11 ms·

Why you should not develop apps for Windows 10

386 points by irrlichthn 11y ago

7952 11y ago
It never made much sense to focus the desktop app store on commercial products. Windows has a plethora of high quality open source software that most users never find and would have trouble downloading safely. Why wait for the commercial market to catch up when you can make good software available right now that benefits users? App stores work because of easy availability and without that they are mostly useless.
creshal 11y ago
It's crazy just how… unfinished everything involving Windows 10 seems to be. Half-assed UI concepts implemented clumsily, supported by an unsupported store, updated haphazardly at a pace that makes enterprise scream bloody murder… and all Microsoft does is trying to trick more users into accidentally updating. What are they thinking? They can do better than this. Much, much better.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  Well ... it is better than 8. A lot.
  - nhebb 11y ago
    Maybe I'm in the minority, but I actually liked Windows 8.1 better than 10. It's hard for me to explain why, but Windows 10 gives me the feeling that I don't own the system - that Microsoft does and they're just letting me use it.
    - userbinator 11y ago
      Windows 10 gives me the feeling that I don't own the system - that Microsoft does and they're just letting me use it. The forced updates, meaning MS has the power to (and likely will) change your environment completely without your explicit consent? I completely agree. They've even stated a few times that Win10 is a "service" and not a "product".
      - james-skemp 11y ago
        If using a laptop or the like switch your WiFi connections over to metered connections. My Surface Pro 4 was having stability issues when it slept, and updates seemed to be the issue. Switched over to metered connections and I haven't lost any work in weeks. Doesn't work for desktops or the like with wired connections.
        sethrin 11y ago
        So it's got this malicious feature, but you can trick it into not working with some arcane (and conditional) configuration setting. I switched to Linux when XP started feeling too limiting, but this is just getting ridiculous. And without real pushback from the broader user base, odds are this is a trend that will continue.
        kuschku 11y ago
        It this all over again... http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html
        jqm 11y ago
        "haven't lost any work in weeks..." Wow! I guess that's a win... but wow....
    - bobajeff 11y ago
      My dad feels the same way only it's been this way since after 98.
    - m_fayer 11y ago
      I feel exactly the same. For me Win8.1 was the pinnacle of Windows. The whole "tile-world" part of the system was misguided but ignorable, and didn't harass anyone. Tile-world aside, it was one of the most stable and performant OSs I've used. In comparison, Windows 10 makes my top-specced late 2013 Thinkpad feel like an overheating budget machine. All together I must have spent a few workdays trying to fix the machine, and despite being quite knowledgeable about Windows administration I'm still having performance issues and still have the feeling that the system really answers only to MS HQ, and has no intention of ceding control to its owner (me).
      - briHass 11y ago
        Just a thought...did you do an update or a full, clean reinstall of 10 over 8.1? From my anecdotal testing: 4 machines with update 8.1 -> 10. One was fine, the other 3 performed very poorly. Doing a clean install fixed my perf issues. The one that was fine had a almost stock (no additional software) install of 8.1 that was a few months old.
      - speeder 11y ago
        I have Windows 8.1 I also love playing some older games (right now I am in a SimCity 4 binge). I am seriously considering the next time I buy a computer, to ditch windows entirely, and use only Wine, I am having in Windows 8.1 to put Wine DLLs in more and more game folders, also if you enter many serious gaming forums, people recommend you stick with Windows 7. The reason is that Microsoft in their DirectX pushing tactics (that started when they said that WinXP would not be able to run DX10 features at all... despite hackers proving that it ca, also the Xinput vs DirectInput bullshit) they started to resort to stuff that sometimes I am not sure if is just bad coding or intentionally evil. For example for SimCity 4: The game uses DirectX7 (yes, it is that old :( ), and relies heavily on DirectDraw (that I still think is one of the most awesome pieces of tech MS ever made), on Windows 8.1, DirectDraw is completely emulated, partially with software, partially with D3D (or OGL depending on some dll combinations you have), and in a crappily coded manner. Wine ddraw.dll instead translate all DDraw calls to OpenGL equivalent in 2D, still is not perfect, but the different is obvious, DDraw games run like crap in Windows 8.1 native, and frequently run even better than when they were designed in first place when using Wine (be it in Linux, Mac or in Windows using Wine DLLs). Another game that works in Windows 7, but not in 8.1 or 10 without Wine, is the RPG "Arcanum" from Troika Games, also for the same reason: it relies on DDraw, and Windows 8.1 onwards DDraw emulation is so bad that this game renders most of the screen black, or in a wonky manner. So if I am using Wine, on Windows, more and more, why nose use Wine on a NIX anyway? Also many of the newer games have NIX support by default too (source engine games for example). EDIT: a link to someone complaining of this issue on Microsoft forums: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-gaming/directdraw-emulation-is-broken-in-windows-881/4edfc685-72b2-4688-95ed-c745ddd38825 http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-g...
    - JoachimS 11y ago
      Then I'm part of that minority. I use Win 8.1 with classic button in a VM and it is a fast, stable Windows. Esp as a guest in a good OS.
  - ferbivore 11y ago
    How so?
    - static_noise 11y ago
      The start menu.
- djaychela 11y ago
  I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this - I keep finding bits in W10 which seem like a student's half-finished project - the print dialog in Edge's PDF reader was the latest mess I found after a recent update. I detest the UI, it's horribly unfriendly (to my eyes, anyway), and the fact that when I keyword search for an app I use every day (Notepad++) I usually get Notepad as a suggestion before it shows there's something wrong, to me. I guess part of the problem is that Windows 7 had reached the same plateau as Word had - it does everything most people need and there's no real reason to upgrade, and that MS wants to grab a part of the app/user data market so has tried to shoehorn all that into the mess left by the "windows will be the new IOS" debacle that was Windows 8.
- jay_kyburz 11y ago
  I must admit I was a little surprised when I first powered up my Surface pro. I had not used a windows machine since the early days on windows 7 but needed to start at least looking at my games on windows to make sure it worked there as well. It's rough. I really like some of the new apps designed for touch, but where are the rest? There is no file browser for example? OMG the default explorer window is a mess of icons.
- seivan 11y ago
  Sounds like an early versions of iOS 7.
- moonshinefe 11y ago
  Agreed. I was bugged by several 'system notifications' the other day on my Win 10 laptop (it took focus over my RDP client in full screen, too) that various people were trying to add me to Skype, and that I needed to sign into Skype to fill in some details they wanted about something. Thing was, I'd never installed Skype on the system or even signed into it for several years, and here it was out of the blue asking me to accept friend invites from a bunch of spammers. It's now part of the "desktop experience" built in I guess (it may have to do with using a Microsoft account vs. purely local account, in my discussions with others). The feeling is I don't really have control over the OS anymore, so I think it's time to move on soon to alternatives.
  - r3bl 11y ago
    While you're mentioning Skype, fun fact: since Windows 8 (or 8.1, not sure), there's absolutely no freaking way to sign into Skype with a local account. Like, at all. You just can't use it what so ever unless you log in with your Windows account. EDIT: about this: > The feeling is I don't really have control over the OS anymore, so I think it's time to move on soon to alternatives. I had the same feeling since Windows 8, then I moved to Linux-based distributions. Never regretted it. I still have to deal with Windows when someone at work screws something up with their computer, but that's about it.
    - throwaway13337 11y ago
      Windows now comes packaged with a version of skype that uses their 'app' system. You can still get their non-app version on the site. That version allows you to sign in to whatever user you want - it's not tied to your windows account. http://www.skype.com/en/download-skype/skype-for-computer/ http://www.skype.com/en/download-skype/skype-for-computer/ Though I agree that skype and windows have some serious user experience issues.
      - ethbro 11y ago
        Yes, you can tell the difference in search because one has a solid background and one has the blue Skype symbol in the background. wish I was kidding
- pavlov 11y ago
  Although Windows 10 on desktop is a bit of a mess, the Mobile edition is much worse. Microsoft is now selling Lumia phones with Windows 10 Mobile, but even Windows Central thinks it's not ready: "I'm relatively savvy with this stuff. But I was ready to throw it out of a window before someone pointed out the non-obvious thing that I needed to do. This wasn't the only piece of out-of-box jank, either, to which I was told a new firmware update should 'fix' most of. It then took 48 hours for the firmware update to show up, download and install to the phone." http://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-lumia-550-review http://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-lumia-550-review It's a real shame. Windows Phone 7/8 was so great because it was like an Apple product done better than Apple: it didn't have "kitchen sink" features, but instead everything just worked and was holistically designed. In the original WP7 design, the borders between apps and the OS were faded to a degree that's unique. (This design was eventually lost as Windows Phone tried to catch up with app-oriented mobile rivals.) In Windows 10 Mobile, everything has been rewritten as Universal Windows 10 apps that sort of look like the WP8 equivalents but work much worse (because they're really desktop apps squeezed onto a phone). That kind of endless strategy-driven software rewrites are the plague of Microsoft today. The OP who is disillusioned with Windows Store mentions that the Store Dashboard got much worse when Windows 10 came around. Why? Who knows -- probably somebody at MS just decided that the Dashboard needs to be implemented using hot tech X rather than stale old tech Y. This endless churn sucks and drives customers away. I quit using Windows Phone for good last year, mostly due to the customer-hostile Windows 10 plan and lack of new hardware. Can't say I've regretted it so far.
  - jon-wood 11y ago
    > In Windows 10 Mobile, everything has been rewritten as Universal Windows 10 apps that sort of look like the WP8 equivalents but work much worse (because they're really desktop apps squeezed onto a phone). The even sadder thing is that when I tried using Windows 10 as my main OS for a while all the Windows 10 apps felt like phone apps stretched out to work on a desktop.
  - Joeri 11y ago
    My experience going from wp8 on a lumia 920 to wp10 on a lumia 950 is that mail, calendar and settings got better, the browser is a wash trading improved site compatibility for worse battery life, and everything else that changed got worse. The wp of old was slow to update, but it was rock solid and highly usable. The new one not so much with crashes, slowdowns and battery drain issues all over. For what i paid for this phone i could have picked any android phone. I probably should have.
- LoSboccacc 11y ago
  my favourite is the update virus/spyware protection notification that you have to open and click manually to update like it's 1997 every time
  - jrs235 11y ago
    Is this due to a lawsuit in the EU or someplace that requires Microsoft to specifically to ask the end user for permission to update/install files on the user's machine? This might not be on Microsoft.
    - Grue3 11y ago
      >requires Microsoft to specifically to ask the end user for permission to update/install files on the user's machine? They're certainly not doing this with Windows 10.
    - Piskvorrr 11y ago
      Is there such a thing? I don't think so - last time I checked, there was about 6 GB of MS-supplied malware trying to download and install itself on eeeeeeeeevery Win7 computer through Windows Update (where not prevented by technical means such as GPO or GWX Control Panel). So no, that's either a) a fictional requirement, or b) ignored by MS.
  - WorldMaker 11y ago
    Do you have Windows Update turned off or set to not automatically update, by chance? Windows Defender automatic updates come across Windows Update.
- cornholio 11y ago
  > They can do better than this. Much, much better. No they can't. It's just your selective memory from the time they were a big-ass monopolist that sucked the life from any competing platform to the point where you had to use theirs. Now, when you are used to high quality design injected by Apple and then refined by competition in the mobile space, your standards have went up so high that you simply can't go back to the half baked buggy interfaces that Microsoft has always produced. The older systems don't /seem that way/ because you are familiar with them.
  - out_of_protocol 11y ago
    They surely can (at least they were). Using win7 right now and it's clear day&night difference how crappy the UI became
    - dagw 11y ago
      Also using win7 right now (at work). While the practical differences aren't huge, I personally find the UI of both windows 8.1 and windows 10 an improvement (after a few tweaks).
  - creshal 11y ago
    Sure, Windows was never the pinnacle of good, consistent design, but it was still a lot better than Windows 10 is. The last time I was this frustrated with a Windows version was Windows Me.
  - pmelendez 11y ago
    >when you are used to high quality design injected by Apple Hmm, people do like to glorify Apple. Just remember that Apple is the same company that told us we were holding the phone wrong and that included copy and paste after three iterations of the iPhone.
- blackhole 11y ago
  Full Disclosure: I worked at M$ from 2014-2015. MS has some very talented programmers. They're not very common, but they exist. The problem is that the entire company is completely and totally focused on developing an absurd number of new features and products, giving them completely unrealistic deadlines, and then shipping software on those deadlines no matter how half-assed or buggy it is. The idea is that everything is serviceable over the internet now, so they can just "fix it later", except they never do. This perpetuates a duct-tape culture that refuses to actually fix problems and instead rewards teams that find ways to work around them. The talented programmers are stuck working on code that, at best, has to deal with multiple badly designed frameworks from other teams, or at worst work on code that is simply scrapped. New features are prioritized over all but the most system-critical bugs, and teams are never given any time to actually focus on improving their code. The only improvements that can happen must be snuck in while implementing new features. As far as M$ is concerned, all code is shit, and the only thing that matters is if it works well enough to be shown at a demo and shipped. Needless to say, I don't work there anymore.
  - cm2187 11y ago
    I think it's largely a dog fooding problem. Visual Studio is a superb piece of software, and you can tell that its designers are the primary users. Microsoft's consumer apps are awful.
    - njloof 11y ago
      Visual Studio is superb? It's still a 32-bit app that crashes in daily usage.
      - JBReefer 11y ago
        I know there's a strong VS counterjerk, but nothing else comes close. I've been using it for years and all of its crashes have been 100% my fault. I know IntelliJ is great, and JetBrains in general rocks, but it's no contest.
        11y ago
- Gravityloss 11y ago
  If some person seriously wants to dedicate their life to building something high quality and long lasting in the software world (1), they're probably interested in building and contributing to open source, open standards, open interfaces, publishing papers etc. This might mean they would not want to dedicate their efforts to working on Windows. Same would hold for things like iOS as well. To me, architecturally, they seem dead ends that have to be completely binned at some point, leaving little useful legacy. Would you like to really put your life work into something like that, if there are alternatives? I think this must affect the culture, and the people they can hire. I have no idea how "open" Windows is nowadays, I haven't really used it in 8 years. 1: not necessarily building software directly, it can be algorithms, books, philosophies, languages etc.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    If some person seriously wants to dedicate their life to building something high quality and long lasting in the software world (1), they're probably interested in building and contributing to open source, open standards, open interfaces, publishing papers etc. "Interested in" and "can get paid for" are two very different things. Microsoft have a big reliable revenue stream. The weird thing is that there are clearly some people inside Microsoft that "get it". There's a big open push from the C#/Roslyn team. F# is pretty sophisticated. Microsoft Research are the Xerox Parc of our time: lots of great ideas few of which make it into production. But the Win8/8.1/10 cycle has so clearly been driven by panic over tablets and phones that it's produced strange chimerical half-solutions.
- mariusmg 11y ago
  Chill out dude. You make it sound it a lot worse than it actually is. The MS circlejerk hate is sure strong in here.
- Pxtl 11y ago
  I have a surface tablet, and I love it as a device and Win10 is definitely a great step in fusing desktop and tablet UI... But there are some serious head-slappers. When running in"tablet mode" many apps open in the background invisibly, only accessible through the task-switcher button. Without even a taskbar you can't even know that anything happened at all.
- z3t4 11y ago
  I guess the plan is to just keep making "improvements" witch works well for keeping the platform fresh and interesting. Then monetizing it along the way. It's also nice that it will be able to run everywhere and a "Windows" app will work on all "Windows" devices.
- melling 11y ago
  Wow, as I Microsoft hater I kind of laugh when I read this. My opinion of Windows has always been low. Unfortunately, somewhere over the years I came to realize that the entire industry is really being hurt my Windows consumers dragging their feet about upgrading browsers and operating systems. Microsoft might be rushing too fast but you're probably still better off moving forward with them. 75% of iOS users are on Apple's latest major release. That's worth a lot. If 75% of Windows users were on 10, the Windows community would be much better off. I'd say ignore the perceived warts and get behind upgrading.
  - commentzorro 11y ago
    > 75% of iOS users are on Apple's latest major release. That's because wealthier people tend to keep up with the latest technology. And Apple has always made a conscious decision to target the wealthier customers. Walk into any Best Buy and compare prices for Apple machines against the likes of Dell, Asus, Acer, and such. Poor people buy cheap because of need and upgrade only when things stop working. Rich people are more likely to buy to optimize the and share the latest and greatest experience.
    - tcfunk 11y ago
      I'm not totally sure about your statement here, but it only really serves to reinforce what was just stated. People who are picky about their tech (like those of us here on HN) are going to complain about the lack of control and forced updates. However, the population you're describing can only really stand to benefit from it all, since they do a poor job of updating on their own.
    - minionslave 11y ago
      I see more poor people with the latest iPhones and Macbooks than wealthier individuals
      - commentzorro 11y ago
        Where do you live? Maybe that has something to do with it? I help support an app with just a few thousand users (US and Canada). It's about 9 years old but still actively updated. Coincidentally, it's user base is decidedly poorer people. In the years I've been involved there have only been a handful of people running macs and about the same number running Linux. Easily 99 percent run Windows. XP was most common until last year when Windows 7 finally took over. The first Win 10 users are just starting to show up. My (admittedly limited) experience is just the opposite of yours.
- gelasio 11y ago
  Bullshit. Allow an actual user of Windows 10 to correct your statement, since I bet you haven't used it at all: Some things are unfinished. Mostly the consumer facing stuff (think Metro apps). Other than that, Windows 10 has been rock solid for the past 8 months or so that I've been using it on my main workstation and my main tablet.
  - ionised 11y ago
    As another Win 10 user, I agree with him.
  - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
    /r/sysadmin is full of Win10 horror stories for multi-user deployments in business environments. Your one anecdote just doesn't compare. I think Win10 is very undercooked, even by MS's standards. There are simply too many use cases where its a step down from Win7. MS has more of less conceded that Win10 isn't business ready, so they have a special distribution called LTSB (Long Term Servicing Branch) of its Enterprise version. It doesn't auto-update, no feature updates, no cortana or edge, no support for app/modern apps, etc. Can you imagine windows 7 shipping with a lot of things stripped from it to make it more like XP? That would be crazy, but that's exactly what's going on here. I think by 2017-2018 it'll be fine, but two or three years from release date to get something as stable as the previous versions seems really rough.
    - gelasio 11y ago
      Right and last year it was full of Windows 8 horror stories and the years before that it was full of Windows 7 horror stories. In other news - StackOverflow.com is full of programming problems so programming must suck. Point being - /r/sysadmin is where people go to complain and ask questions. Also, it's empirically verifiable, not an anecdote - that Windows 10 runs all the same apps that I've been able to run for decades on previous versions of Windows without issue. That's what I call rock solid.
      - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
- ProAm 11y ago
  > It's crazy just how… unfinished everything involving Windows 10 seems to be This is how the start up world functions. Ship early, ship fast and fix things later. Microsoft is changing how they operate and are more in tuned with the rest of the world. Why the outrage when this same concerns applies to most the software we see here on HN?
  - flurpitude 11y ago
    Right, that's how startups work. And that's why enterprises rarely buy software or services from startups. Microsoft is expected to be able to produce something more polished and reliable.
    - ProAm 11y ago
      But everyone complained that Microsoft was slow to change and adopt the new software practices that the world wanted. Can't have your cake and eat it too. I agree the enterprise-y applications need more polish and stability but MS needed a massive change quickly and this is it.
      - flurpitude 11y ago
        Linux distros like Ubuntu and Debian address this issue by offering different update streams so you can choose whether you want all the latest stuff or a more stable experience. Microsoft could do something similar, but they're lacking the "stable" option since the big push to Windows 8 and 10.
_nedR 11y ago
The worst thing in my experience about windows 8/windows 10 apps is that you cannot install apps from 3rd party sources. Sure you can install on a temporary/testing basis by signing in with a dev license, but you have to keep doing this every 3 months until microsoft decides to pull the plug. This is a problem if you are writing an app for a client who doesn't want to publish on the app store. The only option is the very expensive and opaque volume-licensing program which is useless if your app won't have many activations anyway. Ultimately Windows 8/10 is a closed platform similar to iOS. Are we as developers willing to pay 30% of our revenues to Microsoft when the day comes that UWP will replace .net/win32?
- pavlov 11y ago
  It's possible to sideload apps on Windows 8 and above: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh852635.aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh852635.aspx Or is that the volume licensing program option you mention? I'm not sure (never tried it). Edit: sideloading seems much simpler in Windows 10: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh454036.aspx#InstallRemote https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh454036.aspx#Insta...
  - _nedR 11y ago
    I remember studying the sideloading option a while back (for Windows 8) and finding out that it wouldn't work in our case for some reason (needed Windows 8 enterprise? need volume-licensing to procure sideloading key?). Am no longer sure, so i will revisit it. Thanks for suggestion. Windows 10 does seem much simpler. Will have to try it out to be sure it works though. If they have removed the volume-licensing nonsense that would be a godsend. update regarding windows 8 sideloading: Yep. After a cursory investigation, it seems that obtaining a sideloading key is the hard part- Its needs volume licensing involving purchasing a minimum of 100 keys for around 3000$ if i am not mistaken (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12008252/sideloading-apps-on-windows-8-pro https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12008252/sideloading-app...). I want to be sure so will look at it in more detail though.
- johnchristopher 11y ago
  > Ultimately Windows 8/10 is a closed platform similar to iOS. Are we as developers willing to pay 30% of our revenues to Microsoft when the day comes that UWP will replace .net/win32? That would explain the move to `offer' Windows 10. But I can't see .net/win32 being replaced before 10 years.
lottin 11y ago
For a long time Microsoft was a monopoly and it shows. Recently I contacted Microsoft technical support over a product that has some serious issues. Basically they tell me that they have no intention of paying for the repair even though the product is under warranty, in blatant violation of European law.
- scholia 11y ago
  Did you buy the product from Microsoft?
  - lottin 11y ago
    I bought it from a retailer.
    - mryan 11y ago
      That's probably the issue. Under the EU Consumer Protection Act, which I believe is what you are referring to, it is the responsibility of the retailer to deal with faulty products, and not the manufacturer. In this case MS is the manufacturer and not the retailer so they are not obliged to help you. I suggest you take the product back to the retailer, as they are responsible for any claims under the consumer protection laws.
      - scholia 11y ago
        > In this case MS is the manufacturer Or, more likely, Microsoft provided the OEM with one of the many components used in the product. Microsoft, of course, has no control over what the OEM does with it, and doesn't know unless it goes out and buys the product. Where things get interesting is when Microsoft ships an update directly to the user. This is something the OEM has no control over.....
        mryan 11y ago
        Yes, that's an interesting point. The digital economy leads to some grey areas.
darkhorn 11y ago
And the apps work very slow.
mc_hammer 11y ago
from the windows 10 hello world: To make your window resizable (!) and responsive, use the following XAML <VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups> <VisualStateGroup> <VisualState x:Name="wideState"> <VisualState.StateTriggers> <AdaptiveTrigger MinWindowWidth="641" /> </VisualState.StateTriggers> </VisualState> <VisualState x:Name="narrowState"> <VisualState.StateTriggers> <AdaptiveTrigger MinWindowWidth="0" /> </VisualState.StateTriggers> <VisualState.Setters> <Setter Target="inputPanel.Orientation" Value="Vertical"/> <Setter Target="inputButton.Margin" Value="0,4,0,0"/> </VisualState.Setters> </VisualState> </VisualStateGroup> </VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups> i lolled. theres also this gem: bmp Windows::WinForms::XAML::Imaging::Bitmap = ^new Windows::WinForms::XAML::Imaging::Bitmap(filestream) Which can be avoided by putting `namespace Windows::WinForms::XAML::Imaging` in every CPP file.
- static_noise 11y ago
  I don't really see what's wrong in your second example. You get exactly what you ask for. Sure, it could be improved by having 1) the "auto" keyword and b) one project include which exactly defines which namespaces/aliases to use.
  - mc_hammer 11y ago
    My original gripe was simple, if I declare bmp = class() should I really have to tell the compiler what the return type is? ideally no. >its now in 4 spots (header, function definition, and two spots on the same line in case the compiler cant find those?) also they added a ^ operator so thats cool. but I guess my gripe is every time I want a different taxonomy function I have to page up to the top of my CPP and type 42 keystrokes. (also I think I might have been missing an extra taxonomy there and its really 5 namespaces deep.)
    - Aleman360 11y ago
      You can use C# or JavaScript if you don't like C++.
jhildings 11y ago
apps? Whats wrong with saying applications as for the last 20 years in windows environments ?
- moonshinefe 11y ago
  The evolution of language. Apple from what I can tell was the catalyst behind it, the 'app store' and whatnot, and their products are very popular with the less technical crowd in particular. It's sort of like the hacker vs. cracker distinction, it's all just considered 'hacking' now in common vernacular because of how the media portrayed it for the last decade as all just being called hacking. Maybe not the greatest example, but it comes to mind.
  - cJ0th 11y ago
    I just realized that App isn't just the first three letters of application but also Apple. Very clever move when you think about it...
    - dTal 11y ago
      It all makes sense now!
    - frou_dh 11y ago
      .app was already the file extension of applications in NeXTSTEP in the early 90s. It carried over to OS X (eventually iOS) post-acquisition. Unless someone was playing an extremely long game, that is just a nice coincidence.
- cJ0th 11y ago
  I get what you are saying but I think that (sadly) you are mistaken. From one perspective, Apps is just the short version of application. But from another, more significant perspective the binary blobs we call Apps live in an ecosystem (The famous "walled garden") which is totally different from the classic desktop world. Autonomy is dying, especially on the consumer level.
- 11y ago
SCHiM 11y ago
I like windows 10, it's better than windows 7 IMO. Things have a smoother feel, the console works better and I feel more secure due to all sorts of new security improvements. I haven't noticed huge issues, the only thing that really bothers me if the fact that explorer has a tendency to freeze for a second when accessing a large spinning disk for the first time since boot up.
- tyfon 11y ago
  I'm in a minority as well I think as I kind of like Windows 10. Not sure I agree about the security part though! However, all I am using it for is games that are not ported to linux yet, the rest is done on linux both at home and at work. That might influence my feelings.
- moonshinefe 11y ago
  Which new security improvements in particular do you feel make you more secure?
  - mantenpanther 11y ago
    I've never seen an OS with that many forced reboots because of critical updates (often without any option for back-scheduling, showing a warning 5 minutes before and then rebooting without further notification in the middle of editing a file). A constant reminder about security patches :)
  - agentdrtran 11y ago
    SmartScreen is a lot more aggressive, which should help non-techies from installing malware at lease. It throws up a warning on all non signed installers.
  - SCHiM 11y ago
    @op & @EasyTiger_ Well an example are the improvements to the various authentication implementations, the fact that I can now finally configure my personal workstation to be impervious to certain types of pass-the-hash attacks. A nice matrix that illustrates the improvements can be found here: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfZw8iiCQAApq0T.png https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfZw8iiCQAApq0T.png Where 'green' is secure, as you can see a 'domain protected user' in windows 10 protects against almost every type of attack. These I have personal experience with from the attackers perspective, and windows 2012 domains are quite impervious to attacks that used to own the entire domain in as little as 2 hours. Not to mention that in addition to the matrix shown here, traditional psexec has finally been restricted to a special group of users, so that local administrators can no longer remotely take possession of a system unless explicitly configured to be able to. Most of those improvements are really only applicable to enterprise, and some of them came about by switching to a more secure default (instead of new technolly). New in windows 10 is also control flow guard (CFG), which most applications that I run at home and work already support. With the new addition of CFG use after free exploits should be harder to achieve on windows 10 than windows 7, although I don't have any personal experience with developing exploits for windows 10 yet. In addition to the general improvements to credential protection and CFG, windows 10 is further isolating critical system components from each other in the kernel. I haven't experimented/looked at it in any detail yet, but I get the impression it's conceptually similar to qubes OS. In windows 7 the kernel patch protector (KPP) ran in ring 0, just like al l the other kernel code, if you got code execution you could simply patch KPP too, and then your rootkit had free roam over the kernel. Now Microsoft claims that in windows 10 KPP has been isolated so that normal 'ring 0' (if that still means anything in the traditional sense) can no longer patch it.
vmateixeira 11y ago
It's not only Windows 10 app store support that's like that. Every Microsoft product support shares the same constraints and lack of solutions/answers. After moving abroad I was unable to access my Microsoft account(locked), for more than a month, just because I couldn't provide them with the last IP address I had used to access my account, along with last 5 received email subjects, 5 contacts in my contact list among many other unreasonable questions the common user doesn't even know how to answer. All this because I didn't own my recovery email address any longer.
- msravi 11y ago
  Wait... they can read your email to verify who you say you are? Really? When did that happen?
  - vmateixeira 11y ago
    Because of being unable to check my recovery email address, this is the email I got on a 3rd email account. http://postimg.org/image/oxinp1yot/ http://postimg.org/image/oxinp1yot/
  - vmateixeira 11y ago
    Yes, they can. They can access your contact list, your folders and your emails. They did this on my locked account.
  - userbinator 11y ago
    Why are you surprised? Microsoft owns the servers. Email is by default not a secure form of communication. Assume everything you send that isn't encrypted by you to be in plaintext and readable by all the systems it passes through and is stored in.
    - Piskvorrr 11y ago
      That's the issue, right there. MS owns the servers - and extrapolates that it also owns whatever is on them, because "obviously you should have known better than use our servers." Even though this is probably legal, the "w3 0wnz0rz y00" mindset is the toxic ingredient here.
hohenheim 11y ago
Couldn't they forward you to someone that can help you with the problem? The support seem to shut you down and close all the doors which is infuriating at best.
TheRealDunkirk 11y ago
It's just like every other new Microsoft product. They produce enough materiel to get something started -- lots of demos and howtos and samples -- all by Microsoft employees or surrogates -- and then they leave it for something else, and hope the world figures out the rest. They try to suck you in up front, and hope that you get committed enough to not leave when you discover the mess that's waiting for you behind the curtain. I've come back to full-time Windows development after over a decade of PHP and Rails, and you could lift my experience with trying Entity Framework and lay it on top of these complaints, and not notice a difference. I've always said this about Microsoft products: they make it really easy to get to 70% of what you want, and then make it nearly impossible to finish. There's a massive bend in the effort/results curve. With open source, it's more difficult in the early stages, but it's a steady progression to 90%, and then you have the tools to work out how to get exactly what you want, if you want to make the effort.
opayen 11y ago
From the article: "Unless you know the exact name of my app, you won't find it." His "Website constructor" app is in 3rd position when I search for "Website". Not that bad for such a generic keyword. Also, I guess one thing with these apps is that the price range (between $12 and $20) is a quite high compared to the majority of the other apps on the store and (unfortunately?) a lot of people are not ready to buy apps >$2. I guess that the store search algorithm depends on the conversion rate (people buying the app VS people trying it) and that conversion rate is probably pretty low, so maybe lowering the app price could lead to more sales and higher ranking.
- joewood1972 11y ago
  Agreed. I see the same result. The search results are as I would expect. I understand there is an issue with languages and regions, maybe the OP's region is not US English. It would be interesting to see what other users' searches show from different regions.
wanda 11y ago
I use Chrome OS as my daily driver/recreational computer, and I work from the command line on FreeBSD and Linux machines during the day, so maybe I'm just out of touch with Windows, however: My partner has a laptop with an Core i3 processor and above-average RAM, and is on the whole a beast compared to my Dell Chromebook 11. My partner upgraded to Windows 10 and I have since used it occasionally to check something here or whatever. From a couple of admittedly brief sessions using it, I have noticed that Windows 10 seems extremely "laggy", for want of a better word, as though there is a 100ms delay between clicking something and that click registering. It's nimble enough at starting up, it's just interacting with the thing that seems to be slow. Anybody else experience this, or am I just used to instant feedback from UI?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- kpozin 11y ago
  As a counter-anecdote (on a somewhat more powerful laptop, Core i7 with 8 GB of RAM and an SSD): I just upgraded from Windows 7 to 10 three days ago, and have been amazed at how much snappier everything seems. In particular, app switching and window resizing now seem smooth and instantaneous.
  - static_noise 11y ago
    You are experiencing the effect of a fresh Windows installation.
    - kpozin 11y ago
      It was an in-place upgrade on a 3.5-year-old installation of Windows 7.
  - nommm-nommm 11y ago
    I have the same experience as you, really impressed by how snappy Windows 10 is on my machine.
arca_vorago 11y ago
Now if only I could push libreoffice/gdocs or ms would release office for linux, I could deploy linux. Also, way too many scada systems require windows machines for the various proprietary ide's.... and it drives me nuts! Where's the foss scada? Windows is dangerous and 10 just made it more so. It's not easy, but break free of the proprietary os chains now before they lock your brain in with iBrain and update it without your permission.
at-fates-hands 11y ago
As a user who has not only Windows 8.1 but also Windows Phone (now Windows Mobile) 10, this blog is spot on and indicates a much larger problem on the horizon. I can't tell you how many times I saw an article about an app and tried to find it in the store, only to come up empty handed. This has happened so many times on my Windows Mobile 10 phone, I lost count. Just this week I was looking for a better Twitter client app. I would type in "twitter" "tweet" "twitter client" "twitter app" and all I would get would be the main Twitter app and nothing else. Then I had to start doing Google searches for "best twitter client for windows mobile 10" which then gave me articles from 2013 and 2014 and for WP 8.1 - not exactly an up to date list of current Twitter clients. Compare that to the Google Play store. You simply enter "Twitter" and get a dozen other apps, none of which have Twitter in their name. Plume, Echofone, Fenix, Talon, Persiscope are just a few of the examples. It was such a massive headache, I actually decided yesterday I'ms scrapping Windows Mobile 10 and going back to Android. I've been a huge supporter since WP 7, and held out hope things would improve, and they haven't. Their app store is a massive failure, you can't find anything in the store you want, developers have no reason to build for the platform, and I'm not going to start with the myriad of UI problems I see already in the latest build (build 10586.63) that still have not been solved. Just basic shit like battery life is still a major problem. Not to mention they took away some very basic features from 8.1 that everybody loved like the ability to show Bing weather on the lock screen. I've finally reached my breaking point with their platform.
Sir_Substance 11y ago
This is a problem Microsoft has had since their Phone 7 store. I tried out their app submission process with a small and uninteresting but perfectly functional dice rolling app back when the windows store was brand new with nothing on it, and saw the same thing. It doesn't really matter what tags you add, the search is crap and my app didn't show up on any of the tags I added. Only by searching it's name letter-perfect could I find it. I wonder sometimes if theres a hidden seam of quality apps on the windows store that no one knows about because the search is so bad...
ChuckMcM 11y ago
While I sympathize with the author's rant, bad service is bad service, I don't know if not developing for Win10 is the conclusion, it sounded like the App store sucks but so does the OSX App store and it doesn't mean you don't develop of OSX, it just means you don't use the App store. Sounds like side loading is a better choice on both OSes.
- shams93 11y ago
  Yeah Bitwig seems to be doing well as a powerful side load. Steams store is also an alternate channel to sell to windows users.
  - shams93 11y ago
    Of course steam also targets mac and linux users.
eklavya 11y ago
I have an hp split laptop. It's really anemic and I regret to have thought that processors had come as far as not having to think about them (you do). It has an Intel Pentium N3510. Anyways, it came with windows 8 and it was a slow and buggy product from day one. Linux on it runs worse then windows somehow. But since windows 10 it's at least bearable now. Windows 10 is faster at least on this machine.
joesmo 11y ago
It sounds like he's talking to a bot when emailing Microsoft. I'm not surprised they'd use one to respond to emails.
ksk 11y ago
Yeah, hopefully more people listen and opt out. A future where Windows has a reduced market-share is ideal for the consumer. It doesn't even have to be that OSX or Linux take over. Maybe the void could be filled by some other vendor with a completely new design.
- soared 11y ago
  There is serious room for a 4th competitor. Windows is commonly used but gets a lot of hate, OSX is great but expensive, and linux is way too difficult for 99% of people to use. Give me something else, please. I now hate windows, can't afford osx, and don't want to deal with linux.
anonbanker 11y ago
This is your daily reminder that linux exists, is free, and doesn't make your life miserable. http://calculate-linux.org http://calculate-linux.org

386 points by irrlichthn 11y ago

7952 11y ago

It never made much sense to focus the desktop app store on commercial products. Windows has a plethora of high quality open source software that most users never find and would have trouble downloading safely. Why wait for the commercial market to catch up when you can make good software available right now that benefits users? App stores work because of easy availability and without that they are mostly useless.

creshal 11y ago

It's crazy just how… unfinished everything involving Windows 10 seems to be. Half-assed UI concepts implemented clumsily, supported by an unsupported store, updated haphazardly at a pace that makes enterprise scream bloody murder… and all Microsoft does is trying to trick more users into accidentally updating. What are they thinking? They can do better than this. Much, much better.

venomsnake 11y ago
Well ... it is better than 8. A lot.
- nhebb 11y ago
  Maybe I'm in the minority, but I actually liked Windows 8.1 better than 10. It's hard for me to explain why, but Windows 10 gives me the feeling that I don't own the system - that Microsoft does and they're just letting me use it.
  - userbinator 11y ago
    Windows 10 gives me the feeling that I don't own the system - that Microsoft does and they're just letting me use it. The forced updates, meaning MS has the power to (and likely will) change your environment completely without your explicit consent? I completely agree. They've even stated a few times that Win10 is a "service" and not a "product".
    - james-skemp 11y ago
      If using a laptop or the like switch your WiFi connections over to metered connections. My Surface Pro 4 was having stability issues when it slept, and updates seemed to be the issue. Switched over to metered connections and I haven't lost any work in weeks. Doesn't work for desktops or the like with wired connections.
      - sethrin 11y ago
        So it's got this malicious feature, but you can trick it into not working with some arcane (and conditional) configuration setting. I switched to Linux when XP started feeling too limiting, but this is just getting ridiculous. And without real pushback from the broader user base, odds are this is a trend that will continue.
        kuschku 11y ago
        It this all over again... http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html
      - jqm 11y ago
        "haven't lost any work in weeks..." Wow! I guess that's a win... but wow....
  - bobajeff 11y ago
    My dad feels the same way only it's been this way since after 98.
  - m_fayer 11y ago
    I feel exactly the same. For me Win8.1 was the pinnacle of Windows. The whole "tile-world" part of the system was misguided but ignorable, and didn't harass anyone. Tile-world aside, it was one of the most stable and performant OSs I've used. In comparison, Windows 10 makes my top-specced late 2013 Thinkpad feel like an overheating budget machine. All together I must have spent a few workdays trying to fix the machine, and despite being quite knowledgeable about Windows administration I'm still having performance issues and still have the feeling that the system really answers only to MS HQ, and has no intention of ceding control to its owner (me).
    - briHass 11y ago
      Just a thought...did you do an update or a full, clean reinstall of 10 over 8.1? From my anecdotal testing: 4 machines with update 8.1 -> 10. One was fine, the other 3 performed very poorly. Doing a clean install fixed my perf issues. The one that was fine had a almost stock (no additional software) install of 8.1 that was a few months old.
    - speeder 11y ago
      I have Windows 8.1 I also love playing some older games (right now I am in a SimCity 4 binge). I am seriously considering the next time I buy a computer, to ditch windows entirely, and use only Wine, I am having in Windows 8.1 to put Wine DLLs in more and more game folders, also if you enter many serious gaming forums, people recommend you stick with Windows 7. The reason is that Microsoft in their DirectX pushing tactics (that started when they said that WinXP would not be able to run DX10 features at all... despite hackers proving that it ca, also the Xinput vs DirectInput bullshit) they started to resort to stuff that sometimes I am not sure if is just bad coding or intentionally evil. For example for SimCity 4: The game uses DirectX7 (yes, it is that old :( ), and relies heavily on DirectDraw (that I still think is one of the most awesome pieces of tech MS ever made), on Windows 8.1, DirectDraw is completely emulated, partially with software, partially with D3D (or OGL depending on some dll combinations you have), and in a crappily coded manner. Wine ddraw.dll instead translate all DDraw calls to OpenGL equivalent in 2D, still is not perfect, but the different is obvious, DDraw games run like crap in Windows 8.1 native, and frequently run even better than when they were designed in first place when using Wine (be it in Linux, Mac or in Windows using Wine DLLs). Another game that works in Windows 7, but not in 8.1 or 10 without Wine, is the RPG "Arcanum" from Troika Games, also for the same reason: it relies on DDraw, and Windows 8.1 onwards DDraw emulation is so bad that this game renders most of the screen black, or in a wonky manner. So if I am using Wine, on Windows, more and more, why nose use Wine on a NIX anyway? Also many of the newer games have NIX support by default too (source engine games for example). EDIT: a link to someone complaining of this issue on Microsoft forums: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-gaming/directdraw-emulation-is-broken-in-windows-881/4edfc685-72b2-4688-95ed-c745ddd38825 http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-g...
  - JoachimS 11y ago
    Then I'm part of that minority. I use Win 8.1 with classic button in a VM and it is a fast, stable Windows. Esp as a guest in a good OS.
- ferbivore 11y ago
  How so?
  - static_noise 11y ago
    The start menu.
djaychela 11y ago
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this - I keep finding bits in W10 which seem like a student's half-finished project - the print dialog in Edge's PDF reader was the latest mess I found after a recent update. I detest the UI, it's horribly unfriendly (to my eyes, anyway), and the fact that when I keyword search for an app I use every day (Notepad++) I usually get Notepad as a suggestion before it shows there's something wrong, to me. I guess part of the problem is that Windows 7 had reached the same plateau as Word had - it does everything most people need and there's no real reason to upgrade, and that MS wants to grab a part of the app/user data market so has tried to shoehorn all that into the mess left by the "windows will be the new IOS" debacle that was Windows 8.
jay_kyburz 11y ago
I must admit I was a little surprised when I first powered up my Surface pro. I had not used a windows machine since the early days on windows 7 but needed to start at least looking at my games on windows to make sure it worked there as well. It's rough. I really like some of the new apps designed for touch, but where are the rest? There is no file browser for example? OMG the default explorer window is a mess of icons.
seivan 11y ago
Sounds like an early versions of iOS 7.
moonshinefe 11y ago
Agreed. I was bugged by several 'system notifications' the other day on my Win 10 laptop (it took focus over my RDP client in full screen, too) that various people were trying to add me to Skype, and that I needed to sign into Skype to fill in some details they wanted about something. Thing was, I'd never installed Skype on the system or even signed into it for several years, and here it was out of the blue asking me to accept friend invites from a bunch of spammers. It's now part of the "desktop experience" built in I guess (it may have to do with using a Microsoft account vs. purely local account, in my discussions with others). The feeling is I don't really have control over the OS anymore, so I think it's time to move on soon to alternatives.
- r3bl 11y ago
  While you're mentioning Skype, fun fact: since Windows 8 (or 8.1, not sure), there's absolutely no freaking way to sign into Skype with a local account. Like, at all. You just can't use it what so ever unless you log in with your Windows account. EDIT: about this: > The feeling is I don't really have control over the OS anymore, so I think it's time to move on soon to alternatives. I had the same feeling since Windows 8, then I moved to Linux-based distributions. Never regretted it. I still have to deal with Windows when someone at work screws something up with their computer, but that's about it.
  - throwaway13337 11y ago
    Windows now comes packaged with a version of skype that uses their 'app' system. You can still get their non-app version on the site. That version allows you to sign in to whatever user you want - it's not tied to your windows account. http://www.skype.com/en/download-skype/skype-for-computer/ http://www.skype.com/en/download-skype/skype-for-computer/ Though I agree that skype and windows have some serious user experience issues.
    - ethbro 11y ago
      Yes, you can tell the difference in search because one has a solid background and one has the blue Skype symbol in the background. wish I was kidding
pavlov 11y ago
Although Windows 10 on desktop is a bit of a mess, the Mobile edition is much worse. Microsoft is now selling Lumia phones with Windows 10 Mobile, but even Windows Central thinks it's not ready: "I'm relatively savvy with this stuff. But I was ready to throw it out of a window before someone pointed out the non-obvious thing that I needed to do. This wasn't the only piece of out-of-box jank, either, to which I was told a new firmware update should 'fix' most of. It then took 48 hours for the firmware update to show up, download and install to the phone." http://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-lumia-550-review http://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-lumia-550-review It's a real shame. Windows Phone 7/8 was so great because it was like an Apple product done better than Apple: it didn't have "kitchen sink" features, but instead everything just worked and was holistically designed. In the original WP7 design, the borders between apps and the OS were faded to a degree that's unique. (This design was eventually lost as Windows Phone tried to catch up with app-oriented mobile rivals.) In Windows 10 Mobile, everything has been rewritten as Universal Windows 10 apps that sort of look like the WP8 equivalents but work much worse (because they're really desktop apps squeezed onto a phone). That kind of endless strategy-driven software rewrites are the plague of Microsoft today. The OP who is disillusioned with Windows Store mentions that the Store Dashboard got much worse when Windows 10 came around. Why? Who knows -- probably somebody at MS just decided that the Dashboard needs to be implemented using hot tech X rather than stale old tech Y. This endless churn sucks and drives customers away. I quit using Windows Phone for good last year, mostly due to the customer-hostile Windows 10 plan and lack of new hardware. Can't say I've regretted it so far.
- jon-wood 11y ago
  > In Windows 10 Mobile, everything has been rewritten as Universal Windows 10 apps that sort of look like the WP8 equivalents but work much worse (because they're really desktop apps squeezed onto a phone). The even sadder thing is that when I tried using Windows 10 as my main OS for a while all the Windows 10 apps felt like phone apps stretched out to work on a desktop.
- Joeri 11y ago
  My experience going from wp8 on a lumia 920 to wp10 on a lumia 950 is that mail, calendar and settings got better, the browser is a wash trading improved site compatibility for worse battery life, and everything else that changed got worse. The wp of old was slow to update, but it was rock solid and highly usable. The new one not so much with crashes, slowdowns and battery drain issues all over. For what i paid for this phone i could have picked any android phone. I probably should have.
LoSboccacc 11y ago
my favourite is the update virus/spyware protection notification that you have to open and click manually to update like it's 1997 every time
- jrs235 11y ago
  Is this due to a lawsuit in the EU or someplace that requires Microsoft to specifically to ask the end user for permission to update/install files on the user's machine? This might not be on Microsoft.
  - Grue3 11y ago
    >requires Microsoft to specifically to ask the end user for permission to update/install files on the user's machine? They're certainly not doing this with Windows 10.
  - Piskvorrr 11y ago
    Is there such a thing? I don't think so - last time I checked, there was about 6 GB of MS-supplied malware trying to download and install itself on eeeeeeeeevery Win7 computer through Windows Update (where not prevented by technical means such as GPO or GWX Control Panel). So no, that's either a) a fictional requirement, or b) ignored by MS.
- WorldMaker 11y ago
  Do you have Windows Update turned off or set to not automatically update, by chance? Windows Defender automatic updates come across Windows Update.
cornholio 11y ago
> They can do better than this. Much, much better. No they can't. It's just your selective memory from the time they were a big-ass monopolist that sucked the life from any competing platform to the point where you had to use theirs. Now, when you are used to high quality design injected by Apple and then refined by competition in the mobile space, your standards have went up so high that you simply can't go back to the half baked buggy interfaces that Microsoft has always produced. The older systems don't /seem that way/ because you are familiar with them.
- out_of_protocol 11y ago
  They surely can (at least they were). Using win7 right now and it's clear day&night difference how crappy the UI became
  - dagw 11y ago
    Also using win7 right now (at work). While the practical differences aren't huge, I personally find the UI of both windows 8.1 and windows 10 an improvement (after a few tweaks).
- creshal 11y ago
  Sure, Windows was never the pinnacle of good, consistent design, but it was still a lot better than Windows 10 is. The last time I was this frustrated with a Windows version was Windows Me.
- pmelendez 11y ago
  >when you are used to high quality design injected by Apple Hmm, people do like to glorify Apple. Just remember that Apple is the same company that told us we were holding the phone wrong and that included copy and paste after three iterations of the iPhone.
blackhole 11y ago
Full Disclosure: I worked at M$ from 2014-2015. MS has some very talented programmers. They're not very common, but they exist. The problem is that the entire company is completely and totally focused on developing an absurd number of new features and products, giving them completely unrealistic deadlines, and then shipping software on those deadlines no matter how half-assed or buggy it is. The idea is that everything is serviceable over the internet now, so they can just "fix it later", except they never do. This perpetuates a duct-tape culture that refuses to actually fix problems and instead rewards teams that find ways to work around them. The talented programmers are stuck working on code that, at best, has to deal with multiple badly designed frameworks from other teams, or at worst work on code that is simply scrapped. New features are prioritized over all but the most system-critical bugs, and teams are never given any time to actually focus on improving their code. The only improvements that can happen must be snuck in while implementing new features. As far as M$ is concerned, all code is shit, and the only thing that matters is if it works well enough to be shown at a demo and shipped. Needless to say, I don't work there anymore.
- cm2187 11y ago
  I think it's largely a dog fooding problem. Visual Studio is a superb piece of software, and you can tell that its designers are the primary users. Microsoft's consumer apps are awful.
  - njloof 11y ago
    Visual Studio is superb? It's still a 32-bit app that crashes in daily usage.
    - JBReefer 11y ago
      I know there's a strong VS counterjerk, but nothing else comes close. I've been using it for years and all of its crashes have been 100% my fault. I know IntelliJ is great, and JetBrains in general rocks, but it's no contest.
      - 11y ago
Gravityloss 11y ago
If some person seriously wants to dedicate their life to building something high quality and long lasting in the software world (1), they're probably interested in building and contributing to open source, open standards, open interfaces, publishing papers etc. This might mean they would not want to dedicate their efforts to working on Windows. Same would hold for things like iOS as well. To me, architecturally, they seem dead ends that have to be completely binned at some point, leaving little useful legacy. Would you like to really put your life work into something like that, if there are alternatives? I think this must affect the culture, and the people they can hire. I have no idea how "open" Windows is nowadays, I haven't really used it in 8 years. 1: not necessarily building software directly, it can be algorithms, books, philosophies, languages etc.
- pjc50 11y ago
  If some person seriously wants to dedicate their life to building something high quality and long lasting in the software world (1), they're probably interested in building and contributing to open source, open standards, open interfaces, publishing papers etc. "Interested in" and "can get paid for" are two very different things. Microsoft have a big reliable revenue stream. The weird thing is that there are clearly some people inside Microsoft that "get it". There's a big open push from the C#/Roslyn team. F# is pretty sophisticated. Microsoft Research are the Xerox Parc of our time: lots of great ideas few of which make it into production. But the Win8/8.1/10 cycle has so clearly been driven by panic over tablets and phones that it's produced strange chimerical half-solutions.
mariusmg 11y ago
Chill out dude. You make it sound it a lot worse than it actually is. The MS circlejerk hate is sure strong in here.
Pxtl 11y ago
I have a surface tablet, and I love it as a device and Win10 is definitely a great step in fusing desktop and tablet UI... But there are some serious head-slappers. When running in"tablet mode" many apps open in the background invisibly, only accessible through the task-switcher button. Without even a taskbar you can't even know that anything happened at all.
z3t4 11y ago
I guess the plan is to just keep making "improvements" witch works well for keeping the platform fresh and interesting. Then monetizing it along the way. It's also nice that it will be able to run everywhere and a "Windows" app will work on all "Windows" devices.
melling 11y ago
Wow, as I Microsoft hater I kind of laugh when I read this. My opinion of Windows has always been low. Unfortunately, somewhere over the years I came to realize that the entire industry is really being hurt my Windows consumers dragging their feet about upgrading browsers and operating systems. Microsoft might be rushing too fast but you're probably still better off moving forward with them. 75% of iOS users are on Apple's latest major release. That's worth a lot. If 75% of Windows users were on 10, the Windows community would be much better off. I'd say ignore the perceived warts and get behind upgrading.
- commentzorro 11y ago
  > 75% of iOS users are on Apple's latest major release. That's because wealthier people tend to keep up with the latest technology. And Apple has always made a conscious decision to target the wealthier customers. Walk into any Best Buy and compare prices for Apple machines against the likes of Dell, Asus, Acer, and such. Poor people buy cheap because of need and upgrade only when things stop working. Rich people are more likely to buy to optimize the and share the latest and greatest experience.
  - tcfunk 11y ago
    I'm not totally sure about your statement here, but it only really serves to reinforce what was just stated. People who are picky about their tech (like those of us here on HN) are going to complain about the lack of control and forced updates. However, the population you're describing can only really stand to benefit from it all, since they do a poor job of updating on their own.
  - minionslave 11y ago
    I see more poor people with the latest iPhones and Macbooks than wealthier individuals
    - commentzorro 11y ago
      Where do you live? Maybe that has something to do with it? I help support an app with just a few thousand users (US and Canada). It's about 9 years old but still actively updated. Coincidentally, it's user base is decidedly poorer people. In the years I've been involved there have only been a handful of people running macs and about the same number running Linux. Easily 99 percent run Windows. XP was most common until last year when Windows 7 finally took over. The first Win 10 users are just starting to show up. My (admittedly limited) experience is just the opposite of yours.
gelasio 11y ago
Bullshit. Allow an actual user of Windows 10 to correct your statement, since I bet you haven't used it at all: Some things are unfinished. Mostly the consumer facing stuff (think Metro apps). Other than that, Windows 10 has been rock solid for the past 8 months or so that I've been using it on my main workstation and my main tablet.
- ionised 11y ago
  As another Win 10 user, I agree with him.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  /r/sysadmin is full of Win10 horror stories for multi-user deployments in business environments. Your one anecdote just doesn't compare. I think Win10 is very undercooked, even by MS's standards. There are simply too many use cases where its a step down from Win7. MS has more of less conceded that Win10 isn't business ready, so they have a special distribution called LTSB (Long Term Servicing Branch) of its Enterprise version. It doesn't auto-update, no feature updates, no cortana or edge, no support for app/modern apps, etc. Can you imagine windows 7 shipping with a lot of things stripped from it to make it more like XP? That would be crazy, but that's exactly what's going on here. I think by 2017-2018 it'll be fine, but two or three years from release date to get something as stable as the previous versions seems really rough.
  - gelasio 11y ago
    Right and last year it was full of Windows 8 horror stories and the years before that it was full of Windows 7 horror stories. In other news - StackOverflow.com is full of programming problems so programming must suck. Point being - /r/sysadmin is where people go to complain and ask questions. Also, it's empirically verifiable, not an anecdote - that Windows 10 runs all the same apps that I've been able to run for decades on previous versions of Windows without issue. That's what I call rock solid.
    - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
ProAm 11y ago
> It's crazy just how… unfinished everything involving Windows 10 seems to be This is how the start up world functions. Ship early, ship fast and fix things later. Microsoft is changing how they operate and are more in tuned with the rest of the world. Why the outrage when this same concerns applies to most the software we see here on HN?
- flurpitude 11y ago
  Right, that's how startups work. And that's why enterprises rarely buy software or services from startups. Microsoft is expected to be able to produce something more polished and reliable.
  - ProAm 11y ago
    But everyone complained that Microsoft was slow to change and adopt the new software practices that the world wanted. Can't have your cake and eat it too. I agree the enterprise-y applications need more polish and stability but MS needed a massive change quickly and this is it.
    - flurpitude 11y ago
      Linux distros like Ubuntu and Debian address this issue by offering different update streams so you can choose whether you want all the latest stuff or a more stable experience. Microsoft could do something similar, but they're lacking the "stable" option since the big push to Windows 8 and 10.

_nedR 11y ago

The worst thing in my experience about windows 8/windows 10 apps is that you cannot install apps from 3rd party sources. Sure you can install on a temporary/testing basis by signing in with a dev license, but you have to keep doing this every 3 months until microsoft decides to pull the plug. This is a problem if you are writing an app for a client who doesn't want to publish on the app store. The only option is the very expensive and opaque volume-licensing program which is useless if your app won't have many activations anyway. Ultimately Windows 8/10 is a closed platform similar to iOS. Are we as developers willing to pay 30% of our revenues to Microsoft when the day comes that UWP will replace .net/win32?

pavlov 11y ago
It's possible to sideload apps on Windows 8 and above: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh852635.aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh852635.aspx Or is that the volume licensing program option you mention? I'm not sure (never tried it). Edit: sideloading seems much simpler in Windows 10: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh454036.aspx#InstallRemote https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh454036.aspx#Insta...
- _nedR 11y ago
  I remember studying the sideloading option a while back (for Windows 8) and finding out that it wouldn't work in our case for some reason (needed Windows 8 enterprise? need volume-licensing to procure sideloading key?). Am no longer sure, so i will revisit it. Thanks for suggestion. Windows 10 does seem much simpler. Will have to try it out to be sure it works though. If they have removed the volume-licensing nonsense that would be a godsend. update regarding windows 8 sideloading: Yep. After a cursory investigation, it seems that obtaining a sideloading key is the hard part- Its needs volume licensing involving purchasing a minimum of 100 keys for around 3000$ if i am not mistaken (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12008252/sideloading-apps-on-windows-8-pro https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12008252/sideloading-app...). I want to be sure so will look at it in more detail though.
johnchristopher 11y ago
> Ultimately Windows 8/10 is a closed platform similar to iOS. Are we as developers willing to pay 30% of our revenues to Microsoft when the day comes that UWP will replace .net/win32? That would explain the move to `offer' Windows 10. But I can't see .net/win32 being replaced before 10 years.

lottin 11y ago

For a long time Microsoft was a monopoly and it shows. Recently I contacted Microsoft technical support over a product that has some serious issues. Basically they tell me that they have no intention of paying for the repair even though the product is under warranty, in blatant violation of European law.

scholia 11y ago
Did you buy the product from Microsoft?
- lottin 11y ago
  I bought it from a retailer.
  - mryan 11y ago
    That's probably the issue. Under the EU Consumer Protection Act, which I believe is what you are referring to, it is the responsibility of the retailer to deal with faulty products, and not the manufacturer. In this case MS is the manufacturer and not the retailer so they are not obliged to help you. I suggest you take the product back to the retailer, as they are responsible for any claims under the consumer protection laws.
    - scholia 11y ago
      > In this case MS is the manufacturer Or, more likely, Microsoft provided the OEM with one of the many components used in the product. Microsoft, of course, has no control over what the OEM does with it, and doesn't know unless it goes out and buys the product. Where things get interesting is when Microsoft ships an update directly to the user. This is something the OEM has no control over.....
      - mryan 11y ago
        Yes, that's an interesting point. The digital economy leads to some grey areas.

darkhorn 11y ago

And the apps work very slow.

mc_hammer 11y ago

from the windows 10 hello world: To make your window resizable (!) and responsive, use the following XAML <VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups> <VisualStateGroup> <VisualState x:Name="wideState"> <VisualState.StateTriggers> <AdaptiveTrigger MinWindowWidth="641" /> </VisualState.StateTriggers> </VisualState> <VisualState x:Name="narrowState"> <VisualState.StateTriggers> <AdaptiveTrigger MinWindowWidth="0" /> </VisualState.StateTriggers> <VisualState.Setters> <Setter Target="inputPanel.Orientation" Value="Vertical"/> <Setter Target="inputButton.Margin" Value="0,4,0,0"/> </VisualState.Setters> </VisualState> </VisualStateGroup> </VisualStateManager.VisualStateGroups> i lolled. theres also this gem: bmp Windows::WinForms::XAML::Imaging::Bitmap = ^new Windows::WinForms::XAML::Imaging::Bitmap(filestream) Which can be avoided by putting `namespace Windows::WinForms::XAML::Imaging` in every CPP file.

static_noise 11y ago
I don't really see what's wrong in your second example. You get exactly what you ask for. Sure, it could be improved by having 1) the "auto" keyword and b) one project include which exactly defines which namespaces/aliases to use.
- mc_hammer 11y ago
  My original gripe was simple, if I declare bmp = class() should I really have to tell the compiler what the return type is? ideally no. >its now in 4 spots (header, function definition, and two spots on the same line in case the compiler cant find those?) also they added a ^ operator so thats cool. but I guess my gripe is every time I want a different taxonomy function I have to page up to the top of my CPP and type 42 keystrokes. (also I think I might have been missing an extra taxonomy there and its really 5 namespaces deep.)
  - Aleman360 11y ago
    You can use C# or JavaScript if you don't like C++.

jhildings 11y ago

apps? Whats wrong with saying applications as for the last 20 years in windows environments ?

moonshinefe 11y ago
The evolution of language. Apple from what I can tell was the catalyst behind it, the 'app store' and whatnot, and their products are very popular with the less technical crowd in particular. It's sort of like the hacker vs. cracker distinction, it's all just considered 'hacking' now in common vernacular because of how the media portrayed it for the last decade as all just being called hacking. Maybe not the greatest example, but it comes to mind.
- cJ0th 11y ago
  I just realized that App isn't just the first three letters of application but also Apple. Very clever move when you think about it...
  - dTal 11y ago
    It all makes sense now!
  - frou_dh 11y ago
    .app was already the file extension of applications in NeXTSTEP in the early 90s. It carried over to OS X (eventually iOS) post-acquisition. Unless someone was playing an extremely long game, that is just a nice coincidence.
cJ0th 11y ago
I get what you are saying but I think that (sadly) you are mistaken. From one perspective, Apps is just the short version of application. But from another, more significant perspective the binary blobs we call Apps live in an ecosystem (The famous "walled garden") which is totally different from the classic desktop world. Autonomy is dying, especially on the consumer level.
11y ago

SCHiM 11y ago

I like windows 10, it's better than windows 7 IMO. Things have a smoother feel, the console works better and I feel more secure due to all sorts of new security improvements. I haven't noticed huge issues, the only thing that really bothers me if the fact that explorer has a tendency to freeze for a second when accessing a large spinning disk for the first time since boot up.

tyfon 11y ago
I'm in a minority as well I think as I kind of like Windows 10. Not sure I agree about the security part though! However, all I am using it for is games that are not ported to linux yet, the rest is done on linux both at home and at work. That might influence my feelings.
moonshinefe 11y ago
Which new security improvements in particular do you feel make you more secure?
- mantenpanther 11y ago
  I've never seen an OS with that many forced reboots because of critical updates (often without any option for back-scheduling, showing a warning 5 minutes before and then rebooting without further notification in the middle of editing a file). A constant reminder about security patches :)
- agentdrtran 11y ago
  SmartScreen is a lot more aggressive, which should help non-techies from installing malware at lease. It throws up a warning on all non signed installers.
- SCHiM 11y ago
  @op & @EasyTiger_ Well an example are the improvements to the various authentication implementations, the fact that I can now finally configure my personal workstation to be impervious to certain types of pass-the-hash attacks. A nice matrix that illustrates the improvements can be found here: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfZw8iiCQAApq0T.png https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BfZw8iiCQAApq0T.png Where 'green' is secure, as you can see a 'domain protected user' in windows 10 protects against almost every type of attack. These I have personal experience with from the attackers perspective, and windows 2012 domains are quite impervious to attacks that used to own the entire domain in as little as 2 hours. Not to mention that in addition to the matrix shown here, traditional psexec has finally been restricted to a special group of users, so that local administrators can no longer remotely take possession of a system unless explicitly configured to be able to. Most of those improvements are really only applicable to enterprise, and some of them came about by switching to a more secure default (instead of new technolly). New in windows 10 is also control flow guard (CFG), which most applications that I run at home and work already support. With the new addition of CFG use after free exploits should be harder to achieve on windows 10 than windows 7, although I don't have any personal experience with developing exploits for windows 10 yet. In addition to the general improvements to credential protection and CFG, windows 10 is further isolating critical system components from each other in the kernel. I haven't experimented/looked at it in any detail yet, but I get the impression it's conceptually similar to qubes OS. In windows 7 the kernel patch protector (KPP) ran in ring 0, just like al l the other kernel code, if you got code execution you could simply patch KPP too, and then your rootkit had free roam over the kernel. Now Microsoft claims that in windows 10 KPP has been isolated so that normal 'ring 0' (if that still means anything in the traditional sense) can no longer patch it.

vmateixeira 11y ago

It's not only Windows 10 app store support that's like that. Every Microsoft product support shares the same constraints and lack of solutions/answers. After moving abroad I was unable to access my Microsoft account(locked), for more than a month, just because I couldn't provide them with the last IP address I had used to access my account, along with last 5 received email subjects, 5 contacts in my contact list among many other unreasonable questions the common user doesn't even know how to answer. All this because I didn't own my recovery email address any longer.

msravi 11y ago
Wait... they can read your email to verify who you say you are? Really? When did that happen?
- vmateixeira 11y ago
  Because of being unable to check my recovery email address, this is the email I got on a 3rd email account. http://postimg.org/image/oxinp1yot/ http://postimg.org/image/oxinp1yot/
- vmateixeira 11y ago
  Yes, they can. They can access your contact list, your folders and your emails. They did this on my locked account.
- userbinator 11y ago
  Why are you surprised? Microsoft owns the servers. Email is by default not a secure form of communication. Assume everything you send that isn't encrypted by you to be in plaintext and readable by all the systems it passes through and is stored in.
  - Piskvorrr 11y ago
    That's the issue, right there. MS owns the servers - and extrapolates that it also owns whatever is on them, because "obviously you should have known better than use our servers." Even though this is probably legal, the "w3 0wnz0rz y00" mindset is the toxic ingredient here.

hohenheim 11y ago

Couldn't they forward you to someone that can help you with the problem? The support seem to shut you down and close all the doors which is infuriating at best.

TheRealDunkirk 11y ago

It's just like every other new Microsoft product. They produce enough materiel to get something started -- lots of demos and howtos and samples -- all by Microsoft employees or surrogates -- and then they leave it for something else, and hope the world figures out the rest. They try to suck you in up front, and hope that you get committed enough to not leave when you discover the mess that's waiting for you behind the curtain. I've come back to full-time Windows development after over a decade of PHP and Rails, and you could lift my experience with trying Entity Framework and lay it on top of these complaints, and not notice a difference. I've always said this about Microsoft products: they make it really easy to get to 70% of what you want, and then make it nearly impossible to finish. There's a massive bend in the effort/results curve. With open source, it's more difficult in the early stages, but it's a steady progression to 90%, and then you have the tools to work out how to get exactly what you want, if you want to make the effort.

opayen 11y ago

From the article: "Unless you know the exact name of my app, you won't find it." His "Website constructor" app is in 3rd position when I search for "Website". Not that bad for such a generic keyword. Also, I guess one thing with these apps is that the price range (between $12 and $20) is a quite high compared to the majority of the other apps on the store and (unfortunately?) a lot of people are not ready to buy apps >$2. I guess that the store search algorithm depends on the conversion rate (people buying the app VS people trying it) and that conversion rate is probably pretty low, so maybe lowering the app price could lead to more sales and higher ranking.

joewood1972 11y ago
Agreed. I see the same result. The search results are as I would expect. I understand there is an issue with languages and regions, maybe the OP's region is not US English. It would be interesting to see what other users' searches show from different regions.

wanda 11y ago

I use Chrome OS as my daily driver/recreational computer, and I work from the command line on FreeBSD and Linux machines during the day, so maybe I'm just out of touch with Windows, however: My partner has a laptop with an Core i3 processor and above-average RAM, and is on the whole a beast compared to my Dell Chromebook 11. My partner upgraded to Windows 10 and I have since used it occasionally to check something here or whatever. From a couple of admittedly brief sessions using it, I have noticed that Windows 10 seems extremely "laggy", for want of a better word, as though there is a 100ms delay between clicking something and that click registering. It's nimble enough at starting up, it's just interacting with the thing that seems to be slow. Anybody else experience this, or am I just used to instant feedback from UI?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
kpozin 11y ago
As a counter-anecdote (on a somewhat more powerful laptop, Core i7 with 8 GB of RAM and an SSD): I just upgraded from Windows 7 to 10 three days ago, and have been amazed at how much snappier everything seems. In particular, app switching and window resizing now seem smooth and instantaneous.
- static_noise 11y ago
  You are experiencing the effect of a fresh Windows installation.
  - kpozin 11y ago
    It was an in-place upgrade on a 3.5-year-old installation of Windows 7.
- nommm-nommm 11y ago
  I have the same experience as you, really impressed by how snappy Windows 10 is on my machine.

arca_vorago 11y ago

Now if only I could push libreoffice/gdocs or ms would release office for linux, I could deploy linux. Also, way too many scada systems require windows machines for the various proprietary ide's.... and it drives me nuts! Where's the foss scada? Windows is dangerous and 10 just made it more so. It's not easy, but break free of the proprietary os chains now before they lock your brain in with iBrain and update it without your permission.

at-fates-hands 11y ago

As a user who has not only Windows 8.1 but also Windows Phone (now Windows Mobile) 10, this blog is spot on and indicates a much larger problem on the horizon. I can't tell you how many times I saw an article about an app and tried to find it in the store, only to come up empty handed. This has happened so many times on my Windows Mobile 10 phone, I lost count. Just this week I was looking for a better Twitter client app. I would type in "twitter" "tweet" "twitter client" "twitter app" and all I would get would be the main Twitter app and nothing else. Then I had to start doing Google searches for "best twitter client for windows mobile 10" which then gave me articles from 2013 and 2014 and for WP 8.1 - not exactly an up to date list of current Twitter clients. Compare that to the Google Play store. You simply enter "Twitter" and get a dozen other apps, none of which have Twitter in their name. Plume, Echofone, Fenix, Talon, Persiscope are just a few of the examples. It was such a massive headache, I actually decided yesterday I'ms scrapping Windows Mobile 10 and going back to Android. I've been a huge supporter since WP 7, and held out hope things would improve, and they haven't. Their app store is a massive failure, you can't find anything in the store you want, developers have no reason to build for the platform, and I'm not going to start with the myriad of UI problems I see already in the latest build (build 10586.63) that still have not been solved. Just basic shit like battery life is still a major problem. Not to mention they took away some very basic features from 8.1 that everybody loved like the ability to show Bing weather on the lock screen. I've finally reached my breaking point with their platform.

Sir_Substance 11y ago

This is a problem Microsoft has had since their Phone 7 store. I tried out their app submission process with a small and uninteresting but perfectly functional dice rolling app back when the windows store was brand new with nothing on it, and saw the same thing. It doesn't really matter what tags you add, the search is crap and my app didn't show up on any of the tags I added. Only by searching it's name letter-perfect could I find it. I wonder sometimes if theres a hidden seam of quality apps on the windows store that no one knows about because the search is so bad...

ChuckMcM 11y ago

While I sympathize with the author's rant, bad service is bad service, I don't know if not developing for Win10 is the conclusion, it sounded like the App store sucks but so does the OSX App store and it doesn't mean you don't develop of OSX, it just means you don't use the App store. Sounds like side loading is a better choice on both OSes.

shams93 11y ago
Yeah Bitwig seems to be doing well as a powerful side load. Steams store is also an alternate channel to sell to windows users.
- shams93 11y ago
  Of course steam also targets mac and linux users.

eklavya 11y ago

I have an hp split laptop. It's really anemic and I regret to have thought that processors had come as far as not having to think about them (you do). It has an Intel Pentium N3510. Anyways, it came with windows 8 and it was a slow and buggy product from day one. Linux on it runs worse then windows somehow. But since windows 10 it's at least bearable now. Windows 10 is faster at least on this machine.

joesmo 11y ago

It sounds like he's talking to a bot when emailing Microsoft. I'm not surprised they'd use one to respond to emails.

ksk 11y ago

Yeah, hopefully more people listen and opt out. A future where Windows has a reduced market-share is ideal for the consumer. It doesn't even have to be that OSX or Linux take over. Maybe the void could be filled by some other vendor with a completely new design.

soared 11y ago
There is serious room for a 4th competitor. Windows is commonly used but gets a lot of hate, OSX is great but expensive, and linux is way too difficult for 99% of people to use. Give me something else, please. I now hate windows, can't afford osx, and don't want to deal with linux.

anonbanker 11y ago

This is your daily reminder that linux exists, is free, and doesn't make your life miserable. http://calculate-linux.org http://calculate-linux.org