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2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

windowscentral.com

231–240 of 330 posts

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#231
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My computer feels fast again A while back (Win XP?), I got frustrated with Windows and installed Linux on my dev machine instead. But I still had to run Windows, so I installed VMWare on Linux on that machine and ran Windows in a VM. For whatever reason, Windows was noticeably faster in the VM than running on bare metal. Super bizarre OS.

In my last job my Windows box was unbelievably slow at compilation. Windows Defender was burning 70% of the CPU on watching GCC I guess. Using Linux in a VM compiled three times faster. I don't know how people tolerate it.

I think part of it is that creating a process is cheap in Unix-style OSs, and expensive in Windows. Windows doesn't want you to exec gcc, cpp, ld, etc. over and over again. It wants you to run an IDE that does it all in one process.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#232
post #142

For me the strange and unproductive direction Windows is going towards in encapsulated in the right-click menu in the file manager (Explorer). 11 has a shiny new menu that shows up when you right click. But it is a new coat of paint over the ones from 10 or before. Additional options from for example 7zip don't show up in it. You have to click "more options" at the bottom which them reveals the old menu. There is no…

You can disable the new right click menu with one registry tweak: https://www.elevenforum.com/t/disable-show-more-options-cont...

It comes back, or at least it did for me. Holding shift when rightclicking will get you to the menu you want reliably tho. Vetter yet, if at all an option, swithc to linux or start putting pressure internal to drive a switch. There's nothing left in windows but network effects, but the loss in productivity due to a switch to linux is readily be offset by not being hobbled by W11 anymore. Invest 1 unit of time now to recoup 1 unit of time per month ad infinitum.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#233
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waving it away as little-used features is not an excuse, it's the entire reason things got this way. That's why we have layers upon layers of half baked UI with "only" the controls that "everyone" needs. Because those rationalizations are wrong and this is the result.

I would expect Microsoft to relegate little used features to CLI rather than figure out how to integrate them into the UX.

Depends if they want their OS to be easy to use with wide appeal like macOS, or a CLI nightmare like Arch.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#234
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average home user probably won't know what power shell and GitHub are. I can't run the scripts you are talking about on my work pc. I can sympathise with your point of view but it does feel a bit like "works for me because I know what I'm doing". Also how long before another Windows update that undoes what the scripts do. I used to be very pro windows simply because of backwards compatibility and hardware support…

I was answering with the idea in mind that this is "HackerNews" and most here are not "average" home users, but I see your point. Does the average home user care about any of these complaints though? In my experience, they don't really, and I'm not even sure how many use desktop operating systems these days considering everything has shifted towards mobile. I'm not "pro" windows by the way. In fact if you look throug…

Ah ok I see, yeah for the hackernews crowd probably not an issue.

Genuine issue I have is my unbelievably well specced work laptop does not run win 11 nicely. It's not just the adverts.

As for moving away from windows, I've been a Linux user in work before, and a casual user on and off for 20 years but it was a combination of windows 11 pain and buying a steamdeck that finally pushed me to just move at least one of my home computers to Linux. But yeah, not for relatives.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#236
post #144
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unfortunate that falsehoods spread so quickly. https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/12/24/microsoft-denies-re... > “It appears my post generated far more attention than I intended… with a lot of speculative reading between the lines.. Just to clarify… Windows is NOT being rewritten in Rust with AI. > My team’s project is a research project. [...]

I don’t believe for a second that it was a mistake. Probably got a call from some C-level and came up with this excuse.

Do you have any idea just how much code is in Windows?

I did a quick search and estimates are in the 50-60 million lines range.

No way in hell are they going to rewrite all that in a few years. Even if they actually wanted to, which they don't because it would be a truly enormous expense (even for Microsoft).

Not to even mention that huge software projects have a well deserved reputation for failing, and the scope of such a rewrite would probably dwarf any previous rewrite of anything, ever, and by a very large margin.

"Rewrite all of Windows in Rust" simply does not even begin to pass the sniff test.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> data showing that the removed options weren’t used that frequently [...] Most users don’t miss it Um, I am very skeptical that Microsoft's KPIs have this level of alignment with actual user workflows.

You really should assume that Microsoft knows exactly what you do on their machine.

Where did I say they didn't?

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#238
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> data showing that the removed options weren’t used that frequently [...] Most users don’t miss it Um, I am very skeptical that Microsoft's KPIs have this level of alignment with actual user workflows.

Of course they do. It's all the telemetry that some people complain about.

I'm not denying the existence of intrusive telemetry, I'm saying their KPIs do not care whether they break your workflows?

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#239

As Win10 is officially unsupported now, non-tech people have come to me to ask me what they should buy as a new laptop. So far I've been successful in installing Ubuntu or having them install Ubuntu and go on about their life. The vast majority of these people live in a browser. Sometimes I get asked "what's a good app for x?" People who are hard-tied to Windows for some program aren't the ones asking for my input. I…

Well they have official extended update options, so it's still officially supported?

Aren't those only free for European customers?

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#240
post #142

For me the strange and unproductive direction Windows is going towards in encapsulated in the right-click menu in the file manager (Explorer). 11 has a shiny new menu that shows up when you right click. But it is a new coat of paint over the ones from 10 or before. Additional options from for example 7zip don't show up in it. You have to click "more options" at the bottom which them reveals the old menu. There is no…

> except for the fact that it is aesthetically more "modern" to its detriment. And also much, much slower. The old context menu is nearly instant even when stuffed with extensions. When the new one is full of extensions, it takes full seconds to load the entire menu. You get a partial load, then the extensions pop in (and of course pushes elements down/up so now you misclick). I don't even know how anyone could exper…

The old one had a similar problem depending on the extensions, to be fair
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