Windows 10 – a 7-year-old OS – is still having problems with the desktop and taskbar Microsoft has fixed yet another problem in some versions of Windows 10, a bug that makes the taskbar and desktop temporarily vanish or causes the system to ignore you. According to Redmond, users "might experience an error in which the desktop or taskbar might momentarily disappear, or your device might become unresponsive." …
I've actually broken* more computers trying to install Linux than had computers broken by Windows update.
There's always been some error come up that relies on exact hardware/driver/some other spec knowledge that I don't have and that I can't find a working solution for online. And, to be brutally honest, I've been put off by the patronising and/or elitist responses I've had previously from a considerable number of the Linux community (watch that downvote counter spin!).
* "broken" = "rendered unusable until Windows was reinstalled from scratch (where possible)"
I guess that depends on what Linux distros you used (I have seen a fair share of strange errors on Ubuntu, but then it's also known as the "Windows amongst all Linux" for a reason).
The same goes for the community (which, I agree, some, like Debian's, are really toxic).
I tend to stick with enterprise level Linux, i.e., RHEL and SEL, and its free (as in beer) brethren RockyLinux/AlmaLinux and openSUSE Leap. Especially (open)SUSE runs very well on all kind of systems, and thanks to YaST it's probably the easiest distro to manage.
> I found Linux to be... less than useful on my few machines
A case of "YMMV" I guess, as I found Linux to be excellent as my daily workhorse. I have to keep Windows around because some software only runs on Windows (not well enough on Wine), but since Win7 was EOLed I've been spending my work days on Linux. And yet I was a Microsoft products user since DOS 2, having bought the whole product lineup (save Vista and 8...).
Why switch to Linux? Nicer and way more ergonomic UI, doesn't assume stuff, doesn't spam me with nonsense, doesn't interfere with me working (latest fad on my Windows 11 is throwing an internet security alert each time I try to drag & drop a file between folders on my own local disk!...) , and generally behaving. No, I never had major driver issues on Linux, neither with very old hardware, nor with cutting edge new one. At least nothing a simple question in the support forum didn't help me solve in under a day's time. *shrug*
(Didn't downvote you though.)
> latest fad on my Windows 11 is throwing an internet security alert each time I try to drag & drop a file between folders on my own local disk!
What are you doing to your Windows to make it behave this bad? You must have over-optimized your Windows.
My last fresh installation was in 2011 Windows 7 x64 on i7-2500k (oc @ 4.8 GHz), in foresight pure-UEFI install. Since then Windows 8.0 and 8.1 (with deduplication), all Windows 10 builds from 1511 on and now Windows 11. I never had what you describe, and it is still the same installation from 2011, even with several big hardware changes.
The only thing my Windows installation needed was a deep-clean of old drivers and on time Battleye, using process-hacker services view and recognize everything not needed any more, and delete them from system32.
> What are you doing to your Windows to make it behave this bad?
Not using it?
I mainly use it to keep the hardware updated (firmware flashing, for about everything from BIOS to HD firmwares), and to play a couple old games I have.
As for not having what I describe, I did spend lose an afternoon searching Internet about this strange issue, and thus learned it's a known problem Microsoft can't be bothered to fix since, apparently, Windows 7... The fact you didn't experience it is as irrelevant as the fact I hadn't experienced it so far either: Shit happens, eventually.
Tip -- invest in a spare HDD.
(1) - pull the Windows HDD
(2) - install spare HDD
(3) - install Linux on spare HDD
(4) - evaluate Linux
(5) - if necessary, remove Linux HDD and re-install Windows HDD
(6) - if Linux is acceptable, reinstall Windows HDD as secondary and transfer files.
> (1) - pull the Windows HDD
> (2) - install spare HDD
> (3) - install Linux on spare HDD
Or, unless your computer is really slow, just boot the Live DVD and go directly to step "(4) Evaluate". No need to install anything. Perfect to see if Linux is detecting all your hardware, if you like the UI, and generally to take a good look at how things work.
> I've actually broken* more computers trying to install Linux than had computers broken by Windows update.
> * "broken" = "rendered unusable until Windows was reinstalled from scratch (where possible)"
I've heard of Linux supposedly breaking PCs that did not misbehave once Windows was reinstalled.
This was discovered by an IT department, who eventually persuaded the machines' provider that Linux was not at fault and its drivers had been correctly identifying an intermittent fault that Windows was, at best, quietly burying in hard-to-find logs.
I suspect something similar of drivers for the last two laptops I've owned (although the actual fault is not similar)
> This was discovered by an IT department, who eventually persuaded the machines' provider that Linux was not at fault and its drivers had been correctly identifying an intermittent fault that Windows was, at best, quietly burying in hard-to-find logs
I think: The actual reason, for example, is that a defective memory bit is always 0. On Windows you may be lucky it is supposed to be 0. Use any other OS which sets that bit to 1 and it breaks. Such lucky things are everywhere in the computer world, with every chip you have in there. Other things include timings, funny voltage variations depending on the code and so on.
There are no errors-buried-in-hard-to-find logs since the fault simply did not surface.
This can happen the other way around with Linux, not showing the problem where Windows exposes the hardware issue.
In a lot of cases the hardware is not behaving as it should and fails to work with the standard OS drivers. The manufacturer "fixes" this by supplying a special windows driver for the device so it will work fine with Windows. As the market share for Linux in desktop PC's is low most often the manufacturers do not bother to supply a Linux driver containing the work around for the borked stuff.
Users then see the same hardware works with Windows but not in Linux so it must be a fault in Linux
You are probably trying to reinstall windows on a computer where windows came preinstalled and trying to install Linux on a pc where Windows came preinstalled.
For a fair comparison try installing windows on a computer where Linux came pre installed é.G an owrt router or android phone.
If it is like my Windows, it goes like this:
if (group_policy.disable_driver_install == true) install_driver();
else install_driver();
if (update_available == true) {
if (group_policy.delay_quality_update == true) {
/* Put future code here */
install_update();
}
else install_update();
}
I've been saying for the past 20 years that the whole design of Windows has got to be fundamentally wrong when you have to have so many updates to the OS so frequently, where multiple updates to fix one thing break a load of other, unrelated bits, and there are numerous issues which are just accepted as normal because they have been present for so long and never fixed.
MS could have designed it far better but chose not to.
It's all about backwards compatibility for business users. They need/want to keep using the control software that was written for NT4 on their Windows 10 machines and MS obliges. With Linux, things just get broken and the community is expected to find a fix/work-around.
True. Think about when Microsoft announced that apps for WinPhone7 wouldn't work on WP8... disregarding those who refused to touch WinPhone "because it's Microsoft", how many developers were put off by that?
We still see devices running XP for god's sake!
That said, a lot of the issues are down to Microsoft's own lack of vision - failing to account for the rise of the internet and global device connectivity probably being the gretest.
We still see devices running XP for god's sake!
Most XP boxes I have seen is because they are running as a controller for a really expensive bit of equipment (MRI, CNC cutter etc) that works just fine with the WinXP based PC, but they are told "you'll have to buy a new machine to get new software". I replaced a Win2k based voicemail system a couple of years ago.
Definitely. It's a case of "if it's not broken, don't fix it".
Especially since in this case it's only about selling you perfectly working kit all over again. If your controller isn't connected to Internet and isn't used to browse suspicious sites, there is really no sane reason to replace the fine-honed Win2000 or WinXP it is running, just so you can have Cortana spamming you about interesting opportunities and to be subjected to arbitrary reboots...
Unfortunately Windows >7 isn't a professional operating system anymore, it has become an ad-supported "free-to-play" commercial vehicle.
Windows' underlaying design is actually pretty good, which isn't surprising when considering that many parts were influenced by the design of other great operating systems like VMS.
The main reason why we see all these Windows issues is simply that Microsoft always had a habit of prioritizing features over function/stability, and the addition of "agile" into the mix has only made this worse.
And it's not just Windows, we see the same kinds of issues with other Microsoft products like office, (the now dead) Exchange server, Sharepoint and even with Microsoft's cloud service Azure. All suck because of what Microsoft does to them.
Windows is good. I've been using it every working day since Windows 3.1 days and get along fine with it. What you get out of the box is amazing. MS Office is fabulous, so good the clones are still chasing it even though it's the opposite of the Unix paradigm do one thing and do it well. Windows Update is bad. "Known Issue Rollback", have they no shame? Windows Update is why I use Linux at home.
I'd assumed that the two paragraphs about KIR and use of Group Policies would just be copy and pasted verbatim into these articles, but no, they are slightly different each time.
Thank heavens for that bit of editing, or we'd never be able to tell these MS stories apart.
Seems this problem is with my Windows Eleven machines, Home and Pro, on standard modern laptops.
Re-installing, then hours of customized configuration, seems too be there only cure.
Tried Ubuntu Linux and others in the Linux types. Linux however does not understand most users of computers, excepting those who need expensive support staff>
Apple operating systems are designed for the ambulance of support staff. Microsoft Windows is between these two extremes, so it's the most used, because it had the most user applications.
No computer operating system is everything, to everyone, everytime. However, Microsoft Windows, like the "God" designed human anatomy, is an okay compromise between the best and the bad.
God designed? We ended up that way after millions of years and millions of variations since the Tiktaalik. For some reason we ended up as sentient. Could have been cats, but no, it was us.
But, yeah, we're basically "good enough". Not particularly reliable beyond a certain number of years, but there never was any warranty. Or handbook. Or support centre.
Glad there exists at least one Seppo who knows what momentarily really means.
I imagine thousands of people reading the advisory with bated breath, expecting their taskbar to disappear. Any moment now... Any second...
Bastards! You said it would be happening momentarily! I'm still waiting!
It would seem: From septic tank (“rhyming slang for Yank”) + -o (“colloquialising suffix”).
I'm a Brit with an American mother, and this is the first time I've come across the word; and yeah, had to look it up as well. Maybe it's more an Australian thing? <shrug>
Don't poke the bear... and never, never tease a weasel!
Surely their products couldn't get any worse?
You must be new here, very new.
Win2000 = solid
Win2000 advanced = solid
WinXP = Solid after SP2
Win7 = Solid after SP1
Downhill from there... so please don't double dog dare M$ to produce a steamier turd...
It really has been. They haven't produced a single OS or line up of applications that have a common appearance since Windows 7.
Everything is just random UI designs, multiple control panels, whatever they threw together at that minute. Let's not even start with 11.
I had hoped they could turn things around, but no. I will say that 10 is an improvement over 8.1, which was an improvement over 8, but they're all smelly things you tried to avoid treading in compared to 7.
If there were fewer staff, there might be less opportunity for "innovations" which nobody asked for and which are annoying and/or break other things.
Then again, the Pointless Innovations department is likely to be protected as MS clearly regards it as highly important...
Ah, Borkzilla.
Seven years into The Last Windows Ever and not only is it not the last, but you have four different versions of it running on customer PCs and they all have endless bugs to correct.
One might wonder if the Development department is not introducing new bugs just for job security.
Except that we're not really 7 years in, really. With the current arrangement you are never more than 6 or 7 months into a release of Windows before they reset the clock with a Feature Release. Unless you pay for an LTS version, Windows is now always in beta.
Is the LTS version affected by all these bugs?
Not only "yes, yes it is affected by most of those bugs", but long is not very long, and the longer you stay on LTS, the worse the experience using other products becomes. It seems all the other MS products are only tested well on the latest release, so bugfixes to other products break because of your LTS in unexpected ways. Locking everyone who rises early out of AD is my favourite.
Although to be fair, I never had these particular problems on Windows 10. It is important to keep in mind that when software is installed on 1.3 billion devices, devices of all sorts, managed in all sorts of ways and with all sorts of software installed on it, bugs will surface. This happens on Linux from time to time too, on a much smaller installed base. Don't get me started about my wife's iPad.
The only time my Ubuntu desktops crash is straight after installation when they're running that sub-optimal Nouveau graphics driver. Once they're quickly set up with an Nvidia driver they calm down. YMMV. Not applicable with Intel or Radeon. And even the dreaded JACK is tameable with patience. I think of frequent updates as a sign of responsiveness to found faults. A permanent update would be installing a new version. I prefer fixing any issues with Linux to wrestling with Windows 10 on my wife's laptop, after years with 3.1 onwards 10 is just a shambling chimera out of Lovecraft.
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