My experience with Windows 10
I'm a longtime Linux user, and I haven't used Windows in a while aside from just launching games from Steam on my living room computer, but my new work laptop is Microsoft's flagship Surface Pro 4 so I figured it'd be the best experience you can have on a Windows machine.
I got the laptop in yesterday, and here's the summary of my experience:
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I am required by IT to use Chrome. To install Chrome, I had to click through no fewer than three "Are you sure you don't want to use Microsoft's more secure, faster browser?" banners to do so.
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When I plug in my external monitor, by default, the two monitors were mirrored; when I went into display settings, it didn't show the external monitor until I closed and reopened the settings menu.
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I have an Apple Magic Touchpad 2, and I had some issues getting it set up on Ubuntu 20.04 when I initially got it. These problems are now solved on the latest version of Ubuntu, but I was expecting a nice contrast in a good plug-and-play experience on Windows. Instead, I had to install sketchy drivers from some random GitHub page to get it to work properly.
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I've had some minor annoyances with my audio interface (a Zoom R-22) not being set as the default when I want it to be on Ubuntu, and I was really looking forward to getting a smooth video calling experience with my nice mic and interface on Windows. Lo and behold, the R-22 audio input - the whole reason I have it - doesn't work at all, at least in the Zoom video calling app.
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On Ubuntu, I use QV4L2 to configure the framing, zoom, exposure, etc of my camera. It's a bit clunky, and I was looking forward to having a smooth experience with this on the premier business OS. Unfortunately, the camera on this laptop has extremely aggressive aperture priority mode enabled, and there is no first-party app to configure it! The documentation tells me to go to Settings -> Devices -> Camera but there is no such menu item. So, I just look either washed-out or ultra-dark in every video call.
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After running Windows Update and rebooting, I was greeted with a full-screen and quite annoying to exit tutorial for Microsoft Teams - an app I did not install, because my company uses Slack.
This in addition to some setup papercuts, but I think those were probably due to my corporate IT's process rather than Windows itself.
Is this common? Do people who use Windows just... put up with this kind of thing? Or am I having an exceptionally bad experience for some reason?
I've noticed a lot of people in this thread complaining about how Microsoft is getting more aggressive in pushing their services and apps on users.
If people aren't familiar with Windows LTSC, it's basically an enterprise version of Windows that doesn't have any of that crap installed. It's just the basics - it doesn't even come with the Windows store enabled by default.
Getting a license is tricky, but if you do some creative Googling, it's easy to find a trial version to see if you're interested.
I've been using it on my desktop for a while now and it's fantastic. It's all the good stuff about Windows (massive App Library, compatibility, etc) and none of the annoying marketing/growth focused stuff Microsoft has been fiendishly pursuing over the last half decade.
Consumers shouldn't have to put in tons of effort in order to not be abused. I'm glad this exists and thank you for sharing it but I must say it serves mostly to make me more angry at MS rather than less
I agree with what you're saying. Like I said, Microsoft has been getting more and more aggressive with pushing services over the past few years (just like Apple and Google) to the point that it's driving many people away from Windows.
I was just letting people who have to use Windows know that there is an option that let's you have the good parts of Windows without all the bad stuff.
Yeah, thank you for sharing it.
I'm a Linux user. I maintain one dual-boot Win7 box for the games I must have, which do not play well on Linux (Witcher 3, heavily-modded Skyrim, etc).
Sadly, the new gen games, more and more, are requiring Win10+ (looking at Elden Ring, Horizon Zero Dawn) ...
This LTSC version might be stomache-able ... anyone have any thoughts/opinions on using it exclusively as a dedicated gaming OS?
Simply put, yes. I'd call your experience typical of modern Windows 10/11 systems. It won't be long before some rando Microsoft update breaks some of your drivers (anything not signed, basically) and resets parts of the system forcing you to re-answer a number of those annoying dialogs from Edge or Teams. The Microsoft store being part of the start menu is just the icing on the cake. Your IT department can of course get all of this under control with proper group policy setup, but most admins don't take the time needed to get those annoyances out of the way.
These issues were less of a problem in prior versions, but since corporate fired the entire QA team you get to do all of the quality assurance testing for Microsoft, for free, just like everyone else who is still using Windows.
It's a fact - Windows is getting worse now, not better. They peaked with v7 and it's been all downhill from there.
Counterpoint: Have been using Windows since XP, mostly on 7 and 10, and I've never had it happen that an update breaks drivers for example. Every single time except for one, all my stuff has been plug and play. And that one exception was a 20 year old printer, where I still found the drivers after a bit of fiddling.
I know that this thread is a circlejerk, but Windows is very stable. I'd wager that against it's complexity, it's one of the most stable software out there. It is also overly complicated and a lot of that is on Microsoft, which, considering how many people it employs, honestly should be doing better. But more cooks doesn't always mean a better meal.
Agreed that 7 was best. Vista had its annoyances, but then 7 came. It did what you'd expect of windows: Not get in the way too much, you could still tinker with most parts, and it would run all the software that you couldn't elsewhere. Then 8 came, and apparently every laptop needs a touch display now. 8.1 was a bit of a recovery. 9 is the missing upgrade to 7 we never got and 10 and 11 are just annoying by breaking a bunch of stuff and by bothering you to use Edge and stuff. For crying out loud, pressing Windows, typing "fire" and hitting enter used to open firefox reliably for me on every OS I've used for a while now, but apparently W10 thinks it's a good idea to instead open Edge to bing-search fire. I... what?
Isn't this mostly typical onboarding stuff? You'll always run into things like this setting up a new system. Linux's problems might be different than pushing a particular browser but there will always be problems.
Then why do people complain when they run into this stuff on Linux? I always get told that it's unreasonable to expect people to put up with stuff like this.
And also, no, it's not normal to have your audio interface just not work for no reason, or for the OS to install random apps without consent and open them automatically. That's never happened to me on Ubuntu.
I mean, to be honest, I'm not seeing much polish on the "default" side right now.
It's arguably true, though, that 'teaching the application' is the correct path though.
You are used to "open" computers. These are machines that you can do anything you want to and then you have to be in charge of fixing things that break. Laypeople will likely never encounter any such machine; they are used to "closed" computers. They buy them from OEMs who bundle support contracts to make sure that as long as you don't change anything it will work perfectly. "closed" computers don't have hardware issues because they have an extremely limited set of hardware and software that they are designed to use, and as long as you are in the OEM's support period they will be there to take care of major problems.
The benefit of these "closed" computers to end users is that they don't have to understand any of what the computer does. It "just works". And that is why it's most important to teach the applications instead.
Beyond that, corporations only care that you can reproduce the work for most things; they generally don't care that you understand the why and how, or if you are able to do things in a different way.
Os/2 warp?
I'm in kind of an opposite position to OP, I just recently started using Linux, after going my entire life using Windows (in all it's various forms starting from Win 3.x), so I'll throw in my two cents. Part of it is that Linux just has a bad reputation for being technical and user hostile in comparison to other operating systems. Not that this is necessarily the case, but that is the reputation. Lots of my friends were very skeptical about me gaming and daily driving on Linux, and remain surprised whenever I bring up Proton compatibility for one game or another.
The reality is that both have pros and cons, and both have learning curves. Still, I would say in general Windows has more forgiving roadblocks and errors. Usually they just result in bad user experience and can be tentatively ignored, or have annoying but easily implemented work arounds. Linux problems tend to require more immediate attention and have more technical solutions. This is just my impression as a new user, but that's been how I've felt so far.
I will say the audio interface thing is weird, but on the other hand I'm almost not surprised. Windows is very particular about drivers, and gets upset when you plug in hardware that isn't expressly made for Windows, or generic enough that it doesn't matter. This can also be applied to the problems with the track pad, and honestly seems to be one of Windows greatest disadvantages that I've come across. Well, aside from constantly trying to push bloatware on you. That's actually the driving reason behind why I've started transitioning away from Windows.
As a disclaimer, I only daily drive windows on my gaming PC, "main" computer was Debian for a while before going fully to macOS after the M1 devices came out.
But yes, people just deal with the nagging. From an aesthetic point of view it is a blemish on the experience but on a practical level clicking dismiss is like 0.01% of the time you're using the computer.
In terms of rest of the issues, well, hardware compatibility is a crapshoot on any OS. I'd imagine it's mostly just you being unlucky. The windows compatibility story is that, if nothing else then by pure marketshare, more products are compatible. Unfortunately, it's still not 100%, especially at specific niches where the marketshare may not be as skewed.
One annoyance I have with windows is the degree to which drivers are needed. On the exact same printer, I need a driver for windows but it's plug'n'play on my mac. But most consumers don’t care. Installing a driver is something you do once, it takes like 5 minutes, and you never think about it again, so again like .01% of your computing time.
Then why do people complain when there are similar, but in my experience much less severe, issues on Linux? I don't get it.
I mean, that's how anecdata and probability work with each other. You were very unlucky with your selection of peripheral hardware, evidently, but most people have the reverse experience, since most companies prioritize by marketshare, in which case there's the same issues but in equal if not greater severity on the linux side.
In addition, there's lots of papercuts to the general linux desktop experience in general. I daily drove various DEs for ~2-3 years. Some things off of the top of my head
It's human nature: the familiar way of doing something is right, the unfamiliar is wrong, even when they both objectively have problems and often even when there are clear advantages to the unfamiliar when looked at from a neutral standpoint.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely share your frustration - but the truth is that a whole lot of things, not just operating systems, coast along on familiarity in the face of significant potential for improvement.
A few years ago I was using ubuntu as my daily driver for a month and spent most of the time trying to get the magic trackpad 2 to work properly. I eventually got and a few months later I believe it worked out of the box with the newer kernel. I've got it working well with Windows via bootcamp (LTSC), but it still isn't as nice as in MacOS.
Onboarding a new-to-you OS is a pain in the ass at first.
Yeah, but when I say that to Windows users about Linux they tell me it's "just not ready for everyday use" or whatever. It's a double standard.
I think a lot of people who say that were using Linux in the old days -- like when Ubuntu first really caught on. Especially if they've run into issues with drivers, Linux can be a total pain in the ass vs the 'it usually just works with new hardware' Windows OS.
For me, the biggest struggle from going from Windows to Linux and MacOS and then back to Windows was realizing how chaotic it is. What really gets me is how W10 is stuck between the UI and the old one. With a dark theme (no uxtheme mods), some panels are white for no good reason.
None of these operating systems are perfect, but everybody has their own prison they call home :)
I can endure almost everything but the slowness of Windows 10 is unbearable, especially since none of my machines have SSDs. My girlfriend's machine updated to Windows 11 seemingly without her consent and what was already sluggish is now basically a sideshow. She's resisting using Linux, which is understandable since she's not a computer nerd and has decades of Windows muscle memory.
I am shocked to hear that a machine which is new enough to run Windows 11 shipped without an SSD.
That is very common in my part of the world. But she didn't purchase it, it was a gift from an older relative that is not a tech person. If she had purchased it herself, I would have advised against this model. The others are just old machines.
I still find it surprising, because you can get a new 256GB SSD for cheaper than any new 2.5" HDD I can find. It doesn't make sense for even the most cost-optimized machine to boot from an HDD.
But I'm basing that on Amazon prices. Maybe some laptop maker somewhere is sitting on a massive warehouse of 2.5" HDDs and is shoving them in low cost laptops to get rid of them.
Well, I don't want to localize myself at this moment, so I'll just say that my reality is most likely vastly different than yours.
Sorry to say but definitely not. I've seen incredible amounts of issues with the Surface lines, especially the Surface Pro 3 which had a 100% failure rate within 3 years in my experience. I've never seen anything like that before! Right now, my work uses those insanely expensive Surface Hubs and Surface TVs and they're all completely unreliable, frequently losing wifi and not integrating properly with Office 365 or Teams, even though that's 95% of what they're supposed to do.
All my best Windows experiences as far as business use has gone has been on Lenovo machines, particularly their X series.
As for your other issues:
It's weird that IT didn't pre-install Chrome. It's more than possible to have it as part of an image, and pre-configured.
I'd be more inclined to suggest your display issues are due to the Surface Pro and its mini-DP port rather than Windows. If you have a dock, it will mitigate the issues.
Apple device drivers for Windows is a tall order. Similar story with Sony PlayStation controller drivers for Windows, really.
This really depends on the device and if it requires additional drivers. It doesn't sound like the kind of device that would use any of the default ones that come with Windows, and more of a rather niche product that would have to provide its own support.
Many OEMs provide their own configuration software for their cameras. Microsoft not providing one for Surface is more of a Surface problem than a Windows one.
The Teams thing is being forced with Windows 11, like Edge is. That's definitely a Windows nag thanks to Microsoft trying to reclaim the marketshare their stupidly kicked away with Skype.
Are all these common issues? Some are, but the inciting factors are coming from different places here.
It seems like Lenovo's laptops are just the best in general. It's so screwed up that a first-party Microsoft product has more issues than a third-party brand. And if I was using a ThinkPad I could just run Linux!
Your experience is a uniquely unlucky one. Aside from the pushiness of Edge and those universal annoyances that Windows always has- I think for the majority of users, Windows just works. I've used all sorts of peripherals, input devices, old and new, and generally had very few issues overall, both at home and work.
That said, Windows 10 presents plenty of issues. Pushy updates. Updates that just randomly break stuff. Marketing/ad annoyances. Microsoft being stuck between old and new. Having to deal with drivers to begin with can be annoying... etc. My workplace (thankfully) does a ton of Group Policy items so that users don't have to deal with 99% of Windows 10's BS
Personally, I made the switch to Linux full-time (at home) a few months ago (except for one PC which I use for music production), and it was not without quite a few problems itself. I started with Zorin OS, but the system got screwed up so much it got to a point where I couldn't install Wine and my specific problem's only real solution was to reinstall. I'm now on Kubuntu on my gaming/main desktop PC and laptop. Kubuntu gave me a black screen after I installed it to the drive on my PC. Had to edit the grub boot-time parameters to get into Kubuntu at all to install the nvidia driver. Not something I've dealt with on Windows for a long time.
Also, in general, my audio experience has been far easier on Windows than Linux, but not terrible on Linux. Windows works fine with my USB guitar/mic interface, midi keyboard, etc. Linux needed some care to get my mic working properly, etc.
I'm now happy with my Kubuntu setups but my linux journey was bumpy (as someone that has used it previously AND does linux admin stuff at work).
The thing is- we're some level of technical that normal users are not- and I think for the majority of everyday, non-tech users, the big operating systems (Windows/Mac) will generally have less hiccups than if we tried to set them loose with Linux. Regular everyday users are nothing like techies.
I would love for Linux to somehow be the majority OS that everyone uses and has the least problems with... but I don't think it's ready for mass use any more than the big name OSes are
I'm with you on a lot of this, but in my experience hardware issues on Windows and particularly audio issues are frustratingly prevalent. Obviously this thread is anecdotes all the way down, but it's basically become a meme between one or two of my friends and I that we can't get a game going without at least one of us losing sound or mic.
I use an incredibly standard headset (ATH-M50xBT) and it's a constant crapshoot of alt-tabbing in and out of the game to disable and enable settings until it registers correctly. There was one game that three of us, all developers, were totally unable to get the mic working either hardwired or using bluetooth - never did figure that one out.
I've had problems with pretty much all tech at one point or another, so this isn't to hate on Windows specifically; I'm just saying that I think the "it works" attitude is generous. To some extent I wonder if people don't blame Windows enough: they hit a problem and, because Windows is such an absolute default, think it's a "computers are like that" issue rather than a "Windows is failing in my use case" issue.
You may be right that I'm being too generous (to a company and product I don't even like, and sometimes even hate! haha), and I concur with assessing my and other posts as anecdotes all the way down
From a long history of working in IT Support prior to my current role, I dealt with Windows problems day in and day out. So I know it's likely far worse than I made it out to be- I suppose I figured that users outside of work environments for the most part have very broad/low-impact use cases (email, web surfing, watching Netflix, etc) that would likely not encounter the majority of the issues we've discussed. So that's where my mind was approaching this from- both seeing the issues on the work and tech side- and also trying to understand an everyday user's use cases and experience.
Definitely easy for us to attempt to extrapolate on own experience to a general one when that's not often the case. I am certainly guilty of that as much as anyone else.
Speaking of Bluetooth- that is one place I've VERY surprisingly had a better experience on Linux (!)
I think there is a bunch of good insight here.
I have some anecdotal evidence about users not customizing. What you said is absolutely true. I have a cousin who complains about how something works but will not change the setting to fix it. She insists that she only uses the default settings. I truly don’t understand it, but I don’t think that way of thinking is uncommon. (Even more annoying is that she refuses to use anything apple. Apple at least has sensible default settings. What is the point of android if you don’t change settings?)
I said not one word about customizability. If the AMT2 and a class-compliant audio interface are niche, then so is literally anything else.
Fair enough! I don't mean to be defensive, but I mostly use Tilde's from my phone these days and thus try to omit needless words. I'll try to be less abrasive in the future.
I mean, yeah, just like you mentioned the things you put up with when setting up Ubuntu. You're running specific hardware from multiple vendors that likely require their own drivers on a system managed by your employer -- I'm surprised you got as far as you did. I think the general expectation for a work system is that you'll maybe plug it into an external monitor with an HDMI cord and use a regular mass-produced headset that connects via USB or Bluetooth (or just use the internal camera and microphone).
I'm not sure what you're expecting, it'd be like trying to configure a Ubuntu installation that's managed by someone else, right?
That's not the issue, it's not like my employer is blocking Windows from downloading drivers. All they do is some group policy to install Duo Device Health and the like. Are you saying a personal install wouldn't have these issues? Also several of the issues are with class-compliant USB devices, or things literally built in to a first-party Microsoft laptop.
I'm expecting a better first-run experience than Ubuntu since that's what everyone says when I suggest they use Linux.
I don't get that problem, at least in Europe anyway.
I think it's because Microsoft have been clapped by the EU courts in the past for trying to force Internet Explorer on people. I know that for some time, they actually offered Windows XP users the ability to choose what browser they wanted out of the box because of this.
Windows Key + P, Extend, problem solved.
You may need to go into display settings and configure the order of your screens though, depending on your setup.
I don't think Teams is a default app for WIndows 10? I know it's part of Microsoft 365 but technically it's included as part of a business subscription?
The rest do seem like legit or semi-legit grievances. I'll add another.
Microsoft have a big obsession with you needing a PIN to sign in on Windows 10. My main desktop PC thankfully doesn't make me because I've skipped the setup prompt every time a new update has been installed, but my gaming laptop and my dad's PC have required this.
Yeah, because Linux is very obscure, Mac is very expensive from a hardware standpoint and because Microsoft virtually have a monopoly on PC gaming and some enterprise PC applications. You won't see Photoshop or Word running natively on Linux...
Yes. I did this. What I'm saying is that in the settings the second monitor wasn't shown until I closed and reopened settings.
That's fucked up imo
Some of it is standard, but you're also having a uniquely bad time, and some advanced workflows that most users don't have.
Yeah. The thing is, I don't find the experience too much different in Windows or Linux, it's just a different set of papercuts: Different fiddly workflows or ease of hardware support. The stuff I use is getting consistent cross-platform support, but new devices can still be a crapshoot. I've had to use random github drivers in Linux as well, and find typically usupported stuff easier to find in Windows.
The stuff with your display is something I haven't experienced, I just get the window up once and I'm done. I would prefer something like Plasma that prompts you for what you want the external display to do, but whatever.
The browser ad thing is Microsoft being Microsoft, and if you have to use Windows, you unfortunately have to bear it.
Having a USB audio interface and a trackpad? Or using Chrome? Or what?
It's antitrust bullshit. Somebody needs to get fired over that shit.
I don't know what to tell you. I had no problem setting up Firefox, or using my USB DAC.
For sure on the second point
For your first point it's the camera configuration. Generally manufacturers will have a specific application for Windows to handle that, while Linux tends to expose enough functionality to make it possible without official support.
Wait until you find out how Windows 10 resets your whole audio setup after every feature update!
Settings also change every feature update. It's usually a game of finding the well buried button that lets you open the old interface that has everything.
About the Magic Trackpad: take a look at magic utilities. It costs a little bit of money, but it is absolutely worth it in my opinion. I use it for a Magic Trackpad and Magic keyboard for my work computer. Definitely worth it for me. If your GitHub drivers work well enough, then you are probably wine without.
As for why it doesn’t work out of the box, that is on Apple, not Microsoft.
Somehow nobody accepts that excuse when I say the same thing about Nvidia on Linux...
The problem in this case is that the Apple did not design the Magic Trackpad to function as a standard USB HID, or as a Microsoft Precision Touchpad. It needs custom drivers for every platform you plug one in to, and Apple does not provide them.
Yet it now works perfectly on up to date Linux by default, but not on up to date Windows.
Linux drivers are typically incorporated into the kernel and Windows drivers are typically installed by the end user. That those drivers are from random developers on GitHub is Apple's fault.
What's stopping Microsoft from spending some of their billions to have an engineer write a driver for the AMT2, when some volunteer has done so on Linux? They could even get all the info they need from there.
The sheer amount of esoteric hardware on the market makes that an unreasonable ask. Drivers are provided by the hardware vendors. If they want the experience to be automatic for Windows users, they are more than welcome to submit their driver to Microsoft for automatic installation through Windows Update.
Then why do people expect their hardware to work automatically and without any effort on Linux? It's literally the definition of a double standard.
Who does? I'm a Linux user and I don't expect it to magically work with everything.
It's a very common sentiment; if you'd like to see folks on here talking about similar expectations, check out any of the threads regarding the LTT Linux situation.
And, in fact, in this case, the AMT2 and R-22 are supported out of the box on any up-to-date Linux distribution...
The big "oof" in the LTT Linux challenge was not the problems with hardware support, but the fact that installing an extremely common and popular piece of software from the Pop_OS repo completely bricked his install. There was a warning, but I would not expect anyone unfamiliar with Linux to understand what it meant.
I'm not interested in rehashing that argument - I'm pointing you to those threads because in addition to that conversation, people talked about hardware support.
This is an explanation I have given to a large number of people who blamed the fact that their obscure niche proprietary doohickey did not work on Linux and thought that somehow "It's Linux's fault", or "Clearly this means that Linux isn't ready as an everyday operating system", or something along those lines.
Driver availability for niche hardware should never be blamed on the OS. However it is perfectly fair for a user to say a given OS is not viable for them if their hardware unsupported.
“For them”, yes, I think is fine, but the actual talking point is often generalized to include everyone.
*if their hardware vendor doesn't support that OS.
I mean… no?
The Magic Trackpad just streams raw touch data to the computer. It needs to have a driver to interpret this data. Apple doesn’t support this for any platforms except iPadOS and macOS. The only reason it works on linux is some random people made some drivers for it and they were included by default. Apple has the option of creating drivers and submitting them to Microsoft to work out of the box.
Nvidia, on the other hand, has drivers for linux. They also can be included with the distro, or be downloaded on demand by the OS. If your distro doesn’t provide this, it isn’t on nvidia.
Sure. The problems people actually have with those drivers are Nvidia's fault, though, because they're buggy and closed source.
The problem isn't that Nvidia doesn't provide drivers, it's that the drivers provided are absolutely awful.