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Windows 11 may not be as popular as Microsoft had hoped

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Re: Windows 11 may not be as popular as Microsoft had hoped

#11
The only reason I was excited for Windows 11 was the Android integration.

When the news about Windows 11 came out I had just recently upgraded to a new PC, the first pre-built pc I've used for myself since the 90s in fact. It was nice to see though that Dell/Alienware was among the first to be able to get Windows 11 so I was ready to go on launch day.

Launch day came and went and windows kept saying it wasn't ready yet. Then one day (Jan?) the update finally came. It started the install.. but failed. After the failure it popped up a message saying it wasn't ready yet for my device.

From that point on about once a week the update popped up in windows update and automatically started downloading, but after about 12% it failed and kept repeating the not yet ready message.

I'm wondering if the low number is less about who wants it, but more about who they've released it to so far... which seems very very low.

Also, the android integration.. though it works... does not work very well.. For example I wanted to be able to control a smart device that only has an app from my pc. It works at first, but then just reloads over and over again and is unusable until I reinstall it.

Also with the keyboard I have I often fat finger and put a tiny little of pressure on the windows key when I hit ctrl-t. Ctrl-windows-t turns on and off the subsystem for android reader so I get to hear it telling me about that all day long.

Long story short, windows 11 isn't bad.. at least when you get some third party tools to fix the task bar.. but not at all surprised the numbers are so low. But again, I think its more Microsoft's upgrade system's fault then users choosing not to install it.

Re: Windows 11 may not be as popular as Microsoft had hoped

#12
The worst mistake was removing the ability to ungroup taskbar items! Opening more than one instance of an application is a terrible experience right now. The icons are often unresponsive, the indicator that something is open is literally just a tiny dot.

Instead of addressing this I feel like Microsoft is just going to continue to add tabs to all their applications as justification for it. Edge, VS Code, Windows Terminal, and now File Explorer.

Re: Windows 11 may not be as popular as Microsoft had hoped

#13
post #6
post #2

> yet another start menu > yet more ads > requires modern hardware > more surprise updates breaking things Win11 not as popular? Imagine my shock and dismay. A sizable portion of my non-tech peers had bad experiences and one by one switched to Linux and the elder two switched to MacOS. Frankly I am baffled.

Me too. I’ve been reading comments like this since the Year of Linux first began. https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3038d4/when_was_the_... Image my shock to find out Windows still has 87% market share. I’m still unhappy that they took my Sun workstation and gave me a Windows PC.

Brenda in accounting isn't going to run Ubuntu even with the cute animal names. Until that happens,there will be stacks upon stacks of windows optiplexes being sold every day.

Also nobody misses sloaris. I'm going to chalk that remark up to a misfired punchline.

Re: Windows 11 may not be as popular as Microsoft had hoped

#14
I'd really like to know how much Microsoft's behavior with recent Windows versions pays off. Specifically bundling lots of unwanted apps, forcing Edge and Defender down people's throats, removing basic UI customization features, etc.

The fact that they are still doing this today suggests that they get something out of these decisions. Or at least they think so.

I can only imagine that the part of customers being alienated this way is/appears insignificant to them. I still believe Microsoft has the necessary resources to put out a truly great OS, but it looks like they don't want to.

Re: Windows 11 may not be as popular as Microsoft had hoped

#17

I'd really like to know how much Microsoft's behavior with recent Windows versions pays off. Specifically bundling lots of unwanted apps, forcing Edge and Defender down people's throats, removing basic UI customization features, etc. The fact that they are still doing this today suggests that they get something out of these decisions. Or at least they think so. I can only imagine that the part of customers being alie…

Gotta have some bad versions of windows so when we get an ok version we think it is good!

It isn't like you're going to use Linux ;)

Re: Windows 11 may not be as popular as Microsoft had hoped

#18
A huge number of consumers who can't upgrade to Windows 11 due to unsupported hardware will instead opt for an iPad or Chromebook. Everything is either web- or app-based, and people don't want the complexity of Windows. Microsoft will lose a big chunk of the Windows user base this way.

Re: Windows 11 may not be as popular as Microsoft had hoped

#19
Windows adoption is largely driven by corporations.

Most corporates align on a common policy of migration to every second major Windows release following this pattern:

Windows NT 4, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 10

With Windows 2000, Windows Vista, and Windows 11 skipped.

Which is a shame as these same corporates who have fleets of Apple Mac computers normally migrate annually about 6-9 months after each major annual MacOS release.

I hypothesis the reason may be that Windows upgrades tend to be major IT projects with historically large testing and remediation activities, whereas MacOS upgrades are small, introducing a small number of feature enhancements. New Mac computers also are only compatible with the latest MacOS release further encouraging rapid corporate adoption.

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