What is Wrong With Windows?

Last updated 7/31/2016

This is only a small sample of what is wrong with Windows and MS supplied programs
that run on Windows. I have personally experienced problems with these items.
Some of these are specific to Windows7, but most affect other versions of Windows also.
Windows has always been a mess and it is getting worse with every operating system upgrade.
Do a Google search and you will find numerous problems related to these features.



Search in Windows Explorer

This is clearly the biggest FUBAR MS has done with the newer operating systems. Used to work,
but not anymore. You can fix it, but it won't stay fixed.


Messenger Services

It's gone (for Win7 Home Premium users). Used to work, but not anymore.
This is for sending simple messages over a LAN.
If you need to send a message from a Win7 computer to an XP computer using the command prompt
I can probably help you. If you need to send a message from an XP computer to a Win7 computer
using the command prompt I cannot help you. It won't work for me. If you know how to do this
please tell me.

Office

The interface to Office programs like Excel and Word is unmanagable. Everybody
but MS knows this. MS even provides a program that allows users to go back to
the old menu format - for a price.


Outlook

This has so many problems it would take a week to list them all. Suffice it
to say that the backup of Outlook is impractical for no good reason.


Yes/No - Save/Don't Save

Windows has found it necessary to change the confirmation boxes with sucessive
versions of Windows. Do we hit Yes/No, or Save/Don't Save, or what will it be
next time - Do what I say/Don't do what I say? And no, the later versions of this
are not better than the earlier formats.


Drag and Drop File

If your receiving folder has nothing but folders showing, it is much harder to
drag and drop files to the receiving folder. it used to be that dragging to blank
space would put the files in the root of the receiving folder. Not anymore. You
have to drag to the header where "Name" is shown in the detailed view.


Networking

Networking has always been a problem in Windows. It's much better than it used to be,
but still broken.




There are tons of good things to say about Windows (Remote Desktop, Previous Versions, etc.)
but that is not the function of this page. This lists the problems, many of which are clearly
created because MS wants to make money providing solutions to the problems.

So why don't I go with Linux? I can't get it to work. The minute I do get it to work I will be
changing to Linux.

Apple? Not an option for me, but maybe it is for you.



Update regarding Linux


This is a long write up about my recent Linux Mint experience. I am a Windows user that recently tried Linux Mint 18, Cinnamon
64 bit, also called Sarah. I installed it alongside a windows XP OS. Congratulations to the Linux team for making a very
usable OS.

Here are good things about the OS that I'm sure you've heard before. It's a nice clean system. I really like the software
installation procedure. I can actually find things on my computer that I am looking for. The sound worked! That is a huge deal for
me. I am a terminal type guy, so I really liked those capabilities. The Linux Mint forums were only OK. I found myself going to Goggle
more than the forums. It was surprisingly easy to transfer Thunderbird and Firefox profiles to and from Linux. Yeah, I had to
uninstall Lightning (calendar), transfer the profile, and then restart Lightning, but my Quickfolders app and everything else
worked great. Very nice.

Now let me describe my problems with Linux Mint. I had the typical network problems, though I could get it to work to
some degree with one windows computer (Win10). Another windows computer (Win7) would not connect at all with the Linux machine,
although I could see the machine and the shared folders.

And of course there were hardware configuration problems. My Samsung Express M2625D printer had no chance of working. No big
deal because I don't print much. My wife's HP Photosmart printer probably would work, but I didn't try it. I think my Canon 9000F
Mark II scanner would also work on Linux, but I didn't try it either.

One minor irritation is when moving windows. With the Windows OS you can click on a window title bar and move it. With Linux you need to
click on the window title bar and then click on it again and move it. Not a big deal, but noticeable.

Another thing I discovered is that you cannot easily rename a hard drive volume in Linux. I would go to my windows computer, rename
the volume, then go back into Linux and use the drive. Surely this would not be a hard thing to fix.

But the main thing that got me to set Linux Mint aside for the moment was the inability to sync my files quickly. I tried Rsync, but it was
way too slow. It took approximately 1 hour to do 50 GB from a plugged in Passport to the local machine.

I need the ability to sync my files quickly between multiple computers. If you don't already have it you should get Freefilesync. It has
probably saved me more time than any other program I have used in the last 2 years. It is exceptionally fast at mirroring one directory to
another directory. It would do that 50 GB in seconds if the two directories were are mostly the same. I have no doubt that you can do
the same thing in Linux, but I didn't have the time to fix that problem. There is a Linux version of Freefilesync, but it reportedly does not
work with Linux Mint. It does work on Debian, and that version reportedly works to some extent on Linux Mint.

Don't try to sleep Linux Mint. Hibernate works OK, but sleep did not work well for me. The system would not wake up and it had issues with
recognizing the keyboard upon a wake-up.

Another issue I had was with my mapping software. I need a light-weight program that will open a geotiff file. Something like Global Mapper.
uDig is perhaps an option. OpenEV appears to have had no development since 2006. When I last used OpenEV it was not very good on Windows.
Global Mapper has a Linux install, but it is $300, just like the Windows version.

I did download QGIS, which is an amazing mapping program. Those guys have done an incredible job of keeping that software development up
to par. I really should be helping in that effort, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. QGIS would probably be my best option for opening a
geotiff file, but it certainly isn't light-weight.

I do plan to go back to Linux soon, and perhaps make a permanent transition to it. But I have a lot of work to do to make that happen.
What I really need is a mapping buddy who uses Linux. I am still looking for that.

Windows is a losing OS. I really need to get away from it. I am simply going to have to commit time to this Linux transition. I
really enjoyed using it the last four days, but now I need to get some work done on Windows. When I do make the next move to Linux
it will be on a more powerful machine than the one I've been using.



Conact me at:
temp4@mflan.com


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