zlacker

Windows 11 was an absolute downgrade to my Windows 10 experience. To the point that I went back to windows 10 in less than a day of Windows 11.

1. I can't ungroup the taskbar windows. So now I have to hoover the taskbar to see multiple instances of the same software;

2. Who the hell thought it was a great idea to couple all the commands like WiFi, power energy, etc under the same menu? On Windows 11 I needed to click the WiFi icon, select WiFi menu, select a WiFi to connect to. Whereas on windows 10 I just click on the WiFi symbol and choose the WiFi. I don't like my computer auto connecting to the Internet so I manually connect whenever I want and use this menu multiple times a day.

3. Speaking of great ideas, now all the right click useful stuff is behind a second menu... Pure genius move.

I know I can hack my way around these issues but I don't see the point of installing sketchy software or messing registry hacks to fix this mess. I will use Windows 10 until its end of life.

>>arepub+(OP)
It's still Windows, we can tweak everything exactly how we want it.

https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher

https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker-on-windows-11-wi...

I've been using 7taskbar for years, it's rock solid. ExplorerPatcher is a new requirement, works great and adds tons of features.

>>arepub+(OP)
Look up Windows LTSC, it’s like Win10 that acts like Win7

>>Ghetto+a6
LTSC now

>>medlaz+32
Don’t forget classicshell!

>>throaw+N7
I went from Win7 to LTSB, then upgraded to LTSC (for gpu passthrough) but still hated it for some reason, mainly needing to undo windows changes and various issues that should have been defaults. I went to KDE and use windows only for some Win software that didn’t work on VM or wine.

I miss Windows 2000 Pro, it wasn’t bloated, pretty fast, didn’t crash and had the fewest problems.

>>medlaz+32
Maybe it's just me, but tweaking Windows extensively always feels like you're fighting against the OS.

I don't have these issues with my Linux installs.

>>RealSt+Hf
You don’t uninstall snap if you use Ubuntu?

>>arepub+(OP)
> Who the hell thought it was a great idea to couple all the commands like WiFi, power energy, etc under the same menu?

ahem, gnome, ahem

>>Ghetto+4i
Uninstalling software isn't the same as installing new, different software that didn't even come in your distribution's repositories.

And, besides, a lot of people don't run Ubuntu, perhaps to get away from snap, perhaps to get away from systemd, or perhaps just because they can..

>>gunapo+5x
Most people do if they install a distro from my experience. It’s easy and it just works.

You never install more software in Linux? I certainly do, it’s why I got it. You can use this to make Windows “distros”. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactur...

I’m not a Windows user but it’s not fundamentally different, Linux can come bloated, Windows can be stripped or another version like LTSC can be used.

>>dsego+9i
I could be wrong but iOS/macOS were probably the inspiration for MS.

>>arepub+(OP)
It’s Windows Millennium Edition 2. Break things that worked fine, add things that add no value, recategorize everything to confound expert and novice users.

>>gunapo+5x
Do people still want to "get away from systemd". I thought most people had realized that systemd was a good thing by now :p.

There's not a single popular Linux distro these days that isn't systemd by default. Even """hardcore""" distros.

>>Ghetto+6d
There’s a docker image that you can spin up and then RDP into. Windows 2000.

>>bendho+YH
There's still a number of modern distros that drop it by default like Denuvan and Void. I don't particularly hate systemd, but I really disagree with it's design philosophy and general layout these days. It's not that hard to sympathize with the people who grew frustrated with it's lack of modularity and tossed it in lieu of a better init system.

>>8yteco+tA
I use Windows (10) and MacOS and I like the Mac way better. How often do I need to click on the wifi and volume icons? Hardly ever. Might as well merge them into one menu.

>>bendho+YH
There's still Slackware and I consider it pretty hardcore.

>>dade_+jH
ME was mostly a less-stable 98SE, with very little in the way of UI changes.

>>grandp+HR
Many people have multiple wifi with different devices, printers on each, have to do it multiple times a day. It's a problem with single menu. What is the problem having separate button that are useful to others?

>>bendho+YH
I do just to try. Popular isn’t a good measure, window on desktop, Intel graphics and Facebook are popular. I like systemd but I wouldn’t mind trying other init.

>>Ghetto+6d
The key is to get or make a stripped down version of LTSC. Remove everything possible before you even install it. It's a lot like win2k but with more update nags.

>>bendho+YH
Alpine is extremely popular for containers due to always picking lightweight choices like not using systemd. I don't think any of the Google distros (Android, Chrome OS) use it either but that shouldn't be particularly surprising. And of course hardcore classic Gentoo still lets you pick whether you want to or not. Void for a more traditional "user desktop" distro.

I like systemd and those are the only cases I remember being surprised the usual commands didn't work.

>>medlaz+32
Honestly, if you're going to modify Windows, why not just go Linux? Monkeypatching Windows into a good (useable?) OS seems like more effort for less return than just picking up a distro. The only advantage I've heard people claim for Windows is that "it just works." If it can't even meet your workflow, why bother?

>>Kerbon+TP
Using Win2k as your daily driver seems like an exceptionally poor decision.

>>RealSt+Hf
No its not.

Linux has various distros designed for specific professional domain (such as security, music, networking etc.). Windows doesn't have distros (unfortunately, it would be game changer if MS allowed for this) so you absolutely need to tweak it to your preference unless you use it only to for trivial stuff.

>>cybern+571
I like Windows. Any hardware just works. Many linux distros are nice but none I tried could handle the diversity of devices as Windows. To get some things done you even need to recompile the kernel, something unheard of in Windows land.

I customize the heck out of Windows with couple of PowerShell scripts. So to get my own "distribution" I need no more then hour or two wait and almost zero effort starting from default ISO install.

I usually have:

1. Recursive windows updater (handles updates and restarts until no updates are available)

2. 50+ Chocolatey packages ( cinst git pwsh vscode docker-desktop dbeaver dngrep everything doublecmd copyq signal slack viber autohotkey premotem flameshot paint.net krita conemu googlechrome thunderbird foobar2000 ... )

3. Run debloater that removes junk services and apps, everything from start menu and taskbar. This also kills Windows Defender.

4. I run ShutupW10 with almost all settings enabled.

Its basically done from there. Many of those tools also download their own settings on first run, such as vscode getting my config and extensions.

Such Windows environment is as productive as any Linux one for me. The only thing I really miss is decent window manager like i3 on Linux.

>>majkin+iV3
> To get some things done you even need to recompile the kernel

What things?

>>majkin+iV3
If it's productive and you like it, then that's great! I stopped using Windows about 7 years ago; I've slowly radicalized myself to the point where I just genuinely hate Windows as a product and often wish toenail cancer upon its engineers.

I'm realizing how detrimental this is to my emotional well-being, but I still genuinely can not imagine what would entice me back to the Microsoft stranglehold. The fact that you even need to run a debloater (that removes most of the user-facing crud), add a package manager, and empathically tell your OS to shut up... I just don't see the point.

It's adversarial.

Why do I want an enemy for an OS? and even if the OS was friendly, Microsoft certainly isn't, and so: why do I want an enemy's snitch for an OS?

>>cybern+rv7
> The fact that you even need to run a debloater (that removes most of the user-facing crud), add a package manager, and empathically tell your OS to shut up... I just don't see the point.

I do this for almost anything. I was doing the same thing when I was actively using Ubuntu, Arch or MacOS as a daily driver. Only I can say what is the environment I work in and its by definition impossible for anybody else to get it right.

> Why do I want an enemy for an OS? and even if the OS was friendly, Microsoft certainly isn't, and so: why do I want an enemy's snitch for an OS?

Why are you skipping relevant bits to confirm your biases ? I was fighting all OSes all the time, I fight Windows only on initialization, and other OSes every freaking week. Why would I want that ?

You don't seem to have healthy thought process around big coorps - I don't work for them, and I don't care about ANY of them. When I switched from Windows to Linux it was because I couldn't see that direction where MS was going was good and OS sucked. I was happy with Linux and learned a lot, but I had frequently to do non-trivial job to get trivial things working (like USB). I returned to Windows few years later when they started their FOSS era, and I am now more than happy.

The truth is, I don't care for ANY OS. I don't care for their desktops, shiny init apps, stupid windows managers, control panels. Fuck all of that. Give me kernel, terminal and browser and let me be, I can take it from there. So basically any OS I use looks the same and uses the same x-platform tools.

>>Ghetto+4i
I don' use Ubuntu, simple as that.