nightcraw1er.488: Unfortunately that is the world we live in though. Same with everything now. Apps on the iPad update on their own, heck it’s likely your kettle or fridge is updating itself as we speak.
I think people are lowering their expectations a little too low than is healthy. What's best for consumption based devices (phones & tablets) isn't necessarily best for production based environments (desktop PC's). I definitely do not own a smart kettle or fridge, just normal ones that cool food and boil water without the over-engineering. Aside from the Linux you don't like mentioned, Enterprise LTSC also doesn't force that
"you must update for the sake of updating" philosophy and MS are mostly being d*cks to consumers about refusing a legal option for that. I've used that at work, and it's everything W10 should have been as a straight W7 replacement (long term stable UI design, bloat free, lowest telemetry & memory usage, no Cortana, etc) with the option of adding more for those who want it, but isn't for consumers out of control freakism. Have a +1 for using OpenShell, but that seems to be
another thing that's just been partially broken thanks to W11's UI redesign so users will have to find a replacement for that too just to get a functional Start Menu back.
Edit: To clarify for those using Open Shell / Classic Shell, it no longer replaces the Start Icon. If you keep it centered it will appear on the left and work but
then it looks a mess with 2x Start Buttons. If you move the Start bar back to being left-aligned, Open Shell will overlay it without replacing it, so you won't be able to right-click on one of them.
Darvond: Why pay for either Pro or Enterprise when they're the Discovery and Star Trek: Picard of Windows when instead you could get yourself a Galaxy or Constitution class starship in the form of actual freedom, libre from the control of an overseeing system? You know where this spiel goes, so I'll just wink and let you fill in the blanks. ;)
I have actually been dual-booting with Mint for the past year and if it weren't for gaming in general I'd have switched ages ago. It's been a learning curve, and requires "more work" than W7 for games, but it's also more of a viable "backup plan" if it came to it then I would have guessed 5-10 years ago. :-)