Why Do You Use Windows?

[Guest Anna_Banana]

A question that's been bothering me for a while now is "Why do people still use Microsoft Windows?" Granted, like most young people, I was brought up on Windows and knew no other world. As an aspiring Information Technology student in highschool, I thought for certain that the technology world was fueled by the Microsoft product. I whole-heartedly expected to learn the ins-and-outs of the often-times-confusing but oh-so-graphically-appealing operating system. Just a few years ago, though, I was introduced to Linux for the first time, previously daunted by the name because it brought to mind images of DOS-like screens and general complexity. Everything I knew about computing took a drastic turn at that point.

Some interesting things to note:

-The average cost for a full version of Windows is $120

-The average cost for a full version of a Linux distribution is $0 (including ones that come on physical media)

-Windows has the option of a graphical user interface (GUI) or command-line interface. GUI is default.

-Common Linux distributions have the option of several GUIs or a command-line interface. GUI is typically default.

-Windows can play music and movies. Examples: MP3, AAC, WMA, WAV, AIFF, FLAC.

-Linux can play music and movies, including files that Windows doesn't natively support. Examples: MP3, AAC, WMA, WAV, AIFF, FLAC.

-Most Windows software is not free. (Granted, the free software is usually available on multiple OS platforms)

-Most Linux software is free (with a few exceptions, though rare). Most Linux software is also reverse-engineerable and redistributable by law.

-Windows does not have an application repository.

-All Linux distributions use an application repository for easy downloading of software and upgrades. Most distributions have an easy-to-use point-and-click interface for this.

-Windows is easily prone to viruses and malware. A virus/malware scanner is almost mandatory.

-Linux, by design, is difficult to infect with viruses and malware. No scanners are necessary. Few viruses and malware actually exist for Linux.

-Windows loves to give administrative privileges to everyone. "How did Mom just install 72 new screensavers?"

-Linux separates administrative privileges from normal users. A special command that is password protected must be issued first.

-Windows can play World of Warcraft.

-Linux can...well you got me there. WINE is an open source compatibility-layer that will allow you to run most Windows software on Linux. Unfortunately, the installation process of WoW won't be average-user-friendly.

So again, I ask, "Why do you still use Windows?"

~Anna

[Guest]

Hi Anna,

I come from the state where 13% of the economy comes from one company - guess which? And where I live, I'm sure the percentage is much higher. So my first answer is that I'm not suicidal.

In Addition, Windows is ubiquitous. I go to work, and it's there, I go shopping for computers and it's there. And even though I make my living on compuers, I have no interest in loading software, etc. I want it to work out of the box.

It may not be perfect, but it's what I have, it does everything I need, it's reliable, and it keeps my paycheck coming. Can't argue with that.

Love, Kat

[Guest Light Perpetual]

There's a tiny flaw with comparing Windows to Linux--because the two systems have their fair share of differences, not a lot of people take the time to learn Linux (though I will, if very slowly). Since Linux is a build-it-yourself set up, Windows is just easier to get into since it's "pre-assembled".

Windows is also, as Kat said, ubiquitous. Most companies use it as their OS, I'd imagine--or if not Windows, Mac. It's also readily available. So while Linux has plenty of pros, its con is accessibility.

Personally, Windows is available and that's why I use it. As I mentioned, I'm going to be teaching myself Linux. I'll still probably have Windows around, though; hasn't failed me and my art program is only available on Windows (that I'm aware of). That being said, I definitely understand why people would find Linux preferable.

[Guest Shiratori]

I use Mac OS X

[Guest Donna Jean]

I use Windows for one overall purpose....

Microsoft Flight Simulator...

It's my passion and I built my computer specifically to be able run it at an optimum rate...

Hot video card, hot sound system, dual monitors...

Of course I use it for other things...e-mail, Lauras..etc...

But...It's needed for what I do...

Donna Jean

[Paula ult]

I use Windows because 1. all the software my company requires me to use for work runs on it not Linux, 2. my new laptop came preloaded with it, 3. the majority of the world uses it. I do have an older laptop that i loaded Linux on and everything seems to run faster on it than when it ran windows.

I work in the computer industry and support multiple midrange systems, allot of those systems run some version of Unix, HPUX, AIX, etc., Linux is based on Unix.

I remember the good old days of DOS where there were many limitations like memory and disk size, the early versions of windows had many problem, including the blue screen of death, Windows 2000 managed memory better and the blue screen all but disappeared, lets not forget about the stinker versions Windows ME and Vista (my opinion), i suspect XP will be around for many years, my newest laptop has Windows 7 on it and so far i like this version.

Paula

[Sally]

Although Mac has a much better graphics and imaging set up all of the professional Photography sites require windows for you to use all of their capabilities.

So much like cassettes over open reel and VHS over Beta we are forced to deal with a greater number of limitations in order to interact with the rest of the world.

Sorry for the older references but I was in the recording business when the vastly inferior cassettes took the place of open reel recorders.

Love ya,

Sally

[Guest Anna_Banana]

There's a tiny flaw with comparing Windows to Linux--because the two systems have their fair share of differences, not a lot of people take the time to learn Linux (though I will, if very slowly). Since Linux is a build-it-yourself set up, Windows is just easier to get into since it's "pre-assembled".

Windows is also, as Kat said, ubiquitous. Most companies use it as their OS, I'd imagine--or if not Windows, Mac. It's also readily available. So while Linux has plenty of pros, its con is accessibility.

Personally, Windows is available and that's why I use it. As I mentioned, I'm going to be teaching myself Linux. I'll still probably have Windows around, though; hasn't failed me and my art program is only available on Windows (that I'm aware of). That being said, I definitely understand why people would find Linux preferable.

See, that's what I thought too once upon a time. But that's not so much the case. Distributions like Ubuntu and Jolicloud (especially the latter) are very accessible. In fact, my own computer illiterate mother finds Jolicloud to be more accessible than Windows was. I actually put a post up here about a month ago advocating Jolicloud but few biters took the bait. Linux has come along way with user-friendliness and I really just can't see a reason to continue to use the inferior Windows platform.

http://www.jolicloud.com/download#jolicloud-express

In fact, I implore you now to try it. You'd be quite amazed.

.Anna

[Guest Anna_Banana]

Although Mac has a much better graphics and imaging set up all of the professional Photography sites require windows for you to use all of their capabilities.

So much like cassettes over open reel and VHS over Beta we are forced to deal with a greater number of limitations in order to interact with the rest of the world.

Sorry for the older references but I was in the recording business when the vastly inferior cassettes took the place of open reel recorders.

Love ya,

Sally

Eh, Ubuntu Studio, to be quite honest.

http://ubuntustudio.org/

Having worked with tools like Photoshop and Illustrator, all of the functionality you pay hundreds of dollars for are available in open source software packages. The biggest reason why businesses use a Windows/Mac platform is because of the paid-for technical support you get with it. Unfortunately, Linux technical support is free and requires the user base to pitch in and help each other.

.Anna

[Sally]

I am referring to the up-links to professional labs and all of their album designing software and ordering systems -my rich friends do all of their Photoshop work and various other manipulations in their mac and then transfer the jpegs to a PC to interact with the labs.

I cannot afford a Mac and a PC so I am stuck.

Love ya,

Sally

[Guest Anna_Banana]

I am referring to the up-links to professional labs and all of their album designing software and ordering systems -my rich friends do all of their Photoshop work and various other manipulations in their mac and then transfer the jpegs to a PC to interact with the labs.

I cannot afford a Mac and a PC so I am stuck.

Love ya,

Sally

And I'm trying to say that the Mac work can be done on a Linux machine just the same. I had this exact same argument with a Mac nerd until I actually got him to try GIMP and Inkscape. He changed his mind. I'm not exactly sure what software the "up-links to professional labs" use so I can't comment on that.

.Anna

[Guest Lizzie McTrucker]

-Windows can play World of Warcraft.

So again, I ask, "Why do you still use Windows?"

You already gave my reason.

[Guest Pammy]

Hello Anna. You are speaking like a true recent convert!

I, too, have recently rediscovered Ubuntu Linux. It is vastly improved from it's early days when I last looked at it. It was time to get a new OS and XP is faltering. I am not willing to fork out $199 for the Win7 currently offered.

True, the learning curve is much lower than it used to be. True, the software repository is a wonderful thing (unless you happen to be running the 64 bit version). True, software availability is much better than it used to be, and is getting better all the time. True, most MS software (and third party vendors too) is now available as GPL, with only a few exceptions. True, the GUI is much improved and user friendly. One of the things tying me to Windows was the proliferation of Wizards to do package installation for me. When I last tried Linux, I had to figure out what to do with tarballs and RPMs and whatnot. No longer! The Synaptic Package manager does a very good job of installing software and putting it where I can find it. Never again will I install, say, Firefox, and then spend a week looking for it again because I didn't know where it installed to. (true story!).

I have built a couple of computers from old parts in my closet (I have a wealth of parts) and installed Linux on them. They are faster than my "superior" Windows XP Pro machine with more RAM, hard drive space and years of tweaking in it. I am currently spending all my extra money on hardware upgrades to make the Linux machines better and faster and more flexible. Pretty soon, that Windows desktop will transform into a file server for my home network!

All I am waiting for is Skype to come out in a Linux variant, and Team Viewer (what I use to help my non-geek friends repair their computers without travelling all over the world) to work under WINE and I will have no reason to even keep Windows around any more.

I am learning how to use Ubuntu at the command-line level for some of the more difficult things I need it to do but the online community is doing an excellent job of helping me over the rough spots. I am not up to speed enough to really harness the power I find at my command. Yet. But I will say that networking is easier than under Windows. Linux found my network, configured itself accordingly and just worked. Windows STILL requires a guru to come over and tweak it, it's beyond my capabilities at this point. There is only one little glitch...DCC sending still won't work but I have that issue pinpointed at my router level. A new router will fix that handily. And I bet Ubuntu will see the new router, reconfigure itself and work! File serving is new territory for me but I will master it before long. Linux is making it easy.

Bad points...

Linux still doesn't have a good interface for mp3 encoding, mostly due to licensing issues at the vendor level. The company that owns the mp3 format doesn't want to make it free. I am confident they will see the light eventually. Or a new standard will take over, such as .OGG. I have a project under way to digitize all 5000 or so CDs in my collection. It took a while to find an encoder that will reliably do mp3 and it's not the best but it works.

Games are still a little spotty. Especially large-scale flight simulators, such as the one mentioned by Donna Jean. WINE isn't enough for those. And I enjoy a good dogfight as much as she does, I bet. I expect that to change as more people discover Linux and it takes over more of the market.

Keyrings are not compatible with MS. Yet. I have some movies that I downloaded (legally!) that refuse to play in Linux due to this issue. I plan to try to convert them to a different format and see if they will work then. But that's a project for another day. Or else I will have to spring for the DVD and watch the movies that way.

Third party software upgrades (Yes, I am looking at YOU, Firefox!) don't like to work with certain versions of Linux. I expect this to change as well, in the near future.

Linux is not for a user who knows nothing about the workings of an OS. A certain level of technical expertise is mandatory. The knowledge is there in books and forums for the asking, but you have to be willing to put in the time to learn it. Most retail users are not willing to do this. One doesn't have to be an Einstein to figure it out, but stupidity is not suffered gladly in this OS. There are too many stupid people out there with computers and coffee cups in the "cupholders".

Hardware drivers are a bit slow in coming, mostly due to the small number of users demanding them. But many hardware vendors are recognising the need and are releasing drivers and support. More every day. Thankfully.

All in all, I prefer the Linux Environment (with the GNOME GUI installed). It feels like home, once I redecorated a bit. All they did was rearrange the walls and furniture a bit. I got used to it. But most things are still easy to find and manage.

To answer your explicit question, change is not happening on a large scale mostly due to fear and misinformation. Fear of change, cost and learning curves. Any good salesman can make a pitch for the change and if he puts together a good Powerpoint presentation with appropriate graphs and charts so the peabrains on Mahogany Row can understand, the switch can be made almost painlessly.

Misinformation that comes from MS and it's vendors wanting to continue their stranglehold on the market. They have sold the same line of bull to everyone for so long, even THEY believe it now. And it's hard to get that entrenched mindset out into the light.

Count me as a convert!

Love

Pamela

[Guest Shiratori]

I am referring to the up-links to professional labs and all of their album designing software and ordering systems -my rich friends do all of their Photoshop work and various other manipulations in their mac and then transfer the jpegs to a PC to interact with the labs.

I cannot afford a Mac and a PC so I am stuck.

Love ya,

Sally

For what it's worth, you can run Windows on a modern Mac, either via dual-booting or using software like VMWare or Parallels. I actually have a copy of Windows XP installed via VMWare on my MacBook. Best of both worlds.

[Guest Mirei]

I have always used Windows, and I sort of like the idea of free / open source software etc., but one or both of the following often seems to apply to them:

(1) They don't really put much effort into making the software user-friendly

(2) They don't bother to make it look good

For (1) - I am not a "stupid" person, but it doesn't mean that I'll bother to spend a long time learning the workings of a tool that really should just do the job for me. It's okay if the software has lots of new features that I have to read up on in order to use its full potential, but if I have to read a whole lot of text just to get the software *working*, I'm not using it.

For (2) - I know (2) may sound like a silly reason, but proprietary softwares tend to look a lot prettier than open source stuff. You may say otherwise but I really much prefer a prettier looking piece of software, especially if I'm looking at it all the time. Linux, Firefox, 7-zip and so on all lag behind those made by "evil" companies in terms of their appearance. While I would still choose the one with clearly superior functionality and ease-of-use and so on, if the free one isn't considerably better, I would use the proprietary one - so I don't use IE because it is considerably more inferior to other browsers, but I use Windows Live Mail because I don't see Mozilla Thunderbird for example doing much better than it - and Windows Live Mail is MUCH prettier looking...

[Guest ChloëC]

Anna,

I would guess over 90% of whatever market segment you want to look at, the top selling item is the one that is the best marketed, not necessarily the best product. Bill Gates is a marketing whiz, not a computer genius (and basically lucky that someone else decided that sailing was preferable to meeting with a possible client). Most of what MS sells, they got from other places (or just lifted it). But Apple aint much different. Apple appeals to MS haters who also want to be 'kewl'. Doesn't matter if there are better products, Apple makes products people want.

As Yogurt would say, 'It's moichendizing'.

Back in the late 1990's I bought my 8th grade daughter almost the first commerical MP3 player (Rio300). It could hold 32 songs with its memory. She loved it and knew immediately the benefits. But the other kids at school with their sony walkmans looked at her and said, huh, what's that thing? It wasn't until Apple pushed out the ipod, that people understood what it was all about.

I have to laugh at DJ's comment. For years and years, if a computer couldn't run Flight Simulator, it was considered worthless. And now MS has discontinued FS.

Chloë

ps My tech son writes Unix drivers for a living. He just shakes his head when he sees my Windows setup. But he also knows that the jobs I like to do, are all Windows oriented.

[Guest Donna Jean]

I have to laugh at DJ's comment. For years and years, if a computer couldn't run Flight Simulator, it was considered worthless. And now MS has discontinued FS.

Chloë

Yeah, Chloe....

Sux out loud....

Luckily there are hundreds of people out there that are making add-ons for Flight Simulator that will keep it going for years! (I hope....)

Huggs

Donna Jean

[Guest NatalieRene]

In the business world the machine and it's operating systems need to be supported. The free copies of linux do not come with customer support. When you go into the enterprise world Linux costs money too.

At my office we have a mix of Linux, Unix, Windows and Apple servers, but all of the office machines for employees are running windows or OSX because work is better spent doing work rather then training the employees to use another system.

Plus in some cases there is software that is made for windows that is a necessity to get the job done that linux just doesn't have. For example, Crestron, AMX, Biamp, Clearone and Polycom programming and configuration software comes in windows flavor only and not Linux.

[Guest NatalieRene]

And I'm trying to say that the Mac work can be done on a Linux machine just the same. I had this exact same argument with a Mac nerd until I actually got him to try GIMP and Inkscape. He changed his mind. I'm not exactly sure what software the "up-links to professional labs" use so I can't comment on that.

.Anna

GIMP doesn't have the same printing capabilities as Photoshop. It's useable for most image editing tasks but I'm not personally happy with it's publishing capabilities.

[Guest Anna_Banana]

GIMP doesn't have the same printing capabilities as Photoshop. It's useable for most image editing tasks but I'm not personally happy with it's publishing capabilities.

I'm not quite sure what you are referring to, but there is a separate software package for desktop publishing altogether called Scribus.

~Anna

[Guest Steven22]

i have an illogical fear of Mac's.

[Guest April63]

There is no perfect operating system...

Windows is more popular. More is available, and it is generally more popular. Microsoft's idea is to make everything "simpler". In the process certain security vulnerabilities are made, but for the common user, I think it may be easier than having to remember the root password and grant privileges to this and that.

I personally do Linux, but I think it's a really big ball of ongoing development. Windows is so much different in that it is one operating system by one company. The latest version is 7. Vista came before that. There are so many different distributions of Linux that it's not so simple. It's just a huge open source workshop. I think most people are looking for a more concrete solution. Also, while free is always nice, a price tag makes a product more worthy of being used. It adds value and makes it appear more dependable. It makes it more concrete.

And Mac is horrible. Only good thing is that it's not Windows.. not better at graphics. It just comes with a creativity suite and Windows doesn't, but Windows is fully capable of that.

[Guest Natalie92]

My highschool uses Windows. The college I will be attending in the fall uses Windows and Mac. Most of the business world (and I've been accepted as a business major) uses Windows. A few use Mac. Almost 0 use Linux. I use Windows for convenience, plain and simple.

Natalie Alexis

[Guest Anna_Banana]

Most of the business world (and I've been accepted as a business major) uses Windows. A few use Mac. Almost 0 use Linux. I use Windows for convenience, plain and simple.

Natalie Alexis

That's simply not true and one of the NSA directors who teaches at my college would scoff at such a claim. Most businesses run their backbones on Linux/Unix. It's the computer illiterate employees that use Windows. Believe me, if your bank was running a Windows backend, you'd be mysteriously broke by now.

.Anna

[Sally]

That's simply not true and one of the NSA directors who teaches at my college would scoff at such a claim. Most businesses run their backbones on Linux/Unix. It's the computer illiterate employees that use Windows. Believe me, if your bank was running a Windows backend, you'd be mysteriously broke by now.

.Anna

Personally I think leaving the old computer languages was a mistake - I do have on thing that I wanted to caution you about Miss Banana.

Never Make Generalizations.

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01000111011001010110111001100101011100100110000101101100011010010111101001100001

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Someone will always prove you wrong - not fluent in Linux does not mean computer illiterate - it is much like calling you illiterate because you did not read Homer in the original Ancient Greek (even people who read it in Greek now are reading the updated language and not the Ancient)

Love ya,

Sally