How Windows 10 Earned Its Good Reputation While Planting the Seeds of Windows 11's Problems (arstechnica.com)
- Reference: 0180475295
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/29/1928221/how-windows-10-earned-its-good-reputation-while-planting-the-seeds-of-windows-11s-problems
- Source link: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/12/remembering-the-best-and-worst-about-windows-10-on-the-year-it-technically-died/
Windows 10 earned its positive reputation primarily by not being Windows 8. It restored a version of the traditional Start menu, rolled out as a free upgrade to Windows 7 and 8 users, and ran on virtually all the same hardware as those older versions. Microsoft introduced the Windows Subsystem for Linux during this period and eventually rebuilt Edge on Chromium. The company seemed more willing to meet users where they were rather than forcing them to change their behavior.
But Windows 10 also began collecting more information about how users interacted with the operating system, cluttered the lock screen with advertisements and news articles, and added third-party app icons to the Start menu without user consent. The mandatory Microsoft Account sign-in requirement -- one of Windows 11's most frequently complained-about features -- was a Windows 10 innovation, easier to circumvent at the time but clearly a step down the road Windows 11 is currently traveling.
To be sure, Windows 11 has made things worse by stacking new irritants on top of old ones. The Microsoft Account requirement expanded to both Home and Pro editions, the SCOOBE screen now regularly nags users to "finish setting up" years-old installations and Microsoft's Copilot push changed the default PC keyboard layout for the first time in 30 years.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/12/remembering-the-best-and-worst-about-windows-10-on-the-year-it-technically-died/
Take off the rose tinted smart glasses bud. (Score:5, Interesting)
> rolled out as a free upgrade to Windows 7 and 8 users
That's not quite how I remember it. Wasn't it more of a forced, unrequested, unannounced whole O/S upgrade that could only be stopped by a registry hack or installing Gibson's Never10?
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Other Windows Problems (Score:3)
Here's a partial list: Explorer file copy locks up if too many files are copied. Bluetooth re-connection: doesn't. Bluetooth file transfer was hobbled. Windows still cannot stop locked programs. No one wanted Microsoft to handle GPU usage. Event log list takes a long time to sort--even on your computer. Briefcase was handy but buggy, and was removed. Out of control file indexing. Excessive CPU/GPU use. Windows takes too long to adjust for any kind privacy--longer than a Linux install. Windows defaults to spying on user/customer. Windows logon errors, which were never present in Windows 10. Windows XP Requirements: [1]https://gamesystemrequirements... [gamesystem...ements.com]
[1] https://gamesystemrequirements.com/software/windows-xp
Still More Windows Problems (Score:4, Interesting)
The Program Files, Program Files (x86), and its 8.3 filename equivalent is a mess. They just could have named it Programs and be done with it. The Local, Local Low, and Roaming folders make no sense now that Briefcase is gone. I am not a believer in hiding AppData from the user. ProgramData is a kludge, at best. The false shutdown and delayed start is nothing but bullshit to high-performance computing. Lastly, we have several generations of UI, and we need them all, because Microsoft thinks that an open hardware OS should look like a walled in garden. It cannot. We need system settings and utilities.
Let's Not Romanticize Windows 10 (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's not romanticize Windows 10. It was shit. That Windows 11 is currently more shit doesn't change that.
If you'll pause to reflect for a moment. You'll come to realize what Microsoft has known all along. That is; whatever version has been the version for a few years becomes the favorite and the new release is hated. This has been the case since the upgrade from Windows 2000/XP to Vista. Everybody "loved Windows 7. Would you trade Windows 10 for Windows 7? No, you would not. You might think you would, but 5 minutes into it you'd be saying something completely different.
There have been only two universally hated Windows versions. To the point that no one would use them. Windows 98ME and Windows 8. Both of which have been declared as war crimes by the U.N.
Don't forget: Windows 10 touted as "last version" (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't forget: Microsoft said that [1]Windows 10 is the last version of Windows. [theverge.com]
The article is correct though: The real reason is that the horrible parts of Windows 10 were optional before, and they are now required in Windows 11.
Also note that the web in general does this same stuff by default, and nobody cares. People log-in to Chrome using their gmail account, then happily browse an advertising-laden web while Google tracks and sells their every move. They log-in to Pinterest and Facebook and Tiktok and whatever, happily sharing their data. So the market has spoken: Nobody cares enough about the surveillance to actually change their habits.
How long before we login to Slashdot with Gmail credentials? This is like the last site left on the "old web." All 100 of us left. *shakes fist at cloud*
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows
Correction (Score:3)
> ... rolled out as a free upgrade to Windows 7 and 8 users ...
... rolled out as a forced upgrade to Windows 7 and 8 users ...
People need to never forget that Microsoft's penchant for forcing shit down users' throats goes back long before Windows 11 came along.
Re: (Score:2)
Windows 11 was a forced upgrade from 10 as well... assuming that your hardware was new enough to support it.
Sing-a-long time: (Score:1)
"I don't miss my: Local, roaming, wallet combing, OneDrive hocking, software blocking, Cortona shilling, privacy killing, Edge sucking, update chucking, system scanning, subscription selling, telemetry machine."
What reputation? (Score:2)
10 still had a host of issues. It's just moderately better than 11, hence it has a "good" reputation.
How low are our standards if that's the case? MS is worthy of such scorn, but they're hardly the only ones who's software continues to get worse and worse as time goes on.
Rare is the software upgrade that is actually an upgrade.
"Dave's not here, man..." (Score:2)
Windows 10, good? What's AI smoking? All I hear here are complaints about it... At the very least, more of 'moving features around for the fun of it'. Not to mention the simply evil way they tricked unsuspecting users into installing it. If someone came to my house and did that, we wouldn't be friends, and I might call the police.
An OS isn't "good", it's functional. (Score:2)
Good as a term is too moralizing. I would call Windows 10 functional in that it's stable and does what you ask from it. What else do we want from an OS?
Windows 11 also fits that bill but just like 10 and even 7 if you're smart enough to find it's faults you're also smart enough to fix them to which those tools to do so have always existed; from Systernals to Nirsoft to Classic Start to WinAero, Windows has always been very tweak-able and if something that annoys enough users (like telemetry) one of them
it wasn't 11 (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows 10 got a good reputation at the very last second, and only because 8 was pure shit and 11 makes 8 look good.
Windows 7 will always and forever be remembered as the last best version, and also as the best version by anyone not in love with 2k or server 2k3.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
"... only because 8 was pure shit ...". Everything that ms does is pure shit.
Re: (Score:3)
Disagree.
Windows 10 had a bad reputation from the get-go, because of forced upgrade, spyware, and being bloated and consuming over 2gb of RAM doing absolutely nothing, and not forgetting: forced background updates and restarts.
It gained a some-what "good" reputation because people simply forgot and became accustomed to the new way of living with a system constantly spying on its users and being forced with updates being pushed without them knowing what was going on and what "updates" were being applied.
Peop