Posted on 12/03/2021 9:06:20 PM PST by dayglored
If it's not broke, don't f- ... never mind
Microsoft's long-suffering unpaid testers are to start seeing some improvements in the Windows 11 User Interface.
Build 22509 arrived last night for Windows Insiders on the Dev Channel and, as well as making things a bit more accessible by improving the web browsing experience with Microsoft's Edge browser and the Narrator, there were some much-needed tweaks to the Start Menu and Taskbar.
Starting with the most jarring change in the user experience for Windows 11, the Start Menu, some easy-to-access options were added. One can opt for more pinned applications or more recommendations to control how many rows of either are displayed. It's not quite the "make it like Windows 10" that some users have requested, but it's a step in the right direction.
And for those Windows 10 Start Menu fans, companies such as Stardock will happily sell you something to give you that old Start Menu feeling. Just like it brought back the look of Start Menus of yesteryear for Windows 10 refuseniks.
Then there are people (like this writer) who never really got over the arrival of the Start button in Windows 95 and the eventual disappearance of progman.exe.
Infuriatingly not available to all Insiders yet is the clock and date appearing on the taskbar of the second monitor (or monitors). Microsoft said it was planning to "monitor [sic] feedback to see how it lands before pushing it out to everyone."
The same staggered rollout applies to changes with notifications; if you're one of the chosen few, three high-priority notifications will now be stacked and shown at the same time.
Other tweaks have resulted in more settings moving from the venerable Control Panel to the Settings app, and the OS will remember if Bluetooth or Wi-Fi has been turned on while in airplane mode. Usefully, Windows Sandbox now supports reboot inside of its virtualized environment.
There was also the usual raft of fixes. However, it is the changes to the Start Menu that will have users sighing with relief, even if the modifications are not earth-shattering. Hopefully they are a sign of things to come and perhaps a tacit acknowledgement from Microsoft that maybe the Windows 11 user interface still needs a bit of work. ®
I can tell just by using it. Windows 11 start menu is a good thing.
And no I don’t like media that’s nothing but negative. They make up negative stuff just to stay true to form.
I had XP on an HP laptop. That was the last Windows OS I used.
I liked XP, but decided to try something different when the laptop gave up. iOS.
NOW, I don’t do Windows….🙂
“But I love the windows 11 start menu. It’s way better than windows 10.”
There is a settings option to shift it to the left. For Win 10 and 11... I always pin control panel for quick access. Between Win 10 and Win 11, both are OK with me.
What you said... Lol
“> Bring back XP!”
Or you can put a costume theme on Mint and have XP graphics... lol
https://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/themes/view/Mint-XP
Personally I still prefer what’s called Win-7 Pro x64.
Not joking, I want XP back.
Everything since XP, the general public only has accepted begrudgingly, and only then after M$ set alight the bridge behind them.
Humans are drawn to familiarity. Familiar means comfort and security. Many (most?) people are put off by change - especially change for the sake of change. I believe that is why so many are so put off by Microsoft’s incessant fiddling with their OS.
I finally got around to setting up a Win-11 VM so that I could take a look at it. I had to do a VM because I do not own any PC’s that meet MS’s hardware requirements (TPM 2.0).
My initial impression? BFD.
I have yet to find it capable of anything that Win-10 can’t do. It’s similar to Windows, but with everything rearranged. So most of my time has been spent searching for things I know are there, but are not in the right places.
The changes are not as radical as Win-8 (I still consider that an unpardonable sin against humanity!) but still discomfiting. And unnecessary.
So what’s my basic inclination when presented with this new OS? Change it - or more accurately, change it back. Install the browser that I like (with Windows fighting me tooth and nail). Install Open Shell so that I have a more usable (familiar?!) program menu. Tweak settings for file explorer, etc.
Did I have to make all those changes? No - but yes. I could continue to cast about, searching for stuff and being constantly irritated that it isn’t where it belongs. Or I can “fix” it by retrograding it.
This looks like where we part company, Microsoft and I.
Even XP was a rough sell at first. The first NT-family release for consumers -- Win2K -- was reviled (I think unfairly) because of the incompatibility with DOS-family Win95/98 applications. XP was the compromise.
But XP won users over eventually, and since Vista was very late and awful when it did arrive, XP had a nice long run despite MS's efforts to burn the bridges, multiple times.
Spot on. And that's a major reason why MacOS continues to draw users. Apple makes changes and improves (and sometimes breaks) things, but mostly under the hood. Compare the most recent MacOS default desktop/menu/dock to the original OS-X layout from 20 years ago -- it's a little fancier, but it's nearly identical in the important respects. Why? Because there's no reason to screw up something that works.
Ya know all those popular MacOS "add-ons" that revert the desktop to an earlier version? Me neither.
Apple understands the desire for familiarity. Microsoft doesn't have a clue in that regard. It's like MS's designers have an ever-changing idea of "what's cool this year" and force it on users, rather than give them something that they already demonstrably want.
> I could continue to cast about, searching for stuff and being constantly irritated that it isn’t where it belongs. Or I can “fix” it by retrograding it.
I've been doing that ever since Win2K.
It makes for some funny comments from co-workers, like "Wait, I thought we were all supposed to be using Win10 now." "This -is- Win10." "But it looks like Win2K." "That's correct."
Agreed. IMO that particular release was the Windows OS high-water mark, the "sweet spot", in terms of functionality, ease of use, and overall style. Everything before it was not as good, and everything after it has been worse.
It's a shame that it's now manifestly unsafe to use for internet browsing, because Microsoft stopped patching security flaws almost two years ago. But it's still entirely fine for local "air-gapped" use with applications.
I just spent 28,000 bucks upgrading my crap engineering software. Damn them all. Damn Bill Gates. Give me back my abacus and slide ruler.
I have two retail copies of XP Home Edition that have never been used. One box has never been opened and the other was opened, but never used. I bought both a week before MS quit selling them.
Yep, I had Vista for a very short while, hated it. I never did get windows 8 so no idea what folks had to,go through with that system lol, I understand it wasn’t very good. Xp was pretty O-k- I did like that one (well. I got used to,it I should say)
Windows 20 is meh- missing lots of stuff and control. Hate that things like card games are now ad infused apps. I have it on a backup drive incase something fails with my main Linux and windows 7 system, but I keep,10 offline so it doesn’t update and wreck something. A few times I made mistake of going online, and it of course automatically tried updating, running into problems, some things didn’t update- so I just did a system revert- but likely have junk from the updates left on the system tucked somewhere obscure. Evidently you can still run the trial of 10, but you can’t update it or customize it- that’s fine, it’s just as a backup test os anyways to see if programs will work or not with it.
Yep, my neighbor loved 2000 too. I tried it briefly, but it seemed a little too techie involved for me if I remember right. I might try it on a vm again though.
I use Norton 360 & Norton Utilities and MalwareBytes Premium plus CCleaner premium, so I well protected, so I’ve NEVER had a virus attack, in the past 15yrs. Can’t get much better than that. The provide firewalls, anti-virus and malware protection, 24x7.
Even Windows Defender/ Anti-Virus and its’ various built-in protections weren’t that good.
While by no means any kind of major issue in life, thank God for free options and thus we need not for be stuck with MS defaults like the Start menu:
default start (Image credit: Microsoft)
OpenShell, Quick Launch and T-Clock menu DesktopComposite image
Windows 12 will be awesome!!
No this is not better than Linux Mint, Every Windows version is inferior to Linux and Windows is horrible and we should all Switch to Linux.
Have we got that out-of-the-way now for all the Linux geeks?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.