i just stoped updating and therefore keep my windows 10

I’m using Windows 11 since day 1 and I don’t really understand what people have against it. To me it feels like Windows 10 with the Start button in a different place. The only thing that annoys me is the repositioning of the Cut, Copy and Rename options in the right-click context menu. I still look for those in their old position. I have no idea which AI features you’re talking about, unless you mean the Copilot button in the top right corner of the Edge browser that’s very easy to ignore. I’m a Firefox user anyway.

I’ll admit I haven’t looked into it intently, but all of the advertising I see these days is about how great windows with AI is going to be.  Frankly I’m just concerned for privacy.  My next laptop will almost certainly be a win 11 machine, mostly just for convenience sake. 

Zorin is good so far, but I was hoping not to reformat my steam HDD and unfortunately though I have access to all of my drives through the file explorer, for some reason steam can’t use the NTFS drives.  I’m currently muddling around with a few options, but steam appears to be pretty stubborn about it. 

It’s good to hear that an average user can safely ignore the copilot hype however.

Also, does anyone know if there’s such a thing as an offline account for 11?  I think I heard somewhere that they’re trying to discourage such things.

the reason why they push so hard for it, they need to. Nobody wants that.

I have to agree, but I’m paranoid about how much integration it is getting.  For example, about a year ago I got a Google pixel phone because it is supposed to have updates through 2030, but every time an update rolls out (about every three months), I have to dig back in to my settings and turn off all of the AI features.  It’s maddening.

@foggygoofball that’s why the first thing i do with my phone, deactivating automatic updates – 95% of the time they don’t improve anything for me. Never touch the running system!

I like the convenience of remembered passwords and peace of mind that comes with being up to date in security terms.  Identity theft is rampant and so easy to get exposed to these days. 

I draw the line at cloud services, as much as possible, I want my data offline and fully within my control. 

Have you heard of guerilla mail?  It’s a service that assigns you a disposable email for signing up to services that require email verification.  The upshot is that you never have to expose your actual email address to questionable databases of advertisers and whatnot.

I like Windows 11 too. Never had any problem with it. I don’t even have a problem with the AI stuff – if I don’t want to use it, it’s easy to ignore. Tbh, they know every detail about us anyway, so I just go with the flow and actually make use of the stuff. Copilot can get insufferably obsequious sometimes, but we’re mostly getting along fine 🙂

i have been constantly stripping and limiting my OS as each version rears it’s head. I have all my ports locked down so permission is needed when windows tries to call out and let everyone know what i’m doing, what’s on my harddrives..etc. I have gone thru my settings/registry…even my hosts file to force my computer to behave exactly the way I want it to. As someone that’s been around since MS-DOS it’s really not that hard. Some day we need to have a discussion about Daisy Printers, ARPANET, page-flipping for graphics (lol) or even better: turtle graphics, COBOL/FORTRAN/PASCAL, Beagle Bros., oh my too many memories….kill me i’m old!

I too came up on old hardware, my first computer was a commodore 64, and then I spent most of my youth messing around in MSDOS.  I really do miss the simplicity of the old days.  I’m sure that others might disagree and say that computers are way simpler to use these days, but the fact of the matter is that they used to be so much simpler to understand.

What I’d give to go back to windows 98. 😉