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Patch reliability is unclear. Unless you have an immediate, pressing need to install a specific patch, don't do it. |
.PATCH WATCH By Susan Bradley The famous old idiom “moving the deckchairs around on the Titanic” is sometimes applied to technology. Even though the sa
[See the full post at: Do we really want (or need) Windows 12?]
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
My self-build desktop from 2011 has never faltered, running Win 10 Pro now, I have no intention of tormenting it with Win 11. My 2020 self-build, running Win 10 Pro, is likewise running smoothly, I don’t need Win 11. I’ve recently purchased an SSD to run virtual machines, I’ll look at Linux and maybe get off this enforced Microsoft rollercoaster.
At this point they’re still trying to fix 11, so why not introduce a new version and try to get everyone to jump? It’s happened before (XP after ME, 7 after Vista, 8.1 after 8), no reason they wouldn’t try again.
I’m still happy with 10. It largely stays out of the way and lets me do my work without bugging me too much. Start menu is ok, taskbar works, apps work. Telemetry could be better but it is what it is. I have no desire to run 11 in its current state; I hate the Start menu and the changes to both the taskbar and the right click menu. All of the above needs to be fixed before I consider installing. I would imagine 12 will have none of those issues.
Good version, bad version, good version all over again. Typical MS.
I don’t use Windows (any version) the way Microsoft wants us to use Windows. I have my own concepts of how to improve efficiency and performance that I’ve been working on for more than two decades. I started using multiple partitions for file types/functions long before Microsoft came up with “Special Folders” and “Quick Access”. Those were a nuisance, so I got rid of them through the registry.
With Windows 8, I got rid of the folders, trashed the UI and installed StartIsBack. On every upgrade since, the first thing I do is run my reg files to rip out those aggravating folders, then re-install the latest version of StartIsBack.
I started running Windows 11 as soon as it was RTM. I ripped out the folders and installed StartAllBack (the StartIsBack upgrade for Windows 11). It quickly became my go to OS, and I recently decided that since I don’t use the Windows 10 side of my dual boot daily driver, and I had in the meantime upgraded my hardware, I upgraded that side to Windows 11, ripped out the folders, and installed StartAllBack.
I have no issues with Windows 11, I don’t pause any updates except for drivers, which I have barred using Group Policy. I keep reading the complaints about the Windows 11 UI, but that’s a 5 bucks fix (on a free OS) that takes care of the UI, Menu, Taskbar, the right-click context menu and File Explorer all in one lick. Will I install the next upgrade? Sure. In my experience, Windows 11 (after getting rid of the UI) is a minor upgrade for Windows 10.
Other than Windows 8 (which didn’t seem to do much of anything under the hood except for screw up the boot menu, which I also got rid of), each new version of Windows brings some incremental improvements in performance and efficiency.
Windows is a mature product. With any mature product, once it reaches its full market penetration, its owner must do something to further juice or even just sustain its market penetration. Hence, at minimum a packaging refresh (“New! Improved!” or other window dressing). Or a minimal tech refresh.
Sometimes a rewrite from scratch is warranted over maintenance of something that, with age, has become littered with patches and hacks, e.g., Print Spooler.
As long as MS fixes important stuff and doesn’t screw up the UI too badly, I’ll take a forced upgrade.
There will be plenty of fora, IT tech websites and tinkerers hoping for Windows 12 although wants and needs are two separate issues, distinguishing between the two is another issue by the beholder. Not for me, I simply don’t need it!
However should there be a Windows 13, the superstitious will be avoiding that like a plague of bit rot.
While I have not looked at it personally, I know people that have. There are comments and documentation. There is also 30 years of legacy products that Microsoft has to interact with.
On the one hand we complain that Microsoft should pull a page out of Apple and throw out all of the legacy code.
On the other hand we are still running Windows media Center. Windows Essential servers/Small Business Server code and various other platforms and want them to still be supported and still work.
We really can’t have both at the same time.
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
How well program source code is documented can vary greatly within and between commercial organizations. It can even vary between one source file to another within the same subsystem, depending upon the author. Writing source code documentation often gets a low business priority, given the crush to add new features and fix bugs. Occasionally you have to run the source code through a debugger to understand what the code is doing before trying a modification. Some developers go through the motions of doing source file documentation headers with their name there but minimal descriptions. Definitely irritating when they have long since left the company.
Windows 10 22H2 desktops & laptops on Dell, HP, ASUS; No servers, no domain.
Why use Windows and put up with all of its flaws if you don’t have the backing of a massive software library?
Apple did this 3 times and no software has been lost in the transition (Apple uses Rosetta emulator to run previous CPUs software).
The current macOS at a minimum can not run:
Classic Mac Motorola code
Classic Mac PowerPC code
Mac OS X PowerPC 32/64 code
Mac OS X Intel 32-bit code
macOS Intel 64-bit code is looking very nervous.
TotUE: Those examples are not of massive amounts, but of just some Mac software, with as much as three-decades old ones included, in which time a lot has changed in what kinds of things could be done with computers, regardless of manufacturer, and on how. For example Windows 3 becoming capable to address more than 640 KB of RAM, and also on the changes on how communications technology works, particularly in all that has to do with the Internet. There was a reason for many of us moving from Windows 98 to XP and then to 7 (as in my own case), etc. In which process some applications that run on the older operating systems were left by the wayside, such as, to a very large extent, DOS and the software that depended on it, and rightly so.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
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