I had some experience with the IoT LTSC variant of W11 recently and found that while it's not perfect, it solves a lot of the telemetry and UX complaints people have with W11.

Any complaints so far? I'm still on windows 10 LTSC.

I’m not the end user in this scenario, but the person using it has had no issues for the several months it’s been on their machine. This was a vanilla installation with no UX extras like start menu replacement

I'm not holding out, I'm taking the cue that it's finally time to exit Microsoft altogether. Their October deadline is when everything MS finally gets wiped from my hard drives.

It does look like I'll have to make some sacrifice going fully Linux. VR isn't great. Simracing hardware is inconsistently supported. Daisy firmware flashing doesn't work.

But I'm done being a pushover. If a product needs me to stay in the abusive relationship that is Windows in 2025, I will loudly choose other products.

I worked around several of those pain points:

  - A requirement of a non-local Microsoft account to install or use it, with no opt-out

With some effort, you can use local account: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-set-windows-11-without-mi...

  - Ads in our face
  - A worse start menu
  - A worse taskbar

Fix Explorer with Explorer Patcher: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher . It was unusable otherwise for me.

The existence of these workarounds allow Microsoft to achieve their goals. It doesn't behoove them to tighten the screws completely, because they still get to capture the vast majority who do what they're told to. And after enough years of acceptance of surveillance creep, the Overton window will have shifted enough that subverting these controls will be perceived by normies as suspicious behavior.

> With some effort, you can use local account

For now. Microsoft has been trying to close that for a while, and I suspect the only thing keeping some of it alive is the stark security requirements some of their corporate/business customers mandate.

ledragonx windebloat tools my friend, your life will become much better. it strips out sooooooooooo much adware. It's like every service in windows from MS, dozens of them, all has telemetry. WHen it runs it's like getting a colonic and you think to yourself "wow, all that was in there?!?"

Let's not forget regressions in gaming performance. This is my number one issue, and the devices I do have Windows 11 on arent changing my mind, and I suspect this holds true for many others out there.

Why upgrade if I just get downgraded?

I keep a Windows 10 installation around just in case, but over the past few years I've only booted it to install updates. I also have some ebook and hardware config applications that I haven't been able to get working in WINE, which I very very occasionally want to run.

I haven't decided what to do. I suspect I'll end up deleting the Windows partition and just reclaiming that disk space.

Yup, your list of '-' items is terrific. Well put. I've seen the same.

Had an HP laptop with a version of Windows 10 I liked okay, but after several years the mechanical hard disk failed.

Got another HP laptop, with Bit Locker and Windows 11. In one word for multiple reasons, unacceptable. Finally had (failed to keep good notes on where from) a thumb drive with apparently a recent version of Windows 10, installed it, and then discovered your list with '-' -- yup, I'm not the only one.

Looks like now Microsoft and 10 want to force users to accept updates: Sounds like should take backups of 10 and reinstall after the updates. The Windows 10 I had on the first HP didn't have the junk in your '-' list. Gee, should try to get and install the version of Windows 10 I had, uh, get a list of all the Windows 10 versions and pick one of the older 5-6 years ago?

In general, I'd like the tools I use to stop doing things I didn't ask for.

My distant #2 (I even game exclusively on Linux) OS is Windows 10. 11 seems like more of the things that suck about Windows and nothing worthwhile.

Honestly, I really like win11. But I'm using the pro version. The only thing I really really hate is the account requirement.

Other than that, I like the new clipboard, the much (much!), improved settings menus (I know a lot of people disagree but I couldn't stand the windows 10 settings mess), etc. The UI is also more pleasant and not as flat as windows 10 is.

I'm not sure if it's specific to windows 11, but compared to the version of Windows 10 I used before, it has a lot of multi-screen QOL improvements like making different screens of different sizes and resolutions seamlessly work together.

Hits the nail on the head. I was surprised they even removed the ability to customize the taskbar location - but it still employs the same registry entries, so you can relocate it by messing with obscure manual modifications.

Yet half the menus will just ignore it. The start menu will pop up at the correct location, but then glitch to bottom left as soon as you start typing/searching

What's beyond is that even if we were to accept all the dumbing down and reduction of the UI as a sacrifice to make the OS more touch/hybrid friendly - it'd be really bad design, since keeping the taskbar on top makes it quite ergonomic to access on touch ultrabooks.

I'm picking this specific example, since it really questions the "trust us it's how it's best" excuse, and makes it much rather feel like 11 was simply rushed into production