Ex-engineer blasts Microsoft – argues it must fix Windows 11 'until it doesn't suck', never mind about AI

• Dave Plummer was a software engineer for Microsoft a couple of decades ago
• He argues that Microsoft needs to stabilize, improve, and make Windows 11 more performant, rather than adding new features
• He suggests Microsoft should do that for an entire release cycle until Windows 11 'doesn't suck'

An ex-Microsoft engineer has made it clear what he thinks Microsoft needs to do with Windows 11, rather than heaping on fancy AI features by the bucket-load, and it's along similar lines to what I've been arguing for a while now – namely, getting back to the fundamentals.

This is Dave Plummer – who was a coder for Microsoft back in the nineties and early noughties, and the creative force behind Task Manager (as well as Space Cadet Pinball) – who (again) pulls no punches in a post on X (and a YouTube video) as flagged by The Register.

Plummer says, "It's time for Microsoft to have another XP SP2 moment."

That refers to the second service pack (SP2) that Microsoft released for Windows XP, with such a pack designed to fix bugs and smooth over the existing operating system to improve any performance or usability bumps.

In 2003, the Blaster worm infected millions of Windows XP PCs – it was the WannaCry of its day, kind of, and a huge disaster for Microsoft. When it happened, Plummer observes, "It was a big enough deal that we set aside all feature work. For the next several months, all we did was improve security. We didn't add 'security features'; we fixed bugs. Lots of bugs. Until there weren't security bugs to fix anymore. Then we fixed the ones we didn't know about yet."

He adds, "Put simply, we stopped trying to 'add value' to the product through features that PMs [Project Managers] thought users would like and instead we focused on things that had been important for a long time but overlooked. Like performance and configurability today."

Plummer draws a parallel between what Microsoft is doing then, and what it's up to now, in terms of implementing an avalanche of new AI features to 'add value' rather than fixing what's wrong with the basics of Windows 11 – and that's plenty, as I've been banging on about for the past month or two.

He concludes, "I argue it's time for Microsoft to stabilize, improve, and make the system more performant. And more usable for power users. Just for one release. Just till it doesn't suck."

Analysis: nail meets head – but how realistic is this prospect?

As I've already made clear, I think Plummer has very much hit the nail on the head here, and indeed driven that metal spike clean through the plank of wood that is Microsoft's marketing department (which appears to have rather lost its way in recent times).

At least in my opinion, it feels like word has come down from the marketing gurus at the top of Microsoft's PR tree about how AI buzzwords need to be pushed, and pushed hard (from 'agents' through to 'agentic platforms' or 'AI native' and so on). We had a handful of Microsoft's high-level execs talking about the future of Windows in these terms earlier this year, then the big revelation of how every Windows 11 PC is going to become an AI PC (another line straight off the corporate hymn sheet of buzz-phrases).

This renewed focus on AI has led to plenty of negative reactions and bad feelings from many Windows 11 users out there. At least in terms of us plain old consumers, who aren't that interested in AI features coming at us left, right, and center, and would rather have Microsoft fix the operating system's bugs, foibles, and missing basic features, as has been discussed at length in recent times.

Meanwhile, some Microsoft execs aren't exactly helping the cause by pushing back against this grassroots rebellion.

The overall vibe appears, at least to me, to run along the lines of the perceptions of shareholders and value of Microsoft stock being more important than the feelings and needs of everyday users. And that the marketing drive is more of a priority than the actual substance, and nuts and bolts, of Windows 11.

And yes, you need marketing to perform in a competitive software environment, but you also need to focus on the quality of the existing product and not just the shiny-new-things (TM) which are coming down the line.

So, I wholeheartedly agree that Microsoft should slow down on the push for new features, and the incessant chatter about how the future is AI – and start talking about how it's going back to work on the guts of Windows 11, tinkering with the underlying code, and fixing performance issues and bugs.

The question, however, then becomes: is this even a realistic proposition for a business like Microsoft? Could the software giant pause for a whole release cycle, as Plummer suggests, just to fix the innards of Windows 11 with the contemporary equivalent of a service pack?

No, frankly, I very much doubt that this idea would fly (or even get anywhere near taxiing) on the corporate side for obvious reasons. But we can hope that Microsoft might at least formulate some kind of fresh strategy for better dealing with Windows 11's various niggles, bugs, and performance pitfalls – and start making it clear that it's taking action here.

In short, let's have less chat about AI and more detail about how Windows 11 is going to have some of its longstanding issues remedied in the future.

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