Ask HN: Is Windows That Bad? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is Windows That Bad?

17 pointsfreetonik42 comments

I need to replace my old MacBook, and I am curious to try something new. Modern thinkpads look pretty attractive, and it’ll be nice to have an option to install Linux (can’t wait for full support for Linux on arm macs).

My use case is simple: web programming and general computing.

The last time I owned a non-Apple computer was around 2011, and Windows 7 was pretty good for everything I needed.

Nowadays, I read a lot of criticisms about Windows 10 and 11, and simultaneously some praise of the Linux subsystem. It’s very hard to understand whether Windows is really that bad?

Would be curious to hear some positives, or perhaps successful “Mac-to-windows” transition stories.

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Windows isn't bad as an OS. It's just like Mac in that it just needs a handful of tweaks to make it usable. The underlying system is much more cluttered though , which can get overwhelming at first. But it's done mostly because Windows has an insane level of legacy support, being able to still run basically any program made in the past couple decades. The same goes with hardware. It's the Ak-47 of OS's.

Windows laptops are another story, and there are a lot of issues with seemingly good hardware (like well reviewed Dells). Usually fans are either running continuously, issues with going to or staying asleep, and the classic issues with Windows Modern Standby (close laptop, put in bag, take out drained and very hot laptop later). Personally, I always hibernate instead of sleep since sleep is rarely reliable. It's excellent on gaming pc's though.

For development, Windows is generally pretty good these days. Windows Terminal is as good as Gnome Terminal or iTerm2, and WSL2 gets you a linux environment.

Windows have problem with drivers for a lot of hardware that's 10 years old or less. Lot of graphics cards don't work well in windows 10/11.

It's aggressively anti-poweruser and will reset your settings and even delete your programs. It has many baby's first computer safety features that are difficult or not intended to be turned off. For example the new Windows Defender equivalent now runs in the background and uses up disk and CPU (which can easily be near 100% on older HDDs or weaker hardware), even if you switch it off.

When I lost my technician job a few years ago, I took up a repair shop job to make ends meet. Basic Windows features (starting with 8 and going up to 10, can't speak for 11) were just completely broken on a lot of budget hardware. A little over a quarter of the non-hardware problems I fixed were SysMain and Defender deciding they deserve all system resources.

If you have hardware it 'likes', and you don't need to edit settings other than what they provide to you, you'll be fine with your use case. A ThinkPad probably would not have the issues I saw.

"aggressively anti-poweruser", you are talking to a mac user.

so, if you are running macOS, you can't be a power user?

Is that what you are implying here? If so, you can't be more wrong.

Just try disabling auto updates of an application like Spotify or Chrome on both Windows and macOS w/o relying on a thrid party tool and let me know how this seemingly simple task that a so called "power user" might need went for you on Windows compared to macOS.

While I can understand where you're coming from, I don't think the implication is fair. Even today, after many years of degradation of UX, macOS remains very customizable. This is not something I'm interested at the moment, but with apps like Karabiner Elements, Alfred, Keyboard Maestro, Apple's native Shortcuts, and the underlying *nix, I wouldn't define macOS as not suitable for power users.

How did your programs get deleted? I've never seen anything like that before, and I've been using Windows all my life.

10 follows the 'every other windows' pattern (xp good, vista bad, 7 good, 8 bad, 10 good, 11 bad)

windows 10 + open-shell + powertools + wsl + windows terminal is a really great combination right now

for me, windows 10 essentially functions as a login shell/window manager for my linux environment that comes with the best version of WINE i've ever used https://ha.zardo.us/img/ss21022023.jpg

using linux via wsl is incredibly straightforward, to the point that you don't see alot of WSL-specific instructions on e.g. installation/compiling readme's.

No, windows is absolutely fine.

Win 11 is a little worse than win 10 for power users, amplify that by Reddit outrage and that's why you're hearing stuff. Also, you can't use anything other than a MS account to log into win 11 home, so unless you've got pro which allows local accounts, it's an obvious advertising cash privacy invading grab.

It can very occasionally be frustrating, but nowhere near as frustrating as basic drivers like sound not working. Which apparently happens all the time on Linux.

I could point out some minor differences between win 7 + 11, mainly the start bar needs some pruning, but it's nothing major. They're basically the same.

No, Windows isn't that bad. Some people in the Linux/FOSS community have a deep seated almost religious hatred of Microsoft and that extends to hyperbolic opinions about Windows. Of course you can do programming and general computing with it. Those two things and gaming probably comprise most of what anybody does with it.

It’s fine. They’re all fine.

If you’re been living in MacOS for 12 years, you’ll quickly find things that drive you crazy and make no sense. You’ll also find some things that are suddenly more pleasant.

You’ll spend more time looking stuff up than you’re used to. You’ll wish that the graphics were different and that this button was over here rather than over there, but you’ll be glad there’s finally a button for this thing that used to be a real PITA.

That’s what switching is like. After a while, you’ll have competence and familiarity and it will all disappear from your mind.

Bigger concerns are simply: can you do the things you need to do with it? And these days, the answer is almost alway yes for all three major platforms.

Is Windows That Bad?

I do not have a technical answer. Telemetry shenanigans aside which Fedora appear to be adding as well, all the mainstream operating systems can be used for development. I think it comes down to which you are most comfortable with and have the tooling you are most experienced with. I've seen people use all of the above successfully.

I think that OS choice would matter more if your job depended on maintaining said OS as an OS maintainer, dog-fooding so to speak and even then using something else would not be a show stopper.

In my opinion, Windows and Mac OS are similarly bad for web development. Mac OS comes a little closer to the Linux environment I prefer using, but you'd probably eventually run into something that was a pain to get working. I never had this issue myself because I haven't tried using Mac OS for professional development, but I did have an intern who had trouble getting PostgreSQL installed (I tried to help with no luck).

With how common Docker is getting in development workflows, I think it's probably the best option for developing on either Mac or Windows. I think the big difference is that Docker will run natively on Windows whereas on a new Mac I believe you'd probably end up running through Rosetta. I strongly recommend Docker over the linux subsystem for windows - having tried to use the subsystem for professional web dev work, you'll probably run into some weird glitches eventually.

I'm perfectly happy with setup of Windows 10 and VirtualBox running Debian 11. Or whatever I need. Windows programs aren't really that bad for Teams, Outlook, Office, Browser and so on.

And then you get a VM to do any work in and with version control you don't really care if something screws it up, just install a fresh one and try again.

Windows is fine for people who don't need to do all that much with a computer besides just completing a task that happens to be on a computer. Like another user stated it's "baby's first computer" and "aggressively anti-poweruser".

It's a special kind of hell for power users. It's like sending college graduates back to kindergarten and the teacher actually treats them like children, using all the silly voices and explaining concepts through fun little stories, and don't forget about the mandatory nap time.

Gaming is the ONLY reason to still be using windows. Every single other thing is better in the *nix world. Gaming isn't even that bad on *nix anymore anyways. Most issues come from anti-cheat in online games.

I consider Mac to be in the *nix world, but it's like the Windows of the *nix world with the added detriment of being exclusively for rich people, which I think is disgusting, and the detriment of being closed-source which I also think is disgusting. It's objectively more poweruser-friendly than Windows, but it's still extremely restrictive.

The only two reasons to use Windows or Mac are:

- your workplace / school requires it because of specific software

- you want to play games with absolutely no issues

You said you're into programming and general computing, both of which are leagues better in the *nix world. This whole ecosystem is build by and for programmers. It gives you the power to make your computing experience actually be the way you want it to be.

That said, I don't agree with people whose initial suggestion is to use WSL. Use actual Linux, WSL should only be considered if you actually need Windows to be your daily driver, which I doubt. It's just an added layer of confusion and you'll end up confused as to where Windows ends and Linux begins.

Just my opinion though.

Power user here. Windows is the power users OS, because, almost everything is tweakable using registry and GPO.

Being able to tweak a restrictive OS through an archaic interface like the Registry is anti-poweruser. Even if the Registry was convenient or made sense, it's still Windows, you're still stuck with whatever the Windows devs decided was best for you. Same with Mac, you're stuck with the same everything. It's not even close, it's the difference between being able to replace things completely versus only being able to change variables within the software that was issued to you.

> The only two reasons to use Windows or Mac are: - your workplace / school requires it because of specific software - you want to play games with absolutely no issues

Have you ever met someone who preferred Windows or Mac? I know many, many software engineers who prefer Windows or Mac as their daily driver AND development machine.

Believe it or not, there are people who develop apps for iOS. They use macOS, and frankly the experience is pretty great. There are also people who develop apps for Windows. This, of course, is possible on Linux. However again, the experience on Windows is pretty great too.

With macOS in particular, although I hate to say it, their unified ecosystem is the best available. Nothing comes close to macOS/iPadOS/iOS/watchOS/tvOS integration that works with all of their apps seamlessly.

Sure, I prefer Linux for _some_ software development, however for a daily driver macOS has a lot of advantages that Linux currently can't offer. The open-source ecosystem still has a ways to go in man regards, and it has its fair share of problems.

> Use actual Linux, WSL should only be considered if you actually need Windows to be your daily driver, which I doubt. It's just an added layer of confusion and you'll end up confused as to where Windows ends and Linux begins.

This statement leads me to believe that you haven't tried WSL, or perhaps that you only tried a very very early beta stage.

To me the worst part about using a Windows PC is the lack of quality apps. It's impossible to find a decent calendar or task manager. The quality is simply not here and you will never find anything like Things on Mac. If it wasn't for my job that requires me to use Windows, I would never willingly use it.

Windows is my main.

Windows Explorer has more features than finder.

I prefer windows management in windows, mac is fine too, but i like how closing the last window, means quitting.

With WSL now, my needs are met when it comes to linux compatibility. YMMV

I use both, they are pretty much similar .

more similar than not. I could live with both but I prefer windows

> Modern thinkpads look pretty attractive, and it’ll be nice to have an option to install Linux (can’t wait for full support for Linux on arm macs).

I don't understand where you are coming from. You want linux, but for some reason you insist on Apple hardware?

> Nowadays, I read a lot of criticisms about Windows 10 and 11, and simultaneously some praise of the Linux subsystem. It’s very hard to understand whether Windows is really that bad?

Many times I have tried to do something on WSL that works on an actual install but run into some WSL-specific issue.

If you try to have both windows and linux, you'll be stuck using WSL for some tasks and a virtual machine for other tasks. Dual booting has the same problem.

> My use case is simple: web programming and general computing.

You should probably just use Linux (I personally prefer Fedora) on a ThinkPad. Ensure that the ThinkPad you buy works well with Linux beforehand (most of them do).

Or, just get a newer Macbook with the M1/M2 chips.

I have used both Windows and Ubuntu, and now Windows only with WSL for dev. I don't get what dislike about Windows tbh. I've never truly used OSX, so maybe my opinion isn't useful.

I have had 0 issues with WSL thus far, am quite happy with it.

Do you ever find it an issue that your WSL filesystem is generally seperate from the standard windows filesystem (e.g. incompatible line endings, weird permissions etc). Also do you connect your editor to the WSL filesystem version of the repo remotely? Or are you able to do it “locally” as well?

I’ve found using WSL often feels like using two computers except the Linux one is generally headless.

It feels like using one computer to me. I have only used it since WSL2 came out--maybe that accounts for the difference?

With VSCode, it feels native to edit code on WSL.

People aren't going to post on forums how great something is, only how bad it is.

For what it's worth I was never able to make windows work with Ruby and Rails. I had to use docker or a virtual box linux environment.

I stopped using windows because of its incredibly invasive spying and reporting of user activity. I just don't trust it.

MacOS being based on BSD Unix and Apple making its money from sales, not spying, feels much better to me.

At this point, MacOS shortcuts are at my fingertips. I like too many aspects of the MacOS / iOS ecosystem including clipboard integration, facetime calling, imessage on MacOS etc.

I can use windows but now I bump against all my habits.

I run Mac daily and use Windows in a VM. Windows is frustrating. Especially for development purposes you may hit problems with the weak filesystem:

1. It's extraordinarily slow.

2. It sometimes has weird path length limits.

3. Symlinks sorta work, sorta don't (you have to opt in to enable them).

4. Apps can leak file handles so sometimes you just randomly can't move or delete files/directories.

And if you don't hit problems with that, you'll hit:

1. PowerShell is really oriented around scripting but used interactively. It's totally different to other languages and you'll have to spend time learning it (unless you cygwin of course). Also, making it interactive in the ways you're used to w.r.t. tab completion and stuff requires you to spend lots of time looking up config hacks.

2. Many open source projects treat Windows as a second class or non-existent citizen. The equivalents of homebrew aren't as good.

3. Virus scanners other than Windows Defender are mostly terrible and break things.

4. The OS is absolutely full of bugs and annoying UI inconsistencies are everywhere. Windows users get numb to it but as a long term Mac user it will be noticeable.

Still if you can 'escape' into WSL some of these issues go away, and for web programming you don't need much from the OS.

Oof, okay... Thanks for this, quite a list I must say. This makes so sad though. No escape from macOS it seems.

Can't concur with many for the things you said.

Most of your issues seem to stem from the fact that you use Windows for dev work instead of WSL2, or that Windows components like PowerShell are different than the equivalent Options fromkther OSs, which doesn't make them bad per se. WSL is what you want.

And who even uses a third party antivirus these days? Those mostly died off with the rise of Windows Defender during the Windows 7 days. I feel your comment is based on experiences from the past rather than the present day.

Also, I have not noticed any bugs.

Yeah if you just use Windows as a way to run Linux VMs then some of the issues don't apply, but are you really using Windows at that point.

That's a bit of a strawman argument. Using Windows as a host has many advantages especially if you game, use VR, need to use some Windows only software, or for better compatibility with some HW, or want a less janky, feature complete desktop environment (yes, as a distro hopper and GNOME + KDE user, I said it, fight me :P) that actually solved fractional scaling, and supports things like HDR for your laptop with OLED display.

Also WSL2 has way less overhead than using an actual Linux VM in something like Virtualbox.

It's not for everyone though, especially with the telemetry that has to be disabled, but to me it's the compromise that's best of both worlds and allows me to use the wide library of windows and Linux apps and tools natively on a single OS.

Windows really isn't much better than Linux for gaming. Bluetooth is horrible, and using controllers is waaay worse than Linux. DS3/DS4 just work on Linux, just don't on Windows.

It's better for my gaming use cases. I don't use controllers.

PowerShell is a better interactive shell than bash. It has fish/zsh like autocompletion and it is much more explorable due to its object based nature compared to trying to hobble strings together into separate commands.

My last experience is an Asus Zenbook - long-lasting, thin and light, with plenty of RAM 32, windows 11.

Switched to Mac Air M1 6 months ago and it's much better: faster, no heat, no fan, instant start, no glitches with the lid closed, etc.

I use Windows 10 full time. I don't do anything heavy with it, but it just works.

However, Wednesday mornings are crapshoot, because sometimes Microsoft updates break things, printers can stop working, etc. Oh, and they keep wanting to push Windows 11 on me.

Would you consider buying a toaster that shows you ads, and sometimes stops mid-toasting to update? Maybe if it came for free in every house.

As usual it is fine if you buy into the ecosystem. Same goes for Apple, Google and whatnot.

Can i just point you to:

Fedora, openSUSE or KDE neon?

Really....... ;)

I’ve tried KDE neon on the MacBook, and it was great! A bit overwhelming with the customisations, but overall more user friendly than latest macOS imo. However, I had experienced several fatal crashes, so didn’t feel safe investing more effort into it.

First a disclaimer. I am writing from my perspective. What I say will be pretty subjective. I am not trying to represent everyone, but simply give you my view on things from using Windows, macOS, and Linux all on a daily basis for a couple years.

I have several computers: Two PC's, two laptops, two tablets, one phone, and a handful SBC's. Mainly, though, this is my lineup: PC runs Linux, macbook air runs macOS, and my microsoft surface runs Windows. I don't consider myself a stalwart supporter of any OS, and although I believe in free software, I don't avoid proprietary software that's simply better. I use what's best for what I'm doing at any particular time.

I use my PC/Linux for most of my development. I use my macbook air for my iOS development and for a lot of school work, and I use my microsoft surface go 3 when reading online (the touchscreen is great for it), and because I like having a dedicated Windows machine. I do have an iPad mini too, but Windows 11 is, for me, a much better touchscreen OS than iPad OS. If I want to do phone-like things, I'll use my iPhone, not my iPad.

I keep my configurations very vanilla; you won't find anything more than brew on macOS, WSL on Windows, or a mostly standard Fedora/Ubuntu flavor on either of my computers at any given time. Partly, this is because I don't try to make something into what it's not, but use the tool that fits best for each job.

If I were to choose a single OS for a laptop that I were to use for web programming (emphasis on web) and general computing (by which I take that it'll be my daily driver), I would honestly go for macOS on a M1 macbook air. M2 is definitely on my radar, but I have a budget and I don't see the performance improvements as worth the extra cost, at least for me and right now. My current M1 is plenty fast, and I plan on using it for at least five more years.

However, Windows 11 wouldn't be a terrible option either. A Microsoft Surface Go Laptop has the aesthetics of a Macbook Air, very decent performance and battery life, and a nice touchscreen. Windows 11, although it doesn't have the ecosystem compatibility of macOS, is a big improvement over Windows 10 (in my opinion) in many areas:

- Prettier UI (subjective, but arguably a much better touchscreen experience)

- Performance improvements (not necessarily in specific benchmarks, but the OS feels more snappy than Windows 10)

- WSL 2 gives you all the command-line power of Linux, without the distro-wars and continuous UI refactoring (because, for me at least, I found that macOS and Windows just had the best UI)

And honestly, on Windows, web development is going to be pretty easy. You'll get to choose from almost every IDE out there, although my recommendations would be VS Code or WebStorm. You should run node/npm under WSL, where those are a breeze and provide an awesome dev experience. Docker can be run fine on Windows without the need for WSL.

Any things I'll miss from Linux on Windows 11? Not really, if I was just doing web dev and daily driving. WSL provides 90% of Linux's usefulness to me underneath Windows 11, whose UI I don't feel the need to tweak as constantly as GNOME/KDE/LXDE.

Any things I'll miss from macOS on Windows 11? Yeah, I'd totally miss the integrated iCloud experience with my iPhone. However, I honestly primarily rely on Photos and Calendar the most, and I'm 100% sure you can offer a very similar integration between your laptop and phone if you use Google Calendar and Photos. Windows Calendar can connect to Google Calendar, which you can also connect to your iPhone's Calendar, and Google Photos has an iOS app and Google Drive works well on Windows. So although that integration will take a _little_ bit of effort to set up, it's still largely available.

In the end, Windows 11 wouldn't be a bad choice. You can totally dual-boot with Linux, which is a big advantage, and you get a much wider choice of hardware. Like I said above, a Microsoft Surface Laptop Go would probably be my choice, however the Framework Laptop is also a very attractive option or a StarLabs StarBook.

Economically-wise, a decent Windows 11 laptop will probably cost you as much as a M1 macbook air. I personally like to save money, and so I buy used off of eBay, where I've generally always had a good experience.

In the end, it's up to you. I hope my perspective has been useful, and that you may be helped by relating to a couple of my observations.

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