Microsoft should make it easy to download, install and update on all non-Enterprise versions of the OS. This will also greatly reduce instances of a random ransomware holding critical data hostage and doing irreparable economic damage to small businesses (as was visible during the WannaCry episode last spring [0]).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WannaCry_ransomware_attack
I'll take this one step further: Microsoft should make this as easy as "right click > Run in Sandbox". It would make the lives of everyone so much easier.
The alternative is to convince some engineers to create this same feature in their spare time and contribute it for free as a Linux package. Then they can get email about all of the things it doesn't do, and fix bugs in their spare time on a feature that all they see are complaints for. Until they burn out and the repo goes dead for a while and then gets picked up by one of those users who wants the feature to exist, and they make some improvements and get into an argument with another user who forks it and now there are two of them, almost the same but with a few features that are unique to each one. Of course for most of the users they either don't care and load one at random, or they do care and find features from the "other" system they want in the one that is being used. They send mail to the maintainers asking them to copy those features. Which adds more pain as the developers copy each other's features but they put their own special spin on them. This burns out more developers and a third person comes out and writes their own syntactically incompatible version that is functionally identical to the two different 'legacy' versions.
At this point I just pay the man his $100 and appreciate that the people working on the code are on it all day and can spend evenings with their family.
"You told me to use sandbox to be safe, so I wrote critical document X in a sandbox because I want it to be safe, but now that I rebooted I've lost all of my work."
It is an evolution of desktop bridge, appx and msi.
Does it add a simple context menu entry to convert an installer? Bonus points for straight up Install and even more for Run.
I see it's open source, so if it's missing it may be possible to make a distribution of it with those things implemented. Then one could install it and make it a default msi handler.
Edit: from what I see conversion is much more involved. Create a certificate and go through a wizard and fill out some forms. Correct me if the is a quick and easy convert option. Otherwise it's a nice thing that needs more development to be useful for a generic user.
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sgern/2018/06/18/a-closer-l...
A generic user is supposed to just double click on an *.msix file to get it installed on the Windows Store infrastructure.
This sounds like someone making installer stuff would say. MSI will be supported on modern OSes for much longer than "a few more years".
VB6 apps created in 1998 will be supported until 2025 at least. MSIs will be treated the same.
Also I don't think your parents want to use that particular sandbox. There's no persistence at all: no bookmarks, no cookies, no history, no local documents, ...
That way for your parents they just have to buy the pc, put the usb in and reboot it, and then call you when it's back on so you can remote in and give it a key and finish configuring it for them. I suppose even that might cause issues if you can't teach them or walk them through via facetime how to set the device to boot from the usb instead of the harddrive.
Seriously this is a killer feature needed by everybody. And specially the non-pro users.
Windows SKU has nothing to do with hardware.
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/2-in-1-laptops/new-xps-15-2-...
Actually I can't seem to configure that directly from dell to come with Pro lol. Seems there's a question about that too.
1: https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/tablets-and-2-in-1-lapt...
2: https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/laptops/new-xps-15-2-in...
But honestly, my opinion is that Windows 10 is not as fragile as earlier versions of Windows were.
Windows was famous for tons of installers bundling toolbars, but that's never been an epidemic on Mac.
These days, Macs will not install unsigned software by default, and you can lock that down to App Store only with a single setting change, so they're certainly not getting bundled malicious toolbars from installing software... since distributing malware is a quick way to get your developer signature revoked, and you're certainly not going to be installing toolbars from the App Store sandbox.
That leaves manually installing malicious toolbars through the official extension store for whatever browser they use. All extension stores do their best to weed out malicious extensions these days, and it takes intentional effort to install extensions. It doesn't just happen while you're trying to do other things.
Obviously, toolbars don't even exist on iPads, and software installers bundling random malware is obviously not a huge concern on Chromebooks. A MacBook was not at the front of my list, so I don't know why you chose to singularly attack that option. Maybe you thought it was the easiest target?
if the OS won't let the user install the malware, that's the end of the line.
As I said in my original comment, I don't think Windows 10 is as fragile as earlier versions. A large part of this is the additional enforcement around application signing, even though it isn't as strong as what macOS does by default.
In earlier versions of Windows, it absolutely did "just happen" from a non-technical user's point of view. Linux, macOS, and (to a slightly lesser extent) Windows 10 do not allow it to "just happen".
except there's no definitive, 100% foolproof way to identify something as malware v. not-malware. If you put a bunch of dialogs in front of something, the site will just include a for-dummies illustration of what to click to allow the install. This will especially be the case if doing so is a prerequisite for receiving the new emoji pack, or whatever else it is that the people have been promised on the other side of those clicks.
We've been through this song and dance enough times that it's not a question of whether this will happen or whether users will fall for it. It's clear that it will and they will. Users do not read dialog boxes, they interpret them as noise and click through them. Operating systems can only protect the user from themselves up to a certain point, at least while retaining the ability to install third-party software.
My mom's computer(s) have been running Linux for probably 10 years now. This has kept her reasonably safe (especially as contrasted with my dad, who insists on Windows), but one time I went over to find some PDF injector-thing installed as a Chrome extension. From her POV, this "just happened".
While using a less-targeted platform helps a lot, online malfeasance is not a platform-specific problem. Pretending otherwise is kidding ourselves. Vigilance is always needed.
I.e. a web browser with a keyboard.
> an iPad
I.e. a content consumption tool, not a general-purpose computer.
> a MacBook
Fine if you can afford it.
> or even installing a Linux distro and setting it up for them such that they don't need to use the CLI to accomplish the things they want to do.
That's... possible, but tough. As someone who switched from Windows to Linux many years ago, I still see every distribution to be "leaking" the fact that it's a CLI-oriented ecosystem. They do that that especially when someone goes wrong.
All are valid alternatives if you carefully consider your parents' needs and discover they're extremely limited. But Windows would still be my first, default choice - because of a combination of its design and history, it's the cheapest commercial system that still lets you own your computing experience, and run professional software.
But of course as you said it's a game of trade offs. My father was using Windows years ago and because of constant service needs I set up Linux for him. It was easier for me to service it remotely. It was better, but far from perfect. Later on I bought him a new computer that had a Windows license, so with upgrade to Windows 10 I thought that it would be ok. My father wanted Linux back after a month or so. With newer distribution and newer computer it was much better than previously. Now it's pretty alright.
However I still think of something a bit more like ChromeOS. Then it would be quite maintaince free. Not Gallium, but a full distribution with same update model as ChromeOS.