At this point, that's kinda the wrong question.
I think Linux is just as if not more capable than Windows is, but the software library has some notable gaps in it. "It can't run Adobe/Autodesk/Ubisoft" That's not Linux's fault, that's Adobe/Autodesk/Ubisoft's fault. I don't think there's a technical reason why they couldn't release AutoCAD for Linux, for example.
Run updates without me having to worry that "whoops, an update was fucked, and the system is not unbootable anymore. Enjoy the next 6 hours of begging on forums for someone to help you figure out what happened, before being told that the easiest solution is to just wipe your drive and do a fresh install, while you get berated by strangers for not having the entirety of the Linux kernel source code committed to memory."
Hit the ground running deploying...pretty much anything.
Was running game servers on my Windows PC through Docker and they were super easy to set up. I got a new PC and decided to repurpose my old computer into an Ubuntu server to get some experience with Unix. I have only been more frustrated once in my entire life. Sure, once things are set up on Linux they are really powerful, but the barrier to entry is so absurdly high and running anything "out of the box" is literally impossible by design.
Just run stuff out-of-the-gate
Connect to WiFi properly in a Panera (ymmv, but this was my experience with 3 different Ubuntu-based distros)
Play pretty much any game (Proton has gotten us far but it's not the end-all-be-all)
Be usable without the command line at all (tried giving my GF Linux Mint, no it's not entirely usable without the command line, and I haven't found a distro that is)
*Run Nvidia flawlessly out-of-the-box
*Be backed up fully and easily (no, TimeShift is not easy, it's just easy for you after looking up documentation for a hot minute)
*Except immutable distros like Silverblue *I know Pop_OS! comes with Nvidia drivers before anyone says that, but it's the odd-one-out
I'm going to go with "be normal".
Linux is unusual in a way that Windows is not. In a lot of areas (games, interfacing with weird hardware), Linux uses up one of your three innovation tokens in a way that Windows doesn't. You are likely to be the only person or one of a very few people trying to do what you are doing or encountering the problem you are having on Linux, whereas there is often a much larger community of like-minded people to work with who are using Windows.
Sometimes the reverse is true: have fun being the only person trying to use a new CS algorithm released as a
.cand a Makefile on Windows proper without WSL.But that's kind of why we have Wine and WSL: it's often easier to pretend to be normal than to convince people to accommodate you.
I'd say large scale enterprise end user deployment and management solutions. It's one of the core businesses of Microsoft and nothing comes close to it yet unfortunately.
Being intuitive.
On Windows, features are often a few clicks away from being enabled or modified. Software that you download also does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to changing your settings to what the program needs.
On the Linux distros that I've used, way too much setup is required via copying and pasting commands into the terminal. There were times when I completely replaced my path variables instead of appending to them, and that is way harder to do on Windows than Linux. Mistakes like that often lead me to installing a distro 3 times when doing a project, whereas Windows 11 rarely has those issues.
Be highly unified, which eases software distribution. With Windows, the system software at least is from a single vendor. You'll have differences in hardware and in versions of Windows, sure. But then compare that to Linux, where Wikipedia estimates a thousand different distros. Granted, a lot of those are member of families like Red Hat or Debian that can be supported relatively easily. However, others use more exotic setups like Alpine, NixOS, or Gentoo. Projects like Flatpak are working on distribution mechanisms, but they have their own issues. And even if you get it running, that doesn't mean it integrates well into the desktop itself. Wayland should improve that situation, though.
Reinstall Candy Crush.
- Power management on certain chips is simply better than anything Linux has to offer (AMD Zen+ mobile for instance)
- Modular driver architecture with drivers that aren't complete jank to manage and install. A lot of people see this as a pain point, but in reality it's not such a bad thing, especially nowadays.
- This is a given, but as lots of stuff runs on Windows (namely older games), you can only really make stuff for Windows on Windows. So if you need to develop Win32 software, you really have to use Visual Studio for proper development. Mingw cross compile exists, I know, but that's never going to be as good.
Number 3 is keeping me on Windows. I make mods for old games and I need Visual C++. I almost got the compiler to run under Wine but who knows how it would behave if it did run.
Play games on GeForce NOW at a higher resolution than 1080p. :-/
Nowadays I'd say driver discovery for virtually any modern hardware you might plug into your computer. You don't even need to visit websites to download installers anymore. Literally plug it in and it will grab whatever is needed for it to work properly. Yes even Nvidia display driver. Even VR headset.
Never had any issues with multi-monitor setups out of the box either. It just works.
I'd also mention disposable Sandbox and virtualization in general. WSL also runs at native speeds.
Linux lacks GUI configuration tools for many things, you have to edit text files often using guidance for obsolete versions of software and hope it works. Every single config file can have thousands of lines and if you wrote something wrong it will crash or start acting weirdly, very fragile design. GUI config tools mostly allow valid inputs like checkbox true/false and complain if the path isn't valid.
Edit: to clarify, i'm exclusively using linux since 2008 and i'm not 'afraid of editing config files', downvoting me doesn't fix the problem. I'm also not fond of fixing your header files for them to compile.
upgrade my jabra headset firmware
Full screen "please wait while we get your system ready for you" narrated by Cortana, and if you disable Cortana you still have to wait the amount of time it takes for the audio to complete. Like an invoiced video game narrator with unskippable lines.
The secured Sandbox maybe? The windows sandbox is pretty awesome for day to day use imo. And no a template VM or container isnt really the same thing. The sandbox has the task of making sure that there is nothing that can break out. Afaik the sanbox has done a pretty good job so far in that aspect. Does linux bring a comparable option to the table? Would love to find out, changig as many aspects of my life to linux is the best thing to do.
Windows saves me prescious time to do other things. I went through the Dos, Win 3.1, Windows XP era thoroughly enjoying my time spending hours and hours learning about how to get my new sound card, network card , printer, game , software, mouse, newfangled USB device or whatever working, then my priorities evolved and the time pressures of family and career mean I just want my PC to work and for my use case it does. I'm heading for retirement soon so maybe I'll have more time to give Linux a go
Flash a code plug to one of my Motorola radios.
The largest OS for spyware and monopoly shenanigans is Google's android ecosystem and that's Linux based.
Honestly I don't understand all the Windows hate. Sure it made since back in 2001, but smartphones outshitify anything Windows ever did. The proof of it is that Redmond has been trying to phonify Windows since version 8 so they could be more shitty.
Have the Year of the Windows Desktop.
ITT: Many legitimate use-cases, and people shitting all over them.
This highlights one thing that Windows undoubtedly does better, and that's community support. With Windows and OSX things tend to just work, or to have limitations that people just accept. Linux becomes a lifestyle, when some people just want a tool that does a thing.
Validate Epic James's greedinessRun Fortnite or Valorant.Go fuck itself.
Windows has a better initial setup. Often, when installing a new distro I gotta spend a couple of hours installing, troubleshooting and customizing what I need on Linux (even on beginner distros) while on Windows, you just install it, download a couple of apps from the web and restart to catch up on updates.
Run MS mail servers
The big one for me is running mobile apps as an integrated experience
Waydroid simply doesn't work well yet.
Streamdeck support too.
VMware install isnt as seamless as it should be
Windows tiling in gnome, but, magnet for Macos is far better than both
Manage app startup and profile settings
winamp smoothly.
Play Siege. So Linux wins again.
Windows is definitely easier to install older programs on. Linux is getting better, especially thanks to steam/valve imo, but it's impossible to recommend Linux to just about anyone that's not in IT or interested in tech as everything seems to have a caviat or workaround you have to do to get stuff either working or just limping along. For instance..I installed endeavor on my msi gaming laptop and getting it to use my 2070 card over my Intel graphics was a nightmare for a first timer. I can't recommend it especially when I just wanna game.
Make Edge the default browser on its own
Booting from VHD. Booting from RAM. WimBoot Mode.
Force me to upgrade my hardware.
inverted (color) mouse cursor / pointer
Have a process crash and task manager still works. Being so much more robust than KDE while not as child-like and reduced as GNOME.
Despite not answering your question correctly, I have something where Windows is superior to macOS:
When you start a Windows program and want the program window to fill your screen completely, you just have to drag the window towards the upper edge of the screen and the window fills the whole size of the screen.
On macOS there is not such an option. You have to drag the program window manually to the full size of the screen. Although there is a full-screen mode (green button in the upper left of the window), when activated, the window is in full screen, but the menu bar at the top of the screen is hidden. However, at least macOS remembers the last size of the program window, so you don't have to drag it to full screen size again.
drivers for lots of printers. no fuss gpu drivers. zero computer knowledge required.
Boot a customized kennel tailored by the user.
Any of these commands https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/sysrq.html
Boot into another kernel while running https://linux.die.net/man/8/kexec
Playing some of the best games I own since XP/7 era forever. They just refuse to run on Linux.
