I…didn’t think windows 12 was actually a thing but here we are?
Lol. Remember when W10 was to be the “final” one?
The “10 year OS” that was 2015. Guess profits got in the way.
Oh and 10 didn’t track you enough or put enough ads in the OS.
This is just my own take, but I feel like at least part of the reason they went back to releasing new versions is because of the recent resurgence of macOS. Not only do Macs have the excitement of Apple Silicon, but they have annual “new” OS releases; even if not much has changed, it creates excitement with their fanbase. I think Microsoft realized that it’s not very exciting to just be on Windows 10 forever. So we got Windows 11.
I think that Windows 11 is just a name and even if they hadn’t named it that we would have gotten the same features as an update in Windows 10. Windows 11 is nothing more than an update. And Windows 12 probably won’t be much different. Increasing the number version of Windows looks much better to the average user.
Makes you wonder if they’re going to just start implementing the version number on every update, sorta like Chrome does these days. Will we see another Windows 95 eventually?
Well Windows 95 was 1995 and then we had (98,) 2000 so I imagine yes, we’ll probably have Windows 95 followed by Windows (98) 3000!
Well, Win10 Home and Pro EOL is late 2025, so it’s tecnically correct…
It wasn’t the profits or ads that got in the way.
It was the security that got in the way. (remember the whole TPM module thing?)
Iterating the version number was just a convenient excuse to throw more ads, and tracking in.
They meant it was going to be the final one worth installing
Apparently the source of that wasn’t an official statement by Microsoft. It was some offhand comment in a dev conference that kind of got out of control.
Actually XP was supposed to be the last one. Service Packs were supposed to be the future of OS updates/upgrades.
It might be for me. Not sure when I’ll refresh my hardware to something with TPM but I’m not feeling any rush.
with a 64-bit chip operating at a frequency of at least 1000 megahertz continuing to meet the requirements
Wrong. The requirement for Windows 11 is “processor introduced on the market after the year 2018, with absolutely no regards on its computational power” (with a single exception to the specific CPU of the $3500 Microsoft surface studio because they continued to sell the machine with the same old processor for five years)
For example an i7-7700K is “unsupported” but the much slower and with less features atom-based Celeron j4005 is “supported”.
The hardware requirements are completely artificial and clearly decided in agreement with Intel and AMD in order to sell more new computers
Is 2018 maybe when TPM modules started going on every motherboard?
No, most tpm implementation nowadays are integrated in the CPU. And Intel 6th gen onwards have tpm 2.0 in the CPU, but they’re not supported for “reasons”
Tpm was definately included in the 7000 series intels, along with nvme support etc.
That said tpm 2 is a bit more recent and more secure. That said. It’s lazyness on the part of Microsoft to require tpm 2
The i7-7700k is my exact CPU, and I was wondering why my update screen always claimed I was out of spec for Win 11. Then I did some digging and it seems that some CPUs are more equal than others in that regard. Then I got Win 11 on my work computer and didn’t want Win 11 anymore.
KDE developers: okay so we’re gonna switch to a floating taskbar so we look less like a Windows clone
Windows developers: hey guys I have a crazy idea
Key features include subscription fees, only-online capacity, baked in popup ads in every folder and directory, is slower than windows 7, and also streams your webcam to anyone who pays them enough.
/hj
Already??? Windows 11 just came out
2 years ago? That’s seems like a normal cadence for OS releases.
Well, we had Windows 10 for over 5 years before Windows 11. 10 was supposedly the last version they were doing, so it’s a little surprising they’re back to regular major releases now.
Too many people turned off telemetry data. They couldn’t get enough of it to just upgrade under the 10 banner. They’re forcing more and more online bits and slowly not letting you turn the other stuff off.
Huh, outside of a few outliers, I guess major Windows releases generally come quicker than I thought
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_versions
2-3 years is actually a reasonable time for Windows releases, going by historical dates. I think we’re all used to the long gap between Windows 10 and Windows 11
For home use, maybe. It will upset corporate customers to no end with a 2-3 release cycle. The app vendors won’t keep up, keeping the workplace a mess and well behind the new release curve. Deal with this on the Windows server side of things all the time. We’re trying to drag our app vendors off Windows 2012, and they are only coming kicking and screaming. Most only support up to 2016, which we find insane.
Are they going to let us move the damn taskbar this time?
Maybe in 3 years. They only just brought ungrouping taskbar icons back in the beta lol
Nah, this is pure speculation. The only source is Microsoft saying they are working on some next gen stuff, could just as well be a major upgrade to W11.
Lots of ai integrations? Yeah, no thanks
According to the source, Microsoft wants to make the taskbar appear to float above the desktop by separating it from the desktop and rounding off the corners.
…why?
To bridge the gap to Windows 13, which will put it in the middle of the screen.
The Taskbar is the screen in Win 13
In an effort to make the user experience even shittier? Or maybe one of the suits saw their kid with a custom linux desktop and was like: we need to get these kids off that linux crap, and clearly the floating task bar is the clincher! *does a giant rip of cocain *
My cynical take - it’s what MacOS looks like and they’ve been throwing away their own identity to copy Apple for years now.
Why do they insist on dicking around with the taskbar?
The Windows 10 taskbar is just better. The Windows 11 taskbar moves things to the middle by default for some reason, violating Fitt’s law, and removes several features of the Windows 10 taskbar without improving anything as far as I can tell. The new taskbar in the screenshot makes it even harder to click things by making them farther from the bottom of the screen, and makes the right side of the taskbar take up more space.
The new system tray is laughable. The icons cannot be that size. Imagine 16 icons of that size, but half of them are 24x24 or smaller icons scaled up.
One possible improvement with the new taskbar is that even though they have useless search and task switch buttons and the date+time takes up an unnecessary amount of horizontal space, they don’t have any of the other visual clutter like news and weather tickers.
The only reason I could possibly think a middle aligned taskbar is better would be for ultra wide setups. But even then, just make it a non default drop-down in settings and only a default if an ultra wide resolution is used.
Change for the sake of change. If it didn’t look significantly different, users would question why the upgrade. Doesn’t matter if they made significant, positive (being charitable here) change if the user experience didn’t change. Been there, done that.
Tired of windows messing their UI every next monday? You will love linux!
Yeah! There it’s you fucking up your UI every next Monday because you’re not mentally well, and you can’t let good enough be good enough
There needs to be some middle ground between so much control that simple things that should be obvious breaking your computer isn’t as possible as it currently is.
Linux has a learning curve yes, it also has several hurdles that seem to be an unnecessary byproduct of having total control over your OS.
there is some immutable distros, but I wouldn’t like that it becomes the norm
The Gnome desktop is a pretty good middle ground in my opinion. It is in my opinion even simpler than Windows to use and allows enough customizability with extensions. People in the Linux world love to dunk on it for using slightly more RAM and not having the same amount of customizability as other desktops like KDE Plasma.
Yes sir, until you update your video driver and never see your screen again. I jest a little bit, but watching linus do that cracks me up every time.
Meanwhile, Xbox Series S/X:
They are necessitating 8GB of RAM. for what?! Like, it would be a struggle to find a machine with less than 8GB still being sold new, sure, but why does the OS need that RAM?
It’s not that the OS needs that amount of RAM, it’s that it’s lifting the floor for what a modern PC will have, which is a good thing. I can’t wait for the day windows requires an SSD.
I mean, Windows 10+ should only be used on an SSD for the OS install, even if it’s not explicitly required.
So long as it doesn’t outright block us from doing what we choose to on our PC’s, there should be a recommended settings minimum that differs from the minimum.
Maybe because most programs you’d use (browser, word processor, spreadsgeets, etc) requires 8+ gb, and the non-windows side of MS wanted the requirements so edge, word, excel, etc are guaranteed to actually work on every computer that ships with those programs?
To be honest, I think 8 GB is a more realistic requirement for light tasks nowadays, but not because of Windows - even Windows 10 would struggle with Chrome, Word, Excel, etc on just 4 GB, and I can’t imagine that W11 is any better. Increasing the requirements would ensure that OEMs won’t put Windows 12 on shitbox PCs with 4 GB and call them usable, just because they meet the bare-minimum standards.
Yeah, I guess. It seems wasteful to need 8GB just to run an OS and browser especially after Microsoft was pushing server core specifically to go the opposite route with resource utilization on servers.
I’m not usually a “Windows is terrible” kind of peron, but dramatically changing the main UI every 2 years is the fastest way to get me to change to Linux on my daily driver.
I’m already using Linux as mine. I pretty much only use windows for gaming at this point
I use my PS5 for gaming. I wonder if it’s time to make the jump.
Oh boy, it’ll only run on brand new hardware! Gotta make sure it can run integrated, unswitch-offable OpenClippy GPT or whatever.
it’ll only run on brand new hardware!
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/16811
Unless I missed something that $75 raspberry pi meets the minimum specs for Windows 12
You’re right!
Sorry I was just reading about how there was talk of higher minimum requirements (8gb ram, with 16gb recommended) but that was before official release info.
So 2025 is the year I finally move my desktop to Linux and run windows in a VM I guess. I still have a few apps that just do not play nicely in Wine that would make transitioning fully more difficult, but I’ve been full Linux on my laptop for years. Maybe I can finally make the jump on PC.
My last one left is PCVR with the Quest 2. I wonder whether that works through a VM.
When you’re using a Facebook VR headset and accompanying software, Windows is probably not your biggest concern
You might want to give ALVR a try. I don’t use it since I have an Index but I heard good things about it.
Which apps are those? Just curious - I know there are others in this situation and I’m always interested in hearing what apps are the blocking ones for a transition from Windows.
Photoshop for me. Yeah I can get it running under Linux, but it keeps crashing, or is buggy.
And no, Gimp is not a good replacement if anyone goes there.And no, Gimp is not a good replacement if anyone goes there.
This always makes me laugh when people suggest it. Like, CMYK support didn’t get introduced to Gimp until 2022 ffs, and it’s not even full support.
For me it’s Fusion 360. The launcher for it opens your browser to log you in via the Web. Wine doesn’t seem to support that.
DCS has some sort of time/zone issue preventing me from logging in.
My MX Master scroll wheel behaves oddly.
Other than that it’s been not awful since I switched to Linux last month.
Mine is the Affinity suite of image manip software. I don’t use it often, but I do use it often enough that I maintain a Windows box to be able to do so. That and I play a few games occasionally (at this point pretty rarely) that just work better/at all under Windows rather than Linux. Like 90% of what I do with my computers is great under Linux, but those last few elements make me not want to dump Windows entirely.
