5 ms·

I also can't be the only one annoyed by the input lag in the windows login screen and start menu search. Somehow both of them seem to think it's fine to just ig

I also can't be the only one annoyed by the input lag in the windows login screen and start menu search. Somehow both of them seem to think it's fine to just ignore keypresses for half a second before doing anything. Annoyance aside I seriously worry about the accessibility of the windows lock screen. Through a weird display setup I sometimes find myself trying to log in blind and I just can't do it. There seems to be no way to reliably focus the password field, and for whatever insane reason it's not just always in focus

mwcampbell 6y ago
> Annoyance aside I seriously worry about the accessibility of the windows lock screen. Through a weird display setup I sometimes find myself trying to log in blind and I just can't do it. If you try running a screen reader, such as Narrator (built into Windows; edit: turn it on and off with Ctrl+Win+Enter, even on the logon screen), you should find that even if the focus somehow gets away from the Password field, you can get back there with the help of speech output. Logging in blind doesn't have to mean logging in with no means of orientation. (Disclosure: I'm a developer at Microsoft on the Windows accessibility team, working on Narrator among other things.)
- contravariant 6y ago
  Fair enough, but on a screen who's sole purpose is to let me type in my password I really shouldn't require a Narrator to find the one and only input field. It's nice that the problem has a solution, but it shouldn't have been a problem to begin with.
  - mwcampbell 6y ago
    The trouble is that this screen isn't just for entering your password. On my logon screen, I have not only the PIN field (because I enabled the TPM-based Windows Hello feature), but also these other links or buttons: "I forgot my PIN", "Sign-in options", network, Ease of Access, and power. So use of a full GUI framework, that supports accessibility tools such as a screen reader, is justified.
    - 6510 6y ago
      The user doesn't care about any of that. I should be able to wake up the box by typing the pin. The reality is that i have to press the first letter of it then wait then press it again and then I have to wait and see if a dot appears in the field. The reason it works like this is that the user is forced to use the software. It should be the other way around. If people are forced to use something developers should do what they can to not make the experience incredibly annoying. Sure, there can be situations where you need to cut corners but this is the log in screen. After logging in I mistype an application name in the search box and wait for the dialog to pop up that says "Best matches" with an empty list under it. It can't even find "tunderbird" If I type a single letter it shows "search teh web for "a". But it does show Atom! Woah! Technology at work! I get to chose, I can press the down arrow and select "apps" then press enter twice OR I can press the down arrow twice and press enter! Becareful! Dont press the arrow to fast or it jumps back to searching the web for "a". No one put any thought into this process.
      - mwcampbell 6y ago
        > No one put any thought into this process. You're making an uncharitable assumption about real people who work full-time on this stuff. I can assure you that they do put a lot of thought into their work. No, I never worked on the Start menu or search myself, but before we started working from home, I was in the same building with the folks that do.
jbay808 6y ago
Agreed. The input lag often causes me to mistype my password as I double-type the first three characters, thinking that they didn't register the first time.
userbinator 6y ago
I wonder if the new login screen uses UWP; the appearance and speed (or lack thereof) also suggests so. (The older versions of Windows had a native dialog box: http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/startupshutdown/login/win2000pro.png http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/startupshutdown/log... )
- mwcampbell 6y ago
  The Windows 10 login screen definitely uses the UWP XAML framework. And no, I'm not revealing any inside knowledge; I knew this fact before I joined Microsoft (because I used to develop a third-party screen reader for Windows).
formerly_proven 6y ago
It always seemed to me like they intentionally made it so to specifically hinder people from logging in blindly or unlocking blindly; I always assumed to avoid people accidentally typing their login password into an IM app if the machine wasn't actually locked.
rkagerer 6y ago
...windows login screen and start menu search I don't use them. I use Open-Shell (formerly Classic Shell). Before that I used Launchy (which is another crazy-fast alternative) tied to my CapsLock key. I've also had tabs on my file Explorer windows, since Win 7 (thanks to QTTabBars). I'm commonly asked about that after I give remote desktop presentations.
wyattpeak 6y ago
The login screen one is particularly ridiculous, because my Ubuntu machine takes about as long to wake up as my Windows, but it sensibly buffers the keypresses until it can insert them so I never mistype. It's just glaringly obvious that nobody has bothered for even a second to think about how to solve the problem (or indeed, just copied the solution that already exists elsewhere). The start menu on the other hand I gave up on several years ago. I don't know what's in it anymore, and I don't care, because nothing could be worth the >5s wait for it to open.
modeless 6y ago
This insanity is apparently intentional, but can be fixed for the lock screen at least: Win+R->gpedit.msc->"Computer Configuration"->"Administrative Templates"->"Control Panel"->"Personalization"->"Do not display the lock screen"->Enabled This poorly named option doesn't disable locking the screen, it just fixes it to not eat your first few keystrokes when you start typing your password.
- throw_away 6y ago
  This is one of the reasons why Windows drives me bonkers— all the interesting settings seem to be locked in disused basement lavatories. See also changing capslock to control.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    > See also changing capslock to control. Is it even possible to do it through system settings alone, even if obscure ones? I use AutoHotkey to do Caps Lock -> Ctrl remap, and it's one of the first programs I install on every new system.
    - throw_away 6y ago
      My windows experience is as infrequent and as brief as I have been able to make it, but AFAIK editing registry keys + reboot is the only way to do it without third-party software. Thanks for the AHK tip. The programs I usually find look like hastily-constructed malware on a dodgy sourceforge link & always make me feel real :-| about installing them on a fresh box.
    - kohtatsu 6y ago
      Happy 10th HN anniversary!
      - TeMPOraL 6y ago
        Thank you! Wow, how the time flies!
- 6y ago

mwcampbell 6y ago

> Annoyance aside I seriously worry about the accessibility of the windows lock screen. Through a weird display setup I sometimes find myself trying to log in blind and I just can't do it. If you try running a screen reader, such as Narrator (built into Windows; edit: turn it on and off with Ctrl+Win+Enter, even on the logon screen), you should find that even if the focus somehow gets away from the Password field, you can get back there with the help of speech output. Logging in blind doesn't have to mean logging in with no means of orientation. (Disclosure: I'm a developer at Microsoft on the Windows accessibility team, working on Narrator among other things.)

contravariant 6y ago
Fair enough, but on a screen who's sole purpose is to let me type in my password I really shouldn't require a Narrator to find the one and only input field. It's nice that the problem has a solution, but it shouldn't have been a problem to begin with.
- mwcampbell 6y ago
  The trouble is that this screen isn't just for entering your password. On my logon screen, I have not only the PIN field (because I enabled the TPM-based Windows Hello feature), but also these other links or buttons: "I forgot my PIN", "Sign-in options", network, Ease of Access, and power. So use of a full GUI framework, that supports accessibility tools such as a screen reader, is justified.
  - 6510 6y ago
    The user doesn't care about any of that. I should be able to wake up the box by typing the pin. The reality is that i have to press the first letter of it then wait then press it again and then I have to wait and see if a dot appears in the field. The reason it works like this is that the user is forced to use the software. It should be the other way around. If people are forced to use something developers should do what they can to not make the experience incredibly annoying. Sure, there can be situations where you need to cut corners but this is the log in screen. After logging in I mistype an application name in the search box and wait for the dialog to pop up that says "Best matches" with an empty list under it. It can't even find "tunderbird" If I type a single letter it shows "search teh web for "a". But it does show Atom! Woah! Technology at work! I get to chose, I can press the down arrow and select "apps" then press enter twice OR I can press the down arrow twice and press enter! Becareful! Dont press the arrow to fast or it jumps back to searching the web for "a". No one put any thought into this process.
    - mwcampbell 6y ago
      > No one put any thought into this process. You're making an uncharitable assumption about real people who work full-time on this stuff. I can assure you that they do put a lot of thought into their work. No, I never worked on the Start menu or search myself, but before we started working from home, I was in the same building with the folks that do.

jbay808 6y ago

Agreed. The input lag often causes me to mistype my password as I double-type the first three characters, thinking that they didn't register the first time.

userbinator 6y ago

I wonder if the new login screen uses UWP; the appearance and speed (or lack thereof) also suggests so. (The older versions of Windows had a native dialog box: http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/startupshutdown/login/win2000pro.png http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/startupshutdown/log... )

mwcampbell 6y ago
The Windows 10 login screen definitely uses the UWP XAML framework. And no, I'm not revealing any inside knowledge; I knew this fact before I joined Microsoft (because I used to develop a third-party screen reader for Windows).

formerly_proven 6y ago

It always seemed to me like they intentionally made it so to specifically hinder people from logging in blindly or unlocking blindly; I always assumed to avoid people accidentally typing their login password into an IM app if the machine wasn't actually locked.

rkagerer 6y ago

...windows login screen and start menu search I don't use them. I use Open-Shell (formerly Classic Shell). Before that I used Launchy (which is another crazy-fast alternative) tied to my CapsLock key. I've also had tabs on my file Explorer windows, since Win 7 (thanks to QTTabBars). I'm commonly asked about that after I give remote desktop presentations.

wyattpeak 6y ago

The login screen one is particularly ridiculous, because my Ubuntu machine takes about as long to wake up as my Windows, but it sensibly buffers the keypresses until it can insert them so I never mistype. It's just glaringly obvious that nobody has bothered for even a second to think about how to solve the problem (or indeed, just copied the solution that already exists elsewhere). The start menu on the other hand I gave up on several years ago. I don't know what's in it anymore, and I don't care, because nothing could be worth the >5s wait for it to open.

modeless 6y ago

This insanity is apparently intentional, but can be fixed for the lock screen at least: Win+R->gpedit.msc->"Computer Configuration"->"Administrative Templates"->"Control Panel"->"Personalization"->"Do not display the lock screen"->Enabled This poorly named option doesn't disable locking the screen, it just fixes it to not eat your first few keystrokes when you start typing your password.

throw_away 6y ago
This is one of the reasons why Windows drives me bonkers— all the interesting settings seem to be locked in disused basement lavatories. See also changing capslock to control.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  > See also changing capslock to control. Is it even possible to do it through system settings alone, even if obscure ones? I use AutoHotkey to do Caps Lock -> Ctrl remap, and it's one of the first programs I install on every new system.
  - throw_away 6y ago
    My windows experience is as infrequent and as brief as I have been able to make it, but AFAIK editing registry keys + reboot is the only way to do it without third-party software. Thanks for the AHK tip. The programs I usually find look like hastily-constructed malware on a dodgy sourceforge link & always make me feel real :-| about installing them on a fresh box.
  - kohtatsu 6y ago
    Happy 10th HN anniversary!
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      Thank you! Wow, how the time flies!
6y ago