4 ms·

I recently set up Windows on a bunch of new computers, and was reminded of how atrocious the process is. All sorts of widgets, telemetry, and bloatware coming a

I recently set up Windows on a bunch of new computers, and was reminded of how atrocious the process is. All sorts of widgets, telemetry, and bloatware coming along for the ride. There's a laundry list of config changes and uninstalls necessary before it quiets down and gets out of the way. Once you have it set up the way you like it, it's easy to forget all that. If you go through that ritual a lot, or never do the deep clean, or only use Windows occasionally and only see the default setting, it's a perfectly understandable impression.

Groxx 4y ago
Yeah - I recently-ish set up a cheap Windows laptop as a secondary device, and oh boy. The experience has only made me more convinced that I'm happy paying for Macs. So much garbage on an OS install I purchased separately, so many un-stoppable notifications (literally - you can't disable some of the notification-ads, because they send them through system tools!), so much junk that keeps appearing "magically" after upgrades, and then there's all the "shenanigans" around forcing Edge everywhere possible. Win 10 may be my final version of Windows for any reason, it has clearly gotten significantly worse over the years. I'd rather wait a few years for games to be ported to Linux and OSX (or go without!) than deal with this just to play some games or write some software.
- _gabe_ 4y ago
  I'm curious if you bought a laptop or if you bought a windows 10 license and did a fresh install? When I built my PC with windows 10, the experience was way different from buying a laptop with windows 10. The laptop manufacturer purposely loaded a bunch of bloatware that I had to get rid of. I also don't launch any apps from the start menu. I usually click the search bar and then type the name of the app then hit enter. So maybe that's another area that I don't see that other people consider noisy.
  - nicbou 4y ago
    A person’s main task shouldn’t be computing, but to be human. Yes things can be improved with a bit of effort, but Mac OS doesn’t require so much fighting. I just booted a new-to-me MacBook and I only had to clean a few icons from the dock. It took me two days to decrapify my Microsoft-built Surface Go 2 before I returned it. I use Windows to launch and run a single game, and it can’t even do that without pissing me off.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      >but Mac OS doesn’t require so much fighting That's probably because you're used to it so you're biased without even realizing you're biased, since everything is second nature to you at this point, but give a person new to the Apple ecosystem a Mac and see what happens. When I first touched a MacBook a few years ago, during a job interview, I bombed it because, as a long term user of Windows and Linux, instead of being able to focus on coding the sorting algorithm, I was too busy fighting MacOS (some swipe gesture on the touchpad or some hot corner hid away my coding window and browser or the entire virtual desktop, and I didn't know how to restore them to get back to work). So yea, to me, MacOS is horrible for first time users as it's full of these hidden cryptic gotchas.
      - nicbou 4y ago
        There's a big difference between "I struggle to use a new technology" and "I am familiar with this technology, but it's built to serve its own ends over mine"
        ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        Maybe good technology shouldn't require (even tech savvy) users to struggle with it. IIRC Motorola (or someone else, maybe Braun, I can't remember exactly who) originally had a philosophy, which Apple later also adopted, but seems to have forgotten about lately, which stated that "if a user actually needs to pull out the manual in order to figure out how to use the product, then the product is a UX failure". Like I said before, and I'm saying it as a fan of your work, but your viewpoint on the OS has little substance in it and can be shortened to "I just like MacOS and I really hate Windows, period", which would have been fairer to say than your original one liner which seems heavily biased, as you did not provide any arguments to why one is better than the other. Not saying Linux or Windows are better but at least I gave you precise example from my personal life where MacOS just bombs new users completely and I can in no way crown it a great UX example that gets out of your way and lets you get work done. Each to his own of course, but for healthy debates it's good to provide some arguments and comparison points when picking out winners over losers instead of just throwing hot personal opinions around as facts. Like, you say you "refuse to go near Windows", which is fine, but how can I trust your unbiased opinion on it when you didn't go near it? Would you believe a car review from someone who didn't actually drive the car?
  - Groxx 4y ago
    Fresh install. I have a license from an earlier machine. The bundled junk that comes from OEMs is much, much worse, yeah. Though Microsoft is doing everything in their power to become the biggest offender, with their near-requirement of having an MS account.
- Animats 4y ago
  > Win 10 may be my final version of Windows Win 7 was my final version of Windows. I've been doing most of the stuff mentioned in the article for a decade. So have many other people on HN, who can usually figure out how to turn it off.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

Groxx 4y ago

Yeah - I recently-ish set up a cheap Windows laptop as a secondary device, and oh boy. The experience has only made me more convinced that I'm happy paying for Macs. So much garbage on an OS install I purchased separately, so many un-stoppable notifications (literally - you can't disable some of the notification-ads, because they send them through system tools!), so much junk that keeps appearing "magically" after upgrades, and then there's all the "shenanigans" around forcing Edge everywhere possible. Win 10 may be my final version of Windows for any reason, it has clearly gotten significantly worse over the years. I'd rather wait a few years for games to be ported to Linux and OSX (or go without!) than deal with this just to play some games or write some software.

_gabe_ 4y ago
I'm curious if you bought a laptop or if you bought a windows 10 license and did a fresh install? When I built my PC with windows 10, the experience was way different from buying a laptop with windows 10. The laptop manufacturer purposely loaded a bunch of bloatware that I had to get rid of. I also don't launch any apps from the start menu. I usually click the search bar and then type the name of the app then hit enter. So maybe that's another area that I don't see that other people consider noisy.
- nicbou 4y ago
  A person’s main task shouldn’t be computing, but to be human. Yes things can be improved with a bit of effort, but Mac OS doesn’t require so much fighting. I just booted a new-to-me MacBook and I only had to clean a few icons from the dock. It took me two days to decrapify my Microsoft-built Surface Go 2 before I returned it. I use Windows to launch and run a single game, and it can’t even do that without pissing me off.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >but Mac OS doesn’t require so much fighting That's probably because you're used to it so you're biased without even realizing you're biased, since everything is second nature to you at this point, but give a person new to the Apple ecosystem a Mac and see what happens. When I first touched a MacBook a few years ago, during a job interview, I bombed it because, as a long term user of Windows and Linux, instead of being able to focus on coding the sorting algorithm, I was too busy fighting MacOS (some swipe gesture on the touchpad or some hot corner hid away my coding window and browser or the entire virtual desktop, and I didn't know how to restore them to get back to work). So yea, to me, MacOS is horrible for first time users as it's full of these hidden cryptic gotchas.
    - nicbou 4y ago
      There's a big difference between "I struggle to use a new technology" and "I am familiar with this technology, but it's built to serve its own ends over mine"
      - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        Maybe good technology shouldn't require (even tech savvy) users to struggle with it. IIRC Motorola (or someone else, maybe Braun, I can't remember exactly who) originally had a philosophy, which Apple later also adopted, but seems to have forgotten about lately, which stated that "if a user actually needs to pull out the manual in order to figure out how to use the product, then the product is a UX failure". Like I said before, and I'm saying it as a fan of your work, but your viewpoint on the OS has little substance in it and can be shortened to "I just like MacOS and I really hate Windows, period", which would have been fairer to say than your original one liner which seems heavily biased, as you did not provide any arguments to why one is better than the other. Not saying Linux or Windows are better but at least I gave you precise example from my personal life where MacOS just bombs new users completely and I can in no way crown it a great UX example that gets out of your way and lets you get work done. Each to his own of course, but for healthy debates it's good to provide some arguments and comparison points when picking out winners over losers instead of just throwing hot personal opinions around as facts. Like, you say you "refuse to go near Windows", which is fine, but how can I trust your unbiased opinion on it when you didn't go near it? Would you believe a car review from someone who didn't actually drive the car?
- Groxx 4y ago
  Fresh install. I have a license from an earlier machine. The bundled junk that comes from OEMs is much, much worse, yeah. Though Microsoft is doing everything in their power to become the biggest offender, with their near-requirement of having an MS account.
Animats 4y ago
> Win 10 may be my final version of Windows Win 7 was my final version of Windows. I've been doing most of the stuff mentioned in the article for a decade. So have many other people on HN, who can usually figure out how to turn it off.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]