You paid me, a long-time Linux user, to use Windows 11 exclusively for a month

> lacks basic features like dealing with compressed files – I don’t count a decades-old cumbersome wizard-style interface with countless steps to go through just to unpack a compressed file to be even remotely acceptable in 2026. Dolphin and Nautilus handle compressed files entirely transparently and much faster than Explorer does, and once you’re used to that, going back to ’90s style compressed file management almost feels insulting.

I can open a zip in a normal file explorer window just fine. Maybe this is something stripped from European versions for anti-monopoly reasons?

Anyway here's what I've done with my Win11 install to make it tolerable:

- Disable onedrive

- Make a secondary local admin account and use that exclusively instead of the the main Microsoft account one (since the library paths in the main account all have onedrive in them even if it's disabled)

- Disable web search in the start menu with group policies

- Remove task view, widgets, the search bar, etc. from the task bar

- Put the start menu in list view and remove every pinned item

- Left-align the taskbar

- Show file extensions in explorer

I'm sure there's a lot more I had to do, but I don't remember off the top of my head.

A lot of differences only manifest themselves over time.

For example, what happens during an OS upgrade and how do the systems compare.