81–90 of 104 posts
Pre-installed crapware on Windows machines is a huge problem, and I am surprised Microsoft does not ban this practice because it affects their brand. You can buy signature edition Windows machines directly from Microsoft that are crapware free, which is what I did a few months ago.
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Hm, I never had issues with that. Maybe if you use Chrome since that runs pretty terrible on OS X, but otherwise no issues. OS X tries to keep your memory pretty full, since there is no point in having a bunch of memory if you don't use it.
When used Mac OS X for an iOS project, it was hardly an issue, just something I happen to see sometimes being posted, not sure how serious it really is. Otherwise I spend my time in other systems anyway, so I cannot properly judge it.
My Dad recently got malware on his Windows desktop computer, and wanted me to fix it for him. He's reasonably tech-savvy but malware can happen to the best of us. I tried searching and removing suspicious looking files, but it kept coming back, so I decided to reformat the computer and reinstall windows. The first part was to get an image to install from. Windows offers .iso downloads on their website[0], but you nee…
As for getting a clean slate back, Windows 8 has a Reset function that restores the system to a fresh install state while keeping data intact. Also much easier than hunting for a recovery DVD or an ISO.
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So what you're saying is, if my computer never had Windows installed on it, I'm not supposed to be able to install it ? As a linux user, I expect the leading commercial products to be at least on par with what a relatively standard linux distribution gives you. But no, apparently a vanilla ISO of the OS is not enough, you need more.
I didn't say that and that wasn't what we were talking about. The guy in the post said that he didn't want to install the crappy Lenovo software from the restore partition. If he had he could have saved the drivers and then re-installed. If I wiped the machine and didn't have drivers on hand I would expect something not to work...with any OS. You are clearly a Linux "advocate" and you don't really care about this exc…
- In order to (re-)install Windows you need your drivers
- If you have a previous install, then you need to copy the drivers and keep them
- If you don't, you're screwed and it's your fault
I don't think it is normal for a consumer OS to require this step, especially since Linux which is not a consumer-oriented OS does it. I'm not saying it's some part of a plan to impeach freedom/my rights/whatever, actually I just think it's completely in line with the expectation that consumers will not install their OS, only OEMs will, and no extra effort is made for those who want to tweak their computer; it is expected that computers are sold with Windows and that people don't change that. Fair enough, it's totally aligned with their strategy.
Now I'm not saying you don't need any external drivers in Linux (looking at you, NVidia), but in my experience (same for many people, including the guy from the post) you can get to work with a bare ISO. I'd expect every commercial OS to be at least as good as that.
> You are clearly a Linux "advocate" and you don't really care about this except to the extent that you can denigrate Windows to make your "side" seem superior.
Can we grow up ? For everything I'm personally interested in, yes, Linux clearly is better. But for the wider world, no one can seriously believe Linux is able to replace Windows, and for a good reason. It is not superior nor is it inferior (and clearly the ease with which you can install it is irrelevant compared to how you actually use it)
In short: don't look for a "Us vs Them" when there is none. I'm pointing what I think is a weakness in Windows, that doesn't make it weak or inferior.
This is just /. style flamebait, no idea why it's on the front page of HN.
I sadly had the same experience as this guy. I guess when you are a standard user browsing the web, everything works fine on windows, but if you are a web developer it's just a nightmare. There is always something to install which is not there, I have to install tons of drivers, Putty, WinCSP, a decent terminal (cmd.exe is just unusable), WAMP, python, various python libraries, perl, node.js (lots of front-end tools…
The thing is...you're trying to make it act like linux. That will be a fight. If you take the time to learn how things are done on windows...or any platform for that matter...it wouldn't be that hard.
I have been using xBSD and OS X for the last 10 years, but have been confronted with the need to do some financial modelling on Windows (as a side note, I guess this is not "serious" computing, according to some comments here).
Attempt #1: Try the SciPy/Anaconda stack. Mostly OK, but Python's Windows support is an afterthought. Anaconda is especially sweet, but getting any kind of serious Python distribution running in a corporate environment is a pain. Integration being the main source of misery.
Attempt #2: Try F#. Sweet mother of god, everything runs, compiles, does what I expect it to do and efficiency is awesome. Visual Studio 2013 is although an IDE, but nowhere near a bloated, monstrous carcass like Eclipse; or in fact not as bloated as some Emacs setups I've seen. Only "downside": the need to buy a couple of books on .Net and F#.
The moral of the story: Microsoft has an enormous capacity to create some ground breaking stuff and then f- it up completely by bad commercial decisions. Thankfully it seems, they've started to fix that.
The UX of windows 8 is so incredibly poor (even after 8.1) that I question the methodology used to design it. Whatever test group or user studies are suggesting that MS is going in the right direction are deeply flawed. It's just utterly confusing to figure out how to do nearly anything on the OS. There are all sorts of noisy visual cues that look like they communicate state or flow but don't, as well as many seeming…
I made the move in the same direction some years ago and, yes, there are always problems, but IME a missing or broken driver is common with a fresh install of Linux OR Windows. I've often had to download a network driver (both WiFi and wired Ethernet) separately and get it onto the machine via physical media, bluetooth or IRDA. As for software updates: Yes there's a load of Lenovo crapware and yes it's best to just d…
> but Ubuntu is going to be wanting software updates just as Windows is But Ubuntu comes with drivers for all the network devices it supports, and when it does updates, it does them all in one go with a single reboot required. You install, get online, update, and you're done. A base Windows install often will require external media to get online to get updates, and the process is a painstaking series of rebooting and…
It's also odd that Windows 8.1, released much earlier than Ubuntu 14.04, didn't have a NIC driver that worked with the OP's device, when Ubuntu did. Obviously they put drivers through WHQL, but still, it'd be great if they could have a fast track for at least a very basic driver to get you connected.
I'd really like to see most devices which have some 'common' functions be able to function with a minimal feature set without requiring a special driver. I believe displays have been able to do this for years with VESA mode, (some) webcams with UVC. If this could happen for NICs, it would make life so much easier.
Yes, Microsoft tools on a Microsoft system should be easy. I think they should have a team who sit and start from scratch every day, installing the OS, getting the tools, starting to work - and see what the experience is like. It's as if they never test this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't say that and that wasn't what we were talking about. The guy in the post said that he didn't want to install the crappy Lenovo software from the restore partition. If he had he could have saved the drivers and then re-installed. If I wiped the machine and didn't have drivers on hand I would expect something not to work...with any OS. You are clearly a Linux "advocate" and you don't really care about this exc…
My point is: - In order to (re-)install Windows you need your drivers - If you have a previous install, then you need to copy the drivers and keep them - If you don't, you're screwed and it's your fault I don't think it is normal for a consumer OS to require this step, especially since Linux which is not a consumer-oriented OS does it. I'm not saying it's some part of a plan to impeach freedom/my rights/whatever, act…
You can expect whatever you want. That doesn't make it likely or even reasonable. That's kind of my point. You say that it's not set up for people that tweak their computer...I build systems and don't have that problem because I learned how it actually works and don't really get hung up on how I wish it worked.