Why Windows 10 Sucks
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@bb36e said in Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2018 edition:
This guy does an annual post outlining some issues with Linux on the desktop:
I think one major issue is that while the Linux desktop is developed under a bazaar model, it is also designed as a bazaar.
He made a similar list of problems for Windows:
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@sockpuppet7 said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
He made a similar list of problems for Windows:
Why Windows 10 sucks or Everything Wrong with Microsoft WindowsWell, this should be fun. Might be a thread to mute soon. I still say my interest waned as soon as I started reading things like, "If you decide to disable total tracking (including keyboard scanning and voice recording) you'll have to disable over a hundred different Internet addresses and then no one guarantees that a new Windows update doesn't add new hosts because Microsoft surely is not interested in losing such a lucrative feature meant for Big Brother agencies."
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@heterodox said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@sockpuppet7 said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
He made a similar list of problems for Windows:
Why Windows 10 sucks or Everything Wrong with Microsoft WindowsWell, this should be fun. Might be a thread to mute soon. I still say my interest waned as soon as I started reading things like, "If you decide to disable total tracking (including keyboard scanning and voice recording) you'll have to disable over a hundred different Internet addresses and then no one guarantees that a new Windows update doesn't add new hosts because Microsoft surely is not interested in losing such a lucrative feature meant for Big Brother agencies."
Or just stay disconnected from the Internet :)
{seriously, regardless of OS, once you are connected externally, all these items become a risk that can not be eliminated}
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Cool, whole three lists to dismantle point by point! Here's a breakdown of the first one: "Problems which are present in every version of Windows for PC".
- Devastating Windows rot (might be solved in future Windows releases if developers switch from Win32 to UWP).
It's not a fault of Windows as much as programs written for Windows. Half of that list is actually this one issue - that a lot of more crap software is made for Windows than Linux. Which is because Windows is 90x more popular than Linux on desktop. For the purpose of this post, I'll dub it "type 1 bullshit".
- No enforced file system and registry hierarchy (I have yet to find a single serious application which can uninstall itself cleanly and fully). The $USER directory in Windows, specially in Windows 10, is an inexplicable mess.
And Linux is any better? Splitting your mess between 4 directories doesn't make any less of a mess. At least Windows programs have all files in one place.
- svchost.exe (the whole philosophy of preserving RAM this way became outdated years ago).
What should it be replaced with? What benefits this switch would yield?
- No true safe mode (rogue applications may easily run in it).
Compare to most Linux distro, which don't have safe mode at all, and all major repairs have to be done with separate, external live distro.
- No clean state (for most OEM installations out there).
Type 1A bullshit - problem with manufacturer's customized Windows image, not Windows itself. If you install Windows with original CD/DVD, it's more clean than any Linux distro (except maybe LFS).
- The user as a system administrator (thus viruses/malware
Fixed in Vista.
- most users don't and won't understand UAC warnings).
Oh, so a solution that can be overridden doesn't count? Well then, I hope you don't have
sudoin your Linux installation.- No good packaging mechanism (MSI is way too fragile).
Agreed. That's a valid point.
- No system-wide update mechanism (which includes third party software).
There is one. It's just that 3rd party vendors rarely care to implement this.
- In certain cases it's extremely difficult to find or update drivers for your hardware devices (anyone who's tried to install a fresh Windows onto their laptop will testify).
If you're connected to internet, it will find all drivers automatically. Ever since upgrading to 7 I was never failed by this mechanism.
- Windows is extremely difficult to debug (e.g. try finding out why your system is slow to boot).
That's not what "difficult to debug" means. Anyway, I have actually used Microsoft's tools for debugging boot issues, and they're better than anything available for Linux.
- Windows boot problems are too often fatal and unsolvable unless you reinstall from scratch.
False.
- Windows is hardware dependent (especially when running from UEFI).
Yes, you cannot move a disk to another computer and have it Just Work™. But then, why would you?
- Windows updates are terribly unreliable, very slow (to install) and they also waste disk space.
That's also valid criticism. But...
Literally billions of watts of energy are spent and they don't give a damn!
...this is the worst argument you could possibly make here. Wasted time is much worse than wasted electricity.
- Windows keeps trying to reinstall failed updates over and over (in certain cases every such cycle of "updating" can render your PC disabled for hours!).
Another valid one. That's 3/15 so far!
- There's no way to cleanly upgrade your system (there will be thousands of leftovers), etc.
That's the point of upgrade - to leave everything intact. I know it doesn't work like that in Linux, but that's a bug, not a feature.
- The Windows OS installer doesn't give a damn about other OSes installed on your PC and it always overwrites the MBR. In case of already existing Windows installations, it sets the newly installed Windows as the default OS - no questions asked. In case of UEFI, booting of other non-Windows OSes is unsupported and Windows actively prevents this.
Yes, that's bad. But dual-boot is only needed if your main OS doesn't let you do everything you need to do. Which is why Linux folks care about it so much and Windows folks don't.
- WinSxS, though a neat idea, turned into some madness: Windows keeps the versions of files the user won't ever need: for instance the English version of Windows will have copies of files for many other languages irrespectively of the chosen locale or MUI.
I'm sure this guy praises Ubuntu for its new Snap package manager, which works by bundling an app and all its dependencies together - up to and including whole X server and desktop environment - and not sharing anything at all between packages. In result, Notepadqq, a simple text editor with syntax highlighting and no other additional features, takes 500MB of disk space.
- Cryptic error messages (considering the size of the OS, >9GB as of Windows 10, this practice is simply ridiculous).
This pisses me off too. But not as much as Linux errors, which you can't even see unless you're running every GUI app from terminal - and when you see them, are even more useless.
- Most malware writers target Windows as the most popular desktop OS, so it has the biggest number of viruses among all other OSes (over five thousand new viruses daily).
Yeah, it's awful that Microsoft let Windows become so popular!
- Windows loves thrashing your HDD.
This is so vague I don't know what to say.
- Microsoft programmers are still unable to cope with NTFS fragmentation twenty-five years after its introduction. To make things worse most Windows applications do not preallocate files thus they contribute to fragmentation even more.
On the other hand, it became pretty much irrelevant with the advent of SSDs.
- Windows anti-virus products oftentimes make your PC less safe - so if you want perfect security and privacy, stop using Windows and migrate to Linux right away. OEM updaters make your PC wide open for attacks.
Type 1 bullshit.
- Microsoft has recently decided that you will no longer be able to download certain Windows updates manually. You'll only be able to get them via Windows Update.
Yes, it's kinda asshole move. But then, why not use Windows Update?
- "sfc /scannow" is offered as a solution to most Windows Update Service and Microsoft Installer Service errors, yet in 95% of cases it's totally ineffective.
Citation needed.
- Windows does not allow you to use any partitions other than the first one on your removable USB flash drive. There's no logic or explanation behind this totally ridiculous and artificial limitation.
I admit, that's retarded.
- Windows does not automatically clean temporary files ever, however it must do that for every reboot/power cycle.
Come again? Is or isn't it cleaning temporary files?
- The generic drivers Windows comes with are not always compatible with the wide range of existing hardware.
Maybe because the range of existing hardware is much wider than amount of programmers Microsoft has?
Since Windows has a habit of replacing your vendor's drivers with its own newer drivers your hardware may stop working correctly after upgrading to a newer Windows release
It would stop working more often if they kept old drivers.
(remember that Windows 10 is a codename for major different operating systems, e.g. like Windows Vista vs Windows 7 in the past).
This makes no sense. Windows 7 was minor revision of Vista.
I'll go through second list when I get home.
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@gąska said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
"No system-wide update mechanism (which includes third party software)."
There is one. It's just that 3rd party vendors rarely care to implement this.
What is it then?
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@boomzilla Windows Update.
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@gąska I didn't think that 3rd parties could use that. Whenever I've brought up that they should be able to, I get push back about monopolies and other rationalizations.
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@boomzilla said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@gąska I didn't think that 3rd parties could use that. Whenever I've brought up that they should be able to, I get push back about monopolies and other rationalizations.
I still remember some people (not from this board) needing to breathe into paper bags for a while because they hyperventilated over the mere suggestion that Microsoft would require new software to be installable only through the MS Store.
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@rhywden Well, that would be a terrible idea. Windows could really use an OS supported way to get software updates but enforcing such a walled garden paradigm for a desktop ecosystem would be quite dystopian.
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@boomzilla said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@gąska I didn't think that 3rd parties could use that. Whenever I've brought up that they should be able to, I get push back about monopolies and other rationalizations.
You can publish locally using WSUS. I would definitely not call that a system-wide update mechanism as it's just (ab)using Windows Update to deploy .msi files you manually feed into WSUS.
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@cursorkeys Right, and that's nice for enterprises but totally misses the point of removing the 80 bajillion "Update Checker" things that have been foisted on the world.
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@boomzilla said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@rhywden Well, that would be a terrible idea. Windows could really use an OS supported way to get software updates but enforcing such a walled garden paradigm for a desktop ecosystem would be quite dystopian.
Well, they didn't go that way. As far as I know, you can actually setup your own store and distribute your software through it. Plus, there's Project Centennial.
So, the guy doing that list we're talking about obviously didn't do his homework.
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@gąska said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Windows does not allow you to use any partitions other than the first one on your removable USB flash drive. There's no logic or explanation behind this totally ridiculous and artificial limitation.
I admit, that's retarded.
It's not only retarded, it's also false. I have two partitions on my flash drive. Most of its space is in an exFAT partition, but I also have a small old-school FAT32 partition for the rare occasion that I need to transfer something to a Mac. Works fine on Windows and it shows up as two drives on separate drive letters.
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@rhywden said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@boomzilla said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@rhywden Well, that would be a terrible idea. Windows could really use an OS supported way to get software updates but enforcing such a walled garden paradigm for a desktop ecosystem would be quite dystopian.
Well, they didn't go that way. As far as I know, you can actually setup your own store and distribute your software through it. Plus, there's Project Centennial.
So, the guy doing that list we're talking about obviously didn't do his homework.
I've never heard of independent stores (not that I follow it closely). Has anyone actually done that? Because that's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about, a rough equivalent to hosting a debian package repository that users can add to their systems.
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@boomzilla said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@rhywden said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@boomzilla said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@rhywden Well, that would be a terrible idea. Windows could really use an OS supported way to get software updates but enforcing such a walled garden paradigm for a desktop ecosystem would be quite dystopian.
Well, they didn't go that way. As far as I know, you can actually setup your own store and distribute your software through it. Plus, there's Project Centennial.
So, the guy doing that list we're talking about obviously didn't do his homework.
I've never heard of independent stores (not that I follow it closely). Has anyone actually done that? Because that's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about, a rough equivalent to hosting a debian package repository that users can add to their systems.
Distribute apps using your private store (Windows 10)
The private store is a feature in Microsoft Store for Business and Microsoft Store for Education that organizations receive during the signup process.
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@gąska said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Windows loves thrashing your HDD.
This is so vague I don't know what to say.
It means windows is enjoying it when it trashes your HDD. Other systems are more sympathetic to it and feel really sad when it happens.
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@rhywden said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@boomzilla said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@rhywden said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@boomzilla said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@rhywden Well, that would be a terrible idea. Windows could really use an OS supported way to get software updates but enforcing such a walled garden paradigm for a desktop ecosystem would be quite dystopian.
Well, they didn't go that way. As far as I know, you can actually setup your own store and distribute your software through it. Plus, there's Project Centennial.
So, the guy doing that list we're talking about obviously didn't do his homework.
I've never heard of independent stores (not that I follow it closely). Has anyone actually done that? Because that's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about, a rough equivalent to hosting a debian package repository that users can add to their systems.
The private store is a feature in Microsoft Store for Business and Microsoft Store for Education that organizations receive during the signup process.
Ah. Nevermind, that's just another version of running your own WSUS. Still, distributing through the MS store is a big step in the right direction.
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@sockpuppet7 said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@gąska said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Windows loves thrashing your HDD.
This is so vague I don't know what to say.
It means windows is enjoying it when it trashes your HDD. Other systems are more sympathetic to it and feel really sad when it happens.
Linux on a hard drive does run much better than Windows on a hard drive in my experience. But it's 2018 so why the
is anyone not using an SSD for an OS drive?
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@mott555 said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
But it's 2018 so why the is anyone not using an SSD for an OS drive?
Because we live in the 3rd world, despite my employer being one of the 50 largest corporations on this planet.
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@boomzilla said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
What is it then?
Windows Update allows third parties to submit their products to be included. This very rarely happens for several reasons.
(However, you'll have no problem grabbing an ATI or NVidia GPU driver from it. That's the one exception. IIRC, HP printer drivers used to be on Windows Update too-- not sure if that's still the case, I haven't had a printer in a decade.)
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@boomzilla said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@gąska I didn't think that 3rd parties could use that.
Surely you've seen or heard of people getting their NVidia or ATI GPU drivers from Windows Update. That's 3rd party software.
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@boomzilla Well, of course there are also a number of 3rd party implementations. Like, for example, https://chocolatey.org/
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@blakeyrat said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
IIRC, HP printer drivers used to be on Windows Update too-- not sure if that's still the case
I wondered about this. I have a networked HP printer and Windows found it and installed drivers with no problem. A year later, I was trying to get another computer to use that printer but Windows Updates couldn't locate a driver anymore. Worse, the driver download link for my printer on HP's website is now a 404 error.
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@rhywden said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@boomzilla Well, of course there are also a number of 3rd party implementations. Like, for example, https://chocolatey.org/
Yes, also Java Updater! My point is that a way to check and apply updates should be something that the OS provides to prevent fuckery. Then you could point the OS at chocolatey.
@blakeyrat said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@boomzilla said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@gąska I didn't think that 3rd parties could use that.
Surely you've seen or heard of people getting their NVidia or ATI GPU drivers from Windows Update. That's 3rd party software.
True, I am aware that driver updates get in there. But don't those actually come from MS servers? Although I didn't really specify what I was thinking about was a situation where you install some software and it tells the OS something like, "Add me to the list of updates to check, and look at
some_internet_addresswhen you check." And then it's part of the normal, standard OS update cycle.You mentioned that 3rd parties can get their stuff into Windows Updates, but I'm guessing the hoops you have to jump through are fairly onerous so it's apparently easier to just write a custom update mechanism.
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@gąska said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
If you're connected to internet, it will find all drivers automatically. Ever since upgrading to 7 I was never failed by this mechanism.
Which is exactly why you have to disconnect from the internet to update your graphics drivers. Every time I forget to disconnect, and I go to update my AMD graphics drivers, Windows Update sees the small window where it disables the old driver as its window of opportunity to download a generic one from the internet and shove it in before the AMD driver installer can put the correct one in. And it hard-freezes the system every time, making it unbootable. Then I have to go into safe mode (but not safe mode with networking, because that can't boot even on a fresh install) and uninstall the driver and then try installing it again after booting back into normal mode. This happens every time I forget to disconnect internet before running the installer, consistently, and I reformat and clean install Windows 10 after every major update so you know I have a clean working OS.
Perhaps AMD's installer is supposed to be tying up Windows Update in some back room somewhere where it can't hurt itself anymore, but from my perspective this seems to be a Windows problem.
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@lb_ said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Every time I forget to disconnect, and I go to update my AMD graphics drivers, Windows Update sees the small window where it disables the old driver as its window of opportunity to download a generic one from the internet and shove it in before the AMD driver installer can put the correct one in.
My daughter uses my old laptop. It must be about 10 years old now, but it still works great (after replacing the drive with an SSD). It has an AMD graphics card that doesn't have post-Windows 7 drivers. Whenever she gets one of the Big Updates Windows replaces the driver that works perfectly well with some generic thing that won't even work with the screen's native resolution. Ugh.
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@boomzilla If you had an issue with it under Linux, it would be a Linux problem.
Under Windows, everybody knows all driver issue are manufacturer's problems
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@timebandit That's because in Linux, the manufacturers ignore you and don't make drivers. Because you don't use an operating system their product is targeted at. Because its tiny, and a horrible moving target with an infinite number of variations to account for.
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@magus said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Because you don't use an operating system their product is targeted at.
You're right. Nobody uses Linux and nobody makes drivers for Linux
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@boomzilla said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
True, I am aware that driver updates get in there. But don't those actually come from MS servers?
Pretty sure they do. At least ultimately.
I'm not sure what the Microsoft deal to distribute updates looks like, maybe it's always served from Microsoft servers. I just don't know. (If so, that might explain why a lot of companies are hesitant to do it.)
@boomzilla said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Although I didn't really specify what I was thinking about was a situation where you install some software and it tells the OS something like, "Add me to the list of updates to check, and look at some_internet_address when you check." And then it's part of the normal, standard OS update cycle.
I don't trust any third party software vendors that much.
@boomzilla said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
You mentioned that 3rd parties can get their stuff into Windows Updates, but I'm guessing the hoops you have to jump through are fairly onerous so it's apparently easier to just write a custom update mechanism.
Or to be HP, where you're so huge it's worthwhile.
@lb_ said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Which is exactly why you have to disconnect from the internet to update your graphics drivers. Every time I forget to disconnect, and I go to update my AMD graphics drivers, Windows Update sees the small window where it disables the old driver as its window of opportunity to download a generic one from the internet and shove it in before the AMD driver installer can put the correct one in. And it hard-freezes the system every time, making it unbootable.
I've never had that happen, but then again after my last experience with a buggy broken shitty RX580, I'm sure as shit not buying another AMD card for a very very long while.
@lb_ said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Perhaps AMD's installer is supposed to be tying up Windows Update in some back room somewhere where it can't hurt itself anymore, but from my perspective this seems to be a Windows problem.
I know absolutely nothing about this problem, but I also 100% blame AMD for it.
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@timebandit said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Of course you do
Their shitty-ass broken drivers couldn't even tell the difference between a turned off monitor and an unplugged one. If they get THAT basic detail wrong, imagine the 50,000 other things they're getting wrong that are harder to notice.
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@lb_ said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Which is exactly why you have to disconnect from the internet to update your graphics drivers. Every time I forget to disconnect, and I go to update my AMD graphics drivers, Windows Update sees the small window where it disables the old driver as its window of opportunity to download a generic one from the internet and shove it in before the AMD driver installer can put the correct one in. And it hard-freezes the system every time, making it unbootable. Then I have to go into safe mode (but not safe mode with networking, because that can't boot even on a fresh install) and uninstall the driver and then try installing it again after booting back into normal mode. This happens every time I forget to disconnect internet before running the installer, consistently, and I reformat and clean install Windows 10 after every major update so you know I have a clean working OS.
Perhaps AMD's installer is supposed to be tying up Windows Update in some back room somewhere where it can't hurt itself anymore, but from my perspective this seems to be a Windows problem.I've never had this problem. Whenever I run AMD's updater, with the network connected like normal, it does its thing and gets me the new driver. The worst thing that's happened with that is that sometimes it sets the default audio output to HDMI instead of my speakers.
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@timebandit said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
You're right. Nobody uses Linux and nobody makes drivers for Linux
Hardware makers? Almost never. Some of them try, but Linuxheads scream at them about how they're
until they stop trying.
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@magus said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Hardware makers? Almost never.
I believe Intel, Nvidia, AMD, Xerox and a bunch of others didn't get your memo
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@timebandit said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@magus said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Hardware makers? Almost never.
I believe Intel, Nvidia, AMD, Xerox and a bunch of others didn't get your memo
AMD had unusable drivers on Linux for decades, and even now Linuxheads would rather use drivers written by other Linuxheads than any of the official drivers by any company.
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@magus My favorite drivers on Linux are HP printer drivers. I don't even know (or care) who wrote them, just that in my experience they've been installed by default and Just Work right away without the danger of any HP shovelware.
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@boomzilla And the printer is detected automagically
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@magus said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
AMD had unusable drivers on Linux for decades
How is that relevant today?
and even now Linuxheads would rather use drivers written by other Linuxheads than any of the official drivers by any company.
I"m not a Linuxhead then, since I use the official driver from NVidia
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MEGA-POST
Hilarious.
It's funny and equally sad that year 2015 marks the end of the Windows OS for a lot of people. There are several issues with Windows which, at present, make Spyware/Malware OS 10 inappropriate and even outright dangerous for a lot of people. The most egregious, of course, is a total abandonment of any form of privacy and control.
... huh? Windows 10 collects voice samples to improve voice recognition (something both Apple and Google do without any bitching and whining), and this guy acts like it's Armageddon.
Firstly, Microsoft openly stated that pervasive data collection will be present in any Windows version starting from Windows 10,
I can not find the font large enough to write "citation needed" next to this sentence.
If you decide to disable total tracking (including keyboard scanning and voice recording)
What even is "keyboard scanning"? As I said before, the voice recording is:
- To improve the quality of their voice recognition
- Done by every major OS maker
I wonder if this guy also refuses to use Android for the same reason.
a new Windows update doesn't add new hosts because Microsoft surely is not interested in losing such a lucrative feature meant for Big Brother agencies.
Ok, we're passing from "privacy concern" to "literally insane" pretty quickly here.
Does he seriously think the reason Microsoft collects this data is to give it to Mossad or something? How do you come up with shit like this?
Thirdly, as Microsoft has stated multiple times, Windows 10 will not have any service packs. Windows 10 is the final version of Windows, because Windows 10 has become a service, it will be updated over time to bring new features and remove the old ones. The Windows 10 you might have updated to in July 2015 will be a different OS from Windows 10 plus all its updates a year later.
He states this as if it's a bad thing, but fails to give any reason why that's a bad thing.
However I've always felt that there are no resources or articles on the web which dig deep into Windows' problems
What the fuck web is this guy using? That was about the only content on the web from about 1996 to 2010.
and therefore I wrote this very concise essay.
Look up concise in a dictionary, please. The entire paragraph before this one is word-bloat.
Mind that it was not created to say that Linux is better (it's definitely not). It was created to stop Microsoft fans roaring in regard to Windows 10 and how it's better than Windows 7 in every regard - it's actually worse in most regards aside from DirectX 12 (which is actually hidden from the user and is only exposed in games).
If you are an insane person who thinks Microsoft sends their diagnostic speech recognition data to Mossad, I suppose Windows 10 might be worse than Windows 7?
Full Disclosure: I worked at M$ from 2014-2015.
This email is made-up. Nobody who worked at Microsoft would spell it "M$".
In a new, not that unexpected, turn of events Microsoft now foists ads as part of ... security updates for Windows 7 and 8/8.1 (See KB3139929, which says nothing about this new "feature"). People were afraid but never believed it would happen. It now has.
Yes, this is complete shit. This is the first thing I agree with him on.
So, there are two kinds of issues with the Windows operating system created by Microsoft. The first kind are the issues intrinsic to every Windows version starting from Windows Vista (XP is out of circulation and support so let's forget about it).
Wait, he's not including pre-Vista OSes, but then he has items on the list about stuff like NTFS fragmentation? ... uh. Ok let's see how this pans out.
Devastating Windows rot (might be solved in future Windows releases if developers switch from Win32 to UWP).
Fixed in Vista.
No enforced file system and registry hierarchy (I have yet to find a single serious application which can uninstall itself cleanly and fully). The $USER directory in Windows, specially in Windows 10, is an inexplicable mess.
That's kind of valid a bit. Mostly because lazy open source programmers, and even Microsoft programmers who are using tools made by lazy open source programmers (for example VS Code) have started putting their application data in a folder that isn't the application data folder.
Wow, what a shocker: when you ignore all the OS best practices and put shit in $USER, then $USER gets filled-up with shit. Stop the presses.
svchost.exe (the whole philosophy of preserving RAM this way became outdated years ago).
Fails to say why it's bad.
No true safe mode (rogue applications may easily run in it).
Hm, I wonder what he'd like in an OS "safe mode". Most people desire the capability to run things like driver installers and diagnostic tools-- and yes if you can run those, you can also run rogue applications.
No clean state (for most OEM installations out there). This will be finally solved in new Windows 10 builds.
Untrue; even many OEMs ship a clean state. (Dell, for example, always has.)
The user as a system administrator (thus viruses/malware - most users don't and won't understand UAC warnings).
This is an issue, but it's hard for me to visualize the alternative.
No good packaging mechanism (MSI is way too fragile).
I've never heard MSI described as "fragile" before. I've heard it described as "it's a huge bitch to actually make a working .MSI", but once you have one it works like a champ forever.
No system-wide update mechanism (which includes third party software - to be fair there are third party applications which offer this functionality, but then such applications don't support core Windows updates).
... huh? Why would a third-party application's update mechanism "support" core Windows updates? What does "support" even mean in that context? Does he think that every time Windows 10 does an in-place upgrade, which is like twice a year, that his third-party software updaters fail?
I'm too confused to make any sense of this.
In certain cases it's extremely difficult to find or update drivers for your hardware devices (anyone who's tried to install a fresh Windows onto their laptop will testify).
Almost everything's true "in certain cases". (I can't find drivers for this Apple Powerbook 140!) Weasel-words made this meaningless.
Windows is extremely difficult to debug (e.g. try finding out why your system is slow to boot).
Is it difficult to debug? Yes. Is it difficult to debug for a user who's used enough Linux to write that other article? No.
For that specific issue, Task Manager -> Startup says right there how each startup service/app affects your boot performance. It's right there. In a list. The same list you can use to disable them. There's nothing even remotely close to that in the Linux world. (Well, maybe with systemd.)
Windows boot problems are too often fatal and unsolvable unless you reinstall from scratch.
Untrue; Windows Recovery Mode has a specific command that rewrites the boot shit. Also nobody will come across this unless they are dual-booting and thus dicking with shit.
Windows is hardware dependent (especially when running from UEFI).
As opposed to all those OSes that run on the ether? Huh?
Windows updates are terribly unreliable, very slow (to install) and they also waste disk space. The only released Windows 7 SP1 cumulative update, totally breaks the Windows Updates service (the worst piece of software in human history). This issue is now two months old and Microsoft doesn't even apologize for it. Literally billions of watts of energy are spent and they don't give a damn! Did Microsoft fire everyone in their QA/QC department?
They are slow, they do waste disk space, and they also recently have been poorly QAed.
Windows Updates is not "the worst piece of software in human history". Insane exaggerations like this made it hard to take this point seriously.
(Also what issue is he asking Microsoft to apologize for? Windows 7 not having more Service Packs? Or is he asserting that Windows 7 SP1 breaks Windows Updates for all users of it, which is blatantly untrue? I'm confused.)
Windows cannot replace system DLLs on the fly and restart corresponding services which depend on said DLLs due to its architecture. As a result some system updates require multiple reboots (innocuous malevolence in me requires to mention that in Linux you can even update the kernel on the fly).
True, I give him that one.
(innocuous malevolence in me requires me to mention that Windows can reboot graphics drivers on the fly, and also while Linux can update itself on the fly if it does so the old code is still executing from the in-memory copy and thus practically speaking you haven't actually updated until you either restart literally every application and service, or reboot the entire computer, anyway.)
Windows keeps trying to reinstall failed updates over and over (in certain cases every such cycle of "updating" can render your PC disabled for hours!).
What should it do instead?
There's no way to cleanly upgrade your system (there will be thousands of leftovers), etc.
Untrue; this is exactly as easy to do in Windows as in any other OS.
The Windows OS installer doesn't give a damn about other OSes installed on your PC and it always overwrites the MBR. In case of already existing Windows installations, it sets the newly installed Windows as the default OS - no questions asked. In case of UEFI, booting of other non-Windows OSes is unsupported and Windows actively prevents this.
True but who cares? The only people affected by this are people who:
- know how to fix it, and
- are putting themselves in this mess because they're switching to an OS where they have to fix tons of shit like this all the time. And probably love it.
WinSxS, though a neat idea, turned into some madness: Windows keeps the versions of files the user won't ever need: for instance the English version of Windows will have copies of files for many other languages irrespectively of the chosen locale or MUI.
What does WinSxS have to do with internationalization? I'm confused. Also fails to state how this is a negative. "Windows ships with languages it might not need!" Well... ok?
Cryptic error messages (considering the size of the OS, >9GB as of Windows 10, this practice is simply ridiculous).
Valid complaint; why he thinks the amount of disk space is relevant is a mystery. (Those error messages aren't rewritten because of the amount of labor required, and probably some kind of philosophic ideal that users shouldn't ever see the messages anyway so there's no point in improving them-- either way disk space has nothing to do with it.)
Most malware writers target Windows as the most popular desktop OS, so it has the biggest number of viruses among all other OSes (over five thousand new viruses daily).
Is that still true in 2018?
Note that despite being targeted by "over five thousand new viruses daily", Windows does a really good job of protecting the user against those viruses. If Linux or OS X had even a fraction of that effort put into virus development, every user of those OSes would be pwned constantly.
Windows loves thrashing your HDD.
Windows doesn't "love" anything; it's a bunch of data.
The link goes to a Google search for "windows constant disk activity". What a shock: an OS with literally over a billion users has a lot of Google results for this phrase.
Microsoft programmers are still unable to cope with NTFS fragmentation twenty-five years after its introduction. To make things worse most Windows applications do not preallocate files thus they contribute to fragmentation even more.
Fixed in Vista. Again, reminder that he said he wouldn't include any items that apply to versions before Vista.
Windows anti-virus products oftentimes make your PC less safe - so if you want perfect security and privacy, stop using Windows and migrate to Linux right away. OEM updaters make your PC wide open for attacks.
True; but has nothing to do with Microsoft.
Microsoft has recently decided that you will no longer be able to download certain Windows updates manually. You'll only be able to get them via Windows Update.
Ok... but how is this bad?
"sfc /scannow" is offered as a solution to most Windows Update Service and Microsoft Installer Service errors, yet in 95% of cases it's totally ineffective.
The number "95%" was pulled directly from his ass. He doesn't even link to any supporting article here. (I've also personally never seen "sfc /scannow" recommended for this, but I never have issues with Windows Update, so there you go.
Windows does not allow you to use any partitions other than the first one on your removable USB flash drive. There's no logic or explanation behind this totally ridiculous and artificial limitation.
Not true.
Windows does not automatically clean temporary files ever, however it must do that for every reboot/power cycle.
First of all, this is factually wrong: it'll clean them when disk space is low.
Secondly, it doesn't but it "must"? Huh? What does this mean? Why "must" it? Why is it a bad thing?
The generic drivers Windows comes with are not always compatible with the wide range of existing hardware. Since Windows has a habit of replacing your vendor's drivers with its own newer drivers your hardware may stop working correctly after upgrading to a newer Windows release
I've never experienced this and he doesn't link to any supporting articles. Calling bullshit.
(remember that Windows 10 is a codename for major different operating systems, e.g. like Windows Vista vs Windows 7 in the past).
Not true.
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Windows 10 issues, skipping the ones that are insane paranoia about data privacy:
Microsoft pushes Windows 10 so hard it actually started spreading FUD even about its own older OSes:
(The following are examples of this FUD):
Microsoft started lying through their teeth about Windows 7: "We do worry when people are running an operating system that's 10 years old that the next printer they buy isn't going to work well, or they buy a new game, they buy Fallout 4, a very popular game, and it doesn't work on a bunch of older machines. And so, as we are pushing our software vendors and hardware partners to build great new stuff that takes advantage of Windows 10 that obviously makes the old stuff really bad and not to mention viruses and security problems".
This is in quote marks, linking to a site called "fudzilla", which in turn sources the quote from a site called "Windows Weekly", however the link is broken and I find it really really difficult to believe an official Microsoft representative typed "that obviously makes the old stuff really bad". (Incidentally, the comments to the "fudzilla" article are jam-packed with the kind of anti-Microsoft shit this author claims to have rarely seen on the web before.)
In any case, if the quote is genuine, he fails to say why this is a lie. I guess he's asserting that Microsoft employees do not worry about users running a 10-year-old system, and whether printers work on it? Or... something?
Egregious lying continues: Microsoft falsely states that newer Intel and AMD CPUs will only be supported by Windows 10. If that were actually true you wouldn't be able to run MS-DOS on Intel Skylake yet you can, perfectly (edit: later, Microsoft reneged on not supporting Skylake CPUs). Perhaps they are talking about new advanced features of the said CPUs, but their wording means the opposite: like you cannot physically run any older Windows releases on these new CPUs.
Admits he probably misunderstood the press release, yet keeps it in the list of lies. Also a strange use of the word "physically" in reference to software.
Microsoft is getting desperate: the users of Intel Kaby Lake CPUs and AMD Ryzen CPUs will no longer receive Windows 7/8.1 updates at all. More information.
"Microsoft is getting desperate" is pure appeal to emotion; doesn't belong here, and significantly weakens whatever case he's trying to build.
In any case, this "FUD" amounts to: "OSes that were released before Ryzen CPUs existed won't be supported on Ryzen CPUs", which sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Is he asserting that Microsoft somehow "owed" him this support? It sounds to me that they were previously going above and beyond what was required of them, and not aren't quite as much.
Also note, this policy doesn't apply to security updates.
Microsoft unlawfully forced its hardware partners (Intel and AMD) to stop supporting previous versions of Windows; that's why you can't use your integrated Gen 7 Intel/AMD Raven Ridge graphics in Windows 7/8.1 (inf modification hacks notwithstanding).
No link supporting this frankly insane assertion.
Windows 10 will forever be beta software (specially after they fired a large chunk of their QA/QC department and instead delegated testing to the insiders):
I agree with him that Microsoft QA has gone downhill drastically in the last few years, how Windows 10 wasn't the cause, the trendline started long before Windows 10 came along.
You've got no real control over crucial features of the OS:
You know what I give up on the Windows 10 section. Previously there was at least some evidence of rational thought, this is just mindless ranting with zero supporting evidence. It's useless.
Further down he calls the "lock screen" an annoyance. Huh? Like somewhere between the top section and this one, his brains just leaked out and pooled around his keyboard or something.
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@gąska said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Yes, you cannot move a disk to another computer and have it Just Work™. But then, why would you?
Um actually.
You can, since 8, with a reasonable chance of it working.
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@blakeyrat said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Cryptic error messages (considering the size of the OS, >9GB as of Windows 10, this practice is simply ridiculous).
Valid complaint; why he thinks the amount of disk space is relevant is a mystery. (Those error messages aren't rewritten because of the amount of labor required, and probably some kind of philosophic ideal that users shouldn't ever see the messages anyway so there's no point in improving them-- either way disk space has nothing to do with it.)
Maybe the writer would rather have those 9 GB used for video of Neil Degrasse Tyson explaining every possible system error, instead of, uh, other languages or whatever.
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@hungrier He has a couple cases where he (rightly) points out something that's wrong, then give a REALLY WEIRD REASON why it's wrong.
Like vague error messages are bad, right? But they're not bad because they confuse the user and lead them to dead-ends, they're bad because Windows is multiple gigabytes large... which I guess implies Microsoft should have spent some of those gigabytes making longer error messages, or...? I mean I'm just guessing really.
Also the whole "Windows Update getting into an update loop is bad", well yeah we can all agree, but why do you specifically think it's bad? "It waste electricity!" Re... really? That's the reason? Goddamned, I hope you never find out about Bitcoin, your head would explode.
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@blakeyrat said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Their shitty-ass broken drivers couldn't even tell the difference between a turned off monitor and an unplugged one.
We've been over this, that's up to the monitor, the system has no way to know.
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@lb_ said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
We've been over this, that's up to the monitor, the system has no way to know.
And yet it works with my NVidia cards, so I guess I have a magical monitor from fantasy-land.
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@lb_ said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Perhaps AMD's installer is supposed to be tying up Windows Update in some back room somewhere where it can't hurt itself anymore, but from my perspective this seems to be a Windows problem.
It's an AMD problem, though. Sorry.
After all, both Intel and nVidia manage to do driver updates just fine.
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@rhywden said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
It's an AMD problem, though. Sorry.
After all, both Intel and nVidia manage to do driver updates just fine.I've not observed the problem with AMD driver updates, and I've definitely not been doing anything like disabling the network. It seems that people's mileage in this area really varies. No idea why.
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@blakeyrat said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
@timebandit said in Why Windows 10 Sucks:
Of course you do
Their shitty-ass broken drivers couldn't even tell the difference between a turned off monitor and an unplugged one. If they get THAT basic detail wrong, imagine the 50,000 other things they're getting wrong that are harder to notice.
If you're bitching about a particular DisplayPort feature than I can guarantee you that Nvidia implement it in exactly the same way.
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@lb_ I had similar fun with Windows Update and my laptop.
See, the laptop's network card had a driver with a massive memory leak in it. After a few hours the laptop became unusable. There was a new version of the driver with this fixed. I installed it and the problem seemed to be fixed, but then it came back. It turned out that Windows Update helpfully reinstalled the shitty version of the driver (despite being older). It would do this every time the system updated if I tried to put the functioning version back in.
To add insult to injury, in Windows 10 there is no way to choose which updates should be installed. Thankfully I ended up finding some rather hidden Microsoft utility that you have to separately download that does allow you to disable a particular update.
