What is codename Windows K2 for Microsoft to save Windows 11

Interesting that they're talking about using WinUI 3 for upgraded performance. If this is true, much of the hand-wringing about WinUI 3 being abandoned may end up being proven wrong. This is a good thing IMO, as if MS starts using and depending on WinUI 3 for improved performance, long-unfixed bugs in WinUI 3 could end up finally being fixed, which could breathe new life into the platform.

I hate to admit it but my first PC OS was MSDOS 2.0 and I have owned or used almost every version of Windows. I still enjoy using it because I know my around the old stuff and use Start search to find the new screens and menus. I would hate to be a new user. It must be tough for them to understand what all the endless options are and what they do. I think it's overly complicated in it's layout.... The Start Screen should be a Real Window that you can resize and move around. Why not put important items like secure boot, certs, bitlocker status, wifi, bluetooth up front like a dashboard, I haven't seen a long range plan. Each version of windows is different but is better? They need to get us to buy in if they want people to invest in another Windows computer.

Asus272 said:

I hate to admit it but my first PC OS was MSDOS 2.0 and I have owned or used almost every version of Windows. I still enjoy using it because I know my around the old stuff and use Start search to find the new screens and menus. I would hate to be a new user. It must be tough for them to understand what all the endless options are and what they do. I think it's overly complicated in it's layout.... The Start Screen should be a Real Window that you can resize and move around. Why not put important items like secure boot, certs, bitlocker status, wifi, bluetooth up front like a dashboard, I haven't seen a long range plan. Each version of windows is different but is better? They need to get us to buy in if they want people to invest in another Windows computer.

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Hate to admit that my first PC ran CP/M. And before that IBM mainframes, starting with 026 cardpunches and 1403 printer output.

My first PC ran the built-in IBM Basic with tape I/O and later DOS 3.20. But indeed, it was very long ago...

Windows Central can be trusted. It's good that MS devs decided to put efforts into improving Windows 11 as much as possible, instead of leaving it in current unfinished state and jump to the next (ambitious and shiny) Windows 12. And changes in the Insider positioning can be seen as a step in the same direction. Long MS problem was counting more on telemetry rather than feedback from users and testers. Many solutions of the problems, which can be found on learn.microsoft.com were provided by MVP people, not by developers or official support, and the discovered bugs might be unfixed for years. Such approach should be changed, at least I hope on that.

MS already have the foundations in place for this
Windows pro can have everything installed including AI
Windows home just has the basics installed no AI
they have a corporate version already LTSC

anything can be added or removed via the MS store
or the power-shell command line

they have the foundations but do they wish to build on them.
best of luck Steve ..

My take is different from most of you. Once I got over the initial learning curve, I've had few issues with 11. My hardware can handle it so, for the most part,
(1) I just let Windows do it's thing without trying to butcher it down and (2) I haven't felt the need to alter the GUI as much as some folks. I don't want my new Windows to look exactly like my old Windows. I truly believe those 2 things are the reason I haven't had any of the problems others report.

I think to gain back customer trust, MS should be first concentrating most on what doesn't work up to par with what customers expect out of Windows, not the way it looks; first and foremost file explorer issues followed by Windows update problems and networking.

My biggest beef has been the Onedrive crap being crammed down our throats and having no obvious option to use a local account during setup. IMO, for those things we should be given a clear choice. In my case, I wanted to use a MS account, but wanted my files to have no ties to Onedrive. That's what I'm doing, but only after jumping through hoops to do it. That's when I cussed Microsoft the most.

As far as AI, again I think it should be a up-front choice of when and where we want to use it. I use AI, but only in Edge. I don't want it writing my documents or emails or overtaking notepad if I decide to write a recipe.

Actually my complaints are not with the operation and updating of Windows as it works for me. I've never had to back out any windows updates before Windows 11. How may years is it going to take before we can do admin functions frrom a local account?

I guess we have several mainframe guys on this site. My first computer was a 360/30 running IBM Dos, 1401 and 1410 emulation. I spent 42 years working in data centers starting in 1970. I worked as an operaor, technical advisor and manager. I saw lots of changes over the years and throughly enjoyed learning new stuff... I worked a lot of nights and weekends most of it on a 3 day weeks with 12 hour shifts. I was an expert in JCL, scheduling systems, Jes2, MVS, ZOS operation and recovery. In later years we had 3 data centers running parallel sysplex with their jes2 checkpoints running in coupling facilities to keep everything in synch. I don't think windows is that complicated but it should be better by now.

Windows 11 works fine for me for the most part, but there are a lot of bugs and questionable design choices. They need to vastly improve the security center imho, I think windows 7 security center was much better for the average user to understand.

I like the idea of the new settings panel, but the way everything is buried in menu's is pretty bad. Nothing is easily findable unless you search. Everything is very buried I think. Also, you cannot have multiple settings windows open at a time.

Something else that bothers me to, is when setting a static ip you must put in a dns and subnet and other info in the new panel before being able to save. The old one would auto put in a subnet and not force dns.

Honestly it is kind of the direction of android as well. I want all the settings, but the way they are laid out is just bad imho.

Too many submenus and options in places that do not make that much sense. For example, why is notifications timeout not in notifications? Why is it in accessibility? If it has to be that way, add things like looking for this? Go here.

I would like to see a much more reliable/faster file explorer. I know they are working on it. But preloading is just a bandaid and not a fix.
Onedrive with file explorer is so slow especially in a corporate environment. It lags a lot when there are a lot of files in the folders, especially when syncing.

Start menu should be more customizable.

They should reverse the black screen of death back to blue. And maybe you know instead of the current way of handling bluescreens, maybe autorun the bugchecks, you could actually auto run the basic analyze command and tell us what actually caused it and be actually helpful for once.

And you know, if a pc bluescreens, in the case of drivers, (which it usually is) maybe just maybe I don't know actually upload that driver version that caused the issue and microsoft work with the vendor to make sure it works. If vendor dead, provide a warning flag on the driver on install.

There are so many simple things they can do.

Don't allow trial versions of antivirus programs to be auto installed on a machine.

Don't auto install random stuff from the microsoft store.

They need to stop using AI to generate the code they use AND listen to their users when they say that they don't like some new change they made to the UI, like you can't move the dang task bar to where YOU want it, just for example.

In general Windows does what I need. That's not to say they couldn't slim things down, but I'm not holding my breath for massive changes.

flhthemi said:

They need to stop using AI to generate the code they use AND listen to their users when they say that they don't like some new change they made to the UI, like you can't move the dang task bar to where YOU want it, just for example.

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They can use AI and generate the code that will meet the needs of the users. AI is just a tool

Lets get them to have Co-Pilot as the Ai App. that's it. That would be a start. Stop reporting back to the mothership constantly. Just remember folks, Apple is messing up MacOS just as bad. Ads being put in everywhere, slow, sluggish performance and Liquid glASS is Fugly. Vista did it better.

Asus272 said:

I hate to admit it but my first PC OS was MSDOS 2.0 and I have owned or used almost every version of Windows. I still enjoy using it because I know my around the old stuff and use Start search to find the new screens and menus. I would hate to be a new user. It must be tough for them to understand what all the endless options are and what they do. I think it's overly complicated in it's layout.... The Start Screen should be a Real Window that you can resize and move around. Why not put important items like secure boot, certs, bitlocker status, wifi, bluetooth up front like a dashboard, I haven't seen a long range plan. Each version of windows is different but is better? They need to get us to buy in if they want people to invest in another Windows computer.

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Just curious, are you also familiar with this stuff?

First episode of Inside Windows with Pavan and Marcus....

glasskuter said:

I think to gain back customer trust, MS should be first concentrating most on what doesn't work up to par with what customers expect out of Windows, not the way it looks; first and foremost file explorer issues followed by Windows update problems and networking.

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And one good way to find out is to stand up a web page where users can log their problems and issues. Another way is to run focus groups, with a non-Microsoft moderator and no Microsoft people in the room. (Only behind the one-way window.) Another would be to do email surveys to a randomly selected group of people.

Separate pages, groups, and surveys for home users and IT people. For IT people, sub-groups for IT managers, first and second line managers, and CIOs.
MS would learn a LOT. Me, been there, done that.

glasskuter said:

My biggest beef has been the Onedrive crap being crammed down our throats and having no obvious option to use a local account during setup. IMO, for those things we should be given a clear choice. In my case, I wanted to use a MS account, but wanted my files to have no ties to Onedrive. That's what I'm doing, but only after jumping through hoops to do it. That's when I cussed Microsoft the most.

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What she said.

Nothing new here. At least this guy got their attention:


Telling them some truths that they didn't want to hear...

Embarrassing, isn't it MS?

cheaterslick said:

Nothing new here. At least this guy got their attention:

https://cybernews.com/security/microsoft-responds-to-nightmare-eclipse-zero-days/

Telling them some truths that they didn't want to hear...

Embarrassing, isn't it MS?

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Embarrassing, but still not a good thing that this guy did. Sure he's pissed at MS, and I would be too, but releasing 0-days just for spite is way over the top, That all said, the MSRC needs to overhaul their response process.

x509 said:

Sure he's pissed at MS, and I would be too, but releasing 0-days just for spite is way over the top

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Agree. The way he went about it was wrong, however keeping silent about these vulnerabilities existing is doubly wrong. Besides, simply publishing code is not against the law in the United States. And it seems MS already has recently had a track record of not rewarding those who point out vulnerabilities ahead of time while playing by the rules, only to have them (MS) silently fix it later without any acknowledgement.

Now that it's out in public, MS better do something about it. If their security teams are working 'overtime', well I can't say I feel too sorry about that, either. If this forces them to move their ass instead of taking their own sweet time about it, then so much the better! And by the same token, reward those who point these things out while playing by the rules. Don't take the people helping you out for granted.

Maybe now they'll focus less on AI and focus more on fixing what they already have, which was supposed to be the point of their K2 announcement up above to begin with. Right?

x509 said:

Embarrassing, but still not a good thing that this guy did. Sure he's pissed at MS, and I would be too, but releasing 0-days just for spite is way over the top, That all said, the MSRC needs to overhaul their response process.

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It started with he did everything right in the bug hunting program.. MS pissed at him and the story is long that can be read on several IT news websites.
So when MS burned him, he payed them back by publishing one bug... Then later MS went even harder on him and he payed back with publishing more.
So now there is several security researchers that is backing him up.

For what i understand from people that is in the pentesting work. This with bitlocker bypass was not meant to be patched according to they tried to shut up two researchers.. But now they will be forced to as everyone has the howto.
And as it was so easy and non technical to bypass, they actually talking about it as a backdoor and not a bug as EU and others have demanded several times to bypass encryption.. this is the talk as Windows 10 is EOL and bitlocker is not affected by Yellowkey on win10

In UK has Apple has turned off iCloud encryption as the UK government demanded a backdoor.. But apple said they wont compromise the whole world for one country, so they just turned of encryption as a workaround