5 ms·

UI of Windows is buggy and inconsistent. Kernel and low level stuff are actually very stable and good.

by hudo 8mo ago

joe_mamba 8mo ago
>Kernel and low level stuff are actually very stable and good. This. A while ago a build of Win 11 was shared/leaked that was tailored for the Chinese government called "Windows G" and it had all the ads, games, telemetry, anti-malware and other bullshit removed and it flew on 4GB RAM. So Microsoft CAN DO IT, if they actually want to, they just don't want to for users. You can get something similar yourself at home running all the debloat tools out there but since they're not officially supported, either you'll break future windows updates, or the future windows updates will break your setup, so it's not worth it.
- TkTech 8mo ago
  Is this not just Windows LTSB/LTSC? Which has been a thing forever.
  - joe_mamba 8mo ago
    Maybe, could also be that for a 9 figure government contract they'll provide a custom LTSC branch just for you with only the features you want.
- RajT88 8mo ago
  Talked about back in the Vista days publicly (I cannot find the articles now) - Microsoft has commitments to their hardware partners to help keep the hardware market from collapsing. So they are not incentivized to keep Win32_Lean_N_Mean, but instead to put up artificial limits on how old of hardware can run W11. I have no insider knowledge here, just this is a thing which get talked about around major Windows releases historically.
  - joe_mamba 8mo ago
    >Microsoft has commitments to their hardware partners to help keep the hardware market from collapsing. Citation needed since that makes no logical sense. You want to sell your SW product to the most common denominator to increase your sales, not to a market of HW that people don't yet have. Sounds like FUD. >but instead to put up artificial limits on how old of hardware can run W11 They're not artificial. POPCNT / SSE4.2 became a hard requirement starting with Windows 11 24H2 (2024) (but that's for older CPUs), and only intel 8th gen and up have well functioning support for Virtualization-Based Security (VBS), HVCI (Hypervisor-protected Code Integrity), and MBEC (Mode-Based Execution Control). That's besides the TPM 2.0 which isn't actually a hard requirement or feature used by everyone, the other ones are way more important. So at which point do we consider HW-based security a necessity instead of an artificial limit? With the ever increase in vulnerabilities and attack vectors, you gotta rip the bandaid at some point.
    - ssl-3 8mo ago
      Windows 11 is running on my ThinkPad T530. Its CPU is very nearly 14 years old. What is missing here that was present when this same computer was running Windows 10?
      - joe_mamba 8mo ago
        >Windows 11 is running on my ThinkPad T530. Its CPU is very nearly 14 years old. Yes, you can bypass HW checks to install it on a pentium 4 if you want, nothing new here. >What is missing here that was present when this same computer was running Windows 10? All the security features I listed in the comment above.
        ssl-3 8mo ago
        So, if I'm hearing this right: This computer had the security features that you listed while it was running Windows 10, and now that it is running Windows 11 it is lacking them? (I'm not trying to be snarky. That's simply an astonishing concept to me.)
- hilti 8mo ago
  Never heard of Windows G .. that sounds exactly what I want for my older Thinkpads :-)
  - WarOnPrivacy 8mo ago
    > Windows G .. sounds exactly what I want for my older Thinkpads I'm running 11 IoT Ent LTSC on a some T420; it runs pretty okay.
  - qingcharles 8mo ago
    I've been starting with Tiny11 and then running the debloat scripts against it. Reduces the memory footprint to about 2GB and have found zero compatibility problems with doing this. You just have to use curl or something to download a browser because you won't even have Edge.
- bcraven 8mo ago
  Something similar, or indeed, exactly the same: https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/leaked-windows-11-government-edition-that-has-no-telemetry-tracking-or-bloatware-is-actually-fake https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/leak...
- drnick1 8mo ago
  Microsoft should just open source Windows at this point.
- workfromspace 8mo ago
  I geniunely wonder if Windows G's start menu also use React and if the start menu, right click or Windows Search still sucks in Windows G or not :)
  - pjmlp 8mo ago
    React Native, halfway between Web and native.
    - chris_wot 8mo ago
      No, he's talking about ReactOS.
exceptione 8mo ago
NTFS, not so great.
- p_ing 8mo ago
  NTFS is just fine. Stable, reliable, fast, plenty of features for a general purpose file system.
  - repelsteeltje 8mo ago
    ...But no way can you wrap it into something that looks posix-y from the inside
    - p_ing 8mo ago
      Why would you want to?
      - repelsteeltje 8mo ago
        From the article, first use case: > Example use cases include: > * Running unmodified Linux programs on Windows > * ... That won't work if the unplugged Linux program assumes that mv replaces a file atomically; ntfs can't offer that.
        p_ing 8mo ago
        NTFS uses atomic transactions, that's the only way it has the ability to recover after a fault. You can read more if you wish in 'Inside the Windows NT File System' by Helen Custer, page 15.
  - exceptione 8mo ago
    Even with Defender etc off, it is not fun. Lots of small file IO brings it on its knees. Some wants to blame the Windows I/O system, I don't know, but what I do know is that when people choose NTFS it is because they haven't an alternative. Nobody chooses it based on its quality attributes. I dare to say there is no NTFS system that is faster than an EXT4 system. If even MS internal teams rather want to avoid it, it seems like it isn't a great offering. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41085376#41086062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41085376#41086062
mananaysiempre 8mo ago
> Kernel and low level stuff are actually very stable and good. In their intended applications, which might or might not be the ones you need. The slowness of the filesystem that necessitated a whole custom caching layer in Git for Windows, or the slowness of process creation that necessitated adding “picoprocesses” to the kernel so that WSL1 would perform acceptably and still wasn’t enough for it to survive, those are entirely due to the kernel’s archtecture. It’s not necessarily a huge deal that NT makes a bad substrate for Unix, even if POSIX support has been in the product requirements since before Win32 was conceived. I agree with the MSR paper[1] on fork(), for instance. But for a Unix-head, the “good” in your statement comes with important caveats. The filesystem is in particular so slow that Windows users will unironically claim that Ripgrep is slow and build their own NTFS parsers to sell as the fix[2]. [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/785430/ https://lwn.net/Articles/785430/ [2] https://nitter.net/CharlieMQV/status/1972647630653227054 https://nitter.net/CharlieMQV/status/1972647630653227054
- jph00 8mo ago
  This is not due to slowness of the file system. Native ntfs tools are much faster than Unix ones in some situations. The issue is that running Unix software on windows will naturally have a performance impact. You see the same thing in reverse using Wine on Linux. Windows uses a different design for IO so requires software to be written with that design in mind.
  - noumenon1111 8mo ago
    [flagged]
  - MadnessASAP 8mo ago
    It's pretty typical these days for software, particularly games of the DX9-11 eras to perform better on Wine/Proton then they do under native Windows on the same hardware.
    - jph00 8mo ago
      They rarely are IO constrained.

UI of Windows is buggy and inconsistent. Kernel and low level stuff are actually very stable and good.

by hudo 8mo ago

UI of Windows is buggy and inconsistent. Kernel and low level stuff are actually very stable and good.

>Kernel and low level stuff are actually very stable and good. This. A while ago a build of Win 11 was shared/leaked that was tailored for the Chinese government called "Windows G" and it had all the ads, games, telemetry, anti-malware and other bullshit removed and it flew on 4GB RAM. So Microsoft CAN DO IT, if they actually want to, they just don't want to for users. You can get something similar yourself at home running all the debloat tools out there but since they're not officially supported, either you'll break future windows updates, or the future windows updates will break your setup, so it's not worth it.

TkTech 8mo ago
Is this not just Windows LTSB/LTSC? Which has been a thing forever.
- joe_mamba 8mo ago
  Maybe, could also be that for a 9 figure government contract they'll provide a custom LTSC branch just for you with only the features you want.
RajT88 8mo ago
Talked about back in the Vista days publicly (I cannot find the articles now) - Microsoft has commitments to their hardware partners to help keep the hardware market from collapsing. So they are not incentivized to keep Win32_Lean_N_Mean, but instead to put up artificial limits on how old of hardware can run W11. I have no insider knowledge here, just this is a thing which get talked about around major Windows releases historically.
- joe_mamba 8mo ago
  >Microsoft has commitments to their hardware partners to help keep the hardware market from collapsing. Citation needed since that makes no logical sense. You want to sell your SW product to the most common denominator to increase your sales, not to a market of HW that people don't yet have. Sounds like FUD. >but instead to put up artificial limits on how old of hardware can run W11 They're not artificial. POPCNT / SSE4.2 became a hard requirement starting with Windows 11 24H2 (2024) (but that's for older CPUs), and only intel 8th gen and up have well functioning support for Virtualization-Based Security (VBS), HVCI (Hypervisor-protected Code Integrity), and MBEC (Mode-Based Execution Control). That's besides the TPM 2.0 which isn't actually a hard requirement or feature used by everyone, the other ones are way more important. So at which point do we consider HW-based security a necessity instead of an artificial limit? With the ever increase in vulnerabilities and attack vectors, you gotta rip the bandaid at some point.
  - ssl-3 8mo ago
    Windows 11 is running on my ThinkPad T530. Its CPU is very nearly 14 years old. What is missing here that was present when this same computer was running Windows 10?
    - joe_mamba 8mo ago
      >Windows 11 is running on my ThinkPad T530. Its CPU is very nearly 14 years old. Yes, you can bypass HW checks to install it on a pentium 4 if you want, nothing new here. >What is missing here that was present when this same computer was running Windows 10? All the security features I listed in the comment above.
      - ssl-3 8mo ago
        So, if I'm hearing this right: This computer had the security features that you listed while it was running Windows 10, and now that it is running Windows 11 it is lacking them? (I'm not trying to be snarky. That's simply an astonishing concept to me.)
hilti 8mo ago
Never heard of Windows G .. that sounds exactly what I want for my older Thinkpads :-)
- WarOnPrivacy 8mo ago
  > Windows G .. sounds exactly what I want for my older Thinkpads I'm running 11 IoT Ent LTSC on a some T420; it runs pretty okay.
- qingcharles 8mo ago
  I've been starting with Tiny11 and then running the debloat scripts against it. Reduces the memory footprint to about 2GB and have found zero compatibility problems with doing this. You just have to use curl or something to download a browser because you won't even have Edge.
bcraven 8mo ago
Something similar, or indeed, exactly the same: https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/leaked-windows-11-government-edition-that-has-no-telemetry-tracking-or-bloatware-is-actually-fake https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/leak...
drnick1 8mo ago
Microsoft should just open source Windows at this point.
workfromspace 8mo ago
I geniunely wonder if Windows G's start menu also use React and if the start menu, right click or Windows Search still sucks in Windows G or not :)
- pjmlp 8mo ago
  React Native, halfway between Web and native.
  - chris_wot 8mo ago
    No, he's talking about ReactOS.

exceptione 8mo ago

NTFS, not so great.

p_ing 8mo ago
NTFS is just fine. Stable, reliable, fast, plenty of features for a general purpose file system.
- repelsteeltje 8mo ago
  ...But no way can you wrap it into something that looks posix-y from the inside
  - p_ing 8mo ago
    Why would you want to?
    - repelsteeltje 8mo ago
      From the article, first use case: > Example use cases include: > * Running unmodified Linux programs on Windows > * ... That won't work if the unplugged Linux program assumes that mv replaces a file atomically; ntfs can't offer that.
      - p_ing 8mo ago
        NTFS uses atomic transactions, that's the only way it has the ability to recover after a fault. You can read more if you wish in 'Inside the Windows NT File System' by Helen Custer, page 15.
- exceptione 8mo ago
  Even with Defender etc off, it is not fun. Lots of small file IO brings it on its knees. Some wants to blame the Windows I/O system, I don't know, but what I do know is that when people choose NTFS it is because they haven't an alternative. Nobody chooses it based on its quality attributes. I dare to say there is no NTFS system that is faster than an EXT4 system. If even MS internal teams rather want to avoid it, it seems like it isn't a great offering. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41085376#41086062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41085376#41086062

mananaysiempre 8mo ago

> Kernel and low level stuff are actually very stable and good. In their intended applications, which might or might not be the ones you need. The slowness of the filesystem that necessitated a whole custom caching layer in Git for Windows, or the slowness of process creation that necessitated adding “picoprocesses” to the kernel so that WSL1 would perform acceptably and still wasn’t enough for it to survive, those are entirely due to the kernel’s archtecture. It’s not necessarily a huge deal that NT makes a bad substrate for Unix, even if POSIX support has been in the product requirements since before Win32 was conceived. I agree with the MSR paper[1] on fork(), for instance. But for a Unix-head, the “good” in your statement comes with important caveats. The filesystem is in particular so slow that Windows users will unironically claim that Ripgrep is slow and build their own NTFS parsers to sell as the fix[2]. [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/785430/ https://lwn.net/Articles/785430/ [2] https://nitter.net/CharlieMQV/status/1972647630653227054 https://nitter.net/CharlieMQV/status/1972647630653227054

jph00 8mo ago
This is not due to slowness of the file system. Native ntfs tools are much faster than Unix ones in some situations. The issue is that running Unix software on windows will naturally have a performance impact. You see the same thing in reverse using Wine on Linux. Windows uses a different design for IO so requires software to be written with that design in mind.
- noumenon1111 8mo ago
  [flagged]
- MadnessASAP 8mo ago
  It's pretty typical these days for software, particularly games of the DX9-11 eras to perform better on Wine/Proton then they do under native Windows on the same hardware.
  - jph00 8mo ago
    They rarely are IO constrained.