Why I Will Never Use Windows Again
Don't know how anyone can
I started a new job that runs on Windows.
I hadn’t touched a Windows machine seriously in years. I figured… how bad can it be. I’ll just adapt.
I adapted. To the fact that I never want to use it again.
The UI
Windows 11 looks like it was designed by three different teams who never met. The Start menu is one style. The Settings app is another. The Control Panel … yeah. Right-click menus collapse what used to be one click into two.
Things load. Then they re-load. Then a context menu opens half a second after you clicked. You start to expect lag as part of the interaction.
The loading
The Search bar in the Start menu thinks for a moment before showing results. Sometimes it shows web results from Bing instead of the file I’m looking for.
Opening Outlook (the new one) takes longer than opening Apple Mail, Notion, and Safari combined on my Mac. And it shows ads in the inbox. More on that in a sec.
The AI everywhere
Copilot is in the taskbar. Copilot is in Edge. Copilot is in Notepad now. Copilot wants to summarize my Word docs. Copilot wants to rewrite my email. Copilot wants to recall what I did yesterday.
I didn’t ask. And much of it is not helpful at all. It’s slow, it suggests things that don’t apply to what I’m doing, and it interrupts the workflow it claims to support. Every productivity app on my Mac integrates AI more quietly and more usefully than Microsoft has managed in their own operating system.
And I work in AI a lot.
The ads
This is the worst part.
Ads in the Start menu suggesting apps from the Microsoft Store.
Ads during the setup process pushing OneDrive and Microsoft 365.
Ads inside the new Outlook, between actual emails, styled to look like emails.
Ads on the lock screen (“Spotlight,” sure).
Notifications nudging me to switch my default browser back to Edge.
I paid for this machine. Well, the company did. The company paid for the Windows license. And I’m being marketed to while I work.
I’ve written about how embarrassing this has become before. Sitting in front of it again, on a clean install, reminded me I wasn’t being overdramatic.
Windows just sucks. I don’t get how people can live with that.
Sure, no system is perfect. Not macOS. Not Linux. But man, far from the worst. Both of them. Real far…
Options
I’m not telling anyone what to do. I want to, though.
But I get it. People have reasons. Software they need. Games. Workflows. Habits going back decades. I get it.
For me, the options were already there:
macOS, if you want it to just work and don’t mind the Apple tax.
Linux, if you want control and don’t mind tinkering.
Zorin OS is what I’d hand to anyone leaving Windows who doesn’t want to relearn everything from scratch, and doesn’t want Mac. It looks familiar. It runs on old hardware.
Even ChromeOS, for basic browser-based work, is calmer than Windows now. And Android on laptops will be too.
The Bottom Line
There’s really little Windows has going for it, other than the habits of millions of people using it. For decades. That’s it. Nothing else is a pro for Windows. There are only cons. In my eyes, anyway.
I told my new job I’ll be working on my own Mac. Smooth as a breeze. I am half done while the others are still fixing Windows issues.
Three days on Windows reminded me that I’m not picky about operating systems. I’m picky about being respected by the thing I look at for ten hours a day. And paid for.