I don’t have much confidence with what Microsoft is doing with taskbars after they pushed out this bullshit recently
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Right? Even though that claim was always bullshit because each feature release goes out of support anyway.
I’m sure the monthly broken updates and forced telemetry will continue as is tradition.
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Am I weird for preferring the old Program Manager from Windows 3.1? It wasn’t the best but I liked it quite a bit.
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(warning: rant ahead)
The aggrevating thing is that gets deployed to ALL machines using the windows 10 codebase, which includes Server 2016 and newer! Even the enterprise licensed systems.
While there IS a group policy setting to turn it off from a central management perspective, a) you have to install the updated ADMX templates in order to see the setting, let along turn it off; and b) Why the hell are we seeing consumer and home version features in a SERVER OS?!?!!?
wanders off to cool down
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Great news!
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I wonder what Paul M. Fitts would have to say about that start menu icon floating in the middle of space like that, instead of in the corner where its click-target size is effectively infinite.
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It was, and is. From now on we get the ones we don’t need.
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Microsoft needs to do a Snow Leopard sort of version release. Users actually love the “no new features, but we did a lot of work under the hood” releases. Not just because Steve Jobs put it into the RDF.
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Those used to be called “Service Packs”, but XP broke with tradition and put in a bunch of features and actually useful stuff in their later ones.
Windows 7, by contrast, had a single service pack, and then later a half-gig ‘rollup’ patch (which was essentially SP2) that added support for things like USB3, newer system boards and controllers. But by that time, MS was already working on the abomination that was windows 8, so it lasped into obscurity except for those who had good googling skills or an in with a TAM.
(if you really want windows 8, go for either 8.1 or Server 2012 R2, which was the best iteration of that codebase.)
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IKR? I just got this BS in yesterday’s update. There is no way to turn off just the “news” (including a bunch of celebrity crapola) and keep only (say) the weather forecast.
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Not that I’m aware of; There is a way to turn the entire thing on/off via group policy or via a registry edit.
As one of the administrators for [RedactedCo]'s infrastructure, I’m annoyed by the frankly cavalier attitude that Microsoft is taking with pushing tripe like this to even corporate machines that nether need nor want it.
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Enough minimalism already?
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I think that MS has finally reached the Tap state of higher consciousness.
This’ll show those Mac guys: their OS only goes up to X!
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I use both Windows and Mac machines. I prefer Windows because certain programs I use constantly don’t run under Mac OS or Linux. I’m not a computer tech person, I’m just someone who does a lot of work on a computer and want things as simple, straightforward, and smooth as possible.
Windows in recent years (and Macs, too, to be fair) remind me of the machines in Hitchhiker’s Guide, pushing grotesque “user experiences” on Ford while insisting it’s what he wants. I don’t want my Start Menu to pop up in the middle of the screen where it covers most of what I’m doing. I want it off to the side out of the way. Even then I don’t want said Start Menu to spread out over a third of the screen, padded out with shortcuts to stuff I never use. I don’t want a taskbar link to weather, sports, and carefully-curated tabloid news. I don’t want a simple menu bar replaced by a window twice its size peopled with inscrutable icons that “conveniently” flash and change whenever my mouse passes over them. I don’t want Microsoft Edge badgering me or Cortana stalking me or a goddamned unremovable link to an X-Box I don’t own. I don’t want a stupid cartoon dog asking if I want to search–oh, sorry, that was a couple of versions ago, wasn’t it? Excuse me while I take my meds.
That’s better. Where was I? Oh,yes.The bottom line is, I just want to be left the hell alone to do my work the way I want to do it. I don’t want all these bloated User Experience Enrichments any more than I want to sell my soul to the Microsoft store. Rant rant puff puff.
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I like this new feature, when using the linux subsystem now you can browse the unix filesystem integrated into explorer. Local accounts can still be used on pro from the out of box experience.
You can move the start menu back to a more reasonable place.
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Except Big Sur is MacOS 11, and MacOS 12 (Monterey) was announced at the WWDC.
That UI looks like the entire design team spent the first part of the day snorting lines of gratuitous whitespace off an iPad; slammed out a half ChromeOS/half OSX cargo cult job during lunch break; then dedicated the rest of the day to the loving organic detail that only mysterious inconsistencies can provide.
Why do all the windows have slightly rounded edges except if they are “windows widgets” in which case they have sharp corners? Because reasons in the finest tradition of human factors engineering.
Why are “Top apps” made vividly(?) visible(?) with a white-on-mostly-white-kinda-transparent contrast scheme; while “recent” and “quick searches” don’t even have the subtlest of edges? Because Sir Jony Ive’s true mistake during the depths of his brushed metal and grey-on-grey period was not going all in, that’s why.
Why does half of the Microsoft Store have a white background around it to provide enough room for the teeny grey scrollbar to hide in; then there’s just a pixel-sharp transition to an area where the background is just a totally different color that happens to merge a bit into the desktop? Telemetry and machine learning with Azure Cognitive simply proved that was the best way.
Why is the Xbox app (despite presumably being a default appx application) handling its own updates rather than using the Microsoft Store’s much-vaunted update mechanism? Why is the “Xbox needs an update” half of the window solid white; while the other half(horizontal abrupt transition rather than vertical, because bold innovators are not afraid to mix it up) transparent-ish with blocks of text that look exactly like the unbuttons that are in fact buttons from the start menu; except these are unbuttons that are not buttons? I don’t even know.
Why does the Xbox app, once finally updated, have a ‘drawer’ thing on the left-hand side(seen nowhere else; despite the obvious commonality of purpose with something like the store app; or the opportunity to bring this new UI element to the left-hand widget of file explorer if it’s so cool)? Why does that window have visually distinct ‘window’ stuff at the top; but absolutely nothing setting off the scrollbar area from the background?
All in all, it’s pretty much a perfect candidate for the Samuel Johnson assessment, when considered vs. windows 10(if one is feeling particularly charitable about win10’s UI):
“Your [user interface] is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.”
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We can only assume that they didn’t do the safe thing and fire absolutely everybody who thought that the win8-ish wannabe touchscreen UI was acceptable for 2012 and 2012R2.
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I see they didn’t fix the biggest problem: It’s still Windows.
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