I read through the nearly 400 comments and no one brought up using the LTSC edition of Windows, which actually gets out of your way or that you don't own the OS when you use a proprietary operating system. I'm not really sure what to make of this as it seems people prefer to complain as if they were hostages to the whims of others. I buy my computers with Linux pre-installed on supported machines. All those complaint…
Suggesting switching to an entirely different OS to someone who's complaining that their habitual OS no longer behaves as it used to isn't very useful.
>I'm not really sure what to make of this as it seems people prefer to complain as if they were hostages to the whims of others. I buy my computers with Linux pre-installed on supported machines.
You don't understand because you're failing to empathize with what people are saying, because it's not a problem you personally experience. Let's see if this works: suppose you find a shoe manufacturer that makes these really neat shoes that you love. You love them so much that every time they wear out, you buy the next model from that manufacturer. Each model is slightly different from the last, but you like all of them better than the competition. As you've gotten used to them, you've started to develop certain habits with these shoes, such as a technique to tie the laces that makes you do it very fast. But over time, the manufacturer has started to change the way it makes the shoes, such that they're not as comfortable as they used to be, or some of your habits no longer work with them. Now, you don't want to buy from a different manufacturer. At this point your feet are accustomed to the way these shoes fit, and other shoes feel completely different, even if in some ways they're objectively better. You don't want shoes from a different brand, you want the shoes this one used to make, which used to be so much better than this.
TL;DR: Something can be worse than it used to be, and still be better than the alternatives.