This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
the code required to move the taskbar to the top or sides isn’t actually in Windows 11, because Microsoft created the new taskbar from the ground up
Funny, I run a script on my work computer that let's me move it. I like it on the top.
It couldn't be that hard to make new code that achieves the same thing with the new taskbar.
Probably Microsoft: copilot, rewrite the taskbar
The taskbar: I’m only down here now
It's hardly the only feature they broke. Another stupidly simple thing was On Win10 I can click on the time and pop open the calendar from any monitor. Windows 11 only the main monitor works. It's annoying as fuck. Everyone involved with creating this half baked piece of shit and forcing it on Windows users should kill themselves.
I honestly just want my old right mouse click back.
So I'm forced to use windows at work like the majority of my industry.
The start bar is still a thorn in my side since we switched from 10 to 11.
Standard office set up is 2 x 1920x1200 monitors and a 1920x1080 laptop. Some just leave the laptop shut when docked.
I preferred having it on a stand and using the lap top screen real estate.
In windows 10 I could make a monitor the primary and have a start bar only on the laptop. Not being able to do that in windows 11 is fucking annoying. They also fucked up auto hide start bar, it's always jumping up for bullshit I don't care about and not hiding when it should. I gave in and accepted I can't have those bottom few lines of screen real estate because they are Microsoft's.
As an engineer I do sometimes get feelings of imposter syndrome. But then I look at what Microsoft did to the start bar in windows 11 and think well at least I didn't do that.
Microsoft doesn't have to compete very much. They're not a monopoly, probably, but a strict definition. Apple exists. Linux exists and is better than the terminal hell the average person thinks about. But that's not enough pressure to make microsoft actually try to appeal to customers. Most people are basically stuck.
We should break up all of these companies that are so big they can coast with shitty products for years.
Simple solution is to switch to Linux. Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.04LTS had worked great for me so far.
If you absolutely can't or won't switch look at openshell https://open-shell.github.io/Open-Shell-Menu/
What’s funny here is that in Microsoft’s Feedback Hub, the feedback related to “taskbar”, with the highest number of upvotes, is the one that asks the company to “Bring back the ability to move the taskbar to the top and sides if the screen on Windows 11”. We are not sure which data Microsoft used to get to such a conclusion…
The one they get from their ~~spyware~~ telemetry, probably.
Microsoft is doing great when it comes to supporting the rise of linux.
I'm on linux because of Microsoft
Kubuntu, proxmox and mint checking in here fu $msft
"Microsoft applied a data-driven approach to find out which features to add now, which features to add later, and which to completely avoid.
Unfortunately, for the enthusiasts who had a left-aligned or vertical taskbar in Windows 10, you would have to settle for the fact that Microsoft’s data shows such users are really small when compared to the number of users who are asking for other newer features in the taskbar."
100% of the users that are smart enough to care about moving the task bar are also smart enough to turn off all optional telemetry. This sadly a part of why tech companies are making products for the dumbest people and pushing away power users.
How tf do they get telemetry for features that haven't been added yet.
If your thinking way is true, I am trully afraid of how many people used ai in win10...
I just find it hilarious that the top/right/left toolbar was possible in windows 95/98/ME
but its to much of a technical problem to do today.
I guess thats what you get with AI doing all your coding..
So, to cater to the maximum number of users at once, Microsoft applied a data-driven approach to find out which features to add now, which features to add later, and which to completely avoid.
I call bullshit, because nobody uses the "modern" devices and printers interface in windows 10, because it fucking sucks. Everyone goes to the control panel instead. In windows 11, you have to use the "modern" interface, and it drives me crazy, especially because the old, fully functional, and reliable one is still in the OS, but Microsoft decided to hide it/make it a PITA to get to.
They keep re-implementing things.
Just the Start menu. You can see how 95 evolved into 98 evolved into ME, then they changed it for XP, and they never stopped making big pointless changes. In many cases, those big pointless changes have been lengthening the process of going from the bare desktop to the thing you need by adding pointless screens and dialogs. Or, like the Start menu, they just drastically redesigned it such that a user used to Win XP tries to use 7 and they just...stare at it because it's not what they were expecting. Windows 7's Start menu might even be objectively better, Microsoft's software engineers could very well produce good research documentation about UI design based on observing or polling users about what features they wanted and then they made the thing people seemed to want, but to people who got used to how it already worked the new thing was bad because it's different.
I could be convinced Windows 8.1 is a mental unwellness simulator. In Sierra's FMV horror game Phantasmagoria 2, the player character goes insane at work, and this is simulated by the paperwork he's working on flashing scarier words for a split second. You're reading this document and then near the bottom of the page an ordinary word like "recommended" turns to "murdered" for a few frames. Win 8.1's animated tiles reminded me of that. Plus the whole "The desktop and all normal Windows apps therein is itself just an app that can be run in split screen next to special phone-like single tasking apps which pretty much only we will develop for and we won't include desktop versions of so you have to deal with this." I hate Windows 8.1.
What's real fun is you can tell when they abandoned work on a project by which drastically different UI it's encrusted with. The modem dialer looks like Windows XP, the fax program looks like Vista, some things have the flat purple stank of 8, some things have the dark glass look of early 10.
For printers, go to DEVICES > let it load it all > more devices settings (towards bottom) - to open old school printer control panel. Major pain in the ass.
for power users? absolutely. but nobody who isn't tech savvy even knows what control panel is anymore.
Over the years I came to realize that tech savvy when it came to windows doesn't actually mean anything. It just means you are able to fight through the bullshit and get things done with what you have.
“When you think about having the taskbar on the right or the left, all of a sudden the reflow and the work that all of the apps have to do to be able to have a wonderful experience in those environments is just huge.”
This is such utter fucking nonsense. They already have to deal with the concept of a "client area" that encompasses variable-sized screens and (worse) the multiple-monitor situation. Movable task bar is trivial.
I’ve been using ExplorerPatcher to correct this and it works pretty well.
I'm using Linux Mint to correct this and it works even better
Yeah I'm using startallback and it just works.
Except for the notification bar, which shows up on the wrong screen, but i don't much care about that.
They didn't just rewrite it, they rewrote it in ~~feces~~ React
That's the start menu. They probably built the task bar with Electron.
That’s quite an article to say they forgot about it after re-writing the task bar for no reason. It’s such a basic expected feature.
just MS things. changing things for no apparent reason to make it worse to use and also remove existing features that people actually liked
TLDR: We rewrote the taskbar and didn't bother implementing it.
What's weird is that given certain odd scenarios (I can't recall it but there was a video by Enderman about it) you'll see the old windows 10 taskbar appear, exact styling and all. So the windows 11 taskbar is quite literally just a WebView plastered on top.
This really stuck with me. “Rewrote” implies feature parity. What they really did was replace the taskbar.
I watched a YouTube video by Dave Plummer about why you can't move the taskbar and it made more sense than whatever. this link is that I'm not clicking on
The amount of bullshit is incredible. The DE sets the windows position. The DE tells the apps what's the "usable" desktop area. It worked for decades. And now "you can't imagine the amount of work"
Fuck you microsoft. Not that I care anymore. Even your excuses are pathetic.
There was a while back some Windows developer externally lamenting how ass-backwards they were and as a result their NT kernel was woefully under-featured compared to other contemporary OSes...
Then I think they forced him to take it back and say 'um actually our kernel is actually super awesome, my mistake'.
