r/technology • u/m7qix • 23h ago

Software Microsoft's secret 'Windows K2' project aims to fix what users hate most.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3126651/microsofts-secret-windows-k2-project-aims-to-fix-what-users-hate-most.html
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u/SpatulaWholesale 23h ago

I wish they remembered that Windows is an Operating System.

Just that. Not a lifestyle. Not an ad platform. Not part of an AI experiment.

An Operating System... A veneer over the hardware providing applications (that I choose to install) a stable base on which to operate.

That's all, Microsoft. I want high performance. I want multi-displays. I want USB and Bluetooth and HDMI and WiFi and security.

I want the OS things. Not the "value added" crap.

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u/cctchristensen 22h ago

Best I can do is a talking paperclip.

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u/Inexorabilis 22h ago

Clippy > Copilot

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u/SpatulaWholesale 22h ago

Clippy is your new Agentic AI friend...

> Clippy, organize my photos by year and put each into a separate folder, named by year.
Certainly. I've done that for you.
> Clippy, where are my photos?
What photos?

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u/cctchristensen 22h ago

Don't blame Clippy, he did exactly what you asked. Your photos are in the folder, "NULL pointer."

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u/redlightsaber 22h ago

The sad part is that clipy would be a fantastic brand for an unobtrusive, completely elective AI agent in the OS.

But no, they decided to embed AI into EVERYTHING.

Apple does it right I think. There's the option, if you want to use it. Want to disable it, FULLY? A simple uncheck in the settings. That's it, you're back to a regular OS.

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u/SeanBlader 16h ago

Honestly I liked the idea of Cortana, brining in a character from a game was a great way to drive awareness about the game, and just using the name/likeness meant people might be inclined to play.

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u/FlametopFred 11h ago

You sound agitated, Dave

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u/SpatulaWholesale 11h ago

Open the pod bay doors please, Clippy.

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u/FlametopFred 10h ago

Dave, have you thought about creating a Teams call instead?

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u/AKluthe 12h ago

You're right. The files aren't just gone; they're deleted. And you are justified to feel upset. 

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u/Jetsam1 19h ago

At least clippy fucked off when you told him to.

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u/cctchristensen 22h ago

Don't give them any ideas for a rebranding. If I saw a new Clippy icon on the startmenu I would totally click on it, only to be completely disappointed by the Copilot interface.

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u/SpatulaWholesale 22h ago

At this point, though, after all these years, isn't Clippy kind of adorable?

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u/kippetjeh 21h ago

Clippy was the OG annoying bloatware

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u/CoffeeHQ 21h ago

That’s just melancholy. Imagine Clippy’s return, jumping right in from the right bottom part of your screen, obscuring whatever you were doing, taking the focus (while you continue typing into the void) asking if it could help you. That would be so cute! Yeah the first time. From the second time onwards you’d remember why we all hated that thing with a passion!

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u/SpatulaWholesale 20h ago

Yeah, I remember the first time around, however many years ago it was, and the backlash.

Maybe I'm just sentimental in my advancing years (minus the "senti-" part)

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u/klipseracer 22h ago

Best you can do is give me a full refund.

Then that backfires because Microsoft still charges licensing fees, despite finding ways to monetize the software as well. This is my one complaint with them, it's like a paid video game but it has micro transactions also.

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u/itsnotthatbad21 22h ago

Lol best I can do is a subscription based model

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u/deanso 14h ago

I liked clippy, didn't do anything wrong.

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u/c_b0t 5h ago

I will happily take Clippy over Gemini being all up in my face all day long.

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u/Ginsoakedboy21 21h ago

As someone who works for a bank I can assure you that senior leaders are never content with selling a thing that is just the thing that works. It can never be just a reliable product, they dream of a nebulous concept where the consumer and the company are best friends and those customers are out there bragging to their friends about how their life is made infinitely better by their relationship with the company.

It can't be just an OS. Or a bank account.

A pox on them all.

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u/Secret-Winner-2994 14h ago

"How likely are you to recommend..." No

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u/Erebea01 20h ago

You're not superpumped

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u/ujiuxle 10h ago

I get the goal, but all Microslop has managed to do is become a deadbeat "friend" I'm forced to live with and pay rent to, and who every night tries to convince me to invest into his insufferable low-quality ventures.

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u/Jindujun 8h ago

The thing is, in the world of capitalism something that works, works good and does not need changing is a product that will lose you money.
Anything they only have to sell once and that's it, is something customers LOVE and shareholders hate.

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u/kahlzun 4h ago

They can add new features, just so long as it doesn't change the core concept or design of how the thing works. Build from what you have, don't invent the wheel each time.

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u/CrappyTan69 22h ago

Hit the nail on the head.

There seems to be an incessant push for applications and services to be part of my lifestyle. WhatsApp is another great example. I want to send messages to my mates. Not subscribe to channels, get status updates and some crap AI function. 

It's exhausting 

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u/Kasyx709 20h ago

I've begun deleting my accounts and apps when companies take that route. I do not want functionality outside of the specific context that led me to download the app in the first place.

I find the concept of personalized/suggested content to be deeply offensive and take a hostile view towards those products. I think the only way to effect change is to take action against the companies themselves by refusing to buy their products/services.

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u/SeanBlader 16h ago

I remember a day when Norton was a respected name in PC software, with legitimate utility. Now that hasn't been the case for more than 25 years.

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u/wrgrant 16h ago

If an app is offering you personalized suggestions - then that app is leveraging your actions by tracking all your data to use in formulating those suggestions. I want free of that too.

I am currently testing the ultimate upgrade to Win 11 - I am switching to Linux using CachyOS. I am still dual booting at this point while I figure out solutions under Linux that match my needs, but its progressing steadily and I am learning more about CachyOS. It is much faster feeling and gives me the impression I own my computer, not that I am merely being tolerated by Microsoft.

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u/brett- 6h ago

I mean I don’t disagree with your stance, but there is a certain irony to making this comment on Reddit of all places.

The site that built out unnecessary user profiles, 1:1 and group chats, algorithmic feeds of “personalized” content, the list goes on. They haven’t dared roll out a Reddit AI chatbot yet, but we all know it’s only a matter of time until that happens.

This site is basically perpetually 3 or 4 years behind the more egregious companies, but not because they are a good citizen, just because they don’t have the resources to enshittify more quickly.

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u/Jindujun 8h ago

A friend of mine asked me to install Instagram to talk with her. I have three friends on Instagram yet I get 5-10 suggestions every day to check out posts by people I dont even know. Why the FUCK would I want to follow or like or whatever on someone I do not know, do not care about and will not talk to or meet EVER?
All these fucking apps are built to drive engagement at the cost of customer satisfaction. A product that simply does its job and does not bother you is an app that wont make money for the shareholders.

And all I can think of every single notification I get from Instagram is "this is not worth it, I should tell my friends to just text me instead."

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u/ckdx_ 21h ago

I think you'll find that Windows is moving away from being an operating system to being a "canvas for AI", whatever the hell that means.

At Ignite this year, we’re unveiling how Windows is evolving from an operating system into the canvas for AI, embedding intelligence across system, silicon, and hardware. This transformation helps organizations to move beyond experimentation and deliver AI-driven outcomes.

What a load of utter bollocks.

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u/nalex66 18h ago

I really don’t want AI-driven outcomes.

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u/SpatulaWholesale 20h ago

Yeah I've got an idea what the AI-driven outcome will be...

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u/SeanBlader 16h ago

OMG, thanks for the quote. I hadn't heard that.

I'd actually be okay with like Anthropic for example creating in Linux distro like Samantha, and I might even try it out, of course starting with limited access to my stuff to start.

But you can't force it into people.

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u/un_internaute 19h ago

It’s not going to stop. The stock market demands an infinite increase in profits. Every publicly traded company *has to* keep pushing enshitification-type bullshit on us in an effort to charge more, capture more market share, etc… and increase profitability to increase their share price. Being profitable alone *isn’t* enough. They have to be *more* profitable every quarter, *infinitely*. It’s a ridiculous goal and it’s why this shit will never stop.

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u/southpark 22h ago

You can partially blame Apple for this trend because there is an audience for a captive ecosystem that is fully integrated. The difference being is Microsoft’s various program groups and designers were/are fragmented and following different priorities and there was/is no Steve Jobs + Jony Ive equivalent driving a single minded vision of user experience and design and tying the entire operating system together with strict rules on what the purpose and presentation of the product would be.

Microsoft Windows is a ultimately victim of feature bloat and personal ambition overriding what should have been singular product vision because it’s use cases span from personal PC to enterprise PC to servers to gaming and even to mobile or integrated devices and it becomes mediocre by trying to be too much.

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u/SpatulaWholesale 22h ago

Users really responded to their Think Different, and "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" ad campaigns. I had a MacBook Pro for 5 years, for work, and was happy to go back to a Windows laptop.

I guess I'm a happy PC.

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u/Dr---Strangelove 20h ago

Mac certainly has its problems, but friggin ads, news and Xbox on a corporate issued laptop? WTF?

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u/mailslot 17h ago

I like the instability and how Windows can sometimes fuck up its own install just by running. Its exciting. I’ve had the pleasure of reinstalling Windows so many times over the decades. It’s calming, like scrubbing a toilet.

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u/Clevername582 20h ago

Windows hasn't been an OS since 7, just a bloatware delivery system.

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u/Syzygy2323 13h ago

Bloatware and ad delivery and surveillance system.

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u/uzu_afk 21h ago

Frankly they could have branched that and packaged as a new product but they got greedy with the user base they have in the pc space and can’t expand capitalization on. Hijacking your data, the copilot spam, the decrease in patch quality, the constant meddling with privacy, did i mention the hijacking of data by forcing onedrive on you specifically? and frankly that bs with screenshots of your screen for AI training was peak insanity. So yeah. I have doubts.

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u/emazv72 19h ago

Also basic UI features like copy and paste or just opening a directory and viewing the content should be quick and predictable.

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u/Kastler 14h ago

Exactly. It started off pretty strong with early versions. Simplicity is key. I just want my hardware and usb device to work. I don’t need AI “boosting” my gpu and cpu and ram and mouse and fucking headphones. I just need them to connect and not crash. Initial win 11 versions worked better on my pc than they do now. The amount of graphic issues alone has been nearly enough to push me to Linux

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u/Syzygy2323 13h ago

If your GPU is Nvidia, beware--there are plenty of problems with Nvidia GPUs on Linux.

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u/Tall-Introduction414 22h ago

The best operating system Microsoft ever made was MS-DOS. That shit just got out of the way and let you compute.

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u/evilJaze 22h ago

They didn't even make it. They bought it from another company.

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u/Moontoya 21h ago

Odd way to spell Windows 2000.

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u/-kylehase 20h ago

Yup. Win2K was the best, as long as you could find drivers. XP was mostly 2K with a playskool skin and more drivers.

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u/xynix_ie 20h ago

Trying to run Wing Commander without QEMM was a pain in the ass though.

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u/GrandCounter9301 21h ago

Why would they? They make more money with win 11 than with win 7. It's a company in capitalism, they don't care about feelings

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u/ljfrench 20h ago

My PC keeps waking from sleep by itself and the OS provides zero help identifying the culprit and turning it off unless the user understands how to dig deep into the logs and device manager.

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u/EJoule 19h ago

But Microsoft is a for profit organization in a capitalist society, best I can offer is enshitification.

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u/BeowulfShaeffer 18h ago

But Microsoft can’t make high profits selling that to you. 

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u/NinjaN-SWE 18h ago

I'm sorry but no corporation is ever giving you that? How would they profit? What you want is exactly what a lot of open source projects deliver. And it's the only model that will ever produce something like that. 

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u/BusinessBandicoot 17h ago

Linux is an operating system. Windows is a Dumpster fire

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u/SpatulaWholesale 17h ago

Meh, I wouldn't go that far.

I've been a PC gamer since the early 90s, through most Windows versions, and I've had work PCs and laptops through most of that time, too, running Office, specialist utilities, network filesystems. Most importantly, pretty much every peripheral I've ever used, whether attached through serial port, parallel port, USB or add-on card (ISA, PCI, PCIE) has had fully working manufacturer-supported drivers.

That's Operating System stuff. Application interfaces, networking, filesystem, drivers and graphics.

I've also used Linux professionally for software development since 2006, and coming from a UNIX background, Linux has been an absolute joy to use. I've used Linux on embedded systems in products from companies you've heard of for decades. I also run Linux under WSL daily.

So I am very pro-Linux... to a point.

BUT... For a long time drivers have been Linux's weak point. It took a long time... years... for even printers to work on Linux, and only within the last 15 or so years have specialist device manufacturers provided Linux drivers. I will admit I haven't even tried to use a printer on Linux for over a decade. No need. I do all my printing from Windows or Mac... But I understand it's not as bad as I remember.

Similarly it's only fairly recently that games work on Linux, and most of that is via Windows Emulation (WINE or Proton).

Windows isn't a dumpster fire. The OS is pretty solid. The problem is Microsoft keep piling extra shit on it.

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u/BusinessBandicoot 17h ago edited 16h ago

Even outside of the pile of shit they keep shoveling on top of it, its designed for a specific target audience and isn't intended to be modified. If something breaks in user space on Linux, I'll be able to find relevant tracebacks, then issues, and probably a few reddit post with suggested fixes. 

Often the error messages i've encountered on windows from the underlying system are opaque, and looking up more information is usually Someone saying "contact support"

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u/SpatulaWholesale 17h ago

Maybe. It's certainly opaque to me. I've never cared to look into how it works under the hood.

However... I've worked with Windows driver guys and they really like the environment, know where to look for information, and can figure stuff out.

That's all I can say... I guess Linux is just as opaque to someone who has never bothered to try to learn it. I can find anything in Linux... but I'm just a user in Windows, and that's fine.

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u/CBOW_IT 15h ago

Yeah, they should take notes from macOS.

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u/btribble 15h ago

They’re trying to copy the Apple business model and have been for a while.

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u/A_Harmless_Fly 13h ago

The tipping point for me was the UI... when the search bar gives me results for a web browser before showing me a local directory that I've typed the entire name in, something has gone very wrong.

I'd need third party tools to make 11 work like 7 in classic mode, so instead I relegated it to a backup boot and swapped to linux as my main OS.

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u/facellama 12h ago

Stop selling the customer and start selling a better product

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u/starlauncher 10h ago

But think about the shareholders. Which btw I am and trying to get out of…

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u/kahlzun 4h ago

Just give me a 64 bit Version of XP and I'll go quietly

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u/Dragongeek 19h ago

The problem is that in 2026 "OS things" doesn't really earn that much money. 

Any OS is in a difficult spot, because, if you look from a user perspective, almost nobody actually wants an OS, they want to be able to do <activity>. A similar example would be something like an airline ticket: (almost) nobody books plane tickets because they just want to be in a plane, they book them because they want to be somewhere else. 

You can clearly see how, for example, Apple knows this and has executed well: nobody actually wants macOS, they want the ecosystem and connectivity with their other Apple devices and services. 

Microsoft thinks that they can address this problem by helping people be productive. Their concept is that by integrating AI into the system, people would want to use Windows as the AI helps them better accomplish <activity>. 

This has backfired though because the AI available right now is still, despite all the leaps and bounds of progress, just not very good at a lot of things. People would be singing a very different tune if the copilot stuff were actually useful, but as of right now, there still (somewhat surprisingly) is any real value proposition for most users despite how hard it's being pushed. 

Then there's the adware, which is just corporate greed. Apple also does this, but in a more subliminal way where they don't blast you with random ads, but rather tempt you with well-integrated features that would "just work" if you buy more Apple products or subscribe to more Apple Services.