Microsoft’s data shows such users are really small when compared to the number of users who are asking for other newer features in the taskbar.
Asking for things like AI integration everywhere?
Explained: Why you can't move Windows 11 taskbar like Windows 10, according to Microsoft
Submitted 5 hours ago by Stupendous@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/12/19/why-you-cant-move-windows-11-taskbar-like-windows-10/
Comments
Treczoks@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 1 hour ago
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could have AI on the desktop clock so you could ask it what time it was in different places in the world?
pivot_root@lemmy.world 26 minutes ago
I was going to make a joke that they could also replace the taskbar search bar with an AI chat bar, but after reading the article, it turns out that they’re planning on doing that for real:
Windows 11 taskbar is now being “upgraded” with AI-first features. Microsoft is working on the Ask Copilot bar, which may replace Windows Search in the taskbar.
TootSweet@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Because fuck you, that’s why.
- Microsoft
Saved you a click.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 4 hours ago
Seriously, only go there for the facepalms.
4am@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
Let’s be real, it’s because it makes it easier to train AIs on the Recall screenshots if it always has the taskbar in the same position as a reference context
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 11 minutes ago
Four years ago, Recall wasn’t a thing. Microsoft was caught as off-guard by the AI hype machine as the rest of us. So I doubt this was originally the reason.
Might be now, though.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
In Windows 10, you could move it to the top, left, or right of the screen.
In every version of Windows up until now which has contained a taskbar and start menu, as far back as Windows 95. Not just Windows 10. Let’s not sell short the full extent idiocy on display, here.
“Pouring its engineering resources,” my ass. I’m betting it took effort to remove this feature as opposed to just leaving it alone as it was already in the Windows 10 code.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
In the launch version of windows 11 and for over TWO YEARS it didn’t even support drag&drop. It was working fine even on windows me
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Drag and drop worked on windows 3.1. That was like the whole thing. “LOOK WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW!”
At this point, I’m fairly sure pissing people off is the point with Windows 11. It’s full of AI no one wants, refuses to officially run on most hardware that people already have, despite running just fine on that same hardware UNofficially, dropped support for drag and drop, doesn’t let you move the taskbar.
And thats not even to mention the fact that it monitors you, and reports back to HQ with screen grabs and usage activity.
Oh look, ZorinOS, just one singular distro, had 1.6 million downloads in the past 2 months.
Wait, is there any special thing that happened 2 months ago? Oh right. Windows 10 support ended, and microsoft told its userbase “fuck you, you can’t get support for windows 10, and this computer can’t update to windows 11. This computer is now trash!”
Suddenly all these youtube videos pop up “Is your PC unable to install windows 11? Try linux!”
And these videos don’t try to sway you to one distro or another. They point out a few big hitters like mint or ubuntu. I can’t imagine them specifically naming zorin, unless it’s a zorin centric video. But I’m talking about the flood of “try linux” videos that popped up in October.
And that 1.6 million is JUST zorin. That’s the runoff. I don’t have numbers, or sources, but gut instinct tells me that if Zorin had 1.6 million downloads, Mint must have had like 5 million minimum. Every video always reccomends Mint. It’s probably overtaken Ubuntu at some point as most used distro.
And all of this, every single bit of user loss has NOTHING to do with linux. Users are angrily switching. Not happily. They feel abandoned, and forced to switch.
If Microsoft either extended Windows 10 support, or allowed Windows 11 to be installed on reasonable hardware, this linux boom DOES NOT HAPPEN. This is Microsoft saying “Yeah bitch, money is tight! Go buy another computer, loser! You’ll do what we say, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us!”
That’s when users switched to linux. This is pure hubris from Microsoft. It would be interesting if somehow we could get a combined number of EVERY distros doenload numbers.
TachyonTele@piefed.social 2 hours ago
Drag and drop is the entire bases for windows. How do you release a version without it?
JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org 3 hours ago
And it kind of makes sense to have the taskbar at the right or left on a widescreen monitor as there is so much space there
Janx@piefed.social 2 hours ago
The years of engineering salaries and test versions to dock a visual element at the top, instead of the bottom…
_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus 2 hours ago
Laughs in KDE
Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 2 hours ago
My wife was given a new work computer. Windows 11 and not enough RAM. She has been finding a new reason to hate it nearly every day, starting with how every change made to windows has fucked up her workflow in some way.
Me just nodding in acknowledgement as my little Dell Inspiron 15 purs along on Mint with Cinnamon.
LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz 1 hour ago
No exaggeration, this was my breaking point for switching to linux exclusively.
tehn00bi@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Same.
otacon239@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Microsoft applied a data-driven approach to find out which features to add now, which features to add later, and which to completely avoid.
WHAT DATA?!
pulsey@feddit.org 5 hours ago
They asked chatgpt
kaitco@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
But, only after not getting an answer from Copilot.
SavageCoconut@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
The data they have compiled from years of people using Win 10 and Msoft Edge.
otacon239@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
If they were using that data, then they would have included features people actually use in 10. Or maybe they’re just doing the inverse of whatever the data suggests.
meco03211@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Data can say whatever the hell you want if you lack scruples.
Madrigal@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Two data points: What their intern could do with React; what their intern couldn’t do with React.
imecth@fedia.io 4 hours ago
It's Microsoft, they have all the data. And quite frankly it doesn't surprise even a little bit, i doubt even 5% of people moved around the taskbar, people are just ready to hitch themselves to every bandwagon they see shitting on Microsoft.
otacon239@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
In that case, based on the roughly 1.5 billion Windows users, that’ll only affect a mere 75 million users for a feature that’s been there since Windows 95.
Janx@piefed.social 2 hours ago
“We specifically made the product worse, because that saves us money we don’t need and gives us additional control over users’ computers, since so many are locked into our ecosystem.”
Seriously, read the article. That’s basically it!
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
When you think about having the taskbar on the right or the left, all of a sudden the reflow and the work that all of the apps have to do to be able to have a wonderful experience in those environments is just huge
It was working fine in windows 95. Suddenly all programmers became incompetent and can’t handle something like that?
blackn1ght@feddit.uk 2 hours ago
This makes no sense to me what so ever. Why do any apps care about where the taskbar is? How’s it any different when a window isn’t maximised and the user resizes it? Either I’m seriously misunderstanding this or it’s a completely made up excuse.
I’d rather they just say “we completely rewrote the taskbar, but we know that less than 0.01% of users move their taskbar so we didn’t prioritize it”.
IceFoxX@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
All programmers by microsoft. They cant code anymore
woelkchen@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
www.stardock.com/products/start11/
Costs money but works with only minor quirks when turning the dGPU off.
Zak@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
The bit about apps having to reflow seems nonsensical. They have to reflow any time the user resizes their windows.
I’m not accepting any excuses from MS about limited resources when Linux desktop environments built by hobbyists have the feature in question.
Undearius@lemmy.ca 3 hours ago
They have to reflow any time the user resizes their windows.
The whole operating system is even named after that concept.
brsrklf@jlai.lu 2 hours ago
Yeah, sounds like bullshit. I don’t even see why that particular concern would create more work on the OS’s part.
If an application fits “wonderfully” into the space it’s given, Windows did nothing but telling it the dimensions it needs to fill. And as you said those dimensions can vary wildly.
THB@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Yeah especially considering you can install 3rd party solutions to dock the taskbar to the left which work perfectly fine
FireWire400@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
I’d guess it’s for the same reasons why we can’t have a local account
floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
Like half of open source is just devs trying to satisfy their very specific needs
01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 1 hour ago
Even if it will brick your system.
Pechente@feddit.org 2 hours ago
I mean, they could just let their awesome Copilot vibe code it, couldn’t they?
This is one of the best proofs that the AI industry is full of bullshit. If we can let the AI code everything now, where are our leaps in traditional, existing software?
andyburke@fedia.io 4 hours ago
Please, consider trying out linux if you haven't: you can usually make a "live usb" and take it for a test drive without having to actually reinstall (if you don't like it, just take the usb stick out and reboot back to windows).
I would dearly love to never again have to hear about the latest bullshit Microsoft is foisting on people.
Do your part! Switch. Everything just works better over here.
PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
A word of caution: If you use bitlocker (copy your keys!), it can have hooks in the TPM/bios settings.
Disable bitlocker prior to attempting a live boot.
It will lock your disk if you don’t prepare for it.
For reference:
www.linuxliteos.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=914…
halfapage@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
I thought LLM would code this in a matter of minutes without wasting money away on human work hours? What is going on Microsoft?
msage@programming.dev 1 hour ago
-50 social points, it will impact your 365 licenses on a monthly bases
reddig33@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Is the explanation, “Because Windows 11 is shitty”?
veeesix@lemmy.ca 5 hours ago
Jokes on them I decided to give macOS a shake when it was time for a new laptop.
Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
People are fleeing into Linux & MacOS in droves. If this trend holds, Ms will lose majority in ~8 years.
veeesix@lemmy.ca 4 hours ago
I sourced a new desktop to move my plex server to once I get some new drives to put them in the proper format. I’ll be giving it to Microsoft from both ends ;)
stephen01king@piefed.zip 4 hours ago
Not gonna happen in some industry where you get zero application support for Linux or MacOS.
roundup5381@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
It is lost technology… only the powerful ancients could accomplish such.
Or those familiar with the dark arts.
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 5 hours ago
My screen is 2160px tall and 3840 pixels wide. If it’s at the bottom, I waste nearly 1.8 times the number of pixels.
pryre@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Resplendent606@piefed.social 3 hours ago
“vibe coding”
nao@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
When you buy a pc with mac os, you are usually stuck with it, at least for some time. When you buy a pc with windows, you can usually just uninstall it and install something else.
infinitevalence@discuss.online 5 hours ago
Dont care, its where the task bar should go, and I should be able to configure it.
ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Good explanation. They couldn’t checks notes be fucked
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 5 hours ago
[deleted]tyrant@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Pouring resources into it… Doesn’t almost every other os/distro have this option?
ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Maybe they are required to by the Americans with Disabilities Act?
dan1101@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Forced to by governments.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
At least on a Mac we can choose bottom or left! Wild that Microsoft won’t give Windows users the option.
Of course you could say Mac is dorky with its always on menu bar at the top, but I quite like it. Even on my laptop with a notch it’s not terrible. And I like the status bar (right side of the menu bar).
And of course on Linux you can just have it any which way you want it.
I still generally prefer windowing on Windows 11 to macOS Tahoe. Since Sequoia (the last version) we’ve had basic windowing (and before that, free apps like Rectangle to shoehorn it in), but what Microsoft started with Aero Snap in Windows 7 has never been “the Mac way.” I think the old Mac users prefer a controlled chaos on their desktop. I like a more elegant setup. I like how I have Windows set up at work. It doesn’t quite work as well on Mac, to try to do the same thing, but I wouldn’t trade my Mac for something like my work PC, even if it could play more games.
y0kai@anarchist.nexus 5 hours ago
Just ask ai to do it?
ilinamorato@lemmy.world 5 minutes ago
WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!
If you have working code, why would you rewrite it from scratch? Refactor, sure. Overhaul, maybe. But why rewrite the whole thing?! You’re gaining nothing but unnecessary bugs.
I know all the joke answers. To justify a product manager’s salary, because Microsoft gonna Microsoft, whatever. I want to know the real reason. Why would you ever rewrite working code from scratch if you don’t have to?