Our family PC still has 8.1 (parents really don’t like change and Firefox got security updates until recently). I think I’ll upgrade it to 10 when I have time, the amount of debloat required to keep it sane is manageable as opposed to 11. Mom could handle mildly riced XFCE Linux with Firefox and our legal copy of Office 2007 under Wine but dad uses Total Commander and won’t use anything other than drive letters.
We’ve been using Classic Shell since Day 1 of course. I modded it to quit qBittorrent when Mom opens the Shutdown dialog* (yes, she always opens that awful window) because that takes the longest to terminate. I’ll use it plus Explorer Patcher on 10, a semi-transparent taskbar without blur is so handy
* Classic Shell Start Menu can run arbitrary and predefined commands from buttons but not both at once. The Shutdown dialog can only be triggered with a JS script so I’m using a VBS script (unlike BAT or JS, it can run silently) that runs the JS script and taskkill command.
Our family PC still has 8.1 (parents really don’t like change and Firefox got security updates until recently). I think I’ll upgrade it to 10 when I have time, the amount of debloat required to keep it sane is manageable as opposed to 11. Mom could handle mildly riced XFCE Linux with Firefox and our legal copy of Office 2007 under Wine but dad uses Total Commander and won’t use anything other than drive letters.
A suggestion:
Dual boot!
Call the Linux partition “Mom’s speed machine” and the old Windows 8.1 partition “Dad’s slow shitheap”.
Make the Linux partition as easy and intuitive to use as possible. Let the Windows partition rot.
I’m sure dad will come around pretty soon when he sees mom’s sleek setup and he gets a pang of jealousy.
Good luck!
Man 8.1 Metro was the worst UI pick Windows has had
We’ve been using Classic Shell since Day 1 of course. I modded it to quit qBittorrent when Mom opens the Shutdown dialog* (yes, she always opens that awful window) because that takes the longest to terminate. I’ll use it plus Explorer Patcher on 10, a semi-transparent taskbar without blur is so handy
* Classic Shell Start Menu can run arbitrary and predefined commands from buttons but not both at once. The Shutdown dialog can only be triggered with a JS script so I’m using a VBS script (unlike BAT or JS, it can run silently) that runs the JS script and
taskkillcommand.get the iot ltsc version, it’s the only sane option rn