I will leave this comment here by an ex Windows desktop experience team developer which says that designers have lots of control but don't even use Windows, they use Macs.
> It's almost like some tiny extremist faction has gained control of Windows
This has been the case for a while. I worked on the Windows Desktop Experience Team from Win7-Win10. Starting around Win8, the designers had full control, and most crucially essentially none of the designers use Windows.
I spent far too many years of my career sitting in conference rooms explaining to the newest designer (because they seem to rotate every 6-18 months) with a shiny Macbook why various ideas had been tried and failed in usability studies because our users want X, Y, and Z.
Sometimes, the "well, if you really want this it will take N dev-years" approach got avoided things for a while, but just as often we were explicitly overruled. I fought passionately against things like the all-white title bars that made it impossible to tell active and inactive windows apart (was that Win10 or Win8? Either way user feedback was so strong that that got reverted in the very next update), the Edge title bar having no empty space on top so if your window hung off the right side and you opened too many tabs you could not move it, and so on. Others on my team fought battles against removing the Start button in Win8, trying to get section labels added to the Win8 Start Screen so it was obvious that you could scroll between them, and so on. In the end, the designers get what they want, the engineers who say "yes we can do that" get promoted, and those of us who argued most strongly for the users burnt out, retired, or left the team.
As a Mac user, ironically, it seems like the Mac design team only uses iPhones or worse, not Macs themselves.
I think we are at a stage where the “design rules the world” dominate rather than the full product experience. And there seems to be zero vision left in these products as well.
I am delaying it because iOS development is currently making me money but once that stops, I am so looking forward to moving back to Linux. Neither Windows or macOS are going in a good direction. The difference is only in the degree and speed of ensh*ttification. Ironically the only thing I might miss is the often criticized Xcode.
I disagree. Windows is still a very capable operating system. Is AI nonsense annoying? sure, but so are the ads on internet and only a tiny fraction of population uses adblockers.
Consumer buy laptops and smartphones, not operating systems. As long as there is no competing consumer product, Microsoft is not losing any meaningful share anytime soon. imo smartglasses might be more of a real threat to windows than copilot.
Here in the Netherlands, Macbook Neo is €700. That is by no measure a cheap laptop. Also at this price range there is plenty of competition from companies like Asus.
Recently I built a gaming PC, and I ended up installing Windows. Disabling windows AI features is significantly easier than dealing with small but frequent annoyance of linux distros.
As far as I know in the vast majority of cases Linux with Windows compatibility works better than native Windows (e.g. for games). So much for a capable operating system
Both Windows and Mac OS are going through a rough patch. I think these mature OSs have most things that users want, and since incremental polishes don't give people promotions, executives go for major changes that almost always degrade the product.
One way I phrased it to a friend was: "if you try to make a radical improvement to a spoon, chances are you'll make it worse".
I think there's plenty to do in both products, but they are not sexy things that drive upgrade conversations.
I used to manage NT-based infra back in the day, have been on a mac for 15 years now because of stuff like this. A few years ago I bought a Windows box for my daughter. Out of the box the clock was wrong and it would just hang on auto-update. No message, no logs anywhere, just hangs. A few years later the son comes of age and gets his own box. And it’s the same story, no automatic adjustment of the clock. I’m running a bog standard unifi network leading to fiber, nothing complicated, everything else works including all the windows laptops of my wife. But a basic standards-based library-supported Windows function.
Windows NTP client uses UDP port 123 as both the destination and source port, rather than letting the OS assign an ephemeral source port.
Many ISPs (e.g. AT&T Fiber) block UDP traffic with source port 123 to mitigate NTP amplification attacks.
Most people won't notice that problem since low-end consumer routers tend to mangle the source port when they perform outbound NAT. The ISP-provided router will generally do this itself until you enable "DMZ+" or "IP Passthrough" or some similarly-named mode, as home networking experts will typically do so they can manage NAT and firewalling on their own devices.
If a Windows laptop can sync and the wired Windows desktops can't, your wi-fi AP might be doing the necessary source port mangling.
If you add a NAT rule to your router to change the source port for NTP traffic, you should get time sync working.
Windows uses NTP by default with sane settings -- and it logs by default. So whatever issue you're experiencing is not a Microsoft problem, but a *you problem*. And the fact you state that there are no logs, which is false, kinda proves it.
My theory, having seen what happens due to incorrect date/time settings on Windows (e.g. rebooting a laptop after the battery has been drained for extended durations):
1. The time, and critically date, is wrong (not syncing with the NTP servers, potentially due to ISP filtering, as the sibling comment implies)...
2. Which is causing SSL errors because the wrong date causes the expiry date on the SSL certificates to appear nonsensical...
3. Which causes connection failures to pretty much any HTTPS endpoint...
3. Which is preventing updates because no sane OS would download updates over an insecure connection.
A lot of comments saying that Windows is indestructable because it has no competition for a portion of the market due to:
- MacOS is too expensive
- Linux requires configuration and expertise
I'm not doubting those too, but like the article points out I would question if they're guaranteed to be true even in the short term. Chromebooks, Steamdecks and Android have all shown making a commercial requirement out of Linux is do-able, and the $600 Macbook Neo is due out any day.
I'm not predicting the death of Windows or anything, but I do think Microsoft's thrown is a lot less stable than they seem to realise.
The irony here is that Windows used to be a good shell on a truly terrible kernel around Windows 3.1/Windows 95. Now, it is a bad shell and UX on an actually really good kernel.
Obviously there are people who do genuinely prefer it having experience with a variety of platforms, but the ones who seem the most convinced of how superior Windows is always do seem to be the ones who’ve never actually spent time with anything else.
I’ll grant that a cheap Windows laptop was the right call up until recently if price—not ease of use and maintenance—was the overwhelmingly dominant factor and a laptop was absolutely necessary. But the answer for a cheap device for a non-technical person with aspecific needs (email, browsing, media consumption) has been an iPad for a long time at this point.
After recent update fiascos I decided to install PopOS on a gaming rig that ran Windows 11 (as a pre-made set).
As they say, you can't see the light in the darkness and the difference between two is like between night and day.
Stable performance, consistent Remote Play to Steam Deck, quick bootup and no "hey want to play, that's a shame cause I got 20 minutes of patches to install".
Sure it's still a Linux with all consequences (had to switch from Wayland to Xorg for remote play and being returning user after couple years it wasn't straightforward) but it works much better.
I won't ever install Windows on my family computers. If I can afford to equip them with Macs I'll do so. If not - they'll get Linux instead.
Wonderful writing. As someone who is in exactly the same boat (as I assume a lot of us here are), being called on for family tech support for around 30 years now, I too am starting to reconsider recommending windows.
My son is getting to the age where is taking an interest in computers(not just games) so I think I will be starting him off on a linux box.
Seconded. My 9 year old son has in his life worked with Android and Debian at home, and iPad at school. There is 1 game I could not get to run under wine (beltmatic), but apart from that everything works. I was a bit scared about his school stuff (from Die Keure) but it just does its thing. He recently installed Planet crafter, a game I had never heard of or checked out, and it was a non event. Lego, basic programming, ...
He went to a friend, doing networked minecraft on friends windows laptop. Son then took our laptop as he did not like Windows, and I think he accidentally convinced that whole family to migrate to KDE on Debian, just by showing them how reliably boring it is. I was smiling at that one, to be honest.
You have a point. They're not similar. OTOH, people do compare them. I think Apple realizes this and the Macbook Neo is a brilliant move.
It doesn't cost $1000 to get into the MacBook experience anymore, so drastically more people will be buying them for their kids and more families will have MacOS as their default.
These boycotts dont't work anymore, there are way too many people that have no clue nowadays. The last time it worked was Windows 8 nearly 14 years ago.
All fine and good, yet even me that used to have M$ on the email signature, and signed to Linux Journal during its whole print lifetime, starting around when it was still on early issues, now runs Windows/WSL.
I am not paying for Apple margin's, their lack of options in customising hardware, nor I want to spend evenings reconfiguring BSD/Linux installions.
If there is a good PC (laptop) at a consumer store pre-installed with GNU/Linux, 100% supported hardware, I will consider it, buying online isn't my thing.
Thus my house is full of Android and WebOS powered devices and none GNU/Linux one.
I hate trying to teach my children how to use Windows these days. When I was young, it took some effort to get programs up and running, but once you cleared that hurdle, the computer worked the same, consistently, every single time you turned it on.
Now, most of the time they log in there's a new update to install; or a fresh and distracting dark pattern popup; or a service they need to re-enter credentials for; or, occasionally, a game I've previously installed for them either missing or no longer working properly. It's maddening and confusing even for experienced users.
Perhaps I do need to drop Windows. I'm not a huge fan of the obfuscaon and walled gardens on Macs, and Chromebooks and iPads are more geared towards consumption than creation.
My work keeps me on Windows (programs that have no good Linux equivalent, and a corporate environment that won't accept it for desktop users), but I'm seriously considering dual booting for my children's sake. It's a testament to how far Windows has fallen.
Dual booting is only really for Windows programs that don't run well enough in WINE or a VM, which historically was primarily games before Steam made that a lot less relevant.
Dual booting is pretty easy these days. The linux distribution installers help to resize partitions etc. The main inconvenience is accessing stuff off linux from windows. I used dropbox to do the sync in the past. Now I'm mainly on kubuntu and rarely use an old windows machine for some tasks.
No but Apple has been putting their weight behind services. Some of these services are platform agnostic but they do work best on a Mac. Their success story is the efficiency of the closed ecosystem, something that Android and Windows are converging to.
While the demise of Windows is overblown, it has definitely started. With gaming on Linux slowly hitting mainstream - not as a serious solution yet but not a completely deranged idea either - I assume within a few years we'll see the first wave of casual gamers on Linux, and then after that those gamers will start recommending Linux to their families. It's really unfortunate that the second iteration of Steam Machines was to be released exactly during chip shortage, because looking at Steam Deck, the software side of things seems to be good enough.
I grew up recommending windows to everybody I knew for most of my early life. I’ve had my boomer dad on Linux mint for almost a decade. Any time I am asked for a recommendation I cannot say to buy a Mac fast enough. Yes they are overpriced but the build quality to me is worth it. The windows 11 start menu is user hostile, I seriously can’t believe people use that day to day. I’m old enough to remember when they called it Micro$oft -unfortunately Microslop is going to stick (the author is right about the two settings apps). When was the last time you think an exec at MSFT played an Xbox or described using teams as “pleasant”?
“Adobe and Office run better on Mac, change my mind”
I use office on Mac and Windows. It works fine on Mac, but not better than Windows. OneNote, for instance, has serious delays and glitches when syncing notebooks changed on other machines or web. I lost work multiple times before stopping using it altogether on the Mac.
[+] [-] smusamashah|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] lokimedes|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] conception|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] NSUserDefaults|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] SpacePortKnight|4 days ago|reply
Consumer buy laptops and smartphones, not operating systems. As long as there is no competing consumer product, Microsoft is not losing any meaningful share anytime soon. imo smartglasses might be more of a real threat to windows than copilot.
Here in the Netherlands, Macbook Neo is €700. That is by no measure a cheap laptop. Also at this price range there is plenty of competition from companies like Asus.
Recently I built a gaming PC, and I ended up installing Windows. Disabling windows AI features is significantly easier than dealing with small but frequent annoyance of linux distros.
[+] [-] Ferret7446|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] glimshe|4 days ago|reply
One way I phrased it to a friend was: "if you try to make a radical improvement to a spoon, chances are you'll make it worse".
I think there's plenty to do in both products, but they are not sexy things that drive upgrade conversations.
[+] [-] belZaah|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] oxygen_crisis|4 days ago|reply
Many ISPs (e.g. AT&T Fiber) block UDP traffic with source port 123 to mitigate NTP amplification attacks.
Most people won't notice that problem since low-end consumer routers tend to mangle the source port when they perform outbound NAT. The ISP-provided router will generally do this itself until you enable "DMZ+" or "IP Passthrough" or some similarly-named mode, as home networking experts will typically do so they can manage NAT and firewalling on their own devices.
If a Windows laptop can sync and the wired Windows desktops can't, your wi-fi AP might be doing the necessary source port mangling.
If you add a NAT rule to your router to change the source port for NTP traffic, you should get time sync working.
[+] [-] 7bit|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] keeda|4 days ago|reply
1. The time, and critically date, is wrong (not syncing with the NTP servers, potentially due to ISP filtering, as the sibling comment implies)...
2. Which is causing SSL errors because the wrong date causes the expiry date on the SSL certificates to appear nonsensical...
3. Which causes connection failures to pretty much any HTTPS endpoint...
3. Which is preventing updates because no sane OS would download updates over an insecure connection.
[+] [-] benrutter|4 days ago|reply
- MacOS is too expensive
- Linux requires configuration and expertise
I'm not doubting those too, but like the article points out I would question if they're guaranteed to be true even in the short term. Chromebooks, Steamdecks and Android have all shown making a commercial requirement out of Linux is do-able, and the $600 Macbook Neo is due out any day.
I'm not predicting the death of Windows or anything, but I do think Microsoft's thrown is a lot less stable than they seem to realise.
[+] [-] pjmlp|4 days ago|reply
Android is for phones, and tablets.
Steamdecks only matters thanks to Windows games, developed on Windows, with developers using Visual Studio.
[+] [-] etchalon|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] gmueckl|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] bigyabai|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] stouset|4 days ago|reply
I’ll grant that a cheap Windows laptop was the right call up until recently if price—not ease of use and maintenance—was the overwhelmingly dominant factor and a laptop was absolutely necessary. But the answer for a cheap device for a non-technical person with aspecific needs (email, browsing, media consumption) has been an iPad for a long time at this point.
[+] [-] TiredOfLife|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] pjmlp|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] ChoGGi|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] userbinator|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] xlii|4 days ago|reply
As they say, you can't see the light in the darkness and the difference between two is like between night and day.
Stable performance, consistent Remote Play to Steam Deck, quick bootup and no "hey want to play, that's a shame cause I got 20 minutes of patches to install".
Sure it's still a Linux with all consequences (had to switch from Wayland to Xorg for remote play and being returning user after couple years it wasn't straightforward) but it works much better.
I won't ever install Windows on my family computers. If I can afford to equip them with Macs I'll do so. If not - they'll get Linux instead.
[+] [-] marak830|4 days ago|reply
My son is getting to the age where is taking an interest in computers(not just games) so I think I will be starting him off on a linux box.
[+] [-] hyperman1|4 days ago|reply
He went to a friend, doing networked minecraft on friends windows laptop. Son then took our laptop as he did not like Windows, and I think he accidentally convinced that whole family to migrate to KDE on Debian, just by showing them how reliably boring it is. I was smiling at that one, to be honest.
[+] [-] ridiculous_fish|4 days ago|reply
Pardon?
[+] [-] waterproof|4 days ago|reply
It doesn't cost $1000 to get into the MacBook experience anymore, so drastically more people will be buying them for their kids and more families will have MacOS as their default.
[+] [-] Animats|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] jader201|4 days ago|reply
I don’t get the impression Microsoft has any desire to improve Windows for the consumer — they’re trying to improve it for Microsoft.
[+] [-] sunaookami|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] pjmlp|4 days ago|reply
I am not paying for Apple margin's, their lack of options in customising hardware, nor I want to spend evenings reconfiguring BSD/Linux installions.
If there is a good PC (laptop) at a consumer store pre-installed with GNU/Linux, 100% supported hardware, I will consider it, buying online isn't my thing.
Thus my house is full of Android and WebOS powered devices and none GNU/Linux one.
[+] [-] HanShotFirst|4 days ago|reply
Now, most of the time they log in there's a new update to install; or a fresh and distracting dark pattern popup; or a service they need to re-enter credentials for; or, occasionally, a game I've previously installed for them either missing or no longer working properly. It's maddening and confusing even for experienced users.
Perhaps I do need to drop Windows. I'm not a huge fan of the obfuscaon and walled gardens on Macs, and Chromebooks and iPads are more geared towards consumption than creation.
My work keeps me on Windows (programs that have no good Linux equivalent, and a corporate environment that won't accept it for desktop users), but I'm seriously considering dual booting for my children's sake. It's a testament to how far Windows has fallen.
[+] [-] AnthonyMouse|4 days ago|reply
Dual booting is only really for Windows programs that don't run well enough in WINE or a VM, which historically was primarily games before Steam made that a lot less relevant.
[+] [-] kristianp|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] userbinator|4 days ago|reply
There is WINE.
[+] [-] TiredOfLife|4 days ago|reply
I have been using and supporting Windows users for 25+ years. Not a single time that has happened by itself.
[+] [-] macleginn|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] pixelatedindex|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] TiredOfLife|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] pvdebbe|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] anal_reactor|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] smithcoin|4 days ago|reply
“Adobe and Office run better on Mac, change my mind”
[+] [-] glimshe|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewstuart|4 days ago|reply
And the Microsoft management layer has no clue at all.
So that’s the end of it.
[+] [-] masteruvpuppetz|4 days ago|reply
It has been months I am stuck at "Update and shut-down" but it never updates. Nothing works :((((((((((((
[+] [-] jasomill|4 days ago|reply
If your hardware isn't officially supported by Windows 11, create a USB stick from the ISO using Rufus[2] and run setup from there.
[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11
[2] https://rufus.ie/en/
[+] [-] Havoc|4 days ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 days ago|reply
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