Reasons to Hate Windows 10

Chris Kellum
4 min readMay 3, 2021

I am a person who grew-up in the wonderful time when Windows 7 was the new Microsoft OS, I think that set high expectations as a child. I say that because win7 was the last distribution that I remember being distributed in the store via discs, which meant I owned that copy of the software. Now after nearly 6 years of using the operating system and 3 times throwing it out and coming back to it, I have finally (I Hope) found everything I hate about Windows 10.

  1. )UPDATES: Having nearly constant updates that can take several hours to complete sometimes and linger on 100% completed, which is an infuriating concept. Imagine being done but not being the done enough, sounds like it isn’t done. My dad beat it in to my head nearly done isn’ t done so how the hell is it 100% when it isn’t done. In Linux I don’t ever have to turn off my computer to do updates, it is as simple as a press of the little prompt, on top of that I can opt out of any and all updates that I don’t feel like I need.
  2. )PHONING HOME: I do love the internet but I don’ t like the idea that my OS needs internet to run so I can change my background. I understand that it prevents pirates but there are other ways to verify the OS’ validity. It may be more work on the developers side and there may be a way to get around it, but the minority is not going to cut in to the profits of Microsoft. They could release the personal OS version For free and only charge for the enterprise releases. That would circumvent the whole need to verify the OS with Microsoft servers.
  3. ) ENTERPRISE EDITION: Personal release of Win10 has the buttons for enterprise functionality, then when i press on them or try to toggle them it gives me a popup tempting me to purchase the enterprise edition. Linux only has a button if I have the functionality, additionally if I want more function I can install the functionality with one line in the terminal.
  4. )ADDING APPS: I feel violated every time I update my computer and suddenly there are five more apps on my task bar. I don’t want to change the browser I use, Why do you keep trying me to use edge? To me, when this happens, it feels like I’m a kid that let my parents clean my room and then I find my bed on the other wall. It is disturbing and I hate it every time it happens it ruins my day. To me this is the best part of linux systems, it allows me to see what the update is and it allows me to opt out of portion or all of the updates.
  5. ) LACKING CMD: The cmd in windows is dead and their replacement is powershell, a not so great UNIX-like implementation in windows. I don’t understand why windows needs two of essentially the same thing. I get that our cmd can’ t access non C drives, but why not merge the functionality together so I don’t have to switch between two different consoles. The lack of a sudo equivalent or a robust package manager that is native to the OS, also kills me. The utility of these two things is beyond a price tag. The UNIX shell is truly a beauty and as windows fails to implement it well it makes me yearn for the real thing even more.
  6. ) SETTINGS MENUS: Why does there need to be a device manager, settings and a control panel. Why aren’t these all in the same thing, I mean why do I need to update my driver through the device manager and then adjust settings of the device in settings, so I can then grant access through the control panel. It is irritating, that Microsoft can’t get their apps consolidated, this would decrease time searching and confusion as to where to look. I mean most Linux distros with a GUI have a single global settings where I can do almost everything I want to do. Ubuntu is a great example of what I would like windows to go towards.
  7. ) REASONS I STAY: Ms Paint, the one program that hasn’t changed does what I expect and is easy to use. I enjoy the plethora of commercial applications that have a bit more polish than some open source software that are available only on windows. I also enjoy the ability I can run steam and not worry about my games not running. The fact more games are becoming more dependent on windows proprietary graphical library has made it nearly impossible to be a fan of big title releases and be able to easily run your games on PC. There are ways around it and if you are a fan of smaller indie games then that might not be an issue for you. Another reason to stay is the security and support afforded by windows hand-holding that allows me to use my computer with out needing to know a lot or really anything about the computer.

I Love have an use UNIX and windows machines, I prefer UNIX for workflows and windows for fun. I have lists like this for both but windows did a thing that set me off so I ranted to the internet to calm down. Thanks for reading and hope if you aren’t already using windows this helpful, or gives you a sense of superiority over windows users.

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Chris Kellum

I am a newly released Software Engineer, Experienced in mobile and web development. When not at a computer, I am probably enjoying playing one of my Ukuleles.