W11 - Worth upgrading from W10 ?

[Lindley]

Hi,

Our diy desktop runs W10 with an old Asrock H81M mobo and an Intel i3 4170  which are not TPM / W11 compatible etc.

To run W11 we would need to update the mobo,cpu and ram which would come in at around  GB £250-£300 for something like a socket 1700 i3 12100 cpu.

We use it for typical home office work, along with some cad and micro ides etc.

Its a private machine, well backed up etc so wondered if there is any real point in updating to  W11  ?

[xrunner]

No.

[Mechatrommer]

yes, if you envy MacOS taskbar...

[TimFox]

Despite our own opinion, and our hardware that Microsoft says will not support W11, when will we be forced, against our will, to switch?

[Mechatrommer]

M$ will not force you, but the vendors of the tools that you swear your life with will. So be careful on what tools that your life will dependent on.. btw, you can find in googles/youtube the other way around, that on how people force win11 on unsupported hw.. by birthright, my hp z800 should not be running win10, but somehow i managed to play mixed reality with it. ymmv.

[MathWizard]

Have MS made any of their basic programs any better ? For instance the basic photo viewer is crap, as is the basic paint.

I suppose it's not up to MS to do anything, but they used to make that stuff pretty good years ago.

And even the calculator in win10, I'm sure it's worse, I don't use it tho anymore, I just use my real TI calc.

[SiliconWizard]

I haven't seen any real improvement in Windows in the last few years. Most are just *changes*, not improvements, and many make things either the same, or much worse.

It seems to be a trend, it's not just Windows, and not just MS. I can say the same about most current large software projects such as web browsers. The trend is pretty much rooted in the agile fad (whether those companies actually implement an "agile" process per se or not), for which *changes* is the motto. There must be a constant rate of changes, a constant increment of versions, even if that means just changing some icons or *removing* features (which is also a very common way of changing things.)

And of course, changes also include more telemetry with each new version, and this is again not just with MS.

No one will force you to switch except yourself. The main problem you'll encounter is some apps that you are using that are not compatible with the Windows version you use anymore. For Windows 7, there's now a whole lot of apps that are in this category, but that really started a few months after the support officially ended. If you're currently using Win 10, since the official end is oct. 2025 at this point, you can probably safely use it at least up to that point without having issues with third-party apps.

[TimFox]

In my case, I needed to switch to Windows 10 (with which I have no real problems) when TurboTax^TM software no longer allowed Windows 7.
My concern is that I am happy with my current hardware, and MS tells me it will not support Windows 11.
(I am not a "gamer".)

[james_s]

It seems to be a trend, it's not just Windows, and not just MS. I can say the same about most current large software projects such as web browsers. The trend is pretty much rooted in the agile fad (whether those companies actually implement an "agile" process per se or not), for which *changes* is the motto. There must be a constant rate of changes, a constant increment of versions, even if that means just changing some icons or *removing* features (which is also a very common way of changing things.)

Yes and since they break everything down into bite-sized sprints, the big changes/fixes/improvements very often never get done because they are too hard to break down into small pieces so instead they spend their time just tinkering and changing things around. Removal of features drives me nuts, in my job multiple times I have had to push back against removing working features, ostensibly to reduce the support effort, but they were working! Why remove something that already works and has not required any significant dev effort? So what if only 5% of users utilize that feature, somebody clearly does find it useful. It drives me nuts.

[james_s]

In my case, I needed to switch to Windows 10 (with which I have no real problems) when TurboTax^TM software no longer allowed Windows 7.
My concern is that I am happy with my current hardware, and MS tells me it will not support Windows 11.
(I am not a "gamer".)

Turbotax still has a standalone program? I had no idea it even existed anymore, for at least a decade I've used the web based one. Usually I am not a fan of web based software but in the case of tax prep that is only useful for that one season it makes sense.

[TimFox]

Yes, Turbotax is available as a standalone program that can be downloaded (after payment).
There is an old axiom in tax law and software that the tax law must change every year in order to render last year's software obsolete.
I'm not sure, but it may be available on CD as a physical medium, but the first thing that happens when you start the program after downloading it is that it checks for updates online.

[bd139]

I implore you to run a fucking mile from windows 11. I just spent the day trying to provision a node as a development workstation. There are turds EVERYWHERE to step in. Hang out on windows 10 until about 3 months before EOL, then make the move if you have to.

As you're in the UK, when you do finally have to upgrade, look on eBay for new but open box Lenovo machines with warranties. There are usually loads on there that range for £300-400 ish. You will get an decent i5, 8Gb of RAM and 256Gb SSD and a 3y NBD on site warranty for that. Oh plus they will come with a Windows Professional license. That'll give you 10 years' life easily.

[50ShadesOfDirt]

It's always worth it to run the latest OS, after the initial dust settles. Whether it is worth it to OP or not seems more personal. I gained either performance or feature improvements, or both, from w7 to w8, then w10, and now w11.

However, long ago, I maxed out the mobo/cpu (static part) with ram and SSD as these are obtainable and easy to upgrade. At this point, with these items maxed out, whatever OS is on there will be humming much better than before. If you periodically rebuild the OS and debloat it, so much the better. I'm over 5 years or more on my current ASUS mobo/cpu combination, and I've been able to install all these OS's on it.

Don't know if OP is at max ram and on SSD, but if he were, and as he is already running w10, he'd gain a few more percentage points of performance and some feature gains just from w11. If he isn't maxed out in ram and SSD, then that's where I'd go first.

Of course, a more modern mobo, cpu, ram, & SSD set will always make a difference ... the chipset changes with each mobo/cpu. Is what you have doing it for you, or do you need/want more (performance, features)?

I would tend to run the latest OS platform, and on some cycle of years, upgrade to the latest mobo/cpu/ram/ssd hardware platform to get the latest chipset gains. Rarely does one drive the other, as my current platform ran or is running from w7 to w11. You don't really *need* the latest hardware to run w11, if you google a bit, but it might be a "good for the economy" thing if they make you think it is required.

I did change out my nvidia graphics card separately over the years, as that gave me a boost in certain areas ... cad, gaming, video production, and such.

Hope this helps ...

[Ian.M]

Microsoft have a long history of borking every other major OS release, going right back to the pre Win95 Windows on MSDOS days of the early 90's.   Its as if they forget all the end user complaints, technical support pushback and media screaming, so after a successful Windows version the development teams go hog-wild adding and changing stuff without consultation in the next release.   

See https://www.quora.com/Does-the-fact-that-Microsoft-only-gets-every-other-major-Windows-version-right-mean-that-they-release-them-prematurely
for a discussion of this MS anti-pattern.

Therefore the sanest response to Windows 11 is to hold off upgrading till either you have to (e.g. a couple of months (for debugging) before Win10's end of support date - currently October 14, 2025) or until the next major windows release (Windows 12?) has been out for a few months, whichever comes sooner.

[DiTBho]

no, buy it's worth buying a Mac M1

[james_s]

no, buy it's worth buying a Mac M1

If they didn't have a stupid notch in the screen I'd consider it. That's a deal breaker for me though, it drives me nuts.

[DiTBho]

yup, the notch in the screen is annoying and very stupid design, you have to make yourself one reason for it and accept it, which is not easy.
Say, good compromise: the machine has better battery life, and MacOS has a better feeling, so I can ignore the annoying notch in the screen.

[james_s]

I can't ignore the notch, it drives me nuts. It's also totally unnecessary, they did it purely for the sake of fashion, they could have simply made the bezel a few mm thicker. I really don't understand the obsession with razor thin bezels, a bezel serves a purpose, it frames the display.

[bd139]

It’s only the M1 MacBook Pro that has it. The MacBook Air doesn’t.

The notch doesn’t bother me at all. I’m happier to have an extra cm or so of vertical useful space on the screen due to it being there.

The biggest problem with the thing is the screen is so good that it’s hard to look at anything else afterwards. You can zoom the entire London connections map to full screen and still read all the station names clearly.

https://content.tfl.gov.uk/london-rail-and-tube-services-map.pdf

[james_s]

If it doesn't bother you that's great, but it bothers me to the point that I won't even consider buying one, and I won't invest in the ecosystem out of concern that the notch will eventually spread to the Air as well. An extra cm? Just make the damn computer 1cm longer, who would even notice? It's totally absurd to make a huge sacrifice like cutting a chunk out of the display just to make a laptop one puny centimeter smaller. I am far from the only person for whom the notch is a deal breaker. A good friend of mine was all excited to buy a new top of the line Macbook when that range was coming out, they had fixed virtually every complaint he had about the previous models but then he saw they have a notch and changed his mind. Same reason he and I are both holding onto older iPhones.

[bd139]

Of all the things to strangle yourself over  .

It literally sits in the menu bar and stays out of the way. Same with the phone. It literally gives you more screen. 

Some people just like being miserable bastards.

[Monkeh]

The notch wouldn't bother me so long as it was handled well in the OS. If it's treated as extra screen real estate which is not used by normal windows, just somewhere to dump status icons, common menus, the clock.. then it's fine, so long as it doesn't result in the aspect ratio for the main area becoming non-standard.

Whether Apple treat it that way or not I genuinely don't know - I don't use them, I'm not in the market for them, it isn't worth the time it took to make this post to research it. But if handled right.. meh, it's free space rather than blank bezel. And Apple, being in control of both OS and hardware, have the capability to do that properly - good luck ever getting Microshaft to make that work right, they can't even make the taskbar work properly on every version of Windows I've used since XP, there's always bugs which they just leave for the life of the OS.

[bd139]

Here's a screenshot of the notch. You can't screenshot it in-system as it's a virtual cutout. Literally it doesn't get in the way at all. You don't even see it after a couple of days.

But of course you can punch yourself in the balls with this visceral reaction as much as you like and miss the fact that it's the damn near best thing out there in laptop land.

[Monkeh]

Seems grand. If the aspect ratio of the area without the notch is normal, I can't see why people are getting themselves so twisted about it.

[bd139]

Indeed. To note it's people who seem not to own them that have the problem with them.