About two months ago, Microsoft announced that the new Sticky Notes app was finally "available to all users." However, as it usually goes with Microsoft products, the rollout began gradually, and it took a while for Microsoft to finish it. Now, every OneNote user on Windows can access the new Sticky Notes app, and people are not happy about it.
For starters, the app is still marked as a preview, begging the question of why Microsoft is shipping pre-release software to all users in the Stable Channel (there is the Microsoft 365 Insider program, after all). Next, it is still part of OneNote, so you are getting the new app regardless of whether you want it or not or if you have the old Sticky Notes app installed. That also means that the only way to remove the new Sticky Notes app from your computer is to uninstall OneNote or the entire Office suite—not ideal.
Finally, the worst part is that despite having some interesting new features and fancy UI, the reworked Sticky Notes app is much slower than the old variant, which kills the purpose of Sticky Notes, a small, fast, and lightweight application for quick note taking. There are also some scattered reports about users losing their notes after upgrading, but they do not appear to be widespread.
Luckily, you can still use the old Sticky Notes app from the Microsoft Store. It works much better and faster, plus it can still sync your stickies to OneNote across devices. Moreover, it is even possible to restore the "old old Sticky Notes app," which is a bare-bones desktop widget-like app with no Microsoft Account sync, text formatting, and other features.
Are you happy with the revamped Sticky Notes app on Windows 10 and 11? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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