Windows needs a change in priorities • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#251

Post by seanp2k2 » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 2:40 AM UTC

I don't see any mention of Cortana or how hard that is to rip out of the OS, but I think it's worth mentioning. The tool called "Everything" by https://www.voidtools.com/ is so insanely better than Cortana and blazingly fast that I'm not sure why they're still trying to push Cortana.

https://www.getblackbird.net/ helps a lot and it's one of the first things I do to Windows installs when I need to use them, but it can break stuff if you're too aggressive with it (e.g. Windows store / Xbox stuff, which for some reason is how to record screenshot videos in Windows... https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/record-a-game-cl... ).

The article also didn't mention the Microsoft Store and how awful everything around that experience is, especially compared to macOS, where the worst part is how signing apps works ( https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Se... vs https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/msix/package/signin... ).

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#252

Post by sgjohnson » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 2:41 AM UTC

petilon wrote: post #134

coryrc wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody at Microsoft who has decision-making authority actually cares "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste" -- Steve Jobs

You could say that about the post-Steve-Jobs Apple as well.

Is that really true though?

Yes, the UIs Apple make are no longer anywhere near as intuitive as they were in Steve Jobs’ days, but Apple definitely still have their soul. You don’t even have to look further than the latest iMacs.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#253

Post by stg22 » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 2:41 AM UTC

robertwt7 wrote: post #115

anon1900 wrote: post #28

As an engineer working at Microsoft in Windows, I 100% agree...it's just as frustrating seeing these from inside as well (edit: from throwaway as a protective measure)

just wondering 1 thing.. is there anyone in microsoft that looks at the feedback hub or forum at least? They never seem to listen to ANY feedback..

Microsoft's OS business is a classic "cash cow". It's very big and very profitable, but has limited growth prospects and its revenue is currently growing at only single digit percentage points per year. Every MBA course teaches that the way to handle a cash cow is to milk as much profits from the users and spend as little money maintaining it as you can get away with. You do this to maximise the amount you have to invest in other, faster growing businesses that will be the future of the company, even if it causes long-term damage to the cash cow. MS have been milking their OS and Office businesses to fund their cloud and XBox businesses and, so far, it's a textbook example of the strategy succeeding; the cloud already brings in more revenue for MS than Windows and is still growing much faster than it.

The OS features that are getting attention, such as VS Code and WSL are ones that have synergy with the more important businesses and help them sell. Things like fixing the safari park of UI conventions don't have that synergy, so the resources that could improve them go to the other businesses. The ads and forced sign-ins are also part of this; in the long-term, they'll drive some users away from Windows, but right now, they funnel money and users to places that should matter more to the company in the long-term.

MS aren't listening to Windows feedback - and the internal feedback from people working on the product is usually part of it in these situations -, because what's good for Windows isn't what's good for MS.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#254

Post by barbs » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 2:41 AM UTC

shp0ngle wrote: post #238

Well, what are you going to do. Not use Windows? Linux still barely works in 2022 (and if one distro will become really popular, with a big investment of money like Ubuntu did once, they will ad ads, like Ubuntu added Amazon), and MacOS works just on Apple HW (and has ads for Apple services baked-in too, just less obnoxious). You can use ChromeOS! Which is literally ad tech. Pick your poison.

> "Linux still barely works in 2022"

What do you mean by this?

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#255

Post by barbs » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 2:42 AM UTC

hnthrowaway0315 wrote: post #127

Windows 11 is probably the last straw that pushes me to Linux. I'm still using Windows 10 on my Lenovo 470S laptop, but my next one is going to be a Linux one. I still have to keep a Windows gig somewhere to play old school games but that's pretty much all I need. I'll also try to avoid any job that requires MS Office. Nowadays I have to "Save as" to easily navigate to a local folder, otherwise it takes quite a few s…

Out of curiosity, what games do you play? Would wine and/or a virtual machine suffice?

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#256

Post by sgjohnson » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 2:43 AM UTC

jart wrote: post #156

spaetzleesser wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want Linux to compete, you need spreadsheet software as good as Excel and a word processor that's 100% compatible with Word. I tried to use LibreOffice for a while but Calc ins't there yet and I had tons of formatting problems when I sent documents to Words users. After dealing with this for a while you just give up and start using Office again.

I don't want to pull back the curtain too much or tramp on everyone's hopes, but Linux can't compete with Microsoft because of UEFI. The PCs being sold today only allow Microsoft's software to run. In order to distribute a Linux distro, you have to ask Microsoft to give you a shim where they've signed your private key, so that you can share your own signed kernel builds with others. Therefore you can't publish a Linu…

Is there a source for this?

And also, can’t you just disable Secure Boot?

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#257

Post by seanp2k2 » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 2:43 AM UTC

_Algernon_ wrote: post #66

rbut wrote: post #56

Talking about dark patterns, here are a couple I've noticed. In Windows, I'm very careful about NOT signing in to anything Microsoft, unless I have to. I make sure I use a local administrator account instead of a Microsoft account. Yesterday I had to open Microsoft Edge for something that would only work in Edge, and lo-and-behold, Microsoft had taken my Xbox Game Pass sign-in and applied to Edge, then informed me th…

Looks like switching to linux when win 7 support ended was the right move. All my games may randomly freeze for no discernible reason, but at least I don't have to deal with that BS.

I've had the freezes happen when my nvidia drivers weren't properly installed and when the kernel wasn't using the nvidia DKMS modules. glxgears should run super fast at a consistent framerate. Check out https://gist.github.com/wangg12/c69b56272eaeed1aba9515d19f55...

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#258

Post by the_snooze » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 2:44 AM UTC

GekkePrutser wrote: post #214

the_snooze wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. All these posts that say "oh just use Linux, it's compatible!" must be from naive junior devs who never have had to to deal with external organizations (especially governments) that require you to use their Word templates and share PowerPoint slides on their Teams calls.

Teams works on Linux now. It's a pig of an app especially on Mac (haven't tried Linux enough to verify) but it runs. On my Mac it takes a minute to start (fast M1 system), randomly crashes or hangs and often uses more than half my memory. But it is supported :)

It "works," but not well enough for my purposes. I need to be able to share PowerPoint on Teams with my full slides visible to participants, and speaker notes visible only to me. There's no native PowerPoint for Linux, so that's a no-go.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#259

Post by jiggawatts » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 2:44 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #236

jiggawatts wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also that they "decided" that none of their core customer bases actually matter. They no longer cater to the needs of anyone . Some random examples: Enterprise -- It's cloud or the highway. You're either migrating to Azure and Microsoft 365, or stuck in dead-ends with virtually no maintenance/attention. Core products have just been left twisting in the wind. Active Directory for example has had no major featu…

There is no supported GUI framework that isn't a dead-end, formally unsupported, or restricted to "mobile phone app" levels. Win32?

Dead end.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#260

Post by causality0 » Mon, Mar 21, 2022, 2:46 AM UTC

I switched over to castrated versions of Windows a while ago, like AME and Ninjutsu OS. The polite word is "custom" versions, but I call them castrated versions because they can't fuck me anymore.