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Comments (315)

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  sagacity
  I recently got locked out of my machine because logging in with the mandatory Microsoft account-backed primary user of my machine didn't work anymore. It said I was offline and I had to use the "previous password" even though I didn't have a previous password for that account.Hacking around in the recovery console to add another administrator user worked, but then I couldn't reset the original user's password because it was tied to the Microsoft account and you can't change the password locally.I don't need Copilot managing my inbox through AI, nor do I need a more exciting widget experience.I just want an OS where if something like the above happens there's a way to fix it without having to reinstall. It doesn't seem like much to ask.Edit: yes, I can use Linux but I have decades of Windows muscle memory and I do a bunch of DirectX programming. I shouldn't have to switch :)
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  PeterStuer
  What people realy want: as little OS as possible to let them run just the things on their computer they want to run.What Microsoft wants: Windows as their straightjacket into the Microsoft services as that is where the revenue is.Why Windows got this bad: incentives and coercion placed on the teams to show uptake on the services no matter what leading to perversion in tactics and complete alienation of the user base.The incentives are alomost perpendicularly misaligned.Regaining trust is extremely hard after you've crossed an edge. People are looking for the exit, finding there is indeed a door, and stopping them will take far more than just some reassurance from the DJ boot.
• windex
  Windows 11 is what happens when no one speaks up at product team meetings. People nod their heads, get on with the build and the marketing team decides they want another 40 hooks into customer data for monetization.Windows 11 today is a spectacular example of customer disrespect and disregard. MS believes it can manage with enterprise customer revenue alone. Well, best of luck with that, even enterprises are getting fed up.
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  ninjagoo
  Executive management at MS must be seeing interesting (migration) numbers on their dashboards, so they've gotten involved in white-washing their reputation without changing business strategy, hence the executive-level manifestos and platitudes coming out as of late.I'm sure they see the EU/Worldwide decoupling from US companies as definitely-going-to-happen and they have no control over that, so retaining US consumers becomes even more important, but the first attempt will be at improving reputation without changing business strategy (ads, data monetization, ai are the future revenue drivers). And only if that fails will the business strategy change.Posted this originally as a reply to a comment, but I think it should be its own top-level comment.
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  kasabali
  > We’ve also made changes to the Power menu so you’ll always see the standard Restart and Shut down options without having to install a pending update first. You decide when updates happen, not the other way around.Great! We've progressed back to Windows XP of 22 years ago.
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  advael
  It fascinates me to speculate about who this is for. At least among people I've talked to, the ones who still want windows (instead of the obvious alternatives) cite wanting things to "just work", often claiming that they "don't want making the computer work to become a second job" or similar. I personally don't think these preferences reflect the reality of how much effort using e.g. a linux distro is in this day and age, to be clear, but these are the beliefs I encounter. Are there really people who want to deal with providing feedback and stress testing an operating system and its various software components and features, but doing this for a corporation that sets the terms of their transparency efforts and ultimately does this for profit and will still grab the reins and exert control against their users' will when they feel like it?
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  mdavid626
  I literraly can’t name one feature since Windows 7 what was worth it, even on the contrary: every update made the system worse.I had to restore Notepad, Calculator and Paint from Windows 7. What the hell Microsoft?
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  ramijames
  There's no amount of progress that will make me go back to Windows.1. Microsoft accounts. No. 2. Ads in my OS. No. 3. Slow copying of files. No. 4. A maddening mix of UI/UX paradigms and implementations. No. 5. AI deeply embedded in my OS. No.I don't know wtf their design team is doing.
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  qingcharles
  They talk about improving memory footprint and performance, but simply removing (or making optional) the massive amount of cruft and telemetry in a default Windows 11 install would go miles.Installing Tiny11 and then running a debloat over its corpse results in a much faster and less memory hungry default clean install.
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  prymitive
  > You want to see what we’re doing, understand our decisions, and see progress through shipping. Second, a shared sense of pride.So basically: - recent changes are all crap - so why did you make them?
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  k3vinw
  I’m most excited for the scheduler and memory footprint improvements. As bad as I hear Windows 11 is, I’ve rarely had issues with it. For the most part it just works and stays out of my way. My only gripes are the occasional forced updates and a rare hard crash that happened once in a span of a year of using it as my daily driver.Well that and I have to be mindful of running too many resource starving processes at the same time including WSL. Otherwise performance will quickly degrade. But that’s not much different than my 2015 ASUS zenbook running Linux off of 8gb of ram. In comparison my work laptop runs on 32gb of ram with much more powerful cpu cores.WSL is my favorite and most used feature of Windows 11. So I’ll be happy as long as they don’t screw that up.
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  archargelod
  > My ask of you: try the experiences, pressure test them, and let’s keep building a product we are proud of.Translated: We fired our Quality Assurance. You are the QA now.
• jofzar
  > The theme is simple: fewer disruptions, more clarity, more control. This update moves Windows toward a single monthly restart by consolidating OS, .NET, and driver updates, and gives you more flexibility to time updates around your schedule. We’ve also made changes to the Power menu so you’ll always see the standard Restart and Shut down options without having to install a pending update first. You decide when updates happen, not the other way around.Finally, like seriously, so many times I have to "shutdown" (aka restart) for an update before going to bed. I don't want to have to babysit my desktop computer when I want to finish up for the night.
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  SeriousM
  > Second, a shared sense of pride. We want to be proud of what we build...Yep, that's marketing. You don't care about your users.
• benterix
  OK so I see someone at Microsoft decided that their strategic decisions do have impact on their income so they are implementing a crisis management strategy.The way I read this, it sounds like "We're not giving up on disabling local accounts, telemetry, ads in the OS and other things most people complain. However, we're willing to make some concessions in how aggressively the updates are pushed on users and a few minor points or things we planned to implement at some point anyway but didn't consider that important."Prove me wrong.
• garganzol
  At first they ridicule people with general disrespect, privacy violations and ads in Start Menu, then they expect the same people to treat them seriously. That's a cognitive dissonance right there, and now they have to live with it. Psychotherapy may help.
• what-the-grump
  You’ve managed to brick w11 VMs completely running in your native cloud. Kill laptops in the April update and trigger bitlocker on consumer machines which users having zero experience recovering their devices because the GUI is crap.You’ve been busy.Stop shipping features, ship stability and quality.
• jollymonATX
  Migrating off windows, win server and exchange saved us a lot of money and was suprisingly not as challenging as we had feared.
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  999900000999
  >We’ve also made changes to the Power menu so you’ll always see the standard Restart and Shut down options without having to install a pending update first. You decide when updates happen, not the other way around.Multiple times I've wanted to shutdown my laptop so I can go home and Windows says no, sit here for 5 minutes.I don't trust sleep mode to not keep running and overheat, so I wait.Macbooks with 1TB drives are getting cheaper every day. Music production on Linux isn't really practical. A lot of this stuff barely runs on Windows/OSX.Competition is great. But this is about the Mac Neo( and left over M4 Macs crashing in price ). Desktop Linux is still a challenge.I consider myself an advanced Linux user, and it still took me an hour this morning to figure out how to get a VPN to work on Open Suse.
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  bsrhng
  It's fascinating that one of the top features insiders are interested in is making File Explorer more dependable.
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  TowerTall
  By changing two settings in Windows, you can fix the worst of it.Using a local group policy, you can change when "Preview builds and Feature updates" and "Quality Updates" become available in Windows Update.By delaying those with 30 or 60 days, you will never have preview updates applied to your system, and feature and quality updates will have at least 1 or 2 months' worth of fixes before you get them.start > run > gpedit.msc > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update > Manage updates offered from Windows Update >1) Enable "Select when preview builds and feature updates are received". Set days to 602) Enable "Select when quality updates are received". Set days to 30 (max value)
• iamtedd
  11 years of mandatory telemetry in Windows, and it still takes a huge amount of noise from users and journalists online over a long time for Microsoft to notice and finally make change. What good is the fucking telemetry then? Why can I still not turn it off?
• mcswell
  There are two mentions of "reliab[ility]" (I searched for the first five letters to be sure I got other morphological forms of the word). It appears twice: once near the top, as a general goal, and once at the bottom, as part of the general goal. Nothing in between, like saying "we'll be using {less AI | more AI debugging | more human screening | magic wands | secret sauce} in an effort to improve reliability". So at least as far as this post goes, hardly even lip service. Given the number of botched updates reported earlier this year, that's astonishing.Disclaimer: I switched to Linux last year.
• game_the0ry
  MS Windows is the Pontiac Aztec of operating systems.
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  grassfedgeek
  With Windows Update what I really want is control over reboot. Don't automatically reboot, instead let me save documents, close applications and reboot manually. "Pausing" updates doesn't do that, and could be dangerous as urgent security updates are delayed.With AI features, the most annoying thing has to be the Copilot key on my laptop keyboard. If you accidentally hit it it opens a Copilot window, interrupting your typing. The Settings app for this key only allow you to specify whether it activates search or copilot, it doesn't let you turn it off. There are other workarounds like installing an app from the Store, but all those workarounds come with unwanted excess baggage.
• microtonal
  Not a Windows user, have never been (since Windows 3.11). But if I were, I would think this is just PR unless they changed some fundamentals, like bringing back local user support without jumping through five hoops.
• seebeen
  Too little too late. I've already fully migrated to Fedora 43.
• ymolodtsov
  The same people who made Windows that bad are now tasked with making it slightly better.Yeah, I wouldn't bet on this.
• arein3
  Does it require a microsoft account to use?If yes I dont care and I won't use w11Still have w10 for steam, will switch to linux in the future
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  duzer65657
  It is beyond naive, and I don't know how it can be anything but disingenuous to pretend that the top priorities of "Windows Insiders" are sensible defaults, a calm discoverability feed and how AI works in notepad. The reality is this guy obviously got promoted and assigned "win-back OS users" task, in the face of an organization that overwhelming wants to leverage Windows for short-term, user-hostile bumps in AI usage, advert impressions and questionable engagement scores. He's not going to be allowed to mess with things like the marketing strategy or sales targets, and you see that in these "highlights". Your target audience asked for things like "let me manage my machine locally" and you're delivering "a more muted and polished consumer experience". It's lipstick on a pig, only the pig is dead, and actually a pile of garbage.Even if you do "get it", you ain't going to be allowed to deliver it.
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  wewewedxfgdf
  The Windows we want:The SAME as Windows 2000 in terms of what is installed. NO TPM REQUIREMENT.Even better: when installing Windows, there should be a "install minimal" option, and if you select it then it should be so fucking minimal - so little on there, that all you get is control panel and a way to install new software - NOTHING more.That's your win, Microsoft. I'm 2000% certain nothing even slightly close to that will be delivered.
• mips_avatar
  Microsoft is trying to sell things like extended servicing agreements. They purposefully make Windows worse so they can sell you solutions to fix it. They purposefully keep it insecure so you need their updates. It’s about taking the customers hostage.
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  ciconia
  Just switch to Linux people!
• wewewedxfgdf
  It feels like there is no one person in control of Windows.It feels like there is a committee and every Microsoft marketing group gets their changes that they want in Windows to help push their product.Windows should have someone at the top - with TASTE - and the authority and strength and vision to actually make real change happen.Real change isn't possible because assuming someone is in charge of Windows then they are weak and without their own vision to even understand all the things that are being said over and over and over in threads like this.People would LOVE it if when installing Windows you could choose "text only/no GUI", or "minimal install" or "select the components you want" or "super special with the lot". Why the fuck can't Microsoft work out on its own to do this.And for gods sake drop the stupid TPM thing which was required by the Microsoft new PC sales licensing division.And NO ADS - it's an operating system not a billboard.
• 1970-01-01
  How long will it take them to realize they just need to re-release the Win7 start menu, kill ads, kill telemetry, and declare victory?
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  SwamyM
  Anyone have a good guide to (re)install Windows without any of the bloat? Preferably using Group Policy vs registry changes.I've seen Tiny11 referenced but haven't seen a good guide for it.
• algoth1
  We need a faster way to uninstall copilot and download chrome
• chris_wot
  Windows Explorer always freezes for me. Teams is constantly interrupting me with popovers to tell me about features I’ll never use. on startup, it takes some time for panels to load.The file system still uses drive letters. Can’t they scrap the old file system folder layout to something… organized?
• lousken
  > This update moves Windows toward a single monthly restart by consolidating OS, .NET, and driver updatesI just can't, gotta ask - what about c++ updates? What about integral os components that were migrated to the store and if you disable it, you won't get updates? What about defender updates (not definitions but app update) that won't get applied if you have another anti malware?The thing I hate about windows updates is that microsoft can't even update all their own stuff with a single button.edit: almost forgot - why is office not in windows update, and what the hell is wrong with teams and why it is seperate from office updatesJust updating windows is a complete and utter mess and every single Linux distro is 100x better
• internet2000
  If you believe they'll accomplish anything beyond changing a handful of dialogs before getting reorg'd, I got an Agentic AGI Python script you can use on Windows to sell you.
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  p_ing
  People complain about telemetry but that’s how you get improved features.https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/the-new-run-dialo...
• shevy-java
  Very unconvincing. Microsoft seems to want to calm the storm.I think a dead-giveaway is the realisation that issues that come with Microsoft-specific software, is met with an increasing amount of complaints by end users. Thus, either we buy into the PR explanation by Microsoft, or we rely on what end users says. Now there is a question how accurate the end users are, but the amount of complaints is not static; it has increased a lot in the last some weeks, and even way before that. There is a reason why Microsoft is now called Microslop - the decrease in quality is one big reason for that. AI has not led to an increase in quality - Microsoft needs to acknowledge that. But they won't, because they already committed totally to AI without any way back now.
• aboardRat4
  Windows can ensure its quality quite easily: restore support for Windows 7.
• itrunsdoomguy
  Windows won’t be able to run Doom soon.
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  childintime
  Windows is adding features nobody asked for, like scroll wheel zooming everywhere, like in cmd.exe. Wtf do you need zooming for in the terminal?? I get false positives, and no benefit, at all.Another is Windows Explorer, loses focus all the time, no hint to where it went, preventing keyboard navigation. Basic UI conventions are being violated, for no reason than having no clue what Windows is.Windows is apparently being infested by young hackers who think Linux is the best thing since sliced bread and who just want to add tacky features using sloppy AI.
• 1980phipsi
  The deterioration in the Windows and Office experience is astounding.
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  glimshe
  Sweet Jesus, when are these guys going to understand that I want to be able to turn off automatic updates completely and forever. I'm fine if my computer melts and explodes if I didn't get the update, but let me do it on my own schedule permanently!
• faragon
  Microsoft degrading user experience plus lower price on Mac computers it maybe their downfall. E.g., removing local accounts, unwanted advertising, arbitrary decisions (forced TPM requirement), etc.
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  torben-friis
  This reads... Weird? As in, I know it's marketing speech but expressions seem misused and ideas don't follow from each other:>You decide when updates happen, not the other way around.Not... the other way around? Updates decide when I happen?>Last month we said we would reduce where Copilot shows up across Windows, focusing on bringing AI where it’s most valuable. [...] in Notepad, we’ve replaced the generic Copilot icon with a clearer “Writing Tools” label that better describes what it does.We've reduced AI by renaming the button?
• polyamid23
  For 2 months now the „put in admin credentials“ dialog is so fundamentally broken - ui-wise, it is unbelievable (in the sense that I do not believe it actually made it to production even though I see it with my own eyes). There are so many anecdotes about slop by now, the working parts become the anecdotes.By now Windows, for me is more like a reality TV show than an OS.
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  jdw64
  I really like Windows. I just wish Copilot could be made fully optional.Honestly, I can live with Windows 11 being a little slow, and I can deal with File Explorer issues. I can write my own tools to manage some of that, and PowerShell is simple enough for many tasks. Those parts do not bother me that much.What bothers me is Copilot being pushed into the operating system experience itself. I wish it could simply be treated as an optional feature.Windows is an operating system. An operating system is the foundational layer that governs the user’s work. Because of that, AI should be an opt-out assistant, not a premise that changes the default behavior of the system.When I move from Windows 10 to Windows 11, Copilot feels like something that damages the user experience itself.If Copilot were at the level of GPT or Claude, I probably would not complain as much. But I do not understand why the quality gap feels so large.
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  throwuxiytayq
  I have a feeling that my fat ass switching over to Linux is going to outrun their attempt to roll back decades of accumulated tech debt, institutional incompetence and burned bridges.
• Canada
  Microsoft strategy is adverse to Windows quality.
• grandpoobah
  Microsoft wants a fucking medal for appearing to give a shit about their customers for the first time in 10 years.
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  jokoon
  valve is on the brink of replacing windows with steam for many peopleit's probably not a big dent in market share, but it's probably a good tipping point
• gverrilla
  Windows is scamware.
• Razengan
  Man, Microsoft still struggling with shit macOS solved decades ago.On the other hand, Apple still refusing to fix shit in macOS people have been asking for decades.
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  widowlark
  the post shared here is clearly written with AI.
• tjpnz
  Will I still have the urge to stab myself in the hand repeatedly?
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  avazhi
  > We know there’s a lot of excitement for Taskbar customization – and that’s coming soon.This will never not be funny to me. These clowns really did remove something that existed for decades and then spend more than a decade trying to edge their users to the fact that they were gonna bring it back. In 500 years when somebody looks up enshittification on Wikipedia, this should be the first example.
• anon
  undefined
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  beanjuiceII
  "trust me bro"
• hansmayer
  [dead]
• anon
  undefined
• nikanj
  [dead]