24 ms·

Microsoft is driving users away

• firesteelrain 3y ago
  As much as I like Linux, tides won’t be shifting for desktop to Linux. It will be Microsoft Windows for years to come
  • traverseda 3y ago
    I honestly think that Gnome is a big part of this. A lot of people very obviously and loudly like it, but since I've been giving developers the option to use KDE they've been a lot happier with it all.
    • littlestymaar 3y ago
      GNOME2 was the apex of GNOME, fortunately MATE and Cinnamon are keeping its legacy alive.
    • fuzzy2 3y ago
      Except they're two sides of the same coin. The underlying technology (software) is almost all the same. And it is not problem-free, unfortunately.
    • probably_satan 3y ago
      Xfce is far better than Gnome and KDE to me personally. Gnome-shell is nice on a tablet though.
  • netsharc 3y ago
    Yeah, Microsoft's got a huge majority of users captive and now they can do as they please, "Oh you don't like this obnoxious new 'feature'? Well what are you going to do about it?", like an abusive partner. If only there's some company with money and clout to offer an OS with the same level of user-friendliness... Too bad Google's product managers are just busy trying to advance their own careers, plus it's not like they respect users...
    • whaleofatw2022 3y ago
      They are even worse on the OSS side. They'll push azure on everyone while shitting on the community that kept .NET alive between 2012-2019
    • trealira 3y ago
      > If only there's some company with money and clout to offer an OS with the same level of user-friendliness... Legit question: do you think there will ever be a new commercial desktop operating system (not one that's given away for free) that isn't Windows or MacOS again in the next 30 years? Because Linux is free, and Windows is ubiquitous, and because you need a lot of hardware support and support for existing applications to be see usage, it seems hard for any new company to break into the market with something genuinely new. It seems like the way things are now are how they'll be for a long time. We'll just always use Linux, MacOS, or Windows, with superficial changes, I suppose. Or a BSD.
      • netsharc 3y ago
        > Legit question: do you think there will ever be a new commercial desktop operating system... Nope, no one is willing to put up the money for a long term investment. If I had the billions, I'd fund an easily installable OS that can accept Windows hardware drivers (easier said than done...). Or the cheaper way would probably to fund a slick Linux distro that an average user isn't scared away, but I guess they already are slick enough nowadays? I installed a Manjaro KDE distro on a secondary PC a while ago, and on login it had the option of X11 or Wayland, but Wayland wouldn't work on my setup... Sigh, the average user doesn't care to learn about windowing system options, they just want to do their work.
  • probably_satan 3y ago
    I've converted a handful of some of the least computer tech heavy people to Linux. This was years ago. The final few nails of Microsoft's coffin are being nailed as we speak. Not only because they are just fundamentally bad at innovation, but because they also sold out the United States to China. Billy boy is scared, and he should be.
    • forinti 3y ago
      I managed to convince my mother-in-law to use Linux and drop Windows. But it seems that convincing the network guys at work is harder than convincing a retiree. Apparently it's easier to administer a Windows network than a Linux one.
      • layer8 3y ago
        There is no good replacement for Active Directory, by a large margin. It’s the single biggest factor that keeps Windows alive in the enterprise.
        • tonoto 3y ago
          Was that really a good thing? Active Directory in enterprise environments keep the hackers happy
          • trealira 3y ago
            I didn't know what the Active Directory is until now, although I found its Wikipedia page. Is it known for being insecure?
            • layer8 3y ago
              Not really, in 2024. GP is presenting a caricature.
        • bhewes 3y ago
          In addition to Windows, I manage Ubuntu, MacOS and iOS via Azure Active Directory. I like Azure.
  • iforgotpassword 3y ago
    I guess because the majority of Linux folks don't really care about making it a solid user experience for normies, and those that do so might have strong opinions on things that might not roll with everyone, especially coming from Windows (read: gnome). I've maintained an in-house distro for a couple years so I know the ins and outs of systemd, dbus, polkit, xorg and whatever crap is needed to run a desktop session, and how to track down what's broken if the system misbehaves in some way. So switching every machine I use to Linux wasn't really an extra burden. Ironically it made me switch to i3 as my WM and ditching a file manager, gvfs and other moving parts. I'm doing a lot of things in the terminal. I loathe complicated setups - less moving parts, less things that can break. But I'm fully aware that I'm a complete oddball here, and I don't think nor care whether the day of the Linux desktop will ever come. Unless maybe we're at a point where really absolutely everything runs in the cloud and people only need a browser. But at that point just get a Chromebook?
    • bee_rider 3y ago
      The Free Software and Open Source ecosystems are, at their best, about communities putting together projects to serve their own needs and then generously sharing those solutions out. I think an easily discoverable UI for non-technical people is not a problem that many technical communities have. Anyone who does try to start that project is signing themselves up for a lot of complaints from outside the project, almost by definition. I don’t really see why anyone would do it. The Chromebook is probably the right way to go. I’d recommend them to my non-technical friends if they weren’t designed by an ad company. As it is, I have no idea, there legitimately doesn’t seem to be a good desktop OS for non-technical users anymore.
      • philistine 3y ago
        macOS !!
  • mejutoco 3y ago
    I installed Linux for my parents and they use their laptop a lot more. I did no proselitizing.
  • overgard 3y ago
    I think the end result is less people using the desktop overall (ie, just relying on tablets and phones), which in my opinion is a catastrophe since phones and tablets are generally consumption devices rather than creative devices (sorry, I'm not counting selfies or tiktoks), and we're slowly dumbing down the next generation.
  • earlone 3y ago
    Yes agree. I started using Linux (Gentoo) as student 20 years ago to learn LKMs programming, and with my main Desktop being Windows currently, I give a new try to linux distros every year. I see Linux distros improve year after year, but they are still light years away from providing a good user experience. And even if I don't agree with many Windows 11 updates (like the cumulating number of services required to run user interfaces, the taskbar which can't be moved anymore, the bloatware by default and so on...), Windows still provides a better & smoother user experience overall. Even Desktop multitasking experience feels better engineered in Windows, probably because of a better Desktop processes timing.
    • Solvency 3y ago
      How has had the entirety of the open source developer community not managed to make even a mediocre step forward in UI/UX of even the biggest Linux distro?l in 20 years? Hell, even Blender has made big strides and I thought that'd be impossible.
      • rocqua 3y ago
        Blender is unique in having a big set of users who are actually good at aesthetics professionally. A subset of that group wanted to contribute, and the technically minded were actually willing to let them. Most other open source projects have people behind them who don't put UX first, and who are suspicious, jealous, or plain disagree when people want to help with UX. This shouldn't be too surprising in a world led by people who value technical excellence most.
      • earlone 3y ago
        The bottleneck regarding UI/UX was (and is still) X11 / Xorg, with the obsolete client/server architecture inherited from a time when computers had no graphic card. Wayland has been in progress for some time now to replace X11 / Xorg, but it is still bugged to some extend, and driver support needs to be improved.
      • logtempo 3y ago
        I find it better than windows rn. Linux mint especially. I mean there is even a playstore-like "app" to install softwares
  • pjmlp 3y ago
    Fully agree, around 2010 I made my peace with it never happening, and switched fully into Windows, using GNU/Linux either from a VM (VMWare/Virtual Box), or some server. Also managed to get hold of one of the last Asus netbooks (1215 B), that after all these years has finally given the ghost. Netbooks are now replaced by Chromebooks/Android systems that care about a full stack developer experience where the underlying Linux is a kind of implementation detail, Windows ships WSL (no need for VMWare/Virtual Box), and those that want UNIX proper have macOS.
• fifteen1506 3y ago
  No-one cares about Power Users once the rest of the populace is on Windows.
  • vajrabum 3y ago
    Well maybe, but with Windows maybe they shouldn't think about power users but power buyers. And power buyers (i.e. medium to large enterprises) care about security, maintainability, backward compatibility, and supportability and yeah lots of stuff has moved to the cloud but the end user has got to use something to get there. So, the question is, is this creative destruction or just destruction. Not every change is an innovation even in IT and large vendors have a long history of failing in computing usually because they either got sclerotic or too focused on the organization and promoting the organization and too little focused on the customer.
    • fleshdaddy 3y ago
      I think that is the crux of the problem actually. Same with Teams, what the buyer wants is misaligned with what the end user wants unfortunately. Most resources are put towards making it an easier sell rather than towards a product the end user loves.
• ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
  >To Access the old devices and printer use the run prompt and type the following: shell:::{A8A91A66-3A7D-4424-8D24-04E180695C7A} This is the finest advertisement for every OS not named Windows that I have ever seen.
  • realusername 3y ago
    That's the most ironic twist, I'm using more command line on a windows install than a modern Linux distribution nowadays.
  • Lammy 3y ago
    It's just a GUID. They're a good thing and very useful. Spoiler alert, your Linux systems probably use them too: [lammy@emi] blkid /dev/mapper/nvme0n1p5_crypt: UUID="RjKq3i-w2ov-ZXcp-Uc60-Ylzp-Gc56-xtjpkg" TYPE="LVM2_member" /dev/mapper/mint--vg-root: UUID="4d5373f4-d9e2-4787-98d8-24c33a1574b7" TYPE="ext4" /dev/nvme0n1p1: UUID="d6b28757-9cd9-44a5-b68a-25515537e540" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="bc0382eb-01" /dev/nvme0n1p5: UUID="19104716-2c1f-4e92-8c75-35b113d9ecae" TYPE="crypto_LUKS" PARTUUID="bc0382eb-05" /dev/mapper/mint--vg-swap_1: UUID="dbfcbc11-37c2-4752-9f8f-6288aa7e8b43" TYPE="swap" And FreeBSD: [lammy@popola] gpart list|grep uuid rawuuid: c345aeb1-1dde-11e9-a10e-0cc42afa3cea rawuuid: c350c1ee-1dde-11e9-a10e-0cc42afa3cea rawuuid: c359c46d-1dde-11e9-a10e-0cc42afa3cea rawuuid: c3601e82-1dde-11e9-a10e-0cc42afa3cea And probably others but this is what I have on hand lol
    • rincebrain 3y ago
      I think it's not the GUID, but the fact that referencing the GUID is the only way to get at the functionality any more. Yes, your devices and various other underpinnings have GUIDs, but very few of them _only_ surface the GUID as a referent to the thing in a place a user would have to access it. Similar to how, if you could only get at this by doing "rundll32 shellex.dll LoadOldPrinterSettings", the issue wouldn't be a function named LoadOldPrinterSettings, the issue would be that it's making you reach into a DLL to invoke a function by hand to get at it at all.
      • 3y ago
• rodolphoarruda 3y ago
  I used Ubuntu on my laptops from 2008 to 2023. Last year I switched to Windows 10. Looking at what's going on, I believe I'll be back to Ubuntu in my next laptop. Cycles...
  • jseliger 3y ago
    It may be true that Linux on the desktop is finally here, but I used to read about that on /. in the late '90s and early '00s, and people talk about it occasionally on HN. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't, but like 25 / 0 of the last "Linux is taking over the desktop" moments have been predicted.
    • littlestymaar 3y ago
      Linux have been usable as a daily driver for at least the past ten years (exhibit: my mom), and with Proton it has even become usable for gaming. For people above 60 who've spent two decades using windows, Linux Mint has even shown to be more manageable than jumping to a newer version of Windows.
    • amlib 3y ago
      I think by this point Linux desktop has matured enough that you can say with certain that the biggest problems is application availability. Users want to run Adobe's creative suite or Affinity software (because they have to, even tough there are some decent alternatives) or run some very specific Scientific/CAD/whatever software that has no parallel in the Linux world. Worse, sometimes its hard to get Linux native software to run on your choice of distro due to it not being available in your distro repositories yet (flatpaks are changing that but still not a perfect solution) or it being some proprietary software that was really only tested on some old version of Readhat meant for high end workstations which requires you to run some arcane scripts on the command line to install and therefore tainting your whole installation, kinda defeating the purpose of running away from messy Windows installations.
      • bee_rider 3y ago
        I understand that there are closed source software tools used in science out there, but it seems pretty wrong-headed to me. A scientific tool that doesn’t have exposed source code seems not very trustworthy. If you get unexpected results, how do you know it wasn’t a bug?
• doawoo 3y ago
  I really agree with this article- I used Windows as my primary OS (not counting work machines) until about 2 years ago, the mess of non coherent design and CONSTANTLY resetting my user preferences every update (like shoving new buttons [see: ads] onto my taskbar) ultimately lead me to buying the first m1 mbp as my new personal machine. Never looked back. I only boot up windows for occasional games now, and even then, old games started to stop working. Linux at this point has better backwards compatibility using Proton/Wine/etc.
  • screenobobeano 3y ago
    The thing is users have no choice, it makes a complete mockery of computer programming as a profession. The people that were quality oriented lost the people selling licenses won.
  • charles_f 3y ago
    Those things, and the performance. My surface laptop is 3y old, constantly lagging on windows, but as good as new on Linux.
  • o11c 3y ago
    I for one have stopped supporting Windows for friends and family. The last version I used myself was XP, but I could still muddle around to help people with later versions for a long time. Now I can't. At least the move to using web browsers for everything really eases migration to easier platforms.
  • epolanski 3y ago
    I really don't care about design to be honest but the fact that update after updte they keep changing where you find things and how they work pisses me off so much. The good thing is that powertoys and WSL2 at the end of the day compensate for me enough. But get into setting up some bluetooth device and you want to cry if it doesn't work at first shot. You want to find help online? Pretty much all guides speak about the same OS like Windows 10, and yet they are already outdated with everything having been moved away.
  • hypothesis 3y ago
• nikanj 3y ago
  Nobody gets a good performance review for keeping a time-tested design. Rewriting everything is the key to career progress
  • epolanski 3y ago
    Bingo. Many people need to justify their role in an organization so they need to just deliver anything even if harmful. Most companies I've worked with are full of similar projects, rebrandings, major rewrites in micro services, everywhere I look at from UI to tech to product there's always a huge bunch of people needing to show they are actually delivering and working.
  • hakdbha 3y ago
    [dead]
• mixmastamyk 3y ago
  If only, the worst thing about Windows was that its control panels were inconsistent. Leaving aside "predictably treacherous" MSFT behavior. </weyoun>
• alerighi 3y ago
  I think that Windows was kind of usable till Windows 7. Windows 10 was not that bad from a performance point of view, an improvement over Windows 7, but it had a ton of bloatware that you had to clean up with third party applications, after it it was kind of ok. Anyway, I use Linux and to me Windows is so far behind, for example only in recent years they introduced features such as virtual desktops that in Linux DE are present till the 90s... the user experience of windows is kind of bad, and still misses some (to me) basic features, such as the possibility to keep a window always on top, not to mention the mess that is installing and updating software (you still have to download programs from the internet because not even all Microsoft software is distributed trough the Microsoft store, or use third-party package managers), or the Windows updates themself (possible that in 2024 Microsoft or Apple still haven't found out a way to update the system without rebooting it and wasting a ton of time? I mean, come on...).
  • hkgirjenk 3y ago
    Every week when I SSH into my Ubuntu server I see a "System restart is required" message after installing updates.
  • seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Wasn’t 7 the one people liked vs the previous version Windows, Vista? I remember windows 7 being popular until about Windows 10 or so. Lots of people think Windows 7 was the last good Windows version (at least from my memory).
  • conradfr 3y ago
    You had virtual desktops with powertoys on Windows XP. There's also one for Always on top, or the freeware Turbotop.
  • thworp 3y ago
    If your linux system update included a new kernel you _will_ need to reboot to actually use the new kernel. I am not aware of any desktop distros that come with kernel live patching enabled.
• JALTU 3y ago
  Enterprise Windows is a cash cow, lock-in is perhaps...forever; long MSFT. (Typing this on one of my three Macs.)
  • doublerabbit 3y ago
    Hate to break it to you, OSX/Mac are just the same cash cow with proprietary vendor lock-ins for forever. Unless that was the irony you were pointing out. Good show.
    • seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      OS X works well especially with the hardware it was co-designed with. The only other option is an idealistic Linux, which still isn’t suitable for most people, so grandma moved from Windows to OSX, and never looked back.
      • doublerabbit 3y ago
        > OS X works well especially with the hardware it was co-designed with. Only while they continue to support it. It may work well now but when they stop supporting it; it's proprietary, it's dead. When they fully move away from Intel based support, all those without the latest platform will be dead in the water. "Your not running the latest secure version of OSX! -- Your running an Intel? Sorry we don't support that". As which that can be seen with old iPhones and iOS.
        • amlib 3y ago
          Case in point, if I was running Apple hardware from 2011~2014 I would be out of support for quite a few years already with massively outdated hardware, Apple puts their customers on a MUCH faster treadmill to keep upgrading often. But instead my _daily drivers_ 13 year old Thinkpad X220 and both my 10 year old 4th gen haswell i7 PCs keep trucking along. It's easy enough to fix, upgrade and have access to ALL current software. Not only that but one of those machines perform just as good if not better than a PS5, so I can still play any game I want at a respectable fidelity and performance. Also, not running Windows helps keep the bloat overhead at bay.
• nickelpro 3y ago
  This is basically an article by a guy angry that the UI for printers changed and predicting the end of the Windows empire based on that.
  • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Accurate as every other week's predicting of Microsoft's impeding doom from users who don't like Windows in the past 30 years. - 1995. wah, wah! Windows 95 sucks, it's so bloated, MS-DOS was so much lighter, this will be the end of Microsoft. - 2001. wah, wah! Windows XP sucks, it's just a bloated Windows 2000 with Fisher Price coloring, this will be the end of Microsoft. .... - 2021. wah, wah! Windows 11 sucks, it's just a bloated Windows 10 with a different UX and TPM requirement, this will be the end of Microsoft. Maybe in 30 more years, when PCs will be in museums as we'll all have AR glasses or neural implants for personal computing, they'll finally be right with their prediction.
    • Lammy 3y ago
      Where's the lie though
    • overgard 3y ago
      Well in 2013 Windows had a 90% market share for desktop PC's, and now it's evidently down to 69%... so yeah, I'd say they have a problem. (Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-sha... )
      • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        What problem? In 2013 Microsoft only had 2-3 big products, Windows, Office and X-Box. Now it's significantly more divested and the company's growth no longer depends on Windows' success or failure, and the stock pricing reflects that.
        • overgard 3y ago
• rr808 3y ago
  DHH today on how windows is just as good as Apple now. https://world.hey.com/dhh/vscode-wsl-makes-windows-awesome-for-web-development-9bc4d528 https://world.hey.com/dhh/vscode-wsl-makes-windows-awesome-f... (OK he hates Apple so is pushing an alternative but a good POV)
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • kentt 3y ago
    > (OK he hates Apple so is pushing an alternative but a good POV) Seem like an odd take. In the article he does say that he still uses it as a daily driver. He can't hate it that much.
    • rr808 3y ago
      He's had beef with them because they want the app store to take a cut of hey.com SAAS payments. https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1755984581214499317 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1755984581214499317 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1750937133328834656 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1750937133328834656 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1747697778455962014 https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1747697778455962014
• giancarlostoro 3y ago
  I've posted about why I left Windows, and wont be back, the only device with Windows is my Surface Book 2, and even that I can install Linux on... I have mentioned it a few times on HN in the past few weeks, but I already hated the telemetry spying, heck, it was creepy that me looking up files on my one computer was on their servers somewhere, so I wiped all that many years ago. Then I realized, their Antivirus tech will send files to "analyze" with zero audit trail as to which files, or anything of the sort. I immediately pulled down POP OS and wiped my drive. You shouldn't be sending my data around willy nilly without an audit trail. What if I'm working on something classified? What if its highly proprietary? This is so unethical on many levels. The article also mentions some issues I've run into, where their UI is just not working correctly, which led to me uninstalling Windows one time prior as well, I had Windows Home Edition after spending thousands of dollars on a prebuilt machine, I tried to add a new user, it told me to use a different program, so I went to the different program, which then told me to go back to the program that told me to use that specific program. Why not just let me add users instead of horsing me around? I uninstalled Windows on that box, until I wanted to play Starfield, I got enough hours in until I saw that their AV software violates any sense of privacy on a whim with zero audit trail. Microsoft. You had a really good OS, and you keep making it worse. Please stop making it worse. I'll gladly take on the task at half of whatever you pay the person currently ruining the OS, which is clearly way too much. You peaked at Windows 7 and its been downhill since. I am someone who weirdly enough did not mind Vista or 8, but I will admit that 7 was the peak best version. Previous comments I've made on the subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39444688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39444688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39371870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39371870
• Solvency 3y ago
  Every single time I wake up my computer from sleep the Edge browser opens up in full screen. I have as many Edge settings disable as possible, Chrome is my default browser, and there are no keyboard shortcuts that could possibly open it. It doesn't matter if I press the spacebar, click my mouse, etc. No matter how the PC awakes, Edge launches itself in full view on top of the other apps. It's blatantly aggravating stuff like this that pisses me off even more than spying telemetry.
  • netsharc 3y ago
    If I'm not mistaken, tasks defined in Task Scheduler can be set to run at system wake, so maybe look at your tasks... I'd be worried about something configured to load a URL (i.e. call home) on every system wake.
• Barrin92 3y ago
  >hey are making some improvements like the GUI and cleaning up other elements that give a more cohesive look. No more mixing Metro UI and Legacy panels like Windows 10 I don't even think this is wholly true. The new / old context menu that for some reason now exists in parallel so you have to do two clicks on every right-click actions still mixes legacy and modern UI, and there's so many redundant mouse control and audio control settings also with entirely different look and feel. It's like you're on three Windows operating systems at the same time. Baffling to me how a company the size of Microsoft cannot streamline their user interfaces.
  • hkgirjenk 3y ago
    The new two stages desktop context menu is indeed insane. Probably "we need to give it a new look, but we can't risk breaking anything, so let's keep the old one too".
• erremerre 3y ago
  I tried changing myself to linux (Fedora) and I still had problems with a Realtek ALC892 for audio, which is a chip from 12 years ago. No solution other than buy a soundcard with a different chip. Unfortunately, we still be using windows. Curiously the game were working quite fine as long as I was using x11.
  • ajkjk 3y ago
    what's a soundcard? (being flippant but also.. Yeah why?)
    • ambichook 3y ago
      ALC892 afaik was a very common chip integrated into the mobo some years back, its not a discrete card itself but if it's causing the problem the solution is to either change your motherboard (and for something that old youll likely need to change CPU and possibly RAM too) or buy a discrete sound card
• quadcore 3y ago
  What drives me mad is my lean 2023 windows laptop suddenly making noise because some installer or whatever started. If that was occasional, that'd be okay.
• pdimitar 3y ago
  Microsoft has been driving users away for no less than 10 years now and nothing much is changing IMO because Windows is what most people think of as "the computer". Non-technical users think they have no other choice, they shrug the defects off and try to get their job done. Though the article kind of piqued my interest by claiming that Microsoft "is in panic" -- any proof that they are indeed bleeding users more than what is deemed normal? I have noticed people around me get recommended Linux Mint and being happy with it but I'd think that's a minority; many offices rely on bespoke local network setups with printers and scanners and people putting files in shared directories and what-not... modernizing that and making it better is no easy feat. EDIT: Oh, and as other users are saying, Linux desktop is absolutely not going to eat Windows' lunch. There are still too many confusing things there, and "you can hack it and make it your own" appeal to an infinitesimally small audience.
  • Swizec 3y ago
    > any proof that they are indeed bleeding users more than what is deemed normal? They are, but not to other OSes. More and more people associate computers with something you use for work (and work provides) or for school (and school provides). All personal computing happens on a phone. My partner, for example, uses her personal laptop about once a year to do taxes. Otherwise it sits in the closet. Even I use an iPad for most personal work these days. Laptop is mostly for personal coding projects for which I have less and less time as life adultifies. I know a lot of people who don’t even have a personal computer anymore and just use the work laptop the few times their phone isn’t good enough.
    • disqard 3y ago
      > All personal computing happens on a phone This makes me sad, and is scary, etc. However, putting emotions aside, can we extrapolate from this? Could the next "killer app" actually be an even tinier device? A smartwatch? Or have we reached a local extremum (phones)? And what does that say about attempts to regress towards larger screens (AR/VR headsets)?
      • mike_hearn 3y ago
• zeroCalories 3y ago
  It's amazing to me that Microsoft messed up Windows. All they had to do was not not change things, but they continued to force junk on me that I don't need, take power away from me, and spy on me. Honestly MacOS isn't much better. Linux is still crap software, but we've reached the point where most things can be done on Linux, so good riddance. I hope that more people switch and Linux continues to improve. There's actually interesting improvements being made in the Linux world too, like NixOS.
  • Animats 3y ago
    > It's amazing to me that Microsoft messed up Windows. It is. At Windows 7, they pretty much had desktops right. Everything mostly worked. They'd finally fixed the crashing problems. (How? The Static Driver Verifier validated that third-party kernel drivers would not crash the rest of the system, and a classifier applied to crash dumps routed similar crash dumps to the same maintainer.) The UI was reasonable for a desktop, and wasn't a clone of the mobile UI. No ads. Didn't phone home too much, and you could turn off auto-update. No issues with installing your own software. Then Microsoft tried to make desktop look like mobile and tablet. Desktop began to look like a big phone, optimized for content consumption and fat finger selection. The result was something that was neither a good desktop nor a good content consumption device.
    • Solvency 3y ago
      Everyone loves to use the meme "enshittification" but fat fingerization started the whole downward trend. In fact, most UI is designed for a big fat doughy hand to sloppily slap a single giant rounded button.
    • PicassoCTs 3y ago
      I sat near an administrator who loudly cursed all day, because they force that gui down upon all system internal tools and ruined the info-density of the dashboards.
      • sithadmin 3y ago
• Animats 3y ago
  "To Access the old devices and printer use the run prompt and type the following: shell:::{A8A91A66-3A7D-4424-8D24-04E180695C7A}" And people complain about Linux.
  • OsrsNeedsf2P 3y ago
    That's something I've noticed over the years. More and more of Windows debugging and configuration is happening on the (various) command line terminals. You're even starting to see it with official Microsoft installers.
    • rocqua 3y ago
      It's where developers are learning. Most of my learning was done on a (Linux) command line. Making things usable on the command line makes sense to people like me.
    • amluto 3y ago
      It has tiers these days. You might need the new settings thingy (is it still called a “charm”? I hope not) or the control panel or MSC (which you might need to start from Win+R or the command line) or actually the command line. There seems to be no a priori way to figure out where a seething is.
  • Gibbon1 3y ago
    They changed things to hide 'less common' actions when you right click. To disable that you need to hand edit a registry key.
    • dcan 3y ago
      The most bizarre thing in my experience is that they removed "Refresh" from that context menu, yet Explorer will a) not update when an application writes a new file, and b) when you rename a file, it does not get automatically sorted.
      • Gibbon1 3y ago
• wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
  With the latest m2 macbook air's you actually get a significantly better laptop, for a lot less money, then a windows version I've found. Let alone the fact it just damn sexy. I got a DELL laptop from a client to be able to access their windows applications. I used it for coding for a bit, it was so painfully slow, so I switched back to my macbook air m2. I thought the Dell was just a cheap laptop, found out the retail price was a few 100 euros higher then my m2. I was dumbfounded a shitty laptop would go for those prices. (granted I have a 13 inch, 15 inch are around the same price) The new macbook air's are really fairly priced and are sufficient for most professionals.
  • asd88 3y ago
    I suspect Apple Silicon is still in a league of its own and worth every penny compared to Windows laptops.
    • makeitdouble 3y ago
      It's really the whole package. The new Qualcomm chip is probably not that far, but having a whole machine designed from top to bottom with a closed system helps taking advantage of every bit. The closest to that would have been the Surface line, but with Panos out I wouldn't bet on it.
  • makeitdouble 3y ago
    DELL's market is not cheap consumer machines, it's laptops and desktops that can run windows (macbooks could until 2 years ago...) and can be corporate ordered and customized at scale. If you're price shopping Lenovo or Asus would probably be better choices with better designs (but TBH if you're in love with macs you're probably in the right spot for them, I don't see why you'd go choose different tradeoffs)
  • brikym 3y ago
    Who doesn’t like to have sex with their sexy MacBook?
• thiago_fm 3y ago
  The issue with Windows that the HN public might have trouble to understand, is how bad decisions are sticky in a company with little to no taste like Microsoft. You can't suddenly change things and expect app developers to accept it like they do in OSX. This means they can't change Windows too much. Any new change creates lots of compromises and just slapping a new UI doesn't fix the underlying issue. This has been the case since forever, that's why Apple could survive and that's why we have Linux. It isn't worth for Microsoft for example, to change how program becomes initialized at system startup. What happens is that every program then will want to be initialized at Startup. The average windows user is used to have to close lots of garbage at system startup. Also dealing with pseudo-ads all around the OS and also edge. Changing this would probably mean less revenue and no corporation would prefer to delay revenue in a bad product that will likely never die. Mac likely wouldn't be vibrant and with so much attention to details if Windows didn't exist. There wouldn't be a market for it.
  • mejutoco 3y ago
    > You can't suddenly change things and expect app developers to accept it like they do in OSX Ads in the taskbar indicates that Microsoft has no problem pushing some choices.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • avidphantasm 3y ago
    Also, MS’s primary audience for Windows is corporate IT departments and to a lesser extent established ISVs, while Apple’s primary audience for *OS is end-users.
• daft_pink 3y ago
  I would say the fundamental problem with Mac is paying through the nose for hard drive space, ram, and multiple display capabilities. However, like you say, Microsoft is driving users away with their terrible choices like forcing me bing and actively adding spyware to my machine, but they are far from the only ones doing it. Other legacy software makers like Intuit are actively sabotaging their software and the enshittification continues.
  • eschaton 3y ago
    Maybe people are getting what they pay for.
    • vetinari 3y ago
      You think that 460 EUR per 1 TB of flash is a fair price?
• overgard 3y ago
  I really hate the way they're forcing their products I don't want on me. Stop opening things in Edge, I'm never ever going to use it. And stop asking me to backup folders on OneDrive, I already have Dropbox, I don't want it. And jesus, stop breaking the taskbar. Every major windows version they just make it worse. Now you can't even dock it to different parts of the screen. Why?!? The Windows 2000 taskbar was infinitely superior to this macOS dock wannabe pile of trash. Also, why do "widgets" always come back. It's never been a good idea in any OS, but it feels like we're constantly being sold on it. If I want the weather I'll just do a quick internet search. I mean, they've been trying to make this a thing since Active Desktop in Windows 98 and most users have never ever cared or wanted these things. Maybe 26 years later it's time to say that it's not a good idea?
  • Lawand 3y ago
    I also prefer the Windows Taskbar rather than the dock as you mentioned, that's why I created Taskbar for macOS. Feel free to check it out: https://lawand.io/taskbar https://lawand.io/taskbar
  • rincebrain 3y ago
    A number of people really want widgets of some kinds - little things showing information like the time, or CPU clock, or battery left, or music playing. The problem becomes that A) people really want different presentations of information, B) something tiny and satisfying in the corner isn't as easy to justify as a big improvement, even if it is, as a big flashy thing, and C) some people get very upset at anything doing this at all. Look at how people got super excited about active desktop backgrounds, or how people used media players which turn into tiny widgets displaying pretty visualizations and a little bit of information. People want widgets, but getting a consistent design that many people will use without introducing so much complexity that most people will never bother is hard.
    • overgard 3y ago
      My suspicion is that it has nothing to do with what users want, it's just a way to sell ad space essentially. I mean right now my "Widgets", which I never open, evidently has a bunch of news sites I never look at, coupons, some casual games I have no interest in. It's basically a bunch of ads pretending to be a feature
• Nition 3y ago
  Windows really is a confusing mess right now. Especially the two different settings areas. All sorts of ridiculous stuff like Microsoft realizing people won't be able to find the options to turn system icons on and off on the Desktop anymore, so they add a tiny clickable link to a Bing search for how to find it If you go back to Windows 95 right now and use the interface it feels amazing in comparison. It feels like everything is designed to be both easy and productive. There's even a little Task Scheduler icon in the taskbar just in case maybe you want to set up something to run sometime. Because why not let normal users discover power user features? The Task Scheduler interface is much clearer and less intimidating than the current one. Can you imagine getting your first ever PC now and trying to learn Windows 11? Especially without using the Internet to find where everything is? That's not even mentioning the other issues (advertising/privacy/bloat/Microsoft account to log in...). - A while ago I decided to see if there's still local help in Windows and wrote down my experience. I typed 'help' into the start menu search in Windows 11. An app came up called Get Help. It opened with an ad banner at the top: "Increase productivity and collaboration all while staying organized, using a new meeting solution designed for small businesses. Learn More". Out of morbid curiosity I chose to Learn More but "We are sorry, the page you requested cannot be found." There were several features in Get Help beyond the primary feature of linking to a broken URL. You can sign in, you can rate your experience out of five, or you can send feedback. There is no Contents or Index, but there is a search box with a few suggested searches like 'How to install Office'. I tried searching 'how to copy paste' (without quotes) but "Your search did not match any solutions." It suggested I sign in to contact support. Closing the app was a little tricky because the minimise/maximise/close buttons are the wrong colour - white on pale grey. I rated my experience a 1/5, although it's 5/5 as a satire. Screenshot: https://imgur.com/aToMCtE https://imgur.com/aToMCtE
  • avidphantasm 3y ago
    You’d think a multi-trillion dollar company would have the resources to properly re-do the control panel, but I guess not? However, even Apple can’t get this right (see the unnecessary iOS-ification of System Preferences which to this day is a disorienting mess).
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• shmerl 3y ago
  > Yet, both of these options are better than modern Windows unless you need Gaming Linux is good for gaming. macOS is not and will never be with Apple's attitude.
  • ambichook 3y ago
    linux is good for it but it's still no windows unfortunately. gaming is the reason my desktop still runs windows, the day linux gets decent support for VR and i can be assured that everything will run 100% perfectly, but thats going to need extensive changes to how DRM and anticheat in many games function, or massive leaps in compatibility layers (which may happen relatively soon)
• SHY_TUCKER 3y ago
  Because I have to use Autodesk apps everyday I am forced to use Windows. There is not one other thing I can't do better, with a more efficient workflow on Linux. If ever there becomes a good way to run Revit on the cloud or on Wine, etc, I will throw a massive party.
  • dreaper 3y ago
    Best option is just to have a second computer running Windows that you keep completely disconnected from the Internet. Then run Linux on another computer for everything else.
  • whiplash451 3y ago
    Would Autodesk run on Crossover?
• riffic 3y ago
  windows has always been garbage.
• ilikeitdark 3y ago
  Microsoft...screwed up my relationship with my HP printer. Two of them. And don't get me started on that malware Onedrive or the constantly shitified Teams.
  • richforrester 3y ago
    It's impressive how much worse MS Teams has gotten. Genuinely baffling decisions on every single level in that UI...
• Takennickname 3y ago
  I knew Windows was fucked when pressing WIN and searching for something brought up random crap from the internet instead of what I actually wanted. Do people at Microsoft use Windows or mac?
  • layer8 3y ago
    The UX designers reportedly use macOS and want to make Windows look more like it. Management uses Windows Enterprise which doesn’t have the ads. Everyone who cares about pre-8 Windows installs Open-Shell.
    • wildrhythms 3y ago
      So I wonder what Mac OS UI they're imitating when they put ads and other junk in the start menu?
  • MikusR 3y ago
    I have used every Windows version since Windows 95. And pressing Win and searching brings up the stuff I search for
• tibbydudeza 3y ago
  I am not too bothered about changes, just need Windows to run my PC without crashing/weird stuff or corrupting my files. All I use it for is to launch 8 programs that is pinned to my taskbar that is opened as soon as my PC boots.
• citizenpaul 3y ago
  Isnt this the MS playbook 101? Bad windows version everyone hates but exiting the ecosystem is hard . Juat when people start getting fed up they release the new same as the old version and everyone buys it. They make billions and people are happy until the next release
• uxcolumbo 3y ago
  Install Windows 10 LTSC - keeps you sane for a few more years. By then the newer Windows should hopefully be better.
  • layer8 3y ago
    The last Windows 10 LTSC version (22H2) only has support until 2027, only two years longer than regular Windows 10.
    • whyoh 3y ago
      Windows 10 LTSC IoT (same thing, really) is supported until 2032.
  • dijit 3y ago
    unless of course you need: * Intel Arc drivers * eGPU drivers * Razer Blade 18 drivers * native ssh * windows containers * WSL (and likely many more that i haven’t found yet)
    • uxcolumbo 3y ago
      Windows 11 LTSC comes out this year which will hopefully address your points. But agree it’s not ideal.
• auggierose 3y ago
  > macos is bland and hasn't changed in years I have the feeling Windows users are a self-selecting bunch.
  • eschaton 3y ago
    Yeah. Every time a pundit, even an Apple-focused one, complains that macOS “hasn’t changed” I have to shake my head at such ignorance from people who should know better. The interface changes relatively slowly, all things considered. (When it does change suddenly, some of the same pundits throw a fit.) But the internals are always changing, virtually always for the better; things like the `discoveryd` situation are outliers, not the rule.
    • vetinari 3y ago
      Under the hood, macOS changes things (and break them) so fast, that Linux distros blush with envy, while they figure out, how to change something in 5 years that macOS does in 1.
      • xcrunner529 3y ago
        Like passkey support. I thought for sure it would be further ahead in Linux but nope.
• moribvndvs 3y ago
  Windows 10 and 11 are miserable. At this point, I only use them for gaming, but just about every windows update breaks performance and stability, or introduces a headache. Sometimes they fix it, but mostly it’s drifting towards the abyss. Meanwhile, they endlessly shovel unwanted products and insert their corporate surveillance into just about every aspect of the Windows experience. I’m just sick to death of it. We are so close to the point where I can just delete it and run SteamOS exclusively or at least a majority of the time, and I cannot wait. In general, MS is pissing a lot away. Office, both the desktop apps and Office 365, are absolutely atrocious (just started using it due to a new job, I previous thought Google Docs was the worst). VSCode has become slow and frustrating to use. I stopped developing on their platform products long ago because most are a terrible value proposition and frustrating developer experience. I have been a dedicated DOS and Windows user since the 80s, and a Microsoft developer since late 90s and 2000s, but between Vista and Windows 8 it was clear they were circling the drain and I have been distancing myself from their products as much as I can.
• andyferris 3y ago
  What’s happening in somewhat poorer (BRICS, say) countries? Surely they’d be price sensitive enough not to pay for a Windows license if suddenly it has a (widespread) reputation for being less user friendly than Linux? (And this cohort would eventually become the majority of computer users over time… where would that leave Microsoft?)
  • loloquwowndueo 3y ago
    They pirate it?
  • raincole 3y ago
    It's such a "first world question" haha. Sorry, not trying to insult or criticize you, but this is genuinely a question only people in developed countries would ask. People in poorer countries use pirated software. No, the don't need to be tech-savvy enough to know torrents to use pirated Windows. They don't need to know how to install an OS themselves. 20 years ago when I got my first PC, pirated windows was the norm here. You needed to be tech-savvy to know how to get a legal version. That is how developing countries work.
    • andyferris 3y ago
      Thanks. So the windows activation thing is simply disabled at the computer store or something? Security updates still function alright despite this?
      • Unfrozen0688 3y ago
        massgrave activator - open source and on github lol I use it for test VMs myself. yes windows updates and all still works
  • _dain_ 3y ago
    nobody pays for windows in non-first world countries
• calamari4065 3y ago
  Linux has never given me a notification that says "you previously removed this search box from your taskbar, but we put it back. You're welcome" Paraphrased, but this actually happened on my work machine a few months ago. This kind of bullshit and bald faced disrespect is why I haven't used windows at home in years.
• datagrimx 3y ago
  For full Disclosure, I once upon was a software engineer at Microsoft. I witnessed first hand the evil decisions around Windows. I left Microsoft in 2006 but I am still part of the Alumni Network. IMO Microsoft can gain users back by: * Not requiring a Microsoft Account * Ending all data/telemetry collection * Not forcing Edge on its users * Stop releasing improved UI updates every week * Make bash, zsh, ... native for Windows * Taking the AI out and making it an optional extension * Making the Microsoft Store optional A *plus* would be to open source Windows. I would be interested in hearing your pet peeves.
  • Solvency 3y ago
    What I don't get is... doesn't MS get more than enough data/telemetry from its cloud services and now AI usage? Do they REALLY have to shove it into the core desktop OS? As much as I loathe my days being siphoned from me all day long while being forced to use Office, I'd at least forgive them if my daily driver OS wasn't a giant ad-infested spyware app.
    • timetopay 3y ago
      Tbh telemetry is really useful for identifying bugs, feature requirements, and security issues. It's anonymized, not really that invasive, and the way they gather it is pretty responsible. However... It's my operating system. Can they not understand why people would be sensitive about this? It blows my mind that, at least, there isn't an on/off toggle in the Pro version. It's really disrespectful to those of us who care.
      • felsokning 3y ago
        >It's my operating system. I think part of the problem is that it seems like an internal (corporate) push (shift?) to view it as only a "licensed" product that you're using, rather than as something you "own" on your machine. We saw a bit of this with licensing and product validation. Now, we're seeing it with changes driven by internal (e.g.: corporate command chain) drives. They "need" this data but there's no open transparency about why they need it, where it's housed, who has access, what positive changes this data has driven (if at all), etc. Back during the Watson or WER (Windows Error Reporting) days, that was the only "telemetry" that the company needed and they got by on quite a few versions of the OS without needing more. I don't have an answer - but I do know that if my work didn't require Windows, I'd be happy to never see another Windows desktop again.
• devinprater 3y ago
  On Linux, since companies are paying for it now, Orca, the Linux GUI screen reader, is getting bug fixes on the main branch just about every day. Lol, if Windows loses even the loyal blind folks like me, I'll die laughing at Microsoft.
• bicebird 3y ago
  My daft conspiracy theory I only slightly believe is that Microsoft is really fed up of maintaining Windows given the amount of technical debt it must have piled up and the limited revenue it produces given that paying for an OS isn't really a thing anyone wants to do anymore. It sounds like a hell freezing over situation but maybe they'd even release their own Linux distro with compatibility tools only they'd ever be able to make with access to source code and engineer experience, and just push their web based versions of apps as much as possible. Either way it seems like Linux will be profiting from the situation at the moment as a huge number of devices out there won't support Windows 11 but will perform perfectly fine with Linux. If Ubuntu / Redhat are smart they'll put the effort in to make transitioning as easy as possible and scoop up all the people who don't want to pay for a new device, and given the financial issues more and more people are having I don't think that's a small group.
• stalfosknight 3y ago
  Microsoft drove me away circa 2006 with the complete dumpster fire approach to device drivers (at the time anyway, I don't know about today) where every hardware vendor can do whatever the hell they want, distribute their driver however the hell they want, sign it or not sign it, etc. I had spent a pretty penny building a beefy gaming PC and the Windows XP installer would have this selective amnesia about device drivers that weren't signed. A very important driver provided by the motherboard OEM (nVidia) would be cheerfully accepted by the Windows XP installer at the beginning but then after the initial reboot during installation, the driver wouldn't work and would not be considered acceptable by the installer anymore. I was left with a ≈$3,000 (in early 2000s money) PC that could not complete the Windows XP installation. After a few days of hitting my head on this I drove to the nearest Apple Store and bought a MacBook and never looked back. To this day I am still somewhat livid / grossed out with the entire PC ecosystem and it's lack of any kind of standards, platform conventions, and the general flea market / down market vibe of the available hardware (new motherboards in 2024 STILL have an ocean of USB-A ports instead of USB-C or Thunderbolt!). There is a lot that Apple could improve on, particularly it would be nice if they loosened up a bit when it comes to what kinds of apps they permit on the App Store. But I immensely enjoy that I haven't had to give a flying dripping shit about device drivers for almost 20 years now. I don't have wonder if something will work when I plug it in. It just does. I sort of get why it's popular in enterprise settings, I don't understand why people put themselves through the misery that Windows seems to insist upon for its end users.
• sombragris 3y ago
  Linux is my primary OS but sometimes I use Windows, and I really hate the UI changes. A typical example would be the printing dialog used by various apps. It used to work all right from the mouse. Now you can't tell which widget has focus, and can't tell how to activate a given UI element from the keyboard. Worse yet, you selected your print job parameters, press Enter, and nothing happens. You have to click the OK button with the mouse. And don't get me started on the ribbon UI which was inflicted upon the world in Office 2007 onwards and then shoved upon everyone's throats in subsequent editions of Windows. Why did they have to change such things? It worked as it was. There's no improvement and, on the contrary, a quite noticeable involution.
• npteljes 3y ago
  This is just sensationalist. Microsoft doesn't have their users by the users choosing Windows from a lineup of software. People use Windows, because that's the de facto PC operating system. It's what people learn in school, use in governments, use to conduct their businesses, play their games on. PC hardware is made for Windows, and PCs are bundled with Windows. That's why Windows is everywhere. Not because it's relationship with users, but because of its relationships with the avenues leading to users.
• simonblack 3y ago
  Once again: Peak Windows : Windows 7 Second Best Windows : Windows XP It's been all downhill since Win 7.
• pxoe 3y ago
  there's a 'More devices and printer settings' button that opens that Devices and Printers window, located in Bluetooth & Devices > Devices section in Settings. so, they're definitely not hiding it. and there's a Printers & scanners section in settings as well. this is ridiculous. just rambling for the sake of rambling, having an out for windows lol. and seemingly (looking at post text alone) not even trying to actually find it, but in the video he even clicks that button and opens it, and yet makes up a more complicated "solution" for it, saying they "hide that button sometimes" which just does not make sense. it's just there. literally not hidden. so that's just a made up problem.
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
  "I've been a lifelong Windows user since the 90s and even MS-DOS back in the 80s, but things are changing. I've been using other operating systems more and more." OK, that's one user. But clearly he is still using Windows. Microsoft has not "lost" him. He is just complaining. He even provides a solution re: printing for other Windows users that implies his readers are still using it, too. "Microsoft is in a panic from the continued loss of it's user base." Is there no need to present any evidence of this statement's veracity. Perhaps some evidence has been published of which I am unaware. Where can we view the data.
  • M95D 3y ago
    Bad article. Microsoft does NOT care about users. It cares about corporate licenses and ads. It will force you to use windows at work. Imagine watching commercials 8h/day. That's the future. You can't avoid it.
    • 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
      s/You can't avoid it/Windows users can't avoid it/ Not sure who "you" refers to, but NB. I do not use Windows. And I rarely use a graphical interface.
  • bonton89 3y ago
    I was expecting more discussion on this. The closest thing to info on this I've seen is statcounter's Desktop OS share. According to that Windows has actually lost 15-20% marketshare in the last 10 years. It doesn't look like linux is stealing it though, OSX and "unknown" seem to be the biggest hitters. For all I know unknown is still Windows!
• jacknews 3y ago
  The opening rant in the video is familiar, I've been inspired to colorful language on many occasions too. I use linux and, reluctantly, macos (and will switch as soon as feasible). But my kids still use windows sometimes though, to play Roblox and Minecraft redstone edition, etc. I dread any time I'm asked to help with microsoft accounts, or OS re-installations because windows update borked the system (happens at least every 6 months or so), etc. Microsoft's user experience seems to suck in absolutely everything they do.
• devwastaken 3y ago
  I tried to buy Minecraft for a friend and found that the website declined all my purchasse methods. They also removed it from Amazon. One visit to a grey market key site and I got a good key, and $10 cheaper. The best economical path forward is to redefine intellectual property and reinstate the fact that math cannot be IP. Repeal DRM clause in the DMCS. This forces big entities to compete by having quality products. Large market power is not supposed to have all the advantages. Innovation is meant to disrupt them when they are not operating in the consumers interest. But corps have been allowed to write their own laws to keep themselves ahead artificially. Change the rules of the game.
• matthewfelgate 3y ago
  Microsoft can do whatever it likes with Windows. It's a virtual Monopoly (unless you can afford a Mac).
• masfoobar 3y ago
  Microsoft has been driving me away since the Windows XP days. Before that (and being young and not exposed to anything else) viewed Microsoft's OS as the best thing since slice bread. I was able to code and do things with Visual Studio 5.0/6.0. In my eyes nothing could compare. One day, my mouse pointer would slowly move down the screen without touching it. Thinking it was a virus or something, did a reinstall of XP. A few months later, the pointer was playing up, again. There were other things but it was the start to my journey to GNU/Linux. I was barely exposed to GNU/Linux a year or two before but due to lack of internet at that time, could not grasp the change being a Windows user. This time I purchased a book on Ubuntu and realised how cool this really is. It also made me appreciate programming. I no longer was 'clicking the play button' on Visual Studio. Now I was understanding how to compile with gcc. Since then I would choose GNU/Linux over Windows most days of the week. The only exception is my job. For example, I have one job that still uses legacy software. We are talking programs originally written in the late 90s in Visual Basic 6. I have to use Windows. Some program before I joined moved over to .NET and SQL Server. My goal is to move away from Microsofts tools. No more Windows Servers. Using (perhaps) Go, Postgres, etc. The Company would save a lot more money as well. Baby Steps. I don't hate Windows, but I still have to install it on one laptop and the amount of stuff I don't want gets annoying! Most of the time I am using Debian, both on my (other) laptop and as a Server machine. I could say more but that will do.
• noobermin 3y ago
  Linux is also removing tools people use. Just the other day I found out hcitool and rfcomm were removed from bluez, yet another thing I now have to handwrite myself even when I just want to tinker. Sure, you can still do things like I can write to a socket using python over using rfcomm, but isn't it the same as this article? It's gets in the way of gnome and friends wanting to "cater the experience" plus it's legacy now (meaning "I don't want to read someone else's code, blegh!") So out it goes! Developers in foss seem to love label things "legacy" to remove, not just in windows and mac land.
  • culopatin 3y ago
    You say “Linux” as if it was a single company. What prevents you from either re adding it yourself or being part of the group working on that and changing what you don’t like?
    • noobermin 3y ago
      Gnome/freedesktop is essentially a single entity, and their choices affect the FOSS as a whole. If you're going to say well there are individual contributors, well there are individual employees and teams at microsoft too. I also addressed your point, I can always make my own script to play with bluetooth just like OP can run control panel with some hexstring incantation. Can is can I suppose.
• Unfrozen0688 3y ago
  I use Windows 10 & 11 for work and I agree and don't agree. Yes they should keep all the old stuff for us that know how to use it. But one thing, it IS stable. My Windows 10 install is 4 years old, and Windows updates never broke it. I am not sure what you are doing to your systems.
• junon 3y ago
  Windows 10 will be the last version I ever install. Hearing the 11 ads and instability shitshow testimonials has convinced me M$ has entirely lost the plot.
• xinayder 3y ago
  My issue with Windows is, once you have a legit license, dual booting becomes a nightmare on your laptop. I ALWAYS have to boot up the BIOS and re-disable Fn keys as media keys (personal preference), secure boot and change the SATA mode to AHCI instead of RST + optane, otherwise I can't dual boot Linux. Literally. every. time. I update Windows and I have to go back to the BIOS.
• herbst 3y ago
  It's funny how people pick a random version and explain how it went downhill from there. If you combine these answers you get the idea that it went downhill ever since 95/98. For me vista was the day I switched completely and haven't looked back.
• dusted 3y ago
  This is what happens when someone actually believes that "software is never finished"
• coldtea 3y ago
  >MacOS is bland and hasn’t changed in years Sign me up. If only...
• nyarlathotep_ 3y ago
  I use OSX/Linux nearly 100% of the time, with the rare exception being a few years old Windows gaming laptop that I'll occasionally boot to play a game. Every time I do, I'm blown away with the constant garbage like ads and "news" in the search bar, the bizarre mash-up of UI elements from various generations of WIndows in various menus and the like. The strongest point for Windows for me is that things like displays and GPU drivers "just work" Every Mac I've had has had issues with displays/compatibility in some fashion, yet old hardware running windows typically functions fine without any fighting. Outside of the very minimal gaming I do, there's little value for any of my use cases with Windows.
• cobbaut 3y ago
  It seems to me that these complaints about MS and Windows have been more or less the same since Windows 95/NT4. Yet somehow most people keep using it because 'gaming' or because 'corporate'? Or because Mac or Linux are not good enough? Reading all the comments in these discussions I consider myself lucky to never have made the switch 'to' Windows. After triple booting DOS/W98, OS/2 and Linux for a while in the nineties, it was just Linux after 2003 because it is easy and it just works. Also used Macbooks several years at work and the OS never got in the way of productivity. To me at least MacOS appears to work fine.