Honestly, between the telemetry data collection, the strange hardware requirements, advertisements, bloatware, and unknown future licensing model, Linux is looking like an attractive option. At this point, I only use Windows for Office and gaming, and Linux + Proton has gotten really good lately. I don't see a reason to use Windows on my personal machine any more.

I could probably tolerate Windows 11 if:

• the start menu search didn’t search the web and just searched my system.
• the widget panel wasn’t just a wrapper for their shitty news aggregator that seems to only gather celebrity news
• If I have windows pro, I don’t want notifications to use Edge or see TikTok, Amazon, Candycrush, etc. in the start menu (I know they aren’t downloaded but what “pro” wants any of that shit)

They used to say that 10 would be the last version and they'd just update that

Windows 11 definitely has its issues, but I don’t think the author of this article has sufficient knowledge to be writing articles about it.

There’s not a great solution for switching to UEFI in an existing install

MBR2GPT is baked into Windows and works great as long as you don’t have a jacked up partition layout.

Windows 11 demands a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 security coprocessor, which isn’t in many PCs that meet all the other requirements.

Part of the reason that Intel 8xxx and Ryzen 2xxx processors are the baseline “requirement” is that they have fTPM 2.0 embedded in the silicon. It’s actually in the overwhelming majority of devices that meet the other requirements.

There appears to be no loss in functionality when bypassing the installation requirements… so why do they exist?

Microsoft could provide a more limited Windows 11 experience to PCs that don’t meet the strict requirements

Microsoft doesn’t go out of their way to hide the fact that you can install Windows 11 on unsupported hardware.

By providing and sanctioning a “limited” experience, Microsoft would then have to dedicate resources to supporting that experience. I’ve worked with tons of legacy devices that had odd quirks that required workarounds in Windows 10, so I can’t really blame them for wanting to limit how they spend their support resources.

It’s easier than ever to switch to Linux, especially if the thing holding you back was gaming.

I say we boycott windows 11

I've stayed away from Windows 11 because of the bloatware and TPM requirements. Turns out, my old processor that was rejected by Microsoft actually had TPM 2.0, it just needed to be enabled from the BIOS. Well, I installed it a few days ago and everything look great. The bloatware was a problem but there are FOSS apps for that. The UI looks clean, the taskbar is uncluttered, and I feel stupid for not updating before. I don't know if I'm the minority here but I think that for most users Windows 11 is easier and more accessible.

That's a really well written article.

Looks like I'll be going Linux. Better OS for casual use anyway.