"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.
But why would you want to? There's a "new" (Windows 8? so 10 years?) area in Settings.
Microsoft is driving users away
181–190 of 422 posts
Re: Microsoft is driving users away
#182I 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,…
> Never looked back From 2 years ago, I think you're still somewhat in the honeymoon period. The real fun begins when they rewrite system apps in a new framework, and kill the mechanism your favorite system extension was using.
I’m not new to macOS by any means, used it for work for far more than 2 years - so I do know this pain, but I’m not a huge system extension user so I’m probably an outlier
Re: Microsoft is driving users away
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes agree. I started using Linux (Gentoo) as student 20 years ago to learn LKMs programming, and with my main Desktop being Windows currently, I give a new try to linux distros every year. I see Linux distros improve year after year, but they are still light years away from providing a good user experience. And even if I don't agree with many Windows 11 updates (like the cumulating number of services required to run…
How has had the entirety of the open source developer community not managed to make even a mediocre step forward in UI/UX of even the biggest Linux distro?l in 20 years? Hell, even Blender has made big strides and I thought that'd be impossible.
Blender is unique in having a big set of users who are actually good at aesthetics professionally. A subset of that group wanted to contribute, and the technically minded were actually willing to let them.
Most other open source projects have people behind them who don't put UX first, and who are suspicious, jealous, or plain disagree when people want to help with UX.
This shouldn't be too surprising in a world led by people who value technical excellence most.
Re: Microsoft is driving users away
#184For 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.
I agree. Windows should lean into its original strengths, not become a bad clone of a unix system sitting on top of a non-unix system.
Re: Microsoft is driving users away
#185> macos is bland and hasn't changed in years I have the feeling Windows users are a self-selecting bunch.
Yeah. Every time a pundit, even an Apple-focused one, complains that macOS “hasn’t changed” I have to shake my head at such ignorance from people who should know better.
The interface changes relatively slowly, all things considered. (When it does change suddenly, some of the same pundits throw a fit.) But the internals are always changing, virtually always for the better; things like the `discoveryd` situation are outliers, not the rule.
Re: Microsoft is driving users away
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. Yo…
Here's the thing though, the desktop now really is about power users or corporate users, because everyone else just uses cell phones or tablets. So ok, sure, your sales people and your secretaries probably aren't going to care about the control panel, but people that use computers outside of work are mostly going to be power users and they're starting to have options. (I can use all the software I need on macOS, and…
As explained above this is irrelevant to enterprise users, corpo installs don't play with per-station configuration like this or care about consumer-facing UIs, the needs of that market revolve around things like image management, deployment, and active directory administration.
You're right that the home market is shrinking though, the OEM install market is down billions in revenue and has been dropping by double digit percentages each fiscal year, but you're wrong in your assumption that the power user market is worth anything. Power users, represented by direct license installs, are a rounding error of Windows revenue. There's nothing worth fighting for there.
Convincing Mom that she should buy a Windows laptop instead of an Apple laptop is still worth ~$750M/Q, and Mom doesn't ever want to see the old Windows panels, she loves the "Add Printer" button. Convincing Timmy Q Hacker that he should buy a Windows license key instead of installing Arch Linux is worth squat.
Re: Microsoft is driving users away
#187This 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.
A long time ago there was a video (or was it audio) of a really angry dude ranting about this and that and in the end he exclaims: I can’t print. And that is the punch line, his life was miserable and the root of the problem was printing.
Someone should mash this with retro encabulator to create an infomercial to showcase the ease of printing to various devices on Linux desktop.
Re: Microsoft is driving users away
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
> OS X works well especially with the hardware it was co-designed with. Only while they continue to support it. It may work well now but when they stop supporting it; it's proprietary, it's dead. When they fully move away from Intel based support, all those without the latest platform will be dead in the water. "Your not running the latest secure version of OSX! -- Your running an Intel? Sorry we don't support that".…
Case in point, if I was running Apple hardware from 2011~2014 I would be out of support for quite a few years already with massively outdated hardware, Apple puts their customers on a MUCH faster treadmill to keep upgrading often. But instead my _daily drivers_ 13 year old Thinkpad X220 and both my 10 year old 4th gen haswell i7 PCs keep trucking along. It's easy enough to fix, upgrade and have access to ALL current…
Would you be better off with windows? I actually still have Apple hardware that old that I still use. Yes, Apple doesn’t fix it anymore, but no, I never needed Apple to fix it before. I guess it doesn’t get OS updates, but so what? It just works, the only thing I want I is no hassle computers, and that’s what I get with Apple hardware.
Re: Microsoft is driving users away
#189I would say the fundamental problem with Mac is paying through the nose for hard drive space, ram, and multiple display capabilities. However, like you say, Microsoft is driving users away with their terrible choices like forcing me bing and actively adding spyware to my machine, but they are far from the only ones doing it. Other legacy software makers like Intuit are actively sabotaging their software and the enshi…
Maybe people are getting what they pay for.
Re: Microsoft is driving users away
#190Earlier 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.