There’s a pretty good amount of people still using it, it seems.
I feel pretty comfortable saying that was the last good one, perhaps the best one, and it’s been downhill ever since.
It hasn’t been steadily downhill. There was a plunge downwards with Windows 8, then 8.1 recovered a little and 10 more, before Windows 11 undid the gains.
Win 11 has as many wins as blunders
Well, I used to be quite positive about Windows 11. The WSL thing is cool, being able to use bash and Linux tools. The hypervisor thing is cool, enabling fast virtual machines. And the styling is all round better than any previous Windows at least since Windows 7. But then I’ve had systems broken by updates more than once recently, everything feels slow, applications hang all the time, the Start menu still doesn’t work, even opening File Explorer leaves me wondering whether it noticed my mouse click, I have to fight it to create a local user account instead of a Microsoft account, fight it to avoid unwanted tracking, fight it to stop the ads popping up in all kinds of corners by running a network-wide DNS filter which reports huge amounts of requests to Microsoft telemetry domains, fight it to make sure file don’t end up in OneDrive, and it still can’t handle USB sticks reliably, it still steals focus constantly from wherever I’m typing, there are far too many services eating up resources, and so on.
It’s just constant low-level frustration that I just don’t have with other operating systems, because Microsoft has cut out QA and spent years prioritizing marketing strategies, gimmicks and cosmetics instead of improving the things that matter to users.
As far as the performance issues go, I’ve experienced a lot of those when I first upgraded from 10 to 11. After reinstalling though, the performance has been amazing.
I hate all of the constant advertising of MS products and services, especially in the case of Edge, because so many of those products are genuinely amazing, and people won’t give them a chance because it’s shoved down their throats.
I agree that it gets bogged down and needs a reinstall sometimes. But after I recently installed it on a new machine that also has Linux, Windows 11 still feels comparatively slow. I get the impression that even out of the box it has too much baggage and unoptimized code. Edge is fast though, and a perfectly good browser. Edge even runs on Linux too, which is surprising.
We shouldn’t accept an OS with comparably sized lists of wins and blunders. Subsequent OSs should be a steady upward trend, perhaps with slight dips here and there.
I mean, that’s a decision for the managers or execs at Microsoft, not for me. They released the product with a ton of issues, not us.
Plus, plenty of users are sticking to Windows 10 because it’s the better OS for them, whereas Windows 11 has fixed so many long-term issues and introduced enough useful QoL features that make it far better than 10 for me. I think the market share difference compared to previous Windows versions speaks volumes on how badly Microsoft screwed up.
“Downhill” in the sense of falling into a gorge.
You know the saying: every second version of Windows is
goodusable.That hasnt been true for a while.
8 was bad, 10 was bad, 11 is bad.
I think they are trying to ensure that no future Windows is ever good again. I mean, it was Win10 that made me frustrated enough to permanently kick the habit of using Windows.
Same! The two straws that broke the camel’s metaphorical back were the stupid functionality of the search bar in the start menu; and the beginning of the removal of local accounts.
Windows 10 legit doesn’t work with hard drives. It keeps scanning and scanning endlessly, slowing everything down. If you go down the “disable useless services” rabbit hole you might go too hard and end up with a useless Windows install without being able to remember how you disabled the firewall, for example. It wouldn’t let me run the update without the firewall service running.
I just threw NixOS on it and only booted windows once since
I really don’t see the issue with W11. It works fine. As did 10, and 8.1. I’ve not encountered any ads or many of the other shitty things that are constantly reported on.
If you’re a technical person, or you run Windows Pro instead of Home, you probably won’t see as much crap. But there’s a ton of new telemetry/tracking in Win10 that’s even worse in 11.
As someone who’s been part of OS and software deployment since before WinNT, Win11 is hot garbage unless we do all sorts of preconfig to not make it so.
This isn’t really new, just that much worse in 11. With the previous versions of Windows, we didn’t have to configure as many Group Policies to restrict as much nonsense. And the home versions of 10/11 are so much worse, especially since they don’t support GP, you have to Registry Stamp any changes you want to make to disable all the telemetry garbage - stamps which an update can easily revert. At least GP is reapplied at boot/login.
I don’t let my family buy Home versions of Windows. Pro costs more, because it’s worth it from a support perspective.
I appreciate the insight. Just curious, do you have a link to things I should be disabling in group policy?
Typically I’m not a fan of modifying that much especially registry wise, as I feel this is a cause for many people’s problems, but I’m not uncomfortable making GP changes if they make sense.
I’m currently using W11 Pro activated with massgravel scripts and I’ve got DNS level blocking set up on my network, although I’m not sure how well that does at blocking telemetry. It’s my second line ad block primarily.
Yep, I’ve said this before.
Windows 7 was the last great OS by microsoft.
It was light enough to not be a bother on even used hardware.
It was exceedingly stable and didnt need regular reformat and reinstalls like all previous windows OS’s.
Didnt need to be constantly rebooted every time you exited a big task like previous Windows.
and you were able to do pretty much anything on it easily and without much fuss.
and, outside of like driver installs, the OS pretty much stayed out of your way.
It was brilliant. It was the best.
It was the peak of the curve. 3.11/95/98/ME/NT/XP all built up to 7, and 8/10/11 are all falling further and further away from 7.
The only reason to get rid of windows 7 is that there was no further way to monetize it since it had pretty good market saturation. If it wasnt for that Win7 would probably be the default OS for another 10+ years.
3.11/95/98/ME/NT/XP
How badly did Vista hurt you?
That and ME is a huge dip in that curve.
Yes
There’s the RAM limit that would need addressing. Also UEFI struggles with the Windows 7 splash screen, but that could be replaced with a simpler logo.
I dont want to do the whole “640K ought to be enough for anybody”, but I cant imagine most home users, average and production, hitting the ram limit of windows 7 which is like 200gb or there abouts.
I would think anyone running loads that would require that much are probably running linux, like servers and such.
but even so, I’m sure it could have been expanded if there was an actual need.
Oh, I didn’t realize Pro and beyond had such higher ram limits compared to home, til.
2000 is a huge omission from that list. Windows 2000 on the NT kernel is really what solidified modern Windows.
8.1 was a gem
Lol, don’t forget to add /s, so people will understand your sarcasm!
8 was horrible, 8.1 was fine. 10 wasn’t great but got better. 11 was and is bad.
https://time.com/12854/microsoft-to-take-windows-xp-off-life-support-despite-its-29-market-share/
XP was a whopping 29% at EOL which is impressive to me that 7 is only 3%. But it makes sense that 10 has such a large market share since it was free and ran on (almost) everything that ran 7.
I think a large part of it is how most of the machines that could run 7 can run everything after 7 (maybe just need more RAM), but many many MANY machines running XP couldn’t move forward because the CPU or the integrated graphics just couldn’t take it.
My hard drive couldn’t take all the background shit in 10, it would literally stutter scanning my files. When I tried to disable the anti-virus and it told me “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that”
I’m not trying to judge, but you installed and ran a modern operating system on a spinning platter drive?
I had to switch to SSDs in 2016 because macOS was dragging hard on a Pro notebook.
My old laptop doesn’t have an M.2 slot
It ran fast enough in windows 8 and linux. It only became unbearable on windows 10
And XP was 32 bit only, it was really an updated version of Win2k, which was really rock solid.
Which kind of supports your point.
Wish I could upvote you for your username! Haha
There’s nothing stopping you.
I already upvoted for the comment, I’m out of upvotes!
Goodbye, sweet prince
They told me Windows 10 was the last Windows and I intend to make them fulfill that promise. And when I fail to make them fulfill their promise, I will keep it for myself.
/sigh at this point i feel like “that guy” but M$ didnt say 10 would be the last Microsoft, a specific employee said it in a specific situation, that in context was pretty obviously “latest” and not “final”.
The internet just took that one line and ran with it, as they are known to do.
/sigh, I barely use it, and when I do, it pisses me off. I’ll try to remember this anyway, thanks.
Just in time to switch to Linux for me. Now that all my games run on Linux that will be the logical choice
Win10 is the last windows. Defang it and put it in a VM. Still a better UI than the competition although KDE plasma is getting close, dolphin is very nice
KDE these days is better at being Windows than Windows. Dunno how long it’s been since you’ve used it (or how much/little you tinkered with it)
I tried it last week. It looks and feel great. But it’s missing a lot of software that I want and many things are in the wrong place. Maybe when they add seamless network transparency to Wayland and I can just stream the applications that I want.
That’s just because you’ve been raised on it.
Yes, I will not retrain my muscle memory plus the incessant fucking around in console to do basic things like search files. I want everything, irfanview, alt-snap, , explorer patcher features, consistent dark themes, ditto clipboard manager, fancyZone, xmousebuttoncontrol. Exactly identical, I’m staying on defanged win10 until then
I feel Microsoft is in for a huge surprise when they end support for all versions of Windows except one that requires you to throw out your old hardware. At the same time, Linux is better than it’s ever been and is almost, if not just as easy to use as Windows. Not to mention, most work is done from a browser these days.
I have a ton of application issues with Linux, so I have a dual boot.
What you mean ended? It was just released the other day…
That was like two decades ago.
There was official support for Windows 7?
Only the embedded variety meant to run on machines like ATMs, POS systems and other long term support machines.
Well, plus all the other versions too, but embedded especially in this case
Windows 7 still has a similar market share to desktop Linux. I suspect that some of those users are holdouts, rejecting the Cortana nonsense but too stubborn or lazy to switch. But I’d also wager that, in the longer term, a decent portion of that 3% ends up on Linux.
But I’d also wager that, in the longer term, a decent portion of that 3% ends up on Linux.
Or they just continue to use their out of date OS. XP still has a 0.6% market share, and I have no idea what remotely modern software works on XP. Browsing the modern web will be a pain with the new encryption standards.
Give me ReactOS or give me … fedora.
Not super catchy…
deleted by creator
Wow, that’s an interesting metric.
Aww, that’s the last version of windows I ever owned.
Windows has been alternating between good and crap for decades. ME, crap. XP, good. Vista, crap. 7, good. 8/8.1, crap. 10, good…ish. 11, steaming feces. 12 will probably be at least half decent.
I doubt that will be true anymore. 12 will probably have even more spyware and ads than 11.
I really ought to switch my main pc to Linux.
11 made me make that switch. My main gaming / media machine is still on W10 and will be until it dies. Then I’ll finally invest in figuring out gaming on Linux.
But for day to day browsing and development. Ubuntu has been excellent and is much more snappy than windows. I also picked up a cheap ancient MacBook pro for interviews and it’s a solid machine as well.
No regrets so far.
Do it today.
I switched to Bazzite on my main PC at the start of September and it’s been great. I only use Windows for steam link vr streaming
The most Windows-like desktop(and more) on Linux is KDE, second maybe to Cinnamon, and XFCE if we’re talking XP-ish and classic.
On Linux, your underlying system is not reliant on your GUI. They are not bonded in any sense, and the GUI can be any number of different programs, known as Desktops.
You can run a Ubuntu system with the KDE desktop, or the Gnome desktop, Unity, or XFCE, or Cinnamon… or maybe two or three at once and choose at login! he’s a madman!
I like how GNOME looks, I’ve messed around with it a little on my laptop.
Fedora on kde is nice.
Second Fedora, prefer Cosmic or Gnome tho.
Fake news. MS said that Win 10 was the last one they were going to make so all of those others you mentioned are obviously fake.
I’m a heretic, but Vista > 7 and 8.1 > 10.
Fuck you
Love you too <3
I use Arch BTW.
I’ve had the opposite experience - 10 sucked, but I have no complaints about 11… Though it might make a difference that my experience with 10 was after my old (win7 vintage) laptop took the free update, while my 11 experience is based on a new laptop that came with it preinstalled…
Lately I’ve been using OpenSUSE GNU/Linux and so far I’ve been relatively happy with. The installation process is simple and concise, and the system is rock-solid and easy to use.
One of us!
I have Leap on my homelab and Tumbleweed on my desktop and laptop for >5 years now. It’s been awesome, and it’s my favorite so far from >15 years of Linux.
Glad you’re enjoying it! Next step: get unreasonably obsessed with chameleons.
I’m running Tumbleweed myself! Been very pleased overall. I believe OpenSUSE may have just cured my distro-hopping.
I’ve distro hopped for over 20 years. I always come back to SUSE. SUSE 8 was the first distro I use and they just always seem to have some qol additions I’m used to.
Opensuse is a very good and somewhat underrated choice imo
Maybe I should try OpenSUSE first when I’ll switch my gaming desktop back to Linux. My first Linux experience was with SuSE 6.2 and that was very positive. Good to hear people are still happy about it.
POSReady
Hehe
salute
o7
Wait, just now?
Then why did I read online that it was insecure as hell to stay in Windows 8.1? (I was setting up an old lap for a mom’s friend, with 4 painful GBs of RAM).
Also, doesn’t Windows 10 support supposedly end next year?
I think I am not getting the kind of support that Windows provides.
Microsoft offers a long-term support version of Windows called LTSC that’s stripped down, only receives security updates, and is supported for 10 years from its release.
It’s only officially available to business clients, but with a little yar har fiddeldy dee, you too can experience extended support!
but with a little yar har fiddeldy dee, you too can experience extended support!
I figured, but I didn’t read anything about that when I was on the massgrave site the other day, so that is why I just thought all older Windows versions are gone for good.
It will come in handy for my Windows 10 Pro version that I have installed in my Mac though.
The extended support updates aren’t available to end consumers but is a paid product for enterprises that need more time to update.
Ah, definitely clearer to me now, thanks, and it sucks.
Funnily, Windows 7 ended up with longer support than Windows 8.
F
