If they just focused on the feature delivery and stopped trying to push their crap, it would be a legitimately great OS. Every time something like this happens, I get a little closer to jumping to a Linux desktop for good.
- Windows Subsystems for Linux. I don't think this needs any further introduction.
- Client Hyper-V. It's a type-1 hypervisor that just works out of the box with completely seamless GPU passthrough (only to the root OS, i.e. the Windows 10 instance with Hyper-V enabled, but it's enough for gaming and running neural nets). Docker for Windows depends on this.
- Storage Spaces. A storage pooling system that supports thin provisioning, mirrored and parity redundancy, tiered caching, bit rot detection and correction (when used with their new ReFS filesystem), and works seamlessly with removable drives (I use a cluster of 2 2.5" external 4TB drives in mirror mode because I travel a decent amount, and 2 2.5" external drives are so much more pleasant to travel with than any NAS on the market).
- Huge improvements to window management, including virtual desktops, arrangement by snapping to all 4 corners on every monitor on multi-monitor systems, a super intuitive UI that lets you choose a different window to snap to the other side with 1 additional click, along with keyboard shortcuts for everything.
- First class pen support. I have a convertible laptop with a Wacom pen, and some of the features in the ink workspace like sketchpad and screen sketch have become indispensable to my workflow, and so damn convenient to use.
Windows 10 really is an excellent OS in its own right. It's such a shame that they keep undermining all the progress they've made by pulling crap like this.
I also disabled Cortana and most of the search features beyond basic indexing and likewise don't use sync... I don't like the occasional Edge browser ad above my Chrome icon in the taskbar though. I'd still rather W10 than Linux... I use Ubuntu on my HTPC, and really like Unity, but it's just not quite as good, and there's the pretty regular quirk after updates run that I spend hours hunting down a solution for a few times a year. I also happen to mostly like my macbook, but there's not a viable solution to replace my main desktop.
All the same, I would much rather have macOS with a start/taskbar a little closer to windows... the instance previews are nice, and it's a bit easier to work across multiple monitors... Most of my time is spent in VS Code and a couple browsers, so as long as I have bash (comes with git in windows), I'm pretty much good in any OS...
Edit: I do have Windows 10 Pro, which other users mention does not show ads.
W10 has multi-desktop support, which is great when you're doing distinctly different things with an overwhelming number of programs open. It also has better use of windowing if you use those features (snap works by quadrant, etc). So by pressing Win+Ctrl+D it creates a whole new desktop (empty taskbar), and you can switch between them with Win+Tab. I don't use this often but it was amazing the few times I reached for it.
Another small thing which bothered me but I've learned to rely on in W10 is if you have two monitors and are moving your cursor from the left monitor onto the right monitor near the top of the screen, it will be "blocked" at the rightmost edge of the left monitor, preventing your cursor from changing from the left monitor to the right monitor. This is useful for quickly minimizing or closing applications on the left monitor without mistakenly moving the cursor onto the right monitor.
I have not yet found anything which I've "lost control" over except item-level customization of the left-hand side of the start menu, which is where pinned programs would sometimes end up. Having the entire right-hand side of the start menu plus the task bar is really sufficient though so this isn't a big deal.
There are some other welcome improvements like the process list and/or performance monitor are improved, I can't remember specifically what wasn't available before though.
But on the other hand, the list of things that a typical power user or privacy-conscious user needs to tweak continues to grow, and some of them can only be disabled on editions that aren't available to consumers.
Where's the one big switch you claim covers everything of potential concern?
the only real problem I had with setup was sound: emulated sound had buffering issues, as did USB
I would suggest buying a cheap soundcard, giving it to the VM and running a cable between its output and line-in on your host (which hopefully has hardware support, so the sound doesn't have to be touched by the CPU by the host system)
be careful though, the hardware selection relies on trial and error quite a bit, devices have to support things like MSI interrupts, the board has to have proper ACS support, bios support has to be there, and so on
even picking things like graphics cards is a problem, some AMD cards support hot-plugging properly, others of the same generation don't
(and just because it's on the datasheet doesn't mean it works in practice :/)
With regards to usability and customizability, IMHO Unity seems to get worse with each release, so eg. now it no longer supports screenlets, and even the "Unity Tweak tool" no longer seems to work for several useful "tweaks".
But, I just don't get why do people assume it's either "plain" Unity or back to Windows. Have you ever tried Kubuntu? Or MATE, Cinnamon, Xfce flavours? I personally find KDE Plasma 5 the best DE ever, period - that is, once you invest those few minutes customizing it / fixing its few oddities here and there. Why don't you try it out?
For me, my biggest beef with Unity was a death from a thousand papercuts. EG: i wanted to open a file in a program and had to navigate to the location, and couldn't just copy the folder path as I did on Windows. Or when I wanted to Alt-Tab between two windows of the same program, I couldn't do it with Alt-Tab. To remove it, the forums told me to launch a program which then for some reason didn't open when I double clicked on it. And then I realized that Sublime Text was not longer called Sublime Text but Ubuntu somehow renamed it to the last file opened as admin, which was aparently a well known bug with Unity.
Then I read that the next version of Unity is a rewrite from scratch, with usually means many new fun bugs, and just said 'forget it'.
Now, is any of these DE simple to use and with well-thought defaults? I can try out a few ones (after all I will do a clean wipe of my desktop) but sadly don't have the time to test more than a few DEs.
Pro does show adds (like app suggestions in the start menu or add on the lock screen). Enterprise is the one that doesn't (if you configure it properly).
You have windows 8 to thank for that, they figure this out designing their "hot corners" feature. There's a 5px angle at each corner to catch the mouse. This idea is users learn to hit the top and slide across to get the corner, rather than try to nail the corner perfectly all the time.
near the bottom: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/b8/2012/05/21/enhancing-win...
Page compression for low memory PC's is nice to have too.
I actually measured the difference. My Windows 7 used to boot in ~20-22 seconds. With Windows 10 it went down to ~15-17 seconds. Sure, Windows 7 was a bit slower. However, it also didn't have forced reboots like Windows 10 does, which in my eyes more than makes up for it.
Unexpected reboots with awful long "installing updates" screen is an issue however.
I wonder how bad Windows has to get before Linux on the desktop takes off? It's kind of depressing that as good as most Linux distributions / window managers are, they aren't compelling enough.
I have been dissapointed at Epic and Valve for not investing a bit more resources into the linux ecosystem, but I think they are just playing a longer game. While a freedom geek like myself will force myself to get used to the sometimes more difficult ecosystem, the genpop needs an excuse to chase the medium... I think gaming is it, and vulkan is the thing that should help linux gaming.
Ryzen and it's low cost will also lower new pc barrier to entry, which should help, boosted along with lots of people wanting to dip into VR and therefore upgrading. More and more reasons for sections to move.
If the CIA/NSA leaks keep up and MS keeps alienting users like they have since Vista/8/10, gnu/linux userbase will continue to rise.
What would really make it though... is a killer AAA game or program that's on linux only. No port for windows, no bad windows gamers, you don't get to play, sorta thing.
As for distros, I just want to make a quick plug for (xfce) Manjaro... normally I distrohop very frequently, but I haven't had such an easy linux experience ever. Really worth trying at least in a VM.
By that, I'm not really talking about the touch-based UI (although that's part of it). I'm thinking about the app model. The model used by Windows is too complex (and Linux is even more so).
There are a lot of things Apple got right with iOS, but I'm especially fond of the security measures. Apps are sandboxed, they hide filesystem details, inter-app communication is mediated by the OS, and updating happens mostly transparently. The tight integration between iOS and the hardware for security reasons is also something that should be copied but will be difficult to do.
As a software developer, I couldn't use something like that to do my work, but most of the non-developers in my life could. Microsoft's current approach where they half-ass everything isn't going to work (IMHO). They are in no real danger though, because nothing else is challenging them today.
Potential challengers are around though. Apple is pretty close with the iPad Pro. Valve's Steam box is also on that path.
Quality is not the thing keeping most people away from Linux. It's not even software availability (although that is still relevant). It's PR and forced Windows distribution.
I love Linux, I love Linux desktops, but they cut into my productivity because I spend time fighting <esoteric edge case> rather than getting my work done. Windows (mostly) just gets out of my way. It's cases like this - when it gets in my way - that make me reconsider it.
(You'd think there would be an answer to this somewhere, but I haven't found one that is more than a puff piece.)
FYI you can still get the control panel, just hit windows key and type "control panel". (Note, it appears for me after just CON, so you probably won't have to type the whole word, depending on what you have installed)
WIN+x, e for Explorer
WIN+x, c for CMD (but configurable to launch Powershell instead)
WIN+x, r to bring up the Run dialog.
And so on...
Learn to love WIN+X+Key... until Microsoft takes it away or otherwise nerfs it.
My advice - do it all by script and keep the script because you are going to need it again when Microsoft decides to re-install all of it.