alt Hacker NewsI did a clean install of Windows 11 when Windows 10 went EOL. From all of the complaints I was hearing from headlines I expected a disastrous experience.
But to be honest, it’s been fine. I’m not a heavy user but I switch to the Windows PC at least once a day for a few hours of CAD, gaming, and one other engineering program that is Windows only.
I don’t click any of the AI buttons. I declined the OneDrive or backup sync or whatever it was and it’s gone. I don’t use the built-in email client or the other features this article complains about and I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.
The centered start menu isn’t my favorite, but it’s not like it’s unusable. I didn’t find it difficult to adjust the interface and hide things I didn’t like in the first few minutes.
On the other hand, my experience with the latest macOS and iOS 26 has been incredibly frustrating. I’m almost to the point where my basic apps have worked around new macOS bugs. My iOS phone is stuttering and laggy for unclear reasons and searches show I’m not alone. I didn’t expect my Windows 11 PC, of all things, to be the smooth sailing computing experience in my house but so far that’s how it’s looking going into 2026.
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Give it a few undocumented updates that change your settings in the background, and come back to give us an update. Even my Win10 extended support is getting CoPilot shoved down the pipeline silently.
Is it Win11 Pro? I'm wondering if it's different than Win11 Home.
A friend of mine got a new PC as a present and it had Win11 on it. Found out it was Win11 Pro. I turned it on without it connected to my router, used the Shift+F10 trick to bypass OOBE and setup a local account, and ran a debloat script, and things seemed OK. The debloat script had removal commands for a lot of default apps and I think only the Xbox ones were on there. I believe Recall is not active. It has 16GB of RAM, 6 cores/12 threads, and Win11 didn't seem sluggish. I used a .reg file to disable the new context menu.
It was an upgrade from her old Surface Go 2 which came with Win10 on it, had only 8GB of RAM and was super sluggish after upgrading to 11 even after debloating. But this was Win11 Home since the original Win10 was Home edition too.
I keep hearing things like it's not possible to disable stuff in Win11 Home and I'm sure Win11 Home has more default apps and stuff enabled. I don't keep up with it. This is the only Win11 system here and other than my worklife I'm all Linux.
When I first installed Windows 11 about 2 years ago, I had a similar experience. One of the things I noticed quickly was that much of the preinstalled crap that comes with Windows 10 can be easily uninstalled from the Settings menu or Control Panel, no PowerShell tricks required. It felt like Windows 11 was actually less bloated than Windows 10 at the time.
But, going through the same process now I notice a lot more of the cracks. Windows 11 nags a lot more, whether it's about OneDrive or Copilot or whatever new thing Microsoft is trying to push. My same Windows 11 install from 2 years ago kept reinstalling and re-enabling the same crap I originally got rid of, and I feel like it's only getting worse.
In short I think Windows 11 was actually really good when it first launched, minus the UI quirks at the time. But, in classic Microsoft fashion, it was totally ruined and has woefully lost my trust as something I can depend on for even just basic computing.
It would be interesting to see you compare notes with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46446021. You both seem to have similar uses for windows, but totally opposite experiences.
After long-term usage, my environment on MacOS (laptop issues mainly!!!) stutters and becomes less-usable. Perhaps Windows, or Linux, or JUST NO COMPUTER WHATSOEVER would be better?
MacOS is less for power users. On my Mac (macbook pro with Notch) I can no longer see menu-bar apps, since I have 11 icons up there which are not from Apple. The 12th / 13th are simply inaccessible. Added Tailscale this week .. Annnnnd it is not visible...sigh. Looking into purchasing "notch optimizer" apps, but am disgusted every time I restart searching for the right tool.
MacBook Pro is less for power users. The miniscule builtin RAM "because we use RAM so much more efficiently" is causing my machine to chug. I continue to feel pain, then search + find, and pound-down apps that use more RAM than I need at this moment.
It's like being a computer user in 1988. And I wish it were more like 2025. AAPL is ridiculously successful .. maximizing profits.
> I’m not a heavy user but I switch to the Windows PC at least once a day for a few hours of CAD, gaming, and one other engineering program that is Windows only.
Well yeah, maybe lead with that.
It seems like you don't actually need windows other than being a launcher for some very specific apps.
It’s been fine? Are you completely immune to attention grabbing features? I absolutely cannot use win11 as it comes on a stock lenovo. Maybe you got your hands on some corporate version with some of the standard settings off? But between the news feed and the advertising in the start menu I find stock installs to he maddening, and I loath needing to boot my win11 partition.