5 ms·

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

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
  You could also hit F2, but thats not the point here. The point is that a command that is used a lot is buried in 2 layers of menus.
- ThrowawayR2 3y ago
  I find it ironic that people, like the parent poster, who are actually trying to be helpful and informative are being downvoted for it. Windows is an adequate operating system if one bothers to learn to use it properly.
  - trimethylpurine 3y ago
    The downvoters are most likely the same marketers posting this trash on HN. If there's help in the comments, people won't click on the ad trap they've posted here.
wumeow 3y ago
It’s still there in a little set of icons you have to memorize the meaning of and that will be changed two versions from now by the next PM who wants to juice up their resume.
- Rinzler89 3y ago
  >by the next PM who wants to juice up their resume Does having been a UX PM on Windows 11 on your resume actually help you or hinder you at this point?
  - Jensson 3y ago
    They will say "increased user engagement by 31% by improving icon UX in menu", where they measured user engagement as how much time was spent looking at the menu. Then it will look like they improved things even if the product is bad.
    - freetinker 3y ago
      Tragicomic and so true.
wkat4242 3y ago
Like others said the rename is an icon now but some other much used options like compress folder are still hidden under more options. Luckily there's a registry key to turn this crap off. I don't have it to hand right now but it's easy to find. But yeah that doesn't excuse anything. Setting up a new windows now takes ages to decrap it.
- SECProto 3y ago
  > Luckily there's a registry key to turn this crap off. I don't have it to hand right now but it's easy to find. That's useful to know - if I ever have to update my personal computer to 11. For my work computer, I've gotten used to using shift+right click to bypass the new (buggy, slow loading) right click menu and go straight to the old one
AtlasBarfed 3y ago
Xp was the last time Microsoft cared about UI. Once UI started with material design, hamburger, removing top menus, ribbons of icons, it has all been downhill.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  > Xp was the last time Microsoft cared about UI. They still care about the UI. But Windows 7 was the last time our interests were aligned.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
6510 3y ago
How could you have missed that the "more options" option brings up a context sub menu... or no wait... it brings up a different menu that has different spacing, no icons, a different font AND THE SAME OPTIONS! It appears to be the unchanged legacy menu. You have to picture it, no one stopped whoever did this.
- jasomill 3y ago
  I assume the two-level design was the only way to speed up the context menu without breaking compatibility with some existing shell extensions. Specifically, the older design allows shell extensions to register callbacks that must run — in some cases synchronously, on the UI thread — before a context menu displays. In Windows 11, these "legacy" shell extension context menu callbacks need never run unless "Show more options" is chosen. The "more options" menu duplicates items in the first because it's identical to the Windows 10 context menu (again, I assume, because compatibility).
  - 6510 3y ago
    I appreciate that they chose to make everything backwards compatible. What you describe actually makes it worse. The new menu takes over 2 seconds to open on my laptop. Enough to load a billion rows and perform calculations on them. It should to take 1 frame. I don't have any windows applications with context menus that even come close to being this slow. If you cant change it the new menu should have the same look as the old one. If clicking "more options" duplicates the same functionality highlight the new options. Have a configuration icon so that you can monitor how much people hate your new design. Anyway, the new design is so bad they might as well put contextual advertisement in it.
369548684892826 3y ago
I've always hit F2 to rename stuff so hadn't noticed it wasn't in the menu any more, but I hate how the menu loads in now so you can't reliably click on anything until it's done its little dance and stopped shuffling things around.
telchior 3y ago
This was wildly annoying. For anyone that has been procrastinating on fixing it, all you need to do is open the command line and enter: reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f /ve That brings back the legacy right-click menu.
- dullcrisp 3y ago
  Memorized this command, thank you!
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  The author has a little whine fest to try to make windows sound great & Linux sound insane: > There are some things that Windows does very well compared to macOS and Linux. All the games are there, for one thing, and Windows runs on all sorts of hardware without a lot of fiddling. You do not have to spend a thousand dollars minimum on a non-upgradable machine to use it. 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. But on Windows now it requires hunting through all kinds of really bad low-quality web pages to see if you can tweak some behavior that you are absolutely fed up & at the end of your rope with. Desperate to find some special registry setting you can fiddle with, or lately, use ViveTool/StagingTool to tweak incredibly opaque Feature IDs that might possible help. Windows has become the configuration nightmare that Linux was, and there's nothing remotely as comforting or capable as a command line there to help you scout shit out & try to improve things with; with Windows you're stranded & alone. The author also clearly hasn't spent a lick of effort trying to install a vaguely modern end-user-centric distro in a decade. Nor are they aware that basically every game except Destiny 2 and Modern Warfare (and some others with particularly pernicious root-kitting anti-cheat software) runs great on Linux. My new years resolution was to stopping booting my desktop/gaming PC into Windows unless I need it, and it's been so lovely, games so near universally work, and things like playing a game while watching movie - where windows gives me 3 fps of movie - run butter smooth.
  - M95D 3y ago
    > So I switched to my five-year-old Windows desktop and plugged in another monitor. Love it. I think he was talking about the old Windows that he had.
1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
Perhaps it has been added but back in the day Windows had no GUI option to batch rename files either. GUIs have limitations, decided by someone else. This is one reason I dislike them. The command line probably has its limits, too, but it's far more flexible than a GUI.
dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago
For that reason I use F2 exclusively (second most used shortcut in Explorer after Ctrl+Shift+N for New Folder. I hate the delay needed to click, read the menu and find the right option.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

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
You could also hit F2, but thats not the point here. The point is that a command that is used a lot is buried in 2 layers of menus.
ThrowawayR2 3y ago
I find it ironic that people, like the parent poster, who are actually trying to be helpful and informative are being downvoted for it. Windows is an adequate operating system if one bothers to learn to use it properly.
- trimethylpurine 3y ago
  The downvoters are most likely the same marketers posting this trash on HN. If there's help in the comments, people won't click on the ad trap they've posted here.

wumeow 3y ago

It’s still there in a little set of icons you have to memorize the meaning of and that will be changed two versions from now by the next PM who wants to juice up their resume.

Rinzler89 3y ago
>by the next PM who wants to juice up their resume Does having been a UX PM on Windows 11 on your resume actually help you or hinder you at this point?
- Jensson 3y ago
  They will say "increased user engagement by 31% by improving icon UX in menu", where they measured user engagement as how much time was spent looking at the menu. Then it will look like they improved things even if the product is bad.
  - freetinker 3y ago
    Tragicomic and so true.

wkat4242 3y ago

Like others said the rename is an icon now but some other much used options like compress folder are still hidden under more options. Luckily there's a registry key to turn this crap off. I don't have it to hand right now but it's easy to find. But yeah that doesn't excuse anything. Setting up a new windows now takes ages to decrap it.

SECProto 3y ago
> Luckily there's a registry key to turn this crap off. I don't have it to hand right now but it's easy to find. That's useful to know - if I ever have to update my personal computer to 11. For my work computer, I've gotten used to using shift+right click to bypass the new (buggy, slow loading) right click menu and go straight to the old one

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

Xp was the last time Microsoft cared about UI. Once UI started with material design, hamburger, removing top menus, ribbons of icons, it has all been downhill.

CoastalCoder 3y ago
> Xp was the last time Microsoft cared about UI. They still care about the UI. But Windows 7 was the last time our interests were aligned.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

6510 3y ago

How could you have missed that the "more options" option brings up a context sub menu... or no wait... it brings up a different menu that has different spacing, no icons, a different font AND THE SAME OPTIONS! It appears to be the unchanged legacy menu. You have to picture it, no one stopped whoever did this.

jasomill 3y ago
I assume the two-level design was the only way to speed up the context menu without breaking compatibility with some existing shell extensions. Specifically, the older design allows shell extensions to register callbacks that must run — in some cases synchronously, on the UI thread — before a context menu displays. In Windows 11, these "legacy" shell extension context menu callbacks need never run unless "Show more options" is chosen. The "more options" menu duplicates items in the first because it's identical to the Windows 10 context menu (again, I assume, because compatibility).
- 6510 3y ago
  I appreciate that they chose to make everything backwards compatible. What you describe actually makes it worse. The new menu takes over 2 seconds to open on my laptop. Enough to load a billion rows and perform calculations on them. It should to take 1 frame. I don't have any windows applications with context menus that even come close to being this slow. If you cant change it the new menu should have the same look as the old one. If clicking "more options" duplicates the same functionality highlight the new options. Have a configuration icon so that you can monitor how much people hate your new design. Anyway, the new design is so bad they might as well put contextual advertisement in it.

369548684892826 3y ago

I've always hit F2 to rename stuff so hadn't noticed it wasn't in the menu any more, but I hate how the menu loads in now so you can't reliably click on anything until it's done its little dance and stopped shuffling things around.

telchior 3y ago

This was wildly annoying. For anyone that has been procrastinating on fixing it, all you need to do is open the command line and enter: reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f /ve That brings back the legacy right-click menu.

dullcrisp 3y ago
Memorized this command, thank you!
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
The author has a little whine fest to try to make windows sound great & Linux sound insane: > There are some things that Windows does very well compared to macOS and Linux. All the games are there, for one thing, and Windows runs on all sorts of hardware without a lot of fiddling. You do not have to spend a thousand dollars minimum on a non-upgradable machine to use it. 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. But on Windows now it requires hunting through all kinds of really bad low-quality web pages to see if you can tweak some behavior that you are absolutely fed up & at the end of your rope with. Desperate to find some special registry setting you can fiddle with, or lately, use ViveTool/StagingTool to tweak incredibly opaque Feature IDs that might possible help. Windows has become the configuration nightmare that Linux was, and there's nothing remotely as comforting or capable as a command line there to help you scout shit out & try to improve things with; with Windows you're stranded & alone. The author also clearly hasn't spent a lick of effort trying to install a vaguely modern end-user-centric distro in a decade. Nor are they aware that basically every game except Destiny 2 and Modern Warfare (and some others with particularly pernicious root-kitting anti-cheat software) runs great on Linux. My new years resolution was to stopping booting my desktop/gaming PC into Windows unless I need it, and it's been so lovely, games so near universally work, and things like playing a game while watching movie - where windows gives me 3 fps of movie - run butter smooth.
- M95D 3y ago
  > So I switched to my five-year-old Windows desktop and plugged in another monitor. Love it. I think he was talking about the old Windows that he had.

1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago

Perhaps it has been added but back in the day Windows had no GUI option to batch rename files either. GUIs have limitations, decided by someone else. This is one reason I dislike them. The command line probably has its limits, too, but it's far more flexible than a GUI.

dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago

For that reason I use F2 exclusively (second most used shortcut in Explorer after Ctrl+Shift+N for New Folder. I hate the delay needed to click, read the menu and find the right option.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]