4 ms·

Likely because Windows has enjoyed a rather massive installation base, particularly among folks who are not terribly knowledgeable. I'm sure as other platforms

• bad_user 14y ago
  Having a user base of folks that aren't very knowledgeable is no excuse for abuse. Also, I do not think other platforms can be as plagued as Windows is, because it's a matter of culture and user expectations being driven by that culture. The size of the user base has nothing to do with it. On Windows users wishing to get anything done resort to installing some crap, even for basic things like uncompressing an archive, watching a movie, listen to some MP3 or viewing a PDF or an Office document. Things got better with open-source software that was ported to Windows, but considering that Windows is the dominant operating system, the ecosystem is actually kind of lame. If you want quality software, the few exceptions are some open-source apps and some products being sold by some big publishers and that's it. I have a theory that this is because Microsoft itself encouraged piracy and bundling of crapware, while discouraging indie developers, communities and open-source.