I wonder what route existing Windows power users should take after Windows 10 support ends next year.. I don't care about these features at all, I just need a Windows OS, bare, where I can install the tools I need, not what Microsoft thinks I need, and so it also serves as a decent, performant gaming PC. I know for the first point Linux is my obvious choice, which is totally fine, but gaming support on Linux never likely will be on par with Windows... though now that they are ruining even that with Windows 11 and likely 12, I have no idea what to do.
I have exactly the same question. I'm most likely to switch to Linux; I've heard that game support is a lot better than it used to be, and Valve has given developers an extra incentive to be compatible with Linux because of the Steam Deck.
I've heard that MS will offer paid security patches for three years, albeit with the cost doubling each year, so something like $70/$140/$280. I personally wouldn't want to do that for more than a year.
I switched to full time gaming on Linux (Arch) about six months ago. It is very good, and improving, though it will still often require tinkering (ProtonDB is very good for user reports). And certain games, like those with "kernel anti-cheat", probably won't work at all, indefinitely.
I can say that if you stick to Steam Deck Verified games, you will have very few problems; and if you enable compatibility (Proton) for non-Verified games, then almost every game will work, possibly with some tinkering.
I'm less familiar with non-Steam games, though I know Proton is not intended to be used outside of Steam. I guess that gaming outside of Steam would require more tinkering.
I really don't understand the Windows 11 hysteria. As a long time Windows user, I did wait for Windows 11 to support the old taskbar style before upgrading, but now that it does... It's basically Windows 10 with a few new useful bells and whistles and a bunch of things that I don't care about but are trivially turned off. I'm yet to see the huge problems people talk about after using it daily for months - for me, at least, it's just a faster Windows 10 with a very slightly different look and feel.
The taskbar change is a symbolic thing. The company that spent decades pushing "we don't break the customer's workflow" has decided that's no longer a high priority.
They are playing at a unique scale: even a "narrow interest" feature with .1% take rate is millions of people they snub if they break it. That's a huge responsibility and they used to be very good and respecting it.
The fact they backpedaled some of the changes shows that it wasn't actually a difficult technical limitation, or necessary to enable some new vision. So we can either give them the benefit of the doubt and say they lacked the resources to prioritize these features (on a trillion dollar company?) or we can figure it's a mindset of "if we break people's existing workflow, it steers them into something we prefer" (see, any excuse they can find to monkey with people's default browsers and home pages).
My work sent me a Win11 laptop. I dislike it because of an obvious trifling thing (I miss being able to click on the clock and get a pop-up month calendar), but there are other nuisances:
* Rounded window corners. I don't know who is begging for them, because it's the trend in several newer Wayland desktops, MacOS, and now Win11. It might work well with exclusively new software designed assuming there are keep-out areas, but right now we still have the occasional legacy program with some trim in the corner that's being unceremoniously cut off. This seems like something that would be a themable option, but the ability to style Windows with built-in tools seems to have peaked years ago and is crumbling with every new version. The overall look just felt off, like someone was trying to convince their elderly Grandma that a KDE desktop with Firefox was the Windows XP + IE6 he was used to.
* The constant unasked-for changes. This last week, my machine started displaying a bunch of weather and sports boxes on the lock-screen. I didn't ask for that. I assume it's an extension of the earlier "let's put a bunch of random dialog on the lock screen about the random wallpaper, which happened to of course link back to Bing" feature I didn't ask for. I don't know how to be rid of it offhand, and can't be bothered trying to find out. (It's a work machine, so I'm not going to put that much effort into making it 'mine'.) But I shouldn't have to be going in and making changes to keep the machine I use for work purposes in a predictable steady state (modulo security fixes).
You don't understand why Rounded Corners are Better? Oh my! It's because they're New and Refreshed! But don't worry, in Windows 12 there will be Square Corners, and they'll be Brand New and Re-Refreshed!
The panic of not changing things windows users freak out about is why windows only got a filter-able task manager last year, why command prompt was garbage for decades and so on.
The problem is now they’re finally changing some things that objectively sucked the ad people in the company are also along for the ride. But they always had the power to change things, now things that sucked are finally getting fixed.
Praying explorer gets a rewrite cos it’s slow jacked garbage
Personally I wonder if the loudest individuals are just on the spectrum and terrified of change. We still get abuse here and there at our OSS project because we don't support Windows XP, let alone 7.
my wife is using win11 and I was checking it out from time to time. I didn't notice the taskbar is revertible to the old style, since when is that available and is that builtin or achievable with 3rd party software?
most of my annoyance comes down to the increased telemetry, ads everywhere, and the overall look of the system, dumbing the UI down basically.but I do have concerns of them breaking compatibility with older apps as well.
The task bar is still a bit limited - you can't dock it to the side of the screen, nor can you make it taller, nor (if only shown on one display) can you move it off the primary display.
I've never seen an ad on Windows, and mine came with the laptop - I believe that's because I disable all personalization features when first setting up my laptop. Anyway, the old school bar has been available as a built-in "feature" for probably around a year, you can select "Combine taskbar buttons and hide labels: Never" in the taskbar settings.
Also, Windows 10 is the last Windows OS that supports many "not subscription" services. (Desktop Quicken 2016/2017 does everything I need, so why should I pay for a subscription?)
Quicken shouldn't be able to tell the difference between 10 and 11. Especially if it's an old release. Windows 11 reports itself as Windows 10 in the win32 API and the only way to tell is to look at the "build numbers" instead of major minor. Hah.
I was really concerned about the direction Windows 11 was going in, but after trying it out, there's really not much I don't like.
I don't even have to use any of the third-party tools that remove OS functionality - just changing easily accessible settings and Group Policy is enough to get it working how I want it.
LTSC IoT will get you to 2032, and something is likely to change by that date. Of course, if you absolutely insist on using a "genuine" license (even though we're taking about a company that has zero respect for its users — eye for an eye IMHO is a suitable option), there is no choice but listen to the overlord.
The only thing that kept me on Windows on my personal machine was gaming and the Steam Deck has pretty much solved that. I've been running Kubuntu for ~10 months and can't think of anything I really miss.
That's not to say that there aren't issues (I rushed the Nvidia drivers and that resulted in a blank screen), but I'm definitely less annoyed - no more constantly trying to get rid of OneDrive only for it to re-appear, no more removing apps that I never asked for etc
> I know for the first point Linux is my obvious choice, which is totally fine, but gaming support on Linux never likely will be on par with Windows... though now that they are ruining even that with Windows 11 and likely 12, I have no idea what to do.
I keep using the last 4 or 5 years using Linux as my gaming OS (and everything). this includes AAA games, and I don't had issues. Plus, I can update my whole system at same time that I'm playing Stellaris without any issue.
I held the 'upgrade' from 7 to 10 for more than a decade, when I did I had to remove a lot of stuff to get back my baseline usability, so once more unto the breach when I get around doing that methinks.
wow, that was brave, were you disconnected with that PC from the internet and so had no concerns, or just behind a good firewall and you browsed the internet sensibly?
I wonder what route existing Windows power users should take after Windows 10 support ends next year.
I no longer think of myself as a power user and that seems to make my life easier and more productive.
I think about it like cars on the road. Getting from A to B is the point. Sure sometimes the complexity of an alternate route is more efficient but oftentimes sitting in the slow down is the fastest way.
That's different from making a hobby of driving backroads. There's nothing wrong with making computers a hobby "also." It's also ok to choose other hobbies and just treat computers as tools.
As cattle not pets. Have a cow that doesn't connect to the itnernet. Have a cow that runs Linus. Have one that doesn't pretend it can outgun Microsoft. You'll have more surfaces to put stickers on for aesthetics.
If I gamed, I'd buy a console. But that's me. YMMV.
> I think about it like cars on the road. Getting from A to B is the point.
That's also a reasonable requirement for power users, I don't even consider myself a Windows power user since I mostly live in the terminal, browser and IDE - and play games of course, but gamers are hardly 'power users' either).
But Windows has been on a long downward spiral both for 'regular' and 'power' users (unless one counts stupid ideas like displaying ads in a desktop OS as a useful feature).
Windows has been my primary OS since 3.1 except for six or eight years when I drove Linux everyday. I went back to Windows when I stopped believing myself a snowflake.
Sure there's a bunch of bullshit in Windows. But I see ads on my desktop when I browse the internet anyway. I'll live.
developers can add “breadcrumbs” to
their apps so that you can not just
return to a specific app but also the
exact context you wanted to Recall
Similar to what the back button does on many web apps?
Some people say the web is not made for applications but for pages of content. But I often have the feeling that it is even more suitable for apps than the desktop. You can do so many things with "state in the url" - traverse it, bookmark it, share it, have multiple tabs with the app in multiple states ...
I do a lot of 3D modeling. Part of that requires creating views of your object that you can jump back and forth between. I’d never considered the analogy of a bookmark, thanks for that!
When I read about the developer breadcrumbs my eyes lit up; the creation of these views is necessary but also kind of sucks. I would love to be able to say: “show me front elevation of kitchen, looking at rear of building, with fov set to allow me to see the full counter and pantry”.
I’m new at this 3D modeling thing in the grand scheme of things, and self taught, but I spend an inordinate amount of time getting to the state described above.
Wait, like, on the keyboards? The keyboards that already have those bloody useless Windows and Menu keys between the AltGr and the right Ctrl? Where the hell are they gonna put that new key, exactly?
While I have used the left Windows button extensively, I don't believe I've ever pressed the right Windows button except by a mistake when I was reaching for the right Alt. And I believe I've ever used the Menu button intentionally as opposed to pressing it accidentally instead of the right Ctrl only on those two memorable days when mouse was broken (don't worry, it got better).
> those bloody useless Windows and Menu keys between the AltGr and the right Ctrl?
If you didn't learn to use them for more than a quarter of century thrn it says more about you than of the usability of those keys. Maybe you are that ... person what shoves PrtScr in the place of ContextMenu on ThinkPads.
Not unusual though? FWIW I use Windows since Win95 and never use the Windows or Menu key (I typically live in the terminal, but can't imagine navigating the start menu or context menues with the keyboard).
I use Windows since 3.1. At the very-very least there is always Win+L.
There is a navigation block (arrows, Home/End, PgUp/PgDown) which is used extensively with Ctrl and Shift when editing text and navigating files and ContextMenu is used when I need a context menu without changing my hand to the mouse to RMB.
Also you can use RWin+ many keys on the right side for your own hotkeys, without clashing with the built-ins.
> but can't imagine navigating the start menu or context menues with the keyboar
My condolences?
There is absolutely nothing wrong doing it with a keyboard. On a notebook it's even more convenient.
Honestly, OP and your comments sounds like you don't use your right hand on the keyboard.
Edit: and to clarify, RWin, arrows, Enter is the fastest way to open an app which is pinned in the Start Menu.
If you don't pin apps there then see my previous comment.
And to both of you: if you never use something it doesn't mean nobody ever in the whole universe does not use it too.
I'm actually a heavy keyboard user, but in my case that just means terminal stuff and using the vi/vim input model in text editors, and that's mostly limited to Ctrl, Shift and Alt for Alt-tabbing and Alt-F4, but that's about it.
But that also means that I pretty much use only 3 or 4 applications: a terminal window, VSCode, a browser, and Steam, so all the fancy start menu and Explorer features are also wasted on me.
Now that you mention it I actually remember Win+L to lock the desktop back when we still worked in an office, but when working from home that's hardly relevant.
> RWin, arrows, Enter is the fastest way to open an app which is pinned in the Start Menu.
No, the left-right arrows don't let you pick the pinned apps after you press a Window key.
Oh, and now that I am at home and can look at my keyboard, apparently I am not the only one who thinks that RWin is a useless key, but A4Tech as well: [0]. I didn't even notice that before!
> No, the left-right arrows don't let you pick the pinned apps after you press a Window key.
In Windows 10. You know, there were other versions before Win10. From 1995.
And if I have both hands on the keyboard, left on the home row and right on the navigation area - RWin is right under the right thumb. And Tab under the left pinky. But sure, your unique inability to use your keyboard is the default for the whole mankind.
I use Keypirinha* for launching (almost) everything that's not on my taskbar...
* and yes, I know it's essentially abandoned, I've tried the 'spiritual successors' and never found one that is quite as close to ideal workflow for me
How is this even professional software. Loading up news about sports, celebrities or a former porn star or other sexual stuff from mainstream news sources during a teams call. Yep the news preview or even default Edge homepage which many coworkers don’t change had this on a client call. What a joke. Even if it doesn’t bother you, news is just a distraction during the workday.
"That latency, frustratingly enough, doesn’t come from the actual rendering, which happens locally on that beefy hardware, but rather the fact that Cocreator validates everything with the cloud for “safety”"
I'm usually somewhat understanding of this kind of thing, but this should be a local app only doing local things, not validating content with the cloud for safety. Not only does that mean that MS is putting a filter gate on your own content - not only does that make MS a natural target for both law and IP enforcement even though the content is local - but it also means MS can harvest all of the data if they so choose.
Controlling what is possible to do on a machine means that the future is guaranteed to proceed according to how Microsoft wants it. Forget zombie companies, we'll have deity companies - all-powerful, merciless, and they will never die.
Checking for "dick pick" image generation requests or NSFW content in general, is still one step ahead of Google AI refusing to generate pics of white people, so at least there's that. Progress ... SMH.
But anyway, no major tech company will let its AI loose to the public un-lobotomized, as we all saw what happens; the risks of negative press are too high, so if you do want to generate absolutely everything your heart desires, you'll have to run your own independent model locally without using their products, so for this demographic, Microsoft's Copilot is useless, but probably for the casual user it has some uses.
I doubt they trained their AI model on dick pics, the dataset used by these models is usually heavily "sanitized". This makes the whole thing even more ridiculous.
> That latency, frustratingly enough, doesn’t come from the actual rendering, which happens locally on that beefy hardware, but rather the fact that Cocreator validates everything with the cloud for “safety”; never mind that you can create “unsafe” images in Paint of your own volition (at least for now).
I am shocked that the Cocreator didn't flag the author's drawing as "unsafe".
It totally depicts a a view from below of a blond woman squatting and peeing.
