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Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

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Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#641

Post by tombert »

e12e wrote: post #639
bombcar wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do they do with Excel for Windows that they can't do with Excel for Mac?

Excel for Mac has gotten a lot better - but I'm not surprised if it is still its own thing - with edge cases in format, macros, visual basic, linking to databases and data sources etc. I imagine excel under wine is better than the port to Mac in some respects.

If you can even get Excel working under Wine. Older ones work fine, but AFAIK there's no way to get the modern Excel working on Wine.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#642

Post by senfiaj »

admax88qqq wrote: post #608
oybng wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really highlights the plummet in quality and massive shift in user tolerance that w10 is considered "good" now

The conspiracy version of this is each bad windows release is purposefully extra bad so the next "good" version is perceived as artifically well. It's a shame too, I feel like the underlying OS has some really good engineering in it, but the layers of cruft and anti-features on top make for a poor overall product.

Yes, I have also read / heard that Windows is actually very well engineered at the low level (despite the claims), and even surpasses Linux in some aspects. For example, Windows handles low RAM situations much better than Linux. During swapping Linux can become so unresponsive that even the OOM killer can fail and the only solution is hard reboot :(. But all I see people claim about Linux's superior memory management, which I think is believed largely because of the memory overcommitment. It can reduce the average RAM consumption because Linux, by default, maps the allocated pages to a read-only zero filled shared page, and allocates actual memory only when page faults occur during page writes. But this can make the worst case scenario much worse when no physical RAM or swap space is available.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#643

Post by tosti »

thewebguyd wrote: post #412
maerF0x0 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I think consumers largely have stopped taking out their wallet for Microsoft, at least enough of them to cause Microsoft to start walking back a little bit. Nearly 1 billion PCs have stayed on Windows 10, 42% of the global desktop marketshare is still on 10 despite EOL. Linux has been showing consistent growth on the steam hardware survey as well, and time will tell but I have a feeling the MacBook Neo is going to pu…

The past: Nobody got fired for buying IBM.

The present: Nobody got fired for buying Microslop.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#644

Post by j_w »

drnick1 wrote: post #622
j_w wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a TV. If there are only smart TVs then simply don't purchase one. Most consumers are unwilling to take an option that they perceive as inconveniencing them more than getting screwed by the company inconveniences them.

The trick is to use the TV as a monitor and not connect it to the Internet.

This is what I do with the smart TV that I was given after a relative was tired of it freezing up/apps crashing. Haven't had any issues.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#645

Post by j_w »

hnlmorg wrote: post #593
j_w wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a TV. If there are only smart TVs then simply don't purchase one. Most consumers are unwilling to take an option that they perceive as inconveniencing them more than getting screwed by the company inconveniences them.

Telling people to just go without a TV is a little more than a “perceived” inconvenience. The reality is that companies know they can get away with crap because they all get away with crap. And because they all do it, consumers are powerless. This is why regulation isn’t a bad the thing that many HNers seem to recoil at. The real problem with regulation is when it’s defined by lobbyists rather than consumer groups. B…

If somebody "needs" a TV then they might "need" some hobbies.

A disturbing proportion of my family spend more than half of their free time watching television (typically while doom scrolling tiktok). They don't "need" TVs - they need to find interests.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#647

Post by tombert »

maevyn11 wrote: post #623

No idea why anyone would buy a Windows machine over a mac unless in this day and age unless they can't afford one, Microsoft's OS dev philosophy has been trash for years.

For that matter, Linux has been better than Windows for decades.

Yes, Linux has some jankiness, I don't dispute that, but when people say that they're often smuggling in an assumption that Windows doesn't have jankiness, which is decidedly not true. People are more used to Windows and its shittiness and they forget how much bullshit they actually put up with for it.

Windows Update, for example, is awful software and if anyone who works on it is reading this, you should consider getting out of the software game because you are not good at your job and considering how consistently bad Windows Update has been for its entire existence I don't think you'd be good at other software jobs either.

Windows Update bricked my mom's laptop doing an automatic update to Windows 11, I believe because they broke some boot keys, and since Microsoft's restore and repair tools don't actually work, my parents called me in a panic because there were of course tons of irreplaceable files that they couldn't access. I had to walk them through flashing a Linux USB, walk my dad through booting off that USB, walk my dad through setting up tmate, and then I had to mount the NTFS drive and rsync the files to my personal server. Just to reiterate: I had to use Linux to save Windows because Windows' tools do not work.

If Microsoft used a filesystem that didn't coexist with dinosaurs, I could have set them up with recurring filesystem snapshots and this could have been fixed at the filesystem level. You know, like what has been readily available on Linux since like 2010 with btrfs and other Copy on Write filesystems.

To be clear, before I get a lecture, I'm aware that updates are a hard problem when you have a diverse set of hardware, but I should point out that it's not like my mom installed the OS on some arcane custom built rig, this was an OEM install on her laptop, so they don't have that excuse. Additionally, I update every Linux computer in my house literally every day, and I have never had it so thoroughly brick the boot process as I had with my mom's computer.

My elaborate point here is that Windows has lots of jank, more than Linux, but people just act like that's part of the deal, but don't extend anywhere near that same level of courtesy to Linux.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#648

Post by j_w »

Eisenstein wrote: post #607
j_w wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a TV. If there are only smart TVs then simply don't purchase one. Most consumers are unwilling to take an option that they perceive as inconveniencing them more than getting screwed by the company inconveniences them.

Please make a list of things you don't need so that in case of any issues with the company or system that allows access to them you will know to just stop using them.

I've dropped many things in the past because of issues with the company/service. Amazon Prime, every single streaming service, I've been car free for over 3 years, and there are more.

Are there some things I would struggle with if suddenly there were issues? Sure. I had to significantly increase my internet spend because of the (much) cheaper option going to complete shit. I require the internet for my career but unless the entire world collapses I doubt I'll run into any true blocker that would prevent me from using it for work.

Most people are just afraid to change their lives substantively. I am too, but I'm also willing to do it for causes I believe in.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#649

Post by mlsu »

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…

The best solution would be competition. But go ahead try to compete, you will be crushed.

Re: Microsoft's "fix" for Windows 11

#650

Post by mulmen »

9dev wrote: post #37
mschild wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find Teams is often simply picked because of cost reasons. A lot of companies are paying for office and teams comes bundled with it. Why pay extra when its included?

That was the reason we ditched Slack. I hate Teams with a passion, but we're not going to pay 6k per year for a chat app if we get Teams for free. There's just no way to defend that decision.

You get teams for free with office but how do you justify that logic when free office suites are available? You can’t justify your decision on functionality because that could also be used to justify the cost of Slack. If you’re actually considering cost vs functionality then it’s no longer a no-brainer.
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