Old-school Windows user here.
Maybe it's just me going senile,but across a few decades of Windows 3.x, NT, 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7, I cannot remember Microsoft ever having this level of SNAFUs going on. Sure, there were the occasional embarrassing moments, and we still don't talk about Windows ME, but this level of OS-destroying, file-erasing level of FUBARing?
Having used Windows 95 (SR2), 98 (SE), 2000, XP and 7, I have had my issues with moving to a newer version of Windows (except for 98 to 2k, which was hands-down better), but after a bit of tweaking I was able to settle into the new environment.
That all ended with Windows 8, though. It was too different, too alienating, removing essentially the entire UI that had made Windows 95 into such a success. I was happy to stay on Windows 7.
Then MSFT came up with Windows 10, and all hopes of things going back to normal quickly got dashed as I prodded and poked at the developer previews. This wasn't the Windows that I had gotten to like and wanted to use. Even while using it on my work laptop I did my best to try and settle into this version of Windows like I had done every time over the years, yet without luck.
Sure, there were some things which I liked about it, such as WSL (which is pretty awesome), but as a whole, the UI felt broken, unfinished and glitchy. The newly organised and highly schizophrenic control panels are a disaster. Not having much control over Windows Updates and settings for it changing all the time with updates is horrible. I had keyboard layouts change spontaneously on me, and configuring Windows 10 to use multiple input methods with IME is fundamentally broken (despite having used it in 2k, XP and 7 without any issues).
Then we get issues like this current one, and I wonder whether this is truly the end of me using Windows. I don't see how I could get onto the Windows 10 rolling release bandwagon. Not when it is such a miserable experience. I'm happy on Windows 7 right now, but in a few years I'll have to decide what comes next.
Linux is obviously out. Virtually none of the software I need to use runs on it, and years (since '98) of trying to use desktop Linux have led me to believe that it'll always remain this disorganised, Windows 10-like buggy and glitchy mess. I don't want that either.
Maybe the salvation is open source Windows, in the form of ReactOS. By pitching in the coming years to help the project out, maybe it'll become at least the equivalent of Windows 7 today by the time that the latter's support runs out and continuing to use it becomes impractical.
What the heck happened to MSFT anyway?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
