Spiceworks Community Digest: Windows 12 wishlist
A recent lively discussion at SpiceWorld 2025 on “What do we Want From Windows 12” has extended into the Spiceworks community, revealing a near-universal demand from IT professionals: Stop treating the operating system (OS) as a platform for marketing and start treating it as a stable, manageable tool.
The core of the IT wishlist focuses on reversing current trends, prioritizing control, stability, and a clear distinction between consumer and professional editions. If Microsoft wants to win over IT admins, they need to address five critical pain points.
Control and stability
The single most common request is the return of administrative control, removing forced features, excessive data collection, and advertising from professional environments.
- J-Nonya: “Give us back control of the platform we’re paying (good) money for, and no it doesn’t have to be online at setup, or even at all, if we so choose!”
- Brian745345: The base desire is clear: “Local account use, no microsoft account needed. No bloatware. No pre-installed apps”
- Lockout: “More control over our system, less bloatware / forced utilities we didn’t ask for and less updating that has nothing to do with stability or security.”
- edmarkham: “An OS that is not use for marketing,advertisement, and data minning. Only updates that are required.”
A real “Pro” version with zero compromises
IT professionals feel the current “Pro” version is diluted by consumer-grade features and unnecessary bloat. The community demands a distinct, streamlined experience for business users.
- SamGates1: “Speaking of professional; the Pro version should be the Pro version. How are we reasonably supposed to use the Pro version in an office when it has all these idiot children’s games all over it?”
Stop moving the goalposts
Changes for change’s sake (especially moving familiar interfaces and settings) are viewed as major productivity killers in the enterprise.
- Lockout: “Stop renaming and moving things around. Keep it simple and usable without the need for a migraine every time we try to work on the system.”
- CAG16: “Have one place to adjust the settings of the OS, not two.”
- SamGates1: “Stop moving the deck chairs and goalposts around the field and calling it a development.” He also requested a return to consistency, noting that “Learning all the keyboard shortcuts and command-line access to what you want, is now far easier than keeping up with the ever-shifting chaos of GUI access.”
Hardware and deployment requirements
After the controversial TPM requirements for Windows 11, the community is wary of arbitrary hardware gates and demands better update handling.
CAG16: “I would hope that they wouldn’t need as strict hardware requirements, as they are responsible for the mass amounts of eWaste they caused for Win11.”
The IT hope remains that Windows 12 can be a “stable working tool,” but the expectation is that the fight for control and a true “Pro” experience will continue.
If you could force Microsoft to change one thing about Windows 12, what would it be? Continue the discussion in the Spiceworks Community!
