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I've been using Windows 10 since the beginning and I believe it's the best desktop OS out there (I use Ubuntu at work and I have a Macbook Air too, I can compar

I've been using Windows 10 since the beginning and I believe it's the best desktop OS out there (I use Ubuntu at work and I have a Macbook Air too, I can compare). However, I'm getting a bit tired of the overall poor quality of the biyearly updates. There's always one machine (either my main workstation or one belonging to my close relatives) where it'll miserably fail. The error messages and logs are completely unhelpful and so is whatever you'll find on the Microsoft Community website. In the end, I'm sure I'm going to have to reinstall at least one Windows cleanly, every six months.

pletnes 8y ago
In what way is windows 10 then the best OS? An OS that keeps breaking by updates is pretty much the worst OS by my standards. At work about 30% of computers have been reinstalled due to windows update failures over a year or so. Pretty awful if you ask me. Oh, and no problems with our ubuntu machines.
- hunta2097 8y ago
  I've always had a Linux partition and a Windows partition on my laptop. Years ago I would end up drifting back into Windows. However I haven't logged into Windows for a while now, and I'm considering deleting the partition. When are Adobe and Autodesk going to support Linux properly? They are the only non-gaming reason for Windows now.
  - pletnes 8y ago
    The unholy Word/excel/powerpoint trinity is what is keeping my win10 alive at work.
    - r00fus 8y ago
      More and more companies that I work with are shifting to google docs for better or for worse ...
  - CyberDildonics 8y ago
    I think it's more likely there will be simple but competent web apps that fill those niches for most people before Adobe ports to linux. Autodesk has many programs now that run on Linux. Maya has run on linux for over 15 years.
    - vetinari 8y ago
      When Autodesk bought Alias|Wavefront, it was already running on Linux, with their customers running Linux. Killing it would damage their business, so they continue with the development. Meanwhile their original product, 3ds max, is pretty locked into Windows.
      - CyberDildonics 8y ago
        3D Studio was written directly for Windows NT and isn't available on Mac OSX either. There is already Maya, Softimage XSI, Houdini and Modo on Linux. I'm not sure where the expectation comes from that 3D Studio would be ported to Linux. It isn't any sort of a standard for general 3d work, isn't used much by the computer animation or visual effects companies, and is more of an exception.
        vetinari 8y ago
        It is not an expectation of being ported to Linux, it is a statement of fact of being windows exclusive. It was originally a DOS application, which was rewritten for Windows, and is used in game development.
        CyberDildonics 8y ago
        The original comment was about Adobe and Autodesk 'supporting' linux properly. 3D Studio was originally written for DOS, but published by Autodesk, not written by them. It doesn't make sense to say Autodesk doesn't 'properly support Linux' when they have software for Linux, and one program that isn't for Linux doesn't really have much demand on Linux in the first place.
  - vetinari 8y ago
    > When are Adobe and Autodesk going to support Linux properly? When there will be a business case. That means, when there will be people willing to purchase Linux versions of Adobe/Autodesk/whatever apps, but not their Windows or Mac versions. Normally, when people need Adobe/whatever, they will purchase also whatever OS is needed to run them - if you are getting expensive pro apps, 130 EUR/OS license (pro/oem/before VAT) is a rounding error. To Adobe this signals, that the porting effort would be a wasted effort, which they can save and earn the same revenue anyway. So it is more realistic that some competitor appears, fills that demand and grows somewhat, before established vendors notice.
    - mrsteveman1 8y ago
      > That means, when there will be people willing to purchase Linux versions of Adobe/Autodesk/whatever apps, but not their Windows or Mac versions. I think this is becoming a real possibility. The other day I realized that all of the commercial FPGA design tools I use, from Xilinx, Altera/Intel, and Lattice, are available for Linux as well as Windows. And despite being fairly expensive if you need the versions that support larger FPGAs, they all provide a free version. Naturally they target the enterprise distributions like RHEL, and there are quirks in general and some friction to using them on other distributions, but they actually work and they're supported. Now, perhaps there's something about the people working on FPGAs that makes demand for Linux versions of those tools much higher, I don't know. But I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage of installations for those tools was still mostly on Windows.
- JohnTHaller 8y ago
  Supports the widest array of applications. Supports the widest array of hardware. Has an OS, drivers, and software that can take advantage of the highest and lowest end modern hardware. Still runs on 10+ year old laptops. Best OS for gaming by an absurd margin. Etc. A business having constant issues with Windows updates breaking machine needs to hire better people on the hardware planning and acquisitions sides, QA sides, and Windows/Active Directory/Group Policy sides.
  - foepys 8y ago
    > A business having constant issues with Windows updates breaking machine needs to hire better people [...] What if I only have 5 employees and just want to use the computers with MS Office and another industry specific program on it? Do I need to hire a dedicated technician to make sure my PC is running or do I want the OS manufacturer that I pay to deliver a product that isn't suddenly deleting my data? There are some smaller IT shops doing IT support for SMB but they can't come in every day and the customers are often not skilled enough to notice that something is wrong. Like losing valuable data through Windows and incremental backups.
    - gruez 8y ago
      >Do I need to hire a dedicated technician to make sure my PC is running or do I want the OS manufacturer that I pay to deliver a product that isn't suddenly deleting my data? use the Semi-Annual Channel and defer updates for 365 days? presumably by then the issues would have been worked out.
  - Jonnax 8y ago
    The fact that a business has to hire these people to do that job is indicative of flaws in Windows. As well as this idea that consumer users are essentially beta testers.
- pknopf 8y ago
  My hangup with Windows is that it just isn't cli friendly. It is really hard to change anything about the system without verbose and cryptic calls to under documented executables.
  - fermienrico 8y ago
    Don’t forget the registry system, poor DPI scaling, UI piece patch going back to Windows XP (mouse pointer speed dialog box), BSOD if a third party hardware segfaults, fuck you Windows Explorer, everything freezes until network access time out has expired, etc. Windows is a poorly made piece of software rotten from the core. If you look deeper, you discover the horror of how things work and fragments from Steve Ballmer days. You can try to make an argument that it’s not rotten to the core, but no way in hell anyone would say “Windows is beautiful”.
    - guhidalg 8y ago
      Is Linux? Is Mach?
ThrowawayR2 8y ago
Microsoft laid off nearly all of its QA staff company-wide in 2014. From https://www.zdnet.com/article/beyond-12500-former-nokia-employees-who-else-is-microsoft-laying-off/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/beyond-12500-former-nokia-empl..., "Under the new structure, a number of Windows engineers, primarily dedicated testers, will no longer be needed. "
- lousken 8y ago
  whoever approved this decision needs to be fired
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  I'm curious what the impact was in terms of actual loss-of-quality vs. dollars saved. I would guess that for a company as wealthy as Microsoft, the reputational damage to its flagship product would far outweigh any money saved. But perhaps I'm just wrong about how the market works. If nothing else, reliability concerns are just one reason I'm avoiding Windows 10. (The other primary reason being Microsoft's potential snooping.)
  - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
    Well, their stock nearly tripled since 2014 and they passed Alphabet/Google in valuation early this year, so...
    - wgerard 8y ago
      Eh, I imagine that mostly has to do with Ballmer stepping down and not about slashing expenses.
OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
fucking ads

pletnes 8y ago

In what way is windows 10 then the best OS? An OS that keeps breaking by updates is pretty much the worst OS by my standards. At work about 30% of computers have been reinstalled due to windows update failures over a year or so. Pretty awful if you ask me. Oh, and no problems with our ubuntu machines.

hunta2097 8y ago
I've always had a Linux partition and a Windows partition on my laptop. Years ago I would end up drifting back into Windows. However I haven't logged into Windows for a while now, and I'm considering deleting the partition. When are Adobe and Autodesk going to support Linux properly? They are the only non-gaming reason for Windows now.
- pletnes 8y ago
  The unholy Word/excel/powerpoint trinity is what is keeping my win10 alive at work.
  - r00fus 8y ago
    More and more companies that I work with are shifting to google docs for better or for worse ...
- CyberDildonics 8y ago
  I think it's more likely there will be simple but competent web apps that fill those niches for most people before Adobe ports to linux. Autodesk has many programs now that run on Linux. Maya has run on linux for over 15 years.
  - vetinari 8y ago
    When Autodesk bought Alias|Wavefront, it was already running on Linux, with their customers running Linux. Killing it would damage their business, so they continue with the development. Meanwhile their original product, 3ds max, is pretty locked into Windows.
    - CyberDildonics 8y ago
      3D Studio was written directly for Windows NT and isn't available on Mac OSX either. There is already Maya, Softimage XSI, Houdini and Modo on Linux. I'm not sure where the expectation comes from that 3D Studio would be ported to Linux. It isn't any sort of a standard for general 3d work, isn't used much by the computer animation or visual effects companies, and is more of an exception.
      - vetinari 8y ago
        It is not an expectation of being ported to Linux, it is a statement of fact of being windows exclusive. It was originally a DOS application, which was rewritten for Windows, and is used in game development.
        CyberDildonics 8y ago
        The original comment was about Adobe and Autodesk 'supporting' linux properly. 3D Studio was originally written for DOS, but published by Autodesk, not written by them. It doesn't make sense to say Autodesk doesn't 'properly support Linux' when they have software for Linux, and one program that isn't for Linux doesn't really have much demand on Linux in the first place.
- vetinari 8y ago
  > When are Adobe and Autodesk going to support Linux properly? When there will be a business case. That means, when there will be people willing to purchase Linux versions of Adobe/Autodesk/whatever apps, but not their Windows or Mac versions. Normally, when people need Adobe/whatever, they will purchase also whatever OS is needed to run them - if you are getting expensive pro apps, 130 EUR/OS license (pro/oem/before VAT) is a rounding error. To Adobe this signals, that the porting effort would be a wasted effort, which they can save and earn the same revenue anyway. So it is more realistic that some competitor appears, fills that demand and grows somewhat, before established vendors notice.
  - mrsteveman1 8y ago
    > That means, when there will be people willing to purchase Linux versions of Adobe/Autodesk/whatever apps, but not their Windows or Mac versions. I think this is becoming a real possibility. The other day I realized that all of the commercial FPGA design tools I use, from Xilinx, Altera/Intel, and Lattice, are available for Linux as well as Windows. And despite being fairly expensive if you need the versions that support larger FPGAs, they all provide a free version. Naturally they target the enterprise distributions like RHEL, and there are quirks in general and some friction to using them on other distributions, but they actually work and they're supported. Now, perhaps there's something about the people working on FPGAs that makes demand for Linux versions of those tools much higher, I don't know. But I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage of installations for those tools was still mostly on Windows.
JohnTHaller 8y ago
Supports the widest array of applications. Supports the widest array of hardware. Has an OS, drivers, and software that can take advantage of the highest and lowest end modern hardware. Still runs on 10+ year old laptops. Best OS for gaming by an absurd margin. Etc. A business having constant issues with Windows updates breaking machine needs to hire better people on the hardware planning and acquisitions sides, QA sides, and Windows/Active Directory/Group Policy sides.
- foepys 8y ago
  > A business having constant issues with Windows updates breaking machine needs to hire better people [...] What if I only have 5 employees and just want to use the computers with MS Office and another industry specific program on it? Do I need to hire a dedicated technician to make sure my PC is running or do I want the OS manufacturer that I pay to deliver a product that isn't suddenly deleting my data? There are some smaller IT shops doing IT support for SMB but they can't come in every day and the customers are often not skilled enough to notice that something is wrong. Like losing valuable data through Windows and incremental backups.
  - gruez 8y ago
    >Do I need to hire a dedicated technician to make sure my PC is running or do I want the OS manufacturer that I pay to deliver a product that isn't suddenly deleting my data? use the Semi-Annual Channel and defer updates for 365 days? presumably by then the issues would have been worked out.
- Jonnax 8y ago
  The fact that a business has to hire these people to do that job is indicative of flaws in Windows. As well as this idea that consumer users are essentially beta testers.
pknopf 8y ago
My hangup with Windows is that it just isn't cli friendly. It is really hard to change anything about the system without verbose and cryptic calls to under documented executables.
- fermienrico 8y ago
  Don’t forget the registry system, poor DPI scaling, UI piece patch going back to Windows XP (mouse pointer speed dialog box), BSOD if a third party hardware segfaults, fuck you Windows Explorer, everything freezes until network access time out has expired, etc. Windows is a poorly made piece of software rotten from the core. If you look deeper, you discover the horror of how things work and fragments from Steve Ballmer days. You can try to make an argument that it’s not rotten to the core, but no way in hell anyone would say “Windows is beautiful”.
  - guhidalg 8y ago
    Is Linux? Is Mach?

ThrowawayR2 8y ago

Microsoft laid off nearly all of its QA staff company-wide in 2014. From https://www.zdnet.com/article/beyond-12500-former-nokia-employees-who-else-is-microsoft-laying-off/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/beyond-12500-former-nokia-empl..., "Under the new structure, a number of Windows engineers, primarily dedicated testers, will no longer be needed. "

lousken 8y ago
whoever approved this decision needs to be fired
DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
I'm curious what the impact was in terms of actual loss-of-quality vs. dollars saved. I would guess that for a company as wealthy as Microsoft, the reputational damage to its flagship product would far outweigh any money saved. But perhaps I'm just wrong about how the market works. If nothing else, reliability concerns are just one reason I'm avoiding Windows 10. (The other primary reason being Microsoft's potential snooping.)
- ThrowawayR2 8y ago
  Well, their stock nearly tripled since 2014 and they passed Alphabet/Google in valuation early this year, so...
  - wgerard 8y ago
    Eh, I imagine that mostly has to do with Ballmer stepping down and not about slashing expenses.

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

fucking ads