[Kraetos]

How Do You Handle Windows?

I mean, Windows is a pain in the butt, but it's not complete and utter garbage like many cast it as. I use my Windows box for lots of gaming, and I'm mostly all smiles and I like the computer a lot.

But a few days ago, I sat down in front of my super-basic-computer-using friend's Dell Inspiron E1505 to check my email and Facebook, and was frustrated, far more than I typically am with my Windows box. That's when I realized:

- Her screen DPI was off
- She had Norton AntiVirus installed
- She had only IE 6 installed
- She had AIM 6 running, with nothing turned off
- ClearType was disabled
- Her visual theme was the default Luna
- Her "All Applications" menu in the start menu was two full columns wide

Her computer was dog slow. I went to search for something, and was harshly reminded that there was no search bar. People would IM her, and sirens would go off. Facebook looked incorrect in IE 6. Nothing on the screen visually matched.

I thought, "why does this computer bother me ten times as much as my white box at home?" I sit down in front of the Macs my friends have without pausing for a second. That's when I realized that there are a handful of things I do to my Windows installation that make it far more pleasant to use:

- Started with a blank install of Win XP Pro. No crapware.
- AVG Free 8.0 for antivirus
- nVidia and Display settings tweaked for optimal resolution, DPI, and anti-aliasing
- Pidgin for IM
- Firefox 3 RC 1, IE 8 Beta 1, and Safari 3 for browsing
- And I downloaded Royale for the visual theme.

On top of that, I regularly:

- Check the registry and MSConfig for anything blatantly nefarious
- Sift through the Add/Remove Programs window once a month to remove old games and anything that got installed without my knowledge
- Remove anything from the desktop that I'm not using, since the desktop unfortunately serves as both a storage place and an application launcher.

This line of thought led me to wonder, "what do the guys at AN do to make their Windows boxes less unpleasant?"

[Kickaha]

Set them on fire and drop them out a window?

[Banana]

I have the misfortune of using Windows at work. Blech.

1. Embowel the IE. Install Firefox. Install NoScript
2. Configure the Hosts file
3. Install Cygwin for my CLI stuff and loads of UNIX-y goodness.
4. Install Textpad as a replacement for Notepad and Wordpad and Word (except where heavy formatting is involved)
5. Curse as much as possible at Microsoft products, especially Outlook and Word.

There may be more, but that's it. (BTW, anitvirus isn't in the list only because it's administered by my company, so not much I can do about it besides occasionally downloading the latest signatures). The first two step should take care of 90% of problems from malware, virus, and other nasty stuff that Windows is too dumb to protect itself from. (I've found it to be much better at protecting itself from *YOU* than it is from everything else... Lame...) The rest are just personal preferences to make it a bit more bearable.

Thank god my IT manager is nice enough to allow me to administer the computer!

[Yonzie]

Try not to use it
GF's Windows XP box still uses IE6, has no antivirus, no automagic updates, no firewall. Once every 2 months or so i let it install updates and otherwise don't touch it. Just works. Then again, the only software it runs is IE, OpenOffice 2 and Sims 2.

Back when I used windows, I regularly cleaned up the desktop and Start menu of unnecessary crud, and used Total Commander as an Explorer replacement. Win2k theme FTW.

[sunrain]

I don't deal with terrorists.

[thegeriatric]

Simple. Mac only. Problem solved.

[Foj]

1. Grab a couple of these


2. Aim

3. Throw

[Luca]

I don't give tech support to people unless I work for them.

Using Windows is one thing. Supporting it is entirely another.

[Robo]

I don't.

Next month I'm picking up a little Linux companion machine, and my sister is getting the MacBook as a graduation present. All I need to do is to get my dad off of Windows...his PC is ridiculous, and I get to be the one to support it.

[iFerret]

Well I end up being tech support for my relations and everyone I know.
Luckily, we're (at my house) are the only ones with computers really , so I don't have to do it much now.
My grandparents' computer is just run as an email and knitting pattern machine, so that's fine, and it looks after itself.

As for my friends, I used to have to be tech support for them too, but then I told them I'd charge $20 an hour and that shut most of them up. Of course, I still help out and suggest stuff, but I don't do support unless they want to pay me (which sadly, none do).

At home, our Windows computer is run as lightweight as it can be - it's for very light casual gaming, word processing and internet/email only. I only occasionally fix problems on it, and I don't mind doing it. That computers behaves itself most of the time.

At school, I do a bit of tech support, but I get paid for it sometimes, and it earns me credit(s), which is always helpful.

[PB PM]

I use Windows just about as much as OSX, and find both to have strengths and weaknesses. I use my white box machine for every day stuff, just like I do with my Mac. On the go, or if I want to be more relaxed, I use my MBP, otherwise I use my PC. As for how I deal with Windows, mostly the same as Kraetos. Since I build my own, no crapware, fresh OS, AVG, Spybot S&D. Everything runs smoothly, the only bad thing that happened to my machine wasn't even Windows related, the PSU died. That kind of ticked me off since the PSU was a month old, but that was replaced by warranty so no worries.

The main reason I have a PC is gaming. I could have bought one of the newer consoles for the money I put out, but the games I like to play tend to not be available for consoles (Civilization, Total War series, WWII strategy and tactical battle simulators etc) so I've not purchased one since I got an N64 9 years ago.

[joveblue]

- Install Royale Noir theme. Otherwise make do with Silver theme.

- Latest versions of browsers. Regularly kill Firefox and restart it when it takes up half or more of my RAM. Wait for 3.0 to be released...

- My viruschecker was hogging too much RAM (I only have 512MB). Got rid of it.

- Avoid installing anything unless I really need it.

- Shut down regularly.

- Patch the crap out of MSN with Messpatch.

- Dream of buying a MacBook Air.

- Too lazy to do anything else. But I've never used a credit card on it and I don't install crap so I'm not too worried about security. I'd be hell annoyed if I lost everything on my computer, but in the scheme of things I wouldn't miss much of it in the long-term.

[psmith2.0]

Originally Posted by Kraetos How Do You Handle Windows?

Not well. Usually around the neck.

Originally Posted by Kraetos I mean, Windows is a pain in the butt, but it's not complete and utter garbage like many cast it as.

Sure it is. What are you smoking?

Originally Posted by Kraetos But a few days ago, I sat down in front of my super-basic-computer-using friend's Dell Inspiron E1505 to check my email and Facebook, and was frustrated, far more than I typically am with my Windows box. That's when I realized: - Her screen DPI was off - She had Norton AntiVirus installed - She had only IE 6 installed - She had AIM 6 running, with nothing turned off - ClearType was disabled - Her visual theme was the default Luna - Her "All Applications" menu in the start menu was two full columns wide Her computer was dog slow. I went to search for something, and was harshly reminded that there was no search bar. People would IM her, and sirens would go off. Facebook looked incorrect in IE 6. Nothing on the screen visually matched. I thought, "why does this computer bother me ten times as much as my white box at home?" I sit down in front of the Macs my friends have without pausing for a second. That's when I realized that there are a handful of things I do to my Windows installation that make it far more pleasant to use: - Started with a blank install of Win XP Pro. No crapware. - AVG Free 8.0 for antivirus - nVidia and Display settings tweaked for optimal resolution, DPI, and anti-aliasing - Pidgin for IM - Firefox 3 RC 1, IE 8 Beta 1, and Safari 3 for browsing - And I downloaded Royale for the visual theme. On top of that, I regularly: - Check the registry and MSConfig for anything blatantly nefarious - Sift through the Add/Remove Programs window once a month to remove old games and anything that got installed without my knowledge - Remove anything from the desktop that I'm not using, since the desktop unfortunately serves as both a storage place and an application launcher. This line of thought led me to wonder, "what do the guys at AN do to make their Windows boxes less unpleasant?"

The fact that one has to do all the above - in particular those two bolded items - to make their Windows-using experience "less unpleasant" and more bearable speaks volumes. That sort of thing is out of the realm for most "regular folks". My Mom or sister, for instance, would never think, or know, to do any of that (why on earth would they?).



So apparently the default preferences and interface settings are "Unusable A-hole Extreme"? That's kinda what I'm getting from this...

[Capella]

The way I make my Windows box less unpleasant is a.) using a default installation and b.) only running Guild Wars (and occasionally a few other games) on the computer and not using it for anything else.

When my power adapter failed and I had to use the box for a week, THEN I poked around installing alternatives like Firefox and Thunderbird over the standard MS software, uninstalling crap, changing the default theme, cleaning up my desktop, and organizing my applications in the Start Menu.

I spent about an hour, maybe more, doing that. I shouldn't have to spend an hour to make my computer feel comfortable. When I go to a school computer lab, I can turn on a Mac, get the default settings, and not need to fix stuff.

[psmith2.0]

Exactly. It's a night-and-day difference.

[spotcatbug]

I use Windows all day long at work. I think it can be made very, very bearable with a little work. That's one big difference between Mac OS and Windows. Mac OS is nice right out of the box, pre-installed on a Mac. Pre-installed Windows needs to be wiped, re-installed clean and then fixed. I use XP Pro at work. I switch to the Classic theme so it doesn't look like a cartoon. Add Firefox, AVG, Notepad++ (I prefer it to Textpad) and some other things I can't recall off the top of my head.

[Banana]

spotcatbug, out of curiousity, why do you prefer Notepad++? I usually go with Textpad because it's perfect for reading logs with automatic re-loading of the logs as new entries are being written to it.

[Kraetos]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 So apparently the default preferences and interface settings are "Unusable A-hole Extreme"? That's kinda what I'm getting from this...

The defaults are unpleasant. It's when users start installing - or not installing - certain things on their computer, thats things get awful.

The thing is, it's been more than a year since I got out of tech support and months since I've had to deal with any Windows box other than my own, so I had forgotten how awful a typical Windows install was - but what I had really forgotten is how gut-wrenchingly painful it is to use someone elses Windows install.

My Windows box is half-pleasant to use. A box fresh from a wipe isn't bad either. But an install used primarily by non-technical user who has been using their laptop for a year with no maintenance whatsoever? Makes me want to tear my scalp off. My friend's install mentioned above wasn't the worse I've ever seen, either. Window's can reach a point where "cleaning" it would take longer than a complete wipe - information dump, clean install, and fresh setup - far too easily in the hands of a novice.

Windows "flexibility," lets call it, it's its greatest blessing and it's most dangerous curse. This is why semi-technical and above Windows fanboys will claim that their Windows install is just as good as a Mac. Their wrong, of course, but you as a Mac user are charging in assuming their the first type of user, like my friend, because thats the vast, vast majority. But the semi-technical fanboy is probably doing most if not all of the things I mentioned above, which is why their Windows install is, in our eyes, bearable, and in their eyes, awesome.

This housekeeping costs hours per month just to keep Windows okay. This kind of maintenance is not necessary on a Mac, and when it is, it is far less time-consuming.

[PB PM]

One thing that MS has up on Apple this time around is stability. I've had OSX 10.5 freeze on me a lot for no reason (freezing while doing a keynote presentation a few times, looking at pictures on the net etc), almost as much as OS9 did, although not as bad, since OS9 froze daily. Honestly, the freezing in 10.5 has driven me to use Windows more. On the other hand, I've not had Vista freeze more than once, that said it is a more mature OS in terms of release time.

[almost2mac]

When I'm at work and someone calls me to their computer to ask something, the first thing I *have* to do is pull up display properties and raise their screen refresh rate to something above 60 Hz. Flickering drives me insane. Many people say they can't tell a difference, some agree it is better and had no idea they could change it. One girl I work with uses an electric fan by her monitor that makes the whole desktop *wobble* with EMI and it doesn't bother her.

If I'm going to be at the same windows pc for a while (workplace just finally upgraded to XP) I have to turn on Clear Type so the fonts are less jagged. I turn on the quick launch icon for "show desktop" since there's no Expose' (can't tell you how many times I want to drag my mouse into the bottom right corner to find something). I also go into add/remove programs and uninstall any and all browser toolbars.

I have XP in bootcamp/fusion at home and I swear, the Mac runs Windows better than anything. It was a little meta when I finally installed fusion and realized I'm running XP...AS AN APPLICATION. Still even using boot camp is almost always a shock like being in a candlelit room and having someone suddenly turn on fluorescent lights when going from OSX to XP.

[spotcatbug]

Originally Posted by Banana spotcatbug, out of curiousity, why do you prefer Notepad++? I usually go with Textpad because it's perfect for reading logs with automatic re-loading of the logs as new entries are being written to it.

I have found that for the things I happen to do with it, Notepad++ is a little better than Textpad. Off the top of my head, the syntax highlighting is better for the specific types of files I tend to look at. I happened to be looking at an asp page yesterday - flawless highlighting. Textpad is pretty great, though. In fact, I think it's all around much better than Notepad++. I think the main thing is that Notepad++ really is just a Notepad replacement for me; it's not my all day text editor (I use Visual Studio all day). I find it nicer for quickly looking at or editing a random text file.

[naren]

We use Win XP boxes at work and the default configurations are heinous. On every machine I use I have a set of changes I need to make before I can use it at all.

Enable Cleartype. (Why is this even ever off?)

Enable the Quicklaunch menu, place the "show desktop" icon first, and dump all the application icons littering the desktop into the menu, then delete them off the desktop.

Change the theme to Silver.

Download a wallpaper form Pixelgirl so I don't have to look at that stupid grass covered hill.

Download Firefox.

After that it's barely tolerable. I've noticed my coworkers, for the most part, can't use my login accounts at all, they look strange and if the application icon isn't on the desktop it doesn't seem to exist for them.

[Robo]

I like how everybody mentions that one of the things they have to do before using Windows XP is change the theme to Silver. Like, the default blue theme will make their eyeballs bleed, but chrome-ing it out makes it all OK.

I sort of liked the default blue theme, to be honest. Yeah, it had a bit of a Fisher-Price "My First Windows" vibe to it, but it was pretty cute. I mean, for Windows.

But I suppose "professional" "power users" need the bling to reflect how l33t they really are. Eh, different strokes for different folks, I guess.

[Banana]

Yeah, I was kinda of wondering about the need to change the theme. The default theme were just well, ordinary. Just exactly what it does to make eyes bleed?

spotcatbug, thanks for sharing! It's cool to know that there are at least a handful of useful applications on Windoze. It's too bad that Microsoft just couldn't get their heads out of their arse and apply a bit of polish to make it easier to maintain for the end users.

[joveblue]

Originally Posted by Roboman I like how everybody mentions that one of the things they have to do before using Windows XP is change the theme to Silver. Like, the default blue theme will make their eyeballs bleed, but chrome-ing it out makes it all OK.

I seriously wouldn't doubt that would happen. I'm not willing to take the risk. I do like my eyes blood free.

Like, seriously, have you seen the default theme?

Silver is quite acceptable, although a tad gaudy. Classic is bearable but pretty plain/ugly and makes you feel like you're using '98, which is not a nice feeling to have at all. Royale Noir is actually pretty good, I really like it. It's quite unfortunate that you have to go to so much trouble to install it.

[joveblue]

This thread just inspired me to go look into what XP SP3 contains and I stumbled upon this... the most heinous and shameful use of SmartArt ever, by Microsoft themselves, in a whitepaper.


Source: Windows XP Service Pack 3 Overview

Seriously, what were they thinking!? This is a professional whitepaper, and not only have they used the crappiest of all SmartArt formats, the funnel, but it's glowing like it's radioactive!



They really are a tacky company.

[Luca]

I'm not sure why people are saying that OS X's default settings are so much better than Windows'. Sure, there are lots of things I generally do when I first set up a Windows computer (naren has a good list), but I have a similar thing with OS X:

- Increase key repeat rate
- Enable two button mode (if using a Mighty Mouse)
- Enable tabbed browsing in Safari
- Disable empty trash warning
- Completely rearrange the dock, getting rid of most of the icons in it
- Install TinkerTool so I can speed up the sheet animations
- Remove all widgets from the dashboard, then disable all dashboard shortcuts

I also install Adium and VLC immediately.

The whole thing is pretty similar to what I do with Windows.

[Eugene]

Originally Posted by Kraetos How Do You Handle Windows? I mean, Windows is a pain in the butt, but it's not complete and utter garbage like many cast it as. I use my Windows box for lots of gaming, and I'm mostly all smiles and I like the computer a lot. But a few days ago, I sat down in front of my super-basic-computer-using friend's Dell Inspiron E1505 to check my email and Facebook, and was frustrated, far more than I typically am with my Windows box. That's when I realized: - Her screen DPI was off - She had Norton AntiVirus installed - She had only IE 6 installed - She had AIM 6 running, with nothing turned off - ClearType was disabled - Her visual theme was the default Luna - Her "All Applications" menu in the start menu was two full columns wide

Symantec/Norton AntiVirus isn't so bad anymore, though it's not free.

Ugh, I hate ClearType (and all other forms of subpixel AA). It floors me that some people don't notice the psychedelic effect because it gives me headaches. I know it's trying to "fill-in" the space between pixel edges with a solid color, but I actually end up seeing the individual reds/blues/greens and my brain processes them as foreign colors on glyphs that should be black or some other color. I know Brad experiences the same thing, but we seem to be the minority...

Windows Classic forever, I agree. I make my Vista install look as close to Windows 2000 as possible pretty much.

Having two full columns of apps isn't bad or uncommon.

[spotcatbug]

Oh, I forgot two important things:

ClipX, the only simple, actually-usable multiple clipboard manager I've ever tried. Once it's installed, you just do your copying and pasting as usual. But, if you paste with Shift-Ctrl-V (instead of the usual Ctrl-V), you get a popup menu with the last X number of items you've copied to choose from to paste (X is configurable). And it's free.

If you have multiple monitors, MultiMon Taskbar is pretty great; it puts additional taskbars on your additional screens. The taskbar buttons for the open windows on a particular screen go onto that screen's taskbar. If you think about it, you'll usually have twice the number of windows open if you have twice the monitors. One taskbar usually gets overloaded. It also, optionally, adds a little button to the top of each window which will zip the window to the screen it's not on (left to right and then right to left). That's really helpful when you mostly keep your windows maximized because you can move them to the other screen by just pushing a single button rather than having to de-maximize them then move them over to the other screen and re-maximize them.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by spotcatbug If you have multiple monitors, MultiMon Taskbar is pretty great; it puts additional taskbars on your additional screens.

Also worth a look at: Taskbar Shuffle lets you reorder tasks and notification icons using drag & drop.

Pathetic that Vista still doesn't do this natively. Such an obvious omission.