My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore
My Windows Computer Just Doesn't Feel Like Mine Anymore
What am I even paying for?
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At this point, I have lost count of the number of times that I've left my perfectly working Windows computer at the end of my work day, only to return to a completely broken computer that won't boot the next morning.
I find this to either be a lie or self inflicted. I manage a small fleet of a few hundred windows systems and all updates have been fine for years.
In the windows admin user groups there are more than a few that are deploying updates within 24hrs of release to thousands of servers and workstations and have not reported issues.
Lastly I think that tech bloggers say things like this to get clicks, so they can get ad revenue. Then they also tell you how to disable updates so they can get more clicks and ad revenue.
It’s disingenuous and probably harmful to be telling people to disable updates that lead them to be exposed to vulnerabilities.
I‘ve had several faulty Windows updates in recent years and my machine is pre-built. And going by the threads I sifted through in search of solutions I am far from the only one. It‘s perfectly fine to not have the newest update at all times so as long as you update once a month when you can afford a potential faulty update. Having an older than most recent version is far from your biggest concern regarding security. I would even say it‘s a non-issue compared to good old fishing mails.
I hate Windows for all the monetisation and privacy issues but I never really had problems with it killing my computer.
I had a Windows 10 update fuck up my laptop for about 15 hours until it somehow magically unfucked itself and started working again once.
But thats about it
The primary issues that I faced with Windows (Win10 nearly a decade ago) are
- very slow updates
- constant 100% disk usage after boot
- high background process usage
- [Rare] messing with my dual partition setup
- The final error which caused me to format my PC -> After logging in, the desktop froze, no icons showing up, no task manager.
If I had never used Linux, these wouldn't even seem like problem; just normal Windows shenanigans. But after using Linux, I can never go back. I don't know how much worse/better Win11 is now but can't be bothered to try.
My biggest issue with Windows (at least on my desktop) is with my GPU driver for my Intel Arc A770 LE. Windows Update will not stop automatically “updating” my driver to a driver that was made about a year and a half ago. It’s too old that Intel Arc Control doesn’t even work with it. It doesn’t matter how I install the latest driver from Intel, I can DDU the old one, install the driver and wipe all custom configurations or just install it normally. Nothing works, upon the next reboot, it automatically says “there’s an update” and installs regardless if I want it or not. The driver installation also has a 50/50 chance of blue screening my whole system when installing, both the installation from Windows update, and from Intel. The Window driver “updates” for my driver have also just happened randomly with no notice, they’ve occurred during hour long Blender renders, crashing it and wasting hours of my time redoing work. (This is all on Windows 10). It is frustrating to deal with
Meanwhile, my Linux install on the same computer just runs mesa and I’ve had no issues at all with my GPU. (Or any issues with drivers really, it all just works).
Although it didn’t “kill” my computer. Whenever I still used Windows, it would spontaneously install this outdated driver which would either blue screen or crash whatever I was in the middle of doing such as working in Blender, playing a game, etc.
A future Linux enjoyer spotted
I LOVE Linux and I am still to lazy to use it on my gaming PC... normal folks don't want anything to do with it. Effort is an allergen.
what afford is there with steam?
but yeah if it is not steam, fair
Not everyone likes Linux.
Why wouldn't you?
Hard to figure out. Have to settle for similar but different apps. Video drivers not built in. Inconsistant bluetooth. Update all breaks everything. Hard to get support for your individual set-up when Linux is so fractured.
Just to name a few.
Huh. I find windows way harder to figure out. I guess it depends on DE, but Windows is kinda just layers of cruft, with old confusing menus mixed with newer ones, installing apps in particular is a confusing mess.
Updates breaking things I guess depends on distro. If you go with something like Arch you're gonna have a bad time, but that's on you for installing Arch. If you installed Debian or something, stuff will break faaaar less often than with Windows.
Video drivers not being built in is an odd one, because... they aren't in Windows, but are in Linux, assuming you use AMD or Intel. With Nvidia it's usually a case of typing in "Nvidia" in your software centre, clicking install, then being done.
Support can be hard or easy, that's very true. Although most stuff I see in terms of windows support is "have you tried a system restore? Oh it didn't work? Ok reinstall Windows then", which isn't very helpful at all.
Man. That's some weak-sauce arguments against linux. In my experience, just a default Mint install with no stuffing around of any kind came with fully-functional video drivers and bluetooth. No update has ever broken anything; and the first thing that launches after a fresh install is a menu with bunch of different ways to get personal support for Mint.
I don't like Ubuntu that much but one thing they really do right is a tool that made installing the few drivers not built into the kernel stupid easy. That's the number one thing I see people mess up with Nvidia drivers. You always install Nvidia drivers through your distro app store/package manager never the website.
I understand the mistake but it's painful to see someone manually install Nvidia drivers from their website just for it to shit the bed in a kernel update.
I'm sure the update manager was probably very important back in the day but I am glad updates come through the software manager now. Even though I don't use it it's very intuitive.
You always install Nvidia drivers through your distro app store/package manager never the website.
I have seen so many youtubers tell people to download Nvidia drivers through the browser it's not even funny, just sad
People need to make sure they are doing the right thing before declaring themselves experts and telling other people what to do
When I installed Mint my entire video screen was tinted blue. Bluetooth sometimes worked, sometimes didn't. People yelled at me for having a Dell PC in support forums, and when I followed the advice of someone trying to help, he suggested to update all, and when I did the fans stopped working.
Hmm. I'd be interested to see that. I just did a brief search of the support forum for your post, but didn't find it. Perhaps you can post the link here. Your account history will have it.
This was 10 years ago on the mint forums. My username would have probably been Lost-My-Mind unless the forum disallowed special characters. In which case it's LostMyMind, and if that was taken when I signed up, it was LostMyMlnd (using a lowercase L instead of an i)
Hard to figure out.
It's much easier nowadays. I find Windows much more hard to figure out now that I've made the switch. At the very least, everything in Linux takes very few steps to perform tasks and install programs compared to Windows.
Have to settle for similar but different apps.
The sooner you do it, the faster you'll be free. Once you do, you can be confident that said program won't undergo enshitification since it's open source. That said some apps can't be replaced like Photoshop if it's for work. I like Gimp, but I understand it's not for everyone.
Video drivers not built in.
It pretty much is now if you install an Nvidia specific distro. AMD is preferable of course.
Inconsistant bluetooth.
Totally fair.
Update all breaks everything.
Use a rolling release distro like Debian or Fedora and you should be fine.
Linux is not perfect, but it's better than Windows. Nobody will force you to use your computer in a way you don't want to. It's so awesome and it's free. There is no way I'll ever go back to Windows. Linux is the ideal OS for so many people (especially those who go the extra mile to modify Windows heavily) they just don't know it yet.
Use a rolling release distro like Debian
?
Debian has has a branch called Testing where you can get newer features faster ans it's pretty stable.
Edit: Oh and Fedora is semi-rolling release, to be fair I wasn't really clear with this one.
Hard to figure out
Which part? The one where to install an app, instead of downloading a .exe you search for the app in the package manager?
Have to settle for similar but different apps.
That's not exclusive to Linux though. Like for example moving to MacOS you wouldn't really expect for all the apps to work either?
Video drivers not built in.
Video drivers aren't built into Windows either? And on Linux, AMD's drivers are (as I understand it), and for Nvidia, you'll probably have Noveau installed.
Inconsistent bluetooth.
How? I've found BT to just work on Linux, while on Windows I had to track down the specific drivers.
Update all breaks everything.
Unless you installed Arch (or any rolling release distro) as your first distro, this probably won't be an issue.
Hard to get support for your individual set-up when Linux is so fractured.
Then maybe install Mint, Ubuntu, Pop!_OS or anything more widespread that does have the support you want?
Ah, I see. So because YOU understand something, and know what you're doing, and haven't had anything fail on YOU, then it must be everybody ELSES fault, right? Meanwhile Linux has less than 5% of PC userbase, and that INCLUDES Chromebooks.
I don't think it's even fairly controversial to say that Windows over the last couple of versions have turned into an unmitigated privacy dumpster fire, and only looking to get worse, and MacOS is and always has been a walled garden which offers very little in the way of customization or individuality.
Yet despite all that, Linux only has about 4% marketshare, because nobody is able to use it. But hey, must be 95% of societys fault, and not the direct result of a confusing to use interface, right? And if YOUR bluetooth works fine, and doesn't refuse to connect at random until you restart, that must be something I'm making up and doesn't exist, right?
I've been using windows 11 since general release and have had zero issues. Not with ads, not with updates, not with one drive. Well, unless you count clicking away pop-ups to use new features from time to time. Not once has a file been saved to onedrive.
It's kind of disingenuous of you to proudly say, "I don't use the same version of Windows that this person likely does and I don't have the same issues that this person does so they must be full of shit".
It's kind of a wide disparity for something that's so locked down, though. It's not as though one person is saying they get occasional issues and the other is they often have issues... it's one person basically saying their own personal computer is nigh unusable and the other providing an example of a large number of examples of that being extremely unlikely...
It's far more likely this individual is fucking up their computer on a regular basis, or has a very high bar of usability that is broken any time there is even the slightest hiccup or inconvenience.
There aren’t many versions of windows since 10 and 2016. They are all very similar now.
There are vast differences between Windows home and Windows pro and Windows Enterprise editions as far as how easy it is to control and block off the annoyance ware that Microsoft builds into it.
If you use deployment software to roll out your images after standardizing them and have a set image that you can deploy to a thousand computers as easily as one then it's very simple to sign in with a local domain account and disable the windows things through a group policy and just start rocking and rolling whereas your average Windows home user is not going to even have access to GPO and we'll have to tediously for each and every single computer every single time they reset it redo all of the things to disable all of Microsoft's crap activation.
They are not entirely different but definitely distinct versions of Windows and dismissing the home and non-enterprise users that their experience is inferior to your experience on the Enterprise side is what I'm saying is disingenuous
I’ve found the more you mess with defaults the more likely you’ll encounter problems.
The article author was talking about their work PC anyways.
Gpo/Intune just allows you make mistakes at scale.
The author was talking about their work computer suddenly not booting up the next day. The windows version differences wouldn’t cause this.
That's the difference between the Home and Pro versions though. The things that generally break on the Home versions are all the things not generally enabled on a domain controlled Pro version. Thisbis more about Microsoft just being bad at small updates versus these giant roundup packages they like to ship.
What things? Home just doesn’t have GPO as far as I know.
The interesting thing for me is that I own two different surface pro 7 tablets. I have one for work and one for home (now that work doesn't require me to bring my own device anymore). The work surface has windows 10 pro on it. My home one doesn't, The difference is very interesting. The IT team have disabled a lot of stuff on my work surface that I don't even have access to on my home unit. I don't often have bugs from updates breaking things at work. I do at home though which is enough for me to perhaps upgrade the windows key on my home unit someday. If I don't install linux first which is a possibility.
I find this to either be a lie or self inflicted.
"I've never experienced what you describe, so it must be either imagined or your own fault."
I've seen this nonsense over and over again in communities of all kinds, most often in tech forums (where there are always a few participants suffering from a big-fish-little-pond effect). It's a very rude and foolish bit of human behavior.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
I think the guy you're replying to is probably right, just because you can tell from the article the author is not really an expert or advanced user.
But I upvoted you because honestly we do not get enough random Shakespeare on online comments lol
Not just me, many others.
It’s disingenuous and probably harmful to be telling people to disable updates that lead them to be exposed to vulnerabilities.
That is probably why Microsoft forced updates on people in W10.
My two cents, I could say the same as the author. My Windows work laptop most of the times cannot wake up from sleep (you know, opening the lid after it's closed) so I have to force a restart. There's a 50% or less chance that Bluetooth and WiFi won't work at all (they won't be displayed on Windows, like it's not even a feature) after I turn the laptop on, so most of my pre-work morning is restarting the laptop until it's working as intended. It's the third laptop I got from them, they're different models but they're all HP, and they all had problems. The Macs and the same HP laptops running Linux have none of these issues.
It's not harmful to tell average people who run windows to disable updates, because you can't disable the updates as a single-license scrub.
(Theres usually some hacky bullshit to delay or block updates, but they break constantly and you have to keep finding new ones, because Microsoft thinks of their userbase as stupid babies who can't be trusted with their own hardware).
Also, you live in your own personal slice of Windows control with your hundreds/thousands of systems being managed with group policies. I have no doubt that you don't see issues, because your company chose a few models of laptop or desktop and know how they'll react to the updates. You can turn off the annoying shit, and choose specific updates at specific times. Microsoft doesn't want to piss off their corporate customers, especially the ones with massive spending contracts with Dell/HP/Lenovo.
Thing is, outside of you - and your groups of other corporate windows admins - the general user (with varied hardware/software configurations) don't have the safety of catching issues on a few test machines and delaying a deploy to the fleet, or even the option to delay updates at all, and they're screwed over constantly by random broken drivers, system setting that aren't respected between updates, and bloat/backdoors that you can't opt out of.
It is you who is being disingenuous, by suggesting that the windows update system has no flaws, because you operate in an extremely controlled environment with tons of safeguards and - ironically - way more autonomy.
My personal devices haven’t had the issues described either and I install a lot of different software and hardware. I’ve also supported a lot of friends and family. I didn’t want to bog down my comment with my own blog post.
There have been two distinct Windows updates in recent memory that have broken things.
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The one that stopped network printers from working, and you had to change a specific GPO setting which was not available in Intune at the time, meaning I had to do it manually on each computer.
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The one that removed all shortcuts to Office 365 apps from the desktop and start menu, necessitating a repair... manually on each affected machine.
So it does happen on occasion. It's not as bad as in the XP days, but it still can be a little sketchy at times
I had an update completely and permanently bricked my webcam, and another that fucked up my audio (but eventually got fixed months later).
Oh yes, I remember the audio one, too!
Odd, i didn’t need to address either of these.
I would have scripted it for Intune.
This was before proactive remediations were a thing. Script probably would've worked, although I find them a bit vague as to how they work
Intune was def missing a lot of features early on.
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Doesn't even need updates, in the 10 years I was on Windows it didn't want to start after shutting it down again like 7 times
I hated having to reinstall every year
I can kind of feel the author on this. I'm in charge of a lot of "special projects" at work that basically come down to, "figure out a way to replicate this extremely expensive technology or software using low cost or free alternatives". It ends up being an unholy mix of programs and hardware that is held together with duct tape and super glue and any minor perturbation means something breaks.
Sounds like less of a Windows problem than an individual problem, though.
Blaming Windows cause your Frankenstein machine breaks often is disingenuous.
I'm not passing blame. Just giving an example.
Seriously, anytime people make complaints like these about windows, it just tells me they are either
- Tweaking their system in ways far beyond what the OS is designed for (which is fine, but then don't blame Microsoft when updates break your system)
- Doesn't know how to use a computer
- Knows how to use a computer but is willfully ignorant so they can rant at MS and get clicks
- Incredibly unlucky and not representative of the general population
Tweaking their system in ways far beyond what the OS is designed for
That's the issue: the way microshit is taking windows is not acceptable for an increasing number of people.
Why would I allow Satya the creep to control my PC that I paid money for.
Also, why are they putting ads into it.
Updates rolling back privacy settings, although this stopped now.
Forced online accounts.
At what point is it too much for you? I bet over next few years microshit will get to you too lol
While I agree with most of what you're saying, it's also stupid to blame Microsoft for breaking your computer if you forcefully uninstall the Windows store, despite the fact that it's needed for parts of certain updates.
A lot of the "debloaters" have no fucking idea what they're actually doing and are uninstalling/disabling critical parts of the OS so the task manager shows less RAM usage (because God forbid you actually use your damn RAM).
Yeah they just need to accept their fate and join Linux.
At some point, fucking with Windows is more time and you have to be always doing it.
Linux you have set it up but after that it just works
#1 is by and far the cause I see when people ask me 'why did thing break?!'
There's a lot of 'Well, I edited the registry and then deleted these two files and installed this 3rd party software so that it looks like it did in Windows XP!' floating in my circles, which almost entirely correlates to the people who are mad that their install is, yet again, broken/not working as expected/having weird problems.
Of course, people are doing this because Microsoft can't stop shitting up Windows in a way that annoys people, and thus leading them to do things that maybe aren't the best idea.
So, in summary: it's a land of contrasts, but stop adding bullshit nobody wants Microsoft.
Yet further proof that all anyone really wants is Windows xp with modern support.
That is what people want out of Windows, it dove off a cliff from there. I'd still be using Linux, but it'd be a harder choice if the alternative was XP instead of Data Harvesting Simulator 11 begging me to subscribe to me own hardware.
Well, people are trying to do just that. Small team and moves slowly, but slow progress is still progress.
Will it run on a Raspberry Pi 4, 4GB?
The year 2000 was peak human technology. It's been downhill in every way since, until generative AI - which is f'in amazing. But let's be real, the future belongs to the bots.
Can confirm. N64 existed before year 2000......but not WWF No Mercy, which came out in 2001. Lets call it 2002 was peak. Pretty sure GTA Vice City was out by then.
Honestly, I'd get on-board with just about anytime 2000 to 2010. The enshittification of the internet and social-media-driven comment culture didn't start in earnest until smart phones took off.
The thing that usually kills windows is shitty drivers. So people with different hardware can have completely different experiences.