
Why Windows 10 Sucks - mouzogu
http://itvision.altervista.org/why-windows-10-sucks.html
======
colanderman
Don't forget, Windows 10 abuses TCP link sharing by opening over 100
simultaneous TCP connections to download updates, bringing your entire home
network to a grinding halt until it's finished.

Side note to those with a Mikrotik router, you can protect your network from
the malware that is Windows Update with the following firewall rules:

    
    
        /ip firewall filter add action=drop chain=forward connection-limit=9,12 \
          in-interface=ether1-gateway protocol=tcp src-port=80 tcp-flags=syn,ack
        /ipv6 firewall filter add action=drop chain=forward connection-limit=9,32 \
          in-interface=ether1-gateway protocol=tcp src-port=80 tcp-flags=syn,ack
    

placed before the rule to accept established connections. These rules are
maybe a little overzealous, but they were the _only_ way I've found to make my
network usable when Windows Update launches a DoS attack.

~~~
james4k
Is this for real? Been wondering why my home network's been having
intermittent issues. Damn.

Edit: Can't seem to find any confirmation after some searching. Are you sure
this is what happens? Finding this hard to believe, even for Windows 10.

~~~
colanderman
Yep. Other people have seen the same thing. Previous discussion on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11851529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11851529)
The first post in the article describes the exact symptoms I see.

I see the connections only when my wife's computer is on (but not always,
maybe once a week), and when they occur, there's a Windows system process
churning away on it. Connections are always to Akamai servers (confirmed with
whois) on port 80, both v4 and v6 (I have native v6 via Comcast). Didn't occur
until she upgraded to Windows 10 a couple months ago (she was on 8 before).

To be fair, this _might_ really be an Akamai thing, with MS just using their
client blindly. But neither OS X nor Linux nor Windows 8 does this to my
network, so I think it's fair to blame MS for this.

------
5jqxd2thr2
Based on my experience of using 10 for several months, only two of these
issues bothered me:

1) The weird multiple control panels make it hard to know how to change some
settings.

2) The involuntary upgrade that got me using the OS in the first place.

Overall this is the best experience I've had with any version of Windows. The
core windowing functionality is great. It's the first time I haven't felt the
need to install another window manager. I think normal users who didn't like
the weirdness of the start screen on 8 will be happy with 10.

~~~
CatsoCatsoCatso
You got lucky getting by with only 2 issues, I've lost count and since
abandoned the OS.

When I upgraded my 8GB RAM, i7 machine (what should be a decent bit of kit) I
experienced continual problems.

Sound drivers would just stop working, the OS would completely forget that
there were even speakers. The cause would always change and there would always
be a different, stressful, time consuming fix. This was not an uncommon
problem, I found myself in a large crowd with these faults.

Later I found myself joining plenty others in losing networking abilities
after forced updates. My WiFi drivers would vanish and intermittently
reappear, pretty much like the sound issue.

Every update MS pushed led to another time-sucking issue to patch up, I would
dread the next update.

The continual problems caused by Windows 10 made me go out and buy a Mac. I
don't want anything to do with Windows anymore. After suffering through the
Windows Phone, Windows 8 and now Windows 10 I'm completely done with MS. It's
so sad to see the company just turn itself to trash, I used to be a huge fan.

------
fphhotchips
My favourite two Win10 issues not listed here:

1\. There's something in the I/O that's blocking on network access. If your
network link is saturated, you can expect to have sound stutter, mouse lag and
video lag. It's like watching your computer be put through a slow-motion
filter.

2\. Microsoft has taken it upon themselves to block certain apps. For example,
it specifically blocks Classic Shell.

~~~
Mithaldu
> If your network link is saturated, you can expect to have sound stutter,
> mouse lag and video lag

Not a Windows 10 issue.

I've had this in various windowses (and it actually went away for me with
win10) and found it actually is the network driver blocking things. On older
windowses i had to forcefully downgrade the network card's driver to an older
version. Try experimenting with that.

~~~
jdietrich
Yup, it's inherent to the kernel architecture. Windows is simply incapable of
real-time scheduling. Audio engineers who use Windows are forced to disable
networking drivers to prevent dropouts.

[http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml](http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml)

------
em3rgent0rdr
privacy badger reports 22 possible trackers, 17 of which it blocked. Always
funny reading these hypocritical webpages complain about privacy issues.

~~~
mynameislegion
Hm, let's see, I host:

1) google translation widget 2) microsoft translation widget 3) google+ button
4) AddMe widget (some people are not capable of copying the URL) 5) disqus
comments 6) Google AdSense

That's all. I don't know where this number (22) is coming from.

Edit: 7) FlagCounter

~~~
PJones
uBlock blocks these for me (note these are domains, so it's probably blocking
more than 1 script from some of these):

 _addthis.com, adnxs.com, bing.com, crwdcntrl.net, disqus.com, disqusads.com,
doubleclick.net, exelator.com, flagcounter.com, google-analytics.com,
google.com, googlesyndication.com, statcounter.com_

Allowing them triggers blocking another 2.

 _addthisedge.com, adsnative.com_

Something focusing more on privacy would probably also pick up the 2 separate
translators on the page that your already mentioned, along with pippio.com
whatever that is.

~~~
mynameislegion
I can imagine Disqus and AddThis are abusing my page, but then I browse the
web with temporary cookies so it doesn't bother me. ;-)

Actually if you really value your privacy you should never have permanent
cookies (and you should have browser disk cache disabled as well). Oh, and
site data (another form of cookies) must be cleaned on browser shutdown as
well.

------
frankling_
I'm relatively okay with booting up Windows 10 to play games, apart from the
well-known upgrade practices, the inacceptable (if configurable) ad popups for
Office 365, and my resulting lack of trust in Microsoft's future practices.

However, pragmatically, on all the Windows 10 machines I've typed on there
seems to be a slight, yet easily noticeable delay between keyboard input and,
e.g., characters being drawn on the screen, independently of the application.
Whatever the reason (compositing? vertical synchronization?), I find this
amount of input delay quite off-putting for everyday use and have not found
any information on how to reduce it.

There are input latency measurements for Windows 7 [1]. I'm not aware of
similar measurements for Windows 10.

[1] [https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-
pleasure/#windows](https://pavelfatin.com/typing-with-pleasure/#windows)

------
RachelF
I read thru this list and became sadder and sadder. I was expecting a rant,
buy I agree with 90% of his points.

~~~
yaegers
The biggest one for me in simply the UI complaints. Agree almost 100%. It is
ugly. Period. And no way of changing that. Something that past Windows
Versions let me do. People are so quick to mention XP and its default theme.
But that's just it. It was a theme and you were a few clicks away from setting
the classic theme which made XP look and feel indistinguishable from the
previous version. With all the added benefits that XP brought under the hood.

I'd love to get DX12. I'd love to get the better multiple monitor handling.
But if an OS looks ugly as sin to me and there is no way to change that means
that I will give that one a miss. Especially if all the other technical
shortcoming mentioned here are in it as well. Certainly don't care about the
constand reset of all default app settings after each upgrade.

To me Windows is not just a work horse to get things done and I don't care how
ugly it is or how horrible it is to use it. There is a certain sense of style
involved for me. Just like when I buy cars. Some people simply look for the
price and gas mileage. Don't care about the color or what model it is. That's
not me, I want a good looking car and I want to have a good experience driving
it. Price and mileage matter of course as well but the design is still most
important.

I still have 4 more years of life left in Win7 and I will in no way shorten
that grace period by sacrificing a usable OS that also looks great for Win10.
I also hope that history repeats itself again and MS will have no alternative
but to prolong the Win7 support. Just like they did with XP back in the day.
If not, I will see in 2020 where we are with vulkan vs dx12 and I will
consider a full time switch away from Windows.

~~~
mouzogu
Yes I agree. My biggest day-to-day issue is the general UI inconsistency and
the ugliness of Cleartype font rendering.

To my eyes, the cleartype tuner doesn't seem to do anything. All the options
look the same - in fact I even struggle to notice the difference after turning
it off completely. Although I understand this can depend on the type of screen
being used.

Most fonts just look sharp, jagged and ugly. I know a lot of people enjoy the
more functional/pragmatic approach to font rendering taken by MS but I wish
they would make some effort towards rendering fonts consistently and
beautifully.

------
ank_the_elder
"svchost.exe (the whole philosophy of preserving RAM this way became outdated
years ago)."

What does he mean by that, exactly?

~~~
Ace17
svchost.exe (i.e "service host"), is a technique for grouping several services
into one process. The goal is to avoid spawning one process per service,
saving some memory.

I believe today the gains are outweighted by the costs of this technique:
memory isn't really the limitation factor anymore. On the other hand, grouping
several mostly unrelated services in the same process is a security and
stability issue.

~~~
kazinator
You _can_ configure things not to group. It's still annoying and opaque that
the name of the misbehaving .exe doesn't instantly tell you which goddamned
thing is in it, even if it's just one.

~~~
dman
Any pointers how?

~~~
mynameislegion
Yeah, I'm also curious.

~~~
kazinator
I did this for Windows update on Vista last year. It was really misbehaving,
chewing up a lot of memory and CPU time. Eventually I found and applied a
patch but during the investigation, I isolated Windows update to its own
service executable container.

TL; DR:

    
    
       sc config <servicename> type= { own | share }
    

I got that from this SuperUser stackexchange question:

[http://superuser.com/questions/860117/isolate-hosted-
service...](http://superuser.com/questions/860117/isolate-hosted-service-
svchost-exe-in-its-own-process)

A registry-tweaking approach is also given.

Then wrote up my own answer to the WU issue:

[http://superuser.com/questions/77658/svchost-eating-up-
memor...](http://superuser.com/questions/77658/svchost-eating-up-memory)

~~~
mynameislegion
Excellent, thanks! I wonder if someone could create a VBS script to make all
services "own". And, another problem, I wonder if Windows allows to rename
processes, like e.g. Linux can because I don't want to see 50 svchost.exe in
the task manager - I want them named after respective DLLs.

------
orf
I stopped reading when they tried to argue keeping your machine up to date is
somehow a negative.

~~~
mynameislegion
You completely misunderstood the point but I'm glad you left.

~~~
orf
> Secondly, Microsoft has stripped us of controlling Windows updates.

> It was ostensibly done to improve the user experience by keeping the system
> up to date and perhaps malware free, but the truth is that a built-in
> antimalware protection in Windows is simply horrible (according to various
> AV comparisons Microsoft Essentials misses over 20% of in the wild malware)

Not much to misunderstand though. You attempt to say it's a bad thing that
Microsoft is attempting to keep their software always up to date... because
Essentials is bad? Also you should perhaps cite your statistics rather than
pull them out of thin air. Essentials got 98.1% detection rate here[1], 94%
'real world protection' here[2] and 84 points here[3]. It's not perfect, but
it beats some paid for competitors and is a lot less of a resource hog than
something like Norton.

> said updates mean nothing for security because over 90% of infections happen
> due to the user actions (like downloading and installing dubious
> applications). No Windows update can prevent such a behaviour.

That's simply not true. Where the hell are you getting 90% from, and how can
you possibly go from that number to the conclusion that 'No Windows update can
prevent such behaviour' (and so updates are... also bad??).

Updates are good. The user might download a dodgy word document but hey look
it was an update got through Windows update that meant she won't get
compromised when she opens it. The user might click on a link that is sent via
an email, but hey look it's an update to Windows that stops their PC getting
rammed by that exploit pack.

Sorry but the whole article stinks of anti-MS FUD and anyone who attempts to
argue against keeping (or features that keep) their PC up to date is ignorant
at best.

1\. [http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/04/av...](http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/04/avc_fdt_201603_en.pdf)

2\. [http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/07/av...](http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-
content/uploads/2016/07/avc_prot_2016a_en.pdf)

3\. [http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/10/av...](http://www.av-comparatives.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/10/avc_rem_2015_en.pdf)

~~~
mynameislegion
I'm attempting to say that the user is given no freedom to choose when and if
to install updates. MS keeps on releasing broken updates which render
thousands of PCs broken. If you're OK with that then I'm fine.

Secondly, it's a myth that Windows must be updated to stay secure. It's such a
huge myth it's actually cringe worthy. If you're at home windows updates are
needed only to keep your IE/Edge installation secure. That's all. All incoming
network ports are blocked on your router by default.

And if you're stupid enough to rely on MS Security Essentials then I will stop
arguing with you. That's not an AV - that's a huge hole.

Unrequired updates are rarely good.

> Sorry but the whole article stinks of anti-MS FUD and anyone who attempts to
> argue against keeping (or features that keep) their PC up to date is
> ignorant at best.

You took just one item on the list to attack without even giving valid sound
arguments and now you say the whole article is anti MS FUD.

With that I bid farewell to you. You have yet to become a decent debator.

P.S. The truth is Windows has had some remote vulnerabilities in regard to
fonts rendering and such but they are very difficult to exploit (and I haven't
heard of any circulating in the wild exploits).

Again in 99% of cases users get infected by downloading shady files from the
net or opening unrequested e-mail attachments. Windows updates will NEVER save
you from that.

------
PhantomGremlin
If only St. Steven were still alive. He'd figure out how to profit from this.
I can just imagine the new "I'm a Mac", "I'm a PC" ads showing how Windows
spies on people and how awful the user experience is.

Instead, Apple just doesn't give a shit anymore. At least not about desktops
or laptops.

~~~
ank_the_elder
I'm not sure whether they care or not, but anecdotally, I've been waiting ~2
years for an up to date Retina MacBook Pro with a refreshed, up to date intel
CPU.

------
0xmohit
Must say that the manner in which Windows 10 (installation/upgrade) pop ups
appear on older versions of Windows is rather odd.

That said, the manner in which MS chooses to address certain issues [0] is
rather weird. (Not sure if this one applies to Windows 10 too, does apply to
Windows 8.)

And then you can "Run Bash on Ubuntu on Windows" [1]. I fail to understand how
different is it from running Cygwin or MSYS/MinGW if you can't interact with
Windows applications.

[0] [https://support.microsoft.com/en-
us/kb/3053711](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3053711)

[1] [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/commandline/wsl/about](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/commandline/wsl/about)

~~~
hiram112
I've had the same concerns. Seems like Windows and the Linux layer cannot
share files systems. So how does that help a developer wanting to use both the
shell and the the IDE?

~~~
joewood1972
Sure you can share files, it's works OK with some caveats. More in the
overview under DriveFs:
[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/04/22/windows-
subs...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/04/22/windows-subsystem-
for-linux-overview/)

------
loganj01
metro is even more integrated in windows 10 than windows 8.1. i really hate
it.

Disabling UAC u loose metro apps completely. (i actually enjoy this....dont
ask me why)

Im curious what would happend if someone will figure how to spread a virus via
windows 10 updates peer to peer :D

all the tracking issues.

start menu is actually a metro interface only smaller....i still wonder how
people are so blind and claims that the start menu is back....lol

searching in start menu returns no results with lots of the apps.

updates that restarted my computer without any warning....i had doubts about
this...when i read it 1st i thought that maybe those persons pressed ok/yes
without noticing. but then it happened to me too....lucky you can disable
updates completely...at least in pro version

no improvement in performance....at least for the softwares that i work
with...so why bother

the interface looks ugly...

after updates you risk to have problems with drivers for your hardwares.

after installing windows 10 and actually disable all tracking while asked
before creating the 1st user, you'll still get them enabled in privacy section
in windows (happened twice...no clue how it works these days)

------
WayneBro
Well it sucks way, way less than Linux and macOS for me.

I'd rather have an OS that gives me what I actually want along with whatever
problems it presents instead of just leaving out features like Apple does or
breaking all the time like Linux desktop systems tend to.

------
yuhong
I was the one who replied to
[https://twitter.com/NerdPyle/status/730833245122650112](https://twitter.com/NerdPyle/status/730833245122650112)

~~~
colanderman
Wow, what an interesting glimpse into the mind of Microsoft. Simultaneously
belies a condescending attitude toward users, and a seeming lack of
understanding that users have _very different expectations_ for a desktop OS
than from a gadget OS (forced upgrades) or the web (telemetry).

~~~
WayneBro
Hardly. Apple clearly has the most condescending attitude towards users. It's
built into their brand.

And of course there is no owner for Linux, but have you ever dealt with any of
the popular open source project developers that make Linux what it is? (e.g.
Gnome? Qt? etc?) Condescending attitudes abound! I've been insulted many,
many, many times by the people who run these shit shows just for asking an
honest question on IRC/mailing lists/issue boards/forums/etc.

Meanwhile, Microsoft actually listens to users and developers and gives them
what they want.

I'll take Microsoft any day over Google, Apple or the crowd of angry Linux
devs.

~~~
colanderman
Where did I say anything about Apple or the Linux crowd? Mr. Pyle's comments
were condescending at face value alone. Doesn't mean Apple/Linux/etc. aren't
also.

~~~
WayneBro
You didn't. Those are the choices though.

Anyway, his comments were hardly condescending. Not at all actually.

~~~
colanderman
I disagree. Here's the first tweet:

"The telemetry you hate in Windows 10 allowed us to get rid of a wifi password
feature you hate in Windows 10. What to do..."

This statement directly implies that Mr. Pyle believes users' wants to be
inconsistent, and proceeds to mock the way he supposes users must now feel now
that he's demonstrated their folly.

Here's a non-patronizing way to phrase the same sentiment:

"While I understand that users have privacy concerns about telemetry, I feel
it hasn't yet had a chance to demonstrate its benefits. For example, just last
week it enabled us to quickly react to negative user feedback about WiFi
Sense."

But that's not pithy.

~~~
WayneBro
Disagree, fine...but where's the alleged mocking?

It is a fact that that a loud contingent of people hate the Windows 10
telemetry. How is it mocking someone to say so?

If someone said "Those dentist visits you hate actually help you to live
longer..." would you say that they're mocking you?

Or, was it the part where he said "What to do..."? I really want to know. Is
this a case of you projecting your feelings about Windows telemetry onto the
situation? It sounds like you're perception is way off here.

~~~
colanderman
Yes, "What to do" is mocking. It serves no other purpose in the paragraph; the
author certainly isn't wondering what to do. It is a phrase often used to mock
people who are having a (supposed) crisis of beliefs.

I have zero feelings about Windows telemetry, having not heard of it before
this tweet.

~~~
WayneBro
Pfffft. That's the big mock that made you type out three posts on HN? LOL.
Wow.

> the author certainly isn't wondering what to do.

You don't know that. If people don't like the telemetry but it's really
useful, I'd be wondering what the fuck I should do too - wouldn't you???

------
marak830
My one and only released software is in .net I guess I'm stuck with 7 until
visual studio stops working.

I was looking forward to 10, decided not to upgrade in case there were issues
when it originally came out.

Now? Bloody glad I didn't.

------
joezydeco
And here I was all ticked off that the Lock Screen option was removed from the
Start menu.

------
em3rgent0rdr
>> "If everything you do on your PC is web browsing, watching online videos
and listening to online music, give Linux a try."

What??? A Linux install can do much more than a Windows install. Especially
considering wine emulator.

~~~
Dayshine
>Especially considering wine emulator

Er, wine is not good. Good luck playing any game with networking or 3d
graphics...

~~~
Melkor765
Easily disproved lies, go have a look at the wine APPDB if you're not just
trolling. Most of the time if something doesn't run right, it's due to DRM or
bleeding edge DX features.

~~~
Dayshine
Every time I try I find either bronze or silver. Graphical glitches in five
year old games aren't "bleeding edge DX" problems.

