News I’m Sticking With Windows 10, but Microsoft Won’t Stop Nagging Me to Upgrade

[jamesedgeuk2000]

I'm using Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021, gets support/updates until 2033 and does everything home/pro does. Should last me until Windows 12 comes out, I just hope it's not as awful as Windows 11

 

[palladin9479]

You "pushed out" a GPO?

Is your home machine domain-joined or are we talking local group policy?

Originally did local gpedit, once that worked I made a GPU inside my AD, yes I have a small enterprise network running at home.

About the whole Windows vs Linux thing for regular users, as someone who built their own firewall from minimal CentOS + various OSS tools, I wouldn't recommend Linux as a daily driver to anyone who isn't in IT or didn't have a solid *nix background.

 

[Brian D Smith]

Hate is always overblown. People do not normally say anything if they are happy enough.

 

[bavalpey]

While this doesn’t bother me as much as it does others, it’s annoying that you can’t ungroup your taskbar icons, resize the taskbar or move it to the top or side of the screen like you can in prior versions of Windows.

The fact that a tech writer is writing this is really sad.
You can do literally all of these things with ease in windows 11.
The only valid reason written for not changing to Windows 11 is to have both versions for compatibility.

I'm honestly tired of all of the bogus criticisms for Microsoft products. It's like the Edge hate all over again. If you're going to complain about the thing, at least provide reasons that are actually accurate.

Yes, it's annoying that they consistently ask you to upgrade to Win11 with popups and other dark patterns. But keep in mind it's in both the public's best interest and theirs to upgrade as many people as possible: security.

Try again, and stop riding on the coattails of "Windows updates are pushy and annoying" because this is no new sentiment everyone knows this.

 

[palladin9479]

The only valid reason written for not changing to Windows 11 is to have both versions for compatibility.

What is really interesting is that people feel they need the validation from others agreeing with their choices...

 

[Cliff3.141592653589793238]

I have been happy using Linux the last 10+ years. Plus I can have the trash can on my desktop.

 

[Peter Ferrari]

I feel the pain... My solution was* simpler: disable the TPM module in the BIOS.

Regards

a message to check w11 compability still appears instead.

 

[-Fran-]

a message to check w11 compability still appears instead.

I have never gotten it. Or at least, I do not remember it.

Regards.

 

[razor512]

The fact that a tech writer is writing this is really sad.
You can do literally all of these things with ease in windows 11.
The only valid reason written for not changing to Windows 11 is to have both versions for compatibility.

I'm honestly tired of all of the bogus criticisms for Microsoft products. It's like the Edge hate all over again. If you're going to complain about the thing, at least provide reasons that are actually accurate.

Yes, it's annoying that they consistently ask you to upgrade to Win11 with popups and other dark patterns. But keep in mind it's in both the public's best interest and theirs to upgrade as many people as possible: security.

Try again, and stop riding on the coattails of "Windows updates are pushy and annoying" because this is no new sentiment everyone knows this.

The grouping is still forced.

For example, I have a similar set of folders opened on windows 11, can you guess which 2 folders I have opened compared to windows 10 on the left side? It is taking up more screen space while providing less info.

Anyway the folders opened are the following:

As for the task bar settings, as of the latest update, here are the options available (did an imgur album of 3 images) :

https://imgur.com/a/l9k37KK

View: https://imgur.com/a/l9k37KK


Many settings menus are stripped down compared to windows 10, for example, start menu settings.

https://imgur.com/a/Hgt2nQt

View: https://imgur.com/a/Hgt2nQt

 

[Awev]

I found the foillowing statement in the article funny -

As the editor-in-chief of a technology publication, I usually like to run the latest and greatest software, but I have several reasons why I still have Windows 10 on my desktop workstation.

You are still using Micro$oft Windoze? As the last couple pages show there is disagreement about Linux, yet the majority agree Windoze ?? just stinks (even those that say W11 is ok still notes that it is not).

To be clear I leaned computers using PC/M$-DOS 2.12, WordStar with dot commands, and I can not remember if it was Win 1 or 2 that I played with on a professor's computer back in '91, dBase III/IV anyone? I grew up using a keyboard, what is this new fangled thing from Xerox called a "mouse"?

I have used Gentoo to custom build my own OS to help prevent bloat and offer that extra % of effectincy as mute as it might of been. Back when Win 98 was popular I purchased an utility to strip out a lot of the useless stuff/bloat, and subitute good stable stuff from Win 95. I currently run a version of Win 10 that has been stripped down to bare essential and updates turned off for years to come. With one exception (a game still in alpha) all of the programs I use run on it, and ET does not phone home.

My biggest issue with Win 11? Having to log-in to an on-line account - I do not like that one bit. Next biggest issue is M$ and security - enough said.

 

[USAFRet]

My biggest issue with Win 11? Having to log-in to an on-line account - I do not like that one bit. Next biggest issue is M$ and security - enough said.

The Win 11 system I am using right now is logged in with a local standard user account.
The last time I logged in with the online MS account was....I literally cannot remember. Probably sometime in 2022.

The only reason that MS account exists on this system was for the initial Windows license validation.
Both my Win 11 systems, and all my Win 10 systems are like this.

 

[mikeljason]

I switched to 11 not that long ago and have no regrets whatsoever. But then again, I'm a power user who's very particular about my settings and set-up, and it took some heavy tinkering and third-party tools to get things back to normal. In regard to the utterly <Mod Edit> taskbar that caused a lot of frustration early-on, I settled on StartAllBack to get my 7+ Taskbar Tweaker functionality - not to mention, my sanity - back, and the rest of is was pretty straightforward as far as OS upgrades go. Windows 11 has a lot of new stuff that is worth it in the end, and if you have newer hardware like Raptor Lake and whatnot, you don't really have much choice but to update.

"and if you have newer hardware like Raptor Lake and whatnot, you don't really have much choice but to update." This is categorically false. I have both an 13th Gen desktop and an 11th Gen laptop. I've installed Windows 11 several times on both machines and tested it extensively against 10. I've found exactly 1 program that reacts incorrectly to e-cores in Windows 10. I've found Windows 11 to be less stable, cause my CPU to run hotter, and have several major performance breaking bugs. Windows 10 is fine for 12th and 13th Gen CPUs

 

[dalauder]

11 is the new 8

Still makes it better than Vista

 

[dalauder]

I have never gotten it. Or at least, I do not remember it.

Regards.

Agreed. I don't get why people are getting notifications to upgrade to Windows 11? Does it do that if you have an OEM Windows installation only? I installed blank hard drives and installed the Windows 10 that's on all of my PCs.

 

[dalauder]

The fact that a tech writer is writing this is really sad.
You can do literally all of these things with ease in windows 11.
The only valid reason written for not changing to Windows 11 is to have both versions for compatibility.

I'm honestly tired of all of the bogus criticisms for Microsoft products. It's like the Edge hate all over again. If you're going to complain about the thing, at least provide reasons that are actually accurate.

Yes, it's annoying that they consistently ask you to upgrade to Win11 with popups and other dark patterns. But keep in mind it's in both the public's best interest and theirs to upgrade as many people as possible: security.

Try again, and stop riding on the coattails of "Windows updates are pushy and annoying" because this is no new sentiment everyone knows this.

Rapid release cycles and skipping beta testing also dramatically decreases security.

I think you're mixing up "security" with "newest".

As far as Edge. It's fine. But it's worse than several alternatives. All the extra clicks EVERYWHERE is a valid criticism of Windows 11. It's like it's designed to not be used by power users.

 

[dalauder]

"and if you have newer hardware like Raptor Lake and whatnot, you don't really have much choice but to update." This is categorically false. I have both an 13th Gen desktop and an 11th Gen laptop. I've installed Windows 11 several times on both machines and tested it extensively against 10. I've found exactly 1 program that reacts incorrectly to e-cores in Windows 10. I've found Windows 11 to be less stable, cause my CPU to run hotter, and have several major performance breaking bugs. Windows 10 is fine for 12th and 13th Gen CPUs

Windows 10 is also fine for 6th Gen CPUs. That's what I'm running at work now.

 

[Andrew Fox]

My biggest issue with Win 11? Having to log-in to an on-line account - I do not like that one bit. Next biggest issue is M$ and security - enough said.

You don't have to login with an online account, there's a few different workarounds for the home version to install with a local account. Even if you install with an online account you can just go into settings then accounts and click to change to a local account. This Microsoft Account forcing also applies to all of the later builds of Windows 10 Home which removed the easy text link to create a local account from the Windows Installer.

If you have the Windows 10 pro or enterprise version just click "I want to join to a domain" and it jumps you to creating a local account.

The easiest way you can bypass the online account requirement is when prompted for a microsoft account sign into the email no@thanks.com and just type random gibberish as your password and hit next. It will say too many people have tried to sign into this account and it has been locked as a security precaution, when you click next/continue it just goes straight to making a local account and doesn't actually link that no@thanks.com to your system in any way which is cool.

As far as the security is concerned Windows Defender (renamed to Windows Security in Win11) actually has a lot more hardening and extra features under the hood compared to the Windows 10 iteration, you can enable some even more advanced security policies via a couple of powershell commands to further harden the system.

 

[dalauder]

...The easiest way you can bypass the online account requirement is when prompted for a microsoft account sign into the email no@thanks.com and just type random gibberish as your password and hit next. It will say too many people have tried to sign into this account and it has been locked as a security precaution, when you click next/continue it just goes straight to making a local account and doesn't actually link that no@thanks.com to your system in any way which is cool...

Okay, that's pretty cool.

...As far as the security is concerned Windows Defender (renamed to Windows Security in Win11) actually has a lot more hardening and extra features under the hood compared to the Windows 10 iteration, you can enable some even more advanced security policies via a couple of powershell commands to further harden the system.

But all of my security concerns are from idiots at various online companies leaking/compromising passwords. It doesn't help with that.

I mean, if I were a company with intellectual property, it could matter. Then Future Windows Pro would have a purpose.

 

[user321]

I always use windows update blocker from sordum.org.
It is a great and simplest utility to disable windows update on any windows from 7 to 11.
If you want to enable updates the only way is the same software with the same or newer version.
Also if you have downloads from windows update and you have not updated it yet, use wub and delete updates from c:\windows\software distribution folder (press skip if it requires) then press update and restart windows will show you a progress of updates but it will be like a cleanup.
Hope it helps.

 

[froggx]

Multiply these billions of lost spaces and window displacements, with fingers, mouse, etc. It takes energy.

In addition, we are talking about the environment...

Not to mention the "tables" where you have to move the window, because it is not too big. Window that bathes in a window used at 20% at most.

Maybe one day there will be a smart, but most importantly influential person who will be fed up with "Smartphone" windows on PCs with 30, 55… inch screens.

Say that there are automatism to format the pages according to the device used.

It seems that to ask questions is to come off as a "troll" or an idiot.

Finally, what a beautiful society we live in where more than three billion people live in poverty and others cry because they have a broken nail...

alright so just to clarify, that's not "wasted space" it's "super bonus space." if you take a second to look at it you'll see it's big enough to open another panel or two. vertical tabs are mandatory, horizontal tab strip is for masochists. splitscreen helps out a lot if you find yourself toggling between 2 pages, which seems to happen a lot for me. also if you have vision bad enough to zoom in on some pages (i do this), the page uses that "wasted space" to enlarge the content without rearranging everything. i'll also enable the immersive reader regularly, it helps a lot but doesn't always get all the content.

The grouping is still forced.

For example, I have a similar set of folders opened on windows 11, can you guess which 2 folders I have opened compared to windows 10 on the left side? It is taking up more screen space while providing less info.

Anyway the folders opened are the following:

As for the task bar settings, as of the latest update, here are the options available (did an imgur album of 3 images) :

https://imgur.com/a/l9k37KK

View: https://imgur.com/a/l9k37KK


Many settings menus are stripped down compared to windows 10, for example, start menu settings.

https://imgur.com/a/Hgt2nQt

View: https://imgur.com/a/Hgt2nQt

Never combine icons and hide labels is back! i've been using it for a few months now via the Insider Dev releases. screenshot came out kinda "meh," red circle is the important part. everything i've heard points to general release in the next feature update, but that's totally unverified. it works extremely well though, and was totally functional right when it was introduced, just sorta janky sometimes.

There is a thing called god mode you know.

cheat-level h@x0rs. OP af, pwns windoze so hard.

 

[tamalero]

alright so just to clarify, that's not "wasted space" it's "super bonus space." if you take a second to look at it you'll see it's big enough to open another panel or two. vertical tabs are mandatory, horizontal tab strip is for masochists. splitscreen helps out a lot if you find yourself toggling between 2 pages, which seems to happen a lot for me. also if you have vision bad enough to zoom in on some pages (i do this), the page uses that "wasted space" to enlarge the content without rearranging everything. i'll also enable the immersive reader regularly, it helps a lot but doesn't always get all the content.

Never combine icons and hide labels is back! i've been using it for a few months now via the Insider Dev releases. screenshot came out kinda "meh," red circle is the important part. everything i've heard points to general release in the next feature update, but that's totally unverified. it works extremely well though, and was totally functional right when it was introduced, just sorta janky sometimes.




cheat-level h@x0rs. OP af, pwns windoze so hard.

hopefully waiting for the ungrouping option. I'm stick of having to click more times than neccesary. Specially in high end large multimonitor buildups.

I swear Windows 11 was just designed for mobile devices in mind.