As a home grown hacker from before the time of internet, I increasingly understand why people despise computers. I was always telling people, that you can make computers do your bidding, make them part of your life, frictionless. But I never needed IT help, I knew that whatever frustrations I might have are because of something I can work and fix with some digging around. But having things like Windows auto updates, websites ever changing makes even me feel the frustration and friction. It's no longer a wrench, it's a wireless corporate-run ad-powered e-wrench which needs printer ink for bolt-screwning.
if I remember correctly, Windows Updates were a pain in Windows 98 or even Windows XP. Maybe it was just a pain because I was on slow as molasses dial up but just the fact that active x(?) only worked on Microsoft Internet Explorer and it was required(?) for Windows Update, made me wonder why updating Windows requires a web browser.
I think Windows auto updates are a good thing. I just think people should have to opt IN to auto updates for different stuff differently and then opt IN to automatic reboots. An operating system should never auto reboot without at least a one time user consent. Any corporate computer I've ever used disables this automatic reboot when a user is logged in. I think this is proof that the setting should be like this.
Of course, over the long term, what we really need is to make more of updates not require a reboot, but that is a different conversation.
I just love how I am in a constant funnel trying to move me to a Microsoft account, and get to find new ad-funnel content on my task bar and get to figure out how to turn it off and hope it sticks more than a couple of days over and over again. And preventing playing this game requires disabling security updates and getting pwned.
Decades of experience and deep knowledge doesn’t keep me out of wrestling with the machine like this. What is it like for someone who devotes a lot less of their attention span and learning to computers?
For me, XP is what drove me to Linux full-time. (Later, a bit of Mac OS X on the desktop, when I could afford the hardware.) But I've always kept a toe in the Windows pie, the tool that, after MS-DOS, built my career.
Win11 makes me almost nostalgic for Win10. But Win10 is a sad crippled thing, it's just that you're allowed to prune it back hard. (Removing all Modern apps, for instance.) Do that to 11, it dies.
But using Win10 for a couple of hours a year is enough.
Recently a friend bemoaned being forced to move to Win10 because 7 wasn't getting updates and drivers, and apps were no longer working. So I tried a couple of fresh installs. It's so much better it's not funny; it's sad.
So I reached back and put XP64 on an old spare Core 2 Duo. It flies along. It's so snappy and responsive and so lightweight. It will run, not usefully but functionally, in 64MB of RAM. Pruned down hard it takes about 50MB. It doesn't fill a CD.
I am now idly considering trying Windows 2000 on my lowest-end functional laptop.
Not inherently, no. I haven't daily-driven Windows in years, either.
But that wasn't really what the post was about. It was about the smugness of trying to gotcha the parent with a caveat that hasn't been valid for a decade.
