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The woes of Windows 10

economist.com

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Re: The woes of Windows 10

#171

Post by mundo »

hfsktr wrote: post #164

I must be in the huge minority. I haven't had a single issue with Windows 10 (if we disregard privacy). Literally everything has just worked. I will say thinking about it that my computer used for 99.99% gaming/internet/text documents. I keep anticipating that something is going to go horribly wrong but so far it's been great. I hate the menu and store that it shows so almost everything I tend to open has a shortcut…

Thousands of programmer years went in to Win10, and the most positive comment on it is "It's perfectly tolerable if you turn off all that stuff they added."

This should be in the dictionary to illustrate the phrase "Damning with faint praise."

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#172

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

hfsktr wrote: post #164

I must be in the huge minority. I haven't had a single issue with Windows 10 (if we disregard privacy). Literally everything has just worked. I will say thinking about it that my computer used for 99.99% gaming/internet/text documents. I keep anticipating that something is going to go horribly wrong but so far it's been great. I hate the menu and store that it shows so almost everything I tend to open has a shortcut…

I run - using the word very loosely - Win 10 on a mid-spec 8GB Dell Laptop. It's literally unusably slow. Opening File Manager takes many minutes.

This is practically a fresh install. I have Office 365 installed, but very little else. I don't even have a mail client set up.

I dual-boot to Ubuntu on the same machine, and the latter is perfectly usable.

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#173

Post by freehunter »

mundo wrote: post #171
hfsktr wrote: post #164

I must be in the huge minority. I haven't had a single issue with Windows 10 (if we disregard privacy). Literally everything has just worked. I will say thinking about it that my computer used for 99.99% gaming/internet/text documents. I keep anticipating that something is going to go horribly wrong but so far it's been great. I hate the menu and store that it shows so almost everything I tend to open has a shortcut…

Thousands of programmer years went in to Win10, and the most positive comment on it is "It's perfectly tolerable if you turn off all that stuff they added." This should be in the dictionary to illustrate the phrase "Damning with faint praise."

If they change things in noticeable way, damn them for changing things. If they don't change things in a noticeable way, damn them for not making it more noticeable.

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#174

Post by freehunter »

Pica_soO wrote: post #168
distantsounds wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can remove just about all the tiles and extra bloat from the Start Menu, bringing on a more familiar return of what it used to be. Just right-click and 'remove' every tile until there's nothing left.

If i wanted to work to customize my OS, i would have Nuxed it.

If you don't want to work to customize your OS, you accept the defaults. Those are your two options, and you've already ruled out one of them.

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#175

Post by 67726e »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #172
hfsktr wrote: post #164

I must be in the huge minority. I haven't had a single issue with Windows 10 (if we disregard privacy). Literally everything has just worked. I will say thinking about it that my computer used for 99.99% gaming/internet/text documents. I keep anticipating that something is going to go horribly wrong but so far it's been great. I hate the menu and store that it shows so almost everything I tend to open has a shortcut…

I run - using the word very loosely - Win 10 on a mid-spec 8GB Dell Laptop. It's literally unusably slow. Opening File Manager takes many minutes. This is practically a fresh install. I have Office 365 installed, but very little else. I don't even have a mail client set up. I dual-boot to Ubuntu on the same machine, and the latter is perfectly usable.

I've had fresh Windows 10 (no crapware) installs on two different development machines at two different companies. Both times it was slower than hell, and I immediately asked for a Linux install.

Perhaps this is me finally getting old and curmedgeony at the ripe old age of twenty-three, but I'll be damned if I'm switching my personal computer away from Windows 7 anytime soon.

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#176

Post by 1_2__3 »

davidf18 wrote: post #138
kristianc wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Not to be crude but what you call "standardizing on vendors" I call a great way to spend your days getting screwed by said vendor(s).

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#177

Post by protomyth »

trendia wrote: post #137
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.

Plus the crowd who cannot have data go to external servers. I would love to use something like Chromebooks but the lack of a local storage server and user management kill it. I got to follow the rules after all.

If I could get a group of Chromebooks that sync with an on-site server then do my backups to someone like Tarsnap, I would be happy and following the local rules.

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#178

Post by bayeslives »

I've been using both Windows (work) and Linux (home) on the desktop for many years. I far prefer Linux (I tried many distros, settled on Arch and Mint now). Package management and window management is way better in Linux. To name just a few.

To me, Windows10 is not better than Windows7. The package management is still a mess. Forced updates, no rollbacks, reboots, you name it. Permissions are also strange: why are admin rights needed to install some fonts? We still have this "Registry" with its voodoo. We still miss tools like dmesg. When thing go wrong, Windows gives some sort of simple log file, of course not in txt-form but in some proprietary format that needs it's own reader (to read some flat text, for crying out loud). The file manager ("Explorer") is still confusing. Microsoft seems hellbent in obfuscating where files are stored. Going to the terminal, the difference is even clearer. Linux offers first rate terminals; Windows look like an afterthought. Is it even possible to use a terminal full screen in Windows, nowadays? Tab completion, a decent history, pipes?

The funny thing is that Ranger, my favorite file manager, is able to give previews of files in MS formats (such as .docx) where Windows Explorer is unable to do so.... ????

Two big steps back are privacy and font rendering. It's bad enough that apps spy on me, I don't want my OS to"phone home". The font rendering is optimized for the few Windows on mobile devices users, at the expense of the bulk of the users (like me) who use it on the desktop and are now confronted with blurry fonts.

My OS must help me with my personal computer tasks. Personal means a) I want to customize the hell out of it, and b) my data is _mine_. Also, I'd like a nice readable font on my screen. Sadly, Windows10 does not meet those requirements.

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#179

Post by dragonwriter »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #172
hfsktr wrote: post #164

I must be in the huge minority. I haven't had a single issue with Windows 10 (if we disregard privacy). Literally everything has just worked. I will say thinking about it that my computer used for 99.99% gaming/internet/text documents. I keep anticipating that something is going to go horribly wrong but so far it's been great. I hate the menu and store that it shows so almost everything I tend to open has a shortcut…

I run - using the word very loosely - Win 10 on a mid-spec 8GB Dell Laptop. It's literally unusably slow. Opening File Manager takes many minutes. This is practically a fresh install. I have Office 365 installed, but very little else. I don't even have a mail client set up. I dual-boot to Ubuntu on the same machine, and the latter is perfectly usable.

Conversely, I have Windows 10 running quite well on low-spec (for the time, not just for now) 6GB Acer laptop that I got when Windows 8 (not 8.1) was current, that went through in-place upgrades to 8.1 and then 10, and it's got a ludicrous amount of cruft that I keep meaning to clean up.

So, while I don't doubt your story, I can't help thinking that it may not represent the general experience.(Maybe I'm just lucky, though.)

Re: The woes of Windows 10

#180

Post by uncletaco »

mundo wrote: post #171
hfsktr wrote: post #164

I must be in the huge minority. I haven't had a single issue with Windows 10 (if we disregard privacy). Literally everything has just worked. I will say thinking about it that my computer used for 99.99% gaming/internet/text documents. I keep anticipating that something is going to go horribly wrong but so far it's been great. I hate the menu and store that it shows so almost everything I tend to open has a shortcut…

Thousands of programmer years went in to Win10, and the most positive comment on it is "It's perfectly tolerable if you turn off all that stuff they added." This should be in the dictionary to illustrate the phrase "Damning with faint praise."

It's called "throwing shade".
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