It's unfortunate. Microsoft had the talent to have premier products but is stuck in second or third on everything.
Appropriate, if funny: https://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/2011.06.27_o...
Microsoft could easily make one of the best general purpose OSes. They have a lot of cool stuff in Windows, especially for devs. There's native git integration in file explorer coming, PowerToys has great utilities (peek, fancy zones, command palette), WSL & WSL w/ graphics, terminal, native SSH now, sudo, winget & automation with it using DSC from a simple yaml file, and some of the best backwards compatibility in the industry.
Yet they squander it all by violating their users trust and consent, and consistently ignoring their users feedback.
That's what makes Windows 11 so frustrating for me, even though I've already switched to macOS ever since the M1 air. I would go back to Windows in a heart beat if they got their act together. I always liked Windows. It's been my main OS for a long time, even though I've always kept a Linux machine around and macs here and there, Windows was my go to.
Normally I would say all MS needs to do is focus on putting out a good OS, keep focusing on all the dev QOL stuff they put in and dump the user hostile behavior, but I think its too late for them at this point. They've burned every bridge.
I always preferred working in WSL vs on macOS because it was real Linux, whenever I was forced to use Windows.
Like all of Microsoft's consumer products/efforts, they start off with something that could be great and then manage to destroy it from within.
I've been a Microsoft user since DOS days and diehard Windows fan since it first came out. All through the years I've installed, ran, broke, reinstalled, tinkered and administered countless Windows PC's for myself and clients. Was even on track to be MCSE NT certified through my employer until the Internet bubble burst and got laid off. Played with so many others like Linux, BSD, Solaris, BeOS, etc as well but always at end the day just wanted my Windows and get stuff done. I was known as the "PC Guy" in my circles.
Where Microsoft is now and what Windows 11 has slowly become, I have really started to think their Windows division is just a nuisance for them and they don't care. Every month I seem to be reading another anti-user friendly decision and ANOTHER switch I have to find to turn off at every install or visiting family. A default install of Windows 11 is an assault of Constant locked-down install, forced account adding or worse grabbing it from Edge or where it can, ad-based data slurp with so much stuff running in the background and other enshittification of the OS. WHAT IS GOING ON??
Even the Pro version MEANT for business and domain PC's has Xbox stuff on it and game bar running by default, now CoPilot on as well by default, screen snapshots. Instead of a nice light install for business and hardcore users that you then ADD to to make your desired setup, it is the opposite of having it all installed and you spend an hour removing everything.
I am ready to jump ship for first time in my life.
I know where you're coming from, however Win+G has _one_ use in the corporate world: give users the ability to record their screen without installing (and licensing) additional software to document breakage for support.
So it should be an independant app and not be part of a gaming system that have nothing to do installed by default on a pro computer.
When I needed this functionality and find out it was on the game bar I too was a bit shocked finding out it was installed !
It’s almost like they follow a software version of Intel’s old tick-tock pattern. A version that’s super experimental, but unstable and flaky (95, Me, Vista, 8, 11) and a version that irons out the wrinkles to make a solid OS (98, 2000/Xp, 7, 10).
However I do love that its Wikipedia article includes the sentence "Retrospectively, Windows Me is viewed as one of the worst operating systems of all time".
Supposedly, the longer lifecycles of newer versions with large milestone updates was supposed to help with this, but seems to have just bandaged it over.
And, to be fair, the Apple community makes similar complaints about macOS with alternating releases. Just with far less vitriol (given macOS generally has a higher reputation among those that use it in a power/professional sphere).
"Announcing Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7271 (Dev & Beta Channels)"
Secondly, they're preloading the executable resident in memory to accelerate click to open, similar to what Chrome Browser does on Windows (and websites when browsing)
I don't perceive this as "fixing bad performance, given explorer has never been slow to open for me, but rather further optimizing the experience.
"We’re exploring preloading File Explorer in the background to help improve File Explorer launch performance. This shouldn’t be visible to you, outside of File Explorer hopefully launching faster when you need to use it. If you have the change, if needed there is an option you can uncheck to disable this called “Enable window preloading for faster launch times” in File Explorer’s Folder Options, under View. Looking forward to your feedback! If you do encounter any issues, please file them in the Feedback Hub under Files Folders and Online Storage > File Explorer Performance, or Files Folders and Online Storage > File Explorer."
Some examples:
* Restoring the Explorer navigation bar: https://windhawk.net/mods/explorer-frame-classic
* Making Explorer behave more like Vista/7: https://windhawk.net/mods/aerexplorer
* Fixing the white flash on a new Explorer tab in dark mode: https://windhawk.net/mods/fix-explorer-white-flash
* Restoring old-style context menus: https://windhawk.net/mods/disable-immersive-context-menus
* Even using classic non-Aero themes in Win11: https://windhawk.net/mods/classic-theme-enable
I haven’t tried this myself yet. I’m unwilling to inject code into system processes on a work VM.
But I can’t help wondering if a better path for performance for Microsoft would be lighter code, not trying to preload it.
Performance wasn’t an issue 20 years ago. Now it is ???
That takes effort!
Not a big deal. I use Windows only a few times over an RDP connection (VMs of a customer of mine) so it's a bit slow anyway and this optimization is not going to make it much faster. A more impactful change:
> We’ve moved Compress to ZIP file, Copy as Path, Set as Desktop Background, and Rotate Right, and Rotate Left into a new Manage file flyout. [...] Note, the name Manage file may change in a future Insider update.
So it's an extra click to compress files.
It's quite obvious to see which parts are still Win32 and which are XAML. The two different context menus are a well-known example, but one that really annoys me is the Home view vs. the This PC view.
If you make Explorer open with the This PC view by default, you get a blinding flash of white every time you create a new tab in dark mode. That doesn't happen with the Home view which has been updated to XAML.
It's one of the many things you experience day to day that really makes me disappointed in the level of quality in modern Windows.
Have you seen those movies where a small town in the US holds a festival or carnival with heavy floats on top of a car? That is the UI they've implemented in Win11, one interface mounted on top of another, therefore overwhelming slowness, a botched job that only shows disinterest, perhaps with the aim of forcing users to upgrade by investing as few resources as possible in it.
Linux is the antithesis of this, with a long history of slow file explorers/managers that finally stand out today in terms of speed and features, fortunately. (this is to support the other user's comment about Dolphin (my choice when Linux) and Nautilus.
Again, the end user pays for it, through hardware and power needed for this "solution".
File explorer is a part of that process, but consists of additional dynamic libraries and COM components that are loaded on-demand.
Old desktop replacements (like Litestep) specifically modified Windows to block explorer from loading the desktop to replace it (though, would still spawn it for file explorer).
> We’re exploring preloading File Explorer in the background to help improve File Explorer launch performance. This shouldn’t be visible to you, outside of File Explorer hopefully launching faster when you need to use it.
There's long been an option to make it multi-process, but the cost of that option has increased with every release since 95. If I remember correctly, back in the 95 days that would spawn a new explorer process per window.
These days, probably since tabs or so, when you check this option it spawns exactly one other process, even for many windows. The second process has over 100 threads, the shell process normally spawns around 40 when you open a window, only 20 of which exit immediately when you close the window, the rest stick around for fairly arbitrary periods of time.
Note though about 2/3rds of the threads on my system are rooted in the nvidia driver thunks, I really don't know why so many - is it a side effect of the xaml port?
anyway, no idea what the preloading exactly will be doing, but it does sound like a hack over debt. it'd feel better if there was more process isolation being added to the desktop environment, but you know, it's an old desktop OS, so if one window wants to screw with another window, YOLO! On the flip side making stuff like komorebi is trivial on the platform and there is some nicety to that as long as you trust everything you ever run.
