Remembering the best and worst about Windows 10 on the year it technically “died”
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Very rarely do I do a clean installation of Windows. I also rarely buy an OEM PC. I rely on Retail Windows' ability to be transferred to another PC. After a house fire in 2011, I had to buy a PC (I needed one faster than I could DIY one). It arrived running Windows 7 Pro OEM. I restored a drive image on my Retail Windows 7 Pro from one of the PC's that I lost in the fire, and I was up and running my established, personalized Windows 7 Pro. After I had time fo build a DIY box, I used the same restore method to run my same personalized Retail Windows 7 Pro on my new DIY box.
Every upgrade since has carried forward my files and settings, all the way up to Windows 11 Pro. I know that everybody and his brother says a clean installation is best, but my personal experience over the years belays that notion. I've also gone through some hardware upgrades during the same period, and use the same method of image restore to make the move.
So I'm running Windows 11 Pro 25H2 with no telemetry, no ads, no Copilot. I also use StartAllBack ($4.99 USD) and have a Windows 7 experience running Windows 11.
Every upgrade since has carried forward my files and settings, all the way up to Windows 11 Pro. I know that everybody and his brother says a clean installation is best, but my personal experience over the years belays that notion. I've also gone through some hardware upgrades during the same period, and use the same method of image restore to make the move.
So I'm running Windows 11 Pro 25H2 with no telemetry, no ads, no Copilot. I also use StartAllBack ($4.99 USD) and have a Windows 7 experience running Windows 11.
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With Europe starting to question whether relying on US tech is such a good idea for data sovereignty and money reasons, and some European cities already successfully migrated to desktop Linux, you'd think Microsoft would start treating its US customers a little less like wallets. It's jarring to sit down to Win 10/11 and see all the commercials.
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It's not like Windows is intrinsically easier to fix when something goes wrong.
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2026 will see me finally exploring Linux on a spare computer. If I can get it working and the day to day use of it is acceptable, then I'll be switching to a dual boot set up on my main gaming rig, with Linux for every day use and Windows for gaming. But if Valve ever releases SteamOS for home use, I'll likely switch to that and not look back. I'm tired of Windows adding in more AI and adware.
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i was able to switch to linux (i am running debian 13 /gnome at the moment) right around the time windows 11 came out and I have to say, the more I read about it, the more I struggle to understand why any would choose to run Windows. I have Windows running in a qemu/kvm virtual machine on my box and I maintain Windows versions of some of the apps I write and it's just an awful experience for a developer. WSL2 helps, for sure, but it's an ugly hack if we're being honest--especially compared to running bash natively on a Linux box.
We would all be better served if Microsoft would just abandon Windows and everyone switched to Linux. There is no reason for the operating system to do anything other than fade into the background and let you use your computer.
We would all be better served if Microsoft would just abandon Windows and everyone switched to Linux. There is no reason for the operating system to do anything other than fade into the background and let you use your computer.
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I think most techies here remember Windows 7 and how good it was at the time and most of those want Microsoft to remember it. Windows 11 is all about that they are not and never will.
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Proton is effectively "SteamOS" and can be installed on pretty much any Linux flavor. There are some distros like Bazzite (based on Fedora) that package Proton and various other accessories to make it easy to run Windows games on Linux. The weak spot is mods, the mod managers for Linux aren't as good as what's on Windows.
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Microsoft provided less than 3 years of official support after they stopped selling Windows 10 in 2023. They don't get special credit for supporting Windows 10 while they were selling it, that's simply expected. 3 years of post sale support is pretty bad for such a major product.
The closest (but not perfect) Mac equivalent to Windows 10 is OS X, not one of its annual named updates. Case in point: El Capitan was Mac OS 10.11. You can't compare an annual release to a once a decade release. Microsoft didn't support any specific 10.X feature patches all the way to the end of Windows 10 either, at some point you always had to move to 10.X+n for continued support, same as on the Mac side.
Yes MacOS can have major changes in the annual releases (often every other year when they follow the new -> new but optimised cycle), but they are all skippable in some form. El Capitan was updated for 3 total years (1 year of sales, 2 years of El Capitan support after they stopped selling macs with it pre-installed). But in that time Sierra, High Sierra and Mojave all launched. Yes Apple forces its users forward, but they have some choice on when and to what. Microsoft isn't offering that.
Windows 11 is the first Windows license in a long time that you can't skip and remain supported. We were able to stay on XP until 7 launched, skipping Vista. Same went for skipping 8 by staying on 7 until 10 launched. Going further back, Windows ME had both an NT based alternative (Windows 2000) and was skippable by staying on Win 98SE until XP launched.
Windows releases were a lot closer together in the past, so Microsoft could get away with shorter support cycles of former releases, but right now they are leaving us with no alternative, and that is a major problem. They are leveraging their monopoly position to force users into their data mining and AI experiment.
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Really? You don't think there should be differences in the versions people run? OK.
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You just need to install Steam and you get Proton out of the box. I've been using Pop_OS which is the one made by System76 but you can install it on anything. You can install some utilities like Proton Tricks to further config each games' Wine "bottle" because some people experiment with using different versions of Protons for different games but in my experience it works pretty great out of the box. I use ProtonDB to get an idea of common problems and recs. Digital Foundry also releases their optimized settings and I often configure my games based on their guidance.
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Hot take. I don't mind windows 11. It's my employer that saddles my PC with sh*t that makes it bloated most of the time.
(Ducks to avoid tomatoes)
(Ducks to avoid tomatoes)
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Allow me to instead hand you a tomato. I'm glad it works for someone, even if that someone is definitely not me.
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No, there really shouldn't be different versions of the OS. Home and Pro versions of Windows are an idiotic distinction, and really aimed more at "justifying" higher licensing fees than anything related to how the OS functions. The Home versions are pointlessly crippled for power users, hence people like you plunking down extra cash for the Pro version. It's a marketing strategy, not a user-driven need.
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You may not need to wait for SteamOS; Bazzite (optionally with the Big Picture default configuration) would probably get you what you need. Or most other distros, with Steam installed.
Offhand, the two things I kinda miss on my PC from my Deck are the cool sleep/suspend system (I'm not sure of the technicalities, but the Steam Deck handles those states better than any system I've used), and A/B updates (which Linux--especially immutable distros--kinda does anyway). The sleep/suspend may be too hardware-dependent to be stock in SteamOS for non-Valve devices anyway, dunno.
If you want the "consolified" UI, Big Picture mode is probably better than the Deck's interface for non-handhelds anyway. Bazzite has an option to default to it, and I'm sure it can be configured elsewhere (I've never cared to).
Otherwise, whether SteamOS or Linux with Steam, you'll run into much the same issues. E.g. kernel-level anticheat...but I've found I don't actually care about any of those.
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You need to go to an elevated command line and issue the following commands:
sfc /scannow
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
(Anyone saying the difference between Windows and Linux is that Windows does not force you to open a terminal to fix things is either a liar or ignorant)
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Works okay for me.
You can turn off the ads, if you find this too difficult, you won't be able to even install Linux.
Yes, bitlocker will lock drives without a key, the description is in the name.
You can turn off the ads, if you find this too difficult, you won't be able to even install Linux.
Yes, bitlocker will lock drives without a key, the description is in the name.
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O+O Shutup ( https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 ) helps hugely with this
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It's partially because they (Microsoft) have to keep finding ways to make money off of you. Humans love building and buying new things. We don't (in aggregate) like maintaining and paying for maintenance of existing things.
Software needs constant maintenance to keep up with hardware changes and stay on top of security issues. This takes effort from humans who either donate their time to the cause or want to be paid.
Of course Microsoft is also on the economical treadmill that comes from being a publicly traded company. So that is also part of the problem.
But again, its not the whole problem. Even if you do move over to Linux you still are dependent on others who devote their time to keeping your software secure and up to date.
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I'm confused. I'm using Ubuntu now as my main OS, and I've found bone-standard Thunderbird to be a decent email client. Good, even. What email-client features are you looking for? Assuming that you even need a local client, the web-version of Outlook might actually be better than most desktop versions now.
Side note about UI features - the "search" box in the Windows start menu has fascinated me since it came out in Win7. If I can't remember the name of the app I'm trying to run, a search really isn't going to help...
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What Linux has demonstrated is that Microsoft's OS business model is broken. The Linux Foundation is about a $300M/year enterprise and while that doesn't all go to software development (and there are other contributors), it is a useful gauge for how much it takes to build and maintain an OS.
By contrast, Microsoft hauled in $245 billion in fiscal 2024 with roughly 10% of that coming from Windows.
So $24B vs. $300M. Honestly, I'm at a complete loss as to what Microsoft provides for that extra $23.7 billion.
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Microsoft provides the guarantee that you won't be fired for buying Microsoft.
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Honestly that's a good question when you realize that among the Linux Foundation's members is.... Microsoft. The foundation's membership list is a who's who of who's big in the Linux world, it turns out that Microsoft is one of the biggest, mainly because of its Azure cloud services.
They even run their own distribution it turns out...
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You obviously don't really the know the difference between the versions. I plunked down no added cash for the pro. I plunked down no cash at all, in fact.
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TheWerewolf
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I'll just sum it up this way: the tradition is that odd versions of Windows (XP/5, 7) are good and even versions (Vista/6, 8/8.1) are bad in terms of user experience. Since 9 was skipped, 10 is actually 9 (good) and 11 is actually 10 (bad).
The reason tends to be the same Odd versions are 'fix the UX' versions and even versions are 'fix the OS' or 'panic because of a competitor' versions. Win 8, for example was Microsoft panicking over the perception that tablets (the iPad in particular) were the future of personal computing, following on from their attempt at making a music player competition to the iPod. (And that's not speculation - a friend of mine at Microsoft who worked on Win 8 relayed details of this process.)
Now the panicking is over two things, 'simple computing' and genAI and we see the same laser focused march to a product that is less loved than endured by force (most of Win11's growth comes from the simple fact that all new computers for the past two years have Win11 preinstalled and while people may not like it, it's too much of a hassle to find an alternative).
If the pattern is maintained, Win12 (ie: the real Win11) will reverse out many of these changes. Remember, the big new thing with Win10 was 3D everything: printing, modelling, VR - all gone in Win11. GenAI is the current big new thing and it's following the same trajectory.
The reason tends to be the same Odd versions are 'fix the UX' versions and even versions are 'fix the OS' or 'panic because of a competitor' versions. Win 8, for example was Microsoft panicking over the perception that tablets (the iPad in particular) were the future of personal computing, following on from their attempt at making a music player competition to the iPod. (And that's not speculation - a friend of mine at Microsoft who worked on Win 8 relayed details of this process.)
Now the panicking is over two things, 'simple computing' and genAI and we see the same laser focused march to a product that is less loved than endured by force (most of Win11's growth comes from the simple fact that all new computers for the past two years have Win11 preinstalled and while people may not like it, it's too much of a hassle to find an alternative).
If the pattern is maintained, Win12 (ie: the real Win11) will reverse out many of these changes. Remember, the big new thing with Win10 was 3D everything: printing, modelling, VR - all gone in Win11. GenAI is the current big new thing and it's following the same trajectory.
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Likewise I use Evolution and am quite satisfied. The "problem" (if you want to call it one) is that mail is different things to different people, so nothing will satisfy everyone.
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This is also a problem that Linux doesn't have, because application
.desktop files include categories and descriptions which can be indexed. The Windows Start menu might have more than just file names by now, but it's so bad at searching that even knowing part of the name (if it's not the first part) might not help you.
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TheWerewolf
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Honestly? For a few, definitely, but the problem that Linux fans (and to a degree macOS fans) miss is that most people buy a computer for the software they run on it, not for the OS. They develop workflows that they use to get work done fast and with as little tinkering or messing about as possible. Switching to a new OS breaks those workflows and that's expensive - far more expensive than most Linux and macOS fans seem to understand (which is weird because they also have workflows that they wouldn't want to give up).
For example, Windows has WAY more customisability than macOS, but if you look at most people's systems, they really don't change a lot of things. It's too much work and it can mess things up.
Even basic things like changing icons can be a problem because (and I'm going to blame Apple here, which is weird because originally they championed this, then kind of forgot all their own research) icons are not meant to be little pictures that tell you what to do - they're mnemonics that help you remember what something does. So the craze of constantly changing icons to make them prettier or more skeuomorphic hurts the user who has to constantly re-remember what an icon represents.
Switching to a new OS (whether it's Linux, macOS or Win11) has a cost and the bigger the change the bigger the cost. It's not about preferences, it's about benefits as perceived by the switcher not by the person who has already switched. As awful as Win11 is (and is it awful), the apps stay the same and work the same (mostly) and even most of the basics of the OS are the same or similar, or can be fixed with 3rd party solutions like Start11.
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I'm mostly ok with Windows in it's current form. My main complaint is the apparently permanent nagging by windows to set up a MS acccount for cloud backups. No. Not happening. Ever. Just stop.
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Not only windows 11 is "bad" but windows 10 was equally bad too.
10 is not a good version of windows. It's the one that brought to the masses the broken update system, took the control from users and surrender it to Microsoft, bloated with broken search for all 10 years of the OS life, flat and in my opinion ugly, slower than windows 7 in every day tasks, power hungry at the last years of its life. In a weird turn of events the actually good version of windows, Windows 8, Microsoft killed it by removing the start menu and pissing off everybody
10 is not a good version of windows. It's the one that brought to the masses the broken update system, took the control from users and surrender it to Microsoft, bloated with broken search for all 10 years of the OS life, flat and in my opinion ugly, slower than windows 7 in every day tasks, power hungry at the last years of its life. In a weird turn of events the actually good version of windows, Windows 8, Microsoft killed it by removing the start menu and pissing off everybody
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Windows 7 and 10 were pretty good at a search-based workflow IMHO, to the extent that I shifted entirely to Superkey+(name or category of program/document) as my primary way of navigating my PC's stuff.
But with W10, I have issues that 7 and my fave Linux distros just don't. I had to kneecap W10 search's entire ability to fetch The Web when all I wanted was a commonly-used text file in My Documents. And Explorer's search is not great either; I literally have a subdirectory called "Extracted Folders" but typing "extract" in the directory search bar will list files inside zipped archives or whatever before it shows the subdirectory I'm looking for, way down deep in the search results.
Neither problem appreciably exists with, say, Mint or MX Linux as configured out of the box. Superkey and typing is a fantastic experience for me with accurate results and no clutter.
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So you're pirating?
Because according to Microsoft, Home goes for $139 and and Pro is sold for $199.99.
So tell me again that I don't know what I'm talking about.
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I guess the muppet is just trying to say that he got someone else to pay for him. It's often the case when people "choose" Windows for some reason.
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I spent much of my career in PC support, though the last few years were in more admin positions where I just had to work with the systems. But now I am retired, yesterday was my last day at work. Thank you for reminding me how happy it makes me that I will never have to deal with crappy Microsoft products again.
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Agreed. The Home and Pro versions of Windows were just a ploy to get people to pay more. The features should be in the Home Version and asking significantly more for the Pro was just a gouge.
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More likely the memory. That is what consumes power in sleep. If you have a beefy mobile workstation it drains the battery 2-4 times faster just from having more and faster memory. Apple uses low amounts of slow memory specifically for this purpose, not just to charge extra in pre-purchase upgrades, that is just an added bonus.
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I would pay for security updates to Win10, but I am not giving them my data, or logging into a remote MS account. It seems MS want my data more than they want my money.
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