BrainOut!
The mumblings of a Christian autistic husband, dad, IT guy and amateur radio operator - Will Brokenbourgh / AF7EC
Why I Dislike Windows 10
Yay! First post of 2017!
Sorry for not writing more frequently, but
health issues have made me feel tired and lacking energy, but God is still
on the throne!
If you read my Twitter feed, you'll probably see frequent mention of Windows in a negative light. While I'm no longer actively receiving payment for giving customers remote internet support, I still am supporting customers and still must deal with any and just about all problems they have on their computers. So, yeah, while I don't know everything about Windows, I have more than enough experience with Windows to make some informed comments about it.
Windows 10 - Rescuer turned evil
When the Windows 10 preview came out in the past, I was both excited and
disappointed. I was excited because Windows 8 was just a straight-up
train-wreck compared to Windows 7. The customers who didn't listen to me
and threw aside Windows 7 for 8 ended up having a boatload of problems. I
sincerely hoped that Windows 10 would make up for Microsoft's Windows 8
debacle and make things a bit smoother for the customers who were being
tortured daily by Windows 8's user interface. I was disappointed with
Windows 10 because one of the last previews before it was released still
showed horrible bugs that I, and others, had reported but were never fixed.
So many IT folks like me held their breath and waited to see if Windows 10 would lift off, or fall flat on its face. Instead, it did neither -- it slowly crawled forward. At that time, though, I figured Windows 10 was marginally better that Windows 8 and gave my Windows 8 customers the green light to upgrade. I'm pretty sure I told my Windows 7-using customers to hold off on upgrading to 10, just because it hadn't gained my trust yet.
As the months went on, Windows 10 started to get incrementally better, so the worry I had about it started to lessen slightly. But, somewhere along the line, a cannon got loose at Microsoft and started smashing the improvements into oblivion.
Microsoft frequently kept resetting customers' preferences to what Microsoft wanted, and not what I had set up for the customer. All of these stupid advertisement tiles kept getting installed even when I had already removed them. Notifications would pop up pushing Office 365 and other junk that customers had no interest in. Even a properly working copy of HyperTerminal that worked fine for months was suddenly disabled by an update. What the heck, man!?
My customers use their computers to get stuff done, not to play Candy Crush saga or browse Flipboard or watch Netflix or send things to a 3D printer. Every time Microsoft made (and makes) a change to Windows 10, it ends up throwing some customers for a loop, and I have to spend my time undoing the damage Microsoft's updates caused.
Bottom-line: Microsoft is thumbing its nose at users, telling them that Microsoft's marketing plan is more important than user experience. Microsoft keeps putting their grimy fingers into Windows and messing it up further than the last time.
Microsoft's treatment of their desktop operating system drives me personally to the point of anger. "Why get so wound up about it, Will? It's just an operating system -- they're not messing with your human rights!" Why does it anger me? Because I'm the monkey who has to fix stuff on customer computers when Microsoft screws it up! While it is my contractual responsibility to address nearly all computer issues the customer may face, it's super-frustrating when it's something the maker of the operating system did, as opposed to something a user did. For Heaven's sake Microsoft -- you're supposed to be improving things, not making things worse for the end-user!
Another reason why I become upset about the whole Windows 10 thing is because I personally use a free, non-Microsoft operating system. This gives me a whole lot more flexibility about how my computer is set up and what is installed on it. I don't have to worry about advertisements popping up when I start my window manager, Fluxbox. I don't have to worry too much about the file managers PCManFM or Caja having a bunch of worthless features suddenly added. And I KNOW for sure that my own Gtk application menu isn't going to have ads for Facebook, Flipboard or Netflix when I'm simply trying to launch a program! My computer is set up the way I want it, not the way some silly corporation wants it! (Looking at you, too, Apple!)
Unfortunately, the business world continues to run on Microsoft Windows, so Microsoft knows it has most business users over a barrel. Businesses are probably not going to just dump Windows and install Linux or FreeBSD. The businesses that can break free from Microsoft the right way will cheer at the money they will save in licensing costs, user retraining and so-forth. No more worrying about laying out huge piles of money just to upgrade to the latest Windows version.
No, free operating systems aren't a 'silver bullet' and won't always meet everyone's needs. There are times when free software can be a pain (like when the upstream creator of a certain software package drags their feet in fixing a bug). There are those, like me, who can use a free operating system almost exclusively and have all of functionality I need from free software. If there is something I don't like about the software I'm using, I am free to edit the source code, recompile it and tailor it the way I want. I know not every person or business can do this, but hats off to those who can, and are able to escape the Windows nightmare.
I keep hoping that Microsoft won't continue going further down the road they're on now, and that they'll make some modern version of Windows 7, with reasonable usability, improved security, minimal advertising and good reliability. Hey, Microsoft, folks don't want to be your beta-testers, they want a reliable operating system that they can actually use!
God bless you, and thank you for reading!
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