Are former employees allowed to share emails like this?
Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)
41–50 of 242 posts
Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)
#42It's such an anachronism that Windows still needs to reboot to update itself
I’m on the latest MacBook and it has to reboot to update itself. So... what are you trying to say here?
Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with your assessment, and as a daily Windows user I believe I can answer your question: because the alternatives are still somehow worse.
We clearly have different ideas of “worse”.
Yes, and? When it comes to "what OS should I use on my computer", is it your assertion that I should use your definition instead of my own?
If so, you're probably a Linux Desktop evangelist.
Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)
#44Good times. I remember when this was part of the court case. Sounds like what we need is for Tim Cook to try to use iOS 13 and lose access to one of his favorite apps by upgrading to Catalina, and then to get a crumb or something into his keyboard.
I'd love for him to use a Mac with two monitors and wrestle with his dock constantly switching from one to the other with no way to lock the dock and keep sane window setups.
I’m not sure “the dock moves to the display where your mouse has hit the bottom of the screen” is quite the problem you’re making it out to be, compared with the founder of Microsoft calling their pride and joy a dumpster fire of usability.
Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)
#45I very rarely use Windows now (at the time this happened I was working with it M-F doing support) - I’m not convinced it’s any better now is it? I downloaded an “IETester” image from Microsoft to confirm behaviour of a clients site from a Windows PC - it literally spent more time installing updates and rebooting than I did either downloading the entire vm image file or actually testing the thing I wanted to test. How…
I installed Manjaro xfce recently and have been extremely impressed by how easy so many things are. I had been using gnome before that, Mac before that, and yet earlier Microsoft had not added telemetry so I used windows
Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)
#46The way Bill Gates writes in that e-mail doesn't seem as elegant as his published writings. And he calls it the "Add or remove programs place", what a non-techie way to describe it.
Yes, I imagine an email doesn't undergo the same editorial scrutiny that a published work does. Also, I'm sure Bill is just as "techie" as the rest of us, despite how he refers to the Control Panel.
He wasn’t wrong about it being all crapped up.
Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)
#47Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seem to be assuming that behavior is a daily occurrence for most users? End users are not updating dependencies or even installing that much new software on a weekly basis, let alone daily. Also a lot of software wants to reboot for no reason other than “just to be sure”. That’s hardly a Windows issue when a random developer includes behavior that isn’t needed.
None of the rebooting or installing I’m talking about was new or third party software. Just whatever the hell they call windows update now.
I see. So you downloaded an out of date VM.
Try grabbing an ISO of Ubuntu 16.04 and see what happens after you run apt-get upgrade? Spoiler: you’ll be asked to reboot to update kernels. Maybe more than once!
Again what you saw is not a daily thing but very specific to a certain set of circumstances. Not sure how you came to extrapolate that as a daily usability issue.
Maybe learn how to measure better?
Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)
#49Bill was doing a fantastic job here, but it is a bit too sad to see how most of the executives in the mail show much less concern for the company's and customer's goals, and more concerns on who should own the problem. I think this is a bit too common in any corporate environment.
> Bill was doing a fantastic job here Fantastic job of what? Building a company that has a typical type of organization, employees and incentives that this can happen at? It's like the CEO of Comcast (Brian Roberts) going into a Comcast store (in stealth; or phoning them) and then experiencing the frustration of a normal customer and the idiots they deal with. There is ZERO reason a large company with resources can't…
> There is ZERO reason a large company with resources can't make sure that things like this don't happen
IMHO, large companies don’t always work in perfect, laser-focused speculation.
As a result lots of big companies have competing “pulls” — eg fiefdoms. Interference from investors. New CEOs who are still finding their feet. Lame duck CEOs. Regulatory distractions.
In theory a company would be laser focused on customer satisfaction and doing the best possible thing for their customers. In practice these gaps in BigCo attention gives nimble newcomers a chance to shine.
Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd love for him to use a Mac with two monitors and wrestle with his dock constantly switching from one to the other with no way to lock the dock and keep sane window setups.
I use a rMBP 2015 with two monitors (in addition to the laptop monitor) daily. One over HDMI and the second via Thunderbolt/DisplayPort to HDMI (so two cables into the rMBP). I’ve never had this issue? What is your setup? I always thought it was funny that in a Mac you can’t set your default monitor, but I’ve never run into the issue you are describing.
Click on one monitor and then move mouse to another monitor and move mouse down to the edge (without clicking anywhere). Of all alien, obscure and mind bogingly bizzare ux behaviors this would be probably in my top 5.