Windows is getting disgusting

[setq]

There's SELinux as well which is very nice when you take the time to understand it.

[helius]

But is it PIG DISGUSTING??

[Faith]

There's SELinux as well which is very nice when you take the time to understand it.

Amen to that. SELinux is such an absolute blessing and charm to use that it saddens me that so many users (and admins of Linux server deployments especially) choose "setenforce 0" as a solution to any SELinux-related problem rather than to try understand what SELinux is for and what it can accomplish for operating system security.

And while it can seem extremely daunting to some to write their own SELinux rule modules it really isn't that complicated. And it can be quite enlightening too!

Not to mention there are many scenarios where using SELinux to limit what resource an application can access is more desirable than using a sandbox or virtual machine. It pains me whenever I'm using Windows and I cannot say "I do not want some.exe to be able to write to some folder or read some other folder" and et cetera.

And it goes far beyond that. You can use SELinux to manage very specific permissions for almost any kind of resource (file system, network, process, and so on).

[setq]

Exactly. Our windows only guys seem to fire up a windows VM in Hyper-V every time they need process isolation. It sucks and is expensive. Hopefully windows 2016 containers will make that less horrible.

There's also LXC if you need full logical domain isolation in Linux.

[Faith]

The problem with Windows 2016 is that it requires Windows 10 to manage remotely. And with Microsoft's whole "Windows Server installations should be Core and ALL administration should be via remote MMC" nonsense that becomes a little bit of a problem if you're still on Windows 7 or 8.

And let's not pretend that PowerShell can accomplish 100% of what we need 100% of the time. It doesn't.

Don't get me wrong though, I always run my Linux Servers without ANY GUI component installed. I prefer CLI over GUI for almost anything with a server-ish role. The problem with Windows is that it was not designed with CLI-only use in mind as with Linux or Cisco IOS. Hence why it's called... Windows.

And Windows 10 can go to hell until such time it lets me control what updates and what drivers I want on my PC.

PowerShell definitely has its pros and especially with WMI et al it's wonderful how easy it is to pipe arrays of data from one location to another while filtering said data on the fly. But all that comes crashing down rather quick once you encounter a service which is missing one specific option in PS.

Especially when that happens with a Windows-standard service. And the length of some PS cmdlets can be annoying too. Eep.

[setq]

True. Powershell is a turd as well as the abstraction is broken.

I just spent 30 minutes this morning in powershell writing a script to append a variable to the system path. So first attempt I tried env Path, but no user scoped. So second attempt, I tried the stuff in [Environment]. No banana - it expands paths so I can't update them afterwards. It's all either behind COM, some clever magic or an API somewhere. So eventually I found it in the registry and wrote this:

Code: [Select]

[Microsoft.Win32.Registry]::LocalMachine.OpenSubKey('SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment', $true)
$sysPath = $key.GetValue('Path', $null, 'DoNotExpandEnvironmentNames');
write-host "$sysPath"
foreach($path in $paths) {
    if ($sysPath -like "*$path*") {
        continue;
    }
    $sysPath = $sysPath + ";" + $path;
}
$key.SetValue('Path', $sysPath, 'ExpandString');
$key.Dispose();
Compare to Linux

Code: [Select]

echo "PATH=$PATH:/whatever" >> /etc/profile.d/add-x-to-path


[dannyf]

the quality went up through w2k but then started down with XP.

W2k and W2k3 are both very small and don't load the CPU much.

XP is also quite good in that regard. The downside is that the 64-bit version is hard to come by. I think for small applications, XP is the best of them all.

Win7 has a good 64-bit system that can run on large machines. It is a little bloated and drains more cpu resources. A good compromise in my view between performance / capabilities. To me, it is a good OS for most users. More overhead than XP but gives the user more optionality / upgradability as well.

[dannyf]

"I very strongly suspect there is a correlation between Microsoft laying off of testing staff and the drop in quality of their software"

I think if you ask MS workers they know precisely what caused such a downturn - just watch the mix of employees and managers and see who get promoted over the last 10 or 15 years.

But it is politically incorrect to say it outlaud.

[rrinker]

 I also suggest some people play around soem more with Powershell, using either the supplied dev environment or the free Quest PowerGUI tool.

 I have PowerShell scripts that synchronize users and  passwords between to otherwise unconnected AD domains - complex enough for you?  I've written others like the one that pulls AD attributes and converts and uploads it to a card access system (keycards for doors, etc).

 My biggest complain with Powershell is that there was no Control-C/Control-V for copy/paste. To have to take your hands off the keyboard to sue the mouse was utterly stupid, and whatever person at Microsoft who decided that should be forced to update 99K row spreadsheets all day every day but they cannot use the arrows to change to the next cell, they must click with the mouse. Luckily this is resolved in Windows 10, ctrl-c and ctrl-v are back and it makes life SO much easier.

 Only other complaint I have is just because I am a horrible typist - and the Powershell commands are just ridiculously long in many cases. Yes, there is tab complete, which helps in many cases, but still. They've carried it over to other command line items as well - prior to Exchange 2016, you could run various install tasks from the command prompt, no big deal. With 2016, when you do this, you must ALSO type out, IN FULL "-iacceptexchangeserverlicenseterms" or the setup will abort. I guess people were trying to use this as a loophole since they were not presented with the box to check as you are with the GUI setup, therefore I guess you can say you never agreed to anything.

[Howardlong]

I occasionally dabble in Powershell, and it is very powerful, but frankly getting your head around it conceptually enough to be able to be reasonably proficient at writing your own scripts, particularly from scratch, is an uphill struggle.

It is very powerful, and have frankensteined some really useful scripts together myself, but I don't really know what I'm doing with it.

Biggest problem I find in a real enterprise environments is that they're generally so locked down, it's generally impossible to run centralised scripts across the estate, which is precisely where powershell should come into its own.

[fubar.gr]

Windows popped a warning that it was going to restart in 30 minutes.

The only options available were Restart Now and OK. Since I had a video rendering going on for the previous 3 hours and needed at least 2 hours more to finish, I clicked OK. I thought I could cancel the scheduled restart by typing shutdown /a in the command line.

But apparently it was a different type of scheduled restart and it was unaffected by the shutdown command!

I was frantically searching the internet for a way to cancel the restart, but to no avail!

Then I thought the Windows programming team cannot be that stupid, there will be another prompt to postpone or cancel the restart when the time expires.

Apparently they are that stupid. There was no prompt, as the 30 minute mark passed I was instantly hit with the pale blue restart screen!

W T F !!!!!

Now my rendering is gone and I have to Redo from Start. Not such a big deal, I will do it on my other computer which is much faster.

But what if this was a mission critical computer that should never be turned off? Like hospital life support system of something?

And if I understand correctly, unless you disable updates entirely, it is not possible to avoid those automatic restarts. At least Windows 7 had a 4 hour postpone button that you could keep pressing indefinitely.

[RoGeorge]

Windows popped a warning that it was going to restart in 30 minutes.

...

Then I thought the Windows programming team cannot be that stupid, there will be another prompt to postpone or cancel the restart when the time expires.

Apparently they are that stupid. There was no prompt, as the 30 minute mark passed I was instantly hit with the pale blue restart screen!

W T F !!!!!
...

LOL man, you are so picky!
 

There are other incredible features included in the Windows 10 OS that deserves all the imaginable WTFs ever. One of them is the keylogger that is embedded in Win10. Not kidding, Microsoft put it there, just google for it.

Returning to the annoying restart problem, my workaround is to always keep the updates disabled, and enable the updates only when I decide to manually update. To do that I am running these 2 scripts as Administrator:

- Run 'Update Enable.cmd' as Administrator
- Manually update and restart after updates are installed
- After restart, run 'Update Disable.cmd' as administrator

'Update Enable.cmd' script

Code: [Select]

@echo off

whoami /groups | findstr /c:" S-1-5-32-544 " | findstr /c:" Enabled group" && goto :isadministrator
echo ERROR - nothing done. This script MUST be run as administrator.
echo.
pause
exit

:isadministrator
REM enable then start Windows Update service "wuauserv"
sc config wuauserv start=demand
sc start wuauserv
REM open Windows Update GUI
start ms-settings:windowsupdate
echo.
echo !!! To start a Windows Update, press the "Check for updates" button.
echo !!! After the update, don't forget to run "Update Disable.cmd" as administrator.
echo.
echo This window can be closed now.
pause


'Update Disable.cmd' script

Code: [Select]

@echo off

whoami /groups | findstr /c:" S-1-5-32-544 " | findstr /c:" Enabled group" && goto :isadministrator
echo ERROR - nothing done. This script MUST be run as administrator.
echo.
pause
exit

:isadministrator
REM stop then disable Windows Update service "wuauserv"
sc stop wuauserv
sc config wuauserv start=disabled
echo.
pause


[rrinker]

 Several workable solutions in this thread:

http://superuser.com/questions/957267/how-to-disable-automatic-reboots-in-windows-10

The one about disabling the Reboot task in task scheduler even likely would have stopped the forced reboot that was about to happen.

[RoGeorge]

Oh, I forgot to tell that is not the programmers fault at all for all the annoyances of this type.
In my opinion, it's a decision way above the programmer's heads. The programmers must obey to these kind of enforcing.

Other fact less known is how the user can not block some IP addresses because they are hardcoded inside dlls, so it's not so easy to stop Win10 calling home, or how Win10 blocks some web addresses no matter what, disregarding the user's or administrator's settings.

I also love how after each update, most of my custom settings are restored to their unwanted default state. Isn't that wonderful?
 

[onesixright]

Is getting?? 

It's always been utter BS. 15 years ago turned my back on it, never looked back and had a single regret.

If, in rare occasions, I need to use it, MS quickly reminds me not much has changed. 

[Red Squirrel]

Windows popped a warning that it was going to restart in 30 minutes.

The only options available were Restart Now and OK. Since I had a video rendering going on for the previous 3 hours and needed at least 2 hours more to finish, I clicked OK. I thought I could cancel the scheduled restart by typing shutdown /a in the command line.

But apparently it was a different type of scheduled restart and it was unaffected by the shutdown command!

I was frantically searching the internet for a way to cancel the restart, but to no avail!

Then I thought the Windows programming team cannot be that stupid, there will be another prompt to postpone or cancel the restart when the time expires.

Apparently they are that stupid. There was no prompt, as the 30 minute mark passed I was instantly hit with the pale blue restart screen!

W T F !!!!!

Now my rendering is gone and I have to Redo from Start. Not such a big deal, I will do it on my other computer which is much faster.

But what if this was a mission critical computer that should never be turned off? Like hospital life support system of something?

And if I understand correctly, unless you disable updates entirely, it is not possible to avoid those automatic restarts. At least Windows 7 had a 4 hour postpone button that you could keep pressing indefinitely.

I hate that kind of crap.  you should have control of your own computer, but yet it seems with windows 10 you don't.  I would never touch that OS with a 19 1/2 foot pole.

My workplace does the same type of crap though with 7.  You get a dialog box and have 20 minutes to restart.   It will happen completely randomly, sometimes in middle of the day, other times in middle of night. My dept is a 24/7 operation and can't afford to go down in middle of the night, but the ones who do this don't care.  It's some random IT dept in a tower somewhere down south, it's not even our own IT dept.

I have yet to figure out how to cancel one of their shutdowns as it does not use the shutdown command.   The only thing I can do is change my clock to buy more time, but if you try to do a whole shift that way you eventually lose your trust with the domain then things go south.
 

[RoGeorge]

Is getting?? 

It's always been utter BS.

This time it's not about that.

The title should read "Windows is getting disgusting [compared to other previous Windows versions]".

[james_s]

I'm forced to use Windows 10 at work and I curse it every day. It's started annoying me so much that I use my Linux box for almost everything and only use Win10 to run Outlook for my email/calendar. I absolutely despise the flat, bland UI of Win10, it looks to be like 15 year old open source stuff. It actually hurts my eyes to look at it for long, so many of the screens are a sea of white with no contrast between UI elements.

That's not even mentioning the useless gimmicky features, search function that insists on searching the web when I'm looking for files that reside on my own PC (Why??!  ) the forced reboots that occur whether or not I'm around to give permission. I also find it extremely annoying that they call everything "apps", it reminds me of one of those weird old guys who tries to fit in with a bunch of teenagers by using their slang.

[jonovid]

we need open source windows or openwindows to go with a new open CAD app.  pull the plug on microsoft! 

[switchedmodepsu]

If you absolutely LOATHE the idea of being downgraded to the abhorrent insult that is Windows 10, you may do well to try Steve Gibson's highly recommended tool, "Never10" which does what it says, in essence. Steve is VERY well known, Google "Steve Gibson GRC" or watch his show "Security Now" over at http://twit.tv


Here's "Never10": https://www.grc.com/never10.htm

[Hensingler]

Q: What is Windows 10?

A: Some software Microsoft wrote to promote linux and Macs.

[eugenenine]

we need open source windows or openwindows to go with a new open CAD app.  pull the plug on microsoft! 

ReactOS.  But why, just switch to Linux.  Open CAD isn't the only reason to switch.

[amspire]

we need open source windows or openwindows to go with a new open CAD app.  pull the plug on microsoft! 

ReactOS.  But why, just switch to Linux.  Open CAD isn't the only reason to switch.

I did try Reactos last week to see how it was going and it still is basically unusable for normal use. My Reactos Virtualbox VM must have crashed about 5 times before I had even installed any programs. Also it still only does FAT file systems - no NTFS. Reactos say it is still in Alpha, and they mean it. Left and Right clicking and Double clicking on programs does not always do anything. Single threaded.

Not really an option.

[TerraHertz]

Here's some joyous news I'm sure you'll all love.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/microsoft-new-cpus-to-only-work-on-windows-10-windows-7-to-support-older-chips-499000.shtml
Microsoft: New CPUs to Only Work on Windows 10, Windows 7 to Support Older Chips
Microsoft has recently confirmed that new CPUs will only work with Windows 10, so in case you're planning to purchase a new computer in the next 12 months, you'll have to upgrade to the new operating system.
The new support policy comes into effect with Intel's new 6th-generation CPUs (codenamed Skylake) and will affect all future CPUs, the company confirmed in a statement.

You don't like Windows 10 treating you like a Microsoft asset? Too bad, Microsoft and Intel are going to force you to use it anyway. That 'not with Win7" stuff is just the usual Microsft pretense of an alternative, to hold off the enraged mobs with pitchforks and flaming torches. But it won't last long.

"Windows is getting disgusting" doesn't even come close. Whole lot of people at Microsoft and Intel deserve to be stood in front of a wall and shot, to put an end to this bullshit.

[rdl]

Isn't Microsoft just saying you'll have to upgrade if you want "support"? As in, updates won't be provided for Windows 7 on the newer CPUs after Microsoft's cutoff date.