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For experienced IT veterans—and PC enthusiasts—there is a common wisdom about the latency between when a version of Windows is released, and when those releases become reliable. Windows XP is the primary example of this, as the original release of XP lacked a variety of important security protections—a rebuilt firewall enabled by default, support for NX bit, and finally disabling the Windows Messenger service abused by spammers, were added in Service Pack 2, three years and a day after XP was first released.
And so, that leaves us with our present circumstances with Windows 10. Roughly seven weeks ago—on May 21—Version 1903 (or 19H1), otherwise known as the May 2019 Update, was released. This marks three years, nine months, and 22 days since the initial release of Windows 10. Reception has been politely positive, though problems with the launch have prompted Microsoft to require users to remove USB storage devices or SD cards before upgrading; likewise, the update was blocked on the Surface Book 2 because a driver problem renders it incapable of seeing the NVIDIA GPU in the base of the high-end model.
Given the positioning of Windows 10 as being essentially the last version of Windows (similar to the way Mac OS X has been around since 2001), it is potentially unwise to declare this exact point in time "as good as it gets." Microsoft's track record is likely to back up this claim, though—at best, Microsoft can deliver iterative changes on top of Windows 10, but the biannual release cadence does not lend itself to massive changes, and further iterative changes are not going to convince the skeptics. If you don't like Windows 10 now, you're not going to like it in the future.
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/windows-10-three-years-later-why-this-is-as-good-as-it-gets/
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 16 2019, @10:48PM (20 children)
All I've got for Win10 is a little bitty meh.
There are still some things (Autodesk products, for instance) that are worthwhile and only available via Windows. Of course there are "better" games in the mainstream market OS, but there are enough "good enough" games in Linux for me to waste the rest of my life on...
Work requires me to use their Win10 image to run a VPN from home, so there sits a laptop on my desk for the sole purpose... even 90% of work apps are functional via Chrome / Linux these days, though a couple of barely functional systems are only functional at all through the work approved version of Edge browser...
I used to get incensed at the virtually impossible to defeat auto-update mechanism, but since the only systems I run Widows on are provided by work, if they blow it up I can just requisition a replacement - I'm not too hurt while waiting for it to arrive.
It is unfortunate that so much of the world is (still) locked into Microsoft products, mostly Windows... but these days it is a yoke of their own choosing. The alternatives are viable, if not market dominating (yet.)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by ShadowSystems on Tuesday July 16 2019, @11:11PM (2 children)
At Joe, re: a yoke of their own choosing.
I disagree with that *one* part of your post.
Everything else I give a giant ThumbsUp to, but that one part makes me shake my head.
Not *everybody* chooses Windows because they want it, but because we *have* to.
I use a screen reader from Freedom Scientific called Jaws.
If Jaws isn't working then I can't use the computer at all.
Jaws is a Windows product.
I have tried to use Apple & they failed miserably.
I am trying to teach myself Linux on another machine, but Orca isn't entirely there yet.
I'm stuck using Windows until I can get the Linux machine to force Orca to Just F(#*$%ing Work every time, no matter what.
Apple isn't even in the top ten list anymore, not after they failed to send me a working computer for three different trips through Customer Disservice Hell.
For normal, sighted folks that don't need any Accessibility at all, another OS may be a viable option, but if you need any form of Accessibility then you're severely limited in what you can get/do.
Back when I could still see to tinker with my machines, I started using two desktops: one with Linux (Debian) & one with Windows.
Two monitors side by side, two keyboards (one on a keyboard stand above the other), the towers under my desk side by side with large water coolers keeping them nice & frosty.
I'd have them both running simultaneously so I could compare the things I was trying to do on the Debian with what the web pages on the other claimed I should be looking at.
I loved the set up, I could work & do research on how to be productive at the same time, and if one ever started giving me problems I could switch to the other with a simple move of a keyboard.
But it never dawned on me to research using the screen reader, because I never thought I'd have a heart attack & go blind.
In hindsight (Mine's 20/20!) I wish I had, I'd be able to use Linux a hell of a lot better by now.
All my Linux knowledge is so out of date that I've had to chuck it all & start from scratch.
The desktops are different, the underlying code is different, the way it does stuff is different, and none of my keyboard shortcuts work anymore.
It's like getting used to hitting a certain button on the dash of your car to get something to happen, being away from cars for a while, sliding back in behind the wheel after a long abscense, & finding out that none of the controls do the same job anymore.
*Frustrated pulling out of hair*
I like Linux, I'd rather be using it than Win7 like I'm using now, but there's no damned way I'll touch Win10 with a barge poll.
Down that rabbit hole lies madness.
*Hands you a pint & clinks rims*
Cheers!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 17 2019, @01:15AM (1 child)
There are some things that Windows still excels at - one caught me by surprise today: global language support for audio speech synthesis - Microsoft has just crushed that area and the Linux alternatives are far behind.
If I still did serious CAD work, I'd have to use Windows for the CAD software - but lately I just play at 3D modeling, so OpenSCAD is good enough for _my_ purposes.
We have one Windows machine setup at home for the occasional program that wanders through which doesn't work on Linux, but the last one of those we had at home was about 3 years ago.
When I choose games on Steam, I just restrict the list to Linux compatible - it's just a waste of time anyway, why hurt yourself over it?
But, yeah, if you _need_ something like Jaws... sorry, man. See if you can inspire the Linux community to step up and make Orca great!
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @02:07PM
There's still issues with python due to the python 2->3 migration, which has lead to some broken plugins, but it supports Finite Element Analysis and a lot of other cool features, plus has OpenSCAD support for if you prefer that style of programmatic CAD workflow.
(Score: 2) by Luke on Tuesday July 16 2019, @11:15PM (2 children)
The Win10 machines I have something to do with all have 'shutup10' run on them, and I separately run a custom powershell script to remove any remaining telemetry, store, and update crap. This is necessary because we run software that will only operate with specific builds of 10 and I've found over the years that when we used to run auto-updates it would invariably break something. It's also because we see no reason to divulge information to others.
Anything that isn't captured by these methods is blocked by the squid proxy that all these machines run through - none of them direct connect to the interweb. There is no gateway set on the machines and no gateway on the network that will accept direct connections - let alone a connection to *.m$.*
While this could be more than a little work at home it'd be worth it in my view - could probably even successfully run a squid proxy in a VM on the M$ machine, or better still a Pi...
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday July 17 2019, @12:41AM (1 child)
Give Powershell scripts please.
(Score: 1) by tedd on Wednesday July 17 2019, @02:25AM
https://lmgtfy.com/?q=windows+10+telemetry+disable+powershell+script&s=g [lmgtfy.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 17 2019, @12:56AM (13 children)
I support many, many Win 10 machines, and because I know how to make Win 10 work, and usually how to fix when it breaks I am OK with that.
Win 10 is not really what people want to use, I would argue it is Outlook, connected to Exchange which is the big selling point, and in fact what every one of my users has open all day every day.
If Linux could do what Outlook and Exchange do, we would switch tomorrow.
In fact I have just finished fixing a naughty printer which was holding up about 12 users, but they were pretty relaxed about it. The one guy whose Outlook threw up an error nearly burnt the office down.
Apparently we are switching to Office 365 at some point maybe next year.
I wonder how people will react when it stops working and I shrug and tell them I can't help? A friend who does IT support in a company using o 365 calls it Office 363, because it fails for 2 days every year.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 17 2019, @01:23AM (9 children)
I use Outlook 365, almost exclusively from Chrome, hosted 30% on Win10, 50% on Ubuntu, and 20% on Android. I haven't fired up my native Outlook client in years.
I've noticed about 2 hours of downtime in a single event in 365 over the last ~3 years, meh.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 17 2019, @01:49AM (8 children)
Last year Office 365 was out for 48 hours straight in our region.
If our mail server ever stopped working, my users would come and yell at me until I fixed it. If the box it runs on is hosted by someone else and I have no access to fix it (AKA The Cloud) then who do they yell at?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 17 2019, @02:16AM (5 children)
Depending on your level of actual job security, this might be a very good thing for you.
I agree a 48 hour outage is an outrage, the 2 hours I noticed were at the tail end of a longer maybe 12 hour outage in our region. There may have been others but I was not personally impacted. As a developer, I can wait to get most mail most of the time. And... most of us also have each other's gmail addresses and even phone numbers for SMS, though we're pretty restrained about using them except in times of real need.
The years that I was in some way responsible for an e-mail system, I tended to have to do something every few months to keep it running... if your shop actually needs (not perceived need, actual) 99.99% uptime, a) they should have an alternate channel (like gmail) for emergencies, and b) maybe Outlook 365 isn't for them.
If the need for ultra-reliability is more perceived than actual, Outlook 365 is pretty reliable, and certainly less hassle overall for the local admins.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 17 2019, @02:27AM (4 children)
The "shop" I work at is part of a Fortune 200 company. Something along the lines of $30 million in sales per month I think.
Pretty reliable sounds terrible. Yes, 99.99% uptime is what we need.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 17 2019, @01:28PM (3 children)
$360M in annual sales makes the Fortune 200? My "shop" has $30B in annual revenue and we barely made the Fortune 100, but the sales are more long term negotiations that spur of the moment closings. When I ran the e-mail it was, of course, for much smaller places, 5-10 employees.
So, if your "shop" is that Type A about e-mail, hopefully they've got a rotating team of 24-7 responsible/capable engineers doing pro-active maintenance, at least 4 shifts?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 17 2019, @08:20PM (2 children)
Um... no that's sales for this one rather insignificant site at the bottom of the world.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 17 2019, @08:41PM (1 child)
Ah, makes sense...
Still, our $30B/yr org runs completely on Office 365 (wonder what that contract costs...)
I'm not sure how that interacts with the direct connect MS Office clients, I'm not that bothered to use straight MS Office anymore. Maybe that is a fail-over that can cover for when "Cloud Office is feeling rainy..." not that your $30M in monthly sales guys wouldn't go ballistic when the mail client they normally use starts acting even a little bit different.
One "killer app" for me is accessing Office 365 from Chrome on Android... I think IT didn't want this to happen at first, but they couldn't really block it since Chrome on the phone can masquerade as Chrome on a desktop. I think after a year or two of everybody end-running them and getting e-mail on their phones without installing the death from above wipe-your-phone company app, they probably figured out that Chrome doesn't cache enough of the e-mail content locally on the phone to worry about.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 17 2019, @10:06PM
I had not thought of the death from above wipe-your-phone company app, but we have one too.
I wonder if the Office 365 guys have thought of it? That might be fun.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday July 17 2019, @05:41PM (1 child)
They still yell at you!
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 17 2019, @08:25PM
True. I am really looking forward to that.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Wednesday July 17 2019, @03:16AM (2 children)
All I want is Windows XP, its all I have ever wanted.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday July 17 2019, @03:25AM (1 child)
Win XP SP 3 was peak Windows, in my view.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @02:41PM
XP3 was the last version of windows I spent serious time on.
If there had been an XP X64 Retail release, I likely would have migrated to that, but since it was only available OEM during a narrow window where memory capacities wouldn't have warranted it, I didn't.
That said, XP X64 runs pretty nice on a Nehalem or Opteron with 48-128GB of RAM if you have it available. Unfortunately, it also has some flaws that can result in the need to reboot to work around memory fragmentation issues, like various versions of windows before it.
For people who aren't aware: Windows XP X64 was a Desktop version of Windows Server 2003 64 Bit with DirectX support and the XP desktop. Very nice for its time, and ran most 32bit windows apps acceptably. Sadly 64 bit is mostly broken due to Vista+ Assumptions made in 2008/2010 and later compilers.