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> Windows 95 main objective was to allow you to use a computer easily. >And it did just that. That's true. Nowadays, if an OS only gave you the ability to us

> Windows 95 main objective was to allow you to use a computer easily. >And it did just that. That's true. Nowadays, if an OS only gave you the ability to use a computer easily, would people like it or hate it? I don't know. What does Windows 10 provide beyond the ability to use a computer?

api 8y ago
That's a big part of the continuing appeal of Apple in spite of some of their mis-steps. My Mac mostly just gives me a working system that keeps working and is mostly devoid of crap. The crap it does have can generally be disabled.
- tfranco 8y ago
  Second that. And the fact it can run MS Office. You can get some versions of Linux that are pretty stable with the right hardware, but the lack of MS Office is a total bummer. PS: First person to say that one can run MS Office using Wine, will get nailed to a tree.
  - laken 8y ago
    If you want it more like Windows 95, why not LibreOffice? ;P (As an aside, LibreOffice puts into perspective how useful the Ribbon menu is)
    - tfranco 8y ago
      LibreOffice is a nice thing until you get really serious and your day depends on a good office suite. MS Office is complex, full of bugs... but it has all the things in place that a power user needs. They gave a big though about the things people need. The CTRL+Y after a CTRL+X on excel is a great example of that. I have a love/hate relationship with MS Office. I would lave to have something better... but we're still far away.
  - thethirdone 8y ago
    Is there a particular reason LibreOffice is not sufficient? I rarely use MS Office like software so using LibreOffice has been perfectly fine for me.
    - Rjevski 8y ago
      LibreOffice is absolutely awful from an UX point of view. That’s enough to put me off personally. If you’re an office expert you’d probably figure out how to use it, but for me I’ve only used an office suite maybe a dozen times in my life so I’m very new to it, and latest Office 2016 allows me to get started easily (the much-hated Ribbon UI works for me and is intuitive), where as I find myself Googling all the time to do even the basic stuff in LibreOffice.
    - tfranco 8y ago
      LibreOffice suffers the same issues as Star Office and others alike, and I think this is a reflection of how people get rewarded by developing open source. Adding new features gives you a lot of fame. Fixing bugs and improving things does not.
    - wilsonnb 8y ago
      I don't think LibreOffice has an equivalent to OneNote, and I use the desktop client for that a lot. Also, this might sound shallow to some, but the latest version of Office just looks a lot better than LibreOffice and I enjoy that.
- headhunter 8y ago
  I'm not an apple fan, in general, but I agree. I would do everything on linux mint (pretty windows 95-ish) if I could.
  - tfranco 8y ago
    ...if it only could run MS Office...
    - jotm 8y ago
      Surprisingly it's one of the suites WINE ran perfectly last time I used it 5 or so years ago. Talking about MSO 2010, of course, not the newer trash.
- gnicholas 8y ago
  > The crap it does have can generally be disabled. Except the keyboard.
sandrobfc 8y ago
Giving you the ability to use a computer now is not the same as it was back then and that's why Windows 95 was so important. Now it takes much more to make the same impact, but the mindset has changed. Windows 10 is an improvement upon Windows 8, not a complete rebuild of it. That's something that I doubt we'll see any time soon.
- tomc1985 8y ago
  At the time there was still a large proportion of technically literate "power users" and the OS was built with that in mind. Now your use of your computer feels like it is at Microsoft's pleasure, not yours
- slantyyz 8y ago
  >> Giving you the ability to use a computer now is not the same as it was back then and that's why Windows 95 was so important. This is only true if you lived in a vacuum. Windows 95 was important in terms of Windows/x86 users, but let's not forget that Macs existed at this time. Windows 95 might have been prettier than Mac OS back at that time (at least that was the view of the Windows people I knew), but it was not leaps and bounds better. I left Mac in the mid-90s for Windows 95 not because the the UX was better in any meaningful way, but because it was what I used at work. And while 95 in my opinion was still not as good as Mac OS, it met the threshold of being "good enough".
  - wilsonnb 8y ago
    OS/2 warp was around as well. I never used it so I can't comment on how it compared to the other OS's. There just happens to be a boxed copy on a bunch of floppies staring at me from a shelf at work.

api 8y ago

That's a big part of the continuing appeal of Apple in spite of some of their mis-steps. My Mac mostly just gives me a working system that keeps working and is mostly devoid of crap. The crap it does have can generally be disabled.

tfranco 8y ago
Second that. And the fact it can run MS Office. You can get some versions of Linux that are pretty stable with the right hardware, but the lack of MS Office is a total bummer. PS: First person to say that one can run MS Office using Wine, will get nailed to a tree.
- laken 8y ago
  If you want it more like Windows 95, why not LibreOffice? ;P (As an aside, LibreOffice puts into perspective how useful the Ribbon menu is)
  - tfranco 8y ago
    LibreOffice is a nice thing until you get really serious and your day depends on a good office suite. MS Office is complex, full of bugs... but it has all the things in place that a power user needs. They gave a big though about the things people need. The CTRL+Y after a CTRL+X on excel is a great example of that. I have a love/hate relationship with MS Office. I would lave to have something better... but we're still far away.
- thethirdone 8y ago
  Is there a particular reason LibreOffice is not sufficient? I rarely use MS Office like software so using LibreOffice has been perfectly fine for me.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    LibreOffice is absolutely awful from an UX point of view. That’s enough to put me off personally. If you’re an office expert you’d probably figure out how to use it, but for me I’ve only used an office suite maybe a dozen times in my life so I’m very new to it, and latest Office 2016 allows me to get started easily (the much-hated Ribbon UI works for me and is intuitive), where as I find myself Googling all the time to do even the basic stuff in LibreOffice.
  - tfranco 8y ago
    LibreOffice suffers the same issues as Star Office and others alike, and I think this is a reflection of how people get rewarded by developing open source. Adding new features gives you a lot of fame. Fixing bugs and improving things does not.
  - wilsonnb 8y ago
    I don't think LibreOffice has an equivalent to OneNote, and I use the desktop client for that a lot. Also, this might sound shallow to some, but the latest version of Office just looks a lot better than LibreOffice and I enjoy that.
headhunter 8y ago
I'm not an apple fan, in general, but I agree. I would do everything on linux mint (pretty windows 95-ish) if I could.
- tfranco 8y ago
  ...if it only could run MS Office...
  - jotm 8y ago
    Surprisingly it's one of the suites WINE ran perfectly last time I used it 5 or so years ago. Talking about MSO 2010, of course, not the newer trash.
gnicholas 8y ago
> The crap it does have can generally be disabled. Except the keyboard.

sandrobfc 8y ago

Giving you the ability to use a computer now is not the same as it was back then and that's why Windows 95 was so important. Now it takes much more to make the same impact, but the mindset has changed. Windows 10 is an improvement upon Windows 8, not a complete rebuild of it. That's something that I doubt we'll see any time soon.

tomc1985 8y ago
At the time there was still a large proportion of technically literate "power users" and the OS was built with that in mind. Now your use of your computer feels like it is at Microsoft's pleasure, not yours
slantyyz 8y ago
>> Giving you the ability to use a computer now is not the same as it was back then and that's why Windows 95 was so important. This is only true if you lived in a vacuum. Windows 95 was important in terms of Windows/x86 users, but let's not forget that Macs existed at this time. Windows 95 might have been prettier than Mac OS back at that time (at least that was the view of the Windows people I knew), but it was not leaps and bounds better. I left Mac in the mid-90s for Windows 95 not because the the UX was better in any meaningful way, but because it was what I used at work. And while 95 in my opinion was still not as good as Mac OS, it met the threshold of being "good enough".
- wilsonnb 8y ago
  OS/2 warp was around as well. I never used it so I can't comment on how it compared to the other OS's. There just happens to be a boxed copy on a bunch of floppies staring at me from a shelf at work.