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Comment by muststopmyths | Hacker News Reader

As a 25+ year user of windows none of this stuff bothers me. What ticks me off is just the abysmal quality of windows 11 compared to the past. It’s like no one working on it has any pride in their job

Example:

- hate the new notification area. The action center was so much better

- dumb stuff like a window update notification that shows a c# class name instead of windows update

- clicking said notification does not bring up the windows update settings as it used to.

- searching for windows update in the start menu does not show the setting as a result. Even when you select setting.

- every few edge updates, th browser is able to put itself in a state that it takes 5 minutes to start up. In that time most other apps will not launch either.

I could go on and on, but these are just a few of the daily problems that irritate me.

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I still don't understand what kind of masochist wants all their windows to be grouped together with no labels so you have no idea what you were working on until you open it again and have to click multiple times. Thirty years of windows and there's still no setting I can tick to make the taskbar adjust automatically to the number of things I have open? If I have nothing open, hide it. If I have twenty different windows open, give me a taskbar three rows high. Is that so damn hard?

> have to click multiple times.

Huh? It’s hover and 1 click?

Hovering and clicking does not take less time than clicking twice. Back in the golden days you could actually see what you were doing without having to move the mouse at all.

You stated it took multiple clicks. It doesn’t….

This! Why would you at LEAST not give the option? It's such a central piece of the whole OS. We interact with windows ALL the time. I'm getting too old for this crap LOL.

The installation got into my nerves. Past versions wouldn't force having network or a Microsoft account. You could always unplug your cable and setup a local account. Now, that requires opening a console and typing OOBE commands, which took me a while to figure out.

The secure boot requirements were also a pain. My hardware is compatible and my first install got TPM enabled, but memory protection and core isolation wasn't available. It took me a couple of BIOS changes and installs to get everything working.

I'm pretty sure you don't even have to unplug network to install Win10 without Microsoft account - just during the installation you don't create one (or login to existing one)

This used to be the case, but the last time I installed Windows 10 the already hard to find “create local account” option was completely gone until I disconnected.

Exactly. Since a few years now, and as many Windows 10 versions, the disconnection trick is not needed anymore. They still unemphasize the offline profile option (with the usual dark pattern of making a button not look like a button, and to word it as something negative you sure wouldn't want), and nag you twice if you find it, but it's there, hidden in plain sight: you just need to pay attention.

Speaking of paying attention: the comment was talking about installing Windows 11

The comment mentioned the disconnection trick, which I thought only ever applied to certain versions of Windows 10. I'm now learning that (non-Pro?) Windows 11 is also (currently?) affected too.

Not that it should surprise me anymore. Microsoft's shamelessness knows no bounds.

- calendar of task bar became useless

- swipe from the left is unchangeably wasted for trash news

- touch interaction (especially in Edge) is worse than Windows 8: I am dependant on a virtual touch pad to do certain stuff (e.g. selecting text and copying it via context menu)

- start menu customization possibilities are ridiculously low

Swipe from left can't be disabled? I haven't found it anywhere. Awful on a tablet (surface go 3) with local account - W10 gives me Win+Tab overview.

Start menu suggestions cannot be removed. The start menu settings allows you to make it use less space. Disabling it in group policies reserves the space for a message that it has been disabled.

> Disabling it in group policies reserves the space for a message that it has been disabled.

This is outright user-hostile.

>Swipe from left can't be disabled?

winget uninstall "windows web experience pack"

There's no way to remove the trash news from the widget thing, so blowing it away is the only option. Clearly there's someone at MSFT that keeps pushing MSN garbage (wtf is Rewards??) into the OS

I am getting very repetitive here but my first addition to your good list is the taskbar. (and not the center alignment as default - mimicking macOS -, not at all, that's marginal and still can be reverted).

As far as I know, you can't have a vertical taskbar in Windows 11 either, which is unfortunate for those with widescreen monitors that like vertical screen space to be used efficiently (e.g. seeing more lines of code, but being able to switch windows easily as well).

I know so, too.

As user and developer on Windows since version 3.1, what irks me is WinDev love for COM above anything else (the idea is great, the IDL tooling and template metaprogramming stuff they keep shipping while ignoring tools from the competition for COM, not so much), and the GUI civil war in Redmond among UI framework teams that started on Windows 8 with no end in sight.

I think that's mostly from them laying off a lot of their QA department in 2014/2015 timeframe. Even with Windows 10, I would have issues with the taskbar abruptly reloading.

https://www.ghacks.net/2019/09/23/former-microsoft-employee-...

On top of that, I am having issues with external monitors.

It's like Windows forgets the secondary monitor from time to time. And I have to extend the primary again. Then the pop-up for witching to the monitor audio out comes up. And I have set it to "Disabled" in control panel->sound a million times.

Curiously, users of my Lunar app (https://lunar.fyi/) always lament about how Windows handled monitors so much better than macOS for them.

Are some monitors that bad on macOS but better in Windows, or viceversa?

It's like the rust on US Navy ships that was discussed on HN a few days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34196925). Cosmetic issues hint at more serious problems elsewhere.

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