3 ms·

I did enterprise administration of Windows boxes, ~400 seats. We did not manually muck with control panels per station. I could not care less what the settings

I did enterprise administration of Windows boxes, ~400 seats. We did not manually muck with control panels per station. I could not care less what the settings UIs for home installs of Windows are. And that's the real truth, power users and these small fry IT install bases are not major markets. The most prominent markets are OEM installs for non-technical home users (who hate complex panels and love the push-button UIs), and large 3/4/5 digit enterprise installs that do not give a damn about this stuff because they're using MDT (or whatever) to deploy images to all their stations and not playing with this per-station configuration stuff.

overgard 3y ago
I dunno man, with Steam on linux and most of the major game engines making porting easy (or at least moving in that direction) I have very few reasons to stick with Windows anymore. At this point it's basically Photoshop and Fusion 360, otherwise I'd abandon it completely. If they lose gamers, I think they'll have a real issue.
- nickelpro 3y ago
  You're a power user unable to understand the needs of non-power users. We all go through that stage, it's natural. I once installed Linux on all my siblings' desktops because I had convinced my parents it would lead to "less viruses" (Fedora 13, I think, GNOME 2, those were the days). The nightmare of providing support for that over the rest of my high school years provided me with a powerful and important lesson. You have few reasons to stick with Windows, you are a very, very tiny droplet in an ocean of users with different needs than you. Judging what such markets will do based on your personal needs is unwise.
  - overgard 3y ago
    Here's the thing though, the desktop now really is about power users or corporate users, because everyone else just uses cell phones or tablets. So ok, sure, your sales people and your secretaries probably aren't going to care about the control panel, but people that use computers outside of work are mostly going to be power users and they're starting to have options. (I can use all the software I need on macOS, and linux is rapidly getting there too) And honestly, breaking Printers is a thing that everyone is going to care about, especially people in a workplace.
    - nickelpro 3y ago
      As explained above this is irrelevant to enterprise users, corpo installs don't play with per-station configuration like this or care about consumer-facing UIs, the needs of that market revolve around things like image management, deployment, and active directory administration. You're right that the home market is shrinking though, the OEM install market is down billions in revenue and has been dropping by double digit percentages each fiscal year, but you're wrong in your assumption that the power user market is worth anything. Power users, represented by direct license installs, are a rounding error of Windows revenue. There's nothing worth fighting for there. Convincing Mom that she should buy a Windows laptop instead of an Apple laptop is still worth ~$750M/Q, and Mom doesn't ever want to see the old Windows panels, she loves the "Add Printer" button. Convincing Timmy Q Hacker that he should buy a Windows license key instead of installing Arch Linux is worth squat.
      - overgard 3y ago
        I think you're overestimating the importance of the revenue generated and underestimating the importance of mindshare and people caring about their system. If the next generation of creators (IE, coders, designers, etc.) grow up on macOS and linux then Microsoft has a real problem down the line. The Windows monopoly has been VERY good to them, they would be foolish to lose it by angering their most passionate users even if in the short term they don't see an effect on their bottom line.
        nickelpro 3y ago
        > I think you're overestimating the importance of the revenue generated It is literally impossible to do this. Revenue is the only thing that matters when measuring markets. If it doesn't affect the bottom line, it does not matter. Passion does not sell OEM installs or license keys. Creators and hackers didn't buy MS products in appreciable numbers to begin with (compared to consumer and enterprise markets), so to the degree MS can be said to be losing them, MS does not care. If moms and humanities majors stopped buying laptops entirely and that $750M/Q dropped to the ~$1M/Q the power users drive, MS would probably pull out of the OEM license market. This is a very different mindset about how businesses operate than you seem to share, which is fine, I'm explaining it not trying to convert you to it.
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    How was the old school control panel not better for non power users? Everything in one compact and intuitive display with understandable icons and a description of the icon in the English language. I'm confused when I try to change or navigate settings in Windows 10 or in modern apps in general where there's an array of icons with no description. I can memorize what the hamburger means but beyond that is too much!
    - nickelpro 3y ago
      You haven't worked in IT with "truly" non-technical people if you're asking this question (yes, No True Scotsman fallacy, I know). They never opened such panels, they don't read error messages, they just say "the printer doesn't work". If the "Add Printer" button doesn't work it's all over for them. The only thing you can do is make the "Add Printer" button as good as possible. The least common denominator is so much lower than you think it is. It's why Jobs and Timmy Apple worked so hard to eliminate the concept of the "file system" and make everything built around the concept of the "app". These abstractions that seem intuitive to power users and technical people are nonsense to the much larger market of push-button users, and that's where all the money is outside B2B enterprise.
- rolph 3y ago
  things are happening: https://www.gimp.org/ https://www.gimp.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMP https://github.com/cryinkfly/Autodesk-Fusion-360-for-Linux https://github.com/cryinkfly/Autodesk-Fusion-360-for-Linux https://gist.github.com/probonopd/0fab254aa0b6fc371d8db641822bd530 https://gist.github.com/probonopd/0fab254aa0b6fc371d8db64182... https://www.freecad.org/ https://www.freecad.org/

overgard 3y ago

I dunno man, with Steam on linux and most of the major game engines making porting easy (or at least moving in that direction) I have very few reasons to stick with Windows anymore. At this point it's basically Photoshop and Fusion 360, otherwise I'd abandon it completely. If they lose gamers, I think they'll have a real issue.

nickelpro 3y ago
You're a power user unable to understand the needs of non-power users. We all go through that stage, it's natural. I once installed Linux on all my siblings' desktops because I had convinced my parents it would lead to "less viruses" (Fedora 13, I think, GNOME 2, those were the days). The nightmare of providing support for that over the rest of my high school years provided me with a powerful and important lesson. You have few reasons to stick with Windows, you are a very, very tiny droplet in an ocean of users with different needs than you. Judging what such markets will do based on your personal needs is unwise.
- overgard 3y ago
  Here's the thing though, the desktop now really is about power users or corporate users, because everyone else just uses cell phones or tablets. So ok, sure, your sales people and your secretaries probably aren't going to care about the control panel, but people that use computers outside of work are mostly going to be power users and they're starting to have options. (I can use all the software I need on macOS, and linux is rapidly getting there too) And honestly, breaking Printers is a thing that everyone is going to care about, especially people in a workplace.
  - nickelpro 3y ago
    As explained above this is irrelevant to enterprise users, corpo installs don't play with per-station configuration like this or care about consumer-facing UIs, the needs of that market revolve around things like image management, deployment, and active directory administration. You're right that the home market is shrinking though, the OEM install market is down billions in revenue and has been dropping by double digit percentages each fiscal year, but you're wrong in your assumption that the power user market is worth anything. Power users, represented by direct license installs, are a rounding error of Windows revenue. There's nothing worth fighting for there. Convincing Mom that she should buy a Windows laptop instead of an Apple laptop is still worth ~$750M/Q, and Mom doesn't ever want to see the old Windows panels, she loves the "Add Printer" button. Convincing Timmy Q Hacker that he should buy a Windows license key instead of installing Arch Linux is worth squat.
    - overgard 3y ago
      I think you're overestimating the importance of the revenue generated and underestimating the importance of mindshare and people caring about their system. If the next generation of creators (IE, coders, designers, etc.) grow up on macOS and linux then Microsoft has a real problem down the line. The Windows monopoly has been VERY good to them, they would be foolish to lose it by angering their most passionate users even if in the short term they don't see an effect on their bottom line.
      - nickelpro 3y ago
        > I think you're overestimating the importance of the revenue generated It is literally impossible to do this. Revenue is the only thing that matters when measuring markets. If it doesn't affect the bottom line, it does not matter. Passion does not sell OEM installs or license keys. Creators and hackers didn't buy MS products in appreciable numbers to begin with (compared to consumer and enterprise markets), so to the degree MS can be said to be losing them, MS does not care. If moms and humanities majors stopped buying laptops entirely and that $750M/Q dropped to the ~$1M/Q the power users drive, MS would probably pull out of the OEM license market. This is a very different mindset about how businesses operate than you seem to share, which is fine, I'm explaining it not trying to convert you to it.
- hackerlight 3y ago
  How was the old school control panel not better for non power users? Everything in one compact and intuitive display with understandable icons and a description of the icon in the English language. I'm confused when I try to change or navigate settings in Windows 10 or in modern apps in general where there's an array of icons with no description. I can memorize what the hamburger means but beyond that is too much!
  - nickelpro 3y ago
    You haven't worked in IT with "truly" non-technical people if you're asking this question (yes, No True Scotsman fallacy, I know). They never opened such panels, they don't read error messages, they just say "the printer doesn't work". If the "Add Printer" button doesn't work it's all over for them. The only thing you can do is make the "Add Printer" button as good as possible. The least common denominator is so much lower than you think it is. It's why Jobs and Timmy Apple worked so hard to eliminate the concept of the "file system" and make everything built around the concept of the "app". These abstractions that seem intuitive to power users and technical people are nonsense to the much larger market of push-button users, and that's where all the money is outside B2B enterprise.
rolph 3y ago
things are happening: https://www.gimp.org/ https://www.gimp.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMP https://github.com/cryinkfly/Autodesk-Fusion-360-for-Linux https://github.com/cryinkfly/Autodesk-Fusion-360-for-Linux https://gist.github.com/probonopd/0fab254aa0b6fc371d8db641822bd530 https://gist.github.com/probonopd/0fab254aa0b6fc371d8db64182... https://www.freecad.org/ https://www.freecad.org/