Windows 11 is dying....

[SteveThackery]

What, pray tell, is a "feature phone"?

Well, I had to check the terminology myself. Basically it means "not a smartphone". I guess you could say a phone that just does mobile telephony and SMS messaging. That pretty much describes all the phones prior to the smartphone era, but there is a degree of overlap. The later pre-smart phones usually had on-board calendar and contacts functions, plus the occasional weird game like Snakes. My work phone was pre-smart: a Nokia 6310i, and I loved it. Plus it went a week between charges - wonderful!

There was a wonderfully naff feature called 'WAP' - wireless application protocol. Do you remember it? A protocol for accessing online material over the mobile network, designed to minimise network data loading and to work on minute phone screens.

Anyway, I mentioned it because a "feature phone" (horrid name) would probably tick all your boxes.

[SteveThackery]

There's probably a reason why MS does not build in a skin framework for gui. Support.
Try calling MS support when you have Stardock theme installed. MS not gonna be of much help because they are expecting their Win11 gui. And, MS will probably just say the Stardock install is the problem to your Wifi issue.... 

Different realms for different folks.

Oh, absolutely! I can't see it being relevant in the corporate space.

[Analog Kid]

What, pray tell, is a "feature phone"?

Well, I had to check the terminology myself. Basically it means "not a smartphone". I guess you could say a phone that just does mobile telephony and SMS messaging. That pretty much describes all the phones prior to the smartphone era, but there is a degree of overlap. The later pre-smart phones usually had on-board calendar and contacts functions, plus the occasional weird game like Snakes. My work phone was pre-smart: a Nokia 6310i, and I loved it. Plus it went a week between charges - wonderful!

There was a wonderfully naff feature called 'WAP' - wireless application protocol. Do you remember it? A protocol for accessing online material over the mobile network, designed to minimise network data loading and to work on minute phone screens.

Anyway, I mentioned it because a "feature phone" (horrid name) would probably tick all your boxes.

And would probably be more expen$ive than what I have now.
Remember: $15/month. Sometimes less when they have "specials".
(And phone itself was $25.)

I'm willing to pay less and just not use all the "features" at my disposal.
And it's probably better to have access to them in the event I need some kind of emergency service, like a tow.

[SteveThackery]

The hate you exude for an OS is fascinating. Weird, but fascinating.

^^^^^^^^^^
THIS!  1000% 

It seems religion - with all the swivel-eyed fervour and irrationality that goes with it - is thriving here on EEVblog. 🫤

[SteveThackery]

And would probably be more expen$ive than what I have now.

Yeah, sure - I wouldn't presume to suggest you change. Just wanted to point out that you are not a typical or representative Android user.

[Cyclotron]

I had a recollection of someone making a great video on the fanboy topic in the gaming industry.
I think I rediscovered/found it.
https://youtu.be/Sj2lOeO9qy8?si=y4XU7AvX1gbaH3i1

This is why I try very hard to define my own things through my identity, not the other way around.

I recalled a book that explores psychology in much greater depth.
https://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/0156033909

[Analog Kid]

And would probably be more expen$ive than what I have now.

Yeah, sure - I wouldn't presume to suggest you change. Just wanted to point out that you are not a typical or representative Android user.

Well, I don't think I am either. But who knows? I sure don't.
Maybe there are a lot more of us phone Luddites than you suspect.

[Cyclotron]

I was just scanning Arstechnica, and what do you know?  Windows 11 has surpassed 1 billion users, doing so faster than Windows 10.
That seems to debunk the AI-generated video, doesn't it?

[SteveThackery]

I was just scanning Arstechnica, and what do you know?  Windows 11 has surpassed 1 billion users, doing so faster than Windows 10.
That seems to debunk the AI-generated video, doesn't it?

I don't think I'm surprised. Not because W11 is good, and not because the criticisms are unjustified, but because the great majority of Windows users:

1/ Vaguely recall hearing about 'Linux' but aren't sure what it is.

2/ Don't feel competent to fix their Windows installation if they broke it, never mind install Linux.

3/ Honestly can't be arsed, because it's only their PC and basically not that interesting.

4/ Have got used to the pop-ups and don't really notice them any more.

5/ Are not that comfortable with change, especially when it feels like a step into the unknown.

6/ Don't watch AI-generated nerdy videos declaring Windows to be a "dead OS walking".

I think, without the guidance of a family or local expert, most Windows users wouldn't dream of vaporising their OS and starting over with a different one. The perceived risks are too high.

And as for corporate users:

1/ Changing out 5,000 desktops from Windows to Linux is a helluva big job with little obvious benefits in terms of productivity.

2/ The support desk will be SWAMPED with complaints and questions for a few weeks.

3/ The entire suite of business applications needs to be replaced with Linux equivalents, and they would need stitching together to replicate all the existing PC-based data flows and business processes. Licensing issues need sorting out and support contracts changed or newly set up.

4/ The support desk personnel all need training in administering Linux.

5/ The support desk tools and techniques need changing out for Linux equivalents.

The migration towards Linux will continue at the edges, but it's only nibbling away. I can't see a wholesale move for many years to come, if ever.

[Zero999]

I was just scanning Arstechnica, and what do you know?  Windows 11 has surpassed 1 billion users, doing so faster than Windows 10.
That seems to debunk the AI-generated video, doesn't it?

It's not surprising it's being downloaded faster than Windows 10, because the number of computer users is still growing. Probably due to the increase in developing countries.

[SiliconWizard]

Boo-hoo, you're all just a bunch of MS haters, Windows rulz, lolz!

[SteveThackery]

Boo-hoo, you're all just a bunch of MS haters, Windows rulz, lolz!

Better out than in, eh? Do you feel better for that? 😁👍

[coppercone2]

I bet you 1/2 of those people accidentally clicked the update button when it does the full screen scarevertizement, I guess they got that from malware developers lol

microsoft : lets reset their computers and put a big splash screen that looks like it does not have a 'exit' button
User : please stop locking me out of the computer with pop ups !!

reminds me of IRL mail spam that was like a pinup picture of some crap service that looked like a stop sign

god at this point I see them like one of those pushy salespeople at best buy if you were stupid enough to walk in there to get robbed in the early 2000's . Oh lets try to intimidate people by making our employees look and act like security, I wonder how many TV's they sold when high people walked in the store and thought they are getting shaken down by the police. Stand up strait so they think you just came out the police academy!

its like a stick-bug, also common in home alarm companies

[MrMobodies]

I'll tell you what this is: it's a person who has decided in advance that he hates Windows

I didn't decide, it just seems to be getting that way after every build, I mean going to back in 2019 to a Windows 10 Pro that came with a computer I got from a skip, which I put in an I5, SSD and it still slowed down and it shut down behind my back with no warning, nothing, to do an update (where I thought the PSU might be faulty as I just put that in). So of course I am going to be furious.

vomiting a stream of furious, incoherent invective as some kind of justification.

I did not say it was justification.

I can feel the raw anger in every word!!

Yes, I am angry at things done to like the user is stupid, need the background behind dialogues cut off and dimmed, as if the information somehow confuses them like with webpages and that animations that slow it down. I see these things getting worse and worse pretty much frequently with web design on pointless things that appear, flash, annoy me, slow down the page load now embedded in Windows so yes of course I'll be.

MrMobodies: just calm down, take a breath, and open up your mind to the possibility that you might need to spend 20 seconds familiarising yourself with the new arrangement (whatever it is, I can't tell).

I shouldn't have to "familiarize myself" of navigating to something that takes a lot longer than it took to get to before.
No familiarising will help when an essential function that I rely on has been removed and in it's place is something I have no much use for.

Google News went through many many changes with it's news which I used in the early 2000's, improving everytime, somethings I didn't like but it didn't affect my using or functionality of it until one day in 2017 they ruined it for me and some others according to comments:
https://www.ghacks.net/2017/06/28/google-news-redesign-whitespace-and-scrolling-galore-on-desktop/

And think about this: there are 700 million people using Windows 11. Seven. Hundred. Million. Surely they can't all be smarter than you, can they? Of course not! So where is all this anger really coming from?
It is massively out of proportion to the issues you are reporting.

It MASSIVELY affects me a lot with my using of it, where things become further away and takes me a lot longer than it did before is the proportion you may not be seeing.

Just because 700 million are using it doesn't mean they are all going to be happy especially if they are forced to use something that could give them problems, no control over what they had before and they may feel they have no choice. Similar with some locked in with contracts from Adobe who were switched over the subscription a few years ago. I heard and read things like them saying it'd cost them to retrain their staff to use another product.

I have had a lot of people who brought laptops to me like in the 2010's that they use a mouse and don't like their touchpads, they say like didn't understand why, just they found it difficult to use. After finishing the work, I'd do something extra, I turned, tap to click, gestures, flicks, scrolling, turned off acceleration, slowed it down a bit if it was too fast and I say please give it a go and they find they start liking it. I don't think they understand or know how to go about adjust it or or know what these features are to furn them off and a few of these laptops didn't seem to have the drivers installed to adjust them where I'd find them.

Now pretty much most of them got rid of the buttons, options not present, that I remember create other buttons within the touchpad area and another panel and prevent movement in those parts.

I don't want Windows to, install/reinstall things like a game of Candy Crush and things behind my back, shutdown Windows with no warning, apply dimming overlays to dialogues so things go dark excessively, say if I am doing a whole load of things, now that is the proportion I am talking about too.

I mean go in Regedit, enlarge or maximise it, and try deleting a whole load of keys of things (intended), then I see a dialogue "are you sure you want to delete this" and the background goes dark then back to light after yes, and that is not very nice to my eyes. Imagine if I played around your without brightness and contrast controls excessively depending on what you were doing, now how would you feel?

Honestly, I thought educated, qualified (often) engineers and scientists - the members of this forum - were supposed to be reasonable, logical, and above all rational people. And yet I've seen more raw emotion, more prejudice, more sheer dogmatism, more contrived rationalisation in this thread than a typical day on 'X'.

I never said I was educated.
There is nothing rational about sticking CPU hogging animations, such as skeletons placeholders everywhere, that can hog up a cpu core and slow the whole thing down or make it stall a bit.[/quote]

What the FUCK?

Yes, animated skeleton placeholders copied from Chrome & webpages stuck all over the place, does nothing useful, not essentially needed, slows it down, can cause annoyance, no way I can find to switch it off. Dialogues that dim the background that weren't there before also copied across, cutting me off from what I am might still be trying to look at and making my eyes uncomfortable.

I should not also have to "see other options" to get to things that were there before.

It's not a case of "deciding" I don't like it. I feel the things I could do before are being taking away and replaced with bloat and garabage you'd find this thread:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/badbloated-web-design/225/?viewresults

In fact they have infected today Amazon as infected the Amazon order page with animation skeleton placeholders, 10 of them that cause like 10 to 15% usage paused. Apparently killing them off and there is another skeleton, a static one behind that skeleton but it is still slow compared to before when it loaded instantly.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/dodgy-technology/badbloated-web-design/225/?viewresults

Imagine you reading an article, I distract you, come along and cover up what you're reading, now how would you feel?
Same with the typical behaviour on some websites with the dialogues and the dimming overlays behind them that appear when I am in the middle of reading an article cutting me off. I don't like that behaviour.

I feel it is getting worse. One in a while a good thing happen, like Youtube removed that horrid picture obscuring gradient acting as a border over the player controls that obscure the picture way past what it was covering up and I might be trying to look there whilst seeking. Recently they removed date upload and replaced it with popularity which is disappointing and limits my choices of search.

Sorry if you perceive my anger It's not directed at you or anyone here it's not you I am angry with.

[SiliconWizard]

Quite frankly, the forced updates thing at the worst moment seems to have originated with Windows 10 and that's when I decided to keep Windows 7 until things would get straigthened out... I remember several events where people would get a forced update right when they wanted to leave with their laptop, would then have to force shutdown it to just be able to go because on top of that, the update would take forever, and then that would just "brick" the whole thing, requiring a full reinstall.

It doesn't seem to have gotten any better over time. These days I really recommend switching to Linux or macOS depending on your needs and preferences, and using Wine or a VM for those Windows apps you really need to run.

[coppercone2]

haha forced updates its like someone just came into your house and said you can't use the living room because I am gonna be replacing your windows

Same with the car-advertisements, I imagined the HVAC guy showing up to service the building and also sliding some chinese food advertisements and credit card offerings under peoples doors. Security would so get rid of him

Does no one remember the people that used to climb the fire escapes and throw adverts through your window and shit like that?

a GENEROUS building might have some area in the front with a little table to let people put some advertisements down, maybe, for a few days, if they did some work on a building, but no one would allow what is happening on computers. Like at work I am at a meeting and I get some stupid built-into-windows taskbar popup. Who let the vacuum cleaner salesman into the building? Can the secretary hide magazine clippings in my bosses day planner?

like fucking advertisers have been doing shady stuff for thousands of years, and they just got let into computers like some how they are like, in any way, wanted. "sir, my wind shield is not a bill board for you to use"

And socially its like typically seen as total dead beat behavior. Like if you tell someone you are having a party and they think that means you told them that they can start selling shit there to guests. Get a fucking job instead dead beat ! Like if someone just showed up to ask everyone there if they want to buy a car and left. Like get out, thats not for you, I have no obligation to let you do that. Please notice I said selling, not giving away, which is a different story ('charity' advertisement to prevent waste). Of course they will still do it, but at least its like.. dampened, they need some kind of cover, mingle a little, etc..but with computers its like that is their right to push paper. And you can't even ask them about their commission, etc.. its all obfuscated.

[soldar]

Quite frankly, the forced updates thing at the worst moment seems to have originated with Windows 10 and that's when I decided to keep Windows 7 until things would get straigthened out... I remember several events where people would get a forced update right when they wanted to leave with their laptop, would then have to force shutdown it to just be able to go because on top of that, the update would take forever, and then that would just "brick" the whole thing, requiring a full reinstall.

It doesn't seem to have gotten any better over time. These days I really recommend switching to Linux or macOS depending on your needs and preferences, and using Wine or a VM for those Windows apps you really need to run.

I have a friend who has a Windows laptop which he only fires up once every few months and it is practically unusable because it is very slow and when he starts it the thing will just start updating and take forever and is unusable in the meanwhile.

This is what it's like:

[MrMobodies]

Quite frankly, the forced updates thing at the worst moment seems to have originated with Windows 10 and that's when I decided to keep Windows 7 until things would get straigthened out...

Exactly what I did with LTSC 2019 Enterprise and still pleased with it today. After 2 years of customizing it from 2020 to about 2022, ripping things like telemetry, and setting permissions to stop UpdateOrchestrator from recreating the task scheduler jobs  that it uses to shut it down with no warning and then defaulting the permissions they set to deny changes to alter or remove it's tasks from the user accounts when it is running. Also ripped out things like Waasmedic and the other one that kept on switching the Windows updater back on but it doesn't matter now as it is on and I have it under control and when I want another I just extract the disc image to a blank disc and order the key. Everything is preset and the thing I want installed. Also removed the animations from new user accounts and made a template and seems so much quicker especially without the privacy questionnaire thing popping up.

Windows 10 Pro:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/general-computing/windows-10-update-aggro/
Never again.

I remember a Violin man getting frustrated with his Windows 10, do you want to pay for one drive, do you want to try Office 365, Copilot thing he described  and interference when he was doing some audio editing. I installed that LTSC on another disc a few years ago and he told me, "it runs like a dream." which I thought was really nice in contrast, he's left alone and just gets security updates and a few fixes.

I installed it on this old Duo core he had on an SSD and he couldn't understand why it was quick and outperformed his i5 on starting up. I said it was due to less overhead and a lack of the Appstore it I observe it taking up resources to check each installed "app" at startup or every so often.

Sorry about the frustration, anger and how it came across whoever felt it. You may feel it is trivial, out of proportion but it affects me in ways that leaves me at great disadvantage that you may not see and that is how I feel... there is no smoke without fire.

I am glad this has been raised and thoughts how some people can feel by changes that can totally work against them especially when the disadvantage it causes them can appear to be hidden and out of porportion.

Checkout the latest ATI drivers, I installed it and put a 2014 copy on it (lowest it will work), without the animations. Quick to load, no animations or social networking things. I was given a computer with one in and shocked with how large and bloated the drivers were, full of animations and things. Even the Nvidia one from 2019 loads in like less than a second on my other compared to a 2019 copy of the ATI one. I think there are two drivers sets but both appear bloated to me and not clear to find things.

If people can't express how they feel or do it well enough then they'd be no opportunity for it to be heard for those listening and willing to help.

[nctnico]

Quite frankly, the forced updates thing at the worst moment seems to have originated with Windows 10 and that's when I decided to keep Windows 7 until things would get straigthened out... I remember several events where people would get a forced update right when they wanted to leave with their laptop, would then have to force shutdown it to just be able to go because on top of that, the update would take forever, and then that would just "brick" the whole thing, requiring a full reinstall.

It doesn't seem to have gotten any better over time. These days I really recommend switching to Linux or macOS depending on your needs and preferences, and using Wine or a VM for those Windows apps you really need to run.

I have a friend who has a Windows laptop which he only fires up once every few months and it is practically unusable because it is very slow and when he starts it the thing will just start updating and take forever and is unusable in the meanwhile.

This is what my experience is from Windows 10 in a VM years ago. I needed to leave the VM running for 1 or 2 hours before the VM became useful after it had been shutdown for a couple of months. Utterly useless.

[coppercone2]

Quite frankly, the forced updates thing at the worst moment seems to have originated with Windows 10 and that's when I decided to keep Windows 7 until things would get straigthened out... I remember several events where people would get a forced update right when they wanted to leave with their laptop, would then have to force shutdown it to just be able to go because on top of that, the update would take forever, and then that would just "brick" the whole thing, requiring a full reinstall.

It doesn't seem to have gotten any better over time. These days I really recommend switching to Linux or macOS depending on your needs and preferences, and using Wine or a VM for those Windows apps you really need to run.

I have a friend who has a Windows laptop which he only fires up once every few months and it is practically unusable because it is very slow and when he starts it the thing will just start updating and take forever and is unusable in the meanwhile.

This is what it's like:

Lets be real, you show up late to work, don't know you calendar to know if you have some meeting, have a urgent email and then that fucker decides to update. I feel a little more like batman is taking his pants off and telling me to bend over

Corporate treats that calendar like a bible. Microsoft knows this, and they treat it like its something comedic. Its like a teletype message that tells you that you are about to get pearl harbor at 11:15. And the people high up know this, and live in terror and misery because they will get up at 4:15 just to check the emails incase the microsoft automaton decides to run amok. Feels like one of those detective movies when they have the big fight in the draw bridge/clock/crazy factory full of death traps that form some kind of circuit
-
If literally anything else was causing that much trouble within an organization it would like be promptly hunted down and removed

and the answer you get is "well you have to learn to function within some malfunctioning kafkaesque bullshit no one wants to change because that would be going against the glory of the status quo and I personally got pretty good at it when I decided to waste a bunch of my life adapting instead of thinking "why?" "

[MrMobodies]

forced updates its like someone just came into your house and said you can't use the living room because I am gonna be replacing your windows

No smoke without fire and of course it'd cause outrage and the frustration and time spent of finding solutions.

When I set permissions, I expect it to stay like that and I am not even talking about the updates here. Service updateorchestrator, when started, defaults the permissions in the task scheduler folder, recreates the tasks, then set permissions to deny administrators and users to alter them. I found by denying system account access to it stops that happening and trusted installer for the taskscheduler ones it creates in registry.

When I was finding this out in 2019 it was rage for weeks that drove me observe what it was doing and find a solution and it wouldn't go until I found the causes. All which seems set to work against the user and undo things the user intentionally sets.

[Cyclotron]

I don't think I have ever had an issue with Windows updates. I set Active Hours, and I don't care if it updates during the other hours.
My Windows systems run continuously when I use them regularly, so I never see them update. It seems to work well for me since I never feel like I need to stop and go patch and watch grass grow while it's patching.

[PlainName]

I don't care if it updates during the other hours

Some people don't have the PC powered on when they're not using it. One could argue that leaving it powered all the time is a fire risk, security risk and climate killer to boot 

[TizianoHV]

I don't think I have ever had an issue with Windows updates. I set Active Hours, and I don't care if it updates during the other hours.

Often I do logging during night, or I don't shut it down because I have a lot of programs running.
So many times I came in the morning just to see an empty screen because the thing restarted by itself to do some updates, without even asking. I don't know how this is even accettable.

---------------------------

To "hide" the impact of all the services that piled up in the years, most services are set up to run when the PC is idle. Basically, every time I stop interacting with the pc for a few minutes the fans go to full speed because it is updating stuff, running telemetry, antivirus and more. I don't know why they need to have such impact (high CPU for long).

[Cyclotron]

I don't care if it updates during the other hours

Some people don't have the PC powered on when they're not using it. One could argue that leaving it powered all the time is a fire risk, security risk and climate killer to boot 

That's true, but it is powered on all the time, regardless of the level of operation, unless you unplug it. Well, for a laptop, you'd have to remove the battery.