Why Windows 10 is Still a Hot Mess
I've been a Windows Insider since the program's inception back in Oct of 2014 practically a year before the initial release of Windows 10 and have effectively run every build of Windows 10 through all known branches including the current Redstone 4 branch and am currently running build 17063.
And while there has certainly been progress in the platform over those 3+ years now - Windows is still a hot mess...
So a lot of folks might challenge that and say - "how can you say that ? Windows 10 is the best Windows ever..."... And I say yeah...but...
So I'll use a scenario that kind of describes a part of the issue and I think you'll see why I say this...
Over the holidays - I decided to upgrade the SSD on my laptop from a Samsung PM871 - an OEM mSATA to a Samsung EVO 960 NVMe drive. So that meant a fresh install of Windows 10. In this case I started from the Fall Creators Update - so build 16299.15.
While the install from USB was painless and pretty quick - the issues start with the post install processes that MS tries to accomplish...
First - MS relies on the Store to install a lot of the native Windows apps - so almost immediately after you login in - that process starts - but you get no notification of that occurring - and it's slow and process intensive. MS says you can use the machine - but for what if 80% of the apps aren't there yet...
At the same time if your a OneDrive user like me - guess what - it tries to download and folders you actually want to sync to your local machine. So more load...
Oh and then there are drivers that weren't included in the actually build - so in my case - Synaptics Fingerprint Reader, SMBus, etc as well as updates to Video, Network, etc - you get the point..
And then add to that - Cumulative Updates, Defender Updates, Malicious Software Updates, etc, etc.
Okay - so even with an 4 Core AMD Pro A12-8800B CPU, 16GB of DDR4 RipJaws RAM and an NVMe drive along with an 802.11ac connection to a 300Mbps internet pipe - this process takes nearly an hour and multiple reboots...
Oh but then I want to install other Store Apps from Twitter to Spotify to Box, Trello, Slack, etc - so I can actually use the machine...
And then I want to install O365.. Oh and connect Outlook to my corp Exchange..
And then finally I rejoined the machine to the Insider track and got back to 17063... And oh by the way it failed and had to retry twice to get it to install...
I think you get the point. Now sure a lot of this work is "optional" from the point of I could wait to do this. But why should I have to ?
But the first items being performed automatically by Windows - consumes the machine so much with not so much as a notification from MS that it makes it almost impossible to to get anything done in a timely manner.
As I've stated in an earlier post - MS might as well post a notification post login that it's still updating the machine and to come back in a couple of hours... And that's if you have something that's somewhat fast - God forbid you have a machine whose primary drive is a HDD... Then you might as well let it sit overnight... So really productive....
Okay - so there is the OOBE mess....Now let's move on to the day to day.
First the Store App and others including Edge completely hung on launch. Others like People were still downloading so the really didn't launch at all. And there there are all the freaking games and crapware that MS includes.
Logging back into tools like the Feedback Hub to provide info was slow and took a couple times...
Oh and so I wanted to change the name of my computer and turn on network discovery and then turn off UAC - and add some desktop icons. Can you do all of that in settings ? Not really - yes you can start there - but you more often than not get a link to a legacy UI from Windows XP.
And so while MS keeps adding shiny new items like Timeline it's still missing some basic blocking and tackling fixes to make Windows somewhat usable.
Why after over 3 years do we still have Control Panel and why do some settings absolutely still require that.
Why is Windows Update still incredibly slow - poorly managed and not very informative ?
No wonder desktop environments like ChromeBook are gaining popularity.
Bottom line is compared to the experience that you get from a new Mac or a Chromebook - Windows 10 is a hot mess... Hell even Linux distros like Mint are easier and faster to install and get working...
And while there has certainly been progress in the platform over those 3+ years now - Windows is still a hot mess...
So a lot of folks might challenge that and say - "how can you say that ? Windows 10 is the best Windows ever..."... And I say yeah...but...
So I'll use a scenario that kind of describes a part of the issue and I think you'll see why I say this...
Over the holidays - I decided to upgrade the SSD on my laptop from a Samsung PM871 - an OEM mSATA to a Samsung EVO 960 NVMe drive. So that meant a fresh install of Windows 10. In this case I started from the Fall Creators Update - so build 16299.15.
While the install from USB was painless and pretty quick - the issues start with the post install processes that MS tries to accomplish...
First - MS relies on the Store to install a lot of the native Windows apps - so almost immediately after you login in - that process starts - but you get no notification of that occurring - and it's slow and process intensive. MS says you can use the machine - but for what if 80% of the apps aren't there yet...
At the same time if your a OneDrive user like me - guess what - it tries to download and folders you actually want to sync to your local machine. So more load...
Oh and then there are drivers that weren't included in the actually build - so in my case - Synaptics Fingerprint Reader, SMBus, etc as well as updates to Video, Network, etc - you get the point..
And then add to that - Cumulative Updates, Defender Updates, Malicious Software Updates, etc, etc.
Okay - so even with an 4 Core AMD Pro A12-8800B CPU, 16GB of DDR4 RipJaws RAM and an NVMe drive along with an 802.11ac connection to a 300Mbps internet pipe - this process takes nearly an hour and multiple reboots...
Oh but then I want to install other Store Apps from Twitter to Spotify to Box, Trello, Slack, etc - so I can actually use the machine...
And then I want to install O365.. Oh and connect Outlook to my corp Exchange..
And then finally I rejoined the machine to the Insider track and got back to 17063... And oh by the way it failed and had to retry twice to get it to install...
I think you get the point. Now sure a lot of this work is "optional" from the point of I could wait to do this. But why should I have to ?
But the first items being performed automatically by Windows - consumes the machine so much with not so much as a notification from MS that it makes it almost impossible to to get anything done in a timely manner.
As I've stated in an earlier post - MS might as well post a notification post login that it's still updating the machine and to come back in a couple of hours... And that's if you have something that's somewhat fast - God forbid you have a machine whose primary drive is a HDD... Then you might as well let it sit overnight... So really productive....
Okay - so there is the OOBE mess....Now let's move on to the day to day.
First the Store App and others including Edge completely hung on launch. Others like People were still downloading so the really didn't launch at all. And there there are all the freaking games and crapware that MS includes.
Logging back into tools like the Feedback Hub to provide info was slow and took a couple times...
Oh and so I wanted to change the name of my computer and turn on network discovery and then turn off UAC - and add some desktop icons. Can you do all of that in settings ? Not really - yes you can start there - but you more often than not get a link to a legacy UI from Windows XP.
And so while MS keeps adding shiny new items like Timeline it's still missing some basic blocking and tackling fixes to make Windows somewhat usable.
Why after over 3 years do we still have Control Panel and why do some settings absolutely still require that.
Why is Windows Update still incredibly slow - poorly managed and not very informative ?
No wonder desktop environments like ChromeBook are gaining popularity.
Bottom line is compared to the experience that you get from a new Mac or a Chromebook - Windows 10 is a hot mess... Hell even Linux distros like Mint are easier and faster to install and get working...
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