- Windows 11 was announced and proves to be another Vista-like misstep.
- I have learned about Framework laptops and repairability and being able to upgrade one has become a killer feature.
Win95 vs Win98/ME/etc (? not sure)
WinXP vs Vista
Win7 vs Win8
Win10 vs Win11?
It's like the Intel's tick-tock model almost. On some level I do think that bashing this is a bit hypocritical when most of us nerds are also the first ones to bemoan a lack of innovation.
95/98 -> 98SE
ME -> 2000/XP
Vista -> 7
8 -> 8.1
Can't say about 10 as the version numbers are harder to track
It's not even out yet?
I was even able to update my old Thinkpad x230 after enabling TPM from the bios, it feels usable again.
To me, it looks like another coat of varnish haphazardly and thoughtlessly painted on top of multiple layers on a crumbling, dry wall. A mishmash of ideas added on top of Windows 10, not an evolution and revolution and refactoring of what Windows is. Ah, and more telemetry and ads.
I only have issue with Telegram’s client, and that’s due to their use of Qt, which doesn’t support native UI scaling without relaunching the app.
But I would guess that may vary depending on your setup.
That said, from what I've been seeing Win11 is mostly just Win10 with some minor incremental changes, some good, some bad. The default centering of the task bar is certainly a thing but you can set it to align left as normal although I miss having the task bar moved to the top. Only thing I find a bit tedious is the new right click menu in the file explorer, which I can understand the reasoning behind but still don't think was the right move.
I think the new widgets thing is a misstep like the charms bar but it's just another icon you can ignore. The built-in MS Teams chat feature is interesting but just adds to the redundancy of having to have separate Microsoft and Microsoft 365 accounts, which is getting silly.
I appreciate the typeface changes, though as a Windows user such things have never been a priority to me.
What irks me is the loss of customization and productivity enhancements of being able to group and size the start menu - all my video editing stuff in one group, coding-related apps in another, etc. That organization is what I miss the most on a daily basis.
But yeah, in win11 search is more of a focus not because it’s a new feature compared to win10, but because they hobbled the other features, and that seems like an enormous step backwards to me (the loss of customization/options).
Win 11 lets you pin apps to the menu still, but there’s no grouping, half the menu is taken up by a “recommended” section, and there’s no resizing of it. For the unchangeable half of the menu, which so far as I can tell is not an MRU list, it does hold recently installed apps from the store (and nowhere else) and likely will be used to stub in advertised apps (call me cynical). It’s a crippling change, and I suspect we’ll see those features added back in sooner or later. Much like win8.1. That’s about the best I can hope for anyway. MS is intent to release as-is.
Yesterday they did a community talk about Ink support as if it was something completly new in Windows 11, my feeling was "have these guys ever used UWP Ink?!?".