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Reinstalling Windows 11 change my vision of how shit it really is

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
I updated Windows 11 directly from Windows 10, which felt pretty good. It looked alot like my Windows 10, and have used it for many months.

However, I encountered a problem that forced me to reinstall Windows 11, and thats where all hell began.

I am using my documents folder alot for programs as well as some games require it, and my programs started acting like "hey, you dont have these files here". I was lost, until I found out that OneDrive wanted to be my standard documents folder without my consent. So I uninstalled OneDrive.

That didn't help, so I searched the web, found out you should have unlinked before uninstalling the software. So I reinstalled it, but now the option to unlink was gone.

I uninstalled it again, and dived into the regedit to remove OneDrive and set up my local folder, which caused an insane amount of errors so I just said fuck it, reinstall Windows 11, turn OneDrive off right away, and then good to go.

Well, it kinda works now, but I fucking hate what it has done.

BECAUSE I have removed OneDrive, I am no longer to see the standard file explorer anymore, as it doesnt show shit.

shit1.jpg

It shows my documents, has shown my pictures etc (which I removed), and while it shows my drives, it DOESNT show how much space theres left, I have to go into MY PC to see my harddisk space.

shit2.jpg


Before I unlinked OneDrive I could BOTH see my pinned folders AND the drives like the picture below, but now when I have unlinked OneDrive then this feature is gone, like its exlusive to people who use OneDrive and punish people who doesnt.

To make matters worse, I am installing stuff ony my PC atm, which Windows Security triggers as malware. Tried to install it, Security didnt allow me, and credited by deleting the fucking file.

I couldnt figure out how to disable Security as Microsoft gets a stiffer by disallowing people to use their own brain, so I figured fuck it lets install kaspersky so I can set it as my preferred anti virus so I can deactivate like my previous install.

Nope, now Security is happy having a best buddy because that fucker just loves to be the MC in the anti virus story.

I have used Windows my entire life. How tf should some old degenerate be able to use Windows when someone who has spent years using it cant! Everything is fucking hidden into everything so braindead people cant find it and fuck it up.

I dont want to have my hand held, I want to fucking do what I want.

hades-i-own-you.gif


This is probably not gaming related, because I doubt Microsoft will let me play anything. But I am fucking pissed so this probably turned out like a cringy blogpost.
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
You are using Windows 11, so...

Fail Empire Strikes Back GIF by Star Wars


But yeah I fully agree with you, never made the update to 11 and I'll stick to 10 as long as I can.
Well, worse thing was, when I did a direct upgrade, my Windows 11 looked exactly like 10, just upgraded, faster with a new UI.

After reinstalling, its like every good thing about Windows 11 was because I kept my settings from Windows 10, which was not what I expected.
 
until I found out that OneDrive wanted to be my standard documents folder without my consent

This isn't true. You may not have noticed the prompt that it would sync your desktop/documents/pictures folders to OneDrive, but the prompt is there. Most likely you just clicked next. Once that happens then yeah, those folders are no longer local and behind the scenes are managed by OneDrive.
 
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nkarafo

Member
Was there an actual reason for why you installed 11 in the first place? Was there something you really needed that was compatible with 11 and not 10?

If you just installed 11 because you want the next new thing, you deserve what you get, sorry.

If you have a working system that does the job for you there is no reason to change it, unless you are forced. I was forced to upgrade from 7 to 10 because more and more things wouldn't' work in 7. But when i finally upgraded, 10 was mature enough and most of it's issues were fixed so the transition was smoother. Not to mention i completely avoided Windows 8 this way.

I also never upgraded from XP to Vista. I held long enough after 7 were released and matured enough. By just holding to the good, working versions of Windows, i avoided a lot of frustrations and wasted time.

Moral of the story, avoid new thing. Wait long enough until new thing becomes the standard.
 
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Drew1440

Member
It won't show you the space consumed because you have pinned the drives as shortcuts. You are better off pinning 'This PC' to the sidebar so you can quickly access it, which will show you the disc capacity.

As for Windows Defender, it's the same as Windows 10 and can be configured from the security section of the settings panel.
 
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Larogue

Member
I always uninstall OneDrive, but it always manage to come back somehow (for example when installing Microsoft Office).

I hate Windows 11 with passion.

They fucked up everything Windows 10 tried to fix from Windows 8 shitshow and then some more.
 
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nkarafo

Member
Also, you shouldn't have to disable security for things to be allowed. You can open the virus chest settings and see all the affected files there and allow/restore them manually.
 

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
It won't show you the space consumed because you have pinned the drives as shortcuts. You are better off pinning 'This PC' to the sidebar so you can quickly access it, which will show you the disc capacity.

As for Windows Defender, it's the same as Windows 10 and can be configured from the security section of the settings panel.
But when I installed Windows 11 and before I removed OneDrive, it showed both my pinned and my drives capacity. I am 99% sure of this.

What I did, was that I found out you cant pin "This PC" to the bottom bar, but if you create a shortcut, and link to "This PC", and change the icon to the same as on This PC, you can drag the shortcut to the bottom bar.

Yeah, I have to make a shortcut to do that.
 

Puscifer

Gold Member
I have a solution but I have a feeling it'll bring the wrong crowd. But all I have to really say is that if you aren't afraid of learning and can stick with it Linux, especially a distro like Mint or Pop_OS which are debian based, are easy Windows replacements and have tons of options if you're willing to use alternatives.

I've been using Pop OS for just under a year now with my 5600X and 3070ti and minus the unlearning of Windows I haven't had too many major problems.
 
what does 11 provide that 10 doesn’t have ?
Proper management of the desktop on multiple monitors. This is especially important when using a laptop with external displays.

Win10 ... once a display is disconnected, folders, icons etc on the desktop are moved to the functional display. When you reconnect the external/other display, those folder/icons are not moved back.

Win11 ... restores the positions when a display is reconnected. Maybe a small thing to most, but for me it's a big improvement.
 

Golgo 13

The Man With The Golden Dong
My question is, was Windows 10 this disastrously bad 2 years after release? I wasn’t paying attention at the time but I don’t believe it was - people were using Windows 10 without too much complaint around this time.
 

Goalus

Member
I updated Windows 11 directly from Windows 10, which felt pretty good. It looked alot like my Windows 10, and have used it for many months.

However, I encountered a problem that forced me to reinstall Windows 11, and thats where all hell began.

I am using my documents folder alot for programs as well as some games require it, and my programs started acting like "hey, you dont have these files here". I was lost, until I found out that OneDrive wanted to be my standard documents folder without my consent. So I uninstalled OneDrive.

That didn't help, so I searched the web, found out you should have unlinked before uninstalling the software. So I reinstalled it, but now the option to unlink was gone.

I uninstalled it again, and dived into the regedit to remove OneDrive and set up my local folder, which caused an insane amount of errors so I just said fuck it, reinstall Windows 11, turn OneDrive off right away, and then good to go.

Well, it kinda works now, but I fucking hate what it has done.

BECAUSE I have removed OneDrive, I am no longer to see the standard file explorer anymore, as it doesnt show shit.

shit1.jpg

It shows my documents, has shown my pictures etc (which I removed), and while it shows my drives, it DOESNT show how much space theres left, I have to go into MY PC to see my harddisk space.

shit2.jpg


Before I unlinked OneDrive I could BOTH see my pinned folders AND the drives like the picture below, but now when I have unlinked OneDrive then this feature is gone, like its exlusive to people who use OneDrive and punish people who doesnt.

To make matters worse, I am installing stuff ony my PC atm, which Windows Security triggers as malware. Tried to install it, Security didnt allow me, and credited by deleting the fucking file.

I couldnt figure out how to disable Security as Microsoft gets a stiffer by disallowing people to use their own brain, so I figured fuck it lets install kaspersky so I can set it as my preferred anti virus so I can deactivate like my previous install.

Nope, now Security is happy having a best buddy because that fucker just loves to be the MC in the anti virus story.

I have used Windows my entire life. How tf should some old degenerate be able to use Windows when someone who has spent years using it cant! Everything is fucking hidden into everything so braindead people cant find it and fuck it up.

I dont want to have my hand held, I want to fucking do what I want.

hades-i-own-you.gif


This is probably not gaming related, because I doubt Microsoft will let me play anything. But I am fucking pissed so this probably turned out like a cringy blogpost.
Sounds like the experience I had using an iOS device.
 

nkarafo

Member
My question is, was Windows 10 this disastrously bad 2 years after release? I wasn’t paying attention at the time but I don’t believe it was - people were using Windows 10 without too much complaint around this time.
That's probably because Windows 10 were released after the disastrous Windows 8 so all they needed was to not be as bad. People didn't complain as much for 7 either, after the standards nosedived with Vista. I assume the same happened with XP after Millennium.

Windows 11 belongs to the same "series" as Millennium, Vista and 8. So i'll wait for 12.
 

Venuspower

Member
I also had to uninstall Windows 11 a few days ago. There was a bug with one of the last updates, which caused some programs to take forever to start. I was absolutely thrilled with the whole process, though. I did not format the computer, I only did the "small reinstallation".

After not even 2 hours I had my PC completely set up again. All drivers installed, all important programs installed, mail account set up etc.. The coolest feature of all is that you do not need a USB stick with Windows on it, but that Windows pulls the necessary files directly from the cloud. This has simply saved a lot of time forever. Then there is the fact that all important drivers are now simply integrated into Windows. I only had to install the graphics card driver, chipset driver and my printer driver.

It was already similarly good under Windows 10 with the drivers, but it is still simply fantastic. Then all personalizations (background image, color, etc.) were simply applied. So I was spared having to set all the small stuff again. I also found it really nice that I did not have to manually adjust the folder paths of the documents, music, videos and pictures folders. To explain, the folders with the files are on a different drive for me, so I just manually put the default shortcuts on those folders. In the past, you had to adjust this again after each installation. Here Windows 11 has obviously remembered that. Even during the last Windows 10 reset, I still had to do the kack. So again an improvement of Windows 11 compared to Windows 10.

When I think back to the good old days with Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, a new installation was simply a process where you were busy for the whole weekend. Mainly because the Windows ISOs did not contain the latest updates at that time.... let alone all the drivers. After the actual installation, you had to do updates for hours. Under Windows XP, Vista and 7, there were sometimes over 200 updates that had to be made. Was not it with XP even so that you first had to make updates, then only the first service pack could install, then the next updates, then the next service pack, etc.? That was all pure horror back then. It was especially funny when the LAN driver was not included by default and you forgot to download it beforehand. If you missed that, you first had to beg other people if you could download the driver (at least if you had not access to another computer). Crazy times.
 
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They fucked up everything Windows 10 tried to fix from Windows 8 shitshow and then some more.
This, Windows was getting somewhere in usability and UI rhythm. It wasn't the best, but it had it's usability perks that were improved from Windows 7 or when Windows 10 first launched.

And instead of respecting that and improving upon it, they fucked it all up because they decided in a flash decision that they didn't want to keep the Windows 10 moniker and needed to make it different.

Windows isn't an OS meant for tablets/touch. They wanted to be on tablets as well as have robust default icon sizes so it looks better on fhd and beyond 13.3" laptops, despite the fact that large icons were already default before. Windows 10 had a tablet mode, just saying and all of the other issues were customizable. Taking the customization away doesn't improve the experience whatsoever.
Real HDR support
Direct Storage
Windows 10 supports Direct Storage.

And there's is nothing other than good old product differentiation keeping Microsoft from implementing the other feature.

Kernelwise, Windows 11 is still Windows 10, there wasn't something like a generational leap of any kind. They don't even have a real roadmap for OS development here, instead at some point they'll cut off Windows 10 from kernel fixes and only move Windows 11 along making Windows 10 ancient in due time. The issue is that they fucked the UI up so much, and took so many options out (to enforce windows accounts, sell you services and make one drive more central) which, for a paid OS is both blasphemy and a downgrade.
 
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Reizo Ryuu

Member
Win10 ... once a display is disconnected, folders, icons etc on the desktop are moved to the functional display. When you reconnect the external/other display, those folder/icons are not moved back.
That's not true, win10 restores the desktop layout just fine, it just doesn't restore the window positions (my tv crashes every now again so I see this happen in real time plenty)
 
That's probably because Windows 10 were released after the disastrous Windows 8 so all they needed was to not be as bad. People didn't complain as much for 7 either, after the standards nosedived with Vista. I assume the same happened with XP after Millennium.

Windows 11 belongs to the same "series" as Millennium, Vista and 8. So i'll wait for 12.
It's every bit as much of a tablet before everthing else fuckup as Windows 8. Along with a Vista "lets copy whatever we feel is needed to be cool, modern and different than what we did before" like having centered pop-up menu and rounded corners.

I'd wager Windows 8 was an ineffective update that also messed with the start menu as if they didn't understand their UI strenghts, but at least I felt like the people doing it had their heart semi-right. They kinda fixed it a bit with Windows 8.1 and then did Windows 10 which spent years improving stuff. I don't think they'll fix anything this time, the UI feels lazy and mostly final, and it doesn't make sense to spend years to get somewhere with Windows 10 and then throwing it all away, if not for some corporative decision to make it different otherwise people will say it's the same product. Reminds of the Ribbon interface bullshit.

Then, as I already said; despite windows being paid software in the first place (and something they already did wrong with Windows 10, when Pro versions of it tried installing Candy Crush ffs), lets roll out a lot of stuff that is basically Windows as a monthly paid service, and take features that enabled users to do it easily, locally without those. Claim security to do these changes whenever needed, even if in reality some of these reduce security, both for the data integrity itself and user.

Windows is expensive these days, considering what it does and the functionality that it brings with it. I mean it doesn't even offer Word, Excel and Powerpoint reader apps, Windows 11 opted to support only computers manufactured after 2018 without a convincing explanation, and it requires a lot of personal information, that it collects, to run.

The home version should be free, and I don't mean a free upgrade. it should be free, feels like paid shareware. And the Pro version should have Office and some real advantages (like a Windows 10 mode :messenger_tears_of_joy:, or a UI focused on usability).
My question is, was Windows 10 this disastrously bad 2 years after release? I wasn’t paying attention at the time but I don’t believe it was - people were using Windows 10 without too much complaint around this time.
Windows 10 was never a disaster if you went in with low expectations (which I struggle to think anyone has had big expectations about a Windows release since Vista). It always worked, it was always more similar to Windows 7 than 8.

The fault with Windows 10 is that competing operating systems 15 years ago were structurally more modern and well adjusted than it was 10 years ago. And that is still true with Windows 11 no matter how much they change the UI on top. I'll say though that the only fix for this is throwing the Windows kernel away and starting fresh as it has too much legacy and too much anarchy in it's core development.

It's basically like if you took a 90's car chassis platform and made it performant until 2022 without major overhauls, just iterative. It's core is outdated so you can only do as much.
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
For my work I love OneDrive integration because it makes it really easy to move between devices and have everything available with little effort. It all works really well. While I personally dislike Windows 11 it's not much of a hindrance and I can use it for work just fine. I have never tried gaming on Windows 11.

I can see how trying to use My Documents for gaming would be a problem, especially with OneDrive. The sync functionality would probably interfere if there were a lot of read/write happening during the game. My Documents hasn't been good for data storage for apps in a long time, not even with Windows 10. I'd never use My Documents for that that if I could help it and instead use AppData for any application data I wanted to keep local. Granted I don't do a lot of gaming on Windows so I'm not sure how to keep gaming stuff out of My Documents.
 
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M16

Member
So basically you're complaining that you agreed to use onedrive because you were to eager to click next to finish the install, and you're complaining that you want to install shit that's flagged as malware (so you install russian Spyware / Kaspersky instead). And now you want to blame windows 11. L O fuckin L
 
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I tried Win 11 on my work computer, they did not block the update.

Anyway, I mostly don't care for it and I care about the power grab MS is going for. So, I don't want to move to Linux, it has always been a disappointment for me, and some of my hardware jus refuses to work with it, in the end I moved my main computer to the living room for gaming and I got myself a M1 (ARM) macbook pro as a main machine.

Moving away from MS for daily computing tasks.
 

benno

Member
I found out that OneDrive wanted to be my standard documents folder without my consent.
You get asked on install if you want to use onedrive for your saves. You click the "only save files to this PC" option.

To disable OneDrive you go to task manager and the start up menu and just disable it from loading at startup. I've done it many times without issue.
 
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Flatline

Banned
Talking about no having competition in this space.

Imagine this wet dream scenario where a company makes a lightweight OS without bullshit tracking, bloatware and just works.

I would bet a ton of people would make the change in a snap, YouTubers will sing praises about it.


It's called Kubuntu. I can't wait until Valve perfects Linux gaming so I can finally get rid off this Microsoft cancer. Kubuntu are great and looks better than Windows believe it or not, I'm gonna miss some programs that are Windows only though.
 

Unknown?

Member
Linux ftw!

It's called Kubuntu. I can't wait until Valve perfects Linux gaming so I can finally get rid off this Microsoft cancer. Kubuntu are great and looks better than Windows believe it or not, I'm gonna miss some programs that are Windows only though.
Nah, there's wine and windows only software works just fine using it.
 
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ChorizoPicozo

Gold Member
It's called Kubuntu. I can't wait until Valve perfects Linux gaming so I can finally get rid off this Microsoft cancer. Kubuntu are great and looks better than Windows believe it or not, I'm gonna miss some programs that are Windows only though.
That is the issue. Needs to support all. Specially the no gaimig ones. (At least for content creation, productivity, and shit like that)
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
So basically you're complaining that you agreed to use onedrive because you were to eager to click next to finish the install, and you're complaining that you want to install shit that's flagged as malware (so you install russian Spyware / Kaspersky instead). And now you want to blame windows 11. L O fuckin L
It's not just that. There's also a hint of trying to use Windows functionality in ways that run counter to how the OS is designed to work and then complaining that the OS doesn't work when you do it that way.

This discussion has been happening around Windows since Microsoft changed up security around the Program Files directory and made it so that users or the programs themselves can't easily change files installed there. People were also complaining about issues with installing games to My Documents when Windows 10 launched. It's hard to mod game files in Program Files when the directory is write protected.

Because of the lockdown of pretty much everything except the folders users are expected to interact with some game devs started putting stuff into My Documents that they expect end users to interact with. But not every dev provides an easy way to install mods so a lot of end users started installing their games there to make it easier to drop in mods and hacked saves.

With the OneDrive integration in Windows 11 it's even worse because of how Microsoft hides your local "My..." folders when you opt to let OneDrive manage them. OneDrive may also not sync some executables properly as a security control. I've had it refuse to sync or sometimes corrupt exe and debug files I create when I'm coding something, but it's usually not an issue because I can just rebuild them.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
It really is annoying.
For me, the only hurdle when installing it was to avoid microsoft login. I have it of course but I don't want to use password for my own stupid pc.
So I upgraded for free from 10 (and 10 key itself was 5$ years and years ago lol) to let license transfer.
Then I created new image on usb stick with media creation tool and reinstalled with format c:
Avoided the login and using it no problems ever since.

I miss win98 and xp but there is a solid reason why I still remember activation keys for 98 and Xp.... I was installing it every 2 days because I was always experimenting and it cluttered up fast. I liked to have a clean windows. And nowadays I no longer have this OCD and it's a OK
 

Flatline

Banned
Linux ftw!


Nah, there's wine and windows only software works just fine using it.


The problem with Linux is that when you have a problem troubleshooting can become complicated and I don't want to test my luck with wine too much. Having said that the more annoying and more intrusive Windows becomes the more motivation I have to ignore these problems, in the end it won't be Linux that will convince me to switch but Microsoft. I suspect it'll happen when these fucks force us to switch to Windows 11, I'm already at my limit with Windows 10 and the telemetry bullshit I constantly have to block.

And btw for anyone that isn't aware, the "complicated" part of Linux troubleshooting is just copy pasting lines of code after googling a problem. So it's not that compicated but sometimes it's kind of frustrating.
 
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The problem with Linux is that when you have a problem troubleshooting can become complicated and I don't want to test my luck with wine too much. Having said that the more annoying and more intrusive Windows becomes the more motivation I have to ignore these problems, in the end it won't be Linux that will convince me to switch but Microsoft.

And btw for anyone that isn't aware, the "complicated" part of Linux troubleshooting is just copy pasting lines of code after googling a problem. So it's not that compicated but sometimes it's kind of frustrating.
I have to say that I spent some time with ChromeOS two months ago and I think it could be leading to somewhere when it comes to an easy "out of the box" linux experience.

And it feels more like Windows 10 than Windows 11 does, supports a Linux kernel of your choice.

Needs to ditch the reliance on web-apps now that it uses the Google Play Store and needs to have a more useful desktop, more easy options when it comes to save files to specific addresses and it can replace Windows 10 Home for a lot of people.
 

Flatline

Banned
I have to say that I spent some time with ChromeOS two months ago and I think it could be leading to somewhere when it comes to an easy "out of the box" linux experience.

And it feels more like Windows 10 than Windows 11 does, supports a Linux kernel of your choice.

Needs to ditch the reliance on web-apps now that it uses the Google Play Store and needs to have a more useful desktop, more easy options when it comes to save files to specific addresses and it can replace Windows 10 Home for a lot of people.


Yeah but Google represents everything I hate about Microsoft and more so there's no way in hell I'm even entertaining the idea of ever using ChromeOS.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
Talking about no having competition in this space.

Imagine this wet dream scenario where a company makes a lightweight OS without bullshit tracking, bloatware and just works.

I would bet a ton of people would make the change in a snap, YouTubers will sing praises about it.
There are plenty of lightweight operating systems out there. They're generally built for specific purposes, though. If you have more than one reason why you use a computer then you tend to need more OS features, where is typically where "bullshit" comes from. A headless Ubuntu or CentOS installation is fast and perfect for a web server or database server. You're not going to watch YouTube on it, though. The chances of getting an actually lightweight, no bullshit general purpose operating system are pretty low when you account for everything a general purpose operating system needs to be able to do.

That's why I'm happy that Valve has been investing in SteamOS and Proton they way they are. They're working to make an OS that's focused just on gaming. It's still going to have bloat in it because they are going to want to track you and advertise to you, and it's going to need to support drivers for tons of hardware configurations, but it's a step in the right direction.
 

Flatline

Banned
There are plenty of lightweight operating systems out there. They're generally built for specific purposes, though. If you have more than one reason why you use a computer then you tend to need more OS features, where is typically where "bullshit" comes from. A headless Ubuntu or CentOS installation is fast and perfect for a web server or database server. You're not going to watch YouTube on it, though. The chances of getting an actually lightweight, no bullshit general purpose operating system are pretty low when you account for everything a general purpose operating system needs to be able to do.

That's why I'm happy that Valve has been investing in SteamOS and Proton they way they are. They're working to make an OS that's focused just on gaming. It's still going to have bloat in it because they are going to want to track you and advertise to you, and it's going to need to support drivers for tons of hardware configurations, but it's a step in the right direction.


I seriously doubt that, Valve isn't that kind of company. As long as Gabe lives he won't allow Valve to become another soulless instrument of advertisers and shady interests.
 
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