What keeps you on Windows?

Availability and quality of applications and tools.

That's it.


Nothing keeps me on Windows. I like it and don't want to move.

I used Ubuntu and other Linux distros for three years, fell into the whole hive-mind slashdot crowd, and acted like a total douche. After a while though, I just couldn't think of a single reason why I should use Linux anymore. I think before you ask yourself, "why should I use Windows", you should ask "why should I use Ubuntu?" This is a question I just couldn't answer, so I stopped using it. There were a number of things that led up to this though.

For a while, I was running a desktop with Ubuntu as a primary OS and Windows XP for gaming, an iBook G4 with OS X 10.4 when I'm on the go, and a debian server I used to download torrents (legal ones naturally ), serve music files to my 360, and host some projects I was working on. The thing is, keeping files synced between these four things was a total nightmare. I might be working on an essay on my desktop and then figure I'll continue when I get to school on my laptop, only to find I forgot to copy it. I realized that I had 10 GB of music distributed 3 times over across my 3 computers, not to mention my pictures, work folder, and backups being basically repeats of the same files three or four times over (so it was a huge waste of resources). On my desktop I tried to keep stuff common to XP and Ubuntu by having an NTFS partition used by both, but NTFS support really sucks in Linux (in fact at one point NTFS-3G corrupted the entire filesystem) and only led to major headaches. I was also syncing firefox bookmarks across 3 operating systems but this rarely worked properly and increased startup time of the browser dramatically.

Eventually I realized what I wanted was one unified system where I could keep everything; one powerful laptop that I could run the latest games on, keep all my files once over (and stream them on the fly to my 360 as necessary), and have everything just work. Luckily my desktop's PSU blew taking down the CPU, RAM, and mobo, my iBook's wireless was on the fritz and it's Ethernet port broke making me so frustrated I hit the damn thing breaking the hard drive, and my server's hard drive failed all within a week of one another (terrible week that, and the very next week I lost a very close friend of mine so I was having a very rotten string of luck) so I felt justified in buying a new laptop.

The point is running Windows just makes sense. I can have all my games, music, documents, and everything in one place, and great apps like Office 2007 and VS2008. I can also run the same apps I did in Ubuntu if I want, as almost every open source app has a Windows version (even Pidgin, but I stopped using that long ago when it started dropping messages and I got tired of not being able to see statuses). Vista works really very well; it’s stable and fast, and best of all I don't have to fiddle around to get everything to work as it should. Also running a local web server works really well in Vista; making web sites in Expression web and being able to test them locally is a snap.

I think the things I like least about Linux as a desktop OS are the following:

-Constanly shifting API/ABI, leading to many problems with binary only nvidia drivers, or flash, or VMware
-The mess of inter-dependant subsystems, especially with sound
-Running GTK apps in KDE is awful, same with QT apps in Gnome
- (ubuntu specifically) Installing releases straight from devs is needlessly complicated; for some reason repositories only allow point releases up to a certain point (and never new major releases as I remember in going from FF1.5 to 2) so I was left with an old unstable version of Pidgin or Firefox all the time
-The office suites are garbage, especially compared to Office 2007
-Everything is really slow to respond (like it takes too long to open a simple Applications menu or launch apps)
-Open fonts and the font rendering tech used is really gross and is hard on the eyes

All in all everything is just better when I'm running Windows; I'm a lot more productive, and things just work as they should.


Edit: that was a lot longer than I thought it would be.

I keep going back to the notion of Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.

There are times when cornflakes are like no other thing in the world (Linux), and other times when cornflakes seem inappropriate after a hard day at the Office and you go to a restaurant (Windows)

I like software i.e. computer programming, and what language an OS uses is an irrelevance. As it is Windows can make me an honest living, but if Linux could then I'd use that instead. I am absolutely disgusted by people who flagrantly ignore the difficulty of writing a Windows/Mac/Linux application. In truth software development is so hard, it is a wonder anything ever gets shipped.

If your needs necessitate debian, then use debian. If you require the supreme visual studio, then use that. If OS x floats you boat, enjoy that.

I like breakfast, lunch and dinner. I aslo like going into a sweet shop/candy store and having lots of choice. What is it with just having just the one OS. Sweet shops with one type of sweet are in a word boring, same applies to operating systems.

RoyalSchrubber said:

I noticed that Ubuntu (even with Compiz Fusion) uses less than half the memory that Vista Ultimate uses, and this is great when you've only got 2gb total. Having 1gb of it taken by the OS isn't too pleasant.

Correct me if I'm wrong (in case they've fixed it), but copiz doesn't use any anti-aliasing and usees some cr*p filtering. When Compiz runs its effects it looks very very unpolished and bad, I don't mind if Vista takes 4x as much resoures to do effect properly.

I have no idea why users don't complain masively about it, I guess it's the same thing as was with pseudo-trasparency - it looked great in Youtube, and that's all it's great for - to lure new users to try Linux.

In all honesty, the effects are pretty smooth on my machine. But I've got a pretty heavy box, so I'm not sure what others experience.

foreachdev said:

.NET, the 4 days to setup as you experienced seems common, Microsoft has the best SWAG:)

It was actually about 20 minutes of setup: getting my apps downloaded, and personalizing the UI. The other 3.n days were spent playing around with it, and learning the ropes

RoyalSchrubber said:

I noticed that Ubuntu (even with Compiz Fusion) uses less than half the memory that Vista Ultimate uses, and this is great when you've only got 2gb total. Having 1gb of it taken by the OS isn't too pleasant.

Correct me if I'm wrong (in case they've fixed it), but copiz doesn't use any anti-aliasing and usees some cr*p filtering. When Compiz runs its effects it looks very very unpolished and bad, I don't mind if Vista takes 4x as much resoures to do effect properly.

I have no idea why users don't complain masively about it, I guess it's the same thing as was with pseudo-trasparency - it looked great in Youtube, and that's all it's great for - to lure new users to try Linux.

I initially installed Ubuntu because I wanted to learn Linux a little better. I've been using LAMP servers for years, but never learned more than a few commands like ls, rm, mkdir, etc.

I do appreciate all of your guys' comments. I think I agree with the previous poster too who suggested that I'll be buying Windows 7 when it comes out. Perhaps I'm just giddy over a "new toy," and Ubuntu will be nothing more than a toy.

I do want to continue learning Linux - I'm in no position right now to make a judgement call over its reliability as a desktop, so I can't say "I'm done! I'm finished with windows...Ubuntu has fire...ooooooo!" I would like Windows to examine the competition a little more though. I was shocked when I heard that Vista wouldn't have natural functionality for multiple desktops. You know, like Mac and Linux has.

I simply love software, and I love OS's. My wife wants a Mac, so I'm sure I'll be getting one of those too eventually too.

Thanks for the responses!

jonathansampson said:

RoyalSchrubber said:

*snip*

In all honesty, the effects are pretty smooth on my machine. But I've got a pretty heavy box, so I'm not sure what others experience.

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/505/

I like 'As has been said, AA is done by the card and the driver, and not by Compiz's OpenGL initialization. This is not a problem.'

Typical Linux Hater's 'lusers'..


http://xs219.xs.to/xs219/07356/Screenshot.png
http://dev.compiz-fusion.org/~onestone/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/cube_cylinder.jpg
http://tech.tolero.org/gutsy-review-images/ubuntu%207.10%20(gutsy)%20screenshot%20-%20compiz%20resize%20of%20maximised%20effect.gif

Look at the borders, it looks terrible. Maybe it runs at higher FPS than Aero, but visually it's inferior.

Charles said:

Windows keeps me on Windows. I think it's a great general purpose OS. What I'd love to see is more developers taking advantage of Windows. So, a slightly different question set (but not worthy of a new thread) is: What keeps you writing apps for Windows? What do you like about developing for Windows? What don't you like? As an OS, it's very solid and will continue to evolve to meet the needs of users and the industry. For developers, you can write an app that will run in a number of hardware configurations. That's not an easy feat and the Windows People deserve some kudos!

Keep on coding. You're a big part of the reason why Windows is Windows.
C

What don't you like?

The fact that Microsoft apparently doesn't want us to follow UX guidelines. That's the only reason I can think of for not giving us any of the new Vista controls or the Aero wizard in .NET.

Well, actually I can think of another reason, which was suggested in an earlier thread. Microsoft doesn't give us that sort of stuff so we can buy it from their partners. Which would mean that Microsoft cares more about their partners than the people who develop for Windows. If that's true, that's not to like either.

Laziness.

I'm simply not interested in learning yet another way to achieve the same result.

elmer said:

Laziness.

I'm simply not interested in learning yet another way to achieve the same result.

Was trying to post this last night but lost internet connection

I try every new release to run Kubuntu as my main boot on my laptop and every time fail.

1.  Outlook/Exchange
2.  One Note
3.  Suspend/Resume (never works correctly out of the box in Linux)
4.  One Note
5.  Dual Monitor/Projector support:  Having to run KRANDRTRAY or however it is spelled all the tim eto get this configured correctly is silly.  Also I can't get extend to work correctly.  it is a huge wast of time to figure out
    

ScottWelker said:

figuerres said it first "my paycheck comes from ...Windows". Think Bass also mentioned this. For me that's the trump card.
I've worked in/on AOS/VS, Novell Netware, Unix (SCO/UX, AIX, DG/UX, SunOS, even Zeniz and Coherehn Unix for those old enough to recall). Dabled in RedHad Linux, Ubunto, and others but, as already stated, bottom line, Windows puts food on my table.
I don't have any special loyalty. Each environment has it's strenghts and weaknesses and I could bash or support any of these (almost) equally well.

I fully agree -

I'm well compensated to develop on a windows platform.

My media setup is based upon Media Extenders (no hi-def, so bandwidth isn't an issue).

My knowledge base is 95% windows, as is most of my experience.

Why on earth would I change that?


A friend of mine, a big Mac fan who is a network admin, asked me when I was getting an Apple computer. I stated (correctly) that it would be when my company paid for me to program on a Mac. I'm still waiting..

Jason I said:

ScottWelker said:

*snip*

I fully agree -

I'm well compensated to develop on a windows platform.

My media setup is based upon Media Extenders (no hi-def, so bandwidth isn't an issue).

My knowledge base is 95% windows, as is most of my experience.

Why on earth would I change that?


A friend of mine, a big Mac fan who is a network admin, asked me when I was getting an Apple computer. I stated (correctly) that it would be when my company paid for me to program on a Mac. I'm still waiting..

Windows is the most integrated developer platform on the world!

I love it!

Because windows in my opinion is a bloody good operating systems and it just appears that non-windows users seem to make it out to be this awful monster. The bottom line been, Windows is designed for Business and Linux does not have that same ethos.

rahsoftware said:

Because windows in my opinion is a bloody good operating systems and it just appears that non-windows users seem to make it out to be this awful monster. The bottom line been, Windows is designed for Business and Linux does not have that same ethos.

It's the man with the big gun pointed at my head. And the spiders. I can't stand the thought of all the spiders. It's driving me mad. Mad I tell you.....

Charles said:

Windows keeps me on Windows. I think it's a great general purpose OS. What I'd love to see is more developers taking advantage of Windows. So, a slightly different question set (but not worthy of a new thread) is: What keeps you writing apps for Windows? What do you like about developing for Windows? What don't you like? As an OS, it's very solid and will continue to evolve to meet the needs of users and the industry. For developers, you can write an app that will run in a number of hardware configurations. That's not an easy feat and the Windows People deserve some kudos!

Keep on coding. You're a big part of the reason why Windows is Windows.
C

I use Windows for the same reason I develop for it, and the same reason I use the .NET framework. I hate to use Jobs-Speak, but it's the Microsoft ecosystem. I develop for windows, in .NET, and am enthusiastic about it, as a result maybe someone else does. We increase our own numbers and due to that Microsoft pays out to educate us further, and spends hundreds of millions of dollars writing us hooks, SDK's, forums, tutorials, conferences, and new toys to continue the circle.

 

To be frank, I don't know of any company, or product that has given their vendors so much with so little a guarantee. I owe my entire career to those people, every part of my well being. The least I can do is shell out less than a tenth of a percent of what these skills buy me a year to contribute back. And just to ice the cake, in the process, get a hell of a product for the donation. 

Ix said:

Charles said:

*snip*

I use Windows for the same reason I develop for it, and the same reason I use the .NET framework. I hate to use Jobs-Speak, but it's the Microsoft ecosystem. I develop for windows, in .NET, and am enthusiastic about it, as a result maybe someone else does. We increase our own numbers and due to that Microsoft pays out to educate us further, and spends hundreds of millions of dollars writing us hooks, SDK's, forums, tutorials, conferences, and new toys to continue the circle.

 

To be frank, I don't know of any company, or product that has given their vendors so much with so little a guarantee. I owe my entire career to those people, every part of my well being. The least I can do is shell out less than a tenth of a percent of what these skills buy me a year to contribute back. And just to ice the cake, in the process, get a hell of a product for the donation. 

Damn, I might have miscalculated but it seems you make $200-300k per year? For .NET development even? Also because you owe your entire career to Microsoft, does this mean, you never go to college or University?

That's like so not fair if true. I'm going to have to make at least $600k now to feel adequate!