Windows 11 is beyond annoying

Windows 11 didn’t get a mention in last week’s look at the HP OmniBook X. That was deliberate. If HP’s, otherwise enticing, laptop has a weak spot, it is Microsoft’s operating system.

This was the first time I attempted to work using Windows 11. My previous encounters with the operating system were fleeting and shallow. Maybe we should have kept things that way.

For the past 11 years I’ve run Macs. At first with Windows as a second string, but more recently I’ve been exclusively Mac.

Productivity

When Windows switched from 7 to 8, my productivity dropped. Then I took the plunge with a MacBook[^It wasn’t my first time with Apple, but that’s another story.].

To say my productivity soared is putting it mildly, moving from Windows to Mac was like gaining an extra working day each week. That’s important when work pays by the word or by the hour.

Windows does some things better than MacOS. Upgrades are easier, working with third party hardware is easier. It also has a wider range of games and applications, not that any of that matters to me.

But, hear me out, it feels like Windows 11 treats users with contempt.

Notification hell

After a decade with MacOS I was shocked to see an important-looking notification appear in the bottom left hand corner of the Windows 11 display that turned out to be an advertisement. Microsoft literally interrupted my flow to direct me to where I could buy a third-party application.

This is not OK. Not in any conceivable world.

Another notification, sorry “new alert” flashed up. This might be acceptable if, say, World War III had started and I needed to head to a bunker. The ‘news’ story concerned a ‘celebrity’ I have never heard of doing something I don’t even remotely care about.

At some point, I was busy, so I didn’t take notes, a promotion for a game appeared.

This is not the future we signed up for

How can this even happen with a device that is meant to be a productivity tool?

Sure, all this can be turned off.

Actually I don’t know if it can be turned off. I’m presuming it can, but I couldn’t find where to mute these things without Googling... Except it wasn’t Google. It was Bing and Bing wasn’t forthcoming with the information.

Muting is not the point. These alerts are switched on by default. This is the Windows 11 experience Microsoft wants you to have.

Rightly or wrongly it feels as if Microsoft views Windows 11 users as a market to be milked for extra revenue at every possible opportunity.

Culture shock

This is not an Apple is better than Microsoft partisan rant. Well, not entirely. Apple pushes customers towards iCloud, Music and Apple TV among other services, but it doesn’t stop you from working in order to do this.

The point here is that after a decade away from Windows, revisiting the operating system is a culture shock. It wasn’t this way in 2012.

Before I sent the OmniBook X back to HP, I checked to see if it could run Linux as an alternative, non annoying, operating system. The official answer appears to be “not yet”. The correct answer is “Not soon enough”.