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> I'm still a Windows guy, and I always will be.
And this is exactly why Microsoft can get away with a buggy mess of a user hostile operating system.
They only have an incentive to make a good OS if people are willing to leave when it’s a bad one.
I think saying "I'm a _______ guy" with any brand or company filling that blank can be a big problem. Most companies are there to make money and loyalty is often a one way street.
From my view it is more productive to find out what you like about something and always be open to maybe finding someone else who can deliver on that. And sometimes things that we thought were essential are not. You might even find something new to like.
I will say, for anybody reading and finds it in any way uplifting, I have been a Windows user for 30 years, been a .net developer for 5 years at one point, groaned at how bad the 'Linux desktop' always was, but this year I finally switched to using Linux instead of Windows and I think it's because the inflexion point is starting to hit more of the masses.
"I'm still a _______ guy, and I always will be."
No matter what trademark you put in the blank, this is not a healthy thing to say.
Apple has an even bigger loyalty problem. For them and Microsoft it's arguably good, but it's bad for users, even the loyal ones. It might even be bad for Apple and Microsoft long term.
I was a "Windows guy" from Windows 2.0 to Windows 10. Now I'm a "Mac guy."
These operating systems aren't my family members -- I'll ditch them if I believe that switching is worth getting over the learning curve of a new environment.
It likely just means they will always prefer certain classic aspects of Windows over how other desktop OSs do things. I’m largely in that boat as well. Of course Windows could get so bad in the future that another OS will be the lesser evil. Or another OS could adopt those preferred Windows things. But it won’t change the mentioned preferences, hence “always”.
> I'm still a Windows guy, and I always will be.
There's a semi-common saying that it takes seven attempts for someone to successfully leave an abusive partner. Give him time, I guess.
I’m my experience, unwavering Windows folk are simply power users who find *nix shells burdensome.
True, but someone writing for a site called windowscentral.com has a business interest in being a windows guy. Although I find it funny to imagine them furtively using Linux.
exactly, he's part of a problem
Years ago, HN had an article 'Hacking my vagina'. It contains a line 'I was in the market for a $GADGET’.
With that one line, the author managed to put my view of buying things upside down. Not a passive consumer. Not: I bought a $GADGET. She had an active relation with a bunch of sellers, and she was boss. You saw the megacorps begging and pleading to her, from that one line. That's how you deal with them.
I am $GADGET guy? Shudder.
So why does open source support microsofts strategy by insisting the users throw away years of hard learned user knowledge (shortcuts, program quirks)? If you do it different from the defacto standards, you put a tax in time on users switching.
Goes the other way around too: Linux will only have a good desktop environment when it's users will be willing to leave it.
I cannot see myself installing Windows 11, it's sad, I've been primarily a windows guy for my home computer since W95 and I'll miss it. Windows 10 (LTSC) has been the best operating system experience of my life, once I disabled updates and all the nag screens it's been rock solid for me for many years. It's so important to be able to trust that your computer works the same way tomorrow as it does today.
I hope that there's enough people like me that the combined community will keep it alive for a few years longer, but I know eventually something will force me to upgrade to Linux.
Author implies he was using a local account at the time of the error. Which answers an important question. I'd heard of people with Microsoft accounts getting locked out of their own computers, but that's a first I've heard of basic apps failing with a local account.
My one remaining windows machine is on 2021 LTSC and has no route to the internet. I am slowly working my way off it. This was onto macOS but that has gone down the shitter too. So it’s Debian. Hopefully be end of Q1 this year.
I honestly can’t believe what these vendors are doing. I don’t know anyone who approves of any of this.
Comment threads on the Closed Source OS topics like this regularly remind me about the large disconnect between skilled technical users and the "average" user. That average probably isn't your (great) grandparent who never learned how to type suddenly needing to learn the rapidly evolving early-days internet, but it's still just as dangerous to suggest "Use Linux" as the solution for everyone when plenty of "Average" users still don't know enough to be doing things safely in the console.
The "sudo rm -rf" and equivilant horror stories get told all too often as mistakes even made by "skilled users" who were in a hurry, and while that particular problem is becoming less common there is still a minefield out there. Wider use case where we need IT support is worse since there are plenty of Microsoft and Mac favoring restrictions and lockdowns required in the name of corporate level security requirements and certifications add to the mess and "security concerns" you can't get corporate to move away from.
I'm a daily Linux user who has had to put years of a software developer career's time into learning the easier system administration aspects and working with those who handle the harder issues, but doing this in my career I have had to step back every time someone comes to me with a problem. Once I understand the problem then go on to ask "at a guess, how much time will diagnosing this even take?" with the estimates varying based on how standard the OS install or deployment is.
Time and a relatively small amount of training is the problem with switching users from Windows to Mac or the reverse. Switching to Linux is training and introducing a technical mindset into a person. Idiot-proofing the system is a major issue Linux hasn't solved yet. VDI systems and the like might be a step in the right direction, but as soon as your use case for Linux requires a "average user" to open a terminal the problems will pile up and the minefield is exposed.
Years removed from using a Mac I still think of it as the most "child-proofed" OS. Windows being less restrictive but still doing a good-enough job of locking up the more dangerous things while also not drawing attention to them on a regular basis. Linux is like seeing the dangers left out in the open with few useful warning signs beyond some generic unspecified danger signs around the worksite.
There are two technologies propped up by having to earn a living: windows and the iPhone.
No matter the android phone, trying to get your MFA experience working with the umpteen stupid MFA apps is painful because all the dev work went into the iPhone versions. I hate it but yep I ended up buying an iPhone although I never buy them new.
Windows is the other one and again it’s security related. More and more places simply rely on Active Directory/Entra and try telling the bank you’re working for that you have to have a Linux notebook. You’ll get laughed right out of a job.
I’d agree for a home computer Linux or macOS are the only sane choices now. But whatever is installed on my work provided computer is what I’m using and that’s windows.
Reading the comments made me want to check the Steam Hardware Survey [0].
Some quick facts (Dec 2025 -> Jan 2026):
- Windows 10 gained more users than Windows 11 :D
- Linux lost users :(
Switch to linux, don't look back
The renaming of “my computer” to “this PC” was quite telling.
> I couldn't open Notepad ... an error (0x803f8001) with Microsoft Store's licensing service stopped me
I wonder if it works at all when no online connection to that store.
I work in academia and I've gotten most of my people to switch to Macs and no, Linux is not an option here.
I have about eight Windows PCs against about sixty MacBook Airs and guess which platform causes me the most work? 1:20 issue ratio. Even simple things like SMB in Windows 11 are hopelessly broken.
Microsoft is really shooting themselves in your foot.
It might be time to look at other options.
Every horrible windows story is yet another glorious day for linux.
Fyi, in Mint if you search application for "notepad", "Text Editor" is the first result. That is curated search done right. Search for notepad on windows and you probably get an ad for a travel website.
>I don't want people to switch away from Windows; I want Microsoft to treat its premier operating system like it used to.[...] and Windows 12 is ultimately an agentic AI OS, I wouldn't be surprised if more people stick with a debloated Windows 11, just as others did with Windows 10
Is there any justification for the first part other than that the authors job at windowscentral.com depends on it? Because I'm not seeing it in the article which amounts to the digital version of Stockholm syndrome. If even the author is predicting that this is what the next windows will look like, why aren't you running for the hills
The subscription to his own machine had bugs that prevented him from using a basic windowed text editor and that isn't the last straw?
> I'm still a Windows guy, and I always will be
As a 7 year old, I was a fan of a certain sports team. At 11 I stopped watching, collecting items and took off their posters.
When family members and friends asked me why, I told them that the original team had changed, all that remained was the club which I didn't care for.
I only use my windows machine because I can swap out parts stuff and is more hackable but macos is so much more beautifully designed.
Sometimes I prefer one machine over the other I rarely wish for anything other than sometimes being unable to transfer data between the two systems.
I don't want people to switch away from Windows; I want Microsoft to treat its premier operating system like it used to.
The funniest is the user having the feeling that the OS was better to them previously when it was like this since forever, even if it was just broken for the user in other aspects than breaking notepad for cloud licensing.
Windows started sucking with XP.
I know I know, a lot of people think XP rocked, but it was really just 2000 with a fugly skin and more crap.
Windows 2000 was peak desktop OS, and no one can convince me otherwise.
Arch Linux + XFCE, a distant second.
> I don't want people to switch away from Windows; I want Microsoft to treat its premier operating system like it used to
If you don't live in a mythical past, there was nothing "premier", so no categorical change in treatment, so Notepad has always been a bad primitive app you should've replaced years ago and also avoid any along l account bugs in the present (though it's also possible to use the old "premier" notepad instead of upgrading to the account linked one)
> I couldn't open Notepad ... an error (0x803f8001) with Microsoft Store's licensing service stopped me
I wonder if it works at all with no online connection to that store.
Imagine if Fedora locked you out of vi because your Red Hat account had an issue.
The unsettling part of stories like this isn’t “Microsoft bad,” it’s the growing assumption that local tools should be downstream of remote identity systems. A text editor is about as offline and fundamental as software gets, yet it’s now possible for account state, sync bugs, or policy enforcement to make it inaccessible on your own machine.
This is where non-macOS UNIX and Linux systems draw the line - if it’s installed locally and you have permission, it runs. Cloud services can enhance that experience (backups, sync, collaboration) but they don’t get veto power over whether vi opens.
When that boundary erodes, we start to see our systems as thin clients, instead of full local OSes, as the author mentions.
With Macbooks Air M4 starting at $1k/€1.1k, and apparently soon some even cheaper Macbooks coming up, it's really difficult to justify buying a Windows laptop those days and having to deal with all Microsoft bs, unless you have specific needs and being locked in.
The difference of "value for money" in terms of build quality, battery life, screen, touchpad, OS stability, OS upgrades experience, and overall polish and level of user (non-)hostility is immense.
A Windows guy for two decades, got an MBP for work, and while I miss some Windows software and I don't like some Mac things (e.g. no real write-to-disk hibernation; pricey upgrades from base models etc.), but there's no way I'm going back.
Tried switching to Linux years ago, what brought me be back were issues with Suspend-to-disk, CPU Core parking, GPU powerefficient idle mode
Since my PC is idle most of the time, I care about idle-powerefficiency a lot.
Does stuff like this these days just work? (AMD CPU + Nvidia GPU)
> I'm still a Windows guy, and I always will be.
This belongs in a BDSM website, not HN.
Windows 11 is the shittiest OS I’ve ever used. Nothing works, basically.
In just about every aspect of life, the race to the bottom seems to be on the last lap, and all the players have that almost-there energy.
I didn't even notice the Copilot button in Notepad until it was mentioned, "Even Notepad has a Copilot button."
thin clients are not personal computing.
Most of all, first-party apps from Microsoft have been ruined by them. Use alternatives when possible.
I believe this is related to known issues with KB5074109
It hit Both Win11 24H2 and 25H2.
To be clear, this is the horrible "new" Notepad "app" that I absolutely hated and instantly removed when it was forced upon everyone. I doubt the old "edit field in a wrapper" one which has been nearly the same since Win95 has this problem.
(My newest machine is now running Linux.)
Masochism is a choice when it comes to software.
If I had such a problem with my OS, I would have changed the distribution.
>After all, Notepad is supposed to be the absolute barebones, most ultra-basic app in the entire OS.
When was that ever the case? It's not even the most basic editor on Windows, which would be Edit.
How can Microsoft legally do that? Notepad++ is GPL-licensed open source. It's on Github.[1]