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Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining

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Re: Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining

#61
post #7

I’m wondering, what keeps Windows afloat? I’ve become a Windows person in my childhood, and stayed one because games, Photoshop and 3DS Max ran on it. I’ve long switched to Linux (and dual-boot to a very much unloved Win10 for games that don’t run on Linux these days), and I’m baffled that ads occurring in the start menu are a thing – I was similarly shocked when Ubuntu tried this, and will always be cautious around…

Games and media, for me. I'm about to convert my Proxmox file/VM server to Windows, because I want it to double as a media server and Linux GPU support (much less hardware passthrough) is more than I want to deal with. I converted my laptop from Fedora to Windows recently to be able to do some light gaming, and because I want to see if Windows suspend is better on battery than the quick drain I was getting on Fedora.

I actually just built a new PC this weekend, my first in a while, with a Radeon GPU. I decided to give Fedora Kinoite a chance on it just because Windows' transition to becoming an ad platform was really pissing me off and it doesn't hurt to see what Linux is like now, especially something weird like an atomic OS.

To my surprise, games just work. I haven't really attempted this in over a decade, but I was able to play Hunt Showdown, Halo Infinite, Counter-Strike 2, Baldurs Gate 3, and Doom Eternal all without issues or configuration. Kinoite itself is pretty awesome; my system is immutable and treated like a git repo, KDE 6 is extremely polished and visually appealing, and any dev work just runs in their handy "toolbox" utility.

The rest of the stuff I use (Signal, Discord, Google Chrome, Blender, Krita, Godot) is all natively supported.

I don't see myself touching Windows again, it has nothing I need at this point.

Re: Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining

#62

I finally got the upgrade to Windows 11 and it's... fine? I don't get all of the hate. Maybe it's because I'm late and everything has been fixed, but it's actually been my favorite version of Windows so far. It finally axed some of the vestigial UIs from Windows 8. And built-in driver support for things like controllers and bluetooth accessories have been a huge upgrade. I'm ready to be showered in a hail of messages…

It's not fine. File explorer context menu, taskbar, it was a half baked OS when first released. It improved, but they shouldn't have release it as it was. Taskbar is still a mess, sometimes I have to reboot to get it working again. And still I can't move on the side.

There is a decade old rule: don't upgrade to the next windows version before the first Service Pack is released.

Re: Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining

#63

I finally got the upgrade to Windows 11 and it's... fine? I don't get all of the hate. Maybe it's because I'm late and everything has been fixed, but it's actually been my favorite version of Windows so far. It finally axed some of the vestigial UIs from Windows 8. And built-in driver support for things like controllers and bluetooth accessories have been a huge upgrade. I'm ready to be showered in a hail of messages…

It's not fine. File explorer context menu, taskbar, it was a half baked OS when first released. It improved, but they shouldn't have release it as it was. Taskbar is still a mess, sometimes I have to reboot to get it working again. And still I can't move on the side.

I haven't had any problem with any of those things - maybe I lucked out with hardware support.

However, some longstanding problems I had on Windows with controller and displays and accessories have finally just disappeared.

So YMMV.

Re: Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining

#64
post #34
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you can upgrade from w10 to w11 for free, without reinstalling full system. It's not really much different then 'w10 updates forever', just marketing with new version.

Unless you happen to have a CPU which isn't supported, like those still being made at the time when w11 was released. High end cpus too.

Even with most unsupported CPUs you can upgrade to Windows 11. (edit: I think everything newer than 1st gen Intel core is still working)

And there is not one piece of software I know of, that promises infinite support time. Windows 10 keeps its promised EOL dates.

Re: Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining

#65
post #7

I’m wondering, what keeps Windows afloat? I’ve become a Windows person in my childhood, and stayed one because games, Photoshop and 3DS Max ran on it. I’ve long switched to Linux (and dual-boot to a very much unloved Win10 for games that don’t run on Linux these days), and I’m baffled that ads occurring in the start menu are a thing – I was similarly shocked when Ubuntu tried this, and will always be cautious around…

At work we write a CRUD-ish B2B application, and it started its life on Windows so is a Win32 application. We're working on transitioning to the web so perhaps in a decade we'll be entirely off Windows, but for now we and our users run Windows. Directly, or indirectly via published applications. At home it's primarily RDP. Haven't found any viable alternative for Linux, so my main desktop stays Windows for now.

At home it's primarily RDP. Haven't found any viable alternative for Linux, so my main desktop stays Windows for now.

X2go is alright

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/X2Go

Re: Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining

#66
post #42

Microsoft likes to alternate between good and bad releases of Windows. XP was good, Vista was bad. 7 was good, 8 was bad. 10 was good, and 11 is kind of bad. Not as bad as Vista or 8, but still noticeably worse than 10. Here’s hoping that 12 will be an OS with upgrading to.

They broke that streak at the turn of the century. 95 was bad, 98 was good, 2000 was good, XP was good, and then Vista was bad.

Extremely hot take: Vista was not actually that bad. It was just too many new things at once and required such a massive hardware upgrade.

Windows 7 was not that fundamentally different, but by the time it came out the bandaid had been ripped off.

Re: Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining

#67
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They broke that streak at the turn of the century. 95 was bad, 98 was good, 2000 was good, XP was good, and then Vista was bad.

Extremely hot take: Vista was not actually that bad. It was just too many new things at once and required such a massive hardware upgrade. Windows 7 was not that fundamentally different, but by the time it came out the bandaid had been ripped off.

Actually, I used Vista myself for around a year, and for me subjectively it was okay. I later upgraded that installation to 7 and used it several more years on the same hardware.

Re: Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining

#68
post #23

Is there any way to buy a new legit Windows 10 install today?

Yes, you just use the Win10 media installer (free download from MS) and buy a win10 key off Amazon or wherever.

Or don't. I ran Windows 10 with the upgrade nag message for 9 years.

Re: Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining

#69

Valve have done the world a huge favour with their work enabling Steam and PC gaming on linux. Windows 11 is so outright irritating I do not know how anyone could choose to use it. For most purposes KDE is a better Windows facsimile than Windows 11 is. It is a shame the general audio story on Linux remains such a mess and so the non Mac DAW and video crowd remain hostage to the whims of MS.

The wayland transition hasn't done linux any favors, but thankfully most distributions are slow rolling that change.

Re: Windows 10 reaches 70% market share as Windows 11 keeps declining

#70

Does anyone who works on Windows read HN? I'm just wondering as I nearly only see negative comments about it (particularly about the user-hostile features such as advertising and so on), and I wonder how anyone who works on this thinks that it's a good idea. It would kinda be OK if it was free... but it's not - it's expensive, IMO. I've had to buy Windows 11 for the last two PCs I built for friends, and Pro was £140.…

2 years ago I refused to upgrade to Windows 11 solely because they removed the "Never combine" taskbar feature. Parts of GUI got slower for some reason, like an extra delay in opening the right click menu. They've added "Never combine" back in because the users protested, but I'm still punishing Microsoft by not upgrading.

It was of course possible to fix with 3rd party software, but I absolutely can't wrap my head around why they were so stubborn about it.

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