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What I dislike About Windows

R

railroadmaster

Member
I have used every version of Windows since Windows 95 (I had a Toshiba laptop running it) and now I have a Windows tablet running 10. Overall Windows has been gradually regressing with each and every release becoming more frustrating to use.

  1. User interface inconsistency: Under Windows many applications except Microsoft's own will have their own user interface style. Almost every application has its own shortcut keys requiring relearning of them. Under Desktop Linux based oses, Android, Mas OS and iOs most applications have a similar design and layout. Even with qt, EFL and gtk etc under Linux almost all applications will have a high degree of consistency and most applications will have the same theme. Gnome and KDE will adapt applications to their interfaces. Combine the inconsistency within the standard Windows environment with the Metro Interface and it gets even worse. The Metro Interface offers entirely different user experience all together only making inconsistency worse.
  2. The sheer ugliness of Metro: Overall Metro is a very ugly user interface. This one is subjective but many people would share my sentiments. Windows 10 improves in this regard with a darker theme and the return of the start menu, but still not ideal. The flatness, squareness, single shading, monotone colors, and two dimensionality of the user interface makes it very ugly. Icons don't exist in metro only ugly 2d pixelated squares. Overall the best Windows interface was Vista, 7 was similar but 8 and 10 are big regressions. Compare Windows Media player 11 with groove music player and you can see a definite regression.
  3. The update system under Windows is terrible. Windows will now force you to update taking control from you in almost malicious manner. It has even forced an update on me when the computer was in sleep mode and on a poor Internet connection. Updates can often fail and break or corrupt various aspects of your computer. Updates are generally slow even on fast Internet connections. Overall my experience with Windows updates is a substantially inferior one.
  4. The gradual eroding of backwards compatibility. Old programs especially games have lots of problems running on newer of Windows, Windows 10 being especially bad in this regard. However even Windows Vista through 8 have issues with this. You'll have better success running old games through Wine on Linux than on newer Windows operating systems. There are work arounds but they have lots of issues of their own and often do not work. Documentation for this type of stuff is also not widely available. This is why many businesses as well as gamers will likely never upgrade to newer Windows versions.
Finally there are the problems intrinsic to almost every version of Windows due to its architecture such as not being able to truly remove programs (Microsoft admits to this problem themselves) and the registry and its gradual eroding of performance. Plus there is DLLs and 'DLL hell'. Windows will fragment your hard drive if you have a spinning disc drive. Security issues, malware, and viruses are also not simply a result of the popularity of Windows (though that plays a significant role), but it's architecture plays a significant role in this as well. There are probably other issues that I am not thinking of. I do appreciate Windows and what it offers. I like how it enables me to have a small tablet that can be a full computer. All that said as a long time Windows user it brings a great deal in the way of annoyances.
 
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I dont disagree too much with what is said.

Some of the issues cited result because of the legacy open architecture advantage Windows allowed (eg, versus Mac).

I havent progressed much past using Win XP, only Win 7 because Im being forced to.

(Did use Vista for a while. It was a fun OS, but besides the hardware not being ready when Vista was released, there were too many "show stopper" un-ironed out technical issues.)

Windows 7 IMO is actually a back step to XP. Seven is too verbose, too many intermediate text screens, too many alerts, crappy Search function, lots of inconsistent display control configuration issues that cant be fully, easily or singly addressed, etc.

Based on working many years developing combat systems (which are information management & display & communications systems), I knew Microsoft peaked internally with XP. (Even their office products are starting to unravel/sub-optimize.)

Clearly, as a corporate structure there was an internal shift within Microsoft toward less rigor in the face of more complexity. I view them now as more marketing, coasting on inertia and less technically competent. A guess is that the business is being made up monopolistically via collusion/symbiosis with the US government.
 
Some of the reasons people do not like it is because they want to use older versions of Windows that Microsoft has been phasing out for decades now I imagine.

You expect to use a decades old OS and gripe about it.

😵
 
The reason Windows 10 UI sucks is because MS try to use the same OS on tablet and desktop.

No one does that, not Apple, not Google, it's a total disaster. Never used any Windows Store App, ever.

The only good thing about Windows 10 is it runs faster than Windows 7 and probably has better security.
 
OK. Thanks for sharing.

All OS's have issues in one form or another.

Apple and Linux have also had their fair share of update screw-ups... And other issues.
 
mxnerd said:
The reason Windows 10 UI sucks is because MS try to use the same OS on tablet and desktop.

No one does that, not Apple, not Google, it's a total disaster. Never used any Windows Store App, ever.

The only good thing about Windows 10 is it runs faster than Windows 7 and probably has better security.
Click to expand...


That is why if you're smart you bypass the Metro interface all together.

Windows 10 has some issues like any other software with millions of lines of code.
 
I feel Windows has always slightly gone worse over each release. Windows 2000 and that general era was pretty good UI wise. Even 95 and 98 were pretty good as far as functionality went, they were just super unstable. We don't talk about ME. XP was terrible when it first came out but after a couple service packs, and when 1GB+ of ram was more common, it was better. Classic mode is a must. I cringe when I see an XP machine where they did not even change that. Vista is another one we don't talk about. 7 was great. But IMO it's around that time they started to go downhill. Too much bling and too many changes just for the sake of changes. Then 8 was a disaster UI wise and 10 is not that much better but it is better than 8.

At this point I feel the best OS is now Linux. It is well worth while to break away from Windows. Start by dual booting, try to do your every day stuff in Linux. Setup stuff like your email and all the basic stuff. Try to find alternatives for programs you use. For some you absolutely can't or really don't want to switch you can run in a VM in seamless mode or dual boot, if native bare metal is needed.

Personally I have a win7 machine for games and only turn it on as needed. (it has a high end video card so it uses a lot of power) and then I have a lower end machine as my daily driver for Linux.

With the way MS seems to want to be headed, windows is basically going to be like a phone OS. It's more a service, than something you own. Ex: it will be tied to an account on their servers. That's already an option, and ti's what they try to push you to do when you install it. Over time I think it will be the only option. That is something I do not want to touch with a 10 foot pole. I want my computer to be under my own control. Linux lets me do that.

Windows 8.x is by far the worst of the worst though. I want to murder any time I'm stuck working on a windows 8 machine. It's like the most annoying unintuitive UI ever. I don't know how people can say it's "fine". It's the most frustrating thing to try to use.
 
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Yup, I agree.

Interesting about the Linux and dual boot as that is exactly what has happened to me. Just came naturally out of what Microsoft has done with its products and initiatives. It just naturally pushes a competent user in such direction (eg, how many times are you now seeing such statements as "forget windows, Im going to Mac"?).

Basically, the average person can do 95+% of what they need to get done on a daily basis with Linux and for any specialty applications, just boot into an enterprise Windows (have both XP & 7 versions and have absolutely no interest in trying anything beyond 7 in fact I purposely avoid that).
 
Red Squirrel said:
I don't know how people can say it's "fine". It's the most frustrating thing to try to use.
Click to expand...

Because some people are capable of adapting?

I can't stand people who are IT "professionals" but can't manage to learn a new UI. Every time I get an issue escalated to me at work because somebody can't find something, I want to murder a kitten. We have this miraculous invention called the internet, it's not that hard to find information if you really want to. But some people DON'T want to, they just want to complain about it instead. Ask one of them to fix a Mac and they just get this deer in the headlights look.

I've been using 10 since the release previews. Ditto for every previous release since XP. Vista was the only one that had me thinking about going back due to TCP/IP stack issues and abysmal network transfer speeds. You couldn't pay me to go back to 7. You want to talk about a frustrating OS? I've never seen anything that can match Solaris for user unfriendliness. I don't know why they bother including a GUI, because you can't do anything important in it.
 
Red Squirrel said:
At this point I feel the best OS is now Linux. It is well worth while to break away from Windows. Start by dual booting, try to do your every day stuff in Linux. Setup stuff like your email and all the basic stuff. Try to find alternatives for programs you use. For some you absolutely can't or really don't want to switch you can run in a VM in seamless mode or dual boot, if native bare metal is needed.
Click to expand...
Best for whom exactly?
Going to linux for most windows users can be rather difficult, if not impossible.
Linux (still) has driver issues for basically anything new, DRM issues (yeah, I don't like DRM either, but it still is a big issue), and cryptic error messages is just starting things out.
Then we have X don't run on linux, and there is no equivalent program that they can use.
Trying to get monitors & GPUs working is a huge issue as well, and keeping them working throughout kernel updates that break X, Y & Z, and then lots of people go running back to windows.

I personally use linux daily, and I have also attempted to get people to at least try linux (usually mint or ubuntu), but, that usually ends up me doing 24/7 tech support with those people trying to get X to work, and it is just so annoying, that it isn't worth my time hand holding people to get over linux's shortcomings.
It needs much more polish before it can be a full replacement for windows in anything but the most basic e-mail & browsing usage.

BTW OP, blaming the current OS because a certain old game/app can't run is silly.
If the programmers would have actually followed the API, and not use idiotic shortcuts, then the only programs that would have issue would be the one that use DRM, or hard coding something that they shouldn't have.
 
XavierMace said:
Because some people are capable of adapting?

I can't stand people who are IT "professionals" but can't manage to learn a new UI. Every time I get an issue escalated to me at work because somebody can't find something, I want to murder a kitten. We have this miraculous invention called the internet, it's not that hard to find information if you really want to. But some people DON'T want to, they just want to complain about it instead.
Click to expand...
XavierMace said:
You want to talk about a frustrating OS? I've never seen anything that can match Solaris for user unfriendliness. I don't know why they bother including a GUI, because you can't do anything important in it.
Click to expand...
Sounds like you just contradicted yourself, making your entire post invalid.
 
XavierMace said:
Because some people are capable of adapting?
Click to expand...

That's not adapting, that's putting up with something. Big difference. Cars have had steering wheels and pedals for a long time, because it works. Take away the steering wheel and replace with left and right buttons and it will make the user experience very bad. Should people be forced to "adapt" to that when the old interface worked better? I could "adapt" to windows if I wanted to, but why, when there are better choices like Linux.
 
C1 said:
Yup, I agree.

Interesting about the Linux and dual boot as that is exactly what has happened to me. Just came naturally out of what Microsoft has done with its products and initiatives. It just naturally pushes a competent user in such direction (eg, how many times are you now seeing such statements as "forget windows, Im going to Mac"?).

Basically, the average person can do 95+% of what they need to get done on a daily basis with Linux and for any specialty applications, just boot into an enterprise Windows (have both XP & 7 versions and have absolutely no interest in trying anything beyond 7 in fact I purposely avoid that).
Click to expand...

Interestingly when I originally setup the dual boot, I accidentally trashed the Windows partition in the process, because newer versions of Windows seem very picky about their partition, it seems you can't resize it or do anything. I did not feel like dealing with that so it just forced me to jump straight into Linux. The time I spent setting up my basic stuff in Linux was about the time I'd spend reinstalling and resetting up Windows which I only did later down the line for games.

Dual booting kinda got annoying for gaming though so I ended up building a separate machine for windows that I only turn on to game.
 
Elixer said:
Best for whom exactly?
Going to linux for most windows users can be rather difficult, if not impossible.
Linux (still) has driver issues for basically anything new, DRM issues (yeah, I don't like DRM either, but it still is a big issue), and cryptic error messages is just starting things out.
Then we have X don't run on linux, and there is no equivalent program that they can use.
Trying to get monitors & GPUs working is a huge issue as well, and keeping them working throughout kernel updates that break X, Y & Z, and then lots of people go running back to windows.

I personally use linux daily, and I have also attempted to get people to at least try linux (usually mint or ubuntu), but, that usually ends up me doing 24/7 tech support with those people trying to get X to work, and it is just so annoying, that it isn't worth my time hand holding people to get over linux's shortcomings.
It needs much more polish before it can be a full replacement for windows in anything but the most basic e-mail & browsing usage.

BTW OP, blaming the current OS because a certain old game/app can't run is silly.
If the programmers would have actually followed the API, and not use idiotic shortcuts, then the only programs that would have issue would be the one that use DRM, or hard coding something that they shouldn't have.
Click to expand...


The driver stuff and even multi monitor is not too bad anymore. My personal pet peeve with multi monitor - and that exists in Windows too, is trying to get apps/dialogs to open on the proper one instead of randomly all over the place. But that's just an annoyance that I've always put up with that I've been trying to figure a solution for.

It's true some stuff is way harder in Linux, but for an average user who just wants to use the internet, view/edit photos, work on documents etc Linux will pretty much work out of the box for that. Drivers are an issue in some cases, such as buggyness, but it's really hit or miss. Basically, looking at the current direction of Winblows, it's worth the sacrifice to switch to Linux, as once you're switched it's really not that bad and in a lot of cases better.
 
What I really wish/want is to be able to install a hypervisor that allows people to seamlessly switch between windows & linux (and anything else) with full hardware acceleration for everything.
Hopefully this will be coming before 2030.
 
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Elixer said:
What I really wish/want is to be able to install a hypervisor that allows people to seamlessly switch between windows & linux (and anything else) will full hardware acceleration for everything.
Hopefully this will be coming before 2030.
Click to expand...

Some VM solutions seem to advertise they can do that, but I've never actually seen that work. Try to run most games in a VM and they won't even start. Usually they see that it's not a "standard" video card but a virtualized one and it does not like it. The only game I've gotten to work in a VM is Ultima Online.

I think modern computers are in theory capable to run a game or most programs virtualized, but the software itself simply won't allow it due to driver or w/e.
 
The most I have seen is some software GPU acceleration, but, that isn't perfect by any means, and it has been my experience that when a issue pops up, only a reboot can fix it.
I know AMD is starting to have some hardware virtualization backed into the GPUs (which is really needed for my dream to come true), but that isn't on their consumer cards. 🙁

Here is a nice video showing it at work...
 
ninaholic37 said:
Sounds like you just contradicted yourself, making your entire post invalid.
Click to expand...

No, I said it's frustrating, not that I couldn't use it. There's a difference. The impression I get from most people in threads like this is the new thing is different, therefore they're not going to even try to use it. I hear people all the time complaining they can't find the classic Control Panel in Windows 10. Right Click on Start button, there it is. Has it moved? Yes. Does it take more actions to get to it than it did before? No.

Red Squirrel said:
That's not adapting, that's putting up with something. Big difference. Cars have had steering wheels and pedals for a long time, because it works. Take away the steering wheel and replace with left and right buttons and it will make the user experience very bad. Should people be forced to "adapt" to that when the old interface worked better? I could "adapt" to windows if I wanted to, but why, when there are better choices like Linux.
Click to expand...

No, this is more equivalent to them moving the volume controls. The keyboard and mouse still works just like it always has. Most of the common keyboard shortcuts are still the same. You seem to be very much of the "change is bad" crowd. You haven't actually given the new solution a chance, you're just mad because it changed. My parents complained for a solid month when I moved them from 7 to 8. No complaints after that with 8. Upgrading to 10 was even less of an issue. I can't name a single task that takes me longer to do on 10 than on a previous version of Windows.
 
Elixer said:
The most I have seen is some software GPU acceleration, but, that isn't perfect by any means, and it has been my experience that when a issue pops up, only a reboot can fix it.
I know AMD is starting to have some hardware virtualization backed into the GPUs (which is really needed for my dream to come true), but that isn't on their consumer cards. 🙁

Here is a nice video showing it at work...
Click to expand...

nVidia Grid.
 
C1 said:
I dont disagree too much with what is said.

Some of the issues cited result because of the legacy open architecture advantage Windows allowed (eg, versus Mac).

I havent progressed much past using Win XP, only Win 7 because Im being forced to.
Click to expand...
Really? XP...really? It wasn't bad but I never enjoyed getting my OS updates through a web browser. I guess you don't have to worry about that now since XP is eol.......Which means you're pretty much wide open for any security faults that still exist. I guess you could still be getting security updates through the POS hack.

This whole Linux argument is laughable. If I want to spend hours hunting around the web to see why I can't access my networked Windows drive I'll try Linux. Then once you have finally figured it out an update will come and break the whole damn thing. Editing config files is not fun. Therefore Linux is not fun.
After two years running Mint Cinnamon as my main OS that was enough for me. I DO NOT care for the cli or editing config files and most PC users don't either.
 
bbhaag said:
This whole Linux argument is laughable. If I want to spend hours hunting around the web to see why I can't access my networked Windows drive I'll try Linux. Then once you have finally figured it out an update will come and break the whole damn thing. Editing config files is not fun. Therefore Linux is not fun.
Click to expand...
Windows can't see my Linux ext partitions at all even when they're not networked - lol. It couldn't see my f2fs formatted flash stick either. Windows only understands ntfs and fat I think, but I didn't try anything above Windows 7 seriously.
 
ninaholic37 said:
Windows can't see my Linux ext partitions at all even when they're not networked - lol. It couldn't see my f2fs formatted flash stick either. Windows only understands ntfs and fat I think, but I didn't try anything above Windows 7 seriously.
Click to expand...

It is quite easy to access Linux formatted drives from Windows.

http://www.paragon-drivers.com/extfs-windows/

https://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/

http://www.howtogeek.com/112888/3-ways-to-access-your-linux-partitions-from-windows/

https://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsd/
 
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