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Comment by cfiggers | Hacker News Reader

On Windows 11, when you reconnect to a monitor or set of monitors that you've connected to before, it will automatically return your open windows to the layout across those monitors that you had when you last disconnected (assuming those windows are still open).

This is extremely nice and saves me time on a literally (not figuratively) daily basis, to the point that I generally forget that it hasn't always worked that way.

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I wish this worked! I have to go to the office on my hybrid schedule. When I switch between home and office, Windows is "smart" enough to keep the windows on the correct window in the task bar while generally placing the windows on the opposite window where I want it (and literally opposite where it is on the task bar!) It's so annoying and I dread the days I'm switching between office and home for this reason, as I have to drag each window to the opposing window before things are back to how I want them. It would be less bad the old way, where they were just stupidly thrown on the "primary" monitor and I only had to drag half of them over.

"Well, they turned the entire OS into a tracking, sales and ad/propaganda delivery service, but they managed to make a single feature non-dumb, so guess we're even."

(propaganda - Windows 11 default widgets are "offering" a lot of russian-biased media, because Microsoft is too dumb to recognize that and they take any news source - and russian connected outlets are happy to use this delivery vector that most gullible people leave turned on)

I don't think that any of the news-oriented default Windows application since W8 had an option to provide a custom RSS channel. It was always a default pool of sources they were bringing.

For my dual monitors, they have a conflict with this feature where they do not detect signal and then switch inputs and eventually power down. Then windows sees a different config and switches again causing an endless spiral. I have to turn both monitors on to the correct input while plugging in the laptop to the dock. I wish there was a way to save specific monitor setups and manually toggle them.

Yet when I switch between home and work I have to fully restart my laptop about half the time in order for it to even detect the monitors. I also find this feature has an issue with certain programs (Obsidian in particular) where it opens the window almost off screen.

Have you tried restarting your dock instead? I have had some luck with this when detection goes awry.

Windows sometimes thinks I'm running 640x480 display upon wake from sleep and smashes all of my windows into the top left corner. Very helpful.

Even aside from the malevolence, Windows is rotten from the thirty-year old metaphor that it started with: windows themselves. The job of positioning and resizing applications is a confusing mix of responsibility between the user and the system.

Once you've switched to tiled window managers, examples like these sound like Stockholm Syndrome.

Windows has plenty of tiling utilities built for it, i.e. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/fancyzon..., or even the built-in Windows Snap which can be driven by mouse or keyboard, along with using pre-defined layouts.

I hate tiling window managers. After I start a program, I move and resize its window to the perfect position, and it stays there for weeks. I don't ever want it to be moved or resized automatically, which is what tiling window managers do by default.

I will offer that you can resize/move/float in most tiling managers. Remembering your modifications is usually possible too. It's the default behavior that separates the experience.

It sounds like you’re both agreeing that windows should be controlled by either the user OR the OS, not both.

I can't see a practical world where the OS doesn't need to take control of window positioning in certain situations. As a core example, there is full screen. Minimize is another, but that doesn't have a clean analogue in the tiled universe.

There's a natural strong reaction folks have to window managers, because it forces you to mentally remap at such a foundational level.

I prefer tiled managers because the user offloads most responsibility. Open something and by default it uses as much space as is available. If you have a special need, you can float or resize, but the vast majority of cases it makes the right call.

At heart, it's offloading cognitive load. They're more predictable and require less faffing around.

> This is extremely nice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bird_in_a_Gilded_Cage

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