Windows 11 market share continues to decline

grmlin · May 2, 2024

Working with Windows 11 for about a year was the worst fucking experience I had in a long time using a PC. What a shit system, with decades old parts that feel like a joke to use these days. Good ideas like WSL don't get enough attention, and instead of fucking finally rebuilding Windows from scratch, like they should have done years ago, they keep piling up shit on top of the old shit.

Now, every time my wife needs help with her Lenovo laptop running Windows 11, I consider throwing it out of the window lol

UltraMav · May 2, 2024

As someone who bought a "future-proof" PC in 2016 who was shut out of Windows 11 because of weird processor requirements, I get it.

I just said "oh well, I'll wait for my next PC." I don't like upgrading hardware for about a decade (give or take a couple years). Makes me feel like my multi-thousand-dollar investment is worth it.

Maybe I'm an outlier and a poor person, but I couldn't believe that an OS coming out just five/six years later completely cut me off.

SirKai · May 2, 2024

Still on 10 because my OS says my PC apparently isn't eligible to upgrade. Shrugs. I can do without.

TheMadTitan · May 2, 2024

UltraMav said:
As someone who bought a "future-proof" PC in 2016 who was shut out of Windows 11 because of weird processor requirements, I get it.

I just said "oh well, I'll wait for my next PC." I don't like upgrading hardware for about a decade (give or take a couple years). Makes me feel like my multi-thousand-dollar investment is worth it.

Maybe I'm an outlier and a poor person, but I couldn't believe that an OS coming out just five/six years later completely cut me off.

They wanted a security feature your hardware lacked because at the time, said component was a motherboard addon.

Stuff like that probably happens more often than we notice across more things than PCs.

UltraMav · May 2, 2024

TheMadTitan said:
They wanted a security feature your hardware lacked because at the time, said component was a motherboard addon.

Stuff like that probably happens more often than we notice across more things than PCs.

Yeah, I get it. Just sayin' that for many of us who don't have easy access to new hardware due to costs, it's just not worth it. I've been living paycheck-to-paycheck since I was 18; I'm 36. If they're ending support for Windows 10 in a year or so it's probably time to start considering a new system. But I'm riding it out as long as I can, at this point.

Keep in mind I went from Win 7 to Win 8/10 on previous investments. Just didn't work out for me this time.

VAD · May 2, 2024

Atheerios said:
Well W10 is dying next year anyways so most will be forced to update

I mean this hardware lock that prevents W11 from installing makes that unlikely. I'm not changing my mobo and cpu from my perfectly good ryzen 1800x work machine just so I can be up to date.
I don't know why MS is failing their enterprise customers.

GlitchyDegree · May 2, 2024

Just "upgraded" my gaming PC to 11, (after figuring out what the fuck TPM and secure boot are, and having to boot into the bios for the first time in my life) and I'm not digging it. The start menu looks awful with all the ads, and I despise the visual changes made to file explorer. I'm keeping my work laptop on 10 for the foreseeable future, even though that's already compatible without messing with the bios.

marc^o^ · May 2, 2024

For my new gaming rig I got Windows 11. Mostly because I read HDR management was better on it. Is that the case? So far I can't complain, despite seldom crashes I never have on my mac.

Mivey · May 2, 2024

grmlin said:
Working with Windows 11 for about a year was the worst fucking experience I had in a long time using a PC. What a shit system, with decades old parts that feel like a joke to use these days. Good ideas like WSL don't get enough attention, and instead of fucking finally rebuilding Windows from scratch, like they should have done years ago, they keep piling up shit on top of the old shit.

This is a pretty good description. Luckily I only use W11 for gaming, since I use Linux to do actual work in, but it's so apparent even with the little things how Windows 11 is just window-dressing: the best example is the new shiny context menu. I don't hate how it looks, it's neat and modern. But it doesn't actually work, the abilty for apps to create their own custom menus there has not been ported over. If you want to use a lot of tools, like 7zip, you need to click on "show more options" which just brings back the old context menus. Why the fuck can't a trillion dollar company pay some programmers to properly implement an new context menu? Forget the terrible UX, this is just flat out embarrassing.
It's kinda funny when FOSS desktop environments like Gnome are designed with more care, technical maturity and far better UX, than the one in the world's leading OS.

MZZ · May 2, 2024

I despise what they did to the taskbar and start menu. It's so abrasive to use for me.

The start menu is awful for organizing your icons. Which is its main function to me, a drawer where I can find the applications I use and grouping them together based on what I use them for. Now its auto aligning and uses small icons with atrocious spacing between icons. Designing it to look a generic phone app drawer is some grade A shit. Windows 10 start menu icons has so much more flexibility and so much more visually appealing and has a distinct Windows identity. I feel awful everytime I have to use it in W11.

The taskbar is freaking awful if you have an ultrawide monitor and use multiple monitors. I usually have my taskbar on the side of the screen because I don't need an ultra long taskbar taking up my ultrawide, I also drag it to my other monitors if I want it out of the way completely or if I am using a different monitor(or TV).

Now I have to use auto hide just so that the taskbar doesn't occupy space. The auto hide feature breaks regularly because for some reason its not fully compatible with multimonitor taskbar. Oh and I have to use the multimonitor taskbar (which I dont actually like using even in 10) so that I can have a taskbar on my other monitors. The secondary monitor taskbar doesn't have the minimized icons on the right where the volume adjustment is, a primary use case for me when using a non primary monitor.

It just completely breaks the way I use windows so much. I hate using it so much.

grmlin · May 2, 2024

Mivey said:
the best example is the new shiny context menu.

that's the shit I'm talking about. You see it and think: "oh nice, cool new design" - only to learn a second later, that your experience is even worse now.
Did they change anything about that in the last years since they released Windows 11? lol, of course not, because they pile up unfinished ideas to create this nice turd we have to deal with now.

I'm a Mac person and only gave Windows a chance because of the terrible Intel MacBooks that were a pain to use with their shit keyboards and loud fans. Thank god they fixed all that with their own silicon.

JasoNsider · May 2, 2024

Ads on the login/unlock screen have been dreadful. I even get text trying to sell Game Pass. I'm even the target consumer for this ad and I hate it.

ConflictResolver · May 2, 2024

SirKai said:
Still on 10 because my OS says my PC apparently isn't eligible to upgrade. Shrugs. I can do without.

I don't want to update to anyway, but this is so weird to me. I built my PC 4 years ago. How tf can it not be compatible?

CampFreddie · May 2, 2024

Win 11 just doesn't seem to do anything better than Win 10 (I don't have a HDR monitor) and does some things worse (ads, right-click menus).
I guess 11 ads tabs to explorer, but its the shittiest barebones implementation possible. I have a much better tabbed explorer add-in in Win10 (and this program is not compatible with win11).

It's not that Win11 is actively terrible, but why bother upgrading.

The only reason to upgrade is that MS are going to stop Win10 support in October 2025 or whatever.

ConflictResolver said:
I don't want to update to anyway, but this is so weird to me. I built my PC 4 years ago. How tf can it not be compatible?

It's almost certainly a TPM issue. Any modern computer should be compatible, but TPM needs to be turned on in the BIOS settings. Win10 didn't need it, it doesn't improve performance or stability and BIOSes usuallly default to TPM-off, so a lot of people will not have it activated.
I'm tempted to turn off TPM to stop it nagging me with Win 11 ads.

thenexus6 · May 2, 2024

I will prob move to Linux next year, I see little need to stick with Windows after 10 support ends.

BLEEN · May 2, 2024

BarryFishFinger said:
They've hidden 'rename folder'. When I right click now to rename something I have to click 'more options' for another fly out and rename is in there.

It's the 3rd icon on the right click menu, or F2.

Mivey said:
This is a pretty good description. Luckily I only use W11 for gaming, since I use Linux to do actual work in, but it's so apparent even with the little things how Windows 11 is just window-dressing: the best example is the new shiny context menu. I don't hate how it looks, it's neat and modern. But it doesn't actually work, the abilty for apps to create their own custom menus there has not been ported over. If you want to use a lot of tools, like 7zip, you need to click on "show more options" which just brings back the old context menus. Why the fuck can't a trillion dollar company pay some programmers to properly implement an new context menu? Forget the terrible UX, this is just flat out embarrassing.
It's kinda funny when FOSS desktop environments like Gnome are designed with more care, technical maturity and far better UX, than the one in the world's leading OS.

The 7zip on the right click menu issue is because the dev doesn't want to update it for Win11. Actually I see there's a beta now, I wonder if he finally got around to it but I'm doubting it. I just moved to Nanazip instead.

Also 7zip support is coming natively to Win11 in the next update (22H2) soon.

s_mirage · May 2, 2024

BarryFishFinger said:
I've got Windows 11 on my work laptop and broadly it's ok other than the following issues I've had;

- They've hidden 'rename folder'. When I right click now to rename something I have to click 'more options' for another fly out and rename is in there. Yes it's only one extra cick, but it's really irritating. I switch between Windows 10 on my work desktop and this quite regularly, I'm often changing folder and file names so it grates every time.

Um, it's not hidden, it's right there. There are a bunch of icons on the top of the right click menu. One of them is rename.

To be fair, I forget about those icons too.

EDIT: Beaten to it.

Shopolic · May 2, 2024

25% is a bigger number than I expected! Win 11 didn't have a big hype like previous ones and I think many people look at it as Win 10+, not a huge necessary upgrade.

Scarecrow · May 2, 2024

I'll wait for Win10-2

BLEEN · May 2, 2024

s_mirage said:
Um, it's not hidden, it's right there. There are a bunch of icons on the top of the right click menu. One of them is rename.

To be fair, I forget about those icons too.

EDIT: Beaten to it.

Top or bottom depending on how close to the top or bottom edge of the screen you clicked 😁 it's actually faster this way due to that change since the 5 icons in the right click menu now line-up pretty much directly where you right clicked. I guess it could be called a weighed context menu?

Yeah, it's slightly different but it's a better change which makes this funnier lol

two_headed_boy · May 2, 2024

As someone who thinks Windows as an operating system sucks, it's really funny to see all the complaints about the taskbar alignment.

Slaythe · May 2, 2024

I mean they locked out 70% of devices with their dumb requirements so they get what they deserve really.

MJForum Poster · May 2, 2024

I can easily get over the UI stuff like what they did to the taskbar and the right click menu, but the enshittification is what really kills me. The ads in the start menu, the hostile behavior when a user wants to change their default browser, the constant ads for Bing when I'm full screen in a game - these are the things that make me dread using Windows 11.

paftree · May 2, 2024

Win11 annoyances finally got me to install Linux (Manjaro, based on Arch). It's been fantastic. Absolutely amazing how far Valve/Proton/Vulkan has pushed gaming on Linux to the point where it just works 99% of the time, now. In Elden Ring I even get better performance/load times vs. W11.

WillyFive · May 2, 2024

I've wanted to try out Mac for a while, but I can't because I'm a PC gamer.

Jubilant Duck · May 2, 2024

There's a bunch of UI design philosophies I hate about all modern Microsoft products (e.g. in Excel you click "Save" and it takes you three further clicks before you get to a folder browser to save to a location of your choosing rather than where Microsoft thinks you want to save a file) but once I did a quick fix to the right-click menu I've more or less found my time with Windows 11 to be smooth and issue-free.

In a world where most of people's computing is done via web/cloud and mobile apps however, market share decline in Windows seems inevitable. I'm not entirely sure what the future of Windows looks like and I'm not looking forward to a Microsoft that feels like it needs to pivot.

Brawly Likes to Brawl · May 2, 2024

What did they think would happen after they made the transition so needlessly complex? Migrating from 7/8 to 10 was smooth as butter comparatively. Also fuck them for ruining the context menu. Absolutely no one asked for their to be extra clicks to get things done.

BarryFishFinger · May 2, 2024

BLEEN said:
It's the 3rd icon on the right click menu, or F2.

s_mirage said:
Um, it's not hidden, it's right there. There are a bunch of icons on the top of the right click menu. One of them is rename.

To be fair, I forget about those icons too.

EDIT: Beaten to it.

Icons!? Has that always been a thing in Windows?! Amazing, thanks, makes life quicker.

Mivey · May 2, 2024

BLEEN said:
The 7zip on the right click menu issue is because the dev doesn't want to update it for Win11. Actually I see there's a beta now, I wonder if he finally got around to it but I'm doubting it. I just moved to Nanazip instead.

Also 7zip support is coming natively to Win11 in the next update (22H2) soon.

I'm not sure I want or care for Windows doing it natively. Even for regular old zip files, I find that 7zip is so much faster than the native alternative. You'd think with a 7800X3D it wouldn't matter, but nope, a huge difference.
Thanks for mentioning Nanazip, looks pretty interesting.

Funkybee · May 2, 2024

Tried win 11 on mu personal gaming laptop and started getting random errors on a few apps I use. Rolled back to win 10. 9 months later upgraded my work Thinkpad X1 Gen 9 and had active directory along with a couple other native apps randomly disappear. Even tried troubleshooting it and ran into another odd glitch where apps wouldn't even show up to add them manually. Gave up again and went back to win 10.

BLEEN · May 2, 2024

Mivey said:
I'm not sure I want or care for Windows doing it natively. Even for regular old zip files, I find that 7zip is so much faster than the native alternative. You'd think with a 7800X3D it wouldn't matter, but nope, a huge difference.
Thanks for mentioning Nanazip, looks pretty interesting.

No prob. Nanazip is a great fork. And yeah, I get you. For me, the less 3rd party software the better tho! Even if it took MS decades lol

BLEEN · May 2, 2024

BarryFishFinger said:
Icons!? Has that always been a thing in Windows?! Amazing, thanks, makes life quicker.

It's been there since the first Win11 build. It's okay, I used to overlook it as well lol

OrangeNova · May 2, 2024

I replaced the whole taskbar on Win11 and it's been fine for me, but the fact that my wife can't update their computer to the latest version is so wild to me. They're using my old machine, which isn't that old, at most like 6 years for the mobo/cpu, and the GPU is a bit older as a 1070.

Pargon · May 2, 2024

I don't know how anyone could have a VRR or HDR display and still be running Windows 10 at this point.
Windows 11 automatically upgrading Borderless games to work with VRR and shave off a frame of latency is amazing.
And HDR support is generally improved (though I don't much care for AutoHDR myself).

It's hilarious that people who are so infuriated by tiny UI changes think that Windows 12 is going to be the one for them.

ConflictResolver said:
I don't want to update to anyway, but this is so weird to me. I built my PC 4 years ago. How tf can it not be compatible?

Anything back to 2017 or so should be compatible.
The problem is that a lot of motherboards use bad defaults and leave security features disabled - so people have to go in and fix it themselves.
Ideally they would be pushing BIOS updates that fix this automatically, but I doubt most of them will bother - or that the people who struggle to set TPM on will want to/know how to update the BIOS.

TeenageFBI said:
edit: Oh god, I forgot about the ridiculous TPM requirement. I use BitLocker and I still think the requirement is dumb. That's a great reason for avoiding 11.

The TPM requirement is basically a check to say: "is this CPU new enough that its performance won't tank with modern security features enabled."
It's not strictly about the TPM.

Zyrokai said:
I'm a Mac guy but always liked Windows 10. Bummer to hear 11 is so bad. I was thinking about building a gaming PC but maybe not???

Most people complaining are stuck in their ways and hating change.
If you're coming from a Mac, you don't have that baggage to begin with.

BarryFishFinger said:
- And probably me being thick and I haven't really dug into it, but its not immediately obvious how to display files in a folder by name without it also subdividing by day.

I'm not even sure what the problem is here.
Right-click the folder and choose Sort By > Name.
Are you using Group By > Date ?

VAD said:
I mean this hardware lock that prevents W11 from installing makes that unlikely. I'm not changing my mobo and cpu from my perfectly good ryzen 1800x work machine just so I can be up to date.
I don't know why MS is failing their enterprise customers.

It's probably about the principle of the matter or something in this case, but you could drop in a 2700X for about $50 or a 3700X for $100.

Zyrokai · May 2, 2024

ChitonIV said:
Problem with Macbooks right now, is you have to buy the "pro" chips, to use more than one external display. So you can buy a $1500 or $2,000 14 inch Macbook Pro with an M3 chip-----and not be able to use more than one external monitor. A Macbook Pro.

In this situation, you would have had to buy a 14 inch Macbook Pro with an M3 Pro, to use more than one external monitor.

Absolutely inane. And the only reason I know about it, is because someone I support professionally, found out the hard way.

I actually splurged and have the M3 Max MacBook, so not a problem for me. However, I hear your plight. I may be mistaken but I think the base M3 MacBook Airs actually support two monitors now. They just came out a few weeks ago.

Pargon said:
.
Most people complaining are stuck in their ways and hating change.
If you're coming from a Mac, you don't have that baggage to begin with.

True. And it wouldn't be my main computing device. I literally just want it for Steam. I'm debating between going the PC route or getting a PS5.

grmlin · May 2, 2024

Zyrokai said:
True. And it wouldn't be my main computing device. I literally just want it for Steam. I'm debating between going the PC route or getting a PS5.

You could give https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover a try, works surprisingly well. It's still not a Windows PC with 4090, of course, but more than nothing until you buy something :)
There is also a free alternative available, but I forgot what it's called

DominicanPower · May 2, 2024

One more year until they cut off support for win10. Sucks.

Dary · May 2, 2024

Isn't this the standard Windows cycle? People skipped 2000, Vista and 8, too, in my experience. I went from XP to 7 to 10 myself.

SwampBastard · May 2, 2024

UltraMav said:
As someone who bought a "future-proof" PC in 2016 who was shut out of Windows 11 because of weird processor requirements, I get it.

I just said "oh well, I'll wait for my next PC." I don't like upgrading hardware for about a decade (give or take a couple years). Makes me feel like my multi-thousand-dollar investment is worth it.

Maybe I'm an outlier and a poor person, but I couldn't believe that an OS coming out just five/six years later completely cut me off.

UltraMav said:
Yeah, I get it. Just sayin' that for many of us who don't have easy access to new hardware due to costs, it's just not worth it. I've been living paycheck-to-paycheck since I was 18; I'm 36. If they're ending support for Windows 10 in a year or so it's probably time to start considering a new system. But I'm riding it out as long as I can, at this point.

Keep in mind I went from Win 7 to Win 8/10 on previous investments. Just didn't work out for me this time.

You may have seen this before, but there is a tool available that will let you install Win11 even on systems that don't "qualify" for the upgrade. I used it to update an old Surface Pro 4 that MS would not let me update natively.

GitHub - AveYo/MediaCreationTool.bat: Universal MCT wrapper script for all Windows 10/11 versions from 1507 to 21H2!

Universal MCT wrapper script for all Windows 10/11 versions from 1507 to 21H2! - AveYo/MediaCreationTool.bat

github.com

Ouroboros · May 2, 2024

I like Win11. I have no issues with it.

StrayDog · May 2, 2024

Talking about win11... Where are people buying cheap OEM key these days? I need a win11 pro for my new computer.

Fulcrum · May 2, 2024

TPM requirement is the problem. Plenty of devices out there that would update but they can't.

Temp_User · May 2, 2024

JasoNsider said:
Ads on the login/unlock screen have been dreadful. I even get text trying to sell Game Pass. I'm even the target consumer for this ad and I hate it.

Hell, me and my colleagues still get Office ads even though we're already 365 subscribers. All it does is generate confusion and/or anxiety from your non-techie coworkers like "Are we just using the trial version? Can we still access our files afterwards?" or some sh1t.

lunarworks · May 2, 2024

I wonder what part of that Windows 10 market share are people with computers that don't have TPM enabled in the BIOS. A bunch of our desktops at work came from the factory like that.

Mindwipe · May 2, 2024

At some point Microsoft will realise that despite what their badly designed internal metrics say half assed UI updates kill versions of Windows and anyone who disagrees with that needs to be no longer involved in it's management. But it seems like we're not there yet.

Ernest · May 2, 2024

I held onto Win10 for the longest time, then I finally "upgraded" to 11, and I've regretted it ever since.

ALL these tech shit, is just devs redoing things that were fine, just to justify their jobs - not exactly planned obsolescence, but "improving" on something that didn't need improving only because they needed to do the work, not because the work needed to be done.

JCR · May 2, 2024

I've been using it for a few months now. My main annoyances have been:

- having to hold shift to get the full right click menu
- the Discord tray icon disappearing after each update
- sometimes the login screen will take a long time to appear

Other than that it seems exactly the same as Windows 10, which I guess is a positive but I wouldn't be able to say anything I've noticed it improved upon Windows 10.

Kabuki Quantum Lover · May 2, 2024

My distaste of Windows 11 led me to use a Linux distribution as my PC's main (and only) OS (Fedora WS 40, currently).

It's the little things Microsoft did to Windows 11 that get to you (taskbar firmly planted to the bottom of the monitor / the awful condensed right click menu / start menu not knowing what to do when you want to disable 'Recommendations'. Requiring registry hacks to restore old functionality should not be a thing at this point. I'm not sure what the logic is to obfuscate simple functions.

Faceless_Caesar · May 2, 2024

Kabuki Quantum Lover said:
It's the little things Microsoft did to Windows 11 that get to you (taskbar firmly planted to the bottom of the monitor / the awful condensed right click menu / start menu not knowing what to do when you want to disable 'Recommendations'. Requiring registry hacks to restore old functionality should not be a thing at this point. I'm not sure what the logic is to obfuscate simple functions.

It's about railroading you into using more Microsoft services.

Marmoka · May 2, 2024

It's compulsory in my job to use Windows 11. I remember updating my work laptop from 10 to 11 and the laptop started working horribly, like it needed 20 minutes just to boot after introducing your password or unlock by fingerprint.

Now I have a new laptop with 11 installed from scratch and seems to be working fine. If they are about to release Windows 12 soon, I hope they don't make me install it as I don't want to go throw that again (or maybe yes, so I have an excuse to work less, haha).

And I'd rather have a MacBook Pro for work but unfortunately that is not something I can choose.

Windows 11 market share continues to decline

Prophet of Truth

Developer

A King's Landing

The Wise Ones