News Windows 11 available on new PCs, updates roll out

None of my PCs or laptops will run Windows 11 but all of them provide the functionality I need and am likely to need for many years to come with Windows 10. My main PC (see sig) is now ancient but so what if it takes a few extra minutes to render a mp4 or mkv, I'm in no rush.

My Atom powered media system connected to my TV runs Windows 10 perfectly fine as well as playing all my mp4/mkv movies without any problems. I updated from Windows 7 to 10 due to security concerns (and the fact every system I have would run it and for free). I am not planning on upgrading to Windows 11 and I suspect there's quite a few like me with perfectly adequate systems who are not prepared for the expense of new kit.

 

Windows 11

Spinal Tap edition?

 

Ha! Me likey. If only they had the stones to use this.

Yeah. Guilty of this...

...and this, conflictingly. 2700K at this end plus an XP box for some old music software. Ain't broke so not going to fix.

Well, it actually is broke at the moment but that's my own stupidity at fault, not the OS. You'll probably see a support request from me on here once I get around to looking at it.

 

Microsoft butchered the Taskbar.
Removed the option to create a new Toolbar (create folder, place shortcuts there, point new toolbar to that folder) and eliminated the "Never Combine taskbar buttons".
The new toolbar removal could be tolerated but the "Never Combine" elimination is maddening and just leads to poorer and infuriating usage.

 

Just installed it and not sure what the big deal is. Amazingly, the start menu is even worse and ;ess useful than before. Windows seem to have rounded edges. I have some sort of pre-defined widgit bar where the links open microsoft chromium, perhaps to encourage me to switch to their browser... The only thing that looks like a possible improvement is the ability to switch to multiple desktops, but if I wanted that, I'd buy a 2nd monitor and do it properly. Not especially impressed so far... Seems more like a small feature update than a whole new version of windows.

 

Windows 10 has had virtual desktops for ages. It just doesn't do it anywhere near as well as Gnome (don't know about other DEs). Hopefully classic shell comes out with something to help with the taskbar woes.

 

Windows implementation of virtual desktops is terrible - the animation used makes me want to throw up - I have to close my eyes when switching, which means I rarely do. Any/all desktop environments and many window managers do it better. There was a freeware third party virutal desktop program for Windows 7/8 which I used to use (can't remember what it's called now) which worked well.

The only reason I can see for installing 11 right now is WSLg, which I have to say is quite appealing for me personally.

 

So, I've been using this for a month now (yeah, yeah, I'm a glutton for punishment ), and there's a couple of things still bugging me:

• The new Start Menu is appalling. There's no way to arrange icons into groups, they just appear as one long stream of icons - Microsoft taking their cue from the iPhone?
• Time and date is only shown on monitor 1, there's no way of having it on other monitors without a third-party plugin.
• Frequent DNS lookup failures (and by frequent, I mean it happens about 20% of the time) resulting in multiple page not found errors

 

No DNS lookup issues here and have been using it a similar amount of time, perhaps a driver issue your side?

I have no issues with the start menu as such as I don't use it, always using windows button and first character of an app that I am looking for but yeah searching through it it is a bit messy even with the drop down arrows.

My method for organising though was to use toolbars in the taskbar, grouped into tabs of tech, tool docs and projects etc, each with internal drop downs to specific categories, it was great as I could also store tech documentation in there along with shortcuts etc, so when doing a bit of RTFM which is frequent I could go to techs>5nm etc and have all my docs ordered that way, very quick. This whole bit of functionality is gone, so my production machine will never get an upgrade to 11 until I find a new solution. Toolbars were awesome particularly as most tech docs have random ass names and I could rename shortcuts whilst point to the version controlled links etc.

I could replicate all this in a folder and pin it but Uuurgh, the old functionality is sweet, so quick, the number of people impressed in the office who'd see me finding the reference stuff using this so quickly due to how its organised and clear is surprising as it such an obvious thing too do and far quicker than using company websites

Start menu does seem random for me, some times it will pop up central and sometime in the old place on the left which is random

I'm really struggling with the taskbar generally though beside toolbars as I have used it in the top location auto hiding for years and there is no option to do that, using a 3rd party utility does it but then there are problems with the taskbar overlapping window frames so it is not ideal. I also like to show all icons in the taskbar but there is no option to show all, I have to enable each item individually.

So a lot seems like a step back, on the whole I like the look of the Icons etc but it does feeel llike they have dumbed down the interface.

My laptop battery seem impacted but can't really say if that is just it's age and co-incidence or Win 11, I think I will wipe the laptop and do a fresh install, see if it makes it nicer, upgrades can't be hit and miss. Windows animations on battery power save mode are ropey AF.

 

I've got Win 11 on a new laptop. Had to reinstall it as the OS came set to Japanese, and the Japanese Windows can't have any other language set as the OS default, which is a massive PITA. So I had a choice; Win 10 or 11. Decided to give 11 a shot and I kind of like it. No DNS issues here either. A few quirks which I don't know whether or not they are caused by Win 11 or the Asus drivers or what... sometimes the "Armoury Crate" button won't work, and if I open the Aura Creator I can't switch between profiles on the hotkeys any more... not something which was an issue with the Win 10 install, but I'm nowhere nearly fluent enough in Japanese to survive an OS in it.

I'm loving WSLg. I don't use the Start menu enough to have even really noticed what it looks like. I pin the applications I want direct access to the Taskbar, other less frequently used ones get pinned to the Start Menu, everything else is a WinKey + type away.

I do have one issue, but I suspect it's actually 6800M/AMD driver related: one of the OpenGL applications I use for work just shows a white box where the actual subject of observation should be. I probably should have stuck with nVidia, but I haven't had an AMD GPU in over a decade, and the laptop was basically 60-70% of the price of an nVidia laptop which was inferior in every way except the GPU. To match or better it in terms of CPU/screen, I'd have been looking at double the price, so decided to try it.