[oblio]

I don't know what their thought process was when they decided it, but they for sure knew it was going to be painful for users.

I imagine they didn't have any other way to do it.

If they don't do it, everyone complains that the Control Panel is getting antiquated, if they do it, people complain why they're changing it like this.

We have to be realistic here.

[franga2000]

It's definitely a tough situation, but they did in the the dumbest way possible. By intentionally hiding old menus before the new ones are fixed, they have effectively broken the OS itself for the vast majority of users.

My favorite example of this is the sound output setting. Windows has two output "streams" - communication and media. The old menu used to have a "set default" button that set a device to default for both, but you could also set each default manually. The new menu doesn't make that distinction at all, but the new default device switcher only switches the playback default. This results in things like Skype, Zoom, Discord... seemingly not respecting the output device setting. The only way to fix this is through the old menu, but they have removed every trace of it, so you have to trick Windows by searching for "sounds" to get to the place where you change things like the error message sound, which pops up a window where you can then switch the tab to the old sound control panel.

I don't think there's been a single month since this change was pushed out where I didn't have to help someone with this. It's clearly broken, clearly

[neogodless]

I'm on the latest release version (20H2). If you go to Settings > Sound, there's a Related Settings heading, under which you'll find Sound Control Panel. There's the list of output devices where you can Set Default, and there's a tab for Communications, though there's not a lot in there. Is that what you're talking about?

[franga2000]

Yes, that's the one. I've have that menu as well, but it's not always there. I think there were a couple of versions without it, but they probably realised this exact problem and put it back. Still not a very discoverable thing for someone who doesn't know exactly what they're looking for though.

[29athrowaway]

Pretty much everything you describe are poorly cherrypicked non issues that affect fictional people. Like the tormented fictional people from informercials.

Just use pavucontrol (Pulseaudio volume control) which comes included with most distros.

[franga2000]

Windows 10...pavucontrol... I have a feeling you really didn't read the thread leading up to this

[oblio]

Which version is this in? I'm on 1909 and there is still a link to the Sound Control Panel in the top right menu of the Sound Settings page.

[franga2000]

Yeah, it's usually there, but I've also seen it not be. I never bothered to figure out why, it was probably just a short-lived update and I guess many people got stuck on it for a bit. It's still definitely the kind of thing even a more capable user probably wouldn't think to even look for if they didn't know about the whole media vs comms stream thing and that exact menu.