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Comment by partiallypro | Hacker News Reader

How are they ruining Windows? People have been saying this since XP (before SP1 or SP2, when everyone hated it.) Yet there's not much evidence to support it...they are actually doing some really cool things with Windows now like adding bash and having different flavor Linux subsystems. The main issue I've had is some lack of quality control since they let go tons of testers and used Insiders instead. That has not effected me personally, but it has become a public perception they need to clean up.

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Windows is subject to this sort of bizarre conservation of awesome. Any improvements in one area must be counterbalanced with an absolute shitshow in some other area. Windows 95 brought full 32-bit-ness to the average desktop, but it was a crashy buggy mess based on DOS that should have never existed because Windows NT was a thing. Windows 98 improved on Windows 95 in some ways, but introduced completely unnecessary IE integration and the Active Desktop nobody used. Windows XP finally brought the NT kernel to the consumer desktop, but it looked like Fisher-Price and introduced phone-home DRM integrated at a system level. Windows 7 seems immune to this rule, being a massive improvement over Vista and XP with few drawbacks, but was bookended by pure-shitshow releases Vista and 8. Windows 10 fixed many of the problems with Windows 8, and gave us nice things like WSL, but also gave us built-in spyware and ads-in-the-start-menu malarkey.

There's a reason why people say 2000 and 7 were the best Windows releases ever.

> Windows 95 ... should have never existed because... NT was a thing.

Windows NT needed way high-end hardware to be usable at the time. (Even Linux did, if you wanted to use a Win95-like GUI and not be limited to the text-only CLI.) Windows 95 was a hack, but it was still miles better than pure MS-DOG and 16-bit versions of Windows.

> Windows 98 ...introduced completely unnecessary IE integration and the Active Desktop nobody used.

Completely unnecessary? Used ChromeOS lately? Guess what, that integrates the web browser at a far deeper level than Win98 ever did. And Active Desktop-equivalent technologies are only coming back into use very recently, with things like Web Notifications, ActivityPub, Progressive Web Apps and the like.

> Windows XP ... looked like Fisher-Price ...

Except that you could disable the Fisher Price bits, either in XP or as late as Vista and Windows 7.

> Guess what, that integrates the web browser at a far deeper level than Win98 ever did.

That's the entire point; it uses the web browser because the web browser became an operating system (in the "application platform" sense of the word, not in the "kernel" sense) in its own right, and ChromeOS is Google's attempt to follow it to its conclusion. This is categorically different than Windows' deep and arbitrary integration of Explorer.

> This is categorically different than Windows' deep and arbitrary integration of Explorer.

Nope, Internet Explorer had its own "application platform" for the browser at the time, known as ActiveX. Of course ActiveX came with huge security drawbacks, not unlike Windows 9x itself, but OTOH it was somewhat usable compared to the security-oriented Java "applets". And ActiveX components did find some use in Windows 98, much like the web-based components in ChromeOS.

Windows had "web apps" before the term was even invented.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application

A lot of those things you've cited are very nearly myths.

Windows 7's adoption of online-only functionality dwarfs XP's.

Vista and Windows 7 are extremely similar. I've easily fooled several Windows 7 die-hards that they were using Windows 7 while they were in-fact using Windows Vista. They are virtually the same operating system. Microsoft did the same in a series of television commercials.

Spyware and application telemetry are not the same thing. I don't know why I continue to beat this drum, though, it never sways anyone, facts be damned.

The suggestions (yes, they are arguably ads) are easily turned off and never return, and this setting syncs across devices logged into the same Microsoft account.

No operating system is perfect, and no company is perfect. Is there any other fucking massive tech company in the middle of a huge turnaround like Microsoft is? I can't think of any.

Yet, many people will always have a very special place in their heart for attacking Microsoft, and they'll never relent, no matter what Microsoft do.

I do NOT understand it.

I'm not the one you're asking. But to me, the (most recent) way they ruined Windows was the new interface. I don't want to interact with my desktop via a phone/tablet interface. I don't want to use a touchscreen. I want to use only the keyboard and mouse.

More: I don't want to use my computer as a media consumption device.

So for me, all the new UI changes are counterproductive. But that's me. Others have different usage profiles; whether it's a net win or a net loss depends on the customer mix.

But all the cards and the tablet interface stuff ... is all side stuff that you don't need to use? At least I hardly ever see any sign of it.

Am I missing something?

There was an issue a LONG time ago when the tiles were more front and center but they dumped that a while ago.

I agree with you generally but it's not just the tiles. They also made a lot of changes around how settings and other features are accessed to make them more touch friendly, and if you're just trying to get in and change a thing it's often more work to get to it. There are ways to work around almost all of it but its just sort of ongoing evidence of a design direction that didn't really pan out for the mobile users it was intended to serve, and makes life a little harder for technical desktop users. These days I only use Windows 10 for gaming and to host my ubuntu laptop over VNC. If it weren't for games/steam I'd probably uninstall it.

I actually like the settings changes. Fewer things on each screen and the search-ability is pretty great now.

Still have to dig several screens deep to access common settings. Still prefer the old-school control panel.

You can find them by typing into the Start Menu.

Just because you can now search for them (a bonus), doesn’t mean they should then be buried (a negative).

Considering Microsoft is likely killing live tiles and there isn't much of a touch interface at all, I don't understand your problem. Are you talking about Windows 8? I genuinely don't know exactly what you mean at all.

So, it seems like you are describing the car crash that was Windows 8?

Seriously, if you haven't tried Windows 10 since it first came out, try it - I held out on Windows 7 for years, but I'm really glad I switched.

I'm on 10. I still hate the interface. Yes, it's better than 8 was, but that's not much. They took a step in the wrong direction, and then they took a half-step back. I mean, that's better than nothing, but it's still less than good.

I can’t thing of anything useful that MS added since Windows XP.

Going from 16 bit cooperative to 32 bit preemptive in the 3.x to 9x change, useful.

Going to multiple accounts with permissions in the 9x to XP change, useful.

Rearranging the UI time and again since Vista, and sucking up CPUs with scannning processes, so what?

Note that I really only used Windows at work, anyway (instead of Linux, or more recently OSX), and I managed to avoid the post-7 cluster-bomb entirely at my current job.

The secure driver model.

I see Windows 10 as a part of the continuing evolution of Windows - it's not a million miles away from Windows XP, but I wouldn't want it to be.

Some new features:

- Cortana (I don't use it, but I know lots of people that do)

- The Windows Store and UWP apps

- High DPI support (this is something MS does very well compared to Linux desktops)

- Windows Hello (I find this really for signing in with a fingerprint)

- BitLocker (this is a bit one, IMO)

- Device Guard (Enterprise only, AFAIK. Very usual in certin environments)

- Windows Defender (it's now a 1st class AV - I have no reason to use anything else)

- Window Defender Exploit Guard

- Windows Defender Credential Guard

- Windows Defender ATP (only for large enterprises, but it's amazing)

- Windows S mode (this is a pretty big deal, and it's suitable for a lot of consumers, even if it's not exactly HN users' target market)

- Improved VPN support

- Built-in snipping tool (WIN + SHIFT + S)

- Dark mode (I like this)

- Improved Start Menu (IMO)

- Task switcher

- Action centre

- Improved command prompt (even supports copying with CTRL-C, how incredible!)

- Edge (OK, maybe moot now)

- Multiple desktops (yes, I know these have been a feature of Linux window systems for decades)

I imagine I've left out quite a bit too.

The heavy-handed updates forcing frequent reboots are the deal-breaker for me. It seriously pisses me off to come back to my machine only discover that all those editor windows I had open gone, the IDE close, and all the open browser tabs lost, etc. Why are frequent full reboots even necessary in this day and age?!

It's ok if they are necessary. It's not ok if they are needed ASAP.

I agree with the gp that consecutive full reboots definitely shouldn't be necessary. That Windows forces your hand on when to reboot just worsens the case.

The state of Windows update is terrible to me. Say what you will about Linux, but updating on most distros is a breeze compared to Windows.

Those reboots are heavy handed because attackers are heavy handed with new attacks and if not forced to reboot, you never will.

You get plenty of time to prepare for the reboot that's coming. You can even delay it by a day or more.

It isn't Windows' fault that you aren't prepared for it when it comes; it's yours.

This ridiculously idiotic notion of "security" needs to stop. Especially when "fixing" things that already require full admin access anyway. True remote exploits are (fortunately) very rare, and even then there should never be a need to reboot --- patching files in memory was perfected years ago.

Give the users freedom to choose when to reboot, and even to choose whether they want to. Some users will continue to manage to get infected with malware despite constantly being disrupted by the constant reboots, others never installed a single security patch and yet would never be infected due to what they do (or what they don't, to be more accurate.) But that's their choice and theirs alone.

Unfortunately it seems companies are far more authoritarian and would rather breed a docile obedient type of users in which to force their ideas on and control.

I will resist the urge to post that old Benjamin Franklin quote again.

>I will resist the urge to post that old Benjamin Franklin quote again.

Good, because like everyone else who does, you'd probably misrepresent what he actually meant by it.

Well when someone's Windows computer gets infected, that person rarely blames themselves. They blame Microsoft.

I'll take the updates and reboots. I don't know what exploits are coming tomorrow, and I know very little about the ones currently in the wild. My SSD allows reboots carrying updates to happen in just a minute or two.

I will do my due diligence and protect myself.

If you don't want to, don't use Windows, then you won't have anything Windows-related to complain about.

> Unfortunately it seems companies are far more authoritarian and would rather breed a docile obedient type of users in which to force their ideas on and control.

You are on drugs or are otherwise compromised logically. Tech companies are nowhere nearly as organized as would be required to make this a reality.

You're saying that the manufacturer of an OS that requires reboots for certain fixes to be patched onto the operating system is actually an authoritarian regime grooming its users toward a manufactured Idiocracy?

I'll have whatever you're having. It sounds like LSD but only for geopolitical concerns.

This might be something you like then:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3250464/microsoft-wind...

No forced updates, no store apps, no Cortana.

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