8 ms·

Microsoft: We see all the backlash and we know we have a lot to fix in Windows

46 points by defrost 1y ago

aboardRat4 1y ago
Everything was good enough in Windows 7.
vunderba 1y ago
> We care deeply about developers. We know we have work to do on the experience, both on the everyday usability, from inconsistent dialogs to power user experiences. With respect, that's a load of horse crap. This is NOT why so many of your users are upset. They're angry because you've exhibited a long, deliberate pattern of historical abuse: upgrade-style dark patterns, invasive telemetry, advertisements built into Windows, and outright hostility toward users who want to own their OS rather than the other way around. God damn.
- zahlman 1y ago
  Describing the situation this way is just part of the pattern.
- netsharc 1y ago
  Understood, we'll improve the wording when we nag you about buying OneDrive. /MS
- redwood 1y ago
  You show them too much respect!
- charcircuit 1y ago
  Those are not real concerns. People upset about those are not upset for a logical reason, so you will never appease those user by updating the operating system. People will complain about ads, but when you actually take a look what they are complaining about it is not actually an ad. People just hear a complaint and repeat it without any critical thought. It's better to instead focus on actual tangible problems and pain points that developers and users are hitting.
  - do_not_redeem 1y ago
    > when you actually take a look what they are complaining about it is not actually an ad https://www.windowslatest.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Start-menu-ads-in-Windows-11-Build-22631.3527-1.jpg https://www.windowslatest.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Sta... Opera Browser [Promoted] -- https://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/file-explorer-ads.png https://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/file-explo... Buy OneDrive for $6.99 a month -- Do you think these aren't ads?
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      I would consider the first one to be an ad, but you could disable it and it seems to have only rolled out to a small number of users for a short period of time because it's hard to find many instances of this existing. It's certainlynot on my machone. Yet, you'll probably still see people complain about this. The windows team can't remove something they already have. The second I would not consider an ad, but an upsell.
      - Hizonner 1y ago
        An upsell is a FUCKING AD and has no business existing, period. Nothing should appear on a user's screen that doesn't add value for what the user is trying to get done. This is really, really simple. If you are Microsoft, and you are thinking about whether something should appear on the screen, you should be thinking "Does this advance the user's goals?". If you are instead thinking "Does this advance Microsoft's goals?", then you are doing it wrong. The same applies to automagically configuring everything to use the cloud (good for Microsoft, usually bad for the user). And, as a special case of that, requiring the user to use a cloud-based account to log into their own local computer.
        charcircuit 1y ago
        Cloud storage, and office suite software, does add value to what users are trying to get done with their computer. The definition of ad you are using is not the common usage. For example if someone asked if ChatGPT had ads they would most likely say no, despite it upselling the subscription.
- bspinner 1y ago
  Exactly. I simply don't trust Microsoft enough anymore to choose them as my computers operating system provider. Windows just doesn't feel like something you should do private stuff with due to all that telemetry/data collecting.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
  If a company says the "care" about something in a public statement (or that something is 'important' or 'our top priority'), its because the opposite is true and the public is unhappy about it. But instead of changing, the easier thing to do is to pretend and gaslight.
rolph 1y ago
at this point it seems evident, they should step away and let the task be done by capable hands.
aetherspawn 1y ago
Just waiting for macOS to get their act together in the Business space so that Windows can become a gaming only OS. I know people always say that macOS purposely don’t target business, and things like this, but at this point.. why not? Honestly? They have the best hardware in the world right now. Catering just to personal use (and these lines are getting blurrier each day with WFH) is just inconvenient.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Apple isn’t interested in the corporate desktop. Margins aren’t there.
  - aetherspawn 1y ago
    But the margins are in the cloud stuff (email, iCloud, etc) right? They just need to make an Apple version of SharePoint and Exchange, and wala. Now you have a suitable stack for small and medium businesses with simple requirements, like most retail, small lawyers, small accountants, etc I setup a small business recently and I was able to use a full Apple stack except for Exchange Online Plan 1 (email) and Mosyle (MDM). These are both tech that Apple has (iCloud Mail and Apple Business Manager), it’s just lacking a few critical features.
    - HumanOstrich 1y ago
      What's wala?
      - gnabgib 1y ago
        Probably voilà https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/voil%C3%A0 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/voil%C3%A0
      - aetherspawn 1y ago
        Yes, sorry, viola.
DustinEchoes 1y ago
> We balance what we see in our product feedback systems with what we hear directly Step 1. Use dark patterns to funnel users into using a product or service they don’t want Step 2. Watch usage kpis go up Step 3. “Everyone says they hate this, but look at our kpis! Must just be a vocal minority” Move on to next thing
- spwa4 1y ago
  You forgot: Step 4. Get promoted, move to different team
PebblesHD 1y ago
Possibly too little too late. Even my uninterested family and friends are moving over to MacBooks just due to not enjoying windows 11 or not wanting to upgrade hardware to get a minor OS change. Between that and valve looking to move on the casual / console gaming space with the new steam hardware and devs already being split between macs and linux, they’re going to have a hard time coming back if they fumble this for much longer.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- weikju 1y ago
  > moving over to MacBooks Ok but > not wanting to upgrade hardware to get a minor OS change. Bit of contradiction both in the immediate “need a whole new machine“ and the well known deprecation of 7 year old Macs wrt new OS releases. I’m sure it’s still better than Windows though (haven’t used Windows for 2 decades except for occasional short lived business mandates)
the_snooze 1y ago
Windows has strong engineering bones, but the business cancer has long spread throughout. Microsoft has been ratcheting up the extractive practices and disrespecting user agency since at least Windows 11's release in 2021. It's a lost cause as far as I'm concerned.
sublinear 1y ago
Limp wristed and far too little too late
kristianp 1y ago
Re the gimped taskbar, I was pleasantly surprised when trying Mac OS that I could set the taskbar to the side of the screen.
Zeetah 1y ago
The Microsoft response is very disingenuous because if they knew about the situation and let it get to the current situation, then it means they really didn't care. If they didn't know then, they are clueless. I think the reality is that they are super confused, don't have a vision, and therefore, no strategy. They are just like a marble bouncing in a pachinko machine. For example, look at the churn on the UI framework - I think they have gone through three or more frameworks in the last few years. The constant updates are just huge. I don't think on Linux they use anti-virus software. I'm sure it is nice not losing perf to the AV. I think the windows file system throughput for small files is horrid compared to Linux.
ChrisArchitect 1y ago
Previously: Microsoft executive closes replies after Windows 11 "Agentic OS" backlash https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45931725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45931725
Incipient 1y ago
>We know we have work to do on the experience, both on the everyday usability, from inconsistent dialogs to power user experiences. I don't believe this verbiage from any company, least of all any of the big boys. This is just placating PR nonsense. I mean, what are they going to say? "lol no one cares about users - what are they going to do, use Linux haha?!"
JSR_FDED 1y ago
> Would love to connect with you about what the team is doing to address these areas if you are open to it That’s how you know this is bullshit. An exec wants to “reach out” to some rando on the Internet.
- workfromspace 1y ago
  I believe that "rando" here is Gergely Orosz, famous creator of https://www.pragmaticengineer.com https://www.pragmaticengineer.com and ex-team lead at Uber.
  - JSR_FDED 1y ago
    Decidedly less rando than I originally thought!
kjellsbells 1y ago
I honestly suspect that most of Microsoft have absolutely no idea what the regular, retail Windows experience is like because neither they nor their customers use it. If you work at Microsoft you are on an ad free, LTSC variant of Windows that behaves more or less reliably. The IT team handle all the OneDrive stuff for you and make sure that it remains unobtrusive. Re the second part of my statement, Microsoft only really care about the S500 accounts, the big corporations like, say, Toyota or John Deere. Those guys do not get the ad infested version of Windows. They get something much more elegant and Microsoft outsource any drama by getting favored partners like Accenture and Avanade to deliver it. You can be a billion dollar corp and not register on Microsoft's radar, being relegated to the "small medium biz" segment. As far as retail users or mom and pop businesses, Microsoft has zero interest in them. These are the people griping on techcrunch and Reddit. They get the ad filled, inscrutably weird versions of Windows. Nothing is likely to change until Linux gets its act together and delivers a credible threat to Microsoft on the desktop. However it's just as likely that Ubuntu see $$$ and start selling ad space on Ubuntu to "preferred OEM" partners like Dell, whereupon we'll be back to the days of PCs filled with bloatware.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
  > However it's just as likely that Ubuntu see $$$ This is the bigger problem. There is a financial incentive to make OS suck for everyone but the biggest enterprise clients. If some linux provider started to fill take significant market share from, windows, it would eventually become as bad and for the same reasons. We need a wide field of competition to keep this from happening. The problem is that with all these competing OS variants, none have the resources and user-base to maintain easy compatibility with all the software and hardware being produced. So they all suck a little bit and in different ways. If one did get big enough to manage this, then they will exploit that market dominance through enshittification. It's a never ending battle.
klipklop 1y ago
They won’t fix anything other than add more intrusive tracking. Only an existential crisis will make them turn it temporarily around. Even then they will go back to old patterns soon after any emerging competition dies off. We are like 35 into using windows. It adds more BS with every release. If I could use windows 7 on modern hardware and games worked like normal I would literally never upgrade. Their updates these days are to just justify new tracking measures and forced logins. It’s Microsoft first, government second and customers a distant third. Everybody internally and externally knows this.
spwa4 1y ago
Microsoft has been working to move into entertainment and content/content aggregation since at least 1998, and they have always shown the same pattern: 1) attempt to embrace and extend, usually a long-past-its-peak business (they tried to embrace and extend TV channels in 2013 ...) 2) they do this by "integrating" with another product. Anything they have. And making the successful product they have much worse. Zune. Windows. Xbox. Bing. Groove (I actually liked Groove, well the interface). Lumia/Nokia. That last one wasn't even a microsoft product. And now they're working hard at blowing up Windows and Office products. 3) fail, but don't bring the product back to the previous state, and keep trying, keep trying, keep beating the dead horse until they're standing in a hole in the ground in questionable liquids. And while nothing could ever hope to match the speed at which they destroyed Xbox, it's a constantly repeating pattern. 4) Get feedback from the top of Microsoft that Microsoft's valuation is based on this embrace and extend and constant growth and so, no matter how big the disaster, they'll just do it again. 5) goto 1 This, if you look carefully, despite that every Microsoft product that became a success was going into a massively growing, or an outright new market. But none of the markets Microsoft is currently in is growing, except maybe cloud. And I find the fact that they're reluctant with embracing and extending in cloud (e.g. a move like making windows server free) an incredibly bad sign for Microsoft. Microsoft does not have the proper equipment to embrace and extend anymore, and I don't see much of a target market for them to move into. Microsoft's valuation is based on the idea that they're a monopolist that can "eat" other people's markets, but they haven't eaten someone else's market for a decade now. Admitting this, of course, would take at least half off their stock because at that point you'd have to admit they'd be doing pretty well to have a growth rate of maybe 5%.
- metadope 1y ago
  >5) goto 1 This. Here is your main Microsoft engineering failure, using a Basic goto statement in their implementation of a marketing algorithm. Shame!
  - spwa4 1y ago
    You're right. This should be a recursive call, so as to express that eventually a stack overflow crash will occur.
trashface 1y ago
Been using windows since 3.11, dos 5 and 6 before that, when I was a pre-teen. Still have windows 10, but when this computer dies, the next one is running linux. It may suck kind of, but at least I will own the suck, rather than have the suck be forced upon me by a shark-jumping company that is now only concerned about some ceo-crack-dream "AI".
renegade-otter 1y ago
Buying something other than Windows for gaming never occurred to me - never, but my latest experience with MS and Windows 11 will make me seriously evaluate the options for the next purchase. I hope Valve slays it.

46 points by defrost 1y ago

Everything was good enough in Windows 7.

> We care deeply about developers. We know we have work to do on the experience, both on the everyday usability, from inconsistent dialogs to power user experiences. With respect, that's a load of horse crap. This is NOT why so many of your users are upset. They're angry because you've exhibited a long, deliberate pattern of historical abuse: upgrade-style dark patterns, invasive telemetry, advertisements built into Windows, and outright hostility toward users who want to own their OS rather than the other way around. God damn.

zahlman 1y ago
Describing the situation this way is just part of the pattern.
netsharc 1y ago
Understood, we'll improve the wording when we nag you about buying OneDrive. /MS
redwood 1y ago
You show them too much respect!
charcircuit 1y ago
Those are not real concerns. People upset about those are not upset for a logical reason, so you will never appease those user by updating the operating system. People will complain about ads, but when you actually take a look what they are complaining about it is not actually an ad. People just hear a complaint and repeat it without any critical thought. It's better to instead focus on actual tangible problems and pain points that developers and users are hitting.
- do_not_redeem 1y ago
  > when you actually take a look what they are complaining about it is not actually an ad https://www.windowslatest.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Start-menu-ads-in-Windows-11-Build-22631.3527-1.jpg https://www.windowslatest.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Sta... Opera Browser [Promoted] -- https://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/file-explorer-ads.png https://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/file-explo... Buy OneDrive for $6.99 a month -- Do you think these aren't ads?
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    I would consider the first one to be an ad, but you could disable it and it seems to have only rolled out to a small number of users for a short period of time because it's hard to find many instances of this existing. It's certainlynot on my machone. Yet, you'll probably still see people complain about this. The windows team can't remove something they already have. The second I would not consider an ad, but an upsell.
    - Hizonner 1y ago
      An upsell is a FUCKING AD and has no business existing, period. Nothing should appear on a user's screen that doesn't add value for what the user is trying to get done. This is really, really simple. If you are Microsoft, and you are thinking about whether something should appear on the screen, you should be thinking "Does this advance the user's goals?". If you are instead thinking "Does this advance Microsoft's goals?", then you are doing it wrong. The same applies to automagically configuring everything to use the cloud (good for Microsoft, usually bad for the user). And, as a special case of that, requiring the user to use a cloud-based account to log into their own local computer.
      - charcircuit 1y ago
        Cloud storage, and office suite software, does add value to what users are trying to get done with their computer. The definition of ad you are using is not the common usage. For example if someone asked if ChatGPT had ads they would most likely say no, despite it upselling the subscription.
bspinner 1y ago
Exactly. I simply don't trust Microsoft enough anymore to choose them as my computers operating system provider. Windows just doesn't feel like something you should do private stuff with due to all that telemetry/data collecting.
Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
If a company says the "care" about something in a public statement (or that something is 'important' or 'our top priority'), its because the opposite is true and the public is unhappy about it. But instead of changing, the easier thing to do is to pretend and gaslight.

rolph 1y ago

at this point it seems evident, they should step away and let the task be done by capable hands.

aetherspawn 1y ago

Just waiting for macOS to get their act together in the Business space so that Windows can become a gaming only OS. I know people always say that macOS purposely don’t target business, and things like this, but at this point.. why not? Honestly? They have the best hardware in the world right now. Catering just to personal use (and these lines are getting blurrier each day with WFH) is just inconvenient.

SoftTalker 1y ago
Apple isn’t interested in the corporate desktop. Margins aren’t there.
- aetherspawn 1y ago
  But the margins are in the cloud stuff (email, iCloud, etc) right? They just need to make an Apple version of SharePoint and Exchange, and wala. Now you have a suitable stack for small and medium businesses with simple requirements, like most retail, small lawyers, small accountants, etc I setup a small business recently and I was able to use a full Apple stack except for Exchange Online Plan 1 (email) and Mosyle (MDM). These are both tech that Apple has (iCloud Mail and Apple Business Manager), it’s just lacking a few critical features.
  - HumanOstrich 1y ago
    What's wala?
    - gnabgib 1y ago
      Probably voilà https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/voil%C3%A0 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/voil%C3%A0
    - aetherspawn 1y ago
      Yes, sorry, viola.

DustinEchoes 1y ago

> We balance what we see in our product feedback systems with what we hear directly Step 1. Use dark patterns to funnel users into using a product or service they don’t want Step 2. Watch usage kpis go up Step 3. “Everyone says they hate this, but look at our kpis! Must just be a vocal minority” Move on to next thing

spwa4 1y ago
You forgot: Step 4. Get promoted, move to different team

PebblesHD 1y ago

Possibly too little too late. Even my uninterested family and friends are moving over to MacBooks just due to not enjoying windows 11 or not wanting to upgrade hardware to get a minor OS change. Between that and valve looking to move on the casual / console gaming space with the new steam hardware and devs already being split between macs and linux, they’re going to have a hard time coming back if they fumble this for much longer.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
weikju 1y ago
> moving over to MacBooks Ok but > not wanting to upgrade hardware to get a minor OS change. Bit of contradiction both in the immediate “need a whole new machine“ and the well known deprecation of 7 year old Macs wrt new OS releases. I’m sure it’s still better than Windows though (haven’t used Windows for 2 decades except for occasional short lived business mandates)

the_snooze 1y ago

Windows has strong engineering bones, but the business cancer has long spread throughout. Microsoft has been ratcheting up the extractive practices and disrespecting user agency since at least Windows 11's release in 2021. It's a lost cause as far as I'm concerned.

sublinear 1y ago

Limp wristed and far too little too late

kristianp 1y ago

Re the gimped taskbar, I was pleasantly surprised when trying Mac OS that I could set the taskbar to the side of the screen.

Zeetah 1y ago

The Microsoft response is very disingenuous because if they knew about the situation and let it get to the current situation, then it means they really didn't care. If they didn't know then, they are clueless. I think the reality is that they are super confused, don't have a vision, and therefore, no strategy. They are just like a marble bouncing in a pachinko machine. For example, look at the churn on the UI framework - I think they have gone through three or more frameworks in the last few years. The constant updates are just huge. I don't think on Linux they use anti-virus software. I'm sure it is nice not losing perf to the AV. I think the windows file system throughput for small files is horrid compared to Linux.

ChrisArchitect 1y ago

Previously: Microsoft executive closes replies after Windows 11 "Agentic OS" backlash https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45931725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45931725

Incipient 1y ago

>We know we have work to do on the experience, both on the everyday usability, from inconsistent dialogs to power user experiences. I don't believe this verbiage from any company, least of all any of the big boys. This is just placating PR nonsense. I mean, what are they going to say? "lol no one cares about users - what are they going to do, use Linux haha?!"

JSR_FDED 1y ago

> Would love to connect with you about what the team is doing to address these areas if you are open to it That’s how you know this is bullshit. An exec wants to “reach out” to some rando on the Internet.

workfromspace 1y ago
I believe that "rando" here is Gergely Orosz, famous creator of https://www.pragmaticengineer.com https://www.pragmaticengineer.com and ex-team lead at Uber.
- JSR_FDED 1y ago
  Decidedly less rando than I originally thought!

kjellsbells 1y ago

I honestly suspect that most of Microsoft have absolutely no idea what the regular, retail Windows experience is like because neither they nor their customers use it. If you work at Microsoft you are on an ad free, LTSC variant of Windows that behaves more or less reliably. The IT team handle all the OneDrive stuff for you and make sure that it remains unobtrusive. Re the second part of my statement, Microsoft only really care about the S500 accounts, the big corporations like, say, Toyota or John Deere. Those guys do not get the ad infested version of Windows. They get something much more elegant and Microsoft outsource any drama by getting favored partners like Accenture and Avanade to deliver it. You can be a billion dollar corp and not register on Microsoft's radar, being relegated to the "small medium biz" segment. As far as retail users or mom and pop businesses, Microsoft has zero interest in them. These are the people griping on techcrunch and Reddit. They get the ad filled, inscrutably weird versions of Windows. Nothing is likely to change until Linux gets its act together and delivers a credible threat to Microsoft on the desktop. However it's just as likely that Ubuntu see $$$ and start selling ad space on Ubuntu to "preferred OEM" partners like Dell, whereupon we'll be back to the days of PCs filled with bloatware.

Eddy_Viscosity2 1y ago
> However it's just as likely that Ubuntu see $$$ This is the bigger problem. There is a financial incentive to make OS suck for everyone but the biggest enterprise clients. If some linux provider started to fill take significant market share from, windows, it would eventually become as bad and for the same reasons. We need a wide field of competition to keep this from happening. The problem is that with all these competing OS variants, none have the resources and user-base to maintain easy compatibility with all the software and hardware being produced. So they all suck a little bit and in different ways. If one did get big enough to manage this, then they will exploit that market dominance through enshittification. It's a never ending battle.

klipklop 1y ago

They won’t fix anything other than add more intrusive tracking. Only an existential crisis will make them turn it temporarily around. Even then they will go back to old patterns soon after any emerging competition dies off. We are like 35 into using windows. It adds more BS with every release. If I could use windows 7 on modern hardware and games worked like normal I would literally never upgrade. Their updates these days are to just justify new tracking measures and forced logins. It’s Microsoft first, government second and customers a distant third. Everybody internally and externally knows this.

spwa4 1y ago

Microsoft has been working to move into entertainment and content/content aggregation since at least 1998, and they have always shown the same pattern: 1) attempt to embrace and extend, usually a long-past-its-peak business (they tried to embrace and extend TV channels in 2013 ...) 2) they do this by "integrating" with another product. Anything they have. And making the successful product they have much worse. Zune. Windows. Xbox. Bing. Groove (I actually liked Groove, well the interface). Lumia/Nokia. That last one wasn't even a microsoft product. And now they're working hard at blowing up Windows and Office products. 3) fail, but don't bring the product back to the previous state, and keep trying, keep trying, keep beating the dead horse until they're standing in a hole in the ground in questionable liquids. And while nothing could ever hope to match the speed at which they destroyed Xbox, it's a constantly repeating pattern. 4) Get feedback from the top of Microsoft that Microsoft's valuation is based on this embrace and extend and constant growth and so, no matter how big the disaster, they'll just do it again. 5) goto 1 This, if you look carefully, despite that every Microsoft product that became a success was going into a massively growing, or an outright new market. But none of the markets Microsoft is currently in is growing, except maybe cloud. And I find the fact that they're reluctant with embracing and extending in cloud (e.g. a move like making windows server free) an incredibly bad sign for Microsoft. Microsoft does not have the proper equipment to embrace and extend anymore, and I don't see much of a target market for them to move into. Microsoft's valuation is based on the idea that they're a monopolist that can "eat" other people's markets, but they haven't eaten someone else's market for a decade now. Admitting this, of course, would take at least half off their stock because at that point you'd have to admit they'd be doing pretty well to have a growth rate of maybe 5%.

metadope 1y ago
>5) goto 1 This. Here is your main Microsoft engineering failure, using a Basic goto statement in their implementation of a marketing algorithm. Shame!
- spwa4 1y ago
  You're right. This should be a recursive call, so as to express that eventually a stack overflow crash will occur.

trashface 1y ago

Been using windows since 3.11, dos 5 and 6 before that, when I was a pre-teen. Still have windows 10, but when this computer dies, the next one is running linux. It may suck kind of, but at least I will own the suck, rather than have the suck be forced upon me by a shark-jumping company that is now only concerned about some ceo-crack-dream "AI".

renegade-otter 1y ago

Buying something other than Windows for gaming never occurred to me - never, but my latest experience with MS and Windows 11 will make me seriously evaluate the options for the next purchase. I hope Valve slays it.