Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

windowscentral.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 330 posts

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#311

Post by justsid »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #230
mmcnl wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually don't mind this at all. These days the norm seems to be to drop features just because it's more convenient. I think this hybrid approach is not bad at all: the new menu is more aesthetically pleasing and consistent from a UX perspective, and if you really need something that is not there yet you can always use the old menu. For all its faults I think it's strange to criticize Microsoft for maintaining back…

The real problem is there's no setting to default to the classic menu, and you have to do regedit BS.

Isn’t the real problem that the new menu somehow can’t show the missing entries of the old one but with its new coat of paint? It’s all data, why can one of them not display the old data?

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#312

Post by p_ing »

yndoendo wrote: post #292
p_ing wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer, why target Linux in all it's permutations with an unstable ABI when I can target the only stable Linux ABI -- Win32? If WINE fills the gap (and it largely does), there's zero reason to create native Linux builds. That's simply more bugs and more headaches for devs.

Not all software is for consumers and a good amount runs a hardware as a whole product. 2026 will be the year moving from Windows IoT / embedded to Linux as the host OS for the solutions I work on. Personally, I find software more stable when coding on Linux and making Windows changes after it is operational. Windows takes more work with edge cases than Linux, BDS, and macOS. Windows treats STDIN and STOUT different…

Note my comment was "Linux on the Desktop", not "Linux on Embedded".

It's quite obvious that not all software is for one platform or another. It's just the vast majority of Desktop software happens to be Windows. And if that's what you're writing, targeting Win32 gets you Linux on the Desktop as well as Windows. There's no reason to write a Linux-native version and have to deal with all of the incompatibilities across distros, let alone compatibility issues over time.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#313

Post by wolvoleo »

i80and wrote: post #154
ksynwa wrote: post #142

For me the strange and unproductive direction Windows is going towards in encapsulated in the right-click menu in the file manager (Explorer). 11 has a shiny new menu that shows up when you right click. But it is a new coat of paint over the ones from 10 or before. Additional options from for example 7zip don't show up in it. You have to click "more options" at the bottom which them reveals the old menu. There is no…

This sort of thing has been a devolving disaster since the Settings App was included in Windows 8 as a partial replacement for the Control Panel. I'm not sure the current state of things, but as of the last time I used Windows, the sets of functionality remained only partially overlapping between the two different tools.

It's still the same, more stuff got converted too the settings app, some stuff is still in the old control panel.

It's ridiculous how long this is taking really.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#314

Post by wolvoleo »

Caligatio wrote: post #203
ksynwa wrote: post #142

For me the strange and unproductive direction Windows is going towards in encapsulated in the right-click menu in the file manager (Explorer). 11 has a shiny new menu that shows up when you right click. But it is a new coat of paint over the ones from 10 or before. Additional options from for example 7zip don't show up in it. You have to click "more options" at the bottom which them reveals the old menu. There is no…

You can disable the new right click menu with one registry tweak: https://www.elevenforum.com/t/disable-show-more-options-cont...

Yeah first thing I did. The new one lacks a lot of stuff I use a lot and basically makes all that two clicks. Tedious.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#315

Post by aworks »

joelthelion wrote: post #132
Aurornis wrote: post #68

I did a clean install of Windows 11 when Windows 10 went EOL. From all of the complaints I was hearing from headlines I expected a disastrous experience. But to be honest, it’s been fine. I’m not a heavy user but I switch to the Windows PC at least once a day for a few hours of CAD, gaming, and one other engineering program that is Windows only. I don’t click any of the AI buttons. I declined the OneDrive or backup s…

It's fine in the sense that certain people are content to browse the web without adblock, or be interrupted by an ad every 30s on YouTube. For those of us with higher standards, it's not.

I'm half content. I don't have issues for the most part with Windows annoyances, am ok streaming movies with ads, shrug when Spotify changes their UI yet again, and browse on my laptop without adblock. On the other hand, I had to pay to upgrade YouTube because I found those ads painful.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#316

Post by hollandheese »

i80and wrote: post #154
ksynwa wrote: post #142

For me the strange and unproductive direction Windows is going towards in encapsulated in the right-click menu in the file manager (Explorer). 11 has a shiny new menu that shows up when you right click. But it is a new coat of paint over the ones from 10 or before. Additional options from for example 7zip don't show up in it. You have to click "more options" at the bottom which them reveals the old menu. There is no…

This sort of thing has been a devolving disaster since the Settings App was included in Windows 8 as a partial replacement for the Control Panel. I'm not sure the current state of things, but as of the last time I used Windows, the sets of functionality remained only partially overlapping between the two different tools.

13 years... Longer than the time between Windows 2000 and Windows 8.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#317

Post by icegreentea2 »

justsid wrote: post #311
icegreentea2 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is there's no setting to default to the classic menu, and you have to do regedit BS.

Isn’t the real problem that the new menu somehow can’t show the missing entries of the old one but with its new coat of paint? It’s all data, why can one of them not display the old data?

The Windows 11 default context menu uses a newer API (IExplorerCommand) compared the older method which involved screwing around with the registry, and having everything play nice.

Here's a MS blog post explaining why they want to move to IExplorerCommand: https://blogs.windows.com/blog/2021/07/19/extending-the-cont...

Frankly, this just follows all the same problems that MS has had with since after W7. Their own APIs have a lot of warts and problems, but MS has not been able or willing to follow through on the migration required to actually move to a whole new API. This has shown up in their Windows GUI frameworks, it's the exact same problem with the Control Panel vs Settings, and here it is again.

I can sympathize with many of the stated goals/benefits, and I can understand the technical difficulties with transparently porting registry craziness into their new framework, and infact I applaud that their fallback is "perfect" - it is just the old context menu. I just wish there was a setting toggle to set the default.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#318

Post by pdntspa »

olyjohn wrote: post #104
pdntspa wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is actually shelling out $200 for Windows specifically? It's perceptually free if you bought it with your PC. And it's actually free if you took advantage of the free upgrade offer. I've picked up a few licenses off MacHeist for like $10

The cost is rolled into your PC when you buy it. Its not free. Your $10 licenses are not legal. Sorry. Those are sketchy grey market keys. Though Microsoft likely won't go after you for it, so I'm not sure it matters. You should have just saved the $10 and downloaded a cracked copy.

Never had issues activating the Windows keys nor the Office keys I've bought from them. And I always get the installers straight from Microsoft.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#319

Post by donkeylazy456 »

mmcnl wrote: post #219
ksynwa wrote: post #142

For me the strange and unproductive direction Windows is going towards in encapsulated in the right-click menu in the file manager (Explorer). 11 has a shiny new menu that shows up when you right click. But it is a new coat of paint over the ones from 10 or before. Additional options from for example 7zip don't show up in it. You have to click "more options" at the bottom which them reveals the old menu. There is no…

I actually don't mind this at all. These days the norm seems to be to drop features just because it's more convenient. I think this hybrid approach is not bad at all: the new menu is more aesthetically pleasing and consistent from a UX perspective, and if you really need something that is not there yet you can always use the old menu. For all its faults I think it's strange to criticize Microsoft for maintaining back…

> consistent from a UX perspective

It changes its height dynamically by state of each shell extensions. how come it is consistent from a UX perspective.

Re: 2025 was a disaster for Windows 11

#320

Post by akimbostrawman »

p_ing wrote: post #184
akimbostrawman wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>OS/2 already proved out this path of [full] compatibility. it is not the 1980s anymore. majority of apps are for better or worse in the browser or cross platform with electron. Wine is merely a stepping stone for adoption because some software compatibility is a hard requirement for user to even considered another platform as an alternative, without these user there won't be any native development to begin with prov…

As a developer, why target Linux in all it's permutations with an unstable ABI when I can target the only stable Linux ABI -- Win32? If WINE fills the gap (and it largely does), there's zero reason to create native Linux builds. That's simply more bugs and more headaches for devs.

>why target Linux in all it's permutations with an unstable ABI when I can target the only stable Linux ABI -- Win32?

You simply do what Steam has successfully done for many years with there containerized Steam Linux runtime based on ubuntu or something like flatpaks.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime

Post reply on HN