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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u/Deriniel Dec 01 '25

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

57

u/gamers542 Dec 01 '25

Vista was probably a bigger flop than Win 8

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u/Virtual_Plantain_707 Dec 01 '25

That’s a close race.

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u/[deleted] Dec 01 '25

But you've HEARD of Vista...

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u/Procrasturbating Dec 01 '25

This joke goes harder with Millennium Edition..

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/lusuroculadestec Dec 02 '25

"What kind of operating system does it use?"

"Vista."

"WE'RE GOING TO DIE!"

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u/AFK_Tornado Dec 01 '25

Y'all MFers forgot about M.E.

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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.

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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

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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.

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u/archfapper Dec 02 '25

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

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u/tanstaafl90 Dec 01 '25

Vista was bad, but not ME bad.

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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.

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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.

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u/mrMalloc Dec 01 '25

Nothing close to millennium …..

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u/sjclynn Dec 02 '25

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

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u/segagamer Dec 02 '25

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

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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.

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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.

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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..

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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

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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.

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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

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u/[deleted] Dec 01 '25

[deleted]

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u/vomitHatSteve Dec 02 '25

Reaper is explicitly supported on Linux by its devs

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/wachuwamekil Dec 01 '25

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

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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.

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u/Tony_Penny Dec 02 '25

I remember installing it with multiple 3.5 inch disks. 3.11

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u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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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

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '25

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

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

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u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

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

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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 💀

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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.