Is windows obsolete now?

[Kochise]

XP was great, it was Microsoft first serious attempt at building a good OS. I only moved from it to 7 as chrome stopped working and I wanted to use a bit more modern hardware. Otherwise I would have stuck with XP.

So do I, bro, so do I...

I'm running a Ryzen 7 in win 7 with nvme drives etc, hardware isn't a issue. But sadly software support is. On one had, no support for old software / devices in updates, so thats broken. Forces me to stick to win7. Which now doesn't get antivirus updates. There is no simple solution. Linux is more forgiving for older stuff. but as to how much software I can get to run.. no idea. worst case, ill use linux for web and unplug win 7 from the net.

My Windows 2000/XP/7 are off the net, but man, still a breeze to use. That "classic" theme is a God given...

I have similar annoyances with my Android tablet which every time it updates something else ends up being broken. Every update they want to either make icons bigger or make them smaller or space them out, move stuff around menus, hide stuff in non-logical places etc, I mean for God's sake stop screwing around with it FFS! Now half the shortcut links are chopped off the screen for some bizarre reason.

You're definitively my bro there. I still have my Nexus 7 from late 2012 under Android 4, working like a charm on stock Android, the problem is the Play Store upgrade that degrades the whole experience, making everything sluggish.

Software is a mess, hardware is a mess, but sometimes, it happens you can find the perfect combination of both. The Atari ST was one of those rare instances. My Dell Vostro 3555 (AMD A8) was another one (sadly no FullHD screen and no numpad) but that's another story.

I really understand you into that silliness of changing the UI like it's a fashion that needs to be forced down users' throat. At leat up to Windows 7 you could switch back to "classic", even though you lost the theming capabilities of XP. But starting Windows 8 and that "blank" look ? Really ? You had to upgrade to get something removed from you ?

I currently have a Linux laptop (Tuxedo, with Tuxedo OS) and I even customised the keyboard layout : https://github.com/wenuam/wm_key_map_cfilorux

It's still a problem to tweak that keyboard layout into the system as the documentation is scarce and barely helpful, I had to vibe code it to get it right. Not so much with Windows, their msklc from the 2000s is a breeze to use and produce an installer, install and go, nothing of that is available on Linux.

It's a mixed feeling because Microsoft set really nice UI guidelines for 95/98/XP, even though they broken almost all of them afterward, while Linux UI is, ahem, how to put it mildly ? A joyful sandbox of kids with ADHD ? Gnome 2 vs Gnome 3 vs KDE vs xfce vs ? X vs Mir vs Wayland ? And you imagine you can get your one software run under all of these variants without the user having to dig into stackoverflow ?

Yes you can "tweak" your way into it, but man, such an effort for such little reward, just to get your stuff working. I do like to "tinker" as well, but life is short and days are even shorter, sometimes I just need to get my "system operating" the machine, and not me machining the operating system.

[sporniket]

My point was, Lots of stuff in Windows used to annoy me anyway and there was basically nothing you could do about it. But with Linux being open source, those annoyances can actually be sorted out and programmed by myself to do exactly what I want and how I want. This means I can *build* the OS I actually want which suites me personally.

If my memory serves me right, that's exactly the reason why Stallman theorized about the software user's 4 freedoms and started the GNU style Free Software. To allow people to own their software.

And most open source developpers mainly "scratch their own itch", as you are doing now, when they contribute.

[exxos]

If my memory serves me right, that's exactly the reason why Stallman theorized about the software user's 4 freedoms and started the GNU style Free Software. To allow people to own their software.

And most open source developpers mainly "scratch their own itch", as you are doing now, when they contribute.

Yeah. I'm doing a bit of stuff but not going to spend much longer on it all. Paid software should be more polished and less bugs. But bugs don't always get resolved and you can't add features. Open source you can do what you want, fix and see stuff but never seems polished or supported for long. It's all a mixed bag.

I mean I wanted to use Ubuntu originally. Basically commercial type software. But I couldn't get it connected to my network. I gave up in the end. MX just worked right away and I had less friction than mint etc so stuck with it.

[russellnash]

I have found over the years that if I recommend Linux to someone who is looking for an alternative to a Microsoft operating system they are usually pleased with it but for people who are looking a free version of a Microsoft operating system they don't like it. Also, if it is someone who has little interest in what OS it is and just want to use it for internet access, they log on to it, open up Firefox and off they go. However, if this person thinks that they are a Windows expert, but have never seen anything else before, they immediately ask questions like where is the C: drive, the anti virus and spyware software and the defragmenter.

[exxos]

My mum uses Linux on her laptop. I installed that after she got almost scammed a few years ago. She just uses internet and email. Same programs Thunderbird and chrome. Yeah the desktop looks different but who cares. She doesn't need to know where the C: drive is etc.

[exxos]

Ive read - and indeed sympathized with - what has been written here.
.....
* I tend to use Devpac 3 instead of all the modern 'feature rich/overwhelming' cross platform editors.
* If I could have apps run on the 4 colour GEM desktop, I would use that instead; I dont like over complex desktops.
I suppose its kind of like how I get my best ideas when in the WC! Theres less to distract in there and it actually does seem to increase the cognitive sparks!
Of course, it all depends on what you need out of your work environment.
Anyway, I'll leave it at that. Maybe give that setup a try @exxos ?

Yeah, Likely will just end up with win7 as "everything" but internet ultimately. Use MX for everything internet related. PITA to reboot half way doing something just to log into my bank. Though there is my tablet, but I hate touch screens, one wrong "click" and you can end in a right mess.

I still use Devpac, All the new "cool toys" break my win7 setup or simply don't work at all as they linux based these days. I don't want to do more on my Linux server either. So there wasn't any option than Devpac anyway.

[rubber_jonnie]

My mum uses Linux on her laptop. I installed that after she got almost scammed a few years ago. She just uses internet and email. Same programs Thunderbird and chrome. Yeah the desktop looks different but who cares. She doesn't need to know where the C: drive is etc.

OK so I have a perspective on this, and no I'm not trying to get into an argument here, just putting forward a point of view.

It doesn't matter what OS you use, be it Windows, Linux, MacOS or something else, ultimately the user is the weak point.

If the user visits a hijacked website, or clicks on a poisonous link, then it doesn't matter what the OS is, they could still end up with money stolen or ID compromised, or any of the many other issues that can occur with such attack vectors.

I've had it happen to me (And my wife) and somebody bought over £3Ks worth of furniture courtesy of us. We were lucky and got the money back, mainly because it was used in stores hundreds of miles from us and delivered to addresses hundreds of miles from us.

Not that the bank or credit card companies were much help at all. We had to do all the leg work ourselves.

The point is that the OS in use was not a factor, it was the human side that messed up.

Sure, some OSes are better than others for security, but ultimately if human factors are leveraged, then the issue is not one of the OS.

Again, I'm not trying to get into an argument here, this is my personal opinion.

[exxos]

My Windows 2000/XP/7 are off the net, but man, still a breeze to use. That "classic" theme is a God given...

Yeah, improvements are welcome, but they often somehow tend to make things worse at the same time. My pet hate is all websites having stuff popping up like tooltips and other random drop downs. Then "auto hiding options". its just totally unnecessary. I don't get the whole "hiding things" point. I couldn't work out how to do something in my cloud control panel a few weeks ago. Emailed support, then they said you have to "hover the mouse over the box to get the options".. like just leave the options visible, there's room, its not even cluttered FFS ! Like when moving a mouse over a webpage, you end up with menus of crap popping up all over the place. normally quick to refresh the page to get rid of them all and try again to go where you want.

You're definitively my bro there. I still have my Nexus 7 from late 2012 under Android 4, working like a charm on stock Android, the problem is the Play Store upgrade that degrades the whole experience, making everything sluggish.

Android 4 was far less trouble than recent builds . I have a Android 4 tablet, nothing works on it anymore. No idea what to do with it. My other tablet I think is Android 9, just gone to slow to use. Even my more recent Android 13 tablet is getting a bit slow.. But look at these stupid random issues...

What can Android 4 actually do these days ? mines just stuck in a cupboard. No point keeping or or selling it. Was half wondering if I could use its screen to somehow connect to Atari as I dont need my monitor on all the time. Would need some sort of USB to RGB controller.. then its probably to old for anything to work anyway.

OK well case in point right here.. now the tablet only connects "internal" files to my pc its totally missing a drive now! Thats worked fine for years.. now one update to many and nope.. won't do it anymore. So now I can't get screenshots from my tablet to my PC anymore.

One image was the shortcut bar is only 75% across the screen in the browser and one of the home icons turned square for no reason last night. Thats 3 issues within a few hours! Talk about "plug and pray" coming back into style. It had been working fine for years!

Software is a mess, hardware is a mess, but sometimes, it happens you can find the perfect combination of both. The Atari ST was one of those rare instances. My Dell Vostro 3555 (AMD A8) was another one (sadly no FullHD screen and no numpad) but that's another story.

Indeed, when I was setting up my new motherboard it to me ages to work out why games were stuttering. People on Internet were blaming it switching to lower powered cores.. but turned out to be some weird setting I never even heard of causing it. I mean in 2026 I shouldn't have to be spending days messing around with BIOS settings to find out why games stutter.. Its like going back to 1990's again !

I really understand you into that silliness of changing the UI like it's a fashion that needs to be forced down users' throat. At leat up to Windows 7 you could switch back to "classic", even though you lost the theming capabilities of XP. But starting Windows 8 and that "blank" look ? Really ? You had to upgrade to get something removed from you ?

You that's what I was confused with when I saw windows 10 my girlfriends mourns PC a few years ago.. I mean they didn't even try to even put any corner shading on any boxes it was just literally a white square.. And visually worse than what Windows 3.11 had by far. How is that progress ? Probably needed to save every CPU cycle on the theme because everything is so bloated these days and slow..

I currently have a Linux laptop (Tuxedo, with Tuxedo OS) and I even customised the keyboard layout : https://github.com/wenuam/wm_key_map_cfilorux

It's a mixed feeling because Microsoft set really nice UI guidelines for 95/98/XP, even though they broken almost all of them afterward, while Linux UI is, ahem, how to put it mildly ? A joyful sandbox of kids with ADHD ? Gnome 2 vs Gnome 3 vs KDE vs xfce vs ? X vs Mir vs Wayland ? And you imagine you can get your one software run under all of these variants without the user having to dig into stackoverflow ?

Yeah that's entirely the problem isn't it.. A commercial outfit tends to stick with one set of rules and that has its own problems that you cannot solve issues yourself at least not in the context I'm talking about.. Then you have the Linux community, very rich in nothing standard. But at least you can probably fix things when you have access to all open source software. Not really a good solution either way. I mean use Android, still endless stupid issues.. Mac, not really used much, but likely similar problems moving windows to mac as windows to Linux. But id rather have a desktop for my daily driver not a laptop.

There gets into more obligations as I am using windows, MX, Linux, GEM, Android, just like how many OS's can one keep in ones head all at once.. Its bad enough with all the software keep moving things about at random and getting updating making it alien every other update.. Really just don't have the time or patience for it all any more.. I'm really at the point where I just don't want anything to do with computers or technology any more.

Yes you can "tweak" your way into it, but man, such an effort for such little reward, just to get your stuff working. I do like to "tinker" as well, but life is short and days are even shorter, sometimes I just need to get my "system operating" the machine, and not me machining the operating system.

Yes exactly I just want to machined I can reliably go to and it just works all the time. Thats my win7 rig. But also to be fair, I already went through all the updates breaking various things phase, by what people saying on the Internet newer Windows updates locks up their machine and forces you to update and reboot and I don't want my machine to reboot halfway through doing something or whatever it is people moaning about these days. Frankly it's been a godsend windows not actually updating for the past few years. Windows defender screwed up no end of my software and that is supposed to actually protect your PC!!

Maybe I'm getting old, well I am getting old but are really just don't want to spend even more years of my life screwing around trying to get stuff working it just isn't worth the time or effort or reward any more.

I only buy a new phone when my other one packs in which he generally after it is been dropped enough times it physically breaks used to look forward to having a new phone all the cool new things it can do but now, I just look at it and think, all the cool new things which will probably just irritate me and break stuff these days.. Stuff baked into the operating system by Google which you simply cannot uninstall and just uses memory and CPU for nothing..

Pretty much every phone I have purchased even pre-android nothing but trouble with it in one respect or another... Like the early touchscreen ones, the vertical scroll bars were that time it was physically impossible to use !! It goes back to my point that the scrollbars in Linux are too small or whatever, I don't have to put up with it, I can just get Claude to figure it out in changing now and I have done exactly that..

I think this is wise difficult for me to betray for people to understand my stance on wanting to move to Lenox and have control over my own OS these days. As every single device I've used I have had nothing but trouble with it either hardware or software wise. At least Linux gives me all low level access to everything.. ut that brings its own trade-off-problems as well.. How bad or good they are only time will tell..

but again, I'm not sure I really can be bothered anymore either. If I was selling 100's of something and making a actual profit, it be worth spending time on things.. but that's only ever declining. It also begs the question of why even bother trying to set up a workflow in Linux in the first place.. Very difficult to know what is best overall..

[exxos]

OK so I have a perspective on this, and no I'm not trying to get into an argument here, just putting forward a point of view.

It doesn't matter what OS you use, be it Windows, Linux, MacOS or something else, ultimately the user is the weak point.

If the user visits a hijacked website, or clicks on a poisonous link, then it doesn't matter what the OS is, they could still end up with money stolen or ID compromised, or any of the many other issues that can occur with such attack vectors.

I totally agree 100%

The user is always going to be the biggest security risk. My girlfriends mom is evidence of that and also why I say Windows 10 did nothing to help there despite being the latest and greatest in security and whatever. It did absolutely nothing and she was even running I think three different antivirus programs that the time as well. And she still ended up with the infamous blue screen of "your PC has been locked, pay us lots of money to unlock it" thing. How is that anymore secure than it happening exactly the same problem as was seen on XP..

This is why of virus filled adverts. Myself and others even when the down and reporting them to Facebook and they simply did not care it did not violate the community standards... But if I post a joke on my Facebook page and I get my account suspended.. This is why I'm so sick to death of all this behaviour with companies.

I used filtered IP addresses to filter out the worst of the worst junk even entering my network. All sorts of antivirus protections in place.

Is also why I like to have access to my own router, to set settings because all those programs like "anydesk" use remote sharing ports I can block myself. Them getting such programs on Linux be a bit harder for the scammers ( I assume) the ports are blocked.. Less bloat in Linux as well, less to go wrong IMO. My mum can just use it as she used windows really. But at least I don't have the hassle of trying to get a modern OS working on the laptop which is over a decade old with Linux. It does the job fine in that use case.

Now trying to convince my girlfriends mom to use Linux.. Even if I went for the hassle of explaining it all and setting it all up for her, I can pretty much guarantee it would last about three days before she restored the Windows 10 on it.. It's not just desktop PC either the tablet and phone which are all expensive modern devices all of them seems infected somehow..

When I first started seeing my girlfriend over a decade ago, her PC was heavily infected with all sorts of viruses. This is why I went with ESET as it was the only one that correctly removed and identified other viruses and malware. Every other antivirus no matter how big or good they are supposed to be were all junk. I think I have add problem with viruses since XP days. But then again I don't really download anything anymore and I really click on anything much anymore either..

[rubber_jonnie]

I totally agree 100%

The user is always going to be the biggest security risk. My girlfriends mom is evidence of that and also why I say Windows 10 did nothing to help there despite being the latest and greatest in security and whatever. It did absolutely nothing and she was even running I think three different antivirus programs that the time as well. And she still ended up with the infamous blue screen of "your PC has been locked, pay us lots of money to unlock it" thing. How is that anymore secure than it happening exactly the same problem as was seen on XP..

This is why of virus filled adverts. Myself and others even when the down and reporting them to Facebook and they simply did not care it did not violate the community standards... But if I post a joke on my Facebook page and I get my account suspended.. This is why I'm so sick to death of all this behaviour with companies.

I used filtered IP addresses to filter out the worst of the worst junk even entering my network. All sorts of antivirus protections in place.

Is also why I like to have access to my own router, to set settings because all those programs like "anydesk" use remote sharing ports I can block myself. Them getting such programs on Linux be a bit harder for the scammers ( I assume) the ports are blocked.. Less bloat in Linux as well, less to go wrong IMO. My mum can just use it as she used windows really. But at least I don't have the hassle of trying to get a modern OS working on the laptop which is over a decade old with Linux. It does the job fine in that use case.

Now trying to convince my girlfriends mom to use Linux.. Even if I went for the hassle of explaining it all and setting it all up for her, I can pretty much guarantee it would last about three days before she restored the Windows 10 on it.. It's not just desktop PC either the tablet and phone which are all expensive modern devices all of them seems infected somehow..

When I first started seeing my girlfriend over a decade ago, her PC was heavily infected with all sorts of viruses. This is why I went with ESET as it was the only one that correctly removed and identified other viruses and malware. Every other antivirus no matter how big or good they are supposed to be were all junk. I think I have add problem with viruses since XP days. But then again I don't really download anything anymore and I really click on anything much anymore either..