How did software development become so hard (Windows)???

[Grumpish]

It has been going that way ever since M$S started their bid for world domination with the very early versions of Windows. I am going to show my age now - I was taught (while working for a large airline) to program in languages like PL\I, Fortran, and Cobol, was taught to be very frugal with resources, and this was also the case with the early PC's and C programming. Nowadays it seems to be the case that "memory, processor cycles, and disk space are cheap, so what?" Linux seems to be a bit better, although it does tend to be something of a one trick pony - very good at one task if it is tuned for just that task, but hopeless as a general purpose OS. macOS - maybe, once Apple start innovating again, instead of just stealing from everyone else and throwing lawyers at anyone that objects.

 

[maverickronin]

Windows 10 runs so much smoother if you use the LTSC versions.

They are de-bloated from the start.

 

[Walter]

Linux seems to be a bit better, although it does tend to be something of a one trick pony - very good at one task if it is tuned for just that task, but hopeless as a general purpose OS

Me thinks you have not really looked into Linux much in the last decade! Check it out; it might surprise you. It is now a great general purpose OS and it CAN be very lightweight. That is the beauty of the multitude of distributions--choose the right one and it can run on everything from a Raspberry Pi or 10 year old Celeron up to a powerful modern computer,and schedulers for desktop distros are now very good at handling a combination of foreground and background tasks, plus you can swap them out for different ones if you have specialized needs. It is amazing how much slower my old computers are when using Windows.

 

[dadregga]

If you want a computer that you don't have to worry about (much) - get a Mac

If you want a computer you can (and probably will have to, especially in terms of audio) tinker with, get Linux

If you want a computer where you basically have to reinstall the OS every 2-3 years to correct inevitable config drift due to its use of a centralized, uncorrectable binary-format config registry/state store, get Windows

Windows has never been a particularly reliable OS - not in the old days, and not now, especially as computers are asked to do more things by more people than ever before. Though it is considerably better than it used to be.

Source: Me, who has been doing software engineering on all 3 for a decade.

 

[Propheticus]

In my experience Windows often gets blamed for stuff caused by:
- 3rd party Drivers
Especially Realtek audio or network drivers.
- Virusscanners
Had a 'falling out' with Malwarebytes, not using my lifetime license anymore in favour of a slightly hardened Windows Defender. The amount of (network/internet) issues and crashes has reduced significantly.
- Badly written software

Of course Windows is not without fault. Also the relatively open nature (compared to closed Apple devices) means people that know to find more advanced options can also break stuff by tweaking them. Often enough I wondered "why did I have to play with that!" when I caused issues by 'optimising' settings while the system was actually working fine.

I do find Win 10 is somewhat arrogant in pushing automatically scheduled work, without transparently showing what it will do when/why.
e.g. I almost always put my pc to sleep instead of shutting down and too often found my PC had been on the whole night because Windows Update decided it was time to wake the PC and Update.... Waste of electricity and a fire hazard as well, not something I want happening while asleep.
Even while all 'normal' user settings related to allowing waking up the pc were turned off it kept doing this. I eventually had to take ownership of and disable several scheduled tasks in the task manager.

 

[Walter]

I bought the "Inside Macintosh" series of how to program the Mac.

I remember those well--took up a whole shelf on my bookcase in my cubicle. But even they only taught you how to program against the Mac Toolbox, not directly at the OS level. In 1999 I actually was told by a project manager in Adobe during a hiring interview that it was impossible to bypass the Toolbox, and that I did not know what I was talking about when I said that I routinely did so in order to support old, slow, Macs with software used by high schools. After about 5 minutes of trying to convince him otherwise after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I basically called him an idiot, then went down the hall to his boss and told him the guy was an idiot and that he was lucky I didn't punch him out for calling me a liar. Needless to say, I did not get nor did I want the job. 2 months later I was offered a senior developer role through a contracting agency for Adobe that would have put me at the same level he was, at almost double the salary of the position I'd interviewed for. I still turned it down, although I did consider how much fun it would be to rub it in. No wonder their software is so damn bloated.

 

[Walter]

In my experience Windows often gets blamed for stuff caused by:
- 3rd party Drivers
Especially Realtek audio or network drivers.
- Virusscanners
Had a 'falling out' with Malwarebytes, not using my lifetime license anymore in favour of a slightly hardened Windows Defender. The amount of (network/internet) issues and crashes has reduced significantly.
- Badly written software

There is more than a little truth in this, although as I alluded to earlier, Microsoft deserves blame for allowing the level of direct hardware access that facilitates this behavior.

 

[Rottmannash]

Windows 10 runs so much smoother if you use the LTSC versions.

They are de-bloated from the start.

What is LTSC?

 

[Propheticus]

There is more than a little truth in this, although as I alluded to earlier, Microsoft deserves blame for allowing the level of direct hardware access that facilitates this behavior.

That's of course the other side of the same coin of supporting so many different hardware configurations. The amount of possible combinations of components is staggering. So even when you officially test and validate drivers, you can't test all combos.
It's quite a bit easier to control what happens when you also control the hardware as Apple does.

But that's driver level. On a software level do we have hardware level access? Isn't it all several abstraction layers above this and in the form of services / virtualised resources ?

 

[Rottmannash]

If you want a computer that you don't have to worry about (much) - get a Mac

If you want a computer you can (and probably will have to, especially in terms of audio) tinker with, get Linux

If you want a computer where you basically have to reinstall the OS every 2-3 years to correct inevitable config drift due to its use of a centralized, uncorrectable binary-format config registry/state store, get Windows

Windows has never been a particularly reliable OS - not in the old days, and not now, especially as computers are asked to do more things by more people than ever before. Though it is considerably better than it used to be.

Source: Me, who has been doing software engineering on all 3 for a decade.

Dumb question-when I upgraded to Windows 10 is that the same as reinstalling the OS?

 

[abdo123]

If you want a computer that you don't have to worry about (much) - get a Mac

If you want a computer you can (and probably will have to, especially in terms of audio) tinker with, get Linux

If you want a computer where you basically have to reinstall the OS every 2-3 years to correct inevitable config drift due to its use of a centralized, uncorrectable binary-format config registry/state store, get Windows

Windows has never been a particularly reliable OS - not in the old days, and not now, especially as computers are asked to do more things by more people than ever before. Though it is considerably better than it used to be.

Source: Me, who has been doing software engineering on all 3 for a decade.

Honestly, DirectX and Microsoft Office is the reason why Windows is the dominant OS in the world right now.

Your PC at work is Windows because of Microsoft office and your PC at home is Windows because of gaming.

Unless Linux fills these two niches up there will never be a shift to a sandbox based OS.

 

[Grumpish]

Windows 10 runs so much smoother if you use the LTSC versions.

They are de-bloated from the start.

It is much better - unfortunately only available as Enterprise (i.e. to large organisations with a Windows based IT infrastructure). Or at least it was the last time I looked at it. There are hacks, but they are loopholes that M$S could close at any time if they felt like it.

 

[Propheticus]

Dumb question-when I upgraded to Windows 10 is that the same as reinstalling the OS?

With the risk of outing my day-time job I'll give this answer: it depends.
There's different ways to upgrade, in-place, repair and clean slate.
When upgrading from 7 to 10, the upgrade essentially does a clean install and then imports files/settings/apps you had. The original install folder now named C:\Windows-old and the new one C:\Windows.

In my experience the tip to reinstall Windows every 2 or 3 years works for people that continuously install stuff and play with settings.
The reinstall simply gets rid of a load of cr*p and processes that automatically start on boot.
A lot of this can also be solved (prevented) with some hygiene in deinstalling and limiting the list of startup items. (Almost every application seem to want to have a startup entry nowadays, half of them I immediately disable.)

 

[Berwhale]

I installed Windows 10 on my main desktop PC on 29/09/2017. It's been upgraded constantly since then as part of the Windows Insider beta channel. I upgraded it to Windows 11 (beta channel) on 13/08/2021 and it's still working fine

 

[Rottmannash]

With the risk of outing my day-time job I'll give this answer: it depends.
There's different ways to upgrade, in-place, repair and clean slate.
When upgrading from 7 to 10, the upgrade essentially does a clean install and then imports files/settings/apps you had. The original install folder now named C:\Windows-old and the new one C:\Windows.

In my experience the tip to reinstall Windows every 2 or 3 years works for people that continuously install stuff and play with settings.
The reinstall simply gets rid of a load of cr*p and processes that automatically start on boot.
A lot of this can also be solved (prevented) with some hygiene in deinstalling and limiting the list of startup items. (Almost every application seem to want to have a startup entry nowadays, half of them I immediately disable.)

Thanks.

 

[maverickronin]

What is LTSC?

Long Term Service Channel.

It's basically the desktop version of the server releases. No windows store, no bundled apps or advertising, and just security updates.

MS makes it a PITA for individual to actually buy a copy though.

 

[HiFidFan]

I am almost computer illiterate. A casual user for sure. Not to cause any kind of argument, but I drop kicked Windows PC's years ago and went Mac (iMac, Macbook Pro) and have felt the sweet release from Windows/PC aggravation ever since. My iMac which is 2012 vintage, and still my daily driver, has been problem free many ios updates later.

 

[digitalfrost]

Long Term Service Channel.

It's basically the desktop version of the server releases. No windows store, no bundled apps or advertising, and just security updates.

MS makes it a PITA for individual to actually buy a copy though.

I have used LTSC for a long time, but since also game on this system, I had to eventually cave and move to the Semi-Annual Channel. I have to say, with the ability to delay the feature updates for a whole year and the quality updates for a month, I feel much less like a guinea pig than in the beginning.

 

[Walter]

But that's driver level. On a software level do we have hardware level access? Isn't it all several abstraction layers above this and in the form of services / virtualised resources ?

It has been well over a decade since I switched from application development to Web development, so I can't be 100% certain, but I don't think so. While there are various levels of abstraction available if a developer wants to use them in order to make their job easier and less likely to break when Windows is updated, apps that want to eek every last possible iota of performance out of the hardware will access it at a level that is as close as possible.

 

[Spkrdctr]

Ok guys. I'm going to chime in with some seriously old school advice. My preferred technique to bypass computer issues is to go with a pad and pen. If I need more storage space I can get a 8.5x14 legal pad. Instant cheap upgrade. Oh, wait, I may have dated myself.

Seriously I have been "lucky" to not have any major problems. But, I only have limited programs on my computer so I don't1 load on a bunch of trash in the first place. For a non-computer guy that is my simple hack for easy computer use. I see other people with 40 or more programs on their computer. It usually works for them though. I can see where a clean install would fix a lot of the trash that builds up inside the computer. There, that is the word from a non-computer guy.

Take any advice on computers from me as the last thing you should do. My expertise is to turn it on. After that I'm lost. YMMV!