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

Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

sambent.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 804 posts

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#401

Post by bluescrn »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #293
bluescrn wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows has historically oscillated between pretty awful and pretty decent. XP was good, Vista was bad, Win7 was good, Win8 was a disaster, Win10 was decent again. Now we're in a low part of the cycle with Win11. Maybe there's another 'good Windows' on the way. But I'm sceptical this time, being in the era of enshittification and the AI slop bubble, where everything is user-hostile by design, where if something seems…

> XP was good, Vista was bad, Win7 was good, Win8 was a disaster, Win10 was decent again. Now we're in a low part of the cycle with Win11. The cycle is more complicated: * 2000: exceptional * XP: bad (the original XP was indeed bad) * XP SP2 (from a technological perspective basically a new OS): decent * Vista: bad * 7: good * 8: awful (it was so bad that soon 8.1 was introduced) * 8.1: bad * 10: controversial (some…

The general downward trend is across the whole of tech, if not the whole of society, rather than just Microsoft products though.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#402

Post by red369 »

red369 wrote: post #329
bob1029 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a blend of Windows, MacOS, iOS and Linux. Each is good at its own thing. I don't understand the game of picking exactly one hill to die on. I spend about 60% of my time on Apple operating systems, and 40% elsewhere. Windows really does suck from a UX perspective, but if you are trying to make money doing things professionally with a computer, it's hard to beat. Running outlook and office on Mac just doesn't hit…

I agree completely about each being good for its own thing. I quite like iOS as a phone OS. The limitations often bother me, but since it's tiny screen that needs to fit in my pocket, I'm creating my own limitations anyway so I'll use it less (1). I switch around enough that I try not to do crazy amounts of personalisation in my desktop OS. Probably this evens out the OSs and there are aspects I like and dislike abou…

I've given this a little more thought, and I agree more with "Windows really does suck from a UX perspective" then I was thinking when I wrote my comment.

I really should have included the recent escalation in hostility towards users in my thoughts - built in ads, pushing unwanted products, trash news in new tab pages etc.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#403

Post by sombragris »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #190
fainpul wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then at least let the company that makes your niche software know that you want a Linux version of it, even if you don't use Linux (yet). We need to solve this chicken / egg problem. Nobody wants to use Windows, they want to use some specific application. If most software is available on Linux too, then consumers can actually choose their OS.

Most software is already available on Linux. I've successfully run Linux in corporate jobs where everything runs on the MS/AD/Azure stack. The issue is not that you can't do it, the issue is that you have to spend extra work at every corner to get things running, because unlike Windows Linux doesn't take your hand and hide all the nasty bits from you, while it tries to juggle a million cases in the background. Window…

> the issue is not that you can't do it, the issue is that you have to spend extra work at every corner to get things running, because unlike Windows Linux doesn't take your hand and hide all the nasty bits from you, while it tries to juggle a million cases in the background.

You may have to spend extra work to get things running; but once it's done, it runs forever without a hitch.

I know, I use Slackware. It's regarded as a very technical distribution and some manual configuration is expected but once it's done, it's done. I have configs from > 20 years ago that I still use without a hiccup.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#405

Post by bluescrn »

torginus wrote: post #260
bluescrn wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Macbook Neo seems likely to be a a huge seller. It's got the price of entry down to where it's now the obvious recommendation for less-technical friends/family wanting an affordable-but-nice laptop for light home/office/student use. I suspect it's going to hurt iPad sales though, as a real Mac running MacOS is vastly more capable than any iPad.

I don't think Ipads are selling well. I have an old style basic one (from 2019 I think?), and the only thing I use it for is to read articles and occasionally look at emails, for which it's perfectly adequate.

Tablets can do very little that you can't do on a phone.

Phones got larger and more capable, tablets now seem somewhat redundant. But a laptop with a keyboard and 'real OS' can still do many things that aren't practical on a tablet or phone.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#406

Post by bombcar »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #300
swiftcoder wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an old joke, but it's also accurate in this case - isn't what you are asking for just WINE?

> isn't what you are asking for just WINE An operating system is a style of thinking about your work. WINE is a way to get Windows applications to run (by now run decently) under GNU/Linux. These Windows applications are nevertheless foreign bodies in the whole kind of thinking which GNU/Linux is built around.

The joke is that the most stable Linux API for applications is ... WIN32 via WINE.

It's sad because it's true.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#407

Post by thunderfork »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #393
nicoburns wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the only way this gets better for consumers is if customer response more often insisted further roll backs than just the last straw if a company crosses the line. I think consumers have little power here. Our economic system fundamentally chooses to reward such behaviour. Until we change that, the power will always be with these kind of companies. Perhaps governments could levy punative fines in such situat…

> I think consumers have little power here. Our economic system fundamentally chooses to reward such behaviour. Consumers have the final say, our economic system fundamentally is consumer spending. (Ok, save for most recent year(s) of mag7 AI buildout. But generally that's the case for USA economy). We have to stop taking out our wallet and just accepting things like sheep. (nearly) Every one of the "scrapped" comput…

You can do that, but the companies and institutions built on Windows will still keep paying whatever it costs for Active Directory, and thus all the bundled software that comes with it.

Individual consumer action does not a monopoly break.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#408

Post by tantalor »

nicoburns wrote: post #380
Macha wrote: post #7

It’s quite common for companies to work their way up to the line of the most user hostile version of their product that users will tolerate. Especially with software where they can just go flip a switch and turn off whatever feature did cross the line but keep everything they gained by inching up to the line, which seems to inevitably result in things like the condition of windows 11. I think the only way this gets b…

> I think the only way this gets better for consumers is if customer response more often insisted further roll backs than just the last straw if a company crosses the line. I think consumers have little power here. Our economic system fundamentally chooses to reward such behaviour. Until we change that, the power will always be with these kind of companies. Perhaps governments could levy punative fines in such situat…

> consumers have little power here

Don't buy their products, and tell your friends

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#409

Post by nobleach »

twilo wrote: post #265
exceptione wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. Windows can't do 99% of the things I and anyone not grasping at straws can do with Linux. It is getting tiring, I don't say Linux is perfect, but KDE has been better than Windows for years, Linux doesn't bit rot like an average Windows install and Linux is in practice surprisingly more stable, but no-no-no, Linux can't be this time again. Quick... ehm "there is a piece of software that only works on Windows". H…

Linux is pretty awful at a lot of things …

As a VERY long-time Linux user, I agree. Multi-monitor setups, where you can unplug the monitor and have your windows gather back onto your laptop screen requires WAY too much configuration. Having your audio switch back to internal laptop speakers requires homebrewing a script. On my 2020 Dell XPS, I still haven't figured out how to enable the subwoofers - so I'm stuck with ThinkPad quality audio. I have 3 ThinkPads (one with straight ArchLinux, 2 with CachyOS) and there's always some little piece I'm annoyed with. The X1C has good battery life, the T480 and P14s are meh. I JUST bought my first HiDPI Lenovo laptop this weekend. Getting that to be a decent tradeoff between readable text and mongo-duplo-massive UI has been "fun". (Yoga 15.3" Aura edition - I really like it) But running apps in Wine is darn near impossible - the text is for ants!

All of these issues go away with Mac and Windows. I'm not giving up on Linux, I'm just a realist.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#410

Post by xXSLAYERXx »

ndespres wrote: post #387
neves wrote: post #299

For me the worst is Microsoft Start news. I've already turned it off multiple times and it always come back. To add insult to injury, it always displays terrible gossip, sports or far right news. If any developer that works in MS news service is reading this message, please know that I hate you.

It's so mind-boggling that they have control over the default browser home page and the news feed on everyone's taskbar and they choose to show gossip and one weird trick that doctors hate. Don't they feel embarrassed that they pollute their brand like this? Is the revenue from the clicks really worth it, or do they just not care?

While crazy to us, I bet we're in the minority. Average computer user might actually like it or at worse (to MSFT) not even notice it. Their web experience is bombarded with "1 weird trick" ads everywhere.
Post reply on HN