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Microsoft announces Windows 11

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Re: Microsoft announces Windows 11

#561
post #12
post #5

Putting the start menu button in the middle of the panel rather than at a corner seems to forget Fitts' Law. Is this a push to make people use hotkeys more or just bad design?

It’s yet another effort by Microsoft to make Windows relevant to touch form factors at the expense of productivity, desktop, and keyboard/mouse/touchpad. It’s astonishing how little (close to zero) human factors research is done, much less sought out or taken into consideration by PM or engineering on the software side of Microsoft.

That's a weird take on this change. Centering the Start button is less touch friendly. When you're holding a tablet, your fingers are near the sides. The center takes the most effort to get to.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 11

#562
post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it either. I've never met anyone who liked any of the dynamic content provided by MS pretending that Windows is media platform. I think these are features the MS execs want, not users. > Is Linux a usable alternative? Who knows. Look at Ubuntu and some of the other distros that try to push the app store model, connected accounts, etc.. These people are building the software they want, not the software I w…

Red Hat seems at a glance to be more focused on making a good workstation for professional use. Ubuntu seems to be more for beginners on their home computer. Admittedly, I haven't spent much time with Red Hat (stuck in windows most of the time due to embedded development tools). Can anyone who has used it (and something like Ubuntu) weigh in?

I use Xubuntu, which is great. Really, I would say the difference between Red Hat/Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora is largely cosmetic. I haven't actually used Red Hat as a workstation in years, but the nice thing is that on Ubuntu you can just install the gnome-desktop package or the kubuntu-desktop package, and you get that desktop environment.

So the idea that it's "more workstation oriented..." doesn't really reflect what your experience is.

At the end of the day you have a desktop environment and some packages. And Linux, especially Ubuntu with its package manager, makes it really trivial to swap out the DE if there's something that doesn't seem "power user" enough for you. (And for me, I find the default Ubuntu DE bloated and trend-chasing, but Xubuntu-desktop gives me the same well-supported packages you get on Ubuntu with a stable, no-frills desktop.)

Ultimately it really is about support. There's a lot of services and products that simply don't offer a Linux client, and that's where the trouble comes. Like I was contemplating trying out Tidal since I was annoyed with Spotify's removing a bunch of features from their desktop app, but Tidal doesn't offer a native Linux client. Zoom's Linux client is simply inferior. Lots of stuff like that which have nothing to do with any shortcomings in the OS is where I find the actual problems lie.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 11

#563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I guess you haven't looked recently.

https://github.com/microsoft/winget-cli/blob/master/doc/wind... Uninstallation is now "experimental", and dependency support is still missing. The latter is what I'd consider a core functionality of a package manager, so my original comment stands.

Version 1.0 is out. Uninstall is no longer experimental. You really should do some more research again. You are doing yourself no service by being so smug.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 11

#564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at windows 11 I might move back from linux.

I tried Linux mint recently and was impressed. My parents seem to use it without issue. As long as you don’t game, need to use office or some other windoze software it seems like a viable choice.

Viable, but not great.

My Linux mint install gets a duplicate mouse cursor appearing sometimes, just floating on top of everything on my desktop. If I don’t reboot the machine often weird things break. Like after a few days my media keys stop working on my keyboard. My trackpad sometimes stops working and needs to be power cycled. (One time after awaking from sleep my mouse was moving upside down.) The activity monitor in the tray freezes for me after a week or so. I’ve had some hard graphical freezes as well, which I assume is an AMD graphics driver bug.

Then bugs aside, I hate how inconsistent the keyboard shortcuts are between applications. I’ve been spoiled by macos where the same keyboard shortcuts to move a text editing cursor (cmd+left/right and so on) work the same in every application. Not so in Linux - and I can’t even configure it to work based on my muscle memory because IntelliJ doesn’t support using the start/meta key as a modifier. And some applications don’t support smooth scrolling for some reason.

So yeah, it’s viable. But I can’t say I’m impressed. I love having the source code, and knowing that if I want to I can actually fix these issues. But I’m still considering bouncing back to macos for my next computer.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 11

#565

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Do you use a high DPI screen ?

If you use a high DPI screen things have been fine for many years. Mixed DPI is a different story, no idea if it works well, but it doesn't really work well on Windows, either.

I use mixed dpi screens on Linux mint. It works but it’s officially experimental and there are some small bugs. (After sleeping all my window move to one of my displays. And some other small things)

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 11

#566
post #515

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You forgot: moved the most clicked button away from the easiest place to click it.

The Windows button is useless if you use the Windows key

It is, but it was also easy to click previously. By being in the bottom left you could just flick your mouse to the corner and not have to aim for a little icon. Now you can't do that. The position will also change as more icons are added which will make for bad UX as well.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 11

#567
post #389

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> * A Microsoft account and internet connectivity is required for Windows 11 Home setup I refuse. There better be easily accessible versions without this requirement.

I need a local account. I set up my PC with multiple profiles. I start with a local admin account and then I add Microsoft accounts for my day-to-day work. I have one profile logged in to my personal Microsoft account. Another is logged in to an Office 365 account that belongs to someone I do work for. Etc.. Why is MS encouraging people to have one giant admin account with a work or school account connected? That's s…

so set up a local account... there's no requirement that all accounts be MS accounts...

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 11

#568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was less about version parity with Apple and more about avoiding bugs in applications that would have mistaken a Windows 9 for a member of the 95/98/98SE family.

That's the technical excuse they come with afterwards. The fact is while Mac Os was stuck in version X (ten), Microsoft decided to make a perpetual Windows 10 version. Now that Apple moved up to 11 and now 12, Windows is moving to 11 too. That's a big "coincidence"...

But what for? Do you really think they think people will stand in a shop and say "that laptop is only at 10, I take the one at 11"? Also, if that was indeed the intention, they should've moved for 11 earlier. The technical explanation seems far more reasonable.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 11

#569
post #69
post #25

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safari/iMessage/Facetime/Maps or every default app on iOS? or any preinstalled and uninstallable app on Android?

Yeah, I thought of this too when I saw the integration, but a lot of things have changed since the antitrust issues at the time. If there's bundling issues, then I don't know. The one thing I lament though is that using the same platform for work and personal communication tends to trigger some anxiety reflex in me. I sometimes dread the long "quick call" in Teams, so hearing the call notification even in a video has…

I'm with you on this reaction. Sometimes hear the message notification while watching Linus Tech Tips' WAN Show. Always triggers a spike of anxiety because I think someone is looking for my help with something on the weekend. Ugh.

Re: Microsoft announces Windows 11

#570
post #332

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Right, which is more reason to move to vertical taskbars instead of filling far too many pixels with useless space. The specification note that 11 won't support vertical taskbars is infuriating as someone with an ultrawide. I don't need 1000s of pixels of unusable taskbar white space. Centering it is smart if I did want to waste all that space, but oof I do not want to waste that much space.

I just can't understand how there can be so much argument about the position of a task bar. Why can't Windows just allow people to do what they like with it? I know plenty of people who have their taskbar vertically, surely it can't be hard to have a taskbar that can go vertically, horizontally, to the edges out centred. I will carry on using my dual bar layout on MATE because I didn't want to change to gnome 3 or un…

I swear by vertical taskbar usage. My right-most monitor has plenty of horizontal space, so my taskbar is about 250px wide, and I can read close to the full names of everything, plus I have plenty of room to see every single open window, WITHOUT combining multiple active windows of the same program. It's lovely.
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