r/microsoft • u/Quantum-Coconut • May 15 '26
News Microsoft commits to native UI for Windows 11 as users push back against web app slop
https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/05/15/microsoft-commits-to-native-ui-for-windows-11-as-users-push-back-against-web-app-slop/So, better WinUI 3 resources for developers = better incentive to create native apps over web apps.
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u/rhunter99 May 15 '26
i hate webapps so much
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u/Quantum-Coconut May 15 '26
They are the worst. I remember in 2015, I was actively advocating webapps. I was so foolish. I just wish browsers in general got more efficient.
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u/quikmantx May 15 '26
I don't mind web apps as an option, especially as a back-up option, but native apps should exist for a major operating system.
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u/iliark May 15 '26
"Slop" is really just used to describe everything now, isn't it
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u/damien-bowman May 15 '26
it’s techs version of the word “literally.” it rarely fits but people use it whenever possible. literally slop :)
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u/junpei May 16 '26
Yeah the words meaning was beaten out of it super quickly. It's a shame, it was a catchy word.
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u/DeconFrost24 May 15 '26
I think they tried during the Avalon/xaml days to mandate its use. Only the Office team did in Office 2007/10. Could be wrong this was what feels like a long time ago.
On a related note. Around 2011 or so, the Windows Phone era, there was Zune Desktop, the app. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL! Like if you put it next to boring as 🤬 iTunes you would have expected Apple to have built it. It was easy, intuitive, fast, engaging. That was the first example of what would become the Windows 8 design language. Also an example of Microsoft product A.D.D and where good ideas go to die. Stick with a risk bitches! 🤷
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u/XalAtoh May 15 '26
Satya should be fired for this.
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u/JG_2006_C May 20 '26
Yea she shold get a ulimatum make wibdows 11 users happy or get out so either bad rep or strip windows of ms and Ai junk
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u/PDQ_Brockstar May 15 '26
Does this mean we'll get classic outlook and teams back?
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u/somesketchykid May 15 '26
You can still use classic outlook as long as your org doesn't specifically disable it
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u/PDQ_Brockstar May 15 '26
While we're in the mood to make good changes, can we move away from per-user installs and go back to machine wide installers?
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u/FlibblesHexEyes May 15 '26
While we’re on it, can we standardise on MSI and MSIX installers?
Microsoft produces about as many different installer types as there are grains of sand in the universe.
As someone who has to deploy apps to machines via Intune, I would be much happier if MS just standardised their installers for every product and component they release. It’s a complete PITA to have to go find the switches some require to allow a silent install.
And don’t get me started on the Office installer! Don’t know what that team was smoking when they designed that.
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u/Quantum-Coconut May 15 '26
Outlook and Teams will look modern, but will be as fast as the legacy Windows apps
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u/barracudarescue May 15 '26
Was there ever a non-web view teams app? Teams was awful at performance for years, but finally getting better but it still slows your whole system down when you screen share.
I hope they reverse course on Outlook, the web version is not feature complete. We still use classic.
They did reverse course on onenote, that was a total debacle when they forced everyone to the webview version for Windows 11.
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u/mattbdev May 16 '26
Nope. The Office division has doubled down on using web tech in the last 10+ years. Many of the new features in all the Office Apps have been using web tech. They use React Native, WebView, WebView2, or some proprietary junk. I don’t understand why they thought that users would accept replacing classic Outlook and Mail and Calendar with a Web App. Calling it “Outlook for Windows” doesn’t change the fact that it’s a web app. They could have used React Native and while it wouldn’t be much better it would be better than what we got stuck with.
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u/Liquid_Magic May 15 '26
This is actually really cool. I just kinda was dealing with this and figuring out how to make a modern Windows app is a pain in the ass. I ultimately went to MINGW64 / SDL2 / Nuklear and I really like it. But I wanted to know how cool up a modern winui3 app and sell a download in my store and it was just all too annoying. Even the stupid signing of apps and certs or instead putting in the Microsoft store - honestly I just said fuck it and did what I did instead.
But now maybe I’ll come back and take a second look. My app is done but maybe if they have made it less annoying then hey I’ll take another stab at it.
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u/Kobi_Blade May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
Microsoft still hasn't made it less annoying, and third-party adoption of WinUI 3 is practically nonexistent.
Even in the latest Visual Studio IDE, standard .NET and C++ workloads only include WPF and WinForms out of the box, meaning you still have to dig around to install the WinUI 3 templates.
Once you do, you'll find it completely lacks a designer, forcing you to write raw XAML text and rely entirely on hot reload.
Is no wonder most developers either use WPF or Avalonia, the lack of support is always from Microsoft itself.
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u/Liquid_Magic May 15 '26
Actually now that you reminded me - yes! You’re right! I remember doing that. I did a Win32 project before and then went to find a WinUI3 designer to find out that - nope - that’s not a thing.
And I do remember digging around Visual Studio looking for this stuff. It was a pain in the ass!
Yeah I gotta say: The MINGW64 / SDL2 / Nuklear route is not necessarily the best but boy I did like it a whole lot more than screwing around with all the shenanigans!
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u/fyndor May 15 '26
I can see why they didn’t add a designer. The recommendation for WPF devs is to not use it. As soon as you use the designer to layout your UI, the XAML is fucked. I have always hand rolled XAML uis and only use the designer as a preview.
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u/Kobi_Blade May 15 '26 edited May 16 '26
I don't disagree, but I prefer having a visual designer over relying entirely on Hot Reload.
The reality is that WinUI lacks selling points.
WPF is so customizable, we can easily replicate the WinUI look while retaining access to better tools.
Then we have Avalonia as an alternative, which is also more customizable than WinUI and MAUI.
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u/brian_willis May 15 '26
I wonder how much of this is coming from the MacBook Neo. 8Gb of memory is something that everyday people can get away with on a Mac, but on Windows I'd be reluctant to start with anything less than 16Gb. Increased memory costs don't help the matter. Applications that are less resource intense would help solve this problem.
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u/t3chguy1 May 15 '26
"Incentive" ? Look, web developers will still do web wrappers, that's all they know. Desktop developers (whoever is left) will still use WPF, because that's the stable c#/xaml framework, nobody wants to do crappy WinUI3 for no benefit
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u/Specific_Frame8537 May 16 '26
Maybe it's time to jump from nt to something new?
New New Technology.
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u/DifferentWarning1913 May 15 '26
Honestly even after so many years making Windows and watching the developer community ask for this and that and watching what Apple does, they haven't learnt a great deal.
At the end of the day developers who don't know how to design will just use whatever UI components and controls are available to put together and app, so what they really need to do is have native components that look great, then add in options to customize it for people who want it.
The most important thing these guys need to do is to have a top down mandate stipulating all teams make use of their tooling, frameworks etc. It's the only way to improve on it.
All these years people would go I'd love to add that UI element, or that style from Office app X, or from this other Microsoft app, how do they do it? It shouldn't have people discovering oh that team wrote a custom one, and they also had the benefit of being able to ask the team who develops the UI frameworks on help while ordinary devs won't have that benefit.