There seems to be a lot of bias in this post. I’m not a Windows user, but as a counterpoint…
Bad error messages are a problem everywhere, and providing a bad one is no more intimidating to the average user than telling them to use the CLI. Error codes are simply a pragmatic way to index the volume of errors a system might have. Friendly text would be great, but more context is often needed for that text to be useful. Those who are scared off my an error message will also likely be lost at what to do with a friendly error message as well.
The GUI made computers more approachable, and is largely responsible for their popularity today. Even modern Linux has a GUI, and fewer and fewer people venture into the command line, because of the learning curve. I have interviewed a lot of people for sys admin jobs, so these should not be average users, and a non-trivial number of the people listing Linux on their resume have only used the GUI and were lost when I stuck them in front of a CLI. At the same time, Windows has Powershell, and a brand new Terminal app. Powershell can do a lot, in terms of both interactive commands and scripting. Powershell is better than the Linux terminal in some ways, like returning objects instead of text, so it is easy to filter the result to what’s needed without ending up in regex hell. People aren’t stopped from using Windows with a command line any more than Linux. They even ship Windows Core, which is a CLI version of Windows Server. Users choose not to use the CLI, it doesn’t matter what system it is.
As far as people not wanting change. That’s just people being people. Changing from ksh to bash, or Gnome to KDE, is going to leave people with similar complaints as moving to the ribbon interface in Office. I know plenty of seasoned Linux engineers who are stuck in their ways. Ksh vs bash, vim vs emacs, using sed for literally everything because they don’t know other commands, refusing to learn YaST, refusing to change to systemd. This is not a fault of Windows, this happens just as much in Linux, but with even more passionate users.
On the topic of learning more about the system. This is just trying to force a hobby and values onto others. If you use a tool everyday, yes, learning more about it will make life easier. That goes for Windows, Linux, or literally anything else. That said, not everyone wants to spend their free time learning more about computers, just like most people don’t spend their free time learning about cars. This is why mechanics exist. The car breaks, they take it to a pro. The computer breaks, go see a pro. Need a new driveway, hire a pro. Not everyone has the interest or time to become an expert on all things. Choosing to be really good at one thing means delegating things to others who are skilled. This is also not a Windows issue. There are people who spend a lot of time learning all the ins and outs of Windows and the software within its ecosystem.
Most people are using a computer to get a job done, it’s not their hobby or interest. People need to keep that in mind. Linux can do just as good of a job letting people get their job done, but will suffer from all the same faults with those users.
There seems to be a lot of bias in this post. I’m not a Windows user, but as a counterpoint…
Bad error messages are a problem everywhere, and providing a bad one is no more intimidating to the average user than telling them to use the CLI. Error codes are simply a pragmatic way to index the volume of errors a system might have. Friendly text would be great, but more context is often needed for that text to be useful. Those who are scared off my an error message will also likely be lost at what to do with a friendly error message as well.
The GUI made computers more approachable, and is largely responsible for their popularity today. Even modern Linux has a GUI, and fewer and fewer people venture into the command line, because of the learning curve. I have interviewed a lot of people for sys admin jobs, so these should not be average users, and a non-trivial number of the people listing Linux on their resume have only used the GUI and were lost when I stuck them in front of a CLI. At the same time, Windows has Powershell, and a brand new Terminal app. Powershell can do a lot, in terms of both interactive commands and scripting. Powershell is better than the Linux terminal in some ways, like returning objects instead of text, so it is easy to filter the result to what’s needed without ending up in regex hell. People aren’t stopped from using Windows with a command line any more than Linux. They even ship Windows Core, which is a CLI version of Windows Server. Users choose not to use the CLI, it doesn’t matter what system it is.
As far as people not wanting change. That’s just people being people. Changing from ksh to bash, or Gnome to KDE, is going to leave people with similar complaints as moving to the ribbon interface in Office. I know plenty of seasoned Linux engineers who are stuck in their ways. Ksh vs bash, vim vs emacs, using sed for literally everything because they don’t know other commands, refusing to learn YaST, refusing to change to systemd. This is not a fault of Windows, this happens just as much in Linux, but with even more passionate users.
On the topic of learning more about the system. This is just trying to force a hobby and values onto others. If you use a tool everyday, yes, learning more about it will make life easier. That goes for Windows, Linux, or literally anything else. That said, not everyone wants to spend their free time learning more about computers, just like most people don’t spend their free time learning about cars. This is why mechanics exist. The car breaks, they take it to a pro. The computer breaks, go see a pro. Need a new driveway, hire a pro. Not everyone has the interest or time to become an expert on all things. Choosing to be really good at one thing means delegating things to others who are skilled. This is also not a Windows issue. There are people who spend a lot of time learning all the ins and outs of Windows and the software within its ecosystem.
Most people are using a computer to get a job done, it’s not their hobby or interest. People need to keep that in mind. Linux can do just as good of a job letting people get their job done, but will suffer from all the same faults with those users.