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Microsoft's ex-UI chief is shocked about the Windows 11 start menu

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Re: Microsoft's ex-UI chief is shocked about the Windows 11 start menu

#121

Post by kasabali »

emodendroket wrote: post #93
slavik81 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why you need to open the start menu is often on screen, then you hit the Windows key and the context that should be driving your next action is hidden. All it takes is a brief moment of distraction and — if you're like me — you'll completely forget why you opened the menu in the first place. It's like walking into a room and forgetting why you had entered. At that point, maybe you return where you came fro…

What I thought was nice about it was that, if you're primarily a search user, you got a lot more real estate for the search results. I suppose they achieved some of that in the new design and the feedback has been pretty close to unanimous, though.

They achieved more real estate with less results, for sure.

Re: Microsoft's ex-UI chief is shocked about the Windows 11 start menu

#122

Post by kasabali »

amanzi wrote: post #64
petilon wrote: post #2

This article quotes Jensen Harris... the guy responsible for Windows 8 UI, which was a disaster.

I think he also did the Office ribbon menu, which is far better than what was before it.

Ribbon was polarizing. Start screen was unanimously bad.

Re: Microsoft's ex-UI chief is shocked about the Windows 11 start menu

#123

Post by aatd86 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #72
aatd86 wrote: post #68

Does W11 still force auto reboots? W10 was a scourge with this... Rebooting overnight even though I tried everything to disable auto reboots.

No, it doesn't auto-reboot. You get prompted for updates and you can keep delaying them forever if that's what you wish.

I does for me with the default edition.

There is no way to delay it indefinitely.

I tried editing the registry, the parameters, everything... Literally everything I could find online.

The other non Home edition may allow to disable them.

Re: Microsoft's ex-UI chief is shocked about the Windows 11 start menu

#124

Post by rdsubhas »

tinco wrote: post #104
unwind wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that in when using a fixed-width font in a text-only editing program, the assumption is that a tab is "made" (visually) of a number of spaces. That number is a frequent ... debatable setting, in software development teams, but at least it's a number of spaces. Not being able to visually line up indents made out of spaces vs tabs (in any mix) breaks a very basic usability/interaction pattern, and is really rat…

What usability/interaction pattern is that? The number of spaces in tabs is not a debate, that's just personal preference in your editor. The debate is if tabs should be used at all. That tabs are not a multiple of the character width in a fixed width font is insane of course. But if any character should have that property as a feature, it would be the tab.

> The debate is if tabs should be used at all.

You are trying to create your own debate. Nobody raised that here.

The parent is only asking why fixed-width fonts are not rendered with proper alignment (my assumption – on something that was probably already aligned before).

Re: Microsoft's ex-UI chief is shocked about the Windows 11 start menu

#125

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

aatd86 wrote: post #123
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't auto-reboot. You get prompted for updates and you can keep delaying them forever if that's what you wish.

I does for me with the default edition. There is no way to delay it indefinitely. I tried editing the registry, the parameters, everything... Literally everything I could find online. The other non Home edition may allow to disable them.

It allows me on the Pro edition without any hacks.

Re: Microsoft's ex-UI chief is shocked about the Windows 11 start menu

#126

Post by vetinari »

devmor wrote: post #65
encryptluks2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't notice much difference between experience in Windows 7 and Windows 11, aside from needing to manage more policies to prevent their cloud based services. Windows 11 isn't bad if you disable the adware portion. The terminal app is pretty good now and WSL works, albeit not as pleasant as something more native like Linux or even macOS terminal, but the adware is what cripples it IMO.

The terminal app and functional WSL are both available in Windows 10, though. 11 didn't add either of those.

In 11, the terminal app can be set as default console app, so you won't see conhost.exe, ever. That's not possible in 10.

Re: Microsoft's ex-UI chief is shocked about the Windows 11 start menu

#127

Post by emeril »

nulld3v wrote: post #74
mopsi wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have at least Win 7 start menu on Win 10: https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu It's fast, reliable and highly configurable.

Do you know if there's something similar but for the task bar? I really really hate the stock Windows taskbar. The design? Whatever, I can live with that. But it constantly refuses to unhide, it drives me crazy.

I use open shell and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker (https://ramensoftware.com/7-taskbar-tweaker) + also disable all pinned apps and reenable quick launch - this makes it look like win7/XP pretty closely (though I also disable windows updates so it doesn't get reverted randomly)

Re: Microsoft's ex-UI chief is shocked about the Windows 11 start menu

#128

Post by hulitu »

emodendroket wrote: post #43
WaxProlix wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XP was fine. 2000 was good. Nobody pines for Windows ME. People said those things and they meant it. Windows 8-11 feel pretty bad, overall. 7 was okay.

The Windows 2000 UI was not "good," at least compared to what they have today.

What they have today is an UI disaster: cannot tell which window is active, scrollbars are so 90s - nobody cares about them, settings would make Google proud - one cannot know if the text is only a description or it starts a config dialog, 1 px window border - good luck resizing on a 4k monitor, gray on gray, titlebar highjacking, hard drive hidden in explorer beside virtual folders etc.

Re: Microsoft's ex-UI chief is shocked about the Windows 11 start menu

#129

Post by hulitu »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #5
petilon wrote: post #2

This article quotes Jensen Harris... the guy responsible for Windows 8 UI, which was a disaster.

I still like the time they put the full screen win8 metro style start menu on their server OS. Pure genius!

Yeah, they copied the idea in the new calculator.

Re: Microsoft's ex-UI chief is shocked about the Windows 11 start menu

#130

Post by hulitu »

amanzi wrote: post #64
petilon wrote: post #2

This article quotes Jensen Harris... the guy responsible for Windows 8 UI, which was a disaster.

I think he also did the Office ribbon menu, which is far better than what was before it.

The ribbon is not a menu. Is a mess. It can even show you keyboard shortcuts. Now if i could remember what Alt + 5 means.

Earlier you had Alt + f for file menu and the first letter of the command. But i think that was too easy.

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