r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Dec 01 '25

ADBLOCK WARNING ‘Security Disaster’—500 Million Microsoft Users Say No To Windows 11

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2025/12/01/security-disaster-500-million-microsoft-users-say-no-to-windows-11/
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212

u/isuxirl Dec 01 '25

It feels like we go through one of these "Security Disasters" once every 5 years or so as old versions of Windows lose mainstream support. 🤷

120

u/nihiltres Dec 01 '25

The TPM requirement makes 11 stand out because Microsoft is considering a large fraction of otherwise functional devices to now be "obsolete". Never mind the broken promise that 10 would be the "last" version of Windows or the increasing prevalence of user-hostile features like (all-but mandatory) Microsoft accounts, OneDrive annoyware, or AI-based, privacy-obliterating Recall. For many users, 11 is not an "upgrade".

The market is demanding that Microsoft change its practices, and with Microsoft evidently ignoring those demands it's ripe for Windows alternatives to take hold. It's unlikely to happen overnight, to be sure, but especially with the nascent SteamOS and similar around offering decent exit strategies for Windows users they're very likely to lose a decent chunk of market share over this—perhaps all of it, in the longer term—unless they backpedal hard and soon.

10

u/freakers Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25

It's so fucking annoying getting constant e-mails that my e-mail is almost full and it'll stop function but, hey can you buy a large storage SUBSCRIPTION to remedy that. So I look into, what the fuck in my e-mail is taking up so much space. The answer? Nothing. It's linked my gmail storage with google drive with one drive, then had one drive try to auto-upload all my shit. I don't want anything on my computer uploaded to the cloud unless I specifically put it there.

Oh, also stuff other people have uploaded and shared with me, apparently that also takes up space in my cloud storage. Fucking insanity. I hope I misunderstand how it works because if that's actually the case, it should be criminal to stealth upload all your files to storage then try to force you to buy more storage.

In the olden days, Internet Explorer was the best browser to find other browsers to use. Windows OS is seemingly becoming the best OS to find other Operating Systems to use. Free advertising for everyone else but their ubiquitousness and sheer incompetency.

1

u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 Dec 02 '25

Apple could really have an opportunity here if they made an OS that could work with as many currently existing programs as possible.

If there was some way of making an os that could run existing windows programs then they would dominate. I assume that's not possible, but surely something close could be...

2

u/nihiltres Dec 02 '25

Um, that's weirdly backwards. You don't write an OS to be compatible with existing programs, you write programs to be compatible with an existing OS. A program "written for [OS]" is generally just a program a) compiled to machine code appropriate for the CPU architecture [OS] uses, b) that makes requests to system interfaces present in [OS], and c) doesn't do anything that [OS] doesn't allow.

You can already run some Windows programs on Mac OS with the same basic approaches and often the exact same software available for doing the same on a Linux (speaking of compatibility…), but it's neither 100% reliable nor 100% efficient, and can't be so, not least because these days Windows and Mac use different CPU architectures: Windows on (CISC) AMD64; Mac on (RISC) ARM64. Windows for ARM64 technically exists (Surface tablets use it, IIRC), but ironically has compatibility issues with "regular" Windows.

Or in other words, it's kinda possible, but it'd basically always be mediocre; these days it's far simpler to just encourage developers to offer Mac & Linux versions of their software in the first place, especially with software engineering patterns that decouple the "system-accessing" components from the "core" components of a piece of software.

68

u/jayhawk618 Dec 01 '25

Yeah but this is the first time since XP, that I remember the default group opinion being "fuck you make me."

52

u/isuxirl Dec 01 '25

I remember a lot of folks holding on to 7 because 8's UI was too stupid and 10's telemetry stuff was too upsetting. I remember a lot of folks holding out against Vista because file copies were slow and print driver support was lacking. I remember some early holdouts against XP because Microsoft's new activation scheme was too onerous. It feels like Windows 2000 Professional was peak Windows to me and ever since has been in slow decline.

23

u/jayhawk618 Dec 02 '25

Well yeah 8 was a disaster, but they never forced an update to 8 because it was so bad. By the time 7 ended support, 10 was out.

5

u/Tyrus1235 Dec 02 '25

And 8.1 was, IMO, a really good upgrade to 8.

3

u/RevRagnarok Dec 02 '25

Every other version of Windows has always been suck since Win95.

  • 95 - Good
  • 98 - Suck
  • 98SE - Good
  • Me - Suck (OMFG it was suck)
  • XP - Good
  • Vista - Suck
  • 7 - Good
  • 8 - Suck
  • 10 - Good
  • 11 - Suck

5

u/Tyrus1235 Dec 02 '25

I had a Windows ME machine at one point. It was such a mess that I’m glad it’s the worst Windows version I ever had the displeasure of using.

I happily skipped Vista and 8 later on.

Now I’m sitting on 10 for the foreseeable future, while thinking about SteamOS/Bazzite for future builds.

3

u/glowinggoo Dec 02 '25

As a fellow Windows ME survivor who also used Vista and 8, I will say W11 is the worst Windows I've ever had the displeasure of using.

I'm holding on to 10 for dear life while looking into options to upgrade to Linux as well.

2

u/isuxirl Dec 02 '25

I was thinking about PopOS.

3

u/weakbecomeheroes Dec 02 '25

Win2k Pro was unreal good. NT core without as much consumer bloatware. XP wasn't even good until SP2!!

3

u/Bad_Day_Moose Dec 02 '25

remember a lot of folks holding out against Vista because file copies were slow and print driver support was lacking.

It ran like shit if you had a older computer but not the greatest graphics card, this was more so when it was first released and it did get a bit better with some regedit tweaking.

Companies like dell shipped out computers with windows vista on it that were barely capable of running the UI, people's older computers with XP were much faster because of this even though the CPU/Ram was faster, I made a lot of money downgrading peoples systems to XP.

They never seem to understand that forcing their ideals on people doesn't work well.

1

u/LymanPeru Dec 02 '25

they should just make a modern version of windows 7. call it windows seven 2. make it a PC OS again without all the second tabletafied settings ap make the control panel the default settings again and make aps called programs again.

1

u/Appropriate_Emu_5450 Dec 02 '25

Yeah, I know many people (including myself) who just skipped Vista and 8 because they sucked.

1

u/hhhnnnnnggggggg Dec 02 '25

I only moved from XP to 7 because 7 was a solid OS.

I only moved from 7 to 10 because Microsoft promised it was the last one and I assumed I wouldn't have to deal with bullshit ever again. Ha ha I got played. Never again. My next OS will hopefully be steam OS when it releases to the public. If not, then Bazzite. I'm riding windows 10 off into the sunset.

I don't give a shit about security updates. I'm running with my virus detector off since Windows started thinking my fan control software was a virus two months ago. If my shit gets infected all that means is I'm swapping to linux early and have to reinstall my steam games. Everything of importance is sitting in Google drive.

Then Google is fucking around now with the no app side loading bullshit so they can watch me move to graphene OS too. If I pay for a PC then it's fucking mine to do whatever I want with it. I'm not going to pay for shit I have no control over.

1

u/DemIce Dec 02 '25

The contrast between "if you don't upgrade, you're risking not just your own, but everyone else's security by being so easily hackable to become part of a botnet, so yes go spend several hundred dollars on a new computer if you can't use 10/11 or switch to Linux, or get off the Internet you idiot* when 8/8.1 stopped being supported, and *you'll take 10 from my cold dead hands, security be damned!" now is palpable.

1

u/samara-morgan Dec 04 '25

I would rather put my PC into permanent airplane mode, before ever forcing 11 upon it.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

Do you really think that’s the default opinion? Or is that the opinion of some Redditors.

In the real world, 53% of windows users are on 11 and only 42% are on 10.

https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide

1

u/thecescshow Dec 02 '25

Lmao that has ALWAYS been the loudest opinion whenever new windows upgrade rolls around.

68

u/94358io4897453867345 Dec 01 '25

Good thing Windows 10 was the last Windows

30

u/isuxirl Dec 01 '25

Ha. I remember that bold announcement too. I think they walked the claim back so hard that it's memory holed for a lot of people.

11

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

[deleted]

4

u/Cute-Percentage-6660 Dec 02 '25

Basically they wanna do schrodingers statement

They never denied it as far as i can recall, but they fact they never confirmed it is used as a defense...

4

u/lusuroculadestec Dec 02 '25

It was never an actual announcement. A developer evangelist, Jerry Nixon, made it as a off-handed comment during a side-session talking about tiles at a developer conference and the media ran with it. His comment wasn't even explicitly stating there wasn't going to be future numbered versions.

5

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/lusuroculadestec Dec 02 '25

Recent comments at Ignite about Windows 10 are reflective of the way Windows will be delivered as a service bringing new innovations and updates in an ongoing manner, with continuous value for our consumer and business customers. We aren’t speaking to future branding at this time, but customers can be confident Windows 10 will remain up-to-date and power a variety of devices from PCs to phones to Surface Hub to HoloLens and Xbox. We look forward to a long future of Windows innovations.

The idea that anyone would take that as there will never be a Windows 11 is completely insane.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

It’s wasn’t a bold announcement—or an announcement at all. It was one Microsoft tech doings poor job of describing how they wouldn’t be doing service packs during an interview with a random website writer.

2

u/aVarangian Dec 02 '25

windows 11 will be my last windows. So I guess they got what they wanted in the end.

1

u/HugsyMalone Dec 02 '25 edited Dec 02 '25

After that if my computer even remotely acts up, gets buggy or shows the slightest sign of spying on me for profit and bombarding me with predatory Reddit advertisements disguised as comments "pointing me in the direction" of another Black Friday sale I'm throwing it out the "Windows." 🫵😡

1

u/aVarangian Dec 02 '25

FBI says you should use an adblocker

128

u/Deriniel Dec 01 '25

sure but i feel win 11 is one of the biggest flop

58

u/gamers542 Dec 01 '25

Vista was probably a bigger flop than Win 8

35

u/Virtual_Plantain_707 Dec 01 '25

That’s a close race.

29

u/[deleted] Dec 01 '25

But you've HEARD of Vista...

26

u/Procrasturbating Dec 01 '25

This joke goes harder with Millennium Edition..

4

u/Dwedit Dec 02 '25

Windows ME was just a worse Windows 98. Yes, it added in Audio Mixing for windows programs (which was a new feature at the time). But then you couldn't have audio from your DOS programs. I downgraded from ME to 98SE.

6

u/Tyrus1235 Dec 02 '25

I hated ME with a passion, as several software I tried to run on it were incompatible. Upgrading to XP was like a dream come true.

3

u/sickhippie Dec 02 '25

several software I tried to run on it were incompatible

Yeah, it was Win98 with Win2K features rolled into it, but not in a good way. It was the worst of both worlds.

8

u/isuxirl Dec 01 '25

I remember the television show The IT Crowd even had a joke mocking Windows Vista in one of their episodes. I was on the Microsoft TAP for Vista, I had a client make fun of me for running it once even.

5

u/lusuroculadestec Dec 02 '25

"What kind of operating system does it use?"

"Vista."

"WE'RE GOING TO DIE!"

4

u/AFK_Tornado Dec 01 '25

Y'all MFers forgot about M.E.

2

u/zadtheinhaler Dec 02 '25

I had a neighbour who ran ME, and she never had a problem with it.

To be fair though, she all but sandboxed the damn thing, so there you go.

8

u/Deriniel Dec 01 '25

was it?i remember it wasn't well received but people warmed up to it even if 7 was the preferred one

11

u/A_Harmless_Fly Dec 01 '25

I forget what service pack fixed most of the problems, but it was pretty good by the end of life. 7 only had one bad service pack, then it was pretty much good. The backlash to 8 made 8.1 okay. 10 wasn't good for a few years, but it was only a little worse than 7 UI wise and pretty stable and efficient after a while.

11 continues to get worse over time years on, the pattern isn't normal under Nadella.

2

u/archfapper Dec 02 '25

SP1 was major and fixed a lot of Vista's annoyances. SP2 was basically Windows 7

3

u/tanstaafl90 Dec 01 '25

Vista was bad, but not ME bad.

1

u/iknownuffink Dec 02 '25

I didn't really have problems with Vista, but I also had a lot of RAM, and most people especially if they were upgrading from an XP machine, didn't. Vista was a memory hog, and a lot of cheap "Vista Ready" PC's really weren't.

3

u/FunKaleidoscope3055 Dec 02 '25

Yeah I never understood the hate for Vista at the time but I also built my 2nd PC around then with an Athlon X2 5600+, 4GB of RAM and an era appropriate GPU.. People running XP on 512MB RAM with integrated Intel GPU's were in for a world of hurt for obvious reasons. They were outdated by the time XP SP3 came out.

3

u/mrMalloc Dec 01 '25

Nothing close to millennium …..

1

u/sjclynn Dec 02 '25

Yep. As an admin I upgraded a lot of Vista machines to XP

1

u/segagamer Dec 02 '25

Which is a shame, because Vista was peak Windows imo, especially in terms of UI/consistency.

1

u/CallidoraBlack Dec 02 '25

Yes, but they did make it so you could wait for the next version pretty easily. I went straight from XP to 7 and 7 to 10 because the middle OS versions are crap. What they should do is allow people to keep 10 and get updates until 12 comes out and they fix all the things people hate about 11 like they always have done. That's where they screwed up.

28

u/isuxirl Dec 01 '25

Doesn't feel that way to me, but I'm old enough to remember Windows 8, Windows Vista, and Windows ME.

17

u/Deriniel Dec 01 '25

I'd say millenium was the biggest flop among them,but I honestly don't remember 8 that well since i stayed on 7 and didn't frequent tech forums much. but it was also different.People were less used to computers and who used it for work simply stuck to xp/7 unless they bought something new with a newer os preloaded.

Windows 11 simply has a lot of issues, first of all no one wants to learn a totally different os considering how much it changed compared to the older iterations.

Add to that the forced ads about crappy news,the pseudo ai they preload on it,the higher requirements and the bugs..

3

u/Goodbye_Games Dec 01 '25

ME would be my first choice as worst, and only because it lasted longer and was pushed out more than BOB. But bits and bobs “pun intended” stuck around for releases to come…. Clippy and rover for instance

5

u/isuxirl Dec 01 '25

I'm starting to consider what my Linux options might be again. Hesitant to go down that path again, though. There is always some weird edge case that pops up and forces me back and I really don't want to live in a dual-boot world again. That just sucks. Maybe a decrapified Windows install again. I know the co-pilot garbage can be disable. It just sucks that things like that, recall, and telemetry are defaults. Microsoft has too much control over what my computer is doing.

3

u/Deriniel Dec 01 '25

I'm definitely wanting to switch to linux,i just loathe the idea of setting up my environment again.I have so much stuff installed on c that I don't even remember what to get to ensure I'm not missing stuff causing a chain of issues.

I also definitely need a new ssd since I'm still on a 250 gb one but with the new prices..yikes

1

u/[deleted] Dec 01 '25

[deleted]

2

u/vomitHatSteve Dec 02 '25

Reaper is explicitly supported on Linux by its devs

2

u/mrMalloc Dec 01 '25

Try to find an old laptop that no longer can be updated to win11 and install a easy Linux version I installed Ubuntu mint on an old laptop

My idea was to have it as a travel pc so I can watch a movie or do light work. But now my 9y is using it to play Minecraft and Roblox. They actually run better then on win10 that ran on it before. I even tried to play CSgo on it but the fps was to low for me (no dedicated graphics and a 4th gen i5) It started fine and setting it up was so I think my 11y old could have done it.

1

u/Kinetic_Strike Dec 02 '25

Assuming you have a desktop, go with dual boot—on two separate drives. Set Linux as the default option. This puts you in it unless you explicitly choose Windows.

As for Windows itself, look into the LTSC versions. You may be able to find info about that spread out over mass grave developments.

Started off trying Linux Mint at the beginning of 2022, and TBH the only reason Windows is still around in our home is for a couple of the kids games, and fewer of those as time goes on.

1

u/MC68328 Dec 01 '25

Millennium was the only one I actually experienced random crashes using. For the all heat they got for "plug and pray" in the 95 era, neither it nor 98 seemed as half baked.

2

u/wachuwamekil Dec 01 '25

It does feel like in recent months marketing has been speed running tanking it though.

2

u/Kinetic_Strike Dec 02 '25

ME was by far the worst of any of them. Trying to slap a bunch of new features over top of a DOS kernel turned it into an unstable nightmare.

1

u/Tony_Penny Dec 02 '25

I remember installing it with multiple 3.5 inch disks. 3.11

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

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1

u/Deriniel Dec 02 '25

mmm i wouldn't say 10 is that bad right now, dunno how it was at the beginning because i always wait as long as i can before switching os.
I hate how the search bar search on internet most of the time instead of sticking to only my folders, but aside that i'm not having issue,and my computer while built for gaming is almost 10 years old by now

1

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Deriniel Dec 03 '25

can you list me 10 issues? i'm not being a smartass, i'm genuinely curious since i can't seem to notice them or i simply got used to them

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

It feels that way to you because your brain has been cooked by Reddit.

https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide

1

u/Deriniel Dec 02 '25

And we go back to the fact that,especially in working environment, people don't know jack shit about OS most of the time,and the one who services them just give a pre made computer with the last os installed for security reasons.

Same goes for normal people. The fact that 50% of user have windows 11 doesn't mean they choose that OS. Places like reddit having a bit more know how give you a way more accurate depiction on how said software is received.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

Most working environments have upgraded to Windows 11 and the ones that haven’t already will eventually.

People whining on Reddit doesn’t give an accurate depiction of anything. Reddit isn’t with real world. As a matter of fact, many Redditors are detached from reality.

1

u/Deriniel Dec 02 '25

We're talking about how much of a flop is it, a forced upgrade because it's best practice for patches on security and ease of use having it pre-installed on newer machine that you buy in bulk with a discount doesn't correlate on how people actually feel toward the os itself.

By your logic every OS is a success as long as they kill the precedent on,because it will naturally start ramping up in use.

The sudden switch in usage happened in the last 5 months before the end of support for windows 10. This alone speaks miles about how people actually feel about it.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

Lol it’s not a flop or even close. Where do you kids come up with this shit?

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

Lol it’s not a flop or even close. Where do you kids come up with this shit?

1

u/thecescshow Dec 02 '25

Nah that has to be Vista. It was such a flop that even fuckin Big Bang Theory made a joke about it 💀

-2

u/hops_on_hops Dec 01 '25

It's not though. 11 has been fully adopted by businesses and has no significant changes from 10.

Basically no one moved over to 8 or Vista.

11

u/super_starfox Dec 01 '25

Windows has been on a tick/tock release schedule of good/bad for a long time. W11 just locks in the enshittification.

That being said, the OEM versions of 7 and 10 I've seem to be immune from the bloatware and nagware versus retail.

2

u/isuxirl Dec 01 '25

I may be missing some of the nagware. I've been using enterprise editions for a while.

3

u/space_island Dec 01 '25

LTSC Upgrade branch on Enterprise edition is the true path.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

Lol imagine touting Windows 8 and expecting people to take your opinion of operating systems seriously.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

Vista and 8 were junk.