When it comes to Windows promises, Microsoft does not deserve your trust

It’s finally come to this, then: after years of consumer-hostile decisions and deceptive tactics, overly aggressive cross-promotion and substandard code quality control, Microsoft is now forced to make more promises about Windows. That seems to be the case according to The Verge, to which Pavan Davuluri, president of Windows and devices, chose to make a statement regarding the company’s 2026 plans for Windows 11.

Davaluri is openly admitting to the company’s failures, even if how he chooses to phrase this surely makes for a gross understatement: “The feedback we’re receiving from our community of passionate customers and Windows Insiders has been clear. We need to improve Windows in ways that are meaningful for people”. You don’t say. And here comes the promise: “This year you will see us focus on addressing pain points we hear consistently from customers: improving system performance, reliability and the overall experience of Windows”.

Right.

The first, obvious problem with this statement – and this crisis management move as a whole – is that Microsoft’s promises have historically been both meaningless and worthless. If anything, this is a company constantly proving it does not make good use of consumer feedback (even if it sometimes pretends to do so for a while). It is a company that makes specific self-serving plans, which do not materially change even if they prove to be extremely controversial and unpopular with millions of people. Windows 11 is proof of that.

The other huge problem is that, even if Microsoft did mean to fix Windows 11, there’s no indication the company is actually able to do that anymore. Quality control of Windows code has been so unbelievably bad over the last few years that it makes one wonder if there is any internal testing done on Windows updates nowadays or whether the company is just using consumers as guinea pigs – a.k.a. involuntary beta testers – at scale by default.

The company’s Windows Insider program, which used to be of some help in the past, is clearly ineffective now. Plus, if Microsoft’s development teams are indeed using AI as extensively as Satya Nadella claims, then yours truly is not sure he actually wants to see how GitHub Pilot or Claude Code will “improve” Windows 11.

But there’s a third problem with Microsoft’s latest Windows promises – an even bigger one and one of its own making. See, even if the company really did mean to improve Windows 11 in ways consumers have been asking for – and even if it did demonstrate it can actually do that – it would still not be able to undo the damage done over the last decade or so. Microsoft has, little by little, year after year, simply lost people’s trust and that is extremely difficult to win back. Certainly way more difficult than the company seems to think it is.

Simply put, self-serving corporate tactics have long-term consequences. This particular company made a lot of consumer-hostile choices (with Windows 11 as well as with Windows 10) and, well, this is what those deliberate choices lead to. It’s just too late for these executives to say now – now that Windows is actually threatened by Linux, SteamOS and macOS – that they will make things right. It’s not just that Microsoft is not fooling anyone in terms of what this is really about (mainstream AI adoption). It’s also that it does not deserve the second chance it’s asking for, which is an outcome the company’s leadership should have thought about before angering so many millions of Windows users with its abusive tactics in the first place.

That’s why yours truly would advise anyone considering moving away from Windows to whatever platform fits their needs and workflows – be it macOS, SteamOS or a number of other Linux flavors – to just ignore Microsoft’s latest promises. This is a company that systematically lied about every aspect of its most important piece of software for decades, gaslighting and frustrating consumers at every turn. Microsoft does not deserve anyone’s trust and it will have to live with that.

As for Windows 11? It’s burned. Even if it was magically fixed tomorrow, its reputation is irreversibly ruined. At this point, it would probably make more sense to put more resources towards making the inevitable Windows 12 a decent operating system. Assuming, you know, that anyone will actually care by then.