Our commitment to Windows quality • Hacker News Board

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#921

Post by cguess » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 2:11 PM UTC

hdivider wrote: post #605

PaulKeeble wrote: post #469

Microsoft has spent over a decade swimming against their users interests at this point and during that time frame Linux has been improving its desktop and improving kernel performance. We are now at the point where Linux emulating Window's entire API space for games with worse drivers is dangerously close on performance with none of the privacy invasion and anti user features. Its pretty late in the game for them to…

I really hope you're right. The challenge with Linux still seems to be practicalities -- like in particular, does Zoom run well on most distributions? Reports seem to be of system crashes and degraded performance. I imagine there are lots of 'it works for me' stories, but think: for Linux to eat into Windows user market share (which I would greatly support), critical things like Zoom have to work at least as reliably…

Even my Starbook, so... literally made for Linux, doesn't do things like going to sleep when I close the lid. It made me switch back to my Mac because despite being able to, I have a life and little time for my main work device to decide to not work randomly.

Linux is never, and I mean never going to be a legitimate alternative to Windows or MacOS on the desktop under the current paradigm. "Switch to X desktop or distro" means less than zero to 99.9% of computer users (probably a few more nines in there too).

"Oh but the Steam Machine!" essentially no one who uses that will actually care what the OS is, it's a shell and a very specific one to do a single task, no-one is buying it as a general purpose machine they can do their taxes on.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#922

Post by anonymars » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

alsetmusic wrote: post #772

MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been bothered by Windows's changes, and I mostly think they were reasonable. But for a number of reasons it's never going to be easy for them to gain total acceptance: 1) the massive backwards compatibility back to Windows 95 stuff, 2) the willingness to try new and/or silly things that Apple is too stuffy to try, and 3) the fact that there's only ever going to be one "flavor" of Windows; if we were stuck…

> 1) the massive backwards compatibility Greatest strength. Greatest papercut.

Golden handcuffs

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#923

Post by anonymars » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 2:26 PM UTC

VerifiedReports wrote: post #655

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is not technically inferior to Linux. To the extent it has problems, it is mainly because of top-down anti-user behaviour mandated from corporate. But anyone capable of using Linux is capable of hacking out that BS and getting a generally superior experience. I use both literally side-by-side, two laptops with a KVM switch, and I still greatly prefer Windows for many reasons. Some reasons: Even as a low-level…

Windows USED to have a polished UX. Is it still better than most Linux distros? Maybe. But it has regressed so far from where it was 25 (or more) years ago that every day I'm still infuriated and depressed that I've had to return to it for work. The idiotic UI blunders alone must waste hours of my life per week. Aside from the absolutely baffling functionality removals, there are the hateful petty ones. Great example…

What about Remote Assistance (built-in)?

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#924

Post by rmunn » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

safety1st wrote: post #842

PaulKeeble wrote: post #469

Microsoft has spent over a decade swimming against their users interests at this point and during that time frame Linux has been improving its desktop and improving kernel performance. We are now at the point where Linux emulating Window's entire API space for games with worse drivers is dangerously close on performance with none of the privacy invasion and anti user features. Its pretty late in the game for them to…

This is a good time to reflect on how business actually works (as opposed to how hopeful consumers wish it would work). A business exists because its shareholders invest capital with the expectation of a return. As a result, nearly all businesses go through similar lifecycles. The stages are launch, growth, maturity, decline, and sometimes renewal. There is a lot of capital injected in the early stages and to capture…

I'd argue that although publicly-traded businesses do usually go through that cycle (I would say that it's not ALL, but it's certainly MOST, because I can't come up with a counterexample), privately-owned businesses are more likely to avoid it. For example, McMaster-Carr. Privately-owned, with just a few owners rather than a large number of shareholders. And as far as I know (never having been one of their customers myself, just hearing testimonials), they're still just as good at making quality products that their customers want as they were a hundred twenty-five years ago when they got started. No "TAKING PROFITS" stage, and no subsequent decline.

But it does seem like publicly-owned companies go through those stages. It may be shareholder pressure, but part of it also appears to be when they get people in upper management who went to business school to get an MBA, rather than who have been with the company for years. I don't know what makes MBAs so prone to the nonsensensical pursuit of short-term profits that tank the company, rather than the greater (in the long run) long-term profits available by just continuing to make good products that customers want, but it shows up often enough (in many industries) that I'm starting to think of it as "MBA syndrome". And if a company is publicly-traded and run by MBA-style management? Sell your shares now and get out while you still can, is my advice.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#925

Post by skeeter2020 » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 2:37 PM UTC

Too little, too late. After 30+ years of windows as a user 20+ as a developer I'm done. Aside from some infrequent gaming (and even that could largely be de-windowed) you've lost me completely. Your developer experience got _so good_ there for a while I was willing to put up with a lot of churn and dead-end tech. VB was so accessible, and .NET 2 (and then 4.x) framework was a great foundation. I even liked your phone OS! But then the personality split within MS seemed to grow. To over-simplify developers still seemed appreciated but consumers appeared outright hated, viewed as cattle to slaughter for immediate & personal gains. Then your technology story fragmented and got weirdly disjointed. Azure initially looked great as a platform when everyone else focused on lower-level infrastructure, but you couldn't get that right, and then inexplictably decided to build all sorts of wild niche products (services? platforms?) on top of it, often multiple versions. Meanwhile windows was allowed to become... I don't really know, a fast-food/slot machine/1986 telescreen embedded in my home and work? And to top it off the few places you moved towards others (WSL, terminal, .NET core) you helped give me the tools to get OFF of windows. In hindsight I'd say the future became clear when I learned about how SQL Server was reimplemented on Linux for Azure. This was an important, concrete demonstration how if something like SQL Server didn't need Windows, nothing did.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#926

Post by vovavili » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

Figs wrote: post #918

999900000999 wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normal people can not install an OS. Aside from like 3 ThinkPads on Lenovo's website, you can't really buy Linux pre installed on a computer. This is about the MacBook Neo coming for the budget laptop market. At 500$ it's an easy choice.

> Normal people can not install an OS. Of course they can. They might be too lazy or ignorant to do so, but it's not really any harder to learn to install Linux than it is to learn to make mashed potatoes once you're motivated to bother -- and billions of people have managed to do the latter just fine. Normal people are absolutely capable of following basic directions like: "download this file", "insert a USB stick",…

>They might be too lazy or ignorant to do so

That's a very self-important and arrogant way to say "unmotivated".

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#927

Post by thisisidiotic » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

pfft. trust arrives on foot but leaves on horseback.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#928

Post by Arainach » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 2:49 PM UTC

coreyburnsdev wrote: post #514

inferniac wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"it's fundamentally inferior to Linux" I installed linux mint on a new drive in January Firefox was tearing awfully on just scrolling Surely I just need to install Nvidia drivers Install drivers, but they dont work due to some secure boot interaction with driver signing, that made me jump through quite a few hoops (thx to AI for walking me through it fairly well) I'm sorry but an average person is not ready for this…

Linux mint is not a good distro

Having to figure out which distros are "good" or not, with the internet full of people arguing about those points, is another entry on the "why Linux isn't a good choice for most people" list.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#929

Post by Arainach » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 2:50 PM UTC

e-dant wrote: post #343

dmos62 wrote: post #195

I'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…

Linux does not have a marketing team. Microsoft, Apple, Google do. The market is not efficient, it is gullible.

Linux is a lot like Rick and Morty: I don't mind it, but I never want to be publicly associated with any of it's biggest fans.

Re: Our commitment to Windows quality

#930

Post by R_D_Olivaw » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 3:13 PM UTC

rmunn wrote: post #924

safety1st wrote: post #842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good time to reflect on how business actually works (as opposed to how hopeful consumers wish it would work). A business exists because its shareholders invest capital with the expectation of a return. As a result, nearly all businesses go through similar lifecycles. The stages are launch, growth, maturity, decline, and sometimes renewal. There is a lot of capital injected in the early stages and to capture…

I'd argue that although publicly-traded businesses do usually go through that cycle (I would say that it's not ALL, but it's certainly MOST, because I can't come up with a counterexample), privately-owned businesses are more likely to avoid it. For example, McMaster-Carr. Privately-owned, with just a few owners rather than a large number of shareholders. And as far as I know (never having been one of their customers…

Ive found it useful to regard MBAs and the entire pipeline from education to managing companies for MBAs akin to a clergy class.

They spend so much time and effort learning the scripture and then are praised as having some sort of intimate knowledge of business practices and working towards the ever growing prophet (read: profit).

Their forecasts akin to divination (but with charts and graphs, oh my!)

In this context, it's helped me understand, or at least create a useful caricature of what must be going on in those spaces where everyone drinks the kool aid of "there is only the next quarter".