Microsoft keeps insisting that it’s deeply committed to the quality of Windows 11

"Reducing unnecessary Copilot entry points" is one of Microsoft's action items.

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[MilanKraft]

Unnecessary Copilot entry points = all of them.

Your precise, cutting commentary is to be commended, sir!

Would that be the same commitment to quality that led the FedRAMP team to describe Azure (and I quote) "a pile of shit"?

The fact that said pile of shit was approved for US Government use is just more evidence that we live in the worst possible timeline.

To be fair, we've been on the "...sure, Microsoft's latest system / cloud / whatever upgrade is a buggy, vulnerable, cluttered mess with useful settings and options buried in places nobody should have to look, but we have to use it because... everyone uses it..." train, arguably since the days of Windows 3.1. The level of Windows-related adoption over the years, no matter how bad or frustrating it got at times, is as much a study in "stupid things humans do even though they know they're stupid" as it is a study in technology advacement (or not).

Obviously, Windows 10 especially and early days of Windows 11 (once everyone figured out how to shut off all the Cortana crap that no one asked for), are MUCH better experiences than 95, 98, 2000, et al... but in terms of Microsoft gonna Microsoft and people just going along with it... we've been here for a long time. It was just a less painful version of the commute than earlier versions...

...or in summary, "what that guy ↓↓↓ said..."

Microsoft has been 'committed to quality' since Windows Vista.

 

[MilanKraft]

I've been primarily a Windows Admin for 20+ years. Cut my teeth on NT 4.0 back in the day. That's 30 years of Windows for those keeping track. [snip]

My biggest complaint is how every part of the OS has become more and more incoherent for professionals trying to use or support it. Remember back where there was a big push to move from Control Panel to Settings? How are we coming on that? Oh right, it's 2026 and configuration options are still spread out over hell's half acre. Want to create a shortcut? Get ready to click half a dozen times instead of twice . Meanwhile I can hand a mac to someone who hasn't touched an apple product in 20 years and for the most part they'll recognize the OS. .... [snip]

Not to get too Battlefronty but 100% agreed on the bolded part. What frustrates the hell out of me is Microsoft's inability to simplify the amount and kind of settings (and the amount they get buried for no apparent UI design reason).... along with the constant churn of security vulernabilities and updates. It's what prevented me from becoming a two OS guy when Windows 10 had matured and stabilized. Even the best of what MS could muster, was still just arbitrarily complicated in places. It is amazing to me that a company with such deep pockets and basically unlimited human resources, has not figured out — after all this time — how to design a simple, accessible UI that mostly persists from generation to generation.

Obviously some things will change and move no matter what platform you use, but damn if MS doesn't take the frustration cake. (In fairness, Apple has occasionally been guilty as well, albeit to a much less painful degree, which is why the bolded still rings true. They're more prone to periodic, stupid Marketing-driven (that's probably redundant), aesthetic shit like Liquid Glass most recently or skumorphics (sp) back in the day, than they are to burying multiple important settings 3 layers deep in dialog boxen.)