Why people are running away from Windows 11? Can't Co-Pilot be deactivated completely?

[eltoslightfoot]

You're experience is in no way typical.

For the record, I've been using Windows since version 1.0, and there's been a cavalcade of errors, failures, and performance issues, from version 3.0, Windows 2000, Vista, windows 8, etc. BSOD has been a meme, thanks to the issues windwos has over years. My point is, its hard to justify a stance that there's been little to no problems with windows. There's been versions that Microsoft has hit it out of the park, Windows 7, and 10. Windows XP was a great OS, but it had its share of instabilities and crashes, not to mention vulnerabilities.

There's a dave2d video out there comparing a Lenovo handheld gaming unit running windows 11 and the same one running steamos. The steamos using emulation for gaming out performed the windows. If that doesn't speak volumes of the bloat and sluggishness of windows 11 then I don't know what.

I was and still am a big fan of windows, but recent moves and actions by Microsoft, has caused me to not only lose faith inn the direction of windows, but I prefer not to be forced to use an operating system that requires an online account where my decryption keys are handed over to the government and/or my actions, interactions and typing is recorded and sent to the mothership in various forms.

Windows 11, has more negatives then positives at this point. Microsoft has promised renewed attention regarding the quality of life stuff and pulling back on the copilot integration as well. Yet at this stage, its hard to recommend given the increasing telemetry being sent, the advertisements, and senseless insertion of copilot into every nook and cranny of the system.

Agree with all of this. And it's a shame, really. So much innovation with the various vendors on the Windows side of things, but yet there is this suck that is the software.

 

[throAU]

Whilst I do not disagree with any of your points, you can just run a straightforward 'decrapifying' script in powershell to remove pretty much all of the bloat and its easy enough swapping out the explorer for a better file manager from the store.

Or you can just decide

“I’m not going to deal with this user hostility any more”

and move on


There are plenty of valid alternatives. Linux. macOS. ipadOS. ChromeOS - even android, depending on what you *actually* need to do with your device(s).

Explore them or don’t - but there’s a huge example of stockholm syndrome being a real thing in the Windows community for the past 10-12 years or so, basically since windows 8. Windows 8 was the turning point, and its just been downhill from there.

 

[Ctrlos]

Or you can just decide

“I’m not going to deal with this user hostility any more”

and move on


There are plenty of valid alternatives. Linux. macOS. ipadOS. ChromeOS - even android, depending on what you *actually* need to do with your device(s).

Explore them or don’t - but there’s a huge example of stockholm syndrome being a real thing in the Windows community for the past 10-12 years or so, basically since windows 8. Windows 8 was the turning point, and its just been downhill from there.

I actually miss Windows 8. 2012 Microsoft was the closest I've seen any company come to a proper all-encompassing ecosystem. I could watch and play on my 360, Windows Phone was groundbreaking and Surface devices were great. I could carry my Xbox profile across devices and do all the work I needed to on a Surface.

Then they ballsed it all up with the Windows Phone 8.1 update and it was downhill from there.

Why would I put it above the Apple ecosystem? Apple have never had a strong gaming offering. It's the biggest missing part of the puzzle for years for them.

 

[throAU]

I actually miss Windows 8. 2012 Microsoft was the closest I've seen any company come to a proper all-encompassing ecosystem. I could watch and play on my 360, Windows Phone was groundbreaking and Surface devices were great. I could carry my Xbox profile across devices and do all the work I needed to on a Surface.

Then they ballsed it all up with the Windows Phone 8.1 update and it was downhill from there.

Why would I put it above the Apple ecosystem? Apple have never had a strong gaming offering. It's the biggest missing part of the puzzle for years for them.

Like almost all projects Microsoft has worked on in the past 1-2 decades, it was half assed.

Windows 8, xbox, silverlight, Cairo (google that! - “microsoft carry”), “longhorn”, etc.

Promise, get halfway there, not execute sufficiently and then kill the vision/product rather than spend the required R&D to get it over the line.

Hot take:
Windows 8 is superior to Windows 10. At least it had a cohesive vision despite the execution. But then microsoft back-tracked and threw away years of development to barely get back to where they were in 2009.

I say this as someone who freaking HATED windows 8 at the time. I didn’t like it, but at least it was a strategy. Since then microsoft has been back-tracking, fumbling around the edges with tweaks to dinky little toy apps like paint and notepad and basically going nowhere for a decade.


edit:
actually because people are lazy, here’s Cairo:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_(operating_system)

Actually looks like info on this project is now thin on the ground. Basically Vista shipped with like half of the features promised in 1993 or so.

 

[maflynn]

Windows 8 is superior to Windows 10.

How so?

As someone who had used windows 8, I found that Microsoft erred in its approach where it made windows 8 a touch first operating system, making the keyboard/mouse more awkward and inefficient

As for windows 8 vs. windows 10, the latter is largely a course correction, with the metro interface was dropped in favor of the traditional UI of windows. There were no other major changes, so any (non-UI/non-UX) things in windows 8 existed in windows 10 AFAIK

 

[throAU]

How so?

As someone who had used windows 8, I found that Microsoft erred in its approach where it made windows 8 a touch first operating system, making the keyboard/mouse more awkward and inefficient

As for windows 8 vs. windows 10, the latter is largely a course correction, with the metro interface was dropped in favor of the traditional UI of windows. There were no other major changes, so any (non-UI/non-UX) things in windows 8 existed in windows 10 AFAIK

Less malware and it at least had a semi usable touch UI for tablets.

I’m not saying i agree with the direction it took - BUT AT LEAST IT HAD A DIRECTION


Rather than refine this and attempt to make it work, microsoft basically went half a step backwards - and then abandoned mobile entirely (which is why you can pair your android phone, etc. today).

 

[maflynn]

Less malware and it at least had a semi usable touch UI for tablets.

I can't say that I agree that windows 8 had less malware, especially given how much stronger windows 10 defender is. Windows 8 defender was much weaker and less capable. For instance windows 10 defender introduced ransomware protections - something that didn't exist in windows 8

As for semi-usable for tablets, you're spot on but that's the problem. There were virtually no tablets for windows.

Take this with a grain of salt but I think the estimates are in the park interms of being more likely correct - I asked chatgpt how many pcs were in the marketplace when windows 8 was introduced. It gave me a figure of about 14 billions PCs in the wild, where as there were only a few million windows tablets.

So they effectively annoyed and made life worse for potentially billions of users while making life marginally better for a few million (not that every pc user upgraded but you get the point, a user pool of billions vs millions).

 

[maflynn]

Back to the topic, I fired up my PC, and it went through some updates, and I had to go through the wizard you see when first installing windows, so it was a major update, and I got a number of ads for MS products, for office, copilot, and of course onedirve. It also was trying to connect my phone and pc together, and wanting a passkey.

I could not log into my pc using a local account, I had to use my microsoft account, everytime I clicked offline account, it bounced me back to online

Edit: let me be clear, this was just an update, my user account already existed, but it wasn't letting my switch to an offline account, I needed to use a microsoft account and also the authenticator app (which I finally did).

I'm prepping this PC to load linux, so regarding the topic at hand, I'm largely moving away from windows due to Microsoft anti-consumer behavior. I still consider myself a windows fan, I've been using PCs since the IBM 5150, but between the horrible track record of updates breaking the system or at the very least making thigns a lot slower, and them showing advertisements, copilot everywhere and telemetry, its not worth keeping it.

I'm not a power user, I just like to play some games (not even a hard core gamer), office documents, online stuff. I see no reason to stick with windows.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Back to the topic, I fired up my PC, and it went through some updates, and I had to go through the wizard you see when first installing windows, so it was a major update, and I got a number of ads for MS products, for office, copilot, and of course onedirve. It also was trying to connect my phone and pc together, and wanting a passkey.

I could not log into my pc using a local account, I had to use my microsoft account, everytime I clicked offline account, it bounced me back to online

Edit: let me be clear, this was just an update, my user account already existed, but it wasn't letting my switch to an offline account, I needed to use a microsoft account and also the authenticator app (which I finally did).

I'm prepping this PC to load linux, so regarding the topic at hand, I'm largely moving away from windows due to Microsoft anti-consumer behavior. I still consider myself a windows fan, I've been using PCs since the IBM 5150, but between the horrible track record of updates breaking the system or at the very least making thigns a lot slower, and them showing advertisements, copilot everywhere and telemetry, its not worth keeping it.

I'm not a power user, I just like to play some games (not even a hard core gamer), office documents, online stuff. I see no reason to stick with windows.

Yes, I went through the same stupid wizard, and then had to guide my wife through it. SO ANNOYING. I didn’t realize that they were also forcing a person to use an online account just to get logged back in after the update. NOT GOOD. At this point, as bad as Apple is at times, it’s pretty much our only hope (although I guess I could try linux as well as I only use that Windows machine for gaming and a few other GPU-intensive things at this point.)

 

[maflynn]

as bad as Apple is at times, it’s pretty much our only hope (although I guess I could try linux as well as I only use that Windows machine for gaming and a few other GPU-intensive things at this point.)

I haven't pulled the trigger, I have the live ISO inserted into the USB, secure boot disabled. I'm so close, lol

Now, my PC is largely unused, because my Mac Studio is my main machine,but not all games play on the studio. For some reason Cities Skylines II will not play in crossover. So there's part of me, like why bother installing Linux when I rarely use the pc/windows anyways and it does give me some options for some software if I need too

Anyways, I took benchmarks from the games I play, and once I pull up my big boy pants I'll install cachyos

 

[Snowlover]

I have a 2014 mac mini (2.6 i5, 8gbram,ssd) running windows 11 - installed via rufus modified installer, eliminating all requirements including microsoft user account.
I haven't experienced any of the issues discussed on this thread. No adds, no nags, no update issues. It just works, and better than with Monterey or oclp later versions.

Also installed it on an atom powered windows tablet with rufus installer. Slow, but still none of the above mentioned issues.

Perhaps it would be helpful for others to back up and reinstall windows 11 a using rufus made installer?

 

[hajime]

It’s not just copilot.

Microsoft user hostile behaviour
monthly garbage patches
changes to apps nobody asked for
explorer has gotten WAY worse in terms of performance since windows 10
ads everywhere
taskbar can’i be moved


basically microsoft is user hostile. you can either fight the OS continuallly…. or just leave for something better.

Didn't realize these even I use a Windows 11 PC daily. Could you please give examples on the following?

Microsoft user hostile behaviour
changes to apps nobody asked for
ads everywhere

I don't see ads everywhere. Perhaps I am using Bitdefender which filters out those ads?

Depending on what Apple is going to release next week, I may go for a MacBook Pro or a Thinkpad. Can't wait anymore.

 

[kamikazeeMC]

windows 11 - installed via rufus modified installer, eliminating all requirements including microsoft user account.
I haven't experienced any of the issues discussed on this thread. No adds, no nags, no update issues. It just works

This has been my experience too. But I will eventually move to Linux as game support has grown and I don't really play games needing kernel anti cheat.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I don't know. I constantly go back-and-forth between the two as Apple hasn't exactly covered itself in glory either...If you are on Windows 11 Pro, then most of the stuff can be shut off (and I don't use cloud services much anyway).

 

[throAU]

Didn't realize these even I use a Windows 11 PC daily. Could you please give examples on the following?

Microsoft user hostile behaviour
changes to apps nobody asked for
ads everywhere

I don't see ads everywhere. Perhaps I am using Bitdefender which filters out those ads?

Depending on what Apple is going to release next week, I may go for a MacBook Pro or a Thinkpad. Can't wait anymore.

Just a few nags/annoyances/dark patterns:

• Constant nagging to use OneDrive
• Forced cloud account sign in during install
• AI in notepad
• Ads for 365 with dark patterns for sign up during OS installation
• Tricking users into syncing their stuff to oneDrive and then demanding payment
• Relocating the start menu and putting links to bing services where it used to be
  • Making this crap pop up without being clicked, just by hover over - this is not just UI behaviour inconsistency but deliberate annoyance
• Pushing irrelevant distracting crap links to bing in the start menu
• Pushing every local search in the start menu off to bing to search the web first (Gotta boost those bing usage stats!)

 

[throAU]

I can't say that I agree that windows 8 had less malware, especially given how much stronger windows 10 defender is.

Sorry to clarify: by malware I was referring to Microsoft included trash that reports back to HQ - things like copilot in everything, forced sign in, recall, etc.

 

[maflynn]

Sorry to clarify: by malware I was referring to Microsoft included trash that reports back to HQ - things like copilot in everything, forced sign in, recall, etc.

Oh, yes I completely agree, the bloat and crapware was a lot less in windows 8

 

[pshufd]

How so?

As someone who had used windows 8, I found that Microsoft erred in its approach where it made windows 8 a touch first operating system, making the keyboard/mouse more awkward and inefficient

As for windows 8 vs. windows 10, the latter is largely a course correction, with the metro interface was dropped in favor of the traditional UI of windows. There were no other major changes, so any (non-UI/non-UX) things in windows 8 existed in windows 10 AFAIK

Windows 8 was why I moved to Macs for laptops. Windows 8 had some really odd VM management where it attempted to load what you normally run and cache stuff at startup which made for a long startup. They eventually fixed that but it was annoying.

I think that I'll have the same Touch issue with Tahoe which is why I haven't tried it yet.

 

[hajime]

Just a few nags/annoyances/dark patterns:

• Constant nagging to use OneDrive
• Forced cloud account sign in during install
• AI in notepad
• Ads for 365 with dark patterns for sign up during OS installation
• Tricking users into syncing their stuff to oneDrive and then demanding payment
• Relocating the start menu and putting links to bing services where it used to be
  • Making this crap pop up without being clicked, just by hover over - this is not just UI behaviour inconsistency but deliberate annoyance
• Pushing irrelevant distracting crap links to bing in the start menu
• Pushing every local search in the start menu off to bing to search the web first (Gotta boost those bing usage stats!)

I have never been nagged to use OneDrive.

AI in notepad is concerning.

If people copy and paste a password from an older free version of 1Password to a website, will the AI within Windows 11 has access to it after we have disabled Co-Pilot? Some websites do not accept pasting of password, in that case some users paste a machine generated long password to Notepad or MS Words and then type in the password to the website. Does AI in Windows 11 has access to the copy and pasted password to Notepad or Word?

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Windows 8 was why I moved to Macs for laptops. Windows 8 had some really odd VM management where it attempted to load what you normally run and cache stuff at startup which made for a long startup. They eventually fixed that but it was annoying.

I think that I'll have the same Touch issue with Tahoe which is why I haven't tried it yet.

Yeah I constantly feel like I am being thrown between two companies both trying to see who can make their OS worse.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I have never been nagged to use OneDrive.

AI in notepad is concerning.

If people copy and paste password from an order version of 1Password to a website, will the AI within Windows has access to it?

You can disable AI in notepad. And the Onedrive thing is quite annoying, but easily dealth with. It's like pick your poison. Windows does these annoying things but at least you can get in the registry and fix them. Mac is very hard to change so when they keep altering the terms of the Walled Garden deal and quality keeps going down, then that also can make one feel trapped.

I don't think CoPilot works that way, but honestly it's the first thing I remove. I do use AI some, but I prefer that not to happen at an OS level.

 

[pshufd]

Yeah I constantly feel like I am being thrown between two companies both trying to see who can make their OS worse.

One of the craziest things on macOS and Windows was the weather apps. Windows 10 had a great Windows app. Nice, native and always available. macOS didn't. Then Windows 11 came out and it got rid of the weather app and is a webpage with a lot of ads now. At the same time, macOS launched a weather app. In older versions of macOS, I'd go so far as to run a Windows 10 virtual machine just to get the weather on a virtual desktop all the time.

The weather app was great on Windows 10; why did they have to break it? Yes, to sell you ads and get you to use Edge.

 

[maflynn]

One of the craziest things on macOS and Windows was the weather apps. Windows 10 had a great Windows app

I don't care for any of those widgets. I go to my phone if I'm weather curious

 

[burgman]

Add to all of that, Microsoft execs are talking about replacing 50% of skilled workers in 18 months.

Why the hell would I give them another dollar? They're evil.

Given the recent company announcements concerning layoffs connected to AI. Plus the upward trend, highlighting one as evil is silly.

 

[kamikazeeMC]

All big tech is evil, it comes down to what tools, software and services can get your specific workflow done with the minimal amount of issues you have to tolerate. When they cross your bottom line for what ever reason, you start looking for alternatives, hopefully one that matches or comes close enough you're not going out of your way to do what you need. Maybe you stumble on something much better.