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Windows needs a change in priorities

den.dev

871–880 of 884 posts

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#872

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two separate levels - root access - doesn’t disable SIP - Disabling SIP requires you to go through many contortions. People didn’t need to disable SIP to install Chrome. They were doing it for other reasons.

Yes, and those reasons are why I mentioned poor design. This morning I was reminded, my work Mac has a dozen daemons trying to contact things I don't want, such as icloud, itunes, google, etc. A fraction of these are ostensibly useful, but I had to resort to Little Snitch to block them because the OS is read-only, i.e. insanity. Even the user-hostile mess of Windows allows me to turn off the worse services... althoug…

The OS is not “read only” if you go through contortions. But if you can write anything to the OS, so can anything you run

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#873

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads like a comment from Slashdot, circa '97. If you have a "toxic" relationship with inept/malicious application software, break ties with it now just as you should from Microsoft. Even under your rare worst-case scenario, recovery has never been easier with "live" flash drives. No need to live in fear of breaking something.

> This reads like a comment from Slashdot, circa '97 Sadly, while some parts of the Linux Desktop have come a long way since the 90s, many others have not. > If you have a "toxic" relationship with inept/malicious application software, break ties with it now just as you should from Microsoft. Presumably people use software to do something , and many times there simply isn't alternative software that does what you wan…

>Here's something else you might have read on Slashdot in 97 that's still applicable today: "Linux is free only if your time isn't worth anything". My fear isn't losing data or being unable to get back to the working state, it's the time I lose having to go through the effort of doing that when the simple case of just installing a goddamned application shouldn't be such a pain in the first place.

I am a long time windows user who recently switched to PopOS.I'll say its getting better. This was one thing I was worried about switch back to linux. After I got fed up with what Microsoft is doing with Windows 11, I decided I had it and switched. So far it has not been as a pain in the ass as much as it used to be. There are a few things I still have to tweak to get my work flow back to the way it was on Windows.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#875
post #75

Like every Windows user, I have had a lot of frustrating experiences with the abusive behavior and dark patterns that have taken over the platform. Like when they started having Skype silently run in the background logged in with the user's Microsoft account without any notice or human intervention, and removed the setting to disable it from launching at startup so that it couldn't be prevented. I had to completely u…

Nobody has figured out how to get the old windows ink back, unfortunately. I basically lost the reason for having a windows touch+pen input screen:/ and nobody has found out how to get the killer app back. I suspect that only pre-windows 8 good features will be retained over time

Windows Ink? Do you mean Windows Ink Workspace or Windows Sketchpad?

It was Windows Sketchpad that I really loved. After Microsoft axed it, they released Whiteboard. It felt very... not-native but had the titlebar of a UWP app. It was terrible compared to Sketchpad but new functionality like being able to select elements and reposition and resize them was great. UWP's own restrictions meant I could set certain expectations with windowing and suspension. And then they made Whiteboard a pure Electron app which was just too choppy for drawing anything at all. The closest I found to replacements were Inkodo and Scrble.

Windows Ink was just one of Microsoft's phases, just like XR. They now refuse to add support for a partial eraser in WinUI.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One hopes it never will, because everything post-Win32 seems to be much worse. UWP (what is used for the new Control Panel/"Settings") is particularly frustrating. ...which is very strange that MS seems to be continuing to rewrite stuff in it, when it's already started saying things like this a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19873198

whats so bad about UWP? it's way better than win32 (security, API, Windows integration)

The apps are slow. They are optimized for non-technical people using touch screens (though I haven’t tested that). And the rewrites suck because one needs to learn a new UI, and you would still need to find the old UI for a lot of purposes.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#877

Well, what are you going to do. Not use Windows? Linux still barely works in 2022 (and if one distro will become really popular, with a big investment of money like Ubuntu did once, they will ad ads, like Ubuntu added Amazon), and MacOS works just on Apple HW (and has ads for Apple services baked-in too, just less obnoxious). You can use ChromeOS! Which is literally ad tech. Pick your poison.

> Linux still barely works in 2022 You're getting a lot of comments about "what do you mean linux barely works" but I switched to Linux full time in the middle of Windows 10 and know exactly what you mean. There's a lot of stuff in Linux that's simply _different_ than Windows, and general infamiliarity means that some things that you know how to do on Windows seems to be impossible on Linux, until you learn how Linux…

Launching Chrome to run ripgrep is not “just a different way to do it.” It’s more similar to setting up winetricks to run a game on Linux.

Though honestly, I do think you can just install ripgrep and use it in PowerShell.

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#878
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what games do you play? Would wine and/or a virtual machine suffice?

I actually play a lot of old school games so 1) Dosbox solves a lot of them and 2) Never tried that but maybe Wine solves the rest. A list of freq games: 1) Baldur's Gate EE Trilogy (And their EE cousins) 2) Quake I (this I'm sure can be played in Linux directly) 3) Diablo 2 (Also think there is a Linux version, they even have a MacOS one) That's pretty much it, and TBH I don't really play them frequently, maybe a fe…

Yeah it does take some effort to install linux and get everything running, especially since you've got your Windows setup working well enough without all the bullshit. I guess if it ain't broke, no need to fix it. But as you and goosedragons has pointed out, those games would most likely run well on linux, so if you are ever in a position where you need to reinstall an OS I'd recommend considering linux :)

Re: Windows needs a change in priorities

#880

Like every Windows user, I have had a lot of frustrating experiences with the abusive behavior and dark patterns that have taken over the platform. Like when they started having Skype silently run in the background logged in with the user's Microsoft account without any notice or human intervention, and removed the setting to disable it from launching at startup so that it couldn't be prevented. I had to completely u…

Windows and macOS users have different expectations. On a Mac, I expect my login account to also know my Apple ID and connect seamlessly with my iCloud, Apple TV, Apple Music, Messages, and all other Apple cloud services. I like being able to answer phone calls on the computer when the phone is nearby. When Microsoft tries to make Windows more Mac-like, it faces a couple problems - not everyone wants to be on Skype o…

> Honestly, it never occurred to me to run a binary compiled for Windows 95 on Windows 11 (or 10, which is where I am now).

How do you know you aren't regularly running one (or more) of those? Or at least some stuff last updated sometime between W2K and W7?

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