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If you must run Windows 10

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Re: If you must run Windows 10

#51

Post by Arcanum-XIII »

owenwil wrote: post #33
president wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a feature standpoint, Windows has definitely improved in the last few years, however, I don't see much improvement in terms of UX. To me, Windows development was always about "let's get this feature in so we can claim that we do X" but Microsoft has never proven themselves in terms of providing a cohesive experience in terms of inter-app behaviors or just UI/UX streamlining. This is extremely apparent when you l…

The UX is incrementally improving in every release. Through just the last few major releases, you've gotten Airdrop-style sharing (the new Share menu), full system-wide indexing and instant search, a unified control panel and a ton of other things. They're moving fast, but incrementally enough that it may not be noticable—but I vastly prefer the fast-follow improvements over the 1-3 yearly 'big bang' releases Apple h…

I’m not following the reasoning here. macOS is delivered anew once per year with more often than not big new feature (like a new File System). Those last year, macOS was released for free - and without tracking or ads. Windows is evolving twice per year, for the same free price, or at least till a new major version is out. The two update more or less offer big change in only one of those. For me, it feels the same at the end, with the exception of ads and tracking - that is a major difference.

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#52

Post by saagarjha »

bhauer wrote: post #39

Microsoft needs to realize they are doing their name harm by not giving power users and evangelist-style technologists an obvious and easily-selected low- or zero-surveillance Windows version. If this article is mislead to select LTSC instead of Enterprise as that option (as is suggested in this thread), the confusion of Microsoft's messaging is largely to blame. Microsoft should have marketing material aimed at indi…

> Microsoft needs to realize they are doing their name harm by not giving power users and evangelist-style technologists an obvious and easily-selected low- or zero-surveillance Windows version.

Why can't they do this for everyone?

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#53

Post by hyperman1 »

owenwil wrote: post #33
president wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a feature standpoint, Windows has definitely improved in the last few years, however, I don't see much improvement in terms of UX. To me, Windows development was always about "let's get this feature in so we can claim that we do X" but Microsoft has never proven themselves in terms of providing a cohesive experience in terms of inter-app behaviors or just UI/UX streamlining. This is extremely apparent when you l…

The UX is incrementally improving in every release. Through just the last few major releases, you've gotten Airdrop-style sharing (the new Share menu), full system-wide indexing and instant search, a unified control panel and a ton of other things. They're moving fast, but incrementally enough that it may not be noticable—but I vastly prefer the fast-follow improvements over the 1-3 yearly 'big bang' releases Apple h…

That's basically the problem: If they stay on cours improving the UI, in 5 years or so we reach the consistency, polish, performance and usability that windows 2000 used to have.

There are some nice improvements since then too, but also a lot of user-hostile functionality. It doesn't seem wort the trade off to me.

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#54

Post by dsego »

owenwil wrote: post #33
president wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a feature standpoint, Windows has definitely improved in the last few years, however, I don't see much improvement in terms of UX. To me, Windows development was always about "let's get this feature in so we can claim that we do X" but Microsoft has never proven themselves in terms of providing a cohesive experience in terms of inter-app behaviors or just UI/UX streamlining. This is extremely apparent when you l…

The UX is incrementally improving in every release. Through just the last few major releases, you've gotten Airdrop-style sharing (the new Share menu), full system-wide indexing and instant search, a unified control panel and a ton of other things. They're moving fast, but incrementally enough that it may not be noticable—but I vastly prefer the fast-follow improvements over the 1-3 yearly 'big bang' releases Apple h…

Sounds like something macos had for the last decade or so, or is my memory deceiving me?

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#55

Post by stoolpigeon »

owenwil wrote: post #2

I see a lot of angry posts like this, but fail to understand how it's reflected in reality in 2019—I agree that Windows 10 was a little messy at launch, but it's come a long way from where many of these complaints seem to stem from. Yeah, Windows has a bad rap, but in the last 2-4 years has come leaps and bounds from where it was—implementing great, thoughtfully designed features on a regular basis, for free. With WS…

I did a fresh windows 10 install on a brand new machine within the last month.

There is advertising in the launcher (can't remember what windows calls it but the start menu). There are popups on the desktop from Microsoft that I haven't been able to stop. (Something about "Teams" and it's tied to having installed MS Office).

I had to be sure I bought the Pro version, there are a lot of skus that don't include full disk encryption built in. Setting up bitlocker is not nearly as easy as setting up full disk encryption on Apple or Linux. I don't really consider that an optional feature so I don't understand why it's considered some kind of premium thing.

Did you see in the linked article what it takes to turn off telemetry? Are you saying that this is not longer necessary and now it can be done in an easy, convenient way?

It took me a while to clean up all the garbage apps MS bundle into it.

The things that I see listed in the link are current and real.

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#56

Post by fkdo »

owenwil wrote: post #37
hackcasual wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are tired of an OS that by default phones home about actions you do on it, include advertisement in your start area, and regularly push updates to add new features that also break existing software.

The 'phones home' argument doesn't really add up—there's plenty of control over this at this point, and every OS is calling home, macOS included, to some degree. The advertisements thing happens out of the box, and is trivial to remove (if my memory is correct, Safari harasses you about being the default browser, too, if you try to change it). The updates to add features thing.... isn't an issue for me, but YMMV.

> every OS is calling home to some degree.

It's funny to speak in absolutes. Plenty of operating systems don't phone home regularly, just not ones popular with consumers.

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#57

Post by Scramblejams »

owenwil wrote: post #2

I see a lot of angry posts like this, but fail to understand how it's reflected in reality in 2019—I agree that Windows 10 was a little messy at launch, but it's come a long way from where many of these complaints seem to stem from. Yeah, Windows has a bad rap, but in the last 2-4 years has come leaps and bounds from where it was—implementing great, thoughtfully designed features on a regular basis, for free. With WS…

I'm glad you like it, but I use Windows 10 daily and I have a bunch of ongoing issues with it.

I had to have IT reimage a Win 10 Enterprise machine because Cortana had somehow gotten so screwed up (how? I turn it off) that my Start Menu stopped returning results and I couldn't launch anything by typing.

On another Enterprise machine, my Start Menu periodically starts coming up black and then disappears. I have to force kill the Cortana process to get it working again.

When I switch from corp to outside networking, DNS and routes often stop working correctly and I have to run a magic dance of network reset commands to get things going again, unless I want to reboot. Which I don't.

A few months ago I started up a batch job to run overnight on a Win 10 Pro box. A Windows Update dialog popped up saying it was going to reboot my machine. I clicked the button to reschedule it for the next day. An hour later I passed by the machine and saw it rebooting and applying updates. (After that user hostile experience I switched the machine to Mint and haven't looked back. It ain't perfect, but it's much better, and I actually feel like I own the OS now.)

To stop the telemetry I have to use a Pihole-like setup, which is great ... until I take my laptop somewhere else.

Let's talk maintenance. When something goes wrong, Windows can be brutally complex to troubleshoot. That's why when you start having non-obvious problems with a Windows machine, most IT's knee-jerk answer is to reimage. And that's not even irrational. It's a rational response to the difficulty of diagnosing problems occurring in a complex black box. It ain't worth the time, so just wipe the thing. In contrast, I've never had to reinstall a production Linux machine due to misbehavior -- troubleshooting has always solved the problem.

And force installing Candy Crush?! https://www.howtogeek.com/342871/hey-microsoft-stop-installi... No no no no. Microsoft's treatment of their OS users can feel so exploitive.

For me I place high value on feeling like I own my OS, and that includes requiring a modicum of stability and troubleshooting ease. For my sample size of however many Win10 machines I've dealt with over the years, that bar has not been cleared.

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#58

Post by eslaught »

owenwil wrote: post #37
hackcasual wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are tired of an OS that by default phones home about actions you do on it, include advertisement in your start area, and regularly push updates to add new features that also break existing software.

The 'phones home' argument doesn't really add up—there's plenty of control over this at this point, and every OS is calling home, macOS included, to some degree. The advertisements thing happens out of the box, and is trivial to remove (if my memory is correct, Safari harasses you about being the default browser, too, if you try to change it). The updates to add features thing.... isn't an issue for me, but YMMV.

> Safari harasses you about being the default browser

But does it advertise to you by default? This seems not comparable at all. Pretty much every browser will want you to set it as default (and at least the option to stop the nagging is usually front and center).

Maybe this is just me, but advertising by default in something as basic as a start screen seems very user hostile....

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#60

Post by charlesdaniels »

wvenable wrote: post #45
charlesdaniels wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has used Linux (with a few brief stints into macOS and BSD) for quite some time (since about 2012) coming from Windows before that, I don't understand the people who constantly defend Windows in these types of posts... In principle, the feature set that Windows 10 ships could be useful. I don't find it appealing personally, but if it works well for you then that's great. The issue that I have had is th…

Whatever you're doing, it's not typical. My main desktop has been upgraded from Windows 7, WIndows 8, 8.1, and now Windows 10. I've never have to re-install in all that time. It's stable and fast. No update issues. This is really the norm. And I'm not particularly easy on Windows -- I have tons of development tools, games, customizations. I've changed hardware.

> This is really the norm.

Again anecdotally; most of my friend group (professional developers and CS students) who run Windows seem to constantly complain about performance issues and bugs (UI issues, not sleeping correctly on laptops, etc.). I don't think anyone has ever said "hey guys, come check out this slick new feature" or really anything positive at all about it.

> No update issues.

Which has happened to me. And seemingly many others on the 'net.

> Whatever you're doing, it's not typical.

That's what I'm trying to figure out. I was under the impression that running Steam games (on my personal machine) or Eclipse (in my professional Windows experience) were more or less the happy path for the use cases of gaming and development respectively.

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