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Windows Microsoft Operating Systems

Windows 11 is Getting Some Much-needed Taskbar and Start Menu Improvements (theverge.com) 134

Posted by msmash from the for-what-it-is-worth dept.
Windows 11's taskbar is a giant step back in usability compared to Windows 10, and now Microsoft is starting to make improvements. A new update that's currently being tested by Windows Insiders brings the clock and date back to the taskbar on secondary or multiple monitors. From a report: It's a change that multiple monitor users will appreciate, as many have had to install third-party apps like ElevenClock just to get this basic functionality in Windows 11. I've not been shy about criticizing the changes made to the taskbar in Windows 11. I hate the new taskbar, so I'm happy to see Microsoft make this initial change. There's still much more to be improved, and hopefully we see the return of being able to drag and drop files onto taskbar apps and the general customization options. Elsewhere, Microsoft is also making some improvements to the Start menu in Windows 11. The latest 22509 Insider build includes the ability to configure the Start menu to show more pins or more recommendations instead. That makes the Start menu a little more customizable, although many Windows 11 users are also opting for third-party apps here, too.
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Windows 11 is Getting Some Much-needed Taskbar and Start Menu Improvements More

Windows 11 is Getting Some Much-needed Taskbar and Start Menu Improvements

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  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's fine.

      That's pretty much all I can say. It's not good, it's not bad. It's just fine.

      The best improvements I've found are non-obvious ones, for example, I have a 4k monitor and a second 1080p monitor, with Windows 10 if I switched on my KVM to something else on my main monitor everything got shifted to the smaller, secondary monitor, and when I switched back and the windows came back the scaling fucked up the Window size, so my windows over time became tiny and needed resizing. It was always a minor anno

      • I will probably be trying it out in the near future; I am anticipating a continuation of the trend of significant technical improvement bukkaked with the un-learning of the last 3 decades worth of UI/UX design improvements.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by King_TJ ( 85913 )

        Seems to me that at least in a business environment where you deploy your new PCs from images and manage them via InTune or the like? Win 11 is a no-go right now, unless your I.T. department has nothing better to do than tinkering around with all the small changes needed for it to work properly.

        We had several of our Win 10 users upgrade to 11 before we could edit our InTune settings to prevent it from getting offered to them, and those machines have gotten so messed up, they had to ship them back to us to

    • Re:What're everyone's thoughts on win11? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @04:07PM (#62037043)

      There are things i like better about 11, nothing so far i specifically really like less.

      With a big multi monitor setup, i actually like the start button in the middle of the taskbar -- everyone knows corners are easy to hit and that's why its been there since 95, but in my setup if i shoot for a corner with the mouse, i end up on the next monitor half the time.

      Plus if you hate it, you can send it back to the side. But for me the new location is better.

      Of course, half the time I use the keyboard keys any way so position it doesn't matter, but there again, on a big screen setup, having it come up more centered is also an improvement if you are using a big screen or ultra-wide.

      Beyond the desktop cosmetics i really haven't noticed much different from Win10 21H2. Stability has been fine for me.

      I think the AC before me got it right, if you are installing the semi-annual windows 10 feature updates, this is just another one except marketing got their hands on it and slapped a version number on it. It's really much ado about nothing for most people I'd say.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The new start menu layout is crap, but the search function is a lot better. So if you like using the mouse it sucks, but if you like typing the name of the app it's better.

      • Re:What're everyone's thoughts on win11? (Score:5, Informative)

        by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @10:51PM (#62038163)

        >"With a big multi monitor setup, i actually like the start button in the middle of the taskbar -- everyone knows corners are easy to hit and that's why its been there since 95, but in my setup if i shoot for a corner with the mouse, i end up on the next monitor half the time."

        Silly me, using KDE... I can put the "start" button (launcher) anywhere I want on the taskbar. In fact, in Plasma/KDE (and many other Linux DE's) you can have whatever you want on the taskbar in any order or location, or have multiple taskbars, on any edge of the screen. And you can have different types of launchers. Hide, show always, group or non-group, preview or not, icons/names or both, auto-sort or not, multiple click actions, pretty much totally customizable. It has been that way for many, many years.

        And all that with no "suggestions" or ads, to boot!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by vux984 ( 928602 )

          Silly me, using KDE... I can put the "start" button (launcher) anywhere I want on the taskbar.

          And if putting the start button anywhere on the screen I wanted was more important than running the software I need and want to run, I might switch.

          But its not.

      • Presumably "normal" people will not be using multi monitor setups generally. So multi monitor settings are generally "advance" settings.

        So in the option window for multi screen setup, they should have an option for how the taskbar works. And if a single screen user wants to change how the taskbar works, they can also go to the same "advance" settings and change it there.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by vux984 ( 928602 )

          What is a normal user though?

          The new taskbar / start menu layout is better for a lot of users:

          -- Multi-monitor setups (every desktop at multiple client sites I work with are multi-monitor now, along with where my wife works). I don't think they're unusual now.
          -- Touch screen setups (surface devices, and so forth)
          -- Large Single Monitors ultrawides, living room TVs, projectors

          Plus if if they left the default alone, nobody would know they could now change it. By enabling the new placement by default, everyone

    • I do. It's not ready for prime time, especially as it relates to gaming. If you're thinking of upgrading the OS of your Windows 7 gaming rig, consider just stepping it up to Windows 10, as that is stable enough for almost everyone at this point.

      As for Windows 11: most people should probably wait until at least a year from now.

    • Re:What're everyone's thoughts on win11? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by kerashi ( 917149 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @04:09PM (#62037057)

      The start menu's recommendations section is annoying, I turned off all the Recommendations and the category is still there. I finally just got a copy of Start11 which fixed that problem. If only MS would give the option to turn that section off completely.

      At least Windows 11 seems to have fixed some of the issues I had with networking on Windows 10. Now if only they'd fix it on my mom's computer that's stuck on Windows 10. It has a local laser printer that I'd REALLY like to share.

      Stability has been great, no crashes since upgrading. The interfaces to do a lot of basic things (like change DNS server to my Pi Hole) are much better, no need to jump to the adapter options. While not as familiar as the old Control Panel, the new Settings does make a lot of things easier to accomplish.

      Did not like the centered taskbar, but changing that's easy enough, thankfully MS kept the option to have the icons on the left. The limitations on task bar placement might be annoying for anyone that kept their task bar anywhere but on bottom, though, since it stays on bottom now.

      The notifications area is different, don't particularly like the change. Of course I didn't like its previous implementation either. Most notifications are useless anyway.

      Other than that, it's basically a somewhat reskinned Windows 10. It's got its annoyances, but I don't regret upgrading. It works fine.

      • The limitations on task bar placement might be annoying for anyone that kept their task bar anywhere but on bottom, though, since it stays on bottom now.

        I'm one of those, I value vertical screen space over horizontal (especially with widescreen laptops), so I've kept the taskbar on the left since win7. I do kind of wish I could mirror it so the start button is still in the lower left moving the clock to the upper left

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by vux984 ( 928602 )

          Me too. Especially on those awful 1080p screens.

          I ran it on the left too for a number of years, until i went multi-monitor, and they gave the option of having it on all screens, which works well on the bottom, but didn't work so well.

          Also, having it on the bottom isn't so bad on a good size 4k screen, there's enough vertical space to open a PDF page at 100% and comfortably read it, or view an entire word document page, etc, even with it at the bottom.

          The other option of course is you can still autohide it;

    • Re:What're everyone's thoughts on win11? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Junta ( 36770 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @04:12PM (#62037069)

      Windows 11 has one categorically better improvement, WSLG. It's not perfect (e.g. it supports neither linux window managers nor does it get managed by the native windows window management either, it has its own weirdly limited window management that is about the worst window manager you could imagine). Despite the drawbacks, it's better than what Windows 10 does.

      Other than that, it's largely 'different', and, for example, the taskbar suffered for the rewrite for rewrite's sake.

      Some people may be put out by several features being removed from Windows 11 (almost like Windows 11 was a cosmetic change to justify dropping maintaining a number of features. I don't care about most of the features (the taskbar and context menu changes are the most annoying, but I think that is transient.

      If you aren't running linux applications, I'd ignore it for now. When it gains built in android app support, might be interesting.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] to see if anything you care about went missing.

      • Hurray that Cortana is gone. Always felt like an inept advertisement for an xbox game to me.

        Aero Peek is handy though, meaning to see the contents of a window by hovering the mouse over the thumbnail on the taskbar, and having an undocumented keyboard shortcut isn't the same thing. The Aero Peek to show the desktop with transparent windows isn't useful though.

        A lot of the other stuff just seems like more of Microsoft's long-term goal of removing all customization options because users who customize window

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          I don't know what aero peek was removed, if I hover over an icon, thumbnails appear, and hover over one thumbnail causes that window to appear by itself on the screen...

    • Re:What're everyone's thoughts on win11? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @04:24PM (#62037123)

      As far as I can tell, its just like Windows 10 but with a bunch of UI inconveniences. Stupid things like you can no longer right-click the Taskbar to get to Task Manager, that is a right-click on the Windows button now. Win11 also hides the traditional right-click menu, if you have something like 7zip integrated with Explorer and you right-click a file you do not see your 7zip option, you have to click to See More Options. The Start menu is now always collapsed, where to see the list of install programs you have to click the Windows button then click All Apps. I could go on, all of the little UI conveniences you are accustomed to are gone or moved.

      The UI is dogshit, otherwise its just Windows 10.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      I've been using windows 11 for 2 or 3 weeks now. I would say its nether better or worse than windows 10. Some things are different and some things are the same. There are no show stoppers for me or anything that makes me go "whoo and ahhh" over it. The best thing I can say is I like the rounded windows.

    • Anyone have any experience with 11?

      I just recently tried it. No different, unless you're the sort of person obsessed with UI and rounded corners it's the same as Windows 10. In terms of the start menu it depends on how you use it, I just hit the 'windows' key and start typing and for that workflow it's no different to Windows 10.

    • I've noticed menus have been moved or renamed. Worse, menu shortcuts, that weren't changed for 30 years, have been assigned new keystrokes. Such as 'o' for Properties but the menu already has an 'o' shortcut. Instead of pressing 'r' once, one now must press 'o' twice.

      A change since the last update, the Shutdown menu must be double-clicked to open. Do other people experience that?

      Other comments suggest a lot of the power-shortcuts have been deleted or buried inside other shortcuts.

      I don't know if W

    • Based in running it in a VM I see zero need to change ("upgrade" has no meaning here, it's not a functional improvement) for several years as typical with Windows.

      There has never been a compelling reason to switch Windows versions unless getting close to EOL or using specific business software that requires it.

  • I have a 4K monitor, I start a RDT session, arrange all windows just so. I switch to another work space work on it for a while and come back to RDT. For some reason the RDT has sent a "reset screen size to 1920x 1080" message to RDT. All my windows are now scrunched up to the second quadrant.

    Why does it do it? And will they fix it? Have they fixed it? This insidious re-size even messes up the TurboVNC X-Windows sessions running on linux behind the RDT to a windows box!

    • I get something like that from time to time, similarly compressed to a quadrant irrespective of screen size (with a thick black border from overlapping shadows) - also through vmconnect into a hyper-v vm, as well as rdp on the host machine. In fact, had it happen on both in the same day within the last week.

    • This screws up on MacOS too for me, when I unplug a closed laptop and take it to a conference room. Nothing changed resolution and yet the windows often look like it temporarily though it was 320x200. I suspect no one at Apple ever considered that someone might want to use a laptop with the cover closed.

      • Re:Did they fix the random window reshuffling? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @05:39PM (#62037461) Journal
        The best explanation I found so far is this:

        MS Window manager can not handle any window to exceed screenbuf size. There are software rendered screenbuf and actual hardware rendered screenbuf, in the windows registry. If the hardware rendered screen does not send a heartbeat to the Window manager, it assumes the hard ware screen has been disconnected. So it falls to the next screenbuf in the registry. It could be a software rendered screenbuf, usually default or lower resolution resolution. It not only rejiggers all the current windows it sends a despo "Screen size has changed" message to all remote hosts connected via RDP. They rejigger their windows and pass the info to the linux host running an X Windows session via TurboVNC. That too rejiggers its windows.

        Momentarily the heartbeat comes back. But by this time all the windows have been rejiggered and they can not be unjiggered. Frustrating.

        If the Window Manager simply minimizes the RDT sessions, it is a tolerable alternative. Eventually when the user maximizes the RDT session, it can check the screenbuf size, and rejigger if necessary.

        I tried editing the registry to redefine all the screen bufs to be the same size. But gosh, there were so many of them in so many places, I could not really find all that mattered.

        • Then why doesn't it rejigger randomly when you are working?

          This happens only when power / screen saver/ sleep / hybernate kicks in or comes out. That is why it never happens on a regular working session. The graphics card cuts out power or sleeps and stops the heartbeat and Window manager is still awake getting ready to sleep. It sends out rejigger message to the remote hosts just moments before falling asleep. That seems to be the root cause.

          • Is the 4k monitor plugged into DisplayPort? On an nVidia card?

            I had this exact problem constantly until I maually set the EDID on my monitors like here:
            https://nvidia.custhelp.com/ap... [custhelp.com]

            Turns out the trouble was the way nVidia scans the monitors, when they go to sleep, nVidia acts like they're completely disconnected and then something between the Nvidia drivers and windows resizes/moves all the windows to some default so they won't be orphaned on a non-existent screen.

            • I've been grappling with this since getting my new 3070Ti and finally jumping from DVI to DP. Having 2 different monitors with different capabilities disconnecting each time they go to sleep and then reconnecting in a different state is maddening. Sadly, manually setting EDID isn't a feature on non-workstation cards.

              Worse yet; seems one of my monitors sends a different EDID for different modes (e.g. G-Sync compat. enabled/disabled) which then create new nVidia Display Audio devices for each monitor configur

  • You'd think they'd have some expertise in streamlining the workflow and UI of their most iconic product line. But it feels more like they have only gotten a lot of practice at screwing at least something up with every re-skin.

    • Re:Microsoft has been working on this for 25+ year (Score:5, Interesting)

      by zarmanto ( 884704 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @03:58PM (#62037025) Journal

      You'd think they'd have some expertise in... .

      Emphasis added. Here's the thing: the "they" who is working on Windows 11 most likely has absolutely zero overlap with the "they" who worked on Windows, 25 years ago. In fact, I might even go so far as to suggest that the "they" who worked on the initial Windows 10 builds, well less than a decade ago, have likewise almost all moved on to other things.

      And note that this isn't a ding against Microsoft -- nor is it a defense of them, in any way. This is just a fact of life: software engineers worth their salt rarely stay in one place for very long. Employee turnover is a distinctly challenging problem, even for smaller projects... but for a project like the Windows codebase? I would imagine that it's royally brutal, especially when someone who has made significant contributions leaves.

      All of that to say: I personally think the "real" reason that Microsoft reduced the feature sets of both the task bar and the start menu could very well be that they no longer have anyone on staff with enough historical knowledge of the codebase to make meaningful changes to the bloody thing.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Back at a previous job we had a big book of insights and knowledge we had gained, least we forget it or new employees don't pick it up.

        Microsoft should start one. First entry should be "every changing lists of favourites are really annoying because they fight against muscle memory."

      • There's a software developer mentality that I often see that I suspect is around everywhere. That is when the dev assumes that they are an expert because they use something a lot. Ie, too many devs think they totally understand time and date stuff because they learned how to tell time in kindergarten, and then they reimplement something broken. Similarly, a lot of devs really think they completely understand UI and UX because they've been using UIs since they were in the womb (as uncomfortable as that so

      • Re:Microsoft has been working on this for 25+ year (Score:4, Insightful)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @05:35PM (#62037439)

        software engineers worth their salt rarely stay in one place for very long.

        I think one thing that is very clear is that software engineers haven't designed interfaces at Microsoft for a long time. No doubt they have entire UX departments staffed entirely with kids playing on their phones.

        We know the kinds of interfaces software engineers design because they often hide them in the code somewhere for their own amusement https://www.howtogeek.com/4024... [howtogeek.com]

        Nothing like a single menu with everything.

      • I'm not sure I buy that. We're not talking about hundreds of complex libraries where if something changes thousands of applications break. We're talking about a window manager. There have been quite a few 3rd-party window managers for Windows.

        The real reason why they remove features and hard-code everything is for the same reason other software developers do: large egos thinking they know best and the end user WILL use the software they way they are told. It would be so nice if the taskbar and start men

      • Shouldnt there be some documentation on what was noted / found in terms of users and how they use the computers over the pass 25 years?

        It's not like when they get new hires, they start from zero with no knowledge of things noted previously. There should be design/UI guides, best practices, etc. And doesn't MS have UI designers and such, who are aware of such things, even if the engineers don't know where to place a button?

          At least thats my experience with other organisations.

        • Shouldnt there be some documentation ... ?

          Speaking as a software developer: I would assert that practically all developers are notoriously bad at documenting their code, even those of us who fancy ourselves better communicators than most of our peers -- but it's not for lack of trying, mind you. We all, without thinking, make far too many false assumptions about other people: one such assumption is that another developer who is competent enough to maintain any given code base must by necessity have the same level of knowledge that we do. The thing

          • I can agree with you when it comes to the internals of the OS. But isn't there a bunch of UI designers / experts on hand in MS to advice how things are supposed to look and where what buttons go etc?

            Am involved in a new startup, and even here there is discussion on how the UI is supposed to look before anything is done.

            • ... But isn't there a bunch of UI designers / experts on hand in MS to advice how things are supposed to look and where what buttons go etc? ...

              Personally, I would opine that the answer to your question is still much the same as my previous answer; you're just asking for it to be framed in a different context. Whether you put the burden on the developers themselves or on someone with the title of "UI Designer" likely makes little difference.

              That said: there are still other caveats to the question to consider. To wit:

              • * Is there documentation, as you've described? Well, quite possibly. No, no: I'll do better than that -- I'd actually go so far as to

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )
      when you streamline for workflow efficiency, there comes a point of diminishing return. How do you improve upon something that might be as efficient as it can be. Change then becomes a cost to efficiency just to get people to buy something that looks new. Look at the shark, it hasnt really evolved in a million years. Its already the perfect eating/swimming machine it can possible become. MS needs to stick with a UI that is intuitive and works, and focus on performance and reliability. Sure its not as glamor

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      It's not just MS. Apple and others do it too. :(

  • Windows 11 is the new 8 (Score:3)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @03:28PM (#62036937) Journal

    They are already running ads about how great the UI is and now they have to redo it? Somebody needs to be fired. I suspect an edict comes down from the top stating a goal, and the UI is forced to fit that goal regardless of practicality. The executive then says, "but I fit your goal!, so it's not my fault its convoluted." EdictOrientedProgramming; Been there done that.

    • Designs really need to come top-down. I suspect there's a bottom-up approach being taken without a high overlord of what the new product should be.

  • Go try Linux again.

    If you are not using hardware that requires a proprietary driver or software that is exclusive to Windows you have absolutely no reason to still be using Windows.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      I did, the printer driver was defective, wasted 3 boxes of paper spewing out gibberish*. Linux ain't green, burn it!, like my score is about to...

      * mis-escaped printer control code. Rebooting temporarily solved it, but it randomly came back

      • Was it a Cannon inkjet by chance?
        Thanks to Cannon being all hush hush about releasing the API for their hardware the Linux drivers for those need work. And last I checked the company still flat out refuses to provide official support for their hardware.

        For all the other hardware I have Linux has had better hardware support over the years than even the latest versions of Windows. Granted if its a fringe item like an old gaming keypad or niche I/O card Linux support isn't as good as Windows. Simply because

      • Reminds me of my first tech job in college. I printed out the "sh" man page. And it wasn't one of the fast printers. Soon there was a line of people saying "who's printing this out?" and I had to fess up.

    • you have absolutely no reason to still be using Windows.

      I tried Linux. No Outlook, no OneDrive integration, Games didn't work and everything was moved around meaning I'd have to relearn everything.

      Sincerely,
      Users who use software and don't use operating systems.

      Ability for Linux to run hasn't been a barrier for Linux for 2 decades. There are many reasons people don't use it even if you ignore them.

      • My org has switched to Google Drive, Google Docs, and Chromebooks. Not a single person has complained. We also pass our security audits with way less hassle.

        Outlook and OneDrive are garbage but if you want to be tied down to a dumpster fire be my guest.

        • Not a single person has complained.

          Not to your face anyway. Must be a small org of IT professionals. Or you don't have any computers. A normal user will complain about literally any change. Hell they'll complain about you reverting a change they complained about.

          We also pass our security audits with way less hassle.

          LOL. Sure.

          Outlook and OneDrive are garbage but if you want to be tied down to a dumpster fire be my guest.

          Oh indeed, Outlook is the worst. Except for all the others. It remains software without compare in the entire industry. You may call it a dumpster fire, I call it what it is: The backbone of nearly every single one of the fortune 500's communication systems and governments

          • Lol you must be a boomer.

            All our employees are Gen-X or younger and we're a tech company so yea if someone did complain they'd need some pretty good reasons.

            Millennials hate Outlook and don't want to use it.

    • Well, there's still a lot of lock in for Windows in the Enterprise. Ie, Must Use Outlook is often key in a lot of places, even though there's a web-based Outlook available. Often it's a mandate from IT on high that Thou Shallt Use Windows! As in, you can't use Linux because there's no one in IT that understands it, Microsoft doesn't offer a Linux version of Office, we don't know what Anti-malware to use, so no, don't use it and stop bugging us. No one ever got fired from IT for mandating Microsoft produ

    • Go try Linux again.

      If you are not using hardware that requires a proprietary driver or software that is exclusive to Windows you have absolutely no reason to still be using Windows.

      We have some Ubuntu installs for building petalinux and some other functions. I find myself highly irritated that the default file explorer lacks the capability to manually modify the path or paste one in. Though perhaps I just haven't done my due diligence to figure out how that works. Not like I have a lot of time when this is a small part of one of five projects I'm working on...

  • Ya, but (paraphrasing) that old saying... (Score:5, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @03:44PM (#62036997)

    ... brings the clock and date back to the taskbar on secondary or multiple monitors.

    A person with one monitor knows the time, a person with two is never sure.

    [Note: MS has confirmed that you'll have to have a 27th gen Intel processor and TPM 9.4 for this feature -- for security reasons.]

    • The person with one monitor playing a full screen game doesn't know what the time is and ends up going to sleep at 3am.

  • Windows Mobile? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by splutty ( 43475 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @04:15PM (#62037089)

    Anyone else feel as if Windows 11 was developed from Windows Mobile instead of from a desktop Windows?

    So many.. Insanely stupid design choices.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sconeu ( 64226 )

      That would be because it's a derivative of Windows 10, which is a derivative of Windows 8.

  • Can I turn it off, and how... wait, what?

  • Where's the consistency? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bb_matt ( 5705262 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @04:21PM (#62037113)

    Since windows 8, Microsoft seem to have lost all consistency with OS updates.

    They continuously "throw the baby out with the bathwater"

    Getting rid of what people are actually familiar with in terms of UX/UI - and sure, improving some aspects.

    The problem is the UI - it must be infuriating for windows users to see sweeping changes to the UI in every release since windows 8.

    To have the main UI interface to access apps etc. just constantly change - for no reason anyone can actually fathom?

    If we look at the main competitor on the Desktop - the only one to be honest - since 2001, the main UI paradigm has remained as is.
    There's a dock with apps in it.

    A Mac user could time travel from 2001 to 2021 and still find it familiar.

    Going further, the top bar, with the apple icon to the left and the menu system, has been in place since ... 1984.
    Yep, 37 years.

    For 37 years, macOS has had the familiar top bar on their Desktop OS - that would be the very first release - Mac OS System 1.0.

    What is it with Microsoft that they continually fuck around with their Desktop UI/UX?

      \_()_/

    • Not only that, their "control panel" that controls less and less every day. They can't even keep the tools system admins use to manage everything in the same place, or lines in the registry and group policy too manage the same things. Telemetry? There's like 45 registry keys for that now, most of which are supposed to do the exact same things but no one knows which ones work or don't anymore. WSUS? Seems all the advanced settings have been moved, and windows ignores have the settings whenever they fee
  • Everyone wanted to stay on XP. Then everyone was staying on 7. Now everyone wants to stay on 10. I want to go to 11, since it's one louder.

  • Menu Improvements (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @04:39PM (#62037193)

    In other words: We hid all your shit again.

  • First thing I do on a new Windows machine (Score:5, Informative)

    by hackertourist ( 2202674 ) on Wednesday December 01, 2021 @05:02PM (#62037287)

    1. install OpenShell
    2. set the taskbar to 'never combine'
    3. install something to get the taskbar across all screens (might be part of openshell now)
    4. disable 'hide extensions'
    5. set all folders to use the default folder template and not the idiotic Pictures/Music/whatever customization
    6. Set all folders to display Details and show the Modified Date column instead of the useless Date column.
    7. Install StopResettingMyApps

    What I wish I could do:
    8. replace Explorer with a file browser that works. I feel like I'm always scrolling half a mile to get to the folder I want. There's no way to have favorite folders in a menu. The folder tree is braindead. I've tried a dozen alternatives, but they all have showstopper problems.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xwin ( 848234 )
      There is a "Favorites" folder in the explorer, right at the top. You can add shortcut to any folder into this folder for quick access. This is on Windows 7. Same thing on Windows 10, just called "Quick Access". I don't know how one can miss this.

    • Been using TotalCommander for over 20 years.

    • dude - try dopus as a filemanager - pricey but the best (the in situ wildcard search functionality alone makes it worth it - I personally like it over total commander...)

      I've been using it for 10+ years

      also, I like, in addition to openshell, "7+ taskbar tweaker" to get the precise effects I prefer with the interface in win7 (and win10)

      I also don't use pinned apps and reenabled the quicklaunch bar...

  • I feel like they made it so much bigger for the SOLE purpose of having the date/time on two lines. It's taking up so much fucking space for no reason!

  • Every change Microsoft has tried to make to the Windows UI in the last 20 years has been a massive devolution that's done nothing but make it more confusing and harder to use.

    The best thing they could do would be to keep the nicer graphics, and some of the indexing/search features, but otherwise completely revert every other UI change made in the past 20 years.

  • Microsoft has made it job-one to destroy one of the few parts of Windows that functions well.

  • It cost me a couple of bucks to update my license. It gets updated frequently, to deal with Windows 11 updates, and to squash minor bugs, but for me it worked fine from the beginning.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I was looking forward to Windows 11 doing away with the "Settings vs Control Panel" disaster, but nope.... they both try to coexist in Windows 11!!

      Two things. First, go look at the earliest releases of Win10; you'll see that plenty has changed throughout the life cycle. The most notable example I can think of are the UAC prompts. They look a lot like Vista/7/8 in the early 10 builds, but became "touch friendly" at some point. I wouldn't put it past MS to do the same here.

      Second, I think at least a little bit of the control panel will exist for as long as the Win32 API does. I've got too much random hardware and software that adds control panel applet

      • I don't see the problem with coexistence. Want to have everything pointy-stabby-searchy? Rock on, Settings is for you! Want information density and more granular control? Control Panel is where it's at!

        Having both is no problem if controls are accessible in both places. The problem is when some controls are only accessible in one, and some are only accessible in the other. It means a lot of flipping back and forth trying to find things. It wouldn't even be so bad if one were a strict superset of the other,

  • I'm holding out for the ability to move the taskbar to the side of the screen instead of the bottom. Put that back in and I'll be willing to give 11 a try.

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