[HN Gopher] The Day Windows Died
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The Day Windows Died
Author : alexzeitler
Score : 109 points
Date : 2023-04-02 22:05 UTC (54 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (thomasbandt.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (thomasbandt.com)
| tonymet wrote:
| I'm not a big fan of these features and i turn them off right
| away. MS is going to where the consumers are. anyone under 30
| will expect this content . imagine a 20 year old using windows 2k
| and the only real apps are notepad and ms paint .
|
| We give companies too much blame for providing consumers what
| they want.
|
| MS could do a better job with transparency and control of these
| features. But i don't believe the blame is being put in the right
| place .
|
| also the hyperbole is too much
| sureglymop wrote:
| As a 23 year old, no idea what you mean. That seems more
| targeted towards < 20 (tiktok) and > 65 (those news) if you ask
| me.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Yeah even windows 10 have the dumazz tabloid news preonstalled,
| it's like a really shady carrier installing all sorts of crap on
| a androud
| doctor_eval wrote:
| Having never lived in a Windows world I had no idea what life was
| like on the other side.
|
| So many times on HN I read about how MacOS is bad for the user,
| locked down, rubbish etc etc.
|
| But if this article is true then Windows 11 is absolutely insane.
| _That_ is what anti consumer looks like. Not SIP. Not poor
| documentation. Not first party apps.
|
| While those of us who use Apple's OS fear for the worst, those in
| Windows appear to be receiving it.
|
| (But I definitely agree that news apps have no place on a desktop
| and I have had very bad news headlines pop up on my kids screens.
| Please Apple, turn this stupid default off, or give us an option
| at install time).
| josephcsible wrote:
| > _That_ is what anti consumer looks like. Not SIP.
|
| It's not an either-or. Both of those are super anti-consumer.
| If you want an OS without anti-consumer "features", then
| install Linux.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| I recently moved back to Linux, perhaps permanently.
|
| What kept me from it was not being able to reliably play
| games, but I can confirm that is no longer a problem.
|
| I can't properly describe how happy this makes me.
| pedalpete wrote:
| What distro did you go for? I'm thinking about moving to
| linux, I'm avoiding a Windows 11 upgrade, and am not a fan
| of mac.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| Mint, because I'm a filthy casual :)
|
| I just love Mint, but I think any Debian based distro
| should work just fine for playing.
| judge2020 wrote:
| SIP is anti-consumer? It's more often than not pro-consumer
| in the cases where it helps you locate and/or re-obtain a
| lost Macbook.
| christophilus wrote:
| 100% this. My journey was Windows to OSX to Linux. Couldn't
| be happier. I just want a good Linux phone to free me from
| Apple altogether.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Linux is only free if your time is worthless. ;)
| whateveracct wrote:
| Windows and macOS have both wasted plenty of my time over
| the years too!
| treve wrote:
| I built a gaming PC recently, so also new to Windows (normally
| Linux main). I was very surprised to see advertising in the
| operating system, for an operating system that people pay at
| least $190 CAD for.
|
| This issue is made worse by every hardware vendor needing to
| install their own bulky applications with their own popups.
| It's extremely noisy.
|
| My main take is that Microsoft has lost all pride in Windows
| and they're uninterested in actually competing.
| pedalpete wrote:
| This is unfortunately the new state of Windows, and why I also
| may be switching away after being a dedicated user since
| Windows 3.1
|
| I doubt I'll go to Mac, I'm just not a fan, so looking at
| different linux options, even though I barely do any coding
| anymore.
|
| Windows used to have bloatware and shareware, but I never felt
| it was in your face like it is now.
|
| But it really is the volume of advertising and crap that has
| gone into Windows 11 which is why I've stayed on 10 and am
| avoiding upgrading.
| nashashmi wrote:
| * * *
| drpixie wrote:
| > Some people recommended tools to me which can be used to switch
| most of those things off. But honestly: How do you trust a system
| (or its manufacturer) if you can't even know if those settings,
| which you deliberately chose, persist?
|
| No doubt you've all noticed how your carefully crafted config
| gets trashed by routine window's updates %#%$$#%#! If you use
| windows, you're pushing against a company that 1) you've given
| complete control of your computer, and 2) has very different
| intentions and priorities to you.
| judge2020 wrote:
| What configs are you talking about? Because most things in the
| official UIs are carefully crafted to be permanent user
| preferences that windows updates don't touch.
| josephcsible wrote:
| If this is a good-faith question, then I assume you don't use
| Windows as your primary OS. After most major Windows updates,
| you'll see new crapware in the Start menu and get nagged to
| set up a Microsoft account and have your default programs
| switched back to the Microsoft ones, no matter how many times
| you said "no, and never ask again" before.
| zamalek wrote:
| You'll find apps and things that wiggle their way back onto
| the start menu, at least that's what happened minutes prior
| to me downloading a Fedora ISO last year.
| eganist wrote:
| Microsoft has a habit of flipping settings back to stock, but so
| far as I know, this has never happened for group policy. I've
| been using GPOs to reliably flip things off in Windows 10
|
| Can't speak to 11 but I imagine it's the same; GPOs are one of
| the few things Microsoft wants to make sure never break with an
| update given the market that uses them.
| tester756 wrote:
| Windows 11 start menu search is slowest shit i've ever seen
|
| I can't stand when I type app name (e.g paint or vs) and it
| appears but click needs like 5-10 sec to be registered
|
| what the hell
|
| It worked perfectly fine on Win10 on the same hardware (my OS has
| been updated recently either automatically or by company).
|
| I'd call Windows 11 pretty OK once you tweak one or two things in
| register settings, maybe the lack of right click menu on task bar
| sucks (e.g show desktop), but search being slow is ridiculous, it
| should be blazingly fast
| nashashmi wrote:
| * * *
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Is there any rock solid program that effortlessly lets me shut
| off contentious "features"? Ie. no unreliable registry mucking or
| other stuff. I just want to open an application and begin
| unchecking checkboxes.
| invalidator wrote:
| Shutup10 is a good start.
| yazzku wrote:
| Link: https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
|
| Except that Windows updates will turn the stuff back on over
| time, so I'm not sure about 'effortlessly'.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I use 10, but only as essentially a glorified console. Time for
| work? Time to boot into the Linux partition.
|
| I look vaguely fondly back on XP, 98, and 95... but at least, XP
| was pretty bad with frequent crashes. And of course the idea of
| security was added on afterwards, which was not really successful
| and kind of a dumb idea.
|
| Anyway I think the death-date of Windows is essentially a
| personal thing. It is the first day you look at it with at all a
| critical eye.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| I installed Mint here. RetroArch works like a charm. Steam
| games are surprisingly smooth thanks to Proton - some games
| require some minor tinkering to work, but I am amazed at how
| well it works.
|
| I got even games from other stores that don't officially
| support Proton (such as GoG) to work with the help of Lutris.
|
| If Windows for you is just a console, might be time to re-
| evaluate on that.
|
| I don't even hate Windows btw. I was using 10 and it worked
| mostly fine to my tastes, especially with WSL. But Linux is
| just so much better in every way.
| KingLancelot wrote:
| [dead]
| uberman wrote:
| Something smells off about this. The author pulled an old laptop
| from under their desk and was able to install windows 11? Not
| likely in my experience.
|
| How did the author even get a windows 11 install since they claim
| they have not used windows since version 8.
|
| Will any win8 laptop even support an upgrade to 11? I doubt it.
|
| Why not get linux running on the old laptop. Mint likely installs
| just fine.
|
| I'm not saying win 11 is great and frankly none of the systems I
| have will even install it as they do not meet the requirements
| just that I find the set up to be sus.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I'd say though that the complaint about having TikTok
| preinstalled, plus the trashy tabloid news, plus the endless
| begging for you to use Teams does ring true and it is something
| that Microsoft needs pushback against.
| fortran77 wrote:
| I agree. It smelled funny to me, too. More AstroTurf marketing
| perhaps?
| pcdoodle wrote:
| you can easily install 11 on any hardware using rufus (gets rid
| of TPM2 req.)
|
| I agree with the article too. Windows is dead.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I think there's some ambiguity re Windows 11 hardware reqs. I
| was unable to upgrade an older laptop, with it labeled as "not
| supported" (Older Surface Pro), but I was able to do a clean
| install from USB.
| tpmx wrote:
| > The author pulled an old laptop from under their desk
|
| The blog post doesn't say it was old. Did you misread _So far,
| I have only used it a couple of times to debug old software I
| wrote long ago that needed some fixes_ ?
| uberman wrote:
| Sure, my misread of what they said. However they as you say
| stored it in a drawer under their desk and only used it to
| debug software written long ago. They also said the last time
| they used windows was version 8.
|
| I think it perfectly reasonable to conclude the laptop ran
| windows 8. Otherwise if it ran windows 10 the author would
| have said the last time they used windows it was version 10.
| jmkni wrote:
| The author never uses the word 'old' in regards to the laptop.
| uberman wrote:
| Technically no, however it was in a drawer under their desk,
| they only used it to debug software written long ago and they
| state they have not used windows since version 8.
| viraptor wrote:
| > How did the author even get a windows 11 install
|
| From Microsoft? https://www.microsoft.com/software-
| download/windows11
| uberman wrote:
| If you were going to download an os to install that you
| wanted your kid to be able to tinker with and reinstall and
| you had not used windows in 8 to 10 years why would you
| download windows 11 rather than ubuntu or Mint?
| judge2020 wrote:
| I think their argument is that most laptops from the W8 days
| don't support W11 mainly because of the processor
| requirements and check. Although the author could've burned
| the image to a USB disk with Rufus which has defaults that
| remove the W11 pre-checks during flash.
| mikerg87 wrote:
| It's not Windows. It's the broken social contract the entire PC
| industry has in believing it's ok flood us with ads and
| surveillance driven "marketing". Any retail PC is a sewer of
| bloat and crap ware.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I just stick with Windows 7.
| jimbobimbo wrote:
| The obsession with monetization will put otherwise good system to
| grave.
|
| I used all Windows versions over all these years, but even my
| patience is wearing thin.
|
| Search, Bing, search, Bing! In every effing square inch of screen
| real estate they can get their hands on.
| asveikau wrote:
| On the topic of setting up a PC for a kid: I set up Debian for my
| 9 year old. I put Mate desktop, since I remembered mid 2000s
| gnome to be ok. She has no complaints about it.
| noobermin wrote:
| While it has its issues, this is where Linux does still shine. It
| keeps the spirit of computing free alive and well.
| cjblack wrote:
| It's infuriating how much work one has to do to clean up what
| should already be a bare-bones, stock, factory environment. All
| of these 8 kb "apps" like LinkedIn, TikTok, etc. that you
| "uninstall" but then re-appear right in the Add or Remove
| Programs menu.
|
| I haven't tried, but what do these little TikTok, LinkedIn apps
| even do? I imagine they don't install a local version of LinkedIn
| to peruse, right? I don't totally understand how the economic
| incentive for MSFT and manufacturers can be high enough to make
| these actively user-hostile actions worth it.
|
| Maybe I'm cynical or naive
| alphabet9000 wrote:
| windows 8 was def the beginning of the end
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz7Cl8Itx9Q
| 000ooo000 wrote:
| I don't have a computing-age child yet, but I aim to steer them
| down the Linux road. I've been given 3-4 Macbooks over the years
| which are now far too old to run modern macOS at any reasonable
| level of performance, but I suspect they will run Ubuntu etc just
| fine and make a decent first machine. Maybe starting out in this
| environment will also prompt the same curiosity that I developed
| which led into confidence/skill/a career, just by having access
| to settings and the like (which seem to be increasingly stowed
| away or removed altogether).
|
| I also hope that starting out in Linux instills the same "ugh,
| GTFO my machine" response in them that I get when I encounter the
| kind of default/forced cruft the OP did.
| phoenixreader wrote:
| Tik Tok and Instagram are not actually installed on Windows 11 by
| default. They just appear in the Start Menu as logos, because so
| many people install them manually. They only begin installation
| once you click on the logos.
|
| News on search bar cannot be defended though.
| avazhi wrote:
| Windows 11 is horrendous but so is this article. I've installed
| Windows 11 on probably 10 machines and I've never seen 'TikTok'
| preinstalled but assuming that it can be in certain regions it
| really isn't that difficult to remove the default bloatware apps.
| As for the rest of the problems this guy mentions, has he ever
| heard of Group Policy? Even if you're on a version that doesn't
| have access to GPEdit, what about the Registry?
|
| Windows 11 has a fuckload of problems and is objectively a step
| or 12 backwards in terms of configurability, but this article
| doesn't really sell the problems very well IMO.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > has he ever heard of Group Policy?
|
| Doesn't Group Policy only work in Pro, which costs $100 to
| upgrade to? Even if you're rich enough to afford that without
| thinking twice, do you really want to reward Microsoft with
| more money for their bad behavior?
| NickNameNick wrote:
| I built a new desktop last week. One of the first things I did
| once windows was installed was go through the start menu
| uninstalling things. Including tiktok.
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