[parasti]

What's Microsoft thinking here? We got Windows on our kids' laptops and it's a pain to do anything with every time, just an amalgamation of decades worth of UIs held together with duct tape, looks terrible and performs even worse than it looks. When I'm thinking of the next big upgrade, Windows isn't even on the list of options anymore, and that's not even an ideological statement in any way.

[isk517]

I have been asking myself this question repeatedly for the last few months. Windows 11 offers absolutely nothing of substance over Windows 10 and more often than not manages to be less pleasant to use. The Office 365 eco system is a complete disaster of half implemented ideas, most of which can be described as would be pretty useful if it actually worked as advertised(power automate), wasn't abandoned in a half complete state(loosp), or if they implemented simple feature requests that the userbase is asking for(sharepoint). To top it all off they seem to be working tirelessly to ruin the products that actually work and are in demand, every couple of months they threaten to force users to switch to the 'modern' Outlook despite the fact that it still lacks a lot of features that are the very reason businesses still use Outlook in the first place.

[sharpshadow]

Windows 11 has round corners.

[pjmlp]

Security knobs that Windows 10 lacks, better support for containers, WSL features, and DirectX 12 capabilities.

Granted, not everyone cares about them.

[_DeadFred_]

I find I no longer integrate new apps/technology flows into my life because they either won't be supported or will be enshitified/weaponized against me. The future kind of sucks. My smart home is barely hanging on to turning my lights on at dusk (something photo-sensors for lights just did without issue from the 90s on). Android just broke my phone, I can no longer just say 'hey android, play the news' and have it play headlines from real new organization that I specify. Instead it grabs news from I don't know where and gives me Google Gemini approved summaries (that Google states may or may not be accurate).

[ajmurmann]

Recently I locked into my old Windows computer after not having done so in about a year and noticed a weird brown symbol prominently in the task bar. It was a promotion for world chocolate day...

[andriesm]

Classic! So true!

[BoredPositron]

Microsoft has spent the past two decades repositioning Windows from a flagship operating system into primarily a delivery vehicle for cloud services, subscriptions, and integrated apps. They are just not interested in providing the user with an OS anymore. For them it's a necessary evil nothing more.

[pixl97]

Simply put the economics are behind a locked down click and drool style operating system with a manufacture controlled store that takes 30% of all gross.

The faster we can kill the Apple and Google store monopolies the faster we'll go back to having operating systems/phones that we can at least do something with.

We still have Linux for now, but as we know signed bootloaders present a very large risk.

[N19PEDL2]

I think at Microsoft they know they can do whatever they want with Windows and nothing will change.

In corporate, no manager cares about the operating system their employees use. Unless there's a significant drop in productivity by using Windows, no one will bother with the cost of switching to another OS.

In the private sector, most people buy their computers straight off the shelf, i.e. with Windows. Here at HN, we're tech enthusiasts, but out there those who know what "Debian with GNOME" means are very few, and the rest will at most complain a little about how Windows has become, but then they'll just continue to use it.

[x0x0]

They're also currently nakedly taking bribes from hardware manufacturers to force upgrades to Windows 11, creating a wave of completely unnecessary hardware purchases. I'm trying to figure out how to help a nontechnical parent run a bypass install to avoid throwing a perfectly fine laptop in the garbage.

It's so necessary to the functioning of Windows 11 that it can be bypassed and Windows 11 works fine. Sure...

[mips_avatar]

Windows exists to perpetuate the next promotion cycle of people working inside of Windows.

[garylkz]

Remember Microsoft Edge? Remember Microsoft Teams? Remember Dev Home? Remember Copilot? Yeah it's the same thing everytime.

[pjmlp]

People have to remember corporations aren't people, and when there is a change of direction, doesn't mean they got rid of all employees responsible for the old ways.

[prism56]

My kid won't need a laptop for a few more years but i've been using linux and i'm planning on making them use linux. The privacy implications and learning potential could be worth it from an early age.

[freedomben]

I have done this, and in many ways it has been one of the best parenting decisions I've made. My oldest is a better CLI user now than most engineers I work with, and it came almost entirely from him exploring the system and getting excited about all the cool things he can do. It also made it super easy for me to teach him more self-service things, everything from looking at system logs to see why the xbox controller or even the USB keyboard isn't working, to learning how the software stack is assembled.

For my other kids that don't care about that sort of stuff, even they have become very capable computer users. It's been easy for them to learn Windows and ChromeOS at school. I already see the same pattern of diving deeper developing with my youngest too.

One of the most rewarding things I've experienced as a parent is seeing the hacker spirit still very much alive.

[rtkwe]

Make sure they have at least a passing familiarity with Windows and it's apps because like it or not Windows is still the default in the school and working world so they'll have to work with that stuff to some degree. Otherwise go for it.

Side note how's open office compatibility these days? Last time I tried it yeeears ago there were still compatibility problems that would have made group projects hard.

[brewdad]

Absolutely. My kid just finished an engineering degree from a well respected institution. Early on in the intro programming classes, about half of his class was unfamiliar with file system structures. Chromebooks and iPads in school and at home meant they had never really encountered them.

There were plenty of other "techy" things that older generations take for granted but kids aren't learning about unless parents show them because they are hidden behind modern OS/software interfaces and usually locked down to prevent discovery.

[novaleaf]

anecdote time: I have a Desktop and Laptop running Win11. Over the last month I noticed that when typing in notepad.exe, IT DROPS ABOUT 5% OF CHARACTERS TYPED!!!! On both my computers. How on earth Microsoft could F-Up Notepad (of all things) so badly that it fails at the ONE THING it's supposed to do, I have no idea. At the same time, I notice there is now Copilot integrated with Notepad.... coincidence?

[hulitu]

Don't worry. Copilot is just summarizing what you wrote. /s

[duxup]

Windows feels more like an adware / advertising driven OS every day.

It's not there for me, it's for Microsoft to have a vehicle to point the OS AT ME.

[lioeters]

When you're in Windows, the OS operates you. It is the user and you are the used.

[hirako2000]

Install Linux, they would come out wiser and perhaps even learn how to code.

Windows should be considered mental health hazard.

[crinkly]

I completely agree with your latter point after being a windows dev on and off since windows 3.0. It’s been one hell of a rollercoaster.

[crinkly]

Thinking? Plan?

Only thing going on is maximising capital extraction from the moat they created. End users no longer matter as long as the numbers keep going up.

[yieldcrv]

> What's Microsoft thinking here?

An upsell and way to justify their 3 trillion marketcap