It makes me wonder: why does Microsoft take this risk now? Switching to Linux was so much more painful 20 years ago. Switching to Mac is probably easier than ever. So why, instead of encouraging their users to stay, they do everything to alienate them? Of course, the majority will stay because of inertia, especially in the enterprise. But it paints a bleak future for Windows.
With Windows 10 Home forced upgrades I saw again something that I haven't seen since Windows 95: a growing feeling among users that their OS, which just supposed to work, is overtly hostile to them. You can hold it just a bit and then it will reboot against your will and you just hope all your work, settings and so on was saved. Your OS is getting in your way, it prevents your work being done, just like Windows 95 did with constant crashing. Once these things have piled up, users seriously start looking for an alternative. My parents, for example, switched to iPad Pros and haven't regretted it. This might not be possible now for all users yet, but we're getting there, and Microsoft seems to be as blind to this aspect as in the 90s.
Does the user have any control of the operating system on an iPad? Why should Windows hardware be any different? You are making a contradictory argument.
What has happened is that the computer has changed, it is no longer the big old tower but mobile phones, tablets and laptops. And the laptop and tablet space is already merging as laptops that has a touch display or a tablet with a keyboard.
Where the tower could be upgraded part by part including the operating system, the new type of computer doesn’t. The consumer usually buys a new one within a few years. This is where Windows 11 fits in.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you rent your computer in the future, you already have phones, which is a computer, with carrier subscription. This will of course also reduce user control even more. Combined that with the cloud computing and your computer is more of a client on a corporate controlled network.
My point is that if users feel their OS is more and more hostile, they will slowly start migrating away. Going towards Apple is a disaster from the point of view of open systems. Nevertheless, this is where people will mostly go. Only power users can allow themselves to migrate to open systems like Linux, BSD and more exotic ones.
Sure, but your comment didn't make much sense if switching to an iPad was an improvement in regards to hostility, logically that would mean that Windows should behave just like an iPad, i.e. no control.
What Windows "suffers" from is that it is still in a transitive state going from an open platform (open in the sense the user decides what to run & install) to a closed platform (the iPad).
Traditional desktop users expect an open platform and thus gets annoyed over forced updates, stores and similar things, but those things is considered normal on closed platform.
The thing is that the traditional desktop user is vanishing, as your parents are an examples of. The "market" wants a closed system, thus Windows is adapting. Eventually Windows will have completely moved to a closed platform and will be used and viewed as iPad or similar (the Xbox is already such a device) and the annoyances will no longer be annoyances.
Yes, the traditional PC user will be migrating to Linux & BSD, but they will be such a small number globally it will be a rounding error, and eventually it will be harder & harder to stay on those platform when the hardware industry is entirely serving the closed platforms.
> Yes, the traditional PC user will be migrating to Linux & BSD, but they will be such a small number globally it will be a rounding error, and eventually it will be harder & harder to stay on those platform when the hardware industry is entirely serving the closed platforms.
I think there is some hope as the example of Valve shows.
I wouldn't say Windows is getting in my way any more than KDE, or MacOS (I own an Apple laptop, a Windows laptop, and a Win/Linux PC).
It's just not what I want or need in an OS any more. I develop on and for Linux.
I don't expect my friends to switch from Windows because they're not that techie.
But consider that in 2001 you'd go to a download page and the option would be "Windows only", and in 2021, you can go to a download page and it can now be "Mac only" or no Windows option at all.
> Apparently everyone is going to switch since Windows XP.
Haha. Yes, next year of the Linux desktop. Like 'free beer tomorrow' outside your favourite bar.
In my other comment, I believe that developers are gradually moving to other platforms. I don't expect Windows to go away, because it's a massive platform and therefore you can make money writing code for it, but I do see it becoming less and less relevant.
Developers will go to and target where the users are. Despite the archaic coupling apple puts in place between MacOS versions and Xcode, developers still buy new macs every few years to target iOS because that's where the money and the users are.
With Windows 10 Home forced upgrades I saw again something that I haven't seen since Windows 95: a growing feeling among users that their OS, which just supposed to work, is overtly hostile to them. You can hold it just a bit and then it will reboot against your will and you just hope all your work, settings and so on was saved. Your OS is getting in your way, it prevents your work being done, just like Windows 95 did with constant crashing. Once these things have piled up, users seriously start looking for an alternative. My parents, for example, switched to iPad Pros and haven't regretted it. This might not be possible now for all users yet, but we're getting there, and Microsoft seems to be as blind to this aspect as in the 90s.