4 ms·

yep, the day Candy Crush reinstalled itself and re-appeared in my start menu after I explicitly removed it was the day I removed Windows on every single one of

yep, the day Candy Crush reinstalled itself and re-appeared in my start menu after I explicitly removed it was the day I removed Windows on every single one of my machines, and it's never, ever coming back MS have always been known for producing poor quality software, but they'd never been actively untrustworthy and hostile to the end-user... that completely changed with Windows 10 2.5 years later and I don't feel as if I've lost anything, I guess it was the push I finally needed to dump Windows forever

mschuster91 9y ago
> MS have always been known for producing poor quality software, The core thing imho is: the software quality has gone up - security - just remember Win9x which didn't even have security as a concept and exploit-ridden WinXP - native Linux subsystem, ssh server - decent shell if you care enough to learn Powershell - a well set up AD/Exchange is blowing away all FOSS comparables due to the insane level of integration - it all feels like it's cut out of the same block, from an admin POV What has gone downhill is the lengths of where MS decided to go to earn money. The market for selling an OS just isn't as huge as before - Apple provides OS upgrades for free since 2013, Linux was free the whole time and Googles Chromebooks don't need any major OS as they're essentially Chrome-in-a-box - and selling Office also went downhill since the competition in form of Google Docs and Libre/OpenOffice became actually usable even for corp and government environments. In addition, revenue from Bing fell through the roof because Googles dominance keeps growing and growing. The direct consequence is that MS must keep earning money somehow: corps and governments will continue to be the biggest buyers (but the numbers are set to fall, given the rise of Apple but also the trend towards Linux in governments), but ordinary people? MS has to compete with Apple and Google's "free", and so has to subsidize with ads and boatloads of tracking. Anyway I've gone off the rails a bit - what MS, or rather, power users, desperately need is Win 10 LTSB actually available for sale and not just for embedded stuff. Plain good old Windows Classic UI, no ads, no "magically appearing" "features"... aka Windows 7, only with optional features like the Linux subsystem.
- blibble 9y ago
  > The core thing imho is: the software quality has gone up did we read the same article? there is no security as it's not your machine, it is under Microsoft's control and now they've been caught installing unwanted crapware with 16 month old vulnerabilities (not to mention the OS is infested with undisablable adware, spyware and other unwanted uninstallable applications) lip service to developers (bundled openssh et al.) doesn't hide that the core of the company is now demonstrably rotten
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    Yes. This however is an exception when it comes to security issues, I don't really like to think back to the WinXP days when people caught viruses left-and-right. It does happen, of course, but IMHO on a way, way smaller intensity. > (not to mention the OS is infested with undisablable adware, spyware and other unwanted uninstallable applications) This is why I advocate for something like W10 LTSB - free of the experiments, but paid. If I had the option to switch to paid and only get security updates but no "features", I'd do so in an instant. I don't want to be forced to trade privacy for being able to use the OS.
  - fencepost 9y ago
    > the OS is infested with undisablable adware, spyware and other unwanted [non-?]uninstallable applications Can you please provide at least a few citations? I've run ShutUp10 after the installs and upgrades and I don't recall seeing much of anything of what you report.

mschuster91 9y ago

> MS have always been known for producing poor quality software, The core thing imho is: the software quality has gone up - security - just remember Win9x which didn't even have security as a concept and exploit-ridden WinXP - native Linux subsystem, ssh server - decent shell if you care enough to learn Powershell - a well set up AD/Exchange is blowing away all FOSS comparables due to the insane level of integration - it all feels like it's cut out of the same block, from an admin POV What has gone downhill is the lengths of where MS decided to go to earn money. The market for selling an OS just isn't as huge as before - Apple provides OS upgrades for free since 2013, Linux was free the whole time and Googles Chromebooks don't need any major OS as they're essentially Chrome-in-a-box - and selling Office also went downhill since the competition in form of Google Docs and Libre/OpenOffice became actually usable even for corp and government environments. In addition, revenue from Bing fell through the roof because Googles dominance keeps growing and growing. The direct consequence is that MS must keep earning money somehow: corps and governments will continue to be the biggest buyers (but the numbers are set to fall, given the rise of Apple but also the trend towards Linux in governments), but ordinary people? MS has to compete with Apple and Google's "free", and so has to subsidize with ads and boatloads of tracking. Anyway I've gone off the rails a bit - what MS, or rather, power users, desperately need is Win 10 LTSB actually available for sale and not just for embedded stuff. Plain good old Windows Classic UI, no ads, no "magically appearing" "features"... aka Windows 7, only with optional features like the Linux subsystem.

blibble 9y ago
> The core thing imho is: the software quality has gone up did we read the same article? there is no security as it's not your machine, it is under Microsoft's control and now they've been caught installing unwanted crapware with 16 month old vulnerabilities (not to mention the OS is infested with undisablable adware, spyware and other unwanted uninstallable applications) lip service to developers (bundled openssh et al.) doesn't hide that the core of the company is now demonstrably rotten
- mschuster91 9y ago
  Yes. This however is an exception when it comes to security issues, I don't really like to think back to the WinXP days when people caught viruses left-and-right. It does happen, of course, but IMHO on a way, way smaller intensity. > (not to mention the OS is infested with undisablable adware, spyware and other unwanted uninstallable applications) This is why I advocate for something like W10 LTSB - free of the experiments, but paid. If I had the option to switch to paid and only get security updates but no "features", I'd do so in an instant. I don't want to be forced to trade privacy for being able to use the OS.
- fencepost 9y ago
  > the OS is infested with undisablable adware, spyware and other unwanted [non-?]uninstallable applications Can you please provide at least a few citations? I've run ShutUp10 after the installs and upgrades and I don't recall seeing much of anything of what you report.