Windows 11 it's almost here.

[beowulf]

Hold off on upgrading folks. Hardware and software developers dropped the ball on being Windows 11 ready. Been reading reports on hardware breaking on install/upgrade.

Good to know!

 

[Mikeaveli]

Its running fine on my build, just had to enable TPM in the bios. Hardware for reference:

ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus
Ryzen 9 5900X
EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3
32GB G. Skill Trident Z RGB

 

[Osprey]

I've had it installed since August and don't like it at all. Seemingly as many things were removed or made more complicated as were added or made simpler, and the former were useful while the latter are not so much. As guinness pointed out, right click support is poor and is especially pathetic when you right-click on the taskbar. Also, the highly useful Action Center has been replaced with something much less useful. It's especially annoying that, after nearly 7 years of accessing Settings from the right side of the screen, the only way to get to it is from the Start Menu, which I rarely use and have on the left side of the screen. Of course, it also breaks the taskbar utilities that I use, like 7+ Taskbar Tweaker. Finally, the UI, including the rounded corners and icons, looks too cutesy and Chromebook-inspired (which it was). If I wanted something that looks and functions like a Chromebook, I would buy a Chromebook.

I'm glad that I installed it on a secondary machine. I'll monitor that for changes and, maybe, Microsoft will add or roll enough features back to justify upgrading my daily machine. Until then, I'm going to stay on Windows 10.

 

[Osprey]

In case anyone else missed it, Microsoft walked back their processor requirement, though with a minor catch.

Hardware Times - Windows 11 will work on 1st gen Ryzen and Intel 6th/7th gen processors via ISO file, no additional workaround needed

That's a relief. I had to create a hybrid installer using the Window 10 ISO in order to install Windows 11 on my 7th-gen Intel machine. It's nice to know that I can just use the official ISO if I ever re-install it.

Edit: Also, there's a way to bring back the classic context menus:

PCGamer - How to restore full context menus in Windows 11

 

[guinness]

I've had it installed since August and don't like it at all. Seemingly as many things were removed or made more complicated as were added or made simpler, and the former were useful while the latter are not so much. As guinness pointed out, right click support is poor and is especially pathetic when you right-click on the taskbar. Also, the highly useful Action Center has been replaced with something much less useful. It's especially annoying that, after nearly 7 years of accessing Settings from the right side of the screen, the only way to get to it is from the Start Menu, which I rarely use and have on the left side of the screen. Of course, it also breaks the taskbar utilities that I use, like 7+ Taskbar Tweaker. Finally, the UI, including the rounded corners and icons, looks too cutesy and Chromebook-inspired (which it was). If I wanted something that looks and functions like a Chromebook, I would buy a Chromebook.

I'm glad that I installed it on a secondary machine. I'll monitor that for changes and, maybe, Microsoft will add or roll enough features back to justify upgrading my daily machine. Until then, I'm going to stay on Windows 10.

TBF, if you go back to XP, you'll be reminded of how complicated MS has made things. Internet properties always seems to stick out in my mind - making things 'simpler', but more complicated, it's the MS way.

I also feel like they have too many cooks in the kitchen, and also have to maintain all that legacy cruft for businesses. It's a tough road to tread.

Even since 8, I've given up on the start menu, the control panel, etc for the most part, just search for apps or settings.

I don't mind the graphical changes, it's more consistent to me, although still areas of improvement, like if you're going to do a dark mode, then dialog boxes, like file transfer windows shouldn't be bright white.

All OS' just seem to bounce between rounded corners or square corners, it's like car model year changes, next they'll go back to skeuomorphism. The settings app is much improved in 11, although I don't spend a ton of time there, but cleaner.

 

[Dolemite]

Like I said in a previous post, wait a bit for things to stabilize…

Before



After

 

[Osprey]

AMD has fixed the performance issues. You need to install the KB5006746 update through Windows Update and, possibly, also install the latest AMD chipset drivers.

Also, I haven't tried this yet, but here's a way to get the old (Windows 10) taskbar back:

GitHub - valinet/ExplorerPatcher: This project aims to bring back a productive working environment on Windows 11