After mulling over it for close to 14 years, it seems Microsoft is finally ready to kill off the Windows Control Panel soon. An official confirmation has been posted on its website.
I have friends who work in IT and would probably slam their head against the wall if they had to deal with Control Panel being removed.
Are Microsoft deliberately trying to make the fabled Year of the Linux Desktop finally become a reality? Because I feel like we're two or three more dumbfuck business moves away from this...
I have a PC at home that works perfectly fine. Browses the internet, emulates GameCube and Dreamcast, runs any app I need.
It's not eligible for Windows 11. In about a month MS will just stop supporting my PC, and it will not have the option to be a Windows PC despite still having plenty of service time to offer.
Microsoft is basically forcing that PC to run Linux instead.
Windows 10 is being supported until next October, you've got more than a month. That said, I've been on Linux for just over a month and I'm so much happier with it. I really like KDE Plasma as a desktop environment. I made the leap because I was unhappy with Windows, but at this point I genuinely prefer Linux.
Ah. Thank you!! I was planning to disconnect the computer from wifi next month until I got around to setting up Linux. Nice to know there is more time.
I used Mint like 15 years ago trying to set up retropie on a cheap netbook. It felt really smooth, but I couldn't get something to work and just never had time to research a resolution.
I'm sure it's more user friendly now or at least the tools are more successful on first install. Going to find out sooner or later. I really just use that old PC to store pictures and play retro games, so it shouldn't be hard to convert with a little time for research.
KDE really is nice. It can be a little bit buggy when messing with themes and panels and stuff but overall its nice. I've got it looking like waybar and I'm really enjoying it.
Which distro are you on? Plasma has reached it's 6.0 version I think now. I used it back in the day and KDE apps are really more powerful than their GNOME counterparts.
Don't sweat "what distro" so much. All the major distros offer the same desk tops. So pick a distro you like and just download the KDE Plasma spin of it and enjoy.
Bazzite, it's based on immutable Fedora. But it made sense for my use case because it's one of the more consistent at working out of the box with Nvidia graphics cards and I wanted the gaming stuff, but Plasma should be more or less the same everywhere. I'm not sure which version of Plasma it's running but Bazzite is generally pretty up to date with everything but I can't check right now.
Can confirm, want to change your domain or computer name?
Windows 7/10: control panel , system , computer name tab.
Windows 10 /11: control panel, system, windows settings, advanced system settings, old system control panel, computer name tab.
Open Start or hit Win+R- type sysdm.cpl. Done. They kill off the easy to click icon in Control Panel, but they leave the stuff in still. I doubt they'll remove them. Or at least hope not, lol. Settings is such a cluster to go through.
That many steps? WindowsKey+Break > Change computer name.
If you're okay with three steps, on Windows 10 and newer, you can right click the start menu and generally open system. Just about any version supports right clicking "My Computer" or "This PC" and selecting properties, as well.
I've been using linux for about a decade. I only know how to maintain my system and google when troubles arise. I'm pretty comfortable with my setup and would love to see many make that jump as well. However, I have to concede that corporate environments add a whole another dimension to the problem.