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Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

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Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#141

Post by computerex »

pishpash wrote: post #115
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…

After OS X, has anybody ever switched back to Windows from a Mac OS for daily use (i.e. not for a specific application that is only available on Windows)? I don't even want to look at Windows now. It's so unsightly in a way that you don't notice until you switch away.

I have so far on two occasions swapped work given MBP's for Windows laptops after having made considerable effort to get used to osx. I myself own a MBP and my daily driver OS is manjaro linux.

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#142

Post by joyjoyjoy »

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…

"The early 2000's were a period of especially low usability for Microsoft's products."

Windows 2000 was actually a pretty stable system, considering MS previous standards.

"user. Over several years, I tried to convince him to switch to Mac OS X, with examples like:"

For me Mac OS was always a terrible system. I was forced to work with some Mac OS during my PhD studies in the lab. Terrible. Today Mac OS is a tax for people who are either to stupid or to lazy to put a decent linux on their machine.

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#143

Post by alexis_fr »

pfranz wrote: post #126
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…

I grew up with Windows. My jobs used Unix/Linux and I switched to Mac at home before Vista came out. I got a job using Windows during the Windows 8-10 transition. During that 10 year gap I'd help friends and family setup printers and stuff. I was aghast at the things that hadn't changed in the 10+ years. I really wished I had written it up because I fell back into things quickly. One thing I still remember is how oft…

Clicking around.

For example, setting your computer’s IP or gateway. Control panel -> Network -> right-click on the “IP interfaces” among a list of 5 abscon names -> Details -> Advanced -> Details -> And you can’t freely type the new IP, you have to use their fields with 4 numbers separated by dots.

Everything was like this. Installing Maven? You need to set a system property, it’s 15 clicks including 6 on a “Details” or “Advanced settings” button. They wanted to hide complexity behind “Advanced” buttons but they hid the wrong things, because each dialog was full of info you’d never use, and what you wanted was inevitably under the “Advanced” button.

Installing new software? Welcome to the installation assistant. We’ll guide you through the 20 clicks, including the mass-unticking of additional software we’ll inevitably select by default, notably the Ask Toolbar when you install Java. If you’re setting up a dev machine you had a dozen programs to set up, each of them requiring a dozen steps of a dozen clicks.

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#144

Post by computerex »

robocat wrote: post #137
babypuncher wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't the typical user experience if you power on your computer more than once every few months.

No, but it is a typical experience for many developers that need to test our versions of IE. Why do Microsoft think it is OK to waste our time when we are validating against their software? Why is MS making the work developers and testers need to do so hard and wasteful? At the time I was using Windows, and downloaded these VMs, and I swore black and blue at Microsoft for the very same thing GP noticed. And the VMs e…

I use the Microsoft IE vm's to do IE testing in virtualbox and I have never had to install an update.

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#145

Post by tsimionescu »

SXX wrote: post #81
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

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.

As far as I know, Linux doesn't support library hotswapping any more than Windows does, so if you have a security update in libc for example, you can either manually restart all programs which use it, or reboot the system. Unless you do one of these, you don't have the security patch up and running, right?

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#146

Post by computerex »

linuseouyt wrote: post #82
parliament32 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One thing that's different is that you'll be never forced to update on linux and you will never be forced to reboot, even on Ubuntu.

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#147

Post by potentialverand »

pas wrote: post #97
8sleef wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 7 with its constant mandatory automatic updates did it for me... Windows, never again, and I switched happily to Ubuntu.

Chrome and Firefox auto updates too. But those are fast, done in the background and they don't require reboots. Windows is still terrible at this.

I don't think updating an application is really comparable to updating an operating system. The OS is vastly more complex.

Nevertheless, Firefox on Linux via package manager definitely requires a restart. Typically I know when Firefox has been updated because I get a window saying "your browser needs to restart".

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/9s78fh/sick_of_get...

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#148

Post by dangus »

userbinator wrote: post #130
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…

The early 2000's were a period of especially low usability for Microsoft's products. If you thought that was bad... look at the "app-ombinations" which pass for productivity software today. Wide expanses of useless whitespace, low-contrast ultra-thin fonts, monochrome hieroglyphic icons everywhere, patronising "cute" and unhelpful messages, the ridiculous levels of bloat, and of course the pervasive spyware --- or "t…

.

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#149

Post by computerex »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #118
stephenr wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We clearly have different ideas of “worse”.

Perhaps with you, but looking at the market share he is mostly right.

To be fair, the market share being dominated by Windows has a lot to do with history and strategic deals Microsoft made with the OEM's. Vast majority of devices ship with Windows.

Re: Bill Gates on Windows Usability (2003)

#150

Post by TheKarateKid »

Lammy wrote: post #120
TheKarateKid wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, ME was the result of a development disaster similar to the one which resulted in Vista. Microsoft was planning on building an entirely new Internet-focused consumer version of NT. It was too ambitious for its time, so to meet deadlines, most of it was scrapped and some UI elements were backported into an updated Windows 98 which became ME. This is why Explorer for both ME and 2000 look similar despite havin…

Windows codename Neptune: https://microsoft.fandom.com/wiki/Microsoft_Neptune It’s interesting to see twenty year old experiments with flat UI designs considering how dominant that style is today with Android 5, iOS 7, Windows 8, etc.

Indeed. Ironically, I think I remember reading that the Neptune apps’ UI was HTML-based, since Microsoft wanted IE to power everything.

And now many apps use HTML/JS/CSS for styling and rendering.

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