Microsoft wants devs to build Electron AI apps on Windows 11, says no need of native code, despite RAM concerns

Submitted ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨throws_lemy@reddthat.com⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/03/17/microsoft-wants-devs-to-build-electron-ai-apps-on-windows-11-says-no-need-of-native-code-despite-ram-concerns/

Electron apps are ruining the Windows 11 experience, and even the JavaScript creator has warned against ‘rushed web UX over native,’ but it doesn’t look like that will change Microsoft’s plans. In a post on X and other places, Microsoft reaffirmed its commitment to AI in Windows 11 and encouraged Electron developers to consider using AI in their apps.

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Jankatarch@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
Javascript creator thinks they are rushing things.
Javascript creator thinks they are rushing things.

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Bloefz@lemmy.world ⁨44⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
Microsoft also make the one app that actually shines in electron: vs code. It’s really quite optimised. But somehow they didn’t bother learning lessons from that and keep rolling out terrible slop like teams and new outlook.

It’s weird how one company can do things right and also be do incompetent at the same time.

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- Master167@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Isn’t VS Code open-sourced? Can those optimizations be contributed to the wider community of electron experts?
  
  I guess my point is VS Code works well because the users can fix it and they have the ability to do so. The same cant be said for Teams & Outlook. No one can fix that PoS.
  
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- kalpol@lemmy.ca ⁨27⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Image
  
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- Jankatarch@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Tbf vscode has opensource contributors and they had the code for atom text editor (by developers of electron) to look as reference code.
  
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Samskara@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
The next step in app delivery is shipping a full VM with the operating system and the app.

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- vithigar@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  Docker?
  
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  - Samskara@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Minesweeper as a Docker container.
    
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MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Once again, Microsoft is a strong contender for Linux Marketer Of The Year award

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finalarbiter@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Today it took almost 30 seconds for the context menu to appear when I right clicked on a file in windows explorer. God forbid they make an actually responsive UI.

(Inb4 “install linux”, it’s a work computer and I don’t get a say in OS)

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- toad@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Find a new job
  
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- CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Dude. Same. Windows 11 at work is fucking awful.
  
  My laptop idles at 12 out of 16 gigs of RAM free.
  
  Right clicking takes dozens of seconds, especially on a network share.
  
  Did IT remove a letter mapped network drive? Haha! Fuck you! Windows hangs indefinitely if you open Windows explorer. You gotta fuck around in the registry to remove that shit.
  
  The only good thing about windows 11 is tabs in Windows explorer. Which MacOS and Linux have had for a gazillion years.
  
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  - Bloefz@lemmy.world ⁨43⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    Microsoft don’t care about file shares anymore anyway, they want you to sign up for OneDrive :(
    
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- Magnum@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Install linux
  
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- reev@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Even in the browser Outlook (a Microslop web app running on a Microslop browser) sometimes takes up to a minute to load on refresh. HOW!? God I hate that company.
  
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  - filcuk@lemmy.zip ⁨45⁩ ⁨seconds⁩ ago
    I’ve never had outlook take long, always done in about 5 seconds. Firefox too, which would be the last to optimise for.
    
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- Quazatron@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Just like the good old days of running Windows 3.1 on an Intel 386sx. We’ve come full circle.
  
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ItsMeForRealNow@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Yeah sounds like an AI agent decided that.

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db2@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Microslop Winslop 11 with Electroslop

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- lemmie689@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Image
  
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panda_abyss@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The one thing Apple has done an amazing job of over the years is providing a solid, clean, common application framework for all of their systems.

They’ve fucked it up recently, but basically, 90% of the time you’d get the same consistent interface design across all apps, with common design language and iconography and accessibility features. They aggressively deprecate so you have to keep that $100 dev fee rolling, but the experience has been good for the the better part of 20 years (post carbon & X11, pre-liquid ass, the cocoa years).

If everything is a vibe-coded web app then everything is going to look like different, feel like shit to use, and perform like shit.

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- Deestan@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  If everything on Windows is a vibe-coded web app then everything is going to look like different, feel like shit to use, and perform like shit.
  
  I am happy to report: Windows apps that look different, feel shit to use and perform like shit are already available!
  
  E.g. Teams, the CPU warmer from hell, was rolled out to Windows long ago. It was coded in Electron and couldn’t even integrate with Microsoft Windows’ taskbar popups. They had to fake one by creating a window that moved itself up from below the screen. Did this break when you changed resolution? Yes it did. Did it break when you moved the taskbar? Yes it did. Did it break when- YES IT DID
  
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- batshit@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  The one thing Apple has done an amazing job of over the years is providing a solid, clean, common application framework for all of their systems.
  
  iOS doesn’t even have a universal back button, every app has their own way of implementing it.
  
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  - undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    What is it with Android users’ obsession with the back button? Who actually cares? Why would I want some button that goes back to the wrong app for some reason?
    
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  - Link@rentadrunk.org ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    It has swipe to the right from the side of the screen. That works in very application I’ve tried.
    
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- org@lemmy.org ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  How has Apple fucked up recently?
  
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  - faltryka@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    As an avid Apple user the most recent ui changes are unfathomably bad. The os has become notably less useful to me in som frustrating ways. I can solve some but not all of it through settings.
    
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allywilson@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
This sentence reads like Microsoft is the inventor of Javascript:

Electron apps are ruining the Windows 11 experience, and even the JavaScript creator has warned against ‘rushed web UX over native,’

So there’s 3 things, either they meant Typescript, they are very wrong or they’re quoting Brendan Eich and not attributing it to him.

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- whaleross@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Yes.
  
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mycodesucks@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Image

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Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Spontaneously I had the idea of entering this forbidden word into a browser, just to see what would happen:

microslop.com

The result was truth, and nothing but the truth, I can assure you :-)

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- wltr@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Oh yeah, it’s good. The link to microslop: microslop.com
  
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  - JayGray91@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Idk why but this is sort of funny to me.
    
    Image
    
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Sanctus@anarchist.nexus ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Lack of constraints has killed everything. I hope.all the RAM becomes unusable people are forced to work with 3mb again.

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- MirrorGiraffe@piefed.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Nah, they’ll just push for streaming compute power and charge you once more!
  
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  - Jesus_666@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’m just waiting for their reaction when everyone is supposed to use cloud desktops and the average application assumes the user has 128 GB of RAM.
    
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- mrnobody@reddthat.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  You mean when care was taken while coding and an OS could "run on 1GB but suffice with 2GB? I know everyone hated Win 8 but it was a welcomed change plus no bullshit on it at the time.
  
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  - HyperfocusSurfer@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Yeah, 8.1 took like 800 megs ootb, while 10 wanted about 3 gigs to itself (not sure about earlier versions, tho; mb enshitification happened gradually)
    
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  - Samskara@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Since the mid 2000s desktop OSs haven‘t done anything fundamentally new until AI integration. Hardware accelerated compositing was the last big step. That was done with a couple of MBs on the graphics chip and less than 1 GB of RAM.
    
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  - empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Real men remember when windows vista launched like shit because it assumed there were way more brand new high memory machines out there than there actually was
    
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cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
If you don’t want to write native code, then make a PWA. At least those don’t run a separate copy of chrome for each program.

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- aeharding@vger.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  And or tauri
  
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ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’m pretty anti webtech but even I’ve written GUIs in wails. I hate electron so much, but what makes it worse is that there are so many better options. The people that keep pushing it are stupid*

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- anon_8675309@lemmy.world ⁨27⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Not stupid. Lazy. Too lazy to learn something new. “I want to use the same tooling for everything “. Ok champ.
  
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DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Of course MS would want people to develop Electron apps given they’re trying to move Windows to the cloud anyways.

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pie_enjoyer@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Why Microsoft, why?

Do they want to abandon NT Kernel in favor of AI Kernel or Linux?

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- Samskara@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  The NT kernel is one of the better parts of windows.
  
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- neidu3@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Introducing the next generation of OS: Microsoft OS AINT^tm^
  
  Combines the best features of NT with an AI agent that offload everything onto one drive. Requires an internet connection and a Microsoft account to boot, but that’s OK; once the kernel and the drivers are loaded, you can spend two hours in a dose prompt to be able to load files locally
  
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  - pie_enjoyer@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I can see that happening
    
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lung@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Windows now Chromebooks?

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IronKrill@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
If we’re going to slop it up with AI so hard you don’t even look at the code can we at least use performant tools and start slopping Rust or something instead, dear god.

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FireWire400@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
So no more UWP apps? Ok, I thought those were supposed to be the future but whatever…

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