I can’t even remove the “Recommended” section from the Start menu
EU should force a choice for all new PC. What OS do you want to run? Windows, Linux or Android? Then you would be able to see real competition in the OS market.
Maybe something like the raspberry pi OS chooser. In the best of worlds you have everything installed and just choose in the boot menu what to run.
Some manufacturers allow you to get a refund for pre installed windows if you feel like sitting on the phone for hours. Something about a lawsuit involving Microsoft and anticompetitive contracts with the manufacturer not allowing the distribution of other operating systems.
I’ve seen a story about someone who got a refund for their dell laptop but it was slow, and the support staff was rude about it during the process. They stated things like the Microsoft software is free and why would you want to remove windows anyway, passing him from department to department. It’s often $60-$80 depending on the version of windows etc.
Edit: I should clarify it might only be a US thing, I’ve heard people in France having some luck.
i mean you can just buy a Dell laptop with a copy of Ubuntu preloaded instead, they sell those as an option with most models
Windows 10 LTSC FTW!!! I just installed it and wow is it snappier and devoid of nearly all of those annoyances. I have no idea if productivity apps are affected by its stripped down nature but for Steam gaming it’s perfect. I get less lag spikes on steamVR.
I haven’t trusted Windows in years. This is just for gaming. I have a physically separate hot swappable Optane SSDs for Linux and Windows Gaming.
For those who will winge at me for not just switching to Linux. During this process I gave a concerted effort to give Linux a go and chose Manjaro KDE to try for steamVR gaming. It sucked. Once I had worked out that it was a permissions issue (It’s always a fucking permissions issue under Linux) and just ran it under the root account, there was extremely high latency for the VR compositor to HMD display. Completely unusable as it made me sick and that’s usually very hard. I tried X11 and Wayland. Direct and Non Direct output modes. No success.
I was using Manjaro KDE and ended up switching to Pop OS because Manjaro would never work right with my GPU. Pop OS has worked very well out of the box though.
I chose Manjaro KDE as one of the SteamVR requirements is KDE Plasma. It’s required because it has a DRM function to allow SteamVR to take ownership of the DisplayPort.
A quick google search says that PopOS is Gnome based. But KDE can be installed over it? I might give it a go.
I’m using StartAllBack (paid software), it replace the start menu with a Windows 7 like one, and brings back the pre Windows 11 taskbar, it has no ads and good customization. There’s also Open Shell that is free and Start11 that’s also paid.
i mean it’s annoying but how is it disgusting?
it just shows recently opened files/software mixed in with stuff you open frequently, it’s not an ad section or anything.
but yeah i have disabled it on all my machines, because I’m not using it + disabling it adds two extra rows of pinned apps…