Installing Windows is easy, but once something goes wrong, troubleshooting becomes more challenging. You have an error code? Yeah, well, try these 100+ things that are the same things you gotta try with every other error code out there. None of those things worked? Well, reinstall windows that should fix it.

Granted, I have plenty of experience with linux at this point to where I won't stress when something fucks up but ive dealt with my fair share of windows issues as well. The majority of the time, I end up reinstalling windows...

Yeah, I've had issues with it too! I installed the latest Windows 10 on my mom's laptop after replacing the hard drive with an ssd, and it took me way longer than it should have to do something as simple as move files from the old hard drive to the new one! And a week later, she calls me with issues related to the auto backup OneDrive thing, and I had to troubleshoot that from 2.5 hours away. If she didn't need Photoshop and Lightroom, I would have installed some sort of Windows-similar Linux distro for her. I also have had so many issues with Windows 11 for school that I just stopped using it on bare metal and just have a VM for the one program I need for my CS classes.

Windows and Apple both capitalize on most folks lack of minimal tech savviness plus being creatures of habit. So much so, Apple gave away laptops to numerous Silicon Valley highschool classes in the mid 2000's, just to entrench them into the system.

I've been using Linux for a few years now and I still randomly think about what took me this long to switch. It's how an OS should be made. It can simply be installed and used out the gate or it can be tinkered with to make an ideal setup. Not to mention the lack of invasive tracking. Windows is so bad it's more complete monitoring of the users than tracking.

Regardless, August 2023 to August 2024 will definitely be the year of the Linux desktop! /s

I'm sorry, but if Windows was that hard for you to install, you did something majorly wrong. I haven't installed 11 on anything, but 7 and 10 were both cakewalks that practically hold your hand all the way through. It's the last step when building a PC -- after the actual work is finished.

If you have little experience with Windows, you may just be suffering from its "easiness." It lets you do less in order to protect the less knowledgeable user. From personal experience in similar matters, I can attest to how frustrating that can be. You don't want Windows to do it for you, you just want to do it! So you try to find a way to do things your way, bash your head against a wall, get frustrated, and ultimately take much longer to do anything.

I recently just reinstalled windows on my gaming pc and arch on my laptop, and I completely agree with you. especially the fact that now windows 11 force you to sign in. I know it can be skipped, and average users probably wont care, but FUCK YOU MICROSOFT!

archinstall is such a breeze, and in general for linux, I can control precisely what to install and configure it to be exactly how I like it, as opposed to windows I had to find some sketchy debloater scripts to remove all the craps, disable the telemetries, and hoping it doesn't break anything.

And if I break anything, linux always have detailed documentations, where as windows...its always some indian guy on youtube teaching you how to run windows troubleshooter and hand you more sketchy scripts

I have almost always used Windows. I have had almost zero issues with Windows functionality. Install is easy, most shit installs automatically. You have to truly fuck up to not be able to make it work. That said, it surely has it's quirks and is a data leech. Not being able to get Windows to run is a user error, not a window error.

Couldn't agree more

I will have to disagree but am a sysadmin by trade, so I work with Limux, Mac and Wimdows. I do run Linux and Steam on an HP Omen but was running Win 11 on it before with zero issues. I switched to Linix because all my other machines are Limux and its a bit of a hassle running compatability mode on Wimdows in order to read games saved on Linux. My son and I built his gaming rig and the hardest part for me is ordering the parts from different vendors. I think its all anout expectations. If you start hating Windows, you really wont find anything good with it and just see its faults.

This whole post is just yikes

Your experience is way outside the norm. Usually it's very straightforward.

Using windows 11 is your first mistake, its ab uneven number windows, everyone knows the uneven number ones are bad. Or was it the even number ones? I dunno, windows 10 is better than 11 either way.

Yeah, Windows' bullshit is what drove me to Linux in the first place. I only have it on my gaming system, and only because Discord's stupid screensharing doesn't transmit audio on Linux, NVIDIA's drivers for Linux suck balls (going AMD next time now that their cards are good again) and there are a couple of games my friends play that have issues on Linux. I've never run into a game on my everyday laptop that Linux couldn't run, and the Steam Deck will take basically whatever you throw at it.

Windows is a barely-functional rat's nest of code spaghetti that falls apart at complete random. Sometimes your audio drivers will just stop working for no apparent reason. Sometimes your computer will just refuse to connect to the internet until you do a clean install. Windows Update apparently runs Prime95 in its spare time and so does the Antimalware Service Executable. I hate using it so much. I wish Windows would just curl up and die.

I've been using both daily, for 25+ years. Windows is not hard to use, but harder to configure now, having multiple paths/ways to configure the same thing like settings, old control panel, command line, regedit, group policy, is sometimes shitty. Everything else works fine in win10 or 11.

I use windows as little as possible. I have steam, discord, and Firefox open on it and otherwise try to use my Linux and macOS devices for actual productivity