Windows 11

[JackDidley]

I am going to put a new hard drive in my laptop and thinking about a Windows partition. I tried Windows 11 3 years ago and hated it so I went back to 10. I do 95% of my computing on linux but on occasion I need Windows. So, Windows ends support for 10 next year and I may as well be ready. Is Windows 11 better than it was 3 years ago??

[GH85Carrera]

It is different than 10, but after a few weeks, you will learn where things are. The biggest pain is uninstalling all the BS crap. Like the games and other apps you don't want. Windows 11 seems to think you are a game playing college student that uses a laptop at open WiFi and it can be a pain to get it to share with other computers in your own local network.

I have used it since it came out, and it has been very stable, and it works. I have to use it for almost all of my mapping programs. They require Win 11 Pro.

[JackDidley]

Yes, I remember the game stuff from when I tried it before. No use for that. I dont need the one drive thing either.

[rockfan4]

We're slowly rolling it out at work, but 11 23H2. There's a few departments that can't update because of applications that don't support Win 11. My work laptop has been on it for a couple of months now. I find it amusing how many policy changes we push to make it more like Win 10 - moving the start back to the left bottom corner, undoing the changes to the right click menu, etc.

I updated one of my home laptops from 23H2 to 24H2, and now it won't come back after a shutdown. I have to disconnect the power and remove the battery while it's on to force a cold reboot, then the mouse comes back. But, I'm running on unsupported hardware, so I imagine I won't get any help on the issue.

[JackDidley]

Originally Posted by rockfan4

We're slowly rolling it out at work, but 11 23H2. There's a few departments that can't update because of applications that don't support Win 11. My work laptop has been on it for a couple of months now. I find it amusing how many policy changes we push to make it more like Win 10 - moving the start back to the left bottom corner, undoing the changes to the right click menu, etc.

I updated one of my home laptops from 23H2 to 24H2, and now it won't come back after a shutdown. I have to disconnect the power and remove the battery while it's on to force a cold reboot, then the mouse comes back. But, I'm running on unsupported hardware, so I imagine I won't get any help on the issue.

I am also running unsupported hardware. It has an I7 processor, 8 GB RAM and will be getting a SSD when the Amazon truck shows up. I downloaded 24H2 last night to a flash drive so I could take it for a test drive. Not hating it so far.

[Steve Carlton]

I should be picking up an LG Gram Windows 11 laptop tomorrow. Is there a good website to guide me through deleting the bloatware, etc off of it myself? I usually take a new laptop to my computer guy to do it, but I'm limited for time.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by Steve Carlton

I should be picking up an LG Gram Windows 11 laptop tomorrow. Is there a good website to guide me through deleting the bloatware, etc off of it myself? I usually take a new laptop to my computer guy to do it, but I'm limited for time.

Some of the bloatware is easy, click the remove button. Some of it is a challenge. Just search for how to remove that app, and instructions are out there.

[Neilk]

Just got a Windows 11 laptop at work. It was lagging with 16gb of memory so I upgraded it to 32 and it's much better.

The most annoying feature, or lack of feature, is that you can no longer cascade windows in Outlook. I am a bit disorganized and find myself with 10-15 open e-mails by the end of the day. I would cascade the windows and quickly go through them. Now you have to click on each one, it's a pain.

[john70t]

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/operating-systems/windows-11-market-share-declines-as-users-seemingly-shift-back-to-windows-10
"Statcounter released a new report showing a noticeable decrease in Windows 11's worldwide market share since Feb 2024. The struggling Windows 11 fell below 26% while Windows 10 enjoyed 70.03% of Microsoft's OS market share."

Some of the features people might actually want, such as desktop news/ticker/traffic/deals feeds, but they went about it all the wrong way.
Sliders for all of that would have been nice.
Instead of suggesting they decided to force it all on customers: "We decided to get rid of the Start Menu button for you. Okay we finally put it back. No you can't change the new location in the center". "Looking for a file? Here are some random ads instead". "That setting has been moved to the far moon of Ghomrassen so good luck finding it". "That option is no longer available". "We are taking your data whether you like it or not". "Here some AI to change everything you wanted to do today." etc.


You 'supposedly' can remove or at least disable OneDrive, Cortana, SearchTheWeb Start, others.
Some require regedit tweaking. You can do it.

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/how-to-make-windows-11-look-and-feel-like-windows-10
If you do use a classic-look desktop program like ExplorerPatcher...be warned..
The last mandatory update killed my Windows Explorer.
Black screen of death.
CMD sfc /scannow through TaskManager and forcing repair by interrupting the boot cycle three times did not work.
Had to reinstall Windows and all programs. A whole day wasted. Still haven't finished.
I also lost half a year's worth of carefully sorted bookmarks because I didn't f'n back them up.

[JackDidley]

Cortana is no longer included, and one drive can be removed in system components. Very easy. I am still clicking around to see how things work.

[GhotiDac]

I turned off most of the new UI stuff and centered taskbar and it feels more like the older version. Still took a bit to get used to the settings layout.

[A930Rocket]

Originally Posted by JackDidley

Yes, I remember the game stuff from when I tried it before. No use for that. I dont need the one drive thing either.

The One Drive makes me crazy. It’s always popping up letting me know, I’m not synced or signed in Etc. I don’t care.

[GH85Carrera]

One drive is intrusive. I hate trying to save a document to my standard places and One Drive pops up as the default.

I have Office 365, and One drive is wonderful for sending files to clients. Especially large files. I recently uploaded a 6 gig file to One drive. I sent my client the link, and he downloaded it in 2 minutes! That blew me way. I remember being thrilled to download on megabyte in "only" 12 minutes on my dial up modem.

My biggest hate of Window 11 is it wants me to log in, and set up a password to open the computer. I am the only user, and I don't want to use a password just to use my one computer that no one else uses. I have to fight to keep it password free just to turn on my computer.

[JackDidley]

Originally Posted by GhotiDac

I turned off most of the new UI stuff and centered taskbar and it feels more like the older version. Still took a bit to get used to the settings layout.

I did the same. Also downloaded a program called Crapfixer. It works well getting Windows 11 fixed. I have it on 2 laptops. Still mostly using Linux.

[MAS956]

I like and use Winutil by Chris Titus (there are several out there that do similar things - his is well-documented with several youtube guides). This utility makes debloating and customizing Win 11 easy.

https://winutil.christitus.com/

[Por_sha911]

I have two perfectly functioning windows machines that are both too old to get security updates. I screwed up and didn't get Win 10 I bought an 11 laptop.
It is so different that the learning curve was a bummer but worst of all it doesn't give me the ability to setup custom tasks that I can do with the old systems. Combine that with cost of new software that will work with 11 (the old software was not just a lease but had unlimited life), I spent way too much time and money just to get things working as close as possible to what I had that worked perfectly.

Now the bad news: Win 11 is very demanding that you take updates and many of them in the last 18 months had some serious flaws when released. I always tell the system to NOT automatically load updates. I would scan the news to see if the latest release had landmines or not. To date, I am still running 23H because 24H is fraught with problems and going back may not be an option.

Bottom line: 11 does work but it will take an investment of time to learn and adapt it to what you want. Its greatest asset is the ability to use AI (which I shut down - don't trust it any farther than I trust Bill Gates. Or in other words, zero trust). If you have software in your old machine with 10 it will probably work in 11.

[GH85Carrera]

The bad updates are usually corrected in very short order.

The iOs on my iPhone has regular updates, and they have had some real clunkers that had to be updated again in just days or hours.

I just wish Microsoft would ask, are you a gamer or not. They seem to think everyone is a college student, using a laptop, that plays games and uses public WiFi everywhere and has people looking over their shoulder to see the passwords. My computer is a large tower, that weight about 50 pounds. It ain't a laptop, I don't play games, and it is connected to my secure internet with a Cat6 cable.

I know for a fact, Apple, Microsoft, The IRS, the CIA and FBI have been hacked. I do not trust the cloud or One-drive for any of my sensitive data. I have never been hacked.

I do love One Drive for sending my customer's their files. If someone want to download a high res 6 gb image of a piece of property in the middle of nowhere, with a nice high resolution image of cattle, and some green pastures they will not much fun.

I suspect is is pretty safe. As I delete it soon after the client has download it.

[brp914]

I'm not sure if I have 10 or 11, but recently Windows has become a pita. I use Gmail and Chrome. I don't use Edge. If I have a Chrome page displayed and I don't interact for a minute then Chrome will close and Edge will open. I have to close Edge and sometimes it takes multiple clicks to restore Chrome. Another thing, I have to double login into gmail with passkey, as well as double confirm that it's me. Really annoying.

[911 Rod]

I installed 11 onto my computer only to find out it does not support the print driver for my printer.

[Reg]

I just got a new desktop W11 and outlook wont support my email isp. They’ve been my isp since inception. I am using Thunderbird now and I’m not happy because office 365 isn’t like the office 2019 I was used to and the outlook worked great on it