Microsoft is Gradually Rolling Out the New Version of Sticky Notes, Sparking Widespread Dissatisfaction

Microsoft has been revamping its traditional app, Sticky Notes, which is now bundled with Microsoft OneNote, a note-taking app released by the company.

Previously, Sticky Notes was a standalone application. However, after updates to OneNote, notes from Sticky Notes could be synced to OneNote and even to Outlook.

Perhaps due to flawed initial planning, Microsoft has now directly integrated Sticky Notes into OneNote, which in turn is bundled with Microsoft Office and cannot be uninstalled independently.

Consequently, users wanting to remove the new version of Sticky Notes must delete OneNote, and to do so, they must uninstall Office along with all its components, a move likely to frustrate many.

The revamped Sticky Notes has not yet been officially released. Microsoft has directly pushed the preview version to Windows 11 users, puzzling many who wonder why the preview wasn't limited to Windows Insider or Microsoft 365 Insider, which are designed for testing.

Moreover, the performance of the new Sticky Notes is a significant concern. Although its interface is more visually appealing than before, its responsiveness is much slower, straying from the original goal of being compact, fast, and lightweight.

The silver lining is that users can still download the old version of Sticky Notes from the Microsoft Store and sync data to OneNote as long as Microsoft doesn't remove the older version. However, it's evident that the old version will eventually be phased out.

Note: The new version of Sticky Notes is not developed based on WebView 2, suggesting that there might be room for optimization in functionality and performance in future updates.