Why Windows 10 Sucks or Everything Wrong with Microsoft Windows - <AUTHOR> https://itvision.altervista.org/why-windows-10-sucks.html <comment><USER3> I'm no Windows fanboy but there's a lot of misinformation here. In the spirit of bullying the reader with a big list of points, here are some examples of incorrect claims in TFA:

1\. It's not hard to disable Cortana and internet-assisted start menu search completion. I assume that's what they mean by "keyboard scanning and voice recording" because I don't think there's anything else like that in the OS. It is possible to disable telemetry. In general Windows 10 does come with a ton of cruft but it can be disabled with e.g. [https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup- Script](https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script)

2\. Disk fragmentation hasn't been an issue for awhile. Defrag runs as a scheduled task in all versions of Windows 10.

3\. I like UAC. The article claims that giving users a dialog box to permit admin access is good for malware, but the alternative is taking admin away from users altogether on their own computers. I don't think this is an acceptable tradeoff.

4\. Windows has arguably the _best_ plug-and-play driver support of any operating system. It's not hard to find drivers as the article claims.

5\. The article claims that it's difficult to figure out why your startup is so slow, but task manager has a "Startup" tab now which tells you which startup items are consuming a lot of CPU at login.

6\. The article claims that you can't disable Windows Store apps, Windows tips, and ads in the start menu. That's untrue. I don't even have Windows Store installed as a Windows component, I have no idea what "Windows tips" even is, and my start menu is devoid of ads [https://i.imgur.com/xy69BWe.png](https://i.imgur.com/xy69BWe.png)

I think Windows is pretty bad and most users would probably be better off running Lubuntu or something, but there's no need to resort to exaggeration to make that case.

<comment><USER4> I'm not a fanboy of any OS in existence but

1\. Most tech-illiterate people are afraid of using regedit and/or GPO to disable Cortana so the point is valid.

2\. Disk fragmentation has become an even bigger issue since Windows 10 doesn't defragment SSD disks.

3\. It's not an argument.

4\. The article talks about laptops specifically and the issue is still there and it's huge even for Windows 10 which often installs Microsoft drivers which do _not_ work.

5\. You must be joking about the startup tab of the task manager. Looks like you've never had this issue or you've only used SSDs in your life. Also discover Autoruns by Mark Russinovich.

6\. The Windows Store app canNOT be disabled. Read carefully. Also after each major Windows update all apps are reinstalled.

There's no exaggeration - the author is an IT specialist with a lot of experience.

<comment><USER5> > _Disk fragmentation has become an even bigger issue since Windows 10 doesn > 't defragment SSD disks_

Defrag on SSDs in Windows 10 runs Trim. And it does do that automatically on a schedule if you don't change anything. Actual defragmentation on an SSD is way less useful because SSDs don't have killer seek latencies like spinning rust plates did, and it would be small-scale harmful because of write wear. And your SSD's onboard controller would likely thwart your efforts _anyway_ , because of wear leveling.

<comment><USER6> That's 1/2 right SSD's do have fragmentation issues, but it's about IOPS not latency. [http://www.dbta.com/Editorial/Trends-and- Applications/Does-F...](http://www.dbta.com/Editorial/Trends-and- Applications/Does-Fragmentation-Hurt-SSD-Performance-105652.aspx)

TRIM is also important, but it's a different issue.

<comment><USER7> That article makes claims of 25% reduction in perf with no data to back it up, then mentions fragmention leads to system instability, requiring reboots... What? Again no data given to back up these claims. It's also SAN/Enterprise- centric. Even if you lost 25% perf, you're going from 200,000 IOPs/sec to 150,000 IOPs/sec. This is still plenty fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I actually really like Windows 10, a huge portion of this list could easily apply to any modern operating system that isn't Linux, and even there some of it applies. So OSX, Android, iOS, etc.

The section "Now the second kind of issues is intrinsic to Windows 10 only" is full of things that are literally applicable to all the OSes I listed above. I had some laugh out loud moments reading it. Are people just blinded by rage against Microsoft? I don't see how anyone could type that section in particular out with a straight face while knowing about all the other major modern OSes.

<comment><USER4> MacOS doesn't have 95% of the listed issues.

And we don't have any other desktop OSes which are ready for prime time.

<comment><USER9> _And we don 't have any other desktop OSes which are ready for prime time._

People keep saying that, but how often is it really true these days?

As a professional software developer, the tools available on UNIXy platforms are already much _better_ in many cases than the Windows ports.

For a typical home user who is mostly interested in things like email and social networking, and maybe needs to write up some notes or do a quick household budget spreadsheet or basic photo editing, there is capable software available on any serious desktop platform today.

It's true that gaming lags behind, though there has been useful progress there in recent times, but lots of people game on dedicated consoles or on their mobile devices anyway now.

Are you sure you're not just repeating dogma that is well out of date by now?

<comment><USER10> I'm a systems administrator for a small MSP. I've used Linux as my primary OS for 9 years, despise using Windows, and I can tell you with 100% confidence that nothing but Windows is ready for prime time, and for one major reason: _ease of administration_.

Think of the growth cycle of the vast majority of businesses. Almost all businesses are started and run by non-IT people. They buy Windows machines because they're simple(don't have to worry about OS installation, chosing a distro, etc), have Microsoft Office, and work with any and all enterprise software they use. This gives them a key advantage for small businesses. Like it or not, Linux is just relatively hard.

Where Windows _really_ shines, though, is when a small business transitions to being a big-small or medium-sized business. If you have a couple dozen computers and a couple dozen users to manage, do you think it would be worth it to have a linux admin spin up an LDAP server with kerberos and all the bells and whistles needed, then be hired to manage that infrastructure? No, they're going to contract someone to spin up a windows server to manage user logins, create a network share, and call it a day. The infrastructure is super-stable, and when the cost of labor is considered, it is considerably cheaper than letting the system be the plaything of a local Linux zealot.

It's only when you consider big and massive businesses that Linux can really be viable, and even then it ain't cheap. Most big businesses grew in a Windows environment, and switching the core of your IT infrastructure sure as hell better be worth it to warrant the massive labor costs, IT fire fighting, and drop in employee productivity that will result.

No, Linux infrastructure and desktops really only make sense for companies that are either highly technical, need absolute control of their hardware, are _extremely_ price sensitive, are (or hope to become) massive, or a combination of these.

<comment><USER11> Why do your employee's systems need to be "Administrated" in the first place?

Why do you need Active Directory or LDAP? Why do you need group policy or anything else? Why are your endpoints not as close to vanilla simple desktop/laptops as possible? Is it that employees can't handle using a computer?

I've worked in one of the largest businesses in the world for many years now, and I don't think we even _have_ an IT department that manages desktop installations. I've certainly never interacted with them. You either figure out how to use the computer they give you, or you don't, in which case why should they employ you? Computers are a basic skill.

<comment><USER10> > Why do you need Active Directory or LDAP?

Primarily authentication, authorization, and accounting[0]. Setting up a new user account on every single computer that an employee may at some point sit at gets very expensive. Many businesses (if not immediately then eventually) have security concerns that require Administrators have the ability to immediately lock users out of the system or be able to audit recent activity. AD/LDAP facilitates this. It can also automate standard settings like network drives, screen lockout settings, homepages, and all sorts of other settings.

> You either figure out how to use the computer they give you, or you don't

Standardization of processes and training can reduce training time considerably. For industries with high turnover, this can make a difference. You've gotta remember, not everyone is a knowledge worker. Tons of people are more like cogs in the machine of the company, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[0] [https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24130/authentication-a...](https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24130/authentication- authorization-and-accounting-aaa)

<comment><USER11> > Primarily authentication, authorization, and accounting[0]. Setting up a new > user account on every single computer that an employee may at some point sit > at gets very expensive

Why are people using more than one machine?

> Many businesses (if not immediately then eventually) have security concerns > that require Administrators have the ability to immediately lock users out > of the system or be able to audit recent activity.

Why are the network services tied to login sessions on my machine? I mean, login token invalidation is an interesting problem in general, but every place I've worked in the past 10 years, my desktop is not the place where secure things are stored, the services I access are. (And those services are increasingly SaaS and use something like SAML with the directory server for the company.) None of which needs a login token associated in any way with my desktop login.

Perhaps a better phrasing of the question is, why is the demarcation line between the untrusted world and the things you're protecting on the _desktop_? And not at the services themselves?

> It can also automate standard settings like network drives, screen lockout > settings, homepages, and all sorts of other settings.

Sounds like a bunch of solutions to problems you're creating for yourselves. Why even do any of these things?

Perhaps an analogy would be helpful:

Say you required all your employees to have smart phones so they could (for instance) get email, log into the timecard/accounting service, etc. You'd need a pretty huge justification to require all of the phones to be managed centrally by your company. Why are desktops different?

(Or perhaps you'd defend even the central management of my iPhone too, in which case I think our perspectives are so far off, I don't think there's much convincing either of us can do at this point.)

I used to be an AD administrator for a university and had to manage hundreds of lab machines (maintaining a central hardware-independent image, group policy, tons of settings), so I'm aware of what tools are available for Administration, I'm just saying 9 times out of 10, the best way to administer lots of systems is to not administer them at all.

<comment><USER12> > Why are people using more than one machine?

Ever been in a meeting room? Most companies have shared PCs for meeting rooms. Logging in gives you access to your documents so you can hold your meeting and take your notes back to your workstation.

I'm really surprised you worked in a large business and haven't experienced any of this or the need for standardisation. We use a bunch of systems that all work with AD, it's really a solved problem in a Windows based environment.

<comment><USER9> _Most companies have shared PCs for meeting rooms._

Are you sure that's not overgeneralising from your own experience? After all, most companies don't even have dedicated meeting rooms, because they aren't big enough. Of the ones that do, I have rarely seen a dedicated PC in there, and that spans the full range of businesses from five guys in a single office through 200+ person medium enterprises right up to some of the largest companies in the world. Most people just take their own laptops, IME. So while I don't doubt that you may have come across this often, it's not necessarily the way everyone else does it.

In any case, basic AAA for organisational user IDs is hardly rocket science, whether you're running on Windows or Linux.

<comment><USER12> The OP mentioned working in one of the largest companies in the world I find it hard to believe they have no conference and meeting rooms. I think you are over-generalizing using startups as a prototype; the enterprise world is a different beast.

<comment><USER9> As I wrote before, I've also worked in some of the largest companies in the world. Obviously those do have meeting rooms in their offices, but IME people typically just bring their own laptops/devices to a meeting. I can't remember the last time I saw a dedicated PC that stayed in a meeting room, other than maybe ones used to run projectors and such in a conference centre that was hired out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Plus, the confusing control panel.

Everything is flat, with no color distinction, that I must scan every single stupid grey icon, and memorize or guess, what the icons mean. Before, some of the icons would have colors, like the defrag program, where I can quickly identify the program, because the icon has a touch of red in it. This slows me down, and it increases my cognitive overhead to look for things in Windows. And often times, the icons no longer have names on it, so it's a total guessing game what this flat abstract icon even means!

The on and off buttons look alike! Often times, I can't figure out which it is. Light switches in the real world, is up and down, so this is easy to remember. But side switches, left or right, are confusing. Was it left to turn on, or the other way. I can't figure it out.

Also, this problem plagues the stupid new iPhone designs too. I miss the skeuomorphisms.

<comment><USER14> Fork that "control" panel. Use the old one.

<comment><USER15> Most things in Settings aren't in the Control Panel and a lot of what is in the Control Panel opens the Settings app (e.g. Control Panel -> Default Programs -> Set your default programs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's worth a mention just how buggy win10 has been for me. I don't spend much time working in windows, but every time I do I encounter one issue or another.

File explorer freezes / crashes.

There is that one empty folder on my desktop that I cannot delete because it is in use, but there is nothing in the folder and no program is conceivably using it.

There are occasional glitches with git. It wouldn't let me clone a git repo somewhere because it said the folder already existed. No such folder existed. Changing the destination name did nothing. Restarting fixed it.

There was a bug which kept rearranging the order of desktop icons, which was actually pretty annoying.

There is a bug that they seem to fix and then break with every other update. Basically, if I go fullscreen with some programs and two monitors set to mirror, the resolution zooms in and it's unusable. This is currently broken in the latest stable release.

Installs from the windows store almost always fail for no obvious reason.

I updated to 1909, or w/e the latest is, hoping that some of the isues I've encountered would be fixed. I've reinstalled the driver and tried fixing it but the USB wifi adapter that I have now no longer works (still works fine in Linux).

I could go on. That is with me going out of my way to not install much at all on the pc, because I know that installing things like tweaks to stop telemetry like the author suggests will lead to even more issues.

Contrast this to the experience I've had with Linux the past few years. It never crashes. Core programs like nemo (file explorer) do not freeze / crash. It updates without issue. I cannot think of a single issue i've had. The computer does exactly what I expect it to do. Stability is vital if you want to be productive.

I'm sure other folks have had the opposite experience. For me though, I am done with Windows.

<comment><USER17> > File explorer freezes / crashes.

It's been happening to me too, but it's unclear to me if it's one of my shell extensions or Windows itself. Do you run any shell extensions?

> There are occasional glitches with git. It wouldn't let me clone a git repo > somewhere because it said the folder already existed. No such folder > existed. Changing the destination name did nothing. Restarting fixed it.

That's mind-boggling. Were you using WSL at all, or just vanilla Windows git? WSL can have these types of issues if you try to mess with its file system (I think due to POSIX deletion semantics), but they shouldn't occur on your desktop...

<comment><USER18> > It's been happening to me too, but it's unclear to me if it's one of my > shell extensions or Windows itself. Do you run any shell extensions?

only shellex here is 7zfm integration and I get occasional explorer.exe crashes. Also I had an install where edge just wouldn't start. At all.

<comment><USER17> Good to know, thanks for the info! I do have 7-zip too, so I'll try to see if it might be related if it happens again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've started a list since getting my Win 10 machine at work:

1\. Sometimes when I select the titlebar of a maximized window to move it to my second monitor it somehow selects the window under the one with focus.

2\. For some applications (including MS Office ones) text is blurry when I move from laptop screen to external monitor.

4\. Windows 10 ships with a python.exe in the path that opens the MS Store. Figuring out which part of the path to fix to disable it was non-obvious.

5\. VirtualBox is broken because of some Hyper-V settings. I still haven't figured out how to fix this one.

MS somehow shipped an OS with problems I've never seen before in _any_ OS...

The first time I did an upgrade from 7 to 10 and I saw the horrible anti- patterns in the "opt-in" screens, I shut it down and switched to Debian Buster. No looking back.

<comment><USER15> How on earth are you avoiding things like #2 on Debian? The only OS I've found that properly handles arbitrary DPI since day 1 has been Android.

Also you skipped #3 in your list

<comment><USER19> :-) #3 is me complaining about the Ribbon and I figured that discussion has been done to death so I left it out and forgot to renumber.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've come to accept that there is no good OS (maybe iOS, but not really). You're just picking your poison.

Want to be spied on and have your system slowly accumulate cruft and grind to a halt over the course of a few years? Use Windows.

Want to be constantly fiddling with your system just to keep it running on a day to day basis? Use Linux.

Want to be _constantly_ spied on and probably also hacked? Use Android.

Want to pay a bunch of extra money and still deal with a decent number of bugs¹ and _atrocious_ default settings/annoying user-protection features you have to turn off? Use macOS.

¹All of them are riddled with bugs

<comment><USER21> > Want to be constantly fiddling with your system just to keep it running? Use > Linux.

This may have been true 10+ years ago; the amount of fiddling required is pretty low these days.

<comment><USER22> I actually remember myself having to fiddle more with Windows than with Linux, in the Windows XP days. Windows would always invent some reason to require some reboot, or get random corrupted system files, or vcredist incompatibilities, or failed attempts at auto updates, or reinstall drivers for the mouse you just unplugged and plugged in a different USB port, or I don't remember what else it was with it all the time.

Linux (at least Archlinux) doesn't require much once you install it, are happy with the set-up and regularly update it.

Unless you're the kind of person who likes tweaking their Linux and trying out many distros, but if you do that means you like fidding with your system :) I personally just like an Archlinux installation that stays stable for 5+ years and actually use it.

<comment><USER20> > Linux (at least Archlinux) doesn't require much once you install it, are > happy with the set-up and regularly update it.

Using Archlinux presumes you already know your system intimately and have taken the time to hand-craft it. That would make solving problems down the road much easier.

On the other hand, if you're like me and you want to just drop standard-issue Linux (i.e. Ubuntu) on a computer and then just _use_ it, you quickly encounter gaps in the defaults/automatic setup and have to dig in and try to figure out where things went wrong. Your graphics driver gets confused when you plug in a second monitor. Your WiFi card isn't detected. There's no sound. Little things that kill your workflow in a death by a thousand cuts.

Windows has just as much intrinsic fragility, if not more, but through sheer economy of scale nearly everyone's real-world problems have been addressed by layer upon layer of defaults and automatic checks. That's how Windows manages to "just work" most of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Windows 10 is can be infuriating. But I can't find any other OS that is a good alternative. It's the worst OS, except for all the other OSes out there.

1\. Best in gaming.

2\. Engineering applications (CAD/Matlab/LabView) are usually windows-first

3\. Good software development ecosystem. Now with Windows Subsystem for Linux, the need for having another OS is diminishing.

4\. User interface is great. A lot of customization options (official and third party). It is not bare-bones like Linux but also not user-proofed like macOS.

<comment><USER24> #1 true. #2 yes but slowly moving to the web.

#3 Linux is way ahead. #4 There are quite a few distributions, I think you should look around. I use KDE happily. I frankly find Windows rather bare bones in what you get. It seems everything needs another app, and they're all a pain in the ass.

<comment><USER25> I don't know about moving to the web on #2. From what I have seen the web alternatives of those products, if they even exist, are tailored to the hobbyist, semi-professional market.

Things like Siemens NX _can't_ move to the web, since we are talking about entire development platforms, not just applications.

<comment><USER24> I was thinking about OnShape cad, Mathematica, and Matlab. Pretty major ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Apple hasn't done a great job of supporting MacOS over the past few years. Catalina in particular has been a bit rocky, but every time I look seriously at Windows as an alternative it falls short.

It's quite sad to me that my choice of OS has essentially boiled down to "Sucks less, costs more".

It's been a few years for me, but maybe time to start seriously looking at Linux on the desktop again.

<comment><USER27> I don't see how Apple hasn't done the best job in terms of operating systems. macOS hasn't changed significantly in the last decade; it's essentially the same interface, but less skeumorphism. The only bug I've experienced that's close to being serious is the touchbar freezing(seriously wtf).

Windows, on the other hand, has changed significantly. Sure, it runs 32-bit programs, but the interface difference between 7 and 10 is ginormous.

Linux, as much as I love it, is probably the worst offender. At one point we had GNOME and KDE as dominant desktop environments, and then we had Unity, GNOME 3, Cinnamon, MATE, etc. Now after years of forcing Unity on everyone, Ubuntu has switched to GNOME except now GNOME is in a worse state than it was back in GNOME 2. Most distros are still using X11, graphics card support is lousy, and horizontal display tearing is still a problem that every commercial OS has 100% solved.

macOS has at least remained fairly consistent compared to all the other competition.

<comment><USER28> > macOS hasn't changed significantly in the last decade

See, my problem with macOS is that it has changed _far_ too much in the past decade. Mac OS X circa-2010 was stable, intuitive, robust, and beautiful. There was no need to re-architect anything.

I wish Apple had gone into maintenance mode. Patch security holes, add new drivers, and update your hardware. That's all I want. New features are okay _if_ they address a real need, _and_ if they can be fit into your (at the time) very strong interface metaphors and guidelines.

As a tradeoff, your users won't have their apps suddenly break, and your developers won't have to spend stupid amounts of time keeping up with unnecessary system changes.

This is what's most grating about the deprecation of 32 bit support—as a user, I don't feel like I'm getting _anything_ out of it. Catalina is all downsides. In exchange for broken apps, I get an OS which is more buggy than ever and a bunch of ported cell phone apps. Just what I always wanted!

I am by no means against change, but I am 100% against _unnecessarily_ change. From where I'm standing, the tech industry right now is _full_ of unnecessary change. Why does Windows have two control panels? I'll admit the new one looks nicer, but I'd much prefer having just one, even if it looks slightly dated. Maybe that's Microsoft's goal, but why should we all have to deal with a UX downgrade in the interim?

<comment><USER29> > Why does Windows have two control panels?

Two? Try three. If you did deep enough the original System control panel from old will come up.

I prefer those actually, easy to understand and a lot less wordy. I don't come to the control panel to read a novel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> >Truth to be told it's not a problem with HiDPI monitors but few people own them.

It's almost 2020. Apple began shipping HiDPI in 2012. It's absolutely shameful that vendors are still shipping 1080p.

<comment><USER31> Lots of Windows apps don't support HiDPI correctly, and on many of them no matter what combination of workarounds you use you'll end up with some text being huge or some text being tiny.

Heck, even Perforce, a constantly updated app in use on millions of machines, just recently fixed this.

Where I have to use Windows, I always specify low dpi displays so I don't have to deal with all of that garbage.

<comment><USER32> It's honestly not that bad in my opinion. Most apps work fine, and those that don't are usually old games or something like that.

I've found an easy fix for them: Right click the executable and click "Properties" then go to the "Compatibility" tab you click the checkbox next to "Override high DPI scaling behavior". Then select the "System" option.

This way Windows 10 does the scaling itself. The app will just look a little less sharp because it will use a larger virtual pixel instead of the real display pixel size but the app will work normally and all text and interface elements will be a reasonable size.

<comment><USER31> Tried that, found the result gross to look at.

<comment><USER33> It's sad when a 5k monitor works flawlessly under macOS and then you fire up a windows VM with the latest version of SQL Server Management Studio and then needing to squint at the text

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If at all possible, use Windows 10 LTSC/LTSB.

LTSC was exactly what I wanted from a Windows OS. No Windows Store, no Candy Crush, and—most importantly by far—only security updates.

It's the Debian model. Your OS stays secure, but the software will _never_ change in a user visible way, unless/until you specifically choose to install a new LTSC release, which comes out around once every two years.

It's perfect.

<comment><USER34> LTSC sounds nice, but licensing it is not simple or inexpensive if you're just a normal person with a few computers at home.

<comment><USER28> Completely agreed, that's where the "if at all possible" part comes in. :(

And it's ridiculous! The next time Microsoft PR says basically anything about being dedicated to consumers, stop and consider: a significant* subset of consumers have been clambering for a product which Microsoft already makes anyway, but refuses to sell.

* (We'll never know _how_ significant minus millions of dollars in market research. But it's clearly enough people to warrant adding some buttons to your checkout page. Again, this is a product that Microsoft already makes.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> One positive point as the article points out is compatibility. This is the single reason Windows remains the staple of industry software, across almost all industries. It's particularly relevant in light of recent Mac OS X dropping 32-bit support. There are a lot of professionals whose livelihood depends on these older apps that either will never be updated or will take a very long time to do so.

<comment><USER36> I bet Wine is actually more compatible than Windows itself. Especially if you just look at software up to the Windows 7 era. Can you run Windows 3.1 programs on a modern 64-bit OS? With Wine it can be done.

<comment><USER37> I think a bet you would loose :). Wine is an awesome project but 100 devs vs 10.000 devs is not fair on an API surface as big as Win32.

<comment><USER38> The Wine devs don't have to spend time on stuff like telemetry and ads. And they only need to replicate a tiny sliver of Windows' UIs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Windows 10 is/was the slap in the face it took to finally migrate all of my development workflow to Linux, and my Adobe workflow to OSX.

</comment><comment><USER40> Something small I like about Windows: when I plug in Ethernet, it actually shows an Ethernet connection in the system tray. OSX seems to have a special icon for tethering to iPhone, but not Ethernet of all things. It just show the wifi icon, even when Ethernet is connected. Grr.

<comment><USER41> It is physically plugged into the computer so you obviously don't need an icon cluttering your UI. This is the Apple design philosophy you paid extra for.

<comment><USER42> I'm glad that I can always see the other end of the ethernet cable, and therefore do not need a way to determine if there is an active connection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Very valid issues here.

Although it has improved, Windows Update is still shockingly bad compared to any decent package manager used on Linux in the past 10+ years.

<comment><USER44> Is there anyone who can explain why Windows Update is so much slower than running »apt upgrade« and similar?

<comment><USER45> Part of the reason is what I described in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20812142](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20812142) and its child comment.

<comment><USER44> Interesting! Thank you for writing this up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Windows 10 is a service, i.e. where will Microsoft get its recurring income from. a) Marketing data, b) start charging monthly fees for OS features.

</comment><comment><USER47> Surprised no one linked to his similar Linux list: [https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.t...](https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html)

</comment><comment><USER48> > _The most egregious, of course, is a total abandonment of any form of > privacy and control._

This is an issue for me, and it's an issue you, but it is emphatically _not an issue_ for the vast majority of windows users.

Do bloggers simply choose to ignore this fact when writing swan song posts about the "end" of this or that?

<comment><USER9> _it is emphatically not an issue for the vast majority of windows users._

There is no way to know that unless they have been presented with a viable alternative that they understand.

I had a fascinating conversation a little while ago with some slightly younger friends who are very much of the digital native, smartphone-since-birth generation. They couldn't live without their social media and always-online everything. They still thought it was creepy that when they went travelling they started getting all sorts of ads about places they were going and so on because they realised it meant something on their phones was spying on them. They didn't _like_ it, they would just _tolerate_ it because they had no other way to stay connected to what is, for that generation, a normal life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> > but the truth is that the built-in antimalware protection in Windows is > simply horrible (according to various AV comparisons, Microsoft Essentials > misses over 20% of in-the-wild malware)

AV comparisons have to be normally taken with a pile of salt. There's rarely an independent one. And even once you start looking at 3rd parties, it turns out they enable attack surface on their own. Then there's a number of 3rd parties which rely on cloud scanning aka "submit it to virustotal".

Here's some more context for why the comparisons are tricky: [https://www.mrg- effitas.com/research/stop-using-virustotal-t...](https://www.mrg- effitas.com/research/stop-using-virustotal-to-measure-how-av-sucks/)

</comment><comment><USER50> At this point I'm not sure that a desktop OS with this wide hardware compatibility and backwards compatibility can be written any better than Windows 10.

The thing is, if you are an experienced user with willingness to search for solutions, you can fix most of the problems. Disable updates completely, disable cortana, stop 99% of the telemetry, use alternative utilities instead of the built-in ones, fix security issues with network rules etc.

It takes time and patience, but in the end you get a good work environment that is relatively stable, compatible with literally every hardware and also has the absolutely widest selection of software available. That is all I want from an OS.

<comment><USER51> The fixes you've listed get overturned by Microsoft. Just because you _can_ hack around windows to make it temporarily do the things you want, doesn't mean it's a resolved problem.

Microsoft only does this because they've been able to reduce consumer expectations. Being a part of that means the next version will be worse.

<comment><USER50> But this doesn't really matter as you can disable updates (group policies through WinPro). By the time someone is pressed to update for compatibility, there is already a solution to fix what the update broke. For the sake of enterprises, Windows will always have a switch to disable updates. And since it is hugely complex, and it needs to keep large portions compatible, there will probably be always ways to hack around.

Of course this state of things is far from ideal, and it's not easily available for everyday users. But I think an open source desktop OS could have never achieved the things that Windows is respected for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> it's funny to read a rant from a ex-Microsoft and sad that he doesn't know why Microsoft still have a vast market share.

I've been in the IT game for 10+ years. small/mid companies doesn't have the budget or man powers to leave the MS's lala land and they can care less. IT is a money losing dept and they need to make money by focus on what they do best.

Windows is a platform where most of their software work and their employees know.

do you think small/mid or heck the giant corporation have the money, staff and time to move their employees and operation out of Windows.

<comment><USER53> IT costs money yes, but it's not like there is ZERO ROI. Just because the value isn't immediately obvious doesn't mean it's not helping the business and it's bottom line. I agree that certain aspects of IT you should try to minimize cost because the value add is minimal, or because throwing more money at that aspect of IT does not help the business. But other aspects of IT that improve efficiency of the organization or even multiply the capabilities of the business will give you a significant ROI. Just to put it into perspective, is Marketing your business exclusively lose you money? Obviously not. There is an ROI, but it's not always immediately measurable.

I'm sorry whatever education or experience had failed you in seeing this. The successful business will recognize the value of every department and attempt to maximize the return where it makes sense.

I agree with your other points. The entire business industry is on Windows. Almost all applications work on Windows or integrate with Windows. Most employees are experienced with Windows. the cost of retraining, the loss of potential talent, the cost of not being able to integrate fully with other businesses that are on Windows are some of the reasons why they are entrenched.

I have a finance degree, business degree, comp sci degree, and run my own business plus have worked IN IT at successful multi-million dollar orgs and the most successful focus on IT as well as other departments to push value add investment in those departments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Wow, that's a very comprehensive list! I think it covers pretty much every item that makes Windows 10 unacceptable for my personal use (unfortunately, I'm required to use Win 10 in my workplace.)

<comment><USER55> My workplace is the same. Windows or Mac. I was on mac, but enterprise support for mac is awful and was limited to 16GB ram. I moved to Windows and installed Hyper-V so that I could have Linux VM's and have 64GB ram. That is where I do all my work. Hyper-V still needs a lot of refinement, but it works.

<comment><USER56> How do you keep windows from rebooting when it feels like it to install 'critical' updates? Id like to use windows as a linux VM host but every couple weeks my linux server is taken down because automatic reboots can't be disabled. Microsoft seems to actively prevent every workaround people find to disable this rebooting, no matter how difficult and arcane.

<comment><USER55> At work we are on Windows 10 Enterprise. Updates are installed by the business. I've only ever been prompted for a reboot once and it was for a 0-day mitigation that was deployed as an emergency change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I see a few comments trying to forgive Windows 10 "now" because certain things aren't true "anymore" or lousy features can technically be turned off, etc. but those excuses do not hold up:

\- The initial Windows 10 launch and forced-update scheme was _completely botched_. It _directly_ caused major problems and cost users incredible amounts of money that Microsoft didn't have to cover at all! (Examples: Business interruptions. Personal data losses and/or broken apps. Data-plan costs for downloading and re-downloading bloated updates over slow and/or expensive connections. Buying replacement hardware if things are broken and people don't know what else to do.)

\- Terrible defaults are inexcusable. Most people will not know that they should change things, or know how. Windows Updates can reverse settings anyway so even if you get your friends and family to fix an obnoxious setting once, it may not persist.

\- This was produced by a massive company that had the resources to spend to do this properly. They should have spent those resources.

</comment><comment><USER58> When Win10 came out, we had several meetings about privacy concerns. I did not understand the concern. Smart phones spy on their users all the time, and no one really cares. Why, all of a sudden, is it an issue when desktops/laptops do the same thing that phones have done for almost a decade now? No one gave me a good answer to that question.

<comment><USER59> I believe iOS phones give users a lot more control over their data than Windows PCs do now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Windows had the best GUI and kernel in the 2000/XP/Classic timeframe. God it sucked hard in many little areas though.

BUT, they've been knocking things out in the last few years. Windows is getting tolerable again:

\- Better security

\- Windows Terminal

\- ExFat specs

\- Dark theme

Too bad I'll never use it with telemetry and cortana etc. :-/

<comment><USER60> > \- Dark theme

Worst thing to happen was their elimination of color customization of the user interface in Windows 10.

I don't know why Microsoft had to eliminate the viewing ease of their ENTIRE user base.

<comment><USER29> Totally agree, yet they weren't the only one. Think it happened as early as Win 7.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I have a windows 10 laptop that i keep around for the few things that need windows (updating an old remote control, that kind of thing), and the odd/annoying behavior is that the fonts will go insane after updates. There will be no fonts at all for the desktop icons, or traditional windows apps. Even cmd.exe doesn't show any fonts. However, web browsers (chrome) will work (with some fonts being weird), as will the new-ish windows 10 style control panel things.

I've finally figured out that logging in as a different user, logging my account out, and then logging back in as me will "fix" the font issue ... until the next update.

</comment><comment><USER62> I'm mostly a macOS guy but I built a new music production and gaming machine a couple of month ago with Windows 10. Other than the ugly UI and confusing UX it has been running flawlessly for me.

</comment><comment><USER63> Most of these issues are solved if you can manage to get your hands on a copy of the LTSB (or whatever they are calling it these days, I believe the name has changed slightly) version of Windows 10. I would actually pay good money for this distribution, but it's only available through MSDN subscriptions or enterprise licensing.

It's a rock-solid, stable, garbage-free version of Windows. You don't get any half-borked feature updates, only security fixes. No Cortana, no Store, no Candy Crush.

<comment><USER4> Sadly not legally available for SOHO users in any shape or form.

<comment><USER64> You can get a volume license by buying a bunch of licenses for stuff that's $5-$10 per user. You'll still end up with a total of ~$300 (Including one LTSC license), but it is entirely legal and supported by Microsoft.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> > You may probably want to know why Windows 10 feels so buggy

I'm not sure why all the hate -- I have had zero stability issues, it boots amazingly fast, and if you get rid of all the default crap on the start menu it looks ok and search finally works like a charm.

> In certain cases it's extremely difficult to find or update drivers for your > hardware devices (

Except that it's more difficult everywhere else - if you can even find a driver...

<comment><USER66> I like to have themes installed & windows update (which 99% of people will not be able to figure out how to fully stop) always breaks my computer requiring me to roll back to the previous update until I get another update notification which force-ably breaks my computer again. I now use Sledgehammer 2.6.0 to absolutely crush windows' update attempts every time I boot up. Microsoft deserves hate for not giving users simple permissions over their own systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> It took almost 5 years for Apple to recognize and fix the butterfly keyboard, which was an obviously bad design. Microsoft is 5 years in with Windows 10 but they are no sign of awareness at all about how crappy it is. Which is sad because Windows has some good points and advantages (I love Visual Studio, notably), but it's not useable as a daily driver anymore since Win8.

</comment><comment><USER68> "Most malware writers target Windows as the most popular desktop OS, so it has the biggest number of viruses among all other OSes (over five thousand new viruses daily)."

I thought the article had the aim to showcase solvable issues.

Yet it seems to more often just point out the same issue (e.g. privacy),

minor issues(inconsistency in legacy apps)

and even suggest harmful practices (disable security software, never upgrade...).

</comment><comment><USER69> I just bought a new MacBook Pro. I don't like it but I couldn't think of a better alternative. I like OSX, been very used to it. I worked at MS and still hate windows (the default track everything philosophy is a big deal breaker). Linux for the desktop may come next year.

I really wish Microsoft listened to its customers and stops the track everything crap.

</comment><comment><USER70> Been using win7 since forever. Win10 is such a huge step back that I just install win7 even on new PCs. Even hidipi works almost as well on win7. Probably the only thing I miss that I care about is hdr and ble.

The fact that ms wants you to use win10 so badly is a big hint that it's full of antifeatures.

<comment><USER71> Can you please, because I'm terrified, 2-3 reasons why win7 and no windows 10? I need to make a decision soon (1 week or sooner)

<comment><USER15> Windows 7 goes end of life in 2 weeks. Unless you're using an old computer your hardware (e.g. CPU) is probably not supported, even if it does run it won't run properly. With EoL approaching Nvidia/AMD will stop publishing driver updates and new GPUs won't be hardware accelerated. The security model in Windows 10 is as big a jump as XP -> 7 was. It often takes manually loading additional drivers to even get the installer to recognize your disks/hardware.

<comment><USER72> > Windows 7 goes end of life in 2 weeks.

No it doesn't, for two reasons.

Chromium Edge will support windows 7, ironically the release date it's just one day after Win7 supposedly goes eol. and of course Windows 7 ESU support will end in 2023.

<comment><USER15> And they released a patch for CVE-2019-0708 on Windows 2000, that doesn't mean Windows 2000 isn't EoL as of 2019 it means a one off decision was made.

ESU is for businesses not end users and requires professional or higher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Wine however, is awesome. For UI apps on Linux, I think Wine is a better platform than Qt/GTK/etc.

<comment><USER74> Wine is okay, but for me it generates lots of errors and overall is much slower compared to a native app. I'd much prefer a native Qt app than a Wine app.

<comment><USER73> PS2 emulator works at full frame rate under it--ordinary GUIs should fly.

There's something else going on there...

</comment></comment></comment><comment> java-man Missing from the list:

Win 10 periodically resets the "default applications", completely ignoring previous user preferences. Starts opening PDF files with Edge (argh!) or TXT with Notepad (double argh!).

Does anyone know how to prevent this?

<comment><USER75> I'm not sure I've ever heard of anyone having this problem aside from that large server update a year or two ago and their "desktop experience". Can anyone tell me more?

<comment> java-man Literally today it opened a PDF file with Edge for me. And, of course, file association page does not have a searh box to help find .txt among hundreds of useless and unassigned extensions.

<comment><USER76> See: [https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170517-00/?p=96...](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170517-00/?p=96175) for an explanation.

" _A customer reported that each time they restart their Windows 10 PC, the file association for PDF documents keeps getting reset to the default, which is Microsoft Edge._ [..]"

<comment> java-man This is not a case of Program X messing with registry. This is the __user __explicitly setting Program X to be the default application.

I guess there is no way (given the current registry design) to differentiate between the user modifying the registry and a program modifying the registry.

Again, coming back to the original message - the case scenario is not that some program is changing the preferences. It the user changing the setting, and Win10 silently discarding the user input (after a reboot or some automated update).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> 10 is the most usable version of Windows, hands down, and it's where you go if you have even remotely modern hardware. Why are people still arguing that it's bad?

<comment><USER29> It still has a _long_ way to go for a company with the resources of MS. They are now developing/not-finished-with a color terminal app to catch up with the 80s. There are three layers of control panels.

See the article for a longer list of complaints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> It's not your computer.

        An OS by Microsoft for the benefit of Microsoft

        Forced Updates

        Forcible information disclosure

        Changes without consent

        Dark patterns

        Your privacy, their profit

        Advertisments

Microsoft may be collecting more data than initially thought [http://www.ghacks.net/2016/01/05/microsoft-may-be- collecting...](http://www.ghacks.net/2016/01/05/microsoft-may-be-collecting- more-data-than-initially-thought/)

Windows 10: data collecting all for the greater good [http://www.ghacks.net/2015/09/29/windows-10-data- collecting-...](http://www.ghacks.net/2015/09/29/windows-10-data-collecting- all-for-the-greater-good/) "data collection cannot be turned off fully on all but Enterprise editions of Windows 10"

What Windows 10 is actually monitoring (regardless of privacy settings) (self.Windows10) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3gm1e3/what_wind...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3gm1e3/what_windows_10_is_actually_monitoring_regardless/)

[GUIDE] How to disable data logging in W10. (self.Windows10) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3f38ed/guide_how...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3f38ed/guide_how_to_disable_data_logging_in_w10/)

Can I completely disable Cortana on Windows 10? [https://superuser.com/questions/949569/can-i-completely- disa...](https://superuser.com/questions/949569/can-i-completely-disable- cortana-on-windows-10)

"passive-aggressive authoritarianism" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16383577](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16383577)

So, my home server was hijacked... (self.Windows10) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3zu8au/so_my_hom...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3zu8au/so_my_home_server_was_hijacked/)

Windows 10 Personality is kind of like a manager that pretends to be your friend, but always comes across snarky, and still uses their position to force you to do things you otherwise wouldn't do. (self.Windows10) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/41pr62/windows_1...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/41pr62/windows_10_personality_is_kind_of_like_a_manager/)

Tablet view is showing saved porn images (self.Windows10) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3f5won/tablet_vi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3f5won/tablet_view_is_showing_saved_porn_images/)

Windows: "We have some new features we are excited about" \- proceeds to not tell me what these features are.. How do you keep up with updates? (self.Windows10) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3yyx78/windows_w...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3yyx78/windows_we_have_some_new_features_we_are_excited/)

My frustration with Windows 10 is reaching a boiling point (self.Windows10) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3ynyvf/my_frustr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3ynyvf/my_frustration_with_windows_10_is_reaching_a/)

Gotta love how Edge switched to my PDF viewer without any action on my behalf (t.gyazo.com) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/42l2k5/gotta_lov...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/42l2k5/gotta_love_how_edge_switched_to_my_pdf_viewer/)

Calculator now freezes and nags for reviews? (i.imgur.com) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/4195rl/calculato...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/4195rl/calculator_now_freezes_and_nags_for_reviews/)

Warning: Windows 7 computers are being reported as automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade without permission. (self.technology) [https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4a0asv/warning_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/4a0asv/warning_windows_7_computers_are_being_reported_as)

Microsoft hits a new low -- sneaks Windows 10 advertising into an Internet Explorer security patch [http://betanews.com/2016/03/09/windows-10-advertising-in- ie-...](http://betanews.com/2016/03/09/windows-10-advertising-in-ie-security- patch/) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11262037](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11262037) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11276322](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11276322)

Microsoft is using an Internet Explorer security patch to shove more 'Upgrade to Windows 10' nagware at Windows users [http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-embeds-nagware- into...](http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-embeds-nagware-into-ie- patch-2016-3?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter)

Microsoft is using 'malware tactics' to trick people into upgrading to Windows 10 [http://www.businessinsider.com/windows-10-pop-ups- tricking-u...](http://www.businessinsider.com/windows-10-pop-ups-tricking- users-into-upgrading-x-2016-5)

One wrong click could get you Windows 10 — whether you want it or not [http://www.businessinsider.com/windows-10-upgrade- popup-2016...](http://www.businessinsider.com/windows-10-upgrade-popup-2016-5)

Microsoft re-releases KB 3035583 Get Windows 10 installer -- again [http://www.infoworld.com/article/3048152/microsoft- windows/m...](http://www.infoworld.com/article/3048152/microsoft- windows/microsoft-re-releases-kb-3035583-get-windows-10-installer-again.html)

PSA: Windows 7 computers are being reported as automatically starting the Windows 10 upgrade without permission. [https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/4a5edx/psa_window...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/4a5edx/psa_windows_7_computers_are_being_reported_as/)

Windows 10: Microsoft launches intrusive full-screen upgrade reminder [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/04/microsoft...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/04/microsoft- windows-10-full-screen-upgrade-notification-pop-up-reminder) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12030257](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12030257) [https://techreport.com/news/30351/microsoft-final- windows-10...](https://techreport.com/news/30351/microsoft-final- windows-10-upgrade-prompt-goes-full-screen)

Sick of this shit (Windows 10) (self.sysadmin) [https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/7d68rg/sick_of_th...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/7d68rg/sick_of_this_shit_windows_10/)

Hey Microsoft, Stop Installing Apps On My PC Without Asking [https://www.howtogeek.com/342871/hey-microsoft-stop- installi...](https://www.howtogeek.com/342871/hey-microsoft-stop-installing- apps-on-my-pc-without-asking/) [https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/02/15/1720243/hey- microso...](https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/02/15/1720243/hey-microsoft- stop-installing-apps-on-my-pc-without-asking)

Microsoft again forced upgrades on Win10 machines specifically set to block updates [https://www.computerworld.com/article/3261969/microsoft- wind...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/3261969/microsoft- windows/microsoft-again-forced-upgrades-on-win10-machines-specifically-set-to- block-updates.html) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16582231](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16582231)

Windows Update shutdown is threatening to eliminate a many hours-long project by shutting down [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8am914/windows_u...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8am914/windows_update_shutdown_is_threatening_to/?st=jfxrvd54&sh=7f0e763a)

Windows 10 automatically re-creates pre-installed bloatware game shortcuts on start menu. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8g6v0j/god_damn_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8g6v0j/god_damn_itstop_it_pls/)

Why does the Windows 10 Update screen only show uninformative messages, they're a little creepy IMHO [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8mbzi4/why_does_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8mbzi4/why_does_the_windows_10_update_screen_only_show/)

More forced updates, even when the system is configured to NOT update [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8num0w/good_grie...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8num0w/good_grief_microsoft_windowsupdatealwaysfindsaway/)

Search is crap [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8psaq9/we_have_r...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8psaq9/we_have_reached_peak_ux/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8qucfq/what_is_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/8qucfq/what_is_the_purpose_of_store_search_if_you_have/)

Hey, Microsoft, stop installing third-party apps on clean Windows 10 installs! (windowscentral.com) [https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/9ibj5i/hey_micr...](https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/9ibj5i/hey_microsoft_stop_installing_thirdparty_apps_on/)

Need to disable as much windows 10 spying as possible without breaking windows update. Where do i start? [https://old.reddit.com/r/privacytoolsIO/comments/8bg75f/need...](https://old.reddit.com/r/privacytoolsIO/comments/8bg75f/need_to_disable_as_much_windows_10_spying_as/)

Microsoft Broke Windows 10's File Associations With a Botched Update [https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/microsoft-broke- windows-10s-fi...](https://www.howtogeek.com/fyi/microsoft-broke- windows-10s-file-associations-with-a-botched-update/)

Is Windows 10 still telling Microsoft what you're doing even if you don't want it to? [https://www.zdnet.com/article/is-windows-10-still-telling- mi...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/is-windows-10-still-telling-microsoft- what-youre-doing-even-if-you-dont-want-it-to/) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18673482](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18673482)

Does anyone have an exhaustive list of IP ranges for MS Telemetry? [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3j8909/does_anyo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/3j8909/does_anyone_have_an_exhaustive_list_of_ip_ranges/)

534 Ways that Windows 10 Tracks You – From German Cyber Intelligence [https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2018/11/534-ways-...](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2018/11/534-ways- that-windows-10-tracks-you-from-german-cyberintelligence/)

Microsoft store installing apps without my permission and can't be disabledDark Pattern (i.redd.it) [https://old.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/cjnpgq/micro...](https://old.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/cjnpgq/microsoft_store_installing_apps_without_my/)

What the hell is this shit getting installed without my permission? [https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/d6aspy/what_the_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/d6aspy/what_the_hell_is_this_shit_getting_installed/)

MS has removed the "use offline account" option when installing [https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/daim1y/ms_has_re...](https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/daim1y/ms_has_removed_the_use_offline_account_option/) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21103683](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21103683)

Microsoft Starts Showing Non-Removable Ads In Windows 10 Mail, Calendar Apps [https://mspoweruser.com/ads-in-windows-10-mail-and- calendar-...](https://mspoweruser.com/ads-in-windows-10-mail-and-calendar- app/) [https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/12/17/2249238/microsoft-s...](https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/12/17/2249238/microsoft- starts-showing-non-removable-ads-in-windows-10-mail-calendar-apps)

</comment><comment><USER79> Some of the author's points are right, however in my opinion a lot of them are wrong, and seem to be coming from the perspective of "it's not linux so it sucks"

>The user as a system administrator (thus viruses/ malware - most users don't and won't understand UAC warnings).

How is this different from sudo?

>No good packaging mechanism (MSI is way too fragile).

In all of my years using windows I've had msi fail only a handful of times.

>No system-wide update mechanism (which includes third party software - to be fair there are third party applications which offer this functionality, but then such applications don't support core Windows updates).

Microsoft update will update some third party software, like flash. There is so much software on windows that a centralized update system isn't really tractable.

>In certain cases it's extremely difficult to find or update drivers for your hardware devices (anyone who's tried to install a fresh Windows onto their laptop will testify).

Problem with the oem, not with windows. It's up to the hw manufacturer to publish drivers in easy to find places.

>Windows is extremely difficult to debug (e.g. try finding out why your system is slow to boot).

While not as easy as debugging with source Microsoft provides debug symbols for all major kernel components. This makes getting a kernel stack trace and examining structures very easy.

>Windows boot problems are too often fatal and unsolvable unless you reinstall from scratch.

Only if you don't know the correct utilities to use. Most boot issues can be fixed with a combination of bcdboot, bcdedit, and repairing the dism image. On the rare occasion that those don't work you can go even deeper with a kernel debugger.

>The Windows OS installer doesn't give a damn about other OSes installed on your PC and it always overwrites the MBR. In case of already existing Windows installations, it sets the newly installed Windows as the default OS - <USER2> questions asked. In case of UEFI, booting of other non-Windows OSes is unsupported and Windows actively prevents this.

This was true back when MBR was used. It is now extremely difficult to use MBR with windows, and almost all other OSs support UEFI by this point. Saying booting of other non-Windows OSs is just wrong. This person's source is a technet post, which you can consider the microsoft equivelant to stack overflow. The accepted answer is from a community moderator. In my experience if it's not a Microsoft employee replying, then there's a 90% chance that the answer is wrong. Windows does not wipe out any other UEFI boot application binaries or the boot nvar entires. It just adds its own binaries, adds a nvar boot entry, then set's that entry as the default. Hitting your boot menu key when you boot will allow you to select any of the other entries, and your firmware setup utility will allow you to change the order in which they boot.

>Windows anti-virus products oftentimes make your PC less safe - so if you want perfect security and privacy, stop using Windows and migrate to Linux right away. OEM updaters make your PC wide open for attacks.

For most power users, it's true. AV products do increase your attack surface for only a small benefit. However, in a corporate enviornment with less tech savy users, they are extemely needed. People will just click whatever links and download and run anything.

>Microsoft has recently decided that you will no longer be able to download certain Windows updates manually. You'll only be able to get them via Windows Update.

That is 100% not what they're saying. They're just saying they used to publish the update files to two places, and now they're going to reduce redundancy and only publish them to one, the update catalog. You can visit the update catalog in a browser and still download all of the updates.

>"sfc /scannow" is offered as a solution to most Windows Update Service and Microsoft Installer Service errors, yet in absolute most cases it's totally ineffective.

This is commonly offered as a solution on community forums, but I rarely see it offered as a solution on official Microsoft documentation.

>Windows does not automatically clean temporary files ever, however it must do that for every reboot/power cycle - partially solved in Windows 10 1809.

This seems like personal preference to me. I'd rather keep %TEMP% around and only clean it out with cleanmgr when needed. Several browsers store their cache in %TEMP% and I'd rather not have that wiped out across reboots.

>Windows keeps a large number of databases of the applications which the user runs: Windows Activity History, bam.sys, Prefetcher, Program Compatibility Assistant and others.

The only one you should be upset about is Windows Activity History. BAM is used to help determine when the machine is idle and background maintenance tasks can be performed without impacting the user. The prefetcher is used to speed up the initial start of applications. The compatibility assistant is used to help increase backwards compatibility with older software.

>Safe Mode has become impossible to access unless you've booted into ... the running OS, which totally defeats its purpose. Also Safe Mode is hidden behind almost a dozen of steps vs. a single F8 key press on boot in every Windows version from 95 to 7.

True that they've made it much harder to access by default which I think is the wrong move. If you reset the computer while windows is in the middle of booting several times you'll be brought to a recovery menu which will let you boot into safe mode.

</comment><comment><USER80> > updates mean nothing for security because over 90% of infections happen due > to the user's actions

That's mixing up cause and effect. It's a bit like saying vaccines are useless because 90% of people die from cancer and heart conditions.

</comment><comment><USER81> This is outdated. There is misinformation in the article, but it does hit some highlights.

</comment><comment><USER82> Anyone have experience with the LTSC?

<comment><USER4> I love it.

It's a stripped down to the bare bones Windows 10 which doesn't include UWP apps (except the core ones, like the start menu and PC settings) and which allows to disable pretty much all the telemetry.

Also, it's rock solid, doesn't get reinstalled every 12 months and is supported for 10+ years.

In short, it's what Windows 10 should have been.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> > Disable all apps from the Windows Store.

damn I hate this. did the mistake to try Skype from the app, in a period where Skype for desktop had issues with for transfers, only to discover it's worse in every way, and now I'm stuck, unable to remove it out prevent it from start

<comment><USER84> Strange I was able to right click -> uninstall the skype store app from the start menu no problem.

<comment><USER83> did that and also tried from the power shell and as soon as I reboot is back

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> I remember a time in 2012. I was installing Windows on my computer to play a video game. It was the first time I used windows in about 2-3 years. I started installing some utilities. A web browser, steam, a music player, etc. One of them asked me to install the Ask Jeeves toolbar. I became very angry. Of course I didn't want to install the Ask Jeeves toolbar. No one wants the Ask Jeeves toolbar. What a dark pattern to try to get me to misclick and install some crap. What a clear lack of user focus. This angered me.

Tbh, I couldn't tell you if it's common for install wizards to try to shovel in crapware these days, because I avoid most situations where I have to use Windows. So much of the common user experiences in Windows are dark patterns.

<comment><USER84> Wouldn't you be able to say the same about literally any OS that doesn't have a completely walled garden? I'm positive I can find software on linux that bundles the askjeeves software as well. And probably MacOS. You blame the software developer for that and never use their product, you don't blame the OS.

<comment><USER22> Never saw that in a package for Ubuntu or Archlinux, not even AUR packages.

Maybe it's just not the target audience of such toolbars, but if there were I'd also expect package maintainers and user comments would deal with the issue.</comment></comment></comment>


Programming Isn't Manual Labor, but It Still Sucks - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2014/04/30/programming-sucks/

<comment><USER2> There is a time when I would have agreed more heavily with this article. However, I have grown up a bit. If your not enjoying your job, find a different one.

Yes, there is parts of the job to dislike. But its possible to arrange yourself in the scene where that is minimized. If you take out some of the negatives, and you still don't actually enjoy the task of developing and debugging and supporting software, then its probably the wrong career for you.

Some of the examples the author lists like dealing with awful error messages, or the snow flake / shoveling snow are things that I have truly come to enjoy about the job. At some point after many years of experience you get better at avoiding situations, and therefore get better at writing more useful error messages and software structure. But there is always going to be fresh blood, code that is overly complex or poorly thought out if you stay in the industry long enough.

There is something I find truly satisfying helping teams evolve from shoveling snow in their picasso-esque unorganized pit of despair, to winding up on the other side of the fence, with a functioning, maintainable codebase and many contributors contributing in a positive way. This too - this evolution of improvement, is another part of the job to enjoy.

If you don't learn to take some level of satisfaction out of these more negative times, you will, as the author said work 15 hour days and feel like satan is dining out of your skull.

In other cases, if you put yourself in a situation where you are completely irreplaceable and indispensable, that is another thing that you have to learn to avoid. While this can feel really validating and positive because you get a lot of "well we better hand it to Bob, he is the only one that can fix this!", you should enjoy the spotlight, while simultaneously figuring out how to make yourself replicated and not a single point of failure. Sometimes this involves hiring people, sometimes it involves training people on your team to improve so that the work load is spread. If your in a situation like this you simply can't escape, its possible its an unhealthy situation, and you should really ask yourself why you put up with it for more than a short burst here and there.

In any case, there is always going to be parts where you feel like satan is dining in your skull. But with any luck and perseverance these shouldn't be the job description, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wild West was a pretty shitty place to live in, but still some people enjoyed it and thrived there. Internet isn't much better, I guess, but yes, some people love the chaos and the raw challenge it presents and wouldn't trade it for anything else.

</comment><comment><USER4> The first photo in this article pretty much sums it up: someone echoing "banana" to debug PHP. Nailed my life.

Advice to author: learn to stop worrying and love the bomb :)

<comment><AUTHOR> hehe, good spot!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Manual labour is for weak-AI robots.</comment>


Show HN: Govalidate – use struct tags to embed field validation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/robmccoll/govalidate

<comment><AUTHOR> Could add validation for other types, etc. Simple for now. Leans on reflect for everything. See test code for simple example or go here [http://play.golang.org/p/rV4FGc5iMh](http://play.golang.org/p/rV4FGc5iMh)</comment>


Vulnerability Reporting Is Dysfunctional - <AUTHOR> https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2020/03/25/vulnerability-reporting-is-dysfunctional/ <comment><USER2> Vulnerability reporting is still dysfunctional, but let's acknowledge that it's a lot _less_ dysfunctional than it used to be. At the very least, none of the companies initiated criminal proceedings against the researchers for disclosing the vulnerabilities that they did.

</comment><comment><USER3> I mean, this is well articulated, but it's also one of the best-known problems in computer security. Whole research projects have been done on this problem; I was (with presumably dozens of other researchers) recruited to work on one, where I was asked to stand up a fake security research firm and inquire about vulnerability reports.

A lot of people have burnt a lot of energy pointlessly on technical solutions to this (such as well-known URLs pointing to vulnerability report pages), but the fundamental problem is simply that most vendors don't know that they need to do something here, and until they're educated, nothing else will help them.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's fair. We don't claim that this is a new problem; we are merely adding evidence and our perspective to a known problem. We do link to others who have reported similar problems when trying to disclose vulnerabilities. The sentence saying we "discovered two wider issues" was worded poorly; in the paper [1] we used the word "encountered", and I've now edited the post to use the same wording. Thanks!

Just as important, the post is a PSA that there are 9 websites whose users remain vulnerable, and people with accounts on these sites should check their 2FA and password recovery settings. The websites are: Amazon, AOL, Finnair, Gaijin, Mailchimp, PayPal, Venmo, Wordpress.com, and Yahoo.

[1] Link to paper: [https://www.issms2fasecure.com/assets/sim_swaps-03-25-2020.p...](https://www.issms2fasecure.com/assets/sim_swaps-03-25-2020.pdf)

<comment><USER3> This is all just message board kibitzing! The blog post is good. I'm just conditioned by other message board threads on this problem. Thanks for writing it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The dynamic is exemplified by The Formula.

" Narrator: A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."

Is there an aspect of this movie quote that does not apply to vulnerabilities?

<comment><USER5> Yes. There are no settlements to care about, so the total cost is always 0.

<comment><USER6> That's not true, e.g, Equifax.

<comment><USER7> Equifax settled for less than $425 million[1], once, but generally makes ~$2 billion in profit annually on ~$3.5 billion in revenue[2].

It might very well be true that $425 million is cheaper than it would have been for them to have better security practices, i.e., a metaphorical recall.

[1]: [https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases- proceedings/refunds/eq...](https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases- proceedings/refunds/equifax-data-breach-settlement)

[2]: [https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/EFX/equifax/gross-...](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/EFX/equifax/gross- profit)

<comment><USER2> To pile on to that, there haven't been any ongoing consequences for Equifax as a result of the breach. They're still one of the "big 3" credit reporting bureaus. They're still used by lots of banks, mortgage originators, apartments owners, car dealerships, etc. to assess people's credit ratings.

This applies to other companies that have suffered large-scale data breaches. What were the consequences to Target, T.J. Maxx, or Home Depot for their data breaches? Did they suffer a meaningful loss in market share as a result of their lax security? Heck, I would be surprised today if many customers even _remembered_ that these retailers had a data breach, much less factor that into their decision to shop at those places.

It's to the point where, if I see a publicly traded firm suffer a major data breach, I almost want to _buy_ stock in it, knowing that the price will dip temporarily due to whatever one-time fees the firm pays out, but will rapidly return to pre-breach levels as consumers forget that the company leaked their personal information like a sieve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I never understood why vulnerability reporting was a social practice. The reason for that is because I see computer hacking in this particular context (breaking into computers or reversing binaries and cracking them) more or less equivalent to breaking into something physical, be it opening a box or breaking into a home.

But people don't go up to my home and say how they can break in. Nor do people go to companies and say "listen, if I go in here as some repair guy with a walky talky, security will let me right in! And then I switched into an office suit and talked to Janet at accounting, and she gave me your private financials by simply asking her. Train your reception and train Janet."

I understand that you want to keep open source software safe, because everyone is using it. So by helping it to be more secure, that's a win. But why isn't the same happening with companies in a physical sense? The public interacts with them.

Or are there 'vulnerability reports' (or whatever you call them) on those things? Then they're simply not posted here.

<comment><USER9> They do do that, if I understand correctly.

Penetration testing handles the physical security of the company. [DEFCON 19: Steal Everything, Kill Everyone, Cause Total Financial Ruin! ]([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsVtHqICeKE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsVtHqICeKE))

Social Engineering [Hacking the Wetware: Compromising Companies with Social Engineering]([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vujs9un-8no](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vujs9un-8no))

<comment><USER8> Hmm... interesting, I'm going to check that. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I suspect that there are organisations that deliberately design their reporting systems to prevent reporting.

This article covers some big name companies, there are others that are critical too: 1\. National tax collection organisations. 2\. Banks. That, in my experience, prevent the fixing of problems, with anti-useful reporting channels.

I've not yet found any third party it's sensible use for the reporting.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think the original article should have a better title. The root issue was not in the reporting but that some of the companies involved honestly thought that it was OK to base their security all or in part on the security of wireless providers.

</comment><comment><USER12> As is all the bug reporting. It should (and can) be easy as a click of a button, not requiring you to sign-up for a new account in another BugZilla instance or something.</comment>


Compute magazine and its glorious, tedious type-in code (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/staff/2012/12/first-encounter-compute-magazine-and-its-glorious-tedious-type-in-code/ <comment><USER2> Oh man. My first computer was an Atari 400 and I had the BASIC cartridge as well as Star Raiders. I'm pretty sure that was and still is the best game ever made.

My introduction to programming was this series:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Adventure](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Adventure)

You'd type in BASIC programs (line numbers!) that would reveal plot points, usually by deciphering an encrypted message (if memory serves).

</comment><comment><USER3> Type-in code in magazines aren't quite dead yet.

My daughter gets a kids' magazine called Aquila, and an issue a couple of months ago it had something about the Raspberry Pi in it and had a load of Python code to type in create some slime mould patterns ([https://www.aquila.co.uk/media/432350/spiralcode.html](https://www.aquila.co.uk/media/432350/spiralcode.html)).

</comment><comment><USER4> Haha! Brings back memories of typing in reams and reams and reams of Hexadecimal into my Sinclair ZX81, back in the day.

That fisking ZX81 - it was fun, but with the bulky 16K RAM Pack slotted in behind it, made using it a precarious pastime.

One little knock, and 99% of the time the Ram Pack edge connector momentarilly lost a contact on one of the lines and the ZX81 would crash hard - and there went 2 hours of carefully typed in (on a membrane keyboard :D ) hexadecimal code, and much grinding and gnashing of teeth a moment later after a stunned, blank stare ;)

<comment><USER5> I had really fond memories of books like these: [http://www.acornelectron.co.uk/covl/usborne/lc- myst.jpg](http://www.acornelectron.co.uk/covl/usborne/lc-myst.jpg)

Typing them in on the thick rubber keys of my 48k Spectrum. I'm sure there were quite a few different titles in the series, but I can't seem to find them at the moment. I always remember it was great how they had melded the book into the game, so they both supported each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> ...and often buggy! I think I learned BASIC via debugging listings that didn't behave properly, and the local library would frequently not have the next issue (that would have the inevitable Errata entry.)

And don't get me started on MSX (their machine language entry / editor) lines that didn't checksum. Infuriating...

<comment><USER7> I probably typed in 200 or more BASIC Programs and several machine language programs and only very rarely ran into a problem. Definitely never hit a checksum issue in MLX - I think that's what you meant when you said MSX?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLX_(software)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLX_\(software\))

I was on a Commodore 64 using Compute!'s Gazette so maybe they had higher quality standards than Compute!?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was a late starter and I am a slow learner. I was desperate to get into the computer field but couldn't afford college. When I saw the friendly September 1983 cover in a Crown bookstore I instinctively felt like I was home.

Back in those days you could find lots of recycled crap by authors who knew nothing but how to cash in on the microcomputer craze, or tons of abstruse theory without any examples. COMPUTE fixed both problems, teaching the theory behind the code it presented while staying accessible.

COMPUTE shepherded me to what has been to me an enormously successful career (great jobs, fascinating work, complete independence, no debt, the ability to take care of two medically expensive children, and my house paid for).

The writing was lively. It was actually edited. Even the colors and illustration were buoyant but not condescending.

The best programs in those days were written in assembly, but assembly listings were way too long, no one knew assembly, and no one could afford an assembler. So most magazines had to repurpose Hangman and Hunt the Wumpus every third article.

COMPUTE's innovative answer was MSX, which allowed users the ability to get a professionally created machine language program without having to subscribe to expensive online resources or to mail in for an expensive floppy disk.

MSX was ingenious and no other magazine had anything like it. It was a short BASIC program you would use to enter the numbers shown (not the first column). The two-digit columns were converted by MSXX to a binary executable. It then wrote the program straight into memory. You could then save your finished program on tape or disk.

The rewards could be splendid. The December issue shown on the right featured Speedscript, a good enough word processor that I was able to make a living with it for years as a technical writer. (Had to hook up an electric typewriter to my PC via a parallel interface gizmo.) Yes, it took me probably 4 hours to enter, but I was literally able to earn a living with it.

Another revolutionary program was Laser Chess. It spawned many imitators, some thriving to this day. I confess I never played it because I was actually too jealous, despite a lifelong interest in strategy games. The game was so good, it just hurt too much.

empressplay's remark about checksum problems is sort of true. It had a crude checksum feature that worked line by line, and occasionally a false positive went through, requiring you to spend a few hours retyping the program. Stil, the only other way you could find new apps this good was to pay way more than the price of a magazine.

COMPUTE actually paid decently, so you even saw people like Orson Scott Card on the payroll. He edited one of my articles but I hadn't read Enders Game. My editor Clifton Karnes is and always was both a first-rate programmer and commercial-quality graphic artist, and was a wonderful editor to boot.

I've made lots of money, bought way too many guitars, and got to work at one of the greatest companies in the world (Microsoft's dev tools division at their peak), but few things were as thrilling as when I became a writer and then columnist for COMPUTE! It had given so much to me--literally, a dream career in very dark times--that I still grateful to be a part of their history.

RIP, COMPUTE! And thank you for 30+ years of working awesome jobs, all of which may have gone into the bitbucket without that first September 1983 issue.

<comment><USER9> "Another revolutionary program was Laser Chess. It spawned many imitators, some thriving to this day. I confess I never played it because I was actually too jealous, despite a lifelong interest in strategy games. The game was so good, it just hurt too much."

Ditto. Wait, maybe I'm supposed to write "this". ??

Agreed 100%. I remember Fred D'ignazio's columns - even as a kid I found them a bit too 'non-technical' (I wanted the geek stuff!), but I do remember that I could show those to teachers who could understand at least some of the magazine. I used to get them confiscated during middle and high school for reading during class, then would occasionally get to talking about it because the teacher would borrow it over the weekend. Turns out he was big in to education, so was probably speaking their language even though I didn't know it at the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ah, fond memories. In France we had a fantastic weekly, hebdogiciel, with nasty adult humor :

[http://www.abandonware- magazines.org/affiche_mag.php?mag=7](http://www.abandonware- magazines.org/affiche_mag.php?mag=7)

</comment><comment><USER11> I remember this all too well. I tried to get my mum who as a touch typist to type them in for me, but she soon told me where to go.

<comment><USER7> Haha I used to recruit my sister to help me type in source code from Compute!'s Gazette into my Commodore 64. My favorite was when she was typing in machine language code into MLX:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLX_(software)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLX_\(software\))

I told her that after she entered the line that the computer would tell her if it was right or not. She said, "Well if the computer knows what to type in, why doesn't it type it in?" I think I discovered then at 10 years old the difference between a P and NP problem.</comment></comment>


Aircraft completes first solar-powered night flight - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=aircraft-completes-first-solar

<comment><USER2> Report from the BBC 5 days ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1496936>

Many comments there - this SciAm article doesn't appear to add anything extra.</comment>


Burger King Twitter account hacked - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/burgerking <comment><AUTHOR> Here is a screenshot: <http://take.ms/eK5U3>

</comment><comment><USER2> Kind of funny, but please don't call it "hacked".</comment>