Microsoft is rethinking Windows 11 after months of complaints

[Loadedaxe]

From one sh!tty company to the next. Why not linux...

Calling it “one sh!tty company to the next” is a bit lame. People switch from Microsoft to Apple for actual reasons...hardware reliability, ecosystem integration, better support, or just preferring how macOS works.

I have both, I work on a Mac and game on a mini Windows PC. Each has its use.

Linux is great if you want to tinker, troubleshoot, and build your setup. Most people don’t, they just want something that works out of the box. That’s where Apple tends to win over Linux.

Different tools for different people. Not everything has to turn into a “just use Linux” argument.

 

[DrSuess]

Months of complaints, a lot of these complaints date back to Win 10 when the began making it harder to install Windows without using a Microsoft account. MS stopped listening years ago, I am really curious why the all of a sudden care about what users are saying.

 

[trents]

I hardily concur with the article's mention of MS working on the issue of requiring a sign in to a Microsoft account during installation. That is such a pain when you are doing an install on a client computer and they don't know their Microsoft account credentials or don't even have one. Microsoft, please fix that!

 

[trparky]

Linux is great if you want to tinker, troubleshoot, and build your setup. Most people don’t, they just want something that works out of the box. That’s where Apple tends to win over Linux.

And that’s where I am in my life at the age of 44. I’m beyond the phase where I have the time or the inclination to want to tinker, troubleshoot, or deal with some kind of bullshit.

Sure, when I was younger, I loved doing that kind of stuff. But now, I just need things to work.

 

[Anton Longshot]

And that’s where I am in my life at the age of 44. I’m beyond the phase where I have the time or the inclination to want to tinker, troubleshoot, or deal with some kind of bullshit.

Sure, when I was younger, I loved doing that kind of stuff. But now, I just need things to work.

My 2 cents. I've tried Lunix (accidental typo pinkyswear) several times over the years.
I hated it every time and the "experiences" didn't last long.
Recently because of the Win 11 riot I decided to test-run Mint on my Thinkpad.
Well, install is easy and it works out of the box for simple things.
But, besides that the common *nix crazy insistence on SECURITY (much worse even than Windows...fark I must have typed my login/pw a zillion times while testing Mint...I'm no dam secret agent I'm just a computer user and there's literally NOTHING worth stealing or even peeking at on that laptop) it quickly became clear once more that to become as proficient with Linux as I am with Windows and to a lesser extent with MacOS I'll have to STUDY.
And I mean YEARS of study. But the time I would do and even enjoy such things is long past - I'm just a USER these days. Linux is as intuitive as a rock with sharp edges to me - finding out how to do a random little thing requires searching the web, and to find out how to do the next (these pop up every few minutes) random little thing requires another web search. Ad seemingly infinitum.

Linux desktop is userfriendly. Sure if you restrict yourself to the simplest uses. If I could live with that Linux would be 100% for me.
Which it isn't.
Never will be as the promised userfriendly Linux will never arrive.
It's just not how it works.
The developers who work on Linux LIKE IT and they're never going to change what people like me HATE about it.
I'm OK with that. I'll live.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Exactly. The fact that damn near every Patch Tuesday results in sites like Bleeping Computer and, of course, this site publishing an article about something yet again breaking because of Microslop's stupidity is getting really old already.

If you ask me, the damage has already been done. Slopya took what was once the computing juggernaut and destroyed any and all trust in them. It's going to take more than a few attaboy's to cover up for all the "oh shits" that they've been pulling in the last decade.

I think if they pull back on the slop and fix major broken things before SteamOS rolls out to a bunch of hardware they will slow most of the bleeding.

The better linux gets at number of games and GPUs covered the easier it is for (nonwork) computers to switch but there is still a learning curve so if you keep the windows pain below a certain point inertia keeps people in winows.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

So.....why dont you want them to optimize windows so it can run on 8GB PCs? Why limit optimizations?
Because $$$? Macbooks have always been niche products as has mac OS. People complain about everything, even when google brought shared purchases between android and PC platforms people whined about it. People have cried and gnashed their teeth at windows 8, then 10, then 11, but never stopped using it, or buying office, so there was 0 motivation for MS to change.

The Neo is a low cost threat that could make inroads into the consumer space that MS has a chokehold on and they now realize they might have to change their tactics.

I don't want that to be in their top 50 priorities. Windows needs a lot of work to run well on nice PCs. FIX THAT. Then when the nice and mainstream PCs problems are solved you can turn to making windows run on netbooks from 20 years ago.

The Neo is mainly a threat because MS has pissed off all of the PC enthusiasts that get asked which laptop to buy by friends and family. I don't want to do family tech support for macs but at this point teaching myself mac is becoming less painful than fixing all of MS' BS.

 

[Clint1]

Although I am not a lover of Microsoft, where is Bill Gates when it needs him back at the helm to sort out what has now become Win-dozy.

 

[trparky]

Linux desktop is user-friendly. Sure if you restrict yourself to the simplest uses.

And I largely agree with you on that, but we all know that eventually you're going to have to touch... something in the terminal or manually modify a config file and that's where there's a hell of a lot of room for one to shoot one's self in the foot.

Meanwhile, with Windows, if you don't want to touch the terminal, you don't have to. The GUI does everything. You can change whole parts of the OS without even touching config files or even the Registry. Linux? Not so much.

Look at it this way... if I want to change DNS to use DNS-over-TLS (because anyone still running plain DNS is just asking your ISP to snoop on you) on Windows starting with Windows 11, it's pretty much brain-dead easy to configure it.

On Linux? Nope.

First, you have to start by modifying /etc/systemd/resolve.conf and save it. Oh, make sure you opened the file as root or you can't save it. Finished? Not yet. Next you need to modify /etc/resolv.conf and point the system to 127.0.0.1 (localhost) because by modifying the /etc/systemd/resolve.conf, you've turned SystemD into a local DNS resolver. Once that's done, you have to find out what services you need to restart and then hope that you modified the two config files properly or you won't have functioning DNS.

In what world is that easy to use? Not in my world, that's for damn sure.

So yeah, Linux may be easy to use at the very surface level but if you want to do anything even a little bit under the surface, good luck. Meanwhile, as I said before, Windows is practically brain-dead easy to configure. As for MacOS, Apple has you covered just as much as Windows does.

Yeah... when it comes to truly easy to use operating systems, Linux isn't even in the same galactic parsec.

 

[Hecate91]

Linux is great if you want to tinker, troubleshoot, and build your setup. Most people don’t, they just want something that works out of the box. That’s where Apple tends to win over Linux.

But that's exactly what Windows is, if you want to get rid of the bloat, ads, copilot,and spyware, Microsoft can just undo all of the de-bloating too, so it's always felt like a waste of time to me.
At least Linux does what you tell it to, while working out of the box better than Windows does, IMO, also while not eating a bunch of RAM.

 

[nismo91]

If only Google would step up and make their AL OS available for free this year. it will put up even more pressure to MS.

if there's one thing we all hate, is the microsoft account requirement just to use windows. thank god for rufus, none of my pcs had that.

 

[Karlos95]

Calling it “one sh!tty company to the next” is a bit lame. People switch from Microsoft to Apple for actual reasons...hardware reliability, ecosystem integration, better support, or just preferring how macOS works.

I have both, I work on a Mac and game on a mini Windows PC. Each has its use.

Linux is great if you want to tinker, troubleshoot, and build your setup. Most people don’t, they just want something that works out of the box. That’s where Apple tends to win over Linux.

Different tools for different people. Not everything has to turn into a “just use Linux” argument.

And that's why companies get away with all the crap they do, because people will sell out just for the convenience.

 

[jeffbert]

So glad I kept W10.

 

[barca1au]

if there's one thing we all hate, is the microsoft account requirement just to use windows. thank god for rufus, none of my pcs had that.

You tried setting up a new Android without an email address, or worse still, with a non-gmail email? I still have the appalling thing Google set up for me over 5 years ago and I immediately killed and changed, and its STILL turns up! I could not even get it corrected!

 

[trparky]

If only Google would step up and make their AL OS available for free this year.

I would never trust Google and there's quite a number of people around these parts that would agree with me on that one.

 

[Later]

Also the possibility to be notified for updates and decide if and when to install them just like XP had.

 

[Loadedaxe]

And that's why companies get away with all the crap they do, because people will sell out just for the convenience.

Yeah, because we’re all just “selling out” instead of picking from the three OS options that actually exist.....Windows, macOS, or Linux.

Some of us just choose what works, tweak it, and get on with life without complaining.

 

[sks9988]

Microslop "rethinking" Windows isn't the issue. This isn't the first time that they've allegedly done that.

The real issue is that every time Microslop management "rethinks" Windows, they always simply conclude that they are right and that their stupid users simply lack the intelligence to make "reasonable" decisions about what is best for Windows.

That kind of arrogance exists from the CEO downwards on the management side of Microslop. And, it isn't going away anytime soon.

 

[arrowflash]

Linux desktop is userfriendly. Sure if you restrict yourself to the simplest uses.

And I largely agree with you on that, but we all know that eventually you're going to have to touch... something in the terminal or manually modify a config file and that's where there's a hell of a lot of room for one to shoot one's self in the foot.

I agree on that. It's not a very common or popular opinion, but I often say that contemporary Linux desktop is actually great for basic users, who only use a few basic programs and never want or need to install anything that isn't on the distro official repositories, are happy with most system default settings, and don't care about customization or tinkering.

But for power users and sysadmin-level people, desktop Linux has always been pretty bad. Unless you don't value your time of course, it can be great if you have lots of free time and enjoy spending it with tinkering and troubleshooting.

I also tried Linux several times over the last 20 years and always ended going back to Windows. One of the reasons is that almost all of the software I ended up using were native Windows programs through WINE (which is amazing, by the way), then I would think, "what's the point?". Sure almost all programs have native alternatives on Linux but not as good IMO.

One other thing I really dislike about Linux in general, is the lack of legacy support. On the latest Windows 11, you can run most software written for Windows 95, 30 years ago. Even older if you run Windows 10 32-bit, most software written for Windows 3.1 and even 40-year old DOS programs will work. Now try installing a package built for a version of your Linux distro that was released 10 years ago, or running a simple binary executable, or compiling a 15-year old program from source. Sometimes it will work, most times it won't. Or you'll easily fall into dependency hell when trying to install and run older native software on current distros.

Of course, if Microsoft keeps making Windows worse and worse, I'll have no choice but to go back to that route without looking back. Using Linux to run my Windows software.

 

[Gravitytr1]

As a security expert said, this is flowers after the beating.

Only way out is to dump windows and macroslop.

 

[Gravitytr1]

The Neo lit a fire, it seems. I can't think of another reason for the timing being what it is, though it's possible they were planning this before the Neo came out. Either way, as others have said, I'll believe it when I see it, too.

Competition is gud.

But current government says it's not

 

[LimyG]

So, they got the message. Good.

After so many years do they have anyone left who can actually make W11 half decent?

Or will it be an A.I. developed revamp of the currently hideous Windows experience?

The reality will probably be. Bad.

 

[LimyG]

So glad I kept W10.

+1

After many many hours, and several installs, numerous tweaks and tricks. W11 is still utter garbage.
That's with all A.I totally removed and numerous other tweaks - No store for instance. It's still garbage.

Edit: Touchy subject, Linux. Tried that too. Mint. Nothing wrong with it, but always something it can't do, or peculiar
downsides. That' my take on it. Seems like endless fiddling. It is better than W11 though.

My tweaked W10 still rocks!! Plus it will do until lots of games remove support for it. A long time no doubt.

 

[Coisa]

MS is rethinking Windows? This is probably good news for the community. I am certain that it is NOT from months of complaining. Monopolists don't care much about complaining.

But, they do care about a degradation of their reputation. They do care about Market share. I am convinced they are losing that. The forced end of Win 10, cost to upgrade computers that were older, the problems with updates and smearing Co-Pilot everywhere Some of my family gave up this baloney on Windows desktops and laptops. I am sure that is happening everywhere. Tablets, smartphones, Apple OS, Google OS and apps and Linux are apparently taking a threatening toll in market share. Finally! MS has competition! They have to make their OS better

There probably are some good changes coming. At lease we can hope although I don't expect much

 

[Sean T]

I feel like this was posted a week to early. Someone hit publish before April 1st by accident?
If this really sticks, glad to hear it. Let’s see how long it takes.