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0 pointsstouset6y ago0 comments

On the flip side, I have and maintain a Windows computer for the sole purpose of gaming. I hate it to the point where I can’t understand why anyone would voluntarily subject themselves to Windows other than sheer ignorance.

You can’t swap sound outputs while an application is running. Fullscreen Direct3D games can freeze in a way that obscures all other windows, including the Task Manager, preventing you from ever killing them. USB device power management is abysmal, and devices often just won’t wake up after sleep. The OS itself is a complete clusterfuck of half-new, half-old, half-ancient things like the Control Panel. Everything prompts constantly—usually with modal windows—for absolutely pointless decisions (and no I’m not talking about UAC).

This is before I even get to what awful citizens of the platform their developers are. Everyone wants to hijack the right-click menu. For all the complaints about the Mac App Store, the Windows Store is—as best I can tell—bordering 100% crapware with no way to find anything of reasonable quality. Everything’s UI seems to have been built with entirely custom components designed by a color-blind child who’s seen too many sci-fi movies.

To top it all off, I am continually just floored whenever I read Raymond Chen’s blog. He often has posts explaining why $thing works some unexpected way or has some sharp edge, and the answer is always because thirty years ago a team at Microsoft built something insane and convoluted (admittedly through the lens of someone watching today), it’s now baked in at the lowest levels of Windows, and it can’t be touched, changed, or removed because of their commitment to backward compatibility.

I struggle to find any redeeming qualities of Windows as a user.

I get that the Mac is a poor platform for gaming development. I really do. But goddamn would I kill for that to change, and for me to be able to run games on my Mac some day.

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3 comments · 2 top-level

aksss6y ago· 1 in thread

I’d be a little more circumspect before accusing others of ignorance and then going on a tirade of declarative statements about an OS you’re obviously not invested in enough to solve the problems you’re experiencing.

stousetOP6y ago

I’m not using “ignorant” as a pejorative here. I literally mean this in the sense of not realizing that other systems exist and are dramatically less awful. I too used to be ignorant here, until I started using Linux extensively before eventually switching to a Mac.

And yes, I understand that there are people who are forced to use Windows professionally or for gaming (like myself), there are people who use Windows because they don’t like (or want to pay for) Mac hardware, and I understand that there are even people who aren’t ignorant about other operating systems who prefer Windows. On the whole though I conclude that the overwhelming majority of users who could use a Mac and don’t simply do so out of a combination of unawareness and/or inertia.

To your second point, literally none of my complaints are something I could have any possible level of control over, no matter my level of personal investment. Windows’ nested layers of awfulness driven by slavish adherence to backward compatibility are quite literally something I could never visibly impact even if I dedicated my life to doing so. The fact that Mac apps, by and large, try to be “good citizens” of the platform while Windows is a free-for-all of developers doing anything and everything however they see fit is in a similar boat.

alyandon6y ago

> You can’t swap sound outputs while an application is running.

Then the application in question wasn't properly written and assumes that the output sound device never changes. About the only application running on my Windows gaming desktop that doesn't follow the sound adapter I select (headphones, integrated, USB DAC, etc) is the Java version of Minecraft.

I use MacOS, Linux and Windows and every single one of them has their own different pile of warts to deal with.

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