Microsoft has trouble with UI design and it only got worse. Think about the "help" buttons that are on win system preferences, instead of directing you to the option they send you to google or bing. It's ridiculous.
IF you want a really ridicilous example of Microsoft's inability to deal with UX, try changing literally anything that has to do with sound in Windows, and tell me how many separate sound-related configuration applications there are, and what are the paths to opening them.
Then, ask someone who never used Windows XP to explain to you what each of those configuration applications is responsible for. (So they won't be able to lean on the crutch of "Oh, this one is the exact same thing as the sound application in Windows 98...")
Or just use Outlook. I don't know what they did but it's like all the various panes are coded independently and don't talk to each other.
Multiple times a day I'll see a number next to 'unread' which won't go away, because I've read all my emails but it hasn't realised yet. And my calendar sometimes takes 5-10 seconds to load over VPN, it doesn't seem to be cached anymore. Made a mistake of going to lunch with an 'empty' calendar once! I miss 2016.
One of the reasons of course is that every driver feels the need to add their great pane to the control panel applet, so now Microsoft can’t change anything to the applet or all the drivers break.
3 of those settings panes are baked directly into Windows 10 and have nothing to do with any 3rd-party drivers.
If the sound isn't enough, the power management is even worse. I count at least 5 different panes to configure different subsets of screen saver, sleep, hibernate and power on/off behavior, all from Windows itself with no 3rd-party software involved.
I believe (but can't confirm, because I don't own enough wierd audio equipment) that third-party drivers can embed controls into one of those settings panes.
But yes, your point still stands. There's no good reason for this mess, and Microsoft needs to put someone who cares in charge of Windows UX.
> I believe (but can't confirm, because I don't own enough wierd audio equipment) that third-party drivers can embed controls into one of those settings panes.
That would be an improvement on the current status quo, where each third-party device adds its own new settings pane.
Its not only the sound thing. Its so weird to me how i still am able to find most options on a modern Windows computer even thought i stopped back with XP. And not because its so intuitive, but because it never really changed at all, just added more layers over layers.
The whole Settings app also feels like something thrown together in a really primitive GUI scripting language that doesn't support anything besides text and its alignment.
While the old was far from perfect, it at least gave visual hints to how partitions relate to disks. The new """design""" is just plain text, some of which is clickable and will reveal "Properties" button. It's up to you to find the hidden clickspots.
I can't believe they are releasing such garbage. Sometimes I wonder: does Satya Nadella use Windows? How is he not raging every time he opens the Settings app?
The part I like is how it integrates with outlook. My workflow is pretty email oriented so being able to send an email meeting request and have that meeting seamlessly show up in teams app is really nice.
Same thing when you receive an email from someone you can click their name and dial them via teams (you could do this with skype to but it was dodgy).
Group calls, screen sharing etc. is miles better than Skype.
Decision makers are pretty forgiving of an application that comes bundled with something else they had to buy anyway. And it is "good enough", despite being worse than competitors, for things like hosting video meetings.
Then, ask someone who never used Windows XP to explain to you what each of those configuration applications is responsible for. (So they won't be able to lean on the crutch of "Oh, this one is the exact same thing as the sound application in Windows 98...")