Hi all. I was hoping to get some thoughts from those who have made to jump to Windows 11 now.

Being in Europe, we've got another year of Windows 10 updates for free so don't feel an immediate need to upgrade, but am wondering whether it would be worth it in the near future. Currently Win 10 is beautifully stable and fast for me and all my software runs happily on it.

Hello LeftHandedGuitarist. I've been using Windows 11 for a few years now, I personally haven't noticed a huge difference between the two operating systems. I dislike the introduction of the new A.I features, but I just simply choose not to use them. Select whichever operating system best suits your needs. Microsoft have new strict hardware requirements for upgrading, that will be the main deterrent for the majority of people wanting to update from Windows 10. I suggest skim-reading the following wikipedia article which you may find useful:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fe...Windows_11

The AI features are indeed a massive turn off for me too, though from what I understand they can be ignored/disabled. My PC can handle the hardware requirements fine, but right now I don't think I'll do the update for the near future. Thanks.

Windows XP was the pinnacle in my opinion! 

That is a correct opinion!

Yeah, totally in agreement. Windows XP had an intuitive clean GUI. Many years of security updates. Plus most crucially of all, an extensive range of games it was compatible with - Everything from MS-DOS games to high-end 3D games like Lost: Via Domus that required pixel shader 3.0 support.

Windows 8.1 is my favourite amongst contemporary systems. The hybrid boot feature (hibernating the kernel) sped up startup times drastically. It still has support for lots of older DRM modes that both Windows 10 and 11 removed, which is super handy for disc-based media. Lastly, Microsoft Store app updates weren't mandatory at that point yet.

Windows 11 is the best choice for internet safety. It's reassuring to hear that you also dislike the A.I technology taking over everything.

I hate to be that nerdy nay-sayer-guy, but unless you are dependent on MS Office or multiplayer games, Fedora Linux KDE is a really slick windows-like experience. ScummVM and DOSBox is at your fingertips, Steam games plays out of the box 99.9% of the time. Even the dark-age games, like Diskworld Noir and Black Dhalia are easily emulated through QEMU altough this do require a bit more effort.

I hate to be that nerdy nay-sayer-guy, but unless you are dependent on MS Office or multiplayer games, Fedora Linux KDE is a really slick windows-like experience. ScummVM and DOSBox is at your fingertips, Steam games plays out of the box 99.9% of the time. Even the dark-age games, like Diskworld Noir and Black Dhalia are easily emulated through QEMU altough this do require a bit more effort.

I also didn't want to be a 'Linux person' in a Windows thread so I wasn't going to say anything, but since you've already went first I'll also chime in to say it's worth at least considering a Linux distro if Windows 11 doesn't seem appealing. Most games work these days via Wine/Proton (usually the one ones that won't work are because their invasive anti cheat software isn't supported by or is deliberately blocking Linux, but that won't apply to adventure games), every emulator you can think of including the ones sjmpoo mentioned are available, plus native Linux ports aren't completely unheard of for indie titles as well as the occasional few from larger studios which may become more common as Valve continues to push SteamOS.

By the way, I happened to look up Discworld Noir on WineHQ just now and there is a positive report from 2024 saying it was completable from start to finish, so installing and running it using Wine via a manager like Bottles might be worth trying over the QEMU route.

I hate to be that nerdy nay-sayer-guy

You didn't inundate us with 65,536 reasons why Linux is better than 'Windoze'. Therefore we're cool, Sjmpoo. 

dependent on MS Office or multiplayer games, Fedora Linux KDE is a really slick windows-like experience.

I love free and open source software (FOSS). I've been using those kinds of programs for decades... on Windows. Hear me out, that's the main problem with convincing people to use Linux distributions. All of the best programs have already been ported to Windows. Including LibreOffice, KDE's Krita and many others.

every emulator you can think of including the ones sjmpoo mentioned are available

Just a quick minor correction, ScummVM is not actually an emulator. It's a reimplementation of the original game engines. This intricate understanding of the game's programming structure allows the ScummVM team to do very useful things such as correcting bugs in the original code.

My personal preference is to use native hardware with DirectX APIs as my primary choice. Backup plan is ScummVM. Last resort is DOSBox.

plus native Linux ports aren't completely unheard of for indie titles as well as the occasional few from larger studios which may become more common as Valve continues to push SteamOS.

I always appreciate when game developers go that extra mile to port things over to Windows, Mac and Linux. I'm not a programmer, but couldn't they just use something like 'Simple DirectMedia Layer' to create adventure games that don't require the more powerful APIs?

The worst case scenario of SteamOS becoming more popular is that it would normalise DRM even more so. Which is going against the core ethos of Linux. Luckily digital stores exist such as GOG, ZOOM Platform and Itch.io to help balance things out.

Just a quick minor correction, ScummVM is not actually an emulator. It's a reimplementation of the original game engines. This intricate understanding of the game's programming structure allows the ScummVM team to do very useful things such as correcting bugs in the original code.

Most end users think of it as an emulator though, but yeah it is more in common with source ports of games that had their source code released, but in ScummVM's case they originally started from scratch.

The worst case scenario of SteamOS becoming more popular is that it would normalise DRM even more so. Which is going against the core ethos of Linux. Luckily digital stores exist such as GOG, ZOOM Platform and Itch.io to help balance things out.

I used to prefer GOG but, while they do list some Linux/macOS games, they only really support Windows despite that making no sense for their DRM free cause. Examples being their 'Preservation Program' only caring about Windows ports and GOG Galaxy never being ported to Linux despite it being at the top of the community wishlist for years.

You can't trust any company, but so far Valve has did more good than bad for the platform. All of their significant contributions have been done upstream and in the open via funding developers and contributions to the Linux kernel, the components that make up proton (wine/dxvk/vkd3d/etc), and on Mesa 3D and the open source graphics driver stack that helps everyone using the platform even if they never play games or run SteamOS.

Everything goes bad in the end, but I'd far prefer Valve to 'win' over Microsoft in the long run when it comes to desktop games platforms since we're already in a worse case scenario with Microsoft running/owning a large amount of the industry. Microsoft deserve to be knocked off their pedestal.

I appreciate the discussion, but the chances of me switching to Linux are near zero. Not only am I embedded in and reliant on the Windows architecture, I honestly also just like it. But the above chat is really interesting, so please continue!