I have used Windows 2.0 in the early 1990s and it was slow, slow, slow. I thought Windows 3.1 was a vast improvement even though it kept crashing like every 10-15 minutes. I kept quiet when Microsoft forced all computer makers to abandon MS-DOS and put Windows 95 (Win95) on all their new computers in 1996! The Command Window in Win95 and above is not true DOS. Don't let anyone fool you. Also, you had to buy new software for Win95 to replace the old software you had working in MS-DOS! Of course, more bugs were introduced. I quietly resisted by asking that my new computer still have MS-DOS and Windows for Workgroups 3.11. I even had to pay extra for this. I knew we were going further downhill when the "more stable" Windows 98 (Win98) was released and businesses around me tried to upgrade to it from Win95. The upgrade just made the slow systems even slower and buggier I tried to be understanding when Windows 2000 and Windows NT were released. Some bugs were fixed but other bugs took their place. You also had to buy other more expensive software to replace the older software you had running in the earlier version of Windows. This, of course, introduced more bugs. Windows is the BIGGEST SCAM in the computer field. It purports to make computers easier to use for everyone. However, quite the opposite has occurred. I believe the real reason why the return on investment for office computer productivity has been flat or increased little in the last 8 years is because of Windows. I certainly feel Windows has contributed to the computer productivity paradox. It may even be the main cause for the paradox! Waiting for this time parasite to bootup, restart after frequent crashes, time spent on installation of programs, dealing with program conflicts, etc. is the biggest time waster in any business! Further proof: 1. Why Bigger and Faster? Ever wonder why newer versions of Windows require you to upgrade your computer hardware? Ever notice your productivity remains the same or is less even though your present computer is hundreds of times faster and more powerful than the one you had just five years ago? Wake up people! It's a scam! You don't need a faster computer. You need a better operating system. Microsoft continuingly makes money by selling you the latest and greatest Windows. The latest Windows version is always the most inefficient yet, slowing down your fast computer. Also, now you have to upgrade all your other software too because different Windows versions are not compatible with each other! A hidden cost not mentioned at all. It's part of the scam. 2. Computer Crashes Are Not Normal. Believe it or not, your computer hardware was designed to run continuously for weeks and months without crashing. Crashing everyday is NOT normal. It is accepted as normal because of Windows. 3. Windows Help is Pretty Useless. What a time waster. If you want an overview, read the Windows Help or better yet, read the manual. If you need help on a specific problem, you can be sure Windows Help does not have that information. Also, I have never solved a problem I had using the Windows Help Troubleshooter. WinXP Help tries to be "smarter" by pointing to webpages. However, the URLs appear to be all broken in WinXP Help. It appears some idiotic webmaster at Microsoft changed all the support links rendering WinXP Help all but useless. 4. What New Features? Microsoft constantly harps on providing new features in it's products. Features hardly anyone uses. You know what features I would like? I want EVERY Windows program to remember the LAST DIRECTORY I looked at. Also, I want Windows to remember the LAST FILE TYPE I was looking at. I hate opening My Computer and having to start at the top of the directory tree every damn time! It should put me in the last directory I looked at. I hate running Notepad and having to start at the top of the directory tree every damn time. Then I have to set the file type to "All Files" because Notepad insists on looking for *.txt files first! How asinine is that? I want to see ALL THE FILES, damn it! Just those two simple features would save untold hours of wasted time. It should be relatively trivial to implement. Those two features are the extra 10% that make using Windows 100% better. Do you think Microsoft will make this change to make life easier? A feature which will actually be used by everyone? A certain more bang for your buck effort? They have not in all the previous versions of Windows! 5. Idiotic Behaviour. Why does Windows blame the user everytime it crashes? After a crash, some versions of Windows insist on scanning the hard disk first before booting up. Meanwhile, Windows chides the user for not shutting it down properly! This can and does happen several times a day. It was not the user's fault Windows crashed. Microsoft, take responsibility for your buggy operating system. 6. Changing Procedures. One of the strengths of Windows is it gives the user a familar and common environment. All windows should behave the same way. Menu items should also behave the same way. Great. Then why do the procedures to do something keep changing between the versions of Windows? You force the user to relearn how to do what should be a simple task. For example, the procedure to enable/disable the hard disk caching is different in each version of Windows! Windows itself is behaving differently. Another example, how to disable programs that automatically startup in WinXP on bootup. It used to be simple. In earlier versions of Windows, you just move the program shortcuts from the Startup folder. But Nooooo, let's add 3-4 levels of difficulty: * First, DON'T MENTION how to do it in the Windows XP Help. * Second, let's put some Startup programs in using environmental variables and others in the some unknown space like the Windows registry where a tiny mistake can screw everything up. * Third, let's make one program so ONLY that program can make the changes. Let's not tell the user what that program is. And forget about the Startup folder/file model that everyone is used to. * Fourth, let's require the user to reboot his computer again just to break up his session and his train of thought. * Fifth, let's put up a warning that the system is now booting in "Diagnostic" mode to further confuse the user. Just because you disabled a program from starting on bootup, WinXP automatically assumes you are running diagnostics. It doesn't assume you JUST DON'T WANT that program starting up because it's simply annoying, takes up space, takes time to load, etc. Or that you didn't ask it to load on startup. It just rudely put itself there. 7. Busy Work. Windows introduces a slew of other problems that did not exist before. Whole industries have arisen to solve this busy work. (i.e. work that appears to be accomplishing something but in fact, does nothing.) The infrastructure that supports Windows is a separate billion dollar industry unto itself! This industry strives to make Windows "easier" to use. Since this has not happened, all the effort in the Windows industry is further productivity that is wasted. I cannot believe no one else has seen this. Don't even get me started on WinVista... the worst OS created yet. I use PCLinuxOS 2007 now and have had my pc run for 4 months with out crashing or having to restart the thing... try yourself www.GetPCLinuxOS.com
M$ is a joke. that said, I like running apps natively and unfortunately that's uncommon in the world of *nix and on top of that drivers suck under *nix. I dual boot ubuntu and windoze. on another note 1. Why Bigger and Faster? Ever wonder why newer versions of Windows require you to upgrade your computer hardware? Ever notice your productivity remains the same or is less even though your present computer is hundreds of times faster and more powerful than the one you had just five years ago? because typing an essay and browsing email is limited by the user and not the system. 2. Computer Crashes Are Not Normal. Believe it or not, your computer hardware was designed to run continuously for weeks and months without crashing. Crashing everyday is NOT normal. It is accepted as normal because of Windows. guess you've never heard of the phenom TLB bug or the pentium III recall. The fact is hardware crashes can and do happen. On top of that it's not necessarily the operating system but can be the apps. You have any idea how many times BF2 crashes for people with perfectly stable systems? Heck I've even had my share of apps crashes under *nix. Yes they're less frequent, but the system has a harder time recovering from them. 3. Windows Help is Pretty Useless. What a time waster. If you want an overview, read the Windows Help or better yet, read the manual. If you need help on a specific problem, you can be sure Windows Help does not have that information. Also, I have never solved a problem I had using the Windows Help Troubleshooter. don't use or need it. 4. What New Features? Microsoft constantly harps on providing new features in it's products. Features hardly anyone uses. You know what features I would like? I want EVERY Windows program to remember the LAST DIRECTORY I looked at. Also, I want Windows to remember the LAST FILE TYPE I was looking at. believe it or not there ARE a lot of features in vista that aren't present under *nix. The search system is obviously better, though I will say that having windoze remember the last directory browsed would be nice, though personally I like the system as it is now, the app uses the last directory accessed through the app. Quite frankly I like having the ability to isolate certain file types to certain directories more easily. Just a matter of preference here. 5. Idiotic Behaviour. Why does Windows blame the user everytime it crashes? After a crash, some versions of Windows insist on scanning the hard disk first before booting up. Meanwhile, Windows chides the user for not shutting it down properly! This can and does happen several times a day. It was not the user's fault Windows crashed. Microsoft, take responsibility for your buggy operating system. why is it my fault every time I get something unstable under *nix. You have any idea how fun it is playing with unsupported hardware that works out of the box under winblows? I'll be blunt, I'm not a command line junky. You have any idea how freaking fun it was for me to install graphics drivers from a command line environment because I couldn't get the GUI to initialize with my new video card? then to find that it still wouldn't start and that every time I wanted to start the OS i'd have to start under command line and StartX from there? THAT is what I call bull---- my friend. when the Vesa drivers don't work, but it works just fine under the winblows generic drivers THAT is BS. 6. Changing Procedures. One of the strengths of Windows is it gives the user a familar and common environment. All windows should behave the same way. Menu items should also behave the same way. Great. the learning curve is low. Do you have any idea how different gentoo is from PClinux from... or how different XFC is from Gnome and KDE. Talk about changing procedures. At the end of the day if using a computer is hard for you, well you fail. 7Whats so bad about vista? It uses a lot of RAM right? I happen to like the idea of aggressive memory caching. With 2GB RAM going for as low as $30, there is no excuse to complain about this.I cna assure you vista with 2GB RAM is smoother than 8nix with 128mb RAM. I hate M$, I do feel they ruined the industry by destroying the competitive environment. But give credit where credit is due.
At the end of the day, Windows gets the job done, and I think thats what matters. It seems that you're describing the windows worst case scenario, because I use XP and I don't get slowdowns or crashes. Windows has a lot of programs for a lot of different stuff and it all works fairly well. Sure it doesn't all work the way we want it to, but it DOES work. Thats why so many people have it. I just checked, and microsoft sells XP for about 150, which I think is pretty fair for the OS.
xlink from what I understand you are comparing windows with Ubuntu. FOr the normal computer user PCLinuxOS works out of the box...
Ok let me redo that last post... an avg computer user uses a computer to check email, chat with friends, surf the internet, and play installed games... Take my mother for example almost 60 she uses PCLinuxOS it took her a few days to understand it but picked up right away... you ask my mother which one she prefers Linux or Windows and she'll reply Linux before you can even finish talking. When you ask her why? She said It doesn't mess up, doesn't freeze, no pop ups "firefox", faster, and has more installed games. Yes very simple for someone who does what I listed above in the first sentence. For hardcore gamers Windows is the best for now. Yes I understand Linux has it faults... some hardware may not be used in Linux and more stuff is made for windows. But for an avg user it is cheaper and easy to switch to linux then upgrade to vista unless they want to do hard core gaming. I don't understand why you have so many problems with Linux... I haven't yet had a problem with PCLOS and I edit programs and all. I mat have a program crash but it would be my fault and it restarts that program with easy...
ubuntu does too, under 4 out of 5 systems but when you making sweeping generalizations and there are innacuracies in them... well do the math.\ and the nVidia driver bug applied to pretty all linux based OSes. also, the reason it loads firefox faster is because the GTK runtime environment is part of GNOME, when a good part of an App is preloaded it will obviously startup faster. I've said it before and I'll say it again, for general use it really doesn't matter what you're on as the biggest limiting factor is in fact the end user. and I don't do "general use" I game. If I didn't game, I'd have ditched windoze long ago. Sure I could go the WINE/cedega route, but that's buggy glitchy and slow. and pretty much all my issues with linux are derived from the fact that the drivers for it are ----. Utter ----. Completely worthless. And yes you can blame it on nVidia, ATi, and various 3rd party chipset providers, but that doesn't change the fact.
Maybe your right but I have a nVidia video card and had it working in no time... worked with out the drivers... the drivers just enabled my 3d effects. MS had brain washed so many people... If I gamed I would use Windows... but I don't waste my time with PC Games... I use the linux PS3
oh and I pay for an OS I expect it to do what it claims... The trojans, viruses, spyware, malware, and so on is not what I pay for and if the box claims is secured I should be able to surf the internet with out worry
you pay for an OS one way or another. The people who spent time developing *nix could have been developing a cure for cancer or other programs. There is no such thing as a free lunch. and I have connections so most of my OSes so the implicit cost to me is usually minimal. that said, i don't get viruses, I don't get malware and I don't get trojans. and if I did with the number of reinstalls I do after hardware upgrades, it would be a non issue. again, I use both, neither is pefect. As an OS I find windows to be inferior, but it's the platform that I judge by, not just one component and unfortunately for GNU/linux systems, drivers are part of the platform as are 3rd party apps. Virtualization and emulation only goes so far.
Ok but for the normal user ones who have to pay the full price... they buy Windows... get a virus have to buy protection, finds out they need more protections since they have spyware now and the pc is getting slower the user is getting un happy soon the PC dies and they have to pay to get it fix then there protection goes outdated they have no clue, gets another virus buys new protection and computer dies again... a new user with windows would be spending a great deal of money for nothing... with Linux if you mess up reinstall it... nothing else to buy back ups are easy and It worth switching... If I could have a OS that works with every hardware but crashes and has to be reformatted every few months or an OS that works with a lot of hardware and hardly ever crashes and does what it says... I would choose the OS that hardly crashed and would gladly pay $150+ for it. Maybe your one of the lucky ones who knows how to fix the problems you run in to with windows but I would bet that you installed many other programs just to keep your computer running.
Don't get me wrong if it wasn't for Windows then there would of never been a reason for Linux to be created
aside from the fact that linux development in a sense started in response to the pice gouging of Sun microsystems and as a response to the closed source computing environment.... and FYI, the average user pays for windows when they buy their system. as for programs to keep my OS clean... generally don't worry about it. I have a script blocker running on firefox and that's it. 10kb download and it works wonders. also note that I've never said linux was bad. but, I want my stuff to work. Spending hours to do work arounds isn't fun. Especially if those work arounda don't completely fix the problem. As far as native apps go in linux, they aren't too bad, but getting windoze and OSX apps going is another issue. personally I'd prefer linux to gain major market share and to get good 3rd party support, but that is neither here and today. Pragmaticism is my determining factor
I never had a virus since getting Windows XP, so if you had them(meaning more than 1) while using windows then you ------ed up somewhere. Only time I ever had experiences with trojans was when I got my first computer with Windows ME, and that was when I never used to use antiviruses and firewalls.
