Microsoft should ditch ‘pointless features’ like Search Highlights

I share Computeractive’s reservations about the forthcoming Search Highlights feature in Windows (News, Issue 628, page 6), and it makes me wonder whether Microsoft has forgotten the disaster that was Live Tiles in Windows 8.

If I recall, I put up with those distracting tiles for about a week before realising that upgrading to Windows 8 was a mistake. Microsoft should stop blurring the line between what people want to do in Windows, and what they want to do on the internet.

I see it as a psychological distinction: when I’m browsing the web, it almost feels like I’m using a separate machine entirely (called ‘the internet’) and not my computer. That’s probably because some of my browsing is done on phones and tablets. Whenever I buy a new Windows laptop, every couple of years, I regard it more as a device for editing videos, using Office and so on.

If I wanted a laptop just for browsing the web, I’d buy a Chromebook. And if I wanted to find out what was happening online, I’d look at Google News, or glance at the ‘trending’ sections of websites. When I’m searching on Windows, I’m looking for something on my computer, not some triviality online. I realise Microsoft wants to promote its Bing search engine, but cluttering Windows with images and links isn’t the way to do it. It’ll just make people associate Bing with nuisances they want to avoid.

Microsoft should stop trying to be Google. Bing is never going to be the top search engine, but Windows will remain the best operating system if they can refrain from adding pointless features. Russell Stock