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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

#191

Post by antidoh »

philwelch wrote: post #146
antidoh wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." That's not a clean install. A clean install is buying a retail version of Windows and blasting it down on your HD. Recovery DVDs recover what the hardware vendor put there in the first place.

So you have to buy Windows twice?

Unfortunately yes. The version that comes with your computer is relatively cheap, but you can't do much with it. The retail version gives you full flexibility, and you can move it to a new computer.

Or you can buy a computer that doesn't come with Windows in the first place.

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

#192

Post by douglasisshiny »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #117
biturd wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

>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 Microsoft does this too, if you buy a PC from them or from a Microsoft Store. http://signature.microsoft.com/

It's sad that this exists (or has to), but I'm glad it does. I recently bought a Vizio ultrabook, which is a "Windows Signature" laptop. No crapware, trialware, bloat, etc. It came with a stripped down version of Office, Microsoft Security Essentials and Skype (which I guess could count as bloat, but I don't care).

Vizio seems to get it. A sleek industrial design. Well priced. And Windows Signature. It's hard to believe that OEMs have trouble grasping this given that Apple has done it for years.

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

#193

Post by tonyedgecombe »

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 have been wondering if the tablet market will help us on the way to this. Once 'normal' people stop buying desktops and laptops the market becomes much smaller but more focussed on power users.

This trend towards apps stores may also be pushing in the same direction.

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

#194

Post by [deleted] »

firloop wrote: post #176
lukeschlather wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(b) is the big catch that will kick anyone. You want the hardware to work as designed, you have to start with the manufacturer install and work your way down.

You can easily download the drivers from the manufacturer's website but I understand that even doing that may be too complex for some users.

[deleted]

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

#195

Post by jamesjporter »

nitrogen wrote: post #162
eropple wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Er...what? The iDevices are completely orthogonal to whether a MBP is a "developer-focused" computer. I use mine for Android development (oh noes! locked bootloaders!), Web development, and Windows development about equally, and everything works pretty much flawlessly, with the tools I need kept close at hand. (Hell, I don't even use Quicksilver anymore, as Spotlight's gotten better and Quicksilver hasn't kept up to…

From ChuckMcM's original post: But for that company to exist, you have to pay for the products you use, and to get to that point you have to not be able to get something 'good enough' by hacking and slashing something else into shape. Based on this and other things he said, I think Macs count as the "something else" that can be hacked into shape, since Apple is not specifically targeting all of your listed use cases.…

I agree — if an when Apple locks down OSX so that the only source for software is the App Store, that's when ChuckMcM's company can take off. I think there are enough people who are technically minded (no even necessarily developers) and currently use OSX because its a UNIX system that "just works" and can also run popular commerical software (MS Office and Adobe CS mostly). The day Apple does this I and others will need to buy computers from somewhere else — I think there's room for a company to fill that role.

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

#197

Post by mistercow »

comex wrote: post #161
mistercow wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am an Apple user, and the Apple experience has jumped off a cliff for developers. I was an Apple user and small OS X developer, and I agree completely. Three years ago, I made a living developing shareware. Then Apple decided they wanted total control over the app ecosystem and turned the "put out a good product and wait" business model into an impossibility. VersionTracker's sale to CNET and subsequent mediocriti…

I've never tried to sell apps, but I don't understand your complaint. Are you saying that people were no longer interested in buying your apps because they weren't in the Mac App Store? I'd think that it would improve discoverability in general, not hurt it, not to mention make the purchase process a lot easier.

The main problem was that at around the same time that VT became useless, Apple removed the OS X downloads section from their website (in preparation for the Mac App Store). So within a very short time span, most of the resources that small developers had for promoting their work disappeared.

More recent abominations like Gatekeeper are just icing on the cake.

>I'd think that it would improve discoverability in general, not hurt it

Nope. Apple's app stores are abysmal at helping people discover your software. I don't know why they opted to ignore everything that software aggregators like VT and Mac Update had learned over the years, but they did.

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

#198

Post by dualogy »

genwin wrote: post #166
rcb wrote: post #120

After almost 20 years of running Linux, FreeBSD (and even NextStep!) on x86 bare metal, I've for the time being gone back to Windows. It's a fast dual-head box. One screen is all Windows (and I'm typing this from IE 10), and the other is xmonad and emacs on Arch Linux on VirtualBox. I'm also an Apple user (and AAPL shareholder), owning two (2010 and 2011 model) MBPs, and it is my opinion that Windows 8 is gorgeous an…

Your setup is close to mine, which is Win 7 running VirtualBox and Linux Mint. I've not used a Mac. I like developing with Linux. A friend recommends ditching my double-OS setup in favor of Apple. My question to you is, why don't you use only Apple / Mountain Lion? Why bother with Win 8?

If you like to combine the Win desktop environment with the Linux dev environment, other than VirtualBox you could also check out MinGW if you haven't yet.

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

#199

Post by alister »

> Comodo firewall subscribed me to something called GeekBuddy, Adobe Reader trying to install McAfee, QuickTime trying to sign me up for offers

Perhaps what we need is a meta-installer that runs standard installers but ticks check boxes and sets or clears options that tell the app to not install adware/toolbars/plug-ins, maximizes the privacy settings, turns off auto-update, etc.

Whenever I install something, I already make notes about what I ticked/set/cleared so I can do it quickly the next time I need to install the same thing. Notes like this in an appropriate format--from thousands of users--can serve as the config file for the meta-installer.

Since the meta-installer would run the applications' own installers, there shouldn't be objections from commercial vendors since it wouldn't be repackaging their products.

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

#200

Post by sanarothe »

firloop wrote: post #176
lukeschlather wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(b) is the big catch that will kick anyone. You want the hardware to work as designed, you have to start with the manufacturer install and work your way down.

You can easily download the drivers from the manufacturer's website but I understand that even doing that may be too complex for some users.

keep in mind that some (most) manufacturers don't seem to give any craps about the users either, and provide shoddy bloatware drivers that are difficult to hunt down, take forever to install, often don't work with older or newer OS/hardware, etc.

and then there might be a specific patch or workaround that's been applied by the oem that keeps the computer from exploding, but they sold it anyway because you can blow yourself up as much as you like AFTER voiding the warranty.

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