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If I was a multimillion dollar corporation trying to follow the best operating system I had made thus far (ignoring the splatter that was Windows 8 and 8.1) the

If I was a multimillion dollar corporation trying to follow the best operating system I had made thus far (ignoring the splatter that was Windows 8 and 8.1) there are some things I wouldn't do: - introduce telemetry - introduce unnecessary updates and remove the ability to choose not to install them. security updates are fine, feature updates that break things but are only temporarily avoided are unacceptable. - remove theming. I would not remove the ability to use the themes my designers had created over the years. - introduce a "Settings" app that fragments the OS configuration (especially if my operating system already had a weird second settings menu that you could only get to by running a command like, for example, `msconfig`). If I did do these things, I would probably introduce them in a beta operating system and continue to support my flagship product because it would, in this hypothetical scenario, be much friendlier to the average user (whom in this scenario I target).

java-man 6y ago
it just tells us that the end users are not the customers. and those of us who actually paid $200 for windows 10, are too small of a section of the customers to be heard.
ksk 6y ago
They already did all that with their enterprise edition, but they don't market it much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_editions#Comparison_chart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_editions#Comparison... Even with the somewhat limited pro edition, our IT is able to give us months and months of uptime for certain critical computers (i'm in biotech). Heck we have a W10 pro machine that handles building security and it has over 2 years of uptime. The problem is the disconnect between HN and the average user who is dumb as rocks when it comes to tech. The average user expects the OS to magically take over the sysadmin duties. They just want it to be as simple and seamless as their phone - not an entirely unreasonable expectation given that the phone is sharing a lot of tasks that were only done on dedicated machines.
- zaphirplane 6y ago
  Kind of funny to say the security machine hasn’t been patched for 2 years Yeah I know it’s badges not mission impossible security
  - White_Wolf 6y ago
    For isolated machines it's not uncommon. The process to re-approve a machine after a bloody update is painful(to say the least). Even for something as lousy as a BMS system of a reasonable size (100 bacnet controller) will still take 1 week or more to fully test and approve. Keep in midn that these are machine where the only things that you can plug in are those whitelisted at the end of the test. Even the approval to replace a keyb+mouse set takes a few days and requires a sys admin to go to site.
  - ksk 6y ago
    Heh, Yes on re-reading the comment it does sound ironic. :) Our IT is not purposely keeping a security hole open to boast about uptime. If there was a security impact to our particular configuration/use-case, we'd patch it for sure.
xnyan 6y ago
I would argue that the telemetry, updates and theming are not major concerns for Windows customers because they can be addressed or simply don’t care, but I can see your point of view and in my opinion are legitimate (though not unique) downsides to windows. I’m actually impressed with Microsoft’s dedication to unify decades of settings UI/Ux. it’s a commendable goal, and while I don’t deny I have had to lookup how to do something in the “new” way many times, I believe it’s worth in and end the end will result in a more logical and consistent configuration interface.
- jerry80 6y ago
  The problem is that they haven't unified decades of settings. They further fragmented the settings and made everything much worse. There are still many things you simply cannot do with the new settings app. Now there's several different places (control panel, settings app, policy editor, etc) you need to look to get any configuration changes done - and the next Windows update will probably revert your changes anyway! It's pretty user-hostile at this point.
  - WorldMaker 6y ago
    Most of the settings reverts ars bugs not caught by Insiders. A volunteer test force is always going to be biased by the types of people willing to participate. Personally, since a major Windows update or two ago I only have one settings panel I actively use that is still a Win32 dialog and not directly in the modern Settings app. That's the Environment Variables dialog, and being a developer/power user control panel I can see how that would be a lower priority to merge to the new Settings. Though it is still interesting to point out that the Environment Variables dialog was improved in Windows 10 over its Windows 7 counterpart. It shouldn't be surprising to anyone at this point that Microsoft is prioritizing settings updates and merging settings dialogs into the modern app in priority order based on available telemetry of what's most commonly used. It never surprises me that most of the people still complaining that their pet settings that they care about haven't migrated to the modern Settings apps are the same that disable telemetry and complain about it. Microsoft doesn't know you are using that setting often if you aren't giving them the telemetry to understand that, it's pretty simple.
908B64B197 6y ago
I keep hearing about telemetry but how bad is it really? Doesn't macOS collects some as well?
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  I think it's very similar what macOS collects and what Windows does these days. I don't know if macOS has a tool like this, but anyone curious exactly what telemetry Windows is collect, Microsoft provides a Diagnostic Data Viewer tool to explore it: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/diagnostic-data-viewer-overview https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/diagnostic-... There's a ton of documentation at this point on everything Windows collects as telemetry. (Most of the same telemetry is in Windows 7, fwiw. A lot of the telemetry systems were added in Vista or XP. The biggest change was Windows 10 turned on a lot more of it on by default rather than nagging people to join the various "Customer Experience Improvement Programs" and consolidating all those opt-in/opt-out "improvement programs" from a half-dozen different nag dialogs to a single privacy settings panel.)
- vetinari 6y ago
  MacOS asks you about it in the OOBE (you can change your decision later in the System Preferences) and then respects your decision. A novel concept, I know.
m463 6y ago
It seems to me like poor diplomacy between two nations with a slight power imbalance. It should be about mutual trust and respect. I have more power, I will use it. I have less power, what can I do, I'll just have to accept it.

java-man 6y ago

it just tells us that the end users are not the customers. and those of us who actually paid $200 for windows 10, are too small of a section of the customers to be heard.

ksk 6y ago

They already did all that with their enterprise edition, but they don't market it much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_editions#Comparison_chart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_editions#Comparison... Even with the somewhat limited pro edition, our IT is able to give us months and months of uptime for certain critical computers (i'm in biotech). Heck we have a W10 pro machine that handles building security and it has over 2 years of uptime. The problem is the disconnect between HN and the average user who is dumb as rocks when it comes to tech. The average user expects the OS to magically take over the sysadmin duties. They just want it to be as simple and seamless as their phone - not an entirely unreasonable expectation given that the phone is sharing a lot of tasks that were only done on dedicated machines.

zaphirplane 6y ago
Kind of funny to say the security machine hasn’t been patched for 2 years Yeah I know it’s badges not mission impossible security
- White_Wolf 6y ago
  For isolated machines it's not uncommon. The process to re-approve a machine after a bloody update is painful(to say the least). Even for something as lousy as a BMS system of a reasonable size (100 bacnet controller) will still take 1 week or more to fully test and approve. Keep in midn that these are machine where the only things that you can plug in are those whitelisted at the end of the test. Even the approval to replace a keyb+mouse set takes a few days and requires a sys admin to go to site.
- ksk 6y ago
  Heh, Yes on re-reading the comment it does sound ironic. :) Our IT is not purposely keeping a security hole open to boast about uptime. If there was a security impact to our particular configuration/use-case, we'd patch it for sure.

xnyan 6y ago

I would argue that the telemetry, updates and theming are not major concerns for Windows customers because they can be addressed or simply don’t care, but I can see your point of view and in my opinion are legitimate (though not unique) downsides to windows. I’m actually impressed with Microsoft’s dedication to unify decades of settings UI/Ux. it’s a commendable goal, and while I don’t deny I have had to lookup how to do something in the “new” way many times, I believe it’s worth in and end the end will result in a more logical and consistent configuration interface.

jerry80 6y ago
The problem is that they haven't unified decades of settings. They further fragmented the settings and made everything much worse. There are still many things you simply cannot do with the new settings app. Now there's several different places (control panel, settings app, policy editor, etc) you need to look to get any configuration changes done - and the next Windows update will probably revert your changes anyway! It's pretty user-hostile at this point.
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  Most of the settings reverts ars bugs not caught by Insiders. A volunteer test force is always going to be biased by the types of people willing to participate. Personally, since a major Windows update or two ago I only have one settings panel I actively use that is still a Win32 dialog and not directly in the modern Settings app. That's the Environment Variables dialog, and being a developer/power user control panel I can see how that would be a lower priority to merge to the new Settings. Though it is still interesting to point out that the Environment Variables dialog was improved in Windows 10 over its Windows 7 counterpart. It shouldn't be surprising to anyone at this point that Microsoft is prioritizing settings updates and merging settings dialogs into the modern app in priority order based on available telemetry of what's most commonly used. It never surprises me that most of the people still complaining that their pet settings that they care about haven't migrated to the modern Settings apps are the same that disable telemetry and complain about it. Microsoft doesn't know you are using that setting often if you aren't giving them the telemetry to understand that, it's pretty simple.

908B64B197 6y ago

I keep hearing about telemetry but how bad is it really? Doesn't macOS collects some as well?

WorldMaker 6y ago
I think it's very similar what macOS collects and what Windows does these days. I don't know if macOS has a tool like this, but anyone curious exactly what telemetry Windows is collect, Microsoft provides a Diagnostic Data Viewer tool to explore it: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/diagnostic-data-viewer-overview https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/diagnostic-... There's a ton of documentation at this point on everything Windows collects as telemetry. (Most of the same telemetry is in Windows 7, fwiw. A lot of the telemetry systems were added in Vista or XP. The biggest change was Windows 10 turned on a lot more of it on by default rather than nagging people to join the various "Customer Experience Improvement Programs" and consolidating all those opt-in/opt-out "improvement programs" from a half-dozen different nag dialogs to a single privacy settings panel.)
vetinari 6y ago
MacOS asks you about it in the OOBE (you can change your decision later in the System Preferences) and then respects your decision. A novel concept, I know.

m463 6y ago

It seems to me like poor diplomacy between two nations with a slight power imbalance. It should be about mutual trust and respect. I have more power, I will use it. I have less power, what can I do, I'll just have to accept it.