> We balance what we see in our product feedback systems with what we hear directly

Step 1. Use dark patterns to funnel users into using a product or service they don’t want

Step 2. Watch usage kpis go up

Step 3. “Everyone says they hate this, but look at our kpis! Must just be a vocal minority” Move on to next thing

Windows has strong engineering bones, but the business cancer has long spread throughout. Microsoft has been ratcheting up the extractive practices and disrespecting user agency since at least Windows 11's release in 2021. It's a lost cause as far as I'm concerned.

> We care deeply about developers. We know we have work to do on the experience, both on the everyday usability, from inconsistent dialogs to power user experiences.

With respect, that's a load of horse crap. This is NOT why so many of your users are upset. They're angry because you've exhibited a long, deliberate pattern of historical abuse: upgrade-style dark patterns, invasive telemetry, advertisements built into Windows, and outright hostility toward users who want to own their OS rather than the other way around. God damn.

Possibly too little too late. Even my uninterested family and friends are moving over to MacBooks just due to not enjoying windows 11 or not wanting to upgrade hardware to get a minor OS change. Between that and valve looking to move on the casual / console gaming space with the new steam hardware and devs already being split between macs and linux, they’re going to have a hard time coming back if they fumble this for much longer.

Everything was good enough in Windows 7.

They won’t fix anything other than add more intrusive tracking. Only an existential crisis will make them turn it temporarily around. Even then they will go back to old patterns soon after any emerging competition dies off.

We are like 35 into using windows. It adds more BS with every release. If I could use windows 7 on modern hardware and games worked like normal I would literally never upgrade. Their updates these days are to just justify new tracking measures and forced logins. It’s Microsoft first, government second and customers a distant third. Everybody internally and externally knows this.

I honestly suspect that most of Microsoft have absolutely no idea what the regular, retail Windows experience is like because neither they nor their customers use it.

If you work at Microsoft you are on an ad free, LTSC variant of Windows that behaves more or less reliably. The IT team handle all the OneDrive stuff for you and make sure that it remains unobtrusive.

Re the second part of my statement, Microsoft only really care about the S500 accounts, the big corporations like, say, Toyota or John Deere. Those guys do not get the ad infested version of Windows. They get something much more elegant and Microsoft outsource any drama by getting favored partners like Accenture and Avanade to deliver it.

You can be a billion dollar corp and not register on Microsoft's radar, being relegated to the "small medium biz" segment. As far as retail users or mom and pop businesses, Microsoft has zero interest in them. These are the people griping on techcrunch and Reddit. They get the ad filled, inscrutably weird versions of Windows.

Nothing is likely to change until Linux gets its act together and delivers a credible threat to Microsoft on the desktop. However it's just as likely that Ubuntu see $$$ and start selling ad space on Ubuntu to "preferred OEM" partners like Dell, whereupon we'll be back to the days of PCs filled with bloatware.

The Microsoft response is very disingenuous because if they knew about the situation and let it get to the current situation, then it means they really didn't care. If they didn't know then, they are clueless.

I think the reality is that they are super confused, don't have a vision, and therefore, no strategy. They are just like a marble bouncing in a pachinko machine.

For example, look at the churn on the UI framework - I think they have gone through three or more frameworks in the last few years.

The constant updates are just huge. I don't think on Linux they use anti-virus software. I'm sure it is nice not losing perf to the AV. I think the windows file system throughput for small files is horrid compared to Linux.

Re the gimped taskbar, I was pleasantly surprised when trying Mac OS that I could set the taskbar to the side of the screen.

at this point it seems evident, they should step away and let the task be done by capable hands.

>We know we have work to do on the experience, both on the everyday usability, from inconsistent dialogs to power user experiences.

I don't believe this verbiage from any company, least of all any of the big boys. This is just placating PR nonsense.

I mean, what are they going to say? "lol no one cares about users - what are they going to do, use Linux haha?!"

> Would love to connect with you about what the team is doing to address these areas if you are open to it

That’s how you know this is bullshit. An exec wants to “reach out” to some rando on the Internet.

Previously:

Microsoft executive closes replies after Windows 11 "Agentic OS" backlash

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45931725

Limp wristed and far too little too late

Just waiting for macOS to get their act together in the Business space so that Windows can become a gaming only OS.

I know people always say that macOS purposely don’t target business, and things like this, but at this point.. why not? Honestly? They have the best hardware in the world right now. Catering just to personal use (and these lines are getting blurrier each day with WFH) is just inconvenient.

Microsoft has been working to move into entertainment and content/content aggregation since at least 1998, and they have always shown the same pattern:

1) attempt to embrace and extend, usually a long-past-its-peak business (they tried to embrace and extend TV channels in 2013 ...)

2) they do this by "integrating" with another product. Anything they have. And making the successful product they have much worse. Zune. Windows. Xbox. Bing. Groove (I actually liked Groove, well the interface). Lumia/Nokia. That last one wasn't even a microsoft product. And now they're working hard at blowing up Windows and Office products.

3) fail, but don't bring the product back to the previous state, and keep trying, keep trying, keep beating the dead horse until they're standing in a hole in the ground in questionable liquids. And while nothing could ever hope to match the speed at which they destroyed Xbox, it's a constantly repeating pattern.

4) Get feedback from the top of Microsoft that Microsoft's valuation is based on this embrace and extend and constant growth and so, no matter how big the disaster, they'll just do it again.

5) goto 1

This, if you look carefully, despite that every Microsoft product that became a success was going into a massively growing, or an outright new market. But none of the markets Microsoft is currently in is growing, except maybe cloud. And I find the fact that they're reluctant with embracing and extending in cloud (e.g. a move like making windows server free) an incredibly bad sign for Microsoft.

Microsoft does not have the proper equipment to embrace and extend anymore, and I don't see much of a target market for them to move into. Microsoft's valuation is based on the idea that they're a monopolist that can "eat" other people's markets, but they haven't eaten someone else's market for a decade now. Admitting this, of course, would take at least half off their stock because at that point you'd have to admit they'd be doing pretty well to have a growth rate of maybe 5%.