Our commitment to Windows quality

It feels like Windows is old and tired. Remember when Microsoft and Intel seemed unstoppable in the 1990s and early 2000s? The momentum is no longer there. The latest bad decisions around AI for Microsoft are just the straw breaking the camel’s back.

"What came through was the voice of people who care deeply about Windows and want it to be better."

I gave up a long time ago hoping Windows would get better. At this point, I just hope it does not get worse.

It's not an OS anymore. It's an AI that spies on you while you work and sends your information back to servers controlled by intelligence services. Once your data is there, more AIs spend endless resources examining (thinking about) your life, cross referencing your windows behavior with the information they receive about you from data brokers. It's a threat to your personal sovereignty, your corporate/national security, remove it immediately. Switch to Linux.

> Integrating AI where it’s most meaningful, with craft and focus.

Spoken like a true AI.

I wonder if the incentive structure shaped by the internal MS metrics has been updated to reflect this commitment. Otherwise, little is going to change.

> More taskbar customization, including vertical and top positions: [...] We are introducing the ability to reposition it to the top or sides of your screen, making it easier to personalize your workspace.

This already existed. You took it away. If anything, you are back peddling and re-introducing it. But I don't care anymore. Made the switch to Linux and don't look back.

I switched to Fedora as my first full time Linux OS and it’s honestly changed my life.

I can use my computer as a tool to do my craft and I’m not constantly sucked in ai features, news, or external search results, if I don’t want it.

OS stands for operating system, Microsoft is not that for me.

I wouldn’t know how to ever go back. I really hope I’m not forced to for some reason.

They have spent, ... I guess like 10+ years?..., for fixing the slowness and bloated functionality of the File Explorer.

I still don't know how to create a native app so inefficient that, it needs to take more than 500 milliseconds to open a directory

When are they going to walk back the deliberate deprecation of the vast majority of PCs that ran Windows 10 fine but do not meet the unnecessary and completely arbitrary hardware requirements imposed by Windows 11? I mean, the performance and AI and taskbar stuff also demonstrates bad judgement, but I really can't get past the Win11 thing.

Interesting headline. And I start reading as a MS skeptic. Maybe they finally got it? Maybe MS have realized why Windows really is so crappy. I read the first entry, bolded, in the bullet list. It reads “ More taskbar customization, including vertical and top positions”.

I press snooze and get on with my day

> We are introducing the ability to reposition it to the top or sides of your screen, making it easier to personalize your workspace.

> options when to update

> less horrible and slow file explorer

Finally, a desktop with feature parity of an OS from the year 2000.

Good on them for hearing complaints after 4+ years and addressing some of them.. maybe. They say they will at least.

Me and my family still cannot believe that I bought a Macbook this week.

I used Windows since Windows 95 (back in '96, I was 5 years old).

But still having regular blue screens come back with Windows 11..

I am better off selling my 64GB of RAM, than Windows Defender eating a third of it at random times

I actually don't have any particular problems with Windows. It's familiar, it works with everything I do, I don't have a reason to switch.

That said, it's completely rudderless. How important is an operating system anymore anyway when most applications are just an Electron app anyway? What does consumer Windows provide Microsoft anymore besides a gateway to Office 365 and other actually profitable services?

They also clearly fell asleep at the wheel on things like gaming. The future is clearly Linux-based.

And on the hardware front, Microsoft seemed to have given up on their own consumer gear, and their partners have left them out to dry yet again.

Is this April fools?

The fix is upside down UI?

The question here is what metric at Microsoft was bad enough for them to make a post like this?

Sounds like a big "Under New Management" announcement after Mustafa Suleyman was demoted.

I didn't switch to linux because windows was bad. I was running LTSC IoT Enterprise and selectively ran scripts from AtlasOS.

What finally pushed me to linux was because specifically in my narrow usecases it's just plain better, but if we were to completely ignore that, even if linux was worse, I just don't want to support evil companies anymore.

Now I'll admit that this is what AI would say, but it's not always about what is better, it's about sending a message, a message that microsoft appears to have heard loud and clear, however, we will have to see if this is just PR or not.

Interesting how often they use the word „craft“. For me, a sign that AI fatiguge is a real issue, not only among Windows users. Good, maybe a small, first step towards down-regulation of the hype.

Microslop strikes again with lies.

> Faster and more dependable File Explorer: ... more reliable performance for everyday file tasks.

This would be great. It's still easy to freeze up File Explorer when moving thousands of files. The same operation from the command line works fine.

I'm at a large enterprise outfit, and "shoving things in your face" has been a problem with large software suites for a long time, long before the AI craze. I keep telling my skip level leadership that we need more User-Experience "mob goons" that have authority across product domains to (metaphorically) beat the living daylight out of bad "PM-brained" ideas.

the plan should be simple:

fire most of your leads & new programmers.

hire back anyone willing to come back with competence.

return to the Windows 10 LTSC codebase.

try again.

Windows 11 performs like a pig, it’s full of unnecessary notifications and apps that constantly seek attention, copilot isn’t useful, I feel like I’m being spied on, the UI is weird.

It could be turned into a great OS if they simply remove some things. Get rid of the ads, make copilot an optional component, stop trying to sell 365, let me turn off telemetry, etc.

It's got to be somewhat depressing working on a household name product in its trashy downturn. Surely you can't have the pride in your work that an equivalent employee once would have.

We used to be able to make any folder a popup menu on taskbar, including any subfolders. Served the need for quick shortcuts to whatever we need within 2 clicks. Sorely miss it in Win11.

I moved over to Linux a few months ago. Absolutely zero issues. My only thought was, "Wow. Why didn't I do this sooner?" There's nothing Windows can do to bring me back at this point.

Think they burned what little trust anyone has in them over the last couple of years.

I have zero windows machines now and no promises will change that.

Since we're going for rainbows and puppies. I'd like a control panel that isn't tied into the explorer shell.

I'd wish they did a more modular OS (explorer, browser, etc), keep it simple and streamline installing requirements as needed.

I don't really use windows for anything except games (still on windows 10 for as long as possible).

I did not know you can't move the taskbar in windows 11... I literally lol'd. That type of shit is why I dumped gnome 3 a long time ago.

I grew up on Windows, switched to Mac (college and beyond), and over time, have come to hate Windows. It feels like it doesn’t have a user’s best interest in mind. I’m just there to have Copilot or XYZ service shoved down my throat. I’m not sure Mac is actually any less sinister but at least it feels less so.

The cadence these topics were written in was so Apple keynote video that I had Tim Cook's voice presenting it in my head. I hope that's not just me.

More in the topic. Good that Windows Update will suck less. Did the Discover-something-or-other-imply less start-memu ads, I couldn't tell..

> This includes the ability to skip updates during device setup to get to the desktop faster...

There's only one complaint that practically everyone has regarding what's required "during device setup," and it's not updates. I can't say I'm shocked that it's being ignored.

From the title I thought this might be a reaction to the "Microslop" epithet and a commitment to increase code quality and reduce bugs.

Guess not.

It's a shame, I'd appreciate more than a single 9 of uptime from GitHub (luckily I don't need to interact with anything else Microsoft related)

On the positive side, they added MIDI 2.0, which you can use in live sets Windows will restart in the middle of. :)

So why did they make taskbar bottom only in the first place? Too difficult to implement? Branding? No room for ads when it's vertical?

I want to believe but I can't. We know how much product decision there is in there putting business on top of quality. Doing shady stuff and having at least weird round tables. Putting a spy on everyone's house.

For now, I am so bitter about windows, that I just want it to stop being a thing

Reading this from the perspective of someone that hasn't used windows as a desktop for over 20 years, this reads like a list of features they removed over the years that they are putting back in, but announcing it like it's all new. What a load of bullshit.

It’s Better To Ask For Forgiveness Than Permission

Overall some potential here, if they follow through, but it's amusing that the first bullet point is essentially "more new surface we can accidently break".

> More control over widgets and feed experiences

More control over ads? The whole widgets screen is quite literally just ads.

Remove the ads from windows professional.

>Windows touches more people’s lives than almost any technology on Earth. Every day, we hear from the community about how you experience Windows. And over the past several months, the team and I have spent a great deal of time analyzing your feedback. What came through was the voice of people who care deeply about Windows and want it to be better.

>Today, I’m sharing what we are doing in response.

Just these words are already off putting. The extremely careful wording to avoid anything minimally resembling recognizing an issue.

It's ok to say we fucked up. It's empowering. Not being able to do it is a huge red flag.

I heard in windows 12 they transform the task bar into a task triangle! They are being careful not to over promise, but the innovation is coming!

This is a smoke break before they proceed to ram more AI and subscription model down your throat.

If they actually fix start menu search in addition to giving back the left side taskbar, I'll be pretty happy. I very much doubt they will though.

Isn't this the same company that fired most of their QA people few years back?

Their commitments here seem to try to bring windows back to what it was when they still had their QA teams.

> As part of this, we are reducing unnecessary Copilot entry points, starting with apps like Snipping Tool, Photos, Widgets and Notepad.

So they threw a lot of spaghetti at the wall, and this is the bit where some of it falls off.

Quality is only real if you validate outputs automatically. In data systems, I check every result against expected schemas before delivery — catches 95% of issues before users see them.

So, you're giving us back features that we've had since Windows 95, but shittier?

Can we all just appreciate the sheer amount of writing and re-writing and executive review that had to go on to make this blog post go out? Goodness, I can smell the hand-wringing and political battling represented by these words through the wire. Incredible stuff.