What kind of idiots create a program that says, “Outlook failed to load. Repair application?” when the only problem is the wifi is disconnected?
vibe coders
The problem is that someone decided to dumb down the error message to not scare users, instead of passing on the real error code from the application that people could Google and fix in 5 mins themselves.
Dumb downed? They’ve taken a simple error and made it into something that does scare users. The “Repair application?” was far more alarming to my visiting friend than a “No Internet connection” would have been. It is astounding that any company would put out such complete shit.
Imagine they removed the oil, engine and fuel lamps, and then while driving:
Car Malfunctioning. Attempt Repair?
Sorry, your subscription to CarRepair has expired. Would you like to renew for $29.99 recurring monthly and allow your car to start again? Clippy can wait forever and even has tips about roadside engine repair!*
*tips included with paid subscription
Your HP car is out of driving fluid! Would you like to order a 50l of original quality driving fluid cartridge for only 4999.95 ? Using illegal aftermarket driving fluid voids warranty!
Don’t give them more ideas
It’s like this with a blue screen. You used to tell you what went wrong but now it just shows a :-( Which is pathetic.
The tiny text and QR code actually have the error still. It’s just the frowny face is 10x the font size.
On top of that, the logs for the actual support technicians are scattered all across the filesystem.
C:\ProgramData\
C:\Users\AppData\RoamingorLocalor maybeLocalLow
C:\Windows\Temp
It’s own install folder
C:\Programs
C:\Programs (x86)Like…why (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)
Microsoft says that it is working on a fix but, for now, has provided a couple of workarounds to deal with the issue. First, Microsoft says that restarting the Shell Infrastructure host (SIHost.exe) service will help restore the missing Immersive Shell packages. This can be done with the following commands:
Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentMode Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.UI.Xaml.CBS_8wekyb3d8bbwe\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentMode Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\MicrosoftWindows.Client.Core_cw5n1h2txyewy\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentModeSecond, a PowerShell logon script has been shared that essentially blocks Explorer from launching prematurely until the required packages are fully provisioned. The batch script for that is given below:
@echo off REM Register MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentMode" REM Register Microsoft.UI.Xaml.CBS powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.UI.Xaml.CBS_8wekyb3d8bbwe\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentMode" REM Register MicrosoftWindows.Client.Core powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\MicrosoftWindows.Client.Core_cw5n1h2txyewy\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentMode"I swear to god, if I hear “Windows just works” one more goddamn time…
“Windows just works”
When did Microsoft steal Apple’s marketing material?
Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but for several years and on several different machines I’ve found Linux just works, while Windows is an endless treadmill of frustration and brokenness.
Went from mint to cachyOS and besides some things being different it just works.
I’m the exact opposite, every Linux install has something fucked, but I’ve never experienced any of these major Windows issues.
Of course I never update immediately, an old habit. And I do experience plenty of issues with Windows like everyone else does, I’ve just been lucky with the major issues.
What didn’t Microsoft steal?
my heart
Quit laying blame on my fart
My fart…
My fart.
I should have known I did shart
Quality assurance?
My money because I always pirated.
- A version of libc that has POSIX shims.
- A filesystem with reflink support.
- A consistent UI design across old and new programs.
- Dark mode that works everywhere.
- Respect for their users’ autonomy.
Need I go on?
More like they adopted Bethesda’s marketing material after they acquired ZeniMax
Well compated to others it did kind of just work. Plug&play, USB, most simple peripherics didn’t need a driver to be manually installed and configured.
Windows 98 I guess.
Windows 98 SE, maybe. We didn’t gain much traction there until about Win2k or XP.
Windows 98 in its original flavor didn’t even support USB mass storage devices out of the box without drivers. Hands up everyone who remembers having to carry around one of those tiny driver CDs that came in the box with every single Sandisk Cruzer for a couple of years? Yeah? How quickly we forget.
✋
Yeah usb came with 98-SP2 IIRC
test
Windows 98 SE doesn’t have it out of the box either. While it came well after Windows XP had taken over, in 2005 Maximus Decim released his USB drivers, which cobbles together USB mass storage drivers from newer versions of Windows, with modifications to get them working on Windows 98 with just an installer.
Windows 98 SE doesn’t have it out of the box either. While it came well after Windows XP had taken over, in 2005 Maximus Decim released his USB drivers, which cobbles together USB mass storage drivers from newer versions of Windows, with modifications to get them working on Windows 98 with just an installer.
https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/win-98se-usb-issues.1240710/ https://msfn.org/board/topic/43605-maximus-decim-native-usb-drivers/
By the way, if someone is looking to actually use it, I just want to warn that version 3.6 replaces the System Control Panel component with the one Windows ME, which has a different look and feel and misreports the OS version. Version 3.5 doesn’t do that and has worked with every flash drive I’ve tried, so I’d recommend that version.
I guarantee I will never use this information. But thank you anyway.
My recollection is that USB on windows was kind of a dumpster fire until XP. Or maybe that was just printers in general.
Hell I remember when USB on PCs was basically a set of pins on the motherboard and you had to buy the actual port assembly separately and hope there was somewhere reasonable on your case to mount it. Was going absolutely nowhere on PC until the iMac came and did away with all other ports and no peripherals built in.
I remember my sister winning an iPod and gave it to me, because she didn’t need it. I had to run to the computer store in town to purchase a USB deck for my motherboard. Fun times.
What is a “USB deck”?
Probably a square rectangle of plastic you’d add to your PC, like a CD player, but with a USB connector. And wires/card towards the mobo. Cases always had like 2-4 emplacements for those kind of things on the front.
I can’t remember what it’s called, and I was drunk last night lol. It was a USB card with pins you slottet into the motherboard, just like GPUs.
One thing (only good thing) about Vista was that it rationalised Printer (and Scanner) Drivers.
The UI was consistent between printer manufacturers and everything could be accessed through one interface.
Then the Printer manufacturers complained to MS because they couldn’t have infinite branding all over the interface and the feature was dumbed down in 7.
Meanwhile Apple used the same UI for all Printers (based on CUPS) and didn’t even let a company logo appear in the interface.
Not all the Apple CUPS drivers were available for Linux CUPS so unfortunately Linux (at the time) still had their device compatibility issues.
But Linux is too difficult, someone might suggest you use the terminal.
And don’t get me started on the people who assume macOS does not have a command line.
But most users never need to open it because Apple at least tests their OS before yeeting it into prod, unlike this hot mess.
Bonus points if they open Spotlight and type “CMD”.
It does, if you are talking about pre 11, and dont care about internet pre 10. But otherwise fuck Microsoft with a rusty shovel, theyve ruined anything good about windows and make it harder and harder not to switch to steamos, the only reason I don’t is because of the pain of reinstalling everything and not having the drive space to shuffle files to it.
“Omg Linux is so hard!!” Meanwhile Windows:
Microsoft, you already got me to leave Windows, you don’t have to keep sending me reminders, I wasn’t at risk of wanting to come back…
Why does File Explorer freeze just because I opened it?!?
Every time???
How do they mess this up so bad?
How do they mess this up so bad?
They made their devs use copilot.
Yep. Vibe coding. Replacing knowledge and experience with hallucinations since 2025.
After firing everyone who knew anything about how the code worked.
I went back to Win10 at work because file explorer on Win11 was unusable. I’m not waiting a half second every single time I enter a subfolder.
and even worse in a OneDrive directory, often a full two seconds
that wasn’t the only issue, but it legitimately prevented me from being able to do my job, because I needed to be able to multitask on several projects at once. what used to be a two minute turnaround on a question somebody would ask me became hours, simply because I could not navigate to a directory in fifteen seconds and check a file quickly. and oh god the file explorer crashes
unfortunately I still deal with a bunch of that on Win10 now, because they somehow introduced that behaviour with greater frequency into Win10 in the past year
It’s amazing how a second or 5 at so many levels causes micro-frustration. And it builds up, too.
I admit I lose just a bit of my shit when the neu web-service web-apps get sluggish, which seems to be very often. Those of us who remember the halcyon days where things were responsive on a pentium know better than to accept the current mess.
My tolerance for the poor performance and saas-linked core services is rapidly waning.
The scariest part is how the general population just accepts how bad Windows is, because they don’t have a concept of what a decent piece of software looks like. They just assume that they hate computers but are simply forced to tolerate it to do their job.
File explorer has always been a weak point in Windows, it just got better in the later versions. Which speaks volumes about this OS too.
There’s a third party file explorer that works amazingly and it’s super fast. It’s freeware while in beta: https://filepilot.tech/
If a single guy can do it, why can’t Microsoft?
You might be interested in this tool
The funny thing is that both Outlook and OneDrive work way better on the Mac.
I just wish they were available for Linux.
Too sad that alternatives like Thunderbird doesnt have anything like automated rules or quicksteps.
I thought those linux guys were all about automating the shit out of their desktop???
On Linux there is “onedriver”, a 3rd party onedrive client. Works great, but iirc not with sharepoint shares linked in your onedrive folder.
I’m so glad I blocked all the updates from MS on mydesktopm. It’s a nice stop gap until I get moved to linux
@JigglySackles @mrgoosmoos if you want beta versions you can use #arch #linux XD
Lol no arch for me just yet and esp no beta arch lmao. I’m working through my computers and devices at the moment. I have liked Zorin so far and have it on two laptops. I also swapped a fire tablet to lineage last week and I just replaced my phone and got a pixel and installed Graphene as well. I’m getting there. Just have my last laptop and my desktop to migrate. I’m putting off my desktop until I can migrate off a couple services. Also because I know it’ll be a major biiiiiitch. I have so many tools lol
I have that problem on my son’s pc. It’s definitely an io issue. A faster disk would solve the problem.
So would a working OS.
Slow disk is not the problem.
Maybe a factor, but it is not a problem.
That said, did they fix the issue where explorer (with the desktop) would just randomly crash for no reason? I’ve worked in IT for 3 months and it was a frequent issue.
I had this just last night and didn’t realise. Everything else was working fine, but then I glanced at my phone and realised that it was 2 hours later than the computer was showing.
Do you have disconnected network drives or slow to spin-up?
Because that froze mine on the regular.Because you opened it in Windows 🤣
Microsoft says that it is working on a fix but, for now, has provided a couple of workarounds to deal with the issue
Install Linux.
that’s a feature of windows 11, not a bug.
Install Linux!
My decision to switch to Linux feels better and better every day. Windows 11 sucks.
You know I never really thought about it but do you think the spying tools these companies provide ever fail like the way their other products do?
One might hope
Nah, if there’s one thing they thoroughly test, it’s the spying.
IT has been an interesting ride the last two months, encountering some of the weirdest bugs I’ve ever seen, after two decades of Windows working just fine for the most part.
Yeah. Weird vibes.
*Weird vibe codes
Exactly
Had one yesterday where sound in win11 worked, except in browsers. Multiple browsers just wouldn’t output any sound through any site.
Haven’t fixed it yet… it was end of shift and there was a dell bios update to run (which has been known to fix some of the weird shit around there.) I uninstalled all the third party audio drivers, rebooted for the bios update, and called it a day. Will check on monday, haha.
I’ve seen a bunch.
Had my phone wish me a happy birthday on the wrong day. I had a whole folder of emails inexplicably moved back into my inbox, and yes, various wacky hardware problems.
It’s clear that a bunch of the people they laid off were QA people.
When do I get a calendar on my systray or whatever they call it on my other monitor?
We have finally gotten rid of Windows on all PCs in our house this week and my partner has taken the plunge. Even with a little faff he says he is never going back lol.
Did you switch to Linux?
Man, I have 3 windows 11 desktops and a laptop. Sometime in the last month all of their edge browsers became “managed by my organization”… they’re all personal computers with no work info on them. And I can’t undo it. I’ve tried every trick on the internet. Fuck MS.
Did you use ShutUp10 or something similar? It says that when settings are changed via registry/group policy. It doesn’t actually have anything to do with your work.
Shoot. Probably. Crapfixer was used early in my installs. Ugh. Either way it prompted me to switch all of my computer computers over to Brave and I am very happy with the switch.
Some anecdotal evidence, but when I boot into my W11 install for certain online games, I have none of these issues mentioned. My 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC + StartAllBack setup- knocks on wood- continues to be bullet proof. For anyone who still needs Windows, I highly recommend it.
I have zero issues with Win11, but if I state that, lemmy tells me to go fuck myself.
For real, lmao.
well in general it’s just not really a helpful thing to say… imagine your car won’t start and a bunch of other people say “I have zero issues with mine”
lemmy tells me to go fuck myself.
Well, get on with it.
I’ve only been supporting Enterprise for a while, but for me Win 11 is just Win 10 with more graphical overhead, and a start menu coded with React for some goddamn reason, because it’s fun to gamble as to how many seconds it will take to pull up the start menu this time.
Which is where StartAllBack comes into play. Its not just one sluggish mess. It feels normal lol.
because it’s fun to gamble as to how many seconds it will take to pull up the start menu this time.
I also like how it randomly brings up some random website first instead of an installed application I’m looking for. Corporate policy says windows, so I get paid to deal with it, but it helps only so much.
Not that they’re going to fix any of them though.
“We’ll slap some ‘AI’ on any a few things and, boom, it’ll fix itself” -Whoever the Microsoft CEO is now
They’re going to be heroes when they fix Windows
Hope they fix it the same way spaying or neutering dogs is called fixing: Prevent it from propagating further.
windows is inherently broken. they can’t fix it.
Ah but there are also a lot of minor features in Windows 11 that aren’t really looking too good.
