22H2: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Premium)

With Microsoft finally releasing Windows 11 version 22H2 today, it’s a good time to step back and consider what Panos Panay and his crew have wrought after a more acceptable development timetable than with the first go-round. The cynical view, of course, is “not much,” especially when you consider how much time has gone by and how few big features there are. But a more nuanced view can find some wheat among the chaff.

For background, please refer to my original Windows 11 review---which I accurately described as “fresh, familiar, and incomplete”---and my Windows 11 version 22H2 review, which, despite being published almost two months ago, is very much accurate to the finished product. This article is based on my months-long experience of using 22H2, the 225+ pages I’ve written of the Windows 11 Field Guide so far, 22H2 review materials provided recently by Microsoft, and an on-the-record discussion about 22H2 with Microsoft’s John Cable and Aaron Woodman.
The good
Windows 11 is still free. Aaron Woodman said that “there is no end date” for the free Windows 11 update. So if you have an eligible Windows 10 PC and want to upgrade, there’s no reason to jump on it quickly. Likewise, if you have a working Windows 7, 8, or 10 retail product key for some reason, you’re good to go: Windows 11 is free and will apparently always be free.

Business customers can skip interim feature additions. Whatever your stance on Microsoft’s ridiculous “one feature update a year” promise, given that there will be multiple feature updates between each of those, the software giant is at least doing the right thing for its best customers: those interim updates will be disabled by default for Windows 11 Enterprise and Education users (and enabled by default on Home and Pro), and the interim updates will instead be delivered as part of the next feature update. So all of the interim features that Microsoft delivers between 22H2 and the next release will ship to Enterprise and Education users in 23H2. (IT can opt-in to any new feature too, of course. None will.)

Hardware requirements aren’t changing. The hardware requirements for Windows 11 version 21H2 were arbitrary and artificial, but here’s some good news, I guess: they’re not changing for Windows 11 version 22H2. And yes, people with ineligible PCs can still install Windows 11 as before; that is not changing either. “It’s not officially supported,” Cable said. “But we know fans are willing to take the extra steps.”

There are some terrific new features. The new accessibility features, especially system-wide live captions and voice access, are incredible. Snap Layouts finally makes Snap discoverable, which is terrific. And Smart App Control is probably a major security advance, albeit one that is only enabled on new PCs and clean installs.
The bad
Naming is easy, Microsoft makes it hard. Microsoft continues to mix and match its names, and Woodman straight out ...