Hacker News Reader

Comment by Maarten88 | Hacker News Reader

Operation successful, patient dead...

It's kind of tragic that much of this effort may never pay off: in the process of merging platforms and restructuring API's (that started with Vista and is still going) Microsoft lost the connection to many of its developers, who went to build Web, iOS and Android apps. WPF, Silverlight, WinRT, XAML, UWP: there were too many changes, rewrites and deprecations. Windows Phone, brilliant as it is, did never reach mass adoption and all the effort that went into unifying it with Windows has probably been wasted.

I think developers prefer a crappy but stable technologies with a proven market over uncertain and fast-moving technologies. It takes many years for a new platform to mature and settle down.

Microsoft really needs to stop introducing "upgrades" that require application rewrites in Windows for the next 3-5 years, and focus on getting the Windows Store going.

View on HN

As a long-time Win32 programmer (over a decade), I can safely say that the vast majority of existing applications still remain (for the time being) forward-compatible.

Here's some examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOj-bAZBhnE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRfn4M5DXTE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqFWuNmWbHk

The reasons people hold off on "upgrading" Windows versions is not mainly because of compatibility, but other factors like unwanted UI changes and removed features, and particularly with Windows 10, the increased data-collection intrusiveness and "we own your machine" attitude:

http://www.howtogeek.com/243581/windows-10-may-delete-your-p...

Yes, the name "Windows as a service" was coined for a reason.

The deprecation of SHA-1 is an issue, though. Timestamps after January 1, 2016 must be SHA-256, and SHA-1 signed files will be blocked after January 1, 2017. However, Microsoft has blogged that they may block them starting this June. Pre-Win7 systems don't recognize SHA-256, so you have to dual sign the files if you want backward compatibility. Except, MSI files can't be dual signed. I'm also finding that more Win7 users than I would expect don't have the proper updates, so their systems don't recognize SHA-256.

In short, it's a mess.

You can sign with a SHA1 hash but a SHA256 certificate, and have it work on unpatched Win7 and even Vista SP2 with a hotfix installed (to fix a minor problem).

That's great! I didn't know about it. Would anyone happen to know how does it compare with the applications on Linux? Are they similarly forward compatible?

Oh, in no way, shape, or form, unless the application was statically linked, which is uncommon.

You could always run them in a container.

Closed source programs usually are, exactly for that reason. (Or at least ship all libraries they link to, up to and including the libc.)

Go also makes it relatively easy to statically compile everything, one of the reasons why it's gaining popularity.

Apart from those two it's highly uncommon: You're supposed to ship sources and compile them on the target system.

To get a sort of forward compatibility you'd need to find compatible sources for all involved userland, or ship them with your sources. The latter is sometimes used in larger projects, to work around distributions having wildly incompatible versions of whatever library you need (Samba, Firefox, LibreOffice e.g.).

To expand on copperx, they might be. Since you can have several versions of a lib installed and the kernel<->userspace interface is stable, if you can get the old versions you need for your distro, then you can run the application. At worst, you might need to compile from source (which I do realise can take a lot of time and effort).

So the kind-of proper answer to that question is, "if you want to run a popular old application on a popular current distro, there is probably a repository you can pull packages from that will allow you to do it, otherwise it's somewhat of a crapshoot".

Absolutely not, at least not on compiled form.

It's not all black though: this problem is usually offset by the fact that most Linux software is open source and can be recompiled against the new platform source.

You take some, you give some. The result is quite different but looks the same to the end user.

That's the problem. If Windows was more like Linux or BSD, you could take the good parts and omit the bad parts. They're doing genuinely good and - for mainstream desktop systems - innovative stuff in the kernel and surrounding subsystems, but once you reach the Windows shell, the desire to change stuff "willy-nilly" rears its head. Classic UI as found in Server 2003 or XP was great and if you wanted you could use themes, but now it's one highly questionable and user-unfriendly style after another, with the waste of screen real estate on top. Microsoft as a whole doesn't get it and the teams doing the good stuff must be in pain, seeing what's put on top of their creations as user-facing bits.

> The reasons people hold off on "upgrading" Windows versions is not mainly because of compatibility, but other factors like unwanted UI changes and removed features, and particularly with Windows 10, the increased data-collection intrusiveness and "we own your machine" attitude

Since quite a lot of people swear that they will never upgrade to Windows 10 for those reasons (esp. the data-collection, privacy, telemetry, and forced update issues), what do you think of the feasibility of a software product that blocks Microsoft from doing all those things?

This product would automatically configure Windows 10 to minimize all those intrusions, and where Microsoft does not provide an opt-out or disable setting, it would actively block the intrusive activity (like the way anti-virus software blocks certain malware actions).

Is this technically feasible? Would it violate Microsoft's terms and conditions? Is there enough of a market?

People have done that (just search for "Windows 10 disable telemetry", a few of those have made it onto HN too), it probably does violate ToS in some way, and there is certainly a huge "market" for it. Just look at all the "start menu replacements" that appeared when Win8 decided to remove that feature.

The biggest problem I see is that MS has somehow made all the pieces very tightly coupled (e.g. http://superuser.com/questions/957907/unable-to-install-font... ), and in typical fashion these days, has adopted a "you're either with us or against us - it's for your security" attitude in dealing with things like patches and other modifications.

Back in the XP and Vista days, well-meaning people would make customised versions of OS install images with a lot of these types of changes and share them. Piracy aside, that movement was mostly decimated by claims that all of them contained malware. Sure there were some, but a lot less than the FUD wants you to think, and the community of more experienced users quickly discovered and strongly called out those who tried. Maybe the "malwarez" creators have blossomed since then, I don't know; I haven't been following that scene for a while.

> the increased data-collection intrusiveness

The irony of this common complaint is that most people voicing it carry iPhones or Android phones, which are heavily instrumented to collect data by the operating system provider, the hardware manufacturer, and the carrier. Unlike a desktop PC, it knows where you are at all times because of its onboard sensors and has access the content of any communication you make with others.

(Note that even using custom OS images doesn't necessarily disable all telemetry since all smartphones run a separate OS to manage radio functions. See http://www.osnews.com/story/27416/The_second_operating_syste... for details.)

Most of the collected data is, of course, benign. Just like the data collected by Windows 10.

> Unlike a desktop PC, it knows where you are at all times

A single web-API call can return an accurate geolocation based on IP address alone for the majority of users (there are a few exceptions like VPNs or a small subset of IPs where the location is not good). If the desktop has Wifi, then geolocation becomes even more accurate as you can use known Wifi SSIDs to cross-reference. If the user has set a time-zone for their clock, then again more accurate location data.

> Most of the collected data is, of course, benign. Just like the data collected by Windows 10.

Source? Have you been able to analyze all the data Windows data-collection/"telemetry" sends up to MS?

> Microsoft really needs to stop introducing "upgrades" that require application rewrites in Windows for the next 3-5 years, and focus on getting the Windows Store going.

You mean like the "Framework of the day" on web land?

Or the "rewrite your app with each Android version" that you cannot get?

Or "your language just got replaced" on iOS land?

It wasn't always like this. The Windows API was fairly stable from the mid-late 90s for at least a decade. They decided to start breaking that compatibility in the name of 'progress' at around the time they started trying to squidge together their touchscreen and desktop interfaces, but this API stability used to be one of the huge drawcards of the Windows platform.

My Windows coding experience goes back to Windows 3.0 and I am looking forward to the day Win32 and Hungary notation are nothing more than plain maintenance coding, replaced by a proper type safe OO ABI like WinRT.

My past experience with others "OO-ifying" APIs (e.g. MFC) makes me think that'll just end up being worse because it tends to add a lot of complexity that gets in the way and obfuscates the flow of the code. Besides, Win32 is implicitly quite OO already and can be used from a variety of languages because it's based on C. Not everyone wants to use C++.

MFC is not a good example. OWL, VCL are much better approaches to Windows frameworks.

Not everyone wants C to stay around.

Android actually has reasonable forward compatibility. 2.x apps still work, they just look ugly and don't support newer features.

ObjC ain't going anywhere.

The amount of ObjC sessions at last WWDC 2015 and the upcoming WWDC 2016 send another message.

Yup. The Standard Apple Deprecation Cycle works something like this:

1. New shiny thing is announced

2. Old busted thing starts getting talked about less

3. New shiny thing becomes the default, old busted thing hidden away

4. Official deprecation warnings issued

5. Old busted thing stops being supported. Apple being Apple, this quickly leads to

6. Old busted thing stops working altogether after something like an OS update.

We're currently at step 2. Originally I thought that Obj-C would be kicking around for a lot longer, but given that Apple dropped an entire CPU architecture in relatively short order, and their scorched earth attitude towards backwards compatibility...

I give it 2, maybe 3 years before ObjC isn't officially supported in Xcode anymore.

ObjC is dead when swift no longer spends most of its time calling in to ObjC for the typical iOS/OSX app.

In case you didn't got the memo, GDC and XTest are being re-written in Swift, it will eventually happen to other frameworks when it makes business sense to do so.

Let's see what else gets announced at WWDC 2016 and how many talks do show Objective-C code.

GDC is C code... I'm talking UIKit.

Totally agree that on the WWDC they announce that UIKit is written in swift then it's officially dead.

ObjC will be around much longer than 3 years. It can't be deprecated until most of OS X is rewritten.

Remember how long it took them to get rid of the Carbon Finder?

Sure, but the way it is being handled is a sure signal were things are going.

Apple even mentions Swift as a C and Objective-C replacement on their documentation.

Of course, it doesn't make business sense to stop the engines and rewrite all the stuff.

I think developers prefer a crappy but stable technologies with a proven market over uncertain and fast-moving technologies.

Businesses - yes.

Developers - my experience says no (myself included).

I think developers like uncertain and fast technology IFF they get to choose.

New web framework comes out? Cool I'll try it.

Web framework version I am using is suddenly EOL'd and I have to upgrade to something radically different? Curse upstream!

As a developer, I prefer technologies which don't plunge me into the "abyss of uselessness", where I know enough to know that something should be possible, and how it's done in the "old way" but have no idea how to do it in the "new way".

I'd prefer to use a functional API with a few warts and limitations over having to learn yet another goddamn 'fast-moving modern' interface which will disappear within five years.

Churn might be great for job security but it's a huge waste of everyone's time and efforts.

Five years? I'd be glad if we stopped moving to a new Javascript stack every six months.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3070460/windows-pcs/mic...

the upgrade and its scheduled implementation is approved when the user either clicks the "OK" button or the "X" in the upper right corner of the notification

This reminds me the many stories about those shady popups that show a fake dialog box where clicking on the 'X' in an attempt to close it actually does something very, very unintended, perhaps even downloading and running some sort of malware. MS is getting pretty desperate.

I despise Microsoft for this. Two days ago, my dad accidentally triggered an upgrade to Windows 10. In a panic, he switched the computer off, and now it no longer boots.

It's now down to me to repair the computer. Apparently, months of dismissing the pop up invitations to upgrade to Windows 10 were not enough for Microsoft, they had to go and practically force it down people's throats. And my family is paying the price.

Microsoft, you are utter scum. You have wasted my time, my dad's time, and cost him hours of lost work.

Time to consider an OS change maybe?

If only it were that simple. Even if we restrict ourselves to open cross platform software, hardware support remains a big issue. I have a Skylake laptop with which I daisy chain two external monitors via displayport. Linux doesn't even support Skylake properly, let alone my dual monitor configuration.

>I have a Skylake laptop with which I daisy chain two external monitors via displayport. Linux doesn't even support Skylake properly, let alone my dual monitor configuration.

And how many normal users actually do stuff like this?

I wish I could, but you and I both know that's a massive amount of time and work.

Given the number of large organizations that appear to have been paralyzed for much of a decade by the problems of switching from XP/IE6 to Windows 7/IE11, a whole new OS might be a bit of a challenge.....

What's really weird is that these same large organizations didn't have that much trouble migrating computing platforms in the past: MS-DOS, Win3.x, Win95, Win98, Win2000, etc. Then they got to XP and suddenly they were stuck.

They probably saw diminish returns upgrading from XP to Windows 7, whereas the past upgrades you list add a lot of new functionality and applications. Windows was pretty much "feature complete" with XP.

Delaying the move to Windows 7 cost them vast amounts of money due to more frequent crashes and reboots, less efficient operations, greater susceptibility to malware, and generally higher support costs etc.

It didn't save them any money because they were almost always paying for Windows 7 even while they were using XP. (Either they paid for Windows 7 and used the downgrade option or paid for it via Software Assurance.)

They didn't save the cost of moving to Windows 7, they just deferred it to a later date when the move was more expensive.

Microsoft tried to help them to move by giving them a free copy of Windows XP in the form of Windows 7 XP Mode. That wasn't available in Windows 8/8.1/10.

So, as far as I can see, sticking with XP was a really dumb move. I'm sure there would be special cases connected with software that couldn't be upgraded and/or expensive peripherals, but still, in the bast majority of cases, they could have done a Windows 7 upgrade leaving just a few instances of XP.

I'm just curious because I really don't know more than my own sample-of-1 experience:

Don't you have to agree to "Terms and conditions" before the Windows 10 installation actually starts?

I actually re-enabled the Windows 10 upgrade warnings on my Windows 7 desktop, because I intend to upgrade in the last week of the upgrade being free. My desktop (Dell XPS 8500 from 2012) is not supported with Windows 10 (the first time I have to say "Dell, you suck!" - I've had 5 systems from them, desktops and laptops, and a few monitors up to 32 inches), and with my XPS (9333) 13 laptop (which Dell supports with Windows 10) I had pretty much unsolvable (Realtek) sound crash issues.

So anyway, just two days ago after reenabling the Windows 10 upgrade warning it started installing it on its own, as you say - but it first asked me if I agree to the "terms and conditions". I clicked "disagree" and the upgrade was canceled.

So from my own experience I can't see that Microsoft installs Windows 10 without an option to stop the process? I also have not been bothered with another attempt of auto-installation in the days since, but that's probably going to happen after an actual reboot - thus far I've only used "suspend to disk" to switch the PC off.

I honestly don't know, I didn't get to see what dialogs appeared. Bear in mind that computers often get us to accept terms and conditions, and virtually no-one reads them before clicking OK. There's no way I could blame my parents if that's what they did.

Hell, most of my security advice to them is explaining what is a 'legitimate' message box is and what isn't (Quick test: try describing it yourself, the many varied OS / browser / A/V popups, v.s. the scammy fake dialogs that appear.)

I know the feeling. My mother's approach to computing is infuriating: If she would just READ the often perfectly simple message on the screen she could solve 90% of her problems. For the same reason as your parents ending up with Windows 10 my mother managed to install the pay-version of the free anti-virus software I had installed - when it asked here if she wanted to upgrade to the non-free version she clicked on "Yes" and then didn't dare to cancel the process...

It seems that in some people anything unexpected happening on the screen causes some of their inhibitory neurons to fire action potentials (only 10% of neurons in the brain, but an inhibitory signal has a much stronger effect than an excitatory one) - blocking entire brain circuits from contributing their output. It's probably an ancient fear response.

So the best solution isn't to educate them - that's mostly unnecessary, since their intellectual capacity is not really the problem. One would have to get them to relax, so that unexpected things happening on their computer screen don't trigger the blocking of all reason.

One other difficult problem I find with my parents, and with others of a similar age, is trying to persuade them to experiment with using their computer. They often find some convoluted way of doing something and stick with it.

For example, for a long time my Mum would return to google's homepage by quitting and restarting firefox. I had to explain how the home & back buttons worked several times. My parents were afraid to even try pressing unfamiliar icons in a program (or even realise that they were buttons that could be pressed). Again, it's not stupidity, but just uncertainty and their fear of breaking the computer if they do the wrong thing.

Giving a tablet as a present for my parents was a big help here. The biggest ease of use has been that I have persuaded them that there is just about nothing that they can accidentally break on it, and if they ever reach something confusing, then pressing the only button on the front will always take them back to a recognisable place.

My parents were afraid to even try pressing unfamiliar icons in a program...

That's because it might force upgrade to Windows 10 if they hit the wrong button.

It can install silently without user approval -- this happened to my wife's laptop over the weekend. Luckily it is a fairly recent Windows8 HP machine and still works (unlike the three different Windows7 machines of mine that ended up unusable post-upgrade).

I manage my ex-wife's PC using TeamViewer and just regularly check updates to see what's up and to make sure MalwareBytes is running and up to date. This prevents her (and my kids) from doing "bad things".

A proactive approach is better than complaining about Microsoft, whose model has changed whether you like it or not. Windows is a service now. Not a product.

The more quickly we accept that (or switch OS's), the happier we'll be.

Not really fair to blame the end-user / victim, who bought a product. Requiring business-level IT policies and monitoring on home/consumer IT products isn't really viable for the vast majority.

Windows 10 might be a service, but previous versions were products.

Does TeamViewer prevent someone from desperately powering off a machine because they don't know to stop an update? I can't see how your advice would have helped here.

>>Microsoft really needs to stop introducing "upgrades" that require application rewrites in Windows for the next 3-5 years, and focus on getting the Windows Store going.

Those application rewrites are part of the Windows Store push. Want the latest version of X, then you need the latest version of Windows which, if all goes to plan, will only run software from the windows store. MS has always been very good at turning the updating of third party software into new sales for windows.

Well, if they moved on to web, they certainly didn't choose for stable technologies over uncertain and fast-moving ones.

> Windows Phone, brilliant as it is, did never reach mass adoption

Being kicked in the nuts by the 'cloud' division does not help either.

Because it was the free 15 GB storage from all those phone buyers that was dragging them down.

"Adult supervision, can I haz it?"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com