11 ms·

Windows 7 marketshare jumps to nearly 10% as Windows 10 support is about to end

124 points by sznio 1y ago

tux3 1y ago
I know some users held back on the upgrade while Windows 10 still had support, but there's many improvements to privacy & consent in Windows 7 that are worth considering, now that both are about to be equally out of their support window. It's one of the last versions where the modal dialogs ask "Yes" or "No", instead of "Yes" and "Not now", "Maybe later", or "Ask again tomorrow".
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  >It's one of the last versions where the modal dialogs ask "Yes" or "No", instead of "Yes" and "Not now", "Maybe later", or "Ask again tomorrow". This difference captures so much... I recently setup a minecraft server on an old windows machine and had a hard time setting it to never restart automatically. After reading some support forums I found the menu to control when it restarts but still didnt see an option to completely stop it. Eventually I found a way that I can't even recall at this point.
  - westmeal 1y ago
    So much easier to run mc servers on Linux boxes. You just grab the jvm that version wants and throw everything into a folder and use the jvms java executable on the server.jar.
    - ToucanLoucan 1y ago
      Was gonna say the exact same thing. Getting Java installed is always a bit of a headache but that's really the only hard part. Once your JVM is good, everything from there is easy. And even the JVM part, it's not HARD, just annoying.
      - Symbiote 1y ago
        > Getting Java installed is always a bit of a headache apt install openjdk-21-jdk-headless Or equivalent, no?
        westmeal 1y ago
        I wouldn't recommend doing it for mc. They keep changing and or using old jvms. What I do is I just go on oracles site and get the jdk they list that works, and run it directly from the folder. Also some distros do make it a pain lol.
        dorkypunk 1y ago
        Does it really matter? i've run Minecraft servers with Coretto 21 on Arm and had no issues at all even with the weird setup
        westmeal 1y ago
        Ive honestly never heard of coretto but it seems to be basically openjdk 21 under the hood so I don't see why that'd be a problem.
        frollogaston 1y ago
        I haven't done this in forever, but last time the recommended OpenJDK answer was somehow not right. Got the Oracle one, had to figure out where you extract the tarball to, fix my PATH, yada yada.
        ToucanLoucan 1y ago
        ^ this was my experience yeah. Though I didn't even bother with the PATH var I just used an absolute path to the damn binary because I was frustrated.
        1718627440 1y ago
    - nonethewiser 1y ago
      ... Thats also how you do it on windows though? I agree it's a better OS to run a minecraft server on in general.
      - westmeal 1y ago
        Of course, the OS doesn't really matter it's just easier to manage a Linux box as opposed to a windows machine half the time. Especially for a server. Theres a lot of stupid shit you'll see on consumer and even enterprise versions of Windows which I've had to unfortunately deal with for a decade in exchange for money. Since the gp mentioned how frustrating it was I can relate. Edit: also ufw is so much easier than the windows firewall. That shit drives me insane.
  - hn773746483 1y ago
    Completely disabling Windows Update is very difficult, much more involved than simply disabling a service or two or a registry key. There's multiple services dedicated to monitoring / "repairing" windows update, scheduled tasks to enable those, and further tasks to repair everything completely if anything is modified. And if all of that is disabled... there's a single exe which "helpfully" re-enables and re-creates all of the necessary scheduled tasks and services, which gets called by the service manager automatically: "upfc.exe" Renaming / getting rid of this stops WaasMedic & other services from respawning.
    - Krssst 1y ago
      > There's multiple services dedicated to monitoring / "repairing" windows update, scheduled tasks to enable those, and further tasks to repair everything completely if anything is modified. Sounds like we'd need some resident anti-virus-like software dedicated to enforcing the user's choices on the OS. (but definitely do your updates so as to not become part of a botnet. Too bad the security updates must come with unneeded feature updates)
- almostnormal 1y ago
  Also the last one where important features were not reserved for enterprise volume licenses but available in the Pro version.
  - anonymars 1y ago
    Do you have some examples?
    - Lammy 1y ago
      https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/configure-windows-spotlight-on-lock-screen https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/configure-windows-spotl... “Note: This policy is only available for Enterprise SKUs” https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/force-a-specific-default-lock-screen-and-logon-image https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/force-a-specific-defaul... “Note: This setting only applies to Enterprise, Education, and Server SKUs.” https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/disable-all-apps-from-microsoft-store https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/disable-all-apps-from-m... “This setting applies only to Enterprise and Education editions of Windows.” And of course the really important one where only Enterprise is allowed to fully disable Telemetry: https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/allow-diagnostic-data https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/allow-diagnostic-data “Diagnostic data off (not recommended). Using this value, no diagnostic data is sent from the device. This value is only supported on Enterprise, Education, and Server editions.”
      - anonymars 1y ago
        Well, you can remove the Windows spotlight stuff from the lock screen through the regular settings. Change it from Windows Spotlight to picture or whatever, and remove "Weather and more" from the "show detailed status". I'd say the ability to disable that through Group Policy stretches the definition of "important feature" I'm not sure I'd agree those policies are enough to truly argue Windows 7 was a last version to not separate out important features to Enterprise -- I'd actually instead simply make the larger point that before Windows 10, Windows wasn't a chintzy ad-driven whorehouse.
- jl6 1y ago
  “Improvements are available… in the previous version”. I find the idea of people upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 7 sad and hilarious in equal measure.
- rs186 1y ago
  While both OSes are no longer supported, important software like Chrome still run on Windows 10 and will continue to do so for a while. Staying on Windows 7 means losing security updates, and very soon, not being able to load websites that use the latest web features.
  - mapontosevenths 1y ago
    Supermium is a relatively up to date Chrome fork that will work for anything back to XP. https://github.com/win32ss/supermium https://github.com/win32ss/supermium
  - hn_acc1 1y ago
    Stop selling Windows 7 so much.. As a 40-year veteran of tech, "latest web features" are usually a red flag for me more than anything.. More spying, more PII selling, more addiction attempts, etc..
    - rs186 1y ago
      https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Nesting_selector https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Nesting_sel...
  - rchaud 1y ago
    > latest web features What new browser feature made in the past decade has improved the user experience?
- brokencode 1y ago
  I wish Microsoft would have never changed the business model of Windows away from paid upgrades. Now they have no incentive to make good upgrades. Instead, they are only incentivized to add privacy-compromising services that nobody wants or asked for.
  - mielioort 1y ago
    Nice window you have there, would be a shame if somebody threw a upgrade into it.. should pay insurrance and protection money, so we could save things from "pimprovements"
- landl0rd 1y ago
  I ran Linux for many years. But I needed to run some software that only supported windows and mac, and wine didn't cut it, so I had to reinstall windows. I can't tolerate windows. I put up with 10 for a while then went back to 7. 7 was good. Then some stuff wasn't supported so I moved to 11. Couldn't do it. I'd get random garbage like a notification for some "grand prize giveaway". I legit thought I'd gotten adware installed somehow. Nope, official Microsoft notification! Want to configure the system at all? Keep defender from trashing your CPU for fifteen minutes after you compile something? Stop auto-restarts that close everything? Use actual sleep not the weird "connected sleep" nonsense? Tough, you don't get to. If you do it anyway it will revert after your next update (mandatory btw!) or sometimes just at random. I can't remember a version since 7 that doesn't make me feel like I'm in a bazaar being accosted by freaking rug merchants. I used to hate macs. I switched to a macbook. I am much happier now despite the occasional annoyances.
  - fakedang 1y ago
    The Windows 11 home version has all the adware garbage. The Pro version is cleaner.
  - WD-42 1y ago
    Same experience, but from using 11 in a VM. Installing it is eye opening, with all the unskippable Eulas that force you to agree to share your data. I’m convinced it’s a frog in boiling water situation for people still using windows. It’s so bad.
    - nine_k 1y ago
      Hear me out: MS Excel. The one true powerful version only exists on Windows. Another anchor: ODBC drivers. Some good SQL Server connectivity options are only available on Windows. When your captive audience is accountants, traders, and CFOs, it's quite a moat.
      - larrik 1y ago
        And then, somehow, the desktop Outlook is better on mac than on Windows. On Windows I can't even easily copy/paste from one email to another. It strips out half the formatting and any colors that were there. Nor can I copy email recipients from an email into a new one. I tried switching to Windows last year and I just couldn't do it. So now my expensive and fancy powerful laptop collects dust and I'm back to my 5 year old m1 (which is somehow faster, usually).
- pinkmuffinere 1y ago
  Oh my god i HATE the lack of a “no” option! I’ve been meaning to go find a guide for editing registry to disable the windows 11 upgrade requests, but now I worry that might not exist?
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  If "support" doesn't allow opting out of their actively user-hostile decision making, I seriously question the value of "support" at all. In many ways I'd rather my computer go to some Russian botnet than trust an American corporation with my data—at least the former has a chance of getting shut down.
- smileybarry 1y ago
  Windows 7 is still dramatically less secure by design (i.e. not missing patches but architectural changes) compared to Windows 10, even Windows 8 had some meaningful kernel security features that 7 lacks. This includes sandboxing measures that Chrome & Firefox use, meaning you're still less secure even if you're not downloading shady software. You're frankly better off applying a bunch of registry changes to 10, using a Education or N (EU) edition "illegally", or blocking DNS than going back to 7 just for privacy concerns. You're cutting off your nose to spite your face.
  - 1718627440 1y ago
    I don't know much about MS Windows, but can you install Windows 7 and then install a newer kernel? Maybe also updating the kernel wrapping library?
    - smileybarry 1y ago
      No, they're tightly coupled together. Even same-release updates update both the kernel and the userland syscall-implementing DLLs to match.
      - 1718627440 1y ago
        Ok, can you update the kernel and the userland syscall-implementing DLLs?
        smileybarry 1y ago
        Well, that's essentially Windows Update.
        1718627440 1y ago
        But this will install other stuff as well and might even upgrade the distro. I just want to update the kernel and its wrapper. Or does nobody have tried it and I would need to figure it out myself.
- McAlpine5892 1y ago
  Makes me think of notices around adult clubs I've seen such as: "CONSENT: A clear and unambiguous agreement, expressed outwardly through mutually understandable words or actions, to engage in a particular activity. Consent can be withdrawn by either party at any point." and "No means No" What I'm about to say is strongly worded and I understand not a _perfect_ analogy by any means. However, it does sum up my feelings on this issue. If Person A makes repeated unwanted advances towards Person B, we have words to describe that. But if Person A, a company, makes repeated unwanted advances towards Person B we call that business.
  - zelphirkalt 1y ago
    Yes, the decisive difference is, that Microsoft does not act like an adult, you see? That's why the rules do not apply to them. :)
cosmic_cheese 1y ago
I have an old laptop that boots Windows 7 and in my opinion, it's peak Windows (having used everything from 98SE onward, including 2K). It feels modern in a way that older entries don't but doesn't have the annoying and user-hostile elements of newer entries. The visual style is slightly dated feeling but it wouldn't take a whole lot of work to fix that.
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  It has the old settings menus right? I think it was windows 8 or 10 that introduced the new menus which I found somehow both too simplistic and harder to navigate. And then sometimes you get lucky and figure out a way to open the old menus to do what you actually want. I think Windows 7 was my favorite as well.
  - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
    Yeah it still uses the old Control Panel system, which is far from perfect (it's really bad about "dialog tunnels" where some things are buried too many levels deep), but overall is more servicable for technical users. Another thing that it has over XP is that it's better at providing a minimally usable environment post-install, with a better payload of default drivers. I don't miss booting into 256 color 640x480 and trying to get all the hardware in a functional state without a network connection like was a frequent occurrence with XP and older.
  - jofla_net 1y ago
    The new menus are really fun in 11, where it starts out new, and then when you want more info pretty much everything changes back (font/kerning/color) to the point of feeling you need to do a doubletake. Its something that if it happened online you'd swear you've been slip-streamed and shouldn't continue. Guess they dont have anyone who can move over the old items to the new look, go figure.
    - mook 1y ago
      The old dialogs used to be extensible, in that getting random software like mouse drivers to just add a new tab to the mouse control panel was the way to do things. The new one is, as far as I know, not that. So there's a chance that they left random bits alone because they're afraid to break things. Or that's merely the justification to push back against the designers…
babypuncher 1y ago
Something about this statistic is setting off my baloney detector
- matja 1y ago
  Maybe the number of Windows 7 users has not changed, but those using Windows 10 and 11 are flocking to Linux. That'd be a net positive change in the Windows 7 percentage. :p
- stronglikedan 1y ago
  Welcome to statistics! There's lies, damn lies, and statistics.
ktosobcy 1y ago
I still have Windows7 on my fathers computer and it's more than enough for him (Firefox + FreeCell). We are behind NAT and he doesn't open anything except for a couple of pages + has uBlock. The whole hype around Win10 loosing support is way overblown…
- lupusreal 1y ago
  I've had my dad, with similar usage patterns, using XFCE for close to 15 years now. Very few problems with it, I only have to play tech support maybe once a year. Worth considering..
  - ktosobcy 1y ago
    I do consider migrating to Linux but... "ItJustWorks" and even the tiniest change throws him off (like order on tiles in firefox) so I'm waiting for the current machine to die completely ;)
- whynotminot 1y ago
  “We are behind NAT” just means you’ve got a router / home network like everyone else does these days right? Or am I missing something more here.
  - matja 1y ago
    If you get IPv6 from your ISP you're usually not "behind NAT", even if your home router does NAT IPv4 or your ISP does CGNAT for IPv4.
    - ProllyInfamous 1y ago
      I am a blue collar layperson (who only understands IPv4's limitation as a lack of total available IP addresses) that disables IPv6 (at the router level) for this exact reason — I feel like I am losing the little bit of control that being "behind NAT" allows on a private IP range/network (e.g. firewall; port mapping). Obviously I still use Windows 7 Pro 64-bit as my only Microsoft computer — also have an Ubuntu dual Xeon (for LLM/crypto) and several Apple Silicon products (for general browsing).
wnevets 1y ago
The TPM 2.0 requirement for Windows 11 is making the Windows ecosystem so much more secure. Brilliant gambit Microsoft.
- vachina 1y ago
  Secure for software and content vendors, not necessarily for the users.
  - veeti 1y ago
    How many trashed Windows 10 PC's are home desktops or laptops used without a password in the first place? But grandma's PC needs secure boot against Tom Clancy level threat actors, it's for her own good.
- ipsum2 1y ago
  I have a modern CPU / motherboard (made in the last 4 years) that I spent $2000+ on that doesn't have TPM 2.0. Guess I'm never upgrading to 11.
  - Merad 1y ago
    You might have an option to enable it in BIOS that's turned off by default, that was the case for my desktop PC.
- p_ing 1y ago
  TPM enables VBS, so yes it does provide significantly increased security.
peterhil 1y ago
The third option is to install some Linux like Ubuntu or Linux Mint on it. It is nowadays actually easier to install Ubuntu Linux than a Windows. Just be sure to back up your data to an external hard drive, and restore it from there after the install.
- godman_8 1y ago
  I wish. There’s still no distro that works well with my 9950X3D + RTX 5080. It’s usually Nvidia’s fault for not playing well with Wayland though.
  - WD-42 1y ago
    This is literally my exact build. I'm using Arch Linux with Gnome + Wayland, it works perfectly.
    - specproc 1y ago
      Yeah, I had so many Nvidia/wayland issues that totally evaporated on moving to Arch. I guess that's the benefit of rolling.
      - WD-42 1y ago
        It helps to use software and drivers written after your hardware came into existence.
- stronglikedan 1y ago
  > The third option is to install some Linux like Ubuntu or Linux Mint on it. Unfortunately, some of us have to be able to actually get work done in our corporate environments.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- Jackson__ 1y ago
zamadatix 1y ago
"Statcounter Stats Go Wonky This Month" wouldn't have made enough clicks, I suppose. Even the wording of the 2nd paragraph misses the point - this is obviously not statistical fluctuation. They didn't even bother to look into the more granular data either. 1 in 4 people did not switch to Windows 7 in one week https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#daily-20250901-20250930 https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desk.... It's really quite jarring this is not the focus of discussion.
personalityson 1y ago
Win 11 has not changed much since June -- https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desk... What's wrong with Win 11 exactly?
- anonymars 1y ago
  It removes features and is slower and less productive, while offering...?
- NoiseBert69 1y ago
  They are force feeding their AI and bloat a bit shit too hard and scared "normal" users off with it. The initial trigger was their Telemetry you cannot switch off. That stuff had a huge extremely negative press exposure for many months. W11 is basically burned.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  > What's wrong with Win 11 exactly? There's the obvious telemetry, MS account requirement for home editions, and other MS dark patterns for one. But, Windows 11 performance is still crap compared to 10, and even 7. The right click menu in explorer is still high latency, and if you have a lot of extensions, you see "loading..." and it can take a good full second for all menu options to show up. Also, you still can't move the task bar, search is as garbage as ever (but honestly that's expected from Windows at this point). Windows 11 does have some nice features, especially once combined with PowerToys. I still prefer the way Windows manages Windows compared to my mac which I need 3 third party apps at this point to make usable, and WSL2 is neat, windows has native SSH now, etc. It could be a great OS if Microsoft could get their heads out of their rears and fix the performance issues, and stop with the advertising, telemetry and dark patterns.
  - dangus 1y ago
    - Telemetry doesn’t affect end users in terms of functionality or performance, and every commercial OS has telemetry. People cite telemetry as a reason not to upgrade to 10/11 but even Windows 7 had telemetry. It isn’t even really that much of a privacy issue if you really dig in to what Microsoft collects and you’ve spent ten seconds in the privacy and security settings. People just like to complain. - Right click menu latency is such a non-issue and that issue is specifically in file explorer and not other applications. I do think they need to make improvements to that experience like having the legacy right click behind the new one but it’s not a big deal day to day. - Everyone likes to complain that you can’t move the taskbar. Can you move the menu bar on Mac? Can we not just accept that this is a design decision and move on? - Is search garbage? Seems to work fine for me and seems identical to Mac and Linux quick searching functionality, and if I need something more powerful I just use Everything. It actually is a pretty great OS, but like every OS it’s not perfect and never will be.
fxtentacle 1y ago
Probably that's just a side-effect of so many people leaving Windows 10 and 11 for Linux.
kraig911 1y ago
I just can't understand why Microsoft can just remove all this shit from windows 11. Guys we don't want adds, one drive and all that crap I know you make money on it but let people come to it naturally when it's forced it turns us a way. I keep hearing stories of entire medical offices, small businesses going mac/linux for the sake of not being forced to candy crush it up.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- nerdsniper 1y ago
  The product you want is offered. Windows Enterprise/LTSC/IoT (effectively all names for the same thing) are the product offerings delivering what you want. When I need Windows, it’s what I use. It’s available for $238 from CDW.com or less from resellers. If you want to play games, you have to do a tiny bit of extra work to get the right frameworks/drivers installed, especially for VR. But this isn’t done to frustrate you, it’s because this version of windows doesn’t come with anything that’s strictly helpful, and Activity Monitor shows a blissfully low number of processes running on first boot. If you want bells and whistles, you’re free to add them yourself.
  - olyjohn 1y ago
    Note that you're likely paying $238 and still not getting a legit copy of Windows. If you don't have a volume license agreement and a minimum of 5 Windows licenses, you aren't supposed to use the LTSC version of Windows, and they're not supposed to be used for primary desktops. Also you're supposed to have a Pro license for the machine BEFORE you buy LTSC, so that's just more extra costs. You might as well just save the money and pirate it. Not that this will make any difference in practice if you're just using it at home, but still, people should probably know this.
    - nerdsniper 1y ago
      AIUI (please correct me if I'm wrong) I believe you can buy individual copies from a reseller who buys copies in bulk and they are able to create keys in their own licensing portal to resell individually. I believe CDW either is a reseller or partners with Advantech. If the cost is the issue, I'd probably go for gray-market reseller keys over pirating. Looks like they run $6-20 these days, someone could simply search for "windows 11 iot keys" to see offerings - pick whichever site either seems the least shady or is cheap enough that you're okay losing the money. Always use something like privacy.com to protect your CC info when buying gray-market software keys. I believe there are bona-fide tools given to large org IT personnel to re-license installed windows as whatever you want, but if you don't have a trusted friend who can provide a trustworthy copy of that, I wouldn't trust anything pirated that claims to do the same thing. There are also open-source tools on Github which can perform the tasks of a KMS and license your copy of Windows as whatever version you want.
rraghur 1y ago
haven't run windows in ages (15yrs). Can't even make sense of windows anymore since at work moved to Mac. Unfortunately, looks like I will need to now since for a laptop (thinkpad - AMD - sleep/suspend might be a dead end) So what's the 'best' edition of windows ('best' for privacy/least crapware/adware/AI slop)? I can get any version.
- zamadatix 1y ago
  Enterprise or Enterprise LTSC.
mapontosevenths 1y ago
I think it's great that Microsoft are still job-creators after all these years. Just think of all the extra cyber-security jobs they creating by making windows 11 adware and AI infested garbage!
hhh 1y ago
Something smells fishy
tech234a 1y ago
A similar jump is not shown in the Firefox telemetry reports (which are limited to telemetry-enabled Firefox users): https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware
seam_carver 1y ago
I recently added Windows 7 support to an open source app I run, Kindle Comic Converter. It was as easy as downgrading a bunch of dependencies (PySide6, numpy) and created a legacy build, and the Windows 7 version got like 2% of downloads (~200). I assume it works since I've gotten no complaints and I don't have a Windows 7 machine to test haha, Windows 7 in UTM crashes a lot for me on macOS ARM. Man people are still using this. I really only did this since I added macOS 10.14 support (prior minimum was macOS 12) and most of the work needed was already mostly done by that. In theory I could even get macOS 10.10 support, but that would require downgrading Qt6 to Qt5
samiv 1y ago
I'm so frustrated with Windows 11. I recently bought a laptop and that came with Windows 11. After hours of trying to work around the OOB "experience" that really really wants to you to sign up for a Microsoft account I finally managed to circumvent it. After using it for a while I actually like it. It's smooth and no major glitches. Then I didn't use my laptop for a while, logged in and was greeted with "Let's finish setting up your account". Only options are "Remind me again x days later" and "Ok" This is so obnoxious behavior it really makes me want to just roll over the whole machine with Linux. I wish the clowns from the marketing department hadn't taken over the Windows product division. My laptop is already setup thank you very much. I don't need your condesdencing dark pattern UX BS in my face.
- ieie3366 1y ago
  You are not the target audience. In fact, Microsoft would probably prefer if you switched to Linux
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    Actually not, that is why WSL exists.
    - ieie3366 1y ago
      Not really. WSL was made because Microsoft wanted to preserve the ’average normie dev’ demographic who were increasingly moving to MacOS/Linux because the tooling was ass. Think a developer in some boring big insurance company. Microsoft does not and never will give a shit about some open source/privacy purist user. Now the IT department can give them windows laptops with WSL and everybody stays happy
- leptons 1y ago
  I use a few utilities to tame Windows 11 and make it work more like Windows 7, 8, and 10. It should get rid of that "Remind me again" thing, I haven't seen it in a long, long time. No ads, no crap from Microsoft. https://pxc-coding.com/donotspy11/ https://pxc-coding.com/donotspy11/ https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu/releases https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu/releases https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/releases https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/releases
Animats 1y ago
Windows 7 was the last good Microsoft OS. After Windows 7, I switched to Linux, and the last Windows 7 machine was turned off early this year. I'm surprised there isn't a corporate push for "Windows 7 Forever".
Rooster61 1y ago
> After that date, users are encouraged to enroll their devices in the Extended Security Updates program for free, which will grant them twelve more months of security updates and plenty of time to plan an upgrade to something supported. Plenty of time to switch to Linux, you mean.
dev1ycan 1y ago
Can we as a society either fund QT/GTK or make a good alternative to it that is as solid as Winform was in terms of GUI principles for Linux? No matter what Linux distro it is, the core issue with it are QT/GTK, they will never give a user peace of mind like winforms did, a winforms program just feels "good" to use, sort of like the feeling you get from using a website done primarily in HTML (Like hardware news or old reddit)... A lot of the charm that old windows versions had is exactly based on the GUI framework of the operating system, distros are nice and all but they cannot change fundamentally what is wrong with the user interface of QT/GTK. Anyways until people figure out what is wrong (which is by the way, also wrong with UWP and WinUI 3... Windows 11 did semi recently get ClassicShell support, I recommend you just moving the taskbar to the side and changing the classicshell logo back to the windows 7/vista button... almost makes you feel like you're using a trash operating system.
bitwize 1y ago
It's like, long as I'm gonna be unsupported, may as well go back to the last good version. I love it.
more_corn 1y ago
Wow, people are reverting to an objectively worse and less secure operating system simply to bypass Microsoft’s irritating forced upgrades to Win 11. You can tell your product is crap when people actively downgrade rather than risk an upgrade to the latest version. I’m really thankful for Microsoft. I can learn a lot about how not to behave by looking at what they do.
CannotCarrot 1y ago
This is very weird. And it happened mostly in Asia and Africa. In Asia, Windows 7 supposedly jumped to 41% share in Sept 27th. Obviously this cannot be true.

124 points by sznio 1y ago

tux3 1y ago

I know some users held back on the upgrade while Windows 10 still had support, but there's many improvements to privacy & consent in Windows 7 that are worth considering, now that both are about to be equally out of their support window. It's one of the last versions where the modal dialogs ask "Yes" or "No", instead of "Yes" and "Not now", "Maybe later", or "Ask again tomorrow".

nonethewiser 1y ago
>It's one of the last versions where the modal dialogs ask "Yes" or "No", instead of "Yes" and "Not now", "Maybe later", or "Ask again tomorrow". This difference captures so much... I recently setup a minecraft server on an old windows machine and had a hard time setting it to never restart automatically. After reading some support forums I found the menu to control when it restarts but still didnt see an option to completely stop it. Eventually I found a way that I can't even recall at this point.
- westmeal 1y ago
  So much easier to run mc servers on Linux boxes. You just grab the jvm that version wants and throw everything into a folder and use the jvms java executable on the server.jar.
  - ToucanLoucan 1y ago
    Was gonna say the exact same thing. Getting Java installed is always a bit of a headache but that's really the only hard part. Once your JVM is good, everything from there is easy. And even the JVM part, it's not HARD, just annoying.
    - Symbiote 1y ago
      > Getting Java installed is always a bit of a headache apt install openjdk-21-jdk-headless Or equivalent, no?
      - westmeal 1y ago
        I wouldn't recommend doing it for mc. They keep changing and or using old jvms. What I do is I just go on oracles site and get the jdk they list that works, and run it directly from the folder. Also some distros do make it a pain lol.
        dorkypunk 1y ago
        Does it really matter? i've run Minecraft servers with Coretto 21 on Arm and had no issues at all even with the weird setup
        westmeal 1y ago
        Ive honestly never heard of coretto but it seems to be basically openjdk 21 under the hood so I don't see why that'd be a problem.
      - frollogaston 1y ago
        I haven't done this in forever, but last time the recommended OpenJDK answer was somehow not right. Got the Oracle one, had to figure out where you extract the tarball to, fix my PATH, yada yada.
        ToucanLoucan 1y ago
        ^ this was my experience yeah. Though I didn't even bother with the PATH var I just used an absolute path to the damn binary because I was frustrated.
        1718627440 1y ago
  - nonethewiser 1y ago
    ... Thats also how you do it on windows though? I agree it's a better OS to run a minecraft server on in general.
    - westmeal 1y ago
      Of course, the OS doesn't really matter it's just easier to manage a Linux box as opposed to a windows machine half the time. Especially for a server. Theres a lot of stupid shit you'll see on consumer and even enterprise versions of Windows which I've had to unfortunately deal with for a decade in exchange for money. Since the gp mentioned how frustrating it was I can relate. Edit: also ufw is so much easier than the windows firewall. That shit drives me insane.
- hn773746483 1y ago
  Completely disabling Windows Update is very difficult, much more involved than simply disabling a service or two or a registry key. There's multiple services dedicated to monitoring / "repairing" windows update, scheduled tasks to enable those, and further tasks to repair everything completely if anything is modified. And if all of that is disabled... there's a single exe which "helpfully" re-enables and re-creates all of the necessary scheduled tasks and services, which gets called by the service manager automatically: "upfc.exe" Renaming / getting rid of this stops WaasMedic & other services from respawning.
  - Krssst 1y ago
    > There's multiple services dedicated to monitoring / "repairing" windows update, scheduled tasks to enable those, and further tasks to repair everything completely if anything is modified. Sounds like we'd need some resident anti-virus-like software dedicated to enforcing the user's choices on the OS. (but definitely do your updates so as to not become part of a botnet. Too bad the security updates must come with unneeded feature updates)
almostnormal 1y ago
Also the last one where important features were not reserved for enterprise volume licenses but available in the Pro version.
- anonymars 1y ago
  Do you have some examples?
  - Lammy 1y ago
    https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/configure-windows-spotlight-on-lock-screen https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/configure-windows-spotl... “Note: This policy is only available for Enterprise SKUs” https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/force-a-specific-default-lock-screen-and-logon-image https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/force-a-specific-defaul... “Note: This setting only applies to Enterprise, Education, and Server SKUs.” https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/disable-all-apps-from-microsoft-store https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/disable-all-apps-from-m... “This setting applies only to Enterprise and Education editions of Windows.” And of course the really important one where only Enterprise is allowed to fully disable Telemetry: https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/allow-diagnostic-data https://admx.cengizyilmaz.net/policy/allow-diagnostic-data “Diagnostic data off (not recommended). Using this value, no diagnostic data is sent from the device. This value is only supported on Enterprise, Education, and Server editions.”
    - anonymars 1y ago
      Well, you can remove the Windows spotlight stuff from the lock screen through the regular settings. Change it from Windows Spotlight to picture or whatever, and remove "Weather and more" from the "show detailed status". I'd say the ability to disable that through Group Policy stretches the definition of "important feature" I'm not sure I'd agree those policies are enough to truly argue Windows 7 was a last version to not separate out important features to Enterprise -- I'd actually instead simply make the larger point that before Windows 10, Windows wasn't a chintzy ad-driven whorehouse.
jl6 1y ago
“Improvements are available… in the previous version”. I find the idea of people upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 7 sad and hilarious in equal measure.
rs186 1y ago
While both OSes are no longer supported, important software like Chrome still run on Windows 10 and will continue to do so for a while. Staying on Windows 7 means losing security updates, and very soon, not being able to load websites that use the latest web features.
- mapontosevenths 1y ago
  Supermium is a relatively up to date Chrome fork that will work for anything back to XP. https://github.com/win32ss/supermium https://github.com/win32ss/supermium
- hn_acc1 1y ago
  Stop selling Windows 7 so much.. As a 40-year veteran of tech, "latest web features" are usually a red flag for me more than anything.. More spying, more PII selling, more addiction attempts, etc..
  - rs186 1y ago
    https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Nesting_selector https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Nesting_sel...
- rchaud 1y ago
  > latest web features What new browser feature made in the past decade has improved the user experience?
brokencode 1y ago
I wish Microsoft would have never changed the business model of Windows away from paid upgrades. Now they have no incentive to make good upgrades. Instead, they are only incentivized to add privacy-compromising services that nobody wants or asked for.
- mielioort 1y ago
  Nice window you have there, would be a shame if somebody threw a upgrade into it.. should pay insurrance and protection money, so we could save things from "pimprovements"
landl0rd 1y ago
I ran Linux for many years. But I needed to run some software that only supported windows and mac, and wine didn't cut it, so I had to reinstall windows. I can't tolerate windows. I put up with 10 for a while then went back to 7. 7 was good. Then some stuff wasn't supported so I moved to 11. Couldn't do it. I'd get random garbage like a notification for some "grand prize giveaway". I legit thought I'd gotten adware installed somehow. Nope, official Microsoft notification! Want to configure the system at all? Keep defender from trashing your CPU for fifteen minutes after you compile something? Stop auto-restarts that close everything? Use actual sleep not the weird "connected sleep" nonsense? Tough, you don't get to. If you do it anyway it will revert after your next update (mandatory btw!) or sometimes just at random. I can't remember a version since 7 that doesn't make me feel like I'm in a bazaar being accosted by freaking rug merchants. I used to hate macs. I switched to a macbook. I am much happier now despite the occasional annoyances.
- fakedang 1y ago
  The Windows 11 home version has all the adware garbage. The Pro version is cleaner.
- WD-42 1y ago
  Same experience, but from using 11 in a VM. Installing it is eye opening, with all the unskippable Eulas that force you to agree to share your data. I’m convinced it’s a frog in boiling water situation for people still using windows. It’s so bad.
  - nine_k 1y ago
    Hear me out: MS Excel. The one true powerful version only exists on Windows. Another anchor: ODBC drivers. Some good SQL Server connectivity options are only available on Windows. When your captive audience is accountants, traders, and CFOs, it's quite a moat.
    - larrik 1y ago
      And then, somehow, the desktop Outlook is better on mac than on Windows. On Windows I can't even easily copy/paste from one email to another. It strips out half the formatting and any colors that were there. Nor can I copy email recipients from an email into a new one. I tried switching to Windows last year and I just couldn't do it. So now my expensive and fancy powerful laptop collects dust and I'm back to my 5 year old m1 (which is somehow faster, usually).
pinkmuffinere 1y ago
Oh my god i HATE the lack of a “no” option! I’ve been meaning to go find a guide for editing registry to disable the windows 11 upgrade requests, but now I worry that might not exist?
MangoToupe 1y ago
If "support" doesn't allow opting out of their actively user-hostile decision making, I seriously question the value of "support" at all. In many ways I'd rather my computer go to some Russian botnet than trust an American corporation with my data—at least the former has a chance of getting shut down.
smileybarry 1y ago
Windows 7 is still dramatically less secure by design (i.e. not missing patches but architectural changes) compared to Windows 10, even Windows 8 had some meaningful kernel security features that 7 lacks. This includes sandboxing measures that Chrome & Firefox use, meaning you're still less secure even if you're not downloading shady software. You're frankly better off applying a bunch of registry changes to 10, using a Education or N (EU) edition "illegally", or blocking DNS than going back to 7 just for privacy concerns. You're cutting off your nose to spite your face.
- 1718627440 1y ago
  I don't know much about MS Windows, but can you install Windows 7 and then install a newer kernel? Maybe also updating the kernel wrapping library?
  - smileybarry 1y ago
    No, they're tightly coupled together. Even same-release updates update both the kernel and the userland syscall-implementing DLLs to match.
    - 1718627440 1y ago
      Ok, can you update the kernel and the userland syscall-implementing DLLs?
      - smileybarry 1y ago
        Well, that's essentially Windows Update.
        1718627440 1y ago
        But this will install other stuff as well and might even upgrade the distro. I just want to update the kernel and its wrapper. Or does nobody have tried it and I would need to figure it out myself.
McAlpine5892 1y ago
Makes me think of notices around adult clubs I've seen such as: "CONSENT: A clear and unambiguous agreement, expressed outwardly through mutually understandable words or actions, to engage in a particular activity. Consent can be withdrawn by either party at any point." and "No means No" What I'm about to say is strongly worded and I understand not a _perfect_ analogy by any means. However, it does sum up my feelings on this issue. If Person A makes repeated unwanted advances towards Person B, we have words to describe that. But if Person A, a company, makes repeated unwanted advances towards Person B we call that business.
- zelphirkalt 1y ago
  Yes, the decisive difference is, that Microsoft does not act like an adult, you see? That's why the rules do not apply to them. :)

cosmic_cheese 1y ago

I have an old laptop that boots Windows 7 and in my opinion, it's peak Windows (having used everything from 98SE onward, including 2K). It feels modern in a way that older entries don't but doesn't have the annoying and user-hostile elements of newer entries. The visual style is slightly dated feeling but it wouldn't take a whole lot of work to fix that.

nonethewiser 1y ago
It has the old settings menus right? I think it was windows 8 or 10 that introduced the new menus which I found somehow both too simplistic and harder to navigate. And then sometimes you get lucky and figure out a way to open the old menus to do what you actually want. I think Windows 7 was my favorite as well.
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
  Yeah it still uses the old Control Panel system, which is far from perfect (it's really bad about "dialog tunnels" where some things are buried too many levels deep), but overall is more servicable for technical users. Another thing that it has over XP is that it's better at providing a minimally usable environment post-install, with a better payload of default drivers. I don't miss booting into 256 color 640x480 and trying to get all the hardware in a functional state without a network connection like was a frequent occurrence with XP and older.
- jofla_net 1y ago
  The new menus are really fun in 11, where it starts out new, and then when you want more info pretty much everything changes back (font/kerning/color) to the point of feeling you need to do a doubletake. Its something that if it happened online you'd swear you've been slip-streamed and shouldn't continue. Guess they dont have anyone who can move over the old items to the new look, go figure.
  - mook 1y ago
    The old dialogs used to be extensible, in that getting random software like mouse drivers to just add a new tab to the mouse control panel was the way to do things. The new one is, as far as I know, not that. So there's a chance that they left random bits alone because they're afraid to break things. Or that's merely the justification to push back against the designers…

babypuncher 1y ago

Something about this statistic is setting off my baloney detector

matja 1y ago
Maybe the number of Windows 7 users has not changed, but those using Windows 10 and 11 are flocking to Linux. That'd be a net positive change in the Windows 7 percentage. :p
stronglikedan 1y ago
Welcome to statistics! There's lies, damn lies, and statistics.

ktosobcy 1y ago

I still have Windows7 on my fathers computer and it's more than enough for him (Firefox + FreeCell). We are behind NAT and he doesn't open anything except for a couple of pages + has uBlock. The whole hype around Win10 loosing support is way overblown…

lupusreal 1y ago
I've had my dad, with similar usage patterns, using XFCE for close to 15 years now. Very few problems with it, I only have to play tech support maybe once a year. Worth considering..
- ktosobcy 1y ago
  I do consider migrating to Linux but... "ItJustWorks" and even the tiniest change throws him off (like order on tiles in firefox) so I'm waiting for the current machine to die completely ;)
whynotminot 1y ago
“We are behind NAT” just means you’ve got a router / home network like everyone else does these days right? Or am I missing something more here.
- matja 1y ago
  If you get IPv6 from your ISP you're usually not "behind NAT", even if your home router does NAT IPv4 or your ISP does CGNAT for IPv4.
  - ProllyInfamous 1y ago
    I am a blue collar layperson (who only understands IPv4's limitation as a lack of total available IP addresses) that disables IPv6 (at the router level) for this exact reason — I feel like I am losing the little bit of control that being "behind NAT" allows on a private IP range/network (e.g. firewall; port mapping). Obviously I still use Windows 7 Pro 64-bit as my only Microsoft computer — also have an Ubuntu dual Xeon (for LLM/crypto) and several Apple Silicon products (for general browsing).

wnevets 1y ago

The TPM 2.0 requirement for Windows 11 is making the Windows ecosystem so much more secure. Brilliant gambit Microsoft.

vachina 1y ago
Secure for software and content vendors, not necessarily for the users.
- veeti 1y ago
  How many trashed Windows 10 PC's are home desktops or laptops used without a password in the first place? But grandma's PC needs secure boot against Tom Clancy level threat actors, it's for her own good.
ipsum2 1y ago
I have a modern CPU / motherboard (made in the last 4 years) that I spent $2000+ on that doesn't have TPM 2.0. Guess I'm never upgrading to 11.
- Merad 1y ago
  You might have an option to enable it in BIOS that's turned off by default, that was the case for my desktop PC.
p_ing 1y ago
TPM enables VBS, so yes it does provide significantly increased security.

peterhil 1y ago

The third option is to install some Linux like Ubuntu or Linux Mint on it. It is nowadays actually easier to install Ubuntu Linux than a Windows. Just be sure to back up your data to an external hard drive, and restore it from there after the install.

godman_8 1y ago
I wish. There’s still no distro that works well with my 9950X3D + RTX 5080. It’s usually Nvidia’s fault for not playing well with Wayland though.
- WD-42 1y ago
  This is literally my exact build. I'm using Arch Linux with Gnome + Wayland, it works perfectly.
  - specproc 1y ago
    Yeah, I had so many Nvidia/wayland issues that totally evaporated on moving to Arch. I guess that's the benefit of rolling.
    - WD-42 1y ago
      It helps to use software and drivers written after your hardware came into existence.
stronglikedan 1y ago
> The third option is to install some Linux like Ubuntu or Linux Mint on it. Unfortunately, some of us have to be able to actually get work done in our corporate environments.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
Jackson__ 1y ago

zamadatix 1y ago

"Statcounter Stats Go Wonky This Month" wouldn't have made enough clicks, I suppose. Even the wording of the 2nd paragraph misses the point - this is obviously not statistical fluctuation. They didn't even bother to look into the more granular data either. 1 in 4 people did not switch to Windows 7 in one week https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#daily-20250901-20250930 https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desk.... It's really quite jarring this is not the focus of discussion.

personalityson 1y ago

Win 11 has not changed much since June -- https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desk... What's wrong with Win 11 exactly?

anonymars 1y ago
It removes features and is slower and less productive, while offering...?
NoiseBert69 1y ago
They are force feeding their AI and bloat a bit shit too hard and scared "normal" users off with it. The initial trigger was their Telemetry you cannot switch off. That stuff had a huge extremely negative press exposure for many months. W11 is basically burned.
deleted 1y ago
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thewebguyd 1y ago
> What's wrong with Win 11 exactly? There's the obvious telemetry, MS account requirement for home editions, and other MS dark patterns for one. But, Windows 11 performance is still crap compared to 10, and even 7. The right click menu in explorer is still high latency, and if you have a lot of extensions, you see "loading..." and it can take a good full second for all menu options to show up. Also, you still can't move the task bar, search is as garbage as ever (but honestly that's expected from Windows at this point). Windows 11 does have some nice features, especially once combined with PowerToys. I still prefer the way Windows manages Windows compared to my mac which I need 3 third party apps at this point to make usable, and WSL2 is neat, windows has native SSH now, etc. It could be a great OS if Microsoft could get their heads out of their rears and fix the performance issues, and stop with the advertising, telemetry and dark patterns.
- dangus 1y ago
  - Telemetry doesn’t affect end users in terms of functionality or performance, and every commercial OS has telemetry. People cite telemetry as a reason not to upgrade to 10/11 but even Windows 7 had telemetry. It isn’t even really that much of a privacy issue if you really dig in to what Microsoft collects and you’ve spent ten seconds in the privacy and security settings. People just like to complain. - Right click menu latency is such a non-issue and that issue is specifically in file explorer and not other applications. I do think they need to make improvements to that experience like having the legacy right click behind the new one but it’s not a big deal day to day. - Everyone likes to complain that you can’t move the taskbar. Can you move the menu bar on Mac? Can we not just accept that this is a design decision and move on? - Is search garbage? Seems to work fine for me and seems identical to Mac and Linux quick searching functionality, and if I need something more powerful I just use Everything. It actually is a pretty great OS, but like every OS it’s not perfect and never will be.

fxtentacle 1y ago

Probably that's just a side-effect of so many people leaving Windows 10 and 11 for Linux.

kraig911 1y ago

I just can't understand why Microsoft can just remove all this shit from windows 11. Guys we don't want adds, one drive and all that crap I know you make money on it but let people come to it naturally when it's forced it turns us a way. I keep hearing stories of entire medical offices, small businesses going mac/linux for the sake of not being forced to candy crush it up.

deleted 1y ago
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nerdsniper 1y ago
The product you want is offered. Windows Enterprise/LTSC/IoT (effectively all names for the same thing) are the product offerings delivering what you want. When I need Windows, it’s what I use. It’s available for $238 from CDW.com or less from resellers. If you want to play games, you have to do a tiny bit of extra work to get the right frameworks/drivers installed, especially for VR. But this isn’t done to frustrate you, it’s because this version of windows doesn’t come with anything that’s strictly helpful, and Activity Monitor shows a blissfully low number of processes running on first boot. If you want bells and whistles, you’re free to add them yourself.
- olyjohn 1y ago
  Note that you're likely paying $238 and still not getting a legit copy of Windows. If you don't have a volume license agreement and a minimum of 5 Windows licenses, you aren't supposed to use the LTSC version of Windows, and they're not supposed to be used for primary desktops. Also you're supposed to have a Pro license for the machine BEFORE you buy LTSC, so that's just more extra costs. You might as well just save the money and pirate it. Not that this will make any difference in practice if you're just using it at home, but still, people should probably know this.
  - nerdsniper 1y ago
    AIUI (please correct me if I'm wrong) I believe you can buy individual copies from a reseller who buys copies in bulk and they are able to create keys in their own licensing portal to resell individually. I believe CDW either is a reseller or partners with Advantech. If the cost is the issue, I'd probably go for gray-market reseller keys over pirating. Looks like they run $6-20 these days, someone could simply search for "windows 11 iot keys" to see offerings - pick whichever site either seems the least shady or is cheap enough that you're okay losing the money. Always use something like privacy.com to protect your CC info when buying gray-market software keys. I believe there are bona-fide tools given to large org IT personnel to re-license installed windows as whatever you want, but if you don't have a trusted friend who can provide a trustworthy copy of that, I wouldn't trust anything pirated that claims to do the same thing. There are also open-source tools on Github which can perform the tasks of a KMS and license your copy of Windows as whatever version you want.

rraghur 1y ago

haven't run windows in ages (15yrs). Can't even make sense of windows anymore since at work moved to Mac. Unfortunately, looks like I will need to now since for a laptop (thinkpad - AMD - sleep/suspend might be a dead end) So what's the 'best' edition of windows ('best' for privacy/least crapware/adware/AI slop)? I can get any version.

zamadatix 1y ago
Enterprise or Enterprise LTSC.

mapontosevenths 1y ago

I think it's great that Microsoft are still job-creators after all these years. Just think of all the extra cyber-security jobs they creating by making windows 11 adware and AI infested garbage!

hhh 1y ago

Something smells fishy

tech234a 1y ago

A similar jump is not shown in the Firefox telemetry reports (which are limited to telemetry-enabled Firefox users): https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware

seam_carver 1y ago

I recently added Windows 7 support to an open source app I run, Kindle Comic Converter. It was as easy as downgrading a bunch of dependencies (PySide6, numpy) and created a legacy build, and the Windows 7 version got like 2% of downloads (~200). I assume it works since I've gotten no complaints and I don't have a Windows 7 machine to test haha, Windows 7 in UTM crashes a lot for me on macOS ARM. Man people are still using this. I really only did this since I added macOS 10.14 support (prior minimum was macOS 12) and most of the work needed was already mostly done by that. In theory I could even get macOS 10.10 support, but that would require downgrading Qt6 to Qt5

samiv 1y ago

I'm so frustrated with Windows 11. I recently bought a laptop and that came with Windows 11. After hours of trying to work around the OOB "experience" that really really wants to you to sign up for a Microsoft account I finally managed to circumvent it. After using it for a while I actually like it. It's smooth and no major glitches. Then I didn't use my laptop for a while, logged in and was greeted with "Let's finish setting up your account". Only options are "Remind me again x days later" and "Ok" This is so obnoxious behavior it really makes me want to just roll over the whole machine with Linux. I wish the clowns from the marketing department hadn't taken over the Windows product division. My laptop is already setup thank you very much. I don't need your condesdencing dark pattern UX BS in my face.

ieie3366 1y ago
You are not the target audience. In fact, Microsoft would probably prefer if you switched to Linux
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Actually not, that is why WSL exists.
  - ieie3366 1y ago
    Not really. WSL was made because Microsoft wanted to preserve the ’average normie dev’ demographic who were increasingly moving to MacOS/Linux because the tooling was ass. Think a developer in some boring big insurance company. Microsoft does not and never will give a shit about some open source/privacy purist user. Now the IT department can give them windows laptops with WSL and everybody stays happy
leptons 1y ago
I use a few utilities to tame Windows 11 and make it work more like Windows 7, 8, and 10. It should get rid of that "Remind me again" thing, I haven't seen it in a long, long time. No ads, no crap from Microsoft. https://pxc-coding.com/donotspy11/ https://pxc-coding.com/donotspy11/ https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu/releases https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu/releases https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/releases https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/releases

Animats 1y ago

Windows 7 was the last good Microsoft OS. After Windows 7, I switched to Linux, and the last Windows 7 machine was turned off early this year. I'm surprised there isn't a corporate push for "Windows 7 Forever".

Rooster61 1y ago

> After that date, users are encouraged to enroll their devices in the Extended Security Updates program for free, which will grant them twelve more months of security updates and plenty of time to plan an upgrade to something supported. Plenty of time to switch to Linux, you mean.

dev1ycan 1y ago

Can we as a society either fund QT/GTK or make a good alternative to it that is as solid as Winform was in terms of GUI principles for Linux? No matter what Linux distro it is, the core issue with it are QT/GTK, they will never give a user peace of mind like winforms did, a winforms program just feels "good" to use, sort of like the feeling you get from using a website done primarily in HTML (Like hardware news or old reddit)... A lot of the charm that old windows versions had is exactly based on the GUI framework of the operating system, distros are nice and all but they cannot change fundamentally what is wrong with the user interface of QT/GTK. Anyways until people figure out what is wrong (which is by the way, also wrong with UWP and WinUI 3... Windows 11 did semi recently get ClassicShell support, I recommend you just moving the taskbar to the side and changing the classicshell logo back to the windows 7/vista button... almost makes you feel like you're using a trash operating system.

bitwize 1y ago

It's like, long as I'm gonna be unsupported, may as well go back to the last good version. I love it.

more_corn 1y ago

Wow, people are reverting to an objectively worse and less secure operating system simply to bypass Microsoft’s irritating forced upgrades to Win 11. You can tell your product is crap when people actively downgrade rather than risk an upgrade to the latest version. I’m really thankful for Microsoft. I can learn a lot about how not to behave by looking at what they do.

CannotCarrot 1y ago

This is very weird. And it happened mostly in Asia and Africa. In Asia, Windows 7 supposedly jumped to 41% share in Sept 27th. Obviously this cannot be true.