Another rage-post ...
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Did you ever work with eclipse? Then you might know the feeling, that it takes an eternity until Eclipse has started. I've just stopped it.
Eclipse takes 30 seconds to start:
Visual Studio 2012 takes 1 minute and 15 seconds to start:
But that's not the worst. It's okay if it takes long to start, if it's later a swift. But it's not. I get those loading screens from time to time without having done anything:
Why is it loading something from time to time without interaction? What does Visual Studio load?
Control
The next big problem I have with Microsoft products is the lack of control. I would like to know what are the effects of a command I use before I use it - no matter if it is a command line command or a GUI or key-press-combination command. As it is very difficult to make GUI commands unambiguous, I really like the command line for some tasks. Why doesn't Windows offer a default command line that is usable? I mean, yes, you have the PowerShell ... but why isn't it the default shell? Why does the user have to know that there are other (better?) shells? Is there any reason not to use the PowerShell in Windows 7? And even the PowerShell misses some really basic tools. I mean, did you try the path autocompletion (with tab) on bash (the Linux shell)? It completes the path / command, if there is only one possibility. If there are more possibilities, the user gets displayed all options (if there are too many, he will get asked before all are displayed). The Windows-shells go through each possibility.
Here are some screenshots of the shells displaying the content of the current folder:
Now compare this to Linux:
Where do you find easier what you need? And why do they have a black background with white font color? Try to work with this for some hours and than compare it to a shell with black font size and white background...
Missing (command line) tools
I like using git / svn from command line. But the default way to use SVN (and eventually GIT) seems to be by GUI. Why results in a crappy, overblown right click menu:
Now compare this to Linux 10.04 with GNOME:
And I should also mention that I didn't clean up my Linux system for over one year. I use it every day, install new software, remove software, forget to remove software. I have git and svn on my Linux machine as well as Apache, Python, some games, ...
The Windows 7 machine is a fresh install. It has better hardware and I only use it for work (so it basically only has TurtoiseSVN, Visual Studio and IIS). I guess this would be even worse if I used it every day.
Updates
Windows makes its updates at very bad times. Sometimes it just makes an update and you have to wait for quarter of an hour to finish it, before you can shut down. Why? Can't you just ask the user before you make an update? A friend of mine had a tutorial after which she wanted to go to a Christmas party. Guess what happened: Before she could shut down the computer, Windows decided to make automatically an update. Took about 15 - 20 minutes. No Christmas parties for Windows users.
Windows really shut down my computer automatically and blocked it for about 15 minutes. What if I had to hold a presentation? What if I downloaded something?
Nice features, crappy realization
Windows has a very nice feature: You an search at the "start". But why doesn't it work for every program? I've searched for "winver.exe", a program shipped per default from Microsoft. Why can't you find this in start?
If I have to type the whole name, this feature is essentially useless...
Microsoft OWA is an online email service. A friend showed me this usability desaster:
No structure for programs
Where do programs get installed?
- C:\
- C:\Program Files
- C:\Program Files (x86)
If you have a German system, the explorer will show a German path although the underlying path is English. What the hell? And switching languages isn't easy on Microsofts Systems.
Drivers
Installation CD
Although many drivers exist for Windows, you have to install them almost always by CD.
Mouse drivers
You have to INSTALL mouse drivers! WTF! I expect an USB mouse to work immediately and not to get something like that:
Windows Explorer
No tabs
Clover tries to fix that, but I don't want to install a third party tool for such a basic tool.
Structure
Shell
There is so much wrong with the Windows Shells:
- You can't maximize it (see explantation)
- Crappy autocomplete: In Linux, if you have multiple ways to autocomplete, you get a list of the options. Windows 7 only pics the first.
- PowerShell: Its soooo slow! I don't want to wait for my shell to start!
A wrap-up for Windows 8
Microsoft Bob
Have you ever heard of Microsoft Bob? I guess we should not complain about Windows 8 desktop, if you have seen this desktop environment interface...