Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March

blogs.windows.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 550 posts

Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March

#151

Post by embedding-shape »

fancyfredbot wrote: post #94
mdavid626 wrote: post #91

I literraly can’t name one feature since Windows 7 what was worth it, even on the contrary: every update made the system worse. I had to restore Notepad, Calculator and Paint from Windows 7. What the hell Microsoft?

WSL is a great feature and was a part of Windows 10.

WSL1 seemed great, until it wasn't. Then WSL2 came along, which is just a VM and works identical to VirtualBox et al. Still huge hassle to deal with various things that get confused when you run it in a "Linux-but-not-really-but-also-Windows" environment.

Better to just go straight to what you actually want, which seems to be a proper Linux distribution, everything just works as expected then.

Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March

#153

Post by tomaskafka »

cfiggers wrote: post #107
mdavid626 wrote: post #91

I literraly can’t name one feature since Windows 7 what was worth it, even on the contrary: every update made the system worse. I had to restore Notepad, Calculator and Paint from Windows 7. What the hell Microsoft?

On Windows 11, when you reconnect to a monitor or set of monitors that you've connected to before, it will automatically return your open windows to the layout across those monitors that you had when you last disconnected (assuming those windows are still open). This is extremely nice and saves me time on a literally (not figuratively) daily basis, to the point that I generally forget that it hasn't always worked tha…

"Well, they turned the entire OS into a tracking, sales and ad/propaganda delivery service, but they managed to make a single feature non-dumb, so guess we're even."

(propaganda - Windows 11 default widgets are "offering" a lot of russian-biased media, because Microsoft is too dumb to recognize that and they take any news source - and russian connected outlets are happy to use this delivery vector that most gullible people leave turned on)

Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March

#154

Post by tossandthrow »

alkonaut wrote: post #126
tossandthrow wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny that you mention wsl as a great windows feature - the ability to get out of windows.

Wine is a great thing on Linux too…

Yet again, because it helps avoid windows.

Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March

#155

Post by loloquwowndueo »

PeterStuer wrote: post #40

What people realy want: as little OS as possible to let them run just the things on their computer they want to run. What Microsoft wants: Windows as their straightjacket into the Microsoft services as that is where the revenue is. Why Windows got this bad: incentives and coercion placed on the teams to show uptake on the services no matter what leading to perversion in tactics and complete alienation of the user bas…

> perpendicularly misaligned

Um. Perpendicular lines intersect at some point.

Parallel lines never touch, maybe that’s a better geometric analogy.

Of course, for most people things that are “parallel” would seem to be in close agreement.

Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March

#156

Post by embedding-shape »

alkonaut wrote: post #126
tossandthrow wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny that you mention wsl as a great windows feature - the ability to get out of windows.

Wine is a great thing on Linux too…

Wine -> Running Windows programs on Linux

WSL -> Running Linux VM inside of Windows

Wine is more like emulating Windows API behavior on Linux, while WSL is Microsoft throwing their hands in the air and saying "Lets just VM Linux wholesale".

Both aim to avoid Windows, neither replace Linux but instead tries to move more to Linux.

Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March

#157

Post by oblio »

colechristensen wrote: post #106
neya wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always the MBAs. The organizational structure incentivises them on the wrong metrics. So they adapt and optimize for that. In real life, after a while, you hit a plateau with features and market demand. What these MBA clowns love to do is take what's already perfectly fine and mess it up and create a road map for it to fix something to being it the way it was, so they can justify to their higher ups they are "ad…

They want to be Apple. Apple sells hardware, services, and takes a huge cut being a software store. Microsoft sells software. They turned office into a service but it's still software. Nobody really wants to use their store. Their hardware is a cute little side hustle. Microsoft's strategy for turning into Apple is kneecapping their own software.

> Their hardware is a cute little side hustle.

Considering that at this point most Microsoft OEMs are failing, Microsoft should just start building a lot of consumer hardware.

Apple makes more money selling consumer hardware than the entire PC hardware market combined. I'm exaggerating, but only a little. This would have been unimaginable in 1999.

Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March

#158

Post by dmd »

irishcoffee wrote: post #110
sagacity wrote: post #81

I recently got locked out of my machine because logging in with the mandatory Microsoft account-backed primary user of my machine didn't work anymore. It said I was offline and I had to use the "previous password" even though I didn't have a previous password for that account. Hacking around in the recovery console to add another administrator user worked, but then I couldn't reset the original user's password becaus…

The day I can’t make a local-only account on windows (for personal use, work is a different matter unfortunately) is the day I stop using windows. It’s irritating enough that new linux installs want me to add accounts. I can skip it, which is nice, but just don’t show the screen. If you’re installing linux you either know what you’re doing or you don’t: if you do you know it’s possible and don’t need it jammed in you…

What are you suggesting here? Everyone who runs linux should log in and run everything as root all the time?

Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March

#159

Post by keyringlight »

bradley13 wrote: post #139
djyde wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I really wonder, is wanting a "little OS" just a hacker thing? For most people, they probably just want a full-featured OS. I don't have a solid take on this yet.

"For most people, they probably just want a full-featured OS." I don't think so. Most people just want to get to their websites or email. They don't care about the OS, and may not even know what an OS is. The problem is that they may just click "yes" on any popups, to make them go away - which is probably what Microsoft wants. "Yes" track me, "yes" show me ads, etc. For your average user, Xubuntu or Mint are both gre…

I think the challenge is where do you draw the line between the OS and the set of baseline applications it comes with, and then further questions on what is included in that (default?) set or how full featured they are. What is a feature of the OS? That's before considering how users discover and manage other software for activities not covered by whatever is OS provided.

Re: Windows quality update: Progress we've made since March

#160

Post by mdavid626 »

kosh2 wrote: post #146
mdavid626 wrote: post #91

I literraly can’t name one feature since Windows 7 what was worth it, even on the contrary: every update made the system worse. I had to restore Notepad, Calculator and Paint from Windows 7. What the hell Microsoft?

Windows terminal

I wouldn’t say Windows Terminal is great. Have you ever used a proper one, like Ghostty or iTerm2?
Post reply on HN