Windows 10 is frustrating AF (rant)

[Sarra]

So, I have two machines. My 7 year old Gaming PC, running windows 8.1, and a bottom of the barrel, nearly ewaste, super low-end laptop, which I purchased for two reasons: It was extremely cheap brand new, and it functioned as a mobile computer for logging, reflashing, and overall tuning a car using a USB to OBDII adapter (that adapter is a rant for another day! Hoooo boy...). I originally had a used Dell Optiplex with a core i5 2400 and a super old graphics card, however, that machine died recently due to PSU failure. The PSU replacement costs more than the machine cost me used, so I've recycled it (again). So, my crappy laptop got an automatic nomination for youtube/netflix/VRV duties (it's how I get my LTT and Tech Jesus fixes... And JayzWaterCoolingNonSense as well).

 

I fail to understand the basic concepts behind the security, software update, and overall human to software processes that Microsoft has for Win 10. Automatic updates that have possibly bricked machines in the past, 'security' that is just not 'secure', and even just the ridiculous process to get to settings, it's just so frustrating. I recently upgraded my gaming machine from a Haswell i5 4440 to a Xeon E3 1280V3, and was having some issues getting all-core turbo and base clock to work how I wanted, and someone suggested I try ThrottleStop to change some settings... Since this program appears to be aimed at Laptop users, and I have a laptop, I figured I'd get it installed there as well, and maybe undervolt, tweak, etc., the laptop and get better battery out of it if the power fails, or whatever. So, I go to install it... And Windows Defender SmartScreen blocks it. No option to bypass on the blocked screen. Why? What is the point of this? I literally went on google and found instructions to disable smartscreen outright. Microsoft's security apparatus to 'protect' my laptop is now completely disabled, and I have zero intention of re-enabling it. I'm tempted to leave Windows Defender permanently disabled as well.

 

So, what is the intention of this kind of 'security' coding? Is it to keep, uh... the 'Less Tech Savvy' people from installing 'lolthisnotavirus.exe', or what? Any time I see a prompt that says 'F*** You! You cannot install this ever!' pop up on my PC, I immediately go find a way to disable that. It completely defeats the purpose of the code in the first place. I guess I'm just entirely failing to see the purpose of this kind of code, except to aggravate me and waste my time. Plus, Windows 8.1 doesn't have this kind of garbageware on it, just regular old Windows Defender, which for the most part, I just leave alone.

 

I've been considering upgrading (downgrading?) my gaming rig to Windows 10 Pro, as well as getting a newer laptop along with an upgrade for it to Win 10 Pro (I actually would be using the remote desktop features of the Pro version), but having used Win 10 for the last 3 years alongside Win 8.1, I really do prefer the ease of use, simpler, easier settings, and overall experience of Win 8.1 over Win 10. Finding a setting is fast and easy in Win 8.1, but takes me websearching to find in Win 10. My laptop is 'convertible', with a fold flat keyboard so it can be used as a tablet, and it does have a touch screen (yeah, when I said it was cheap, it's a $200 brand new convertible laptop/tablet, so it's super duper bottom of the barrel), and again, I really, really, REALLY did NOT like the tablet mode for Win 10. Having no reasonable way to get to your desktop to find something just because you put your machine in tablet mode just about got me to throw this thing out the window. Indeed, I was considering a upgrade to Linux on my old Optiplex, however, I am NOT Linux savvy (sorry Anthony), and figuring out how to do a fileserver for a low end PC like that is just beyond me. I also have had some negative experiences with older versions of Linux, like going to bed one night, and waking up the next morning to find half the OS is just gone (I wasn't the only one that had this issue. A friend of mine had the same issue at around the same time, maybe 2 months later, and she is an amazing Linux nerd). Since the Optiplex died, it's a moot point anyway... At least with Linux, if I wanted to brick my machine by installing 'wtfnotavirus.rpm', I could do so anyway.

 

PS: The laptop pretty much only does basic google searches (looking for guides for games, like Borderlands), has a Youtube window open, and that's pretty much it. I actually run out of RAM and my browser crashes if I try loading up Netflix, and I generally don't run software I don't trust, plus I use Opera (switching back to FireFox soon), with uBlock, so I'm really not worried about hostile software invading my laptop. Plus, it has a Pentium Silver N5000 CPU, and 4GB of RAM. I just don't have the spare resources to let Microsoft's useless garbageware run and suck up precious CPU cycles. Opening Youtube in a single tab in a single browser window pegs this thing at 80% Memory usage, opening a second window puts Youtube into virtual memory, and it just chugs like a mofo. Maybe it's time for me to get a Razer Blade Stealth? 

[skimmilk5]

The fact of the matter is, Windows is commercial software, sold for profit. Microsoft is not nearly as altruistic as we, as enthusiasts, would like it to be. Its development team consists of thousands of members around the world, with millions of hours poured into it. You also need to consider that most of Microsoft's clients for Windows aren't PC enthusiasts like you and me. They're tier 1 manufacturers like Dell, HP, Lenovo, Dell EMC, HPE, and SuperMicro. These companies hold billion dollar contracts with Microsoft to pay for and include the operating system on their systems, and in reality, most users just don't care. When you buy a fleet of 500 desktops from HP, you buy it with the intention of loading your own OS image (your own version of the operating system that has things like directory services already set up), and at that point, enterprise security is far more important than a few seconds of convenience. Within our office, we've had issues because someone installed a worm that managed to wriggle their way to other machines on that network, but which were unable to attack any fleet computers or servers (Windows Server servers were protected by Microsoft's own security features, Linux servers were impervious to the worm to begin with) because of a zero-trust model.

 

Why do we use the zero-trust model? It's entire purpose is to isolate issues to the original machine that was compromised. Undoubtedly, issues will arise. The goal is to prevent the issue from spreading. That's why we're all cooped up in our houses right now and we don't talk to each other at the grocery store. In this case, the grocery store is a common point where you could transmit disease to me or vice-versa. (The alternative model is the castle-and-moat model, where anything outside needs to be quarantined, but once it's in, we can automatically trust it. This model suffers from high infection rates if one machine is compromised inside of the castle.)

 

So in other words, Microsoft just doesn't care about you, plain and simple. They care about their enterprise customers far more, because their enterprise customers make them far more money. You might've paid $200 for a Windows Pro license, but we pay thousands of dollars for mission-critical support alone, never mind actual software. The security features offered in Windows are much more powerful than a lot of people realize they are, and they save millions (if not billions or trillions) of dollars every year in repair and recovery costs. From Windows SmartScreen to Windows UAC to baked-in encryption services for networking and locally-mounted drives, Microsoft Windows is extraordinarily powerful software.

 

Also, Linux's position in the software market is not aimed at people like you, to be perfectly honest. It's not really friendly for the bulk of users that try it. However, there's a reason that tech companies universally use it. If macOS and Windows are your Hondas and Ferarris of the transportation world, then many of Linux distributions available are Boeing 787 or Airbus A320neo jetliners. You don't expect your mom to sit at the controls and intuitively know how to use it, but it's a whole lot easier to teach your mom how to use Windows than Manjaro.

 

No doubt, Microsoft Windows kinda sucks for a lot of stuff. But it's also fabulous for a lot of other stuff. I understand your frustration and it's certainly warranted, but I wanted to offer some insights as to why such a large and powerful company would do the things that you mentioned.

[Sarra]

I understand your points, and honestly, I agree with them.

 

However, if I was on the team that designed the settings menus, I would be embarrassed to show my face to my family, or in public. The settings menus are an absolute horror show, and I'm pretty sure enterprise, SOHO, and individual users can all agree on that. It's a shame that Microsoft hasn't done anything to fix this, and it seems like updates actually make it worse over time, not better.

 

My job uses a semi-embedded OS, which happens to be... Windows CE. Yes, the mobile OS based on XP. It's buggy, glitchy, and absolutely horrible, but it's all we can get to run on the 2006-era hardware in our vehicles. The software running on them is atrocious, but if you go in to the settings, you can actually find everything in one place. Granted, I keep telling the IT guy that the best method of fixing any issue on these is to drill a hole in the top of the case, and fill it with salt water.

 

I actually really enjoyed running Xubuntu. I was running it on a freaking Atom CPU, with 4GB of RAM, and it was smooth, responsive, and for anything I threw at it, reasonably quick. The downside was that machine suffered an unrecoverable voltage spike, since the surge protector it was plugged into was far, far too old, and lightning claimed the silicon, which let the magic blue smoke out. But that was just a simple machine to watch videos on, now I have to be able to do that from a multi-purpose box, and I can't even do that since all I've got is this HP laptop that's about as slow at the Atom was back in 2008. I'm also planning on moving soon, so buying hardware is a bottom priority right now. After I move, maybe I'll put something together, and I can use a light Linux distro for watching youtube, and have it dual boot into Windows 8.1 or 10 for file server duties.

[homeap5]

Windows is as good as user who can or can't configure it. It's system that you can personalize way more than you think. You still has old control panel if you want (start - run - control) if you want to use it. You can even use 3rd party tools to configure your system more. There is no way to made so complex os and create perfect default configuration for everyone. Even small programs have config options because different people have different habits. You don't like protection - so disable it. Don't know how? Ask us or search internet. But I bet that you don't ever consider it as an option, because that will be so unsafe. So instead you just complain.

 

Don't expect that Windows will be easy to configure. It's not small tool with 10 options, it's really huge environment with lot of tools and applications. And every version number of extra features increases. And every feature have some options that you can configure. Spend some time to do that instead of complaining about default configuration. Microsoft programmers spend thousands hours to made all that options and settings. And other programmers made their tools to give you even more control over system if you're experienced enough. Use them, spend some time to create your own settings and set of tools (yes, not every tool and application is made by Microsoft) and Windows 10 will work as you want.