It's even worse. I want to open Notepad++ and begin to type

N -> notepad.exe

No -> notepad.exe

Not -> Notepad++

Note -> notepad.exe

Notep -> Notepad++

Notepa -> Notepad++

Notepad -> notepad.exe

The times I actually wanted to open notepad.exe is exactly 0 but the stupid algorithm sees me mistakenly opening notepad.exe because of the aforementioned stupid algorithm and recommends it even more often. It's like it's designed to create the most annoying search experience possible.

  N    -> OneNote.app
       -> Then (maybe) quickly changes to Notes
  No   -> Notes.app
       -> Then (maybe) changes to OneNote
  Not  -> OneNote.app
  Note -> Notes.app

[0] https://www.alfredapp.com/

At least that's how it was before. I wouldn't be surprised if they broke it.

1: https://www.raycast.com/

R -> "R, the project for statistical computing" (fair I suppose)

Ru -> Run (what is "run"? It's that little dialog box from Windows 3.1 where you can type in an executable to run)

Run -> Run

Rune -> RuneScape (not something I have installed)

Runem -> Some Hearthstone game file

Runemac -> Search results for "run amok".

Runemacs -> Hey the thing!

This is the best. It opens immediately, no animations, ads, etc. I have a .bin folder in my home dir with full off shortcuts, this folder added to the $PATH so I just need to type my shortcuts to open any app.

If you want fuzzy searching to work, add a shortcut in the start menu for runemacs by placing the shortcut in %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

This makes it even more inexcusable for the default Windows behaviour to be stupid.

[0]Honestly how? I have 32GB of ram, the name and directory of every program I've ever run probably fits in 100kB. You could even presort the list by the first two possible letters (26^2) at a tolerable memory usage.

[1]To my tastes anyway.

I use both of these, and it looks like Windows has remembered I select one or the other at a given point, so is saving that suggestion.

It also likely has built in associations for the default applications (notepad, camera, etc.) that you've overridden by selecting notepad++ at those points. If you select/locate notepad++ at the other positions, I wonder if it will start suggesting that instead.

I would be completely happy if my win10 stopped deciding I really want to search the word notepad on the internet with edge/bing

Heh, try KDE's KRunner. I type 'kt' and it matches ktorrent. But if I type 'kto' it switches to matching "Desktop 8". 'ktor' once again matches ktorrent.

"Chery"

I'm misspelling CherryTree.

Instead of getting note taking software, VLC starts playing "11 - Pulmonary Archery (Explicit).flac"

This is annoying not just because it's not what I wanted, but also because I already have music playing, music which is now abruptly cut off.

I hate this behaviour, as I'm usually looking as my fingers type the last bit, and if I keep adding matching letters, please don't change?

When you enter your birthday during Windows installation (yes, you have to have a Microsoft network account to log in to your own computer, and you have to supply a birthday), the button for confirming the date is a small, grey checkmark hiding below the date picker. Clicking the big, blue “Continue” button in the lower corner will discard your date choice (since it wasn’t picked) and then fail form validation because you didn’t pick a date.

There is a certain cubicle masochism associated with this kind of system. I’m convinced that computers did not get easier to use since all of them had command prompts. But you know, it’s got windows!

That's exactly what it is: encouraging "developers", some of whom IMHO shouldn't even be writing software, to indulge in "coding" while completely ignoring and antagonising the user perspective. Countless users' workflows just broken with no recourse just because some selfish bastard wanted to use something "new and different" without considering the wider effects. When the culture only cares about promoting new and shiny tools/frameworks/etc. to developers and feeding their appetite for otherwise useless things, and in doing so, forsakes the original purpose of software, this is the result.

As an engineer I feel like it's a great investment and loving my setup has a big impact on the enjoyment I get from work.

If you spend the time, can all the annoying stuff be turned off in Windows?

I can't seem to get two Windows installs to be functionally identical the same way. I also can't believe winget is a relatively new invention.

You can turn off most of the annoying stuff, for a time. I'm convinced that sometimes settings just change on their own.

This (requiring elevated privileges) is a very niche thing, though (raw access to the serial port).

Yes, for this very niche thing Windows works out the box. For other not so niche things, Linux works out the box. For the not so niche thing of "set up a LAMP stack" and similar, Windows is pretty poor at it, compared to using apt-get.

Also, for this very niche thing, I'm pretty certain that the arduino IDE I installed from the repository worked out the box for serial port access.

I'm guessing that you pretended the Linux boxes were Windows, and installed on Linux by downloading it off the arduino distribution site?

Yes, that was a mistake. But it was not as simple as saying "install from apt-get" because some where using Arch-based distros (pacman), a few were using Fedora (yum) and others Ubuntu. Even so, not always that the user is added to the right group. Also, we wanted to show the new 2.0 IDE.

Had some issues after Win10->Win11 beta Insider build updates, but that's other story.

Win + WSL gives you both Linux and Windows tools at your disposal.

my solution is to use windows for GUI things, and a remote linux instance for actual building/running/deploying services. vs code server is really nice for this, you can essentially run it as a GUI thin client locally that controls a headless remote that does all the heavy lifting. it's pretty seamless if you're willing to accept that you need a network connection to get any work done.

Not sure where powertools come in, but I’m personally agnostic wrt. shell scripting flavours.

1) find my mouse

2) search through windows titles (I tend to have 15-30 terminals with ssh)

Not to mention their new loan scams. Edge is a spyware/adware first and browser second.

I still prefer Firefox, though.

The research concluded that Microsoft Edge is the most invasive, along with Yandex.

[0]: https://executor.dk/

If you want to read the specifics of my transition to Linux: https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transi...

Another anecdote is that minecraft 1.19 doesn't work on Ubuntu 18, as it uses glibc 2.29. D: