Despite Microsoft’s push to get customers onto Windows 11, growth in the market share of the software giant’s latest operating system has stalled, while Windows 10 has made modest gains, according to fresh figures from Statcounter.
This is not the news Microsoft wanted to hear. After half a year of growth, the line for Windows 11 global desktop market share has taken a slight downturn, according to the website usage monitor, going from 35.6 percent in October to 34.9 percent in November. Windows 10, on the other hand, managed to grow its share of that market by just under a percentage point to 61.8 percent.
The dip in usage comes just as Microsoft has been forcing full-screen ads onto the machines of customers running Windows 10 to encourage them to upgrade. The stats also revealed a small drop in the market share of its Edge browser, despite relentlessly plugging the application in the operating system.
DO NOT PAY FOR WINDOWS 10 UPDATES.
They’re pushing this plan to make people pay to continue to get support for 10 very hard.
Don’t fucking do it. Make them eat this loss of a shitty invasive OS that nobody asked for. This trend is evidence that we’re in control in this situation, not Microsoft.
Force their hand and make it so they have no choice but to keep supporting Windows 10 for free for five more years.
Look, I’m a Linux user primarily, but that doesn’t mean you should just let these corporate fuckholes walk all over you. Windows 10 is ride or die. Make Microsoft pay for trying to fuck you out of a cleaner operating system that is less infested with spyware and actually works half the time.
Not everybody has the time or energy to figure out Linux, but either way, the best way to fight Microsoft is by hitting them square in the pocketbook.
Linux is mostly pretty easy to install/use at this point as long as you stick with a main distro like Mint
Even Mint you have to jump through hoops to not have to put in your password every time there’s updates. Hoops that are too complex for a newbie on their own.
Most Linux users don’t want to admit that a huge thing that makes people hate Linux is having to type in their password every time there’s updates (and there’s always updates.)
It’s seemingly such a small thing, and as Linux users, we know the why behind it so we don’t question it, but the average user doesn’t and they hate typing their password over and over to get into the computer, let alone to update it.
To them, Windows is easier since the updates happen silently in the background, and aren’t in the forefront because Linux expects you to know what the fuck you’re doing.
Every Linux box that I didn’t fuck with to make sure updates happened silently in the background that I gave to anyone else would always be wildly out of date the next time I touched it because they just… don’t install updates instead of typing in their password.
Often, they’ve forgotten the fucking password, if you’ve made it so they don’t have to put a password in when they log in (my mother has done this one countless times).
Until we figure out a way to make Linux secure and straightforward for end-users, people will stick with Windows.
Linux users don’t want to admit that a huge thing that makes people hate Linux is having to type in their password every time there’s updates
Hell, people get mad about having to hit a ‘Cool, do that button’, let alone something like a password. It’s how we ended up with UAC v2, because people were steaming pissed about having to accept when a badly written app was doing something stupid that they just changed the scope of ‘stupid’ to be much less restrictive.
In fact it’s even bled over to OS X, as people are SO mad about entering passwords they’re angry at Apple over it, too.
Basically, any time a UI hops in front of you and goes ‘Wait! This is important!’ people get annoyed, and well, all OSes are moving towards more of that shit rather than less, as if they didn’t know that was annoying or something. Glad I don’t work in UX or I’d probably lose my mind at how much stupid hostile shit is being added constantly.
Basically, any time a UI hops in front of you and goes ‘Wait! This is important!’ people get annoyed
It honestly baffles me how this keeps being a thing. Not just for OSs but for a lot of websites too. And the wild thing is that most of the time, it’s not even that important and the user does not and should not care about it.
on top of which it creates a security issue too:
by teaching users to always instantly click on “OK”, “Accept”, etc, they stop reading the actually important messages, because they’re being bombarded by so, so many useless pop-ups everywhere…
Indeed.
It’s to the point that even legitimate sites look like those dark-pattern fake scam ecommerce sites with all the popups, fake “deals”, and timers and shit.
Windows of course feels much the same way - recently replaced a failed mac with a new Mini and holy crap is MacOS so fucking zen.
I logged into my apple account and then was assaulted by… fucking nothing. No ads, no popups, no upsells, no candy crush, no enabling AI shit. I just landed on the desktop to do whatever the hell it was I was going to be doing.
Linux expects you to know what the fuck you’re doing.
I’ve heard people claim Mint is easy enough for non technical users (grandma, etc.), but I think that’s with the caveat that they will have someone to support the machine.
Yeah, nobody’s paying me so I don’t have the time or effort to be everyone’s tech support for Linux. If they can’t figure out how to type in their password to install updates, it means most people are way too fuck stupid to handle Linux. No offense, but I mean really. If Linux still needs me to manage their system for them, it’s by definition NOT friendly to the non-computer-savvy.
I’ve gotta be like one of the few Linux users who still sees it as too much for the average user, mostly because average users are fucking whiny crybabies who hate learning anything new ever. See also Bluesky vs. Mastodon.
You’re not alone, I’ve been screaming into the void about this for a long time too. People keep saying “Linux is user friendly enough these days for even non techy people” and I’m sorry but it’s totally not.
I think most Linux users just don’t realize how technologically illiterate most people are. Most people can barely use a browser and send emails. They absolutely don’t want to mess with anything related to “updates” that they have no idea wtf is doing to their system anyway.
People keep saying “Linux is user friendly enough these days for even non techy people” and I’m sorry but it’s totally Not.
I guess people who say that think of the average non techy user as someone like me: I don’t really know how this works under the hood, but I do troubleshoot my own stuff, am willing and able to search for help and apply advice on my own, try different things, and hopefully realize when that advice starts to sound fishy.
The thing is, that’s not the average non-techy user. That’s already “dabbling in tech”.
The average non techy user is Homer going “oh, a talking moose on the Internet wants my credit card number? Sounds fair.”
Yea, definitely. Also just the fact that you’re here says a lot. I don’t think you can find many (if any) of these “normal” users on the fediverse.
That’s fair. I maintain a Fedora installation for my elderly mother, whose Windows laptop is on its last legs. I revitalized a 15 year old desktop with Fedora for her, installed everything she needed (browser, file manager, libreoffice, iscan, brother printer drivers, password manager, zoom meetings, etc.). But yeah, every month I hop on, open up a terminal and run
sudo dnf upgrade, and every 6 months run the Fedora major version update.Don’t get me wrong, I’m impressed my Mom has been able to get all her business done using Fedora, but I definitely am acting sysadmin should anything in the slightest go wrong or confuse her. That said, I think she could run the upgrades if I left her with extensive notes (but if anything went wrong, she’d lose her shit, ngl).
I don’t know, I think a Linux distribution with automatic updates would be a good thing if you could ensure every user would be guaranteed to not be greeted with any issues upon reboot from said update.
But yeah, sadly, even on the most user friendly of distros, you still have to have a decent familiarity with the command line , and have the patience and knowledge of where to look for, and then read and comprehend, the documentation. And I doubt there will ever be a time in the future where 100% of users are comfortable with all that, though imho if you use any computer at all, you should at least try.
you still have to have a decent familiarity with the command line
I think this is, for most people I’ve spoken with (including coders in games, my kids, etc) the major issue – they don’t want to have to use the command line for things. It’s fine if you can, but that alone is a massive wall for some people. People are exhausted right now, and having to learn a variety of command line prompts instead of just clicking on icons is too much for some people. That can be argued till you’re red in the face, but I think a major reason so many people bounce off linux, myself included, is that it’s not ‘as easy as windows.’ We need to stop telling people it is, because that means they won’t try again later.
I definitely hear you on that, and in some ways, it’s a shame more people don’t have the option to learn more about how their computer works.
The Linux OS is, in my experience, one of the most amazing things I’ve ever taken the time to learn. In my pursuit of not only learning programming and computer science fundamentals, but also the internals of the Linux operating system, I’ve gained a granular control over my computing devices that has allowed me to be spared the onslaught of forced “AI in everything” that has recently been pushed down people’s throats. I also have minimal exposure to invasive advertisements, and other unwanted features.
But the cost for access to said knowledge was an immense amount of time studying, an equivalent amount of patience, and a strong desire to learn difficult subjects. That’s a cost the majority of users are unable or unwilling to pay. They simply dont have the time and/or desire, and that’s just reality.
Ultimately, I don’t think it’s acknowledged enough that it requires a vast amount of privilege to have the time and energy to devote to such endeavors such as learning how Linux, the command line, and Computer Systems more broadly, work. I think this is because to acknowledge such would open the discussion up to the more broader topics of the qualities of our education systems and our cultivation of more positively reinforced learning models, which is a much more difficult topic to navigate and argue about when contrasted with the “It’s easy to install Linux. Windows bad, so just do it.” argument that pervades the discussion space.
You don’t have to use the command line at all.
This. And if folks are worried that their computer’s hardware won’t be supported (wifi, touchscreen, mousepad, soundcard or a weird mobile graphics driver) I recommend testing it by booting from a live linux flash drive. If everything works with the live version, it should work with the installed version, too.
Yup. The main concern is if there’s specific software you cannot do without, such as:
- Adobe products
- big multiplayer games w/ anti-cheat
- Xbox app/game pass
But if you’re a bit flexible and are willing to try different software, then yeah, Linux is pretty rad. Most Steam games I’ve tried work, you can play Epic and GOG games through Heroic, LibreOffice is fantastic, VLC works the same, and you can get almost any web browser you want (Firefox, Chrome, etc). And if your hardware isn’t too old, it’ll probably work well w/ Wayland, which resolves a number of problems people have had in the past.
If you have any questions about app compatibility, ask away! I probably haven’t used whatever it is, but surely someone else has.
What people have to watch out for now is unlocking their bootloader if they want to test Linux on a USB drive or dual boot, for example, it will trip Bitlocker (conveniently installed on every Windows computer via update without notification or consent), and that will irreversibly encrypt their Windows hard drive without warning.
Ask me how I know.
Also the fact that linux installers seem to fuck up dualbooting like 60% of the time, effectively locking you out of your windows partition… Make backups you guys!
lol this is the exact same rethoric people were spewing when Windows 7 went EOL because Windows 10 was sooo bad and now everyone’s fighting tooth and nail to keep using it. W11 is basically a better skin on W10. Just move on.
You expect them to work for you for free? What kind of entitled bullshit is that?
Not paying for the 10 security updates doesn’t hurt MS. They don’t make money from their consumer OS. The money is from Office, Cloud, and corporate contracts. It only leaves your PC open. You don’t have the time to install Linux today but you will make the time to attempt to recover your Windows PC from ransomware because you left it unpatched.
Install Linux today. Stop making excuses.
This is just funny.
You expect them to work for you for free?
Install Linux today. Stop making excuses.
Oh yeah, nevermind, I’ll use the free operating system made by people who are working for me for free. Or wait, is that entitled, I’m confused.
Pick a fuckin lane, dude.
Demand that a Linux developer must add a feature that you personally want and yes you are entitled. “I don’t want to upgrade Mint! Patch the old kernel. I demand it!”
MS is selling a security patch. Buy it or don’t.
Linux is available for free. Install it or don’t.
You don’t have a right to demand either way. It’s especially hypocritical given you spend more time on a phone that doesn’t give you 10 years of support like Windows 10 did.
Man you gotta stop making assumptions about other people.
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I have numerous computers and only one of them has Windows on it, and even that one is set up to dualboot with Linux. I live and breathe Linux daily, friend.
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I live and breathe Linux so much that I set it up so that I don’t have to touch my phone, because I fucking hate phones. I guarantee you I spend way more time on the PC than on a phone.
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I have network-level blocking to prevent a massive amount of data entering or leaving my phone and PC.
I’m a Linux user by default, and I think what Microsoft is doing is anti-consumer so I don’t really give a shit if they make money off it or not.
Taking a financial loss because you fucked over your customers is how capitalism is supposed to work. All this talk of entitlement forgets that I paid for my fucking OS. It doesn’t matter if the OS isn’t their moneymaker: if it isn’t that’s more reason for them to stop fucking their customers for a quick buck.
Also, finally, if Microsoft really cared about their OS and licensing, maybe they should have updated how their licensing activation works at some point in the last 20 years so the massgrave exploit would stop working.
All this talk of entitlement forgets that I paid for my fucking OS.
That doesn’t mean you get patches for the rest of your life. Again you are using a phone that doesn’t give you 10 years of support and you are acting like MS is evil for not giving you more.
Also, finally, if Microsoft really cared about their OS and licensing … so the massgrave exploit would stop working.
MS is evil because they don’t do more to stop piracy? Wtf?
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People found out about the Win10 IoT LTSC version, which Microsoft alleges to be supporting for 10 more years.
It comes with basically zero of the M$ bloat that everyone hates, as well. It’s just Windows.
I just installed it on my father’s new (old) laptop, because he is not ready for Linux yet – possibly ever.
It has no:
- Cortana
- Copilot
- Windows Media Player
- OneDrive
- Office 365 Nag
- Candy crush, Solitaire collection, etc.
- Ads and nags on the lock screen
- “Finish setting up your device and create a Microsoft Account!!!” nag every X number of bootups
- Xbox Game Bar
- Microsoft Store
- Etc.
It does come with Edge.
Because it does not have the Microsoft Store you have to manually install anything that comes as a store app from the command line. I was taken by surprise that the Duckduckgo browser is packaged this way. But you can still do it. Normal programs install just fine.
Yes, you can use it for gaming.
Edit: I guess I forgot to drop the obligatory link to https://massgrave.dev/ , which is how I found out about this and got it running. Also hosted there is a tool that allows you to… license… various Microsoft products including your shiny new Win10 IoT install.
holy fuck that sounds absolutely awesome. why wasn’t I on this version to begin with hahah
Just adding that 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC is also super solid and great for gaming,
no bullshit installed, just Edge + Defender. I disable Edge- instead of uninstalling- with a tool that just breaks it, since Edge always gets installed again eventually.I got it from that same site, been problem free for months now. I only went with 11since my 5800X3D is still fairly new.
Edit: Fine, no bullshit other than Edge + Defender.
no bullshit installed
Edge
Pick one
Edge isn’t that bad. You need something to download Firefox with.
The bullshit is when every windows link insists on opening in edge rather then your default browser.
You need something to download Firefox with.
winget install Mozilla.Firefox
Winget makes fresh Windows installs much less painful!
Just incase it helps anyone: For the 11 IoT LTSC, to use winget you first have to install 2 packages via power shell. First: VCLibs.x64.14.00.Desktop.appx Then: DesktopAppInstaller_********.msixbundle
Does this version of Windows 11 feel as snappy as normal Windows 10? And do the fans randomly flare up like on my installation of normal Windows 11?
Maybe it’s all in my head, but I tried it a while back and it felt less snappy than clean windows 10 but more snappy than stock windows 11. It also retains a lot of the annoyances of stock windows 11.
Unfortunately I can’t use it because I have a WMR VR headset and it’s unsupported on the IoT and LTSC.
There’s a YouTube channel called memories tech tips and he’s developing a script that you can add to your ISO that will have a similar effect to the LTSC. That in combination with Chris Titus techs ultimate windows utility after first boot makes setting things up much easier.
This sounds nice, thanks for that information.
How do you know stuff is particularly “unsupported” on a same os but different build? Other then errors of course?
In my head it is the same os just different blend so wonder why it wouldnt work. Reckon maybe some missing system components. Though can copy those over?
Anyway was curious if you knew! Thanks
It’s basically just Microsoft being shit heads on their development of the Windows Mixed reality drivers that creates that specific edge case. Hopefully the open source monado drivers will be a good replacement eventually. Most everything else should work fine.
I only know because I had windows 10 LTSC when I bought my headset and tried to get it working and found reddit threads with the same issue. I tested the windows 11 IoT when it came out because I hoped it would support my headset then I found out they are dropping support next year.
There needs to be a class action lawsuit about this to either open-source the drivers or to refund all those who purchased WMR devices.
Unsupported hardware
Arcane incantations to get your system to look like a system
Still bloated
At this point, I’m assuming you don’t like yourself very much.
Well, I would like to switch to Linux but my VR headset is holding me back. Linux does have its own annoyances. I would probably still have to virtualize windows because of productivity software I need.
I also use an engineering sample CPU so uhhh… I’ve learned to stop worrying and love the jank.
Fair enough. You can keep your partition and run your VM from there, btw.
Nah, when my Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC (non-IoT) runs out in 2027 it will be the last Windows version I ever use.
Ok.
Perhaps even Cool.
No Candy Crush? Non-starter.
Yeah what do you do on a computer without Candy Crush. Could it even connect to the Internet?
I thought Candy Crush was a dependency for File Explorer, TIL
Unable to verify Minecraft account. Please check your Internet connection or your billing status.
Retry
Use PowerShell Lite instead
Sounds like Linux but worse. Got my dad on Mint and all he ever uses is a browser and mail program (2nd one is optional)
All my mom does is browser and Office365. I tried to get her into LibreOffice and I saw her suffering through it for some time and decided to put her out of her misery by MAS’ing her Office.
Is that because he can’t figure out how to do fuck all in Linux?
Me too
Just download Steam, it’ll do the rest.
Linux: Cause you’re just gonna use an Internet browser anyway.
Believe it or not my pops is readonably tech savvy. He was an engineer and does industrial control automation, and there are a lot of software suites for that which are firmly Windows only. Hardware license dongles and the whole bit. Our chances of getting that to run in Wine are below zero.
VM with one dedicated usb hub passed thru?
I’m still using Windows 10 on my personal work laptop, and I’ve got to say that what you’ve described sounds pretty appealing. Windows 10 with most of the crapware removed, and extended support. That sounds like a good deal…
But on the flip side, I think it’s a bad idea to get an OS from a piracy site. Maybe it’s all genuine and tickety-boo, but being a reputable 3rd party source is a fairly high bar. I certainly wouldn’t trust a site I’ve never heard of to give me a legitimate copy of a better-than-standard version of Windows. Their offer to verify their own files is less than convincing. I think I’d need to be an active part of the scene to be able to trust something like that - because it certainly smells like an easy way to get back-doored.
I agree. I need to trust where the OS (or any software) comes from. I’d rather get a legitimate windows copy and then debloat it and turn off telemetry and other BS myself. Then I know I’m good on both counts. But apparently the IoT LTSC version is legit, not a cracked copy. This is the first I’ve ever heard of it.
You install windows as standard (from MS directly), selecting the IoT version during setup. Afaik it’s on GH so you can view the scripts, copy/paste if you don’t trust the downloaded .ps1, etc.
I ran the OS for a couple months on a system and had no issues. No funky activity reported (no more than usual) with snort, no alerts from sophos. I didn’t extensively verify it, but I don’t have any suspicions to report.
Didn’t they got rid of the Cortana branding?
Yeah I believe they’re just calling it copilot now
I bought an i7 NUC to use as HTPC some years ago. It has W10 IoT on it. Handles Dolby Atmos like a charm & 4K to a degree (YouTube. Last time i checked, Windows still liked to give 4K media files a purple hue)
When I still had a Windows 11 install, it was running under an Enterprise License. Apparently, Enterprise and Education are the only editions left that allow you to deactivate all those unwanted components via the Group Policy Editor. Also the only editions that allow you to turn off telemetry.
At some point, I managed to get all the stuff I needed running seamlessly on Linux, and I plan on never going back to MS.
absolutely legendary you are mate
Windows Media Player
What do you have against it? The original was better I grant you that.
I still fail to see how windows 11 was anything but a collusion scam to sell new hardware.
None of the changes including TPM requirements required a new iteration. Nothing about the underlying NT dropped any of the old and antiquated BS despite Microsoft hiring some morons to advertise the fact on reddit to all the insiders asking questions.
They even let the media pick up a fake report that Windows 11 was related to the Core OS and a brand new kernel was in the works.
If Microsoft wanted a marketing strategy, they could have properly started naming feature updates and adverising them similar to Apple.
8, 10, and 11 have also been a pain on enterprise because Microsoft axed their QA team. I seriously hope any new firms start considering linux desktop as a valid option. All they really need is a vendor to offer a solid distro along with an agreement to rapidly create/deploy any software solution so they don’t get scared looking at the cheap entry windows stuff.
It was Microsoft’s kickback to Intel and later Qualcomm.
Don’t be silly, it was also about putting dedicated spyware and even more ads into your OS.
You’re absolutely right. The fact that people can work around the requirement for UEFI, TPM, and SecureBoot shows that it still runs fine on legacy BIOS. I’ve been saying this forever, it’s like a car radio company telling car dealerships to only allow them to be installed into cars with car alarms and then claiming that the radio is secure (when the security is a feature of the car, not the radio). It’s such bullshit…
You talk as if this is some sort of special trick.
You’re able to work around those things precisely because they have been designed to be turned off.
Running a business system with the TPM turned off is madness, whcih will pretty much guarantee a ransomware attack,.
I cannot install Windows 11 on my computer without using a hacky work around because Windows 11 “requires” SecureBoot and TPM, but my computer doesn’t even have UEFI.
None of the changes including TPM requirements required a new iteration.
This is completely wrong.
The TPM is a hardware feature, so you need to update the whole system. The software patch is too slow to be useful.
The uptake level is expected given falling PC sales and the fact that upgrading is limited.
The TPM is not a dedicated cryptographic processor, it’s an external keystore with a few select functions. You’re thinking of an HSM which is used almost exclusively in servers that have to handle thousands of secrets per second.
CPUs have had dedicated AES hardware for decades which is why LUKS and Bitlocler use it by default.
The TPM just allows certain keys and secrets to be generated and stored physically separate from the CPU as a security measure.
Bitlocker and LUKS will store a master key in the TPM so that you don’t have to enter a password every time you boot. They retrieve it from the TPM and then use it to unlock the actual encryption key which is done entirely in the CPU. If the TPM detects foul play such as secure boot alteration, it will refuse to give the key or clear itself.
Using the TPM for constant encryption like at rest disk encryption would be way too slow.
It’s so so small that most modern TPMs have been integrated into the CPU or even simulated via the motherboard firmware (fTPM and PTT).
I sense 12 coming soon if MS wants to EOL 10 without losing customers.
I’m just acclimating myself to Linux and attempting to learn how to get Wine working. I’m just done with this shit.
Feel free to DM if you want 1 on 1 support. Ive been making the switch for almost 4 years now.
Thanks! I will definitely do that. I’m not new to Linux but it’s been around 20 years since I last did anything with distros and I remember Wine being finicky as hell. Hopefully it has been somewhat tamed in the last 20 years. I’m starting basic AF with Ubuntu, though I did grab a copy of Mint to play with.
Thats fair. I use Fedora myself but Wine should be a lot easier than you remember lol. For me its been as simple as adding the repo and installing, then most of my Windows programs were plug and play :P I dont run any adobe or MS office but the alternatives are pretty good once you get acclimated to them
Wine doesn’t support everything and is still broken for a lot of things.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Call it whatever you want, I don’t feel spreading a negative narrative to someone who wants to leave an abusive ecosystem on the internet should be something that should be defended though.
11.1. Like 8.1.
8.1 was actually a massive improvement though, I doubt they’re even capable of pulling that off for 11, much less willing. 11 is flawed deeply to the core, 8 was “only” flawed on the surface (UI etc.)
Lots and lots of people went on the 98 to XP to 7 to 10 path, skipping Me, Vista, and 8. No reason that pattern can’t continue.
im forced to use it at work and holy shit. 11 is so heavy for no reason, 8gb of ram is not remotely enough anymore.
the ssd smart says its almost at its end, and i suspect its because its constantly swapping.
It’s just a hunch, but my suspicion is it’s already capturing a lot of data for Recall to process later after it’s launched.
I can’t think of any other reasonable explanation for the severe performance decrease on Windows 11.
I think it’s simpler than that.
I think Windows 11 feels unresponsive because of how many features have Internet-enabled features built deep into them. All those little delays opening menus, etc, I think are actually network delay, so the little ads or other stuff have time to fetch and load and show simultaneously with the rest of the UI. Meaning the UI itself has to be delayed slightly to make it less obvious what’s being fed to you from online vs local.
Nothing makes my Windows 11 PC shit the bed harder than an unreliable or interrupted Internet connection. Literally crashing the whole PC sometimes.
Could be they already have their servers processing the data, and Recall is just their effort to offload the processing cost to the end user.
Or it’s just straight up spying.
They 100% are spying and not even hiding it. That isnt what makes a system laggy though as its just a background process snitching on you once and hour or so.
Walk me through that thinking. You believe constantly capturing screen grabs/key presses/file content/etc, processing it, packaging it, and sending to the home servers would have no impact on system resources?
its not grabbing screen grabs and and key presses as you do them, its logging things that you interact with in the background and then packaging that up as a telemetry package to asynchronously send off to a server.
No it doesnt have no impact on resources but it negligable compared to what the previous poster mentioned about making everything dependent on network services and introducing latency that way.
You should read up on Recall. It is openly designed to use screen grabs. And my suspicion is they’re already collecting the data for it.
I’m pegged at 95% RAM usage all day at work 16 gigs and I’m not doing anything too heavy. Windows is a bloated gross mess
And I can still run a 2010 MacBook with 4GB to do photo editing and render non HD video
Bloat is too mild a word for Windows
Wow, what is running in your background though?
I have Windows 11 and it uses a total of 5.6 GB of RAM (I’m also using a Surface Pro 7 if that matters) at idle. I would bring up task manager and see where all that RAM is going.
5.6 GB RAM usage on idle, I presume on a fresh boot, is just outrageous for an OS, especially relative to 8 o 16 GB total RAM.
Wait until you see what the new OSs will need soon. Windows Copilot+ PC, macOS with Apple Intelligence, and newer versions of Android all have a starting need of 16GB (for background AI processes that are done on device). I doubt they will have a small idle RAM footprint.
(iPhone and iPad OS hasn’t been stated for their RAM requirements, but they never do.)
True, good points!
Same but I blame work. My surface tablet at home is vanilla windows professional and memory usage is fine with 16gb.
That said I don’t use Chrome at home and Chrome is absolutely insane with memory consumption
Yeah, as much as Windows feels… subpar for my day to day vanilla, it really turns crappy with my corporate’s mandated load. System is constantly chewing on some bloat from one of the various ‘security’, monitoring, or fix management solutions that they have on this.
Unfortunately, if a company pitches their extra crap as ‘enhancing security’, the execs just have to say yes, because to be an exec who ever said ‘no’ to more security is to put your job at peril. Even if three of that vendor’s competitors already got their equivalent solutions into the load already…
No, 8 GB is nothing these days. It’s not an enjoyable experience on Win 10, 12, Linux, or MacOS.
its great on linux (regular distro, not particularly lightweight) and reasonable on windows 10 for me.
unless you are pushing too many tabs and/or many heavy programs
8 GB works just fine on my laptop running EndeavourOS. And I know there are much more lightweight distros than that. Not ideal, but fine.
The 8 gigs in my Thinkpad seem fine with Mint
The 8 GB in my ThinkPad is pretty annoying. It’s usable but not enjoyable.
what do you use it for to be filling 8gb on linux?
I would guess a heavy UI, and a couple heavy apps that they don’t close.
I admittedly use xfce, which is much lighter than most, I wouldn’t want to run Gnome or KDE on this machine.
Or I suppose I think I wouldn’t; I’ve been using lightweight desktop environments for a decade or so. I just assume the like Ubuntu or whatever default is going to be slower and RAM-heavy.
Opening a few apps fills it up very quickly.
I even run Spotifyd and a cli UI for Spotify because I need to be conservative with my RAM.
curious. im running all regular gui software and i usually only go over 8gb when im pushing it harder. the only time i do consistently is while gaming and even then im always below 16gb.
what distro are you running? do you have KSM enabled?
Windows 10 no longer being updated by Microsoft is it’s biggest selling point
Who thought that puting ridiculous minimum requirements so your spyware can work better would mean that lots of people without newer hardware just won’t upgrade.
An ad blitz doesn’t matter if your product is junk. Make something that isn’t garbage if you want to retain people, people want good products.
Microsoft has realised they have a captive market and are milking it for every dollar (euro, pound, yen, rupee…) they can get.
It isn’t really captive.
People are rapidly moving away from laptop/desktop computers and applications now a days are predominantly web based which means people can use anything that runs Chrome.
You are overestimating the capabilities of the average person. They don’t care its all in the browser. Their “computer looks different” and becomes unusable to them. Tech-illiterate people have a hard time with the concept that all browser based things basically work the same independent of OS.
Soon this is going to have the same energy as a delivery driver that can’t parallel park.
means people can use anything that runs Chrome.
Yeah, but a lot of work things are painfully uncomfortable to use on a phone (ERP and EMR software is so much easier to use with a keyboard, mouse and properly sized screen) and most companies aren’t going to be running Linux because of all the extra support load, nor are they going to yeet Macs at regular everyday users. Chromebooks don’t really get taken seriously in corporate environments IMO.
Similarly, home users who are old school and still want to have a computer - some will switch to Macs, power users will switch to Linux (and switch their family to Linux), but many will just use Windows. Some will use Chromebooks, but those have a bad rep because they used to always be the lowest spec possible (I think it’s gotten better now?)
And finally, gamers - personally I use Linux for gaming. Hell, I used Gentoo Linux for years. Yes, for gaming. But a lot of people, particularly younger folks, want to play games with invasive anti-cheat. And those don’t run on Linux.
This is gonna blow your mind, but most (real) phones you can connect a mouse and keyboard to, either via Bluetooth, or with a USBC adapter, and they work fine.
Businesses are bound to Microsoft Office products which only reliably work on Windows and Mac. Windows is the cheaper of the two, by far, and there are way more IT professionals that are able to work comfortably managing Windows systems than Mac ones.
Me: Hmmmmmm, maybe it’s time for a new PC. Lets see what’s out there.
Stores: Windows 10 and 11
Me: Nevermind!
May I interest you in our lord and saviour linux?
You mean, THIS LINUX???
Take a look at the comments, they explain the issues very well
Yeah, I use and love Linux, but it’s unusable on random unsupported hardware.
For the person who posted it, it could also be that the hardware IS supported, but it’s so obscure that no mainstream distro includes it in their kernel build, not even as a module.
Of course, for the average person, not having the kernel module built pretty much means it’s unsupported.
Windows 11 is a privacy invasion. It’s the worst OS I have ever used for a day and a half.
Windows 11 is: buggy (Remember That bug where AMD Cpus where slow with 11), slow,maybe training your personal data on ai (Maybe),Very Ugly,Cannot be customized.
I hate Windows 11, for a multitude of reasons. But it is still a better experience than Vista. An unbelievably better than Windows ME. Windows ME for me was the worst desktop OS I think I’ve ever used. If we open it up to just any old OS, then I want to say Novell was the worst I ever used.
I was fortunately running top of the line hardware when Vista came out. I didn’t understand all the hate at all… until I sat down and did some work on my uncle’s computer with Vista Basic. Holy shit, even with all of the features that required better hardware removed from the OS, it was the slowest and most miserable experience I ever had on a computer. It was brand new and covered in stickers advertising Vista and it still wasn’t capable of running the damn OS.
That was true with nearly every computer I touched that had it on it.
Mine was awesome though. No complaints.
I haven’t used 11, but it sounds like they’ve done it again.
I feel like I’m alone in this but Vista was great. I preferred it and 8 over 7 and 10.
How? The 7 and 10 are among the better received versions of Windows, for stability, performance, hardware compatibility, etc. What was your experience with Vista that was so good and 7 and 10 being so bad?
Everything that people liked about 7 was a thing in Vista. AFAIK, people hate on Vista for performance, the automatic updates and the admin access pop-ups. The first one is because they tried to upgrade old XP hardware, a new system ran fine. 7 didn’t really increase performance, people just had new computers by that point. The other 2 issues never changed since, people just got used to them.
8 had an amazing search feature that got completely garbled in 10. The “start menu” wasn’t well received, but worked fine. 10 brought back a smaller compromise version of it. 10 also has much more telemetry, came with the Cortana and default edge Bing searches and had overall a much less pleasant experience.
I feel like Vista and 8 get a bad rep because they where so different from the previous ones, even though they rolled some of that into the successors and worked really well. And 10 really accelerated the enshitification of Windows.
I work at an MSP and a lot of our clients have to follow specific security compliance standards. Because Windows 10 is eol soon, we’ve been slowly upgrading folks to 11. I die a little each time I do an upgrade. People, including my coworkers and I, are not happy with it overall, but nobody can do anything because ✨compliance standards✨
Is Ubuntu compliant?
In the corporate world ? Generally not, because IT can’t force group policy out using AD.
Oh there is policy, telemetry and lockdown software for Linux. My BYOD archlinux worked fine until a company I contract for rolled out their zero trust bollocks. They wanted me to install Ubuntu, Redhat or SLES and their spyware.
They now sent me a corporate Win11 laptop for remote access.
My PC isn’t compatible, so fuck Windows 11
I disabled TPM 2.0 in the BIOS and MADE my PC incompatible so Windows 10 would shut up about the “new and improved Windows 11”.
Same here. The main thing that kept me from going with Macs was that the OS only supports the hardware for about 10 years, from what I understand, while Windows used to just not care how old the hardware was. But now it’s not only the TPM 2.0 requirement bullshit - I bought a micro PC with a 5-6 year old Ryzen and it was not supported by Windows 11. Fuck them. I use Windows 11 at work and it sucks anyway. My two choices now are 1) run Linux on my old PC or 2) buy a Mac. I’m most likely going to go with 1. That way I can run Windows 11 and Mac VMs anyway.
Yeah exactly… my laptop isn’t going to grow more ram so I don’t see the point in upgrading. When October 2025 rolls around I may need to upgrade my laptop to freebsd
My perfectly good PC has an incompatible processor with W11, so I’m not upgrading.
I imagine it’ll still be just fine next October, so even if Microsoft doesn’t extend support for W10, I’ll still be using it.
Well, Microsoft said way back when that “Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows” so a lot of enterprise went to it. To this day I’m dealing with vendors that have a certified “Windows 10-only” solution. Another funny one is stuff like Ford’s FDRS software still only officially supports Windows 10 Pro.
Platform changes and all that are fine, but when Microsoft says basically “This is gonna be your LTS forever” and then bails on it, shit like this is no surprise at all.
I’ll admit to some ‘asterisk’ to that.
So a developer evangelist said “because Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, we’re all still working on Windows 10”. So the media ran with the most intuitive interpretation of that language and expanded on it and declared that Microsoft was basically changing to a rolling release model. Note that folks say “he meant latest, not last”.
Meanwhile, Microsoft’s formal lifecycle statement said, from the onset, that it wasn’t going to be supported in 10 years.
However, Microsoft did nothing to clarify the rampant coverage. So I’m still on the side of “the popular impression among people was eternally supported rolling release”. Just acknowledging that, formally, they did designate 10 the same way they had designated previous versions.
I agree with you fully, and that’s my main point. Their own forums were full of the question being repeatedly asked and dismissed, granted by “MVP’s” or independent advisors who have no link to the internal development or plans, they should have stepped up their messaging. The enterprise I work for pays them a fuckton of money, and we even have our own dedicated account reps who sang the same tune those fuckers on the forums did, and they were legit Microsoft employees. When W10’s EOL was announced they sent over a lot of gift baskets to our VP’s over that shit, because we knew how many mission critical systems we had that just got fucked in the ass, and our budgetary outlays just changed.
Complete fucking asshole move, and it could’ve been much better if the messaging were just handled differently.
Yeah, I strongly suspect there was a camp within Microsoft that was 100% pushing for ‘rolling release’ model for the OS versus another traditionalist camp that said there would be new major upgrades. Further, I bet rather than reconciling those perspectives, they just let both camps continue on under their own assumption, until eventually the traditionalists won out and got ‘Windows 11’, finalizing which way the company was going to actually go.
The market share for Win 11 has dropped because people are “downgrading” to Win 10, holding on to that for another year before support runs out.
The Windows computers in our house never upgraded to Win 11.
No surprise there.
Some people are also jumping ship to Linux, fed up of Windows BS all together.
I am skeptical of this because the majority of people do not know how to install an OS.
I think its people not using Windows at all. Colloquially, I know young people that basically only know how to use mobile interfaces and tablets.
The beating will continue until morale increases. - Microsoft PR
The dip in usage comes just as Microsoft has been forcing full-screen ads onto the machines of customers running Windows 10 to encourage them to upgrade.
Yeah no shit! When my computer does full-screen, disruptive things that I didn’t tell it to do, I figure out how to remove that malware. I’ve been off Windows at home for about a month now, thanks Linux Mint! Getting some games to work has been challenging, but most things have just worked and quite a few work much better!
Performance is up overall, and my confidence that my computer isn’t running a bunch of secret ad and spy ware is way up. Hardware like my gamepad and microphone would randomly disconnect and have issues on Windows, all working perfectly now.
Unfortunately I’m still deep in MS land for work, but there’s almost a comedic quality to it. Everything’s very slow, everyone has constant issues with Teams, or Office online, or Dynamics, or copilot shoving it’s tendrils into everything. Watching businesses struggle to keep operating in the face of Microsoft’s inadequacy is like being a mechanic watching a motor grind to a halt because the owner/manufacturer replaced all the oil with syrup.
Like yes, it’s my problem to fix, but I’m just glad it’s not my car.
Welcome fellow minter. Try Steam / Proton… simple and seemless for a huge chunk of games.
