8 ms·

Why is Windows 11 so annoying?

48 points by stalfosknight 3y ago

oldpersonintx 3y ago
[dead]
talldayo 3y ago
> I am a frog who’s been out of the pot; I just jumped back in and got scalded This is how I feel with everything these days. Default computer operating systems are the pits. A lot of it was paved with good intentions; enable better user workflows, increase visibility, provide better default apps, that sorta thing. But now everything is a service, on every platform you use! Spending time on Linux, I get exposed to nothing. No live-tiles, no news notifications, nobody asking me to Try the New Safari. It's just... a computer. I feel the author's culture-shock every time I hear a Mac or Windows user try and rationalize their $99/year to-do list app to me. Is this really where computers are headed for us, and humanity at large?
- s1gsegv 3y ago
  I wouldn’t lump macOS and Windows together for that, as someone who uses Linux and macOS regularly. macOS has defaults that can be for power users, but you can find them and change them. Windows is actively trying to subvert your will at every turn. Ads in the start menu/explorer, forced updates, forced logins in the OOBE… It’s abhorrent! And so many workarounds you find online are dead, because they’re actively subverting your will.
  - talldayo 3y ago
    If I didn't need to open the terminal to disable basic nags on MacOS, I would be more inclined to agree. Modern MacOS post-Yosemite approaches Windows 8 levels of pointless service-oriented integrations. On Windows and MacOS, you are the frog no matter what you do. The water is at different temperatures, but they are both heating up pretty fast.
    - moritzwarhier 3y ago
      Testament to this is the annoyance of missing or delayed update notifications for the OS and App Store apps when using macOS without an iCloud account. Still, at the current temperature, macbooks make for good workstations IMO. I sometimes miss Linux but just haven't found comparable hardware, efficiency and utility. Also a relief to have USB-C displays and other hardware just work, no battery drain when idle, etc. I'm sure it's a close call though compared to a good x64 laptop with Linux though, especially with x64 slowly approaching ARM in terms of power efficiency. The latest debacle around macOS and JVM was not a good look though. I feel their moat is shrinking.
      - renewedrebecca 3y ago
        The JVM problem was fixed in what, 11 days? That's pretty damn good.
        moritzwarhier 3y ago
        This is true! So maybe I was wrong about it being a bad look.
    - nickthegreek 3y ago
      What nags are you talking about? I’ve never had to open a terminal to deal with things like that on macOS.
      - tacker2000 3y ago
        You have to run some terminal command, to make a system setting visible, just to be able to install non-app store apps. > sudo spctl --master-disable
        steelbrain 3y ago
        This is not true. You do not have to do this to install non-app store apps. Right click and open, if you don't get an option to open the first time, right click and open the second time and the option shows up. Please do not disable Gatekeeper because you want to open apps from a keyboard shortcut instead of right click and open.
trimethylpurine 3y ago
You can turn all this shit off in the group policy editor. It takes less time than writing an article for The Verge.
- arcastroe 3y ago
  If you find time, could you link me to a how-to source?
  - trimethylpurine 3y ago
    It's the first result in every search engine I tried. Here's one: https://www.howtogeek.com/742414/how-to-disable-the-widgets-menu-on-windows-11/ https://www.howtogeek.com/742414/how-to-disable-the-widgets-...
- hulitu 3y ago
  You can't. Only some things.
  - daveoc64 3y ago
    The source of complaint in the article (Widgets) can be switched off with Group Policy on Windows 11 Pro and above.
- daveoc64 3y ago
  I too am surprised at how people seem unable to find the readily accessible options to turn these features off. Many of the things people don't like in Windows 10 and 11 can be switched off from the Settings app.
  - trimethylpurine 3y ago
    That you get down votes for providing solutions should tell you that this platform is sadly flooded with sensational journalism as opposed to the expected technically and scientifically inclined patrons that we'd prefer.
- 3y ago
thegrim33 3y ago
I still can not believe that when I right click on a file, the option to rename the file is no longer in the right click menu. The menu that appears contains a couple dozen different options, none of which are to rename the file. Somehow they decided that renaming is so unimportant of an operation that they shoved it into a sub menu, under "More Options", which, when selected, causes a whole new set of actions to appear, one of which is rename. So it's now a multi-step process to get to the option to rename a file. How on EARTH did people sign off on that? It's such an unbelievable usability issue.
- daveoc64 3y ago
  The common file actions like rename and copy are now shown as icons at the top or bottom of the context menu.
  - kcb 3y ago
    I can never tell which icon is which.
    - Rinzler89 3y ago
      But at least some UX devs at Microsoft made bank on this.
- trimethylpurine 3y ago
  It's directly in the right click menu. It's an icon that looks like a cursor. It looks like what happens when you rename a file. It's also in the More Options menu if you prefer extra steps. Doesn't sound like you do.
- paul_funyun 3y ago
  You click the filename twice to rename. More efficient than two clicks and a menu perusal.
  - tacker2000 3y ago
htk 3y ago
Windows 11 is a jungle of dark patterns, and I find it really disrespectful to the user as well as low class and desperate.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  At work we're using Windows 11, one drive, and teams and the experience is just trash. Mikhail Parakhin has accomplished more to destroy Microsoft's desk top OS monopoly than anyone else.
theandrewbailey 3y ago
I'll probably upgrade my desktop with the next generation AMD CPUs, and I somewhat dread having to choose between Windows 10 (which will probably not be supported on this newer hardware), or Debian, because I sure as hell won't be using Windows 11.
ajkjk 3y ago
What is going on with this title
- FroshKiller 3y ago
  It's what we call a minced oath. "Got dang" is an inoffensive substitute for "goddamn."
  - ugjka 3y ago
    I guess a couple years down the road we'll need even more inoffensive words for these ones we've created. It is similar to people on social media using word seggs instead of sex because god forbid the algoritm gets a stroke
  - thiht 3y ago
    What’s offensive about goddamn? "Damn" is not even vulgar, is it?
    - linguae 3y ago
      “Damn” is not a vulgarity unlike certain other words, but too many utterances of “damn” will make a movie’s rating PG instead of G, “damn” will get you in trouble for cursing at a private Christian school, and I wouldn’t use the word “damn” in church unless I’m referring very specifically to God’s damnation. It goes against polite Christian mores to say “damn” or “goddamn.”
    - FroshKiller 3y ago
      In the context of American Christian hegemony, even if "damn" or "damned" isn't considered particularly strong by many, a lot of people object strongly to "goddamn." It's a superstition that has to do with one of the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
djbusby 3y ago
Back in the day it was possible to replace "explorer.exe" as the shell. One had to write their own app, but it could take over start menu, explorer, and desktop. Is that still a thing? I made on (2003) it worked on Win2k and 98 IIRC. Edit: the app has to have special entry points (not regular WinMain) and regedit a bunch to make it work. Edit2: found this https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/18ipo7f/why_doesnt_anyone_ever_build_custom_desktop/?rdt=44683 https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/18ipo7f/why_does... Which points to https://cairoshell.com/ https://cairoshell.com/ Awesome!
- omoikane 3y ago
  See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alternative_shells_for_Windows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alternative_shells_for... I used to run LiteStep, and I remember the one productivity feature it had over regular Windows was virtual desktops. Windows 10 natively supports those now, and I have mostly given up on all desktop eye candy things.
telchior 3y ago
I recently "upgraded" to Windows 11, which began with going into Add/Remove Programs and removing everything I could, then going into settings and turning off all the Windows options I spotted. A method that, as far as I could remember, worked pretty well in Windows 10. But I was stressed about some work stuff so I quickly moved on to pulling my project's repo and getting back to work. A week later, my project goes absolutely berserk with warnings and failures, which trace back to files / lines that shouldn't exist. Turns out, I had dropped my repo into a directory managed by Windows OneDrive, and OneDrive had backed everything up and subsequently decided (for some reason I still haven't figured out) to start restoring and reverting deleted / changed files. My realization of this began with "What the fuck is a OneDrive?" tl;dr it's Microsoft trying to sneakily take over all your data / force you into its cloud services. I'd actually briefly spotted the name and turned it off, but it had taken that to mean "until tomorrow", of course. Anyway, it's on me, right? I was distracted and lazy. Sometimes it takes a good old mugging to get back in the right defensive mindset.
- Rinzler89 3y ago
  That's why us old timers still put our work in C:\git or C:\work out of habit, like in the DOS days, never in the likes of My Documents as those folders end up being used by a lot of other apps.
  - rodface 3y ago
    Indeed, I pretty much treat userspace as C:\temp, considering how much it gets messed with. Anything that requires consistent behavior needs to live in the root.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
simonblack 3y ago
I keep saying it: "Best of Breed" is Windows 7. It's been all downhill since there. On the odd occasion that I must use Windows (and gets less and less each year) I use Windows 7 as a VirtualBox 'guest' on Linux. If I didn't use HP software for multi-page scanning to PDF with my HP MFP, I wouldn't need Windows at all.
pikseladam 3y ago
Despite your aversion to the situation, it's functional. Individuals unfamiliar with Y Combinator are increasingly interacting with Microsoft offerings, which in turn boosts Microsoft's financial gains. Consequently, their sales are thriving—you may dislike this reality, yet their marketing proves more effective. tiktok generation folks, get used to it.
multimoon 3y ago
“ You also generally do not have to download a bunch of drivers or spend six hours in the command line hand-assembling the goddamn operating system.” Is it me or has the quality of writing coming from the verge gone downhill in recent years? I remember they used to be awesome - but this statement alone made me uninterested in anything else the author had to say as it’s just factually incorrect. Other than power user distros (arch, gentoo, etc) Linux has been one click install and ready to go just like windows for a decade (Ubuntu, fedora, etc) and provides a very good OOBE nowadays. Also, once you remove “my laptop came with windows preinstalled” - yes you do spend time messing with drivers, a uniquely windows problem. If you’re lucky windows update will grab them all, but that’s still requiring user interaction. God forbid windows update doesn’t have it and you have to go hunting on the OEM’s website for it. I wholeheartedly agree with their sentiment that windows has become a nuisance and I’d call it approaching unusable the more money Microsoft tries to extract from it, but the author/editor really should do research first before they try to write an eye catching sentence.
- leonroy 3y ago
  > Other than power user distros (arch, gentoo, etc) Linux has been one click install and ready to go just like windows for a decade (Ubuntu, fedora, etc) and provides a very good OOBE nowadays. So my experience with Ubuntu and Fedora on a new Thinkpad T14s Gen 3 (AMD) laptop has been a mixed bag. Lenovo state that this is an Ubuntu supported notebook so everything should have been compatible with no tinkering but that was not my experience. You're right, OOBE with distros today is good. But in day to day usage there were three very annoying problems: 1. The display flickers due to AMD's variable refresh rate feature (doesn't happen on Windows) - fixing this required a custom kernel with VRR disabled 2. The speakers sounded very quiet and anemic due to the laptop shipping with Dolby Atmos tuning - fixing this in Linux required installing Windows (which supports Atmos), recording a special diff file in Windows Audacity with Atmos tuning on/off and then importing that into PulseAudio on Ubuntu to give it the same speaker tuning profile 3. The trackpad scroll speed was way too fast and Gnome annoyingly offers no way to customize this - the solution is to edit one of the libinput-config files Granted the big stuff like Wifi, Bluetooth, GPU, printing and sleep all worked perfectly - even Steam + Proton worked out the box with games like Arkham Knight and Witcher running as well as Windows but little issues like those three above required a good few hours of tinkering in the command line and make things frustrating enough that I think The Verge author's point stands.

48 points by stalfosknight 3y ago

[dead]

> I am a frog who’s been out of the pot; I just jumped back in and got scalded This is how I feel with everything these days. Default computer operating systems are the pits. A lot of it was paved with good intentions; enable better user workflows, increase visibility, provide better default apps, that sorta thing. But now everything is a service, on every platform you use! Spending time on Linux, I get exposed to nothing. No live-tiles, no news notifications, nobody asking me to Try the New Safari. It's just... a computer. I feel the author's culture-shock every time I hear a Mac or Windows user try and rationalize their $99/year to-do list app to me. Is this really where computers are headed for us, and humanity at large?

s1gsegv 3y ago
I wouldn’t lump macOS and Windows together for that, as someone who uses Linux and macOS regularly. macOS has defaults that can be for power users, but you can find them and change them. Windows is actively trying to subvert your will at every turn. Ads in the start menu/explorer, forced updates, forced logins in the OOBE… It’s abhorrent! And so many workarounds you find online are dead, because they’re actively subverting your will.
- talldayo 3y ago
  If I didn't need to open the terminal to disable basic nags on MacOS, I would be more inclined to agree. Modern MacOS post-Yosemite approaches Windows 8 levels of pointless service-oriented integrations. On Windows and MacOS, you are the frog no matter what you do. The water is at different temperatures, but they are both heating up pretty fast.
  - moritzwarhier 3y ago
    Testament to this is the annoyance of missing or delayed update notifications for the OS and App Store apps when using macOS without an iCloud account. Still, at the current temperature, macbooks make for good workstations IMO. I sometimes miss Linux but just haven't found comparable hardware, efficiency and utility. Also a relief to have USB-C displays and other hardware just work, no battery drain when idle, etc. I'm sure it's a close call though compared to a good x64 laptop with Linux though, especially with x64 slowly approaching ARM in terms of power efficiency. The latest debacle around macOS and JVM was not a good look though. I feel their moat is shrinking.
    - renewedrebecca 3y ago
      The JVM problem was fixed in what, 11 days? That's pretty damn good.
      - moritzwarhier 3y ago
        This is true! So maybe I was wrong about it being a bad look.
  - nickthegreek 3y ago
    What nags are you talking about? I’ve never had to open a terminal to deal with things like that on macOS.
    - tacker2000 3y ago
      You have to run some terminal command, to make a system setting visible, just to be able to install non-app store apps. > sudo spctl --master-disable
      - steelbrain 3y ago
        This is not true. You do not have to do this to install non-app store apps. Right click and open, if you don't get an option to open the first time, right click and open the second time and the option shows up. Please do not disable Gatekeeper because you want to open apps from a keyboard shortcut instead of right click and open.

trimethylpurine 3y ago

You can turn all this shit off in the group policy editor. It takes less time than writing an article for The Verge.

arcastroe 3y ago
If you find time, could you link me to a how-to source?
- trimethylpurine 3y ago
  It's the first result in every search engine I tried. Here's one: https://www.howtogeek.com/742414/how-to-disable-the-widgets-menu-on-windows-11/ https://www.howtogeek.com/742414/how-to-disable-the-widgets-...
hulitu 3y ago
You can't. Only some things.
- daveoc64 3y ago
  The source of complaint in the article (Widgets) can be switched off with Group Policy on Windows 11 Pro and above.
daveoc64 3y ago
I too am surprised at how people seem unable to find the readily accessible options to turn these features off. Many of the things people don't like in Windows 10 and 11 can be switched off from the Settings app.
- trimethylpurine 3y ago
  That you get down votes for providing solutions should tell you that this platform is sadly flooded with sensational journalism as opposed to the expected technically and scientifically inclined patrons that we'd prefer.
3y ago

thegrim33 3y ago

I still can not believe that when I right click on a file, the option to rename the file is no longer in the right click menu. The menu that appears contains a couple dozen different options, none of which are to rename the file. Somehow they decided that renaming is so unimportant of an operation that they shoved it into a sub menu, under "More Options", which, when selected, causes a whole new set of actions to appear, one of which is rename. So it's now a multi-step process to get to the option to rename a file. How on EARTH did people sign off on that? It's such an unbelievable usability issue.

daveoc64 3y ago
The common file actions like rename and copy are now shown as icons at the top or bottom of the context menu.
- kcb 3y ago
  I can never tell which icon is which.
  - Rinzler89 3y ago
    But at least some UX devs at Microsoft made bank on this.
trimethylpurine 3y ago
It's directly in the right click menu. It's an icon that looks like a cursor. It looks like what happens when you rename a file. It's also in the More Options menu if you prefer extra steps. Doesn't sound like you do.
paul_funyun 3y ago
You click the filename twice to rename. More efficient than two clicks and a menu perusal.
- tacker2000 3y ago

htk 3y ago

Windows 11 is a jungle of dark patterns, and I find it really disrespectful to the user as well as low class and desperate.

Gibbon1 3y ago
At work we're using Windows 11, one drive, and teams and the experience is just trash. Mikhail Parakhin has accomplished more to destroy Microsoft's desk top OS monopoly than anyone else.

theandrewbailey 3y ago

I'll probably upgrade my desktop with the next generation AMD CPUs, and I somewhat dread having to choose between Windows 10 (which will probably not be supported on this newer hardware), or Debian, because I sure as hell won't be using Windows 11.

ajkjk 3y ago

What is going on with this title

FroshKiller 3y ago
It's what we call a minced oath. "Got dang" is an inoffensive substitute for "goddamn."
- ugjka 3y ago
  I guess a couple years down the road we'll need even more inoffensive words for these ones we've created. It is similar to people on social media using word seggs instead of sex because god forbid the algoritm gets a stroke
- thiht 3y ago
  What’s offensive about goddamn? "Damn" is not even vulgar, is it?
  - linguae 3y ago
    “Damn” is not a vulgarity unlike certain other words, but too many utterances of “damn” will make a movie’s rating PG instead of G, “damn” will get you in trouble for cursing at a private Christian school, and I wouldn’t use the word “damn” in church unless I’m referring very specifically to God’s damnation. It goes against polite Christian mores to say “damn” or “goddamn.”
  - FroshKiller 3y ago
    In the context of American Christian hegemony, even if "damn" or "damned" isn't considered particularly strong by many, a lot of people object strongly to "goddamn." It's a superstition that has to do with one of the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

djbusby 3y ago

Back in the day it was possible to replace "explorer.exe" as the shell. One had to write their own app, but it could take over start menu, explorer, and desktop. Is that still a thing? I made on (2003) it worked on Win2k and 98 IIRC. Edit: the app has to have special entry points (not regular WinMain) and regedit a bunch to make it work. Edit2: found this https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/18ipo7f/why_doesnt_anyone_ever_build_custom_desktop/?rdt=44683 https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/18ipo7f/why_does... Which points to https://cairoshell.com/ https://cairoshell.com/ Awesome!

omoikane 3y ago
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alternative_shells_for_Windows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alternative_shells_for... I used to run LiteStep, and I remember the one productivity feature it had over regular Windows was virtual desktops. Windows 10 natively supports those now, and I have mostly given up on all desktop eye candy things.

telchior 3y ago

I recently "upgraded" to Windows 11, which began with going into Add/Remove Programs and removing everything I could, then going into settings and turning off all the Windows options I spotted. A method that, as far as I could remember, worked pretty well in Windows 10. But I was stressed about some work stuff so I quickly moved on to pulling my project's repo and getting back to work. A week later, my project goes absolutely berserk with warnings and failures, which trace back to files / lines that shouldn't exist. Turns out, I had dropped my repo into a directory managed by Windows OneDrive, and OneDrive had backed everything up and subsequently decided (for some reason I still haven't figured out) to start restoring and reverting deleted / changed files. My realization of this began with "What the fuck is a OneDrive?" tl;dr it's Microsoft trying to sneakily take over all your data / force you into its cloud services. I'd actually briefly spotted the name and turned it off, but it had taken that to mean "until tomorrow", of course. Anyway, it's on me, right? I was distracted and lazy. Sometimes it takes a good old mugging to get back in the right defensive mindset.

Rinzler89 3y ago
That's why us old timers still put our work in C:\git or C:\work out of habit, like in the DOS days, never in the likes of My Documents as those folders end up being used by a lot of other apps.
- rodface 3y ago
  Indeed, I pretty much treat userspace as C:\temp, considering how much it gets messed with. Anything that requires consistent behavior needs to live in the root.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

simonblack 3y ago

I keep saying it: "Best of Breed" is Windows 7. It's been all downhill since there. On the odd occasion that I must use Windows (and gets less and less each year) I use Windows 7 as a VirtualBox 'guest' on Linux. If I didn't use HP software for multi-page scanning to PDF with my HP MFP, I wouldn't need Windows at all.

pikseladam 3y ago

Despite your aversion to the situation, it's functional. Individuals unfamiliar with Y Combinator are increasingly interacting with Microsoft offerings, which in turn boosts Microsoft's financial gains. Consequently, their sales are thriving—you may dislike this reality, yet their marketing proves more effective. tiktok generation folks, get used to it.

multimoon 3y ago

“ You also generally do not have to download a bunch of drivers or spend six hours in the command line hand-assembling the goddamn operating system.” Is it me or has the quality of writing coming from the verge gone downhill in recent years? I remember they used to be awesome - but this statement alone made me uninterested in anything else the author had to say as it’s just factually incorrect. Other than power user distros (arch, gentoo, etc) Linux has been one click install and ready to go just like windows for a decade (Ubuntu, fedora, etc) and provides a very good OOBE nowadays. Also, once you remove “my laptop came with windows preinstalled” - yes you do spend time messing with drivers, a uniquely windows problem. If you’re lucky windows update will grab them all, but that’s still requiring user interaction. God forbid windows update doesn’t have it and you have to go hunting on the OEM’s website for it. I wholeheartedly agree with their sentiment that windows has become a nuisance and I’d call it approaching unusable the more money Microsoft tries to extract from it, but the author/editor really should do research first before they try to write an eye catching sentence.

leonroy 3y ago
> Other than power user distros (arch, gentoo, etc) Linux has been one click install and ready to go just like windows for a decade (Ubuntu, fedora, etc) and provides a very good OOBE nowadays. So my experience with Ubuntu and Fedora on a new Thinkpad T14s Gen 3 (AMD) laptop has been a mixed bag. Lenovo state that this is an Ubuntu supported notebook so everything should have been compatible with no tinkering but that was not my experience. You're right, OOBE with distros today is good. But in day to day usage there were three very annoying problems: 1. The display flickers due to AMD's variable refresh rate feature (doesn't happen on Windows) - fixing this required a custom kernel with VRR disabled 2. The speakers sounded very quiet and anemic due to the laptop shipping with Dolby Atmos tuning - fixing this in Linux required installing Windows (which supports Atmos), recording a special diff file in Windows Audacity with Atmos tuning on/off and then importing that into PulseAudio on Ubuntu to give it the same speaker tuning profile 3. The trackpad scroll speed was way too fast and Gnome annoyingly offers no way to customize this - the solution is to edit one of the libinput-config files Granted the big stuff like Wifi, Bluetooth, GPU, printing and sleep all worked perfectly - even Steam + Proton worked out the box with games like Arkham Knight and Witcher running as well as Windows but little issues like those three above required a good few hours of tinkering in the command line and make things frustrating enough that I think The Verge author's point stands.