10 ms·

This article nails a lot of the issues with Windows 11. I bit the bullet and upgraded to Windows 11 late last year thinking it must be an improvement over Wind

This article nails a lot of the issues with Windows 11. I bit the bullet and upgraded to Windows 11 late last year thinking it must be an improvement over Windows 10. It turned out to be a big step backwards. - Changing the default browser is a lot of work instead of a single click. - I can't move the task bar to the side, even though almost every monitor nowadays has much more horizontal space than vertical. - All apps are not readily accessible from the start menu; I have to click another button to get to them. - I have a 2-in-1 laptop, and turning it into tablet mode is wonky. - I can't choose to not have grouped buttons on the taskbar. - The context menus UX is horrible. Some context menu items are now two clicks away instead of one. Also what's with the excessive rounded corners and slim selection padding? - The stacked notifications is confusing, and always shows the calendar when I open the notifications panel. - Lots of crap pushed on me, like chat (aka Teams), widgets (which require a Microsoft account), 3rd party apps that look like they're installed but actually get downloaded/installed on first use. I was able to fix a lot of those issues with ExplorerPatcher [0]. However, one day after a Windows update, Explorer didn't start at all after login (black screen, I thought Windows was hosed). This has since been fixed. But I decided enough is enough, and finally "upgraded" back to Windows 10. The only good thing about Windows 11 is wslg, which provides out of the box support for Linux GUI apps (not available on Windows 10). But I can get the same result with an X server and some work. [0] https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/wiki/All-features https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/wiki/All-features

userbinator 5y ago
Also what's with the excessive rounded corners and slim selection padding? The people who worked on the design use Macs. Seriously. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30019307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30019307
- Sakos 5y ago
  When I first heard about this, everything that's ever bothered me about the Windows 8-10-11 evolution makes so much more sense. They're turning it into MacOS.
  - Shared404 5y ago
    But only the bad parts of MacOS - they make something that looks pretty in an image, but is utterly unusable. The way I usually describe Win11's UI is as the worst of GNOME 3, MacOS, and Windows bundled up in a wrap of spyware.
  - wvenable 5y ago
    The Macification of Windows has been in progress for years -- and it makes no sense! When Microsoft designed the UI for Windows 95 they did extensive user studies and everything from how the start menu worked and the task bar was carefully figured out. They've spend the last few decades undoing all that work piece by piece until nobody actually knows how to use it anymore.
    - bombcar 5y ago
      Windows 95 is under-appreciated in the GUI histories I feel - it had many things that became 'standard' pretty much immediately afterwards (I even have a shortcut to Applications in my Dock which mimics a Start Menu). But it's hard for a company to justify "paying to leave shit alone" so even if a maximum was reached, it will recede.
      - wvenable 5y ago
        I agree. There's a lot of people paid to re-design Windows every year, they all use Macs, and none of them are doing any user studies at all.
        bombcar 5y ago
        I suspect user studies are being done - and coincidentally confirming whatever it is management wants to do. Or they focus on new users and not on the amount of things people have already learned.
    - wolpoli 5y ago
      If anyone is wondering about the user studies that Microsoft did for Windows 95, you can read about it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20060615110538/http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/kds_txt.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20060615110538/http://www.acm.or...
- vxNsr 5y ago
  This is the most embarrassing thing I've ever read. That thread goes on to extoll the virtues of dogfooding, and its absolutely true. I personally believe the reason that chrome/edge/firefox and apps in general have become so resource hungry is because all the devs have been given beefy machines to allow them to compile on-device and this has lead to the devs basically ignoring the app's resource budget. The ultimate "it works on my machine" shrug. imo windows OS and browser devs should be given i3s w/4gb of ram, let them optimize their code for that experience.
  - donmcronald 5y ago
    > windows OS and browser devs should be given i3s w/4gb of ram And slow HDDs. The gains of going from an HDD to an SSD have been squandered. The time it takes my computer to boot to a usable desktop feels the same as the bad old days with spinning HDDs. I remember when SSDs where new and YouTubers were making videos of booting into Win7 with Office, etc. open in seconds. WTF happened?
    - SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
      You know the saying "work expands to fill the time available for its completion"? There's a similar thing at play here with regards to resource usage.
    - DeathArrow 5y ago
      I still boot in seconds with Windows 10 and NVMe disks.
      - kasabali 5y ago
        Wait a few years until it's undoed.
    - selfhifive 5y ago
      Windows with i5 or less plus HDD with about a year of use (which leads to bloat) is painfully slow.
interstice 5y ago
I have a theory that the people who used the bar on the side and the people who turned the user metrics off are the same people (myself included). But I’m not sure how I feel about the results. In any case I hope shells like litestep make a comeback as a result of ever more hostile ui decisions, either that or everyone jumps ship entirely to put energy into making something else great.
- khaledh 5y ago
  The problem is that Windows with all its warts now is still far ahead of the competition in that department (desktop GUI). Whether that's due to monopoly or being actually better, it doesn't matter. The fact is competition is almost non-existent.
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    I don't think that's true anymore. Gnome with two tweaks (put the min/max buttons back on the window header and move the main menu to the bottom of the screen so it works like the old win 10 task bar) and it's streets ahead of Windows 11. It's a great blessing in disguise when Microsoft decide your old laptop won't support Windows 11.
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      Gnome has very excessive window borders though. They're so big they seem to be sized for touch, very wasteful when you don't have a touchscreen. And it has even less configurability than Windows.. Add-ons don't count because they often break.
      - smackeyacky 5y ago
        I don't mind the big borders, although most of the time I'm using dual 2k screens. The borders don't seem that much bigger than the ones in Windows 10. As for the extensions, I've been enabling those via extensions.gnome.org and have no problems so far on Buster or Bullseye. This is the one that makes Gnome useable for me: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1160/dash-to-panel/ https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1160/dash-to-panel/
neltnerb 5y ago
It seems to frequently be true that Microsoft releases a horrifying nightmare OS, polishes is up and removes hated features, and then releases a new version. It's been a bit of a pattern. Windows 8 -> Windows 10 Windows Vista -> Windows 7 and even before that: Windows Me -> Windows 2000 -> Windows XP was a pretty solid chain that shows it over three releases (personally I think XP was buggier, I don't know what the idea was there other than to make some more money?).
- jonathanlydall 5y ago
  > Windows Me -> Windows 2000 This isn’t a transition which existed. Windows ME didn’t get replaced by 2000, they were both released around the same time. In terms of OS evolution, there were two separate branches, Windows NT and Windows 95. On the 95 branch: 95 > 98 > ME > Discontinued On the NT branch: NT 3.5 > NT 4 > 2000 > XP > Vista > 7 > 8 > 10 > 11 Non-business users were originally only ever on the 95 branch, then when it was discontinued they were transitioned to Windows XP, but the neutered home edition, which has been the model since.
  - neltnerb 5y ago
    Fair, I switched from 98 to 2000 to XP because Me had such an incredibly bad experience. From a technology stack side I realize you are right, but I did not experience the UI of Windows ME as a successor to 98 and instead experienced it as a proto-win2k. I'm talking about the UI evolution more than the kernel, which I realize is more subjective. I do think there is a "paid forced beta -> better after overton window shift" pattern from for instance Vista to 7 and 8 to 10. Those were extremely obviously intended to be the same UI, the first with an extremely questionable UI and the second with a stabilized UI. From a UI perspective, in the context of a useful work computer, Windows 8 was an absolute failure. Windows 10 I only tolerate because it's gotten most of the bugs worked out and Windows 7 is no longer getting security updates... I fully intend to skip Windows 11 and wait for the next one if I can possibly do so. It will I'm sure still have a UI mess that makes it even less pleasant than Windows 10, as (in my opinion) Windows 7 was better than Windows 10 and I would have preferred they just keep fine tuning that UI. I just want my OS to be an OS instead of an experience, and for things to just iterate better rather than see massive overhauls for what they must know is mostly a business OS. It's such a strange approach, I guess they're just worried about going the way of Sun or IBM by not adopting the latest trends. Or maybe they have a business team and a home computer team and the latter is trying to keep up with Apple while the prior is begging them to stop...
esalman 5y ago
I hate the Windows 11 taskbar and using ExplorerPatcher to revert to Windows 10 style. Thankfully ExplorerPatcher is yet to let me down. If it does happen I will probably switch to Chrome OS Flex.
wanda 5y ago
> no side taskbar This is literally the first thing I do on a fresh install. What the hell were they thinking > start menu further ruined but whyyyyyyyyyyyy I honestly never had a problem with Microsoft Windows over its UI decisions until Windows 8. Windows up to and including Windows 7 were actually ok, because you could put the start menu on the side, switch to classic UI, turn off the graphical embellishments that your shit laptop didn't like, and so on. Windows 8 became very tabletified, but with options to switch to classic UI, and Windows 10 is the same but arguably a bit more bizarre. Neither UI was really consistent or knew what it wanted to be, and worst of all, the user can't decide what it should be. But whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
- wanda 5y ago
  Errata: Windows 8 became very tabletified, but with options... should read: Windows 8 became very tabletified, but without options...
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    Dammit, I was just going to reply to your GP comment and ask how one switches on the classic UI! :-(

userbinator 5y ago

Also what's with the excessive rounded corners and slim selection padding? The people who worked on the design use Macs. Seriously. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30019307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30019307

Sakos 5y ago
When I first heard about this, everything that's ever bothered me about the Windows 8-10-11 evolution makes so much more sense. They're turning it into MacOS.
- Shared404 5y ago
  But only the bad parts of MacOS - they make something that looks pretty in an image, but is utterly unusable. The way I usually describe Win11's UI is as the worst of GNOME 3, MacOS, and Windows bundled up in a wrap of spyware.
- wvenable 5y ago
  The Macification of Windows has been in progress for years -- and it makes no sense! When Microsoft designed the UI for Windows 95 they did extensive user studies and everything from how the start menu worked and the task bar was carefully figured out. They've spend the last few decades undoing all that work piece by piece until nobody actually knows how to use it anymore.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    Windows 95 is under-appreciated in the GUI histories I feel - it had many things that became 'standard' pretty much immediately afterwards (I even have a shortcut to Applications in my Dock which mimics a Start Menu). But it's hard for a company to justify "paying to leave shit alone" so even if a maximum was reached, it will recede.
    - wvenable 5y ago
      I agree. There's a lot of people paid to re-design Windows every year, they all use Macs, and none of them are doing any user studies at all.
      - bombcar 5y ago
        I suspect user studies are being done - and coincidentally confirming whatever it is management wants to do. Or they focus on new users and not on the amount of things people have already learned.
  - wolpoli 5y ago
    If anyone is wondering about the user studies that Microsoft did for Windows 95, you can read about it here: https://web.archive.org/web/20060615110538/http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/kds_txt.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20060615110538/http://www.acm.or...
vxNsr 5y ago
This is the most embarrassing thing I've ever read. That thread goes on to extoll the virtues of dogfooding, and its absolutely true. I personally believe the reason that chrome/edge/firefox and apps in general have become so resource hungry is because all the devs have been given beefy machines to allow them to compile on-device and this has lead to the devs basically ignoring the app's resource budget. The ultimate "it works on my machine" shrug. imo windows OS and browser devs should be given i3s w/4gb of ram, let them optimize their code for that experience.
- donmcronald 5y ago
  > windows OS and browser devs should be given i3s w/4gb of ram And slow HDDs. The gains of going from an HDD to an SSD have been squandered. The time it takes my computer to boot to a usable desktop feels the same as the bad old days with spinning HDDs. I remember when SSDs where new and YouTubers were making videos of booting into Win7 with Office, etc. open in seconds. WTF happened?
  - SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
    You know the saying "work expands to fill the time available for its completion"? There's a similar thing at play here with regards to resource usage.
  - DeathArrow 5y ago
    I still boot in seconds with Windows 10 and NVMe disks.
    - kasabali 5y ago
      Wait a few years until it's undoed.
  - selfhifive 5y ago
    Windows with i5 or less plus HDD with about a year of use (which leads to bloat) is painfully slow.

interstice 5y ago

I have a theory that the people who used the bar on the side and the people who turned the user metrics off are the same people (myself included). But I’m not sure how I feel about the results. In any case I hope shells like litestep make a comeback as a result of ever more hostile ui decisions, either that or everyone jumps ship entirely to put energy into making something else great.

khaledh 5y ago
The problem is that Windows with all its warts now is still far ahead of the competition in that department (desktop GUI). Whether that's due to monopoly or being actually better, it doesn't matter. The fact is competition is almost non-existent.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  I don't think that's true anymore. Gnome with two tweaks (put the min/max buttons back on the window header and move the main menu to the bottom of the screen so it works like the old win 10 task bar) and it's streets ahead of Windows 11. It's a great blessing in disguise when Microsoft decide your old laptop won't support Windows 11.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    Gnome has very excessive window borders though. They're so big they seem to be sized for touch, very wasteful when you don't have a touchscreen. And it has even less configurability than Windows.. Add-ons don't count because they often break.
    - smackeyacky 5y ago
      I don't mind the big borders, although most of the time I'm using dual 2k screens. The borders don't seem that much bigger than the ones in Windows 10. As for the extensions, I've been enabling those via extensions.gnome.org and have no problems so far on Buster or Bullseye. This is the one that makes Gnome useable for me: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1160/dash-to-panel/ https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1160/dash-to-panel/

neltnerb 5y ago

It seems to frequently be true that Microsoft releases a horrifying nightmare OS, polishes is up and removes hated features, and then releases a new version. It's been a bit of a pattern. Windows 8 -> Windows 10 Windows Vista -> Windows 7 and even before that: Windows Me -> Windows 2000 -> Windows XP was a pretty solid chain that shows it over three releases (personally I think XP was buggier, I don't know what the idea was there other than to make some more money?).

jonathanlydall 5y ago
> Windows Me -> Windows 2000 This isn’t a transition which existed. Windows ME didn’t get replaced by 2000, they were both released around the same time. In terms of OS evolution, there were two separate branches, Windows NT and Windows 95. On the 95 branch: 95 > 98 > ME > Discontinued On the NT branch: NT 3.5 > NT 4 > 2000 > XP > Vista > 7 > 8 > 10 > 11 Non-business users were originally only ever on the 95 branch, then when it was discontinued they were transitioned to Windows XP, but the neutered home edition, which has been the model since.
- neltnerb 5y ago
  Fair, I switched from 98 to 2000 to XP because Me had such an incredibly bad experience. From a technology stack side I realize you are right, but I did not experience the UI of Windows ME as a successor to 98 and instead experienced it as a proto-win2k. I'm talking about the UI evolution more than the kernel, which I realize is more subjective. I do think there is a "paid forced beta -> better after overton window shift" pattern from for instance Vista to 7 and 8 to 10. Those were extremely obviously intended to be the same UI, the first with an extremely questionable UI and the second with a stabilized UI. From a UI perspective, in the context of a useful work computer, Windows 8 was an absolute failure. Windows 10 I only tolerate because it's gotten most of the bugs worked out and Windows 7 is no longer getting security updates... I fully intend to skip Windows 11 and wait for the next one if I can possibly do so. It will I'm sure still have a UI mess that makes it even less pleasant than Windows 10, as (in my opinion) Windows 7 was better than Windows 10 and I would have preferred they just keep fine tuning that UI. I just want my OS to be an OS instead of an experience, and for things to just iterate better rather than see massive overhauls for what they must know is mostly a business OS. It's such a strange approach, I guess they're just worried about going the way of Sun or IBM by not adopting the latest trends. Or maybe they have a business team and a home computer team and the latter is trying to keep up with Apple while the prior is begging them to stop...

esalman 5y ago

I hate the Windows 11 taskbar and using ExplorerPatcher to revert to Windows 10 style. Thankfully ExplorerPatcher is yet to let me down. If it does happen I will probably switch to Chrome OS Flex.

wanda 5y ago

> no side taskbar This is literally the first thing I do on a fresh install. What the hell were they thinking > start menu further ruined but whyyyyyyyyyyyy I honestly never had a problem with Microsoft Windows over its UI decisions until Windows 8. Windows up to and including Windows 7 were actually ok, because you could put the start menu on the side, switch to classic UI, turn off the graphical embellishments that your shit laptop didn't like, and so on. Windows 8 became very tabletified, but with options to switch to classic UI, and Windows 10 is the same but arguably a bit more bizarre. Neither UI was really consistent or knew what it wanted to be, and worst of all, the user can't decide what it should be. But whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

wanda 5y ago
Errata: Windows 8 became very tabletified, but with options... should read: Windows 8 became very tabletified, but without options...
- CRConrad 5y ago
  Dammit, I was just going to reply to your GP comment and ask how one switches on the classic UI! :-(