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Generally Win10 does what I want, when I want, and it stays out of the way (but is updated frequently enough based on 120-day feature deferrals and 14-day quality update deferrals).

Every Win10 system I own is eligible for Win11 from a hardware perspective, including UEFI, SecureBoot, and even Bitlocker/TPM (since I can enable fTPM in each system’s BIOS). However, I don’t want Win11. Not as it is. I hate what they’ve done with the Start menu, mucking it up even worse than Win10’s is.

I did just recently buy a Macbook Air M1 laptop and I absolutely love it. Build quality and battery life are absolutely top-notch. And, MacOS also does what I want, when I want, and it also stays out of the way.

If they fix the Start menu, I may end up running Win11. If it were released tomorrow though, it would never hit any of my systems outside of a VM for farting around. If I ever reach a point where I cannot run Win10 anymore, from a security update perspective, I’ll start running the current (at the time) LTS of Ubuntu.

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Cybertooth

Given the time spent fixing vs. rebuilding, and nowadays a rebuild generally taking less time than a fix, I would have rebuilt as well.

However, (as a techie) before the rebuild, I would have used Disk2VHD to make a VHD of the disk so I could “play” with the old system to see if I could fix it, offline, in Hyper-V on a healthy host system. With the infection tied to a VHD and not an online mounted disk, the chance of cross-contamination is effectively 0%.

I bring up the “Apple tax” as a way to convey the higher price that Apple hardware costs. For instance, people will usually say “I can build or buy a Windows machine for x hundreds of dollars less than the cost of a Mac equivalent”, so people have called this the “Apple tax”.

The price gap has narrowed quite a bit over the last 5 or so years, and I’m hoping with Apple M1 CPU/GPU chips, that the price gap becomes even more narrow in the future since Apple will be putting their own hardware into their equipment, instead of Intel or IBM’s.

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dmt_3904

I recently bought a top-of-the-line Acer Swift 3 ultrabook for $899 and was happy with the specs and the build quality. Product came with Win10 and was ‘to spec’ for a free Win11 upgrade. But, because of where Win11 is going (and me not wanting to go there), I returned it today and bought a Macbook Air M1. “Hit em where it hurts” (although my money is a drop in the bucket to Microsoft….but hopefully others do the same).

MS has long lost its care for end-user customers. I’m happy to ride Win10 until the wheels fall off, but when the wheels fall off I won’t be replacing them with new MS tires. We have 4 years of software updates to decide where to go…but in my case, my systems will probably be converted to Ubuntu. If I have to buy new hardware anytime soon, I’ll pay the Apple tax – especially with the leaps and bounds being made with their M1 chips.

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Cybertooth

I, with you and b, am one of the few Win10 “happy users” on here.

Since 1703, I’ve been happy with 10. Currently, that has extended to include 20H2.

I’ve had feature and quality deferrals set to 120/14 days respectively since then and continue having a string of 0 issues.

However, after spending some time with Win11 in a VM, I have no desire to upgrade at any point to it. They have a lot or work to do – and they’ll probably do most of it – but it’s going to be hard for me to run it on bare metal. I generally hate what they’ve done with it. I can deal with Win10’s Start menu, despite it’s flaws; I cannot deal with 11’s. They took something that was marginally ok and somehow made it ineffective and worse. If/when I ever do upgrade to 11, OpenShell will be one of the must-install apps for me because there’s no way I’m dealing with more of their pinned apps and splitting All Apps off.

I’m sure things will improve with 11. But so far, I come away severely disappointed.

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Rick Corbett, Fred

I spent a little time with a VM of Win11 last night and came away very disappointed and pretty much throwing my hands up in the air as well. The Start Menu is worse than 10’s, which is funny because 10’s isn’t that great to begin with. They’re still not going to revert much control over updating; most of the GPO’s for updates that have come with 10 are still there, but going back to where we pick and choose updates – those days are long gone, my friends.

I’ve built 3 Ryzen systems in 2020, an R9 3900x which is my primary workstation, and 2 R5 3600 desktops for my daughters to game and work on. (These replaced aging i7 and i5 systems that were for all intents and purposes 6+ years old but otherwise worked fine.) All 3 systems are 11 capable, including the Ryzen CPU fTPM capability. That being said, I don’t want 11, not in its current state.

Starting with 1703, Win10 by and large got to a point of acceptability for me. It’s still there, with what I’m running currently, 20H2. It has its quirks, but for the most part, I accept them and move on about my business. It’s new enough to not be a re-tread of Windows past, but it’s not so far fetched either that it’s a completely new OS and I might as well throw my expertise and learning time into something else.

IMHO, that changes with 11, for me at least – again, based on my time with it in a VM so far. They have A LOT to change with 11 before I run it on bare metal. At this point I’m just as likely to dump 10 on all my boxes and completely switch over to Ubuntu.

I have no clue why people are ranting and raving about how great 11 is. I think it’s atrocious. Again, it has a long way to go before I run it on anything I do work on. IMHO they’ve further mucked up Settings, added a worse Start menu, removed a lot of customization (Start menu has to go at bottom now, no more top or sides?), all in an effort to Apple-fy the UI.

It looks great, but as far as I’m concerned, the beauty is only skin deep. As a SysAdmin by trade, it’s friggin’ ugly.

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Cee Arr, jburk07, jkwatson, PKCano, Graham, Coldheart9020, Microfix, Ascaris, Fred

All my Win10 Pro boxes have feature update deferrals set to 120 days and quality update deferrals set for 14 days…. have been this way for over a year, and I have yet to have a problem. Started on 1803, now on 1909 as my time expires here and there. Not a single issue in several years. Win10 runs like a top for me on everything from my monster workstation (R9 3900X / 5700XT / 64GB DDR4) to my weaker desktops (a variety of i5’s and Xeon W3’s).

No sight of it on any of my machines – 1909 Pro with Feature Update deferrals set to 120 days.

You can have my keyboard and mouse when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

A Raspberry Pi (even a $10 Pi Zero) is just as capable at ARM software development as an ARM-based Mac. Gee I wonder which one is more likely to pass the IT budget muster.

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Kranium, Ascaris, cyberSAR, Cybertooth, Microfix

I have no issues managing or supporting Windows & Office patches because I use deferrals. (120 days for feature updates, 14 days for quality updates.) I’ve been running this way as long as it has been possible, and I’ve had no issues with any Win10 patches. In the Win7 and Win8 days, I held off patching for 2 weeks. I haven’t installed a patch on patch day since the XP days.

At work we delay SCCM/WSUS patch rollout in a tiered schedule; non-prod gets patched after 4 weeks and prod is patched after 6 weeks. Again, no issues.

I’m curious why I’ve had posts mentioning him deleted with no explanation here, yet his articles (and him) keep being brought up. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Mr. Austin

I have several Ubuntu Server 18.04.4 LTS VM’s running in Hyper-V under Win10 Pro 1909.

I filed our taxes with Credit Karma this year, totally free, where other sites wanted me to “upgrade” to a priced tier due to some of the forms needed. No issues, already received both our refunds.

Heads up to those running 1903 with 120 day feature update deferrals…

You should be offered 1909 tomorrow 3/11, as it was released 11/12/19, 120 days ago as of tomorrow 3/11.

If you’re ok with this, do nothing.
If you want to keep 1903 for a bit longer, be sure to change your deferrals to a value greater than 120 days.

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Elly, Microfix, woody, PKCano

Pro will let you create an offline account in OOBE whether it’s connected to the internet or not.

Home forces you to have it offline in order to be able to create an offline account (and will otherwise force you to create a MS account).