My Top 12 Hopes and Dreams for Windows 12

If history is any indicator, we know Microsoft isn’t likely to shift focus away from meaningless GUI changes and surface-level revisions that do little to improve the user experience in Windows, so I made a list of what I think are realistic hopes and expectations for the next version of the flagship OS:

1. That system settings will remain scattered across various GUIs, become harder to find, and that even more of them will only be accessible via powershell commands.

2. That advertising will play a larger role in Windows than in previous versions

3. When I do a search on my PC, I would like the search results to include unrelated results from the web so that Microsoft can inflate views to advertisers

4. When I right-click the Sticky Notes icon I pinned to the taskbar and select “New Note,” I would like to continue to see many previous notes and the Notes List window all open up, so that by the time I find the new note, I’ve forgotten what I was going to type

5. I would like for there to be no way to use a local account. I think it’s time that every Windows PC on earth be tied to an online account so that advertising profiles can be built and leveraged to connect advertisers to us.

6. I would like to see even more nonsensical items in the “Recommended” section of the start menu. For example, since I recently installed a Zoom client update, Windows now puts the Zoom uninstaller icon in the Recommended section. Thank you, Microsoft! I accept your recommendation and will now uninstall Zoom, so that come Monday morning, I’ll be late to my first Zoom meeting.

7. I would appreciate a reduction in clarity in dialog boxes asking about authentication. Specifically, please make the “Stay signed in to all your apps” even more cryptic, and do not make it clear what happens when you check the “Allow my organization to manage my device” checkbox, click the “No, sign in to this app only,” or just click OK.

8. Recent updates seem to have reduced the number of unplanned and unwanted overnight reboots that wipe out text files. cause Outlook issues, etc. I appreciate the adventurous nature of never knowing when I might lose data, so please bring back the unavoidable and uncontrollable updates and reboots.

9. On the topic of reboots, rebooting only every 2-3 weeks isn’t nearly often enough. Please make things like desktop Outlook notifications stop working more frequently than they do now so I have a good reason to reboot more often.

10. Please create more apps that generate desktop alerts so that when I wake my PC up from sleep, I get an even longer list of repeated alerts and more sounds. I think 25 is a good minimum. Do not, under any circumstances, provide a consolidated view of alerts that were missed.

11. When Windows Updates are loading, instead of waiting until the first of 10 updates is complete to show the “Restart” option, go ahead and show it immediately. If you’re going to show confusing and conflicting information within a single dialog, please do so consistently. Consistency is key.

12. As a sign of respect and to pay tribute to the hardworking and trailblazing developers of yesteryear, please incorporate some design elements from Windows 3.1. That way, Windows 12 will contain design elements from every single major release of Windows in the last 30 years. What a milestone!