BigT isn’t wrong, though; Microsoft may still change their mind. It’s not like they haven’t changed their minds before; they’ve been pushing x64 for years now, always promising that this Windows will be the last to support 32 bit, but it hasn’t happened yet. Will Win11 be it? We’ll see.
I agree about the taskbar docking. I didn’t realize that. I’ve been putting mine on the side for… probably over a decade now. That might be a dealbreaker unless there’s some hack override.
Yeah, XP was my favorite Windows OS. Vista was a downgrade; Windows 7 was definitely an upgrade from Vista.
Microsoft used to have two versions of Windows, starting with the original version of Windows.
Windows Operating Systems:
Windows 1.0
Windows 2.0
Windows 3.0 (this is when people actually started using it)
Windows 3.1 (not bad, for what was available back in the day)
Windows 95 (identifies itself as Windows 4.0)
Windows 98 (identifies itself as Windows 4.1)
Windows ME (identifies itself as Windows 4.9)
Windows originally sat on top of DOS and was integrated into DOS, though once Windows was running it did use its own code to access things. Starting at Windows 95, Windows no longer needed DOS to boot up and was more of a complete OS on its own.
Microsoft also came out with Windows NT (New Technology). While NT had the same basic look and feel, underneath the hood it had a very important structural difference called the HAL or Hardware Abstraction Layer. Where Windows allowed programs to directly muck with hardware, NT did not. Programs had to go through HAL. This dramatically increased stability and prevented misbehaving programs from taking down the entire system.
Home users tended to run one program at a time. Business users tended to multitask, and needed the greater stability of NT. So for a long time, Windows remained the “home” version and NT remained the “business” version. While home users could see a benefit from NT’s greater stability, the performance cost was just too great. Many games needed to directly access the video hardware, and NT didn’t allow that. So Windows was for home user, and Windows NT was for business.
Early NT operating systems:
Windows NT 3.5
Windows NT 4.0 (basically the NT version of Windows 95)
Now at this point, Microsoft was getting tired of maintaining two operating system lines, so they wanted to “merge” (in their words) the two lines. The two lines were however completely incompatible. Either you had a HAL or you didn’t. the “merge” was Microsoft’s marketing BS (to be fair, Microsoft’s marketing is really good a BS). They weren’t merging anything. They were killing off Windows and forcing everything to NT. In retrospect, this was a good thing, but they flat out lied about what they were doing.
About halfway through Windows 2000’s development, they realized that a lot of home software was going to fail miserably under NT, so they abandoned their “merge”. You can still see evidence of their merge in some of the cutesy name changes that they made to things between NT 4 and Windows 2000, but they quickly changed course and decided that Windows 2000 would once again be marketed for business users.
This left Microsoft in a pickle, as now they had nothing to sell to their home users, which goes against Microsoft’s goal of always making obscene amounts of money wherever possible. So they took some apps that were developed for 2000, made a few superficial changes to Windows 98, added in a couple of features (poorly, like USB support), and slapped a Windows ME sticker on it and called it a day. Needless to say, ME suffered horribly from being rushed out the door, and was generally regarded as a huge steaming pile of crap.
Microsoft completed their “merge” with XP. Note that XP doesn’t run Windows programs any better than 2000 did (Microsoft added some compatibility modes but those were generally worthless). But developers knew the merge was coming and all new software since before 2000 came out was designed for NT. Since most people were running newer software, the “merge” wasn’t so bad for them. If you had older software, sometimes you were just screwed. But that’s Microsoft for you. They have often gone on record saying that they will gladly break backwards compatibility if they think they can make the OS “better”.
So now we’re all running NT. Which is actually a good thing.
Windows 2000 = NT 5.0
Windows XP = NT 5.1 - despite the major facelift, it’s really just a minor improvement to 2000. While the OS is often fondly remembered today, at the time a lot of folks hated the “Fisher Price” interface.
Windows Vista = NT 6.0 - major releases tend to be crappy, which explains why some people think every other version sucks. It’s more of major/minor releases with minor releases often focusing hard on bug fixes.
Windows 7 = NT 6.1 - Windows 7 was a HUGE bug fix to Vista, combined with some minor visual tweaks since visual tweaks are what people notice and makes users think Microsoft actually did something. The huge effort on bug fixing is why Windows 7 is fondly remembered today, combined with the fact that it was the last true desktop version of Windows.
Windows 8 = NT 6.2 - Microsoft decided that everyone should run on a tablet, even on a desktop. Desktop users were not amused. Underneath the hood, it’s basically Windows 7, but the user interface sucks on a desktop or laptop. From here on out, Microsoft digs in and says that they want users to have a “shared experience” between tablets and desktops, which sucks for desktops.
Windows 8.1 = NT 6.3 - Not much changed under the hood, but they put enough desktop stuff in to make the desktop folks stop complaining quite as much
Windows 9 - skipped because of the association with Windows 9.x (95, 98).
Windows 10 = NT 10.0 - Microsoft noticed that some folks were actually paying attention to the version numbers, so they changed the NT version number to match. Before this, version numbers were much more useful. For example, programs tended to have the most compatibility issues when you switched between major version numbers (NT 5 to NT 6, for example) but had a lot less compatibility issues between minor versions (e.g. NT 6.1 to NT 6.2).
Windows 11 - looks like Microsoft is taking the “Apple is making money! We want that money! Let’s make Windows look like Apple!” approach (aka let’s see how much more we can piss off our desktop users). Plus they are adding a bunch of security stuff which isn’t supported by most current hardware. I’m thinking this is going to suck.
That’s why I opened this thread… Glad to see I wasn’t the only one thinking that…
I would like to see them quit doing major releases and just go to a continually updated service model, including upgrades the user cannot block or refuse to take, frankly. The type of people in this thread that are celebrating using operating systems like Win XP for 5-10 years after they were serious security risks, application compatibility troublemakers etc are a major impediment to good computing generally and a blight on the world of software.
Finally, something to quote the next time I get a “Why on earth …” comment
Seeing images of the interface, it feels like Windows is trying to look more and more like a Mac with the centered icons in the taskbar and such. Personally, I’m not a big fan of this or Windows 11 in general, as so far that seems to be the only thing it’s going for.
I want to be able to control as much of my user experience as possible, so that I can work more comfortably, which means I’ll be more efficient.
Exactly. Works really well, for switching between applications which are already open and starting ones which I need to open. I’m already doing lots of side to side mousing, but going all the way to the bottom means I’ll run out of desk. (mostly joking)
I marked Never, because my home computer is an Apple. That will stay.
But for work? I just got a new laptop and the Windows 10 update I should have gotten 15 months ago, which got very delayed due to the pandemic. Updating OS over VPN is challenging, it seems.
But I want Windows 11, after they fix the taskbar issue. As long as it delivers a better Teams experience. Teams is such a resource hog and I have to have it running all the time. IF they would improve this with Windows 10, I’d be happy. As it is, I probably won’t get Windows 11 for another 2 years, unless some business critical application requires Windows 11 before then.
I can’t choose any of the poll options. Currently my 3 year old, top spec laptop is excluded from the upgrade due to a 7th gen Intel processor. However MS has said that they plan to test to see if this generation of chips will work with the OS and they may expand the minimums. So…we’ll see.
That was the plan. But the hardware manufacturers are not having it. PCs have an annoying habit of lasting fucking forever so people would have gladly run Windows 10 on their current hardware until the plastic in the keyboard disintegrated into dust. So…we get a new version.
Quoted for truth. Had MS carried on with their original position that Windows 10 would be the last Windows, we might have finally done away with this brand of foolishness, but it wasn’t to be.
I’ll probably wait a month or so for all of the horror stories to settle down, then upgrade my Win10 machines.
I generally try to use OS and software as ‘vanilla’ as possible*, so it looks like I’ll need to adapt to the start button being somewhere else (I think I normally launch it with the keyboard anyway)
*In my experience, customisation just tends to break later, and skinning Windows N to make it look/behave exactly like Windows N-1, only leads to a bigger hurdle later when Windows N+1 comes out, and doesn’t support that.
I missed the start menu in Windows 8, but I just knuckled down and used the start screen instead (and quickly grew to enjoy it). I didn’t enjoy the way that Windows 10 dialled back and changed the Start screen, but I knuckled down and used it. Now it’s normal. And here we go again with Windows 11. I’ll adapt.
The release date is October 5, which is, I think, three weeks from today.
I was running the preview on my old desktop, knowing that my new one was on the way. I generally liked it but was having some odd issues. Admittedly, the old desktop is a 6th gen i7 that is not on the supported list.
My new desktop is a brand AMD Ryzen 7, I will probably update my Surface Pro 6 to W11 on launch day and then my desktop a week or so later.
I only moved to 10 from Windows 7, 3 or 4 months ago. My 7 machine was 8 or 9 years old and it was time.
I initially hated 10 because they changed so much that had worked perfectly well previously. I don’t like change for the sake of change. Anyway, I’m OK with Windows 10 now. I’ve gotten used to it. But that’s only because I spent days getting it to look & feel more like Windows 7. And I also got rid of the multitude of useless apps that came with 10 . . .you know, the ones that prompt you to log into your Windows account (which I don’t have and will never have), the useless image viewers & video stuff of which there is far superior out there for free. I think my favorite thing about 10 is the speed with which it boots up & shuts down.
As for Windows 11? No. Only if or when I have to at some future time. And have to doesn’t include that they will end support. I could care less about that.
I understand sticking with something you are comfortable with and you know works, but if you are connected to the internet and there are no security patches you put both your internal resources at risk as well as act as a vector for bad actors on the internet. For Windows 10, this is October 2025.
Yeah, I was wrong about it. Microsoft is taking a new direction. It’s stupid. They’re actually demanding TPM 2.0, which is 100% why they chose Intel 8th gen and Ryzen 2nd gen, as I said before. They’re keeping their promise that everyone can upgrade to Windows 11 for free, but you will have to do a clean install if your hardware is older than that, and then you are not promised updates.
And there’s something you probably expected, @Martin_Hyde. There are a lot of people I know saying that they will upgrade their old computer to Windows 11 because it means Microsoft will stop forcing updates on people.
Microsoft seems to have done a complete reversal. Back on Windows 10, they wanted everyone to upgrade. Now they’re basically telling people not to upgrade. Rather than making sure everyone is up to date, they’re deliberately withholding updates from those who don’t measure up.
I can’t recall a previous time that Microsoft tried to use force obsolescence. You could always install Windows on any computer that could run it. Windows 11 works fine on the specs given: dual core 1.0ghz CPU, 4GB memory, 64GB storage. But they are artificially forcing the TPM, which doesn’t really do much for the average user currently, and they’ve been very cagey at spelling out anything else they plan to do with it.
I am actively avoiding upgrading to Windows 11 now, even on my PC that can handle it (Ryzen 5 3600, 16GB RAM, tons of HD space). Dad’s PC (i7-2600, 12GB) can keep up with mine, but his won’t be supported.
I very much want this to backfire greatly. I want there to be a lot more reluctance in upgrading, and for there to be a small but significant group of people stuck on the first feature release of Windows 10.1 11.
Especially with Microsoft saying nonsense like “it’s a great time to buy a new PC.” Yes, in the middle of a chip shortage, it’s such a great time!
I don’t need rounded corners that much.
This is me, I did all this about a month ago. Everything works okay now, but there’s still one sticking point I am struggling with. I have an old Wacom Graphire Tablet that I love and do not want to part with, I use it exclusively as my mouse, but the drivers won’t let me disable “Windows Ink” so the pointer acts more like a touch-screen finger than a precision tool. I cannot figure out a way around this beyond upgrading to a current tablet. Very frustrating.
Anyway, now I’m finally on Win10, Win11 is a long ways off for me, and I suspect this promised 2025 ending of support will probably not be adhered to if they have these unrealistic expectations of the entire world buying a new PC in the next 4 years. Office environments alone can’t afford to replace hundreds of desktops in that time.
I have become increasingly dissatisfied with how Windows 10 has been acting lately. Grabbing an ever-increasing amount of resources, updating on its own schedule rather than when I say so, quietly uninstalling programs because they are “potentially unwanted”. I have already determined that my relatively-recent systems aren’t going to be supported by Windows 11, so that may be the final straw that pushes me back into Linux.
I don’t know if this will be of any value. I’ve never used a writing tablet. Thought about it once because I am in a related business but reality struck and I realized if I can’t draw with a regular pen a computerized pen isn’t going to be much use.
You might be surprised. A friend worked for a major insurance company. They replaced phones & laptops every 2 or 3 years. Ever wonder why insurance rates are so high 