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Our commitment to Windows quality

blogs.windows.com

361–370 of 1001 posts

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#362

No one wants copilot. You can make it an app, but any OS level integration is a non-starter. My next laptop will be a MacBook Pro. My Surface Laptop 5 will be collecting dust in case I need it, but that’s highly unlikely.

Integrating ~Spyglass~ Internet Explorer into the OS was a dumb stunt, very costly in terms of security. This will be worse.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're vastly underestimating the technical illiteracy most people have with computers. 99% of people buy a desktop and don't even consider what the operating system is let alone think about changing it to something else. I would imagine they don't even know that a difference exists between operating systems.

HN in general always does this. I got a lot of push back when I said that in general consumers don't care at all about open source, and the majority of them probably have no clue what it even means. You can really sense the SF-centric bubble HN lives in.

HN always does this, make ridiculous generalizations about the thousands of people that comment on HN.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#364
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is not technically inferior to Linux. To the extent it has problems, it is mainly because of top-down anti-user behaviour mandated from corporate. But anyone capable of using Linux is capable of hacking out that BS and getting a generally superior experience. I use both literally side-by-side, two laptops with a KVM switch, and I still greatly prefer Windows for many reasons. Some reasons: Even as a low-level…

Exactly. I want to have a computer with stable vendor supported OS so _I can do my stuff_ not tweak some os level configs. I _don’t_ want to spend my time playing an os systems programmer. OS is a _component_. Like the wifi driver. I think it’s great some people love developing wifi drivers but personally I just want network that-just-works because there are billion other cool things you can do with a computer. Simil…

> I want an OS that just works!

This is exactly why modern Windows is problematic. MacOS is better. A right Linux distro (e.g. Fedora Silverblue) on right hardware (e.g. Thinkpad T series) also just works™; this basically the same kind of limitation as with MacOS.

I wish they issued a Windows Rock Stable edition. Ancient as rocks (Win7 look, or maybe even WinXP look), every known bug fixed, every feature either supported fully, or explicitly not supported. No new features added. Security updates issued regularly. It could be highly popular.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#367
Windows is just a wonderful box of chocolate that keeps expanding. You never know what you get, all brilliant frontier tech innovations like Edge, Bing, the calculator, vertical taskbar, and now the highly intelligent Copilot, up there fighting with OpenCode, CC and others...!

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#368
post #255
post #195

I'm somewhat surprised that Windows is still most of personal computers. In my eyes, it's fundamentally inferior to Linux, and its superficial superiority only comes from the ecosystem, which is to say adoption, not some inherent trait. But then, since Linux adoption didn't meaningfully change in the last 20 years, I'm forced to confront the fact that either I'm wrong about its fundamentals, or the market is able to…

> it's fundamentally inferior to Linux The context here is the average user, so you need to consider if this they share this perspective of fundamentally inferiority that is so obvious to you. Here's a litmus test: Put your non-programmer relative in front of each, have them do some common simple tasks, like print an email on their printer, and ask them. You are *NOT* an average user. edit: people are focusing on the…

Sit a non-programmer relative in front of each, and have them plug in a printer. One of them will end up with malware and maybe be able to print something, the other will almost certainly not even notice that they didn't have to do anything to make the print item in gmail put words on paper.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#369

I didn't switch to linux because windows was bad. I was running LTSC IoT Enterprise and selectively ran scripts from AtlasOS. What finally pushed me to linux was because specifically in my narrow usecases it's just plain better, but if we were to completely ignore that, even if linux was worse, I just don't want to support evil companies anymore. Now I'll admit that this is what AI would say, but it's not always abou…

I dual boot LTSC and Fedora. I find myself using fedora more and more, but I need Windows for a couple of apps that don't play nicely with Wine/Proton (Ableton Live 12 mainly).

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#370
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pure irrationality. The only winning move is not to play - leave behind all the Windows and Apples garbage, and life gets remarkably better. I'm almost 6 months in switching from Windows to Linux and it's so awesome that my computer doesn't fight me anymore. I've done 10% of the troubleshooting under Linux that I had to do under Windows, and that was just early on; once things work, they stay working, and there'…

> It's pure irrationality. For the masses, it's pure practicality. My mother calls up geeksquad when she has a problem with windows. Who do you call when you have a problem with debian or ubuntu or arch setup to use kde or gnome or xfc using wayland or x11 with systemd or launchd or ... When her printer dies, does she go to the store and buy a new one, or does she get online to research what's compatible with her dis…

Maybe at one point in time; I've had objectively fewer issues with Linux than I had with Windows, and they only happened because I was doing nerd shit; in normal person average user mode, I haven't had any issues whatsoever. I installed linux on a laptop, and it's been an absolute joy to use. Network, printers, browsers, regular apps, all that stuff just works. Windows would reliably fuck up something important on a weekly basis, whether it was drivers, security, printers, app compatibility; I'd spend a minimum of 30 minutes a week simply overcoming some arbitrary bullshit Microsoft decided to inflict on me.

I honestly think there are many distros that are more than up to the task of handling normal users and providing an objectively better, easier, less hassling experience than windows out of the box.

Windows is horrifically awful. Everything it does is completely, thoroughly enshittified. User experience and quality control are a distant memory. If you're so jaded to it and just letting it happen, I highly recommend getting on Linux ASAP- it's not like it was 5 or 10 or 20 years ago; the desktop experience is just good. If you absolutely need Excel or some other Windows software, look for the cloud version, find an alternate workflow.

>>Who do you call when you have a problem with debian or ubuntu or arch setup to use kde or gnome or xfc using wayland or x11 with systemd or launchd or ...

Any AI. they all have libraries worth of troubleshooting sessions and successful linux troubleshooting workflows and documentation and so on in the training data. Agentic training and operator training flows often include Linux environments, specifically. Any IT person worth half a damn is going to be using AI and will be more than capable of resolving anything it is possible to resolve. Support your local independent IT businesses, too.

But again, get the Linux PC working and I'd bet a good donut that it takes less work to maintain and is easier to use - even for our moms.

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