It sounds like there is no going back after a 10 day grace period.
What are the pros and cons? Are there any use cases where either the pros or cons are big?
The bad, power users thrown to the side in favor of reducing clutter in some areas. In particular, the Explorer right-click menu has been gutted. Now there's an annoying "show all options" step to get to common actions you may have installed such as "open in Notepad++". By default, the menu shows 5 options and a few context actions but is designed to avoid the massive (and perhaps confusing) menus users would have after installing 20+ apps. Perhaps this is "mixed" rather than bad but I find it annoying.
The ugly, there's a small but noticeable latency in Explorer when navigating back and forth rapidly between drives/directories. A search for "windows 11 explorer slow" shows a common theme. It's not a constant, more like some sort of indexing hiccup that occurs from time to time when backing out of a folder or entering a new one.
That performance bug may be resolved in a bit, most bugs reported on the bug tracker have gotten surprisingly quick response rates. I reported a critical bug in the snip tool that was resolved in an emergency patch a week later.
There's probably other "good" items but as a Windows 10 power user/developer, this is what I noticed as part of the transition.
- less customizability
- worse performance (animations with many windows) or boot times
- issues with SSDs, CPUs, network cards (already mostly ironed out but not fully)
- lots of random glitches and bugs (though january update for windows 10 and server isn't much better)
- even worse interface, filled with ads and junk [0] [1]
- the top 10 requests are pretty much filled with bring X back from windows 10 [2]
[0] https://youtu.be/3D1deDXwWgQ [1] https://youtu.be/cRwdoo9kNTw [2] https://www.neowin.net/news/here-are-the-top-10-changes-that...
That's the Enterprise LTSC EOL for 1507. Seems unlikely you're running that unless you're a big enterprise?
Regular GAC 21H2 will last you only until June 13, 2023.
I got that date from the retirement date for Windows 10 Home and Pro at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-...
So maybe 21H2 will be supported until Jun 13, 2023 but there will be newer feature updates for Windows 10 which will be supported until October 14th, 2025.
Maybe something will come along and change my mind, but at the moment I've seen no compelling reason to update, and I value stability over shiny latest.
The last major super annoying bug of Windows 10 (windows moving around on a multi-monitor setup when coming back from sleep or monitors off) was fixed with the 21H2 update, so I'm good.
Other than "free offer", do you have a specific reason to want Windows 11?
Utterly baffling that Microsoft would just casually remove this function - what possible gain is there to MS to remove this functionality that has been available for decades? Even if only 1% of us use it, that is still, of the 13 billion Win10 machines, that's 130 million.
That is a serious question - why the h** would they do this?
(of course there is also just the well-earned general suspicion about the stability and quality of any new MS product)
That said, I can't really think of a reason a 10 user would upgrade. It's my impression that it's primarily for new machines. On the other hand, Microsoft may starting building improvements to 11 that won't make it to 10, which is why I upgraded.
I've been pretty happy. Whatever remaining faith I had in MS's stewardship of Windows was lost with 11. Which is a shame, because over the years I generally preferred them to Apple - I still have my first-gen Zune.
But Windows 11, no thanks. I'm out.
There are too many downgrades in terms of UX in Windows 11 to upgrade just because it is new.
Also I've tried etherium mining on the desktpp gpu, which uses memory parameter overrides and overclocking. I worry that support could change?
I do some development, CUDA, python, mingw64 C++ stack. Possible WSL. Does WSL change/improve in Windows 11?
Still, there are reasons to upgrade: Stronger security (maybe), much-improved Settings app. Better WSL 2. Most new development will be for 11.
I’m working at a Microsoft dev shop, so I’ll be forced to use it sooner or later anyway.
updated with an executable on their desktop called:
YourName.exe/msi
"Asus TPM-M R2.0 14-1 Pin TPM Module"
The FUD around TPM is massively blown out of proportion, which is frightening considering the HN is supposed to be a tech savvy userbase driven by facts rather than FUD.
TPM is basically a secure enclave for highly sensitive private keys, similar to what the T2 did on the Macs. It's much safer to have important private keys stored there than on disk and in system memory where they're in reach of basic exploits like Mimikatz or Javascript vulns coming from your browser.
Actually, I did a fresh install, and saved the iso on a bootable USB stick just in case it sucked and I had to downgrade.
I whish this "workaround" would be better known.
Another funny thing was, I managed to activate the Professional version successfully with some old, tried and tested, pirate CD-key from the Windows 7 days, originally meant for the MSDNAA program, that's everywhere on the internet if you Google/Bing for it. Makes me think that Microsoft no longer cares if you pirate Windows, and the whole license thing is just a theater, as they probably monetize you either way through telemetry and the ads they show you plus, the more windows users there are, legitimate or not, the stronger their ecosystem lock-in becomes so they win either way.
So the way I see it, if you're willing to ignore the legality of breaching the EULA, then Windows 11 is basically "free" for private use, with some huge asterixis.
I still wish to switch to Linux in the long run, since I hate the UX of Windows 11 and the privacy implications, but unlike desktops, on the laptop Linux is just not at the same level of polish and feature parity as Windows for me yet, with many things I care about and work out of the box in Windows 11, being a bunch of hack/addons built by the community on Linux, that are still work in progress and and need to apply manually and update yourself. No bueno. I don't have time for this.
Unactivated Windows 10 shows a barely-perceptible 'Activate Windows' overlay in the bottom corner, and doesn't let you change the wallpaper. Big whoop.
Are you sure you used the retail iso and not the insider one? I tried it with 1st gen Threadripper and it didn't work, it still complained about non-supported cpu.
> with many things I care about being a bunch of hack/addons built by the community,
That's what you are used for.
I regularly use Windows, Mac and Linux and each of them has this problem, but for different subset of functionality.
Yes, even Microsoft themselves mention that TPM 2.0 and CPU model requirements are not checked with fresh install but then at least TPM 1.2 is still needed [1]. On the Intel 6th series from 2015 I tried it on, installation worked flawlessly.
[1] "Important: An image install of Windows 11 will not check for the following requirements: TPM 2.0 (at least TPM 1.2 is required) and CPU family and model."
[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ways-to-install-...
And even Microsoft themselves mention that HW requirements are not checked with fresh install but then at least TPM 1.2 is still needed [1] so maybe your CPU predates TPM 1.2 but then we're talking about some really old hardware as v1.2 dates back to 2011. On the Intel 6th series I tried it on from 2015, installation worked flawlessly.
[1] "Important: An image install of Windows 11 will not check for the following requirements: TPM 2.0 (at least TPM 1.2 is required) and CPU family and model."
[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ways-to-install-...
Wait, how do you open regedit during setup when you perform the installation by booting off the USB drive? AFAIK that installer has no access to the registry since the registry hasn't been configured yet as you're doing a fresh install from scratch so there is no registry on the blank HDD/SSD.
Anyhow, I did this procedure 3 weeks ago on my 2015 intel chip and Windows did not complain using the unaltered official ISO.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/how-to-bypas...
If the installer didn't complain, it was a supported configuration.
So that is a very mild "probably not" from me.
If MS believes I will replace totally fine hardware functioning and still really up to all I throw at it, because it wants me to update a OS they must be delusional. Why should I buy new stuff when all is good?
I am way past tbe 'I need new shiny stuff each year'-phase of my life.
So as long as my employer doesn't force me to switch I really would need to see good reasons to jump.
My advice: if you aren't doing anything critical, it's probably fine to upgrade sooner rather than later. It sounds like there are a few benefits to Windows 11. If you are doing anything critical, give it a year for the bugs to be ironed out.
Microsoft can go ahead and ruin the OS for all I care, all I’m using it for is my entertainment. The moment it gets annoying I have no problem not gaming anymore if that’s what it comes to (already is considering I barely game anymore)
These days I stick with what works, and only upgrade when I know I have a need for it. Much more boring, but I don't look to my OS for excitement.
So to me, the fact you're asking the question tells me that you don't really have a need.
https://www.techspot.com/article/2349-windows-11-performance...
Seriously, need random people to make choice for you?
its a fking nightmare on my work laptop. So buggy, needs to be rebooted daily. It really doesn't like Sleep or having to change between multiple screen setups.
Patches for Win11 seem to be fairly slow in coming compared to Win10. but then it is early day I guess.
That's when you know a Windows release is actually done.
- wsl.exe process crashing several times a day (2 AMD desktops & AMD laptop)
- many other AMD/Win 11 related issues reported on WSL GitHub
Wanted to swtich to Ubuntu, but because I need to use VBA, so not an option
It's very telling that extensions like OpenShell and 7+ Taskbar Tweaker are so common. Also, I'm still salty at the removal of the Windows Classic theme and of the detailed. I use WindowBlinds as a patch of sorts, but there is still a lot of customisation missing. Customisation that used to be available in older Windows.
10 is still maintained, so it's a different case for now. But W10 users should be developing a migration plan -- either to 11 or away from Windows.
In the case of macOS 10.14, it has 32-bit support and .15 doesn't. macOS also has gotten increasingly user and developer hostile every release (my opinion, of course).
In the case of iPadOS 15, in my opinion it entirely broke multitasking and I wish I could go back.
Some Linux users are still suffering from the "upgrade" to systemd.
In general I have found over the last decade that OS "upgrades" change things, break things, cause regressions and make my life unhappy. I wouldn't mind so much if it was once every 3-5 years but this annual cycle of breaking and changing things is tiresome to me.
- Feature set changes (take telemetry for example with Windows 10, or changes in group policy options)
- Unknown/untested compatibility with small non-corporate backed programs that a user needs to use
- BIOS / Hardware issues (i.e. Power management changes and tweaks may push limits outside operating status)
- New bugs. Most recently, my iOS 15 made my bluetooth headset twitchy in new subtle ways. Now it will unprovokedly switch from headphones to speakers without warning. If I pause whatever I'm playing and press play, it will go back. This is very unfortunate. Thank you, upgrade.
- Arbitrary UI "improvements" break workflows and simply change the look/behavior of things I didn't ask for. Menu layout changes means you no longer find things in the places they used to be; maybe the new place is better, but it places a burden on constantly having to re-learn menus. Microsoft Office, in my experience, has offended the most here. Compare this to UNIX command-line tools where parameters have not changed in decades upon decades.
> To stay still is to accept ever increasing vulnerability
That's what security updates are for.
If software vendors would differentiate between
- security updates
- deprecating old APIs/libraries
- adding new features
then we might have more software that Just Works.
Every newer version of Windows usually introduces a number of changes (in many aspects, including the UI) people don't want.
Every new version of Windows and some of its early updates usually introduce a lot of bugs so we "always wait for a service pack" (now as there are no service packs this means just wait a couple of years) for the new Windows version to become acceptably reliable.
This argument only really works when your OS vendor pushes more security patches than forced regressions, which generally stopped being true after windows 7.
The first major point of concern is the issue during late beta where the chunk of advertising JSON that was malformed took out Explorer entirely, rendering the system unusable. That speaks to how tightly Microsoft has integrated "things I consider worthless crap" (advertising) with the core OS. In my preferred model of computers, the OS is core, and nothing from the internet can render the core OS inoperative (short of actual OS updates being defective). Advertising updates definitely can't render the OS entirely non-usable. They got it fixed before too long, but that tight integration between "core OS" and "advertising delivery" is exceedingly concerning.
Microsoft has also been steadily making "offline accounts" harder, and with Win11, has made offline accounts no longer an option for Win11 Home. You are now required to have an online Microsoft account in order to use your local computer (or pay up for the Pro version, because you're not being as profitable on the backend). My read of this, given the advertising tie-in, is that Microsoft has decided that the "behavioral surplus collection" benefits from having what's likely to be your common email tied to your account (and at least your IP address) exceed the small costs of annoying a few technical users - and are therefore almost certainly hoovering up more information about use than they were with Win10. Again, my model of computers is that the local login information, at least for personal computing, has no business being tied to whatever online accounts I care to use or not use, and my OS definitely shouldn't be actively reporting up what I use or not (yes, I know Win10 and MacOS are both doing this in some form or another, and I'm moving away from both of them).
These two, combined, tell me that Win11 has diverged so far from what I consider an OS should be (serving me, not using my behavior as a raw material source for the OS company) that I'm just not willing to use it for personal use. I've been heading more completely down the Linux road lately, and will likely continue that, just because of how I think computers should function in relation to my goals.
This does mean there are probably certain things I won't be able to do eventually in the context of gaming, though the Steam/Linux/Windows compatibility layers (Proton?) are getting better, from what I hear. But I've accepted that there will be things I can't do with computers if I use computers in the way I think they should behave, and I'm OK with that.
Windows 11 is Windows 10 with exactly two changes; Windows 10 is not Windows 8 with several changes, but still in the same branch/evolution in the same NT family.
The first change is: the Sun Valley theme update, which finally gives all the WinForms/WPF/UWP/WinUI apps ("Metro" or "Modern" style) apps a real theme instead of bad full-white and full-black themes that destroy any sense of visual ergonomics Windows had. Microsoft was afraid people would be confused and need to be retrained in corporate environments (fun fact: this happened when Vista became 7), so they increased the major version.
The second change is: VBS (Virtualization Based Security) is now enabled by default and the installer won't let you install without it working. This means UEFI must be enabled, legacy boot must be disabled, secureboot via TPM must be enabled, and due to the previous one, your TPM must be enabled and new enough, else you cannot use Windows 11 (unless you do an underdocumented hack to the installer; I did this on my Ivy Bridge laptop, I know what I'm doing and I accept the risk). All Skylake family CPUs and all Zen family CPUs have a firwmare TPM that meets requirements; first generation Skylake and Zen 1 have security vulnerabilities that blacklist them from default Windows 11 installations (or, roughly, to run Windows 11, you need a CPU made in the past ~5 years). Again, because hardware requirements changed (even though "sold with Windows 10" required such features exist in the first place), major version changed.
The second change is not a huge issue either, as all sold-with/for-Windows-10 machines are required to have these features; the flaw is, many mobos default to being broke out of the box, as in, TPM is not enabled, secureboot isn't turned on, and hypervisor CPU features are not enabled: these are technically defective mobos whose fix is to just turn the features on. Some mobos have gotten Windows 11 BIOS updates that just change their defaults and turn it on; 99.9% of users have no clue what I just wrote or what any of it means... and a BIOS update won't fix this because they, again, have no clue what any of this means.
Now, one last thing, the semi-kicker: with the first change, they finally jettisoned the old taskbar: it predates the original Metro UI, and is very finnicky to work with as it has a lot of custom behavior. The new one is written entirely in normal XAML as a completely normal and conventional app.
Why is this a semi-kicker? If you use small taskbar and/or task grouping disabled, as you're a competent and knowledgeable Windows user, you need to use Explorer Patcher to re-enable both of those features. Microsoft is currently denying the lack of those features are a bug, and do not understand that their decision has already been vetoed by the community and some of their largest enterprise customers.
Their reasoning is that both Apple and Google poison kids in education environments by putting Macs and Chromebooks in school and making that their first exposure to computing, so instead of fighting this, they default to an identically functioning dock-esque giant centered task-grouping taskbar instead of, you know, the one you expect from a product named Windows.
So yeah, go accept the upgrade, then install Explorer Patcher to fix the backwards taskbar issues.
Also, the guy just added an Office key killer on my request (thanks valinet!), so we get Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Win back (this effects all Win10/11 since May 2019 update).
So many things that Windows gets wrong lives in Explorer's shell experience code.
And it's so easy to shrink the C: volume while you are booted to W10, leaving over 64GB of unallocated space to format so you can do an additional clean install of W11 to the previously unused drive space, after booting to the W11 USB install media, without disturbing W10 in any way.
The built-in Windows multi-boot menu accepts an additional entry for W11 alongside your present W10 boot entry, then the resulting dual boot menu will pop up every time you reboot so you have a choice of which partition to boot to, either W10 or W11. The most recently installed version of Windows will automatically become the default OS appearing on the bootmenu if you do not change which one you want to be default afterward.
Whichever partition you choose to boot to will be autoenumerated as your C: volume at the time, with remaining "unhidden" volumes occupying other alphabetical designations. i.e. when you boot to W11 it will be your C: volume and your W10 partition will not be C: again until you reboot to W10.
The built-in multiboot menu simply remains unseen when there is only a single boot entry, such as on a factory W10 PC.
cons: -you basically update each OS separately -you back up each system separately -unless you make the desired adjustment to the OS's in a multiboot system, more than one correction for Daylight Savings Time may occur after that date arrives. Only the most frequently used OS should be the one to autoupdate the mainboard timeclock for DST
Alternatively, without using the conventional Setup.exe to install W11 from the USB install media, you can place the W11 virgin fileset onto a formatted partition from an administrative command prompt using DISM.exe.
i.e. in W10 after shrinking C: and formatting the unused space as new NTFS volume "T:", you plug in the W11 setup USB stick, cancel the setup/upgrade option then use W10 CMD line to access the files on the USB volume and bring in the W11 fileset to your target partition.
Assuming your W11 USB drive is "U:" and your target NTFS volume is "T:", first use DISM to find out which versions of Windows 11 are available within the install.wim file:
DISM.exe /get-imageinfo u:\sources\install.wim
Most of the time the "pro" version of Windows will be the sixth choice, which is identified as Index 6.
Apply W11 pro fileset to target volume "T:":
DISM.exe /apply-image u:\sources\install.wim index:6 /applydir:t:\
-w11 can actually be applied to volumes smaller than 64GB this way also
Without employing the consumer W11 Setup.exe routine, you would then need to manually add a W11 bootentry (pointing to your new Windows 11 fileset) into the existing (hidden) EFI folder that you have been using for W10 booting all along:
bcdboot t:\windows
This manual deployment approach can also be accomplished similarly from the CMD prompt when booted to the W11 install media itself, which can be helpful when your target partition is not empty, as Trusted Installer you will have fewer permission problems than a W10 Administrator.