[GunnerInc]

Why because it crashed on you? I have been using Windows since 3.1 - that was unstable. Windows 95 and 98 did crash often, but why blame the OS? The only times an NT based Windows crashed on me was because of:
1. a bad RAM stick
2. bad sectors
3. something I did (screwed up the Registry OR forgotten to save ESI, EDI, EBX, EBP, ESP in a callback)

I READ the minimum requirements and try to go above that. I have found Windows crashes or BSODs on people because of PEOPLE 95% of the time the other 5% of the times is crappy or cheap hardware. Then there are the people that download anything and everything just because. They install it and NEVER read the fine print so you get 25 different "toolbars" installed when they think they are just installed a text editor.

Malware/virii/spyware/some other crapware have no respect for your system so they will overwrite any system file they can, so sure the OS will bomb out on you.

If you are still using 95/98/2k those are non supported systems, no more updates, won't work well with current technology, so they will crash. But blame Windows?

Then many of the crashes happen on "Name Brand" systems. Never bought one, never will. Most use cheap parts so the problem lies there NOT Windows.

Windows has come a long way, plug and play also. Remember the days when you had to set the jumpers on everything then change a few things in the bios and windows to get it to work? No, well you don't know how good you got it

[DimitriV]

You are quite right, windows is unstable when you don't use it properly and with the right hardware. But there are still chances of software-related bugs that crash the whole system. Don't get me wrong, I like windows and without it I would have no platform on which to develop my software, but at the best of times windows can be buggy.
Still, minor issues aside, I quite like Windows and I will never say i hate it.
J-Bo

[hookiethe1]

I love Windows, it's been solid as a rock for me since XP first came out, and that includes a few years now running on Vista. You can plug in anything you like and it works, install any program you like and it runs. I think a lot of people like to bash Windows just because they're the big gun, and those that complain about stability issues and BSODs are still clinging to Windows 98 days.

[lordofduct]

There's people who hate because it exists. That's how things work. People create bonds with some name/city/thing, and hate all opponents intrinsically.

[Gavisann]

Windows is an open system. Most of the problems I have are not with windows itself, but with drivers or software, such as Java.

[AdamSpeight2008]

Don't blame Windows if the manufacturer of your hardware does write the drivers correctly. Or blame Windows when Developers don't follow the recommended guidelines on how to make your software work with the new OS.
For example Windows Vista, where developers keep treating like it was XP.

Why should your Application require Administrator Privileges?
Didn't you write it correctly? Is attempting to do something dodgy, like malware/virus?


"... but it worked correctly on XP" It likes saying my van works if I run it on Diesel, but when I try to run it on this new fangled Petrol it doesn't work. The development of Vista saw the creation of the MinWin core, New Graphics Pipeline, New Audio Pipeline. Windows 7 and Window 8 are based on the groundbreaking work of Vista.

This post has been edited by AdamSpeight2008: 04 October 2011 - 06:58 AM

[jon.kiparsky]

I grew up in a unix environment - pre-Linux - and then I used a Mac at home and in school. This was not one of the modern macs, of course - I wrote all of my papers in high school and college on a Mac Plus, and my papers in high school were the only ones my teachers ever saw that came off a printer. My only PC exposure as a kid was using OS/2 on the PC/2s in my high school computer lab, when I did my first programming class (Pascal, it was). ("half an operating system for half a computer", was the line about those)

The point of all this history is that I was never exposed to DOS or Windows until I was temping after graduating from college. This meant I learned a lot of ways to do things that just don't exist on Windows. There may be ways to do similar things, but the tools I expect - shell access, a polyglot array of mini-languages, pipelines (proper ones), and so forth - just don't exist, so for me the Windows OS feels unbearably clunky and poorly-designed. It doesn't feel like something a developer would use voluntarily. That's not Windows, that's me, and what I know how to use, but it does mean that using Windows is a very unpleasant experience for me.
One recent example: we were trying to ensure that documentation for code in the repository would remain current. Lots of proposals were floated that involved the documentation guy (me) monitoring commits and following up, or developers contacting me when they made changes, or what-not. So being a Unix guy, I got into the repo server and wrote a post-commit hook (in perl) which figures out what's been modified and runs doxygen to generate a new doc set for that code, and copies it over to a public directory, and notifies the documentation guy that changes have been made. Really nice, really elegant, and everything's always up to date.

That was two months ago, and it still hasn't gone into production, because Windows' permissions model is so thoroughly broken that nobody in the company who understands it can make time to actually configure this to run. Now, it's one thing for me to not understand the details of AD and whatnot, but if none of the eight developers and admins in the room are willing to try to set the permissions on this thing - which would take exactly no time under Unix - then maybe you can see how this looks broken to me. I know it doesn't look broken to a Windows user, but you have to admit that this looks really bad to a Unix user.

Now, if you grew up in Windows, you might find the Unix mindset peculiar, and you might be able to find similar examples of things that look broken in Unix. I'm not saying Windows is broken. I'm just trying to explain why people who use a reasonable OS come to Windows and give that long sad sigh.

It's just really, really unpleasant to use if you're used to something that works that doesn't suck else, that's all.

This post has been edited by jon.kiparsky: 04 October 2011 - 08:02 AM

[BetaWar]

@jon.kiparsky - I agree with your point here completely. When coming form a system that you know and understand to one that you don't things don't always (or normally) work the way you think they should. And no, I'm not trolling you. I just always seem to have something to say in response to your posts that's all.

I feel much the same way that jon does; it is just that Macs are what I have problems with, and not Windows or Linux machines.

Since this is a "why do people hate Windows" thread, I will remain on the windows train of thought. Basically, Windows has a bad wrap for crashing all the time (and Blue Screens of Death), but that was quite a few years ago, and is no longer much of a problem unless you have a hardware failure (like a hard drive crashing), and those can happen regardless of the OS or software on the machine so I believe that WIndows is going up hill in that aspect. Personally, I have never had a problem with Windows, and have only had 3 windows machines die on me (2 because of their hard drive dying, and 1 because of a possible motherboard failure -- haven't determined it exactly yet).

[Gavisann]

I agree with you Beta, most of the problems people have with Windows is with the BSoD. Which we should see less of with Windows 8 from what I hear. Apparently it will run as a VM?

[jon.kiparsky]

beta - nothing wrong with you thinking my posts are worth responding to!

I have to agree that Windows seems to be a lot more stable now than it was even five years ago. The old days of "reinstalling windows" as a weekend activity seem to be over. The fact that there were those old days is going to stick around for a while yet, as a dead horse for the penguin brigade to beat on, but I think that dead horse is a dead issue.

<real-time-interruption> This is absolutely true: I sit near the tech support desk, and I just heard one of them saying "we have to reinstall windows"... maybe I spoke too soon! </real-time-interruption>

I do think it's interesting that you say you've "only had three windows machines die on you". I've never had a mac or a linux machine die on me. Is this expected of Windows machines?

Sorry, no, I had a power supply fail on a MacBook a few years ago. It was one of the old clamshells running OS 9, and while I could have replaced it, there was not much point in keeping an OS9 machine running, so I put it in a drawer, where it still gathers dust.

[lordofduct]

I repeat... People create bonds with some name/city/thing, and hate all opponents intrinsically.


We like what we're used to and shun change, while at the same time nurture creativity and growth. The human process is a juggling act of progression vs conservation. On an individual level we tend to land one side or the other, and as a society we mold into this fickle back and forth... one throttling the other. And this interaction on a large scale manifests itself as the 'competition' or 'flame war'.

Natural human process.

This post has been edited by lordofduct: 04 October 2011 - 09:23 AM

[Lemur]

Linux people do what they do because they hate Microsoft. We do what we do because we love Unix." - Theo de Raadt

[Shane Hudson]

I am very open minded about operating systems, but linux (not yet tried *bsd) is winning for me at the moment. In the same way that Chrome is winning for me in the browser wars, it could change tomorrow.. who knows.

My biggest problem with Windows and Mac is that it is so hard to customise and change things. Sure, that is the design of it... to make it simple and as easy to use as possible. But I prefer having fun and tinkering.

I don't actually use linux because it is free (beer), I own Windows 7 Home Premium... although price probably is a big reason why I do not use Mac. Linux (and unix and anything else open source) may not be the best choice for novices (though my Grandad started with Ubuntu on his first computer 3 years ago and still loves it) but it is the best choice for me at the current time.

Also your right, Windows crashes a helluva lot. Linux crashes very rarely and when it does, it is almost always (unless mucking around with drivers) just a case of killing the process... it usually is on Windows but not as often.

[dorknexus]

Ok here are some things I enjoy on *nix systems that Windows doesn't let me do at all or very easily:

• remote login
  
• package management
  
• powerful shells to interact directly with the operating system
  
• powerful and simple scripting languages for task automation
  
• control over which feature are present in the kernel i am using
  
• ability and freedom to change any aspect of the system if i so choose.
  
• useful developer tools
  
• easy and useful i/o subsystems
  
• conformity to portable and open standards
  
• simple and meaningful environment management for multi-user systems
  
• granular control over resource consumption
  
• general purpose systems rather than desktop specific
  
• apparent reliability and stability

of course many of those are subjective.

[lordofduct]

Lemur, on 04 October 2011 - 04:35 PM, said:

Linux people do what they do because they hate Microsoft. We do what we do because we love Unix." - Theo de Raadt

This just perpetuates the 'my OS is better' mentality and presumes that all linux users are the same. It's just as bad as saying Mac users are snobs and M$ users like taking it from big corp.


This is the second time I've seen you post it, and as context goes, I'm not sure if you intend it to be troll bait or if you aren't understanding the elitism behind it. Especially considering your profile states you're a linux user... ? You do know that the statement means is relation to BSD and he is saying, "BSD users do this out of love and passion, where as linux users are petty and spiteful against MS"

This post has been edited by lordofduct: 04 October 2011 - 10:03 AM