Windows 11, please die

Things get worse and worse

I’m going to join the brotherhood of mankind and engage in an evergreen pastime: shitting on Microsoft.

In this case, Windows 11.

I installed it on my last build when it was brand new, and it worked well enough right out of the gate. It was like Windows 10, but with a few awkward differences. Nothing major. However, with every update, and there are many, the OS has gotten progressively worse, to the point where I now think it surpasses Windows ME and Vista as the worst Microsoft operating system of all time.

The start menu lags because it’s a React app.

The search function is completely broken, defaulting to searching the internet or the Microsoft app store rather than the FILES ON YOUR COMPUTER. Even if you disable that or just patiently wait (search takes a VERY long time), chances are the files or programs you are looking for won’t show up. You have to memorize where you have stashed every file and program on your drives and have a good system for organizing everything, just like using MacOS system 6 or lower in the old, OLD days.

Users are now using third-party file explorers because the file explorer – the core interface component of the OS – is so laggy and broken. I have never had this part of the OS crash on any previous version of Windows, and for the first year I used 11 it never did. Now it crashes inexplicably.

OneDrive is hated for good reason, but it used to be functional. It worked as Google Drive did in 2010, quietly uploading my documents to a cloud server so I could grab them on another PC. Since I write and edit books in multiple places, I was able to move fluidly between my phone, my desktop, and my laptop. No more! Files get mysteriously deleted from your documents folder, or overwritten with some older copy from the cloud. Settings mysteriously reset. This never happened four or five years ago. I never stopped using Google Drive, btw. It got worse but at least it’s not broken.

There is now constant friction when using the OS. If I want to save a document, I have to click several extra times, opening a whole new UI element, just to save it to Google Drive or a specific place on my drives (which is necessary now). Changing system settings involves perusing dozens of small UI elements organized in a haphazard way hoping to change some annoying bit, only to end up back in the good old control panel, which the designers apparently really don’t want you to use. God forbid your settings are in one easy-to-manage place.

And then there is Copilot, the solution to a problem nobody had and a question nobody answered. It’s the worst implementation of AI in an entire trillion-dollar industry obsessed with AI. You used to be able to fully remove it, but with the latest updates, alas, all you can do is disable it, and that option might be taken away. Windows 11 did not ship with Copilot. If it had, I wouldn’t have ever installed it. Based on what execs say, they want Copilot to be some sort of Clawbot, but if users wanted that, they could install it, just like with any other AI service or program they would want to use. The security nightmare of an “agentic OS,” I don’t have time to get into here. You can ask some experts just what they think about giving an LLM permission to run your computer for you.

And it’s not like I’m using a potato here. My rig is a core i9 with 64gb of Ram and a 3080. It’s a modern system. The fact that the system lags using core UI components is insane.

What is infuriating is that Windows wasn’t always bad. It used to be near perfect. That peak was 2009, and that version was Windows 7.

The start menu worked perfectly. You never struggled to find a program. Files were stored locally, and cloud solutions (like Google drive), were ad-hoc and functional. The managed experience put a lot of thought out of users’ minds. It ran every piece of software I wanted it to, and it was snappy to use. It used multiple drives without issue, and the search actually worked!

And it was Beautiful. The clear windows and the subtle 3D shading…It was a real joy to use. It was the apex of the functional design that came before it. Everything that came after has been a steady downhill slope, ending with a cliff, driven by what I call the “new car problem.”

In the mid 20^th century, selling new cars to the increasingly wealthy American population became challenging because cars had become very reliable. The solution was to add odd features, special colors, redesign aesthetics, and release new models to drive consumer demand. The car was a mature technology. To keep selling it, they had to invent novelty.

The point of an OS is to run programs and help the user store and access files. That core function has been fulfilled for a long time now, and additional features are more about novelty or “forward design.” The key example is Windows 8, which took away the start menu and introduced a field of tiles that filled up the screen. The point was to unify mobile and PC interface design, but nobody used windows phone as an OS, and the crappy tiles took away a core OS component for anyone using a desktop computer and not a touchscreen of some sort. The fix was to install ClassicShell, which gave us back the Windows 7 start menu, minus the pretty transparency, which Microsoft saw fit to remove in favor of the trendy “flat design” of the time.

Windows 10 was a return to form, but wasn’t as good as Windows 7 in function or appearance. It was just better than Windows 8.

Windows 11 is right out.

The problem is killing Windows. Users hate it, but the friction of going to another OS is great. Operating systems aren’t just products; they are standards, and consumers prefer few standards to many. Windows is a standard for software, which is what users actually want to use. Nobody wants to use an OS absent the purposeful programs on a computer. In order for Linux to finally kill Windows, it has to merge into the same standard. All the software has to work without the user having to do serious work. Many people are stuck on windows because the programs they need to use for work won’t work on Linux.

Yes, there are open-source alternatives, but that creates lots of extra friction for the user. Windows, to its credit, is excellent at using very old software, and that might not work on Linux compatibility layers. If your firm uses Adobe software, you need to be using it, too. Photoshop, Premiere, Word, etc., are all standards of their own. Gamers might need to use Windows because of an anti-cheat or graphics card drivers. Using Linux becomes an exercise in rebellion rather than something that enhances your productivity and fun.

Professional users end up looking at Mac hardware as their only real alternative, and given current hardware prices, it might be a good one. I’m writing this article on a Mac. Maybe if Linux got just a little bit more fluid to install and use, and Windows got just a bit worse, we could have a tipping point. I find the prospect encouraging.

I am an independent artist and musician. You can get my books (and music) by joining my Patreon, and you can listen to my current music on YouTube or buy my albums at BandCamp.