More and more functionally is moving to the GPU and more and more PS and LR users (sorry but the facts are, mostly on Windows) run into issues all the time.
I think it is misleading to ‘point’ at Windows. I suggest the greater ‘problem’ is the open, flexible, multiple ways that users can configure there systems…plus the responsibility of users to ensure drivers are updated.
I think Andrew makes a valid point. It's not the end-users who are responsible for these problems, it's the wide-open environment that allows MS-Windows to execute on almost every conceivable mass-market hardware configuration and run almost any application. That's a great feature ... until it's not.
I once had the pleasure (sic) of being responsible for the management of about 2500 MS-Windows desktops. We tried to limit our exposure to different hardware configurations, but the organizational budget never allowed us to upgrade all the boxes identically at the same time.
The users had no ability to install either software or hardware upgrades, which were performed by our staff. Yet despite our efforts to control modifications to the environment, including fairly rigorous regression-testing procedures, we often encountered surprises with new revs of application software. There were just too many variables: the hardware configuration, the operating system version, the abstraction layer which connected the hardware to the operating system, the drivers needed by particular components—and, of course, the application software, which often directly mediated the behavior of the peripherals in violation of long-established protocols for isolating software from hardware.
Somehow the people who maintain most of the Linux distributions seem to have avoided many of these problems—probably because they have such a large cohort of system hackers who work as volunteers. But the hardware manufacturers, Microsoft, and the Windows application suppliers need to remain profitable. They offer great value at low cost, but it's not realistic to expect everything to work all the time.
