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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
by 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 agoWhat 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 agoTbh 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.
- butlike 3y agoI like how the mouse tracks in windows over macOS. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- timetopay 3y agoIt's wild how annoying Windows UX can be when it's something that microsoft wants you to use, to help improve their services revenue. TBH, I'm on board with some of the negatives you listed, but I feel like the entire enthusiast community has been screaming about edge, telemetry, and start menu search for years. Microsoft seems determined not to listen, it's astonishing.
- hakfoo 3y agoThey may not consciously confirm it, but I suspect someone figured out "learned helplessness is good for business." New users can be steered through every dark-pattern install process, and upsold into every service since they don't have existing preferences. They can't directly revert power users to that state, but by keeping the UI in a state of constant flux, they might get some accidental traction from them.
- timetopay 3y agoThe absolutely insane pattern of making people click "back" after seeing an email/password login screen to create an account without logging in...
- shiroiushi 3y agoWhy should they listen? Will doing these things improve their profitability? I don't think so. Having this annoying stuff (telemetry, forcing Edge, etc.) is good for Microsoft's profitability, and that's all that's important. If users don't like it, they can pound sand. It's not like they're going to switch to Linux; if they were really going to do that, they would have done it already in the last 20 years. Microsoft has gotten smart, and realized that all those people swearing "if they do this, I'm finally switching to Linux!" weren't really serious, because they've been saying exactly that for a couple of decades now, and still haven't, so almost nothing they do at this point will actually get them to leave Windows as long as it actually lets them do their work, however poorly and annoyingly.
- timetopay 3y ago
- TheLoafOfBread 3y ago> Make bash, zsh, ... native for Windows Why? There is PowerShell, able to run on Linux and MacOS. And compared to Bash it is actually readable language.
- Falmarri 3y agoI can't believe there are people that actually like powershell
- raincole 3y agoIf the alternative is bash then I don't just like powershell, I love it from the bottom of my heart.
- throwaway3563 3y agoThe main issue with powershell is its name. It would have been better named powerscript. It’s not really a shell but a much more powerful script language along the lines of Perl or PHP.
- datagrimx 3y agoIMO PowerShell is horrible. It is it an object, or not an object. You don't know, unless you know. How about operators? They make ZERO sense (-eq). They went supreme extreme on namespaces. I could write a paper on how bad PowerShell is. You can keep it. I'll stick with zsh or bash.
- metaltyphoon 3y agoEhh debatable. Just two different philosophies. I do think objects > text.
- delta_p_delta_x 3y ago> It is it an object, or not an object. It is always an object. Strings, arrays, paths, the registry—everything can be manipulated as an object.
- 3y ago
- layer8 3y agoMicrosoft needs to realize that the UI revamps made since Windows 8 have been a degradation for usability, and return to the old values of the WIMP interface, interface consistency, and keyboard-ability, and get their UI framework story back on track for good.
- deviantbit 3y agoI was at Microsoft, leaving around the same time, but I was in the Game Studios. How about making the installation about 90% less and dropping DCOM support. That is a dinosaur that has long out lived its usefulness. It is a constant source of security problems. DirectX needs a massive overhaul.
- js4ever 3y agoI agree with everything you said!
- bee_rider 3y agoMost of the Linux ecosystem is not really interested in selling Linux, they are interested in solving their problems using Linux and then sharing. This leaves space open for groups like Valve or Google to create a nice UI on top of Linux and sell that. How can they compete with free? It turns out free is not actually interested in competing with them… I still give it, like, less than 50% chance of occurring, but it wouldn’t be totally mind blowing to see MS selling a Linux distro, IMO. Why not, right?
- pacifika 3y agoI don’t think MS is interested in sharing back its improvements, like a directx integration layer it would have to build.
- shiroiushi 3y ago>they are interested in solving their problems using Linux and then sharing. This leaves space open for groups like Valve or Google to create a nice UI on top of Linux and sell that. In theory. In practice, this doesn't happen. Overall, I'd say desktop UIs are actually Linux's greatest failing. It's dominated by two different groups (Gnome vs. KDE) with extremely different design philosophies, and both having major (but different) problems. The whole Wayland vs X thing is also part of the problem. Everything else in Linux generally works really well, which is part of why it's so successful on servers and embedded systems.
- bee_rider 3y ago
- mrkeen 3y agoTake the "You need to activate windows" watermark off my screen. I paid damnit, I'm not paying twice.
- pjmlp 3y agoFrom my point of view, WinDev decreasing their religious stance on COM and related crap tooling for using it (VB 6, .NET Framework, C++/CX, .NET Native were the only usable ones for it), would already be a great improvement.
- hypercube33 3y agoAs an enterprise support engineer for the windows devices where I work a few notes: * I agree with your list * the store could have been awesome for users and enterprise but it blew it on both fronts. Linux has this nailed down. a note that I haven't seen a paid software store beyond steam I actually think doesn't suck or is full of garbage "is this malware" software * yes, please stop forcing ux changes clearly driven by marketing, especially in edge and office
- Night_Thastus 3y ago* You can turn off the vast majority of the telemetry, and what little remains can be easily stopped via pihole * Edge is advertised when you first install Windows, but nothing forces you to use it. I use Firefox with Windows 11 and no mention of Edge appears anywhere now. * Updates aren't weekly, except maybe security updates. And most updates these days happen unobtrusively in the background. * They've made great progress with the new Terminal and Powershell apps. They're very good and have more-or-less all the functionality you'd be used to. If you really want more, WSL exists. * You can turn off anything AI-related. Again, I don't see anything like that on mine. * You never need to interact with the store, and you can remove it via command if you're really insistent on it.
- ProllyInfamous 3y agoYes, but why are these opt-out instead of OPT-IN? [answer: $$$, "ease of use"] Why must you use command lines to disable features which should have been opt-in, in the first place? Why must one use a 3rd party device (e.g. PiHoles, which ARE awesome) to disable stuff — particularly when you can't even turn all telemetry off in the first place?
- Night_Thastus 3y agoBecause Window is, at its core, meant for average, everyday users. Not developers. Not power users. And for the average user, all they care about is having a web browser and access to get the applications they need. I really don't see the harm in the MS store being present. It offers them a user-friendly way to tell people to "just go here and install X" without having to walk them through anything more complicated.
- ProllyInfamous 3y agoPerhaps, upon initial installation, operating systems should have an option of selecting which operating environment they prefer (e.g. do you want to have all your personal information sent to vendor for customized adds; do you want to have normal OS, or advanced; do you want to use generative AI)? Personally, my only Windows machine runs Windows 7 Professional 64-bit [turns on once a month]. All my computers sit behind several PiHoles.
- BizarroLand 3y agoI would gladly pay $10/m as a home user for a version of Windows that provides those options. I can live without alternate shells and I can accept closed source software for those prices. Give me the same base setup as Windows 7 but with the Windows 11 security bells and whistles.
- lenkite 3y agoMicrosoft needs to fix their UX development platform urgently. WinUI 3 sucks compared to Apples SwiftUI. They don't appear to be investing anything much into it. Apple's efforts into improving their UX and development platform are orders of magnitude higher than Microsoft's. Apple now owns the majority of the mobile+tablet+developer laptop market. Getting rid of Windows Phone was a VERY bad decision made by Nadella. A short-term gain in profitability for a long-term loss in marketshare. He completely ceded the OS/device competition and effectively made Apple the dominant cross-form-factor OS company.