Russian user speaking here. My experience might be tailored tp the fact that Russia is going under massive sanctions and also government shutting down the internet as of late. Also, I am using the what I think is the latest build of Tiny 11, a modified version of Windows 11 that is cut to make it smaller, faster and less bloated.

TL;DR: Windows 11 breaks apart and I am not able to fix it. Concidering other options, maybe reinstalling Windows 11 or switching to Linux. Problems of switching to Linux are that programs that I work in don't work on Linux and if they do they work poorly or through a bunch of BS that I am not willing to go down a rabbit hole for.

Now, as you may heard lately, Windows 11 is literally collapsing with recent updates that causes users to get frequent Black Screens of Death and other issues accomodating that. I have been seeing the effects myself too.

First of all, Windows Update just doesn't work anymore. Same goes with pretty much any Microsoft Windows application, including but not limited to: Microsoft Store, Edge, Get Help (which removed itself entirely). I am not sure when these issues appeared, but it is really annoying me, since nothing I've tried works to fix any of that. Running diagnostics isn't possible without Get Help app on Windows 11 as far as I am aware, I cannot get it through the Microsoft Store because it asks me to connect to the internet, which I am connected to. Alternatively it asks to check for updates, which I also cannot do, because the Update Center cannot reach the Microsoft for some reason. I tried using VPN, I tried googling and even included EVERY Microsoft domain in the bypass to try to get it working. And nothing. Now, the reason why I am very concerned about this in the first place is because I am trying to connect my phone to my PC to use as a WebCam (for VTubing purposes), and Link to Windows is what I hope could be the most reliable option. I don't want to use apps like DroidCam because I had bad experience with them, but Windows is genuinely not allowing me to download Phone Link is getting annoying.

Second, the actual Windows user experience. It is at times plain unintuitive and unpleasant. Shit barely works and falls apart instantly. I enjoy the freedom of Windows to download and pirate anything, but at the same time, if nothing works, why do it in the first place? When I try to get one thing working, the two other things break. It is just annoying to deal with. Every time I feel like I am setting up Windows fresh. I genuinely don't know if it is my issue or not, but it just doesn't work for me.

Now to conclude this, I am currently backing things up to my other drive to either re-install Windows 11 from scratch and hope for the best, or go full Linux. Still thinking where I should go from here. The reason I heaitate to going to Linux is because due to my current living conditions, I am not able most of the internet resources without a bypass or a VPN. Previously setting it up was a nightmare. Bypass would barely work, crash, reset etc. over and over again, while VPN's were slow of everyday usage, gaming, stream and just plain talking on Discord without a massive sacrifice in quality and ping, while also most of the good VPN's would charge money for traffic, like Windscrkbe that would give only 10 GB of traffic per 2-weeks - Month. It is genuinely a nightmare that I cannot use basically anything without selling my soul to the devil or leaving a country, which I am not able to either way at the moment. The other side of Linux is that the usual apps, games and other software would just not work on it. Say for instance Premiere Pro, Photoshop and other programs, that I use and would wish to use because I work at a studio, but are not available for Linux. Now, there are Linux alternatives like DaVinci Resolve, but to access the full package you have to pay a subscription, so you cannot pirate it, and the learning curve for it is too extreme for me. I do not wish to learn a computer from scratch, just for it to be almost or completely unusable. Now, there are options like Virtual Machines's or Wine to try to mitigate the issue, but there are issues. VM's require space on your drive, which I don't have a lot of and they do tend to work slower or not work at all when it comes to certain tasks like rendering out a video in Premiere, mostly because of compatibility issues. Wine on the other hand requires a LOT of fuckery to even get it some-what working, since Wine was meant for old 32-bit applications, you will need to add onto it a lot, troubleshoot, etc. to get it working for the stuff that you need. Plus, the before-mentioned Adobe applications (besides Photoshop as of recently) will not work with Wine at all. All and everything is a trade-off for me that I am, as of now, not willing to take yet. When I will get into it deeper, I might switch to it, but for now I do not want to use it.

Now, it is a lot of rambling even for me. I originally wanted to just dunk on Windows, but I guess I also explored some of the options here.

Thanks for reading.