The pleasure of uninstalling with a Delete keystroke is reason enough to move to MacOS. Say what you will against Apple, but I have been just plain peaceful ever since I smashed my blue-screened Windows laptop on the wall and walked out to buy a Mac years ago.
The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible
21–30 of 331 posts
Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible
#22Not computer users, just the windows users. I never understood the install wizards for windows software, in 99% of the time you just click "next" until it stops asking for more "next". And now they all sneak garbage adware with the check boxes enabled by default because most people just click "next" anyway. Also the whole download and install drivers/utilities etc after installation is very time consuming because the…
This is nonsense fanboism. Modern versions of Windows are extremely similar to OS X from a usability perspective. OS X has plenty of counterintuitive warts. Computers of any flavor are pretty hard to use. > I never understood the install wizards for windows software... I never understood why half the time when I download Mac software and double click it, nothing seems to happen because it's a "disk image" (talk about…
We're not really talking about usability in general - the particular issue of default installs being crapped up is pretty Windows PC (and maybe Android?) specific
Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible
#23Not computer users, just the windows users. I never understood the install wizards for windows software, in 99% of the time you just click "next" until it stops asking for more "next". And now they all sneak garbage adware with the check boxes enabled by default because most people just click "next" anyway. Also the whole download and install drivers/utilities etc after installation is very time consuming because the…
yeah, I definitely prefer 'sudo apt get install this-thing && sudo pray-to-god-this-works'
Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible
#24Not computer users, just the windows users. I never understood the install wizards for windows software, in 99% of the time you just click "next" until it stops asking for more "next". And now they all sneak garbage adware with the check boxes enabled by default because most people just click "next" anyway. Also the whole download and install drivers/utilities etc after installation is very time consuming because the…
This is nonsense fanboism. Modern versions of Windows are extremely similar to OS X from a usability perspective. OS X has plenty of counterintuitive warts. Computers of any flavor are pretty hard to use. > I never understood the install wizards for windows software... I never understood why half the time when I download Mac software and double click it, nothing seems to happen because it's a "disk image" (talk about…
This is hilarious. You call others fanboys and then compare the horrific inconvenience of disk images (which I don't understand either but it's what, double-click and then drag, right) to Windows install wizards, uninstall, etc. Get real.
Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible
#25I remember reading that this is the reason[2] Steve Jobs wouldn't license the Mac OS X operating system to other OEM vendors. As I understand it, a good deal of this crap is caused by misaligned incentives. Software companies pay OEMs to preload computers with their buggy, invasive, resource hogging software. Thanks to the Microsoft Windows operating system having all sorts of nooks and crannies to hide this sort of stuff in, like msconfig; the "PC", with which Windows is synonymous, is seen as a painful platform full of crashes and arcane bullshit.
Of course, the cure is presented in the form of locked down, proprietary platforms which shelter users from software companies self inflicted wounds. As times goes on; these platforms will slowly come to resemble their former counterparts, but without the relief of being able to uninstall the crapware.
I think that priority one for people interested in the future of computing is to fix the experience for the 99%.
EDIT: The answer isn't necessarily other open systems like Linux or Haiku, OEM manufacturers can screw the default installs on those systems up just as well.
EDIT[2]: Part of the reason anyway.
Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible
#26I enjoyed this rant. The bottom line is that this 'experience' isn't about you, its about who you can be sold too. That is because "you" are too cheap to pay what "we" think should be paid for them. It is like a hotel which sells you room for $100 a night if you agree to let them leave a web cam on 24/7 and sell any useful 'snippets' it catches while you are there. The bulk of the market doesn't buy "computers" they…
> ...hardware designed from the ground up to be developed on, open systems so that folks can easily work with it, and a team dedicated to making sure integration and support is there so that folks like you and I can say "Hey this audio doesn't work when you set the sampling rate to 40Khz" and they can fix it and release that fix...
Why would that not describe any major Linux distro?
Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible
#27Not computer users, just the windows users. I never understood the install wizards for windows software, in 99% of the time you just click "next" until it stops asking for more "next". And now they all sneak garbage adware with the check boxes enabled by default because most people just click "next" anyway. Also the whole download and install drivers/utilities etc after installation is very time consuming because the…
This is nonsense fanboism. Modern versions of Windows are extremely similar to OS X from a usability perspective. OS X has plenty of counterintuitive warts. Computers of any flavor are pretty hard to use. > I never understood the install wizards for windows software... I never understood why half the time when I download Mac software and double click it, nothing seems to happen because it's a "disk image" (talk about…
The problem isn't the process of installing. It's the damned trip line installs along the way. If you install Adobe Reader, it shouldn't install McAfee for you. If I install your software, you don't have the right to install browser plugins. In terms of installers, Windows has developed a culture of malware that really needs to go.
Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible
#28And I fear this kind of crappy PC experience is a significant factor in why many people move to primarily using tablets.
The problem with mobile devices is that when they are prefilled with OEM crap (mine came with Motoblur, Blockbuster, and several other terrible media-streaming apps), there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Windows may have a terrible default experience, but at least it's fixable.
OK, admittedly the fact that I stick to Google Nexus and Apple brand kind of makes me oblivious to the existence of all that crapware. But as far as I can tell, some people actually like what HTC and Samsung are doing with their Android.
Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible
#29Note this is an aside on USEFUL background apps, not spyware/crapware, since it appears he disabled the update mechanisms in the last two paragraphs:
Most of those background service apps (Google Update, Apple Push, Adobe Update) are because a tiny background app is necessary to preform certain functions, and check for updates in the background, which is a good thing!
For example, 'iTunesAgent.exe' on Windows was to simply detect if you had plugged an iPod in and auto pop-up iTunes. For usability, it makes sense; because otherwise you would plugin an iPod and get nothing or a confusing Windows 'dunno what to do with this drive' screen. And because of Windows' architecture (for better or worse), it requires a background app to do this.
The same for many of the updaters. I would much rather be sure Flash and Java are updated then go running without an important security update.
I still have yet to understand the "no background app, good or bad" manifesto. Good background apps barely use any CPU time, they barely use any memory (and Windows reports too much memory in the first place due to shared memory), and preforms useful functions.
Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible
#30Not computer users, just the windows users. I never understood the install wizards for windows software, in 99% of the time you just click "next" until it stops asking for more "next". And now they all sneak garbage adware with the check boxes enabled by default because most people just click "next" anyway. Also the whole download and install drivers/utilities etc after installation is very time consuming because the…
> And now they all sneak garbage adware with the check boxes enabled by default because most people just click "next" anyway.
While I agree that OEM computers come installed with a lot of crap, that's not a Windows problem, that's an OEM problem.
> Also the whole download and install drivers/utilities etc after installation is very time consuming because the OS has almost nothing bundle
The OS part of Windows is about 2 gigabytes (tried looking for source, but couldn't find one. Although this explains how you can fit a bootable emergency windows suite on a flash drive). The many other gigabytes are drivers. Plus, it's pretty disingenuous to blame Microsoft for Windows not supporting 3rd party devices, even though Windows checks for driver updates automatically.