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The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible

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Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible

#51

Post by ramgorur »

hoka wrote: post #23
givan wrote: post #3

Not 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'

well, the last time when I used windows was like sometime between 2006-2007, I never had to pray, everything seems to work just fine and smooth until now.

Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible

#52

Post by w1ntermute »

derleth wrote: post #19
ChuckMcM wrote: post #13

I 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…

> The bottom line is that this 'experience' isn't about you, its about who you can be sold to To be honest, I didn't jump from Windows to Linux because of this. I jumped because Windows ME was just that bad. However, this makes me increasingly happy I jumped with each new version of both Windows and MacOS. > Time to start a 'developers' company that works very much on the same model that Sun Microsystems started on,…

> To be honest, I didn't jump from Windows to Linux because of this. I jumped because Windows ME was just that bad. However, this makes me increasingly happy I jumped with each new version of both Windows and MacOS.

Yup, every time I use someone else's computer I'm astounded by the sorts of things they put up with. A simple example - after years of using AdBlock and FlashBlock, I simply don't have any tolerance for ads on the web. I don't have the ability to ignore them.

Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible

#53

Post by egypturnash »

derleth wrote: post #19
ChuckMcM wrote: post #13

I 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…

> The bottom line is that this 'experience' isn't about you, its about who you can be sold to To be honest, I didn't jump from Windows to Linux because of this. I jumped because Windows ME was just that bad. However, this makes me increasingly happy I jumped with each new version of both Windows and MacOS. > Time to start a 'developers' company that works very much on the same model that Sun Microsystems started on,…

IMHO you also need a Jobs who wanders around (a) selling the thing to normal humans and (b) being a relentless advocate for the user experience, with the power to delay releases if something is broken.

Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible

#54

Post by oscilloscope »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #13

I 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…

System76 is attempting to do this. I liked the Gazelle Professional. Considering they're not an ODM, the Gazelle was pretty decent for its specs and screen when it was released. There was no bloat aside from vanilla Ubuntu, except a driver to improve the screen brightness buttons.

Still though, you can always throw Ubuntu on a Thinkpad. A small company like System76 can't match the form factor and battery life of products from Lenovo, Apple, Samsung, etc.

Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible

#55

Post by jerhewet »

> The first step was getting rid of the usual pre-installed crap [...] It took me over an hour to go through all the uninstallers.

I was at least three sentences into a long "Uninstallers? Seriously?" rant when I realized that this is exactly what the average poor bastard on the street would do if they wanted to get rid of the crapware that infests a new machine.

[long thoughtful pause]

Jesus. It really is that big of a divide. I never (never, never, ever, ever) boot up a new machine. I always nuke-n-pave it right out of the box. I don't even give it any thought -- it's just the way it is.

[another long thoughtful pause]

Then again, this is a problem for my generation, where one in one hundred (maybe more) had half a clue when it came to personal computers.

I'd like to think the "run the uninstaller" route is also not an option for kids in their 20's and 30's (get off my lawn!). I'd like to think the ratio is closer to one in three or four, and installing a virgin copy of your OS of choice on a new machine is just as much a habit for them as it is for me.

So I guess I'm left wondering if I'm reading a rant from the late 1990's.

Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible

#56

Post by ilaksh »

hxc wrote: post #40
rhplus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft got the message and their retail stores only sell computers as "Microsoft Signature", i.e. no crapware. http://signature.microsoft.com/

All PCs sold at Microsoft Store come with Microsoft Signature – a great way to get the most out of Windows.

"a great way to get the most out of Windows"

Is that marketing speak for no crap/bloat/shovelware?

Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible

#58

Post by nivla »

geon wrote: post #50
hoka wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, I definitely prefer 'sudo apt get install this-thing && sudo pray-to-god-this-works'

Actually, there is a certain class of software that works amazingly well that well. Installing apache/php/mysql on linux with apt beats macports or plain windows so hard it's not even funny.

Installing part is easy, I agree but trying to uninstall either one of them leaves a mess behind. Configuration and other misc files are left behind so if your program does not start because the conf is corrupted, uninstalling and installing doesn't work. It seems though that Ubuntu never lets the program know that it is being uninstalled leaving behind a string of custom generated files.

Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible

#59

Post by CountSessine »

eli wrote: post #11
givan wrote: post #3

Not 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 nonsense fanboism. Modern versions...

You lost me at the first sentence.

Re: The amount of crap Windows users have to put up with is incredible

#60

Post by CountSessine »

pizza wrote: post #30
givan wrote: post #3

Not 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 abou…

While I agree that OEM computers come installed with a lot of crap, that's not a Windows problem, that's an OEM problem.

Windows is as successful as it is because of Microsoft's cooperation with crappy OEMs who are only too happy to betray their customers for a quick buck.

You can't have Windows without the OEMs - show me the Microsoft PC you plan to buy. Microsoft does the best they can, working within their constraints, but at the end of the day they're throwing their product over the fence and letting someone else package it.

And you can't have good OEMs because Microsoft's PC strategy - with WHQL, PNP, UEFI, ACPI, and just about every other hardware initiative they've participated in, has been to make it difficult for hardware manufacturers to innovate in creative, non-standard ways without Microsoft's prior consent. Hence the race to the bottom among PC manufacturers. Cheap PCs, yes, but there's not much room for innovation that hasn't been green-lighted in some way by Microsoft and so the only PC manufacturers who do well are those who can survive on thin margins.

So yes, it is a Windows problem.

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