If I was a multimillion dollar corporation trying to follow the best operating system I had made thus far (ignoring the splatter that was Windows 8 and 8.1) there are some things I wouldn't do:
- introduce telemetry
- introduce unnecessary updates and remove the ability to choose not to install them. security updates are fine, feature updates that break things but are only temporarily avoided are unacceptable.
- remove theming. I would not remove the ability to use the themes my designers had created over the years.
- introduce a "Settings" app that fragments the OS configuration (especially if my operating system already had a weird second settings menu that you could only get to by running a command like, for example, `msconfig`).
If I did do these things, I would probably introduce them in a beta operating system and continue to support my flagship product because it would, in this hypothetical scenario, be much friendlier to the average user (whom in this scenario I target).
Even with the somewhat limited pro edition, our IT is able to give us months and months of uptime for certain critical computers (i'm in biotech). Heck we have a W10 pro machine that handles building security and it has over 2 years of uptime.
The problem is the disconnect between HN and the average user who is dumb as rocks when it comes to tech. The average user expects the OS to magically take over the sysadmin duties. They just want it to be as simple and seamless as their phone - not an entirely unreasonable expectation given that the phone is sharing a lot of tasks that were only done on dedicated machines.
The process to re-approve a machine after a bloody update is painful(to say the least).
Even for something as lousy as a BMS system of a reasonable size (100 bacnet controller) will still take 1 week or more to fully test and approve. Keep in midn that these are machine where the only things that you can plug in are those whitelisted at the end of the test.
Even the approval to replace a keyb+mouse set takes a few days and requires a sys admin to go to site.
Heh, Yes on re-reading the comment it does sound ironic. :)
Our IT is not purposely keeping a security hole open to boast about uptime. If there was a security impact to our particular configuration/use-case, we'd patch it for sure.
I would argue that the telemetry, updates and theming are not major concerns for Windows customers because they can be addressed or simply don’t care, but I can see your point of view and in my opinion are legitimate (though not unique) downsides to windows.
I’m actually impressed with Microsoft’s dedication to unify decades of settings UI/Ux. it’s a commendable goal, and while I don’t deny I have had to lookup how to do something in the “new” way many times, I believe it’s worth in and end the end will result in a more logical and consistent configuration interface.
The problem is that they haven't unified decades of settings. They further fragmented the settings and made everything much worse. There are still many things you simply cannot do with the new settings app. Now there's several different places (control panel, settings app, policy editor, etc) you need to look to get any configuration changes done - and the next Windows update will probably revert your changes anyway! It's pretty user-hostile at this point.
Most of the settings reverts ars bugs not caught by Insiders. A volunteer test force is always going to be biased by the types of people willing to participate.
Personally, since a major Windows update or two ago I only have one settings panel I actively use that is still a Win32 dialog and not directly in the modern Settings app. That's the Environment Variables dialog, and being a developer/power user control panel I can see how that would be a lower priority to merge to the new Settings. Though it is still interesting to point out that the Environment Variables dialog was improved in Windows 10 over its Windows 7 counterpart.
It shouldn't be surprising to anyone at this point that Microsoft is prioritizing settings updates and merging settings dialogs into the modern app in priority order based on available telemetry of what's most commonly used. It never surprises me that most of the people still complaining that their pet settings that they care about haven't migrated to the modern Settings apps are the same that disable telemetry and complain about it. Microsoft doesn't know you are using that setting often if you aren't giving them the telemetry to understand that, it's pretty simple.
> Most of the settings reverts ars bugs not caught by Insiders
This is simply not true. Nowadays I have a freaking ps script to run after each upgrade, to set things back how I configured them.
> Personally, since a major Windows update or two ago I only have one settings panel I actively use that is still a Win32 dialog and not directly in the modern Settings app.
So you never had to use the Network Adapters window? I need that one pretty often, the new one in Settings is not adequate. How do you add or remove features from Windows, like HyperV or WSL? That one is also inside the old Add/Remove Programs applet (the features on demand in Settings app is a different mechanism, with different content and applications. Yay for consistency).
> This is simply not true. Nowadays I have a freaking ps script to run after each upgrade, to set things back how I configured them.
It is true: Microsoft has said several times in Insider blog posts that most settings reverts during updates are considered to be bugs, and if you find one the best place to file that bug report is Feedback Hub. If you care to see that corrected, I can only recommend you try searching Feedback Hub for your specific issues and filing them if you can't find existing reports.
> So you never had to use the Network Adapters window? I need that one pretty often, the new one in Settings is not adequate.
Can't say that I have a regular need for that, no. Most of my devices have only a single network adapter in active use at any given time and the modern Settings has been adequate for my needs.
> How do you add or remove features from Windows, like HyperV or WSL?
The last time I activated or deactivated either of those it was directly in PowerShell.
Average users don't really use those settings. Connecting to WiFi is handled by the new ui and that's what most users use. I'd say part of having so much telemetry actually helps in this respect for Microsoft to know what's used and what's not. Also for additional features even in the power user case is probably used once after a fresh install.
I think that’s largely valid criticism. I would say the fundamental problem of settings control fragmentation is the fundamental challenge at the heat of the windows project - it’s trying to be all things to all people. for example, the three examples you gave are each intended for different audiences (power users, non-power users, and the enterprise respectively).
I think my ideal would be for the new settings paradigm developed completely parallel to the classical settings interfaces. I don’t think it’s a good idea to deprecate classic settings, maybe not forever but absolutely not before you have parity.
I would prefer them to try and tackle whole host of issues before unified settings. Transition to a CoW fs (rip refs), separating configuration and state from the registry and more robust display scaling for starters. That said, I think settings fragmentation as-is is needlessly complex. And there have been real improvements in my opinion in some of the new settings ui/ux, for example the new per-application audio I/O control menu. The classic network properties and settings are truly awful, something as simple setting a static IP requires a series of dependant and uncloseable property panes that can’t be used (or even visible in some cases) while you are using a child of the previous pane. It’s been largely unchanged since windows 95, and in the past couple years I’ve liked where they are headed. I think that if they really can achieve their goal of a central, monolithic settings control interface then that would be a real value.
> I would argue that the telemetry, updates and theming are not major concerns for Windows customers
This assertion is based on a false premise. It can be a concern, but people don't know how to address it, or are ridiculed for caring about something that is not readily provable (except in retrospect, if that).
There's a ton of documentation at this point on everything Windows collects as telemetry.
(Most of the same telemetry is in Windows 7, fwiw. A lot of the telemetry systems were added in Vista or XP. The biggest change was Windows 10 turned on a lot more of it on by default rather than nagging people to join the various "Customer Experience Improvement Programs" and consolidating all those opt-in/opt-out "improvement programs" from a half-dozen different nag dialogs to a single privacy settings panel.)
Directx is the only reason I'll be upgrading soon, otherwise I'm still booting into win 7 in another partition for a few old games, but i really want to play cyberpunk 2077 when it comes out so yeah...
"This project collects usage data and sends it to Microsoft to help improve our products and services. Read our privacy statement to learn more. Diagnostic data is disabled in development builds by default, and can be enabled with the SEND_DIAGNOSTICS build flag."
Windows 7 is faster and more stable for me than Windows 10 has been. I am forced to keep a drive around with it so that I can run audio recording applications without glitches. I have tried every optimization point that I am aware of, but latency mon shows a variety of problem in Win 10, most prominently with NDIS.sys.
None of those problems exist in Windows 7 for me. It just works for music and it works cleanly without problems, just as it has since I first installed it. Using GRUB makes it easy to maintain multiple OS's, but it sure would be better if Windows 10 didn't have the problems that it does.
Windows 7 was definitely the peak Microsoft desktop experience. Windows 8 was a trash fire of a tablet OS (no matter what Microsoft might say otherwise, that's what it was) that I was fortunate enough never to have to experience first-hand on any of my devices, but that I did have enough experience with secondhand to see how bad it is. Windows 10 is better than 8, but that's a very low bar, and it's still worse than 7.
Windows 10 has an absolute garbage mess of different configuration windows, some that look several decades old but at least are usable and some that have clearly been redesigned recently but which you can't find anything in. USB peripherals can either mount as drivers or as something called a "Device" (even if all they're really doing is mounting as a drive), and the latter is completely unintuitive and nearly impossible to figure out how to unmount safely. File/application finding is a still a dumpster fire that never works for me. There's garbage Cortana integrated into the start menu that always seems to want to search the web via Bing (???!?!!), but can't reliably find files or locally installed applications, even by exact name match. If I wanted to search the Web I'd be searching in a Web browser! Hell, even searching files by exact name or name prefix in the Finder search window just flat out doesn't work.
I don't understand how Windows 10 managed to get such fundamentals so completely broken. I find that desktop Linux is actually more usable than Windows 10 simply because basic features like file search actually just work. Unfortunately Windows still wins on compatibility with applications (and especially games) so I'm stuck with it, but if I could run everything I wanted on my Linux computer I'd ditch my Windows computer in a heartbeat.
The only reason why I even still have to use windows is because of Adobe Lightroom. But perhaps I will look for alternatives. There is literally no other reason anymore. Microsoft has ruined their operating system.
I'm sure you already know it, but Lightroom works on OSX too. And also I believe Adobe Camera Raw can bulk-convert your camera-specific RAWs to DNGs, which you can use in any software - unless you need lens profiles. I'm trying to wean myself off the Adobe subscription treadmill and giving Affinity Photo a try. Seems decent so far.
I keep a Windows 7 machine for World of Warcraft. I will never update it. It is not even fully patched, to avoid the nagging patches. I update Defender, that's it. I don't run untrusted code so that isn't an issue. Some day I will have to get Win10 for a newer machine, but it will be LTSC. LTSC should be able to play games just fine and is what the default Windows 10 should have been, in my opinion. I will have to get a really beefy machine to compensate for the extra bloat in the Windows 10 kernel.
I am not at all impressed with how Microsoft handled Windows 10. One would assume that with all the telemetry, they would have a solid highly optimized OS by now. This is not the case. A family member has nothing but problems with Windows 10 + VR + games, etc... I have identical hardware and have none of their issues.
Scrolling the file tree in Windows Explorer in W10 is slow depending on the pane width. This is insane to me. Base issues like that just didn't seem to be around in W7
A good example of how Windows 7 worked better is Skyrim, in windows 10 it has a memory cap of about 4 gigs while in windows 7 it doesn't. If you run a ton of mods and you know that we do this presents a situation where technically windows 7 runs things better.
I deliberately installed the updates that contain CompatTelRunner and Appraiser on an old Windows 7 laptop with a hard drive to demonstrate its problems. I had to set a registry value before it actually consumed CPU and HDD time though. In fact, nxquery.sys is targeted at Windows 7 users (it is a simple driver to read a MSR to determine if NX is disabled in the BIOS). Trivia: Appraiser creates multiple threads, so it is not just one core that consumes CPU time.
Windows 7 is objectively the best operating system MS ever done, the most stable, secure and having the most comfortable user experience. Highly promoted Windows 10 leaves rotten smell for every technically educated user. First thing you have to do is remove all crapware, preinstalled despite you paid for your OS. Then you probably should harden your privacy by disabling all telemetry features. When I forced to use Windows 10, first application I run is ShutUp10 [0], then I disable Cortana and block telemetry servers using simple script [1], which may be outdated, because I did not touch 10 for some time.
For personal purposes I use hardened Windows 7 inside Parallels, and hope to keep this configuration as long as possible. I suggested hardening guide post [2] (pdf) on HN, but few people were interested. Hope it would help someone though .
48 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 41.7 ms ] thread- introduce telemetry
- introduce unnecessary updates and remove the ability to choose not to install them. security updates are fine, feature updates that break things but are only temporarily avoided are unacceptable.
- remove theming. I would not remove the ability to use the themes my designers had created over the years.
- introduce a "Settings" app that fragments the OS configuration (especially if my operating system already had a weird second settings menu that you could only get to by running a command like, for example, `msconfig`).
If I did do these things, I would probably introduce them in a beta operating system and continue to support my flagship product because it would, in this hypothetical scenario, be much friendlier to the average user (whom in this scenario I target).
and those of us who actually paid $200 for windows 10, are too small of a section of the customers to be heard.
Even with the somewhat limited pro edition, our IT is able to give us months and months of uptime for certain critical computers (i'm in biotech). Heck we have a W10 pro machine that handles building security and it has over 2 years of uptime.
The problem is the disconnect between HN and the average user who is dumb as rocks when it comes to tech. The average user expects the OS to magically take over the sysadmin duties. They just want it to be as simple and seamless as their phone - not an entirely unreasonable expectation given that the phone is sharing a lot of tasks that were only done on dedicated machines.
Yeah I know it’s badges not mission impossible security
The process to re-approve a machine after a bloody update is painful(to say the least).
Even for something as lousy as a BMS system of a reasonable size (100 bacnet controller) will still take 1 week or more to fully test and approve. Keep in midn that these are machine where the only things that you can plug in are those whitelisted at the end of the test.
Even the approval to replace a keyb+mouse set takes a few days and requires a sys admin to go to site.
Our IT is not purposely keeping a security hole open to boast about uptime. If there was a security impact to our particular configuration/use-case, we'd patch it for sure.
I’m actually impressed with Microsoft’s dedication to unify decades of settings UI/Ux. it’s a commendable goal, and while I don’t deny I have had to lookup how to do something in the “new” way many times, I believe it’s worth in and end the end will result in a more logical and consistent configuration interface.
Personally, since a major Windows update or two ago I only have one settings panel I actively use that is still a Win32 dialog and not directly in the modern Settings app. That's the Environment Variables dialog, and being a developer/power user control panel I can see how that would be a lower priority to merge to the new Settings. Though it is still interesting to point out that the Environment Variables dialog was improved in Windows 10 over its Windows 7 counterpart.
It shouldn't be surprising to anyone at this point that Microsoft is prioritizing settings updates and merging settings dialogs into the modern app in priority order based on available telemetry of what's most commonly used. It never surprises me that most of the people still complaining that their pet settings that they care about haven't migrated to the modern Settings apps are the same that disable telemetry and complain about it. Microsoft doesn't know you are using that setting often if you aren't giving them the telemetry to understand that, it's pretty simple.
This is simply not true. Nowadays I have a freaking ps script to run after each upgrade, to set things back how I configured them.
> Personally, since a major Windows update or two ago I only have one settings panel I actively use that is still a Win32 dialog and not directly in the modern Settings app.
So you never had to use the Network Adapters window? I need that one pretty often, the new one in Settings is not adequate. How do you add or remove features from Windows, like HyperV or WSL? That one is also inside the old Add/Remove Programs applet (the features on demand in Settings app is a different mechanism, with different content and applications. Yay for consistency).
It is true: Microsoft has said several times in Insider blog posts that most settings reverts during updates are considered to be bugs, and if you find one the best place to file that bug report is Feedback Hub. If you care to see that corrected, I can only recommend you try searching Feedback Hub for your specific issues and filing them if you can't find existing reports.
> So you never had to use the Network Adapters window? I need that one pretty often, the new one in Settings is not adequate.
Can't say that I have a regular need for that, no. Most of my devices have only a single network adapter in active use at any given time and the modern Settings has been adequate for my needs.
> How do you add or remove features from Windows, like HyperV or WSL?
The last time I activated or deactivated either of those it was directly in PowerShell.
I think my ideal would be for the new settings paradigm developed completely parallel to the classical settings interfaces. I don’t think it’s a good idea to deprecate classic settings, maybe not forever but absolutely not before you have parity.
I would prefer them to try and tackle whole host of issues before unified settings. Transition to a CoW fs (rip refs), separating configuration and state from the registry and more robust display scaling for starters. That said, I think settings fragmentation as-is is needlessly complex. And there have been real improvements in my opinion in some of the new settings ui/ux, for example the new per-application audio I/O control menu. The classic network properties and settings are truly awful, something as simple setting a static IP requires a series of dependant and uncloseable property panes that can’t be used (or even visible in some cases) while you are using a child of the previous pane. It’s been largely unchanged since windows 95, and in the past couple years I’ve liked where they are headed. I think that if they really can achieve their goal of a central, monolithic settings control interface then that would be a real value.
This assertion is based on a false premise. It can be a concern, but people don't know how to address it, or are ridiculed for caring about something that is not readily provable (except in retrospect, if that).
I don't know if macOS has a tool like this, but anyone curious exactly what telemetry Windows is collect, Microsoft provides a Diagnostic Data Viewer tool to explore it: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/diagnostic-...
There's a ton of documentation at this point on everything Windows collects as telemetry.
(Most of the same telemetry is in Windows 7, fwiw. A lot of the telemetry systems were added in Vista or XP. The biggest change was Windows 10 turned on a lot more of it on by default rather than nagging people to join the various "Customer Experience Improvement Programs" and consolidating all those opt-in/opt-out "improvement programs" from a half-dozen different nag dialogs to a single privacy settings panel.)
A novel concept, I know.
I have more power, I will use it. I have less power, what can I do, I'll just have to accept it.
Windows 7 is a superior product in all other respects.
Microsoft made DX12 work on Win7 for some games, Cyberpunk 2077 is one of them. They are not THAT dumb to waste a huge market.
Source: https://www.gamepressure.com/newsroom/cyberpunk-2077-will-ru...
https://github.com/microsoft/calculator
Can't we just strip all the BS from it, and make our own version?
None of those problems exist in Windows 7 for me. It just works for music and it works cleanly without problems, just as it has since I first installed it. Using GRUB makes it easy to maintain multiple OS's, but it sure would be better if Windows 10 didn't have the problems that it does.
Windows 10 has an absolute garbage mess of different configuration windows, some that look several decades old but at least are usable and some that have clearly been redesigned recently but which you can't find anything in. USB peripherals can either mount as drivers or as something called a "Device" (even if all they're really doing is mounting as a drive), and the latter is completely unintuitive and nearly impossible to figure out how to unmount safely. File/application finding is a still a dumpster fire that never works for me. There's garbage Cortana integrated into the start menu that always seems to want to search the web via Bing (???!?!!), but can't reliably find files or locally installed applications, even by exact name match. If I wanted to search the Web I'd be searching in a Web browser! Hell, even searching files by exact name or name prefix in the Finder search window just flat out doesn't work.
I don't understand how Windows 10 managed to get such fundamentals so completely broken. I find that desktop Linux is actually more usable than Windows 10 simply because basic features like file search actually just work. Unfortunately Windows still wins on compatibility with applications (and especially games) so I'm stuck with it, but if I could run everything I wanted on my Linux computer I'd ditch my Windows computer in a heartbeat.
Although FVWM on suse 6.1 was still better.
I am not at all impressed with how Microsoft handled Windows 10. One would assume that with all the telemetry, they would have a solid highly optimized OS by now. This is not the case. A family member has nothing but problems with Windows 10 + VR + games, etc... I have identical hardware and have none of their issues.
For personal purposes I use hardened Windows 7 inside Parallels, and hope to keep this configuration as long as possible. I suggested hardening guide post [2] (pdf) on HN, but few people were interested. Hope it would help someone though .
[0] https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
[1] https://github.com/yuchdev/windows_10_antispy
[2] https://www.cyber.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-11/PROTECT...
Every time I try to use 8 or 10, I seem to spend ages just trying to find what I want.
I don't boot Windows very often, but when I do, I try to make sure that it's Windows 7.