The Windows kernel has certainly improved—BSODs are now rare—but the userspace has only gotten worse. The end result is a decline in usability and dozens of new ways for your OS to enter a permanently unusable state without a BSOD.
There are gains and losses in UX, I agree. I avoid the ads stuff via Pro (though not completely the telemetry, that said it's for games and a separate Enterprise device for Windows-only PoSh). I think the big spot for 'Recent' on the start menu, which I disable recent, is a waste of space.
But I don't use the start menu in the way of Windows' past; it's always Win+type what I want.
We did gain with things like tabbed Explorer or a right-click menu not infested by COM extensions taking ages to load.
I'm not aware of any of these 'dozens of new ways' to make Windows unusable in the way I use it, then again Windows doesn't really force any one happy path, there are often five different ways to do one thing.
Like, what do you mean by “permanently unusable state?”
This is all just vague nonsense.
Windows bad because Microsoft, or something.
I’m gonna guess you’ll come back and say something dated or exaggerated like “OneDrive nags you all the time” (nope, it can be fully uninstalled in windows 11 just like any app).
Sounds like you don’t know what the word “permanent” means. If you can reboot and everything works again that doesn’t sound all that permanent.
I use all three major OSes regularly and none of them lock up in ways that require a reboot with any level of regularity, never mind entering a “permanently unusable state.”
In my experience I find that at present in 2025, rebooting Apple systems seems to fix occasional little wonky problems [1], my Linux laptop needs reboots or hard restarts for occasional sleep issues, and my Windows 11 desktop’s most frequent problem tends to be graphics driver crashes while playing games (and that’s partially my fault for choosing AMD instead of Nvidia). That is the kind of problem that used to cause full system lock-ups but Windows 11 actually manages that failure relatively gracefully.
But the point is that the only operating system I interact with that never has any issues on the OS level are my Linux servers, but that’s really an entirely different use case with much less complexity and risk than a desktop workstation. And even then it’s common practice to manage Linux servers as cattle rather than pets and just destroy/replace them when there’s an issue.
[1] Out of all the desktop operating systems, I think Apple has the highest quantity of hastily added features that ship with rarely-fixed minor bugs, while the Windows team doesn’t even attempt to add features at anything close to Apple’s pace. macOS has this struggle to keep feature parity with iOS and the iPhone which itself has a economic mandate to iterate quickly. For example, since iOS 26 I’ve been having random issues with Guided Access and the screenshot tool on iOS that only resolve when I restart the phone. I’ve also needed to cycle Bluetooth since iOS 26 on occasion to get my AirPods to connect successfully.
Try telling these reasons to your aging father who no longer understands how to print a file the government sent him because windows has changed windows explorer so much that he doesn't even understand that it's part of the OS anymore.
The disaster that is the ever shifting UX of windows is having serious harm on our senior citizens.
I've fielded several issues like this from many different seniors I know.
We've left these people behind and it's a shame that is having serious consequences.
Yes, things are better under the hood. But the surface, the UX, is a mark of shame on our entire industry.
This is reductive black and white thinking that simply refuses to deal with the real problem that I clearly illustrated.
Microsoft windows is a critical tool that society continues to build dependence on. The poorly executed redesigns of key windows features has consequences unlike the vast majority of software systems.
With Microsofts great power, comes great responsibility.
If you're saying that Microsoft (still) isn't owning up to the massive amount of brokenness they're recently churning out, I could believe that as well.
> GO: windows has become terrible for developers and this AI focus makes it worse
> PD: we listen to feedback, people want reliability etc. we care deeply about developers. we know we have to improve on [things which you didn't bring up at all]. we will continue improving.
... I honestly don't think I need to explain why they got ratio'd.
> windows has become terrible for developers and this AI focus makes it worse
Except it's not totally terrible. What makes it terrible is the privacy invasions and the consent issues Microsoft has with its users, along with long standing bugs in W11.
The other hand of Microsoft is actually putting a lot of convenient stuff in for developers. WSL w/ graphics support, Windows Terminal is nice (and is getting some nice features they just showed off at ignite), native git integration is coming to file explorer, PowerToys has some really great utilities, and making your own extensions for command palette is dead easy.
There's even a macOS preview-like utility for file explorer now, sudo, native SSH, winget (which can be automated with a simple yaml file to automate a new box setup using DSC), etc.
It's the classic Microsoft org chart problem where each is in their own bubble pointing guns at each other.
Windows could objectively be the best OS for developers, easily, if Microsoft cared enough to make it so. Their surface hardware isn't bad either, and the surface laptop is the only windows laptop on the market with a trackpad that's anywhere close to Apple's.
That's what makes Microsoft so frustrating lately. I used to like Windows, I want to like it and use it again, but Microsoft keeps shooting themselves in the foot over and over again, screwing everyone over in the process.
Running your own local AuthN/AuthZ is more than just 'install it on a box in the closet'. I don't blame anyone for letting one of the giants do this on their behalf -- they have the expertise, though I agree I wouldn't touch Okta.
Running your own AuthN/AuthZ with an off-the-shelf OSS is very straight-forward (as a SaaS product at least) and isn't any more burdensome from a security perspective than what you're already doing for your core service.
For your average enterprise it really is that simple. Register some IDPs. Connect a backend. Add some clients over time.
Yes, you need someone to wear the IAM admin hat. But once you get it configured and running it requires 0.1 FTE or less (likely identical to whatever your Okta admin would be). Not worth 6+ figures a year and exposure to Okta breach risk.
Paying Azure a little bit to run an AD instance for you, IF you need to run your own IDP (a big if), is not a bad play and does not prevent you from saving lots of money by not using a dubious product like Okta.
I recall it booting more slowly than 98 or ME, but I don't recall it being obnoxiously bad. I do remember disabling a lot of services I didn't think I needed, though.
Back then (probably xp era) I remember quirks like needing to configure the IDE controllers so if you didn't have both connectors on the PATA cable used it would spend a ton of time trying to detect a device where there wasn't one. You needed to go into device manager and disable that connector (unless you added a drive)
It was much slower than current OSes. Windows 2000 initialized Windows Services in a serialized order which caused lengthy boot times, even for an OOTB copy.
XP changes this to a parallel + delayed service start up, but 7 and 8 really focused on boot times.
It's interesting how much different the landscape was in that era: single-device residential environments would have no firewall at all (just a PC with a publicly-routable IP address) and dial-up kind of fueled this due to PCI slot modems, but as the outboard nature of DSL and DOCSIS modems made it easier to build multiple-device residential environments by adding a router, suddenly everyone had a firewall (as a byproduct of NAT). Then you've got malware, which was far more prevalent on PCs through that transition relative to today, but now we've got IoT stuff probably not being updated as it ought to be, potentially hosting malware that serves as a proxy to sidestep an in-router firewall.
Can't remember a single problem with the described setup and I've been using the internet since dial-up was the only option available.
Getting hacked when you don't have any open ports (thanks to NAT) is and was pretty unlikely - what was more likely is some kind of drive-by exploit in Flash or IE. The biggest problem I experienced with old Windows was general instability in the form of BSODs and driver compatibility problems.
NAT has nothing to do with security and it was common that people had a single device on DSL or cable plugged directly into the modem; routers were not common place at home.
Yeah, I remember formatting the HD on a PC back then to do a fresh install of Windows XP.
The CD-ROM I had was pre-SP2 (so no firewall), and our internet setup was basic modem + switch. No router with “drop invalid state” or fancy things like that.
So, installed Windows and plugged in Ethernet to fetch Windows updates.
2 minutes later, with no user interaction whatsoever, the PC was infected with malware.
Teams regularly fails at video conferencing. It complains of low network bandwidth at random times, and I check my firewall (OpnSense with fq_codel enabled and reasonable bandwidth limits) to note that it under very light load.
I am not sure if this is a server side thing at Microsoft, or a problem with the application itself. True under Windows, Linux, via local app, and via the web app.
For larger meetings (> 50 people), we use zoom. Unlike teams, zoom generally just works. Quite well in fact.
Teams is simply crap software, forced upon us. If we could jettison that and Outlook, I would be grateful. Though our IT looks at us in an unblinking stare, if we ask them to allow us to use any of the better clients on mobile, laptop, desktop, windows or linux. Its almost as if our third eye in the middle of our forehead opened up.
Washington State Public Records Act has no fee if you simply want to "inspect" the records (bodycams are the named exception); they can charge "actual" costs for storage, but presumably Flock stores the data, so... They cannot charge for salaries, etc.
You can make your own copy of records for free; if you want them to make copies, they can charge actual costs.
Unless I want to emulate a Solaris console, which has a lovely font.
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