It's not React. A small part (recommended apps) was built using React Native for Windows, which is not React Native but an offshoot that uses native Windows APIs.
If MS really wants its users back, many of which have left for Linux and Mac, it should seriously consider going back to the Win7 era UI, or at least restore the Windows Classic theme.
Buried in this announcement about Windows 11 improvements is a fascinating admission: the Windows 11 Start menu has been built using React this entire time. Microsoft is now migrating it to their native WinUI3 framework to improve performance and reduce interaction latency.
This explains a lot about why the Start menu has felt sluggish compared to Windows 10.
The React → WinUI migration is the most technically interesting detail imo.
Come on. Are you an employed developer? If so, even if you have that much power over the flagship product of the company, that you can use it to pad your résumé, do you think the same happens at Microsoft? By all means, the bugs may speak of skill issues (or may not: there's also crunching, mandated AI... Who knows), but the Cloud-first, push-ads, force-account etc. enshittification is the implementation of a vision I doubt was collectively composed by devs, let alone a single dev.
This is what I'm wondering. How dysfunctional is microsoft that they shipped a react-based start menu? It reads like satire, "Windows 11 is so bad that even microsoft doesn't use native controls".
MS also made one of the most hated IM and audiovisual meeting applications with web tech, replacing a previously (not great but much better) native one: Teams.
No one left who can use whatever half deprecated native actually-not-that-native windows ui framework is currently undead state of the art and not enough examples in the llm‘s to vibe code it.
It's not React. A small part (recommended apps) was built using React Native for Windows, which is not React Native but an offshoot that uses native Windows APIs.
WinUI is still a bloated pig compared to Win32.
If MS really wants its users back, many of which have left for Linux and Mac, it should seriously consider going back to the Win7 era UI, or at least restore the Windows Classic theme.
Buried in this announcement about Windows 11 improvements is a fascinating admission: the Windows 11 Start menu has been built using React this entire time. Microsoft is now migrating it to their native WinUI3 framework to improve performance and reduce interaction latency.
This explains a lot about why the Start menu has felt sluggish compared to Windows 10.
The React → WinUI migration is the most technically interesting detail imo.
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It's been known for a while - at least 2024 - that its react.
Yeah, I know about that and I'm a Mac / Linux guy.
Why it was necessary to rewrite start menu in React at all? Why rewriting what works fine?
Developers trying to justify their employment and pad their resumes.
Come on. Are you an employed developer? If so, even if you have that much power over the flagship product of the company, that you can use it to pad your résumé, do you think the same happens at Microsoft? By all means, the bugs may speak of skill issues (or may not: there's also crunching, mandated AI... Who knows), but the Cloud-first, push-ads, force-account etc. enshittification is the implementation of a vision I doubt was collectively composed by devs, let alone a single dev.
Resume-driven development making people justify their jobs.
My best guess is ads.
How does this happen? How do you build a fundamental OS control in react?
This is what I'm wondering. How dysfunctional is microsoft that they shipped a react-based start menu? It reads like satire, "Windows 11 is so bad that even microsoft doesn't use native controls".
MS also made one of the most hated IM and audiovisual meeting applications with web tech, replacing a previously (not great but much better) native one: Teams.
No one left who can use whatever half deprecated native actually-not-that-native windows ui framework is currently undead state of the art and not enough examples in the llm‘s to vibe code it.
That leaves „web technologies“.
Lords be praised. Microsoft is bringing back native performance .
Coca Cola famously improved its position when New Coke flopped and it reintroduced the original flavor as "Coca Cola Classic."
If you can't make it better, make it worse, it seems.