3 ms·

I'm convinced that the win10 Start Menu was the single worst thing microsoft inflicted upon us in that OS. I imagine that particular discussion went like this:

I'm convinced that the win10 Start Menu was the single worst thing microsoft inflicted upon us in that OS. I imagine that particular discussion went like this: Exec1:"We have a semi decent os with a refreshingly updated UI that should stay relevant for a decade. How can we make it better?" Exec2: "why not replace the perfectly good start menu we have with an ugly, oddly proportioned rectangle with animated ads for our products." Exec3: "Sounds great! Just make sure it has a quarter of the information density of the old one and takes up twice the screen space." I haven't used Win11 enough to discover how they have managed to further degrade the experience, but at least it looks nicer.

esseph 10mo ago
Do you remember the windows 8 full screen start menu?
- 8note 10mo ago
  i miss the wondows 8 inking tools. loved that for drawing system diagrams and flow charts:'(
- speedgoose 10mo ago
  I used it and it was alright. They made it optionally not full screen in Windows 8.1 quickly too.
naikrovek 10mo ago
When Windows Phone was a thing, those live tiles were amazing. Those giant squares in the Win10 start menu were live tiles. Such a shame that so few applications on Win10 made use of them.
- FridayoLeary 10mo ago
  Never saw the point of them. I prefer static content, something which most web designers can't wrap their heads around. Easy navigation is something Mac sucks at for no good reason. I don't know why Windows is trying to degrade their advantage.
- array_key_first 10mo ago
  They never made sense for desktop interfaces with a keyboard and mouse. Information density is usually preferred, because we have big screens and precise, fast input.
  - naikrovek 9mo ago
    I don’t know how you think live tiles worked but they showed you information from an application without launching the application. You just open the start menu and you’d see all the current info from those applications at a glance, whether they were running or not, no clicking required.
    - array_key_first 9mo ago
      They took up 10x more space than they need to. And we had the information thing way, way before. I can see the weather on my taskbar right now in KDE, no app launch required. Except it's not a giant 1 inch by 1 inch square plastered on my start menu. It's a little text showing me a cloud and temperature. Also, live tiles just did not work a lot of the time. Most of the time, when you looked at them, it would just show the icon surrounded by a sea of color, like a little island. I'm assuming because the daemon is either not running or has ridiculously slow start up time, whereas the start menu might only be open for fractions of a second.
bluecalm 10mo ago
It took me a few hours to make the start menu looks like this: https://i.ibb.co/R4pgrwBx/start-menu.png https://i.ibb.co/R4pgrwBx/start-menu.png Now it's clean, doesn't show any web results when I start typing there: https://i.ibb.co/KpNptJTq/start-menu2.png https://i.ibb.co/KpNptJTq/start-menu2.png It also starts instantly every time (that requires removing Edge and web results from there). I use it as an app launcher only. The only missing touch is a fuzzy search but I can live without it. I've spent too much time on it. There are tools that do it for you if you trust them (like Windhawk). >>I haven't used Win11 enough to discover how they have managed to further degrade the experience, but at least it looks nicer. It's an anti-pattern over anti-pattern over anti-pattern. There is a trap waiting for you at every corner. At this point it's hard to imagine them not losing the whole consumer PC market to Apple and maybe some gaming friendly Linux distros. It will take a decade or so but once the snowball starts it will not turn back. I don't think it's only about power users only. They forced S0 sleep but didn't are about making sure it doesn't crash the system because of some misbehaving driver or failed Windows update. Normal users don't like seeing everything gone and the computer restarting when they open the lid. That doesn't happen on Macs. It won't happen on Valve sponsored Linux distro either.
- FridayoLeary 10mo ago
  Was the original menu so bad? Your one has zero discoverability, which is the main feature of the old menu, and something which was degraded, but not completely killed off on the newer versions.
  - bluecalm 10mo ago
    I don't need discoverability. I know what I have on my computer. I need it to be reliable, fast and not distract me with junk. Maybe most people need discoverability, the problem is that with the new design all they will discover is ads for Microsoft's products :) >>Was the original menu so bad? The original has ads, flashy banners and opens with lag half the time. Yes, it's that bad.

esseph 10mo ago

Do you remember the windows 8 full screen start menu?

8note 10mo ago
i miss the wondows 8 inking tools. loved that for drawing system diagrams and flow charts:'(
speedgoose 10mo ago
I used it and it was alright. They made it optionally not full screen in Windows 8.1 quickly too.

naikrovek 10mo ago

When Windows Phone was a thing, those live tiles were amazing. Those giant squares in the Win10 start menu were live tiles. Such a shame that so few applications on Win10 made use of them.

FridayoLeary 10mo ago
Never saw the point of them. I prefer static content, something which most web designers can't wrap their heads around. Easy navigation is something Mac sucks at for no good reason. I don't know why Windows is trying to degrade their advantage.
array_key_first 10mo ago
They never made sense for desktop interfaces with a keyboard and mouse. Information density is usually preferred, because we have big screens and precise, fast input.
- naikrovek 9mo ago
  I don’t know how you think live tiles worked but they showed you information from an application without launching the application. You just open the start menu and you’d see all the current info from those applications at a glance, whether they were running or not, no clicking required.
  - array_key_first 9mo ago
    They took up 10x more space than they need to. And we had the information thing way, way before. I can see the weather on my taskbar right now in KDE, no app launch required. Except it's not a giant 1 inch by 1 inch square plastered on my start menu. It's a little text showing me a cloud and temperature. Also, live tiles just did not work a lot of the time. Most of the time, when you looked at them, it would just show the icon surrounded by a sea of color, like a little island. I'm assuming because the daemon is either not running or has ridiculously slow start up time, whereas the start menu might only be open for fractions of a second.

bluecalm 10mo ago

It took me a few hours to make the start menu looks like this: https://i.ibb.co/R4pgrwBx/start-menu.png https://i.ibb.co/R4pgrwBx/start-menu.png Now it's clean, doesn't show any web results when I start typing there: https://i.ibb.co/KpNptJTq/start-menu2.png https://i.ibb.co/KpNptJTq/start-menu2.png It also starts instantly every time (that requires removing Edge and web results from there). I use it as an app launcher only. The only missing touch is a fuzzy search but I can live without it. I've spent too much time on it. There are tools that do it for you if you trust them (like Windhawk). >>I haven't used Win11 enough to discover how they have managed to further degrade the experience, but at least it looks nicer. It's an anti-pattern over anti-pattern over anti-pattern. There is a trap waiting for you at every corner. At this point it's hard to imagine them not losing the whole consumer PC market to Apple and maybe some gaming friendly Linux distros. It will take a decade or so but once the snowball starts it will not turn back. I don't think it's only about power users only. They forced S0 sleep but didn't are about making sure it doesn't crash the system because of some misbehaving driver or failed Windows update. Normal users don't like seeing everything gone and the computer restarting when they open the lid. That doesn't happen on Macs. It won't happen on Valve sponsored Linux distro either.

FridayoLeary 10mo ago
Was the original menu so bad? Your one has zero discoverability, which is the main feature of the old menu, and something which was degraded, but not completely killed off on the newer versions.
- bluecalm 10mo ago
  I don't need discoverability. I know what I have on my computer. I need it to be reliable, fast and not distract me with junk. Maybe most people need discoverability, the problem is that with the new design all they will discover is ads for Microsoft's products :) >>Was the original menu so bad? The original has ads, flashy banners and opens with lag half the time. Yes, it's that bad.