Microsoft boss tells investors the company is working to 'win back fans'
- Reference: 1777554012
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/04/30/microsoft_boss_says_company_is/
- Source link:
Nadella was [1]referring to its consumer business as Microsoft has become acutely aware that customers are unhappy with the quality and stability of its flagship operating system.
Microsoft published [2]figures for its third financial quarter this week. In between a cloud earnings bonanza and the now-familiar cheerleading for AI and Copilot, there was something a little more sobering. There are more than 1.6 billion monthly active Windows devices, but some of the users are revolting.
Microsoft tackles quality control issues. Just kidding, it's encouraging experienced workers to leave [3]READ MORE
Earlier this year, Microsoft's Windows boss, Pavan Davuluri, penned a lengthy post [4]promising the tech giant would do better by Windows and the operating system's installed base. Reliability and stability would improve, Copilot would be less prominent, and Microsoft would be more thoughtful about how it hosed AI around a user's working environment.
The problem, as Nadella himself acknowledged, is one of eroding trust. Disillusioned by the company's direction, some longtime enthusiasts have begun looking elsewhere. Microsoft's financials remain relatively healthy, and investors are still waiting to see when its AI bets will begin to pay off, but Nadella's comment signals something more immediate: an acknowledgment that it must change course. A string of quality failures has dented confidence, and restoring it will require more than reassuring words.
[5]Microsoft levels up Azure Local to make it fit for large-scale sovereign clouds
[6]Microsoft lifts 2026 AI spend by $25 billion to cover component price rises
[7]Linux cryptographic code flaw offers fast route to root
[8]Microsoft's patch for a 0-day exploited by Russian spies fell short. Another Windows flaw is under attack
Earlier this week, codeshack Github, which Microsoft bought in 2018 for $7.5 billion in stock, and which is still the largest source code hosting platform in the world, had to [9]apologize for the availability and reliability problems that have devs so frustrated that early adopter Hashicorp co-founder Mitchell Hashimoto [10]pulled his project off the platform. He said he had decided GitHub is so unstable it is "no longer a place for serious work."
Quality control issues in [11]Windows also continue to be a problem for admins.
[12]
Nadella said: "We are … hard at work changing the way we work."
[13]
"Our North Star remains the same: delivering customer value with highest quality and top-class innovation."
Microsoft might believe that. However, as Nadella admitted, it needs its former loyalists to believe that too, and return to the fold. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor/events/fy-2026/earnings-fy-2026-q3
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/30/microsoft_q3_2026/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/24/microsoft_seeks_quality_improvements_by/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/24/windows_boss_promises/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/30/azure_local_upgrade/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/30/microsoft_q3_2026/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/30/linux_cryptographic_code_flaw/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/29/microsoft_zero_click_exploit/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/29/github_says_sorry_and_says/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/29/mitchell_hashimoto_ghostty_quitting_github/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/24/microsoft_seeks_quality_improvements_by/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2afN8p2Oet6NFU0TrGk4HogAAAEk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44afN8p2Oet6NFU0TrGk4HogAAAEk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Fans! Fans! Fans!
Nadella is doing it wrong.
Since Microsoft has no real plan to fix the bugs and rein in the unwanted antifeatures which are driving "fans" away, the least they could do is give us a funny moment on stage.
Re: Fans! Fans! Fans!
Calling Elon Musk, calling Elon Musk!
Re: Fans! Fans! Fans!
Yeah, too late now.
The shit already hit the fans. Badly.
consumer business?
Nadella is massively out of touch with what consumers want, there were never any fans for them there. In business he clearly has stopped eating his own dog food or he would realise it isn't even dog food.
Re: consumer business?
Consumers are just noise, the real $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ come from Azure and cloud services.
Intel
Does it mean they will double down on Intel support?
Their CPUs need massive fans.
Re: Intel
Badum tsss
Fans lol
When I used Windows in the past I most certainly was never a "fan". We all know the problems from years gone by and which are apparently getting even worse these days.
Well, well, well. Years of treating customers with contempt is finally beginning to catch up with them. Enshittification can only go so far before people start to increasingly leave in droves.
Still, its not too difficult to fix. A single "off" button for Crapilot, stopping the relentless adverts, allowing local accounts during setup, allowing choice of browser without SCOOBE and other tricks setting it back to Edge.
Then a few simple features like moveable taskbar and they should be a fair way there. Will they actually to this, or will it be empty words? We'll see...
Years of treating customers with contempt is finally beginning to catch up with them. Enshittification can only go so far before people start to increasingly leave in droves.
I'm unsure about that. I think that we see this as IT professionals, but most people aren't like us. I wonder if Nad's problem is that people are now much more OS agnostic and device agnostic in how they do things or access content? Many find a Chromebook entirely acceptable for modest needs, or phones, or tablets, are comfortable switching between Apple, Android and Windows products? Essentially, the OS has become commoditised, nobody really cares too much about Windows, but not because of enshittification, but because they simply don't care at all?
That'll be a much tougher one to crack, because people then don't want a "better" OS, they just want it to work, and not to bother them. Arguably that's all an OS should do, but we've been through a few decades when Windows made itself the unwanted star of its own show?
How about features that people actually want, have asked for for decades, and are still in the stone age. From the top of my head - a search system that actually works, tags and descriptions for folders, bringing back an easy way to create short cuts, a Quick Access menu in Windows Explorer that you don't have to scroll up to *every* *single* *time* because someone decided that the default should be to scroll to the bottom of the panel and put Quick Access at the top (a stupidity that's lasted decades). There are thousands more, and if Microsoft actually responded to their feedback system they'd know what they are. Instead, we get the 'deprecation' of actually useful features and the World's worst AI shoved down our throats. Anyone remember Cortana?
Any "fans" of Microsoft should seriously consider seeking help.
Two words: Windows 7
Maybe satya should have thought of that before binning off all their QA teams
As many other large and not-so-large companies have found over the years, treating the end user as the alpha/beta tester never goes down well.
Most people use Windows because they have to as part of their job.
Hate it
Having had a Windows PC since Windows 95, I have seen windows evolve. Some of it was good with the highpoint being Windows 7. The enshitifcation since then has impacted the user experience to such an extent that I just don't like using Windows. First it was adverts for software being served up by Windows or Office applications and then that was then dialed up several notches by the endless prompts to use Co-Pilot.
I binned my Windows 11 PC and bought a Mac for home use.
The only Windows PC I have to use is the work provided laptop. I hate it.
Re: Hate it
evolve != change.
What you've seen is Windows change. Not evolve. Give me NT4 any time of the day!
Re: Hate it
And evolve != improve. Evolution doesn't select for what might be best from our point of view. Just for what's most effective. It can certainly lead to organisms becoming what we would consider worse, in various ways.
ETA: Also, originally, 'evolve' pretty much did mean 'change'. It's only the past few centuries that it's come to be associated particularly with this whole gradual-change-by-random-variation-and-natural-selection thing. But it still has a broader sense in which it can be used.
As I always say, an OS is an OS. It should let you run programs and then get out of the way, it is not an end in itself, which M$ seem to think it is. To that I need to add: And not keep breaking.
Want people to go back to use your crap? How about a kill Switch for Recall and AI uh?
Games
I am only using Windows because I don't have a choice. Linux gaming works for some. But just not me. As soon as I can get off Windows I will.
Dear MicroSlop,
I just ended 4-1/2 years of selling off 19K shares of MicroSlop stock that I started buying in 86' for $0.08/share.
You want me back? I suggest you go fuck yourself first! I wouldn't go back if you offered free drugs to do so, and I don't do drugs anyway!
Now, feed this response into your toy CoPlop and see for yourself what the god damn problem is.
Oh look, someone MS actually gives a shit about because it certainly isn't their customers. Good on you.
No reason to believe him.
OTOH after Vista came Windows 7.
After Windows 8(.1) came Windows 10. (Though Windows 8 ONLY the UI was messed up, but the improvements below were only visible to those who look beyond the GUI)
But Windows 12... Seriously, there are kernel level and near kernel level bugs introduced since 2021 woah this is bad. At least Ballmer was "I love this company yeah!" - But Satya? Really?
Re: No reason to believe him.
Microsoft execs don't seem to understand just how many admins and users are reading product announcements with a sense of dread, wondering what new problems they'll have to deal with for little-to-no gain in wanted features. When customers develop that attitude, of course they'll be thinking about the exits.
Reminds me a lot of the botched rollout and stalled uptake of IPv6. The sales pitch needs to be stronger than "Eventually you'll have to!"
Customers aren't just delaying upgrades over cost. The pessimism has set in and hardened. That's a very tough perception to reverse.
If they could honestly survey Windows admins, what percentage would cite "Security EOL" as the main motivation for their most recent upgrade?
I'm currently connected to chat with MS to move a friends machine to a local account instead of n MS account. MS 'support' is being... MS-like.
I've communicated with M$ business supoort many times. You'd hope they would be more clued up than consumer support, but they aren't. Had one annoying case a few months back where Universal print wouldn't communicate with particular printers. I eventually worked it out myself - a particular protocol needed to be enabled. I went back to M$ and told them that this was the solution. The response was 'yes, that does need to be enabled'. So why the fuck didn't they tell me to check that, rather than let me waste hours working it out?!
I think the longest case I've had ran for about 13 months (a Teams issue whcih they alternately denied existed, or said would be fixed soon). I gave up eventually and changed our processes to work around the issue!
I don't think they are going to get any 'fans', but they could make people hate them a lot less by simply making it easy to turn off all the AI crap in their products - i.e. a simple single toggle in Windows which will completely disable Coprolite in Windows itself and in Office, etc. Also a similar one in cloudy M$ accounts to turn it off there too.
Yes, I know it's never going to happen!
Fans ?
The Cult of Windows 11