6 ms·

An OS used by billions of people including government agencies, hospitals, and nonprofits is not some videogame that needs new content. It's mission critical so

An OS used by billions of people including government agencies, hospitals, and nonprofits is not some videogame that needs new content. It's mission critical software, and these utter delinquents are treating it like a Steam early release. If MS won't get its act together, they should be regulated, broken up, or have their OS seized by eminent domain for the public good.

Fellshard 8y ago
First half, yes. Second half, no. That's pretty disturbing territory being leapt into, and sets a very bad precedent.
- DaiPlusPlus 8y ago
  Isn't there already precedent for the state to step-in to ensure the continued survival of privately-owned and operated corporations and infrastructure that society has taken a strong dependency on? ("too big to fail", etc)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - PopeDotNinja 8y ago
    Pure speculation time... Even if there was precedent, I cannot imagine a single government taking over an globally distributed operating system AND making it better. The US Government could maybe do something like force Microsoft to sell Windows to another large company at firesale prices, like Google or IBM, in the same way that Merrill Lynch was forced to sell at bargain basement prices to Bank Of America, at which point BofA became too big-ger to fail.
gpm 8y ago
Seized, absolutely not. Of course since the government already has the source there is nothing that needs to be seized. The government can just declare the temporary monopoly that they granted on copying it to be over (to be clear, this would take an act of congress...). I'd almost be sympathetic to them doing that - but I also think the outcome would be absolutely terrible. Necessary maintenance (fixing security bugs, updating to new hardware, etc) takes a lot of work and I'm not clear that anyone else would step up to do a good job of it. See how the various android OEMs act...
- CWuestefeld 8y ago
  The government can just declare the temporary monopoly that they granted on copying it to be over IANAL, but I think that would violate the Constitutional prohibition of Bills of Attainder.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > IANAL, but I think that would violate the Constitutional prohibition of Bills of Attainder. No, it wouldn't. A bill of attainder declares a person guilty of a crime or specifies criminal punishment for a particular person. The 5th Amendment Takings Clause, though, is likely to be an issue.
zitterbewegung 8y ago
I bet a lot of enterprises are still using Windows 7 or older because they are mission critical systems for the reasons you state above . (Also because they have to validate all their software to the new operating system .
- thrower123 8y ago
  Win 10 LTSB is really, really good. If you can get it, you should be running it. It would be worth paying a premium for if Microsoft would sell it retail, rather than only through MSDN or volume licensing.
- Angostura 8y ago
  Or using Windows 7 because staff can actually use the UI.
asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
> or have their OS seized by eminent domain If there's one thing the government is known for, it's writing bug-free, efficient software. Also, for real, this bug is not that bad. It's obviously a bug you'd rather not have. But no user data is lost. It just fails to surface an overwrite dialogue, and assumes the result is no.
- dschuler 8y ago
  I know you're saying this in jest, but the (US) government wrote code to fly to the moon and back, control robots on Mars, and model the earth (e.g. DoD's WGS 84, all the work by NIST, etc.). Sure, healthcare.gov was not a smooth rollout, but they do deserve some credit overall. Now Windows on the other hand.... I just set up Windows on a new laptop I bought recently.. just plain Windows as it shipped with my new laptop. Didn't do anything "outside the box" here. I've let it update after this fiasco was supposedly over, restarted - and, of course - can't boot, everything's corrupted, had to reinstall Windows from scratch. Never had this happen with macOS, FreeBSD, or Linux. It's hard to believe, but it really is _that_ bad. I wish it wasn't!
  - ttty 8y ago
    Never happened to me with Windows. It's not the best, but works. Linux on the over hand it's a continuous installation of drivers and fixing functionality that works out of the box on my windows: graphics problems, audio, screen, usb, WiFi. Of course and then you try to install some module and says you have incompatible modules. Then you need to figure out what modules you need to change to match the version of the module to install. This was a few years ago, but I don't have the time to do this. Plus window management is broken on Linux, too many bugs. Last time I couldn't even alt tab like windows.
    - another-cuppa 8y ago
      > Linux on the over hand it's a continuous installation of drivers and fixing functionality that works out of the box on my windows Actually things are more likely to work "out of the box" on Linux if you're a bit careful with what hardware you buy. Windows is the one that needs drivers for just about everything. Linux has thousands built in. I haven't had to do anything after installing Ubuntu for years.
cortesoft 8y ago
If you don’t like their os, we don’t need to seize it, just stop using it. There are multiple other ones.
- Animats 8y ago
  I don't. I have one Windows 7 machine left. Windows 7 was peak Microsoft. Between trying to make desktop look like mobile and adding built-in spyware and ads, it's been downhill since then.
  - beagle3 8y ago
    MacOS works very well. And if you don’t like Apple hardware, so do many Linux distributions (Ubuntu is very popular and easy to get support for), and even FreeBSD and OpenBSD if you are willing to put in more time. Most people are better served by NOT windows. Using Win10 without a specific program that isn’t available for macOS/Linux is bordering on masochism.
    - Animats 8y ago
      Should have explained better. Everything is Linux except for one last Windows 7 machine.
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      > Using Win10 without a specific program that isn’t available for macOS/Linux is bordering on masochism. Some of us like 100% laptop support without speeding weekends tweaking them instead of being at the park with friends and family. Even buying from Linux friendly hardware stores isn't always a success, as proven by my own Asus netbook.
      - beagle3 8y ago
        I have the opposite experience with Win support - my parents replaced their aging windows laptop with a new win10 one, and I had to spend the weekend trying to get their old printer and scanner working again, whereas it still works out of the box with the latest Ubuntu. The main difference these days, once you got past the setup, is that as a non LTSB/LTSC user, Microsoft keeps inflicting damage onto you (e.g. in the form of reappearing Candy Crush) with no way for you to stop it without continuously actively fighting.
nikanj 8y ago
Some Windows Insider MVPs are getting really frustrated with the ”danks and memes” way Windows is developed nowadays [1]. I guess this is the eternal pendulum, swinging between “too boring” and “too hip”. [ https://win10.guru/how-i-lost-my-windows-insider-mvp-award/ https://win10.guru/how-i-lost-my-windows-insider-mvp-award/ ]
softwarefounder 8y ago
Well, that escalated quickly.
mauriciob 8y ago
Users can opt out of the targeted updates, so they will update only after the version is consolidated. Companies and government should not be using the targeted version at all. It's not an excuse for the issues, but it's not a big problem for companies as you make it seem.
snupples 8y ago
There's an LTS version of win 10 without the constant feature updates. Do you actually support desktop Windows in any of those industries with mission critical desktops? If so, you need to educate yourself. If not, your rant is coming from an uninformed position.
- JoshuaAshton 8y ago
  Just cause something says LTSB/C, it doesn't mean it doesn't have the same bugs of the update it was branched from. The LTSB/C is a joke, it's literally just the regular release with Cortana and other garbage removed.
  - xaduha 8y ago
    Are you familiar with LTS releases of Linux distributions? Do you expect them to be something extraordinary?
  - snupples 8y ago
    It's on a completely different release schedule. Sure anything can have bugs but this is not going to get bugs introduced through feature-adds. It doesn't get these feature updates. It's stable. This is the entire point. You test and validate before your deploy and then you deploy and it remains stable.

Fellshard 8y ago

First half, yes. Second half, no. That's pretty disturbing territory being leapt into, and sets a very bad precedent.

DaiPlusPlus 8y ago
Isn't there already precedent for the state to step-in to ensure the continued survival of privately-owned and operated corporations and infrastructure that society has taken a strong dependency on? ("too big to fail", etc)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- PopeDotNinja 8y ago
  Pure speculation time... Even if there was precedent, I cannot imagine a single government taking over an globally distributed operating system AND making it better. The US Government could maybe do something like force Microsoft to sell Windows to another large company at firesale prices, like Google or IBM, in the same way that Merrill Lynch was forced to sell at bargain basement prices to Bank Of America, at which point BofA became too big-ger to fail.

gpm 8y ago

Seized, absolutely not. Of course since the government already has the source there is nothing that needs to be seized. The government can just declare the temporary monopoly that they granted on copying it to be over (to be clear, this would take an act of congress...). I'd almost be sympathetic to them doing that - but I also think the outcome would be absolutely terrible. Necessary maintenance (fixing security bugs, updating to new hardware, etc) takes a lot of work and I'm not clear that anyone else would step up to do a good job of it. See how the various android OEMs act...

CWuestefeld 8y ago
The government can just declare the temporary monopoly that they granted on copying it to be over IANAL, but I think that would violate the Constitutional prohibition of Bills of Attainder.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > IANAL, but I think that would violate the Constitutional prohibition of Bills of Attainder. No, it wouldn't. A bill of attainder declares a person guilty of a crime or specifies criminal punishment for a particular person. The 5th Amendment Takings Clause, though, is likely to be an issue.

zitterbewegung 8y ago

I bet a lot of enterprises are still using Windows 7 or older because they are mission critical systems for the reasons you state above . (Also because they have to validate all their software to the new operating system .

thrower123 8y ago
Win 10 LTSB is really, really good. If you can get it, you should be running it. It would be worth paying a premium for if Microsoft would sell it retail, rather than only through MSDN or volume licensing.
Angostura 8y ago
Or using Windows 7 because staff can actually use the UI.

asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago

> or have their OS seized by eminent domain If there's one thing the government is known for, it's writing bug-free, efficient software. Also, for real, this bug is not that bad. It's obviously a bug you'd rather not have. But no user data is lost. It just fails to surface an overwrite dialogue, and assumes the result is no.

dschuler 8y ago
I know you're saying this in jest, but the (US) government wrote code to fly to the moon and back, control robots on Mars, and model the earth (e.g. DoD's WGS 84, all the work by NIST, etc.). Sure, healthcare.gov was not a smooth rollout, but they do deserve some credit overall. Now Windows on the other hand.... I just set up Windows on a new laptop I bought recently.. just plain Windows as it shipped with my new laptop. Didn't do anything "outside the box" here. I've let it update after this fiasco was supposedly over, restarted - and, of course - can't boot, everything's corrupted, had to reinstall Windows from scratch. Never had this happen with macOS, FreeBSD, or Linux. It's hard to believe, but it really is _that_ bad. I wish it wasn't!
- ttty 8y ago
  Never happened to me with Windows. It's not the best, but works. Linux on the over hand it's a continuous installation of drivers and fixing functionality that works out of the box on my windows: graphics problems, audio, screen, usb, WiFi. Of course and then you try to install some module and says you have incompatible modules. Then you need to figure out what modules you need to change to match the version of the module to install. This was a few years ago, but I don't have the time to do this. Plus window management is broken on Linux, too many bugs. Last time I couldn't even alt tab like windows.
  - another-cuppa 8y ago
    > Linux on the over hand it's a continuous installation of drivers and fixing functionality that works out of the box on my windows Actually things are more likely to work "out of the box" on Linux if you're a bit careful with what hardware you buy. Windows is the one that needs drivers for just about everything. Linux has thousands built in. I haven't had to do anything after installing Ubuntu for years.

cortesoft 8y ago

If you don’t like their os, we don’t need to seize it, just stop using it. There are multiple other ones.

Animats 8y ago
I don't. I have one Windows 7 machine left. Windows 7 was peak Microsoft. Between trying to make desktop look like mobile and adding built-in spyware and ads, it's been downhill since then.
- beagle3 8y ago
  MacOS works very well. And if you don’t like Apple hardware, so do many Linux distributions (Ubuntu is very popular and easy to get support for), and even FreeBSD and OpenBSD if you are willing to put in more time. Most people are better served by NOT windows. Using Win10 without a specific program that isn’t available for macOS/Linux is bordering on masochism.
  - Animats 8y ago
    Should have explained better. Everything is Linux except for one last Windows 7 machine.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    > Using Win10 without a specific program that isn’t available for macOS/Linux is bordering on masochism. Some of us like 100% laptop support without speeding weekends tweaking them instead of being at the park with friends and family. Even buying from Linux friendly hardware stores isn't always a success, as proven by my own Asus netbook.
    - beagle3 8y ago
      I have the opposite experience with Win support - my parents replaced their aging windows laptop with a new win10 one, and I had to spend the weekend trying to get their old printer and scanner working again, whereas it still works out of the box with the latest Ubuntu. The main difference these days, once you got past the setup, is that as a non LTSB/LTSC user, Microsoft keeps inflicting damage onto you (e.g. in the form of reappearing Candy Crush) with no way for you to stop it without continuously actively fighting.

nikanj 8y ago

Some Windows Insider MVPs are getting really frustrated with the ”danks and memes” way Windows is developed nowadays [1]. I guess this is the eternal pendulum, swinging between “too boring” and “too hip”. [ https://win10.guru/how-i-lost-my-windows-insider-mvp-award/ https://win10.guru/how-i-lost-my-windows-insider-mvp-award/ ]

softwarefounder 8y ago

Well, that escalated quickly.

mauriciob 8y ago

Users can opt out of the targeted updates, so they will update only after the version is consolidated. Companies and government should not be using the targeted version at all. It's not an excuse for the issues, but it's not a big problem for companies as you make it seem.

snupples 8y ago

There's an LTS version of win 10 without the constant feature updates. Do you actually support desktop Windows in any of those industries with mission critical desktops? If so, you need to educate yourself. If not, your rant is coming from an uninformed position.

JoshuaAshton 8y ago
Just cause something says LTSB/C, it doesn't mean it doesn't have the same bugs of the update it was branched from. The LTSB/C is a joke, it's literally just the regular release with Cortana and other garbage removed.
- xaduha 8y ago
  Are you familiar with LTS releases of Linux distributions? Do you expect them to be something extraordinary?
- snupples 8y ago
  It's on a completely different release schedule. Sure anything can have bugs but this is not going to get bugs introduced through feature-adds. It doesn't get these feature updates. It's stable. This is the entire point. You test and validate before your deploy and then you deploy and it remains stable.