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TechRadar
Christian Guyton

Microsoft, drop your AI obsession and give us what we really want: a lightweight Windows 11 that nails the basics

Microsoft Windows
A laptop screen showing the Windows 11 logo and a wallpaper.

It's no secret that things have been a little rough for Microsoft lately. Investors aren't happy with the slow adoption of new Copilot features in Windows; consumers aren't happy that Microsoft keeps cramming unwanted AI garbage into their systems; gamers aren't happy that Windows 11 is far less stable as a PC gaming platform than Windows 10 was.

But I had a dream - not the Martin Luther King kind, the literal kind - last night. I was sitting at my PC, working in Windows - but it wasn’t the Windows I know today. No, it was a simplified version of Microsoft’s industry-dominating OS: no AI shovelware, no unnecessary features, no preloaded apps and intrusive widgets, no distractions. Just a basic desktop interface, with only the applications I chose to download.

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