8 ms·

Microsoft is on an interesting trajectory of late, but it also seems like there is some bifurcation as to what they're doing. On one hand they are trying to emb

by S_A_P 5y ago

Microsoft is on an interesting trajectory of late, but it also seems like there is some bifurcation as to what they're doing. On one hand they are trying to embrace Linux and pushing development tools forward, but on the other they are just making every slimy big tech type decision they can. I have my own personal axe to grind with them as they tricked my completely non tech savvy mother in law to upgrade her Surface to windows 11 and guess what? The freaking network driver doesn't work so it is now effectively bricked for her use case. She didnt want windows 11 and Im guessing just clicked all the highlighted options to "keep her computer up to date and safe". I found out the issue when we were in a location that only had slow satellite internet so she cant use her computer until she gets back to civilization and I can reload windows 10. Microsoft has created a tech support nightmare for me. Seriously if any MS folks are reading this- you really have pretty much erased any goodwill I had towards you, but I suppose the ad revenue means you dont care.

maximus-decimus 5y ago
Something similar happened with my father. He upgraded his laptop to w11 and now his microphone is incredibly finicky and will only capture his voice making if he's sitting exactly in front of the middle of the computer. This makes the mic useless for my father's base use case : have video calls where both he and my mother speak on the same computer. They now have to turn the computer around to fact the person who's speaking. The same computer with the same mic worked perfectly fine with w10.
LeifCarrotson 5y ago
"Some bifurcation" is quite an understatement! Unless you're trying to partition all actions into "good" and "bad", it's more like octofurcation or dodecafurcation. Microsoft is not a homogenous monolith...what does it even mean to split something that's already split apart? Here's an old org chart which shows Microsoft trifurcated: https://i.insider.com/4e0b340dcadcbbdd35120000 https://i.insider.com/4e0b340dcadcbbdd35120000 But realistically, each of 5 divisions - Windows, Office, Server & Tools, Online Services, and Entertainment & Devices (the above chart may have been made before the latter two existed) - has a president that's trying to make their division successful, even at the expense of goodwill earned by other divisions. Yes, Server & Tools has been knocking it out of the park for you and I recently with regards to developer enthusiasm, but they're a long ways away from Entertainment & Devices. Each of those divisions actually has another ~25 VPs and hundreds of Directors each trying to climb the ladder faster than the others. To put it bluntly, Windows is jealous of all the post-sale revenue that Entertainment & Devices gets, and all the telemetry that online services gets, and has shoved as much as possible of both into Windows 11.
- S_A_P 5y ago
  This is a great point- I dramatically oversimplified what is going on. I do wonder how this is discussed internally. Since I started working as a dev back in the late 90s I feel like a lot of the optimism I had from tech improving our lives has largely been erased. Its probably just me getting old and pessimistic though :).
  - jraph 5y ago
    > a lot of the optimism I had from tech improving our lives has largely been erased It can do both, and we should strive to both prevent it from degrading our lives, and make it improve them. That's the original purpose of our computers. This should drive us. It drives me. I'd say this is critically important. Please try to do the right things, whoever reads this. Computer scientists are powerful and impactful. Please reflect on how and what you (and whoever pays you) spend your time on, how it impacts society and human beings (and beyond) and make sure your are at ease with what you come up with, whatever the scale of the impact is. Don't lie to yourself. This paragraph should not be painful to read.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  I must admit Windows just doesn't know what they are supposed to do. UWP, .NET Native and C++/CX just tanked due to their mismanagement, and having burned the few believers with what are now about 5 rewrites since Windows 8 was introduced plus having dropped the .NET Native and C++/CX toolchains. Forget about.WinUI 3.0, it is so messed up that Windows 11 still needs to rely on UWP and WinUI 2.x, despite being "deprecated". Then we have tons of GUI tooling PMs, each selling their own stack, and every couple of months the faces on community calls keep changing. There are surely some big fires happening in. Redmond and they keep carrying water buckets hoping to make it right. Specially since it appears the lack of love between WinDev and DevDiv never went away. The forces that won over Longhorn have managed to completely mess up WinRT and aren't doing any better with the Project Reunion endeavours. Anyone that is bored during the season festivities can browse the GitHub issues for WinUI, AppSDK, cppwinrt and a bunch of other ones connected to them.
  - 5y ago
13of40 5y ago
I feel it's strange that this kind of hyperbolic response to a network adapter driver bug is considered normal discourse.
- S_A_P 5y ago
  I dont know that its hyperbolic to be irritated that MS couldnt get an upgrade right on their own hardware, especially when it was installed by the use of dark patterns.
  - 13of40 5y ago
    The hyperbolic part is assuming that each of their 100K employees, and just as many vendors, are complicit in and guilty for whatever bug has allegedly affected OP's mom's computer. "Seriously if any MS folks are reading this- you really have pretty much erased any goodwill I had towards you"
    - reaperducer 5y ago
      Doesn't seem much different than when people rail against "the government" or "the media" or any other large collection of human beings.
    - anonymousab 5y ago
      The tradeoff for various groups and projects benefiting from being Microsoft is that they also suffer the issues of being Microsoft. If Microsoft as a whole gets praise for something then it's only fair that they get blame/dislike/etc. too.
- Guest42 5y ago
  I had a computer become bricked from w10 updates taking too much space, luckily I was able to switch to linux
vel0city 5y ago
Which Surface does she have? I've upgraded a few Surface tablets to 11 and have yet to experience the network drivers fail to work afterwards. Maybe it could also be that I waited a few months after it was out to upgrade and they already had a fix for that issue.
- S_A_P 5y ago
  I dont recall offhand, it was purchased in 2020 I believe, but could be 2019. Its a midrange model.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  "upgraded?"
cbsks 5y ago
My wife’s surface book 3 auto-updated to windows 11. She complained to me that games were running slowly and it turned out that the nvidia driver wasn’t installed anymore so she was stuck using the intel graphics card. It was an easy fix for me, but it would have been nearly impossible for a non-tech-savvy person to figure out. You would think that Microsoft would do a better job of testing their own OS on their own hardware.
Dig1t 5y ago
Honestly I have found that the iPad is great for older folks for this reason. Not to be an Apple shill, but I've found that things like bricked devices after an update don't happen basically ever.
- russh 5y ago
  I wish Apple would spend more time working on this use case. I'd really like a stripped-down, somewhat locked-down interface that could be remotely managed. It would be the greatest thing for elderly people with dementia. My Dad loved his iPad but was frequently frustrated when he strayed off into some screen, configuration setting, or mode he didn't understand.
- adamcstephens 5y ago
  I gave my in-laws a Chromebook for similar reasons. Either way, most people don’t need a full Windows OS
  - type0 5y ago
    Chomebook is at least a computer, iPad is an entertainment device.
    - adamcstephens 5y ago
      Does it have a web browser? Then it meets the needs of most people’s computing requirements.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      For most people. For many professional digital artists and designers, however, the iPad is far more convenient that the traditional Wacom tablet connected to a desktop or laptop.
devwastaken 5y ago
Microsoft is giving the Linux heads a job in porting Linux environments to windows to deincentivize using Linux desktop and servers. It's in direct competition with redhat. Absorb and destroy.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  At this point I would absolutely welcome that. Microsoft is actually pretty good with long term service and support of enterprise tech, and compared to Oracle they’re almost benevolent.
datavirtue 5y ago
I installed a fresh iso of Windows 10 Pro on my mom's desktop the other day. The experience has changed for the same operating system over the last five years. It felt like I was installing a huge piece of malware. When it pegged the cpu at 100% installing one drive (after I told it not to) I just pulled the plug and installed fedora (which I had recently evaluated for myself). Try installing and running fedora for a few minutes. Blows Windows 10/11 out of the water. I knew that if I sent her machine back with Windows 10 it would be a support nightmare.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by S_A_P 5y ago

maximus-decimus 5y ago

Something similar happened with my father. He upgraded his laptop to w11 and now his microphone is incredibly finicky and will only capture his voice making if he's sitting exactly in front of the middle of the computer. This makes the mic useless for my father's base use case : have video calls where both he and my mother speak on the same computer. They now have to turn the computer around to fact the person who's speaking. The same computer with the same mic worked perfectly fine with w10.

LeifCarrotson 5y ago

"Some bifurcation" is quite an understatement! Unless you're trying to partition all actions into "good" and "bad", it's more like octofurcation or dodecafurcation. Microsoft is not a homogenous monolith...what does it even mean to split something that's already split apart? Here's an old org chart which shows Microsoft trifurcated: https://i.insider.com/4e0b340dcadcbbdd35120000 https://i.insider.com/4e0b340dcadcbbdd35120000 But realistically, each of 5 divisions - Windows, Office, Server & Tools, Online Services, and Entertainment & Devices (the above chart may have been made before the latter two existed) - has a president that's trying to make their division successful, even at the expense of goodwill earned by other divisions. Yes, Server & Tools has been knocking it out of the park for you and I recently with regards to developer enthusiasm, but they're a long ways away from Entertainment & Devices. Each of those divisions actually has another ~25 VPs and hundreds of Directors each trying to climb the ladder faster than the others. To put it bluntly, Windows is jealous of all the post-sale revenue that Entertainment & Devices gets, and all the telemetry that online services gets, and has shoved as much as possible of both into Windows 11.

S_A_P 5y ago
This is a great point- I dramatically oversimplified what is going on. I do wonder how this is discussed internally. Since I started working as a dev back in the late 90s I feel like a lot of the optimism I had from tech improving our lives has largely been erased. Its probably just me getting old and pessimistic though :).
- jraph 5y ago
  > a lot of the optimism I had from tech improving our lives has largely been erased It can do both, and we should strive to both prevent it from degrading our lives, and make it improve them. That's the original purpose of our computers. This should drive us. It drives me. I'd say this is critically important. Please try to do the right things, whoever reads this. Computer scientists are powerful and impactful. Please reflect on how and what you (and whoever pays you) spend your time on, how it impacts society and human beings (and beyond) and make sure your are at ease with what you come up with, whatever the scale of the impact is. Don't lie to yourself. This paragraph should not be painful to read.
pjmlp 5y ago
I must admit Windows just doesn't know what they are supposed to do. UWP, .NET Native and C++/CX just tanked due to their mismanagement, and having burned the few believers with what are now about 5 rewrites since Windows 8 was introduced plus having dropped the .NET Native and C++/CX toolchains. Forget about.WinUI 3.0, it is so messed up that Windows 11 still needs to rely on UWP and WinUI 2.x, despite being "deprecated". Then we have tons of GUI tooling PMs, each selling their own stack, and every couple of months the faces on community calls keep changing. There are surely some big fires happening in. Redmond and they keep carrying water buckets hoping to make it right. Specially since it appears the lack of love between WinDev and DevDiv never went away. The forces that won over Longhorn have managed to completely mess up WinRT and aren't doing any better with the Project Reunion endeavours. Anyone that is bored during the season festivities can browse the GitHub issues for WinUI, AppSDK, cppwinrt and a bunch of other ones connected to them.
- 5y ago

13of40 5y ago

I feel it's strange that this kind of hyperbolic response to a network adapter driver bug is considered normal discourse.

S_A_P 5y ago
I dont know that its hyperbolic to be irritated that MS couldnt get an upgrade right on their own hardware, especially when it was installed by the use of dark patterns.
- 13of40 5y ago
  The hyperbolic part is assuming that each of their 100K employees, and just as many vendors, are complicit in and guilty for whatever bug has allegedly affected OP's mom's computer. "Seriously if any MS folks are reading this- you really have pretty much erased any goodwill I had towards you"
  - reaperducer 5y ago
    Doesn't seem much different than when people rail against "the government" or "the media" or any other large collection of human beings.
  - anonymousab 5y ago
    The tradeoff for various groups and projects benefiting from being Microsoft is that they also suffer the issues of being Microsoft. If Microsoft as a whole gets praise for something then it's only fair that they get blame/dislike/etc. too.
Guest42 5y ago
I had a computer become bricked from w10 updates taking too much space, luckily I was able to switch to linux

vel0city 5y ago

Which Surface does she have? I've upgraded a few Surface tablets to 11 and have yet to experience the network drivers fail to work afterwards. Maybe it could also be that I waited a few months after it was out to upgrade and they already had a fix for that issue.

S_A_P 5y ago
I dont recall offhand, it was purchased in 2020 I believe, but could be 2019. Its a midrange model.
datavirtue 5y ago
"upgraded?"

cbsks 5y ago

My wife’s surface book 3 auto-updated to windows 11. She complained to me that games were running slowly and it turned out that the nvidia driver wasn’t installed anymore so she was stuck using the intel graphics card. It was an easy fix for me, but it would have been nearly impossible for a non-tech-savvy person to figure out. You would think that Microsoft would do a better job of testing their own OS on their own hardware.

Dig1t 5y ago

Honestly I have found that the iPad is great for older folks for this reason. Not to be an Apple shill, but I've found that things like bricked devices after an update don't happen basically ever.

russh 5y ago
I wish Apple would spend more time working on this use case. I'd really like a stripped-down, somewhat locked-down interface that could be remotely managed. It would be the greatest thing for elderly people with dementia. My Dad loved his iPad but was frequently frustrated when he strayed off into some screen, configuration setting, or mode he didn't understand.
adamcstephens 5y ago
I gave my in-laws a Chromebook for similar reasons. Either way, most people don’t need a full Windows OS
- type0 5y ago
  Chomebook is at least a computer, iPad is an entertainment device.
  - adamcstephens 5y ago
    Does it have a web browser? Then it meets the needs of most people’s computing requirements.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    For most people. For many professional digital artists and designers, however, the iPad is far more convenient that the traditional Wacom tablet connected to a desktop or laptop.

devwastaken 5y ago

Microsoft is giving the Linux heads a job in porting Linux environments to windows to deincentivize using Linux desktop and servers. It's in direct competition with redhat. Absorb and destroy.

wayoutthere 5y ago
At this point I would absolutely welcome that. Microsoft is actually pretty good with long term service and support of enterprise tech, and compared to Oracle they’re almost benevolent.

datavirtue 5y ago

I installed a fresh iso of Windows 10 Pro on my mom's desktop the other day. The experience has changed for the same operating system over the last five years. It felt like I was installing a huge piece of malware. When it pegged the cpu at 100% installing one drive (after I told it not to) I just pulled the plug and installed fedora (which I had recently evaluated for myself). Try installing and running fedora for a few minutes. Blows Windows 10/11 out of the water. I knew that if I sent her machine back with Windows 10 it would be a support nightmare.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]