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> How can a consumer figure that out? I still hit problems on this thing. Weird random problems, basic things that should just work, and sometimes just fail. I
by bhauer 11y ago
> How can a consumer figure that out? I still hit problems on this thing. Weird random problems, basic things that should just work, and sometimes just fail. I frequently think "If I can't get this to work without an hour of work, there's no way this is ready to be widely used".
Though, to be fair, even as a Windows user and relatively firm fan of Windows, that happens for me routinely on Windows. Windows Update in particular is confusing with its many error messages that either magically resolve themselves if you retry enough times or require significant and arcane manual resolution. Managing home network file systems and printers with Windows in 2016 seems basically unchanged from 1998. Microsoft added "HomeGroups" to make this a bit easier for lay people, but they have more or less abandoned to its Windows 7 iteration, with virtually no evolution since. Now they channel their efforts toward integrating their cloud storage services.
Generally speaking, this is the trouble with general purpose computing and general purpose operating systems—there are rough edges and a huge number of corner cases that get ugly. In several decades of evolving these systems, we've not buffed those rough edges down as much as we'd like. It's similarly the reason mobile operating systems are popular for primary computing devices for a growing segment of the population. (Although, I will add that mobile operating systems are picking up the same rough edges as their capabilities expand to encompass more of the terrain typically associated with general purpose systems.)