Nowadays Windows is filled with adware and is fairly slow, but it wasn’t always like this. Was there a particular time where a change occurred?
Windows 1.0; November 20, 1985.
I was going to say, post 3.11, but maybe you’re right ;-)
When was Windows 1 released?
Windows Vista was the start in my eyes. XP (pro) was amazing. And then Vista came out and it broke a lot of things. Security was garbage, applications would constantly lose root files
Vista only lasted 2 years before they went back and turned it into Windows 7 with a few small tweaks, but more or less the exact same thing
98, XP, 7, 10: Good.
ME, Vista, 8, 11: Bad.
It’s Star Trek Movies all over again. We just need to hang on for Windows 12.
98 still had plenty of jank, but it was worlds better than 95. I would add 3/3.11 to the “good” list if only because that was basically the only other option for a lot of people and it did what it needed to. I don’t recall personally seeing windows 1 or 2.
edit: I guess I could throw NT mostly into the good section, but I mostly just did tech support for it rather than using it.
12 is in a weird cybersecurity limbo. It’s supposed to have a top-notch built in anti-virus and firewall, but Microsoft has said the same thing for Vista, 7, 8, 10, and 11. Yet systems are still getting compromised. If Microsoft included a VPN with insurance guarantee of function, I’d be 1000% on board
Windows Defender is actually really good for the common person. If you’re doing highly risky things then perhaps getting better software would be warranted. But if your doing low risk activates, Windows defender is pretty great.
Also, that’s not what VPNs do; you can still download ransomware through a VPN tunnel.
Yeah. I know VPN subscriptions have always been too good to be true. It’s not like I do high profile stuff on my PC, but VPN subscriptions means a cracked back door which doesn’t sit well with me regardless of who or what already has access to my shit.
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They lost their way with Windows 8, tried to make both desktop and tablet users happy but lost both.
It’s true, if it was still supported I would downgrade from 10.
But it’s not, I guess I’ll have to shift my main computer to linux sooner or later. I am not enjoying the thought if I’m totally honest. I just want the change to be over and not have to live through the interregnum.
The old world is dying; the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.
Having switched about a year ago now, I can say at least for me the switch to linux has been fairly painless. There has been bumps and snags, but it’s pretty much worked out of the box for 99% of the things I use on a daily basis. I still have my desktop dual booting for the small handful of things that aren’t compatible. But at this point, I’d suspect that I spend on average an hour a month with windows loaded.
I’m glad it worked for you. If you don’t mind me asking, what programs do you typically use?
My uses, beyond the typical browsing, text editing basic stuff are:
- Video recording & editing
- Graphic design
- VR (Pimax, currently impossible on wine)
- Programming
- CAD (3d modelling and pcb design)
- 3D printing & CNC
- MIDI instruments & synthesisers
- NVidia Gamestream to a TV
- Obscure simulator hardware
And a bunch of other stuff I can’t think of right now, plus my second computer which is running ubuntu and acting as a server.
I just use my computer so much, for so many different things, that a full switch all at once is virtually impossible. I need dual boot, I always end up returning to Windows to get other things done, and going back to Linux is hard. Each task is another mountain to climb, and there’s so much friction at every step, it always stalls and I just default to Windows. Plus I’m chronically ill, and I have regular flare ups, which kill all my momentum.
I’ve tried doing gamestream using Sunshine/Moonlight, and I just can’t get Sunshine working. If I could make that switch, then the linux computer could take that over and get used a lot more, so the main machine would carry less.
Maybe I’ll try converting my laptop first, it does a lot less currently so could be a good bridging point, and I wouldn’t need to dual boot it. I just need to make sure I’ve got drivers for the touchscreen and tablet mode, it’s a weird one.
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Okay, thanks for the suggestions, but I wasn’t asking for suggestions. I wanted to see if the person whose switch was “painless” had the array of use cases I have. I suspect probably not, I’d be interested to hear what it was.
I’ve already found that OBS hangs when recording from my camera. VLC has a terrible inferface and I have to launch it with hacky shell scripts to get it to remember my camera settings, but it works.
Also Blender is not a CAD program. There is FreeCAD and OpenSCAD for most of my cases.
For PCB design, kiCAD is a good open source program.
There are plenty of open source music programs too.
Gamestream has Sunshine and Moonlight FOSS programs. I have the Moonlight client working, but the Sunshine server just won’t find it on the network. I’ve messed with the firewall every way I know how, and nothing works. Sunshine works on Windows, but has lag, so the only thing I’ve made work properly is the NVidia gamestream server with the Moonlight FOSS client. I’ve heard Sunshine is better on Linux, but not if it doesn’t work.
The hardware is a pain in the butt. I would love to know if my steering wheel runs on OpenSimWheel protocols, but the configurator is proprietary and requires uploading the config after each startup of the wheel. No idea how it’ll go on Linux.
All of these are solutions I wouldn’t recommend to the non-tech-savvy. It’s such a slog to get any of it working, and I need to go through it for each new task. That’s why I don’t follow through. It’s not for lack of software suggestions.
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I think you’re right about that, but a lot of people just keep banging on about how people should switch and they don’t acknowledge the real, structural and practical problems that are stopping most people from doing it.
I dd it the other way around.
Switched to Linux (LDME about 12 months ago) and the things I couldn’t do I didn’t bother with. I have so many things that interest me I just spend more time on them and found some new stuff.
I was dual booting a few years back because I had a bunch of stuff I couldn’t do in Linux and said fcuk it this time. In retrospect I wish I had adopted that philosophy earlier.
Honestly if the answer to the question “how do I do this” is “you can’t”, then surely you can see the problem with that?
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It’s likely easier than you expect. Most Linux distros come with the ability to read and write to the same file system that Windows uses, so other partitions than your install partition can be carried over. This isn’t ideal because the that FS has some issues, but it does function fine. I’ve still got a drive that’s mostly media on that filesystem.
The biggest issue is if you depend heavily on particular pieces if software that don’t have native Linux versions, though wine may be able to work around that and, if not, a virtual machine can likely handle it.
It’s really not too big of an issue to switch. You’ve likely tinkered with Windows to make it not garbage than you’ll have to do with Linux (though you have a lot of options to go further if you want).
Yesterday.
Yesterday I finally looked up how to manually add a program to the main menu on my Ubuntu machine.
There is no default way to do it. I did multiple searches for the information, which I couldn’t get from reddit because the browser can’t login for some reason that I haven’t figured out yet. You either wrestle with massive configuration files, or you have to manually install a program called “Main Menu”. That provides an interface which is completely bespoke to do what is effectively adding shortcuts into a folder structure.
So I went through the process of figuring out what this unaccountably bespoke, third party specialised application wanted from me before I could customise the items on the main menu of my own machine. After all that… it crashed. I tried again, and nothing happened. It just… wouldn’t run the command any more.
I ended that travesty of an excursion into Linux’s many mountains of madness by giving up. I still haven’t added the shortcut. I decided I had actual work to do.
In Windows you do that by… adding shortcut files to a folder structure using a file explorer, literally the same way you manipulate files in every other context.
Every time someone tells me Linux is “easy” I have a new, fresh, utterly bonkers story of how impossible the entire experience is, because I am currently, actively trying. I have been trying Linux for 15 fucking years. Stop with the gaslighting. It is a nightmare.
15 years ago, I read all about how easy Linux is now:
https://slrpnk.net/comment/9790061
Nothing has fundamentally changed.
This is not a request for help. I do not want you to solve this current problem for me. I can do that myself. The problem is that these problems are neverending and people just cannot accept that it is a huge problem. Please, I beg you, open your eyes, acknowledge the issue, and stop lying.
Yeah, the “Linux is easy” rhetoric doesn’t really do Linux any favors. If you’ve been told “Linux is easy” and it’s not, then you have a tendency to give up because “well if it’s easy for everyone else but I can’t figure it out, I guess it’s just not for me.”
Trying to convert someone to Linux needs to be an honest conversation, and “Linux is easy” isn’t honest. There will be growing pains. You will need to re-learn things. You will need to google things. You will get an insane amount of toxic “lul rtfm noob” responses from the community if you ever have the audacity to ask for help. If you’re lucky, they’ll at least include a link to the relevant documentation.
But at least that’s honest, and will give the person realistic expectations. They won’t go into it expecting a direct 1:1 Windows replacement, only to be disappointed. People who say “Linux is easy” are like the vegan trying to convince you that soy bacon tastes exactly like the real thing, in an attempt to convert you. When it tastes worse than the real thing, you’ll just be disappointed and less likely to convert to veganism in the future.
I want to be clear, I didn’t say it’s easy. I said it’s easier than you probably expect. The biggest thing is you have to accept that it isn’t Windows and you’ll have to learn it, like you did for Windows at some point in time. Expecting it to work the same as Windows is where most issues come in.
I’ve heard riding a unicycle isn’t that hard, but if you try to ride it like a bike and expect it to do the same then you’re probably going to be in pain.
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I’ve tried so many distros, I don’t plan to stick with Ubuntu, but I haven’t ever seen one that fixes these issues.
The problem with draggin something into the bar is that it’s a limited resource of space and it gets cluttered. You put things in menus so you can hide them away and recall them whenever. Hitting start and typing the program name is a much faster way to use the computer for me.
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It’s the fullscreen app launcher that I’m trying to use, that needs this bizarre solution.
And also, asking people to completely swap out their OS or window manager just to solve an activity menu bug is kind of unhinged. I have already done so much work to get this machine working to this state. I rely on it. Starting from scratch is incredibly discouraging, so I put up with all sorts of friction, hate the experience, and go back to Windows on my main machine.
Plus, what if I switch to KDE, do all that work, and discover another painful, endemic bug? “Just switch distros” is the “just break up” of linux advice. It’s easy, lazy, accomplishes nothing, and most people won’t do it.
For me on KDE (might be different for gnome) I hit the super key (windows key) and just start typing the name of the package I want to use and hit enter when it’s there, very similar to Windows except it doesn’t need to be exicitly added.
How are you installing packages? Are you using a package manager? You usually don’t need to handle the tedium that Windows has made you think is normal. Your package manager should handle this stuff.
I am adding scripts and programs that don’t have installer scripts. I wanted to customise the menu. You don’t do that with turnkey installations.
/usr/share/applications buddy
You either wrestle with massive configuration files (located at /usr/share/applications buddy)
This is not a request for help. I do not want you to solve this current problem for me. I can do that myself. The problem is that these problems are neverending and people just cannot accept that it is a huge problem. Please, I beg you, open your eyes, acknowledge the issue, and stop lying.
I just mean to say that’s all a shortcut is in windows, so liking one and hating another is a bit contradictory.
KDE also has a quite nice application editor
I explained the problem quite thoroughly, it’s your choice to be a toxic linux fanboy and ignore how obviously shit the solution is.
And there is a significant difference in how you’re expected to make the shortcuts. In windows the operation is built in, default, seamless. In Linux it is unworkably tedious. The fact you don’t see the difference is a serious problem.
And the idea I should replace the entire OS or window manager just because of this one bizarre problem I couldn’t possibly have anticipated when installing is absurd. You people want linux to be universal and you expect people to work this hard at adoption, and you blame them when they give up on your toxic bullshit? You are deluded.
Like the other user said, KDE is more windows-like and my preference. Regardless, you’re using a different operating system and desktop environment. It’s going to want to do things in a different way that you’re used to. You can wrestle whatever Linux distro you choose to behave more like Windows, but you’re better off learning what it does differently and using it how it was intended. That’s the biggest issue I see with people switching. They want a Windows copy, but it isn’t Windows and shouldn’t be expected to be. You had to learn Windows at some point. You’ll have to learn Linux and whatever DE you choose.
It’s going to want to do things in a different way that you’re used to.
The point is not that it’s different to what I’m used to. The point is this design decision takes what is fundamentally just adding shortcuts into a folder structure and completely rewrites the interface for no reason. And then it didn’t even work. I did all that work just to hit a brick wall.
You told me it’s likely easier than I expect. Well, I am telling you that I know exactly what to expect because I am currently doing it, and it’s not just hard. It is perverse.
Like honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if groups like Microsoft are deliberately sabotaging the user experience by adding shit like this. Not putting in deliberate security flaws, but deliberate design flaws. There certainly seems to be no sense of quality assurance when accepting one or another system as the way things are done.
The point is this design decision takes what is fundamentally just adding shortcuts into a folder structure and completely rewrites the interface for no reason.
How do you know that’s what it is fundamentally? For Windows that’s true, but probably not for Gnome. For KDE I can just install a package with the package manager and it’s automatically in the search system. I don’t know how it’s doing it fundamentally, but it isn’t the way Windows does it for sure because it doesn’t require me touching it like Windows does.
it’s not just hard. It is perverse.
Again, I have no idea what you’re doing or interacting with, so I can’t comment directly. For me personally, it works very well without much messing with it, while Windows required a bunch of registry edits and other things to make it work how I wanted. You just have to accept it for what it is and learn how to use it. It will take time to learn how it wants to work, not how you want it to work. It is literally perverse to try to force it to work like Windows instead of learning the new system.
If you’ve only driven a car, you’re probably going to find it rough driving a motercycle like a car. You’re best off learning how to drive the motercycle the way it was designed to work.
KDE is almost certainly more your style though. I know I didn’t like gnome when I tried it a long time ago. Hopefully KDE fixes your issues, but it’s still not Windows and you have to remember that. It will take time to learn how it wants you to use it.
The metaphor is exactly the same as files and folders. That part is transparent, you don’t need access to internal implementation details to understand it. The Main Menu program allows you to make “groups” which are no different than folders and “items” which are just shortcuts. For reasons completely lost on me, the files that represent these groups and folders exist flat in a single folder on the drive.
So they reimplemented a folder structure using a markup language and then implemented an entirely bespoke interface to manipulate them. Then you have to search for what it’s called and install it, and then it crashes anyway. It’s just strange.
And you’re the second person telling me it should just be automatic with installation even though I specifically said I was making custom changes to the menu. I want to add things that aren’t part of a standard installer. This should be a simple operation for a power user.
I agree with you, there are many things about Linux that technically work, but are rough around the edges. I know said you’re not looking for solutions, but I could offer some generic advice, have you tried using KDE as your desktop?
GNOME (which is what Ubuntu ships with by default) is not the best for easy user customization. It can be done, but as you said expects things done a certain way. I like KDE because it’s more similar to Windows in that it gives you a bit more customization out of the box.
Fedora KDE Spin is my recommendation, but if you want to stick with Ububtu then Kbuntu is also popular.
I’ve trued kubuntu, xubuntu, mint, opensuse, kali (when I was learning pentesting) and I forget which others.
If KDE is indeed more customisable I may have to give it another try, I do appreciate the information.
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When did they start bundling candy crush? Xp? Or 7? That was when the enshittification started.
Not due to that app itself, and it was a slow start and it took a while, but that was when stuff started being “pushed” instead of merely “present”, like, say pinball or solitaire.
Candy Crush didn’t even exist until 8 was the latest Windows, so I’m gonna say Windows 8
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I would have been happy to pay for continued improvements to DirectX and Vulcan and increasing security and minor useful incremental changes over time keeping the same Windows 7 playbook running. I wish I lived in the timeline where our greatest complaint with Windows is that it hasn’t changed very much in the last 15 years.
Vista* but otherwise yes
How bad is security if you still have Windows 7 installed today?
Looks like 3% of windows users worldwide could help answer that question. Well, up to 3%… guessing not too many of them are too savvy.
I try to not connect mine to the internet anymore
I would be willing to bet a large sum of money that those machines are corporate owned and running legacy systems that are hanging on by a thread.
Every year someone talks about replacing Ol’ Smoky but the new system would need to go through validation and that costs time and money so they limp along for another year
This is something Apple got right. OS X 10.0 was good and they’ve made lots of incremental changes but didn’t just arbitrarily change the whole “centered application dock at the bottom and menu bar at the top” situation. When new form factors emerged, they just made a new interface and didn’t try to hot glue a mouse/touchpad OS and touchscreen OS together for the fuck of it.
Yeah, every UI change since 7 has been for the worse, increasing the number of steps required to get work done.
To be fair, 10’s Settings screen makes dealing with wifi and bluetooth much easier than 7
I wasn’t using bluetooth with 7, so you could be right. But if I need to fiddle with wifi beyond just changing what AP I’m connected to, the network settings I typically want to look at, eg disabling adapters or manually setting an IP address, were available in fewer steps in 7 versus 10.
Yeah but they had to do that because bluetooth became much more commonplace between 7 and 10.
Although I’m not sure if it was like that out of the box or it was improved with an update.
I heard someone refer to what happened from XP to 10 as “onioneering” because they just added layers.
They must’ve stopped with Windows 11 because I’m still on Windows 10 Pro and don’t see even a fraction of the BS I keep hearing about Windows having.
I’m on 11 and don’t see it either because I turned it off a long time ago and it has yet to turn back on, ever.
I suppose the weird surprise lesson of the Windows 8 fiasco is no matter how badly they bollixed it up, they wouldn’t lose enough customers that they could afford break a lot more of the user experience than they ever originally thought.
Even Vista, while people had issues*, still provided a largely familiar interface and didn’t go out of its way to break muscle memory and traditional workflows.
IMO, Vista wasn’t as bad as is commonly held. A lot of the problem was that it was more resource-intensive than previous systems-- it really asked for decent graphics cards and 2Gb memory, but they sold a lot of cheap machines with 512Mb and crappy shared-memory chipsets that only qualified as “Vista Basic Capable” so that the manufacturers wouldn’t have to formally declare them obsolete. Some drivers had teething trouble, but switching to 64 bit was going to have growing pains anyway.
every other version is good
Bill Gates? Is that you?
Nope. That’s an old meme, that still checks out. There is still hope for Windows 12.
Depending on who you ask, Vista or 8.
Vista, no question
+1 for 8
That’s where they started to suck
NT 3.5 was the last version I’d consider “good” without reservation.
From the very beginning, it always had particular features which were designed to make things worse for the users for some business reason for Microsoft. After XP, though, the work in the core OS was basically done - it wasn’t slow or lacking important features or unstable (relatively speaking, at least), and so the only changes being made to it from then on were adding crappiness to it for some reason related to business priorities or just simple stupidity. And so, it entered its slide.
After XP, though, the work in the core OS was basically done
There were a lot of big things happening in computer hardware: migration to 64-bit instruction sets and memory addressing, multicore processors, the rise of the GPU. The security paradigm also shifted to less trust between programs, with a lot of implementation details on encryption and permissions.
So I’d argue that Windows has some pretty different things going on under the hood from what it was 20 years ago.
Microsoft has always made windows good… … … For them.
To be honest I’d go as far back as XP and say that was fine, 7 was also but I’ve never liked the start menu etc since and the forced updates really just wind me up.
I’ve always believed that 2k was the best software they ever produced.
Nah, that would surely be a game or something. Maybe Age of Empires II?
Naw, the best software they’ve ever produced is 6502 BASIC.
Though Flight Simulator does get an honorable mention.
I remember all the nicknames from when XP came out. I don’t remember which was more common; disco windows, or teletubby windows.
In my neck of the woods it was called fisher price windows lol
I gamed on Win2k until I couldn’t anymore because of requirements. It was excellent.
I eventually ended up on XP, and the first thing I did was shut off the Fisher Price skin. It still never ran quite as good as Win2k.
Oh man that was one of the few windows distros I never felt too compelled to reinstall. Perf just never degraded that much with a reasonably defragged drive (jesus I am dating myself with that statement)
probably 8 or 10
