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How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

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Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#361

Post by whoopdedo »

nazgulsenpai wrote: post #247
procarch2019 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work as a “contractor” and when I sit down to work with some sysadmin they watch me and ask out I bring up the old style config windows. One of them had started a sheet while watching me with all the run commands and helper phrases (North Carolina PennsylvAnia). Run commands are great for me, but it sucks when I have to walk someone through something over the phone. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t walk peopl…

I have been doing this my entire career. IMO its always been much easier to tell someone to hold the Win key and press R and enter a short command than it is to guide them through the UI to whatever setting needs interacting with, especially over the phone.

If you ever end up talking to Microsoft tier 2 support they'll do almost everything through PowerShell.

Which I think hints at the problem. Internally, Microsoft must not be dogfooding (or is it dogfeeding?) their GUI. It's an over-correction from the time when Windows was criticized for being too reliant on visual tools for administration and devs asked for better automation. Well, now scripting is the preferred way to interact with the OS and the GUI plays second fiddle.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#362

Post by EMM_386 »

anthk wrote: post #312
EMM_386 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Metro also met a similar demise because it forced a black-and-white, no delimiter UI upon desktop computers. I recall when they did this to Visual Studio. They completely removed all colors from all of the icons, making it impossible to pick out one from another and making once familiar icons by color a hunt-and-peck operation to find. It was all just black and white. Then, due to feedback, they relented and put co…

On black and white, first Mac's where like that and people had no issues...

I remember :)

The problem with Visual Studio was the sudden removal of color changed people's "muscle memory" on where certain items were on a complex toolbar or menu system. I have no idea who thought that was a good idea, but some design team decided they were going with it, and they did.

When everything suddenly went black and white, it was impossible to quickly distinguish one thing from the next.

They reverted the decision and suddenly all the colored icons came back and it was once again easier to quickly pick things out.

I mean, people freaked out when they changed just the VS Code icon:

https://visualstudiomagazine.com/blogs/data-driver/2017/10/v...

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#363

Post by layer8 »

whydid wrote: post #255
layer8 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, it doesn’t hurt anyone to keep it around.

Yes it does "hurt" because it creates an inconsistent visual style. Windows is a mess because of the refusal to deprecate old APIs.

I don't think moricons.dll is actively used by Window itself anywhere? It's a resource DLL you can reference to use icons from in your own program shortcuts and similar. It doesn't provide an API as such. It's more like a collection of known graphics files being shipped as part of Windows.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#364

Post by whoopdedo »

yuppie_scum wrote: post #143
mike_hearn wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, MSIX is very different to MSI and ClickOnce was primarily a way to bootstrap MSIs from the web. MSI (long since deprecated) is essentially an ad-hoc relational database serialized to a file with embedded blobs that tells a generic engine how to install files and update the registry. It was written for Office in the 90s and was therefore dominated by the retail model of physically shipping CDs. MSIX is a…

Why are they so into XML? Move on to json or yaml please

Probably simply because every version of Windows already has MSXML.DLL so your project gets it "for free".

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#365

Post by omgomgomgomg »

SpacePortKnight wrote: post #126

My biggest issue with Windows 11 UI is the existence of both the control panel and the settings app. Often I don't know which setting takes precedence, for example I can create power plans from control panel and also use different power modes from the settings app.

After a few years of working on a mac, I started using a windows machine today and found out about this, I was very surprised, thought control panel is a relict from w7 times.

I actually liked w7.

Either way, all in all I am very happy to not having to deal with "numbers" , the crappy file system on a mac amongst many other things.

I think w11 is pretty solid apart from the old known issues.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#367

Post by procarch2019 »

zamalek wrote: post #358
jaywalk wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you so much for this. I never even thought to look for a way to change it back, I thought I was stuck with this annoyance forever.

Going forward, when I hear the critique that Linux "has too many things to customize," I am going to point people at these comments. I am so glad that I got off this rollercoaster.

Completely agree with you and Linux is great for my home computer, but for some of us Windows at work is an unwavering reality.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#368

Post by procarch2019 »

jaywalk wrote: post #350
procarch2019 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did it so long ago, so I’m not quite sure it was this. A quick google gave me this: https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-right-click-show-all-op... There are a few things out there, but I always trust a good ol’ registry hack over a 3rd party exe.

Thank you so much for this. I never even thought to look for a way to change it back, I thought I was stuck with this annoyance forever.

Yea, there are many things in windows that you adjust (hack) in the registry, but there are many things that you cannot. There’s also no guarantee that when you make a mod like this that it will last forever. You’re at the whim of MS and any single update could be a reckoning.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#369

Post by procarch2019 »

whoopdedo wrote: post #361
nazgulsenpai wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been doing this my entire career. IMO its always been much easier to tell someone to hold the Win key and press R and enter a short command than it is to guide them through the UI to whatever setting needs interacting with, especially over the phone.

If you ever end up talking to Microsoft tier 2 support they'll do almost everything through PowerShell. Which I think hints at the problem. Internally, Microsoft must not be dogfooding (or is it dogfeeding?) their GUI. It's an over-correction from the time when Windows was criticized for being too reliant on visual tools for administration and devs asked for better automation. Well, now scripting is the preferred way…

There’s actually new functionality that has been specifically designed with no GUI on purpose. Do a google of split brain DNS. The only way to set it up is by creating additional DNS zones and creating DNS query filters. Can only be done in posh. There are other examples of that too, but I’ve had to implement split brain before so I know that one for a fact.

Re: How many layers of UI inconsistencies are in Windows 11?

#370

Post by t-writescode »

jaywalk wrote: post #348
anonymousab wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as the designers oft like to say: Defaults matter.

Does the default really matter in this case, though? It's not even like it takes a registry hack to move it back to the left. It's right there in the taskbar settings.

Multiply a quarter billion children having to fix it for a quarter billion grandparents, and that's a lot of wasted time and added frustration to the world for little to no reason.
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