But I really wanted a forum post/list to show to anyone to justify why I hate Windows extremely SPECIFICALLY, and I felt that many of you might as well.
Hence, this post. (It can be niche, common, whichever you want)
Here’s what I hated (when I was on Windows)
Application search is broken, and deprioritized by web search.
Ads in the start menu.
curl not being in PowerShell (niche, I know, but InvokeWebRequest is too long and too different)
Task Manager being extremely slow, and crashing sometimes, with no polling rate adjustments (and no btop that’d do an equivalent)
Too many applications require administrative privileges, which is not granular enough.
Extremely high idle resource utilization (4GB RAM at idle, for instance).
I know there’s probably more, but these are the ones that came to mind. Would love to hear your pet peeves, and why you want to throw Windows out of the window.
(well, you can change the update rate of Task Manager, but it’s nowhere near as granular as btop)
For me, everything you listed plus the lack of things like journalctl or dmesg etc etc - understanding issues/crashes/etc is a lot harder in Windows.
Also, the need to sign into everything. (e.g. Clipchamp, grrrrrr)
Also, the whole-machine take-over the minute you sign into anything with a Microsoft account
Also, OneDrive and the obnoxious pushing to use it.
I used win11 a few months this spring and it was a very meh experience.
Online accounts and lack of privacy
Difficult to manage software
When you know what software you want it’s so easy to install software with flatpak/aur/pacman etc. compared to browsing around the web looking for installers while dodging scam banners and AI generated slop.
Low customizability.
You can only work the way they want you to. File Explorer or whatever they call it now is literally unable to be set up in a reasonable way.
Ads
No control over updates and what I’m installing on my PC
Oversensitive malware persecution. If I say a file is safe treat it like that goddammit!
It’s very expensive
There are probably more things that annoyed me, but this is what came to mind right now.
Apps that steal my focus by popping to the front - if i am working in another app, DO NOT POP OVER THE TOP OF WHAT I AM DOING! There is nothing more important going on with my computer than what i am working on, period.
single threaded UI that is prone to lock up if a single process goes AWOL
the wrong slashes
increasingly obnoxious UI / advertising
increasingly obnoxious information harvesting
increasingly obnoxious forced enrolment into microsoft services
search peaked in vista and has become progressively worse - not due to technology but due to microsoft directing you towards msn/etc.
increasing amount of background trash running
bad drivers, bad performance
I’ve hated windows since forever… 2000 Workstation, Vista and 7 were slightly higher points (when microsoft actually cared about Windows on the desktop), since then its been downhill (they currently don’t; its all about extracting info/revenue from suckers who run it, and out of 365 whether people run windows or not).
Just had to RMA a motherboard. Replacement took a while. In the meanwhile, I took an older build from 2019, put my GPU in that, and gamed happily on lower settings. I just let my other system be for a couple of weeks.
Now I finally received the MB. Put in the RAM and CPU, it posts fine. Set EXPO, update to latest BIOS, no problem so far. Put in the SSD. BAM! BitLocker.
To unlock, I have to log in on a separate webpage with my phone, retrieve the 50 digit unlock code, and manually type it into the prompt. This is not a big problem, but it is annoying.
So I do all that crap, log in. Flawless victory. So I unplug my temporary PC, retrieve the GPU, and put in the new PC.
BAM! BitLocker. I now have to type in the same 50 digit code AGAIN just because I dared to swap the GPU.
It’s more the principle of the matter, what is next? I swap my RAM from 32GB to 64GB, I have to enter the Bitlocker code again? Add another m.2 device, Bitlocker code? Et cetera. Seems like the only things I am free to swap - for now - are USB and Bluetooth devices.
I haven’t done extensive testing however, so I could be wrong.
For me it’s the entire ethos of the company and their crusade to have access to all the data on any windows device all the times. Not saying they are the only company like this, but they do seem the most blatant and consumer hating at the moment (though I’m sure Apple isn’t far behind).
Lack of free choice in adding/removing applications
Lack of options to disable telemetry
Context menus
Dumbed down default options
More options always need more clicks
Needs workarounds to easily access more options
Account
No local account option by default
Needs workarounds to create local account
Constant pushing for subscriptions
Updates
Increasingly broken (major) updates
Tends to reset options to defaults, even when those had been manually changed
Lack of complete applications updates (only Windows system/core utilities/drivers)
The overall ethos of not letting you own your own system by driving for increased data mining, adverts in the system, (re)setting their own defaults, mandatory online accounts and complete lack of privacy are what drove me away from Windows.
I still use it at work, because I don’t have the option to use anything else (well… OS X… but that’s not any better for me).
I do have to say that I am spoiled because I have access to the Enterprise versions of Windows, and it’s been a whole different life there. What truly annoys me is:
Not being able to control Copilot in a standard manner across multiple products - Microsoft 365 vs local Office install GPOs are so different through Intune and Admx that does not make sense for me
Shove this Telemetry function right from the beginning and we’ll give you settings next update rollout
You want to automate anything? Azure is the only way now!
The mandatory online account, the force feeding of other Microsoft Services, and all the Telemetry.
These are the big things for me. I also had the issue of my install deteriorating to where I had to do a clean install every 6 months - 1 year and I had persistent network issues, mostly transfer speed to my NAS. I have not seen the issue since switching to Linux and the network config on my NAS has not changed.
A lot of us have been adjusting against the whims of Redmond since all of these computing began but we do manage.
I sort of want MS Windows as it has its uses., I’d still root for it to find the right way forward. I mean we did have Windows 98, Windows XP and Windows 7.
But in the foreseeable future, I don’t think MS would simply give up all is telemetry collection and spying. There is value in it, one way or another.
Yes… that’s why I quit Android as well
Windows has been going the same route as Apple/Android, because they see that it is an easy way to collect more and more data.
This actually was my number 1 reason for hating windows until I got a pihole and blocked bing.com. It still sucks though. It also seems that with that disabled, it doesn’t automatically search by most used program quite right. It seems to just use last used.
Now it’s the constantly broken windows update, and HDR being impossibly difficult to get working correctly. My windows even does autoHDR randomly since I starting changing settings, and yes autoHDR is always off.
Also Microsoft store is still complete utter trash. You can’t delete games downloaded there so when my Fallout 76 got corrupted, the only way to delete it was to reinstall windows…
It is weird that they want this as it really doesn’t affect them at all… but I do think you should have this on your OS drive for most people because they store personal files there as well. Last two times I set up a computer for my parents I did this and since it’s laptops I haven’t had to need the keys yet. I thought it was easy to opt out of it but if I’m wrong then it’s a problem.
Idle power usage is also a little insane on my system. I booted debian off a drive I was trying to check the status of and I realized my idle power usage was 40W lower and much more stable even adding a m.2 over usb.
I had thought enterprise edition still let you turn off all telemetry because that’s a requirement in a lot of high security companies.
There honestly is no reason I use windows except for video game support and I’m too lazy to dual boot with my 3 minute boot time. I’m considering just getting a thin client to use as a daily linux machine and only turn on this one for gaming. Just need a kvm
I’ve applied some serious GPOs to remove all ads and annoyances like that. The only one true UI bother that I have… and that it is driving me nuts is that if you “search” on the address bar in Windows Explorer, you get Edge, no questions asked, no GPO setting for that either.
