https://ghacks.net/2023/10/29/petition-demands-that-microsoft-extends-windows-10-support/
Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) petitioned Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella this week to reconsider ending support for Windows 10 in October 2025.
It makes some sense for business & enterprise stuff, but not for household/consumer computers & devices. That's just rent-seeking and forced obsolescence. There is no good reason a home computer from the past fifteen years should have security patches withheld because the manufacturers want people to throw them away and buy and brand new ones.
I kind of get it, but I feel like even in a b2b context you shouldn't be allowed to charge a subscription for something as low level as the OS.
Now if Microsoft wants to offer paid support subscriptions for business customers (they might already do, I didn't look) that I would be fine with.
Of course, businesses would just pivot in the other direction and speed up the release cycle to every year or two, making smaller and smaller improvements. No system will be perfect. I just hope we get to a better solution than "constant vigilance" eventually, whatever it looks like.
Could you imagine having to pay apple a monthly fee just because you use iOS on their phone?
Or pay Google every month to use android?
Except that you can keep upgrading windows or just install linux and be up to date with the security patches for like 10+ years, your phone runs out of support in like 5-6 years in the best case and then good luck using these banking apps securely.
I would be fine if windows required you to purchase a new OS every 5-6 years. Paying monthly/yearly is bull shit though.
I agree, subscriptions are stupid. But for now I am still using my windows 7 key on windows 11 so they were more than reasonable up until now.
I could see them adding windows as part of Microsoft 365 package they sell to businesses. Companies always had a different policy when it comes to software, that's where most of the software companies make most of their money. It's why piracy was allowed for so long, consumers get used to the software through the pirated version, then they demand it at work which can't use pirated software obviously.
Apple is still releasing security updates for the iPhone 6s… that’s over 8 years of phone updates. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222
Sure, but in that case you pay for the OS through the overly inflated price of the device that brings mediocre warranty and pathetic options for repair. It's a tradeoff.
Paying for a service or product is never going to be illegal. It being an inferior product that the public is made aware of is the only way this shit is gonna change if ever.
So what do you propose? You buy windows xp and you deserve free maintenance updates while windows 55 is out?
Me when I demand corporations pay people fairly for their work 🤬 Me when I demand free labour in 2045 because I paid 100€ in 2015 😗
Do you understand what software as a service is?
Not wanting software as a service is also not proposing anything like your strawman.
Honestly, please explain.
I know SaaS, but I don't see how that is relevant to Windows 10 and its maintenance. The OS works without requiring an Internet connection, so it's not relying on cloud computing for much of its functionality.
Ending support for an OS is also totally normal, many FOSS OSes do it too. Whether you paid for it initially or not honestly makes little difference, at the end of the day someone else has to expend their own time to fix something for you - some might do so for free, while others want to be paid.
It's relevant to Win11. Win11 is supposed to be going SaaS. So if you want to stay on Windows but don't want your OS to be SaaS....
Edit:
Having said that, it looks like this may not be as much of a lock as I thought. So maybe I'm talking out of my butt.
I'm simultaneously embarrassed by that if so, but also kinda happy that my days of running Windows are so far behind me that I've stopped subconsciously paying attention to MS news enough to be wrong about something like that.
Oh it's you. Hadn't noticed or wouldn't have replied. In that case though, your argument is with the petition, not with the person you replied to. Win11 is to go SaaS so resisting that upgrade makes complete sense.
Anyhow, goodbye now!
Complaining about paying for service while demanding > 10 years of updates is the same issue
What about other products-as-a-service? And on what grounds? I think it's unwise to use/rely on these services, but I'm not sure how they should be regulated. At a minimum your data should be freely exported in bulk on request.
Even better: petition for Microsoft to release the Windows source code under the GPL
It would be beautiful to see Windows become another Linux distro and ditch the NT kernel
This is my biggest frustration as well. I usually use Onshape because it's browser based but it doesn't support a 3D mouse sadly.
This is the biggest issue for me. No idea what we can do to get those companies to switch. I think it would benefit them in the future too. Autodesk had that cloud-vm version of fusion for a while, but I'd imagine that was costing them more due to Windows.
they have a very narrow and specific set of software tools and hardware devices they can use. the ecosystem is shit, basically.
Sure, and my mechanic was working full time from his yard before buying a real garage with a lift. Just because some people go through the trouble of doing it doesn't mean it's the best tool for the job.
I'm not sure I understand how your analogy fits. There's no heavy lifting involved. 🙂 Everything works and it's ready-made – otherwise people wouldn't use it at all. There are also lots of distros specifically tailored to audio and studio work. Naturally, there's some things to learn but you also had to learn things when you got into audio and presumably you keep up with the industry so there isn't a big difference.
Check out /r/linuxaudio, lots of resources in the sidebar and very helpful community.
otherwise people wouldn't use it at all
Exactly my point, that's just not true. There's always some people who will use the worse tool instead of switching to the better tool (out of principle mostly), it doesn't mean the tool is great or as good as the alternative, it just means the person doesn't mind making their life harder than it needs to be.
Just like there were people insisting on doing graphical work on Windows back when Apple was miles ahead in that field or some places run Windows Server instead of using Linux and so on.
Heck, you're talking about using specific distros for music stuff... If you're going to dual boot or have a specific OS just for that, why not use the OS that has the better tools that are the industry standard?
There are tools that work on any OS. Audio processing has been developing at an even pace on all main OS (Windows, Mac, Linux). At this point it's a matter of what flow works best for you. Windows itself is not an industry standard by any means. The OS matters very little in general beyond being able to give you real time processing and low latency. Windows could not even do low latency before 10.
Pro tools (the real studio standard): Windows, Mac
Logic: Mac
Live: Windows, Mac
Nuendo: Windows, Mac
Sound Forge: Windows, Mac
Acid Pro: Windows
Reaper: Windows, Mac... Linux!
Can you now install Mac OS on any hardware? They have the best tools for audio work, right? I can just choose that tool and install it on my... Oh wait! I can't do that.
Do you not understand the argument you're arguing?
Hackintosh, but Pro Tools is what's used by the actual industry (so if you want to be serious about it you better learn to use it) and it's on both Windows and Mac.
That doesn't apply the same for tools as it does cameras. For cameras the idea is at least you have the image captured. For a tool, if you're trying to lift a car up, a hammer alone isn't going to do you much good.
Why doesn't it apply? Because you don't want it to?
Not everyone who has an interest in something has access to resources. Money is often the limiting factor. So should those people not pursue their interest because the tools they don't have are beyond their reach?
Why doesn't it apply?
Lift a car with a hammer. Sometimes the only tool you have access to is the wrong tool. That doesn't make it the best or correct or even reasonable tool to use.
I produced an album doing exactly this. the windows VST plugins with yabridge run like shit. not all of them worked. bitwig and reaper are fantastic though, and are great examples of what linux audio could be. unfortunately I am often using tools besides the daw and its built in features.
I should mention that yabridge folks are amazing. they are very responsive on IRC and they helped a lot. I think the main developer has pulled off something important here and I have a very high level of respect for what he's doing. i have to put my music before my computer though.
Yeah, some vests are just crap and too locked into windows to be usable. Personally, I'm a computer guy that also does music (through I've been to busy from studying), so I won't bother with something that is not Gnu/Linux
once DRM and windows-only anti-cheat are no more, sure. but until then, the monopoly is working.
As long as people stay on windows for those reasons, it means it's working. Chicken and egg.
Nope. i like playing games and not being in a community which brings up Linux in every conversation
Your right, windows being brought up continually because they did something shitty every day is way better
People having interests they're passionate about is a no-go, eh? What do you and your friends talk about?
As far as gaming goes, no you really cannot. While a lot of progress has been done, notably thanks to Valve's efforts with Proton, it's still not ready for mainstream. Anti-cheat software incompatibility, peripherals drivers unavailability and overall jankiness are as many hurdles that make it interesting for tinkerers, but unrealistic for the general public.
It HIGHLY depends of what gamer you are. I switched to linux almost three years ago and all the games I wanted to play worked (nearly) flawlessly. But... the thing is I play mostly single player ones and usually a bit older. So for me it was huge upgrade. I got so mad over Windows so many times during last months of usung it at home, BSODs for no reason, forced updates disrespecting my settings, ...
That's crazy, bud!
goes back to playing my games, doing my art and enjoying my computing experience
Yeah well, some of the most popular games in the world like Fortnite or Valorant cannot be played on Linux. Hell even Roblox which used to work was broken for 6 months this year due to a new anticheat (until it got fixed).
As for Xbox Gamepass ? Streaming only. Using a Thrustmaster wheel ? Fortunately someone is working on that, but not everyone is willing or able to build and load their own drivers into the kernel.
Setting aside potential "hurr hurr don't play these games" comments ; there is no way around using windows if you want access to all PC games, not just some PC games.
Boss: "make sure you include a PSD and AI file in your package"
Me, a refined Linux user: "uhhhh"
Hmm wasn't really an issue for me at Hi-Rez as a graphic designer, but yeah keep drinking the industry standard Kool-Aid!
Everybody hear that? It didn't happen to this one guy so it must never happen ever anywhere!
If that's your takeaway from what I said I guess I can't fault you. I don't think that's what I implied, but what do I know about what I meant?
Sure, but when I'm a cog in a bigger machine I need to prioritize my work being able to be continued by others or else I'll be stuck making every single change on it that needs to be made in the future. The architecture we use to use the same PSD on AE projects and embedded webapps is essential to the system functioning as needed. Many, if not most places follow that same line of thinking and using a separate program that isn't intended for that inner-platform use. It might be kool-aid but it's a problem bigger than what OS I'd like to use.
I was a cog as well. I worked on others PSDs and they worked on mine. The work I did was of the same quality and any quirks with applications fell in my lap so it isn't like my choice of OS or application was a hindrance to the next cog.
I mean the folks that came before us allowed Adobe to basically insert itself as the only option and just like you're doing right now use excuses about "well that' just how it is" in order to continue to keep them as the "industry standard". Picasso didn't use Photoshop but here we are.
When you have to deal with quirks (and Adobe just progressively adding more 'quirks' to overcome) to use the programs you need to make your living, your initial claim of 'just use Linux!' still sounds like an unhelpful answer. I mean I use Linux daily but I still need to work in an ecosystem.
Regarding Picasso, use whatever for personal art but people use the "industry standard" so they know any of their colleagues can use my deliverable for anything they should need to is a novel thing. I have plenty of personal experience why deviating causes problems where you least expect it to. It's a shitty monopoly but I'm glad you have a means that allows you to work outside of it (keep doing it, it's a good thing!)
Not everyone can. People should consider their needs but Windows has programs that professionals rely on.
They really should. Windows 11 has the bullshit "requirement" of needing SecureBoot so it can't work on BIOS motherboards, only UEFI ones. This is different than saying you no longer support 32 bit CPUs. There's no reason to require fucking SecureBoot. Seriously. It's like someone saying they won't sell you a TV if your house doesn't have a lock in the door and then advertising their TV as secure because of that.
Your entire statement here stems from not knowing what you're talking about. That's OK. I'll provide some insight.
Secure Boot is a security feature of UEFI that only allows trusted, cryptographically signed operating systems to boot. The nature of this prevents rootkits. Software that runs before the OS and injects itself. BIOS has many hard limitations and disadvantages over the modern standard that is UEFI. Your comparison going from 32 to 64 bit architecture is quite fitting. It's not that different. There are many hard limitations and disadvantages to 32 bit. It's unfit for today's standards due to lack of features and security. All aspects of technology have to move forward.
Yes, but you could still buy a new motherboard without UEFI support a year ago, and there are still some units in stock online.
It's way, way too early to drop support of an OS that is the latest version that can be run on hardware that current.
People who spent 3 grand building a computer in 2021 should be able to have OS support for at least a decade. They can't upgrade their OS, so the latest OS they could purchase should be maintained longer.
Alternatively, this is perhaps the only way for Microsoft to pressure hardware makers to stop shipping BIOS motherboards. They won't naturally go away unless there's an incentive.
They absolutely should push manufacturers to stop using non-UEFI boards. And they should do that by not offering an OS for sale that is compatible with the older tech.
But they also need to support the customers who purchased Windows 10 near the end of its lifecycle without knowing that future upgrades would be impossible. Microsoft is forcing users with relatively new computers to replace them.
I know all of that. Tone down the condescension. That's why it's bullshit for Windows 11 to say it's secure because of SecureBoot when in reality it's a feature of your motherboard.
Your statements made me believe the opposite. Though I wasn't condescending. I said it was OK to not know.
Microsoft doesn't say that. They state it adds to the security of your computer before Windows even starts. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/operating-system-security/system-security/secure-the-windows-10-boot-process
Any device security is multi layered.
Having a mechanism that only accepts trusted boot binaries is pretty critical to fighting malware. Rootkits effectively have total control of whatever you decide to boot because of their persistence. When your hardware has its own security features (Secure Boot, TPM) why not take advantage of them to make the software you run more secure?
If you didn't know, Android, macOS and iOS have their own TPM and Secure Boot implementations that have been enforced and present for over a decade.
And those secureboot implementations in mobile devices are frequently called out as primarily a way to prevent usage that the manufacturer doesn’t want you to do.
If Win11 didn't fucking go "naw bro you don't have a LoJack on your motherboard so no install" I'd be like whatever but since it does they need to keep supporting it for at least a decade or remove the Trusted chip requirement. I know you can bypass it, but nobody in business is gonna do that and neither is Grandma.
My xps 9570 has broken audio drivers on Linux. Dell laptops usually have better linux support than most. 2003 wants its OS back...
My thinkpad running Linux has an issue every week. I've run into more issues in my short career than I have with a lifetime of using windows. But it's always something else's fault eh
audio driver support in Linux is good enough these days.
and if it doesn't work in your specific hardware, that's your hardware's fault and not Linux's.
It's like buying a Raspberry Pi and saying "windows doesn't work". You've acquired the wrong hardware.
Linux kernel is huge, I bet it has support for more audio devices than Windows or MacOS, as it is used not only on PCs.
Remember when Windows 10 were advertised as the final and only Windows? Pepperidge farm remembers...
They didn’t. It’s kinda weird how many people “remember” advertisements that never existed. It was literally one Microsoft employee saying things, in an unofficial capacity.
Edit: If anyone can show me an advert that claims this, I’ll happily eat my crow.
That was back when Mac was still OS X right? Once they hit 11 numbers had to go up. It's why there isn't a Xbox 2.
No, it's about M$ saying Windows 10 will be last Windows ever...
And yeah, basically everybody knew that ot wasn't going to be the case, but we can still throw it in their faces.
Linux is something I've tried to switch too a few times but but the cost of lost software would make it a more expensive choice than windows. Its gotten better and more things work but I'd still be losing some stuff I use quite often, both games and tools for work.
I have multiple machines for different use cases, so I switch between Windows, MacOS, and different Linux flavors constantly. They all have their benefits and drawbacks.
People like to push Linux gaming, but 90% game support still can't beat 100% support. Meanwhile, I wouldn't let Windows ever even touch a server machine. You can trust software like Ubuntu Server or Amazon Linux to be stable if you're not touching it, while Windows likes to keep you on your toes...
MacOS is a good middle ground but not one I would personally use outside of a work machine. It's fairly stable, and it has a Unix style base so it can run Shell happily. Meanwhile software is seemingly a horrible mixed bag that has only been exasperated with the Arm jump. For a computer noob however, it's great. If you don't mind staying in Apple's little zoo then you're not going to have issues.
I don't know why I went on this ramble.
MacOS is a good middle ground but not one I would personally use outside of a work machine.
I fail to see how it's a "middle ground" between the drawbacks you mentioned before.
When it comes to gaming, Mac OS is the absolute bottom of the barrel, compatibility is utterly atrocious. With Apple's insistence not to allow Vulkan drivers, they pulled the rug out of any leaps Mac OS could have made in that regard (like Linux did).
Apple also pulled the plug on any server capabilities Mac OS once had.
So, when it comes to gaming or server use, Mac OS would be my absolute last choice, not a middle ground.
Software choice is limited, but software quality is generally high and for some professions, the choice is flawless: when it comes to content creation, Apple's ecosystem is hard to beat.
'Middle ground for the layman' might have been better wording.
For my work specifically, native Shell support is a big plus over Windows.
They're pushing their proprietary "Metal" API, which is iOS and MacOS compatible. Just Apple being Apple.
Meanwhile software is seemingly a horrible mixed bag that has only been exasperated with the Arm jump.
I haven't had this experience - The rosetta emulation is so good I honestly couldn't tell you whether much of anything is Apple Silicon native or running in emulation mode.
Might be specific to my ops job then, as I seem to keep running into software that goes 'lol the fuck are you doing'. Most of my Mac experience is post-Arm jump so maybe they're mostly general MacOS issues.
That's fair. I would also agree with your "If you don’t mind staying in Apple’s little zoo then you’re not going to have issues." sentiment. It used to be better in the Apple ecosystem where there were many ways to skin the cat, but it seems like if something gets "sherlocked" by Apple, most people seem to be fine with keeping the Apple thing and not straying too far afield.
still can’t beat 100% support
You don't get 100% support on Windows. “it works on my machine, format and reinstall Windows” is 99% of the support you will get on Windows. I can play dozens of retro games on Linux today that no longer work on Windows and never will ever again. And that's not even counting the myriad of game breaking bug reports that are reduced to “yeah, we don't care” that never get fixed.
I find Linux always breaks on me, and eventually it breaks in a way I am unable to fix. Windows never does this to me, I am always able to fix an issue on Windows.
I would love if Linux was as easy to use, but my personal experience is quite the contrary.
Sure it is easy to set up and get running, but windows is even easier , and then the breaking happens... inevitable and everything time.
Interestingly enough, the exact opposite happens to me. Just about every time I use Windows, it breaks horribly somehow and I can never seem to fix it without a complete reinstall. There's just no way to get into its innards to fix things.
I've never had that kind of problem on Linux.
I imagine this sort of thing comes down to what platform you know.
Can confirm; this is exactly why I switched to Linux. After my fifth-ish reinstallation of Windows, Microsoft pushed an update that caused the OS to use 80-90% of my CPU and I couldn't fix it because they locked down the service that was doing it despite it being entirely unrelated to my use of the computer (it was an Edge-related service that scanned web traffic for "optimization" if I remember right - one of those where Microsoft says "it's necessary but we won't tell you what it is and it wasn't in the OS before a couple months ago").
funny how peoples experience differs. Been using linux for years, and never had something break in a major way. I understand your point but would encourage you to try again someday.
Never had something break on Linux that was not my fault (outside of running hardware so old I had to fix some boot options). Meanwhile, using Windows feels like I'm back at my bug test job. Issues persist for years with no solution!
Yeah, I've run on some old as dirt hardware and the only non recoverable issues I've had would cripple any OS because they were hardware failures.
I'm curious, what distro where you running? And do you run on hardware that's known to be incompatible with Linux?
I'm happy to help you get started, or at least sort out if Linux is the right fit for you.
If you'd be open to try Linux again if it were less likely to break than your past experience, look into the recent trend of what they commonly call "immutable" distributions. This should give you the ability to always switch back to a working OS if anything goes wrong (which should be much less likely in the first place). It's similar in concept to Android or Chrome OS, from what I understand. I'm watching this space very closely because I'm concerned about experiencing the same thing as you if I switch to Linux, and not having the ability to fix the system myself.
Haha, translated petition demands Microsoft earns less money and loosens up control over their users. Ain't happening.
or, you know, just switch to linux. several distros are basically just as usable out of box as anything microsoft has released.
I've tried and gaming is a lot better than it was, but I still prefer Windows in that department though I do stick with SteamOS for the Steam Deck and haven't bothered running Windows on it.
yeah I'm mid transition myself - probably switch for good when win10 goes EoL. I tried win11 and hate it.
If only SteamOS was made generally available.
And I honestly prefer the non-terminal solutions that are generally in Windows.
Users here generally seem to forget that
1: Not all users are power users
2: Professional software is generally not developed for Linux but either Windows or Mac. Linux is an afterthought
3: Not all programs run as you'd need it to. Wine and Proton can work for single use but I don't see daily activity going very well with it.
For downvoters on point 3 saying they do it:
I tried the EA launcher with Proton on the SteamDeck. It's a hacky solution and in general a not supported environment. Good luck getting help from EA if something goes wrong.
This also applies to general work environments: HPE (server brand of HP) for example denies support if it sees a non-HPE product that may interfere with your support case. They ask you to remove it and then send another support file.
2: Professional software is generally not developed for Linux but either Windows or Mac. Linux is an afterthought
Really depends. E.g. Houdini, Blender and Nuke are Linux-first as Linux took over IRIX's market share, and generally that of Unix workstations.
All three predate Windows 95, the whole PC and Windows platform back then was considered cheap toys for accounting and management, not serious computing.
Good to know. It also depends highly on the industry, industry age (e.g. 3D modeling isnt 300 years old) and target group.
Buuuut I need to say it...
Generally
I wrote that word for a meaning. ;)
Windows on steam deck is the most awful experience. There is a reason why tablet PC's and non-laptop portables failed until apple used fanboy power to make tablets viable again.
i run dual-boot on my PC, these days i'm only switching over to windows for gaming since nvidia GPUs don't get a lot of support on the linux side nvidia doesn't go out of there way to support linux as much as AMD does
What kind of support are you missing? I run Linux exclusively with an Nvidia card and see regular driver updates (not as frequently as the kernel, for example, but still).
Is Ray Tracing and various DLSS features available out of the box now? Last I looked into it they were still a bit unstable / hackable to get properly setup if they worked at all.
I watch lot of HDR content on my PC with the HDR signal being sent to my display TV instead of having to fall back to tone mapping. Last I checked HDR wasn't working on Linux. Been checking in on it for several years, but it always seems to be being worked on but not ready for release.
i didn't phrase it too well; what i meant was that nvidia doesn't support linux as much as AMD seems to.
nvidia GPUs don't get a lot of support on the linux side.
First time I'm hearing about this. What do you mean? You get regular, automatic driver updates and they work... what is missing?
Older drivers for older cards are also available, although this may depend on the distribution rather than Nvidia.
Vulkan is basically unsupported by nVidia on anything before the 20-series on Linux. My 1060 6GB can only manage around 4-5 FPS at 1080p in some games as a result while others work totally fine. In addition, the drivers aren't open source, so no one can go in and fix that problem.
I've done something different. I just have two computers. One for just playing games (windows), and one for everything else (Mac).
yeah. I have a tiny-pc (whatever the ultra sff is called now) that will run w10 forever - supported or not, for a specific use-case, but the desktop i'm trying to transition to will be linux. already moved my laptop to linux (both mint because it's easy). have a different laptop that was decent 10 years ago that I use as a testbench to try out other, non-mint distros.
long term i'll move to 3x computers but daily really only use two.
That's all well and good, but choosing Microsoft is choosing their bullshit too. It's your right to choose, but if you're sharing a rowboat with an alligator don't be amazed when it eats your chicken. (or something like that)
Especially in comparison to windows 10.
It's not gonna be getting feature updates, even if support continues, and W10/Linux desktop feature parity is a lot closer already than one would think.
yes, but the Enterprise level license usually lasts longer than the individual license does. Enterprise level you're basically stuck in that ecosystem, you've got tools written for it. I remember when IE6 was the latest hotness and then everyone struggled to get away from it for years and years but integral revenue generating tools relied on it.
Please let me keep these old chains for a bit longer!
We must continue to improve freedom-respecting operating systems so that more users will switch.
Freedom respecting operating systems have been painless for most machines for at least a decade at this point, for that long anyone could have installed an easy distro and just used it normally. The problem now with getting people to switch is that they expect zero adjustment period, when they could just get used to something new that still functions 95% the same as Windows on the user's side.
I don't know how rare it is, but it hasn't really been painless on laptops from my experience. I've had to deal with trying to find the right kernel parameters to stop my laptop from freezing, to having an incredibly high default scroll speed which I've still haven't figured out how to change, to having to ask the orange alien place to figure out why my Internet card was not working. It may just seem like a hassle to some people, but I believe for most, it's enough of a hassle to just give up and go back to Windows.
I switched my old-ish laptop to EndeavorOS (based on Arch, btw), a few months back, as my first Linux experience. After a week or so of hiccups and getting things the way I like it, it's been an amazing experience. Ridiculously stable. Better than Windows 11 even. I'll never go back.
Last time I used Ubuntu it had made some really bad UI decisions. The scrollbars and grab areas to resize windows was 1px wide, making it pretty mich impossible to use. There was no setting in the system preferences, but I had to run some command overwriting some config ...
Yeah I have one laptop that doesn't play nice with default Debian drivers, and even the special .iso with a bundle of different wifi drivers, still can't connect during install. Debian derived distros all work fine, but Debian itself gives me problems with that one machine. Hate when it happens, but sometimes you just gotta try out a distro with different default settings.
Get Adobe to port their software to Linux. They're literally all that's holding me on Windows. I know there's some options to replace them, but those seem to be a mixed bag of seemingly deliberately difficult to use, or require way too much setup time to port my existing portfolio (LR to DT).
I recommend against dual booting because sometimes it may seem easier to switch back to Windows than try again to overcome an adjustment (or a painful problem that is harder to solve that a bug in Windows/Mac because of that lack of experience).
You know when you have an issue with your Linux so you air it on a public forum and are overrun with useless comments that you should switch to Arch because it's so much better and you're stupid if you don't?
Yeah.
Is Arch really that popular nowadays?
I mainly know it from the colleague who switched to it back in 2006, and then we made fun of him over the next year for all the stuff that was broken on his system, and worked on ours. He only was let off because a new hire went for Gentoo, and had stuff even more broken.
Arch is great these days, and in my own experience rarely breaks just due to updates if you set it up correctly.
But unless you're willing to configure a lot of stuff to your own liking, it's probably best to use some other, more mainstream distro.
I do like Arch. I say the biggest problem I have with it is how basic it is out the box. I like that, but I sometimes find it challenging, especially toward the beginning, to find the package I'm missing to get a certain functionality.
Isn't that both a feature and a potential difficulty? I've never used it, but I would think that's part of the appeal for some people/use cases.
I'm relatively new to Linux, but my experience has been the exact opposite. People seen super fucking helpful on all of the forums I've come to from Google after searching my problem.
Like REALLY helpful and nice.
I think the Arch thing is literally just a meme too (I use it, btw)
My PC doesn't fill the requirements for windows 11 and yet it was trying to update to it. (I7 2600 works fine, but not supported)
Installed Ubuntu and just didn't look back
That is a fucking awful suggestion for someone who just switched from windows lol. And I say that as someone who uses Arch (btw) as a daily driver
Arch is great for power users and hobbyists, but I can't think of a quicker way to turn a casual user off Linux lol. Ubuntu wouldn't necessarily have been my first choice either, but it's a perfectly serviceable windows replacement
Honestly I use Ubuntu as a server OS knowing full well there are better OS's simply because there's so much documentation out there for Ubuntu that if I have an issue I'm struggling to solve, someone else already has. Which is what people who are swapping OS's need more than anyone.
Ive been using Ubuntu for years, people have been bitching about it, but its stable and easy to use and thats all i want from my pc
And if you're going to offer someone to switch to something over the snap controversy anyways, maybe recommend Mint or a similar distribution (Mint is basically Ubuntu without snap)
Hahaha it is. I use u until because I enjoy the ease of use of windows and I like how it handles
I guess it wasn’t too apparent but ‘twas a little joke… why does everyone get so heated so quickly 😭 I just thought it was funny to say “Arch” to a Ubuntu user because of the stereotypical “I use arch btw” behavior of arch users And yes I agree, arch is great for power users and hobbyists and not for the casual. I’d figure, Ubuntu is usually a first choice for casuals, they look up Arch, and just say “ok I’ll stick with Ubuntu this is too complicated for me” I use Arch btw
I'm still on Windows 10. Are the complaints people have over windows 11 overblown or valid?
Some valid, a lot overblown. Take everything with a grain of salt.
A lot of people on Lemmy revere Linux to the point that Windows anything is a dirty word, so negative qualities are amplified quite substantially in discussions here.
I use Windows 11 daily on my personal laptop. As (what I am assuming to be) a typical end user, I will say I don't hate or love it any more than Windows 10. But I've never been one to nitpick over small details as much as others seem to.
I'm generally unfazed by start menu changes because I access the majority of my apps by just typing the name into the start menu. The dedicated search button in Windows 10 is superfluous for that reason, so I never used it and don't miss it. Rounded corners vs straight corners in the UI is essentially meaningless. And while Windows 11 currently does not allow you to reposition the taskbar to other sides of the screen, Windows 10 doesn't allow the taskbar and start menu to be centered, so pick your poison.
I think the right click context menu is improved in Windows 11 over 10.
That's interesting, the right click menu change has personally been driving me bonkers haha. I guess it's cleaner looking? But they removed most contextual options, so it's extra clicks or a button combo to get at what I'm looking for now.
Honestly, a bit of both. It probably gets more hate than it deserves but there's a lot of pointless change just for the sake of changing things. It's better than Win10 on a Surface, touch screen and pen support have improved. But beyond that, I don't really see a reason to jump to it until they force the issue by ending support for 10.
Tried it for the first time today and I hated it. Everything I organized for the start menu is gone and they replaced it with a stupid apps menu. It definitely runs sluggishly.
i mean users are free to use 3rd party start bars to have a windows 7 style start bar. The thing I always find odd is that if you opt for the 3rd party option, your experience with windows is mostly consistent.
One of the biggest features Windows gives users is the ability to modify stuff and people choose not to use it. It's like anyone who outright chooses to use IE/Spartan/Edge and complain about it instead of just switching to a 3rd party option.
I personally use openshell because its free, some people may prefer start10 or startisback. or go to more non vanilla options like Pokki
You are free to do that, but if you do they are also free to break your computer with mandatory updates 😂
computer has never broken using a 3rd party start bar, and ive been using it since the start of windows 10. historically, the only time something actually breaks in updates is if it requires the user to overwrite something in the windows folder (e.g complete theming changes). the start bar is not one of them.
Honestly, I ended up with 11 after years on 10, and I don’t find it nearly as horrible as everyone makes it out to be. It took some tweaking and a few tricks, but it’s fine and useable for what I do. I certainly spent less time futzing with Win 11 to run games than I ever did Linux.
That said, I haven’t been able to use windows for serious work/development since the 90’s… i only really boot up windows for gaming, so ymmv. For the most part that all works out of the box. For dev/ops work I’m a Linux or (since my work doesn’t allow Linux anymore) MacOS guy, which is much better workflow and capability-wise than Windows. IMHO.
buttons in taskbar (for app) grouped and can't be ungrouped, killing my workflow. piece of garbage...
Thaqnks for the heads up, I remember having read somewhere this should be coming back, but my system didn't receive that update as it seems... I'll wait and see.
I use it every day for work, used 10 before that. Overall fine, similar to 10. Some things were annoying after the switch, but some things are also better. It also helped that I held out for a few months, as the people switching first had a lot of initial problems with the new laptops and 11.
This is a primary reason I'm not upgrading, aside from the fact that I will drop W10 for all my computers for Linux at End of Support.
I am too. Well, dual-booting. My PC doesn't have TPM and I'm not upgrading my hardware just to accommodate Microsoft's nonsense so I'll just keep running 10 until the wheels fall off.
It's not terrible but it takes some fiddling initially to make it look like a real Windows install.
I use Win11 on my gaming rig and on my work pc by choice.
Gaming Rig (Ryzen 7 7800X3D):
Desktop environment is a slight downgrade but they are slowly reworking the whole UI. Though I really enjoy to customize my environment to my liking and probably bump more into edge cases than the average joe.
MS becomes more pushy with their subscription models but those can be ignored.
Windows Updates generally work well.
Office Rig (HP Elitebook i5 8th gen):
My laptop needed an upgrade from 8 to 16gb to run more smoothly. Same UI issues but it's workable.
I like the new explorer though.
On my NAS/home server I use Debian 11 and am pretty happy so far.
More ram will probably not help your laptop out with performance unless your running ram intensive programs if I were you consider upgrading your boot drive if things are running slow a 8 year old ssd/hdd probably isn't doing so good
Also if you use a hdd you could defrag it
Problem is multiple programs + web browser sucking ram.
Wirh 8GB I was continuesly red lining 95% utilization.
VoIP App, multiple tabs and windows of Chrome/Firefox/Edge (what the application is optimized for), Outlook, Teams, Spotify (to stay sane) and misc. other programs quickly suck up 8gb.
Windows often uses 8GB at idle for me with a single browser window open due to how much background BS it runs that is entirely irrelevant to anything I use the PC for. I upgraded to 32GB, then just finally decided to switch to Linux for good because it uses around 4-5GB with 10+ programs open (and most of that is Steam and Discord being inefficient).
Windows tends to use at least a quarter of system ram anyways
As long as you got enough storage for page fileing you should be aokay at least in my experience
I had about 16TB of total storage when it was using that much RAM. It still didn't like it.
I use windows 10 and 11. Most of the complaints I see about 11 apply just as much to 10. Very little of the big complaints I see about 11 are just about it. The ones that are actually unique are more subjective (the UI changes which have gotten a lot better).
The big one that really bothers me is that soooo many perfectly good computers cannot run it. Their hardware restrictions are absurd. My desktop has an i9-9820X, which was released at the end of 2018, and I'm not able to upgrade. I have 4 computers that all run great and run Windows and only one of them is able to upgrade. Windows 11 will likely result in a lot of e-waste (and a lot of people switching to Linux, myself included).
I don't really care too much about the other differences, Windows 11 is just like Windows 10 except they moved a bunch of stuff around. It could have all just been an update to 10.
Have you turned TPM on in the BIOS? Only new processors have it on by default. The 9820X should support it (and therefore Windows 11), you just have to enable it.
"explorer randomly talking focus" nuff said
Was forced to switch to 11 on my work laptop so now I'm working on transitioning to Linux for work. In 11 you have to fight the os more than ever to get the experience you want. I used a program to change Explorer to be similar to how it was on 10, and when I switched back to the default one it's very noticeably slower than custom. It's especially noticeable when sharing screen in teams, it feels very slow and laggy, crashes frequently.
Win11 is basically just UI lift to Win10, the core OS is exactly same.
They dropped lot of support (ie11, classic bios, non-tpm2.0, 32-bit), which most are IMO just good because it forces adoption. I think those are overblown, people just hate the UI changes.
Been using it since the launch, and the issues have mainly been similar to just win 10 build upgrade issues.
Well, it got worse again, like basically every Windows except for 7. The real issue is that arbitrarily chose not to support certain "old" hardware.
I understand the CPU hardware limitations due to Spectre/Meltdown issusles, but at the same time it is an ecological disaster. Two decades ago you would ditch your hardware frequently, simply because it could not run any new application. Now I have systems which do have more than appropriate computing power for my specific tasks and are forcefully obsoleted. They should at least extent Windows 10 critical fixes until 2030.
I believe the situation will cause to Windows 10 to become the next Windows XP immortal ghost for quite some time.
Same here. There is nothing wrong my my 7 year-old PC. I built it to last. It runs everything fine with good graphics and yet I'm being forced to change hardware for what? It's just a waste of money and something I can't afford.
I’m not a windows user but it seems every time there’s a new version people swear they’ll never use it and that the old version should be supported forever… and then eventually that “horrible” version becomes the next version that people won’t let go of… Are you guys okay?
Basically Microsoft tends to release operating systems in a 2 stage cycle. Every other version of Windows does something new and innovative, and then the next version is more polished, stable, and normal.
95 - new, innovative, and crappy
98 - solid
Then it got weird. They wanted to stop building the consumer version of Windows on top of DOS, and move it on to the NT kernel as 2000. The consumer version wasn't ready by the deadline, so they released 2000 for business only, and released a new DOS based Windows Me.
2000 - Really nice but boring. Extremely innovative new features for business use (Active Directory). The amount of work they put into Active Directory is probably why they didn't have the new consumer friendly UI ready in time. It's a rock solid OS but they significantly missed their goals.
Me - Absolute garbage, a cash grab. They basically put something out to satisfy the bean counters since they couldn't market NT to consumers yet.
XP - They finally pulled it off, and it's a pretty good OS that has the stability of NT, and all the multimedia features that consumers want.
Vista - They rewrote a huge portion of NT to be 64 bit, require signed drivers, and be more stable. The release version was pretty crappy but after 1-2 service packs it was actually pretty decent. But by then its reputation was already tarnished, and overall it was innovative and crappy.
7 - This was a very solid release. They took Vista and refined the UAC system to be less intrusive. Also a really nice new feature where you can use the taskbar like a dock where an app's icon stays in one place, even if it's not running.
8 - Experimental implementation of adding a touch UI to Windows. They made a decent effort but it really felt like a tech demo and nobody recommended it for anything outside of tablet devices. It was dreadful for people using traditional mouse and keyboard.
10 - Another solid OS. They basically took 7, added 8's touch UI features, and figured out how to blend them without it being annoying. The touch interface doesn't get in the way if you're using keyboard and mouse, and vice versa.
11 - I'm really not sure what the purpose of this OS is. I guess they're experimenting with trying to make the Windows UI more Mac-like. The taskbar centers the icons by default so it looks like the MacOS dock, and they're really pushing the new app store where all the apps have to be written with the newer UI libraries that work a lot more like mobile development platforms. So it really seems like Microsoft is planning for a future where Windows can run on many different types of devices and run the same apps. And Windows 11 is kind of a stepping stone to get there.
So Windows 12 should be interesting.
Also, while all of this is going on, with every new release generally comes a server version as well. They're constantly expanding the Active Directory schema and adding a lot of cool new features to Active Directory, such as new Group Policies that can be applied to groups of computers and users throughout an organization, which can automate a ton of things. If you want everybody in an accounting department to have a Q: drive with their QuickBooks files in it, you throw them all into an AD group or OU, and set up a new group policy on that group to map that Q: drive. And now all of those users will have that drive. I think it was starting with Windows server 2008r2 (Windows 7 server basically) and Windows 7, they added new Group Policies that did the drive mapping differently, and they would automatically map without the user even having to log off. Also, if the Group Policy is removed from a user, or a new user is moved into that group, it will automatically handle the changes. There's so much more to Windows than most people realize.
Windows 10 was hated too when it came out. And 11 improves the UI by a lot, this is where they fix the control panel.
Yeah he's skipping over the fact that windows 10 was when windows really started to be aggressive about advertising and anti-privacy measures. I agree that it's UX was pretty good, but it had big issues on other fronts
They’re constantly expanding the Active Directory schema and adding a lot of cool new features to Active Directory
you mean by letting it rot and become a security nightmare while trying to force everyone to move over to azureAD/entraID?
Nope. If this is business as usual Microsoft won't fuck as badly with Windows 12 and people are going to skip 11.
I've seen this but nobody actually likes the older versions either. Vista being an outlier, of course
I don't think that's available for private customers. Unless of course you pirate it; but even then it comes with the limitation of being English only. And there are plenty of people in other countries who want/need their OS to be in their native language.
That was just one dev saying something off the cuff, and the media ran with it. It was never an official stance, or even said by anyone with the actual authority to make decisions like that.
It would be like you saying “tomorrow our company is shutting down” to a reporter about your work.
