I'm a big fan of reinstalling all of the default Microsoft online services and resetting your user preferences every time they feel like updating your computer.

If you want to feel real madness try reinstalling Win10 from even the latest installation media, checking for updates, finding none, and then finding your computer restarted the next day with a new iteration of the Bing search box on your taskbar, and repeating this experience at least 4 times.

Still missing XP with the classic 98 theme

The latter problem can be (partially) addressed by setting your network interface to metered mode. Then you get some control over updates.

Windows 7 with tighter handcuffs

That's what the corporate propaganda does to people.

IMHO if you're behind a NAT, not running random binaries, and not visiting untrustworthy pages with JS on, that already gets rid of 99.99% of the attack surface. Keep RDP and SMB off the Internet and shut off the other listening ports too.

"It's a big idea, a new world order. When we are successful, and we will be [..]" ~ George H.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing_Group

They actually started blocking updates if you tricked the install onto unsupported hardware.

I wouldn't say obvious alternative.

PopOS is a wonderful, free, Ubuntu derivative that works really well with video games.

It really doesn’t, absent a few key games. I’ve just built a new gaming PC and I’ve gone straight with Arch. I was worried the compatibility I experienced with the steam deck may be isolated to the steam deck but it’s shocking how far it’s come.

Is it perfect? No, of course not. But my god it definitely is good enough to cut myself free of MS’s terrible decision-making the last 5ish years.

Just wait a few more years for Windows 11.1 and hope the pattern of every other release being good holds true

I gave up a few years ago and decided that I was willing to deal with any drawbacks of buying and playing games on consoles rather than dealing with Windows. I only have so much time to sit down and enjoy myself and I would rather not fiddle if I just want to play a game. It turns out that you can buy a PS5 and a Switch for less than the price of a decent midrange gaming rig.

I just put Windows 11 on its own little VLAN/WiFi island called "RebootRift." It lives alone, endlessly restarting, hoping one day it will be trustworthy enough to join the others—but deep down, it knows it never will.

If you go weird, note that GamePass (xbox) and MS store installs tend not to work or can break. For steam and other launchers it works fine.

See https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links

Same issue with most mini/slim scripts that mod your win 11 iso. Be sure to keep gaming services and Xbox from install.

Once it does its first update it will try and put back what you remove. And when you make a non-admin local account it will try again. Best to use a post-install script you can run often to keep settings off.

You could also get 0patch to keep it secure. They're adopting Windows 10 for security updated from the EOL date. Pretty reasonable price as well, around 30 euros per year.

https://blog.0patch.com/2024/06/long-live-windows-10-with-0p...

I'll probably just move to Win11 because I don't have to worry too much about it. It's in virtual machine. And I can keep snapshots of the virtual disk in case I come back to an update I don't like.

Kinda sucks that the only fully correct way to play games is on an OS that continues to suck more and more, and that I have to wear a virtual condom to do so.

Run win11 with debloat patches, behind a firewall that blocks everything, then use a socks proxy for Steam and everything else that you want to connect to the internet.

Edit: okay, the firewall might become annoying to maintain if multiplayer gaming is your thing

Just dual-boot. Run whatever hellscape of windows is current when you want to game, and run Ubuntu (or whatever) the rest of the time.

Been doing that for 10 years.

Build your own windows ISO to install and run in a boot partition or VM.

There are decent WinMod ISO communities out there that have open readable tools, changes, suggestions, and forums that keep things clean of cryptofarming process and all that BS.

See, for example:

Revision: (as used by Qubes folk for Win Qubes) https://revi.cc/docs/playbook/general

or WinUtil: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41843917

It's crazy how good Windows 7 was and how hostile were any subsequent releases. I bet most people would be fine with a Windows 7 Eternal Edition.

Windows 10 was a bit shit at launch too. They hadn't quite figured out how to orchestrate forced updates (e.g. no active hours or pausing updates for a week). The Start Menu was a bit of a mess for the first 5 years. Cortana was shoved down your throat. Dark mode wasn't even a thing. HDR support was basically non-existent and DPI support was ass. "Precision touchpad" support wasn't a thing, the Settings vs Control Panel split was way worse, things like WSL weren't a thing, notifications in Action Center were horrible to manage. The new Windows Terminal app hadn't been made yet... ssh/sftp wasn't built in.

What I 100% expect with every new release of Windows is that they'll have some genuinely good ideas, remove or break a ton of existing workflows trying to implement those changes but only getting them halfway to where they need to go, and then fix it over the coming years. E.g. with Windows 11 they rewrote the taskbar and it was missing drag and drop, positioning, clocks on multiple monitors, useful right click shortcuts on the taskbar, "Never Combine" to not group windows, the smaller taskbar, showing the text label next to things in the taskbar, and probably more I'm forgetting. At this point nearly all of those are fixed (small taskbar is about to be, position is still unthinkable for now apparently).

Typically I'll just move to the latest. Yeah, it'll suck to adjust at first, but quickly it'll improve and start to have features beyond the first. Some prefer to hang on to the previous one until it drops so the next one is already pretty fixed up. Either way, most folks end up liking the older versions even though most folks hate them at the start. Part of that is also rose colored glasses too though.

Well, you will always feel it with most software out there - we no longer track development cycles on specific large releases.

Seriously?

Except having to revert right click context menu and worse task bar I don't see bigger differences except more beautiful UI