Unnecessary Complexity

[ogden]

Its become my main way of launching apps just because of how fast it is. For example if i want notepad then during the use of any other app i just hit the flowing keys:
[Win key] N O T [Enter key]

In win10 I hit [ctrl+esc] n o t [enter]. The same with word - it works. Windows key is worst thing MS introduced, not Win10

[Berni]

Well yes it still works in Win 10, but so many times it simply would not find stuff.

For example i wanted a program called "BalenaEtcher" its a nice little image to SD card burning utility that i use a lot for RaspberryPi stuff. I kept typing in "etcher" and it never found anything while on a coworkers Win 7 machine it shows right up.

Then there are cases where typing in too much makes it loose results. I forgot the actual search term where i discovered it went something like this:
s = Skype
sp = Speech recognition
spe = SpeedFan
spee = SpeedFan
speed = SpeedFan
speedc = No results
speedca = SpeedCalc
speedcal = SpeedCalc
speedcalc = No results

Someone please explain how that makes any sense. This never happens on Win 7 but it seams to happen a lot with Win 10

[Buriedcode]

Re: windows 10 searches. Maybe indexing the drives you wish to search will help. I noticed it would do a bing search, when normally I would just hit the windows key, type the first say, five characters of a filename, enter and it would open it.  Turns out an update turned off indexing.  Now it works rather well. 

Granted, seems to be slower for actual files than programs (I have to wait about a second) but it works. It does seem to be significantly faster for files in "documents" and user folders, which is understandable.

[David Hess]

Ah yes. IColumnProvider. That was likely removed for exactly the reason they said it was. A lot of terrible third party utilities were doing a call on the disk for each row including horrid stuff like parsing files by seeking. I saw a corporate deployment for a DMS cause an outage due to that POS. Basically O(wtf) scalability. Hitting PgDn in explorer a few times could hammer SMB pretty hard.

This was 100% legitimate.

So the solution was to remove it for everybody instead of making it enterprise configurable while coincidentally developing a database file system which provides the same functionality?  I don't believe them for an instant.  Microsoft had motive, means, and opportunity.

The database file system of course was a failure and never released.

[IDEngineer]

crap compared to the search that XP, Win2k and even Win9x had. I have a really hard time understanding how they managed to screw up Search, such a basic and fundamental feature that had been perfected decades ago.

While we're pointing out stupidity in user interfaces... the changes in the Windows UI were probably approved by the same morons that completely changed the user interface of Office a few revs back. Microsoft had what, 95% of the office suite market? A worldwide installed base of users trained and familiar with the the UI on Word, Excel, etc. Why take a chance on that? When you completely change a successful, well accepted user interface it's just as easy to take a look at competitors as the "new" version of an old program... they're both completely new and foreign. Whereas minor tweaks to an existing, well known interface keeps those users happy and keeps those roving eyes from straying.

At least with Win8's radical UI change they can blame their (failed) theory of standardizing the UI across desktop and mobile platforms. With Office, there was no such rationale. Just change for change's sake. I understand the concept of periodic upgrades to extract more revenue from existing customers, but this is tantamount to the automobile industry rearranging the pedals so the gas is on the far left, the clutch is on the far right, the brakes are operated with your left hand, and the turn signals are controlled by your knee. In the end they're all the same functions, but you've abandoned all existing familiarity and training... for what?!?

[ogden]

Granted, seems to be slower for actual files than programs (I have to wait about a second) but it works.

That's why I always split system/data volumes, run indexing only on system volume. As @bd139 said - I come from old days when you had to organize stuff to be able to find it later.

[james_s]

I don’t use search. I am from the old days where you had to put stuff in sensible places.

Either your memory is much better than mine, or you have a lot less stuff on your PC. I have >300,000 files on my PC, programs, documents, datasheets, sourcecode, photos, music, videos, etc. I try to keep it reasonably organized but there's no way I can locate something faster than a decent search. I use search extensively.

That doesn't change the fact that whether you personally use it or not, it is absolutely inexcusible for a modern operating system to not have a robust and effective Search function, it is a feature that was perfected decades ago.

[Rick Law]

Dual batteries has one very significant advantage, even if the second battery is a small built in one. You can hot swap the other battery without shutting down, not a feature that everyone needs but if you do need to do a lot of work away from power it's really nice to have.

You can hook the laptop up to power for that. There are situations imaginable where that's not possible, but those seem to be increasingly rare.

Not when you don't have an outlet near by such as on a flight or on a train.  (I know this point has been raised already, but just want to add this as a "vote of agreement.")

My old Fujitsu (P7010) has a DVD bay that can take a second battery.  Long after it aged and reduced to less than 1 hour run time, I still took it with on long trips (along with a two or three regular batteries) just so main batteries can be changed without too much interruption to my work.

[Mr. Scram]

Not when you don't have an outlet near by such as on a flight or on a train.  (I know this point has been raised already, but just want to add this as a "vote of agreement.")

My old Fujitsu (P7010) has a DVD bay that can take a second battery.  Long after it aged and reduced to less than 1 hour run time, I still took it with on long trips (along with a two or three regular batteries) just so main batteries can be changed without too much interruption to my work.

Still, the difference becomes fairly inconsequential when it's carrying a large battery versus carrying many. I can see how there could be a difference, though.

[Rick Law]

crap compared to the search that XP, Win2k and even Win9x had. I have a really hard time understanding how they managed to screw up Search, such a basic and fundamental feature that had been perfected decades ago.

While we're pointing out stupidity in user interfaces... the changes in the Windows UI were probably approved by the same morons that completely changed the user interface of Office a few revs back. Microsoft had what, 95% of the office suite market? A worldwide installed base of users trained and familiar with the the UI on Word, Excel, etc. Why take a chance on that? When you completely change a successful, well accepted user interface it's just as easy to take a look at competitors as the "new" version of an old program... they're both completely new and foreign. Whereas minor tweaks to an existing, well known interface keeps those users happy and keeps those roving eyes from straying.

At least with Win8's radical UI change they can blame their (failed) theory of standardizing the UI across desktop and mobile platforms. With Office, there was no such rationale. Just change for change's sake. I understand the concept of periodic upgrades to extract more revenue from existing customers, but this is tantamount to the automobile industry rearranging the pedals so the gas is on the far left, the clutch is on the far right, the brakes are operated with your left hand, and the turn signals are controlled by your knee. In the end they're all the same functions, but you've abandoned all existing familiarity and training... for what?!?

I think the path of Windows and other software/hardware from these similar industries are very much similar to movies, sequels, and remakes from an entirely different industry.  They are similar because they are facing the same problem: how do you keep the money coming in and (hopefully) at an increasing profit margin.  Predictable result occurred: trying milk it to death inevitably results in not giving creativity and quality adequate consideration.

Taking a random movie series such as Alien/Aliens...  Alien was good, Aliens was better, but then they lost their creativity and start to just redo the same thing but only worst.  It is worst because what was done was not done because it needed doing, it was done merely to make the end product look new/different.  So, the aggressiveness and/or the size of the monster (dinosaur) is always getting bigger but the movie is not getting any better.

And then there are the non-sequel retelling of the same tired old story - a reimplementation of the same idea/product without any real reason to do so (other than just so to have a new product/version).   Avatar, The Last Samurai, and Dances With Wolves are really same story.  Last Samurai was pretty good, and in my opinion, better than Dances With Wolves.  Avatar on the other hand is a retelling that show-cased what the phrase "lack of originality" means.

[IDEngineer]

Alien was good, Aliens was better, but then they lost their creativity and start to just redo the same thing but only worst.

Interesting analogy, and I agree to a point. But IMHO Alien was more of a suspense movie, while Aliens was an action movie. Slightly different genres based on the same basic premise. And I agree both were good, and that everything since has been rewarmed spittle.

Relating that back to software: If a later version is different enough (like Aliens was different from Alien), then maybe futzing with the user interface is warranted. But when it's just a remake of a remake (every other movie in the franchise, or Windows, or Office), why ALSO make it hard for users by forcing them to relearn the entire UI? You're already stealing their money for something that probably isn't a true "upgrade", isn't that enough pain to inflict?

[Tomorokoshi]

Another view regarding operating systems: Is it a tool, or is it the product?

MS seems to regard Windows as the product, not the tool one uses to get other things done. UNIX is a tool. Linux seems to be a product. Windows now has too much of its own personality that it imposes upon the process of using it as the tool to enable other work. The distinction between OS and application, OS and game, OS and browser is blurred.

The proclaimed benefit of interoperability results in a lack of orthogonality, as defined by Brooks in his discussions on computer design.

I don't know what the answer is. Microsoft, Apple, Google, Linux... all have their heavy imposition of a walled patch of weeds on the computer environment.

[madires]

Linux != linux distribution!

[Rick Law]

Alien was good, Aliens was better, but then they lost their creativity and start to just redo the same thing but only worst.

Interesting analogy, and I agree to a point. But IMHO Alien was more of a suspense movie, while Aliens was an action movie. Slightly different genres based on the same basic premise. And I agree both were good, and that everything since has been rewarmed spittle.

Relating that back to software: If a later version is different enough (like Aliens was different from Alien), then maybe futzing with the user interface is warranted. But when it's just a remake of a remake (every other movie in the franchise, or Windows, or Office), why ALSO make it hard for users by forcing them to relearn the entire UI? You're already stealing their money for something that probably isn't a true "upgrade", isn't that enough pain to inflict?

I agree with your points about alien v aliens.  That would be kind of like the difference between WinXP and Server 2003.  Basic same core but with the mix of focus shifted from on aspect to an other - action vs suspense for Alien/Aliens and for WinXP/Server2003 single-user focused vs multi-user non-gui operations focused.

I am also in agreement with you points regarding the forced change of UI as negative change for the users.  Microsoft may have a reason behind it such as  "unifying" tablet, smartphone, PC interactions.  That I think is hopelessly stupid.  For system equipped with mouse, keyboard, and a larger screen.  In my opinion, Windows 7 and earlier with all its faults, is a far better UI than Andriod in my opinion.  Andiod is so deeply crippled by its focus on touch-screen as main/only input device that makes certain operation madnessly convoluted when using a mouse and keyboard.

[james_s]

The entire use case of a desktop or laptop PC is completely different than that of a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet. About the only overlap is a web browser. What works well on a mobile device is horrible for a desktop and vice versa. Trying to unify the experience means you get the worst of both worlds, a platform crippled by all the compromises. It works much better if you have two distinctly separate platforms, each optimized for the the sort of use they're intended for. It's good to have a bit of consistency between the two but they should not be the same. This is one thing that Apple did right. iOS and MacOS look related, but iOS doesn't try to be a desktop PC and the desktop OS doesn't try to be a smartphone.

[Mr. Scram]

The entire use case of a desktop or laptop PC is completely different than that of a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet. About the only overlap is a web browser. What works well on a mobile device is horrible for a desktop and vice versa. Trying to unify the experience means you get the worst of both worlds, a platform crippled by all the compromises. It works much better if you have two distinctly separate platforms, each optimized for the the sort of use they're intended for. It's good to have a bit of consistency between the two but they should not be the same. This is one thing that Apple did right. iOS and MacOS look related, but iOS doesn't try to be a desktop PC and the desktop OS doesn't try to be a smartphone.

Currently they've made it work fairly well, though. People love shitting on things that aren't great right away, but Microsoft does play the long game well provided they stick to it. They keep polishing their turd until it's actually good. That's exactly what they did with the Surface Pro line, which is at this point both a really nice device and still getting better with each release.

[bd139]

The pile of broken BER units in the office says otherwise. Gone back to thinkpads after about a year...

Good idea. Low quality implementation. Microsoft all over.

I suspect Microsoft would be doing much better if they hadn’t chased all the decent people off to work at google and Apple.

[David Hess]

The search in Win10 is absolutely hopeless, it will refuse to find files that are right there on that PC and then insist on searching the web! WTF? That has been useful to me exactly zero times, if I want to search the web I know how to open a browser! The Win7 search is much better but even that is crap compared to the search that XP, Win2k and even Win9x had. I have a really hard time understanding how they managed to screw up Search, such a basic and fundamental feature that had been perfected decades ago. I generally use the third party program "Everything" but it's a pain to have to use 3rd party stuff just to perform a basic function that has long been a built in feature of the OS.

I have noticed this also.  Besides missing results, it is just less capable than search on 2000 and XP.

I suspect the poor design and lack of features is driven by wanting to drive users to using cloud storage.

[IDEngineer]

The entire use case of a desktop or laptop PC is completely different than that of a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet.

Extremely well said, thank you. Perfect summation of the situation.

[IDEngineer]

Thinkpads may be good for business, but from a consumer's perspective, it's really not that good. Quality control is too bad.

Weighing in here... this is my first ThinkPad. I pretty much avoided them (and Toshiba) in the past because of the mind-numbingly stupid "eraserhead" pointing stick. Yeah, I know some people love them but it adds an unnecessary degree of abstraction to the cursor motion. A mouse or touchpad is directly correlated to the cursor position, whereas the eraserhead just sets a vector [direction + speed] and you have to time it right to land where you want. Generally this involves successively smaller iterations as you "walk it in" to the target. Why make it more complicated? Keep the user input as closely and directly associated to the output as possible.

However, when evaluating products, I try really hard to be objective. So when I made a list of requirements and started filtering through what was available that met that list, the ThinkPad X200 series shot straight to the top. I had a built-in bias against ThinkPads, and I'll admit the sexy profile of the hyper-thin offerings from HP, Dell, and others was emotionally attractive, but in an honest objective analysis the X200 series was simply the correct choice. Then it was simply a matter of determining how late in the series I could go and still have Win7 drivers downloadable from the Lenovo website: The X260. And here I am.

In ThinkPad's defense, I haven't had a single QC problem. I don't think the feel of the ThinkPad keyboard is the object of worship that so many seem to, I dislike where the discrete touchpad buttons are located (again due to that idiotic eraserhead), and the inverted locations of the Ctrl and Fn keys would be unforgivable if the BIOS didn't have the option to flip them (the fact that they have to even offer such an option should tell them something!). But even with its flaws, the X260 really delivers if what you want is an Engineer's rugged super-portable with lots of CPU power, lots of ports, lots of battery life, and sane screen resolution. YMMV.

[james_s]

Currently they've made it work fairly well, though. People love shitting on things that aren't great right away, but Microsoft does play the long game well provided they stick to it. They keep polishing their turd until it's actually good. That's exactly what they did with the Surface Pro line, which is at this point both a really nice device and still getting better with each release.

Bullshit. Not great right away? Windows 8 came out 6 years ago, they've had 6 years which is an eternity to polish that turd and the result is still crap that causes my blood pressure to rise out of frustration every time I have to work with it, and that's after 2 years of being forced to deal with Win10 daily on a laptop at a former job. The surface works ok as a niche system but the guys I know who have them use them almost exclusively as laptops. Laptops and smartphones are fundamentally different devices that are typically used in very different ways. Bolting them together will never result in an uncompromised experience because there are fundamental differences in the way the two should work. After 6 years of pushing this new touch-everywhere paradigm it is still only a niche, the Surface and similar devices are still quite rare, even living in a wealthy tech hub about 10 miles from Microsoft and working in the same industry I know exactly two people who have Surface machines, a handful with laptops that incorporate a tourchscreen of which most never use the touch part, and precisely zero desktop PCs with touch screens.

Also I'll add that I'm not shitting on the surface so much as I'm upset that as a long time Windows user with a large investment in the Windows ecosystem, the platform has been destroyed by compromise in order to fit into this new paradigm they are pushing. If they wanted to make a touch version of Windows that's fine, but they've ruined the desktop Windows experience in order to shoehorn it into touch-centric devices. Ugly UI, gigantic widgets with acres of useless whitespace, silly mobile apps, useless voice activated search toy, it's the worst and most user hostile operating system I've ever used and Windows used to be the best on the market IMO.

[bd139]

Gone back to thinkpads after about a year...

I suspect Microsoft would be doing much better if they hadn’t chased all the decent people off to work at google and Apple.

1. Thinkpads may be good for business, but from a consumer's perspective, it's really not that good. Quality control is too bad. My X1C6 had 3 screen swaps to get a perfect screen, and even this one has light bleeding strips on the edges, but I decided not to bother with a 4th return & repair.

2. Apple also has a lot of annoying things. Having an option to use ctrl as cmd would be appreciated (not remapping -- I have VMs running that depend on real ctrl key and cmd key). Also, having an option to get rid of GateKeeper once for all is appreciated. Apple releases semi-finished features too. Try to boot with eGPU attached on computers with FileVault enabled and see what happens. Try to connect to a samba share that's not available, and Finder may get stuck in retrying forever. Video games run with stuttering while both CPU and GPU are on low utilization. My significantly inferior PC runs the same game butter smooth. Trackpad gestures fail to work in OpenGL full screen mode, while shortcuts of the same commands work.

The mentioned bugs were discovered from my 3 days of use on my brand new 2018 Mac Mini w/Parallels Win 10. I'm sure there're more to be discovered.

Trick with thinkpads is to buy a 2 year old unit. You’re out of the failure bathtub curve and they usually work.

I just had to return a new MacBook Air in December because it didn’t fucking work properly.

[ogden]

Trick with thinkpads is to buy a 2 year old unit. You’re out of the failure bathtub curve and they usually work.

Right. IBM Thinkpads worked out of the box. Now all that's left - name and rumors of glory.

[bd139]

No they didn't. Had plenty of early failures from IBM! That included AS400 and RS6K and most of their software products...

[Rick Law]

...
Currently they've made it work fairly well, though. People love shitting on things that aren't great right away, but Microsoft does play the long game well provided they stick to it. They keep polishing their turd until it's actually good. That's exactly what they did with the Surface Pro line, which is at this point both a really nice device and still getting better with each release.

They don't "stick to it" except for just a small number of their products: OS, Office, Xbox, and a few others.

Bing is on the way out, Internet Explorer is on the way out, so on.  If you have a Zune equipped Ford, you have a zombie MP3 player in your car.  A lone-MP3 player you can throw out easy, a car is rather more expensive to just dispose when Microsoft gives up.

Microsoft was once the leader in Smart Phone.  Before iPhone was introduced, Microsoft smart phones was the number 1 by market share.  Where are they now?  Practically non-existing.  I am sure Microsoft will try again with this market space.  For the majority of users, PC no longer has a place at home.  It has been replaced by a Smart Phone in the pocket.  So unless MS redo their phone products, they will be reduced to an App seller with very limited influence in the consumer market.

That said, UI-wise, I would still prefer the UI on my 10+ year old Microsoft's smartphone over Andriod of today.  But, both got beat out by the convenience of a dumb flip-phone.   (That it is void of most spying/snooping was the deciding factor.)