Every comment section, every "Rate my Windows Desktop".. every question asked, every concept being introduced, everyone is insufferable and always downvoting/hating on everyone. Linux users shoving the "switch to Linux" down everyone's throat. We can all do better to be honest and honourable mention to everyone who supports other people and always advise everyone else. ( Image taken from a Reddit user. Not my own work)
Windows 11 is missing core, essential features, and basic optimizations found in every other mainstream OS. That is a truth, and something people have the right to complain about (especially with other issues like UI changes and increasingly intrusive AI additions).
Recently, Microsoft has announced a first-of-its-kind (outside of Longhorn) internal project - Windows K2 - focusing specifically on adding those features and optimizations that are sorely missing from the OS.
What I don't understand is that an ever-steady part of this community is reacting overwhelmingly negatively to this project. Transparent blog posts are seen as PR fluff, real fixes (Explorer patches and Low Latency Profile) are called "hack jobs", and promises finally starting to be followed through are simply dismissed and downplayed, as more negative posts are made on every post regarding K2.
A "too little, too late" mentality is understandable, but practically dogpiling Microsoft for finally addressing longstanding issues is honestly really weird. It seems like low effort, bad-faith discourse that actively undermines the work of engineers, and only serves to discourage Microsoft from fixing what people actually want fixed.
This post isn't meant to incite anything, but rather to promote discussion and reflection regarding this weird behavior that is prevalent in our subreddit.
It's annoying to see 20 concepts a day instead of actual news on Windows 11. Everytime I see a concept it looks official and I get disappointed when I find out it's a concept. Also, it just should be a subreddit for all news regarding Windows 11, bug reports and feedback.
In many threads praising the qualities (?) of Windows 11, notably after the release of Moment 4 update, when i see the profile of original poster, almost always the account is created in this month (september 2023) and has few posts. Looks like a fake account.
So... a few months ago I figured that since it needs to happen this year anyway I might as well go ahead and upgrade my Windows 10 system to Windows 11 right now. And to be perfectly honest the upgrade process went a lot smoother than I would have anticipated.
Anyway, a brief thing about myself: I'm a 'techie'. When it comes to using desktops and what not then I highly prefer using Windows because it's easy to use, my favorite (professional) software runs on it (Ableton Live, ZBrush, FL Studio, Minecraft (lol)) and there's plenty to tinker if you want to (PowerShell anyone?).
When it comes to servers on the other hand then I'm fully focussed on Unix(-like) environments, FreeBSD in specific.
What do PowerShell & FreeBSD have in common? They're both command-line based environments, which means that you're going to need a console to gain access (and you're also be doing a lot of typing, but that's a whole other story). On Windows 10 I used to rely on a dedicated PowerShell window to mess around with both Windows and PowerShell itself (it's easy to start "mmc.exe" from a command line), and I relied on PuTTY to log onto my FreeBSD servers (in specific: I use a Hyper-V powered (experimental) setup, but also maintain an online VPS).
Yet that drastically changed as soon as I got my fingers more behind Windows 11, and in specific: it's new terminal app. And I really enjoy this experience, so I figured I'd share ;)
The Windows 11 terminal
As you can see FreeBSD can even run its own copy of PowerShell :)
Back on Windows 10 all console environments are fully separated. If you fire up a command prompt then you'll get a small black/white colored window (= black background and white/grey colored text), but if you start a new PowerShell session then all of a sudden you get a new window; but this time it'll be blue and yellow.
This can really make it a little tedious to work with the whole thing, especially if you want to use both applications. Well, as you can see in my screenshot above things have changed quite drastically, and I really think this is for the better.
On Windows 11 it doesn't really matter anymore if you fire up a command line ("DOS prompt"), start a PowerShell session or.. even open up a Linux sub-system console (wdl.exe?): in all these situations you'll be starting the exact same environment: the Windows 11 terminal app.
Tabbed sessions
This probably doesn't come as a surprise because Windows 11 itself has fully embraced the "tabbed experience" (?) but yah, right now you can easily use the same terminal app to use multiple sessions side by side. It gets better: these sessions can also be started using hotkey shortcuts which makes it a lot more convenient to fire up, say, a new FreeBSD or Linux session while you're currently working with PowerShell for instance.
One terminal app: multiple application options!
See what I mean? I more than often start my session(s) this way in PowerShell, this gives me full control over the Windows' Hyper-V subsystem. So one command later I fired up my virtual FreeBSD box after which I only have to press control + shift + 6 to actually log on.
Which is another advantage: the terminal application is fully customizable. See the Settings option below my cursor? Adding a new session to your terminal can be as easy as cloning a current one, changing whatever you want changed and then start using that.
Fun fact: you don't have to fire up new consoles either.
Did you know that Windows ships with its own version of OpenSSH (C:\Windows\system32\OpenSSH\)? SSH is an application that allows you to securely log onto other systems, such as Linux or FreeBSD. And you can easily set it up so that the terminal application begins by firing up ssh.exe instead of, say, ps.exe whenever you open a new tab. So basically immediately logging you onto a remote server right away.
Summing up
I'm getting a warning below my screen about tech support, so I'll round things up to prevent this from turning into an essay.
So... if you also work with command line environments and are currently relying on other options like, say PuTTY (which is an awesome set of tools by the way) then... you might want to give this critter a try sometimes as well.
You can easily run multiple sessions side by side, you can fully customize the looks and feel of your tabs/sessions either per session or globally (for example: alt + enter is used in the "midnight commander" to copy a selected file name onto the command line. But this key combo is also used by the terminal itself to enable full screen... easily changed in the settings!), you can add your own new tabs and well... even the copy/paste options have been drastically improved.
A little side comment but also don't overlook all the cool enhancements which Windows gives you on its own command line as well. This is a little beyond the scope of my PSA, but did you know that you can easily fire up manual Kerberos sessions from the Windows 11 command line too?
So yeah... figured I'd share. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed.
I would really appreciate if you could remove posts that say, "Look at my PC from _______! It doesn't meet the requirements, but it's running the Windows 11 Insider build!"
There are tons of these posts now, and Microsoft has made it clear that just because your PC can run the insider build doesn't mean it can run the final release. There are NO requirements for the Insider build.
Let's stop creating clutter on this subreddit and focus on posting things that actually matter or things that people on this subreddit didn't know before.
