Hate is a strong word, indifferent is more the word I’d use.
And I’m indeifferent because I have used (GNU)Linux as my main desktop OS since 2005, and (GNU)Linux exclusively for the past 15 years. And now even games run fine on Linux, so to me it’s all benefits now.
So it’s just that Windows and everything Microsoft is irrelevant now, except for a classic game I still play occasionally with my wife.

Obviously the proprietary nature with all the problems that includes, was what motivated me to shift originally, and it is also the reason I don’t even want to dual boot Windows, not if it was free as in beer either.

3. The joy of “figuring it out”

No absolutely not, I used to be an IT consultant, but like most people I like things to just work, and Linux has done that for many years now.
I do however like the freedom, and that I am not prevented from configuring my system like I want to. I remember Windows having the most ridiculous mechanisms to prevent me from for instance replacing something as banal as notepad as default/system text editor. Absolutely bullocks behavior by Microsoft IMO. I am very happy to have a system where I decide, and not some company that wants to lock me into their ecosystem.

PS: I have never tried anything Windows beyond Windows XP. But boy did Vista and Windows 8 convince me that I did the right thing switching to (GNU)Linux. Almost everybody I knew were absolutely pissed about both.

Windows Vista was the most golden opportunity to buy expensive hardware for cheap, because it didn’t have drivers for Vista. Laughing my ass off about people who claim hardware lacks drivers for Linux, when it’s actually worse on Windows with every new release.

I don’t hate Windows, I don’t care about it. I don’t use it.

Because every time I’m reminded the underlying OS exists it’s always something negative.

On windows: Forced restarts and updates that take over 5x as long as my Linux (or FreeBSD build), ui that constantly undoes what I customized, ads and preinstalled malware essentially like candy crush even on builds from Microsoft directly, worse performance with a much higher number of crashes under load on my current box, and no auto login/name any simple customization without screwing around with registry editor to name just the simple things. More advanced problems include no hypervisor built in to the home version, everything is pay to unlock features my Linux install does for free, no zfs software raid for storage safekeeping, most fixes when I do have errors involve googleing cryptic hex codes and being told to run fsck/chdsk as the only solution for often times hours of searching before finally finding the actual answer - not to mention most other fixes being to download a library/binary of the sketchiest sounding website ever that i can’t verify isn’t a virus.

On linux or even FreeBSD which took a bit to get installed to my liking i may have put work in up front but its like 3 hours at most of my time for 6+ years of stability and proper functioning to avoid all of the above plus no microsoft telemetry etc. I switched when i first tried Vista and even today every time i have to use Microsoft’s horrific excuse for an OS it is heartburn inducing.

I don’t know if I “hate” Windows but more like “I’m done dealing it.” I might come and use it time to time, but only when absolutely necessary, and the mental capacity to remove things I don’t need and make sure its removed.

The “we know better than you” attitude Microsoft has. They’ve very slowly removed more and more power user functionality. Almost every customization has to be hacked in with a group policy or registry edit now, or by outright replacing explorer.exe

I think I need like 2 weeks to tell all the reasons I hate it.

I genuinely don’t find Windows easier to use. And troubleshooting Windows problems is a friggin’ nightmare compared to Linux.

Freedom FTW!

I… Don’t? But I’ve used it since 3.11. It’s incredibly usable software, when it works. Switched recently because even I have my limits - that win11 recall even made it as an idea at the table is enough to make me jump ship. The ads in win10 pushed me to the limit, but recall is insane unless they’re literally gonna give away free hardware and software. I paid for that damn computer and bought a license - wtf. It’s not Microsofts hardware to datamine or put ads on. Paid for things with ads in them that also keylog and screen scrape and datamine can fuck all the way off.

Saw the netbsd video posted on lemmy recently and dude said he was offended at the lack autonomy he had over his own hardware in ms and I kind of get it now.

Because for me Windows was not easier to use.

I only got my first proper computer in 2020, and comparing Windows 10 with Linux Mint 20, I found the latter much simpler to use not having used either one prior. Just having to bounce between Control Panel and new Settings, plus a lot of tutorials shown magic with registries…
Also, I had a lot of problems with uninstallers failing or not removing programs completely, and getting permissions to remove files directly was also pain in the ass, even as “Administrator”. That often resulted in me booting up live Linux DVD to remove crap programs from Windows.

I gave it a try, but I didn’t like it. Perhaps I’d like MacOS though. It seems similar enough. But Windows just feels like 2 decades of hotfixes glued together.

I like being in control of my computer.

Windows and Android have this attitude where they decide how you want to use your device and block customisation. And the fact that they feel entitled to be able to change how your device looks and feels without warning or permission is something that’s deeply uncomfortable to me. There’s also this feeling of not knowing what my device is actually doing, and how much of my data it is actually collecting.

With Windows, there’s also a lot of small papercuts that make it annoying to use (and that my Windows friends don’t seem to understand):

• Lack of middle click paste.
• Lack of the ability to drag windows using “alt”.
• You can’t turn off the window previews in the task bar.
• You can’t disconnect from a wired network connection from the connections list.
• Sometimes the computer just restarts on its own for fun.
• Finding settings is a pain because they keep adding new settings menus.
• Whatever garbage the start menu is doing nowadays.
• Installing software and drivers is a pain.
• The attitude that you have to download (or buy!) third party software for core features that should be included in the OS.
• It doesn’t support my keyboard layout, and the editor for making new layouts is terrible.
• The bitlocker password entry doesn’t respect your keyboard layout. Or clear the entry when you get it wrong.
• Windows licenses are a pain to manage.
• Managing the bootloader just sucks.
• The registry just kinda sucks compared to dconf and/or text config files.
• Font rendering is ugly, imo.
• I don’t care about edge, fuck off with that shit.
• I can’t change the volume by using the scroll wheel.
• Launching a pinned app on the task bar causes all the other pinned apps to shift around so I misclick.
• Device letters are not stable if you add or remove devices.
• It just resets settings sometimes, because why not?
• It can’t be installed to a partition that isn’t the first partition on the disk. This is not mentioned anywhere, nor is the error useful.
• It’s just bad for developing on, due to lack of tooling.

… Whew I ranted for a while there, didn’t I? Yeah, I dual boot Windows for the games that either don’t run under protonwine or the devs want to add a rootkit to.

I think hate is really too strong of a word, dislike at most for me.
My biggest issue with Microsoft is a lack of trust. Apart from that, I just like my Linux setup more and find it easier to use.
Stuff I want to do works how I want to do it and how I’m (now) used to it.
Regardless, I use Windows at work, manage Windows Servers and Azure. It’s just how it is.

I started “hating” Windows more recently. I was never a very technical user but I was always someone that could find myself around system configuration and they just keep hiding ways of letting you customize things.

When I started learning programming I was still trying to use only Windows but at some point I got extremely tired of fighting how clunky environmental variables can be. Installing things such as gcc and python was extremely annoying.

Then I did dual boot for a few years, then I started using WSL. WSL is… Awful, lol. It will never ask you if it is okay to stop what you are doing to reboot, I lost count of how many times I was working on something and suddenly my Linux environment was dead.

This year the amount of clutter they are adding to Windows and the existence of Proton just kicked the bucked for me, everywhere you look at Windows is busy and full of stuff I don’t want to be there and like I said previously, you either can’t remove it or it is difficult because they just want it to be.

I might need to figure out how to run a Windows VM if I need to run something (hasn’t happened yet) but that’s it, I don’t need to deal with all the bs anymore and I can customize things as I like. I love it.

I wouldn’t say I hate Windows now, I just kind of despise it after so many years. I wish I heard my professors that kept shitting on Windows so many years ago.

I actually own my computer. But on Windows, it doesn’t feel like that…

For me the straw that broke the camels back was the fucking updates. I got so tired of Windows forcing updates, and I never could get the registry edits to disable it to stick. Besides, you shouldn’t have to EDIT THE REGISTRY to just turn off updates! But there’s also stuff I’d really miss if I went back (I’ve been on Nobara for a year now) like the package management on Linux. I love that I can choose to update on MY terms, and that almost everything updates during the process. I have a few random jar apps for Switch hacking stuff, and an appimage for R2Modman, but besides that I don’t have to worry about needing to download the latest version of shit all the time. AND, having most of what you need just available on a software store is so nice. Never mind that its so much safer to not have to download random .exe’s from all over the internet. These days the only thing I actually struggle with is modding certain games. Like BG3 took me awhile, but then I found out there’s a Linux mod manager called lampray and it works perfectly. Then there’s also the fact you have to know how to do DLL overrides for things like bepinex or anything that adds some kind of DLL. But otherwise, it just works and infuriates me less than windoze