Ask HN: What problems do you have on the Windows platform? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What problems do you have on the Windows platform?

2 pointssmiler3 comments

Probably in the minority here on HN, but I love Windows, Windows Server, .NET and the Microsoft development tools - although it has to be said, I am still partial to a lot of the Alt.NET solutions.

What bug bears / pain points do you experience? As well as developing, I just love the idea of 'perfect' development, testing, deployment etc, particuarly the deployment of the same app across many servers and then a consistent upgrade process.

I'd love to know what fellow HNers struggle with on Windows because I fancy looking at building something in this area - perhaps open source, perhaps not, but either way, hopefully this can be a melting pot for those of us intereste in Windows centric software and solutions

The operating system ships with absolutely nothing that I consider useful for modern development, and it doesn't ship with several things I consider crucial. SSH. A decent terminal. A decent text editor. Perl. Python. Name-your-core-Unix-tool. A decent web browser. Windows is actually quite pathetic out of the box.

Now, yes, Windows can be brought up to par (and I've done it). I am not saying it is impossible to use Windows to be productive. But, I am past the point where I see this as worth the trouble; why the hell should I spend hours downloading and installing all the things Microsoft doesn't provide (oh, and re-install them, every 6 months, when invariably the OS falls apart and one has to start over)?

This is of course completely subjective, but, from the top of my head:

Painful user interface. No good package management system. Instability and unreasonable hardware requirements for even simple tasks. Missing good command line tools and light-weight methods of remote administration, development and testing.

Licensing. Every time I install a version of windows, it's a hassle I wouldn't otherwise have to deal with. (Also not a problem I expect you to be able to do anything about, but you asked...)

Installing programs - Ninite.com is a startup dealing w/ that.

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