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That stupid weather widget and the Xbox overlay randomly popping up, completely disabling input without an obvious way to get out (some random win key combo), finally drove me to dump Windows as a daily driver. It even drove me to get some real work done on my passion project so I'd never have to use a Windows VM for CAD ever again.

I lived through Micro$oft but I was too inexperienced to understand the hate directed towards Microsoft. It's ironic that I only started to feel it now that they've changed their tune on the open source/dev stuff.

To add insult to injury, shortly after, I got an email with this subject line from google:

*> akiselev, take the next step on your Linux by confirming your Google Account settings

To turn off the weather.

Right click on the task bar, news and interests, turn off.

If only that were the only step to stop the new Windows install spam.

What Xbox overlay and what weather widget? Running 21H1 and never seen any of those.

Windows Logo Key + G, the "Xbox Game Bar".

Ah, I see. Well. I disabled that the first time I installed Windows 10, back... I don't know how many years ago. It's still disabled.

Also, maybe the fact that I uninstalled all pre-installed apps I knew would never use made it so I skipped out on future weather widgets. I don't have a weather app for instance, because I'll just look out my window instead.

Xbox Game Bar is not annoying like other crap, but useful even if you don't gaming. It can be used to screen recording feature.

Our IT has given us deployment sticks for W10 Pro which format/install/deploy the OS using one script in about 5 minutes with zero nags/prompts anything else. It also sets up a default (non-cloud) user. I think its called an 'unattended' setup. So it definitely can be done. I think MS needs to provide a "Yes, I know what I'm doing, go away" Windows ISO.

Could you please elaborate on how that usb stick was made? :-)

Time to time I need to do some Windows config/deployment – shortcuts, printers, make the damned NumLock ON, set those PDFs to open NOT in that ducked Edge;) and so on ..

But this is not my top skill and after googling for some time I’d kill for a spot on advice.

It can be a quite complex process. It also tends to break easily if not done right. Most organizations that deploy large amounts of systems will create Windows images with tools like Microsoft SCCM for example. This also works: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/96683-create-media-autom...

All that's really needed is to add a Provisioning package to any normal usb install stick. Microsoft offers a UI based editor that allows you set the options you want as well as add scripts to be run.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/provi...

There was even one release of Windows 10 Home where you couldn't create a local account, unless you tricked it by not connecting to a network. Not sure if this is still the case with current builds or if they came to their senses.

And good luck if you did create one and you also happen to use Office 365, because now you have two Microsoft accounts, possibly with the same email address, that use the same login page, and that's not confusing at all.

Yeah, that's still the case.

Oh did you say just TWO ?

Nah. I created a Microsoft account with my work mail adress. Then a Windows 10 account with this stupid installer. So I did get two accounts.

But that was before my employer decided to create « corporate » Microsoft accounts for everyone.

That’s 3 accounts. With the same mail address. Now I just avoid to log in with those accounts because I don’t even understand how it even works.

On https://account.microsoft.com/profile you can change your email address for the account, changing them to a new email account will let you "unlink" them from your work email.

> cringe "we are working hang on it" messages

Ha! My favorite one is: "Leave everything to us".

You get it splattered across the screen before the desktop loads for the firs time. It always gets me thinking, is it not enough for you guys to track me around, force send diagnostics data, foist updates upon me, now you want me to leave everything you!?

> Personally I don't think so. Every time I download and install from an Windows ISO it seems worse.

I’ve just been in a dark pit while trying to get a thunderbolt to sfp+ adapter working with ESXi. I ended up updating it via Windows but also tested it in various Ubuntu versions and macOS.

Both Windows and Ubuntu install processes were great compared to my very distant memory of install processes - Windows was finicky about the state of the drive it went onto and didn’t want to be on an external drive, but that was it.

The application Microsoft has made for creating boot disks is really nice. Apple in particular could learn a thing or two.

Drivers though, my god. If the driver isn’t signed by Microsoft, it is a horror in Windows.

Never got the dongle going in Esxi, it worked perfectly out the box for Apple and nearly the same for Ubuntu (though has to be unplugged and replugged after a reboot, and required manual config of mtu and network parameters. DHCP wouldn’t stick).

I got full functionality from Windows after a series of driver updates, interspaced with firmware updates and removal of security checks.

> Right out of the bat there is a page where you need to uncheck all the spyware crap and there are so many it scrolls.

This also doesn't even remotely turn off all of the spyware and phone-home, and you have to run something like WPD after install to finish the job.

The only thing I really notice is the settings ... app, box, thing, (not sure what to call it even) is wonky. Seems to get wonky-er all the time. But I'm hardly ever in there.

That's really the major change I notice. The little UI changes in menu or task bar I find easy enough to just adjust and so forth whenever I need to do so. Mostly I just turn them off and doing so doesn't really bother me.

That reminds me there are two control panels. One with the trendy web page style (the pretty one) and the other using the old Windows 7 style (the useful control panel).

And I suspect they know its terrible. What other reason would they reserve the the good stuff like the LTSC version to premium enterprise contracts? People who purchase and run Windows Pro and Windows Home are literally paying to feed the monstrous Microsoft telemetry machine. And that's also the reason they don't care anymore if you ever register and activate.

That's exactly what I thought when I ran into the old control panel. "Oh ... I see ... they know."

It’s obnoxious because while it seems like they keep adding features to the former that I’m used to using the latter for.

The other day, I was trying to set a static IP on a VM. Apparently the new Setting app has an option, but for whatever reason, it would change the IP settings. So I went into the classic network adapter options and set it there. That seemed to work, but the Settings app still didn’t show the adapter configured with a static IP. So I ran up config, and everything checked out thankfully.

Old one is still cooler because you can add custom items in it :^)

And even within the Control Panel (the older one), there's multiple visually distinct UIs:

1. First, there's "Windows 7 style" applets like "File History", "Power Options", and "Programs and Features". I'm not sure how to summarize these beyond that they have a resizable window and usually have some options in a sidebar on the left, but they all have a visually consistent look (which was a lot more obvious before Windows 10).

2. Next, some Windows 7 era applets use a different interface which displays in a (mock) file browser, like "Devices and Printers" or "Fonts".

3. Then there's some older applets which use a Windows XP-era interface in a small, fixed-size window with tabs at the top, like "Date and Time" or "Mouse".

4. Finally, there are a few applets which have a completely unique interface, like "Indexing Options" or "Device Manager".

5. Oh, and I forgot to mention: some of the applets in the Control Panel open up a Settings applet when clicked, like "System" and "Taskbar". But even this isn't consistent; some applets in Settings, like "Mouse" have a "additional settings" link on the right which opens the Control Panel applet when clicked.

Confused yet? Don't worry, the next version of Windows will assuredly find a way to make it worse.

1 and 2 are part of the same Vista/7 era Control Panel UI.

3 I believe is even older than that, maybe since 95

4 is the MMC. The MMC is actually great and I am disaponted to see it lose favor. You can even use the MMC to remotely admin other computers. The MMC is somethig I miss on other OSs.

Microsoft should have really invested time in creating template projects used to migrate from the 95 era panels to the Vista/7 era panels. And then again for Win10. Because even if they migrate all windows settings to new panels they are still stuck with 3rd party panels using the old infrastructure (Synaptics, Flash, others still use the 95 era panels). And now migration across all the versions means a complete rewrite effort. And I am not even sure it is possible in all cases. So they are stuck maintaining old infrastructure.

Mac OS fairs better because they had a clean break from 9 to X. And eventually X had pluggable 3rd party panels which proved to be a pain during the transition from 32bit to 64bit. Did Mac OS 9 and earlier have plugable 3rd party panels?

Linux for a long time just didn't care. I belive KDE Plasma has this capability since 5 (not sure it was there in 4).

It is the same with Windows (File) Explorer. It is incredibly plugable. Way more than alternatives on other OSs. There are namespace extensions, context menu extensions, icon overlay extensions, online storage support (since 10), etc..

Being stuck with supporting old infrastructure is a consequence of creating that infrastructure in the first place. The less you create the less you have to maintain. But, as a user, I will take more over less.

> Microsoft should have really invested time in creating template projects used to migrate from the 95 era panels to the Vista/7 era panels. And then again for Win10.

A lot of the problem just feels like they've repeatedly given up halfway through converting old settings UIs to newer ones and fallen back to bundling the old UIs into "advanced" or "additional settings" windows. The Personalization settings are a perfect example of this -- there's a Windows 10 Settings applet, which defers to a Windows 7 Control Panel applet for some options, which internally defers to a Windows XP era dialog for setting colors (which are mostly no-ops on Windows 10, but I digress). What they really need is a concerted effort to finish the job.

> Did Mac OS 9 and earlier have plugable 3rd party panels?

Ooooooh boy. Tangent time:

Control Panels and Extensions were perhaps one of the most terrifying part of Classic Mac OS from a modern development perspective. They represented modules of code which were loaded system-wide at startup, which could patch any (ANY!!) part of the operating system with their own code to add custom functionality -- for example, some common ones would add a screen saver (After Dark), add custom system-wide menus (Now Menus), or change the appearance of system controls and windows (Kaleidoscope). Conflicts between different cdevs/extensions were commonplace; System 7.5 added a first-party Extensions Manager utility that could be used to temporarily disable extensions, and a number of third-party utilities existed to diagnose startup crashes caused by conflicts.

The only difference between a Control Panel and an Extension was that a Control Panel could be launched as an application, typically to change its settings. There was no special UI framework for third-party Control Panels; they used the same UI toolkits as any other application.

That really is terrifying. It reminds me of Haxies like the ShapeShifter from Unsanity. I guess Mac Os had a tradition for such a thing.

The old style control panel is part of the Windows api, if they drop it they’ll break things like mouse drivers that often add tabs to the dialogs.