Interesting comments here because from my limited usage of Windows 11 I thought it was pretty good. UI, Ads, and a lot of little annoying things are still there but it was also the case in Windows 10 and prior. ( Ok may be not ads ) But it is better.
I just wish Windows 11 start doing 11.1 and 11.2 instead of some 2H26 name. And start iterating towards a better Windows 12. May be because there are plenty of low hanging fruit still that makes Windows improvement easier.
Cant say the same about macOS. Let's see if macOS 26 will be any better.
My biggest issue with Win11 is that it constantly forces AI down our throats while removing our ability to do basic things without clicking into sub menus. It's pretty clearly a push to get people to use a product inside of the OS, which defeats the purpose of the OS.
The UI is a garbled mess of like 15 years of UI design. There are 3+ menus for doing nearly every task. You can still use some views that have been around since windows 98. Then basic tasks get hidden.
it's just a garbled mess in so many ways. They push updates that break the OS on a regular basis.
And then with every update it erases all the changes you've made. The lack of customization is really annoying.
Then some updates kill performance for no real reason.
A couple years ago I switched to a custom build of Win10(spectre) then finally made the jump to full time linux again. My partner also switched, as did a bunch of her coworkers in academia. Everyone had similar complaints, in that win11 was harder to use for what they needed without any real benefits. I asked if there has been anything in win11 that has been beneficial and nobody can really say anything. A lot of win 11 feels like updating just to update.
Also somehow win11 audio/bluetooth is worse than linux. I had so, so many issues with bluetooth audio in win11. Just a mess of an OS.
This has been plaguing pretty much all software for at least 15 years now. Everyone wants to get away with an MVP. Advanced settings are deeply buried or they're simply inaccessible to users. Error messages no longer say anything meaningful, just 'oops' and 'we're sorry.' And that 'we' pronoun shatters any doubt as to who's now in control.
> The UI is a garbled mess of like 15 years of UI design. There are 3+ menus for doing nearly every task. You can still use some views that have been around since windows 98. Then basic tasks get hidden.
I actually like the newer, "modern" designs, but the lack of cohesion in internal settings menu shows.
A great example is the Power & Battery settings. There are two separate Control Panel screens for these, one of which has the old Control Panel UI and you're not really meant to use.
They really need to go through all the internal settings/configs screens and port them to the new UI platform.
The Windows kernel and most of the stuff under the hood is great (most, not all). The userspace has been on a steady downwards trend ever since Windows XP. Windows 11 is a bit of a mixed bag in that regard. Some things clearly got worse, but in return, for seemingly the first time since Windows 2000, Microsoft remembered that it ships tools like Windows Explorer and Notepad and gave them some improvements
But not sure what the decent alternatives are. Yes, Windows Explorer is a slow piece of 90s tech, but it's still leagues ahead of Gnome's Nautilus. And I was never a friend of macOS's finder. Just as one example representative of the wider OS. I can get a decent command shell on any OS, but in terms of power-user GUIs Windows is still has little competition. Even if you have to fight against enshittification and need 3rd party tools to fix its deficiencies
Yeah, on my work laptop after the upgrade it struggles on the most basic tasks, probably because of the crap integration with OneDrive getting even crappier. Or maybe it's the stupid extra-padded skin, reminiscent of 2005 KDE, who knows. I just know I now have a system with less functionality (no vertical taskbar, no start menu on the right...) and more crashes.
I just wish Windows 11 start doing 11.1 and 11.2 instead of some 2H26 name. And start iterating towards a better Windows 12. May be because there are plenty of low hanging fruit still that makes Windows improvement easier.
Cant say the same about macOS. Let's see if macOS 26 will be any better.