What's Keeping You On Windows? 1880
tearmeapart writes "It may be time again for another discussion/flamewar on the reasons why a lot of us are (still) using Microsoft. The last big discussion on Slashdot was close to 10 years ago, and a lot has changed since then: Windows XP and 7 have proven to be stable (and memories of Windows ME are mostly gone.) There are many more distributions for Linux, especially commercial options. Distributions like Ubuntu and CentOS have made GNU/Linux more friendly. Options for word processing, spreadsheets, etc. have grown. Apple and their products have changed considerably, though their philosophy hasn't. Microsoft Silverlight came and is on the way out. Wine and solutions like Transgaming have matured. So... why are a lot of us still using Windows? What would it take for us to switch?"
Games like D3 (Score:5, Insightful)
When I game, I don't want to have to mess around with drivers/tuning/performance/etc. That's my relaxation time, and running (for example) Diablo 3 -> DX11 -> Windows 7 x64 -> solid graphics card(s) is really the only solution.
Games (Score:5, Insightful)
Games (Score:5, Insightful)
Borderlands.
Modern Warfare 3.
Heck, Steam in general.
(And yes, I know there are hacks, but Windows Just Works for me. I can't think of a good reason to switch.)
Cheap hardware/software that works out of the box. (Score:4, Insightful)
$349 Win7 laptop + $99 Office 2010 and you're good to go.
Re:Work and fun (Score:5, Insightful)
Just games. I don't know much about Adobe software, but there's plenty available for Mac. For games, however, Windows is still the leading platform.
Everything runs on windows (Score:5, Insightful)
Currently, everything I need to do for work, home, or anywhere else runs on windows just fine. Additionally, most any program that I want to use is primarily supported on windows, and only marginally supported on Mac or Linux distros. So, put simply, the other operating systems either 1) don't do what I need to, or 2) don't have the support for what I need to run.
And sure, from the work perspective, we MIGHT be able to use other programs, but that requires going through a complete Verification and Validation of the software, which takes more time and money than it's worth. Especially if the software is written by volunteers, we can't necessarily get support quickly or hold people accountable for issues as they arise. The medical field (where I work) requires too high of reliability to simply switch for the sake of switching, there needs to be a measurable and tangible benefit.
I suppose learning the nuances of new programs is somewhat of a trivial reason to stay with what I'm using, but I'd rather continue being productive with what I'm familiar with than spend days learning the new programs simply for the sake of learning them. And yes, I have tried venturing out into the Ubuntu and Open Source realms. ;)
Why would you switch? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would i switch?
Windows 7 hasn't crashed on me a single time. It's fast, it uses my SSD drive and memory well.
Every application i want to run, and might want to run in the future just works.
Device drivers are plentiful, i won't have to choose devices according to Linux support.
I'll need the same antivirus etc for linux as well.
My laptops also run Windows, the hibernate, the wifi, gps, 3g all work out of the box.
I'm happy to pay 100 euros for a working product.
Why would i switch to Linux? I ran Linux only on all my computers for about 3-5 years before getting a new computer and going Windows.
And you know what? I've had a lot less problems with Windows than what i had with Linux..
Office is still hard to replace (Score:3, Insightful)
"Options for word processing, spreadsheets, etc. have grown. "
Not quite true.
For simple things, yes, LibreOffice works great, but, in most cases, you can not change the MSExcel to a economist.
Also, In my personal experience, MSVisio is a must have, and there is not a real replacement. In fact, there is not any alternative at all if you receive visio files. You can even open them to look at them.
At home (suft the web mostly) I use Ubuntu. Perfect.
At work, I have a Mac and I love it, but I sill have to run XP in VBox just to run Visio.
No reason to change (Score:5, Insightful)
Games (Score:5, Insightful)
Steam on the mac is a step towards a world where i no longer have windows, but TF2 still runs far better on my windows laptop than my macbook. I can afford to indulge so i do.
Why do people use computers? (Score:5, Insightful)
People use computers to solve problems and in many cases to make money. When taken as an entire ecosystem, the Windows Server environment is reasonably priced for the value it offers. Once you get past acquisition cost differences, the included network management tool exceed those available for Linux, and when you factor in the purchase price of Linux management tool the price differential tilts towards Windows in many cases.
The much discussed 'Windows Tax' on computers amounts to about $30-40/year, and for that a home computer user gets a computer running the most popular operating system in the world (by a wide margin), ready access to a large number of pro bono support people (relatives, co-workers, neighbors), they can run almost anything on the shelf at GameStop, best buy, or other retailer, and their computer hardware purchases are typically priced lower than comparable Apple offerings. And bespoke Linux hardware/software offerings (PCs w/ Linux pre-installed typically aren't cheaper than systems on sale at Dell, Best Buy, etc.
Linux is phenomenal at certain tasks, but those tasks represent a small portion of the installed computer base - web & file servers aren't ubiquitous (yet), so it is no surprise that the OS with the largest paid & unpaid support infrastructure, widest support OS application software, and lowest hardware prices is still dominant.
I like it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Work and fun (Score:5, Insightful)
Similarly, I dual boot, the only time I boot Windows is to play some Windows only games and I don't do that very often. I spend more time playing games on the console than I do on Windows now. I've found that computer games have become much less compelling, and that many of the games I might want to play on the PC have console ports. The gamin companies I used to respect have mostly been bought and sold and are now soulless shells of their former selves.
I find GIMP is easier for me to use than Photoshop, but that may be because I never learned "the Photoshop way" of doing things. So really, nothing is keeping me on Windows, I just keep a copy around because it came with my computer and I may occasionally want to use it for something.
MS Office (Score:5, Insightful)
MS Office is the defacto standard. I need it to inter-operate in my workplace.
Despite all the progress made by AbiWord and even LibreOffice they're still not good enough at interoperability.
On the other hand http://abicollab.net/ [abicollab.net] offers a different and genuine way around it. Once you do real real-time collaboration in the cloud, emailing MS Office docs around seems pretty stupid.
(Disclaimer AbiWord and http://abicollab.net/ [abicollab.net] are my babies)
Re:Games (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Games (Score:5, Insightful)
This. Absolutely and definitely this. And nothing will dislodge Windows from absolute dominance in the desktop market until something happens to change the fact that "computer gaming" basically means "Windows gaming".
This is why it's always surprised me that MS pushed into console gaming. People keep Windows on their home PC because they and/or their kids use it for games. Dual-booting is possible, but is more of a pain in the backside than most people are prepared to countenance. Because of this, we have a general population which knows how to use and is comfortable with Windows - but not other desktop OSes.
And because of this, businesses and public sector employers know that if they run Windows on their office desktops, they can assume that 95% of new employees will know how to do at least the basics - move files around, use Word and Powerpoint and so on. This is a huge saving in terms of staff training. This virtuous circle - which is rarely remarked upon - is, I suspect, a big part of the reason why Windows has proved basically impossible to dislodge from the desktop market over the last couple of decades. As I said before, I'm just surprised that MS don't seem to realise this themselves - if they did, I can't believe they'd jeopardise it by pushing so heavily at a competing console gaming platform (and I say this as a perfectly contended Xbox 360 owner).
Oh, and by "games", I mean proper, big budget commercial games. Call of Duty, Mass Effect, Skyrim, that kind of thing - not a bunch of low budget indie roguelikes and puzzlers - if you're pointing at the presence of those as a reason why another OS is competitive in gaming terms, then I suggest you pay reality a visit once in a while. I also mean "being able to play it on the day it's released", not "somebody will have a hack to get it working in a month or two". My view - until there's another desktop platform that can offer the above, Windows will never suffer any kind of serious challenge to its desktop dominance - and given the number of games that depend on directx, I can't see that happening any time soon.
Cloud gaming services? Maybe they'll be what tips it. But I've yet to be convinced.
Re:Games (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, there's less reason to switch to linux.. (Score:5, Insightful)
As windows has matured too, I find that there's nothing I can't be doing in windows 7. It has an uptime longer than I care for, allow me to play any game I wish at full speed and without hassle, allows me to run VMs of linux if I need it, I ssh into my servers, vnc into others or even remote desktop without problems. It has no problem with 3 dell 3007wfp running on 3d accelerated sli-ed video cards (I just stopped trying on linux), the multimedia stack is way better and allows me to play 3d video or games on my hdtv without hassle too, and my sound system is automatically recognized and adjusted.. So, the question should perhaps be, why would we be interested in switching our main computer to linux ?
Re:Work and fun (Score:4, Insightful)
Ditto. I switched to console gaming a few years ago because I really couldn't be bothered with Windows at home any more.
Recently though I've decided that there are a few games worth playing on PC. WINE still isn't really perfect, but I can use Windows as a base OS and run Linux VMs inside of it, so I get the best of both worlds without having to dual boot.
At work, I've been running Linux as a base OS with occasional use of a Windows VM when necessary.
Couple of things off the top of my head which Windows still would do better in an ideal world:
Re:Work and fun (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh, I do a pretty fair amount of stuff with GIMP and Inkscape. Photoshop definitely has its pluses and if it were open source there'd be no reason not to switch, but it sure as heck isn't worth what they ask for it unless you're making money off it, that's for sure. Even if I WAS running Windows I'd still be using the free stuff.
In my world the only thing missing on Linux at this point is .NET/SL (No, Moonlight doesn't count, it's worthless). Now and then someone trots out some other obscure piece of software that I can't run without booting up the old VirtualBox. Overall though, nothing has kept ME on Windows, I ditched that turkey for good 10 years ago and Mandriva has suited me fine ever since (sadly that seems to be melting down now, but ah well, there's always openSUSE...).
Clearly though application availability is Linux's desktop achille's heel, as ever. In any way you can measure my system runs better, is more stable, and more secure than what I see people running with either OSX or Windows.
Re:Games (Score:5, Insightful)
Gaming is the reasing I actually stick with Linux. Everytime I was gaming, I realized that I wasted my time instead of doing something productive. With non Win/Mac-OSes I'm very limted with this and won't be tempted.
Your priorities are screwed up. You do productive stuff in order to get money in order to do things that are completely unproductive but make you happy. Ideally, you wouldn't do anything productive at all, and you'd spend all your time doing entertaining things with your family and friends (and by yourself, because honestly, we all need a break from people).
Wrong Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouldn't the question be why should I switch? It works and it's easy to use. It's like asking what would it take me to switch to hopping on one leg while rubbing my belly instead of just walking.
Re:Smart (Score:3, Insightful)
It's only free if your time is worth nothing.
As a switcher and a switcher. (Score:5, Insightful)
So I started computing with a TI 99 Computing. (It Played some games, and I learned to program in Basic, I didn't have any way to save my programs)
Then I switch to an Amstrad 8086 PC, with DOS and GEM Desktop. (I consider it my first real computer.) I collected a lot of DOS apps made some fun little programs
Then I got a 486dx with MS DOS and Windows 3.1 Where I played my DOS Games and some new stuff and it had a modem to dial into BBS's. After a bit I switched from Windows to Desqview because it multi-tasked better... Then I got Linux Slackware which Multi-tasked a lot better. I switched mostly because I was under the impression that I needed to use a system the the real pro's were using and Linux was a Free (as in beer) Unix with all the features of an OS costing thousands of dollars appealed to me. I kept duel boot for when I wanted to play games. Messed around with DOS Emu and a bunch of other stuff.
Then I got my Duel CPU Pentium 200. I stayed mostly with Linux, I flirted with FreeBSD and BeOS but went back to Linux. Back then I was a big Open Source Zealot. After a while the reason why I liked Linux wasn't because of the Open Source it was because I just liked the Command line interface and Linux and Unix has a robust command line interface that allows me to do a lot.
Then I got a SUN Ultra 10. I was use to installing software via Make Clean, Make, Make Install (I liked doing it as separate commands ) So going to a full Unix system was the next step. Going to the Solaris on the Sun, I found out in Linux I was doing a lot of fighting with the OS to get the hardware to work that Solaris seems to do nicely.
Next up was a Power Book. Mostly because I wanted a Laptop and OS X was Unix based so it seemed like a good choice. Then my eyes were opened to what a modern UI and system can do. It made me realize a lot of the stuff in Unix systems are decades out of date and they didn't realize it. Sure at first I was reluctant and the UI bothered me and I have messed up the system fairly bad because I wasn't doing things the easy way. But after I learned about how the UI works I got use to it, and began to understand and really like it. OS X isn't about eye candy every element and effect had a point (Unlike kSmile or xSnow).
Then I got a Mac Book Pro I still couldn't bring myself to a windows box and I had baught Photoshop for the Mac so I figured Ill just stay with a Mac.
Now during this time Have been using Windows on everyone else computer and at work. I know how to use well Windows 3.1, 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, 2008, VISTA, and 7.
And now I am under the impression why are people still using Windows it is because there is no compelling reason to switch. Whatever platform you currently have and invested time in is probably good enough for you and switching isn't going to solve that many more problems.
Windows 7 is solid and has a good UI, OS/X is solid and has a good UI, Ubuntu is solid and has a Good UI. What am I going to gain from switching, not too much. Just trying to find alternatives to the software I liked.
Re:Nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
Ditto. It's been... about 5 years I think since I've last used a Windows desktop. It's Linux at home and luckily work lets me use it as well (asked me to use a LTS and that's the last I heard from the sysadmin).
How do I manage that? I don't play much on the PC, the games I do play work on Linux too (emulated or whatever). I have no "special" software I "must" run and all the portable hardware I got so far seems to work with it (Kindle, iPod, Nokia phone, Canon camera etc.)
Why Linux? We just click together I guess. Lots of configurability and options. I've used various distros (mainly Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu), various desktop environments, there's "just works" software as well as getting your hands deep under the hood and rebuild the entire thing from scratch if you want to. Bonus: sharing stuff with others and FOSS.
Basically, I'm a geek and a hobbyist and on the computer Linux is the equivalent of my garage workshop. Windows and OS X don't feel like that. Sooner or later you run into walls and "you shouldn't do that" or "you can't do that".
Re:No reason to change (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it's puzzling the way the contributor has posed the question. It's phrased like, of course, everyone would like to dump Windows and move to Linux, but something is stopping them, damn it!
This is a false premise.
Windows does what I need. It is what I'm most used to. I can be reasonably assured that for every computing need I have, there's a Window based solution for it. Linux is a excellent server environment, but is still a long behind Windows in providing what I require from a desktop computer. Too many of its fringe applications and products suck big time, either in functionality, usability or stability. It would simply be giving me extra work and hassle to change to Linux, now and for all the foreseeable future. So why on earth would I want to do that?
I am not financially strapped, nor am I fanatical masochist who will never, ever use propriety software, even if my life depended on it. So whether it is open source or free does determine my choice of OS or software. I try to pick what's best for the job.
Talk of Wine and other compatibility products is foolishness. Why would I want something that's kind of sort of like Windows, sometimes, when I can have the actual Windows. I don't want to spend any of my time struggling to get a Windows application functioning correctly on not-Windows.
Re:What keeps me (Score:5, Insightful)
Stable?
7 is at least two orders of magnitude better than the 9x series, and one above 2k and early XP... I'll agree.
But I've still seen it bluescreen. Or redscreen. Sure it may be bad drivers, but the fact they can *still* cause problems is not a good thing.
I keep win 7 around for games but for anything else I get frustrated at the lack of tools and useful software available at the click of a button, something I've got used to with Linux.
Re:Smart (Score:4, Insightful)
So let me in on your secret: What is this thing that you get paid for, every minute you do it, whenever you have time to do it? It probably takes a couple of hours to scavenge for parts and assemble a PC if you have a reasonable source. So let's say you put together a $200 PC in a couple of hours, you have something you can choose to do instead that pays better than $100/hour? Awesome, I genuinely would like to know what it is. In fact if anyone out there knows of a take-it-or-leave it, paid by the hour, voluntary and well paid source of income, let me know.
You don't want Steam on Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
You want Steam's catalogue on Linux and that's a different thing. Getting Steam on Linux wouldn't be all that hard. As Valve demonstrated recently, they can port it if they want to when they ported it to Mac. However all that would do is get you the tiny library of Linux titles on Steam. What you want is all those Windows games. Unfortunately that is a completely different thing. You'd need all the developers to port all the games and that isn't happening.
Remember: Steam is just a distribution service. It just lets people sell their games in an easy way (also gives them free DRM to use). It doesn't have anything to do with development or porting. That is still 100% on the developer.
Re:Games (Score:4, Insightful)
i think it is because humans still combine "gaming" with "kids" and dont take it seriously. which is simply not the truth about games.
you need games in your daily life, since this is the major way to learn and train intelligence (not knowledge). because of our society marking you as "adult" if you reach a certain age, part of this "maturity" is to stop gaming, or at least, hide your gaming habits or even repress them until they express themselves as perversions (like playing games with people).
microsoft is a business company. it evolved in the era of humankind, where serious business evolved into a fantastic myth of adults doing hard and serious stuff and only being a serious managing adult mature business man in a suit and a thousand certificates can be trusted upon, while a playful (childish) person might not be trustworthy. while daily life tells us, actually its the other way round most of the time.
it is this image, which not only haunts microsoft, but currently the whole western civilization. there are lots of other hints about this actually, if you study history, the "cultivation" of the "adult" myth even leads to great misconceptions about children per se, or how we perceive the past, and leads to major crisis in a lot of people's lives, who stay juvenile the rest of their lives (because the juvenile person is the one who tries to negate his childhood)
i could go on and on about this topic, since it even hits deep foundations of christian and jewish faith ("respect your elders" e.g. as a commandment was actually meant for adults, to respect old people because "if you want your days to grow long" means, you should treat an elder person, like you want to be treated if YOUR days get long),...
people are children. and people take the easy route. also, those who really taught the adults how to use computers, actually were their children most of the time.
to realize, your platform is actually successful because it is mostly used for gaming, well, that would conclude not only a lot of things about your customers, your product, but also about yourself.
Since the most powerful people on earth are usually not the most intelligent or reflected ones, even if they think they are, I dont think, this will ever be widely discovered, I rather think, somebody comes along and proves another wild theory which does not involve confessing that actually everybody is just a big child out there, cultivated thru a harsh millenia old society of distrust, and explain, that in reality, windows conquered the market because of stuff like "office", or because of piratery, which may be cofactors, but the reason why you pirated DOS or windoze back in the days, were still games, and they were better than the AMIGA or C64 stuff, so yeah, you started using IBM machines to play civ, bubble bobble or prince of persia.
the games on mac sucked, they had to turn their whole OS into a game to reconquer the market.
so. if you know, its gaming, which makes you use windows, at least you can conclude, being mature does not mean to stop being the child you once were inside, but rather taking responsibility for yourself.
Re:Humble Bundles have been a massive help (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Money... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Games (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree with your implicit assertion that happiness is all about fun and leisure. Every life needs lots of fun and leisure, because all work and no play makes Jack a deranged alcoholic. But ideally all of us would find at least one pet project that we devote some of our free time to - soup kitchens, political lobbying (for a worthy cause), volunteer work at a school, volunteer work at a library, mentoring kids, contributing to Wikipedia and similar projects, maintaining a historical monument, improving energy efficiency, or writing free software. Then you can look back at your life with a sense of accomplishment above and beyond 2000 fun hours of Team Fortress 2.
Re:What keeps me (Score:5, Insightful)
I use Linux exclusively at home. At work, they give me a laptop installed with the company default stuff. I could switch to Linux if I wanted to, but then, every time ANY thing went wrong, I'd be blamed for it, because I had gone off the "standard" and used "weird" software.
Don't underestimate the power of the Microsoft drones.
Re:Money... (Score:4, Insightful)
as long as you don't mind violating the EULA
Where I live, that EULA doesn't have a leg to stand on, so why should I care ?
Re:Money... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Linux world never reaches a point where there is no broken drivers, buggy applications, some completely missing parts, stable desktop environment"
Because too many people are fixated on the stupid license then actually taking a bigger picture on the quality of the system... Yes the source is available and you can fix it yourself... But how many people have the time to do so. I much rather spend a few hundred bucks and get a closed source OS that is smooth and works without the fight. And if there is a problem I can call technical support and complain and at least not come back calling me some idiot for not double checking to make sure Linux supports this particular chipset or not.
For example I got a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (that came with Linux) I have never been able to get a full resolution on the screen. It thinks the 1024x600 screen is 800x600 and I googled and googled and tried fixes and no luck.
Re:Games (Score:5, Insightful)
But ideally all of us would find at least one pet project that we devote some of our free time to - soup kitchens, political lobbying (for a worthy cause), volunteer work at a school, volunteer work at a library, mentoring kids, contributing to Wikipedia and similar projects, maintaining a historical monument, improving energy efficiency, or writing free software.
If doing those things make you happy, and it does to most people, then by all means. You don't do them because they're "productive" activities, though. You do them because you get enjoyment out of them.
The point I was trying to make is that a worthwhile activity is not determined by a measure of how much you got done, but rather by a measure of whether you enjoyed yourself while doing it. Don't go volunteer to mentor kids if you hate kids just because you think the world is in need of mentors. Go volunteer to mentor kids if you enjoy spending time with them. Similarly, don't decide you shouldn't play games because "nothing was accomplished" while you were gaming. If you enjoyed your time playing, it was time well-spent.
Re:Money... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Work and fun (Score:3, Insightful)
There are just lots of things that are available on Windows that aren't available on Linux. Try to access a server using RAdmin from Linux. Try to get into a go-to meeting. Try to run any arbitrary Silverlight or .NET application. There is just a ton of software that is available on Windows and there's no corresponding Linux application. Linux has a nice variety of applications in some areas, but in MANY others it is a giant wasteland. You can try to get stuff to work in WINE, but it is at best highly problematic and 70-80% of Windows apps simply won't work acceptably, if at all. On a daily basis I don't need Windows, but you really cannot live without it if you do a lot of different stuff.
Re:Smart (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only free if your time is worth nothing.
This assumes there are no non-immediate benefits to the "do-it-yourself" process.
Yes, I could buy a pre-built system that is a buggy piece of shit that costs me time and money (and since time IS money to me, that's money^2) to keep operational.
Or I can build a system myself. Take a couple of valuable hours to do it RIGHT, with components and software I TRUST. Ammortized out over the 3-5 year lifespan of a computer, it's STILL cheaper for me to do it myself.
Re:As a switcher and a switcher. (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows 7 is solid? Can someone explain to me why my GDI apps are like eight times slower than under Windows XP on the exact same hardware?
D: