Ask HN: Did you learn to hate Windows? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Did you learn to hate Windows?

3 pointslaktak6 comments

I've used Windows since version 3.1 (~1992) and really loved it. OK, maybe not the batch files, I think I always hated them. Except for a brief excursion to OS/2 and some grumbling about "activation" in XP, I've stayed with it until Windows 8. Windows 7 was probably the last version I really liked.

Windows 8 was bad but you could kind of ignore the dark side.

In Windows 10 this changed:

- Windows reboots without asking! Since when is this considered acceptable? Did you remember to save everything, always? Start a job, step away for a minute and yes, it's probably rebooting.

- You have no control over updates, even for 'power users'. They are downloaded and updated without asking. Remember to check for updates before you do a presentation.

- To add insult to injury, after seemingly every update some (most?) of my settings are removed. I really like to customize Explorer ... not anymore.

- Edge ... couldn't they just accept when I say no?

- Spying or 'Telemetry' as they call it. Not OK.

- Also whenever you find a way to make it behave (like controlling updates), the next update will probably remove that functionality.

This no longer feels like "My Computer". And I hate it.

After supporting everything Windows under the sun since 3.11 I've grown to loathe it. I've been working with Mac OS and mostly Linux for the past few years and when I can avoid it I will not touch Windows anymore. Mostly for all the reasons already mentioned but also because after getting used to the "freedom" in Linux I just feel trapped whenever I have to do something on Windows. The only positive thing I can see is the Windows Core edition coupled with (the still improving) Powershell, but it's still not the same.

I started with 3.1 and it was vastly worse than the lighter WMs I used on UNIX. I became an almost full time windows user at work and it got parity with 98/XP. Still a sh...y system requiring full reinstalls every two years or so, to make it fast again. I quit in 2009, avoiding Vista. Ubuntu 8.04 was much faster than xp on the same hardware and required less clicks to do the same operations. All the sw I used could run on Ubuntu, never looked back. Videogames on a Playstatio :-)

I guess you mean Microsoft and its desktop offerings, I will tell you why I hate MS 1) Loss of control of the hardware, initially one could use DOS to control hardware, access has been progressively denied 2) Stupid security, blocking programmes that you need and allowing viruses in 3) Updates, I have no idea why they are so massive and constantly needed 4) Dumbing down of the OS 5) MS users

100) etc

I tried 3.1 for a couple of weeks and thought is was OK but not great, then I wanted to install TeX (emTeX) and didn't have the disk space for both, so back to DOS. By the time I could afford a larger disk I had discovered Unix and never looked back. My computer has always felt like my computer.

I have up on Windows because of defender. Can't turn off. Registry hack let's me turn off till next patch. Then it's back. Current PC will be last windows PC I ever buy.

All I lose is games, but will stick to PS4 for games. For anything else my windows PC is dead to me.

I've hated windows since Vista. But I was raised on Macs, so part of it was probably just unfamiliarity.

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