How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11? • Hacker News Board

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#301

Post by mdmglr » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 6:15 PM UTC

It seems like every few weeks I see posts on HN criticizing Windows about privacy and it’s inconsistent UI. It’s getting a little old.

It’s trivial to use Group Policy Editor to disable windows “spyware” as HNers like to call it.

As far as the “inconsistent” UI goes, it’s funny to me how no one talks about Linux and it’s inconsistencies which are much more significant.

Windows is an OS a tool to get things done. My customers could care less about any of these things. Articles like these are interesting but pedantic.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#302

Post by anthk » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 6:20 PM UTC

jdsully wrote: post #293

jadbox wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Linux desktop (say Ubuntu) generally have strong backwards compatibility? There are issues occasionally, but no worse than trying to run Windows 9x apps on Win10+.

back compat is awful on Linux with the exception of the kernel. Unfortunately you need more than a stable kernel ABI to get proper back compatibility and the userland libs don't want to play ball.

LD_LIBRARY_PATH can do magic.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#303

Post by mwcampbell » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

mike_hearn wrote: post #136

wadd1e wrote: post #11

I have a bit of a perfectionistic tendency to 'start over' things over and over and do them again as perfectly as possible; the Windows side of MS feels like a corporate embodiment of this habit. They've done this sort of thing with app installers(setup.exe, click once, appv, msi, msix) and UI frameworks(win32, mfc, wpf, winui 2, winui 3). It's like the teams responsible for their respective product keep starting ove…

In fairness, MSIX is very different to MSI and ClickOnce was primarily a way to bootstrap MSIs from the web. MSI (long since deprecated) is essentially an ad-hoc relational database serialized to a file with embedded blobs that tells a generic engine how to install files and update the registry. It was written for Office in the 90s and was therefore dominated by the retail model of physically shipping CDs. MSIX is a…

> MSI (long since deprecated)

Is it really deprecated? Isn't MSI still the only installer type directly supported by Group Policy? My company had an enterprise customer request an MSI for that reason.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#304

Post by magic123_ » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

mdmglr wrote: post #301

It seems like every few weeks I see posts on HN criticizing Windows about privacy and it’s inconsistent UI. It’s getting a little old. It’s trivial to use Group Policy Editor to disable windows “spyware” as HNers like to call it. As far as the “inconsistent” UI goes, it’s funny to me how no one talks about Linux and it’s inconsistencies which are much more significant. Windows is an OS a tool to get things done. My c…

> no one talks about Linux and it’s inconsistencies which are much more significant.

Except that with Linux you actually get to choose the desktop you want to use, and it's very possible to customize it yourself if you don't like the baked-in design.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#305

Post by fbdab103 » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 6:25 PM UTC

jadbox wrote: post #284

digdigdag wrote: post #90

The codebase goes back to nearly 40 years. It would be more shocking if it there weren't legacy code hanging around. Windows is one of the most impressive pieces of software I have ever seen. No other platform boasts the kind of backwards compatibility that is seen in this operating system. There are shim layers on top of shim layers and the developers seem to have gone through great pains to keep the operating syste…

Doesn't Linux desktop (say Ubuntu) generally have strong backwards compatibility? There are issues occasionally, but no worse than trying to run Windows 9x apps on Win10+.

Win32 Is The Only Stable ABI on Linux: https://blog.hiler.eu/win32-the-only-stable-abi/

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#306

Post by NekkoDroid » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 6:26 PM UTC

jdsully wrote: post #293

jadbox wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Linux desktop (say Ubuntu) generally have strong backwards compatibility? There are issues occasionally, but no worse than trying to run Windows 9x apps on Win10+.

back compat is awful on Linux with the exception of the kernel. Unfortunately you need more than a stable kernel ABI to get proper back compatibility and the userland libs don't want to play ball.

The 2 most stable API/ABI on linux are the kernel itself and Wine, which I find kinda funny

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#307

Post by fbdab103 » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 6:27 PM UTC

anthk wrote: post #302

jdsully wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

back compat is awful on Linux with the exception of the kernel. Unfortunately you need more than a stable kernel ABI to get proper back compatibility and the userland libs don't want to play ball.

LD_LIBRARY_PATH can do magic.

While it may be technically possible to run old applications on Linux, it likely requires significant pain. In Windows land, if you had a random installer from 2000, there is a reasonable chance it would still work today.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#308

Post by chinabot » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 6:29 PM UTC

kemayo wrote: post #237

Uehreka wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually isn’t, but I wouldn’t blame you for thinking it was. It’s now an icon of a text cursor and a tiny text box.

Huh, I'll admit that I hadn't even noticed that button-ribbon at the top of the context menu yet. :D

Better not get used to it, it will probably change by Windows 12

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#309

Post by smoldesu » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 6:30 PM UTC

tpush wrote: post #208

Karunamon wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word for the audience that GNOME developers are targeting is "lowest common denominator". It's the same problem with all excessively friendly interfaces, great if you are a day one user (pretty rare on Linux), obstructive and shitty if you know what you're doing.

I know what I'm doing and generally like Gnome.

Me too. That being said, I no longer use it on any of my devices. I heartily disagree with their development roadmap and feel somewhat lost as a former GTK tinkerer.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#310

Post by sombragris » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 6:31 PM UTC

Even more: There are some parts (especially some 3rd-party drivers) whose UI still have the Win95 Classic UI widgets (with grey-like base color, square 3D buttons, etc).

Another point is one shown by the case of the sniping tool. The previous version had UI standards not aligned to the current version, but it was small and fast. The current version has a somewhat consistent UI but it's slower and way more bloated.