by 1vuio0pswjnm7 | 2025-08-16 15:36:04+00:00
"The operating system's corporate parent isn't a good listener either, festooning the OS with useless features no one asked for."

Well, someone inside the company definitely asked for them. Their Microsoft lackeys then delivered the "new features", as they always do.

"In recent years, we've seen Redmond push for useless local AI features, in a bid to sell everyone Copilot+ PCs that they don't need."

Microsoft has been selling computer users on "features" they don't need since at least the 1990s.

"The house Bill Gates built has turned Windows into a piece of spyware, insisting that you sign in with a Microsoft account so it can gather more data about you, and cajoling you to run Recall, which takes snapshots of your sensitive personal information."

Wager: Thus author is not switching away from Windows. Ever. He will jump through any hoop. What choice does he have. None. He may even be paid to keep using it

Microsoft collects vast amounts of data both from and about computer users, including computer user behaviour, and yet the author claims Microsoft "isn't a good listener". I beg to differ.

With all the data it collects why would Microsoft ever need to "listen" to tech journalists' opinions, including ones who purport to speak for other computer users.

The company has ample data about what computer users are willing to endure. It is most certainly "listening", i.e., monitoring. It began acquiring companies just to get more data. It's collecting vast amounts of data _from a variety of sources_ about computer users every second.

Over thirty years of complaining about Microsoft Windows, and to what end. Windows users generally cannot and do not switch to another OS. Truthfully, very few complain or request features. Those who do are a "vocal minority". There used to be entire websites such as annoyances.org devoted to complaints about Windows. Not anymore.

Perhaps the true goal of "articles" such as this is not to obtain changes to Windows (probability: almost zero) but to garner an audience of frustrated Windows users and boost online ads revenue. With onlilne ads as the driving incentive, the author and Redmond are part of the same problem.

"If you were to go back in time to the DOS era and tell people staring at their blue WordPerfect 5.1 screens that they could move text, images, videos, or even files between applications with a couple of keystrokes, they'd be blown away."

For me, the solution to clipboards in VGA textmode (not "terminal") was and still is tmux buffers

Combined with UNIX pipes this is more powerful and flexible than anything possible using Windows

"2. Two or three clocks in the Taskbar

3. Add a fourth modifier key

4. Allow remapping of all keyboard shortcuts

5. Bring back the movable, resizable taskbar

6. Firewall for audio

7. Pin apps to specific screens

8. Program groups launch multiple, related apps at once

9. Make audio device switching easy

10. Cut the Microsoft-induced distractions"

I have none of these problems using a UNIX-like OS but let's assume that's irrelevant

The relevant difference is that if there is something I do not like in the UNIX-like OS, I can edit the source and recompile

Not possible with Windows; the author is stuck with whatever Microsoft decides to do next

Futile appeals to Redmond may continue for another three decades