Windows Insider

I have left Windows 11 Insider program. Mainly due to the fact the pace of new features is too fast. I have a dual boot Windows and Linux system.

Plus all the AI slop that MS is incorporating into the OS. I came across a script which removes AI stuff from the OS and it works well after having tried it on a Virtual Machine first.

Also when I left the Insider Preview Channel I was given an update to do an in-place-upgrade for Win 11 to, I presume, bring my Win 11 in line with the stable release.

After several tries it failed even 2nd tier MS engineer couldn't get it to work and suggested a Reset from recovery. The reset worked but lost all my apps and it would have been a nightmare to re-install them even thought Windows handly provided me with a list of apps it removed during the reset.

So I decided to restore a backup with all my apps installed and the buggy update and wait for MS to fix it, which they did after a week. It was failing at the second stage of reboot (SafeOS) and even downloading from Media Creation Tool was the same.

I mainly use Linux now and only boot into Win 11/10 for updates or backups of my whole drive including 2 x Linux partitions (Solus Plasma and CachyOS).

Anyone else thinking of switching to Linux or leaving the Insider program. I do like playing with OSes.

I was dual boot in about 1992, W3 and OS/2. I hated W95 and when the cessation of OS/2 was announced, I installed OpenSuSE Linux and went dual boot with W95 and after a while WNT. I never went to XP, but used it at work and found it respectable, although I never used it on my systems. Since that time I have worked at reducing dependence on Windows, which for about a decade now has been dual boot on a secondary PC.

I went from WNT to W7 or W8 and now only have one dependency on Windows now, the edge case of a Mikrotik configuration tool which can access Mikrotik routers by MAC address. If I could get MAC address access on the equivalent Linux tool, Windows would be gone. My big bugbear with Windows has been the fact that it sets the BIOS clock to local time rather than UTC, with the consequence that it messes up time for Linux. I finally found the registry hacks to fix that this year.

Right now I find W11 to be vile and insultingly dumbed down. I hate the fact that while screen aspect ratios get wider, I can no longer put the task bar at the side where there is plenty of room. Instead I have to put it at the bottom [or possibly the top?], wasting valuable vertical space. But most of all I detest the number of useless reminders and instructions that pop up. I thought Microsoft had learned their lesson with Clippy, but it seems that they have come to the wrong conclusion that people only hated Clippy as a character, when what was really wrong then and is still wrong now is the patronising dumbed down intrusion. I hate W11 with a passion.

If cinema4d and photoshop(and logitech options+) were on linux i'd be gone from windows in a blink of an eye as a daily driver.

I did a quad boot once, in the days of the Pentium 3. Win2000 was one of my fave OSes. Nowadays its all about virtualisation, free or bundled hypervisors abound, even VMWare Workstation for home users. (Fusion for those on Apple).

Don't forget the number of home users with a full computer, that isn't just used for games, is getting smaller and smaller as the phones and tablets have taken over.

AI is just this 5 years thing, 25 years ago everyone was looking for ways to remove the web browser from the OS. The time turns, but companies still look for ways to make more money.

MS said they no longer consider Windows as a main money stream, as they have to supply it at such a low price to the OEMs, and hardly anyone buys a full licence. This is why companies go for the subscription/rental model of software.

Isn't it still the year of Linux on the desktop, 30 years after it was first announced? If it works for you then great, it hasn't worked for enough people to make a dent.

In reply to a post by DFScale:

I can no longer put the task bar at the side where there is plenty of room. Instead I have to put it at the bottom [or possibly the top?], wasting valuable vertical space. But most of all I detest the number of useless reminders and instructions that pop up. I thought Microsoft had learned their lesson with Clippy, but it seems that they have come to the wrong conclusion that people only hated Clippy as a character, when what was really wrong then and is still wrong now is the patronising dumbed down intrusion. I hate W11 with a passion.

This is one of the things I sent feedback about. On XP it was possible for a side bar but they dont listen.

All available on MacOS.

Explorer Patcher

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I did a quad boot once, in the days of the Pentium 3. Win2000 was one of my fave OSes. Nowadays its all about virtualisation, free or bundled hypervisors abound, even VMWare Workstation for home users. (Fusion for those on Apple).

i think i lost count on how many times i broke the hive files in win2000 😁😂🙈

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I did a quad boot once, in the days of the Pentium 3.

I got as far as triple boot once. Windows of some sort, OS/2 and Linux. I also had OS/2 boot manager and LILO, the pre GRUB linux bootloader and managed to get the 2 of them to boot each other, back and forth.

In reply to a post by Banger:

This is one of the things I sent feedback about. On XP it was possible for a side bar but they dont listen.

Well Win11 has been rewriting a LOT of the old code that dated back to Win95 which is where the taskbar you liked in XP came from.

Whilst macOS dock does let you move it to various locations, the OS is quite different conceptually to the Windows or even the Linux major GNOME or KDE desktops.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Banger:

This is one of the things I sent feedback about. On XP it was possible for a side bar but they dont listen.

Well Win11 has been rewriting a LOT of the old code that dated back to Win95 which is where the taskbar you liked in XP came from.

Whilst macOS dock does let you move it to various locations, the OS is quite different conceptually to the Windows or even the Linux major GNOME or KDE desktops.

I don't buy that. Yes, legacy code sometimes has to be replaced completely. But putting the task bar to the side is not an art lost to the ancients. Omitting the facility is a specification decision, more to do with avoiding cost than to do with the benefit of any new concept.

In reply to a post by DFScale:

I don't buy that. Yes, legacy code sometimes has to be replaced completely. But putting the task bar to the side is not an art lost to the ancients. Omitting the facility is a specification decision, more to do with avoiding cost than to do with the benefit of any new concept.

I happen to agree; other features have been added back, but its taking years. Such as the "combine" and "do not combine" options that people used back in Windows 95. I don't know why they've not prioritised adding in the ability to move the bar elsewhere on the screen. I personally never move it, because I'm always using other people's computers as part of my job.

Just a footnote to this thread there is another (said in Darth Vader voice). Winslop 0.35 on Github (link). Removes various annoyances suck as Copilot, telemetry, Recall and others. Also a comprehensive bunch of tweaks. Needs to be run as Admin and make a restore point before running.