> lacks basic features like dealing with compressed files – I don’t count a decades-old cumbersome wizard-style interface with countless steps to go through just to unpack a compressed file to be even remotely acceptable in 2026. Dolphin and Nautilus handle compressed files entirely transparently and much faster than Explorer does, and once you’re used to that, going back to ’90s style compressed file management almost feels insulting.
I can open a zip in a normal file explorer window just fine. Maybe this is something stripped from European versions for anti-monopoly reasons?
Anyway here's what I've done with my Win11 install to make it tolerable:
- Disable onedrive
- Make a secondary local admin account and use that exclusively instead of the the main Microsoft account one (since the library paths in the main account all have onedrive in them even if it's disabled)
- Disable web search in the start menu with group policies
- Remove task view, widgets, the search bar, etc. from the task bar
- Put the start menu in list view and remove every pinned item
- Left-align the taskbar
- Show file extensions in explorer
I'm sure there's a lot more I had to do, but I don't remember off the top of my head.
On Linux in the file explorers, there is a right click context menu that just dumps them into a folder or not right there, no wizard, no extra pop-ups or anything.
If you want that experience on windows, you have to download 7zip or winrar and navigate to a nested context menu item.
Windows _is_ stuck in the 90s on this.
I was even under the impression they added support in explorer for extracting other types of archives (tar, maybe 7zip).
A lot of differences only manifest themselves over time.
For example, what happens during an OS upgrade and how do the systems compare.