Intel might have slipped that Windows 12 is indeed coming next year | Company CFO sees benefits of a coming “Windows Refresh”::undefined
new versions of windows just kind of feel like new phones now. It’s good but… who cares?
I can remember as a teen and upgrading from windows 98 to XP felt like jumping into the future.
Or, more recently, getting the first samsung galaxy after having a basic candybar phone.
Just seems like more of the same all while charging an arm and a leg for it.
Then xp to vista happened and it looked pretty but was unusable. Then 7 came out and it solved all the BS and was a relief. Then 8 came out and it looked pretty but was unusable. Nobody is quite sure what happened with 9 but 10 was ok I guess, better than 8. Then I started using Linux because I was sick of the bullshit.
9 was skipped because there was concern with old/lazily coded programs running in compatibility mode for Windows 9x versions.
Basically, when the windows versions went from Win95/98/ME to 2000 and XP, some lazy programmers went “well by the time Windows 2090 rolls around I’ll be dead” and just had their programs check the windows version for a 9 when deciding whether or not to run in compatibility mode. If it detected a 9, then it would run in compatibility for 95/98/ME.
Microsoft wanted to avoid this potential issue, so they just skipped version 9 altogether and jumped straight to 10.
Unrelated but didn’t a lot of things about that time skip a few versions to land at 10? Like I don’t think there was an iPhone 9 and so on.
Funny thing. The reputation of Vista is universal, so I don’t doubt it at all. However, I ran Vista starting from beta and never had a problem with it. I must have had the magic hardware combination that worked. My least favourite Windows release was 8.
As someone who was stuck on vista as a teen towards the end of its life is wasn’t a bad OS, but it did deserve the hate early on for being a buggy OS that was poorly optimised for the average hardware of the time. But then I moved to 7 and fell in love with it( or at least I thought it was great).
Then I upgraded to 10 and hated it. I switched to Mac for a couple of years and started liking unix but missed the hardware of PCs and didn’t like the 10.15+ direction of MacOS.
So I switched to Linux( which I had messed with on an old laptop on and off as a teen, but at the time liked all my proprietary crap I was used too) and have never looked back.
The stuff that made Vista shitty to most end users wasn’t truly fixed with W7. For the most part W7 was a marketing refresh after Vista had already been “fixed.” Not saying that it was a small update or anything like that, just that the broken stuff had been more or less fixed.
Vista’s issues at launch were almost universally a result of the change to the driver model. Hardware manufacturers, despite MS delaying things for them, still did not have good drivers ready at release. They took years after the fact to get good, stable, drivers out there. By the time that happened, Vista’s reputation as a pile of garbage was well cemented. W7 was a good chance to reset that reputation while also implementing other various major upgrades.
I was running an it services business at the time, so got to see a broad number of machines and peoples complaints.
I think the massive jump in ram required was a huge problem, it went from most people having 128mb to 256mb, to a minimum of 512, but a reality of 2gb required.
Plus the indexer was relentless and just smashed HDDs.
Drivers were a problem too but people understood they would need to be have upgrades for their fancy new system.
In the programming world, versions with a 9 as a major digit, or most significant minor digit, are considered bad luck. Windows 95 and 98 aren’t considered amongst that bad luck thing though, as they were actually versions 4.0 and 4.1, respectively. 95 and 98 were named after the year they were released, but their internal version numbers did not include a 9. Windows ME was a disaster though, and it’s version number was 4.9…
It’s kinda like how people are superstitious about the number 13, programmers are now superstitious about version numbers with a 9 in the version number now. Windows ME probably at least partly started that.
But hey, that’s just coming from many years of experience with technology starting from the mid 90’s and also a handful of articles I’ve read over about it, who really knows though?
I do believe that version numbers with a 9 in them lead the end users to think “Hey, this is a 0.9, 1.9, 9, whatever, when are they gonna fix all the bugs and release the 1.0, 2.0, 10.0, etc…”
Where are you located? I don’t know any programmer who is afraid of 9. Not even in releases.
We had a year of iterations of X.900, X.910, etc etc. None of us thought that was bad luck. And honestly we implemented some fun features to write.
Versioning is usually done with three numbers, often separated by a period. So Major.Minor.Patch/Hotfix. So we would have X.900 for the first minor version of X.9. If (when) there is a hotfix, that becomes X.901. For a lot of other software it would be X.9.1. Either way, skipping 9 would just cause confusion. I’ve never heard of this superstition and I’ve never seen a software company skip 9 in their versioning.
May not be more of the same this time around
Isn’t windows 11 still… unfinished?
I’m not thinking about upgrading until W11 is 50-60% market share and they actually have to take bugs seriously
I bought a Dell XPS for work with a 12th gen Intel Evo CPU that came with Windows 11 and it ran like absolute dog shit. Slow, poor battery life, etc. I reinstalled 11 from scratch with an MS ISO to remove any Dell bloatware and it was actually worse. I ran the “old” Windows 10 Media Creation Tool and downgraded (through the upgrade option, ha) and it has been running great for months ever since. The Evo platform isn’t even supposed to work fully on 10, and definitely not run faster or with better battery life. That’s the inverse of what should have happened. Also, the bugs went away and I got a functional Windows Explorer back without having to pay for fucking third-party start menu software.
E: clarity
As long as 10 is supported, I’m not updating. At least I’m not hammered with ads like on 11.
If 10 is sunset, I’ll probably switch back to Linux. I rarely game on my laptop anyway.
Out of like 1000 games I can play about 997 on linux, you’ll probably be fine on linux even gaming now
I don’t understand Linux, but gaming on my steam deck is amazing and occasionally runs games better than my much more powerful windows computer.
Certain things do run better on Linux. So if a game heavily relies on one of those things, it’ll run better. But there’s still a lot of game engine stuff that is experimental or just plain non-functional on Linux, so the games that utilize those are basically unplayable.
Until fairly recently, things like Ray tracing and DLSS were windows-only, because they almost universally used DirectX, which is a windows API.
If you game via Steam, there’s a good chance you can use their Proton layer to play Windows games on Linux.
How dumb can a person be and still use Linux for gaming? I’m open to switching from Windows but am only marginally technical so I don’t wanna bite off more than I can chew
These days it’s more “which games don’t work on linux?” Rather than “which games work on linux?”
Here is my attempt to answer this genuinely and in detail. To game on Linux, I think you should be able to, or willing to learn how to:
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Install operating systems on your computer. There are folks that genuinely can’t handle this; they use the OS installed on their computer and if it breaks they either buy a new computer, or it’s a trip to the geek squad or the genius bar or their brother that “works in computers.” Installing Linux on a PC is practically the same skill as installing Windows on a PC; it asks you things like how you want to partition the drives and such, you have to deal with the BIOS at least a little bit. The main difference is Linux is installed by default on comparably few computers, and even then if you buy a System76, you’re going to get Pop!_OS, if you want Mint, you’re going to do it yourself. So.
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Learn a bit about how to day-to-day administer a Linux system. How to update the system, how to install new software, how to uninstall software. Learn how the Linux file system works and how drives are mounted onto it, things like that. It is done differently than in Windows; some of the concepts transfer over, some don’t.
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Not completely freak out when you encounter the terminal. I have seen people pitch a complete bitch fit at the very notion that us Linux users do occasionally use the terminal for things. Here’s one thing that the terminal is really great for: Your sound isn’t working, you ask about this on a forum. Would you rather have someone say “Oh yeah right click the Start button and click Preferences, go to the Devices tab, scroll down and click More Information then a window will pop up, scroll down until you see Sound Card, expand this, then for each entry in there right click, click Properties, go to the Status tab, and then type what it says in there” or “Open a terminal, type
lshw | grep -i audioand copy-paste what it spits out.” The terminal is just your computer, you run programs by typing their name instead of clicking on an icon, that’s all. Don’t have a cow, man. Unless it’s cowsay. -
Play the right games. I have long attributed my success with gaming on Linux in large part to my tastes happening to align with game availability on the platform. I like small studio/indie projects, I like nerdy creative/problem solving/building games, so I play stuff like Zachtronics games and Factorio, and wouldn’t you know it those folks tend to release Linux native builds, or their Windows-only games run great in Proton. I play practically no “AAA” games, I haven’t bought an EA game since the SNES, and I have never owned a Bethesda game.
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When you first install and log into Steam, go to Steam > Settings > Compatibility and turn on the option “Enable Steam Play for all other titles.”
Depends on the distro, times have really changed in the last 5 years and even more since the steam deck was released. I distro hop a lot and my recommendation for a newbie would be pop os! Or Ubuntu. I was really impressed with pop, everything just worked right on install. Same with Ubuntu for the most part. Any guide for the current release of Ubuntu will work on pop os.
I’ve been using EndeavorOS recently and enjoyed it but I wouldn’t recommend it to someone new to linux. It’s not as hard to use as other distros but might be a bit much for a newcomer.
It’s not nearly as hard as it seems, but you do have to be willing to search around Google for a bit and things might take a few tries to get working. Steam has an option in their compatibility settings to run windows games through Proton that has worked well for me, but I only really play smaller single player games. Can’t vouch for how well it works for multi-player stuff. Also I’m using Manjaro (based on Arch Linux) not sure if it works the same for all distributions.
windows 11 isnt even the majority of installs yet and they’re trying to push for windows 12? They tried doing “windows as a service” with Windows 10 but that never really manifested either.
I know people whine that Linux users always harp on about Linux, but there’s a better alternative to having a £100 tax on every new laptop you buy, or having to buy a new license every time you upgrade a PC a little too much in one go. Or being locked out of security updates because you dont want to subject your system to adware.
And with the Steam Deck entering the picture, we have a huge company like valve making it even easier to jump ship now. Its the ship jump I used
Microsoft might be leaning into an old reputation. Windows 95 was crap, Windows 98 fixes it. Windows ME was crap, Windows XP fixes it. Windows Vista was crap, Windows 7 fixes it.
They might be expecting that people think Windows 11 was crap in the same way Windows ME or Vista was crap, and they’ll flock to Windows 12. But it’s not like Windows 11 is horribly broken like that. The actual problem is that Windows 11 doesn’t give many compelling reasons to upgrade over 10, and it has a bunch of useless bloat.
As a developer, having WSL2 open up X11 apps without having to jump through hoops of running an X server on Windows is quite nice. Other than that, I don’t know why I’d bother.
I don’t think Microsoft charges OEMs remotely close to full price for OEM licenses, so it’s more like a $10 tax, but I agree with everything else here
Its lower. Businesses basically pay a subscription for the ability to generate keys. So of course if you have a large business, the subscription is trivial in the grand scale of things.
Its similar to how game companies work with pc cafes in asia. They dont pay for all the games they host, some they pay a sub to generate accounts for people who pay for the cafe rental times. Its a vital feature for paid games with a focus on multiplayer (e.g Overwatch 1 worked like that in China)
Probably depends on the SKU (They probably give discounts if you preinstall) but for some Lenovo models where the OS is optional the price to the consumer is £80 which is 75% a typical license.
Didn’t the same happen with Windows 7 and 8.1?
Most were still using 7 when 10 was released.
Microsoft and the consumers will be fine.
And no, it still isn’t the year of Linux. Back in 2016 it had somewhat of a chance, but not anymore. And neither with the Windows 12 launch, sorry.
Sure but 8 and 8.1 were famously unpopular though (even though I personally enjoyed the Metro design language).
Windows 11 seems to be received generally well, but what’s the push to upgrade now? Windows 10 being as good as it was has turned it into another 7/XP.
It’s gonna be a slowwwww march for any alternative but Windows doesnt have the benefit of being the best by default anymore – it has to work for it.
There are a few factors at play, I think.
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Microsoft isn’t nearly being as aggressive about pushing free Windows 11 upgrades as they were with Windows 10. Windows Update will offer it to you, but not install it unless you explicitly opt-in.
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Windows 11’s system requirements of a processor from the last 5 years plus TPM being enabled (it was off by default on most motherboards bought before 2022) leaves a lot of users not even being offered the upgrade (they can manually upgrade after jumping through some hoops).
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Windows 10 is still actively supported and will be for a while, removing any impetus for users or organizations to upgrade unless they specifically need some of the new features.
All of this adds up to a substantial portion of Windows 11 installs likely being new machines rather than upgrades.
I haven’t even bothered “upgrading” to windows 11 because it still looks terrible.
My work computers have it installed so I use it all the time it’s not bad, it just doesn’t bring anything good to the table. It’s basically a visual update.
Yep. Hate the curved edges.
There a way to set it back to angled edges without the use of a 3rd party app?
So with zero first hand experience then? You’re refusing to upgrade based on memes and conjecture alone.
Sure, you’re well within your right to do so, but it’s not a great system to live life by. People are far more vocal about bad experiences than good ones. Windows 11 has been awesome for me, and as a developer and gamer, I’m on my PC and Mac far longer than the average user. I’ve not had any issues with windows 11 since it came out; the issues with the start menu and whatnot. It feels like it’s cool nowadays to moan about Microsoft products when the reality just doesn’t reflect those complaints.
Try it out for yourself. It’s actually a really good OS: I prefer it over MacOS Sonoma anyday. My dad, who is ‘afraid’ to touch computers in fear of breaking them, told me just last night how much easier Win11 is to use than Win10.
If after all that you still hate it, well, at least then you’ve made an informed decision!
That’s great, but there are valid concerns about other people’s use cases
I can’t install it on my laptop because it has a hard drive. Immediately not something you can use - it scans files out of the box, making the system unusable. It doesn’t let you just disable it without taking drastic steps, but disabling some features requires group policy. If you use some hacks to disable things, randomly other things break. For example, disabling the firewall breaks Windows Update (?!)
The last good version was Windows 7 where you could actually do 99% of things you wanted with Home edition without any issue.
My computer is 11 and I hate it more than any previous windows. Each newer version of windows removes features that previous ones had and makes customizing more and more annoying to do. Now that the Steam Deck has got me used to Linux, I wont be coming back to Windows whenever I upgrade my desktop
So with zero first hand experience then You’re refusing to upgrade based on memes and conjecture alone.
Sure, you’re well within your right to do so, but it’s not a great system to live life by. People are far more vocal about bad experiences than good ones. RedStar OS has been awesome for me, and as a developer and gamer, I’m on my PC and Mac far longer than the average user. I’ve not had any issues with RedStar OS since it came out; the issues with the start menu and whatnot. It feels like it’s cool nowadays to moan about North Korea products when the reality just doesn’t reflect those complaints.
Try it out for yourself. It’s actually a really good OS: I prefer it over Windows anyday. My dad, who is ‘afraid’ to touch computers in fear of breaking them, told me just last night how much easier RedStar 11 is to use than RedStar 10.
If after all that you still hate it, well, at least then you’ve made an informed decision!
Thank you, ChatGPT.
