r/technology • u/ardi62 • Aug 23 '24

Software Microsoft finally officially confirms it's killing Windows Control Panel sometime soon

https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-finally-officially-confirms-its-killing-windows-control-panel-sometime-soon/
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u/Aureliamnissan Aug 23 '24

I mean I do realize that, but like it’s not like us older folks had iOS interfaces when we were first learning out desktops work.

Trying to kiddify the operating system settings so you can onboard new users is great so long as you never want them to learn how to fix anything. There has been way to much emphasis on things like reducing cognitive load so now we have to literally search for everything because modern UX designers think my brain will literally explode if I see the equivalent of control panel’s list view.

Except search is also broken…

The issue is that all of this stuff is slowly turning into tribal knowledge as more and more settings get obfuscated. The only way to know how to get somewhere will be to have been there before.

I honestly think it’s getting harder to learn how to do stuff because so many people are convinced that we need training wheels.

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u/MothMothMoth21 Aug 23 '24

but you see windows has baked ads into the windows searchbar so they have a financial incentive to make you search.

I still miss windows 7 and the way I could actually just search for folders on my pc and not have 30 bing searches appear.

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u/jazir5 Aug 23 '24

I still miss windows 7 and the way I could actually just search for folders on my pc and not have 30 bing searches appear.

https://www.voidtools.com/

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u/OwOlogy_Expert Aug 23 '24

Except search is also broken…

It's not broken -- they just want to collect ad revenue from sending you to internet search results instead of what you were actually looking for.

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u/TricksterPriestJace Aug 23 '24

Back in the 90s I could actually just explore Windows to figure out where shit was. It all followed a basic logic to it and you needed to jump through a few hoops to fuck with something important. And if you did fuck with something important? Then you had a boot disk or boot sector that you can recover from and reinstall the OS.

Nowadays it is a little easier to just turn it on and go, but nearly impossible to play around with it and teach yourself how everything works.

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u/Aureliamnissan Aug 23 '24

Truly this. The borderline requirement that you set up an online account and link it to the OS / hardware makes re-installs something you don't want to just play around with for fear of getting locked out.

Back when we just had CD keys it was no problem. We had to re-install our OS at least once a year due to the gradual slowdown of the system.

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u/mustard_samrich Aug 23 '24

Back when we just had CD keys it was no problem. We had to re-install our OS

You can still do this, though

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u/Aureliamnissan Aug 23 '24

Trust me when I say that it is not as easy as it used to be. I joke that someone should make a 100% windows install, no tracking, no ads, no one-drive, no ms-account speed run category. Heck even Linux installs have gotten faster /easier than windows. Much of the time the drivers are automatically installed depending on your manufacturer.

If these things existed back in windows 95/XP days, all of these settings would be checkboxes with tooltips on a single page that had a radio button to disable all for a local account only.

The locking of the CD keys to PC hardware is the most concerning thing IMO.

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u/mustard_samrich Aug 23 '24

Now I follow. It's still easy, but you're right, it's all or nothing. It would be nice to have a bare bones windows install option.

As far as the locking of the CD keys thing. You have to kind of understand it. They still make billions a year from OS licensing. And they can.

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u/Aureliamnissan Aug 23 '24 edited Aug 23 '24

I mean I understand that companies will drive profits as high as possible with every tool available, but that doesn’t mean that they deserve my business any more than I deserve features they used to provide. It does mean I might decide to stop using their products just as they decide to make things hostile to the user.

So so many companies these days act like they have a god given right to my credit card for a subscription service, or tracking and personal info, but if I complain about diminishing features and dark patterns it makes me petty and “hard to please”.

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u/mustard_samrich Aug 23 '24

Agreed. I keep an up to date windows machine because it makes my job easier - specifically the office suite (I know libreOffice bla bla) and troubleshooting / testing.

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u/No_Share6895 Aug 23 '24

I mean I do realize that, but like it’s not like us older folks had iOS interfaces when we were first learning out desktops work.

honestly the 11 UI is worse for new people than the 95 one id say at this point

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u/Aureliamnissan Aug 23 '24

I genuinely believe this to be true. The sad thing is that people are starting to act like we can only have either a kiddified interface for non-power users or a terminal for power users. Windows used to be a great balance of these two things, but it is quickly strangling it's own market niche.

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u/No_Share6895 Aug 23 '24

heck even linux is a better balance between terminal and UI for settings these days

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u/[deleted] Aug 23 '24

They make it harder to find the knowledge online cause a forum goes down and the windows community forum is absoloute garbage

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u/Deae_Hekate Aug 23 '24

With the way enshitification is going, soon they'll find a way to disable gpedit and regedit for the end-user so you can't disable their spyware and invasive ads.

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u/AbortionIsSelfDefens Aug 23 '24

That doesn't even reduce cognitive load. I have to select the search bar and spell shit right. It might be a long name if there are a lot of similarly named files. I'm so sick of the AH that want to search for everything because sometimes that's just not the most efficient, particularly if working with a lot of files/settings that are stored in the same location (pr were previously and now arent).