Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining
Statcounter reports that Windows 11 continues to lose its market share for the second month in a row. Windows 10, meanwhile, is gaining more users and is now back above the 70% mark.
https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-10-reaches-70-market-share-as-windows-11-keeps-declining/Open linkView original on lemmy.ca1110
Comments404
Execs: what can we do?!
Jim from marketing: We could throw ads into windows 11... That'll get em flocking! People love ads!
More AI in the start menu!
Execs: Holy shit. Give him a raise.
Lay off everyone else while you're at it.
Hang on a sec, this isn’t Google!
Speaking of, let's see if we can get that Prabhakar Raghavan guy, he seems to know what he's doing.
Ads will continue till the users fall in love with ads
With that attitude, you'll never work in marketing...
REPLACING the start menu with AI is the way to go!!!!111
In my company they legitimately try to convince us that our users love ads.
I conducted user research on one of our websites, which showed complaints about the amount of ad placements we have been throwing at them. The execs responded by telling me "but we are actually HELPING them, we're showing them products that will improve their productivity and processes". Then, they came up with ideas for new ways we can place MORE ads on top of the ones already there. I'm sure our users are loving it!
Where is the research part of "marketing research"? lol
Good god that's actually insane. Corpos have completely lost it.
It’s more like the execs know that ad revenue is a significant chunk of the revenue stream and cost very little to implement so they’ll keep growing that until it starts measurably impacting other revenue centers in the org
On a related note, YouTube just gave me a pop-up advertising premium again, only this time the cancel button was "No, I like ads."
I was gonna sit back and watch an hour of YT (with ads) but that pop-up rubbed me the wrong way and I didn't watch anything so that I might skew the A/B test in favor of no dark patterns.
That’s it, they need to roll out ads in BIOS
Want to change your boot order?
You'll need to watch a 30 second ad, or subscribe for ad free BIOS for just 1.99/month
Sponsored product recommendations cannot be loaded without an internet connection. Please configure a wireless/ethernet adapter and connect to the internet to continue.
Nah you'll have to download a half-english app, sign up on a website you haven't heard before, request BIOS access code, wait up to a month and then you can do that
If they are gonna put advertisements in the bios then ill flash my pc with libreboot
BaaS??! Oh FFS. It's too real.
Thankfully no results from any actual BaaS companies yet
Key word: yet 😅
Don't give them any ideas. They are watching the forums 😂
The funny part is that windows will change your boot order back without your consent.
Would technically be doable in UEFI.... But I'm not mad enough to bring this shit to the world
Anyone who does should be trialed for crimes against humanity.
Creating an image of this and posting it on Lemmy = guaranteed XYZ upvotes.
Who wants to do it?q
Just comment or comment with post?
Aren't there already? With vendor splash screens and all the graphics in the BIOS settings menus? Why don't I get paid every time Asrock gets to display their logo on my monitor at boot?
don't give them ideas, lol
Considering they allow to install application on the bios command (Armory Crate, that kind of shit), consider it already done.
Call down Satan.
*edit: Calm. but you know what? Call the man in red. He prolly should be taking notes.
Sounds like what happened when Windows 8 came out. Oops I meant Windows Vista. My bad, I'm thinking of Windows Me. Sorry, I might have it confused with NT 3. Everyone loved Windows 2.0 right?
Every other version of Windows. It's practically a law of nature at this point.
Exception: 95 and 98
98 Second Edition was 'da bomb at the time :) Much more stable than Win95, and not yet phoning home like XP. I get nostalgic seeing the splash screen.
After that, I switched to Win2K, as the last windows that did not phone home - and then straight to Linux, a decision I have never regretted and will never regret.
I agree, but we can't leave out Windows 7
Seems like they're on track to break the streak with Windows 12.
XP was terrible until sp2 and in fact so insecure that people all over the world got infected by all kinds of shit.
People forgot or are too young to remember, but XP needed several "service packs" before it was good.
I'm one of the weirdos that like ME... sure, I reformatted a few times. But i liked it!
8/8.1 were better than 7/10
If you had a touchscreen, 8 was great. I ran 8 on my Yoga and enjoyed it. But I must admit 8.1 was significantly better than 8.
And 10 was better than 8.1, so I mostly disagree with you.
But yeah, I really didn’t mind 8/8.1.
10 didn’t have metro so it was a downgrade for kb + mouse
Even used this on browser
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/new-metrotab/oogmkbpkoblajkomflhkkdmbfggdmefd
Far better. Let the crowd shout. Win 8.1 was the last version enjoyable.
They hated him because he spoke the truth
no, it was XP
Candied Windows
I recently moved my media PC to Linux Mint. I had Bluetooth issues with windows despite my hardware not that old and 'Windows 11 ready'. Zero problems on Linux. I play the same games thanks to Steam Proton library. I use Mac for work. So I finally did it. No more Windows. I tried to switch 5 years ago. But today Linux is polished. And mostly works as expected. You still need to open terminal a few times to change some settings. I'm happy. Highly recommended.
I may yet try it in the next few years. I think one large frustration I anticipate (among others) is keyboard shortcuts. I've become very experienced with those on Windows, and my brief efforts at Linux (eg, on my Steam Deck's monitor hookup) have not come across enough matches for them.
I can absolutely see value in enduring the pain of a large switch though.
Linux mint keyboard shortcuts mimic those of windows tho, Linux mint is the best choice for windows refugees, this is one of the things majority of Linux community is agree about. Edit: in Linux mint you also can change keyboard shortcuts with gui tools already pre installed
Funny, one of my longstanding frustrations with windows was that I didn’t get a say in my keyboard shortcuts. Namely the fact that the shortcut to swap keyboard layouts has historically been very easy to accidentally hit.
If you ever do switch I suggest something with KDE, I love keyboard shortcuts and I find anything other(Windows the most) extremely lacking in that field.
As someone who uses all 3 (work-issue MBP, personal dev laptop on fedora 40, overbuilt gaming-oriented desktop on w10 with a dual boot Ubuntu partition I haven’t used in ages because WSL lets me do what I need to most of the time), it’s really not that bad. Then again, I’ve had a trifecta like that for well over a decade at this point, so maybe I’ve just fully acclimatized to switching machines and OSes for different primary activities all the time.
I switched from Win10 to Arch and now I do have problems with bluetooth, because my mouse officially only supports Windows. Think I will just force my mouse to support Arch (or the other way around). Still way better and faster than Windows.
Now I'm a bit curious how a mouse could theoretically be windows only?
IIRC bluetooth mice use basically the USB protocol but through bluetooth instead of a cable.
It says officially so and I couldn’t connect so far, I’ll let you know if I manage to connect it.
What mouse is it?
https://www.rapoo-eu.com/product/mt350/ Ok, Windows, Mac, ChromeOS, iOS and Android, I will probably get to fix it if I have some time.
This one should work via bluetooth, some pages online indicate so, and it would be very rare that a bluetooth mouse does not work on linux.
And it should absolutely work via the little usb dongle that came with the mouse, as for example my logitech wireless mouse even works in my uefi/bios with the usb receiver.
I sadly don't have the right USB-port for it, but I'll try fixing it without the dongle. Which pages?
Windows just sucks at handling Bluetooth. It's ridiculous that you can't change audio codecs, or choose between handsfree and high quality audio. You have to let windows guess at both
Whenever I try switching to Linux, there is always something that doesn't work right and takes forever to finagle with to fix if it's even possible. I'm primarily a Linux Mint fan (daily drove it on my aging desktop until it died of old age a few years back), but I've also dabbled in a few other noob-friendly distros like Ubuntu (was really into it when everything was still orange and brown lol) and Pop OS.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love using Linux to breathe new life into older systems, but it just isn't a good option for me personally if my device hasn't gotten sluggish yet.
As an example, I have an aging laptop that started blue screening a bunch. It doesn't support the Win 11 upgrade due to it's processor not meeting minimum specs. So I thought it was finally time to see if Linux would improve it.
First of all, I had a hell of a time installing various distros without having them boot to a black screen after installation completes. Took absolutely forever to finally sus this out on the various distros I tried. Then I find that the couple extra buttons on my basic Logitech mouse don't work. These are essential buttons for me that I use constantly. I go through a million troubleshooting steps before finding out that it's a Wayland issue, so I switch back to Xorg and everything is cool. But then I start running into lag issues which never occurred on my Windows install. I also tried playing some games I had in my Epic Games library. I could not for the life of me get it to work, no matter which platform I tried. I get that Steam has better Linux compatibility, but not all of us have all of our games on Steam.
Finally got tired of the whole ordeal and switched back to Windows. Did a bit more troubleshooting and seemed to have resolved the blue screen issues and now it seems to work perfectly and much better out of the box than Linux. It's not an old enough device a Linux refresh to be worth it yet.
I get that Lemmings are die hard Linux fans, and I think Linux has some fantastic use cases...but for many users it actually isn't a good alternative. I find it works best when you want to breathe new life into older hardware or if you have every component specifically built to work for a particular Linux distro. But when basic features don't work properly without hours of troubleshooting (if you can ever get them to work at all), it's a little hard to just recommend it to your average Joe whose Windows/Mac computer works just fine.
This "everything just works" Linux experience a lot of people talk about on Lemmy/Reddit has absolutely never been my experience, even though I've been a casual Linux fan for over a decade now. Meanwhile, I've had the opposite experience with Windows (unless you're talking really old Windows versions like Win XP and older).
This. I have dabbled with various Linux distros over the past 15+ years out of curiosity. I have, without fail, had to spend days troubleshooting and fixing various problems of all kinds. Sometimes it was WiFi drivers, sometimes it was GPU drivers, sometimes it was power management issues, and most recently it's soundcard drivers and poor audio control/quality issues. I always installed Linux as dual-boot so I had my normal Windows install to fall back on but I just couldn't see myself able to fully switch primary OS over.
Nowadays I couldn't switch over even if I wanted to because numerous programs I use for my work are not supported properly or at all. Linux has indeed come a long way over the years in terms of UX and software compatibility, but not everyone uses their computer just for games. There is a lot of creative and productivity software (and devices!) that have limited or zero Linux support and many FOSS alternatives are not sufficient. I hate Adobe as much as the next person and Photoshop is a bloated pile of trash, but part of my soul dies whenever a Linux fan tells me I can just replace Photoshop with GIMP. GIMP is clownware.
Another major issue I had was the community itself. When troubleshooting the issues I've had over the years, one big problem that kept popping back up was how toxic and condescending the Linux community can be. On more than a few occasions my requests for help on forums were met with passive aggressiveness and hostility because I "should have known better" or something along those lines. The most recent example I can think of was someone asking me to post a debug log to troubleshoot an issue I had and I had to ask him where to find the log. He told me the folder it would be in but not the folder path to get there. When I asked again where to find the log, he just told me that "maybe Linux isn't for you".
You know what? Maybe it isn't. It sure isn't for most people and I can't see that changing soon.
I had almost exactly this same issue years ago when I tried Mint. I was trying to get something to work (I think install games on Steam? Something like that) and it would just do nothing, no message, etc. When I asked for help, I was told "This is super obvious" and after trying their suggestions and having them all fail, was told "just go back to windows."
Ok, done?
(It also doesn't help that there is a huge difference between 'you can use the terminal' and 'you have to use the terminal.' I'm an 80's kid, I grew up with DOS, so I understand how to navigate terminals, I just don't want to constantly.)
I've had similar experiences. Never posted questions myself, but I'll be Googling for help and find forum posts that are as toxic as you describe.
It's been bad enough that the Linux elitism on Lemmy leaves a bad taste, even if I haven't seen as much of the toxic parts here. I know I'm not the only person of my friends group that feels this way about Lemmy's Linux crowd.
To comment on the first paragraph, that is just a skill issue. Before I switched to Linux I was pretty adept at Windows, but some things are hard to figure out because it's hidden behind layers of bullshit. Running commands that obscure what exactly they're doing, just because some guy on some forum said it worked for him, is how you get around on Windows and that knowledge is something you build over many years. Knowing where specific settings are or what values to use takes time. The same counts for Linux. If you stick to it, that knowledge will come with experience.
Just remember the dism and sfc scannows, registry hacks etc the average Joe doesn't know about. Your learnt it, you didn't start using Windows with that knowledge. The same will happen with Linux.
I've been exclusively Linux for years, and all the crap now going on with AI and ads being shoved into literally everything makes me happier than ever with that decision.
But you're absolutely right. Linux is "it just works" in a relatively narrow use-case.
Just going on the internet to browse and play some Facebook games (my parents). It'll absolutely work out of the box.
Doing some light creative work (design, writing, etc...) No tinkering needed.
But from there it becomes a scale from "probably work fine" to "hours of work and extra repositories needed".
Video editing or 3D modelling with an NVIDIA card because CUDA, it SHOULD be easy to install, but there's a chance it won't be. You take your chances.
Gaming through proton? Single player games, yeah. I've literally had 95% work out of the box because Valve is awesome. But I don't play online multiplayer. If you need to play nice with anticheat software, good luck.
I too get frustrated with the fundamentalist Linux base who think its the right fit for everyone. Because it absolutely is not, and its okay to admit that because admitting that drives the motivation to improve it.
I don't think Linux is for aging hardware. It just depends of your needs. Linux support all mainstream hardware, I guess. Never had any problems with something not working on Linux. I remember many years ago I had a scanner, which used to work only with Win XP or Vista because of outdated drivers. Windows 7 was too modern for it. I tried it with Linux and it worked. Now I have some random-hardware PC, everything works. It's Intel Core 11400 hardware, AMD RX-GPU, quite modern. I think problems could be on laptops with display backlight, sleep mode or something else. Desktop PC's should be good. Even if you have last-gen hardware, just use the latest kernel. I haven't heard about Linux build hardware. It used to be a thing for Hackintosh builds.
My previous company HP laptop worked better on Linux, it wasn't that hot all the time. Because Linux was consuming less system resources. My work: Browser + IDE. I had dual-boot Win10 and Ubuntu. Ended up with Windows because of Pulse Secure crap and some specific network restrictions. It was years back.
I remember I gave up with Ubuntu 5 years ago at home because after system update It just failed to boot. I didn't touch anything. I don't know if it's possible today. And Proton wasn't here and I wanted to play games. I remember I was using Lightroom, but for my very basic photographer needs Darktable works perfectly. And it's free!
All you need is basic troubleshooting skills. You need to google sometimes. I know that it could be an issue. Linux not for everyone. And it's fine. It's good to have a chose. Linux gives that choice.
Yeah, on Windows Heroes of the Storm was using 10gb on my gpu and stuttering massively
On Linux (Lutris) it just works
Hey fellow HoTS Linuxer!
I switched recently to Nobara after having a great experience with my steam deck. However, I'll probably add windows as a dual boot option since CS2 doesn't run properly (like 16fps..).
CS2 linux version has some issues. Sometimes forcing steam to install the windows version and to run it via proton makes things better.
I dont have CS2 because, well, the obvious reasons. But I do have the original Skylines, and its linux version is also a festering pile of rancid dogshit.
Running the windows version via proton made it run smooth, stable (well, as stable as can be expected with a few hundred mods..lol), and without headache.
so yeah, install windows version and use proton. Overall better experience probably.
Honestly, i think thats my advice about gaming on linux in general, to generally avoid the native version. Personally, I've only run into two games that the native version wasnt shit, and that was Stardew Valley and Rimworld.
CS2 is Counter Strike 2. Cities: Skylines 2 is C:S2
Thanks for the tip. I'll definitely try that.
I tried to get nobara to run a few times but sth was always broken. I'm now on Bazzite after testing Linux Mint a few months. Bazzite seems to be the more polished fedora based gaming distro.
Using Bazzite, myself. I have a weird issue with rebooting, though. Tends to freeze at the boot screen (grub doesn't show up at all) then the whole boot/login process becomes a slideshow. This doesn't happen if I manually turn my PC off and turn it on, though. Really odd problem that I haven't had on other distros.
I like Bazzite as a whole, though.
That sounds awful. Have you tried disabling energy saving options (like automatic screenlock/sleep)?
Automatic screen lock and auto-sleep get disabled everytime I install a KDE DE. I could take a closer look at energy savings, but I don't think there's much else I can do there. I know it's not hardware-related, as this doesn't happen with any other distro. May be an issue with KDE 6, for all I know. Gonna have to look into it more when I get home from work.
I'll have a look into that. For work I use Mint and really like it, however wanted to have a gaming distro that already delivers everything that I need and since I already used ProtonGE it was a natural choice for me. But i already had some issues with it probably due to NVidia drivers. Seems to be better now with the latest kernel
I think I get slightly better performance on Bazzite than on mint. Mint e.g. still has the 535 Nvidia drivers as recommended (we're at 550 now). On Bazzite you'll probably have to enable x11 until the new update with explicit sync drops mid May. (At least I had a ton of flickering on Wayland with my rtx 3060)
How was it broken?
I had a lot of crashes as soon as I installed it. Must have been some driver/hardware issues probably. I'm not knowledgeable enough (and frankly had no energy to troubleshoot) I just installed mint which ran without (much) trouble. I was interested in a more up to date system and KDE plasma as well as pipewire already integrated and looked at bazzite (after another unsuccessful try at nobara) - have been t running it for a few weeks now and I'm perfectly happy with it. CS 2 also runs without problems - but I mainly cast matches instead of playing myself.
I just got a steam deck, and needed to install FF14 (non steam) so I was mucking around in desktop mode… yeah. I’ll prob be getting a spare drive for my tower now to try out Linux. I’d love nothing more then to cut ties to windows.
Yeah in college I tried to switch for nerd cred and it sucked, but over the past year I switched and while I’ve had some hiccups, I honestly think it’s more a result of me going with an arch based distro than a Debian one. I’m thinking I may hop soon, but I assume it’ll be a massive pain
I thought Arch was more tricky, than Debian
It is, it’s trickier and less supported
My friend, have you checked out the arch user repository? What do you mean with less supported btw?
Less officially supported. Say what you will about the chaotic aur it is chaotic. I think I bit off a bit more than I can chew
I switched my four home computers to Linux Mint this week. Windows is just more trouble than it's worth nowadays.
Same, its just like everywhere enshitification of companies who try to get more profitable by spying,advertising and many anti consumer practices. Linux just stays good. and / or if you dont like your distribution just swap to another, its easy :D
Hell you can even just change desktop environments to shake things up as well.
When I finally learned how do install a different desktop environment, and still use Debian, I was set. KDE!!! KDE!!! KDE!!!
Just so we're clear, the data in the headline refers to the share of Windows editions among Windows users. By their count Windows actually went up slightly in the overall Desktop OS share last month, while Linux remains basically flat at 4%.
But I keep hearing everyone here saying this year is totally the year of the Linux desktop.
I mean, it is higher than a decade ago at least. I think most people are expecting some Linux growth when Microsoft finally axes 10 and millions of machine with no TPM have to move to Linux or face a life of no security updates
To be fair that's exactly how Microsoft management feels. For half a decade now Microsoft is a company that sells Linux and opensource judging by their yearly reports, other departments either don't grow nearly as fast or are just straight detrimental. So they do want you to dump that shit, preferably gaining some cash before it happens naturally.
I work with Windows as a requirement of my job, I'm in IT and I'm constantly in and out of the bowels of the operating system. I have a lot of thoughts on this stuff.
My first thought is, stop moving everything around. Even in Windows 10, if you're using an older version, say 1804, and you switch to a newer version, say 22H2, stuff is moved all over the place. It makes it super hard to direct someone blindly to the control they need to click to get something done. You're making my job much harder than it needs to be. Stop it. There's no reason to move this crap around.
To bring out my grumpy old man routine: back in my day, if you wanted to do anything, you went to the control panel. Everything you needed was there. Now it's in settings, no wait, clicking on this settings option for that thing now launches an appx thing that, surprisingly (/s) is broken.
Too many damn times have I tried to open their damned settings app or the new defender security appx dialog simply crashes. The solution is almost always dkim online repair. Well, if it needs repair so damn much, how about you just repair it for me as part of system maintenance? The fuck.
Windows 11 is a special form of suffering. Right clicking on a file and.... What the fuck is this? I basically click on "more settings" every time I right click. And the changes to the settings application.... Don't get me started.
Also, why in the fuck do we have copilot installed by default now? You're an operating system, stay in your goddamned lane.
The only good thing I can say about Windows 11 is that it has really good security. So good that I frequently have trouble doing routine things. Today, I was trying to run a PowerShell script and it told me some bullshit error, which is pretty common for PowerShell. After googling the error, the recommendation was to change the execution policy. I went to do that at an administrative PowerShell prompt and it told me that I didn't have access to change it. While running as the administrator. Yay. Shit is broken again. Fuck me I guess. I'm off to unfuck my less than five month old new work system because Microsoft can't get their shit straight.
Customization options do not and cannot help me. 90% of the time I'm working on someone else's computer, so I have to fucking deal with the default behavior because I'm not going to change it for 500+ users whom I support. I'm pretty sure I'd get more than a few complaints. So I have to fucking deal with whatever hairbrained decision Microsoft made about what should be default.
Windows 10 had its own share of bullshit. One of my most common annoyances was the way the OS decided to install fucking candy crush, every fucking time a new user logged into the goddamned computer. It's like playing whack-a-mole, but not fun and filled with uninstalls. I hope Microsoft made some good money on that brand deal, because I sure paid for it with my frustration.
After all of this, I keep finding myself in the fucking registry, and thank God that's one thing that hasn't been fucked over by their new UI team. I keep having to fix dumb issues by injecting registry keys so I can not deal with the stupid UI all the goddamned time. It's hacky, and I'm happier for it.
I could keep going. Pretty much every decision they've made in the past 5 years has been some measure of bad. The only thing I've agreed with them doing is finally ending internet explorer. Begrudgingly, edge is better, but not by a lot, IMO.
The last thing I'll say is that the tpm bullshit is going to give me an aneurysm. Having a TPM at Windows install usually prompts the system to activate bitlocker. Bitlocker itself isn't bad, but it's fucking terrible when windows does this shit and doesn't really inform the user about it. Nobody knows that they need to back up their goddamned bitlocker recovery keys, so inevitably, when something goes wrong (we're talking about Windows here, something will go wrong) and the system stops booting, you need the fucking bitlocker recovery key to do anything. Your option, if you can call it that, if you can't get the recovery key, is to format all of your shit, and reinstall from scratch. I know several people who have lost a lot of work and irreplaceable files, like pictures, because bitlocker fucked them over and they had no idea it was even running.
Sorry about your loss, but all those family photos you saved that don't exist anywhere else are locked behind basically uncrackable encryption, get fucked, I guess.
I'm going to cut this rant off. Needless to say I'm pretty tired of Microsoft's bullshit. Make an operating system. That's what people want. That's it. We shouldn't need "debloat" scripts to fix your nonsense. Gah.
Windows 10 is pretty crappy but tolerable, everything I've seen about 11 suggests it's a utter shit show.
I really don't have any issues with it, but I debloated it as soon as I got it.
So you removed all of the windows 11 from the windows 11, sounds pretty tolerable.
Not like Windows 10 doesn't have heaps and heaps of bloat and spyware. Windows 11 just continues the trend.
It made the trend visible to non power users atleast. That’s for sure.
Yeah, the secret is to debloat it all the way to 7. Going under that is not advisable expect under doctors supervision.
I heard it’s pretty good with the bloat stripped. Honestly, if I’m going to start modifying my system I decided I’d rather have an OS that supports it properly.
More power to you though!
Do you have any guides or tips for others that might want to do the same?
'clean up your PC' type programs get sketchy, so reliable recommendations would be appreciated
As far as a debloater goes I recommend this one. Not only is it fast, it also has options to reverse all the things you did previously.
https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat
Beware of those things, all the people you see complaining that the store doesn't work when they want to use gamepass were debloat users.
This is what I use. . They have a good preset, and there's also the option to install 3rd party apps and do UI tweaks.
I’m from Eastern EU but work in Germany in English. As I grew up with my native language’s keyboard, I always set that up, but turn the display language to English.
Worked fine in 10, but with the new 11 work laptops most things are indeed English, some apps are in my native language, and some in German. And a few days ago, lock screen stock photos started appearing (instead of the company’s logo as before), with quotes in my native language. All because I want to use a specific keyboard.
Based on searching, this is a known problem, win 11 languages are a mess, and no way to fix without resetting settings and reinstalling some things, for which I would need to leave my computer with corpo IT.
American software is terrible at handling multi lingual users, aka people outside the US. Web browsers and Google services suffer from similar problems, but the random quotes in the lock screen are certainly something new to me.
I have windows 11, and with startallback and directory opus both of which I had on 10) it's indistinguishable from 10. No benefits, no drawbacks. Honestly should have saved the trouble and not installed.
Starting to think MSFT are no longer targeting users that care about that stuff. They’re going after the ignorant/complacent/corporate. I think they realized the rest of us were a lost cause as soon as Linux was remotely an option.
I switched from 10 to 11 about a year or two ago and haven’t really had much issue with it. It was mostly a seamless switch, much less trouble than any other Windows transition, apart from something with the taskbar I remember being stupid, but I found some third party software that fixed it. I’d love to hate on MS, but I’m just sort of mildly ok with it. Even Copilot being added in to the sidebar is whatever, I’ve found some random needs for it here and there. As long as it doesn’t go snooping through my computer and report my mountain of illicit mighty morphin power ranger hentai, I should be ok.
After trying Windows 11 for a while, I just gave up and installed Kubuntu on my computer. I still use a Windows VM for some things, but I make sure to firewall the shit out of it lol
I switched to Nobara. I still got to dual boot 10 for a few games but I'm in no rush to get the install set up. I tried 11 and its just pure ensitifacation.
I'm actually scared to dual boot. I've heard too many stories of Windows updates messing up the bootloader
I haven't switched or started dual-booting yet because I haven't had time, but I've read the recommendation that the best way to do dual or even multiple boot is to have separate physical OS drives and select which one to boot from with the BIOS boot selector. Smaller SSD drives are pretty cheap these days, especially if you get them used on ebay or whatever. I picked up a Samsung 240 with 0% wearout for like $20 bucks.
Wndow's will constantly change it's self to be first on the boot order both in EFI and on the BIOS. It's a pain in the ass to override it every time and it will switch back every time. I haven't had it blow up recently but have had issues with older versions.
It also hangs my BIOS every time it switches the boot order without consent :/
Kubuntu is a very solid choice!
One very important detail missing here is that Windows 10 is going to be end-of-support in 2025. You won't get security updates.
It is going to be shitshow.
It's not going to be a shitshow at all. Business will mostly move to 11 whether they like it or not and consumers will just use unpatched win10. The exact same way they did with XP and the exact same way they did with 7.
It's only gonna be a shitshow if there is some earth shattering vulnerability found that a worm can exploit and even then MS would probably just push out an out of band update.
This is honestly going to be a "nothingburger."
I have lived the time when unpatched windows was the norm. Oh the network worms which roamed freely and created huge bot nets. Sad that Microsoft has forgotten that.
2025 is going to be the biggest year of Linux
I think there'll be some users but honestly? I think you'll have three general kinds of users. Those that just bite the bullet and upgrade to 11, those that don't care and will continue to use Win10 for more years to come, and the minority that care enough to try this "Linux thing" out.
2025 is going be the year of cheap hardware. A lot of people will just buy new computers/laptop's.
I'm helping some people already with setting up Linux. But most average users will not set up Linux. It's just to scary.
Yes, I think a minority group of IT enthousiasts will be pushed towards Linux. But for a lot of average users, it is way too much of a hassle, unless the ONLY thing they do is browse the web.
In my 4 weeks with Mint, I encountered: -Complete system freezes from plugging in USB to USB hubs. -Bluetooth not working (fix was updating to a newer Kernel... ok... why is that kernel not standard when bluetooth is broken on the older kernels?) -Random inconsistant UI scaling issues when working with two monitors (and even on the same monitor) -permission issues when instaling flatpacks from the software manager (let's disable USB permission for arduino... yeah... that's silly)
I figure all the shit out because I want it to work. But it's not the be-all end-all that people here on Lemmy make it out to be.
Switching an OS is always difficult. In 2006 I switched to Mac for about 6 years. The first few months were pain and agony. After that, it was great. Same with many Windows upgrades. And the same will be true for switching to Linux.
Not if we all keep using it as a form of protest.
I started dual booting to Arch Linux and more often than not I boot more now into Linux than Windows 11. I've used Windows since 3.11. Microsoft really have fucked Windows recently.
Inb4 microsoft is forced to bring back support for windows 10. Seems nobody believes in innovation anymore since all it means now is AI „helping” you with tasks you could do yourself or ads everywhere you look.
Same shit going on everywhere. I recently fixed my iphone 12 pro because upgrading by three generations literally would get me a usb-c port and an additional fucking button.
I genuinely think Microsoft won't extend anything for Win10 unfortunately, no matter how many users cling to it. I'd love to be eating my words here, but I think Microsoft would rather pull all the marketing tricks out the book to force everyone into Win11.
The same thing happened with Windows 7 and XP. People will still with EOL 10 until their current machine dies. A few people might choose to explore other options, but for the average Joe not getting updates seems like a good thing, because the computer will stop rebooting over night or taking several mintss to boot post patch. Of course they don't think about the security implications, but that is true about most people in most cases.
I have no real reason to upgrade to 11 from 10. My system doesn't have any hardware that 11 can take advantage of better than 10. At this point I'm just waiting for 11 to finish baking or 12 to roll out. 11 doesn't natively have a vertical taskbar.. like... come'on. Who needs a 32" wide taskbar?
I have been running a vertical task bar since Windows XP and have been on KDE as well(like now). The fact it's not an option for Windows 11(my work laptop) drives me insane.
So many wasted pixels. :/
I second that. Fucking insane...
My main monitor is a 27 inch so the task bar is only like 23 inches, but the amount of stuff I have open at any given time has my taskbar 2/3 of the way across my screen. That said, I've had mine at the top of the screen ever since my iMac G3 and Windows 11 doesn't allow that either
I don’t think they’ll extend it, but I’m predicting that there will be some massive bug or security issue found in Windows 10 after its support has ended, and Microsoft will be forced to create an update for it since Windows 10 will retain such high market share.
Not sure why so many companies are so focused on making a miserable user experience these days. I know it’s mainly about appeasing shareholders, but it feels like there should be a few more long-sighted people in the mix who can see this backfire in the end.
Being annoying boosts short term sales and that's all anyone cares about
What confuses me is their weird TPM and whatever else requirements. I have a decent system, but it doesn't support Windows 11 (thank the gods), so what is their plan for people like me exactly? Like I'm going to replace my motherboard and CPU just to use windows 11? This feels like multiple parts of Microsoft fighting each other.
You will simply have an OS that is no longer supported and will be vulnerable against attacks that hackers withheld until then.
It's your choice to stay with Microsoft either by accepting an insecure OS or upgrading your hardware, or jump ship to something that isn't Microsoft (Apple, Linux, ChromeOS, ...) depending on your needs and expectations.
Speculation on my part (so was my parent comment to be fair), prior to Windows 11 and even the later major updates to Windows 10, Windows had a horrible rep for physical security. It was well known that if someone stole your computer, all your data is compromised and whoever stole it just needed a YouTube video on various lock screen bypasses.
Microsoft wanted to do something about this, so Windows 11 relies on the TPM so that BitLocker can be enabled, and having the TPM makes it entirely transparent to the user. Enforcing the Microsoft account requirement gives a recovery avenue should something go wrong like the TPM changes.
Unfortunately, they would rather that the image of Win11 is this really secure OS, rather than let users who don't have a TPM upgrade anyway, which really will just leave more users insecure on Win10 and overall in a much worse spot from a security perspective.
(This is in no way an indictment of what you've said here, it is entirely directed at MS.) If that's their objective, they've done an absolutely horrific job of making that clear. I guess part of that is they claim everything they do is for security, so no-one believes them.
Not to mention, I'm pretty sure the vast, vast, vast majority of Windows users aren't concerned that if their PC gets stolen people can get into it. They're much more concerned with the lost PC itself.
Either way, they look, frankly, incompetent. The OS is maligned by users, and they've stuffed so many embarrassing things like ads in the search bar or whatever, that any illusion of its benefits are lost behind a wall of garbage.
However, if they say 'okay guys, we heard you, one more year of support!'. This way they could farm so much PR points its insane.
Cant guess which one they will choose tbh.
They'd get a bunch of support, but I think they know that people would just continue to ride Win10 even longer, than actually spend the extra time upgrading.
Windows is not what Microsoft gains profit from, they clearly say that in their yearly reports for like a decade. They don't want you to upgrade to Win11, that's why they set the upgrade requirements. They don't want to make Windows, they want to sell cloud Linux and other opensource because it brings money and raises stock value. They want you to drop Windows without any lawsuits against them. Preferably gaining some ads money before you do.
Microsloth doesnt care though. They will continue ramming 11 down your throats
"Solution" is to break Windows 10
I hope they do. I would laugh very hard.
Isn't that literally their road map? It's supposed to be end of life shortly
End of life ≠ breaking it. It will continue working as long as Microsoft doesn't touch it and apps support it.
Well, win10 is going End-of-life next year.
Looks like Microsoft needs to further enhance the consumer experience by adding more personalized product recommendations, that'll fix it right up!
Whatever happened to windows 10 being the last windows? Like windows was moving to the os as a service model.
Okay, this seemed wrong. As the article said, even Win8 didn't go down in usage over time. So I went and checked the methodology for the source data.
Turns out, this number is based on social media and search engine referral data. Also turns out, they warn that while they do track Bing chat referrals when you follow through a link, they don't see chat responses where you only read the AI response but don't click through:
That is very interesting. That's a likely culprit for Win11 specifically to have gone down a couple of percentage points in the US and EU (the other territories seem to remain flat), but it's hard to prove.
It's also a bit concerning in terms of measuring the effects of AI search in both network traffic and in how search results are consumed. If that's the cause it does suggest that AI chat users are less likely to follow through to the source info, which seems risky, although it's also hard to prove what that does to receiving truthful info.
Lots of counterintutitive, hard to parse implications from this one data point, but I'd be surprised if it was as simple as "people have randomly decided to roll back to Win10 (and Win8, which also grows) for no reason".
I think we just need to move on from this methodology of data collection. Firefox is often cited as very unpopular because it blocks statcounter tracking by default, social networks have absorbed some search volume too. I do think it makes logical sense that people are dropping 11; I did so myself last year. But this data is likely bad, so it's pointless to try and extract a reason based on it.
Well, a data point is a data point is a data point. You just can't make all your decisions based on a single one, at least without understanding what's behind it.
FWIW, the Steam survey has Win 11 growing by 3.5% last month, with Win10 going down by about the same amount (Linux stays at 1.9% there). Neither data source is wrong or bad, necessarily, but you do want to be aware that one is an opt-in survey of gamers and the other is a tracker of search engine referrals.
So the takeaway is that people are probably not deserting Win 11 in droves, but maaaybe their use of online search is being impacted by MS's integration of AI search or something else changing Win11 users' behavior around social media or search engines. Or mostly that it may be too early to tell and we may need more sources of info. For all the glee and schadenfreude in this thread, the big teachable moment is that data and stats are nuanced and hard to read and that confirmation bias is a bitch.
Steam hardware survey is another data point.
Looks like in March Win10 usage increases a little. Overall it's on a downward trend though.
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/directx/
So for all people that are on the fence about switching to Linux: Here's a sort of review and starter guide from a guy who switched to Mint about 4 weeks ago.
Are you someone who mostly plays non-competetive games (games without anticheat) and browse the web? You'll probably have a hassle free life on Linux. Steam's Proton layer does a lot of heavily lifting. Even if games are not officially supported. Turn the compatability on in the steam settings.
If you play VR or competetive games, it's a different story. VR is dependant on the headset. I unfortunately have all Oculus Headsets, which there is no good controller support for right now from the open source community. Anticheat simply doesnt work on Linux.
Design software From what I've read, the affinity suite now can be used through Wine (a program that lets you use windows apps on Linux) However, from my time with Wine, it is hit and miss. One update from either the application or Wine can break everything. So it is not reliable, unless you freeze all updates from both the application and Wine. Wine can be great (working out of the box) but also the biggest pain in the ass with hours of debugging. Stay away if you dislike troubleshooting.
Inkscape can be an alternative to Illustrator if you don't do heavy design work.
I haven't touched Gimp for about 6 years (used to be my main editor) but when I switched to photoshop it qas no competition. Don't know what the state of Gimp is now, will try it over the coming year.
music software Cubase or any of steinbergs plugins outright will not work on Linux (unfortunately my main DAW) However, I will probably switch to Bitwig (native Linux), which looks really promising. I got some VSTs working through Wine (all arturia stuff works great) but have had hours of troubleshooting without luck with others. Use Yabridge as a vstlink for windows VSTs. If you're a professional musician with thousands of dollars in plugins, I'd be hestitant to switch to Linux. You'll be dependant on Wine a lot, which is kind of a pain to rely on for professional use.
overall tips Might be a bit controversial, but if you're a novice: don't dump all the solutions you find online in your terminal. Actually, try to use the machine as much as possible like you normally would on Windows, unless you want to do Terminal stuff. If you dislike terminals, you'll only be frustrated by all the terminal advice people give you, which might even break stuff on your machine.
Try to download .deb packages from the official sources.++ Software center on Mint is great, but will moatly be outdated or flatpacks. Flatpacks can work, but I've had many issues with permissions and flatpacks (like an arduino flatpack that didn't give permission to use the USB port....)
Welp, I'm out of time, so I'll just randomly stop my reviewish/comment here
Losing Ableton and all my VSTs are dealbreakers with Linux for me. Would be fine with the games I play, being all mostly single player indies. I could relearn a new video editing software, and I assume Citrix will work fine for all my work programs, but maaaan I’m not losing my favorite VSTs.
Lack of Ableton Live support is also why I probably won't switch to Linux. Even though years ago I used to dual boot Ubuntu and quite liked it as an OS, the lack of DAW support is the real deal breaker for me too. Ableton Live is just too good and I know it too well to switch away from it.
@[email protected] @[email protected] - you might want to take a close look at Bitwig. It's a top-notch DAW developed by former Ableton developers. I hear it's fairly similar workflow to Ableton, but also that it's better in certain ways. This is without even taking into consideration that Bitwig supports Linux. I don't have any association with Bitwig, don't even own it (yet?), but just wanted to let you know.
I think I've heard that some VST support may be tricky though. I could be misremembering, but also worth researching.
Nice to know, but it’ll really come down to VST support. I can relearn a new DAW, but I can’t magic up new libraries. I also don’t really wanna have to learn futzing with Linux when I have enough hobbies. As much as windows sucks, it’s convenient that their product supports everything I want out of the box. Once a Linux distro can do the same for my needs, I’m all in.
No problem, I understand.
I feel you man. I've finally used Cubase enough to get proficiently fast at editing stuff, and I can't get it to work on Mint. It is quite the dilemma. From what I've seen from Bitwig, I still might switch though. It looks a lot like Ableton, but I much prefer Bitwig's UI. And my most used plugins (arturia stuff) happens to run without any hassle on Wine (for now).
Still, I'll probably keep dual booting for a while. I have so many Cubase projects backed up that I don't feel like converting all to Bitwig projects.
About anticheat: it depends which games you're playing. If they use Valve's EasyAnti Cheat you should have no problem (been playing dota2, cs2, csgo... without trouble for some time now). If they use
malwarekernel-level anticheat (iirc helldivers 2, valorant, league of legends) you won't be able to run them in linux and should keep a windows dual boot.Some kernel anticheats work too, I had no issues playing Helldivers and Hell Let Loose, both of which use EAC. Developers have to enable Linux support, which AFAIK is just one checkbox, so you still get games that don't allow it (like EVE Vanguard), but most of them are OK.
League and Valorant is a different story, those don't work.
Oh thanks for the correction, I was mistaken. I'm happy I was wrong :)
Games that use Vanguard don't work afaik, but Helldivers 2 works just fine via Proton.
Helldivers 2 works on Linux.
Good to know!
Anticheats can work on linux given the developers have enabled it. For example brawlhalla has EAC but you can still play it
Helldivers 2's AC works also
Never rely on Wine, both in Linux, and in the real world.
Haha agreed.
Also in terms of games...I know Steam compatibility is supposed to be great, but if you use other platforms, you might run into some issues. Most of my library is in the Epic Games store (I know, terrible to admit this online...but they give you a lot of free shit), and I just could not get it to work at all the last time I tried Linux (maybe 6ish months ago).
I think for that usecase, Lutris might help. It is basically Wine for games, where it tries to find the right settings for your specific games. If the Epic store installs at all, that is.
But I've commented this a few times now: Wine is... very hit and miss and might not be worth your time.
Affinity Suite through Wine would be pretty big. Do you know if it's only the newest version that's "working"?
I got my info from the Affinity Forum
No first hand experience. However, with my short time with Wine, I'm hestitant to rely on it. Any update from either Wine or the software it's running could break things. Cool if it works, but not something I'd want to bet my work on.
Thanks for the link. And yeah, maybe not something you'd want to rely on. But it's worth a try as a compliment to running Windows in a VM to run Affinity.
You can change flatpak permissions with flatseal (you'll need to install it). A lot of them have absolutely braindead defaults It's really not great to get in the habit of installing random debs from the Internet. Aside from being a massive security issue, you'll never get updates. If mint repos don't get updated though, I suppose that's the easiest workaround
Thanks for the heads up about flatpaks! I'll look into it.
I believe debs are installed through my Software Manager ? When I said "get debs from official source" I meant that bigger software like Godot, Steam, Handbrake etc I prefer to download from their official website. Most stuff in software managers are several versions behind.
I agree that you shouldn't be downloading random debs for some small apps made by a random person, for obvious security reasons.
Yeah when you're downloading from sites like those, there's not a security risk anymore. The thing is that Linux software generally expects you to be using a package manager, so it doesn't update itself. When you download and install debs, you lose auto update functionality. But when you're on a distro like mint with old packages, that doesn't really matter since you're not getting up to date software through the repos anyway
I would highly advice against using Wine. It requires constant root access, just like virus scanners, making your system vulnerable.EDIT: I was wrong :)I want to make the switch as win10 moved to 11 without asking and 11 sucks donkey balls. It even has ads as notifications, soon it will have ads in the start menu (not that I use it, but wtf Microsoft!). The games are no issue anymore now a days, so that's fine with me. I just don't want to switch DAW. I just got a work flow using ableton for recording, editing and mastering my dawless setup. Kind of same story with photoshop, used to the work flow and don't want to switch. Other than that, I don't see a reason why not. So maybe it's going to be a multiboot. I'm definitely going back to win10 but support will stop next year or so, so I have to use Linux by than anyway.
I think you're mistaken there.
Wine is a vanilla Linux executable that runs as the user who launched it. The Windows program it runs thus also runs under that user. That's possible because Wine doesn't do anything system-wide (like intercepting calls or anything), it already gave the process its own version of i.e.
LoadLibrary()(the Windows API function to load a DLL) and can happily remap any loaded DLL to Wine's reimplementation of said DLL as needed.Here are, for example, the processes created when I run Paint Shop Pro on my system (the leftmost column indicates the user each process is running as):
Also, some advice from WineHQ:
I guess I'm wrong than :)
I'm just saying what my experience was with Wine a while ago and what all my Linux friends tell me. But I guess things changed! Awesome!
Did you know you can edit your posts? Could be helpful for other readers since you were incorrectly posting in several messages that wine needs root access.
Check, will do! Good point :)
This can't be right. Was it maybe a particular workflow you used that required root access? I know I've used wine as part of Steam's Proton as well as via Lutris and neither app has ever requested privilege escalation. I've also run
winemanually from the terminal also without being root.Maybe it changed recently, but this is what I know about wine. Many Linux friends of mine all advice against it.
I would say: don't rely on Wine if you're dependent on the programs it runs somehow. If you don't want to spend hours troubleshooting programs, then accept your losses.
After days of messing about getting music VSTs to work, I decided to stop troubleshooting any error I have within Wine. If a program works with Wine straight away: lucky me! If something doesn't work: I count my loss and accept I won't be able to use that program on Linux for now.
And obviously, don't install and run andom programs that you wouldn't install on Windows either. But that's just common sense.
How many % of these 70% can't upgrade to windows 11 due to hardware limitation?
Win 11 has a bunch of new small frustrations without anything crazy good that makes me want to recommend it over 10. It's... Just really unclear what benefits I'm actually getting from 11.
The most annoying thing about Lemmy is all the Linux bros crawling out of their holes when the word "windows" is mentioned.
I use Beastie btw
I believe they called it Beast Wars outside of Canada
Pass me on white power, give me my Turtle Power
Why? Do you feel like you are team Microsoft and anyone suggesting you could have a better experience on another operating system is the enemy?
Nope. As a Linux user, even I'm annoyed.
I've seen people ask legitimate Windows troubleshooting questions and then don't get an answer but dozens, if not more, messages to switch to linux.
It drives people away.
I'm also a decade long Linux user and it drives me insane too. I'm happy to support someone if they have questions ABOUT Linux, but otherwise I don't shove it down their throat or really mention it. I nearly lost friends being the way so many other Linux users are and that was the changing point for me.
Linux users do this and then wonder why no one wants to switch to linux.
I'll admit it's done the opposite to me. Gonna make the switch any day now.
Welcome
Windows problems?
install gentoo /s
Pfft. If you're not building your Linux from scratch, are you really linuxing?
It seems that permanent obsolescence is beginning to cost too much for the users. I hope they will all keep dragging their feet, but will be a tough fight because friendly providers of professional tools will keep releasing the new versions only for Windows 11, eventually they will force some to upgrade.
My work laptop recently updated to Windows 11 and man, what a pile of garbage. If I could downgrade, I definitely would
What's stopping you?
The computer is probably locked down and all software/os provisioned by their IT department
Yes, exactly. I’m not really allowed to do anything other than some minor personalization of appearance.
My office is currently forcing us on to Win 11.
Feels bad man.
I've been using Windows since version 3.1. My rig isn't cutting edge but is still plenty good, so naturally it isn't supported for an upgrade to 11. The AI spyware in 11 is just another reason not to switch to it even if I could. Once 10 hits end of life, I'm putting Mint on it.
Windows 11 upgrade strategy was basically like
Microsoft: Hey gurl let's go out, I got a new whip!
You: ...okay, where we going?
Microsoft: uh, girlfriend. Nowhere. Look at you! Come on, we gotta get you looking ready to go out.
...oh no. Oh no, girl. This won't do it all. Call me when you get a nice outfit, k? Bye!
(Later)
Microsoft: 😢 why don't my friends answer my texts?
I honestly have zero problems with W11.
This being said I only run it on my gaming PC. My laptop runs Linux and I like that better. Honestly most people can switch their gaming rigs to Linux as well. I've tried it, it's very good. I've got some elgato products which I wanna keep alive, fuck with VR a little, and freetrack is not available yet which is the real deal-breaker for me.
I played most games on Linux no problem though and it was great.
I think I've had just one issue with Linux gaming, and it was made worse by me trying to troubleshoot the error, when restarting the game for the first launch solved it out right. It was a, "have you turned it off and on again?" situations. Otherwise, everything has ran well, installed well, and was pretty seamless. All of that while running Nvidia, which is the biggest surprise.
Yep. That's been my experience too. 9/10 times it runs flawlessly, and when it doesn't it's usually easy to solve. I'm running Nvidia hardware too, and it's been no issue. I do older games on my ThinkPad sometimes too. Zero problems.
I can't run Wayland, which I think I've determined is an Nvidia thing, but that's it. I do wish there were more and better options for some softwares, but that's just the nature of the game. Specifically audio recording and CAD leave something to be desired, but there are at least some options.
Yeah I'm patiently waiting for Wayland too
So glad my job allows me to use Linux as my OS. I do IT, and everybody else in the company uses Windows.
Constant problems, brutal driver issues, OS crashes and lockups, software installation failures, hardware incompatibility problems, it's awful.
Linux at work, Linux at home, such an improved experience.
I'll still always love XP though, the last OS from Microsoft that felt like it had a soul.
I literally haven't had ANY of those problems running Windows 10 or 11 FWIW, not have any of my friends or relatives.
I'm not anti-Linux or anything though, have used it for 26 years now, but only briefly on the desktop.
I'm happy for you, I wouldn't wish it on people, it sucks.
Work laptops in particular suck, I find. My first one was lagging, freezing, and crashing within months. The second one is three times as expensive but the same brand and is still not happy.
I also use Windows at home and haven't had the same experience. I think it's really manufacturer dependent
Windows 7 club here.
You mean consumers DON'T want ads in every aspect of their OS?
Hmm... I wonder why Linux has yet to rise.
I mean, we only have like 17 months until support for Windows 10 ends, it's not like it's that long.
Microsoft's own incompetence has made Windows 11 a failure. The system requirements really made it a flop (possibly an intentional part of their plan to boost hardware sales but create a ton of e-waste as a result). I'm running Windows 11 as my PC meets the specs, it's not a bad OS persay as it works for my day to day needs. However, if I didn't game on PC I would probably switch completely to Linux. I stay on Windows as it is for the time being convenient to do so. If the next version of Windows has a dire increase in regards to specifications...I would likely go back to Ubuntu!
You should check protondb and see if your games of choice are supported, if you've not done so already.
I completely jumped ship from Windows the better part of a year ago now and haven't encountered a single game that didn't run, at the least, reasonably well. And usually just fine OOB. Though ymmv of course.
It's a big YMMV experience with Linux, it just boiled down to mental load in comparison to Windows; Remembering all manner of commands and how to do certain things, along with that subset of hostile Linux users on help forums has made it an OS that I will use only in a dire situation. Linux is mostly for those who aren't afraid to tinker with the OS and have time to figure out what the hell is wrong with their PC in case of a strange situation occurring. Ubuntu worked really well for me for years (except the times it didn't, and I Googled my way to a solution each time). I did miss the ease of installing games and just having them work without extra steps (a common issue for most games). I also expanded my console games library so that the game variety is not lacking.
Windows is admittedly easier to maintain, and I never have any encountered any major concerns since the Windows 7 days and once while on Windows 10. As far as compatibility goes, I know most of my Steam and GOG libraries are compatible with Linux, since I've a tendency to buy games which are supported on Linux. I made sure to give myself a decent library as a result in case Microsoft screwed the pooch enough that I needed to go back to a Linux distro.
And even on hardware that does theoretically support Windows 11, budget hardware will make the most basic of tasks take forever and lower midrange hardware will feel slow. On most Linux distros and ChromeOS, budget hardware will feel slow (mostly due to bloated websites), and lower midrange hardware will feel quite snappy for the most part.
The only reason I still even use Windows is because of destiny 2. That's pretty much the only game I play. If there was a good stable way of doing this on Linux I wouldn't even use Windows at all.
In fact the only computer in my house that even has windows on it is my gaming rig.
I would much rather pay for windows than become the product with ads, AI, and analytics.
Luckily this is coming at a time where I can run nearly everything on Linux that I previously needed Windows for (with the exception of a handful of games in my steam library)
win11 is hot trash. seems like every other windows release is a skip. did Ballmer enshrine that or was it Gates?
Hmm well . . .
Windows 95 - revolutionary UI changes for its time
Windows 98 - hot garbage update
Windows 98SE - fixed hot garbage and was ok
Windows ME - hot garbage
Windows XP - Windows 95 for grown ups
Windows 7 - This is where it breaks down, since from what I hear 7 was actually pretty good (been a linux user since the ME days) - but if you're counting Windows XP was Windows 5 so maybe they worked on 6 and just didn't release it to break the curse
Windows 8 - Everybody should have just moved to linux at this point
Windows 10 - Who knows. You should have been using linux
Windows 11 - If you're not using linux now you shouldn't have a computer
Yeah but u missed vista between xp and 7 so it works out
Oh shit you're right, and Vista was a giant turd sandwich.
it was so bad. didnt help that it had higher hardware requirements than win7, and we didnt really have affordable ssd's then so everything was so slow - or, that's what my memory says, I havent used a spinner disk in a long time.
It wasn't so much the lack of SSDs. Vista had much higher memory requirements than XP. At the time, OEMs were still regularly shipping systems with sub-1GB RAM installed. Those OEMs put pressure on Microsoft to change the Vista- Ready certification requirements to include their shitty builds that couldn't really run Vista.
In addition, dual core machines were only just coming to market, so there were a ton of systems with single core CPUs. Plus, with the changes to several driver models and some of the verification requirements (sound, graphics, needing to provide x64 drivers to get verified) from XP to Vista many vendors decided to EOL their products instead of write new drivers. I know many sound cards were EOL that were literally still on store shelves.
You forgot Vista between XP and 7, and it wasn't great, so the pattern holds up remarkably well.
8 felt like a mobile OS, because it was.
10 is OK. Not as good as 7, broke support for a bunch of things, really amped up the spyware feeling, but it works OK.
Then 11.
Probably still can have a computer though, it's just not fully yours on 11.
That's a good point. If you leave 11 on your computer, then you don't own it anyway.
Microsoft is just allowing you use of the hardware to run their data mining software on.
Honestly, I just got tired of fighting with it and took my OS into my own hands. Grew tired of the services being pushed in my settings getting reset to whatever Microsoft pleases.
I feel like Windows 7 was peak Windows. I have an old machine I still turn on sometimes with 7 but it just seems so much better than 10/11.
"Peak Windows" is a fun one to ponder. I'd probably pick XP for fairly high reliability and fairly low bloat. Or 2000 if taking business oriented versions in to consideration.
2000 was a great one; we ran it on most of our home computers at the time. I’d say it was my second favorite.
You forgot Vista before 7. The list didn't "break down" because Vista was the steaming pile of shit in between.
8 sucked, 8.1 was good at least in my opinion. 10 was when I fucked off to Linux land permanently after using it on and off for 15 years and have never been happier.
yeah 8.1 wasnt that bad (supported it, didnt use it), 10 was way better than 8.1 imho. thinking win10 is going to be my last win though.
I admit that I am a bit biased. During the 8-10 years I tanked my startup by going all-in on Microsoft Store apps because I absolutely loved my Windows Phones and was convinced that they were the future, especially when Continuum was announced (and it actually worked!).
The disenchantment started when Microsoft forced developers to rewrite their apps for Windows 10 after already having forced the mobile devs to do it from 7 to 8. The hatred ramped up when they killed support for the Lumia 950XL 6 months after launch. I freaking loved that phone.
It pissed me off so much that I went to Apple lmao talk about cutting off my nose to spite my face.
As others pointed out, you're missing Vista from your list. You're also missing Windows 2000 for Workstations (between 98SE and ME) and 8.1 (between 8 and 10) both of which were pretty good releases.
widdows 2000 was the pinnacle for me, beat XP until i wanted to go to 64 bit.
Apart from having 64-bit, XP was a step back; even if I don't count the fucking dog thing.
XP was a fair bit harder to de-bloat than win 2000 and they were hell-bent on forcing internet exploder on the world.
XP was also at a time when Linux was becoming pretty easily usable and mac osx was impressive too - I remember using those imac coloured egg things at university in 2000. They were good apart from the mouse, and ran MS office pretty well.
StarOffice was already better than MS-Word at dealing with .doc format across versions.
and ancient version of Wordperfect were miles better for WP anyway ("reveal codes").
windows XP was already down to gaming, adobe and CAD/other specialist apps, plus maybe MS Excel that just weren't as good or not available on linux.
You forgot Vista between XP and 7 (probably because your brain blocked that traumatic experience).
DAE WINDOWS LITERALLY HITLER?!?!?
I don't know what to make of these sort of stats anymore. Just this morning I read something saying more people adopted Win 11 in the past month than use Linux.
I’m really loving this journey for them 🥰
I'd be happy to upgrade my laptop to Win11 but Win11 doesn't like it. I'm not buying a new laptop just because of Win11's dick moves. Win10 works perfectly well on it.
Regardless of OS, I'd like to see actual user numbers with stats like this because a percentage oversimplifies the landscape.
Have people moved away from (uninstalled) Windows 11 or have people just bought computers with a different OS/older version of Windows on it. To me, these tell a different tale.
October 2025 has entered the chat
FIS👏CAL👏CLIFF👏
They pivoted from serving the user to serving themselves. I still don't know what big improvements have been made to 11 other than another coat of paint, some LLM features searching for a problem and the odd feature like that Android subsystem that's being cancelled. Modern Standby is still being pushed which would rule out most new Windows laptops for me.
It's not like I want something revolutionary, just a number of quality of life things would be nice without feeling like I'm fighting the machine. If I could search images on my machine with OCR like iOS Photos I would be over the moon but noone's seemed to want to copy that.
As someone who uses both daily I prefer the shell of Windows 11.
I think a primary use for windoze machines is gaming. I hear that the steam deck has pushed a lot of games into playable states on Linux.
So I hope this makes it much easier to switch from windoze to Linux.
I moved to Linux Mint about 4 weeks ago (with optional dual boot Windows). All the games I tried have worked so far, even when not officially supported (turn on Proton compatibility in steam settings). If your multiplayer games use anticheat, Linux is a no go.
If you happen to have 2 harddrives, try installing Linux on one to see if it's something for you.
I’m in this camp. I use my PC mainly for gaming, and it runs Linux. All the games I care about are supported just fine with Steam and Proton. Not every game is compatible, but it works for the ones I want to play.
I found it very easy to get my games working, but experiences will vary. Most games were zero effort because it was handled automatically.
People are saying in another part of this thread that many games with anticheat actually work on Linux.
It saddens me as Windows 8 was absolutely awful and the first step towards the mess we have now. Windows 10 was better but still inconsistent in loads of areas and still felt faffy to use.
If you ignore the ads and bloat ware in Windows 11 it's not that much better than 10, the UI feels more consistent but still more painful to use than Windows 7.
We have no "good" versions of Windows to use, they are all bad and getting worse, I would love to jump to Linux but that has its own raft of inconsistencies and issues, just different ones.
If anybody is planning to dig their own mass grave then I recommend Windows 10 LTSC Enterprise. Notice it comes in two flavors: vanilla or IoT, I don't think IoT should be used unless you actually need it because it can be less secure.
That aside, Linux is cool. Maybe try out some of the new distros before committing to yar-har-dery.
The solution will be for have developers to fully support Linux. I'd date to say they the majority of people still using windows are doing so because they're gamers. While Linux has done what it can to support gaming, it's now up to the game Devs to build games that run on Linux
I kinda feel like Microsoft already knows about the recognized pattern of every other OS release being considered a success. That being said, I’d bet $1 they’re already spending more in the development of Windows 12 v 11.
I run Windows 11 on my workstation rig out of necessity and it's serviceable as an OS... as long as Microsoft keeps their greedy fingers out of it - which they do not. W11's lack of uptake is entirely their fault and they have done nothing to grow any good will amongst their customers and, in fact, constantly treat them like money pinatas to beat repeatedly.
Love how this is posted when I literally just got done trashing my os(win11) earlier this week and decided to move back to windows 10. Now I run windows 10 stripped of garbage using ntlite. It's been so much better.
Recently built a new PC and clean installed Nobara Linux. It's so much... Better. In every way, except for compatibility—and even that's not close to as bad as people say it is. Granted, I had used mostly open source programs before (still quite disappointed that Playnite isn't available on Linux, I do miss that) but I'm using mostly the same software. The pre-done compatibility fixes etc. that the Nobara team has done (huge props to them!) has made it far easier than i even expected. It really is getting to the point that I want a major laptop/PC manufacturer to ship with a polished, user friendly Linux distro, and get the ball rolling.
Thankfully I only have to use Windows to play video games. It would be terrible having to use it everyday for work.
It really isn't that bad if you run a debloat script.
Man windows sounds complicated. All these scripts and programs you've gotta hunt the web for, opening the command prompt or doing a load of registry edits to not see ads everywhere.
These days it’s easier to game on Linux than it is to debloat Windows
I've been a hardcore Linux gamer for 15+ years, but there's some games that just don't work on Linux, unfortunately. Sim racing was something I wanted to get into so I could get familiarity with some tracks before I actually go drive them, so putting up with windows long enough to launch the games is something I can deal with.
If M$ starts sending me ads mid game, then I might start looking for other solutions.
That's absolutely untrue. The debloat tools have a GUI and presets where it's basically a single click to run them.
I seriously tried gaming on Linux with like 5 different distros, and it was a struggle to get things running not completely awfully. Windows doesn't have those issues.
It's not really a hunt. Just Google "windows 11 debloat tool" and it's in the top 3 results.
https://m.majorgeeks.com/files/details/windows_11_debloater.html
You find all kinds of crap when you search for things like that, you need to do your research on what's trustworthy.
I see a lot of Windows users say "oh you can make windows not terrible, you just need to install this random modified Windows ISO that there's no way of knowing if it contains malware"
It's absolutely a hunt.
I am dreading the upcoming Windows 11 upgrades at my work. They made everything so fucking hard for me to get into to troubleshoot issues for our users.
I recently jumped ship to a new gig that MS’s account reps have burrowed deeply into.
It’s been about 7 years since I’ve been in a “Microsoft for all the things” shop. Now that I’m back in Microsoft land after 7 years, my first thought is “what the fuck happened in Redmond?”
The software is buggy, people are restarting left and right, and everything is missing 25% of their competitor’s features. I feel like I’m visiting a childhood home that is now occupied by hoarders.
Bring back windows XP!
Such colourful days :)
I was team classic theme for a long time. I forget the tool I used but the ability to customize the look of XP was awesome as I had a nice toolbar and start menu theme.
Since XP, I always upgraded to the next version whenever it came out. The insane hardware requirements of Windows 11 make it the only exception.
I use W11, I have no problems with it, sure the settings menus are shit but I just open the control panel directly and its the same since W95. The rest I don't care that much, for work I use Kali anyway.
WSL and installing python from the store (with all the PATH issues automagically solved) is pretty great.
I'm just surviving the latest windows update that I did not as for, agree to or want.
Fuck Microsoft! My otherwise fast computer is barely crawling, super slow, unresponsive. I can move the mouse but not much else. God fuck that company so good it never comes back up! Please! And free Ukraine.... And free Gaza.
I have Windows 11 for work and I find the new package manager
wingetas a Godsend. I am doing all program installations and upgrading over it and it works pretty well. Also the terminal is a very nice addition.They are. Both are also available for Windows 10.
I tried to install winget on Windows 10 but that was not possible if I am not wrong. I think the terminal is available but not winget
winget exists in windows 10, I can't remember if it is a powertoy or in the ms store or a feature flag thing but it is usable in windows 10.
Incredible how it took them 30 years to implement that....
The only thing I value in Windows 10 or 11 over 7 is better multi monitor support, and even that is not a giant issue. It's faster, uses less resources, is better organized, and looks nicer, especially nicer than 10 that looks like a lazy highschool kid spent all of a day on it.
Good that my windows 7 system still runs when I need it once a year ^^