Windows 11 still not winning the OS popularity contest | Hacker News Reader

Windows 11 still not winning the OS popularity contest

theregister.com

16 pointsBender40 comments

From what I know, it only has minor under-the-hood changes from Win10, while having MASSIVE regressions to UI/UX. Increased ads, increased spying, and while certainly subjective, I think the largest regression is how much it's trying to imitate MacOS.

News flash to Microsoft, there are a lot of users that use Windows because it's not MacOS.

I've heard a rumor that much of the modern windows UI is planned out by designers whom are all apple ecosystem. Looking at the win 11 settings menu, and at the surface laptop, it's clear they're copying the success of Apple. This is what happens when there's not a central vision for a product. It's all user studies and data psuedo science that just reflects what average users want - apple products.

I can't think of a worse UI change than what Microsoft did to the right click menu. I'm ok with UI changes and will randomly try different WMs on Linux but that change was just SO frustrating. Zero benefit, loads of friction.

At least you can bring back the previous right-click menu with a quick regedit:

https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/windows-11-classic-conte...

The worst offense is that the taskbar, which now is forced into removing labels and forcing grouping of tasks. Gone are the days of clicking Firefox(Window 1) and Firefox(Window 2), they've just copied the mac dock.

Yes you can use registry hacks/tools from github to get the functionality back... but this is just unacceptable.

For what it's worth, some of the spying can be disabled with O&O's ShutUp10 [1] One needs to run it after each windows update and it will show you what if anything under its purview has changed. Disabling some telemetry can make the desktop a little snappier as it is not phoning home every time an application is launched.

There are also a bunch of PowerShell scripts on github that do the same things but some of them change risky options that can break things so I will not link to those.

[1] - https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

It's fine. I only use Windows to play games and Auto HDR is a decent feature.

But it's just riddled with design inconsistencies, PM driven "features" like Teams in the taskbar, and advertisements. I've been pointing family members at Chromebooks.

Windows is a mess. When I boot into it once every 5 years I'm floored by how bad it is. The touch controls in Internet Explorer don't even work consistently

Yeah, Windows 11 is like Ghostbusters (2016): not the disaster I'd been bracing for, but still a mess. And still not good.

The Windows 11 release event was top cringe. It was like the Hide-the-Pain Harold version of Windows 95's release. Like nobody there believed Windows 11 was an actual improvement but they desperately wanted you to.

Strangely comforting to see they're still struggling to convince people.

Windows 11 was the last straw that made me switch my day-to-day computer from a Windows laptop to a MacBook. Unfortunately, I still have to use a Windows desktop for some limited purposes (mainly gaming and computationally intense activities that I cannot do on my laptop) but that will be running a heavily locked-down configuration of Windows 10 until I die.

I look forward to Microsoft policy settings that disable all of Windows 11's clunky, privacy-invading features the moment governments have to or decide to upgrade, or when consumers eventually wake up and stop taking their nonsense.

I bought a Steam Deck to get away from Windows entirely.

I'm not a huge fan of Apple for a lot of reasons, so eventually I'm looking to move to a Linux development environment, but at this point I don't think it's ready.

To be honest, I'm not sure what to do anymore. I hate the modern Operating ecosystem. I find little value in the additions, and the ever encroaching privacy issues is really problematic.

For now I can keep it at bay with MacOS and SteamOS. But where do I go after this?

There is almost nothing that would make Windows desirable. It looks a bit different, but there is no compelling reason to switch, so far. Therefore I'm not surprised.

I'm fine with Win11, in a "meh" sort of way.

For me, it didn't add anything meaningful to Win10, but didn't change or remove anything meaningful either.

The biggest hassle in upgrading was having to enable TPM in my BIOS, which unfortunately will be a hurdle/deterrent for a lot of Win10 owners.

Fortunately if can't or don't want to meet the arbitrary requirements you can use tools like https://www.rufus.ltd/ to bypass all of them when writing the iso to a usb

Still wishing I could run Window 7. (showing my age, I know)

Yes, Windows 7 was the sweet spot. Clean, uncluttered and functional.

When Windows 7 was the latest, people said that about Windows XP. When Windows XP was mainstream, people said that about Windows Server 2003 with the classic theme.

Hrm. Don't know about anyone else, but Windows 7 was the first ms os I felt genuinely impressed by since DOS 6.2. (also the last) The big difference is the migration away from native apps. There are numerous reasons why getting out from underneath decades of MFC and old C++ dependencies needed to occur, but the choice to go the electron/react-native route seems to have left them with a 50-cent-bin-at-the-dollar-store UX.

XP is the last consistent windows. In 7 they started the mess with network settings.

I honestly don't see a difference between Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and Windows 11. It all was roughly the same when I was using them.

Doesn't Win11 have embedded ads? I am sure I dont want that.

Yes, and you can't search your drive without searching the Internet

Not a fan of win 11 but for those who want to make it more tolerable, you can disable the start menu ads with a regedit

I'd upgrade but my computer doesn't have TPM 2.0.

You don't need a tpm, you can disable that in registry during install

Few geeks will, most of people won't do that.

until Microsoft wants to stop supporting W10 and change that key with an update.

Sooner or later it will turn into the w8.1>>W10 shitshow where most people end up accidentally accidentally upgrading their OS even if they tried really hard NOT to do it.

If you're running a windows install you are a "geek" normal people buy a whole computer usually. Also, this is HN so it was a fair assumption on my part.

Or they will get it via that thing called Windows Update. Got Windows 11 only ARM laptop, every other computer was updated automatically if it was eligible.

Tools like https://www.rufus.ltd/ offer you the option when writing the iso to usb

That risks unreliable access to updates.

$1400 windows laptops still all come with home edition, have terrible build quality, low battery, are non repairable, get junked after a few years, and are outperformed by the M1, a first gen chiplet.

The end game is vertical integration. Microsoft lost because they can not produce competitive hardware, and other vendors make their business on building low quality hardware.

I'd still upgrade but Windows migration tool says my CPU (which is supported) isn't supported because it isn't modern enough (it's a core i7). So the upgrade just fails.

> my CPU (which is supported) isn't supported

Could it be that TPM is disabled in the bios? Could just be that the machine has all the supported hardware, just that the hardware is inaccessable in software.

There are ways to bypass the TPM and Secureboot checks and install 11 even on unsupported CPUs / lack of TPMs (Saying its an i7 so it should be supported doesn't help because the first i7 was release in 2008 iirc) by using things like https://github.com/AveYo/MediaCreationTool.bat to skip windows 11 upgrade checks. You just don't get support for the features requiring TPM/secure boot and no guarantees that things won't break in the future.

I do not believe the migration tool checks the class/Intel brand of CPU (i3, i5, i7, i9) but the generation, which seems to be 10th gen and higher. You can search this list to see if your generation of Intel processor is supported.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/mi...

> (it's a core i7)

That doesn't tell anyone much.

The first i7 was released in 2008.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehalem_(microarchitecture)

Fair although my one is like 3 years old. Anyhow it's moot as my PC has recently caught a bout of "can't stay on for long enough to boot" and I haven't got around to fixing it yet.

It fucking sucks. Besides my powerful (by todays standards) computer can’t run it.

If I can’t put the taskbar on one side it is literally unusable.

I have on no fewer than three occasions witnessed the use of a windows computer with the task bar on the bottom.

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