"We want it to look like MacOS, but without any consistency and keeping some system components that were written for Windows XP, but we haven't bothered to update yet."
"It will require the lastest processors and 32 GB of RAM because OEMs need to sell computers and all of the windows components are using Electron (or similar memory-hungry web UIs)."
"Teams and Loop will be fully integrated to enable maximum synergy for organizations and pro-sumers."
"MSN and News will also be fully integrated to help keep users informed about current events, their favorite celebrities, and great deals that are availble when they shop with Edge and search with Bing."
You write it as a joke, but I recently got myself a PC with Win11Pro. First glance: brand new UI. Until you open some specific settings, or choose "more options" from a context menu, then it's Windows 10. Then you need to tweak something else, and it's suddenly it's Windows XP. And when you go to something in the device/hardware area, you're confronted with a dialog that hasn't changed since NT.
The thing that blows my mind is how settings are just straight up duplicated. Like monitor sleep settings is in the Windows 10 style display preference panel. But it’s ALSO in a weird Windows Vista looking preferences window too. You have to use the second one to switch the “profile” as well.
And, fun fact, these old(er) dialogs are still often better/easier to understand than the new ones.
This may be partially nostalgia speaking but I really dislike the new settings and would like to have kept Windows 7 style control panel with some improvements (e.g. resizable, layout managed dialogs). But it is what it is, on the Mac side it also started going downhill after catalina.
The people who remember how the low-level stuff works are long gone. Through a combination of received wisdom and good old-fashioned operant conditioning, the devs who are left don't dare touch any of it. It's third-rail code.
They've slowly been replacing these legacy interfaces with the modern UI. It seems to have accelerated under Windows 11 but it's been ongoing since Windows 8.
I found myself buying a computer this holiday season and spending over a thousand dollars on it. Then realized Windows 11 isnt the Pro version, anyway I went to add a new Windows User and the app told me to go to another app because its not supported from there in my edition of Windows, when I got to the other app, it said to go back to the first app. I literally just said screw it and installed POP OS. Steam runs all the games I have tried so far just fine (I have a 3080 so it probably helps to have a known GPU) and I dont see myself going back. I used to use Linux daily for work at a former job anyway.
I really want Microsoft to just make a version of Windows for actual Pros that doesnt pull you into their ecosystem. I want my OS to just be an OS.
Yes this is annoying. Ideally my computer should just do what I want it to, and not gaslight me into whatever metrics Microsoft program managers are optimizing for to get their bonuses…as in selling more OneDrive or Xbox live subscriptions.
If they're going to block off ~20-30 pixels on the top of the screen I'd really prefer to have the option to put something more useful than weather and an omnipresent search field there.
I know they're not to everyone's taste but it wouldn't hurt to have an option to replace those with a global menubar for example, because I don't need to know the weather that often and a hotkeyed search ala Spotlight, Alfred, or Microsoft's own PowerToys Run is better than a search field that's starting me in the face all the time, but a way to escape the Curse of the Hamburger Menu would be wonderful.
Microsoft is a new company since Satya Nadella took over. But one thing hasn't changed: shameless, mindless copying.
If they copied well then that would be one thing. But they don't copy well either. In Windows 10 (and 11 too) if you resize a window by dragging the bottom border, the bottom of the window does not quite touch the taskbar: there is a few pixels of gap, which is just a waste. I didn't understand why they did that... until I realized that's because MacOS has that too.
If a chimpanzee views a person perform a series of superfluous actions, along with one single necessary action, in order to obtain a piece of food, the chimpanzee will skip the superfluous action, and perform only the necessary one. In contrast, children will copy every single action, including the unnecessary ones [1]. Microsoft isn't being as smart as a chimpanzee in their copying.
Further yet, most companies trying to be like Apple copy the superfluous actions but not the necessary one. You get the wasted space, but not the "doesn't crash and glitch around all the time".
Why, oh why, must MS invent a new UI for every version? They all turn out half-baked, and are never around long enough to get completely debugged and polished.
Can we get an amendment to the US Constitution banning promotion-driven-development? Seriously, I feel like that would improve by 2x the output of the US economy.
I think about how great the UI could be if they just kept iterating the original instead of coming up with new shit every time and it makes me mad. It's been a lost decade in UI design for Windows and it's only become worse.
Which is a bit of a shame IMO. I'm a bit of an apologist for windows 8.1 and the 'Start Screen', even if the Store and WinUI apps were kinda gross.
Sure, the start screen was a whole screen rather than a bar. But it was easy enough to organize into something useful, as opposed to the Win10 start menu which just feels too busy with a bunch of small tiles littering the screen.
What should we put in the most dominant top left position?
Why, that’s easy, the fucking weather.
Except you know it’s not going to be the weather. It will be, mark my words, a portal for advertising and sponsored content, the revenue maker in the very top left corner. If there’s a better metaphor for an insipid lack of relevancy at all times, the weather couldn’t possibly be a more suitable fit.
The Windows that would get me excited would be one stripped down to its absolute minimum, only one way to do things, all the old garbage and centuries of attics and basements cleared out. A modular operating system that could run in old machines and new, with the registry removed.
I wonder if the best windows won’t turn out to be SteamOS.
I switched to MacOS after many many years of windows and one of the things I love about macOS is all the configuration is in one place, stuff isn’t duplicated in multiple user interfaces, there’s only one UI style for macOS, not random bits of UI cruft accumulated over 30 years randomly appearing everywhere. macOS knows what it is. Windows seems to have had a lifetime of personal identity crisis.
I somewhat like the macOS dock. But eventually, on KDE, with all the freedom in the world, I realized that it just makes sense to have everything integrated.
Maybe they realized during a QA meeting that it was too good for their standards.
Readit News
"It will require the lastest processors and 32 GB of RAM because OEMs need to sell computers and all of the windows components are using Electron (or similar memory-hungry web UIs)."
"Teams and Loop will be fully integrated to enable maximum synergy for organizations and pro-sumers."
"MSN and News will also be fully integrated to help keep users informed about current events, their favorite celebrities, and great deals that are availble when they shop with Edge and search with Bing."
It’s some serious garbage.
For all its failures, the linux desktop has one of the best if not the best design consistency out there
I really want Microsoft to just make a version of Windows for actual Pros that doesnt pull you into their ecosystem. I want my OS to just be an OS.
Deleted Comment
I know they're not to everyone's taste but it wouldn't hurt to have an option to replace those with a global menubar for example, because I don't need to know the weather that often and a hotkeyed search ala Spotlight, Alfred, or Microsoft's own PowerToys Run is better than a search field that's starting me in the face all the time, but a way to escape the Curse of the Hamburger Menu would be wonderful.
If they copied well then that would be one thing. But they don't copy well either. In Windows 10 (and 11 too) if you resize a window by dragging the bottom border, the bottom of the window does not quite touch the taskbar: there is a few pixels of gap, which is just a waste. I didn't understand why they did that... until I realized that's because MacOS has that too.
If a chimpanzee views a person perform a series of superfluous actions, along with one single necessary action, in order to obtain a piece of food, the chimpanzee will skip the superfluous action, and perform only the necessary one. In contrast, children will copy every single action, including the unnecessary ones [1]. Microsoft isn't being as smart as a chimpanzee in their copying.
[1] https://youtu.be/JwwclyVYTkk
Sure, the start screen was a whole screen rather than a bar. But it was easy enough to organize into something useful, as opposed to the Win10 start menu which just feels too busy with a bunch of small tiles littering the screen.
Why, that’s easy, the fucking weather.
Except you know it’s not going to be the weather. It will be, mark my words, a portal for advertising and sponsored content, the revenue maker in the very top left corner. If there’s a better metaphor for an insipid lack of relevancy at all times, the weather couldn’t possibly be a more suitable fit.
I don't understand Microsoft insistence on introducing a brand new design language this often. Just make one and consolidate everything under it.
Also... holy hell does that scream Mac with the icons on the top right and the dock that isnt a dock on the bottom.
I wonder if the best windows won’t turn out to be SteamOS.
I switched to MacOS after many many years of windows and one of the things I love about macOS is all the configuration is in one place, stuff isn’t duplicated in multiple user interfaces, there’s only one UI style for macOS, not random bits of UI cruft accumulated over 30 years randomly appearing everywhere. macOS knows what it is. Windows seems to have had a lifetime of personal identity crisis.
Maybe they realized during a QA meeting that it was too good for their standards.