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Useless Windows 10 Features

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Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#381

Post by jlg23 »

beatgammit wrote: post #324
harrygeez wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is godsend. Before they do this people litter their files all over the filesystem. These magic folders reside in a user's home folder by default anyway. Most Windows users don't really have much clue about the filesystem like everyone here does.

And is that desirable? Why do we want users to know less about how their computer works? Is it really a problem to know that you have a user directory with a bunch of other directories inside that hold certain classes of information by default? When I open a command prompt (yes, I'm not the average user), I'm in my home directory, and if I create any files or folders, they'll be there by default. To access those file…

> And is that desirable? Why do we want users to know less about how their computer works?

Because we'd complain ourselves if using a hammer required knowledge about metallurgy.

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#382

Post by Wowfunhappy »

twodave wrote: post #277
projektfu wrote: post #19

How about all the ways windows goes out of its way to hide the home folder, and then is now generating multiple places it calls “Documents”, “Pictures”, etc so you’re never really sure where anything is?

OSX tends to do this too, but at least you still have a unix terminal and they don't screw with the paths to things...

The "they don't screw with the path to things" makes a world of difference, IMO.

In macOS, the Music folder is literally ~/Music, and the Downloads folder is literally ~/Downloads. While your home folder isn't listed in Finder's sidebar by default, it can be enabled very easily in Finder's preferences.

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#383

Post by mice »

grepballsoffire wrote: post #214
baroffoos wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Microsoft products are horrendous for this. Every time I have to start up my windows VM to test an IE bug I get assaulted by advertising and "news" in the start menu with bright moving blocks and then I open IE and get hit with it even worse. I don't know why people put up with it tbh.

I kept on wondering why I hadn't seen any of this, and then remembered that I'd installed Classic Shell start menu, which provides a Windows 7 style menu. It doesn't disable the Windows 10 menu, just hides it. Makes for a much more pleasant experience though. (No affiliation)

Does it still work reliably? I used it on a Windows 10 machine a few years ago, but then it stopped being maintained:

http://www.classicshell.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8147

... which is a huge shame, as that single app alone made Windows 10 a significantly less frustrating experience.

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#384

Post by ensignavenger »

bhhaskin wrote: post #3
Bender wrote: post #2

I agree with this article, but I think it can be summed up as, "People need the option to buy the LTSB release of Windows 10". Microsoft refuses to sell it to consumers. It is an enterprise only option (unless that has recently changed and I am not aware of it). I have one windows 7 machine for playing WoW and it will stay on 7 until I can get the LTSB release of Windows 10 and the ability to turn off 100% of the tel…

You should check out Valve's Proton. It's wine, but not wine... It's another abstraction layer built on top and it is pretty amazing. For the most part it just works. Doing some quick searching it looks like people have WoW running on it.

I keep hearing this, but I have so far not been able to get a single game (even ones marked with excellent support) to work on proton. I really, really, really want it to work, though!

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#385

Post by pixelbath »

orev wrote: post #18

I honestly think that the new tab/news/spam page in IE/Edge is (and has been, forever) the single biggest factor driving people to Chrome and Firefox. Every time you open it you’re greeted with all this complete junk, making the whole experience stuttering and slowing down your flow. I dread having to open IE on systems with no alternative just because it’s always so bad. Edge might actually be pretty good, but I wil…

What's fun is that it's even the default on Windows Server systems. Why I'm forced to watch CSS animations on msn.com over an RPD session instead of defaulting to about:blank, I'll never know.

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#386

Post by crooked-v »

aksss wrote: post #49
ryandrake wrote: post #5

Most of these are similar manifestations of the same root evil (not specific to Microsoft): Users don’t want Feature X but Company wants users to want Feature X. They release Feature X to the world. It’s a failure—nobody uses it. The PM or developers who invested in that feature need to justify the investment. So they make Feature X enabled by default. Users disable it. So they remove the disable option. Users ignore…

Are you talking about Cortana right now? Cuz it sounds like you’re talking about Cortana.

Also the general 'search the web from the start menu' weird ess.

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#387

Post by crooked-v »

kirb wrote: post #254
barking wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For every previous version of windows you typically bought a new licence only when you purchased a new PC. The fact that MS allowed upgrades to Widows 10 on old machines should not have affected their revenue to any great extent, those machines were never going to have a paid upgrade anyway.

I may be completely off-base since Microsoft surely has some numbers we don’t that justify their choice of licensing model, but from my perspective, and from a few real experiences helping family and friends, people figure their PCs were at the end of their life and needed an entire replacement. Installing the free Windows 10 upgrade changes their mind - now they think their computer is perfectly up to date, at least…

That should be plenty for the basic 'grandpa wants the internet and Word' use cases, though. If it's not, I blame Microsoft.

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#388

Post by projektfu »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #367
CathedralBorrow wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the user need to know about file systems and home directories and symbolic links if all they want is to save a file and then find it later? Do you feel the same about cars? Are we dumbing things too much down by making driving as simple as pressing a pedal and moving a steering wheel?

The "find it later" part is kind of important.

Agreed. The average user loses a file when it falls out of the recent documents list, so it'd be nice if a power user at least had some clue where it might be found. Windows "search" is also buggered, as mentioned in the article, and only shows a handful of documents and a thousand irrelevant Bing search results when you're looking for a document.

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#389

Post by grepballsoffire »

mice wrote: post #383
grepballsoffire wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kept on wondering why I hadn't seen any of this, and then remembered that I'd installed Classic Shell start menu, which provides a Windows 7 style menu. It doesn't disable the Windows 10 menu, just hides it. Makes for a much more pleasant experience though. (No affiliation)

Does it still work reliably? I used it on a Windows 10 machine a few years ago, but then it stopped being maintained: http://www.classicshell.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8147 ... which is a huge shame, as that single app alone made Windows 10 a significantly less frustrating experience.

There was one windows update around two years ago that broke it, but I just reinstalled it and haven't had any problems since.

Re: Useless Windows 10 Features

#390

Post by MaxBarraclough »

baroffoos wrote: post #155
orev wrote: post #18

I honestly think that the new tab/news/spam page in IE/Edge is (and has been, forever) the single biggest factor driving people to Chrome and Firefox. Every time you open it you’re greeted with all this complete junk, making the whole experience stuttering and slowing down your flow. I dread having to open IE on systems with no alternative just because it’s always so bad. Edge might actually be pretty good, but I wil…

Absolutely. Microsoft products are horrendous for this. Every time I have to start up my windows VM to test an IE bug I get assaulted by advertising and "news" in the start menu with bright moving blocks and then I open IE and get hit with it even worse. I don't know why people put up with it tbh.

> I don't know why people put up with it tbh.

They don't. [0] Ordinary people install Chrome, and FOSS-aware people install Firefox or one of its variants. Not many use IE/Edge.

I second the parent comment to yours: it's a pity Microsoft vandalise solid technology. Perhaps something could've become of Edge, had they done otherwise.

There's a certain irony in the way we avoid Edge to avoid its insufferable ads, given that they only make ad money if we decide to use it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Su...

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