Windows 11 has round corners.

Security knobs that Windows 10 lacks, better support for containers, WSL features, and DirectX 12 capabilities.

Granted, not everyone cares about them.

I find I no longer integrate new apps/technology flows into my life because they either won't be supported or will be enshitified/weaponized against me. The future kind of sucks. My smart home is barely hanging on to turning my lights on at dusk (something photo-sensors for lights just did without issue from the 90s on). Android just broke my phone, I can no longer just say 'hey android, play the news' and have it play headlines from real new organization that I specify. Instead it grabs news from I don't know where and gives me Google Gemini approved summaries (that Google states may or may not be accurate).

People have to remember corporations aren't people, and when there is a change of direction, doesn't mean they got rid of all employees responsible for the old ways.

I have done this, and in many ways it has been one of the best parenting decisions I've made. My oldest is a better CLI user now than most engineers I work with, and it came almost entirely from him exploring the system and getting excited about all the cool things he can do. It also made it super easy for me to teach him more self-service things, everything from looking at system logs to see why the xbox controller or even the USB keyboard isn't working, to learning how the software stack is assembled.

For my other kids that don't care about that sort of stuff, even they have become very capable computer users. It's been easy for them to learn Windows and ChromeOS at school. I already see the same pattern of diving deeper developing with my youngest too.

One of the most rewarding things I've experienced as a parent is seeing the hacker spirit still very much alive.

Make sure they have at least a passing familiarity with Windows and it's apps because like it or not Windows is still the default in the school and working world so they'll have to work with that stuff to some degree. Otherwise go for it.

Side note how's open office compatibility these days? Last time I tried it yeeears ago there were still compatibility problems that would have made group projects hard.

Absolutely. My kid just finished an engineering degree from a well respected institution. Early on in the intro programming classes, about half of his class was unfamiliar with file system structures. Chromebooks and iPads in school and at home meant they had never really encountered them.

There were plenty of other "techy" things that older generations take for granted but kids aren't learning about unless parents show them because they are hidden behind modern OS/software interfaces and usually locked down to prevent discovery.

When you're in Windows, the OS operates you. It is the user and you are the used.

Simply put the economics are behind a locked down click and drool style operating system with a manufacture controlled store that takes 30% of all gross.

The faster we can kill the Apple and Google store monopolies the faster we'll go back to having operating systems/phones that we can at least do something with.

We still have Linux for now, but as we know signed bootloaders present a very large risk.

I think at Microsoft they know they can do whatever they want with Windows and nothing will change.

In corporate, no manager cares about the operating system their employees use. Unless there's a significant drop in productivity by using Windows, no one will bother with the cost of switching to another OS.

In the private sector, most people buy their computers straight off the shelf, i.e. with Windows. Here at HN, we're tech enthusiasts, but out there those who know what "Debian with GNOME" means are very few, and the rest will at most complain a little about how Windows has become, but then they'll just continue to use it.

Don't worry. Copilot is just summarizing what you wrote. /s

I completely agree with your latter point after being a windows dev on and off since windows 3.0. It’s been one hell of a rollercoaster.