My most recent astonishment was they've shoved copilot into notepad. Why did they get rid of Wordpad and ruin notepad again? It's like they've forgotten the entire purpose of Task Manager, Notepad, etc. Then again (gestures at World Economic Forum today)...feels like I'm mainlining crazy pills these days.
Wordpad confused too many people looking for Word and not finding Microsoft 365 for Family Workgroups Home Edition, especially after they boosted Windows 10 Wordpad to have enough features/power to replace the lost word processor of Microsoft Works, so it was removed.
That's a patently absurd reason (although I could totally see it). They could have just renamed it rather than destroy the value proposition of Notepad.
I know who runs that blog, but that's a really exaggerated take. Notepad has had nearly identical UX from Windows 1.0 until 10. Sure, there's a search feature that appeared at some point, ditto with the status bar, at some point they made it able to open files larger than 64K, and apparently you can open files from URLs directly? Five or so noticable changes in an extremely lightweight and utilitarian application in…
Tabs and auto-recover are welcome additions (but still cannot compete with the likes of Notepad++).
Wordpad confused too many people looking for Word and not finding Microsoft 365 for Family Workgroups Home Edition, especially after they boosted Windows 10 Wordpad to have enough features/power to replace the lost word processor of Microsoft Works, so it was removed.
That's a patently absurd reason (although I could totally see it). They could have just renamed it rather than destroy the value proposition of Notepad.
True. Though some of that destruction to Notepad isn't just the loss of Wordpad's fault but Microsoft's problems with Notepad++ eating its brand for too many years and making too many "must install" lists.
I'm not entirely sure how Copilot integration helps them beat Notepad++, but I suppose that's why I'm not a PM.
We have crossed into a fascinating time in computing: market power lets incumbents make “whatever”, shove it in a forced update with no going back, and still be valued in the trillions. Can’t wait til this phase is done.
I honestly think that the ability to shove updates out live is one of the worst things about software these days. Well, the ability to do so isn't bad, but the way companies actually do it makes it bad.
My most recent astonishment was they've shoved copilot into notepad. Why did they get rid of Wordpad and ruin notepad again? It's like they've forgotten the entire purpose of Task Manager, Notepad, etc. Then again (gestures at World Economic Forum today)...feels like I'm mainlining crazy pills these days.
Wordpad confused too many people looking for Word and not finding Microsoft 365 for Family Workgroups Home Edition, especially after they boosted Windows 10 Wordpad to have enough features/power to replace the lost word processor of Microsoft Works, so it was removed.
You're a little behind, it's Microsoft 365 Copilot Premium now
Maybe these days for interviews, instead of calculating how many golf balls fit in a schoolbus, they can calculate how much time, money, intellect, and brand goodwill they've spent renaming Office 365 -> Microsoft 365 -> Microsoft 365 Copilot. Then add in how much time, money, and intellect everyone else has spent trying to figure it out
That's a patently absurd reason (although I could totally see it). They could have just renamed it rather than destroy the value proposition of Notepad.
True. Though some of that destruction to Notepad isn't just the loss of Wordpad's fault but Microsoft's problems with Notepad++ eating its brand for too many years and making too many "must install" lists. I'm not entirely sure how Copilot integration helps them beat Notepad++, but I suppose that's why I'm not a PM.
Why would they care about Notepad++'s impact, though? Nobody is deciding whether or not to use Windows based on Notepad. For some of us, Notepad was most useful in its original form and Notepad++ was not a good replacement.
But at least an earlier, less bad, version of Notepad is still available on Win 11. There's just no icon or link to it, so you have to know it's there. It's C:\Windows\notepad.exe
Tabs and auto-recover are welcome additions (but still cannot compete with the likes of Notepad++).
> Tabs and auto-recover are welcome additions They were very unwelcome to me.
Simple example of the newly poor UX. I try to start notepad to jot down some scratch. It sluggishly reopens whatever it previously had open (e.g. from before a reboot)...and in doing so, doesn't actually create a new document for me.
Wordpad confused too many people looking for Word and not finding Microsoft 365 for Family Workgroups Home Edition, especially after they boosted Windows 10 Wordpad to have enough features/power to replace the lost word processor of Microsoft Works, so it was removed.
You're a little behind, it's Microsoft 365 Copilot Premium now (They may have turned it into a joke, but that is the truth https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/the-microsoft-365... ) Maybe these days for interviews, instead of calculating how many golf balls fit in a schoolbus, they can calculate how much time, money, intellect, and brand goodwill they've spent renaming Office 365 -> Microsoft 365 -> Microsoft…
Though to be fair I wasn't trying for accuracy, I also included throwback digs from Windows for Workgroups and Microsoft's "Edition" phase. (Windows 98 Second Edition; Windows Millennium Edition; etc.) Particularly because "Edition" will probably come back around and has already partially done so. (Some of the Microsoft 365 nomenclature does refer to the "home edition" versus "work edition", but for now it is still a little-e SKU difference and not yet a SKU Brand.) Microsoft marketing has gifted us so many terrible brand names across a long history of trying to find the worst, most generic brand names. (To which you can partially blame the "Great" marketer that looked at WordStar, WordPerfect, and many others and suggested to Microsoft the generic "Word" was the best approach. If you own the generic the only way to rebrand is to stack more generic.)
I don't think we should excuse Microsoft for bloating Windows because memory became abundant.
A lot of that bloat is due to compatibility and the 32bit -> 64bit transition. Linux has suffered from the 32/64 bit problem as well for quite some time. The only difference is because of opensource it's been easier to slowly kill off the 32bit ecosystem. That's not been an option for windows.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of RAM needed.
I'm not being factious, but is there any Linux distro with a desktop experience that matches Windows and macos? Like, yes, I know there are many flaws with both. A lot of sound, technical issues with windows and macos. A slew of UX ones as well. But despite W11 carrying around remnants of Windows 98 still, both of those OSes _feel nice_. Multiple desktops work well, nice gestures, simple installers and applications.…
> is there any Linux distro with a desktop experience that matches Windows and macos?
I guess if you install systemsettings from kde3, a text editor from gnome, remove 90% of the features from dolphin you're in the vicinity of the mess they are.