[mjrpes]

Is this always the case?

I prefer what Windows 11 has done with settings being a simple two panel window with categories on left and scrollable settings on the right, with a search/filter bar at top. As you drill deeper you have a breadcrumb at top allowing you to see the levels you are in and click to go back up. This also allows space for descriptions of what each setting does. It could even be improved by allowing users to pin commonly used settings.

This seems overall more simple and cohesive compared to the old Windows control panel with icons and nested settings being popups within popups within popups. It also allows easier scaling and viewing depending on DPI, screen size, resolution, etc.

[naasking]

Windows 11 settings are worse than they were prior to Windows 10. Before I could have multiple windows open for settings to monitor progress (like of windows updates) or check settings against each other. Now it's a monolithic interface that forces me to back out of something I'm looking at to look at something else, like a website that doesn't let me open multiple tabs to browse it. Terrible UX IMO.

[ahartmetz]

As a developer who has worked on similar things, that interface can prevent a lot of trouble of the kind "What if the user edits a setting that updates something in another part of settings, which might also be open at the same time?" - or even the same settings screen opened multiple times. It is rare that such cases come up for users, but they can be very annoying and time-consuming to deal with. Perhaps that was the motivation.

[naasking]

I get it, but instead of putting effort into redesigning the whole interface to avoid this possibility, they could have put that effort into rendering the same UI in immediate mode and problem solved.

I actually think the real motive is that they wanted to move to a more unified mobile and tablet friendly UI code base, which centers more around full screen windows.

[account42]

Making the developer experience easier at the expense of the user experience is the heart of the problem with modern software.