It’s no secret that Windows 11 isn’t exactly well-liked by even most of its users, and I’m fairly sure that perception has permeated into the general public as well. It seems Microsoft is finally getting the message, and they’re clearly spooked: the company has told The Verge that they have heard the complaints, and intend to start fixing many of the issues people are having.
The feedback we’re receiving from our community of passionate customers and Windows Insiders has been clear. We need to improve Windows in ways that are meaningful for people. This year, you will see us focus on addressing pain points we hear consistently from customers: improving system performance, reliability, and the overall experience of Windows.
↫ Pavan Davuluri, head of Windows, to The Verge
This entire statement is utterly meaningless. I have zero faith in words; only actions will do. Microsoft has made many promises over the years, and they have a history of simply not following through on them. Up until this year is over and there have been material improvements in Windows 11 that we can measure, see, and point to, nothing has changed between the day before the statement and the day after. Anyone taking this at face value and reporting it as such is an idiot.
This means that at the end of this year, Windows 11 should be faster, more stable, experience far fewer breaking updates, have fewer – nay – zero ads, a far more consistent user interface, proper local account support, and more. If these things haven’t become reality once the countdown runs out and on 31 December, Microsoft lied to our faces once more.
Until then, don’t use Windows.
Windows 11 is quite OK with StartAllBack, Directory Opus and a few dozen tweaks to make LatencyMon happy.
Automatic system updates have broken my RME audio drivers twice during the last year, though, so I had to download and install new ones.
Funny StartAllBack has a family pack of 3 when the typical family is 4.
“We promise to improve Windows 11… just as soon as we get Copilot to figure out how.”
If Microsoft goes full politicians promises, we all know we’re fucked. We already were though.
It’s quite pointless running a news item like this where the linked article is behind a paywall.
Just copy the link and put it in archive ph, works most of the time:
https://archive.ph/Ru5Ls
Even websites that “lazy load” the article using Javascript (after verifying you are logged in) tend to work with this method.
If there are multiple snapshots, choose the earliest, the reason the above method works is that most websites leave the article unpaywalled for a short amount of time for search engines to index it, and archive ph always seems to be there at the right moment to archive the page, so, you always want the earliest snapshot.
So they’ll add some comment and page-break support to notepad and call it a day, with all tech media applauding and reporting as if the whole world had changed.
Yeah yeah, I heard this story before.
I won’t go further than my custom 23H2.
The kernel is not bad per se. I would never go back to windows either, but i see some merit in it, even though i detest NTFS with a fiery passion.
The problems with windows 11 is with the UI, there are hundreds of youtube videos that shows that the win11 UI uses more and more power and ram per use. Microsoft claimes “itis to hard to change” but it isnt, you could take LiteStep and make the taskbar movable and scaleable and with a non-lagging start menu in seconds.
What’s funny: the best part of Windows is now WSL – actually being genuinely good.
But – there is less and less reasons that somebody need to run Windows these days. Gaming on Linux hugely improved, other stuff is moving into direction of web apps. It could be argued that daily maintenance of Mint of Ubuntu is less these days than Windows and if somebody needs enterprise vendor – RedHat gets you covered (or Suse). Even MS SQL Server runs nicely on Linux!
The best part of Windows is a lesser bastardized Linux, great.
One day, someone will write a book on how Windows managed to fall into such a disrepair state.
CapEnt,
IMHO it’s microsoft’s focus on ramming everyone into subscriptions and other remote services. This includes but isn’t limited to copilot. Microsoft gutted themselves as a software company in order to make the service transition.
Alas the loss of control consumers have over their own data & property is something I’ve been against for so many years. And although I’m glad there’s been widespread backlash, I’m not so sure that’s enough. Companies like adobe can pull this crap, stick to it long enough that it becomes normalized and the technology just keeps becoming more anti-consumer from there. The days of mainstream computing being designed to serve owner needs untethered from corporate data centers might be numbered. I’m right there with those protesting it: move to linux, etc, but it’s a far reality from what I’m witnessing in my day job.
I just watched this video.
“Why Owning Nothing Is So Expensive”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AKn-zJMIwY
It’s on the layman side and bit boring for it, but they do talk about just how perverse this problem has gotten and provide some data showing how economically rewarding it’s been for the companies behind it.
Most of us despise it, but businesses have learned that it doesn’t matter. Even with the noise of customer protests and boycotts, it’s more profitable anyway. And this is why I am skeptical of arguments suggesting that these business models will fail. Despite costing companies tons of good will, when you look at some of those profit charts in the video, it almost turns the decision to go with enshitification into a no brainer. All companies are motivated to replicate this.
“Customers will hate you for it, but who cares about that as long the money keeps flowing into our pockets ” – corporate executives everywhere.
Now that the AI bubble has peaked, Microsoft wants to take a look how good Windows 11 is as an OS. Thanks, daddy Satya.
That said, don’t expect any changes that go against Microsoft’s business interests, such as proper local account support, and I wouldn’t put money towards a consistent UI happening either (they’ve been failing at it for the past 14 years). But if they make the OS work reliably for us locked into the Windows app ecosystem (and want perfect compatibility, not hacks on top of Wine/Proton), we’ll have somewhere to go when the last variant of Windows 10 goes EOL. And obviously, we’ll start with an old ISO of Windows 11 that allows setting up a local account with the right CLI hacks and then let Windows Update do its thing.
The problem starts at the top… with Nadella himself.
He’s not a tech enthusiast and he’s depleted Microsoft of both product and innovation. So much so that there isn’t much left of the Microsoft we all knew ( well, and hated ) in the 1990s and 2000’s. If you don’t realise just how much product has gone bye bye, simply check the website https://killedbymicrosoft.info
Nadella is an investor, and he’s turned Microsoft into a tech investment company. He’d rather buy IP up than research and develop their own; and when you have large pockets.. it makes business sense since you’re getting a company after they took all the risks and made their product already.
Until Nadella goes, and gets replaced with someone with a technology focused mind, we’ll continue to hear about bad products and companies effectively destroyed by him *cough* Bethesda *cough*
“He’s not a tech enthusiast”
That’s not his job, he’s here to maximize profits, just like Tim Cook. And for that both had great successes.
I disagree. If you cannot relate to your customer base, it’s not going to go well… as we have seen.
The Lone OSer,
Many successful CEOs are not very relatable though. Jobs, Gates, Zuckerburg, Musk, etc. Most of them get lucky with a cash cow at the right place and right time. Once they hit it big they are set for life. Even if the innovation stops (and for most of them it did), they continue to get credit for past success even though their companies become stale in the eyes of consumers. Given the monopolistic nature of these industries that doesn’t much matter; their business models can shift away from innovation towards rent-seeking, which is the focus of every dominant tech company these days. Whether we like it or not as consumers, wall street absolutely loves it.
BTW I found that your link was extremely informative. I didn’t even realize that some of those had been canceled. You’re right they’ve been cutting a lot.
Here’s the thing: Microsoft is more profitable than its ever been, the issue is that you’re no longer their primary customer base – businesses are. They don’t care about you, kind of like how Nvidia doesn’t care for the gaming market anymore. It’s practically vestigial.
Ironically, they’ve probably been investing more into Linux/Azure than desktop Windows.
Granted, this *is* hollowing out their technical userbase – gamers and streamers have already moved entire percentage points away from Windows, and Adobe CC recently started working on the latest Wine builds and they’ll the next wave. I have no doubt it’ll bite Microsoft in the ass as they lose platform control over the next decade with tech literate segments becoming Linux proficient – but those are long term worries, and shareholders don’t care about that.
Great title, by the way.
“This means that at the end of this year, Windows 11 should be…”
I know it is only February, but I do not believe ANY of that will happen.
There may be minor improvements in some places but it will be more than outweighed by more and more pseudo-AI slop on top of everything.
This WILL slow down the system AND make it more unstable.
Doing things with pseudo-AI is not consistent. When computers act in inconsistent ways, it does not make them better.
In honor of Bill Gates being all over the Epstein Files, it’s time for a rebranding – Henceforth, Microsoft Windows shall be known as ChlamydiSoft™ WinBlisters™