Windows user experience (Rant)

[AShadedBlobfish]

I've never really posted here before but I felt it was probably the best place to just get the stupidity of it all off my chest. This morning I was in a situation in which my girlfriend wanted to play some Minecraft (And no, she's not a child) and discovered that she needed to upgrade to the new launcher (I'm aware this isn't necessary but I recommended she do it for compatibility reasons). The installation was fine however when she wanted to make a shortcut to it on her desktop, we discovered that Microsoft seemed to have decided that doing so was not going to happen.

Her PC runs Windows 11, and in Windows 10, I knew that you could simply drag the icon from the start menu (provided it's pinned to start) onto the desktop to create a shortcut and so logically this is the first method I tried, only to find out that there is no such functionality in Windows 11. This was okay though, because I could simply right-click and... nope. Right-clicking doesn't work either. At this point I decided to resort to opening the run dialog, opening shell:startup and then backtracking to the start menu folder, where I thought surely I would find the shortcut to the Minecraft Launcher but there was nothing, even with hidden items turned on.

At this point we both decided that it was more hassle than it was worth although I kept looking around and was unsuccessful in finding any reasonable solutions (other than using batch files). I am pretty sure this problem is due to the Minecraft Launcher being an "Xbox game" and not a normal application, however I would still expect the basic functionality of creating a desktop shortcut.
This thread is going to make me look incredibly stupid if there is a simple solution that I'm not seeing - please let me know if there is - but as far as I can tell there is nothing and in my opinion the lack of such a basic feature is just inadequate

 

TL;DR
Windows 11 doesn't appear to have an obvious way of creating desktop shortcuts for "Xbox" games such as the new Minecraft Launcher

[Sauron]

wouldn't even be a big deal if the windows search function didn't suck a$$

[Tan3l6]

Bit off topic but I wish there was a "light" version of XP-like OS, just for gaming.

[GuiltySpark_]

I haven't used desktop icons in a decade, I launch most everything by hitting the windows key with my thumb and typing a few letters.

 

I decided to test this though, I seem to have no issues adding desktop shortcuts by just right clicking things and creating a shortcut.  (Windows 11)

[Rex Hite]

20 minutes ago, Tan3l6 said:

Bit off topic but I wish there was a "light" version of XP-like OS, just for gaming.

There are free scripts and automated utilities that can disable and even remove Windows 10 bloat. Windows 10 can be made into an an XP-like experience.

 

[GoodBytes]

1 hour ago, AShadedBlobfish said:

I've never really posted here before but I felt it was probably the best place to just get the stupidity of it all off my chest. This morning I was in a situation in which my girlfriend wanted to play some Minecraft (And no, she's not a child) and discovered that she needed to upgrade to the new launcher (I'm aware this isn't necessary but I recommended she do it for compatibility reasons). The installation was fine however when she wanted to make a shortcut to it on her desktop, we discovered that Microsoft seemed to have decided that doing so was not going to happen.

Her PC runs Windows 11, and in Windows 10, I knew that you could simply drag the icon from the start menu (provided it's pinned to start) onto the desktop to create a shortcut and so logically this is the first method I tried, only to find out that there is no such functionality in Windows 11. This was okay though, because I could simply right-click and... nope. Right-clicking doesn't work either. At this point I decided to resort to opening the run dialog, opening shell:startup and then backtracking to the start menu folder, where I thought surely I would find the shortcut to the Minecraft Launcher but there was nothing, even with hidden items turned on.

At this point we both decided that it was more hassle than it was worth although I kept looking around and was unsuccessful in finding any reasonable solutions (other than using batch files). I am pretty sure this problem is due to the Minecraft Launcher being an "Xbox game" and not a normal application, however I would still expect the basic functionality of creating a desktop shortcut.
This thread is going to make me look incredibly stupid if there is a simple solution that I'm not seeing - please let me know if there is - but as far as I can tell there is nothing and in my opinion the lack of such a basic feature is just inadequate

 

TL;DR
Windows 11 doesn't appear to have an obvious way of creating desktop shortcuts for "Xbox" games such as the new Minecraft Launcher

Under Windows 11, Start menu pins, can't be moved to the desktop... at least not yet.

You can go to "All Apps" section, then drag and drop to the desktop a app though.

 

[m9x3mos]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

wouldn't even be a big deal if the windows search function didn't suck a$$

Windows search on 11 actually works pretty well. At least for me it does.