Windows, I Hate It So Much!

[Guest TheBlueCat]

I'm generally lucky in which operating systems I get to use. At work I have a Mac on my desk and at home I mostly use Ubuntu. Every now and afgain though, I have to use Windows for something. I dread these occassions because I know that the first hour or so is always going to be spent waiting for the f*cking thing to download and apply updates slowing even the decently specified box I run it on to a slug-like crawl interjected by multiple reboots. And this is Windows 8 (that's a whole other rant too), not some outdated version that wasn't designed with online updates in mind. Neither of Ubuntu or OSX do this to me - they download and apply updates for sure, but they do it without trashing the machine and almost never require reboots.

Thus it is now. All I'm trying to do is make some simple edits to a stupid Visio diagram and I've already spend the best part of the afternoon getting the operating system updated and stable.

F*cking jokers.

Ar5e. C4nt. Tw4t. Hanging is way, way, way too good for them.

[Bloo Loo]

turn off windows auto update.

[Guest TheBlueCat]

turn off windows auto update.

Been there, done that, got the viruses. Also, that's not a viable option for those of us needing to use corporate networks that enforce patch application as a condition of connection.

[spyguy]

I'm generally lucky in which operating systems I get to use. At work I have a Mac on my desk and at home I mostly use Ubuntu. Every now and afgain though, I have to use Windows for something. I dread these occassions because I know that the first hour or so is always going to be spent waiting for the f*cking thing to download and apply updates slowing even the decently specified box I run it on to a slug-like crawl interjected by multiple reboots. And this is Windows 8 (that's a whole other rant too), not some outdated version that wasn't designed with online updates in mind. Neither of Ubuntu or OSX do this to me - they download and apply updates for sure, but they do it without trashing the machine and almost never require reboots.

Thus it is now. All I'm trying to do is make some simple edits to a stupid Visio diagram and I've already spend the best part of the afternoon getting the operating system updated and stable.

F*cking jokers.

Ar5e. C4nt. Tw4t. Hanging is way, way, way too good for them.

There is nothing simple in Visio since MS took it over.

My version still does not quit. I can only sop Visio after rebooting my computer.

In my quest for ever simplicity, I've dropped to OSX and Linux/BSD/XFCE.

I try and keep my work to within Firefox or the command shell, with the option to drop into QT apps.

Windows is only going to get worse. CHrist, have you seen the monster that is MS Exchange Server?

Anything that size from MS is bound to be a stinking pile.

[Guest TheBlueCat]

Windows is only going to get worse. CHrist, have you seen the monster that is MS Exchange Server?

Anything that size from MS is bound to be a stinking pile.

I haven't, but I can only imagine how bad it must be. There's a special ring of hell reserved for the people that designed these products.

[Turned Out Nice Again]

Pilot Error.

[stormymonday_2011]

Windows is only going to get worse. CHrist, have you seen the monster that is MS Exchange Server?

Anything that size from MS is bound to be a stinking pile.

Transitioning from Exchange 2003 to 2010 has been a nightmare where I work

I have lost the count of the times the MS support contract has been invoked

It has been way more than the usual upgrade teething problems

It is is almost impossible to believe that they are part of the same product family made by the same company

[Guest TheBlueCat]

Pilot Error.

The best pilot in the world can't make a thousand pound turd fly without some outside help.

[MarkG]

Get an SSD. Windows still spends time applying updates every time I boot it or shut down, but it's much faster, and the system doesn't slow to a crawl.

Which reminds me, I haven't booted the Windows PC in a couple of months, so there are probably a ton of updates for it to install.

[mooncat69]

I'm a developer, have used loads of operating systems, but now use a chromebook for home. It's a revelation. Virtually instant boot times, all of the usual OS distractions removed, and I'm surprised how much can be done from such a simple OS.

[Habeas Domus]

You have no idea how bad it can get until someone asks you to work with SharePoint:

A massive disorganised house of cards, slow, ugly and not compatible with anything non-Microsoft.

If Microsoft made cars, they would be designed to only work on special 'Microsoft only' roads.

[thecrashingisles]

Transitioning from Exchange 2003 to 2010 has been a nightmare where I work

I have lost the count of the times the MS support contract has been invoked

It has been way more than the usual upgrade teething problems

It is is almost impossible to believe that they are part of the same product family made by the same company

People still run their own Exchange servers?

[stormymonday_2011]

You have no idea how bad it can get until someone asks you to work with SharePoint:

A massive disorganised house of cards, slow, ugly and not compatible with anything non-Microsoft.

If Microsoft made cars, they would be designed to only work on special 'Microsoft only' roads.

Sharepoint tries to do everything from blogging to wikis to document management to web content management and is simply pants at all of them

MS also shagged over all the developers who had made a living out of customising the product when they decided that they wanted to move all their Sharepoint users into the cloud. So now not only users hate them but also many of the tech staff who bought into Sharepoint in the first place.

[StainlessSteelCat]

I admit I use Macs at home (and for my job since I work from home) - and the reason is far less hassle factor. I simply want to spend less time looking after the thing on my free time - without worrying (so much) about having all of the right patches, anti-malware (having carefully checked I'm not downloading them some some spoof site), having it regularly run virus checkers etc. Being an integrated system, I guess it's easier

But Windows isn't that bad. Oddly, enough it's your sporadic use which is probably compounding things (especially if your company is enforcing updates). The Mac update to Yosemite still took around 20 minutes to install, for example - but it downloaded in the background while I was working. I think that's true of Windows too.

Perhaps you should just turn your Windows machine on once a week or so - and let it do it's thing. That way you'll have less waiting time when you need it to do real work.

Another thumbs up for SSD btw. Even Windows 8 isn't too obnoxious with one - well, speed-wise at least.

[dinker]

You should try building a Hackintosh - it`s taken me three weeks to get Yosemite running on a modern motherboard and it still crashes when I put my GTX970 in. Booting back into Windows is so sweet.

[Compukit UK101]

I'm a developer, have used loads of operating systems, but now use a chromebook for home. It's a revelation. Virtually instant boot times, all of the usual OS distractions removed, and I'm surprised how much can be done from such a simple OS.

+1

[Riedquat]

Microsoft has forgotten what an operating system is supposed to be so every new version is worse than the last one (one of the first things to do if a new version is foisted on you is to disable as many of the "new features" as possible). There are of course the more "hidden to the user" changes, such as supporting newer hardware and they're welcome, but I suppose just changing them and fixing bugs doesn't give a crappy new version to sell to mugs wanting an "upgrade."

Why use it? Software is the only reason where I've got a choice (even if in my case that's mostly just games).

[Snafu]

Visio, that will be the first issue.

"Want to make changes to something someone did 10 years ago in a flow charts? sorry need a license".

F OFF.

[spyguy]

Transitioning from Exchange 2003 to 2010 has been a nightmare where I work

I have lost the count of the times the MS support contract has been invoked

It has been way more than the usual upgrade teething problems

It is is almost impossible to believe that they are part of the same product family made by the same company

MS Exchange has evolved from a product that started off as MS own implementation of LDAP to a true, Herculean grab bag of anything connected to networking.

The only thing worse than dealing with MS Exchange is dealing with a Windows Admin who's in charge of MS Ex.

Time and time again, it comes down to having to debug the MS Ex. setup and MS Ex bugs using a Linux box running wireshark.

[spyguy]

You have no idea how bad it can get until someone asks you to work with SharePoint:

A massive disorganised house of cards, slow, ugly and not compatible with anything non-Microsoft.

If Microsoft made cars, they would be designed to only work on special 'Microsoft only' roads.

I've avoided Sharepoint, probably more so than I've avoided .Net stuff and other 'producivity tools' from MS post 2002-ish.

MS's server OSes are quite good.

WS 2K was the best general purpose GUI server OS by a mile in 2000.

It could be easily beaten by a targeted Unix install but the cmd line setup was too big a jump for the average IT shop part-time admin.

MS then moved in with Small Business Server, which did its job well.

I even bought WS2K for a PC supplied to me by my company. I bought 2K as the box was shipped with MS 98SE and 2K cost me £50 for a license and media.

Now, although the likes of WS2008R2 are really good, and they are, I have the following problems:

1) The price is OTT - about £900/server. OS only! FFS I can buy a mac mini for £500 - hardware and software.

2) Its just a server. The packages that the OS is designed to run - MS Exchange, Sharepoint, I want to avoid with a long barge pole.

3) MS are moving (running actually) from a GUI system. Understandable when you see GPUs beating rotating media as the most likely cause of server failure (they run too hot, the software is too big and buggy). UNfortunalely, the are using Powershell, which is a constant moving target (it started off as ksh + Windows tools, a bit like we evolved from single cell amoebas), which is slowly becoming more and more complex, unmaintable and slow - powershell takes several seconds to show the cmd prompt.