by epolanski
11 subcomments
- I liked the path windows was going in late 2010s. WSL, power toys, many great utils, great performance.
But it has since then stalled and got increasingly worse. Especially with this AI shoving everywhere, not even mentioning getting ads at some point in notifications and start menu.
I'm not particularly in love with MacOS either (but have no realistic alternative on my MacBooks).
I'm more and more inclined of switching my desktop (my main working machine) to Omarchy, two coworkers in my team use it and love it and seems the sweet spot for what I need as a dev without the annoyance of Windows or the god awful macos.
by kryogen1c
4 subcomments
- The fact that, on expensive hardware, I can hit windows+r and start typing before the run box renders/loads is staggering, it beggars belief.
Im generally a microsoft shill, but theyre really on the down hill slope. windows 11 is truly a masterpiece of changes no one asked for or wants, Teams is the least reliable piece of business software I've ever seen. New outlook does not have feature parity with old outlook and has the same bargain bin apple ux stylings as w11.
Maybe ive finally crested the age gap and im officially a dinosaur, but God damn every microsoft product is worse than it used to be.
- "What Andy giveth, Bill taketh away" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill%27s_law
On a more serious note, I really only use Windows for games & I'm still always frustrated with how many updates (& restarts during updates) Windows needs. My fans are always constantly spinning on Windows too (laptop or desktop) whereas my Mac & Linux machines are generally silent outside of heavy load.
- If I could still be running Windows 2000, I would --- it simply flew on a Fujitsu Stylistic ST2300, and I was able to hack the Compaq TC1000 Finepoint digitizer driver for Windows NT to run on it --- w/ a CF--IDE adapter, no spinning rust to worry about, and I even had room for a full install of Encarta, my only worry until it died was buying AAAA batteries for the stylus, and the only thing I missed was pressure sensitivity (but my work computer had a Wacom Intuos, so the delicate stuff was done on that).
That said, my favourite Windows computer ever was the Fujitsu Stylistic ST4110 w/ transflective display and Wacom EMR digitizer --- put an SSD in it, carried a couple of spare batteries, added a USB GPS, and kept a pair of docking stations w/ power supplies at my desks at work and the office and a third power supply in my laptop bag and it just worked --- despair of really replacing it, the Samsung Galaxy Book 12 was close, but then Fall Creators Update came out and crippled styluses down to an 11th touch input so that they would scroll rather than select text... getting by w/ a Book 3 Pro 360, but Windows 11 has me looking at a Raspberry Pi paired w/ a Wacom One or Movink display....
- It's not shocking they added even more bloatware to every microsoft program so even with the same OS kernel it would probably take longer. At this point it also got out of hand for Microsoft themselves if you have heard how they are going to speed up the explorer. Not by making it faster but by preloading it on startup so it feels snappier, there are 20 years of technical debt in I think you cannot save this anymore (but I am to inexperienced to know that for sure)
by richard_chase
3 subcomments
- I switched to Linux after Windows started showing me propaganda on the screen where you enter your password. To me, that's diabolical and forced me to make the switch. Sorry, I don't wish to "Learn more about Black-Owned Businesses" just to access my computer.
by PeterStuer
1 subcomments
- Slowest is unfortunately not even the worst problem of Win11.
I just want an OS that helps me control my computers and be productive, not one that "mines" me to sell me to be exploited.
While I have been using various Linux flavors for my servers, my desktop has been Windows for decades. Microsoft's charade with Win11 has me committed to moving to desktop Linux in 2026. There will be pain, but they crossed a line.
by doodlesdev
1 subcomments
- Regarding the video benchmark on the page: what would be fair is testing against the hardware that was available when the operating system was released. Windows 11 is absolutely not meant to run against hard drives, and current notebook and desktop offerings for home and enterprise users reflect that: you can get a 256gb SSD for a pretty decent price nowadays, to the point there's absolutely no reason to put in an HDD. When Windows Vista was released, your computer would absolutely have an HDD, so that would be a fair comparison.
That said, I was restoring a notebook owned by my aunt recently and I decided to run Ubuntu on it so I could mess with gparted a little bit. I'm already a full-time Linux user (have been for about five years now, I guess), but I was still surprised to see that one of the most bloated Linux distributions ran lightning fast on my aunt's Pentium Gold + 4gb RAM + HDD while Windows took over four minutes to boot.
It's absolutely time to abandon Windows if you're still dependent on it. There are alternatives. Heck, I'm not a fan of Apple either but at this point I'd recommend a MacBook for anyone wanting to get away from Windows and not comfortable with Linux or a Chromebook.
- May not have been a fair test. Windows is running the kernel in a kinda VM which older computers have not been optimized for -- newer generations of CPU can smooth out the overhead.
For a fair test against Windows 10 and below, you'll have at least to do this:
"Temporarily turn off your Memory Integrity and VMP" -- https://support.microsoft.com/en-US
Also, it's important to have all bits and pieces of Hyper-V/Windows Virtual Platform off (which the Menory Integrity relies on), thus cutting off WSL functionality.
We don't need flawed tests to tell us Windows 11 sucks -- yesterday my explorer bar didn't respond to clicks nor Windows key. In the past killing explorer.exe and restarting it, or logging off and back on, worked. Yesterday I had to reboot the machine to fix it.
by flumpcakes
1 subcomments
- Windows 11 makes me hate everyday computing. From the adverts in the start menu, to the sluggish performance on a computer orders of magnitude more powerful than any XP machine I used. It's just not fun anymore.
by magicalhippo
0 subcomment
- Been using KDE on a secondary machine for 15 years now. However they were always lacking in hardware compared to my main desktop.
I recently installed CachyOS on a USB NVMe drive, so I can dual boot without the dual boot pain. And wow, that thing flies.
I've been a Windows user since 3.0, but Windows 11 is probably getting replaced soon. I've stopped competitive gaming so anti-cheats ain't an issue, and Linux gaming is good enough.
There are some things I'll miss, but the bloat and lack of care from MS I'll be glad to leave behind.
- Windows 11 is fast enough if you... disable a million things on it that >99% of users wouldn't know when/how to, or wouldn't want to. Definitely depressing.
by Aldipower
2 subcomments
- Just an anecdote from yesterday. I got an old Pentium 4 1,5Ghz from a friend, put a Terratec EWX 24/96 soundcard in, installed WinXP, turned automatic updates off and installed a software synth, Native Instruments FM7, connected a midi keyboard via the gameport. Literally 2ms latency and no midi jitter! With an 25 years old setup! And it just works, without any distractions. Really, I almost cried as I saw that. I feel somehow violated by today's Windows11/10/8.
- From the article: "The benchmarks were run on a Lenovo ThinkPad X220 — a model not officially compatible with Windows 11 — which could have affected some results."
- The thing that really offends me about Windows 11 is that new right click menu that takes like 500 ms to appear each time you use it and is less useful than the old one.
Recently I've been experimenting with Atlas, Revi and Ghost Spectre, which are custom stripped versions of Windows, and it's such a breath of fresh air. It really makes me feel like if only they'd just ruthlessly pull out all the new garbage without regard for "but we just made and shipped this", Windows would actually be pretty good.
Say what you want about Apple and their slow descent into a fully walled garden where independent software development is slowly eroded and sabotaged, but even their most reviled update in years (macOS 26) is still miles ahead of Windows 11 in terms of cohesion and polish.
by heraldgeezer
0 subcomment
- It is crazy bad on low powered hardware like my work laptop. It has an Intel Ultra 7 Processor 155U. Wow! An i7!
Not so fast, the u there means ultrabook. Crammed into a too small chassis, this thing chokes even when using Edge or Chrome to work on Jira.
Windows 11 JS Web Start menu does not help...
Windows 11 is "fine" on my powerful desktop gaming CPU, but that is just brute-forcing it.
- Curious how MacOSX stacks up over the past 25 years. Tahoe feels like a massive regression on all fronts, from GUI to I/O.
- I see no reason to migrate to Win11 when Win10 hits hard EOL. I'm lucky, of course: I only have one game-oriented machine with Windows, and Steam / Proton is going to suffice.
Those beholden to MSO and the One True Excel, which of course is not guaranteed to work well (or at all) under Wine / Proton, are less lucky.
by the__alchemist
7 subcomments
- Out of the loop: Why is Windows 11 discussion trending over the past few months? It was released 4 years ago, and the most notable changes from the previous edition are a tabbed file browser, and the taskbar icons are now in the middle.
by heraldgeezer
1 subcomments
- I once had to remote into a Windows XP machine somehow running on an older Intel i5 (first or 2nd gen). Still overkill for XP.
It was CRAZY fast, over Teamviewer it felt better and faster than my local machine... Sad times.
- Not surprising given the amount of Webview2 and WinUI/WinRT that Windows 11 happens to contain.
Note that even though WinRT is largely written in C++, and the team brags about performance, due to the amount of COM/WinRT reference counting and the sandboxing model of application identity, it actually runs slower than .NET applications.
Quite ironic, given the Windows team sabotaged on Longhorn.
by lifetimerubyist
0 subcomment
- Windows will continue to get slower and slower because being fast is not a priority for them.
The only care about AI so that’s what we’re gonna get.
by secondcoming
0 subcomment
- The people working on the windows kernel must be gutted to see their hard work destroyed by sub-standard devs elsewhere in MS.
- I’m curious is the windows org considered a dead end at Microsoft making it hard to recruit top engineering talent?
- I recently had to pay the "Microsoft tax" to Lenovo. Which felt more like an unfair punishment rather than a tax since your taxes are meant to fund public services. I kept on thinking that this feels like it should be illegal. I don't use Windows for my work. My servers all run Linux, my clients servers all run Linux and I have no need for it so why am I being forced to pay?
I keep a Windows virtual machine for software that doesn't run on Linux but my use of that over the years has declined dramatically.
To me, the earlier versions of Windows 10 were somewhat OK when they're stripped down. But Windows 11 is bloated beyond belief. And shoving AI functionality in it is going to make things worse.
by throwmsreply
0 subcomment
- Running W11 on unsupported hardware aside.
I was surprised the other day when I used a W11 machine that the new context menu took a perceptible second to appear and it still didn't have everything the old had so you still have to call the old one, very dismaying.
- Maybe some Microsoft Devs can publish a book about all the secret regedit hacks they use to make it function for themselves. I think Dave Plummer or another Msft vet mentioned you can remove hibernate & get 25GB back on your hard drive.
- The computers they give us at work are pretty powerful. Mine has 64 gigs of ram. When I power it on the fans instantly go into full blast mode because the computer is heating up. why? I have no idea I just run Edge and Teams, if I try to use VS my computer will crash. At home I use Mac and Linux (kububtu) and will never have windows on my devices again
by whatever1
1 subcomments
- JavaScript has taken over UI. Why operating systems do not embrace it and make it a first class citizen? Aka explicitly design the os to run and render fast and efficiently js code
by tibbydudeza
2 subcomments
- The other day I got tired of using mRemoteNG for RDP it takes ages to start up.
So I went back to Microsoft's own RDP client - they deprecated it and now only support the new Windows App but you need to login with your corporate email and it does not even support RDP but Azure !!!!.
You need to go to the stone age and use the RDP client they shipped with Windows NT 4.0.
Say what you want about Balmer but Satya is now worse - he needs to go.
by chaostheory
0 subcomment
- Everyone has forgotten how unstable and insecure Windows was back then when it was “fast”. It was also fast to blue screen, freeze, and spread malware. IMO it’s much better now. If you don’t like it, then there are good viable alternatives today especially since everything is web based.
by chris_wray
0 subcomment
- I don't think this benchmark is fair, since they clearly state the hardware they used wasn't compatible with the OS.
- With so many good OSes nowadays, why is anyone still on Windows? Seriously. Unless you need custom hardware or software worth thousands of dollars, I bet it's easier to switch to one of the 4+ other major platforms.
- Switched to Ubuntu almost a year ago and I am much happier now.
- While not being a fan of Windows 11, I had the opposite experience for application launch times. They became shorter after the upgrade for some reason.
- When half the OS is dedicated to data and revenue collection along with protecting it, it should be unsurprising to see it slow.
- The changes to rework windows explorer in Windows 11, have IMO mostly resulted in a net poorer UX, and a net loss of performance.
by ExoticPearTree
0 subcomment
- Has anyone considered that maybe Microsoft is trying to help the Linux desktop adoption grow at a faster rate?
by kachapopopow
2 subcomments
- to be fair windows 11 is the most secure windows ever created, the amount of random checks it has is astonishing. Unfortunately it gets undermined by poor driver code from third-parties, much less of a problem with hyper-v based security, but still a huge problem.
Obviously all these security features cost performance and something that linux and macos can live without since they generally do not have closed source drivers that can't be fixed (except nvidia, but it seems to be changing as nvidia is giving up and starting to open up due to AI). Windows has to be proactive and that is one of the biggest performance hurdles it faces. It's actually incredible how comparatively safe windows is if you have all the security features enabled, there are obviously still one-offs due to having to maintain compatibility and what was effectively usermode code ported to kernelmode ruining it, thankfully that also seems to be changing since they're slowly rewriting it to be secure by design with Unstrusted<> guards making these issues significantly less common.
as for apple doesn't have third party code in the kernel at all so they can also fix it themselves.
side note, the restrictive linux license might seem like it is preventing adoption since for example the whole HDMI 2.1 spec is centered around proprietary code, but in reality they have this illusion that their 'proprietary' code can be protected and somehow linux undermines it when in reality people can reverse everything to sourcecode if they spend enough time on it - if anyone is curious you can just take one of the firmware dumps from any hdmi 2.1 capable TV dongle, extract the kernel module responsible handling the authentication for hdmi 2.1, extract the code, put it in your amdgpu opensource driver, now you have hdmi 2.1 on linux.
by CrzyLngPwd
1 subcomments
- I don't see the same things as the commenters or the article.
I love Windows 11, and have zero complaints.
Win+R is instant.
Notepad is the best version so far, I use it as a todo list and it saves and loads in the same place on my third screen every reboot - fantastic.
I have no use for the AI being shoehorned into everything, but I use it every day via chatgpt in the browser, and genie and cp in vsc.
by knowitnone3
0 subcomment
- It spends so much CPU cycles collecting your data being an OS is just a side quest
by 1970-01-01
0 subcomment
- I call bullshit on these tests. The baseline doesn't make sense. Software defaults are never minimal (aka bloating) and are designed to scale with hardware. So as faster hardware reaches systems, the core OS still becomes faster but you will never see it when choosing defaults. You still receive baseline OS functioning in faster increments over time. If you tuned these OS installs for performance (no bloating, only core GUI and speed enhancing services) you would reach the opposite conclusion.
- With which version did they enable/implement the CPU mitigations (Spectre etc.)?
- It is a lot slower than vista was back in the day, so yes, it is garbage.
- I was actually OK with Win 8, I just only used it in traditional desktop mode
by baddie_twoshoes
1 subcomments
- Don't software products tend to get slower, not faster, with each release? I think Windows 7 vs Vista was the only time I remember things getting better.
IOS 26 is also terrible (on battery especially). New OS releases always have a ton of new services in them that bog them down.
- Complexity is to software what cancer is to living organisms.
- Yes, but it will be the fastest version from now on.
- And yet: https://www.phoronix.com/review/windows-beats-linux-arl-h
- Ah, an opportunity to call upon Hacker News, tech support of last resort…
Someone please tell me if there’s a trick to making the Windows snipping tool faster. I press Win+Shift+S to activate the tool for capturing a region. It takes about 2 seconds to load. I draw the rectangle. Then it takes about 2 seconds to finish capturing.
That is 4 infuriating seconds for something that should be (and I’m sure used to be!) virtually instant.
Now that text is easily recognized in images, screenshots are an important interoperability tool for garbage apps like Teams.
- we need to rewind to a timeline with 64-bit Windows 2000.
by nephihaha
2 subcomments
- Vista was bad enough.
- c'mon folks, stop being naive - this is bullshit test :D
"Windows 11 is running on unsupported hardware"
I've been using W10 and W11 Pro versions daily and I don't feel any difference except task bar search menu performance (especially this on corpo laptop, on PC this is fine)
by ckladianos
1 subcomments
- Can we go back to Windows 7 yet?
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