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by corty 2033 days ago
Yes. I have been forced to use Windows for communication, and especially the trifecta of Outlook, Teams and Word opened my eyes as to why a lot of my colleagues weren't getting stuff done and were always hung up on weird problems I couldn't understand. Like "why is the reply on this email TOFU and doesn't even answer half the questions asked below": well, because writing proper replies in Outlook is impossible. "Why does this document look like crap even after someone has spent a week editing in all suggested changes?": well, Word doesn't do proper merging of stuff or proper templates. "Why didn't he answer my chat questions from yesterday?": well, because no proper highlights or working history in teams chats...

I feel for all people forced to work like this. I cannot understand employers accepting the massive suck on productivity this causes. For my own sanity, I will charge a premium or avoid such environments altogether.

Btw., if possible a workaround for a lot of the usual driver/VPN/that-one-special-application headaches that force employees to use windows is to get approval for vmware, virtualbox or something, install yourself a linux VM and use that in fullscreen for most things. But of course that is not always possible.
1 comments
black_puppydog 2033 days ago
I'm personally thanking god^Wsome good folks at MS for WSL2. Which, from my understanding, is a very well integrated VM, really. But even so, the performance of that thing is just not what it should be.
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corty 2033 days ago
WSL2 doesn't really cut it. Can't use my own window manager/desktop environment, graphics are kinda slow and sluggish, hardware passthrough is worse than in vmware, etc.

It might be ok for the occasional Linux tool, but I want the other thing: the occasional windows tool, but the rest to be Linux.

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black_puppydog 2033 days ago
Hadn't really crossed my mind that the vmware vm might be more performant than the one baked into windows by MS. That's a bit embarassing, isn't it? :P

Ever since I realized I was fighting a system I have no intention of mastering anymore (my brain cycles are too dear to me for that) I stopped engaging and just accepted it as the nuisance it is.

But "just use vmware" seems like an easy enough fix that I might actually go down that route from now on, thanks!

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