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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

#71

Post by jiggy2011 »

jerhewet wrote: post #55

> 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 o…

It's not always so easy to just nuke-n-pave a new machine unless you are planning on installing Linux or happen to have a vanilla copy of Windows with the correct service pack for the OEM license key for your PC hanging around.

I bought a cheap Sony laptop a few years back, came with Vista and all of this shit pre-installed. The only provided way to re-install the OS was via a "recovery" DVD which puts all this shit right back on.

So I uninstall all of this stuff and it occasionally gives me errors complaining that it's missing various things that it expects to be there, so obviously even the uninstall doesn't quite work properly.

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

#72

Post by ygra »

unimpressive wrote: post #48
smacktoward wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there sure are a lot of people try to fuck up windows. It's much less of a problem on other operating systems. Possibly because Windows has many, many, many more users than other operating systems do. It's like the old urban legend about bank robber Willie Sutton ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Sutton ) answering a reporter's query about why he robbed banks with "because that's where the money is." Crapware ven…

One of the major reasons genetic diversity is important is that it makes it harder for a population to be wiped out by infection. The windows monoculture is inevitably a victim of itself.

It doesn't seem wiped out yet.

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

#73

Post by biturd »

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…

I think there is a company that does what you suggest. I will probably get down voted for saying it, but Apple. They put in the time to make a pretty darned good user experience for first impressions.

There's no junk, no spyware, nothing to remove. Occasionally you might get a software bundle, like Office, or Quicken, but literally just drop it in the trash and you are done with it. Rarely would you have to find an uninstaller or dig deep to remove something, and if you do, you generally brought it on yourself and should know what you are doing.

But you pay extra for this, most of which people apparently don't want to do, as I always hear "I could have bought computer xyz for 25% cheaper", as they are finishing their 15 hours of cleanup.

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

#74

Post by jiggy2011 »

This is one of the reasons I like running Linux, although this is really mainly a feature of having a smaller userbase and being mainly OSS so it is less of a target for this BS.

The only alternative for the mainstream seems to be the sandboxed type approach of iOS/WinRT. Oh, some developers abuse browser toolbars? No browser toolbars period! Background processes can make your system slower? No background processes period! Software from random websites can be viruses? Buy all of your software from us!

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

#75

Post by mendocino »

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…

> Not computer users, just the windows users.

Well, on a new Ubuntu installation the first thing I have to do now is:

  sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping
But still way better than the crap windows users have to put up with.

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

#76

Post by ygra »

purplelobster wrote: post #45

And this is why I'd prefer to buy a laptop or tablet directly from Microsoft. OEMs are doing an increasingly bad job, with everything from hardware to software. The exception I can see is Lenovo, which is the only OEM I'd buy anything from.

A fresh install of Windows is about 10 minutes from a USB thumb drive, which is not much longer than unboxing the computer, I guess. At least that's how I solved that problem usually ;)

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

#77

Post by jiggy2011 »

beloch wrote: post #67

First of all, this guy's biggest mistake was failing to format his drive and start with a clean Windows install. Installing windows requires far less effort than cleansing a vendor's install of crapware. Users should not have to do this. I must fully agree that MS needs to start restricting what Vendors like HP can install on the PC's they sell. Second, I'm very curious to see how the Windows App store plays out. The…

As I mentioned elsewhere, doing a clean Windows install is difficult if the only means of reinstallation you have is the bundled "recovery DVD" which puts all of the shit right back on there.

With regards an APT for Windows, I don't see how that wouldn't be possible to add to Windows as a third party thing. With a nice GUI and search and a default catalog of quality mainly OSS software with no toolbars or BS and have it also keep everything upto date.

That way you could just install it on all of your relatives who use Windows's computers and tell them just to download everything from either that or the MS app store.

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

#79

Post by bo1024 »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #74

This is one of the reasons I like running Linux, although this is really mainly a feature of having a smaller userbase and being mainly OSS so it is less of a target for this BS. The only alternative for the mainstream seems to be the sandboxed type approach of iOS/WinRT. Oh, some developers abuse browser toolbars? No browser toolbars period! Background processes can make your system slower? No background processes p…

Yeah, as a Linux user this article was just a list of reasons not to go back to Windows.

It does seem ironic that the product you pay for is far more anti-consumer than the free (in both senses) alternative. But I don't think that fact can be denied.

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

#80

Post by bo1024 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #37
fernly wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...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?

"Why would that not describe any major Linux distro?" Because Linux distros don't build or spec hardware. A hardware company can make a platform that is 100% supported by a software distribution, but it is currently impossible for a software distribution to be 100% compatible with a HW platform which won't release details of its implementation. One of the things I like about the OLPC XO-1 was that everything was docu…

OK sure, but change the statement to "...any major Linux distro on any major hardware system" and it seems on the money to me. The only place I think Linux is lagging is graphics cards.
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