Windows 11 review: An unnecessary replacement for Windows 10(pcworld.com)
pcworld.com
Windows 11 review: An unnecessary replacement for Windows 10
https://www.pcworld.com/article/539183/windows-11-review-an-unnecessary-replacement-for-windows-10.html
191 comments
Microsoft did not release anything worthy since Windows 2000. All their features were not needed. I'd easily pay $500/year for Windows 2000, just as it was, with support for modern hardware and other things needed to survive in modern Internet.
Now I'm not talking about internals. I'm sure that kernel was progressing all those years, for example. I'm talking about user-visible stuff.
Windows XP cartoon UI: terrible. Windows 10 UI: terrible. Good old Windows 2000 UI was just better in every way.
Windows shell? It was good in Windows 2000. Start was good. May be fast search would be a worthy feature to add, but that's about it. They redesign it every year, but it's not getting better.
Windows explorer? It was good in Windows 2000. They move buttons around, but that's not needed.
Control panel is 100x better than this settings nightmare UI.
They invent new UI frameworks every few years. That's not needed. WinAPI is good enough.
It won't happen. But they actually built a perfect OS and lost it. Forever, as corporations can't admit their mistakes. They could have improved upon it all this time, instead of trying to replace it.
With Nadella Microsoft is going downhill. Yes, they're doing things that looks interesting. Like integrating VM with Linux. That's cool. But they kind of gave up. Back in the time, they were actually pushing their own agenda. They had their own tech. Now they gave up and adapt old proven tech. Good for customers, but it's path to the end. If someone learned WSL, it's just one step to true Linux, why pay for Windows at all. Ditto about Edge. They built their own browser engine. How cool is that? Very few corporations were able to do so. And they gave up.
Microsoft lost his teethes. May be they just don't care about desktop anymore. Well, I don't care about Microsoft anymore.
Now I'm not talking about internals. I'm sure that kernel was progressing all those years, for example. I'm talking about user-visible stuff.
Windows XP cartoon UI: terrible. Windows 10 UI: terrible. Good old Windows 2000 UI was just better in every way.
Windows shell? It was good in Windows 2000. Start was good. May be fast search would be a worthy feature to add, but that's about it. They redesign it every year, but it's not getting better.
Windows explorer? It was good in Windows 2000. They move buttons around, but that's not needed.
Control panel is 100x better than this settings nightmare UI.
They invent new UI frameworks every few years. That's not needed. WinAPI is good enough.
It won't happen. But they actually built a perfect OS and lost it. Forever, as corporations can't admit their mistakes. They could have improved upon it all this time, instead of trying to replace it.
With Nadella Microsoft is going downhill. Yes, they're doing things that looks interesting. Like integrating VM with Linux. That's cool. But they kind of gave up. Back in the time, they were actually pushing their own agenda. They had their own tech. Now they gave up and adapt old proven tech. Good for customers, but it's path to the end. If someone learned WSL, it's just one step to true Linux, why pay for Windows at all. Ditto about Edge. They built their own browser engine. How cool is that? Very few corporations were able to do so. And they gave up.
Microsoft lost his teethes. May be they just don't care about desktop anymore. Well, I don't care about Microsoft anymore.
It might just be nostalgia, but Windows 7 did look good. Be it 7, XP, 2000, etc. I get the feeling the main advantage is a consistent UI. So many apps try to mix both desktop and touch oriented interfaces, or create their own "style" by moving everything around, fluffing up the UI and choosing random colors to represent some brand. Come to think of it, windows was already doing that with their ribbon UI, but it wasn't that wide spread(?).
The free software world has been having the same issue with GNOME 3 and their client side decoration initiative one the one side, and Electron apps on the other.
The desktop is just a mess. It might be inevitable, a product of cross-platform support or too many developers (or designers) trying to influence something. Either way, it is a burden that contributes to the general lack of pleasure most modern computer systems provide (hence why I take refuge in Emacs).
> Microsoft did not release anything worthy since Windows 2000
Windows 98 was pretty decent. Everybody hated Windows Me.
Windows XP was pretty decent. Everybody hated Windows Vista.
Windows 7 was pretty decent. Everybody hated Windows 8.
Windows 10 is pretty decent. People are hating Windows 11.
And so on and so forth.
Windows 98 was pretty decent. Everybody hated Windows Me.
Windows XP was pretty decent. Everybody hated Windows Vista.
Windows 7 was pretty decent. Everybody hated Windows 8.
Windows 10 is pretty decent. People are hating Windows 11.
And so on and so forth.
The pattern here seems to be that the only way Microsoft can produce a Windows release that will be rated as "pretty decent" is by first subjecting their users to several years of a release that lowers the bar (or a subsequent release that makes an earlier one seem better in hindsight). 98 appears to have been the end of Microsoft's ability to ship consecutive major versions that were unambiguously an all-around improvement.
Windows 2000 was an all around improvement. The UI of win95/98 with the kernel from NT. Now 20 years later we see places for decent improvements. It's just that microsoft either didn't do them,or added more antifeatures than features.
Windows 2000 was definitely an all-around improvement over NT4, but it wasn't marketed as a successor to 98. That was Windows ME, which in hindsight was a bad idea. Microsoft should have abandoned the 9x line after 98 SE and put all their resources into making the NT line suitable as a replacement for the entire customer base. But for some reason they decided they couldn't pull that off in time for Windows 2000, and postponed the unification of the product lines until XP.
Great summary but I remember a few nuances.
Windows ME had some legit quality of life improvements over 98. Although 98se had a few of them already.
Winxp SP2 was good. OG winxp had its issues.
Windows ME had some legit quality of life improvements over 98. Although 98se had a few of them already.
Winxp SP2 was good. OG winxp had its issues.
Windows 8.1 was pretty decent.
Windows 10 was a clusterfuck, from forced updates bricking machines to telemetry shoveled down everyone's throat to paid-for calculator to online accounts needed for local logins and all the way to its inbred UI. Total cluster, literally zero improvements to day-to-day use vs 8.1.
Windows 10 was a clusterfuck, from forced updates bricking machines to telemetry shoveled down everyone's throat to paid-for calculator to online accounts needed for local logins and all the way to its inbred UI. Total cluster, literally zero improvements to day-to-day use vs 8.1.
This. I didn't hate 8. I used it for several years without much trouble, and almost immediately regreted upgrading from it. I know a lot of people were put off by 8's UX changes, but they weren't that bad, especially compared to everything in your face AND under the hood that changed for the worst in 10. We even got the start menu back by 8.1 (and I never had an issue with the start screen, save issues navigating it with a mouse that were corrected IIRC).
Honestly, I even miss the charms bar/gesture; it was easy to make a larg general swipe and then choose "shutdown" to shutdown.
Honestly, I even miss the charms bar/gesture; it was easy to make a larg general swipe and then choose "shutdown" to shutdown.
literally every point about windows 10 is wrong.
>forced updates
can be turned off with a few clicks, no external tool required, no command line anything. its just shy hard enough that people who should not do it wont accidentally figure out how. If you dont know how you know what to google for, if not you are one of thous people who should not turn updates off.
>telemetry
can be turned off mostly but not so easy. however its an essential part of how a modern OS is maintained people dont like it and I get why but fixing up bugs from just user bug reports is simply not feasible anymore.
>paid-for calculator
no clue what that means
>online accounts needed for local logins
simply not true. Ive used every windows from 95 to 11 and not one needes an online account. to this day I dont have one and beside the obviously cloud based apps like onedrive I can use everything just fine.
>literally zero improvements to day-to-day use vs 8.1.
pointless statement as it depend on use-case. plenty people only use office and a browser sure the OS updates have no use for them.
>forced updates
can be turned off with a few clicks, no external tool required, no command line anything. its just shy hard enough that people who should not do it wont accidentally figure out how. If you dont know how you know what to google for, if not you are one of thous people who should not turn updates off.
>telemetry
can be turned off mostly but not so easy. however its an essential part of how a modern OS is maintained people dont like it and I get why but fixing up bugs from just user bug reports is simply not feasible anymore.
>paid-for calculator
no clue what that means
>online accounts needed for local logins
simply not true. Ive used every windows from 95 to 11 and not one needes an online account. to this day I dont have one and beside the obviously cloud based apps like onedrive I can use everything just fine.
>literally zero improvements to day-to-day use vs 8.1.
pointless statement as it depend on use-case. plenty people only use office and a browser sure the OS updates have no use for them.
You're right, but equally you have to go out of your way to achieve that state. An everyday user with a fresh install will almost certainly end up with unrequested updates, telemetry and an online account for local login.
One thing missing in this discussion is DirectX. Windows 10 launched with a new version and tried to market itself as a gaming platform. People playing AAA games on PC is a sizeable market and this would've been a significant everyday upgrade for them.
One thing missing in this discussion is DirectX. Windows 10 launched with a new version and tried to market itself as a gaming platform. People playing AAA games on PC is a sizeable market and this would've been a significant everyday upgrade for them.
Its intentional. If people could easily turn off updates they would do that and the next critical vulnerability would cause millions or billions of damage because it can infect and then use all those private PCs to attack other systems and no sys admin is around to fix stuff.
It would be a disaster and very bad PR for MS.
I don't necessarily agree with this chronology, but even if it's true it seems fair for me to hate something that is forced on me just because it's new after I've just previously been forced to use something that's at best "pretty decent".
Add in 3.11 and take away 10 and you have my (now ended) history with Windows.
I feel that Windows 7 was the best for me as a developer. It had a decent user experience, modern UI without being crazy, good support for development tools and far more stable than earlier versions.
I wish I could still be using windows 7. sigh.
I wish I could still be using windows 7. sigh.
I completely disagree about settings. The control panel has always been a disaster of information architecture, and any part of settings which still drops you into the control panel is similar. The big problem settings has is that it hides or removes features which used to be available. If Microsoft had just implemented those in settings, made the search faster, and removed every last bit of UI related to the control panel and weird dialogue menus which look like they haven’t been updated since XP, it would be significantly better.
Either way, I’m almost a little happy that windows is a disaster right now, because maybe more people will try Linux. :p
Either way, I’m almost a little happy that windows is a disaster right now, because maybe more people will try Linux. :p
>But they actually built a perfect OS and lost it.
Drive letters, registry…
They had a decent UI, reasonable kernel and popular API.
Drive letters, registry…
They had a decent UI, reasonable kernel and popular API.
Drive letters never caused much issues for me.
Registry is a good idea. They just had to iterate on it a little bit more, IMO. More data types (like enums), better interoperability with standard tools, built-in documentation, better UI, exposed backup/restore functions. Registry had great potential. It's better than flat /etc filesystem with miriads of configuration formats and clunky non-coherent documentation scattered all over. They did not realize this potential, unfortunately.
Registry is a good idea. They just had to iterate on it a little bit more, IMO. More data types (like enums), better interoperability with standard tools, built-in documentation, better UI, exposed backup/restore functions. Registry had great potential. It's better than flat /etc filesystem with miriads of configuration formats and clunky non-coherent documentation scattered all over. They did not realize this potential, unfortunately.
> Drive letters never caused much issues for me.
It’s an inelegant relic from a very, very distant past. A poor design decision that QDOS copied from CP/M more than 40 years ago and that Windows users are made to deal with to this day.
The registry is a database where a folder should be. It’s such a bad idea that Microsoft doesn’t use it for its new apps since .NET
It’s an inelegant relic from a very, very distant past. A poor design decision that QDOS copied from CP/M more than 40 years ago and that Windows users are made to deal with to this day.
The registry is a database where a folder should be. It’s such a bad idea that Microsoft doesn’t use it for its new apps since .NET
> Windows XP cartoon UI: terrible.
How dare you :P Windows UI peaked with XP.
How dare you :P Windows UI peaked with XP.
If they make desktop search suck a bit less I'll jump at Windows 11.
Everything (https://www.voidtools.com/) has essentially replaced my local and network share search option. It's a staggering difference, and Search in Windows 10 seems to be primarily designed to show you ad results with the occasional locally installed app thrown in around 50% of the time.
I use FilelocatorPro for search. It is very fast and effective.
For kicks I installed Works 9.0 yesterday; on my bleeding edge beast of a gaming machine. _Holy hell_ is it fast _and capable_.
For comparison, I popped open the relevant Office 365 apps and every one of them was noticeably slower to load, and slower to function. Even text rendering of input seemed to have a bit of a delay.
I can only imagine a world where Windows 2000 simply kept receiving security and driver updates. sigh
For comparison, I popped open the relevant Office 365 apps and every one of them was noticeably slower to load, and slower to function. Even text rendering of input seemed to have a bit of a delay.
I can only imagine a world where Windows 2000 simply kept receiving security and driver updates. sigh
I'm an editor and proofread texts daily. (In Spanish). The spell check process in Word was always straightforward, without significant delays between each check.
But guess what. Now the humble spell checker has evolved and now it's AI and cloud based. Nothing wrong with those technologies if properly implemented, but now each word that gets flagged makes a web request to try and find a suggestion, most of which are useless.
It's so frustrating. My work was becoming noticeable slower. Since I get paid per word, I need to work fast, so now before spell checking I have to disconnect from the internet. And I paid for Office! I paid for a software that helps me work slower and earn less.
But guess what. Now the humble spell checker has evolved and now it's AI and cloud based. Nothing wrong with those technologies if properly implemented, but now each word that gets flagged makes a web request to try and find a suggestion, most of which are useless.
It's so frustrating. My work was becoming noticeable slower. Since I get paid per word, I need to work fast, so now before spell checking I have to disconnect from the internet. And I paid for Office! I paid for a software that helps me work slower and earn less.
noxer(1)
word and excel are slower when compared to the Google workspace counterparts. There's a very noticeable lag when typing. They should be ashamed of themselves.
> I can only imagine a world where Windows 2000 simply kept receiving security and driver updates. sigh
Everyone wants this, funny how Big Corp works. Its supposed to be giving the consumer what he wants. Economists can't comprehend.
Everyone wants this, funny how Big Corp works. Its supposed to be giving the consumer what he wants. Economists can't comprehend.
There is something important hiding in your comment. In a fee market, someone would stand up and provide a modern fork of windows 2000. As this is not happening, the OS market is not free. I suppose it's an oligopoly or monopoly at this point.
So what went wrong? Complicated question, I see multiple partial answers.
* part of governement's job is safeguarding and restoring free markets. Clearly they failed here.
* part of it is a natural monopoly. No source code means a lot harder support.
* part of it is the copyright monopoly, making a free market basically illegal. There must be some mechanism for protecting creators, but the balance is lost if copyright forbids, e.g. duplication of goods no longer sold
* part of it is a failure in standardisation. POSIX is hopelessly incomplete for a modern os, and microsoft ignored it in favor of its own API's (minus some subsystem lip qervice).
* part of it is also the 'free' culture (beer, not speach). Someone has to pay for development, and gratis software, os delivered with PC, and piracy make it very hard to make money, especially for a consumer OS. Linux has a perpetual shoe string budget. BEOS had a good try with a better product but ultimately failed. OSX is an interesting case study, but it's not clear what to learn from it.
There are probably more answers.
So what went wrong? Complicated question, I see multiple partial answers.
* part of governement's job is safeguarding and restoring free markets. Clearly they failed here.
* part of it is a natural monopoly. No source code means a lot harder support.
* part of it is the copyright monopoly, making a free market basically illegal. There must be some mechanism for protecting creators, but the balance is lost if copyright forbids, e.g. duplication of goods no longer sold
* part of it is a failure in standardisation. POSIX is hopelessly incomplete for a modern os, and microsoft ignored it in favor of its own API's (minus some subsystem lip qervice).
* part of it is also the 'free' culture (beer, not speach). Someone has to pay for development, and gratis software, os delivered with PC, and piracy make it very hard to make money, especially for a consumer OS. Linux has a perpetual shoe string budget. BEOS had a good try with a better product but ultimately failed. OSX is an interesting case study, but it's not clear what to learn from it.
There are probably more answers.
IMHO, the heaviest impediment is that the source isn't available.
> Even text rendering of input seemed to have a bit of a delay
Modern Office has animated text input which has distinctly different feel. Not sure if it is actually slower though.
Modern Office has animated text input which has distinctly different feel. Not sure if it is actually slower though.
That feature annoyed me to no end, so I found a way to turn it off:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-off-office-a...
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-off-office-a...
It is much, much slower. And combined with the brilliant idea of hiding the cursor - good luck navigating a document with the keyboard.
I'm convinced that this is all a result of Microsoft being a rudderless ship. That and their unkillable telemetry telling them shit like "n% of people spend x% more time in Settings than Control Panel" so that means that Settings must be better. Right? Cool, let's take 5 years to slowly destroy the control panel.
Many things I've read over the last few years about Microsoft is that it's utterly disfunctional. It's become so big that it's impossible to achieve any kind of coherence. As another comment pointed out: they've had 10 years to make the UI all look the same and still haven't achieved it! A single dev could have redesigned the whole thing in a couple of years at most so it can't be a technical issue: it points to them either having incompetent management or just being too damn big to actually manage!
Now I've worked mainly for large corporates over the years and they're never a single entity: they're always made up of multiple internal entities whether officially or unofficially. And they all have their own goals so steering a company as a whole is not an easy task but Microsoft are a fucking mess and thanks to all this forced shit, Windows 10 will be the final version of Windows for me.
So what does that mean? It means that Linux has 4 years to get its act together before I switch to it permanently, come hell or high water. Coz right now, Linux is not a replacement for Windows for a great many people. Myself included. Even though I've tried multiple times with Fedora, Pop_OS and Ubuntu, shit always goes wrong. Always: dodgy sound issues, Nvidia drivers issues, scaling issues etc... stuff I don't get with Windows! Ever.
Many things I've read over the last few years about Microsoft is that it's utterly disfunctional. It's become so big that it's impossible to achieve any kind of coherence. As another comment pointed out: they've had 10 years to make the UI all look the same and still haven't achieved it! A single dev could have redesigned the whole thing in a couple of years at most so it can't be a technical issue: it points to them either having incompetent management or just being too damn big to actually manage!
Now I've worked mainly for large corporates over the years and they're never a single entity: they're always made up of multiple internal entities whether officially or unofficially. And they all have their own goals so steering a company as a whole is not an easy task but Microsoft are a fucking mess and thanks to all this forced shit, Windows 10 will be the final version of Windows for me.
So what does that mean? It means that Linux has 4 years to get its act together before I switch to it permanently, come hell or high water. Coz right now, Linux is not a replacement for Windows for a great many people. Myself included. Even though I've tried multiple times with Fedora, Pop_OS and Ubuntu, shit always goes wrong. Always: dodgy sound issues, Nvidia drivers issues, scaling issues etc... stuff I don't get with Windows! Ever.
Win7 was my last version. Then I switched to Linux Mint permanently and never looked back. I'm a developer using open source web tech, and this made my life a million times easier.
Sure, there's some things that require some/lots of tweaking/research and yea I still miss a few "apps" (Total Commander), BUT you gain so much more. When I rarely dual boot onto Win7 now I really cannot understand how I survived using it earlier.
Windows gets worse every time. Linux just gets better and better. No brainer if you ask me.
Sure, there's some things that require some/lots of tweaking/research and yea I still miss a few "apps" (Total Commander), BUT you gain so much more. When I rarely dual boot onto Win7 now I really cannot understand how I survived using it earlier.
Windows gets worse every time. Linux just gets better and better. No brainer if you ask me.
I get NVIDIA and audio issues on Windows from time to time. It depends on your audio interface's drivers. Likewise, NVIDIA issues depend on what card you're using.
Linux is 'there' for audio for me. Working on post for a feature-length documentary that is receiving theatrical distribution, entirely in Linux. More stable than Windows has been in years in my experiences.
Linux is 'there' for audio for me. Working on post for a feature-length documentary that is receiving theatrical distribution, entirely in Linux. More stable than Windows has been in years in my experiences.
With open source software you have to select the right hardware. If you want things to keep working I would recommend NixOS (if you're comfortable writing code and learning a new language). If things break you'll roll back your entire system (except /home essentially).
I was on manjaro, but my move to NixOS made me stay Linux (still have 2 gpus to GPU passthough to a Windows VM though)
I was on manjaro, but my move to NixOS made me stay Linux (still have 2 gpus to GPU passthough to a Windows VM though)
Trying (and failing miserably) to kill Control Panel blows my mind every time. There's not a single thing that Settings improves upon. Even its "touch-friendliness" is a direct result of omitting important features.
I find it pretty crazy that as far as hardware requirements go apparently the minimum is a 7th generation intel chip. Unsurprisingly only slightly more than 40% of enterprise machines meet that requirement[1], this pretty much excludes any machine pre 2018, no? Very weird.
[1]https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-11-half-of-enterprise-...
[1]https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-11-half-of-enterprise-...
8th generation :) I started their "PC health app" today and got told my Core i7 7700HQ is too old.
It doesn't matter what it says. It only checks for OEM requirements and thus only lists new CPUs that are still being produced/shipped in new hardware.
If you look at the same requirements for Windows 10 21H1 [1] it will not list old CPUs even if they where listed for older versions of win 10 and have no problem running 21H1.
[1]https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/min...
Fact is the current version of win 11 runs on any 64-bit CPU you can find I tested it on a T7500 from the early 2006. Its maxed out for 30 seconds after booting but other than that no problem running the OS.
If you look at the same requirements for Windows 10 21H1 [1] it will not list old CPUs even if they where listed for older versions of win 10 and have no problem running 21H1.
[1]https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/min...
Fact is the current version of win 11 runs on any 64-bit CPU you can find I tested it on a T7500 from the early 2006. Its maxed out for 30 seconds after booting but other than that no problem running the OS.
They did say that these older CPUs weren't entitled to Windows updates though (https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/28/22646035/microsoft-window...).
This is probably worse than being denied the upgrade in the first place...
This is probably worse than being denied the upgrade in the first place...
But its factually nonsense and in the end it does not matter what theverge say. What matters is the reality. The reality is you can run win11 on old CPUs. You can update win10 to win11. And you do receive updates. BUT if for some reason something is not compatible and it fails, MS like wont fix it if its related to old hardware. Also if new features are being added that do not work on old hardware then this may break the OS or certain parts and MS can point to the fact that you run unsupported hardware. That is how it always has been. You are on your own if you ignore recommendations but nothing is really denied. Skipping the CPU checks is one google search away for anyone who wants to.
Well, I don't know what Microsoft is going to add to their future updates, all I know is that they felt it was important enough to go out of their way and tell me they didn't guarantee I would always get updates. I don't want to switch over to it and discover that some 8-th gen CPU feature is needed for a Windows 11 feature I don't need, and have to go back to 10 to get security updates.
> That is how it always has been.
Previous Windows versions were guaranteed to keep working on the CPU models they could run on at launch.
Sure, it could just be a trick by MS to boost sales, but I don't think they like the PR drawback about planned obsolescence.
> That is how it always has been.
Previous Windows versions were guaranteed to keep working on the CPU models they could run on at launch.
Sure, it could just be a trick by MS to boost sales, but I don't think they like the PR drawback about planned obsolescence.
PC OEM sales people have already started shopping for bigger houses and boats.
During an ongoing chip shortage too.
In enterprise context I'd assume most of the upgrades would happen with regular device replacement cycles.
Thats why the past 2 years of hardware has official win 11 support and win 10 has support until 2025. That cover the corporate end-user hardware lifespan of 5-7 years.
Certainly this inst a coincident.
I remember Vista had some hardware grading system, and this was around the time GHz scaling was plateauing. I think really high end systems started out as like a 3 on a scale of 10...
Did we ever get to 10?
Did we ever get to 10?
Vista maxed out at 5.9, Windows 7 bumped the upper limit up to 7.9
It's gone from the UI in Windows 10, but WinSat is still there (for some reason), and the range now goes up to 9.9.
It's gone from the UI in Windows 10, but WinSat is still there (for some reason), and the range now goes up to 9.9.
Running an actual WinSAT benchmark since it has already been mentioned Windows 10/11 top out at 9.9:
System: 9.6
Memory: 9.6
CPU: 9.6
CPU Sub Agg: 9.3
Video Encode: 9.9
Graphics Score: 9.9
Dx9 Sub Score: 9.9
Dx10 Sub Score: 9.9
Disk Score: 9.7
Vista went up to 5.9, Windows 7 raised the bar to 7.9: https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-experience-index-in-wi...
Edit: ninja'd!
Edit: ninja'd!
Eh, I think I managed something close to the max around that time on pretty average hardware.
The current version goes to 10, open powershell and run Get-CimInstance Win32_WinSat. On that, I have an 8.1 on my SSD, and 9+ on everything else despite an 8 year old CPU.
The current version goes to 10, open powershell and run Get-CimInstance Win32_WinSat. On that, I have an 8.1 on my SSD, and 9+ on everything else despite an 8 year old CPU.
All I'm hoping for at this point is that they switch course on this ridiculous taskbar thing. I want a vertical task bar on the left side of my rightmost monitor, and I can't actually imagine using a PC with anything else. Also, small taskbar buttons with text (my taskbar is about 250px wide so that I can read the names of all my multiple windows of each IDE/text editor/Firefox).
This is such a huge impact on day-to-day usage of the OS by users, why would they constrain it?
This is such a huge impact on day-to-day usage of the OS by users, why would they constrain it?
I don't understand how it makes sense to bind the OS or GUI to desktop UI behaviour, but I've been a happy X11 user since 1994 so what do I know?
I believe that they constrain it because they have no respect for their users.
I believe that they constrain it because they have no respect for their users.
My bold prediction: they’re making it worse so that they can fix it in a future update. Why? There are only so many ways to actually improve things all the time, and it gets harder the more mature the product is. But a sinusoidal pattern of regressions and then “improvements” can be sustained indefinitely. It’s like an AC current: the features are the oscillating electrons, and the bonuses/promotions are the load.
Gnome 40 got massively improved speed.
Gnome 41 got better battery management.
You can play most top games on Linux now thanks to proton.
Some operating systems are improving every release, but they are found in the Linux world now. The suckers are the one who bought into the mac or Windows ecosystem and believed all the shit about privacy and security.
Gnome 41 got better battery management.
You can play most top games on Linux now thanks to proton.
Some operating systems are improving every release, but they are found in the Linux world now. The suckers are the one who bought into the mac or Windows ecosystem and believed all the shit about privacy and security.
I think GNOME 40 was notable more for the regressions it mainlined. It's pretty subjective on the visual side of things, but objectively they did remove quite a bit of GNOME functionality in exchange for... slightly more consistent themes?
I use Linux too, but GNOME is a pretty bad example of iterative improvement IMO. Ever since they ditched the "Unity" interface, most people agree that it's gone downhill.
I use Linux too, but GNOME is a pretty bad example of iterative improvement IMO. Ever since they ditched the "Unity" interface, most people agree that it's gone downhill.
Unity had nothing to do with the GNOME project, it was built by Canonical for Ubuntu.
GNOME has been moving in the right direction for a long time in my opinion, their concentration on making it easier for developers is really starting to pay off too.
GNOME has been moving in the right direction for a long time in my opinion, their concentration on making it easier for developers is really starting to pay off too.
How have they been making it easier on developers? I frankly think the GNOME documentation went heavily downhill after the release of 40, and their insistence on linking libdwaita makes it even harder for me to write GTK apps that function properly on GNOME. Everything about the transition feels like it was intended to push developers away, to me. I'd be interested to hear your input on it, though.
Well, the move to GitLab was huge. Plus the fact you can download Builder and have something up and running in a matter of minutes. Y4s, it was all possible before but it's so much easier now.
Just look at the smallish but beautifully polished apps that have appeared over the last year or two, Apostrophe, Shortwave, Fragments, Polari, Contrast, Cozy, Obfuscate, etc.
Just look at the smallish but beautifully polished apps that have appeared over the last year or two, Apostrophe, Shortwave, Fragments, Polari, Contrast, Cozy, Obfuscate, etc.
GNOME never had a Unity interface. That was Unity; Canonical later developed a bunch of extensions to replicate Unity in GNOME for the default Ubuntu desktop.
It's the first party shell implementation that is locked in compatibility, being built around assumptions of a particular OS version. The X11 equivalent layer has been the same system since Vista (obviously with extensions just like X11 over time) and supports launching any shell, even 3rd party ones.
Yup, this is the main reason I won't be upgrading to Windows 11 anytime soon. I've never been a fan of the icons-only taskbar and have enabled text labels since Windows 7.
They got one of the worst things in ChromeOS and put it in Windows. I have to use ChromeOS for work and its poor taskbar slows me down every day.
I won't be upgrading for this reason alone. This is not about being used to the old way and not wanting change, it's about not wanting to switch to something that is objectively worse and will make me less productive.
I won't be upgrading for this reason alone. This is not about being used to the old way and not wanting change, it's about not wanting to switch to something that is objectively worse and will make me less productive.
I upgraded my HTPC to windows 11 but this is the reason I won't update my workstation. Vertical taskbar makes sense on wide screen multi monitor setups. Centered task bar is ridiculous, even worse than left justified bottom screen cause the icons locations depend on what's on the taskbar making the ui unpredictable and kills any muscle memory advantages.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” - Orwell.
That's Windows since Windows 7.
Ads? "Telemetry"? A built-in browser? No.
That's Windows since Windows 7.
Ads? "Telemetry"? A built-in browser? No.
What about Google insisting you sign in on their own browser with 80%+ market share?
How does it insist? Chrome works without signing in just fine. You'll lose Google synchronization obviously, but that's about it.
I just see excuses to Google's dominance in the web browser space in all the responses. There are many threads on HN that discusses this in greater detail: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=chrome
I can still use Firefox to sign in to my Google account.
Google has never, ever, required that I use Chrome to access any of their sites and services.
uhm, many of their services work poorly or not at all with Firefox; how is that not "requiring chrome?"
I've happily used Firefox on Windows and Linux to access all of my Google services, without issue, for years.
Can you expand on which services don't work with ff?
At Google there is a requirement to use Chrome - due to certain browser extensions - but that doesn't impact any of the services they provide.
Can you expand on which services don't work with ff?
At Google there is a requirement to use Chrome - due to certain browser extensions - but that doesn't impact any of the services they provide.
This is lie tbh. Chrome was caught with using some shadow dom api in firefox to slow it down. And Google meet transmit more data in firefox than using chrome which means google has added something in chrome. Also google drive doesn't work properly in firefox like it can't download multiple file. But if i use chrome/brave it works properly.
And Gmail wont allow you to login from different browser in name of security reason. They do many thing to shift user from firefox to chrome/chromium browser for many reason.
And Gmail wont allow you to login from different browser in name of security reason. They do many thing to shift user from firefox to chrome/chromium browser for many reason.
Same. I use ungoogled chromium for google services.
There isn't a requirement to use Chrome at Google
Source: work at Google and used Firefox until the latest UI refresh
Source: work at Google and used Firefox until the latest UI refresh
There was when I was there. How does BeyondCorp work with ff?
You can manually configure the browser to point it at the BeyondCorp proxy
I haven't been able to use Hangouts reliably in Firefox in ages. I guess maybe it's better now but I just open Chrome every time I get a Hangout link at this point so I have no idea...which is sort of the point, if it's broken for long enough it's effectively broken forever.
Sheets and gmail were painful for me with FF. Moved to Brave, sadly
I use Gmail and Sheets just fine with Firefox. I haven't had any issues with it outside of the slowness of the app that I already notice in Chrome
You could use two browsers as well.
Ditto, been experiencing the same. Using ungoogled chromium for now.
Google Earth Studio is Chrome only
Ever tried to use Gmail offline? I could go on.
I can't use Google meet with Firefox.
I can
You can at least uninstall that and use a different one.
I don't understand why Microsoft's developer products (like VS Code and Github) are really great, but their consumer products just suck.
Developers have a wide range of alternatives to Microsoft products, so Microsoft must compete on the merits of its products. If I don't like SQL Server, I could choose between Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and many other RDBMSes. However, non-developers, particularly those using desktop operating systems, have limited alternatives to the Windows ecosystem. Applications that are exclusive to Windows are still a major reason why many people are still using Windows, though thanks to the Web and mobile computing this is less of an issue than it was 15 years ago. There is also still the fact that most retail PCs ship with Windows by default; options for purchasing PCs with Linux are still rather limited, though once again this situation has improved greatly in the past 15 years. Sure, there's the Mac as an alternative to Windows, but Apple does not compete in certain use cases and price points, whereas the Windows/PC ecosystem covers most use cases at a wide variety of price points.
When you're the 800-pound gorilla, you don't have to worry as much about the other animals in the ecosystem. I remember the days of Internet Explorer 6 and how that browser was allowed to stagnate, giving time for Mozilla Firefox to rise out of the ashes of Netscape Navigator and offer an alternative so compelling that it forced Microsoft to compete again. I feel this way of thinking may also explain Microsoft's approach to controversial features such as telemetry and UI changes; where will users migrate to? Migrating to the Mac or Linux requires tradeoffs that a wide amount of users have decided through their actions are not worth migrating away from Windows despite some of Windows' problems.
When you're the 800-pound gorilla, you don't have to worry as much about the other animals in the ecosystem. I remember the days of Internet Explorer 6 and how that browser was allowed to stagnate, giving time for Mozilla Firefox to rise out of the ashes of Netscape Navigator and offer an alternative so compelling that it forced Microsoft to compete again. I feel this way of thinking may also explain Microsoft's approach to controversial features such as telemetry and UI changes; where will users migrate to? Migrating to the Mac or Linux requires tradeoffs that a wide amount of users have decided through their actions are not worth migrating away from Windows despite some of Windows' problems.
“Developers developers developers!” was intended to be an actual strategy
Microsoft bought GitHub. It was already tremendously successful.
It keeps prospering under them. Imagine Oracle buying it or something like that.
“Oracle GitHub is being renamed to Oracle JavaZone(TM) to harmonise Oracle’s developer story under the Java(TM) brand.”
"Your JavaZone(tm) account will remain free for individual, non-profit use; all other account owners will be contacted but not until some future date after we trick you into visiting the site and demand punative licensing fees under threat of legal action"
"By uploading computer program code to Oracle's servers, you agree to grant Oracle an unlimited, irrevocable, transferrable license to..."
Oracle bought Java and Java is pretty good under its patronage. Better than Sun, at least in last years.
Oracle provides RHEL build and it's pretty good. No CentOS drama, it's free and just works.
I think that Oracle can execute well.
Oracle provides RHEL build and it's pretty good. No CentOS drama, it's free and just works.
I think that Oracle can execute well.
You obviously didn't get scooped up in their JDK dragnet. It was essentially a ransomeware demand that cost our company mid-five figures annually.
How can you completely dismiss the JDK and licensing issues that was started by Oracle?
Developers are less likely to put up with crap because they will go and program their own competing product that is better
I was thinking about this before and only conclusion I came is that all of recent great MS software is open-sourced (VScode, .NET core, TypeScript, new Terminal app, PowerToys...)
github is still developed by Github Inc.
github is still developed by Github Inc.
Because Microsoft is a platform company.
I feel like local accounts on windows is just like local vaults on 1Password.
They kind of support it but will keep annoying and bullying the hell out of you to move to the cloud for “your own benefit”. Until you either leave or submit to their will.
They kind of support it but will keep annoying and bullying the hell out of you to move to the cloud for “your own benefit”. Until you either leave or submit to their will.
Only reason I have my local account linked to my Microsoft account is I actually use Xbox Live on Windows. Other than that the only time I got asked about it was during install.
You linked it, that’s why you’re not hearing about it.
I never link the account and I keep hearing about it…
I never link the account and I keep hearing about it…
The only time you hear about it to link it is if you use cloud services like the one I described. Of course you're going to be bothered to log into cloud services if you keep opening them but don't sign in - stop trying to open them?
As far as the local account itself it's still just a local account, I didn't migrate it to a cloud synced account only enabled my cloud account for cloud apps I use only.
As far as the local account itself it's still just a local account, I didn't migrate it to a cloud synced account only enabled my cloud account for cloud apps I use only.
Every giant tech company seems to do this to some extent. I call it 'genetic drift' as it's akin to that phenomenon in nature. When a company gets so big that it will keep existing and being profitable no matter what decisions they make, then, they make random decisions, there's no selection pressure anymore.
With all of these new features Microsoft continues to try to usher in the year of the Linux desktop.
from the article > Local “offline” accounts require Windows 11 Pro.
and still no tabbed Windows Explorer.
zero interest in this I see no benefit.
and still no tabbed Windows Explorer.
zero interest in this I see no benefit.
Expanding:
> The most significant change is the elimination of local or “offline” accounts within Windows 10 Home—a fact that we were told in July and appears still to be the case. At present, Windows 11 Home PCs must be set up and administered with a Microsoft account, though local accounts can also be added later for additional users.
> To enable local accounts as part of the initial setup, you’ll need to install Windows 11 Pro, either via an in-place upgrade from Windows 10 or a clean installation. During the setup process, you’ll be prompted for your Microsoft account information. Simply click the “sign-in options” link instead. The next page will offer you the option to sign in with an offline account.
Did I understand correctly: does this mean that I need to have a working Internet connection to install Win11 (non-"Pro"), hoping that my NIC works during the installation process?
> The most significant change is the elimination of local or “offline” accounts within Windows 10 Home—a fact that we were told in July and appears still to be the case. At present, Windows 11 Home PCs must be set up and administered with a Microsoft account, though local accounts can also be added later for additional users.
> To enable local accounts as part of the initial setup, you’ll need to install Windows 11 Pro, either via an in-place upgrade from Windows 10 or a clean installation. During the setup process, you’ll be prompted for your Microsoft account information. Simply click the “sign-in options” link instead. The next page will offer you the option to sign in with an offline account.
Did I understand correctly: does this mean that I need to have a working Internet connection to install Win11 (non-"Pro"), hoping that my NIC works during the installation process?
MS in 1995: wtf is "internet"?
MS in 2021: wtf is "local"?
MS in 2021: wtf is "local"?
> Did I understand correctly: does this mean that I need to have a working Internet connection to install Win11 (non-"Pro"), hoping that my NIC works during the installation process?
That is my read on it. The guidance to "click the sign in options...to sign in with an offline account" worked for me in Win10 Home, but apparently not for 11 Home version (without any yet to be revealed work arounds)
That is my read on it. The guidance to "click the sign in options...to sign in with an offline account" worked for me in Win10 Home, but apparently not for 11 Home version (without any yet to be revealed work arounds)
For the tabbed file explorer, just use Directory Opus. It's way better in every way and you can customize it until the cows come home. Friends don't let friends use (File) Explorer.
No offline accounts on the Home version is vile, however.
No offline accounts on the Home version is vile, however.
I've installed a great tabbed file explorer aptly titled "Files". It's a little rough around the edges but shows a lot of promise. Prior to that QTTabs worked well but didn't play nice with dark mode or the "add/remove programs" window. I'll look into Directory Opus thanks for the suggestion.
Overall I do really like the new UI, but the lack of taskbar customizability does indeed suck (I used to have it at the top, but now that I'm forced to have it at the bottom I've set it to auto-hide). The Settings menu on the other hand is leaps and bounds better than the absolute garbage that is the Windows 10 Settings menu (except for the default app mess but hopefully they'll improve that).
I’m blocking the Windows 11 update via group policy[1] until the Taskbar and Start Menu are usable.
I run software that is unusable without it being 1-taskbar-button-per-window. Forcing us to use 1-button-per-EXE with a slow-and-fiddly window sub-menu is so very user-hostile.
I suspect the decision to force single large buttons was to prompt third-party developers to have single-window-apps just like smartphones and tablets - which is just so wrong on so many levels.
Being dicks about MSAs in Home SKUs is also inexplicable. Do they really expect people will be okay with being stuck and unable to install Windows without a working internet connection? What if a computer has a modern NIC that Windows doesn’t have in-box drivers for? This. Is. Insane.
[1] Yes, I run an AD domain for my house.
I run software that is unusable without it being 1-taskbar-button-per-window. Forcing us to use 1-button-per-EXE with a slow-and-fiddly window sub-menu is so very user-hostile.
I suspect the decision to force single large buttons was to prompt third-party developers to have single-window-apps just like smartphones and tablets - which is just so wrong on so many levels.
Being dicks about MSAs in Home SKUs is also inexplicable. Do they really expect people will be okay with being stuck and unable to install Windows without a working internet connection? What if a computer has a modern NIC that Windows doesn’t have in-box drivers for? This. Is. Insane.
[1] Yes, I run an AD domain for my house.
Same, though I don't run an AD domain (you can still use gpedit.msc on a local machine). I'm also considering turning off my TPM in case Microsoft screws up the roll-out, intentionally or not.
At least they seem to have fixed auto-hide on multiple monitors, but I still have to turn it back on half the time I wake my computer from sleep.
Why suffer winblows 11 when you can do the same with plasma DE
"While Windows 11 tolerates local offline accounts, expect to see numerous little passive-aggressive nags here and there to “change to a Microsoft [or “online”] account.”
I hate that with Windows 10. Give me a break M$.
I hate that with Windows 10. Give me a break M$.
Tolerates? Tolerates??
That attitude is exactly why I'm on Linux since 8 years back. I don't accept Microsoft telling me what my computer will do.
That attitude is exactly why I'm on Linux since 8 years back. I don't accept Microsoft telling me what my computer will do.
> Offline accounts are now a "pro" feature.
> Switching default browsers is now more difficult.
> Taskbar is now shoved to the center. Why? No reason other than to be aesthetically differentiable from Windows 10.
Remember when things used to get better between versions? I do.
> Switching default browsers is now more difficult.
> Taskbar is now shoved to the center. Why? No reason other than to be aesthetically differentiable from Windows 10.
Remember when things used to get better between versions? I do.
plus so called team's "integration". Clearly a move to use the dominate position of windows in OS space, to push out competitors like Slack, Zoom, and all others in the communication space.
> Offline account a pro feature: to sell Microsoft accounts, office 365 and onedrive
> Switching default browsers more difficult: to sell Edge and Bing.
> Taskbar is now in the center: to get people to click on icons such as Teams, Microsoft Search, and the new launcher which includes links to Microsoft services like office 365.
All the changes above are not for the benefits of consumers or other business that rely on Windows OS, for example, app developers, partners etc. Microsoft would brand and market them for the benefits of consumers. But at their core, they are about serving Microsoft bottom line. To use the dominate of position of windows OS in the PC(desktop and laptop) market, to push other lines of business from Microsoft. Microsoft have to continue to grow their revenue to justify their market cap right? That is where Microsoft's core interest is and what fundamentally propel them to do. And it shows up in what consumers will end up with, and it's not surprising at all. All that marketing doesn't hide this fact.
And Microsoft will do things slowly, like boiling frogs, slowly so people don't realize. Remember when Windows 10 was launching people expressed concerns about linking Microsoft account to windows and Microsoft replied offline account will always be here? Now they removed it from non-pro edition and calling it "improving our ability to deliver new features to consumers" or "bring consumers more value". Microsoft's strategy is get people to use Microsoft account, so people use other Microsoft services like onedrive and office, and have stronger ties with Microsoft. Now if you want a offline account, you have to fork more money, and a lot of laptop OEMs ship with non-pro version of windows because it's cheaper license. This will deter a lot of people, so people cave in and go with Microsoft's strategy. But in long run, Microsoft will make more money from people with Microsoft accounts than they lost from the cheaper windows non-pro license. The business executives and strategists have all this calculated.
> Offline account a pro feature: to sell Microsoft accounts, office 365 and onedrive
> Switching default browsers more difficult: to sell Edge and Bing.
> Taskbar is now in the center: to get people to click on icons such as Teams, Microsoft Search, and the new launcher which includes links to Microsoft services like office 365.
All the changes above are not for the benefits of consumers or other business that rely on Windows OS, for example, app developers, partners etc. Microsoft would brand and market them for the benefits of consumers. But at their core, they are about serving Microsoft bottom line. To use the dominate of position of windows OS in the PC(desktop and laptop) market, to push other lines of business from Microsoft. Microsoft have to continue to grow their revenue to justify their market cap right? That is where Microsoft's core interest is and what fundamentally propel them to do. And it shows up in what consumers will end up with, and it's not surprising at all. All that marketing doesn't hide this fact.
And Microsoft will do things slowly, like boiling frogs, slowly so people don't realize. Remember when Windows 10 was launching people expressed concerns about linking Microsoft account to windows and Microsoft replied offline account will always be here? Now they removed it from non-pro edition and calling it "improving our ability to deliver new features to consumers" or "bring consumers more value". Microsoft's strategy is get people to use Microsoft account, so people use other Microsoft services like onedrive and office, and have stronger ties with Microsoft. Now if you want a offline account, you have to fork more money, and a lot of laptop OEMs ship with non-pro version of windows because it's cheaper license. This will deter a lot of people, so people cave in and go with Microsoft's strategy. But in long run, Microsoft will make more money from people with Microsoft accounts than they lost from the cheaper windows non-pro license. The business executives and strategists have all this calculated.
> so called team's "integration". Clearly a move to use the dominate position of windows in OS space, to push out competitors like Slack, Zoom, and all others in the communication space
I hope the regulators are listening - it's the same crap as IE.
I hope the regulators are listening - it's the same crap as IE.
How were word and excel going to get collaborative editing like google docs without some kind of online account?
A common HN refrain is that defaults matter, so by default in order to be feature competitive you need an MS account.
For my personal computer I will use Linux and windows 7 in a VM for autocad and other windows only software, for work I use whatever they provide. If it lets my company pay $x per user per year for supported collaborative word and excel, common cloud storage, and shared calendars… that’s pretty turn key and a great deal compared to having an in house IT department that could do all of that, when tech is a tool for our business and not core or adjacent to the business
A common HN refrain is that defaults matter, so by default in order to be feature competitive you need an MS account.
For my personal computer I will use Linux and windows 7 in a VM for autocad and other windows only software, for work I use whatever they provide. If it lets my company pay $x per user per year for supported collaborative word and excel, common cloud storage, and shared calendars… that’s pretty turn key and a great deal compared to having an in house IT department that could do all of that, when tech is a tool for our business and not core or adjacent to the business
Same way it works for Etherpad? Accounts are old school. Keys would work just fine. Even collaboration via a local server. No reason for third-party cloud or accounts.
If you mean "every other version", then yes, I member.
I think MS has shifted from that strategy into a new one, where we'll see improvements every fifth version or so. 20 years from now, we'll get "multiple displays works like a charm".
I think MS has shifted from that strategy into a new one, where we'll see improvements every fifth version or so. 20 years from now, we'll get "multiple displays works like a charm".
The taskbar being centered actually can make sense if you've ever used an ultrawide, or super ultrawide monitor. I use two vertically stacked 49" monitors but wouldn't keep it centered though; I actually hide it and only show it when I press the Win key, using a bunch of third-party programs that won't work with the rewritten XAML Island-based taskbar.
But making it the default setting is wrong IMO. I feel the new taskbar is clearly an attempt at copying MacOS's awful dock, replete with forced grouping and a small indicator below the icon to show which app is currently running.
But making it the default setting is wrong IMO. I feel the new taskbar is clearly an attempt at copying MacOS's awful dock, replete with forced grouping and a small indicator below the icon to show which app is currently running.
I could see centering the running-window icons, but the Start button should still be in a corner. This is day 1 UX design stuff-- the corners are effectively infinitely large click targets, ensuring quick and reliable access. The Apple menu has been in a corner since 1984 for a reason.
Agreed on the Start button location.
With Microsoft, they get better with every other version. Goes back at least to Windows 2000. Windows Me, Vista, 8 were monsters, 2000, XP, 7 and 10 were nice enough. Whatever comes after 11 should be good again
Sounds like Microsoft is turning Windows into ChromeOS. Now I actually like ChromeOS a lot. But I do wish we'd keep some actual choices, instead of the same thing with different skins.
I largely like ChromeOS as itself, but I wouldn't want it for a general purpose system; it works because it's a limited system
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My plan is to stick to windows 10 until full nvidia support for wayland arrive. Hopefully, 5 years is enough as things started to get better lately.
Even though my new Framework laptop supports Wayland, unfortunately I'll probably end up installing Windows on it. And largely because of the display manager.
Wayland itself works great on Ubuntu 21.04. But the screen resolution means I must run at a fractional resolution for it to be usable. And many of my apps require special flags to work directly with Wayland (Chrome and Electron apps), some exhibit bugs when running under Wayland (VS Code), and some don't directly support Wayland at all yet (IntelliJ IDEA)—meaning they have to run under X11 compatibility and suffer from blurry text at fractional scales: https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/440...
I can still run Xorg of course, with the old requisite tweaks to prevent screen tearing on Intel graphics. But directly comparing the performance of Wayland and Xorg on the same machine seems night and day to me (in Wayland's favor, at least under fractional scaling), so I'll likely resort to Windows 10 until the app ecosystem catches up to Wayland.
(And that makes me sad: I actually prefer Linux for several non-ideological reasons, ranging from ZFS to not relying on unstable registry hacks to invert my mouse's scroll wheel.)
Wayland itself works great on Ubuntu 21.04. But the screen resolution means I must run at a fractional resolution for it to be usable. And many of my apps require special flags to work directly with Wayland (Chrome and Electron apps), some exhibit bugs when running under Wayland (VS Code), and some don't directly support Wayland at all yet (IntelliJ IDEA)—meaning they have to run under X11 compatibility and suffer from blurry text at fractional scales: https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/440...
I can still run Xorg of course, with the old requisite tweaks to prevent screen tearing on Intel graphics. But directly comparing the performance of Wayland and Xorg on the same machine seems night and day to me (in Wayland's favor, at least under fractional scaling), so I'll likely resort to Windows 10 until the app ecosystem catches up to Wayland.
(And that makes me sad: I actually prefer Linux for several non-ideological reasons, ranging from ZFS to not relying on unstable registry hacks to invert my mouse's scroll wheel.)
You don't need to wait any longer. NVIDIA updated their driver for full Wayland support a few months ago.
Sounds pretty rough still
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-G...
Unless I'm misreading that completely its saying that Sway support is not yet even in beta.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-G...
Unless I'm misreading that completely its saying that Sway support is not yet even in beta.
Or you could just buy an AMD GPU.
Or I can just not generate e-waste by using my perfectly capable device until the end of its life.
It sounds like it's pretty far from "perfectly" capable according to your needs.
How exactly do you know what my needs are?
I don’t “need” to run Linux on it for the next 5 years as windows 10 will continue to be supported.
I don’t “need” to run Linux on it for the next 5 years as windows 10 will continue to be supported.
I was assuming that if you actually knew enough about Linux to know that your use cases require full Wayland support and cannot be satisfied by X11, then you are probably already using Linux to some extent. It didn't seem realistic that you could have come to such a conclusion about Wayland if using Linux at all is merely a distant hypothetical to you.
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Selling is an option, or using it for passthrough.
It’s a laptop. I’m not interested in selling it as it’s a great laptop and works fine for my needs. I’m a patient men and I can wait 5 years easily for proper wayland support. If it doesn’t come, then I think about selling it.
I’ve tried gpu pass through it was more annoying then installing arch to set it up. And made me realize that my dGPU is wired to my HDMI so I can’t use my hdmi while my dGPU is on my virtual machine.
Anyway, I’m not complaining about windows 10, I quite like it as everything works out of the box.
I’ve tried gpu pass through it was more annoying then installing arch to set it up. And made me realize that my dGPU is wired to my HDMI so I can’t use my hdmi while my dGPU is on my virtual machine.
Anyway, I’m not complaining about windows 10, I quite like it as everything works out of the box.
Buying a GPU in 2021 is tricky for most people.
I've got a 1050ti that handles x11 and Wayland perfectly fine. I haven't put Wayland through it's paces with any games, but I've heard that the Nvidia 470.xx updates added in dramatically better xWayland support.
Microsoft, Apple, And Google are perfectly timed right now for a competitor take over. They have been for a couple years.
Microsoft’s constant privacy violations with Windows 10 telemetry, their user hostile subscription pricing model on everything, horrible security vulnerabilities (and hostile bug bounty programs).
Apple’s pricing, security holes, (and hostile bug bounties program), and anti-developer activities, alignment with China, running the company like a CFO owns it.
Google’s complete corruption on account take downs, horrible search results (yes, I want that keyword I typed in to be included!), and privacy violations.
Why hasn’t all the money being thrown around the last handful of years been used to unseat these companies?
Microsoft’s constant privacy violations with Windows 10 telemetry, their user hostile subscription pricing model on everything, horrible security vulnerabilities (and hostile bug bounty programs).
Apple’s pricing, security holes, (and hostile bug bounties program), and anti-developer activities, alignment with China, running the company like a CFO owns it.
Google’s complete corruption on account take downs, horrible search results (yes, I want that keyword I typed in to be included!), and privacy violations.
Why hasn’t all the money being thrown around the last handful of years been used to unseat these companies?
I have the Insider Beta or whatever enabled and the update I installed last night seemed to cause some kind of severe memory leak. Chrome kept freezing up and was generally unresponsive. Something related to the taskbar or OS kept restarting, which I assume was because of an out-of-memory issue.
I am wondering if it's a bug or if somehow my Omen laptop doesn't meet the requirements and they just sent me the update anyway. But as it is I think I absolutely have to revert to a previous version.
I am wondering if it's a bug or if somehow my Omen laptop doesn't meet the requirements and they just sent me the update anyway. But as it is I think I absolutely have to revert to a previous version.
Why is Microsoft so bad at software for microcomputers? They are truly a testament to the power of compatibility and enterprise sales.
The best OS and UI upgrade is the one you're already comfortable using.
Sucks that Windows 7 is out of support now (and some games don’t work) and am forced to use Windows 10. If I could go back I would do so in a heartbeat.
On the Linux side I have i3 with XFCE on it and haven’t changed it for over a year. And it will probably stay that way (until Wayland supports Nvidia GPUs and becomes good enough, which will probably take a lot of time)
On the Linux side I have i3 with XFCE on it and haven’t changed it for over a year. And it will probably stay that way (until Wayland supports Nvidia GPUs and becomes good enough, which will probably take a lot of time)
I have been running Windows 11 on a second machine since the preview came out. It is an old Dell Latitude from 2011 or so. A 3rd generation Intel i5 CPU, 8GB RAM and a Samsung 250GB SATA SSD. It runs Windows 11 very well. It ran Windows 10 very well just for reference.
I have no complaints about the stability of Windows. Windows 10 had always been very stable and reliable and Windows 11 continues that. At least during the previews.
There are some nice new features such as the new 'windows snapping' UI when you hover over the maximise button however this hardly seems worthwhile of revving Windows up from 10 to 11.
There are also a lot of frustrating changes. Take for example the new context menus. For many years people have made fun of the inconsistencies in Windows context menus. It isn't a big deal in reality but it became a bit of a meme that Microsoft were incapable of solving it.
So is this solved in Windows 11? No. If anything it is worse because rather than solving the inconsistencies they hide it behind yet another context menu design.
For example if you right click on a zip file because you want to access 7-Zip or WinRAR's context menu options you no longer get them. You get this new context menu with a "show more options" item at the bottom. Select this and then you get the old context menu that contains the application extended options for 7-Zip, etc.
On the surface it looks cleaned up but in reality they just made it worse by covering it up and adding another step to the users workflow.
They did some work on a new Settings app which is nice but again many options just throw you back into old properties windows for advanced settings such as some keyboard and mouse options, etc. Sure not a big deal as you hardly ever need to go there but that is true of most settings so why bother at all.
I hate this "let's improve 60% of things but leave that old 40% as it is because it's just too much work now" attitude Microsoft has had with regards to consistency since the release of Windows XP.
By far the worst aspect is the removal of so many customisation options. The new taskbar is trash. As is the new Start Menu. Sure you can left justify the icons but you can't do much else with the taskbar/dock. Use multiple monitors? Sorry you can only see the date and time on your main monitor for some reason. Want to put the taskbar on the left side of your screen rather than along the bottom? No sorry that is no longer supported.
Want to drag and drop a file onto an app icon? Hah! No sorry that 25+ year long UX doesn't work with the new taskbar.
Overall Windows 11 certainly feels like a step backwards for Windows as a whole. It seems Microsoft just don't know what they want from Windows so just slap a new coat of paint on it and call it new while they struggle to see where it fits moving forward.
To me it isn't backwards compatibility or native (Win32 eek!) applications that keep business on Windows but remote management. Windows may be kinda crappy from a UX perspective but it is stable and easier to manage on scale than anything else out there, in a business setting anyway. For education Chromebook's and iPad's work great due to the hub and spoke nature of schools and IT management, which is why we have seen those devices eat away at Microsoft's market there.
I feel the fact that Windows 11 will release next week with little interest shows how it doesn't really matter anymore. I suspect Apple's October update to macOS with the release of Monterey will receive just as much, if not more, press and praise and that happens every year like clock work.
Anyway I think I have written enough. I hadn't planned on this mini-essay when I opened this thread so I guess congratulations and thanks if you made it this far on a Saturday evening.
I have no complaints about the stability of Windows. Windows 10 had always been very stable and reliable and Windows 11 continues that. At least during the previews.
There are some nice new features such as the new 'windows snapping' UI when you hover over the maximise button however this hardly seems worthwhile of revving Windows up from 10 to 11.
There are also a lot of frustrating changes. Take for example the new context menus. For many years people have made fun of the inconsistencies in Windows context menus. It isn't a big deal in reality but it became a bit of a meme that Microsoft were incapable of solving it.
So is this solved in Windows 11? No. If anything it is worse because rather than solving the inconsistencies they hide it behind yet another context menu design.
For example if you right click on a zip file because you want to access 7-Zip or WinRAR's context menu options you no longer get them. You get this new context menu with a "show more options" item at the bottom. Select this and then you get the old context menu that contains the application extended options for 7-Zip, etc.
On the surface it looks cleaned up but in reality they just made it worse by covering it up and adding another step to the users workflow.
They did some work on a new Settings app which is nice but again many options just throw you back into old properties windows for advanced settings such as some keyboard and mouse options, etc. Sure not a big deal as you hardly ever need to go there but that is true of most settings so why bother at all.
I hate this "let's improve 60% of things but leave that old 40% as it is because it's just too much work now" attitude Microsoft has had with regards to consistency since the release of Windows XP.
By far the worst aspect is the removal of so many customisation options. The new taskbar is trash. As is the new Start Menu. Sure you can left justify the icons but you can't do much else with the taskbar/dock. Use multiple monitors? Sorry you can only see the date and time on your main monitor for some reason. Want to put the taskbar on the left side of your screen rather than along the bottom? No sorry that is no longer supported.
Want to drag and drop a file onto an app icon? Hah! No sorry that 25+ year long UX doesn't work with the new taskbar.
Overall Windows 11 certainly feels like a step backwards for Windows as a whole. It seems Microsoft just don't know what they want from Windows so just slap a new coat of paint on it and call it new while they struggle to see where it fits moving forward.
To me it isn't backwards compatibility or native (Win32 eek!) applications that keep business on Windows but remote management. Windows may be kinda crappy from a UX perspective but it is stable and easier to manage on scale than anything else out there, in a business setting anyway. For education Chromebook's and iPad's work great due to the hub and spoke nature of schools and IT management, which is why we have seen those devices eat away at Microsoft's market there.
I feel the fact that Windows 11 will release next week with little interest shows how it doesn't really matter anymore. I suspect Apple's October update to macOS with the release of Monterey will receive just as much, if not more, press and praise and that happens every year like clock work.
Anyway I think I have written enough. I hadn't planned on this mini-essay when I opened this thread so I guess congratulations and thanks if you made it this far on a Saturday evening.
Windows has been on the wrong path since Win 7.
I keep a 10-year-old ultrabook with Win 7 for the very rare occasions that I need to run some form of Windows app.
I keep a 10-year-old ultrabook with Win 7 for the very rare occasions that I need to run some form of Windows app.
Win 10 LTSB (the only good version of windows atm anyway) will be supported for a good few more years. Presumably by its EOL there will be a decent win 11 LTSB available to switch to.
I have to use Windows for my job (game dev) . I dont understand how anyone can stomach non LTSB windows. Also, just go ahead and pirate it! MS have given us no other choice.
I have to use Windows for my job (game dev) . I dont understand how anyone can stomach non LTSB windows. Also, just go ahead and pirate it! MS have given us no other choice.
I'm switching to 10 LTSC (nb they renamed LTSB) 1809 this weekend to get ahead of the curve. Supported until January 2029. 11 came out six years after 10, so decent odds this can tide me over until 12.
Unfortunately they reduced their support commitment for the upcoming 10 LTSC 21H2 to five years from release, so the older version is the best you can do.
Also FWIW, Microsoft does kind of give you a choice to obtain 10 LTSC legitimately, it's just a pain in the ass since it's very deliberately not intended for consumers. Described here: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2167558-explicit-inst...
I actually did it (using CDW, total cost US$319.15), in part because I'm a goody-goody I guess and in part because even if you can trust the ISO you got is good by verifying its checksum, god knows what the tool you use to bypass the copyright enforcement mechanism does.
If anyone reading this comment is interested in buying it, you should probably also know that the Open License volume purchasing program that the linked units are being sold under is getting discontinued in January 2022, so might want to decide whether to bite the bullet soon.
Also FWIW, Microsoft does kind of give you a choice to obtain 10 LTSC legitimately, it's just a pain in the ass since it's very deliberately not intended for consumers. Described here: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2167558-explicit-inst...
I actually did it (using CDW, total cost US$319.15), in part because I'm a goody-goody I guess and in part because even if you can trust the ISO you got is good by verifying its checksum, god knows what the tool you use to bypass the copyright enforcement mechanism does.
If anyone reading this comment is interested in buying it, you should probably also know that the Open License volume purchasing program that the linked units are being sold under is getting discontinued in January 2022, so might want to decide whether to bite the bullet soon.
I dont really consider giving money to MS a 'goody goody' thing to do.
The crack is super simple, you install windows so it uses a key management server for its DRM. The crack just fakes a KMS server and tells windows "yep yer good, you have a license." You have to do it every 6 months or something.
I think of pirate stuff like open source software. I'm not personally going to go through every download with a fine tooth comb looking for malware. But other members of the community will do that. I trust the pirate community way more than I'd trust any corp. In fact even if I buy something, I like to download and actually use the pirate version, cus often-times the cracker removes the spyware and shit that's included in the official release.
I think of pirate stuff like open source software. I'm not personally going to go through every download with a fine tooth comb looking for malware. But other members of the community will do that. I trust the pirate community way more than I'd trust any corp. In fact even if I buy something, I like to download and actually use the pirate version, cus often-times the cracker removes the spyware and shit that's included in the official release.
> god knows what the tool you use to bypass the copyright enforcement mechanism does.
a friend told me the 99c keys on aliexpress activate perfectly well without needing any dodgy .exe files
then disabling the regular check-ins is a single registry key
a friend told me the 99c keys on aliexpress activate perfectly well without needing any dodgy .exe files
then disabling the regular check-ins is a single registry key
The problem is that the money Microsoft makes from telemetry and shunting ads in the star menu FAR outweighs any financial pressure on them to make a decent OS. If that source of income was somehow shunted then they would actually go back to making something functional.
It's not possible to disable the antivirus on Windows 11. It always resurrects itself. It's annoying AF. I'm staying with Windows 10 because Windows 11 takes away user control over the OS.
Netflix on Linux at 1080p really needs to happen ASAP so that I can ditch windows.
Gaming is rapidly improving and browser run fine on nix…so literally just stupid drm left. Most people don’t really use much else these days.
Gaming is rapidly improving and browser run fine on nix…so literally just stupid drm left. Most people don’t really use much else these days.
Don't tell us, tell Netflix.
"Windows 11 comes with tight Teams integration."
Coooooooolsies
Coooooooolsies
[deleted]
"Windows 10 will be the last Windows, a continuously updated OS that you can rely on"
"Uhh, turns out we can't make that much money off of it"
"Windows 11 is the most exciting Windows OS yet!"
"Uhh, turns out we can't make that much money off of it"
"Windows 11 is the most exciting Windows OS yet!"
Your Windows 11 PC will stop receiving security updates on XX date. For your safety and the safety of the global internet community, networking capabilities will be disabled on XX. Your PC will continue to operate normally.
If you would like to continue to receive security updates, please buy a Windows 365 subscription before XX.
If you would like to continue to receive security updates, please buy a Windows 365 subscription before XX.
I wonder when they do the "5 years of security patches" thing phones did. Not sure why people accept that for phones but not computers, maybe Microsoft and Apple will realise that this will work on computers too soon?
A larger portion of Microsoft's revenue is build around the business side where 5 years of security patches now buy a new device either wouldn't fly or wouldn't make sense. For home users the revenue is based around subscription services tied to using Windows (O365) not selling users on the Windows license itself which is now free assuming your device is new enough to work with subscription services that might be sold to you or the business you work for.
For Apple I'm honestly more surprised the MacBook lifecycle isn't shorter but it's also not their main money maker.
For Apple I'm honestly more surprised the MacBook lifecycle isn't shorter but it's also not their main money maker.
I have a 2015 MacBook Pro which is going to be the oldest-supported model for macOS 12 Monterey, so Apple seems to be supporting computers for ~7 years.
The mainline Linux kernel will also support pretty much anything you throw at it these days anyways. My 12 year old Thinkpad almost has complete feature parity with my perpetually upgraded desktop, which is a super nice basis to build my personal infrastructure off of.
Can you list examples where there is not currently feature parity?
Unlimited updates :)
macOS 11 still gets another two years of security updates though.
Apple is famous for not patching every security vulnerability on older versions.
https://twitter.com/grahamgilbert/status/1386862102942339073... is a public example, and I'm aware of non-public information regarding this as well.
https://twitter.com/grahamgilbert/status/1386862102942339073... is a public example, and I'm aware of non-public information regarding this as well.
Windows 10 as "the last verson" destroyed Microsoft's and hardware OEM's best marketing opportunity. New versions of Windows always got Microsoft lots of press, people bought new hardware, etc.
It was all marketing because there were major "service-pack" level upgrades to Windows 10 -- they were just confusingly named and you still needed to know about them.
Going back to versions is an improvement even if this particular version isn't one.
It was all marketing because there were major "service-pack" level upgrades to Windows 10 -- they were just confusingly named and you still needed to know about them.
Going back to versions is an improvement even if this particular version isn't one.
The first part of your statement is correct, the second is not.
The difference between the release of server 2022 and windows 11 was almost night and day, even though they are based on the same core product.
Server 2022 is actually an improvement over Server 2019, where in Windows 11 they started making similar UI messes as in Windows 8
This goes much deeper than versioning.
The difference between the release of server 2022 and windows 11 was almost night and day, even though they are based on the same core product.
Server 2022 is actually an improvement over Server 2019, where in Windows 11 they started making similar UI messes as in Windows 8
This goes much deeper than versioning.
Which part of my statement is incorrect? You don't seem to be replying to anything that I said.
I suspect Microsoft paid attention to how much marketing and hype comes around every iOS/android/macOS update and wanted in on that action. Now Microsoft can release a new number every year with its own marketing page and give the tech news sites something to write about that sounds better than “windows service pack 27273-b”
Weirdly they already had that release model and abandoned it. I suspect they trusted that the windows store would be a success and would bring the revenue instead of selling windows licenses. That didn't go well therefore they are reverting to the old model.
That "famous" quote is out of context nonsense. It refers to the technical changes in how the dev team creates the next version of windows by working directly on the current version. Compare the the past where a copy was uses as the base for a new windows which was developed separately from the current released version. It had/has nothing to do with the name which is a pure marketing decision.
>"Uhh, turns out we can't make that much money off of it"
Make no sense since its still an update and although it has a new name it does not need a new license. Beside that windows consumer license are not a significant revenue source since a long time.
>"Uhh, turns out we can't make that much money off of it"
Make no sense since its still an update and although it has a new name it does not need a new license. Beside that windows consumer license are not a significant revenue source since a long time.
A Windows 11 review without any comparison macOS?
Windows users are quite slow to realize that their operating system is a weapon, and the users are the target.
Windows is a fundamentally mediocre OS that is made great by means of its wide compatibility with software and hardware. It's not sexy but it kind of works.
Then they figured we now live in a mobile/touch world and went in that direction. But hardly anybody has a mobile Windows device, so it misses the target. To this day, store apps look like they're made for phones.
Windows used to be a system where you had the feeling its yours. General purpose computing. Do whatever you want. Increasingly, it feels like some hybrid cloud OS, where gradually you give up user control.
Windows 8, a UI clusterfuck, introduced a new design language. That was 2012. Almost a decade later, and not even in Windows 11, is the UI consistent. It's a facade. Why does it take a decade to skin a OS?
Windows 11 removes customization options whilst that is exactly what Windows is about.
Too many developers were switching to Mac, so now Linux is integrated. Not in itself a bad thing, don't get me wrong.
It seems they're running in every direction at once and just give up on each direction halfway through.