Windows 10 to be retired in 2025, as new OS unveils
bbc.com
bbc.com
Video games are the only thing keeping me on windows, plus last time I tried to set up a dual-boot with Ubuntu I somehow trashed the boot process of both OSs.
It should since it uses Wine under the hood, but the ease of use is obviously way worse.
Other AAA games aren't there due to complex, non-portable engines.
MANY AAA games work fine but their launchers don't (e.g., Blizzard, Origin).
All are shitty reasons for the games to not work. :p
I don’t even know what the Windows Lock Screen ads are for, but they feel in my face. Certain attempts to log in to Windows will also open Edge.
I think that is when you click the teaser text with the dots and just expect the location of the nice picture to unfold.
Maybe, but I bet it won't work for the simple reason that they'll do exactly those same things and add a few more equally stupid things too.
Always, always, follow the money.
> "forced updates"
The Windows security model is fundamentally flawed in the internet age. You should not need to reboot to update important files (until recently Adobe Reader would require full OS restarts for some updates; the fact that this was even allowed by the OS was a flaw in itself). People hate forced reboots, so they would just delay them indefinitely. Unpatched systems would get hacked, Microsoft would be blamed for it, reputation loss, money lost.
> unpopular Start menu design
They tried to merge desktop and mobile OSes to save development money and to migrate desktop users to mobile, to make more money.
> ads on the lock screen
Money. I assume, lots of it.
> bundled shitware games
Money. Again, probably lots of money.
TL;DR: These things will become worse and worse, not better.
Oh please no.
Hopefully the new OS will lead to less updates for Windows 10 being force pushed to my computer.
Yes, I'm still bitter about my Windows Insider experience. On the one hand, it's kind of my fault - I signed up for testing the beta release. On the other hand, holy shit. I dual-boot, and I didn't log into Windows for some ~3 months, during which my Insider build expired. After that, when I finally did try booting to Windows, I was greeted with a completely bricked, unrecoverable system: core DLLs had expired certificates, and _nothing_ would start, as code signing checks failed.
(This was a Windows 10 upgraded from Windows 8, and it was past the free upgrade period, so I ended up buying a new Windows 10 license. So in the end, they've managed to make money off me with this.)
I'm also not clear on why the Win10 start menu got so much hate. I delete all the tiles and it then seems not much different than prior start menus.
But for example, a user wants to look up or change something to do with the configuration. How do they go about choosing which of these to try on the right-click Start menu: System, Device Manager, Computer Management, Settings.
For me, on my current PC, typing up to "Visu" leads to "Visual Studio 2019", but adding one more character to "Visua" leads to "Visual Studio Code", which is what I wanted in the first place most of the time. No clue what the heuristics here are, but it's not predictable to me.
More troubling: "Che" leads to Microsoft's "Check for Updates", which is pretty much what I always want, but "Chec" leads to Java's "Check for Updates", which I kinda never want.
I can no longer predict to someone I'm guiding over the phone what typing something into the start menu will do. Even for me, I'll be typing something, and finish off a few keystrokes by muscles memory before hitting enter only to have it decide I really meant something else before I notice. And I suspect whatever heuristic uses the misfire as further ammunition to get things even more wrong in the future.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/15/22535123/microsoft-window...
Mac style centered dock. LoL.
Microsoft: please just finish your shit before changing it again.
https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/windows-10-still-wont-let-you-...
EDIT: I suppose there is a certain pressure to mess with the UI, so non-technical people will "see" the difference. Some changes have been genuine improvements, IMHO, like AeroSnap or the search field in the start menu, others have been disastrous (cough Windows 8 cough).
That's one of the worst offender. It opens a separate windows instead of searching in the menu itself, and returns a lot of crap (including web queries, wtf) except what it supposed to do: searching in installed applications. That can be done, at the expense of an additional click. Very poor UX by mixing concerns that belongs to different applications (Explorer and the browser).
I wonder if that's why even on a gaming desktop USBs default to "turn off power to preserve battery" which made my keyboard stutter, and I had to turn off this setting from Device Manager.
Sooooooo many updates.
Apologists will say it's fir new features and security, but it was just an annoyance. I don't even notice if my pixel gets updated.
Now I have two Ubuntu 20.04 laptops - Toshiba SatellitePro and Dell Inspiron. Windows 10 broke the Toshiba touchpad and wouldn't upgrade from 8.1 without fits, seizures and loss of data. With Snap I was able to port most of my MS Office and other windows software.
TBH, Dell did have issues around the infamous Nvidia display drivers that would freeze the screen needing a hard reboot. But at least my laptops are able to bounce back to enjoy the rest of their natural life!
I am a heavy user of Linux in the back (all my servers and containers run some kind of Linux since '93) and I desperately tried to use it on the desktop but is it a big pile of crap.
SO I will live in that duality forever (I do not like macOS)
Windows is by no means perfect. A bit overly provocative: With windows, if something is bad it is microsofts fault, with linux it's a user error. I don't like ads in the operating system (but I see it is hard to find a path to commercialize a consumer OS).
But I also liked windows 8.
As for Linux, I am trying every year or so to run it on the desktop and everytime nothing works as expected. It is either the wake up that dos not trigger one of the screens, ot the audio (a complete disaster) or something else. I am sure that there are solutions but this is really a patchwork.
It is interesting how this is in contrast with their headless servers - I ran so many things for years, now mostly in docker and it just worked. When not, the error messages were usually informative - compared to the MS Windows events.
This duality i snot really a problem 8 I have vastly different needs on both platforms (except for docker when I develop - but this works fine with WSL2).
I did not know that there are Windows versions that display ads, though.
But did you try to use hardware designed for Linux?
I enjoy stable Linux system on a good hardware designed for Linux. Everything works out of the box, no problems with drivers or suspend. No fighting against my own computer like on Windows.
I barely ever felt like I fight my own computer on Windows. I currently see no clear advantage for linux in any ways, adding additional requirements like specifically picking hardware for it, makes it worse, not better for me.
edit: I know people have very different experiences with various OSes, so the situation varies for everyone.
I think you just were not aware of that. If the device comes with Windows preinstalled, it means that it must work with Windows. It also means that no one guarantees that it will work with Linux. Linux community cannot support every possible hardware out there.
> My experience is also that windows and linux are not generally viewed as systems where you have to buy extremly specific hardware (unlike macos).
This is just not true. This is a myth about Linux. Yes, generally it should work almost on any hardware. But in reality, you are likely to have problems with small things like WiFi stability or suspend, due to the proprietary drivers and closed specifications. Concerning Windows, it's the same: The drivers must be written specifically for this hardware in order for it to work flawlessly.
The actual problem of Linux is the lack of retail hardware with preinstalled Linux. It's only available in a few online shops.
You are right in the way that I was not aware that the hardware might have been designed for windows. Most devices are probably "designed for windows" (much more likely given its dominance compared to me just being lucky when picking parts for my computers for 15-20 years) so I would have to go out of my way to get linux specific hardware for no clear gain.
In the moment of the original problem, adding a second monitor to an already running setup via DP chaining. Getting new hardware was the much less viable option compared to switching to an OS where I already own a license and which has drivers available that correclty implement the protocol.
Lastly, the originally mentioned switch to windows was motivated by a hardware problem, but it was by no means my only annoyance with linux. For me windows is closer to the way I want my OS to behave, but it is by no means perfect.
If I'll ever find myself in the situation that I want a linux computer specifically, I will keep your advice in mind to make sure to find compatible hardware! It is good to know that linux is much less flexible due to presisting bad driver support, even though it improved a lot since I first used a linux distribution.
Is this your own statement? I will use it frequently from this day forward, but want to attribute correctly.
The first reply does not make sense - it has nothing to do with borders (just trying to differentiate - very poorly - windows though some limited color changes.
The next few ones are "give me borders back", and the other solution does not work. But, if someone actually reads it, they will discover that what the author had in mind is to add shadows in windows in the performance section.
Which again does not have anything to do with borders.
Voilà, voilà.
I installed Ubuntu 10 minutes later.
> I installed Ubuntu
I did this once and regretted it. Except for OS itself, nothing quite worked reliably, and you're basically the only person who can help them if it has problems.
I agree that many won’t like Linux due to it being different, but it’s at least functional in this case. The web browser feels the same, at least, which is enough for casual users.
I'm only half joking here :-p
Here's the 2015 story covering this date announcement, which bears no relation to recent rumors at all: https://www.ghacks.net/2015/07/20/microsoft-to-support-windo...
Pretty sure that article's been out of date for a while.
The newer understanding is that Microsoft will release a new feature update every 6 months, and support each of them for 18 months. Almost certainly, this big refresh being announced soon will continue that model: All Windows 10 PCs will be eligible, support for existing releases will be for 18 months from their release, etc.
For a technology-focused community, BBC reporting on technology isn't adequate. And a bunch of blogspam articles have "covered" this "news" as well. I think it's a sign of bad journalism.
Sheer inertia and brand cachet are carrying the BBC.
I'm not sure which outlet is entirely trustworthy in the UK currently.
Ahahahahaha.
In the past I would have said The Guardian is okay, but right now they really hate trans people.
Channel 4 news are a small team with a heck of a punch - but there is not a lot of daily output.
They all have a slant but if you know you can still read their articles and get something out of it.
It seems to be based on a recent change in Microsoft's product lifecycle documentation.
Here's the story in the Register, published earlier than the BBC article: https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/14/microsoft_windows_10_...
It's not clear from any of these articles what has changed because the date hasn't.
Windows 10 Home and Pro has a "Retirement Date" listed as 10/14/2025.
Furthermore, it's just the default commitment Microsoft makes to businesses when they release new software. The statement isn't really taking into account the reality of the Windows-as-a-Service approach Microsoft takes now.
For instance, Windows 10's original build, 1507, you can see, ended support back in 2017, only about two years into the lifecycle.
The next version of Windows, whatever they call it, releasing this fall, will carry the same 18-24 month support cycle, have new feature releases released every 6-12 months, and "Windows 10" will seamlessly upgrade into it.
Apart from LTSB/LTSC releases, which have their own retirement dates (Windows 10 2019 LTSC is supported until 2029, for example), basically everyone will be off of "Windows 10" as it's currently called long before 2025, but your PC licensed for Windows 10 will still be updated and supported on the newer OS.
You have made a strong claim of incompetence here and I would like to see you present some equally strong proof.
Note that the BBC article states:
> Mr Nadella and chief product officer Panos Panay will launch the new OS at a virtual event on 24 June, with Microsoft now facing stiff competition not just from Apple but also from Google
... which implies they have direct information about the launch of the new version.
Why would the BBC fabricate this information about the upcoming event? If you have evidence that this statement is incorrect, I encourage you to present it.
By all means keep a LTS version of Windows, but draw a line.
Especially with Apple as a largely successful counterexample.
Keep something around for the next decade (or two) that keeps old hardware running. Allow virtualisation for everyone else.
It does seem that Apple’s approach of aggressively throwing out support for features while designing their own silicon with none of the legacy support that Intel keep around for x86 has paid off. Rosetta 2 ‘just works’.
For enterprise, some version of Windows will probably always be needed. WSL has shown that MS can respond to the developer community and shows that they can do it well. For home users and gamers a fast and lean OS will help shift hardware. The former who will be tempted by Macs and the latter who don’t want bloat will want as little OS overhead as possible.
Somehow I doubt the New Microsoft will do it right though. They don't strike me as the kind of people who give a shit about compatibility and user experience the way Old Microsoft did.
Do you think the kernel needs to be re-written from scratch? Yeah, the current one has issues, but that seems like an unnecessarily large undertaking, and one that is also not likely to produce bug-free code. I'd have thought some kind of testing/fuzzing/formal analysis would be a better approach.
Do you think the Win32/WPF/whatever APIs need to be thrown out and some other way of interacting with the core OS services be put in place (e.g. porting the GTKx.y/Glib API?) with some kind of shim for backwards-compatibility?
By all means keep Windows around for enterprise but build a new OS that is forward looking and eschews backwards compatibility when virtualisation can be used instead.
Aggressively simplify the OS. Make it consistent with a UX that keeps the OS out of the users way. Contain software from vomiting itself across your system. Make things discoverable and consistent, don’t impose restrictions such as locking open files.
I’m coming from this as a user not an OS developer. I use a mix of MacOS, Linux and Windows from day to day. Windows is often a dinosaur and constantly gets in the way. Each new version of Windows is another layer of paint over an existing peeling layer. Certainly Windows can be performant and it would be foolish to throw it all out.
I understand a lot of this is hot air, and your question is asking about specifics. I’m coming from this based on my observations on how students and elderly relatives use their computers.
I’ve moved my parents to iPads. They’re simple and they can do whatever they want to get done. They can browse the web, watch video, FaceTime and see photos of their grandkids etc. At the worst I have to run an OS update for them. They always forget the passwords but TouchID takes care of that.
Meanwhile my father in law has his ongoing war on technology with lists of passwords, frequent manual backups, and lists of things that need to be fixed whenever we visit. The computer is a ticking time bomb to be feared.
My students frequently have no idea what a file system is. Files are scattered everywhere on disk and the cloud. They have no idea what a USB drive does and some think simply just plugging one in magically copies the relevant files somewhere.
Usually by the time I’ve finished with them they’re writing code or running WSL or playing with a raspberry pi or whatever.
So we have this gap. There is the older generation where computers are scary and they’re happy with simplified but robust devices. There is the younger generation where most of them live on their phone and have no clue how computers actually work. When they end up in a job they’ll plod along with excel and whatever enterprise software they need. It really doesn’t matter what version of Windows or Office.
In the middle there are some people (of all ages) who actually have some degree of knowledge.
My solution is to make the desktop OS easier to use while still providing the complexity that is required as one gains experience. Right now Windows is intimidating and outdated.
Now I understand the idea behind technical debt, however backward compatibility is one of Window's biggest strength, so if a new OS has to be designed, it should be considered carefully.
Obviously open source drivers when needed or strict class compliance should be what manufacturers strive for today.
Can we please have 7 back, with its complete lack of built in ads, dark patterns ramming the Microsoft browser down your throat, telemetry everywhere (the calculator, really?), changes for the sake of showing that some manager did something rather than functionality (Rename this PC -> Rename this PC (Advanced))? Windows 10 still regularly shows clients as offline even though their internet connection is functioning normally, has trouble putting my laptop to sleep when I shut the lid (with ALL programs closed), and the recent 21H1 update caused a number of blue screens across our fleet.
Just fix your damn mess before you "hail a new era in personal computing", Micosoft.
Nevermind, I just crashed it with "sin(x)sin(y)<0"
(Microsoft PowerToys for XP had a graphing calculator but it doesn't support inequalities.)
I coincidentally had to fire up Sheepshaver recently so I've got it on hand. I put that inequality in the MacOS 8 Graphing Calculator and it gave me a nice looking checkerboard. Except I had to write it as "sin(x)sin(y)<0" or else it would think I meant "sin(xsin(y))<0", which is pretty itself.
Or do you suspect it might possibly be used for other purposes?
Software telemetry only gives us headaches
I switched from 7 to 10 when it was offered. I stayed with 10 for about one year, and I liked it thanks to all the fixes and improvements and despite the occasional quirk.
But after one year, I realized my computer didn't feel like it was mine anymore. I jumped to linux and never went back.
The approach is far more reasonable than what Windows does.
Not really. It's just too complicated of a "debate" (it's actually a non-debate) or discussion to dive into the differentiating factors that will assume different priorities for different people. Tradeoffs are everywhere and in everything and so is nuance.
Personally, I am growing tired of chasing Windows releases every few years so I will re-prioritize almost entirely around Linux's strengths.
For example, I have a 3700x / 5700XT computer. Windows 10 runs flawlessly without issues. Ubuntu, or any flavour of Ubuntu, runs like garbage. I have to fix screen tearing, slow boot, sleeping. Then from a clean install, open up firefox, and it crashes multiple times per day. It's not even close to stable.
Yet I run any flavour of Ubuntu on my Intel laptop and it's flawless.
Setup Manjaro on this same desktop, and it works flawlessly, yet on the same laptop if I use Wayland, it's completely broken.
Yet all the same hardware, never had an issue with Windows.
So my point is: Everyones experience is different. For some people they can set it up and fix it to be flawless, others just want to set it up and use it, not fiddle around.
If Microsoft would go back to pick up development from Windows 7, or Windows 3.11 for Workgroups, it would still be about abusing their customers.
I only use Windows for gaming these days but privacy is hardly an issue in Windows compared to anything else.
The issue:
"[Apple's] policy [is]: “You can also disable location-based system services by tapping on System Services and turning off each location-based system service.” But apparently there are some system services on this model...which request location data and cannot be disabled by users without completely turning off location services."
Apple's response:
“We do not see any actual security implications,” an Apple engineer wrote in a response to KrebsOnSecurity. “It is expected behavior that the Location Services icon appears in the status bar when Location Services is enabled. The icon appears for system services that do not have a switch in Settings”
"...“Ultra Wideband technology is an industry standard technology and is subject to international regulatory requirements that require it to be turned off in certain locations,” the statement continues. “iOS uses Location Services to help determine if iPhone is in these prohibited locations in order to disable Ultra Wideband and comply with regulations. The management of Ultrawide Band compliance and its use of location data is done entirely on the device and Apple is not collecting user location data.”"
No, I don't want your ads. No, I don't want your nagging. I want you to shut up and leave me alone. You're a tool that I bought, not my mother. I don't need you to nag me or give me advice.
Related gripe: When it wants you to do something, it offers you two options, "Yes" and "Ask me later". Conspicuously missing: "No, and never ask me again". It won't let me say no, just later. Grr.
As a developer, I'd be happier than anything if my work just let me have a bare-metal Linux machine to do my work on.
I also enjoy Windows as a development platform quite a bit. It has made me a LOT of money in the last two decades so I can't complain. I like Linux a lot too, no need to only like one or the other.
I don't know about Vista, but in my experience both XP and 7 have been very stable as long the hardware was reliable and no messy device drivers were in use (which includes AV software).
That being said, Windows 10 did a few things I liked, too.
SP1, allegedly, fixed a lot of those problems, but by that time Vista's reputation was beyond repair.
The driver situation might have been made worse by the transition to 64-bit. I remember a friend of mine tried XP 64bit back in the day, and the system crashed constantly because some driver had been written with the assumption that a long is exactly 32 bits wide or something like that.
As far as Windows goes, I really liked 7. The UI was reasonably pretty and useful, performance was not too bad, compared to earlier versions, security was much better (or so I'm told, not being an expert).
I think it says a lot about Microsoft that they constantly move around the 'search with Bing from the start menu' setting, and make it harder to find every time. They know we turn it off, and they don't want us to.
It's as if the Windows team is trying to throw random shit to the wall to see what sticks instead of trying to do slow and steady improvements.
Apparently Win10 has some serious improvements over Win7 under the hood, but those technological improvements don't count much if the user facing parts are quickly deteriorating.
Lots of security improvements since Windows 7 with Windows Defender.
Didn’t MS also improve font rendering?
Two year old Win 10 work PC install committed suicide after updating few months back. Blue screen on boot. Spent more time "troubleshooting" that issue than reinstalling win 10 after giving up.
I have to use Windows to play. If the cloud gaming services supported Ultrawides, I may be off of it altogether.
I was on the Windows accessibility team, which was under the shell org. Not everything that we did in Windows 10 was bad. The Narrator screen reader built into Windows 7 sucked (my former colleagues and managers agreed); we made that much better in Windows 10. I wouldn't want to go back to Windows being the only platform where the only good screen readers were the third-party ones, and those products had to use ugly hacks to make Windows accessible.
Crisp 2D with borders, separations, edges, UI elements were not hidden, obvious scroll bars, AND distinct colouring.
As you referenced 'Classic Mode', it was VERY close to Win2k UI, but not the same.
Sadly, Microsoft won’t sell it to you. But it’s... out there.
The minimum volume license buy is 5 licenses. Any good reseller will sell you 1 copy of LTSC and 4 of the cheapest SKU in the catalog (usually $5-10 / ea) to get your volume license contract started. After that you used to be able to purchase piecemeal for 2 years before you need to fulfill the minimum purchase again. The licenses themselves are perpetual. With the program being killed I'd treat it as a one-time purchase and assume you have no further rights after October (I think) of this year.
I don't like it, but it's not too hard to do either. The trick is finding a reseller who will leave you alone after the purchase (no sales calls, etc).
That means the updates are smaller and less frequent, and rarely break anything. Personally, this is exactly what I want.
There are registry keys which will fully turn off automatic updates, if you want. I use these in Virtual Machines, since I don't boot those frequently and they're supposed to be disposable. I'm pretty sure they also work in Enterprise and Pro, btw.
Indeed you can; I don't recall any difference between LTSC and non-LTSC when it comes to enabling WSL (though I haven't tried since WSL 2 came around, so maybe things changed).
My Windows PC is a gaming machine pretty much exclusively, and it runs LTSC.
Honestly though, not having my hardware volume keys work is a small price to pay for not having the regular windows 10 garbage.
Or is it all proprietary Samsung silicon...
I am personally convinced that the windows developers all use macs and are not bothered by these glaring, in your face quality issues.
I run VMs on vmware workstation. Every 2 or 3 days I come in to find the system rebooted during the night. I've tried every knob possible to turn it off to no avail. Updates regularly reset all the power settings so it suspends after 30 minutes.
The lack of control over the machine's basic functioning makes it barely fit for purpose.
microsoft has watched people in the past NEVER update their operating system for whatever reason. too much of a pain, "no need", can't deal with the outage caused by a reboot, whatever.
microsoft has also been blamed quite voraciously for "insecure" operating systems allowing worms to spread, when patched systems don't even get infected.
so, because MS is damned if they do, and damned if they don't, Microsoft has chosen to "do" and keep people patched up.
oh the horror.
the culture of blaming Microsoft for things that you or your installed applications do is the cause for this attitude Microsoft has about users not knowing what's good for themselves. THEY DON'T KNOW WHATS BEST; Not when it comes to security. We as users have demonstrated this over and over again.
So MS err on the side of caution, and essentially force updates.
and, yes, Microsoft change things, for reason(s) that you are not aware of, because either a new feature requires a change in a supporting subsystem, or because they believe they've discovered a better way to do something, or through extensive user testing they have discovered a better UI paradigm. or maybe just because they want to.
look, things are NEVER going to remain the same from year to year. your "the good old days" were someone else's "this new stuff sucks so much, why did they change it, it was fine" and that will be true so long as humans use things others create.
sometimes the decisions Microsoft makes are good. sometimes they are bad. yes, the correct decision FOR YOU is crystal clear FOR YOU, but guess what? other people exist, and what's best for them is something else.
so the majority get better representation. positively and negatively. I hate many decisions Microsoft has made, and I recognize that there is no way to please everyone. It is amazing to me how many people do not understand this.
(in this entire comment, I am using the royal "you" and I am not talking about any specific individual.)
do you really believe that they AREN'T working on this? of course they are. the field of software development is extraordinarily young. we still don't know how to do things very well, and we're still discovering new ways to know we aren't doing things well.
> Linux and BSD machines manage it.
it's a matter of target value, and the number of people who would be inconvenienced enough to pay a random to unlock their files on Linux is FAR smaller than for Windows. So attackers go where the money is. Governments overwhelmingly use Windows as a desktop OS as well. Attackers go where the secrets are. etc.
And when you count remote exploits capable of remote code execution, last I read there had been slightly more of those on Linux than Windows. don't quote me on that until I find a source.
> Remote 0-days don't come by that often.
yes they do. not all of them get media attention, though. the most recent monthly patch from MS for Windows 10 included fixes for six of them. All were actively being exploited. SIX.
But does hijacking of servers create that kind of publicity? Sometimes companies have to admit that they have been hacked because of data leak. But do they publicly admit for every breach? Is it in private companies interest to go public with that kind of information? And if they do, does it reach non-technical newspapers?
There was a good thread about Linux kernel security today, a slideshow and video. TLDR; many unsafe practices because of C, bad project management to track bugs, triage bugs, correctly applying patches, correctly map patches with CVEs
It has been working flawlessly for the past two years and has survived multiple feature upgrades.
What it does is override the call to the executable that schedules the reboot using the Windows built in debugging tools.
One line registry patch and the executable is redirected elsewhere.
0: https://lazyadmin.nl/it/how-to-stop-automatic-restart-win-10...
Is that too hard to discover? Do you use a Home edition? (Obviously if you use any unsupported registry hacks it can revert to default behaviour any time...)
But whatever the actual case, it's not at all obvious what triggers the reboots or why. It doesn't even have the courtesy to ask. It just does it and loses all my current work and VM states. The deliberate removal of direct user control is absolutely nuts. I didn't buy my computer with its primary purpose being applying Windows updates and rebooting. It's there for me to use for doing work, and it's failing at that by placing Microsoft's whims above my needs.
NEVER has a Microsoft patch ever reset my power settings to re-enable standby after X minutes. I have dozens of machines that I use between home and work. never once has that happened.
there's something else going on
Until recently, I was having major issues with every update resetting network and sharing settings, which essentially caused shared folders to become invisible to other computers on the network. It was a real pain and I'm glad they seem to have fixed whatever was causing it.
I have also hit this behavior and it is shocking - I gave a relative a laptop that should get 7 hours of battery life, but she was getting maybe 2 (and the laptop would get boiling hot) because the power mode defaulted to "performance". I fixed it for her when I visited but it reset itself after I left - a condition it remained in until the computer died from chronic overheating. It's scandalous.
This is my biggest pain points of windows 10. Why is it OK for windows to change my default image viewer everyday, with the some obscure message "there is a problem with your image viewer, we changed it to preinstalled image viewer from Windows"? Why? My image viewer is running perfectly OK, it has never crashed. I don't understand it at all.
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170517-00/?p=96...
Set your wifi as metered.
That's it. It'll tell you about updates, but not auto-download them, until like 6 months or something have passed. It'll even actually fail to download them sometimes, even when you click the download button... but un-metering easily fixes that.
And yeah, Cortana was one of the first things I killed off after getting a windows machine again, though I don't remember for sure how. It's so bad.
N.B. same guy, different account because passwords are hard.
The new and improved setup gave us a crap start menu (apps vs programs etc), all sorts of crap defaults that no one would ever want, endless advertising disguised as "helpful" prompts. Did you know internet explorer is 10x faster than chrome? Did you know IE has been replaced by edge which is even faster than IE was? etc
Without mentioning that the only way to create a local user is to setup windows without connecting it to the internet.
And without mentioning the amount of nagging, ads and spam that Windows users have to withstand. Like, the other day Edge reappeared on my taskbar by itself and reset itself as the default browser. And how many times do I need to confirm that yes, I am not crazy, I want to use another browser?
It’s a pity, because under the crust of shit, there’s a good OS with wonderful software compatibility that spans over decades and that is, overall, quite stable. Too bad it is constantly trying to bother its users.
------
I'm all for "you shouldn't need a Microsoft account to use your computer", but if you want to you use the locked down mode that is specifically FOR tight integration with MS's services and limiting you from everything else....needing a Microsoft account seems to make sense.
Why are you using S mode if that's not what you want?
Why not boot from a Windows 10 ISO and install Windows Home from there? As an added bonus, it would be a lot cleaner without all of the Dell junkware as well.
Free clue for Microsoft: I know you keep wanting to "leverage" your base of Windows installs into more income in other areas. But when you use leverage, your users feel forced. And we don't like it. Stop it. You're pissing off your customers.
Or like the man said, "You can't win, Gates. The more you tighten your grip, the more computer systems slip through your fingers."
(Yes, I'm calling out Gates. It started under him, decades ago.)
I’m sure he’s quaking in his boots, former Slashdotter.
The old era of personal computing was actual personal computing. If you want that MacOS is the closest commercial OS, or use Linux or BSD if you have more tinkering tolerance.
But I guess you can pay more and get the Professional version and have less garbage...
I can't comment on recent Windows-related event as XP was the last version of Windows that I used and even back then I wasn't happy about all the "spyware" that came with it. I can only imagine it's gotten worse since then.
That’s just not true. I wish it were but much of the real pro software you can’t get in Linux doesn’t worn.
Just because some games are running more or less stable, doesn't mean you can run complex software with it.
I said "pretty much any" not "every" since we're talking about regular usage of a computer. OP didn't mention anything in particular so I suggested three alternatives. Before you start calling people out you should first define what "complex" is.
Recent Photoshop is either silver or garbage depending on the version. Premiere is listed as garbage for all versions.
Newest iTunes is bronze.
I’m not even trying to find bad examples. I’m just poking around in their public db for popular software that doesn’t exist in Linux. I’ve run into this every time I try to use wine for real — it’s never worked well. It’s also a really hard problem! You basically need to re-write Windows and all of it’s related components, which one of the worlds biggest companies has spent decades on and however many billions of dollars. But it’s not like “pretty much any” windows software will run well. It’s quite selective outside of games.
So claiming "pretty much any" windows software runs in wine, is the "very bold assumption", not backed up by reality.
Because yeah, there is a lot of windows software somewhat running ... but somewhat running is not enough, when you want to work with it.
I find myself in an awkward situation where I don't like any of the three major desktop operating systems for different reasons. It's more a matter of picking the one that's less bad. Currently for me that's Linux for work, Windows for games, and Mac for a laptop.
I need a new laptop next year. I'll probably go for a Windows laptop where I can dual boot Linux.
Printers, scanners, nvidia graphics cards, dual monitors have all been a huge source of issues for me.
Then a lot of stuff is just glitchy and fixing it is a pain. For some reason QT from apt was completely messed up for me, so I had to compile and install it myself, which was non trivial.
The BSD OSes are often overlooked as a desktop platform despite being very easy to run and configure. They have excellent built-in documentation that the rest of the community could take inspiration from. They are a complete OS built and maintained together, rather than a distribution of disparate software from various sources bundled around a kernel. Even this reason alone is enough to make them very cohesive, and easy to understand. Their default installations are minimal (perhaps even to a fault in some users' eyes) allowing you to be clearly aware of the software that gets installed. Managing and configuring services is, IMO, far easier than on Linux (depending on distribution).
This introduction to OpenBSD is a good video to watch get a bit of an idea of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkDVKthufAM
I understand that it's not for everyone, but I thought it's worth mentioning in case you hadn't looked at this family of OSes before, since I think they offer a huge amount of what Linux offers, but in a more cohesively-structured and simplified way. I'm definitely gradually becoming more invested myself (though still testing the waters hehe).
This all happened six months ago, which is the most recent attempt at using the "now user-friendly version" of linux that stretches back 20 years.
What exactly are you suggesting, that you experienced a problem so it won't work for anyone else?
People can give it a try, but shouldn’t expect that it’s all okay once it shows a wallpaper. Committing to something like OS requires a prior knowledge of operational risks. I think this.
—
ReactOS in a nutshell: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U6d7E1uKSmg
They obviously make fun of it too shamelessly, but suggesting to use it… is it another level of trolling (no offense)?
Those are loaded questions, I'm quite sure I know the answers (yes and yes).
I'm happy Linux "just works" for you, but that hasn't been my experience.
Also, people can have legitimately different priorities. Some folks might want freedom from vendors badly enough to buy inferior but supported hardware, and/or get their hands dirty dealing with problems. At least there's a choice.
I now own a Macbook Air.
Which it was. Then it broke.
Linux GPU stuff is rough, but the above really helped. + Nix has a declarative way to configure the driver so other people did the hard part for me anyways.
Nix allows fearless Linux hacking (and thus, gaining of expertise.)
Not only that - Linux as a standard Debian or Ubuntu system did also become astonishingly beginner-friendly for people who do not like to tinker with computers, and just use them to read mail, edit documents, and browse the web. It's literally setting up once, send them the laptop, it works for five years or more, without any servicing.
The huge Gnome 3 schism, that lead to many different Gnome forks. And consequently GTK is more of a Gnome 3 toolkit rather than a universal toolkit, which will affect non-gnome GTK apps.
And if you manage to pick a desktop, hopefully by avoiding Gnome 3 because it constantly changes workflow and uses buggy JavaScript plugins, you realize that you will probably have Gnome 3 installed anyway because apps or the distro having dependencies to Gnome, if you don’t want to settle for old forks of those apps with less features.
And if you didn’t pick Gnome (or KDE) it is a good idea to install a compositor if you don’t like software rendered desktop like the good old Windows 9x days.
Be sure to turn the compositor off if you plan to play any games, especially if you thinking about playing on Wine. Or accept to always play in full screen. This will of course annoy you every time you need to look up something online.
If your game doesn’t run well, just add this unknown PPA that will installs nightly compiled graphics libraries (who wouldn’t?).
And if your computer freezes mid game, sorry you didn’t change the virtual memory size before because it is a fixed size. Tough luck.
And then of course the entire X vs Wayland situation.
So I haven't gone out of the way to install a compositor (are you talking a wayland compositor, or the older Compiz type stuff)?
But I have 2x1440p and 1x1080p and I've not noticed any perf issues, which I assume is what you're highlighting as the downside?
And I use all three major desktop OSes daily, so it's not that there's some blazing fast responsiveness to be had on Windows or OS X I'm unaware of.
> If your game doesn’t run well, just add this unknown PPA that will installs nightly compiled graphics libraries (who wouldn’t?).
This feels like five years out of date. Just pick a compatibility tool dropdown in Steam for most people. Lutris if you want something open source.
> And if your computer freezes mid game, sorry you didn’t change the virtual memory size before because it is a fixed size. Tough luck.
I haven't had a swap partition in years, and not once has it lead to a game crash.
My subjective feeling is that the snappiness is better in Windows than Linux and MacOS. I think that the pure desktop experience (moving & resizing windows, graphics, font rendering, login/logout, shortcuts, etc) is still unbeatable on Windows. What has gone downhill for Windows is the changes due to mobile & tablet adaptions and the cloud integration (Microsoft account vs local account etc).
I needed to install more up to date graphic libraries thru a PPA to avoid artifacts and weird rendering for a Steam installed game (Crusader Kings 3). Lutris is great, but to my understanding you need to manually install dxvk to get the best performance (someone can correct me on that (and Wine 6 broke a lot of things)). Also make sure you are running the correct gfx kernel module or otherwise hack your grub file.
Yes, you can disable swap entirely and hope it doesn't affect stability. By default Ubuntu creates a 2GB swap file, but if you are on a 16GB machine (not an unusual setup for a desktop computer) that can fill up pretty quickly and Linux will go into a swapping frenzy. You can't even ssh into the machine, just hard reboot or hope it recovers this hour.
When this happens the first time, it is not obvious that it is the swap file that is at blame for what happened. I'm not sure if it even exist a GUI for chaining the swap file size in Gnome (Disks app maybe?). But if you manage to change the swap file size, you have to decide, can I turn it off and hope nothing breaks or should increase it to match whatever RAM or more. It is weird that a desktop operating system ships with a feature that doesn't work.
This is not really true, and has not affected anything that I've seen. Basically every GTK desktop (including GNOME) has another separate widget library on top of GTK, to include its own widgets specific to that desktop. Also GTK3 is currently release frozen and will not be adding any more features, GTK4 is the current version.
>hopefully by avoiding Gnome 3 because it constantly changes workflow and uses buggy JavaScript plugins,
I haven't seen any desktop system that doesn't change workflow over time, or doesn't have some bugs in the plugins. That's a sad fact of life when you have hundreds of plugins made by various people, with varying quality. FYI KDE is also using javascript as a plugin language for the desktop, and for a number of other QML things, so it makes no sense to single out GNOME for use of javascript: https://develop.kde.org/docs/plasma/scripting/
>And then of course the entire X vs Wayland situation.
The situation with compositing should improve over time with Wayland, the idea there is to not ever turn off compositing (though the Wayland implementations are still optimizing this for the various edge cases).
GTK3 regressions from a GTK2 perspective
https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/gtk3-regressions-from-a-gtk2...
Horrible GTK3 / GNOME UI design is leaking into Ubuntu Mate applications in 20.04
https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/horrible-gtk3-gnome-ui-desig...
And then you have the terminal Termite
https://github.com/thestinger/termite
This is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to their hostility towards other
projects using VTE as a library. GTK and most of the GNOME project are much of
the same. Avoid them and don't make the mistake of thinking their libraries are
meant for others to use.
I have written about this topic before, see thread here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27195694,
quoting myself
Personally I prefer building GUIs in a scripting language
like JavaScript over a compiled language like C and C++
I think for Gnome and other desktops that uses this
technique, it is in the right direction
It's a bit odd to read this sentence. GTK2 got its last minor release over 10 years ago, and was EOLed 6 months ago. It's a dead project. GTK3 is also feature frozen as of 6 months ago, and will not see any features brought back from GTK2. If you want to get some of these issues fixed, it would be best to start submitting patches to GTK4, or trying to find other solutions that will work there. Or, you could try to revive some of that GTK2 code yourself, although I wouldn't recommend it -- a lot of that code is very obsolete.
>Horrible GTK3 / GNOME UI design is leaking into Ubuntu Mate applications in 20.04
This is a design decision made independently by the MATE developers to update their app to a different design, no? I don't see what GNOME has to do with this. Regardless of your feelings on it, at least one person seems to have thought it was the right decision.
>And then you have the terminal Termite
I remember this issue from last time it was discussed, I think the Termite maintainer overreacted as a result of a very normal technical disagreement. I don't really witness them rejecting patches any more than any other project. I also disagreed with that developer's decision to fork on a technical level, I thought that was unnecessary and could have been avoided.
>But the negatives in short are poor documentation, memory leaks, you end up only using the approved plugins (if you don't like to restart your desktop more than once a day) which of course negates the whole idea of a plugin system.
Some people are actually working on the docs, please contribute if you are able: https://gjs.guide/
There have been issues with memory leaks in the past, but those are bugs that can pop up with any garbage collected language. I'm not sure what you'd expect them to do, besides do the normal thing, and fix the individual bugs whenever possible.
I hate that I always have to say this, but there is no alternative to only using approved plugins, on any plugin system. I don't know what you mean it negates it. In Javascript the crashes and hangs are usually from unhandled exceptions and infinite loops -- This is even worse with a C or C++ plugin system, because those are memory unsafe and can cause bad segfaults. If the javascript is causing segfaults then that's probably a bug that should be reported.
https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater
It is not perfect, some stuff remains as Microsoft regulary "improves" their bloatware setup. But it makes windows so much more bearable.
Been using this since release
Gaming is quite possibly going to be an issue. Proton has made great strides, but some games just don't work well or at all.
the people who fix bugs aren't the same people who make corners rounded it design control panel user interfaces or rename things.
the entire company doesn't focus on a single thing at a time.
I also have to question whether these UX changes provide any benefit to users at all. They strike me as nothing but a cost to users in terms of familiarity and discoverability. Unless the new UI changes are somehow objectively better in any of those regards, it's a net negative change. I know some people will say, for example, "you can change the task bar back to where it was". However, apparently less than 5% of users ever change default settings, according to an unfortunately-anecdotal article[0], so a change like this presumably decides how ~95% of people will use the OS.
I can't wait to explain to my 83 yr old uncle (who doesn't understand the difference between a website and an application on the computer) why everything just randomly moved over and looks way different, after he has spent years just getting familiar with basic usage of the computer to begin with.
[0] https://archive.uie.com/brainsparks/2011/09/14/do-users-chan...
Unfortunately it is really hard for game development companies to develop on Linux as most of the software used by artists require Windows to function. Hopefully one day my company will be able ditch Windows completely but it might take another decade.
Linux works on the servers because lots of companies don't wanna be locked into MS offerings and pay for building all their ecosystem around Linux by their business profit.
Such business doesn't exist for desktop Linux and that's the only way to make it happen. It's also a tough job. See Android whose development has been paid for over the years still gets forked and fragmented due to the fact that apparently Linux doesn't maintain a consistent HAL (perhaps so they can refactor easily idk).
So this Linux desktop dream just won't come true when there's no stable business paying for the development.
I still use 7, because of inertia and it's hard to change something that "just works" (read: I know its shortcomings by heart so I don't even need to think about how to avoid them), and also it accumulates years of fine tunings, configurations, and personalization.
Also I bought a laptop that "already" came with 10, and oh boy it didn't do a good job of convincing me to upgrade my main computer.
The only reason I don't go to linux entirely is software like Fusion360 which are windows/mac primarily. Kicad is already better than Eagle for electronics design (especially 5.99) and I have some hope that Freecad will do some updates which will make it a serious competitor in the CAD field.
I've used freecad and and it.. works for simple stuff, but it has a really long way to go.
Windows 2000 - Good
Windows ME - Bad
Windows XP - Good
Windows Vista - Bad
Windows 7 - Good
Windows 8 - Bad
Windows 10 - Good
Windows 11 - ????
If so, there's the option of running Windows in a VM on your Linux machine, and having seamless Windows apps on your Linux desktop.
It's a bit like what MS are going to offer with their WSL, but in reverse. I've never tried it, but it might work, and give people the best of both worlds.
Imagine MS porting the _official_ windows libs to linux and FOSSing them so we don't have to play WINE roulette and get some official compatibility. It's not inconceivable, MS already realises their future is in SaaS, not desktop OS, this is an opportunity for them to finally throw in the towel and focus on their future.
... but it's probably not gona happen, they can easily keep eating the cost of windows and keep it as leverage just in-case, user experience be damned.
"Run Windows apps such as Microsoft Office/Adobe in Linux (Ubuntu/Fedora) and GNOME/KDE as if they were a part of the native OS, including Nautilus integration."
...now I'm wondering how many of the average consumer would even recognize that.
Windows 7 - Good
Windows 8 - Bad
Windows 8.1 - Good (a bit)
Windows 10 - Bad
Windows 11 - ???? (Good, hopefully)
That matches my perception more closely tbf
Maybe the next version of Windows (or whatever it's to be called) will see Microsoft exit out of the OS business. I've often thought Microsoft should play the script Apple played: use a Linux kernel, wrap the Windows APIs around that kernel, create a Windows desktop environment. Most of your existing apps from the past 30 years would still run and you no longer have to maintain a kernel and drivers. Heck, you might even offer a "bring your own kernel" offering where the user can pick which distro they want and run your Windows desktop environment when desired.
I'd love to see the numbers on the net profit Microsoft is making from Windows and how much pull-in business Windows is still generating for them.
I think the biggest mistake Microsoft made with windows 10 is offering different, cheaper versions. The cheaper versions have less features and more ads.
But if you are a developer, you should be using Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise. It doesn't make any sense to be using Home as the savings are very minimal.
More ads? Mandatory MS cloud account login? Monthly update fee? CCP localization option featuring content censoring and reporting? cmd.exe rust rewrite?
> a more modern look [...]
New OS comes with a new look. The new look is not the old look. Water is wet.
> and a redesigned Start menu.
We went through this already.
Similarly for versions of Microsoft Office products.
Hyper-v
Default notepad that understands linux style line endings
Default ISO mounting support without having to download sketchy tools
Default ZIP support without having to download winrar
At the risk of sounding churlish, the last three can be done on earlier versions of Microsoft Windows, for varying degrees of downloading 'sketchy tools'.
Notepad.exe upgrade occurred last year I think? But one feels like Microsoft could have done that at any time in the past 3 decades. I suspect anyone who was hurt by this was likely to long since shifted to Notepad++.
Virtual Desktops are indeed a compelling feature, which I've relied on with KDE since last century -- though I still haven't tried them on a Windows box.
Hyper-V -- I've used this a few times on Windows 10, though I believe it's not available on the most common version of the OS, right? I'm using Pro and Education versions - which do have the feature.
Luckily I said compared to Windows XP, because Hyper-V's been available since Windows 8 / Server 2008.
So the solution on Windows XP or other old Windows versions was to change all text file associations from Notepad to Wordpad and everything was fine.
MacOS is still the most advanced desktop environment for computing but I'm no longer convinced it will even be an option 10 years from now so I just want Microsoft to focus on replicating the best parts and throwing out the Windows cruft.
Saying this as someone who returned to Windows after a 10+ year hiatus because I needed powerful GPUs for my work.
Network interface bridging
Per-application volume control
Hyper-V
Drivers that run mostly in user space so crashes and updates don't require a reboot
- Better bluetooth integration (N/A in XP? Unreliable in Win7?)
- Snipping tool (Don't remember if in XP, definitely part of win7)
- Improved automatic driver detection (Drivers were pretty rough in XP, okay in win7 but still needed manufacturer installs for many things)
- Built in camera app? (Voice recorder was always there for audio testing)
- Built in free mail app (outlook always cost money)
- Better out-of-the box browser (windows edge vs. IE)
- Free, good quality firewall (windows defender, came later in Win7 as an update not in XP)
I found it to actually be a difficult exercise which either says something about my memory of the old OS's or it reveals a distinct lack of dramatic changes.
outlook express was free on xp
A couple more
- Clipboard history - this is kind of a hidden feature and has to be turned on but is very helpful.
- One drive integration - this works pretty well if you do use one drive.
- Game Bar (built in screen recording)
- Built in SSH
- Virtual Desktops
- Action Center (OS level notifications)
Now that macOS has moved on to 11, but is commonly only known by named releases, Microsoft is going to do the same...
I'm looking forward to the next Windows being named after natural features of Washington state
Disclaimer: not a Microsoft fanboy, just intensely skeptical of both of these corporations in general.
It doesnt come with any shit on it (windows store, metro, xboxlive, cortana etc etc.) MS have also promised It will not receive any updates that change its functionality but will receive security updates, for 10 years. You can only get it if u buy in bulk tho. Or, u can just get it from tpb.. Considering MS are intentionally not selling by far the most user-respecting version of their OS to regular folks, it behooves us to pirate it.
The linux desktop has been a mess for years so no thanks but I do use UnRaid on my fileserver.
So I went back to Windows 10 and a Dell and it was not so bad - it works for my needs - yes had some issues around Windows Update being a hit and miss affair sometimes and a recent AMD Radeon driver update on my older GPU giving me grief.
Not my experience at all. Probably depends on the distribution and hardware.
I just hope they don't pull a Windows 8 again with Windows 11.
Apple is pretty good at ignoring enterprise demands and I think it shows in their products.
They have a lot of people concentrating on the things they don’t need to be done and very few on the things that do need to be done.
Which flavour of Linux is closest to 'just works'? Mint?
Paid for repo access, and an optional paid upgrade to allow it to run like wine on other DM's.
That would be the perfect match for me!
I think it was a good call handling Windows 10 long term as free updates. I assume they will do the same for the next iteration.
Previous discussion:
Yeah that's not ominous at all.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/open-sources-eric-raymond-wind...
Verge: OMG WINDOWS 11
I would like it, we need more open hardware. But I have no illusion that vendors like Microsoft, Google or Apple will first try to find a way to lock their systems down.
Changing to a completely different kernel would be something else.
They already did a lot of that for the Linux port of SQL Server, which as I understand it is basically the same program running with a bundled compatibility layer that's basically an official Microsoft equivalent of WINE.
Just like MacOS.
What if they included two kernels, both Windows and Linux? Just speculating.
How am I going to get used to it now, if they're already replacing it?