Hacker News Reader

pathartlon Windows 11's second-chance setup dialogs hurt IT, drain productivity

Not that I disagree with you, but some of us still use desktops because laptops don't always get the job done. That being said, how hard is it to hit ctrl-s

pathartlon 18 Years Later, IPv6 Reaches Majority

Someone better tell my ISP. Being on fiber with a CGNAT and no IPv6 is imo intentionally negligent.

pathartlon No, Windows Start does not use React

Added a footnote. I still chock it up to bad naming. React as most people know it could really be considered React for Web.

pathartlon No, Windows Start does not use React

Agreed. Swapped it out. Still not great proportions, but at least it's not blurry.

pathartlon No, Windows Start does not use React

Added some footnotes to add clarification

pathartlon No, Windows Start does not use React

Yep, oversimplification on my part. I'll make some edits.

pathartlon Windows 11's Start menu was built using React – now switching to native WinUI

It's not React. A small part (recommended apps) was built using React Native for Windows, which is not React Native but an offshoot that uses native Windows APIs.

pathartlon Our commitment to Windows quality

God, the React stuff is so overblown. There's one small section of the start menu that's built with React Native for Windows, which is _not_ React and _not_ React Native, but a flavor of React that compiles down to native code calling Windows APIs.

pathartlon Our commitment to Windows quality

PowerShell is slow or not feature complete? It's arguably one of the best shells out there.

pathartlon The Reason Windows Hate Is Exploding: It's the End of Personal Computing [video]

While 10 got a bunch of features back ported, they've started out on 11 and I would argue many of them wouldn't have happened if they didn't learn from the mistakes of 8 and 10. Particularly when it comes to UI uniformity. As for the other complaints, I don't fully disagree, but so much of what you listed can be disabled / customized that it often doesn't affect me past OOBE.

I'm not saying Windows is infallible, but it's actually getting quite insufferable to hear nothing but the Windows hate train day in and day out as if it has no redeeming qualities and the only reason we aren't on Linux is because some game developers want nasty anti cheat/DRM measures. I think the proliferation of this is largely due in part to "Windows sucks" being an actual valid avenue of revenue for creators.

pathartlon The Reason Windows Hate Is Exploding: It's the End of Personal Computing [video]

I still don't understand all of the hate. In my eyes Windows has never been more capable and stable.

- Windows Terminal is actually pretty dang good

- There's actually a package manager built in now with WinGet

- Hyper-V comes with pro and is incredibly powerful

- While WSL2 isn't great at times, it does fill in a lot of gaps and working with Docker is pretty seamless

- Ever since Windows Defender became standard, cleaning up relative's machines has basically turned into disabling some startup apps and removing spyware-like browser extensions

- With 11 the UI actually feels reasonably consistent for the first time in a long while. There's still some core applications that need a rewrite (Disk Management, Format, RegEdit, Device Manager, Event Viewer), but it feels like real progression when compared to 8/8.1 or 10

- Backwards compatibility is quite simply unmatched

There's some areas that have regressed or have been omitted for _some reason_:

- If you're going to push Microsoft 365 family subscriptions, I never want to have to download TeamViewer, AnyDesk, etc. Give me some capable remote assistance tool. It's obvious this is ignored so they don't piss off partners.

- NTP synchronization shouldn't be behind the location access permission. I understand why it is, but then make location access more granular.

- Disk performance could be much better

- NTFS is so antiquated. It's time for another filesystem. I want native overlay support, checksumming, not-ass permissions (though tbf nobody gets this right)

- Windows + D is just a key shift to the right from ctrl C so I hit it all the time. It would be less infuriating if hitting it again actually put all of the windows in their previous state / stacking order.

- I usually sign in with my Microsoft account when I setup my PC, but ffs let me create a local user. If you want to put signing into my Microsoft account in my face, do it at first login not at first setup.

pathartlon Wired headphone sales are exploding

It's simple, I can buy some IEMs that sound better, cost less than a third of a barely-even-comparable wireless earbud, and roughly conforms to market standards so I can swap out the cable and tips. And I never have to charge them.

I have a pair of Airpod Pros that I use solely for audiobooks and podcasts when I'm doing chores or shopping, but the audio quality is so garbage that's all they're really good for.

pathartlon Show HN: RetroTick – Run classic Windows EXEs in the browser

I had a not-really-similar idea of hooking Windows GUI APIs and exposing them over websockets to create a psuedo-RDP and rendering the UI in the browser. My purpose was to provide a remote interface for old dedicated game servers that can only be controlled via a GUI.

pathartlon Rich, bored and isolated: Why Texas oil country loves OnlyFans

Gambling? Gambling is more widely available and celebrated than it ever has been. Its regulations have been eroding faster than water through sand.

pathartlon GOG's new owner can't stand Windows either: 'It's such poor-quality software '

I know many items in this list can apply to both, but I've been maining 11 since release and going back to pre-11 builds of 10 genuinely feels like a downgrade: - Windows Terminal is great - Settings now covers almost everything, I haven't had to actually go into Control Panel in years - Explorer has tabs! - The new context menu loads in items asynchronously. Some people hate it, but I remember how apps would abuse the context menu and bring my PC to a crawl. - The CPU scheduler is genuinely insanely better with big/little CPUs - Scaling with windows and monitor management is better - Auto HDR - Updated notepad is actually kinda good - Updated paint is actually kinda good - Built in WinGet is chefs kiss - I actually love Fluent design

Again, some of these are on 10, but on 11 it feels like more of a tighter package.

pathartlon GOG's new owner can't stand Windows either: 'It's such poor-quality software '

It's an unpopular opinion, but I genuinely believe that 11 is the best version of Windows yet. I've been using computers for 30 years and you're right, everyone has _always_ complained about Windows. The only reason people have a fondness for XP is because it was pretty much the world's first Windows. It's the OS that was used to connect the world, and IE being (for the time) the competent browser played a huge role in that.

pathartlon Microsoft May Have Created the Slowest Windows in 25 Years with Windows 11

This isn't true in the slightest.

pathartlon State of the Fin 2026-01-06

I've been having massive performance issues, specifically with the database locking. Disabling the Playback Reporting plugin resolved the issue.

pathartlon State of the Fin 2026-01-06

My parents and brother use Infuse. I would use it even over the official Plex app.

pathartlon Show HN: Ez FFmpeg – Video editing in plain English

The problem is always going to be that everyone has their own way of structuring arguments and providing help text. You could probably do it with PowerShell.

pathartlon If you're going to vibe code, why not do it in C?

I think it's a pretty good point. I've been using LLMs for .NET and the output is generally pretty good.

pathartlon Copy-Item is slower than File Explorer

Not to mention, everything-is-an-object is a much better experience than text only.

pathartlon Windows GUI – Good, Bad and Pretty Ugly (2023)

Just use NanaZip

pathartlon .NET MAUI is coming to Linux and the browser

For as much crap as MS gets, the entire ASP.NET Core stack is an oasis.

pathartlon .NET MAUI is coming to Linux and the browser

Blazor is pretty great. It is mature at this point and MS is using it internally more and more. Trying to go back to something like React makes me shudder. It's not perfect, but it's better than many alternatives.

pathartlon Games Preservation Is Hard and Sometimes Involves Private Detectives

You can check PCGamingWiki. They have a pretty good list of games that are DRM free on Steam.

pathartlon A modern 35mm film scanner for home

https://web.archive.org/web/20250118205639/http://pathar.tl/...

This is way out of date. I have since been able to get it working on a Windows 11 4th gen Intel machine with 64-bit drivers cobbled together from a couple of versions of FlexColor and some .inf modification. It's not flawless, there's some major corruption that can occur when trying to use certain operations, but overall it works for my needs.

pathartlon A modern 35mm film scanner for home

Not that they're cheap, but you can get Imacon scanners for much less than they retailed for. I inherited a Flextight Precision II and it still does a great job.

pathartlon Games Preservation Is Hard and Sometimes Involves Private Detectives

This only applies if the developer has implemented Steamworks. You can release a game on Steam without implementing it.

pathartlon Games Preservation Is Hard and Sometimes Involves Private Detectives

I think my point might have not come across well. Valve/Steam tends to take a hands-off approach, let devs publish how they want and allow users to bring non-Steam games into their fold. GoG tends to modify game files to reach compatibility and has in a few cases completely broken or removed functionality from a game.