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.
