Let the apologists have a field day in the comments.
Windows users are used to everything being so locked down that it’s virtually impossible to mess up your system… lots of this stuff is in config files because exposing it for everyday users would be asking for people to completely brick their workflow.
If you put every option in a GUI, there would be so much stuff that nobody could find anything.
No Windows put everything in a GUI, then added a second GUI that didn’t quite have all the functionality of the first one so kept both around, then despite the second GUI existing for nearly 10 years it still couldn’t do everything the first one could and then they completely redesigned it rather than just introducing all the functionality from the first GUI, but they removed some of the functionality of the second GUI from the first GUI so now both GUIs are incomplete and full of functions that just link to the other GUI
As kludgey as they are, though, I do wish there was a good replacement for GPOs in Linux
Now we got it only in config files where we can’t find anything. Also don’t you put a single wrong character in there, it could break everything.
Well-made GUIs can even prevent disaster by exposing settings in a diggestable way and making sure entries are properly edited. Good UI/UX conveys functionality through form and can be navigated intuitively.
To make settings inaccessible on purpose or even alienate people deemed “too stupid” for them is called Tech Paternalism, and it fucking sucks.
