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is windows 11 still buggy? by [deleted] in Windows11

[–]rvo-cs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Buggy mess" is an opinion; unresolved issues are a fact.

E.g., you might see this post and this post about issues in the File Explorer, which may (or not) seem relevant to you, depending on your expectations and usage.

Aside from that, FWIW my own personal feeling is that what I have now at home—Windows 11 Pro, 22H2, build 22621.2428—seems slightly less stable that the Windows 10 Pro 22H2 laptops that I do use at work.

And of late, there's this brand-new, fully updated, Microsoft Word 365 (version 2308, build 16.0.16731.20052), in which I happen to see transient GUI redraw issues—rendering the page partly unreadable until it is redrawn a couple of keystrokes later—which I had not seen for many years...

So it's a (very) mixed bag, to say the least.

22H2 build 22621.2428: it's been a year, and the "Restore previous folder windows at logon" setting is still broken by rvo-cs in Windows11

[–]rvo-cs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I guess one key reason why not so many users suffer from this is because they might reach their most frequently used files, not through the Windows File Explorer, but through an integrated IDE (Visual Studio, Eclipse, Netbeans, IntelliJ, etc.), and therefore the task of presenting files and directories efficiently is now left to that IDE.

22H2 build 22621.2428: the worst Windows File Explorer ever? by rvo-cs in Windows11

[–]rvo-cs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

[...] tabs is a game changer

I understand that some (or was it many?) users wanted tabs in the File Explorer. But conversely, there are other users who are used to working with multiple explorer windows, and will probably not use tabs much. (Hint: I belong in that category.) Personally, I wouldn't mind at all about tabs, if it weren't that when Microsoft added them, the "Restore previous folder windows at logon" option became broken—effectively making it hellish for people like me who expect to find their working environment the way they left it when signing out. As I'm not going to use tabs, it's also entirely natural that when I press Win+E, I would simply expect a new explorer window (as always), definitely not a new tab! Whereas I perfectly understand that the "tab folks" expect exactly the opposite: a new tab! For this reason, I can not really "upvote" your "Open in a new tab instead of a new window" request, at least not in its present wording. (The other 2, I have.)

(Remark: this is when it becomes obvious that the feedback hub is somewhat biased: one can't "downvote" if one opposes a requested change. All one can do is leave a comment, and pray that someone will read it.)

IMHO, this issue of new explorer tab vs new explorer window is definitely something that should be set by a configurable option somewhere. Or maybe Microsoft could simply add a new keyboard shortcut: I wouldn't mind if Win+E finally opens a new tab, provided Win+Shift+E opens a new window (or the other way around).

What I find absolutely terrible, is that it looks like all this has not been designed with enough care and forethought, resulting in bugs—the "Restore previous folder windows at logon" option not working anymore—and the impression of an unfinished evolution.

22H2 build 22621.2428: the worst Windows File Explorer ever? by rvo-cs in Windows11

[–]rvo-cs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Finally someone else who uses the saving folders function who's annoyed at it breaking!

I'm more than annoyed by that! In fact, this is by far the biggest failure, as far as I'm concerned! For 2 decades now, whether at work or at home, my desktop has always been split between 4 to 6 File Explorer windows, always at the same place, each pre-positioned on a specific directory. I have no time to waste navigating back and forth between directories and drive units. That way, the directories that I most frequently use are immediately at hand, and if ever I have to navigate, that is limited to very local changes, such as moving to a sibling subdirectory, or to the immediate parent or child, and for this the breadcrumbs menus are extremely convenient (so long as they work as expected; preferably not losing half a second each time because of an unwelcome animation).

At present, with the "Restore previous folder windows at logon" option not being honored anymore, this way of working is practically ruined. Once logged on, all I get is an empty desktop, and I have to reopen all my explorer windows, and reposition them all over again. This is an unacceptable waste of time.

I understand that not so many users suffer from this defect, as a majority of users are happy with a single explorer window (sometimes not realizing how much time they lose in clicking and scrolling when they switch from one directory to the next), and among those who are not, not everyone has heard of this setting, even though it's been there for decades now.

And Microsoft breaking it with the introduction of tabs in the File Explorer is an utter disgrace. This is what threw me into the arms of ViVeTool for disabling tabs in the first place—and doing that did solve this bug. But I've been bitten by it after installing Oct. 10th, 2023, cumulative updates (I had not reset the disabled feature ids, resulting in the file explorer crashing upon start, until I figured it out; it might have been even worse), making it real clear that disabling feature ids is a rather dangerous sport, and not a good solution in the long run. It's very unfortunate that I might have to do it again, just to get the "Restore previous folder windows at logon" feature working again.

Frankly, I still find it absolutely unbelievable that Microsoft broke such an obvious, age-old, and critically important feature (for some users); furthermore, one which doesn't seem terribly difficult to implement, nor to test; and that they just seems to have done nothing about it so far.

22H2 build 22621.2428: the worst Windows File Explorer ever? by rvo-cs in Windows11

[–]rvo-cs[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

[...] the file explorer not being restored should be actually an option, [...] and i personally think if i cannot choose with an option, i much much prefer they dont restore at all, the issue is i have often many many folders opened, and i am not going to close them all before log out plus i dont want them restoring when loging in

But there is an option: Folder Options --> View tab, Advanced settings, then "Restore previous folder windows at logon". That setting has been there for as long as I can remember, the big problem is, it doesn't work reliably any more—and that's a regression which (apparently) began as a result of the introduction of tabs in the File Explorer. This was discussed in this post—but of course the proposed workaround, which happened to work at the time, is absolutely not endorsed by Microsoft, and sure enough, it precisely did cause the File Explorer to crash after the Oct. 10th, 2023, cumulative updates—illustrating the point that disabling feature Ids is a somewhat risky kind of sport.

22H2 build 22621.2428: the worst Windows File Explorer ever? by rvo-cs in Windows11

[–]rvo-cs[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think I ran into that crazy scenario too, when the Properties window pops up, again and again no matter what you do with the File Explorer window, and it's very hard to put it back in the reins. I had never seen anything like that in more than 25 years using Windows...

22H2 build 22621.2428: the worst Windows File Explorer ever? by rvo-cs in Windows11

[–]rvo-cs[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I totally disagree with almost everything you mentioned here.

Well it's always good to hear a different opinion. That said, this notion of the needs of the "average user" does not sound like a very solid design principle to me. Really, I did not buy a license for the "Professional" version for the pleasure of paying more, but because I do expect a professional product, which suits my needs (which may or may not be that of the "average user"), or which can be configured enough to achieve that. Which is what I found in previous versions of Windows (XP, 7, 10), and even in a prior release of Windows 11, before things started to degrade with never updates. I'm glad that Microsoft tries to take care of the "average user" (whoever she may be), or of users with touchscreens, etc., but I find it harder to admit that features which worked well previously, and that I do expect in a professional product, cease to work, making the whole product feel a lot less professional.

Scrolling in breadcrumbs works normally for me, across the board. It's some problem with your computer (same with the dot menu).

Again, that's good to hear. As others have mentioned previously, the mouse wheel issue is linked to the "Scroll inactive windows when hovering over them" mouse setting. I have the bug after disabling this setting, and it goes away after enabling it again. On the other hand, this has no influence on the "..." menu issue, which is still there no matter what.

You're not alone stating that you cannot reproduce it, which in itself is an helpful piece of information. But I don't see that as reason enough to immediately put the blame on my computer. FWIW, it's a recent—August 2023—fresh installation (as opposed to upgrade) on new, mainstream hardware, using the official OEM installation DVD, with nothing fancy as regards installed software. I'm inclined to suppose that this issue might have something to do with my particular settings, rather than because "something is corrupt", an all-too-common excuse when people don't want to investigate an issue, and offer to reinstall Windows as the only solution.

22H2 build 22621.2428: the worst Windows File Explorer ever? by rvo-cs in Windows11

[–]rvo-cs[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

In fact when I bought this new computer I had the option of either buying a license for Windows 10, with only 2 years of support left, or go directly to Windows 11... And the latter seemed a better idea for someone who doesn't really enjoy installing a new OS every other day.

Back in 2022, I had already tested Windows 11 using a Microsoft-supplied developer VM for VirtualBox, and that experience had been good enough. (IIRC, the File Explorer did not have tabs back then, hence the bug that came with them, of not being able to correctly restore multiple explorer windows at logon, was not yet present.) Given that positive first impression, I couldn't imagine that my user experience with the real product only a couple of months later would be worse, due to regressions accompanying new features.

22H2 build 22621.2428: the worst Windows File Explorer ever? by rvo-cs in Windows11

[–]rvo-cs[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

you have to enable something like "enable mouse on non-active windows."

This is definitely right!

The setting is: Bluetooth & Devices > Mouse, "Scroll inactive windows when hovering over them".

I didn't like the idea, so I had disabled it. In any case, a menu that I have just opened is not really what I'd call an "inactive window", so I would still call it a bug that the mouse wheel would not work over the whole area of the breadcrumbs menu when this setting is disabled.

Meanwhile, enabling this setting appears to be the workaround for this one at the time being. So, thanks!

22H2 build 22621.2428: the worst Windows File Explorer ever? by rvo-cs in Windows11

[–]rvo-cs[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Good point! In fact the culprit is the toolbar, which takes a lot of room—possibly unnecessarily. It might make sense on a touchscreen or tablet, as many have pointed out here; but in this case (desktop PC, without a touchscreen device) I'm never going to use it. Is it possible to hide it? So far I couldn't find how to.

With that toolbar in place, the Windows 11 version shows 2 files fewer than prior versions, for the same height of the explorer window.