The start button should have been placed in the middle of the taskbar in Windows Vista, 7 and 10

The taskbar !!!

The Start Button is (and should be) on the corner to leave room for the task buttons.

Macos X followed a different path using a single button as launcher and as task switcher

MS is trying to ape that behavior since a while with poor results.

Grouped buttons are not dumb enough to please mac users and not smart enough to be useful for the good guys.

MS would really do a favor to itself and its users letting what's works untouched and putting hands on things that have large margin of improvements.

Think to regedit which still has to implement the contextual menu, being a rushed merge of regedit from Win95 and regedt32 from win NT3.x

Think to notepad, paint and so on...

 

Strangely, my computer only has the apps I use.
The old stuff store could be somewhere separate.
Also the antique warehouse, museum, etc. but also a children's sandbox and playground.

 

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IMHO the position of the start button should be static, so we can get to it without having to look for it. Bottom left is one such position; it is good, and we're used to it. Putting it in the middle works best if it is the middle icon, as that stays where it is. The way it is right now in Windows 11, the location of the start button varies depending on the size of the taskbar and how many buttons it has. Increase the size, or add more buttons, and the start button moves further left.

 

This is a good point. Muscle memory.

I do want to like some of the features found in Win11 so far, and I can see the reasoning by MS behind it. However, what I frequently end up wondering about is if they actually use it themselves to be productive. Whatever the changes made, it should allow for fast access to things, and certainly not necessitate more clicks than in previous OS's (or not having a button be in the same position).

 

Start button is not in the middle, even on Windows 11. It's on the left of the task bar app shortcuts which are in the middle like Mac OS.

 

I'm not trying to be offensive so I hope no one takes this wrong.
When I say "so many people" below, I'm mostly referring to basically everywhere I look on the internet.
It's almost the main talking point, the placement of the stupid start button! (Or app location. Or whatever.)

What I don't understand is all the discussions seem to be about pointless cosmetic changes to the OS (Win11),
which seem to really be the only difference between 10 and 11, instead of calling M$'s bluff for what it is - a pointless
upgrade furthering people's reliance on having a "relationship" with the company who produces the OS instead of
simply using the OS as a program that hosts other programs.

It's ridiculous to me to discuss the location of buttons when Windows should have had the option to let
users put buttons anywhere they want EONS AGO. Or customize or change DWMs.
It's the equivalent of having version 1 of a paint program only use BLUE, then version 2 only uses GREEN, but no version just
gives you a palette and let's you choose the colors you want and each new version hypes it's self for having a different color!

Coming from a Linux user's perspective, the idea of having a DWM's configuration locked to an OS seems absurd.
It's double absurd when the placement of buttons and gadgets and whatnot become the MAIN FEATURE of a new OS.
Seriously. Almost all I have seen in all the 11 reviews have been discussion of cosmetic changes and what pointless,
unnecessary included apps have been forced on us. None of this has anything to do with the OS.
I have seen zero actual new OS features. Oh sure, they have locked s**t down that as usual, can easily be hacked around,
for "security" (sales) reasons such as requiring your CPU to have TPM 2.0 but all of this still has nothing to do with the OS.
It's pointless gibber jabber for people who don't understand anything.
No one is up in arms over the offensiveness of it all.

It's so offensive, what modern computing has become, that I find it difficult to put into words.
Yes, I understand. People can choose Linux if they want a real OS but Windows is what the business world uses.
But the business world has never made good decisions when it comes to technology and right now, when Linux is finally
evolved to the point it can become a serious contender, the last thing knowledgeable users should do is talk about things
that keep users down as if they're normal and not ridiculous.
Windows 11 should be being laughed off the market for the pointless cash grab it is.

As for my cosmetic preferences:
I personally like the classic XP theme and no matter what version of Win I run, I always find a way to get it to look and
operate most like classic theme. Of course, M$ hates this and has made it more and more difficult to do on each new
iteration of it's OS. OpenShell is a must! If they wanna include an app, they should include that! 8)
Many of my clients are older users and I have made it a proud point to say that people who go with me will only ever have
to learn ONE INTERFACE. I can not believe how M$ actually scrambles the location of things each new OS and expects
users to basically waste time relearning where things are! This should never be! They're always trying to force some new
interface onto people and I personally flat out refuse. Then with 10 they started forcing the APP style on us, utter crap.
They start rewriting actual OS configuration programs in the APP language! What the Hell for?
Most of what these "programs" do is just edit text files anyhow what the Hell would you make a whole new "phone"
OS for and then actually start porting programs written for the OS's api to the phone OS?!?!
I really wish people would hack the Hell out of this OS how we used to do in the old days to basically create something
that just runs the bare minimum to make software that requires Windows run and nothing more.
I often nuke crap like Defender, etc. by mounting the Win10 partition in Linux and then moving it somewhere so that
it simply is not THERE for Windows to run but it is just becoming such a pain anymore with their relentless pushing
crap on us and locking us out, it's like they're becoming Crapple.

 

@bz2810

Look linux will never become a mainstream desktop OS, and I tell you as a person who started using it in 1997 or so.

And the problem is not the "the driver support" or any reason that everyone is parroting.

The problem is the stability.

Stability not intended as the opposite of the attitude to crash, stability intended as backward binary compatibility.

Try to run VMware 12 (the last version supported by many not so old CPUs) in a recent distro.

Try to fully use an old ATI or Nvidia GPU, where the last vendor driver is 5 years old.

Try to use an old server SW meant to run on Sys V init, now that systemd has infected the majority of the distros.

On the windows world you can run 30 years of SW except for a small share.

I can run VMware 6 or 7 on win 11 w/o any problem, I can use drivers meant for vista or even XP on win10/11

I can run something that requires an entry in win.ini or system.ini 25 years after their deprecation.

People need this, while Linux coders are always looking for a new place for the configuration files, a new standard to manage this an that, a replaced kernel call and so on.

Linux works on servers, and is also a nice toy for corious kids, but the average Joe will never embrace it.

 

HUH?
I have a quad core i5 with a GTX 1060 in a B75M-D3H motherboard (From 2012) and it runs flawlessly on the latest Ubuntu.
Before that, I had a GTX 660 and it ran great as well. (A GTX 660 is from 2012)
(I don't know about ATI as I have never really been a fan.)
I've never had an issue with VMWARE either, although I don't use it much.
I've played with it and when I have, I've never had issues. This is the first I've even heard it was an issue.
In fact, Windows 10 is the OS that gives me the most crap - seemingly crashing all the time unless I leave every
horrid default setting and app alone and don't breath on it. It's so bad I basically wrote a Linux script to use DD
to back it up so when it inevitably fails, I can just DD the image back to it from before when it was screwed.
Windows 10 is utterly crap as far as repairing it when it goes bad as well, it seems they're Hell bent on locking
out anyone with technical skills from being able to actually get under the hood and fix things anymore.
(Although I have developed a few brute force methods that work very nice!)

The gaming community is the community I believe is really going to make Linux take off.
There are now more native ports than ever before, plus with DXVK and idiot-proof front ends like STEAM and
the like, I think more and more people are finally making the switch. At least, I see this when I read gaming forums.
I'm not saying it's there yet, but it's closer than ever before and companies who make games are really taking notice.
I understand running Windows programs under WINE is not optimal but from my experience anymore, almost everything
I have tried with few exceptions just works. I hate the push of things to "the cloud" but this also puts the foot of Linux in
the door as anything that can run a browser can do cloud crap.
When people see how much faster and sleek Linux is than Windows, plus more configurable and able to run all the
programs they like and it's free, there are fewer and fewer reasons to stick on Windows.

I really think the compatibility thing is over rated. There are very few exceptions and I have also run into situations
where stuff that would NOT run on Windows 10 ran on Linux under Wine as the options for compatibility are far
greater than "windows compatibility mode" it seems. There are programs that still only run on 95 even, but again,
these programs are so rare it seems it really doesn't matter. I had a client who ran a grain elevator and they had some
weird hardware that literately would only run on WIN 95. I also own a KORG OAYSIS PCI and that will not run on
anything but 95/98 so I have seen all sorts of compatibility issues, even with Windows.

As for you being able to use drivers for XP on 10 and 11, I highly doubt you are able to get some
of the things I have been unable to get working, working. (Unless you're running 32 bit and even
then, some things just do not work) Windows backward compatibility is not perfect.

P.S. - You are talking about the Linux version of VMWARE and not running a Windows version
of VMWARE under WINE, correct? Because what's the point if the latter? Linux native VMWARE
exists and has existed for many years. I'm sure if there were issues with it, they'd have been
targeted and fixed by now. When I played with VMWARE, I ran multiple versions and they all
worked together. I created a VM on Windows with the Windows VMWARE and then I ran that VM
image on the Linux native VMWARE and everything worked great.
The version(s) I used are v12.5.0 for Linux and Windows.

 

The GTX 1060 isn't that old, whatever given I've never bought a Nvidia thing after the riva 128, I have no idea if it's still supported by NVIDIA or if you are just using it with nuveau

Like I said I'm talking of an older version in a current distro. Replying that VMware works is just pointless in this context.

There are literally undreds of millions of windows users, some are unlucky some are just inexpert, but the vast majority just use it and are conscius that the stability (intended as attitude to crash) is the least problem of W10. Altough someone thinks we are still in 1996, windows evolved in a rock solid system.

You want to talk of privacy concerns? I'm all ears.
You want to parrot 20 years old stereotipes? I have better activities to do.

Sure. Steam on Linux is a thing by many years and the Linux users are still below 2% No way

Again, try to run something serious like VMware 12 (the native Linux version I mean) or Virtualbox 4.xx, not tombraider 1 under Wine, and report back if you haven't spent half a day.

And I have yet to talk of the "bright" move that is just happening right now from the good old X to the new Wayland mess, which will complicate everything AGAIN.

I started to use XP64 when it was in beta in 2003 or so, and I still use Win10 x86 so no problem.

The only XP drivers that don't work since w8 are the VGA drivers. Anyway you can use a VGA driver meant for Win2000 in Win7 and a driver meant for Vista in Win 11 (albeit with limitations), respectively 2 decades and almost 15 years spans. Not even in MacOS you can hope for that.

ATM I'm writing from a Turion X2 from the XP era, using win 11 and ATI VGA drivers from 2007 and literally everything works flawlessly although likely I can't run Crisis

Yep

VMware under WINE would be pointless, (and probably hopeless) yes

Surely not by VMware

Maybe you have the ready meal via ppa or something, because some good samaritan fixed the kernel modules for you.

But the average Joe would download the package from wmware and would expect that it will work just like it does on Windows (no matter if still supported or not by VMware, the company)

Sure VMware is a good product and a VM would run in any supported platform, just like any other Hypervisor. But what that has to do with my point?

 

1st thing I did was move to the Left.

 

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I don't want this to get into an off topic discussion but my experience in running Windows 10 as well as administrating it for multiple firms
has been that when it dies, you reinstall. That is what they want you to do. They even eliminated the in place install all together in an attempt
to force people to reinstall the whole os, all the apps, and magically get all the user's personal settings back to how they were before as well.
Again, this is fought by simply backing up the entire system but it should not be necessary and was never necessary before.
And again - just like most things M$ does - it isn't that you can't do an in place reinstall of Windows 10, it's that they actively put up road
blocks to prevent it. Road blocks that can be hacked around but just add more pain to something that was probably only eliminated for
sales reasons. If an old system with old software dies and people don't have all the old discs or install mediums laying around, they're
forced to repurchase everything again. It seems to me this is the motive behind most of M$'s decisions.

I started off using Windows XP x64 as well and seriously, it is still the fastest of the bunch if you do a pre SP1 install.
It literately screams. After the SP install it bogs down tho but if you have a few offline things you do that need x64, as I do with my music,
installing XP x64 and not updating it provides the fastest x64 Windows experience I am aware of. I don't see what the relevance is however.
And talking privacy concerns? What's there to talk about?
Everyone knows both Crapple and M$ do not care about privacy and bloat their OS with software that keeps users in bondage.
We've degraded technology to cater to the lowest base instincts of an ignorant public rather than attempt to lift up the ignorant public's
awareness to a level they understand what's good and bad for them.
If you're writing on hardware from the XP erra then you likely had to hack Windows 11 to get it installed as well.. At least to get around TPM.

Compatibility for old hardware has gone down, not up, in the Windows realm.
And there are examples of old things that Linux still supports that Windows does not as well.
For instance.. All of my GAME PORT devices that work perfectly on any version of Linux but M$ killed off an entire hardware protocol!
I have a dual boot system and it is so ridiculous that the game port with all the hardware is totally dead
when in Windows, but if I boot to Linux and run the same software under WINE, all my devices work.

I agree with you, partially, on the WAYLAND issue. However, there are going to be builds that support both X and WAYLAND for a long
time, just as there are builds that run on 286 hardware. If the HW exists, someone will make a Linux build that works on it.
As for NVIDIA, they have been awesome in support.
I'm running the latest drivers which were released May 18 and work on both the GTX 1060 and the 660.
As far as VMWARE I downloaded the binary and ran it. You aren't compiling it on Windows, why compare against compiling it on Linux?

What actual benefit (not sales jargon such as "user experience") does Windows 11 offer? That's what I'd like to know!

 

Aside that we mostrly agree on the rest.

For the third or four times, I'm talking about installing an OLDER version of wmware, NOT the current one.

Obviously the current one works AS IS (at least on mainstream distros), and VMWARE was just an example. Practically no binary package older than 4/5 years works flawlessly.

Another example? Kodi. The latest versions are slow like a hell on one of my older machines (BOTH on windows and linux) while Kodi 14 or 15 works perfectly, w/o any issing useful feature

What I have to do to install Kodi 14 or 15 in Windows?

Download Kodi 14/15 and click setup (no matter if I'm on Vista or Win 11)

What I have to do in linux?

In most current distros is almost IMPOSSIBLE even deciding to compile it from scratch (not to mention some external plugins that aren't open source).

I'm a skilled person with almost 40 years of IT experience, so I fixed that problem with half a day of work, but what about the average Joe?

Try yourself, as a challenge, to install even Kodi 16 on your current Linux distro, then report back how much time you employed.

 

Could we please take this to the Linux section of the forum?