Windows 10 share increases while Windows 11 share decreases | Hacker News Reader

Windows 10 share increases while Windows 11 share decreases

pcmag.com

59 pointsethanholt144 comments

Dont forget they already said windows 11 will have complete keylogger and screen OCR for "ai search"

Because SOMEONE thought complete privacy rape is worth "when did i tell my friend about that dune movie?"

completely against everyone's will: absolute tracking

So now the hackers dont even have to do any real work in identifying juicy targets... just hack something, and now built in automated queries to the "ai search" will find everything good without the slightest targeted effort any more

> the OS's "radically modernized, more consistent design...belies what is really more of an evolutionary update."

Means .. "we're pushing even more unwanted crap onto your screen in so many different ways you'll wonder how you're going to ever get any work done!"

I've never really been a Windows fan, and having recently wrestled with a Windows 10 installation for a local charity I can confirm that state will not be changing. Using a Windows 10 for actual work is bad enough, so I can only imagine what '11 will be like.

Due to Windows 11 uploading all of my documents to their cloud without informed consent , for a second time, I'm heading to Linux.

The dark side you have chosen! Using what distribution will you be? Hmm?

You're posting on HN, just disable this in group policy

The trick to that one is to never create or use a Microsoft account. They make it very hard to create a local Windows user account that exists only on your machine, and they tempt you into migrating your local account to a cloud based account, but it's very straightforward to never supply the email and password for a Microsoft account.

Uninstalling OneDrive every time they re-install it is annoying but also pretty simple.

How do you know they don't upload your docs anyways?

I like Windows 11. Windows 10 feels old in comparison, especially with many system settings living in Control Panel. I use a dev drive, I like my dark mode notepad and taskman, I love having a modern Terminal and winget, and frnakly I pay for Microsoft 365 because it's a pretty good value for the 5 other family members I've got on it.

RE: any arguments about ads and such... I don't see what's an ad? I disable copilot in my taskbar. It takes all of 10 seconds to remove the LinkedIn and other crappy shortcut (just shortcut, not full software mind you) from my start menu the one time a year (at best) I reinstall Windows. Yeah, there's OneDrive, but you can uninstall it unlike something similar on another platform like iCloud. And you know what? I can run applications from 25 years ago with practically no issue.

Let's assume that Microsoft continues their path, and eventually makes it impossible to disable ads (or at least plays whack a mole as a game of attrition, increasing the necessary effort to the point the commjnity gives up). Would you continue to like it?

As long as enterprise exists, I don't know that what you're proposing is an eventuality. Regardless, if it truly gets to the point where you can't disable it, no, I would look for options to switch. Not because of ads, but because that is a fundamental shift in the design of the product. Windows is very much designed to be poked and prodded and modified. Not being able to run your own software or heavily customize your OS makes it not Windows anymore.

Yes I am aware of RT. There's a reason it didn't survive. Yes, I understand what S mode is. It's also not the default install method for many devices, and you can disable it.

> Windows 10 feels old in comparison

Having a proper "copy" and "paste" in the right click menu in Explorer (or whatever is left of it) is "old". /s

I didn't like it when they first changed it, but I'm used to it now. Is it better? Nope. Is it worse? A bit. Worth writing off an entire OS? Nope.

I just started using an old laptop I was going to sell for my kids to be able to just slam on the keys and get interested. It's got windows 10 and man I forgot how nice it was just to turn on the pc and get moving.

Not all this garbage. Windows 11 is such trash everywhere.

I was worried when I found that I didn't have winget, but just installing windows terminal installed it with it. That's pretty much all I need.

I am running Windows 11 Arm in MacOS Parallels as it's the only option (Microsoft Pulled the 10 Arm Builds).

I decided to not even let this Windows 11 VM connect to the internet (But has access to my MacOS partition to for file access).

It's a shame because windows got so many things right but it's starting to taste bad. We used to write software to have windows control some pretty cool stuff like automation, security and POS but there's no longer a "Pro" version without the dumpster truck.

I do the same, but unfortunately need internet access on win 11 (for the same reason I need windows at all, a historic thin client upon which a large corporation I work for uses)… I could just run a cloud vm with windows 7 for the same purpose, but it breaks email and document “printing” pdf - or at least makes it super inconvenient.

Anyway - today the damn weather showed up on my win 11 taskbar to the extreme left. Click on it and a huge panel of crap opens. No obvious way to turn of these weather alerts. Even the start button sucks , full of crap. Pretty sure it made a Microsoft account automatically too through the parallels installer using my Mac credentials (ugh!)

dupe

Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40226934

Windows XP is still their best version.

Windows 7 was pretty good IMO.

Also, Windows XP sucked. Windows XP SP2, OTOH…

What I find most interesting about the data, is that this trend actually seems to be more pronounced in richer countries. My initial hypothesis was that it was people in poorer countries coming online with older, cheaper hardware, unable to meet win11's requirements.

Keep in mind this wasn't a real scientific analysis or anything.

Are they allowed to train on the documents they ~~steal~~ upload to their cloud? I mean is there some fine print where I agreed to by using the OS? Because there is a lot of personal stuff there.

EULA ? /s

My plan is to wait till win 12. If it’s a disaster then downgrade to 11

It could also be hordes of legacy win7 systems that are getting upgraded to win10 for insurance reasons

This is the actual trend. The percentage of Windows 10 machines is growing, Windows 11 isn't magically losing users to downgrades or people shifting to another platform.

I would've used Windows 10 on my Surface Pro X if it supported x64 emulation. Windows 11's UI is just awful on a tablet. The only real improvement is that they've migrated a few new settings to the new more touchable settings.

Windows 10, eh?

I refuse to use anything past Windows 7. (When I have to use Windows, that is.)

Man. I remember people saying the same thing about Windows for Workgroups 3.11, before they eventually moved into the Windows 95/98 era, abandoned Windows (or computing in general) altogether, or died or something.

Then, the same thing happened with Windows 98SE.

And Windows 2000.

And Windows XP.

And...

Those were actual upgrades, though.

According to many, Windows UI/UX peaked in the Win2k/XP/Win7 era.

Among those, significant improvements: memory management, new/more stable drivers, 64-bit support, better use of multi-core cpu's, etc.

But since then: increased telem.. ehm, spying. Pushing ads everywhere. Mostly pointless UI overhauls again & again for little end-user benefit. If any.

It's sad that giants like MS seem so hell-bent on enshittifying their flagship products. Just imagine what could have been if MS had kept supporting, improving internals, and adding drivers to the 'oldie' OSes mentioned above. Or stick to minor upgrades leaving OS look & feel intact.

Sure there's tech limitations. But I dare you: name some application(s) that would be impossible on say, Win7 due to fundamental issues in its design (assuming MS & app developer were both on board to smooth out wrinkles). Anyone?

Remember the days of Mini-Microsoft? They were a group who tried to improve Microsoft from the inside. They weren't successful.

I once tried to convince them that Microsoft should 'do an Apple' by using Linux under the hood the same way that Apple used BSD under the hood.

That would free up a lot of the programming workload of Windows by putting it onto the Linux community, and allow Microsoft to concentrate on the Windows Desktop alone, the same way that Apple concentrated on the Apple Desktop while leaving BSD to the BSDers.

I still believe this would be a win-win for Microsoft and its users alike.

However, Microsoft has always been about the Benjamins, and not about good things for its users.

Heresy. 2K was never a bad choice.

lol. J/k

For real tho, every Windows version after 3.x was bad at first. Then people moved, and then the next one was worse.

Except for Vista. People hated vista but everyone I encountered seemed to love the next one ...windows 7.

(I liked the look of Vista, and it ran OK on my machine; but I still went with 7)

I was doing a fair bit of freelance support when Vista came out, so I actually bought a retail copy of it (from a real store, in a box, with a disc!) to install and to use, so that I might actually understand it enough to feel right with charging Real Money to support it semi-efficiently.

It was my experience that it was mostly fine. It had teething problems, as many things do. It had lasting quirks that were frustrating.

But generally, it worked well enough for me -- given other options. I never once said to myself "Self, this particular version of Windows is repugnant and filthy, and I want to go back to Windows XP now!!!"

(...because, as any Win2k fanboy would heartily remind anyone at the least-significent mention: Windows XP was a Skittles-colored turd. But Win2k was really old in computer-years by the time Vista came 'round, so that wasn't very viable either.)

Year of the Linux Desktop hopefully coming soon

The beach head is already there, steam deck. All it takes is one gaming generation growing up with freedom..

Are most Steam Deck users even aware that there's a Linux and some userland under the hood, or is it just a portable game console to them (as an Android phone is just another pocket computer)?

Most are quite aware. Desktop Mode is needed for certain tasks like installing additional software or browsing the web, and it's just KDE Plasma. Also you sometimes need to wrestle with Proton versions and some games with anticheat don't work in Proton, so the average Deck user is pretty aware of what they're running. There's a big culture of tweaking things to run better or use less battery or be more convenient (plugins to make changing game art easier, especially important for non-Steam games you add which have no art set by default).

I could be in a bubble, but it seems like even the less technical Deck owners can at least follow Reddit or YouTube tutorials (of which there are many) to do more advanced things on their Deck. Setting up emulators is one of the more common things people do.

The OS also comes up in comparisons to competing PC handhelds, as the marginally more powerful alternatives all seem to come with Windows and suffer in the UX department. Valve allegedly plans to release their current SteamOS version for others to use, but it hasn't happened yet. There are a couple third party recreations in the meantime that people put on these other devices themselves.

That was 2001.

2000. ;)

"Hohndel [sic] reckons the current trend toward the open source model has only one conclusion: that Linux will become as prevalent as Windows on the desktop within the next two to three years." -- SuSE's Dirk Hohndel talking with ZDNet, 2000

That was 2013.

That was 2007.

Almost as if shoving ads in everyone’s faces backfired and they all want out.

Puhlease… just use shutup10 and some debloating script easily found on GitHub. It’s mostly harmless. And it could be a fun weekend project to install a Rufus tampered Win11 ISO. And when WU reenables some sort of privacy and/or advertising wrecking feature you run shutup10 again which will tell you which changes MS decided to make on your behalf so you can toggle them back again. Finally, if you can spare some computer cycles, run a docker-pihole and block those sweet sweet ms-events IPs for fun and profit.

That sounds like a lot of hassle. It used to be Linux that you had to tinker with but nowadays you can find distros that are easier to setup (Zorin). I installed it for my parents and they like it more than new version of Windows. I have some qualms about MacOS but if you have the money it's much saner experience. The only reason to run Win nowadays is gaming.

I was never some Unix snob, up until Win 7 I was a happy camper. Today I would not accept a job that would force me to work on Win machine.

Total waste of one's attention. M$ makes me be welcome, I go

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