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If you must run Windows 10

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Re: If you must run Windows 10

#81

Post by mcny »

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…

The main pain points for me come from Windows not being Unix-y enough (or at all). WSL2 will probably help with this. I am still at 1803 on my work computer so not holding my breath for WSL2 any time soon.

It isn't really Windows' fault that my work computer has an i5-8500 six core processor coupled with a single DIMM of 8 GB and a $20 hard disk. I won't blame Windows for that. I won't blame Windows for Symantec Endpoint Protection that just has to check every single file just as I need to do npm install. My manager is sympathetic but we are powerless.

I want to say something good about Windows as well: as far as I can see, there is no memory leak in Windows. Windows 10 is pretty solid.

I still think there are two very low hanging fruits:

1. Prohibit OEM partners from shipping Windows 10-based PCs booting from a mechanical hard disk (yes even "SSHD"). Vendors can add a mechanical hard disk but may not boot from it.

2. By default, no automatic reboot without manual consent especially for consumers.

Long term, look very hard into what kind of update requires a reboot and why. Be willing to break compatibility where required.

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#82

Post by throw0101a »

_ugfj wrote: post #79

This is so tiresome. I posted this to reddit: I installed my first Linux in 1994, before there was a Linux 1.0. I use Linux to this day on my router and my server. I have been using Linux as my daily driver 2004-2017. You can't say I haven't tried. I maintain anyone advocating to use Linux on a notebook has Stockholm syndrome or more amicably, uses a very narrow set of hardware and services ("plain" wifi, no bluetoot…

> Your choices include using Ubuntu or a similar system where the six month OS upgrade will break your system so badly you won't be able to work for days.

Or Ubuntu LTS, where you only have to worry about things every five years (or two if you want to update).

This is what is used by my local helpdesk, and things generally haven't been a problem from what I can tell.

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#83

Post by throw0101a »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #9

LTSC is not intended as a desktop operating system. What people should be looking for is Enterprise: Which has all of the telemetry 0 options and such, but still works with modern Windows applications. It's highly likely especially after Windows 7 goes EOL, you'll start seeing a lot more consumer applications that depend on Windows 10 functionality that's not going to work in LTSC.

> What people should be looking for is Enterprise:

Does it take more effort to de-crappify non-LTSC Enterprise? Things like games, Store, Cortana, etc.

Perhaps people are going with Enterprise LTSC because 'regular' Enterprise is still filled with too much garbage. Perhaps that should be telling Microsoft something.

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#84

Post by bpyne »

gardnr wrote: post #44
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…

I subscribe to the conspiracy theory that there is a concerted effort from within microsoft to "engage in the community" where they encourage their developers and customers to respond to online posts that may be considered "anti-microsoft". Read everything with scepticism and check posting history.

Sorry, no, not an MS employee. I use MBP at home and would use it at work if I had the choice. But, the Win10 engineers did a nice job in making the os usable. I haven't once had a BSoD that wiped out my setup while testing software. I can go weeks without rebooting and don't experience a slowdown.

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#85

Post by lozenge »

nvrspyx wrote: post #63
owenwil wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

macOS does not harass you about being the default browser. All it does is show a separator in the dropdown menu [1], which I've always assumed to indicate that it's "built-in". Meanwhile, Windows will show "Recommended" next to Edge, show a pop-up asking you to try Edge before switching the default browser, and then continue to harass you every time you use Bing from a different browser on Windows. Chrome does the la…

Oh, and then it will still open Edge from Cortana queries and other places.

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#86

Post by semi-extrinsic »

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…

> full system-wide indexing and instant search

We have been promised this since (at least) Longhorn. It's never materialised. I don't see it in my W10 machine (it reports the latest feature update as v1809 2019-06C).

In fact I just tried going to C: and searching for the word "journal". I am greeted with the familiar crawling green progress bar and "Working on it..." which has been there now for a full three minutes without showing me a single result. I'll cancel the search now.

There is so much else that is beyond broken. Layers upon layers of UX to peel back when you try to change something. Start in W10-styled "PC Settings"->"Accounts", end up in WinXP styled lusrmgr.msc to accomplish what I want.

Every time they add a feature, it doesn't get integrated with the old ones, so the old ones just live alongside. It's bloat upon bloat on the back of a snail riding a tortoise.

The MS corporate experience is just as bad. We have multiple coexisting Sharepoint versions, because the porting of workflows from the old one was too much work and too expensive, as they were not internally compatible. The other day, my colleague was trying to open a PowerPoint from a Sharepoint workspace, and was met with the error message

"(Dogfood only) An unexpected error has occured."

Then there is OneDrive, where you can also create shared folders, but they are not the same as Sharepoint. Except if you access them through Explorer, where they look the same. Except that in OneDrive you can create a folder in the root and it syncs, but if you do the same in the Sharepoint it just makes a local folder on your machine without any feesback. If you want to share a OneDrive folder with someone in another org, 95% of the time it fails. For obscure reasons, frequently that the two orgs' sign-on methods clash.

For communication there is Yammer, and Teams, and Skype4Business, and Skype, none of which can cooperate. Oh, and apparently one more called Kaizala. Oh, and there is chat inside all Office documents, which is separate. And if you reply to people's comments in documents, they get email notifications for those. Sometimes you need to use the web app to make teleconferencing work. Other times the web app fails.

You can assign yourself or others tasks in Teams, or in Outlook, or in Planner, or in ToDo, or in a separate Tasks app. None of those work together.

If Douglas Adams were still alive, he'd be paying Microsoft for inspiration for new material.

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#87

Post by easymodex »

charlesdaniels wrote: post #34
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…

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…

I really don't know, but I've done a lot of crazy stuff, including reg editing. I'm using it for all kinds of development, running virtual machines, web dev, game dev, music production, downloading and installing apps from unofficial sources. I use xshell for ssh stuff and cygwin (I don't like the regular cmd and powershell). The only time I had to reinstall it in the last 4 years is when I wanted to remove some bloat, tracking and uninstalling some default apps. I did it all at once and then restarted and I must've broken something. Other than that it's all good, everything works and I'm used to it.

I also have a macbook pro now and it's confusing to me still, but I'm willing to give it a shot. Either way windows 10 is more than adequate, as far as stability goes it's great, I can't say for sure about performance but looks fine to me. Or maybe I just won the win10 lottery or something, "it just works" for me. Either way it doesn't feel like there should be a better or worse OS, they just have somewhat different flows and each has their upsides and downsides.

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#88

Post by secabeen »

Look at his list of terrible things in Windows, and compare to MacOS. Other than telemetry, MacOS is very similar:

* no Cortana (MacOS has Siri on all systems)

* no semiannual feature upgrades (Mac OS upgrades annually)

* not a single tile on the default Start menu (UI difference, mostly personal taste)

* telemetry can be set to 0 (the lowest level) (MacOS has some telemetry, although the specific amount is less, and Apple has been a lot less transparent about what they track)

* no "Show suggestions occassionally in Start" (This is stupid, but easy to turn off)

* despite some misbelief, WSL and Hyper-V work just fine (Apple doesn't offer virtualization at all, you have to buy a commercial product)

* receives security and stability updates for ten years (unlike Windows 10 Home & Pro versions, which reach "end of service" after just 18 months from their initial release) (MacOS only receives security updates for 2 years, approx.)

* no Metro/Windows 8-style/Modern/Windows Store/Universal/Windows apps like Store, Edge, Calendar, Camera, News, Weather, etc. (Apple has all of these apps in the App store too)

* no zombie games like Candy Crush Soda Saga, Bubble Witch 3 Saga, March of Empires, etc. that refuse to die (part of Microsoft's plan for "post-license monetization opportunities beyond initial license revenues" much like the recent Mail app debacle) (Plenty of these in Macos)

All in all, the differences here are pretty minor. Unless you're willing to run Linux on your desktop, your only options are pretty balanced in the unpleasantness they offer. MS supports Windows 10 for many years, Apple requires a full OS upgrade every two years. Both have App stores full of both good and bad apps. MS does a little more pushing of apps and suggestions, but it all can be disabled, and with Group Policies, it can be disabled centrally.

The main difference is in the telemetry, and MS gives you plenty of options (at install, even) to turn those down/disable those.

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#89

Post by plorkyeran »

eslaught wrote: post #58
owenwil wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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....

I get semi-regular notifications in macOS telling me I should give Safari another try and I haven't found any way to turn them off.

Re: If you must run Windows 10

#90

Post by ocdtrekkie »

throw0101a wrote: post #83
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #9

LTSC is not intended as a desktop operating system. What people should be looking for is Enterprise: Which has all of the telemetry 0 options and such, but still works with modern Windows applications. It's highly likely especially after Windows 7 goes EOL, you'll start seeing a lot more consumer applications that depend on Windows 10 functionality that's not going to work in LTSC.

> What people should be looking for is Enterprise: Does it take more effort to de-crappify non-LTSC Enterprise? Things like games, Store, Cortana, etc. Perhaps people are going with Enterprise LTSC because 'regular' Enterprise is still filled with too much garbage. Perhaps that should be telling Microsoft something.

The problem here is your misunderstanding that the store is a problem: Many drivers and Windows features are now available via the Store (Here's the Intel Graphics Control Panel: https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9NDLCLMMTMRC), and this will continue over time. Literally Notepad is transitioning to distributing via the store next year. I think even Apple transitioned to recommending the Store-based install of iTunes on Windows.

Cortana is being phased out of Windows 10 into a separate app, and eventually a replaceable component. Enterprise should install without any games/ads AFAIK.

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