There's the obvious telemetry, MS account requirement for home editions, and other MS dark patterns for one.
But, Windows 11 performance is still crap compared to 10, and even 7. The right click menu in explorer is still high latency, and if you have a lot of extensions, you see "loading..." and it can take a good full second for all menu options to show up. Also, you still can't move the task bar, search is as garbage as ever (but honestly that's expected from Windows at this point).
Windows 11 does have some nice features, especially once combined with PowerToys. I still prefer the way Windows manages Windows compared to my mac which I need 3 third party apps at this point to make usable, and WSL2 is neat, windows has native SSH now, etc.
It could be a great OS if Microsoft could get their heads out of their rears and fix the performance issues, and stop with the advertising, telemetry and dark patterns.
- Telemetry doesn’t affect end users in terms of functionality or performance, and every commercial OS has telemetry. People cite telemetry as a reason not to upgrade to 10/11 but even Windows 7 had telemetry. It isn’t even really that much of a privacy issue if you really dig in to what Microsoft collects and you’ve spent ten seconds in the privacy and security settings. People just like to complain.
- Right click menu latency is such a non-issue and that issue is specifically in file explorer and not other applications. I do think they need to make improvements to that experience like having the legacy right click behind the new one but it’s not a big deal day to day.
- Everyone likes to complain that you can’t move the taskbar. Can you move the menu bar on Mac? Can we not just accept that this is a design decision and move on?
- Is search garbage? Seems to work fine for me and seems identical to Mac and Linux quick searching functionality, and if I need something more powerful I just use Everything.
It actually is a pretty great OS, but like every OS it’s not perfect and never will be.
You can't pin a folder to the start menu and have it list the items in the folder as you could since XP.
The right click menu in explorer is oversimplified garbage that's missing most of the important options without an extra, unnecessary click.
The settings systems still aren't unified, meaning you have to check AT LEAST two places before you find the right settings menu half the time. Sometimes 3.
It takes double the memory it should for something so simple.
Windows explorer in task manager still needs to have the special "restart task" option, specifically because they know it's going to crash a high percentage of the time you use it.
It spies on you with over-intrusive telemetry.
It advertises to you, even though you are (ostensibly) the customer.
It tries to force the Microsoft account.
It tries to force OneDrive.
It tries to force Edge.
Every update resets half my settings that I spent hours configuring.
The updates are often forced on you. I'm not a child. Let ME decide my risk appetite.
It forces their crummy AI into EVERYTHING, and makes you opt out if you don't want all your data hoovered up.
Everything is named poorly and confusingly on purpose. How many damned things are named "Copilot" now? What is Office even called these days?
Sluggish UI, broken sleep, telemetry, advertisements in the start menu and lock screen, forced reboots and general "computer doesn't obey you" design philosophy.
Also just lack of attention to detail. e.g. if you start to search in the start menu and then delete what you typed, you don't get the base menu back; you get "suggestions". So e.g. if you search for "power" or "shutdown" to power off, don't see it as a result, and delete your search, the power button won't be there anymore. You have to close the start menu and open it again to find it. Completely ridiculous design (KDE by contrast has the button and finds the action as a search result with both of those search terms).
Microsoft increases their hostility to the end user with Windows.
They added so much bloat that has become core of the OS. Even XBox game bar is a forced installed feature with their embedded / IoT, same with forcing a Microsoft user account.
Windows 7 embedded allowed for full customization and the end user didn't have to install features a product was never going to use.
Microsoft back end processes have become more aggressive. Their analytics added to Windows 10 cause the computer to eat up a core after startup. This time frame is often when most communication about client issues that have to be resolved ASAP. Instead of the resources going to the user and their clients they go to Microsoft.
Microsoft even hides the resource usage from their background process, such as anti malware and analytics, from the user usage reports. They are purposely trying to hide and mask their deficiencies.
All to push product and features that are not actually used by the majority. Forcing a market instead of allowing it to grow from quality.
Microsoft does not have any completion in the Enterprise OS and management market and they exploit it. CTO and IT managers do not get fired for choosing Microsoft as their users prison. Small companies are the ones that can escape.
You can't drag a file onto a taskbar icon to have it open up in the selected program, or copied to the selected folder. That's the huge blunder that prevents me from even looking in Win11's direction. I'm sure there's many more things wrong with it, but I don't care if it doesn't even do something as basic and longstanding as that.
For me the problem is that the start menu want you to use the search bar, but the search bar breaks all the time. This isn't just on one machine either. I have seen this on at least three different Win11 installs and it drives me crazy. Type anything into the search bar on the start menu and nothing appears in the box, just a big empty black box.
I always have to go and dig through the menu (which Microsoft made more difficult to use to encourage use of the search bar) to launch any application.
There is a service you can restart to get it working again, or you can reboot the machine. But it typically stays working for less than an hour.
Compatibility and tightly coupled legacy components tech debt catching up, ads to get revenue from free users, half baked new UIs made out of slow web tech and more.
No serious effort went into consumer desktop Windows in the past 10 years, most of the upgrades are for Windows Server, Azure and Xbox OS. Windows 8 was their last real attempt and they gave up immediately.
thewebguyd|5 months ago
There's the obvious telemetry, MS account requirement for home editions, and other MS dark patterns for one.
But, Windows 11 performance is still crap compared to 10, and even 7. The right click menu in explorer is still high latency, and if you have a lot of extensions, you see "loading..." and it can take a good full second for all menu options to show up. Also, you still can't move the task bar, search is as garbage as ever (but honestly that's expected from Windows at this point).
Windows 11 does have some nice features, especially once combined with PowerToys. I still prefer the way Windows manages Windows compared to my mac which I need 3 third party apps at this point to make usable, and WSL2 is neat, windows has native SSH now, etc.
It could be a great OS if Microsoft could get their heads out of their rears and fix the performance issues, and stop with the advertising, telemetry and dark patterns.
dangus|5 months ago
- Right click menu latency is such a non-issue and that issue is specifically in file explorer and not other applications. I do think they need to make improvements to that experience like having the legacy right click behind the new one but it’s not a big deal day to day.
- Everyone likes to complain that you can’t move the taskbar. Can you move the menu bar on Mac? Can we not just accept that this is a design decision and move on?
- Is search garbage? Seems to work fine for me and seems identical to Mac and Linux quick searching functionality, and if I need something more powerful I just use Everything.
It actually is a pretty great OS, but like every OS it’s not perfect and never will be.
mapontosevenths|5 months ago
The right click menu in explorer is oversimplified garbage that's missing most of the important options without an extra, unnecessary click.
The settings systems still aren't unified, meaning you have to check AT LEAST two places before you find the right settings menu half the time. Sometimes 3.
It takes double the memory it should for something so simple.
Windows explorer in task manager still needs to have the special "restart task" option, specifically because they know it's going to crash a high percentage of the time you use it.
It spies on you with over-intrusive telemetry.
It advertises to you, even though you are (ostensibly) the customer.
It tries to force the Microsoft account.
It tries to force OneDrive.
It tries to force Edge.
Every update resets half my settings that I spent hours configuring.
The updates are often forced on you. I'm not a child. Let ME decide my risk appetite.
It forces their crummy AI into EVERYTHING, and makes you opt out if you don't want all your data hoovered up.
Everything is named poorly and confusingly on purpose. How many damned things are named "Copilot" now? What is Office even called these days?
p_ing|5 months ago
3rd party extensions were causing it to load slowly.
> It takes double the memory it should for something so simple.
How are you measuring this? How do you specifically know how much memory it should take?
> Windows explorer in task manager still needs to have the special "restart task" option
It's even more convenient in macOS. It's right on the permanently pinned Finder icon in the Dock!
ndriscoll|5 months ago
Also just lack of attention to detail. e.g. if you start to search in the start menu and then delete what you typed, you don't get the base menu back; you get "suggestions". So e.g. if you search for "power" or "shutdown" to power off, don't see it as a result, and delete your search, the power button won't be there anymore. You have to close the start menu and open it again to find it. Completely ridiculous design (KDE by contrast has the button and finds the action as a search result with both of those search terms).
yndoendo|5 months ago
They added so much bloat that has become core of the OS. Even XBox game bar is a forced installed feature with their embedded / IoT, same with forcing a Microsoft user account.
Windows 7 embedded allowed for full customization and the end user didn't have to install features a product was never going to use.
Microsoft back end processes have become more aggressive. Their analytics added to Windows 10 cause the computer to eat up a core after startup. This time frame is often when most communication about client issues that have to be resolved ASAP. Instead of the resources going to the user and their clients they go to Microsoft.
Microsoft even hides the resource usage from their background process, such as anti malware and analytics, from the user usage reports. They are purposely trying to hide and mask their deficiencies.
All to push product and features that are not actually used by the majority. Forcing a market instead of allowing it to grow from quality.
Microsoft does not have any completion in the Enterprise OS and management market and they exploit it. CTO and IT managers do not get fired for choosing Microsoft as their users prison. Small companies are the ones that can escape.
stronglikedan|5 months ago
jandrese|5 months ago
I always have to go and dig through the menu (which Microsoft made more difficult to use to encourage use of the search bar) to launch any application.
There is a service you can restart to get it working again, or you can reboot the machine. But it typically stays working for less than an hour.
unknown|5 months ago
[deleted]
lunar_rover|5 months ago
No serious effort went into consumer desktop Windows in the past 10 years, most of the upgrades are for Windows Server, Azure and Xbox OS. Windows 8 was their last real attempt and they gave up immediately.
anonymars|5 months ago
NoiseBert69|5 months ago
The initial trigger was their Telemetry you cannot switch off. That stuff had a huge extremely negative press exposure for many months.
W11 is basically burned.