Notepad Dark Mode and Android apps arrive on Windows 11 Microsoft has attempted to smooth out some of the rough edges in Windows 11 while also releasing a mainstream preview of Android app support. PC users with compatible hardware may already be running the operating system, and while Windows Insiders have been able to fire up Android apps via a combination of the Windows …
It looks like this article is of cosmic scale, as far as sarcasm goes:
"Other bits and pieces include a weather widget, ideal for offices without windows"
"We will leverage the variety of update mechanisms we have in place including servicing and Microsoft Store updates," threatened Windows boss Panos Panay"
LOL.
About this new light blue for Wordpad fonts, any news ? Cos users are requesting it north, south and west !
Seems over in Blighty we may not have it all? So I think my taskbar may have changed - not sure - date on secondary monitor maybe wasn't there before - never noticed. Weather app - turned off all Apps/Widgets - pointless. Notepad is changed (but I use Notepad++ and Visual Studio Code, so meh!). Media Player - nope. Android Stuff nope...
Excitement contained...
2007 Calling...and no I'm not going back to MSN News for my homepage either.
To remove the new (awful) left aligned widget icon on the taskbar.
Personalisation -> Taskbar
Third Icon Down
Widgets -> Off.
Anyone that installs this update, believe me that's the first thing you'll be looking for.
To those at Microsoft reading this: Please remember some people still have local accounts, it's just shocking how badly this widget presents itself to those users, in terms of its broken UI.
And by the looks of it, Microsoft reply to readings this...
They are now looking to remove the ability for Pro Users to have a local only account on Windows 11.
Forcing a Microsoft Account, is a massive 'power grab'. It really is no longer your 'personal computer', where data saved, is 'your data', it now has the heavy hand of MS breathing down on you, the cyberspace version of an abusive relationship. 'Our way, or the highway'.
If I was setting up a business today, I would avoid MS at all cost, there's only one way this is all going, and it's not good.
Sadly, my work means I have to run Word (and no, I absolutely can't use LibreOffice cos I'm a 1337 3d170r [or something]). If it were possible to get Office working (and I mean actually working, not just limping along in WINE or something) on Linux, then I'd think about it. Meanwhile, my need for Linux tinkering is satisfied with the mess I periodically make and then eventually fix in OpenWRT.
I suppose the advantage of Linux is that all the bad decisions are at least set in stone at this point, and won't change. This gives Stockholm syndrome plenty of time to kick in, so soon you to will think that blind case sensitivity is a good idea. Whereas Microsoft might decide to make new and exciting bad decisions at any time.
Except for systemd I suppose, which seems to be out-Microsofting Microsoft when it comes to "This is the new way of doing things, pray we don't change them further".
"Why would I even want to do this? I just don't see what the benefits are."
Well, if you don't have the equivalent app on a desktop. There's a myriad of games for Android that don't exist on any other platform. Developing and testing apps on desktop may also be easier than with a real Android device.
For a while I used BlueStacks maybe 10 years ago to try some APK when I didn't have an Android device at hand.
Admittedly less so with Catalyst but at least SwiftUI attempts to adapt the user interface of an app so that it fits in more on the desktop compared to when running on iOS.
Given Microsoft’s appalling track record with pretty much all of their user interfaces after Windows 2000, I can’t imagine the same being true of Windows 11’s Android app support. The apps will end up looking and feeling just as foreign as web apps.
I don't want a clock on the taskbar on secondary or other monitors. I don't even want a taskbar on anything other than my primary monitor. I use extra screens to run programs full screen. I don't want that space wasted by duplicating something I can see on my primary monitor. Luckily, I'm running KDE on FreeBSD so I've had the option to choose whether my taskbar, including it's clock and everything else, should be duplicated onto other screens, or not, for many years now, not have the choice made for me by someone in Redmond :-)
This post has been deleted by its author
This post has been deleted by its author
Luckily, I'm running KDE on FreeBSD so I've had the option to choose whether my taskbar, including it's clock and everything else, should be duplicated onto other screens, or not, for many years now, not have the choice made for me by someone in Redmond
Windows has that option as well now.
That's a great comment.
MS just don't get how people use their computers in the 'real' world. In their perfect world, no one does anything but use MS Orifice, use their crap implementation of Chrome, submit 'things' into Sharepoint. rely on Exchange for their emails and develop using Visual Studio.
They probably have blood in the new MS group in their veins.
Borg rules!
MS just don't get how people use their computers in the 'real' world
<sarcasm>
Yeah that's probably why their operating systems have never gained significant traction in the real world. It's not like Windows has anywhere near the desktop usage figures of Linux...
</sarcasm>
More seriously - we can argue the technical merits of OSes until the cows come home but how on Earth can you claim that MS 'don't get how people use their computers in the 'real' world' when they produce the desktop platform that has been dominant for several decades and when they remain one of the most successful computer related businesses in the world?
You might not like what they produce but they have a bloody good understanding of the real world.
Their bloody good understanding of the real world now largely consists of them knowing that they have a very large user base, many of which would have issues moving to another OS, and so dictate to said user base what they should be using and how.
No one wanted Windows 8, or 8.1 and what percentage of their customers moved to windows 10 because they thought it looked like a jolly good OS, compared to those that had to move due to windows 7 end of life, no directx12 and no HDR? It was free and people still didn't want it.
So I'd argue they do now have a good understanding of monetising customer telemetry, but not what their users actually want or how they use things.
I have to disagree on this one, MS have a good understanding of how 80-90% of their user base works.
Most people simply don't care, as long as the 5 or 6 icons they always use are in the same place on the desktop, they are happy. They don't care about UI changes or Feature updates. Does the internet work, does Facebook work & in a work environment, do the applications work the same way as they did?
We are the ones that make up the other 10-20% and we do care (In varying amounts).
I just want a checkbox at install for "Corporate or Home" so I don't have to mess around removing XBox game bar before imaging 7500+ machines.
I don't even want a taskbar on anything other than my primary monitor.
You just need a version of Windows prior to Win8, where there was only a task bar on the primary monitor!
Personally I hated that and spent time and effort finding a solution to add a taskbar to every monitor (in the form of Ultramon, which I actually paid for, just before MS added it as a standard feature).
What is this obsession with dark mode on this, that & the other. Even OS News has got into it. Maybe it's time to give UI designers VT100s to let them see what we've been getting away from all these days.
And "simplified menus"? Either the menu was fine as was or should have been fixed long ago. Get it right once and then stop tinkering. It just goes to show these jobs shouldn't even exist - idle hands and all that.
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