Win10 Settings App should group common libraries (e.g. Visual C++ Redistributables) about windows-dev-performance

[Eli-Black-Work]

My main problem with the new Settings app is that you can't open two copies of it at once. There's no way to, for example, open a window for adding a new user account and also open a window to change your network's proxy settings. Or to have a window open for installing a shared printer and have a window open with network settings. This is a huge blocker :/

[bitcrazed]

Updated the title to better reflect the ask. Will submit feedback to the VCLibs team, but as @zooba says, the VCLibs are constructed, packaged, and delivered the way they are for various business, operational, and legal reasons, including back-compat support.

What might make this easier to deal with is to better group and display minor updates/versions of shared libraries/resources in the installed-app UX. This may help reduce noise and make it clearer what versions of which packages are actually deployed. Thoughts?

We're in the process of retiring/modernizing Control Panel applets and will (hopefully) see the legacy "Programs and Features" disappear and be fully replaced by the modern Settings apps' "Apps & features". I also hope that our UX overhaul efforts will improve the layout and UX of the latter to better use the space available ...

... so one could actually differentiate between these packages, or perhaps better still, group them app under a collapsible "Microsoft Visual C++ Restributable" group!

Let's see what our UX team think.

Stay tuned.

[bitcrazed]

Oh, so it's a competition is it, Steve? Right ...

Setup:

1. Right click Desktop, hit New -> Shortcut
2. Enter ms-settings:appsfeatures into the Location of item field and hit next
3. Name the shortcut to "Launch Apps & features" and hit Finish
4. Open Notepad
5. Pin Notepad to Taskbar
6. Right click "Notepad" tile on taskbar, right click Notepad menu item, hit "Properties"
7. Into 'Location of item' field, enter %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\Launch Apps & features.url
8. Change icon if you wish
9. Hit OK
10. Drag new Taskbar tile to left-most item on Taskbar

Usage

Either:

• Hit Windows + 1

Or

• Click tile using mouse

😜

[WSLUser]

I find having win32 applications and redistributable libraries such as Visual C++ being separate from UWP ones very useful. Plus currently the Optional Features still require "Programs and Features". I think system installed software should be separated from user profile installed software when addressing this issue. Also I'm used to the Program and Features, I've used it for my entire IT career. We shouldn't just get rid of it, at least not for regular Windows 10. 10x can strip it out.

[bitcrazed]

Thanks @marcosins - I think that'd work too. Ultimately, if we can get AT LEAST one level of grouping, the UX would clean up nicely.

In modern Settings UX, something along these lines (with apologies to anyone with taste and UX design skills 😜):

[Poopooracoocoo]

A&F doesn't use columns (see Windows Community Toolkit's DataGrid) and it wastes quite a bit of space when the window is large horizontally, especially for app names. P&F has additional columns and you can sort as you please. You can also quickly scroll the list by "typing ahead" without searching. i did of course file feedback years ago. it's just a subpar experience imo. ugh

and people are still mentioning msix when ms doesn't even use it? oop

[bitcrazed]

All: Closing for now as this is somewhat out of scope for this repo. Please continue to route via Feedback Hub so it gets to the Settings team. I know this can feel like a one-way street and a black hole, but know that there are real people and teams on the other end of the channel who appreciate your feedback and suggestions, and who are in a position to review and make changes if feasible.

Thanks for filing.

[maxkatz6]

@marcosins that responsibility isn't for winget, but for packaging system like MSIX. And it works already as far as I know.
But for legacy application, and those that doesn't use modern packaging system, there is this issue to solve.

[marcosins]

What might make this easier to deal with is to better group and display minor updates/versions of shared libraries/resources in the installed-app UX. This may help reduce noise and make it clearer what versions of which packages are actually deployed. Thoughts?

.. so one could actually differentiate between these packages, or perhaps better still, group them app under a collapsible "Microsoft Visual C++ Restributable" group!

I think it would be better to group them by year and move the revisions for each year under that specific category:

• Visual C++ 2005 Restributable >
• Visual C++ 2008 Restributable >
• Visual C++ 2010 Restributable >
• Visual C++ 2012 Restributable >
• Visual C++ 2013 Restributable >
• Visual C++ 2013-2019 Restributable >

I'm thinking of something like these old collapsible headers but I don't know how this integrates with the new design language of Windows 10.

[bitcrazed]

@WSLUser Alas, the legacy "Programs And Features" (P&F) is a minefield - it doesn't list modern apps (e.g. Windows Terminal, Mail, Calendar), and is plagued by UI issues (e.g. poor 4K/high-DPI support, low-viz & scaling/accessibility issues, renders using the CPU, etc.).

As someone who's been using Windows since Windows 2.11 / Windows/386 in 1989, I understand the impact of disruption to long-held habits when tech is moved around/changed, but the app & UI infrastructure supporting legacy tools like P&F needs to go. It's time 😉

Plus, accessing the modern apps page in Settings is pretty easy:

1. HIt Windows key
2. Type "apps"
3. Hit ENTER
4. Manage your apps

More to the point though, we have too many ways to install and manage apps and features

• Legacy Programs and Features
• Legacy "Turn Windows Features on or off"
• Modern Settings' "Apps & features"
• "Modern" (but underutilized) "Optional Features"
• Microsoft Store

And now we're adding the command-line winget Package Manager.

Thankfully, we're working on a plan to rationalize this story somewhat. Bear with us while we do the work.

[zooba]

Plus, accessing the modern apps page in Settings is pretty easy:

1. HIt Windows key
2. Type "apps"
3. Hit ENTER
4. Manage your apps

I'll beat you by one step ;)

1. Hit Windows + X
2. "Apps and Features" (top menu item, in English)
3. Manage your apps

[bitcrazed]

@Bosch-Eli-Black Please do submit/upvote in Feedback hub - I know that multi-instance settings is an ask the team do receive on a regular basis - the more upvotes, the more likely they'll have the ammo they need to prioritize and address the ask!

[marcosins]

IMO, this should be resolved with the new package manager winget. An installer should declare VC++ as a minimum version dependency and winget installs or uses the already installed one.

[zooba]

I would say this has already been resolved as best as it can be. All v14.x runtimes (Visual C++ 2015-2019) can be distributed together, and that will continue until a major breaking change has to be made.

All of the previous installers are currently shipping with other applications (I know - I use various app which install all of them). There's no way to change how those MSIs work, so they'll continue existing until the other apps can move onto the latest release.

At best, Windows could explicitly hide these packages. I'm not sure how valuable that would really be, though.

[maxkatz6]

@bitcrazed well, I actually like the idea of grouping items in Apps & features. It could also group host app with extensions (yeah, it isn't related to this issue).

[bitcrazed]

@maxkatz6 - Agreed - grouping dependencies under their "owning" app would also be useful in some cases.