Unfortunately that is the world we live in though. Same with everything now. Apps on the iPad update on their own, heck it’s likely your kettle or fridge is updating itself as we speak.
In terms of the policies, whilst I set everything to off in windows settings, I then use other things to do certain functionality like openshell to get rid of start, and geekunistall to removes windows “features”. It isn’t great I admit, and would love a cut down version of windows that has none of the bloat which comes with it, like all the apps, edge, IE, but that’s not going to happen. And really can’t be bothered to put all the effort into Linux (and max isn’t even on the list).
Perhaps win 11 will come in and be as bad as everyone seems to think win 10 is, then maybe I would move, or more likely just revert to an offline win 7/10 setup and use a rubbish laptop to connect to internet.

I've been using many operating systems in my life. Some had good user interfaces, some had bad user interfaces. Occasionally a system had a really bad user interface. But GNOME 3 is the only GUI that I can call evil.
And yes Canonical is MS of Linux. you can't even choose which snaps to update - it's either all or nothing.

Currently, for the insiders build. Since W11 won't be released to the general public until Fall 2021, I'd call the (final) 'requirements' unclear (and TPM 2.0 highly unlikely to remain, for many reasons).

Update:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-11-upgrades-are-free-here-are-the-system-requirements I'm sure that TPM 2.0 is only a requirement if you're planning on selling systems with W11 preinstalled.

Why pay for either Pro or Enterprise when they're the Discovery and Star Trek: Picard of Windows when instead you could get yourself a Galaxy or Constitution class starship in the form of actual freedom, libre from the control of an overseeing system?


You know where this spiel goes, so I'll just wink and let you fill in the blanks. ;)

Interesting. Please, tell me more.

After nearly bricking my machine updating UEFI today (there's a reason I never trusted flashing any previous system in the past), it's been conclusively determined that my machine doesn't support TPM 2.0 therefore will not run Windows 11. Simple decision, with a side of mini strokes.

I think people are lowering their expectations a little too low than is healthy. What's best for consumption based devices (phones & tablets) isn't necessarily best for production based environments (desktop PC's). I definitely do not own a smart kettle or fridge, just normal ones that cool food and boil water without the over-engineering. Aside from the Linux you don't like mentioned, Enterprise LTSC also doesn't force that "you must update for the sake of updating" philosophy and MS are mostly being d*cks to consumers about refusing a legal option for that. I've used that at work, and it's everything W10 should have been as a straight W7 replacement (long term stable UI design, bloat free, lowest telemetry & memory usage, no Cortana, etc) with the option of adding more for those who want it, but isn't for consumers out of control freakism. Have a +1 for using OpenShell, but that seems to be another thing that's just been partially broken thanks to W11's UI redesign so users will have to find a replacement for that too just to get a functional Start Menu back.

Edit: To clarify for those using Open Shell / Classic Shell, it no longer replaces the Start Icon. If you keep it centered it will appear on the left and work but then it looks a mess with 2x Start Buttons. If you move the Start bar back to being left-aligned, Open Shell will overlay it without replacing it, so you won't be able to right-click on one of them.

I have actually been dual-booting with Mint for the past year and if it weren't for gaming in general I'd have switched ages ago. It's been a learning curve, and requires "more work" than W7 for games, but it's also more of a viable "backup plan" if it came to it then I would have guessed 5-10 years ago. :-)

I like the UI compared to 10, I'm fine for now with 7 still though.

My thoughts so far.

MS account requirement for Home versions - really sucks, fortunately does not affect me personally (yet?) since I'm on Pro. Still, unfortunate trend continues - Win 7 Home did allow much more freedom compared to 10 and 11.

News and Interests require MS account - no problem, one thing that I disable comes disabled out of the box.

Start menu - remains to be seen in practise but right now I would say it's a downgrade. Particularly I'm upset at apparently there being no option for custom categories (that's one thing I actually liked about tiles).

Task bar - I see no option for "classic", ungrouped windows list with labels. Bad.

DirectStorage - good, but that was confirmed as "coming to Windows" long ago, so we will see if it still comes to Windows 10 as well.

MS Store - whatever, I still won't be using it, but I wonder if you still will be able to download free apps without MS Account.

Customisable workspaces - very good, but we are yet to see how far it can go. Still, customisable backgrounds is still more than GNOME and it's derivatives offer :-P.

Faster updates in the background - depends on implementation. It may also imply that update options are even more limited.

Free upgrade - good to have an option.

Agree with the "yet". The problem is when it comes to adding unpopular stuff, MS have long wisened up to "incrementalism", ie, doing only a little bit at first to "test the waters" then slowly add more at a later date. Same cr*p we saw from game companies for which "but it's only cosmetic" micro-transactions were merely the start not the end. I can easily see MS account + online only = "Home only (W11 2021)", ending up "All consumer versions (W11 2025)" same way there's zero difference between them (now) for Telemetry, or how Pro users had the ability to remove stuff nerfed down to Home level.

Ugh, they haven't removed that too have they? So it'll double the number of clicks if you have to regularly swap between multiple instances of the same application? Sounds like they fired all their competent UX designers and all they have left are Mac owning "artists"...

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/06/microsoft-details-windows-11-with-new-ui-and-android-app-support/

I would, but my pc is too old if they hang onto the TPM-chip, UEFI

If you're using a desktop PC, you can buy an exterior TPM chip. If you have a port for it on your motherboard that is.

Windows 10 is trash and no doubt MIcrosoft will continue in the direction they're heading with 11 (desperately trying to imitate smartphones with ads, tracking, taking more control of the PC, and an online store full of trash).

I think I'll only buy games that offer windows/Linux support in the future, this will make it easier to go exclusively Linux in the future.

hell no, if i wanna have a tablet UI i would have bought a tablet.