Once upon a time in land far away there were computers. These finicky machines wouldn’t do much unless they were loaded with some kind of software. In that dark world long ago, one would buy software to liven up the computer which came on some form of hard media. Windows was one such beast. At first it only a few floppy disk but it grew rapidly to the point where loading it was like flipping toast in a toaster. At that point each copy was actually owned.
The operating systems back then was basic. Someone came along and created a product called PC Tools to breathe life into the stark plain world of Windows. It was a joy to customize the look and everything you ran worked. No nag screens, commercials, or constant updates to take you away from the things you wanted to do.
Each new version of Windows offered more and soon internet took over for the dial up bulletin boards of the past. Windows – 95 arrived with the stolen “Start Me Up” Rolling Stones song, but it was plagued with issues. Between updates and the Plus it eventually got better. Once it was stable and everyone was used to it they introduced XP. Though it too came with plenty of bugs it ended as one the most most successful versions of Windows ever.
For each new version came the loss of good features and the hiding of administration functions. This trend became what Microsoft was best know for. Making life harder. As change was inevitable, Windows 7 was introduced. It also took features away and made it harder for administrators to find the basics but it wasn’t as big a failure. Bugs were worked out quickly, people forgot about the old awesome features, and it became the second most successful OS for Microsoft.
Eventually change had to come once again – Windows 10. The much hyped operating system from hell. It’s pretty much a lease of software that takes control of your hardware. What you loved, gone including a lot of access to administration functions. Ten introduced babysitting, propaganda, and use by others. The computer now just does stuff. Not necessarily what you want and it sure won’t ask permission.
Pop ups interrupt and the machine does what it will – what you want to do no longer matters. More time is spent on updates, scans, and pushing news, views, and other propaganda. Turned off your machine? Surprise! 40 hours of updates would take precedence over writing one damn email. Updates, pop-ups, and flashing icons everywhere. Its the casino and the computer is no longer yours.
The newest iterations of the operating system include plenty of tracking and advertising while continuing to misbehave and prevent you using the hardware you paid for. Everything the OS does is priority – you will be assimilated. Steal your focus, steal your life as you simply need to wait it out for your turn to use your own hardware.
More time is spent scanning for viruses, malware, updates, and delivering updates to others while keeping profiling you. Software code to do so is hobbled together using pre-written blocks. This is why it now takes up more memory and disk space than the NSA used to have to store all the data in the US. Only 48k was needed in the early 80s to load a word processor and write a novel on a machine that had .01% of the power available today.
Its shocking to realize with an astronautical increase in computing power we wait far longer than it took a cassette tape to load on the Atari or Commodore. Add insult to injury, the computer is working for others instead of you. Yep, progress.