{"id":287373,"date":"2026-07-08T18:28:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T22:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/08\/you-paid-me-a-long-time-linux-user-to-use-windows-11-exclusively-for-a-month-heres-how-it-went-osnews\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T18:28:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T22:28:00","slug":"you-paid-me-a-long-time-linux-user-to-use-windows-11-exclusively-for-a-month-heres-how-it-went-osnews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/08\/you-paid-me-a-long-time-linux-user-to-use-windows-11-exclusively-for-a-month-heres-how-it-went-osnews\/","title":{"rendered":"You paid me, a long-time Linux user, to use Windows 11 exclusively for a month: here\u2019s how it went \u2013 OSnews"},"content":{"rendered":"

You paid me, a long-time Linux user, to use Windows 11 exclusively for a month: here\u2019s how it went \u2013 OSnews<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.osnews.com\/story\/145459\/you-paid-me-a-long-time-linux-user-to-use-windows-11-exclusively-for-a-month-heres-how-it-went\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-07-08 18:28:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.osnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n

You all donated en masse to have me use Windows 11 for a month, and so I did. What was it like for a long-time Linux user to go back and experience Windows as it exists now? Is it really as bad as we\u2019ve collectively made it out to be? Did my month with Windows 11 consist of nothing but pain and misery, or are there good things to say, too? Or, was it an unexpected pleasant surprise? And ultimately, did I stay with Windows 11, or move back to the Linux world?<\/p>\n

\u27a1\ufe0f Donate through Ko-Fi<\/strong> \u27a1\ufe0f Donate through SEPA transfer* \u27a1\ufe0f Buy merch from our store<\/strong> \u27a1\ufe0f Why a fundraiser?<\/p>\n

*Name<\/span>: Thom Holwerda \u2013 IBAN<\/span>: SE08 8000 0820 1684 4657 8414 \u2013 BIC<\/span>: SWEDSESS<\/p>\n

This year, I\u2019m celebrating the milestone of having posted 20000 stories on OSNews during my 21 years as managing editor of OSNews. This is my full-time job, and since nobody is going to give me any bonuses, stock options, or golden pens, we\u2019re running a big fundraiser to keep OSNews going. To add some spice to the whole thing, I added some incentives, with the first being using Windows 11 for a month. We\u2019re slowly but steadily approaching the next incentive, too, which is a proper video tour of my office, (unique) computers, and massive devices collection. There\u2019s a similar incentive to this Windows 11 one, but for macOS. Yikes.<\/p>\n

The rules for the Windows 11 incentive are simple: use stock Windows 11 for a month for my computing tasks (with the exception of gaming \u2013 converting my Linux gaming PC to Windows just to play the same games seemed silly). I wasn\u2019t allowed to use any debloating tools, but as an EU citizen, I do have the ability to remove a ton of Windows stuff thanks to the success of the Digital Markets Act. I also tried to stick to Microsoft\u2019s own applications as much as possible, for that true \u201cecosystem experience\u201d, and wasn\u2019t allowed to hack my way into a normal local user account. I was all-in.<\/p>\n

So what was it like?<\/p>\n

Setting it all up<\/h5>\n

The installation process posed a number of…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You paid me, a long-time Linux user, to use Windows 11 exclusively for a month:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[71],"class_list":["post-287373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux","tag-linux"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287373"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287373\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}