Why is it so many people hate Windows?

[AoSteve]

I'm not trying to start an argument or fight about how bad Windows is compared to linux. I'm just wondering why so many people that I've talked to seem to simply HATE (And I mean despise with every ounce of their humanity) anything Windows.

Personally, I love using Linux, Ubuntu! and other distro's alike. This doesn't mean I have a hatred for Windows at all. The only thing I don't like about Windows is the fact that I personally think that Microsoft just simply charges too much for the operating system period.

What focuses so much anger and hatred against an operating system. Is it the seller? The operating systems problems? Majority rule of hatred with peer pressure? I just don't seem to understand the reasoning behind the hatred that some people show agains Windows and Microsoft. I actually like Vista compared to previous releases of the Windows operating systems but it still isn't as useful as Ubuntu has been for me over the last few years...

Please don't turn this into an argument, I simply just want to delve into the reasoning that some people that run Linux have for such deep seeded hatred against an operating system.

[jamieh]

They don't. People on a Linux forum are going to though.

Take a look at all the Microsoft Lovers® Home Premium® Plus Edition with SuperPak® over at http://thevistaforums.com/.

[isileth]

There a similar thread in the Italian Ubuntu forum and has already collected a lot of pages of people arguing themselves to death.
I've always used Windows and I started to use Linux at first without doing a lot with it, but with the arrival of Ubuntu I switched my home computing world to Linux.
I think that this "hate" is because people need someone to be the enemy and for some people using something different means being different and, perhaps, better than other people.
It gives them bragging rights being able to use "LINUX" and the poor souls who still use Windows are seen as fools.
This is not only a Linux thing, though, I've seen MAC users who thinks that you are a sub-human if you use Windows and if you dare to say that perhaps even Windows made something right, they go crazy.
Probably they have a religious approach to operating systems, while I prefer to think at them as tools.
I choose Ubuntu because it suits me fine, but from what I've seen of Windows 7, it may gain a place on my notebook next to the Jaunty Jackalope.

[AoSteve]

Well personally, I like Vista, and I'm anticipating seeing Windows 7. But you make a great point isileth. I guess a LOT of it would stem from the "I'm better then you because I run something different..."

I guess you could even sit back and see it as the same as the "Chevy vs. Ford vs. Dodge" arguments on the truck forums I visit once in a blue moon then. However, I still don't get it. It's just software! I run windows because I have to for my school applications. I also have Ubuntu as well but it doesn't mean I hate Vista. I actually like Vista and how it runs on this machine. My wife can easily sit down and compose some of her music playlists and it's all drag and drop and she's familiar with it.

I guess I just don't think like many people do. Just because I drive a Chevy doesn't make me any better then my friend who has a Ford. :\

[derekeverett]

I gotta throw my two cents in here...

I do have a dislike of Windows generally speaking. Mostly cause it's slow and bloated.. takes forever to boot up and even launching one single app usually takes more time than I am used too with Ubuntu.. or the mac for that matter.

I also don't like all the OEM add-ons with your typical store bought machine.

I don't like IE much either..

[isileth]

I agree with derekeverett about the OEM bloat that sometimes ships with computers.
I read a review of a Sony notebook where they say that it was unasable because of the "premium" software it was installed on it.
I like things that works and Ubuntu works, XP on my netbook works and it seems that Windows 7 will work too.

[AoSteve]

That's a GREAT point he has! I noticed that too with my Laptop when I purchased it. Vista Home Premium and 1500 different useless applications. The HDD failed (Go Fujitsu) and now it ONLY runs Ubuntu because it works. The wireless controlling is SOOO much better, even versus service pack 2 for Vista.. Maybe it was coincidence my HDD failed after installling SP2? LOL!

But aside the point, great example derekeverett! Thanks, you're helping me understand more points why people simply hate Windows. Which is why I posted this in the first place.

[TheBuzzSaw]

Microsoft is an arrogant, unethical company.

Windows is a bloated operating system made by a company who cares very little about customer needs. Money is the #1 priority.

[MikeTheC]

I'm not trying to start an argument or fight about how bad Windows is compared to linux. I'm just wondering why so many people that I've talked to seem to simply HATE (And I mean despise with every ounce of their humanity) anything Windows.

No, I understand, and I'm going to approach this from that standpoint.

The thing you have to understand is that this is not just "rooting for your own team and hating the other". It's not about rivalry. I'm not saying there's no competition between Microsoft and F/OSS; absolutely there is. However, to understand the answer, you need to understand the scope of the question.

There are a lot of people who hate Microsoft, and I am one of them. No, I wouldn't ever literally burn their offices down or harm anyone, but I like to kid around a bit about raising them to the ground, or leading a strike force on the Redmond campus. That being said, Microsoft has brought these feelings of animosity on themselves, both through really bad business practices, wrong-headed business ideologies, and also through (in many but not necessarily all cases) poor underpinnings development and conceptualization.

As a Mac user (yes, I have one foot in each camp here) I got to see what Microsoft could do, first hand, and I got to see what Microsoft had started to become before most people today who own computers had ever gotten into the world of computers. Frankly, just by being in the computer and technology world since the 1980s has given me a perspective in which to properly judge Microsoft.

I don't hate Microsoft because they're rich, or because they're powerful, or frankly because it's the "hip and trendy" thing to do. I hated Microsoft before most people even knew who they were, let alone before it was popular to do so. I hate them for how they've behaved and how they've gotten to where they have in terms of influence and financial success.

[AoSteve]

Point taken clearly MikeTheC. I grew up with windows on the virge. Dos was my playground as a child and I watch it evolve into what it is today. I can understand the behavior and how they have gotten to where they are now..

But does that give the hatred against the operating system, or the designer? Personally, I think MS is a joke for one reason. In my Jr. High days, (Win95 Weeehaw... bleh) I had to do a report on operating systems. I chose MS-Dos, because I knew it by the back of my hand, or though as much as I did. Come to find out, MS-Dos was just a port of an OS that Xerox had designed.

Long story short however, I didn't like MS-Dos because of who made it, but how effective it was at what I liked to do. (Yeah.... Jane of the Jungle, Duke Nukem, ROTT(Rise of the Triad), Descent, and those games from way back when....)

Either way, does that really set the lying down to hating Windows because of who designs it?