Why does windows suck?

R

rimmer

Geek
OK this may seem a dumb question, but really, why does windows suck? I`ve heard soooo much critisism about windows, yet it is the most popular O.S. and a lot of programs ONLY run on Windows...

In my own past experience, I started off with Windows 98 Second Edition. The amount of blue screens and random reboots and times I would have to wipe my computer got silly, maybe 6 to 8 times a year?

Windows XP I have been using for a VERY long time now, both Home and Pro Editions, no they have not been perfect, and I am probably actually forced to re-format my computer once a year, and I choose to do it every 9 months or so anyway, as things slow down, crap builds up and sometimes I have been forced to do so because of adaware and viruses!

But generally, XP, its smooth and reliable (for me anyway) I have a 100% genuine copy of home on both my computers, and they both work extremely well, however when I used to use a keygenned XP Pro, I had a lot more trouble than I do now, with me being genuine. Is this an issue towards why people hate windows? Might it be down to illegal copies?
 
The way Windows is designed isn't the most secure, and to do this properly, Microsoft would need to go back to square one with the design.
Having said that, if it weren't for a hard drive failure, I wouldn't have needed to reinstall Windows at all in the past two years.

With adware and viruses, some of your best bets would be to run something like Spybot (free) for the adware, and AVG or Avast! for a free anti-virus. Other things that help are just watching where you download things. I'm not saying you do this, but a lot of this crap comes with those "free" porn or illegal software downloads (sometimes the cracks for them as well).
If it's genuinely free, then they're clean, but outside of that, just to avoid the crapware, I'd avoid the other stuff.
The other side to this is that since Windows is the most popular OS, it's going to be a target just for the amount of people that can be affected.
 
A major one is that it's proprietary software, which makes it very difficult to modify the system for one's needs easily. Windows isn't flexible, and despite being well supported by vendors, it doesn't pick up many devices properly. The exceptions being the ones that use the Mass Storage drivers.

Memory management isn't also a strong point of Windows either. Windows systems tend to swap very heavily when some pressure is applied to memory demands and it throws a hissy fit.

From a programmer's point of view, programming for pre-NT was a complete pain in the ass. Using win32 or mfc was like trying to build a a Boeing 737 from a mechano set. To be fair though, .NET is a nice framework.
 
Well , there's not much of a choice either, You have windows or Linux or Mac...
I prefer Windows and Linux, I do not like Mac's... They are just to overpriced.
Windows XP is by far the best OS to use, Windows 2k3 sever is real nice and smooth when you turn it into a workstation.. Linux comes in so many different
versions, Its nice and most of them seem to run real good. I would have to say that NOT ALL Windows SUCK, just some of them..
 
I agree, XP is OK most of the time for me, usually well under a minute from when the button is pressed until it is on the desktop ready to use, without any disk activity, as I minimize startup programs

I game a lot, I should stick with windows right? Maybe have a linux x64 partition for virus / spy/ad/mal ware checks? My little idea is to have 2 320GB Hard Drives, one with XP Home, and the other with Vista Ultimate. Maybe I should use up a few gigs on my old 25GB IDE one for a Linux partition to boot to.

Maybe every few weeks boot using linux x64 (not sure what version to get) for checking my other disks for viruses that linux can pick up, because there isn't anything stopping me cancelling the "hiding" virus startup programs, as I will be booting up with linux, and not windows, and windows seems to be more vunerable for viruses to hide and disguise themselves.

Also I use Avast! Home Edition, which is free for 14 months, until you have to re register after that time period.
 
Why Windows really sucks? And when i mean sucks i mean when Windows crashes for no reason... Well ever since i've used 98 SE to XP, and years worth of experimenting and disecting every corner of these operating systems:

I'd say Windows has too many API calls!
 
Windows XP SP2 with all patches applied is a pretty stable and rock-sold OS, if a little insecure. But most of those security issues can be avoided with a little common sense, ie not running as Administrator and staying away from blatently dodgy websites. Good anti-virus software (read Avast) should be all you need.

I wouldn't blame XP for most crashes, rather the terrible software that users install on top of Windows. The problem is that there is so much crap software for the Windows platform, all fighting for your attention, all scrapping over who is to be made default. It's software hell. In my job as a support technician, I see it all the time. Some user who's complained that "my computer just got slow" and I am the poor sod that's gotta clean it up. I get onto their machine and see stuff like the spyware riddled "MySearch bar" and 100+ icons in the task tray. What a nightmare.

My installations of Windows, which span a laptop running Windows 2000 and various vitual machines running XP and Server 2003 are running, and have run perfectly for a long time.
 
megamaced said:
Windows XP SP2 with all patches applied is a pretty stable and rock-sold OS, if a little insecure. But most of those security issues can be avoided with a little common sense, ie not running as Administrator and staying away from blatently dodgy websites. Good anti-virus software (read Avast) should be all you need.
Click to expand...
Some things to think about:

  • Many programs in Windows don't work correctly when run as a non-admin user. Sometimes they won't run at all... hence the tenancy for average people to run as admin.
  • NTFS has long-term stability issues. It's also the best filesystem you can use in XP.
  • Being able to visit any website you want without getting completely pwned by drive-by installs and zero-day exploits shouldn't be an unreasonable expectation.
  • Highly-ranked anti-virus software is ~50% effective. I don't like those odds. They also take a substantial amount of resources and CPU overhead to run in real-time.
  • Windows XP (aka NT 5.1), is substantially less stable and more bloated than Windows 2000 (aka NT 5.0). Windows 2000 is substantially less stable and more bloated than NT version 4.0. See a pattern?
  • No DRM exists in NT4. Very little DRM exists in Win2k. Some DRM exists in XP. A whole buttload of DRM exists in Vista. Another pattern?
  • Windows XP will be discontinued as soon as Microsoft thinks they've successfully corralled enough people into using Vista.
 
Your first point is absolutely true. I was going to have a locked out account on this system I built, but the one program they needed to work couldn't be run in anything but admin mode. I had the employee account locked down so they counldn't install things, couldn't fire up IE (there were some issues with porn ending up on the prior box).
 
The first version of Windows that I used, was 98SE. And that was of course a nightmare. Blue screens, many error messages and constantly freezing. I was happy when I made the switch to 2000 Professional in that time.

Then I used XP Pro when it was released. Around that time I got my first internet connection. Didn't know much about that, so I was just using IE and such. And I noticed malware on my system and the OS was slowing down after a few months. Used protection software, Firefox and O&O Defrag, and it ran smooth from that time on.

When Vista was released, I used it for a week and switched back to XP because in that time Vista had many bugs. I thought it was Windows 98 with a new shell :)

Right now I'm using Vista Home Premium x64, and it runs without any problems. Never crashed and never shown a BSOD (using it for about 3 months now). But my laptop runs the same OS, and occasionally has blue screens.

My point is that the problems with Windows are of course caused by bad programming at MS. But it can also hardware related. A malfunctioning piece of hardware or a buggy/bad programmed driver can cause the OS to lock up. This counts for Windows, Mac and Linux.
 
There are some 3rd party applications that require administrative rights but I'd consider those "legacy". The NT kernel has been around long enough now for developers to realise that a) computers are used by more then one person and b) not all users will have administrative rights. What really gets my grip are the programs that don't install shortcuts in the "All users" profile, rather in the "Current Users' profile. How are other users supposed to access the program? Also I would never run an application that requires administrative rights. I'd rather go find myself another piece for software that does the same thing but doesn't depend on needless permissions.

Anti-Trend, the NTFS filesystem is better then Linux filesystems in some respects. The ACL are far more advanced. Multiple users and groups can be assigned permissions to a single file or folder. Whereas Linux folders can be assigned just one owner and group. To lock down shared folders on the Linux filesystem effectively, you'd have to create hundreds of different groups and assign users to that group who need access to a specific folder.

Don't get me wrong, I am not suddenly flying the Windows flag because i've bagged myself an MCSA. Windows has it's shortcommings of which we are all aware. Linux is a better OS. But Windows is not as bad as it is sometimes made out to be on these forums. :)
 
megamaced said:
There are some 3rd party applications that require administrative rights but I'd consider those "legacy". The NT kernel has been around long enough now for developers to realise that a) computers are used by more then one person and b) not all users will have administrative rights. What really gets my grip are the programs that don't install shortcuts in the "All users" profile, rather in the "Current Users' profile. How are other users supposed to access the program? Also I would never run an application that requires administrative rights. I'd rather go find myself another piece for software that does the same thing but doesn't depend on needless permissions.
Click to expand...
MS themselves also like to blame their instability on 3rd party apps. In some cases, this is true. Especially since many if not most Microsoft applications were originally developed by 3rd parties and then acquired by MS using one means or another. But scorps65 was completely dead-on when he said "I'd say Windows has too many API calls!". » Why Windows is less secure than Linux | Threat Chaos | ZDNet.com ...they have plenty of instability and insecurity with their own in-house apps, to be sure.

megamaced said:
Anti-Trend, the NTFS filesystem is better then Linux filesystems in some respects. The ACL are far more advanced. Multiple users and groups can be assigned permissions to a single file or folder. Whereas Linux folders can be assigned just one owner and group. To lock down shared folders on the Linux filesystem effectively, you'd have to create hundreds of different groups and assign users to that group who need access to a specific folder.
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I used to be an NT admin for a living, and I'm currently a Linux sysadmin, so I'm pretty well aware of the strengths and limitations of both. :) Not a flame, but to put it frankly, you're completely incorrect about filesystem ACLs. Linux and other Unix systems use a simple POSIX permissions schema by default, containing 3 sets of variables. This is adequate for 99% of what most people need in most conditions, but not for complex environments where it would be impractical to create a large amount of overlapping groups. For such a scenario, POSIX ACLs were created, and offer a robust and complete set of permissions. In fact, I wish Microsoft had taken a similar approach, since the default NT permission sets are complicated and have the potential to overlap. In my professional career, I've seen way too many security incidents involving mis-implemented privileges on NT-based systems because of ACL overlap.

It's also interesting to note that as a network engineer for a company that made proxies and hardware web filters, most problems on customer networks could be tracked down to Windows servers. By most I mean > 90%.
megamaced said:
Don't get me wrong, I am not suddenly flying the Windows flag because i've bagged myself an MCSA. Windows has it's shortcomings of which we are all aware. Linux is a better OS. But Windows is not as bad as it is sometimes made out to be on these forums. :)
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I realize it's the familiar OS, and it's considered a necessary evil by some. But I know a lot of MS zealots who are only such because that is the only OS they're educated in, and they don't really know anything else. Rather than learn the alternatives, they choose to dismiss them as inconsequential and make excuses for their OS of choice. In reality, they don't realize how little they really know about either Windows or any of the *nix variants. Most people don't have the tenacity to learn something new when what they have works "well enough". Since Windows is the path of least resistence, it's a no-brainer.
 
megamaced said:
But Windows is not as bad as it is sometimes made out to be on these forums.
Click to expand...
Since the 98 days, Windows has improved in terms of stability. Let's be honest 98 was a farce, it didn't even deserve to be called an OS. 98 is what you get when your development team consists of 18 year old VB programmers drinking whiskey.

For every thing that seems to have "improved" there are countless other things unseen to you that piss others off. For example, unless one uses .NET, the native win32 API is the worst API known to mankind. I'm serious. The directory structure of windows is awkward, I'm sure you know.

I still can't believe I have to defragment my hard drive to install large apps. My laptop's uptime with XP is max 12 hours. Somehow after that, System starts using all the CPU, heating up the internals and killing my system by strangling the life out of every last clock cycle.

But yes, there are some things that have improved. However I still think the harsh reputation it has is deserved.
 
Addis said:
Since the 98 days, Windows has improved in terms of stability. Let's be honest 98 was a farce, it didn't even deserve to be called an OS. 98 is what you get when your development team consists of 18 year old VB programmers drinking whiskey.
Click to expand...
Windows 98 is a DOS shell, along with all "consumer" versions of Windows up to ME. Windows XP is based off of the corporate flavor, known as NT (for "Networking Technology"), which is a totally different code base. Since comparing different versions of NT makes more sense than comparing NT to DOS, it's fair to say that Windows has progressively become slower and less stable since NT4.

Addis said:
But yes, there are some things that have improved. However I still think the harsh reputation it has is deserved.
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Some things that have improved since the consumer line has ditched DOS for NT, yes. But NT has progressively got worse in every release Between NT4 and NT6 (Vista).
 
Anti-Trend said:
But NT has progressively got worse in every release Between NT4 and NT6 (Vista).
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MS wanted to make NT more user friendly, so it could be used in a home environment (XP and Vista). And I think because of that, they screwed up the NT base. But it's better in a home environment to run a screwed version of NT, than DOS with mouse support (98 and ME).
 
Anti-Trend said:
Windows 98 is a DOS shell, along with all "consumer" versions of Windows up to ME. Windows XP is based off of the corporate flavor, known as NT (for "Networking Technology"), which is a totally different code base. Since comparing different versions of NT makes more sense than comparing NT to DOS, it's fair to say that Windows has progressively become slower and less stable since NT4.

Some things that have improved since the consumer line has ditched DOS for NT, yes. But NT has progressively got worse in every release Between NT4 and NT6 (Vista).
Click to expand...
Yes I realise I should have differentiated between 98/NT codebase. More accurate to say NT>DOS, NT5.2<5.1 etc.
 
Addis said:
Yes I realise I should have differentiated between 98/NT codebase. More accurate to say NT>DOS, NT5.2<5.1 etc.
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Yeah, exactly right. It always upsets me a little to hear people say "at least Windows is getting better. Remember how much 9x sucked?!?" Well, yeah, but it sucked for different reasons, since it's a totally different family of Windows. It's kind of disturbing how good Microsoft is at obfuscating its product lines with marketing campaigns.
 
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