Microsoft promises less AI annoyance and stress-free updates for Windows 11

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In a quite detailed blog post, Microsoft's Windows boss, Pavan Davuluri, announced extensive changes to many Windows 11 functions. Without explicitly saying so, this includes the already foreseeable departure from “AI everywhere”. In addition, some functions that users have repeatedly complained about are to be made less intrusive.

In the post titled “Our Commitment to Windows Quality,” Davuluri explicitly addresses participants in the Windows Insider program. These receive new features faster than through general Windows updates at their own risk. In the remaining days of March and in April, they will receive the planned changes in new builds. They are encouraged to express their opinions in the redesigned “Feedback Hub” – which now offers more free-text fields, among other things. What will ultimately be included in the generally available builds, and especially when, is as always not foreseeable.

Fewer interruptions from Windows Update

Davuluri's post primarily addresses two central points that have drawn increasing criticism: the integration of AI functions and the behavior of Windows Update. The latter is intended to cause fewer work interruptions in the future, for example, by allowing updates to be rescheduled more flexibly and requiring fewer restarts for installation. A restart or shutdown without installing updates, presumably as already under Windows 10, will also be possible in the future. On new devices or a new installation of Windows 11, updates can be skipped for the time being; this could be a significant relief for administrators.

Copilot no longer pushes itself everywhere

With “We are reducing unnecessary entry points for Copilot,” the Microsoft manager openly admits that his company has clearly overdone it lately with the push to use Windows AI. This earned the company the nickname “Microslop”. Initially, Davuluri specifies, the reference to Copilot will be removed from the Editor (Notepad), the Snipping Tool for screenshots, and the Windows Photo Viewer. In general, Copilot will only appear in the future where it is, literally, “really useful.”

Davuluri also acknowledges that the file explorer is the part of the operating system that many users interact with most frequently. Microsoft now acknowledges that, even on the same hardware, it runs more sluggishly from Windows 10 to Windows 11 and is more cumbersome to use – for example, through restrictions in the context menus. Therefore, a new version is to become, again literally, “faster and more reliable,” starting with the startup time.

Taskbar possible on all sides again

Microsoft is also daring a bit more Windows 10 with an immediately visible change: the taskbar can in the future be docked to all four edges of the screen again. This has been a standard function in other operating systems, including Microsoft's, for decades. However, it was removed with Windows 11 and could only be reactivated with additional tools. This is useful, among other things, for very wide displays, such as in a 21:9 format, where you might prefer the taskbar on the side to reduce scrolling. And with many programs running simultaneously, a (additional) portrait display with a correspondingly long taskbar on the side can also be useful.

The fact that the increasingly loud criticism seems to have reached Microsoft culminates in Davuluri's sentence at the end of his post: “Windows belongs to you as much as it belongs to us.” Economically, this is of course not true, but it would be nice if the company would really take its customers more seriously in the long term.

(nie)