Technology

building the taskbar from scratch meant that they had to cherry-pick things to put into the feature list first, and the ability to move the taskbar didn’t make the cut, for several reasons that Microsoft values.

Translation: Nobody really knows (or wants to take the blame), we probably just forgot to put on the feature list. Anyway, I'll just use the usual vague weasel-words that don't really mean anything.

This almost makes me want to move my panel in Plasma just because I can.

If it takes so much effort to move the taskbar, why did it need to be fully rewritten in react native when everything worked before?

Is this what hearing Vogon Poetry is like?

It really seems like Windows really needs KDE to come back to the platform...

Tali Roth, the then product manager working on the core Windows user experience, including the Start menu, taskbar, and notifications, took up the question and talked about how building the taskbar from scratch meant that they had to cherry-pick things to put into the feature list first, and the ability to move the taskbar didn’t make the cut, for several reasons that Microsoft values.

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!

If you have working code, why would you rewrite it from scratch? Refactor, sure. Overhaul, maybe. But why rewrite the whole thing?! You're gaining nothing but unnecessary bugs.

I know all the joke answers. To justify a product manager's salary, because Microsoft gonna Microsoft, whatever. I want to know the real reason. Why would you ever rewrite working code from scratch if you don't have to?

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.

Asking for things like AI integration everywhere?

Let’s be real, it’s because it makes it easier to train AIs on the Recall screenshots if it always has the taskbar in the same position as a reference context

No exaggeration, this was my breaking point for switching to linux exclusively.

My wife was given a new work computer. Windows 11 and not enough RAM. She has been finding a new reason to hate it nearly every day, starting with how every change made to windows has fucked up her workflow in some way.

Me just nodding in acknowledgement as my little Dell Inspiron 15 purs along on Mint with Cinnamon.

"We specifically made the product worse, because that saves us money we don't need and gives us additional control over users' computers, since so many are locked into our ecosystem."

Seriously, read the article. That's basically it!

The bit about apps having to reflow seems nonsensical. They have to reflow any time the user resizes their windows.

I'm not accepting any excuses from MS about limited resources when Linux desktop environments built by hobbyists have the feature in question.

In Windows 10, you could move it to the top, left, or right of the screen.

In every version of Windows up until now which has contained a taskbar and start menu, as far back as Windows 95. Not just Windows 10. Let's not sell short the full extent idiocy on display, here.

"Pouring its engineering resources," my ass.

Because fuck you, that's why.

• Microsoft

Saved you a click.

https://www.stardock.com/products/start11/

Costs money but works with only minor quirks when switching between iGPU and dGPU.

I'd guess it's for the same reasons why we can't have a local account

it’s safe to assume that the company isn’t interested in pouring its engineering resources into pursuing something that won’t benefit a majority of users

I mean, they could just let their awesome Copilot vibe code it, couldn't they? Another reasons why I love being on Linux; you can do whatever even it it doesn't make sense to the majority of users.

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

It was working fine in windows 95. Suddenly all programmers became incompetent and can't handle something like that?

Microsoft applied a data-driven approach to find out which features to add now, which features to add later, and which to completely avoid.

WHAT DATA?!

Please, consider trying out linux if you haven't: you can usually make a "live usb" and take it for a test drive without having to actually reinstall (if you don't like it, just take the usb stick out and reboot back to windows).

I would dearly love to never again have to hear about the latest bullshit Microsoft is foisting on people.

Do your part! Switch. Everything just works better over here.

It is lost technology… only the powerful ancients could accomplish such.

Or those familiar with the dark arts.

Is the explanation, “Because Windows 11 is shitty”?

I thought LLM would code this in a matter of minutes without wasting money away on human work hours? What is going on Microsoft?