Unfortunately, it seems to have happened too late and so few of us will ever experience it at this point. I hope that ReactOS can get there while it still matters. Evidence suggest otherwise but I also hope.
• Lanz 4y ago
  Windows 11's UI is trash, no question. However, it can be easily fixed with ExplorerPatcher. https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher
  • shmde 4y ago
    I feel like Windows UI/UX teams go back to their homes throw their laptops running windows out of the window and boot up a Mac. Windows 11 UI can go fuck itself. Absolute shit, I had to go back to Win 10 LTSC version after using it for a day.
• SBArbeit 4y ago
  Go to Personalization / Taskbar. Turn off the widgets icon. Hide the Search bar. Turn off the Chat icon. Voila! Just Windows. Instead of cursing at the sky, I just turn off what I don't want. MacOS is an old, outdated clown car of an OS that looks like it hasn't been updated in 15 years. Let me know when the Year of Linux happens. Meanwhile, Windows is the most efficient, easy-to-use OS for development and media tasks. WSL is amazing. Hyper-V is fast if I need it. And it all Just Works.
  • lloydatkinson 4y ago
    You might be interested in this I'm working on, it also came up when the original mentioned articles was posted here. It's fine tuned for my own needs but I think I'll add another more barebones config set. https://github.com/lloydjatkinson/configuration https://github.com/lloydjatkinson/configuration
  • Woeps 4y ago
    while you do all that needed tinkering I'll be just working/playing games thank you very much. Jokes aside, Windows is just as viable as an daily driver like MacOS or Linux. But to state it is the most efficient & easy-to-use, that's stretching it a little bit.
• movedx 4y ago
  Everything about this article nicely encapsulates why I dropped Windows and moved to Ubuntu 22.04 (with KDE Plasma) about four weeks ago. I've been using Linux on and off since 1999, but now it's finally a really good option on the desktop. All of Microsoft's telemetry was also an issue, which pushed me to look at NextDNS, which I now pay for. I've blocked MS, Apple, Google, TikTok, Canonical (Ubuntu), and more, from being able to track my usage of their services (except with Google, to a large degree, as I directly use their products.) I've sacrificed a lot with this move, like being able to use my large collection of Elgato hardware for video production. Also, a lot of games, some of which I was playing with friends, but no longer can (ProtonDB says they're bronze or unplayable some cases, like PUBG.) Over all, however, I couldn't be happier.
• jgaa 4y ago
  Stop complaining! This is exactly what you want! If you really don't like Windows, you would already be using Linux, *BSD or MacOS - like me ;)
• aagha 4y ago
  Just pay for a Pro license and stop complaining.
• axpvms 4y ago
  The forced tabloid news is honestly horrific. I was begrudgingly willing to turn a blind eye to candy crush adverts on the start menu as I tend to like the OS, but this is just terrible. I have bad enough focus issues as it is without Windows bombarding my with crap notifications and clickbait in the widgets menu. I have turned off as much as I see possible and my blocklist for the news must be hundreds of entries long but I still get absolutely inane crap recommended to me. Oh I hate it so much it makes me rage. This is worse than the Windows 8 start menu.
• dvhh 4y ago
  While piling on windows 11, I love (sarcastically) that you cannot give feedback about windows 11 without the feedback hub, even if your installation of windows 11 is completely trashed by a botched recovery.
  • CatWChainsaw 4y ago
    And doesn't Feedback Hub require signing in to that app with a Microsoft Account? And the default behavior when signing in is a prompt that says "sign in with a Microsoft everywhere", with the "just this app" option in the corner? Dark patterns everywhere.
• COMMENT___ 4y ago
  > I use Windows to play games, but it truly feels like a trash party most of the time. Use Linux + Proton. It’s fascinating how Linux became a decent replacement for Windows for video games. (Thanks, Valve!)
  • 72deluxe 4y ago
    Is there a standalone installer for this so you can run items not on Steam? I have many old Windows games you see, with DVDs.
    • neogodless 4y ago
      You can add non-Steam installers to your Steam library, and then select a version of Proton to run them under. Works for StarCraft II.
    • pacifika 4y ago
      You can add non steam games to steam and use proton that way
    • mrburnssama 4y ago
      I would try the program 'bottles' via flatpak. Really easy to use and has run all my non-steam games flawlessly.
      • COMMENT___ 4y ago
        Yes, AFAIK there is Bottles and Lutris, but I’m struggling with staring games through them. Perhaps it’s just me though.
  • NexRebular 4y ago
    What if I don't want to use linux? Not many choices available beside consoles.
    • timbit42 4y ago
      Then use Windows.
• commitpizza 4y ago
  Honestly, Windows is trash but so is MacOS. They both have surveillance software and their crap that they force upon you. Microsoft is obviously way worse but Apple is no saint here.
• langsoul-com 4y ago
  I dislike the bloat and adding in news sections without asking. Not just windows, but Android, brave and Firefox browser as well. Please don't add recommended stories to the new tab, I just want my saved links and most visited. Nor do I want dodgy sponsored crap. Oh the woes of you are the product.
• michaelteter 4y ago
  What value does Microsoft get by pushing MSN content on normal computer users (especially business computer users)? Is there such value in getting eyes to linger on MSN that it's worth slowing down or distracting people who use their computers for actual tasks (as opposed to just wasting time and following any tempting "news" link)? Is this a top-down decision from Microsoft, or is this a lack of adequate oversight on the part of the top execs who define strategy for Windows?
• dvh 4y ago
  I remember vividly the day I installed windows XP in 2002. It took me only 30 minutes to finally realize that Microsoft will never fix Windows. They are incapable of making good OS today as they were 20 years ago. I've been happily using Linux ever since.
• hyperman1 4y ago
  In windows XP, microsoft learned their users accepted some abuse,e.g locked theme engine, plastic default theme, DRM. There were complaints, but users took it because where else to go? And to be honest, XP was still an upgrade coming from 98 and 2000 was not available for end users. Vista was an universally loathed disaster, but users took it because where else to go? Windows 7 was better, but still an UI downgrade. Users took it because where else to go? Windows 8, the your-computer-is-now-a-tablet edition. Users took it, where else to go? Windows 10, forced on user PCs, universally loathed. Still an user experience downgrade, but users took it because where else to go? And after a few years, memory of old versions faded enough that some people actually believed win10 was any good. Windows 11, ad ridden malware by any definition from 10 years ago. Users will take it, because where else to go. Microsoft leadership is not utterly stupid. They know users will take the next windows, whatever it does. Notice how every version gets more bold in the abuse. They expect your complaints. They are even polite enough not to laugh at the whole thing until they are in their own ingroup. I am speaking user experience here, there was some windows tech advancement in the last 20 years. And I know how availability of OS, software and drivers means tou have to upgrade if you want to stay with Windows. Even so, I never thought the whole world would go from a mostly competitive software ecosystem to stockholm syndrome from 1 abusive software vendor, but here we are. The sheer power of avoiding some short term pain no matter the long term cost is unbelievable.
  • DrBazza 4y ago
    > Windows 11, ad ridden malware by any definition from 10 years ago. Users will take it, because where else to go. 2 of my last 3 jobs have offered MacBooks, something unthinkable even 10 years ago. The majority of my friends kids (70-80%) have Apple devices (phones and laptops). A couple of them, surprisingly to me, even have linux and Chromebook laptops.
    • lkramer 4y ago
      At my job you need a special dispensation if you want a Windows machine (normally available options are Linux or Mac). That would certainly have been unthinkable 10 years ago.
• hermitcrab 4y ago
  I'm sticking with Windows 10 for my development PC.
• qwerty456127 4y ago
  Just disable the weather indicator (I bet there is a 3-rd party alternative), install the Windows Classic Menu to replace the start menu and you are good to go.
• NayamAmarshe 4y ago
  I'm sometimes still surprised that some people can find reasons to defend even that. Windows is horrible, it started to derail ever since Windows 8 came into the picture. This is an OS that does not respect its user. This is an OS that normalizes hostile software design, and makes it acceptable. This is an OS that spits in its users' faces and the users can do nothing about it. It's partly the user's fault as well. I used to use Windows, increasingly disliked it every day yet did nothing about it. Moving to Linux was one of the best decisions I ever made. The grass really is greener on the other side, especially when you're standing in the Windows garden.
  • ricardobayes 4y ago
    How is this any different than the pre-installed Amazon app on Ubuntu?
    • NayamAmarshe 4y ago
      What pre-installed Amazon app? That's old news. Ubuntu doesn't include anything like that.
• devinprater 4y ago
  It really sucks because there are users who practically must use Windows. People with disabilities aren't considered within FOSS, so are left out in Microsoft's cold embrace. Luckily there's WSL, and I use that quite a bit with Emacs and Emacspeak. But it's nothing like having a full Linux OS with no ads using up CPU cycles and RAM. I can't even see the ads.
  • plaguepilled 4y ago
    I agree accessibility is more ergonomic in Windows, but accessibility concerns aren't universally ignored in FOSS. GNOME and KDE both have accessibility projects which have existed for a little while now. Is it as polished? I would say no. But if there are shortcomings that impact you, the best way to help is to suggest changes, or write up a pull request yourself (if you are able to with the existing tooling that is).
• martiuk 4y ago
  I have completely ditched Windows for Gentoo/Arch, I cannot stand the crapware installed by default and all the hoops you have to jump through to get rid of it.
• npteljes 4y ago
  Many large concentrations of power have moved toward to softly excercising their powers, rather than hard. Users (also citizens) can take a lot of abuse IF their superiors position them to be vulnerable to them, and also give things to them at the same time. This kind of thing was a classic in interpersonal relationships, and now significant leaders found out that it works well on a large scale too. And just to underline this point, I invite you to look at comments of people reacting to situations like this. They sense that something is very wrong, but as they are vulnerable and attached, they don't like the idea of letting go at all - so they defend, apologize, rationalize, do whatever they can so that they detach the undesirable thing from the beloved entity. Just like how poor abused people do to make sense of their partner hurting them.
• rejectfinite 4y ago
  You really have to customize windows now with something like https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 You can turn all that shit off but the defaults are terrible now in Windows 11
• dncornholio 4y ago
  Stupid defaults but who cares, can't be bothered to get upset about stuff that's disableable. Life is too short. It gets the revenue from the casual users. It's the price of free. Solution: Don't let your kid on a fresh windows install. I get the critique, 10 year younger me would be smoking out of my ears. These days, I just remove the unwanted stuff and continue with life.
• mft_ 4y ago
  The sad thing is, Windows (even 11) can be great. I bought a new PC 18m ago, and due to the particular software I need to run, I needed a primary Windows installation. The PC came with a Windows 11 license, but I downloaded a stripped out ‘gamer’ focused ISO and installed that instead. It’s brilliant. Thanks to the nature of the ISO, it is totally debloated – far beyond just the obvious removal of things like ads and spyware. As a result, it boots faster than any operating system I’ve ever had – once you get past the bios shenanigans, it takes about 5 to 7 seconds and it’s fully ready to go. (That’s a clean boot, not from sleep). It’s similarly fast in regular use, and it has been perfectly stable. (The only downside of this approach is you have to be careful what’s been stripped out before you make your choice. In my case, I’ve not been able to install a printer, and WSL has also been removed. These are minor irritations, which so far I haven’t led me to abandon this installation – because otherwise it’s just great.)
  • bradfa 4y ago
    I just bought a new HP ENVY laptop with a Win 11 Pro license. I replaced the RAM and M.2 before first power-up and made a USB boot drive with the Windows 11 media creation application to do the install. The installer lacked wifi drivers so I had to google how to get past that to create an account, but now I have a local-only login and I've turned off the location/weather/ads things and Win 11 is fine. I'm not a fan of the Start menu (Win2k was my preferred) but the laptop is very usable. Coming from Windows 8.1 on the previous PC, my setup of Windows 11 is fine. I don't know how normal people buy a new PC and not accidentally sign up for a subscription or three, there's SOOOO many nags with unintuitive choices, but once past all that it's fine.
  • Nextgrid 4y ago
    > The only downside of this approach is you have to be careful what’s been stripped out before you make your choice. Not just about what's been stripped out, but what malware may have been added.
    • garrettjoecox 4y ago
      Typically these are open source projects they are referring to. EG: https://github.com/Atlas-OS/Atlas https://github.com/Atlas-OS/Atlas
• ricardobayes 4y ago
  How is this worse than Apple's App Store outright displaying ads?
  • yankcrime 4y ago
    What comparison do you think you're making here?
    • ricardobayes 4y ago
      People are up in arms because Windows is showing news that you can actually swith off, but on the other hand Apple is actively showing (unwanted) ads.
• mvuijlst 4y ago
  Oh it's this thread again.
• Havoc 4y ago
  The fact that it pops up on mouse over makes it especially irritating It's a recurring theme though. Noticed yesterday how Amazon Prime switched the "Free to me" button for a "Free with ads" one. Subtle but important change - takes away the users ability to browse a "safe" no sales pitch part of their turf.
• shimonabi 4y ago
  My computer is a couple of years old and a bit slow. When I search for something and I click on it in the Windows 10 Start Menu, the search lag causes something completely else to appear under my cursor and a completely different program opens. This is absolutely insane! New results should not replace the already found ones.
• AviationAtom 4y ago
  He starts out speaking of the computer being for his child and the inappropriateness of default content shown for a child. I think it's worthy of mentioning Microsoft Family Safety. It's pretty useful after you create a minor Microsoft Account for your child through it. My only gripe was the Microsoft Edge new tab page, which still shows some content inappropriate for a child, with no way to disable it through the UI. The Microsoft Support sanctioned way to disable it was by adding ntp.msn.com to the Windows hosts file.
• theLastOfCats 4y ago
  Windows is the best DE for Linux. prove me wrong
• joshspankit 4y ago
  With AI now being a real thing, I’m looking through all these “how it’s done” UI elements through a new lens. Like weather: Even when I want to know the local weather do I want to watch it in real time? No. I’m having to watch it in real time because I need to predict how it’s going to affect my plans. I’d much rather have an AI do the real-time stuff and nudge me to say “Hey, there’s rain about an hour away” or “The park is definitely going to be great. Check in and make sure everyone is on the same page”. There are still some things I do still want as a part of the UI, and even at AI’s best I still want a UI, but so much of that information overload is now functionally irrelevant.
  • red-iron-pine 4y ago
    Sounds similar to the "digital concierge" thing that was posted here last week. Which honestly sounds pretty good. Fine line between digital concierge, nagging, and something like out of the (dystopian) short story "Manna", though (available here: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1 https://marshallbrain.com/manna1)
    • joshspankit 4y ago
      I just read the story but I can’t find the digital concierge post from last week. Can you link it? I feels like a better place for a further discussion on the story’s topics.
• tinus_hn 4y ago
  We’ve come full circle with the Bing button/sidebar ad in Edge. No more spammy toolbars, except of course Microsoft’s.
• modzu 4y ago
  its pronounced "microshit" and there is no reason to use it
• footlose_3815 4y ago
  Ever since the "tile"ification of windows 8, they've been monetizing the OS like it's a TV and they're the only one allowed to run commercials on it. I really feel like if you purchase money to use software, aside from security updates, you should be able to effortlessly have a clean experience with it, free of ads, mandatory metadata collection, and promoted trash from MSN's tabloid-headlines. Every smart feature in Windows is an insidious plot for Microsoft to brand themselves further into our lives, and I've been using and recommending linux whenever possible because of it. I miss the simplicity of Windows 7.
• lostmsu 4y ago
  I wish I could move away from Windows, but I have a few Tobii EyeX devices I got used to, and they are not supported on Linux.
• ouraf 4y ago
  I wonder how much tinkering you need to make an enterprise version that removes all the time sink and telemetry. not everyone that deals with sensible data has IT education beyond windows and office, and you can't demand every bank clerk and hospital receptionist in the world use arch Linux for safety reasons. On the other hand, these click bait articles in the main UI are timesinks that could reduce productivity in a company
• zsz 4y ago
  Disclaimer: I am unaffiliated with the developer/company/product mentioned below. When I was still on Windows 10, I used Start10. After...overwriting my Windows 10 image with Windows 11 (I needed WSL2 to operate my Seagate NAS/Linux based software RAID5 after Seagate's own firmware declared that all four physical drives had failed simultaneously--they of course hadn't, what an incredible slap in the face), I upgraded to Start11. Yes, I agree, in principle it's absurd to pay anything at all to replace a window manager component whose functionality seems to diverge from what I personally consider useful with every iteration of the underlying OS. Nor am I under any illusion that all the crap is no longer wasting system resources, merely because I no longer see it. I suppose sometimes there is a bit of comfort to be derived from appearances alone, and the developer of Start11 cleverly figured out what I consider a very reasonable price point to attach to said comfort.