Coming from Mac and Linux, I sometimes need to use Windows and I'm always surprised how they managed to make it so incredibly difficult to use and bloated.

A minimal version of Windows along with a good package manager and a UX closer to Windows 2000 (or at least without the whole Control Panel / Settings App confusion) would be amazing.

Supposedly windows 10X will be that thing.

I have to say I find the settings / control panel dichotomy issue overblown. I rarely need to go into control panel anymore, and pretty much never without it being a clickthrough from the new settings app.

> I have to say I find the settings / control panel dichotomy issue overblown

Agreed. The task bar search finds the setting I'm looking for about 99% of the time.

I usually do too, but then again I don't change settings all the time, so it's mostly initial set-up where I spend a while in the settings app or control panel and this is where the problems come together: 1. at least for my preferences there's just too much happening out of the box, e.g. "Explore", "Create", the whole Xbox business, all the notifications, the colors and design - so there's a lot I have to change so I'm not distracted all the time. 2. the number of menus and different places I need to go to to get my setup the way I want it and how inconsistent these are.

I could probably set up a custom image but I prefer to get the most recent build when setting up and would appreciate it being as clean and minimalistic as a fresh install of macOS (yes there are some things here too, but you have to look for it) or Linux. The plain Windows setup feels like how preinstalled systems used to be with all sorts of "helpful" apps that automatically start and make the system look "nice".

I primarily care about how terrible the new settings window is and that it's a step back from the Control Panel in too many ways to ignore. What's with all the wasteful white space? What's with the inability to multi-task settings?

Agree with the non-availability of multiwindow Settings, but the UI of Settings seems to mimic iOS and Android settings, which in my opinion, modern, simple, and familiar. The Control Panel UI seems so complex nowadays.

I don't think having a similar UI as mobile is very good for the user since the input mode is very different.

I think macOS does way better here with a minimal use of white space because I can easily have a browser open on the side to look up what I'm trying to change - though some things do appear a bit old school (e.g. networking).

The Settings app in Windows works very well with mouse and the wasted whitespace only appears when it's maximized, the app was made to be responsive with several windows sizes.

Seems like you've never used it with a non-FHD screen. Or as a window. Because it absolutely wastes a ton of space. The sidebar on the right will disappear to the bottom, which is unnecessarily cut off because of the crazy large margins around everything. I don't understand why every page needs to be scrolled when the Control panel fit twice as much functionality into half or even a quarter of the space.

Hate it as well. The obvious reason is the effort to have a unified interface that will support both pointer-based and touch-based devices.

> Why?

You’d have to ask the driver developers. In my experience though, that crapware is the only way to configure the hardware since config files aren’t a thing in Windows.

On the other hand, because config files aren't a thing you don't have to learn 15 different poorly documented often-changing config file formats.

oh yeah intel drivers. which nowadays open a webserver at some useful ports

Looking at the AMD and nVidia software, I see it surfacing a lot of hardware-/vendor-specific options and I don't see how it could be done any differently. Then there's Realtek, where I've never seen their software add anything useful that doesn't already exist in system settings. But then again, there are drivers like those for the Xonar DX or other soundcards where a bunch of useful features and configuration options are surfaced.

I think there are pros and cons. PulseAudio could possibly be half the incomprehensible monstrosity that it is if it didn't have to take over the responsibilities of every audio driver out there. On the other hand, Realtek will arbitrarily disable/hide features with no way (that I've found) to do anything about as a user.

Realtek stuff installs Nahimic 3D virtual positioning and a different denoiser and beamformer, which are controllable from their driver.

Technically, they could make these features separate and configurable from Windows sound effects options for the recording or playback device...