I woke up this morning, had a bit of a doze then went for a small walk – wanted to get out of the house for some fresh air before having to work. A video appeared in my shorts on YouTube regarding the term ‘gear acquisition syndrome’ and the trap of buying gear for a new hobby that gives you the feeling of acquiring an identity through the acquisition of merchandise without actually doing the hobby itself. Like a person who buys books but never actually reads them but they’ve given themselves the identity of ‘a reader’ and I hate to admit that when I look at the decisions I’ve made in my life I have fallen into that trap of ‘gear acquisition syndrome’. Going out and buying the gear is the easy part but having the discipline to not only start but to keep something up for the long term requires a whole lot more effort which is made more difficult if there are many other things going on in your life that are demanding your attention.
There has been much talk about Microsoft’s ‘Windows K2 Initiative’ with the recent release of Windows 11 26H2 with the recent blog post by Microsoft outlining those changes (link). What I do hope is that the changes that were added to Windows 11 26H2 will be the start of a long term project about modernising the platform by transitioning over to Windows App SDK. I say that because Microsoft has a tendency to make an announcement, ship some improvements and then months later the energy that propelled the improvements suddenly disappears resulting in a sloward drift back into the old way of doing things. I think the interesting future release will be be Windows 11 27H2 which appears to include a kernel that is recompiled to support Intel APX plus other enhancements. I am also looking forward because it is a major leap forward in the build number which normally indicates major under the hood changes and also give them time to merge and test the user visible changes.
The Windows K2 Initiative was announced at the end of late 2025 so it makes sense that Windows 11 26H2 was too far into the planning stage to make big changes so it isn’t surprising that what we see in Windows 11 26H2 are modest changes. There is still a lot of work being done on the Windows App SDK (link) so I wouldn’t be surprised if part of the modernisation is delayed because Microsoft is having to build those new APIs required before the replacement can be built on top. From an outsiders perspective it appears that the underlying technology of Windows is rock solid but it is turning that low level functionality into something useful has resulted in Windows earning the reputation it has. I think long term Windows App SDK is going to be that unifying way of allowing developers to write software using modern practices that are based are the modern Windows Run Time (WinRT).
Although I rage on regarding Microsoft and the slow development of Windows, I have a lot of respect for what Microsoft are doing – attempting to move the platform forward while ensuring that they don’t break things in the process (they’re not always perfect but they at least try). A good example of trying to move the platform foward is the work around window management unification (link) with the blog post on GitHub giving a good overview of the challenges being faced – dealing with legacy while addressed the challenges and coming up with a solution that makes life a whole lot easier for developers moving forward.
Learn how to triage – not everything you think at that moment is important, step back and look at the bigger picture and you’ll realise that there is a whole lot of stuff that isn’t actually important. On a side note, stop caring whether something is ‘cringe’ because no one else is actually paying any attention because 99% of people are too focused on their own lives than caring about what other people are doing and whether they’re ‘cringe’. As many have said online: “embrace the cringe and experience true freedom”.
