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Not seen one those in maybe a decade, and it was a hardware issue, not a windows fault. People seem to not realise that the trigger for a blue screen is often something other than windows specifically.

It's what happens when you pay £3500 for a Dell Precision. You get muck.
 
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Their ad here feels comically low budget, like a high school student's project while they learn how to use a video camera and Windows Media Player.
That's because it is comically low-budget. This was an internal video intended to make Microsoft employees laugh, not a real ad.
 
You probably don't have the sample size we have. We have 500 a week at least. I don't think I've heard of a single Mac failure yet other than the guy who shut one in his car door. There's just silent. We have less of them but they just work.

I see what’s happening on >80k laptops across an organisation, all Dell & HP. Only time I have see BSODs in the hundreds, thousands in fact was when an automated driver update last year caused havoc. Turns out that someone Selected an 8 year old driver instead of the one issued the week before, chaos. BSODs everywhere, but, human error.

I rarely see them these days on that number of devices at more than 20-50 in a week without there being a reason that is traced back to human error. For me at least, Windows has never been more stable as it is now than over the past 25 years. Certainly back 15 years ago they happened often and for no apparent reason.
 
Back in 2010 or so Microsoft they had a good deal there with Windows Phone, Windows, Office and their developer tools. They were good times. But due to mismanagement and direction changes they managed to burn their own mobile platform to the ground (rewrote it using NT and told all developers to start again) and all developer interest (visual studio bloat/dropping silverlight/appfabric etc), pretty much destroy their operating system trying to respond to the iPad (Windows 8+) and the forced move to O365. Compared to then windows is a productivity drain now for me. The work factor is lower and the friction is higher.

Apple sort of just incrementally improved their products. Small features, more consistency, better screens, better CPUs, things just working etc etc. They didn't have to do much because Microsoft ruined their product line and are now trying to flog the dead horse again with CoPilot.

Thing is, Microsoft had to rewrite their mobile platform because that is what Apple had done: they abandoned NewtonOS and Mac OS Classic in favor of Mac OS X, then branched that out to iOS. iOS's kernel, like Windows NT, and unlike Windows CE, is a "proper" OS, enabling things Windows Mobile, BlackberryOS, Symbian, etc. simply couldn't do. Their graphics, networking, etc. layers were simply far more limited than those of the Mac OS X- (NeXT-) derived iOS.

So I don't think Windows Phone 8 being NT-based was the wrong move. But what made this especially grating was: they shipped Windows Phone 7 as CE-based, yet made it incompatible both at the app layer and at the hardware layer with Windows Mobile 6. Then they shipped Windows Phone 8 as NT-based, which was easier to migrate at the app layer, but once again provided no upgrade means at the hardware layer. And then they did the same thing again with Windows 10 Mobile. And then, finally, that OS had less than two years' worth of shelf life. Truly a sinking ship.

(And that's before we get to their misfire of Silverlight…)

In retrospect, the big mistakes happened long before all of that; as you say, they were content with their success of Windows and Office, and were hubristic to think that Apple wasn't going to compete in mobile. They hadn't evolved Windows Mobile much in years, and here came this small competitor who had a new offering that was basically a decade ahead. And then came Android…

As late as July 2009, they thought they could compete with an evolution of Windows Mobile 6.

That era — Windows Vista requiring a development reboot, Windows Mobile 7 being canceled in favor of Windows Phone 7, Silverlight never becoming a huge success, etc. — is full of interesting lessons in corporate hubris.
 
Thing is, Microsoft had to rewrite their mobile platform because that is what Apple had done: they abandoned NewtonOS and Mac OS Classic in favor of Mac OS X, then branched that out to iOS. iOS's kernel, like Windows NT, and unlike Windows CE, is a "proper" OS, enabling things Windows Mobile, BlackberryOS, Symbian, etc. simply couldn't do. Their graphics, networking, etc. layers were simply far more limited than those of the Mac OS X- (NeXT-) derived iOS.

So I don't think Windows Phone 8 being NT-based was the wrong move. But what made this especially grating was: they shipped Windows Phone 7 as CE-based, yet made it incompatible both at the app layer and at the hardware layer with Windows Mobile 6. Then they shipped Windows Phone 8 as NT-based, which was easier to migrate at the app layer, but once again provided no upgrade means at the hardware layer. And then they did the same thing again with Windows 10 Mobile. And then, finally, that OS had less than two years' worth of shelf life. Truly a sinking ship.

That was exactly the problem. If they even considered portability during those transitions then they'd still have a mobile proposition.

The same thing happened to win32 on the desktop. The only stable API over time is win32. MFC is pretty much dead. ATL is pretty much dead. WPF+WinForms is pretty much on life support. Now WinUI comes along and everyone is like "yeah nah we've been burned a few times already".

That leaves everyone with a simple answer: build your software on a platform abstraction layer on top of win32 so you aren't put at risk by the vendor's whims. Now everyone just builds crap on top of Electron and occasionally reasonable bits of Qt etc. Urgh.

(And that's before we get to their misfire of Silverlight…)

In retrospect, the big mistakes happened long before all of that; as you say, they were content with their success of Windows and Office, and were hubristic to think that Apple wasn't going to compete in mobile. They hadn't evolved Windows Mobile much in years, and here came this small competitor who had a new offering that was basically a decade ahead. And then came Android…

As late as July 2009, they thought they could compete with an evolution of Windows Mobile 6.

That era — Windows Vista requiring a development reboot, Windows Mobile 7 being canceled in favor of Windows Phone 7, Silverlight never becoming a huge success, etc. — is full of interesting lessons in corporate hubris.

Indeed. On hubris this was the peak. The iPhone funeral

1747406766117.png
 
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In most tasks for regular people, be it in an office or most normal computer uses, who even notices the speed between the two? I don't. What I notice is the UI and how I navigate and use the OS. Speed is just not even an issue anymore. My Windows PC that I built some years ago boots up quick, apps load quick. Just as my M1 Max boots up quick, apps load quick. I prefer 10 out of 10 times my Mac for work because of the OS, and will still prefer that on my 2014 5K iMac over a brand new Windows laptop. I can use Windows, I prefer Mac OS. Speed is no longer an issue or concern and I think that is the case for the majority. It is the marketing that has people still concerned with speed.
 
I haven't found a single software that can't run on the new Qualcomm CPUs, the x86 emulation is working really well.
I have read tho that some games do struggle, but that was 6 months back so my guess there is that some of those issues are prob solved. I don't game so that might be one reason why I haven't run into issues.

Do you have an example of SW that don't work? Would be fun to try and install to see if these issues still persist.


Many old installers don’t work. Also include some packet with only x86. I haven’t any list now but I’m mostly into audio software and hade issue with many
 
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Did they stop sifting through all data on local drive and sharing it with whomever?

Windows has been a security nightmare for decades, Copilot thing made that even worse.
 
Not seen one those in maybe a decade, and it was a hardware issue, not a windows fault. People seem to not realise that the trigger for a blue screen is often something other than windows specifically.
I can remember seeing gray screen of death two or three times in about 20 years of using macs. One of them was because of Parallels' crappy kernel module, others were because of me messing with kernel modules. :)

On and off Windows since 90s (3.1 to be precise, it didn't have BSOD yet :) ), BSOD is at least a monthly occasion - no matter if it's uber-expensive laptop or homebuilt tower.

Windows is just ****.
 
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BSOD is at least a monthly occasion - no matter if it's uber-expensive laptop or homebuilt tower.

Well, all I can say is that I don't see it that often, never in my own system, very rarely with others. When I hear people suggesting at least a monthly occasion, I call BS to be honest, and if it's true, then I call user or hardware/other software issue, not Windows, for it to be happening that often. I am not dazed by either Apple or Microsoft; they both have their faults, but I just find it hard to believe.
 
That's because it is comically low-budget. This was an internal video intended to make Microsoft employees laugh, not a real ad.
Yeah those that are left definitely need something to make them laugh!

For mine I switched back to Windows when Lion came out and have never felt any desire to return, only reinforced by the times I've tried to help people on their MacBooks in the last few years and just been so put off by how the OS works. Can't stand the way the trackpad behaves or the focus on fullscreen apps. Just does not suit my workflows. It was a fantastic experience through Snow Leopard, for sure, and Boot Camp was great for helping one to switch without needing new hardware!
 
If this is actual marketing to consumers, then bad on MS.
That said, the Snapdragon / Windows ARM platform is legit. I own a Surface Pro 11 for nearly a year, and it compliments my Mac Mini M4 well. Hope the ARMs race continues with Qualcomms iterations, and hopefully other vendors (Nvidia, etc.) get into the mix.
 
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