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Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows after 28 years
(www.bleepingcomputer.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
A broken clock can be right twice a day. Unless someone keeps playing with the dials.
As a former user, and an hardcore fanboy, I loved MS and Windows. They made computers accessible for the general public. The OS and the office suite were great. The sheer amount of available software for it was phenomenal. They even decided to publish games, which meant quality!
Until they decided to break things.
XP was a great OS, Vista wasn't. Then 7 was back to being good just for 8 to be not as good. Then Cortana and Edge and the push for cloud computing.
What worked, worked well and was actually useful was changed, removed, phased out...
GNU/Linux is not without its dramas and difficulties but we can expect a good degree of continuity between each version of a software (I'm looking a you, Gnome!). And if we're that hell bent on having that specific specific piece of software or OS setup, well, we can.
MS by contrast just chucks the good things out and doesn't even let them floating around as something users may add to their system.
Does someone remembers the PowerToys collection?
PowerToys is alive and well, and updated regularly. More features now too.
PowerToys is very much live and available for download. I use it daily.
PowerToys:
https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/microsoft-powertoys/XP89DCGQ3K6VLD
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/
Unpopular opinion: Vista was actually a good step forward, but the hardware of the time wasn't up for the task which made it run like dogshit, and hence the public perception. It brought in better memory management, and UAC for better security among other things.
They often replace things, e.g. the Photos app had a Video editor built in but now that's a separate and better app. I think they're doing a pretty good job of their software range actually.
What bugs me about Windows is actually their striving so much for backwards compatibility that there's at least 6 ways to edit things or data and they're all still officially supported. It's a bit bloaty and no Devs have any consensus.
The newer version is installed on my Windows 11 and is under active development.
Vista was a good idea and good start, but 7 was the finished product that needed shipped. Just like XP was the finished version of 2000, though 2000 wasn't bad, but XP was just better, more optimized, and yes hardware caught up also. 98, was 95 but better, fixed and polished. 10 was windows 8 better, fixed and polished, and they dumped that stupid fucking tablet interface that everyone hated, (and whoever put that interface in server 2012 needs to be beaten with a sand filled wiffle ball bat)
Backwards compatibility is why windows dominates the market. Without that, it wouldn't have taken over the business world. Legacy code is what makes the business world operate. Yes it hold back windows for some growth, but deprecating that would wreck so many businesses, especially small ones.
Unpopular opinion: Win 11 works well for me, and is visually better than Win 10. Although it's a fairly recent PC. Although if they keep pushing more telemetry and ads, I'm moving over to Ubuntu.
Its the small things on Windows 11 for me. Like the "more options" section on the right click.. that must have been added just to annoy people. It's where all the good options are.
Otherwise, seems to run fine.
As someone from a developing country, windows 11 contributes to higher digital inequality because of its unnecessary high hardware requirements. If they don't support windows 10 for a long time, we will suffer a great toll.
And unfortunately, people around here barely use linux and developed quite a repulsion for it, which only makes things worse for ourselves...
It's hard not to hate microsoft when we live on the ugly side of capitalism.
Why does everyone keep forgetting 2000 and 8.1?
Actually, 8.1 is, or at least they market it like a new version just like Windows 7.