this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] 331 points 2 months ago (2 children)

On brand. Settings is like control panel but dumber.

[–] [email protected] 214 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I love how in settings all the different miuse options are spread out in different places!

Want to change mouse speed, cursor size, and color? We are going on an adventure!

[–] [email protected] 90 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Even more frustrating is that different releases and builds recategorize where certain settings are entirely. To the point where search is the only reliable way of knowing for sure you'll get to the right place. They haven't changed things too drastically recently but they kept moving shit around in Win10 throughout its lifetime.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 months ago (4 children)

The older and older I get in life, the more and more I want my digital product interfaces to remain as static as possible. I'm not anti new features, but I want the ability to persist the OG interface I'm used to, the state in which I know WHERE things are, and HOW to utilize them.

I don't want app icons to change without my consent. I want zero rebranding, name or color changes. I don't want to be forced to change services due to enshittification, and learn how to fit new ones into my workflows.

One of the core problems with the modern world is confusion of information. Our brains were not designed to handle the infinite layer of abstractions, dozens/hundreds of separate systems, each with potentially hundreds or thousands of different configurations. Every time a major update occurs it breaks my mums tech illiterate brain more and more, and she stops using digital products more and more.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago

This is how I feel as a software engineer. I'm sick of learning new libraries every time fashions change.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 months ago (6 children)

I bet AI would be helpful here!!

[–] [email protected] 53 points 2 months ago

"I'm New Clippy. I'm here to help you, like it or not!"

[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Hey, Clippy! Change the settings so that I can view hidden files . Clippy: Ok. Shutting down the nuclear reactor.

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[–] [email protected] 192 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (11 children)

If Microsoft had actually moved all the settings over to the "new" settings app (it's 12 years old, btw), I'd be supportive of this.

It's a joke that windows has 2 settings apps, and searching for specific settings in the start menu will take you to either, or to both.

But as we all know, Microsoft won't do this properly. They'll likely just continue with their 75% finished settings app while hiding the control panel, and if you need something not in the settings app you'll have to open some old menu using a run command or some other terrible convoluted step that makes you feel like you're running a half-baked Linux distro from 2003.

MacOS, Android, iOS, Linux distros don't have this issue. Fucking TempleOS doesn't have this issue. Microsoft is a $3.2 trillion company!

The absolute lack of effort they put into Windows is pathetic. They're a shining example of why monopolies should not be allowed to happen.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago

the thing that most grinds my gears is that there are settings that appear in both control panels and settings, appear to be changeable in both, but only one or the other actually changes anything.

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[–] [email protected] 167 points 2 months ago (4 children)

They need to finish Settings before doing that. Control Panel is almost always the easier way to accomplish things and still the only way to accomplish some IIRC.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And it doesn't take years to load, specially on older PCs

[–] [email protected] 52 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And you can have more than one instance open at a time, instead of having the sound page open and when you try to bring up bluetooth next to it it changes the first one instead.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is so frustrating when trouble shooting - trying to re-find where that one settings page was because you opened another.
It's not a phone - it's a windowing desktop environment. Allow multiple instances!

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Just 3 days ago I had to use the control panel to access the settings I needed to get my parents' printer to work right. Even tried to use the regular settings menu for maybe 10 minutes before remembering how to access the settings I needed. Here's hoping my parents never run into printer issues again (lol).

FUCK YOU, MICROSOFT!

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Spoiler: they will, because fucking printers

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 2 months ago (16 children)

Oh no. They really want me swapping to Linux full time with this shit, ugh.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago (16 children)

What's stopping you?

Just get it over with.

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The thing that bugs me the most about Settings is the amount of wasted white space on every page. You have to do so much scrolling and clicking through tabs just to find various options. By comparison the dialogue boxes of the Control Panel apps are compact and concise. Every time I have to scroll down for something in Settings, I wonder why there's so much empty space padding around everything.

You'd think a multi billion dollar corporation could afford a decent UI designer or two.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 months ago (1 children)

UI designers have had a war on information density for a loooooong time.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago

UI designers are paid off by big hand surgeon to make me scroll more

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They used to have people who knew what they were doing: https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-95s-user-interface/

Now their UI team seems to just be two guys shitting in a bucket (shamelessly stealing that expression from KiraTV).

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 2 months ago (4 children)

I'm all for an improved UX but the settings app is not an improved UX, it's taking many different ways to manage windows features and throwing them into arbitrary categories that are constantly getting shifted around.

How about instead just improving some other Windows control features? Let me filter by name in services.msc and devmgmt.msc. Let me search in gpedit.msc.

I will say I do appreciate that they've finally made those features work under HiDPI without looking like a blurry pixelated mess. Only took 14 years since the first mass market HiDPI display was released, and 23 years since the first 4k monitor

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They should just copy the Plasma System Settings app.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago

It really is about the best settings app I've ever used, especially where it highlights the settings that have been changed from defaults

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It's a interesting trip through Windows history everytime I need to change an admin setting:

  • You need to modify an admin setting (like...setting a MTU for example or changing an IP address (now possible in Settings, but wasn't for a long time))

  • You click through Settings -> Setting not available, but a Link to Control Panel -> click on the Control Panel Link (XP-Era) -> Advanced Settings on the Top-Window (Windows 2000) -> Finally, right click on the Network Adapter and select Properties and you are all the way back to Windows 95/98.

  • Same with Powershell: A function or Cmdlet isn't available? Let's try this .Net thingy first, before we head to VBS

  • Need to manage Sound Devices? Better do that in Control Panel, since most of the useful settings are still missing

  • Need to remove a Outlook profile? Control Panel.

Windows is a prime example of inconsistent design, that's why Device Manager still asks for drivers on a A:\ 3,5" floppy drive.

As an Administrator, I'm curious to see, what will become of Microsoft Management Console (MMC) and their Snap-Ins, which are still required to have by many still supported MS Products and third party tools. The last time I had to edit something in "Component Services" (Windows NT-Era Tool) was 2023.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 months ago

That's the kind of user-friendliness that Linux just can't compete with.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 2 months ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Most people don't care about this, and I wish I didn't, but for whatever reason my brain just hates inconsistency like this, and Windows is the absolute worst for it. It makes me hate using my computer. I'm truly jealous of the people who are completely unfazed by ugly/inconsistent UX, I wish it was a trait I had.

Context menus like this, UI elements from many different windows versions, 5+ UX toolkits in use at any given time, inconsistent padding, inconsistent fonts, inconsistent keyboard shortcuts within MS apps, dark mode preference being listened to for one app and ignored in another.

I hate Apple, have never owned any of their products and likely never will, but they'd be embarrassed if they had a UX this sloppy and inconsistent. They'd straight up not release it, because for all their faults, they do actually value UX consistency.

Linux DEs are far more visually cohesive than Windows (especially the likes of Gnome and ElementaryOS), even KDE which was/is frequently mocked for being a bit ugly and inconsistent has improved leaps and bounds recently and is now far more consistent than Windows. And they're all working on a combined budget that's probably less than 1% of Windows' development budget. Wtf are Microsoft doing??

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 2 months ago

Microsoft is so ridiculously out of touch with its users demands.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 months ago (12 children)

I know people in IT who only use control panel. This will piss people off.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I’m not sure what to say. Settings just doesn’t let you get anything done. Are they going to add all the missing functionality to settings before getting rid of control panel? We all know the answer.

If my company didn’t have a windows mandate I would fully abandon it at this point. What a joke.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Muahaha now I can prepare for my final form: crotchety old man complaining about how they killed off the control panel.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 months ago

Nice, take away the only tool that sometimes fixes what your engineers destroyed

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Just yesterday I wanted to disable sound devices. The button in the settings app even says „turn devices on/off“, but once inside the menu, there is no option to enable or disable sound devices.

Had to use the control panel again.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Let's wait for CEOs to learn about the mess of Program Files\Program Files (x86), and how the user directory is filled with links replacing deprecated folders making it unusable. Windows is more of the inverted Babylon tower of hell than a consistent and complete vision of a product, one layer is built on top of another like a patchwork of a clinically insane. That's with all their $billions, millions of workhours and a market monopoly.

9 circles of hell via Wikimedia

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago

Let's be real...Microsoft finally depreciated Windows with Windows 11.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago

They just have to rename, move, and otherwise obfuscate shit. Always in the general direction of worse.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I haven't personally used windows for a long while. I get to fix my wife's stupid printer, scanner Adobe Acrobat. That's it. I mean this is great! It means that we can just go on with our lives and automatically not be windows savvy anymore! So many benefits! I can just tell all my tech beneficiaries to take a hike or go Linux because I don't know how to fix their dumbass windows! This is going to be great!

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago

Good god, this is sad to witness. As long as I've been using windows, they've added duplicates of every single thing, but presented differently, each version being slightly more incapable in slightly different ways. How can a piece of software be so utterly lacking in design and forethought is beyond me, for real.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago

no. fucking. way.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Can't wait for windows deprecating windows at this point

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago

Classic Microsoft move to implement something new, then not let go of the old thing and run them jankily side by side. Settings / Control panel is a prime example.

And at work its janky crossovers between Active Directory and Azure/Intune/Entra/other dumb names.

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