Skye's random thoughts

General good rule of thumb to keep any pc reasonably stable and secure without messing around with addin/replacing av's.

Part 2: The downwards spiral of Windows (NT) and Microsoft in general

I know it is unfair, but in this section I'll be comparing every released consumer version of Windows NT against the previous versions starting with comparing NT 4.0 from 1996 with NT 3.51, an OS I had never used in my life, however looking at screenshots its UI seems very similar if not exactly 1:1 with 3.11 which I have experienced in a limited capacity. Had to add this entire section because I ain't filming or setting up VMs for this, so the original intro to roasting NT 4.0 would make close to 0 sense, leaving it crossed out but otherwise unmodified.

Let’s establish a baseline for design and performance while we’re at it. *This* is Windows NT 3.51 Workstation released in 1995 – building on the design update of Windows 3.1 – but that one’s on DOS, and XP and later home editions are not, so we’ll ignore it. What do you see – barren wasteland, but people still used it, some icons, open the file manager, file names in their natural form – nice. The stage is set, and the future looks bright - *heh* are you ready for the pain?

Part 2a: Oh, ... no, NT 4.0, counting down the days til' the year 2000

It’s 1996 and there’s a new kid in on the Windows Workstation block – the name? NT4. Promises – new design, a taskbar from which you can actually see what you’ve opened, long file names, a usable TCP/IP stack ready for your 3com Etherlink II, and a brand new start menu. Seems nice, with a lot of concepts borrowed from Windows 95. You open “My Computer”, C:, where are the file extensions? Seriously, where are they? Why? It’s simpler – yes, but an .exe can have custom icons resembling the Word 95 document ones for example. Whatya gonna do with this? Nothin. Shut up and take it.

For work you obviously need a productivity suite – unless you’re only using your computer to stare at the desktop. It just so happens, that thanks to Micro$oft’s undocumented syscalls in Windows 3.x the Microsoft Office suite became pretty much the de facto standard. You’re using Office 95, because, why not, then decide to upgrade to 97. You … haven’t learnt your lesson, have you. There’s a new addition to Office called Clippy – or in some versions clippit. The paperclip. You know, unless you never used Office older than 2003. Go look him up on the internet. There’s some fan art of them.

Okay, fanfi- I mean tax reports written, file, save as, (check possible file extensions), and your eyes begin to well up, .doc from 95 and .doc from 97 are TWO DIFFERENT FORMATS. Whose idea was this? Great, so now you have to make sure to save in the obsolete file format for the time being.

It’s 1999 and you’re not quite ready for 2000, Office 2000 seems promising, uncluttered. Needless to say you’re strapped in and ready to be pinned down by Office 2000 – the decluttering – it works, until you need that one option that’s hidden, so you have to click two times as much to find it. Nice. The new Clippy – MF where’s your close button? But you notice something odd. Windows suddenly feels slower. You pause, and realise that Office 2000 required Internet Explorer 5, and autoinstalled it for your convenience. And why’s that an issue? You see, M$ isn’t content with screwing you with one piece of software, they want, no, need more. So the IE5 update replaced your beloved shell – the taskbar and icons and file manager combo – with its own. Like malware.

Part 2Go away: Why on Kaguya's green earth do the designers at M$ not have a clear design for this? Aka. Windows 10.

The history of this OS is so long and boring that the only way to convey it succinctly is to split it into chapters.

Chapter 0: Pre-launch (2014-2015):

In the beginning, there was windows 8.1, and a lot of people stuck to its older cousin - 7, and there was me sitting on XP, but that's besides the point. Additionally there was a thing called Windows Phone, rebranded from Windows Mobile ~~I guess now it's paralyzed~~, Oh, and also Xbox One. During Experiment 9200 codename 8 there were first attempts at combining those 3 different fundamentally incompatible platforms into a unified experience through a unified app format called Universal Windows Programs. Also known as tiles M$ stole from my room while I wasn't looking. These attempts although flawed were promising, some functions were genuinely useful and liked by users, only lamenting the fact that they might as well have not existed for desktop PC and laptop users due to their not-self-explanatory implementation. Micro$oft heard it was bad, so they made Experiment 9600 codename 8.1 to remedy the issue, and for the most part it fixed the biggest issues of Experiment 9200. But the users were still unsatisfied, they wanted more functionality, they wanted floating windows. And so Micro$oft in the most surprising turn of events made it into reality. Once again, in the beginning, Windows NT 6.4, the one that would eventually become Windows 10, was a much different beast, much more humble, honestly in my opinion if they'd just released it how it was in build 9879 without the hidden features users would've been perfectly happy with it, at least it would be much more tolerable. Unfortunately somewhere along the way someone at Micro$oft must've been listening to The Rolling Stones, because paint it black they did.

Chapter 1: RTM, aka public beta posing as stable build. (2015, build 1507, Experiment number 10240):

Skipping ahead a few months and now Windows 10 was ready, finally released, hailed as the last version to ever release, what a time to be alive. The new web browser was something M$ could be proud of - it loaded shit fast, and it just was a web browser not trying to be 50 thousand other things unlike some other browsers, the windows store was redesigned in a way that actually allowed people to find the update button, all the UWP apps were regular windows at last, new corner snapping, and a new place where missed notifications went. Handy stuff, for sure. Only thing is, at launch it had some problems. Like showing a password box over the "Welcome!" text if you dared to use an account without a password. The whole UI was overly flat, like 8 gets dunked on for being flat but this is taking it to a whole new level, everything is a square without all that much contrast. The red X button is gone, and the title bars are now huge, because there is a tablet mode, but seems like no one ever wanted to use it. There's a new search bar ... which was pointless since everybody knows that ever since vista you just opened start and started typing to accomplish the same exact thing (btw this still works on 10), and if you're using a "supported" language in a "supported" region (which ain't the combo of Polish in Poland) you got Cortana, who's here to help, a bit of sign in here, a bit of "what even is this shit" there, and you were ready to experience the beautiful daughter of Clippy with a gorgeous voice and a personality of "I cant help you with that" or "Let's look for answers on the internet" (I don't actually remember the voice lines, didn't use the feature at all, mostly due to sticking to the polish language version for like half of my time using 10), the privacy nightmare of Experiment 9200 hasn't changed a bit in 10, still same bull, just with a sign of no longer locking you out of your machine if you dared to go offline, but now onedrive was there in the autostart by default no matter what because fuck the consumer. The volume panel was redone, and for the most part so was the wifi panel, this causes confusion to this day since it's sometimes the case that the default output device somehow switches while the new audio panel stays on the old one. The new settings page ... is something, arguably a slight decrease in usability compared to previous releases. The new start menu was an abomination, and I'm shocked that people somehow prefer it to the 8.1 start screen, the placement of the power options was strange, and the tiles stayed, just glued to the side, some were missing, some genuinely nice-to-have ones were gone, what was added in their place was literal ads. And to top it all off, windows update now automagically installs updates with no official way to switch it back to "notify when updates are available" what was possible since the introduction of native windows update integration in windows, or at least since XP, 14 years of user's preferences now made unavailable thanks to the always online craze. This would not be such an issue for most users, if not for the fact that Windows 10 updates are notorious for messing basic functionality up, getting stuck in endless loops, or sometimes nuking users data or the OS in the process of installing the update. FUN. Up to this point you had limited control over your computer, but just enough control to set it up once, and let it sit, and it wouldn't magically break without user intervention, now you can't even have that. What's even stranger is that 10 is coincidentally the first version of Windows with the Insider Program allowing regular users to contribute their time and resources as a generalized beta testing organization. Literally outsourcing bug testing and edge case finding, yet somehow updates became less polished. And you know what else, 10 liked to restart on its own with 0 damn warning, at least on XP if you were stupid enough to enable auto updates you had a countdown of 15 mins popping up, or sometimes it just waited until you wanted to shut your computer down.

Part 2: The downwards spiral of Windows (NT) and Microsoft in general

I know it is unfair, but in this section I'll be comparing every released consumer version of Windows NT against the previous versions starting with comparing NT 4.0 from 1996 with NT 3.51, an OS I had never used in my life, however looking at screenshots its UI seems very similar if not exactly 1:1 with 3.11 which I have experienced in a limited capacity. Had to add this entire section because I ain't filming or setting up VMs for this, so the original intro to roasting NT 4.0 would make close to 0 sense, leaving it crossed out but otherwise unmodified.

Let’s establish a baseline for design and performance while we’re at it. *This* is Windows NT 3.51 Workstation released in 1995 – building on the design update of Windows 3.1 – but that one’s on DOS, and XP and later home editions are not, so we’ll ignore it. What do you see – barren wasteland, but people still used it, some icons, open the file manager, file names in their natural form – nice. The stage is set, and the future looks bright - *heh* are you ready for the pain?

Part 2a: Oh, ... no, NT 4.0, counting down the days til' the year 2000

It’s 1996 and there’s a new kid in on the Windows Workstation block – the name? NT4. Promises – new design, a taskbar from which you can actually see what you’ve opened, long file names, a usable TCP/IP stack ready for your 3com Etherlink II, and a brand new start menu. Seems nice, with a lot of concepts borrowed from Windows 95. You open “My Computer”, C:, where are the file extensions? Seriously, where are they? Why? It’s simpler – yes, but an .exe can have custom icons resembling the Word 95 document ones for example. Whatya gonna do with this? Nothin. Shut up and take it.

For work you obviously need a productivity suite – unless you’re only using your computer to stare at the desktop. It just so happens, that thanks to Micro$oft’s undocumented syscalls in Windows 3.x the Microsoft Office suite became pretty much the de facto standard. You’re using Office 95, because, why not, then decide to upgrade to 97. You … haven’t learnt your lesson, have you. There’s a new addition to Office called Clippy – or in some versions clippit. The paperclip. You know, unless you never used Office older than 2003. Go look him up on the internet. There’s some fan art of them.

Okay, fanfi- I mean tax reports written, file, save as, (check possible file extensions), and your eyes begin to well up, .doc from 95 and .doc from 97 are TWO DIFFERENT FORMATS. Whose idea was this? Great, so now you have to make sure to save in the obsolete file format for the time being.

It’s 1999 and you’re not quite ready for 2000, Office 2000 seems promising, uncluttered. Needless to say you’re strapped in and ready to be pinned down by Office 2000 – the decluttering – it works, until you need that one option that’s hidden, so you have to click two times as much to find it. Nice. The new Clippy – MF where’s your close button? But you notice something odd. Windows suddenly feels slower. You pause, and realise that Office 2000 required Internet Explorer 5, and autoinstalled it for your convenience. And why’s that an issue? You see, M$ isn’t content with screwing you with one piece of software, they want, no, need more. So the IE5 update replaced your beloved shell – the taskbar and icons and file manager combo – with its own. Like malware.

Part 2Go away: Why on Kaguya's green earth do the designers at M$ not have a clear design for this? Aka. Windows 10.

The history of this OS is so long and boring that the only way to convey it succinctly is to split it into chapters.

Chapter 0: Pre-launch (2014-2015):

In the beginning, there was windows 8.1, and a lot of people stuck to its older cousin - 7, and there was me sitting on XP, but that's besides the point. Additionally there was a thing called Windows Phone, rebranded from Windows Mobile ~~I guess now it's paralyzed~~, Oh, and also Xbox One. During Experiment 9200 codename 8 there were first attempts at combining those 3 different fundamentally incompatible platforms into a unified experience through a unified app format called Universal Windows Programs. Also known as tiles M$ stole from my room while I wasn't looking. These attempts although flawed were promising, some functions were genuinely useful and liked by users, only lamenting the fact that they might as well have not existed for desktop PC and laptop users due to their not-self-explanatory implementation. Micro$oft heard it was bad, so they made Experiment 9600 codename 8.1 to remedy the issue, and for the most part it fixed the biggest issues of Experiment 9200. But the users were still unsatisfied, they wanted more functionality, they wanted floating windows. And so Micro$oft in the most surprising turn of events made it into reality. Once again, in the beginning, Windows NT 6.4, the one that would eventually become Windows 10, was a much different beast, much more humble, honestly in my opinion if they'd just released it how it was in build 9879 without the hidden features users would've been perfectly happy with it, at least it would be much more tolerable. Unfortunately somewhere along the way someone at Micro$oft must've been listening to The Rolling Stones, because paint it black they did.

Chapter 1: RTM, aka public beta posing as stable build. (2015, build 1507, Experiment number 10240):

Skipping ahead a few months and now Windows 10 was ready, finally released, hailed as the last version to ever release, what a time to be alive. The new web browser was something M$ could be proud of - it loaded shit fast, and it just was a web browser not trying to be 50 thousand other things unlike some other browsers, the windows store was redesigned in a way that actually allowed people to find the update button, all the UWP apps were regular windows at last, new corner snapping, and a new place where missed notifications went. Handy stuff, for sure. Only thing is, at launch it had some problems. Like showing a password box over the "Welcome!" text if you dared to use an account without a password. The whole UI was overly flat, like 8 gets dunked on for being flat but this is taking it to a whole new level, everything is a square without all that much contrast. The red X button is gone, and the title bars are now huge, because there is a tablet mode, but seems like no one ever wanted to use it. There's a new search bar ... which was pointless since everybody knows that ever since vista you just opened start and started typing to accomplish the same exact thing (btw this still works on 10), and if you're using a "supported" language in a "supported" region (which ain't the combo of Polish in Poland) you got Cortana, who's here to help, a bit of sign in here, a bit of "what even is this shit" there, and you were ready to experience the beautiful daughter of Clippy with a gorgeous voice and a personality of "I cant help you with that" or "Let's look for answers on the internet" (I don't actually remember the voice lines, didn't use the feature at all, mostly due to sticking to the polish language version for like half of my time using 10), the privacy nightmare of Experiment 9200 hasn't changed a bit in 10, still same bull, just with a sign of no longer locking you out of your machine if you dared to go offline, but now onedrive was there in the autostart by default no matter what because fuck the consumer. The volume panel was redone, and for the most part so was the wifi panel, this causes confusion to this day since it's sometimes the case that the default output device somehow switches while the new audio panel stays on the old one. The new settings page ... is something, arguably a slight decrease in usability compared to previous releases. The new start menu was an abomination, and I'm shocked that people somehow prefer it to the 8.1 start screen, the placement of the power options was strange, and the tiles stayed, just glued to the side, some were missing, some genuinely nice-to-have ones were gone, what was added in their place was literal ads. And to top it all off, windows update now automagically installs updates with no official way to switch it back to "notify when updates are available" what was possible since the introduction of native windows update integration in windows, or at least since XP, 14 years of user's preferences now made unavailable thanks to the always online craze. This would not be such an issue for most users, if not for the fact that Windows 10 updates are notorious for messing basic functionality up, getting stuck in endless loops, or sometimes nuking users data or the OS in the process of installing the update. FUN. Up to this point you had limited control over your computer, but just enough control to set it up once, and let it sit, and it wouldn't magically break without user intervention, now you can't even have that. What's even stranger is that 10 is coincidentally the first version of Windows with the Insider Program allowing regular users to contribute their time and resources as a generalized beta testing organization. Literally outsourcing bug testing and edge case finding, yet somehow updates became less polished. And you know what else, 10 liked to restart on its own with 0 damn warning, at least on XP if you were stupid enough to enable auto updates you had a countdown of 15 mins popping up, or sometimes it just waited until you wanted to shut your computer down.