No Start Menu for You • Hacker News Board

Re: No Start Menu for You

#11

Post by runevault » Wed, Jan 18, 2023, 6:40 AM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #4

Meanwhile, an Amiga with a half meg of RAM and a 7 to 25 MHz processor never fails to respond instantly to user input unless it's totally hosed. We seem to have forgotten this very fundamental principle: the user's desires, expressed through input, are paramount for a desktop OS, which means that the OS must be designed from the ground up to respond to input at a very high priority. Mainframe operating systems like U…

The thing that's a bummer with deprioritizing performance is it makes people less willing to experiment/try things/dabble. With immediate response times there's no cost to saying hell with it and searching for other possibilities in the start menu (as an example related to this). Instead we just do what we've always done because we have to wait for far too long.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#12

Post by idiocrat » Wed, Jan 18, 2023, 6:41 AM UTC

While the ETW is helpful with a deep dive into problem analysis, a look into the Event Viewer can give some initial hint about crashing processes and other system/app faults.

Sometimes I page through the Event Viewer entries, trying to find something interesting what went wrong in the last weeks/months.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#13

Post by EdwardDiego » Wed, Jan 18, 2023, 6:42 AM UTC

And if it's randomascii hitting these issues and still not able to resolve them, holy hell, you're not going to get a bigger power user big analysis than this, MS, step to it!

Re: No Start Menu for You

#14

Post by delta_p_delta_x » Wed, Jan 18, 2023, 6:45 AM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #4

Meanwhile, an Amiga with a half meg of RAM and a 7 to 25 MHz processor never fails to respond instantly to user input unless it's totally hosed. We seem to have forgotten this very fundamental principle: the user's desires, expressed through input, are paramount for a desktop OS, which means that the OS must be designed from the ground up to respond to input at a very high priority. Mainframe operating systems like U…

> Mainframe operating systems like Unix (incl. Linux) and NT do not

> I think macOS might

macOS is Unix. Specifically, it's a derivative of BSD.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#15

Post by Baeocystin » Wed, Jan 18, 2023, 6:45 AM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #4

Meanwhile, an Amiga with a half meg of RAM and a 7 to 25 MHz processor never fails to respond instantly to user input unless it's totally hosed. We seem to have forgotten this very fundamental principle: the user's desires, expressed through input, are paramount for a desktop OS, which means that the OS must be designed from the ground up to respond to input at a very high priority. Mainframe operating systems like U…

I really wish BeOS has taken off. Personal computing has taken a real hit over the years.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#16

Post by delta_p_delta_x » Wed, Jan 18, 2023, 6:47 AM UTC

Great article. I love Windows deep dives—both because of the supposed inaccessibility of Windows (clearly not true), and because Windows is something I've daily-driven for 23 years, and I've come to really appreciate.

If only MS could get its act straight, clean up its UI framework mess (WinUI, WPF, WinForms, Win32, WinRT, MAUI... sheesh) and stop applying stupid regressive updates and dark patterns.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#17

Post by pasquinelli » Wed, Jan 18, 2023, 6:47 AM UTC

daguava wrote: post #10

bitwize wrote: post #4

Meanwhile, an Amiga with a half meg of RAM and a 7 to 25 MHz processor never fails to respond instantly to user input unless it's totally hosed. We seem to have forgotten this very fundamental principle: the user's desires, expressed through input, are paramount for a desktop OS, which means that the OS must be designed from the ground up to respond to input at a very high priority. Mainframe operating systems like U…

Terrible comparison, Windows is still catching every one of those inputs and handling them. The diff is the amiga is doing maybe three things total. This isn't even apples to oranges, it's apples to radish farm.

doesn't seem all that different to me, the user. how many things am i doing at once, really?

Re: No Start Menu for You

#18

Post by mscdex » Wed, Jan 18, 2023, 6:49 AM UTC

msla wrote: post #5

I've long thought that Windows NT might make a pretty good OS if it weren't married to the Microsoft Windows interface. I know I'm abusing the terminology here, but only because the concept of a replaceable graphical shell is utterly foreign to an OS which began as one of many replaceable graphical shells for MS-DOS.

There are still some alternative shells that exist, even for Windows 10 and 11, including xoblite (inspired by blackbox I believe) [1] and Cairo Shell [2].

[1] https://xoblite.net/docs/

[2] https://cairoshell.com/

Re: No Start Menu for You

#19

Post by spijdar » Wed, Jan 18, 2023, 6:49 AM UTC

msla wrote: post #5

I've long thought that Windows NT might make a pretty good OS if it weren't married to the Microsoft Windows interface. I know I'm abusing the terminology here, but only because the concept of a replaceable graphical shell is utterly foreign to an OS which began as one of many replaceable graphical shells for MS-DOS.

Strictly speaking, I don't think there's any technological reason why you couldn't replace the shell, although practically I'd bet the boot chain will refuse to load e.g. a replacement compositor that's not signed by Microsoft, not to mention the lack of API documentation at that level. I mention it since sometimes I daydream about trying to force a newer Windows runtime/kernel to load an older shell...

Still, in a manner of speaking, this is encouraged for the Server SKUs, which IIRC Microsoft is trying to push the "GUI-less" version which you do all configuration on remotely with powershell and DCOM and the other half dozen RPC interfaces in Windows. It's not a replacement shell, but it is an example of running WinNT with the UI front-end hacked off.

Re: No Start Menu for You

#20

Post by rootw0rm » Wed, Jan 18, 2023, 6:50 AM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #7

Across 2 different machines, 100% repo, the start button on my keyboard only opens the start menu every other time I push it. It has been that way for 4+ years, it went away for a bit after an update, then came back again. Microsoft never has recovered from their dismantling of their test organizations.

works every time for me...