Why do people use Windows?

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drhowarddrfine

As homage to the other similarly titled thread, I think this is the third time I've ranted on this.

Why do big companies trust their critical computing needs to the Windows operating system? Some of you know that I own some fast food restaurants. Our online POS system is Windows based and we have far, far too many issues with it that are beyond ridiculous and, if such a thing were present in FreeBSD, I would not be here today.

We have issues on a monthly basis. Last week, we started getting errors popping up on our screen related to .NET programming. Why we, the user, are seeing these popup errors is anyone's guess. Then it was decided we needed new hard drives. Doing so, including building our POS system back up, took five hours. Why?

Of course, we can't get the drawer open, the automatic change dispenser now doesn't work, today's sales weren't transferred, and we can't enter inventory. Second tier support can't fix it so it's bumped up to senior level which hasn't called us back an hour later and, in the meantime, we can't take credit cards and have to hand calculate any sales that come in. Why?

This is the same hardware we've had for over a year. The same OS, Windows 7. Everything is the same but they can never have a smooth transition (we've been through this before).

We are now entering our eight hour of trying to get this to work.

I have never, ever had issues, ever, with any Unix, FreeBSD or Linux systems since I first started with it in 1992 but, with Windows, problems are the only constant. And I haven't even started on about my wife's laptop.

Thank you very much.
 
Windows restricts knowledge of the system's workings, by design. Also, if an open-source system fails, the burden goes to the computer engineers, not Windows. While FreeBSD is more reliable, this can be a liability on the contractors rather than Microsoft. Windows is easier to use, but your data is entrusted to Microsoft and there's more process clutter. It's also harder to start clean, to wipe out malware, on a Windows computer, than it is on any BSD. Starting clean is the only way to surely wipe out all malware. Does Microsoft staff think they know about every malware that will be invented before it is?
 
I've been using Windows as my main desktop system since 1996, mostly because it does what it should. The only thing missing for me every now and then is a better default shell, but the Powershell comes close to what I'm after.

I tried to switch to a different system a couple of times, but it's been lacking a good number of software. Windows just has the largest freeware and FLOSS market. Of course, after 20 years, I might just have grown into a workflow which I can follow blindly on Windows. Changing the system would force me to set up a new workflow for my everyday tasks. Probably not worth it.

sidetone said:
Windows restricts knowledge of the system's workings, by design.
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There is not much that's hidden from the user, except the source code.

SirDice said:
Windows gets a lot of the blame when problems are actually caused by crappy third party software. And there's a lot of crap software out there.
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Precisely; and that's not a Windows problem.
 
I just read that Win10 started showing you ads on the lock screen.
This may also raise a few question marks, but I can also imagine it will raise some expletives.

I'm the one on the deck chair at the side of the playing field with the cold drink in hand, watching the game unfold ;)
 
SirDice said:
I have several Windows 10 machines, both Professional and Home editions. There are no ads.
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There may be settings to suppress them. Since I avoid touching anything windows-like after 7 as much as possible, I can not commend from first hand experience.
 
Cthulhux said:
Precisely; and that's not a Windows problem.
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But the new 100% disk utilization/busy issue, seen in Windows 8, and apparently Windows 10, is. ;) That was the straw that broke the camels back for me. Since abandoning Windows completely, and using FreeBSD OS and associated ports tree, my household has never been happier.
 
Crivens said:
There may be settings to suppress them. Since I avoid touching anything windows-like after 7 as much as possible, I can not commend from first hand experience.
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Ah, right. I did disable a lot of the stuff that was enabled by default. I don't have access now so I can't check but I do remember disabling pretty much everything in the "Privacy" settings. I also removed a bunch of applications that are installed by default, I don't use OneDrive for example. Some of them (including OneDrive) could be made easier to uninstall, or, at the very least, allow me to choose if I want it or not.

But other than that, I'm really starting to like Windows 10. Yes, I know, making a statement like that on a forum like this is like cursing in church.
 
While I use FreeBSD whenever I can I also like and use Windows 10 for some things. I also use OpenBSD. Being a fan and user of FreeBSD doesn't mean one needs to dismiss everything else. Nothing wrong with being pragmatic.
 
To be honest, I like Windows 7 quite alot. It does the job it promises to do in a casual desktop use and isn't that obtrusive to the user if you set it up right. Later versions have that awful disaster of a GUI that I refuse to use.
 
SirDice said:
Windows gets a lot of the blame when problems are actually caused by crappy third party software. And there's a lot of crap software out there.
Click to expand...

That's especially true for 3rd party hardware drivers. The kernel has to be updated with the driver to use a piece of hardware.
 
I only use Windows for games, and for the Adobe Creative Suite (via VirtualBox). I've gotten so comfortable on the command line and with a tiling window manager that using a classic desktop-style interface for more than 30 minutes frustrates me. But while I don't care much for Windows or Microsoft, I do have to say that Windows 10 is pretty slick. Lots of stuff has been slimmed down without being overly dumbed down, and so far Windows 10 has shown much less enthusiasm about assuming what I want and doing it without me explicitly telling it to. Just because I've opened or closed my laptop lid doesn't mean I want to change the display settings on my external monitor, and just because I have updates pending doesn't mean I wanna toss out the last fifteen minutes of work to reboot and install them right this second...

Cthulhux said:
There is not much that's hidden from the user, except the source code.
Click to expand...

"Hidden" might not be a good word to use, but "obscured" sure is. I tend to get frustrated not because Windows can't do something, or even that Windows can't do it well, but because I have to dig through numerous layers of abstraction to get at what I want.
 
I'll repeat my question here with emphasis cause people seem to miss my point:

Why do big companies trust their critical computing needs to the Windows operating system?
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There are about 40,000 of these units networked to the mother ship and controlled by it. Even the web site runs on Windows and there are constant issues there.

SirDice said:
Windows gets a lot of the blame when problems are actually caused by crappy third party software.
Click to expand...

I agree but I question whether some of that crappy software exists because of Windows. In our case, I know the software is crappy to some extent but I see so many issues Windows related that I never or rarely see with Unix/BSD software. Not that it doesn't exist. I've just never seen it since 1992.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
Why do big companies trust their critical computing needs to the Windows operating system?
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1 ) The software that does the main thing running on these systems may be Windows only. This is one of the main reasons why many companies use Windows. In our office, we heavily rely on MS Office, which I thunk is a really good software, and some other software which are Windows only.

2 ) Many IT guys get MS certifications and people rely on these certificates to get jobs. Those very same people, with Windows whatever-version Server Certificate, won't prefer any FreeBSD machine over a Windows server, where they feel more comfortable.

3 ) FreeBSD is not well known. Even some CS graduates don't know about FreeBSD, it is BSD for them, and I bet on my head majority of them have never booted a FreeBSD machine before. They have heard about Linux, though.
 
fnoyanisi Your points have nothing to do with my question/rant and I didn't say anything about them using FreeBSD specifically. I'm saying, that in critical use, Windows is the worst thing you can use for mission critical operations due to its structure and focus and background.
 
The title could more accurately reflect your chosen discussion.

(responding a little off-topic)
fnoyanisi said:
In our office, we heavily rely on MS Office, which I thunk is a really good software, and some other software which are Windows only.
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There's Wordperfect, which is professional, is full of features and many organizations like better. I don't know if it can be used in an emulator or not.

Wordperfect is commonly used in attorney's offices.
 
Corporate: Compatibility issue, because corporates used windows long time back and most of the programmes they use are windows based, it takes a lot of effort and cost to simply moved into another OS.

The recent development in Internet and smartphones helping most of the services to move into web based technology which will in future make the OS irrelevant.

May be at that time most of the corporates may use other OS's.
 
I've never known Word, or any typing program, to be mission critical to any business in the same way FreeBSD is to Netflix to deliver video to millions of users.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
I've never known Word, or any typing program, to be mission critical to any business in the same way FreeBSD is to Netflix to deliver video to millions of users.
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Maybe not Word but try and take down an Exchange server and see what happens ;)
 
IMHO, fnoyanisi DID answer your question. Big firms use it, and mission critical software is on it, because some essential program for a company is only available on Windows. Your doctor, dentist, accountant and lawyer quite possibly have software, or even a custom VPN solution that only has Windows software. There may be alternatives, but they're too busy keeping up with their own field, so the vast majority of them, will be using Windows.

As for Netflix, a lot of that still runs on AWS Linux, though not Windows. (Not to mention that it can only be played on FreeBSD through some Linux VM). And there is some irony in that the millions of users of Netflix can't use FreeBSD to watch it.

So, your first or second line in your original post answers the question. Why do they use Windows? Your POS software (heh, I'm sure we all thought of a different meaning for the acronym) ONLY runs on Windows. Why did the POS company only worry about Windows? Because it's the de facto standard.

Solutions? Push BSD (or Linux) to the vendors of both hardware and software. While many other Linux distributions like to mock Ubuntu, I think it Mr. Shuttleworth's work in pushing it really helped get Linux more popular with both hardware and software vendors. I remember reading once--no idea where, but it was on the Internet so it must be true--that some vendor or another was quoted as saying that Mr. Shuttleworth had proved himself by making his money, so they were more inclined to listen to him.

So... all you millionaires reading this, you know what to do...go to the vendors and start pushing FreeBSD.

TL;DR It's a vicious circle--Windows is so widely used that many vendors only write software for it, and many companies might need that particular Windows-centric software, and this includes servers as well as workstations.
 
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