Question Your most annoying issue with Windows?

JimKiler

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 2002
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Mine is how when a new window opens Windows will make it active window yet you still have to click on it. so many times it opens and I forget to click on it and then i move the wrong window using the Win+ arrow keys. I wish new windows would open in the background, sometimes i want to keep typing while an app loads and then i can manually switch to it.
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
67,194
12,025
126
www.anyf.ca
Windows not opening on the same screen they were launched from. This is an issue in Linux too, but it's worse in Windows. Overall the way windows handle window positioning is terrible. It should just open on the same monitor it was opened from. Ex: just go by whatever monitor the cursor is on. I cannot stand it when I open something and it goes all the way 2 monitors down. Worse is when it does it within the same application. Excel is horrible for that, you go to do a search and the search box is all the way in the left field somewhere completely different than where the spreadsheet is. Or even worse is applications that will have captive dialogs that don't let you do anything unless you interact with it but that dialog ends up shooting who knows where and if you can't find it then the app is basically frozen and unusable. Sometimes stuff will even open in areas that don't actually exist. This is especially true if you move PCs between workstations and the monitor config is not the same at both. Such a horrible design flaw really.
 

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
17,572
9,261
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Tough one. I'd say it's Microsoft's increasing tendency to monetise as many facets of using Windows as possible, possibly combined with the increasingly common concept of "you are the product, not the customer" in the IT field.

Example of the former - I was helping a customer migrate from Windows XP to Win11 and they had a video file that they wanted to open. I double-clicked on it and the 'Films & TV' app offered to sell me a codec. I think if I was particularly militant in my job I'd remove the app and set VLC as the default for everything it thinks it can handle.
 
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Hans Gruber

Platinum Member
Dec 23, 2006
2,092
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I like Windows 11 better than Windows 10. The only thing I really liked about Windows 10 was the stability of the OS. Windows 11 gets better and better.

The biggest problem I find is after major updates or GPU driver updates. Windows 11 likes to disable my headphones or reassign primary audio to the monitor without speakers instead of my 5.1 speakers (circa 2007). I am getting used to the OS. It's only a few mouse clicks to fix the audio output problem.
 
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JimKiler

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 2002
3,557
205
106
Windows not opening on the same screen they were launched from. This is an issue in Linux too, but it's worse in Windows. Overall the way windows handle window positioning is terrible. It should just open on the same monitor it was opened from. Ex: just go by whatever monitor the cursor is on. I cannot stand it when I open something and it goes all the way 2 monitors down. Worse is when it does it within the same application. Excel is horrible for that, you go to do a search and the search box is all the way in the left field somewhere completely different than where the spreadsheet is. Or even worse is applications that will have captive dialogs that don't let you do anything unless you interact with it but that dialog ends up shooting who knows where and if you can't find it then the app is basically frozen and unusable. Sometimes stuff will even open in areas that don't actually exist. This is especially true if you move PCs between workstations and the monitor config is not the same at both. Such a horrible design flaw really.

Being an accountant who uses spreadsheets all day I completely agree. I will open 2 spreadsheets and then I want the third to be on my secon monitor but no it opens over the other two.

Which does remind me that Win 10 moving windows using the Win + arrow keys sucks compared to Window 7. So many times in Win 10 it will not automatically resize to the right or left half of the screen and then sometimes i try to make it do the half screen with win + down arrow and it instead minimizes the window. I get they added more functionality to this in Win 10 but it does not work as flawlessly as Win 7 did.
 

PingSpike

Lifer
Feb 25, 2004
21,729
559
126
Yeah, I also hate the focus steal. And half the time the application isn't even actually read to do anything because it hasn't loaded the file yet so it forces itself to the foreground, steals focus and then tells me to wait for it to get ready. I feel like if the keyboard was in use recently, focus grab should just be blocked, actually, if the application hasn't loaded in 5 seconds load it minimized in the background and block it until the user explicitly maximizes it. It's somewhat of a security risk since I definitely have typed my password in the wrong window because of this.

Although I'm not sure this is a Windows specific aggravation, but it has been irritating forever.

I hate the complete disrespect that the update system has for my time. The fact that is slow as hell is aggravating enough, but it seems designed to force you to sit through it when it literally has no interaction options at all. I usually shut my PC down every day, and will click "install updates and shutdown" then leave while it says "Installing updates". But when I come back the next day and turn it on...it says "Installing updates..." or even more hilarious "Preparing to install updates" Why didn't this happen while I was driving home? Why do I have to watch this?

Instead you have to tell it to update and restart so it actually fully installs the updates, a process that takes from 0 to 12hours. But then it leaves your PC on after. Sometimes the update fails at the startup step and then it starts rolling it back! Again, why do I have to watch this? So the option you really want, update, restart, then shut off (and hope there aren't even more updates) doesn't even exist.

And don't get me started on Windows force closing all my documents while I'm on the toilet for 5 minutes to install an update. That might be a result of work's IT policy but it was still insane.