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Killed by Microsoft

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Re: Killed by Microsoft

#281
post #231

My unconventional take: The early death of Home Server before the concept could really take hold is the most disappointing loss here. I often think modern computing could be superior today had more consumers become comfortable with home servers rather than relying on public clouds.

Home Server was an excellent product - probably one of the best Windows backup solutions I’ve ever used.

I could build a low-spec PC with a cheap case, slap a bunch of drives in a JBOD configuration, install the backup agent on all my machines and things just worked. Restore files from a few months ago? Go for it. Do a full-metal restore over the network? Sure, why not. It had many ahead of its time features like media streaming, health monitoring, and could act as a remote access gateway. It never failed me and was almost zero maintenance.

I was very saddened when it went end of life but the writing was on the wall when the follow-up “Vail” release was announced. It essentially took away nearly everything that made the original so good - no more media sharing, JBOD support was out, and it ended up being little more than a super watered down Windows Server 2012.

Literally every other backup product I’ve tried for Windows - from paid commercial offerings from Acronis and too many others to name, to the built-in File History never failed to let me down when I really needed it. File History in particular has been a constant disappointment - it’s just shockingly terrible and I have absolutely zero trust for it. It can just go for months not backing up files and never even bother to alert the user. Unacceptable.

Re: Killed by Microsoft

#282
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, I didn’t realize they ended that.

I mean sort of? They still offer Solitaire and Minesweeper on the store, but they're games with an annual fee to remove the ads. Which is utterly revolting, of course.

Whoops this was a reply to wrong comment.

Re: Killed by Microsoft

#283
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teams is unbelievably shit though. It’s like they don’t even care.

What about Teams makes you think that? My experience has been the opposite. But that could have just been that it fitted our setup well. Or that I haven't tried better.

Search through messages doesn't give any context or even let you jump to the context. Very unresponsive scrolling. Notifications have been unreliable for me.

Re: Killed by Microsoft

#284
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Teams is by far the worst "popular" software i've ever used. It's so bad that eventhough most businesses depend on teams, they, as well as everyone else, would be better off if teams suddenly disappears from one day to another. edit: Just a few things that annoy me basically on a daily basis: - The status isn't always up to date. Sometimes it takes minutes to you or your contacts to show the correct status. - It…

The login experience is the worst of any app I've used. Stop asking me every day to login, and god help you if you're in multiple orgs. I pretty much do the web app at this point. Thankfully my org mostly uses zoom and slack, but customers on teams refuse to experience normalcy and demand everyone experience their pain, same with webex, come on people...

Well, at least with Teams you can use the web app, for Zoom has to be installed, and at least under Linux it's a complete train-wreck. Incidentally, I have the issue with 100% CPU usage during video calls with Zoom, while Teams (in the browser) works just fine.

Re: Killed by Microsoft

#285
post #48

How did microsoft academic compare to researchgate/google scholar?? Very sad I only hear about it now... I mean it's so absurd that people care enough to build websites like killed by microsoft and killed by google but yet no one built a alive by microsoft and alive by google. Where can I find an exhaustive and succinct/bullshit free timeline of their products launches + short, to the point description?

https://about.google/intl/ALL_us/products/#all-products

No description though

Re: Killed by Microsoft

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're lashing out at Google for a variety of different (and very good!) reasons, but they're outside the range of my comment. People getting banned from Google services because of broken automation is bad, of course, but it has nothing to do with the issue of whether migration paths are provided when services are sunsetted at Google. My point is that for Google's core services, they generally due try to migr…

> "they generally do try to migrate users to a product that provides the same basic features" Try telling that to Picasa users. When Google announced it was "moving on from Picasa", they stated: "We apologize for any inconvenience this transition causes, but.... Google Photos is a new and smarter product that offers a better platform for us..." A better platform for Google. Not users. Many Picasa users, like my fathe…

Picasa taught me to not trust Google and yet I kinda fell for the "unlimited backup of your photos" in "photos". Which were unlimited until it weren't. And now my storage is full and Google is repeatedly threatening to drop emails because they share the same storage.

Re: Killed by Microsoft

#287
post #79

Also: * Windows POSIX Subsystem: WSL has similar features, but not exact what the POSIX Subsystem is. * Windows OS / 2 Subsystem: Killed. * Multipoint Server: Killed in server 2016. * Hyper-V RemoteFX * WDS boot.wim deployment: Killed in server 2022 and Windows 11, although MDT provides a much better solution. * TFS: MS wants you to use Azure DevOps. * Hyper-V Server: The free ESXi alternative. MS wants you to use Az…

> Windows POSIX Subsystem: WSL has similar features, but not exact what the POSIX Subsystem is.

WSL1 is exactly a Linux subsystem. Why do you think POSIX subsystem is needed today?

Re: Killed by Microsoft

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to make this point. Also, killing off products is not unhealthy. I for one am glad that eventually someone had the sense to kill off Bob. Sometimes- like for devs invested in Silverlight- it can be frustrating, but no reason to keep inferior or outdated products afloat.

Yeah, sometimes I wish MS would be a little more aggressive about killing off products. There are a few developer technologies that are in an awkward no man’s land: just barely supported without much of a future, but MS won’t say that so it makes for a lot of confusion if you’re new to the space and wondering what technology to use.

Likely they don't kill them because they have customers and have contracts stating support for X years.

Not sure why people are surprised, its enterprise software. Look at SAP, they "kill" their ERP every few years for end-of-life and upgrades. I don't blame them, customers don't sign perpetual deals and they expect to sign a new ones every 5-7 years for whatever the new flavor is. It's different for free products because there is no explicit end of life and it surprises people.

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