Windows - Why is it so bad?

jamoor

jamoor

jamoor

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I am opening a can of worms here but..

I was windows user, and I pretty much stopped after XP.

I bought a macbook pro and used osx in 2010ish and have done ever since.

I tried a computer with vista installed - a complete horror show.
I use win 7 at work, it's "ok" but I had to install a piece of software (3cx client if anyone's interested) and to run that I needed some sort of .net framework that wouldn't install and just give an error with an error code. I googled it and couldn't really find much of an answer. I ended up just reinstalling windows and that fixed it.

A year ago I bought a refurbished X201 with win 7 preinstalled on an SSD. It worked fine and then began getting nagged to death suggesting I upgrade to win 10. I made an image of my HDD just in case and proceeded.

This operating system is a nightmare, it's slow on my laptop and randomly installs updates without my consent that take ages every time. I tried to do a very simple task such as download a PPT from my exchange email account and open it at a time critical moment (think showing it to someone important) and that turned into a big conflict.

To get away from Windows on my X201 I just installed ubuntu, it appears to work perfectly and is lightweight and seemingly bloatfree(ish).

Am I the only one that is plagued by these problems, I happily ran XP for years without trouble.

How can a company that does nothing but make software somehow manage to make such a bad job of it is beyond me.
 
I hate Windows 10 for the same reasons more or less - while at a low level Windows 10 is actually pretty fast and stable unfortunately some of the stuff sitting on top of it easily become glitchy and can run slow (seems to affect some systems more than others i.e. I've one install where whatever I do within a few weeks explorer will start running really slowly doing basic stuff until I reinstall even if I mostly leave the system untouched without additional software, etc.) and I struggle to understand how anyone who actually makes more than casual use of their PC isn't annoyed by Windows update behaviour on 10.

Windows 7 I generally find acceptable - there are a few areas that are a bit lacking in this day and age but mostly it just works for me.

EDIT: If it wasn't for the fact I do too much stuff that requires Windows and won't work properly via i.e. Wine on Linux and no Linux equivalent exists I would probably move my systems from 7 to something like Ubuntu rather than go near Windows 10 on my main systems its really not a well designed OS despite the rose tinted spectacles of some people here.
 
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No real complaints with Windows 10 for me. It was an upgrade install over a well-used install of Windows 7 and I've had no issues at all.
 
Beerbaron said:
Try using OSX in a corporate environment, now that's a real horror show.

Win 10 was a little buggy but Win 7 did an OK job.
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That's fine, but I'm not a corporate user, and from what I can tell Windows 10 is marketed for home use as well as business use. I've no idea how well it works for corporate use but for home use it doesn't in my experience.
 
I use W10 at home and at work, both on laptops and desktops for both, i agree the windows update control is not as good as it was pre W10, but as for your other complaints, i would say its down to a bad installs or hardware, ive had no bother on any of my machines and my work kit is not half as good as my home kit, the laptop is a cheap old HP low end core 2 duo, thats several years old and had W7 on it, then i upgraded to W10 and it has improved in speed.

Both my home and work laptops are always on, only reboot my machines for updates and ive not noticed any slow down, though they all run SSD's.
 
dagiccross said:
Windows10 has old control panel as well as their Windows10 settings page, I find this thing is just silly and lazy...
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Think I read ages ago that they are going to slowly do away with the old control panel and move stuff into the new settings "app" but that its complicated and time consuming to do so they are doing it in stages. More and more controls are moved/copied to the settings page every couple of insider updates.
 
The vast majority of people find Windows 10 works well for them both at home and at work despite what some of the people around here who have talked themselves into a position where they can never acknowledge it without being a laughing stock will tell you.
 
Macro said:
The vast majority of people find Windows 10 works well for them both at home and at work despite what some of the people around here who have talked themselves into a position where they can never acknowledge it without being a laughing stock will tell you.
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I'm sure it does work for many people, that's why it's so popular. It's just that I've never had that experience since XP, despite being reasonably competent with computers.

I've also never heard of someone switching from OSX to Windows, I may be wrong however.
 
In my experience a large percentage of people who use OSX also use Windows.

Looking at your OP Windows 10 certainly shouldn't by default be "slow" or cause conflicts, crashes, errors etc unless there's a specific deliver issue for the hardware you are using. The days of Windows being a huge security risk with an expectation of a blue screen or virus such as Blaster at least once a day are long gone unless you happen o be doing something odd/using very outdated hardware with poorly supported drivers etc. I genuinely can't remember the last time I saw a blue screen and in the few times I've used OSX have seen more than a few beach balls of death :)

Honestly, A clean install of Windows 10 on hardware with decent W10 drivers should be a pain free and reliable experience. Different people will have differing preferences due to experience (the best OS or App is usually the one you're used to as by default you auto navigate around foibles because you're used to them and unconsciously work in the best possible manner) or philosophical preferences (damn the American corporate monsters - long live free Linux!).

I find OSX and finder an exercise in frustration and incredibly archaic to work with, I completely get that for others they find Windows counter intuitive. From a "mechanical" perspective though both should work reasonable well on relatively modern hardware.
 
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Macro said:
The vast majority of people find Windows 10 works well for them both at home and at work despite what some of the people around here who have talked themselves into a position where they can never acknowledge it without being a laughing stock will tell you.
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For every company I know of that has transitioned to Windows 10 without too much issue I know another that has had a lot of issues and/or had to roll back - especially the way some notifications are handled which has caused issues with i.e. epos and other customer facing systems.

Your words are also somewhat belied by the actual data from consumer bodies and the likes who have seen a a larger number of complaints over an equivalent time period with Windows 10 than other versions of Windows i.e. take a look at some of the stuff on Which magazine where they've recorded a high level of dissatisfaction amongst general users - despite noting that many users seem to be happy with the OS.
 
Rroff said:
For every company I know of that has transitioned to Windows 10 without too much issue I know another that has had a lot of issues and/or had to roll back - especially the way some notifications are handled which has caused issues with i.e. epos and other customer facing systems.
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Systems such as EPOS at check outs are hardly a typical representation of the general OS use and generally use embedded systems with customised hardware and requirements.

Likewise poor implementation is not really indicative of OS quality in general, nor is trying to shoe horn a modern OS onto poorly supported legacy systems and ancient applications. With Windows 8/8.1 having been largely unpopular in companies, not least as they were still deploying W7 when Win 8 was released and touch interface was not a priority in most cases, there are plenty of corporate IT teams trying to get to grip with Windows for the first time since Windows 7, inexperience and mistakes are to be expected until the skill base grows.

I've seen few problems for companies with skilled up to date IT teams transitioning from Windows 7 and relative modern hardware where they invested time and effort in app remediation for W7.

For corporate IT who are stuck in the past of monolithic updates, closed firewalls, ancient legacy applications and environments where providing a laptop is seen as the height of modern working, or consumers with pre Windows 7 era hardware I completely understand Windows 10 would be very different and take some getting used to. I've seen a customer who gave out laptops to modernise which can only connect via hardwired Ethernet because wifi is "not really suitable for corporate use". Windows 10 would scare the bejeezuz out of them.

Generally speaking on a relatively modern device with up to date drivers and supported applications Windows 10 is a fine operating system and as much as some may wish it to, is neither going away nor losing popularity. Indeed practically every corporate or enterprise company I deal with plans to fully transition to Windows 10 as soon as practicable. I've not come across any who plan to deploy something like Unbuntu.

I'd been keen to see satisfaction numbers for the latest flavour of Unbuntu if consumers and companies were forced to change to it over the space of a year :D
 
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chroniclard said:
Its easier for OSX as there are no apps and only a few hardware combinations.
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TBH I would't have even bothered starting this thread if I had installed ubuntu and seen how straightforward and easy the whole process was compared to a Windows install.

I guess ubuntu doesn't have most of the features Win10 has though.
 
So you've had 3 issues with windows in 6 years, and one of them was just the windows 10 update nag? Sounds like a dream!

My windows installs develop irreparable bugs after about a year and need reinstalling (start menu broke and windows update failed over and over again)

I really like windows 10 except for the update policy. No control over when they are downloading can be a PITA on slow internet as I can no longer watch online videos or play online for several hours and if the install hogs all the CPU power then games will become a choppy mess for a while. When I had the failing update, it would attempt to install every time I turned the computer on and off which would subsequently add another 5-10 minutes to both.
 
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