first written: 14:47 4/11/2025
I think foremost what I have become comfortable with on Windows is its window management scheme. On Linux I have been using a tiling window manager in some form for the last 8 years, right now I use a Gnome extension to do so. Which is just to point out that I have become quite accustomed to automatic tiling. Windows does not have this, and while there are third-party projects like Komorebi they all have noticeable hitches, because of certain expected window behaviors of other programs. That weakness aside I quite like being able to quickly split a desktop into two panes by using <win + right arrowkey> alt tabbing to the next program and <win + left arrowkey>. I find using more than two windows falls into sheer excess ( a belief I share with native linux tilers aswell). A standard 16:9 widescreen caters itself well to being split in two roughly document shaped regions. Any other windows should be dumped into virtual desktops/workspaces. Its' quite a shame it took Windows so long to adopt virtual workspaces, and maybe even more shameful how it decides to navigate them.
## a brief aside about windows virtual desktop navigation.
So as it seems to me the way Windows wants you to first use virtual desktops is by pressing <win + tab> which will pull up a disgusting and cluttered overview of: your desktops and recently opened files split into days. On every occasion I have screen shared me opening this overview Windows has snitched in vivid detail all the porn I was looking at in the last three days (it includes previews of the images).
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- <ctrl + win + left/right arrowkey> to navigate left or right of your current workspace.
- <win + ctrl + d> to create a new workspace (it will move you to the new workspace).
- <win + ctrl + f4> to close the current workspace.
So first what I like about it. I like that because work spaces are relative to each other (positioned left or right to each other as opposed to being defined as workspace 1, workspace 2, etc.) that you're prompted to treat them more disposabley. You create and destroy them on a whim. I think this kind of attitude should be adopted my more desktop environments. But thats about it for what I like.
Before a more analytical criticism: what is up with <win + ctrl + f4>? I thought emacs was bad with its' degenerate spiraling key chords. That is a spider hand of a hotkey if I've ever seen one.
Something to address about the weird key combinations is that the available key space (not yet claimed short cuts) in Windows is already short and with each feature becomes shorter and shorter. So I don't envy having to make those kind of design decisions.
Because each desktop is relative to each other, sometimes I find it hard to know where I am. I have 4 named desktops and I will only very rarely spawn additional temporary desktops. They are: 1. Main, 2. Davinci (my video editing software), 3. Misc (I usually have essay writing stuff here), and 4. Emacs. To name a virtual desktop you must use the <win + tab> overview, hover over the generic name of the desktop, double click, and then you can type in a new name. Named spaces do not have any extra privileges so if you accidentally close it, its gone. Knowing where I am is relegated solely to context clues (less I wish to consult the slow to load overview), which most of the time is actually sufficient. But when I do find myself lost (usually because I am reading multiple documents across each desktop) it leads to a reeaallll yearning for a workspace indicator. Most Linux desktop environments include a workspace indicator on a taskbar: sometimes it just reads the name of the current desktop, sometimes it shows all desktop names and the current one is bolded, some show little previews of each desktop and highlight your current one, and Gnome employs this cure little geometrical design with your active desktop being big and wide and the other ones are reduced to dots.
I can live without static desktop movements. Static desktop movements defined as the standard in Linux desktop environments where upon pressing a modifier key (like super or alt) and a number will move you to the corresponding desktop. But windows doesn't do much to make for its' lost ground. You cannot even move windows inbetween the desktops with hotkeys. I think that is the best argument for static desktop movements, every core movement is just 2 keys away. As in a standard Linux DE to move a window to virtual desktop 3 it would be (modkey + shift + 3), the specific desktop doesn't matter, but notice that if I have a window relatively 3 desktops away I still only need one command.
I feel the need to also explain that I understand that using Window's PowerToys software you can change the hotkeys and you can implement some movement functions. I have never bothered implementing it, partially lazy, but I am also more interested in how Windows wants its users to interact with its' desktop.
( this is the end to the brief aside. )
I have done a fair tearing down of Window's virtual desktop solution, but I feel it important to affirm that it is sufficient for me. Which is probably the theme to my time spent on windows. Something maybe lost because windows is so oppressively dominant, is that it is quite bullish in it's own way. The Windows ecosystem (which is to say most gui software) relies on a bunch of expected behaviors dictated by Windows. Some make sense, like having a button that closes windows and some that don't like the start menu. Even in the advent of a new platform such Microsoft's newest iteration Windows 11, these behaviors have a weight so burdensome that moving it could jeopardize the integrity of everything else. I am not making an argument about identity or form because Window's features and behaviors don't follow any kind of form or identity. Rather I am arguing some sort of mental gravity belonging to these core functions.
There exists a trope of a YouTube video, (which I personally despise) "Windows user tries Linux and gives their take". I find this humiliation ritual completely tedious and indicative of everything I hate about independent media, which is just to say unprompted and completely uninformed meandering. The ultimate flaw with this premise is that Windows user will bring Windows expectations to Linux; something that is not trying to be anything like Windows. On Windows you are catered to by almost every notable software vendor and when a Windows user is prompted to use either an alternative or live without a specific piece of software they do not take it well--.
This is what I think is the best case for Windows and I can be sympathetic to. People who would happen upon this will likely have spent a lot of time and money on their computer and to compromise on what you can do on your expensive time sink is a premise that is understandably upsetting.
It must be said too that Windows cannot run many pieces of software. But the sound minded will easily agree that all the software people want is for Windows: after all it makes up more than 2/3rds of the user space.
### a tiny anecdote.
Windows doesn't natively support BTRFS. Windows has been dedicated to NTFS since 2008, and in perfect Windows fashion it doesn't play nice with any other operating systems. I have used BTRFS for all of my (non windows) drives for a few years now. I think BTRFS is pretty nifty, but I don't feel a particular loyalty to it. To me most filesystems are about the same: part ignorance, but part technological parity. It seems widely uncontroversial to say that all of the file systems developed in the last 20 years are all adequate.
My Western Digital Blue 8 terabyte has been formatted as BTRFS since it came out of the box and I have been nothing but content with it. The only hitches I have experienced have come out of using the unofficial BTRFS drivers developed by one Mark Harmstone. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Harmstone, for being a not payed open source project it sure does open files, write changes, and relocate data. The aim of ire is squarely at Microsoft's malicious primitiveness. Its' unwillingness to open itself up to other file systems I think is another example of Window's bullheadedness.
## my sympathies
Computers are expensive, right now especially in the face of some disastrous economic policy by the leader of the free world. So when people who try linux only to find that it doesn't play league of legends or VR Chat, I grimace, but I do not feel the need to humiliate. If this thing that sits next to your desk; making your feet warm (and not your dog) is your way to settle down after work then please use your desktop for that. Windows isn't great, but it will play your video games and will work with any peripheral released in the last 10 years (and Linux will work perfectly with anything release before that ;P).
My relation with Windows is less of a matter of affection and more of a truce. It is a truce in the sense that it is a real battle. Windows has set the standard for computers since before I was born and its' stains have seeped into the cracks of the internet conversations that I indulge in. When trying to evaluate such a behemoth the likes of Windows it is hard to not get lost in a sense of ideologies, so without trying to argue with it on matters of virtue I simply have accepted it for its' weird obtuse shape. I hope if you take anything away from this it is that Windows is opinionated. It seems like I feel like that has been lost, and I hope I can see more people pointing out the ways Windows isn't just common sense design.
