Trust But Verify ⭐️

I want to believe, I really do. And I like what I see from Pavan Davuluri quite a bit: This is a thoughtful, smart person who seems like a good choice to lead Windows development. But the problem with trust is that it’s so easily lost and so difficult to regain. And that’s what Mr. Davuluri and his team face after years of Microsoft abusing its customers.

I am referring, of course, to Microsoft’s pledge this past week to improve the quality of Windows throughout 2026. This is a topic I’ve written about in the past, negatively in A Lying Liar Who Lies ⭐️ and more positively in Something Happened ⭐️. Both of those discussions bear on where I’m still at today: There is both good and bad to all things, of course, but especially Windows. It’s OK, maybe even healthy, to have hope for the future. But we need to be clear-headed about what’s really happening here and not project beyond what Microsoft has told us.

And that communication, a 2000-word blog post authored by Davuluri, is a curious combination of specific and vague. It’s interesting to me that this post was directed at those in the Windows Insider Program and not more generally at Microsoft’s customers. And it’s curious that there’s no real apology here for the abuses we’ve all suffered, though to be fair, those abuses all came from Davuluri’s predecessors and, let’s not forget, their superiors.

OK. Let’s dive in.

Checking the checklist

When I think about what’s wrong with Windows today, I think about my Windows 11 Enshittification Checklist and how the ongoing abuses escalated to the point where it became my overall focus; I literally just published a book called De-Enshittify Windows 11. In the checklist and book, I identify several specific areas of enshittification in Windows 11. And it is reasonable to see whether Microsoft addresses them.

Forced telemetry

The first issue I listed is forced telemetry: Starting in Windows 10, Microsoft made forced telemetry mandatory, with no way in the user interface to disable it. The word telemetry does not appear in Davuluri’s blog post, and I can’t find a single sentence that references this topic even vaguely. I will point out, however, that there is a lot of talk about reliability here, and one can easily imagine that this telemetry is a key way Microsoft can help make Windows more reliable. This isn’t changing, I bet.

Bundled crapware

The second issue in my checklist is bundled crapware: Let’s not forget that Microsoft used to have a Signature PC program so that customers could buy a third-party PC without any of the crapware that PC makers still foist on us and that, since Windows 10, it has completely reversed course by bundling crapware directly in Windows and suggesting crapware by default.

I didn’t expect Davuluri to use the term crapware anywhere in his post, and he doesn’t. But he does address recommendations and suggestions, noting that Microsoft will provide “a more relevant Recommended section in Start [that] will surface apps and content you care about most, with clear controls to customize the experience or turn it off.” Here, we see the beginnings of a theme that exists throughout this post, the what was said and what was not said bit. You may wish otherwise, but Microsoft is not getting rid of suggestions and recommendations in Start or anywhere else, and it is not disabling any of that by default either. It will just make them more relevant. Somehow. And you will still have to opt-out.

Chaotic updates with new features every single month

Constant, unpredictable feature updates have been the bane of our existence since Microsoft created its Windows as a Service in Windows 10 and then escalated it dramatically through “continuous innovation”–read: chaos–in Windows 11. This, Davuluri does address, though here, too, what he says Microsoft is doing is easily misunderstood. Microsoft will “reduce disruptions from Windows Update” by requiring users to reboot just once per month, which is good. It will allow users to skip updating when rebooting if desired, also good. And it will let us pause updates “for longer,” albeit it without specifying the new time frame; today you can pause updates for up to one month in one week increments. Will it be six weeks? Two months? No idea.

Also left unsaid, Microsoft recently changed the naming convention it uses for monthly “Patch Tuesday” updates, and the new scheme isn’t just confusing, it’s a lie. These updates, which can include new features, are now called Security Updates, and in addition to being mandatory (with the pausing caveats noted above) and cumulative, they also add many new features to the OS every single month. In the interests of clarity and honesty, the security/bug fixes and feature updates that Microsoft delivers each month should come as separate deliverables with different rules: Security updates should remain mandatory, of course, and feature updates should have longer pause times, perhaps as long as six months or a year. And that is a topic Davuluri does not mention, though he does note that businesses that want to get new features faster–do any want that?–will be able to do so. That’s a whiff.

Forced Microsoft account sign-ins

This one is unnecessarily controversial–it really is the best choice for most Windows users–but Microsoft does force us to sign-in to Windows 11 with a managed account, meaning a Microsoft account (MSA) for consumers or an Entra ID (Microsoft Work or School) account for those in organizations, with no way in Windows Setup to choose an insecure local account. There are workarounds, but Microsoft has tightened the vise on them with each new Windows 11 version, and the worry is that it will someday make MSAs/MWSAs mandatory. (That said, I can’t see that ever happening.)

Davuluri does not address this at all.

Forced Microsoft Edge usage and related harrassment

The forced Microsoft Edge usage across Widgets, Search, Copilot, and elsewhere is one of the most egregious abuses in Windows 11, as are related issues like ignoring your default browser choice, harassing you to make Edge configuration changes whether you use the browser or not, and slyly restyling the Chrome download page in Edge. Davuluri never mentions the words “Edge” or “browser,” but he does explicitly state that Windows Search will continue to deliver web-based results. That line is the only time the word “web” appears in this post.

Arbitrary hardware requirements

When Microsoft first announced Windows 11, its new and obviously arbitrary hardware requirements were the biggest controversy. Since then, two things have happened. Those requirements now make sense because numerous low-level security advances require specific hardware like TPM chips and hardware-based features like Secure Boot. And Microsoft has raised the hardware requirements yet again with Copilot+ PC. Fortunately, we can easily work around the hardware requirements in Windows 11, and I don’t see that changing. I also didn’t expect Davuluri to make changes here, and I wasn’t disappointed. Or, surprised, I guess.

Hardware only comes up once in his post, and it has nothing to do with requirements. Security comes up several times, and it is here that Davuluri suggests that these requirements will only continue going up. “In line with Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative, we will continue to make Windows more secure with every release, building in new capabilities and strengthening security by default to help protect users, devices, and data,” he writes.

OneDrive harasses you to enable Folder Backup and then automatically enables it no matter what you decide

This one has changed a bit over time. Starting in late 2023, Microsoft began suggesting OneDrive Folder Backup all over the OS and in Windows Setup, and then it would auto-enable the feature even if you didn’t agree to use it in some cases. More recently, as discussed in Something Happened ⭐️, Microsoft subtly changed the OneDrive interface so that those who knew what to look for could successfully prevent Folder Backup from auto-enabling. And it created a more obvious UI for dealing with where files would be stored if we toggled this feature on or off, though that has some important problems too.

Davuluri never mentions the term OneDrive in his post. This is curious to me, but I suppose you could point to the changes noted above and call that an improvement. I think it’s two steps forward and one step back, but progress is progress.

What Davuluri really says and doesn’t say

OK, if you scan through the checklist items above, you will see that Microsoft is not reversing a single behavior in Windows 11 that can objectively be described as enshittification. It is making a few changes to Windows Update, and it already introduced some changes to OneDrive. But Davuluri doesn’t address most of the most serious issues in Windows 11 at all. That is rather incredible and a cold splash of reality to anyone who saw this as overtly positive.

But there are good changes here, of course. A lot of them. Some are obvious, so I will mostly skip over them. However some are more subtle, though no less important. Here’s what stands out to me. Good and bad.

Opt-in vs. opt-out

At a high level, a lot of the concerns noted in my checklist and book–and others not covered by the checklist that are perhaps more subjective–are tied to default configurations and opt-in vs. opt-out functionality.

This can be seen in issues big and small. And it came to a head almost two years ago with Recall, when Microsoft spent several months making no material technical changes to a feature that was already adequately secure and private.

What it did do was make one incredibly important policy change: Where Recall would originally have been enabled by default on Copilot+ PCs and require users who didn’t want it to opt-out, it became opt-in. This is clearly the right configuration choice, though there is the potential for abuse in the form of notifications–harassment–to make the change later, as Microsoft does so often elsewhere in Windows 11.

Oddly, Davuluri only mentions opt-in/opt-out once in this post, and it’s regarding widgets. “Simpler settings make it easier to personalize, opt into, or turn off Widgets and feed content based on your preferences,” he writes. So … nothing, really. And that’s too bad. Windows needs more of a focus on opt-in, in my opinion.

CFRs

Tied to the chaotic nature of Windows Updates is a ridiculous technology called Controlled Feature Release (CFR). This is how Microsoft enables new features after they’re installed on your PC as part of a monthly Security Update or, if you’re enrolled in the Insider Program, whatever recent build. Contrary to its name, CFRs are not in any way controlled. That is, there is no logic to how these things are enabled. They are literally enabled randomly. This is the stupidest of the stupidities in Windows.

Does Davuluri address CFRs? Yes. But not by name. And not for most users. He says that those in the Insider Program will have “easier access to new features,” which I read as the ability to just enable the fricking features you just installed and not wait for some random time for them to turn on.

This is a shame. Every Windows user should get every new Windows feature the moment it’s installed. Or at least the ability to–wait for it–opt-in to those new features. This is never addressed.

Copilot

The word Copilot appears just five times in Davuluri’s post despite it being the source of many of the complaints that users have about Windows 11 today.

Many seem to wish that Microsoft would simply remove Copilot from Windows or, in an even more extreme bent, remove AI from Windows. That is not happening. Microsoft will, instead, continue integrating Copilot specifically, and AI generally, in Windows. It will do so “more intentionally,” an easily achieved goal given the chaotic nature of this work to date. And in the same vein, it will provide Copilot and AI experiences that are “genuinely useful and well‑crafted.”

Also in the wishful thinking department, he writes that Microsoft is “reducing unnecessary Copilot entry points, starting with apps like Snipping Tool, Photos, Widgets, and Notepad.” This is widely misunderstood. Microsoft is not removing AI features from these apps. It’s removing a Copilot icon. The AI features in those apps actually make sense. They could perhaps be opt-in in some cases, or

Windows Insider Program

This post was addressed to those in the Windows Insider Program, and so it’s not surprising that it includes information about ways in which Microsoft will improve that program. The biggest issue, as I see it, is that the Insider Program doesn’t follow any form of logic when it comes to the release of new features. Ideally, every single new feature would appear first in Canary before making its way logically through the stack to the Dev, Beta, and then Release Preview channels in that order. And then that feature would ship in stable. You know, the way all significant software is developed.

Davuluri doesn’t get that granular. But he promises, vaguely, to “strengthen the reliability and quality” of the program, to use a “more vigorous validation” process, and to simplify the program and make it more transparent. “We are implementing changes to make it easier for you to navigate with clearer channel definitions, easier access to new features, higher quality builds, better visibility into how your feedback shapes Windows, and more opportunities to engage directly with us,” he says.

Let’s hope he gets close to the ideal here. The Insider Program is a disaster, and it has been for years. Indeed, it’s only gotten worse recently.

Refactoring

Everyone who uses Windows has experienced odd delays here and there, regardless of the power of the PC they’re using and whatever else is going on in the system. These things happen so regularly, most are probably numb to them and don’t even realize it’s happening. But the easiest example you can try for yourself right now is to just launch File Explorer: Unless you made a configuration change or took a more drastic step like re-enabling an older version of the app, it will pause one to two seconds between the time the app appears and the time it displays the contents of the Home view.

This one is odd to me because I tie the performance issue here and elsewhere directly to WinUI 3, which Davuluri writes as WinUI3 and posits as the solution to the performance problems throughout Windows 11. Microsoft will “Reduce interaction latency by moving core Windows experiences to the WinUI3 framework,” he writes, “improve the shared UI infrastructure that Windows experiences rely on, reduce interaction latency and overhead at the platform level, and [create] faster responsiveness in core Windows experiences like the Start menu by moving more experiences to WinUI3.”

Granted, with the Start menu, the slowdowns are tied to JavaScript, so I suppose WinUI 3 will be an improvement. And perhaps the issues in File Explorer are tied to that being a hybrid app with some (heavily modified) WinUI 3 bits and much legacy code intermingled. I don’t know. But I hope he’s right. I feel like straight Win32 code will always be the fastest possible code in the Windows user interface, albeit harder to write and maintain, and that WinUI 3 is the dumb blond of UX, pretty but slow.

We’ll see.

One step forward, how many steps back?

It will be a while before we see and understand the full impact of what Microsoft is promising here. But I hope the above helps better frame what we know and don’t know right now. There’s a lot of irrational exuberance out there and a mistaken belief that Microsoft is going to magically remove all the pet peeve problems people have with Windows. There’s good there. But there’s also a lot left unsaid, and it’s there, in the shadows, where the truth lives. In real estate terms, Windows is a real fixer-upper. Maybe it can be returned to some version of its former glory.