Q. Is this really as harmful as you think?
A. Go to your parents house, your grandparents house etc and look at their Windows PC, look at the installed software in the past year, and try to use the device. Run some antivirus scans. There’s no way this implementation doesn’t end in tears — there’s a reason there’s a trillion dollar security industry, and that most problems revolve around malware and endpoints.
Yeah this is why Apple has been slowly peeling away traditional file / folder features from front and center. The user doesn’t care where or how they get their files, they just want them at any given time. Spotlight being the most successful at obfuscating where anything is yet allowing access to everything. Microsoft has started to pick up on that and attempt to solve the same problems.
The bizarre thing is, they have solved it. PowerToys Run is the Spotlight omnibar of everything and they bizarrely haven’t chosen to bake it into Windows proper. I can’t use Windows without it now. Search files and folders everywhere faster than the start menu search, search running processes, execute commands, do maths, calculate hashes, open web pages. It’s fantastic.
Do you use windows by choice or for work?
Both. I’m one of those weird people that uses Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, and iOS on a daily basis (Android probably less than daily now as I’m not travelling as much as I used to). My job necessitates it but also I just enjoy having mixed estates at home to stay fresh. I am, however, eager to stop using Windows at home as the overall security health and conscience of Microsoft these days seems to be trending downwards.
Windows hasnt quite felt as risky as it does now, that I can remember at least.
Luckily my company outsourced the IT security department to India and have since had a handful of breaches and zero remediation efforts. I’m sure this windows stuff is firmly in the “care later” bin.