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by cartoonfoxes 3329 days ago
> If you want to run batch operations, use the right product.

Sorry, but this does come across as a bit asinine.

What's the right product for running software written for Microsoft Windows, if not Microsoft Windows?

"Users running their applications" isn't just Grandma on Facebook, or your little sister playing Candy Crush Saga. Microsoft's unquestionable strength has been it's support for enterprise, small-business and professional desktop users. There is a lot of deserved anger thrown their way as a result of deliberate decisions to force flexibility and choice-limiting behavior down the throat of their core market.

My shop is small, but I can count COMSOL, SolidWorks, OrCAD, LabVIEW, various SPICE frontends, and a dozen other small odds and ends for instrument control and data capture without even leaving the engineering suite. All of which are going to be forever stuck on Win 7, at this rate.
1 comments
UK-AL 3329 days ago
Most of those are products that are not expected run over night in batching mode.

You may get the need to have things to run overnight using engineering, simulation, rendering products with some sort of long running process. But these normally have server component that you install onto Windows Server, which the client offloads to.

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cartoonfoxes 3329 days ago
> Most of those are products that are not expected run over night in batching mode.

I'll be sure to let them know that long-running computations deskside are now only an experimental feature /s

In all seriousness though, we've managed over a decade without the need for dedicated compute nodes along with the costs that would entail. The only case I can make for that right now is that current Windows now ships with unpredictable uptime.

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rhodysurf 3329 days ago
The good part of this is that I prefer using Linux for these things anyways and the instability of windows has forced both our government clients and our office to focus half our efforts into supporting Linux correctly.
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glenneroo 3328 days ago
Good luck if you're in a branch which has Windows-only software, such as 2D/3D graphics. Blender is definitely offering some good competition, but as I hear it from CG artists, it's still not quite there yet for most projects. If your pipeline is dependent on Adobe software such as Photoshop, Illustrator or After Effects, then you are also stuck with Windows. Rendering (2D or 3D) jobs can often take days if not weeks to finish.
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