I like Windows 11. A lot. And I write that knowing that this system was designed for the masses and not for technology enthusiasts like myself. But now that I’m on my third build of the new platform---after a single leaked build, the first official build, and then the first revision via a cumulative update---I can already see the old Microsoft, and the old Microsoft problems creeping in. And while it’s not too late for the software giant to avoid disaster, I feel like it’s going to fall into the same old trap of trying to please everyone. And that’s a shame.
What Windows 11 should be is a mulligan, a do-over, not so much for Windows 10 but rather for the combined and often superfluous additions that Microsoft made to Windows over several releases. In the past, I’ve compared Windows to an architectural dig, where new layers of technology sit on top of older layers of technology that themselves sit on older-still layers of technology. It’s easy to find Windows Vista-era user interfaces in Windows today, and there are even Windows 95-era bits in there if you dig long enough.
And that’s both good and bad, of course. The promise of Windows is that what you use and need will work, whether it’s hardware or software, and almost regardless of age. Microsoft didn’t drop support for 16-bit software, which debuted in the late 1980s, until it released the 64-bit (x64) versions of Windows (and that code still works in 32-bit versions). And it won’t drop 32-bit versions of Windows until Windows 11 ships in October; the first 32-bit version of Windows, called Windows NT 3.1, arrived in 1993. So 32-bit versions of Windows will exist and be supported for well over 30 years by the time Windows 10 support dries up in 2025. Incredible.
We often compare Microsoft’s focus on backward compatibility with Apple’s far more aggressive policies, mostly because the two firms couldn’t approach the same problems more differently than they do. Apple released Mac OS X in 2001, for example, the same year that Microsoft shipped Windows XP, and it shifted that platform fully to 64-bits with Snow Leopard in 2009; Microsoft won’t make that same transition with Windows until later this year with Windows 11, in 2021. But Apple also dropped support for 32-bit apps in macOS Catalina in 2019. When will Microsoft drop support for 32-bit apps? Based on history, never.
Which approach is “better” is a matter of debate, but I feel like there’s a happy middle ground between Microsoft’s overly conservative approach, which I liken to the company being unable to say no to the needs of any customer, and Apple’s overly-aggressive approach. If there’s a platform out there that adopts this centrist viewpoint---Linux?---I’m unaware of it. But that doesn’t matter. Windows and macOS have each evolved differently and on separate paths.
Another matter of debate, and this is what I’m more concerned about today, is the equally different appro...
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