Microsoft rolls out Windows 11 Start Menu updates The latest changes to Microsoft's Start Menu are being rolled out to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. However, users in the European Economic Area have a little longer to wait for the promised Android and IOS device integration. Windows 11 Start Menu Windows 11 Start Menu – sans Recommended (Pic: Microsoft, click to …
What's the saying about polishing a turd?
I love the Desktop image in this article. 47 icons and the user didn't install any of them. Half will never be used, yet they occupy disk space and as most are auto-booted by default they use up RAM and CPU as well. This before the user actually does anything. Not to mention the telemetry that captures every keystroke.
Microsoft New Motto - Everything you do, everything you type, everything you create on this PC is ours to monetize, and we'll let you store that info in our Cloud for a reasonable monthly fee.
In corporate-land, stuff like that is usually not allowed. Best I can do for my users is show them how to put the start menu back on the left where it;s been for the last 30 years and it's all most of them have even known. Putting it in the middle was the single most cause of anguish amongst them because all they want to do is their jobs and most never use the start menu since all their apps are either desktop shortcuts or pinned to the task bar. Even the settings.control panel debacle has barely affected them because they don't go where dragons be as part of doing their jobs.
I use powertoys run for this (soon to be replaced by command palette)
alt+space by default, basically does the same as windows search but has way better performance, can search in open tabs, do quick math equations, etc.
Also for some apps i really struggle opening them through the windows search menu, it selects whatever it thinks is best for you, and it's usually wrong.
For me this only works 50% of the time. I.e. if I type:-
Calc
Half the time the windows calculator pops up, the other half is a Bing search result. Similar happens with running commands with switches. I either get the full command, or the command but minus the switches, or a Bing search for it.
The problem is - and has been even in 10 if you don't know the workarounds- that not very user remembers the name of every programme. Some of us have stuff we use rarely, And many programmes have bloody stupid, unhelpful names. If you want WORD or Writer there's no problem. But when you need to use Balbolka or Hasleo or Aomei or Balena or Greenfish or even Veracrypt (etc etc) having them in an alphabetical list, rather than a function list is just not very helpful. Some of us organise our programmes accordingly.
I remember the days when software devs LISTENED to feedback and changed their course of thinking and coding. Now days, it seems like MS Devs have these HUGE Egos, and when they come up with something, even if thousands and thousands of end user's respond negatively to the change, they batten down their hatches and refuse to redo it or revert changes. And it's not funny, it's pathetic.
Quite!
Where do you start reading a page of text?... top left corner.
Where do you start a month on a calendar?... top left corner.
Where do you start a date column in a spreadsheet?... top left corner.
Where do you start reading a restaurant menu?... top left corner
Where do you open windows start menu?.... somewhere else
While you are at it, please let us move edge bookmarks to the left hand side of the browser like you can in every other browser on the PC
<< I think that it's the "Coloured Pencil department" that is the problem, not the Devs. <<
Devs; what Devs? Mainly the Interns in the Coloured Pencil Dept, usually with their pencils up in the darkness!
When competent developers and testers are replaced by cheap ones paid in rupees, or fired, that's what happens. Nadella cut development investments in Windows and other desktop apps hugely, and the eimplification (or better, enshittification) of the Windows UI is no longer even tied to the need to work on small touch devices, it's just a way to simplify development and exploit cheaper and less skilled ones.
In Azure he can exploit open source at will, in Windows can't - even if the Windows UI/UX is tragically descending into Linux levels - good UIs are hard, very hard. You don't just need to be able to code, you beed to have extensive knowledge about gaphic arts, typography, ergonomics, etc. etc. Otherwise the result is the average ugly Linux UI.
It's clear the beancounters / shareholders won out a while ago. Your own search, of YOUR OWN machine is now designed to point you at paid for services in a MS controlled shop.
Why let you find the feckin file or program you are actually looking for when you can be presented with a selection of vaguely similarly named apps and services from a random selection of likely dodgy suppliers? What is the MS % on apps bought through their store?
It's almost like a conflict of interest isn't it.
I've worked on MS systems since 1996 so that's nearly 30yr and W11 was the thing that pushed me over the edge. It's a data/money grab disguised as a barely functional OS.
I've started converting/replacing home machines to either linux for me or Mac for the kids and Mrs.
"We're making it easier for you to launch your apps with our updated, scrollable Start menu..."
No, you're not!
On my one remaining Windows PC (running W10 LTSC so bugger the October cut-off), I have Quick Launch with nice, tiny application icons for all the programs (not apps!) that I commonly run. It takes up far less room and muscle memory means that I know exactly where each icon is located, as I've kept them in roughly the same order since XP days. Far quicker than anything else. As Windows 11 ditched Quick Launch completely, that was another reason (amongst thousands) for not updowngrading to it.
One of the reasons I love my 16:10 aspect monitors is that I can have a large taskbar with two rows of quick launch icons. I rarely have to go into my start menu (which is running Open Shell, BTW) or Win+S or Win+R programs.
There are third party utilities that restore the quick launch functionality under Windows 11, which is good. But on the one personal laptop I have running W11, I find that those utilities break every time Microsoft updates explorer.exe, which is now done quite frequently compared to prior versions of Windows, which is bad. And zero chance that corporate will authorize those utilities for use on my work laptop, which is worse.
Looking at the enshittification going on with Windows 11, I really am dreading the day when Windows 10 goes completely out of support.
This post has been deleted by its author
My bank made "moving money around" easier in their app... by adding 5 layers of completely redundant decision points into the tree.
It went from
"Move money from the account you were viewing when you clicked on the control to a list of all your accounts and previous payees with the option to add a new payee in that list"
to
"Move money > Select an account > Move to an account or pay to a Payee? > Existing or new Payee? > UK based or overseas payee? > Business or personal account? > A list of all your accounts and previous payees with the option to add a new payee in that list."
Making it easier... some strange new definition of the word "easier" I was previously unaware of.
Personally, I loathe this sort of thing.
I carefully put programs that I *don't* use often in prominent places, so that I am reminded of them each day and when I *do* want them I'm not having to hunt for them. Especially as I keep forgetting their damn names ("it is that vector drawing program, the one we use with the lasercutter").
The ones I use most are literally used every day - those, I can remember.
Unless, of course, they have moved by being "bubbled to the top".
Web browsers - especially on phones - are equally bloody annoying about this. I carefully put those shortcuts on the opening page because they are ones I don't want to forget, even if I only use them once every couple of weeks. Just stop changing the blasted things without asking.
The all apps grouped by functionality section just needs an option for dynamic, updating icons that fill their "space" so they butt up against each other and then we'll be back to Windows Mobile.
[Icon: not sure if I'm supposed to be happy or sad at the thought.]
An Alien learning English by reasonable deduction.
Metro (first example definition) -> An interface formerly designed, promoted and unilaterally imposed on customers by Microsoft which proved unpopular at the time.
Metro (second example definition) -> A system of light or heavy rail designed for urban commuter travel with the potential to become disrupted by "passenger incidents".
Metro (synthesised definition) -> A system possessing the ability to make people want to throw themselves under a train.
There have long been third-party solutions to restore missing functionality from the Windows 11 Start Menu, but Microsoft simply adding a "make it work like it used to" option would be an admission that perhaps, just perhaps, some users were right all along.
'Like it used to' when?
I seem to have missed the 'Start menu was perfect here' memo?
Was it in the NT/95 days? Where there was no keyboard searching and after a few months the thing would extend across multiple columns.
Was it in the Windows 2K days where they added the 'auto collapsing' thing because many columns of menu became unweildy? (This both helped you find stuff and also forget about all that stuff you've installed but used once. Also... you had the fun of nearly finding something just as the menu expanded to fill the screen and you had to start the whole damn hunt again...)
Was it in the XP days where they made it a weird panel, but with some customisation so you could add useful stuff to it? Did this include the search? Did it work? It still had the submenu of many many pages if I remember?
Was it the Vista days? (I assume that had a start menu but I've had therapy since using it...)
Was it the 7 days? (I remember it being okay?, what was the search like?)
Okay, I know it wasn't the 8 or 8ish days? (I've got to stop talking about this and Vista, I can't afford any top up treatment).
It deffo wasn't the early 10 days, they brought it back then and that's when everyone got shouty. (I think later 10 got better if I remember correctly?)
Am I the only one that doesn't find the current one too bad? I tend to search these days so it's not that often I go poking through it.
I did recently install NT4 in a VM and got very very lost though. I hit windows, typed, and nothing happened... took me a good few minutes to remember how to find things.
Windows 7 was when it got good. We'll not talk about Windows 8 - therapy is expensive. Although 8.1 improved things considerably (they couldn't get much worse).
Personally I'm happiest with Windows 10. I've got an alphabetical list of almost everything on the left - with a panel on the right that's quite customisable and has tiles for all the stuff I use most - or the stuff I need in a hurry - plus little mini icons for the things I want to keep handy. Plus it's all divided up in to groups HOW I LIKE IT.
Whereas this new abomination doesn't improve on Win 11, which is already rubbish. You can't control it, things keep moving and you can't organise it. But worst of all:
IT'S ALL FUCKING FLAT!!!!! FLAT!!!! FLAT!!!!111!!!!1111!!!! I WILL KILL AGAIN!!!!!1111!!!!!!! Aaaaarrrrggggghhhhh!!!!!!!!
It's just a horrible mess or randomness all smooshed together. So you can't pick anything out against the noise. All on a shitty grey/white background with no distrinction or visual way to differentiate.
To be fair, this might be the terrible vision talking. Maybe people with normal eyesight can just pick stuff up from a huge undifferentiated mess - even if it's taking a certain amount of mental effort. But I can only read the text (or really parse the icons) where I'm focusing, so can't pick things out from peripheral vision. Without visual cues like lines, different coloured bits or whatnot. Which is why I organise things properly.
On the other hand all our office PCs are set up identically, by me. Because it's me that sets up and fixes them. Admittedly, this is 10 PCs for 6 people. But nobody has wanted anything changed from what I think of as a logical and easy system (and I do regularly offer). Except for the couple of weirdos who insist on using Chrome, and so have that as their main browser - rather than Firefox. So I can't be wrong that the combination of different sized icons, and logical groups is easier to use than a horrible flat list o' everything.
There was a search box on the Vista menu, I don't think it was very good. I'm pretty sure the press window key (or click on start button) and start typing search came with Windows 8.1. But it could have been 8, or 7?
The start button was almost unusable in Windows 8 - plus it was almost impossible to find the power menu to turn the bloody thing off. Whereas 8.1 was actually reasonably decent - once you'd customised it a lot. Win 11 is terrible, I'll be getting the company a license to some start menu tool or other. We're about to buy some new PCs, and someone even suggested going Apple - but I'm not sure we're ready to go that far.
If only MS had saved themselves some cash, and just kept updating Windows 10.
8 was a phone UI slapped on top of a deskop OS for some weird reason, they can't even blame AI for that idea.
On a phone (personal opinion) the 8 UI was good, to me it was really good, probably the best mobile UI I've used ever.
Everything else surrounding the WP8 was a dogs dinner but WP8 was a really really good interface on top of some really solid Nokia hardware.
Of course MS shit the bed with WPho as they always do eventually. W11 I suspect is another recumbent incontinence moment, just slightly slower and with even more added corporate denial.
Also, the search function was more than capable of finding files for me too. Now it seems Windows has replaced the search function with the terrible one from Outlook.
And, it's worth noting, you don't need a search capability in the start menu. By default, there's already a search button right next to the start menu. And they look awfully bloody similar.
I just can't understand why the start menu can't be like the beta Visual Stream Deck, which we all love, multi actions in one click etc. The last time I used MS Start menu back on windows 7, since windows 11 never used it. Always use Stream Deck and now with Visual Stream Deck...
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