Is it now worth trying Windows 11?

[james_s]

It's kind of sad to see how badly they have managed to mess Windows up.

I think the main issue with Windows has always been with MS trying to copycat others while consistently failing.

The thing I see is that when they try to copy others, they fundamentally miss why the thing they're trying to copy is popular and they copy the wrong aspects of it.

It also doesn't help that they fired all of their QA and moved to a model of relying on developers to unit test their code, automation and using paying customers as their QA team. Absolutely nobody asked for Windows "as a service" and shipping a "minimum viable product" (garbage) and then fixing it "later" with a constant stream of updates that break other things is not an improvement over the old arrangement of ship something that is finished and then focus on fixing security holes that are found.

[Karel]

Well, on the other hand, there's an alternative now.
For example, 20 years ago the situation was much worse, there was practically no alternative than to use windows.

[John B]

I'll throw my vote in that since my shift to using Linux, I have not needed to boot my windows machine to do any tasks. In fact after leaving it off for a week it no longer starts, I assume that the PSU gave up.

I'm on Fedora, I had a bit of a rocky start with the KDE Plasma environment, but now I think I prefer it over the GNOME environment. It's going to be more familiar to a windows user.

I really don't miss windows at all.

[Ed.Kloonk]

 

[JeremyC]

Hi.

I am mulling over whether to install Windows 11. Is it too early, or should I wait another year? I heard Windows 11 has been plagued by bugs, driver problems and compatibility issues. I need to look at the risk versus benefit of upgrading the OS. Last think I want to do it to have to buy some hardware because of "Bloody Bill Gates", or some software package ceases to work and uninstall/reinstall does not fix it. I use Altium, Fusion 360, Prus slicer, Brother P-Touch, Brother MFC-L2730DW, Code Composer, Arduino IDE, ESP32 Espressif-IDE, Cypress PSOC creator, Bitscope, Labview, Visual Studio, LTSpice and a host of other peripheral and software.

Do any of you use Windows 11 with any of the above and had driver issues or software issues? What performance or usability improvement is there over Windows 10? If it is another "Where Do You Want to Go To Today" O/S, I'll stick with Windows 10.

I have been burnt in the past by Microsoft's O/S update. In one case I have to throw an expensive Canon laser printer out when I went to Windows 7 (will never buy Canon again). Besides, Microsoft said Windows 10 will be the last O/S from them. We knew they were talking at the time. Hmm, why did they change their minds and update to 11 then?

- Dave

You may try Windows 11 for free in virtual machine using VirtualBox (free software).
VirtualBox can be installed in Windows and Linux OSes. Check the link below:
https://www.makeuseof.com/virtualbox-70-install-windows-11/

[nigelwright7557]

Windows 11 came out to make use of efficiency and performance cores for Intel.

While a lot of Windows works ok some of it is a real pain.
Trying to setup a wifi link from desktop to laptop has bits all over the place that need to be right at both ends.
To be user friendly I should be able to set up the link on one page.

With Windows 10 came extra security which previously Windows was poor for.

[Infraviolet]

For the most part I've only heard bad things about Win 11 (this sort of stuff ).

To improve security I'd tend to recommend people move over to Linux (which also hands you back control of your own system rather than having M$ make you ever more cloud dependent). If one needs, as we so often do, Windows exe software there is a small chance it will work under the Wine compatibility layer (some things workperfectly, others not at all), but otherwise one can always put any Windows version in to a virtual machine so as to run Windows programs in their native environment whilst having a more stable and controllable Linux (Mint, Ubuntu... one of the more uer friendly "easy"distributions rather than the "hardcore" "terminal for everything handle dependcies yourself" distros) host system.

[mapleLC]

and shipping a "minimum viable product" (garbage)

I remember well when this word became a thing.  We went from building things that worked to having some CIO tell us no no, we can get away with this "minimum viable product" shit.

It has merit as a term, but I saw it sold as a feature when it was really presenting the user an incomplete solution. "Hey we can deploy it now whammo!" The next word that was usurped to describe the missing parts of the solution were now "technical debt."

An incomplete solution is "viable" and what you couldn't get done is a "debt."  George Carlin lives.

It might not sound as bad as it is... they'll get the missing pieces, right?  No.  In comes the next fun word... "re-prioritization" usually coupled with the word "meeting."

Re-prioritiation always favored what is new and shiny... because technically the other project is finished "its viable" remember, and we just owe a debt.  You have no idea how many crippled solutions get built with this mentality and never get fixed because nobody will pay for it.  Its hard enough for departments to get "prioritization" from IT, when they finally do, they get half of what they wanted, and will never get any attention again.

You can draw a line right from Microsoft to this mentality.  Its incredible how such an averge-at -best company keeps scoring losses and is still viable.  Their OS is a data mining  piece of shit.

[SiliconWizard]

It's kind of sad to see how badly they have managed to mess Windows up.

I think the main issue with Windows has always been with MS trying to copycat others while consistently failing.

The thing I see is that when they try to copy others, they fundamentally miss why the thing they're trying to copy is popular and they copy the wrong aspects of it.

They fundamentally have no vision, which I think is what has "plagued" MS as much as it has helped them, and which I think explains why they consistently miss innovations and end up catching up somewhat by shelling out gigantic amounts of cash. They keep jumping on bandwagons. They have rarely created them, if ever.

Their success though is largely due to a series of nasty commercial practices (like when they have prevented PC vendors from selling their machines with anything else than Windows if they wanted to sell Windows at all), all the drama with Internet Explorer, the forced updates, and so on. And with the reaped cash, they can spend billions for making up for bad strategic decisions.

That may sound a bit harsh but I think that pretty much sums it up in a simplified way.

And they'll keep doing what they have always done. They'll jump on the latest bandwagon without quite understanding it -  it has been the cloud, and now it's AI that's all the rage - and force their way until most people have almost no choice  but use their products.

Win 12 is in the works and besides small changes in the UI, it's going to be pumped full of AI-related tools. Expect ten times the amount of "phoning home" to make it all work.

[tiggerlator]

Been using win 11 on my high end water cooled gaming rig since the beta with zero problems.

[james_s]

Glad it's working for you. For many of us however there are serious problems, many of them fundamental.

[rdl]

It's not so much that it doesn't work, it's just that it does a lot of things an OS has no business doing.

[SiliconWizard]

Oh, but Windows 12 is going to be much worse.

[mapleLC]

Oh, but Windows 12 is going to be much worse.

My #1 realization in the last year is how good open source has gotten.  It took this long to be viable, but I believe anyone that has awareness of MSFT/Windows behavior would not install it because you actually do have an alternative that will work.

[james_s]

I tried to like Linux for many years, but on the desktop (or laptop) I always hit situations fairly quickly where I spent hours and hours trying to get something simple to work before giving up. It has been working great for server type stuff for years, I have several RPis and my router and other things running Linux no problem but desktop always fell short. Then about a year ago my main laptop broke so I pulled out an old one and threw Mint on it. I bought some parts machines to fix my Windows laptop but they're still just sitting there a year later and I'm still using the Linux machine. I haven't had to do any of the tinkering I remember on it, it's finally gotten pretty good. Windows ran out of compelling improvements to make then regressed significantly starting with Win8 and over time Linux just kept plodding along until it caught up.

[John B]

In today's episode of "Goodbye Windows", I got Skyrim working for fun on Fedora. It was shockingly easy, all that was needed was an additional wine prefix/plugin(?) to get the audio working properly.

[Ranayna]

I have to admit that i am about to cave.

I have now been running Linux for more than a year now, primarily for gaming. And gaming is *not* the reason why I will be switching back to Windows 10, maybe 11 later, soon.

At work, I need to use, administer and support Windows Clients and Servers. I have a lot of experience with it, that accumulated over the last 20 years.
Even after a year of using Linux now, I still not not really have an experience level with Linux that is even remotely close. Of course I haven't.
But this "living in two worlds" does not help me, especially now that Windows 11 is about to be introduced at work.

I have access to an Enterprise License that I am allowed to use at home. So I know I can use Windows without a forced account and no telemetry.

For me it was never a technical reason to try a switch to Linux. Windows always worked fine for me, and i know enough about it to fix virtually all problems with it. I never got to this level with Linux.
I'm totally honest here: At home I primarily want to use the system, not fiddle around with it. And while Linux (mostly) works and does (most) of what I want, I am just not getting comfortable with it. If something breaks, I would need a significant time investment to fix the issue. This has caused me to stop experimenting with stuff in the fear that I break something, since i have had a couple of breaking issues in the first two or so months.

But let's see what Windows 12 brings. I now know for sure that Windows is definitely not the "be all, end all", even for gaming.
My "line in the sand" stays the same: Once i am forced to create a Microsoft Account to use Windows, I'm out.

[mapleLC]

I have to admit that i am about to cave.

I have now been running Linux for more than a year now, primarily for gaming. And gaming is *not* the reason why I will be switching back to Windows 10, maybe 11 later, soon.

At work, I need to use, administer and support Windows Clients and Servers. I have a lot of experience with it, that accumulated over the last 20 years.
Even after a year of using Linux now, I still not not really have an experience level with Linux that is even remotely close. Of course I haven't.
But this "living in two worlds" does not help me, especially now that Windows 11 is about to be introduced at work.

I have access to an Enterprise License that I am allowed to use at home. So I know I can use Windows without a forced account and no telemetry.

For me it was never a technical reason to try a switch to Linux. Windows always worked fine for me, and i know enough about it to fix virtually all problems with it. I never got to this level with Linux.
I'm totally honest here: At home I primarily want to use the system, not fiddle around with it. And while Linux (mostly) works and does (most) of what I want, I am just not getting comfortable with it. If something breaks, I would need a significant time investment to fix the issue. This has caused me to stop experimenting with stuff in the fear that I break something, since i have had a couple of breaking issues in the first two or so months.

But let's see what Windows 12 brings. I now know for sure that Windows is definitely not the "be all, end all", even for gaming.
My "line in the sand" stays the same: Once i am forced to create a Microsoft Account to use Windows, I'm out.

I'm not trying to poke the other side of the issue since I am quite disappointed in MSFT's behavior in general.  Apart from that Server 2022 is remarkably devoid of the bullshit unless its hidden away somewhere.  I was able to uninstall Edge with a single click. I might leave a machine here running it.  I do tend to agree you need a windows installation laying around kind of like you do spare change at this point.  Useless until you need it.

[beanflying]

So as it is around 18 months since Microsnot released their latest back to base info sender and operating system I decided to stick my toe in the water on a less critical PC as I know the software I need to use on it is fine with 11. I have been typically a very slow adopter of Windows making sure that any gross release issues and software support are well sorted before 'upgrading' (really not sure this has applied since XP and 7 days). For ongoing security and compatibility all of my boxes will eventually need to go to 11. 

Overall when you get rid of as much garbageware as possible and limit as much as is reasonable without going insane the back to base aspects yeah sure it works I guess and is stable

HOWEVER one thing that really give me the sh1ts is having my 4 year old 2400G based system told the CPU is 'unsupported' for 'reasons'. Why the larger industrial customers and bulk users of Windoze have not raised hell of this complete  is beyond me. Sure their needs to be a cutoff point but the majority of industry in non core computers lives and breathes 5-10+ year old boxes.

So I started an almost certainly pointless thread  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-11/how-much-longer-until-microsoft-gets-serious-and-adds-recent-cpu/m-p/3803393 I expect nothing to zero but you have to at least try and poke the slug.

There is of course the registry hack option and this fresh take on the best methods from one of the quirkiest Computer YouTubers popped up this morning 



Result for me is I don't hate it or dislike it anymore than 10 so I guess that is 'ok'.

[Ranayna]

HOWEVER one thing that really give me the sh1ts is having my 4 year old 2400G based system told the CPU is 'unsupported' for 'reasons'. Why the larger industrial customers and bulk users of Windoze have not raised hell of this complete  is beyond me. Sure their needs to be a cutoff point but the majority of industry in non core computers lives and breathes 5-10+ year old boxes.

as someone who works in a corporate IT i can explain why no hell is raised: The internal lifecycle is short enough, especially when you lease your client endpoint hardware like we do.
The lease period is three years, after which the devices get replaced.
Exceptions are very few, for some specialized endpoints that we have bought instead of leased and that are expensive to replace. But these get isolated once their OS is out of support anyway. And with these endpoints we always learn sooner or later why a short lifecycle is justified: Machines older than 5 years or so start developing more and more problems, requiring increasing support.

[SiliconWizard]

Windows 12 is "probably" going to integrate "AI" in a number of inescapable ways.
After the not-so-old hardware made obsolete by Win 11 (even if there are workarounds for now, albeit 100% unsupported). It was just the beginning.
Rumor & speculation is even trending towards maybe a requirement for CPUs or GPUs that integrate some kind of NPU. You know, for part of the AI thing that will be done "locally". Edge computing, you know!

No AI? No Windows.

[beanflying]

as someone who works in a corporate IT i can explain why no hell is raised: The internal lifecycle is short enough, especially when you lease your client endpoint hardware like we do.
...

While things have changed in IT in some industries there is still plenty of old clunkers that were bought and paid for running basic Network and Office use well after a three year time frame.

Unnecessary Forced obsolescence of hardware by another's 'upgrade' or EOL SUCKS period full stop.

My shiny new little ITX build can wait a while longer 

[Ranayna]

Of course there are a lot of old clunkers, especially in smaller businesses and workshops.
I remember the report of the C64 still being used in a small workshop a couple of years ago.

And as long as they can do their job, you can still repair them, and can isolate them from general access: These are fine.
But the second becomes more and more difficult and expensive for old machines, and the third is often not an option or very difficult.

As long as Windows 10 still gets updates, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using it. As a small suggestion, if you are not using it, i would suggest disabling TPM in the BIOS. Then you should not be offered the Upgrade to Windows 11, and cannot accidentally misclick to install it.

[Tomshep]

Thank you. That is a very helpful snippet of advice.
I do my work on an old laptop with Win10. Every few days, despite many hours of trying to prevent it, Microsoft carries out a denial of service attack that can last for an hour and usually disabes something I want to use or enables something I don't.
As a good luddite, I have bought a Windows 7 installation disc and will soon attempt to travel back in time to a less troublesme system.

[james_s]

As long as Windows 10 still gets updates, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using it. As a small suggestion, if you are not using it, i would suggest disabling TPM in the BIOS. Then you should not be offered the Upgrade to Windows 11, and cannot accidentally misclick to install it.

IMO once it stops getting updates that's the time I'd consider actually using it. At that point it's a mature product and the endless and disruptive updates are the thing I most dislike about Win10. I've almost always found old unsupported software to work best, it just works.