“Don’t turn off” is the worst kind of status message.
When it eventually hangs for various reasons, you actually do need to turn off your pc for it to complete or to let it roll back in an error state.
When “just hang in there” is still present on the third day you’ll start wondering why you bought that piece of furniture and won’t mind the consequences of turning it off.
Not to defend Windows too much in a Linux community, but you can turn on verbose status messages for the screens you see during startup, shutdown, login and log off. It’s a setting that can either be turned on with the local or domain group policy, or by registry key.
Still though, it’s not as detailed as full console output, but is definitely more helpful than just telling you to wait.
In group policy (local or domain):
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Display highly detailed status messages
Also make sure that this policy is not set or set to disabled:
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Remove Boot / Shutdown / Logon / Logoff status messages
Instead of using local group policy you could use the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
“VerboseStatus”=dword:00000001
If you do it through registry, make sure this key is either non-existant or set to 0.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
“DisableStatusMessages”
If you use Windows a lot, get used to the group policy editor. Your computer should have the local group policy editor on it. If you’ve never used it before, you’ll be surprised at how configurable Windows can be if you know where to look. They just don’t really give those options to the everyday user.
Thanks. That should also be fairly easy to automate. Might set it up as a powershell script so I have it on every Windows pc I am forced to use. Much appreciated kind stranger
The average user does not want to see that and does not need to see that. That’s how you end up with thousands of support requests of “why is my computer showing these errors?”
Things should be abstracted from the users by default. There’s no need for grandma to see a console output every time windows needs to update.
I disagree. I think that some aspects of the software should be open about what they’re doing to everyone. Otherwise people just get used to the idea that everything is a black box that they have no real control of. It also helps educate people on IT and its concepts overall.
Even if they can’t specifically tell what is going on, they can see something is going on. And as long as this does not make it harder to use, the more info the better.
“Don’t turn off” is the worst kind of status message.
When it eventually hangs for various reasons, you actually do need to turn off your pc for it to complete or to let it roll back in an error state.
When “just hang in there” is still present on the third day you’ll start wondering why you bought that piece of furniture and won’t mind the consequences of turning it off.
What should it say instead?
Console output with status of the current operation, including error and warning messages
Not to defend Windows too much in a Linux community, but you can turn on verbose status messages for the screens you see during startup, shutdown, login and log off. It’s a setting that can either be turned on with the local or domain group policy, or by registry key.
Still though, it’s not as detailed as full console output, but is definitely more helpful than just telling you to wait.
Source please. I need this as I am forced to use Windows for work. Where is the registry key I need to change mlord
In group policy (local or domain):
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Display highly detailed status messages
Also make sure that this policy is not set or set to disabled:
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Remove Boot / Shutdown / Logon / Logoff status messages
Instead of using local group policy you could use the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
“VerboseStatus”=dword:00000001
If you do it through registry, make sure this key is either non-existant or set to 0.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
“DisableStatusMessages”
If you use Windows a lot, get used to the group policy editor. Your computer should have the local group policy editor on it. If you’ve never used it before, you’ll be surprised at how configurable Windows can be if you know where to look. They just don’t really give those options to the everyday user.
Thanks. That should also be fairly easy to automate. Might set it up as a powershell script so I have it on every Windows pc I am forced to use. Much appreciated kind stranger
The average user does not want to see that and does not need to see that. That’s how you end up with thousands of support requests of “why is my computer showing these errors?”
Things should be abstracted from the users by default. There’s no need for grandma to see a console output every time windows needs to update.
I disagree. I think that some aspects of the software should be open about what they’re doing to everyone. Otherwise people just get used to the idea that everything is a black box that they have no real control of. It also helps educate people on IT and its concepts overall.
Even if they can’t specifically tell what is going on, they can see something is going on. And as long as this does not make it harder to use, the more info the better.