The new UIs change with every minor update. Layout, labels and semantics. It's truly horrible. Please don't encourage Microsoft to mess it up even more.
Or even more importantly than that, that they even exist in there somewhere.
Recently I went to play a game on my laptop, something i don't normally do. I'm not even normally a windows user.
It has this 'feature' where if a key is pressed then it disables all mouse clicks for X number of seconds. This is to prevent a forearm from tap to clicking on the touchpad while typing. Absolutely makes sense.
Only... I had a mouse plugged in. It disabled a physical USB mouse from clicking after a keypress. Even after disabling the touchpad entirely it continued this behaviour.
After some Googling there should have been a switch in the modern Windows 10 style mouse config. But it wasn't there.
More Googling, "go edit this registry key" but i didn't have that registry key.
More Googling, the registry key depends on your touchpad driver.
More Googling finally found a way to disable it globally with regedit.
#1 Why was the switch not available in the mouse settings #2 Why was it applied to a usb mouse #3 Why did the registry key differ depending on mousepad driver.
Just a nightmare.
For some inexplicable reason their newer touchpads (in newer laptops) support the Settings configuration, whereas their older ones (in older laptops) only work via the Mouse Control Panel applet (and sometimes not even then).
I've also had their touchpad driver cause keyboard input latency (it tries to hook hotkeys) with uninstalling it entirely and having no touchpad being the only solution. Their stuff is just bad, and they should feel bad about it.
I doubt they do feel bad as they have a seeming monopoly on Windows laptop touchpads.
It's just that Apple's system tries to separate deliberate touches from accidental ones, rather than disabling the trackpad input completely.
You used to be able to turn this on and off (it was called "Ignore accidental trackpad input" in the trackpad preference pane) but now it's an always on feature. The trackpad has extended so far into the palm rests that it would be very difficult to use without it, and the feature works well enough that you don't even realize it's happening.
Apple has invested the time to make great trackpad drivers. People have invested time to make libinput a great driver for Linux (in this regard - it does lack customization possible in older drivers).
On Windows the manufacturers don't care. IIRC MS is doing a thing where manufacturers can add some property to their touchpad HW/drivers which tells Windows to handle the touchpad entirely on its own, and the result has been that touchpads have been improving significantly over the last few years since MS is investing time in making good drivers. But that depends on your specific touchpad allowing Windows to do its magic, instead of using crappy OEM drivers.
If touchpads are good now, then I might go dedicated Linux again when it's time to upgrade from my aging MBP.
Does that mean you would never be comfortable with with a complete UI overhaul?
> The new UIs change with every minor update
I completely agree that this is a problem. And this part of my biggest issue with Windows 10. They're constantly reworking the new UI for what seems like micro-optimizations, but they're mostly ignoring the old UI. Not only is it a headache for users to keep up with new paradigms every 6 months, but there continues to be two areas in Windows to control system settings, one of which is hidden pretty well, and the location of settings between the two is continually changing. It's a nightmare.
.NET Core, on the other hand, is pure gold. It's fast, it runs everywhere, it's well document, and it's a joy to work with.
Which leads us to Visual Studio, which is becoming like Windows. Constant tweak updates that break things. I stopped installing '.0' releases, beacsue they're consistently broken.
I'd like for the old interface to be still around, so I can click though the nav layers like I always have. At the end, instead of the information / setting I'm looking for, I'd be fine with info on how now to find that info/setting. This "tutorial" should obviously be kept up to date on later UI changes. It also requires the info/setting to still be available... so no dumbing-down please.
I’m a big fan of PowerShell, I have embedded it in two products. However it’s not a good justification for a poor user interface.
Which would be ok if they had been replaced by an equivalent in the new menu. But they have not. So what is the point in hiding them?
Tasks such as changing network adaptors setting, or sound settings. I regularly switch between three different audio devices on my desktop PC, and doing simple tasks such as toggling volume levelling isn't in the new interface and digging into the old is becoming harder and harder to find, with more clicks for every revision. Just yesterday I went to add a firewall rule, and that was hard to find. I'm an MCSE, so you would think I could change a firewall setting!
It definitely doesn't feel like an improvement, it feels like they're forcing an abstraction. Plus they've recently removed the Control Panel when you right-click the Start menu. That was about the only 'Safe Space' left.
I feel for anyone who has to support Windows 10. They're definitely not listening to the users. This is the FisherPrice interface all over again, but there's no stopping it this time around.
My biggest gripe is not being able to directly open the old settings... Always having to open "control panel" and then clicking on the correct category gets old fast, but is nonetheless more effective than fruitlessly searching in the new panels until I give up.