Comment by Telaneo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Telaneo | Hacker News Reader

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> I don't think Windows can be fixed anymore. I think the choices Microsoft have been doing for _decades_ now, with only the _mechanisms_ coming and going, have become endemic to Windows, a part of its identity.

I'm not so sure that Windows is unfixable. It could probably be fixed, but doing that would require rebuilding every burned bridge back to its old standard, and probably then some, and that's something the relevant people aren't going to agree to do (since they were the ones who burned them).

Mandatory updates? Now they aren't any more.

Onedrive stole your files and deleted them? Now Onedrive is enabled/disabled on first setup.

Shitty start menu? Now you can pick which one you want, all the way back to the Windows 7 one.

Shitty right click menu? Now the old one is back.

All AI? Now there's a toggle on install to enable/disable it all.

Now settings menu sucks? Here's the old control panel back as standard.

Telemetry? How about no?

If MS did all of these things (and probably more), their trust level would rise skyhigh, since they'd be doing tangible things to fix the pain points we've all talked about. Now they've hit one point out of probably 50+, and many of the remaining ones are much harder to fix than updates being forced.

> Onedrive stole your files and deleted them? Now Onedrive is enabled/disabled on first setup.

That's the one that really shocked me, and I haven't even experienced it for myself. I'm not normally that prone to excessive hyperbole, but that's about the most terrible thing I could ever conceive of an OS doing. All of the other stuff is a little annoying, but I could deal. But how in the hell could it ever be considered acceptable by anyone for your own OS to delete your files and move them to OneDrive or any other cloud service automatically? It's almost like ransomware, but the ransomware people will at least give you your files back for one flat payment. And the ransomware people at least know they're doing something nasty, and didn't try to integrate it as a default operating system feature. I guess they have better ethics than Microsoft!

It's just so obviously wrong, it's hard to even believe that it's a real thing. I don't think I could ever install an OS that even had a feature to do that at all, even if I could maybe temporarily turn it off with some scripts downloaded off the internet.

someone tries to scam, steal, beat you up. they then make efforts to stop doing that, and their trust would rise skyhigh? what does someone have to do to earn that kind of loyalty? would you apply this to anything else?

yes at some point broken trust dictates that no amount of fixing will ever fix it.

If they've given all the money back that they've scammed and otherwise made all the people they've hurt whole again, and are then continuing to provide a service people find use in, then yes. I'd probably need some time to be convinced that that's what's happened, and that they've truly changed. MS obviously isn't there, but there are theoretical worlds where this can happen.

Obviously, Microsoft can't give people back their deleted Onedrive files, but they can make good on a promise that it will never happen again (given that their efforts are founded in reality and not marketing speak), and hide behind a shield of 'that wasn't our intention'. Same goes with most other things you could complain about Windows.

If you have no reason to believe that Windows will screw you over, since MS has course-corrected on all major points of contention, then why not stick around? (The answer is that MS may change course again, but for those who haven't jumped ship, I'm sure this will provide good enough reason to stick around. It's not like the ship isn't providing them any utility. They've stuck around this long for a reason.)

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