4 ms·

Reminder that this is the company that decided to replace Paint with something called "Paint 3D", the laggiest and bloatiest "literally nobody wanted this" draw

by Sharlin 6mo ago

Reminder that this is the company that decided to replace Paint with something called "Paint 3D", the laggiest and bloatiest "literally nobody wanted this" drawing app I've ever seen.

hydrogen7800 6mo ago
Ugh, I can no longer press win key and type "p a i enter". I now have to find the old paint manually.
- hilariously 6mo ago
  win+r - mspaint - enter
  - esafak 6mo ago
    They don't even do substring search??
    - xp84 6mo ago
      Apparently there’s a proper app launcher in PowerToys.
    - amlib 6mo ago
      Back in the 90s doing substring match was probably deemed way too expensive and so just calling the executable name directly was as optimized as it got... and it's beautiful :)
  - hydrogen7800 6mo ago
    Thanks! Also useful for an old win10 machine I have, and probably shouldn't be using anymore, that no longer responds to clicking the start menu button...
    - catlikesshrimp 6mo ago
      Don't throw it away. Install windows 8, and the last offline version of office you can find. It makes for a great distraction free workstation and a monitor for your android (scrcpy). Or, you can install and reinstall linux distros and learn the ropes. You should be fine as long as you use a proper firewall device and access only manually withelisted websites, but it is always better to keep it offline. That said, it can become your next firewall device.
      - hydrogen7800 6mo ago
        I built it circa 2012 or 2013 and still have the physical win8 disc. I considered futzing with linux on it. The extent of my linux experience is via SSH to a raspberry pi kludging some docker containers for this and that. SSH/linux terminal feels like fumbling in a dark room flipping random switches until something works. >scrcpy I also have a pixel 5a whose screen doesn't work, but I think functions otherwise. Would this allow me to interface with it?
        catlikesshrimp 6mo ago
        I think the pixel 5a can be connected to tv through an hdmi cable. If so, plug that and a mouse to setup adb (toggle enable adb and toggle debug permissions, then accept adb host)
        Grisu_FTP 6mo ago
        I may be wrong but i remember video output over usbc being added in the pixel 7 or 8
        deleted 6mo ago
        [deleted]
      - UncleSlacky 6mo ago
        Or just install Win10 IoT LTSC, which is supported until 2032.
- dataflow 6mo ago
  Switch to Open-Shell's start menu and don't look back.
- idle_processor 6mo ago
  Give FlowLauncher[0] or Windows Powertoys Run[1] a shot. There are some amazing tools like that (and Everything[2], which replaces Windows' inferior search) that really change how one interacts with Windows. There are other tricks like putting scripts or shortcuts or executables in a directory referenced by your PATH variable, which can make the Win+R trick better too. [0] https://www.flowlauncher.com/ https://www.flowlauncher.com/ [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/run https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/run [2] https://www.voidtools.com/ https://www.voidtools.com/
whynotmaybe 6mo ago
Must be some Mandela effect but I'm sure that Paint.net was supposed to replace mspaint when it was started.
- Sharlin 6mo ago
  It was supposed to be a third-party replacement, sure, but certainly not an official one. It started as a student project. It's just the prefix that tricks your brain to associate it with MS's own .NET branded applications.
  - saghm 6mo ago
    To be fair, the .NET brand is already super convoluted (there's .NET framework, the .NET core, .NET runtime, the .NET desktop runtime, the .NET sdk, and I'm genuinely not even sure which if any of these might refer to the same thing), on top of it weirdly sounding like something internet related to a casual user.
    - Sharlin 6mo ago
      Yes, "Copilot" is not the first brand that MS has tried to stick to everything while being just as confused about it as (inevitably) the consumers. Although somehow they did manage to keep .NET mostly aimed at developers - besides the actual frameworks there's Visual Studio .NET and other dev tools, but I'm actually a bit surprised that they never had "Office .NET" or "Outlook .NET" or even "Windows .NET Edition" or something like that. Maybe they still had some sane people in charge of marketing and brand management back then.
      - xp84 6mo ago
        They did brand the Microsoft accounts themselves, from “Passport” to “.NET Passport” for a while. That was before they were “Windows Live IDs.”
- cwnyth 6mo ago
  Paint.NET wasn't Microsoft's, but was an independent app: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.NET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.NET
mlnj 6mo ago
I remember how Skype, an awesome piece of software transformed into Lync, which worked fairly well, slowly transformed into whatever MS wanted to call it year after year, slower and more buggy than the year before.
- kalleboo 6mo ago
  Lync started out as "Office Communicator 2007" before being renamed Lync. Then Microsoft purchased Skype and rebranded Lync as "Skype for Business" even though it was still a completely unrelated product, with just some basic interoperability slapped on. Skype-the-consumer-app lived on separately as its original product in parallel. Just another example of how Microsoft is utterly incompetent at branding - always have been and always will be.
Rohansi 6mo ago
It was never replaced. Paint 3D was an entirely different app for 3D art only. It's also been gone for a few years now.
- Sharlin 6mo ago
  It was absolutely sold as a replacement. And it's gone now because literally nobody wanted it, used it, or understood why it existed. Sure, you could still find the old Paint in a disused lavatory behind a locked door with a sign "beware of the leopard". It wasn't even installed by default, unlike the 3D version, or do I recall incorrectly? Even MS isn't so stupid as to ship two separate accessories both called "Paint" in the same OS by default!
  - wlesieutre 6mo ago
    And a weird obsession with making it impossible to customize the sidebar in Explorer, so there was a “3D Objects” folder stuck there permanently unless you’re the kind of user who doesn’t mind a trip to the registry editor. What percent of users ever found that useful? I think I’m being generous to guess one in ten thousand. Absolutely braindead management running Windows development. https://www.thewindowsclub.com/remove-3d-objects-folder-winows-10 https://www.thewindowsclub.com/remove-3d-objects-folder-wino...
    - Sharlin 6mo ago
      Yeah, the "3D Objects" thing is just surreal. You can't make this stuff up.
      - robotnikman 6mo ago
        It was a relic from a time when it looked like 3D printing was going to be the next big thing.
        pbhjpbhj 6mo ago
        Agreed, it looked like VR was going to be big, MS & Meta were pushing it hard.
MisterTea 6mo ago
I think that crown belongs to the pile of pig shit that was the Windows 10 photo viewer. My first experience with that trash fire was opening a simple 2k photo which took 15 seconds and 150 MB of memory on a six core i5 with 16GB RAM. Viewing images was pain and suffering until I gave up and re-enabled the Win 7 viewer which was thankfully still included.
distances 6mo ago
Looking back, I understood with Windows XP that I wasn't in the target group. Win 95/98 had a simple but functional file search. Being naive, I was expecting some power user features in the future, like regex search. Win XP replaced the classic file search with one that had an animated dog in it. The dog search was completely, utterly useless. You would not find anything with it. It was so bad I still vividly remember my bafflement about it.

by Sharlin 6mo ago

Reminder that this is the company that decided to replace Paint with something called "Paint 3D", the laggiest and bloatiest "literally nobody wanted this" drawing app I've ever seen.

hydrogen7800 6mo ago

Ugh, I can no longer press win key and type "p a i enter". I now have to find the old paint manually.

hilariously 6mo ago
win+r - mspaint - enter
- esafak 6mo ago
  They don't even do substring search??
  - xp84 6mo ago
    Apparently there’s a proper app launcher in PowerToys.
  - amlib 6mo ago
    Back in the 90s doing substring match was probably deemed way too expensive and so just calling the executable name directly was as optimized as it got... and it's beautiful :)
- hydrogen7800 6mo ago
  Thanks! Also useful for an old win10 machine I have, and probably shouldn't be using anymore, that no longer responds to clicking the start menu button...
  - catlikesshrimp 6mo ago
    Don't throw it away. Install windows 8, and the last offline version of office you can find. It makes for a great distraction free workstation and a monitor for your android (scrcpy). Or, you can install and reinstall linux distros and learn the ropes. You should be fine as long as you use a proper firewall device and access only manually withelisted websites, but it is always better to keep it offline. That said, it can become your next firewall device.
    - hydrogen7800 6mo ago
      I built it circa 2012 or 2013 and still have the physical win8 disc. I considered futzing with linux on it. The extent of my linux experience is via SSH to a raspberry pi kludging some docker containers for this and that. SSH/linux terminal feels like fumbling in a dark room flipping random switches until something works. >scrcpy I also have a pixel 5a whose screen doesn't work, but I think functions otherwise. Would this allow me to interface with it?
      - catlikesshrimp 6mo ago
        I think the pixel 5a can be connected to tv through an hdmi cable. If so, plug that and a mouse to setup adb (toggle enable adb and toggle debug permissions, then accept adb host)
        Grisu_FTP 6mo ago
        I may be wrong but i remember video output over usbc being added in the pixel 7 or 8
      - deleted 6mo ago
        [deleted]
    - UncleSlacky 6mo ago
      Or just install Win10 IoT LTSC, which is supported until 2032.
dataflow 6mo ago
Switch to Open-Shell's start menu and don't look back.
idle_processor 6mo ago
Give FlowLauncher[0] or Windows Powertoys Run[1] a shot. There are some amazing tools like that (and Everything[2], which replaces Windows' inferior search) that really change how one interacts with Windows. There are other tricks like putting scripts or shortcuts or executables in a directory referenced by your PATH variable, which can make the Win+R trick better too. [0] https://www.flowlauncher.com/ https://www.flowlauncher.com/ [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/run https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/run [2] https://www.voidtools.com/ https://www.voidtools.com/

whynotmaybe 6mo ago

Must be some Mandela effect but I'm sure that Paint.net was supposed to replace mspaint when it was started.

Sharlin 6mo ago
It was supposed to be a third-party replacement, sure, but certainly not an official one. It started as a student project. It's just the prefix that tricks your brain to associate it with MS's own .NET branded applications.
- saghm 6mo ago
  To be fair, the .NET brand is already super convoluted (there's .NET framework, the .NET core, .NET runtime, the .NET desktop runtime, the .NET sdk, and I'm genuinely not even sure which if any of these might refer to the same thing), on top of it weirdly sounding like something internet related to a casual user.
  - Sharlin 6mo ago
    Yes, "Copilot" is not the first brand that MS has tried to stick to everything while being just as confused about it as (inevitably) the consumers. Although somehow they did manage to keep .NET mostly aimed at developers - besides the actual frameworks there's Visual Studio .NET and other dev tools, but I'm actually a bit surprised that they never had "Office .NET" or "Outlook .NET" or even "Windows .NET Edition" or something like that. Maybe they still had some sane people in charge of marketing and brand management back then.
    - xp84 6mo ago
      They did brand the Microsoft accounts themselves, from “Passport” to “.NET Passport” for a while. That was before they were “Windows Live IDs.”
cwnyth 6mo ago
Paint.NET wasn't Microsoft's, but was an independent app: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.NET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint.NET

mlnj 6mo ago

I remember how Skype, an awesome piece of software transformed into Lync, which worked fairly well, slowly transformed into whatever MS wanted to call it year after year, slower and more buggy than the year before.

kalleboo 6mo ago
Lync started out as "Office Communicator 2007" before being renamed Lync. Then Microsoft purchased Skype and rebranded Lync as "Skype for Business" even though it was still a completely unrelated product, with just some basic interoperability slapped on. Skype-the-consumer-app lived on separately as its original product in parallel. Just another example of how Microsoft is utterly incompetent at branding - always have been and always will be.

Rohansi 6mo ago

It was never replaced. Paint 3D was an entirely different app for 3D art only. It's also been gone for a few years now.

Sharlin 6mo ago
It was absolutely sold as a replacement. And it's gone now because literally nobody wanted it, used it, or understood why it existed. Sure, you could still find the old Paint in a disused lavatory behind a locked door with a sign "beware of the leopard". It wasn't even installed by default, unlike the 3D version, or do I recall incorrectly? Even MS isn't so stupid as to ship two separate accessories both called "Paint" in the same OS by default!
- wlesieutre 6mo ago
  And a weird obsession with making it impossible to customize the sidebar in Explorer, so there was a “3D Objects” folder stuck there permanently unless you’re the kind of user who doesn’t mind a trip to the registry editor. What percent of users ever found that useful? I think I’m being generous to guess one in ten thousand. Absolutely braindead management running Windows development. https://www.thewindowsclub.com/remove-3d-objects-folder-winows-10 https://www.thewindowsclub.com/remove-3d-objects-folder-wino...
  - Sharlin 6mo ago
    Yeah, the "3D Objects" thing is just surreal. You can't make this stuff up.
    - robotnikman 6mo ago
      It was a relic from a time when it looked like 3D printing was going to be the next big thing.
      - pbhjpbhj 6mo ago
        Agreed, it looked like VR was going to be big, MS & Meta were pushing it hard.

MisterTea 6mo ago

I think that crown belongs to the pile of pig shit that was the Windows 10 photo viewer. My first experience with that trash fire was opening a simple 2k photo which took 15 seconds and 150 MB of memory on a six core i5 with 16GB RAM. Viewing images was pain and suffering until I gave up and re-enabled the Win 7 viewer which was thankfully still included.

distances 6mo ago

Looking back, I understood with Windows XP that I wasn't in the target group. Win 95/98 had a simple but functional file search. Being naive, I was expecting some power user features in the future, like regex search. Win XP replaced the classic file search with one that had an animated dog in it. The dog search was completely, utterly useless. You would not find anything with it. It was so bad I still vividly remember my bafflement about it.