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Comment by mrweasel | Hacker News Reader

I'm not exactly sure why this happens, but when I try to use Windows my hand (mouse hand) cramps up and I get angry and frustrated.

In my view, Windows 10 is still miles away in consistency across the entire system, compared to macOS. Windows 10 actually made it worse, because it's trying to accommodate both Windows 7 and Windows 8 design.

Currently I don't think we have alternatives to macOS. I understand that I sound like a grumpy Apple fanboy, but Windows is't ready to replace macOS. The distance between macOS and Windows have increased in the later years, and not because Apple have improved anything, it's Microsoft who have made Windows worse.

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> In my view, Windows 10 is still miles away in consistency across the entire system

In my view GNU/Linux distributions are still miles away from Windows 10 in consistency across the entire system.

One of the reasons I use Elementary OS despite my ambivalence towards systemd is the consistency. It's not your typical Linux desktop experience, it's much more cohesive than Windows or even macOS. I have my main workstation booting both Windows 10 (which I do enjoy) and Elementary, and I find myself only booting into Windows to play certain Steam games that won't install on Linux.

Give Elementary a go, you may be surprised.

> One of the reasons I use Elementary OS despite my ambivalence towards systemd is the consistency.

I wrote "consistency across the entire system". I immediately believe that they did a lot of GUI polish and polishing of the default apps. But polishing the GUI of a POSIX-like system does not deliver consistency (only GUI polish). There is still the whole UNIX-like subsurface (like it or not), which delivers completely different abstractions than the GUI does (this is clearly not consistent).

For example rio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_(windowing_system)) implements Windowing as private namespace (a central element of Plan 9) - very consistent.

BeOS (for which currently under the name HaikuOS they try to reimplement it in an open source way) is another example of an OS which was designed from beginning on to have a GUI and is thus also very consistent.

Yep, I get it, and as I said I'm still not sold on systemd and therefore use Elementary with the knowledge that if it breaks and I have to fix it, I'll have to deal with that massive tumor. The great thing about Elementary is, if all you need is a ⁎nix system with a consistent GUI for something like web development but without buying Apple's premium hardware, it really shines. The Terminal app is the best I've used on any OS, and while the text editor isn't quite a full fledged programmer's editor, it's good enough for a lackey like me. I figured out that Geany is overkill for my needs, and Scratch handles all my use cases fine.

I do think they try a bit too hard to look like macOS, but if you're going for the best desktop Linux experience, why not copy the best commercial ⁎nix desktop?

I agree completely about BeOS/Haiku; BeOS was my daily driver for several years until the death of the company caused me to have to move on. I have yet to find a modern OS that even comes close to that kind of cohesive, sensible, practical approach to desktop computing. Haiku is coming along well, but it's still not stable enough for daily use beyond dogfooding for Haiku devs.

In my experience, GNU/Linux distros do not usually include 3 seperate GUI settings windows with completely differing GUI's just to manage devices.

> In my experience, GNU/Linux distros do not usually include 3 seperate GUI settings

I have never seen a GNU/Linux distribution where I didn't have to configure some things via modification of configuration files in a text editor. Even these two differences (GUI vs. text file editing) is much more different than a few different design styles in Windows' control panel. Also the way settings are set in configuration files is IMHO even more different among different GNU/Linux applications than the different design styles in Windows' control panel.

How is windows 10 consistent? Half the apps are metro ones that fullscreen (pdf viewer) and half are still win32. Some work well on touch screen others horribly. Windows 10 is a frankenOS.

Hello, time traveler from 2012 who is actually describing Windows 8.

Nope, I skipped windows 8 almost entirely. I'm talking about windows 10 in 2016, it's still a kludged together mess of a touch based mobile OS and a full desktop OS.

This is a bit confusing. Your comments are factually incorrect (there are no forced-full-screen apps in Windows 10, and the default PDF reader is Edge, which is windowed by default and was designed from the ground up for Windows 10, never for Windows 8 or "Metro"), or at least outdated.

It's a bit of a blemish that there are two control panels, but almost no users are ever exposed to Win32. You can do virtually everything (from updates to domain join to adding/removing Windows components) from the modern Settings app. The legacy control panel is just that, and is irrelevant for most users. I'd love to see it modernized, but there are many much better uses of resources (security! performance! battery life!) than modernizing 90s-era utilities that few customers are ever exposed to.

Just look at the control panels, there's actually two of them in Windows 10, one Metro, and one win32. Some settings are only available in one, some only in the other.

> How is windows 10 consistent?

Windows 10 isn't a good example of consistency, but every GNU/Linux distribution I have seen is much worse.

I could agree with you one year ago. But after latest upgrade to macOS I got so many issues on my MacBook Air and MacBook Pro that I decided 'enough is enough' :)

Am I the only one who's never had any issues? 7 years so far. Just replaced my latest one because work got me one. They both run great, except the older one has some fan issues but never anything that prevented me from using it.

But then again I rarely install new things, only have a few base programs I run routinely, and reformat regularly.

Even with Sierra?

I've just had a ton of issues with the mouse becoming unresponsive... and then having to do a restart, whereas on El Capitan and Yosemite I could basically leave my computer on for forever.

No, I still have not installed Sierra on either. I don't want any siri bullshit. I wonder how long it'll last before I'm somehow forced to upgrade to Sierra. I'm willing to bet it'll be fully baked into the next OS release.

> but when I try to use Windows my hand (mouse hand) cramps up and I get angry and frustrated

Same here! Also i start to suffer from 'update-fatigue' when using Windows. The endless updates, reboots, and god knows what it's doing in the background which consumes resources... it all just feels so clumsy. I've never experienced anything like this in OSX.

Really? Because OS X pesters me about pending updates via the App Store all the time, and the only deferment option it provides is "wait until tonight".

Except it will tell you and you can say no. On Windows, you can only extend the actual reboot, sometimes, and that within 30 seconds. If you go for a pee, you might return to a rebooting machine.

Sounds like you need to specify your active hours. See these settings in the Windows Update settings panel:

http://imgur.com/VfcdIEd

It's unfortunate that a user needs to find such an option. It's likely that the location and UI of the option will be changed yet again each release.

MS "needs" (?) to prioritize "don't torment your users". Of course, for corporate captives, they can torment away with impunity since The Management has already decided You Must Endure... (and probably locked out the setting in question, as well)

I've noticed since the big update (Anniversary Update), the default setting is a sane "after hours" range of 9pm to 7am on a fresh installation. So, it seems they are improving and are attempting to avoid situations where you're at work in the middle of the day, step away for coffee, and come back to find an update/reboot cycle has wiped out your hard work. I was pointing out the setting for the OP because either he hasn't updated far enough to get the sane default, or he's somehow changed it without knowing and needs to fix it.

Well, that's a lot better than the nagware that used to run during our first-thing-in-the-morning calls 3 or 4 years ago. Hopefully corporate IT doesn't screw it up (of course looking it down, fully screwed).

I still like the Mac's unobtrusive "get it tonight after I shut down" option, though :-) (or Ubuntu's "I'll get it when I'm good and ready", but that's not a system for worker bees)

>MS "needs" (?) to prioritize "don't torment your users".

No, no they don't.

If the user knows what they're doing, they run Windows Update manually at times when it's convenient for them (e.g. just before going out to lunch) so that they never encounter a forced reboot situation.

If the user doesn't know what they're doing, they exactly the people who need to be forced to the latest update so they don't wind up inadvertently joining a botnet.

And, of course, there are ways to forcibly disable WU for really advanced users but at that point whatever befalls them is quite clearly their own responsibility.

So, win-win for everybody but the malware makers.

You're right, they don't :-(

Like IBM and Oracle, MS is in the position of "Management says we've already won, so suck it, users!"

OTOH - "I can put whatever I want on my phone, so suck it, Microsoft!"

Payback ... and all :-)

That's probably the only thing that truly irritates me about Windows these days. Everything else is just a design decision that, as a technical user, I am easily able to adapt to. But not knowing if my machine is going to decide to reboot itself at any random moment without me having the option to stop it from doing that? Unacceptable. Completely unacceptable.

I know you should save often and bad things can happen like a power outage or a glitch or something, but those things are rare. My Windows 10 machine choosing to reboot itself without telling me? At least once a week.

Imagine if you had random power outages once a week, and having a UPS plugged in couldn't stop it.

>> But not knowing if my machine is going to decide to reboot itself at any random moment without me having the option to stop it from doing that? Unacceptable. Completely unacceptable.

First of all you can set the time interval when the Windows will be able to update https://i.imgur.com/BZNadeE.png

And even if you are working in this time Windows ask you what do you prefer - reboot now or later.

I'am not Windows fanboy. I sue MacOS, Windows and Linux at the same time.

Yes, you can set what time it will reboot, but you can't set it to "never", or even "next week". And the pop-up to reboot does not take control of the screen, so if you're doing something full screen like a game or a Powerpoint presentation, you miss it and have to wait for the reboot. Even if you're in front of a client.

When I'm done with my work for the day on Windows and I go to bed, I'm never sure if everything will still be there when I wake up. Far too often I wake up and I'm at a login screen with all of my active windows and documents closed. That's incredibly disruptive, and there's no way to stop that.

There is no way to tell Windows 10 "don't reboot until I explicitly ask you to do so".

>> The endless updates, reboots, and god knows what it's doing in the background which consumes resources...

Really? Windows has its share of hair pulling annoyances to be sure, but endless might be overstating it.

In my experience since switching, I find that resource consumption is comparable to OSX. I get that this is anecdotal, but I leave my main machines on 24-7, and I basically only reboot when an update forces me to, which sometimes is once a week (when there are frequent updates), but most of the time it is for stretches longer than two weeks.

I think you are exaggerating a tad. I have my W10 set to the fast-lane for preview updates and I still do not get updates very often.

I assume this fixes the reboot problem:

http://superuser.com/questions/946957/stopping-all-automatic...

I'm managing a friend's Win10Pro machine and so far it's been awesome. On the other hand, OSX which I'm running seems clunky and old-fashioned.

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