Let's do a car analogy (...) Your suggested solution: Have car manufacturers put a lock on the engine hood that only they have the key to....
And there we have it: your analogy falls at the first line because
Windows is exactly like a car with the hood bolted down.You keep going on about how wrong that is, and how anyone should be able to get under the hood, modify things, even deliberately or accidentally break things. You claim that this level of access does not affect the integrity of the car. You might be right, you might be wrong, I really don't care! But the crucial point is that
Windows is not like that: Windows is a car with the hood bolted down.Microsoft has the keys to the hood and can do anything they want to it. They also lend the keys to carefully chosen third parties, but they always test what those third parties have done and only when everything seems OK do they let the third party install their new component to the engine. I believe this is almost identical to the way Apple works with MacOS.
I am not trying to convince you that this is a good model! I am trying to explain that this is how Windows works. You or I don't have to agree with it. But it is what it is.
If only you can open your mind to the fact that
Windows is just different (not necessarily better, not worse, but very different) from Linux, I am certain that you will see the validity of my arguments.
Yes, my arguments are completely wrong and largely irrelevant to a Linux owner/admin like yourself. You have pointed that out countless times and I am obliged to take your word for it because you are a Linux expert.
But we are talking about Windows: a car with the hood bolted down that only Microsoft can open, and anyone who wants access needs Microsoft's agreement.Yes, I know how difficult this is for you to stomach - you've made that
oh, so clear! But try to put aside how you
think it should be, and please at least try to embrace how it
actually is. Nobody gets the keys to the hood without Microsoft's agreement, and nobody gets to install anything under the hood without Microsoft (or Apple) approving it.
At risk of putting too much reliance on an imperfect analogy, Microsoft has kitted out the cockpit with a wide array of controls (APIs)
which they have designed and built, and which are
the only way the user* can interact with whatever is under the hood. * (and, breaking out of the analogy, applications)
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I think any reasonable person would answer my questions in the following way:
1/ Do you agree that most Windows users have a limited understanding of what Windows is and what it does? And that most of them have never written a line of code? And most of them aren't interested in the workings of Windows, they just want to get their work done, their emails sent, their Facebook page updated? YES
2/ Do you agree that a BSOD is a pretty serious inconvenience for these users? That when a BSOD happens, most of these users would have no idea how to fix it? Even for system admins, it's a major ballache? YES
3/ And in addition, do you agree that BSODs, especially widespread ones like CrowdStrike, reflect very badly on Microsoft (whether fairly or not)? YES
4/ Not a question, a statement: Windows is a car with the hood bolted down, and only Microsoft and its trusted partners can unlock it and make changes.
My arguments are based on this clear, four-part foundation, which describes what Windows is, and how it gets used. It may seem a profoundly wrong model - objectionable, even - to
@zilp, but that is the world of Windows.
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Having laid that foundation, later on today I am going to review my earlier arguments and demonstrate how they are not "irrelevant" and "non sequiteurs" in the world of Windows. We need to stop talking about Linux now, because
we are not talking about how Windows should be, but how it is.