Windows is solid under the hood, but the UI/UX is crap and has gotten progressively worse over the years

MacOS isn't perfect either, but it is so much better in not trying to upsell you at every single opportunity

Just let me use my fucking computer lol

rincebrain 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think even this is true any more.

Windows used to have a solid technical foundation and was working on improving longstanding historical warts (font processing in the kernel, what could go wrong?), regardless of how off the rails the end user experience was getting.

Now, Windows seems to be rotting from every direction. The user experience is going straight for minmaxing data harvesting and antipatterns, and the technical underbelly is showing horrible problems getting into releases. [1][2], to pick a couple recent examples.

[1] - https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows/windows-11-...

[2] - https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/october-...

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blibble 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

the kernel might still be good but the userland is just awful in every way imaginable

they have even managed to screw up file explorer and the start menu

it's so slow I can see it render the interface, like watching compuserve render a webpage on a 2400 bad modem

(high end i9 box)

I bet it's not long until React ends up in the kernel too

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theevilsharpie 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> the kernel might still be good but the userland is just awful in every way imaginable

The Windows kernel is also falling behind. Linux is considerably faster for a wide variety of workloads, so much so that if you're CPU limited at all, moving from Windows to Linux can net you an improvement similar to moving up a CPU generation.

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up-n-atom 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I dual boot with Fedora but rarely ever boot into Windows, last week was 1 of those times and seeing the menu render on right click in explorer had me shutting down in frustration.

How did we forget about deferred rendering, offscreen buffers, etc. And why is it so darn slow? It’s a deplorable experience and it’s obvious strictly Windows users have become desensitized and numb to it all.

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z3ratul163071 7 hours ago | parent [-]

on my last machine i maybe booted windows 5 times.

when switching to the new machine i realized i did not actually need windows at all already for 2-3 years straight.

so now I don't have dual boot. only arch with kde.

	▲	up-n-atom 38 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I maintain multi OS documentation at pon.wiki and it’s just easier for me this way as it’s distraction free, synced to a NAS. I could setup a VM or another system but I’ve always maintained a separate disk as it’s economical with licensing. At 1 point I was using https://looking-glass.io/ but half of my time is spent doing digital art and couldn’t part with the discrete gpu full time. I had to take screenshots and that was as frustrating where it just works in macOS and all Linux DEs but Microsoft broke that as well.

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pjmlp 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A side effect of the tragic decision to now use WinUI on Explorer.

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chris37879 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Exactly this. I use a Macbook for my day to day computing, programming, and general internet use. I have a Windows 11 gaming rig. Well, it turns out Hades 2 runs great on my macbook and that's been my game as of late, so the desktop hasn't been powered on in weeks. I just don't like Windows 11, and Linux just isn't there yet for my mixed DPI monitor setup (though I hear is getting close), or VR titles just yet.

	▲	mindcrash 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		SteamVR runs great on Linux, unless for some oddly reason your favorite desktop on GNOME. Valve tested it on X11, KDE Plasma on Wayland (because duh) and wlroots (hyprland and friends) without problems. There are tons of people happily running mixed DPI setups with -at least- wlroots based compositors (although first time setup can be a bit tricky, as these are built by hackers for hackers)

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graemep 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Just let me use my fucking computer lol

Why? Look at it from Microsoft's point of view - upselling, showing ads, integrating AI is more profitable or sends the share price up. That gives them a strong incentive to keep doing it.

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what-the-grump 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I run fleets for windows machines, servers, w10, w11, from a Mac.

What Microsoft has done to windows 10 and 11 is ridiculous.

Why is my taskbar still crashing in 2025. Why does opening task manager spike my cpu to 100%. Search its 2025, search still broken. OOBE experience is a joke.

For crying out loud I don’t even care if you make the entire gui rest based and hosted in azure it would perform better than the trash running now.

At this point the Azure management portal has a higher SLA and uptime than my task bar.