Classic Shell could have a comeback
It’s a ploy from Microsoft to push Copilot: you have to ask it to open the programs or folders you want. /s
I can feel the UI lag in the picture
The link doesn’t work for me?
so they’re vibe cussing with uhhh what’s their stupid “AI” called… copilot?
actually makes some sense, any pilot Microsoft creates would be crash prone…
The article title is clickbaity. It doesn’t ‘get rid of’ the start menu and explorer. It just makes the processes completely hang so you can’t open any applications, can’t open the menu and can’t open task manager to see wtf is going on. You also can’t access the shutdown function so you have to manually power off.
This happened to me as I was setting up a Windows 11 / Linux dual boot system yesterday, and the Windows side was behaving as described in the article.
I gave up and just installed Linux alone in the end.
The right click context menu for me has been unusable in certain circumstances for me for the past year or so. It’s happened on multiple devices, including corporate issued dell and Lenovo machines. The menu options just stop responding to clicking. After getting fed up with this and all the other crap I didn’t ask for, I finally just ripped the bandaid off, ditched dual booting, am now on full single boot Linux mint.
And, it’s so fucking refreshing. I finally feel like the machines I built and own are mine again.
Task Manager is launched by the listener in winlogon if you use the Ctrl + Shift + Esc method though, right? I’m pretty sure you can still launch Task Manager, and from there attempt to relauch Explorer, even if Explorer is borked or not running. You’d just have to know how to do that and that you can.
That’s what I always do when Explorer’s ears inexplicably catch fire and I’m either too lazy or too naively hopeful to reboot.
For anyone following along at home, Windows Explorer is also responsible for displaying the start menu/taskbar. In the example in the article there’s something else funky going on inside Explorer, though, because the taskbar and even the desktop icons are all there, it’s just not rendering correctly. (Explorer is also responsible for showing all of your desktop icons.)
It could get rid of whole system and world would be a nicer place 😎
I hate Windows as much as the next person, but the title is clickbait. It’s an update bug that affects a small number of users, but the title misleadingly suggests Microsoft deliberately removed this functionality.
It’s genuinely bad, even if entire universe isn’t affected. Shows sloppiness. Headline is too kind for implying this could be “some kind of design upgrade”, instead of FUBAR.
I’m honestly starting to not believe these articles. On an up to date version of w11 I never see any of the changes these articles claim are happening. I’m a linux user so I like laughing at windows as much as the next guy but i dont want to be an idiot falling for misinfo.
If you want comedy, look at the apple help fourms. You think linux users reimage alot the only troubleshooting step apple has is to reimage.
Never in my life have I needed to reimage any Linux machine, but I have had to reimage many, many, many windows machines and quite a few Apple devices too. I have a long career in IT (and even before that, I’ve been building computers since I was 12), so my sample size consists of thousands of computers going back decades.
I’ve only ever reimaged Linux systems when I felt like distro hopping for fun. Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but I think it’s probably more to do with the fact that Linux tends to be extremely reliable once you have it set up (unless you manage to break it, but even then there are usually multiple ways to fix it without reimaging).
I went from an Ubuntu 16.04 install all the way to 20.04 and they involved multiple hardware upgrades and a completely new system at one point, just swapped out the root/home drive.
Since then I’ve been on EndeavourOS with pretty much the same story.
With Windows 7 and 10 I had to constantly reinstall.
same!… heck work updated my laptop from win10 to 11 and now the “Windows App” won’t run… IT dude gave up trying to fix it and order a swap
This is a laptop used, at most once a week, for regular office bs and it basically self destroyed just through windose updates
Same here (except I’m 35 years into being a tech hobbyist, not a professional), and I’ve never reimaged a Linux install (except to try imaging it and learn how it works). Having been exclusively on Linux for 9 years now (playing with it for over 20 years) and Fedora the last 6, I can confidently say that it’s easier to just keep your important files in a separate drive (home directory in its own drive for example) and just reinstall whatever you want if you end up breaking your OS. Reimaging seems way more convoluted.
the only troubleshooting step apple has is to reimage.
That’s not entirely true. More often than not, the only troubleshooting step the “Apple Certified Professionals” there offer is to buy a new Mac.
And you can trade in your existing one for a couple hundred bucks off a new purchase
Isn’t that a good deal?
Lol, no. A good majority of the time the issue is something simple like a loose or broken ribbon cable that would cost $3 in parts and $50 in labour (if you’re being generous with the time).
This practice of the “Genus” bar people telling a customer that they need a whole board replacement that would cost $2000 and saying it’s cheaper to get a whole new computer is well documented.
I was joking of course. I know about all of Apple’s exploits all too well
Ah, ok. Well, Poe’s law
Out of interest, which aspect don’t you believe? The article is clear the broken update effects a specific subset of enterprise users, on a specific mix of base versions and cumulative updates.
This seems like a classic windows update issue. In fairness to Microsoft it is difficult to prevent bugs when there is a huge install base, with a huge range of hardware, with a huge range of users on different mixes of updates and updating at their own. I personally think that’s totally believable.
What’s not clear is perhaps the implied overarching story that W11 is worse for this than other versions of Windows. I can’t answer that about windows updates themselves, but I certainly believe W11 is the worst version of Windows I’ve ever used (and I’ve used every version back to 3.11 as a kid). I have to use W11 at work: the UI is absolutely terrible and unfriendly but far worse it constantly and inexplicably slows down, programs become unresponsive repeatedly and I come across errors constantly.
I work in a big organisation and I don’t even bother to report most errors now - we hop between PCs because of the nature of my Job, and I’ve come up across so many I just can’t be bothered opening more tickets. I’d describe it as a mostly large volume of minor issues and inconveniences that cumulatively, on top of the bad design, that make it a shit experience. But I’ve also had numerous major errors since we moved from W10 to W11 on different PCs - they all have the same hardware and software yet the problems are different on each. I’ve given up reporting the problems and just avoid the PCs, and I think a lot of my colleagues are the same.
My organisation (I work in a large Hospital), is already stretched due to high work volume and low staffing and we now have a constantly little drag from Windows 11 on everything we do. It’s like Microsoft sprinkle a little bit of shit onto every computer, every day, all day. The cumulative effect in just my organisation must be massive - I shudder to think how bad it is across the whole economy.
This seems like a classic windows update issue. In fairness to Microsoft it is difficult to prevent bugs when there is a huge install base, with a huge range of hardware, with a huge range of users on different mixes of updates and updating at their own. I personally think that’s totally believable.
I’m a little bit sceptical here - yes, managing that is complicated. But it also is Microsofts fault - managing and constructing updates that work even with different versions or update paths is possible. I really struggle to see how an update could even kill the start menu or Explorer.
The article is clear the broken update effects a specific subset of enterprise users, on a specific mix of base versions and cumulative updates.
So you admit the headline is lying, then? The headline doesn’t even try to use weasel words to say “some users”, it just straight-up says that the update removes things, heavily implying both that it’s a global change, and that it’s deliberate.
From the article:
The latest kerfuffle will only be seen by Enterprise users running Windows 11 24H2 or 25H2 who have a July 2025 cumulative update installed as well.
Are you running Windows 11 Enterprise?
oh it was a bug, i thought they did it on purpose to force people to use their stupid ai crap.
You thought that because the headline is pretty deliberately misleading. Clickbait trash.
Even Microsoft (probably) isn’t that stupid or desperate yet. What seems much more likely to me is that they will keep introducing AI features and more invasive ads gradually and making them opt-in or removable with the intention of making them mandatory later on.
I 100% believe that Microsoft fully understands that a lot of people aren’t happy with most of these changes, but profit must grow and they are elbow-deep in their AI gamble so they must keep pushing just slowly enough to avoid most users and businesses feeling like looking for alternatives is worth the effort. They are treading a fine line and are sometimes pushing too hard, but that in itself can be a solid negotiation tactic to manipulate people into accepting bad deals and my guess is that it’s fully intentional.
We’re running the oldest supported Windows version in our enterprise just to make sure these non-stop stream of Microsoft fuck-ups doesn’t affect us too much.
oldest supported
So, Windows 11 then, right?
Enterprises outside of Europe can get another year of Windows 10 if they pay for it.
Yes, 23H2 at the moment.
Edit: Enterprise edition, to be clear. Home and Pro 23H2 were eol a couple of weeks ago.
If Microsoft keeps breaking shit, companies will eventually look for alternatives.
Just think about what’s happening behind the scenes on Azure. I work with it daily and even it feels like a bloated slow mess.
Bloated servers. Now I’ve heard it all. Thanks for bringing that out, all we hear is ‘windows this and windows that’ but it seems the cancer in Microsoft has metastasized to everything.
This isn’t satirical?
At this point Win 11 has waaaaay surpassed Vista as the worst windows ever.
Surely ME was worse than Vista?
I had WINME as my first hand me down. It wasn’t that bad. Vista straight up constantly crashes, BT did not work, audio issues. It was a mess
That’s the thing. My experience was the opposite. ME a crashy mess. I upgraded my computer to Vista about 2 weeks after launch, and it always worked well for me.
WinME was just Win98 with a paint job. And as Win98 was, it was pretty decent.
(WinXP was my personal favourite)
Were you not around for Windows ME? I’d take Vista any day over that hot streaming pile of regret.
I remember the joke that Microsoft called it that deliberately so that if people wrote “I hate ME” it wouldn’t sound like they were trashing the OS.
Reads like a onion article
