I loathe Windows 11!!!

I made a huge mistake a few days ago when I upgraded my LUMOS from Windows 10 to Windows 11!  I fled 11 and went back to 10 with the aid of a fantastic Support person, Jose Merla! Initially, the new OS seemed good and interesting until my Monitor developed a bit of flickering. Within hours there were periodic blinking. Then the occasional flash. The drivers were all up to date. No malware or supposedly problematic software. Then there were certain essential pieces of Graphics Software that I use for my Artwork that started to malfunction or overall performance was degraded.

I talked to a couple of friends, old folks like me, who also had these kind of issues on different platforms. The bunch of us hate Windows 11 and strongly suggest that you stick with Windows 10 for as long as you can because it is much friendlier to your machine, even if it isn't as pretty as Windows 11.

I learned the hard way ! 100% sure will never go to 11 no matter the incentive.

I started programming mini computers when I was 17 in 1977. After Windows 3.0 was released, the running joke was that every other Microsoft release was good, and the ones in between were bad.  That seems to still be true.  They have to release something to the public to find out their mistakes in design and development.  Then, the next release is a paid-for problem fix product.

I've also watched as computer manufacturers, Intel and Microsoft have abandoned all the de-facto standards that used to make software and hardware compatible.  That is not necessarily bad, except that very few new standards have been established, and those are mostly single-monopoly standards rather than industry consensus.  Now, I only buy a new OS and computer together unless I absolutely can't avoid it.  I try not to upgrade very much in between.

Some people want to experience the latest and greatest bleeding edge operating systems and hardware, and that's reasonable if you can tolerate unexpected problems.  If you need a reliable OS and hardware, then you are better off to use what works for as long as possible.  I would much rather wait a little longer, and be sure to get good results, than to get lightning fast response that produces garbage.  I experienced the Intel Pentium Pro floating point math bugs that had us programmers tearing our hair out.  And, I still cringe at hearing Windows Millienium Edition or Windows 2000.  You could use those, but who would want to?

My first experience with Windows 2000 was spending hours attempting to get a tape backup to actually compare with the files that were backed up.  It finally turned out that my hardware was fine and the backup software Microsoft bought from some other company just sometimes didn't work right.  I was informed that almost nobody cared about tape backup and Microsoft wasn't going to fix the problem, Then I got into all the networking problems because Microsoft removed the ability to set the binding order for network drivers.  I went back to my old reliable Windows NT 4.0 OS.  I had to boot Windows 98 to play games, but so what.

I didn't start using Windows XP until Windows Vista development was started, figuring that Microsoft would not spend any effort on "improving" XP any more.  I suffered a brief lapse in judgement and installed Windows Vista, struggled for a while, and then upgraded to Windows 7.

Sure enough, Windows 8 turned out to be another Vista, just like the old joke predicted.  Then Windows 10 came out and I bought a new computer with Windows 10.  I am basically happy with Windows 10, but I think Windows 7 has a prettier and better user interface.  I would have been happy with Windows XP too, but I admit it lacks much eye candy.

It is obvious from seeing Windows 10 that Microsoft realized the eye candy was more trouble than it was worth, with some people buying ultra cheap, low performance systems.  And, despite clear evidence that their new UI was not ergonomic, Microsoft did just enough in Windows 10 to make that tolerable.  I haven't even looked at Windows 11, but I expect that Microsoft completely changed the UI again, or attempted to turn the existing UI into something usable.  Either one of those is a recipe for more software bugs and an unpleasant UI.

As a software developer I have an even more frustrating time with the different Microsoft Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). For a long time Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) for C++, Component Object Model (COM) and Visual Basic 6 was the way to develop applications.  Then Microsoft abandoned all that for the .NET framework, forcing companies to rewrite all their working software.  Just about the time that we finished the major rewrite, Microsoft abandoned .NET.  Next, Microsoft pushed METRO and SIlverlight as the way to develop software.  That was short lived as most people kept developing applications with .NET or MFC/COM.  The unlucky people who had Visual Basic 6 applications were really screwed after .NET removed basic graphical APIs from BASIC like "draw a line".   The company I work for has switched to using JAVA, because it runs on Linux and Windows, and seems to be less volatile than Microsoft's APIs.  We can't afford to rewrite our applications completely every couple of years.

Microsoft bases their technical decisions on marketing considerations that ignore the reality of what users or developers want and need.  When people don't get what they want, they put less effort into trying to use the new software.  When people don't get what they need, they just don't even bother trying to use the new software.  Microsoft never seems to learn those lessons, so they bounce between releasing what Microsoft wants and needs, and what their users and developers want and need.  We can complain, but I don't think that pattern will change.  Apple has its issues too, as all Monopolies do.  Our politicians show no signs of enforcing any anti-trust laws or breaking up monopolies.  If it's any consolation, Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) and IBM weren't much better when they ran the show.