4 ms·

Even my mother of 75 years switched to a Mac. Microsoft does not understand the effect of these stupid decisions. They also don’t seem to realize that MacOS was

Even my mother of 75 years switched to a Mac. Microsoft does not understand the effect of these stupid decisions. They also don’t seem to realize that MacOS was the operating system for many demos on the just finished dotnetConf … If your developers don’t want to use your system how do you expect others to use it…

downrightmike 11mo ago
Doing the needful...
Herring 11mo ago
I think they know and this is a hail mary. Windows market share has been gradually eroding. They don't intend to go quietly.
koakuma-chan 11mo ago
It's ok that developers don't use Windows. Developers can use macOS. Windows is for office workers where AI features can be helpful.
- worik 11mo ago
  > AI features can be helpful. Embedded into the operating system? Will they be helpful there? IMO there are better ways
  - koakuma-chan 11mo ago
    Yes it will be helpful when you are an office worker staring at an excel sheet 9 to 5. I've been there and I don't care if it scans my entire PC or whatever, if I can prompt it to click around on my screen to do the thing.
    - ryanjshaw 11mo ago
      Vast majority of HN does not seem to understand just how powerful the modern Microsoft stack is for office workers. Integrated AI solves so many real problems, not the least of which is that it’s sanctioned by IT.
      - thewebguyd 11mo ago
        > not the least of which is that it’s sanctioned by IT. This is the big thing that Microsoft understands. For a non-tech company, it's going to be pretty hard to get buy in to pay for ChatGPT enterprise, and then pay for/spend dev or IT resources to integrate it (and develop those integrations) with their already existing Microsoft/SharePoint/Teams stack to make it useful. And then you still don't get the convenient Office app add-ins. Microsoft bundles this all, integrates it for you, and provides a GUI for governance controls. It's very click-ops focused, which enterprise IT likes, and the bundling means you don't have to sell those with the wallets on buying extra third party tools. Nobody every got fired for buying s/IBM/Microsoft
  - bdcrazy 11mo ago
    Hey computer, what files did i work on last thursday afternoon? and it'd show me a collage of word, excel emails and cad files I was using. this would be fantastic. If it worked. and didn't require i sell what's left of myself to the computer.
    - axus 11mo ago
      I click Windows 11 "Start" button and under Recommended it has the last 6 files I opened. Click "More", and there's a list of files for the last two weeks with dates, and timestamps for the last week. So they've already got this idea covered. We do have all the News and Weather and other "Suggestions" turned off. Adding features isn't inherently a bad thing, but we don't believe Microsoft can do it without making the existing features worse.
      - bdcrazy 11mo ago
        That sounds like a useful feature. Thanks. alas my new work laptop is still on win 10.
    - bostik 11mo ago
      WinFS and Longhorn are back on the wishlist, apparently. But this time you're getting a really fat thin client OS and non-deterministic execution.
  - thewebguyd 11mo ago
    Yes, if it works (and that's a big if). For the normie/general office worker, even Copilot (the Microsoft 365 for Business version) has been wildly popular where I work. "Copilot, help me prepare for this meeting coming up" and the worker gets a nice little package of all the emails, word docs, spreadsheets, teams/sharepoint convos, etc. related to the meeting. Imagine: User accidentally deletes file. Instead of opening a help desk ticket, they can ask Copilot "Hey Copilot, I accidentally deleted this excel file, can you get it back?" and the OS integrated AI restores it from volume shadow copy, or from %appdata% or "Hey copilot, I have a meeting starting. Can you turn on do not disturb, and open my xyz presentation for screen sharing" Yeah, those things can be done pretty fast manually, or even scripted, but the average office worker doesn't have the computer knowledge to do so. A real functioning version of (to use their buzzword) "agentic" AI integrated in the OS means they don't need the knowledge, just ask the computer to do it for them. It could be huge, but I have my doubts it'll actually work as well as Microsoft wishes it would.
    - koakuma-chan 11mo ago
      That actually sounds very cool and exciting. If Microsoft is reading this—we should talk! My email address is in my bio.
  - croon 11mo ago
    I'm as big a skeptic as anyone, but having it integrated into the OS could be very helpful to a lot of people. I myself will of course run for the hills due to the considerable trade-offs of that decision (always-online, tracking, surveillance, huge attack surface, etc), but I can't dismiss the fact that a lot of people will take the usefulness of the features without considering the cost.
- thewebguyd 11mo ago
  > It's ok that developers don't use Windows. Sure. Except once upon a time ago, Microsoft was really big on dogfooding and it definitively was not ok for Microsoft's developers to not use Windows. Seeing their employees using macs on stage at conferences sends a very clear message "don't bother with Windows. It isn't even good enough for our own staff to use." What happened to "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!"? Ballmer was not a good CEO, but he understood at least that dev & enthusiast mindshare = your product being chosen and recommended elsewhere.
- bigfatkitten 11mo ago
  > Developers can use macOS. Developers building things like web apps can use macOS. Developers developing for Windows, or who need Windows-only toolchains cannot.
  - mostlysimilar 11mo ago
    Who's developing for Windows? Microsoft themselves are turning things that would naturally have been native into web views instead.
    - bigfatkitten 11mo ago
      The people building the many thousands of native Windows apps used by millions of people every day. CAD/CAM systems. GIS applications. Automatic teller machine software. Public safety dispatch systems. Automotive diagnostic tools. Point of sale systems. List goes on.
      - array_key_first 11mo ago
        While these systems are often written for Windows, there's actually very little reason to do so, and typically you're doing yourself a huge disservice. Yes you can build a POS system using Windows tech, but you don't really gain much by doing so, other than a whole host of headaches when it comes to deployment and administration.
        bigfatkitten 11mo ago
        This is only remotely true for embedded systems, where you ship a fully integrated device, with all its associated peripherals as a turn-key system that does not have to interoperate with anything else. If you’re in the business of shipping software that needs to run alongside other people’s software on the same machine, it’s a disaster. Linux userspace backwards compatibility is extremely poor, the “solutions” to this issue (Flatpak, Snap et al) generally create more management problems than they solve. Desktop Linux is already an absolute monster to manage. Try securely deploying hardware-backed PKI certificates for 802.1x to a fleet of Linux workstations. Takes a couple of minutes on Windows and macOS, but it’s a massive engineering effort on Linux.
- pjmlp 11mo ago
  I always find funny that Windows, games consoles, mainframe, micros, and embedded software sprungs into existence via magic pixie dust, as developers only use UNIX.
keraf 11mo ago
My parents are both 70+ and I put them on Linux (Ubuntu and Mint) a decade ago, best decision ever. All the frustration from Windows went away overnight. They are simple computer users - browsing (email, search, booking), opening PDFs, offloading photos from a camera and watching them, editing word documents and spreadsheets, everything just works with no friction. I'm so happy they never got to experience Windows 11. A few months ago, I switched my aunt (70+ as well) to Linux Mint after repeated issues with Windows 10 and now 11. The last straw was the printer stopped working one day out of the blue. Tired to re-install it for over an hour, impossible! When I installed Mint and looked to add the printer, it was already there and ready to work. And for the user experience, I just sat her in front of the computer and asker her to do various tasks that she would normally do on Windows without any explanation, and she just did them intuitively. She even sent me a message a few days ago to thank me for installing Linux on her machine! Microsoft keep shooting themselves in the foot with Windows, it's like they don't even care about consumer operating systems anymore. Most popular Linux distros are stable and easy to use, for an average computer user it's perfect. I also daily drive Linux (Bazzite, based on Fedora Silverblue) and it does everything I need - coding, browsing, games, it's all there. I'm never going back to Windows.
- klaussilveira 11mo ago
  Same experience here. Couple with one of the Redmond themes, and all of a sudden everything looks similar: https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Redmond-Themes https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Redmond-Themes Just works.

downrightmike 11mo ago

Doing the needful...

Herring 11mo ago

I think they know and this is a hail mary. Windows market share has been gradually eroding. They don't intend to go quietly.

koakuma-chan 11mo ago

It's ok that developers don't use Windows. Developers can use macOS. Windows is for office workers where AI features can be helpful.

worik 11mo ago
> AI features can be helpful. Embedded into the operating system? Will they be helpful there? IMO there are better ways
- koakuma-chan 11mo ago
  Yes it will be helpful when you are an office worker staring at an excel sheet 9 to 5. I've been there and I don't care if it scans my entire PC or whatever, if I can prompt it to click around on my screen to do the thing.
  - ryanjshaw 11mo ago
    Vast majority of HN does not seem to understand just how powerful the modern Microsoft stack is for office workers. Integrated AI solves so many real problems, not the least of which is that it’s sanctioned by IT.
    - thewebguyd 11mo ago
      > not the least of which is that it’s sanctioned by IT. This is the big thing that Microsoft understands. For a non-tech company, it's going to be pretty hard to get buy in to pay for ChatGPT enterprise, and then pay for/spend dev or IT resources to integrate it (and develop those integrations) with their already existing Microsoft/SharePoint/Teams stack to make it useful. And then you still don't get the convenient Office app add-ins. Microsoft bundles this all, integrates it for you, and provides a GUI for governance controls. It's very click-ops focused, which enterprise IT likes, and the bundling means you don't have to sell those with the wallets on buying extra third party tools. Nobody every got fired for buying s/IBM/Microsoft
- bdcrazy 11mo ago
  Hey computer, what files did i work on last thursday afternoon? and it'd show me a collage of word, excel emails and cad files I was using. this would be fantastic. If it worked. and didn't require i sell what's left of myself to the computer.
  - axus 11mo ago
    I click Windows 11 "Start" button and under Recommended it has the last 6 files I opened. Click "More", and there's a list of files for the last two weeks with dates, and timestamps for the last week. So they've already got this idea covered. We do have all the News and Weather and other "Suggestions" turned off. Adding features isn't inherently a bad thing, but we don't believe Microsoft can do it without making the existing features worse.
    - bdcrazy 11mo ago
      That sounds like a useful feature. Thanks. alas my new work laptop is still on win 10.
  - bostik 11mo ago
    WinFS and Longhorn are back on the wishlist, apparently. But this time you're getting a really fat thin client OS and non-deterministic execution.
- thewebguyd 11mo ago
  Yes, if it works (and that's a big if). For the normie/general office worker, even Copilot (the Microsoft 365 for Business version) has been wildly popular where I work. "Copilot, help me prepare for this meeting coming up" and the worker gets a nice little package of all the emails, word docs, spreadsheets, teams/sharepoint convos, etc. related to the meeting. Imagine: User accidentally deletes file. Instead of opening a help desk ticket, they can ask Copilot "Hey Copilot, I accidentally deleted this excel file, can you get it back?" and the OS integrated AI restores it from volume shadow copy, or from %appdata% or "Hey copilot, I have a meeting starting. Can you turn on do not disturb, and open my xyz presentation for screen sharing" Yeah, those things can be done pretty fast manually, or even scripted, but the average office worker doesn't have the computer knowledge to do so. A real functioning version of (to use their buzzword) "agentic" AI integrated in the OS means they don't need the knowledge, just ask the computer to do it for them. It could be huge, but I have my doubts it'll actually work as well as Microsoft wishes it would.
  - koakuma-chan 11mo ago
    That actually sounds very cool and exciting. If Microsoft is reading this—we should talk! My email address is in my bio.
- croon 11mo ago
  I'm as big a skeptic as anyone, but having it integrated into the OS could be very helpful to a lot of people. I myself will of course run for the hills due to the considerable trade-offs of that decision (always-online, tracking, surveillance, huge attack surface, etc), but I can't dismiss the fact that a lot of people will take the usefulness of the features without considering the cost.
thewebguyd 11mo ago
> It's ok that developers don't use Windows. Sure. Except once upon a time ago, Microsoft was really big on dogfooding and it definitively was not ok for Microsoft's developers to not use Windows. Seeing their employees using macs on stage at conferences sends a very clear message "don't bother with Windows. It isn't even good enough for our own staff to use." What happened to "Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!"? Ballmer was not a good CEO, but he understood at least that dev & enthusiast mindshare = your product being chosen and recommended elsewhere.
bigfatkitten 11mo ago
> Developers can use macOS. Developers building things like web apps can use macOS. Developers developing for Windows, or who need Windows-only toolchains cannot.
- mostlysimilar 11mo ago
  Who's developing for Windows? Microsoft themselves are turning things that would naturally have been native into web views instead.
  - bigfatkitten 11mo ago
    The people building the many thousands of native Windows apps used by millions of people every day. CAD/CAM systems. GIS applications. Automatic teller machine software. Public safety dispatch systems. Automotive diagnostic tools. Point of sale systems. List goes on.
    - array_key_first 11mo ago
      While these systems are often written for Windows, there's actually very little reason to do so, and typically you're doing yourself a huge disservice. Yes you can build a POS system using Windows tech, but you don't really gain much by doing so, other than a whole host of headaches when it comes to deployment and administration.
      - bigfatkitten 11mo ago
        This is only remotely true for embedded systems, where you ship a fully integrated device, with all its associated peripherals as a turn-key system that does not have to interoperate with anything else. If you’re in the business of shipping software that needs to run alongside other people’s software on the same machine, it’s a disaster. Linux userspace backwards compatibility is extremely poor, the “solutions” to this issue (Flatpak, Snap et al) generally create more management problems than they solve. Desktop Linux is already an absolute monster to manage. Try securely deploying hardware-backed PKI certificates for 802.1x to a fleet of Linux workstations. Takes a couple of minutes on Windows and macOS, but it’s a massive engineering effort on Linux.
pjmlp 11mo ago
I always find funny that Windows, games consoles, mainframe, micros, and embedded software sprungs into existence via magic pixie dust, as developers only use UNIX.

keraf 11mo ago

My parents are both 70+ and I put them on Linux (Ubuntu and Mint) a decade ago, best decision ever. All the frustration from Windows went away overnight. They are simple computer users - browsing (email, search, booking), opening PDFs, offloading photos from a camera and watching them, editing word documents and spreadsheets, everything just works with no friction. I'm so happy they never got to experience Windows 11. A few months ago, I switched my aunt (70+ as well) to Linux Mint after repeated issues with Windows 10 and now 11. The last straw was the printer stopped working one day out of the blue. Tired to re-install it for over an hour, impossible! When I installed Mint and looked to add the printer, it was already there and ready to work. And for the user experience, I just sat her in front of the computer and asker her to do various tasks that she would normally do on Windows without any explanation, and she just did them intuitively. She even sent me a message a few days ago to thank me for installing Linux on her machine! Microsoft keep shooting themselves in the foot with Windows, it's like they don't even care about consumer operating systems anymore. Most popular Linux distros are stable and easy to use, for an average computer user it's perfect. I also daily drive Linux (Bazzite, based on Fedora Silverblue) and it does everything I need - coding, browsing, games, it's all there. I'm never going back to Windows.

klaussilveira 11mo ago
Same experience here. Couple with one of the Redmond themes, and all of a sudden everything looks similar: https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Redmond-Themes https://github.com/B00merang-Project/Redmond-Themes Just works.