Microsoft keeps adding stuff into Windows we don't want – here's what we actually need From desktop alerts begging you to sign up for Xbox Game Pass to a second-chance out-of-the-box experience that insists you need Microsoft 365, Windows has a hard time taking "no" for an answer. The operating system's corporate parent isn't a good listener either, festooning the OS with useless features no one asked for. In …
Via the *nix fortune program:
Double Bucky, you're the one,You make my keyboard so much fun,
Double Bucky, an additional bit or two, (Vo-vo-de-o)
Control and meta, side by side,
Augmented ASCII, 9 bits wide!
Double Bucky, a half a thousand glyphs, plus a few!
Oh, I sure wish that I,
Had a couple of bits more!
Perhaps a set of pedals to make the number of bits four.
Double Double Bucky! Double Bucky left and right
OR'd together, outta sight!
Double Bucky, I'd like a whole word of,
Double Bucky, I'm happy I heard of,
Double Bucky, I'd like a whole word of you!
-- to Nicholas Wirth, who suggested that an extra bit be added to terminal codes on 36-bit machines for use by screen editors. [to the tune of "Rubber Ducky"]
Yep, they did themselves out of a duel (sic) boot on my new laptop by defeating TWO methods I found online to avoid it. I needed to run 'doze 11 to disable bitlocker first, but no dice!
OK, I most probably would have nuked it at some point anyway, but it turned out to be a fait accompli.
On Thursday the 14th I downloaded Win 11 from M$ and was able to install with a local account. The ISO I downloaded was Win11_24H2_EnglishInternational_x64.iso, the bypassnro.cmd command still works with that ISO, I used Ventoy to install it. I didn't connect the network till setup was finished.
See, this is why Linux will never be successful in the mainstream. Compared to Windows with its easy graphical installer, Linux requires knowledge of arcane and non-obvious commandline incantations, which change with every release as the developers try to prove that they're smarter than the users.
...wait, what?
Sarcasm aside, though, this is clearly a case of Microsoft saying "we don't want you using a local account, and we're going to amuse ourselves by seeing how many hoops and obstacles we can get you to jump through".
My wife uses a local account on her PC, and has done so for as long as there have been Microsoft accounts. I expected problems when it went from Windows 10 to 11 the other month, but no, local account usage followed on. The only time the Microsoft account ever gets used was possibly when the old hardware from my PC became her "fast new" PC. It "might" have been used to allow the license to go onto the new hardware. Not unreasonable and certainly nothing to shout about.
No wonder every cumulative update in Windows 24H2 there is an issue.
Just get the damn OS sorted, before adding all this unnecessary bloat MS
Windows 23H2 was fine until 24H2 arrived, which has caused be no end of issues since it arrived, even though my desktop has specs, far more than what is required by MS, to run this crap OS.
I dread every cumulative update, which comes out, as it could cause me many hours of grief to get it to work.
There are downvotes from the haters, but after moving to Apple I've stopped worrying about just clicking "update." I won't say there have been zero issues, but they're maybe once every five years or so vs. a PTSD-inducing frequency for Windows. Thinking back, it's probably been at least seven years (back to the days of big cat version names).
You still have to learn that your mainboard manufacturer is not the sole source for your mainboard drivers. The bluetooth chips are the same among many many computers, so you should be able to find the drivers. I'm not saying it is easy though, requires some experience. Avoid all "find and install drivers" tools though, most of them are loaded with crapware.
Several of these are provided by KDE. However if you allow that much customisation or different ways of doing things people will complain about complexity and inconsistency.
The other problem is that any organisation will develop what it has an incentive to develop. All of the things people do not want are profitable to MS as a whole or something some group within MS want. This is a universal problem with big projects and organisation anywhere.
It's really common in multimonitor setups to have one "hi-dpi" (4K/5K) screen and one or more "normal" DPI screens, all the same physical size.
On Windows 11, the mouse gets stuck in the hi-dpi monitor. The bottom is the bottom, but the top of the normal is the middle of the hi-dpi!
An application window that spans monitors ends up HUGE on one screen and tiny on the other.
macOS avoids the latter problem by simply banning it - macOS windows cannot span screens at all. I'm not sure what it does with the mouse.
You can adjust the relative positions of screens. Drag the screen in the screen settings. There is an option to ease mouse transitions across screens. But there will always be issues when monitors are very different.
Being able to have an app across more than one monitor is useful, I would not block it. Maybe it can be blocked if the monitors have different ppi. Then applications need to be ppi aware. Some are not even multiscreen aware properly, move them to a different screen and they will keep on opening dialogs in the old one, stubbornly.
Where an application opens the first time depends on the flags set by the developer... If they are set to default Windows will open it in the main monitor. Many application can rembere where they were open the last time (and 'disappear' if their monitor space is not available). It's not always Windows fault.
An application remembering where it was before is fine, however if it was on a monitor that is no longer there and Windows (or any OS) permits it to 'display' there anyway upon being opened, such that it cannot be seen, then it is the fault of the OS. Of course equally if the app is not opened in the time the monitor is no longer there, and then opened again when it is, the remembered location should still be valid.
The more permutations there are, the more complex it gets to support, of course, and that's before you get into different people having different requirements.
There are two "fixes":
1. Set both to 100%. For the "high-DPI" monitor set the resolution so low the size of your windows are at least close to your other "normal DPI" monitor.
2. Set both to a zoom level you can accept on both monitors.
I always use "2.", and rater get a 4k screen which is LARGE to compensate instead of high-DPI. Side effect: You have so much more desktop space at 100%.
Going from a two-screen setup to a laptop screen only (as one does when leaving the office to work in the lab or at a client) was a bit of a challenge for me, if I'd left the cursor on the secondary screen. Can't remember all the details, but Windows had "issues" with leaving the cursor on a window in the secondary screen when shutting down. To wit: the cursor simply *wasn't there* when you booted up, and there was very little you could do to get it back. Windows, in general, is a bit of a pain to *configure* with multiple monitors. Once you get them set up and don't change them, everything works, but any change can be a bit painful, and I found myself going back to the monitor confiuration tool (which looks like ist hasn't been changed since Win2k or before) more than I would have liked.
I think I finally used the TAB key or something and managed to sign on, but it's a definite usability bug. Not sure if it has been fixed, as I retired and no longer use Windows (yay!).
"And just who is the constituency that wanted supermarket tabloid-style headlines pumped into a taskbar widget?"
Because they cannot sell us more things when we are satisfied with what we have. In the end, "We are the product" MS sells to their "channel partners".
Our productivity does not earn MS money. But AI, our data, and ads, do earn MS money (they hope). So we are forced to use AI, divulge our privacy, and get bombarded with ads.
If they could, they would sell us to the cotton fields and organ harvesters. But they cannot do so yet.
And you ask for nice things?
We *do* have one bigger problem: the amount of money any given company needs is defined as "as much as possible". That's it. That's the whole problem. And that's why the world's largest software company shoves toolbar ads: they represent earnings of *more* money and the existence of more implies that more is possible and so they need that. Hence: toolbar ads.
The corollary is the same: those ads do not have to work nor even represent exposure worth their cost to the channel partners – Microsoft only need to be able to *sell* those adds to the channel partners and they know how to land that sale. There does not have to be any value, just revenue, sales and movement of money. Hence: the A.I. bubble – only speculation and investing and bullish FOMO is needed and all the right rich people get richer and who cares about the future when the bubble bursts or the atmosphere ignites because the Earth can't sustain the heat-generation and carbon emissions?
Certainly not the speculators!
"NOBODY has sold me ANYTHING from an advert on my computer."
These adds are like spam, cheap to deliver so anyone who bites is a likely profit.
However, advertising does not only work by closing a sale from the presentation of an ad. By bringing a brand, logo, or message under your attention many times, you get used to it. By the time a buying opportunity arises, you are more likely to fall for the brand/product.
Billions of dollars of research have been spend on such "subliminal" processes. It is known how this works.
Moreover, the actual beneficiary are MS. They can use FOMO to scare advertisers into buying ad space.
I do remember when the volume licensed version didn't have all that crap. My last install on my work machine before I retired had "Xbox game bar" and all sorts of other consumer level crapware. I think I spent about an hour going through and removing them from the auto-start menu. And I could never figure out how to stop the little colored boxes giving me "helpful tips" from popping up.
My analysis? Microsoft is getting desperate. They know users aren't going to upgrade voluntarily...once you get to know an OS, you're reluctant to have to start all over again. So, forced upgrade it is, and they get to do even more forcing of stuff on you and even more collection of data.
No.1. Windows stay put. They do not resize every time you move them. They do not reposition every time you come back after going for a pee. They do not pop back up if you have minimised them. The desktop remembers where you left them (or set the default) and which monitor.
No.2. The same feature is always in the same place on every Office app, be it desktop or 365.
Oh, sod it, I'm bored with this already. just replace the shit with Devuan+MATE+LibreOffice+BrowserOfChoice and leave me alone.
> No.1. Windows stay put. They do not resize every time you move them. They do not reposition every time you come back after going for a pee
They bloody well did on my work PC.
Lock the screen and everything migrated to the big 4k monitor from the laptop screen and 2nd external monitor, great fun when I had some 30 dos windows open monitoring the status of some misbehaving systems (NAS AV Scan Engines) and they all piled up on top of each other in the upper 2/3rds of the 4k monitor
You can copy CLIPBRD.EXE from Windows NT 3.51, and it still works. BUT since the "ClipBook" Service is not installed you will get a "The ClipBook Service is unavailable" message.
Apart from that it works, but you will only have it as "clipboard content viewer".
I did not try to force-register the service extracted from NT 3.51 yet, maybe I should? You can try, take the "Windows 3.51 VM" version. I used that vmware image as a base and converted it to hyper-v. Runs fine including networking.
Just checked: Windows NT 4.0, 2000 and 2003 Server have those executables as well, so you may have better success using Server 2003 R2 64 bit as source to extract (with all updates, like I have as VM just before the updates were kicked from being available).
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Maybe rather than spending time and money adding lots of new functionality that nobody wants, they should be concentrating on two things
1. Make the software work reliably.
2. Make the software more efficient.
Of course this will never happen. If they make the software more reliable, they can't sell "Newer! Better!" versions all the time.
If they make the software more efficient, the hardware manufacturers will go nuts.
... put applcation and documents in a folder marked as such, and they would open when the folder was opened. Never seen something alike since then.
Windows audio would really deserve a managing app that should bring together input/output control and the mixer app. Windows does allow separate channels for 'voice' and 'music', and can also control the volume for each application. But configuring all of these requires to reach specific controls sometimes buried deep in the settings, and in different applications.
Which bring us to another issues. The new Settings application, designed for touch on a phone, hiding and making difficult to control too many advanced settings. It should be totally redesigned, if the 'old' control panel was no longer fashionable... And don't hide too many settings behind cumbersome PowerShell calls, because MS it's too lazy to surface them in a GUI way.
And please, stop the idiotic Google-like fashion of moving icons around, or hiding them. I hate the copy and paste icons in the contextual menu move up or down depending on the menu position.
Don't mix global search and the start menu.
And bring back a local, standtd help system. Web links to pages that no longer exist, or are too generic, are of no help. Or PDFs.
Make the event log viwer fast again. The XML logging system made it a pain to work with.
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Windows audio would really deserve a managing app that should bring together input/output control and the mixer app.
Windows sound management, as it is, is rubbish. Say I have two monitors attached, each with its own speakers. Why can't I configure Windows so that the left channel comes out of the left monitor and the right channel comes out of the right monitor?
As it is, this is currently moot, as the monitors I am currently using have no speakers built into them, only audio outputs (via HDMI/DispalyPort), so Windows sees them as audio output devices, but unless I plug a speaker into each, which would seem pointless (I could do the same with the outputs on the motherboard), I won't hear anything anyway.
The ability, however, to set multiple devices for simultaneous audio output, or assign different channels to each, or even different applications to different outputs, is, if available at all, so deeply hidden and obfuscated as to be practically absent.
Quit complaining. One search with your favourite search engine would have resulted in:
:: Windows 11: Explorer show classical menu right away
reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f /ve
Some other things (part of my script I copy-paste in every server in a cmd window to make the server 2022/2025 more bearable)
:: Taskbar
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v TaskbarSmallIcons /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v TaskbarGlomLevel /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM" /v ColorPrevalence /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
:: Show seconds on task bar.
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v ShowSecondsInSystemClock /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
:: Explorer
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v HideFileExt /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v Hidden /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v NavPaneExpandToCurrentFolder /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v NavPaneShowAllFolders /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v LaunchTo /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer" /v ShowRecent /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer" /v ShowFrequent /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
:: a0600000 = Remove Quick Access, a0100000 = reenable
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{679f85cb-0220-4080-b29b-5540cc05aab6}" /v ShellFolder /t REG_DWORD /d 2690646016 /f
:: Windows 10/Server2016-2022: Snapbar/Snapassis etc bla off
reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v SnapBar /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v SnapAssist /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v EnableSnapAssistFlyout /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v EnableSnapBar /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v DITest /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" /v EnableTaskGroups /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v WindowArrangementActive /t REG_SZ /d "0" /f
:: Desktop My Computer
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel" /v {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe Add "HKU\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel" /v {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu" /v {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe Add "HKU\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu" /v {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
:: Desktop My Computer = Hostname
powershell.exe -Command "$C = Get-CimInstance Win32_Computersystem;if ($C.DomainRole -ne 2) {$N = '.'} else {$N = ' '};$N = $C.DNSHostName + $N + $C.Domain;Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}' -Name '(default)' -Value $N"
:: Desktop user
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel" /v {59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee} /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe Add "HKU\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel" /v {59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee} /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu" /v {59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee} /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe Add "HKU\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu" /v {59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee} /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
:: DragWidth & DragHeight (default = 4)
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v DragHeight /t REG_SZ /d "16" /f
reg.exe Add "HKU\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop" /v DragHeight /t REG_SZ /d "16" /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v DragWidth /t REG_SZ /d "16" /f
reg.exe Add "HKU\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop" /v DragWidth /t REG_SZ /d "16" /f
:: disable Activity Hisotry, formerly known as Timeline. Any why is this a system wide setting...
reg.exe Add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System" /v PublishUserActivities /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
:: Telemetry, for machine and office
reg.exe Add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DataCollection" /v AllowTelemetry /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe Add "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common\ClientTelemetry" /v DisableTelemetry /d 1 /f
Logoff and logon to finish, or restart explorer.
That depends on the Linux you choose and what you do with it. All three major OS-es can be simple, complex and disgustingly shit. It is just a different shade. And all those three change their shade from time to time. Windows: Currently obvious. Linux: Systemd and a few other things. Mac: Not my cup, way too much dictatorship and enforcement to blindly trust the rotten fruit. Security-wise: All three are surprisingly close to each other regarding security related bugs. Update policy: Due to the fact that Linux has been around > 30 years not so much different / better from others. Apple: You know the history of "cutting old connections" and the financial+compatibility aftermath. Windows: Surprisingly good, if you rely on Win32/WPF, including running old Win32 games natively even on non x86 platforms, but surprisingly bad in a few other compartments.
I consider the Mac stuff to be the equivalent of a desktop console system similar to PS or XBOX, just with different functionality.
It is very fit for the purpose it was designed to, and limited (relatively speaking) compared to some other options.
You live within the console life-cycle hierarchy but you generally know what that is up front. Maybe you can re-purpose an old console with a new OS after that.
Some people like consoles, and if they work for them that is awesome.
Others may want something different and that is awesome too.
That looks useful, but could you identify what they do? E.g. whilst I can guess that 'NavPaneShowAllFolders' probably means 'expand all folders in explore' I'm not sure, and I don't know if the subsequent '1' in the sequence is turning this on, or off, or is one of multiple values for different options...
With thanks in advance!
All that's needed to get me to pay Microsoft actual money to upgrade to Windows 11 and beyond is :
Officially don't insist on a TPM and more recent hardware, it may be marginally more secure but the trade off isn't good enough. When's the last time Windows 10 had an exploit that would have been magically fixed with Windows 11 protections, certainly not seen any security people shouting about it? The amount of e-waste generated is criminal.
Don't insist on a Microsoft account. My computer, under my control.
However what's also required is :
Bring back clicking on the clock showing a calendar, or a built in calendar program that lets you perform date arithmetic. I use it all the time at work. I'm sure you could knock something up in Powershell, but I'd rather have an app built in.
Improve the multi desktop functionality, and/or offer a mode similar to the Powertoys widget that creates multiple desktops as separate secure desktops windows cannot be moved between. Sometimes you want to start a program on one desktop, and never have it move
Reduce the difference between a Powershell command prompt and an actual command prompt, especially 'dir' being an alias for 'Get-ChildItem' which has completely different behaviour.
Get rid of Notepad tabs. When a new file is opened and multiple notepad instances are open it's unpredictable which instance it'll attach it to, or indeed on which virtual desktop. Supremely irritating.
If you're going to improve Notepad, go the full hog and just pay the Notepad++ creator lots of money to bundle it in Windows. I'd prefer vim, but I can understand why a lot of people wouldn't.
Make Windows search usable to the average user without needing a reference manual. Common file types should be automatically indexed. If you wish to search by date created it should be there in a search centre, not having to remember any syntax.
Standardised, widely supported enforcement of 'paste as plain text only', rather than having to past rich text into notepad, then copy from there, and paste into the destination application.
Bring back WMR support. It's disgraceful the hardware isn't even getting ten years support, and there's absolutely no way of using it without Microsoft's involvement.
Make it easier to create simple GUI applications using Powershell, stop pretending it's just a scripting language, and lean in to it using the full featured .NET runtime.
As far as I can make out the backup app only backs up to the cloud? Let an external drive also be an option for the average user.
> Who demanded that AI and tabs be built into Notepad, a program that people loved for its simplicity?
Actually, I like the tabs and restore on restart functions that grown up editors such as Notepad++ already have. But AI? No. Just No.
> 7. Pin apps to specific screens & 8. Program groups launch multiple, related apps at once.
Please, yes - to quickly get back to where I was after frequent crashes/unwanted reboots.
I use "launchnmove": https://robsnotebook.com/batch-to-launch-an-application-at-desired-window-position-from-command-line/
> 5. Bring back the movable, resizeable taskbar
This falls into the category of "Why did you remove something that worked?". Also restore:
Cascade/tile app windows e.g. open emails or spreadsheets that I frequently refer to.
Borders on File Explorer windows. The OS is called "Windows", not "Window"!
Can you explain that Flocke, because it sounds rather tin foil hat to me?
I already have a Windows 10 system that plays Blurays fine, it doesn't have a TPM.
The PC based Bluray playback market, every time I've looked is a complete monopoly driven by Cyberlink (PowerDVD). There are other attempts to capture the market, but they don't persist.
Looking again right now, I can see there's some (awkward) open source possibilities, makemkv with fiddling, and Leawo[1]; I can't say I'm convinced Leawo is going to stick around.
[1] and of course there is Linux user whinging that Leawo *dare* to ask users to upgrade to a purchasable version when Blurays are paused.
> TPM is not for your security. It is there to keep secrets from you so you can only watch your Blu-ray discs on a devices that inflict Digital Restrictions Management on you.
That's nonsense, TPM has nothing to do with BD or DVD encryption.
In fact, there isn't really any DRM system using TPMs.
TPMs are primarily used for FDE (Full Disk Encryption) and some security software uses it for attestation.
> When's the last time Windows 10 had an exploit that would have been magically fixed with Windows 11 protections
It will have one in October, just after MS's last update for Win10 has finished its countdown (random length for each machine, don't want to be too obvious) and unwraps its "little surprise",……
"and many are also present i Apple OS X btw."
Hmmm ... not sure about that. In MacOS....
You need an app to get decent clipboard management; I don't know if any of them have multiple, assignable ones.
I don't use multi-screens but MacOS managment of spaces is bloody awful and gets worse with every new OS. It's one of the many MacOS features introduced with a fanfare then neglected, degraded and finally ignored.
You can't have multiple clocks in the menu bar (natively - there might be apps) but you can put a them in the widget sidebar. This needs a swipe to get it on screen but the problem is that even the smallest widgets are huge so once you've more than three or four in the sidebar than it's a swipe and a scroll to find what you want.
Keyboard re-mapping isn't bad, albeit a bit convoluted, and there's a lack of standardization creeping in with newer apps which is a pain. I like the idea of having a button that is only used for custom keys. The Mac has, effectively, got 4 modifier keys if you include the Fn key.
There's no multi-launch, there's no task bar like the Windows one and the mission-control function (which shows all open apps) is useless.
Audio control is much like Windows, requiring a trip to System Settings to change the default audio. Airplay is OK - I stream music to my hi-fi via airplay and can direct other audio to Mac speakers or bluetooth but it can be frustrating; open your bluetooth ear pods and they'll auto connect to the Mac and reset all your other audio-settings too.
In spite of the above I like my Mac and wouldn't buy an MS machine unless a job required it, but most of the things in the article aren't really available in MacOS unless I've misunderstood.
What would I like? Well, the article is about MS so not really applicable but, in no particular order:
- plain-text paste as default,
- Spaces to work as it should, with apps appointed to spaces and staying there and the spaces staying in the same order so I know how many swipes left/right to get to stuff.
- recognize military time in native apps (1643 - no bloody colon) so when I'm typing reminders and calendar entries I don't have to find the bloody colon;
And finally - for the El Reg forum - when I edit a post it should take me straight the edit box, not just the display box so I don't direct the cursor the the edit point only to find that I can't edit and I have to scroll down.
As for audio, ~ I agree, and Rogue Amoeba's 'Soundsource' application is thus about the first thing I install on a new Mac (well, OK, after LittleSnitch firewalling). It used to be Boom, but Soundsource is pro audio software (and thus also supports plugins).
Military time?
Is this an international military thing or just US Military?
To me 1643 is a year and I've never encountered a representation of time with a separator of some kind except in files named something like output -20250815-1643.txt
No criticism here, I'm just curious.
I don't know if it's universal, but certainly in NATO military time has a leading zero and no colon. So 8 AM is written 0800 (pronounced "oh eight hundred") and 8 PM is written 2000 (20 hundred). GMT/UTC is referred to as "zulu". At the moment it's 7:09 AM in the UK which is 0609 zulu cos we're on daylight saving time - called British summer time over here.
I'm with you on the leading zeroes - my understanding has always been that 24 hour times always need leading zeroes...
E.g. 8:00 is wrong and could be a 12 hour time missing its suffix, so it should be 08:00
Is there a difference between written and verbal numbers here? E.g. i would say oh-eight-hundred but would write 08:00
I'd completely forgotten about the use of Zulu!
> Military time?
If you deal with US-defaultism people with that wacko "am/pm", where "11 am" is 1100 hours and "12 am" is 0000 or 2400 hours, whereas "11 pm" is 2300 hours and "12 pm" is 1200 hours using military style or rest-of-the-world 24hour clock style is the only way to make sure everyone is on the same page. And if you write "12:00" in an normal forum every US-defaultism asks "am or pm?", whereas non-US that question does not even arise... Even many US citizens I know often have to think twice (or more than twice) about 12 am/pm since it is such an arcane weird logic.
Therefore the only solution is to use US-military time, which ALWAYS uses 24-hours style due to very very bad experiences with than am-pm wackoness. Which is one of the better things in the US-military where no "tradition", "believe" or "opinion" questions are asked. Similar for vaccination: The US-military does not ask for "believe" or "opinion", they take the statistics and numbers. And if you refuse vaccine you are out and not fit for service. Similar reason why US-military often use "Klicks" for distance measurements, which is exactly 1km, especially since cooperating with many non-US requires a distance system which the majority of the world uses.
PS: ISO8601 is the best.
I used to work in the UK for a US company and I still write the date as "17 Aug 25" after getting into the habit at work to avoid the inevitable confusion due to the strange US format. I've always used "250817" style prefixes for things like config-backups and other files that I need to keep but quickly know the creation date.
<< the only solution is to use US-military time, >>
The only solution is to use anything but anything US Yank. They use dates back-to-front, can't measure distances the same as the rest of the world, and their gallons are different volumes to the obsolete gallons used elsewhere. As for their tech industry, it is advert/marketing based with little consideration for the "customer".
Shortcut keys, that is. For fat fingered typists like me, I sometimes have no idea what keys I bashed and the app has saluted that and helpfully decided to pop open some dialogue box or other.
Also second the many calls here for no MS account. There is absolutely no need for this and there really needs to be a choice, properly explained.
1. You get an account, your stuff is backed up to OneDrive (assuming you didn't stick it in some weird folder), but you'll get piles of ads that make your local deliverers of junk mail look like rank amateurs. By the way, the ads tend to come from national gossip rags who clearly think the entire country simply HAS to know about the latest shenanigans of $THIS_WEEKS_CELEBRITY.
2. You don't get an account, you're on your own for backing up, but you won't get ads, and you're free to live in ignorance.
"I think what human interfaces look like today and what they will look like five years from now is one big area of thrust for us that Windows continues to evolve," Microsoft's corporate VP of Windows + Devices said.
Windows 10 & 11 are the worst since Windows 2.0 on a Hercules card.
They have been going backwards since 2003. No-one is going to wait 5 years unless forced to.
Linux Mint with Mate desktop is far more flexible and productive and Debian based distros have been for over 10 years (if you are running later Windows than XP / Server 2003), if you have the applications you want.
Have a beer for supporting MATE it's the absolute best desktop environment for anyone who wants a sane, unobtrusive desktop with no nonsense *
I currently use Ubuntu MATE edition and even pay a monthly Patreon subscription to support it because (amongst other things) I don't like to way Mint messes with the stock theme of MATE - I get that they're trying to appeal to Windows users but the last thing I want is a desktop like Windows.
However systemd has touched me in bad places recently and I'm seriously considering switching to Devuan + MATE.
*Sadly, some nonsense from GNOME is leaking in via changes to GTK and MATE's use of a few GNOME applications such as "simple scan" (now called "document scanner").
Another very happy Mint MATE user here...switched when Ubuntu started their Unity stuff.
Also, on an almost 10 y.o. Dell Latitude laptop, Mint 22.1 boots blindingly fast, compared to Windows. The maxed RAM and SSD might be a factor, but give me a Linux laptop over Windows, any day -- Windows' "Don't turn your computer off -- 10% complete" when you're trying to walk out the door with your laptop is a killer.
You can access the audio devices list with just two clicks: click on the network/volume/battery icons, and click the icon to the right side of the volume slider.
Or if you like keyboard shortcuts, Ctrl+Windows+V.
Speaking of keyboard shortcuts, remapping them on Windows would require co-operation from app developers, there is no central mechanism that Microsoft could hook into.
I was looking to see if anyone mentioned the audio volume method of changing audio devices. Even my wife, who can mess up any electronic device can manage that one. As for item 4, changing the windows shortcut keys, that would be a no go for me. Too often do I have to work with some else's machine and if everyone could change the shortcuts, well there wouldn't be any shortcuts.
So much software these days has nagging, demanding qualities. Whether on desktop or mobile, programs want to upsell, show advertisements, send notifications, solicit the use of AI "features," or just beg for app store reviews. It's a near-constant flood of micro-annoyances, and I wish they would stop. At least in Windows, I've been able to disable the annoying notifications, but other Microsoft programs will frequently insist on popping up "what's new" notifications when I'm just trying to get my damn work done.
From a product development perspective, I understand why these nags exist, which is ultimately to generate revenue, but goddamn if it wouldn't be nice to have a "fuck all the way off" setting in the OS which disabled the entire category of notifications for all applications. It's never going to happen, of course, because revenue, but a man can dream.
On Linux and *BSD, there's both a 'clipboard' and a 'selection'. It took me a while to learn about the latter, but I now find it _very_ useful that I can select some text with the mouse, move over to another program, and click the mouse wheel to paste it, all without any faffing about with Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V.
Re modifier keys : my elderly keyboard has two Windows® keys (the left one is remapped to Compose; the right is known to X11 as 'Super R') and a 'Menu' key. I'd support more use of modifier keys, and not just by our friends in Redmond. New keyboards are not necessary; we have CapsLock, currently not doing much of anything except being an annoyance, and I think many of us would be willing to remap one of our Ctrl or Alt or Shift keys to be an added modifier, if that modifier actually was useful somewhere.
I've Caps Lock as Compose and Left Win drags a window with mouse click anywhere. But I've mostly ditched Windows since Jan 2017. I do have XP, Win7 and Win 10 on VMs on Linux Mint. Both Shift is CapsLock if really needed.
This
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/disk2vhd
Let me clone my retired XP Laptop. Loads in about 3 seconds. USB device pass through works and mapping any sort of suitable port to a COM port,
Good thought, but unless I'm missing something [0], not quite.
In Linux, I can select some text (with left-button mouse/move to select it) and copy to clipboard, then paste from the clipboard, much as in Microsoft Windows.
But I can also just select the text, then paste it with a middle click. The selection and clipboard are two separate things; I can have some text in the clipboard (and paste it in the "usual") ways, and some totally different text in the selection. So, in effect, two different "clipboards". Once you get the hang of this, it is extremely useful.
[0] Which would be possible. I used Windows extensively from about 1993 to circa 2014, and rarely since then. I notice that a heck of a lot of us commentards bashing Windows and giving Microsoft unasked-for, unwanted advice are, like me, not actual Windows users. (Though not all).
1. Bring back a set of UI with themes and flexibility that Win9x, NT 4.0, win20K XP and Server 2003 had. Even the application menus, radio buttons, check boxes, scroll bars, configurability of Win3.1 -WFWG311 & NT 3.x was better than GUI on Win10/Win11
2. Fix File Explorer and ditch confusing mirror folders. Add option for 2nd window and have file endings on by default. See Caja and Nemo, or Pre NT 4.0 File Manager.
3. Make every key have an AltGr and add a compose key.
4. Consistent menus, never hide less used stuff. Ribbons optional.
5. All settings in Control panel, not 3 places plus console comands.
6. Local accounts and Domain accounts by default. Cloud accounts only an extra.
7. No built in Cloud storage / One Drive. Any as option
8. Local backups to external drive.
9. No auto tiles or maximising or snap for Windows. User control
10. All help as local files (but not PDFs).
Perhaps that's because left handers comprise only around 10% of the population. In a good many areas of its operations, 10% seems to be too small a proportion for MS to bother with. It will (as always) all come down to money. They probably consider that there isn't enough financial return in accommodating left-handedness.
Yes to #5 there - all settings back to Control Panel, please!
+ Bring back the ability to easily customise the Start menu a la Windows 7
+ Respect my default browser choice everywhere, don't make me have to set it in multiple different apps. Teams I'm looking at you. I suppose that is an applicaiton choice not OS but it feels on-topic to me.
Try "Digital Clock 5". I stumbled upon it when I searched for a way to display the current week number along with the date and day of the week within the clock. You can have multiple clocks, transparent on you desktop, each different time zone, each a different style. It can be "mouse transparent", i.e. you can click through the clock on the window controls below. You can make the clock "transparent X-% on mouse-over" so see what is below.
Paraphrased FTA: "Every time you use a keystroke, and angel gets its wings"
I have multiple local accounts for different purposes. Different customers, different profiles, different activities in the day, etc. I'd come to learn the keyboard keystrokes to switch accounts quickly, but after the 23H2 update (maybe even earlier), the account listing would not even have the last account - or even currently logged in account(s) - in order. In fact, the local accounts seem to rotate randomly in the list you can select from. Not only that, and here's the really frustrating part, is that the memory muscle keystrokes had mutated in a way that actually logged me out of one account WITHOUT PROMPT. Not even a "do you want to log out? you have apps running..." prompt.
FWIW - here's my muscle memory keystroke, but now I've been trained, no, conditioned, by MS to focus on which account I want to switch to before I hit that last Enter to commit:
Win | Up Arrow | Enter | Tab | Tab | Space | [Select Account]
The [Select Account] option used to be predictable, almost defined, as in the last user switched to or logged in with.
P.S. - yeah, I know this keystroke sequence may seem a little laborious to some, but I've been laborious my whole life. :-)
P.P.S. - There are other peeves I have with the Win11 UI changing, but this one is currently #1 on my list.
I've gone mint on two machines it was close to painless the drivers all worked , I added my browser of choice so that is cool. All I need to do is remove the features I don't use, safe in the knowledge that once removed they will not reappear unlike the dross in windows which either doesn't allow you to remove the programs (just hides them and activates nag screens) or are reinstalled the next ''security update'
1. Make "Color the active window by the color of the theme" default.
2. Make the border visible, at least as an option. Especially on remote sessions it is a time wasting search game to hover around checking for a cursor change to know where/if where the window can be resized.
3. Make scrollbars always visible by default, and make them wider.
4. Get rid of "full row select". That is the one thing where the Windows Vista explorer was much better then every incarnation after it.
5. No more tabbed explorer. The Windows 10 (and Server 2016 to 2022) variant was more efficient, important thing like "create folder" required only ONE click.
6. For me personally: Fix the "Nested-vistualization dedup data corruption" which is in there since Server 2022/2025 as first level VM. Worked fine for Server 2016 and Server 2019 (Host WIndows 11/Server 2022/Server 2019) - The "not supported constellation" was added to the support article ONLY for me in July 2025.
7. Make Windows Fast Again. The speed creeeeeeep is really extreme.
8. Stop being to rude to push MS-cloud into every piece and start listening to your customers. I don't care what you do with the home version, but with the PRO version, which is supposed to be FOR WORK, don't push MS account, don't push AI crap, don't push "Arzue Arc" don't push push push push push push.
9. Make Updates Flawless (again?).
10. Fix those many Server 2025 bugs I constantly have to work around. With the feedback which was given LITERALLY years before the release from insiders M$ should have got the message, but no, customers are ignored.
(Only ten? I could make this list so much longer, like making search better and faster, cause a cmd.exe box with a "dir /s" command is often faster, and I can search for files with "*(1)*".)
11. For all administrators sake in exery MMC: Make the divider bar two pixels wider, and move it 200 pixels to the right. Saving us the time for the "Windows Administrator Move" you see in EVERY video any windows administrator has ever put online. Fix that, if the screen is above 1920x1200, the right pane is completely ridiculously out of what, especially in the hyper-v MMC.
12. For Server 2022/Server2025/Windows 11: Fix powershell ISE to make Get-Childitem -Literalpath "\\?\C:\" working again. We need that for long path syntax, and since PS-ISE is on every server it is often THE development environment since Customers don't like having visual studio on every server (especially domain controllers)...
13. Powershell_ISE: When a dark theme is chosen make the "select color" better, i.e. invert instead of using a 40% transparent "Control panel select cursor" color.
14. If the screen is 4k, do NOT make 300% zoom the default, especially not if the OS detects that the screen is large, 'cause it DOES detect the size.
Agh I need to stop now.
Keep in Mind: Only two of the above issues are not UI related. Below the UI is an actually good folly object oriented OS. Dave Cutler did make the right design decisions over 30 years ago.
EDIT:
15. Bring the shadowcopy GUI from the server back to the client OS, and set the capabilities of the client shadowcopy equal to the server shadowcopy. Then I would not need my helper scripts any more.
16. As a payback for the horrendous UI: Give us deduplication for Windows 11 Pro and higher.
Microsoft has an intriguing business plan. Pay lots of overpaid engineers to create stuff users don't want, then force them to ditch the old stuff they liked in familiar of the new sh*t. The word monopoly doesn't even get started.
Then again, my more recent undergrad students can't type - that's not taught any more - and are confused by having multiple windows open on one screen.
Proper virtual desktops, like we had with fvwm/tvwm on SunOS, convex, iris, aix and pretty much every Unix I used in the 90s. It's a problem that was solved over 30 years ago.
Whatever the stuff is in win11 ( desktops ? ) works like sh?t.
An app on desktop x stays on desktop x and so do all its popups. Desktop switching is immediately and obvious. Dragging windows from one desktop to another just works.
This will finally allow me to have one desktop for coding
One for email/office
One for webstuff
And one to banish teams to.
And of course this should just work with however many monitors I'm using today.
(Docked or undocked)
Make the OS run in <100MB. It's an OS, it should be able to do this easily. If I want an app to do something, I should be able to find one. Most of my problems with MS is it tries to do too much, and doesn't do a lot of it very well. It's telling me today is World Honey Bee day in my search box. Yey. I'd rather it found stuff I wanted, especially when it spends so much CPU 'indexing'.
well I have a list of things that will never be missed
The usual , local account only, NO automatic onedrive backup. removal of any 'AI' from the OS, and no voice control and random audio.
However, after a recent escapade with notepad+, the one thing I'd like to see (and take part in) is who ever thought up tabs in notepad should be taken out, tied over a bonfire, have their limbs attatched to wild horses, before having whats left of their skin removed with a spoon and their heart cut out and shown to them......... AND then I'll get nasty.
After all having the users used to notepad closing the file and saving the changes is one thing, but closing notepad while leaving the tab open, then 35 more tabs being left open before the OS throws a wobbly about the one file they are trying to save, while notepad has another tab open on the same file.... then its "Boris!!!! can you sort this out on this new laptop?" while I'm deep in writing a new automation macro involving in-cycle measurement and in-cycle tool adjusting...... grrrrrrrr.....
"and no voice control"
I have no need for accessibility features either, but there they are in the settings, not enabled by default, not bothering me one bit. Why is voice control bad?
"and random audio."
You hear voices? There is no random audio in Windows.
"who ever thought up tabs in notepad"
I didn't like tabs either in web browsers when they were introduced quarter century ago. I got used to them and find tabs better.
The lauded Notepad++ has had tabs since forever - a great feature. Closing NP++ and reopening continues where I left off. Now Windows Notepad mimics NP++ and suddenly all sorts of cockroaches come out "yelling at the cloud".
NO "helpful tips" (aka "helpful features", "screen tips") colored popup boxes that stop you from working until you acknowledge them.
"Did you know you can import photos directly from Android devices?" while I'm trying to edit some spec or other?
F*CK RIGHT OFF with that sh*t. They can (if you're into registry editing) be disabled, apparently, but it must be done separately for each one.
The W2000 classic desktop and windowing clearly stated this is for work and getting stuff done.
However, it needs to be complemented by the ability to move the window furniture around. With Win 3, being able to move buttons from top right to top left was helpful for a left handed. It was fu;to also be able to change the icons and scroll bars.
Microsoft have adequately proven how much contempt they view their users with. They have already decided that they know better than their users what those users need or want.
They will not change course with all the LLM bullshit because they're too invested in it to back away. Neither will they stop spying on their users and illegally collecting way too much information about what they do - they are already in bed with the advertising industry and are too invested to back away.
Asking them nicely to change things will not work. They will just ignore you.
What's needed is a visit from regulators who are not already in the pocket of Microsoft's investors. The company needs breaking up. The effective monopoly that they have on corporate IT must be broken up. It harms the users and harms the industry.
Will any of this happen? I very much doubt it. The level of corruption involved goes too deep in too many countries. Add to that the fact the Microsoft the monopolist already has a vice like grip on the digital testicles of most countries and you end up with a monopolist which is so entrenched, getting rid of them is going to be painful and disruptive. I seriously doubt if the EU or the USA has the balls to do anything about it.
I have used many, many Linuxes but when I dumped Windows I went with Bazzite Desktop this time as a test, and after I had set it up, I changed my boot order and never looked back...though I may have to have a dedicated Windows machine for Battlefield 6 if it doesn't suck, due to their rootkit, um, i mean anti-cheat requirements.
".....and illegally collecting way too much information about what they do - they are already in bed with the advertising industry.......
I have said it before - the illegal data gathering doesn't stop at the advertising. The advertising is just a useful way of obfuscating the real destination for the harvested data ;)
I'd like to see Microsoft updating the UI into one consistent whole. Currently there are about four different UI's in Windows. The original Win32, WPF, WinRT / UWP (i.e. the mobile touch interface) and MAUI / WinUI. It's a complete mess. Any other company would've been flamed to death over this but Redmond gets away with it since they are "the standard."
I suppose it'll take them another three Windows releases to get it sorted out since it has almost zero priority for them. They're too busy overhyping A.I.
Sorry that these are comments for MS Word, but that's my world as a transactional lawyer:
1) Accept that Styles are a complete failure and disaster for the legal profession and help us out of the pit. Since 2002, when my prior law firm converted form WordPerfect to Word -- and it was shocking how terrible was Word when compared to WordPerfect -- not one Word document I have received from another counsel has been correctly styled or has been without formatting problems. Not one. I made an effort to learn this garbage in order to save myself from formatting disasters at 2am on a heavy deal, but MS has made no effort ever to help us. MS does not accept that NOT ONE SINGLE LAWYER OR LEGAL SECRETARY HAS LEARNED THIS JUNK or that different users do NOT have the same styles, and so we have endless problems that waste a ton of time.
2) Give us back the EASY one-right-click functionality to make a typo correction a permanent auto-correct going forward. Word 2003 had it, but Word 2016, 2019 and MS 365 do not. Why was it removed?
3) Track Changes is not an adequate substitute for a true redlining program, which we must buy separately. (Among other things, if I use Track Changes, there is no way to assure that opposing counsel opening my revisions will see it the same way.) Why does Word not have a decent redlining function?
4) Word does not program automatic paragraph numbering or Table of Contents well, and again we must buy third-party software to do that. And then opposing counsel without that same software cannot update Tables of Contents correctly.
5) And no one in the legal world understands Section Breaks, which are constantly misused and create new problems. Among other things, whenever I delete a Section Break or convert a Section from the default "Different first page" to not, the footers get scrambled and have to be redone. Everything about that process is backwards.
6) If I add a Comment bubble to appear in the right margin, I cannot be assured that our client or opposing counsel receiving my document will actually see the bubble.
I could go on. Please reply with your own comments.
The new Word comment system is dreadful, but at least you can (for now) revert back to Classic comments as long as you haven’t got any new-style comments in the document.
The new comments feature spans the hell out of collaborators on the document, and you can only change the focus of the comment you are editing by hitting Ctrl-Enter or the “Send” button. Who looked at that comment system and said “Yep, that is superior let’s ship it and make it the default”
You are blaming Word because it is not the Line-of-Business software you want it to be. I understand and sort of agree with many of your points, but you should not be down on Word because it is not a fully-fledged legal technical authoring package. It was never meant to be. And, for my use, I don't want it to be. I don't know whether you are UK, USA or in another legal domain, but I will bet that plenty of what your environment says is an unbreakable requirement is anathema to another domain.
The only problem with your argument is MS has pushed Office as THE processing software. You know, like "Windows 10 will be the last O/S you need" style of productivity.
When they actively proceeded to kill WP (among others) in order to get their software as the defacto standard, they effectively told the world "I am the only thing you need!"
The problem is they only care about revenue, not end-users or end-user needs..
From my perspective as a user, multiple user editing of a large, complex Word document was a hot mess. Comments, save changes, highlight changes, Sharepoint...it was all too much for my poor PC. And this was Win10. Probably the biggest problem was that page numbers and section numbering were the first to die a messy death. Formatting was a close second. We discovered that more than a "few" (3 or 4?) simultaneous editors was more than Word could handle. Add the delays due to varying network speeds, Sharepoint update time, and all the rest of the molasses in the system, and very little actual work got done.
Granted, the whole project was like that, but my experience editing that shared document was enough to keep me from ever wanting to do it again.
My biggest beef with Windows is hitting Ctrl-C or file->copy or rightclick->copy or whatever, doing a "paste", and Windows pulls something out of its ass from 2 hours ago and shits all over my document.
It's so bad, that every time I do a copy, I do Win-V to make sure that the fucking thing COPIED like I told it to, and about 60% of the time, it DIDN'T.
How god damned hard is it to do a proper copy operation? Why do I have to hit Ctrl-C or whatever 3 times before it finally copies? WHY?!
This is the one thing that makes me bellow at my Windows VMs or my machine at work.
Everything else I can sort of live with or find a workaround or some sort of applet to fix.
Multiple clipboards? How about ONE that works?
I kinda agree with this.
But the WORST place that this was effecting me was from Google Gemini. For some reason, this was my fix:
- I killed all my 'Gemini Extensions'
- I turned OFF Clipboard History.
I haven't had a problem since I took those two actions.
I've never seen another app NOT honor my CTRL+C or CTRL+V actions.
It DOES drive me crazy that I can't use the context menu in google sheets. I'd rather pull off my fingernails than spend ANY time in M$ word or Google Docs.
I LOVE me some sheets though.
oh when you say 'Windows VMs' are you talking about HyperV?
You DO know that in order to get Copy / Paste work properly, you need to enable that feature in the remote desktop feature.
and to copy and paste properly in HyperV, you need to
- right-click Settings
- Select 'Integration Services' (ON THE LEFT, IT'S THE SECOND ITEM UNDER MANAGEMENT)
- check the box that says 'Guest Services'
I don't know FOR SURE whether that is REQUIRED for copy and paste.
But I know that I can't get copy and paste to work INSIDE A VM unless I turn on that feature.
It's not gonna let you copy and paste (into your host) unless you're running Remote Desktop.
I can't STAND VNC / Chrome Remote Desktop or anything else.
I was stuck for YEARS on VNC, and then I found xrdp, and since I figured THAT shit out, I've lost about 2/3rds of my limitations on embracing Linux.
I think that it's called SCOPE_CREEP how VNC wants to enforce all this SSL_BULLSHIT when you're trying to vnc on your LAN.
IDGAF about what most CyberS people say. Fuck SSL requirements on my LAN.
Not every user is looking for an AI chatbot that will listen to their inane hopes and dreams and refrain from laughing...
Some people require computers that interact with other hardware, and bluetooth is a huge improvement over wrangling a cats cradle of cables out in the field - until windows unilaterally turns off bluetooth and wont turn it back on.
Sure you can restart it by doing a full reboot, but why the fuck should you have to?
The ideology seems to be all about cloud and AI and chat, and practical industrial use is just too uncool.
I actually REALLY want Microsoft Recall to be available on machines without the upgraded hardware.
I'm tired of getting new machines every 2-3 years. I can't afford a 40-whatever NPU.
I'd give anything to be able to play with Recall. I think it should be configurable as HELL.
And it should be integrated with group policy, and it'll take over the world like wildfire.
Of course, I think that Win8 KICKED ASS. I feel the same way about VISTA.
I think that XP was the crappiest version. And Seven was OK, I really liked the Media Center feature. Sad to see that go to a paid feature (then removed entirely).
1. The active window title bar needs to show it is active like it did from Windows 3 to 7. This works with most apps, but MS Office and Chrome don't work. I have multiple monitors, I want to know which window is going to take keyboard input.
2. Let me change the colours of Windows elements myself. I don't want to choose from a list of 8 pre-approved colour palettes from MS.
BTW: Clipmate is that allows multiple keyboard hostories.
Completely reskinnable interface. everything from right click context menu to file explorer and taskbar/desktop etc.
This way MS suddenly has tens of thousands of people working for FREE and may come up with a much better way of working.
Just build in a complex key combo like ctrl+shift+windows+alt+pause/break (or a keyboard shortcut during boot) that returns the original shell in case the new one is borked.
Like Doom/Skyrim/minecraft etc people WILL make stuff for free that makes your OS more valuable.
Wanna bitch about the clock? well make your own......
With Linux and macOS.
I get why people still use windows or at least I did - familiarity.
I used windows from 3.1.1 right up to win7.
After that, the enshitification began.
When the familiarity of the OS you use on a daily basis is thrown out the window, there's no longer any point using it.
It's even worse when that happens multiple times over releases.
I moved to macOS and increased my use of Linux as a result.
Apple may be a walled garden, but it's a familiar one. They know how to make incremental changes to the OS.
You could time travel someone from 2001 using the first macOS X release and plonk them in front of the latest one and it would be immediately familiar.
I use Linux because I can make it how I want it - I can customise absolutely everything.
It's also fantastic for gaming.
Queue the downvotes, but I really don't understand why anyone these days would use windows unless forced to do so OR because it's the only place specific software is supported.
I still have a windows partition - win11 locked onto 23H2, debloated and used solely for occasional PCVR sessions.
Even debloated like this, it can frequently infuriate me. Despite being locked to 23H2 it'll still find something to install that requires a reboot, sometimes several reboots.
That quick PCVR game you wanted to play? - add 10 minutes before you can even launch the game.
Sure, it's likely because I PCVR game very infrequently - twice a month at most - by which time Microsoft have a bunch of updates ready.
The moment Linux support for PCVR is 80% there, that partition becomes additional games space for my Linux rig and I say goodbye to windows forever.
All good apart from.......
"[Apple] know how to make incremental changes to the OS"
They do until suddenly they don't. Splitting iTunes into separate apps for music, podcasts and books with the latter two looking like iOS apps but with less functionality comes to mind. They're about to make their backup discs (Time Capsules) obsolete because AFP will be dropped; dropping AFP to standardize on SMB wouldn't be an unreasonable decision if Apple's implementation of SMB didn't suck. But, overall, it's the apparent tansition of their MacOS apps towards iOS-type apps in terms of look, features and performance which is of more concern.
The fact that MS VP of Windows + Devices thinks that in only 5 years the way everyone interacts with their PC will be moving away from the convention of keyboard and mouse that has worked absolutely fine for the last almost 50 years, just goes to show how far removed from reality of what actual PC users want Microsoft has become.
Touch works fine for mobile devices, but if i have any desire to actually write more than a short message ill go to a keyboard and mouse on a PC every time over typing on my phone or tablet, and dictation software has been around for decades but its never taken off as mainstream, as in any sort of shared environment people chattering away to their PCs does not make a productive place to work and concentrate.
How about a search function in file explorer that does not redo the whole search operation that took ten minutes to complete each and every time I just want to sort the results by a different column? By the way Agent Ransack does just that and it is fast too.
A bit off-topic, but as for MS Outlook, how about a search function that actually works. I can see e-mails sitting in my inbox with the subject line matching what I am looking for and the search function misses it completely. Another two pet peeves:
a) If an e-mail cannot be found in the current folder or any of the subfolders, just tell me the item cannot be found. NO, I do not want search results from other folders, that is not what I asked. Waste of time.
b) Would it be that hard to fill out a default sender when replying to an e-mail, regardless of what mailbox it resides in? You know, like my own e-mail address, because I am the one answering it? Currently, it is only possible to set the sender address to a default for new e-mails, not for replies.
Besides the awful data harvesting, Windows 11 introduced Stupidity™ to Windows Explorer. The simple English words Copy, Cut and Paste were deemed too technical and replaced by pictures drawn by a small child.
I have to assume that this was the same child whose drawing of a cat has been used to mean "safely eject a peripheral" for years now.
I would like just the minimal set of services running on a new windows instance.
One of the 1st things I have to do on a Win PC is look at what services are running & see which can be disabled, or at least set to manual run.
So much needless cruft is an automatic running service, just about everything possible seems to be setup "just in case" (whereas its perfectly simple that when a new feature enabled / new software installed to prompt me that a particular service now needs to be enabled / ask me if it can be enabled).
.. This is just windows services - the whole letting OEMs add huge abouts of junk is a whole different issue (but adds nothing (other than some cash for MS) & impairs PC performance / security even further)
Curiosity, and since I have "plain installed and updated" VMs ready so I counted the "running" services, not yet optimized for services (like disable IP-helper, which does unneeded 4to6 stuff and a few other dumb things)...
Server 2022 real install running on my i5-6300U Laptop for solar-stuff-control via powershell, but also for other jobs and as ebook-reader: 68, five of them Intel GPU crap, one for Synaptics touchpad. But, compared to the Server 2022 VM, services for bluetooth and WLAN active, Hyper-V host and deduplication are activated too.
Windows 11 24h2 real gaming machine with TV card, Nvidia thingy, big AMD CPU, some other hardware: 120 services... And I did optimize them. But this is also my main Hyper-V hosts since it has most power to run for the VMs listed here reasonable fast.
Server 2022 VM: 78 services running, but five of them are "hyper-v guest" thingies. Means: Nearly ten of those services are useless and not needed.
Server 2025 VM: 101 services running, but six of them are "hyper-v guest" thingies + WLAN + Audio services active and running by default (Bluetooth installed, but service not started - why is it installed in a VM anyway???). Means: About ?15? of those services are useless and not needed.
Server 2019 VM "core" install: 51 services.
WinNT 4.0 Server SP6a: 14 services running (though nothing Server-like is configured there, just installed)
WinNT 3.51 Workstation SP5 VM: 10 services running.
There are some more VMs, but I am too lazy now :D.
Windows has evolved as a series of 'Good Ideas', for varying levels of 'Good', applied badly over each other ...
The primary mistake was Win 8 which was a 'Stupid Idea' sold as a good one that was released when 60% done ... from then on it has been creeping unusability on top of brain-dead UI design all the way to win 11.
MS never finish what they start and the OS is a huge mess.
This mess is then supporting Applications that are following the same almost but not quite finished technique.
MS Office is almost unusable BUT years of practise allows so many to keep using it ... BTW I did not like Wordperfect either but is was more usable if you learnt the keystrokes.
It is not possible for windows in any form to be completed BUT it is possible for MS to work through the long long list of issues and fix most of them. Usability seems to have been forgotten, they are trying to fix it with 'AI' ... don't fix the random mess that is where all the setup/configuration screens are scattered throughout windows 11 ... instead use 'AI' to search for what you need.
But if you cannot describe what you need properly you cannot find it at all !!!
I have used Windows for too many decades to be believed and cannot see how you get to Win 11 from Win 7 ... Windows 11 is so much worse than Win 7 and apparently is still diving to ground Zero at hypersonic speeds with all the 'AI' additions to come.
Considering the $Billions that have been spent and continue to be spent MS could have re-written Windows 7 (Keep the UI and just improve/complete the behind the scenes low level OS).
If Windows 12 ever appears what abomination can we expect !!!???
:)
In my earlier post I was expecting to get a bit of a roasting for recommending avoiding Windows entirely.
As it turns out, the vast majority of posts on this article are of the same mindset.
Microsoft are in trouble when "the nerds" are turning away in droves - deep trouble.
It's a slow erosion, sure, but it's gaining momentum now, gaining traction - the realisation amongst former die-hard windows enthusiasts that all is not well in the microsoft windows kingdom.
Windows is dying - it's been a slow death up until recently, but is now accelerating.
The embarrassing situation where windows 10 installs were, until very recently, more prevalent than windows 11 installs, after 4 years ... wow. That's bad.
Let's not forget how long it took for windows fans to finally move from win7 - most savvy users entirely skipped win8.
I was one of them - 2012 was the year I started dabbling with hackintosh.
I was already running Linux way before that, but I wanted a decent desktop.
A year later, I got a cheesegrater 5.1 mac for nothing from a company I was working for and rocked that puppy for 5 years.
I also had my gaming rig, dual booting linux/windows.
Windows, back then, purely for gaming.
Windows is on the way out now, isn't it?
I can hear a bell ringing for the demise of windows as a serious option for those of us who value our freedom to own and use our own computers.
I thought the article was going after really trivial points. Here's mine:
1. A macro editor like Excel VBA. I am forever copying names out of Teams, removing formatting and then swapping the names around in first name, second name order.
2. A better way of organising files. It is time to move on from C:\
3. Search that works for finding your files and contents
4. AI model on my desktop that I train to do my work so I can watch cat videos all day.
5. Teams to be rewritten in c++ so it doesn't need rebooting every single time you use it.
6. Able to run Android apps and have seamless workflow between Windows and Android
7. 64 bit only to move on from legacy drivers
8. A new addictive game that I can tell my boss is teaching me how to use the mouse.
9. A fun UI. The modern simple designs are boring and no longer new.
10. Get rid of control panel! It's been years!
11. A replacement for Fax and Scan.
"1. A macro editor like Excel VBA. I am forever copying names out of Teams, removing formatting and then swapping the names around in first name, second name order."
This article is about Windows. I don't want Teams to be part of Windows installation. Sadly it is in current Win11... Your clipboard text switch is easy to implement into a keyboard shortcut.
$clipboard = Get-Clipboard
# Split into first name and last name
$parts = $clipboard -split ','
# Make sure there are two parts
if ($parts.Length -eq 2) {
$reversed = "$($parts[1]),$($parts[0])"
# Copy the new format to clipboard
Set-Clipboard -Value $reversed
Write-Output "Format changed: $reversed"
} else {
Write-Output "Error: Clipboard content is not in the format first,last"
}
Save the aforementioned script into a switcharoo.ps1 file, and drag a shortcut to Windows taskbar. You can launch pinned applications from taskbar simply with Win+<number>. Win+1, for example, would launch the leftmost app. Win+2 starts the second app and so on.
Because Powershell by default has script restrictions, you need to run the command Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope CurrentUser first.
"2. A better way of organising files. It is time to move on from C:\"
What is a better way? Just saying that we need a better <something> is not constructive. Typically users organise their files into the subfolders in their home folder, and all software default to these folders.
"4. AI model on my desktop that I train to do my work so I can watch cat videos all day."
Might take a while. That Powershell script was made by Copilot with a simple query. I'm afraid your employer will just replace you so you'll have plenty of time to watch pussies on the net.
"5. Teams to be rewritten in c++ so it doesn't need rebooting every single time you use it."
They should do it in assembly to make it run rather than crawl, but in my experience I don't need to restart Teams hardly ever. Usually when it stops working and most cases have been Microsoft having wobbly clouds.
"6. Able to run Android apps and have seamless workflow between Windows and Android"
What software are you missing in Windows? Use Bluestacks for clipboard sharing.
"7. 64 bit only to move on from legacy drivers"
Windows 11 is already 64-bit only. I am quite sure most Windows installation since Windows 8 at least have been 64-bit.
You can toggle Windows into 64-bit mode where 32-bit software cannot be run.
"9. A fun UI. The modern simple designs are boring and no longer new."
Example of an UI you would like to see? FSN from Jurassic Park?
"10. Get rid of control panel! It's been years!"
Yes.
"11. A replacement for Fax and Scan."
Or, you know, just remove it.
This article is about Windows. I don't want Teams to be part of Windows installation.
Yeah no, who would. But you're missing two things:
1) Some people might.
2) And whether it comes with Windows or not, it's just an example: The OP (or someone else) might want to do stuff like that with any application, and what they're lamenting is the removal of the facilities for doing that from the OS.
Sadly it is in current Win11...
Yet another reason to avoid W11 like the plague... Easy enough at home, but at work, it's coming soon. Sigh... :-(
Your clipboard text switch is easy to implement into a keyboard shortcut.
Yeah, but that disregards the (rather obvious, IMO) fact that stuff you want to copy from Teams isn't just firstname-lastname pairs; it's the text the people behind those names sent, too. What's that script going to do, "every switch of pair around words"?
"Yeah no, who would. But you're missing two things: 1) Some people might.
...and some people might not. This was an opinion article and people are voicing their opinions in this forum, me included. I can understand that some people want bundled Teams.
"2) And whether it comes with Windows or not, it's just an example: The OP (or someone else) might want to do stuff like that with any application, and what they're lamenting is the removal of the facilities for doing that from the OS."
Can you specify what exactly has been removed? There hasn't been macro recording / playback facility in Windows since Windows 3 era. Multiple 3rd party software exists for that exact purpose.
The OP asked for Excel VBA type macros which are not that dissimilar to Powershell. If you have the required coding skills you can create mouse events in both languages.
"Yeah, but that disregards the (rather obvious, IMO) fact that stuff you want to copy from Teams isn't just firstname-lastname pairs; it's the text the people behind those names sent, too. What's that script going to do, "every switch of pair around words"?"
I gave a really simple script tailored for a specific purpose the OP was having a problem with. Powershell scales into much more complex string conversion jobs if you like.
What are you suggesting? Can you give an example of a function in another OS that does what you want?
EDIT: A preword: That Zappo2 account has been registered yesterday, a new user. Very very very suspicious.
> 1. A macro editor like Excel VBA.
With powershell already included for over two decades, and powershell is a much so better tool than VBA. If that is not enough: Autohotkey, AutoIt, notepad++ "record and play back my keyboard input" and so on. There are already many out there.
> 2. A better way of organising files. It is time to move on from C:\
No real reason. Whether you start with / or c:\ makes no difference. You can mount partitions/volumes in any c:\ folder with only very few exceptions like c:\windows. And yes, you can do that for program files, users, even per user - if you know how. Just like *nix. Same for your SD-cards, CDs, DVDs etc etc, mount them in c:\media\sd1 or whatever. Can be automated with powershell and trigger based tasks. Works surprisingly well.
> 3. Search that works for finding your files and contents
This has already been tried and the reason why I answer your "List". It was called Longhorn. Horrible horrible desatrous result. Was abandoned. Watch Dave Cutler on that. In a second video later on that channel Dave Plummer explained why it had to fail (and somehow that explains why he left Microsoft). What you want is a document and media management built into the OS level. Windows Search can actually do part of it to search your documents since Vista, which inherited some developed tools from Longhorn. If you have the right program installed which adds his part to Windows Search (i.e. .doc, .docx, those are not ascii files, they are binary coded or zipped xml or whatever). Similar result: Horrible performance, and unstable hell. You better disable all Windows Search "content in files" options. if you want document management you are better off with specialized tools.
> 4. AI model on my desktop that I train to do my work so I can watch cat videos all day.
Do you get paid to write such things? Is this some form of lame joke?
> 5. Teams to be rewritten in c++ so it doesn't need rebooting every single time you use it.
I agree with rewrite in c++ or rust, or at least pure DOTNET instead of the current crap it is based on.
> 6. Able to run Android apps and have seamless workflow between Windows and Android
Again: Do you get paid to write such thing? Do you know that Microsoft is not only actually planning to do this, it is already working (if you know how to get it).
> 7. 64 bit only to move on from legacy drivers
Haha, yeah. Take your list of Apps (formerly called programs) you use. And then go ahead and check how many can operate in a pure 64 bit environment.
> 8. A new addictive game that I can tell my boss is teaching me how to use the mouse.
You can copy those addictive games from earlier windows versions. Minesweeper, Solitaire and Freecell from Windows NT 3.51 (and later) work on Windows 11 64 bit flawless. Modern Solitaire is available for free in Microsoft Store. Tons of others are avail as freeware.
> 9. A fun UI. The modern simple designs are boring and no longer new.
Sounds like you want Windows 8.0 UI. Or Microsoft Bob. Don't just say "fun UI", make actual functional proposal(s).
> 10. Get rid of control panel! It's been years!
I disagree. The new panel wastes space, you see no scrollbar unless you hover over it, etc etc etc. There is no improvement there. Going a step back would be the right way.
> 11. A replacement for Fax and Scan.
What do you want to replace it with? Or do you mean "A newer better Fax and Scan"? What do you need Fax for BTW?
All in all you are, probably, the guy from the video with the "Windows will be without keyboard in five years", running Microsoft straight into the second Longhorn catastrophy.
> 9. A fun UI. The modern simple designs are boring and no longer new.
Or even a *boring* UI. Like in NT4. Computers and operating systems are supposed to just work; if we want to have fun, we install some fun application.
> 11. A replacement for Fax and Scan.
E-mail? ;-)
The “helpful” features can mostly be duct-taped out of sight, but why should we have to? My dev machine is locked down, I’m the admin, I build Power Apps, I live in the web tools. And yet in the middle of debugging something important, Microsoft barges in like a toddler with finger paint yelling “Do you like my new layout???”
This isn’t feedback, it’s hostage negotiation. It happens a couple of times a day — right when I’m focused — and it feels less like user research and more like being mugged by Clippy’s spoiled grandchild.
Microsoft has become the brattish kid in the back seat who will not stop kicking your chair until you clap for them. Attention at any cost.
What I really want in a Windows OS is:
1.The complete removal of all the 'appx' applications, or at least the option to completely remove any and/or all 'appx' applications. This also means doing away with Microsoft Edge and put the system message output function back into the OS. I don't want any games, XBox game bars, or any other crap that really doesn't belong on a computer.
2. I don't know if these are 'appx' applications or not, but no installation of anything AI, 'internet search highlights',
3. A menu screen that allows more than 18 items pinned per screen. Microsoft, please move away from this stupid phone interface - I hate to tell you but Microsoft doesn't sell phones anymore.
4. No advertising for Microsoft (or any other crap). Microsoft, I don't want what you are pushing and it just pisses me off.
5. If Microsoft must keep using 'appx' applications, make it so that if it is installed for one, it is installed for all and that updates to the appx are made to all. Leave it up to the administrator of the pc/domain if all users are granted use of the programs or limited to individual users or groups.
6. Make it so 'sysprep' works, despite 'appx' programs so that a reference system can be tested with multiple users and deployed when needed.
7. A consistent look and feel where users/administrators have to hunt for tools/settings/programs from version to version.
8. A really bare Windows install with perhaps a Windows 'mini store' during or after Windows installation where the user can check which items to install that Microsoft seems to think everybody should have. That way, we wouldn't have to have crapola installed, potentially using resources (like OneDrive), for things we don't or will ever use. If we change our mind, we can go to the 'mini store' and put it in (or perhaps remove something we no longer want).
9. I do not want to have to use a Microsoft account. Microsoft keeps making it more and more difficult to install Windows without a Microsoft account. At work, for users who don't absolutely need Microsoft Office, I will install Libre Office so I don't have to go through the time-consuming process of registering and installing Office from the Microsoft website.
10. I don't want the constant nagging of 'Finish setting up your computer' and nagging of setting up backups, and other nags. I have my own method of backing up systems which are more versatile and drive-space efficient than the Microsoft method. The nag screens can be confusing to the users and sometimes difficult to close.
11. A little better quality control on Microsoft's part so that I don't have to deal with so many failed updates.
Spot on. Yes please on so many of your top ten. However I am only an simple PC user but if only:
PC supported me in the way that I actually work.
Offered a simple hierarchy of on/off/uninstall of all support features.
An icon to search in any open App without having to go find Find.
Recognised that I didnt want my PC to be cloud based.
If I chose to have anniversary reminder they were in my local time and I could choose who to or not be reminded on and able to correct data errors
Gave me back by purchased Apps without forcing an annual subscription. When my skills increase then the option to buy the upgraded features.
A PC that worked consistently without changing its settings without my prior approval.
A responsive OS provider that listened then responded to user problems and invited feedback.
Kept my data secure on my machine without sharing to some inner circle.
Didnt require me to link up all my various 'hats' that i use for varying aspects of my work.
A PC that knew me and I didnt have to prove at every step that I was still that same person using for all these past years.
Is that too much to ask?
What's a scrollbar for? Oh yes, it's to let you know that you're only seeing a part of what's available. So, why do we have to scrabble about with the mouse pointer to find out if there is one? I want a setting in Windows that apps can check to find out if I prefer to have a scrollbar do its job by making itself always visible when appropriate. I don't mind if Microsoft spy on any changes to that setting, because I'm sure they'll quickly discover that only UI designers want to hide the bloody things!
Re: Instead of launching each of the apps I need one at a time, I should be able to click a single shortcut on the desktop and have it launch all the apps and open all the web pages I need to start work. Today, I could script this to happen with AutoHotKey or AutoIT, but it should be built into the OS.
BRO, you're AWFULLY close on this one. I fully agree with this.
But for STARTERS, we just need the ability to LAUNCH_MULTIPLE_WEBPAGES all at a time.
The ONLY way I know how to do this is to use
- firefox (main profile) for launching ~6 'default tabs'
- firefox Developer (main profile) for launching ~2 Social Media tabs
I use Chrome ONLY for 'google shit'
I use Edge only for Testing / Some performance - intensive shit
I use BRAVE for surfing youtube. Because FreeTube stopped working.
I just don't understand why Firefox doesn't take BROWSER_PROFILES more seriously.
I'd LIKE to have 3-10 Firefox Profiles. They'd all share 85% of their settings. Just NOT share the 'Home Page' settings.
If you think switching audio playback devices is bad on Windows, try getting any sound out of an HP machine running Linux. The latest kernel helps but the audio drivers in Linux are like a dumpster fire. I've given up trying to get HDMI audio working and resorted to Bluetooth speakers for my Linux lab machine.
On Windows I use a 3rd party application called sound switch on my home pc which lets me hot key switch between audio playback devices.
My gripe with Microsoft is all the damned telemetry they baked into it. I remember the days when software that exfiltrated your data used to be called malware.
You must be using the wrong one or thinking back a long time ago.
I'm running the current Fedora KDE (42) and selecting sound output devices is at most 2-3 clicks. Can't say how well Gnome desktops are since I stopped using Gnome decades ago.
HP hardware, on the other hand, has become the WinPrint hardware of the computer industry (cheap hardware and only works well with MS since they only provide MS drivers).
Less intrusive and stop "enhancing" or browsing, app experiences for no real gain, I agree.
Clipboards, yes but the MOD key, how sweet it would be to have a whole keyboard to mess with and make my own shortcuts, macros etc.
Wonderful idea.
Windows is slowly driving me insane. It seems there is almost no area of the desktop I can rest my cursor without some wretched panel popping up and asking me what I want or telling me the latest news or weather or bl**dy showbiz gossip. That and the nagging reminders that I didn't finish setting up a MS account. Is there a button I can press to just get a plain desktop with none of this carp? And don't get me started on the '100% disk activity' that seems to come up almost every time my laptop wakes up and makes my laptop unusable for about 10 minutes? Yes I've tried ALL the YT cures and none of them work.. I mean what's that all about, surely it doesn't need to do that so dam often? Aaaargh!
Give me back classic Notepad as an option, the vast majority of the time I used it to remove formatting etc and just turn text in to text, but the new one wants to autosave everything and have multiple tabs etc. I use Notepad++ for actual work (PowerShell scripting, JSON editing and things like that) but Notepad still got used regularly.
Make changing default apps as simple as it used to be. Changing to VLC as my default media player has meant having to choose every individual extension, rather than giving the app all of its defaults which used to be an option. If it still is, I can't find it.
Let me turn off "Recommended" on the Start Menu. I've disabled history so it should go away, now I've got a space where it in classic Bullseye "Let's see what you could have won" style it tells me my recommendations would be if I turned on history, which I don't want.
Give us the (easy) option to switch back to classic context menus on right-click. I know there is, or at least was, a registry hack for this, but it should be an easy change.
my main wish would be the ulramodular ultralean refactored windows Microsoft was supposed to work on for the cloud,but ould equally be welcome on laptops and desktoos.
my second wish is improvement /optimization of the audio stack partially underway as is midi 2 support.
my third wish is to keep the promise of minimizing restarts for updates .
When Windows 10 came out, it was promised to be the last major version, later versions would be incremental, no big steps. Hah, that did not age well. Now the company I work for is rolling out Windows 11 on corporate laptops, causing loads of wasted time: in the update itself, and in the various hickups it causes. All for the joy of everyone continuing to use Windows more or less in the same way they have used for years.
If you've set your taskbar to autohide like a normal person who wants to, you know, see their desktop... Then that button wouldn't be visible / clickable until you move your mouse to the taskbar.
And why faff about with the mouse in the first place -- is there something wrong with the Windows or D keys on your keyboard?
At work I have in-numerable (work related) security messages, pop ups & windows while trying to install software, could the installer man up & stop hiding behind all the other pop ups or at least use the Taskbar Notifications, flash a icon on the task bar when its prompting for confirmation or action to be taken.
The other day a Copilot pop up appeared on my work computer. Titled: “Ready for a career move?
Beneath it said, “I’ll help you find roles that fit your location and career goals.” There were two buttons, “Dismiss” and “Continue”.
Maybe it was Morpheus trying to get my attention, but I chose the blue pill, and immediately uninstalled the Copilot app which I definitely didn’t put there.
I’ve always thought it’s inappropriate for your work computer to distract you with quizzes and news articles, but inviting you to change jobs is a whole other level!
I've been a Linux user at home since '98, but use Windows at work. I'll first throw out a suggestion: if you want shortcuts, get a good mechanical keyboard. they are quite affordable these days, and you need to get one that is programmable with decent software and supports multiple layers. (you already use layers, think <shift>+a = A or <shift>+8 = *. I don't get into too many layers, but combine that with macros, and you can do a lot. You can also remap keys, even get a volume knob which is handy. It just makes things much easier, and typing a wee bit more satisfying.
But the one thing that I have on Linux that I would like to see on Windows? Controlling mouse focus. I use "focus follows mouse" on Linux so I don't have to click on a window to make it active.
I work on a company-controlled device so I can't install anything unapproved or configure much at all. But controlling the focus would help out a lot.
On focus, experience with RISC OS has taught the value of distinguishing window-input-focus from window-to-the-front. When reading from and writing to several overlapping windows it is frequently very inconvenient that a window you move (or want to copy from) comes to the front obscuring the window you are typing into. At the very least Microsoft could provide a config option to allow user choice.
Focus on Windows is particularly annoying with multiple screens. You launch an application from one screen and it pops up somewhere else. Also I think it would be helpful if the taskbar on each screen showed just the applications that are open on that screen instead of showing all of them.
>> Also I think it would be helpful if the taskbar on each screen showed just the applications that are open on that screen instead of showing all of them.
At least on Windows 10 I have to explicitly set it to show all apps on all taskbars[*].
If the taskbar's behaviour is something that bothers you... Have you ever looked into Taskbar Settings?
---
[*]: Which is how I prefer it; I hate only seeing some of my open programs, never mind which screen I'm looking at. But then, my taskbars are vertical, autohiding, show labels, and are rather wide. Like, you know, sensible people would want them to behave.
How about a Effing Start Menu that isn't the crappy version it is currently, and more like it was in Renaissance of Windows 7
and how many coders has it taken to allow Microsoft to INTENTIONALLY make the Start Menu WORSE over the years. What a waste of time and resources! UGH!!!
While not exactly as easy as in Windows 10 (there's one less click involved there), there's already a way to switch quickly between audio devices in 11. Click on the speaker icon, then click on the icon directly to the right of the audio volume slider. From there, you can choose which audio output device you want to use.
I recall having multiple clocks on my Win 7 work PC because I dealt with people in multiple time zones. I'm pretty sure that was a separate utility, and harking to another lost feature, I had a double height taskbar so my 4 clocks were nicely arranged ans well as my may open windows.
I'd als like the one Windows 11 feature I liked reinstated. When I copied a phone number to the clipboard I used to get a popup offering to dial my soft phone which saved a few clicks.
"In an interview with the Windows IT Pro channel on YouTube, Microsoft's OS overlord, Pavan Davuluri, assured users that the beatings would continue until morale improves.
"I think what human interfaces look like today and what they will look like five years from now is one big area of thrust for us that Windows continues to evolve," Microsoft's corporate VP of Windows + Devices said. "The operating system is increasingly agentic and multimodal and voice and vision and touch, just like we use mouse and keyboard . . . I think that is an area of tremendous investment and change for us.""
With your marketing wank speak Microsoft. The keyboard and mouse are just fucking fine and will be for years to come. How the fuck do you think talking to your computer is going to work with a office full of people doing the same fucking thing. Even working from home, my partner uses the same room so if we were both talking to our computers it would drive us nuts.
Unfortunately I'll have to work until I'm dead but, despite liking computers still and the history I'm increasingly feeling I want out. Unfortunately I can't do another job so having to stick with it, but I just can't stand the marketing wank that people continually fall for.
For my work I have to use this W11 garbage. And I lost count the number of times I want to through this carp out of the window. But when off the clock, that M$~1 garbage piece of s*t laptop is closed, put out of sight. Then I wash my hands, use my own Mac or Linux machines, and I'm at least relaxed again.
I read a lot of complaints of user as well. And for good reason. But if you don't have to, why do you still use Windows?
I have a headless system at home which handles networking, home automation, security, printing and a few other miscellaneous tasks. None of which require multiple browser tabs, ribbons, clipboards, meta keys or other continuous human-machine interactions.
What I need (but won't get) from Microsoft is a system which can sit quietly in a closet, getting things done without my having to prompt it, reboot it, or watch its stupid ads. I don't think that Microsoft 'gets' the idea of a machine as a useful servant that does work without bugging me continuously.
Another way of saying 'Evolution' is 'Natural Selection'
Random mutations happen all the time. Those that are pointless become a dead end, and only those features that are of benefit, get to continue. It's an affront, that the focus group led bloatification is referred to as something that has 'evolved', like the customers want this stuff..
Just as every invertebrate tends to evolve into a crab, all software tends to evolve into advertising. It's like some sort of cancer.
I'd just like to see File Manager (or whatever it's called this week) speeded up: it's hopeless with media files over a network. Giving "new" Outlook all the features that old Outlook had would be nice too: not being able to just use my scroll wheel to go through the calendar might sound like a small loss but makes my blood boil every time I have to go to the top of the screen and press a button. And while we're on the subject, why do they feel the need to change the names of things every week? Is it "tasks" this week or "to-do"? And why has it been separated from Outlook?
On local media and capable of a bare-metal restore to exactly how the system was when you backed it up. OS, apps, documents, settings - ALL of it. Drive died? Swap it, boot from a USB stick and restore your backup. That SHOULD be it, done. None of this crap about backing up only your documents, forcing you to recover first the vanilla OS, then reinstall all your other apps one by one, redo all your personal customised bits (see the long list of registry tweaks elsewhere in the comments, as an example) and then, finally, you can restore your backed up files and start to use them again...
Hell, have an option in your backup software to make your backup media bootable into PXE with a built-in option to "restore this backup"
If you can have file-level granularity on what you want to restore, that's honestly just gravy. If it can't save your arse when the magic smoke gets out, it's not really a backup.
MS backup hasn't done full system image backups for ages and it sucks.
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The deep integration of OneDrive/SharePoint is both a boon for corporate IT and a pain for home users, if you wished to entirely default to say Proton services it should be a one button setting that defaults, mail, storage, photo backup, passwords and 2fa.
I know that it can all be done and very much do so but the OS is currently just a sales tool for MS services from "the cloud" and needs to do more to allow home users to simply disconnect from the MS cloud and plugin something more independent.
One of the ways is;
echo "secondary clipboard" | xclip -selection secondary -i
xclip -selection secondary -o
Which does not overwrite the primary clipboard.
That's not too hard to bind to a secondary shortcut, or instead you can install a clipboard manager that supports the 2 clipboards.
"This way, you can copy both text and an image separately and keep them at the top of your clip list at the same time."
Having two pieces of text copied at the same time would be great. Often I want to quote a passage from a website, and include the URL as a reference. My workaround is pasting them both to Notepad, but if I didn't have to use that as a go-between it would be so handy. Even more so if I could do it on my phone to save the continual flitting between apps to do it, but that's not Microsoft's remit any more.
For example the laptop I'm typing this on.
Make "night light" work properly, if I open the laptop after the time the it's supposed to have switched to night light mode it doesn't immediately sometimes it doesn't at all or it takes several minutes and even then normally only switches to the default settings and not what I've set. I have to switch off night light mode and switch it back on again for it to work.
If I happen to be using the laptop at the 9PM it switches the screen mode properly.
Or when Windows decides to reboot, how about putting my windows back the right size. It seems to decide at some point the screen is only 640x480, rather than 2560x1440, so all my browsers windows end up tiny. Still that's better than the acrobat windows which can decide their location is miles off the screen and which makes it hard to move them back to somewhere I can see.
Another wake up feature which is totally broken on this laptop, if I have the display settings window open for a random number of minutes after logging in any mouse movement is interpreted as me wanting to move the window and it refuses to let me change the brightness. Occasionally if it's being very generous hitting the end key will switch to 100%, but usually not.
I could go on, but it wouldn't be good for my blood pressure.
> acrobat windows ... miles off the screen
Alt-Space, since Windows 1.0. Open a nice little menu which lets you choose "move", then use the cursor keys to move back on the screen. Even described in the manual... Those were the days when manuals still existed... the Windows 2.0 manual might be more familiar though.
> Still that's better than the acrobat windows which can decide their location is miles off the screen and which makes it hard to move them back to somewhere I can see.
Alt-Tab to focus the offscreen window, Alt-Spacebar to get its system menu, X to maximize it. From there, if you click the "restore" (overlapping windows, upper-right corner, next to the red X to close) titlebar icon, it scoots back offscreen -- but if you grab the title bar while maximized and move it a bit down, it goes to non-maximized with the titlebar where you released it.
At least that usually works for me, with the apps that do that shit. Dunno if it works for all apps, but HTH!
I will point out, though, that the Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-X (and Ctrl-A) shortcuts are pretty much standard in many applications, and not just the OS, so allowing you to change them in one place is unlikely to affect them elsewhere, unless you were to mandate an API to find out what those key combinations are and force applications to use them, which would open a whole, nastier, can of worms. Sure, the OS might handle the functionality, itself, but what happens when you re-map paste to Ctrl-P, and your video editor no longer pauses due to the conflict you have just created?
I think the underlying problem with Windows is the manifestation of end-stage capitalism. Everything is tending towards forcing adverts into your face, and selling you things that you don't need at accelerating prices to support the myth of eternal growth, coupled with magical AI slop that the capitalists hope will take away your job and pass your income onto them.
1: yep - would love that, will never happen
2: oo - nice, but the implementation, as you say, is pants.
3: maybe I'm not enough of a keyboard warrior, but I daresay a lot of people would appreciate it - however where do you stop..... MOD... MOD-2.... MOD-3... MOD 4 (the Revenge!)
4: I can barely remember the "standards"....
5: F-ME YES!! PLEASE [DEITY] YES!
6: meh
7: PLAESE [DEITY] YES!! And while we're at it - STICK APPS TO THE WORKSPACES I PUT THEM ON!!
8: Yeah - that would be nice.
9: Be even better if they kept the audo controls in just one place... sodding fed up tinkering with audio in the OS AND audio in Teams every sodding day.
10: well, dur.
Extra things I'd like:
A: KEYBOARD CONTROL OF WORKSPACES!! Yes I can flit back and forth across the varios workspaces setup to my hearts content... SO WHY CAN'T I MOVE APPS WITHOUT THE MOUSE?!?!
B: Notifications I can re-find after they've been "acknowledged" in the OS popup which disappears the instant my eyes flick to it, so I a) can't read the notification or b) I click it and then it's NOT in the manually dragged out "Notifications" modal.
I'm all for having the Task Manager back to where it's been for the best part of 20-odd years on the system tray context menu.
That was my first "oh god I'm too old for this" moment when I used Windows 11 and couldn't immediately find Task Manager.
And if we can extend demands to other Microsoft products... Excel is 39 years old this year, and yet you *still* can't open two excel files that share the same name at the same time. I shouldn't have to rename files in different folders just to open them both, if I want to compare two excel sheets at the same time.
Windows 11 is a bloated mess.
I want a fast OS without all the bloat.
I do not need crap pilot, all the background services sucking resources I have had to disable after updating to it.
Doing basic excel or word you get pauses.
I do not know how they managed to get his mess out the door, they need to be sacked and start streamlining the OS to be fast and if you want to add bloat then make it optional.
All I want is a clean Windows OS without all these fancy options and glamour.
Just a operating system. If I want to use a feaure, I activate the feature.
Especially in professional work environments, the operating system should be lean and clean.
No frills or bells and whistles.
As far as I'm concerned, you can do that with the Home Edition.
I miss the Win2000 server sometimes ...
An AT&T style breakup into OS & Apps companies was investigated starting in 1990, culminating in the failed IE antitrust case in 2001.
It's past time that a forced split is needed. But regulators don't seem to have the gumption to even consider it anymore :-(
I like a few of your ideas, more than one clipboard... but I'd like to see a year with NO new features. FIX ALL the bugs.
MS Please, take a year, secure the everliving hell out of windows, audit everything; every plugin, dll, nook and cranny in all your products.
stop giving us new, until you've patched the old. make Pwn-2-0wn the most boring thing in the world for the next few years.
