back to article Windows 11 update breaks PCs that dare sport a custom UI

The massive update to Windows 11 rolled out this week is proving to be a headache for users who are running some third-party UI customization applications on their devices. Microsoft said that after applying the KB5022913 February 2023 non-security preview update – also called Moment 2 – Windows systems with some of those UI …

  1. jeff_w87

    Time to ditch this garbage OS

    Microsoft has shot themselves in the foot so much lately due to faulty patches. It is time to seriously look at alternates for any user who is able to do so.

    1. Piro Silver badge

      Re: Time to ditch this garbage OS

      10 2021 enterprise iot ltsc is the most recent "good" windows

      1. LateAgain

        Re: Time to ditch this garbage OS

        LTSC versions are so much more stable.

        Probably because of not having the "apps"

        Microsoft go out of their way to stop it being used.

      2. captain veg Silver badge

        Re: Time to ditch this garbage OS

        The article refers to the Windows 10 taskbar as being "Classic". I questioned this and my post was rejected.

        In what sense was the Windows 10 taskbar "classic"? Any takers?

        -A.

    2. NoneSuch Silver badge
      Windows

      Re: Time to ditch this garbage OS

      "Microsoft has shot themselves in the foot so much lately due to faulty patches. It is time to seriously look at alternates for any user who is able to do so."

      You realize this exact quote has been repeated annually since 1985...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Time to ditch this garbage OS

        Especially when this patch doesn't seem to have been the problem, it was 3rd party programs using hacky workarounds.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: 3rd party programs using hacky workarounds.

          ... which people wouldn't need to use if Microsoft would just quit breaking the UI and leave well enough alone.

          1. Orv Silver badge

            Re: 3rd party programs using hacky workarounds.

            Or if they'd provide hooks for this kind of customization. If you don't want people to do it the "wrong" way, you have to provide a "right" way.

    3. ecofeco Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Time to ditch this garbage OS

      Lately? Where have you been for the last 20 years?

  2. Binraider Silver badge

    Deliberately on purpose, no doubt, to ensure you get the latest adverts and un-uninstallable candy crush saga links...

    Enterprise 10 isn't quite so badly infected, but the lock in with sharepoint garbage is real enough.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      If you have a custom UI then you could remove the new shortcuts to GlaDOS, sorry, Bing Chat. Obviously the only reasonable thing to do is break everyone's custom UIs.

    2. Joe W Silver badge

      Well, it is there in the statement (emphasis mine)

      "Windows systems with some of those UI tools installed won't work at all as expected"

      I guess they dropped the comma (won't work at all, as expected [and designed by our team])....

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        It's simply a matter of whose expectations it won't meet.

  3. pluraquanta

    Customisation != setting pretty colours

    These types of apps often use unsupported methods to achieve their customization

    Because you keep removing the supported methods, dickbags.

    1. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

      Re: Customisation != setting pretty colours

      Removing the supported methods, or just arbitrarily changing the API. "SetBackgroundColor now takes a triplet of int, unsigned int, and time_t for the BGR colour values."

      1. stiine Silver badge

        Re: Customisation != setting pretty colours

        Why? is that so I can make the background change to dark blue on August 15 2039?

    2. simonlb
      Mushroom

      Re: Customisation != setting pretty colours

      Because you keep removing the supported methods, dickbags.

      Yes, MS, just stop fucking around with the UI all the time and make it simple, easy to navigate (i.e. intuitive) and functional, instead of the screwed up abortions you've signed off on since Win8. What use is a menu when it doesn't show something you know should be there and you have to run a search for it to appear? If you'd done the UI properly in the first place we wouldn't be using third-party apps to reintroduce basic functionality that had been present for over twenty years.

      1. ChrisC Silver badge

        Re: Customisation != setting pretty colours

        "What use is..."

        It's, along with every other retrograde step in UI design over the past decade or thereabouts, a job creation scheme for the latest generation of UI designers/ego-boosting scheme for the latest generation of product managers - if you're not being seen to be doing something obvious, then you're clearly not necessary or important... Merely tweaking and fine tuning an existing design to keep it working as intended is not sufficient, you MUST be bold, you MUST think BIG, you MUST treat the work of your predecessors as utterly valueless and fit only for the scrapheap, as you strive to stamp your vision on what you think a UI should be, decades of hard-earned research and experience be damned!

        As you can probably tell, I'm not a fan of modern UIs...

        1. phuzz Silver badge

          Re: Customisation != setting pretty colours

          every other retrograde step in UI design over the past decade or thereabouts

          People have been complaining about the GUI changes in Windows since at least 98. (and a few were still complaining about the move away from DOS at that point)

          1. david 12 Silver badge

            Re: Customisation != setting pretty colours

            (Cough) Gnome

  4. gerryg

    Is this news?

    Is there anything in this article that takes anyone by surprise?

    What I don't understand is why people expect these third party modifications to survive in an environment in which someone else wants to define the look and feel (along with everything else).

    While (using Microsoft = true) Do

    Someone here has already suggested that it is (only now?) time to look for an alternative.

    Someone else will bang on about their enterprise install and how it's just not that easy even if they wanted to.

    A third will chirp on about so many Linux distros and fragmentation.

    Do End

  5. OmulSolar

    Lucky us

    I am one of the happy users bumping into this issue. Took me some time to figure it out.

    ExplorerPatcher already issued an update fixing the problem, now I can reinstall and enjoy it again: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/releases/tag/22621.1344.53.1_4f3dab5

  6. Andy E
    Devil

    I did wonder

    "Microsoft said it is investing the problem..." So that's how they make their money! They invest in problems.

  7. original_rwg
    Unhappy

    Crap

    So it would seem that Micros~1 won't let you paint your own flowers on their turd.

  8. Hogbert

    Anyone had this problem with Start11?

    I'm using Start11 to have a functional and nice looking menu.

    I haven't installed any optional updates so far this year, but I noticed the Start menu button changed back to the Microsoft icon recently.

  9. dunbankin
    Alert

    Anyone had this problem with Open-Shell?

    I'm still on Win 10, and use Open-Shell. I have friends on Win 11 who use Open-Shell. Anybody know if they will be affected?

  10. Stuart Castle Silver badge

    This may be a radical idea, but if Microsoft are having problems working around tools to customise the Windows interface, they could provide an official mechanism to install your own. They would need to warn users that any non Microsoft windows interfaces are not supported by Microsoft, and they would need to ensure all parts of the UI run in the user space (which, TBH, they should be anyway).

    I quite like the Windows 11 UI. It's not perfect, but I am generally happy with it, but I'd like the freedom to replace it with (say) the LCARS computer interface from Star Trek: TNG. Preferably without breaking my Windows install.

    What I don't like is that Microsoft keep putting links to different apps on my start menu. If I want an app on my start menu, I will add it. I don't need Microsoft putting links to Candy Crush, Office, Skype, Bing or any other crap they want to advertise.

    1. ComputerSays_noAbsolutelyNo Silver badge

      Bloating the bloat

      Setting up new computers is kinda depressing.

      Not only do you have to face the bleak prospect of a blank Windows, which comes with very little included.

      You have to deal with the manufacturers bloatware and on top of it with Redmond's bloat as well.

      The sad thing is, Redmond's bloat seems to be on a per-user basis.

      Once a new user logs in, he/she sees all the bloat that the previous user of the same computer has laboriously removed.

      1. 43300 Silver badge

        Re: Bloating the bloat

        "Once a new user logs in, he/she sees all the bloat that the previous user of the same computer has laboriously removed."

        Yep, all by design of course - if you want to remove it for all users it's normally a Powershell job.

        1. JimmyPage

          Re: it's normally a Powershell job.

          Or group policy ?

          1. Roland6 Silver badge

            Re: it's normally a Powershell job.

            It would be nice if someone provided a screen recorder that translated mouse clicks into relevant group policy rules and/or powershell script, thereby having to trawl though every group policy setting…

            1. sadsteve

              Re: it's normally a Powershell job.

              You could probably make a AutoHotKey script to do it. I automate a lot of stuff with it.

      2. David 132 Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Bloating the bloat

        I am not a Windows fan, and am in violent agreement with you, but I do have to query an apparent contradiction in what you said:

        > which comes with very little included

        followed by

        >You have to deal with the manufacturers bloatware and on top of it with Redmond's bloat as well.

        Which is it? "Very little included" or "deal with bloatware"?

        Personally I'd rather have the former. Give me a basic OS with functional network drivers and a WOULD YOU LIKE TO USE EDGEnon-retardedEDGE CAN SAVE YOU MONEY browser and I LET'S GIVE YOU A FULLSCREEN UNSKIPPABLE TOUR OF EDGEcan take it from there myself and get the stuff I want. Yes, Microsoft, that Edge crap is exactly what I mean.

        1. ComputerSays_noAbsolutelyNo Silver badge

          Re: Bloating the bloat

          Yeah, sorry; it should read "very little useful stuff included"

          Everything you need is expensive, or hard to get, or both.

          Everything you don't need, you get for free.

          I know, it's apples and oranges comparing a vanilla Windows install with a vanilla Linux install, because the latter has a whole world of software baked into its package repository.

          But, when you look at the on-board tools Windows comes along with; many feel tears welling up.

          Even so "simple things" like text editors, command line prompts, ... I say no more, I fell unwell.

        2. 43300 Silver badge

          Re: Bloating the bloat

          Windows has assorted random crap which nobody wants, particularly on business machines (fake-Teams and all the other useless trival 'apps'). But it doesn't have anything actually useful...

      3. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: Bloating the bloat

        Setting up new computers is kinda depressing.

        Can I point out that Macs come with no bloatware?

        <Smug mode on>

        1. sadsteve

          Re: Bloating the bloat

          And it won't play all my games.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
            FAIL

            Re: Bloating the bloat

            That's like complaining an XBox won't play all "your "PS games.

  11. Tron Bronze badge

    This would be lovely...

    Satya Nadella breaks his front door key. He asks a locksmith to make him a new one. When he tries it, it doesn't work. He complains to the locksmith.

    'There is nothing wrong with your upgraded key, Sir,' replies the locksmith. 'Unfortunately the paint on your front door is incompatible with it and you will have to access your house through the toilet window for the next few months until we can get around to sorting it out'.

  12. Marty McFly Silver badge
    Flame

    If at first you fail to innovate...

    Re-skin the user interface and pretend it is innovation!

    And if that fails to gain traction....break the competition!

    1. David 132 Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: If at first you fail to innovate...

      "Windows Ain't Done Till Vivetool Won't Run"

  13. Roland6 Silver badge

    Anti-competition?

    I hope people are feeding this to the EU comptition authority, just adds more kindling to the fire for an investigation and for the ruling to be more along the lines of unbundling and publish APIs controlled by a third-party such as the Open Group.

  14. vcragain

    Well I always put my desktop back to basically a Win 98 mode - I've done that since they started getting cute with the front end (the stupid 'tiles' business) - I need everything just the way I'm used to thank you ! Stop messing around - Windows is just a software container sitting on top of Dos & those of us who coded way back when do not want to be 'contained' in your world

    any more than we have to be ! The only 'improvement' I see with current Windows is the ability to allocate & buy permanent cloud storage. I have uber gobs of data on my system & that is very helpful, otherwise Windows is simply a means to organize & manage all the functions you really need to do - we do not need "Microsoft Daddy" to organize our lives !

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      I wonder if MS enforced "updates" could result in legal challenges from people with certain medically defined disabilities. Some mental illnesses and disabilities make it extremely difficult for some people to accept or adapt to changes. At least in the past, you could install Windows and then never install an update unless you chose to. Now, every time you switch on, there's the possibility that the basic desktop could be different never mind that other stuff has changed, moved, been removed or added.

      @vcragain: I'm not implying that this is you, but the way you wrote sort of implies that you don't like change, which triggered the above :-)

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