The 4 huge Windows gaffes that satisfied me to attempt Linux Mint
I saved my outdated laptop computer operating Windows 10 for years with no single criticism, then Microsoft instructed me it wasn’t good enough for Windows 11. Not as a result of it was sluggish or as a result of it crashed, however as a result of the CPU was the mistaken technology. That was only one crack that led to so many extra. After some time, I did not really feel like I owned my pc anymore. Microsoft did. Linux Mint by no means requested me for something however a working pc.
Microsoft locked working computer systems out of Windows 11
Older {hardware} will get left behind for no good motive
When Microsoft launched Windows 11, they drew a line: your pc wants to satisfy the {hardware} necessities, or it would not get the improve. The huge ones are a TPM 2.0 chip, UEFI Secure Boot, and a processor from an permitted record. On the CPU aspect, they reduce issues off at Intel 8th gen Coffee Lake and AMD Zen+.
So for those who’ve received a seventh gen Intel or a primary gen AMD Zen, you are locked out. Even if that chip runs quick, has loads of cores, and technically helps TPM 2.0. Plenty of completely good computer systems that ran Windows 10 with no single problem have been suddenly declared incompatible. They may deal with the workload simply tremendous. Microsoft determined to attract the road proper there.
If you need to know the place your machine stands, Microsoft has PC Health Check. It scans your system and tells you precisely what passes and what would not. Sometimes a TPM 2.0 or Secure Boot failure is only a setting buried in your BIOS you can flip on. For TPM, search for one thing like Intel PTT or AMD fTPM.
But if the instrument says your processor is not supported, your solely choice is an formally unsupported workaround. BIOS tweaks will not repair a CPU technology downside. You’re simply caught, even when your machine meets each different requirement on the record.
That’s what occurred to my laptop computer. It may outperform my newer Windows 11 laptop computer, however its processor was one technology too outdated, so it was out of luck.
Windows Recall is a privateness catastrophe
Taking fixed screenshots of your display screen is creepy
Windows Recall is a type of current missteps that basically damage my confidence in Microsoft. It’s an AI characteristic that quietly takes screenshots of mainly every little thing in your display screen, each few seconds, at any time when one thing modifications. It’s constructed for Copilot+ units with these devoted Neural Processing Units, and it really works like a recorder that is at all times operating in your PC.
Then Windows scans these screenshots, pulls out the textual content and what’s in them, and saves all of it to a searchable database. That means you may sort one thing like that recipe I noticed yesterday and discover it.
The privateness downside right here is fairly apparent as soon as you consider it. Your pc is holding a searchable diary of every little thing in your display screen. That means passwords, non-public messages, banking information, medical information, all of it.
Microsoft insists every little thing stays in your system and by no means goes to the cloud. Even so, having one thing within the background continuously recording what you do is unsettling in a means I’ve by no means felt with Windows earlier than.
There’s no actual excuse for Microsoft to be pushing Recall so exhausting and by no means eliminating it totally. We covered it exhaustively, and I can not imagine that Microsoft nonetheless dares to assert it’s in any customers’ greatest curiosity.
This wasn’t an accident or a small bug. This is the place Microsoft needs Windows to go. There have been plenty of issues that users found when it got here out. To be honest, it is now off by default, it’s a must to choose in to make use of it, and you may take away it totally. Still, it made me not belief Microsoft as a lot anymore.
Your desktop should not really feel like a billboard
Windows 11’s desktop overhaul is the worst a part of the OS for me. It’s a visible redesign that appears counterintuitive, and it has adverts creeping proper into the OS. Microsoft began treating the desktop like a billboard for its personal providers as a substitute of a clear workspace that belongs to you.
Moving the taskbar icons and Start menu to the middle threw off many years of muscle reminiscence. If you spent years instinctively clicking the bottom-left nook, you may must dig into the taskbar settings to maneuver it again. And the brand new Start menu took away a variety of the methods folks used to prepare their apps. Instead of arranging apps the way you need, you get a inflexible grid and a large “Recommended” part hogging prime actual property.
What makes it particularly annoying is how business it feels. That Recommended part is at all times displaying sponsored apps and pushing you towards Microsoft’s net providers.
It reads like promoting inside an working system you already paid for. Add the Widgets panel filled with MSN information you by no means requested for and a search bar that sends your native searches to Bing with adverts combined in, and the entire desktop appears like one lengthy gross sales pitch. Every time you open the Start menu to launch one thing easy, you are wading via promo noise first.
Mandatory updates hold breaking issues
You do not have a lot management over when patches hit your PC
When I used to be writing information about Windows, I used to be actually stunned by what number of points Windows 11 got here with. Updates have been pressured on you, and damaged ones turned utterly regular on Windows PCs. They present up as sudden restarts and damaged software program installs.
The downside is not that updates exist. We want safety patches and bug fixes. The actual problem is that Microsoft took the selection away from customers totally. You get no say on when updates occur or whether or not they’ll break one thing that was working tremendous.
Right now, Microsoft bundles safety patches, new options, and servicing stack updates all into one huge bundle. You cannot choose and select particular person patches. So if one buggy kernel change sneaks right into a multi-gigabyte replace, you are caught taking all of it or none of it.
You may pause updates for a number of weeks, however as soon as that window closes, Windows will not allow you to pause once more till it installs every little thing that is ready. It’s exhausting to work with an OS you do not totally belief, particularly when it retains pushing out broken updates prefer it has a quota to satisfy.
Not everybody ought to change to Mint
Switching to Linux Mint will not enchantment to everybody, and no person ought to faux it is identical to Windows. Some software program will not run natively, sure {hardware} wants further coaxing to work correctly, and for those who’re deep within the Microsoft ecosystem, switching will take a variety of time. But in case your PC cannot run Windows 11, Mint is a superb place to land.
- Operating system
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Linux Mint
- Ease of use
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Beginner-friendly
Linux Mint is a free, open-source OS for computer systems that’s an alternative choice to Windows and macOS.
