My laptop just updated to Windows 11. I did the upgrade for professional reasons, as a distributor of professional CAD/CAM/CAE software, I am required to use the latest versions of the operating system and applications we sell.
Anyway, after the computer booted into Windows 11 for the first time, I was greeted by this HORRIBLE new START menu. Yes, you can move it to the left, but you can no longer pin your favorite applications in groups for a quick access, like you do on Windows 10. Instead, they are pinned on a first START screen, where you cannot group them at all and only the first 15 are shown. If you want to see more, you need to scroll to the next page.
It gets worse: half of the START menu is used for recommendations: last accessed documents or applications. Why Microsoft? Why should I want to show my students and customers which were the last documents I accessed? Hello? Have you heard of privacy?
So next I searched how to get the old START menu back and found this Registry hack:
Open: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
Then right-click on Advanced and select New → DWORD (32-bit) Value.
Name the new value Start_ShowClassicMode.
But, it does not work, because Microsoft disabled this key with heir latest November, 24th update.
WHY THE F*** DOES MICROSOFT INVEST SO MUCH TIME AND MONEY IN ANNOYING THEIR CUSTOMERS???
LEAVE THE F***ING START MENU ALONE!
It's not that I dislike Windows generically, like many do, and I am stuck on using it due to most professional software running on Windows only. But they make it really hard.
I dislike Linux even more than Windows and I think it is far away from real usability for the masses. Plus it lacks the professional software and drivers. Finally it is difficult to earn money developing software for Linux due to the GNU licenses and what not. Anyway, this is not a thread to discuss Windows vs Linux vs MacOSX (which I dislike, too, especially because once Apple considers your iMac/MacBook obsolete, you are excluded from getting most of the software, despite it being able to run perfectly well on your hardware - the proof being that you can hack MacOSX to install anyway).
This is just a runt on the stupid new START menu. I hope they get quickly a major shitstorm from users and revert back to the old one - or at least reactivate the Registry hack option.
Regards,
Vitor