Article says (but don't believe them):

But it’s not all ads. In fact, Microsoft does make useful changes from time to time

Chiming in to add that the KDE application menu icon (aka the Start Button) is easily changed to whatever picture you want. Mine is currently the TARDIS control console from Doctor Who which is quite fun.

I installed mint recently and I kept the windows partition because I thought I would need to dual boot a lot but I haven't launched windows in the past couple of months

I have a laser HP all-in-onr that I thought I'd have issues with but it worked automatically with the printing and scanner app, not even in windows it works so strangely

My only issue right now were self inflicting, because I created a shared NTFS partition to keep media a torrents and it sometimes give privilege errors after a bit update (it wouldn't happen if it was ext3 from what I've been reading)

My wife needs to use the computer occasionally and I think she had more issues with windows 11 than mint, the only "issue" was that she was trying to find Microsoft word instead of openoffice

What did you do with your file system? I haven’t tried to dual boot Linux yet but I think bothering with partitioning and file systems is keeping me from taking the plunge.

(BTW it reminds me of why I didn’t go to law school, I hated filling out the paperwork for even doing the LSAT and realized the whole job is that. Dealing with partitioning and file systems and shit seems miserable and it’s just the start.)

Because if they embed an image to the article, it would distract you from all the ads that are between paragraphs.

I went 10 years ago to Linux. To avoid all Windows non sense..

So far I've managed to avoid most this kind of crap with minor tweaking, but with end of life coming soon I've been meaning to make the switch for ages, but there are always more urgent priorities.. If you don't mind me asking, and if you know - is it still possible to switch from win10 to win10 LTSC, and if so, what does it entail (do I need a fresh install, or can I just upgrade?)?

I have been using custom start menus since the whole win8 full screen disaster. Every time I see the default win 10 or Win 11 menu I cringe. So much crap in the way.

Process optimization reaches a point of diminishing returns. Then if tweaked further it degrades the performance. Microsoft reached the close to the optimal OS design at Win7. It's all been downhill since then.

The mobile OS systems are reaching the same point. Optimization has occured and most of the "new" additions degrade the user experience.

Mint with Cinnamon is great if you like the start menu style of Windows 7/10. Generally speaking Linux distros are mostly the same under the hood.

mint or something with kde.

Yeah, fuck MS and everyone should try to run away as fast as possible, but this isn't the big thing people should be worried about. I literally didn't notice what was different in those screenshots until I read more. Maybe this is done to add things in the future that'll be bad, but it itself isn't. I'd be much more concerned about Recall.

Apparently it nags you if you don't have a 365 account. So it's just more enshittification.

Were you on a free plan? Because csv export normally works fine.

Don't get me started on OneDrive

Good luck with all those vulnerabilities

At that point please just use another OS. You should be keeping your OS up to date.