For as long as I can remember, VLC media player has been a staple on all my PCs and laptops. VLC is the ol’ reliable of software – feed it virtually any media format, and it just plays it without fuss.
But recently on Windows 11, I noticed a frustrating issue: launching VLC took anywhere between 10 to 30 seconds. Double-clicking an MP4 and sitting through a 15-second delay just to watch a local video quickly wore thin.
So, last week I replaced VLC with an app that uses the same VLC engine, but which opens instantly and is arguably prettier, Screenbox.
Over the last few months, I kept reading comments on social media about how bad people think Windows 11 is.
“Surely it‘s not that bad,” I kept thinking.
And then I set up a new mini PC with a clean installation of Windows 11 Home, logged in for the first time and thought, “What in hell‘s name is this?!”
It was then that I remembered that I have made a number of significant tweaks to make Windows 11 feel… well, less like Windows 11.
Microsoft has announced that support for Microsoft Publisher ends on 1 October 2026, and Microsoft 365 subscribers will lose access to the application at that time.
I’ve accumulated around 850 Microsoft Publisher (.pub) files over the years. While I no longer use Publisher for new work, I didn’t want to lose the ability to view or print those documents once Publisher disappeared.
To solve the problem, I developed a simple PowerShell script that automates Microsoft Publisher’s own PDF export.
I’ve shared it in a GitHub repo for anyone who needs to do the same.
Recently, I’ve been hearing a lot of people complaining how bad Microsoft Windows 11 is.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been lurking in a lot more Linux forums recently. Or because of the social media and YouTube channels I subscribe to. Or maybe it really is a true reflection of what people are generally thinking about Windows 11, both computer geeks and ordinary users alike.
“It’s not that bad!” I thought to myself.
Until last week when I set up a new user account on my Windows 11 laptop and within minutes thought, “What on earth is this?!”
What people complain about Windows 11
It was then that I realised that for both my Windows desktop and laptop PCs, I’ve insulated myself against most of the Windows 11 quirks that many folks have been complaining about:
I’ve tweaked things enough that most of Windows 11 now feels much like Windows 10. (Even if its deeper dialogs and settings feel like a ghetto, with designs going back to Windows 95 or earlier.)
For anyone who wants to reclaim a bit of sanity, here’s what I do when I set up a new Windows 11 install.
We are all accustomed to regular privacy scares online.
We know our web browsers track our history, social media apps build advertising profiles based on our clicks, and smart speakers listen out for wake words.
But last week, I stumbled across a post on Instagram that claimed that smart TVs are quietly taking screenshots of our displays every few seconds — even when the television is simply being used as a computer monitor.
