Microsoft is reportedly working to fix Windows 11's most annoying flaws — wants to restore the operating system's reputation

PhilB · Jan 31, 2026

cheaterslick said:
I always liked to be packaged in a box, don't you?

Actually I like the gift wrapping, reflecting on

how I feel that I benefit all mankind.

DJNelson · Jan 31, 2026

cheaterslick said:
I always liked to be packaged in a box, don't you?

x509 said:
Actually I like the gift wrapping, reflecting on how I feel that I benefit all mankind.

I don't know about anyone else, but I think maybe there ought to be a bit of concern over who we're all being sold to.

PhilB · Jan 31, 2026

DJNelson said:
I don't know about anyone else, but I think maybe there ought to be a bit of concern over who we're all being sold to.

There should be a crapton of concern. I don't know about the EU, but in the US data brokers are running wild. I can't go to a webpage without ads for that page's product type showing in in lots of windows after that.

cheaterslick · Feb 1, 2026

DJNelson said:
I don't know about anyone else, but I think maybe there ought to be a bit of concern over who we're all being sold to.

Oh yeah, I hate wearing bow ties and I just don't like being wrapped up, if ya know what I mean...

x509 said:
I can't go to a webpage without ads for that page's product type showing in in lots of windows after that.

That's why adblockers are important. I sometimes disable them to support smaller blogs and forums that need the ad revenue. But for big media (think MSNBC, CBS, The New York Times, Fox, CNN, etc..) that host a sh*tshow of ads, I happily block all their crap. Or at lease as much as I can get away with and I have no moral problem doing so.

Some of that stuff has malware in it, anyway. Besides, they won't go poor just because I refuse to view their sh*tty ads.

snerd · Feb 1, 2026

cheaterslick said:
Oh yeah, I hate wearing bow ties and I just don't like being wrapped up, if ya know what I mean...

That's why adblockers are important. I sometimes disable them to support smaller blogs and forums that need the ad revenue. But for big media (think MSNBC, CBS, The New York Times, Fox, CNN, etc..) that host a sh*tshow of ads, I happily block all their crap. Or at lease as much as I can get away with and I have no moral problem doing so.

Some of that stuff has malware in it, anyway. Besides, they won't go poor just because I refuse to view their sh*tty ads.

Every single one of those news sites is unreadable without an ad blocker. Literally. I don't know how people do it freestyle!!

cheaterslick · Feb 1, 2026

snerd said:
Every single one of those news sites is unreadable without an ad blocker. Literally. I don't know how people do it freestyle!!

You'd be surprised how many people out there still don't know what an adblocker is.

jimbo45 · Feb 3, 2026

PerpetualCycle said:
Best thing Microsoft could do would be to quit making the consumer customers beta testers and get rid of the gradual feature rollouts and test in-house. Like that will ever happen though.

Sounds good in theory but there are just TOO many different bits of hardware out there and also loads of software all written at various levels of expertise from brilliant to just down right appalling.

Unless you lock Windows into the Cr-Apple (Macbook) type of eco system with highly controlled applications and hardware (Macbooks are good at what they do although hideously expensive and for too many people just too limited) or make Windows Open Source like Linux so you could create a huge network of developers It's not going to happen. For decent documentation as an example just look at Arch Linux's Wiki. You don't have to be an arch Linux user to find solutions generic to most Linux distros out there. I think also Ms should take a leaf out of IBM / Red Hat's book and produce a test version of Windows like Fedora Rawhide which is the base for its upstream commercial server systems .

Cheers
jimbo

hdmi · Feb 3, 2026

PerpetualCycle · Feb 3, 2026

jimbo45 said:
Sounds good in theory but there are just TOO many different bits of hardware out there and also loads of software all written at various levels of expertise from brilliant to just down right appalling.

Unless you lock Windows into the Cr-Apple (Macbook) type of eco system with highly controlled applications and hardware (Macbooks are good at what they do although hideously expensive and for too many people just too limited) or make Windows Open Source like Linux so you could create a huge network of developers It's not going to happen. For decent documentation as an example just look at Arch Linux's Wiki. You don't have to be an arch Linux user to find solutions generic to most Linux distros out there. I think also Ms should take a leaf out of IBM / Red Hat's book and produce a test version of Windows like Fedora Rawhide which is the base for its upstream commercial server systems .

Cheers
jimbo

Better release control and QA like Apple doesn't require and eco system and make Windows more expensive. Phased rollout of features by Microsoft and using us as testers is a mess. Nobody else does this for a reason.

retiredat44 · Feb 3, 2026

they can fix the networking, the scumbags!

townsbg · Feb 5, 2026

I hate 11 more than any previous version. I wish I didn't have to use it.

fusionsynth · Feb 5, 2026

They need to fix the Explorer refresh bug. It is there for since who knows how long.

gunrunnerjohn · Feb 5, 2026

It does appear they might have fixed, or at least partially fixed, the Windows Explorer memory leak. I used to be able to get Explorer using up to around a gigabyte or more, now it seems much more stable.

hdmi · Feb 6, 2026

The first thing I did after 22H2 came out in October 2022 was to switch File Explorer with tabs (also commonly referred to as "File Explorer with bugs"...) back to the familiar-old File Explorer with Ribbon. As a result, I haven't had any problems with File Explorer.

The various customizations in Open-Shell's Classic Explorer component never broke. The "Better file sizes in Explorer details" Windhawk mod (using Everything to make it run fast) also never broke. I am still currently using these customization tweaks on 25H2 build 26200.7705, still without a hitch. To get explorer.exe to crash or become unstable, I literally have to force it e.g. by doing a clean install of Windows 11, as doing that would definitely cause it to start crashing every other minute again. Because, THEN, all the tweaks that effectively prevent it from crashing would be gone. No exaggeration.

This is with several other Windhawk mods being hooked into explorer.exe, and also including ExplorerPatcher. It just never flurbs. Basically, you have 2 options IMO. You can go sulk in corner about the fact that Microsoft still hasn't cleaned up 3.5 year-old bugs. Or you can blame yourself for not having read up sooner on what's been being possible to tackle the problem yourself for (almost) equally as long.

gunrunnerjohn · Feb 6, 2026

hdmi said:
The first thing I did after 22H2 came out in October 2022 was to switch File Explorer with tabs (also commonly referred to as "File Explorer with bugs"...) back to the familiar-old File Explorer with Ribbon. As a result, I haven't had any problems with File Explorer.

Ditto, I get along without the tabs just fine. Many times when I'm moving files around, I just want to open two windows. Tabs just didn't seem to bring anything for me to the party. They're like the answer to a question that I never asked.

jimbo45 · Feb 6, 2026

gunrunnerjohn said:
Ditto, I get along without the tabs just fine. Many times when I'm moving files around, I just want to open two windows. Tabs just didn't seem to bring anything for me to the party. They're like the answer to a question that I never asked.

W11 has got to such a state that I don't think even the wisdom of "The Holy Ghost" (for those who still have respect for the scriptures etc) could fix it.

Windows was definitely one of the defining moments in C20 technology and has undoubtedly enhanced zillions of lives around the world for better but remember like all things " Empires rise and Sink like Billows -- Vanish and are seen no more".

Cheers
jimbo

Edwin · Feb 6, 2026

jimbo45 said:
"Empires rise and Sink like Billows -- Vanish and are seen no more"

"The grass withers and the flowers fall..."

townsbg · Feb 6, 2026

I can't do anything to restore it from tabs.

hdmi · Feb 7, 2026

gunrunnerjohn said:
Ditto, I get along without the tabs just fine. Many times when I'm moving files around, I just want to open two windows. Tabs just didn't seem to bring anything for me to the party. They're like the answer to a question that I never asked.

To me, personally, they're more like the broken answer to a question that I never asked. Explorer Tab Utility was a reasonable attempt to fix that answer, but can only fix the broken answer itself, not the part that the initial question was about, i.e., the bugs that still exist in "File Explorer with bugs". So, Explorer Tab Utility is like trying to fix the steering wheel of a car after its engine blew up and then the wheels came off.

Microsoft is reportedly working to fix Windows 11's most annoying flaws — wants to restore the operating system's reputation

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