But why do you use Windows??

[James]

Hey guys! We're doing another "10 Reasons _____ is just Better" video - this time with WINDOWS. Now's your chance to tell us what you love about Windows and/or why Windows is better than MacOS/ Linux.

 

 

 

 

 

[Zando_]

I use it at home for gaming, that's really the main reason for using Windows. Games, running emulators to run games, every now and then to jailbreak an iOS device because the software on Windows (when you have the right version of iTunes installed) is usually better. Sometimes use Win 7 just for the nostalgia, mainly on Windows 10 though. 

[Guest]

Microsoft RDP. Far superior to anything you have to add on in terms of resolution scaling and locking out access to the local computer.

Adobe CC Ecosystem (yes, it's Mac compatible, but I like freedom of hardware).

Broader range of support and compatibility by software and hardware developers (not just talking about gaming). aka sometimes you have no choice.

 

Mind you these are reasons I use it, not me stating that Windows is better or that I love it.

 

[Gorgon]

Windows has a more open hardware environment than MacOS.

 

I run windows because I have to for some applications and Linux for everything else.

[flibberdipper]

In the case of my desktop, quite literally only because Hackintoshing my system is functionally impossible thanks to the 1050Ti, and my game library would be far more crap on macOS anyways.

 

When it comes to my laptop, Windows 7 just works the best out of everything and I can use PDANet which is a requirement thanks to my current phone plan.

 

And finally when onto my one-size-fits-all server, it's got Windows 10 on it because of things like Vegas, Photoshop, Audition, etc. and while I could technically Hackintosh it, getting all the kinks ironed out and hoping it's as reliable would be a bit silly.

[lewdicrous]

• Microsoft office is useful for me, especially because most people use it for presentations and papers for college.
• I'm used to the OS as it has been the main one I've used over the years.
• Most games have been optimized to run on Windows, at least back in the day.

[Princess Luna]

You know, Windows 10 can still be heavily edited to become the best OS we have... like Linus old video about "Windows 9"

 

Classic Shell, bring back paint, windows photo viewer back, get rid of the junk through powershell, remove the notification center... I've gone through this far too many times so it gets old repeating it but the TL:DR is that Windows 10 can still be an amazing OS if you bother learning how to make it behave and look the way you prefer, often more in line with Windows 7.

[WereCatf]

• Apps that aren't available for Linux
• Hardware that runs faster under Windows or which would lack features under Linux
• Hardware that's unstable under Linux
• Games that refuse to work under Linux, even with Proton
• Games that run faster on Windows
• Almost all F/OSS-stuff is available for Windows as well, so I'm not missing out on those
• Linux desktop-environments are just terrible. While Windows is far from perfect, it's still better suited for the desktop

[kameshss]

Games, Variety of Pro applications (Adobe CC, Autodesk apps) and etc! Better hardware support in all terms.

 

It just feels better.

 

 

Although I work as Linux Infra Admin, I still like Windows better

[DildorTheDecent]

I've been using it since primary school (early 2000s). Apart from that, can't really think of a reason.

 

I guess I'm just used to it.

[TomvanWijnen]

Simple: it'll run officially on any hardware. Random old pc? Pop Windows on it. Can't do that with MacOS. Could do that with Linux, but, if we're being realistic, Linux is often too complicated and/or unknown for the average user.

[SupaKomputa]

The windows taskbar my favorite feature. Having used windows for a long time i kinda stuck to it. It makes multitasking very snappy and easy, i hated the dock menu in MacOS. You need to learn shortcuts or use hot corner to achieve multitasking swiftness in osx.

 

File explorer is the most intuitive file manager with lots of features unlike osx and linux.

[Senzelian]

I like about Windows that it is very configurable and yet easy enough to use that I don't need to know any console commands to use it.

 

I also like that there is simply an insane amount of software for it and that you can get basically about anything to run on it, even if sometimes it requires a little tinkering. 

 

And then there is of course DirectX12 and a huge amount of supported hardware.

[Kosenator]

Until I got used to Windows 98, I was DOS-ing around on the PC. Throughout the years, I got to know Windows rather well. I had a MacBook Air for a while, it is somewhere on this earth, I wish I knew where.

 

Let's not be too nostalgic: There was the disease called ME and the catastrophe named Vista with its always-on, always-interfering User Access Control. But there were also the legends XP and 7 (7 being basically Vista done right). I am still using Windows 7 on my PC and Notebook. I tried Win 10 for a month or so and decided to upgrade to Windows 7 again (I might give it a try again, if Microsoft removes the mandatory interfering unplanned updates and the telemetry - so, probably never).

 

But I have tried OSX on the MacBook Air. It was actually quite good, since I used the MBA mostly for Office work (when MS Office still had a Mac-compatible version). The track pad was/is still way better, than any pad I have used on a PC-based notebook. But I got used to the way Windows 7 works. With all its hassles and quirks (have fun rearranging your icons after updating the video driver, because you forgot to switch off the screen, or to maximise the GFE), most hardware support is just a driver download away. I have control over where I want to install which program - something I never managed to figure out with Mac OSX. And... Three-button mice... programmable mice... (I admit, I never had the chance to test my Chroma set on the MBA).

 

The quick launch area, though some consider it an abomination, I find helpful. For little things, like ejecting a USB drive or connecting to, or disconnecting my computer from, the internet.

 

The taskbar is where I pin a lot of the programs I use regularly, and one can always download a dock if one feels a need. Or even multiple docks. And as a previous reply states, file explorer is (probably for us old-time Win-users), a lot easier to use than whatever the opposing forces have. Especially if you add Clover3 to get tabbed file explorer (I believe the tabs are a part of the Win 10 experience?)

 

Drag-and-drop file management and wonderful little add-ons, such as TeraCopy and DirectFolders, make this even better.

 

And if you fear the PC is going to sleep in the middle of a presentation, you just download Caffeine and it is sorted. I cannot recall seeing these little thingies for Mac or Linux.

 

However, I have my copy of ZorinOS ready for install at the end of the year, since Windows 7 support ends in January. A very Windows-like experience, without the telemetry. They say.

 

Alas, poor Windows. You were a stalwart we could work with, until you merely became the Telemetric Windows Input/Output (WindowsI/O - Windows10).

[The Torrent]

2 hours ago, James said:

Hey guys! We're doing another "10 Reasons _____ is just Better" video - this time with WINDOWS. Now's your chance to tell us what you love about Windows and/or why Windows is better than MacOS/ Linux.
 

cuz its most supported no matter what anyone says

[vanished]

I have a lot of reasons, or at least a couple very significant ones.  It's not so much that I love Windows though, just that these things are unique to it (afaik), at least for now.  If other systems picked them up though I'd definitely be down to switch.  I'll try to list things in order of most to least important but it may not be perfect.

1. Application support.  So many things run on Windows, and many of them only on Windows.  That's not a pro of Windows or a knock against other OSes per se - it's nothing inherent to Windows really, more of an indirect benefit - if devs chose to release their apps for other OSes, then they'd have better support too.  But, the fact remains that it's true at least for now.  Yes, many apps are cross platform, or have "alternatives" on other OSes, and as a fallback you can always run Wine or a VM, but it's definitely not the same.  Cross platform apps are the best and I wish more were.  Alternatives are often not nearly as good as what Windows offers though, and as for Wine and VMs, the way normal people do it (a VM on a host OS, not launching everything straight from hardware with dedicated pass-throughs), there is a mild if not significant performance hit, and that's to say nothing of the fact that if you're using a VM, you're still using Windows anyway.
2. Hardware support.  Obviously crushes Mac OS at this, but compared to Linux even, it supports a wider range of things, and a wider feature-set of each of them.  I've run Windows and Linux on quite a few machines in my years, and never once have I discovered an ability to do more with Linux than I can with Windows* (exceptions listed below).  With Windows, it always feels like the hardware is fully supported, where as with Linux, I've often felt like I'm getting some subset of the total due to janky drivers, etc.  Whether it's missing certain hardware accelerations, bluetooth, wifi, trackpad, touchscreen (though in this case technically the hardware works, software just doesn't use it well), etc.
   • Linux lets you turn the backlight on laptops down as low as you'd like, even totally off.  With Windows, it's often capped to a minimum brightness that's still quite high.
   • In the "enthusiast" or "maker" space, Linux totally crushes Windows at this.  Never mind running on a raspberry pi, it will run on literally anything you can imagine and desire.  Windows cannot.  But, this is a personal list and I've never come up against this myself.  In my experience, doing normal things on a normal computer, Windows wins.
3. GUI Comfort.  Microsoft has put a lot of effort into adding creature comforts and quality of life improvements into Windows to the point where to go back to something like Windows 7, Mac OS, or Linux, etc. feels like going back in time.  No single thing on its own is that big of a deal, but they all add up.  Specifically, things like these:
   • OneDrive integration.  It's really fantastic.  Everything on OneDrive appears to be on your computer, whether it physically is or not, and these "phantom" files can be accessed seamlessly as if they actually were local - in the event that anything tries to, they will be pulled down automatically in the background.  No seeing something different locally to what's actually stored.  No having to sync it all - pick and choose which files are local and which are not at will, and at random.  No having errors when you try to access something that's a placeholder and not local.
   • Search - Now, compared to Mac OS, this is nothing special, and in fact potentially a big loss, but compared to Linux, at least for the average person, this is an enormous victory.  I know the find command is very powerful but I don't want to spend 12 hours learning how it works, I just want to list all files recursively in a directory that match a certain filename pattern, are over a certain size, and more recent than a certain date.  This is a 2 second task on Windows, while on Linux, this trivial, mundane, routine little task is literally impossible, again, unless you're a master of the command line, or happen to know a file browser or search tool that I've not recently used.  Apparently it never occurred to anyone working on things like catfish, thunar, nautilus, etc. that people might actually want to search for files, and thus that search should exist, and actually work.
   • Task bar - it's easy to forget about this, but compared to something like the Mac OS dock, or the way certain Linux DEs handle windows and navigation, it's really just the best.  Nearly unchanged in 25 years and I think that says something - they got it right the first time.
   • Snapping windows to the side of the screen when you drag them there, and having them remember their original size when you unsnap them, and automatically offering what to snap in the remaining space, and being able to do it with corners as well as just sides, and being able to resize both windows at once when you do have things snapped
   • Snipping tool - just win + shift + S, drag over the area of the screen you want, and paste when ready.  No saving, opening programs, etc.
   • Integrated notifications ("action centre") that handles everything, rather than every program doing its own thing.
   • It's just more consistent and reliable than anything I've found on Linux.  Maybe not a pro over Mac OS, but Linux for sure.

Now with all of that said, there's plenty I hate about Windows and it's only fair to include these things:

• Poor performance, particularly on slower hardware - this one needs some extra clarification.  While there's certainly been times when Windows ties or beats the performance you can get on Linux, there have always been, and remain times where Linux absolutely crushes Windows in general usability (app loading speed, etc.), and even beats it in gaming performance in some cases.  And let us not all forget that prior to SSDs being a thing, it was normal procedure to have to reinstall every year because the OS had ground to an absolute halt for god only knows what reason - a problem not shared by other OSes at the time or currently, even when running on HDDs.
• Questionable privacy practices
• In recent years (with Windows 10) they've made large changes to the Settings menu (trying to replace control panel), which I think are good at heart and maybe in time will be great, but for the moment, and for years now, have been and remain a huge pita and a downgrade.  On top of that, a lot of the new UWP apps ("Photos", etc.) are bloated and featureless, even if they look more sleek than their older counterparts.  But, at least the option to still use the old stuff remains.
• A $100+ OS coming preloaded with ad shit like Candy Crush... really?
• In more recent years, questionable update procedures.  I personally haven't ever had an issue, but it's well known that many people do.  In my books it's actually better than 7 though because now it asks when to schedule the reboot for instead of pestering you every 4 hours.
• Integrated GUI + OS.  Linux (and maybe Mac?  idk) wins here big.  In the unlikely event that something hangs badly enough to take down the entire graphical system on Linux, you can just kill it and relaunch without actually affecting the underlying OS.  With Windows, that's a hard reboot, unavoidably.

[MrFixitBlankFace]

Interface. And money.  The only reason I haven’t got Mac is because my family can’t afford a $800+ Mac computer. And used PCs isn’t our policy. Plus, we’ve always trusted windows since before I was even born.  I like IOS and Mac but I feel fine with Windows.

[TrainFan475]

Short answer: I don't have a mac and don't need one.

Long answer: You can't really build a mac like you can build a PC (Let's not get into Hackintosh), and I've always grown up using Windows, so It's basically all I know how to use (I have a small amount of Linux experience). I have no burning desire to own a mac or a Linux based system, partly because Windows is the easiest to game on! I just love everything most of the things about Windows.

[everettrules]

3 hours ago, James said:

Hey guys! We're doing another "10 Reasons _____ is just Better" video - this time with WINDOWS. Now's your chance to tell us what you love about Windows and/or why Windows is better than MacOS/ Linux.

 

 

 

 

 

The File system is soooo much better. I still cant find the files on a mac...  

[vanished]

26 minutes ago, everettrules said:

The File system is soooo much better. I still cant find the files on a mac...  

That's not actually the file system (NTFS, HFS+, etc.), that's just a matter of how the system arranges files

[Animal901]

It just works easier. 

[Tristerin]

In in the process of my first Linux distro learning experience (Manjaro) and what I can say is:

 

Windows 10 is plug and play

Other OS's are not for the average user

 

Obviously I expected differences with Linux but the amount of knowledge required to use it as a daily driver for more than just email and web browsing would require a "DIY" experience of learning, whereas Windows 10 is literally plug and play in comparison.

[Inversion]

A few advantages at least as far as I'm concerned.

• Best for gaming - I know with Proton, Linux has been getting better for gaming but it's still less work on Windows.
• Widespread use - Windows is used in far more places than MacOS or Linux. I can walk into any computer lab or classroom that I would be expected to make use of at my uni (with the exception of the astrophysics labs) and be met with Windows PCs. It's really easy to just walk in and use one of the uni computers because run windows.
• Software Library - Like it or not, Windows has a lot of software not available on other platforms (I know MacOS can make similar arguments). They're also well used programs such as Microsoft's Office Suite which is by far one of my most used software suites for everything from writing reports, to managing emails, to making presentations, to balancing the books for my uni hall committee. There is also the fact that everything is pretty plug and play in a way that often isn't true in Linux
• GUI - The windows GUI is fairly easy to understand and has remained fairly unchanged for decades now (excluding Windows 8 and 8.1) making it easier for non-techies to work out because although it might be a little different, the start menu is still in the bottom left with fairly similar things in it
• Ease of Use - I've tried Linux, I've tried MacOS. They have their uses. But windows remains easiest to use. The lack of right click in MacOS and having to use command line in Linux just makes things harder than in Windows.
• Lack of Hardware Restrictions - This is aimed directly at MacOS since you can't run it without a Mac or similar hardware (because Hackintoshs are a thing). Like I couldn't use the top of the range Nvidia GPUs in a Hackintosh because there aren't MacOS drivers (at least not official ones) because they use AMD.
• File Explorer - It's intuitive and much easier to use than the equivalent MacOS system (which I've tried using and hate beyond belief)

 

Windows does of course have its flaws such as:

• Resource Hogging - Low end computers struggle with Windows. To the point that the 4GB of RAM in my laptop is barely enough to run 3 programs. It uses too many CPU resources on low end machines, mostly because it has to have support for so many legacy apps and an insanely wide range of hardware, but it's a flaw nonetheless.
• Much more vulnerable to attack - This is because it's so widely used but there are more viruses and other malware targeted at Windows than for Linux and MacOS. Still, antivirus is a thing
• Sound Controls - This is a recent one. I don't know why but Microsoft has made it harder to access the playback and recording devices menus. I used to be able to right click the sound icon on the task bar and open the menu and now I have to search for Sounds. It's annoying since I have several different devices I want to use and sometimes need to change.

There are other flaws and other things I love about Windows but I've been going on for long enough as it is.

[Bramimond]

My workplace is forcing me to. I asked for Linux, but everyone started laughing.

[geo3]

It's the UI for me. I've tried many times to switch to Linux but every desktop environment feels clunky and looks a decade or more out of date. This is coming from someone who Linux CLI extensively at work and on my own server.