[CoolGuySteve]

I have the same motivation as you, I just want shit that works.

But Windows is the absolute last place I find that. All I get are updates that break my setup, constant inane interruptions from Cortana or the desktop or wherever, advertisement tiles in the fucking start menu, forced updates that can't be done in the background, Windows Activation disappearing after hardware upgrades, etc.

I feel like I'm in the Stepford Wives with all these people coming out of the woodwork to proclaim how majestic the Windows experience is.

A few years back I switched from Mac to Ubuntu for the faster, cheaper, diverse hardware and I have to say, it's pretty much perfect in the "Just Works" department on the 3 laptops + 2 desktops I've installed it on. But I'm also one of those people that actually liked Unity so I don't have to mess with it much after installing.

[la_barba]

Just to add my own anecdote here, I have been getting months of uptime on Windows, since Windows 7. I have a W7 Laptop and a W10 dev workstation that are currently at over 4 months of uptime. https://imgur.com/a/U8fGpCi

Edit: Oops looks like someone rebooted my W7 laptop.. :'(

[scardine]

Interesting, may be I have some setting that prevents Cortana from annoying me and prevents windows from placing ads on the start menu. Not that I use the start menu often, generally I just hit the search box and start typing the name of the app I want (if it is not pinned to the task bar already).

I'm using Windows 10 Pro (Insider Preview fast track) and not seeing the annoyances you are experiencing.

[phishfi]

In my experience, the ads are only present at initial setup. Once you remove the shortcuts (and disable suggested apps), they don't show up again.

[ccffph]

as usual, the pirated enterprise editions with telemetry disabled work really well.