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What's Microsoft thinking here? We got Windows on our kids' laptops and it's a pain to do anything with every time, just an amalgamation of decades worth of UIs
by parasti 1y ago
What's Microsoft thinking here? We got Windows on our kids' laptops and it's a pain to do anything with every time, just an amalgamation of decades worth of UIs held together with duct tape, looks terrible and performs even worse than it looks. When I'm thinking of the next big upgrade, Windows isn't even on the list of options anymore, and that's not even an ideological statement in any way.
- mips_avatar 1y agoWindows exists to perpetuate the next promotion cycle of people working inside of Windows.
- yieldcrv 1y ago> What's Microsoft thinking here? An upsell and way to justify their 3 trillion marketcap
- crinkly 1y agoThinking? Plan? Only thing going on is maximising capital extraction from the moat they created. End users no longer matter as long as the numbers keep going up.
- BoredPositron 1y agoMicrosoft has spent the past two decades repositioning Windows from a flagship operating system into primarily a delivery vehicle for cloud services, subscriptions, and integrated apps. They are just not interested in providing the user with an OS anymore. For them it's a necessary evil nothing more.
- pixl97 1y agoSimply put the economics are behind a locked down click and drool style operating system with a manufacture controlled store that takes 30% of all gross. The faster we can kill the Apple and Google store monopolies the faster we'll go back to having operating systems/phones that we can at least do something with. We still have Linux for now, but as we know signed bootloaders present a very large risk.
- chankstein38 1y agoI miss usable operating systems that don't feel like they were built for cavemen while people who know how to use them get to click more and more "Additional properties" buttons/links to get to actual useful settings.
- distances 1y ago> We still have Linux for now, but as we know signed bootloaders present a very large risk. Thankfully there is a fair number of Linux-first companies now, so I'm not that worried. It's a real business case now. Years ago there were none, you couldn't even buy a laptop without Windows.
- N19PEDL2 1y agoI think at Microsoft they know they can do whatever they want with Windows and nothing will change. In corporate, no manager cares about the operating system their employees use. Unless there's a significant drop in productivity by using Windows, no one will bother with the cost of switching to another OS. In the private sector, most people buy their computers straight off the shelf, i.e. with Windows. Here at HN, we're tech enthusiasts, but out there those who know what "Debian with GNOME" means are very few, and the rest will at most complain a little about how Windows has become, but then they'll just continue to use it.
- brewdad 1y agoThe rest of the world, outside HN and similar techy online communities, largely doesn't know Linux exists. They know Windows and Mac. Macs are expensive and unfamiliar. Windows machines are cheap and can be bought at Walmart.
- hirako2000 1y agoInstall Linux, they would come out wiser and perhaps even learn how to code. Windows should be considered mental health hazard.
- crinkly 1y agoI completely agree with your latter point after being a windows dev on and off since windows 3.0. It’s been one hell of a rollercoaster.
- ajmurmann 1y agoRecently I locked into my old Windows computer after not having done so in about a year and noticed a weird brown symbol prominently in the task bar. It was a promotion for world chocolate day...
- andriesm 1y agoClassic! So true!
- x0x0 1y agoThey're also currently nakedly taking bribes from hardware manufacturers to force upgrades to Windows 11, creating a wave of completely unnecessary hardware purchases. I'm trying to figure out how to help a nontechnical parent run a bypass install to avoid throwing a perfectly fine laptop in the garbage. It's so necessary to the functioning of Windows 11 that it can be bypassed and Windows 11 works fine. Sure...
- prism56 1y agoMy kid won't need a laptop for a few more years but i've been using linux and i'm planning on making them use linux. The privacy implications and learning potential could be worth it from an early age.
- rtkwe 1y agoMake sure they have at least a passing familiarity with Windows and it's apps because like it or not Windows is still the default in the school and working world so they'll have to work with that stuff to some degree. Otherwise go for it. Side note how's open office compatibility these days? Last time I tried it yeeears ago there were still compatibility problems that would have made group projects hard.
- Gud 1y agoAs a long term *nix user(FreeBSD and Linux) forced to use Windows for work, I observe that every few years Windows is completely changed. It’s a total hodgepodge of decades of crap. That’s the only thing you need to know.
- freedomben 1y agoPurely anecdata, but my kids only use Linux at home and hadn't used anything else until they got (Windows and ChromeOS) computers at school, and they were able to get going quite easily. Honestly I think learning to use a mouse and keyboard is the hardest part since most of these kids grew up using tablets and phones as their first "computers." Office compatibility still kind of sucks. It's very usable, but still quite a few papercuts. In my kids case though, Google Docs pretty much solves that problem so it's largely been a non-issue.
- nobody9999 1y ago>Side note how's open office compatibility these days? Last time I tried it yeeears ago there were still compatibility problems that would have made group projects hard. While Open Office still exists (and is being actively supported), LibreOffice (forked from OpenOffice fifteen years ago) gets more frequent updates, is more broadly used, and is widely preferred over OpenOffice these days. I use it and it's a nice replacement for the Microsoft Office suite. In fact, I have Microsoft Office and prefer LibreOffice over it. I suggest giving LibreOffice[0] a look. Many of the compatibility issues have been resolved and it works nicely. [0] https://www.libreoffice.org/ https://www.libreoffice.org/
- isk517 1y agoI have been asking myself this question repeatedly for the last few months. Windows 11 offers absolutely nothing of substance over Windows 10 and more often than not manages to be less pleasant to use. The Office 365 eco system is a complete disaster of half implemented ideas, most of which can be described as would be pretty useful if it actually worked as advertised(power automate), wasn't abandoned in a half complete state(loosp), or if they implemented simple feature requests that the userbase is asking for(sharepoint). To top it all off they seem to be working tirelessly to ruin the products that actually work and are in demand, every couple of months they threaten to force users to switch to the 'modern' Outlook despite the fact that it still lacks a lot of features that are the very reason businesses still use Outlook in the first place.
- pjmlp 1y agoSecurity knobs that Windows 10 lacks, better support for containers, WSL features, and DirectX 12 capabilities. Granted, not everyone cares about them.
- sharpshadow 1y agoWindows 11 has round corners.
- fxtentacle 1y agoSomeone wanted to make it kid-safe. Except they didn't notice that they are designing a software UI and not a wooden cupboard.
- hulitu 1y agoAha, that's why they choose Tim Burton's movies as an inspiration for the UI colours. /s
- hulitu 1y agoThis. The best feature ever. Microsoft might not be able to draw shadows, scrollbars, window borders but they sure know how to round corners. Wanna exit word by pressing exit in the menu (i.e. clean exit). No way. You must press the "X" on the upper right window corner and hope that the corners rounding Microsoft engineers handle the "WndClose" message gracefully.
- novaleaf 1y agoanecdote time: I have a Desktop and Laptop running Win11. Over the last month I noticed that when typing in notepad.exe, IT DROPS ABOUT 5% OF CHARACTERS TYPED!!!! On both my computers. How on earth Microsoft could F-Up Notepad (of all things) so badly that it fails at the ONE THING it's supposed to do, I have no idea. At the same time, I notice there is now Copilot integrated with Notepad.... coincidence?
- hulitu 1y agoDon't worry. Copilot is just summarizing what you wrote. /s
- duxup 1y agoWindows feels more like an adware / advertising driven OS every day. It's not there for me, it's for Microsoft to have a vehicle to point the OS AT ME.
- lioeters 1y agoWhen you're in Windows, the OS operates you. It is the user and you are the used.
- garylkz 1y agoRemember Microsoft Edge? Remember Microsoft Teams? Remember Dev Home? Remember Copilot? Yeah it's the same thing everytime.
- pjmlp 1y agoPeople have to remember corporations aren't people, and when there is a change of direction, doesn't mean they got rid of all employees responsible for the old ways.
- self_awareness 1y agoHow are corporations not people? Who runs them if not people?
- pjmlp 1y agoCorporations are made of people, they aren't people, which is quite different.
- self_awareness 1y agoWhy it's different? Decisions are still made by people. Even if Excel is used to calculate the decision trajectory, even if the trajectory is enforced by some law inside the corporation, it's still people who decide that they continue following the road, and it's still people who implement the decision.
- pjmlp 1y agoBecause when corporations are seen as people, it is anthropomorphism.
- self_awareness 1y agoIf you don't intend to answer, why comment at all?