They won't actually move back to a user-focused OS at all. It's nice for them to declare they will, but their culture and business pressures will prevent any kind of sustained effort. (Their users aren't their customers.)

Similarly with "reducing unnecessary Copilot integration." They added it everywhere before, users hated it, and now removing it is considered a feature.

This isn't a commitment to quality. This is just a fix for years of treating the operating system as an advertising platform.

A business exists because its shareholders invest capital with the expectation of a return. As a result, nearly all businesses go through similar lifecycles. The stages are launch, growth, maturity, decline, and sometimes renewal. There is a lot of capital injected in the early stages and to capture market share the firm often produces the best product it can.

Once the market share is acquired, the business puts up moats if it's able, and then it enters the MATURITY phase. That's where the Windows business is. In the maturity phase a business focuses on TAKING PROFITS wherever it can find them. This includes but is not limited to cutting back on its investment in product, as much as it can. If it can cut budgets and quality and give that money to the shareholders it will. If it can inject ads into the product or resell your data it will.

The very purpose of a business is to reach maturity and then take profits.

That's capitalism. The investors provided the capital. In the end, they gets what they wants.

Now if a company leans into this dynamic as hard as Microsoft has, you should know what's coming. No one should be surprised - maybe they're scared of the Neo right now and there'll be a few years of reprieve, but they're a mature firm, they're in profit taking mode, and the goal in this phase is not to make Windows as great as possible, it's to squeeze as much money out of it as they can.

The next stage is decline -- where the squeeze gets so hard that the business actually collapses. All businesses fail sooner or later. Everything becomes lawyers and accountants slicing it up, selling it off, and sometimes it gets restructured and reborn, sometimes it doesn't. This can take years or it can take decades but it's basically a bumpy downhill road from maturity to that point. If you stick around at this point and keep using Windows, keep in mind that's what you opted into. There isn't really any other way. It's just business.

Intriguingly, free software in its more elemental forms doesn't appear to follow this lifecycle. It's not for profit and there are no investors to satisfy. Contributors who build the software do it mainly out of self-interest: they build what they want to use, and as a result they may come and go at any time. But the software remains there, and you are welcome to tinker with it, too.

And it really comes down to $MSFT. If the stock keeps dropping, how long do you think any real commitment to “quality” for a boring, low(no?) revenue product will last? Very little when the ad/partner revenue really starts flowing for “ai focused metrics” that can directly tie to windows surveillance (ie recall).

Enterprise users are.

No doubt it’s starting to show its age but it’s like watching a lion die. Win32 amenities just being automatically available is quite sick and I wish there was something similar for Linux.

It’s like windows devs and users live in alternate realities, I’m sure a lot of cool things can happen if they bring some of that dev love over to their UX.

I am curious whether they will "suddenly realized" this after the community feedback process they initiated because they supposedly care so much about their users. Then, out of nowhere, they discovered that users do not want to be spied on or treated as the product. They just want to use their fucking operating system in peace without Microsoft constantly forcing its own products on them.

I wonder when that realization came and why. Maybe they started losing market share to Apple or users just prefer phones to pc even more?

It's been fantastic. People always find an excuse but really they are doing themselves a disservice.

.. yet. The absolute roll-over I've seen regarding OS level age verification is concerning and disheartening.

> More taskbar customization, including vertical and top positions: > Repositioning the taskbar is one of the top asks we’ve heard from you. We are introducing the ability to reposition it to the top or sides of your screen, making it easier to personalize your workspace.

Yes. Not being able to reposition the taskbar is definitely the biggest problem that users have been complaining about. They don't care about Recall trying to store screenshots in an insecure database, or OneDrive uploading copies of all their data without asking permission. It's being able to put the taskbar on the side of the screen that they care about most.

(To be fair, people do care about this and it's not at all a bad thing that they're giving more options back. It's just not deserving of the #1 spot).

> Integrating AI where it’s most meaningful, with craft and focus: > You will see us be more intentional about how and where Copilot integrates across Windows, focusing on experiences that are genuinely useful and well‑crafted. As part of this, we are reducing unnecessary Copilot entry points, starting with apps like Snipping Tool, Photos, Widgets and Notepad.

Notice this does not say "You will have one checkbox, prominently placed in the Settings app, that says 'Turn Copilot off entirely, remove it from my computer, and never mention it again until I uncheck this box'." Nope, they're still going to push Copilot in unnecessary places, they're just going to be more subtle about it.

The problem is that I do not want to mess around to make things work. This is the power of Windows. Everything is built around it and it does not need or want you to keep hacking it.

Don't get me wrong I am working on Mac and my personal dev laptop is a Linux Mint, but sometimes it physically hurt to find something that sends me down a rabbit hole yet again on Linux. I just think the whole "you have to hack it because you can and otherwise you don't really own it" thing is a big hurdle on Linux that keeps mainstream peeps to stay away

Not sure if I made sense, but yeah basically in order to challenge Windows Linux would need to "just work" which is not the case right now (or ever was)

Having said that, I don't begrudge people from using Windows or Mac. As much as I'd like to believe otherwise, Linux has rough edges that most people really don't want to deal with. I'm willing to give Linux some grace because I believe in open source and want to support that world with my actions. But when someone complains about why their fingerprint reader doesn't work, all I can say is "yep, that can happen". I think the little niggles in Linux are worth it for having a free (as in freedom) OS, but as it turns out, most people don't value that.

The UX/UI of Windows 98 is far, far ahead of whatever Linux DWM we have today. It's nowhere near close. My KDE is usable but everything feels off, from icon shapes and sizes to mouse cursor icons, mouse cursor speed, the way settings are organised, almost everything. And it's not a matter of habit, as I've been on KDE for years, and I kept trying to make it work. Windows just clicks out of the box, it's more comfortable.

Microsoft, once upon a time, put an enormous amount of money into creating a user experience that makes sense for a maximum amount of people. Even though this experience suffered enormously over the last decade, it's still better than everything else, including OSX. And I'm not praising Microsoft, everyone else (including Canonical) is just that bad.

It's the easiest route. On non-Apple computers, Windows is already installed. (It takes a bit of effort to buy a computer without an OS.) Microsoft makes it easy for a user to get Microsoft 365. With that, users have the computer they have at the office and are familiar with. Most are just surfing the web and writing an occasional letter, anyway. That doesn't include people who are perfectly fine with a Chromebook or just their phone.

Finding a Linux distribution, downloading it, putting it on a USB stick (or burning a disc), then installing it is not simple for most people. (Don't even ask them to verify the checksum.)

Look.

I guess we all care about software business here.

And computer? It’s what consumers buy from store. Preferably in cybermonday or similar sale.

To run the software they ran on their previous computer.

They hope slightly faster. But honestly? They couldnt tell. Anyway the new computer is shinier.

OS? What’s that? (They honestly could not care less)

They dont buy apple for the os. They buy it for the brand.

Pop! OS is definitely not ready for the average user in my opinion. Some common work-related apps I need like Citrix Workspace straight up don't work. Audio + Camera randomly give out in the middle of video conferences, only fixable by a complete reboot. Some things are only fixable in the terminal.

I use it as much as I can, but there is still work to be done. I agree that Windows is on the wrong path.

2. Linux has, historically, been fundamentally inferior for some purposes. Lots of (sometimes very expensive) equipment has proprietary drivers that only run on windows. You'll find old versions of windows running hardware in labs all over the world. This is minor though, compared to the mainstream office and home user, as well as gamers. If a typical joe uses windows and MS office at work, its only natural to do the same thing at home. Why learn a new OS for your home computer if you're only using it a few hours a week? Gamers, of course, are still locked into Windows for some titles despite Steam's best efforts. Some gaming hardware still doesn't support Linux properly (I'm looking at you, Razer). Linux is getting really close to Windows for gaming though.

3. Windows was actually a pretty nice OS for a while, until the recent slide into Microslop silliness.

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"Integrating AI where it’s most meaningful, with craft and focus: You will see us be more intentional about how and where Copilot integrates across Windows, focusing on experiences that are genuinely useful and well‑crafted. As part of this, we are reducing unnecessary Copilot entry points, starting with apps like Snipping Tool, Photos, Widgets and Notepad."

While mealy-mouthed at best, I take this as indicating MS has finally started paying attention to the growing backlash and is going to back off on trying to AI ALL THE THINGS. A lot of users simply don't need or want Copilot everywhere. Many users also now have a compelling alternative in Linux. Inertia keeps them with Windows, but a significant irritant could make them switch. If MS wants to keep those users, they need to stop pushing AI so hard and focus on keeping the rest of Windows in good shape.

For folks who use odd-ball hardware, e.g., the new generation Wacom EMR stylus equipped Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360 I'm writing this out on (really, using a stylus to write this out) it's pretty much the only option, which I wish was not the case.

That said, I bought a pair of Raspberry Pi 5s a while back, and am hopeful that the Soulscircuit Pilet I backed on Kickstarter will work well w/ a Wacom One, and if it does so, I'll upgrade to a Movink 13 or something similar.

I’m not seeing any brick and mortar stores selling Linux laptops or any mindshare for any Linux brand. Maybe if Ubuntu started selling hardware in supermarkets Linux would have a chance of capturing people’s consciousness outside of the power user / professional circles. But they’re years too late now.

But since real users live at the level of the ecosystem, what's hard about understanding that they can't replace a lacking ecosystem with "inherent traits"?

To call an ecosystem superficial evidence is puzzling to me. The ecosystem is -everything- for an operating system.

Developers, apps, distribution, users; all of it is ecosystem.

The reason is simple: Microsoft has a lock on PCs used by corporate and government employees, so the vast majority of people who use computers at work use Windows computers. And so they naturally buy the same kind of computer for home that they're used to using at work. People like me, who run Linux at home even though I'm forced to use Windows at work, are outliers. And probably always will be. So the only way for the Linux desktop to really take off would be for large corporate customers and governments to switch from Windows to Linux. I would love it if that happened, but I'm not holding my breath.

I've completely replaced Windows with Bazzite since November and it's been great for me, but it's not been without issues. Those issues are doable for me, but if I put Bazzite, Fedora, Linux Mint or any of the other beginner friendly distros on anybody else's PC they'll encounter a roadblock that they won't know how to resolve and that'll taint their Linux experience. Not to mention spotty hardware drivers (I've had several wifi drivers just stop working with an update, which is infuriating if you don't have a reliable wired connection), volunteer software for many configurations (OpenRGB doesn't support my motherboard), nVidia drivers and finding alternatives to software people know and use like Office and Photoshop.

These might not seem like a big deal, but they're dealbreakers for many and they'd rather put up with some dodgy window resize behaviour or their OS spying on them.

The fun thing about the Mac is that technical people can do more or less whatever they want, while the out of the box experience is still super simple and easy for people who do not have a comfortable relationship with computing. This is a good thing.

Consider the easy integration you get with Apple headphones and Apple devices. Regular Bluetooth pairing is far more fiddly and annoying.

Consider how you'd set up easy use of a password manager across devices. This is "it just works" territory with the Apple ecosystem. It's awkward and weird on Windows. It's a giant DIY project on Linux.

This is why Apple succeeds. They think about end user experience far more than Microsoft does. Linux, as a non-product (this is not a ding), doesn't "think" about this at all, for the most part.

I DO think it's pretty obvious that desktop Linux would be much farther along had Apple not pivoted to a FreeBSD based OS a quarter century ago. That brought a lot of very technical people onto the platfor that would've otherwise gone to Linux. There was a time when any given tech conf was a sea of illuminated Apples on the backs of laptop screens, because getting your average LAMP stack running was trivial on a Mac and painful on Windows. It was an opportunity for Microsoft, but Ballmer couldn't see it, and so here we are.

You, I, and everyone on HN are all racecar drivers. Our view of Windows is heavily skewed by our technical knowledge, but it is exactly what it's supposed to be - the operating system of the masses. The masses will never love Linux...it's very philosophy is antithetical to what makes a good operating system for the average user. The idea that Linux could ever take serious ground from Windows is never going to happen. It is purely wishful thinking, but it will always have its place in infrastructure and for geeks like you and I.

All of that said, for daily driving, I'll take the Mercedes.

That's what a corporation does.

They are not even acknowledging that feedback is negative. They make it sound like a love fest where users love windows so much that they want to make it even better.

Even with their proposed “improvements” to Windows Update it would remain inferior in principle to what it was in Windows 7 (or 8 which I never used) and prior when you could “pause” updates indefinitely or, in non-dystopian terms, refuse them. If a third party, even one that you trust, can mandate changes to the software on your computer, then it is not really your computer.

No. "Commitment" in corporate speak is a synonym for "absolute lack of intention". That's why corps 'commit' to reducing emissions, treating employees fairly, etc, ie. to all the things they will not do. But no suit 'commits' to making money. They just make money. It's just a superficial linguistic gesture. Shakespeare got it.

Saying and doing are very different. They have passed through the "fuck around" phase, and are entering the "find out" phase of this AI journey. Lots of companies are, suddenly.

My employer trained us all on the Gartner hype cycle, tested us on how to remain level-headed before and during the peak of unreasonable expectations and now every single manager in the company is drooling over AI, saying that "this is the future, join us or find another job" and I cannot wait for the curve to come back down to a sane level where intelligence rules behavior as much as it used to. We'll see.

We’ve certainly done the “fucking around” and now we'll see if we "find out" enough to regain our sanity and our humanity.

Funnily enough, there's a bug that's affecting all MacBook users in my company (does not wake after lid down overnight). Apparently the culprit is windows defender installed in the MacBooks. Corporate, you know...

Sure both have their quirks, but it's just wild how much Windows goes out of its way to be annoying. From a billion startup notifications to basic UI stuff to copilot and the list goes on.

Gen AI has even more power at task generation than at content generation. Imagine running Photoshop or Final Cut Pro via prompts. People seem squeamish because so far the Copilot entrypoints have been encouraging tacky text & image content generation, like Clippy. But imo that’s the weakest and most sensitive application.

V1 is often not very good, for any new application.

Windows used to be built for the user. Now, Microsoft builds it for themselves, as a way to help hardware partners sell hardware which includes a windows license.

So if Microsoft makes Windows for their own benefit, and not for the users benefit, I see no reason to use it at all. I don’t like games that much.

MacOS has gone downhill in a hurry but it’s still very good. Far better than Windows for me in every way.

The continual recall/ai push from Microsoft has not helped at all and is pretty gross. There is a way to do a “recall” style thing that some folks will really want if they can trust it. The msft approach has been the opposite of that.

Yet it was the end users that forced enterprise to embrace the iPhone, not the other way around.

If her vision was the only driver, we'd still be rocking Blackberries.

Windows isn't MacOS that runs on set of verified configurations - it runs on variety of hardware with vendor drivers and other software. That combined may cause issues but so lack of testing - we know that Microsoft in its wisdom dismantled QA and replaced it with this prosthetics of enthusiasts community that all the time suggest "sfc /scannow". Now they put Charlie Bell in role of "engineering quality" position but I have no hope that something will change with a good outcome for users.

And users should be again allowed to avoid updates which were proven to cause issues - that's the fundamental need here. Deterring a scheduled action isn't enough.

Considering Windows behavior, all the telemetry that was smuggled to W7 in poorly described updates, I see how appealing is to Microsoft to use this big updates package format and add features, components which surely would be avoided by experienced users. Since W10 and maybe even partially during W7 they're fighting their users when it comes to control over operating system.

I'm on CachyOS now but I still get calls from friends who struggle with all this MS circus. Recently, this friend lost data to bitlocker encrypted machine because she didn't had backup keys. She's that kind of user that doesn't know what happens on the screen beside text processor and web browser - everything is a nuance that has to be quickly dealt with by "next next done" tactic. Should she be more patient and read what's being displayed on the screen - sure but I've told her that years ago.

Anyway, CachyOS: arch-update renders a popup in KDE about recommended restart, sometimes update process requires restarting services and users can select ones it needs or everything listed altogether. There's snapshots support for updates: https://wiki.cachyos.org/configuration/btrfs_snapshots/ and pretty sure other distributions have this as an option as well.

… this was a feature in Windows 95. I didn't even realize they'd removed it! Is the author too young to remember a time when the start bar was positionable…?

… to then follow "we listed to your feedback" with "more AI everywhere" … it's satire … right? Right?!

... like every OS ever.

And when all is good and everybody's too busy to pay attention we'll force feed you an update that will revert all changes to what we want.

It resumes when wanted /by MS/ - to protect their brand from cyberattack.

The user preference is now secondary.

Average computer owners don't really care about their machines, let alone understand them. Computers are appliances to them like their washing machines and microwaves.

> More direct control over updates, including the ability to pause updates for as long as you need

So it does sound like you'll be able to pause updates forever and also therefore not automatically reboot.

2026 Year of Linux Desktop?

There's nothing wrong with Win32 (and everything wrong with the newer stuff); "interaction latency" was just fine on a single-core 33MHz 486 running Windows 95.

I had to dig around because I could not remember since when I take this stuff - putting as many toolbars as you'd like anywhere on multiple monitors you feel like as granted and yes, 14 years ago xfce 4.10 was released. Time flies, I guess.

Just like the dialog that searched for a solution to why my program just crashed. Of all the times I saw that (maybe every other day), it found something precisely 0 times, but wasted my time every time.

Did it work for anyone or am I alone?

At the very least, don't forget my font setting on the update.

I went back to windows, using WSL in 2017. In 2023 I got sick of how everything was getting progressively worse and switched to linux (which has window snapping). I'm never looking back.

> With the llms these days, any linux issue is fixable within minutes. I think this point is really it. What in the past needed a 40min google search to fix something, llms now fix it in seconds.

This article is so disconnected and uninterested in the actual needs of users who despise windows in its current form today.

Which just tells me what I already know - Windows is actively hostile to power users, and they should be on Linux. Leave Windows for the less technically confident who need that stuff hidden away.

    s/2000/1995/

“More fluid and responsive app interactions: Reducing interaction latency by moving core Windows experiences to the WinUI3 framework.

* Improving the shared UI infrastructure that Windows experiences rely on, reducing interaction latency and overhead at the platform level

* Faster responsiveness in core Windows experiences like the Start menu, by moving more experiences to WinUI3”

Like you, I make the above comment based on my long experience from the IBM 360 through to Assembler, CP/M, OS/2, VAX, Linux and many others including Win 95, NT, W2K through to the present.

What you fail to acknowledge is that Microsoft has changed the Windows paradigm to such an extent that many users (but far from all) can no longer accept the horribly onerous terms and conditions imposed by Microsoft for the use of its operating system.

This is now a political issue. With Windows, Microsoft has by far a monopoly on desktop operating systems which amounts to many millions of users. Its monopoly means that any effective competition by way of a truly API-compatible software product simply cannot emerge (eg: ReactOS has been lingering in the wilderness for over a quarter century). In effect, with enforced lock-in, Microsoft has now hijacked—kidnapped—the user environment and experience then exploited the spoils for its own financial benefit.

A good analogy would be an ongoing patent on the position and layout order of the brake and accelerator pedals in vehicles with royalties payable to use them. Other manufacturers cannot innovate as different systems would cause confusion and thus be unsafe. In case you're wondering that's a definition of a monopoly.

Microsoft is not only forcing users to work in ways they do not want to work but also it's now milking and robbing millions of them of their privacy for its own financial advantage. Users no longer have an option to remain as they were and are coerced to upgrade from older less restrictive versions of Windows because Microsoft deliberately invokes planned obsolescence by not updating drivers nor supporting newer hardware in those earlier versions. Simply, Microsoft forces users to move to a more controlled and restrictive environments.

Ethically and environmentally that is unacceptable, and in any political system that isn't compromised by lobbying and kickbacks such bad behavior would be penalized.

Microsoft knows full well all that and that for users to escape its clutches they have to jump over barriers and hurdles that are practically impossible to navigate, they thus destined to remain captured in their unwanted dystopian environment. That's the narrative—it's Big Tech's plan, and grudgingly I have to admit it's brilliantly effective.

To undo this enforced lock-in and for everyone to escape Microsoft's clutches it would take billions of manhours of effort—time that would be much more productive spent elsewhere. Clearly, that's not going to happen. Right, coercion and exploitation pays off big-time; again, 'kidnapping' sums up Microsoft's actions to a tee.

Given the out-of-control behavior and damage done by Microsoft and other Big Tech players a point of inflection has been reached, it's now a political matter and the perpetrators will find the momentum very difficult to reverse completely. Cory Doctorow's 'enshitification' captures the zeitgeist along what needs to be done to bring Big Tech to heel.

It may take decades but at least it's a beginning.

Not only do the Big Tech monopolies have to be broken up but those responsible for conceiving and implementing the abuse in the first instance must be bought to account, hopefully by landing them in the slammer. What's happened isn't competitive capitalism as work but sheer exploitation and Big Tech's at the center of it.

If you think I'm bitter about this then you'd be correct, I am. Whenever I think of the many thousands of hours I've spent bypassing unwarranted and unreasonable restrictions brought on by coroprate greed and fixing crappy enshitified software my blood boils. That time should have been spent on more productive endeavors such as providing users with better programs and systems. Seems you've led a charmed working life not experienced by most of us.

Given your stated experience I should not have to refresh your memory of early Microsoft Windows EULAs (NT, W2K etc.) which incorporated terms to the effect "no user information will be sent to Microsoft". Now compare that with the Windows 11 EULA/terms and conditions, forced online user accounts etc. What has now happened with Windows 11 is the antithesis—a complete reversal—of the earlier paradigm. Here, one's once independence has been traded for lock-in and expensive rent models with exit conditions that are almost impossible to exercise in any practical way.

Seems you're quite content with this.

What's relevant here is that if your experience is as you've stated then you will be well aware of these glaring issues, so that raises the question of your dismissive attitude to the problems. Thus it's reasonable to assume it's highly likely you're more than just part of the Windows Insider program, probably an employee or such. Perhaps even AI generated content.

I apologize if I'm wrong.

That's your prerogative and no one questions your right. Presumably it pays well, but I'd foreshadow that as time marches on you'll find yourself more and more on the outer.

Good luck to you, you might need it.

They are still investing in AI, when they should be investing in ARM.

Apple silon is winning developers, even enterprise and with NEO the entry level market where MS was king.

I think the real issue is that MS doesn't view Windows primarily as an OS that should be invisible, out of the way -- with minimal "innovation" geared to sell MS products. The problem is that MS views Windows as a sales/marketing channel for their ads/apps/services.