161–170 of 422 posts
What’s happening in somewhat poorer (BRICS, say) countries? Surely they’d be price sensitive enough not to pay for a Windows license if suddenly it has a (widespread) reputation for being less user friendly than Linux? (And this cohort would eventually become the majority of computer users over time… where would that leave Microsoft?)
"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.
That's something I've noticed over the years. More and more of Windows debugging and configuration is happening on the (various) command line terminals. You're even starting to see it with official Microsoft installers.
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 f…
> Make bash, zsh, ... native for Windows Why? There is PowerShell, able to run on Linux and MacOS. And compared to Bash it is actually readable language.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
why is being unable to maintain market share not an issue? Because of revenue? a large seller of windows is genuinely just it’s market cap, it doesn’t really have a lot of killer utility compared to contemporaries. If it loses market cap then it’s a precipitous issue for them as there’s no point choosing the OS for other reasons, it simply lacks the value. It’s market cap comes from people thinking it has a huge audi…
>why is being unable to maintain market share not an issue? Because unless you're from the 90's, the market for desktop operating systems is not one that generates a lot of revenue anymore. That's like laughing at Netflix for loosing DVD rental market share to Blockbuster. >Because of revenue? See my comment above. Microsoft makes a fuck tonne of revenue from services no matter if your company doesn't buy Windows PCs…
Office365 subscriptions are propping up azure numbers, without them their cloud business looks shit, and azure itself is often only used because “we are a microsoft shop”, it’s all inertia.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Accurate as every other week's predicting of Microsoft's impeding doom from users who don't like Windows in the past 30 years. - 1995. wah, wah! Windows 95 sucks, it's so bloated, MS-DOS was so much lighter, this will be the end of Microsoft. - 2001. wah, wah! Windows XP sucks, it's just a bloated Windows 2000 with Fisher Price coloring, this will be the end of Microsoft. .... - 2021. wah, wah! Windows 11 sucks, it's…
Except that too much wah wah will eventually tank a company - even the size of Microsoft
I used Ubuntu on my laptops from 2008 to 2023. Last year I switched to Windows 10. Looking at what's going on, I believe I'll be back to Ubuntu in my next laptop. Cycles...
It may be true that Linux on the desktop is finally here, but I used to read about that on /. in the late '90s and early '00s, and people talk about it occasionally on HN. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't, but like 25 / 0 of the last "Linux is taking over the desktop" moments have been predicted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think by this point Linux desktop has matured enough that you can say with certain that the biggest problems is application availability. Users want to run Adobe's creative suite or Affinity software (because they have to, even tough there are some decent alternatives) or run some very specific Scientific/CAD/whatever software that has no parallel in the Linux world. Worse, sometimes its hard to get Linux native so…
I understand that there are closed source software tools used in science out there, but it seems pretty wrong-headed to me. A scientific tool that doesn’t have exposed source code seems not very trustworthy. If you get unexpected results, how do you know it wasn’t a bug?
This is basically an article by a guy angry that the UI for printers changed and predicting the end of the Windows empire based on that.
Using old Control Panel (Start->Run->control)
Clicking on this will redirect you to the new settings printer that gives NO options to do any advanced troubleshooting and removes the ability to FIX the issue!
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 f…
> Make bash, zsh, ... native for Windows Why? There is PowerShell, able to run on Linux and MacOS. And compared to Bash it is actually readable language.
You can keep it. I'll stick with zsh or bash.
I had spent a pretty penny building a beefy gaming PC and the Windows XP installer would have this selective amnesia about device drivers that weren't signed. A very important driver provided by the motherboard OEM (nVidia) would be cheerfully accepted by the Windows XP installer at the beginning but then after the initial reboot during installation, the driver wouldn't work and would not be considered acceptable by the installer anymore. I was left with a ≈$3,000 (in early 2000s money) PC that could not complete the Windows XP installation. After a few days of hitting my head on this I drove to the nearest Apple Store and bought a MacBook and never looked back.
To this day I am still somewhat livid / grossed out with the entire PC ecosystem and it's lack of any kind of standards, platform conventions, and the general flea market / down market vibe of the available hardware (new motherboards in 2024 STILL have an ocean of USB-A ports instead of USB-C or Thunderbolt!).
There is a lot that Apple could improve on, particularly it would be nice if they loosened up a bit when it comes to what kinds of apps they permit on the App Store. But I immensely enjoy that I haven't had to give a flying dripping shit about device drivers for almost 20 years now. I don't have wonder if something will work when I plug it in. It just does. I sort of get why it's popular in enterprise settings, I don't understand why people put themselves through the misery that Windows seems to insist upon for its end users.