Is Windows 11 really bad?

[GotNoRice]

I totally skipped Vista and it never was an issue. Hell I upgraded to 7 when memory limitations in XP (32 bit) basically required it. I didn't think twice about trying 64 bit XP because everything I read said it was not good.

The reason why 64-bit XP sucked was because almost no 64-bit drivers existed at that point. Most hardware had a 32-bit XP/2000 driver, and maybe a Windows 9x driver, but that was it. In many cases when companies did release a 64-bit XP driver, there were issues with the driver such as slower performance or worse.

When Vista was released, Microsoft decided to only certify a driver if a company released BOTH a 32-bit AND a 64-bit driver. That created a flood of 64-bit drivers and finally made 64-bit viable. Toward the end of the Vista era, Vista Ultimate 64-bit pretty much had all the kinks worked out and was a great experience to use. When Windows 7 was released, it was basically Windows Vista with some minor UI modifications. Long story short, anyone who enjoyed 7 can thank Vista for making that happen.

 

[Furious_Styles]

The reason why 64-bit XP sucked was because almost no 64-bit drivers existed at that point. Most hardware had a 32-bit XP/2000 driver, and maybe a Windows 9x driver, but that was it. In many cases when companies did release a 64-bit XP driver, there were issues with the driver such as slower performance or worse.

When Vista was released, Microsoft decided to only certify a driver if a company released BOTH a 32-bit AND a 64-bit driver. That created a flood of 64-bit drivers and finally made 64-bit viable. Toward the end of the Vista era, Vista Ultimate 64-bit pretty much had all the kinks worked out and was a great experience to use. When Windows 7 was released, it was basically Windows Vista with some minor UI modifications. Long story short, anyone who enjoyed 7 can thank Vista for making that happen.

And likewise I'll thank win 8 for making win10 happen.

 

[Stugots]

Microsoft dropped support for Windows 7 for almost 3 years now. In my opinion it's downright dangerous to run Windows 7 on any sort of Internet connected general purpose computer these days. Avoid Windows 11 and go to Windows 10 for now. You'll get continued support until 2025 and hopefully by then whatever version of Windows is out won't be as terrible as Windows 11.

 

[pendragon1]

11 is fine. the bitching between versions is always the same...

 

[jlbenedict]

... it's downright dangerous to run Windows 7 on any sort of Internet connected general purpose computer these days.

Maybe someone should test this; throw up a Windows 7 VM and see what happens.

This comment makes it seem like running Windows 7 is the equivalent of walking in the unknown, deep dark places of Chicago after midnight. (or whatever other city is the murder capital of the U.S.)

 

[cjcox]

I'd say 11 has been remarkable "variable" even though its a very "meh" release (nothing to see here). Perhaps a "set up" release for 12?

 

[philb2]

Maybe someone should test this; throw up a Windows 7 VM and see what happens.

This comment makes it seem like running Windows 7 is the equivalent of walking in the unknown, deep dark places of Chicago after midnight. (or whatever other city is the murder capital of the U.S.)

Guy I know claims that the murder capital is Youngstown, OH.

 

[Stugots]

I believe I'm on at #3 in Detroit.

 

[somebrains]

I remember installing Vista and wasting a day trying to make my games not run at half the fucking framerate.

Gave up, installed XP again, problem solved. By the time 7 rolled around it was smooth sailing.

I'm having flashbacks to the hilariously stripped down version of XP I had that was like 80mb. No themes, backgrounds, sounds, anything, and it booted in seconds on a spinner.

I think it barely even had like 10 processes running on boot.

Overhead was the problem with vista, I didn’t see much of a reason back then to buy ram if I was just playing games.

I believe that’s why 98 and win7 stuck around so long, you weren’t spending $ to get back performance you already had.

 

[atarione]

I wish microsoft would get pressured enough to make a "business" version of windows you can buy retail (for small businesses) that would take the bloat and telemetry out of the os .. while still allowing for full utilization of graphics hardware..etc.

IMHO windows 10 and 11 are about the same difference.. a lot mishmashed control setting / system tools some looking like they came right from windows 98 and some matchin the newer aesthetics.. and adding annoyance and confusion when trying to find certain settings. They are both way to full of telemetry and bloatware.

a otherwise full featured but telemetry removed / bloatware / advertising less small business version of Windows whatever.. would be a dream .. in my view..

I have just installed Linux Mint on my old laptop and it is pretty good.. I could see myself moving to Linux on the desktop totally depending on what else happens with windows.

 

[jlbenedict]

I wish microsoft would get pressured enough to make a "business" version of windows you can buy retail (for small businesses) that would take the bloat and telemetry out of the os .. while still allowing for full utilization of graphics hardware..etc.

IMHO windows 10 and 11 are about the same difference.. a lot mishmashed control setting / system tools some looking like they came right from windows 98 and some matchin the newer aesthetics.. and adding annoyance and confusion when trying to find certain settings. They are both way to full of telemetry and bloatware.

a otherwise full featured but telemetry removed / bloatware / advertising less small business version of Windows whatever.. would be a dream .. in my view..

I have just installed Linux Mint on my old laptop and it is pretty good.. I could see myself moving to Linux on the desktop totally depending on what else happens with windows.

LTSC release is as close as it comes.. (but still loaded with telemetry)

 

[philb2]

I wish microsoft would get pressured enough to make a "business" version of windows you can buy retail (for small businesses) that would take the bloat and telemetry out of the os .. while still allowing for full utilization of graphics hardware..etc.

IMHO windows 10 and 11 are about the same difference.. a lot mishmashed control setting / system tools some looking like they came right from windows 98 and some matchin the newer aesthetics.. and adding annoyance and confusion when trying to find certain settings. They are both way to full of telemetry and bloatware.

a otherwise full featured but telemetry removed / bloatware / advertising less small business version of Windows whatever.. would be a dream .. in my view..

I have just installed Linux Mint on my old laptop and it is pretty good.. I could see myself moving to Linux on the desktop totally depending on what else happens with windows.

Being an "old UNIX guy" (system III, 4.2 bsd, etc.) I could be happy with a modern, GUI-based Linux. But, but, but none of my key programs run on any flavor of Linux. I'm not such a purist that I would use accept using less effective software, just to be free of Windows. Life is too short for that.

TANSTAAL. Robert Heinlein, I believe.

That all said, +1 to atarione's idea of a business version of Windows that an individual can buy.

 

[MrGuvernment]

Overhead was the problem with vista, I didn’t see much of a reason back then to buy ram if I was just playing games.

I believe that’s why 98 and win7 stuck around so long, you weren’t spending $ to get back performance you already had.

Vista was fine, the problem was OEMs were selling systems with under powered CPU's and 1-2GB of ram with Vista.

 

[MrGuvernment]

LTSC release is as close as it comes.. (but still loaded with telemetry)

Yes and no, LTSC is miss-used by many, LTSC is really Windows IoT edition, not truely meant for desktop end users in anyways, sure you can use it, but not ideal.
I do agree, I would love a newer stripped out of the old bloat version of windows, but 99% of general windows users do not even care about all this extra crap, it is just us in [H] that want this stuff,

 

[MrGuvernment]

Being an "old UNIX guy" (system III, 4.2 bsd, etc.) I could be happy with a modern, GUI-based Linux. But, but, but none of my key programs run on any flavor of Linux. I'm not such a purist that I would use accept using less effective software, just to be free of Windows. Life is too short for that.

TANSTAAL. Robert Heinlein, I believe.

That all said, +1 to atarione's idea of a business version of Windows that an individual can buy.

I run Manjaro as my main OS, i run VMs' in VMWare workstation and performance for me is as good as almost using it bare metal. But nothing I use is GPU intensive for example, but even running under KVM, performance is pretty dam close to bare metal these days, assuming your rig is decent.

 

[somebrains]

Vista was fine, the problem was OEMs were selling systems with under powered CPU's and 1-2GB of ram with Vista.

That was also the era of the pc gaming mags and sites advising people to turn off Aero features.

DRM was a topic back when people used disc drives to consume content and you bought boxed games.
I recall HD drive was the MS thing.

I can’t remember if I was running 2x2gb of ram back then or what.

I dunno if it was a driver issue, but there was a persistent thing about Vista and graphics cards.

This was right about when mw2 came out and everyone bought an Xbox 360.

I think I was still playing CS back then on like an evga 8800gts

 

[atarione]

Yes and no, LTSC is miss-used by many, LTSC is really Windows IoT edition, not truely meant for desktop end users in anyways, sure you can use it, but not ideal.
I do agree, I would love a newer stripped out of the old bloat version of windows, but 99% of general windows users do not even care about all this extra crap, it is just us in [H] that want this stuff,

99% of the people not giving a **** is all the more reason for m$ to sell it to the small businesses and of course the [H] crowd... because all the casuals are just going to buy dell and HP computers full of bloat and telemetry for days and not complain... Whereas we are going to keep complaining about it and fighting to turn as much of it off as possible (I need to read up does anyone know if Pi-Hole can send m$ telemetry data straight to hell where it belongs?) (I read up and I found some blocklists to try... going to see how that goes) Anyway a sort of secret handshake / small business version would make all the nerds happy and less likely to complain to everyone about all the things everyone (here) hates about windows.

 

[MrGuvernment]

That was also the era of the pc gaming mags and sites advising people to turn off Aero features.

DRM was a topic back when people used disc drives to consume content and you bought boxed games.
I recall HD drive was the MS thing.

I can’t remember if I was running 2x2gb of ram back then or what.

I dunno if it was a driver issue, but there was a persistent thing about Vista and graphics cards.

This was right about when mw2 came out and everyone bought an Xbox 360.

I think I was still playing CS back then on like an evga 8800gts

Ya, NVIDIA screwed the pooch on their drivers when Vista came out also, which caused a lot of backlash to MS, instead of to NVIDIA cause of course NVIDIA blamed Vista.

atarione facts, but sadly our voice is not enough for MS to create an entirely new SKU, we have been voicing our opinions for decades...

 

[HumanBias]

11 is fine. the bitching between versions is always the same...

Once you reach a certain age you accumulate enough experience to notice some patterns:

Win 3.11 -> Windows 95: A small vocal minority hated the changes and did everything they could to cling on to the past but the majority moved on just fine.
Windows 95 -> Windows 98: A small vocal minority hated the changes and did everything they could to cling on to the past but the majority moved on just fine.
Windows 98 -> Windows Me: A small vocal minority hated the changes and did everything they could to cling on to the past but the majority moved on just fine.
Windows Me -> Windows 2000: A small vocal minority hated the changes and did everything they could to cling on to the past but the majority moved on just fine.
Windows 2000 -> Windows XP: A small vocal minority hated the changes and did everything they could to cling on to the past but the majority moved on just fine.
Windows XP -> Windows Vista: A small vocal minority hated the changes and did everything they could to cling on to the past but the majority moved on just fine.
Windows Vista -> Windows 7: A small vocal minority hated the changes and did everything they could to cling on to the past but the majority moved on just fine.
Windows 7 -> Windows 8: A small vocal minority hated the changes and did everything they could to cling on to the past but the majority moved on just fine.
Windows 8 -> Windows 10: A small vocal minority hated the changes and did everything they could to cling on to the past but the majority moved on just fine.
Windows 10 -> Windows 11: A small vocal minority hated the changes and did everything they could to cling on to the past but the majority moved on just fine.

The question is if it is really worth the time and effort to care about a predictable vocal minority?
Of course I personally run Windows 11 just fine so feel free to call me biased.

 

[Domingo]

It's probably worth mentioning that Windows 11 has a special caveat with quite a few people being straight-up unable to upgrade even if they want to. At least in an official manner. Adoption is still dragging behind as a result.

 

[DPI]

Windows 7 -> Windows 8: A small vocal minority hated the changes and did everything they could to cling on to the past but the majority moved on just fine.

Hilarious.

 

[pendragon1]

whats so funny? normal every day consumers used it just fine. it was people like us("power users") that had "issues", but in reality, it worked just fine for 95%+.

 

[Domingo]

Windows 8 was a nightmare for anyone working in support. At least initially. I definitely remember that much since I was the go-to "tech person" on my work team and backup IT person at the time. Ditto with being the unofficial tech support for friends and family. For better or worse, things looked and worked differently in 8 and a LOT of people struggled to use it initially. People might've disliked things about Vista, Me, and now 11 but Windows 8 was the only OS since Windows 95 that changed how things worked on a large scale. I think it eventually got to be fine with 8.1, but that doesn't change that nightmarish first year of people not knowing where anything was.

 

[MrGuvernment]

whats so funny? normal every day consumers used it just fine. it was people like us("power users") that had "issues", but in reality, it worked just fine for 95%+.

It is the truth right, but too many [H] like to think their opinion matters enough to change the products a company like MS releases, it doesnt, at all, doesn't even scratch the surface.....If MS had the slightest care in the world about what power users want, we would of already had our perfect OS.

 

[GoldenTiger]

I had no issues with win8 or 8.1. It was the same as 7 but with a full screen start menu *shrug*.

 

[ManofGod]

I had no issues with win8 or 8.1. It was the same as 7 but with a full screen start menu *shrug*.

I had no personal issue with 8 or 8.1. However, that full screen start menu was a full stop for most.

 

[vegeta535]

It is the truth right, but too many [H] like to think their opinion matters enough to change the products a company like MS releases, it doesnt, at all, doesn't even scratch the surface.....If MS had the slightest care in the world about what power users want, we would of already had our perfect OS.

This. "Power" users just hate change and like to bitch.

 

[polonyc2]

I'm still using W10...the only thing that'll get me to switch to W11 is when W10 gets closer to end of life/support...and maybe if DirectStorage support is much improved over W10

 

[Meeho]

The question is if it is really worth the time and effort to care about a predictable vocal minority?

It took three and a half years for Windows 10 to overtake 7's market share. And that with forced updates shoved down user's throats, 10 being practically free, with artificial hardware support limitations for 7 etc. How's that for a vocal minority?

 

[HumanBias]

It took three and a half years for Windows 10 to overtake 7's market share. And that with forced updates showed down user's throats, 10 being practically free, with artificial hardware support limitations for 7 etc. How's that for a vocal minority?

How is that Windows 7 marketshare doing today?
Windows 10 peaked at a higher maket share than windows 7 ever had too:
https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-200901-202211

Futhermore you have to show that a majority of the users complained about Windows 10.
And suddenly your argument is simple bias, not a supported fact.

 

[Meeho]

How is that Windows 7 marketshare doing today?
Windows 10 peaked at a higher maket share than windows 7 ever had too:
https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-200901-202211
View attachment 537148

Futhermore you have to show that a majority of the users complained about Windows 10.
And suddenly your argument is simple bias, not a supported fact.

It took three and a half years for Windows 10 to overtake 7's market share. And that with forced updates showed down user's throats, 10 being practically free, with artificial hardware support limitations for 7 etc.

 

[GoldenTiger]

It took three and a half years for Windows 10 to overtake 7's market share. And that with forced updates showed down user's throats, 10 being practically free, with artificial hardware support limitations for 7 etc.

Not unusual, especially since corporations delay upgrades. Win10 did quite well.

 

[Meeho]

Not unusual, especially since corporations delay upgrades. Win10 did quite well.

It took 7 less time to overtake XP, while being significantly more expensive, not nearly as forced or unwillingly shoved, nor artificially hardware limited.

 

[GoldenTiger]

It took 7 less time to overtake XP, while being significantly more expensive, not nearly as forced or unwillingly shoved, nor artificially hardware limited.

So? 7 offered a lot of compelling features over xp. 10 just had dx12 which wasn't widely adopted by games for years. Xp was also long in the tooth by then. 7 was a reskinned Vista sp1.

 

[Meeho]

So? 7 offered a lot of compelling features over xp. 10 just had dx12 which wasn't widely adopted by games for years. Xp was also long in the tooth by then.

You're making my points for me.

 

[GoldenTiger]

You're making my points for me.

What? It was indeed a vocal minority that whined about the changes. Most switched sooner or later, without griping up a storm.

 

[HumanBias]

It took three and a half years for Windows 10 to overtake 7's market share. And that with forced updates showed down user's throats, 10 being practically free, with artificial hardware support limitations for 7 etc.

If you ignore the timeline I posted and insist on being that vocal minority it says a lot about you bias and how engaging in a debate with you would be a waste of time.
You are proving my point at this time even though you seem unaware of it.

Again, Windows 10 reached higher market cap than Windows 7.
Even Windows XP had higher market cap than Windows 7.

You picked a bad "hill" to die on.

 

[ManofGod]

If you ignore the timeline I posted and insist on being that vocal minority it says a lot about you bias and how engaging in a debate with you would be a waste of time.
You are proving my point at this time even though you seem unaware of it.

Again, Windows 10 reached higher market cap than Windows 7.
Even Windows XP had higher market cap than Windows 7.

You picked a bad "hill" to die on.

It is 2022, no one really, truly cares anymore, just use whatever the f works and move on. Even here, if it is fun, go for it but otherwise, the OS war is dead, not because there is no battles going on but, because there is nothing left to see.

 

[pendragon1]

could try giving it a tune up, might helps with some complaints

 

[Domingo]

could try giving it a tune up, might helps with some complaints

That's a pretty fantastic video. At first I thought it was a little long, but he covers nearly every setting of interest. I don't necessarily agree with everything he suggests (setting your background app's max FPS = screwy if you work and game simultaneously via alt+tab), but it's still a neat catch-all video.

It's worth noting that Microsoft PC Manager beta is a helpful addition when it comes to freeing up resources and tweaking autoruns and background apps in real time.
https://pcmanager-en.microsoft.com/
I'm convinced that's going to be baked into the OS at some point. It has been sorely needed for years. Right now the only weird thing about it is that Windows Defender seems to think of it as a separate program, so it's always acting like you have a 2nd anti-virus program installed.