*** Microsoft Windows 11 Thoughts & Discussion Thread ***

Soldato
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My Win 10 wont upgrade. Its tried about a dozen times so far. Goes through the, Updating stuff. Says restart to install win 11. Then it reboots to windows 10. Again.
Maybe time for a complete clean reinstall......
Really wont to avoid that if poss though
 
Soldato
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Well my Win 10 is now starting to mob about me "upgrading" to 11. Would anyone be kind enough to to a tl:dr on this thread? I'm lazy & don't fancy wading through all 2,643 post lol.

I have a MS account, I'm on 10 Pro and mostly use this pc for gaming/interneting/general home use stuff that kind of thing. Any huge cons/pros/pointers/pitfalls I should look out for or be wary of? I'd be just doing the update, I cba to do a clean install.

Ta :)
 
Soldato
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Would anyone be kind enough to to a tl:dr on this thread?
1. Win 11 generally works, if you want to upgrade go for it. It is basically Win 10 with rounded corners.
2. Win 11 is still in early days, it was clearly released unfinished so now they're playing catch up. Waiting to upgrade at a later date is my advice because Win 10 is supported through to 2025.
3. Win 11 doesn't let you "never combine" taskbar items, so if you want to do that (like most people) you need a third party solution such as https://www.startallback.com/
 
Man of Honour
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Gonna say how you'll get on with it will be quite subjective to taste but there are a few areas of little annoying things along the lines of the "never combine" issue above which depending on how you use the OS may or may not be an irritation.

Like Windows 10 it is clearly unfinished and still likely will be when they abandon it for the next thing but if you are OK with 10 you'll probably be OK with 11.

EDIT: What makes me laugh - a few times recently I've managed to break Windows 10 and 11 and end up with the Windows 95 UI... aka classic look... I know there are a lot of legacy complications with developing a Windows OS but still...
 
Soldato
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I have an intermittent issue when opening settings, the window will close itself pretty much instantly. Anyone else experienced this?
 
Man of Honour
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I get that in Win 10 when my wifi dies I can't get in Settings to fix it.

Had a similar issue related to WiFi where device manager constantly refreshes itself when certain WiFi devices are disabled which also seems linked to the behaviour where the settings window immediately closes itself.
 
Soldato
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But it isn't...
Except it is.

The context menus are awful and only the "classic" context menus serve any use - plus 11's default context menus don't seem to favour keyboard shortcuts - ie: right click, W for New, F for Folder.

The various coloured folders in file explorer are gash and look like a child's paint palette just unexpectedly exploded.

Settings feels like they're cramming all the settings into one place. I prefer the navigation of Windows 10 Settings over Windows 11, going back and forward in the Privacy section is frustrating, especially when you have to scroll down to the next option. Granted this might be a one-off setup process, but it's still frustrating.

Then there's the Start menu which is centred by default and it's position moves as you open and close programs. At least you can change it's position to the left and know that it will stay put.
 

mrk

mrk

Man of Honour
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Let's face it Windows will never be perfect out the box without tweaking/customising to individual preferences. The utility/customisation scene exists for this very reason and often does a far better job than MS.

Windows 11 as an OS, speed stability, scope is perfect and better than 10. Everything else is cosmetic and can be changed, if the user wants to change it.

That's what I've done and it's a far better experience visually and usability than Windows 10. I upgrade to every major Windows version pretty much from day one of RTM and the OS at its core has always been better, more stable and faster each gen.

So a blanket comment like "It's terrible" is pretty inaccurate really.

This isn't iOS/MacOS where whatever you are given you have to tolerate. If you don't like bits of Windows, change it, it's easy and often free.
 
Man of Honour
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90,805
Let's face it Windows will never be perfect out the box without tweaking/customising to individual preferences. The utility/customisation scene exists for this very reason and often does a far better job than MS.

Windows 11 as an OS, speed stability, scope is perfect and better than 10. Everything else is cosmetic and can be changed, if the user wants to change it.

That's what I've done and it's a far better experience visually and usability than Windows 10. I upgrade to every major Windows version pretty much from day one of RTM and the OS at its core has always been better, more stable and faster each gen.

So a blanket comment like "It's terrible" is pretty inaccurate really.

This isn't iOS/MacOS where whatever you are given you have to tolerate. If you don't like bits of Windows, change it, it's easy and often free.

Windows 10/11 actively attempts to subvert tweaking and/or a later updates will regularly break compatibility with a changes or tweaks. You never had to do significant tweaking with past OS or other OSes just to make basic bits of the OS behave in a non-disruptive manner or a baseline of useability (some exceptions aside) - Windows 10 and 11 are precisely heading towards Mac OS like territory - which wouldn't be a problem if it was an optional thing but it isn't.

Try actually taking proper control of Windows update in any of the more recent builds of 10 or 11 without having to resort to 3rd party tools like Windows Update Blocker...

Had a fun one today at work - SCCM forced a restart on the system I was using, outside of the maintenance window, for a Windows update... snooze option disabled and a count down while I was in the middle of stuff I couldn't just put on hold... and according to IT wasn't an authorised event by them.
 
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Don
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So a blanket comment like "It's terrible" is pretty inaccurate really.
It's terrible is pretty accurate in my experience and use case :)

Let's face it Windows will never be perfect out the box without tweaking/customising to individual preferences. The utility/customisation scene exists for this very reason and often does a far better job than MS.
Which is fair enough, except Windows 11 has actively broken part of a design paradigm that hasn't changed since Windows 95 - combining launch icons and running applications on the taskbar (with no option to disable it).
I've not needed to install anything previously to change this, I'm not sure why I should have to start now (I've had to install explorerpatcher to make this usable, but that's brought it's own issues).

I upgrade to every major Windows version pretty much from day one of RTM and the OS at its core has always been better, more stable and faster each gen.

The core is no more stable - it's still Windows 10 (if anything it's now worse as it's got a load of overlay rubbish running on top of the native Windows 10 taskbar and gui). I've upgraded to every version of Windows at release or shortly after, but this is the only version out of the box that has had such a negative impact on how I use my PC.

This isn't iOS/MacOS where whatever you are given you have to tolerate. If you don't like bits of Windows, change it, it's easy and often free.
Except by and large you do have to tolerate it. Microsoft actively make breaking changes to stop 3rd party software - I've already experienced my Start menu completely stop working (as in not even opening) following a windows update whilst using Explorerpatcher.



Try actually taking proper control of Windows update in any of the more recent builds of 10 or 11 without having to resort to 3rd party tools like Windows Update Blocker...

Windows update is still an absolute **** show, and has been since Windows 10. 9/10 when I turn on my laptop to remote into work, I'm greeted with a "your connection is too slow" message from my remote access software, as Windows decides to hog the entirety of my admittedly rubbish 20Mbps internet connection downloading updates as soon as I log on.

Last night I turned on my laptop and then got a welcome screen style prompt informing me that I need to sign in with a Microsoft account, but that I could skip it for 3 days...
 
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Associate
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Signs-that-MS-is-mentally-Ill.jpg


4. If you count the ability to just simpally click on the desktop
 
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