Windows 11 – July 2022

Has anyone here on the fence, upgraded to Windows 11 yet?

All of my PCs are running Windows 10. I am not sure if there’s any justification to upgrade.

I have clean installed 11 before last year. I went right back to Windows 10.

It feels like my Windows 8 experience. Jumping on, trying for a while, then jumping off.

*Albeit, Windows 8 had real under the hood improvements, despite the dueling UI.

 

Conversation 16 comments

  • darkgrayknight

    Premium Member
    05 July, 2022 - 11:14 am

    <p>I have my Surface Pro 4 in the Insiders program on the latest dev release of Windows 11. My wife has her Surface Pro 7 on the standard Windows 11. My main desktop is still on Windows 10 and I have kept the non-profit’s PCs on Windows 10 Enterprise (one of the computers has too old of a processor to upgrade to Windows 11). If the taskbar could be set vertically on the side, I would be a little more inclined to let some of them upgrade, including my main desktop. That is the only lingering issue I’m aware of.</p><p>My work laptop is still on Windows 10, and probably can’t upgrade.</p>

  • JustDavid

    05 July, 2022 - 1:22 pm

    <p>My HP Spectre and Surface Pro 6 are on Dev Channel Insiders build of Windows 11, my Media PC is unsupported on Beta Channel Insiders Build of Windows 11. The 4 other family PCs I support are too old to go to Windows 11, not that I would want them to.</p>

  • SherlockHolmes

    Premium Member
    05 July, 2022 - 2:00 pm

    <p>Nope. And I have a long time left before I will. </p>

  • abrarey

    05 July, 2022 - 2:15 pm

    <p>I have W11 running on an unsupported HW laptop, so far is running fine, but my two main systems are still running W10 and they will stay like that for a while, no compelling reason to move at least for me. My company laptop still on W10 and doesn’t look like they are going to install W11 in a while either.</p>

  • dftf

    05 July, 2022 - 5:41 pm

    <p>Short answer: no, I wouldn’t rush.</p><p><br></p><p>The only major reasons I’d say to get <em>Windows 11</em> would be: (1) if you have a CPU that features "efficiency-cores", as <em>Windows 10</em> isn’t programmed to understand the differences; (2) if you have brand-new hardware, and can make use of features like <em>Auto HDR</em> and <em>Dynamic Refresh-Rate</em>; (3) if you <em>really, really</em> need to run <em>Android</em> apps on <em>Windows</em>; and (4) I guess you could argue that for AAA gamers, <em>DirectX</em> on <em>W11</em> is likely to see some new-features in-time that may not get backported to <em>W10</em>. (And as an extra: if you have certain accessibility-needs, the new <em>Live Captions</em> and <em>Voice Control</em> features may prove useful, though I’d argue accessibility-features should <u>always</u> get backported wherever possible.)</p><p><br></p><p>Beyond those sort of reasons though, not really: most of the other stuff in <em>Windows 11</em> is just "a bit nicer", but hardly a deal-breaker. Dark-mode in <em>Task Manager, Notepad</em> and <em>Paint</em>? Long-overdue, but I’ll live. New <em>Media Player</em> app, that offers CD ripping, at a time most new PCs now ship with no optical drive? Um, okay, thanks? New sounds, that vary between dark and light theme modes? Yeah, um, next? Updated <em>Photos</em> app? No, that’s actually been updated in <em>W10</em> recently. <em>Snap Layouts</em> to move windows around? Useful on a touch device, I guess, but something I actually forget is even there!</p><p><br></p><p>And don’t forget that for all the nice UI changes, such as the much-cleaner looking <em>File Explorer</em>, or more-consistent availability of dark-mode in apps, you also have to put-up with the virtually customisation-free <em>Taskbar</em>, and a <em>Start Menu</em> which is tolerable in the latest <em>Insider</em> builds, where folders have been added, but otherwise means you’re limited to just 18 pinned apps on the first screen. Not to mention a <em>Settings</em> app which looks nicer, but now takes twice-as-many clicks to go into a sub-category, then return back a screen to go into the next one.</p><p><br></p><p>I’d honestly just say for most to wait until <em>Windows 12</em> arrives, which I’d expect to be released around July-October in 2024, so that they have one year to polish any initial issues ahead of when <em>Windows 10 Home </em>and <em>Pro</em> end-support.</p>

  • ChelseaMan

    05 July, 2022 - 5:47 pm

    <p>I skipped Windows 8 so I’m not really qualified to comment on that, but I have upgraded my Dell laptop &amp; 27" AIO desktop to Windows 11, and I like it. </p><p><br></p><p>A few things are not where I am used to them being, but compared to a major Office upgrade, it’s comparatively trivial. </p><p><br></p><p>It feels to me that Microsoft has finally moved away from Windows 2000/NT, and seems to have struck out in their own direction, rather than trying to copy Apple, in some way.</p><p><br></p><p>As a Windows 7/10 user, the upgrade was more like an update, so it was immediately obvious how to use it – not what I’ve heard about Windows 8 and it’s ‘spangles’ or whatever they were called. </p><p><br></p><p>As I say, I like it. </p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

  • justme

    Premium Member
    06 July, 2022 - 3:07 am

    <p>No. All of my machines are W10 – and will likely stay W10 until it goes out of support barring any major shift. On my daily driver, I have a Linux partition (Pop_OS!) that I spend more time than not in – and in the end, while I will likely always need a Windows partition, may be where I end up. There is simply no compelling reason to switch. Were I to switch to W11, I would then need to deal with the cruft that comes with it – the over-simplfication of the UI (IMO), the horrid Start menu changes (which I would address with Start11), Taskbar changes, far too many clicks to do anything, the continued attempts by Microsoft to force Edge/Bing/MSN down our throats, the requirement to try and force me to log in with an MSA (which can be mitigated, I know). I simply dont want to deal with Microsoft’s W11 soup to nuts, as Chris Cap would say. I’d rather have W8.x back.</p><p><br></p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    06 July, 2022 - 3:31 am

    <p>I have it on my work laptop, because one of our users got accidentally upgraded, so I needed to check everything still works…</p><p><br></p><p>It doesn’t. I can no longer set out of office replies in Outlook 365 against our on-prem Exchange server (it has the account open, updates everything, but when you try and set the OOO message, it says the server is currently not available, even though it is still notifying of incoming messages in the background).</p><p><br></p><p>I’m not sure what MS have done here, or why Windows 11 should affect Outlook’s ability to talk to the server. Same version of Outlook on Windows Server 2019 terminal server or Windows 10 works fine.</p><p><br></p><p>Optically, I like the changes and I can live with setting my OOO message on the terminal server for the time being. (OWA is disabled for security reasons.)</p><p><br></p><p>That said, I’ve upgraded my old home PC to SUSE Linux, my Pi400 runs Ubuntu and I use a Mac mini as my main PC these days. My wife has my old HP Spectre x360 (Skylake) laptop, which is the only Windows device left in the house. I’m still considering what to do, when that dies. She uses it a couple of times a month and isn’t a Windows fan (well, she isn’t a computer fan, or a tablet fan, or a smartphone fan, come to that), but switching her to Linux or macOS (or Windows 11) would be a huge undertaking. I’m hoping she will move to using her iPad and phone for everything.</p>

  • anoldamigauser

    Premium Member
    06 July, 2022 - 10:32 am

    <p>I moved to Windows 8 rather quickly since the under the hood changes revived several older machines I was using. Once Start8 was installed, it was perfectly workable. That said, I cannot find a whole lot of enthusiasm for Windows 11. It is not terrible, but nothing about it is need to have.</p><p>My wife uses it on a new HP All in one and is happy enough with it. If the idea was to make it a simple transition for normal users, then mission accomplished. I find it a bit restrictive though, the new start menu especially. Everything seems just one more click away than it was in Windows 10. I also upgraded a Lenovo Yoga laptop that had been a reliability nightmare, figuring it could not work any less well with Windows 11. Surprisingly, it has been remarkably stable with Windows 11, so it has that going for it. Everything else has remained on Windows 10, and will remain that way till it EOLs.</p>

  • hrlngrv

    Premium Member
    06 July, 2022 - 1:24 pm

    <p>There’s no good reason for individuals to move from Windows 10 to Windows 11 before 2024.</p><p><br></p><p>At work, there’s at least another year using Windows 10. At home, I tinker, so I have Windows 11 in a VM. FWIW, using a 3rd party replacement Start menu (Open Shell), I prefer Windows 8.1 to Windows 11 mostly because I use the arcane taskbar features MSFT has decided effectively to deprecate.</p>

    • dftf

      06 July, 2022 - 2:58 pm

      <p><em>Windows 8.1</em> won’t see any official updates though, post January — and <em>Google Chrome </em>and <em>Microsoft Edge</em> will also cease all updates too (and I’d guess other Chromium-based browsers will likely follow).</p><p><br></p><p>So be-prepared to look-into whether <em>Firefox</em> is going to continue updates, and see if the 0patch team will offer unofficial updates — not sure what you’d do about an anti-virus app though, as many have already abandoned anything below Win10.</p><p><br></p><p>Good luck!</p>

      • hrlngrv

        Premium Member
        08 July, 2022 - 10:30 pm

        <p>I run Windows 8.1 in a VM running under a Linux host. I don’t use ANY browsers in the VM, at least I don’t launch any INTENTIONALLY. If some of the cruft included with Windows 8.1 runs with browser components, fine, but I doubt I’ll care if they don’t upgrade. OTOH, I suspect if I were willing to install portable versions of Chrome or Firefox, they’d run just fine under Windows 8.1 after EOS.</p>

  • yb

    Premium Member
    06 July, 2022 - 6:22 pm

    <p>It depends how much you use windows, and what for! </p><p><br></p><p>I use Windows extensively for work and for my own personal use. Workwise, I create new files [word or excel] and update existing ones.</p><p>I also use windows to manage my photos- it is a hobby. </p><p>The trouble with W11 is that Microsoft damned down windows by removing choice.</p><p>Unlike so many commentators, the biggest problem for me is the redesign of the file explorer management.</p><p>I change filenames and file locations quite a lot; the "simplification" of the explorer [file and windows] means that most of my common menu choices have been re-assigned to a line called "more…",so for me, W11 is the system that requires an extra click each time I attempt doing what is for me routine work, reducing my productivity.</p><p><br></p><p>My eyesight is not that great- I use a larger display [125%]; so I move the taskbar sideways; you can not do that in W11.</p><p>I do not use many of the Microsoft apps, Edge nor Onedrive, which are being pushed down a users throat even more under W11.</p><p><br></p><p>One of the great advantage of Windows was flexibility- allowing users to re-mould most of the displays or their choices to their needs. This choice has been reduced – a serious regression- in W11.</p><p>Most of the new stuff introduced with W11 are of no or very little use for my daily routine; </p><p><br></p><p>I upgraded an existing non compliant W10 machine to W11; this way you retain most of the W10 features and fixes;</p><p>the most important one for me was the browser default choice [Chrome for the web, Brave for PDF]. </p><p>I had to remove a lot of the additional apps W11 introduced- I had no use for them.</p><p>I found some fixes restoring the file explorer choices I needed; I removed the widgets and other apps I had no need for.</p><p><br></p><p>Overall, I had to spend more time on tweaks and fixes to W11 than I ever had to in comparison to previous Window editions;</p><p>it took a lot of time and effort, and I am not sure that it was worth it- even though the machine I used is a spare one.</p><p><br></p><p>W11 performance on the spare machine is not faster or better than it had been when I had W10 installed. </p><p><br></p><p>So if you use Windows extensively for office work, playing a lot with files and directories, W11 is not something I would recommend, as, in my experience, the new W11 interface is reducing my productivity.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

    • navarac

      07 July, 2022 - 3:42 am

      <p>Spot on – sums it all up nicely as far as I’m concerned.</p>

    • polloloco51

      07 July, 2022 - 6:55 pm

      <p>Agreed!</p><p>Windows 11 is truly an unnecessary upgrade, for most people. </p><p><br></p><p>The upped system requirements, really knee capped a large install base. If Microsoft wanted more people on it. </p><p><br></p><p>Using Windows 11 for a month or two. I saw no advantages over Windows 10. </p><p><br></p><p>In fact, I saw more disadvantages. Such as the dumbed down start menu, and buried context menus. Windows 11 did hurt my workflow, in many ways. </p><p><br></p><p>I might just wait, for another major update for Windows 11 (or Windows 12), to improve upon any existing issues.</p><p><br></p><p> </p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

  • epguy40

    04 August, 2022 - 1:41 pm

    <p>only way I’m "upgrading" to Windows 11 is with <strong>getting brand new computers</strong> that come pre-installed with Win11 (either with 12th gen Intel hardware, AMD Ryzen 6000 hardware or newer). all of my PCs are at least a decade old and putting Win11 on them does not benefit them as they’re made before UEFI came out (aka. non-UEFI or legacy BIOS only systems)</p>

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