None of your complaints are about Windows. They're all, almost universally, about OEM and third-party shovelware. You want to avoid OEMs trashing your computer? Don't pretend this is about a lack of choice, or about Microsoft being stuck in the past. It's about you being ignorant of your options, or ignorant of the ecosystem. Buy a Signature Series machine from Microsoft.[1] No crapware, no bundled "features" or "trials". You can also go buy rebranded-Clevo-hardware built by one of their partnered system builders. These machines also aren't full of crapware, if you pick a decent system builder. Vizio, by the way, also refuse to fill their laptops with crapware. On the other hand, anyone who owns a music streaming service is going to bundle their music streaming service.
As for PDFs, Windows 8 and up come with a PDF viewer since, y'know, two and a half years ago when it was released. Did you miss that? Granted the default PDF viewer is a Modern App, but it works, and it works reasonably well. I use it regularly to dock a PDF on half of my monitor while I work on something else on the other side. Office, by the way, will read and write PDFs just fine, if you're after a more solid office-like product to do it. In case you're about to complain that Office is too pricey, LibreOffice will do the same. If an office-suite is not your speed, Sumatra PDF exists, and is free, open, has no bundling, and is available in a portable flavour.
Again, this is not Microsoft's fault. It is yours. No one is stuck in 1997 but you. You know what it requires to not be stuck in 1997? Any sort of intellectual curiosity at all.
> FUD? I deal with Windows issues from relatives on a weekly basis. What FUD? Am I imagining all of these issues? Spyware and adware infested boxes
See, you're doing it again. You're not dealing with "Windows issues", you're dealing with issues on Windows boxes, caused by non-Windows problems. These problems involve things like "my computer illiterate family really believed there was a Nigerian prince sending them email," they're not problems that Microsoft has introduced, and they're not problems that Microsoft CAN solve. Stupid people do stupid things, and one of those things is double-click PORNVIAGRA.EXE.
This annoys me so much because you are essentially arguing that problems caused by refusing to read are problems caused by operating systems, and this really isn't the case. This isn't something Apple has done a better job with either, it's just that the marketshare for Apple wasn't high enough for the malware vendors to bother with them. Notice how reports of Apple-specific shitware have increased in the past couple years with their marketshare? This should probably point out to you that it's not something that's solved by changing OS, it's solved by teaching your friends and family to be more tech-literate. You are arguing that the problem of pedestrians being hit by cars when they cross without looking will be solved if we just pad bumper of the cars enough. You want to try to find a technical solution to a human issue, which computers really aren't up to solving yet.
Don't get met wrong, there's stopgaps. There's services like http://unchecky.com/ which just uncheck all the checkboxes for you. Now you have checkboxes unchecked that you really need checked, and stuff doesn't get installed properly. There's still some reading required.
The point here, though, is that you're not an idiot. Your family aren't idiots. You're just all too lazy for your own good.
(As an aside, there's also valuable lesson in your post that Vaios are among the worst OEMs around. Don't buy Vaio.)
I wish I could upvote this comment a million times. I see the same kind of ignorance-of-their-options (note I specifically say ignorance-of-their-options; I'm not saying anyone is generally ignorant) reflected when developers complain that it's hard to get under the hood of Windows or when developers complain about the tooling on Windows. You'd at least hope that this segment of the user-base would have more intellectual curiosity sometimes.
From the software developer angle, Windows is a FANTASTIC system when you need to get down to the nuts and bolts. People really need to educate themselves about the registry and the various ways the OS can be tweaked; as well as the various tools available (at a bare minimum those from Sysinternals).
Some other examples - the extensible kernel-level instrumentation that you get from ETW; the excellent crash and hang analysis tools provided by the likes of WinDbg (supported by the excellent debugging support in the Windows kernel -- yes, you can enable a keyboard shortcut that will memory dump your machine if it's hung and then it's a few commands to see what crashed); the commandline environment provided by PowerShell (I haven't used it much but really need to get into it more). Not to mention Application Verfier.
I could keep going on and on but it'd probably cloud my point if I haven't done so already :)
Not saying it's perfect or the be-all-and-end-all either; I also use all three major OSs, though primarily develop .NET software on Windows. Just frustrating that many of the complaints can be boiled down to "Windows doesn't work just like Linux/Unix does".
I agree with the poster above about usability, but I disagree about ease of development.
This is partially because linux is the dominant platform for Python developers, but developing/using Python libraries on Windows is really difficult. Many people simply overlook it.
The default command prompt is really really bad. There are alternatives, but none of them come close to the gnome shell. The Batch scripting language is terrible compared to Bash. Powershell is way too verbose and API-heavy. You can use Javascript, but then you are using Javascript... Then there are stability issues. I have left my home Linux computer on and online for months sometimes and never had any issues. Try the same thing on Windows... It will crash on the first week for sure.
The things Windows is great at is Office productivity software, gaming, design, and some other GPU-intensive tasks.
Desktop Linux is great at automation scripts, prototyping apps, temporary services for others (ssh and copy files), and virus-free internet browsing.
I will say is that the Linux ecosystem has Windows beat hands-down when it comes to installing third-party apps and updating them - 'apt-get' is fantastic. OSX confuses me a little in that regard - some apps you copy to the Applications folder; others require an installer to run; for the ones that require an installer it's often not entirely clear how you uninstall them, etc. I always feel like OSX is a little inconsistent in that way. The Mac App Store is nice and unified updating through the app store is also nice.
Stability-wise my machines have actually been very good. I don't reboot much at all and mainly put the machine into suspend instead of turning it off. My first instinct/fear with a spontaneous BSOD now is that my RAM or HDD or something has gone bad.
Agree with you about development with things such as Python (though in that specific case I remember the Python Tools for Visual Studio being okay), or for that matter any new and upcoming language. My first thought when i want to try something like that out is to drop into Linux. It's just better supported for that kind of thing.
> This annoys me so much because you are essentially arguing that problems caused by refusing to read are problems caused by operating systems, and this really isn't the case. This isn't something Apple has done a better job with either, it's just that the marketshare for Apple wasn't high enough for the malware vendors to bother with them.
If you have to carefully uncheck a bunch of options to avoid killing your computer with malware, then yes, the operating system is at fault. These sort of dark design patterns shouldn't exist, and the OS should be designed so that it's harder to implement shady things like this.
Yes, there is Mac malware out there, but Mac apps tend to have no installer at all, which is where most of the malware and crapware come from. It's harder to install some OS daemon when "installing" is just copying a file into your Applications folder. Mac apps almost never ask for permissions so I think users are more wary when the OS is asking weird stuff.
And Malware is practically unheard of in the Linux/Free Software world. I trust "apt-get install" implicitly when dealing with the main Debian archives.
> See, you're doing it again. You're not dealing with "Windows issues", you're dealing with issues on Windows boxes, caused by non-Windows problems.
That's a reasonable distinction, I suppose. How about this: The Windows software community sucks. The product may be fine if you know your way around the horrible alleys where malware and crapware lie in wait, but for normal people, the whole external environment is designed to screw you and mangle your computer.
Windows itself may be great, but the whole ecosystem is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
I mostly agree, but there's still the fact that unlike in Windows I have to trust a randomer's ppa (or build from source, but that's sometimes pita and no-go for mortals) if I want to install the newest version of libreoffice or whatever, unlike in Windows where I can run binaries directly from the first party source.
All of the GP's complaints are about Windows. You are attempting to divorce "this PDF viewer" from "Microsoft Windows" while the GP's complaints are about the laptop running Microsoft Windows with a bunch of Windows software installed on it.
I love how you point at "unchecky" as a great service when it is a piece of software you use to deal with problems that shouldn't exist in other software.
How manu Windows users wailed and gnashed their teeth over iTunes insisting on installing Quicktime? Is that because Windows users are lazy or that they didn't want Quicktime installed just to use iTunes?
"You are all too lazy for your own good," is classic victim blaming.
Is it perhaps possible that Sony, Dell, Toshiba et al have poisoned the well?
I had been an avid Windows user for two years from 2010-2012 and I had fun with Windows, surprisingly, I did not have the "Windows sucks" feelings back then because I hadn't started using Linux full time, and now I am a full time Linux user.
I don't use Windows on my laptop, but I don't "hate" it, I totally concur on your point about people hating the platform for the wrong reasons, historically the maretshare of Windows has been high and that is the reason for malware stuff.
What irritates me more than people hating windows for no reason is they don't realize that they are not using the platform properly, for eg when I tell fellow developers to switch to or use Linux for development they "stick" to windows even if they can't change the brightness of the screen! Yes some stupid driver error, they say they are "comfortable" with Windows, but irnonically they can't even give folder permission to users, this basic thing!
I feel people are too resistant to change and they want to blame something/someone and that is the problem with the hate stuff that spreads like a flu over the Internet
None of your complaints are about Windows. They're all, almost universally, about OEM and third-party shovelware.
You can't separate windows from its ecosystem - it's allegedly the choice of vendors and the availability of commodity hardware that makes windows at all appealing for most computer users. And the windows ecosystem sucks - it's full of weeds and parasites. Windows can't be examined in the abstract - if 99 out of 100 randomly chosen configurations in the marketplace are just terrible, then that's just Windows. It's the incredible leeway that Microsoft gives IHVs that makes Windows as popular and at the same time as terrible as it is. That's what characterizes Windows. As an operating system, it isn't half bad (it's architecture is quite good, actually) . As a platform, it's terrible.
See, you're doing it again. You're not dealing with "Windows issues", you're dealing with issues on Windows boxes, caused by non-Windows problems
What exactly is it that you're arguing? It seems like you and the parent are largely in agreement and you're trying to generate friction.
I would contend that you're right that it's absolutely true that with enough research and with constant vigilance, you can bring a retail Windows system into an acceptable configuration, have all of your hardware enumerating properly, and avoid malware.
I would contend that the parent is right that maintaining a Windows system is just barely worth it if it's your own machine and is a hopeless time-sink if you're doing it for free for anyone else, like family.
Are you two really just arguing past each other?
The point here, though, is that you're not an idiot. Your family aren't idiots. You're just all too lazy for your own good.
Please see the posting guidelines. Personal attacks are not acceptable.
As for PDFs, Windows 8 and up come with a PDF viewer since, y'know, two and a half years ago when it was released. Did you miss that? Granted the default PDF viewer is a Modern App, but it works, and it works reasonably well. I use it regularly to dock a PDF on half of my monitor while I work on something else on the other side. Office, by the way, will read and write PDFs just fine, if you're after a more solid office-like product to do it. In case you're about to complain that Office is too pricey, LibreOffice will do the same. If an office-suite is not your speed, Sumatra PDF exists, and is free, open, has no bundling, and is available in a portable flavour.
Again, this is not Microsoft's fault. It is yours. No one is stuck in 1997 but you. You know what it requires to not be stuck in 1997? Any sort of intellectual curiosity at all.
> FUD? I deal with Windows issues from relatives on a weekly basis. What FUD? Am I imagining all of these issues? Spyware and adware infested boxes
See, you're doing it again. You're not dealing with "Windows issues", you're dealing with issues on Windows boxes, caused by non-Windows problems. These problems involve things like "my computer illiterate family really believed there was a Nigerian prince sending them email," they're not problems that Microsoft has introduced, and they're not problems that Microsoft CAN solve. Stupid people do stupid things, and one of those things is double-click PORNVIAGRA.EXE.
This annoys me so much because you are essentially arguing that problems caused by refusing to read are problems caused by operating systems, and this really isn't the case. This isn't something Apple has done a better job with either, it's just that the marketshare for Apple wasn't high enough for the malware vendors to bother with them. Notice how reports of Apple-specific shitware have increased in the past couple years with their marketshare? This should probably point out to you that it's not something that's solved by changing OS, it's solved by teaching your friends and family to be more tech-literate. You are arguing that the problem of pedestrians being hit by cars when they cross without looking will be solved if we just pad bumper of the cars enough. You want to try to find a technical solution to a human issue, which computers really aren't up to solving yet.
Don't get met wrong, there's stopgaps. There's services like http://unchecky.com/ which just uncheck all the checkboxes for you. Now you have checkboxes unchecked that you really need checked, and stuff doesn't get installed properly. There's still some reading required.
The point here, though, is that you're not an idiot. Your family aren't idiots. You're just all too lazy for your own good.
(As an aside, there's also valuable lesson in your post that Vaios are among the worst OEMs around. Don't buy Vaio.)
[1] http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/cat/category...