We have a problem.

Guys and Gals in the Windows Dev team ...

We have a problem.

Somewhere along the road Windows turned from a logical drive-based file system into a nonsensical mess of folders duplicated throughout the file manager hierarchy.

Review the expanded file explorer screen shot attached (presuming I can post one).

I have three Desktop folders.

I have four Document folders.

I have multiple music and video folders.  

I have a bunch of not-so-favourite favourites Windows saw fit to add.

If I click on one Documents, it highlights another Documents. I only need to see / want to see one 'Documents'.  

This is nuts!

What I really, really want is really, really simple. I think what every Windows user would want really, really simple. 

A clean interface in file explorer.  Surely to gawd your devs are capable of this?

One hierarchy. No duplicates.

Desktop, Downloads, Documents, Drive letters, Network, Pictures, Recycle Bin.

That's it.  Everything else in the main tree is noise.

Libraries -- gone.  What the heck was that idea?  Three Windows users complained about removing Briefcase? 

I want to be able to _permanently_ hide or show _any_ folder, no matter how "special" the team at MS or any third party installer believes it should be.

This is my computer so I get to decide what is clutter.

Videos and Music folders should be options. As in missing until requested.

Onedrive should be called Ondrive and not {Some Name I didn't authorize} - Personal. WTH?

How is that more "personal" than any other folder?  I know it's done because to differentiate between Onedrive business, but really?  Why not Onedrive (Dave) and Ondrive (Walmart)?

I have a name under users. Now a different name in Onedrive. Why?

Or why Onedrive anything, to be honest?  Not the idea of 'cloud' backup but the idea anybody needs to see it as its own entity and not simply a concept of functionality. (And at what point in time did humans become so wussy that backed up 'on the server' or stored on a remote 'server farm' became too abstract a thought requiring a sky-based mythical concept name instead? Why not the more accurate 'offsite storage area prone to hacking and operated only at the whim of Microsoft, which may change in the future'?  Probably would end up breaking a lot of filenames that would suddenly exceed MAX-PATH. But I digress.)

In fact, after using it [Onedrive] since its appearance (when... Windows 8.1? I have come to the conclusion that Onedrive should be a concept. An option to turn on or off. Not a set of folders in the file tree.

Right click your only Documents folder  and pick "include in Onedrive".  Done. Immediate, no interface, simple. You never see this, it just becomes included in Onedrive.

Right click Camera Roll > click include in Onedrive.  Done.  Ditto.

You never save your files to Onedrive.  You save to your machine who ensures a backup is on Onedrive.  So the gawd alful docs/ path is forever removed from your view. Never needed. If you want to share a file, behind the scenes Windows knows it's gawd awful name.  To you it's still and will always be just Dave's Party Plan.xlsx.

That simple. 

And now I only see "Documents" or "Downloads".  Forever.  Unless I go to Onedrive using the browser. Then I can peer into the belly of the Onedrive beast. 

Super hidden folders need to be un-super and un-hidden. Especially since MS itself put documents in them. 

[I needed to edit the default spacing of normal.dotm for Word.  It should be in Programs.  Under Office. It used to be.  That was simple.  And sensible.  But now it's buried in appdata roaming microsoft templates.  That is silly.  And not simple.]

And you need to deal with the double Program Files folders. IOW, return to one folder of Program Files. Do we really need care about the physical on-disk distinction between a 64 bit and 32bit set of programs so much so that each gets its own entry in the hierarchy? I know I don't. About where the program exe is stored. 

I should not have to hunt for program x because I think it should be in the 64 bit area but it has put a duplicate folder in the 32 bit Program Files (X86) with nothing in it, usually as a placeholder for older hard-coded paths in ill designed programs.  

I want full control over approving and managing program-specific installed shell folders (user picks 'deny', 'allow' or 'allow but put the **bleep** thing out of sight'.) iClould is a perfect example.  Removing clutter should not require uninstalling the program.  But it does. And remove the need for a user to have to log into the third party app in order change its behaviour in Windows.

In task manager, let us uninstall a self-configured startup app that we have disabled.  Or at least let us remove it permanently from the list of disable startup programs.  I have a full page of disabled items and four enabled.  I don't need to see the disabled ones. Maybe move disabled items to a second list and add a View [En][Dis]abled button toggle?

For security, 'Unknown' with a SID as an entity with permissions is not acceptable. Is it so hard to mandate all permission seekers need to be identified? Each with a properly identifiable name from which the purpose of the user can be discerned. You're always going to have the nuts the feel the need to challenge every entry in Security or Taskman, so at least let them know up front what 'user' they're fretting about. 

On accessing any folder File Explorer should not say "you don't have permission to view the contents", then proceed to show the contents when the dialog is dismissed.  It is my machine. I have the right to view anything and everything at any time. OK, maybe make the delete key not work in these folders, but stop being my mother.

Temp folders need to be temp again. And either as C:\temp or C:\windows\temp.  Having two or more temp folders is insane.  And Windows needs to clear them out on shutdown.  And get rid of persistent text logs that record all the spying windows and other entities do on the machine.  If it is in Temp, its life should never ever be expected to exist for longer than I the owner of the machine want it to.

I could go on, and I suspect (hope?) others pile on here too with their versions of perfecting Windows.

Because it is not the committee-designed mess you are currently offering.

Time for a revamp. That doesn't mean prettier, it means simpler.  More function.  Less confusion.  Sensible.  Intuitive.  Unrepetitive.  

That's my 5 minute wish list compiled over years of fighting the interface every version of Windows is supposed to have perfected over the last version.