

Ask HN: What problems do you have on the Windows platform? - smiler

Probably in the minority here on HN, but I love Windows, Windows Server, .NET and the Microsoft development tools - although it has to be said, I am still partial to a lot of the Alt.NET solutions.<p>What bug bears / pain points do you experience? As well as developing, I just love the idea of 'perfect' development, testing, deployment etc, particuarly the deployment of the same app across many servers and then a consistent upgrade process.<p>I'd love to know what fellow HNers struggle with on Windows because I fancy looking at building something in this area - perhaps open source, perhaps not, but either way, hopefully this can be a melting pot for those of us intereste in Windows centric software and solutions
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makecheck
The operating system ships with absolutely nothing that I consider useful for
modern development, and it doesn't ship with several things I consider
crucial. SSH. A decent terminal. A decent text editor. Perl. Python. Name-
your-core-Unix-tool. A decent web browser. Windows is actually quite pathetic
_out of the box_.

Now, _yes_ , Windows _can_ be brought up to par (and I've done it). I am not
saying it is impossible to use Windows to be productive. But, I am past the
point where I see this as worth the trouble; why the hell should I spend hours
downloading and installing all the things Microsoft doesn't provide (oh, and
_re-install_ them, every 6 months, when invariably the OS falls apart and one
has to start over)?

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wilhelm
This is of course completely subjective, but, from the top of my head:

Painful user interface. No good package management system. Instability and
unreasonable hardware requirements for even simple tasks. Missing good command
line tools and light-weight methods of remote administration, development and
testing.

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fragmede
Licensing. Every time I install a version of windows, it's a hassle I wouldn't
otherwise have to deal with. (Also not a problem I expect you to be able to do
anything about, but you asked...)

Installing programs - Ninite.com is a startup dealing w/ that.

