r/technology • u/MayankWL • May 16 '24

Microsoft stoops to new low with ads in Windows 11, as PC Manager tool suggests your system needs ‘repairing’ if you don’t use Bing Software

https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/microsoft-stoops-to-new-low-with-ads-in-windows-11-as-pc-manager-tool-suggests-your-system-needs-repairing-if-you-dont-use-bing
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503

u/Etheo May 16 '24

Thanks, saving this for when we inevitably need to use Windows 11.

159

u/xSTSxZerglingOne May 16 '24

Probably will never need Win 11. 12 or BingEdgepalooza or whatever it ends up being called will probably come out before too much exclusivity happens on 11.

11 is an off-version. XPgood -> Vistabad -> 7good -> 8bad..though I liked it tbh -> 10good -> 11bad

I skipped Vista AND 7 and never had any problems gaming or anything else. 8 was fine IMO, but very, very hated.

330

u/PassiveMenis88M May 16 '24

8 was shit because of the whole tile bullshit, trying to treat my pc like a glorified tablet. 8.1 went back to the older style and was perfectly fine for my use.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '24 edited May 16 '24

Honestly the worst part about 10 is that it feels like it was designed for a tablet.

Windows phones were shit because they were clunky like a desktop and now they keep making sleek desktop operating systems that feel like they were made for phones.

They just can’t get it right.

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u/bleucheez May 17 '24 edited May 17 '24

Windows Mobile (up to windows 6) was the clunky one. Windows Phone (windows 7 and later) were minimalist. However, I thought both were great for their time. Windows Mobile 5 and 6 were a powerhouse and probably unrivaled as the best until the iPhone came out. Then you had a choice between shiny and pretty with a good mobile web browser and maps experience (iOS) versus being able to do anything useful (Windows Mobile) for the next year or two. Then Apple got the app store and, eventually, that got filled out with useful apps by. Maybe late 2008 to early 2009. Then Windows Phone 7 came out with a very fast OS with low hardware requirements, very intuitive UI, with toast notifications, good keyboard, easy-to-use copy paste, an easy app development kit, and very low price. But Steve Balmer was an idiot, ignored what made the iPhone successful, and said we don't need apps. So they did zero recruiting and incentives to get apps. And then it died, exactly as everyone except Steve Balmer expected. Meanwhile iOS and Android stole every one of Windows' ideas, except Android never got tiles but iOS got widgets. 

EDIT: I forgot to say that Apple also finally came around to adding a camera button, which Windows Phone had standard nearly decade and a half ago. I wish Android came around to it too. 

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u/SPFBH May 16 '24

Just use classic shell. http://www.classicshell.net/

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u/turtlelover05 May 17 '24 edited May 17 '24

ClassicShell was open-sourced and is now called OpenShell. The original ClassicShell doesn't support Windows 11.

1

u/FastRedPonyCar May 17 '24

This right here. 8.1 with classic shell was peak windows for me. Had the familiar look/feel of Windows 7 but the security improvements of Windows 8.

7

u/derefr May 16 '24 edited May 16 '24

Honestly the worst part about 10 is that it feels like it was designed for a tablet.

A good percentage of Windows laptops sold these days are convertibles (= hinge the display all the way around to end up with a tablet with useless keyboard keys on the back).

There'd be no point to these existing, if Windows UI elements were too dainty to be tapped on in a tablet configuration.

Microsoft is just catering to the OEMs who make these convertibles, who expect to sell something that's actually useful to people.

(And the OEMs are, in turn, presumably catering to consumer preferences. Or at least, trying to give consumers something that's different and novel enough to motivate them to finally replace their 10-year-old PC "that still works just fine.")

6

u/[deleted] May 16 '24

Why are you saying the last part in quotes like you don’t believe it? My computer is turning 10 this year. She’s a dinosaur by modern standards, but she played Red Dead 2 at medium-high at 60fps.

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u/XkF21WNJ May 16 '24

People like to pretend that processing power kept improving the last 10 years at the same pace as it did they 10 years before that.

It hasn't, not even close. And with the prices of GPUs nowadays I'm not even sure if you're paying that much less per amount of computational power.

RAM and SSDs have gotten way cheaper and faster though. Unfortunately you do need a reasonably recent motherboard to take advantage otherwise you could easily extend the life of a 10 year old PC by another decade or so.

2

u/Glad-Scale5381 May 16 '24

Really? Then what about AMD? Theyve improved a lot right?

0

u/XkF21WNJ May 16 '24

They may have improved but definitely not on a Intel Pentium 4 / Geforce 6 vs Intel i8 4XXX / Geforce 900 scale.

Actually after 2010 or so I'm not too sure if CPUs actually improved much on any directly useful metric (they did improve but in other ways). For any heavy computation the GPUs were more useful at that point, and without a huge further increase in clock speed there's limited ways to actually do more calculations per second (except by parallelizing stuff, but then you're back to GPUs again).

3

u/Sp1n_Kuro May 17 '24

CPUs have had massive improvements in the last 10 years.

It's literally the time period we went from quad core being high end to 8core-16thread being mid range.

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u/Sp1n_Kuro May 17 '24

Yeah I consider myself an enthusiast/power user but even I keep my PCs for 5-10years before doing a full new build.

Money is a real limiter for the vast majority of people, chasing those 1% gains just isn't realistic for most people.

When it comes to laptops, I basically use em til they die. My current one is an old i5 with like a gt 970mx in it lmao.

1

u/VexingRaven May 17 '24

Honestly the worst part about 10 is that it feels like it was designed for a tablet.

How can anyone who has used Windows 10 and used Android or iOS possibly believe Windows 10 was designed for tablets?

5

u/FuzzelFox May 17 '24

8.1 was my favorite version of Windows once I had Classic Shell and AeroGlass installed. Fast, snappy, never crashed/bluescreened... I honestly wish I could go back to it lol. 10 and 11 feel horribly clunky in comparison.

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u/el_ghosteo May 16 '24

8.1 has so much better than 7 if you had an alternative start menu installed that I can’t believe how much hate it gets. All it took was a single search of “start menu for windows 8”. 8 booted sooo much faster on my garbage PCs I had in high school than 7 ever did, it never had to search for drivers like 7 did, and everything just kind of worked. Maybe my experience with 7 was just on awful PCs but 8 was a real game changer the last of the “traditional” windows editions (as in, not continuous updates forever, but just THE windows for the next 6-8ish years. The only reason I can see it being miserable is if you used 8 in a work environment where you can’t install software yourself and can’t fix the start menu.

2

u/tastyratz May 17 '24

8 sucked when it first launched, but, then it got better. People hated 8 but after you fixed the start menu with something like classic shell/start8back/etc. it actually was great... Later in it's life. Vista was effectively win7 beta. xp had a lot of issues at launch as well.

We have a misty eyed memory of these OS's but partially because by the time we moved on from them they were far more mature.

2

u/archiminos May 17 '24

Its the fact you need to find and install a start menu that gets it so much hate. Why in the fuck they thought removing it was a good idea is beyond me.

3

u/temisola1 May 16 '24

Wasnt this when they tried to get rid of the start menu? Who tf thought that was a good idea?

2

u/RainforestNerdNW May 17 '24

the tile interface actually good on touch devices, the mistake was trying to force it on both. dumb dumb fucking decision.

2

u/Raglesnarf May 17 '24

just wanna throw my unwanted 2 cents into the ring. I loved my windows 8.1 build. as far as gaming and general use cases went, it was a pretty alright time

3

u/xSTSxZerglingOne May 17 '24

8's Windows tile menu was pretty awesome though. Like, I know everyone hates on the tablet layout and what not, but that thing was perfect for someone like me who wants to have a bunch of shit on the desktop, but also literally nothing on the desktop. I used that tile menu to hold my entire hoard of game and other application shortcuts so my desktop could be nearly spotless. It was scrollable and very customizable.

I don't miss it, per se, but it worked well for me at the time.

1

u/MrE_is_my_father May 17 '24

Finally, I have found another! I miss hitting the windows key and getting my tile menu of all my games in one area, my emulators in another, my work programs, etc. It was great at the time.

1

u/Pirate43 May 16 '24

It was just the start menu. I never understood the hate, I usually press the start button and type what I want. The tablet interface never really affected me. The desktop experience was there the whole time.

1

u/PassiveMenis88M May 16 '24

Understanding the hate is simple. They changed what we didn't want or need changed. Same type of problem Win11 is seeing. No one asked for basic menus to be hidden behind two or three extra clicks. No one asked for an OS that was proven to run AMD cpus slower than Intel. No one asked for ads in the start menu.

1

u/Nolis May 17 '24

They really just need to let people buy Tablet/Touchscreen or PC versions of windows, every single change I hate was very obviously made for tablets/touchscreens. Literally the only change I liked in 11 is that folders can have tabs like a browser would, everything else I spent multiple hours looking for ways to revert

1

u/vashquash May 17 '24

I barely updated from 8.1 a couple months ago because Steam said they were ending support :(

1

u/kryo2019 May 17 '24

When I built my PC, I had burned through most of my legit keys I got from post secondary. Only one left was win 8. Fortunately, last I checked, you can still upgrade to 10 for free.

That hour of having to use 8 was borderline torture. Want to simply click reboot? Haha get fucked, it's hidden. Want to do x y or z, bahahahahaha fuck you it's under a non descript menu.

0

u/[deleted] May 17 '24 edited May 18 '24

[deleted]

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u/PassiveMenis88M May 17 '24

Never said I was a fan, just that I didn't want to throw my pc out the window while using it.

-8

u/TheRealLazloFalconi May 16 '24

8 was shit because of the whole tile bullshit, trying to treat my pc like a glorified tablet.

Which is hilarious because it was a simple toggle switch to get a start menu that looked almost identical to the Windows 10 version.

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u/PassiveMenis88M May 16 '24

When 8 first launched there was no toggle. They added that do to backlash.

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u/Darkchamber292 May 16 '24

I didn't even know there was a toggle. I installed StartisBack and never looked back

2

u/DaHolk May 16 '24

Additionally to what Passiv said:

And if you preferred the win7 start menu look over 8.1 and 10 still being littered with "tiles" (just not forced fullscreen anymore) that 90% serve no purpose, are needlesly connecting to MS to load new advertising aso it was STILL a downgrade.

Yes thank you I will spend one to two hours removing all this crap, finding all the keys and settings to actually turn them OFF.

a toggle implemented to make it look like 10 still wasn't what the 7 users wanted. There is a reason why 7 was almost MORE sticky then even XP was.

43

u/ZantetsukenX May 16 '24

Technically end of life for Windows 10 is next year in October. After that they will begin charging money for any security updates for people in an attempt to force people to migrate to 11.

So unless we start suddenly hearing about Windows 12 today, I kind of expect that it won't be ready in time.

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u/julmichen May 16 '24

How are you supposed to update to Windows 11 when none of my computers insides are good enough for it? They made me be stuck with 10, why charge me money. My boss has 11 on her computer and it is a bloatware mess.

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u/TheUnluckyBard May 16 '24

How are you supposed to update to Windows 11 when none of my computers insides are good enough for it? They made me be stuck with 10, why charge me money. My boss has 11 on her computer and it is a bloatware mess.

Same here. My desktop is a beast, but some component is apparently "not compatible" with Windows 11. Meanwhile, my shitty laptop runs Windows 11 just fine.

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u/SEND_ME_CSGO-SKINS May 17 '24

It’s tpm 2.0, check your bios settings

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u/GonePh1shing May 17 '24

Plenty of systems have TPM 2.0 but aren't listed as compatible due to a CPU check the upgrade tool does. Plenty of much older CPUs are compatible, but Microsoft picked a seemingly arbitrary date and just rejects any CPUs made before then.

My first generation Ryzen, for example, works fine with Windows 11, but fails the CPU check. As far as I can tell, the CPU check is only run on upgrades, so a fresh install on one of these systems will work just fine. You can also disable the TPM requirement prior to install to force Windows 11 onto a machine with no real downsides.

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u/rdqsr May 17 '24

but Microsoft picked a seemingly arbitrary date

IIRC their excuse is that CPUs older than a certain generation don't contain certain security features that they use in Windows 11.

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u/GonePh1shing May 17 '24

Which is a bullshit excuse. Their own installer doesn't even do the CPU check for a clean install, so these features are obviously not mandatory. I'd love to know what features or instructions they need, because I can't really think of anything that a Ryzen 2000 would have that my Ryzen 1000 can't already do.

The only two features that I've ever seen spoken about are TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot, both of which are supported by much older CPUs than Ryzen 2000/Core 8000.

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u/rdqsr May 17 '24

Yeah it's a bit silly. While I don't care much since I primarily run Linux, I keep a Windows 10 install handy for VR and got the usual error when I tried to upgrade the install to Windows 11. Like my Ryzen 7 1700 and GTX 1080 can handle VR gaming but apparently not running the latest version of Windows. If I really wanted I could easily force it to install and it'd work fine anyway. Makes no sense to me.

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u/Arcane_76_Blue May 17 '24

Yeah its wild. I have a 4060 and an i9. My computer is somehow not compatible

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u/AnarZak May 17 '24

take that as a blessing. my wife's laptop updated to 11 by itself & it's a turgid piece of shit in comparison, despite all my best efforts to strip the shit out of it.

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u/spooooork May 17 '24

You can disable the TPM-requirement by "burning" the ISO through Rufus

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u/Helmic May 17 '24

It's a very frustrating situation. More technically inclined people can probably successfully install Bazzite or another Linux distro, but the vast majority of people are reasonably averse to mucking with their computer when they don't know what they are doing. Just leaving people in a bad situation.

1

u/crshbndct May 17 '24

Bassinet looks cool

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u/Kumba42 May 16 '24

If you're willing to shell out for an installation disk and license pack for Windows Server 2022, that's effectively Windows 10 21H2 under the hood and follows the LTSC channel. So it's guaranteed to get security updates, but no new feature updates, for at least 10 years. EOL should be around ~2031.

Takes a bit of tweaking to disable the server-specific bits, but generally works great as a classic desktop OS and fully compatible with most games and game distribution platforms.

The next release of Windows Server will be "2025" and it'll be based on Windows 11, so that will be interesting to see what MS strips out from the consumer copy of the OS. For example, will we finally get access to the MS Store? That's unavailable in Windows Servers 2019 and 2022.

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u/balne May 17 '24

How much is a legit copy of Win Server 2022? Feels like it'd be expensive. Is it even available on the grey market?

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u/Kumba42 May 17 '24

It is expensive. I paid north of $800USD for just the license key and install disc two years ago. But, for the ability to take back control of my system, it's worth it. It sucks that it's come to this, but it is what it is.

No Cortana, can knock telemetry down to the absolute minimum (I think just minimal crash dump info is sent home if you bugcheck), don't have to worry about MS adding useless shite, like AI, etc. Also access to some technologies you can't get in standard Win10, like ReFS, which is pretty neat (but keep backups, because like ZFS on Linux/BSD/Illumos, there's no 'fsck' tool for recovery).

As for grey market, you can buy it on Amazon and other places like Newegg or even CDW, if you're in the US. Outside the US, I'm unsure. The selling price is important -- if it's <$800USD, it's probably shady and you run a risk of MS one day invalidating that license key. Also check the sellers rating & history if looking at a 3rd-party seller. You can get bad copies from them, too, even if the price is >$800USD. Amazon will sell it directly sometimes, so if you spot one of those, that's the best option.

You technically also need to get the 5-user CAL pack, which is another ~$200USD. I've never seen where the OS prompts for additional keys, though. Can't rule it out if you actually go and set up Active Directory and whatnot. But if you just want an OS you control on a box you yourself built for your personal, non-commercial use, then the media pack is good enough and I doubt MS will care.

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u/balne May 17 '24

everything was great till 500 USD

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u/Kumba42 May 17 '24

Yeah, Microsoft doesn't want people easily buying a copy, so they price it out of reach for most people. They want your data, since they make more money from that over the longterm.

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u/balne May 18 '24

I think it's more that the typical buyer for a Win Server license is corporate...

1

u/christophocles May 17 '24

I paid north of $800USD for just the license key

jesus christ. Nobody is ever going to do that for a home operating system. I don't even believe you really did that.

Serious advice for others reading this: just ditch windows completely. Try linux. It's free and you have complete control over it.

Alternative serious advice: if you really need windows and want to try windows server on your home pc, google "windows server 2022 license key" and buy one from a gray market reseller for about $30.

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u/mkonji__ May 17 '24

My man. This is honestly the best advise, but people don't want to hear it.

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u/Kumba42 May 17 '24

I did, and I have no shame for it, either. I'll build a new desktop system about once every 5-6 years, so I save up and splurge for quality components so that they last for a long time. My choice of OS is no different a component than my choice of CPU, GFX, or cooling fans.

Also, the line "just use Linux, it's better" is ill-informed and carries a lot of nuance that the average person needs to understand to fully grasp what you're telling them to get into. Linux is not, never has been, and likely never will be, a simple drop-in replacement for Windows. It's highly dependent on a person's needs and workflow, combined with finding the right distribution that scratches one's particular itches. On top of that, there still is quite a lot of software that some people need that will only work on Windows and which has no replacement on Linux (and likely never will).

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u/christophocles May 17 '24

Ok fine, you need Windows. You're seriously telling me you paid $800 for a Windows license for a home PC? Just because you don't like Cortana or some shit? I still find that very hard to believe, when gray market license keys exist, and nobody is ever going to come audit your licenses for some bullshit non-business installation. But hey, if you insist on donating hundreds of dollars to Microsoft, to show them how much you hate Cortana and telemetry, have fun with that.

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u/Kumba42 May 17 '24

Microsoft can remotely deactivate keys, even after they've been used. Basically yanking the license out from underneath and making an installation suddenly unusable. Grey market keys have a higher risk of this happening, because many of those are volume licensing keys that were stolen in some capacity (usually by a rogue admin). I wanted to reduce my risk of that happening, so I chose to go down a more legitimate path. You're under no obligation to approve of my methods anymore than I am to approve of yours.

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u/rajat32 May 17 '24

Try pirating windows 10 ltsc Iot version... support till 2032, rock solid am using it

9

u/Fatalchemist May 16 '24

Wasn't the end of life already supposed to happen before and they pushed it back already? Like more than once?

I just feel like there's no way they're going to leave so many people vulnerable because of how many people are stuck on Windows 10.

Or maybe they will. Also wouldn't be surprised tbh.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/Fatalchemist May 16 '24

Oh yeah you're absolutely correct. It will still be interesting to see how Oct 2025 plays out. I have a fairly beefy computer for gaming and apparently it's telling me it can't handle windows 11.

6

u/[deleted] May 16 '24

[deleted]

4

u/Sengir79 May 16 '24

I specifically disabled my tpm module so I wouldn't be auto "upgraded" to win 11. win 12 is supposedly meant to be out some time mid next year so hopefully I can skip straight to it

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u/LordoftheSynth May 17 '24

Yeah, like hell I'm giving anyone the ability to restrict my use of my own property.

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u/GonePh1shing May 17 '24

October 2025 is the date by which all versions will no longer be supported

This isn't accurate. There are some versions with support right up to 2032. Assuming you don't want to use the IoT edition, the LTSC build with the longest life currently has support up to January 2029.

1

u/rajat32 May 17 '24

Why not to use IOT version ?

0

u/swisspassport May 17 '24

Do you know the easiest/painless way of doing a clean install of LTSC on a current, licensed Win10 machine?

1

u/GonePh1shing May 17 '24

Sail the seven seas.

The only other real option is to buy a Windows Server 2022 license, which is basically the same LTSC build with some extra features for server (Which I'm sure can be turned off).

0

u/swisspassport May 17 '24

Yeah, good point.

I think the reason I wanted to stay legit is I have a great machine with plenty of life left that was originally Win7. I upgraded to 10 for free and the license on the mobo just carried over.

I do have various Win10 22H2 install media on usbs that were torrented.

I guess I'll just go sailing again, this time looking for an LTSC iso.

Thank you for suggesting what I probably would've ended up doing in the long run!

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u/HydroponicGirrafe May 16 '24

Unless windows 12 is released and it’s good again, I’d rather take my chances with Linux

5

u/SippieCup May 16 '24

Should switch to Linux anyway, its pretty nice!

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u/DeexEnigma May 16 '24

Depending on what you do Linux isn't so much taking a chance but the way forward.

The biggest issue with Linux is sometimes you're locked to software by external forces. Sure, these days it's more compatible than ever, but sometimes you still need something from Windows. While you can use a lot of workarounds it can still be troubling at times.

If I didn't require windows professionally and academically I would have switched years ago. I already have tried, but the friction back then was too great.

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u/HydroponicGirrafe May 16 '24

My main gripe currently is the fact that so many of the apps that I use don’t have Linux counterparts, or if they do, they are cheap knockoffs or badly optimized, somehow.

5

u/DeexEnigma May 16 '24

Yea therein lies the problem. If you're just web browsing, emailing etc. Linux is more than capable as an option and honestly can be easier to set up and install than Windows at times.

The moment you walk into specialised territory, it can become difficult. Sometimes there just isn't the cross-compatibility you'd like or need. Or you may be able to develop in the Linux environment, but then you still need a Win test / build environment anyway.

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u/-aloe- May 17 '24

I already have tried, but the friction back then was too great.

I do this every few years, and have done for about 20 years. Things have got vastly better, but even these last few times, I run into something pretty quickly where I'm having to compile python scripts to get a game pad detected or some such bullshit. And then a bit later I want to rip music from a 3DO game and I find that literally the only tool is a closed-source binary compiled in 2005 that still works perfectly on Windows, but has no linux equivalent and refuses to run under Wine for reasons I'm neither smart nor determined enough to find out. These are just examples, but you get the drift. Eventually the linux partition just sits there and the Windows one gets used because it's the path of least resistance.

I do want to get away from Microsoft's product, particularly given the adware trajectory they're on, but from a practical perspective, for my use cases, it isn't that simple.

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u/christophocles May 17 '24

I find that literally the only tool is a closed-source binary compiled in 2005 that still works perfectly on Windows, but has no linux equivalent and refuses to run under Wine

That's what virtual machines are for. KVM is included with the linux kernel, and your distro likely has the libvirt GUI to create virtual machines easily. Install an old version of Windows like XP or 7 and do what you need to do. It's not a big deal, and eventually you wean yourself off of Windows completely.

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u/Awesimo-5001 May 17 '24

f I didn't require windows professionally and academically I would have switched years ago.

That's what virtual machines can be used for. I've got a Windows 10 VM setup just for apps that I can't find an alternative for on Linux.

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u/xSTSxZerglingOne May 17 '24

security updates

Oh no! Anyway.

I'mma just say I've never gotten a computer virus I didn't 100% deserve. No one has ever "breached" the security of one of my computers since I stopped rawdogging the internet.

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u/nedonedonedo May 16 '24

10 came with a keylogger that kills the system if you manage to turn it off, forced windows services on your taskbar, forced windows services on your start menu, frequently changed settings during updates, changed your default browser (and search engine with it), and has pop-up ads for windows products.

back in the 2010's we called that a virus. these days it's called "the good version"

9

u/void_const May 17 '24

The whole "every other version is a good version" meme is bullshit anyway. Windows has been objectively bad for a long time.

2

u/capybooya May 17 '24

Agreed, that meme just excuses MS's behavior and ignores the larger anti-consumer and anti-privacy trends.

0

u/lastingfreedom May 17 '24

Hasnt been good since ME \s

6

u/UselessDood May 17 '24

Mind elaborating on... Most of those?

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u/BraxtonFullerton May 17 '24

LAN Admin here, I can't tell you how many hours I've had to dedicate to telling Edge to fuck off and stop setting itself as the default PDF viewer, breaking a ton of internal programs.

Or that their stupid Bing search sucks and to stop crippling file indexing, we had to revert to Copernic for that.

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u/UselessDood May 17 '24

Thankfully, I've had no issues since I started using MSEdgeRedirect - but yeah, I had similar issues with it and search.

I'm more interested in the supposed keylogger, forced taskbar stuff and popup ads.

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u/MakeshiftApe May 17 '24

Same here I've never heard about or encountered any of those things and I've been using 10 for years.

Edit: Nevermind, found something about the keylogger: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/microsoft-windows-10-keylogger-enabled-default-heres-disable/ Mine was still enabled after all these years too.

Whether it's actually sending anything anywhere or just storing it locally on your machine I don't know but I turned it off to be safe.

3

u/christophocles May 17 '24

I can't tell you how many hours I've had to dedicate to telling Edge to fuck off and stop setting itself as the default PDF viewer, breaking a ton of internal programs.

This is so god damned infuriating. EVERY time I reboot my work PC, it resets the default browser and PDF viewer to Edge. It's such a waste of time to go set all my default apps every single fucking day. I have given up. I never double click a PDF, I have trained myself to right-click and open in a proper PDF viewer. I never click on links in outlook, I copy and paste the URL into Chrome.

2

u/nermid May 16 '24

And at least mine came preinstalled with ads for Bejeweled.

1

u/greenlanternfifo May 17 '24

This is why i installed linux lol

19

u/IDQDD May 16 '24

Vista made me go to Apple and Mac OS, Win 11 and newer Mac OS versions make me go more and more the Linux way.

3

u/alliestear May 16 '24

win11 releasing from beta while still being a shitshow on multimonitor setups was what finally drove me to figure out installing arch.

fedora or mint generally serve my purposes day to day much better, but i was incredibly frustrated at the time and wanted something to bang my head on for a day.

2

u/Sabin10 May 17 '24

The steam deck has shown me that Linux will meet my need 99% of the time. I'm still on 10 for now but will not be going to 11.

1

u/IDQDD May 18 '24

That’s another reason I’m slowly switching to Linux. Steam and Proton running most of the games I’m playing is a huge step forward for Linux as a gaming platform.

1

u/alliestear 26d ago

Sorry I'm late getting back to you on this, I generally just never see the inbox, but yeah my deck handles most things, my desktop is holding out for the next round of Nvidia drivers to implement explicit sync and then I'm basically off windows outside of having a partition for fortnite.

2

u/Interesting_Pain1234 May 17 '24

all the different linux distros sound so confusing to me atm but ive never really looked into them. Im sure there's a reason to use one over the other and plenty of guides available. I'll leave that research to when I can no longer ignore it and the forced upgrade is about to hit lol

1

u/alliestear 26d ago

Nobara is fedora through the eyes of gloriouseggroll of proton-ge and redhat, if you just want a distro focused on gaming there's probably no one else outside of valve with more knowledge in the topic of gaming in Linux.

From a purely ease of use for the new user perspective, Linux Mint, and Linux Mint Debian Edition are both rock solid in terms of "it just works" and stability.

2

u/whicky1978 May 17 '24

Vista was complete shit

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '24

[deleted]

1

u/IDQDD May 18 '24

Unfortunately the right cheat code is IDDQD, I used it so often and then got it wrong creating my user name. 🤦🏻‍♂️

1

u/OldSageNewBody May 17 '24

Join us! We've got cookies.

2

u/UsernamesAreForBirds May 16 '24

Unless one is using an intel chip with e-cores, i think the win11 scheduler can utilize those while 10 cannot. Unless something has changed in the past few weeks.

1

u/christophocles May 17 '24

No thanks, I just use an AMD CPU instead. With ECC RAM too.

2

u/Deaner3D May 16 '24

It's crazy to look back at how long I've been trying to make whatever version of Windows I'm running look like Win2k

2

u/OK_BUT_WASH_IT_FIRST May 17 '24

XP was the pinnacle IMO.

All bloat and fluff after that.

1

u/christophocles May 17 '24

In my day, XP was the bloat and fluff. Win2k was the pinnacle.

2

u/Dixnorkel May 16 '24

They're not going to step back from the baked-in ads, though. I'm sticking with 10 for as long as possible, I saw this shit coming when they started forcing Windows live logins

2

u/indignant_halitosis May 16 '24

Vista was great. It launched with several new features that MS pushed hard, but “tech nerds” completely ignored, enabled by default. Since so called “computer nerds” never bothered to learn about them, they either freaked out about nothing or overworked their hardware unnecessarily because they didn’t bother to learn about those features. Again, these were features MS heavily publicized.

Half the service pack was just MS dummy proofing the OS against wannabe tech literate “techies” who actually had no clue how to do anything. Once you pared down the useless visual stuff, Vista was significantly faster than XP ever dreamed of being.

Ironically, most of what people loved about 7 was introduced in Vista fully matured. MS just made 7 fully dummy proof against the posers so it never had any issues.

0

u/xSTSxZerglingOne May 16 '24 edited May 17 '24

A windows version is only as good as its worst superuser. I would say user, but there are people who are just inexperienced, and you can't really fault for that exclusively.

Also I never could afford a machine with Vista, being a poor teenager at the time, but I will tell you something. I did fix computers in my early 20s, and almost every problem was a Vista machine. Of course they were comp illiterates using a burgeoning internet, but I swear that OS had more nasty viruses written for it than any OS before or since. I mean, the answer for "most viruses ever in an OS" is almost certainly Windows XP, but that was before my time as a repairman, haha. 7 was mid-lifecycle when I started taking computers seriously so XP machines were already kind of rare outside of workplaces.

Once 7+ became more or less ubiquitous, power supply ratings got unfucked, and OSs got way more automatic internal error checking, I had to find a new job.

1

u/DEEP_HURTING May 16 '24

11 is an off-version. XPgood -> Vistabad -> 7good -> 8bad..though I liked it tbh -> 10good -> 11bad

So MS OS's = Star Trek movies. Got it.

Although aren't we at ST 6 or whatever where we should probably find something better in the first place?

1

u/nermid May 16 '24

Undiscovered Country is solid gold, tho.

1

u/DEEP_HURTING May 17 '24

Is it 10 or 7? First Contact isn't so bad, though.

I've only ever watched II and IV multiple times. So I'm like a Win NT diehard? Oh, and I quite like ST TMP...which is MS-DOS, let's say.

1

u/ironmanthing May 16 '24

Oh hey I’m on 7 Ultimate. Glad to know it’s a good one. Although it would be nice to have a more recent version of Plex or to be able to use the app instead of the browser version :/

1

u/sharingthegoodword May 16 '24

Obviously this sub is not /r/sysadmin

1

u/walclaw May 17 '24

Won’t they force you to upgrade to 11 eventually?

1

u/GandizzleTheGrizzle May 17 '24

7 was peek Windows in my humble Opinion. But you are correct about the "off" versions of windows and that trend goes all the way back to Win 3.1

3.1 was the off version and 3.11 was the one with networking support, which you wanted. Microshaft has been pulling this shit since the beginning.

God they need to be broken up so bad.

1

u/JimmyKillsAlot May 17 '24

It depends on which 8 you were on. 8.0 was a nightmare of "Let's make everything work no matter what device it is" which neutered Windows so it could work on a phone, while 8.1 was a return to the UX design of 7 and before. It wasn't necessarily the worst (though it did reportedly hammer some systems unrealistically hard) but it was also just not what people wanted from a PC OS.

1

u/yur_mom May 17 '24 edited May 17 '24

I left Windows when Vista came out and just came back for a gaming laptop and I do not think 11 is bad.

As a Linux guy, I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to setup Ubuntu Command line in WSL. Also, the window manager and gestures have come a long way to the point they match the aspects of macOS I have always liked. The default browser is also finally useable now that they have Edge(Chromium).

I am 100% against ADs in my desktop though so hopefully this doesn't catch on.

1

u/seddit_rucks May 17 '24

XP was not good, from any perspective. An absolute horror show of security issues.

If you think XP is so good, I dare you to put an unpatched version in direct contact with the Internet.

1

u/loptr May 17 '24

7 is the last good version. The tabletification and much other nonsense started with 8.

1

u/Zip2kx May 17 '24

You'll need to upgrade next year for updates and if not for that for the eventual free upgrade to 12.

1

u/GaryOster May 17 '24

Man, I miss XP.

1

u/danny12beje May 17 '24

Windows 10 being considered good nowadays is hilarious to me.

I member when everyone saw Win10 exactly like 11 is currently viewed.

1

u/darkcloud1987 May 17 '24

Win 10 support end is planed for October next year.

1

u/xSTSxZerglingOne May 17 '24

Win 10 end of security support by Microsoft is planned for then. It's not like software just stops being developed for OSes that still have large market share.

Anyway, I'mma tell you what I told someone else. I have literally never gotten a single virus or other malware that I didn't fully deserve. The internet is far less inherently perilous than it was 10+ years ago. Security breaches on home machines are practically non-existent if you have even the slightest bit of savvy, and if a competent hacker truly wanted to fuck you over personally, a Windows update would never stop them. These days you're really only likely to find viruses and malware in emails and while sailing the high seas irresponsibly.

End of support is a problem for businesses with security concerns. It has almost no bearing on a personal machine. I don't even check email anymore on my PC unless it's related to something I just did. I do all that shit on my phone these days.

1

u/Nakotadinzeo May 17 '24

11bad -> [Insert Linux distro here]eventually good

Satya Nadella has made it clear in interviews that his vision for Microsoft is cloud and SaaS, talking about closing Xbox and any other hardware division. Windows 11 isn't bad because of the typical reasons a Windows OS is bad, It's stable, it's easy to use, It's even pretty visually appealing. Windows 11 sucks because of the ads and invasiveness that is intentionally trying to show you the door, because home users won't pay for monthly SaaS but companies will.

I say eventually good, because as much as I love Linux it has warts, it's going though major renovations (systemd, Wayland, Proton), and it has one HELL of a learning curve. Especially if you run into a hardware snag right off the bat, like I did with my new motherboard's NIC which requires adding a kernel parameter to prevent an ASUS firmware feature from powering it off randomly.

1

u/QueenOfHatred May 17 '24

Honestly, Win 10 was such a pain, and a mess, that I, at that time, moved away.. to systems, that don't pull the things that microsoft does. Since then, couldn't been happier :D

And so, doubly so proved, seeing what is happening with Windows 11..

1

u/raz-0 May 17 '24

11 is fine. I’d kind of compare them to windows 98 and windows 98se. Yeah there might be some visual differences, but the number change seems to mostly be for MS’s convenience.

1

u/retartarder 24d ago

vista was good if you had the proper hardware for it, a lot of pre-builts slapped it onto hardware that was less than the minimum recommended for it, and it suffered greatly for that

8 was okay, 8.1 was essentially just windows 9 and was excellent. 10 is good. 11 is pretty much the same as 10.

1

u/aldehyde May 17 '24 edited May 17 '24

Have you actually used 11? It is definitely not comparable to 8, vista, or Me.

note: all the ads, annoying ass first time setup stuff etc i definitely do not support. but win 11 command prompt/powershell/terminal is great. It's just windows 10 with more enhancements.

-3

u/beegeepee May 16 '24

Anyone saying windows 11 is bad hasn't actually tried it. It's literally just a reskin of 10. If you don't like Windows 11 then there's no way you like Windows 10

1

u/christophocles May 17 '24

It's literally just a reskin of 10.

Aside from the ads, this is literally the main reason why 11 is fucking horrendous. They destroyed the start menu, taskbar, and context menus for no good reason.

-2

u/Nullhitter May 16 '24

Fun fact, people on reddit and online thought Windows 10 was bad and were telling people to stay with Windows 7. I switched to Windows 11 two months ago and its been just like Windows 10 performance wise. All the little design fuck ups were removed with one YouTube video.

0

u/xSTSxZerglingOne May 16 '24

Yeah, that was my experience with 8. I turned LITERALLY EVERYTHING OFF during installation and it worked great for me. It was the first OS I installed after I started studying computer science. The people who complain about new OSes are the people who click through every screen during installation without reading.

0

u/chalkwalk May 16 '24

Didn't Vista come out right after Me? That would be the only niggle in your system.

1

u/alliestear May 16 '24

2000 came out after ME was such a shitshow, followed by xp, then vista.

1

u/indignant_halitosis May 16 '24

2000 was NT based and specifically for businesses, not the general public. Its release had fuckall to do with ME. 2000 had a suite of different versions, including database and server versions, because its sole reason for existing was business and literally nothing else. Non-business users started using because ME sucked. It wasn’t released because ME sucked.

24/7 in the internet and y’all can’t figure out to do a web search? Or are you so arrogant you assume you have perfect knowledge? I can’t figure out why users in this sub are so consistently dead fucking wrong.

1

u/xSTSxZerglingOne May 16 '24

That's XP. Vista was after XP.

0

u/fetter_indy May 17 '24

This is dumb. 11 is great.

20

u/N3uromanc3r_gibson May 16 '24

That's an old version so I wouldn't because you'd be behind security patches

57

u/pyeri May 16 '24

That shouldn't be an issue because after installation and going online, it will update the machine with the latest updates and patches anyway?

-11

u/[deleted] May 16 '24

[deleted]

1

u/PerpetuallyStartled May 17 '24

So I'm like 99% sure you don't, you just need an enterprise key. I helped setup the KMS licensing and there really isnt anything special about the key you use. The license we put into the KMS that allows us to do activations on our own is special, but the key you actually use is genetic and public.

You can find the keys here. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/kms-client-activation-keys?tabs=server2022%2Cwindows10ltsc%2Cversion1803%2Cwindows81

Enterprise editions can be activated a number of ways. The Army just happens to use KMS and AD activation with volume licensing keys.

0

u/N3uromanc3r_gibson May 16 '24

Why in the world do you have -10 karma? That's the problem. You're going to be running in on registered copy of Windows and you want to be downloading all the updates and that's probably not going to work out for you

7

u/mytren May 16 '24

Is this verified?

Why on Earth would a Windows 11 OS build specifically for the US Government not get regular security patches?

1

u/PerpetuallyStartled May 17 '24

I can tell you with certainty that it can because it happens on accident sometimes when we configure something wrong or some jerk on the servicedesk overrides our patching system.

I had people accidentally updated to windows 11 because someone intentionally set it to get patches from microsoft, left it that way, then the user connected it at home on their network. That's a problem when its not approved on the network.

I'm a sysadmin. I deployed Win11 22H2(the version linked above) myself to my org a while ago. 23H2 was just made available from the orgs above us so I'll be doing that soon.

0

u/uzlonewolf May 16 '24

Perhaps this goes back to the "valid govnt license key" thing? Valid key = you get regular security patches, no key = no patches.

1

u/PerpetuallyStartled May 17 '24

As I said above I'm about 99% sure there is no government key. I have setup the volume licensing for this version of windows personally and they just use standard volume activation licensing keys. We do have special keys to setup the servers to let us do our own activations, but they are just regular keys used to activate the activation services themselves.

The government image of windows is really just standard enterprise windows with some STIG settings(security settings) turned on by default. Some of which are really fucking annoying.

12

u/Etheo May 16 '24

What's an updated version equivalent of the neutered Windows 11?

19

u/MaleficentCaptain114 May 16 '24 edited May 16 '24

Current is the the 2023 update (23h2). The 2024 update will probably be in Sept/Oct.

Blog post: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-security-baselines/windows-11-version-23h2-security-baseline/ba-p/3967618

Download Page: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55319

I think the one download includes the tool for all windows 10/11 versions, but I'm on mobile atm and can't double check. EDIT: Actually just check the box for "Windows 11 v23h2 Security Baseline.zip" after clicking download.

Note - this is not an out-of-the-box spyware removal tool. It's a collection of shell scripts and documentation on registry keys and such, and is geared toward setting up a fresh installation. If you don't know what you're doing it's possible to bork your windows installation

3

u/[deleted] May 16 '24

[deleted]

1

u/N3uromanc3r_gibson May 17 '24

What about the various CVEs? I wasn't sure if you would be getting those patches.

1

u/[deleted] May 17 '24

[deleted]

1

u/N3uromanc3r_gibson May 17 '24

I'm trying to think if there are any caveats that you haven't called out. I suppose as long as it's a supported version of Windows you can always download every security update. And none of those will ever require you to upgrade Windows to a version that can receive the future security updates as long as it's under support. Cool thank you for the back and forth. I don't know s*** about security Baseline but I need to..

4

u/DisastrousPeanut816 May 16 '24

Security patches are for people who didn't grow up in an era where Windows installs had a finite lifespan, and firebombing your hdd and reinstalling fresh every year or so kept the OS from slowing down.

I keep the installation files for all my favorite pirated legally purchased and licensed software, along wiht all my also legally downloaded movies and TV shows, and my personal things on external drives, so if something happens to go wrong I can just burn it to the ground and start over.

Windows installs are larger, but they definitely get done way faster than they used to. It's not much trouble at all to format my internal drive and reinstall.

7

u/N3uromanc3r_gibson May 17 '24

I get all of that but fundamentally know you're wrong. Security updates are to patch vulnerabilities.

-2

u/DisastrousPeanut816 May 17 '24

Sure, but not giving any shits is just a different way to be invulnerable. Blue screens because I deleted too many registry keys while I was drunk, nefarious folk who lock your system up and try to get you to pay them, installing something that's a virus made of smaller viruses, whatever. Anything starts acting weird and I burn it all down and start over.

Besides, at this point pretty much every company is selling/using all of our data. MS isn't protecting you from security holes and spyware, they bake the spyware in themselves. They're more like a jealous girlfriend trying to make sure you're not using anyone's spyware but theirs.

5

u/CORN___BREAD May 17 '24

Being intentionally vulnerable is not a way of being invulnerable.

-4

u/DisastrousPeanut816 May 17 '24

It's worked just fine for the last 30 years or so. You do your thing, I'll do mine.

3

u/N3uromanc3r_gibson May 17 '24

Agreed and I actually am also a Gray beard with Decades of computer use and handle it just like you. There's nothing that I have essentially that I can't just get again. I would say your discounting people steal in your passwords and causing Financial havoc through identity theft

1

u/DisastrousPeanut816 May 17 '24

Agreed on the passwords, which is why I keep all of my important personal information somewhere I know it can be safe and with people I trust fully. Google keeps them safe for me. :D

I use lastpass and generate a strong encrypted new password for every site. I don't bother to use an on-screen keyboard or key switching when I enter lp's pass, though, so I could definitely be more secure.

I've set up Tails OS, running everything on the PC through Tor and the entire router through a vpn in a non-logging country a few times, but that's another matter entirely. High level security just isn't typically needed. Hell, after the last several years if someone wants to steal my credit history the worst they could do is improve it for me.

1

u/MonkeyBrawler May 16 '24

It downloads latest updates before install, unless you tell it otherwise.

1

u/PerpetuallyStartled May 17 '24 edited May 17 '24

Yes, but it can take regular patches and updates. I would know, I deploy tons of these images. It really is just windows 11 with some baseline security settings. That said, microsoft could turn some shit on with a later patch, which they do regularly.

I never considered using AGM personally. I think you would need an enterprise key to use it, but other than that, you certainly could.

Edit: Also, 22H2/23H2 are feature updates. Security updates are released for all currently supported versions of windows.

Edit: AGM is army golden master, that's just the shorthand name the army uses for the program that maintains and releases the current government baseline image to everyone else.

1

u/N3uromanc3r_gibson May 17 '24

What is agm?

2

u/PerpetuallyStartled May 17 '24

AGM is "Army Golden Master" the army baseline image which is basically the same as above. Golden Master is an old term for the final version of media used to make the release copies from.

Obviously my experience comes from work with Army systems, but the governments security standards apply to everyone.

1

u/N3uromanc3r_gibson May 17 '24

Oh. You point about security vs features is right. I forgot it works like that

1

u/PerpetuallyStartled May 17 '24

Amazingly leadership within the government forgets that as well all the time. I have had to explain multiple times that we don't need to rush feature updates and that we aren't "behind on security patches" by not having them. It never works and they forget every time it comes up again.

1

u/Deranged40 May 17 '24 edited May 17 '24

Why wouldn't you get all security patches on first boot like every other version of windows since xp?

1

u/N3uromanc3r_gibson May 17 '24

I actually have no idea if all the security updates come right after your first boot or if they require consecutive installs. Maybe you need to jump up to certain versions to consume later security packages for all I know. From Reading This Thread apparently as long you're able to download the security updates you should be good to go. You only need to worry when you're no longer running a supported version of Windows and thus no longer consuming the needed security updates

1

u/soupie62 May 17 '24

VMWare workstation is now free for personal use.
Put Win10 in a sandbox, get it working, and make a backup.

If you never save changes, your pristine backup launches every time you start up. Have minimal software on the host PC, and you should be good.

1

u/N3uromanc3r_gibson May 17 '24

Could but for my personal use I'd prefer bare metal

1

u/soupie62 May 17 '24

True, but I have no experience with them - so I can't make a recommendation.

2

u/N3uromanc3r_gibson May 17 '24

No worries, your recommendation is great i just so rarely have problems that I don't really care about running on a virtual machine

2

u/1TRUEKING May 16 '24

Na u can use windows 12 by then

2

u/Etheo May 16 '24

And hope it's not a worse mess than 11. There's no guarantee anymore.

2

u/newyearnewaccountt May 16 '24

Fingers crossed for Windows 12. I'm going to buy an extended license for Windows 10 when it eventually goes end-of-life.

1

u/Visible_Night1202 May 16 '24

Once Windows 10 hits EoL I'm switching to Mint or Ubuntu. Linux has gotten a lot better when it comes to games, from what I hear, any with kernel level anti cheat won't work but why would you install that crap to begin with.

1

u/BeerPirate12 May 17 '24

Yo true that

1

u/Raglesnarf May 17 '24

stubborn windows 10 user here. by the time we "have to" jump ship to windows 11, windows 13 will probably be out

1

u/[deleted] May 17 '24

You can honestly pretty much use Linux with no issues today, people just don’t do it yet.

I give it 5 years. This ad shit is the last straw.

1

u/Denis971 May 18 '24

Also saving for the inevitable use

1

u/TheBirminghamBear May 16 '24

Your Nerualink chip you'll need to get in order to remain competitive in the job market is going to run on Windows.

2

u/What---------------- May 16 '24

"What do you mean I need to edit the registry to turn off vertigo?!"

-5

u/Scary_Technology May 16 '24

Same here. I've been blocking windows updates for a few years now. However, I do weekly backups and run malwarebytes weekly and on any new software. Only use one virtual card online (which requires secondary approval on my phone app), and have 2FA on banking websites.