Introducing Windows 11 | Hacker News Reader

Introducing Windows 11

blogs.windows.com

283 pointsWalterSobchak377 comments

Related ongoing thread:

Microsoft announces Windows 11 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27618805

Apparently the Home edition will require a Microsoft account and an internet connection. [1] Can't say I'm looking forward to this. All my Windows installations are with local accounts and I would like to keep it that way. Microsoft has already made it incredibly obnoxious to achieve this with the latest Windows 10 setups, where you have to make sure your computer is not connected to the internet to even unlock the fallback local account creation option. [2] A sad day indeed if this is no longer possible.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/24/22548480/windows-11-home-...

[2] https://www.howtogeek.com/442609/confirmed-windows-10-setup-...

I think a recent version of Windows I had the misfortune of setting up also required a Ms account: no option for a local install. It's also possible that I'm just stupid and didn't see it, but (shrug)

It should, even on the latest Window 10 builds, but only if your computer is not connected to the Internet...

The secret is you have to install Windows 10 with the network disconnected. If it doesn't detect a network connection, it lets you create a local account

You can bypass it by either turning off the network connection prior to a new/clean installation on 20H2/21H1. If you are stuck on the account screen during the installation process, then entering wrong credentials 3 times will present you with a local account option. However, if you have completed installation, then there is an option to turn it into a local account in Settings --> User Accounts --> Change your account type.

Does macOS require an Apple account?

No, you don't have to sign in with an Apple ID, but the O/S certainly strongly encourages you to do so upon installation (or first boot of a new Mac)

It's damn near as annoying as Microsoft's harassment.

It sounds like Windows and macOS are similar in this regard, except Apple has more customers who would see this as a "convenience" because their smartphone/tablet world is tied to Apple.

Well that, but also things like "Find my", which are a genuinely valuable and cannot function without some sort of account you can access online.

You could pair devices to each other instead of to an account. There is no reason an account needs to sit at the core of the find my experience.

actually there is plenty of reason. like you lose your backpack with your macbook and iphone in it .

Just got a new mac. It doesn't require it, but

- They ask you to when you buy it

- They ask you to in an email after you buy it

- It prompts you during install

- It prompts you right after you installed

- It prompts you when you try and update the non-operating-system software that came with the computer, and doesn't let you upgrade it if you don't create one.

And probably a whole lot more prompts that I missed.

It also uses dark patterns to imply that you must enter payment information for you account. Took me 15 minutes of googling to figure out how to create one without entering payment information.

So... "no".

macOS does that, but I find Windows 10 to be way, way worse. There's an option in one of the setup screens, but good luck finding it. They really make it hard to use a local account (or at least used to - I haven't reinstalled Windows in 2 years).

I'm torn on which is worse, I've helped people set up windows computers on the most recent iteration and was equally unimpressed.

Windows hides the option more, mac holds updating offline apps hostage, safari browser extensions hostage, and tries to trick you into entering payment information.

Both are terrible.

I think you need to not setup internet connection to be able to not use MS account.

If that's true, then I'll be forced to move many people's PCs to another OS after decades of Windows. I hope they reverse that decision, it's so hostile.

> Apparently the Home edition will require a Microsoft account and an internet connection.

So they will finally get what they couldn't finalize in W10. These folks have no shame.

I don't like that they make it mandatory, but I understand why they want to push users to using MS accounts. When I set up a PC (Android phone) for non-technical users I always make sure they have a MS (Google) account.

Things like backup and password reset are just so convenient that they outweigh the very theoretical privacy risk for most people.

theoretical … lol

It's a prelude to subscription Windows. Instead of having a family PC that everyone can use, every user with a Microsoft account will need a license. The OS for a family PC is eventually going up 5-10x in price IMO.

Or the use the google model and make people pay the subscription cost psychologically rather than monetarily.

That's a capitalist guarantee.

Everyone already has a windows install, so the only growth is to charge more. It doesn't really matter how; windows will cost more

They have really obsure stuff going on but I don't actually think they'll deny it even if you're not connected, that'll raise a LOT of legal actions against them.

It sounds like it will, actually, deny access if you aren't connected. This is for Windows 11 Home, not Pro.

Also, as for legal actions, strongly doubt it. Apple has required an Apple ID on their iPhones and iPads for years during setup.

>Apple has required an Apple ID on their iPhones and iPads for years during setup.

No they haven't. The setup process encourages using an Apple ID, but it has never been required.

I'll keep using Windows 10 Home then.

Thankfully I only use that machine for gaming.

I replaced Windows with Linux for gaming a couple years ago, due in part to Valve's Proton. It's not perfect, but I estimate 80% of the games I play "just work" and require no tweaking. The state of things for your set of games can be evaluated with https://www.protondb.com.

I've found that a majority of games work on Linux, but they all have drastic performance hits. What can run at 200fps on Windows will be less than 140fps on Linux at the same settings.

> I've found that a majority of games work on Linux, but they all have drastic performance hits

It's probably highly dependent on your graphics drivers in fairness. But with regards to the comments on the 200 -> 140 hz drop, I have a genuine question: how much of an impact does that have unless you have a 240 hz monitor?

Not much, but there are some games where the Windows version is like 80fps and the Linux version becomes unplayable

Me too. Proton is amazing, it’s really lowered the barrier to entry for gaming on Linux. For the most part, people can totally avoid having to mess with wine themselves. Until online multiplayer games make their anti-cheat software work on Linux or vac-banning Linux users stops I think Windows will still have that part of the market.

There is a workaround for now: just press Alt-F4

See https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-11-home-requires-interne...

> Windows is more than just an operating system; it’s a fabric woven into our lives and in our work.

Folks, if you were thinking Windows 11 will bring less telemetry, you were wrong :-)

> Windows is more than justn operating system

So we decided to make meaningless and confusing UI changes! Nevermind that billions of people rely on their knowledge of this OS's interface, fuck 'em! We're just so damn innovative all the time!

It's the "we have to do something!!!" mentality driven by the piles and piles of cash Microsoft has just lying around.

This! Just when everyone was finally getting used to Windows 10.... Finally...

With the growing awareness that tech giants possess intimate knowledge of our preferences, activities, and lives - and use that influence to literally addict us to technology, sell us things, influence us politically - who the f*ck wants another fantastically wealthy corporation "woven into our lives"?

I mean, honestly, does anyone else yearn for the pre-2000 Internet? It sure feels increasingly like we're living in a tech dystopia.

Most of these companies don't even pay taxes, they are literally leeches trying to suck blood out of everyone in their path.

source?

None.

But Windows is less and less a money maker for Microsoft, so it's the obvious route.

Do you think they finally finished the control panel transition? Window 10's control panel thing feels like it was stopped halfway through development, so they left the old stuff in there but made it hard to access. Unfortunately most of the time when you need to change something it's not on the new control panel so you have to dig for the old one instead.

When Windows 10 was first released I figured they would finish up the new control panel and deprecate the old one, but instead several years have passed with no progress whatsoever on the problem and it is still a pain point with Windows 10. Certainly it can't be that hard to copy over the missing features? Did the control panel team quit en-masse in 2015?

Control panel allowed for third-party add-ins. settings doesn't. Until CPLs are migrated, Control Panel stays

wasnt a hierarchical, folder-like control panel more usable anyway? They just needed to figure out a more sane hierarchy.

But there are still non-third-party things in Control Panel. Microsoft hasn't moved all their own settings over to Settings.

Third-party add-ins add additional tabs to Microsoft’s Control Panel items. Microsoft can’t just remove them.

If Microsoft really wanted to, they could find a way to squeeze the old panels into the new UI. They can run x86 binaries on ARM, and all sorts of other tricks, its not like they lack the engineering talent.

They also do loads of shims/special treatments for specific apps based on a compatibility database. Worst case scenario, they could rewrite the top ~100 most common ones and make “Legacy Control Panel” an optional feature that is off by default.

It has been 5+ years since Windows 10 came out, longer since 8, Microsoft really doesn’t need people making excuses for them.

They could remove (or just hide) them by default, if no third-party add-ins are installed. But they can't do that because not all of the settings are exposed by the new Settings screen.

When Windows 10 was first released I figured they would finish up the new control panel and deprecate the old one

Some of them go back to Win2k/NT and if you start looking through them carefully, you'll probably notice the sediment layers of just about every major Windows release. I doubt that's going to change in Win 11. That said 'no progress whatsoever' is not quite accurate, most of the significant Win 10 updates have expanded what the new control panels can do.

The fun thing is too that a lot of old Win2k/NT tools / layers are the source of many security vulnerabilities. An example is font rendering in the kernel, was intended to be a performance increase back in maybe 3.1? Ended up becoming a major pain point from a security perspective.

I mean.. The taskbar seems like a Dock now. The interface seems very Apple Finder-esque now.

I feel like they're just aligning with macOS now. Not that I'm complaining, the video and the interface all are sexy.

Yeah, it looks like they finally just threw the towel in and admitted that macOS has had a superior design aesthetic, and started heading in the same direction.

In what way is it superior? Shinier?

As a long time Linux-only-user (since 1996...) who is now forced by management to work on a MacBook: macOS just feels snappy. Things are where I would expect them to be. Files in the finder are actually what I searched for, and finding stuff is fast. UI animations give a clear indication on what is happening.

I still prefer i3 ... but I can understand why a nontechnical user might prefer a mac device to a windows(10) device. Someone at Apple clearly knows about UI/UX.

The good news is they’re doing that just as apple is fucking it all up, having apparently put iOS designers in charge of macOS.

The bad news is Apple is fucking it all up, having apparently put iOS people in charge of macOS. The new safari looks insanely bad.

I'm still on Mojave because of the UI changes in Big Sur.

Probably more a return to form than anything. I seem to recall reading a book about the early (v 1.0 - 3.11) history of Windows where a developer recounted Bill Gates looking at early builds and asking if they could make it look more like Mac. Wish I could remember the title because that's going to gnaw at me for the rest of the day.

MacOS has, MacOsX has not. It seems that SW got autistic those days. ( no offence for autistic people)

I agree, but File Explorer seems to be the same ugly mess...

And still lack tabs!

That's the thing with these Windows UI updates. It looks great until you fire up some application like Office and then it suddenly it's the same interface you were using before. Then you have this weird mix of aesthetics.

Good news is you can still anchor the taskbar to the left. At least you can within the leaked ISO. Bad news is that the smallest taskbar size is bigger than the current smallest size.

Is that true? From the official microsoft site [0], I see:

> Taskbar functionality is changed including: Alignment to the bottom of the screen is the only location allowed.

[0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifica...

EDIT: Sorry I misread, you meant the icons. But yeah unfortunately it sounds like you can't move the taskbar as a whole anymore. I always kept mine at the top.

Well that does suck for me though, I've been using it on the left side of the screen for well over a decade now. Guess I'll have to get with the times (as arbitrary as they are).

Although considering I've seen no one else mention this issue, I'm guessing I'm a huge outlier.

I'm not a fan. A centered dock does look pretty, but to me it's not as intuitive as a left-aligned screen. Especially since you would be navigating to the "Start" menu a lot. Getting my mouse bottom left is more natural than "some random offset of dead bottom center".

I can't tell if the icons get larger as you hover. That sort of magnifies this problem, as the start button would shift left as other icons are highlighted.

Left aligned makes a ton of sense until you exceed a horizontal resolution of 2k or so. The web realized this ages ago - a left aligned page doesn't work at large screen sizes. With the web it isn't as critical (often times we have a browser window smaller than our full screen), but for a taskbar that spans the full horizontal resolution, left aligned doesn't make sense when you have a 5k ultrawide. Screen sizes will continue to slowly increase, centering the taskbar is futureproofing for that.

It doesn't matter what size the screen is when I want to reach the corners. I just slam my mouse to the lower left and I know exactly where it will be.

Why is this downvoted? This is exactly the usability argument for having a bottom-left aligned Start menu, and it's based on robust evidence about how easily users can select controls of different sizes and in different places with a pointing device.

If you have such a large screen that you can't quickly move your pointer to anywhere on it, I suggest that you have a bigger problem with your system than where your Start menu appears.

Right? It's literally Fitt's Law, one of the first things we figured out for sure in UX.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law

Not that i disagree, but who actually clicks on the start menu using the mouse? Just use the Windows button on the keyboard where your left hand is likely resting already.

Fun fact btw, in win 95 the border of the start button was not clickable, so slamming into the corner did not work because of that 2px border. Microsoft was proud of presenting this feature in later versions, don't remember if it was in 98, 2000 or XP.

> but who actually clicks on the start menu using the mouse?

Everybody except hn readers who live in their own bubble.

> Left aligned makes a ton of sense until you exceed a horizontal resolution of 2k or so. The web realized this ages ago

I think you're comparing apples and oranges though - with web pages, the issues are readability and aesthetics, whereas with the taskbar it's that icons are where you expect them to be (when centred, they will move as you open more windows).

IMO, a more apt comparison is the tabs of a browser, rather than the content the browser is showing.

> Getting my mouse bottom left is more natural

There's a name for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law

and the fact that their UI people somehow have forgotten about it speaks volumes.

I don’t think Fitt’s takes into account the “end of screen” concept, though? I guess it makes the width of the element infinite in some regards.

It considers "effective size". Something on the edge has "infinite effective size".

Yep, "magic corners" are considered infinite size in terms of Fitts's law, though with larger and larger screens it still takes time to get there.

You can change the alignment to the "classic" left.

It's Windows-- surely you'll be able to customize it to pin it to the left, or there will be 3rd-party software to do it for you.

Yep. There is an option in the leaked build, which is pretty old, to pin it to the left.

Fitts' Law didn't stop making the corners of a screen the most reliably reached parts just because some UI designer at Microsoft likes central alignment. I expect that central placement for the Start button to be objectively less efficient for users who frequently use that button, even if it's just a small but frequent irritation.

Left aligned taskbar sucks for 5760x1080

You geek.

yeah im at the first screenshot and it just looks awful

Have Microsoft forgotten the lessons they learned so hard since 1995? The start button being in the corner has real usability benefits.

They ruined the taskbar a long time ago, the button grouping thing is absolutely horrible and can only be partially turned off... hopefully they at a minimum kept the full button option somewhere.

And the centering... if new stuff is added and it recenters, it means things are moving all the time. eeek.

The people 'reviewing' the leak last week mentioned that you can move the Start button back to the corner rather than having it centered.

Microsoft's usability dementia started with them removing the 3D relief from toolbar buttons in Windows 98 to look like plain icons and making menubar labels indistinguishable from toolbar buttons (except text instead of icons) just for the sake of looks, despite all these having different user interactions.

Then again they were never completely consistent. For example in Win3.x design 3D elements were supposed to be for those that cause some command to be performed, yet the scrollbar visual design was the same as that of buttons.

I think it's probably closer to ChromeOS with the idea being centered is better for touch support.

There is no bloody touch on a desktop except on their braindead surface tablets. You can point your finger at the monitor but after some time, it hurts.

In that case the windows key is faster anyway.

XFCE, CDE, KDE and WindowMaker and AfterStep all had the same sort of dock look for many years.

At least we can finally go from one machine to another without too much of a difference or having to learn much - particularly good for those who only use what they "know".

Rounded corners and touchscreens, is that windows 8/vista again? What i want from windows is speed . More and more people are going to be using them to work from home, and not on a tablet or a laptop, but on a good old desktop pc, their sales are going up. What's the rationale behind this kind of regression to terrible windows 8? Can i plz have snappier windows 7 with slightly cleaner look?

> app developers can now bring their own commerce into our Store and keep 100% of the revenue – Microsoft takes nothing. App developers can still use our commerce with competitive revenue share of 85/15

This is great. That's how it s done

> Can i plz have snappier windows 7 with slightly cleaner look?

I wouldn't mind a complete visual regression to Windows 7. In fact, I remember that Win 7 Aero only had rounded corners.

> Win 7 Aero only had rounded corners.

Except that the rounding only happened on the window decoration, which took space. The client rendering area was a full rectangle. Now, they’re cutting corners out of the client rendering area.

Touchscreen laptops and convertible laptops are becoming increasingly common, they can't just ignore this market segment.

increasingly common but still a tiny minority of their user base. others shouldn't suffer for that

I don't think so, the studies I've seen actually show the number of touchscreen devices is growing, and desktop PCs are shrinking.

but how are their sales doing? given the kind of apps that run on a PC, i think the touchscreen is just a gimmick that is barely used. Windows programs are just not made for tablets, and will never be

The sales seem to be increasing, I wouldn't say it's a gimmick. Also touch support is not just for touchscreens, most laptops now have multi-touch touchpads where you can do gestures. Making a program support those already puts it significantly closer to having real touchscreen support, so it's not as hard or difficult as you'd imagine for older Windows programs to gain good tablet support.

maybe, but windows programs are so heterogeneous that i dont see how i will be able to use blender, browser, word, excel etc on a touchscreen .

Besides, this "touch-first" approach has been tried with win8 and in my experience it was atrocious

The point with those laptops is, you use the keyboard when it makes sense, and you use the touchscreen when that makes sense. I think you're confusing "touch-first" with "having any support for touchscreens at all," some concessions need to be made if you don't want it to be totally unusable on a device like that which has an optional touchscreen.

> i think the touchscreen is just a gimmick that is barely used.

I'll just say that my laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga) has a touchscreen and I love it. Every laptop I buy from here out will be a touchscreen merely because the ability to reach up while I type and just tap where i want my mouse to go next is such a better system than working with a nipple or trackpad.

I think as laptops with touchscreens become more affordable lots of people will change across. When i'm forced to work on my work laptop without KB&M, I really miss the ability to touch my screen instead of working with the god awful trackpad.

I would assume part of this is due to the trackpad. The only trackpads (of those I have used) that I would describe as better than "decent" have been on mac laptops.

> Rounded corners and touchscreens, is that windows 8 again?

Windows 8 distinctly had no rounded corners. The metro design language was quite square

Guessing they’re confusing 8 and Vista? I have no other explanation.

right, win7 had some roundedness, but the unbelievable annoying launch screens for touchscreens were in win8 IIRC

I use Linux now but keep windows VMs around for some legacy stuff. It takes about 5-10s to boot win7. It's snappy as heck, and reliable, even in a vm with minimal ram.

And, every program works

> App developers can still use our commerce with competitive revenue share of 85/15

But there isn't a perpetual Agreement guaranteeing MS won't ever increase its cut in the future when its store becomes more popular. The Store hasn't yet been terribly successful. Most of my Windows apps are installed outside the MS store: Notepad++, VSCodium, Steam, and so on. So MS will try to get more apps in the Store and then lock down Windows like iOS once it has enough apps, then increase its own cut so that it can transfer wealth from the middle class to billionaire MSFT shareholders, just like AAPL does.

It doesn't even matter, unless microsoft stops allowing programs outside the app store. But that will never happen given their ecosystem.

You know I kind of wish windows had a store, but then I tired installing apps using the current store and it's a terrible experience. They make it so hard for people with more than 1 hard drive to manage what goes where.

> Rounded corners and touchscreens, is that windows 8 again?

Transparent windows and widgets make it more like Vista.

Looks like a new version of KDE

... which the KDE will soon copy and the loop will continue forever

>> app developers can now bring their own commerce into our Store and keep 100% of the revenue – Microsoft takes nothing. App developers can still use our commerce with competitive revenue share of 85/15

> This is great. That's how it s done

It can't go on, though. Why won't every developer turn their app "free" and use Stripe or something to shave even more off the commerce fees? Meanwhile Microsoft eats hosting/maintenance/development on the store for zero return. We saw why Apple went the IAP route even if it's unpopular among developers and the fees could afford to be reduced.

This is fine? It means more people are on the platform and using Windows. Remember, Microsoft still makes money from every Windows computer sold.

Indirect revenue is why this is sustainable! Good on Microsoft for making the right choice here.

In the video, they're spending the first 20 seconds filing down the corners of the logo, having a big reveal of the blue Windows logo with rounded corners. This leads into the rest of the feature reveal, all round things now. But in the "end credits", the same blue Windows logo is back to its sharp cornered self again. Is this a subtle hint to the UI inconsistencies that are still to be expected after the major version bump, or is there another meaning?

Windows 11 logo uses rounded corners.

The official Microsoft logo is still flat square.

So, yet another level of UI inconsistencies[1].

[1] https://ntdotdev.wordpress.com/2021/02/06/state-of-the-windo...

One post says this, while another says

> The only real question is, will I still be able to get to the Network card configuration page that's been the same for the last 15-20 years. [I use it every day and don’t want them to make it into some simplified screen]

Microsoft truly can’t win!

One person praises it for being ugly while another for its beauty, while another criticises the central alignment of the taskbar and another says it’s a fundamentally stupid choice.

> will I still be able to get to the Network card configuration page that's been the same for the last 15-20 years

Just pull the band aid fast. Can't adjust the UI for inconsistencies in long time users muscle memory. They will adjust to a consistent UX.

They could mostly win by making the new stuff actually fully functional; although any change would be annoying, the biggest part of "and don’t want them to make it into some simplified screen" is "simplified".

Its so bad.

I don't know how this doesn't bug other people more. It's completely unfinished. Plenty of settings haven't moved from their XP or Windows 7 menus, as new "metro" 8/10 settings menus are created that have missing settings, new settings, and conflicting settings.

The new W10 interface to set a static IP will conflict with the old one (adapter properties) without telling you. Happy debugging.

As a late adopter to Win10 who hadn't been in a Windows environment since the early days of Win7, I was shocked how jarring ugly and inconsistent it was.

Win11 from what they've revealed looks like a moderate improvement? But I know what they're not showing is how the desktop will look with several non-native MS applications open, the nonsense of the theming across Office applications, and Explorer with its inexplicable tab bars.

It makes me disappointed that something so ubiquitous and essential to peoples' work can't aspire to be aesthetically, if not beautiful, at least nice.

Office and Explorer were actually shown in some other videos today, they've been updated to the new UI theme as well. As have paint/notepad. Edge as well, that combined with the Taskbar/Start menu and Store they demoed in the main video. Settings has also been completely restyled to match the new theme, don't remember which video(s) that was in though. The new Terminal (which can now replace command prompt as the default terminal for applications too) seems to fit in visually too.

Overall I don't think every Microsoft app ever made is going to get a facelift but it really seems like all of the main user facing apps have actually been updated together for once.

Comment on the Reddit thread where this screenshot was posted - https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/o1x183/the_famou...

The ODBC Driver interface for configuration is tied to the old dialog.

The interface for the drivers was designed around GetOpenFileName() as it was at the time.

One of the features of GetOpenFileName/GetSaveFileName is that the structure passed in can include two special options- a function pointer to a hook routine, as well as a custom dialog template which windows will insert.

The functions were improved in Windows 95 with the "Explorer style". Even old programs get this style at the very least, because windows will imply the flag.

unless a template or hook routine is specified. See if a hook routine or template is specified and the OFN_EXPLORER flag is not, then the hook routine or template was designed for the old-style dialog. Windows uses the old-style dialog in this instance so that the program can run and doesn't crash.

The ODBC Driver configuration uses a dialog template to add the "read Only" and "Exclusive" checkboxes. That is why it shows the old style dialog.

People might say, "They should update it"

Update what?

If GetOpenFileName()'s ability to fallback to the old-style dialog is removed, than you won't see this dialog. Instead, it will crash. Cool. great experience.

the driver interface? OK great. so now there is a new version of the ODBC Driver interface. Now all the ODBC Drivers need to be updated. Some of the drivers were written by companies that are either out of business or rather different. I have this sneaking suspicion that Paradox software isn't going to be writing a new ODBC Driver for the MS-DOS Database.

Just drop everything? OK Cool.... so now companies get forcibly upgraded to Windows 11 and literally cannot do business because they rely on them in some manner. "They should upgrade". I won't get into that except to say it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, but companies in that position are far more likely to find ways to not upgrade the software that caused the problem so, you know, they can keep doing business. And not upgrading the OS is certainly cheaper than countless thousands of man-hours in upgrading their Business software.

And a big thing people don't understand about backwards compatibility is it's not just about old programs working. It's about new ones working to.

If Microsoft removed all "backwards compatibility", than practically nothing would actually work. Software would be constantly crashing, sending error reports, etc. Now, call me crazy, but somehow that doesn't seem like it's a great experience. And if upgrading to Windows X+1 suddenly caused programs to crash left & right, nobody is going to blame the programs.

Thanks for the read. Actually, I have no problem with Win95 (and previous) era UI components, it's the layers of inconsistencies on top of that bothers me. The Windows 95 is still the best Windows UI of all times.

The backwards compatability on Windows is truly great, particularly compared to Linux and macOS (where messages fired off when buttons are clicked silently disappear nowhere, and the button does nothing)....

There is no backward compatibility from Win 7 onwards. A lot of games stopped functioning in Win 7( you need to rename system dlls or change registry entries for them to work). And in win 10 they just don't work.

On one side of the house you have folks saying Windows 3.1 dialogs are still able to be referenced, on the other you have folks saying there is no backwards compatibility from Windows 7 onwards. Clearly both can't be true yet Windows gets the short end of the stick after each reference anyways :).

"Really old games" probably don't have the same backward compatibility weight as "really really really old business software". As a good example a friend of mine with a local business just had me migrate his 16 bit ordering system from the 90s... to Windows 10... and I'll be damned it worked.

a very fair, honest review. yes, software ages with time, and with time piles of new layers are added and others cannot be removed for very obvious reasons.

people who fail to understand this have basically no clue about complex systems evolution over tens of years, or have only produced their own cloud-managed service.

so, yeah, Microsoft is faring very well. OSes after windows 7 are extremely stable considering the diversity of components and packages that run on top of it.

apple killing all backward compatibility is not necessarily a good thing. we are talking right to repair? then what what right does an OS vendor to kill backwards-compatible components?

> Start utilizes the power of the cloud and Microsoft 365 to show you your recent files no matter what platform or device you were viewing them on earlier

Well, consider me scared.

I mean this is basically just iCloud and users generally adore it. Having deep integration to say things like “get me the document I was working on my phone” or a global browser history search is really freakin cool.

I really don't need microsoft harvesting my personal documents and telemetry to power a start menu.

I'd be happy if they could finally get round to answering questions like "open the file called file.ext", rather than doing something terrifying like guessing what I might have meant by uploading absolutely everything to their own servers.

Here's a tool to check if your PC meets the hardware requirements[0].

However, it looks like many modern systems don't have TPM 2.0 enabled in the BIOS, and will come back with "This PC can't run Windows 11" (including mine - Asus Prime X470 Pro with Ryzen 2700X, 32GB RAM, 1.5TB storage, Radeon RX 5600 XT.)

[0] https://download.microsoft.com/download/1/d/d/1dd9969b-bc9a-...

Apparently, my 3yo desktop isn't compatible (Gigabyte Z270X Ultra). I really doubt people will upgrade their hardware just to use Windows 11.

That doesn't sound right, search around in the BIOS for "Platform Trust Technology" or "PTT". If it's disabled, change it to enabled.

Just enabled PTT in the BIOS, but the tool still says my computer is not compatible (but it doesn't tell me exactly why).

You probably only have the header on your motherboard, without a tpm module actually plugged in. Mine was like this, and the specs for your motherboard suggest this is also the case for you. You can buy them on online pretty cheap (I got one for $20)

PTT is part of the CPU, no external TPM module is necessary. PTT is Intel's implementation, AMD have something similar called fTPM.

You do not need any external module on machines with fTPM/PTT support (i.e. if you bought it in the last few years).

You're right! And now I qualify for the win 11 beta. Looks like I got confused between two different security setting pages in the UEFI menu, and had just enabled "the ability for it to use a TPM plugged in to the header" instead of enabling PPT like I thought I was doing.

Since you're running Ryzen, you can enable firmware-based TPM in your UEFI settings and you should be good to go.

Screenshot of the security processor page: https://i.imgur.com/ZWtq8EO.png

Screenshot of the PC health check: https://i.imgur.com/Rb3eZIc.png

I'll have to check. I know that my Asus Prime X470 Pro lists TPM as "sold separately"; there's a connector on the motherboard, but the module itself is likely not present.

(For example: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1237446-REG/asus_tpm_... )

From the manual[1], it is an option under section 3.6.1 AMD fTPM Configuration. It's built into the CPU rather than the motherboard, but the motherboard can provide a separate hardware TPM.

[1]: https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/SocketAM4/PRIME_X470-P...

Ha I was in that PDF a few minutes ago. I saw "fTPM" but since it didn't list an explanation, I didn't know if it was an included TPM module or something else.

TPM is required? That's great because it gives me a good reason to tell my boss we shouldn't switch to it. What are they thinking with that?

I'm guessing somebody high up in sales is thinking "hey, we're Microsoft -- we're gonna dictate how this is going to go because people aren't going to want to be without the latest version of Windows!"

Smells like Classic Redmond Hubris.

Well. They're not wrong yet.

Maybe to better pin a license to a device? Or because google: https://chrome.googleblog.com/2011/07/chromebook-security-br...

I guess my Phenom II-based system is SOL. No TPM, not even a connector on the motherboard, and of course it's pre-UEFI.

Oh well, Windows 10 will be the last MS OS to be installed on it, 100% Linux it is.

Until Linux distributions start requiring TPM as well.

Even if they do (and they won't), it will be very easy to disable that requirement...

Here they go again, messing with the start menu...

Hard to believe that they didn't learn from Windows 8, but they didn't.

Also: weren't we told multiple times that there would be no successor to Windows 10? That all future versions of Windows would just be updates?

It will be reversed. Give it a year until windows 12 (The apologetic edition)

Apparently this will be a free and in-place update from win10, so maybe that is compatible with what they meant by "just updates", even if it is a redesign.

Which, by the way, is pretty strong evidence that you will be the product (even if it weren't for the talk of "weaving in with your life" or whatever).

The only real question is, will I still be able to get to the Network card configuration page that's been the same for the last 15-20 years? I use it daily. They've just put it behind more and more "nicce looking, but non-functional" network management UIs,.

Oh yeah.. I fucking hate Windows 10, a few weeks ago I had to check these settings and I got lost every time.. I think they've completed the web-pagization of the control panel nowadays.

Well, right now it's: Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Network and Internet -> Network and Sharing Center -> Change adapter settings. I'm sure they will add " -> Ad for Steve Ballmer's Basketball Team -> ".

I think I can still get to that view by right clicking on the bottom right thing for wifi

Linux desktop is getting there... (Not sure, though, what an "ideal" UNIX desktop is supposed to be like.)

Win + R, control netconnections

Classic network configuration is not good UI by any means, claustrophobic non-resizable windows with complicated nested hierarchy. But they somehow managed to make "Settings" not better, with huge whitespace and a lot less functional...

I haven't used windows in a while, but it used to be: win+r > ncpa.cpl

No mentions about privacy, more bundled in apps, more "AI", more cloud connectivity. I don't know what I even expected.

> The web was born and grew up on Windows

I think CERN engineers while working on web and www protocol were using unix as windows was not even there yet.

https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web

I'm sure they're refering to the undying love every single web developer had for Internet Explorer.

That's completely the way I remember it!

IE4 maybe, it was downhill after that.

I'm pretty sure this was a sarcastic comment

I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter what they are referring to. What they are clearly suggesting is false, and they should know better.

> The web was born and grew up on Windows

The first part is just a lie, the second part is open for interpretation, but certainly not the formative years.

In the late 90s, IE4 and then IE5 was the gold standard. We were all ecstatic when we didn't have to support Netscape 4 anymore. It wasn't until Firefox (more specifically Firebug) was mature that IE lost the crown.

Maybe for you. For us the best usage of IE was to download Netscape Navigator .

I'm like 99% sure the first www server was on an NeXT machine.

And subsequently Sun machines. "The Network Is the Computer".

Yeah that line, along with others, is almost offensive. Microsoft tried really hard to stop the open web during the time they were building early Windows. They're trying to take credit for something that popular that they tried really hard to stop.

"We tried to adopt, extend and extinguish this golden child in our possessive embrace, hobble it to us as was our custom, but it grew up all the stronger for fighting us, and shouldn't we all be grateful for that?"

Not almost, it is simply a blatant lie. Now, how should I trust Microsoft if they can't avoid a lie (that is totally unnecessary btw) in their press release that was probably carefully crafted and approved by several levels of managers? It's like saying "we can do whatever we want, no matter if it's good or wrong, as long as in line with our interests." Shame.

Yeah, that's an odd statement. Windows 3 didn't exist in 1989, and nobody really used Windows 2. The web wasn't "born" there for sure.

More accurately: the web survived Windows

too early to tell

Thats not even mentioning the complete dominance of Linux in the server space for decades.

> decades

I'd like to think that, but I am not sure if that's actually true.

>I'd like to think that, but I am not sure if that's actually true.

It's hard to get real numbers, for sure. There's counts based on what the server shipped with, when those used to be bundled, which favors Windows. And there's counts of active servers on the internet, which favors Unix-like. Both counts are fundamentally flawed for various reasons.

I did, though, get a chuckle out of Microsoft's slide that showed more Linux instances than Windows ones on Azure: https://build5nines.com/linux-is-most-used-os-in-microsoft-a...

Well, they did try to merge the web browser with the desktop (and, I as far as I remember, got sued for that).

NeXTSTEP specifically, for the browser and the server.

Came here to say pretty much this; add to that Bill Gates' "the internet is just a passing fad" attitude at the time, this comes across as a complete whitewash of history. I know it's just a PR fluff piece so it's not like I'm going to write any angry letters, but I had to shake my head a bit at that.

> The web was born and grew up on Windows

For many home users that is a reality, even if it is not historically accurate. And, more importantly, I think that highlights the current position of Windows.

In the 90s and 2000s, Windows was synonymous with computing, the office and the Internet. Nowadays, Android and iPhone are the point of contact with the world for most people. Windows has lost that position.

What I read is "The web was born and grew up on Windows" ... and we want Windows to be its future. That is what, I think, it follows from that statement and the goal of Windows 11.

Let's not forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbird_(online_platform). Bill Gates was actively trying to kill the internet in 1995.

> We’re also pumped to announce that we are bringing Android apps to Windows for the first time

This is super cool, but honestly I don't see myself using any Android apps on Windows.

> Starting later this year, people will be able to discover Android apps in the Microsoft Store and download them through the Amazon Appstore

I probably shouldn't expect different, but it's a bummer that you apparently won't be able to to load paid Google Playstore apps. I have several reference apps that are paid and would love to run those on my desktop since no web or native app exists.

Doesn't Windows have a built in tool to mirror this from an existing Android phone? Clearly not the same, but maybe an option.

It is just like Apple did with their new M1 MacBooks

Yeah but the question is, would this only be for ARM Windows?

I run chromeOS as my daily driver, and find a few android apps quite useful (I run linux apps too). There are lots of apps that are mobile-only which are nice to have a second copy of or use the big screen; google maps is possibly my favourite, much better than the web version.

There's also just more developer focus on android than windows for a lot of small apps like free VPNs, currency converters etc, leading to better choice/quality/discoverability than native windows apps.

The way it's worded also implies it's going to be a loooong road before it's anything like production ready.

Like you though, I can't imagine why I'd want to use Android apps on my desktop... I'd prefer to use my Android phone/tablet, where such apps were designed to run. Now, I'm thinking maybe I'm not the target market for this feature... but then I wonder, who is? For example, they mention TikTok - does your average TikTok user even have a Windows PC? And if so, why would they prefer to sit in front of a desktop to view short videos, rather than their phone or TV?

Laptops are still a thing. I imagine the age group of TikTok users includes a lot of students. A phone won't cut it for anything like schoolwork. The Surface line of Windows PCs and the multitudes of 2-in-1s are very touch-centric and can act as big tablets. The "sit in front of a desktop" association is a bit outdated.

I couldn't find Microsoft Teams on the Microsoft app store today. Maybe they should fix that first.

Teams is built in in Windows 11

> Windows 11 will be available through a free upgrade for eligible Windows 10 PCs and on new PCs beginning this holiday.

Wow!

> this holiday

Which holiday? Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year, Labor Day... Fourth of July?

Maybe Halloween would be appropriate, given how scary any major Windows upgrade is to enterprise orgs.

If they said "this holiday season", that would probably mean December timeframe, but they don't say that.

They repeat this confusing reference later on:

> The free upgrade will begin to roll out to eligible Windows 10 PCs this holiday and [...]

Some American holiday presumably? Just like the video starting at "8am PDT" or whatever.

Why can't they just a) commit to a date or month, and b) specify UTC time for their launches.

rofl, they mean December you pedant

Holiday almost always means sometime mid-November to December.

Where ?

This is a particularly awful example of Americentrism. Going by season names is bad enough (this is a habit of Americans, Canadians and Europeans, which doesn’t work much beyond the northern hemisphere’s temperate and sub-arctic regions), especially for “fall”; but people in the rest of the world will normally eventually be able to figure it out. But this use of “holiday” is utterly unknown to most of the world and is nigh impossible to figure out without someone telling you what it is. As an Australian, I only learned about it last year, and my considered guess as to what it meant was wrong—I guessed somewhere in the middle of the year, when school is not operating during the summer. (We call the breaks between terms “school holidays”, most significantly of the summer break, which for us is mid–late December until the end of January or so.)

This was unclear to me as well. “This holiday” is not a phrase I’ve ever really heard in casual conversation or in the media register. I know the British “go on holiday” but that means vacation.

Their PR/marketing department dropped the ball on this specific phrase. At the same time it seems that marketing department slip ups are common these days.

If they mean Christmas time, I.e. December or winter, they should just say December or winter. That would be more clear.

I'm quite sure it was supposed to say "this holiday season", which indeed would imply December?

Which december ?

"We don't need to sell you anything, your data is enough"

i won't rush, always wait a few years

"Free upgrade" from Microsoft doesn't bode well. I wonder:"what's the catch?"

This could be a deal breaker Minimum system requirements: Trusted Platform Module (TPM) version 2.0

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11

At a time when the PC is playing a more central role in our lives

Oh, come on! That trend has peaked long ago, and you guys know it. And I type this using Windows 10, quite happily I might add, but unless you take a what's-a-computer approach that lumps cell phones with desktop PCs and everything in between, that is a ridiculous (opening!) statement.

Well, with the pandemic and general shift to learn-from-home and work-from-home, I would say that they are not wrong.

pc sales are up

So much for Windows 10 being the last version of windows...[1]

[1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/windows-10-the-last-version-of-wi...

Everyone jokes about it finally being "the year of the linux desktop", but a few years ago that actually did happen to my circle. Between a mac for work and linux at home, I actually haven't touched windows in a number of years at this point, and interestingly, neither have a reasonable number of the technical people I interact with.

Of the nontechnical people around me, many of them have transitioned to primarily use their phone or sometimes a tablet. The only people I know who still use windows adamantly are PC gamers, and they're all still on windows 7.

Is windows still considered the default home computing environment? Since they're totally out of mobile at this point, I wonder by what margin, and how long that will actually last. I suppose there is still the corporate world that isn't all in on on apple, that may not change for some time.

I've been running Linux on my personal desktop for years now. Unless you want to play games or require it for work I'm not sure what advantages windows really has anymore. Linux is noticeably faster, has no ads, and is Unix based.

Windows also has Linux now.

I can play Windows games and use Linux on Windows (WSL)

I don’t see the point of running Linux distros on bare metal anymore.

Bare metal Linux is much faster than Linux on windows in my experience.

Also does nothing to address all the other windows rot like ads in the start menu and excessive telemetry.

WSL is a nice to have gnu inside of windows, but one of the reasons I switched to linux was because I enjoyed setting up a window manager and configuring my status bar, writing custom scripts for keybindings, general fiddling. There are distros that compete with windows in the UI space, and maybe those don't make much sense anymore.

I'm sort of answering my own question here too - people that don't love tinkering for its own sake may not ever be driven away from windows.

The filesystem (NTFS) being god awful slow with large numbers of files is a good reason.

It boggles my mind that Microsoft has not gotten around to making this better. Apple even introduced introduced a new FS (APFS) and migrated people silently and successfully.

I thought NTFS was pretty advanced with low-level compression and file streams etc. that I am not sure are available on APFS.

Apple had the luxury of doing an upgrade of everyone's filesystem under iOS as a test, then a rollback a few versions ago which is why it took so long to perform the upgrade.

Microsoft haven't got such a large userbase to test on (without permission).

Trust. Windows is a forein OS with backdoors.

Unfortunately linux does not have spying built-in (except some ubuntu - but you get the point) . As MS says in Edge: your privacy is important for us.

I'm guessing the "technical" people are software engineers or designers. Windows is still very much in use at large enterprises which means you have a lot of technical people supporting businesses that use it and I don't see that changing soon. Show me a good alternative to AD, group policy etc. that allows the granular control on the back end like Windows does.

I wouldn't look forward to training anyone to use Linux or Apple products that's not familiar with them already.

Additionally, I still can't get my camera or mic to work on Ubuntu on my Dell XPS 9700, tried Mint as well and the wifi doesn't work on it. Linux needs to address its multiple driver inconsistencies (or Dell does) before it'll ever become the norm in a business environment. The only other 2 viable computer manufacturers for businesses are really Lenovo and HP which have problems too.

I have linux (ubuntu) running on a couple of Dells (XPS and Latitude) and have not had any trouble. And I also have a Lenovo Thinkpad that it works fine on. The Lenovo and one of the Dells specifically claimed to support Ubuntu. As long as you check that, I think you should be able to get a successful setup.

(Granted, there may always be some advanced thing you're doing that isn't supported. But I had a windows machine - Thinkpad- for work a few years ago, and IT had disabled sleep when it was closed, so I'd carry it in my backpack and would find it red hot because it was still running full blast in there. When I asked IT, they said they had disabled sleep because it crashes the computers. All that to say, windows has its quirks too)

The sad part is that even when the vendor certifies their product for linux it's still not a sure thing.

Have a Lenovo Thinkpad P1 gen2 + Thinkdock thunderbolt 3 dock for Workstations at work that's certified for ubuntu. Windows gives the ocasional issue with dock connected monitors blinking, but on linux one monitor wont work at all and dock USB seams to not work properly half the time.

Thunderbolt 3 are just unreliable, but still work better in windows then linux. Not that I blame linux for it but I need to get work done so I'm still sticking with windows+wsl2.

From wikipedia: " Microsoft Windows is the most commonly installed OS, at approximately between 74% (based on web use) and 97.03% (based on use for gaming) globally"

Presumably you're citing percentage of desktop usage, because about half of the web is viewed on mobile. I know many people who primarily use phones or tablets, with very occasional if any laptop access.

> Is windows still considered the default home computing environment?

The answer is a solid and unequivocal yes. Linux is single digits in the market, Mac is roughly 20%, windows is the rest. Ask a normal person what they use on their PC, the question likely wouldn’t make sense because most people aren’t aware a viable alternative to windows even exists.

Because there is no viable alternative. Macs are way too expensive for normal people that want to book a trip and read emails once in a while, and Desktop Linux sucks for everyone that's not technical or doesn't have ready access to someone technical.

That’s a good point

The M1 macbook air at $999 blows away windows laptops that cost twice as much. It’s available for $899 almost any day of the week on Amazon (or with a school discount).

The average laptop selling price is somewhere in the $700 range. That’s hardly a huge premium considering the delta in performance and user experience compared to low specced machines.

I’d also say without hesitation that cheap Chromebooks are better than their cheap windows competitors. If you just need to do basic things, ChromeOS is much snappier on slow hardware while also being more secure. If you need to do more, you’ll benefit from a faster system at which point the M1 is an easy choice for the money.

The $999 M1 MacBook Air costs around $1400 in Europe (the Czech Republic, Germany, France and Poland), and most people I know get by on old $600 laptops. In my country even the base Air is very much a premium laptop and is not even expensive, but prohibitively expensive for most people.

I think there are more people who are happy with (or at least tolerant of) Windows 10 than some of us geeks might like to admit. A lot of non-techie people aren't going to run into the negative aspects of Windows 10 much in practice. They aren't going to be changing enough settings to be frustrated by the multiple UIs. They won't look up each OS update online before deciding whether to install it. Many of them care less about issues like privacy than we tend to and willingly hand over huge amounts of personal information to online services anyway. Some of them will get stung badly, and they'll receive the same half-sympathetic, half-contemptuous look their techie friends would give someone who chose a dictionary word as a password or who didn't back up their precious photo collection. Most of them won't get stung, and probably have no idea about any of these issues, and happily carry on with their lives worrying about things that are much more important to them.

That said, the same rise in online services that Microsoft seems to be betting on as a corporate strategy has made Windows increasingly expendable on the desktop. For day-to-day use, most techies I know are now on Linux or Apple desktops. A lot of non-technical users are fine with just their phone and maybe a tablet for everyday stuff now, and Apple laptops are popular with home users who are OK with the premium price. Windows laptops are seen as the cheap (in every sense) option, and I don't remember hearing anyone ever say they specifically wanted one. It's different in enterprise world, but in enterprise world the technical advantages of Windows 10 are more useful and most of the worst disadvantages don't apply.

I also think reports of Windows 7's demise are premature. It's obviously only a relatively small part of the desktop market now, but people are still using it for a variety of sensible reasons both at home and at work. I imagine they are more interested in being able to run whatever software or hardware is keeping them there than in lectures about security from people whose proposed alternative would disrupt their work and compromise their privacy by design anyway.

I'm a geek and I think Windows 10 is good. Sorry.

Objectively, a lot of it is. I think geeks are more likely to be concerned about the parts that aren't, and about the overall "Windows as a service" concept and the emphasis on connecting everything online.

White text on white background. Windows without ribbon and decorations on multiple monitors. Single clicks registering as double click. Win 10 is a mess.

> The only people I know who still use windows adamantly are PC gamers, and they're all still on windows 7.

According to Steam, 92.87% of its users are on Windows 10 and only 0.16% are still on Windows 7.

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

According to Steam, 92.87% of its users are on Windows 10 and only 0.16% are still on Windows 7.

How can that be true, when a Hacker News comment clearly stated otherwise?

Interesting. I should have looked this up, I guess it's obvious my sample isn't large enough to be representative.

It's still the predominant OS for business, so vast majority of people will already be familiar with it and the starting price for a windows machine is half of what you'd pay for an entry mac.

On another hand, windows is the main PC gaming platform, linux has come a long way and is a lot more viable then even 5 years back, but you're still pretending your windows most of the time so you'll have to deal with additional problems every now and then.

More to the point, I haven't seen any big OEM selling linux boxes outside of dev machines and specialised vendors (system 76).

So yeah, windows still dominates.

Easy to thumb our noses at it, and this community is already on it in spades from the comments so far.

I'll wait and see. I like Win10 much more than I thought I would. I rode Win7 into the sunset, only abandoning the ship about a week before they dropped security updates for it because I thought I'd dislike Win10 so much. I even ran Ubuntu as my desktop OS for about four months before switching back over to Microsoft and Win10.

I'll wait and see this time.

"The free upgrade will begin to roll out to eligible Windows 10 PCs this holiday and continuing into 2022."

This is a very un-American sounding sentence.

Their real money is not in the Windows 11 license anymore. It's in the tight Microsoft account integration, the recurring revenue for 365/OneDrive, etc.

> We’re also announcing a progressive change to our revenue share policies where app developers can now bring their own commerce into our Store and keep 100% of the revenue – Microsoft takes nothing.

Nicely done!

One would have to be incredibly naive to fall for that.

They're just going to bring that fee back later when/if people actually start using their store. Windows has a lot of problems, but as of yet the world has been fortunate enough to avoid it becoming another walled garden.

Actually using their store, either as a developer or consumer, is a sure-fire way to fuck that up for everyone.

I'm really happy about the new functionality for window management in Windows 11, particularly the grouped applications that you can maximize or minimize together. I also like that they're emphasizing different workspaces for different tasks, as this is much how I work with MacOS' spaces. Similarly I'd think that people used to automatic tiling window managers in linux would be familiar and appreciate the advantages of this workflow. The added tiling features that go beyond what is already a pretty competent window manager is welcome. I'm assuming they are drawing a lot of that from their powertoys fancy zones [1] application. Hopefully the added docking features and how they treat windows really is as good as they are demoing.

I hope that there is some way to navigate to the individual workspaces by a keybind built into Windows, though. As it is in Windows 10, you can't (as far as I know) bind an arbitrary hotkey to focus a specific workspace, you have to navigate them directionally which makes it much harder for me to use for what I use them for.

I also got the impression that changing themes like from light to dark mode is going to be a much better experience (one that's intended to happen often) with smooth animations between them. Windows 10 currently does allow you to change from light to dark mode but there's no way to automatically switch them by sunrise/sunset like it exists in MacOS. Mojave also featured bad animations when it added dark mode to MacOS but today does it much more gracefully.

I'm extremely skeptical of any sort of improvement on their search/launcher, which is hilariously bad when compared against spotlight's index (which powers spotlight and many third party applications like alfred and launchbar) or even kde's krunner or applications like rofi. If there is a meaningful change here it'd be the most exciting for me, though.

Overall I don't know that it needs a numbered update or not, but one advantage of having big numbered releases is that it gives you an opportunity to highlight a lot of new features at once, rather than only hearing about them through enthusiast blogs who are carefully watching the rolling releases of Windows 10. Hopefully the features work as well as advertised.

[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/fancyzone...

> For creators and publishers, Widgets also opens new real estate within Windows to deliver personalized content.

This is nothing but very deep penetration in the user's personal space.

And they still insist that touchscreens on computers are a practical thing and thus make everything huge.

I can’t wait to see if Control Panel is still around with those network interface dialogs (among many others) from nearly two decades ago.

The new dock or taskbar looks nicer, but something about the window styles, the shape, the icons and the fonts still looks as ugly as they are on Windows 10.

No 1st gen AMD Zen support:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/min...

Zen+ supported.

I wonder why.

Windows nowadays feels like a carefully crafted piece of software built by brilliant engineering and UX teams that, just before release, gets crapped all over by ads teams with annoyances and dark patterns. It must be frustrating to work in the former.

Idk, it feels like the UX team has been hitting the whiskey, and the UI team slapped something together to squeeze out a pay rise. And then the ads team garnishes that with terribleness.

And now, the teams team wants to make it worse.

Cue the Ballmer Peak XKCD with Windows 11 replacing Windows ME https://xkcd.com/323/

Yeah, I'd say this is what it feels like exactly.

>teams team

It still a little mindblowing to me that teams steals focus like it does at startup. Windows boots relatively slowly that I could be in an Outlook window or typing in a URL or whatever after a fresh reboot and then teams just steals my mouse and keyboard. I've trained myself to not do anything until teams starts (and being an electron app, it certainly takes its time) because I'm so annoyed by focus stealing.

On my home computer the xbox application does the same but at least it loads super fast. I am just bewildered that in 2021 that focus stealing like this is so common and accepted by anyone let alone Microsoft. It just feels like scammy 2000s adware.

There’s a setting to open teams in the background/minimized. I’ve never seen that not work. If you want the window to open at startup as a window… then it’s working as expected, it’s not stealing focus, you told it to open at startup and above everything, zoom, steam, origin, VPN, did the same thing when I allowed them to open at startup maximized.

Not sure why you’re using the Xbox app, but I believe it also has the option to open in background.

I don't see that as working as expected nor do I appreciate having to hunt and peck through settings to find this setting. The default should be for it to a polite application like any other. Awful defaults is exactly the dark pattern I'm complaining about. Just because Microsoft generously allows me to not have this awful behavior if I manually find this setting is not the big counter to my argument that you seem to think it is.

> until teams starts

Curiously (and annoyingly) enough, when I type "update" in Windows search the top result is, invariably, "Microsoft Teams."

Teams is terrible. Is like they let mentally disabled people design user interfaces.

"Guys guys. Last second change from the top. We're gonna need to bundle Among Us. It needs to be front and center of our new start menu. We need it by EOD!"

How innovative, more P A D D I N G around everything! What's information density? I guess all the UI controls need to social distance? Big ScrollWheel™ did it again!

You just don't understand, those touchscreens no one uses with any kind of seriousness are very very very important.

They had a good product with win7, they can afford to ruin it some more. If anything windows has stagnated for decade+ in terms of UI apart from cosmetic nonsense, and that's probably a good thing

When people complain about ads in Windows I wonder if they are seeing a different version than I am. Maybe it is the difference between US and EU or Home and Pro versions?

They do place links to third party games in the start menu upon installation. And they also inform about first party services where it makes sense (like OneDrive in Explorer, and Office365 when trying to edit a Word file). I wouldn't consider the first party offers an ad, if anything maybe an upsell, but that is just semantics.

The thing is, I haven't payed for Windows in close to a decade (legally!). Even at work, we get all the Windows and Office licenses from Microsoft Gold (for having a couple employees take some IoT certification and slapping their sticker on promotional material). One way microsoft makes money is with these "Ads".

If there is something that bothers me about Windows, it is the inconsistency. Visually, and quality wise. It seems MS is a totally heterogenous organisation with some brilliant teams that have a lot of freedom, and some less good teams that are heavily constrained. Some parts are really good (like the work on Windows Terminal, WSL, the new iteration of fluent design). But it seems nobody has the authority to push consistency across the system. There are longstanding bugs and sources of wierdness that are never addressed. Meanwhile new features are added at a breakneck pace (like the blurry weather applet). I can imagine some manager shouting "ship it now!" when I look at it.

And some decisions seem to be business motivated, like trying to push Edge and trying to create restricted a "Chromebook"-like edition again and again, but they neither make sense business- nor technology-wise. It sometimes seems like nobody has the big picture over there.

I don't see ads either. I run Windows everywhere: Home, office, laptop.

Are they complaining about a few demo games pre-installed? I don't get it.

Some examples: https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/17/14956540/microsoft-window...

How to disable a lot of them: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-remove-advertising-window...

I've seen ads on the lockscreen and on the start menu.

Also I've seen Windows updates install games without my permission. (for example once it installed Candy Crush).

The live tiles can display whatever MS wants, and sometimes what MS wanted there was ads for random applications and games.

Ah you're right I do recall Windows Update installing a game by itself. That was freaking annoying because it happened when I was creating a master image in "audit mode". And you couldn't "generalize" it anymore in order to clone it, because a UWP app was installed.

Edge is good but creepy, and you can't get rid of it anymore.

Windows LTSC helps a lot in this respect.

Priced way to high for what it is. Also hard for regular hobbyist and enthusiast to purchase. (IMO)

well said. It’s like the table of money people look at a great finished product and then decide how they can maximize profit by injecting crapware, breaking it apart into multiple versions with varying price points (LTSB, Education, Pro, Home, Ultimate.. on and on)

I am reading this and it is only HN rules that make me give it a benefit of doubt. Windows simply cannot be carefully crafted at this stage for one simple reason. It is built on a foundation of compatibility ( which also happens to be its selling point ). The UX I can't really comment on. I don't like it, but I accept regular users may disagree.

What about removing all the old crud at some point? All this disorganized layering makes windows feel like a schizophrenic operating system. At some point they have to realize they have to start cleaning up the mess, right?

Why? None of their competitors do.

Really? Have you ever used Apple's platforms?

that's a good argument but there are so many things that macOS can't do that windows can (legacy support, endless tinkering with relative ease. maybe more things but i think these two things encompass a lot more and are the main reasons holding windows back from being the same as the oh so esteemed macOS)

"From the new Start button and taskbar to each sound, font and icon, everything was done intentionally to put you in control and bring a sense of calm and ease".

It is important to carefully polish icons to put users in control.

Disappointed that it is not going to look exactly like the renderings in the video, with the physically rendered glass panes and slight perspective. I think the processing power required would be negligible compared to any modern game. Instead, it is going to be flat design with some blur and more gradients.

Remember when people were excited about a new OS version, with a new cool design? Windows 95, Windows 2000, Windows XP?

It used to be exciting, because it didn't used to feel so half assed. Nowadays, you watch these videos and it's the same drivel... more cloud connected, more apps, more online accounts... share your photos, make a video call, sit in the woods with your Surface and work while on vacation... that kinda garbage.

i dont know, compiz and other compositing window managers with wobbly windows were kind of fun

I just want them to include a Windows license in my Microsoft 365 subscription and let me install it on my M1 (or Intel) Mac. I don’t understand why the business folks at MS haven’t noticed that opportunity.

Separately, I’d like to see a return to the concept of “Trusted Computing”. In the Windows XP/Vista days, telemetry was opt-in (sometimes with a nudge). Office wouldn’t send my grammar telemetry to MS without letting me see it and remove items first. There was an option to just turn it all off.

I get why MS wants telemetry, but they would win a lot of good will by giving power users an easy way to opt out. I think relatively few would do it in practice and they’d lose some of the bad press.

Greater UI consistency would be nice as well but that isn’t exactly on brand for them, so not holding my breath.

I don’t think good will or good publicity matters, and MS knows it. If the telemetry, spam reinstalling, changing user settings, user document deleting, work interrupting crap they pull with Win10 hasn’t caused a significant number of users to abandon ship, I am not sure what will.

True, all good points. I just wish software companies were more motivated by craftsmanship and love for users.

I remember in college they would always emphasize user obsession at the recruiting events. Apparently I drank more of that koolaid than the people they ended up hiring.

All I want is a completely new, Unix like file system. Speed sucks in windows, bringing down my patience.

The primary slowdown factor on Windows is not the filesystem itself but Windows Defender doing its scans. Just disable it and file operations will be a lot faster.

Also the search indexer.

I don't understand how the search indexer consumes so much resources, I was able to make something faster by following the ntfs journal and just keeping a full listing of files in sqlite.

Especially considering that it's still somehow pretty bad at finding things that you know are there.

Isn't it also opening each file, to extract text, EXIF data, etc?

For me it has maybe a 10% success rate for searching strings within files. Yet it takes minutes to search for file names even when spelled exactly. Finding files by name is the primary use-case, maybe optimize for that first.

I use Everything to find stuff, so much better

OMG that's for the tip!!

Transfer times are definitely high in windows when compared to linux systems. I don't think Windows defender may affect file transfer directly.

Windows Defender has a massive impact on file transfers, especially small files. For example on my laptop with a NVMe SSD, unpacking the Golang zip file goes from seconds to minutes with Windows Defender enabled.

If that was the case, would we not expect NTFS on Linux to be better, or at least competitive with other Linux filesystems?

Not necessarily, because for that comparison to work you would need a proper NTFS driver. Does one such even exist for Linux? Looking at the Debian wiki [1] there's either a FUSE driver or a limited feature set kernel driver. Neither looks like a proper optimized "enterprise ready" driver. These work fine for accessing some files, but comparing these in a benchmark would no doubt show their weakness.

Now even if NTFS is inherently a slower architecture than ext4 or something, that does not change the fact that this difference would be minimal compared to the absolute horror show that is the Windows Defender slowdown.

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/NTFS

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-NT...

Advanced System Settings > (Performance) Settings > Adjust for Best Performance > Apply and OK.

This Windows update is a car crash. Seems like another data grab by shoving Teams spyware down people throats. I like the dig at Google with Amazon Android (to which you need another account and another company sticking their greasy fingers into your data pie).

I just hope that this "upgrade" is optional and they will not start to age Windows 10 with updates designed to slow the operating system.

I was actually hoping that Windows 11 will become a window manager on top of a Linux with compatibility layer to run Windows 10 apps.

Oh well.

I know I’m a former microsoft employee so I’m a bit biased, but man the quality of these presentations are awesome. Panos is the best salesperson I’ve ever had the chance to meet.

The prominence of that Game Store in the Windows 11 press materials is, I guess, part of the motivation Valve has had for investing in Linux gaming.

My Primary concern with Windows 11 can be described as follows:

- ME

- Vista

- 8

- 11

Has Microsoft broken the cycle? Time will tell.

‘Course this is hampered by Windows 2000, which came concurrent to ME and was better than XP.

Yeah W2K was an oddity that way. I wasn't sure how to fit it in this. But TBH, it wasn't as well adopted as ME or XP and I didn't feel the need to wedge it in there. The point stands, with or without W2K in the mix.

>as well adopted as ME

was ME ever adopted by anyone? I saw more W2K machines than ME back in the day

I think it was preinstalled on a lot of "consumer" machines, the boxes you'd buy did not usually have 2K instead they replaced 98 with ME.

I had one friend with an ME box, and that was the worst POS around, it was so bad.

Everybody else was either 2K or linux.

Enterprise OS built for enterprise needs is > home OS?

quelle surprise.

That's same now as it was, 10 pro/workstation are better than home.

2000 was back when NT was a separate thing though, right? Didn't they switch to the NT kernel for everything after that?

Windows 2000 was originally intended to be that. While the official switchover got pushed back (ultimately to XP) that made 2K an extremely capable consumer OS.

Honestly, I find this to be a lazy trope. MS has certainly laid some eggs before, but the "every other version sucks" narrative relies a lot on revisionist thinking. Vista was a resource hog on the hardware of the time, but the UI was honestly a huge improvement and a lot of the complaining about Vista centered around security improvements the _ABSOLUTELY_ needed to happen. I suspect plenty of HN readers have memories of the malware infested mess that less technical XP users machines often turned into. XP also had an (accidentally) long life, so the XP that was replaced by Vista was significantly improved.

You also leave out 8.1, which was a big improvement on 8.

I'm speaking specifically of initial releases. I recall working on a Vista SP2 machine that I honestly thought was Windows 7 until I looked closer. And 8.1 wasn't too bad. But Vista at release was just awful. It created as many problems as it solved, as did 8.

Personally, I found Vista's UI to be horrible - the only saving grace was that one could use a "Classic Windows" theme to get back to something useful (as you also could in Win 7). UAC was just awful icing on the horrible cake.

7 was a success, but mostly it was "Vista with the rough edges ironed out and more time for hardware to catch up". Ditto for 8 and 8.1. So I think it's based on a real phenomenon, where Microsoft was basically unintentionally doing the "move fast and break things" of modern software development, minus the fast part.

Or Windows 8.1 Update that was an improvement on 8.1.

Well, some would argue 8.1 was the rising edge of the cycle and 10 was the falling edge...

It already has broken the cycle. I was a Windows Insider and have used Windows 10 since the first build in October 2014 and several builds of the bi-annual updates after that (assuming the new features/optimizations were worth the headache). The early RTM versions of 10 really sucked as far as getting UWP apps to operate without random crashing. Since Windows 8, Search of Windows has been designed horrendously and that was made worse by Windows 10 with it's "cloud-based" Bing clutter (something that still hasn't changed since). Telemetry processes gobbled up memory and disk speed on HDDs and required cmd hacks to stop. A plus for Windows 10 is that the OS itself is stable and robust even on early Insider builds. Bad Patch Tuesdays and hibernation issues notwithstanding, it takes quite a bit of effort to get the OS to BSOD. But Windows 10 would have been better of as a reskinned and optimized Windows 7 + MS Store than the perennial Beta test OS that Windows 10 became. And it doesn't look like Windows 11 is going to be all that different in the respect.

Am I the only one who likes the padded, easy-to-read UI but just wishes MS would actually implement it across the OS? I don't want MacOS infinitesimal icons nor windows xp aesthetics. I like what they're doing, there is just a lot of variance left which is where e.g. apple does a good job.

I had a really hard time watching the presentation, regardless of the features presented. Panos Panay continously referred to Windows as "the product", they presented years-old feature like multi-desktop, and the maybe biggest news, Android apps, was just mentioned as side info.

What I want is modern performant filesystem with checksumming for data/metadata, zstd, ssd-optimized, perhaps cow/snapshots. Basically I want btrfs.

ReFS was that promise but AFAIK it's still not bootable, mirror required, no compression. In short, unusable for non-servers.

So, almost all the new “features” are about forcing Microsoft services onto users, really cool.

I had assumed/hoped that the next version of windows would be built atop Linux.

I can think of no reason for anyone to seriously believe such a thing would happen. Most of Windows's value comes from its backwards compatibility, and they'd have to rebuild most of the userspace on top of Linux which doesn't make much sense since they already have a good kernel that they own completely.

So the desktop is in the start menu now? Are icons on the desktop deprecated?

I wonder what Sir Tim Berners-Lee would have to say about the Web being born on Windows. Both WorldWideWeb (the first Web browser) and CERN httpd (the first Web server) were developed on NeXTSTEP.

I like it and I'm excited to install it. I've been enjoying a lot this "new" Microsoft, including all the WSL that they brought.

New UI looks macOS-ish but looks fresh at the same time.

Built in Teams in Windows 11, sounds like new anti trust is coming.

Oh hell. I need to figure out how to do GPU passthrough for VMs for gaming so I can ditch it once and for all. I'm not putting up with more and more junk.

Is there anything Microsoft could do with the OS that would really matter? Corporate purchases account for what?, 80%?, 90%? of Windows sales? My prediction: This version will still have (nearly) weekly root-level 0-day patches, but companies will continue to eat it up with a fork and spoon, because it lets them do such things as dictate to their corporate laptop fleet how long the screensaver can run before it locks. And the relatively few people who choose to use the OS for gaming (or on their Surface) will find things to be happy about, and life will go on as usual.

if yellow journalism pays so much that microsoft is hell bent on shoving "personalised news feed" down peoples throats afer msn homepage on browsers and now on the desktop, why do news outlets beg for "dont block ads, we need ad revenue or buy subscription"? just take that from microsoft and be done with it

Does "free upgrade for eligible PCs" mean there won't be a generally available free upgrade from Win10?

It probably just means that you can't upgrade if you have a very old computer that recent feature upgrades of Win10 have already dropped support for.

Edit: actually some people are saying it may require TPM 2.0

No text-based configuration or headless systems yet again. This truly is a non-developer-friendly OS.

Could 11 solve some of my Windows gripes? (experienced on Win 10 Pro and LTSC, not on a domain so no group policy applied) Unfortunately I doubt it:

For me, window focus handling has gotten noticeably worse in the past couple of years. A window will pop up, I'll start typing, the keypresses won't go into the window, then I'll hit alt+tab twice to switch away and then back, and then the keypresses will magically start landing. Anybody else notice this?

The lack of a proper inode-based filesystem means I'm frequently having to terminate processes during builds because something is holding open a file that needs to be replaced. It's 2021. Linux and MacOS don't have this problem, when will this finally get solved?

My laptop sometimes turns into a jet engine because one of many aggressive background processes goes nuts for a short period. Which one varies -- it could be Compatibility Telemetry (tried turning it off, didn't stay off), Superfetch, search indexing, etc. Especially frustrating when I'm on battery.

Suspend doesn't always stay suspended. Too many times I've pulled a hot laptop out of a backpack. I've tried all the Internet-suggested fixes to no avail, so I had to give up on suspend.

The start menu at some point became non-deterministic, so I can't use muscle memory to open things without looking. For example when I hit the start menu and type "bash", half the time "Git Bash" is the highlighted option, half the time it's WSL's bash.

The start menu has been corrupted by Cortana. Sometimes figuratively, where it doesn't immediately respond to keypresses because it's apparently trying to load something and finally stutters open. Sometimes literally, where text search stops working for local apps and the only fix is to reinstall Windows. (Tried all of the internet-suggested fixes, tried an experienced Windows IT guy, etc.)

The installer's lack of flexibility and compatibility is horrible. Not a problem if you only ever get Windows on a new PC, but for those of us who re/install things, it's horrible. Even Debian's text installer is more flexible and reliable than what MS gives us. Now when I install Windows on a dual boot system I keep Linux on a separate device and remove the Linux device before installing Windows, just so Windows won't put its EFI config on the wrong drive (yep, that happened).

Don't get me started on the user hostile telemetry, how awful the event viewer is when you're trying to figure out what's going wrong, rebooting despite me telling it not to, the unwanted game installs (on Pro!) just so the App Store group can claim some success story, etc. And I've got more but it's almost too easy...

Hope W11 brings back the installation option "Compact". Personally just want the base OS.

I wonder if they'll finally make it possible for more than one instance of Settings to be open.

Any mention of Windows 11 for ARM?

MS Teams client built in and the ability to run Android apps via the App Store.

Haven't been able to find the release schedule, when will MS deliver it?

"The free upgrade will begin to roll out to eligible Windows 10 PCs this holiday and continuing into 2022."

If marketing has a say in it, I bet November 11th. 2021-11-11

It will happen one night while you are sleeping in the middle of a time sensitive deadline that will prevent you from doing what you need because several things are now broken after the update you didn't ask for occurred.

There was a 10?

do you guys anticipate an uptick in Linux/BSD/Mac adoption?

>Why Microsoft is calling Windows 10 'the last version of Windows' https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-ve...

There you see again what Microsoft's statements are worth.

They’re doing a free upgrade for W10 users, and making a new “numbered version”, to signify the significant changes.

I’m not sure why this is that problematic?

So I'm not going to need to buy a new license for this? I'm on board. If it pisses me off enough I'll just roll back.

> They’re doing a free upgrade for W10 users

> *Look for PCs that indicate they are eligible for the free upgrade, or you can check with your retailer for more information.

Are they, though?

They don’t indicate any specific requirements, so presumably it will be free for pretty much everyone with a windows 10 license.

This is probably required by their legal department. Reasons that someone would not update:

1 - No licensed W10

2 - Too old PC - can't work with W11

3 - No MS account or internet connection (as this is a requirement for upgrading)

So, Windows 10 is my daily-driver (Enterprise eds), and I love it. I'm a big fan of Windows in general.

But Microsoft did say that Windows 10 was going to be theast version of Windows, with incremental updates thereafter; I don't see why they need to change that to accommodate what appears to be little more than an unwanted UI refresh with more crappy AI-driven news feeds that nobody wants. From everything I've seen, Windows 11 looks like it's very much an incremental update over the Windows 10 of today.

So why not have a Windows 10 feature update? What is the point of this?

Why does it matter to you as an end user, if they change the version number?

It bothers me simply because they said they wouldn't, and I don't understand the point of it for a UI refresh. Also bothers me because I don't want a UI refresh.

Because of new hardware requirements and built in Teams. If you don't want that you are now an a system with designated end of support.

because I don't want all my stuff to break and I don't want to configure everything again, which is something that happened with all numbered Windows updates to date

Yep, I mean, who the hell actually wants this kind of rubbish:

> Windows 11 brings you closer to the news and information you care about faster with Widgets – a new personalized feed powered by AI

Also, I can already have the weather as a tile in my start menu if I wanted (why, tho?).

> I don't see why they need to change that to accommodate what appears to be little more than an unwanted UI refresh with more crappy AI-driven news feeds that nobody wants

It's obviously a lot more complex than that.

For example, they are dropping 32-bit support. You can't release an update that does something like that.

Ah, I confess I'd missed that. Would he interesting to know how many users were still on an x86 build though (I would have guessed around 7 ;)

Is there anything more of substance though?

TPM hardware requirements. it's related to security so again

By "anything more of substance", I meant, well, features!

Also, this TPM requirement seems like something they shouldn't be doing - it's not a benefit for end users to have less choice. I mean, if I don't want to use a TPM, then why should I have to?

How many people bought Windows 10 thinking they wouldn't need to buy another one? Class-action lawsuit incoming?

It's a free update according to the article

Maybe not for everybody From the MS website Minimum system requirements: Trusted Platform Module (TPM) version 2.0

My guess is that Microsoft didn't want to move away from the 10 moniker, but Apple's release of Big Sur as macOS 11 meant that they had to keep up with versioning to stay competitive with marketing.

The article you link is pretty clear that they did not commit to the "windows 10" name forever ("We aren’t speaking to future branding at this time"), but rather to a model with more smaller regular updates. Which a no-cost update fits in, even if they change the name.

Windows 11 needs TPM 2.0. So older hardware don't get the update and because it's a new Windows the update support for Windows 10 has time frame.

A few years ago, I decided to buy a Windows 10 Pro retail license, which I figured would last pretty much forever since "Windows 10 is the last version of Windows". I wonder if my Windows 10 license will be able to activate a new Windows 11 install or if I'll need to buy another.

Omg they put the start button in the middle I hate it I hate it

“The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products.”

Steve Jobs Triumph of the Nerds (1996)

The main thing that would be of interest to me:

- Have they replaced/improved the NT kernel [1]?

- Have they replaced the ancient registry? [2]

The answer to either was not to be found. I'll bet windows 11 will still be a backwards-compatible mess if the answer to either is `no`.

[1]: http://blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute-to-the-windows-kernel-w...

[2]: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/why-the-windows-regist...

There is a developer-focused event soon. But I wouldn't expect significant changes. Probably more focus on Teams and Store apps.

At noon PDT: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=egZ82QGshX8

Possible content: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2021/06/24/what-w...

I would also be surprised if there are significant changes. Windows is a marvel at being backwards compatible, which I doubt they will be able to get away from. Here's to hoping. Do you know when that dev conference is?

Edit: Saw your edit answered my question. Thanks :)

Having a consistent UI development framework would be a good start. WPF is no longer maintained and UWP brings with it the crappy Store and limited sandboxed capabilities.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com