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The End of Windows

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Re: The End of Windows

#371

Post by gruez »

bhauer wrote: post #288
dannyw wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to assume a large portion of users are software engineers or tech people. You may consider a 16GB ‘bare minimum’, but not everyone needs that - nor can even afford that (or a laptop more than, say, new or used for $750).

> (or a laptop more than, say, new or used for $750). To me, the hardware report shows technology is quite stagnant on display resolution and memory. 1366x768 is a resolution from 2002 or thereabouts. 4GB was common in desktop computers in 2005. ~15 years have passed and consumers in the $750 price range are still hamstrung with 1366x768 and 4GB of memory? I would expect better from a $750 phone , let alone a compute…

>To me, the hardware report shows technology is quite stagnant on display resolution and memory. 1366x768 is a resolution from 2002 or thereabouts. 4GB was common in desktop computers in 2005

I think there's a huge disconnect between what's you think is "common" and what people actually have. Steam hardware survey from 2009[1] says only 10% of steam (gaming) users have ram greater or equal to 4GB. I'm going to estimate that in 2005, that figure is less than 5%. Saying 4GB is common in 2005 would be like saying 64GB today is "common".

[1]https://web.archive.org/web/20090415225520/http://store.stea...

Re: The End of Windows

#372

Post by pjc50 »

bhauer wrote: post #288
dannyw wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to assume a large portion of users are software engineers or tech people. You may consider a 16GB ‘bare minimum’, but not everyone needs that - nor can even afford that (or a laptop more than, say, new or used for $750).

> (or a laptop more than, say, new or used for $750). To me, the hardware report shows technology is quite stagnant on display resolution and memory. 1366x768 is a resolution from 2002 or thereabouts. 4GB was common in desktop computers in 2005. ~15 years have passed and consumers in the $750 price range are still hamstrung with 1366x768 and 4GB of memory? I would expect better from a $750 phone , let alone a compute…

> new computers in the $200 to $400 range

There's quite a lot of these, e.g. HP Stream; the Windows license is much cheaper for these systems because they have such low specs.

Re: The End of Windows

#373

Post by gruez »

rndmize wrote: post #332
rogerbinns wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is worth contrasting with the Steam survey which covers several million gamers (of varying degrees of dedication) -- http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey Of note, 8GB is most popular with 1920x1080 resolution.

Simplified Chinese being the most common language (by far at 52%) threw me for a loop, though it probably shouldn't in this day and age. (For context: English - 23%, Russian - 7.7%, Spanish - 2.8%).

That's probably due to the influx of chinese players coming in to play pubg or whatever in the last few months. A more "representative" sample could be found in the months leading up to the spike: https://web.archive.org/web/20170606030609/http://store.stea....

Re: The End of Windows

#374

Post by orf »

Endy wrote: post #281
bhauer wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hardware report is surprising to me in many ways. * In 2018, the most popular resolution for users of Firefox is still 1366x768. And only 1920x1080 is making any headway against the dominance of 1366x768. As much as I am surrounded by the culture of multiple 4K+ displays, apparently this is not at all commonplace. 4K doesn't even get listed, presumably lumped into the "Other" category. * In 2018, the most popula…

> * In 2018, the most popular memory amount for users of Firefox is still 4GB, trailed by the also disappointingly small 8GB. In my world, I consider 16GB a bare minimum, but at least with memory I haven't been deluding myself—I know many people economize on memory. Still, I would have thought 8GB was the most common memory size by now. In 2018, my computer only has 2GB RAM and runs more than fast enough for what I n…

> That's why users of old computers are going to Pale Moon if they know about it, or back to Internet Explorer, or just not upgrading to the newest Firefox.

Malware authors rub their hands gleefully when they see sentiments like this being spread online by people like you.

Don't do any of those suggestions. Disable multiprocess mode in the Firefox config if you find it eats too much memory, stick with the ESR if you're scared of upgrading and use Edge over IE.

Re: The End of Windows

#375

Post by zanny »

bayindirh wrote: post #295
bhauer wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hardware report is surprising to me in many ways. * In 2018, the most popular resolution for users of Firefox is still 1366x768. And only 1920x1080 is making any headway against the dominance of 1366x768. As much as I am surrounded by the culture of multiple 4K+ displays, apparently this is not at all commonplace. 4K doesn't even get listed, presumably lumped into the "Other" category. * In 2018, the most popula…

> In 2018, the most popular resolution for users of Firefox is still 1366x768. And only 1920x1080 is making any headway against the dominance of 1366x768. As much as I am surrounded by the culture of multiple 4K+ displays, apparently this is not at all commonplace. 4K doesn't even get listed, presumably lumped into the "Other" category. Most of the tasks in the real world doesn't need multiple 4K displays, including…

As someone who reads text all day, going up to a 27" 150 PPI monitor was huge. There is a tangible improvement in how that text looks, especially on an accurately colored monitor.

The other footnote should be that display prices have been crashing recently. You can get an IPS 24" FHD monitor for like $90, and a QHD version at 27" for about $150. Those would have been twice as expensive a few years ago.

That being said, all those 768p screens are crappy plastic laptops with really slow hard drives. That I guess is what we end up with the Intel took what should have just been the natural evolution of notebooks - small SoCs running a high PPI display in a metal frame - and made them into some premium brand name product with a huge margin on the prices of chips that cost peanuts to manufacture because they didn't have any real competition in the space for a very long time (and even then, their monopolistic behavior lets them keep AMD out of all the major brands premium notebooks anyway).

Re: The End of Windows

#376

Post by criddell »

robotresearcher wrote: post #345
criddell wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 8 may have been a response to iOS popularity, but don't forget that Microsoft had been pushing tablets for a long time by then. They had a huge head start over Apple. If you want to include Windows for Pen Computing, then it was an 18 year lead that they lost overnight.

Apple released their own hardware pen-based handheld computer in 1993. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton Windows for Pen Computing was released in 1992.

Good point. I guess I would respond with the difference being that Microsoft developed the technology continually during that time whereas something like the Newton was a relatively short-lived product.

For the record, I had a MP120 and absolutely loved that machine.

Re: The End of Windows

#377

Post by jhbadger »

robotresearcher wrote: post #345
criddell wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 8 may have been a response to iOS popularity, but don't forget that Microsoft had been pushing tablets for a long time by then. They had a huge head start over Apple. If you want to include Windows for Pen Computing, then it was an 18 year lead that they lost overnight.

Apple released their own hardware pen-based handheld computer in 1993. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton Windows for Pen Computing was released in 1992.

Yes, but Newton's OS had nothing to do with MacOS, being a completely independent system with its own API and even programming language (Newtonscript). Windows for Pen Computing was Windows.

Re: The End of Windows

#378

Post by whyoh »

cptskippy wrote: post #197
mschuster91 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With each release of Windows 10 they introduce a bunch of new crappy apps that are completely forgettable AND they improve a core feature silently. And with every shift towards ads or trying to force a mobile-first UI on a desktop/laptop, they alienate users off of it. I switched to OS X as soon as I saw the writing on the wall with Win8 (and Wine on OS X got stable enough to play GTA San Andreas, tbh). Also, I won…

> And with every shift towards ads You mean like Apple asking me to use iCloud every single time I unlock my Mac? Or every time I power on my test iOS devices? Or do you mean up I have to open the App Store to apply MacOS updates and click past the ads? Windows 10 adds some shortcuts to the start menu during the bi-annual updates, they're annoying but once they're deleted they don't come back. They also have an add i…

>Windows 10 adds some shortcuts to the start menu during the bi-annual updates, they're annoying but once they're deleted they don't come back. They also have an add in Explorer for OneDrive that also goes away permanently when dismissed.

Also ads on the lock screen, ads in the start menu ("app suggestions") and (Edge) ads from the toolbar. Just off top of my head, maybe I missed some.

Re: The End of Windows

#379

Post by Spooky23 »

GordonS wrote: post #13
Spooky23 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 10 is really difficult for businesses entrenched in Windows to deal with. The work that you need to do in order to unwind from legacy Windows stuff like fat apps, IE-optimized websites, and legacy Office-based workflows makes it pretty easy to move to an iPad to Google, etc. The only thing that Microsoft has going for them is that every other vendor is also fucking up client computing in different ways.

I've seen problems with websites as IE versions are upgraded, but that happens with or without Windows 10. I haven't seen any issues with apps though, so I have to dispute this claim. We just moved 5,000 employees from Windows 7 to 10, and it went far smoother than anyone really expected - everything just works. It's a wide range of apps too, everything from in-house WPF apps to CAD and engineering software.

Janky enterprise crap optimized for IE is one big example. The other is old Office stuff like Access databases or workflows dependent on conversion of old file formats. (Last year Office 365 ProPlus purged legacy DBase import for a few months)

IE11 support will go away at some point. Many of those apps are now being updated to work on Chrome -- I know of a few large shops that aren't testing IE or Edge anymore for internal apps!

I do agree that they did a heroic effort on making the update process incredibly reliable. Most non-prehistoric applications transition seamlessly.

Note that I personally equate Windows 10 and the subscription "Office 365 ProPlus". The layers of complexity are astounding. I present to you what I call the "Office 365 ProPlus Build Decoder Ring" - https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Version-and-build-n...

Windows 10 itself has about 8-10 releases that an enterprise needs to think about. Transition from release to release has gotchas and additional Windows-Office gotchas. (For example, the way Office authenticates changes in certain builds) (See: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows-10/release-inf...)

Re: The End of Windows

#380

Post by Joeri »

gruez wrote: post #354
pmontra wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I won't touch anything with less than 32 GB and 1080p, but people that use a PC like a tablet with a keyboard and a larger screen have different needs. They are the vast majority of buyers. A friend of mine is thinking about buying a new laptop. We were looking together at what's available in the sub 400 Euro range, basically everything is 4 GB and 1366x768. Add some 200/300 Euro and 8 GB and 1080p start t…

>I won't touch anything with less than 32 GB why would you need that much ram? are you running 3+ VMs all the time?

I had to move from 16 to 32 gb when I did hadoop development and needed to run a vm hadoop system locally. It all depends on your workload.
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