4 ms·

While I do agree that Windows 10 is much better than Windows 8, it still is way too annoying for me to even consider it for my main operating system. Every win

While I do agree that Windows 10 is much better than Windows 8, it still is way too annoying for me to even consider it for my main operating system. Every windows update (which MS now shoves down my throat at the most inconvenient of times) seems to want to force me to use Cortana. Every update also re-adds shortcuts to the windows store to my quicklaunch. I'm constantly seeing nags and offers for things I'm not interested in using on the lock screen. It feels like there is no one at Microsoft really in charge of the user experience and every department within the organization gets to add their "must haves" to the next version with little consideration on how it affects the overall experience of the operating system. In this regard, Apple is and always has been lightyears ahead of MS and that just doesn't ever seem to change. Then there's still long standing issues that exist that completely boggle my mind - I just plugged in a new USB mouse the other day and had to restart after installing the software for it.

kbenson 10y ago
> Every windows update (which MS now shoves down my throat at the most inconvenient of times) seems to want to force me to use Cortana. Every update also re-adds shortcuts to the windows store to my quicklaunch. I do agree it's a bit naggy at times. As for the updates... I have complicated feeling about that. It's annoying that it auto-restarts, but the alternative is so much worse. There's a registry hack to prevent it, which if you think it's a good idea to turn auto-updates off, you should probably feel comfortable making a registry change to show you know enough to be responsible about that. The windows store stuff seems to only come back from certain updates, I'm not sure which ones. > I'm constantly seeing nags and offers for things I'm not interested in using on the lock screen. I've seen multiple reports of this, but I don't see it, so can't really comment on it. My lock screens are just images (rather good ones actually, like for the chromecast, IMO). > Then there's still long standing issues that exist that completely boggle my mind - I just plugged in a new USB mouse the other day and had to restart after installing the software for it. Was it a specialty mouse? Did it install it's own software (it sounds like it, when you mention "installing the software for it")? If it automatically launched a third party installer that decided that you needed to restart, that one can't be totally blamed on MS (beyond expecting them to blacklist the device for poor driver quality/installation, which won't exactly make people happy either). The problem with the MS platform is that as it's the primary market for most people and devices, you get some very low quality stuff. That same stuff might not work at all on other platforms, or be feature poor (e.g. a mouse that can't use all it's swizzy features because it's using the base USB HID stuff). That's a common problem with hardware on Linux (until the device gets open source support, if it ever does), so I'm used to it. Sometimes I choose not to install the proprietary driver for Windows anyway, just because I don't want their crap on my system. Poor third party driver quality has historically been a large cause for instability in Windows systems, and IIRC around Vista was where they changed how drivers worked to address this problem, and now Windows is much more stable IMO. So, crappy devs shunting crappy drivers with their products is less of an issue, but still a problem, and one that's not really going to go away as long as closed source third party drivers are allowed without careful vetting (which they may be doing to some degree now, I'm not sure).
- debaserab2 10y ago
  It was a specialty (gaming) mouse. I think your breakdown on why vendor driver software still sucks is entirely correct, but it overall ends up making it a poor experience for the primary use cases I have for an operating system. At the end of the day it's just another reason not to use windows. And of course, the driver software has it's own automatic updates that require restarting every single time even for minor version/bug fix updates. I totally believe you that the vendors could do a much better job if they tried harder, but no one is forcing them to. The one-two punch that routinely frustrates the hell out of me is when the vendor driver software requires an update, and the reboot process in turns fires off the windows update install. Now, instead of sitting down to play a game, I'm waiting fifteen minutes for two different software updates to finish and reboot my computer.

kbenson 10y ago

> Every windows update (which MS now shoves down my throat at the most inconvenient of times) seems to want to force me to use Cortana. Every update also re-adds shortcuts to the windows store to my quicklaunch. I do agree it's a bit naggy at times. As for the updates... I have complicated feeling about that. It's annoying that it auto-restarts, but the alternative is so much worse. There's a registry hack to prevent it, which if you think it's a good idea to turn auto-updates off, you should probably feel comfortable making a registry change to show you know enough to be responsible about that. The windows store stuff seems to only come back from certain updates, I'm not sure which ones. > I'm constantly seeing nags and offers for things I'm not interested in using on the lock screen. I've seen multiple reports of this, but I don't see it, so can't really comment on it. My lock screens are just images (rather good ones actually, like for the chromecast, IMO). > Then there's still long standing issues that exist that completely boggle my mind - I just plugged in a new USB mouse the other day and had to restart after installing the software for it. Was it a specialty mouse? Did it install it's own software (it sounds like it, when you mention "installing the software for it")? If it automatically launched a third party installer that decided that you needed to restart, that one can't be totally blamed on MS (beyond expecting them to blacklist the device for poor driver quality/installation, which won't exactly make people happy either). The problem with the MS platform is that as it's the primary market for most people and devices, you get some very low quality stuff. That same stuff might not work at all on other platforms, or be feature poor (e.g. a mouse that can't use all it's swizzy features because it's using the base USB HID stuff). That's a common problem with hardware on Linux (until the device gets open source support, if it ever does), so I'm used to it. Sometimes I choose not to install the proprietary driver for Windows anyway, just because I don't want their crap on my system. Poor third party driver quality has historically been a large cause for instability in Windows systems, and IIRC around Vista was where they changed how drivers worked to address this problem, and now Windows is much more stable IMO. So, crappy devs shunting crappy drivers with their products is less of an issue, but still a problem, and one that's not really going to go away as long as closed source third party drivers are allowed without careful vetting (which they may be doing to some degree now, I'm not sure).

debaserab2 10y ago
It was a specialty (gaming) mouse. I think your breakdown on why vendor driver software still sucks is entirely correct, but it overall ends up making it a poor experience for the primary use cases I have for an operating system. At the end of the day it's just another reason not to use windows. And of course, the driver software has it's own automatic updates that require restarting every single time even for minor version/bug fix updates. I totally believe you that the vendors could do a much better job if they tried harder, but no one is forcing them to. The one-two punch that routinely frustrates the hell out of me is when the vendor driver software requires an update, and the reboot process in turns fires off the windows update install. Now, instead of sitting down to play a game, I'm waiting fifteen minutes for two different software updates to finish and reboot my computer.