In the last few days, I’ve read several blog posts talking about how 2026 is the year of the Linux desktop, and that’s a great thing. However, I think many of the headlines and posts on this topic should have a different title: “The Year Windows Annoyed Us Too Much.”

A History of “Verschlimmbesserung”

For years now, Microsoft has been steadily making its operating system worse through supposed “improvements” (Verschlimmbesserung). Windows Vista was a difficult step because many computers weren’t ready for it yet, but there was at least technical progress that was successfully concluded with Windows 7.