8 forced you into the “start screen” because Ballmer’s brilliant plan was that if every PC user has to use our crappy mobile OS that everyone already hates, they’ll buy Windows phones and tablets, too!

10 was forced hard on everyone, whether they wanted it or not, because Microslop wanted that sweet, sweet user telemetry so that they could make a quick buck off of it, privacy and security be damned. They also took a cue from their XBOX division and started putting ads in the start menu. It managed to be an OK OS in spite of this (plus, it was pretty easy to turn that junk off).

With 11, they’ve gone back to the BS they pulled against Netscape that nearly got them broken up in the 90’s. Edge can’t be uninstalled and also nags you if you try installing another browser. Copilot is shoved into absolutely everything, including Notepad. NOTEPAD! Whenever you try to save anything, the default file location is OneDrive. It’s infuriating.

I only tolerate it because I’ve spent a bunch of time getting my machine set up the way I want it and because I see the OS for maybe 10 seconds before I fire up a game. If I had to use it day-to-day, like I already do at work, I would have stayed on my 10 partition. I get that there are some good Linux gaming distros, but everything I’ve seen says that getting things working right is a pain in the ass, and I appreciate the fact that Windows gaming “just works” in most cases.

Not interested in paying for that scale of capabilities for personal use.

But Microsoft is always based on enterprise revenue over the individual user.