Live data from Hacker News

Not-so-great features coming soon to Windows 11

neowin.net

661–670 of 679 posts

Re: Not-so-great features coming soon to Windows 11

#661

Last week I allowed it to "upgrade" to Win 11 22H2. Part of the upgrade involved silently resetting a heap of my default apps. When the upgrade was done, Firefox was no longer my default browser, it was changed to Edge. Also, the default apps for PDF, JPG, PNG, TXT, MKV, and probably others that I haven't yet discovered, were set to their MS equivalent apps. Microsoft, this was not a nice thing to do to a user.

I've never had that happen to me in 20+ years of using and updating Windows. I suspected it's an urban legend but when a friend told me they experienced it with a feature update in Windows 11 I inquired further: It turns out during the first startup after a feature update in Windows 11 (and 10) they sometimes show a bunch of new prompts, one of which is a very vague text with a big (default) "Recommended Settings" an…

Let me present a counterpoint.

I have two Apple machines. One is old and stuck on Catalina – three iterations behind the current macOS [Catalina -> Big Sur -> Monterey -> Ventura] – so for a long while I kept both on Catalina to avoid issues. Sadly, the older machine died a few weeks ago, so I decided to update the other machine to Monterey (because Ventura is still in the teething-troubles phase).

Now I get about 9 Mbps here, so I started the upgrade before bed, and left it overnight to do its thing. Next day I was presented with the garish boot Monterey boot-screen and logged in.

That’s it. This is a boring story.

There were a few small cosmetic differences, but otherwise everything was just as it was before. No clicks required. No dark patterns. Dare I say: it just worked.

There’s no reason Microsoft, or any other company, can’t do this. It’s simply respecting the user/customer.

I left the Microsoft universe about a decade ago simply because it felt too stressful. Nothing was concrete. It felt like the sand was always shifting beneath you. I have no love of Apple – I’ll move if they start playing games – but for now, they do most things – far from everything – well, and I never feel disrespected, even if my wallet is somewhat lighter every now and then.

Re: Not-so-great features coming soon to Windows 11

#662

Microsoft did a tremendous amount of hard work to convince me to make the effort to migrate away from Windows at home and at work. They want to lease me a word processor. They want to put ads in my digital filing cabinet. They want to take 30% of my software revenue, and when they realized they couldn't have it, they said they'd settle for 12%. No dice. There are zero Windows machines in my home or in my business rig…

I literally just yesterday super painstakingly "downgraded" to Win10 because W11 was/is so terrible. I had to take my Win laptop into Bestbuy because of this ridiculous situation in which Windoze was telling me I needed to buy a "legitimate" copy of the stupid operating system and I wasn't able to fix it myself without doing all sorts of stuff involving editing registries and God knows what else. The Best Buy guy was like "yeah, I wouldn't have recommended putting Win 11 on it. I can wipe it and put 10 on if you want", which I gladly accepted. Normally I use Ubuntu, I just bought a Win laptop because it seems easier to print from a Windows computer than a Linux PC, sadly.

Re: Not-so-great features coming soon to Windows 11

#664
post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a midi controller to make music for a game I'm working on part-time, knowing absolutely nothing at all about music. It is the most relaxing, pleasant time-sink I have encountered in years, I wish someone had told me the joy of music creation earlier. Even just fiddling with the piano is quite extraordinarily relaxing.

Ah, I remember the joys of discovering music production and the exploration of the audio multiverse. What I wouldn't give to be in your shoes right now :) I also unfortunately remember trying to RTFM incomplete / incorrect docs and trying to hunt down some obscure forums in search for some nuggets of knowledge. Oh, and YT wasn't quite a thing it is today, so watching potato resolution YT videos (if any) was the norm.…

Thanks! The problem nowadays is sorting the wheat from the chaff, there's so much stuff on the internet, it's hard to find "the best" material instead of lazy SEO stuff. The list will help, thanks again.

Re: Not-so-great features coming soon to Windows 11

#665
Due to a range of software compatibility, and the new scheduler, I'm going to have to upgrade to windows 11 soon.

For those who upgraded: is there an edition (like win10 LTSC), which disables all these nonsense, and creates a livable computing environment?

If not, is there something like w10privacy for windows 11?

if neither, what's the current-best guide of setting up, and locking in a livable environment?

Re: Not-so-great features coming soon to Windows 11

#666

Last week I allowed it to "upgrade" to Win 11 22H2. Part of the upgrade involved silently resetting a heap of my default apps. When the upgrade was done, Firefox was no longer my default browser, it was changed to Edge. Also, the default apps for PDF, JPG, PNG, TXT, MKV, and probably others that I haven't yet discovered, were set to their MS equivalent apps. Microsoft, this was not a nice thing to do to a user.

Of many sh!ty things WU/upgrading does, this is the most infuriating one. Why on earth do MS want to be so hostile towards their users is beyond me. I haven't recommended Windoze laptop to any of my friends-n-family since the downward spiral of Win8 or so.

Re: Not-so-great features coming soon to Windows 11

#667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people waste electricity.

If "not being an irresponsible sociopath" is a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder then just call me Harry Handwasher.

Wow, you've managed to speak derogatorily about both people who waste electricity snd those with OCD. Well done.

Re: Not-so-great features coming soon to Windows 11

#668

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally run my own activation server ( https://github.com/Wind4/vlmcsd ), and just point the Windows installation there. Or you can use one of the many servers that are floating around the internet. Either way, it's a bit annoying unfortunately. Also, my country's second hand electronics market has LTSC keys for sale for like $25. That might be worth looking into.

I've seen that stuff floating around and it brings me back to my warez days. I've put that behind me though and I just want an honest relationship now and I'm consistently finding that in the open source community, it's like a breath of fresh air.

>I just want an honest relationship now and I'm consistently finding that in the open source community, it's like a breath of fresh air.

I share these feelings deeply. Furthermore, what Microsoft (and other large tech companies) put people through via their systems, feels like an abusive relationship to me. FOSS, for the most part, aligns much closer to my idea of computation. A kernel of deep contempt remained in me however, from my old days of using, and hacking, my Windows system which just never worked long in the way I wanted it to. And I remember reading news on Microsoft proposals such as "Trusted Computing", where the idea was that Windows would scan your files when they are being opened, to determine if it's a legitimate copy and refuse to work with it if it's not approved[0]. That was such an outrageous idea to me back in mid 2000s that it cemented in me that I won't give Microsoft any money. Which of course softened, over the years, I bought second hand Windows licenses for computers I set up for others, for example, but still... the one installation I have to keep around for gaming, will never be a legitimate copy as long as I can manage.

For added fun, the KMS emulator I'm using is open source, and runs on Linux :)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing#Digital_righ...

Re: Not-so-great features coming soon to Windows 11

#669
post #34

This can all be summarized as: Microsoft is going down market. Of course if Apple starts with this stuff they too will start going down market and open an opportunity for someone else to own the high end. If I pay for it it better not have ads. If something I pay for starts adding ads I cancel.

This. A services company is inherently downmarket. Easy positioning for MS, but Apple's eyeing becoming a services company too, which fights against their high end hardware business' demands.

Re: Not-so-great features coming soon to Windows 11

#670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I had a windows machine in my house was 2005. Even my elderly parents run Linux, supported by me of course. They don't know even know the difference.

Took me a few tries over the years but maybe 5 years ago I tried dual booting Linux yet again and that time it stuck. I found myself leaving it on the Linux side for longer and longer stretches of time. Finally last year someone gave me a hand-me-down laptop and I just didn't bother installing windows. Everything I do takes place in the shell, an IDE (of which there are tons), or by far the most common, in the browse…

>Today I had a random person look over my shoulder and ask "what kind of computer is that? Must be really old..."

Consider that a badge of honor.

Post reply on HN