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The woes of Windows 10

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Re: The woes of Windows 10

#131

Post by kristianc »

davidf18 wrote: post #100
akappa wrote: post #20

I think there's an obvious and more general question here to be answered: if a piece of software is good enough, namely, it "disappears" when you are trying to do your job, then why bother to change it? Yes, the new version might enable a more efficient workflow, or might be faster to boot-up. But people hate changes and you need to invest considerable time in upgrading a piece of software (the upgrade itself + learn…

Interesting, readers of HN should know that upgrades to the newest version of Windows and updates is essential for reasons of software security. Newer versions of Windows incorporates security measures not in older versions -- sometimes even taking advantages of new security features in Intel hardware. For example, Target and Home Depot were hacked because they failed to upgrade their point-of-sale hardware from Wind…

People vastly underestimate how massive, complex and heterogenous the likes of Target, Home Depot, Walmart's stacks are.

I've worked with people very used to working with enormously complex systems and even they say Walmart etc is on the higher end of that scale. We're talking weeks of people on site to get new software stood up.

This isn't to diminish your point about the need for upgrades, but it's nothing like a push button process.

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#132

Post by davidf18 »

jessaustin wrote: post #111
davidf18 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, readers of HN should know that upgrades to the newest version of Windows and updates is essential for reasons of software security. Newer versions of Windows incorporates security measures not in older versions -- sometimes even taking advantages of new security features in Intel hardware. For example, Target and Home Depot were hacked because they failed to upgrade their point-of-sale hardware from Wind…

You describe the proximate cause of those breaches, but perhaps the ultimate cause was the difficulty of updating that OS in the first place?

The point-of-sale terminals have vendors that produce them in large quantity and they should have the expertise to upgrade the software of the machines that they built.

One can always hire experts with a proven track record to help with the install of the new OS.

Incidentally, many people may have trouble with upgrades to the new OS because 1. Running old hardware 2. Not running quality hardware -- e.g. for Windows laptops traditionally Thinkpads. 3. Do a fresh install. E.g. don't upgrade, but backup the data, clean the disk, do a fresh install.

I use Mac and did the fresh install of Sierra 10.12.1 and then upgrades for point version updates.

I also have been running Windows under Parallels and on Thinkpads prior to 2011 and not had problems with new versions of Windows.

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#134

Post by bayeslives »

0xFFC wrote: post #79
TimJYoung wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're re-vamping some of our Windows products this year to support high-DPI usage under Windows 10, so if you could be so kind, I would be curious as to what exactly you're seeing that is causing your issue: is it that older Windows applications look blurry because they aren't high-DPI-aware and Windows 10 auto-scales them, or is it that you don't like the high-DPI look because it's too sharp/jagged, looks weird on o…

Quite the opposite, Microsoft changed their font rendering engine to introduce GreyScale (IIRC), But the problem with this new engine is it is horrible on low-dpi monitor. Traditionally Windows does have problem with high dpi monitors, but I think there is workaround it (scaling and etc), but with windows 10, fonts on low dpi (by low dpi I mean most of the monitors sold until 1,2 years ago, 20+ inch with 1080p) windo…

Correct. I use Linux at home. Ubuntu and Mint have nice rendering OOTB, Arch got that great with the Infinality package.

OSX also has decent rendering (albeit too fat for my taste), Windows' subpixelrendering + matching fonts used to give sharp letters, yes too skinny, but legible.

With their new engine, texts are less legible. The letters are still skinny, but now they're also blurry.

All this to cater to the very small fraction that uses Windows on a mobile device; throwing existing desktop users under the bus.

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#136

Post by goda90 »

nu5500 wrote: post #99
Unbeliever69 wrote: post #57

I am a manager at a small architecture firm and Windows 10 has brought nothing but woe to my office. We have spent dozens of hours and thousands of dollars troubleshooting and fixing problems (many of which remain unresolved) that occurred as a result of this draconian forced upgrade (and updates that followed). So what if we got the upgrade for free. I've paid for it many times over in labor!

How was this upgrade forced on you? I use several machines that are still happily running Win7 and 8.

Upgrades occurred without user approval. If you have to do something extra to stop it from happening then it is forced.

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#137

Post by trendia »

rwc wrote: post #24

> Chromebooks are now outselling MacBooks in the crucial education market, where long-term preferences tend to be established. Apple has historically held a dominant position in the education market, so how does one square the "long-term preferences tend to be established" portion of that sentence with the 8% marketshare MacOS commands?

Unfortunately, Chromebooks will struggle with the engineering crowd, where software like ANSYS, Matlab, AutoCAD, etc. are required.

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#138

Post by davidf18 »

kristianc wrote: post #131
davidf18 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, readers of HN should know that upgrades to the newest version of Windows and updates is essential for reasons of software security. Newer versions of Windows incorporates security measures not in older versions -- sometimes even taking advantages of new security features in Intel hardware. For example, Target and Home Depot were hacked because they failed to upgrade their point-of-sale hardware from Wind…

People vastly underestimate how massive, complex and heterogenous the likes of Target, Home Depot, Walmart's stacks are. I've worked with people very used to working with enormously complex systems and even they say Walmart etc is on the higher end of that scale. We're talking weeks of people on site to get new software stood up. This isn't to diminish your point about the need for upgrades, but it's nothing like a p…

Shouldn't these stores standardize on vendors? Why would they use different vendors which only adds to complexity unless they've bought out a different store chain and are integrating existing systems?

Also, they should pay the vendors contracts for maintenance instead of trying to do the upgrades themselves. The vendors are generally more likely to do the testing necessary and have the skills for upgrading systems across from various customers.

At any rate, as you put it, eventually they still should do the upgrade.

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#139

Post by lineindc »

jasonkostempski wrote: post #66
happypants23 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rather like the clean aesthetic of Windows 10, and am now using it as my main OS. Sure, it's by no means perfect, and there is still work to be done. But by and large I am happier with Windows 10 than with MacOS, Ubuntu, GNOME, and so on. Oh, and the whole "spyware" trope is becoming overworn. User analytics is here to stay, and practically every website and browser does it anyway. At least you can disable it in Wi…

"At least you can disable it in Win 10 if you are so inclined." Where is that option? Also, it's easy to get a browser that doesn't phone home and a plugin that stops websites from doing it.

The Group Policy Editor lets you disable telemetry.

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#140

Post by ChrisClark »

0xFFC wrote: post #118
ChrisClark wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so strange. I assume I'm blind to those types of things? I can't find any difference between apps here that you can see so clearly. Do you know of a site that goes into detail on what the differences are? I could just be font-rendering blind in the same way some people don't mind bad aspect ratios on their widescreen TV...

There was huge discussion about it in Reddit, I don't know any technical site or blog post about this issue. But the conclusion was Microsoft is not going to fix this issue, unless users make noise.

Well there we go, I do see it now. I only see it as a small imperfection in some letters, but it does ruin everything as a whole.
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