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Comment by realusername | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I guess some people decided that technical errors helping you to find what is going on are "ugly".

Mac/iOS error: App just disappears

Android error: App displays error and disappears

Windows error: App displays error, possibly writes to error log, dumps memory to disk, and suggests you visit a URL that provides no useful information.

None of them are great, but at least Windows gives you something to search for.

EDIT: Formatting

On Android, if you tap the button to report the error, it will show you a stack trace and other information that are often enough to diagnose crashes in third party apps.

Crash logs are available on iOS in the settings.

Yeah agree, and I'd say it's better to hide them away in settings because most users have no idea what those error messages mean.

For example my auntie calling me in tears because windows "had performed an illegal operation" (verbatim error message text) and she was terrified she was going to prison.

Stongly disagree, as much as this example is hilarious and toching, it really isn't typical.

Many non-dev folks around me have resolved windows errors by typing the error message or code into google - if they are spesific and well written, they enable you to do that!

Strongly agree with you. When Apple things fails to 'just work' it is a nightmare. I used to have this issue for downloading MacOS updates. My internet wasn't too fast and it would get interrupted and restart from zero. Who can't do download resume in the last 10 years, I would assume only apple. My office network was faster and we also had those cache server, it worked for everyone except me. MacOS provided zero hint and it 'just failed to work'. Office internet was fast enough to download in multi MB/s yet Apple update weeks after released (so I don't think there was rush and it was US night) would have speeds 50 KB/s to < 500 KB/s and of course you can't choose a mirror or whatever cause it 's meant to 'just work'.

This is just one example that I vividly recall. The simplest of operation downloading of an update, only apple can make it as big a nightmare as it was. Now they do a lot of things fabulously but when the fail they just fall on their face and ignore it or they would fail where I can't even imagine how to fail this bad.

The latest blunder (again download), my iPhone lost it's wifi after a fall and wow! behold you can't download an update over cellular. Apple will make you save your money by not using your expensive cellular data after all it's so much more expensive than your $800 phone.

A lot of people seemingly don't have the patience or knowledge to do this, unfortunately :( I know people sneer about "computer classes", but I think it would be very useful to have people learn to try to solve their problems by themselves.

Windows even offers to resolve the issue which, as I understand it, has never in the history of time resolved anything.

The only time it did something for me was when the network diagnostic tool requested a new dhcp lease because I “did not have Internet access.”

In Windows 8.1, if the Sound service crashes, clicking on the sound icon with an (X) on it will bring up a UAC prompt. Going through that will get the "resolve the issue" prompt to restart the Sound service, which will fix the issue.

Not having the problem in the first place would be better. Automatically solving the problem would be great! But, for once ever, I can safely say that this does sometimes fix problems.

Why use windows 8.1 today? Windows 10 was a free upgrade and a major improvement.

Windows 8.1 works, uses significantly less RAM, lets you disable the telemetry, lets you create new users without a Microsoft account, doesn't move things around all the time, has a non-Chromium-based browser built into it, doesn't automatically install Metro apps…

The only real downsides versus Windows 10 are the Start Screen and the conhost implementation, but Classic Shell and Powershell fix both of those.

Windows has been getting worse and worse at this as it increasingly follows the bone-headed trends started by Apple and shitty web designers.

Seems about the same as always. Either Windows is working, or you get a blue screen that says ":( Error code: WE_AUTO_INSTALLED_A_SHITTY_DRIVER_FOR_HARDWARE_YOU_DONT_CARE_ABOUT_AND_IT_OVERWROTE_THE_OS'S_MEMORY"

Then you google it and the first 300 results say you need to install their malware to fix the problem. Never change, Internet... never change.

On the Mac you get a crash dialog with a report button that can show a detailed crash report with a stack trace. Much more useful than Windows errors. Like I used to have a series of Safari crashes where the stack trace clearly showed it was a Unicode bug

macOS has an option to show detailed crash reports, which can be more detailed than Windows' crash alerts, along with a field for describing what you were doing or attempting to do.

See TinkerTool for an easy way to enable such options:

https://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html

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