If it works, Don't fix it!
A couple of days ago, I opened the Microsoft Whiteboard app that I have been using for a couple of years. It is one of my most used apps. And they had released an update, probably to do something nice with the release of Windows 11. But this new version was a total disaster. The update was a complete downgrade in my usage scenario. I was so mad, that I published a video about it in frustration. How wonderful it is when the internet community responds. In no time at all, I had a solution on how to roll back to the old usable version and as of this writing the issue has been fixed.
I suspect that Microsoft wanted to make something more advanced and teams-based with their app. At a first glance, I get the feeling that their intention was to mimic some of the functionality of MIRO – which is a KILLER app that you should check out – and that with this transition, most of the old features went into the trash can. But Microsoft did something unforgivable: They removed many useful things, but to remove the copy-paste feature is beyond my imagination. Why would anyone anywhere think that would be a good idea? The old Whiteboard is one of the best apps ever. And the primary reason is the LACK of features. That is what makes it great! Please understand this Microsoft, if you are reading this. LESS IS MORE as us musician likes to call it.
Another extremely useful feature they killed off, was the ability to use an eraser. I always draw on my Wacom Cintiq, when working with MS Whiteboard, and with that, you just turn your pen upside down to use the eraser. The harder you push, the larger the area of erasing. Very useful! This feature was gone too. They changed it to treat everything as shapes instead. So instead of the intuitive feeling of a normal area eraser, the moment you touch a line, everything that is related to that line goes. It is a completely different usage. It felt as if your car suddenly goes right when you turn the steering wheel to the left. And the accelerator pedal turns on the right indicator and the air conditioner dial controls the brakes.
From the comments on my videos about Whiteboard, I see that there are several other features that annoy the living daylights out of people. So, I am far from alone. WHO let this new app through quality control? How could no-one reflect for just a minute that removing the ctrl-c, ctrl-v feature is probably a bad idea? There might be people out there who like to do quick figures and sketches and pasting them in emails. No, instead the option presented to you is to first do a screen grab and save the screenshot image to your drive. Then you click import image inside Whiteboard, browse to your file and import it. THEN you can draw on your screenshot and when you are done, you export the whiteboard as an image file to your drive – with another file name of course – and import THAT file into your Word document or Email. I can’t comprehend how stupid this design choice is. It is strongly reminiscent of user interfaces in the 1990s, back in the days of Windows 3.11 and Windows 95. Back then I wouldn’t have reflected on such a design choice. Oh, and they managed to get the authentic loading time as well from a 486/early Pentium. To open or create a new Whiteboard on the new app takes forever (~10 seconds) whereas with the old app, the new Whiteboard is ready before you have released the left mouse button. And the list just grows, the more comments I read.
I don’t like to complain. It’s more fun to write about positive topics, but I just had to get this one out of my system, sorry. Some constructive criticism to Microsoft: If it works, don’t fix it! The old app is hands down one of the best apps I have used. The new version is so different that it should be marketed under a separate name, while the old one can live on. It’s not the same thing at all. Hopefully, Microsoft will realized they did a big Ooopsie with this one and correct it.
Oh, and by the way, here’s a link with the solution that worked for me.