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Power users mourn features lost in Windows 11 'simplification'

theregister.com

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Re: Power users mourn features lost in Windows 11 'simplification'

#32

This is too bad. Apple taking the "appliance" path with their computers makes me wish Microsoft would lean into power user features and customization options to play to the strengths and appeal of Windows. I don't think trying to be a worse version of MacOS is a good strategy.

Windows is sort of the default computer choice for a lot of normal, non-technical people, so I can understand that Microsoft wants to simplify things for them by taking some inspiration from MacOS.

The problem is that Windows is also used by many businesses, network admins, and tech enthusiasts too.

These users are in conflict.

What Microsoft should be doing in my opinion is using its Windows Home and Windows Professional packages to divide the complexity. Windows Home users can have the simplified experience, and Windows Pro users can have the full power. Wouldn't that make everybody happy?

Re: Power users mourn features lost in Windows 11 'simplification'

#35
post #12

When the iPhone 1 was introduced it was lacking many features, yet nobody complained while there were much more powerful phones on the market already.

When the first iPhone was announced people did complain about its lack of features (no apps? no keyboard? no stylus? no handwriting recognition?). It was a step backward in many ways for those used to Blackberry and Palm devices. However, it was the opening up of the smartphone (though was the first version really a smartphone?) market to a broader audience. It wasn't a regression of an existing Apple product (they had no product equivalent to it yet, unless you go back in time to the non-phone Newton).

Windows 11 is a continuation of an existing product and meant to replace it. Regressions (real or imagined) will get lamentations because, well, they're regressions.

Re: Power users mourn features lost in Windows 11 'simplification'

#38
Honestly Microsoft really needs to stop listening to this vocal minority.

- This group is why Windows had a trash terminal that didn't even have a right click menu until recently.

- This group is why Windows Explorer is identical to how it was almost 2 decades ago, with the same terrible search and still things like choking when it encounters a folder of MP3s and still unable to handle folders with 1000+ items without choking and loading in new sets every few pages of scroll.

- This group is why resizing windows still has glitching and tearing.

- This group is why most of the admin and system tools are still designed for 800zx600 screens and why device manager flickers and completely redraws just to add 1 item to the tree display.

Stop listening to this group, Apple and Linux have been able to forge ahead and build modern powerful interfaces that actually utilize the hardware properly because they've been able to ignore the screams every time something that is 20 years old changed.

Re: Power users mourn features lost in Windows 11 'simplification'

#39

This is too bad. Apple taking the "appliance" path with their computers makes me wish Microsoft would lean into power user features and customization options to play to the strengths and appeal of Windows. I don't think trying to be a worse version of MacOS is a good strategy.

Windows is sort of the default computer choice for a lot of normal, non-technical people, so I can understand that Microsoft wants to simplify things for them by taking some inspiration from MacOS. The problem is that Windows is also used by many businesses, network admins, and tech enthusiasts too. These users are in conflict. What Microsoft should be doing in my opinion is using its Windows Home and Windows Profess…

>Windows is sort of the default computer choice for a lot of normal, non-technical people, so I can understand that Microsoft wants to simplify things for them by taking some inspiration from MacOS.

That's a really good point and I agree with your solution. I doubt Microsoft would want to do the work involved in creating essentially two versions of Windows, though.

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