Heads Up For Windows 11 "Windows Insider Program" Subscribers

[The Question]

This is going to probably apply to almost nobody, but: In the event you're using Windows 11; and, in the event you're subscribed to the Windows Insider Beta Channel or Dev Channel; and in the event you use the audio booster/equalizer app Boom 3D, or the Taskbar customization app TranslucentTB;

Don't update to Windows 11 Build 22581 Ni. It breaks functionality in both Boom 3D and TranslucentTB, while offering little or nothing of any substantial value.

 

[jack]

You upgraded to 11? Windows has been bugging me on my desktop to do that but I've been resistant, having finally worked out all the bugs in 10. Is it even functional?

There was a 10 update late last year that messed stuff up pretty bad too iirc.

 

[The Question]

At its current build (not the one mentioned about) it's all but identical to 10, just with some cosmetic upgrades.

 

[Colonel Kira's Left Tit]

My desktop is not that old but it's old enough to not be eligible for a Win 11 "upgrade". I think I'm okay with that. Back to Linux eventually for this one? I dunno, maybe.

 

[jack]

At its current build (not the one mentioned about) it's all but identical to 10, just with some cosmetic upgrades.

So what about now? I just got a new notice that it's been upgraded and my computer can handle it.

I did not like the jump from 7 to 10...I was a diehard 7 user. Would still love to go back to that version since I had "upgraded" it to 64 bit....took me forever to get that sorted, but supposedly the new tab thingie is pretty functionally good?

What do y'all think?

 

[The Question]

I'm still of the opinion that 11 is primarily a cosmetic upgrade over 10. I suppose there are a few new features, but nothing sufficiently groundbreaking as to make an upgrade anything like important.

 

[The Question]

My desktop is not that old but it's old enough to not be eligible for a Win 11 "upgrade". I think I'm okay with that. Back to Linux eventually for this one? I dunno, maybe.

Linux: All the games of MacOS, with none of the productivity apps.

 

[Colonel Kira's Left Tit]

Well desktop linux does generally suck but with a little wrangling you can force it to do pretty much anything if you try hard enough.

I'm pretty lazy these days, though.

 

[jack]

I was a seven guy. It was perfect.

Course I felt that way about xp too. As long as I keep the browser and bing out of play, everything is smooth.

 

[Colonel Kira's Left Tit]

7 Pro was probably the best Windows edition since 2K Pro. 10 can be a pain sometimes but overall it's stable.

 

[jack]

I fully agree. It was a great edition. Ive been fucking around with Opera lately. its a little jittery but has some decent features.

 

[The Question]

I'll be sticking with Vivaldi, not only as my daily driver web browser but also as my desktop email client and RSS reader.

 

[The Question]

Well desktop linux does generally suck but with a little wrangling you can force it to do pretty much anything if you try hard enough.

So far, the least wonky distribution I've tried has been ZorinOS 16. As Linux distributions go, it's not... terrible.

But it's still crippled by the same things that cripple all Linux desktop distributions:

1. I know this sounds cynical, but free software is usually free because it's fucking garbage that the developers themselves know damned well nobody would pay them for.

1A. Because it's free, the developers have no incentive to (and therefore little to no interest in) tailoring it to the needs of the users. They're making software with the features they want, not the features users want. And, on principle, that's just fine. In practice, it results in things like Wine working for about 65-75% of what you try to use it with, because Fuck You, We're Doing This On Our Own Time, Make Your Own If You Don't Like It. Again, fair enough -- but if it doesn't work, it has no place on my system.

2. There's just no compelling reason for consumers to use it. Enterprise, yes, absolutely. But for people who don't resemble Grizzly Adams between the chin and the collarbones, there's not a damned thing that Linux does better than anything else. Gaming? It can do gaming... almost as well as Windows does. But get Windows and your gaming experience will be even better.

Productivity? It can... no, actually, it can't even do productivity 'almost as well as' macOS does, because the only productivity apps available for it are free shit that looks like it was cryogenically frozen in 1998 and just got thawed out in 2022. The cream of the crop for Linux is OnlyOffice, and you can get OnlyOffice on everything other than Linux, too, so why hamstring yourself with an OS that removes all the other software options available, just to get a free office suite that you can also get for free on better OSes anyway.

The only reason why anybody other than a back-room neckjungle who jerks it to jpegs of server farms would get any Linux distribution is hipster-ism. Pure hipster-ism, and that's it. I can see shunning Windows due to security and privacy concerns -- fuck me, if I still had money, I'd go back to a Mac Immediately -- but the only motive for turning one's nose up at both Windows and macOS is simply because they're popular.

 

[Colonel Kira's Left Tit]

It really depends on the definition of productivity. Different tools for different jobs. Mostly what I hate about Linux is the "community".

 

[The Question]

The Linux "community" is, indeed, insufferable. But the software-scape is what turns me off. Again, I leave a carve-out for the enterprise / "back end" utility of Linux, but for consumers, there's just no compelling reason to choose it over either Windows or macOS. It doesn't have anything that one or the other of those two doesn't, and lacks a lot of what they do have.

 

[The Question]

Buuuut back to bitching about Windows 11. It's... if you're a gamer, there's a lot of shit you'll want to turn off, for the best experience. Data Execution Prevention, Control Flow Guard, timing constraints, and so forth. Telemetry between your machine and Microsoft (and, reputedly, even third parties) can be mitigated but not disabled entirely. For real security, you'll want to go with macOS. With ANY OS, a VPN is mandatory anymore.

Reaching back a little to touch on those cosmetic upgrades? Some of them are extremely user-friendly. For example, if you have an ultra-wide (21:9 as opposed to 16:9) display, the fact that you can center the start button means you don't have to swipe the mouse to the left two or three times to click the start key (though why anyone uses the mouse to click that icon instead of just hitting the physical Start key on the keyboard is a mystery to me -- but some people do it, apparently...)

While my mind is in that neighborhood, the Start Menu is quite a lot nicer -- certainly less cluttered -- on 11. Additionally, Microsoft decided to ape macOS's "Stacks" feature in there, which means that you can organize your app shortcuts into "folders" inside the start menu. Looks like this:

So, when I say that 11 is basically just a cosmetic upgrade... it is that, but it's an extremely user-friendly cosmetic upgrade. It does significantly improve the user experience.

 

[Colonel Kira's Left Tit]

Handy tips if I ever get there, thanks.

 

[The Question]

@Colonel Kira's Left Tit : I'm curious -- over a year later... did you ever get there?

Also, an update: ZorinOS and/or Wine finally became capable of installing and running Scrivener, so now, when this box "ages out" of compatibility with future versions of Windows, ZorinOS is finally an acceptable fallback.