Soooo...do you guys think Microsoft will ever fix the underlying problems with Windows?

[britechguy]

If you have clients that are willing to pay for the time it takes on your part to do that work... go for it!

That would be virtually all of mine, including my small business clients. They absolutely, positively want things "just like I'm used to."

That's part of the reason I have become so big on pushing them, all of them, to include taking system image backups routinely, a minimum of once a month, more frequently depending on the typical influx of additional data (or after any major software installations or similar).

 

[GTP]

That would be virtually all of mine, including my small business clients. They absolutely, positively want things "just like I'm used to."

This ^^^
Right down to the "exact" location of every icon.

 

[sapphirescales]

That would be virtually all of mine, including my small business clients. They absolutely, positively want things "just like I'm used to."

I have to concur. Back before I used Fabs I used to do the same things as Fabs, only manually. It took a long time and a lot of experience using it before I trusted Fabs. Thankfully Fabs makes things easier. I still get many clients though that want me to set things up for them beyond what Fabs can do (installing software, printers, etc.). If it costs an extra $100 or $200 to have me do everything for them (the "white glove" treatment), they're happy to pay it.

 

[overburnz]

Me, personally, I do like Time Machine, for most customers it is far more better if they can have their machine just like they had it before any issue occurred or if the purchased a new one and it's delivered exactly like their old one, Time Machine is a Wonderfull backup option and, because MacOS allows it, I can install a Time Machine backup on any machine (as long as is has the same MacOS Version or later) and will have zero issues with hardware compatibility.
If windows had such a feature it would not work the same, because MacOS is a closed system with a limited type of machines, and windows is not...

 

[jogold]

Micro$oft wants to make money.
Look at Novel, it worked so well it went bankrupt. There was no need to buy the next version.
Look, every working version of windows was followed by a lousy version. And you'll notice that the marketing craze each time was only after the good version to get you to buy the new one. Remember Vista and Win 8.
So imho Micro$oft are geniuses, in marketing. Not technology.

 

[Philippe]

this "kid" is 40.

I wasn't pointing at you, but the younger generation in general. Yes I know everything default is easier, I just like the ability to customize things - for me, not the average end user.

The problem being, it was never that way, either.

I know that. But the amount of default settings you cannot change is increasing. I just don't like it this way...

 

[Sky-Knight]

@Philippe I don't think that's true at all, but how you change those settings is changing. And some of the changes get reverted every six months. Though with some planning you can reduce that to once a year easily enough.

 

[britechguy]

But the amount of default settings you cannot change is increasing. I just don't like it this way...

And what you like, or I like, is, in the final analysis, irrelevant. Operating systems, any one of them, are designed as Swiss-army knife style software that is nowhere near to bespoke for any user, and where certain things are able to be changed and others not. What those things are has changed over time. None of us has any choice but to go with the flow, and getting really peeved about what you cannot change is not helpful (to you, that is).

 

[britechguy]

And some of the changes get reverted every six months.

I have not had the vast majority of settings change at Feature Updates in several years. The days of myriad user reset settings being automatically changed by Microsoft at Feature Update time is long in the rear view mirror.

I actually can't remember the last time this occurred, though I know it does on rare occasion.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I have not had the vast majority of settings change at Feature Updates in several years. The days of myriad user reset settings being automatically changed by Microsoft at Feature Update time is long in the rear view mirror.

I actually can't remember the last time this occurred, though I know it does on rare occasion.

Every six months, new PDF defaults breaking Acrobat...

That's the only one that persists that really chaps my hide, and it's mostly just Microsoft trying to advertise the crap out of Edge / New Edge.

 

[britechguy]

Every six months, new PDF defaults breaking Acrobat...

Strange. I've been using PDF-Xchange Viewer as my default for PDFs for years now. It's not ever changed back to Edge.

I seriously wonder why that is? It seems strange that it would do this for Acrobat Reader (or Acrobat, period), but I believe you that it does.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Strange. I've been using PDF-Xchange Viewer as my default for PDFs for years now. It's not ever changed back to Edge.

I seriously wonder why that is? It seems strange that it would do this for Acrobat Reader (or Acrobat, period), but I believe you that it does.

Yeah I can't explain that, because machines with Foxit break in the same way. It doesn't matter on my rigs what is associated to .pdf, if it's not edge it will be on the next feature update.

Though... now that I'm thinking about it I don't recall that happening with 2004, 20H2 won't roll out until next month. So perhaps it is fixed, and my memory is just buggered. Which is by far the most reasonable explanation.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

All I can say is thank God Apple doesn't license Mac OS to PC vendors. If they did, then Windows would be dead in 2 years in the consumer space and probably 5-10 years in business.

I remember when Apple did open up the rights...and some 3rd party hardware vendor brands like Power Computing...were making Apple clones. They didn't take over the market back then!

File versioning in Windows...pretty darned cool. Can't tell you how many times it's shortened my time/effort to mere minutes...when a client calls to have something restored.

I can rebuilt my laptop here in under an hour...yup, including all apps and settings. Nuke 'n pave is wicked quick now with SSD. And thanks to services like 365, most of my stuff is back quick, and a push of a button to run a quick script from my RMM and all updates are shoved in quick. Yup....that was easy!

Windows 10...so stable, so fast, and...yeah, they changed things a bit...but IMO, can get things even quicker now with commands. We've had the start "Start..Programs" menu since Windows 3.x...why not change it a bit? Much faster to use that Search field, and...pin my daily drivers to my task bar.

Business world is running on Windows based programs....ain't gonna change that. Don't like Cortana or Inking...don't launch it! Ignore it! Nobody holding a gun to yer head to use it.

We rarely have to fix operating system related issues these days...compared to years ago. Mostly 3rd party software, or hardware now.

 

[Philippe]

And what you like, or I like, is, in the final analysis, irrelevant.

I know, I just think that in a customer driven company, it should be relevant. Won't happen soon... I know.

getting really peeved about what you cannot change is not helpful

Not peeved. Just don't like where the computer industry is going nowadays. It could have been so much better...
But I don't care so much. It's my job... Edge or Chrome deceiving users into using them -> more jobs & $$ for me
And, on a personal side, I'm still hacking the hell out my (personal) computers

 

[Diggs]

This ^^^
Right down to the "exact" location of every icon.

For those customers I check to be sure System Restore is running. I've had good luck with Restore Points unlike others on here. Doesn't substitute for a good off-machine backup in case of an SSD failure but it has put everything back perfectly several times for me after a customer screw-up.

 

[britechguy]

For those customers I check to be sure System Restore is running. I've had good luck with Restore Points unlike others on here. Doesn't substitute for a good off-machine backup in case of an SSD failure but it has put everything back perfectly several times for me after a customer screw-up.

I endorse having System Protection enabled, but I never count on it, ever.

It also won't "put every icon back in its place." It's pretty much about putting the registry back as it was, and not an awful lot else.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Look at Novel, it worked so well it went bankrupt. There was no need to buy the next version.
Look, every working version of windows was followed by a lousy version.

I remember Novell well...it was king back in the days of DOS. And I remember "the other" network system very well back then, Artisoft LANtastic....worked with that A LOT.

But I'll have to disagree about "every working version of Windows was followed by a lousy version.
DOS and Win3x...incremental improvements. Yeah, DOS doesn't literally get covered by your statement, but Windows 3...does. It...slowly got better.

Windows 95..original, was called Windows 95a. Quite buggy.
Windows 95b was better..by quite a bit.
Windows 95c was rare
Windows 95d...better yet.
Windows 98 original version...meh.
Windows 98SE...pretty darned good

Windows ME was horrible, outsourced at the last minute because a consumer version of Windows 2000 didn't come to market on time (all the multi media stuff needed for a consumer version).

Windows 2000 was...GREAT, for business networks, and IT people. They loved it.

Windows XP...fanstastic.
Esp after SP2...very solid...and long lived.

Windows Vista..yeah, sorta sucked.

Windows 7...danged good.

Windows 8...yeah, meh.

Windows 10...I've been with computer since Fortan and BASIC...and in great depth since DOS/Win3x...and W10 is my fave by 88 thousand miles. IMO, Microsoft did good with W10. You can go months and months without rebooting, and laptops...you can open and shut the lid and just "sleep it" for months and months on end. It never complains. yeah, better to reboot it once in a while to get updates in, but...the OS doesn't act cranky from lack of reboots like earlier OS's did.

 

[jogold]

Now compare the good/bad versions with the marketing. There's a trend.

 

[sapphirescales]

Windows Vista..yeah, sorta sucked.

You've gotta be kidding me, right? What made Vista suck is it required so much more power than what average computers had back then. It was bloated garbage. I mean think about it this way...Windows requirements have stayed the same since Vista. That's how bloated and unwieldy it was. Imagine running Windows 10 on a 12 old Acer laptop with a 1.6Ghz Celeron processor and 512MB of RAM with a Passmark score of like...220. That's exactly what Vista was like for everyone except the ones who had very expensive brand new computers.

I remember I had a pretty fast mid range AMD Athlon FX processor on a gaming computer with 3GB of RAM. I don't remember the exact specs but it was way better than any of the computers you could pick up at Office Max and Vista was barely tolerable on it. Ironically it took until 2009 (which is when Windows 7 came out) before Vista actually became good. But to be honest, Service Pack 2 isn't what made Vista finally good - it was because we had more powerful computers by then. Windows 7 wasn't that much better than Vista...we just had 3 year newer computers by then that could better handle all of Vista's bloated features.

 

[Diggs]

Windows ME was horrible

I see this quite a bit but I liked ME. It jumped on the Internet without configuration (unlike 98SE) and networked and shared files better than any of its predecessors. I'm trying to remember why it was so disliked.