How’s this - if you are running classic outlook and click a toast notification for an inbound mail alert… i’ve been having those open in “new outlook”.
that’s weird - I don’t have that problem 
however - you have both installed?
- The simplest solution is to remove the new Outlook
- The next one I can think of is that… have you checked if new outlook is actually running underneath? the notifications may be coming from the new Outlook, which needs to be wiped out of orbit. They both have their own settings, and I would even go far as in to autoruns to prevent it from starting up
- Lastly, how about default associations? is the Old Outlook your default e-mail client for everything?
Yes, if you install outlook 365 it installs both and i also need to test with both, however in outlook the slider is set to “classic”.
Either way, not too concerned about fixing it, the platform is dead to me, i just support it at wotk.
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Forced use of edge in certain cases
Forced use of registration with Ms to use the operating system legally and without watermarks
Ui not that customizable
Bitlocker encrypts drives with no notice or warning
Built in spyware
And everything said above
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Lack of a well supported package manager and mostly relying on downloading and running executable, with that a lack of separation of user writable directories and ones containing executable files. Things like WDAC can help a lot, but it would be better if the expectation of apps was not co mingling all that data and putting a exe into a user writable directory.
Having to install drivers, SSH still can feel flaky and the number of random fails we have in automation is a lot higher on Windows machines.
The general mess that is logging and how undetailed a lot of software’s error logs are. We have Windows Defender Exploit Guard features breaking an app and while typically it does provide good logs sometimes there is just nothing digging in event or the timeline view in defender. Any platform can have logging problems. Certainly ran into applications and things on Linux which lack good logging, but it is a lot more rare.
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I do want to check this out, I’ll probably run this in a VM check what’s up with this behaviour
All of the above mentioned BS plus:
The fact that when I install Microsoft SQL Server it displays a notification that I have to open ports via Microsoft Windows Firewall in order to have connectivity. 
The various MS VC Runtimes not being pre-installed. Why??? It is your f***ing product why not just deliver it??? Lets display cryptic error instead! “This binary is not compatible”.
The fact that on win11 copy/paste/delete was moved to icons at the top of the popup, and even worse it sometime (when item is closer to bottom edge of screen/window) appears on the bottom instead.
The utter abandonment of mmc applets and over-reliance on powershell. This is not windows anymore, there is just no GUI for setting up things.
Proper Windows peaked at win 2000 IMHO - but I’m old and pissed off 
so don’t take me too seriously.
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Search:
- Search being dog slow, and then not even finding stuff
- Search can not calculate
- Search can not convert units
- Can Bing but not the just finished download
Integration:
- Sound settings are cumbersome to use, especially with more than 2 audio devices. Huge regression from WinVista/7
- Teams and Windows do not work well together, are these two from the same company?
Nagware:
- nagging pop-ups advertising “features”
- Advertisements
- Edge… (basically the point above)
- Installing the OS requires special knowledge of a keyboard shortcut and a command (sounds like a linux complaint…) in order to work without internet
Settings:
- Taskbar default is questionable, settings are missing
- Finding settings is an ever changing hunt through 3 generations of menus, all of which do mostly the same except they act differently
- The main Linux complaint: “You often need the terminal” (= Powershell)
- Updates are awfully slow
- Have more than 3 DNS entries and 127.0.0.1? Good luck!
- Have multiple NICs and are not on Server? Good luck!
- Shutdown, doesn’t (unless you tweak 3 registry keys)
System Behaviour:
- RAM-Load is absurd
- CPU-Load at idle does not matter since systems do not idle
- Boot-time is SHIT
- Explorer prone to crashing whole sale if one window acts up
To sum this up:
If Windows was a boat, it would be a canoe carved from half a log with the other half being a collection of used tires, jerry cans, sails, steam engines, diesel engines and a rocket. It is such a disjointed collection of SHIT that the end result ends up spinning in the spot while making a fuck ton of noise.
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Context/Perspective
I haven’t used Windows outside of work in over 5 years, at least, now, so my perspective is from that.
Slow & RAM-hungry
Windows 11 is so incredibly insanely slow. Makes even a brand new, top-spec desktop beast feel like an old Vista-era under-powered laptop with an HDD…all other issues aside (and there are many, as others above have mentioned), this is the one that drives me the most nuts. We live in the era of pocket supercomputers…why in the Hell does a brand new, incredibly powerful laptop or desktop have to feel so god damn slow??? — This one is bad enough that I’ve had more people reach out to me this year about moving to Linux than all previous years combined and multiplied by probably at least 10. 
Other than the slowness, it’s also just super RAM-hungry. We’re bumping our minimum spec on laptops from 16GB to 32GB starting with this year’s orders. (Maybe Microshaft is in bed with the RAM cartel? 
)
Misc. Personal Gripes (that I didn’t see above)
- Having to memorize a bunch of long, verbose, convoluted PowerShell incantations now that
wmicis basically completely dead. I get it, but I’m still gonna bitch and moan.
- Why do I have to reinstall the Windows 7-era calculator manually to have a calculator that opens instantly instead of contributing to the problem I put first in my post…
- More I can’t think of at the moment, but I’ll be reminded of them at work tomorrow and maybe update here.
All that said, I’m almost glad Microsoft is so absolutely shitty. Infinite job security, for me…but I’ll continue never using anything from them in my personal life and will direct folks to alternatives when asked or when relevant. 
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I’ve memorized so many *.cpl things to type into the Run box because of this shit…always immensely depressing when another one dies completely or starts redirecting to the new, useless Settings. 
I’ve been quite happy with GrapheneOS, but it’s not for everyone.
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I used an enterprise version when I was in college and you could do it from registry. They still seem to publish the same document here for enterprises, so you might still be able to do it from there. Or just block what you dont want. I blocked bing and no more smart search.
Enterprise
Non enterprise
Edit
Actually I didn’t even realize that was considered part of cortana since I deactivated that on install.
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My top hate: the countless windows updates on windows 11.
Be aware, the next feature update will probably overwrite your preferences on this.
I used to hate windows when it was an OS I used, it (win98) was very unstable which made for a very frustrating experience. But since win2k/winxp it has been acceptably stable.
Today the root of my aversion, not hate, is that Windows doesn’t serve me, it serves its master - Microsoft.
Telemetry, ads, product activation, online accounts, tpm2.0 requirements - these are things that are not added for me. Their addition is to my disadvantage, but someone else’s advantage.
Today I just view it as something made for someone else.
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Bitlocker is enabled on by default and if you are especially lucky the retrival-key is stored in the first MS-online account Windows came into contact with. MS Account from ex-exployer; private MS-account you created as throwaway or to continune installation - slam dunk that thing right in there.
IMO this should be a user consicious decision not something enabled automatically after the user got bullied into a MS online account. But as usual for MS, its poorly worded, poorly explained and / or secretly executed.
One of my gripes:
- Using a network connection without internet. (I have a second virtual NIC I just connect to my local VMs and Windows goes crazy in the first time setup) “Oh my god how can this be, a network connection without internet or gateway. Brrr it is unidentified, lets call everybody to arms.”
I’m on /e/OS (on a fairphone) and quite happy with it 
I recently got a job at my college’s IT help desk and since then I’ve seen way too many instances of people having problems with OneDrive.
It’ll come preinstalled on someone’s computer and they’ll be going along their business and suddenly they’ll start getting errors telling them they’re out of disk space. Obviously, their computer has plenty of disk space, but Onedrive, with its measly 5GB of free storage has been filled up (sometimes its by user created files but I’ve also seen programs like solidworks put tons of files in folders that are backed up by default) and Windows oh so conveniently doesn’t make it obvious that its OneDrive’s fault that you are supposedly “out of disk space”.
I find this Incredibly stupid and for every two people who come to the help desk there’s got to be another person who doesn’t know any better and just buys more OneDrive space.
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Especially because it tries to take over the user folders (documents, pictures etc.) in the default setting or tries to “backup” these, not surewhat the current “meta” is.
Recently in the news: Microsoft changes the AutoSave feature to be cloud first. Here’s how to retain Local AutoSave:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Word]
"AutoSaveByDefaultUserChoice"=dword:00000002
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Excel]
"AutoSaveByDefaultUserChoice"=dword:00000002
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\PowerPoint]
"AutoSaveByDefaultUserChoice"=dword:00000002
Word, Excel and PowerPoint retain local AutoSave after this whole thing. These are NOT controllable by an ADMX, which means Group Policy to Registry shenanigans…
Now mind you that for corporate work, I think that Cloud AutoSave is probably for the better. But for personal stuff - I’d like to have my choice thank you very much.
Edit: Finished testing.
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Hate’s more energy than I’m willing to invest in Microsoft’s follies.
Agree with pretty much all of the criticism here, though. Some things I’d add that haven’t been mentioned.
- Even the clock app wants you to sign in.
- Questionable if 11’s still reliable with HMB drives.
- Started this month’s patch cycle on 25H2 and every update had to be nudged to install one by one. Then the restart to finish does more install shutting down and, starting up, jumps from 30 to 98% complete, followed by 99, 100, and then another update phase.
So Windows update’s now degraded to where it can’t total the updates being installed correctly. It’s like Microsoft’s turning Windows 10 end of life into a feature since the lack of updates is protection against update bugs. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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