That's better than what has happened to me with prior versions of Windows: the Windows installer just deleted the Linux bootloader, even though it was on a completely different drive.
Nowadays I always disconnect all other drives when installing Windows. But it's a pain.
I lived like that for about a year, but eventually just gave up and stuck to Windows. I like Linux a lot, but I've found that I save more time using Windows then trying to get Linux to work on whatever piece of hardware I have (driver issues, bugs, some remaining software that still doesn't work with Linux).
You can remove most of the crap via a debloater, but Windows 11 is just overall worse than Windows 10. The UI updates just took all the negatives of using a Mac, but without any the parts that make it actually useful. I miss being able to see the title of windows in the taskbar...
My favorite pet theory about Microsoft is that no one that works there actually uses any of their products and are just on Macs lol
Knowing what I know of him, I believe it and he certainly lives the company life. He even used to have (and claimed to like) a Windows phone. ;)
I still miss the tiled home screen and the excellent keyboard.
then
> I miss being able to see the title of windows in the taskbar...
You can't do that on a mac either.
Most of the time I end up having 2-3 VSCode windows open which you can't switch between unless you hover over the icon first.
There have been multiple comments on HN from Microsofters (Microsoftarians?) about how the Windows UI/Design team uses Macs exclusively, which explains a lot. I believe the Visual Studio team is still dogfooding, but can't believe that about anyone else, given how actively user hostile the OS has been.
I think that has not been true for a long time. At least if you are using UEFI. Windows respects UEFI enough to just change own stuff in the EFI partition. Windows will change the default boot entry to itself at installation time, but so every Linux distro do. Notice that nowadays you can install Windows *after* Linux and you just need to change the default OS back to Linux if you want so.
I'm a Linux user myself, but this is one of those myths that should end. I have had a Windows partition for almost three years that I only use to update Windows (all Windows 10 versions up until now and Windows 11 in the last update). Not once the update has affected my boot options.
rather than trust the quality of Microsoft's software: the general rule is to unplug anything other than the drive you're installing onto
To be fair, that dumbass trend started with Windows 7.
I just install StartAllBack these days to be done with it (and it fixes the problems that 10's Start Menu has- that search will probably never work again). Yeah, you have to pay for that extension, but you also have to pay if you want window-snapping on macOS- thus they stopped being better, but they haven't really become worse.
I've just (re)obtained a desktop PC with a GPU, which I'm using as a Linux gaming prototype box with ubuntu 20.04 LTS running Steam, and I'm reliving some youth in playing through Deus Ex (properly, stealthily). Enjoying the fact that Linux is doing it pretty smoothly (with some initial setup headaches now overcome).
My plan is to complete it, slowly, then go from the start again with the Revision mod.
What's wrong is that a lot of audio hardware is Windows hardware, i.e. subtly broken.
BCD (and its associated tools) are a steaming mess when anything goes wrong. The learning curve for GRUB et al. is the shortest curve ever - what its doing is really transparent. Fixing anything in the windows recovery environment is a total nightmare. Linux, worst case you use something like ReFind and can happily boot anything. Windows goes wrong, you're at the behest of of the practically useless "Startup Repair", which gives little or no practical output.
Don't get me onto the drive selection on setup too... Why can't they indicate which drive is which model / serial number? Do I have to guess from the exact size? Also why do I need to turn other drives off in UEFI to ensure they're not touched.
I was able to get VRChat working but when I entered a world with too many avatars I'd see major issues with sound and GPU problems.
Yes, it does give people regular reasons to point and laugh at it, and it's probably dangerous how much of the modern world depends on it, but you only have to use a competitor for a very short period of time to realise that displacing it would be a very, very tall order.
These kinds of little things about Windows drive me up the wall. That and the fact that I had to immediately run a few debloat scripts to rip out a bunch of junk.
I type all this while I have Path of Exile running at 200 FPS on my Linux install.
Is anyone at Microsoft listening? I feel like in another 10 years there will be very little reason to ever install Windows. The dominos are falling and at this point there's very few reasons to have Windows at all. Off the top of my head all I can think of is Photoshop and VR.
When I was in high school Linux was unusable for desktop, MacOS was just for designers, and Windows was really the only option. In only 20 years the dynamic has shifted so drastically. I wonder what the next 20 years will bring.