Microsoft Got Sloppy with Windows
Anyone complaining about the latest coat of paint on top of macOS should stop and read this post by Ed Bott. Or this one. Or this one. Or any of these. But Bott in particular eviscerates Microsoft this week for their (mis)management of Windows.
Granted, it has been a long time since I used Windows on a regular basis. While it dominated the first 20 years of my computing life (post-MS DOS), the last 20 years have been almost entirely on macOS (post-OS X). So I guess I didn't realize just how bad Windows 11 apparently is. Maybe not a Vista-level disaster,1 but judging from Microsoft's own post about their (apparently newfound) "commitment to quality", it sure reads like basically everything in Windows 11 well, sucks.
Here's Bott commenting on that post:
What's most remarkable about this post is what it doesn't contain. Here's how Davuluri kicked things off:
"Every day, we hear from the community about how you experience Windows. And over the past several months, the team and I have spent a great deal of time analyzing your feedback. What came through was the voice of people who care deeply about Windows and want it to be better."
That paragraph belongs in the non-apology Hall of Fame, with a cross-reference to "Friday news dump" – a classic PR technique that aims to minimize media coverage of the awkward news being released.
When I read that paragraph, I was gobsmacked. They "spent months analyzing feedback"? Seriously? They needed charts and graphs to figure out that people just want Windows to work?
The laundry list of changes really does read almost as if it would be easier to throw the entire OS out and just start over – by doing exactly the opposite of what has been done to date.
These are complaints that have been going on for years, and have seemingly grown in-step as Microsoft slowly forced Windows 11 upon the majority of their user base. That is, the only reason everyone wasn't complaining on day one is simply because most of them chose to stay on Windows 10. Once they upgrade, the complaints start.
Again, this sounds somewhat similar to macOS Tahoe on the surface. But again, it's just that: the surface. Most of the complaints there are superficial, ranging from icon design to transparency settings. Yes, most of it stems from the "Liquid Glass" updates, which were clearly conceived for iOS, but also brought to the Mac in an attempt to unify the design language. But this seems quite different from the situation with Windows, where some pretty fundamental elements of the OS just seem broken or buggy or worse.
Sure, we're in the post-Windows era of Microsoft, but still, there are billions of users of that OS on a daily basis. Microsoft may no longer really care about that user base as it's no longer the primary driver for the company, but still... it's wild that they would let Windows degrade in such a way. These list of changes almost read as if no one inside of Microsoft actually uses Windows any more.
But really, the complaints read mostly like: just give us the old Windows back. And sure, people generally hate change, we know that. But they seem to especially hate it when you're shoving constant updates and notifications (or worse) in their face to try to upsell them on whatever initiative Microsoft does care about right now. This is clearly a "milking the base" situation. And when you're spending well over a hundred billion dollars a year to build out your future in AI, that Windows user base must look like the world's largest herd of cows. Back to Bott:
As I noted earlier this year, Microsoft has been relentlessly shoehorning AI features into places where they absolutely don't belong. I follow feedback in forums carefully, and I would estimate that roughly 99% of the comments about AI features boil down to a simple request: Please stop.
In a blog post welcoming 2026, CEO Satya Nadella argued that "we need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs. sophistication." In response, the internet made "Microslop" the most popular meme of the new year.
Bowing to that feedback, Microsoft now says it is backing off. "You will see us be more intentional about how and where Copilot integrates across Windows, focusing on experiences that are genuinely useful and well‑crafted," Davuluri says. Specifically: "We are reducing unnecessary Copilot entry points, starting with apps like Snipping Tool, Photos, Widgets, and Notepad."
Copilot is clearly a mess for Microsoft on a few fronts, hence why they're loading up the cockpit with even more copilots (while perhaps shoving the captain out with the most golden of parachutes). But Microsoft obviously thought that AI would be the future of Windows. And they seemingly had an opening there given their prescient early bet on OpenAI. Then it all went to shit. Now they have to rip that shit out of Windows, lest that user base start jumping out...
Speaking of, the timing here does seem more interesting than a typical Friday news dump. Apple, of course, just unveiled the MacBook Neo. Their $599 computer is priced to move. And a lot of that movement will likely be first-time Mac buyers – as is clearly already the case. Those users probably aren't coming from Linux. And a large subset of them probably aren't coming from anywhere – but they are undoubtedly would-be PC (or Chromebook) buyers for school. That, of course is not good news for Microsoft. But it's perhaps especially not good news when you have an OS that your current user base hates.
Is $599 a pricey fix for Windows 11? No doubt. But it's almost a permanent one.
One that goes far beyond Steve Jobs' famous "glass of ice water in hell". This isn't one good piece of software installed in a burning sea of lava, this is extinguishing the fiery hell pit with the arctic ocean that is macOS. Well, provided you can live with Liquid Glass. Which pretty much any Windows user would gladly take over this situation at this point, one suspects.
Microsoft took Windows to 11. Perhaps they should have stayed at 10.
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
1 Looking back, it seems almost as if Microsoft is locked into a situation where nearly every other version of Windows is a dud. It's sort of like the thing where only every other Star Trek movie would be good. With Microsoft, it feels like every time they try to branch out a bit, they mess up Windows to the point where they have to course correct, mainly by backtracking on the bigger changes. ↩