I don’t know why I even bother opening the settings app
You go deep enough and very Windows 95 looking menus pop up. Like are they building over the old system? It’s all very strange.
yes they are, actually. Backwards compatibility is a huge thing in Windows, it’s why you can’t name files certain names such as CON, and why you can find things from 3.1 etc. still.
Fun Fact: Every single Exe today still checks prior to running whether it is Barbie Riding Club (1998) or can it run normally?
Because when you update your OS and your game breaks - you don’t blame Hasbro, you blame Windows every time. You can’t just call up Sierra Games and ask them to update - they don’t exist anymore and so you must carry everything forward - bugs included.
That fact does seem really fun and interesting. Why barbie? Got any links so I can read up on it?
it’s why you can’t name files certain names such as CON
To expand on this: The reason you can’t name files CON, etc., is because of a program from the 1960s called Peripheral Interchange Program (PIP), a program used in Digital Equipment Corporation’s computers. The overall OS that PIP was part of was called CP/M.
DOS, which came out in the 80s and was made for IBM computers, was modeled after CP/M, and it kept and expanded the capabilities of PIP.
Then Microsoft came along and created a modified version of DOS called MS-DOS which IBM started using.
Eventually, Microsoft created Windows 95, merging two initially separate products: MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. Microsoft left in the code for handling CON, etc., but they hadn’t put in any limitations for filenames, which caused some bugs. So, from the next version of Windows onward, they disallowed the ability for anything to name a folder or file “CON”, among other related things.
So the reason you can’t name a file or folder “CON” is because of a 60-year-old file-copying program nobody uses anymore.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
That looks to be an Access prompt, from the MS office suite. If you’ve ever written a macro you know how ancient the UI looks behind the scenes with those apps, and this isn’t even a main line office app since it deals with databases and they push excel to work with sets of data like that.
So yes it’s a Microsoft product, but it’s not really native Windows and it’s not an app that makes a lot of sense to spend a lot of time developing.
Just for accuracy’s sake. I’m certain there are better examples.
Anyways, I’m perfectly fine with dated UI as long as it’s efficient and does what it’s supposed to do. If they perfected this stuff way back when you had one chance to ship out a working product, is it really necessary to reinvent the wheel just for aesthetics? Cause that’s how you get a neutered settings app instead of a fully functional control panel.
It’s actually insane how difficult it can be to find settings in windows. Especially when the indexing breaks for the 1000th time and you can’t just search for it in the start menu.
This is the start menu experience:
“Photoshop”
*Wait 15 seconds *
“Here are some results from bing:”
😡😡
Mac and Linux it’s instant, and not some garbage AI/ads/web search results.
Lol I installed open shell several years ago and have not looked back since. If I wanted to search the web with your shitty search engine, microsoft, I would have opened your shitty browser, now please sit down.
Probably shouldn’t have installed it on my work computer for security compliance reasons but it’s such an improvement in my workflow that I couldn’t not install it. Highly recommend. Legit cannot imagine using windows without it anymore. https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu
Especially when you start typing something and it already started searching with your partial input and you your further and notice the thing your search for is first so you press enter, for it to now place another thing first with the extra input 😡
How can “displ” open display settings, but “display” opens a help page in Edge
I have a dual boot machine, windows takes forever to find sometging with or without indexing in use. Boot to linux I type 2-3 letters and GNOME/tracker index hands me files instantly. if I mount the NTFS windows partition in Linux and use the aearch in Nautilus it finds files faster than windows.
Hahaha yees! The start menu search is hilarious!! You install a software, type in the exact bame of the software afterwards and the start menu search gives you the installer from your download folder instead of the installed program with the exact name you typed. The devs must have a lot of fun there. This is peak satire.
I’ll have you know windows has changed.
Now you can’t move the task bar
I just reinstalled windows and spent 30 minutrs trying to figure out how to get the normal taskbar back, with label text not just icons, and Jesus wept it turns out
THAT ESSENTIAL FEATURE IS GONE
I am flabbergasted. I don’t know how anyone can use their PC without knowing what windows they have open and easy access to them. It’s insane.
I downloaded my usual start menu replacer in the end, which it turns out had also saved my taskbar at some point when they make this insane change, and I just hadn’t noticed.
That’s not even mentioning that when windows first installed it had all the icons in the MIDDLE for some insane reason. They must be smoking some strong stuff over there.
I clicked the button in the bottom left, you know, the button that has always been the start menu button, for 30 years, and it brought up the weather or some shit.
When you have to start searching for the start menu you know you’ve fucked up. Christ it was awful.
I know they make a big deal of saying “Windows 10 will be our last numbered windows release” but I really hope Windows 12 fixes all this crap.
Even more recently, my right click alt menu has become weird and much more annoying, hiding the actual menu I want behind a “see more options” button, and I can’t even use the keyboard to scroll through options and hit return to select one like I have my whole life. No, for some reason that menu is mouse only, and doesn’t even have keyboard key shortcuts.
They’re just stripping core features out left and right, and making everything harder to get at. It’s madness.
What next? They’ll get rid of the desktop?!
Seriously, the speed in which windows is getting worse since after win 7 is almost comical.
Win 7 was peak. Bonus points for giving option to make it look like Win9x by disabling all eye candy options.
Windows had 3 peaks. 95, xp, and 7.
Now I just use Linux. I know not everyone can, but for everything I do or need to do it all works just fine there so I couldn’t be happier.
Yes, XP was pretty great too! Can’t say much about 95, we switched from DOS directly to 98 back then, which crashed all the time. I heard good things about 98SE though.
Absolutely not. First win10 release already tried to force me into using a microsoft account, had adware and trial crap preinstalled, the terrible settings windows situation, borderline unusable start menu search function, hard to disable cortana bullshit, etc. etc.
I think after Windows 7 they tried to get into the mobile market for a while so they changed a few things to make Windows work with touch input. But then they realized that they were not up to the task of dealing with actual competition because it requires actually making a good product, so they retreated to their desktop comfort zone where they’ve had a monopoly since forever due to exclusive software and user habits and started to cash in on it by plastering everything with ads. Meanwhile, they pulled out the few skilled developers to have them work on cloud stuff with Azure, because at least after they accidentally lost the emails of the european parliament to a chinese intelligence service without any consequences they know that nothing threatens their dominance over the market
Yep the timeframe of Windows 8 was in the ballpark of the iPad coming on the market and being a hit. MS wanted a share of that tablet market so they made Windows 8 a piece of shit abomination combining a tablet UI and desktop UI.
They realized that was a bad idea and kept polishing their turds until they got Windows 10. Windows 9 was only released in alternate dimensions.
Remember when they planned to move over all the Control Panel settings to the Settings app?
In Windows 10?
I still extensively use:
Win+R
ncpa.cpl
It’s still the only way I know how to easily and quickly change my NIC settings.
The worst part is to change some things it adds like an extra 4 clicks to the old method.
Windows 11 had a link to that in under the advanced network options.
I say had as a recent update just took it away. They added a new advanced settings to replace the network connections part you linked to, but it is still missing options. Almost 10 years of the new settings and still no way to enable split tunneling on a vpn in the new UI.
The worst part is to change some things it adds like an extra 4 clicks to the old method.
And then at the final click, it takes you to that control panel screen anyway lol
I’m 90% sure that is the only way to change settings past just showing what you are connected to. Does/can anyone actually use settings over the control panel tools?
You can reduce keystrokes on that. Just tap the Win key instead of Win+R. Type ncpa.cpl and hit enter.
If you work on as many servers and desktops as I do, you’ll eventually encounter machines that have slow loading start menus and search, or search the web for some stupid ass reason instead. I’ll save that time with adding R. Still a 1 handed move anyhow
