The Year Windows Died at Home and Nobody Cared

People prefer to use consumption-only device that are not designed to be tweaked. Film at Eleven.

You only have to learn something more powerful if you want to create content. That's the way things have been for the last five years.

As long as Windows has Enterprise locked-down, then folks will continue to use it for their jobs. That's how it's always been. Microsoft derailed the runaway train that was Linux by making Outlook/VBA a necessary evil, then creating Azure and absorbing Bash, so they have no more enemies in server (you can use whatever the fuck OS you want, just pay us for cloud servers :D

Microsoft has nothing to worry about.

Apple has no fucking clue where it wants to go as long as the iPhone is still standing, and none of their 1st-party productivity software products are a threat.

Google has docs and cloud, but for large-business needs these tend to fall short of MS. And if they want to go all-out against MS they must whip-up a Linux distro that can compete with RHEL. That won't happen overnight.

Amazon is already established as the cloud leader, but they have no inclination to own the OS side of things. Like Google, they release their own version of Linux just to power media consumption devices. And unlike Google, theere's not even the barest attempt at office software.
Worst part is that even stuff like VSphere requires the use of active directory. You can have a 100% Linux environment but you’ve still got to have that one damn windows server for AD for horizon support.
 
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the problem with Windows 8+ is no one wanted it and it was forced upon us. Windows 10 is the king of telematics data collection...
 
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the problem with Windows 8+ is no one wanted it and it was forced upon us. Windows 10 is the king of telematics data collection...
I can assure you that Win10 is not even a drop in the bucket of telemetry collection compared to Google and Facebook. You don’t even need to be logged into Facebook or using Chrome and the still get their hands in there through the integration services they have in just about every website. We’ve been closed for the last 2 weeks so when things fired up today the system alerted me and shut down because the massive uptick in flagged and blocked traffic made it trip up and thought it was some sort of attack in the network. All of it going to Facebook and Google servers for tracking telemetry.

Edit:

This is a snippet of a single user running Firefox, This traffic is what google is still attempting to collect from adds and various page services despite the network running add blocking and various DNS sinkholes to filter it before it even gets to us. And this user alone since 9am has generated some 10,000 blocked telemetry responses, and they are sitting in the average right now.
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the problem with Windows 8+ is no one wanted it and it was forced upon us. Windows 10 is the king of telematics data collection...
Speak for yourself. The average person doesn't give a shit what they are using. They want the shiny new thing above all else. People freely hand out their info nowadays.
 
Speak for yourself. The average person doesn't give a shit what they are using. They want the shiny new thing above all else. People freely hand out their info nowadays.
More accurately - they want to solve their problems at hand as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Yes, that mindset can be exploited on people who don't realize the extent of external data usage for sure. But - I'd suggest it isn't just a "new shiny" sort of thing, it's more a time and cost to result issue. If someone makes a free product which makes the end result happen very quickly - yes, people will flock to it. Doubly so when the down-sides are somewhat nebulous to them.

Not disagreeing of course - I'm agreeing with your point. Average people don't understand or care, they're solving their issue with the path of least resistance.
 
I thought I liked Linux, but unfortunately there were too many things that didn't work right. Most dealing with peripheral drivers.

Poor support of wireless Xbox controller. Problems with graphics tablet (when used on a ultrawide screen). Missing software support like Photoshop and ZBrush. Not supporting latest game features like HDR and ray tracing. The list goes on.

I just want to use my computer and not have to worry if something I buy is going to work. It was too much hassle. Windows 10 is not perfect, but it very compatible with hardware and software, and much more stable than previous OS versions.
 
I don t understand this thing where folks are proud to be Microsoft only

As a professional wouldn't you want to accumulate as much knowledge as possible ?
care to provide an example? 'cause im not seeing that...
yes.
 
I don t understand this thing where folks are proud to be Microsoft only

As a professional wouldn't you want to accumulate as much knowledge as possible ?
Knowledge is good but productivity is paramount. Microsoft nails business workflows when you get into the thick of it there is nothing from Linux that directly compares unless you start getting into the IBM suites and they are not budget-friendly at all. So those are very specific use case scenarios, and Microsoft is making great inroads into those markets too.
 
the problem with Windows 8+ is no one wanted it and it was forced upon us. Windows 10 is the king of telematics data collection...
Clearly this is wrong, because the difference between 7 and 10 is minimal and I prefer 10. That said, it's important to remember that it was only 12 years ago when Hard OCP peeps were claiming that 7 was a huge mistake because of the new start menu (some things never change and whining about changes on H is def one of them).
 
Clearly this is wrong, because the difference between 7 and 10 is minimal and I prefer 10. That said, it's important to remember that it was only 12 years ago when Hard OCP peeps were claiming that 7 was a huge mistake because of the new start menu (some things never change and whining about changes on H is def one of them).
I don't remember anyone complaining about the menu for Windows 7, and it was similar enough to Vista and XP's menus that the change was pretty minimal overall.
However, the menu in Windows 8/8.1, or lack-there-of, was a major issue and made that OS more difficult to use than it needed to be; every complaint about that OS was just as justified as were the complaints about Vista and ME.

Windows 10, and its contemporary Server versions, fixed all of that.

The article was not about Linux or MacOS to take the lead in a near feature, it was more about PC in generals dead at home being replaced by Ios, Android, ChromeOS and so on.

The work from home 2020 pandemy phenomenon reversed that trend quite a bit.
Was going to post this exact thing.
The article from 2018, especially in 2021, could not be more dated and incorrect.
 
I don't remember anyone complaining about the menu for Windows 7, and it was similar enough to Vista and XP's menus that the change was pretty minimal overall.
However, the menu in Windows 8/8.1, or lack-there-of, was a major issue and made that OS more difficult to use than it needed to be; every complaint about that OS was just as justified as were the complaints about Vista and ME.

Windows 10, and its contemporary Server versions, fixed all of that.


Was going to post this exact thing.
The article from 2018, especially in 2021, could not be more dated and incorrect.
Eh, kids these days. I've been complaining about the start menu since 1995. The Win 10 menu fixed some of the problems, but still I think the desktop icon based menu of Win 3.x was more intuitive. Just look at how iOS and Android menus are! Basically what Win 3.x had, just some refinement of the concept.
 
Clearly this is wrong, because the difference between 7 and 10 is minimal and I prefer 10. That said, it's important to remember that it was only 12 years ago when Hard OCP peeps were claiming that 7 was a huge mistake because of the new start menu (some things never change and whining about changes on H is def one of them).

In their defense Windows Vista had the best start menu. Vista in general was a great operating system. The bulk of its bad rep came from vendors putting Vista on machines that were not up to the minimum specifications, and then people jumping on the hate train.

Plus Vista came with DX10, and that was the cat's pajamas.
 
I can assure you that Win10 is not even a drop in the bucket of telemetry collection compared to Google and Facebook. You don’t even need to be logged into Facebook or using Chrome and the still get their hands in there through the integration services they have in just about every website. We’ve been closed for the last 2 weeks so when things fired up today the system alerted me and shut down because the massive uptick in flagged and blocked traffic made it trip up and thought it was some sort of attack in the network. All of it going to Facebook and Google servers for tracking telemetry.

Edit:

This is a snippet of a single user running Firefox, This traffic is what google is still attempting to collect from adds and various page services despite the network running add blocking and various DNS sinkholes to filter it before it even gets to us. And this user alone since 9am has generated some 10,000 blocked telemetry responses, and they are sitting in the average right now.
View attachment 343316

Good thing I use Brave Browser on Ubuntu 20.04.2. Oh, and I use Windows 10 for gaming only and will all telemetry blocked.
 
Good thing I use Brave Browser on Ubuntu 20.04.2. Oh, and I use Windows 10 for gaming only and will all telemetry blocked.
Brave doesn't do any better unless you are telling it to block all java scripts as well, most sites have the telemetry units cooked right into the site if you visit it and you don't choose to then block all cookies and don't click or mouse over anything on the page then you are ok, but the second you interact with it in any way shape or form then they have you. And I have some 300 Ubuntu 20 desktops and a half dozen servers, they transmit just about as much telemetry as any of the windows 10 boxes and more than my 2019 servers. So I can tell you right now, your perceived sense of safety is just that.
 
Brave doesn't do any better unless you are telling it to block all java scripts as well, most sites have the telemetry units cooked right into the site if you visit it and you don't choose to then block all cookies and don't click or mouse over anything on the page then you are ok, but the second you interact with it in any way shape or form then they have you. And I have some 300 Ubuntu 20 desktops and a half dozen servers, they transmit just about as much telemetry as any of the windows 10 boxes and more than my 2019 servers. So I can tell you right now, your perceived sense of safety is just that.

No, my Ubuntu machines are objectively more private and secure, at least locally, than Windows 10 has ever been. :)
 
No, my Ubuntu machines are objectively more private and secure, at least locally, than Windows 10 has ever been. :)
Very well could be, I can say honestly though the units I have in place with the absolute least amount of telemetry traffic are my Raspian's and my Redhats. But the Redhat servers don't have external IP's as they house the accounting systems so they are direct access only.
 
Clearly this is wrong, because the difference between 7 and 10 is minimal and I prefer 10. That said, it's important to remember that it was only 12 years ago when Hard OCP peeps were claiming that 7 was a huge mistake because of the new start menu (some things never change and whining about changes on H is def one of them).
LOL. And people hated XP because it looked gamish, and before that they hated '95 because they missed Program Manager. I'll leave Me out of this except to say that it was mainly OEMs stuffing PCs with bloatware that gave Me it's not-really-deserved bad reputation. (Seriously. I was in the beta for both 95 and Me, and I never had a problem with any beta build of Me. Then I bought a HP desktop and it ran like garbage. For the first six months, I couldn't even view HTTPS sites at all, the page would never load. One day I got out my complimentary copy of Me and did a fresh install of Windows and guess what? WIthout all the HP-supplied bloatware, all my problems went away.)
 
I don't know .. My wife, daughter and myself all actively use our respective desktop PC's .. My wife works from home so she has her work computer going that she is pretty active on .. and I have a laptop as well that I actively use .. they all run Windows 10.

I must be an extreme anomaly..? o_O
 
I don't know .. My wife, daughter and myself all actively use our respective desktop PC's .. My wife works from home so she has her work computer going that she is pretty active on .. and I have a laptop as well that I actively use .. they all run Windows 10.

I must be an extreme anomaly..? o_O
Not unless around 90 percent majority is an anomaly :p.
 
I don't know .. My wife, daughter and myself all actively use our respective desktop PC's .. My wife works from home so she has her work computer going that she is pretty active on .. and I have a laptop as well that I actively use .. they all run Windows 10.

I must be an extreme anomaly..? o_O
The article is years old and has zero correlation with reality post 2020.
In other words, the article is beyond irrelevant and anachronistic.
 
Attached keyboard = Laptop. A 2 in 1 is a laptop with a fancy hinge and an expensive to replace touch screen. The problem with Windows is people are sick of forced updates that fail (and outside of tightly controlled corporate networks, the failure rate is surprisingly high) as well as the constant threat of infection and Microsoft's manipulative tactics regarding Edge, Microsoft accounts and OneDrive (just to name a few). Couple that with Windows 10's poor performance regarding the entry level machines that are very popular as people are duped into believing that an 'Intel Pentium', 4GB or ram and a mechanical 5400RPM HDD should be enough for simplistic needs regarding internet surfing, checking email and viewing invoices/bill's as pdf's.

Which honestly should be enough (replying to this post on a Pi400 running TwisterOS off a USB SSD that costs a fraction of even these entry level laptops and runs an order of magnitude faster). The reality is such entry level Windows laptops aren't in any way suited to such simple tasks, resulting in frustration and people dumping Windows for smart phones and tablets running anything but Windows 10.
 
Attached keyboard = Laptop. A 2 in 1 is a laptop with a fancy hinge and an expensive to replace touch screen. The problem with Windows is people are sick of forced updates that fail (and outside of tightly controlled corporate networks, the failure rate is surprisingly high) as well as the constant threat of infection and Microsoft's manipulative tactics regarding Edge, Microsoft accounts and OneDrive (just to name a few). Couple that with Windows 10's poor performance regarding the entry level machines that are very popular as people are duped into believing that an 'Intel Pentium', 4GB or ram and a mechanical 5400RPM HDD should be enough for simplistic needs regarding internet surfing, checking email and viewing invoices/bill's as pdf's.

Which honestly should be enough (replying to this post on a Pi400 running TwisterOS off a USB SSD that costs a fraction of even these entry level laptops and runs an order of magnitude faster). The reality is such entry level Windows laptops aren't in any way suited to such simple tasks, resulting in frustration and people dumping Windows for smart phones and tablets running anything but Windows 10.
What alternate reality do you live in? Jesus.
 
LOL. And people hated XP because it looked gamish, and before that they hated '95 because they missed Program Manager. I'll leave Me out of this except to say that it was mainly OEMs stuffing PCs with bloatware that gave Me it's not-really-deserved bad reputation. (Seriously. I was in the beta for both 95 and Me, and I never had a problem with any beta build of Me. Then I bought a HP desktop and it ran like garbage. For the first six months, I couldn't even view HTTPS sites at all, the page would never load. One day I got out my complimentary copy of Me and did a fresh install of Windows and guess what? WIthout all the HP-supplied bloatware, all my problems went away.)
When released XP was crap. there was no noticeable improvement over Win 2K and system requirements were quite high. It took MS quite a bit of time to sort that mess out
 
I don't remember anyone complaining about the menu for Windows 7, and it was similar enough to Vista and XP's menus that the change was pretty minimal overall.
However, the menu in Windows 8/8.1, or lack-there-of, was a major issue and made that OS more difficult to use than it needed to be; every complaint about that OS was just as justified as were the complaints about Vista and ME.

Windows 10, and its contemporary Server versions, fixed all of that.


Was going to post this exact thing.
The article from 2018, especially in 2021, could not be more dated and incorrect.
I hardly ever use the start menu in any version of Windows. Nothing in Windows 8.1 was harder to do compared to 7 or 10 in my experience. Microsoft removing functionality with every subsequent update of Windows 10 is a far bigger issue than any superficial complaints people had about 8 or 8.1.
 
Couple that with Windows 10's poor performance regarding the entry level machines that are very popular as people are duped into believing that an 'Intel Pentium', 4GB or ram and a mechanical 5400RPM HDD should be enough for simplistic needs regarding internet surfing, checking email and viewing invoices/bill's as pdf's.
Any OS would have poor performance on such a system - that is hardly exclusive to Windows 10 on such hardware.
Computers like that aren't really sold any more unless either sold used or absolute bottom-end, aka you get what you pay for.

Most computers with such hardware were sold in the mid to late 2010s as then-budget systems, and without hardware upgrades have become quickly obsolete, regardless of the OS.
There are many legitimate issues with Windows 10, as posted throughout this thread, but this is not one of them.
 
If you never used windows before windows 8/10, i can see why you would think the user interface is good. Its "modern" and resembles smartphone interfaces. My wife and kids like it.
But as someone who has been using pc's from the DOS days, the win 8/10 ui is change for sake of change. It offers no functional improvements, it just changes stuff.
Why are windows borderless? Why is the active/ inactive title bars the same color? Why has the control panel been scrambled like a box of puzzle pieces?

Up until win 7, you could customize the ui to make it work in the way you were comfortable with. There is no good reason why they are continuing to expunge the older ui.
 
If you never used windows before windows 8/10, i can see why you would think the user interface is good. Its "modern" and resembles smartphone interfaces. My wife and kids like it.
But as someone who has been using pc's from the DOS days, the win 8/10 ui is change for sake of change. It offers no functional improvements, it just changes stuff.
Why are windows borderless? Why is the active/ inactive title bars the same color? Why has the control panel been scrambled like a box of puzzle pieces?

Up until win 7, you could customize the ui to make it work in the way you were comfortable with. There is no good reason why they are continuing to expunge the older ui.
One of my annoyances with the new UI paradigm is definitely needing to type something in to find it, as I still cannot navigate directly to what I'm looking for as the way things are clustered make no sense to me. It is very annoying that things like the sound control panel are hidden in comparatively tiny text in the new settings menu. Change for the sake of change is most definitely a problem in many product sectors these days, especially in UI design where form has trumped function.
 
Change for the sake of change is most definitely a problem in many product sectors these days, especially in UI design where form has trumped function.

The next Windows needs to make two changes, badly.

Consolidate the Control Panel and Settings, and,
Consolidate Add or Remove Programs, Apps and Features, and the Windows Store.

And hopefully restore old search, not Cortana, not web search, just regular search in the Start Menu, one that searches your programs, files, and settings. This isn't strictly necessary since there are third-party Start Menus (imagine how off the mark Microsoft was that it created an aftermarket for Start) but it would be a smart move.
 
If it can survive being infected with Drama, there's no reason Linux won't get better every year. Windows is full of stuff I don't need and in fact wastes disk-space, CPU cycles and adds additional attack surface. At some point there's no reason to not have Linux in the home. Gaming sucks on linux because Windows is mostly in homes and few want to make games for 2 platforms. If Linux became the focus and Microsoft's hamstringing of PCs vs. Consoles via DirectX ended, PC's could properly ascend to the next level beyond Master Race.
 
At some point there's no reason to not have Linux in the home.

Yeah, it's great for networking and infrastructure machines, home servers, and all that, but Linux always has had problems as a PC OS because frankly, none of the major developers are concerned about PC OSes. There are outliers like Mint, Pop, probably some others that I forgot about years ago (how's Joli OS going? Right...) but they're all fundamentally strapped onto an operating system developed primarily for server environments.
 
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