Leaks confirm low takeup for Windows 11::Time to rethink Windows 10 support cycle then?
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No shit…people don’t want more ads and normal features hidden behind 12 new windows/tabs…
Stop fucking with the os and maybe people will want to continue with it .
Yeah, they neglected to mention ads once in that article. I’m pretty sure that’s the reason why no one wants it. I uninstalled it after like 20 minutes upon seeing the ridiculous amount of ads on a fresh install.
Yeah I don’t understand how there’s a whole article of “no one is using it” and the author then states “it’s OK, there’s nothing wrong with it”.
If there’s nothing wrong with it, why is no one using it?
Maybe because 11 is fucking awful. Maybe it’s the ads. Maybe it’s removing fuck tons of features for no apparent reason. Maybe it’s the fucking awful design choices.
But no, the author just says “every decision has haters, people just hate it because it’s different”
“it’s OK, there’s nothing wrong with it”
This person probably uses corporate laptop connected to an Active Directory server which has disabled all the questionable features via group policy. Because that’s what I’m using.
It was a shock using 11 pro after having been forced into using LTSC at work, they’re almost unrecognizable they’re so different.
At the risk of being pilloried here….
I’ve been using windows 11 at home and work for over a year now. It’s fine. I’ve not seen ads aside from easily removed links to apps (not even fully installed apps, just links to install them), I don’t see removed functionality. It’s not slow.
It doesn’t make me cum, it’s also not terrible - it’s fine. Just like every windows except ME and early Vista.
I like tabs in explorer and the new task manager. Dark mode notepad is nice. I got used to the start menu because across macOS and windows, I just keyboard shortcut -> completion match search to launch things.
This is the same cycle I’ve seen since 98SE.
warms up tar and gathers up feathers
Let’s get 'em boys!
You definitely are seeing ads all the time, you just don’t realize that they’re ads. They’re not your typical “buy penile enhancement pills!” Or “Sign up with Geico and save 15% on your car insurance”, but ads from Microsoft themselves. You know that OneDrive bubble that pops up from the system tray? That’s an ad. The "suggestion"to use Edge when you install another browser? Also an ad. There’s ads all over the OS, they’re just covert and we’re used to the way Windows presents us with these ads, so we just accept that it’s a part of Windows and not Microsoft trying to get you to use their products, even if those products are free.
Yeah I went in with an open mind. It’s far less different than the Linux distro it drove me to
I expected more from The Register.
Windows 10 replaced 7 for most people because 8 was a piece of junk. Windows 7 was old by the time 10 came out so there was pent up demand and 10 was a pretty solid showing.
There’s not much that’s compelling about 11 and they’ve introduced unwanted things. It shouldn’t be surprising that people prefer to stay on 10, which is one of the better operating systems Microsoft has ever released. Combine that with the dominance of Linux in the server space and what seems like increased adoption on the desktop and it’s a recipe for poor numbers. For a lot of developers, it’s easier being on a Linux desktop when Linux is the deployment target.
I saw in my old line of work that most business over a certain size just have a few key programs that need to work and could not give two shits about whatever new OS was out if it could not run those programs. The fact that in places like the banking sector many of the programs are UNIX era and need emulation just to use on a desktop and not being spied is often a requirement it would make no sense what so ever to upgrade. I have also seen an uptick in Linux and Mac workstations as both are looking more attractive then the wild ride windows has become.
Oh and in case people think security on older OS is a concern for companies I know for a fact that several ATMs in north America are still running on XP (upgraded about 7 years ago from 2000).
My last gig was as a CIO in a fairly large organization and we had stringent infosec requirements due to the industry we were in. Old operating systems and software are absolutely an issue, although it still doesn’t stop some companies from running them.
Most of the malware going around exploits patched vulnerabilities. It literally takes seconds and not exactly a high skill level to compromise a machine that’s missing security updates. Regular patching is without a doubt one of the best controls you can have in place. The other big issue was social engineering. If you don’t effectively tackle those two things it doesn’t matter what else you do because you will be breached.
Besides that, you’re mostly right. We were all over the security updates but didn’t care for other upgrades because they introduce instability. It’s the last thing you want with thousands of endpoints and a bunch of shitty enterprise apps. Run it until the wheels fall off or it’s approaching EOL for security updates.
Oh sorry if it came across as old software not being a security issue just that most places don’t care or plan around it (those ATMs running XP are running a very stripped and locked down version).
I remember quite a few places paying extra for a little bit longer for updates just due to how rough the change was going to be. I think most of the time when something did go wrong at a place it was (in this order):
- Social engineering
- Some sort of update that was not tested enough (or at all)
- A new roll out going bad (this happened way more then it should have)
- Hardware failure (often because a sales guy did not know the difference between “redundancy” and “reduced failure rate”
- Actual disaster (I remember getting calls about a bank networking device calling home with fan errors as the building it was in was floating down the river)
For sure social engineering. That eventually becomes the most serious threat. The jackpot is getting to a user. They are the ones with access to money, confidential data, etc. and it often won’t set off alarms because it doesn’t look out of the ordinary. Get them to do something on your behalf or grab their credentials and you basically get to bypass security.
Yeah no way to make an alarm for say looking at their own confidential files. The key to social engineering working is having someone stupid with credentials, and you can not fix stupid. Oddly enough a lot of the issues I saw where on the call centre side (I guess paying people nothing to do that job may have been a mistake). Then again you you get access to a single helpdesk person you get a silly amount of access everywhere.
You’d be surprised at how effective some hackers are. I was in an industry where we generally employed smart and educated people. I always told them the person on the other side doesn’t eat if they don’t fool someone. We would push education and protocols. For example, multiple approvals for a wire transfer over different channels and verbal verification of the account number after positive identification.
These people are submitting phony job applications with infected resumes. They email back and forth posing as a prospective client and will even talk on the phone before sending infected documents. They send fake invoices. They call the help desk. They forge checks. They try impersonation wire transfer scams. They send you fake marketing type packages or gifts with infected USB drives. They try to set up bogus interviews for articles or award nominations and pump you for information. They pose as vendors like printer repair. Or someone with some bullshit excuse asking an office manager in a remote office to unlock the server room. Some asshole showed up once and tried to get a receptionist to plug in a thumb drive. They will try to exploit every function of an organization. They are relentless and whenever you think you’ve seen it all there’s something new.
banking sector many of the programs are UNIX era
Somewhere in the distance a mainframe sysop with blue tie is protesting that statement but nobody’s hearing him over the noise of the rotating drum.
Not allowed to wear the ties anymore (due to the rotating drum).
Windows 10 replaced 7 for most people because 8 was a piece of junk.
Mostly true; most people who wound up with 8 or 8.1 did so by buying a computer during that brief period of time, few people wanted it, few people liked it, and many people avoided using it. Especially computer enthusiasts did in fact go from 7 to 10.
Windows 7 was old by the time 10 came out so there was pent up demand and 10 was a pretty solid showing.
That’s not how I remember events. When Windows 10 was young it was not very popular; they got a lot of backlash for that “Upgrade to Windows 10! [yes] [not yet]” pop-up that took no answer as a yes and installed the OS on idling computers overnight.
Windows 8/8.1 was dark times for me
Win8.1 is specifically why I’m typing this on a machine running Linux Mint.
Maybe that was an issue with Windows 10 on the consumer side. I don’t have experience with the home versions. In any case, it was a good upgrade and it provided more secure desktops for most people. On the corporate side, we were pretty happy to go to 10 and it was a smooth process. We had to do it in phases and we got a lot more calls from users wanting to move higher on the list than complaints. There were only a few asking to be last and the only real problem we had was one guy who demanded we buy him a refurbished Surface that had a specific old version of 8 pre-installed because it was “the best version ever”.
You forgot Vista. Nobody wanted Vista because it was a piece of junk. 8 was ok, but since 7 was still supported and people hate change they stuck with 7. The worst thing about 8 was the dumb full screen start menu… once that was gone after 8.1 I enjoyed it just fine and was pretty close to windows 10.
Same goes for 11 for me. I don’t mind it, I hate the tracking and built in news and ads but it’s pretty easy to stop a lot of that. I think the thing I hate the most is the small stuff they release for 11 that 10 could easily have but they will never release it for 10. Like tabbed notepad, or window arrangement, and now built in winrar support. I love these things, but hold them back from 10 just to get people to switch without realizing it’s not enough for people to care that much.
Vista was pretty bad. That was another one most people skipped. They had 2 excellent releases prior to that - 2000 and XP - and then shit the bed with Vista. I still think 8 was worse though. But 2000 was my personal favorite Microsoft OS so what the hell do I know.
People seem to forget about how with 8 Microsoft tried to make everything fullscreen squares, the desktop also being a square but by changing settings you can get away with using the “Desktop” square exclusively.
I had a laptop that came with Win8.1. I forget exactly why I refused to upgrade to 10, partially because I had switched to Linux by then.
Windows 8/8.1 was a bit of a brainfuck, because they introduced that tile-based UI which opened apps in single-tasking full screen mode like a phone or tablet OS. The traditional Windows desktop was treated as one of those full screen apps. As were several of the baked-in default utility programs, to include the fucking PDF reader. So if you were working on an essay or something in Word on the desktop, and then went to open a PDF as a reference, instead of opening a new window, the entire screen turned orange, and then the PDF loaded full screen without any way visible way to get back to the desktop.
Such “apps” could be tiled, but in a different way via a different system than window tiling on the desktop. The desktop itself could be tiled.
There’s one other thing I always hated about the Windows 8 Tile Hell: The tiles intermittently moved. Weird connection: You know that weird horror game Roberta Williams made, Phantasmagoria? There was a
sequelsecond game in that franchise made that bore little resemblance to the first other than it was a horror/confrontingly adult FMV game made by Sierra. In it, you play as a guy slowly going insane, and one way they simulate going insane is they make you sit at a computer and read work documents, except sometimes some of the words flash for a brief moment to a scarier word like “murder” or “stab” or something. That’s the effect that Tile Hell had. While you were trying to find the app you wanted, the labels of some of them would change in your peripheral vision, drawing your attention to them.
Honestly I feel like people would pay more for a simple windowsOS, no spyware, no ads, just fucking works as an OS. I already switched to Linux but some people haven’t or can’t at the moment.
I would also like one that isn’t: “this is the last one I promise. Oops I released another windows like 3 years into it. Guess what gamers, you need it or you can’t get future improvements.”
It’s win10 with dx12 all over again…
I’m gonna keep riding 10 as long as I can then it’s back to Linux for me.
There’s not enough money in one time purchase products, always have to forcibly push everyone into an ecosystem focused on subscription and make it difficult to escape from.
The odd part is that I am sure many people and businesses would not mind paying a subscription to keep there existing windows (whatever that happens to be) up to date. It would be way cheaper then making a new OS every few years.
But then they might have to accept that the technology is maturing overall…
I could see a subscription model for windows as well but one of the biggest problem would be OEM installs in laptops as even the normies would think twice about buying a new device that comes with subscription built in. Maybe they would lock some features behind payment and make the locked down version free or those snakes will figure something even worse.
They’ve already done that previously, years ago I had a ‘notebook’ with a version of Windows 7 where all options were ridiculously limited unless you upgraded. Would never have bought the thing if I’d known.
If windows LTSC was released as Windows 10 home addition I would have been pretty happy relatively.
It already just works, keep projecting and troubleshooting linux
It already just works
Is that why IBM found that it took 22 times the help desk personnel to support Windows users compared to their Mac peers?
You mean all that locked down hardware and software is easy to troubleshoot? Wow…
Ive never even needed any windows personnel, I guess theres a reason mac support is more coordinated 😜
“Windows 11 is simply OK. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it except for its hardware requirements.”
Wtf? It’s just ok? It’s a resource hog, excelling at one thing: spyware implementation.
Have you seen the new Taskbar? It has the functionality of a wooden stick. They even had to make a damn patch to put the “Start Task Manager” option back in the context menu! They fucked up the menus and now everything is just “several hundred clicks away”.
And their constant push for subscription based shit is just annoying like hell.
L.E. typo
Linux Desktop is the future, might as well start to get familiar with it now, why wait?
Just like Linux is the great leader in server space.
Unfortunately for work I have to use Windows.
That comment in the article made me wonder how long this person has been using computers, and whether he has seen anything other than Windows 10 and 11. If you’ve only seen 10, then 11 seems like a bland, slightly shittier OS, but if you have a broader experience you probably find 11 to be a bloated, slow, ad ridden piece of crap.
Damn, I feel old! :)
Windows 11 isn’t a particularly bad version of Windows by any stretch of the imagination. Some elements of the user interface might grate a little, and there will always be users for whom one design choice or another will be loudly rejected – there were those, after all, who raged at the imposition of the Start Menu over the Program Manager of old. But the operating system itself is… fine.
The enshitification of Windows has been going on a long time.
I don’t want the latest flavor in my devices.
They’ve been getting a lot more aggressive with forcing preloaded apps, and advertising by the way of ‘recommendations’ or ‘suggestions’ and they keep making it harder to disable. Forced bing web search, forced ‘AI’ integration… It’s pretty bad these days. Windows 7 feels like the last version that you could actually run lean without risking stability.
If microsoft would just put out a modernized version of windows 95 it would probably be seen as “visionary” and be perfect for like what eighty percent of people and businesses, I just want a modern windows that unnoticeable and secure
Honestly, if there was just a modern windows XP that could run the programs I dualboot for, I wouldn’t be dualbooting!
Modern windows is just so bloated and cluttered.
I was gutted when I had to move on from XP. Bring it back!
I’ve been using windows all my life and I’ve never seen anyone not say this about “their” version. Except ME. Fuck ME.
But seriously my dad refused to switch to Windows from DOS for the longest time. 95? The best. 98? Can’t upgrade. Xp or die. 7 forever. 10 or bust. In 10 years it will be people clamoring over 11 and refusing to switch.
I don’t see win2000 or vista or 8 in that list. Not including those demonstrates within your anecdote that Microsoft is capable of putting out shitty half-step OS’s that people pretty widely dislike.
That’s what 11 feels like. In ten years people will be fighting the move from 12 to whatever is next, and people might not even talk about 11. Like they don’t talk about 8.
That’s because, like with the pattern of those other three disliked OS’s, Microsoft is going to to have to be reminded that people won’t just accept a polished turd. They will actually have to make a good OS with a reason to upgrade.
Windows 2000 was for enterprise, not home use. 8 was for mobile & touchscreens (at first) and that failed miserably yes, hence their 8.1 release. Just like ME they tried hopping on a bandwagon and it flopped. Two major flops in 23 years is not a bad record. But my point remains that when whatever new OS comes out, people look back at the last one with rose tinted glasses.
My gran had a pc with 2000 on it. I still have an old laptop with 8 on it. 8.1 failed too. Don’t act like those OS’s were nonexistent.
Nobody looks at those 3 OS’s with rose tinted glasses. 10 isn’t the best operating system, but let’s not pretend that 11 is such a major upgrade that people will fall over themselves to get it. That’s literally what the OP is about.
From the days of DOS till today Windows 2000 is definitely my favorite, the most cohesive, straightforward and consistent experience. For now I just hope software will keep supporting LTSC through till the end of support.
I still don’t understand how people prefer 10 over 11. The only difference to me is that 11 isn’t supported on most of my devices. 11 seems like 10 with some “CSS” changes…
For a small example: They hid a bunch of useful things like 7Zip behind a sub-menu. Doing a basic task like zipping a file now requires extra effort. For the short time I used it, everything was like that. Everything was just more steps or more hidden for no reason.
Furthermore, 11 has a ton more spyware in it. 10 was already bad, but 11 just dials it up.
Windows 11 was mostly released to take advantage of Intel’s split of CPU cores into efficiency and performance cores (E and P cores). If you don’t care about these E-cores or don’t have them, Windows 11 looks like just a small UI change at first glance.
What if any advantage does the P/E cores have when weighed against the bloat? It can’t be power related as those CPUs last time I checked are still hogs.
On a desktop system? Cost to manufacture. Simpler cores are more space-efficient per IPS (instructions per second) and thus you can squeeze more IPS on a given area of die and die area is money.
In areas where you care about power and heat budget (mobile, datacenter-scale servers) you also get advantages in those terms. What you lose is the sheer single-thread speed of the beefy CPU cores, but then not everything needs to be that fast. Small cores also keep random small loads off the beefy cores (say: move the mouse pointer) meaning that those don’t have to context-switch that often meaning the get to run more instead of waiting for data.
It definitely makes sense to have a couple of them around though they’re not going to make or break a CPU, at least not on the desktop. ARM processors have been using that scheme for ages (called big.LITTLE), hardly surprising seeing as practically everything mobile runs ARM. Also Linux had scheduling support for those kinds of architectures for ages, MS definitely didn’t have to roll out a whole new OS version for that.
Fun side note: AMD’s mini Zen 4 cores are in a sense the exact same cores as their usual Zen 4 cores: They have the same gate layout. What they do is pack them differently (and giving them half the L3 cache), achieving only ~3GHz instead of the full 5.5GHz for the full cores, but fitting two mini cores into the same area as one big core.
Honestly, I don’t know. It was supposed to be power management but for all know, it could all be marketing nonsense.
I went through all the trouble of enabling the UEFI/BIOS stuff I needed for the upgrade. Then I found out what they did to the taskbar and decided not to get it.
Last time I checked, the third highest voted feature request in the built-in feedback tool is to take the recommended section out of the start menu. A couple years after launch the best we got is the product manager saying “we added an option to reduce the size :)” So it’s definitely intended for advertising, and I don’t do advertising. The professional version used to allow people to customise away that kind of bullshit, but not on W11.
It has a setting to at least not show anything there but it still leaves a blank space. Seems like something that would have a mod somewhere to get rid of it.
Seriously, the Taskbar shit has me considering going to Linux for even my gaming pc, especially since they’ve said they have no intention of fixing it. So stupid to get rid of such a common customization just so you can see their fancy start menu.
If you dont play competitive multiplayer, Steam Deck’s version of Linux runs damn near every game at this point
I thought they knew it was tradition that every second windows is dogshit.
I actually liked windows vista :(
The world wasn’t ready for vista
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I went Windows 10 > Linux Mint
I have nothing to complain about. Lateral move in terms of functionality. In terms of general freedom and feeling like I actually own the PC I purchased,… 100% improvement.
If video games weren’t my primary hobby, I’d have switched already. But the gaming experience on Linux is still wanting.
Worth checking into Steam and Nobara if you haven’t.
I mean, if you’re still wanting, it’s wanting.
Personally I don’t really touch EA or Ubisoft so, I don’t miss anything, and even if I was into them, from the looks of things, I wouldn’t be missing much.
You’d miss exactly nothing.
I have tried several times over the years to pick up a game of theirs that looks interesting due to the story, setting, or due to the fact that it’s a sport game my friends are playing.
Every single time, for well over a decade now, it’s taken me about 20 minutes to realize they haven’t changed one thing about their formula in any genre.
All of their games feel kind of cheap, floaty, and/or just “off” somehow in terms of physics and gameplay. They have nonstop in-game purchases, and they fill their game with hundreds of thousands of copy and paste quests. Like, the most tedious thing in the recent Zelda games is getting the Koroks seeds, and even that is more varied and interesting than the vast majority of Ubisoft quests.
If Ubi made smaller games less frequently, they’d be an amazing studio I’d bet.
The sports games from EA are also the same exact thing every single year. Similarly, if EA released fewer sports games, instead just updating rosters and stats through free downloads, they could probably make some pretty incredible games.
One thing I’d like to see EA do is add more fun and experimental features. First person mode in Madden where you play with a full team of guys, creative rule sets, totally off the wall fantasy settings and rule sets, career modes where you start as a high school player and get noticed, marathon games where you don’t get to call plays and instead it’s a constant stream of making it to the end zone and having to immediately punt the ball to the other team so they can start running and passing freely instantly, etc.
They could do so much to make sports interesting to non-spors guys. And someone who likes sports more could probably tell me some of the more realistic/simulation style upgrades they’d like to see from these games. Things that have been missing way too long.
That’s a big issue for lots of people.
I will say though that Steam’s Proton is amazing. I play Guild Wars 2 and all previous emulations were awful and buggy. With Proton it’s no different to running in Windows.
Definitely worth a try.
Guild Wars 2 has been fully playable with regular WINE since launch. I’ve always played it (and GW1) on Linux, never on Windows.
Not to take from Proton’s benefits but this is probably not the best game to give as an example. 🙂
Maybe my Linux skills (which doesn’t surprise me) were lacking. I tired in the past and gave up as it was buggy for me. That said I ran the game on a potato for the longest time so adding in emulation probably didn’t help.
Unless you are willing to switch to linux, suck it up
Steam deck baybeee, next tower is gonna follow suit with the same linux type!
Thats what I did.
Time to rethink Windows 10 support cycle then?
This doesn’t stop Microsoft. It only encourages them to do it harder.
Just downgraded back to Windows 10, such a relief. 11 is absolute trash. Constantly hangs, on a completely stock install with literally ONE app, a single app that I even still use Windows for that is not the cause the hang. The UI on 10 is so much simpler, and functional 11 just feels like Windows ME/Vista all over again.
I had so many Bluetooth issues with 11. Fucker would crash the bt stack and eventually all audio would cease then the computer would occasionally crash.
Obviously as much of the installed base can’t upgrade. This was done on purpose. As 10 goes eol, businesses and consumers will have to upgrade their hardware. Pushing new hardware has been msft strategy since forever.
Why though? Do they own parts of manufacturing? Or do they cut deals with CPU companies to have windows installed, therefore making money on every new laptop/cpu sold? The latter sounds most likely
The PC and Windows became a thing because Gates cut deals with hardware OEMs to use DOS, and outsource the OS work to a company that does only microcode software, hence the name. That meant hardware devs could disentangle from high level shit and focus on the hardware, which saves them money and effort, and in exchange Microsoft gets paid via OEM license and completely locks down the PC market.
Yup. It’s the Wintel juggernaut. While the license fees are much lower for pc manufacturers they are still a huge source of Windows revenue. Enterprise and cloud licenses are making it less important than it used to be, but they intend to continue to capture as much rent for windows as possible.
Win11 is more secure than prior releases, but certainly not better enough to justify buying new hardware.
It was called the “line in the sand” when they did this with Vista. I think they have some sort of belief that if people are not needing better and better hardware the whole PC market will falter and they will not be able to sell as much software. This might even be true but as with vista this approach normally just pisses people and companies off.
Just try Linux, people. I bet at least 1/5 of you would be just fine with the change (I still have to dual boot because of work related stuff).
Ironically, Microsoft is making this the reality more so than Linux/GNU + Valve.
I have tried but have found dual booting frustrating. I need to find a setup that allows me to use it with all my work stuff.
I have been interested in Linux Mint as a starter into Linux. However I think I need a separate computer for work and another for home use. Then on top of that still have dual boot for the few things that don’t work on linux. Just feels like a mess.
Overall though I 100% wish I could do Linux.
