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A list of the problems I had with Windows 10 and why I am switching to Linux first thing on my next laptop

Why I am switching to Linux

I have had problems with Windows 10 before I even had it force-installed on me, and it alone turned me from a Microsoft supporter to a strong Microsoft critic. This is a list of reasons why I am switching to Linux on my next computer. Due to how many problems I have with Windows, I may repeat myself, and I will try to go back and catch it. If you catch anything that I missed, please don't hesitate to tell me (give me the first occurance list number and the the duplicate list number so I can best find it)


Index

0.0 nONe 1.0 Title 2.0 Index 3.0 Listing

3.1 Windows 10 issues (cons) 3.2 Linux (pros) 4.0 Sources 4.1 Windows sources 4.2 Linux sources 5.0 Gist version history 6.0 Gist info 7.0 Footer 8.0 NonE


Listing

Windows 10 issues

  1. Windows 10 has forced updates. Even when holding off updates, you can only do it for so many days until Microsoft stops letting you, or they purposefully mess your computer up, forcing you to restart and update via the bootloader. Originally, it was worse, where you couldn't even hold off updates to crashes

  2. Windows 10 is highly unstable source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

  3. Windows 10 has very lax security, and this is a huge problem. Compare this to Linux, which has very secure UNIX roots

  4. Windows 10 is proprietary source 1

  5. Windows 10 has proven time and time again to be a combination of spyware, adware, and malware

  6. Microsoft does what Microsoft wants, and never listens to the user. An example being me having to ungroup every folder every day every time I open, refresh, or view a folder (this started with the 1909 update)

  7. The Microsoft account screen wastes startup time, and is very deceptive, the first time I saw it, I freaked out badly, as it looked very similar to the Windows 10 installer, making me think my computer had an issue so bad I had to reinstall Windows. This also started with the 1909 update source 1source 2 unavailable

  8. Windows 10 is a severe memory hog. No matter how much RAM I give the computer (whether it be 4 GB, 8 GB, or 16 GB) it always uses up way too much source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

  9. Windows 10 has too many background processes, and from time to time, I will have to go through entire days where my CPU usage is shifting between 40 and 100% with few programs open

  10. Windows 10 blue screen gives no helpful technical information on crashes. With my current laptop, the blue screen won't even display, my laptop will just completely lock up

  11. Windows 10 is purposefully destroying my computer at a physical level, with excessive disk, CPU, and RAM usage at all times source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4 source 5 coming soon

  12. Windows 10 is dropping 32 bit support soon, which will cause many programs (luckily including the Windows 10 OneDrive adware) to not work source 1 source 2 source 3 (might have this confused with libraries)

  13. Windows 10 doesn't have backwards compatibility with most popular programs

  14. Windows 10 once had an update that went out that deleted users documents, even after the Windows insider program warned of the issue, but Microsoft ignored it source 1 source 2 source 3

  15. Windows 10s UI is the worst GUI I have ever seen on a desktop operating system, and has no built-in ways to easily change it. Support for GUI shell programs that I liked (including ClassicShell) have been discontinued, and no longer work with Windows 10 source 1 source 2 [source 3])https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1237353-microsoft-to-block-classic-shell-in-windows-10-here-is-why/) source 4

  16. Windows 10 constantly pushes Microsoft Office, starting the program before my system is fully loaded, even though I no longer use MS-OFFICE outside of rare Virtual machine instances. Why pay hundreds for something when I can get something that does everything the expensive product does better for free? I have been using LibreOffice for over a year now, and I never intend to use Microsoft Office again, except for a rare instance in a Windows virtual machine

  17. Windows 10 has a software rotting problem. My last laptop had over 100 virtual machines, and within 6 months, they all rotted away. Same goes with a Ubuntu CLI I got from the Microsoft store source 1 source 2

  18. Windows 10 reinstalls software that isn't needed, such as Candy Crush, even after uninstalling it. Surprisingly, this has never happened to me on my laptop, I only had to uninstall all of that once, and it never reinstalled source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

  19. Windows 10 tried to change the default browser to Microsoft Edge. Surprisingly, this hasn't happened to me yet either source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

  20. Windows 10 is bad for computers without Solid State Drives due to a lack of trimming. This means that your disk usage will be abnormally higher at all times, most commonly at startup (100% Disk usage) source 1 source 2 source 3

  21. Windows 10 is considered spyware source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4 source 5 source 6

  22. Windows 10 is considered adware

  23. Windows 10 is also even considered malware in some instances source 1 source 2

  24. Microsoft is part of the USA's PRISM program, meaning your data is not safe source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

  25. Windows 10 is riddled with huge security bugs, some bugs that can take down entire systems. Some of these bugs (such as the HTML img src="$clock/clock$" bug) haven't been fixed since Windows 3.1 (1992) source 1 - Try it out yourself on Windows 10 1809 at your own risk

  26. Windows 10 has been known to delete the Linux partition without the users consent, once again proving Microsoft is anti-competitive, and Anti-Linux source 1 source 2 source 3

  27. Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome are the new Internet Explorer 6's, they are heavily pushed (only Edge) in Windows 10, which is going to cause history to repeat itself source 1

  28. Microsoft used malicious tactics to get its users to switch to Windows 10, such as the Get Windows 10 (GWX) program, which ended with a lawsuit once a real estate agent had her business badly affected by it source 1 source 2 source 3

  29. Windows 10 updates are forced. Yes you can delay them, but when Microsoft wants something on your computer, as long as you are using their product, they will put it on

  30. Windows 10 is in use on over a billion computers, of which millions of those per day are realizing how bad Windows 10 is and are switching to Linux/another operating system, or they got a new laptop with Windows 10 and put something else on it (Linux, BSD, etc) source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4 source 5 source 6 source 7

  31. Windows 10 has very poor technical support

  32. Microsoft is trying hard to destroy Linux, but their attempts are backfiring on them source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

  33. Windows 10 has been out for over 5 years, and none of its major issues have been fully fixed in that time

  34. Windows 10 will go to the point of locking up your keyboard and forcing you to damage your battery via a hard power cycle just to install a cumulative update (Occured to me on June 17th 2020 after a malicious Microsoft account screen)

  35. The Windows 10 installer is very sketchy, and most options aren't even fully turned off when you try to turn them off

  36. Windows 10 has issues displaying the battery percentage, there has to be a miscalculation somewhere, why else would it take 45+ minutes to go from 99% to 100%

  37. Windows 10 settings are hard to navigate, and very off, most of them take you to the control panel or other programs

  38. Windows 10 takes up over 32 Gigabytes, when it shouldn't even take up more than 12 Gigabytes if it was written correctly Source 1 source 2 source 3

  39. Ever since the 1909 update, the network icon had the "No Internet - secure" icon removed, which now makes it harder to distinguish whether the Internet is working at all, or if it is hardly working

  40. Microsoft is a monopoly

  41. Once connected to a OneDrive account, Microsoft will put more files on a computer than it can handle (for example, connecting to a Microsoft account with a terabyte of data on a computer with 48 Gigabytes of memory, will cause the Microsoft account to use every byte of space to put the files on, and prompt you to get more space source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4 source 5 source 6

  42. Windows updates are very large, mostly over 2 gigabytes in size (even for cumulative updates) Microsoft will download them over a metered connection unless you tell it not to, which you have to tell it first, opening yourself up to the risk before you change the setting source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4 source 5

  43. Windows 10 doesn't have a startup or shutdown sound, even when you enable the startup sound, you can only hear it after a restart source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

  44. Windows 10 will commonly crash during a big update source 1 source 2 source 3

  45. Microsoft is anti-Firefox source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

  46. More coming soon, I need a break

Linux pros

  1. Linux allows you to update the system while you are using it, via hotpatching the kernel. source 1 source 2 source 3

  2. Linux is open source source 1

  3. Linux doesn't cost anything source 1 source 2 source 3

  4. Linux has very good security, as it has secure UNIX roots from some of the best programmers of all time (such as Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson) so even when Linux gets a higher user share than Windows, it should have far less problems

  5. Linux usershare on the desktop is actually larger than what is reported (~5%) as Linux doesn't normally ping a server when you install a distribution, so the amount of users is unknown. It may even have 10% share among desktop computers

  6. Linux is not considered spyware (unless you include Ubuntu or Android)

  7. Linux is so good, that it is used on all 500 of the worlds top super computers source 1 source 2 source 3

  8. Linux is used for almost all web servers for major sites, including the biggest sites like YouTube, Wikipedia, and even Microsoft source 1

  9. Linux doesn't use an excessive amount of CPU, RAM, or Disk by default compared to Windows 10 (some modern Linux distributions can even run with less than 500 megabytes of RAM) source 1 source 2 source 3

  10. If you want to still use Windows programs on Linux, WINE is a good start for most programs source 1 source 2

  11. The Linux Foundation doesn't put out updates that delete users documents

  12. The Linux Foundation is not part of the USA's PRISM program

  13. More coming soon, I need a break

I don't expect Microsoft to even read or consider this at all, but I hope I can help switch users to a better platform if they are willing and capable.


Sources

Windows sources

Windows #1 (0 sources)

Windows #2 (4 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

Windows #3 (0 sources)

Windows #4 (1 source) source 1

Windows #5 (0 sources)

Windows #6 (0 sources)

Windows #7 (1 source) source 1

Windows #8 (4 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

Windows #9 (0 sources)

Windows #10 (0 sources)

Windows #11 (4 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

Windows #12 (3 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3

Windows #13 (0 sources)

Windows #14 (3 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3

Windows #15 (4 sources) source 1 source 2 [source 3])https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1237353-microsoft-to-block-classic-shell-in-windows-10-here-is-why/) source 4

Windows #16 (0 sources)

Windows #17 (2 sources) source 1 source 2

Windows #18 (4 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

Windows #19 (4 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

Windows #20 (3 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3

Windows #21 (6 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4 source 5 source 6

Windows #22 (0 sources)

Windows #23 (2 sources) source 1 source 2

Windows #24 (4 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

Windows #25 (1 source) source 1 - Try it out yourself on Windows 10 1809 at your own risk

Windows #26 (3 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3

Windows #27 (1 source) source 1

Windows #28 (3 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3

Windows #29 (0 sources)

Windows #30 (7 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4 source 5 source 6 source 7

Windows #31 (0 sources)

Windows #32 (4 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

Windows #33 (0 sources)

Windows #34 (0 sources)

Windows #35 (0 sources)

Windows #36 (0 sources)

Windows #37 (0 sources)

Windows #38 (3 sources) Source 1 source 2 source 3

Windows #39 (0 sources)

WIndows #40 (0 sources)

Windows #41 (6 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4 source 5 source 6

Windows #42 (5 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4 source 5

Windows #43 (4 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

Windows #44 (3 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3

Windows #45 (4 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3 source 4

Linux sources

Linux #1 (3 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3

Linux #2 (1 source) source 1

Linux #3 (3 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3

Linux #4 (0 sources)

Linux #5 (0 sources)

Linux #6 (0 sources)

Linux #7 (3 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3

Linux #8 (1 source) source 1

Linux #9 (3 sources) source 1 source 2 source 3

Linux #10 (2 sources) source 1 source 2

Linux #11 (0 sources)

Linux #12 (0 sources)

Total Linux sources: 16 (Without duplicates (1x) = 15) Total Windows sources: 93 Total sources: 109


Gist version history

Version 1 (Wednesday, June 17th 2020 at 4:42 pm)

Changes:

  • Started the Gist
  • Added the title
  • Added the listing with 44+13 entries
  • Added the Gist version history section
  • Added the Gist info section
  • Added the footer

Version 2 (Thursday, June 18th 2020 at 12:51 am)

Changes:

  • Added a new item to the Windows list
  • Began citing sources, I cited multiple sources for each claim, that way if there is disagreement over 1 source, there are multiple other sources to fall back on
  • Updated the version history section
  • Spaced out the listing so that it is easier to manage
  • Added an index

Version 3 (Coming soon)

Changes:

  • Coming soon

Version 4 (Coming soon)

Changes:

  • Coming soon

Gist info

Gist version: 2 (Thursday, June 18th 2020 at 12:51 am)

Line count: 0,444

File type: Markdown (*.md)


Footer

Footer is empty


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