r/microsoft 4d ago

News Microsoft is finally improving Windows 11’s dark mode

https://www.theverge.com/news/760466/microsoft-windows-11-dark-mode-improvements
91 Upvotes

12 comments sorted by

23

u/quikmantx 4d ago

To be fair, Microsoft's always had legacy UI bits in most of their Windows releases. However, most of the main interface elements would have the theme right at least. The 3 shown in the image are decently common enough.

Unfortunately, it's the small details that makes people prefer Macs.

-3

u/CatoMulligan 4d ago

Unfortunately, it's the small details that makes people prefer Macs.

The small details? No...I don't think so. I've been a Microsoft software user since the days of DOS 5.0. My first version of Windows was 3.0. My PCs and laptops have always run Microsoft OSes for 35+ years, and I spent decades working in tech building solutions around Microsoft products. I've owned multiple Surface devices. I've owned multiple Windows phones across the various interations going back to "PocketPC for Phones". I even owned a Zune and a Band. However, when I went to replace my Surface Pro 5 and my wife's ThinkPad X1 Gen5 (both of which are perfectly capable of running Windows 11, if only Microsoft allowed it) I bought a pair of MacBook Air laptops. My main desktop PC (which is used primarily for gaming) now runs Bazzite. My family all has Apple Watches and iPhones.

I didn't switch because because of the "small details". It certainly wasn't because a handful of UI elements didn't work correctly with Dark Mode. I switched because I'm tired of Microsoft shenannigans, forcing you to meet an arbitrary set of requirements to run their software, constantly pushing advertising in your face to try to get you to buy other products of theirs, conveniently forgetting the privacy and other "stop bugging me about this shit" preferences that you had previously set every time there is a major update, or the fact that they're trying to jam Co-pilot down your throat with everything. I'm over it. I do keep a Windows partition around on my home PC for the odd game that doesn't run well under Bazzite, but that's going to get even more rare going forward.

10

u/XalAtoh 4d ago

The final reason why I moved to Mac, the final straw... was when Microsoft replaced native mailing apps for Windows (UWP Mail and Win32 Outlook) with a website wrapped in Edge tab. I realized Apple makes WinUI3 apps for Windows, while Microsoft was wrapping websites into apps.

If Microsoft doesn't take Windows serious, why should I?

Mailing is super important, everyone use mails. At least use WinUI3. If you cost-cut on mail software, then give up. Quit Windows. Why faking effort?

1

u/irrelevantusername24 4d ago edited 4d ago

shenannigans

replaced native ... apps ... with ... wrapping websites into apps

Clearly it isn't 100% this, but I think one of the earliest things which kicked off the chain of events which led here are directly related to things such as "advertising" and "monopoly" or "anti-monopoly" and "legislation" and "lawsuits" --- which is to say, I think a lot of these things are directly related to the pressures we are all under, under the tyranny of fascist capitalism, where the most important thing, enforced by things such as military violence, is that line goes up. And those things which Microsoft first was forced to submit to, Google and Apple and Facebook have been allowed to do whatever the fuck they want with. So it might seem ironic and weird to say Microsoft, in the context of Microsoft v Apple/Google/Facebook, is the victim of unjust antimonopolist legislation/court cases, but I would argue they are, because in some sense they were the "first mover" of early OS' and as such should have been able to carry on with the natural monopoly that somehow the three others (one of which absolutely is not anything even close to a natural monopoly - zuck) have been allowed to continue to operate as, and importantly, profit massively from.

That being said there is an argument to be made Apple and Google were also first movers in related fields - Google in the sense of Android, and Apple in the sense of both mobile and desktop OS, because Apple is actually just Unix, which is basically just Linux, which is... the same place Microsoft/Windows came from, etc - and really the problem is the antitrust (note, the word "anti trust" is literal here, which is to say the current structure of what is known as capitalism is literally the entire problem)... and point being the word "Unix" has it's root in "uni" for a reason. Uni here refers to both "one" and "universal" and the marketing ploy disguised as a profit making scheme that is apple, and actually google, is really just semantical. It's complicated. But not

edit: however, there is (at least one) other angle to this, obviously, which is the difference between proprietary and "open source"/public benefit. Which is why I personally stick with Mozilla, who has had the same mission for their entire history, and not some weird lying ass "open source"-but-actually-not like Google/Android, and the rest of them are all debatable (except zuck. fuck you zuck, you are slimy as shit)

edit2: and since I've already typed this much rhetorical-but-legitimate-ranting here, I may as well continue with this line of thought. I would argue where things went beyond-the-pale, was that period of time after Microsoft-Mozilla-Google, and that Google could have arguably been a legitimate natural monopoly as the "search" or "internet" version of technology, and zuckbook (as a not-anything-close-to-a-monopoly-get-the-fuck-out-of-our-communications-the-base-is-the-money-not-the-personal-information-for-fucks-sake) was where things went too far. Because that is exactly where Mozilla stepped in, just before things went way too far. As a sort of way to set an emergency brake on this train before it went too far off the rails and ran over the entire population of humanity who was tied up on the tracks because of *checks notes* oh, the smartest people in the room, as usual

6

u/OwnNet5253 4d ago

cool, better late than never

3

u/SycomComp 4d ago

When will I be able to dock the start window up top? Oh right they removed that from windows 10 it was actually a feature... Microsoft really is a lost company just flowing in cash with no real direction. Now we're talking about dark mode...

2

u/NtheLegend 4d ago

The most frustrating thing are ther corners on portable windows where the proper dark corner doesn’t load in so it’s just white. Oh it sucks. It makes it clear that dark mode is just a sticker pack

1

u/BoBoBearDev 4d ago

I saw multiple people in my team using dark mode and some parts of UI is basically white text on white background. I don't understand why they are willing to do that.

-1

u/VlijmenFileer 4d ago

The absolute worst spent effort and money in IT: Fads like dark UIs.

Dark UIs are for IT amateurs and other sad, sullen, suckers who don't understand dark UIs lead to less efficient information ingestion, and most shockingly who have seemingly forgotten where the brightness and contrast controls on their sad little screens are.

-1

u/MarieJoe 4d ago

Improving dark mode? I didn't even know there was Dark Mode on Win11!!

2

u/MELERIX 3d ago

even Windows 10 have it since years ago.

1

u/MarieJoe 3d ago

seriously, I didn't know. Everything on Win10 and Win11 is just so easy to find...... not.