Windows 10’s latest update is deleting some users’ documents • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows 10’s latest update is deleting some users’ documents

#31

Post by Rjevski » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #17

Rjevski wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, Windows 10 is starting to look more and more like a Linux distribution. Half-assed and inconsistent UI, broken updates, etc. I'm fine with this in Linux, because it's built by people who donate their time for free, and might not be experts in UX, etc. But seeing the same in a commercial OS that Microsoft wants you to pay for is unacceptable.

Have you seen elementary OS? Very clearly macOS inspired and they've done a great job with it. Worth a look for anyone who hates half-assed and inconsistent UIs. I'm not a regular user (just toyed with it in some VMs) so I can't vouch for how the updates do, but I was impressed with the overall level of polish. It's an Ubuntu-derivative based on LTS releases so it lags a ways behind the cutting edge. EDIT: looks like…

Elementary is good in terms of looks on the face, but starts to break down as soon as you dig deeper. Inconsistent updates and strange issues requiring manual intervention via the terminal are still there.

Re: Windows 10’s latest update is deleting some users’ documents

#32

Post by severino » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

I always find myself unable to delete any file on my computer, no matter I never needed it for years, nor I won't need it again in the forseeable future. New features like this one from Microsoft can definitely help.

Re: Windows 10’s latest update is deleting some users’ documents

#33

Post by kingaillas » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 6:06 PM UTC

benjaminjackman wrote: post #16

ashleyn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to Linux the amount of bloat shipping with Windows 10 is simply unreal. Open up Task Manager on a fresh install and the only two questions I can ask are "What the fuck do half of these services actually do ?" and "Why is Windows Defender ALWAYS running up the CPU?" The start menu is loaded with trash like Candy Crush, which I can only guess is a revenue stream at the expense of user experience. You can't rid…

> I'll stick with being forced to use it for games only. Steam just got an upgrade that automagically runs a lot of games via a modified version of wine (called proton) sometimes even with better performance than on Windows. It's worked very well for everything I have tried it with so far. So that just leaves games not available in Steam. The biggest of which has to be Blizzard, however a lot of their games already w…

I've tried running Grim Dawn and Rise of Nations after every steam update (I opted into Steam Play's proton beta and get reasonably frequent steam client updates now) and no luck so far.

I've migrated my daily driver to linux, a large amount of gaming to linux and/or consoles, and am down to a handful of games that only run on Windows. If that gap closes then I can get by with Windows in VMs only.

Re: Windows 10’s latest update is deleting some users’ documents

#34

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

ragequitta wrote: post #22

Too wrote: post #11

Microsoft has really gone too far with OTA and automatically reverting settings to more grandma friendly options. I have a windows pc which every month will have some setting reverted without me touching it. It can be anything and it usually takes some time to discover it because it only presents itself when you perform some rare task. My network sharing settings and external monitor scaling settings has been lost mu…

I know I'm going to sound like a microsoft employee or apologist, but I really have no skin in the game. I want windows to be better, but I think people are just going to far with minor gripes. Windows 10 has been the least disruptive Windows OS I've ever used. Maybe it's because I don't need to mess around with many settings, but I have had exactly 0 problems. On a clean install I used O&O Shutup 10, change my mouse…

> Windows 10 has been the least disruptive Windows OS I've ever used.

As someone who used to like Windows, you must be living in some alternate reality. I can't tall you the number of things that routinely break in Win10 and then cannot be fixed without an in-place upgrade. Do a search for "Windows 10 start menu doesn't work". That one has happened to me a number of times and none of the "helpful" suggestions from MS ever work except reinstalling the entire OS.

Re: Windows 10’s latest update is deleting some users’ documents

#35

Post by supernovae » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 6:09 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #29

As a vocal critic of the Linux Desktop, even I feel that soon Microsoft will have succeeded in making Windows so horrifically awful and user-hostile that the Linux Desktop will start to look good by comparison. I mean, if I'm going to put up with rapid update cycles that break things for no reason, decade old bugs going unfixed while features are added that no one asked for, inconsistent and redundant interfaces, dev…

Software is software, even Linux updates break things. Nothing is perfect. Let's be honest though, as an avid windows user i'm thrilled with all these quarterly updates, fixes, new features and functionality add. It sucked when service packs were years apart and nothing changed and you needed new OS's to use new functionality.

Now with a free update we have the linux subsystem, have docker support, Hyper-V updates, improved notification center, dark mode, improved store with books, edge PDF/epub reading is absolutely amazing (and it works with remote syn /page read updates on ios & android!), PowerShell improvements, timeline support across devices and if you use android you get SMS integration, image backup/sync and shortly remote android display on your desktop and many fixes/improvements/refinements

It's never been a better experience to be a windows user..

Everyone updates their iPhone and Android - and deals with the inevitable quirks of that upgrade and they move on.

But with windows...

I believe most of the people experiencing missing docs enabled storage sense integration where if you're low on disk space it moves your docs to onedrive - it prompts you to enable this... others are people with non standard configs that probably break in every update anyway and you're told not to do.

Re: Windows 10’s latest update is deleting some users’ documents

#36

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 6:09 PM UTC

fhood wrote: post #25

ragequitta wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know I'm going to sound like a microsoft employee or apologist, but I really have no skin in the game. I want windows to be better, but I think people are just going to far with minor gripes. Windows 10 has been the least disruptive Windows OS I've ever used. Maybe it's because I don't need to mess around with many settings, but I have had exactly 0 problems. On a clean install I used O&O Shutup 10, change my mouse…

Windows 7 and XP were not good, people see XP through nostalgia goggles and Windows 7 is just prettier XP. Windows 10 is easily my favorite of the three. I wish I understood windows better though. The issues I run into with unix machines always seem more fixable, because I find the solutions and approaches more intuitive. Windows remains a black box to me.

> Windows 7 is just prettier XP

Windows 7 has a completely revamped driver model and network stack compared to XP. They aren't really that alike.

Re: Windows 10’s latest update is deleting some users’ documents

#37

Post by Zhyl » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #15

Tajnymag wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If so, have you considered for example the LibreElec distribution? If you don't need anything other than Kodi and an occasional file management, you'd be good.

I should have mentioned that it's also occasionally a casual gaming machine. The emulators are all through RetroArch these days, so that migration would be seamless. It's the Steam games that would be the sticking point. I know I could probably get most of them running under WINE, but it's the guaranteed compatibility of a 20-year gaming library that makes it difficult to fully close the door on Windows.

Have you tried the new Steam Play (Proton)? In short, steam will now automatically wrap all windows games up with Wine and DXVK. Many many games are now working out of the box without any faff.

Re: Windows 10’s latest update is deleting some users’ documents

#38

Post by ragequitta » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 6:14 PM UTC

fhood wrote: post #25

ragequitta wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know I'm going to sound like a microsoft employee or apologist, but I really have no skin in the game. I want windows to be better, but I think people are just going to far with minor gripes. Windows 10 has been the least disruptive Windows OS I've ever used. Maybe it's because I don't need to mess around with many settings, but I have had exactly 0 problems. On a clean install I used O&O Shutup 10, change my mouse…

Windows 7 and XP were not good, people see XP through nostalgia goggles and Windows 7 is just prettier XP. Windows 10 is easily my favorite of the three. I wish I understood windows better though. The issues I run into with unix machines always seem more fixable, because I find the solutions and approaches more intuitive. Windows remains a black box to me.

I agree that sometimes Windows can be puzzling. Though I think most of the 'black box' problems I've encountered in windows have been my own damn fault. I notice people try and "fine tune" it too much. I used to be this way too, because it used to be necessary. It's really not anymore IMO. Yes you want to turn off some things (O&O makes a good list, and backs everything up before changing stuff, which is why I use it) but 99.9999% of users don't have any reason to go into the registry for instance.

And if you really care about the 3MB and 0 resources you're saving by tweaking the features/apps/etc installed be VERY careful. Do not trust random 'security' and 'debloat' scripts to not completely mess up your OS. Even if you understand the script, you may not understand that uninstalling X causes Y problem. I really do think win10 is hated on quite a bit because people have caused their own issues thinking they know more than they do.

Re: Windows 10’s latest update is deleting some users’ documents

#39

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

supernovae wrote: post #35

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #29

As a vocal critic of the Linux Desktop, even I feel that soon Microsoft will have succeeded in making Windows so horrifically awful and user-hostile that the Linux Desktop will start to look good by comparison. I mean, if I'm going to put up with rapid update cycles that break things for no reason, decade old bugs going unfixed while features are added that no one asked for, inconsistent and redundant interfaces, dev…

Software is software, even Linux updates break things. Nothing is perfect. Let's be honest though, as an avid windows user i'm thrilled with all these quarterly updates, fixes, new features and functionality add. It sucked when service packs were years apart and nothing changed and you needed new OS's to use new functionality. Now with a free update we have the linux subsystem, have docker support, Hyper-V updates, i…

> Software is software, even Linux updates break things. Nothing is perfect.

I don't believe I said otherwise.

> Let's be honest though, as an avid windows user i'm thrilled with all these quarterly updates, fixes, new features and functionality add. It sucked when service packs were years apart and nothing changed and you needed new OS's to use new functionality.

Great for you I guess. Like many people who have to do a job with computers though, I prefer to have things stable and known and consistent for long periods of time. Windows used to be really good at this, and now it is really, really, crap at it.

> Now with a free update we have the linux subsystem, have docker support, Hyper-V updates, improved notification center, dark mode, improved store with books, edge PDF/epub reading is absolutely amazing (and it works with remote syn /page read updates on ios & android!), PowerShell improvements, timeline support across devices and if you use android you get SMS integration, image backup/sync and shortly remote android display on your desktop and many fixes/improvements/refinements

Only about two of these things aren't just new versions of applications that could have been completely separate from the OS. Dark Mode is an especially telling thing to be excited about, you used to just be able to change your theme to any colors you wanted and it'd work for everything that used Win32 widgets, but then everyone started building their native GUIs on web-like garbage heaps, including Microsoft, so now everything is inconsistent and awful and it takes an OS update to change some colors. This is not progress.

> It's never been a better experience to be a windows user..

I could not possibly disagree more. And I feel like your disagreement comes from inexperience with past versions of Windows.

Re: Windows 10’s latest update is deleting some users’ documents

#40

Post by mrfredward » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 6:17 PM UTC

Someguywhatever wrote: post #18

Too wrote: post #11

Microsoft has really gone too far with OTA and automatically reverting settings to more grandma friendly options. I have a windows pc which every month will have some setting reverted without me touching it. It can be anything and it usually takes some time to discover it because it only presents itself when you perform some rare task. My network sharing settings and external monitor scaling settings has been lost mu…

>They treat it as the front page of Facebook. yes, well said. I find this especially annoying. They also nag me to install or try something, and the only thing that the nag messages are achieving is making me start to hate windows....

Yep. It's the built in "try office" notifications that keep turning themselves back on that make me crazy. Windows is a paid product, and has ads built in. Linux is free, no ads. Why do I put up with it...

Visual studio and games. Windows as an OS just pisses me off, but every time I try to make Linux my primary OS, I realize how attached I am to things on the windows platform.