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Microsoft Responds to Outcry After Quiet Enterprise Install of Beta 'Photos' App
- matchbok3 2mo agoIt's crazy to me how MS continue to do stuff like this. Ads in the start menu, anti-user UX, spam apps, etc. Every time I think their behavior will change and I am always disappointed.
- diego_sandoval 2mo agoWhy would you think that their behavior will change?
- digitalPhonix 2mo agoThey are actively losing customers to less hostile options (mostly macOS, but also Linux). They already know it's a problem: https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2026/03/20/our-commitment-to-windows-quality/ https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2026/03/20/our-com... So it is genuinely crazy that they are still doing things like this. Edit: I should also add that a migration away from Windows has a huge network effect so its important for them to stop the bleeding to prevent them hemorrhaging users later.
- LoganDark 2mo agoI'm pretty sure that post is about SteamOS, since gaming is one of the only things keeping a substantial portion of the consumer population on Windows
- red-iron-pine 2mo agowhat have you done to migrate to linux, or encourage others to do the same?
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- wewewedxfgdf 2mo agoNo-one is in charge of Windows. Or more specifically, the people in charge of Windows have no clue about anything. Satya Nadella has trashed Xbox and trashed Windows.
- SanjayMehta 2mo agoMicrosoft was always run by an army of warring program managers
- pjmlp 2mo agoMost knowledgeable devs from Windows glory days have already retired, or were clever and moved into Azure. Now they get interns that never heard of Petzold and can only do Web, hence the Webview2 all over the place.
- burnt-resistor 2mo agoThis is not the worst enterprise failure Microsoft has pushed from inadequate testing in recent memory. Around 2021, the Defender enterprise second tier plan pushed out under-tested defs that considered most desktop and start menu shortcuts to be "malware", and removed them silently. Users by the 100's/1k's freaked out when it looked like their apps were removed, causing nothing short a help desk sev 1 emergency.
- ryukoposting 2mo agoAre we certain it's even the worst thing they've done this quarter?
- jojobas 2mo agoThat's a non-response if I've ever seen one.
- addy34 2mo ago"We are incubating a new photos experience in OneDrive" MS no longer build apps it seems, but instead incubate experiences...What a comms team.
- userbinator 2mo agoIt sounds like what an AI would say. Perhaps their Copilot has become Pilot.
- ryukoposting 2mo agoWhich OneDrive? The one in my browser, the one on my desktop, or the wackadoodle half-Sharepoint mongrel I use at work? All of which have decidedly different UIs for the same incredibly simple task, I might add. Microsoft has been going hard in the direction of making OneDrive intrinsic to Windows, so what even is the "OneDrive experience" in contrast to the Windows 11 experience? Who writes this nonsense? Are we going the other direction now, divorcing Windows 11 from OneDrive, thereby giving OneDrive a distinct "experience" again? Why wasn't this change in direction announced? I swear it's like Microsoft is just 30,000 chatbots all bickering with each other in the most sanitized, gramatically faultless English imaginible.
- clhodapp 2mo agoI'm incubating my experience over on Linux
- fuzzfactor 2mo agoWell there didn't used to be very many degreed Software Engineers before Microsoft itself started needing more than ever, and they weren't the only company, just one of the fastest growing early ones. Anybody see any correlation to what can now often be considered ghastly legacy code precisely where there should have been some actual engineering when there was none? Because there were not enough engineers to begin with, so the "drastically" urgent business needs were met in other sometimes mysterious ways? Now there's a shortage of degreed Experience Incubators and there's a long way to go before there are even enough degree programs, much less freshly credentialed graduates. Welcome to a whole 'nother era of deficiency until professional Incubatists can finally become numerous enough to complete the trend, apparently as intended to replace engineering as the future of tech :\ Some people have such an amazing vision, it's stupefying :)
- bambax 2mo agoWhy Windows Entreprise PCs have 'Images', 'Videos' and 'Music' folders that can't be deleted is beyond me. If I want to store music on my work PC I can create a folder for that, but why force it on me??
- UberFly 2mo agoAgree 100%, though those folders on any Windows install are a train wreck. Anyone attempting to curate anything within them are met with an endless torrent of garbage being thrown into them by Microsoft and any other app that might be installed. Anyone who's PC I oversee, I always beg them to create their own "My Docs" folder and fill it on their own terms. The Windows user experience is such a mess and MS quit caring that it was a long time ago.
- xienze 2mo agoBecause it's not about you, it's about grandma. And when Microsoft bakes these locations in as standard, they can't be deleted because applications are allowed to depend on them being there.
- bambax 2mo agoBut grandma doesn't use an Entreprise version now does she?
- pjmlp 2mo agoNo, but the IT guy likes to install software that depends on it, because it is very rare that Windows devs only target a specific OS variant.
- fuzzfactor 2mo agoGood call, but regardless, for decades this has always meant that you need a better IT guy, better software, better Windows devs, a better OS variant, or preferably all of the above. You can't paint a pretty picture here. It's not like it's one of the hidden defects, it's been obvious for a while. Disclaimer: I'm older than lots of grandmas now, about in the Bill Gates generation :\
- KaiMagnus 2mo agoI dearly hope Apple doesn’t fall for this and just lets the Preview app, well, preview files. Incredible how far macOS and Linux ended up ahead experience wise by doing nothing and just letting apps do their jobs and nothing more.
- pudgywalsh 2mo ago> by doing nothing and just letting apps do their jobs and nothing more Like the elaborate fuckups that included: • destroying iTunes and the ersatz replacement Music/TV apps that no one asked for • ruining iPhoto and forcing everyone onto Photos • breaking backwards compatibility 80,000 times, including on their expensive Pro apps • the Final Cut Pro X debacle • nearly every change in iOS for the last five years
- soperj 2mo agoButterfly keyboard
- miohtama 2mo agoWe need the year of Enterprise Linux
- nelsonfigueroa 2mo agoWindows is malware
- VCFundedGenYer 2mo agoThey're clearly too busy making security the "highest priority"
- stalkHN24x7 2mo agoHi folks, have submitted the follow-up news here regarding Microsoft's steps to fix it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49259858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49259858
- clhodapp 2mo agoThat's not a fix. A fix would be undoing the change and making it opt-in.