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#技术#杂记161
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The author discusses their recent experience using Windows as their primary operating system for work and life. They highlight the improvements in system interaction and developer experience, such as the improved Start menu, File Explorer, split-screen functionality, and global dark theme support. They also praise Microsoft's embrace of open source and the enhancements in developer tools like WSL2 and Visual Studio. However, they mention some drawbacks, including bugs, issues with WSL2, permission management problems, and the lack of a centralized software distribution system like Setapp on macOS.

Recently, I have been working on Windows for more than two weeks. I will briefly record my user experience.

Background#

Recently, I just configured a high-end desktop (i9-13900k+4090). My previous MBP became a meeting notebook, and I started to use the PC as my main machine. Since the drivers were too new, I couldn't find a suitable Linux distribution. Ubuntu always had "Internal Error". So, I started using Windows as my main work and life machine. After using it for two weeks, I found that the user experience of Windows exceeded my expectations. Let's talk about it below.

Advantages#

After using Windows as my main machine for many years, I feel that there has been a lot of progress, mainly in:

  1. System interaction
  2. Developer experience

In terms of system interaction, Windows has absorbed the essence of many other systems and software, and I feel that there has been significant progress. Let me mention a few that have left a deep impression on me:

  1. The Start menu has been improved and feels more user-friendly than before.
  2. File Explorer has been improved, such as supporting tabs, which is very comfortable.
  3. The excellent split-screen function allows you to drag windows to the top of the screen to select different screen ratios and applications. When switching tasks, there is the concept of Task Group. Isn't it better than macOS and Linux?
  4. The support for global dark theme has improved a lot compared to before.

Overall, the experience is much better than the previous version of Windows, bringing many surprises.

In terms of developer experience, Microsoft's strategy of embracing open source has been reflected in the optimization of the developer experience on Windows in recent years.

  1. WSL2 is currently much better than WSL1 in terms of practical use. IDEs and other tools can support it well.
  2. The compatibility of WSL2 also surprised me. Kernel-dependent tools like BCC/eBPF can run normally on WSL2, which is great.
  3. The support of Visual Studio for CMake exceeded my expectations, which is very good.

Indeed, Microsoft is now a good friend of developers. (

Disadvantages#

Although there have been significant improvements in the Windows experience, there are still some drawbacks:

  1. There are quite a few bugs, such as freezing the interface when reordering tasks in the Task Manager (which may also be related to the dev channel's insider preview that I am using).
  2. There are some minor issues with WSL2, such as memory leaks and backup export failures.
  3. Permission management in Windows has always been a problem. I still can't figure out why Genshin Impact, as a game, needs UAC. Are they checking if I have Lily's game installed on my computer?
  4. Although there are tools like Scope, managing software packages on Windows is still a bit troublesome.
  5. It seems that there is no centralized software distribution system like Setapp on macOS. I don't know if I haven't found it. Anyway, buying software is too scattered and annoying.
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