Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 83 posts

Re: Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

#51

Post by arepublicadoceu »

I'm always upgrading to Windows 11 after some big release and then quickly reverting back to Windows 10.

Things I can't live without:

- Ungrouping programs on my taskbar. For the love of god. I can't use a desktop without this;

- The right click on explorer is still beyond dumb with that absurd two step to go to the useful stuff.

- I "really" don't like how they grouped the icons on the traybar. On Windows 10 you can click on the wireless icon and then immediatly change your wifi. On windows 11 you need to activate that group settings and then click on the wifi item.

I'm well aware that I can install third party options to aleviate these painpoints, but it doesn't make a lot of sense install a bunch of third party software to fix things that I shouldn't be fixing anyway.

So, for the time being the plan is to use windows 10 until EOL and then hope that Linux is in better shape for my Hardware by 2025.

Re: Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

#53

Post by AlexandrB »

ahelwer wrote: post #29
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with absolutely no other option. Linux is fine if you're a developer, but if you're a gamer or artist that needs real GPUs then you're stuck on Windows.

Gaming is changing very rapidly now that Valve is investing real resources into the platform to support the steam deck.

I think what Valve achieved is amazing, but we're nowhere near major publishers targeting Linux as SOP. That means that if Valve loses interest in the Steam Deck you're probably going to see game compatibility for newer titles start to degrade.

I think there's kind of an ironic downside to Valve's approach as well. Proton is so good that there's little incentive for developers to support Linux natively - they can just target Windows and rely on Valve to fix it.

Still, this is the best that Linux gaming has been in my lifetime.

Re: Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

#54

Post by lostmsu »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #24
zulban wrote: post #11

There must be a word for people who complain relentlessly about a brand or company but keep going back to it anyway.

People with absolutely no other option. Linux is fine if you're a developer, but if you're a gamer or artist that needs real GPUs then you're stuck on Windows.

> Linux is fine if you're a developer

Eh. I still don't want to waste my time fixing boot issues. And still prefer multiple screens to 1, which does not work well yet.

Re: Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

#55

Post by lostmsu »

cute_boi wrote: post #19
thucydides wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Windows 11?

The main question is whats the benefit of windows 11 over windows 10? I only see disadvantage where we need to have TPM so we can accept their DRM in future, or useless taskbar where dragging and dropping doesn't work etc. Not to mention that additional bloats that will be added in windows 10. Windows Xp could run in 128MB and that was perfectly fine for people like me. But now even 4gigs is not sufficient to run pc…

Android compat layer.

Re: Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

#56

Post by origin_path »

There's a problem here that I think people (devs) aren't really aware of yet - Microsoft have practically stopped working on Windows 10. For quite a long time now, all new bug fixes go into 11 and they aren't being reliably back ported. It used to be that if there was a bug in Windows, and Microsoft fixed it, you could remove your workarounds after a year or three because Win10 updates do get applied and nearly everyone would have upgraded. Now Win10 is being frozen in time modulo security updates, that won't happen anymore. Bugs in Win10 are bugs ~forever more or less, because users won't upgrade.

I hope that at some point Microsoft wakes up and realizes that after years of effort to heal previous userbase forks, it's just gone and done it again. Apps will have to test and support Win10 as the baseline and will basically ignore Win11 only features, or APIs that have bugs in Win10. This situation will last for a very long time now - and for what? Being able to say you have a TPM? Who cares, apps won't be able to target Win11 TPM or not for many, many years.

Re: Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

#57

Post by lostmsu »

LegitShady wrote: post #7

I run windows on ~4 computers. All are on windows 10. I haven't actually seen anything from Windows 11 that seems like an improvement worth upgrading for, and two of the machines would need me to purchase a TPM module to get it to install. Some features and lack thereof are baffling. It's been out a year and you still can't move the taskbar, and you can't stop it from combining applications in the tasbar. wtf? Window…

> two of the machines would need me to purchase a TPM module to get it to install

Most of the older PCs have firmware TPU built-in, but for some weird reason disabled in BIOS. Are you sure it is not the case for you?

Re: Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

#58

Post by origin_path »

wslh wrote: post #35

It is unacceptable but I wonder if Microsoft now should prioritize a future new OS cutting the monstruous legacy aspects of Windows. Since few devices will run Windows 11 and big organizations will be forced to spend more in their "modernization" projects it can be time to cut the umbilical cord to the past (e.g. Win32).

Microsoft did that already years ago. Win32 hasn't been their recommended API for a very long time. They have WinRT now, which is in many ways a much nicer API except that nobody cares, it's too late already, hardly anyone writes Windows specific apps anymore and when they do it's mostly "legacy" .NET WPF stuff.

So, Windows isn't being held back by Win32 specifically. What's killing them is the combination of:

- General inability to implement new tech that can be used to pay down old tech debt (not specific to any particular API). This is largely due to ...

- A barely competent team that clearly checked out mentally years ago and doesn't care. Supposedly they lost so many people to Google and Azure that Windows hardly has any experienced seniors anymore, and if you try to use anything they did in the last 10 years then really, it shows. Worse the Windows team never shook its C++ centric culture despite badly needing the productivity and hirability boost that comes from modern GCd languages.

- Extremely poor team coherence, prioritization of projects etc. Why are they re-designing the task bar when basic initiatives flail around, unadopted for lack of bug fixes or quality docs?

None of those problems would be fixed by MS doing a new OS project because they are primarily management problems, not technical problems.

Re: Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

#59

Post by AlexandrB »

josteink wrote: post #37
stronglikedan wrote: post #10

Last I checked, I still couldn't drag an object onto the task bar to move it or open it in my selected program, so it's still a downgrade for me.

Can you don that on MacOS? Because the "new Windows" is now designed by Mac users[1] internally in Microsoft and they are seemingly trying to make everything Mac-y. [1] I'd love to find a reference for that, but I've searched for 15 minutes straight now, and I just can't find the link. Someone help me, please?

I've actually never used this Windows feature, but in MacOS you've been able to drag a document to an application icon in the dock to open it as long as I can remember.

Windows seems to be slowly succumbing to touch-screen-itis, where the interface is designed for touching first. Dragging on a touch screen can be kind of janky at the best of times so I'm not surprised they didn't bother making this interaction work in Windows 11.

Re: Windows 11 runs on fewer than 1 in 6 PCs

#60

Post by Shared404 »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #24
zulban wrote: post #11

There must be a word for people who complain relentlessly about a brand or company but keep going back to it anyway.

People with absolutely no other option. Linux is fine if you're a developer, but if you're a gamer or artist that needs real GPUs then you're stuck on Windows.

> but if you're a gamer or artist that needs real GPUs then you're stuck on Windows.

The Steam Deck would disagree with the first half of that, and I spend an awful lot of time gaming on Linux with the exact same "workflow" as Windows gamers.

Can't speak for artists, though my understanding is that it's Adobe, not Windows which has them stuck.

Post reply on HN