"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
Network, 1976
Ah, Windows 11!
Microslop really wants me to dislike this OS as much as they can, don't they? My start with win 11 wasn't as bad as for most people in IT, I guess, I ignored most of it, even liked parts. While everyone moaned about the centred Start menu, that didn't really bother me. What DID bother me, however, was the fact that I could no longer group my favourite apps (or if I did, it meant an extra click) and the moronic "Use your computer more so we can show you relevant apps here" section.
I really LIKED the win 10 Start menu. I USED it.
Anyway, since Microslop is determined to make a shitty experience even worse, by adding unwanted AI features to every nook and cranny of the OS, it's time to rethink the relationship. That said, my "connection" to the OS is minimal anyway, I run Win 11 Pro on all my machines (and before you even can scream "Use Linux" - I already do, Mint if you want to know). In a usual day, the number of programs I run is single digit. There's Firefox, Thunderbird, and Visual Studio, sometimes GameMaker, Aseprite, SciTe, Gog Galaxy, and Office & One Note (see below). Usually, I only see the desktop once per day, using the Start menu to open programs or use Alt & Tab or the taskbar to switch between running apps.
The first thing to do is to run O&O ShutUp (or any other tool that disables a lot of the annoying spying), then turn off everything that can be turned off on the list of "enhancing your user experience", like widgets, weather and stock info in the taskbar, you name it. It also is a good idea to look into "Autostart" and disable everything that isn't needed as well.
So here's my list of replacements I use to keep sane while using windows:
| Windows/M$ |
Replacement |
Source |
| (File-)Explorer |
Directory Opus |
https://www.gpsoft.com.au/ |
| Start Menu |
Start 11 |
https://www.stardock.com/products/start11/ |
| Edge |
Firefox see: 1 |
https://www.firefox.com/ |
| Outlook |
Thunderbird |
https://www.thunderbird.net/ |
| Editor |
SciTe |
https://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html |
| Paint |
Aseprite |
https://www.aseprite.org/ |
| Paint |
Paint.NET |
https://www.getpaint.net/ |
| Office 365 |
LibreOffice |
https://www.libreoffice.org/ |
| One Note |
Obsidian |
https://obsidian.md/ |
| One Drive |
HiDrive |
https://www.strato.de/ |
| Any Windows Media thingy |
VLC |
https://www.videolan.org/ |
| Windows Being Nosy |
O&O ShutUp10 |
https://www.oo-software.com/de/shutup10 |
Note that I pay for my software if it makes my life better, so Directory Opus and Start 11 aren't free, and while Obsidian technically could be used "free", I pay for the sync option. For HiDrive we use the Business tier.
I may update this post with links to (small) descriptions of the replacements.
1) An extra note on Firefox, while I understand the backslash with the announcement of AI-blabla-what-so-ever, so far, it can be turned OFF. With that in mind, I still trust Mozilla more than any alternative. And YES, I use the vertical tabs.