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Comment by projektfu | Hacker News Reader

I find it less aggravating than other systems. I have a Mac I use every now and again and every update it seems to have lost a feature. And Windows has gotten to the point where it's just a constant battle against Microsoft trying to steer you into their next distraction, and they reboot the computer on their schedule, not yours. If I leave my Ubuntu desktop for a while, when I come back it does some security updates but is otherwise how I left it.

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Very true, Windows has gotten worse faster than Linux has got better.

Windows being so bad has pushed people to find a better OS.

Also, gaming isn’t an issue anymore.

I think when I started using Linux 20 years ago, Wine was already one of the most impressive "feature" of my first Linux distro (SuSE 9.2 from a magazine btw) and I’m still impressed by this project. But Proton, that’s another beast.

Agreed. It was the one thing holding me back, but now is barely an issue. I'm sure that there are some games that I won't be able to run (most likely AAA FPS titles), but I haven't encountered any that I care about yet.

>and they reboot the computer on their schedule, not yours

When was the last time you used modern Windows and encountered this issue?

Windows rebooting you by force was an issues in the early days for Windows 10 to the point it became a meme people like to refer back to, but that hasn't been an issue in years.

Nowadays it just sucks bandwidth and CPU behind your back randomly to install bloated updates with features you'll never use.

How do you know I won't use them?

Do you use the cloud-based text-based image generation in MSPaint?

Or how about the ads in the start menu...

I don't have ads in my start menu <shrug>. Do you? Do you even use Windows or are you talking based on stuff you read online?

This is borderline trolling. "Candy Crush Saga" or Netflix is on the right side tabs right at the menu on a fresh install. I did install 22H2 a month ago and saw this atrocity. You are simply mistaken. Also News that I don't really care or wish to see.

How is my experience being different to yours considered trolling?

I don't have Candy Crush or Netflix. Probably because I'm in the EU and didn't connect it to the internet when I installed it.

Recently bought a Win 11 laptop (past two months), and to any average consumer it was impossible to not connect it to the internet when you first boot it.

It took me, a fairly savvy user, a couple of tries to figure out what was required, which is pressing Shift + F10, opening a terminal, entering a command, hoping for the best. That didn’t work, so I then needed to do the same process a second time and run a second command to open regedit and amend a registry value from 1 to 0. My father wouldn’t have known where to start.

Anyway, the moment it was all installed and hooked up to the internet to update the ads appeared so I downloaded TronScript and gave that a run to remove all the bloatware and ads.

Edit: Also EU.

If you're in the EU, you do have a less shitty version of Windows : https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-how-microsoft-will-chang...

> Some apps that are bundled with Windows now have the option to be uninstalled. That list includes the Camera, Photos, and Cortana apps. In the EEA only, Windows users will have the option to uninstall Microsoft Edge and the Web Search from the Microsoft Bing component.

You can uninstall Edge, over here Microsoft doesn't even let you open all hyperlinks with something else that edge. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/why-do...

No, but 9 year old me when getting his first PC and learning to use would have loved this. Just because you don't find something useful doesn't mean nobody else does. Same with Solitare and Pinball that shipped with Windows before. You might see it as bloatware but office workers worldwide had their mundane lives improved by them.

Despite HN's opinionated view on this, a commercially successful OS will never be like Arch where you have the bare bones and everybody needs to install everything they need from scratch.

My desktop regularly wakes itself from sleep to do an update, restarting in the process, and then sits there idle not having gone back to sleep.

Sounds like an issue. Updates that need a reboot are like once a month. If you get that routinely something must be wrong.

once a month is often

How else would you apply major OS updates? Ubuntu also recommends you reboot after large manual updates.

Hey, how about next time I need important updates I will install them manually issuing a simple command like "apt update && apt upgrade" or "pacman -Suy", or whatever else is there? And on top of that reboot my home computer on my own schedule and when I have convenient time to do so. And even gasp not updating my OS with important security updates if I choose so! Bottom line, screw Windows with its updates. Why it is so if I own the hardware and turn it off and on whenever I want I can't do the same with my software?

Yes, I'm sure the average Joe will like that UX.

Ah, the average Joe that was doing approximately that about 10 years ago on Windows 7 via UI (which linux distros also provide) and wasn't really complaining about it in the process. What changed?

It's the same process now mate.

My laptop wakes itself at midnight (somewhere around 12:30pm) and tries to install an update, but it fails every time and just hangs at the lock screen. Because the update is never properly installed, the device will boot up every night until I manually run "Update and restart". Ended up me killing windows update completely.

> Ended up me killing windows update completely.

I've tried to do this a number of times but no matter what I disable in the task scheduler it just ends up reenabled the next time I update the damn thing. Frustrating!

Last week, where I opened my laptop to find a login screen and a fresh desktop.

And then a month ago, and a few months before that. This is after going out of my way to disable automatic reboots.

Quite recently I have come to a machine scheduled to do video transcoding, with a notification "We have updated your operating system" and Handbrake being closed.

How was it scheduled to do transcoding?

Frequently. All the computers in the office are on automatic updates and they reboot overnight without much warning.

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