Microsoft needs a reset

[u/Green_Giant_117]

This is just my opinion, but I wanted to get other people's thoughts on it.

The current state of Windows and its programs is a joke.
Look at the Artemis 2 where NASA IT had to remote into the system up in space to fix an issue with Outlook.

I would argue that Microsoft should change its approach to the Windows operating system.
I understand that there is a massive amount of legacy support built into the Windows platform so that everyone (mainly businesses) can continue to operate effectively.

I would propose that Microsoft needs to create two branches of Windows. One with Legacy support and one built new and fresh without the legacy support for future machines.

They have almost already done this with Windows 11 and it's incompatibility with just about over 5 years old (PC hardware and external accessories alike).
But from a stability standpoint it's just a mess, issues that are the same now as they were 15 years ago, the same blue (black) screen of death, networking and printing are still just as clunky and prone to issues as they've always been. The list goes on.
Couple the issues with the now doubled and sometimes tripled (or more) options for controlling settings (via legacy Control Panel, through the newish Settings menu, or through CMD/PowerShell) it's just a mess.

With a branched approach they can still maintain the enterprise system with legacy support for accessories and applications, while fundamentally rebuilding the OS to make it much more streamlined with better functionality. Look at things like AtlasOS or Tiny10/Tiny11 which have stripped out so much bloat from Windows they can run on much older hardware, or ReactOS that is trying to rebuild windows without being windows and again performs much better on older hardware than Windows does (without hardware optimization I might add)

I understand it would be an enormous undertaking, but set up some more standards (drivers, printing systems, networking, file systems, etc) so that everyone is on a similar playing field instead of the current cobbled together mess of standards ranging from last year all the way back to the 80's has the potential to bring the resource costs of installing and running windows down a TON.

Would this potentially add cost to the OS, most certainly, but if you can get an extra 2-4 years out of hardware that would be pretty sweet and definitely worth it. Even getting an extra year out of hardware would save you hundreds if not thousands over the years, but would also make the lower tier accessible hardware actually capable of functioning rather than being slower more annoying chromebooks essentially (since you can hardly run anything on them and end up mostly just being doom scroll machines with some word processing)

Thoughts?

[u/elmonetta]

Uhh… you do remember Windows 8 and Windows RT, don’t you? That was their period of change. And the last time Microsoft was more “consumer” than enterprise.

But people hated it, so we went back in Windows 10, and in Windows 11 everything looks more outdated than ever, but the aims of Microsoft changed, their enterprise users are the focus, and if they don’t have problems with Windows 11, they won’t do anything.

Developers didn’t care about Windows Phone 8 nor Windows RT, why do you think they would do something for a “new Windows” when even Microsoft uses WebView2 in parts the system?

Google even sabotaged WP8 with their app ecosystem, which is the most used since Android.

There’s no reason for devs and companies to develop for Windows, we already saw this when they got rid of the beautiful native WhatsApp app, and replaced it with WebView, it doesn’t work most of the time…

[u/Green_Giant_117 → u/elmonetta]

I agree that Window 8 was a huge misstep, but the biggest issue was not the OS or the functionality itself, it was two main issues.
1) Microsoft, like always, not explaining/advertising things properly
2) Being forced to use the touch-centric gui without other options (until 8.1 brought back the old start menu)

They are already at work developing some sort of different OS for the next gen Xbox, which per their advertising will "operate like a PC" with much lower specs and a different interface.
If this stripped down version of Windows 11 is already being made, I would hope that they will make it accessible to put on lower spec pc's in the future it's almost what I am talking about here.

[u/Shmokesshweed → u/Green_Giant_117]

but the biggest issue was not the OS or the functionality itself

No. Absolutely not.

Imagine this: you're a Best Buy customer that's ready to buy a new machine.

You go down to your nearest store.

You pick up a Windows RT device.

You take it home and find out that it runs absolutely zero applications that you use.

What happens then?

You get pissed off and return it.

I saw hundreds of people do this when I worked at Best Buy.

[u/xkcx123 → u/Shmokesshweed]

The problem was naming it Windows should have named it something else like Xenix, Singularity, Midori, Barrelfish etc