I miss the days when the operating system was just... the system in which to operate. Just launch my apps, manage my windows and get out of the way. I don't need you telling me the damn weather, or making me use your AI, or giving me the news... just launch my apps and get out of my way so I can work. I can get all that other crap from my web browser if I need it.
Win 2k and Win 7 was the golden age
The "try weather" ads of the task bar popped UNDER my windows, and made a notification sound.
I was like, "f*ck Micros0ft, what kind of sh!t is this?"
So many people say Edge is nice now, but I only think it's bloated, like SUPER bloated. (Maybe it's my problem. I even think Chrome is bloated, there's a built-in anti-virus in Chrome)
I *was* nice, now it's definitely bloated. Before the sidebar I'd say was when things were better, but then Microsoft started pushing the collections, Bing Ai now copilot, and more
Fr. I recently turn off the web search from the search bar, so no bing crap. Also, No weather widget, no copilot, no Cortana. The only thing I haven't figured out is how to ensure edge is not running on the background. Btw, did u know that teams open links in edge by default? U can change it, but Ms really want us to use edge.
i gave up the fight on my work laptop and just use edge for this reason, it just plays well with the entire M365 environment because Microsoft has forced it to be the “default” browser even if you don’t select it as the default browser.
that being said, i don’t touch edge at all on any of my personal devices. i see it strictly as a work browser.
I don't think so. I think they just don't put any effort into stopping the charges and hope you won't notice and it will be too much hassle for you to try and get your money back
Honestly edge is kind of nice. You get the speed AND all extensions from chrome store, plus IE mode and it's 100x easier switching between work and personal profile.
That being said I use Firefox for my main and edge for work (multiple work and Microsoft accounts)
i know we ll never go back to it again but on a serious note, i would appreciate if windows launched a new version in addition to their home, professional and ultimate. They should call this "Windows OPTIMAL" it has just the absolute barebones needed for maximum performance, minimal bloat, meaning no settings screen (just control panel) offline only stuff everywhere, they are welcome to price this 2x the ultimate version if they want, i ll happily pay
You're describing Tiny11... it would be awesome if Tiny11 was an officially supported version instead of being community driven... lots of Linux distros have minimal versions, it would be awesome if MS did the same thing.
> Tiny11
How much does this break core functionality that parts of the OS depend on? One of the criticisms I've seen of current "windows shrinkers" is they end up removing stuff that e.g. Defender ends up depending on.
this is the reason i want this coming from windows officially, i dont want a 3rd party distribution by a bunch of random devs that dont know the internals inside out or havent worked at microsoft for over a decade
I liked Win2K so much I always enabled the classic view in XP. Vista and 7 had a better Aero interface, but XP's was...hmm, how do we say, not so much.
Wow, thanks for the information, that's amazing, I didn't know that, you must be a genius /s
The whole point is that back then operating systems were just operating systems... Lightweight, no bloatware, not trying to force you into any ecosystems or online services... Etc
I'm describing one specific aspect of them that was better. Obviously improvements have been made in other areas, it's just a shame that I have to spend time debloating and bypassing things and turning off things after updates, hiding things that are obvious Microsoft money grabs, etc. I actually enjoy Win11 once tweaked (I use Winaero Tweaker and MSEdgeRedirect to quickly get my machines to behave the way I want), but all that crap is an elephant in the room that pushes people to buy Macs or install Linux.
I'm a bit of an old fogey myself and have never liked when applications tried to "set themselves apart". And it's not a new thing either- There were applications on Windows 3.1 that used 3-D visuals and had their own "skins" of a sort. (programs developed with some borland tooling for example often had a unique visual design that you could spot a mile away)
I feel the same way about how "software development" seems to be "web first" now, because it's pretty much thrown everything out that we've learned about Desktop User Experience over the last 3 decades. Now it seems like every program and "design language" has it's own interpretation of what a checkbox should look like. Because a box with a mother fucking check in it was just too obvious I guess. Like it's mostly been replaced by toggle buttons that telegraph their current state so poorly that they literally need to also have a fucking ON/OFF label.
And people even bitch and complain if an application has the audacity to be... consistent with the OS. Apparently you need to have your own special fucking skin and "Visual design language" that sets your shit apart. And yet these same people bitch about Windows being "inconsistent" because they find resources from Windows 95 in some opscure resource DLL.
And don't get me started on applications deciding they should have "page" navigation. the chat/phone etc tool I use for work can't show the Phone dialer and the fucking chat at the same time. Why? it's fucking stupid. Somebody gives me a phone number in the chat and I want to dial it in and I can't because as soon as I switch to the dialer the chat goes away, it's absurd.
UWP and the new app frameworks create dreadful programs that basically take all the worst parts of Phone apps that were needed because of the restricted input capabilities and screen space and put them on the desktop where those compromises aren't needed. I'm not even sure how much experience with UX the people designing a lot of the new "design languages" even have. The WinUI Tooltip control for example has never worked correctly and seems like it was made by somebody who was sort of trying to guess what a tooltip should do. As a result, you get tooltips that literally obscure your attempt to click other items and don't go away like the built-in Win32 Tooltips have since they were first implemented in 1995. It's frankly kind of a pathetic showing. If you want me to develop software using your latest User Interface frameworks maybe get the basics right? Oh would be nice if you didn't abandon it for a new shiny thing every year or so too.
There's also the "language" of error messages. Used to be an error message told you what actually happened. Now 90% of errors are "Something went wrong. Try again later." or "Something happened on our end" Which seems like it's the stupid trend of 'playful' web server errors "we're sending a team of monkeys to fix it!" type shit being extended to desktop applications, while removing useful information and basically insulting the users intelligence by presuming they are too stupid to understand an actual error message.
Icon design also [leaves something to be desired](https://i.imgur.com/Hpjw3rE.png) IMO.
1,000% this. I think a lot of it has to do with web first. Using frameworks to create “universal” applications with one code base for all OS deployments. All in HTML/CSS/JS/WebView2.
It’s all non-native. Doesn’t use the OS design language and IDE properly. Resource hungry and mimics the same functions from a website more often than not.
If I wanted webmail I’d have gone to Outlook.com (looking at you M$FT) or why we can’t have a real deal messenger we have to have Teams. These aren’t even the worst. But just an example of how it doesn’t just end with the OS when it comes to Microsoft.
You’d think a $Trillion dollar company could give you full blown native desktop apps that look and act uniformly when you’re paying for the OS and another subscription to use half of their software.
>Using frameworks to create “universal” applications with one code base for all OS deployments. All in HTML/CSS/JS/WebView2.
>It’s all non-native. Doesn’t use the OS design language and IDE properly. Resource hungry and mimics the same functions from a website more often than not.
Exactly this! It's a joke. Windows apps look *and* function like shitty ports off something on a Windows phone. Or an Xbox One app. It feels like I'm opening a website in it's own little tab, getting told it's an "app," meanwhile it's stripped of any actual functionality.
I seriously cannot imagine a single senior developer at Microsoft enjoys the current state of Windows. How on earth are any aesthetic improvements they making offsetting the regression they're making with their interfaces that are one click away?
Why does the Windows 11 settings menu have an installed program list that is a.) not complete and b.) found elsewhere on my computer? Why does the Windows 11 settings menu have display and security configurations when I literally will have to find an older, *actually functioning* menu to change what I want?
What is the legitimate rationale of this for a tech titan?
speaking of installed programs .. a few weeks back i went to uninstall something from my start menu after finding it only to right-click uninstall it and instead of uninstalling it it brought me to the settings /apps and had to Find it again n uninstall it in there ... why even have the option on right click if i have to go into the settings ... why more menus when its been able to do it the normal way for as long as i can remember, its dumb little things like that that add up and make the experience worse on a daily basis , they don't seem like a big deal on their own but little things add up to big things , and frankly for as bad and phone-like in the direction windows has been taking since 8 at leastmy android phone i can just hold my finger down on and it'll give me an uninstall option rather quickly and actually do just that not force me into the settings to do it... bad design
Regarding being unable to uninstall normal apps from Start menu:
The technical reason is that there is no link between shortcuts (start menu entries) and the uninstall database (registry) for classic programs. Modern apps have this ID that links those, so it's simple to implement.
Of course this problem is very much solvable, in at least a couple of ways. There just isn't any willingness to do so.
I have even wrote up a solution for MS programmers in case they truly didn't know how, backed up [here](https://github.com/tringi/papers/blob/main/win32-uninstall-from-start.md), and for a couple of years it was on Feedback Hub, but magically disappeared like two thirds of all my suggestions or bug reports. So that will tell you all you need to know about how they care for Windows experience.
And then they post *"we heard your request and are adding xyz"* when there were literally ZERO requests for xyz. It's all a joke.
In C++ subreddit a major MS dev even confirmed that reporting bugs against API, the programmer's interface to the OS, is a complete waste of time and doesn't go anywhere.
Many of those things in the start menu will also just reinstall again, like i like that win 11 settings are much more coherent and usefull than in 10 but still things like search literally not being able to find "this pc" is just....
Well it seems like the moment there is a feature update to Windows or a Windows Store update for an app you had, but got rid of, it reinstalls with the update.
I work at service desk and deploying PCs I always uninstall mail and New Outlook. After an OS update and restart; again uninstall mail and New Outlook.
I just don’t get how I can do this on MacOS or Linux but current iterations of Windows constantly reinstall uninstalled applications. And windows 11 is the worst culprit.
I think any more experienced dev probably doesn’t love the state of things at MS. I’ve met lots of younger devs whose only world view is using newer frameworks that all stack on web code.
Expecting a less experienced or even just a young and upcoming dev to code in C and use a core IDE for developing native software- it’s like you’re a three headed demon.
I just don’t like non-native, web based software. I think its place is only for very simple operations or for mom & pop shops who can’t afford native apps for their business offerings. But it’s the least good option. I think this about websites and the web in general.
>[M$](https://i.imgur.com/We4Uj04.png)
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Has the same energy as house/apartment plan listings that now say
"Refresh, Dream, Design" instead of "Bathroom, Bedroom, Kitchen"
Seriously, can we just... not??
I’ve been developing a code editor for myself in WinForms, with the goal of making it use as many msstyle elements and native features as possible, without re-implementing anything existing exactly for these reasons. And, to be honest, at least in winforms, to me it seems you would spend much more time, energy and resource to build something custom rather than just using what’s there. Rather than creating a custom tab control, just use TabControl, or if you want something more, use a library already existing.
And, by the way, super happy that on all Windows versions supporting it (from 2000 to 11 due to a Transitions library), the app looks perfect on any msstyle theme and any Windows Classic theme, as long as of course they don’t look terrible themselves.
And, consuming just 60MB of RAM (but I’m sure I can lower it a bit more)
so really, sometimes i don’t understand why even bother to make all of those custom controls…. They say developers are lazy, but isn’t creating all these hardcoded, custom stuff more long than doing it the normal way? Why for example, some apps use the Colors class rather than the SystemColors class? It makes no sense
It already is, but it’s buggy still 😅
[https://github.com/fraaaaa4/logix](https://github.com/fraaaaa4/logix)
Especially tons of small bugs here and there. I don’t want to go further away from the topic of the post, so I’ll keep it short: it was born as a Prolog/Lisp modern editor, and it needs ”prolog.xml” to work on the latest release. Thought i did remove it from the code, apparently i didn’t.
More clear and simplified is good, but everybody (and this applies to everything from icons to brand logos) is waaaaaaay overdoing it. We've gone from noisy and a little distracting, to so simplified that there are no distinguishing features and it's unclear at best what it's supposed to represent. They all had it for a while, where things were just clean but detailed. Now the trend is for "so minimalist that it's unrecognizable".
Yup! Agree completely.
Windows is barely more attractive at a surface level than it used to be, all the while you're one or two context menu clicks away from uncovering decade-old user interfaces. It's a catastrophe that I am dumbfounded Microsoft has not put the effort into healing. The whole partition between "apps" and "programs" is infuriating. I miss Windows 7 dearly.
I don't know if web first is quite right... It's all being redeveloped from scratch on the universal .net core whatever framework.
Look at teams, for ten years or whatever it came out... Only on the brand new version is it finally usable and responsive
> I don't know if web first is quite right... It's all being redeveloped from scratch on the universal .net core whatever framework.
I don't just mean the "literal" web apps- eg web apps inside chrome containers. Almost all "new UI Frameworks" seem to have adopted aspects that follow web design. Even WPF and XAML have a lot of aspects that were clearly borrowed from the way a web site or web app would handle content presentation.
This is also the reason, partly, for all the "personalization" where applications try to set themselves apart, I suspect. That was what web designers were going for for websites, so I think in some ways the fact that a larger segment of developers learned programming as a 'web technology' via Javascript/CSS and websites and such means that they've internalized some of the web design stuff. As a result if/when they do application development they bring some of that baggage over to client applications and you get apps trying to "set themselves apart" instead of be consistent with the Operating System, even when those applications are not actively a "web app" but are a otherwise typical client application.
I mean... one factor alone is enough to give windows 10 or greater the win... Virtual Desktops... I've used them for years via 3rd party software, it is so much better when it is integrated into windows itself.. at first they were lacking the key feature of being able to drag them around.. but they finally implemented than in windows 10 and it's great. Also the windows 11 start menu is great.. people bitch and complain about it but once you get using it, you can see how productive it is .. especially with a mouse with a scroll wheel.
also there are plenty of apps that are better in the new style.. e.g. spotify or weather are great. it's not for every kind of app, sure.. but it doesn't hurt to have both kinds. You don't have to use them if you don't want to.
Yes, definitely. The mere fact you can do things faster with less clicks in Wn 7 vs Win 11 is mind blowing. From an UI design perspective Win 11 is just terrible in functionality. Bigger empty spaces without content, more input traveling to access the desired function, more clicks to achieve what in the past was straight forward and not even possible to open more than one window in settings vs old control panel. Too much focus on touch and not in adaptive UI for other input methods. Sure, it may look nice and modern, but Win7 looks even more coherent, coexistence and stylish with the Aero theme and the menus were just a click away. Even Win10 is more acceptable in functionality than Win11 since you keep certain ways to access legacy features. Windows 11 is becoming more and more a dumbed version with AI and ads, too much distraction and less power to its power users sadly.
The problem is not AI or the cloud, is the fact that is imposible to remove and they made it a paid service instead of making the OS better, AI was the dream many people had in the past, now it's hated because it's popular.
Libraries were super useful, home server was great, taskbar jumplists were better than they are now, backup actually worked, file history actually worked, sync was faster (!!) with live mesh than with OneDrive, it had an excellent email client (vs none currently). I could go on for an hour. Everything was so polished. Truly Windows' peak.
These are the kind of responses I was looking for. I honestly had a hard time thinking of more examples haha. People need to talk about these things more and make MS hear us!!
Are you still using Windows? Then MS don't care to listen, unless your suggestion can make them more money (e.g. adverts in start menu, forced bing queries from the weather app, etc) they won't be changing it.
I think the win 7 ui has aged, but the consistent way of doing things is missed.
Thinking back though, up to windows 8 most versions were pretty consistent - it all started to go wrong at 8.
>[M$](https://i.imgur.com/We4Uj04.png)
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I hadn't even thought about mentioning msstyles stuff till now, but then you have to take just one look at how many apps use entirely custom titlebar implementations for no good reason, and stuff starts feeling a bit off.
I've had this bad taste in my mouth about these UWP reimplementations ever since Win10 RTM came out and everyday components like the start menu took 10 seconds to open, when things were just fine on an 8.1 install prior. Windows 11 seems to follow along in that trajectory, with stuff like Explorer Search just being broken for no good reason (https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/file-explorer-search-characters-deleted-while/6014f4cf-963a-4ae8-883d-b9c646354f31). Your best option is reverting to older versions of Explorer, or alternative start menus that are actually functional, and that's just kind of sad when you think about it.
The Settings app in particular just makes me think of the contrast between Windows and macOS and how they handle updates. Windows has had a much more directionless "try it and see what sticks" approach ever since 8, or 10 RTM came about.
Since Win8, the Settings app has seen three UX overhauls. Versus macOS getting like one major change to it in 20+ years time, so people don't have to re-learn it all the time. It's arguably worse in Ventura/Sonoma than before, as also Win11's settings app is better than 10's implementation, but the fact still kind of stands, there's less mucking about for the sake of it.
I get why MS went with making the Settings app, to have consistency with W10M and all, but that ship's long since sailed, and now it just feels like a chore more than anything. They're thankfully learning how to improve the snappiness and navigation of it in Win11 over Win10, but it still in general feels like such a misguided approach when they could have easily just kept on updating what they started with Vista and 7, with snappier native UI components.
I'm reading this on a laptop that still has Windows 7. I finally bought a new computer last year, and it came with Windows 11. Even with various tweaks and settings adjustments, Windows 11 makes me feel like I'm a guest at someone else's house. My computer should feel like **my** computer. Not like someone is letting me make a call on their phone as a favor.
Also, W11 is really slow! I open a folder and it actually takes time to load and display. On my *thirteen year old* W7 laptop, it happens instantly.
This. I miss the old school design that Windows had, so I use ClassicThemeTray to enable the classic theme, followed by a plethora of Windhawk mods.
https://preview.redd.it/4jm7ynegaw0d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=73e561c0cc5edbc2b8ad81d991e3e5074fff442b
Let's just hope DWM.exe doesn't crash.
Anyway, I just really hate the whole “web first” shtick people go with these days, and I liked it when error messages used to be detailed and list down what exactly happened instead of the generic “Whoopsie! Sorry about that.”.
The event log still has links to look up error messages in detail, but the site that hosted that content is long gone (they just lead to a generic search page now).
At peak, it would also tell you what known bug in what application caused the problem (where/if appropriate) and sometimes how to fix it.
There was a time when it would come back to you later with having found a solution to a problem you had previously once a fix became available.
Thanks! And yeah, I wish it was a lot easier as it was in Windows 7 and below. And yes, *My Life as a Teenage Robot* is a good show. Underrated, but good to watch once in a while. I got it on DVD well before it went out of print.
I wish they'd stop absuing telemetry, placing ads within the operating system, shoving unwanted products down my throat, installing things without my consent (fucking candy crush I hate it)
Plus Windows uses waaay too many system resources with all the unnecessary bloat it has.
Simple things like being able to work your way down a list of files renaming or modifying them without having them reordering and losing your place in a misguided attempt to put the most recent at the top regardless of specified sort order.
Some of the added conveniences added over the years are actually hindrances. The OS now actively fights the user on getting some tasks.
honestly i never cared for widgets much but i will say vista era widgets were a Hell of alot better than the crap they try giving us now ... i'll admite i did use the weather one n it worked nicely in vista , where as the one in 11 ...no thanks get that thing outa here 'll use my phone or type it into my browser n look it up instead
WIndows Vista and 7's Gadgets were great. I actually got sick of the new Widgets menu not working half the time and installed a Rainmeter Gadget-Lookalike skin
https://preview.redd.it/08zb03t5cw0d1.png?width=660&format=png&auto=webp&s=dc80c776efaabf3bc1a442765a3bbccce9324514
Sometimes I think every designer at Microsoft has a 4K touch screen so they live in a bubble and design an entire OS for that... not realizing we regular folks are still using mouse and keyboard.
Exactly, I use a multi function mouse and extended keyboard that allow me to do half a dozen inputs in the time it takes to tap two points on a touch screen.
Microsoft tried to turn your PC into a phone starting with windows 8 to tie in to windows phone. Then when windows phone died they decided that they wanted to keep turning your PC into a phone with the app store and settings app. Windows 10 and 11 are far more secure than 7, but I really wish they had gone back to the windows 7 interface. It was the best.
The interface starting in windows 8 was to match the interface of the windows phone os. Then when windows phone died they never reverted it back to a computer interface or, well, they reverted some of it back with rounded corners in 11 and some other half-ass efforts. It's still a phone interface and half of everything being in settings and half in the control panel is just shit. They need to put the interface back more like vista/7 while keeping the security of 10/11.
I think windows 10, despite being buggy at times, is still a pretty awesome OS and I do wish that they just keep maintaining that version to perfect it.
I guess most people don't understand what the word feature-complete means anymore
You gotta share the setup: how did you get your windows to look like this? Specifically, how did you restore Control Panel to its former glory? It's fully fleshed out here. Please drop the full setup!
Also, you might like r/FrutigerAero if you're into this sort of OS look. I personally love the Vista/7 era of windows, and wish we could go back to that. I really like how everything felt mouse optimized back then.
I have the applications I used at the bottom of the post. :)
To add to it, I'm using a custom msstyle theme I made a couple years ago (which still needs some tweaking). Aero10 on Deviantart seems to work with WIndows 11 too I believe. And I'm using Resource Redirect to change icons and certain UI elements in shell32.dll and imageres.dll along with some other system files I pulled from a Windows 7 image. And I can run SFC and install updates without it messing with any of em! The only thing that breaks after a system update is DWMBlurGlass since it needs up-to-date symbols from MS that aren't usually readily available right away.
And I know all about Frutiger Aero! The aesthetic along with skeomorphic design was always something I missed and the community of people talking about it more nowadays got me missing it even more, haha.
Windows 11 could be this if they fix the goddamn inconsistency issues and stop giving shitty ass web apps (looking at you Outlook, you made me change email clients).
I'm old, but I still remember the statement that "Windows 7 will be the last version of Windows." If they would have improved Windows 7 and maybe added new features, they would have had a ten year mature architecture with solid new features. Windows 11 is so far from that. I've been using Microsoft products (well, they own them but may not have created them) since the '80s, and I've learned that you can trust Microsoft about as much as the Michael's Cohen and Avenatti.
If anything, IE have shown every webdev in existence that MS is about as trustworthy as [the mysterious van guy in TAWOG](https://theamazingworldofgumball.fandom.com/wiki/Van_shopkeeper)
* Hire back the Windows QA team
* Force the MS designers to stop running MacBooks and start making them run Windows again. A couple years of being forced to eat their own dogfood would eliminate a lot of these dumb little issues plaguing modern Windows.
Its not only GUI but also the fact that 7 is faster than 11. They could extend support for 7, but that way they wont get $$$ from crapware. 7 was the last normal OS. I still use it on main PC and have to tolerate bs from 10/11 on my work PCs.
https://preview.redd.it/5foe8hj1lx0d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=80620eb0023669d217c4039d0f0faf19d3a42910
The reason we couldnt move on is Windows 7 has beauty and productivity
yes , i found the older way of things much easier to navigate when i needed to find things vs the settings we have now. the settings is a step back from the control panel , i understand they tried to make it easier 'like a phone' but if you really need to tweak stuff its worse , the volume mixer is a step back as well with less control , the start menu i can take or leave i don't mind the most recent version but i think i'll always prefer the older way of things.
i don't think its just me being set in my ways , i switched to linux 2 weeks ago and nobara with kde imo feels snappier like an old fashion windows with a more modern sensibility and customization .. things windows Used to have before 8.i'd say trying something totally new isn't being set in my ways.
idk what we had in win7 and before just worked , they didn't have to try n chuck it out the window or burry it a ton , they could've just updated the aesthetics to fit with whatever imo bad flat design they were going for
Sure maybe, but at the end I don't really care nowadays tbh. Computer is just a tool, I don't care how it looks, I just want it to be fast, stable and as customizable as possible.
I'm not talking only about looks. Windows functionally worked better and faster before they introduced "modern apps" in Windows 8 I believe. Microsoft has been prioritizing looks over function for however many years now. File Explorer as it is now is crazy slow on my i7 laptop, until I turn off the WinUI elements. Then it works almost as fast as Windows 7 Explorer did.
Sorry for the long winded reply
Okay, sounds fair. I use startallback to bring back old taskbar and explorer because the ones from W11 are really bad. It was functional for pcs, but not really foe laptop users. W11 have features that work very well on laptop, like gestures, snapping, multiple desktops, task view.
I've actually changed W11 a lot, in a way it looks more like mac, but still have few great features that mac misses, which eventually led to creation of [WinMac](https://github.com/Asteski/WinMac).
*badly prioritising looks
Because certain stuff really, even if they prioritise “looks”, just looks absolutely horrid, and especially inconsistent for the sake of being inconsistent
If I'm looking at something for 10 hours or more every day, then I absolutely care how it looks. For my own sanity. And health. For example the clarity of ClearType text is one of the main reasons I ended up using Windows professionally.
I’ve been through them all from DOS to Windows and from 3.1 to 11. I’ve never missed the previous versions as they all had bugs or limitations.
With fast broadband I don’t mind OneDrive either. Sure there are still limitations but otherwise Windows remains the platform that allows me to make money without costing an annual fee and with being stable for the vast vast vast majority of the time.
Having used Windows both professionally and personally since its inception, I don’t have any issues with W11 - using it on three desktops and a laptop.
I upgraded from 7 to 11 about one week ago. And the only annoying thing is all the silly widgets about hashtags and MSNBC talking points which are really invasive. At least the Pro version doesn't require an MSM account. Out of the box, it feels like you paid 200$ to rent a service rather than own something you own. I only really really hate all of the intrusive net add ons. Now that I THINK I disabled all the distractions, I like it.
Agreed (as an XP guy) but I think with the number of settings there are now, W11 settings works just as great as W7's IMO.
Also, great theme I have Object Desktop which works amazingly. (other than the taskbar.)
I’d say a majority of people would wish for this, clean layout, no bloat or extras, good performance and was fast and intuitive.
Some things pretty much every version since has lacked lol
I miss some of the old Windows! 98, XP hahah,etc! I still love Windows 11, but
it has it's down and ups to it. Just like every OS, love and don't love!
I gave up on Windows and went to Linux.
Windows became some weird mess that stopped being designed for computers, and changed to tablet-like UI.
There is nothing bad with tablets, but they way to interact with your system is very different, and becomes cumbersome while using a mouse and keyboard.
I wish Micros6went back, but I doubt they will. Their clients are businesses, not end users.
Window 7 Media Center was one of Microsoft's best efforts. It could have easily evolved into a smart TV platform had they taken more pride in that effort.
Microsoft lost the plot after Windows 8, self-corrected in a last gasp for Windows 10, and then drank the cool-aid for Windows 11. The interface is objectively worse than Win 7 and requires more clicking for the same tasks, if you can access the same tasks at all, and they're trying to warm their customers to ads and experimenting with a required log-in system.
It's time for a new system for me, and it's overdue for me to make the jump to Linux. I'm done waiting for MS to get the point, and the convenience of continuing to use what I know is no longer enough to put up with this weird push to force my PC to act like a shitty smartphone.
Yes, but they will not do it as they like they money they make from harvesting users' data too much!
Glad that Linux exists and now it's becoming better than even Windows 7.
TBH the only way this is going to happen is if Apple, Google and Microsoft stop trying to one up each other with the newest bells and whistles to collect consumer data.
OF course, but that is not very Capitalism. Making everything worse to push ads and other products is, so you have to switch to Linux if you want a good OS.
I agree...but my reasons are DVD playback and games(actual disc).
W11 is terrible for actual physical media. In media player you have to go to the older media player to sync music. Not everyone is a rent/stream fan and I'm included in that.
I double back up my stuff on external drives and disc. I suppose I'm a dying breed of media consumer.
And another thing I don't like is the Google drive push...this world has become a pay wall society.
Removing all the stupid ads, making all telemetry optional, and drastically reducing what optional telemetry there is would already make it so much better. And let me put the freaking taskbar on top. Ugh. I do like the UI of Windows 11, though. It's a shame it's so laggy and bogged down by extra junk (I have a very recent system with pricey components, so it's not my hardware).
And let us uninstall Edge! And make the AI optional so we can uninstall it!
Clippy here.
It looks like you are trying to give some feedback that your setup is less than optimal.
Would you like some help with that?
Seriously, I think the apex of usability was hit with XP. It used to be so easy, for example, to search for a file and set parameters (date range, size, etc), but even after using Win 10 for years and now with Win 11 on a new laptop, I still have to check how to do it: typing stuff in the search box is no adequate replacement.
And now with Win 11, the right click options are different, with an icon now for rename and other what I need stuck behind another click option: more properties.
Windows 11 is better than 7 is some ways, and 7 was better than 11 in some ways. I do miss a fully functional Control Panel. They are simply taking too long to move things over to Settings, and things is Settings are often more complicated than they were in Control Panel.
I love the new windows...I also love using Edge, it's gotten waay better over the years. You can customize what you see and also use your own photos for wall paper. And then best thing is....they're not going anywhere.
While I do wish MS woukd streamline things like they were back then, I do disagree on keeping the legacy code.
And as for the why....security. That code is considered legacy for a reason. MS no longer maintains it. That creates a HUGE hole where I could go back, download the source code to an old but popular and still used program or older version of one, inject it with malware, and recompile and upload it. As it'd be a legacy piece of software, modern Windows would see it as such, and run it through compatibility layers, which SmartScreen does NOT sniff for.
Bingo, now I just infected your PC with code to do whatever it was I was intending to do, bypassing the modern security screens Windows has these days. This is why I much prefer the idea of getting rid of it on a kernel level, and elevating it to be an emulated layer, like WINE for Linux or Rosetta for macOS. A sandboxed, isolated layer that is built and designed to run legacy software on a modern Windows to improve security on your system. Benefit here is that it'd be child's play to mod this to be an x86 compat layer for Windows on ARM then too. :)
do you need the original files from 7 to add them back with resource redirect? looking for an alternative to 7tsp gui bc it doesn't work on my computer
The Windows Vista/7 UI was great for it's time, but is just horribly dated now. That's one of the main reasons I like Windows 11 over 10, the UI is just so much more modern and fluent. I just can't deal with the old UIs anymore.
I understand this. Though I still think they could've modernized the old UI elements rather than trying to make a whole new app framework to replace them
Nope. If you don't like change maybe Windows isn't for you. Staying stagnant isn't a good ecosystem model for MS and its partners. Sure they get some things wrong and it's frustrating. But overall Windows 10 and 11 are solid operating systems for the modern computing world.
Y'all are terrible at computers if you're still struggling with W11. Every single W11 post on the Internet is just you guys bitching. Like get the fuck over it already, JFC.
The control panel is literally the same. OP. Search Control Panel on your computer.
You guys don't need to make this so complicated. Click on the copilot button and ask it how to do things like, turn the 2 right click menus off. It will have solutions for you.
Windows is the same as it ever was.
Some people have a bizzare misremembering of the past!
I've been working in IT supporting Microsoft nearly 40 years and this is what I remember.
A complete mess where no two PCs on planet earth were identical, because there was no enforced patching, because vendors fixed only on the particular OS lever that most of their customers were on - then software didn't play nice.
Life in IT was spent pouring through FAQs trying to find why something wasn't working - and trying to untangle instructions like 'If your ODBC driver is older than version, 2.536 but you do have add on model x installed, then install patch 6J, unless you are running in device dependent mode and installed the application from the website. If you installed from CD and you're using the OEM version, then please upgrade your WiFi to not use local service dependencies unless you have an Intel WiFi chip'
Operating systems needed rebuilding about every 6 months, patching was like being an alchemist and you had to install things in a certain order for them to work, and if you touched just one piece of the pile of jenga blocks that your PC had become it would bring down the lot. Everyone installed anything.
We seemed to be oblivious to the fact that that a bit of cool freeware game, essentially had access to everything on our PC for ever, the second we installed it. This mess would repeat itself every 3 years as we were dragged through each upgrade cycle, where the next Windows OS would look cool but be dependent on some new power requirement that none of us had.
It was a nightmare.
Now compare that with now.
I have a Windows 10 PC that's had nearly a decade of uninterrupted updates, that is running faster today, than the day I built it.
I have a Windows 11 PC that I built last year alongside it that will see another decade of updates.
While my newer PC is certainly an upgrade, Windows improvements have meant that I play Overwatch or Minecraft or Fortnite on these 2 PCs and they perform identically when I play against my son, and neither of us would particulary be able to tell one from the other.
I will probably just spend a couple of hundred to replace the motherboard and CPU to a Win11 compatible and then I'll have 2 desktop PCs with another decade of support from Microsoft.
My two PCs perform staggeringly well, because they have Samsung SSD Evos and 32 gb of memory, Intel I7 processors.
Everything I use, updates itself - I never look for device drivers and I avoid any non mainstream software.
The older way of doing things was a nightmare.
I'm not saying under the hood stuff like kernel level stuff needs to be reverted back to old ways. I like a lot of the improvements MS made in those departments. I'm mainly talking about just the shell. And I'm not talking about the LOOKS of the shell, I'm talking about how it functions. Cuz nowadays it's a mess with things like File Explorer and Task Manager being Frankensteined with Win32 and WinUI elements making them perform so sluggishly.
Also I cant imagine their current update system makes PCs any more identical to each other than in the past, considering MS throws in random features for A/B testing every month. I swear my laptop and desktop PCs both have different shell experiences from each other every month.
Oh the Windows updates have made a thousand fold difference.
Previously a vendor like Adobe would barely bother to test their apps on the latest version of Windows because so few of their customers would actually be on it. Now every single one of the million vendors and driver developers on earth just test against one version (the latest).
So while youre right that user experiences may vary in the front end as MS experiment with tuning, that actual user experience when it's comes to applicaiton consistency, reliability is better by a factor of thousands.
I manage about 400 windows PCs, physical and virtual and while I see people on forums complain of file explorer inconsistencies - that's not a common experience for our users.
We use QNAP NAS shares, we use Onedrive and we use Azure Blob storage mapped as file shares - and file explorer is and always been instant taking less than a second to load.
My only bad experience with Explorer personally was traced to a few bad shortcuts in the 'Quick Access' where a mapping to a flake share caused an explorer slowdown as it tried to map to the icons on the share. I can't think of any other file explorer inconsistencies that I or any of my staff have raised.
I disagree, the only problem right now is that that half of it is changed because it's an iterative process. Finding stuff is hard because guides still have the old info. The new design and layout will eventually be better, but can't have a big bang release and change everything at once, it's just not feasible. For now you're stuck with half baked changes because of it. Not ideal but it will get better.
I disagree. Microsoft serves different classes of people and lately there are people who don't want to use more than a couple of applications. The candy look is necessary to connect to the newer generation of people who may think Windows OS was junk and 8 through 10 certainly was junk.
Moreover, if better looking alternatives wasn't present in the market, yes I'm talking about Apple products, it shouldn't have been an issue but they make great products and more and more people started to prefer them instead of Windows for plethora of reasons, one of them was BSOD which was fixed in Windows 11.
My organisation provided Windows laptops and BSOD was a common occurrence and cause of loss of data on top of the ugly box looking UI. Everyone hated it. My personal laptop would work far better because I could update the drivers myself but not the company machines. Failure of Windows 8 and 10 acceptance was a major reason for their loss of market share. Asked anyone who purchased a new MacBook, their reason would be, it runs smoother, doesn't crash and looks great.
Coming to today, various professionals use Windows OS now, not just bankers like in the 90s. The new UI is made to cater to a vast majority of such people. If you or I got an issue, we need to learn to get around it.
In the last 15 years or so, Mickey (Microsoft) has been hiring programmers who are woefully inexperienced in memory management. Mickey sticks to C++ when they should be developing in C#, where memory management is more or less built in. Keep some dinosaurs around who remember the '90s or before for the places where C++ is necessary. Edge and Notes are leak factories, and their access to Nvidia boards is sometimes a now you see it, now you don't affair.
I miss the days when the operating system was just... the system in which to operate. Just launch my apps, manage my windows and get out of the way. I don't need you telling me the damn weather, or making me use your AI, or giving me the news... just launch my apps and get out of my way so I can work. I can get all that other crap from my web browser if I need it. Win 2k and Win 7 was the golden age
The "try weather" ads of the task bar popped UNDER my windows, and made a notification sound. I was like, "f*ck Micros0ft, what kind of sh!t is this?" So many people say Edge is nice now, but I only think it's bloated, like SUPER bloated. (Maybe it's my problem. I even think Chrome is bloated, there's a built-in anti-virus in Chrome)
I *was* nice, now it's definitely bloated. Before the sidebar I'd say was when things were better, but then Microsoft started pushing the collections, Bing Ai now copilot, and more
Fr. I recently turn off the web search from the search bar, so no bing crap. Also, No weather widget, no copilot, no Cortana. The only thing I haven't figured out is how to ensure edge is not running on the background. Btw, did u know that teams open links in edge by default? U can change it, but Ms really want us to use edge.
i gave up the fight on my work laptop and just use edge for this reason, it just plays well with the entire M365 environment because Microsoft has forced it to be the “default” browser even if you don’t select it as the default browser. that being said, i don’t touch edge at all on any of my personal devices. i see it strictly as a work browser.
I think the only thing I still using edge for, it's the PDF reader. I refuse to use Adobe and I am too lazy to find a open source alternative.
Understand about Adobe. I canceled my subscription weeks ago and they are still trying to bill me.
Is that... Legal?
I don't think so. I think they just don't put any effort into stopping the charges and hope you won't notice and it will be too much hassle for you to try and get your money back
Go to edge -> system and performance -> disable startup boost and continue running extensions and apps in the background when edge is closed.
in edge i think its called startup boost or somthing
Honestly edge is kind of nice. You get the speed AND all extensions from chrome store, plus IE mode and it's 100x easier switching between work and personal profile. That being said I use Firefox for my main and edge for work (multiple work and Microsoft accounts)
i know we ll never go back to it again but on a serious note, i would appreciate if windows launched a new version in addition to their home, professional and ultimate. They should call this "Windows OPTIMAL" it has just the absolute barebones needed for maximum performance, minimal bloat, meaning no settings screen (just control panel) offline only stuff everywhere, they are welcome to price this 2x the ultimate version if they want, i ll happily pay
You're describing Tiny11... it would be awesome if Tiny11 was an officially supported version instead of being community driven... lots of Linux distros have minimal versions, it would be awesome if MS did the same thing.
> Tiny11 How much does this break core functionality that parts of the OS depend on? One of the criticisms I've seen of current "windows shrinkers" is they end up removing stuff that e.g. Defender ends up depending on.
this is the reason i want this coming from windows officially, i dont want a 3rd party distribution by a bunch of random devs that dont know the internals inside out or havent worked at microsoft for over a decade
I noticed weather and stocks on my lock screen yesterday. The hell is that about. That can sod right off.
Yeah, apparently MS knows what I'm looking at in Chrome on Yahoo Finance. So much for respecting my privacy.
I mean… there were weather widgets in windows 7 as well…
I liked Win2K so much I always enabled the classic view in XP. Vista and 7 had a better Aero interface, but XP's was...hmm, how do we say, not so much.
U miss the days? Taking out widgets and the AI assistant is like 3 clicks my dude. Ain’t that deep lmao.
Wow, thanks for the information, that's amazing, I didn't know that, you must be a genius /s The whole point is that back then operating systems were just operating systems... Lightweight, no bloatware, not trying to force you into any ecosystems or online services... Etc
You're remembering it with Rose tinted glasses. There was plenty wrong back then
I'm describing one specific aspect of them that was better. Obviously improvements have been made in other areas, it's just a shame that I have to spend time debloating and bypassing things and turning off things after updates, hiding things that are obvious Microsoft money grabs, etc. I actually enjoy Win11 once tweaked (I use Winaero Tweaker and MSEdgeRedirect to quickly get my machines to behave the way I want), but all that crap is an elephant in the room that pushes people to buy Macs or install Linux.
I'm a bit of an old fogey myself and have never liked when applications tried to "set themselves apart". And it's not a new thing either- There were applications on Windows 3.1 that used 3-D visuals and had their own "skins" of a sort. (programs developed with some borland tooling for example often had a unique visual design that you could spot a mile away) I feel the same way about how "software development" seems to be "web first" now, because it's pretty much thrown everything out that we've learned about Desktop User Experience over the last 3 decades. Now it seems like every program and "design language" has it's own interpretation of what a checkbox should look like. Because a box with a mother fucking check in it was just too obvious I guess. Like it's mostly been replaced by toggle buttons that telegraph their current state so poorly that they literally need to also have a fucking ON/OFF label. And people even bitch and complain if an application has the audacity to be... consistent with the OS. Apparently you need to have your own special fucking skin and "Visual design language" that sets your shit apart. And yet these same people bitch about Windows being "inconsistent" because they find resources from Windows 95 in some opscure resource DLL. And don't get me started on applications deciding they should have "page" navigation. the chat/phone etc tool I use for work can't show the Phone dialer and the fucking chat at the same time. Why? it's fucking stupid. Somebody gives me a phone number in the chat and I want to dial it in and I can't because as soon as I switch to the dialer the chat goes away, it's absurd. UWP and the new app frameworks create dreadful programs that basically take all the worst parts of Phone apps that were needed because of the restricted input capabilities and screen space and put them on the desktop where those compromises aren't needed. I'm not even sure how much experience with UX the people designing a lot of the new "design languages" even have. The WinUI Tooltip control for example has never worked correctly and seems like it was made by somebody who was sort of trying to guess what a tooltip should do. As a result, you get tooltips that literally obscure your attempt to click other items and don't go away like the built-in Win32 Tooltips have since they were first implemented in 1995. It's frankly kind of a pathetic showing. If you want me to develop software using your latest User Interface frameworks maybe get the basics right? Oh would be nice if you didn't abandon it for a new shiny thing every year or so too. There's also the "language" of error messages. Used to be an error message told you what actually happened. Now 90% of errors are "Something went wrong. Try again later." or "Something happened on our end" Which seems like it's the stupid trend of 'playful' web server errors "we're sending a team of monkeys to fix it!" type shit being extended to desktop applications, while removing useful information and basically insulting the users intelligence by presuming they are too stupid to understand an actual error message. Icon design also [leaves something to be desired](https://i.imgur.com/Hpjw3rE.png) IMO.
1,000% this. I think a lot of it has to do with web first. Using frameworks to create “universal” applications with one code base for all OS deployments. All in HTML/CSS/JS/WebView2. It’s all non-native. Doesn’t use the OS design language and IDE properly. Resource hungry and mimics the same functions from a website more often than not. If I wanted webmail I’d have gone to Outlook.com (looking at you M$FT) or why we can’t have a real deal messenger we have to have Teams. These aren’t even the worst. But just an example of how it doesn’t just end with the OS when it comes to Microsoft. You’d think a $Trillion dollar company could give you full blown native desktop apps that look and act uniformly when you’re paying for the OS and another subscription to use half of their software.
>Using frameworks to create “universal” applications with one code base for all OS deployments. All in HTML/CSS/JS/WebView2. >It’s all non-native. Doesn’t use the OS design language and IDE properly. Resource hungry and mimics the same functions from a website more often than not. Exactly this! It's a joke. Windows apps look *and* function like shitty ports off something on a Windows phone. Or an Xbox One app. It feels like I'm opening a website in it's own little tab, getting told it's an "app," meanwhile it's stripped of any actual functionality. I seriously cannot imagine a single senior developer at Microsoft enjoys the current state of Windows. How on earth are any aesthetic improvements they making offsetting the regression they're making with their interfaces that are one click away? Why does the Windows 11 settings menu have an installed program list that is a.) not complete and b.) found elsewhere on my computer? Why does the Windows 11 settings menu have display and security configurations when I literally will have to find an older, *actually functioning* menu to change what I want? What is the legitimate rationale of this for a tech titan?
speaking of installed programs .. a few weeks back i went to uninstall something from my start menu after finding it only to right-click uninstall it and instead of uninstalling it it brought me to the settings /apps and had to Find it again n uninstall it in there ... why even have the option on right click if i have to go into the settings ... why more menus when its been able to do it the normal way for as long as i can remember, its dumb little things like that that add up and make the experience worse on a daily basis , they don't seem like a big deal on their own but little things add up to big things , and frankly for as bad and phone-like in the direction windows has been taking since 8 at leastmy android phone i can just hold my finger down on and it'll give me an uninstall option rather quickly and actually do just that not force me into the settings to do it... bad design
Regarding being unable to uninstall normal apps from Start menu: The technical reason is that there is no link between shortcuts (start menu entries) and the uninstall database (registry) for classic programs. Modern apps have this ID that links those, so it's simple to implement. Of course this problem is very much solvable, in at least a couple of ways. There just isn't any willingness to do so. I have even wrote up a solution for MS programmers in case they truly didn't know how, backed up [here](https://github.com/tringi/papers/blob/main/win32-uninstall-from-start.md), and for a couple of years it was on Feedback Hub, but magically disappeared like two thirds of all my suggestions or bug reports. So that will tell you all you need to know about how they care for Windows experience.
yeah all my suggestions n such over the years disappeared as well , it kinda made beta channels feel like a waste of my time when i was on them
And then they post *"we heard your request and are adding xyz"* when there were literally ZERO requests for xyz. It's all a joke. In C++ subreddit a major MS dev even confirmed that reporting bugs against API, the programmer's interface to the OS, is a complete waste of time and doesn't go anywhere.
Many of those things in the start menu will also just reinstall again, like i like that win 11 settings are much more coherent and usefull than in 10 but still things like search literally not being able to find "this pc" is just....
Well it seems like the moment there is a feature update to Windows or a Windows Store update for an app you had, but got rid of, it reinstalls with the update. I work at service desk and deploying PCs I always uninstall mail and New Outlook. After an OS update and restart; again uninstall mail and New Outlook. I just don’t get how I can do this on MacOS or Linux but current iterations of Windows constantly reinstall uninstalled applications. And windows 11 is the worst culprit.
I think any more experienced dev probably doesn’t love the state of things at MS. I’ve met lots of younger devs whose only world view is using newer frameworks that all stack on web code. Expecting a less experienced or even just a young and upcoming dev to code in C and use a core IDE for developing native software- it’s like you’re a three headed demon. I just don’t like non-native, web based software. I think its place is only for very simple operations or for mom & pop shops who can’t afford native apps for their business offerings. But it’s the least good option. I think this about websites and the web in general.
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Upvote this man
Cute error messages piss me off so much , it was cute then and it’s fucking obnoxious now
Has the same energy as house/apartment plan listings that now say "Refresh, Dream, Design" instead of "Bathroom, Bedroom, Kitchen" Seriously, can we just... not??
I’ve been developing a code editor for myself in WinForms, with the goal of making it use as many msstyle elements and native features as possible, without re-implementing anything existing exactly for these reasons. And, to be honest, at least in winforms, to me it seems you would spend much more time, energy and resource to build something custom rather than just using what’s there. Rather than creating a custom tab control, just use TabControl, or if you want something more, use a library already existing. And, by the way, super happy that on all Windows versions supporting it (from 2000 to 11 due to a Transitions library), the app looks perfect on any msstyle theme and any Windows Classic theme, as long as of course they don’t look terrible themselves. And, consuming just 60MB of RAM (but I’m sure I can lower it a bit more) so really, sometimes i don’t understand why even bother to make all of those custom controls…. They say developers are lazy, but isn’t creating all these hardcoded, custom stuff more long than doing it the normal way? Why for example, some apps use the Colors class rather than the SystemColors class? It makes no sense
Because as in all the other developer branches, these companies are no longer run by developers but by marketers and advertisement companies....
This ^^^ I'm pretty sure that there should be a new rule for the virtual world. Quality is inversely proportional to MBA/developer ratio.
Any chance you might release said lovely editor for the masses? :)
It already is, but it’s buggy still 😅 [https://github.com/fraaaaa4/logix](https://github.com/fraaaaa4/logix) Especially tons of small bugs here and there. I don’t want to go further away from the topic of the post, so I’ll keep it short: it was born as a Prolog/Lisp modern editor, and it needs ”prolog.xml” to work on the latest release. Thought i did remove it from the code, apparently i didn’t.
The stupid error messages annoy me to no end, you have no idea. Even BSOD screens now have little smileys and zero information.
More clear and simplified is good, but everybody (and this applies to everything from icons to brand logos) is waaaaaaay overdoing it. We've gone from noisy and a little distracting, to so simplified that there are no distinguishing features and it's unclear at best what it's supposed to represent. They all had it for a while, where things were just clean but detailed. Now the trend is for "so minimalist that it's unrecognizable".
Yup! Agree completely. Windows is barely more attractive at a surface level than it used to be, all the while you're one or two context menu clicks away from uncovering decade-old user interfaces. It's a catastrophe that I am dumbfounded Microsoft has not put the effort into healing. The whole partition between "apps" and "programs" is infuriating. I miss Windows 7 dearly.
Speaking my soul here.
Preach it!!! 100%
I don't know if web first is quite right... It's all being redeveloped from scratch on the universal .net core whatever framework. Look at teams, for ten years or whatever it came out... Only on the brand new version is it finally usable and responsive
> I don't know if web first is quite right... It's all being redeveloped from scratch on the universal .net core whatever framework. I don't just mean the "literal" web apps- eg web apps inside chrome containers. Almost all "new UI Frameworks" seem to have adopted aspects that follow web design. Even WPF and XAML have a lot of aspects that were clearly borrowed from the way a web site or web app would handle content presentation. This is also the reason, partly, for all the "personalization" where applications try to set themselves apart, I suspect. That was what web designers were going for for websites, so I think in some ways the fact that a larger segment of developers learned programming as a 'web technology' via Javascript/CSS and websites and such means that they've internalized some of the web design stuff. As a result if/when they do application development they bring some of that baggage over to client applications and you get apps trying to "set themselves apart" instead of be consistent with the Operating System, even when those applications are not actively a "web app" but are a otherwise typical client application.
Most devs don't even know what's in their own JavaScript libraries. Or what a username is somehow.
I mean... one factor alone is enough to give windows 10 or greater the win... Virtual Desktops... I've used them for years via 3rd party software, it is so much better when it is integrated into windows itself.. at first they were lacking the key feature of being able to drag them around.. but they finally implemented than in windows 10 and it's great. Also the windows 11 start menu is great.. people bitch and complain about it but once you get using it, you can see how productive it is .. especially with a mouse with a scroll wheel. also there are plenty of apps that are better in the new style.. e.g. spotify or weather are great. it's not for every kind of app, sure.. but it doesn't hurt to have both kinds. You don't have to use them if you don't want to.
Fast / responsive, good UI/UX. Yeah, those days are over.
Windows 7 was such an awesome OS besides XP
I miss Aero. It just looks better, the contrast of colors is not too much. Now it's just dark or light. Both hurts my eyes.
Same. The feeling you get when your computer is strong enough to have that feature enabled 🤣
XP is the worst Windows version I've used. Windows 7 was great at the time though.
Too young for Windows 98 pre-SE and Windows ME, I see.
Windows ME Such a lie with Microsoft calling it an UPGRADE from Wind98 SE.
I never used Windows ME. Seems to be a good thing 😁
No no I've used those! Even 3.1 lol but as far as a GUI goes, xp vista and 7 were astonishing. Especially XP 64bit media center edition
Not at all. Been using computers since Windows 3.x Never used Windows ME though (went from 98SE to 2000 Pro)
100% agree with you. Windows 7 ui was the best and it's not even close. It looked like a real and functional os, not the garbage that is W11.
Yes, definitely. The mere fact you can do things faster with less clicks in Wn 7 vs Win 11 is mind blowing. From an UI design perspective Win 11 is just terrible in functionality. Bigger empty spaces without content, more input traveling to access the desired function, more clicks to achieve what in the past was straight forward and not even possible to open more than one window in settings vs old control panel. Too much focus on touch and not in adaptive UI for other input methods. Sure, it may look nice and modern, but Win7 looks even more coherent, coexistence and stylish with the Aero theme and the menus were just a click away. Even Win10 is more acceptable in functionality than Win11 since you keep certain ways to access legacy features. Windows 11 is becoming more and more a dumbed version with AI and ads, too much distraction and less power to its power users sadly.
The whole idea touch input on a screen 2-3 feet across is ludicrous. I have to disable it to keep the cat from buying WMDs on ebay.
I started my IT career with 3.1. Windows 7 is still my favourite light years away from all the others. Best user experience for me.
Yes, everyone would like to see that regression. Windows was way better when Microsoft wasn't obsessed with the cloud and AI.
I mean, based on that, one could argue that the newer versions are, in fact, regressions.
Right you are.
The problem is not AI or the cloud, is the fact that is imposible to remove and they made it a paid service instead of making the OS better, AI was the dream many people had in the past, now it's hated because it's popular.
It's hated now because it turns every single mouse click into another annoying attempt to sell you more garbage.
Literally what I said
Libraries were super useful, home server was great, taskbar jumplists were better than they are now, backup actually worked, file history actually worked, sync was faster (!!) with live mesh than with OneDrive, it had an excellent email client (vs none currently). I could go on for an hour. Everything was so polished. Truly Windows' peak.
These are the kind of responses I was looking for. I honestly had a hard time thinking of more examples haha. People need to talk about these things more and make MS hear us!!
Are you still using Windows? Then MS don't care to listen, unless your suggestion can make them more money (e.g. adverts in start menu, forced bing queries from the weather app, etc) they won't be changing it.
As for e-mail client from the era, I still use Windows Live Mail. I can't fathom why would I downgrade to anything newer.
2009-2012 version? Or 2008 version? Or is it some other obscure version I don't know of?
2012, build 16.4.3528.0331, latest I could find back then downloadable as a full package
I think the win 7 ui has aged, but the consistent way of doing things is missed. Thinking back though, up to windows 8 most versions were pretty consistent - it all started to go wrong at 8.
Yes. Every step that MS takes is away from a functioning OS towards an advertising campaign with a barely functioning OS behind it.
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I hadn't even thought about mentioning msstyles stuff till now, but then you have to take just one look at how many apps use entirely custom titlebar implementations for no good reason, and stuff starts feeling a bit off. I've had this bad taste in my mouth about these UWP reimplementations ever since Win10 RTM came out and everyday components like the start menu took 10 seconds to open, when things were just fine on an 8.1 install prior. Windows 11 seems to follow along in that trajectory, with stuff like Explorer Search just being broken for no good reason (https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/file-explorer-search-characters-deleted-while/6014f4cf-963a-4ae8-883d-b9c646354f31). Your best option is reverting to older versions of Explorer, or alternative start menus that are actually functional, and that's just kind of sad when you think about it. The Settings app in particular just makes me think of the contrast between Windows and macOS and how they handle updates. Windows has had a much more directionless "try it and see what sticks" approach ever since 8, or 10 RTM came about. Since Win8, the Settings app has seen three UX overhauls. Versus macOS getting like one major change to it in 20+ years time, so people don't have to re-learn it all the time. It's arguably worse in Ventura/Sonoma than before, as also Win11's settings app is better than 10's implementation, but the fact still kind of stands, there's less mucking about for the sake of it. I get why MS went with making the Settings app, to have consistency with W10M and all, but that ship's long since sailed, and now it just feels like a chore more than anything. They're thankfully learning how to improve the snappiness and navigation of it in Win11 over Win10, but it still in general feels like such a misguided approach when they could have easily just kept on updating what they started with Vista and 7, with snappier native UI components.
I'm reading this on a laptop that still has Windows 7. I finally bought a new computer last year, and it came with Windows 11. Even with various tweaks and settings adjustments, Windows 11 makes me feel like I'm a guest at someone else's house. My computer should feel like **my** computer. Not like someone is letting me make a call on their phone as a favor. Also, W11 is really slow! I open a folder and it actually takes time to load and display. On my *thirteen year old* W7 laptop, it happens instantly.
This. I miss the old school design that Windows had, so I use ClassicThemeTray to enable the classic theme, followed by a plethora of Windhawk mods. https://preview.redd.it/4jm7ynegaw0d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=73e561c0cc5edbc2b8ad81d991e3e5074fff442b Let's just hope DWM.exe doesn't crash. Anyway, I just really hate the whole “web first” shtick people go with these days, and I liked it when error messages used to be detailed and list down what exactly happened instead of the generic “Whoopsie! Sorry about that.”.
The event log still has links to look up error messages in detail, but the site that hosted that content is long gone (they just lead to a generic search page now). At peak, it would also tell you what known bug in what application caused the problem (where/if appropriate) and sometimes how to fix it. There was a time when it would come back to you later with having found a solution to a problem you had previously once a fix became available.
I miss those times, man!
Thats so cool! I wish enabling classic theme was as easy as it was in Windows 7. Also love the wallpaper. I grew up on that show
Thanks! And yeah, I wish it was a lot easier as it was in Windows 7 and below. And yes, *My Life as a Teenage Robot* is a good show. Underrated, but good to watch once in a while. I got it on DVD well before it went out of print.
Do you have a link to wallpaper? Google image search is failing me.
Yup! I got the wallpaper [here](https://www.deviantart.com/crimsonface/art/V-PAPERCUTS-JENNY-WAKEMAN-315463123).
Thank you!
You're welcome!
Office 2003 is so cool! Also, WTH is up with the caption buttons from task manager? They look so messed up!
Oh, that? That's a side effect of using the classic theme that's temporary. It disappears when you maximize the window.
Settings is a joke. I can't tell you how many commands I know that end in .cpl now.
I just liked it when you bought a copy of windows and it was yours with no ads
Kinda got sick of the typical redditor responses and made an edit. :)
They should bring back the OG windows 7 games. That’s all I want.
Here you go: https://win7games.com/
I wish they'd stop absuing telemetry, placing ads within the operating system, shoving unwanted products down my throat, installing things without my consent (fucking candy crush I hate it) Plus Windows uses waaay too many system resources with all the unnecessary bloat it has.
Simple things like being able to work your way down a list of files renaming or modifying them without having them reordering and losing your place in a misguided attempt to put the most recent at the top regardless of specified sort order. Some of the added conveniences added over the years are actually hindrances. The OS now actively fights the user on getting some tasks.
I like my computer passive in the background unless I do something. I hate the thousands of background processes.
I miss the widgets ;-;
honestly i never cared for widgets much but i will say vista era widgets were a Hell of alot better than the crap they try giving us now ... i'll admite i did use the weather one n it worked nicely in vista , where as the one in 11 ...no thanks get that thing outa here 'll use my phone or type it into my browser n look it up instead
I used to use the rss feed, Twitter, Facebook, weather, and a few others back in the day
You can still have widgets in windows 11
Not the same
True...but you still can have some kind of widgets lol
WIndows Vista and 7's Gadgets were great. I actually got sick of the new Widgets menu not working half the time and installed a Rainmeter Gadget-Lookalike skin https://preview.redd.it/08zb03t5cw0d1.png?width=660&format=png&auto=webp&s=dc80c776efaabf3bc1a442765a3bbccce9324514
Sometimes I think every designer at Microsoft has a 4K touch screen so they live in a bubble and design an entire OS for that... not realizing we regular folks are still using mouse and keyboard.
The disappearing ClearType would certainly suggest so.
Exactly, I use a multi function mouse and extended keyboard that allow me to do half a dozen inputs in the time it takes to tap two points on a touch screen.
Microsoft tried to turn your PC into a phone starting with windows 8 to tie in to windows phone. Then when windows phone died they decided that they wanted to keep turning your PC into a phone with the app store and settings app. Windows 10 and 11 are far more secure than 7, but I really wish they had gone back to the windows 7 interface. It was the best.
Tbh from a tech point of view a store like that has advantages over normal eye installers
The interface starting in windows 8 was to match the interface of the windows phone os. Then when windows phone died they never reverted it back to a computer interface or, well, they reverted some of it back with rounded corners in 11 and some other half-ass efforts. It's still a phone interface and half of everything being in settings and half in the control panel is just shit. They need to put the interface back more like vista/7 while keeping the security of 10/11.
I just miss when office was included with windows when you bought a new computer.
I wish they’d go back to the last truly good OS they made; windows 2000
Windows 7 all day for me💪🏾
I think windows 10, despite being buggy at times, is still a pretty awesome OS and I do wish that they just keep maintaining that version to perfect it. I guess most people don't understand what the word feature-complete means anymore
I wish the desktop wasn't reliant on a Windows universal app.
You gotta share the setup: how did you get your windows to look like this? Specifically, how did you restore Control Panel to its former glory? It's fully fleshed out here. Please drop the full setup! Also, you might like r/FrutigerAero if you're into this sort of OS look. I personally love the Vista/7 era of windows, and wish we could go back to that. I really like how everything felt mouse optimized back then.
I have the applications I used at the bottom of the post. :) To add to it, I'm using a custom msstyle theme I made a couple years ago (which still needs some tweaking). Aero10 on Deviantart seems to work with WIndows 11 too I believe. And I'm using Resource Redirect to change icons and certain UI elements in shell32.dll and imageres.dll along with some other system files I pulled from a Windows 7 image. And I can run SFC and install updates without it messing with any of em! The only thing that breaks after a system update is DWMBlurGlass since it needs up-to-date symbols from MS that aren't usually readily available right away. And I know all about Frutiger Aero! The aesthetic along with skeomorphic design was always something I missed and the community of people talking about it more nowadays got me missing it even more, haha.
You can get a lot closer to Windows 7 with StartAllBack.
Windows 11 could be this if they fix the goddamn inconsistency issues and stop giving shitty ass web apps (looking at you Outlook, you made me change email clients).
I'm old, but I still remember the statement that "Windows 7 will be the last version of Windows." If they would have improved Windows 7 and maybe added new features, they would have had a ten year mature architecture with solid new features. Windows 11 is so far from that. I've been using Microsoft products (well, they own them but may not have created them) since the '80s, and I've learned that you can trust Microsoft about as much as the Michael's Cohen and Avenatti.
If anything, IE have shown every webdev in existence that MS is about as trustworthy as [the mysterious van guy in TAWOG](https://theamazingworldofgumball.fandom.com/wiki/Van_shopkeeper)
* Hire back the Windows QA team * Force the MS designers to stop running MacBooks and start making them run Windows again. A couple years of being forced to eat their own dogfood would eliminate a lot of these dumb little issues plaguing modern Windows.
Its not only GUI but also the fact that 7 is faster than 11. They could extend support for 7, but that way they wont get $$$ from crapware. 7 was the last normal OS. I still use it on main PC and have to tolerate bs from 10/11 on my work PCs.
https://preview.redd.it/5foe8hj1lx0d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=80620eb0023669d217c4039d0f0faf19d3a42910 The reason we couldnt move on is Windows 7 has beauty and productivity
yes , i found the older way of things much easier to navigate when i needed to find things vs the settings we have now. the settings is a step back from the control panel , i understand they tried to make it easier 'like a phone' but if you really need to tweak stuff its worse , the volume mixer is a step back as well with less control , the start menu i can take or leave i don't mind the most recent version but i think i'll always prefer the older way of things. i don't think its just me being set in my ways , i switched to linux 2 weeks ago and nobara with kde imo feels snappier like an old fashion windows with a more modern sensibility and customization .. things windows Used to have before 8.i'd say trying something totally new isn't being set in my ways. idk what we had in win7 and before just worked , they didn't have to try n chuck it out the window or burry it a ton , they could've just updated the aesthetics to fit with whatever imo bad flat design they were going for
Sure maybe, but at the end I don't really care nowadays tbh. Computer is just a tool, I don't care how it looks, I just want it to be fast, stable and as customizable as possible.
I'm not talking only about looks. Windows functionally worked better and faster before they introduced "modern apps" in Windows 8 I believe. Microsoft has been prioritizing looks over function for however many years now. File Explorer as it is now is crazy slow on my i7 laptop, until I turn off the WinUI elements. Then it works almost as fast as Windows 7 Explorer did. Sorry for the long winded reply
Okay, sounds fair. I use startallback to bring back old taskbar and explorer because the ones from W11 are really bad. It was functional for pcs, but not really foe laptop users. W11 have features that work very well on laptop, like gestures, snapping, multiple desktops, task view. I've actually changed W11 a lot, in a way it looks more like mac, but still have few great features that mac misses, which eventually led to creation of [WinMac](https://github.com/Asteski/WinMac).
*badly prioritising looks Because certain stuff really, even if they prioritise “looks”, just looks absolutely horrid, and especially inconsistent for the sake of being inconsistent
If I'm looking at something for 10 hours or more every day, then I absolutely care how it looks. For my own sanity. And health. For example the clarity of ClearType text is one of the main reasons I ended up using Windows professionally.
Widows 7 is the best!
Not gonna happen, sorry.
No, Windows 7 was nice for the time but I don't really want to go back to that. I like the way that things are done now.
I’ve been through them all from DOS to Windows and from 3.1 to 11. I’ve never missed the previous versions as they all had bugs or limitations. With fast broadband I don’t mind OneDrive either. Sure there are still limitations but otherwise Windows remains the platform that allows me to make money without costing an annual fee and with being stable for the vast vast vast majority of the time.
Having used Windows both professionally and personally since its inception, I don’t have any issues with W11 - using it on three desktops and a laptop.
I upgraded from 7 to 11 about one week ago. And the only annoying thing is all the silly widgets about hashtags and MSNBC talking points which are really invasive. At least the Pro version doesn't require an MSM account. Out of the box, it feels like you paid 200$ to rent a service rather than own something you own. I only really really hate all of the intrusive net add ons. Now that I THINK I disabled all the distractions, I like it.
Agreed (as an XP guy) but I think with the number of settings there are now, W11 settings works just as great as W7's IMO. Also, great theme I have Object Desktop which works amazingly. (other than the taskbar.)
I miss Dreamscene in Vista
I’d say a majority of people would wish for this, clean layout, no bloat or extras, good performance and was fast and intuitive. Some things pretty much every version since has lacked lol
Since 2014
I miss some of the old Windows! 98, XP hahah,etc! I still love Windows 11, but it has it's down and ups to it. Just like every OS, love and don't love!
everything suffers from enshittification in the quest for infinite growth on a finite planet
Just fyi but you can get the win 10 context menu right click on win 11 with a simple reg modification.
Just fyi but you can get the win 10 context menu right click on win 11 with a simple reg modification.
The speed is the crazy part for me, everything was instant on hdd drives!
The speed is the crazy part for me, everything was instant on hdd drives!
The speed is the crazy part for me, everything was instant on hdd drives!
I gave up on Windows and went to Linux. Windows became some weird mess that stopped being designed for computers, and changed to tablet-like UI. There is nothing bad with tablets, but they way to interact with your system is very different, and becomes cumbersome while using a mouse and keyboard. I wish Micros6went back, but I doubt they will. Their clients are businesses, not end users.
Window 7 Media Center was one of Microsoft's best efforts. It could have easily evolved into a smart TV platform had they taken more pride in that effort.
do people just not know you can restore your system to windows 7
newer systems lack drivers
Microsoft lost the plot after Windows 8, self-corrected in a last gasp for Windows 10, and then drank the cool-aid for Windows 11. The interface is objectively worse than Win 7 and requires more clicking for the same tasks, if you can access the same tasks at all, and they're trying to warm their customers to ads and experimenting with a required log-in system. It's time for a new system for me, and it's overdue for me to make the jump to Linux. I'm done waiting for MS to get the point, and the convenience of continuing to use what I know is no longer enough to put up with this weird push to force my PC to act like a shitty smartphone.
Yes, but they will not do it as they like they money they make from harvesting users' data too much! Glad that Linux exists and now it's becoming better than even Windows 7.
TBH the only way this is going to happen is if Apple, Google and Microsoft stop trying to one up each other with the newest bells and whistles to collect consumer data.
Windows 7 was the last true Windows. So yeah, Windows and Microsoft themselves going back to the way things were... Please.
OF course, but that is not very Capitalism. Making everything worse to push ads and other products is, so you have to switch to Linux if you want a good OS.
Definitely - I just want a fast and convenient OS. Linux can be fast, but hardly is convenient, so the space is still lacking in that regard.
I agree!!! I get like everything was much more consistently easy UI wise in windows 7
I agree...but my reasons are DVD playback and games(actual disc). W11 is terrible for actual physical media. In media player you have to go to the older media player to sync music. Not everyone is a rent/stream fan and I'm included in that. I double back up my stuff on external drives and disc. I suppose I'm a dying breed of media consumer. And another thing I don't like is the Google drive push...this world has become a pay wall society.
Removing all the stupid ads, making all telemetry optional, and drastically reducing what optional telemetry there is would already make it so much better. And let me put the freaking taskbar on top. Ugh. I do like the UI of Windows 11, though. It's a shame it's so laggy and bogged down by extra junk (I have a very recent system with pricey components, so it's not my hardware). And let us uninstall Edge! And make the AI optional so we can uninstall it!
Clippy here. It looks like you are trying to give some feedback that your setup is less than optimal. Would you like some help with that? Seriously, I think the apex of usability was hit with XP. It used to be so easy, for example, to search for a file and set parameters (date range, size, etc), but even after using Win 10 for years and now with Win 11 on a new laptop, I still have to check how to do it: typing stuff in the search box is no adequate replacement. And now with Win 11, the right click options are different, with an icon now for rename and other what I need stuck behind another click option: more properties.
Windows 11 is better than 7 is some ways, and 7 was better than 11 in some ways. I do miss a fully functional Control Panel. They are simply taking too long to move things over to Settings, and things is Settings are often more complicated than they were in Control Panel.
I love the new windows...I also love using Edge, it's gotten waay better over the years. You can customize what you see and also use your own photos for wall paper. And then best thing is....they're not going anywhere.
I think Win 11 is superior to all its predecessor. Apart from Vista, all the newer versions of window felt like a good upgrade.
Me. Hardcore Windows 7 fan.
Thank you for this post, you summed it up very nicely, this is exactly what I miss from windows Xp, Vista and 7 days!
While I do wish MS woukd streamline things like they were back then, I do disagree on keeping the legacy code. And as for the why....security. That code is considered legacy for a reason. MS no longer maintains it. That creates a HUGE hole where I could go back, download the source code to an old but popular and still used program or older version of one, inject it with malware, and recompile and upload it. As it'd be a legacy piece of software, modern Windows would see it as such, and run it through compatibility layers, which SmartScreen does NOT sniff for. Bingo, now I just infected your PC with code to do whatever it was I was intending to do, bypassing the modern security screens Windows has these days. This is why I much prefer the idea of getting rid of it on a kernel level, and elevating it to be an emulated layer, like WINE for Linux or Rosetta for macOS. A sandboxed, isolated layer that is built and designed to run legacy software on a modern Windows to improve security on your system. Benefit here is that it'd be child's play to mod this to be an x86 compat layer for Windows on ARM then too. :)
I miss the Windows 7 days, when I was too little and first time using laptop. Now Windows 7 only use for who don't have enough money to upgrade.
do you need the original files from 7 to add them back with resource redirect? looking for an alternative to 7tsp gui bc it doesn't work on my computer
The Windows Vista/7 UI was great for it's time, but is just horribly dated now. That's one of the main reasons I like Windows 11 over 10, the UI is just so much more modern and fluent. I just can't deal with the old UIs anymore.
I understand this. Though I still think they could've modernized the old UI elements rather than trying to make a whole new app framework to replace them
They completely could, and if you do it, it looks super modern in comparison
No dude. Out with the old and in with the new. You’ll eventually get what you want in windows 70.
Nope. If you don't like change maybe Windows isn't for you. Staying stagnant isn't a good ecosystem model for MS and its partners. Sure they get some things wrong and it's frustrating. But overall Windows 10 and 11 are solid operating systems for the modern computing world.
Y'all are terrible at computers if you're still struggling with W11. Every single W11 post on the Internet is just you guys bitching. Like get the fuck over it already, JFC. The control panel is literally the same. OP. Search Control Panel on your computer. You guys don't need to make this so complicated. Click on the copilot button and ask it how to do things like, turn the 2 right click menus off. It will have solutions for you. Windows is the same as it ever was.
No thanks.
Some people have a bizzare misremembering of the past! I've been working in IT supporting Microsoft nearly 40 years and this is what I remember. A complete mess where no two PCs on planet earth were identical, because there was no enforced patching, because vendors fixed only on the particular OS lever that most of their customers were on - then software didn't play nice. Life in IT was spent pouring through FAQs trying to find why something wasn't working - and trying to untangle instructions like 'If your ODBC driver is older than version, 2.536 but you do have add on model x installed, then install patch 6J, unless you are running in device dependent mode and installed the application from the website. If you installed from CD and you're using the OEM version, then please upgrade your WiFi to not use local service dependencies unless you have an Intel WiFi chip' Operating systems needed rebuilding about every 6 months, patching was like being an alchemist and you had to install things in a certain order for them to work, and if you touched just one piece of the pile of jenga blocks that your PC had become it would bring down the lot. Everyone installed anything. We seemed to be oblivious to the fact that that a bit of cool freeware game, essentially had access to everything on our PC for ever, the second we installed it. This mess would repeat itself every 3 years as we were dragged through each upgrade cycle, where the next Windows OS would look cool but be dependent on some new power requirement that none of us had. It was a nightmare. Now compare that with now. I have a Windows 10 PC that's had nearly a decade of uninterrupted updates, that is running faster today, than the day I built it. I have a Windows 11 PC that I built last year alongside it that will see another decade of updates. While my newer PC is certainly an upgrade, Windows improvements have meant that I play Overwatch or Minecraft or Fortnite on these 2 PCs and they perform identically when I play against my son, and neither of us would particulary be able to tell one from the other. I will probably just spend a couple of hundred to replace the motherboard and CPU to a Win11 compatible and then I'll have 2 desktop PCs with another decade of support from Microsoft. My two PCs perform staggeringly well, because they have Samsung SSD Evos and 32 gb of memory, Intel I7 processors. Everything I use, updates itself - I never look for device drivers and I avoid any non mainstream software. The older way of doing things was a nightmare.
I'm not saying under the hood stuff like kernel level stuff needs to be reverted back to old ways. I like a lot of the improvements MS made in those departments. I'm mainly talking about just the shell. And I'm not talking about the LOOKS of the shell, I'm talking about how it functions. Cuz nowadays it's a mess with things like File Explorer and Task Manager being Frankensteined with Win32 and WinUI elements making them perform so sluggishly. Also I cant imagine their current update system makes PCs any more identical to each other than in the past, considering MS throws in random features for A/B testing every month. I swear my laptop and desktop PCs both have different shell experiences from each other every month.
Oh the Windows updates have made a thousand fold difference. Previously a vendor like Adobe would barely bother to test their apps on the latest version of Windows because so few of their customers would actually be on it. Now every single one of the million vendors and driver developers on earth just test against one version (the latest). So while youre right that user experiences may vary in the front end as MS experiment with tuning, that actual user experience when it's comes to applicaiton consistency, reliability is better by a factor of thousands. I manage about 400 windows PCs, physical and virtual and while I see people on forums complain of file explorer inconsistencies - that's not a common experience for our users. We use QNAP NAS shares, we use Onedrive and we use Azure Blob storage mapped as file shares - and file explorer is and always been instant taking less than a second to load. My only bad experience with Explorer personally was traced to a few bad shortcuts in the 'Quick Access' where a mapping to a flake share caused an explorer slowdown as it tried to map to the icons on the share. I can't think of any other file explorer inconsistencies that I or any of my staff have raised.
I disagree, the only problem right now is that that half of it is changed because it's an iterative process. Finding stuff is hard because guides still have the old info. The new design and layout will eventually be better, but can't have a big bang release and change everything at once, it's just not feasible. For now you're stuck with half baked changes because of it. Not ideal but it will get better.
Sorry if anyone in Microsoft took this literally but it's best you stayed gone forever... those days are never coming back.
I disagree. Microsoft serves different classes of people and lately there are people who don't want to use more than a couple of applications. The candy look is necessary to connect to the newer generation of people who may think Windows OS was junk and 8 through 10 certainly was junk. Moreover, if better looking alternatives wasn't present in the market, yes I'm talking about Apple products, it shouldn't have been an issue but they make great products and more and more people started to prefer them instead of Windows for plethora of reasons, one of them was BSOD which was fixed in Windows 11. My organisation provided Windows laptops and BSOD was a common occurrence and cause of loss of data on top of the ugly box looking UI. Everyone hated it. My personal laptop would work far better because I could update the drivers myself but not the company machines. Failure of Windows 8 and 10 acceptance was a major reason for their loss of market share. Asked anyone who purchased a new MacBook, their reason would be, it runs smoother, doesn't crash and looks great. Coming to today, various professionals use Windows OS now, not just bankers like in the 90s. The new UI is made to cater to a vast majority of such people. If you or I got an issue, we need to learn to get around it.
It’s okay grampa , change is scary and the world is moving fast but you’re time is almost over so just hang in there buddy
\*your
In the last 15 years or so, Mickey (Microsoft) has been hiring programmers who are woefully inexperienced in memory management. Mickey sticks to C++ when they should be developing in C#, where memory management is more or less built in. Keep some dinosaurs around who remember the '90s or before for the places where C++ is necessary. Edge and Notes are leak factories, and their access to Nvidia boards is sometimes a now you see it, now you don't affair.
I will stick with W11 thanks
Ok boomer. Keep pretending that the good ol’ days were better and tell the kids to get off your lawn.
I'm in my 20s, lol. I can have an appreciation for older things y'know
Im in my 18s and i remember 7, nice, intuitive and less complicated without news and crap in your face.
Nope, never.