Microsoft tells me that I can install W11 on my computer. My question is - should I do it now, or wait.
I usually advocate “Never buy the Mk 1 of anything”.
You’re lucky.
It says i can’t on mine.
Bastards.
Moved to IMHO.
You know how, since the turn of the millennium, Windows versions seem to alternate good and bad?
- Windows 98 - good
- Windows Me - bad
- Windows XP - good
- Windows Vista - bad
- Windows 7 - good
- Windows 8 - bad
- Windows 10 - good
From what I’ve seen of early reports, Windows 11 is going to continue that pattern.
Kind of like Star Trek (TOS) movies?
Good, bad, ugly?
Reviews I read seem to think that there is more to come.
I only just migrated from 8.1 (with which I had no problems) to 10 (with which I have also had no problems) in the last 6 months, when I had to buy a new computer. I just had to replace my phone because it wasn’t compatible with my carrier’s upcoming system change. I’m going to hold off as long as possible on any further changes.
I’m not seeing this. The kernel is virtually unchanged, it’s largely a cosmetic upgrade with hooks for some new things like the Android subsystem.
Mine is telling me I can’t. Whatever. 10 works just fine for me and I’m happy enough with it. I can always manage to figure out a way to more or less make it do what I want.
My laptop is running 10 and it ain’t broke. I don’t care if 11 is better or worse. I’m just glad that I’m retired and don’t have to deal with the migration on all of the tools that my area used at work.
My desktop gave me the prompt for 11. I figured they’ll eventually force it anyway so I just went ahead. So far all I’ve noticed is the on/off icon is no longer on the far left and no “search” window on the task bar either. Also had to reset my larger fonts as well.
Some say wait a few months for the system to be stable before upgrading to it. Meanwhile, you can try activating several security features in Win 10 that are turned on by default in 11.
And my HP laptop that’s just over 2 years old does not support Windows 11. Talk about the epitome of “planned obsolescence”.
My six year old computer with an FX-6300 chip does not support Windows 11. I am shocked.
I do not generally recommend it. The OS is still young, and they’re still ironing out the bugs. There was already a pretty big one that destroyed the performance of AMD processors on the new platform, likely related to Microsoft adding support to the newly released Intel chips.
In general, the usual advice is to wait a year or so on upgrading to a new Windows version. Let the early adopters work out the bugs. Windows 10 is going to keep on going until 2025.
@Mallard: you’ll probably be fine with the upgrade (though you may have to wait a bit for some bugs to be fixed), but it’s not necessarily true that you’d be forced eventually. The way Microsoft has been going lately, they usually release two (or even three) new versions before they retire the current version. It’s thus possible that we’ll have a Windows 12 (or at least 11.1) before 2025.
The irony here is that a lot of you who are being told they can’t upgrade probably could actually—it would just take tweaking some settings on your system. Microsoft is needlessly keeping people from upgrading who would be willing to do so, whose computers would work just fine.
IMHO, they don’t want Win11 to get a reputation (justified or not) for being slow or buggy, so they’re being extra-careful about what computers it gets installed on.
I upgraded to Windows 11 last week. I do not like it. Among my many gripes are:
You can’t use text larger than size 48 in Microsoft Paint, even if you need bigger words.
It is noticeably laggy and slow compared to Windows-10 and freezes often when using on-screen keyboard.
That doesn’t work for the requirement I’m talking about. Having or not having a TPM has no effect at all on performance. It’s a security chip, but one that home customers never use. And Windows 11 has made no changes in how it is used.
Microsoft’s requirements that would affect performance are much more reasonable. The minimum specs are 2-core CPU running at 1.0Ghz with 4GB of memory and 72 GB hard drivespace. Running on that system would actually make Windows 11 feel quite slow (especially with an actual hard drive and not an SSD).
When I say that Windows 11 would run just fine, I mean it would run just as well as Windows 10. The only exception is that Windows 11 is currently buggier because it is new. Microsoft’s TPM requirement is an artificial gate on the OS that accomplishes nothing.
And they know it, too, as they wouldn’t have baked in an override otherwise.
I switched from 10 to 11 about 10 days ago and so far it’s stable but there’s nothing impressive about it nor do I see anything I would consider an improvement. Am I mistaken in remembering MS said that after Windows 10 was released there would be no new versions, simply updates to Windows 10?
That is indeed what they said. And I believe they meant it at the time.
The general consensus from the experts I follow is the same as what I thought: it seems to be that the PC manufacturers pushed them to make this a new version. When the UI change was originally pitched, it was going to be in the October/November 2022 version of Windows 10. Then Microsoft suddenly switched to making a Windows 11, and through in these odd TPM requirements.
Built-in TPM 2.0 is standard on prebuilt computers produced now and in the past couple of years. But, thing is, if you’re not into CPU-intensive tasks, older computers can very well keep up with their modern counterparts. A used high-end computer from 10 years ago is often faster than a low end computer you buy today. And yet they can be $100s cheaper. All you need to do is add an SSD.
Microsoft has even been caught saying that now is a great time to buy new computers, when it very much is not. Not with the supply shortage going on right now. New computers are generally more expensive than usual. But the used/refurbished market is at pretty much the same level as always. At most, prices are falling a little bit slower than usual.
Don’t get me wrong. This is a slightly bigger change than the usual Windows 10 “feature update.” But it’s not any bigger than Windows 8.1 was from Windows 8. It very much feels like it was supposed to be Windows 10. Heck, even the underlying version number is 10.0.22000.282.
(Yes, Windows 7 was technically Windows 6.1, with Windows 8 and 8.1 being Windows 6.2 and 6.3, respectively. But Windows 11 is still 10.0, just with a different build number. Just like the feature updates.)