Dear Microsoft, Windows is Broken
Oh, Microsoft. I feel bad for you; you took such a kicking with Windows 8 from all the people who hated what you did with it. Hey, when Bill Gates himself says that he and Steve Ballmer are“not satisfied that… we are doing everything possible”, that’s got to sting. I mean, I know that self-criticism is the Microsoft way, but it has got to hurt when one of the top-rated questions on your own answer site is titled “I hate Windows 8" and reads “Windows 8 Metro UI is garbage on a desktop. This needs to be for tablets and touchscreen devices only…Everytime I have to find the desktop tile it pushes me closer to madness. Stop with the tiles.”
So what do you do? Promise that you’ll bring back a few of the features that people miss. That’s good, and it shows that you are listening. Life is all about learning from your failures and moving on: ask anyone who bought a Zune. And then you do this: Bring back the Start button in Windows 8.1, but link it to the Start Page. Sure, the Start Page works better with touch, but most people don’t have touch screens, and the ones that do, don’t use it.
That’s just self abuse, and it’s not healthy in a company of your age.
The purpose of the Start button should be pretty self-explanatory. It is for people who want to start doing things, to kick off something that helps them get on with their lives. Instead, you treat it as an excuse to give them sports scores, irrelevant news headlines and recipes. It feels insulting, like picking up a New York Times and getting the news from the Readers Digest. Sure, I can customize this to remove these, but shouldn’t it be the other way around? If I wanted sports scores and recipes for Pumpkin Chili, I would add them to my desktop. Instead, I have to go through a torturous and awkward process to remove them myself.
Okay, so there have been some steps in the right direction. I can now boot straight into the desktop, and I can right click on the Start button to access some common tools. But to boot into the desktop I have to dig into some obscure settings ( Right click on the toolbar, go to Navigation and select “Show my desktop background on Start”). The menu I get by right clicking on the Start button is cool and all, but why does it take fewer clicks to get to a screen to remove a program than it does to open one? It’s like some sort of passive aggressive battle: when you users ask for something back, you give them enough to spark a small flame of hope, only to dash it when they actually try it with something that feels like it was designed by someone who hates their users.
I know, I know. It’s all about developers, developers, developers, and doing this has created a cottage industry of programs that bring the real Start menu back to Windows 8 and 8.1 (disclosure: link to an article I wrote. Hey, got to pay the bills somehow, which isn’t something you struggle with). But that’s like cutting off your own leg and saying that you are doing it to help doctors stay in business. Really, the doctors have enough to do without you hacking off the bits of you that people like the most. And they never work as well when they have them glued them back on.
I suppose in a way, I should say thank you. Windows 8.1 has created an opportunity for writers like me to crank out articles on how to restore the real Start menu to Windows 8, and how to get rid of Metro from Windows 8. That’s nice of you, but I would far rather be writing articles on how to get things done easily than spending my time writing about how to deal with your mistakes and misunderstandings of what users want.
So, can we agree to keep trying on this? Windows 8.1 is a disappointment, a band-aid on an amputation. It doesn’t work, and I expect better of you than this.
Love,
Richard
