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2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

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Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#121

Post by ncr100 »

doodlebugging wrote: post #60

I am wrapping up my shift from Windows to Linux. I will have a linux box to replace my Win7Pro/Win10Pro install on an old Dell workstation. I will also be migrating one of my older relative's pc's to an identical linux box to replace their 2008 model ASUS machine running Win10. Once I have that all comfortably running I am walking away from iOS on the iPhone. I'm a bit tired of lock-in and in a position now where I h…

I wish you luck!

Tangent: Containerizing one's digital life feels smart - isolating apps and data from exploitation and unhelpful constraints of the underlying systems seems to be more and more necessary. E.g. can't launch my video-conferencing camera on Windows because the camera provider has a conflict with my recent OS updates. I do not want to pay money / attention / energy into the lagging software maintenance of a collection of finger-pointing ("not my fault") companies.

So, if I could bundle up the dependencies, and re-learn my own ability to trust (not "digital trust", genuine trust!), then that would be the future I'd potentially enjoy, using computers.

Sony Playstation, Microsoft Xbox, .. these consoles achieve long term stability for their games because they put effort into making THAT possible. Old games do NOT need updates to run on newer Playstation/Xbox OS updates because the old games can rely upon their APIs working the way they did when the game originally shipped.

Sailing the seas of "my PC supplier wanted to release AI Copilot Online Storage Face Prettifier app 2028 and it broke my camera" is kinda an inhumane way to live.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#122

Post by lostmsu »

coldtea wrote: post #39
wtcactus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hum. Windows has been ridden with bugs forever. I don’t see how this is connected to Microsoft abandoning windows in favor of AI. Windows code base is just too heavy to maintain. They need to break compatibility with older products like MacOS often does, so that Windows can be manageable again… but that goes against Microsoft philosophy it seems.

> Hum. Windows has been ridden with bugs forever Windows had a reasonable share of bug analogous to its huge breadth and backwards compatibility needs. Otherwise, it was very stable and mature. Now it's gotten way worse...

Yes, but it happened before ChatGPT. Windows 11 was released in 2021, already with shitty taskbar, search, and start menu.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#123

Post by lostmsu »

p_ing wrote: post #114
orwin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only used Windows at work and for games in a VM, so take that with a grain of salt: Older Windows bugs seemed fair: mostly edge cases, weird UI interaction, or stuff that only came out under heavy workload (also, windows file system). This past few year, the bugs are incomprehensible. I understand non-professional versions are considered as Beta since Win10, but what it felt like is that Home version are actually a…

NT4 had many serious BSODs. SP6 was so problematic due to a critical bug in LSA that it was re-released as SP6a. Windows bugs have moved more and more into the 'edge case' territory. Not that major issues don't crop up for "everyone" today, but BSODs used to be much more common. Part of that was due to the architecture, thus drivers, but the other side of it was core Windows functionality that just had bugs.

Kernel is almost perfect these days. Can't say the same about user environment. Explorer and shell are buggiest ever.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#124

Post by tavavex »

trinix912 wrote: post #69
samiv wrote: post #54

I've been preaching this for a while but the era of PC as in "personal computing" is coming to an end and will slowly but surely be replaced with CC, Corporate Computing, where the corporations own everything, the hardware, the software and only permit you to use their equipment against a monthly fee and only to the extent they allow and permit. Everything you do will be controlled and observed and extracted for data…

So basically rented mainframes like IBM did in the '60s but with ads? I agree about free software but that only works as long as the hardware doesn't get too closed down. At some point even reverse engineering won't keep up with it. We need more free/libre hardware.

The rented mainframes were, imo, far less egregious than what's awaiting all of us. It'd probably be less "massive B2B transactions to cut down on costs and outsource operating a hugely complex machine to its manufacturer", and more "everyone participating in society making mandatory perpetual payments to be allowed to use tightly-controlled devices that they must manage their entire lives through".

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#125

Post by p_ing »

fooster wrote: post #38
bigyabai wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's hoping that Apple can correct-course from this path. Last time I daily-drove macOS (Sequoia) it was pushing adverts in my face with every native app I launched.

Huh? I use macOS all day every day and I’ve never seen an ad.

iOS and macOS will nag you regarding iCloud if you don't sign up/in. Apple advertised... something, I forget what it was, via an Apple Wallet notification this past year (?). Might have been for the F1 movie when it was in theaters.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#126

Post by p_ing »

Zetaphor wrote: post #47
zbrozek wrote: post #8

I'm really hoping that the Linux gaming folks keep making progress on Windows-on-Linux compatibility so that I can transparently and with zero-fussing run any arbitrary Windows application. Unfortunately there's still plenty of professional software that has not been and will never be released for Linux.

Linux ages like WINE, Windows ages like milk. The incentives for improving Linux are driven only in part by commercial interests, and those interests are not completely centralized. Windows' fate is entirely in the hands of the current Microsoft leadership, and they seem hellbent on extracting maximum value from their users while ignoring the suffering their "Continuous Innovation" creates. It's almost as if they wan…

If the heavy WINE support continues, there will never be a Year of the Linux Desktop because all software will continue to be perpetually Win32 -- OS/2 already proved out this path of [full] compatibility.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#127

Post by array_key_first »

coldtea wrote: post #39
wtcactus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hum. Windows has been ridden with bugs forever. I don’t see how this is connected to Microsoft abandoning windows in favor of AI. Windows code base is just too heavy to maintain. They need to break compatibility with older products like MacOS often does, so that Windows can be manageable again… but that goes against Microsoft philosophy it seems.

> Hum. Windows has been ridden with bugs forever Windows had a reasonable share of bug analogous to its huge breadth and backwards compatibility needs. Otherwise, it was very stable and mature. Now it's gotten way worse...

I mean, define now. Windows has been progressively getting more buggy for a long time, before windows 11 or even 10. Windows 11 is pretty bad but it's been bad. Since day 1 the taskbar crashes for me a few times a day, file explorer crashes, and random things have stupid amounts of lag.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#128

Post by array_key_first »

Aurornis wrote: post #46
callc wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last 3 generations of nvidia gpus have been a big middle finger to PC gamers in terms of price and power usage Gone are the days of affordable graphics accelerators in the $300 to $500 range. Now it’s $1000 to $2000. 400 watts now instead of 100.

> Gone are the days of affordable graphics accelerators in the $300 to $500 range. Now it’s $1000 to $2000. What are you talking about? nVidia only has two models in the $1000 to $2000 range and they’re clearly premium parts. The $300 to $500 cards are actually fine for normal gaming unless you demand to play at 4K at high settings.

Pretty much all the lower price cards are a bad buy. Nvidia is only competitive on performance at the absolute top end, where they have no competitors. In every other price bracket they lose to AMD and Intel.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#129

Post by ufmace »

Zetaphor wrote: post #51
ufmace wrote: post #9

I disagree with AI being part of the OS. IMO, any desktop OS should have absolutely nothing to do with AI. It's only a platform for managing other applications and resources. Remote AI stuff should be on websites only, available only if I choose to go to them and interact, or in apps specifically designed to be AI, like Claude Code or Antigravity. All the nonsense in Windows 11 has me thinking about trying Linux desk…

You've got nothing to lose by trying but time. Time spent learning something new is certainly better than time spent trying to regain control of your OS and workflow after another mandatory "improvement".

Oh, I've run Linux on the desktop before all right, for years. I eventually decided, at the time, that Windows was drastically better at "just working" for desktop applications and it wasn't worth the bother.

Now, though, Microsoft's antics with Windows 11 is starting to make me think that might not be the case anymore.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#130

Post by tavavex »

autoexec wrote: post #72
xg15 wrote: post #7

So. Nvidia abandons the gaming market, Microsoft abandons Windows and Google abandons Search, all because AI is supposedly more important. At some point it starts to feel like a drug for C-suites.

The drug is the dream of replacing their serfs (you) with robots. They feel like what passes for AI is sooo close, and they're willing to destroy everything and anything to make their dream reality, but I think they're going to be disappointed. Until they face reality we're all going to increasingly suffer.

Not even really "Until they face reality". I think "we're all going to increasingly suffer" suffices. Not to be too provocative, but I think that even if LLMs don't quite pan out for what they dream of using them for, there's still about a billion other things that can be tightened up to make your life more miserable and their lives more profitable. More ads, more abusive trickery, more 'attestation'/'safety'/'integrity', more subscription services, more discontinuations of old software and features that worked perfectly fine, more total oversight and tracking. It's the trajectory we've been on for a very long time, and there's no reason for it to change.
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