Hearing someone has windows problems

I just helped someone delete a file that they couldn't delete in Windows by booting into a Linux live USB, mounting their HD there and deleting it in Linux.

I think it was due to the filename containing special characters or even maybe that it was over 255 characters long. How is it 2023 and Windows still has problems like this?

You can disable the path length limit on Windows 10 by editing registry or group policy.
- The person was running Windows 11. I sent a detailed article about it to them as well (with some thousands of words), but in the end they even found it easier to just boot into Linux and delete it.
- who the fuck knows how to do that anyway
Yup, I have a few folders of classical music on an old hard drive that I can't delete in Windows because the name is too long. I just haven't bothered connecting them to Linux yet.
- I once naively used Windows file copy utility to transfer my huge MP3 library to an external hard drive and later lost the originals. I came to find out it silently failed to copy any songs containing certain nonalphanumeric characters. To this day I’m still traumatized when I try to locate some song and find it’s not there. Burn in hell Windows.

„Hey youre good with computers. Can you fix my annoying Windows specific issue on my poorly setup laptop that has a bunch of other issues too?“

There is no operating system that doesn't experience stupid problems. macOS probably has the least, but it makes up for that by being generally underwhelming.
- The Windows specific issues that average users have are usually caused by bloatware that comes preinstalled on the machine or some obscure driver issue (which Linux can also have - maybe even more so than Windows).
  MacOS has the least issues for me but I disagree with it being underwhelming. Might be an unpopular opinion in this community but I quite enjoy using it. It’s a fully fledged unix system with some really good software.
- Honestly, all the issues I have personally found on linux were either fixable, or I knew the cause of. I cannot say the same of windows, even though I used windows for far longer.
  It's just that, in comparison, windows is a black box. And if something goes wrong, you may just be shit out of luck.

At this point I don't help people with non Linux computer issues anymore. I'll happily help people with Linux because I actually know how to. If a family member wants to build a pc I'll help but if they want Windows on it, they have to figure out the licensing and installation hoop jumping themselves because this stuff is designed to be equally difficult to use for users of all skill levels. You're either typing sfc /scannow or reinstalling when that doesn't fix it. I'll gladly take the obscure and user-fixable Linux issues over having to reinstall Windows once a year.

My family asks for help with their phones, which I'm happy to provide.
The problem is they always hand me an iPhone.
Strange, I've literally never had to do that and don't have any issues with "jumping through hoops."
Linux isn't bad, but outside of Nobara Linux I've gotten more roadblocks installing it than any Windows upgrade or fresh install. It just really makes me wonder if you guys are operating on two decade old Windows expectations and pretending that's still standard, or you're just being obtuse about how "difficult" it is. It's pretty damn simple. I've literally walked people who have no idea what computers are through an install by phone, that's a pretty good test of how idiot proof you've made your process.
- Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I use both systems on a daily basis, and I'm far more likely to have to do a clean install of Linux when shit breaks than with Windows. And like you said, the Windows installer requires virtually no configuration outside of selecting the drive you want to install on.
  Once you run a simple powershell script to remove the garbage, Windows is a pretty solid OS.
- but outside of Nobara Linux I've gotten more roadblocks installing it than any Windows upgrade or fresh install.
  Than you haven't tried installing Linux Mint. There's nothing easier.
I feel like it's a good idea to do a clean install every once in a while regardless of your OS. Shit gets cluttered, you have programs installed you'll never use again, etc.
The trick is to keep a setup script maintained so the reinstall is painless.
And I'm not sure where you're getting your info that installing or licensing Windows is a hassle. It's much easier to do a clean install of Windows than it is for Linux, and the installer pretty much requires no configuration.
- It’s much easier to do a clean install of Windows than it is for Linux, and the installer pretty much requires no configuration.
  Bullshit. Putting an installer medium in and booting into the preconfigured Windows system is not the install process. The actual install process starts after that, when you have to disable / purge all the crapware and unnecessary services to get a somewhat usable system.
  The hardest part of a Linux installation is to choose a distro, and set up a bootable USB stick while still on a windows system. After that it's
  boot into live CD
  click the install button
  select a keyboard layout
  let it auto-partition, because you're a first time user
  let it detect your network (wifi can be a bit tricky depending on chipset, admitted)
  choose a computer name, root password (if any) and a main (first) user
  complete installation & wait for 5-15 minutes. Done - you now have a working system
  Now for Windows, you still don't have any useful software. Whereas on Linux you just select whatever you need from the package manager.
  Also, when is the last time you actually set up a Windows from scratch? The main reason people think it's easier, is because they use OEM versions and never actually install anything.
- The entire point of an operating system is to allow your computer to run programs. Blaming users for breaking it by having installed programs, literally THE thing operating systems were invented to do, just isn't acceptable.
  If you pirated the right software you used to be able to backup and restore your windows programs between installs but I doubt that's a thing that works anymore. It's easier to just use Linux and avoid having issues as frequently.
  And installing windows isn't a hassle? LOL, good one. I watched someone take all day just to get windows 11 to recognize a m2 ssd once on a pretty normal run of the mill Gigabyte motherboard. During that time, an installation of arch was performed just to help troubleshoot and it worked right away.