> proprietary operating systems to be actively working against you
Where is this happening ? Are we expecting this now ? What did I miss
Where is this happening ? Are we expecting this now ? What did I miss
Automatic updates on reboot. For example when someone giving a presentation or class has to restart their computer for some reason (quite common in Windows still, or one just ran out of power). Boot up the computer, people waiting impatiently - and then have to wait for 5-30 minutes for the computer to finish updates before being able to use it. No way to cancel/post-pone, no time-estimates for when it will be done.
Or telemetry made it way simpler.
Also, beneficial does not imply necessary.
Forced telemetry and opt-out telemetry are two different things.
The former is clearly evil. The latter can be helpful if it’s communicated clearly and not hidden in some EULA.
One could argue that telemetry _is_ the poll. If a user decides to disable feature-usage-tracking telemetry, and then realize they’d prefer to have a voice regarding feature selection, one possible solution would be for them to re-enable it.
If they absolutely won’t opt-in, they’re always free to email developers to tell them about their use case – a pretty powerful way to make yourself heard.
[German pro basketball team relegated to lower division due to Windows update | Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/germa...)
> "But as both teams warmed up, the computer crashed," he said. "When we booted it again at 7:20pm, it started automatically downloading updates. But we did not initiate anything."
> After all the updates were installed, Paderborn was ready to start the game at 7:55pm.
> But then Chemnitz formally protested, saying that because Paderborn had delayed the start time of the match by 25 minutes (instead of the 15-minute maximum as allowed under the German basketball rules), they should be penalized. As a result, Paderborn lost another point (Google Translate) in the standings, according to a Basketball Budesliga press release, which meant that it would certainly be relegated to the "ProB" league of German pro basketball.
Windows is by design meant to be used by not very computer literate people and unfortunately these kinds of users need to be forced to do the right thing sometimes. As they said back in the day: "the user will do everything possible to see the dancing bears, including downloading that toolbar, installing that gizmo, disabling security settings".
People smugly complain about this, in many cases from their Linux box (= technical users on a system with a 1% desktop market share => smaller target and better human protection) or MacOS box (= slightly more technical users than the average Windows user, on a system with a 5%-10% desktop market share).
I really wish people who insist on claiming some right to control how users use their own computers would leave IT forever.
People cannot be trusted to upgrade. It REALLY IS good to force people to upgrade.
The very idea that users should be at the mercy of their computers instead of the other way around is contrary to the concept of personal computing.
People like you are why I hate IT these days. You seem to think that because you have some specialized knowledge about computers that you're smarter than everyone who doesn't. You're totally willing to sacrifice hours of peoples lives, ruin their projects, and break their systems in the name of "I know better". It doesn't matter what they're doing, or how important it is to their lives, what matters is what you think is important.
Hate me or not...but people can't be trusted (broadly) to maintain things...thats just the way life works.
Automatic updates were a default. People turned them off because they were annoying. One solution to this problem was to make them not-annoying, but instead Microsoft opted to become aggressive and force people to update.
I will never hold anyone who thinks this is a good idea in high regard because they are actively making the world a worse place.
It's really that simple...cry about it all you want. It's a necessary evil...because humans.
A thousand times this.
This is such a stupid, frustrating argument to hear.
Pro and Enterprise shouldn't be the same in this regard as Home but often are.
Four days ago I had to entertain a courier waiting to pick up a 6-figures piece of equipment for a waiting air-freight cargo plane, for immediate transport to a remote mining site, all because the fucking piece of shit fucking Win 10 Enterprise on a very expensive rugged laptop decided to hang itself in an update loop for an hour.
We dealt with different garbage during the Windows 7 and previous eras, yes, but I'm not sure we're better off on the whole. Windows 10 has given a whole new meaning to the "Blue Screen of Death".
Reality is often frustrating, I agree.
Windows 10X will probably have some more goodies.
Forcing people to update was probably the only way to stop that.
I'm also not a fan, I got burned at least once by a Windows 10 computer restarting in the middle of the night when I had programs running on it, but I guess it's one of these things that's good for 99%, the 1% is just overrepresented here.
That's the thing with tech, and that's why I consider all arguments that "people voted with their wallets" to be bullshit in this space. Most users don't understand how computers work. They don't have mental models to recognize how things should work. They have no choice but to accept whatever they're being given.
Devices around them getting less ergonomic, slower, and more flashy UIs? "There are smart people building this magic, they must know what they're doing!". Their computers slowing down to the point of uselessness in the span of a year? "It must be these viruses!". Techies complain because techies understand it's all greed and laziness, and that same technology is capable of being much better than it is.
I mean, ask your parents whether they like their operating system. I'll bet their answer will be a resounding "no", and you may get an earful about their general frustrations with technology.
One notable moment where the dissatisfaction of masses was voiced in unison was the forced Windows 8 to Windows 10 upgrade. You didn't have to have any sophisticated mental model there to recognize you're being made to do something bad for you against your will.
[0] https://www.kilobitspersecond.com/2020/09/22/people-expect-t...
All this "well, users are stupid so it is ok to treat them like garbage" nonsense is part of the reason I've come to fucking hate IT. I wish all of you who think that way would go away.
I'm mostly very strongly opposed to forced updates, but things like WannaCry make me understand the viewpoint for forcing security upgrades.
I'm not trying to be combative, I'm just trying to better work out my own views on the topic.
Today, you might run an upgrade and reboot to find a more secure operating system -- or a full-screen Edge ad, with Edge being immediately auto-started afterwards and re-pinned on the taskbar. (Guess who had to drive across town in the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown because one of their parents had to teach an online class and couldn't open Firefox anymore. Yep.)
It's a hole that Microsoft dug themselves in, and long before Windows 10, and instead of doing anything to dig themselves out of it, they just dragged everyone else down.
It solves the problem -- nobody's claiming it doesn't -- but it's not something that should be defended for technical or usability reasons, it's the worst solution that happens to still work, more or less.
Users are so used to be annoyed that updates disrupt UX, Microsoft isn't an especially bad actor here. In the end, users tend to disable updates as a response which is bad for security and makes vendors force them to update.
Maybe not "improving" UX with every release would be a solution but there are very few companies that stick with their UX for many years, redesigns are way too easy to sell as a new feature.
Should mandatory reboots every Sunday at 12 PM be introduced in a future Windows update? I mean, someone else has done it before. If you do it every second Sunday it's even better, Microsoft wouldn't be an especially bad actor here.
The fact that other companies are even worse doesn't make this any better. For any program that has a bug, I guarantee there are thousand other programs with even worse bugs. Pointing fingers and returning EWONTFIX may fly for some FOSS projects, where maintainers can at least claim that if you want a fix in open-source software that you didn't pay for you should fix it yourself, but it's a pretty ridiculous stance if you have paying customers.
Also I have a huge problem with so much of this crap needing a reboot. Reengineer the damn thing so it doesn't in 99% of cases.
Do I control my computer or not? If I do then I should be able to control what happens when.
But they should do much better QA and not brick anyone's PC ever, and absolutely NOT ship anything which isn't strictly security-related in this undeferrable-unskippable security patches channel.
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/threads/fall-creators-update...
and there's no way for me to use my machine as I purchased it (Samsung Galaxy Book 12 bundled w/ a Staedtler Noris Digital Stylus) and I've had to roll back an un-asked for upgrade since, the bottom line is Microsoft needs to completely decouple the OS layer where the security updates occur, from the UI layer.
If I pay for a system with an active stylus, I don't want it to be dumbed down to an 11th touch input which scrolls and won't select text or interact w/ the system as I've been accustomed to since Windows for Pen Computing.
That means you have been spared. For me "getting burned" means endless boot loops and reinstalling windows. Windows updates have bricked my system on every version of windows so far. Windows Vista, 7, 10. Their updates all suck.
Yes, I'm one of those "stupid" people who installed updates as soon as possible. No more bullshit. I'm using Linux now.
The Edge update comes to mind that had reset the browser preference presumably to be able to push edge again.
Get a new browser installed, prompt for your choice of browser. This is an improvement to "get Edge installed, have Edge take over everything silently" and an improvement on "I installed a thing and it doesn't do anything, where is it", and an improvement on "IE 11 for eternity".
one of the updates most certainly was not just a mime handler update. They pushed a new edge (when they swapped to chromium) and rather than leave people with old edge as their browser, they just flat out set new edge as your browser without checking what you had otherwise, and set it to auto run on your next boot.
"Its easy to install arch, all you have to do is run these 10 arcane commands"
With some linux distros is definitely feels like it is hostile to entry-level users. Which is probably by design, but I'm just saying that Windows isn't the only OS where you have to do a bunch of weird hostile setup stuff when you first install it
macOS ... Is special. Some of the most notable changes in the last few years have been to try to restrict what an app can do.
Both the UI lag and general performance in macOS is just a sad story.
My windows machine runs 24/7 for months without needing a restart. I am forced to restart macOS weekly, usually because of system issues.
I'm a developer on Windows and OSX, so I have MacBook Pro and a ThinkPad.
I want to run the ThinkPad over with a car and then drop it in the sea.