Windows 11 market share falls despite Microsoft ad blitz | Windows 10, on the other hand, managed to grow its share of that market
Windows 11 market share falls despite Microsoft ad blitz | Windows 10, on the other hand, managed to grow its share of that market
Only 10 months left until Windows 10 end of support and people still seem to prefer it
Despite Microsoft's push to get customers onto Windows 11, growth in the market share of the software giant's latest operating system has stalled, while Windows 10 has made modest gains, according to fresh figures from Statcounter.
This is not the news Microsoft wanted to hear. After half a year of growth, the line for Windows 11 global desktop market share has taken a slight downturn, according to the website usage monitor, going from 35.6 percent in October to 34.9 percent in November. Windows 10, on the other hand, managed to grow its share of that market by just under a percentage point to 61.8 percent.
The dip in usage comes just as Microsoft has been forcing full-screen ads onto the machines of customers running Windows 10 to encourage them to upgrade. The stats also revealed a small drop in the market share of its Edge browser, despite relentlessly plugging the application in the operating system.
People found out about the Win10 IoT LTSC version, which Microsoft alleges to be supporting for 10 more years.
It comes with basically zero of the M$ bloat that everyone hates, as well. It's just Windows.
I just installed it on my father's new (old) laptop, because he is not ready for Linux yet -- possibly ever.
It has no:
- Cortana
- Copilot
- Windows Media Player
- OneDrive
- Office 365 Nag
- Candy crush, Solitaire collection, etc.
- Ads and nags on the lock screen
- "Finish setting up your device and create a Microsoft Account!!!" nag every X number of bootups
- Xbox Game Bar
- Microsoft Store
- Etc.
It does come with Edge.
Because it does not have the Microsoft Store you have to manually install anything that comes as a store app from the command line. I was taken by surprise that the Duckduckgo browser is packaged this way. But you can still do it. Normal programs install just fine.
Yes, you can use it for gaming.
Edit: I guess I forgot to drop the obligatory link to https://massgrave.dev/ , which is how I found out about this and got it running. Also hosted there is a tool that allows you to... license... various Microsoft products including your shiny new Win10 IoT install.
holy fuck that sounds absolutely awesome. why wasn't I on this version to begin with hahah
Just adding that 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC is also super solid and great for gaming,
no bullshit installed, just Edge + Defender. I disable Edge- instead of uninstalling- with a tool that just breaks it, since Edge always gets installed again eventually.I got it from that same site, been problem free for months now. I only went with 11since my 5800X3D is still fairly new.
Edit: Fine, no bullshit other than Edge + Defender.
Sounds like Linux but worse. Got my dad on Mint and all he ever uses is a browser and mail program (2nd one is optional)
All my mom does is browser and Office365. I tried to get her into LibreOffice and I saw her suffering through it for some time and decided to put her out of her misery by MAS'ing her Office.
When I still had a Windows 11 install, it was running under an Enterprise License. Apparently, Enterprise and Education are the only editions left that allow you to deactivate all those unwanted components via the Group Policy Editor. Also the only editions that allow you to turn off telemetry.
At some point, I managed to get all the stuff I needed running seamlessly on Linux, and I plan on never going back to MS.
I'm still using Windows 10 on my personal work laptop, and I've got to say that what you've described sounds pretty appealing. Windows 10 with most of the crapware removed, and extended support. That sounds like a good deal...
But on the flip side, I think it's a bad idea to get an OS from a piracy site. Maybe it's all genuine and tickety-boo, but being a reputable 3rd party source is a fairly high bar. I certainly wouldn't trust a site I've never heard of to give me a legitimate copy of a better-than-standard version of Windows. Their offer to verify their own files is less than convincing. I think I'd need to be an active part of the scene to be able to trust something like that - because it certainly smells like an easy way to get back-doored.
You install windows as standard (from MS directly), selecting the IoT version during setup. Afaik it's on GH so you can view the scripts, copy/paste if you don't trust the downloaded .ps1, etc.
I ran the OS for a couple months on a system and had no issues. No funky activity reported (no more than usual) with snort, no alerts from sophos. I didn't extensively verify it, but I don't have any suspicions to report.
I agree. I need to trust where the OS (or any software) comes from. I'd rather get a legitimate windows copy and then debloat it and turn off telemetry and other BS myself. Then I know I'm good on both counts. But apparently the IoT LTSC version is legit, not a cracked copy. This is the first I've ever heard of it.
I bought an i7 NUC to use as HTPC some years ago. It has W10 IoT on it. Handles Dolby Atmos like a charm & 4K to a degree (YouTube. Last time i checked, Windows still liked to give 4K media files a purple hue)
If the LTSC was the actual Windows then they wouldnât be losing any market share. That shit is crazy nice
Yeah, well. They make most of their money off of advertising revenue and the spyware bullshit. License sales are one and done per user, so there's no recurring revenue there. And probably even less than that because everyone -- individual users at least -- just pirates Windows anyway.
I know I sure as hell do. And I'm not recommending anyone else not do so, either...
I am sure Microsoft will take this to heart and stop the bloat shit and not kill off Windows 10 for good.
Huh, maybe I'll consider replacing my current Win10 install that I never use with this. And maybe I'll see about replacing my SO's install with it as well.
absolutely legendary you are mate
Ouah nice, if I can keep W10 for a few years the time to learn the specificities of Linux (let's be honest for a total newb, there are a lot) with the Deck it's perfect!
This would also allow me to keep using software unable to run on Linux.
Thank you for explaining this, I'll check!
The store is there, its just disabled, there is some command you can run to enable it. I forgot what it was though.
DO NOT PAY FOR WINDOWS 10 UPDATES.
They're pushing this plan to make people pay to continue to get support for 10 very hard.
Don't fucking do it. Make them eat this loss of a shitty invasive OS that nobody asked for. This trend is evidence that we're in control in this situation, not Microsoft.
Force their hand and make it so they have no choice but to keep supporting Windows 10 for free for five more years.
Look, I'm a Linux user primarily, but that doesn't mean you should just let these corporate fuckholes walk all over you. Windows 10 is ride or die. Make Microsoft pay for trying to fuck you out of a cleaner operating system that is less infested with spyware and actually works half the time.
Not everybody has the time or energy to figure out Linux, but either way, the best way to fight Microsoft is by hitting them square in the pocketbook.
Linux is mostly pretty easy to install/use at this point as long as you stick with a main distro like Mint
This. And if folks are worried that their computer's hardware won't be supported (wifi, touchscreen, mousepad, soundcard or a weird mobile graphics driver) I recommend testing it by booting from a live linux flash drive. If everything works with the live version, it should work with the installed version, too.
Even Mint you have to jump through hoops to not have to put in your password every time there's updates. Hoops that are too complex for a newbie on their own.
Most Linux users don't want to admit that a huge thing that makes people hate Linux is having to type in their password every time there's updates (and there's always updates.)
It's seemingly such a small thing, and as Linux users, we know the why behind it so we don't question it, but the average user doesn't and they hate typing their password over and over to get into the computer, let alone to update it.
To them, Windows is easier since the updates happen silently in the background, and aren't in the forefront because Linux expects you to know what the fuck you're doing.
Every Linux box that I didn't fuck with to make sure updates happened silently in the background that I gave to anyone else would always be wildly out of date the next time I touched it because they just... don't install updates instead of typing in their password.
Often, they've forgotten the fucking password, if you've made it so they don't have to put a password in when they log in (my mother has done this one countless times).
Until we figure out a way to make Linux secure and straightforward for end-users, people will stick with Windows.
Yup. The main concern is if there's specific software you cannot do without, such as:
- Adobe products
- big multiplayer games w/ anti-cheat
- Xbox app/game pass
But if you're a bit flexible and are willing to try different software, then yeah, Linux is pretty rad. Most Steam games I've tried work, you can play Epic and GOG games through Heroic, LibreOffice is fantastic, VLC works the same, and you can get almost any web browser you want (Firefox, Chrome, etc). And if your hardware isn't too old, it'll probably work well w/ Wayland, which resolves a number of problems people have had in the past.
If you have any questions about app compatibility, ask away! I probably haven't used whatever it is, but surely someone else has.
I installed Mint this week.
It did install more smoothly than the others I tried on this run of "I wonder if Linux is viable now" (Fedora 41, Pop, Bazzite, if you're wondering). It, however, does not support HDR yet and it, like every other one, won't do proper 5.1 audio out of my ASUS MB, which has no official Linux drivers.
So Windows it is, then, because all the other distros had bigger problems. Fedora is the one that has all the features I need, and it still has the audio bug and it crashed a bunch after I went through all the hoops to set up an Nvidia card.
if only my professional software supported it...
What people have to watch out for now is unlocking their bootloader if they want to test Linux on a USB drive or dual boot, for example, it will trip Bitlocker (conveniently installed on every Windows computer via update without notification or consent), and that will irreversibly encrypt their Windows hard drive without warning.
Ask me how I know.
Linux works great when using programs like Blue beam, AutoCAD, Revit and VR.
Oh wait, no it doesn't.
hitting them square in the pocketbook.
I've been saying this for years to people, but it won't happen, sadly, if history is anything to go on. The average consumer will always take the easiest path to convenience, even foregoing their leverage as a consumer, if given the choice for a simple monetary resolution.
If the average consumer had the fortitude to resist getting something they wanted now for better pricing/functionality, a lot of these businesses wouldn't be doing the bullshit they have been doing with price hikes and enshittification. We are simply not a society that can live without these conveniences.
Those that try to "vote with their wallet" (econ 101, baby) know the power the consumer has if principled enough to give up convenience for leverage. Unfortunately, as long as someone can throw money at a problem and call it fixed, it will be difficult to pressure companies to do anything to improve their product. I'd love to be proven wrong.
Hell, maybe one silver lining of the impending tariff disaster is the consumer will be unable to afford it as stuff we need gets too expensive for the stuff we want.
No. Go to 11 or go to a different OS. Been hearing these arguments since Windows95 came out, and they are never correct.
You donât own Windows. You cannot maintain Windows without Microsoft. Either get onboard or find a different OS.
lol this is the exact same rethoric people were spewing when Windows 7 went EOL because Windows 10 was sooo bad and now everyone's fighting tooth and nail to keep using it. W11 is basically a better skin on W10. Just move on.
You expect them to work for you for free? What kind of entitled bullshit is that?
Not paying for the 10 security updates doesn't hurt MS. They don't make money from their consumer OS. The money is from Office, Cloud, and corporate contracts. It only leaves your PC open. You don't have the time to install Linux today but you will make the time to attempt to recover your Windows PC from ransomware because you left it unpatched.
Install Linux today. Stop making excuses.
I'll uh ... be over here continuing to use an OS that doesn't <checks notes> show me a full-screen ad.
All I have ever seen is a single sentence on the login screen promoting MS products. Do none of you still use Windows? Are you saying stuff like this based on memes?
No, this is absolutely a thing that happens now. It came through in the last couple of updates. Sporadically it pops up a screen in your face like this:
I just got one on the little pseudo-netbook we use to run one of the barcode scanners at work the other day, despite this machine not even being "eligible" to run Windows 10.
Iâve seen the full screen ad on windows 10. Itâs not just memes.
I'll uh .. be over here continuing to use an OS that doesn't <checks notes> show me an ad when I am logging in.
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I use W10 and I've gotten two full-screen ads for W11 in the last two weeks.
I don't use Windows and haven't for well over a decade, but my SO does and they haven't mentioned anything. Not sure if that means it didn't happen, or they just don't care.
That said, I remember seeing the ads for Candy Crush and whatnot in the start menu, and that was annoying. I also played w/ Win 11, and it seemed to have similar nonsense, plus they moved everything around again.
Our old asses are over here learning mint and Ubuntu on new machines. That wasnât on our 30s-40s disco card.
Itâs fun. Everything looks good, then attach the external monitor to the laptop and it wonât detect. Thereâs a workaround, thereâs almost always a workaround, but these basics of windows are in pieces in Linux.
The basic expectations with windows, like monitor detection, arenât necessarily there.
Spite is a hell of a fuel though. Oh and I still have my win 10 disc and put a fresh install on another machine.
The Steam Deck and it's desktop mode are why I decided to try jumping head first into a single boot of Bazzite on my main computer, it's basically like using a Steam deck, just across four monitors, a year in and I haven't looked back.
Sunshine worked right out the box too. Very much recommend bazzite. Tried pop os and just could not get sunshine to work with my 3060.
I plugged in a monitor yesterday on my work laptop 's HDMI port and it did nothing. After some troubleshooting I apparently had to unplug the USB-C dock for it to work. Let's not pretend Windows is smooth sailing all the time.
At a meeting I was given some kind of remote dongle to duplicate my screen to a monitor and it did nothing. Had to run some exe first. Again, not plug and play.
But there was always a workaround.
Literally on Thanksgiving I pulled my work Mac out to do some stuff. It didn't know my monitor from home was unplugged. I had to find hotkeys to move windows to the current display because Settings was opening on the non existent display which it also thought was the main one.
That is to say, even macOS gets this shit wrong. There is no perfect OS.
On my work machine, just a Dell laptop with a dock and some monitors, Mint Cinnamon actually gave me a better out-of-box than win10.
I didnât try Mint until 21 (the version before current) and itâs just so smooth now.
Mint and Ubuntu are Debian based.
Try something Fedora based. I've had far less issues with it when it comes to hardware.
I've tried quite a few distros on an MSI I got and it wouldn't recognize dual monitors with Nvidia drivers on any I tried. I went with fedora, Debian based ones, kde, etc. And none worked. Had to go back to Windows on that laptop.
Ah my work laptop had the same issue but as soon as I saw it didn't work I just switched to windows and it worked.
The only laptop I keep permanently Linuxed I use as a VPS lol. Got Nextcloud on it and a few bots.
Sometimes I wonder what's going on with other peoples' setups. Like where do all these issues come from?
I just plug in my external monitors, usually through the usb-c hub at work so both of them at the same time. But sometimes just a single one. Always gets detected. I've had Debian and now TumbleWeed on my work computer, neither gave me an issue with this.
There are other issues I'm having - such as I wish I didn't have to open the lid for a second and then close it back when I've just connected the externals and want to use it in clamshell mode (as Apple calls it; idk if there's a name for it outside of Mac/Apple). But all the expected functionality is there.
Strange. I have a displaylink box ar home. My Ubuntu machine works first time every time. My wife's Windows 11 PC takes 10 minutes of stuffing around every time I try to connect it.
that's why i switched to a mac instead of linux. i love linux on my servers, but for day to day productivity? nothing beats the "turn it on and go" of a mac. of course you pay for it with money (for a mac) or time (for linux)
but at least i donât get full screen ads for windows 11!
I tried the apple ecosystem way back when.
Fuck me I hated iTunes!
So glad to be out of that walled garden
I generally like my work mac, but external monitor support (used as an example against Linux here) is awful.
Sure, if you connect one (1) monitor and still use the laptop screen, itâs fine. But try to connect multiple, or disable the laptop screen, or try to lock the dock to your main monitor and you have to jump through all sorts of hoops or it just doesnât work.
In the end, macos is just another OS, a good one in general, but definitely not without itâs quirks and issues. I run Arch (btw) with KDE/Plasma on my own desktop and am very happy with it
I like my work Mac but I'd never buy one myself. They're extremely overpriced.
one method that helps is to not think of it as a workaround but as assembling a kit. the base system only comes with what everyone will need, and adding on an extra piece makes it more yours. that also helps with motivation to do a good job of it.
I work at an MSP and a lot of our clients have to follow specific security compliance standards. Because Windows 10 is eol soon, we've been slowly upgrading folks to 11. I die a little each time I do an upgrade. People, including my coworkers and I, are not happy with it overall, but nobody can do anything because â¨compliance standardsâ¨
thank goodness for bsd/mac/linux
I know executives don't tend to go for it but you could always get in a ESU for 3 years past the EoL date. That was semi popular with Windows 7.
That involves money and clients don't want to do that lol. It's like pulling teeth to get them to replace shit
An ad blitz doesn't matter if your product is junk. Make something that isn't garbage if you want to retain people, people want good products.
Microsoft has realised they have a captive market and are milking it for every dollar (euro, pound, yen, rupee...) they can get.
Windows 11 is a privacy invasion. It's the worst OS I have ever used for a day and a half.
Windows 11 is: buggy (Remember That bug where AMD Cpus where slow with 11), slow,maybe training your personal data on ai (Maybe),Very Ugly,Cannot be customized.
I hate Windows 11, for a multitude of reasons. But it is still a better experience than Vista. An unbelievably better than Windows ME. Windows ME for me was the worst desktop OS I think I've ever used. If we open it up to just any old OS, then I want to say Novell was the worst I ever used.
I was fortunately running top of the line hardware when Vista came out. I didnât understand all the hate at all⌠until I sat down and did some work on my uncleâs computer with Vista Basic. Holy shit, even with all of the features that required better hardware removed from the OS, it was the slowest and most miserable experience I ever had on a computer. It was brand new and covered in stickers advertising Vista and it still wasnât capable of running the damn OS.
That was true with nearly every computer I touched that had it on it.
Mine was awesome though. No complaints.
I havenât used 11, but it sounds like theyâve done it again.
Well, Microsoft said way back when that "Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows" so a lot of enterprise went to it. To this day I'm dealing with vendors that have a certified "Windows 10-only" solution. Another funny one is stuff like Ford's FDRS software still only officially supports Windows 10 Pro.
Platform changes and all that are fine, but when Microsoft says basically "This is gonna be your LTS forever" and then bails on it, shit like this is no surprise at all.
I'll admit to some 'asterisk' to that.
So a developer evangelist said "because Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, weâre all still working on Windows 10". So the media ran with the most intuitive interpretation of that language and expanded on it and declared that Microsoft was basically changing to a rolling release model. Note that folks say "he meant latest, not last".
Meanwhile, Microsoft's formal lifecycle statement said, from the onset, that it wasn't going to be supported in 10 years.
However, Microsoft did nothing to clarify the rampant coverage. So I'm still on the side of "the popular impression among people was eternally supported rolling release". Just acknowledging that, formally, they did designate 10 the same way they had designated previous versions.
I agree with you fully, and that's my main point. Their own forums were full of the question being repeatedly asked and dismissed, granted by "MVP's" or independent advisors who have no link to the internal development or plans, they should have stepped up their messaging. The enterprise I work for pays them a fuckton of money, and we even have our own dedicated account reps who sang the same tune those fuckers on the forums did, and they were legit Microsoft employees. When W10's EOL was announced they sent over a lot of gift baskets to our VP's over that shit, because we knew how many mission critical systems we had that just got fucked in the ass, and our budgetary outlays just changed.
Complete fucking asshole move, and it could've been much better if the messaging were just handled differently.
"But people love getting spammed with advertisements..." -Shareholders
im forced to use it at work and holy shit. 11 is so heavy for no reason, 8gb of ram is not remotely enough anymore, even if you yank out some of the garbage. theres no apparent change in functionality to justify it.
the ssd smart says its almost at its end, and i suspect its because its constantly swapping. paging file is always full, unless i set it to something big like 8+ gb
I'm pegged at 95% RAM usage all day at work 16 gigs and I'm not doing anything too heavy. Windows is a bloated gross mess
And I can still run a 2010 MacBook with 4GB to do photo editing and render non HD video
Bloat is too mild a word for Windows
That's wild... I'm currently running Steam and Firefox and I'm at about 8GB.
Bazzite with KDE Plasma. I loaded up on RAM this time when I got this laptop, and I haven't even come close to maxing it out lol. It's nice to not have to worry about though.
Itâs just a hunch, but my suspicion is itâs already capturing a lot of data for Recall to process later after itâs launched.
I canât think of any other reasonable explanation for the severe performance decrease on Windows 11.
I think it's simpler than that.
I think Windows 11 feels unresponsive because of how many features have Internet-enabled features built deep into them. All those little delays opening menus, etc, I think are actually network delay, so the little ads or other stuff have time to fetch and load and show simultaneously with the rest of the UI. Meaning the UI itself has to be delayed slightly to make it less obvious what's being fed to you from online vs local.
Nothing makes my Windows 11 PC shit the bed harder than an unreliable or interrupted Internet connection. Literally crashing the whole PC sometimes.
No, 8 GB is nothing these days. It's not an enjoyable experience on Win 10, 12, Linux, or MacOS.
its great on linux (regular distro, not particularly lightweight) and reasonable on windows 10 for me.
unless you are pushing too many tabs and/or many heavy programs
My 8GB 13-year old Linux laptop and I would like to disagree
What... How is that even possible? Are new machines being sold with 10 instead of 11?
My guess is either people are downgrading, or enough people are dropping Windows entirely after previously using Windows 11 (whether by switching to Mac or Linux, or by deciding that they don't need laptops at all and can get by with just an iPad or something) to affect the percentages.
Edit: oh, also Chromebooks. I bet it's a lot of people switching to ChromeOS.
I'd love if it were Linux but its probably macs, mostly due to their superior battery life (compared to Windows).
Anecdotally my parents bit the bullet switched to Macs after using Windows 11 and all its unnecessary changes from 10. It was death by a thoudand cuts for them, where simple processes like search and printers are radically different than before. If they gotta learn a new system, might as well learn something that works.
Ah... Yeah, I'd wager the bulk is going to phones and tablets, and that should be extremely telling for anyone at Microsoft trying to enshittify 11.
Yes, there are Win 10 machines still being sold, and because they aren't eligible to upgrade to 11, they're dirt cheap. I suspect this is the main driver behind Win 10 growing market share.
The main problem is that Win11 can only run in special hardware and Microsoft can pry out my potato computer from my cold, dead hands. I won't change my hardware to update my OS.
Do it the other way, change your OS! Embrace the pinguin!
Man, it's a toss up for me as to which I hate more: Microsoft threatening and badgering me toward W11 (and by extension, a new computer) or Linux fanboys evangelizing for their preferred system.
Both are complete non-starters for me. I'm not buying a new machine while my current one does everything I need just fine... And after a few years of using Linux on my laptop back in college, I have no desire to set foot in that environment again either.
Special hardware meaning a TPM chip to encrypt your data? Why would they force you to use 10 year old tech, way too new!
Remember they aren't forcing you to update, they just are telling you they won't support your old-ass shit :)
My PC isn't compatible, so fuck Windows 11
Yeah exactly... my laptop isn't going to grow more ram so I don't see the point in upgrading. When October 2025 rolls around I may need to upgrade my laptop to freebsd
My perfectly good PC has an incompatible processor with W11, so I'm not upgrading.
I imagine it'll still be just fine next October, so even if Microsoft doesn't extend support for W10, I'll still be using it.
I disabled TPM 2.0 in the BIOS and MADE my PC incompatible so Windows 10 would shut up about the "new and improved Windows 11".
Same here. The main thing that kept me from going with Macs was that the OS only supports the hardware for about 10 years, from what I understand, while Windows used to just not care how old the hardware was. But now it's not only the TPM 2.0 requirement bullshit - I bought a micro PC with a 5-6 year old Ryzen and it was not supported by Windows 11. Fuck them. I use Windows 11 at work and it sucks anyway. My two choices now are 1) run Linux on my old PC or 2) buy a Mac. I'm most likely going to go with 1. That way I can run Windows 11 and Mac VMs anyway.
The market share for Win 11 has dropped because people are "downgrading" to Win 10, holding on to that for another year before support runs out.
The Windows computers in our house never upgraded to Win 11.
No surprise there.
Some people are also jumping ship to Linux, fed up of Windows BS all together.
I am skeptical of this because the majority of people do not know how to install an OS.
I think its people not using Windows at all. Colloquially, I know young people that basically only know how to use mobile interfaces and tablets.
Not going to change unless Microsoft does a complete 180 on how they're handling Win11 which I don't think they will do because it's just not in their corporate strategy at the moment. I imagine most people are just going to keep using Win10 after the support period ends.
Microsoft seriously needs an upper management shakeup. They have been dropping the ball badly in numerous areas and have their heads lodged too far up their own asses to see it.
That was my plan until MS installed copilot on my system without asking. A month later I installed Linux and haven't looked back. I did dual boot just in case I needed it, but I actually haven't had to boot into windows for the last 4 months. It's gone so well I'm currently planning to do the same to my wife's computer in a few months when I give it its hardware refresh.
The dip in usage comes just as Microsoft has been forcing full-screen ads onto the machines of customers running Windows 10 to encourage them to upgrade.
Yeah no shit! When my computer does full-screen, disruptive things that I didn't tell it to do, I figure out how to remove that malware. I've been off Windows at home for about a month now, thanks Linux Mint! Getting some games to work has been challenging, but most things have just worked and quite a few work much better!
Performance is up overall, and my confidence that my computer isn't running a bunch of secret ad and spy ware is way up. Hardware like my gamepad and microphone would randomly disconnect and have issues on Windows, all working perfectly now.
Unfortunately I'm still deep in MS land for work, but there's almost a comedic quality to it. Everything's very slow, everyone has constant issues with Teams, or Office online, or Dynamics, or copilot shoving it's tendrils into everything. Watching businesses struggle to keep operating in the face of Microsoft's inadequacy is like being a mechanic watching a motor grind to a halt because the owner/manufacturer replaced all the oil with syrup.
Like yes, it's my problem to fix, but I'm just glad it's not my car.
Welcome fellow minter. Try Steam / Proton... simple and seemless for a huge chunk of games.
Who thought that puting ridiculous minimum requirements so your spyware can work better would mean that lots of people without newer hardware just won't upgrade.
well the market share of Windows 11 has risen significantly on my work laptop, and I can wholehearedly say, I understand why its global market share is falling...... random freezes, random restarts, battery life sliced, random starting up from suspend. it's not great.
meanwhile, Manjaro on my personal Lenovo laptop has been cutting edge with consistent updates for years.
I still fail to see how windows 11 was anything but a collusion scam to sell new hardware.
None of the changes including TPM requirements required a new iteration. Nothing about the underlying NT dropped any of the old and antiquated BS despite Microsoft hiring some morons to advertise the fact on reddit to all the insiders asking questions.
They even let the media pick up a fake report that Windows 11 was related to the Core OS and a brand new kernel was in the works.
If Microsoft wanted a marketing strategy, they could have properly started naming feature updates and adverising them similar to Apple.
8, 10, and 11 have also been a pain on enterprise because Microsoft axed their QA team. I seriously hope any new firms start considering linux desktop as a valid option. All they really need is a vendor to offer a solid distro along with an agreement to rapidly create/deploy any software solution so they don't get scared looking at the cheap entry windows stuff.
You're absolutely right. The fact that people can work around the requirement for UEFI, TPM, and SecureBoot shows that it still runs fine on legacy BIOS. I've been saying this forever, it's like a car radio company telling car dealerships to only allow them to be installed into cars with car alarms and then claiming that the radio is secure (when the security is a feature of the car, not the radio). It's such bullshit...
Don't be silly, it was also about putting dedicated spyware and even more ads into your OS.
It was Microsoft's kickback to Intel and later Qualcomm.
None of the changes including TPM requirements required a new iteration.
This is completely wrong.
The TPM is a hardware feature, so you need to update the whole system. The software patch is too slow to be useful.
The uptake level is expected given falling PC sales and the fact that upgrading is limited.
The TPM is not a dedicated cryptographic processor, it's an external keystore with a few select functions. You're thinking of an HSM which is used almost exclusively in servers that have to handle thousands of secrets per second.
CPUs have had dedicated AES hardware for decades which is why LUKS and Bitlocler use it by default.
The TPM just allows certain keys and secrets to be generated and stored physically separate from the CPU as a security measure.
Bitlocker and LUKS will store a master key in the TPM so that you don't have to enter a password every time you boot. They retrieve it from the TPM and then use it to unlock the actual encryption key which is done entirely in the CPU. If the TPM detects foul play such as secure boot alteration, it will refuse to give the key or clear itself.
Using the TPM for constant encryption like at rest disk encryption would be way too slow.
It's so so small that most modern TPMs have been integrated into the CPU or even simulated via the motherboard firmware (fTPM and PTT).
The beating will continue until morale increases. - Microsoft PR
I'll stick to Win10 until the end of the support period, just like how I stuck to Win7 as long as I could đŹ That was still my favourite OS, loved Aero đĽş
Yeah, agreed. I had to be pulled into 10 kicking and screaming. 7 was great. I got used to 10, but never loved it. And now I guess I'm done with Windows, which is kinda sad. I've been using it since Win95.
I am 21 and have been a windows user since I was 6. Windows 10 was the last windows OS I ever used and after that used linux for a while and eventually switched to Mac, and I am glad I did. Windows 11 has a bunch of visual upgrades which just ruin the experience and makes it difficult to navigate around. Also the fact that I need to purchase a new laptop to be able to use it when my old one is perfectly fine.
Didn't you need new laptop for MacOS as well?
I did, and about an year ago my laptop broke and my brother had been using a Macbook Pro from 2017, which still works just great, which hasn't been the case for most windows laptops which are just as old in my experience.
I've been a lifetime Windows user, and the handful of times I had to use Mac was like pulling teeth. Every UI convention is slightly different, and I remember I found the file manager odd too.
Look, I don't trust Statista numbers at all.
People are free to disagree on that one, Statista most of all. But what I think is undeniable is that these sub-percentage point changes are entirely within their margin of error (same goes for Steam, incidentally). You can look at trends over time, -and I think it's pretty undeniable Win11 has struggled to onboard the Win10 userbase-, but I wouldn't overreact to these short term updates.
I don't know much about statista, but yeah the steam numbers linux users love to cite regularly fluctuate by like 25% and windows usage has been shown to basically depend on how active the chinese market is.
I literally left windows because of the incessant ads for 11. The last straw was them forcing copilot on my windows 10 install, but a lot of other things were bugging me way too much before I kicked the bucket. Thankfully I have the help of a friend that uses Linux daily and my boyfriend who just knows a fuckton about computers, but after finishing the initial setup I haven't really had any issues
When games work so well on Linux these days, it seems to me that there is absolutely no reason for Windows to exist anymore. Why does anyone use it?
Just switched from win 10 to Linux mint today. Feels good, games running faster than before even. The only thing that doesnât work is the invasive anti cheat shit for multiplayer games. But I get merked every time in multiplayer so screw it
Especially for buisnesses its hard to switch. A lot of specialised software is not supported on Linux and often there isn't any form of good replacement.
Still needed for VR games.
Aw shit! Thought there was nothing left that would keep me from completely ditching windows (htpc, pihole, homelab ... everything but my workstation is Linux already). I recently got a headset tho and quite enjoy it... What a bummer :(
Hardware support is still an issue. I recently tried to use Linux on my laptop, it didn't work out primarily because not all of the hardware was supported. I thought it was when I bought the laptop but the documentation of what actually works and doesn't work isn't clear or accurate so I ended up with a laptop that can technically run Linux but has various hardware in it will not function and likely never will.
Main reason would be "why not?" windows is also working great for most common use cases. Actually there is not much difference nowadays between OSes. Another reason would be specific software like Excel. Why would you switch your OS adlnd most of the software you use if you don't gain much from it.
I've a Linux OS for coding, OSX for work and Windows for gaming. There are absolutely no problems with any of them. Windows worked great last 4 years, no virusesor performance issues without anti-virus or tweaking. Linux drivers needed work at the start but now there is no issues, Mac is similar. Only issue is when I try to code with Windows it feels annoying but it is mostly because I'm doing things with CLI where I should have used GUI.
Btw, anyone got Reshade 5+ working in wine/proton?
Never had a problem with Reshade. You could use steamtinkerlaunch to do it more easily or just config Wine to overwrite the .dll needed for Reshade(I think is the dxgi.dll).
If that doesn't work you can pass a argument on steam/gog/lutris/heroic/whatever to replace the .dll. I'm linking a guide to mod Cyberpunk 2077 on linux but the instructions works for any game and any .dll just change the name.
My work is 90% on Adobe software and my main game nowadays in Genshin đ I checked ProtonDB for the rest of my games, and many are gold or worse. Having to mess around with command line stuff is already annoying in Windows, I don't want to have to do more of it, which seems to be the case with all Linux versions I've read about.
The fact that any company is able to show you ads after you PAID for their shit is bonkers to me. Don't get me started on repair and being able to unlock the bootloader on your device. No wonder education is very expensive and extremely hard to attain. They love the uneducated, so they can fuck them hard like that. Fuck all of them.
It's simple: Ain't nobody got time for your bullshit, Microsoft.
I'm on Windows 7. When I saw Windows 8, I said "Guess I'll wait until windows 9".
When I saw Windows 10, I said "Guess I'll wait for Windows 11."
When I saw Windows 11, I said "Guess I'll wait until Windows 12."
Now I'm saying........seriously, did NO ONE else notice they skipped Windows 9??? It went 7-8-10-11.
because calling it Windows 9 would have messed up software that checked if it was running on Windows 95.
People noticed, there were videos about it at the time, we just stopped caring about a number. Apple did the same thing and skipped an iPhone number afaik.
Skipping 9 was due to a combination of marketting ("It's nothing like 8 was, we swear! It's not even 9, it's 10!") and ye olde third party software developers making the poor decision to query the OS name instead of the OS version to set some compatibility stuff.
I always just assumed 7 ate 9⌠Iâll see myself out.
I wonder if 8.1 was intended to be 9 and was never released as such
Oh yeah. The number 9 is superstitious in some East Asian cultures, like the Chinese. Its pronunciation is similar to "unlucky" or "suffering" so people try not to use it, like some buildings skip the 13th floor. But it's not unique. In Japan, the numbers 4 and 7 sound like death so they use alternative pronunciations. Another popular Asian belief similar to Astrology divinates personalities based on blood types.
Since Windows is a global product, MS execs decided to skip the number due to cultural sensitivity. They also wanted to close the gap with the Mac versioning and present it as a big improvement over Win 8, so it was probably a strategic decision for various reasons.
I'm now recommending family members and relatives to switch to Macs if they're not willing to install Linux on their PC.
I'm trying really hard to educate them about how intrusive Windows 11 is. But in the end, it's like Facebook or whatever. They just don't care about their online privacy and how their personal information is handled. Sometimes I don't even know why I try.
I sense 12 coming soon if MS wants to EOL 10 without losing customers.
11.1. Like 8.1.
8.1 was actually a massive improvement though, I doubt they're even capable of pulling that off for 11, much less willing. 11 is flawed deeply to the core, 8 was "only" flawed on the surface (UI etc.)
Lots and lots of people went on the 98 to XP to 7 to 10 path, skipping Me, Vista, and 8. No reason that pattern can't continue.
The moment I can verify a solution for my music production workflow on Linux, I know that I'm out as well.
I don't know what you're currently accustomed to or what the feature/workflow differences would be, but I've had some music folks I know be successful with Ardour and Reaper. Have you checked to see if those would let you do your thing? The other problem I've had is audio interface support in Linux, but that seems to have improved a lot. I've got an old Axe I/O Solo that didn't work at all a few years ago but now seems to have full support.
Have you tried something like Wine or even Proton for it? I know that Proton is thought as more for games, but it runs Windows apps in general. Just add the app as a "game" in Steam and tell it to run with a version of Proton.
This, video gaming has blazed a path forward for music production workflows to fully embrace linux.
Gaming and Clip Studio Paint for me. (Maybe some other stuff that I just haven't thought of.)
Needless to say, every day my Windows 11 machine bugs out on me I get closer and closer to just giving Linux a solid try for the first time since college.
Where are you on that process? I do 2D visuals and i'm at the point where all software that i use is available on Linux, but i have yet to actually try it in practice
What do you do? I have been doing some hobby stuff with generating music once a few months.
Nothing serious, but music seems to actually be the only area on desktop (outside of development) where Linux is fully competitive.
My workflow is in FL studio, however the bigger problem is my VST libraries. I have the entire Arturia V collection as well as many, many more plugins and I am unsure if they would run on Linux, or if they do, how well. This is unfortunately a big problem as my collection of VST's total into the thousands of dollars. I suppose I could run a windows VM to make everything function, but then I would probably have problems with latency/connectivity on my audio interface when I want to patch any of my hardware in, if drivers are even available for the interface in on Linux (It's just a scarlett 2i2 I believe).
Im at the same point. I spent quite some Money on Studio one and plugins....i'll probably try a setup with Wine and/or Yabridge soon. Wouldnt mind that much if i had to switch to Reaper.
If you do so, I would be interested in hearing about the experience and any troubleshooting you had to perform to fix problems.
I had to make the change to Windows 11 at work, it was certainly a downgrade. Pretty common that there is a massive wait for even the most simple applications to load. Quite often I end up opening multiple copies, because I think the first click to open didnât register, click again and they all open at once. This is on the same hardware that Windows 10 did fine on.
Windows 10 no longer being updated by Microsoft is it's biggest selling point
Microsoft was doing a somewhat ok job at windows with windows7. Then they decided to do stuff like remove media center and remove support for TV tuners and pump up the tracking and assorted idiocies
Idk. People have been saying the last version of Windows was the best one for decades (with a couple of notable exceptions). Until they switch to something else in large enough numbers to get the right asshat with an MBA at Microsoft to pay attention they will just keep squeezing.
Lol was windows 11 was a scam to make companies pay for future security updates this whole time?
I thought it was a scam to force people to buy new computers with TPM chips and whatever bullshit CPU requirements win11 has?
Windows it's scams all the way down now.
because windows 2000 was peak windows
As much as I loved 2000, XP was better and 7 the best ever.
2000 was the pioneer though, it was such a huge step forward in every way
Long time Linux user here. The smoothest OS I've ever used was xp64. That just ran like butter. Unfortunately, it was killed off to push people to Vista.
When you "have" to keep making new versions to satisfy market "demand" in the "free" market.
When "supply" of "quote on quotes" is higher than "demand". :p
Hmmm.... Maybe people using windows 10 really do love the full screen ads! Yeah! They missed the ads so they went back to windows 10 until they can get those ads in windows 11! Yup! That must be it!
I would double down on full screen unstoppable ads. Maybe one that looks like a BSOD? That would be lovely!
They're still too hardheaded to get it
you misspelled greedy
Samediff
They're purposely not getting it.
I wonder if the stats will rise considerably during 2025 with all the business and enterprise environment switching after delaying the upgrade for a few years. We certainly have to do that at work.
I donât understand how Windows 11 file system/explorer just chugs so much. If you have a folder with more than a dozen or so files, itâs optional whether anything will load or not. Everything about Windows 11 is leaning into the worst aspects of windows 10, without any benefit.
Yes, they added tabs, which is good. But made the rest crap. When you right click a file, copy is just 1cm higher. At the top of the pop up.
Doesn't even register that you created or deleted a file in the explorer window that's open, instead you have to refresh it with F5 to see the changes, like it's some sort of web app from the 1990s. Pretty sure older windows explorer versions would update the view when files changed...
And how do they still fucking suck at searching for files. I can't find shit without the Everything app
This is expected from Microsoft. It's their tick tock pattern of good windows based windows. 95 good, ME bad, XP good, Vista bad, 7 good, 8 bad, 10 good, 11bad.
Sure, but 10 was worse than 7, especially current 10. Six months ago or so, I booted up an e-waste laptop I had that was still running a very old version of 10 and seeing it running next to current Windows 10... it's gotten so bad. I've never actually used 11, 10 got so bad I jumped ship early.
its too busy making microsoft money with your data
If Microsoft really wants people to switch to Windows 11 they need to retain many of the already few remaining customization options from Windows 10. Trackpad gesture support is worse, the only useful button in the new right click menu is the show more one which brings back the old menu but requires an extra click, and the file explore somehow got even more buggy. I hate every time I need to interact with a computer using Windows 11.
Luckily there's been an initiative within my company recently to support Linux, so I'm hoping that all the network related issues are fully worked out before Windows 11 is forced on us so I can just jump ship to Ubuntu.
Windows: you'll eat this slop even if we have to carve a hole in your throat and force it through.
Clearly people don't find it that bad
And you'll like it and beg for more.
Wellp..... This morning I was ready to go to work and have a few meetings but thanks to windows 11 inconvenient update service now I can just come here to complain.
lol
lmao even
Join the dark side đ§
The dork side, you say?
Hell yeah brother
I think many people in here need to realise that most people donât care about their OS, or Copilot or Recall or anything like that. I donât know what the reason is for this but most people donât change their OS.
Most people care about knowing how to use their OS, with as few changes as possible. If they use Windows at work, they will most likely get Windows if they have a computer at home.
If you have ever taught someone how to print and it took 5 minutes. You should know why they want it to be as close to the same at every computer they step up too.
Some people hate search functions but at the end of the day I use the keyboard for most things. So if I'm on a Windows machine, I want to be able to hit the windows key and start typing cmd, outlook, whatever. On a Mac cmd space, and start typing disk utility, or whatever it is. If I walk up to any Windows or Mac in the last 10 years and approach it that way it will work. If I walk up to a new Linux distro, I can only remember terminal, and then I have to glance around to figure out what browsers might be on it, what software names exist to figure out what I actually need for file formats etc.
If it is my home computer, that's fine. I will know what flavor of each application I have installed and have it set up in a way that is quick usage.
If I walk into a library and it had that, it likely would double the time needed to get done whatever it was I needed to do. People want uniform working devices across all work machines and public settings. It sucks that it is owned by the rich, but I don't see that changing overnight.
KDE offers a better user experience than MacOS or Windows (haven't used 11 though). It really took off in the last years.
By default it's similar to Windows but you can completely customize the look and feel without touching a terminal/console. It has inbuilt stores with user contributed themes, icons, backgrounds, widgets and extensions. Some of those can make KDE really shiny.
Then you can completley change the layout of the Desktop. Add panels (alias taskbars), add different buttons and functions to the panels change their positions. The widgets KDE comes with are very nice too. Especially the hardware monitor ones. I use HW-mon widgets for temperatures, diskspace, ram, network-activity e.g.
You can add as much virtual desktops as you want. You can activate desktop animations for things like switching between virtual desktops or window overviews. With an extension like Krohnkite you can automatically arrange your windows. You can change most keyboard combos for the various functions of the desktop.
KDE is based on the superior Qt programming framework and is therefore pretty optimized and most of the apps are pretty consistent in their design language unless they're written for the concurrent desktop environment Gnome whose apps can also be run under KDE.
Alt+F2 opens a KRunner overlay which is KDEs universal search for applications documents, web, even open tabs in browsers. You could also open the Kickstarter (Startmenu) via the Windows-key and enter the application name right away.
Browsernames are the same. Just search them via KRunner. The best way to install software for newbies is a package manager which is included on user-friendly distros like Fedora, Mint, OpenSUSE, Kububtu. You open the package-manager/appstore search for the application you want to install and click install. Huge Advantage: With every OS-Update all the software you installed via a package manager gets automatically updated along with the OS packages.
Generally if you come from Windows use KDE. There other desktop environments like Cinnamon or Mate similar to Windows but none come close to KDE. If you feel adventureous and want to learn a completely new desktop workflow use Gnome.
The first and most important choice is to choose a good Distribution. I'm using EndeavourOS and Arch. They are extremely good distros but maybe not the best for beginners (although Endeavour is not too bad with onboarding).
Iâm definitely not going to be forced to Windows 11. Iâll probably install Linux on my now three year old PC until it falls apart and I need a new one. Or I might just go back to Mac, which I used exclusively for 7 years in the 2010âs.
If Microsoft thinks they can intimidate or push me to 11, theyâre sorely mistaken.
Honestly, I don't get the hate of Windows 11. Sure, compatibility is a shitshow but if you can install it, it's better than W10. I updated a couple months back and was pleasantly surprised. Things I like:
- Improved tiling
- The new terminal app is actually usable.
- More consistent theming
- Settings menu is no longer useless
- Last two points combined result in me not getting flashbanged nearly as often as I did in W10
- Improved volume mixer. I even ditched EarTrumpet.
- Most people won't care about this one, but the little pop-ups that appear when you hover an icon in the system tray don't get stuck in your screen as much as they did in W10.
Things that got worse:
- The start menu. Seriously. Stop with the redesigns.
- Taskbar is no longer movable. I liked it on the left.
- They hid the right click menu under an additional "More options" menu for some reason
Disclaimer: I only use my Windows computer for playing games. I do all of my regular day to day computing on my laptop with Fedora (KDE spin because
I'm not a godless heathenI like it better). I'm also running the Education version, which is basically Enterprise so I have feature updates straight up turned off and only get security updates. It also doesn't have any ads but my ROG Ally has W11 Home and it doesn't have any ads either, so I don't even know what's real anymore.There's a registry hack for the right click menu. I run it on every new computer that I set up at work, either at setup or when someone calls to complain about it.
It's already a custom or tradition to hate Windows regardless of the version.
I agree that Windows 11 has good and bad things.
In addition, the news is a bit sensationalist in my opinion because it talks about only a small crash that it had in November.
Yep. Honestly, Lemmy feels like a circlejerk sometimes.
The only reason I'm still on windows is I run a weird 3 monitor setup on a Nvidia GPU.
Even then I could probably switch but I'm too lazy
If you feel up for it, boot into the live disk for Mint. Lets you trial the OS without touching your OS install.
But, I hear you on the lazy angle. Momentum is a hell of a thing.
Note that my three monitor setup with an nvidia GPU actually works better in Linux.
Mainly because when I plug the laptop in, I have to turn the third monitor off and on again to make it 'wake up', but in Linux, all three reliably start displaying.
I don't like all the changes in Windows 11, but by and large it's been fine for me.
Seriously, stop using Windows. If you set up a new computer, use Linux. Compared to everything we had in the 1990's when we all decided to buy a computer and connect to the internet, modern Linux is fucking awesome, so think of it like prestiging in Call of Duty. You go back to the 90's and start over, but it's not nearly as bad, and it's for a good cause.
Family need a new computer? Linux, Mac OS. Work need services deployed? Linux, FreeBSD.
Stop using Windows. Please. I stopped in 2013 and I've never been happier, it's not been easy but I'm better now because of it and when I have to see Windows I fucking cringe and wonder how people can do it.
Break your addiction to the GUI, it's not better than CLI, it augments it. Break your addiction to download and double click .exe to install applications. Break your addition video games that require Windows, you can run anything in Steam now (sans VR đż). Break your addiction to your OS stopping you to apply "updates" and breaking your shit and blue screen frown face and moving your
startwindows logo button from the far left where it's been for decades to the middle and showing you ads and introducing spy features and forcing their browser on you and their search engine and promising you good changes and good software just to deploy a half-baked product and begging you to "just wait it'll get better", to have it die in your arms and have ms just walk up rip it out of your arms and replace it with more half-baked software and promises, over and over. Break your addiction to MS telling you this is the last OS that you will ever buy every fucking release, having features taken from you and placed behind a pay wall, having simple applications like notepad which might have been fine in 1993 but then just remain the same for literally 20 fucking years, just to be overhauled to have tabs, something that notepad++ (which is free) has had since the beginning. Break your addiction to the abuse, this company is buying nuclear power plants to run datacenters to process data about you, that they basically are forcing you to be okay with, so that they can further increase their profit margins, and or enable governments to survey the public for whatever reason they deem necessary.Announcing in 2025
Windows Buntu we bring the U in Windows ....... Actually that would be nice for Ubuntu to slowly suffocate and take over Windows lol
The bunt has been on the path of enshitification itself for many years no thanks.
I've been apprehensive to all kinds of adverts for years, I guess the general population is catching up to me on this trend.
Windows is only relevant because of a few key applications, like MS Office (no, libre office doesn't come close).
office can be used in a browser and mac so why windows?
The browser editions don't quite fully work for everything.
A coworker manages to make some excel workbooks that just don't work in the web version, and makes everyone deal with it.
I've had to contend with powerpoint decks with 'features' that don't work in the web. For example, one group told me the only way to get a file was to click the embedded link in the pptx file, which only works with desktop version.
If you have to deal with Teams meetings with screen sharing, well, you can't control the other person's screen (for no good reason) and you can't offer remote control of your own (ok, I understand that one).
I'll say that 95% of my dealings with Office files can be dealt with between browser based O365 and libreoffice for some of those features, but once in a while I simply have to open desktop Office.
This is the perspective of someone who really dislikes Windows and is willing to deal with this sort of uncertainty to minimize Windows usage. Most people would just not want to futz with the options and go straight to the desktop client, which is the only thing that supports all the Office features.
Because my work enforces a non-english locale and the keyboard shortcuts make no sense đ¤ˇââď¸
How do they judge? How do I look at market?
They link their source in the article, and the source has a FAQ which has their methodology explained in the first question. You are capable of looking at market, you just need to, y'know...look.
In short, they are among the 867 partners on your favorite website who want to install cookies on your browser for analytics. OS info is included in what it reports back home.
But has Netcraft confirmed it?
I really don't want to have to install it for work at all next year.
Windows users will do everything, including using a soon unsupported and insecure, outdated version of this proprietary garbage, instead of just switching to a better OS
Don't lump us all together. Windows users are just linux users who aren't there yet.
I moved early this year and haven't had significiant problems, though I'm IT savvy and can code my way around my issues. Linux is great, and I'd been halfway there for a long time, but Windows had the edge on gaming and simplicity. They fucked up, though when they started pushing for AI and Win11, at least for me. Where the Rubicon lies will be different for everyone, but it does exist for many.
We win by couching linux as the place to go to escape corporate focus and greed, not by being elitist.
My general experience has been: "Come to Linux"
"But not ubuntu that's trash"
<Tries arch, run into problem>
"Why the fuck would you use arch, dummy?"
<Switch to fedora, immediately brick computer, eventually fix it but switch to suse>
<Wonder where certain software is>
"If you wanted wide software support why wouldn't you use arch"
"You can just learn the build tool chain for that software and do it yourself"
Etc Etc
The Linux community is very welcoming until you expect things to work.
but Windows had the edge on gaming and simplicity
I'm sorry, but no. Absolutely not.
You want to install Windows without giving up all of your personal information to a greedy corporation that will sell it or use it to train AI? Too bad, gotta figure out how to launch the command line during the OOBE process (it's
Shift + F10btw) and figure out which command to enter (btw it'soobe\bypassnro), then restart your PC to reload the OOBE, just so you can avoid the absolutely brain-dead account requirement. Simple, right?You want to stop Windows from using Edge by default? Very simple, just download this tool from GitHub.
You want to get rid of Microsoft Edge? Just a couple of PowerShell commands. Very simple, very intuitive, very user-friendly, right?
You want to do anything that you as an end user aren't meant to do? Have fun and dive into
regedit, while always having to fear that you might brick your system.You want to disable Recall/Copilot/whatever they call their AI garbage? Too bad, you can't. It's baked into the system specifically in a way that makes it impossible to remove. What a fucking simple and intuitive operating system. Always works like a charm and lets me do whatever I want.
I switched to Linux easily because this laptop does nothing but internet and office work. If you have any kind of complex workflow, changing anything is hard, let alone changing everything from the OS upwards. Same if you need to run obscure proprietary software.