- Windows 10 surpassed Windows 7 as the most popular desktop operating system in the world.
- But users still have big complaints about the design inconsistencies, buggy updates, and telemetry/data collection.
- Plus, Microsoft has had to reimagine several features like Cortana, Edge, and Windows 10 S.
- Here's everything wrong with Windows 10.
Following is a transcript of the video.
Narrator: I've been a Windows user since Windows 98, and even though I work eight hours a day on a Mac, my favorite OS is still Windows. It has the broadest app support. It's the best option for gamers, and if you wanna build your own computer, it's basically your only option. Sorry, Linux. Windows 10 has improved a lot since its 2015 release, and in January, it overtook Windows 7 as the most-used desktop operating system in the world. But it isn't perfect, and Windows 10 still has a long way to go.
The most obvious issues in Windows 10 are with the design. Windows 8 was a huge design change, but Microsoft went too far towards touch, which made traditional desktop work cumbersome. With Windows 10, Microsoft combined the looks of Windows 7 and 8. The Start menu and notifications got a refresher, we lost the Charms menu from Windows 8, and Windows apps stuck around. But this combination of styles and functions caused a slew of design inconsistencies across the UI. There's a big difference in appearance between modern Windows apps and classic Windows.
The new Windows Settings page may be the first thing you see if you want to adjust your display or sound settings. But if you want to dig a little deeper, you're taken to a Control Panel window that has barely changed since the '90s, and the older design language of Windows often looks better than the new UI.
With Windows 10, Microsoft is slowly replacing the Metro Design used in Windows 8 with what it calls Fluent Design. But a lot of these apps just look like they couldn't decide between touch and mouse input. These two designs are way too different to try to combine together. There are huge gaps, and buttons often don't do what you expect them to do. The design of Windows apps like Mail, Calendar, and Photos feels incomplete years after being released. This problem also extends to context menus. Windows can show you four different context menus. These menus are often redundant, and it can be confusing to figure out where to find each setting.
Now, to be fair, these are all surface-level issues. Besides a little confusion, the design inconsistencies do not prevent you from getting work done, but because of these issues, Windows doesn't feel like a cohesive operating system. Apple's OS X hasn't had a major redesign in almost two decades, but everything feels like one complete operating system.
Besides design, everyone's favorite gripe about Windows 10 is the updates. Windows updates are notoriously aggressive. They can even reboot a PC without the user ever acknowledging or accepting the update, and unless you want to pay 100 bucks to upgrade to the Pro version, there is no easy way to turn off or avoid updates completely, and, yes, updates are important for security and can often bring cool new features, but in recent years, the quality control of Windows updates seems to be declining.
There were multiple reports of the October update deleting user files, and after being pulled, it's now several months late. Windows 10 normally has big updates in October and April, and with each update, Microsoft puts a lot of focus on new features, but it feels like Microsoft keeps moving in the wrong direction. Cortana, Windows 10 S, and Edge all failed at their intended uses and are being reimagined and remade.
They have also put a lot of focus on the Microsoft Store, but most of the apps found there are just slimmed-down versions of programs you can already run on Windows. In the three years I've been using Windows 10, I have never once needed to download an app from the Windows Store.
Another big concern people have with Windows 10 is privacy. Since its release, Windows 10 has gotten a lot of criticism for aggressive data collection and telemetry. Although Microsoft has become a lot more transparent over the last few years, there are still a lot of tracking settings turned on by default.
Even with all these issues, Windows 10 is still an amazing operating system. Microsoft introduced great new features like improved app snapping, virtual desktops, and improved touch support, and the company's plan for Windows 10 as a service where users receive free regular updates, like Mac OS, gives it the potential to be the best version of Windows yet. But Microsoft needs to focus on fixing the features they currently have instead of adding dozens of new ones.
Oh, and hurry up with the October update so we can get a better screenshot tool.
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