[wil421]

Airport staff need to be able to support them. Not HN types.

Most people know how to use a windows computer.

Most IT desktop support knows how to use and manage windows. Even building facilities folks can help support them.

Microsoft makes it easy to manage a fleet of computers. They also provide first party (along with thousands of 3rd parties) training and certifications for it.

Windows are the de facto Business Machines.

Most signage companies use windows.

Finding someone who knows a BSD is not easy.

[advael]

Most people don't know how to tell what's going wrong with a windows computer

A windows computer that relies on cloud services, as an increasing and often nonsensical subset of the functionality on one does, can often only be fixed by Microsoft directly

Microsoft intervenes directly and spends billions of dollars annually on anticompetitive tactics to ensure that other options are not considered by businesses

And with this monopoly, it has shielded itself from having to compete on even crucial dimensions like reliability, maintainability, or security

[Osiris]

Signage isn't running full-fat Windows. They are using stripped down embedded focused versions.

[commercialnix]

> Airport staff need to be able to support them.

I know of a very small airport where what is displayed over the HDMI part is essentially Firefox at fullscreen with powersaving disabled so the screen does not blank. Some of them are Intel NUC, some of them are Raspberry Pi with HSM in a box. These devices basically "boot to Firefox" with relevant credentials read off internal TPM/HSM.

Those among airport staff who do not know how to use a computer at all can get them working by just plugging them in.

> Most people know how to use a windows computer.

They know enough to open a browser.

> Most IT desktop support knows how to use and manage windows.

They know how to cope with Windows, at best.

> Finding someone who knows a BSD is not easy.

BSD is everywhere and in far more places than Windows, like almost every car sold after 2014. But you never ever see BSD because it's already-working with nothing for the end customer to do.

[jjav]

> Airport staff need to be able to support them. Not HN types.

Airport staff are not debugging the windows install. They power-cycle it and see what happens, otherwise call the vendor to come in.

So there's no actual reason other than lazyness to build kiosk mode computers on windows.

[mkoubaa]

Airport staff don't maintain infrastructure, at best they maintain front ends to it

[wil421]

You consider signage infra? Same with conference rooms. Most of the places I have worked have facilities type people working on it. Tier 3 is usually a direct phone call away for them

You would send an engineer into an airport to reboot a sign?

[mkoubaa]

Of course not. Thats the point I was making

[NegativeK]

At some airports, staff does maintain infrastructure.

At others, airline staff is responsible for it. And just like airport staff, a tech who can deal with Firefox on Windows is cheaper than someone who can troubleshoot the same in Linux or a more custom system.

[fifteen1506]

Yup.

Another take to be done here is: computers shouldn't have unfiltered internet access all the time.

Whitelist it and once every 3 days open the internet gates.

(Easier said than done)

[late2part]

I know a BSD. Half of the things you wrote above are wrong.