5 ms·

As someone with a sizeable background in Linux system engineering.. I prefer Windows to MacOS. It's IMHO a better desktop now with the edge snap tile layout an

• guilamu 7mo ago
  Use LTSC. It'll fix all the issues you are mentioning here.
  • pomian 7mo ago
    Second ltsc -look into it once you try you will never go back. Available from various resellers nowadays. It is, what windows should be sold as.
  • Krssst 7mo ago
    LTSC cannot be bought as a regular customer unfortunately. Legally, regular customers are only allowed to use the enshittified version.
    • cyberax 7mo ago
      You can get access to it, but it's a quest. You need to buy a volume license, and this requires at least 5 licenses (about $300). Then you'll be eligible to buy an LTSC version. It doesn't require a corporation or anything, you can do that as a private person. But it IS annoying.
      • guilamu 7mo ago
        Why not just get the iso, install, activate with massgravel and be done for life?
        • majorchord 7mo ago
          Because it's illegal and that matters to some people
    • guilamu 7mo ago
      That's true indeed, but Microsoft is not giving us any other option so why not use the good version at home? I mean what is the risk really?
      • userbinator 7mo ago
        MS has always been (and probably still does) wanting you to pirate Windows instead of jumping to Linux or Mac.
  • GuestFAUniverse 7mo ago
    AFAIK Office isn't supported on LTSC fka. LTSB. Installed LTSB for a conservative superior. He just wanted to work, without changes. I supported that happily. Until we had to start using Office 365. Or did they revert that restriction?
• grujicd 7mo ago
  Recently I'm finding MSN home opened in Chrome over night. Aparently it's connected to some "active probing" feature, and I do have scheduled nightly restarts in the home router. But come on... No one could convince me it's not intended to inflate MSN numbers.
• Miraste 7mo ago
  I also think Windows' native window tiling is one of its best features, but there's a fantastic program called Swish that implements tiling for MacOS in a very native-feeling way. It supports keyboard shortcuts, but it's built around really elegant touchpad gestures. Highly recommend if that's all that's keeping you on Windows. The other native Windows feature I really like is the clipboard manager, and I don't have a great replacement for that yet. I'm kind of shocked Apple hasn't built one. If anyone has a recommendation that feels native instead of like a ported Linux widget, please share.
  • chuckadams 7mo ago
    They mentioned Visual Studio, as in full-fat VS, not VS Code. That's only ever going to run on Windows.
    • Miraste 7mo ago
      It actually did run on MacOS until recently. Personally I like Rider over Studio, but yes, if that's a hard requirement they are stuck.
      • grujicd 7mo ago
        No, it was not real Visual Studio on MacOS, it was rebranded Xamarin IDE.
  • grujicd 7mo ago
    I'm using Raycast on Mac, it has a bunch of stuff included but I use it only for its Clipboard History extension.
    • maleldil 7mo ago
      It has window tiling too.
  • sylens 7mo ago
    Apple did introduce one this past fall as part of Spotlight
• kipchak 7mo ago
  I've had good luck with the winutil tool, which is wrapper for a bunch of powershell commands and registry edits in a .ps1 to remove bloat. After using it on a fresh install I can't recall the last time I've had any of the mentioned issues. If you're (understandably) concerned about the security implications most of the changes can be done manually going off the docs. https://github.com/christitustech/winutil https://github.com/christitustech/winutil
  • anthk 7mo ago
    Bloat will come back on every update. It's futile.
    • ewoodrich 7mo ago
      I’ve used this Powershell script on every Windows 11 machine in the last four years (5+ devices) and have never needed to re-run it after an update. It’s the first thing I do on a fresh install, and with my selections I see fewer ads (0, more or less) than I do on my MacBook for iCloud products so I’d hardly say it’s “futile” in actual use and only takes like 5 minutes to run once. I always hear people say nothing sticks after an update but have literally only encountered that with Microsoft Edge and the default search engine. Not any of the Windows features disabled or configured by the script. Not sure if it’s just outdated or a meme being repeated by non-Windows users but in any case it is not at all what I’ve experienced exclusively running debloated Windows 11 installs for years. https://github.com/raphire/win11debloat https://github.com/raphire/win11debloat
      • Atlas26 7mo ago
        > I always hear people say nothing sticks after an update but have literally only encountered that with Microsoft Edge and the default search engine. Not any of the Windows features disabled or configured by the script. Not sure if it’s just outdated or a meme being repeated by non-Windows users but in any case it is not at all what I’ve experienced exclusively running debloated Windows 11 installs for years. Yup. From what I’ve gathered, there was once a legitimate bug that did renable features that users previously disabled, and from then on that just became canon behavior for windows, even though they fixed that issue fairly quickly and I did not see it reappear. I have a similar experience, stuff that was disabled magically becoming re-enabled is not something that’s ever happened to me either over the years with windows.
• varispeed 7mo ago
  Don't forget the search that doesn't work. You have app "X" installed? You type X and it doesn't find it, but gives you irrelevant results about X.
  • Rapzid 7mo ago
    At one point (last year?) internet search results would load in first so quickly typing and pressing "enter" from muscle memory would often result in opening some internet page instead of the app you wanted.. Then also in the past year or two the internet search results were lagging the entire search UI causing type jank and stutters. I disabled internet results in the registry but a recent update seems to have caused that setting to no longer apply ;(
    • skeeter2020 7mo ago
      >> would often result in opening some internet page instead of the app you wanted. and even worse, in Edge!
    • user34283 7mo ago
      I heard people talk about registry hacks for the internet search results on here many times. Windows has a "Search" page in the Settings app. You can also reach it via the kebab menu on the search results. There you can simply disable Bing.
  • Someone1234 7mo ago
    Windows' search has been broken for multiple generations now. Some people inside Microsoft seemingly even know, that's why the PowerToys team created "PowerToys Run." A Windows Search that actually basically functions correctly. People act like it sudden was broken in Windows 11 when in reality it never worked correctly in 7, 8, 8.1, or 10 either. Instead of fixing it, they've only made it worse. It seems like nobody in Microsoft works on core stuff anymore.
    • kdheiwns 7mo ago
      Yeah, I've never experienced Windows search ever working. Even on XP, it couldn't find commonly opened folders or programs for me. It always felt like some sort of joke feature just meant to fool me into wasting time.
• Melatonic 7mo ago
  Get Windows LTSC instead and run Firefox ! Most problems solved.
  • throw384848t 7mo ago
    is not mozilla advertising company, that heavilly pushes AI? How is their spying any different from microsoft?
  • pdntspa 7mo ago
    Where?
• kevin_thibedeau 7mo ago
  The only tolerable Windows 11 experience is a corporate PC with Active Directory login.
  • actionfromafar 7mo ago
    And an IT department vetting updates before they go out.
    • j16sdiz 7mo ago
      the same IT department that got blamed not allowed user changing wallpaper or installing crowstrike
    • fc417fc802 7mo ago
      Was it the 8 to 10 upgrade that MS slipped into Windows Update or a different one? Whichever it was, the IT department where I was at the time had apparently left Windows Update untouched and it wreaked havok.
• ryandrake 7mo ago
  This might be obvious, but all of those things have a single common denominator: Microsoft, over you, getting to decide what your computer is doing. This is the biggest generalized danger in computing today: That OS (and device) manufacturers have gotten it in their heads that it's OK for them to have a strong say in what your computer runs. User doesn't want X, Y, or Z running on his computer? TOUGH. We are going to run it and make it really hard or impossible for user to turn it off. As a user, I no longer feel like I'm driving the car--I'm just a passenger. "Where do you want to go today?" has turned into "You're going here today, whether you want to or not!"
  • hn_acc1 7mo ago
    It's more: you want to go to location A? Sure, but we're going to make a quick stop at locations B, C and D first, and the only available car is a known-to-be-dangerous self-driving robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals.
    • m_mueller 7mo ago
      ... which in the middle of the route decides to instead drive onto a container ship and bring you to a robotic island? ah no wait, that's the announced next update.
  • ctoth 7mo ago
    All true, and yet: Windows accessibility actually works. I use a screen reader daily. Linux a11y is complete dogshit — AT-SPI2 is unreliable, Orca is barely maintained, Wayland broke what little existed. I need something that actually works. When Linux goes off and decides it'll rewrite its working desktop stack and it's still, ten years later, not useable? ADHD-Driven development might be fine if you can see your system. When you can't, being at the whims of some teenager chasing the new shiny is just frustrating.
    • jorvi 7mo ago
      I mean, why are you even on Windows then? Apple is the accessibility king by far. Both Windows and Android are aeons behind.
• pityJuke 7mo ago
  Ditto. I've found it pretty tolerable once I've used "ShutUp10!" to disable the annoying stuff. I've used harder tools than it, but I've then found it breaks useful stuff (like the Xbox Gaming stuff, which some MSFT games use).
• will4274 7mo ago
  > Frequent "Let's finish setting up your PC" after updates Fwiw, this one is entirely predictable. Windows shows the Second Chance Out Of Box Experience (SCOOBE - pronounced like Scooby-Doo) each time a semi-annual update is installed, i.e. once every six months.
  • p_ing 7mo ago
    Which you can disable in Settings.
• jayd16 7mo ago
  Pro is almost pointless these days. If you really want to be upset about what could be you should try a windows server trial with Desktop experience. Zero bullshit and it just works. Why does this have to be $1k+???
• LordDragonfang 7mo ago
  If you're on Pro, Group Policy tends to be more stable than plain registry tweaks. In particular, I advise everyone to turn off web search in the start menu, it makes it so much faster and more useful: Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Search > Don't search the web or display web results in Search
• yourapostasy 7mo ago
  I use Linux exclusively on the backend, a Windows laptop is usually what my clients issue to me for gigs, and I migrated years ago from macOS to a Linux laptop as my personal primary daily driver (though I still use macOS, just not where I spend 90% of my personal time). I agree with Windows having its own issues like you pointed out. To be fair however, Linux and macOS daily driver experiences are also not without their annoyances. The Linux daily driver windmills I am currently tilting at are the lack of 3D infrared sensor-based secure facial recognition. On Linux we currently are missing true 3D mapping, the option to bind the biometric data to the onboard TPM, and running the matching in something like the Protected Media Path stack Windows uses, so Linux facial recognition solutions like Howdy are not as secure as on Windows. Other deep gaps in the Linux daily driver role are not having a solution to encrypt our disks and hibernate under Secure Boot, nor a comprehensive common application framework for power management like Apple's IOKit and IOPowerSources so my Linux laptop gets far less battery life than my macOS laptop. Linux has many different ways for applications to participate in power management, so as a result there isn't a single way for the applications to cooperatively negotiate for this centralized scarce resource based upon user preferences. But the death by a thousand tiny cuts I was experiencing on macOS led me to reluctantly conclude I'd rather face the thousand tiny cuts in Linux where at least I have the option to go to the source and address or fix it myself a particular cut got annoying enough. In my clients' corporate land, I hide behind a small army of desktop teams that grind away most of the annoyances you list (mainly through the pricing discrimination magic of Windows enterprise licensing). I've resigned myself to not hold out hope for re-experiencing what I felt was my personal peak user experience of the early 2000's PowerPC PowerBook and Intel MacBook Pro and early Mac OS X. It was a portable Unix workstation that could run a full virtual Windows box inside, giving me the best of all worlds, and It Just Works bled into every nook and cranny of the entire stack. I believe a lot of it came down to that Steve Jobs was an intensely personal user of his own products from the perspective of someone doing it himself as much as someone who is the head of a multinational multi-billion dollar corporation could be, with as little corporate desktop support as necessary, and he had an extreme intolerance for annoyances in the small details. Linux as a daily driver has many, many rough edges. But at least I can durably contribute into it as I solve my own annoying small details, and hope a flywheel effect eventually takes place in the future.
• figmert 7mo ago
  I dunno, you say you prefer Windows over macOS, but it sounds to me like you're fighting your OS. MacOS has a lot of flaws, but at least I'm not fighting it. If I say to do something, it does it. It doesn't suddenly revert your decision.
  • unleaded 7mo ago
    My sentiment with windows (likely shared by most people here consciously using it) is that it's a good OS at heart somwhere. The core of it is very solid and has been for a while, and most of the crap parts that people complain about (see above) are "tacked on" to it and could fairly easily be removed/reverted if Microsoft wanted to (in fact they already have done, see IoT Enterprise LTSC and Windows Server), and it would still unmistakably be Windows. I don't know much about MacOS but the same isn't really true of [desktop] Linux. Most of its flaws are not easily fixed in the same way and are much deeper architectural/social issues that require a lot of work to fix.
    • figmert 7mo ago
      > don't know much about MacOS but the same isn't really true of [desktop] Linux. Most of its flaws are not easily fixed in the same way and are much deeper architectural/social issues that require a lot of work to fix. I'm not sure where you got this, but I've been a fulltime Linux user for near 2 decades, and I promise you almost everything is fixable. The biggest issues are drivers, but even then you're bound to find someone who has developed some drivers or if not, you can develop your own if you have the skill or pay someone if you don't.
    • jasomill 7mo ago
      I agree about Winndows, but increasingly feel the same way about macOS. As for Linux, hard disagree, but only because I'm able to fix most anything that annoys me myself with enough elbow grease (same goes for Windows and macOS) except for application compatibility. Then again, a lot of this comes down to the fact that all three have decent terminal applications, shells, tolerable programming interfaces, and the same choice of cross-platform browsers. Mobile devices, on the other hand, are the real enemy.
• asah 7mo ago
  LOL, any __ONE__ of those would be a deal-killer for me. The sum is so WTF I can't understand how anyone willingly chooses Windows over... anything. (mind you, MacOS has its own nightmares from KeyChain hell, iCloud crap, signed apps etc - but I can use my Mac laptop without iCloud/etc and go weeks without thinking about Apple)
  • grujicd 7mo ago
    The right answer is that these things don't really show up that much. Like I encounter something like that once in a year? Yes, it's infuriating that they show up during install, or while you're downloading Chrome from the Edge, but apart from that, none of these show up on a regular basis. Or perhaps you're a casual user, agree to one thing here, don't disable another thing there, then yes, you'll get some of those. But that's not reality for any semi-experienced user. I mean it was perfectly normal to install replacement for start menu when it was bad at one point and that's it, you're good to go, and you'll use it for years the way you want. We're not masochists. I guess many of these are fuel for enragement posts (and deservely so), but it's not a reality of how we use Windows.
  • Rapzid 7mo ago
    Could be because I don't like "tinkering" with my desktop OS. I'm either: * Configuring and operating them professionally as part of a larger system. I have "The Linux Programming Interface" and "Windows Internals" sitting right next to each other right next to me. * Using productivity software professionally or for hobby. * Doing leisure activities like gaming, reading, etc. These annoyances are like 0.001% of my interaction with the OS. While super annoying, they are mostly brief and can be worked around(mechanics car though). The value proposition for me is still super high and better than the alternatives for me. Probably the biggest negative impact on me is how these problems feed the flood of "Microslop" slop drowning out more interesting discourse.
• sombragris 7mo ago
  Easy solution: Ditch WSL, ditch Windows altogether, and use a good Linux distro with Plasma 6.6. Problem solved.
• PufPufPuf 7mo ago
  FYI macOS now natively has edge snap, half-half tiling with draggable divider that resizes both windows, and even tiling options similar to Windows except a bit less options (e.g. no thirds) -- ok for a laptop screen, ultrawide monitors benefit from a free app to add more options. And the shell environment is POSIX, with most bash scripts just being ootb compatible without WSL-like shenanigans.