Criticism of Microsoft Windows: Difference between revisions

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The various versions of Microsoft's desktop operating system, Windows, have been the target of a number of criticisms over the years.

Criticisms that apply to several or all versions of Windows

Criticisms that apply only to a specific version of Windows

For criticism of Windows Vista, see Criticism of Windows Vista
For criticism of Windows XP, see Criticism of Windows XP
For criticism of Windows 2000, see the criticism section of the Windows 2000 article
For criticism of Windows Me, see the criticism section of the Windows Me article
For criticism of Windows 9x, see the disadvantages section of the Windows 9x article

References

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 ==Criticisms that apply to several or all versions of Windows==
-===Clock management===
-Windows expects the [[real-time clock]] of the computer to run on local time. Since [[Windows NT]] there has been a [[Windows Registry|registry]] entry <code>RealTimeIsUniversal=1</code>, but this feature is not supported or fully implemented yet (including [[Windows Vista|Vista]]), so it is not possible to run the real-time clock on [[Coordinated Universal Time]], which may be desirable to, for example, avoid problems with multi-[[boot]] environments or [[disk image]]s and [[daylight saving time]], because Windows changes the real-time clock when switching to or from daylight saving time. However, other operating systems or other instances of Windows cannot know if the real-time clock has been changed already.<ref>{{cite news
-| url=http://support.microsoft.com/kb/899855
-| title=The BIOS Real Time Clock is set back one hour after you deploy a Windows XP image or Windows Vista image to a computer
-| last=Microsoft
-| first=
-| date=2007-07-02
-| accessdate=2008-09-25
-}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
-| url=http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/mswish/ut-rtc.html
-| title=IBM PC Real Time Clock should run in UT
-| last=Kuhn
-| first=Markus
-| date=2001-07-02 / 2006-11-02
-| accessdate=2008-09-25
-}}</ref>
-===File sort order===
-Starting with Windows XP, Microsoft introduced a new default sort order for files in the [[Windows Explorer]] file manager which can lead to confusion. There is no simple configuration option to switch back to the usual alphanumeric sort order; instead it is necessary to edit the [[Windows registry]] manually, which is rather complicated and dangerous, or use special software.<ref>{{cite news
-| url=http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319827
-| title=The sort order for files and folders whose names contain numerals is different in Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 than it is in Windows 2000
-| last=Microsoft
-| first=
-| date=2007-08-28
-| accessdate=2008-10-06
-}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
-| url=http://www.ghacks.net/2007/11/09/change-the-windows-xp-file-sort-order/
-| title=Change the Windows XP File Sort Order
-| last=Brinkmann
-| first=Martin
-| date=2007-11-09
-| accessdate=2008-10-06
-}}</ref>
-===Hiding of filename extensions===
-By default, the [[Windows Explorer]] file manager hides [[filename extension]]s, which can lead to security issues, e.g. if a [[Computer_virus|computer virus]] has the name [[ILOVEYOU|"LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs"]], which will be displayed as "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT" and appears to be a text file. However, the hiding of filename extensions can be disabled via menu settings.<ref>{{cite news
-| url=http://www.granneman.com/techinfo/windows/showextensions/
-| title=Configuring Windows To Show Extensions
-| last=Granneman
-| first=Scott
-| date=2008
-| accessdate=2008-10-16
-}}</ref>
 ==Criticisms that apply only to a specific version of Windows==