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Comment by phendrenad2 | Hacker News Reader

From the last paragraph, the author seems defensive and bitter. But they needn't be. Windows just isn't for you. Powerusers should stay far away. Powerusers have unusual requirements that break Windows in unusual ways.

For example, the author is complaining that Windows "forgot" his PNG file association, but I'm 99% sure this means that the author installed and then uninstalled some program that took the PNG file association, and Windows isn't designed to anticipate this kind of poweruser fickleness.

Likewise, the author is running their disk space down to <40GB free, and didn't think that this would cause problems (because to a poweruser, 40GB is like, so many config files!) A normal user who got into this situation would hand their PC to a slightly-more-technically-capable user who would notice that the disk was full. Or maybe they'd take it to a PC repair shop. But a poweruser spends "two days of debugging".

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This argument sucks and there’s no point making excuses for Microsoft when we know full well that they can ship updates without constant severe defects. Somebody isn’t a power user just because they use their computer for more than watching YouTube and light web browsing. The type of shit that is being broken on a month to month basis now would have been scandalous in past versions of Windows.

That being said, we’re never going back to what we had in the past. Fixing it would be nasty business.

> we know full well that they can ship updates without constant severe defects

How do you know that? I guess you don't work for a big company. Incompetence is the norm, not the exception.

> Somebody isn’t a power user just because they use their computer for more than watching YouTube and light web browsing

Strawman argument. I didn't say that. I said that the author is a poweruser, and the author is doing a lot more than "watching YouTube and light web browsing".

> How do you know that?

Because I started giving a shit about it functioning properly starting with Windows XP and have been using the product for basically as long as I can remember. I’m not saying they’ve never had stinkers but you’re being obtuse if you actually don’t notice how extreme the bugs have gotten for basic tasks.

As an aside, I’ve basically only worked for large companies. Incompetence being common doesn’t mean everything is hopelessly terrible.

> the author is a power user

Installing routine updates isn’t power user activity. It’s actually mandatory and the system constantly nags you if you don’t do it. Installing an image viewer isn’t power user activity. If you seriously believe that’s the case you have a rotten view of the user and we are never going to see eye to eye on this. I genuinely hope you don’t manage or design software.

I feel that you're twisting my words or simply misunderstanding them, and it's leading to personal attacks from you so I won't continue.

Based on your constantly shifting positions and extreme defensiveness, it's pretty clear that you're not arguing in good faith, here. So I agree that it is best if you don't continue.

Sheesh, how did we get to this point? This is actually disturbing. Well, I guess I'll have to work on my main point a bit more so it doesn't spiral out of controll like this next time!

> I'm 99% sure this means that the author installed and then uninstalled some program that took the PNG file association, and Windows isn't designed to anticipate this kind of poweruser fickleness.

The bar is on the fucking floor, I guess, if you think that would be an acceptable excuse. It’s not. But it doesn’t even matter since you’re imagining a scenario here that isn’t even necessary - windows will HAPPILY overwrite your file preferences when it installs updates.

> if you think that would be an acceptable excuse

This is the Is/Aught Fallacy. I'm explaining how things ARE you're confusing it with me saying it's how things SHOULD BE. In other words, it's a statement of fact, not an "excuse".

> windows will HAPPILY overwrite your file preferences when it installs updates

Do you have evidence of this?

Your phrasing did not come across as such. And the fact of the matter is that windows is also not designed for regular users if they regularly need to take it to a repair shop due to windows screwing itself up. Power users may not tolerate bad behaviour (or at least, will complain about it more loudly) but the negative effects don't go away for users that are unaware of how things could be better.

>> if you think that would be an acceptable excuse

> This is the Is/Aught Fallacy. I'm explaining how things ARE you're confusing it with me saying it's how things SHOULD BE. In other words, it's a statement of fact, not an "excuse".

No, instead of accepting the authors experiences as described you came up with a contrived scenario that involves the author not knowing how to use a computer, but somehow being a power user. Then you said that was probably what happened, before moving on to claim that the author isn't in the target audience for windows anyway.

Explaining how things are would not include dismissing the original criticisms as untrue.

>> windows will HAPPILY overwrite your file preferences when it installs updates

> Do you have evidence of this?

Yes I just read a great article that mentions one persons experience with Windows doing exactly that, you can find it here: https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/windows-11-june-2026-res...

> Yes I just read a great article that mentions one persons experience with Windows doing exactly that, you can find it here

But that's just using the article I'm saying is wrong as evidence that it's right. Can you do that? I'm going to have to re-evaluate my system of logic.

> But that's just using the article I'm saying is wrong as evidence that it's right. Can you do that?

Yes, of course I can.

See, you never presented any evidence or reason that the article is wrong, you simply made up a scenario that allowed you to dismiss it as untrue, and then you assumed that scenario was what happened.

*I* have no reason to doubt the original claim any more than I doubt your excuse, and the original claim aligns with my own 2 decades of experience using windows. So the original claim carries much more weight to me than your dismissal.

And that's totally fair! The author made their analysis, I made mine. Both are equally valid. It's great when we can present differing analyses so people can decide which matches their experience.

What isn't valid (or is it, I don't know anymore) is circling back and re-presenting the author's analysis as if it's a new analysis. Feels like some wires got crossed, you know?

> The author made their analysis, I made mine. Both are equally valid.

Ah, that is not actually what happened. The author documented their experiences and you dismissed their documented experiences. While the author did spend a great deal of time testing the OS and gathering the notes they presented, there was no corresponding work or analysis performed on your part.

You're just assuming the worst about me, for some odd reason, it seems personal at this point. Oh well, you can't win over everyone. But for anyone else reading, I want to make it clear that contrary to what the commenter above prefers to believe, I have a LOT of experience observing Linux and Windows users and the bugs they face.

>For example, the author is complaining that Windows "forgot" his PNG file association

No, Windows really will mess with your file associations after an update. Recently happened to me.

Can confirm, Windows and acrobat are constantly fighting over who owns .pdf files.

40GB free is not 'full' by anyone's definition, and also you would expect a useful error message from the updater if that is indeed not enough to successfully update. This sort of thing is even worse if you're not a power user, but regular users tend to just put up with it and get the impression computers are just kind of shit in general.

> you would expect a useful error message from the updater if that is indeed not enough to successfully update

Sure, but it doesn't. And it doesn't matter to most users, who, as I said, just take their PC to the local PC Repair Shop when it runs out of storage, so there's no backpressure on Microsoft to fix it. See my other comments about this being an Is/Aught Fallacy issue.

with a failing update I don't think they'd even bother to do that. They'll just live with an old version and the occasional reboot when windows decides to try again.

That's an excellent point

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