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Windows needs a change in priorities

den.dev

681–690 of 884 posts

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#681
post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When Microsoft tries to make Windows more Mac-like Just a consideration: Aren't nearly all users who love the Apple/Mac experience already in the Apple ecosystem? In other words: Should Microsoft not rather assume that making Windows more Mac-like might be a bad idea considering their core customers?

> Aren't nearly all users who love the Apple/Mac experience already in the Apple ecosystem? Not sure. Macs are not that available and, in some places, are prohibitively expensive. Others would love the everything-integrated experience while using software that runs only on Windows. I'm not sure Microsoft even has that "core customer" as neatly defined as Apple (or Linux). Getting a Mac or a Linux box is a deliberate…

> I'm very sure they have a list of personas already built for that.

At least considering the product policy that Microsoft currently applies to Windows, I tend to doubt that. ;-)

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> windows OS and browser devs should be given i3s w/4gb of ram And slow HDDs. The gains of going from an HDD to an SSD have been squandered. The time it takes my computer to boot to a usable desktop feels the same as the bad old days with spinning HDDs. I remember when SSDs where new and YouTubers were making videos of booting into Win7 with Office, etc. open in seconds. WTF happened?

I still boot in seconds with Windows 10 and NVMe disks.

Wait a few years until it's undoed.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take info sec seriously that should be immediate reason to ban one note, IMHO. Because if you are not trying to, MS will just spill company data to your private accounts for you!

It’s not just OneNote. They are absolutely confused, as an organisation, about accounts, data privacy and data security. I can’t, in theory, access my work’s OneDrive from my personal machines, due to a required SSO on top of Microsoft’s, and a VPN requirement. But somehow there are some of my personal files in my work’s OneDrive. I don’t know how this happened. I can’t log into our VPN as it’s machine-locked (it che…

"emails from Microsoft about an Azure Enterprise agreement" == phishing

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#684
I am the most ardent Windows evangelist I know. I have spent so much time learning Windows's APIs and idiosyncrasies because they're just so cool. I love the APIs, I love the system, I love the software and I love the way everything Just Works.

And I'm not installing this shit. It's a skin. It's Windows 10, but retvrned to rounded corners, and with a tenth of the customizability. It's an attempt to put Mac in Windows by people who don't understand either and, if previous HN threads are true, who don't dogfood the result. It has no serious improvements at any level, and every change they have made at first glance is a step backwards. WinUI 3 is already in Win10 and the Android emulator will be ported when it actually comes out. And most damning, I hear report after report after report of backcompat issues with games, which is supposed to be Windows's flagship feature. So what's the point of upgrading? Why would I ever? It's like Windows 8 all over again, but this time they're not even replacing old stuff with new stuff, they're just fucking up the old stuff.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#686
post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Windows, I'm very careful about NOT signing in to anything Microsoft and then you try to look at a picture of your kids but it's a HEIC file from an iPhone so Windows says you have to go to the Store and download Microsoft HEVC decoder which for some reason wasn't bundled with Windows but hey it's just a dollar oh that's nearly free we just need your credit card details and e-mail and make a user account and wou…

The future of operating systems will be of microtransactions and loot boxes. - Oh, you want to format your hard drive? Purchase in store :-) - Checkout our file utilities bundle, 50% off today! - Congratulations on formatting your hard drive, here is a free loot box! - Share your hard drive formatting experience with our award winning app instaclip! - Subscribe to our feed and give us a thumbs up!

- the part that does the actual work is still the same format dialog designed by David Plummer one morning all those years ago

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#687
post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blackbird gets blocked by Defender immediately. Not sure why I'm surprised. edit: Then again, that tool does seem to make it quite easy to damage your Windows installation.

I don't trust it because it is a closed source binary and there is a lack of detailed documentation of exactly what settings it changes.

You could run it in a VM and see what changes are made. Given that Jotti by and large says it is benign (very few positive results), it's probably okay. Such trojan flagging as you see here is frequently a result of binary compression or packing.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#688
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…

Wow, I feel like that goes beyond a dark pattern and strays into unconsensual abuse (excuse the truism). I feel like a dark pattern persuades and tricks you into doing something, but won't outright do something without your consent. Reminds me of when Linked In did that thing where it sent unsolicited emails after getting access to your address book.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#689

It's mind boggling how user-hostile one can make a piece of "premium" software. You pay 145€ for the Home or 259€ for the Pro Edition and they treat it like it's freeware. I want my computer to support me in achieving what I want to do, but Windows just keeps grabbing attention with intrusive ads and never-ending notifications.

We used to call seeing ads in Windows ‘adware’. Now we just call it ‘Windows’.

I’m dead serious - unless you have a specific business reason like most do to use this POS, I can’t imagine anyone actually choosing to use Windows over the alternatives. What a seriously awful piece of software.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#690
post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you care about gaming MacOS has been rock solid for at least a decade. For what it is worth I am no mac fanboy, I am typing this to you on a windows 10 computer in my shop(that I use for gaming, among other things).

I've got a Mac at work and I hate it with passion. I now use my own linux Laptop instead. There is no del key, no home, ctrl and alt are swapped in some aplications and not the others. Login screeen does not remember the language and animations come back after every update even when I explicitly disable them. Muscle memory from other 99% computers I use doesn't work and most of the games don't. I feel like mac os is…

> no del key

Ctrl+d, like in emacs

> no home

Ctrl+a. Also: Ctrl+e for end-of-line. Like in emacs. Also Ctrl+fbpn.

Works best with CapsLock->Control, which is a native GUI option, not something you have to install/CLI for (linux) or something you have to registry hack (windows). I really miss these on Windows and Linux, though not enough to fight the native layout. It's a rougher fight than you might imagine, though.

> Login screeen does not remember the language

It does for me, but more importantly: it shows it. Windows likes to swap the keyboard layout out from under me and doesn't show it. Mix with a 3-strikes-you're-locked-out policy at work, and it turns into pain.

> animations come back after every update

Yeah, that's fair.

> Muscle memory

That's not.

> I feel like mac os is in contempt of me

I feel like windows is actively malicious towards me and linux desktop doesn't care enough about me to do even minimum viable bugfixing. It's definitely a "pick your poison" situation.

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