4 ms·

Funny, how many GNU/Linux desktop environments allow you to do that easily, while being developed by a handful of people, while MS has probably hordes of people

Funny, how many GNU/Linux desktop environments allow you to do that easily, while being developed by a handful of people, while MS has probably hordes of people working on the UI of Windows. They just don't seem to get it or have complelety incapable UI/UX designers or something.

lolc 3y ago
Every configuration option is a support burden. I say tihs as a KDE user who installed Gnome for the parents.
- zelphirkalt 3y ago
  So how come, that far fewer people can role out such a feature easily, while MS cannot? "No need to offer support." I hear you say, but is that really it? If the feature just works well, because it has been developed well, and does not cause many if any support cases, then that point would be invalid. Lets take for example XFCE panels. I can stick them wherever I like. If there is a problem, then it is with panels themselves, not with their position. And for things like deskbar mode I can write a wiki article and point people to that. I think support shouldn't be such an issue, if things are well done. And of course you can always have less-power users, who will have some issue. But they will have issues anyway, if not with a deskbar kind of thing, then with some other thing. Should MS therefore strip their OS of all features? It seems ridiculous. Why not release a "Windows for computer illiterate" version then and keep a capable version?
- crtasm 3y ago
  I'd be fine with it being part of Powertoys.
- infamia 3y ago
  Let's be real, MS doesn't give a flying flip about support. They use their customers as alpha and beta testers. It has been a few years, but the last time I used Premium Support it was a miserable experience. The agents knew about as much as I did and wasted my time waiting around for a call backs that solved nothing. They don't care. I would hang my head in shame to be associated with such a rotten organization like MS. I don't know how some of those folks sleep at night working for MS.
- true_religion 3y ago
  I get that but if so many people want it then why isn’t the improvement to their lives with the additional support cost?
bitwize 3y ago
It's because Microsoft has OKRs to hit that have nothing to do with UI customizability or even giving users what they want. I realized this in the 90s. Windows 9x, theoretically, should never have existed. I knew this because a DOS subsystem with great speed and compatibility, DOSEMU, existed for Linux. You could play Doom with sound at full speed in DOSEMU on contemporary Pentium hardware. If the open source community could do that, Microsoft, the developers of DOS, could develop a DOS layer for Windows NT that was much better than the sluggish, feature-incomplete layer they did ship. But they didn't prioritize the effort it would take to do so, especially since dividing the Win32 ecosystem into 9x, NT workstation and NT server allowed binning of different Windows versions at different price points.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  Windows 9x was significantly lower in resource requirements than NT (mostly from memory, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95#System_requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95#System_requirements / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_4.0#System_requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_4.0#System_requirem... seems to agree). I'd 100% believe that MS was going for market segmentation, but I don't think it was just leaving out DOS compat.

lolc 3y ago

Every configuration option is a support burden. I say tihs as a KDE user who installed Gnome for the parents.

zelphirkalt 3y ago
So how come, that far fewer people can role out such a feature easily, while MS cannot? "No need to offer support." I hear you say, but is that really it? If the feature just works well, because it has been developed well, and does not cause many if any support cases, then that point would be invalid. Lets take for example XFCE panels. I can stick them wherever I like. If there is a problem, then it is with panels themselves, not with their position. And for things like deskbar mode I can write a wiki article and point people to that. I think support shouldn't be such an issue, if things are well done. And of course you can always have less-power users, who will have some issue. But they will have issues anyway, if not with a deskbar kind of thing, then with some other thing. Should MS therefore strip their OS of all features? It seems ridiculous. Why not release a "Windows for computer illiterate" version then and keep a capable version?
crtasm 3y ago
I'd be fine with it being part of Powertoys.
infamia 3y ago
Let's be real, MS doesn't give a flying flip about support. They use their customers as alpha and beta testers. It has been a few years, but the last time I used Premium Support it was a miserable experience. The agents knew about as much as I did and wasted my time waiting around for a call backs that solved nothing. They don't care. I would hang my head in shame to be associated with such a rotten organization like MS. I don't know how some of those folks sleep at night working for MS.
true_religion 3y ago
I get that but if so many people want it then why isn’t the improvement to their lives with the additional support cost?

bitwize 3y ago

It's because Microsoft has OKRs to hit that have nothing to do with UI customizability or even giving users what they want. I realized this in the 90s. Windows 9x, theoretically, should never have existed. I knew this because a DOS subsystem with great speed and compatibility, DOSEMU, existed for Linux. You could play Doom with sound at full speed in DOSEMU on contemporary Pentium hardware. If the open source community could do that, Microsoft, the developers of DOS, could develop a DOS layer for Windows NT that was much better than the sluggish, feature-incomplete layer they did ship. But they didn't prioritize the effort it would take to do so, especially since dividing the Win32 ecosystem into 9x, NT workstation and NT server allowed binning of different Windows versions at different price points.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
Windows 9x was significantly lower in resource requirements than NT (mostly from memory, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95#System_requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95#System_requirements / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_4.0#System_requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_4.0#System_requirem... seems to agree). I'd 100% believe that MS was going for market segmentation, but I don't think it was just leaving out DOS compat.