The Context Menu, Windows 11 and Beyond.
You know, Windows 11 isn't all that bad. At least Enterprise isn't - Pro/Home is absolutely god-awful with the metric ton of digital garbage Microsoft decided to cram down the Start menu's poor, defenseless throat. Bubbleblast? What's next, bringing back Clippy to ask if I want help finding my dignity? 2009 called and wants its mobile game shovelware back.
Really though, it's just a shinier Windows 10 wearing a fancy new haircut, and I've got no major beef with it overall. The thing runs, files don't spontaneously combust, and my coffee maker still can't achieve sentience through USB - so we're winning.
However, that context menu... oh boy, that context menu has more issues than a teenager's diary. I absolutely did not need some cutesy emoji-style shortcut plastered over the thing I actually use most. Why do I have to channel my inner hacker and generate a PowerShell script just to make it behave like a normal human being designed it? Who looked at this and thought, "You know what users really want? LESS context in their context menu!"
The Windows 11 "context" menu sure is missing some context alright - it's like ordering a hamburger and getting a deconstructed art installation instead. But fear not! All is well again once you dig past the pretty facade, and Windows, in all its bloated former glory, shines through with that beautiful, magnificent 200+ option context menu. (Yes, I've got things installed - 7-Zip, WinRAR, three different screenshot tools, two PDF readers I forgot I had, and enough right-click options to make a developer weep. Don't judge me and I won't judge your seventeen different media players.)
Overall, let's call it a solid win and definitely a better leap than the XP-to-Vista faceplant of 2007, or that Windows 7-to-8 disaster so spectacular they had to release 8.1 just to apologize. Still plenty of room for Microsoft to stop fixing things that weren't broken in the first place, though.
Over and out,
~ Dad
P.S. - If anyone from Microsoft is reading this, I still haven't forgiven you for removing the ability to decline Edge. We need to talk.
In case you younger ones need to know what the heck I'm rambling about:
- Clippy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant - Microsoft's "helpful" paperclip assistant that haunted Office users from 1997-2007
- Windows Vista: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista - The OS so universally despised that people clung to XP until Windows 7 rescued us all
- Windows 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8 - Microsoft's tile-obsessed fever dream that made everyone question reality
- WinRAR: https://www.win-rar.com/ - The compression tool everyone uses but nobody actually buys (you know who you are)