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Our commitment to Windows quality

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#881

Post by codethief »

bananadonkey wrote: post #866
alsetmusic wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess its just bad luck that this company's product quality is down in the drain. You're right. It can't possibly be bad leadership and poor decisions. Sometimes you just slip on a patch of ice and that's how you lost your business.

WSL is great. Its biggest drawback is that it requires the use of Windows.

I don't know, man. For the past year I've been having the "pleasure" of using Windows again for the first time in 16 years. My coworkers recommended I try the WSL since in their eyes I'm a "Linux guy". Well, the WSL crashed an hour into using it (forcing me to reboot Windows because nothing else helped) and then a couple more times that very same day. On a fresh Windows installation.

I ended up installing VMWare and using a full Linux VM. Yes, VMWare. That's how desperate I was.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#883

Post by juliangmp »

qingcharles wrote: post #775
PaulKeeble wrote: post #469

Microsoft has spent over a decade swimming against their users interests at this point and during that time frame Linux has been improving its desktop and improving kernel performance. We are now at the point where Linux emulating Window's entire API space for games with worse drivers is dangerously close on performance with none of the privacy invasion and anti user features. Its pretty late in the game for them to…

I've used *nix extensively headless for the last 30 years, but I have decision paralysis when it comes to figuring out what the heck Linux distro is good for a desktop.

Just go for whatever DE looks pretty to you, I personally like KDE. Don't be afraid to switch to a different desktop later on, its just a few packages to install most of the time.

As for distros, pick something established that looks good to you. You said you have experience, so you probably know what you want from a distro. I ran arch on my machine a lot but recently switched to fedora for its simpler installation.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#884

Post by snarfy »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #755
userbinator wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old notepad is still there, you just need to remove the new abomination. Control panel is still not migrated over to settings after 12 years nor you can open two settings apps. I wish they'd migrate back to the old Control Panel... Error messages in modern apps are just the worst ...as the new one is a "modern app" and about as horrible as they come.

For anybody who wants to get rid of the new abomination: From an elevated Powershell prompt: Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | Where-Object { $_.PackageName -like 'Microsoft.WindowsNotepad*' } | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online

You can uninstall it from apps.

One bit of cruft with this - I downloaded an alternative app that is simply notepad.exe and put it in my path in the first folder in the path.

I could not create a file association to any files to it - Explorer would throw an error about Store app. Even after uninstalling it, a notepad.exe still remains and supercedes my path which is a stub to launch the Microsoft Store.

This is the type of slop that needs desperately fixed but I doubt ever will.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#885

Post by aprilnya »

alashow wrote: post #836
ivl wrote: post #13

> More taskbar customization, including vertical and top positions: Repositioning the taskbar is one of the top asks we’ve heard from you. We are introducing the ability to reposition it to the top or sides of your screen, making it easier to personalize your workspace. I wonder if this will include being able to put it on the non-primary display once again. It's not mentioned, but that was one of the biggest frustra…

I thought this was already possible before?

I think what ivl means is that the secondary-screen taskbars don’t have anything on them… just apps and a clock. So no tray, no quick settings, etc

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#886

Post by nu11ptr »

kstrauser wrote: post #393
nu11ptr wrote: post #238

> fewer automatic restarts No automatic restarts! I understand that in our security patching world that patching and restarting automatically is the default, fine, but there absolutely should be a dead simple way of disabling auto restarts in settings. I'm fine if it pesters me to restart or whatever, perhaps with growing alarm the longer I wait, but it should always be optional in the end. There are just no words fo…

I disagree, at least on end-user devices as opposed to servers. If you make it possible to defer updates indefinitely, users will. Guaranteed. Doesn't matter how urgent or critical the update is, how bad the bug or vulnerability it patches is, how disastrous the consequences may be: they'll never, ever voluntarily apply them. If you're running a server, and willing to accept the risk of deferral because 1) you're in…

> I disagree, at least on end-user devices as opposed to servers.

And who determines what is an "end-user device" vs a "server"?

> If you're running a server, and willing to accept the risk of deferral because 1) you're in a better position to assess the risk and apply compensating controls than a regular user is, and 2) you're OK accepting the personal risk of having to explain to your boss why you kept deferring the urgent patch until after it blew up in your face, then yes, you should have a control to delay or disable it.

So you do want choice after all it seems. Who do you think should make this choice on risk vs. workload/criticality?

I would say you actually agree with me mostly based on your comments, but you have not clarified _who_ makes these choices. I'm saying as the consumer, _I_ should get to make that choice. In the enterprise, my admin will make that choice via group policy, but I do not want Microsoft determining what I'm allowed to do with my OS. They are of course free to keep doing that, but then I also have the right to keep not buying their products.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#887

Post by snarfy »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #582

As a 20+ year Windows user now happily running desktop Linux for about a year - too little, too late. This company has completely lost my trust over the past 5+ years, with all the ads, upsells, silent telemetry, bugs, background process mess, forced updates, poor performance, etc. It's not only steered me off of Windows, but Azure, Office, and anything else with the Microsoft name on it. I'll do my best to steer fam…

Arch is really good. Wayland works. Gaming works. For any apps that don't work like Visual Studio I run kvm/qemu + unlicensed win11 vm. I do not give a shit my vm says "activate windows"

2026 Year of Linux Desktop?

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#888

Post by gspetr »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #269
dmos62 wrote: 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…

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…

> anyone capable of using Linux is capable of hacking out that BS and getting a generally superior experience.

Go ahead, try to delete the useless Microsoft Edge browser if you're not in a select few EU countries.

In my experience, you can't do it cleanly. Asking LLMs will tell you the following:

1)Modify a certain registry key to enable deletion. Which I did, but the only thing that accomplished is un-gray the delete button in the Control Panel. Once you press it nothing happens.

2)Windows will eventually reinstall Edge. So you're basically screwed.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#889

Post by heresie-dabord »

Someone1234 wrote: post #6

They're saying all the right things here. Fixing long-standing complaints, removing Copilot from obnoxious places, improvements to Windows Update and Windows Explorer stability/microstutter/lag, etc. I congratulate them on seeing sense, and I congratulate Apple on another victory with the Neo. Kind of frustrating that's what it took for Microsoft to finally listen to their userbase.

> They're saying all the right things here.

That's what a corporation does.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#890

Post by whiplash451 »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #469

Microsoft has spent over a decade swimming against their users interests at this point and during that time frame Linux has been improving its desktop and improving kernel performance. We are now at the point where Linux emulating Window's entire API space for games with worse drivers is dangerously close on performance with none of the privacy invasion and anti user features. Its pretty late in the game for them to…

I would love for you to be right. Unfortunately in many cases the “windows” decision is made by C-levels who barely understand what you are talking about (or if they do, pretend they don’t to save their jobs)
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