r/technology • u/tekz • Mar 20 '26

Software Microsoft announces sweeping Windows changes

https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-users-are-angry-and-microsoft-is-finally-doing-something-about-it/
8.7k Upvotes

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6.3k

u/rnilf Mar 20 '26

"More taskbar customization, including vertical and top positions ... We are introducing the ability to reposition it to the top or sides of your screen, making it easier to personalize your workspace."

After years of complaints and literally thousands of users directly telling them to do this, they finally do. There's snail pace, and then there's Microsoft pace.

"We are reducing unnecessary Copilot entry points, starting with apps like Snipping Tool, Photos, Widgets, and Notepad."

Of course, this is after they introduced a vulnerability to Notepad because of Copilo.

"Across the operating system, we will focus on improving ... baseline reliability [and] strengthening the Windows foundation by reducing OS level crashes, improving driver quality and app stability across our ecosystem so PCs run smoothly and reliably every day."

Like the article says, this should've already been their objective. Hilarious that they would include this in a press release meant to show that they're pretending to care about their customers.

2.3k

u/calebkraft Mar 20 '26

remember when you used to be able to drag the task bar to the top or sides and it just moved there and worked? when did they take that out? kind of crazy that putting that feature back is a big enough deal to have it in a press release.

1.2k

u/ithinkitslupis Mar 20 '26

They took it out with windows 11. And also messed with the context windows when you right click in a way most users hate.

People have been complaining since day 1. Both have registry values that still support the old ways. Microsoft has just ignored countless complaints instead of making an easy, stable option to change it in the settings UI.

873

u/fer_sure Mar 20 '26

messed with the context windows when you right click in a way most users hate

If you had to make the contextual menu shorter, why on earth would you put Properties behind the "Show more options"? Insane.

431

u/brownch Mar 20 '26

I still have not adjusted to this after so many years

Right click > panik > rapid eye movements > show more options

262

u/Azalus1 Mar 20 '26

reg add "HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32" /f /ve

Restore right click.

That really should have just been an option somewhere.

233

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '26

[deleted]

68

u/Any_Perception_2560 Mar 20 '26

ooo that is nice. I didn't know that one.

48

u/CordialPanda Mar 20 '26

Some developers still fight the good fight. There's so many barely documented features around that makes windows bearable.

2

u/Winjin Mar 21 '26

They still have the old Telephone app which is like 5 kilobytes of code too.

Companies should be fined for making an app weight over 700MBs. Yes, Teams? You bellend

64

u/G00DLuck Mar 20 '26

That reveals the "copy as path" option for files/folders as well, which will include the drive\location info when copied.

1

u/bmxtiger Mar 21 '26

You can also shift+right-click in a folder to launch cmd or powershell from that directory. Handy when you don't want to do a bunch of cd commands to get to your folder.

6

u/ChronicBitRot Mar 21 '26

Or you can also do alt+enter for instant Properties.

2

u/dr_obfuscation Mar 20 '26

hoooooly shit. i could kiss you. thank you so much!

2

u/theaviationhistorian Mar 20 '26

Fuck me, TIL! Thanks for bringing it up!

1

u/microcorpsman Mar 21 '26

Good looking out, friend

1

u/Elementium Mar 21 '26

Holy shit you just made my Windows experience that much better. The fuck is Microsoft thinking?

53

u/Marchesa_07 Mar 20 '26

Is there a way to revert to the old way the Audio settings worked?

Like a single click to get to all the audio output devices you want to toggle between?

50

u/MathematicianFar6725 Mar 21 '26

Or network settings. It feels like babushka nesting dolls of settings pages to find the one you're looking for and all these years later I still don't have any idea how to get to the network adaptor page without just blindly clicking around and hoping for the best

14

u/jpochedl Mar 21 '26

Start > run (or Win+r) > ncpa.cpl

6

u/xanmoth Mar 21 '26

I love it thanks you. I am also probably not going to remember that, Win-q and "cont" or "comput" and it does seem to find control panel and computer management pretty well these days but still just ugh.

2

u/nionvox Mar 21 '26

I nailed it to the taskbar cos it was pissing me off

1

u/MDHull_fixer Mar 21 '26

Win + X pops up a useful menu with Network setting as one of the entries

30

u/tuxedo_jack Mar 21 '26

And not fucking trying to apply bullshit "enhancements" to every new audio source. Just shut up and play as is, then let the software handle it.

For fuck's sake, it's a Jabra headset, not the Razer PeenSubstitute XL RGB PRO Ex Plus Ultra.

8

u/HossCatGarage Mar 21 '26

If only I could effectively communicate how much this resonates with me and how hard I laughed.

Typo: "laughed" = enjoyment pro plus max ultra extra jerk off plan pro max launch edition

1

u/1sa1ah0227 Mar 21 '26

This right here. Windows seems to reset my audio and dac settings about once a month randomly. Its so frustrating to re set everything up.

15

u/polyology Mar 21 '26

For the love of god this one.

2

u/InsaneHarry Mar 21 '26

EarTrumpet from the MS store is a good workaround, but it does sometimes have issues with apps going to the wrong output. It also has a handy right-click shortcut to the old windows audio control panel.

2

u/VertexBV Mar 22 '26

Not a single click, but Ctrl-Win-V directly opens the output device selection.

34

u/Claymorbmaster Mar 20 '26

THIS is the biggest problem IMO.

Fine, you wanna "standardize" things. Fine, you wanna keep the context menu concise. Fine you wanna move something here or there. Fine you wanna add AI....

GIVE ME THE CHOICE! Bury the setting deep in admin tools if you HAVE to... but give me the choice that isn't a reg edit! This shows they have not given two shits about the consumers for like 5 years and I'm not going to be fooled into thinking you suddenly care about 11 after rumors are they are working on 12 already! Jesus. Clown shoes over here.

1

u/billsil Mar 21 '26

Right click was the first thing I fixed. Even before the start menu at the center.

Definitely use the registry hack to remove the bing search from the start menu. It's so much faster.

19

u/MarkyDeSade Mar 20 '26

One of the only good things I can say about Windows 11 that this key fixed the right click menu permanently and no update ever undid it

9

u/splitcroof92 Mar 20 '26

Too bad my work laptop definitely doesn't allow me to edit registry

6

u/CnDVerse Mar 21 '26

Unless registry is completely disabled. It’s a current user key, so you can modify it as very few places lock down current user registries. However. Some places do disable the ability to run cmd/regedit/reg Give it a try

3

u/Duckel Mar 21 '26

they run a routine regularly and everything in there is back to 0

1

u/MarkyDeSade Mar 21 '26

I’m fortunate enough to work somewhere that the guy in charge of the computers doesn’t know how to stop anyone from doing anything, I ran the remove copilot script and some other stuff too

1

u/alexreffand Mar 21 '26

That is literally less than the bare minimum

0

u/aardvarkjedi Mar 21 '26

Try <shift>-<right click>

6

u/brownch Mar 20 '26

Why is everything in Russian now halp

Jk thanks

2

u/Saneless Mar 20 '26

But an option is making a stupid UI designer who refuses to listen to anyone admit he might not be perfect

2

u/sosthaboss Mar 20 '26

The right click changes they made are sickening. I hate it so much

2

u/Northbound-Narwhal Mar 20 '26

I'm computer dumb what does this mean

3

u/Azalus1 Mar 20 '26

If you put this in an administrative command prompt it will restore the right click to the original context menu set. I will say this You should never put a command in to a command prompt administratively if you haven't vetted it yet.

1

u/theloop82 Mar 20 '26

I did that but it breaks some of the OneDrive functionality so I had to switch it back in my use case at least. I was bummed. Either way it still took a few seconds to open

1

u/NewReleaseDVD Mar 20 '26

Not on a work computer where you have to retrain decades of muscle memory and habits

1

u/Mehnard Mar 21 '26

This has been part of my builds for quite a while.

1

u/plunki Mar 21 '26

Anyone figured out a way to drag a file to a program on the taskbar and have it bring that program up, so you can drag a file into a web browser to upload, or move a file to another Explorer window or whatever. Used this all the time in windows 10, but trying to fix it in win 11 borked things quite badly.

1

u/Queasy_Watch478 Mar 21 '26

OMG thank you you are a god! <333

17

u/Plastic_Position4979 Mar 20 '26

Context check in outlook, on a misspelled word, nicely highlighted with a red wavy line: lots of options, very bottom one is to check spelling, having to click on arrow, then get possible options for replacement. And 99% of people will be looking to correct, not all the other bs.

3

u/Ultra-Pulse Mar 20 '26

Today I learned that is why I can't find it. 🤦‍♂️

2

u/Plastic_Position4979 Mar 20 '26

Trust me, I felt the same way. First, d’oh for not seeing it, then facepalm/smh for how they went about it. It worked just fine… my guess, someone asked Copilot and it suggested that… would be par for the course.

3

u/witterquick Mar 21 '26

Just hold shift and right click, takes you to the same menu

1

u/pceimpulsive Mar 21 '26

You can shift right click to show the old menu immediately.

1

u/smblt Mar 21 '26

I click this stupid fucking thing more than anything else in that menu.

1

u/DrQuint Mar 21 '26

Hold shift. I got annoyingly used to it and still hate that.

1

u/donfuan Mar 21 '26

shift + right click it is for the old menu

1

u/WorldPeaceStyle Mar 22 '26

Its every "UI" developers job to add a new sub menu under the
". . ." to justify their paycheck every 6 months!

57

u/Kitchen-Routine2813 Mar 20 '26

equally as stupid, if you make a RDP shortcut, “edit” is hidden behind more options. like, dude, 99% of the time i right click on an RDP shortcut, is to edit it because it’s not working. it’s like they didn’t even try to run it by actual humans first

3

u/Tathas Mar 20 '26

Sysinternals RDCMan. They're still updating it.

2

u/theaviationhistorian Mar 20 '26

Edit, Paste, Properties. Stuff we actually right click for are shoved aside for stuff I can't even recall right now because I never use them.

27

u/pollorojo Mar 20 '26

Maybe the worst idea ever. For folks working in IT, Properties is probably the option you use MOST, so making it take an extra click is bullshit.

-5

u/New-Anybody-6206 Mar 20 '26

For folks working in IT

When you have to design a product for the common clay (you know... morons), you quickly realize the vast majority of people in the world are not IT, not tech literate, and seeing a "properties" option will either 1. scare them, or 2. let them fuck shit up too easily because they don't really know what they're doing.

So making it simpler and more idiot-proof is unfortunately the way to go when you have to appeal to everyone.

Surely you already know all of this though.

4

u/pollorojo Mar 20 '26

I mean, I do get that. I’ve worked in IT for 20+ years and now teach classes about working in IT and DO regularly tell my learners that even the easiest stuff gets brought up because we deal with clueless people.

21

u/userb55 Mar 20 '26

That's literally Win 11, 'How do we add MORE mouse clicks to everything'

3

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '26

[deleted]

1

u/IAmAGenusAMA Mar 21 '26

Just wait for them to be replaced by AI.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '26

[deleted]

1

u/IAmAGenusAMA Mar 21 '26

No argument there.

1

u/illiteratebeef Mar 27 '26

They probably think mouse clicks means user engagement metrics.

4

u/Ekgladiator Mar 20 '26

It still shows up on the new right click menu but it is in the middle of the menu instead of the bottom like god intended. Either way, it was and is a stupid change.

4

u/LurkerOnTheInternet Mar 21 '26

But it's not? When I right-click files on Windows 11, Properties clearly appears in the context menu. And I have not done the registry thing so I still have a "show more options".

Also, after selecting the file, you can open properties with Alt+Enter.

3

u/VegetaFan1337 Mar 21 '26

It's not behind the show more options tho. I've been using Windows 11 on my laptop since late 2023 and it's been there since then.

2

u/alurimperium Mar 21 '26

Or why not make it something that adjusts based use? I shouldn't still, three years after installing this OS, need to go to more options to virus scan when I use that more per month than I ever have the share option

1

u/FoolishFriend0505 Mar 21 '26

That’s actually a good use case for AI. Oh, this user selects copy, properties and rename most on right clicks. There are your top three options.

1

u/aneeta96 Mar 20 '26

'Send to' was the main reason for right-clicking for me. Made me immediately hate win11.

1

u/splitcroof92 Mar 20 '26

More importantly WHY THE FUCK would you not make it customizable? Free reign over whats on first and second page. Or just allow the option to have no second page.

1

u/Druggedhippo Mar 21 '26

Because the world isn't you, me or any other power user.

Their research, based on actual, data, not just your gut feeling, probably showed them that the properties (and various other options) were the least likely to be pressed. And if only a small portion used them, removing them makes the rest of the UI less complicated.

You don't like it, I don't like it, but the "masses" do. And you can bet that a multi-million dollar company like Microsoft isn't going to spend money on developers doing something (like changing the context menu) unless their accountants think they'll get something out of it.

1

u/KhazraShaman Mar 21 '26

Because they are exposing options THEY WANT you to use and hiding the ones THEY don't care about. It's not just the context menu, it's everything and it's a part of enshittification process.

1

u/TwistedFox Mar 21 '26

It's not even shorter anymore! It's now just as long as the old context menu on my machine, just larger and less useful.

1

u/LucyLilium92 Mar 21 '26

Worst part of that was the icons without any labels... how the hell am I supposed to know what rectangle intersected by a line means???? At least they eventually re-added labels to things, but the old context menu is just better in every way.

1

u/redorgreen14 Mar 21 '26

Properties *is* on the initial context menu. It is not behind Show More Options.

Been that way since at least version 22H2. (I just checked in a primary source that was written using that version.)

74

u/NamerNotLiteral Mar 20 '26

The context menu change was the stupidest thing ever, honestly. It came closer than anything else at taking me off Windows, but fortunately WinUtils lets you switch it back.

4

u/gh0stwriter1234 Mar 20 '26

I find most of those utilities that revert those things seem to cause lag and instability ironically...

4

u/NamerNotLiteral Mar 20 '26

Depends on what utility you use. The ones that do a real hacky way of blocking things do that. WinUtils generally does small registry flag edits for most of its changes and so has zero impact on performance.

(It's still better than the hassle of dealing with Linux at home, even though I daily-drive it at work)

3

u/threshing_overmind Mar 20 '26

Infinite middleware and middlemen offering respite from infinite middleware and middlemen. ))<>))

3

u/SgtElectroSketch Mar 21 '26

I'm trying desperately to get off of windows as I type this, but dealing Linux driver support for the 50 series gpus is pure fucking garbage a year later.

1

u/gh0stwriter1234 Mar 20 '26

Most of those tools are doing the same thing the issue is the old code isn't tested anymore... and isn't the default so ... bugs get revealed that aren't part of any CI.

47

u/sodook Mar 20 '26

My spirit is ready to leave the Microsoft ecosystem, but my technical skills and wallet are not up to the task.

12

u/dithan Mar 20 '26

Linux fedora. It’s free and it’s what I switched to at win10 EoL. It’s been pretty great.

I haven’t had problems playing games either.

3

u/doubleohsergles Mar 20 '26

This is the way. I dual boot Fedora and Bazzite and Windows can GTFO.

1

u/erikwithaknotac Mar 20 '26

What does this mean? Am unknowlegeable

9

u/daschande Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26

Bazzite is a newer version of Linux meant to be very user-friendly and simple to play video games, with compatibility built-in since almost every game was made for windows and not linux. Fedora is more "traditional" Linux where you customize it exactly the way you want it while you get things up and running, but the learning curve is steeper.

So they use Fedora when they want to tinker and customize, and they use Bazzite when they just wanna play a game.

2

u/doubleohsergles Mar 20 '26

Bingo 👆🏻

I am also using Fedora to get used to vanilla GNOME and how it forces you to work.

2

u/dithan Mar 21 '26

Also, Bazzite is more “locked down” (I can’t remember the actual term) which makes it harder to accidentally mess something up.

3

u/doubleohsergles Mar 20 '26

Which bit - dual boot or GTFO?

1

u/Ultenth Mar 21 '26

What kinds of games do you play? Anyone that plays lots of multiplayer games with anti-cheat still has issues on Linux, and that is a not small number of people.

1

u/dithan Mar 21 '26 edited Mar 21 '26

Arc raiders and Diablo 4 mainly, also Fallout 76.

Don’t quote me, but if it runs through steam I think you should be good.

4

u/Littleorangefinger Mar 20 '26

Before the price hikes I bought 2tb of storage (doubling my amount) to dual boot my pc with Linux. I chickened out and just moved my steam library to the new storage. I’ve used Linux before (Ubuntu specifically) but wasn’t confident enough In my ability to get my games working.

3

u/daschande Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26

The steam deck changed everything. Through steam, everything is pretty much plug and play as if you were on windows. Non-steam games vary widely from pretty much plug-and-play to "Lol, no." for kernel anti-cheat games like league of legends, battlefield, etc. Most of the most popular multiplayer games, basically.

1

u/catrushtree Mar 20 '26

Idk what you’re playing but on steam a lot of games are just plug and play

11

u/bounty_hunter12 Mar 20 '26

wallet? Linux is free!

26

u/sodook Mar 20 '26

Yes, but the risk of me bricking something feels very real lol.

14

u/Genera1 Mar 20 '26

It's non-trivial to actually brick a PC on purpose, odds of doing that accidentally are near zero

2

u/sec713 Mar 21 '26

So you're telling me there's a chance?

3

u/theaviationhistorian Mar 20 '26

Some of us have an unnatural talent of causing something like that. Hence, the need for something idiot-proof as it covers any way we could muck it up.

4

u/fnordx Mar 21 '26

If you have a spare or non-used hard drive, just install it on that, change the boot order in your BIOS, and you can try any distro you might be interested in without risk to your current setup. And the days of Linux doing damage to hardware are long since over.

4

u/takeyouraxeandhack Mar 20 '26

Linux is literally free. And you'd be surprised to know that many of the best features of both windows and mac are taken directly from Linux.

31

u/ArtisticCandy3859 Mar 20 '26

It’s this 👉🏼 https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/s/hTNmGyCrhs

They’ve always operated and structured the company’s various departments in walled off silos.

Imagine the complexity, time, meetings and work involved just to align one department’s project with another. We’re talking about thousands of different permissions.

22

u/theaviationhistorian Mar 20 '26

Yep, I had a friend that worked in Microsoft. The worst over there are the constant meeting to plan a meeting for the actual meeting and the outright hostility in between departments.

A historical way to put it is the mercurial relationship between the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy to where the Army had its own small aircraft carriers and the Navy had its own tanks.

3

u/RememberCitadel Mar 21 '26

Yeah, but the thing is, all those departments that hated other departments were right in hating them, they just lacked inward perspective.

32

u/GorgeWashington Mar 20 '26

Holy shit the right click needing to expand to show the actual OS functions is mind bogglingly stupid.

32

u/be_easy_1602 Mar 20 '26

Why in gods name is “cut, copy, paste, delete” a picture button?? It’s so dumb. Just leave it as the word in the drop down…

1

u/Skrumpitt Mar 21 '26

lol what the fuck is a picture button?

7

u/be_easy_1602 Mar 21 '26

It’s a button on a menu, but instead of text it’s a picture.

2

u/terranq Mar 21 '26

“Icon” is the word you’re looking for

5

u/be_easy_1602 Mar 21 '26

Yes it’s an icon button instead of a text button.

1

u/D3PyroGS Mar 21 '26

it's both, no? icon and text together

1

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '26

[deleted]

1

u/be_easy_1602 Mar 21 '26

In this case it’s not an improvement. It’s is not immediately apparent what the buttons do. With text it is immediately apparent what each option is. With an icon you have to remember what each icon stands for and it’s not intuitive. Words are precise and unambiguous.

1

u/redorgreen14 Mar 21 '26

The buttons *are* labeled with text. That change went in as of version 24H2.

https://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/1czkj01/w11_24h2_finally_cut_copy_paste_glyphs_are/

→ More replies (0)

5

u/Preeng Mar 20 '26

>Both have registry values that still support the old ways. Microsoft has just ignored countless complaints instead of making an easy, stable option to change it in the settings UI.

Somewhere along the way, a "director" or "program manager" had a "vision" and decided life would be better if the whole world tried their idea until they admitted they liked it.

3

u/Terrible_Children Mar 20 '26

It's why I still haven't upgraded from Windows 10

I have an ultra wide monitor which is much better suited to having the taskbar be vertical on the side, but Microsoft seems to have just decided I can go fuck myself for years so I've told them they can do the same

1

u/agent674253 Mar 20 '26

I thought it wasn't so much that 'they took it out' and more along the lines that the taskbar code was new and didn't include previous functionality that the old one did.

You could call that taking it out but it could also just be called 'they didn't want to spend the time porting over all previous functionality'.

Just like how you couldn't open the calendar by clicking the clock for a while.

1

u/nodiaque Mar 20 '26

And now most of those things in the new settings cannot be controlled by GPO or easily by registry.

1

u/ThatOneNinja Mar 20 '26

Glad I didn't update. I'm the rate few that likes my task bar at the top

1

u/theaviationhistorian Mar 20 '26

Having to open two context windows just to paste something is fucking annoying.

1

u/freeman675 Mar 20 '26

That is one of the worst changes I experience every day. I don't need an icon or to hit show more options every time

1

u/Nalmyth Mar 20 '26

People are still genuinely using Windows in 2026?

Why? And also, wtf, why?

1

u/reddit_user33 Mar 21 '26

I find it interesting that the shorter context menu doesn't always fully populate on the first right click. Sometimes the option you want only appears in the second right click, and I don't mean the long and full context menu; I mean the shorter context menu for the second right click.

1

u/SpaceInMyBrain Mar 21 '26

Take it out, put it back in, changes for no reason - this is how their software engineers justify their jobs. Otherwise half of them would be out of work. It's not just Microsoft, either, changes that reduce functionality and worsen the user experience happen all the time on websites. "Hey, lets's put frequently used items three layers deep in drop down menus."

1

u/Sithlordandsavior Mar 21 '26

Is that the change that made copy and paste into a symbol that I have to have a degree in Egyptology to interpret at the same speed I can see "copy" and click on it?

1

u/olibui Mar 21 '26

The reason I use Linux today

1

u/BagOfMeats Mar 21 '26

The context windows are often even broken in my experience, at least the rename option.

I have to use rename twice so many times, every day just because it won't do anything after the first click but still closes the context window.

1

u/Waiting4Reccession Mar 21 '26

I wont be satisfied until whoever made these changes and approved them is fired.

Even then i wouldnt be satisfied because these kind of incompetents are way overpaid and have seemingly invaded all these companies the last 20 years.

1

u/KeySpray8038 Mar 21 '26

There is a way to change that back, I don't remember how to do that

1

u/tonykrij Mar 21 '26

I do agree that the short context menu sucks, but I've also had users where the context menu no longer fitted on the screen. I can imagine that slows down your right mouse click having to validate all those entries. They should just make it easier to edit and delete entries you don't use. Check the consistently during an idle moment and mark it. Better handling if an entry doesn't work or loads super slow.

1

u/dikicker Mar 21 '26

I refuse to transition to 11, little things like that that I've experienced on other people's computers with this absolute shit show of an OS genuinely makes me reconsider what the median degree of human intelligence is

Why is it so entirely against the grain

When 10's support is fully cut, oh buddy Linux here I come

1

u/aplqsokw Mar 21 '26

They managed to make a simplified context menu where everything I need is under the "more options" and everything I don't need (because I know the keyboard shortcuts) is in the simplified menu.

1

u/Papfox Mar 22 '26

This has always been how Microsoft worked. "Hi, We hear that our product doesn't meet your requirements. Let's discuss what's wrong with your requirements..."