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Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

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Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#101

Post by andrekandre »

machello13 wrote: post #85
wayneftw wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

the other really great life-saver for me is the proxy icon on windows... just drag it out to another app to open itinerary another editor/viewer, or right click it to get the path and click one of the folders in the pop up to open it in finder.... always miss that in windows and linux... always hunting for where the file i’m currently viewing is

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#102

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#103

Post by shrubble »

jml7c5 wrote: post #89
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 t…

Skype for Business, signed in and loaded - 157MB RAM.

Microsoft Teams, signed in and loaded - 300MB+ .

They still have a lot of work to do...

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#104

Post by icedchai »

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

You reboot your server every week? Whatever for?

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#105

Post by waterhouse »

jeieo9nkfkr wrote: post #100
belltaco wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wasn't the CEO.

When he sent the email. Who was CEO when the sprawling mess he was complaining about was planned and implemented?

Wiki says: "Steve Ballmer replaced Gates as CEO in 2000".

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#106

Post by [deleted] »

DenseComet wrote: post #96
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

Try out Ubuntu Livepatch. It can update the kernel without reboots, which is likely the cause of the message.

[deleted]

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#107

Post by Spooky23 »

gist wrote: post #37
enitihas wrote: post #18

Bill 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…

It’s a company that made a lot of millionaires has had its share of problems.

2003 wasn’t a good time for Microsoft, but events like internet worms made them double down on security and made it a stronger company.

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#108

Post by Rapzid »

riffraff wrote: post #88
partiallypro wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not to mention plug-and-play finally started coming into its own. XP started the trend of having the massive generic driver repository so you could actually get your NIC to work so you could DL your other drivers without needing the CD/floppy with the NIC drivers :) Oh man, XP was great.

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#109

Post by asveikau »

tinus_hn wrote: post #95
riffraff wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Don’t forget Windows ME which was truly a turd in a class of its own.

I still don't completely understand why they didn't make Win2k into a "consumer" product. A lot of techies here who installed Windows themselves in that era probably skipped ME and went to that. But all the consumer PCs shipped with 98 or ME.

I remembering hearing at the time that this was about hardware support and/or app compatibility. But my cynical side just thinks they wanted to justify charging more for a workstation SKU for another release cycle.

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#110

Post by dingo_bat »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #80
wayneftw wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> > Just drag/drop a PDF to a printer spool window, and it will print; > this is just the most obtuse way of doing things. Perhaps that was a bad example of the incredible leg-up Mac OS X had over Windows around printing... all-around, printing was so much more straightforward on the Mac. To extend the example: (a) printing to PDF has always worked - no need to install a 3rd party "PDF printer"; (b) PDFs and print sp…

> b) PDFs and print spool jobs are indistinguishable,

Then what does "drag a PDF to a print spool" mean?

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