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Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

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Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#81

Post by SXX »

linuseouyt wrote: post #59
stephenr wrote: post #20

I 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 have an Ubuntu dedicated server. I reboot it every Sunday, yet there is rarely a week where on Friday I don't see this when SSHing in due to auto-updates: 0 packages can be updated. 0 updates are security updates. *** System restart required *** Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS Linux ubuntu 4.15.0-34-generic #37-Ubuntu SMP Mon Aug 27 15:21:48 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

In 99% of cases this is efficiently mean that your kernel been upgraded, but it's doesn't affect system usability at all and rarely affect security. I have servers that been continuously upgraded over years, never got single reboot and still function properly.

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#82

Post by linuseouyt »

parliament32 wrote: post #74
linuseouyt wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an Ubuntu dedicated server. I reboot it every Sunday, yet there is rarely a week where on Friday I don't see this when SSHing in due to auto-updates: 0 packages can be updated. 0 updates are security updates. *** System restart required *** Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS Linux ubuntu 4.15.0-34-generic #37-Ubuntu SMP Mon Aug 27 15:21:48 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

This is just an Ubuntu-ism. Linux doesn't require a reboot for anything other than kernel updates (and dbus in special cases). On a side note it's a bad idea to run Ubuntu on a server in prod. Ubuntu is great for desktop and pretty trash for everything else. You'd be better off just running Debian, it's a lot more stable.

> Linux doesn't require a reboot for anything other than kernel updates

You can say the same about Windows updates.

Ubuntu has a new kernel update every 3 weeks, unless CVEs force sooner ones.

https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Kernel/StableReleaseCadence

Anyway, parent was saying that Windows is shit because it forces frequent updates. Ubuntu, which as you say it's the closest to a user friendly Linux dist does the same thing.

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#83

Post by SXX »

parliament32 wrote: post #74
linuseouyt wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an Ubuntu dedicated server. I reboot it every Sunday, yet there is rarely a week where on Friday I don't see this when SSHing in due to auto-updates: 0 packages can be updated. 0 updates are security updates. *** System restart required *** Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS Linux ubuntu 4.15.0-34-generic #37-Ubuntu SMP Mon Aug 27 15:21:48 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

This is just an Ubuntu-ism. Linux doesn't require a reboot for anything other than kernel updates (and dbus in special cases). On a side note it's a bad idea to run Ubuntu on a server in prod. Ubuntu is great for desktop and pretty trash for everything else. You'd be better off just running Debian, it's a lot more stable.

In most cases this is exactly kernel updates that Ubuntu ask reboot for. You can just go check contents of this file to see what packages requested upgrade:

   /var/run/reboot-required.pkgs

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#84

Post by svnpenn »

It seems they haven’t really learned.

Granted, some aspects are better. You can get to the .NET download in about 10 seconds [1]. But, why can’t they make Visual C++ easy? What does it have to look like this?: [2]. Or this?: [3]. Why can’t they just have this?: [4]. Why does it need to be buried in a blog post, or a help article?

And then there’s the new Microsoft Terminal, which was only available in the Microsoft Store until people complained [5].

[1] https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-core

[2] https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/jagbal/2017/09/04/where-...

[3] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-...

[4] https://microsoft.com/download/visual-c

[5] https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/1386#issuecomme...

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#85

Post by machello13 »

wayneftw wrote: post #66
TimTheTinker wrote: post #52

The early 2000's were a period of especially low usability for Microsoft's products. At the time, I had a roommate who was a die-hard Windows user. Over several years, I tried to convince him to switch to Mac OS X, with examples like: (a) Just drag/drop a PDF to a printer spool window, and it will print; (b) to install an app, usually you just have to drag it to the Applications folder; to uninstall it, simply drag i…

I'm not sure if you're serious, but > Just drag/drop a PDF to a printer spool window, and it will print; this is just the most obtuse way of doing things. > usually you just have to drag it to the Applications folder; to uninstall it, simply drag it to the trash; So does this, and unreliable as you noted - i.e. usually . But, ugggh... dragging things to other things to do things though? There's a reason why certain l…

Dragging things around is not required on macOS. There are always ways to do things without it. It's just that it's a generally pretty intuitive way to accomplish a task, and it's something that macOS embraced in a way that Windows never did. Want to trash an app? Drag it to the trash. Want to print a PDF? Drag it onto a printer. You can do it other ways, of course — right click and "move to trash", or right-click and "print".

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#86

Post by Nas808 »

Hamuko wrote: post #8
mttjj wrote: post #7

The Twitter screengrab is only showing part of the PDF. Be sure to click the link in the tweet for the full email chain.

451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons: Sorry, this content is not available in your region.

The lazy way of conforming to the GDPR

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#87

Post by gist »

signal11 wrote: post #49
gist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 custo…

> As a result lots of big companies have competing “pulls” — eg fiefdoms.

Exactly. Why? Because they suck plain and simple. My wife (a highly paid and educated professional) just wasted 3 hours today trying to get a simple new cable box installed from Verizon. Earlier she tried to have Best Buy do a simple TV pickup and ended up having to cut her losses cancel Best Buy and just get 800junk to pick it up (at a higher cost). There is ZERO reason large companies can't get things like that right that they do over and over and over again every day.

I say this as someone who has actually operated and run a small company and had employees. Yes it was not a large corporation. But it had way less resources available and very generally not even enough people to get done what needed to get done. Don't let anyone tell you different. It's the same thing people have had shoved down their throats ever since (ironically) 1981 when the IBM PC came out along with that crap that Microsoft put on it. 'It's not us it's you'. People just buy that thinking and that is why companies get away with what they do. (There is also consumers and businesses making poor choices and not wanting to pay for quality for sure).

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#88

Post by riffraff »

partiallypro wrote: post #69
TimTheTinker wrote: post #52

The early 2000's were a period of especially low usability for Microsoft's products. At the time, I had a roommate who was a die-hard Windows user. Over several years, I tried to convince him to switch to Mac OS X, with examples like: (a) Just drag/drop a PDF to a printer spool window, and it will print; (b) to install an app, usually you just have to drag it to the Applications folder; to uninstall it, simply drag i…

Still to this day people view Windows through the lense of XP experiences. I always wonder how much damage that era did. People claimed to "love" XP, but they are all rose tinted in memory. Everyone hated XP until SP2 and SP3. The Security Center was something everyone hated too. But yeah, some things it did really well, but others not so much. 10 is so much better than people give it credit for, and yes there are st…

People loved XP coming from '98 which was way more prone to crash, BSOD, data losses etc, from what I recall.

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#89

Post by jml7c5 »

stephenr wrote: post #20

I 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…

From a user's perspective, there are signs it's getting better. The most noticeable is that applications that were unloved for years, those low-priority no-group-wants-to-own-them ones like the terminal and Notepad, are finally getting attention. It feels like in the past development was much more design-by-committee with little room for anyone to actually fix broken or substandard things.

The biggest problem seems to be that there is insufficient pushback against bloat. E.g., the calculator is 10MB and takes a quarter second to load on a very fast PC. Lots of little things like that. The whole push for the a new, separate mobile/tablet/Metro environment was a major mistake. It's left a schism between the extant and greenfield worlds. This is exemplified by the disaster of what are effectively _two_ control panels, each of which can only control half of the OS's settings.

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#90

Post by willtim »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #56
jammygit wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Take a peek at KDE sometime; it's my favorite (and IMO most usable) DE of the pack. Xfce is at the "light but jank" end of the pool. Try changing your password via Settings: you can't. Thunar, its file manager, is extremely basic. Dolphin, KDE's file manager, is even better than Windows's Explorer (you have split directory views, way more options, terminal integration, etc.), which always amazed me. How is this free…

What about the Deepin desktop? I haven't tried it but many magazine sites say it's now the most polished. I'm fairly happy with i3, until I need to plug in additional screens...
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