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Microsoft is driving users away

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Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#121

Post by ToucanLoucan »

cocoa19 wrote: post #52
doawoo wrote: post #7

I really agree with this article- I used Windows as my primary OS (not counting work machines) until about 2 years ago, the mess of non coherent design and CONSTANTLY resetting my user preferences every update (like shoving new buttons [see: ads] onto my taskbar) ultimately lead me to buying the first m1 mbp as my new personal machine. Never looked back. I only boot up windows for occasional games now, and even then,…

> like shoving new buttons [see: ads] onto my taskbar searching for apps in the Windows menu used to take less than a second. Now it takes 5-10 seconds to fetch crap from the internet (ads and bing results), and mix it with local results.

And don't forget the never ending Sisyphean hell of trying to quickly jump to settings. Windows 7 NAILED this and 10 was mostly fine at it, but 11 has completely fucked the dog with this in particular, especially since all your PC's settings are now situated across three different locations, any of which can seemingly change things at the same time.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#122

Post by rincebrain »

overgard wrote: post #119
rincebrain wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A number of people really want widgets of some kinds - little things showing information like the time, or CPU clock, or battery left, or music playing. The problem becomes that A) people really want different presentations of information, B) something tiny and satisfying in the corner isn't as easy to justify as a big improvement, even if it is, as a big flashy thing, and C) some people get very upset at anything do…

My suspicion is that it has nothing to do with what users want, it's just a way to sell ad space essentially. I mean right now my "Widgets", which I never open, evidently has a bunch of news sites I never look at, coupons, some casual games I have no interest in. It's basically a bunch of ads pretending to be a feature

The most current iteration is very fond of that, yes.

But I was answering why people keep trying and failing to add the functionality long-before it was an ad space grab.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#123

Post by Gibbon1 »

Animats wrote: post #40

"To Access the old devices and printer use the run prompt and type the following: shell:::{A8A91A66-3A7D-4424-8D24-04E180695C7A}" And people complain about Linux.

They changed things to hide 'less common' actions when you right click. To disable that you need to hand edit a registry key.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#124

Post by datagrimx »

For full Disclosure, I once upon was a software engineer at Microsoft. I witnessed first hand the evil decisions around Windows. I left Microsoft in 2006 but I am still part of the Alumni Network.

IMO Microsoft can gain users back by:

* Not requiring a Microsoft Account * Ending all data/telemetry collection * Not forcing Edge on its users * Stop releasing improved UI updates every week * Make bash, zsh, ... native for Windows * Taking the AI out and making it an optional extension * Making the Microsoft Store optional

A *plus* would be to open source Windows.

I would be interested in hearing your pet peeves.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#125

Post by nickelpro »

overgard wrote: post #105
nickelpro wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did enterprise administration of Windows boxes, ~400 seats. We did not manually muck with control panels per station. I could not care less what the settings UIs for home installs of Windows are. And that's the real truth, power users and these small fry IT install bases are not major markets. The most prominent markets are OEM installs for non-technical home users (who hate complex panels and love the push-button…

I dunno man, with Steam on linux and most of the major game engines making porting easy (or at least moving in that direction) I have very few reasons to stick with Windows anymore. At this point it's basically Photoshop and Fusion 360, otherwise I'd abandon it completely. If they lose gamers, I think they'll have a real issue.

You're a power user unable to understand the needs of non-power users.

We all go through that stage, it's natural.

I once installed Linux on all my siblings' desktops because I had convinced my parents it would lead to "less viruses" (Fedora 13, I think, GNOME 2, those were the days). The nightmare of providing support for that over the rest of my high school years provided me with a powerful and important lesson.

You have few reasons to stick with Windows, you are a very, very tiny droplet in an ocean of users with different needs than you. Judging what such markets will do based on your personal needs is unwise.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#126

Post by nicce »

cocoa19 wrote: post #52
doawoo wrote: post #7

I really agree with this article- I used Windows as my primary OS (not counting work machines) until about 2 years ago, the mess of non coherent design and CONSTANTLY resetting my user preferences every update (like shoving new buttons [see: ads] onto my taskbar) ultimately lead me to buying the first m1 mbp as my new personal machine. Never looked back. I only boot up windows for occasional games now, and even then,…

> like shoving new buttons [see: ads] onto my taskbar searching for apps in the Windows menu used to take less than a second. Now it takes 5-10 seconds to fetch crap from the internet (ads and bing results), and mix it with local results.

The search also used to find things. Not anymore…

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#127

Post by overgard »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #102
overgard wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you're saying that losing 21% of their OS market share by actively pissing off their customers shouldn't be seen as a problem? OS stagnation would be an improvement compared to what they're currently doing.

Why is having even bigger market share so important? Android has bigger market share than iOS too yet iOS is the more profitable one. Microsoft cares about profit first, not unprofitable market share. Not saying they're right or wrong, just saying it seems to be working for their bottom line as Windows is less relevante towards that as the PC market has been in a continuous decline anyway in the last decade. Fighting…

You're kind of missing the point, which is that they obviously are putting a lot of effort in (we're talking about changes they're making, not stagnation), and actively making things worse. And in doing so they're objectively losing customers. This isn't like the situation where they just stopped updating IE6. They're clearly investing in Windows and doing an AWFUL job. If I were an investor I would be calling for change in the Windows division.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#128

Post by devinprater »

On Linux, since companies are paying for it now, Orca, the Linux GUI screen reader, is getting bug fixes on the main branch just about every day. Lol, if Windows loses even the loyal blind folks like me, I'll die laughing at Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#129

Post by calamari4065 »

cocoa19 wrote: post #52
doawoo wrote: post #7

I really agree with this article- I used Windows as my primary OS (not counting work machines) until about 2 years ago, the mess of non coherent design and CONSTANTLY resetting my user preferences every update (like shoving new buttons [see: ads] onto my taskbar) ultimately lead me to buying the first m1 mbp as my new personal machine. Never looked back. I only boot up windows for occasional games now, and even then,…

> like shoving new buttons [see: ads] onto my taskbar searching for apps in the Windows menu used to take less than a second. Now it takes 5-10 seconds to fetch crap from the internet (ads and bing results), and mix it with local results.

I even went and disabled web search in the registry and it still takes forever.

It's also terrible. "Fr" will find FreeCAD, the program I want. "Fre" pulls up "advanced system settings" because there's some subsection about free disk space. "Free" brings back FreeCAD.

Every single thing I do that involves any level of interaction with Windows has found some way of pissing me off.

Re: Microsoft is driving users away

#130

Post by mizzao »

cocoa19 wrote: post #52
doawoo wrote: post #7

I really agree with this article- I used Windows as my primary OS (not counting work machines) until about 2 years ago, the mess of non coherent design and CONSTANTLY resetting my user preferences every update (like shoving new buttons [see: ads] onto my taskbar) ultimately lead me to buying the first m1 mbp as my new personal machine. Never looked back. I only boot up windows for occasional games now, and even then,…

> like shoving new buttons [see: ads] onto my taskbar searching for apps in the Windows menu used to take less than a second. Now it takes 5-10 seconds to fetch crap from the internet (ads and bing results), and mix it with local results.

Yep, locally installed programs sometimes don't even show up anymore when I press WinKey + because whatever ad server they're running on the backend doesn't respond and it hangs the search.
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