'Windows 10 Is Failing Us' (betanews.com) 551
Reader BrianFagioli writes: While Windows 10 is arguably successful from a market share perspective, it is still failing in one big way -- the user experience. Windows 8.x was an absolute disaster, and Microsoft's latest is certainly better than that, but it is still not an enjoyable experience. Before the company tries to add new features (and misses deadlines) like Timeline and Cloud Clipboard, it should focus more on improving the existing user experience. Right now it is failing us and things are not getting better. Even the third-party solutions that aim to turn this spying off aren't 100-percent successful. Unless you unplug from the internet entirely, you can't stop Windows from phoning home to Microsoft. This is a shame, as some consumers are being made to feel violated when using their own computer. Another issue that I can't believe hasn't been resolved is having two locations for system settings. Seriously, Microsoft? We still have "Settings" and "Control Panel" Live Tiles are still worthless, and it is time for Microsoft to kill them. Nobody opens an app launcher and stares at the icons for information. It is distracting and pointless. If I want the weather, I'll open a weather app and see it -- not stare at the icon for the information. It sort of made sense in the Windows 8.x era since you were presented with a full screen of app icons more often, but with a more traditional start-button design in Windows 10, it is time to retire it. Another example: Microsoft doesn't force you to use Edge and Bing entirely, but it still does force you. Cortana is a hot mess, but if you opt to use her, she will only open things in Edge. Searches are Bing-only. In other words, the virtual assistant ignores your default browser settings. Why? Not for the user's benefit. Sadly, the Windows Store is a garbage dump -- many of the "legit" apps are total trash.
Author is too nice (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Author is too nice (Score:5, Funny)
I think saying that you want to see every MS CxO (including everyone whose job description includes these prepended by "Vice") hanging from some lamppost isn't yet socially acceptable.
Give it a few months.
Why so many "BetaNews" submissions here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do so many "BetaNews" submissions end up on the front page here at Slashdot?
Just look at this list of them if you don't believe me. [slashdot.org]
There were two on July 11. Two on July 8. Two on June 26. Two on May 22.
And that doesn't include all of the other days where there was only one.
Most of them seem to be submitted by "Mark Wilson" or "BrianFagioli".
In this case the article linked to in this submission's summary is credited to a "Brian Fagioli", and this submission was submitted by "BrianFagioli".
I don't think that Slashdot should be putting self-promotion submissions like this on the front page. They should be discarded.
And it should be explained to us why these "BetaNews" submissions end up on the Slashdot front page so often.
They're not very impressive, in my opinion. This one is just an opinion piece, from what I can see.
It's not like there aren't other submissions that could be selected instead. The Firehose is full of submissions that are better than these "BetaNews" ones.
Frankly, I'd be happy never seeing another "BetaNews" submission on the front page here ever again.
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I think the point of this is to hi-lite the dis-satisfaction with the direction of Microsoft that is reaching a boiling point and turning to downright anger across the user base. There is a void in the market that someone will see the opportunity to fill. As much as the pundits tout the death of the desktop OS, we all know that is not happening any time soon, if ever. The biggest segment will be business users that will keep their claws firmly embedded in their desktops till doomsday if it makes sense or
Where is the void (Score:3, Interesting)
Not seeing any real void at the moment, as anyone dissatisfied can turn to the Mac if they need a lot of commercial software, or to Linux if they want something far more technical. I mean, where is there even a gap between those two? That's why Windows is suffering, because it is not as good at being commercial as the Mac is, and it's not as good as being technically rich as Linux is. It's presence at this point is just coasting on history and will fall by the wayside as corporate IT heads retire or die.
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That's why Windows is suffering, because it is not as good at being commercial as the Mac is, and it's not as good as being technically rich as Linux is.
It's far better at hosting games than anything. There really isn't even any competition in this regard.
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With a name like "Fagioli", I'd suspect him of trying to get more spaghettis.
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Now what? I'm not quite sure I see the point of that post. If I want to hear someone rant, I'll talk to myself for half an hour.
I am in the process of banning windows to a mere gaming vm. I have enough stuff to rant about. So is there any useful information in the above?
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll be doing the same myself once I can no longer run Windows 7.
MS screwed up big time when it abandoned the most popular, most well- liked OS in their entire history to go a completely different direction.
I don't know anyone who upgraded from XP to 7 and was then sorry, I only heard positive things.
That's like a championship sports team trading away all of their best players for a bunch of rookies. Makes no sense at all.
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Windows 7, really put a nail in the "I am a Mac and I am a PC commercials". Microsoft should be Lucky that Apple had been largely ignoring its Macintosh Line of computers because after Windows 8 Came out, Apple could had went right back on the attack.
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they don't have to spend cash on advertising, i already moved to MacOS with a win7 VM. i am sure i am not alone.
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I've grown to love the start menu, and the control panel can be easily reverted.
If they had kept perfecting and perhaps even evolving Windows 7, maybe I'd have bought in by now. I'm not interested in trying to turn my desktop into a tablet.
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Windows 10 basically looks and operates like Windows 7.
Not even close. I've tried several times to switch to Windows 10 and after a few days I get so fed up I go back to Windows 7.
Windows 10 is horrendously ugly.
Unless you use a third party add-on, like Classic Shell, the Windows 10 Start Menu is completely broken and useless
There are many bugs which have existed since day one and still haven't been fixed.
Major design flaws that are too numerous to list (and if you've used Windows 10 you already know what they are).
I've got a fast computer with an 8 core CPU,
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Windows 10 is horrendously ugly.
So you are reducing yourself to subjective opinions about the colors, fonts, and icons it uses to determine if it's "broken and useless"?
Anyway, why don't you theme it however you like? They even have a Windows 7 theme.
There are many bugs which have existed since day one and still haven't been fixed.
Links? I'm sure you'll have a list of major issues affecting the majority of users.
Major design flaws that are too numerous to list (and if you've used Windows 10 you already know what they are).
I'd rebuff that, but my arguments against you are too numerous to list.
I've got a fast computer with an 8 core CPU, 32 GB of RAM and booting from an SSD. The performance of Windows 10 is noticeably worse than Windows 7
Link the perf tests buddy. Oh that's okay I know you are lazy, here you go:
https://www.techspot.com/revie... [techspot.com]
Spoiler alert: 7,8,10 are essen
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Win10 start menu works just fine for me, though you have to turn off Cortana (otherwise it spends huge amounts of time searching Bing when you just want to load a local app and stupid shit like that.) Hell, I've even learned to make use of the tiles (by clearing out all of the default junk and pinning the programs I use often, but not often enough to pin to my taskbar) and kind of miss them when I have to go back to a Win7 machine.
Control panel is still a mess. The article is right there. MS needs to eit
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I don't know anyone who upgraded from XP to 7 and was then sorry, I only heard positive things.
Well I suppose I'm not a counter example, since XP was my last MS operating system, but: mandatory Windows Genuine Advantage is what did it for me. So... there's a negative thing.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not entirely fair. Among other visible changes, Windows 7 had much better support for later hardware than Windows XP, faster boot times, and UI improvements like the task bar and jump list arrangement and the various preview-like features. It also introduced new networking protocols, security features, performance improvements and other internal or developer-facing benefits. The cost was a loss of compatibility with some older hardware because of the changes in the driver model, but overall it was a significant win for most users.
The sad thing is that reportedly Windows 10 would bring many similar incremental improvements in terms of better hardware support, improved security, and so on. It's just that the costs in terms of reliability, security, privacy and usability are so much higher that many potential users just aren't interested.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
It's bollocks anyway. I'm typing this on Windows 8, and it's fine. No a "complete disaster" at all. It works, it's no worse than other desktop environments like Gnome.
Look, every OS has some stuff that pisses you off, and some bits that are half arsed. On MacOS you still throw drives in the bin to eject them. Doesn't make MacOS a "complete disaster".
The only real major flaw in Windows 10 is the forced updates that always seem to pick the most inopportune moment. Well, the telemetry too maybe, but most people don't seem to care.
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On MacOS you still throw drives in the bin to eject them. ...
And you still don't kniw that this only a shortcut? You eject them with a menu command: and they stay mounted!
Very usefull for copying data from one ejectable media to the other one
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I can't stand windows 8. It takes forever to find setting in a hurry because they could be in one or more places.
Windows 10 carries that proud tradition.
When Apple updates OS X it is updated across the board all insteral pieces of software use the ui paradigms. If you look Microsoft had windows xp graphics in certain hard to access areas because they have never been updated.
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Yeah, I get it - they seem to have not finished actually moving their tools to a Windows 10 "paradigm," so you still have the older versions of the control panel in order to do some things, and the newer settings to do some things, and there's definitely a loss of coherence, and it's noticeable. But how often are users tweaking settings? It's one of those things that, as soon as you install Windows 10, or update certain drivers, or whatnot, you might have to search for a few settings to make things work.
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Well weekly as the printers are using the same dialog boxes from windows 2000 to actually clean out the queue's.
Speaking of which you should try to find a printer queue in windows 10. Because t is not easy to get to.
Windows 10 has made it harder to do many little things. I like the concept of always updating interface and patches and 90% of users can't be bothered to patch correctly.
As for twlemetrery that sucks and I don't use windows at home because of it. But it is hardly the first time I have had my da
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, every OS has some stuff that pisses you off
XP didn't irk me too much. Windows 7 was straightforward and pleasant; I miss it. KDE 3, later versions of KDE 4 and KDE 5 were/are all pretty tolerable. It's not about "stuff that pisses you off," it's about actively hostile design: designs that impede users that aren't just printing emails all day. It is absolutely clear to me that the people responsible for the "start menu" in Windows have it as their mission to thwart and confound power users; they don't give fuck number one about what we want. They've messed up the taskbar by conflating launcher icons with running instances of applications. The "ribbon" crap has added nothing while creating bizarre and unintuitive behavior and unnecessary programming complexity. The split brain Settings/Control Panel stuff is just tragic; a drunken crew operating a rudderless ship. Making the start menu into Microsoft's/MSN app showcase is obnoxious; more and more bullshit in every direction you look. The update process is slow, glitchy and mysterious with incredibly long waits; every other operating system in wide use today has better update management than Windows 10.
There has been some good underlying work in Windows. Startup is fast, the OS is very stable, power management, sleep/hibernate seems rock solid, etc. But damn, the crazy UI people and the update management just ruin it. Then there's the whole telemetry thing and Microsoft's indifference to privacy...
"Windows 10 is failing us" is a fair assessment. The unnecessary, self-inflicted suck that permeates the OS deserves criticism.
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I'm not really a windows user but I've run 7 at work and it was mostly okay and a great thing after Vista. I bought a used Lenovo laptop a few months ago and it had Win10 and I tried it for about 6 weeks. I hate it. But i realize I'm not Microsoft's market. I'm sure there are people that like it. If I had to use windows though I'd hang onto 7 until I absolutely had to change.
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So, what, because gnome 3 (which is like... what... 5-10 years old by now?) didn't mimic the windows start-buttonsy desktop and instead focused on the user, "focus on one app at a time", "Be able to quickly see and switch to all apps" I think both of those goals were achieved flawlessly with gnome3. And hell, my desktop use is a web browser or a terminal running screen..
More likely you're just repeating some garbage you heard or read somewhere once.. At least I hope so, otherwise you can't see interfaces be
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I'm glad that it works acceptably for you. For me, it's nothing but a continual pain in my side.
I don't use Apple machines, so I can't comment on that, but I do use a variety of other OSes on a daily basis. Of the major OSes available, Windows 10 is easily the worst of the bunch in my opinion.
It's the only one that makes me feel like it actively hates me.
Let's put our efforts.. (Score:2)
Stick with Windows 7 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What is the point? (Score:2, Insightful)
Decrying W10 is pure Heresy. Windows 10 is the best OS out there. Nothing comes even close to it in its user experience, security and flexibility.
{the above was written with my tongue in my cheek}
What you want me to be honest?
Ok, W10 is a pile of stinking dog poo. You'd have to pay me $1000/day to use it now and I spent much of the last 20years writing software for Windows systems.
Edge is a joke even compared to IE. Sites that work with IE fail miserably with Edge.
As for the stupid tiled interface... It wor
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OK, I am talking about Windows 10 here, although I also had 8.1 Pro that I added a "classic shell" to before I upgraded to Windows 10. I guess my take is that I've always had to tweak every OS to get it to the state that was tolerable for me, including various Linux flavors and Mac OS. So I start on the install by saying "no" to everything MS wants to to do to send back information to them. I remove all the default tiles from the start menu and only add what I want after installing. Like EVERY OTHER OS
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much the power user's lament these days.
Job security... (Score:2)
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Well IME windows 10 is getting more buggy with each update so quite a bit actually.
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as long as you are doing enterprise LE you may have some room to breathe...
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If it sucks, and it will, who's going to take the blame?
Microsoft. Maybe Dell. New workstations and laptops will only run Windows 10 after mid-September. Since there can only be one image, everyone is switching over to Windows 10.
If you're part of that chain, I hope you have someone lower on the chain to blame.
My responsibility is on the patching side of operations. Unless the SCCM client is FUBAR, I don't think I'll have a role in the upgrade process.
No argument (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows 10 is arguably successful from a market share perspective
Arguably successful - 26% market share after 2 years of being given away FREE, sneakily ninja-installed on many people's computers without their consent or through ethically dubious tricks like requiring people to agree NOT to install it, and shipped as the standard OEM OS for all new PC's for at least the past year. No, Windows 10 is a MASSIVE failure in terms of market share.
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A system that was not only given away for free but where people were basically forced, tricked and cheated into accepting it, where it is virtually impossible to get any other MS-based OS for a new computer today (and considering that most people will buy a new PC every 3-5 years), a market share of 26% basically means that the majority of those that use it do so because they had no other choice left.
This is more than a disaster. This is basically your user base rejecting your system violently.
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At this point I'll never trust them again. Windows 7 wooed me back from Linux (a situation not helped by GNOME being in peak bed-shitting mode at that particular moment), relegating my Linux drive to an infrequently booted partition on a machine that spent most of its time in Windows.
Windows 10 really opened my eyes. Like many folks, I skipped 8, seeing it as mostly a usability downgrade. I figured 10 would be like 7, but with the back end of 8 and new shiny stuff. Instead it was a security and privacy
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its still leaps and bounds ahead of linux (since we are rounding down) 2% and OSX at 3% and everyone here agrees those are the best damned thing since sliced Jesus
Pure bollocks. (Score:2, Informative)
2% is the count of machines with a purchased license.
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after 2 years of being given away FREE
You're too kind. Instead of "given away free", I would have said "shoved down our throats".
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By now, I've decided: my next computer will be a Mac. Currently, this laptop that I use has TrueOS, while my other laptop that I have is a Windows 10 for work stuff that must have Windows. But I refuse to get into a situation where I have to pay a subscription for the OS every year. So despite the fact that Macs are worse bang for buck, I'll just have to bite the bullet and buy a low end Mac whenever my Windows laptop croaks. This current one that I'm using does 90% of my usual internet related work
Getting the Basics Right... (Score:5, Interesting)
For example: I have several Windows 10 builds, including 2 on the same hardware [using swappable HDDs]. On one of these swappable drivers, the system boots with the "Menu Bar" appearing at the top of the centre of 3 monitors. When I go to the configuration settings, however, the system tells me that it thinks that the menu is supposed to appear at the bottom of the screen. If I then reposition the menu bar by hand, it sits happily at the bottom of the monitor. Until my next reboot, where the menu bar unilaterally repositions itself.
Or how about the fact that I configure my shared NTFS drives [I have an "Internal" drive, formatted to NTFS, that allows me to share files between my two swappable Windows builds] but each time I manually and forcibly configure the drive to not use drive caching, Windows 10 keeps turning it back on. Multiple times. These regressions seem to occur after updates.
Or the fact that now and then my audio reconfigures itself from optical out to using one of my HDMI monitors. Just because it feels like it...
I had *none* of these problems with Windows 7.
Please don't misunderstand me... I am not trying to bash Windows "because I can" - these are genuine, reproducible and repeating issues. I have raised bug reports with Microsoft for all of these - no responses, obviously - but they remain persistently un-fixed.
I would like to hope that Windows 10 will continue to evolve and "get better"... but from this user's perspective they need to be spending much more time on basics. And better regression testing.
Re:Getting the Basics Right... (Score:5, Interesting)
You want to talk regressions - if I move a single icon on my desktop, all the icons on the left hand side leap downwards by four icon places. If I save anything to desktop, they all move.
This is after updating to the latest Win10 on my gaming box. Before, if I turned my monitor off and on again it would reset all the icons on the desktop. There are huge threads of people having the same problems.
You can't make this shit up - desktop icons have not been a problem since the Win95 days.
It's not failing me... (Score:5, Insightful)
The desktop is dead, long live the workstation! (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the PC Desktop is a dead market, it has gone to the Tablets and Phones for a normal personal computing. Thus the Windows 8/10 interface, is focused for this market. However the Table and Phone Market is dominated by Apple and Google, and Microsoft is a Distant Third.
What we need our x86 PC systems for is no longer a normal Personal Computer, but a Personal Workstation. For our Workstations, we don't need a Table OS, or a Server OS. But a work station OS, with UI features meant for people with a Keyboard, Large Screens, Who will be expected to have a lot of things going on at the same time.
I Personally would like to see less window decoration, and use the space for more application space. And be able to have many Apps running and visible at the same time. Perhaps in Re-sizable Frames vs Windows...
Normally now when I get out my PC it is because I have some real work to do, vs just goofing off.
This is different a decade ago. And the Windows 8/10 UI was an attempt to get into a market it never really go into.
Re:The desktop is dead, long live the workstation! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that PC/Desktop is a "dead" market, it's simply no longer a mass CONSUMER market. We don't need more underpowered $199 1.1GHz laptops with 2gb and 64mb flash drives... we need more $2,000-4,000 laptops with specs that would have been absolutely jaw-dropping for a high-end workstation 5 years ago, and pushing the bleeding edge of high-end NOW. And Microsoft needs to concede that the needs of workstation users aren't the same as the needs of someone watching cat videos on the toilet using a tablet, even if it means requiring software to handle two different UI scenarios (high-res mouse, vs low-res touch).
The fact is, Microsoft has done a piss poor job of putting large, high-res displays to good use... something that's absolutely FUNDAMENTAL to workstation users:
* Gigantic ribbons, mostly dedicated to options Workstation users either don't care about, or learned the keyboard shortcuts for YEARS ago. Yeah, I'm looking at YOU, "Copy"...
* Tiny non-ribbon click zones that can almost require single-pixel aiming precision with some apps... IDEs, in particular...
* Mouse acceleration hasn't scaled well to scenarios where you have three 2560x1440 or larger monitors... disable it, and you'll need more mouse-movement space than your arm can reach to move the pointer from the left edge of the leftmost display to the right edge of the rightmost display. Enable it, and you'll be left feeling like you're constantly fighting with the mouse. The truth is, I don't know the solution to this problem... but if anyone has the resources to tackle it and find a good solution, it's Microsoft.
Note to Microsoft: get a copy of WinSplit Revolution, and learn from it. It's not perfect, but it's an app that basically MAKES multi-monitor Windows USABLE for lots of Workstation users.
And give manufacturers a reason to start pushing expensive, but high-powered computers again... let's call it, "Aero Diamond" (basically, Aero Glass, but with realtime-raytraced refraction and translucency). Let tablet and netbook users continue to rot with "Modern". Give us Aero Diamond so we can make those tablet and netbook users jealous & get THEM to buy high-end hardware too (so low-end shit won't soak up 99% of the economies of scale, and leave workstation users with $10,000 hardware that's only slightly better than $250 hardware).
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apple store is to lockeddown and censorship (Score:2)
apple store is to locked down and has censorship issues
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The problem is that the PC Desktop is a dead market, it has gone to the Tablets and Phones for a normal personal computing. Thus the Windows 8/10 interface, is focused for this market. However the Table and Phone Market is dominated by Apple and Google, and Microsoft is a Distant Third. What we need our x86 PC systems for is no longer a normal Personal Computer, but a Personal Workstation. For our Workstations, we don't need a Table OS, or a Server OS. But a work station OS, with UI features meant for people with a Keyboard, Large Screens, Who will be expected to have a lot of things going on at the same time.
Oh my this is ADORABLE. Let me guess. There's a good chance you're <= 30 years old. Otherwise you might possibly remember that once upon a time there were two flavors of Windows. One was called WORKSTATION even! There are HUGE problems with your post. Ok, no Server OS huh? What runs on Amazon EC2 then? Do you event know what you're talking about? I doubt it. Tablets and Phones don't cover personal computing. Are you really going to write school papers on a phone? Yard sale signs? Didn't thin
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Please try to be kind. The person whose comment you're eviscerating probably hasn't been out of school very long.
This means they're used to being bumped on to the next year even if their report card features a solid wall of "Incomplete" (no F anymore), and they're used to getting a three-foot trophy and a parade in their honour for finishing 11th in a ten-person race. And they probably believe they deserve a CEO job for writing a couple of hundred words that actually contain discernible sentence structure
Windows 10 is the best Windows to date (Score:2, Informative)
No problems here. Every system at work has been upgraded to Windows 10 and users adapted to it faster than any previous iteration of Windows. OneDrive is being used for automatic backup and synchronization of library folder (Desktop, Documents, etc...) and Office365 has made deployment of the Office suite easier then ever before. OP would be better off with an iPad.
I guess I agree, unexpectedly (Score:2)
This summary seemed like a lot of whining to me. In particular, I though the wining about Live Tiles was off because I look at information on icons that is updated dynamically (on iOS and the Mac)..
But then it hit me - no I do not. I find dynamic updates of icons annoying at best, as thinking back I cannot recall in years the last time I gained information from anything presented.
So although I cannot whole-heartedly endorse the removal of features like Live Tiles, I'm at least more sympathetic to the requ
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Personal pet peeve: Low contrast slider bars. Awful, and not user fixable.
You can switch to high contrast, but it changes everything just to get the sliders right.
Basically Win10 is still behind Win7 in basic usability, and makes desktop usage more of a chore than it needs to be.
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I cannot recall in years the last time I gained information from anything presented.
On a tablet or phone it is handy fir date and time etc. on a Desktop it makes no real sense, IMHO.
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On a tablet or phone it is handy fir date and time etc. on a Desktop it makes no real sense, IMHO.
It might be but I can honestly say my mind simply cannot comprehend that information is there. If I want the time/date on a phone or tablet quickly I look at the lock screen (or status bar on top), not any icons. In fact even if the icons were visible on screen, to get the date I'd probably lock the device and look at the lock screen instead.
Now the top bar on the Mac, yes I look at the date from that. But I
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So although I cannot whole-heartedly endorse the removal of features like Live Tiles, I'm at least more sympathetic to the request.
Yes, Live Tiles are nothing but annoying to me, too. Fortunately, at least for the time being, I can fix that by using a replacement start menu that means I never have to see one ever. It also fixes all the other things that Microsoft broke in the start menu.
Read the summary, then add.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"And these are the GOOD sides of that train wreck!"
The problem is that Microsoft doesn't give a shit about your "user experience". They care about their bottom line and that means milking you dry. They know you can't easily move away, so they can milk you for all you're worth.
There is a reason many people are still using Win7. And will do so for as long as it's humanely possible, most likely long after EOL is reached, before they will actually start looking around for alternatives.
Re:Read the summary, then add.. (Score:4, Insightful)
What's an OS? (Score:3)
B) Who the hell 'enjoys the experience' of using an OS anymore? I stopped noticing the tool (which is what it is) ~20 years ago.
Re:What's an OS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who the hell 'enjoys the experience' of using an OS anymore? I stopped noticing the tool (which is what it is) ~20 years ago.
There's the one of the main problems with Windows 10 -- it gets in the way frequently and forces to me not only to notice it, but fight with it.
In terms of fading into the background and letting you get on with your work, Windows 7 was best of class in the Windows lineup.
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I'm sorry Microsoft (Score:2)
Let me go out and buy a copy right now to make you feel better.
A commercial success? (Score:3)
Also, many people were "upgraded" without the system owner's consent. That is not commercial success, that is force feeding because the customer didn't fully lock the door.. Again, time to educate and help others implement Linux (Mint or ElementaryOS is a great first timer's choice, Ubuntu I think has still sold out to Amazon in user connection data). In addition, the new aggressive "subscription only " model that MS will shortly try to force feed, will be screwing the consumer big time.
Re: A commercial success? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can see that working really well:
"How do I run my games?" "You can't"
"Why doesn't my wifi dongle work?" "You need to build this source package"
"How do I open a Word document" "Libre Office"
"All the formatting is broken" "Keep trying diiferent Office suites"
etc etc
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>"Why doesn't my wifi dongle work?" "You need to build this source package"
Your wifi works out of the box. If it doesn't you might have to mess with drivers, but that is really unlikely (and can happen with Windows).
> "How do I open a Word document" "Libre Office"
You fucking click on it, and it opens. The splash screen tells you it is Libre Office, but you open it in the same way.
> "All the formatting is broken" "Keep trying diiferent Office suites"
This is an uncommon issue these days, but yea, i
User Experience (Score:2)
What MS should do is hire an actual User Interface Designer. I know they haven't had one since at the latest 2002. Vista, 7, 8 and now 10 are all progressively more painful to use and hostile to the user, so it's obvious they don't have one on staff.
I'm not even talking about the crap they try to shove down our throats for marketing purposes, but even down to the little things. The login screen in xp/2000 era was simple: username, password, domain. Then you got vista, where you had to click a button to
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What MS should do is hire an actual User Interface Designer.
No, it's all about "user experience" people now. A crowd that seems to be unerring in its effort to make user interfaces as irritating as possible.
Someone is forgetting (Score:2)
That Msft wants the same UI on tablets and phones, where some of the rant items (icons) makes sense
The new Control Panel add users is missing the (Score:2)
The new Control Panel add users is missing the user search (for domain users) that the old Control Panel has.
Windows 2016R2 is missing the level of update control that 2012R2 gives you. and the windows 10 desktop Active Hours on a server???
Thank goodness it's not just me. (Score:3)
I have been feeling like an old guy for years. When Microsoft eliminated the plain old start menu in 8, I decided that they'd have to drag me kicking and screaming away from 7. I'm still using 7. I have even decided to forgo an upgrade to Ryzen because I do not want 10.
Hopefully, enough old guy nerd rage will convince Microsoft that they made a mistake (like with Vista) and that they should do something to fix it.
LK
Re: (Score:3)
I'm running Windows 10 to the exclusion of all older versions, but one of the very first things I do is put Classic Shell on it. It looks like 10, it has all the under-the-hood workings of 10 (both good and bad), but it still feels like 7.
Windows 10 really does get some things right. Handling display changes is one of them. It's really good at remembering that it has been attached to a particular display before, and how it was configured the last time (including font sizes). It's really good at reverting wh
It is not version 10 (Score:2)
There is a mass misconception that this is version TEN; it is version one-[dot]-Oh.
We have now come full circle. Rumor has it that version 3 is when they hit their target.
Switched to Apple (Score:3)
...for everyday use. Needed to upgrade my laptop (dual boot Win10/ubuntu) which I used Linux on most of the time since Windows ate up the battery with background processes but had to use Windows for Office. Now I have office, a bash shell, and all day battery life in exchange for USB ports. Still worth it.
Pretty accurate, IMO, but what can you do? (Score:5, Informative)
I mean, ever since computers became a commodity item, the operating systems they shipped with turned to trash. Even if you were happy with the (by current standards) clean and neat UI in Windows 7? Most PC manufacturers still loaded it up with garbage bloatware apps and utilities, killing the performance and taking your hours to uninstall. (Lenovo and HP often had items installed that refused to uninstall unless other pieces were removed first, so eliminating all of it was like playing a puzzle game.)
My workplace tried to migrate everyone from Win 7 to 10 and it's still a work in progress. It's incompatible with some software made by EMC that we still need for processing invoices for Finance (trying to use a new application instead, but it's still getting customized for our workflow and won't be ready for 6 more months). We acquired and merged with another firm that was still all on Win 7, so that, too, complicated the migration plan.
So far though? Lots of little things in 10 constantly frustrate. That garbage with having the classic Control Panel AND the new Settings menu is a big one. But also irritated with changes to the VPN options. (In the past, we had a custom VPN connection package built using Microsoft's CMAK wizard/tool. That no longer really works well in Win 10. You can still install the custom package, but you wind up with a confusing mess: You have one customized dialog box to connect the VPN and to manage multiple connection locations -- but the blue Windows 10 control panel/strip still opens up next and duplicates your connect or disconnect buttons.)
I'm also not liking the Windows Update services in 10. I can't really put my finger on it, but it seems like it can really mess things up in its effort to do things silently in the background? On my Surface Pro 4, for example? I went through a phase where every time I left it running, docked on my desk to a full size display, keyboard and mouse - I'd come back a day or two later and find a black screen with just a flickering mouse pointer I could move around. Clicking did nothing. Had to hard power off and back on to get back into Windows. It seemed to be a result of something Windows Updates was trying to do automatically, overnight - leaving the PC in a screwed up state.
Two easy fixes for Windows 10 (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Start 10
2) Spybot Anti-Beacon
Then you pretty much have the operating system that everyone actually wanted. Name me a Windows operating system that didn't require this level of customization in order to make it what consumers wanted. Keep in the mind, the first one that didn't crash on a regular basis was Windows 2000. I really wish *nix would get equal or better game support because then all of Microsoft's shenanigans would be a thing of the past. Why can't *nix seem to get past that one? I'd really love to know what's in the way of that.
I agree, but (Score:2)
I agree, but what's the point here? I think we can all agree Windows in general is a hot mess. I personally gave up on Microsoft with Windows 2000. With the promise of "ringed memory" I was excited to pop the CD in and install. Upon installation it took me minutes how to hack my normal account right up to admin level ring 0. It hasn't gotten much better IMHO. Do what I did -- format and install Linux.
And then I bought I Mac. Never looked back.
Un*x runs my office and household. Windows are for looking throug
Give users more choices (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a Windows 10 user, and am reasonably happy. I'm able to use the Enterprise edition so a lot of the more annoying consumer features can be controlled. What I wish Microsoft would do is give more control back to the end user in general.
The person posting that ranty article actually has a valid point -- Windows 10 is currently a take-it-or-leave-it proposition with dwindling alternatives if you're tied to a Windows platform. The user interface is just one aspect; the non-Enterprise versions of the product don't allow you to control the update cycle, you can't disable a lot of the advertising features, and Microsoft is collecting a lot of data for something that's still a "personal" computer. Unfortunately, they must have just taken a massive internal charge to upgrade every Windows 7 and 8 user for "free." This will need to be made back somehow, and I think this is part of the long-term strategy. If they can get people used to this method of operation, then they can treat Windows PCs just like Apple treats iOS devices -- locked down walled gardens that users can't do anything with.
I think Microsoft would get a lot of happy customers dutifully paying their Windows 365 subscription fees if they did this:
- Allow all customers to buy access to the Enterprise feature set instead of locking it up behind enterprise agreements. This would keep most of the consumer users under control but allow power users to take back some control.
- Relax the UI controls. Windows Phone is dead, and Windows tablets aren't going to rule the entire market -- you don't need a locked down single experience. Don't ship themes, but enable full third party theming support. I would actually use a Windows Classic 2K-style theme if it were available, even though I'm reasonably happy with what comes in the box now.
- Relax the forced cumulative feature updates - again, let everyone have access to the CBB and the LTSB by paying for it
Unfortunately, this would be difficult to do because Microsoft has to earn the revenue back for all those free upgrades and loss of future revenues, and they would have to admit that enterprise customers are the ones actually paying for the development.
Spent about 2 weeks 'santizing' it (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect it would take less than 2 weeks for employees to learn how to use Ubuntu. Microsoft's customers might have to reevaluate the sunk cost fallacy and retrain and buy new software. And these days there isn't quite so much software to buy since everyone wants to sell your business some Cloud(tm) Software-as-a-Service(tm).
I'd really like some vanilla version of Windows. Much of the attempts at innovation turned into cruft. All I needed is a minimal environment, enough to run a browser, mail/outlook, etc
Summary (Score:5, Funny)
Windows 7 will be my last (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm running Windows 7. Windows 8 was an abomination and Windows 10 isn't any better.
Unless Microsoft starts giving a damn about their customers and reverts back to a usable OS, I'll stay on Win7 until it's unusable and migrate to Linux Mint.
I've already done it on one of my machines to get used to it and it works fine.
So long, Microsoft.
To bad apples hardware choice sucks (Score:2)
To bad apples hardware choice sucks and they don't have AMD systems.
The mini is like 4 years old and at the same price for the same hardware also the system before it had a choice for more cpu then this one has.
The mac pro is old (at least it got an price cut but still it sucks for games and it still pricey for what you get)
The upcoming imac pro starts at to high of an price and it will not easy to upgrade so you may be stuck paying alot for ram / cpu / storage upgrades. Also AMD systems with the same power
I miss 3.1 and XP! (Score:2)
and basically would love to get back to that same level of OS functionality without bloat.
(And that statement applies to OS X as well.)
Re: Windows has been a failure for considerably lo (Score:2)
See single platform software more like. No one uses Windows because they like it, they use it because the stuff they want to use only runs on Windows.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, so you have a Linux version of the software I have to use? Along with drivers for the hardware? Great, where I can I download them?
Sadly not all people are able to switch. Some of us need more than browser, mail, word processor and spreadsheet.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, if you have special needs that lock you into Windows, then stay with Windows. You have my sympathy, not my scorn.
Re: Use something else or stop bitching. (Score:2)
Because rewriting large business critical software or buying new million dollar hardware or software is not always an option. You may have infinite money but orgs often don't.
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft, on the other hand, DO have infinite money, and they continue to demonstrate why rewriting large, business critical software isn't just a bad idea, it's great for shareholders.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm of the opinion that the vista and windows 8 problems were caused by Microsoft caving in to orgs and loud individuals that were too invested in legacy software. People expected 20 year old software packages to work without errors and that is, frankly, fucking dumb.
General purpose operating systems are a mature industry. Regardless of your personal beliefs there is already great and increasing value in compatibility especially as ROI related to incremental increasingly hard won OS and hardware improvements tank. Markets will only accept disruptive change when there is a corresponding provision of new value to make up for their trouble.
Too much legacy shit means that windows never changes and old systemic problems don't get solved.
It's a false choice to assume one must necessarily suffer at the hand of the other. Proper planning prevents piss poor performance.
Re: (Score:2)
Excuse me while I switch to Linux and broadcast my IP address, version of my distribution, repositories from which I'm using software, and the occasional download of specific software which I've actually installed to all of the us.distro.org mirrors partnered with my distribution maintainer.
Why not switch to something like www.archlinux.org if you're worried that a server somewhere has logs of you downloading software... it's not like windows where you have a rootkit and a million background "services" running for everything you install filled with bugs and vulnerabilities. If you don't turn it on, it doesn't run. And nobody's gonna be able to say "ohhh, ip X downloaded openssh, let's hax them." Because... well I'll leave that an exercise for you to figure out why that's a big barrel of nothin
Re:Well said sir. (Score:5, Insightful)
...I've still yet to see an accounting of what spying is happening on Windows 10...
You're not looking very hard, then. Indeed, Microsoft itself has published a partial list of the data being harvested. Even the partial list looked pretty bad. If the data being harvested is so benign, why didn't Microsoft publish the full list?
Re:Well said sir. (Score:5, Insightful)
Excuse me while I switch to Linux and broadcast my IP address, version of my distribution, repositories from which I'm using software, and the occasional download of specific software which I've actually installed to all of the us.distro.org mirrors partnered with my distribution maintainer.
Just turn that off -- it's easy. Unlike Windows 10, where it's impossible.
Re:Well said sir. (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody knows what spying is happening, but the thing talks to the 'net so it obviously must be doing something unconscionable.
No need for conjecturbation. My conclusion Windows is spyware is based upon Microsoft's own documentation and privacy agreements.
there was also chatter about it being a file sniffer and keylogger, but that was debunked pretty hard.
Someone should tell Microsoft that debunked nonsense is still posted to their website. Some excerpts:
"If you turn on Speech, inking, & typing, we collect samples of your typing and handwriting info to improve our dictionaries and handwriting recognition for everybody who uses Windows"
"âAbility to run a limited, pre-approved list of Microsoft certified diagnostic tools, such as msinfo32.exe, powercfg.exe, and dxdiag.exe.
âAbility to get registry keys.
âAbility to gather user content, such as documents, if they might have been the trigger for the issue."
There's a short list of software that Windows 10 upgrades disable once at upgrade time, which lead people to conjecture that Microsoft gets a list of all third-party software you use continuously.
It's all on their website. Telemetry provides app usage data which is defined by Microsoft as:
"Includes how an app is used, including how long an app is used, when the app has focus, and when the app is started"
So far, nobody's clearly and definitively defined the spying; usually, when pressed, they give up
Personally I leave privacy statements, EULA and telemetry documentation Microsoft publishes speak for themselves.
arguing the conspiracy theories and say something about encrypted connections making it hard to identify what's being leaked, but that it must be something important if encryption is being used.
A conspiracy theory would be Microsoft installs Windows 10 when you dismiss the upgrade prompt. Microsoft collects information about the software you use. Or Microsoft has remote access facilities baked into windows that allow Microsoft to access configuration and content of individual systems without explicit consent or notification. These are all baseless conspiracy theories completely unsupported by documentation provided by Microsoft.
Re: (Score:3)
wrong, the UI GETS IN THE WAY for too many basic tasks. Maybe you don't do much?
Re: (Score:3)
Its only job is to basically stay the hell out of the way and not draw attention to itself. And, like pretty much every other OS on the market, it does that.
No, it utterly and completely fails at doing that.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. While this is one of the lesser annoyances of W10, it does regularly irritate me and reminds me that Windows is now as much an advertising vehicle as an operating system.
Who Is Brian Fagioli? (Score:4, Informative)
Editors, even in minimal-work aggregation sites like slashdot, you still sort of need to back-up a screed like this with the ranter's credentials to tell me why I should care what he thinks.
...okay, so I Googled him, and see he is a basement-dwelling tech-blogger who looks like a Despicable Me "Minion" but with longer legs. In other words, Walt Mossberg he ain't.