What can Windows do that Linux can't?

[Dragonbite]

For Linux OS there is no equivalent sw, but the most similar application id Puddletag, that comes with a limited number of features as compared with Mp3tag.

Open source does "one thing and does it well" rather than throw in a huge amount of features people may or may not want to use.

What about a VM? Wine/Crossover/PlayOnLinux?

[freakalad]

<ctrl><shift><esc> - a decent/good task manager. sorry, but linux equivalents just don't cut it.
windows explorer as a file manager is actually superb - nautilus is a somewhat pale comparison.

[Dragonbite]

<ctrl><shift><esc> - a decent/good task manager. sorry, but linux equivalents just don't cut it.
windows explorer as a file manager is actually superb - nautilus is a somewhat pale comparison.

There are some aspects of the Windows file manager I prefer over Nautilus.. and I prefer Nautilus over Thunar. I think KDE's file manager (Dolphin?) is one of the better ones overall.

My biggest issues are usually with accessing network devices and drives.

[J Tinsby]

It can't run my VR program "Dragon Naturally Speaking."

[jimmy-frydkaer]

You mean beside eating up your money?

One thing Windows can do "out of the box" is letting everyone into your system effortlessly GNU/Linux does not do that. Open door/ Closed door.

[Peter_Ring]

What can Windows do that Linux can't?

1. Continue to successfully extort more and more money from an ignorant public.
2. Continue to successfully extort billions of dollars per year in training revenues from IT professionals to keep their skill set marketable.
3. Force users to "buy" a new copy with each new computer, even though they already paid for it before on each of their last 5 computers.
4. Repeatedly introduce new UI concepts that are harder to use, less user friendly and change everything uses were accustom to using for no good reason (other than the profit $ of point 1,2 & 3 above) and still get people to pay money for it again.
5. Strong arm hardware manufacturers into using "Windows" as the default OS on new computers.
6. Introduce new standards that require the purchase of a new copy of something users have already paid for, repeatedly, while not providing backward compatibility thus obsoleting trillions of man hours of programming work and thousands of applications, all while getting paid to do it.
7. Continue to redefine new limits for "Code-Bloat", thus requiring faster hardware and more memory and storage, just to keep using a computer for web browsing and email.
8. Strong arm, er ah, I mean "Convince" software companies that porting their applications to Linux would not be profitable.
9. Provide ignorant users that warm and fuzzy feeling that they are keeping up with the pack by using the newest, latest, greatest technology.

My older bother, who is actually a pretty smart guy, recently asked me who uses Linux?

I smiled and said, well, besides names like IBM and Oracle which by implication means any and all fortune 500 companies on some level, an overwhelming majority of the web servers on the planet so anyone that has ever used the Internet, pretty much everyone in the English speaking world that has electricity and many that don't speak a word of English all over the world. Oh yeah, and YOU do... I then pointed to 3 devices in his living room, his DVR, cable/modem router and his WDTV media player that all use some flavor of the Linux Kernel, generally in form of BusyBox.

The root question here in general is a little like asking, "So, what can a record player play that a CD player or MP3 player can't?" The question sort of pre-supposes that some music is somehow incompatible with an mp3 player? Nuts right? Well, records, of course! But excluding the argument that analog sound recordings are better than digital, no rational human being could "reasonably" argue that a record player is somehow better than an mp3 player. In the case of this question, the metaphorical "record" is software that designed solely for Windows, and even a lot of that will run on Linux under WINE or at least VirtualBox.

It reminds me of a question a girl I once knew asked me, "So what CAN a computer do?" Not surprisingly, there was no answer I could give her that she could wrap her head around. I resolved to boil it down to "Whatever you tell it to..." and stopped dating her... , and yes, not to feed the stereo type, but she was blonde. Which you could tell by the white-out on her screen...

I would ask all who take the time to read this to consider point #7 above. In September of 1995, when Windows 95 was introduced, the basic requirements were about 4-8mb of RAM and about 60-90mb of disk space on a 60-90Mhz Pentium. Today's Windows is more like 4gb of RAM, 8-16gb for just the OS and another 50-80gb for the bare min of applications. That's an increase of nearly a 1,000 times in the most basic requirements to run the OS before we even begin to consider MIPS differential in raw processing speed of the today's processors (Pentium @ 188 MIPS vs i7 477k @ 127,273 MIPS). While we can certainly do more with Windows today than in 1995, any rational human being must recognize that it is nowhere near proportional to the increase in requirements AND that the vast majority of increased capability has nothing at all to do with any innovation derived from or driven by the Windows OS. And this is progress?

God that felt good to say out loud!

[DVD-R]

I have to use Windows in order to run certain Amateur radio applications that have been developed for the Windows platform only.
ACEHF originally developed for U.S. Navy submarine communications (hf propagation)
EZNEC Antenna modeling software
EnGenLog Not only a logging software, but it displays a graphical world map showing the path taken by the RF signal.
POWERSDR is a software used to control a Software Defined Radio hardware system.
Otherwise, I spend most of my time in a Linux environment..... much faster and more secure.

[Pelvur]

Linux can't recognize the correct definition of my TV when connected through HDMI. Vista did it.

[wantdownload]

I think that there are definitely driver issues that Windows has ironed out, but distros like Ubuntu haven't (and that's because hardware makers are tough, not bagging on ubuntu), also I feel that a large portion of creative professionals like designers feel the need to use Photoshop, and After Effects and at this time it isn't available for any Linux distros. Also, let's be honest, most linux distros take a fair bit of tweaking when installing on the average computer, this is past the average persons technical knowledge, so they simply don't bother installing it.

[Dragonbite]

I know people that don't give Linux or open source the time of day because they cannot run Adobe Photosohop, Dreamweaver and those are "industry standards". She won't consider anything ELSE. To some degree I understand, but I also think it is that she doesn't want to learn anything else.

I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't a reason for a significant number of people.