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A comment on Cortana is really bad. Parent comment

Re:Cortana is really bad by kop316 on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @02:28PM (#15759694)
I have similar issues with Edge on Windows. When it auto completes a webpage, it will do a bing search instead and have that as it's top result.

Personally, I think it's done on purpose, as every time it searches, it counts as a search in Bing, and that way they can use that to show how many people use Bing to charge more for advertisers.

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Re:Cortana is really bad by CydeWeys on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @02:35PM (#15759778)
I believe you might be right about the why. Windows used to be optimized around user experience. The deal was, I pay my $200, and I get a good operating system. Now, I still pay my $200, but what I'm getting is an operating system optimized to generate further revenue from me, at the expense of basic usability. This might be acceptable in a F2P model, but not when I've paid good money for it!

Meanwhile, all this stuff just works on desktop Linux, because its goal is still to optimize user experience rather than some monetization metric at the expense of usability.

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Re:Cortana is really bad by ska on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @03:02PM (#15760066) 

   Windows used to be optimized around user experience.
Are you sure that wasn't MacOS ?

I can't think of a time in recent memory I would describe windows as focused around user experience, it has always had dark corners.

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Re:Cortana is really bad by eitland on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @03:13PM (#15760152)
Believe it or not:

Many of us far prefer Windows to MacOS.

And it's not just old habits:

I came to the various linux desktop environments after Windows and i still prefer some of them over both Windows and MacOS.

(Spent almost 3 years on Mac. Started as an enthusiastic user. Left really disillusioned. Have later come to the conclusion that it is really great and I'm just incompatible:-)

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Re:Cortana is really bad by 8ytecoder on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @03:30PM (#15760322)
Yeah, if you have never used another OS, MacOS seems like the best. But when even the simplest pro things don't work, it gets beyond annoying. Some examples - Cut, Paste files; Shift select files; Minimise and how it works with Cmd+Tab; Maximise the way it works now. I need something like BetterTouchTool to even tolerate MacOS. It's the terminal (Ubuntu on Windows is great but still needs more work) and the quality hardware that's keeping me on Mac.
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Re:Cortana is really bad by setpatchaddress on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @07:59PM (#15762016)
> Shift select files

I don't get this one. Do you not like that it's different from Windows; do you not know that the feature exists; something else? <http://osxdaily.com/2013/09/16/select-multiple-files-mac-os-...

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Re:Cortana is really bad by 8ytecoder on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @10:21PM (#15762501)
Not shift click but rather shift + arrow keys. Shift + click requires moving to the mouse. The other option is using the list view - which I don't prefer. (May be I've something messed up? I can't seem to shift + arrow to select more than a few files.
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Re:Cortana is really bad by gbear605 on Thursday November 23, 2017 @12:10AM (#15762936)
It sounds like something is messed up on your computer. shift + arrow keys works perfectly for me in all three Finder views.
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Re:Cortana is really bad by fiddlerwoaroof on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @09:37PM (#15762360)
Yeah, it's been a while since I've used windows seriously (e.g. the last version I used consistently was 2000), but afaict, selection in Finder's detail view works basically the way it works in list-boxes on all platforms: shift-click selects a range from the last selected item, command-click (ctrl-click on non-Mac) selects individual items.

Unless, perhaps, Windows Explorer doesn't behave like a list-box and selects individual items with shift-click? Or, Windows lets you select a range in icon mode, while Macs don't?

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Re:Cortana is really bad by majewsky on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @03:56PM (#15760545)
Hell yeah. I had to work with a Macbook for 3 years now, and I long for next week when my new non-Macbook finally arrives in the office.
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Re:Cortana is really bad by WillPostForFood on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @10:38PM (#15762556)
Some examples - Cut, Paste files

You can press Command+C to copy files, then press Command+Option+V to move them.

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Re:Cortana is really bad by simonh on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @04:30PM (#15760841)
Some of that behaviour is a bit awkward, but then there are amazing magical jewels like Automator and active folders.

But window management on Windows is a pain now with auto-snapping and the stupid charms thing or whatever it is popping up all the time.

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Re:Cortana is really bad by hirsin on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @08:03PM (#15762031)
Charms? Like the sidebar? That dies with Windows 8. There's a selection of other windows that appears if you snap something, but if you ignore it it goes away.
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Re:Cortana is really bad by pzone on Thursday November 23, 2017 @10:12AM (#15765492)
It can also be disabled in the taskbar settings.
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Re:Cortana is really bad by skygazer on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @08:15PM (#15762085)
When you've run an obstacle course to fluency, often a Stockholm syndrome sets in, and you think this is the best obstacle course. It changes you; how you reason, predict and judge. It become natural and intuitive. Your neural net overfits. Other obstacle courses seem arbitrary and unreasoned. They inspire disbelief and derision.
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Re:Cortana is really bad by ska on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @05:09PM (#15761125)
See my added comment - this had nothing to do with user preference or any judgement on which system was "better".
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Re:Cortana is really bad by CydeWeys on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @03:19PM (#15760211)
Up through 7, ignoring the occasional sucky release like ME or Vista that you could simply skip, Windows was quite good. I liked it more than MacOS. Something changed after 7 though, and it's no longer trying to be a good desktop OS that puts the user's needs first.
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Re:Cortana is really bad by 0xcde4c3db on Thursday November 23, 2017 @12:56AM (#15763124)
What changed is that they're trying to become more like Apple or Google in that users buy a series of "Windows devices" and have them tied to their Microsoft Account so that it's linked into all the cloud services like Windows Store, OneDrive, Office 365, etc.. While they haven't actually removed support for local accounts, they've added progressively more dark patterns to encourage people to log in to Windows with a Microsoft Account instead. Last time I looked, there was an outright warning against using local accounts if you create one during the install process (specifically, that if you forget your password Microsoft can't reset it for you).
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Re:Cortana is really bad by majormajor on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @03:47PM (#15760473)
It's hard to undersell how massive a usability improvement the Start menu was compared to System 7 installed-application-launching, where you had to either manually mess with aliases or just root around the Finder each time.
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Re:Cortana is really bad by kalleboo on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @11:53PM (#15762850)
Well System 7.5 came out around the same time and bundled the hierarchical Apple Menu (which IIRC was some shareware they acquired), into which everyone stuck an alias of their Applications folder, resulting in a pretty similar (if somewhat less fully featured) UI.
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Re:Cortana is really bad by ska on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @05:08PM (#15761123)
Update as I can't edit original.

This was not meant as a comment on the preference between MacOS and Windows, or the user experience.

What I am questioning was the assertion that UX was the major engineering driver for MS in building windows. i.e. "optimized for".

While I can buy the argument that apple's engineering was driven by UX (for good or for ill) it doesn't seem to me that this was true for Microsoft. Not that they never think of UX, but it is sometimes trumped by other concerns.

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Re:Cortana is really bad by tjoff on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @05:54PM (#15761401)
Actually MS has had really consistent and great UX. To the point where any slightly computer-literate person would get an intuition about where something ought to be located and be almost always correct.

It is not as beginner-friendly as apples products, but far more user-friendly.

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Re:Cortana is really bad by ska on Wednesday November 22, 2017 @06:17PM (#15761539)
My main work machine is windows - I wouldn’t go that far though I think I know where you are coming from. From where I sit some of their engineering decisions seem much more driven by platform goals, etc, rather than user experience.
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Re:Cortana is really bad by CydeWeys on Thursday November 23, 2017 @08:30AM (#15764901)
Which version of Windows are you using at work? It has definitely gone downhill since Windows 7, hence this entire conversation. I'm curious if you could expand on the platform goals and how that has affected things.
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Re:Cortana is really bad by kalleboo on Thursday November 23, 2017 @12:18AM (#15762970)
Could see the argument that Windows is as user-friendly (I would disagree, but I could see it), and as consistent (all OSes have their weird UI hangups) but not "far more".

Last time I used Windows it was more inconsistent than ever, with two completely separate environments (metro and whatever they call the classic one), and three control panels (to which their answer is to shrug and say "just use the search box")

Microsoft does have good UX though - in the Office team. Just not in Windows.

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Re:Cortana is really bad by tjoff on Thursday November 23, 2017 @02:38AM (#15763508)
Yes, metro is an unexplainable mess.

Thankfully you pretty much never need to use it for anything past installation-day.

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Re:Cortana is really bad by CydeWeys on Thursday November 23, 2017 @08:28AM (#15764889)
Windows has been the dominant desktop operating system for going on three decades now. You don't get to that position by being hard to use for the average user. I'm curious what other concerns you think may have trumped usability over the majority of Microsoft's reign? I'll give you one to start off with that the DOJ fortunately shut down -- Consolidation (e.g. bundling IE into Windows Explorer).
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