Funny, I just bought Start11 from Stardock for side taskbar placement. It was the oddest choice to remove that feature. On an ultrawide monitor it just makes so much sense.
Our commitment to Windows quality
391–400 of 1001 posts
Re: Our commitment to Windows quality
#392> pause updates for longer when needed > all while reducing update noise with fewer automatic restarts and notifications. Pause for longer.. why not just stop. And resume when wanted. Fewer automatic restart. What about no automatic restart. I couldn't read any further. Mind bended leadership to think this sort of wording after the obvious fiasco would make users hopeful. I stopped using windows personally 15 years a…
Well, if yo allow random users to just stop updates forever in a non-managed environment, then a good portion of them won't remember to reenable them. This would create new breeding grounds for security vulnerabilities. Remember Sasser and Blaster?
Average computer owners don't really care about their machines, let alone understand them. Computers are appliances to them like their washing machines and microwaves.
Re: Our commitment to Windows quality
#393> fewer automatic restarts No automatic restarts! I understand that in our security patching world that patching and restarting automatically is the default, fine, but there absolutely should be a dead simple way of disabling auto restarts in settings. I'm fine if it pesters me to restart or whatever, perhaps with growing alarm the longer I wait, but it should always be optional in the end. There are just no words fo…
I disagree, at least on end-user devices as opposed to servers.
If you make it possible to defer updates indefinitely, users will. Guaranteed. Doesn't matter how urgent or critical the update is, how bad the bug or vulnerability it patches is, how disastrous the consequences may be: they'll never, ever voluntarily apply them.
If you're running a server, and willing to accept the risk of deferral because 1) you're in a better position to assess the risk and apply compensating controls than a regular user is, and 2) you're OK accepting the personal risk of having to explain to your boss why you kept deferring the urgent patch until after it blew up in your face, then yes, you should have a control to delay or disable it.
But end users? No. I use to believe otherwise, but now I've seen far, far too many cases where people train themselves to click "Delay 1 day" without even consciously seeing the dialog.
Re: Our commitment to Windows quality
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recently installed Fedora and holy shit it's still not production ready. During the initial setup you need to input your location, you have a choice between clicking on the map or typing the city, I don't remember which it is but one of them makes your system freeze, no way to get out other than a reboot. It's documented since Fedora 42, and was still there on Fedora 43 Every time my swap is full the entire system…
I have been daily driving fedora on my laptop for over a year now and haven't ran into a single issue. Not saying you're lying, but if you are having that many serious problems it might be a hardware issue. The OS is definitely stable and perfectly fine to use.
If we’re collecting anecdata, I installed Fedora fresh on a framework a couple months ago. I like the cohesiveness of GNOME these days but i’ve seen a couple of issues like non stop notification bells on repeat or inability to wake screen when plugged in to a monitor that feel not prod ready.
I don’t know that i’d expect windows to be much better either, but that’s my experience.
Re: Our commitment to Windows quality
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its one of the first things I turn off.
How? I feel like every time I do my ~1 yearly Windows reinstall I need to google it and then alter half a dozen registry keys and a bunch of group policy settings, and some of them are the "old" settings now replaced with something even more vaguely named (probably on purpose).
Re: Our commitment to Windows quality
#396Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people want a web browser. Even Microsofts esteemed moat (office) is “Web only” on the lowest tier.
> Microsofts esteemed moat (office) is “Web only” on the lowest tier. If you've ever used it before, you'd quickly come to the conclusion that web only Office is only useful for someone writing essays for school. The moment you need to do anything more complex than that, the document renders completely differently on web vs app-- not to mention there are tons of critical features that aren't even available on the web…
I don’t do anything too “serious” as far as writing documents that Google Docs can’t handle - we use that at work instead of Office - is Word that much better than GSuite for most cases or is Office Web worse than GSuite?
Re: Our commitment to Windows quality
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're vastly underestimating the technical illiteracy most people have with computers. 99% of people buy a desktop and don't even consider what the operating system is let alone think about changing it to something else. I would imagine they don't even know that a difference exists between operating systems.
I try new distros all the time and not a single one of them is 'GUI native' in the sense that you can do everything without touching a terminal. Some weird stuff always happens and you need to do a bunch of research to figure out how to fix it. The settings GUIs never have parity with the config files and it shows.
Windows isn't 100% GUI native either. Tell me how to configure the IP settings of a Hyper-V virtual switch via GUI.
Re: Our commitment to Windows quality
#398I'm somewhat surprised that Windows is still most of personal computers. In my eyes, it's fundamentally inferior to Linux, and its superficial superiority only comes from the ecosystem, which is to say adoption, not some inherent trait. But then, since Linux adoption didn't meaningfully change in the last 20 years, I'm forced to confront the fact that either I'm wrong about its fundamentals, or the market is able to…
It’s absolutely wild to me just how unaware tech people can be to how far from normal their experience is. Like this is just not even close to understanding what the game even is. We’d all be better off if we could somehow impart a lot more empathy for everyone to be even just aware of other life contexts.
Re: Our commitment to Windows quality
#399I'm somewhat surprised that Windows is still most of personal computers. In my eyes, it's fundamentally inferior to Linux, and its superficial superiority only comes from the ecosystem, which is to say adoption, not some inherent trait. But then, since Linux adoption didn't meaningfully change in the last 20 years, I'm forced to confront the fact that either I'm wrong about its fundamentals, or the market is able to…
Drivers for laptops. Do all the sound cards work flawlessly? Is the power usage/battery life similar? Sadly this is a big part of what holds it back.
Re: Our commitment to Windows quality
#400If Microsoft leadership thinks that they took a wrong turn in the last few years, they are in for a rude awakening (I hope). They took a wrong turn in the late 90s. Probably earlier than that. They have managed to stave off all user feedback for 30 years through litigious bullying and strict vendor lock-in. This isn't about the taskbar, man. This isn't even about Copilot.
The pushback which you are only now starting to perceive is being caused by an entire generation of Microsoft intentionally and actively positioning itself in conflict with its customers.
I understand that once you have a million customers, you can't really treat them right anymore. But Microsoft has not given a single shit about customer feedback, even in aggregate for decades now.
As I read this, all I can think is "too little, too late." I have watched in my workplace Windows go from being a product that we are happy to purchase to yet another piece of technology that we would simply replace were we not yoked to it.
I guess even now they probably still don't care. Microsoft will continue printing money until the sun burns out.