[rekoil]

macOS is very clearly optimised towards laptops in this regard, which makes sense since they sell waaaay more of those than they do stationary.

It's been a while since I used Windows on a laptop, about 2 years (so Windows 10 20H2 was likely the last I used on a laptop). Back then un-docking and re-docking my laptop was a pain because it would smoosh all app windows to the primary monitor, and I'd have to move everything around on my 3 monitors when re-docking. Every. Single. Time.

Those had different DPIs as well, with all the issues that brought.

I can't actually recall a time when macOS was that bad at managing my app windows when changing monitor configurations, but I'll give you that Windows is better at window management if all displays stay connected and have the same DPI.

Has Windows gotten better at these things?

[TheLoafOfBread]

If you have icons on 2 monitors and then you disconnect 1, yes icons are everywhere. When you will reconnect the second one, it will restore as it was. I do not know how it is working (or not) on laptops and monitors combinations as I have desktop PC with 2 monitors.

[rekoil]

I'm not so worried about icons, I don't really use the desktop, in fact I actually disable desktop icons on my macOS laptop.

I'm more interested in what happens to app windows when you remove and reconnect displays.