Remembering what Windows 10 did right—and how it made modern Windows more annoying
Even the mandatory Microsoft Account sign-in, one of the most frequently complained-about aspects of Windows 11, was a Windows 10 innovation—it was easier to circumvent than it is now, and it was just for the Home edition of the software, but in retrospect, it was clearly a step down the road that Windows 11 is currently traveling.
Windows 11 did make things worse, though
Andrew Cunningham
A desktop with an extra informational wallpaper icon, a Start menu full of apps you may or may not use, and a busy taskbar will greet you the first time you log in to Windows 11.
Andrew Cunningham
Andrew Cunningham
A cleaner desktop, taskbar, and Start menu, with many extraneous elements removed. With the exception of Edge, most Windows apps can be retained or removed as you prefer.
Andrew Cunningham
A desktop with an extra informational wallpaper icon, a Start menu full of apps you may or may not use, and a busy taskbar will greet you the first time you log in to Windows 11.
Andrew Cunningham
A cleaner desktop, taskbar, and Start menu, with many extraneous elements removed. With the exception of Edge, most Windows apps can be retained or removed as you prefer.
Andrew Cunningham
But many of Windows 11’s annoyances are new ones. And the big problem is that these annoyances have been stacked on top of the annoying things that Windows 10 was already doing, gradually accumulating to make the new PC setup process go from “lightly” to “supremely” irritating.
The Microsoft Account sign-in requirement is ground zero for a lot of this since signing in with an account unlocks a litany of extra ads for Microsoft 365, Game Pass, and other services you may or may not need or want. Connecting to the Internet and signing in became a requirement for new installations of both the Home and the Pro versions of Windows 11 starting with version 22H2, and while workarounds existed then and continue to exist now, you have to know about them beforehand or look them up yourself—the OS doesn’t offer you an option to skip. Microsoft will also apparently be closing some of these loopholes in future updates, making circumvention even more difficult.
And if getting through those screens when setting up a new PC wasn’t annoying enough, Windows 11 will regularly remind you about other Microsoft services again through its Second Chance Out-Of-Box Experience screen, or SCOOBE. This on-by-default “feature” has offered to help me “finish setting up” Windows 11 installations that are years old and quite thoroughly set up. It can be turned off via a buried checkbox in the Notifications settings, but removing it or making it simpler to permanently dismiss from the SCOOBE screen itself would be the more user-friendly change, especially since Microsoft already bombards users with “helpful reminders” about many of these same services via system notifications.
Source: arstechnica.com…
