What puzzles me is why Microsoft doesn't push for a public image of privacy like Apple does. MS is in the same position and with the same profit incentives but for some reason they allow...
What puzzles me is why Microsoft doesn't push for a public image of privacy like Apple does. MS is in the same position and with the same profit incentives but for some reason they allow themselves to be (rightfully) seen as very invasive. Privacy clearly sells well and MS doesn't seem to profit a lot on tracking.
I would posit that it's because consumers make up a very small portion of Microsoft's income stream. People buy Apple because they want Apple. People end up with Windows because they don't...
I would posit that it's because consumers make up a very small portion of Microsoft's income stream. People buy Apple because they want Apple. People end up with Windows because they don't want/can't afford Apple and MS is the default on other, non-Chromebook devices. Chromebooks are OK, but there's still a lot of stigma around them because people think they can't get anything done just using a web browser. Beyond the surface brand, MS really doesn't need to do much to market itself as an alternative to Apple, because it's essentially the only other OS that's available (discounting Linux of course, but so does the rest of the world :(
MS have lucrative licensing deals with OEMs, the lion's share of enterprise users under its wing, to mention nothing of its cloud services. Why spend money on consumer-facing marketing, when they're still making money from the marketing that Lenovo, Acer, Razer, Dell, HP, and the rest all do?
I'd also add gamers as a relatively locked in group (discounting linux again). If you want to play on your PC, it seems as if (!) Windows is your only option. And that about covers it. Most...
I'd also add gamers as a relatively locked in group (discounting linux again). If you want to play on your PC, it seems as if (!) Windows is your only option.
And that about covers it. Most "casual" users have moved on to mobile and tablets by now for their daily needs (browsing the web, doing your taxes, etc) while those who remain on desktop / laptop computers are either doing so professionally or for gaming. (For the most part anyway)
Maybe this is also a situation of Windows being the "default" OS. As such, there is no such thing as good marketing, because you need no marketing. Don't do anything stupid and people will buy it, basically.
For any unaware, those licensing deals are kinda what propelled Microsoft to monopoly status in the first place. For a good long time, Microsoft de-facto forced exclusivity by threatening to jack...
MS have lucrative licensing deals with OEMs
For any unaware, those licensing deals are kinda what propelled Microsoft to monopoly status in the first place.
For a good long time, Microsoft de-facto forced exclusivity by threatening to jack up OEM cost if the vendor sold any desktops without windows. You couldn't buy a non-windows machine from a big vendor, and you couldn't easily (if ever) get a refund for that license if you didn't accept the windows EULA.
My guess would be because of a lack of control over Windows's distribution. They just make the operating system, they don't control the supply chains and make decisions on what hardware gets it....
My guess would be because of a lack of control over Windows's distribution. They just make the operating system, they don't control the supply chains and make decisions on what hardware gets it.
Even if they did a 180 and decided to market Windows 11 as a privacy-first operating system, there's nothing to stop a company like Lenovo from shipping spyware with their default Windows installation. And the layperson (rightfully, tbh) isn't going to draw that much of a distinction between stock Windows 11 and the Windows 11 shipped with their computer.
There is still so much they could do in terms of services. Apple provides so many thinks like masked email addresses, a built in VPN, encrypted messaging, etc. On the OEM side, they could probably...
There is still so much they could do in terms of services. Apple provides so many thinks like masked email addresses, a built in VPN, encrypted messaging, etc. On the OEM side, they could probably get away with cracking down on what OEMs bundle.
They can (and have) cracked down on what OEMs install, but that’s also a significant portion of revenue for computer makers. I mean, Microsoft itself bundles stuff into Windows 10, like Candy...
They can (and have) cracked down on what OEMs install, but that’s also a significant portion of revenue for computer makers. I mean, Microsoft itself bundles stuff into Windows 10, like Candy Crush.
I don’t know if it is still a thing, but Microsoft used to have a “Windows 10 Signature Program” where PCs in that program didn’t come with any extra software. It was the PC equivalent of stock Android. They weren’t too popular though.
I have to wonder why they weren't too popular. If you're an OEM and you make a significant amount of money by bundling crapware with your computers, what's your incentive to stop doing that and...
I have to wonder why they weren't too popular. If you're an OEM and you make a significant amount of money by bundling crapware with your computers, what's your incentive to stop doing that and make it easy for people to find out you've stopped doing it? This seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me.
It reminds me of any good show that used to run on Fox being put in the worst TV slots. "Oh, people really like this show? Let's put it on at 9PM on Friday night when everyone's at the movies!" Then 3 weeks later, "Gee, this show's ratings are terrible, we should cancel it."
IIRC it was mainly because "Signature Editions" were only on relatively expensive machines. One of the things that us tech crowd tends to forget is that computers are commodities now, and people...
IIRC it was mainly because "Signature Editions" were only on relatively expensive machines.
One of the things that us tech crowd tends to forget is that computers are commodities now, and people have the tendency to buy the cheapest versions that they can get away with. If I were Joe Consumer, I would be tempted to buy the cheapest computer I could get away with. Keep in mind that people already do most of their "computer" tasks with their phones.
It doesn't puzzle me. Most people just don't really care that much. Apple users lean moderately tech-aware, the hardcore nerds are on linux and the vast majority of the remaining people just want...
It doesn't puzzle me. Most people just don't really care that much. Apple users lean moderately tech-aware, the hardcore nerds are on linux and the vast majority of the remaining people just want to get their online shopping done and neither know nor care about "privacy". Also there are people like me. know most of what MS get up to and I still don't care (not that I really run windows, but I do a lot of Google stuff and they're no better). "Privacy" is a pretty niche concern.
If enough people cared MS would do something. But they don't. Also a huge amount of their customers are corporate, so there's that as well.
I've always run LTSB/LTSC and Classic/OpenShell, installed either with ninite or off of the USB. It wasn't until a few months ago that I used the stock W10 start menu. What a mess! They had a...
I've always run LTSB/LTSC and Classic/OpenShell, installed either with ninite or off of the USB. It wasn't until a few months ago that I used the stock W10 start menu. What a mess!
They had a near-perfect start menu before. I don't like how everything gets its own folder. I always ditch those and organize everything properly... but otherwise the general design of the classic menu is exactly as it should be.
That being said, I haven't used Windows for a main system since 2014. I only run it on my HTPC because I love foobar2000 too much. With Linux I use dmenu and MacOS (my main) I use Alfred. With W11, they should have a similar system to quickly search for an application without a bunch of other stuff showing up / being suggested.
I'm hoping they have an automatic tiling mode option.
If you remember Windows Power Toys from the 90s, it’s still around and they have a module called Fancy Zones that lets you do window tiling. It isn’t automatic, but you can easily use keyboard...
If you remember Windows Power Toys from the 90s, it’s still around and they have a module called Fancy Zones that lets you do window tiling. It isn’t automatic, but you can easily use keyboard shortcuts to send windows to whatever area of the desktop you want. It’s crazy customizable. I used to use it on my Windows 10 desktop.
+1 for PowerToys. They also have some other useful tools like PowerRename (rename files in bulk), Image Resizer (resize images from explorer) and PowerToys Run (a very quick launcher).
+1 for PowerToys. They also have some other useful tools like PowerRename (rename files in bulk), Image Resizer (resize images from explorer) and PowerToys Run (a very quick launcher).
I was somewhat put off by the newer start menu designs initially. I'll be honest though, I don't care anymore. The search feature is smart enough to find what I need 99% of the time and now...
I was somewhat put off by the newer start menu designs initially. I'll be honest though, I don't care anymore. The search feature is smart enough to find what I need 99% of the time and now instead of spending time organizing it or trying to remember where I organized a particular thing, I just slam "Start" type the first 4-5 characters of the thing I want, and hit enter. It's become almost invisible.
I removed the default pinned tiles because I don't need any of them and the animations where annoying, but other than that, I don't pay attention to the actual layout of my Start Menu anymore.
The last time I was using Windows regularly, I honestly thought that the Windows 8 start menu was pretty nice, because if you've got a touch screen it makes getting to your most commonly used...
The last time I was using Windows regularly, I honestly thought that the Windows 8 start menu was pretty nice, because if you've got a touch screen it makes getting to your most commonly used applications dirt simple. Two taps and you're in your app, and because everything is always on the same part of the screen and the icons can be fairly large, you can basically leave it to muscle memory.
To add to the mentions of PowerToys, Microsoft is also working on a package manager that looks promising: winget-cli, which already supports quite a bit of software. And just for the sake of...
To add to the mentions of PowerToys, Microsoft is also working on a package manager that looks promising: winget-cli, which already supports quite a bit of software. And just for the sake of completeness, there's also a great Windows Terminal that's not PowerShell.
I just can't shake the history of Windows' track record of every other release being bad but this seems like such a minor upgrade over 10 in comparison (so far). W8 was truly the single worst...
I just can't shake the history of Windows' track record of every other release being bad but this seems like such a minor upgrade over 10 in comparison (so far). W8 was truly the single worst Windows experience I've had by a wide margin but I can't imagine something like that would ever happen again under Naydella.
I've been running an Insider build of W10 lately and I'm wondering how many of these features are actually being primed for W11 now.
Something I'm really hoping for is a ground up redo of how displays work. It's been such a mess for so long across all OS', and I'm getting the feeling that it's keeping modern display tech back. The monitor market is well behind the HDTV market. I haven't seen any of major OS' handle multimonitors all too gracefully, and it's exponentially worse with HDR tech now.
I'm not sure I can call Windows 8 the "worst". The replacement of the start menu with the "start screen" was stupid and puzzling, but it was easily rectified with third party software that took no...
I'm not sure I can call Windows 8 the "worst". The replacement of the start menu with the "start screen" was stupid and puzzling, but it was easily rectified with third party software that took no more than 30 seconds to find and install. I didn't find this any more annoying than replacing Internet Explorer with Firefox.
Windows ME and Vista were far worse releases. No amount of third party software could fix ME's stability problems and ancient design. Vista's hardware requirements for a good user experience were too high for 2007. Vista also broke a lot of old software and hardware with significant changes to its driver model, though in retrospect this was an unpleasant but necessary transition.
Oh god, Vista. They eventually fixed all the stupid bugs in it, but it was so bad on release. Drag-and-drop copy was something like 30% slower than using the CLI copy command, and performance...
Oh god, Vista. They eventually fixed all the stupid bugs in it, but it was so bad on release. Drag-and-drop copy was something like 30% slower than using the CLI copy command, and performance would go down over time because of their terrible storage and virtual memory tuning.
To be fair, OP did specify that W8 was the worst they had personally experienced. Which makes me wonder how many people actually used Windows ME. I think most techy people are aware of it's...
To be fair, OP did specify that W8 was the worst they had personally experienced. Which makes me wonder how many people actually used Windows ME. I think most techy people are aware of it's infamous legacy at this point, but it was current version of windows for all of 13 months. Not to mention, up until December 13, 2001 all previous versions of Windows were still technically supported by Microsoft, including even Windows 1. So the same buying pressure that exists today (eventual drop of support) didn't really exist at the time.
W8 might have been the truly worste Windows experience you've had, but it makes me wonder if you had to deal with the truly awful Windows ME? It made the awful interface of 8 seem wonderful since...
W8 might have been the truly worste Windows experience you've had, but it makes me wonder if you had to deal with the truly awful Windows ME? It made the awful interface of 8 seem wonderful since it wasn't crashing multiple times a day. I was working tech support when ME came out, it truly was a shitshow.
Windows ME was OK if you had a computer that was built for it. The actual problem with ME was that it let drivers basically do whatever they wanted, so bad drivers would crash the system. At one...
Windows ME was OK if you had a computer that was built for it. The actual problem with ME was that it let drivers basically do whatever they wanted, so bad drivers would crash the system. At one point I ended up being gifted a computer that was built for ME and it was extremely stable.
That being said, ME is still the major reason why I ended up learning how to use Linux.
Back in the day, yeah, but I was using subpar hardware at the time both at home and school, so crashes and instability was normal part of using computers for me. I don't think I had a stable PC...
Back in the day, yeah, but I was using subpar hardware at the time both at home and school, so crashes and instability was normal part of using computers for me. I don't think I had a stable PC until 2002.
So ME's problems weren't quite as much of an outlier to me back then as W8's bafflingly stupid UX was in 2012. I actually had my hands on a refurbished PC recently that came with Windows 8 and it took me a solid five minutes to find out where the Power Off button was. I honestly wonder what other major tech product ever has had worse UX than Windows 8.
It's such a minor upgrade, it's mostly graphical so far as well. I heavily doubt they're changing much from the backend, I wouldn't get your hopes up for that display reimagination.
It's such a minor upgrade, it's mostly graphical so far as well. I heavily doubt they're changing much from the backend, I wouldn't get your hopes up for that display reimagination.
Funny that several years ago there was talk about Windows 10 possibly being the last version: https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows
I don't think they are really abandoning the "live service" model here. Windows 11 will have a freshened up UI and some new features, but otherwise probably won't be the kind of radical update...
I don't think they are really abandoning the "live service" model here. Windows 11 will have a freshened up UI and some new features, but otherwise probably won't be the kind of radical update major new versions used to get. I bet it will get rolled out as one of their semi-annual Windows 10 updates, taking the spot of 21H2 or 22H1.
What puzzles me is why Microsoft doesn't push for a public image of privacy like Apple does. MS is in the same position and with the same profit incentives but for some reason they allow themselves to be (rightfully) seen as very invasive. Privacy clearly sells well and MS doesn't seem to profit a lot on tracking.
I would posit that it's because consumers make up a very small portion of Microsoft's income stream. People buy Apple because they want Apple. People end up with Windows because they don't want/can't afford Apple and MS is the default on other, non-Chromebook devices. Chromebooks are OK, but there's still a lot of stigma around them because people think they can't get anything done just using a web browser. Beyond the surface brand, MS really doesn't need to do much to market itself as an alternative to Apple, because it's essentially the only other OS that's available (discounting Linux of course, but so does the rest of the world :(
MS have lucrative licensing deals with OEMs, the lion's share of enterprise users under its wing, to mention nothing of its cloud services. Why spend money on consumer-facing marketing, when they're still making money from the marketing that Lenovo, Acer, Razer, Dell, HP, and the rest all do?
I'd also add gamers as a relatively locked in group (discounting linux again). If you want to play on your PC, it seems as if (!) Windows is your only option.
And that about covers it. Most "casual" users have moved on to mobile and tablets by now for their daily needs (browsing the web, doing your taxes, etc) while those who remain on desktop / laptop computers are either doing so professionally or for gaming. (For the most part anyway)
Maybe this is also a situation of Windows being the "default" OS. As such, there is no such thing as good marketing, because you need no marketing. Don't do anything stupid and people will buy it, basically.
Not to mention gamers usually don't give a damn about privacy, many new online games have super invasive, kernel-level anticheat software.
An example for this is Vanguard in Riot's game Valorant.
For any unaware, those licensing deals are kinda what propelled Microsoft to monopoly status in the first place.
For a good long time, Microsoft de-facto forced exclusivity by threatening to jack up OEM cost if the vendor sold any desktops without windows. You couldn't buy a non-windows machine from a big vendor, and you couldn't easily (if ever) get a refund for that license if you didn't accept the windows EULA.
My guess would be because of a lack of control over Windows's distribution. They just make the operating system, they don't control the supply chains and make decisions on what hardware gets it.
Even if they did a 180 and decided to market Windows 11 as a privacy-first operating system, there's nothing to stop a company like Lenovo from shipping spyware with their default Windows installation. And the layperson (rightfully, tbh) isn't going to draw that much of a distinction between stock Windows 11 and the Windows 11 shipped with their computer.
There is still so much they could do in terms of services. Apple provides so many thinks like masked email addresses, a built in VPN, encrypted messaging, etc. On the OEM side, they could probably get away with cracking down on what OEMs bundle.
They can (and have) cracked down on what OEMs install, but that’s also a significant portion of revenue for computer makers. I mean, Microsoft itself bundles stuff into Windows 10, like Candy Crush.
I don’t know if it is still a thing, but Microsoft used to have a “Windows 10 Signature Program” where PCs in that program didn’t come with any extra software. It was the PC equivalent of stock Android. They weren’t too popular though.
I have to wonder why they weren't too popular. If you're an OEM and you make a significant amount of money by bundling crapware with your computers, what's your incentive to stop doing that and make it easy for people to find out you've stopped doing it? This seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me.
It reminds me of any good show that used to run on Fox being put in the worst TV slots. "Oh, people really like this show? Let's put it on at 9PM on Friday night when everyone's at the movies!" Then 3 weeks later, "Gee, this show's ratings are terrible, we should cancel it."
IIRC it was mainly because "Signature Editions" were only on relatively expensive machines.
One of the things that us tech crowd tends to forget is that computers are commodities now, and people have the tendency to buy the cheapest versions that they can get away with. If I were Joe Consumer, I would be tempted to buy the cheapest computer I could get away with. Keep in mind that people already do most of their "computer" tasks with their phones.
Apple also kills off IPC APIs that eliminate user space spyware entirely.
But there's no incentive for them to do any of that if they're not going to get the marketing benefits anyway.
It doesn't puzzle me. Most people just don't really care that much. Apple users lean moderately tech-aware, the hardcore nerds are on linux and the vast majority of the remaining people just want to get their online shopping done and neither know nor care about "privacy". Also there are people like me. know most of what MS get up to and I still don't care (not that I really run windows, but I do a lot of Google stuff and they're no better). "Privacy" is a pretty niche concern.
If enough people cared MS would do something. But they don't. Also a huge amount of their customers are corporate, so there's that as well.
I've always run LTSB/LTSC and Classic/OpenShell, installed either with ninite or off of the USB. It wasn't until a few months ago that I used the stock W10 start menu. What a mess!
They had a near-perfect start menu before. I don't like how everything gets its own folder. I always ditch those and organize everything properly... but otherwise the general design of the classic menu is exactly as it should be.
That being said, I haven't used Windows for a main system since 2014. I only run it on my HTPC because I love foobar2000 too much. With Linux I use dmenu and MacOS (my main) I use Alfred. With W11, they should have a similar system to quickly search for an application without a bunch of other stuff showing up / being suggested.
I'm hoping they have an automatic tiling mode option.
If you remember Windows Power Toys from the 90s, it’s still around and they have a module called Fancy Zones that lets you do window tiling. It isn’t automatic, but you can easily use keyboard shortcuts to send windows to whatever area of the desktop you want. It’s crazy customizable. I used to use it on my Windows 10 desktop.
+1 for PowerToys. They also have some other useful tools like PowerRename (rename files in bulk), Image Resizer (resize images from explorer) and PowerToys Run (a very quick launcher).
that's pretty decent, actually. I tried a twm for windows a while ago and it seemed to have a mind of its own. Thanks for this!
I was somewhat put off by the newer start menu designs initially. I'll be honest though, I don't care anymore. The search feature is smart enough to find what I need 99% of the time and now instead of spending time organizing it or trying to remember where I organized a particular thing, I just slam "Start" type the first 4-5 characters of the thing I want, and hit enter. It's become almost invisible.
I removed the default pinned tiles because I don't need any of them and the animations where annoying, but other than that, I don't pay attention to the actual layout of my Start Menu anymore.
The last time I was using Windows regularly, I honestly thought that the Windows 8 start menu was pretty nice, because if you've got a touch screen it makes getting to your most commonly used applications dirt simple. Two taps and you're in your app, and because everything is always on the same part of the screen and the icons can be fairly large, you can basically leave it to muscle memory.
The new version of PowerToys from Microsoft includes a utility called PowerToys Run, which is essentially this.
These look really useful! A few of those are definitely things that I wished I could do with windows, esp. the bulk rename. Thanks for linking it.
Woah, this is a REALLY neat addition. I'm particularly interested in the window resizing application. The name, FancyZones, could use an improvement.
these are pretty slick.
I love AHK. I haven't used it in ages, but it used to be deeply embedded in nearly everything I did :)
To add to the mentions of PowerToys, Microsoft is also working on a package manager that looks promising: winget-cli, which already supports quite a bit of software. And just for the sake of completeness, there's also a great Windows Terminal that's not PowerShell.
I just can't shake the history of Windows' track record of every other release being bad but this seems like such a minor upgrade over 10 in comparison (so far). W8 was truly the single worst Windows experience I've had by a wide margin but I can't imagine something like that would ever happen again under Naydella.
I've been running an Insider build of W10 lately and I'm wondering how many of these features are actually being primed for W11 now.
Something I'm really hoping for is a ground up redo of how displays work. It's been such a mess for so long across all OS', and I'm getting the feeling that it's keeping modern display tech back. The monitor market is well behind the HDTV market. I haven't seen any of major OS' handle multimonitors all too gracefully, and it's exponentially worse with HDR tech now.
I'm not sure I can call Windows 8 the "worst". The replacement of the start menu with the "start screen" was stupid and puzzling, but it was easily rectified with third party software that took no more than 30 seconds to find and install. I didn't find this any more annoying than replacing Internet Explorer with Firefox.
Windows ME and Vista were far worse releases. No amount of third party software could fix ME's stability problems and ancient design. Vista's hardware requirements for a good user experience were too high for 2007. Vista also broke a lot of old software and hardware with significant changes to its driver model, though in retrospect this was an unpleasant but necessary transition.
Oh god, Vista. They eventually fixed all the stupid bugs in it, but it was so bad on release. Drag-and-drop copy was something like 30% slower than using the CLI copy command, and performance would go down over time because of their terrible storage and virtual memory tuning.
To be fair, OP did specify that W8 was the worst they had personally experienced. Which makes me wonder how many people actually used Windows ME. I think most techy people are aware of it's infamous legacy at this point, but it was current version of windows for all of 13 months. Not to mention, up until December 13, 2001 all previous versions of Windows were still technically supported by Microsoft, including even Windows 1. So the same buying pressure that exists today (eventual drop of support) didn't really exist at the time.
W8 might have been the truly worste Windows experience you've had, but it makes me wonder if you had to deal with the truly awful Windows ME? It made the awful interface of 8 seem wonderful since it wasn't crashing multiple times a day. I was working tech support when ME came out, it truly was a shitshow.
Windows ME was OK if you had a computer that was built for it. The actual problem with ME was that it let drivers basically do whatever they wanted, so bad drivers would crash the system. At one point I ended up being gifted a computer that was built for ME and it was extremely stable.
That being said, ME is still the major reason why I ended up learning how to use Linux.
Back in the day, yeah, but I was using subpar hardware at the time both at home and school, so crashes and instability was normal part of using computers for me. I don't think I had a stable PC until 2002.
So ME's problems weren't quite as much of an outlier to me back then as W8's bafflingly stupid UX was in 2012. I actually had my hands on a refurbished PC recently that came with Windows 8 and it took me a solid five minutes to find out where the Power Off button was. I honestly wonder what other major tech product ever has had worse UX than Windows 8.
It's such a minor upgrade, it's mostly graphical so far as well. I heavily doubt they're changing much from the backend, I wouldn't get your hopes up for that display reimagination.
Funny that several years ago there was talk about Windows 10 possibly being the last version:
https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows
I was thinking about that when I read this story. What's the deal, Microsoft?
I don't think they are really abandoning the "live service" model here. Windows 11 will have a freshened up UI and some new features, but otherwise probably won't be the kind of radical update major new versions used to get. I bet it will get rolled out as one of their semi-annual Windows 10 updates, taking the spot of 21H2 or 22H1.