Windows for Software Development

It is nice that the author is happy with Windows. But when it comes to windows, I am out. When it comes to the authors points:

1) Beautiful UI, for me thats MacOS or GNOME. The last Windows I liked was Windows 7. But I can accept that this will be very different for different people.

2) Unmatched Window Management, I like MacOS + Tri for tiling windows. I like the way that MacOS does Virtual Desktops, if I find something like Tri for Gnome I would be just as happy there. I don’t like Virtual Desktops in Windows but it might just be because of muscle memory.

3) Supports real Linux. I call bullshit, my experiences with WSL1 have not bin good and I am not interested in trying WSL 2.

Honestly, the settings mess, accounts, now 3 different shells and incompatibilities are driving me insane. I’ve had so many bad experiences with Windows I can’t take it anymore. To me it looks like Microsoft is chasing that “love me” moment that Apple got with OS X and Aqua where everybody was just gushing about Apple. Instead they get heaped with criticism.

* XP nice UI (for some, not for me) but you now need to activate it over the internet, not 100% compatible to 9X windows * Vista they overpromised and got shat on for it * 7 was nice, I liked update bars in the taskbar and Aero * 8 was a catastrophe for the desktop * 8.1 didn’t do enough to fix that (Stardock fixed it for me) * 10 was what Windows 8.1 should have been to me but the account management is a catastrophe and its updates tended to kill one of my laptops over and over

I’m sorry to say this (I truly am since I’ve grown rather OS agnostic over the years) but for what I want to do with a computer, Windows is more and more likely to just make me sad or angry and I don’t want to deal with that. So yea, I’m glad you are happy with Windows but others, like me, are not and life is to short to get agitated by an Operating System.

I'm using Linux for development, but it has the disadvantage that I'll have to port and test it on Windows later (I no longer support MacOS).

Windows is a well-working operating system, but I wouldn't want to use it for important data or work. I only use it for gaming and hobby audio work. The risks of failure with updates and the risk that Microsoft may suddenly change something important or force me to watch ads, etc., are in my opinion just too high. Also, the advice on official Microsoft forums when something goes wrong tends to be horribly bad. Their standard advice seems to be to completely reinstall the OS. It's also very complex under the hood, with a bazillion of complicated troubleshooting options in case something goes wrong. It took me 1 1/2 years until I had enough information from public forums to figure out why the XBox gaming network was not working! And people say Linux is complicated...