You can actually move the taskbar to the left, but you can no longer have it vertically :/

> The insistence on packaging programs as "app bundles".

I don't think appx is too bad on its own - the operating system should have a package manager, it provides a means of handling common dependencies (although this was for WinUI3, which is kind of dead), and both MSI and CAB are very old, weird file formats.

The UWP sandboxing .. I can see why they did it, protection against malicious apps, but it completely handicaps desktop apps.

> Then there's the slew of useless always-online garbage, which literally nobody asked for, and which basically amounts to user-hostile spyware.

Yes, this is Bad and the sort of thing the EU should start leaning on.

> MS needs to accept that user interface design mostly peaked about a decade or two ago

The original Windows era had plenty of work put into accessibility and making it clear what was clickable. The modern era swept that away in favor of "looks nice to minimalists", and I think it's a loss.

When I learned the taskbar can't be placed on the side vertically is when I realized I'm never going to install Windows 11. That combined with 10 being advertised as "the last Windows I'll ever need to buy" and the fact their updater told me I have to replace my entire PC to be eligible to install it (in spite of the fact that I merely need to turn on a BIOS setting and my system would fully support it), then the notice that they'd be selling 1-year support contract extensions for anyone staying on 10... What's next, Windows declares itself outright as ransomware and holds my data hostage? I'm imagining a full screen overlay appears: "Nice OS install you've got here... Would be a shame if something... happened to it."

If you find yourself required to use windows 11, consider running Flyoobe:

https://github.com/builtbybel/Flyoobe

It can be run after install to disable AI/Apps/experience crap that M$ forces on you.

Also, remember to disable app updates in M$ store or it will just reinstall everything you uninstalled on every reboot.

it's also sloooow, which makes me wonder if that's the real reason for their hardware requirements and locking out old CPUs that are perfectly servicable.

"What Andy give us, Bill taketh away" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill%27s_law

The reason you use Windows 11 is because you have some legacy software that needs it or your work requires it or you are a gamer.

Otherwise Mac OS is soooo much better and the hardware is so much better and if there weren’t ai most people would never have to upgrade from Mac M1.

They also need to stop dumping spyware and forcing people into onedrive etc.

The biggest problem I have with 11 is how unstable it is. Almost seems like there's a new BSOD trigger or data corruption bug introduced every month by Microsoft themselves, and 3rd party drivers fare even worse. A bunch of explorer and start menu random crashes too. 7 and 10 never caused this much headache for me.

The new taskbar is nothing like the macOS dock; you can put the dock to the left or right of the screen, and I never expect this user feature to go away. Apple is quick to get rid of older APIs, but they're better than Microsoft at keeping user features.

I'm running Win11 right now and I have customized my taskbar to look like it was on Win10.

new hardware compatibility. w10 users will be eeked out whether they like it or not

I built a beast of a workstation in '23 and it's had like 5 collective minutes of downtime since. Debian 12, KDE, 13900K, 128GB ram, 2x2TB nvme disks for my home dir in a btrfs mirror, a 4TB /var disk for containers, psql, etc. It's such a stable and consistent workhorse. Slack, Spotify, vscode, sublime, 1password, screen sharing, google meet, everything works great. Using Libreoffice/Onlyoffice in lieu of MS stack has not been an issue, even when doing extensive document comment reviews with financial companies etc who live on Microsoft tooling.

The irony is that I am using this with a 5K Apple Studio Display, lol. The webcam and other onboard goodies do not work (can't control brightness) but the picture quality sure is good.

The Linux desktop is 100% here.

My gaming PC is a very unloved Windows machine, if not for that I'd be long gone (everything else is Linux). Come to think of it, gaming is why I used windows in the first place, starting with 95. With the Steam Deck and its push for Linux compat I don't see the next generation being so windows focused either.

My daily driver for decades has been Linux.

A few months ago, I worked out how to run Steam as a different user under Xorg. [0] Since then, I've discovered that nearly all of the games I play (and I play a whole bunch of games) work fine under Linux with an AMD graphics card.

I haven't booted into Windows in months. I'm so glad that folks like Valve have put so much effort into making Windows video games run fine on Linux.

[0] It's not hard, and -like many such things- could totally be set up by a distro if they cared to do so.

There has never been a better time for Windows users to switch to Linux. Most desktop applications are getting replaced with websites, Valve is making herculean progress in getting games to run seamlessly on Linux and, most recently, LLMs have become very effective at helping new users understand and potentially fix their setups.

I used Linux as a daily driver in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Then switched back to Windows for work convenience. For the first time in about 20 years I have switched back to Linux as the daily driver. I have a windows 11 VM, in case I run into an xlsx file that libre office can't handle (rarely). Linux is just so much faster and cleaner that the convenience factor has shifted.

> Assuming Apple itself doesn't bypass Little Snitch, I don't even think Apple is doing the level of telemetry Microsoft does.

Little snitch doesn't talk directly to the kernel's netfilter/iptables/nftables framework so some traffic may be hidden from it (low-level stuff that cannot be accessed via the API). I don't use it so I don't know if there is a way to bypass this in the settings or with special permission.

> Assuming Apple itself doesn't bypass Little Snitch, I don't even think Apple is doing the level of telemetry Microsoft does.

Apple doesn’t do all that much telemetry even if all the telemetry settings are enabled. Because you’re not a product to them. Which is probably why they didn’t even play in the AI race.

For me the most frustrating thing about linux is that it's distros are universally made by people who love linux, and the linux paradigm.

I have used linux on and off for 20 years now, and every time I end up back on windows, and it's such a relief when I am back. And so upsetting that I cannot escape windows.

Windows solves friction with GUI usability.

Linux solves friction with expectation of CLI mastery.

It's forever damned to the 5% of people who are willing to toil with a CLI (yes, I know your grandma uses it to check her e-mail, unfortunately the -only- thing she does is check email).

Then we have the likes of Android and MacOS, which had product people force engineering to bury all CLI stuff.

Obscure github scripts?

Simplewall (Henry++) has entered the room.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30019307

     I worked on the Windows Desktop Experience Team from Win7-Win10. Starting around Win8, the designers had full control, and most crucially essentially none of the designers use Windows.

     I spent far too many years of my career sitting in conference rooms explaining to the newest designer (because they seem to rotate every 6-18 months) with a shiny Macbook why various ideas had been tried and failed in usability studies because our users want X, Y, and Z.

They could make it configurable. You can have your cake and eat it too in this situation.

I don't like KDE's default settings but it took me a mere seconds to get the desktop I like.

Of course this is not a new idea and how it used to be on Windows. The real question is why removing user choice has become so fashionable in UX design. Maybe it's just a phase and will pass.

It's not Microsoft employees who make these calls, but the Microsoft organization itself. Organizations make decisions that nobody by themselves would want to make. The larger an organization gets, the more true this becomes. Think of them like meta organisms, or schooling fish.

https://www.uploadvr.com/steamvr-automatically-installs-oasi...

If you have a Nvidia GPU, you can use the oasis drivers

Slower, more unwanted telemetry, changes are generally for worse, the very definition of a massive failed software project. That you don't see a difference doesn't mean thats valid for everybody.

Yup. It’s totally fine for it’s job. Not worse or better in my experience.

A new skin wouldn't force an uninstallable browser runtime

They already do that. I've gotten a few full screen "notifications" on Windows 10 telling me to upgrade to 11 with options to "Accept" or "Ask Me Later."

Imo the usability issues are very minor. The default settings for the home edition are absolute shitshow - ads and clickbait everywhere - but those can be turned off with a few clicks.

This! From a hardware perspective I do not see any reason to upgrade. I have a gen 7 i5 processor and 16GB or RAM and I have no issues with my current device. I am not sure that Microsoft thought that part through. The problem Microsoft has is that Windows 10 has not slowed down unlike with older Android phones which tend to become rather slow and left behind in terms of apps and so on. With Windows 10 everything still works fine, VLC, Firefox, VS Code.

Forcing TPM garbage was such an anti-user move, especially when it's not actually required and only gives a few basic features like windows hello. You block an upgrade over that? Beyond dumb.

Nah, 2k had big problems for desktop usage. No window snapping to edges of any kind, including no win+arrow keys for tiling, maximize, minimize restore etc., you couldn't just click the bottom left hot corner to open your start menu, you actually had to click on the button that said "Start"; no opening start menu and typing "Mouse" and hitting enter to open the mouse control panel (Windows Search was truly so excellent pre-UWP settings); no desktop compositing, so all your windows will have constant screen tearing;

It tells you a lot that the only way Microsoft has managed to compete with the Steam Deck is by making a Windows version that never even loads explorer.exe at all.

You can upgrade with a clean install. I know that this is out of reach for some users; I bring this up so unfamiliar readers don't misunderstand the limitation.

Also explains his foray into vaccines

My wife finally switched over and bought a MacBook Pro for work, having never used a Mac before. Seeing me work all day on battery alone, and not having to deal with Windows slowness anymore won her over.

As a daily user who has used windows for 25 years it’s totally fine.

Wait… Microsoft has to have boxed Windows because Windows IRL are boxed? Pretty sure I’ve seen a circular window before.

Windows 11 is fine after you turn off all the ads from configs. Do agree the default settings are extremely disrespectful of users but once they are turned off I don’t have any gripes.

The next version will be called "Windows", to keep things simple. Then we will retroactively refer it to as "Windows 2027", but generally still fail to be able to query useful info on it. The next one will be "Windows 13".

At this rate Windows 12 is going to be saas and cost $25 a month to rent your own computer.

I really kind of doubt we'll actually see a W12. Microsoft appears to have lost all interest in creating an operating system in favor of a revenue system.

Best case, W11 tanks when W10 goes away and Microsoft becomes irrelevant on the PC.

More realistically, W11 will become SaaS with a sort of rolling release similar to Arch. After all, why build a new OS when you can do nothing and rake in subscription fees? Actually, why create anything of value when you have such a profitable racket as renting people's own PC to them for literally any price you want?

Hopefully Microsoft wither dies or becomes an ineffectual zombie like IBM or HP.

7 was their highpoint.. It was the 1st version that actually consistently worked good and was otherwise pretty clean.. 10 is a big step down from 7, it has a lot of extraneous shit in it.

Windows 2000 was really solid IMO. I have really fond memories of learning and using it at school back around that time.

The time between releases is getting longer though, our children might live a lifetime with a bad release after 12

My suspicion is that they make the stopgap OSes deliberately shitty and performance hungry so they can sell on the easy gains and improvements. I know, "never attribute malice" but this is such a theme, over 9 generations of an OS, that it can't be completely accidental.