The Windows OS Thread - Formerly THE OS for gamers and normies, now sadly ruined by Pajeets

[the rat]

I've said it before in the Linux thread, but literal decades of time have been wasted because linux people didn't want to admit that they have a tinkerer's OS, and that if you want a windows alternative you are better off cooking one from scratch. Very similar to the difference between krita and gimp. Gimp has been such a gimped (heh) software for years, that it's competition was created and dominated it's niche in the tume they have tried to unfuck it.

Linux has the tools to make good software for it but no one has bothered to even try for over 20 fucking years because they're all complacent with their deeply autistic barely functional and ugly beyond belief shit software.

 

[macrodegenerate]

Linux has the tools to make good software for it but no one has bothered to even try for over 20 fucking years because they're all complacent with their deeply autistic barely functional and ugly beyond belief shit software.

Linux has become more of a development/deployment OS. It can be used as a desktop PC, but that's not the main focus. Docker/K8s and enterprise software is where Linux is headed.

Windows and OSX really did corner the market on Desktop UI/UX. Even today DirectX is what makes windows stand out for gaming and consumer applications like Solidworks. Combine that with the .net platform and you have a solid platform to easily develop on.

I think at best Linux is going to end up with multiplatform stuff. Things like LibreOffice, JDK alts, and VS Code. It's going to be mostly Python or Java stuff, especially with ML doing so well on python.

 

[The Ugly One]

Google made Linux a viable consumer OS on mobile by taking all the things Linux geeks love, shooting them in the head, and building something around the kernel that is designed for human use.

Somebody could still do it on the desktop (ChromeOS is a stagnant failure), but much like Android, whatever they put together would be something Linux geeks would not consider "true Linux" because 99% of users would have no idea what sudo means.

 

[Betonhaus]

The problems mostly are due to the desktop environment. For the longest time the most popular desktop environment was Gnome, which makes design decisions that are very user unfriendly and are actively hostile to suggestions for improvements.

Linux Mint's DE is called Cinnamon, and it has been fully written to be user friendly with a Windows style approach that helps new users get familiar with it.

 

[Demonslayer1776]

The problems mostly are due to the desktop environment. For the longest time the most popular desktop environment was Gnome, which makes design decisions that are very user unfriendly and are actively hostile to suggestions for improvements.

Linux Mint's DE is called Cinnamon, and it has been fully written to be user friendly with a Windows style approach that helps new users get familiar with it.

The fact you can choose a desktop environment is part of why normies won't be able to move over to linux. They are expecting graphical instructions for everything and that can't be consistent by the nature of the project. Quite frankly I think people should appreciate that there are different platforms for different users. Finding instructions for Windows that actually use powershell can be a huge pain in the ass because so much documentation is aimed towards non-technical users. There's alot more shit to sift through. If all those people moved to Linux it would just make it worse for the people who actually use and enjoy the platform and its strengths.

I use both platforms pretty extensively. At work I use a windows laptop, with some Linux servers I maintain for application deployments. At home I have exclusively Linux servers, a Windows desktop I use for gaming and gpu intensive applications, and a Linux laptop I use for programming and general usage. There are simply some things that work much better on one platform than another. Linux gaming has gotten better but I see 0 reason to switch to it for my gaming PC. There are high end features that simply aren't compatible yet and little to be gained. Steam Deck has helped immensely, and some day it may be ready, but I'm not going to move over for purely ideological reasons. Similarly, I can't stand Windows as a server platform. Linux is so much better for just deploying some code and automating tasks. Automation tools and scripting are a true first class citizen and the community embraces it. With Windows I'm constantly having to fight with half baked implementation and documentation because Windows is ultimately a desktop first platform. For Joe Shmoe that's a good thing, but when you're trying to do some serious computing tasks its just a liability. I will never be able to get a personalized workflow on Windows that's as convenient as what I have on Linux, because a tiling WM requires too much personalization for normal users to set up, and goes against the way Windows was designed.

If you try to use Linux as a plain desktop system you will be disappointed because that's simply not what it is. Its a highly customization platform that prioritizes developers and advanced computing tasks. If you want Windows to be this highly flexible platform for automated deployments, or you want these highly customized tiling window environments, you will be disappointed because that simply isn't what its designed for. Choose the platform that works well for your usecase.

In regards to cinnamon, I think its a great DE for people who want to switch over because its fairly familiar. Its worth noting that its for people who actually want to make the switch though. Normies aren't ready for the level of computer literacy where they have to understand that their desktop environment is an individual software component they have to specify when searching up information.

 

[Moths]

You know what I found out today
Windows has a pagefile.sys and swapfile.sys . Now of course in theory both of these refer to the exact same thing however in the context of the windows OS pagefile.sys is used for paging 90% of programs whereas swapfile.sys is used specifically as a pagefile for metro windows store apps.

Fucking why

 

[Max Weber]

You know what I found out today
Windows has a pagefile.sys and swapfile.sys . Now of course in theory both of these refer to the exact same thing however in the context of the windows OS pagefile.sys is used for paging 90% of programs whereas swapfile.sys is used specifically as a pagefile for metro windows store apps.

Fucking why

Because Microsoft really fucking loves to introduce a new framework or API to then abandon and move to the next thing, but they can't then remove it because of muh backwards compatibility. So you end up with a system with layers upon layers upon layers of semi-abandoned code where it's impossible to know if something is actually functional or even needed, and it's easier to just slap new shit on top instead of modifying existing structure. Now, if their team had a few actual engineers among all the pajeets and diversity hires, maybe someone would try and figure out a way to make it all cohesive, but I doubt it. Because there will always be the next big thing that investors will latch on to, so Windows just has to include it, and any refactoring can be postponed to never.

 

[666NASTYFUCKINGFREAK666]

I don't know if this has always been the case or if I'm retarded but the fact that clicking on the date/time in the bottom right only works for one of however many monitors you have is retarded.

 

[Pepe Cortisona]

I don't know if this has always been the case or if I'm retarded but the fact that clicking on the date/time in the bottom right only works for one of however many monitors you have is retarded.

It's been like that since Win10 when they added the clock to the other task bars. It's also retarded that you can't move the notifications to the 2nd monitor without making it the main screen.

 

[WelperHelper99]

Because Microsoft really fucking loves to introduce a new framework or API to then abandon and move to the next thing, but they can't then remove it because of muh backwards compatibility. So you end up with a system with layers upon layers upon layers of semi-abandoned code where it's impossible to know if something is actually functional or even needed, and it's easier to just slap new shit on top instead of modifying existing structure. Now, if their team had a few actual engineers among all the pajeets and diversity hires, maybe someone would try and figure out a way to make it all cohesive, but I doubt it. Because there will always be the next big thing that investors will latch on to, so Windows just has to include it, and any refactoring can be postponed to never.

To be completely fair, the backwards compatibility is what keeps Windows alive. Yes that means there are multiple solutions for a single task. That also means you can take a CD-ROM from 20 years ago, pop it in, and the software has a decent chance of booting up.

 

[Max Weber]

To be completely fair, the backwards compatibility is what keeps Windows alive. Yes that means there are multiple solutions for a single task. That also means you can take a CD-ROM from 20 years ago, pop it in, and the software has a decent chance of booting up.

Which is why it's weird that between extending existing interfaces to include more features and migrating old stuff to newer, better, shinier intefraces they choose neither and yet somehow manage to cut your options. I don't mind the new Settings app, except for the fact that it doesn't have all the options from Control Panel, many of its links open those legacy windows, while some of the CP categories redirect you to Settings. Here's something I encountered recently: I have two montiors and use multiple virtual desktops. I wanted to set different wallpapers for my monitors, but the only option I saw was to set them per desktop. So I had to kill them, then set the wallpapers per monitor, and then set up my desktops again.

I've never had to interact with WinAPI directly, so all my complaints are coming from the user side, but I can't imagine that development experience is any better.

 

[WelperHelper99]

Which is why it's weird that between extending existing interfaces to include more features and migrating old stuff to newer, better, shinier intefraces they choose neither and yet somehow manage to cut your options. I don't mind the new Settings app, except for the fact that it doesn't have all the options from Control Panel, many of its links open those legacy windows, while some of the CP categories redirect you to Settings. Here's something I encountered recently: I have two montiors and use multiple virtual desktops. I wanted to set different wallpapers for my monitors, but the only option I saw was to set them per desktop. So I had to kill them, then set the wallpapers per monitor, and then set up my desktops again.

I've never had to interact with WinAPI directly, so all my complaints are coming from the user side, but I can't imagine that development experience is any better.

I imagine starting fresh at some point for something like a interface is better than tard wrangling a system that goes back to DOS. Some of it hits, some of it misses. It could be that. Or they just decided to do something new and said fuck it.

 

[Betonhaus]

I imagine starting fresh at some point for something like a interface is better than tard wrangling a system that goes back to DOS. Some of it hits, some of it misses. It could be that. Or they just decided to do something new and said fuck it.

Microsoft had a tendency to do a full rewite then abandon it for another full rewrite which they abandon. It's literally what killed their Windows Phone product, as they came out with three or four different versions over the span of five years where each version needed developers to completely rewrite their apps to work with it.
Right now half the APIs in Windows are ones that Microsoft pushed as the new standard only to abandon them for something else, but some apps still use that "new standard" so they still have to support it.

Apple will completely drop support for old APIs, yes, but they ensure that their new APIs are going to be around for a while and give a healthy grace period for developers to port over.

 

[WelperHelper99]

Microsoft had a tendency to do a full rewite then abandon it for another full rewrite which they abandon. It's literally what killed their Windows Phone product, as they came out with three or four different versions over the span of five years where each version needed developers to completely rewrite their apps to work with it.
Right now half the APIs in Windows are ones that Microsoft pushed as the new standard only to abandon them for something else, but some apps still use that "new standard" so they still have to support it.

Apple will completely drop support for old APIs, yes, but they ensure that their new APIs are going to be around for a while and give a healthy grace period for developers to port over.

It's jank but it prevents throwing perfectly good hardware in the trash. It's pretty remarkable that there is support for programs from the floppy disc era. And that's why I love Windows. It just works

 

[Betonhaus]

It's jank but it prevents throwing perfectly good hardware in the trash. It's pretty remarkable that there is support for programs from the floppy disc era. And that's why I love Windows. It just works

My work spent two days getting windows 11 to read a brand new usb floppy drive which required some registry hacking and a couple reboots to make it work, and even now it sometimes stops working and needs a reboot to fix it.

 

[A Series Of Tubes]

It's jank but it prevents throwing perfectly good hardware in the trash. It's pretty remarkable that there is support for programs from the floppy disc era. And that's why I love Windows. It just works

It just works*
*after 4-5 years of public beta testing, then it just works
That's how it's been since Win10. That OS blew chunks until version 1903-1909. Then it suddenly became stable/remotely usable. Unless Win11 follows suit in 2025 or 2026, MS is seppuku'ing themselves.

 

[WelperHelper99]

It just works*
*after 4-5 years of public beta testing, then it just works
That's how it's been since Win10.

I've had no complaints with Windows 11. All my games run, it doesn't crash, it surfs the web; it's completely satisfactory.

 

[A Series Of Tubes]

I've had no complaints with Windows 11. All my games run, it doesn't crash, it surfs the web; it's completely satisfactory.

It seems to be luck of the draw until the 4-5 year mark. You might have no problems whatsoever or it's the OS equivalent of Lucas automotive electronics.

 

[WelperHelper99]

It seems to be luck of the draw until the 4-5 year mark. You might have no problems whatsoever or it's the OS equivalent of Lucas automotive electronics.

I feel the people that have had issues are doing things to break it. In my experience it is stable as fuck. Like you would need to push it. It's also saved my ass a few times. Windows defender is more "proactive" I'll put it. It really won't allow you to catch a bug from a website unless you override multiple warning screens.

 

[A Series Of Tubes]

I feel the people that have had issues are doing things to break it. In my experience it is stable as fuck. Like you would need to push it. It's also saved my ass a few times. Windows defender is more "proactive" I'll put it. It really won't allow you to catch a bug from a website unless you override multiple warning screens.

As someone who tinkers with old games from time to time (reverse engineering, modding, cheat engine stuff), I absolutely loathe Defender. Thank God you can override it with MBAM. MBAM has been getting almost as overzealous as Defender the past 3-4 years however.