[naikrovek]

the importance of "hi" vs. "hello" is so low, so far down the list of bad messages that it's on the part of the long strip of paper that it is located about halfway back from its trip to the moon.

this is what you choose to complain about? your life must be exceptionally trouble-free.

[tomc1985]

They're trying to come off as friendly and inviting, but I read it as half-assed.

Perception is a bitch.

If I had my way we'd dispense with all these stupid pleasantries. My computer is not my friend, Windows is not my friend, and Microsoft and their awful marketing droids (who almost certainly guided their choice of words here) are most definitely not my friend. Who decided that Windows needs to talk to me like a middle-aged soccer mom (or an argonian shopkeeper)?

Nothing wrong with "Welcome", "Error 404: File Not Found", "Bad command or file name", etc etc etc. (Ok, maybe the last one is a bit cryptic, but it is telling me exactly what went wrong without any fluff, which is how all software should be.)

Computers are our servants, not our friends. They should act like it, and we should stop trying to humanize them.

[Avshalom]

>> My computer is not my friend, Windows is not my friend

>> "Hi" is how I greet the coworker I don't really even like that much

So you're saying they nailed the pitch perfectly.

[tomc1985]

touche

[wutbrodo]

> but I read it as half-assed.

Why is formality any more natural for a user interface than casualness? This seems like an extremely arbitrary personal preference masquerading as reasonable criticism, no different from getting riled up about the fact that Windows default theme is blue when it should _obviously_ be green.

> Computers are our servants, not our friends. They should act like it.

I had a live-in housekeeper for a chunk of my life, which is roughly as close to "servant" as one gets in the modern West; we communicated in normal, casual English. If you are going around insisting that service workers address you like an aristocrat, you're an enormous asshole.

[sgtnoodle]

I think a big part of it is the fact that it's a full-screen captive display, with an excessively long timeout. If it was a stupid little popup in the corner that said, "Hi, welcome to Windows!" It would have been cute.

If you're going to get all up in someone's face and demand their complete attention, there's a high bar for expected politeness, or at least some entertaining wit. "Hi" is just lazy and conceited. "Welcome. Please wait while we prepare your desktop," would be tolerable. A Maxis style status bar rambling on about "reticulating splines" would be funny.

To relate it to your experience with a housekeeper, if a housekeeper shouted your name from across the room, tapped you on the shoulder repeatedly, and then unplugged the TV you were watching to get your attention, you would expect them to say something like, "my apologies sir, the den is on fire," rather than, "lol, howdy."

A computer isn't a servant, though. It's a tool. A circular saw with a sassy personality means a trip to the hospital...

[wutbrodo]

> if a housekeeper shouted your name from across the room, tapped you on the shoulder repeatedly, and then unplugged the TV you were watching to get your attention, you would expect them to say something like, "my apologies sir, the den is on fire," rather than, "lol, howdy

You're talking about something completely different, urgency rather than formality. In the rude interruption example you gave, you combined the two despite them having nothing to do with each other. "holy shit bro the den is on fire!" would be an infinitely more appropriate reason for a rude interruption than "my esteemed sir, how goes your day".

As I said, it's an arbitrary aesthetic preference. GP's irritation that computers dont address users as aristocrats makes just as much (little) sense as getting angry that they don't shower the user with compliments about your appearance.

Like, it's cool if they're into that, but it's super weird to describe it as a general principle of UIs

[tomc1985]

Computers don't have feelings, they process data. I don't want servants, I have computers for that. So how I talk to them shouldn't matter.

In fact, if you have a servant at all, YOU are an enormous asshole. Nobody should live in the shadow of someone far more privileged than they.

[haimez]

That’s how you feel about computers, but that’s not how the average windows user feels about their computer. I’m not saying the average Windows user considers their computing device to be their close personal friend- but there’s a reason that the blue screen of death was phased out. Nobody (not even you) wants a hostile relationship with their own device (eg: BSoD) but most users would prefer to think that their own device is at least their confidant if not their ally.

[tomc1985]

Would a confidant or ally obscure the reasons for problems behind a friendly face? Would they use subtlety and emotional manipulation to push you to use the things that they want you to use?

Is my computer my ally/confidant, or is it trying to control me from the shadows?

An ally does not behave in the way that Windows has been programmed to behave. It should be straight and narrow with me when something is wrong. Not friendly and fake-diplomatic.

Once again, we are shown an example of how business greed and the desires of average, illiterate users ruin computing for the people that understand them and are capable of making the most with them -- the power users. Of course, rather than spending the extra effort needed to elevate ordinary users to a more literate status, we happily stoop to their level as it makes obscuring the various telemetry and profit machinery embedded in Windows far easier.

[woojoo666]

It seems like you have more of an issue with Windows specifically, not with an OS saying "hi" on the setup screen

[flohofwoe]

Lol, I have a very hostile relationship with my Windows machine since around the Windows 8 era, but that's entirely on Microsoft ;)

A user shouldn't be victim to the whims of some far away UI/UX designer who only designs for what some data fortune teller thinks is their "average user". Computers are machines, designers need to stop anthropomorphizing them.

At the very least give me options to switch that crap off.

PS: But by far my main gripe with the "modern" UI philosophy is: a "No" means frigging *No*, it doesn't mean "not now" or "maybe later", I also can guarantee that I won't change my mind (and if I do I will find that option in the settings window myself, thank you). Not offering a simple "no" in a yes/no choice is an insult to the user's intelligence, it's as simple as that.

[autoexec]

> Nobody (not even you) wants a hostile relationship with their own device (eg: BSoD) but most users would prefer to think that their own device is at least their confidant if not their ally.

I have a very hard time believing that Microsoft cares at all about avoiding giving users the appearance of a hostile relationship with their own device. So many choices they make (or take away from us) are way too user hostile for that to be their concern.

They have no problems making it painfully clear that if you are running windows then the device you paid for belongs to Microsoft and they will dictate what it does whenever they want, along with what you are or are not allowed to do with your own system.

[sgtnoodle]

It's not like the "blue screen of death" was a feature. It was the kernel aborting due to an unrecoverable failure. They "phased it out" by making the kernel more robust because folk like their kernels to not abort, not because the blue screen was an interior UI choice.

I remember getting a mac to "blue screen" back in 2008 or so, by repeatedly plugging in a Logitech mouse while pushing its buttons down.

[SturgeonsLaw]

Also Windows still bluescreens from time to time, only now it has a giant sad face emoticon, with the error code a tiny label tucked away in the fine print down the bottom.

[wizofaus]

"Nobody should live in the shadow of someone far more privileged than they" - pretty sure 99% of the world's population does do exactly that...

[josefx]

It is bad enough that it fucking talks. First time I encountered that it screamed at me from the other side of the building because someone at Microsoft decided greeting new users with speakers turned to eleven is welcoming.

[salawat]

Or the condescending statement from Cortana about agreeing to the Windows EULA, or else... Ya know...<contemptuous pause> No Windows.

Seriously. It is the one thing that if I didn't need a Windows test system, I'd reject it every damn time just for being there. In fact, if they were a human, they'd be kindly asked to evict themselves from my domicile in perpetuity.

[tomc1985]

The tonality of all the new copy in Windows 10 is just bad. It's like a bunch of nontechnicals got together and tried to cuteify the OS.

I had totally forgotten about how obnoxious Cortana was (I always turned that shit off first thing), or the condescending text that accompanies large updates requiring you to re-certify that no, you don't want to use Microsoft Edge, thank you

Don't even want to imagine what Windows 11 is like, none of my PCs can run it (thank god)

[dvsfish]

While still bad in that way, its probably better than 10. It has a heap of its own issues, but my personal experience hasn't been quite as grating as far as the language is concerned. It's a healthy reasonably unoffensive middle ground of informative/understandable and casual. W11 has bigger issues than language.

[toyg]

Well, you chose to complain about somebody complaining about an item you deem trivial - so, by your own premise, your comment is effectively "$trivial ^ 3".

[_ktx2]

Just taking a step back here, I'm willing to bet OP and some of the other folks replying (like here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32338845) are just fulfilling predictions made here: https://spectrum.ieee.org/study-nobody-wants-social-robots-t...

This piece focused on a machines appearance, but later they comment that really what's at the root of peoples issues (the people that have them) is that they resent the anthropomophizing of machines in general - which I would take to include speech.

[triyambakam]

This is an internet forum (kinda), ya know?