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As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

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Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#71

Counterpoint: as a Mac user it is surreal to click Next Next Next to install a program on Windows. Same for uninstalling. Move to Trash and poof, unistalled. There is no standard way to install stuff, so neither MacOS nor Windows deviates from something. For all the bickering about it here in the comments, no one proposed an “ideal” solution to install a program on Mac.

Ideal solution: download .app inside .zip. Double-clicking expands it into /Applications, deletes the zip, and opens the app, which is not far from what regular zips do. Or xip if they want signing.

The Windows way is inherently clearer than what Mac does now. You always open what it gives you, and you don't need to be told to do anything else. Also, move to trash doesn't exactly uninstall a Mac app right now.

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#72

Counterpoint: as a Mac user it is surreal to click Next Next Next to install a program on Windows. Same for uninstalling. Move to Trash and poof, unistalled. There is no standard way to install stuff, so neither MacOS nor Windows deviates from something. For all the bickering about it here in the comments, no one proposed an “ideal” solution to install a program on Mac.

That stupid nezt next elevate confirm page workflow on macos has always annoyed me for some reason.

Its so idk redundant

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#74

Counterpoint: as a Mac user it is surreal to click Next Next Next to install a program on Windows. Same for uninstalling. Move to Trash and poof, unistalled. There is no standard way to install stuff, so neither MacOS nor Windows deviates from something. For all the bickering about it here in the comments, no one proposed an “ideal” solution to install a program on Mac.

Mac stuff can leave stuff ghosting around. Launch agents, helper tools installed into the Unix filesystem, configuration and cache files.

A myriad of „uninstallers“ exist but these are all third party and rely on crowd wisdom.

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a surprisingly sane place in Windows to uninstall apps that has no equivalent on Mac.

The Applications folder itself is the equivalent. You can select an app and just press delete.

That doesn't delete all Application Support, Preferences, and Caches dirs associated with it.

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a good method, as well as approving tens of following security popups, entering System Settings, finding some entries, allowing something that the user doesn't even understand, entering passwords after each mouse click. MacOS experience is t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e and it's getting worse on each release. People who like macOS experience for me either suffer from Stockholm syndrome, or nostalgia about lost macOS 9 base…

macOS is quirky and sometimes limited, but to be honest gets out of your way for the most part. Windows is actively hostile to me in numerous ways. Linux is incredible in its depth of customization, but still to this day needs extra tinkering in plenty of cases.

macOS is in the way at all times. It's not even possible to disable SIP completely. Trying to run more than 2 macOS VMs at once? Nope, security risk! Password, password, password. Please enter your password in order to be able to write your password. Thanks. Oh yeah, please enter your password to close this dialog box. And find some obscure setting somewhere in system settings, and click allow. Don't ask why, we're not in UX business apparently. And sometimes writing the password is not enough. Now write the 2FA code after writing your password! And 2FA code pops up on the same machine in a different window (although that is actually useful, although I'm sure it's an oversight of apple lawyers). And when writing the 2FA code we'll censor the digits, because apparently it's too insecure to allow anyone, including YOU, to see a one-time number that won't ever be used again.

It's generally insane. They have mocked Windows in the Vista era for bringing UAC, but now they're much, much worse.

Their file security API breaks auto-updates of popular applications. AV vendors have to use an API that forces to block access to new files and release it "at unspecified time in the future".

Installing an average application on macOS generates so much notifications that user doesn't even see them anymore. It's like ads on a commercial TV channel, nobody wants this info, but it's being served over and over again.

Developer experience is dreadful. It's "our way, or the highway". Setting up a CI worker box on macOS is something I wouldn't wish for my enemy.

A good eye opening excersise of how much macOS gets in the way is to install sshfs.

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#77
This is one of my favorite things with the Mac. I feel it is very intuitive me moving the app to Applications, then just move it to trash if it sucks and it is completely gone.

setup.exe .pkg installers make me feel dirty because I hav enough control over how it will fuck up my system or not.

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#78
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't even get me started on the registry.

How's registry different than ~/Library/Application Support?

It's not a directory tree you can just browse in the filesystem, it's a few database files. Idk much about Windows, but at first glance I like how you can browse the Windows registry all in one place without digging through other files.

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#79

Counterpoint: as a Mac user it is surreal to click Next Next Next to install a program on Windows. Same for uninstalling. Move to Trash and poof, unistalled. There is no standard way to install stuff, so neither MacOS nor Windows deviates from something. For all the bickering about it here in the comments, no one proposed an “ideal” solution to install a program on Mac.

Hmm but a lot of macos uses the familiar cancel/next wizard flow, doesn't it?

Re: As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One advantage to leaving the configs around is that the next time you install the app, yiu get it set up just the way you had it before. Also, AFAIK, this mirrors how command line utils would work.

Why would you remove an app if you want it to stay set up? iPhone has the "deleting an app will remove its data" thing for this reason.

Lots of possible reasons:

- You used a trial version of a software, or other time limited license, and want to keep the output from that around.

- You are upgrading and that particular app requires uninstalling the old version before installing the new version

- You run out of disk space and want to uninstall a game but don’t want to lose you’re progress

That’s just what immediately comes to mind but suffice to say any workflow will have legitimate counter examples.

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