13 ms·

It's become a universal truth that you should probably not upgrade to the latest and non-greatest version of ANYTHING these days. Not Android, not Windows, not

• jerriep 10mo ago
  > When Windows 12 is announced, Windows 11 may finally be usable. I think it will still be objectively bad. But maybe compared to Windows 12, it will seem good.
  • FridayoLeary 10mo ago
    They say every second version of windows is bad. 8 was so bad they skipped straight to 10. But given the current priorities of Windows i'm not holding my breath. They seem to have abandoned the idea that "things should work" as a key principle. 10 was around for an extraordinarily long time but 11 has very few good ideas.
    • timpera 10mo ago
      Windows 11 is pretty great though, it keeps all the good ideas from 10 and improves on them. I don't get the hate.
      • heisgone 10mo ago
        23H2 was pretty close to being solid and stable but 24H2 has been a disaster.
      • doubled112 10mo ago
        It's a buggy mess that harasses you. I understand the hate. This morning I got three screens asking if I wanted to log in and configure backup. There is still not an option to say no, only ask me later. Last week the top half of the taskbar disappeared for an evening.
        • user34283 10mo ago
          I'm logged in to my Microsoft account, so I've not seen any of that. The only thing that I recall popping up is those setup screens that appear after some updates for no good reason. I also don't recall any particularly buggy experience with Windows 11. Meanwhile my Mac mini M2 Pro is having issues all the time. From the start I could not even use my second monitor without turning off and back on the primary monitor first for the second to come on.
          • butlike 10mo ago
            I get that moving the Start menu to the middle gives you a very "Iron Man in the command chair" type feeling on large monitors/multiple screens, where you spin off windows to the left and right...but is super annoying on a smaller monitor
        • Grisu_FTP 10mo ago
          The "Lets do it Later" trend of UI is one of the things i hate most about modern UI. Why cant i just say no, instead i have to say no to 10 different menus. Not respecting a no is usually something very very bad people do.
          • doubled112 10mo ago
            Yes, I'm pretty sure not respecting "no" is a sign of abuse in a relationship. So is being told "no" but changing it to "yes" anyway.
      • soraminazuki 10mo ago
        Great for ... shareholders? Because you can't possibly be talking about users. Windows is an OS that forces cloud logins, tracks and records every interaction, steals email credentials, shoves ads and full screen nags everywhere, sabotages competing software, turns perfectly good hardware into e-waste, and won't take no for an answer from users. It serves the interest of billionaires, not common people. For paying users, this is the definition of an unmitigated disaster. Windows 11 expands on all of the worst aspects of Windows 10. Inconsistent UI, duplicated settings, two context menus, laggy start menu with React in it, and on and on and on the list goes. It's obvious why people hate it. No other OS has shown this much level of outright contempt towards its users. Modern Windows is, without doubt, the worst desktop OS to ever exist in the history of computing.
        • deltoidmaximus 10mo ago
          Don't forget the greatly reduced hardware support in return for no actual new features. It's a rat trap with no cheese on it.
      • hulitu 10mo ago
        > it keeps all the good ideas from 10 and improves on them. Are there any good ideas in Windows 10 ?
        • recursive 10mo ago
          Volume mixer
          • thesuitonym 10mo ago
            Volume mixer has been around at least since Windows 7. Maybe earlier but I don't remember.
      • throwawaylaptop 10mo ago
        My parents older windows 10 laptop was getting slow and battery wasn't great. They bought a new windows 11 laptop from Costco for $600. Yes cheap, but not total garbage. Tried using it for a few weeks. Worse performance that their 6 year old similarly cheap laptop running windows 10. Returned new computer. I installed Linux Mint Mate and bought an Chinese battery for $30. Laptop better than new.
      • qingcharles 10mo ago
        I'm with you. I've used Windows 11 as my primary work OS since release and it is absolutely quicker than Windows 10 and nicer to use. I do, however, debloat it and remove all the cruft when I install it.
      • Telaneo 10mo ago
        I don't want to use a Microsoft account. I don't want to use Secure Boot. I don't want the new right click menu (good idea, bad execution). I don't want the new start menu (I want the Windows 7 one if anything). I don't want my OS calling home. I don't want AI. I don't want ads. I went to Linux instead. I got what I wanted there. What ideas did 10 have that weren't just purely technical updates (i.e. DX12 and the like), and weren't just undoing what Windows 8 did?
    • MrLeap 10mo ago
      I remember a different apocrypha for why they skipped from 8 to 10. They wanted avoid OS specific code that conditionally activated from the substring "windows 9" but meant for windows 95 and 98. One would imagine any code like that not being quite as helpful a few decades later.
      • deleted 10mo ago
        [deleted]
      • ryandrake 10mo ago
        If true, this would align with Microsoft’s historic dedication to backward compatibility in the face of horribly-written third party software.
      • HWR_14 10mo ago
        You misread the GP. The versioning skipping from 8 to 9 was because of bad detection code for windows 95/98. The GP is talking about people staying on Windows 7 until Windows 10 came out, skipping Windows 8.
      • dingaling 10mo ago
        Windows 95 and 98 VersionStrings were 4.00.nn and 4.10.nn
        • recursive 10mo ago
          I don't know the details of that. But even if that's the correct way to determine versions, I think there might be some fraction of software that does it the less correct, more obvious way.
      • butlike 10mo ago
        I thought it might be to bring Windows in line with Mac OS 10. Seems petty, but I could see a billion dollar company not liking their flagship is on version 8-9 while the competition is on 10.
        • 10mo ago
    • keyringlight 10mo ago
      I wish convenient ideas like that which become memes would die off as I really doubt there's any rhythm at Microsoft that causes it, for example I doubt they have alternating teams for every other version. More to the point, from an outside perspective I don't see any change in direction that would drastically change windows for the better within foreseeable future or the timespan a "windows 12" would release.
      • thesuitonym 10mo ago
        It's not anything at Microsoft that's doing it, it's just the way people are. Microsoft announces some big, new thing, and everybody hates it. When the next version of Windows comes out, people are used to that new thing, so they don't hate it. The new version has a ton of stuff they hate, but because the last version was sooo bad they ignore it all.
        • BenjiWiebe 10mo ago
          Could be, but I had lots of complaints about Vista, and 7 worked much better for me. I stuck on 7 for a long time, not because I was waiting for 11, but because I was waiting for some annoyances with 10 to get addressed. I still would rather have an updated W7 than W10 or W11. Updated means - security updates, clipboard manager, dism (W7's dism was limited).
      • deltoidmaximus 10mo ago
        Yeah, I've never really bought that meme. They probably just jumped to 10 because they wanted a bigger number than a competitor, maybe OS X. This is the company that released the first version of windows NT as 3.1 because Netware was at that version at the time and probably called the Xbox 2 the 360 so it had a larger number than Sony.
      • marcosdumay 10mo ago
        > I really doubt there's any rhythm at Microsoft that causes it Last version was really bad, let's focus on fixing problems on the next ... last version was great, we need new revolutionary features to sell the next one. That was visible on the older versions of Windows. Win 95 was kinda bad because nothing worked very well, then 98 fixed things, then ME tried to redo everything that still worked badly, what didn't work so they merged everything that worked into 2000. XP both worked badly at the beginning, and well at the end; Vista rebuilt a lot of stuff, and 7 fixed it so it worked. And then the rhythm completely stopped.
    • basch 10mo ago
      The Windows version numbers are not used often but really do help group Windows into distinct "early vs late" product cycle tiers. They didn't really skip straight to 10, they just named 9 8.1 for reasons. Windows 5.0-5.2 is Win 2000, Win XP, Win XP64. Windows 6.0-6.3 is Vista, 7, 8, 8.1.
    • ndiddy 10mo ago
      One large contributor to modern Windows's lack of quality is that Microsoft laid off all of its dedicated QA staff in 2014, with the expectation that developers would own the OS's quality themselves, and whatever they miss would get caught by telemetry reports from Windows enthusiasts who sign up to test new versions for free. Getting rid of QA eliminated Microsoft's institutional knowledge of what causes bugs, what areas to look at, etc (invaluable when you're dealing with a 30+ year old codebase where large portions were written prior to automated testing being standard). The free Windows enthusiast testing didn't make up for this because you can't expect them to act like how a QA tester would act. Of course I don't expect Microsoft to suddenly start caring about product quality. The Windows user base has largely stopped growing, so MBA logic is to spend the bare minimum resources on maintenance and to funnel the existing userbase into growth areas like cloud/AI services.
      • ffsm8 10mo ago
        I can totally see how letting go the dedicated QA roles increased the amount of bugs that ship to customers, but > Getting rid of QA eliminated Microsoft's institutional knowledge of what causes bugs, what areas to look at, etc Seems incorrect from all interactions I've had with dedicated QA to day. They usually have no idea about any of that, what they do know is how to use a software and what scenarios have previously broken, but not from a technical perspective that can reason about error scenarios. More like a power user that just learned to use a UI, without knowing what it actually does. I feel like their recent push to AI driven development has likely had more impact in their issues in the last 2 yrs vs a decision that's at this point 11 years in the past - but they are probably both (along with other unnamed factors) contributing to this end result. Overall saddening, as windows 10 really was a big leap forward in usability.
        • toast0 10mo ago
          Microsoft's Software Development Engineer in Test position was different than the "power user QA" archetype you describe and is common. These positions required development abilities and they would develop the testing scenarios concurrently with the team building the software. And the results were less buggy, IMHO. But it's expensiving having twice the engineering staff when you can just ask software developers to test things themselves and not follow up to make sure it happened.
    • Dwedit 10mo ago
      The "every second version" rule may be a meme, but it does not reflect the actual release order of Windows, nor properly count the NT series. It only really applies to sentiment surrounding Windows 98, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10, and 11. But that leaves out Windows 95, most versions of Windows NT, and Windows 2000.
      • butlike 10mo ago
        It works with 95/2000. 95 - good, 98 - bad, 2000 - good, ME - bad, XP - good, Vista - bad, 7 - Good, 8 - bad, 10 - good, 11 - bad.
        • tonyedgecombe 10mo ago
          That assumes 10 was good and misses 8.1. Also 95/98/me were a different line from NT/2000. It sounds like a good theory but there isn’t much substance to it.
          • Telaneo 10mo ago
            > That assumes 10 was good and misses 8.1. I find this to be a mostly valid assumption, and 8.1 shouldn't be counted separately from 8 just as Vista SP2 should be counted any differently from Vista (Vista was mostly fine after companies fixed their drivers and Microsoft toned things down a bit. 7 just drove that home and put some necessary distance between itself and Vista). > Also 95/98/me were a different line from NT/2000. I fail to see why this matters.
    • _vqpz 10mo ago
      I must be the only person who remembers everyone shitting on W10 saying it was awful and they were staying on W7 until W11 came around and suddenly we're pretending like everyone loved it
      • Telaneo 10mo ago
        People were indeed shitting on Windows 10, but far less than Windows 8, and most people were willing to suck up the minor enshittification of 10 compared to 8 in exchange for a more modern OS. People sticking to 7 until 11 came out is something I've heard nothing of. The people who stuck to 7 that I knew of knew that things were very unlikely to get better.
• Zardoz84 10mo ago
  Except Linux
  • lionkor 10mo ago
    Im always happy to update my arch install, because I usually get new features to play with, and my system has not broken due to updates in 4 years.
  • codedokode 10mo ago
    To be fair, Linux has always been like this, breaking things with updates. Linux was ahead of commercial companies, but they caught up with it.
    • sph 10mo ago
      Use better distros. I haven’t had a broken workstation since 2014 or so.
      • jack_tripper 10mo ago
        Which is that Linux desktop distro that never has issues?
        • matsz 10mo ago
          I've been running Arch (on my desktop and servers) for over a decade, and never had issues. Just read their homepage before upgrading.
        • sph 10mo ago
          The past 5 years I’ve used the atomic Fedora Silverblue, and I wouldn’t go back to anything else. Last month I have experienced the first major kernel bug in two decades, and all I had to do was reboot into the previous system update. Pretty painless.
          • deleted 10mo ago
            [deleted]
• noja 10mo ago
  Not true! The AI revolution has led to an explosion in software quality. The amount of fixed bugs and testing that AI-leaders such as MS have achieved is unprecedented. We will look back on this era as the golden age of software quality.
  • pseufaux 10mo ago
    Reference? My anecdotal experience so far leads me to believe the opposite.
  • pmontra 10mo ago
    I think that you missed a /s at the end of the post. I can continue it with "Yes, we had an explosion in software quality and it's in shards all over the place."
    • fragmede 10mo ago
      It was sarcasm, they didn't forget the /s, it was intentional. (I downvote on /s)
  • steve1977 10mo ago
    This is irony. Right? This is irony?
    • loloquwowndueo 10mo ago
      Sarcasm, not irony.
    • rsynnott 10mo ago
      AI boosters pose a bit of a Poe's Law problem; the poster here is probably joking, but also there almost certainly exist AI boosters gullible enough to actually believe something similar to that.
  • vijucat 10mo ago
    I disagree with "the golden age of software quality". For example, right now, on the front page of HN, is this article, "After Windows Update, Password icon invisible, click where it used to be", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46116567 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46116567. I could be wrong, but it feels as if this egregious error is AI workslop?!
• Madmallard 10mo ago
  which windows update blocker do you use?
  • bheadmaster 10mo ago
    I think it's Windows Update Blocker: https://www.sordum.org/downloads/?st-windows-update-blocker https://www.sordum.org/downloads/?st-windows-update-blocker
  • defrost 10mo ago
    All around, for everything, I cannot recommend the Chris Titus (and friends) WinUtil enough: https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil It's a suite of powershell scripts and tweaks that are open source for inspection frontended by a nifty powershell multi tabbed TUI (Text User Interface) widget. There's a tab for upgrades and installs of common dev / tech / power user tools; a tab for tweaks; a tab for windows update options; a tab for building install disks / VM's (eg: minimal for gaming or for hosting windows applications in Qubes, etc). Update Tab can select all updates / only critical / none ever / advise and let you choose. To use, you do need to 'trust' (or inspect the work of and download source and self apply) a pool of windows tech nerds - you literally open a powershell admin window and pipe raw boot script over the internet and give it control to bring up the TUI. This could be malware (but isn't, last I checked) - same risk with all such tools d/loaded from internet of course. See Usage on github page - various writeups and youtube tutorials. It'll rip the AI addons, Copilot, and Snapshot and Spy stuff right out of Windows 10 / 11. Easy to use and follow.
    • ryandrake 10mo ago
      Anyone know if this stops the truly diabolical Windows 11 behavior where it removes the options to "Shut Down without updating" and "Reboot without updating?" At some point, the only option to shut down your computer is "Shut Down and update." I've gotten to the point where I just yank the power cord to turn off my computer, because Microsoft doesn't permit any other way.
      • 10mo ago
• basilikum 10mo ago
  If you're forced to use Windows, just use Windows 10 LTSC 2021 IoT. Gets security updates until 2031 but none of the new "features".
  • dijit 10mo ago
    its not easy to use this legally though.
    • 0xEF 10mo ago
      Running unlicensed versions of Windows has historically been pretty easy. Am I missing something with Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021? With Windows 7, once the evaluation period ran out, you just had to deal with an annoying notification about your copy not being genuine, but it never stopped me from doing whatever I needed to do after installing it on dozens of machines over the years, at this point.
      • OJFord 10mo ago
        I haven't really used Windows much for years, but doesn't it start shutting down once evaluation period is up? 'Windows will shutdown in 30 minutes unless licence key is added' etc., and the desktop background goes blue with some text about being unlicensed?
        • basilikum 10mo ago
          https://massgrave.dev https://massgrave.dev Also don't use the evaluation images.
        • 0xEF 10mo ago
          I have not experienced that, which is why I questioned the difficulty. I've installed Windows 10 on a good amount of machines at this point, bypassing the NRO during the install process, and have not had any issues that prevented me from installing software/games or just using it like a normal PC, even after connecting it to the Internet. However, my experience may be dated. It's been awhile since I've had to freshly install Windows. Perhaps things have changed.
• askl 10mo ago
  > When Windows 12 is announced, Windows 11 may finally be usable. I'm not using windows anymore, but at least since Windows XP I felt like only every other release of Windows was usable. So my upgrade path was XP, Vista, 10, completely skipping over the bad releases Vista and 8. So just skip over 11, Windows 12 might be an okay release again.
  • bluescrn 10mo ago
    Not holding out much hope for a good Win12 given the priorities seem to be to wreck the UI/UX, remove customisation options, turn things into advertising billboards, and force AI into everything (even bloody Notepad).
  • havblue 10mo ago
    We used to say this about Star Trek movies as well before determining that they're mostly bad. I've moved on from Trek and I'm fine with moving on from Windows.
• oefrha 10mo ago
  My Windows 11 Pro installation is helpfully stuck on 23H2 since every time it attempts to install a newer version it simply gets stuck on a black screen and requires a forced power cycle and subsequent auto-restore, wasting forty minutes in the process.
• PunchyHamster 10mo ago
  It's such a stark contrast, my home servers just run unattended-upgrade (on Debian) with no problems, I just do the major version upgrade every year. Meanwhile everything consumer and most enterprise is as you said, "don't upgrade if it is not broken, else you WILL feel pain". Companies basically trained bad security habits into their user base
  • phoronixrly 10mo ago
    Do you do the major version upgrade the minute it's announced? Be honest.
    • doubled112 10mo ago
      On my home server, sometimes I do take some snapshots and upgrade a few VMs and LXC containers. Sometimes I even run testing because stable will be out shortly and I don't feel like upgrading. It's a very different experience to the single Windows laptop in my house, where the latest stable is always subtly broken in ways I notice. Last week the top half of the taskbar disappeared for an evening, for example.
    • bitwize 10mo ago
      Once a new major version hits stable, it's been hammered on quite a bit. Debian has a reputation for being behind the curve, for this reason.
    • ndsipa_pomu 10mo ago
      I admin a bunch of Ubuntu servers and I tend to do a major version upgrade on my laptop and then some low priority machines to see if anything has changed. Typically, the only issues I've had is when there's dropped support for older SSH/SSL protocols which is easily fixed. However, Windows Update isn't doing a major version upgrade as far as I know - it's the equivalent of doing a kernel upgrade in Linux. Also, the typical Linux upgrade command will also pull in updates/fixes for pretty much every bit of software in the system, whereas Windows Update will ignore user installed software as far as I know.
    • wing-_-nuts 10mo ago
• zoeysmithe 10mo ago
  Its not, instead you should install security updates in a timely fashion. People blocking windows update and being left super vulnerable isn't the solution. This bug was from an august update that affected some people. I think people are overplaying this to justify a dangerous 'dont fix if not broken.' No, your system is broken if its vulnerable.
  • QuadrupleA 10mo ago
    Unfortunately companies use the "security boogeyman" to push ever-increasing ads, telemetry, performance degradation, features you probably don't want that disrupt your workflow and muscle memory, breaking API changes to libraries, etc. If you could sign a contract with e.g. Microsoft (or hell, NPM) to only receive updates that explicitly fix bugs and security holes, that'd be amazing - but I've rarely if ever seen it.
    • ryandrake 10mo ago
      Exactly--if I could guarantee that I was getting just security updates and bug fixes, I'd be happy to turn on automatic Windows updates (and application updates too, for that matter).
    • deltoidmaximus 10mo ago
      During the early XP days Windows had granular updates where you could decline everything but security updates if you wanted. Even when they pushed out the Windows Genuine Advantage update (Which offered a user no genuine advantages at all, just possibly hassles) you could still decline it.
    • DANmode 10mo ago
      Unfortunately it’s not just a boogeyman. That’s why it’s worked so well historically. You are less secure if you wave off years of security patches.
  • Telaneo 10mo ago
    If the choice is between being broken behind the scenes and broken in your face, it's no wonder people pick the former. If Microsoft and the like really cared about security, they'd push security completely separately from feature updates, allowing people to get the benefit of updates, without the negatives of those update breaking their environment. Or better yet, not push updates that break that break their environment in the first place. Security is a nice excuse for Microsoft to get you to update, but it's been used so many times to push hostile experiences to users that I can't blame the users for not wanting to be burned. The fault lies entirely with Microsoft and other companies for pushing hostile changes and chipping away at their goodwill. It hurts, Microsoft. Why are you doing this to us? (It's money. It's always money.)
• Saris 10mo ago
  Same goes for some of the desktop focused Linux distros, I had Fedora KDE break the login screen from a bad update that got pushed out. It's best to just wait to update anything important.
• I_dream_of_Geni 10mo ago
  Interesting take. I've used MacOS for 30+ years, and for the last 20 years have had zero problems with updating immediately... For that matter, iOS has been flawless also.
  • cschep 10mo ago
    flawless is a wild take.
    • Insanity 10mo ago
      lol indeed, since iOS 26 my GPS is broken on Apple Maps and Google map. It’ll just freeze the updates very few minutes making it almost useless for driving
      • I_dream_of_Geni 10mo ago
        Nice. Yours didn't work, yet mine did. Sorry mine works, bro.
  • jrajav 10mo ago
    You've either been very lucky or haven't been using much older software. macOS updates routinely cause issues early in the release cycle, particularly with backwards compatibility. Working in creative fields with lots of niche applications and plugins in use makes this a lot more apparent. Catalina in particular was a total nightmare.
    • butlike 10mo ago
      The musicians suffer a lot with macOS upgrades, but I've found even if some hardware isn't supported officially, it most oftentimes works somewhat well.
    • I_dream_of_Geni 10mo ago
      I guess you have a point. I just use core system applications and a few browsers other than Safari. Sorry you guys have so much pain.
• anal_reactor 10mo ago
  Android has reached the state of complete maturity. For years already major version releases were mostly shifting icons around. There's zero reason to update.
  • DANmode 10mo ago
    Security.
• MisterTea 10mo ago
  > It's become a universal truth that you should probably not upgrade to the latest and non-greatest version of ANYTHING these days. Not Android, If you even have control... I have a Google Pixel 8 which was nagging me to update to the latest and greatest Android when my phone was already working just fine. I kept putting it off and rescheduling it until two weeks ago. I was driving home from work, phone in the cup holder, listening to music when the music suddenly stopped. I picked up my phone to see if it was a call or the shitty Honda Bluetooth crapped out again but to my surprise, my phone was powered off. Huh? Never had a phone just turn off like that. I let it sit for a bit to see if it was rebooting but no, it was off. So I powered it back on and suddenly I'm looking at new animations and realize that somehow the OS update forcefully installed itself. WTF. I am not sure if I accidentally scheduled the install, highly doubt it, but there it is, I had the update forced on to me. IThe best p[art is this latest and greatest Android that I did not need or want has a regression where swiping down the notification menu has a 5+ seconds delay to populate the menu with the notifications. So yeah, totally worth it... /s
• jayd16 10mo ago
  For fun, try a version of Windows Server 2025 with the desktop GUI. Its actually kind of awesome to see what they can do when they care to.
• butlike 10mo ago
  Counter-point: I upgrade day 1 (or in a reasonable timeframe) because I know there's no way the company will ever "go back" on what they're doing. If the new UI nukes the pleasant atmosphere of the OS by making all the icons look glass-like, then I'd better get used to it now. I don't want to forego upgrading, then have to learn a bunch of new features ON TOP of the UI differences. For example, iOS 26 introduced the liquid glass, which, coupled with how some UI elements work, was essentially the only change. If I wait until the inevitable iOS 36, I'll have to learn the UI paradigm on top of 10 versions worth of functional upgrades. The delta would be too large for me.
• giancarlostoro 10mo ago
  Arch Linux user here...
• deafpolygon 10mo ago
  > When Windows 12 is announced, Windows 11 may finally be usable. Knowing Microsoft, feels like they’ll just make it a mandatory security update.
• estimator7292 10mo ago
  I'm a major version behind on LineageOS. So far behind that it just gave up on offering me updates. And honestly I'm going to keep it this way until something breaks. I'm absolutely fucking sick of my phone nagging me to update every couple of weeks. Besides, at this point I have to manually flash the new version and I just can't be bothered. The only way to back up your phone is with some weirdass encryption. It generates a long password for you that you MUST write on physical paper in the real world with your actual hands. They disabled any and all method to digitally record this password. It's all so disrespectful. This is my goddamn phone, I paid for it on cold hard cash, and it is mine to do with as I please. Fuck absolutely anyone who tries to force some particular interaction. I have a few windows 10 VMs around and they all are firewalled from Microsoft. They don't like it, which pleases me.