>The real issue here is that W11 doesn't solve a problem or fix a need.
That's not true. I'll try to exemplify some problems and improvements Windows 11 solved over 10:
- App windows return to their place on their respective monitors between laptop dock-undock switches. On Windows 10, all windows get dumped to whichever monitor powers on first when you dock back the laptop. Though I haven't used Win 10 in a year so they could have pushed this fix there as well in the meantime.
- WSL with WSLg comes enabled out of the box, making pulling stuff off github and running it in a native linux environment much quicker and easier out of the box, without all those hacky steps Windows 10 needed to get WSL.
- Window tiling is massively enhanced with more tiling options, without the need for PowerToys like you do on Windows 10.
- Screen capture and recording with OCR is now more polished and seamless out of the box.
- Dark mode is way better than on Windows 10 with many more components of the UI capable of turning dark. On Windows 10 it was completely half assed with many UI elements staying white and blinding you. It's still not perfect though (right click on a file, show more options, click on properties and get blinded), but still overall much better than Win 10 as yes, it set the bar that low.
- The quick toggle menu next to the clock is much more useful than on Win10, very similar to the one on the latest Gnome, with the most useful features available like switching power modes, switching Bluetooth/audio devices or toggling Night Light.
- I can change speaker volume just by hovering the mouse cursor over the speaker icon next to the clock and flicking the mouse scroll wheel, just like in Gnome and KDE. Really love this one.
- Start menu search is better and smarter than on Windows 10. I just hit the start/meta key and type the first 3 or so letters of an app and it nails it. It also indexes the latest files you accessed so you can type the first few letters of a file and it will bring it up.
- The settings menu/app is now far more feature complete and lets you easily find and change a setting without having to dig out the old control panel like you might need on Windows 10. The control panel is still there hidden away, but I really never had to open it by now in almost a year.
- Multi-finger trackpad gestures for workspace and window switching is better and more seamless
- Win11 brings enhanced security features like core isolation
- HDR support out of the box is far better, if you have one such monitor
- Basic out of the box apps like screenshotting annotation I previously mentioned, image viewer/editor, video player/editor, are now fully featured and actually useful, meaning I can actually start using the OS after installation and get to work, without first going to download Chrome and then going to download third party PDF readers, video players and image viewers, etc. as was the typical post-installation ritual that plagued every previous Windows release to make it actually usable. It's finally a more cohesive and productive experience out of the box. I still download Notepad++ though, that's irreplaceable.
The only annoying and unforgivable thing to me is that they're forcibly grouping all opened apps into taskbar icons without labels, a-la GNOME/MacOS. Just let me have my mess of apps with labels spreading across the entire taskbar Microsoft, I'm more productive that way, as my peripheral vision keeps track of which app is where even on a messy crowded taskbar. Don't try to think you know what's best for me and dumb things down for me just for the sake of superficial aesthetics. I paid for the entire taskbar, and damn-it, I wanna use it!
Hope this helps.