Microsoft Says It Is Fixing Windows 11 (nerds.xyz) 166
BrianFagioli writes: Microsoft says it is finally listening to user complaints about Windows 11, promising a series of changes focused on performance, reliability, and reducing everyday annoyances. In a message to Windows Insiders, the company outlined plans to bring back long requested features like taskbar repositioning, cut down on intrusive AI integrations, and give users more control over updates. File Explorer is also getting attention, with promised improvements to speed, stability, and general responsiveness.
The bigger picture here is less about new features and more about fixing what already exists. Microsoft is talking about fewer forced restarts, quieter notifications, and a more predictable experience overall, along with improvements to Windows Subsystem for Linux for developers. While the roadmap sounds reasonable, users have heard similar promises before, so the real test will be whether these changes actually show up in day to day use.
The bigger picture here is less about new features and more about fixing what already exists. Microsoft is talking about fewer forced restarts, quieter notifications, and a more predictable experience overall, along with improvements to Windows Subsystem for Linux for developers. While the roadmap sounds reasonable, users have heard similar promises before, so the real test will be whether these changes actually show up in day to day use.
Will believe it when it happens (Score:5, Insightful)
How did they let it get this bad?
There are a whole bunch of decision makers who need to be fired
It's not THAT difficult (Score:5, Insightful)
Just wonder who'll be left once it's all done? I can understand them developing something new and failing, like it was back in the day w/ Windows ME and Vista, but what they've been doing since Windows 8 has been downright asinine - making user experience, which was almost perfect in Windows 7, absolutely horrible. In fact, the user experience in Windows 11 itself might have been just like Windows 10, until they started doing things like getting rid of Wordpad, changing Notepad and Paint and infecting them w/ AI, changing Outlook a dozen times and nagging one if one chose the old look,....
What they need to do is in the Personalization area, aside from giving people choices of wallpapers and icons, give people the choice of generational themes, where one can make the OS look like anything from Windows NT 3.1 to Windows 11. Also give users the option of which built-in apps they want during either installation or staging: have certain apps like Notepad, Paint,... checked by default, but give users the option of unchecking them. Doesn't look like it'll take a lot of engineering resources, but it should allow for a more tolerable user experience
Once all that's done, the only thing that the Windows team should be doing is the security updates for Windows Defender. If that sounds too limiting, expand the scope to cover past OSs, going back to 7, and if that's not enough, go all the way back to 3.1
Re:It's not THAT difficult (Score:4, Insightful)
They're struggling to even let you move the taskbar, and you want them to provide multiple desktop environments?
The problems at Microsoft are (to use a doubleplusungood word) systemic. The problems with their software are architectural. You can't just write more code and fix that.
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The problems with their software are architectural. You can't just write more code and fix that.
Fix the problem by writing more code? Watch me.
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Not in the Windows codebase. You'd have to throw a ton of it out. (And your boss wouldn't let you.) That's not just writing code.
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Elon, is that you?
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They're struggling to even let you move the taskbar, and you want them to provide multiple desktop environments?
To be fair, moving the taskbar is so complex that only practically every previous version of Windows and Linux in the last decade or so could manage it. But then they hit Win 11 and suddenly "moving the taskbar" became so complex that it was impossible to code.
Re:It's not THAT difficult (Score:4, Insightful)
It certainly hints at either a deep architectural problem with the code, or a deep managerial problem, but probably both.
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That one is actually the least of their problems. It's everything else they've been doing - dropping Wordpad, mucking around w/ Notepad, crippling Paint, removing Maps.....
At the user end, the best thing that one can do is install Tiny11, and then pick which utilities they want. Maybe just drop Notepad and Paint altogether, if one doesn't use them. That, and a number of other applications as well, such as "Movies and TV", "Phone Link", "Sound Recorder", "Weather", "Xbox"...
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They're struggling to even let you move the taskbar, and you want them to provide multiple desktop environments?
The problem w/ the taskbar was the number of combinations and permutations it took to test all the 4 possible locations. It was fine until 10, but at 11, they visited the question of how many people actually move it, and then made a decision to not support it going forward
The problems at Microsoft are (to use a doubleplusungood word) systemic. The problems with their software are architectural. You can't just write more code and fix that.
But I'm not suggesting that they write more code. I'm suggesting that they remove existing code, and then test how things work. The code of the UIs of everything from NT3.1 to 11 already exist: they just have to retrofit that on to the
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What they need to do is stop every damn "security update" from breaking username/password authentication on existing small LANs!!!
Re:Will believe it when it happens (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Will believe it when it happens (Score:3)
What they mean is that next release will be even more neutered.
Re:Will believe it when it happens (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that Microsoft saw the lines of people at the Apple Store picking up MacBook Neo's and realized that they're going to continue to lose customers in droves if don't fix Windows 11 ASAP. People are getting tired of their computers being used as billboards for selling XBox Live, Office, Onedrive, and CoPilot.
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I doubt the integrated billboards are going away. Frankly, a lot of the public accepts it. They have the same shit on their phones, which they use much more. If they're under 30, they likely had a phone programming them to accept it, before they ever purchased a computer.
I believe the Neo does scare them. But It sounds like their response won't go further than minor UI tweaks. (Possibly to make it look more like Apple!) To "fix Windows", on a technical level, I think would require a total rewrite. And then,
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Neo and Android-based Chromebooks, and "good-enough" Office alternatives like Google Docs and I would argue even LibreOffice (I use it almost exclusively these days), mean Microsoft is suffering a differentiation crisis. They'll likely have the corporate lock for some time to come, though they've managed to fuck up Outlook so badly that I have to be wondering if the only thing really keeping the big guys locked in as Teams at this point.
MS's ability to leverage Windows as the platform is decaying, and the "
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On the "bells and whistles" aspect, the thing about them is that having hooked at least some people on to some of them in the past, they're now changing them radically, so that the bells become drums and the whistles become horns. That's what's rubbing us the wrong way. In the process, they've also been forcing people to change their workflows
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I have not had the issue of 11 crashing: this ain't the same situation as ME or Vista. It's a little less hideous than 8, where a totally new UI was forced on us, but it's more of preloaded applications in it, like Notepad, Paint.... being changed and other apps, like Wordpad, Maps, being arbitrarily dropped.
Essentially, earlier Windows failures were technical, in cases of ME and Vista, and a bad business decision in the case of 8. But what we're seeing now is different - Microsoft trying to usurp decis
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The problem w/ the new Notepad is that it has added a bunch of things nobody asked for, nor needed. All we needed was a simple text editor, which Notepad had been doing fine. It's in 24H2 of version 11 that they started mucking w/ things
First, they took out Wordpad, which had been there since Windows 95 and was useful for people who didn't somehow have MS Word on their computers. So now, to access RTF files, one suddenly needed Word. Apparently to "fix" this, they built in support for RTF in Notepad, t
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I know MacOS has its critics, and in its own way it has its UI lock in, but after using it now for four years, and my use of Windows now being reduced to an RDP session at work, I have to say the experience overall has been pretty pleasant and productive. The lack of update nagging, the sheer horsepower of Apple Silicon, an actual *nix prompt instead of WSL, printing that isn't an absolute shitshow (and this is saying something because Windows used to be the reigning heavyweight champion of plug and play pr
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I only have 2 criticisms of Apple:
Re:Will believe it when it happens (Score:5, Insightful)
How did they let it get this bad?
They put MBAs in charge who are programmed to listen to the marketing droids, who are mindless idiots.
The shortcut word for it is "enshittification."
Happens to nearly all companies when they get to a certain size.
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Their products actually used to be good - until Windows 7. In Windows 8, they did have a better kernel, and could have just changed the start logo from a flag to a window, but left everything else alone. But then they started trying to put other things into Windows, like the News and the Weather. In 8, one at least had the option of selecting one's news sources, but they took that away in 10. So I just uninstalled that particular utility
Gates and Ballmer were far more brilliant than Satya or any of hi
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I loved Windows Phone - it was my first smartphone, but I wouldn't call it insanely awesome. It could have been a great smartphone aimed at business users, had they, in addition to MS Office, ensured a few things:
Microsoft needs to fix... Microsoft (Score:2)
Its deeply part of their culture to be hostile to their users, they know it, their users know it, its been this way for decades, continually getting worse. Even if they do make a few positive changes to windows 11, you know windows 12 will be worse. At some point they are going to make themselves obsolete though, nobody likes them, people just need to take that big step and install another OS, which is hard, but gets easier the worse Windows gets. I hope they require age verification with windows 12 so tha
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Its deeply part of their culture to be hostile to their users
True, but they treat their employees at least as bad if not worse.
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True! I don't feel bad feelings towards the average MS coder, they're cool and, I suspect, if someone put them entirely in charge, windows would become a decent OS.
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Sounds like a lot of open source projects including Gnome and Firefox. So it's not just a Microsoft thing. Android and macOS are also user hostile on many ways. Or at least extremely patronizing.
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The core people who built the actual OS don't work on Windows now at all, they are either Research or they work on Azure. During the Panos Panay era, everyone left in Core stopped working on Windows and "Windows" took over everything. The people who were left all have left Microsoft.
So you have a lot of people who have little experience with actual OS development and lots of "application" developers working on their own little bits but ultimately they are not OS guys.
So they dug
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How did they let it get this bad?
There are a whole bunch of decision makers who need to be fired
Fired for what? Microsoft is a company, a company exists to make money, and despite all the complaints Microsoft is making a shitton of money. As far as the shareholders are concerned quality isn't actually a requirement, so how does someone who is doing a great job for investors get fired?
To be clear I'm with you, but I suspect these people likely got bonuses instead.
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Your Subject deserved Funny, but your opening question would have been a productive Subject?
I'll choose to answer it thusly, with a book citation:
Microsoft Secrets by Cusumano and Selby. Kind of old, but the relevant parts are about change control while developing complicated software. I don't see any evidence that things have changed, but I admit that I am not keeping up with the latest details of what is going on inside Microsoft. Even worse that I don't think I can provide a short summary, but I'll giv
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Yeah, firing their test people was probably the turning point in their history
Hahahahhah (Score:5, Funny)
Hahahahahahhahaha
No, really.
Hahahahhaha
Re:Hahahahhah (Score:4, Insightful)
"Oh wait, you're serious. Let me laugh even harder" -- Bender.
Microsoft isn't trying to convince me (nor the demographic I represent) to use Windows. They know we are a lost cause. They would have to completely stop spying on us and give us control over our own systems, not to mention supporting old hardware instead of creating the ecological death-waves of e-waste as they do now.
Not a chance.
Not Appearce of AI But Presence Made Me Switch (Score:5, Insightful)
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Windows is now slower than Linux.
As far as I can tell, this has been the case for the last thirty years. YMMV, I have been staying away from Gnome for example. I think in general UX has been getting slower everywhere, but with Linux you have the choice to stick to a more minimalistic environment.
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What do you use as your main system now ?
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I stopped using Windows as my main system because AI was added and because of the presence of Recall. You can hid the AI, but it's still there.
There's a lot of reasons to not use Windows but this one has to be the dumbest I've seen yet. You dropped Windows as your main OS because of a feature that *checks notes* doesn't exist in Windows yet, and another feature that *checks notes again* does nothing at all unless you activate it?
A few in your list I agree with but I have some genuine questions:
In what way is Bluetooth hobbled? I mean the implementation may be rough, but what have they actively hobbled about it?
Also how often do you read logs that
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Windows is now slower than Linux.
To be clear, this was true over 20 years ago. (In light of which, the word "now" probably doesn't belong in the above phrase, since it implies recentness.)
Too little (Score:5, Interesting)
Waaaaaay too late.
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It was too late after windows 95. That's when I switched to Linux.
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After a few months of Windows 95, I switched to NT 3.5. Much better.
Not interested. (Score:4, Informative)
I already "fixed" Windows 11 by relegating it to a Proxmox VM that I can revert to snapshot when it eats itself.
Intel and AMD already enabled the "fix" when they got IOMMU and PCI-e passthrough working in Linux.
Fixed with AI, I presume? (Score:2)
As in the "Here is the COMPLETE FIXED version of XXXX.cpp"?
Does it include a "Why does it work now?" explainer?
Sure (Score:5, Funny)
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Which might actually improve the Win 11 experience.
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Only on Samsung PCs running HP FuckyouJets
Requested Feature: Privacy! (Score:2)
git revert -bytag Win7-GM (Score:5, Insightful)
Nevermind, not interested.
bring back long requested features (Score:5, Funny)
Windows 10? :-)
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Or Windows 7. Or XP. Or 3.1. All of which had a more usable interface.
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I think Windows peaked at version 7 and it's been downhill all the way since then. I jumped from Win 7 to Mint after Windows updates kept killing off my PC. They wanted people to upgrade so bad that they'd literally cripple your PC and it would take hours to fix...until the next update.
I moved to Mint and never looked back.
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I agree w/ you, but I do think that 8 had a better kernel that could have been assigned to 7. Then maybe change the start symbol from the flag to a window, and leave it at that
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How about, just allowing it to run on older hardware.
Internet Explorer (Score:5, Interesting)
I feel like we're at that point around 2010, where Internet Explorer was still dominant, but cracks were appearing. IE was invincible . . . right until it wasn't. If Microsoft doesn't play their cards just right, it won't happen overnight, but the same thing is going to happen. Ten years from now will look unrecognizable.
Windows is in trouble, and they know it. Conservatively the Linux market share has more than doubled globally in just a few years and will likely do it again over the next few. It's not new like Chrome was, but from their point of view, I don't think it matters. It's growth is new, and it's the same.
I would bet virtually anything, behind closed doors, this is exactly how Microsoft execs that have been there for 20+ years are discussing this. They are scared for Windows in a way that has never happened before. And it must be extra dissonant for them, because frankly, Microsoft would be relatively fine even if Windows somehow completely died at this point, but it's also their most important brand, and still a money machine.
Re: Internet Explorer (Score:2)
I don't think that most of the execs at Microsoft care about the long term prospects for Windows. Windows was less than five percent of revenues last year. The gaming division actually brought in more revenue. So did LinkedIn. Itâ(TM)s only
going to get worse as businesses, schools, and home users move entirely to mobile and Chromebooks, areas where Microsoft has demonstrated that it cannot compete. Windows is never going to win back the server market. It makes more sense for them to just let Windows wi
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Without Office, specifically Excel and less so Powerpoint, any Windows alternative has a hard ceiling. You need a pixel perfect, 100% compatible alternative, otherwise you're stuck.
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Fixed (Score:2)
So there will be no more offspring.
make your garbage a system setting (Score:2)
Just bring back the classics. (Score:2)
All I want is Windows 2000 with support for 4K displays and the latest DirectX. Why canâ(TM)t I just have that?
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Windows 2000 is before they copied the BSD network stack. Why would you want a broken network stack? A stack that flushes the whole if any packet in the stack has an error?
Why did they have to learn this the hard way? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, its because some MBA/Marketer type said that an AI-based agentic operating system will bring in more recurring revenue by forcing everyone to pay a monthly subscription. They got drunk off of that.
Meaningless (Score:5, Insightful)
Notable missing, perhaps the two most important and biggest problems for people:
* Remove/reverse artificial hardware requirements
* Remove/reverse requiring a "cloud" login
Don't hold your breath
Windows Explorer 11= terrible (Score:5, Insightful)
Explorer in Windows 11 is so slow and terrible I finally just quit using it. It was taking like several minutes to simply open up a new, blank, explorer window.
Switched to File Pilot [filepilot.tech] and the same directory opens up instantly.
So one guy from Croatia can out-program an entire, massive $2.9 trillion tech company. OK . . .
The thing about Explorer is: It is literally the most basic, commonly used function in the OS. Well, that and the Taskbar, which has also been a continuous clusterf#$*& for literally years now.
When you can't even get the most basic, commonly used functions in your OS right, it really does undermine confidence.
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I have many, many complaints about Windows 11.
Explorer speed is not one of them. There's something wrong with your system.
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Re:Windows Explorer 11= terrible (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, there is probably something specific about it, like there are network shares on the system or whatever.
The point is, software programmed by one guy in Croatia performs literally the exact same task around 1000X faster.
That isn't something wrong with my system. It's something wrong with their software. Because whatever "The Problem" with my system is (very likely something perfectly normal but slightly out of the ordinary), Explorer should be able to handle it easily rather than choking for literal minutes.
Again, we KNOW this is not impossible because other, very similar, software performs well in the exact same situation.
Dive into the old stuff (Score:2)
Good Intent, I Remain Skeptical (Score:2)
Unlike many on Slashdot, every computer I use has a Windows installation. That's just the reality of my needs. So, I apply the same philosophy here I do for all other products: "All good customer service is appreciated. All reductions in bad customer service is appreciated. That said, all hope and praise is withheld until at least some of the committed product is delivered."
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Switch to LTS, problem solved (Score:3)
I just switched to Windows 10 LTS, much better. Less crap, less stupid updates, and still get security updates. LTS should be offered to all users with an easy switch..
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At least 10 is supported until 2032, but then what?
Oh that's nice. (Score:2)
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I was shocked at how well Debian 13 with KDE Plasma ran on my Dell craptop. Windows won't even suspend on that laptop. Debian has no problem suspending. The classic situation is reversed.
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The Windows nVidia drivers have taken a bad turn in the last year. It's seeming like the problem is less "nVidia's Linux support" and more just "nVidia". I'm hoping the next generation of Radeons has raytracing performance that matches the nVidia cards so I can dump them.
You can't fix something... (Score:2)
... that's broken by design.
Local accounts? (Score:2)
No more requirement for a Microsoft Account to install a basic effing computer?
No, I didn't think so.
Feature requests (Score:5, Informative)
- Offline mode by default, until I connect it. ...and no Settings app at all. ... security updates completely separate to feature updates.
- No AI present by default, until I install it.
- Works with a fully local account.
- Functional UI with the classic menu bar.
- Proper control panel.
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- Normal, customisable right-click menu.
- No ads in Windows apps.
- No forced updates.
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- Updates don't change / reset my settings.
Here. Just a starting list.
Translation (Score:2)
TL;DR: Making bug-fixes also makes users ignore their enslavement.
Sure it will (Score:4, Funny)
And I have some ocean front property in Arizona.
Ditch Windows!! It's not that hard. (Score:2)
MacOS, Linux, etc. The more people to move to those platforms will also entice developers to make more software for them. Ditch windows. It's what the word needs.
How do perf reviews work for Microsoft engineers? (Score:2)
I worked for many years at a Big Tech Company. SWEs and UX engineers were promoted for launching Shiny New Features, not for improving performance or fixing bugs in existing features.
Sure, every once in a while the company would announce some initiative to fix existing stuff. But it never helped anyone I knew get promoted.
I will believe this new initiative from MS when I hear from MS engineers that *they* are actually being rewarded for fixing this stuff.
Keep up the pressure. (Score:3)
That's why we need to keep up the pressure. Hammer them hard on every awful aspect of the OS, and don't let up. They're only going to fix it when they're absolutely forced to because the pressure is so intense that it can't be ignored even at the highest levels. I'll bring up a few, but feel free to choose your own. First, ads. It is insane to me that you pay $200 for software that then tries to extract more money from you through ads. Just want to use your computer that you paid money for? Too bad, have a bunch of insecure bloatware and ads instead. $200 is a crazy price for software to start with, there is no good reason to also shove ads and bloatware down your throat.
Also, what the hell happened to the start menu? Windows 7 was probably fine, but the last time I remember the start menu actually being good might be Windows XP or maybe even 98. It had problems, sure, but their proposed solutions have gone from bad to worse to completely unusable.
None of this, or any of the other hundreds of problems with the OS, is ever going to get any better unless people relentlessly keep up the pressure on them. So keep it up: it's constructive criticism. If they refuse to fix this stuff and Windows ends up dying, they have no one to blame but themselves.
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That's why we need to keep up the pressure. Hammer them hard on every awful aspect of the OS, and don't let up.
As long as people keep buying and using Windows, and subscribing to they Softwares as a service, Microsoft will do as they will.
The paradigm so far is that the faithful grumble a little, then send more money. then the cult shifts to cry bragging about how they have to use Windows.
They're only going to fix it when they're absolutely forced to because the pressure is so intense that it can't be ignored even at the highest levels.
A better tactic is to hit them in the wallet. I'm almost exclusively on MacOS and Linux. When Microsoft becomes irrelevant, they will become interested in making an OS that works. I have Windows on my work computer. All of the b
Blank you, Micro$oft! (Score:2)
Just like they fixed IT security? (Score:2)
I mean, we have heard "Security is our highest priority!" twice now, followed by more really bad screw-ups.
Now, I do not know whether they are lying or not when they make these claims. What I do know is that they consistently have failed to deliver on them. And I think they cannot actually deliver, due to severe organizational dysfunction. The only known way to deal with that is to kill the organization and start over and Microsoft will not add a new possibility to the records.
Don't do it Microsoft! (Score:3)
Please don't, Microsoft, you're enabling a golden age of Linux adoption! Win11 needs more slop, THE INVESTORS COMMAND YOU!
I wish I could give a crap (Score:2)
I wish I could give a crap about Win 11 being 'fixed' and made 'better' but I don't.
It'll get worse and worse and eventually the enshittifcation of Windows will be complete when all it can do is boot to a bluescreen.
What I want to know is (Score:2)
Will Microsoft ever give us back the abiity to install Win11 fresh without forcing us to give it ownership of our TPM or our Bitlocker recovery key? (`oobe\bypassnro` no longer works.)
By removing this abiity, it's basically coercing people who have no choice about running Windows into their Bitlocker recovery key being accessible via the Third Party Doctrine (which holds people have no expectation of privacy of information they -voluntarily- share with third parties). The way Microsoft has implemented it am
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Guess you're going to have to install from old media, update, and save an image so you don't have to do it again when Windows inevitably destroys itself.
Not a problem... (Score:2)
Since I'm still using windows 10, I can just lean back and chuckle. It's been a hell of a shit show to watch over the years. Glad I'm not in it.
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As always, skip a version never fails!
W10 was only a decent OS by comparison. Reminds me of Apu From the Simpsons quote: "And our beef jerky is now nearly rectum-free."
Windows 11 makes my laptop run hot (Score:2)
Ever since I was forced to downgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11, my laptop has been running very hot. The fan is screaming all the time. I have heard this from many other users too. Are they going to fix this?
Open it up (Score:2)
Microsoft should open source it s operating system. We are in 2026, it is a relict of the past.
KeyStone Kops Stuff (Score:2)
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Did they not promise us win10 will be the last version? M$ promises mean nothing. Just switch to Linux, ChromeOS or macOS already.. Nobody needs windos anymore for anything, really.
Cue up the cult members cry bragging about how they have something that can only be done in Windows.
I do have one program that is only available in Windows, So I have a Laptop with that program on it. When I'm done with it, I unplug it, and store it in its case. The rest of the time, I use computers that aren't a liability, and work after updates.