building the taskbar from scratch meant that they had to cherry-pick things to put into the feature list first, and the ability to move the taskbar didn’t make the cut, for several reasons that Microsoft values.
Translation: Nobody really knows (or wants to take the blame), we probably just forgot to put on the feature list. Anyway, I’ll just use the usual vague weasel-words that don’t really mean anything.
"Window’s is built on many layers of shit and we dont know what will or won’t break things.
Also co pilot was really expensive"
Is this what hearing Vogon Poetry is like?
Honestly, at this point Microsoft should do what Apple did, and build a completely new OS on top of the BSD kernel.
Or just Linux. Why even bother with BSD?
Because they would (for some reason) never open their source code.
They only need to open source the kernel. They can build whatever proprietary stuff they want on top of the Linux kernel.
This almost makes me want to move my panel in Plasma just because I can.
Why can’t they just ask copilot to program that for them?
If it takes so much effort to move the taskbar, why did it need to be fully rewritten in react native when everything worked before?
Microsoft UI “designers” need to be beaten with frozen braids of 3 foot long licorice ropes.
It really seems like Windows really needs KDE to come back to the platform…
Tali Roth, the then product manager working on the core Windows user experience, including the Start menu, taskbar, and notifications, took up the question and talked about how building the taskbar from scratch meant that they had to cherry-pick things to put into the feature list first, and the ability to move the taskbar didn’t make the cut, for several reasons that Microsoft values.
WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!
If you have working code, why would you rewrite it from scratch? Refactor, sure. Overhaul, maybe. But why rewrite the whole thing?! You’re gaining nothing but unnecessary bugs.
I know all the joke answers. To justify a product manager’s salary, because Microsoft gonna Microsoft, whatever. I want to know the real reason. Why would you ever rewrite working code from scratch if you don’t have to?
I assume the code was just too old and convoluted to maintain properly. I’m a bad coder so I’ve definitely redone parts of my scripts from scratch rather than trying to refactor them.
Then again I’m not a small billion dollar indie company who’s main focuses are spying on users and helping to commit genocide.
Probably to add something terrible for the user but good for MS. Ad integration? Easier to spy?
That’s fair, but even with that, it’s got to be easier to shove it into existing code. Especially if you’re trying to do it in a way that people don’t notice!
And actually, the Windows 10 start menu infamously had ads, too. So it can’t be that.
Could be that refactoring the code for Windows 11 compatibility, and new features, would have been roughly equivalent in effort to rebuilding. If the code has been poked and probed for years already, still follows old patterns, and have devolved into a tightly coupled mess of scattered system dependancies… maybe it just becomes easier to justify rebuilding it as a way of clearing out technical debt?
Microsoft’s data shows such users are really small when compared to the number of users who are asking for other newer features in the taskbar.
Asking for things like AI integration everywhere?
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could have AI on the desktop clock so you could ask it what time it was in different places in the world?
It’s called a world clock
I was going to make a joke that they could also replace the taskbar search bar with an AI chat bar, but after reading the article, it turns out that they’re planning on doing that for real:
Windows 11 taskbar is now being “upgraded” with AI-first features. Microsoft is working on the Ask Copilot bar, which may replace Windows Search in the taskbar.
Your best sarcastic self is prime Microsoft material.
Let’s be real, it’s because it makes it easier to train AIs on the Recall screenshots if it always has the taskbar in the same position as a reference context
Four years ago, Recall wasn’t a thing. Microsoft was caught as off-guard by the AI hype machine as the rest of us. So I doubt this was originally the reason.
Might be now, though.
This is such a weird take. Recall wasn’t even a glimmer in M$’s eye when this limitation was introduced. And it would take virtually nothing to add positions to the training, never mind the fact that they could just completely ignore the taskbar since the OS always knows where it is.
Further the containers contain the info, so the position on the users’ screen is rather irrelevant.
No exaggeration, this was my breaking point for switching to linux exclusively.
Same.
My wife was given a new work computer. Windows 11 and not enough RAM. She has been finding a new reason to hate it nearly every day, starting with how every change made to windows has fucked up her workflow in some way.
Me just nodding in acknowledgement as my little Dell Inspiron 15 purs along on Mint with Cinnamon.
Laughs in KDE
“We specifically made the product worse, because that saves us money we don’t need and gives us additional control over users’ computers, since so many are locked into our ecosystem.”
Seriously, read the article. That’s basically it!
I think you’re overinterpreting a bit. Actually the MS-droid doesn’t really say anything. Just that the taskbar is not movable. Which was exactly the question.Typical evasion strategy.
