I didn’t realize you were taking issue with those specific criticisms.
Versions are not useless. They allow dev’s to programmatically determine the presence of features!
I’m not complaining because their kernel versioning makes my life difficult as a user. Microsoft has a spotty record of making life difficult for Dev’s.
Your end users don’t care about kernel versioning or system folder naming, and I’m not sure why you thought that is what I was saying.
I’m just going to be contrarian also, and say: yes it is.
If I get a car, or a piece of software, or a phone… it’s typically because I like how it works as compared to the alternatives. Completely changing how it works at a later date, and presenting it as though it’s just an incremental update that the user shouldn’t care about or be bothered with? Not kosher.
Would you only grouse for seven days if your car suddenly updated itself to not run on the gas from the gas station you like to go to? Or if the gas and brake pedals were reversed, and it had gained a clutch and shifter when it was previously an automatic? Would you honestly be ok with it if you could wake up in the morning and find every single control in the car worked slightly differently (and not necessarily in any way that could be determined as “better” than the old way)?
No, they don’t. They really really don’t. If there was an rfc on how to version software and everyone used it, I would agree with you.
But when was the last time they stuck to a strategy for a decade? I’ll bet anything that in the next 5-10 years (if not earlier) they come up with some New Hot Shit that they want to distinguish from the Old Lukewarm Shit and the easiest marketing way to do that is stick a version on it. And they will be unable to resist.
If it is DRM, it is a defect. If it is an improvement, even if I personally don’t think it is (but they have a version of git/jira/confluence/etc and they really did A/B test), then give me the feature.
There are soo many changes I have groused about (the infamous one being able to text from a phone) that I eventually embraced, that I give mature organizations the benefit of the doubt.
Ah, since you mentioned two versions appearing to be the same I assumed you were a sysadmin or GPO admin, and that was the end user I was speaking of. I apologize for assuming and using shorthand logic.
I always thought they did that so it would be easier to classify what the “suck” dial was set to on each one.
Just wrote a big screed about Windows API before I saw your comment. Lol.
How about if your entire desktop interface, right now, was replaced with Microsoft Bob with no option to use anything else? Someone thought it was an improvement, after all…
(Yes, I’m playing dirty with that example. But why go around in circles on the relative benefits of various UI “improvements” when there’s examples of ones that really flopped?)
No worries there!! Writing screeds about win32 and win64 (and runtime, and… I am getting nauseous) is a national pastime 
[Not recommended, but here you go…] Assuming Windows: Uninstall Mozilla Maintenance Service. You agreed to optionally install it in the first place by a checkbox within the dialogs of the Mozilla Firefox installer. They also automatically opened a help page describing Mozilla Maintenance Service when the version of Firefox that included it was installed.
You chose to let them update it automatically. I feel your pain on Mozilla including the UI changes with the rest of the program updates, but that’s a separate issue.
I remember reading an article years ago that recommended always buying version 4 of any software.
Version 1 is the “great idea”.
Version 2 is version 1 with the bugs users found fixed.
Version 3 adds the most requested features from users.
Version 4 fixes the bug that new features added.
Version 5 and above is bloat, adding features no one wants and more bugs.
It’s the issue I’m on about, though. 
Turning off automatic updates isn’t a solution to not being able to distinguish between an update that will fix an important security problem without breaking anything and one that will overturn your user experience or break a large portion of the other software you use.
“We’ve decided that no-one uses the glove box, so we’ve moved it. Should you require access to the glove box, it can still be conveniently found inside the near-side wheel arch.”
I have to jump on a call, but whether you know it or not security updates specifically touch every part of a product, even ui.
Let’s talk more in a bit.
How’s your botnet?
Running a little late there, fellah. 38 comes out next week.
You must not leave that particular instance of Firefox running continuously for very long at a time normally.
so, I’m sure MS has several reasons for doing this.
They can, in some cases, yes.
It really comes down to this… I think there are definite classes of changes (especially a lot of kinds of UI changes and major core changes) that shouldn’t be presented to the user without a clear way for that user to: know what they’re getting into; deny it and stay with the version(or whatever someone might call it that amounts to the same thing) that they’re currently on; back off of a version that was installed without realizing the consequences; and clearly communicate to others what they’re staying with for interoperability purposes. How solid those distinctions are would depend on a lot of factors, but talking about an OS that’s used every day and needs to interoperate with a wide range of third-party software definitely ramps up the importance.
I’m hoping you’re not wanting to convince me otherwise, but if so then we may just have to agree to disagree. 
I don’t understand your point, you’re discussing operating systems that share the same kernel.
