Windows 11’s 2025 problems are getting impossible to ignore
5mon 16d ago by feddit.org/u/handnutaschnitte in technology from www.windowscentral.com
I can ignore them just fine since I am no longer using Windows.
I haven't used Windows for more than 10 years and I'm happy too.
I think it's worth repeating that Ubuntu has been available since 2005 (20 years now) and from the start it filled the needs of most users at home (i.e. watching crap on YouTube and using LibreOffice). Most users I have seen around me only have basic requirements and should have switched decades ago.
TL;DR: if you complain about your computer nowadays and don't play games, install Ubuntu or Mint or anything else, I don't care anymore.
Even playing games on Linux is much better now thanks to Steam. Never a better time to change. I want my next phone to have Ubuntu Touch as well. Fuck the horrible Google/Apple ecosystem.
This might interest you https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-preorder
damn that looks great. I can't wait to get a decent linux phone!
Amusingly, I've seen that, and I've also considered the similarly named Volla phone built by the Germans. You can have Ubuntu Touch as well as their own Android-based VollaOS.
Oh wow! Replaceable battery.
Since the rise of proton gaming is now absolutely viable on Linux as well. The exclusive use cases for Windows are disappearing fast.
Shoutout to the crew at Lutris for their gaming platform as well. I play Guild Wars 2 and Elder Scrolls Online with it, and couldn't be more pleased with the performance.
Because my games library is much bigger in GoG than Steam, I've been using Lutris alongside the Steam App from the start (for over a year now) and the rate of no-hassle success I've had is just as good as with Steam and the whole process of installing a game from GoG and running it is just as slick in Lutris as doing so for Steam games in the Steam App.
Further, Lutris is much more open and flexible than Steam, so for example I've configured it to by default run my games inside a firejail sandbox with localhost-only networking, I can install games from many sources and formats rather than just digital distribution from a specific game store and it's even perfectly possible to run pirated games with it (one of my Steam games won't at all run in Linux, but a pirated version of it works just fine from Lutris), none of which is possible with Steam.
The actual gaming is just as seamless with Steam as with Lutris, but Steam is purposefully a closed solution highly integrated with a single games store, so it's way more restrictive about what you can do with your games than Lutris (which follows the open source ethos, up to and including having a ton of obscure configuration options)
Adobe has entered the chat
Edit: I guess you can use Adobe on Mac so it isn’t an example of windows exclusivity. They are what’s keeping me from going 100% to Linux, though
There is only a subset of Windows games left that does not run on Linux. Mostly games with kernelbased Anti-Cheat and a few other outliers. I've been gaming exclusively on Linux for years now. Have a look at the ProtonDB website to see if your favourite games are running on Linux
AAA games from around the 00s and 10s with heavy DRM are also often a problem, with the official version of a game not at all running in Linux no matter what you do, whilst a pirate version of the same game will work just fine.
Not questioning you, but curious to hear some examples since this hasn't been my experience.
I've been playing games on [K]Ubuntu just for almost a decade now. There are no excuses, and haven't been for a long time.
You can play almost any game on Linux these days. Often runs better than on Windows
I know we're all eager to rag on Windows, but can we not act as though Ubuntu is a flawless replacement?
My tech-savvy mother and software engineering spouse have both tried switching to Ubuntu but ultimately switched to Windows and ChromeOS because of the constant errors and unreliability of Ubuntu. Everything from ambiguous "problem detected" messages at startup to terrible video performance and a lack of basic functionality out of the box like DPI settings per display or clipboard history. Even the most basic interaction with display settings cause Ubuntu to go haywire.
I'm well aware that Ubuntu can be customized, but I wish I could say it's designed for daily use by the same demographic as Windows or Mac. Unfortunately, it's really not.
I've never used Windows - apart from new workplace requiring it. I largely not see it, unless corporate IT screws up.
Even corporate IT suffers. At my job, we have to apply updates pretty quickly. If Microsoft pushes a bad update, it'll probably affect a lot of us. Or when they add a new feature like Copilot, they ship it without any administrative controls to turn it off.
I won't deny it's godawful to have shit split across AD, Group Policy, Regedit, and Azure/Entra/Intune.
But they very much still have controls for all this shit, almost always available before the feature rolls out. I've literally never seen this shit make it through to our end user devices in an un-intended fashion.
Hell, just hold non-security updates for a period of time for review before pushing it to your entire environment if this (not actually happening) issue is a concern. That's like basic table stakes for Windows environment administration: update cadence management and pilot machines.
Please don't claim to speak from a place of authority on this and then spread falsehoods. There's plenty of shit to hate without making things up.
Like the third party app approvals in Azure and Teams defaulting to allow any non-admin user to be able to approve any azure app access to all of their data with no oversight. You can (and should) lock that the fuck down. It's a batshit default, not a lack of controls.
That's what I heard from the guys managing group policy in my org. It's been several years since I did any group policy admin.
I also remember something about Teams pushing features without control. Maybe it was when they started letting users create teams groups.
they ship it without any administrative controls to turn it off.
I thought one of the saving grace of windows corporate was having finer control?
The problem is Microsoft is trying to push the corporate environment away from on-prem infrastructure and into the cloud. There is less and less you can do from Active Directory and Group Policy, more and more of it gets moved to InTune everyday.
Microsoft is pushing Azure Arc as well, which is intended to let you manage your on-prem resources using your cloud management interfaces.
I don't know what this guy is smoking. Copilot had administrative controls before it rolled out, through Intune and Group Policy.
I can ignore it because I don't have any of these issues. Haven't read a single article in the last year or two that bitched about Windows problems I've seen IRL.
This generation of software companies really seem to have abandoned all previous goals for "Let's see how shit we can make this!"
"Sir, if we can finish our robot it could help with any household chores and even take over most of the care work for the elderly. Then in future patches we could make it waterboard the user unless they get the waterboardless premium subscription. Then we'll increase the cost and slowly reintroduce waterboarding even for subscribers."
You are now VP of product development at Microsoft. Congratulations.
P.S. Get a bullet proof vest and car.
Doesn't stop a homemade drone and a fragmentation payload. Or for that matter, a rigged car or location.
You are now VP of product development at Alphabet. Congratulations.
P.S. Entrance details to your bunker will be sent shortly via seperate means.
This guy assassinates.
I detest this company for many reasons, it's like they go out of their way to make dealing with them as painful as possible.
Here's just one example I discovered today. I have a Windows 10 VM I needed to upgrade to 11 but the "PC Health Check" app says no, the i5 processor isn't supported.
I can, however, create a new VM and install 11 on the exact same hardware, so that's what I did, along with a whole bunch of extra work to get the new VM set up the same as the old Windows 10 VM was.
Why? Because fuck you, that's why.
Assholes.
This is how i feel about 98% of Azure. Its just so needlessly complicated, with incomprehensible defaults, and out of date documentation, and APIs that just fail silently.
So much this. I actually pulled all of our servers from Azure and went back to a regular provider. Way cheaper as well.
There is a way to upgrade directly. I got this from Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/1afu0uj/is_it_safe_to_install_windows_11_on_my_microsoft/
It works fine - you just won't get the more advanced security features available in more recent laptops.
- Boot up into Windows 10
- ensure you have 30GB free space
- Download the .iso: https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11
- right-click the .iso and select "mount" to create a virtual DVDROM
- create a new folder on your main system drive and copy all the files from the virtual DVDROM
- start a command-prompt
- navigate to the folder where you copied all the files
- run the following:
.\sources\setupprep.exe /product server
This will not actually install the server version of windows but will bypass the CPU check so that you can install Win11 on an unsupported CPU. The actual version of Windows installed will depend on the version of Win10 you have: Pro, Home, or Enterprise, for example.
Thank you for this. I already did a fresh install but it's interesting that your link is to the Surface subreddit just to rub some more salt in the wound. The processor is officially supported for upgrades only if it's in Microsoft's hardware. I hate them so much.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. Since I was trying to update my surface. I’ve also installed Linux on it. Which runs a lot faster on the older Surface Nook 1 harder.
You can also flash a usb stick with rufus, mint needs 4GB IIRC.
/j
I prefer Fedora. Tried mint and hated it.
As a neophyte to all those distros out there but still curious, any specific reason?
Is that an upgrade or a fresh install?
It will upgrade an existing install. I did it on my surface and all my files and settings were kept.
Have you tried creating a new VM and attaching your existing vhdx or whatever to it?
I just went for a new installation. Why would that work? Just curious.
It sounds like your VM config was presenting a COU or TPM config that the upgrade wasn't comfortable with. If your new machine presented acceptable configs to a brand new VM, then making a new VM and feeding it the old .vhdx would be the same as pulling a storage device and putting it in a new motherboard that was win 11 compliant. After a reboot to install new drivers it probably would have upgraded happily.
Hmm, the only barrier to upgrading was that the i5 processor wasn't supported, no complaints about TPM/motherboard compatibility and a fresh install worked fine on the exact same hardware. Oh well, it's done anyway.
The hypervisor doesn't necessarily present the guest the exact CPU you're running. Maybe it was presenting an older model, or something stripped down that didn't have the features win 11 was looking for. It's moot.now that you found a solution but I believe this is what happened and moving the disks to a new VM probably would have worked.
I have been very successful at ignoring Windows for quite some time.
The tech bros are turning everything to shit so you don’t notice any one thing is shit because it’s all shit now. Genius
I have tried out a bunch of Linux ones last year and I will be converting over my main PC at some point this year due to all the things they have done or want to do with Windows 11. I agree it's very hard to ignore.
Debian + KDE has been rock solid, if you dont already have a favorite distro. KDE is just what you expect in a traditional desktop, it doesnt have a bunch of ui experiments to make things "better".
The new Start menu is also a significant improvement over the old one, with more icons on show, the ability to turn off Recommended ads, [...]
Guys, we are allowed to disable the ads now. We might have been too harsh on microsoft after all.
...insanity, I tell you. Ads, in your face, right in the Start Menu, on your computer that you bought, on your OS that you bought.
Note that it doesn't disable ads. It just means the ads a user sees will be less relevant to the user based on their browsing history and consumer profiles.
Yup was gonna say the same thing.
They can be removed with third party tools but they shouldn't be there in the first place.
I already thought it was pretty bad but that is somehow even worse. Par for the course I suppose
I switched to linux and i dual boot pop os windows now. I only use windows to configure things that has no linux support. Or when a game doesn't work right after an update. Windows is truly bizzare if you haven't used it for a bit. Like every time i clicked on the windows key, or sometimes, seemingly randomly when i opened a new windows, it opened the xbox game launcher, or whatever it's called. I never installed it obviously. I couldn't really find it, because i uninstalled everything that had the name xbox in it.i "had" to watch a video on how to disable something that i didn't install and didn't want in the first place.
And everywhere you go there's prompts and alerts to upgrade your OneDrive storage or subscribe to Xbox game pass.
Don't even get me started on the experience on handhelds. Microsoft's attempts so far at the Xbox Full Screen experience convinces me they will never get it right.
They will shove ads into our faces at every possible opportunity. Ads work, they effectively brainwash you, the more you see, the better they do.
Frankly I’ve never had any issues running Windows 11. It’s just the OS in the background for me. I think the biggest difference is I always run Enterprise versions (not Pro or Home) and most of that crap is either non-existent, disabled by default or easy to disable via GPO.
The big thing for people to realize is that Enterprise is the version most all businesses (especially large ones) run, and Microsoft isn’t going to crap on them as easily. And they know by extension, people will run what their business is, but they can get away with making Pro and Home crappier since it’s just individuals who would switch, not large swaths.
Pro and Home is where they test-market the worst of the garbage... some of it does make it into Enterprise - a surprising amount has gotten into Office 365 - but, yeah, not enough to make it completely dysfunctional.
My company (130,000 employees) sticks to 24H2. IT wouldn't approve the 25H2. Don't know whether the refusal to upgrade hurts Microsoft in any way, but if it does, I think we're big enough to be on their radar, and perhaps they talk to our IT about concerns and complaints we may have.
This is the issue I have with people talking about how "you MUST always run the most up to date software". They don't understand that in large enterprise it is common for function and security to not update unless there is a damn good reason. The very idea that the newest version is the best is just marketing brainwashing and does not hold up to the reality of use.
25H2 is a feature update. 24H2, for now, gets all the same security fixes. When people say "always run the latest" they mean stay on a supported OS and always have as many security updates as possible within reason.
And they are laughably wrong. Its always the wannabe system admins with 4 end users spouting that nonsense. You get into any big organization and legacy becomes a larger and larger part of the way things are kept running. Hell just for shits and giggles look at the back end of blood banks, government, airports and non blood banks back end infrastructure. I would be shocked if anything was running on less then a decade old software. Hell people think that software hardened over years should just be tossed out the window because the company (who has now made it clear they don't even know what they are doing) released a version with a bigger number.
Just what are they teaching these days? No OS is secure, exploits and vaunrabilitys are in them all. This should not be a hot take but all I see is lazy it departments offloading responsibly left and right. The correct way to handle this has always been from a risk management approach. You need to assume your not ever secure, make backups, develop a plan to recover after an event and if you have sensitive data handle it like it was sensitive. Now a days we have usernames and passwords stored in the same databases, plain text critical data, lack of redundancy at all levels and a slick sales package to justify it all.
I worked in hospital payments, they used gcc 4.4 in 2023 (but renamed 4.8 for some reason), no TLS, code is 30+ years old. Only impacts a bunch of millions of people.
But having access to the server? No no IT cannot let you have that :-D
Fascinating and a bit of scary.
Eh, its only scary if you don't see how bad a new roll out normally goes. Software is a tool, and people should remember that.
But yes hospitals are the worst for legacy systems (even outside of the us). I still remember having to relearn how to fix dot matrix printers because the hospital still was using them and had them under contract in 2015.
You get into any big organization and legacy becomes a larger and larger part of the way things are kept running. Hell just for shits and giggles look at the back end of blood banks, government, airports and non blood banks back end infrastructure. I would be shocked if anything was running on less then a decade old software.
Maybe on the backend or specialized single purpose appliances. Running decade old OS's on workstations is negligence boardering on malpractice.
Ha, Welp. I don't think you want to look then.
I literally work for a government agency lol what you're saying is nonsense. If they worked the way you're describing the compliance guys heads would explode and federal agencies would be brought in to oversee upgrades for the next decade
So Microsoft is so diversified, 130K isn’t even a drop to them. We had almost 200K seats of E3 and when I calculated out the revenue from our EA vs their total revenue, it came up to something like 0.012%. Even though it was tens of millions of dollars on our end, we’re still a drop in the bucket to them.
I had a few issues with 25H2 on release, but they're largely fixed now.
24H2 and 25H2 are the same thing, it's just enabling a few different changes. But things like the new obnoxiously ugly start menu have started showing on my 24H2 machines so I don't really know what the difference is.
Lol its amazing how Noone in the real world knows that microsoft makes OS's without all the enshitification shit in them that run decent, dont block features from being disabled, are all around non-infuriating piles of shit like the non-enterprise versions, charge an arm and a leg for it. Then microsoft (or at the same time didnt mean one before the other) releases the functionally identical OS versions but so facefucked full of enshitification shit they constantly break, these versions hold you down with an update pistol in your mouth that tells you inorder to live you will update every fucking shitstorm we tell you to, it rapes yo wife, rapes yo kids, ignores all bugs calling them features, all the while having a bomb strapped to their chest that says you dont accept everything we ruin of yours we blow your whole fucking system sky high. And those versions they call Home and Pro versions.
How do you get this? My company has the Enterprise version, but when they forced me to switch to a new Windows 11 laptop (same model and specs as my old one which couldn't be upgraded to Windows 11 for some reason), it came with all the crap in the article. Ads in the start menu and everything.
Thank you! Lemmy is a bunch of people bitching about their brand name laptop running a garbage version of Windows and loaded with factory crapware.
But hey, they get to come here and comment smugly about Linux. Meanwhile, I haven't read a single article talking about an issue I've actually seen, at home or office.
Which is, by the way, totally ok. If you buy an expensive computer and it is getting shipped with a garbage version of an OS that is something to complain about. It's also totally reasonable to complain that there is a garbage version at all. People shouldn't need to reinstall their brand new computers with pirated enterprise versions to escape the abuses of Microsoft. At least let us bitch about this here, dude!
Pirated? You may not be aware, but you can download Windows ISOs straight from Microsoft. The second you boot your machine and register it, the license is permanent and you can install Windows forever.
You have a license for some crappy Win11 home version. You can't use it for the Enterprise versions, even if Microsoft is providing you with the ISO.
If retail laptops came with enterprise or the upgrade to enterprise was free or the home and pro versions had the same minimal crapware as enterprise then you might have a point.
But that isn't the case and Linux is still free and not full of shit so the smugness is mostly justified and you're mostly wrong.
-
Register your new laptop.
-
Wipe and reinstall an official ISO from Windows without the crapware.
-
Best served tweaked with some PowerShell scripting.
or
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Download your Linux ISO and install
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Best served tweaked with CLI work to get everything working. If the drivers are even available.
I was criticizing MS before most of lemmy was fucking born. But can you see what I'm saying?
"Never had these issues, not once."
Lemmy: "Fuck you! Yes you have! You're not in our tribe!" (Also lemmy: Only idiot conservatives defend their tribe no matter what.)
Can you see how insane that is from my perspective? Installed Windows 10 on this SSD 8-years ago. Moved that SSD through 3 or 4 PCs and upgraded to 11, no problems.
Then there was a very similar thread about people trying to switch to Linux:
"As soon as I get $basic_driver working, I can finally switch!"
Been running Linux servers for 20-years. I never use MS unless there's a compelling reason, IIS or some bullshit. But the Linux desktop is still a clusterfuck.
"It's awesome if you use $distro with $desktop! You'll have problems with $x, $y and $z, but you can fix that by [command line work]."
"OK. I can make Windows go with a base ISO and some PowerShell. No ads, no horseshit, start menu is flawless."
"Look at this idiot that has to use a CLI to make his OS work!"
These people are like atheists that just learned you don't have to believe in god.
I used windows since 3.1 up till 11. It’s dogshit after windows 7 even when I use cmd scripts to limit telemetry and customize it because MS with their infinite wisdom decided to revert my customizations to their default dogshit.
Linux is not perfect at all but Id rather dealing with linux issues over greedy executive decisions to cause issues intentionally.
It’s dogshit after windows 7
Lol
Not only were there several dogshit windows versions before 7, 8 was an upgrade in almost every way other than "omg start menu big now" culture shock. The new task manager alone was worth having a slightly bigger start menu.
I still use ME. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
You poor thing
Ha! It's 2026 now. Those problems can easily be ignored as they are all in the past.
I love the smell of pedantry in the morning
Windows 10 was the last Windows I'll use. Windows 7 was the last one I was happy with. Windows 98SE and XP, we had great times, didn't we? Miss you guys.
98 was not a great time. Illegal operations and blue screens as far as the eye could see. About the only good things were better networking and USB support.
SE wasn't as bad at least.
illegal operation
Lol damn, haven't seen that one in a while. Always used to make me chuckle
I miss the days of windows xp, that was middle school to early high school for me. It was around that time when I switched to mac.
Still have random memories of random windows stuff.
Fun fact: 7 was the last version MS produced under the injunction from the late 90s that prevented them from bundling required services with the OS. They actually had MS accounts (then called .NET Passports) ready to track activation and for login on XP but had to make them optional.
Consumers are what, less than 10% of MS's revenue? Most of their income is from cloud (Azure, O365) so they can afford to treat their consumer customers like trash. They don't give a shit about your 50-150 bucks for a win license because it's peanuts to them.
The only viable option for consumers is to massively ditch MS products altogether and migrate to alternatives, which used to be in short supply but luckily aren't anymore.
It's probably less for OEMs, right? Most people don't install their own OS, much less pay full price for a license.
And yeah, consumer Windows could disappear and MS wouldn't care, as long as office computers are still stuck with it. Which they are.
One of the best feelings for me ever was when I cancelled my Micro$oft account after switching to Mint.
The freshness is real.
I resisted getting 10, and finally acquiesced. When 11 was announced, I watched apprehensively from the side-lines, and finally decided it was time to dump Windows if I could. Fortunately, Linux is here, it's great, and it just works, now.
An OS should do its job and disappear behind the programs (I'm purposely resisting saying "app" in favor of the old-school "program", too). Linux does that, like Windows used to.
I do admit that I run Win10 IOT in VirtualBox for a few small programs that won't run under Wine. Once a week, for a few minutes. I'm sorry. I don't wear the shirt, because I feel like a fraud. Please forgive me.
You tried the usual tools, found they were insufficient, and subsequently made a workaround for your needs. That last bit alone is more enough. Most people stop at "It didn't work" and give up saying computers are too hard.
I always say, if your problem looks like a nail and can be held like one, don't force yourself to use a frozen chicken breast. Grab the hammer.
I do admit that I run Win10 IOT in VirtualBox for a few small programs that won't run under Wine. Once a week, for a few minutes. I'm sorry. I don't wear the shirt, because I feel like a fraud. Please forgive me.
Dude, virtualize all the things! In open source land, you run whatever code you want to because you can, and you don't feel embarrassed about it.
First of all, don't feel bad about it. That said if you want to improve yourself in the virtualization department and get rid of Oracle's VirtualBox, I recommend having a look at virt-manager with KVM/Qemu as a VM host. It's a bit more of initial setup but once this is done it works pretty much the same way as VirtualBox.
An application is for end user, a program is a set of instructions. All apps are programs but not all programs are apps ;)
I do admit that I run Win10 IOT in VirtualBox for a few small programs that won’t run under Wine.
I work in an ad agency and I have to use it, too, sometimes. Mainly for Adobe XD and Illustrator. I export their shitty proprietary formats to PDF and SVG, shut down the VM and continue working with native Linux tools.
I like how taskbar buttons dynamically resize depending on window title. I like that the size of the buttons on the taskbar are all different, and I like not having a way to change this back to the boring obvious tried-and-true standard of having buttons that are all the same size.
I like that the rules appear to not make any fucking sense, leading to situations where you can have 3 entries for the same program with the same content open that are all different sizes.
I like it because it takes me out of whatever I'm doing and forces me to notice the user interface. I like getting distracted by little hints of movement at the bottom of the screen that make me stop and go "wait what the fuck did it just do".
I like that when I last searched for "windows 11 taskbar button resize disable", the only mention of the word "disable" on the first page of search results was this:
I like having to put "site:reddit.com" at the end of my search query before I can even begin to scratch the surface of the issue.
And I like having to ultimately give up and live with it because at the end of the day, it's a feature and not a bug.
I like having to put “site:reddit.com” at the end of my search query before I can even begin to scratch the surface of the issue.
kagi.com solved this problem for me.
Why in the world do you have titles of the taskbar?!
Ungrouped buttons with titles is very efficient for me, too. I grew up with Windows 95 (that was the default behaviour back then) and my brain can handle this really well. I despise grouped buttons I have to hover over to see the actual windows and the icons only mode makes the clickable area too small and annoying to navigate to.
I grew up with that too, but the only time I've had any sort of slowdown from grouped icons is when I've been juggling like 4 excel sheets. I don't often find myself with that many instances of the same program open often enough for it to matter.
It was an adjustment at first back in... Windows 7 I think, but I really haven't missed it since.
Yeah it took me a bit after 7 came out. But having all my excel windows in one group is way more efficent than two excel windows over here, one in the middle, and a 4th way off at the end of all my windows.
Visibility and accessibility of windows, without the need to expand a group or neutral icon.
Coz there are multiple windows and I don't want to click and hunt for the one I want
Why wouldn't you? It's faster and more efficient.
You can't tell what the icon does?
If I've got three+ browser instances open the distinction is incredibly useful.
I am really wondering this too. Seems like people just love making the user experience harder for themselves because "that's what I grew up with".
Zac Bowden used to post a video for every single new insider build of Windows to cover any change he could, he's bought the original Surface table from 2007, he's been covering and championing all things Windows for at least a decade. To get someone like him off side, you really gotta be fucking the dog.
Yep.
I started using windows as a kid (Win 3.1). Was more or less happy to be a windows user through all of the various versions, although 95, XP and 7 were the most usable.
For the first time in about 35 years, I'm genuinely unhappy with Windows and am looking at other options.
They've really dropped the ball if users like me are unhappy.
Come to CachyOS!
It's like everything I've ever wanted from an OS served on a silver platter.
Look, I've used Cachy. It's great, pretty polished, looks nice.
But do not recommend an arch distro like that until you know person is more tech inclined.
Because a lot of Windows users are not, and they're not going to want to open the terminal.
Cachy is best for those who like to more effortlessly tinker with their system, like messing around with Polkit so KDE doesn't ask for a password every second.
Don't forget, it's not about what we've always wanted from an OS, but what the other person might want from an OS. When unknown, pick the simpler solutions, like Bazzite, Debian, or Mint.
That's how I've gotten 8 people converted to Linux from Windows this year.
I’m starting to think Microsoft gives windows a new version number every time they want to make a bunch of big breaking changes, just so the bad reputation can die when they rebrand it as Windows 12 (or whatever stupid naming scheme their marketing team comes with next.)
I wouldn't be surprised if they just started calling it Copilot at some point. I could see them renaming their "agents" after big feature updates, much like we do with hurricanes which would be fitting given their history of breaking things with each KB.
I've been a Windows user my whole life. I support 5000+ Windows devices along with the whole Microsoft enterprise suite. It's been bad with them, but there have usually been patches at some point or at least community discovered workarounds. However, Microsoft's reckless abandon into AI legitimately worries me.
I'm finally making the switch to Linux for personal devices.
Nobody does remember 9 since they went from 8.1 (which is different from 8) to 10.
How people can give money to a software maker that has shown they can not count to 10 always blows me away.
Lots of international manufacturers skip model numbers 4 and 9 because of Asian superstitions. Silly, yes, but they affect sales and even birth rates.
At least in Japanese, 4 sounds like "death" and 9 sounds like "suffering".
Also because many software did version checks by doing a substring search "Windows 9".
Yes and I also lose some confidence when ever I see a series of things numbered in a rational way and then skips numbers. Asian or not I don't want to support a company that can not count. And its not like it is super common, Sony is a Japanese company yet the Playstation 4 existed for example.
And its not just international things ether, I don't like when buildings skip floors. Let me live on the 13th floor, it is a number between 12 and 14 and I have a better opinion of the builder that can count more then I would have issues with superstition.
If you think about it, the PS4 had titles like Killzone, Final Fantasy, Destiny, Diablo 3, Mortal Kombat, Assassin's Creed, Battlefield 4...
I mean, adding death to that doesn't seem too risky.
/s
Valve can't even count to 3 and it makes plenty of money.
Look, they can count to two and that is good enough for software. But if portal 4 comes out next I am going to lose it.
Microsoft deserves all the crap they've ordered, but skipping 9 on versioning was pretty smart move on their part. There's still a ton of older software which just checks if windows version matches 'windows 9' to include both 95 and 98 (and all their variants). If 8.1 was released as 9 it would've broken a lot of compatibility which at least then was a big deal for Windows. And it still is, but now it seems that they'll happily break everything from their most known product.
Not even the issues with software just checking for ‘windows 9’. But, people are…umm…not smart. And there would a whole bunch of people thinking windows 95 or 98 was the same thing as windows 9. Windows 8.1 was 9. MS just didn’t call it 9 to avoid pebkac issues. With that said, fuck MS.
Su that's why they never released 9 - it was too perfect and they wouldn't make money in the future
The real issue is that they pulled Windows 10. When Vista was shit, you could use XP until 7 was released, when 8 was shit, you could use 7 until 10 was released. Now 11 is the only supported version and you have no choice if you're for some reason stuck with Windows.
I am writing this from Windows 11. I still haven't solved my wacom tablet issues on Linux. I still have a drive with Nobara 42, but I can't use it. When I have some free time, I will get to the bottom of it, and perhaps (finally) ditch the Windows. Addendum : right now I depend on Windows+Wacom to keep functioning correctly to be able to work.
For me it is the displaylink dock driver which consume all the CPU in Ubuntu and Fedora. When that will get sorted out, but I doubt it will happen anytime soon, I will finally ditch Windows.
I'm not sure what this is. DDG shows me things that look like port hubs ? but for displays ? I haven't kept up with the times
Okay PCWorld helped me somewhat. https://www.pcworld.com/article/801587/best-displaylink-docks.html
I'm not sure what this brings compared to connecting your monitor directly to your laptop ?
It's a USB connected video adapter. Not USB C DP alt mode. USB USB.
At the best of times it's solidly OK. At the worst of times it's absolutely horrendous.
If you mainly do work tasks it is perfectly ok. My main monitor is a 4k 60Hz, the second is a 2k 144hz. Both runs very fluid with almost no hiccups. My few colleagues adopted the same layout and are happy with it.
It is not ok for gaming though, especially FPS or other games with fast changing scenes.
I have 2 computers connected to an USB switch (not a port replicator but one that let switch the host of your USB switch) and the dock attached to this USB switch. This allows me to quickly switch all of my desk devices (multiple monitors, webcam, microphone, gigabit network, etc...) with one click. Also both computer just require 2 cables for everything: USB and power cord. It took some time to put it all together but it is now my definitive battle station.
Unfortunately the dock does not work well with Linux and I am not able to find a non displaylink dock that enables me to achieve all of this. It is just a driver problem, but still...
If your laptop doesn't have enough ports built in.
i'm using KDA plasma six with fedora. My wacom intous works great. I can't remember if I installed a driver or just used what was in the OS but either way it was pretty simple.
I have had feedback from another person on another forum saying they don't have any issues either. Do you mind sharing your tablet model name, and any details you think might be relevant to this ? for instance mine is PTH-660, the one from 2024 that does touch as well (although I generally keep it off). Perhaps the distro details are important too, but tbf I've had the exact same issues with every distro I've tried : CachyOS, Nobara 42, Debian Trixie... it's also only with Wayland, X11 works fine (but has other limitations regarding multimonitor that are problematic).
Yeah, wacom intous pro PTH – 660. I know it was purchased before the pandemic. I don't remember the exact year. I'm using Wayland but without multiple monitors.
Did you try getting a driver from wacom?
No, I thought the entire driver was kernel level already with no need for tinkering. I will look this up, thanks for the suggestion
Turns out, there were a lot of users, primarily gamers, who were considering giving Linux a chance. Microsoft gave them the push they needed.
Steam should get some credit for working on improving its proton integration.
Valve certainly put in the lion's share of effort in making Linux a hospitable environment for gamers. Without their hard work, the rise in popularity of Linux simply wouldn't be possible, and I had no intention of belittling that.
Valve made sure there were life rafts. Microsoft provided the iceberg.
Time for Nadella to take responsibility for these fuck ups and resign already.
CEOs taking responsibility for their actions? In the Usa?!?!
I know that linux is the popular answer to this problem.
I use a Mac and it's a pretty good machine. I know it isn't for everyone, but it works well enough for me and has enough mainstream support. As well the hardware has gotten ' good enough'
MacOS is not hostile to me when I want to run and install programs. There is some opensource support on the platform and the a good amount of closed source programs.
I do miss the wide ranging PnP hardware support for things like SAS/LTO
Mac hardware is great. But they overcharge so much and are so anti right to repair that I could never give them my money
Yeah the closed ecosystem is just cutting off your nose to game on your face
I have a 2012 MacBook Pro that runs exactly as it did when I bought it. It’s fast enough (i7), has retina resolution and can triple boot. I feel like I may have gotten my money’s worth over the 14 years it’s been running perfectly. The hardware is also still basically pristine.
Great for you. The motherboard on my 2011 MBP died after 5 years and then again after 5 years after the replacing it the first time. Decided to junk it then cause even if I placed the mobo, couldn't install the latest OS or the latest software.
2012 was when you could still easily upgrade your own ram, drive, fix your screen etc. if needed, modern MacBooks are not made like that. Also a 2012 i7 would not be fast enough for most people's modern workloads. But like I said, they hardware is good, if it does break though, you are kinda fucked on mac
I think it's not hard to understand how MacOS is easily better than Windows. I don't think Apple is enshittifying quite as fast as Microsoft, if at all.
Ever update an app and then be told that you need to update MacOS cause the new version need the latest MacOS? So you try to update MacOS but can't cause your MBP can't run the latest version. That's okay, let's go back to the older version of the app. Oh wait, now you can't cause that version is no longer in the Apple Store. So you can't update the app, can't update MacOS and you can't reinstall the older app version, which you may have paid for.
Apple's enshittification was baked-in and normalised a long time ago. The rate it gets worse is slower compared to Win 11 in 2025 but the MacOS level of enshittification is already pretty fucking high.
Apple supports its devices for a lot longer than most OEMs after release (minimum 5 years since being available for sale from Apple, which might be 2 years of sales), but the impact of dropped support is much more pronounced, as you note. Apple usually announces obsolescence 2 years after support ends, too, and stop selling parts and repair manuals, except a few batteries supported to the 10 year mark. On the software/OS side, that usually means OS upgrades for 5-7 years, then 2 more years of security updates, for a total of 7-9 years of keeping a device reasonably up to date.
So if you're holding onto a 5-year-old laptop, Apple support tends to be much better than a 5-year-old laptop from a Windows OEM (especially with Windows 11 upgrade requirements failing to support some devices that were on sale at the time of Windows 11's release).
But if you've got a 10-year-old Apple laptop, it's harder to use normally than a 10-year-old Windows laptop.
Also, don't use the Apple store for software on your laptop. Use a reasonable package manager like homebrew that doesn't have the problems you describe. Or go find a mirror that hosts old MacOS packages and install it yourself.
if you've got a 10-year-old Apple laptop, it's harder to use normally than a 10-year-old Windows laptop.
Also, don't use the Apple store for software on your laptop. Use a reasonable package manager like homebrew that doesn't have the problems you describe. Or go find a mirror that hosts old MacOS packages and install it yourself.
Agree with both and able to do so cause I'm an IT professional and wo ked on all 4 major OSes in my past.
However, having to use an external package manager undercuts the advertising that they're just plug and play.
80% of the utterly ass things that Apple pushes on people are on iPhone. iOS is a purely consumer product, while macOS has a decent chunk of the prosumer market which has a lower tolerance for enshittification.
I liked macOS but the Tahoe update with its new "liquid ass" interface is hideous.
Nobody anymore, but even as of a few short years ago the Windows fanboys would crusade and do battle specifically against the Mac fanboys, for some reason.
I'm not exactly a fan of Apple, but I'm not going to go around automatically championing Microsoft because of it...
Nobody ever cheered for Windows. I was there at the Windows 95 launch and everybody hated it and its problems were "impossible to ignore" and it was an embarrassing failure in tech circles and the BSOD was a meme.
Remind me again how that went.
I still complain about the lack of the headphone jack (and SD slot). It's just become almost impossible to buy one that supports it without it being lacking in some other way. But I held out for ten years at least.
I get you're making a broader point about how most people act and I agree.
I still gripe about phones without removable batteries. They design the lifetime of the phone to be limited to its shortest-lived component. And I'm convinced that they design charging ports to break.
User Shalafi just in this thread. Strange but true.
I'm convinced Windows is only still used because of the elderly and the technologically incompetent.
As a software engineer, I am forced to use Windows 11 on my provided laptop, but literally all of my work is done on my Linux VM. I don't understand why tech companies don't fully transition to Linux for development in cases like mine, but then I remember the 800 year old managers and directors we have who barely know how to use a stapler, let alone a computer.
Lol, this is why we don't tend to give software engineers local admin, and why most places hire separate UX designers.
Some of the issues described in the article must be driving corporate IT departments insane. They thrive on consistent installations across machines. Having each one offering different features (even temporarily) is the opposite of that.
Just imagine how many tutorials, documentations, videos and so on Microsoft has made obsolete by just moving the start menu from the lower left side to the middle. And yes, you totally can't expect users to find the new position on their own, some people are interesting
Any IT department worth their salt will have solved this problem years ago. It's hard to explain if you've never managed Windows in an enterprise setting but there's a reason that profit-hungry corporations all use Windows. Here's the full process for getting any Windows laptop to work perfectly:
- unbox the laptop and turn it on
- insert the USB key with the provisioning package
- wait about two seconds for Windows to tell you to remove the USB key.
- go to lunch
If they have a channel supplier that offers 'white glove' service they don't even need to do that and they can even have brand new laptops drop-shipped to a user at home without ever needing to touch it. And if that laptop fucks up down the line it can just be wiped and as soon as Windows connects to the Internet it can automatically re-enrol itself into the organisation's management system.
With PXE boot you don't even need a USB. Boot into the imaging "OS" over the network.
My workplace has a couple of dedicated network switches on a dedicated "imaging" VLAN in the hardware room, that way normal users can't accidentally reimage their own machine. I think the desktop guys can get 32 going at once, and the complete automated setup time for one is like 40 minutes.
I'm currently losing the fight with my second level (whom supplies our PXE server) about keeping it. They tried setting it up twice since September, the first worked the first time I used it, then never again after that. The second never worked as far as I can tell. They say that it's "being depreciated", and therefore should be dropped.
The group policy management has a lot of options. You can control automatic and manual behavior, or do the whole update delivery yourself. Of course, that all comes with effort and investment into administration and management.
Two possible ways to fix them permanently: Linux or Mac.
7 was good. 10 was ok-ish.
11 and its forced online-account? No, thanks.
It's 10 LTSC for now. Laptop runs KDE just fine, it's the lesser pain right now.
I run 11 LTSC on a local account with tweaks from privacy.sexy. Zero issues.
Ultimately not worth the hassle of an upgrade until it's required for an important app, though. I only did it because I had a congested 10 install and wanted to wipe anyway.
And looking like they are impossible to solve. It seems that the OS is more and more a black box of vibe coding and marketing wank as time passes.
Windows recently "hung up" when opening "network and internet settings", just a blank square.
Also, blank square when opening "file explorer".
Both are working now; my point is I couldn't accomplish basic tasks in the usual way, fundamentally basic settings. First time this has happened to me. I am old and have been using Windows since there were screensavers. That you would buy. For money. On a floppy disk.
Luckily i keep not running into the issues, Its mostly the unwanted windows features that seem to irritate me (f off onedrive and copilot) I keep trying to swap but I found what im good at finally and it is bricking linux installs.
Can this swap be done live, or does it need to be on a fresh install??
I have Jellyfin/arr stack/Immich PC on win 11 and I freaking hate it, but dread swapping everything over to Linux
I do believe it requires a fresh install, similar to switching from Windows pro to home versions for example.
Keep making note of it and keep forgetting til I have everything setup just right again. Thanks!
I keep trying to swap but I found what im good at finally and it is bricking linux installs.
If you haven't already, try an atomic distro and see if that works better for you. I had the same problem and never could stay on Linux longer than 3-6 months before something broke (fucking Nvidia) and I went back. I've been running Bazzite (gaming spin of fedora blue) that comes with graphics and steam baked in, which solves 80% of the deal breakers I run into. Been solid for about a year now, and works great for me.
Bazzite has actually lasted the longest so far for me. Gonna leave the other desktop alone though, wife is the main user on it so im not forcing her on it.
Yeah, I've had very few issues with stability or performance (I do have a well-specced system).
I just have issues with the constant bloat.
I had Windows 11 on my Asus ROG Ally that I was too lazy to remove. Bitlocker locked the system randomly and would not accept the recovery key from my Microsoft Account.
I installed Bazzite the next day.
I am not Linux savvy at all but I was ready to switch for me gaming pc.
Well I actually did for a month with nobara, which was great. What shocked me was it seemed much more modern than windows ! It took me some time to get how things worked and I could do everything I wanted with no command line. I still think it can be hard to get started at first to install some windows games/programs not on steam(everything is fantastic on that part), it could use a tutorial for newcomers... But overall, fantastic experience.
Until I tried to use my thrustmaster wheel and I had problems (and I am not the only one it seems). Apart from that (didn't try to use my flight stick or VR headset yet but maybe it could have been problematic too) it was absolutely great. I went back to win11 for now but with a very barebone ltsc version (no win store, no game bar, no ai, and no online account). It's far from perfect and I'd rather be on Linux as I think it will be better in the long term.
Lol
Lmao even
Windows is getting so bad, people are finally looking more to Linux
By using LTSC most issues on Windows are fixed.
Don't even need to go that far. Pro and using Group Policy covers most of it. A registry entry here, a powershell command for uninstalling some bloat there... LTSC just saves uninstalling some of the bloat still on Pro.
Why are the windows updates always so massive and resource intensive
AI.
Win12 will be decent again
Windows 12 may stabilize a lot of the functional problems occurring in 11, but it will also have all of the new AI-powered end-user surveillance features they're currently trying to implement fully integrated.
Curious what was wrong with 95. Did you like 98 better?
It's unusable and they vibe coded the entire thing.
We had to switch back to windows 10 at work due to the issues we had with 11. Now my computer is permanently broken with many default applications that simply do not work and my IT department can't figure it out.
Wow, this is astounding. I don't love windows, but last time I used it it was at least reliable enough that you could work on it with little problems. If they lose that, then there's little more value that windows still brings to the table, except software which is only developed for windows.
Oh no. They’ll still ignore it. They don’t care.
I'm not here to say get windows 11 but I did a fresh install several months ago when I got my 4090 off Facebook marketplace and I haven't had a problem yet. I just use it for gaming and don't really update my Nvidia drivers unless the hivemind says to. Idk that's my experience I guess.
Heretic!
Agreed. I really enjoy Windows 11's HDR implementation. Never has it been more simple to get HDR working properly.
The update and driver problem is just one side of the multifacetted windows 11 problems though. The ads, spyware and AI (which is definitely going to get more invasive when they stop supporting windows 10 and they know they have a captive audience) is another great reason to abandon that OS.
Yeah I definitely want to abandon it at this point just waiting a bit longer I guess
If Windows crosses a the threshold of “major OEMs start shipping Linux,” what happens to windowscentral?
Do they split the staff/site to a linuxcentral? Winecentral?
If Windows crosses a the threshold of “major OEMs start shipping Linux,”
Does Valve count?
I ignore them from Linux land. :)
I don't know if it's funny or frustrating that everything people are complaining about with Windows 11 are the exact same things we were complaining about with every previous version of Windows from 95 to 10: lack of control, limited configuration and bugs. Yes, Linux was super raw and difficult back then but we still switched and worked hard to make it better. I think all the articles encouraging people to switch today are missing simple "Thank you".
The difference is more dramatic now. Linux isn’t so finicky, largely thanks to hard work but also to Windows’ feature stagnation, meaning Linux isn’t a “few years behind” like before. Imagine the situation if, say, Microsoft hadn’t completely screwed up UWP.
Meanwhile, users subconsciously ignored a lot of junk with 95, Vista, 8, whatever. But that’s much harder to ignore in 11.
Linux is so much better now! My only gripe is inconsistent/buggy dock support, but resetting Cinnamon every 15-20 minutes is a small price to pay for freedom.
Yeah, see, that’s an “old Windows” kind of problem! “Oh, the printer works fine as long as I don’t leave it plugged in too long.” Users learn to deal with that.
Outlook + the start menu changing overnight, and ceasing to work, and the younger tech scratching their head because they haven’t gotten the update? Or a “wait, it’s screenshotting my stuff?” That’s different. It’s completely out of the user’s control.
It's more dramatic now because a lot of people switched when it was less dramatic. People switched more on a principle than out of need because they understood what Microsoft represented and didn't want to support it in any way. They switched because they knew they don't control the direction Windows is going and this exact scenario can happen. Without those people Linux would still be a niche OS and Mac would be the only real alternative. People talk about it like Linux just magically got better on its own, like it was some natural evolution that happened in a vacuum while everyone was using Windows out of convenience. It didn't, we worked hard for it over the years. So yeah, a "thank you" would be nice.
It didn’t, we worked hard for it over the years. So yeah, a “thank you” would be nice.
None is forthcoming. Just more whining that fortnite won't run because it requires a rootkit.
But the comparison is different now, Linux on the desktop is better and Windows is worse.
For example, if you turn off a bunch of telemetry options instead of stopping sending data it stops collecting it. That sounds subtle but it matters. It breaks functionality that has existed for >20 years, simple things like remembering what the last command was in the run dialogue when you open it.
Uh, window was always worse. Well since at least windows XP. Linux desktop has been better for a very long time.
I think for most of us that use and understand Linux, it has been better for a while.
It hasn’t been very long since Linux has been better for your average, non techy users.
Windows XP added so many anti consumer features, along with horrible security, that it really was that bad.
While linux desktop environments added so many usable features that Windows didnt have.... I would say that windows people simply didnt know.
Been pretty happy with Linux for the past year or two.
A few minor problems here and there. I was struggling to figure out how to adjust the screen brightness (pop!_os defaults). Found a command line tool to adjust gamma - my girlfriend was a little baffled. Then I realized I should just adjust the brightness on the display itself, on the hardware.
I've been reading about the problems that Windows 11 has had for years, from the safety of being on Linux for good after Recall was announced (and floundered like a fish out of water). I missed how just about any Linux Distro got out of my way and let me work in general peace. It let me know when updates were needed and waited until I decided to install them. Occasional donation asks (probably once or twice a year) to KDE, which I do not mind because they are open source and awesome, I donate due to their work in the Linux space! Sure, I've had occasional problems, but, there's been a solution for every issue I faced!
Windows 11 problems are directly caused by Microsoft insane desire to push AI into everything ( insane because it's dangerous and has no safety rails). Until Microsoft shift their OS and mentality in the right direction, those fundamental issues will never be solved (not that I would ever willingly use anything Microsoft made again after this fiasco).
I switched to Manjaro and it's like nothing has changed for the work I do now.
At work we use windows and I don't imagine that will ever go away. I don't know enough about this stuff anyway, but I think there is to much work and risk involved to change.
The biggest problem is training all the employees to use the new system. Even if they're still using the same programs, 80% will complain just because the Start Menu logo is different and the other 20% will complain about something only slightly less irrelevant. Then there's the IT department having to change their workflows (their complaints are actually valid). Then there's the downtime during the transition and the sunken costs of whatever support packages the company had hired previously... Yeah, transitioning a company to a new OS is hard.
I work a a software company that mainly develops one online software and people are used to work with computers. But even here I feel like there is some strange invisible barrier.
IT was trained to work on windows. What we do - everything works. The cost is there, calculated, it's actually pretty small compared to everything else.
Changing is just unimaginable for a company like that - to take this risk, and for so little upside.
At a user level, almost no one would have an issue. But at the process level, damn.
Especially if you're an Active Directory shop. Switching out that infrastructure is a heavy lift.
Meh, Windows server is still pretty stable. At least up through 2022, I think 2025 is the Windows 11-based version. I haven't really used it, but I know it brings the Windows 11 with it.
We still use AD at work as an auth backend to our Linux and other SSO systems. Our CAs are Windows too, I think.
Proper accounting would consider the costs of retraining against the existing vendor. After all, that's vendor lock-in, which your vendor will use to raise prices...
Windows is transitioning from being software you run to being an experience that Microsoft provides to you. The pattern of pushing new features to users unpredictably and without the option to refuse is clearly inappropriate in the first model but natural in the second. As a power user I strongly prefer the first model, but I recognize that most people these days might be ok with having their computer work like a website they access or an app they run on their phone - something they have no control over the state of.
🤦🏻♂️
I've been doing it since about 2009
Give us back 7, with the 8.1 back end!
Is there real time support communities around wine? I have some software that doesn't work. (X-tool Studio, not yet in WineHQ).
It looks like winehq has a few IRC channels. Never tried any of them myself though: https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/IRC
Wine is honestly shit for most things outside of gaming. It looks like it works in Wine though.
https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=21353
Unfortunately that is the previous iteration of the Xtool software
Oh sorry. Have you tried running the new version in Wine?
Yeah and I get an error, but not sure what it means. I went into #winehq on libera but so far no notifications
What does the error say?
UPDATE: I installed the "development" version from wineHQ, and now it works. https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/Download
If I double click on the icon, I get this error: https://bpa.st44nq/
(Starts with A Javascript error occurred in the main process)
If I try running it in terminal, I get the following errors before I ctrl-c: https://bpa.st/VMXQ
(Starts with 0128:err:winediag:ntlm_check_version ntlm_auth was not found.)