Bloody Windows!!!

[Mr. Scram]

I'm quite happy with rolling updates. I hate total OS refresh projects as it means lots of capex and wall clock time pissed out of the window for everyone rather than short controlled bursts (to quote Alien 2)

I don't like the rug being pulled from under me all the time. Or better yet, the rug being pulled from under people who will ask me where it went. Chaging the UI without notice is probably the most problematic area.

[bd139]

move to critical deployment ring then.

security updates can be deferred by 30 days.

feature updates can be deferred for 180 days.

All changes are documented. You have to be actively interested in it and keep an eye out on the windows blogs https://blogs.windows.com/

People have lost the right to be allowed to manage their own computers. There's still windows XP botnets out there even though it has been EOL for 3 years.

I really fucking hate windows, but it's the right thing to do.

[Mr. Scram]

move to critical deployment ring then.

security updates can be deferred by 30 days.

feature updates can be deferred for 180 days.

All changes are documented. You have to be actively interested in it and keep an eye out on the windows blogs https://blogs.windows.com/

People have lost the right to be allowed to manage their own computers. There's still windows XP botnets out there even though it has been EOL for 3 years.

I really fucking hate windows, but it's the right thing to do.

It's no use. People won't read any changelog. They'll just ask why the button was moved and where it went, even if they don't manage anything themselves.

[bd139]

I hate those people more than Windows

[Refrigerator]

I remember a friend once asked me to come over to help with his PC but he had win10 so i needed his help to navigate through the windows to help him with his PC
And just recently he installed the new windows meltdown/spectre patch on his athlon PC and he's getting non stop driver power state errors, blue screens and failures to even power on. And when he did finally manage to get the PC running starting any task would max out his cpu and keep it at 80-100% usage.

[hendorog]

Haven't heard this mentioned anywhere, but does anyone else think that "Fall Creators Update" is an _incredibly_ stupid name?

I mean Windows is an international product, obviously, so why use a name which only makes sense in a few countries in the Northern Hemisphere.

[Mr. Scram]

Haven't heard this mentioned anywhere, but does anyone else think that "Fall Creators Update" is an _incredibly_ stupid name?

I mean Windows is an international product, obviously, so why use a name which only makes sense in a few countries in the Northern Hemisphere.

I don't think many people are so uptight about something as irrelevant as a name. They could have called it "Power Unicorn Racetrack 5000" and that would have worked too. Just look at Android versions. It's just a label that distinguishes it from other labels.

Though if you really want to go down that route, it probably covers the largest part of their paying users. The vast majority of the world's population lives in the northern hemisphere, so it's very likely the vast majority of the Windows users do too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density

Darn, Blueskull be stealing my thunder!

[amspire]

I live in the Southern Hemisphere and didn't think twice about the use of the word Fall. We are aware that there are some very strange parts of the world where it actually snows at Christmas! Anyway, we call it Autumn out here, so Fall usually refers to the Northern Hemisphere.

[hendorog]

I mean Windows is an international product, obviously, so why use a name which only makes sense in a few countries in the Northern Hemisphere.

While I also think falling it "Fall xxx" is stupid in a global sense, but the northern hemisphere is definitely not just a "few" countries.
Northern hemisphere has ~88% of the world's total population while the southern hemisphere, all but NZ/AU, using President Trump's words, are "shit holes".

Of course there are more than a few countries in the Northern Hemisphere, do they all use the term 'Fall'?

I know US, Canada and I assume Mexico do. UK doesn't AFAIK, what about the rest of Europe?

There are two issues - one being Fall vs Autumn, and the other being Fall vs Spring.

[Zero999]

I believe the word "fall" was originally common in British English, was exported to America, then later fell out of use in British English, but remained in common usage in America. This is not unusual and is the case, with many words which are common in American English, but not in British English today.

Incidentally Halloween, was a European festival, long before the USA existed.

[hammy]

As for Europeans, someone else can answer your question.

If english is not your native language you don't care what they call it. It's just an arbitrary word.

[Zero999]

As for Europeans, someone else can answer your question.

If english is not your native language you don't care what they call it. It's just an arbitrary word.

That's true. They could call it Winblow$ Fall Over Edition and it wouldn't matter.

[A Hellene]

I know US, Canada and I assume Mexico do. UK doesn't AFAIK, what about the rest of Europe?

From Cambridge dictionary:

us uk autumn the season after summer and before winter, when fruits and crops become ready to eat and the leaves fall off the trees

Textbooks in China (at least the ones I've learned) list both fall and autumn as the words for the season.

That's close!

As for Europeans, someone else can answer your question.

I'd love to.

The original term, predating the Latin term 'autumn' which means absolutely nothing, was and still is the term  ? [phthinóp?ron] actually meaning (the season of the year when) ?? [ai opórai: the fruits] ? [fthinoun: (they) lessen / (they are) falling (down) / (they are) geting scarce]. Also, figuratively, means the time period when someone is getting past its prime (i.e, Grandad is in the autumn of his life); the autumn years.

Now, getting back on track, Windows is a f////// Operating System that SHOULD be transparent to the Users instead of torturing them; and leaving them alone either doing any f////// productive work or accessing their f////// FaceBook 3762 times per day...
I am fed up with this corporate bullshit...


-George

[Refrigerator]

You know what, guys. Winblows10 might be bad but the spectre patches are great, i'm already seeing "defective" laptops coming to the used market

[Zero999]

I have no problem with a rolling release. In fact I like the idea. When I moved to Linux, I deliberately selected a distribution with a rolling release cycle, as I don't like having to reinstall the entire OS, every time it stops being supported, which is quite regularly with most distros. The downside is I chose PC Linux OS which doesn't easily allow KDE to be upgraded without reinstalling everything, so I'll stick with the outdated version, until it causes problems with newer software. Next time, I'll install a fulling rolling distribution, which will update the desktop, without the need for messing around or a reinstall.

The good thing about Linux is, I'm in full control of when I install updates and it seldom requires a reboot. Windows 10 will update itself, whenever it wants to, whether the user likes it or not.

[Red Squirrel]

I think the new UI could work absolutely fine. Only problem is all the GUI elements are so large. It’s like a telly tubby play set.

That is my biggest complaint with windows 10 as far as usability, that and everything is hidden and hard to get to.  If you're not on a 4k screen, everything is so big and blocky and takes up so much space too.  It's really inefficient UI design.  Anytime I want to do something simple I find myself having to hunt around trying to find something that was easier to find in XP and 7.   It's not "being scared of change" but rather realizing that some things don't actually need to change because they work. 

That, and all the white.  Way too much white.  It hurts the eyes to use.  I feel like I need to wear sunscreen and sun glasses if I'm going to use windows 10 for longer than 5 minutes.  To make matters worse other than choosing between like 4 crappy themes that are all one extreme to the other, there is no way to customize anything.  Even Windows 3.11 let you customize stuff.

[Zero999]

I think the new UI could work absolutely fine. Only problem is all the GUI elements are so large. It’s like a telly tubby play set.

That is my biggest complaint with windows 10 as far as usability, that and everything is hidden and hard to get to.  If you're not on a 4k screen, everything is so big and blocky and takes up so much space too.  It's really inefficient UI design.  Anytime I want to do something simple I find myself having to hunt around trying to find something that was easier to find in XP and 7.   It's not "being scared of change" but rather realizing that some things don't actually need to change because they work. 

That, and all the white.  Way too much white.  It hurts the eyes to use.  I feel like I need to wear sunscreen and sun glasses if I'm going to use windows 10 for longer than 5 minutes.  To make matters worse other than choosing between like 4 crappy themes that are all one extreme to the other, there is no way to customize anything.  Even Windows 3.11 let you customize stuff.

Microsoft have thrown away 20 years of knowledge of GUI when they released Windows 10!

Through the 90s and 2000s MS did the right thing and focused on making their UI consistent. Widgets had a raised effect: push a button, with the mouse and it went from protruding to recessed. Window titles were nice and bold, with a reasonable contrast with the background. This is one of the advantages Windows had over UNIX. Change the colour scheme or skin on MS Windows and everything would change. On UNIX, different programs were often made with different widget toolkits, each with their own settings. The only thing that was consistent were the windows, which were drawn by the same window manager. This has been largely fixed now, for example if you're using KDE, you can set GTK+ to render as Qt, so GTK+ programs look the same as Qt programs.

Now, on MS Windows 8+, all widgets are flat and the whole UI is extremely inconsistent. There are traditional programs, which use one widget toolkit and new Metro apps, which look totally different, with their massive fonts and widgets, optimised for a touchscreen. The whole thing is a total mess!

If you had a 4k screen, then I'd suspect many of the traditional programs would look too small. It's possible to change the size of the UI, but if one set it so the Metro apps look good, the other GUI elements would become too small.

See the attached. Look at how small a traditional program (Character map) is compared to a Metro app (Display Settings).

[bd139]

My mum likes the big things on the screen.

Then again she’s one of those users who has a 19” wide screen and runs it at 800x600, sits 9 inches from the screen with her reading glasses on and keeps phoning me to ask why the pictures are all “too wide” on ancestry while she locates long dead relatives hoping to find some late meaning in her otherwise unfulfilled life. 

[lundmar]

The solution to bloody Windows is to replace it with bloody Linux! 

[timb]

I have no problem with a rolling release. In fact I like the idea. When I moved to Linux, I deliberately selected a distribution with a rolling release cycle, as I don't like having to reinstall the entire OS, every time it stops being supported, which is quite regularly with most distros. The downside is I chose PC Linux OS which doesn't easily allow KDE to be upgraded without reinstalling everything, so I'll stick with the outdated version, until it causes problems with newer software. Next time, I'll install a fulling rolling distribution, which will update the desktop, without the need for messing around or a reinstall.

The good thing about Linux is, I'm in full control of when I install updates and it seldom requires a reboot. Windows 10 will update itself, whenever it wants to, whether the user likes it or not.

I like rolling releases on Linux, too. The difference is, as you pointed out, with Arch Linux I can choose what and when to update. Windows 10 doesn’t give you the same flexibility (without jumping through a ridiculous number of hoops) and even then, you don’t have a choice of not upgrading the core system. With Arch
Linux for example, I can choose to skip a kernel version and still receive all other updates.

The only issue I have with rolling releases compared to yearly major releases (like macOS) is that things tend break even over the course of the year, instead of all at once, once per year. So it *feels* like you’re doing a lot more work or constantly tracking down one problem or another. I’ve also noticed that, because of this, some people on rolling release based OS’ try to hold off on updating for long periods, because they don’t have time to deal with a new issue right now. (This is likely one of the reasons behind MS’s forced update policy.)

Personally, I’d rather spend a weekend fixing everything that’s broken once a year, than spend an evening once per month doing the same.

[amspire]

I am a big fan of Arch Linux and the updating, but the occasional breaking you talk about is a bit of a deal breaker in many applications. You never know when the next update will have something that fails to work.

If it is your only PC and the GUI is just a non-responsive black screen after an update, it is pretty traumatic. This can happen with Arch.

I usually just use it as a GUI-less server running as a virtual machine.

In one case, I was using Arch for a NAS box and all the Windows SMB network connections died after an update. The reason was the maintainers of the SAMBA suite of programs decided to eliminate some functionality in the new version, and of course, Arch just automatically gets the newest version. It did take quite a few hours to work out what had happened, and I had no NAS box connection for a few days.

The reason I did choose Arch is that I set it up at a time the BTRFS file system was rapidly improving, and Arch meant I could keep getting the latest BTRFS and kernels. It was set up back around the 3.0 Linux kernel and it is still going strong (after fixing up the networking) with the 4.14.8 kernel. So far, all the updates have been fast, easy and completely reliable - except for that one.

When I have had an Arch-based distro on an old laptop and it has refused to work after an update, I usually just wipe the disk and reinstall a new Arch-based version - it is the easiest solution.  It does mean I never do anything on that laptop that I depend on.

[Red Squirrel]

The solution to bloody Windows is to replace it with bloody Linux! 

Yep I had always kind of wanted to go Linux, but I knew that I would in some cases just make my life harder since everything is for Windows - and sometimes I think the same way.  If I'm buying hardware I need to make the decisions based on whether or not it will even work in Linux.  Same with items that have an "app" because usually it's for iPhone only, so need to make sure there's an android version too.

But when I saw what direction MS was going towards with windows 8 I jumped ship.  I have a windows 7 machine I use for gaming, and I will keep it windows 7 for as long as I possibly can. 

And I totally agree with the Unix/Linux GUI inconsistencies that is one thing that I find is still an issue and annoying, but now MS is doing the same thing too!   Some programs open in a somewhat normal interface while others open with that ugly white flat one. 

[james_s]

I like the idea of a rolling release for security updates and bug fixes. What I most certainly *don't* like is automatic updates that add/remove/change features or move things around in the UI. It's like having a housekeeper who takes it upon themselves to reorganize my workbench and toolbox or replace my test equipment with other models whenever they please and that sort of thing drives me crazy. I don't want to sit down to get something done and then realize I have to re-learn where to find or how to do something I already know how to do. It's not that I'm incapable of learning and adapting but I don't want to waste the limited time I have on this earth learning mundane things I already knew.

[tautech]

I've just built a Win 10 box but it could've been 7, 8.1 or whatever.
I came from 7 and the wife's runs 8.1 so there was some small familiarity with the 8 and 10 type UI.

I3 3.7G and 8G ram runs just fine, the UI is still getting used to me and I only used the W10 calculator for the first time a couple days back, launches instantly.
Still finding and working out how to use some of the 'apps'  but haven't given a good test with something processor hungry like Altium yet.

Mention of this Win 10 box above doesn't mention that my previous Win 7 box had died and I was slowly moving my stuff over and was forced to in a hurry.  That box was a fair age and replacement had been nagging at me for a while.
Now that I've gone to 10 Enterprise I can say I'm quite impressed but it's early days yet and this 10 box is still fairly clean with not a lot of stuff on it yet.
120G SSD for the OS and essential programs and just a 1 Tb for data (at this stage) and all the other crap.

Having not long had a decent internet connection, anything running behind the scenes has not been noticeable at all which was something that had previously held me back from going to 10. All other Windoze we've managed the updates when we had time by having updates parked with just notification that they were available.
In the short time using 10, I now don't give a shit and I'll just leave it to do its thing.

Knowing that sometimes 10 calls for a reboot I did the second only one I've done and the boot speed is truly impressive, I'm used to how an SSD improves boot times but this was way under 10s. 

I've still got a mountain of stuff to migrate from my 7 box which will be done a drive at a time and/or maybe just drop in a 'backup' labeled drive from the 7 box to save a bit of time. A few months down the track will give me a better idea but to date the 10 experience has been excellent.

[gnif]

Yep I had always kind of wanted to go Linux, but I knew that I would in some cases just make my life harder since everything is for Windows - and sometimes I think the same way.  If I'm buying hardware I need to make the decisions based on whether or not it will even work in Linux.  Same with items that have an "app" because usually it's for iPhone only, so need to make sure there's an android version too.

But when I saw what direction MS was going towards with windows 8 I jumped ship.  I have a windows 7 machine I use for gaming, and I will keep it windows 7 for as long as I possibly can. 

And I totally agree with the Unix/Linux GUI inconsistencies that is one thing that I find is still an issue and annoying, but now MS is doing the same thing too!   Some programs open in a somewhat normal interface while others open with that ugly white flat one.

Over the past 10 years I have never had to buy desktop hardware based on 'If' Linux supports it. Laptops used to be a problem, especially wireless support, but not so much anymore.

The GUI inconsistencies in Linux are because of no universal GUI API. You have Qt, GTK, KDE, wxWidgets, just to name a few, or you could just go old school and use X directly. Windows OTOH has (had) a single GUI API, you could always override it's behavior or write your own, but from a cost point of view it never made sense to reinvent the wheel and risk compatibility as well as inconsistent GUI behavior between versions. Applications like the GIMP which have a windows port suffer with windows GUI integration because it uses a windows port of GTK.

But I guess that is the nature of open source... If something doesn't work as it "should" open source developers don't weigh in the financial cost in time to write their own version that works how they would like it to work, simply because they are writing it for their own personal satisfaction, on their own time.

Personally I am sick of Windows trying to "enhance" the GUI, and I was satisfied with Gnome 2, until idiots decided to make Gnome 3 and break everything we loved about Gnome 2. These days I just stick to i3wm, it's simple, thin, doesn't hog resources and doesn't get "enhanced" between updates. For legacy software (windows games) I run windows as a VM under KVM with a gaming video card passed through to the VM, this way I get the best of both worlds without being forced into running malware (windows 10) for my working environment.