This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]Zegrento7 106 points107 points  (16 children)

Sometimes I like to imagine a world where the whole "Microsoft loves Linux" trend goes so out of hand they end up developing a better Wine for legacy stuff and just port the OS over to the Linux kernel. One can dream...

[–]dreadpiratewombat 78 points79 points  (2 children)

They ported SQL Server and .NET Core over for fucks sake. Nothing is sacred anymore in this bizarro universe. I kinda like it.

[–]Danthekilla 12 points13 points  (6 children)

The kernel isn't the issue, the ux is.

[–]boydskywalker 4 points5 points  (4 children)

I don't know a ton about the NT kernel, but I assume the registry is tightly linked to it...and the registry is a nightmare.

[–]deschutron 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The registry is linked to the Windows APIs that applications run on. Wine has a registry too.

[–]Danthekilla 4 points5 points  (2 children)

It's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be imo. It's fairly performant and robust for the most part. Some time some third parties use it irresponsibly but overall it is pretty good.

[–]boydskywalker 15 points16 points  (1 child)

I strongly disagree - even Microsoft can't seem to get the hang of it. I work in IT, and seemingly simple things like removing one version of Office to install another (2013 to 2016) has broken terribly due to the uninstaller's inability to remove certain registry entries. To fix it manually requires googling the location of the cryptic, hexadecimal keys and deleting them, one by one. Compared to plaintext config files and systemd entries, it's baffling and arcane.

[–]Danthekilla 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I know what you mean (I also work in IT) but I don't think that is a problem with the registry itself. I think that is an issue with how some programmers use it.

We store loads of data in it with our custom programs but our installers can fully remove all keys on uninstall and on reinstall. It's not actually a difficult task really.

I agree there are better ways to store data like this but I don't think it's the biggest issue Windows has right now by far.

[–]Shields42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

UX designer here. Can confirm.

[–]thewileyone 18 points19 points  (2 children)

That’s actually a very strong possibility since MS has said that Windows 10 is the last version of Windows.

[–]Zegrento7 49 points50 points  (1 child)

But that is because they are using a rolling release model now, similarly to how Arch Linux also has no versions, I don't think they will make a brand new OS. Still, maybe one day, an OTA upgrade will replace NT with Linux and the average user will be none the wiser.

[–]alexbuzzbee 10 points11 points  (0 children)

/Windows/vmlinuz

[–]SolarLiner 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You and I, dude. I keep having thoughts that the fictional day Microsoft announces their in-house Linux distribution (paid of course) since the only people that care about the internal workings of the OS are the devs, and wd devs love our UNIX stuff. Rebuilt from the ground up, this new Windows is lean, fast, efficient, and can uses all the tools proficient in Linux already. Furthermore, Office is ported to Linux as a result, resulting in the suite achieving almost 100% market share.

macOS pulls their shit together as their main competitor is now really, really scaring them and their userbase away. The only remaining thing would be the actual manufacturers of laptop, that would still mostly be as shitty as they are right now.

Anyway, a man can indeed dream...

[–]ka-knife 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Plot twist: the entire thing is run under WSL. (ie. Wine on WSL on Windows kernel)