I haven't spent much time using Windows. My personal laptop is a Dell XPS running Ubuntu and at work my team uses Macs (ssh'ing into Fedora VMs for development). The longest stretch of time I spent using Windows was eight months or so at my first job. I was given a laptop running Windows 10 and it took me 8 months to convince them to give me a Mac. Even then I spent most of my time in the Windows Subsystem for Linux. With just this little taste of Windows, my feeling was I'd like to avoid it if possible. For web browsing and other general computing it is fine. But, for any development it is a world I'd rather avoid. Not so much for the OS which I thought was usable. But, because I didn't want to get totally immersed in the Windows world.

I follow along with DHH's blog*. He has been fighting with Apple trying to get his company's calendar app released. As part of his battle he's made the commendable decision to try to "put his money where his mouth is" and to get off of Apple products. As part of that process he has tried out Windows and has had good things to say about it. That made me a tiny bit curious to try out Windows again now that I have some more years under my belt. Maybe I'd like it too?

This past month I had a chance to do that. We are setting up JumpCloud for MDM at our company so I've been trying out provisioning Windows devices (some folks at the company use Windows). I haven't done any development on the machines but just some basic clicking around. After this little bit of time I can say unequivocally that I won't be switching any time soon. Windows is one giant ad and my experience as a user suffered from it.

Here is my experience: When I opened my Windows machine (running Windows 11 Pro) I was greeted with the normal setup your computer flow. Connect to the internet. Enter my name. Then came the first bit of ad junk. I had to enter Microsoft account credentials to get to the next step. There are ways around this but they aren't just a click away so I conceded and set up an account. Then I was presented with a "Free offer for Microsoft 365". No, thanks. Then it was "Free offer for Xbox game pass". I'll pass. Finally, into the desktop. In Windows 10 I remember the Windows start button was on the bottom left so I instinctively clicked there. I was greeted with some half broken mess of widgets showing me news articles and stock prices. How delightful. Looks like the Windows start button is now center aligned (copying Mac dock?). I clicked it and was able to open Edge. But, I had to click through three windows before I could actually use the browser. Each one of them asked me some form of what data I wanted to share with god knows who. The final one gave me a chuckle. It read "do you want to make your Windows experience better?". Yes! That would be great. But, I'm sure that by "better" they mean better for them and worse for me. So, I clicked no. It would be hard for my experience so far to get worse so I figured "no" couldn't be that disastrous. Finally I was just about to sign into the JumpCloud console when a dialog box popped up asking me if I wanted to secure my computer with McAfee. I hadn't seen that since the library computers in middle school. Once again, no thanks. Now, I was able to use the browser. But, the McAfee popup kept appearing as well as a few guest spots from Xbox Game Pass.

After navigating the sea of ads/popups I was left dismayed. I imagine there is a way to turn them all off but I wish off was the default. I know Apple is no shining star but at least I can click "setup later" and "later" is on my watch, not theirs. I have to remove things like AppleTV from the dock when I get a new machine but they don't find their way back. And there are no popups from companies like McAfee following me around. I encourage DHH to continue his search but I won't be leaving my Mac for Windows anytime soon.

*I could write another post on his blog and the ideas he shares. I have no plans to but just know that just because I read it doesn't mean I agree with him.

P.S. While updating my site with this post I was greeted with this ›Error: request to https://api.netlify.com/<snip> failed, reason: Hostname/IP does not match certificate's altnames: Host: api.netlify.com. is not in the cert's ›altnames: DNS:*.safezone.mcafee.com, DNS:safezone.mcafee.com My router from CenturyLink has Mcafee garbage too. I've turned it off no less than a dozen times...